(from images generously made available by the hathi trust) sylvie: souvenirs du valois translated from gÉrard de nerval by lucie page portland, maine thomas b. mosher * * * * * gÉrard de nerval. of all that were thy prisons--ah, untamed, ah, light and sacred soul!--none holds thee now; no wall, no bar, no body of flesh, but thou art free and happy in the lands unnamed, within whose gates, on weary wings and maimed, thou still would'st bear that mystic golden bough the sybil doth to singing men allow, yet thy report folk heeded not, but blamed. and they would smile and wonder, seeing where thou stood'st, to watch light leaves, or clouds, or wind, dreamily murmuring a ballad air, caught from the valois peasants, dost thou find a new life gladder than the old times were, a love more fair than sylvie, and as kind? andrew lang. * * * * * contents sylvie et aurÉlie.--andrew lang gÉrard de nerval sylvie: i a wasted night ii adrienne iii resolve iv a voyage to cythera v the village vi othys vii chaÂlis viii the ball at loisy ix hermenonville x big curly-head xi return xii father dodu xiii aurÉlie xiv the last leaf appendix _sylvie et aurÉlie._ _in memory of gÉrard de nerval._ _two loves there were, and one was born_ _between the sunset and the rain;_ _her singing voice went through the corn,_ _her dance was woven 'neath the thorn,_ _on grass the fallen blossoms stain;_ _and suns may set and moons may wane,_ _but this love comes no more again._ _there were two loves, and one made white_ _thy singing lips and golden hair;_ _born of the city's mire and light,_ _the shame and splendour of the night,_ _she trapped and fled thee unaware;_ _not through the lamplight and the rain_ _shalt thou behold this love again._ _go forth and seek, by wood and bill,_ _thine ancient love of dawn and dew;_ _there comes no voice from mere or rill,_ _her dance is over, fallen still_ _the ballad burdens that she knew:_ _and thou must wait for her in vain,_ _till years bring back thy youth again._ _that other love, afield, afar_ _fled the light love, with lighter feet._ _nay, though thou seek where gravesteads are,_ _and flit in dreams from star to star,_ _that dead love thou shalt never meet,_ _till through bleak dawn and blowing rain_ _thy soul shall find her soul again._ andrew lang. gérard de nerval il a toujours cherché dans le monde ce que le monde ne pouvait plus lui donner. ludovic halÉvy. he has been a sick man all his life. he was always a seeker after something in the world that is there in no satisfying measure, or not at all. walter pater. gÉrard de nerval. i. of gérard de nerval, whose true name was gérard labrunie, it has been finely said: "his was the most beautiful of all the lost souls of the french romance."(*) born in , he came to his death by suicide one dark winter night towards the end of january. the story of this life and its tragic finale was well known at the time to all men of letters,--théophile gautier, paul de saint-victor, arsène houssaye,--friends who never forgot the young poet even after he went the way that madness lies. for it was insanity,--a nostalgia of the soul always imminent--that led him into the squalid _rue de la vieille-lanterne_, in which long forgotten corner of old paris his dead body was found one bleak belated dawn. and this was forty years ago. in later days maxime du camp and ludovic halévy have retold with great feeling the history of gérard, his early triumphs, his love for jenny colon,--the aurélie of these _souvenirs du valois_,--and how at last life's scurrile play was ended. (*) see _a century of french verse_, translated and edited by william john robertson ( to, london, ). ii. one of mr. andrew lang's most genuine appreciations occurs in an epistle addressed to miss girton, cambridge; where, for the benefit of that mythical young person, he translates a few passages out of _sylvie_, and favours us with a specimen of gérard's verse. "i translated these fragments," he tells her, "long ago in one of the first things i ever tried to write. the passages are as touching and fresh, the originals, i mean, as when first i read them, and one hears the voice of sylvie singing: _'a dammartin, l'y a trois belles filles,_ _l'y en a z'une plus belle que le jour.'_ so sylvie married a confectioner, and, like marion in the 'ballad of forty years,' 'adrienne's dead' in a convent. that is all the story, all the idyl." and just before this he has said of gérard: "what he will live by, is his story of sylvie; it is one of the little masterpieces of the world. it has a greek perfection. one reads it, and however old one is, youth comes back, and april, and a thousand pleasant sounds of birds in hedges, of wind in the boughs, of brooks trotting merrily under the rustic bridges. and this fresh nature is peopled by girls eternally young, natural, gay, or pensive, standing with eager feet on the threshold of their life, innocent, expectant, with the old ballads of old france upon their lips. for the story is full of these artless, lisping numbers of the popular french muse, the ancient ballads that gérard collected and put into the mouth of sylvie, the pretty peasant-girl." one more quotation from mr. lang, and we are done. sylvie and gérard have met, and they go on a visit to her aunt, who, while she prepares dinner, sends gérard for her niece, who had "gone to ransack the peasant treasures in the garret." "two portraits were hanging there--one, that of a young man of the good old times, smiling with red lips and brown eyes, a pastel in an oval frame. another medallion held the portrait of his wife, gay, _piquante_, in a bodice with ribbons fluttering, and with a bird perched on her finger. it was the old aunt in her youth, and further search discovered her ancient festal-gown, of stiff brocade, sylvie arrayed herself in this splendour; patches were found in a box of tarnished gold, a fan, a necklace of amber." this is the charming moment chosen by m. andhré des gachons as the subject of his _aquarelle_, reproduced in colour as frontispiece to the present edition. iii. in thus bringing out a fresh version of _sylvie_, not to include the all too few illusive lyrics "done into english" by mr. lang, his exquisite sonnet on gérard, and the lovely lines upon "sylvie et aurélie," were a deplorable omission. the sonnet exists in an earlier form; preferably, the later version is here given. of de nerval's prose little has yet found its way to us. his poetry is fully as inaccessible. things of such iridescent hue are possibly beyond the art of translation. they are written in an unknown tongue; say, rather, in the language of dreamland, "vaporous, unaccountable";--a world of crepuscular dawns, as of light irradiated from submerged sea caverns,--"the mermaid's haunt" beheld of him alone. iv. with what _adieux_ shall we now take leave of our little pearl of a story? and of him who gave us this exquisite creation of heart and brain what words remain to say? thou, sylvie, art an unfading flower of virginal, soft spring, and faint, elusive skies. for _thee_ earth's old sweet nights have shed their tenderest dews, and in thy lovely valois land thou canst not fade or die. thy lover, child, fared forth beneath an alien star. for _him_ there was no true country, here;--no return to thy happy-hearted love: the desert sands long since effaced the valley track. only the far distant lying,--the abyss that calls and is never dumb, urged his onward steps. and these things, and this divine homesickness led him, pale nympholept, beyond earth's human shores. thither to thee, rapt soul, shall all bright dreams of day, all lonely visions of the night, converge at last. sylvie: (souvenirs du valois.) _an old tune._ _gÉrard de nerval._ _there is an air for which i would disown_ _mozart's, rossini's, weber's melodies,--_ _a sweet, sad air that languishes and sighs,_ _and keeps its secret charm for me alone._ _whene'er i hear that music vague and old,_ _two hundred years are mist that rolls away;_ _the thirteenth louis reigns, and i behold_ _a green land golden in the dying day._ _an old red castle, strong with stony towers,_ _the windows gay with many coloured glass;_ _wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers,_ _that bathe the castle basement as they pass._ _in antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,_ _a lady looks forth from her window high;_ _it may be that i knew and found her fair,_ _in some forgotten life, long time gone by._ (andrew lang.) sylvie (recollections of valois.) i. a wasted night. i passed out of a theatre where i was wont to appear nightly, in the proscenium boxes, in the attitude of suitor. sometimes it was full, sometimes nearly empty; it mattered little to me, whether a handful of listless spectators occupied the pit, while antiquated costumes formed a doubtful setting for the boxes, or whether i made one of an audience swayed by emotion, crowned at every tier with flower-decked robes, flashing gems and radiant faces. the spectacle of the house left me indifferent, that of the stage could not fix my attention until at the second or third scene of a dull masterpiece of the period, a familiar vision illumined the vacancy, and by a word and a breath, gave life to the shadowy forms around me. i felt that my life was linked with hers; her smile filled me with immeasurable bliss; the tones of her voice, so sweet and sonorous, thrilled me with love and joy. my ardent fancy endowed her with every perfection until she seemed to respond to all my raptures--beautiful as day in the blaze of the footlights, pale as night when their glare was lowered and rays from the chandelier above revealed her, lighting up the gloom with the radiance of her beauty, like those divine hours with starry brows, which stand out against the dark background of the frescoes of herculaneum. for a whole year i had not sought to know what she might be, in the world outside, fearing to dim the magic mirror which reflected to me her image. some idle gossip, it is true, touching the woman, rather than the actress, had reached my ears, but i heeded it less than any floating rumours concerning the princess of elis or the queen of trebizonde, for i was on my guard. an uncle of mine whose manner of life during the period preceding the close of the eighteenth century, had given him occasion to know them well, had warned me that actresses were not women, since nature had forgotten to give them hearts. he referred, no doubt, to those of his own day, but he related so many stories of his illusions and disappointments, and displayed so many portraits upon ivory, charming medallions which he afterwards used to adorn his snuff-boxes, so many yellow love-letters and faded tokens, each with its peculiar history, that i had come to think ill of them as a class, without considering the march of time. we were living then in a strange period, such as often follows a revolution, or the decline of a great reign. the heroic gallantry of the fronde, the drawing-room vice of the regency, the scepticism and mad orgies of the directory, were no more. it was a time of mingled activity, indecision and idleness, bright utopian dreams, philosophic or religious aspirations, vague ardour, dim instincts of rebirth, weariness of past discords, uncertain hopes,--an age somewhat like that of peregrinus and apuleius. the material man yearned for the roses which should regenerate him, from the hands of the fair isis; the goddess appeared to us by night, in her eternal youth and purity, inspiring in us remorse for the hours wasted by day; and yet, ambition suited not our years, while the greedy strife, the mad chase in pursuit of honour and position, held us aloof from every possible sphere of activity. our only refuge was the ivory tower of the poets whither we climbed higher and higher to escape the crowd. upon the heights to which our masters guided us, we breathed at last the pure air of solitude, we quaffed oblivion in the golden cup of fable, we were drunk with poetry and love. love, alas! of airy forms, of rose and azure tints, of metaphysical phantoms. seen nearer, the real woman repelled our ingenuous youth which required her to appear as a queen or a goddess, and above all, inapproachable. some of our number held these platonic paradoxes in light esteem, and athwart our mystic reveries brandished at times the torch of the deities of the underworld, that names through the darkness for an instant with its train of sparks. thus it chanced that on quitting the theatre with the sense of bitter sadness left by a vanished dream, i turned with pleasure to a club where a party of us used to sup, and where all depression yielded to the inexhaustible vivacity of a few brilliant wits, whose stormy gaiety at times rose to sublimity. periods of renewal or decadence always produce such natures, and our discussions often became so animated that timid ones in the company would glance from the window to see if the huns, the turkomans or the cossacks were not coming to put an end to these disputations of sophists and rhetoricians. "let us drink, let us love, this is wisdom!" was the code of the younger members. one of them said to me: "i have noticed for some time that i always meet you in the same theatre. for which one do you go?" which! why, it seemed impossible to go there for another! however, i confessed the name. "well," said my friend kindly, "yonder is the happy man who has just accompanied her home, and who, in accordance with the rules of our club, will not perhaps seek her again till night is over." with slight emotion i turned toward the person designated, and perceived a young man, well dressed, with a pale, restless face, good manners, and eyes full of gentle melancholy. he flung a gold piece on the card-table and lost it with indifference. "what is it to me?" said i, "he or another?" there must be someone, and he seemed worthy of her choice. "and you?" "i? i chase a phantom, that is all." on my way out, i passed through the reading-room and glanced carelessly at a newspaper, to learn, i believe, the state of the stock market. in the wreck of my fortunes, there chanced to be a large investment in foreign securities, and it was reported that, although long disowned, they were about to be acknowledged;--and, indeed, this had just happened in consequence of a change in the ministry. the bonds were quoted high, so i was rich again. a single thought was occasioned by this sudden change of fortune, that the woman whom i had loved so long, was mine, if i wished. my ideal was within my grasp, or was it only one more disappointment, a mocking misprint? no, for the other papers gave the same figures, while the sum which i had gained rose before me like the golden statue of moloch. "what," thought i, "would that young man say, if i were to take his place by the woman whom he has left alone?" i shrunk from the thought, and my pride revolted. not thus, not at my age, dare i slay love with gold! i will not play the tempter! besides, such an idea belongs to the past. who can tell me that this woman may be bought? my eyes glanced idly over the journal in my hand, and i noticed two lines: "_provincial bouquet festival_. to-morrow the archers of senlis will present the bouquet to the archers of loisy." these simple words aroused in me an entirely new train of thought, stirring long-forgotten memories of provincial days, faint echoes of the artless joys of youth. the horn and the drum were resounding afar in hamlet and forest; the young maidens were twining garlands as they sang, and binding nosegays with ribbon. a heavy wagon, drawn by oxen, received their offerings as it passed, and we, the children of that region, formed the escort with our bows and arrows, assuming the proud title of knights,--we did not know that we were only preserving, from age to age, an ancient feast of the druids that had survived later religions and monarchies. ii. adrienne. i sought my bed, but not to sleep, and, lost in a half-conscious revery, all my youth passed before me. how often, in the border-land of dreams, while yet the mind repels their encroaching fancies, we are enabled to review in a few moments, the important events of a lifetime! i saw a castle of the time of henry iv., with its slate-covered turrets, its reddish front, jutting corners of yellow stone, and a stretch of green bordered by elms and lime-trees, through whose foliage, the setting sun shot its last fiery rays. young girls were dancing in a ring on the lawn, singing quaint old tunes caught from their mothers, in a french whose native purity bespoke the old country of valois, where for more than a thousand years had throbbed the heart of france. i was the only boy in the circle where i had led my young companion, sylvie, a little maid from the neighboring hamlet, so fresh and animated, with her black eyes, regular features and slightly sun-burned skin. i loved but her, i had eyes but for her--till then! i had scarcely noticed in our round, a tall, beautiful blonde, called adrienne, when suddenly, in following the figures of the dance, she was left alone with me, in the centre of the ring; we were of the same height, and they bade me kiss her, while the dance and song went whirling on, more merrily than before. when i kissed her, i could not forbear pressing her hand; her golden curls touched my cheek, and from that moment, a new feeling possessed me. the fair girl must sing a song to reclaim her place in the dance, and we seated ourselves about her. in a sweet, penetrating voice, somewhat husky, as is common in that country of mists and fogs, she sang one of those old ballads full of love and sorrow, which always carry the story of an imprisoned princess, shut in a tower by her father, as a punishment for loving. at the end of every stanza, the melody died away in those quavering trills which enable young voices to simulate so well the tremulous notes of old women. while she sang, the shadows of the great trees lengthened and the light of the young moon fell full upon her, as she stood apart from the rapt circle. the lawn was covered with rising clouds of mist that trailed its white wreaths over every blade of grass. we thought ourselves in paradise. the song ended and no one dared break the stillness--at last i rose and ran to the gardens where some laurels were growing in large porcelain vases painted in monochrome. i plucked two branches which were twined into a crown, bound with ribbon, and i placed it upon adrienne's brow, where its glossy leaves gleamed above her fair locks in the pale moonlight. she looked liked dante's beatrice, smiling at the poet as he strayed on the confines of the blest abodes. adrienne rose and, drawing up her slender figure, bowed to us gracefully and ran back to the castle; they said she was the child of a race allied to the ancient kings of france, that the blood of the valois princes flowed in her veins. upon this festal day, she had been permitted to join in our sports, but we were not to see her again, for on the morrow she would return to the convent of which she was an inmate. when i rejoined sylvie, i found her weeping because of the crown i had given to the fair singer. i offered to make another for her, but she would not consent, saying she did not merit it. i vainly tried to vindicate myself, but she refused to speak as we went the homeward way. paris soon recalled me to resume my studies, and i bore with me the two-fold memory of a tender friendship sadly broken, and of a love uncertain and impossible, the source of painful musings which my college philosophy was powerless to dispel. adrienne's face alone haunted me, a vision of glory and beauty, sweetening and sharing the hours of arduous study. in the vacation of the following year, i learned that this lovely girl, who had but flitted past me, was destined by her family to a religious life. iii. resolve. these memories, recalled in my dreamy revery, explained everything. this hopeless passion for an actress, which took possession of me nightly from the hour when the curtain rose until i fell asleep, was born of my remembrance of adrienne, the pale moon-flower, as she glided over the green, a rose-tinted vision enveloped in a cloud of misty whiteness. the likeness of a face long years forgotten was now distinctly outlined; it was a pencil-sketch, which time had blurred, developed into a painting, like the first drafts of the old masters which delight us in a gallery, the completed masterpiece being found elsewhere. to fall in love with a nun in the guise of an actress!... suppose they were one and the same!--it is enough to drive one mad, a fatal mystery, drawing me on like a will o' the wisp flitting over the rushes of a stagnant pool. let us keep a firm foothold on reality. sylvie, too, whom i loved so dearly, why had i forgotten her for three long years? she was a charming girl, the prettiest maiden in loisy; surely she still lives, pure and good. i can see her window, with the creeper twining around the rose-bush, and the cage of linnets hanging on the left; i can hear the click of her bobbins and her favourite song: _la belle était assise_ _près du ruisseau coulant...._ the maiden was sitting beside the swift stream. she is still waiting for me. who would wed her, so poor? the men of her native village are sturdy peasants with rough hands and gaunt, tanned faces. i, the "little parisian," had won her heart in my frequent visits near loisy, to my poor uncle, now dead. for the past three years i have been squandering like a lord the modest inheritance left by him, which might have sufficed for a lifetime, and sylvie, i know, would have helped me save it. chance returns me a portion, it is not too late. what is she doing now? she must be asleep.... no, she is not asleep; to-day is the feast of the bow, the only one in the year when the dance goes on all night.... she is there. what time is it? i had no watch. amongst a profusion of ornaments, which it was then the fashion to collect, in order to restore the local colour of an old-time interior, there gleamed with freshly polished lustre, one of those tortoise-shell clocks of the renaissance, whose gilded dome, surmounted by a figure of time, was supported by caryatides in the style of the medici, resting in their turn upon rearing steeds. the historic diana, leaning upon her stag, was in bas-relief under the face, where, upon an inlaid background, enameled figures marked the hours. the works, no doubt excellent, had not been put in motion for two centuries. it was not to tell the hour that i bought this time-piece in touraine. i went down to the porter's lodge to find that his clock marked one in the morning. "in four hours i can be at loisy," thought i. five or six cabs were still standing on the place du palais royal, awaiting the gamblers and clubmen. "to loisy," i said to the nearest driver. "where is it?" "near senlis, eight leagues distant." "i will take you to the posting station," said the cabman, more alert than i. how dreary the flanders road is by night! it gains beauty only as it approaches the belt of the forest. two monotonous rows of trees, taking on the semblance of distorted figures, rise ever before the eye; in the distance, patches of verdure and cultivated land, bounded on the left by the blue hills of montmorency, ecouen and luzarches. here is gonesse, an ordinary little town, full of memories of the league and the fronde. beyond louvres is a road lined with apple-trees, whose white blossoms i have often seen unfolding in the night, like stars of the earth--it is the shortest way to the village. while the carriage climbs the slope, let me recall old memories of the days when i came here so often. iv. a voyage to cythera. several years had passed, and only a childish memory was left me of that meeting with adrienne in front of the castle. i was again at loisy on the annual feast, and again i mingled with the knights of the bow, taking my place in the same company as of old. the festival had been arranged by young people belonging to the old families, who still own the solitary castles, despoiled rather by time than revolution, hidden here and there in the forest. from chantilly, compiègne and senlis, joyous companies hastened to join the rustic train of archers. after the long parade through hamlet and village, after mass in the church, contests of skill and awarding of prizes, the victors were invited to a feast prepared upon an island in the centre of one of the tiny lakes, fed by the nonette and the thève. boats, gay with flags, conveyed us to this island, chosen on account of an old temple with pillars, destined to serve as a banquet hall. here, as in hermenonville, the country side is sown with these frail structures, designed by philosophical millionaires, in accordance with the prevailing taste of the close of the eighteenth century. probably this temple was originally dedicated to urania. three pillars had fallen, bearing with them a portion of the architrave, but the space within had been cleared, and garlands hung between the columns, quite rejuvenated this modern ruin, belonging rather to the paganism of boufflers and chaulieu than of horace. the sail on the lake was perhaps designed to recall watteau's "voyage to cythera," the illusion being marred only by our modern dress. the immense bouquet was borne from its wagon and placed in a boat, accompanied by the usual escort of young girls dressed in white, and this graceful pageant, the survival of an ancient custom, was mirrored in the still waters that flowed around the island, gleaming in the red sunlight with its hawthorn thickets and colonnades. all the boats soon arrived, and the basket of flowers borne in state, adorned the centre of the table, around which we took our places, the most fortunate beside a young girl; to win this favour it was enough to know her relatives, which explains why i found myself by sylvie, whose brother had already joined me in the march, and reproached me for neglecting to visit them. i excused myself by the plea that my studies kept me in paris, and averred that i had come with that intention. "no," said sylvie, "i am sure he has forgotten me. we are only village folk, and a parisian is far above us." i tried to stop her mouth with a kiss, but she still pouted, and her brother had to intercede before she would offer me her cheek with an indifferent air. i took no pleasure in this salute, a favour accorded to plenty of others, for in that patriarchal country where a greeting is bestowed upon every passing stranger, a kiss means only an exchange of courtesies between honest people. to crown the enjoyment of the day, a surprise had been contrived, and, at the close of the repast, a wild swan, hitherto imprisoned beneath the flowers, soared into the air, bearing aloft on his powerful wings, a tangle of wreaths and garlands, which were scattered in every direction. while he darted joyously toward the last bright gleams of the sun, we tried to seize the falling chaplets, to crown our fair neighbours. i was so fortunate as to secure one of the finest, and sylvie smilingly granted me a kiss more tender than the last, by which i perceived that i had now redeemed the memory of a former occasion. she had grown so beautiful that my present admiration was without reserve, and i no longer recognised in her the little village maid, whom i had slighted for one more skilled in the graces of the world. sylvie had gained in every respect; her black eyes, seductive from childhood, had become irresistibly fascinating, and there was something athenian in her arching brows, together with the sudden smile lighting up her quiet, regular features. i admired this classic profile contrasting with the mere prettiness of her companions. her taper fingers, round, white arms and slender waist changed her completely, and i could not refrain from telling her of the transformation, hoping thus to hide my long unfaithfulness. everything favoured me, the delightful influences of the feast, her brother's regard, the evening hour, and even the spot chosen by a tasteful fancy to celebrate the stately rites of ancient gallantry. we escaped from the dance as soon as possible, to compare recollections of our childhood and to gaze, side by side, with dreamy pleasure, upon the sunset sky reflected in the calm waters. sylvie's brother had to tear us from the contemplation of this peaceful scene by the unwelcome summons that it was time to start for the distant village where she dwelt. v. the village. they lived at loisy, in the old keeper's lodge, whither i accompanied them, and then turned back toward montagny, where i was staying with my uncle. leaving the highway to cross a little wood that divides loisy from saint s----, i plunged into a deep track skirting the forest of hermenonville. i thought it would lead me to the walls of a convent, which i had to follow for a quarter of a league. the moon, from time to time, concealed by clouds, shed a dim light upon the grey rocks, and the heath which lay thick upon the ground as i advanced. right and left stretched a pathless forest, and before me rose the druid altars guarding the memory of the sons of armen, slain by the romans. from these ancient piles i discerned the distant lakelets glistening like mirrors in the misty plain, but i could not distinguish the one where the feast was held. the air was so balmy, that i determined to lie down upon the heath and wait for the dawn. when i awoke, i recognized, one by one, the neighbouring landmarks. on the left stretched the long line of the convent of saint s----, then, on the opposite side of the valley, la butte aux gens d'armes, with the shattered ruins of the ancient carlovingian palace. close by, beyond the tree-tops, the crumbling walls of the lofty abbey of thiers, stood out against the horizon. further on, the manor of pontarmé, surrounded as in olden times, by a moat, began to reflect the first fires of dawn, while on the south appeared the tall keep of la tournelle and the four towers of bertrand fosse, on the slopes of montméliant. the night had passed pleasantly, and i was thinking only of sylvie, but the sight of the convent suggested the idea that it might be the one where adrienne lived. the sound of the morning bell was still ringing in my ears and had probably awakened me. the thought came to me, for a moment, that by climbing to the top of the cliff, i might take a peep over the walls, but on reflection, i dismissed it as profane. the sun with its rising beams, put to flight this idle memory, leaving only the rosy features of sylvie. "i will go and awaken her," i said to myself, and again i started in the direction of loisy. ah, here at the end of the forest track, is the village, twenty cottages whose walls are festooned with creepers and climbing roses. a group of women, with red kerchiefs on their heads, are spinning in the early light, in front of a farmhouse, but sylvie is not among them. she is almost a young lady, now she makes dainty lace, but her family remain simple villagers. i ran up to her room without exciting surprise, to find that she had been up for a long time, and was busily plying her bobbins, which clicked cheerfully against the square green cushion on her knees. "so, it is you, lazybones," she said with her divine smile; "i am sure you are just out of bed." i told her how i had lost my way in the woods and had passed the night in the open air, and for a moment she seemed inclined to pity me. "if you are not too tired, i will take you for another ramble. we will go to see my grand-aunt at othys." before i had time to reply, she ran joyously to smooth her hair before the mirror, and put on her rustic straw hat, her eyes sparkling with innocent gaiety. our way, at first, lay along the banks of the thève, through meadows sprinkled with daisies and buttercups; then we skirted the woods of saint lawrence, sometimes crossing streams and thickets to shorten the road. blackbirds were whistling in the trees, and tomtits, startled at our approach, flew joyously from the bushes. now and then we spied beneath our feet the periwinkles which rousseau loved, putting forth their blue crowns amid long sprays of twin leaves, a network of tendrils which arrested the light steps of my companion. indifferent to the memory of the philosopher of geneva, she sought here and there for fragrant strawberries, while i talked of the new heloise, and repeated passages from it, which i knew by heart. "is it pretty?" she asked. "it is sublime." "is it better than auguste lafontaine?" "it is more tender." "well, then," said she, "i must read it. i will tell my brother to bring it to me the next time he goes to senlis." i went on reciting portions of the heloise, while sylvie picked strawberries. vi. othys. when we had left the forest, we found great tufts of purple foxglove, and sylvie gathered an armful, saying it was for her aunt who loved to have flowers in her room. only a stretch of level country now lay between us and othys. the village church-spire pointed heavenward against the blue hills that extend from montméliant to dammartin. the thève again rippled over the stones, narrowing towards its source, where it forms a tiny lake which slumbers in the meadows, fringed with gladiolus and iris. we soon reached the first houses where sylvie's aunt lived in a little cottage of rough stone, adorned with a trellis of hop-vine and virginia creeper. her only support came from a few acres of land which the village folk cultivated for her, now her husband was dead. the coming of her niece set the house astir. "good morning, aunt; here are your children!" cried sylvie; "and we are very hungry." she kissed her aunt tenderly, gave her the flowers, and then turned to present me, saying, "he is my sweetheart." i, in turn, kissed the good aunt, who exclaimed, "he is a fine lad! why, he has light hair!" "he has very pretty hair," said sylvie. "that does not last," returned her aunt; "but you have time enough before you, and you are dark, so you are well matched." "you must give him some breakfast," said sylvie, and she went peeping into cupboards and pantry, finding milk, brown bread and sugar which she hastily set upon the table, together with the plates and dishes of crockery adorned with staring flowers and birds of brilliant plumage. a large bowl of creil china, filled with strawberries swimming in milk, formed the centrepiece, and after she had raided the garden for cherries and goose-berries, she arranged two vases of flowers, placing one at each end of the white cloth. just then, her aunt made a sensible speech: "all this is only for dessert. now, you must let me set to work." she took down the frying-pan and threw a fagot upon the hearth. "no, no; i shall not let you touch it," she said decidedly to sylvie, who was trying to help her. "spoiling your pretty fingers that make finer lace than chantilly! you gave me some, and i know what lace is." "oh, yes, aunt, and if you have some left, i can use it for a pattern." "well, go look upstairs; there may be some in my chest of drawers." "give me the keys," returned sylvie. "nonsense," cried her aunt; "the drawers are open." "no; there is one always locked." while the good woman was cleaning the frying-pan, after having passed it over the fire to warm it, sylvie unfastened from her belt a little key of wrought steel and showed it to me in triumph. i followed her swiftly up the wooden staircase that led to the room above. oh youth, and holy age! who could sully by an evil thought the purity of first love in this shrine of hallowed memories? the portrait of a young man of the good old times, with laughing black eyes and rosy lips, hung in an oval gilt frame at the head of the rustic bed. he wore the uniform of a gamekeeper of the house of condé; his somewhat martial bearing, ruddy, good-humoured face, and powdered hair drawn back from the clear brow, gave the charm of youth and simplicity to this pastel, destitute, perhaps, of any artistic merit some obscure artist, bidden to the hunting parties of the prince, had done his best to portray the keeper and his bride who appeared in another medallion, arch and winning, in her open bodice laced with ribbons, teasing with piquant frown, a bird perched upon her finger. it was, however, the same good old dame, at that moment bending over the hearth-fire to cook. it reminded me of the fairies in a spectacle who hide under wrinkled masks, their real beauty revealed in the closing scene when the temple of love appears with its whirling sun darting magic fires. "oh, dear old aunt!" i exclaimed, "how pretty you were!" "and i?" asked sylvie, who had succeeded in opening the famous drawer which contained an old-fashioned dress of taffeta, so stiff that the heavy folds creaked under her touch. "i will see if it fits me," she said; "i shall look like an old fairy!" "like the fairy of the legends, ever young," thought i. sylvie had already unfastened her muslin gown and let it fall to her feet. she bade me hook the rich robe which clung tightly to her slender figure. "oh, what ridiculous sleeves!" she cried; and yet, the lace frills displayed to advantage her bare arms, and her bust was outlined by the corsage of yellow tulle and faded ribbon which had concealed but little the vanished charms of her aunt. "come, make haste!" said sylvie. "do you not know how to hook a dress?" she looked like the village bride of greuze. "you ought to have some powder," said i. "we will find some," and she turned to search the drawers anew. oh! what treasures, what sweet odours, what gleams of light from brilliant hues and modest ornaments! two mother-of-pearl fans slightly broken, some pomade boxes covered with chinese designs, an amber necklace and a thousand trifles, among them two little white slippers with sparkling buckles of irish diamonds. "oh! i will put them on," cried sylvie, "if i find the embroidered stockings." a moment more, and we were unrolling a pair of pink silk stockings with green clocks; but the voice of the old aunt, accompanied by the hiss of the frying-pan, suddenly recalled us to reality. "go down quickly," said sylvie, who refused to let me help her finish dressing. her aunt was just turning into a platter the contents of the frying-pan, a slice of bacon and some eggs. presently, i heard sylvie calling me from the staircase. "dress yourself as soon as possible," and, completely attired herself, she pointed to the wedding clothes of the gamekeeper, spread out upon the chest. in an instant i was transformed into a bridegroom of the last century. sylvie waited for me on the stairs, and we went down, arm in arm. her aunt gave a cry when she saw us. "oh, my children!" she exclaimed, beginning to weep and then smiling through her tears. it was the image of her own youth, a cruel, yet charming vision. we sat beside her, touched, almost saddened, but soon our mirth came back, for after the first surprise, the thoughts of the good old dame reverted to the stately festivities of her wedding day. she even recalled the old-fashioned songs chanted responsively from one end of the festal board to the other, and the quaint nuptial hymn whose strains attended the wedded pair when they withdrew after the dance. we repeated these couplets with their simple rhymes, flowery and passionate as the song of solomon. we were bride and bridegroom the space of one fair summer morn. vii chaÂlis. it is four o'clock in the morning; the road winds through a hollow and comes out on high ground; the carriage passes orry, then la chapelle. on the left is a road that skirts the forest of hallate. sylvie's brother took me through there one evening in his covered cart, to attend some local gathering on the eve of saint bartholomew, i believe. through the woods, along unfrequented ways, the little horse sped as if hastening to a witches' sabbath. we struck the highway again at mont-l'Évêque, and a few moments later pulled up at the keeper's lodge of the old abbey of chaâlis--chaâlis, another memory! this ancient retreat of the emperors offers nothing worthy of admiration, save its ruined cloisters with their byzantine arcades, the last of which are still mirrored in the lake--crumbling fragments of the abodes of piety, formerly attached to this demesne, known in olden times as "charlemagne's farms." in this quiet spot, far from the stir of highways and cities, religion has retained distinctive traces of the prolonged sojourn of the cardinals of the house of este during the time of the medici; a shade of poetic gallantry still lingers about its ceremonial, a perfume of the renaissance breathing beneath the delicately moulded arches of the chapels decorated by italian artists. the faces of saints and angels outlined in rose tints upon a vaulted roof of pale blue produce an effect of pagan allegory, which recalls the sentimentality of petrarch and the weird mysticism of francesco colonna. sylvie's brother and i were intruders in the festivities of the evening. a person of noble birth, at that time proprietor of the demesne, had invited the neighbouring families to witness a kind of allegorical spectacle in which some of the inmates of the convent close by were to take part. it was not intended to recall the tragedies of saint cyr, but went back to the first lyric contests, introduced into france by the valois princes. what i saw enacted resembled an ancient mystery. the costumes, consisting of long robes, presented no variety save in colour, blue, hyacinth or gold. the scene lay between angels on the ruins of the world. each voice chanted one of the glories of the now extinct globe, and the angel of death set forth the causes of its destruction. a spirit rose from the abyss, holding a flaming sword, and convoked the others to glorify the power of christ, the conqueror of bell. this spirit was adrienne, transfigured by her costume as she was already by her vocation. the nimbus of gilded cardboard encircling her angelic head seemed to us a circle of light; her voice had gained in power and compass, and an infinite variety of italian trills relieved with their bird-like warbling the stately severity of the recitative. in recalling these details, i come to the point of asking myself, "are they real or have i dreamed them?" sylvie's brother was not quite sober that evening. we spent a few minutes in the keeper's house, where i was much impressed by a cygnet displayed above the door, and within there were tall chests of carved walnut, a large clock in its case and some archery prizes, bows and arrows, above a red and green target. a droll-looking dwarf in a chinese cap, holding a bottle in one hand and a ring in the other, seemed to warn the marksmen to take good aim. i think the dwarf was cut out of sheet-iron. did i really see adrienne as surely as i marked these details? i am, however, certain that it was the son of the keeper who conducted us to the hall where the representation took place; we were seated near the door behind a numerous company who seemed deeply moved. it was the feast of saint bartholomew--a day strangely linked with memories of the medici, whose arms, impaled with those of the house of este, adorned these old walls. is it an obsession, the way these memories haunt me? fortunately the carriage stops here on the road to plessis; i leave the world of dreams and find myself with only a fifteen-minutes walk to reach loisy by forest paths. viii the ball at loisy. i entered the ball of loisy at that sad yet pleasing hour when the lights flicker and grow dim at the approach of dawn. a faint bluish tinge crept over the tops of the lime-trees, sunk in shadow below. the rustic flute no longer contended so gayly with the trills of the nightingale. the dancers all looked pale, and among the dishevelled groups i distinguished with difficulty any familiar faces. finally, i recognized a tall girl, sylvie's friend lise. "we have not seen you for a long time, parisian," said she. "yes; a long time." "and you come so late?" "by coach." "and you traveled slowly!" "i came to see sylvie; is she still here?" "she will stay till morning; she loves to dance." in a moment i was beside her; she looked tired, but her black eyes sparkled with the same athenian smile as of old. a young man stood near her, but she refused by a gesture to join the next country-dance, and he bowed to her and withdrew. it began to grow light, and we left the ball hand in hand. the flowers hung lifeless and faded in sylvie's loosened tresses, and the nosegay at her bosom dropped its petals on the crumpled lace made by her skilful hands. i offered to walk home with her; it was broad day, but the sky was cloudy. the thève murmured on our left, leaving at every curve a little pool of still water where yellow and white pond-lilies blossomed, and lake star-worts, like easter daisies, spread their delicate broidery. the plain was covered with hay-ricks whose fragrance seemed wafted to my brain, affecting me as the fresh scent of the woods and hawthorn thickets had done in the past. this time neither of us thought of crossing the meadows. "sylvie," said i, "you no longer love me." she sighed. "my friend," she continued, "you must console yourself, since things do not happen as we wish in this world. you once mentioned the new heloise; i read it, and shuddered when i found these words, at the beginning: 'any young girl who reads this book is lost.' however, i kept on, trusting in my discretion. do you remember the day we put on the wedding clothes, at my aunt's house? the engravings in the book also represented lovers dressed in olden costumes, so that to me you were saint-preux and i was julie. ah! why did you not come back then? but they said you were in italy. you must have seen there far prettier girls than i!" "not one, sylvie, with your expression or the pure lines of your profile. you do not know it, but you are a nymph of antiquity. besides, the woods here are as beautiful as those about rome. there are granite masses yonder, not less sublime, and a cascade which falls from the rocks like that of terni. i saw nothing there to regret here." "and in paris?" she asked. "in paris--" i shook my head, but did not answer. suddenly i remembered the vain shadow which i had pursued so long. "sylvie," cried i, "let us stop here, will you?" i threw myself at her feet, and with hot tears i confessed my irresolution and fickleness; i evoked the fatal spectre that haunted my days. "save me!" i implored, "i come back to you forever." she turned toward me with emotion, but at this moment our conversation was interrupted by a loud burst of laughter, and sylvie's brother rejoined us with the boisterous mirth always attending a rustic festival, and which the abundant refreshments of the evening had stimulated beyond measure. he called to the gallant of the ball, who was concealed in a thicket, but hastened to us. this youth was little firmer on his feet than his companion, and appeared more embarrassed by the presence of a parisian than by sylvie. his candid look and awkward deference prevented any dislike on my part, on account of his dancing so late with sylvie at the ball; i did not consider him a dangerous rival. "we must go in," said sylvie to her brother. "we shall meet again soon," she said, as she offered me her cheek to kiss, at which the lover was not offended. ix. hermenonville. not feeling inclined to sleep, i walked to montagny to revisit my uncle's house. sadness fell upon me at the first glimpse of its yellow front and green shutters. everything looked as before, but i was obliged to go to the farmer's to obtain the key. the shutters once open, i surveyed with emotion the old furniture, polished from time to time, to preserve its lustre, the tall cupboard of walnut, two flemish paintings said to be the work of an ancient artist, our ancestor, some large prints after boucher, and a whole series of framed engravings representing scenes from "emile" and the "new heloise" by moreau; on the table was the dog, now stuffed and mounted, that i remembered alive, as the companion of my forest rambles, perhaps the last "carlin," for it had belonged to that breed now extinct. "as for the parrot," said the farmer, "he is still alive, and i took him home with me." the garden offered a magnificent picture of the growth of wild vegetation, and there in a corner was the plot i had tended as a child. a shudder came over me as i entered the study, which still contained the little library of choice books, familiar friends of him who was no more, and where upon his desk lay antique relics, vases and roman medals found in the garden,--a local collection, the source of much pleasure to him. "let us go to see the parrot," i said to the farmer. the parrot clamoured for his breakfast, as in his best days, and gave me a knowing look from his round eye peering out from the wrinkled skin, like the wise glances of the old. full of sad thoughts awakened by my return to this cherished spot, i felt that i must again see sylvie, the only living tie which bound me to that region, and once more i took the road to loisy. it was the middle of the day, and i found them all asleep, worn out by the night of merry-making. it occurred to me that it might divert my thoughts to stroll to hermenonville, a league distant, by the forest road. it was fine summer weather, and on setting out i was delighted by the freshness and verdure of the path which seemed like the avenue of a park. the green branches of the great oaks were relieved by the white trunks and rustling leaves of the birches. the birds were silent, and i heard no sound but the woodpecker tapping the trees to find a hollow for her nest. at one time i was in danger of losing my way, the characters being wholly effaced on the guide-posts which served to distinguish the roads. passing the desert on the left, i came to the dancing-ring where i found the benches of the old men still in place. all the associations of ancient philosophy, revived by the former owner of the demesne, crowded upon me, at the sight of this picturesque realisation of "anacharsis" and "emile." when i caught sight of the waters of the lake sparkling through the branches of willows and hazels, i recognised a spot which i had often visited with my uncle. here stands to this day, sheltered by a group of pines, the temple of philosophy which its founder had not the good fortune to complete. it is built in the form of the temple of the tiburtine sibyl, and displays with pride the names of all the great thinkers from montaigne and descartes to rousseau. this unfinished structure is now but a ruin around which the ivy twines its graceful tendrils, while brambles force their way between its disjointed steps. when but a child, i witnessed the celebrations here, where young girls, dressed in white, came to receive prizes for scholarship and good conduct. where are the roses that girdled the hillside? hidden by brier and eglantine, they are fast losing all traces of cultivation. as for the laurels, have they been cut down, according to the old song of the maidens who no longer care to roam the forest? no! these shrubs from sweet italy have withered beneath our unfriendly skies. happily, the privet of virgil still thrives as if to emphasize the words of the master, inscribed above the door, _rerum cognoscere causas._ yes! like so many others, this temple crumbles, and man, weary or thoughtless, passes it by, while indifferent nature reclaims the soil for which art contended, but the thirst for knowledge is eternal, the mainspring of all power and activity. here are the poplars of the island and the empty tomb of rousseau. o sage! thou gavest us the milk of the strong and we were too weak to receive it! we have forgotten thy lessons which our fathers knew, and we have lost the meaning of thy words, the last faint echoes of ancient wisdom! still, let us not despair, and like thee, in thy last moments, let us turn our eyes to the sun! i revisited the castle, the quiet waters about it, the cascade which complains among the rocks, the causeway that unites the two parts of the village with the four dove-cotes that mark the corners, and the green that stretches beyond like a prairie, above which rise wooded slopes; the tower of gabrielle is reflected from afar in the waters of an artificial lake studded with ephemeral blossoms; the scum is seething, the insects hum. it is best to escape the noxious vapours and seek the rocks and sand of the desert and the waste lands where the pink heath blooms beside green ferns. how sad and lonely it all seems! in by-gone days, sylvie's enchanting smile, her merry pranks and glad cries enlivened every spot! she was then a wild little creature with bare feet and sun-burned skin, in spite of the straw hat whose long strings floated loosely amid her dark locks. we used to go to the swiss farm to drink milk, and they said: "how pretty your sweetheart is, little parisian!" ah! no peasant lad could have danced with her in those days! she would have none but me for her partner, at the yearly feast of the bow. x. big curly-head i went back to loisy and they were all awake. sylvie was dressed like a young lady, almost in the fashion of the city. she led me up to her room with all her old simplicity. her bright eyes smiled as charmingly as ever, but the decided arch of her brows made her at times look serious. the room was simply decorated, but the furniture was modern: a mirror in a gilt frame had replaced the old-fashioned looking-glass where an idyllic shepherd was depicted offering a nest to a blue and pink shepherdess; the four-post bed, modestly hung with flowered chintz, was succeeded by a little walnut couch with net curtains; canaries occupied the cage at the window where once there were linnets. i was impatient to leave this room, where nothing spoke to me of the past. "shall you make lace to-day?" i asked sylvie. "oh, i do not make lace now; there is no demand for it here, and even at chantilly the factory is closed." "what is your work then?" she brought forward, from the corner of the room, an iron tool which resembled a long pair of pincers. "what is that?" "it is called the machine and is used to hold the leather in place while the gloves are sewed." "then you are a glove-maker, sylvie?" "yes, we work here for dammartin; it pays well now, but i shall not work to-day; let us go wherever you like." i glanced towards othys, but she shook her head, and i understood that the old aunt was no more. sylvie called a little boy and bade him saddle an ass. "i am still tired from yesterday," she said, "but the ride will do me good; let us go to chaâlis." we set out through the forest, followed by the boy armed with a branch. sylvie soon wished to stop, and i kissed her as i led her to a seat. our conversation could no longer be very intimate. i had to talk of my life in paris, my travels.... "how can anyone go so far?" she demanded. "it seems strange to me, when i look at you." "oh! of course," "well, admit that you were not so pretty in the old days." "i cannot tell." "do you remember when we were children and you the tallest?" "and you the wisest?" "oh! sylvie!" "they put us on an ass, one in each pannier." "and we said thee and thou to each other? do you remember how you taught me to catch crawfish under the bridges over the nonette and the thève?" "do you remember your foster-brother who pulled you out of the water one day?" "big curly-head? it was he who told me to go in." i made haste to change the subject, because this recollection had brought vividly to mind the time when i used to go into the country, wearing a little english coat which made the peasants laugh. sylvie was the only one who liked it, but i did not venture to remind her of such a juvenile opinion. for some reason, my mind turned to the old aunt's wedding clothes in which we had arrayed ourselves, and i asked what had become of them. "oh! poor aunt," cried sylvie; "she lent me her gown to wear to the carnival at dammartin, two years ago, and the next year she died, dear, old aunt!" she sighed and the tears came, so i could not inquire how it chanced that she went to a masquerade, but i perceived that, thanks to her skill, sylvie was no longer a peasant girl. her parents had not risen above their former station, and she lived with them, scattering plenty around her like an industrious fairy. xi. return. the outlook widened when we left the forest and we found ourselves near the lake of chaâlis. the galleries of the cloister, the chapel with its pointed arches, the feudal tower and the little castle which had sheltered the loves of henry iv. and gabrielle, were bathed in the crimson glow of evening against the dark background of the forest. "like one of walter scott's landscapes, is it not?" said sylvie. "and who has told you of walter scott?" i inquired. "you must have read much in the past three years! as for me, i try to forget books, and what delights me, is to revisit with you this old abbey where, as little children, we played hide and seek among the ruins. do you remember, sylvie, how afraid you were when the keeper told us the story of the red monks?" "oh, do not speak of it!" "well then, sing me the song of the fair maid under the white rose-bush, who was stolen from her father's garden." "nobody sings that now." "is it possible that you have become a musician?" "perhaps." "sylvie, sylvie, i am positive that you sing airs from operas!" "why should you complain?" "because i loved the old songs and you have forgotten them." sylvie warbled a few notes of a grand air from a modern opera.... she _phrased!_ we turned away from the lakeside and approached the green bordered with lime-trees and elms, where we had so often danced. i had the conceit to describe the old carlovingian walls and to decipher the armorial bearings of the house of este. "and you! how much more you have read than i, and how learned you have become!" said sylvie. i was vexed by her tone of reproach, as i had all the way been seeking a favourable opportunity to resume the tender confidences of the morning, but what could i say, accompanied by a donkey and a very wide-awake lad who pressed nearer and nearer for the pleasure of hearing a parisian talk? then i displayed my lack of tact, by relating the vision of chaâlis which i recalled so vividly. i led sylvie into the very hall of the castle where i had heard adrienne sing. "oh, let me hear you!" i besought her; "let your loved voice ring out beneath these arches and put to flight the spirit that torments me, be it angel or demon!" she repeated the words and sang after me: "_anges, descendez promptement_ _au fond du purgatoire...._" angels descend without delay to dread abyss of purgatory. "it is very sad!" she cried. "it is sublime! an air from porpora, i think, with words translated in the present century." "i do not know," she replied. we came home through the valley, following the charlepont road which the peasants, without regard to etymology, persistently called châllepont. the way was deserted, and sylvie, weary of riding, leaned upon my arm, while i tried to speak of what was in my heart, but, i know not why, could find only trivial words or stilted phrases from some romance that sylvie might have read. i stopped suddenly then, in true classic style, and she was occasionally amazed by these disjointed rhapsodies. having reached the walls of saint s---- we had to look well to our steps, on account of the numerous stream-lets winding through the damp marshes. "what has become of the nun?" i asked suddenly. "you give me no peace with your nun! ah, well! it is a sad story!" not a word more would sylvie say. do women really feel that certain words come from the lips rather than the heart? it does not seem probable, to see how readily they are deceived, and what an inexplicable choice they usually make--there are men who play the comedy of love so well! i never could accustom myself to it, although i know some women lend themselves wittingly to the deception. a love that dates from childhood is, however, sacred, and sylvie, whom i had seen grow up, was like a sister to me; i could not betray her. suddenly, a new thought came to me. "at this very hour, i might be at the theatre. what is aurélie (that was the name of the actress) playing to-night? no doubt the part of the princess in the new play. how touching she is in the third act! and in the love scene of the second with that wrinkled actor who plays the lover!" "lost in thought?" said sylvie; and she began to sing: _"a dammartin l'y a trots belles filles:_ _l'y en a z'une plus belle que le jour...."_ _at dammartin there are three fair maids,_ _and one of them is fairer than day._ "little tease!" i cried, "you know you remember the old songs." "if you would come here oftener, i would try to remember more of them," she said; "but we must think of realities; you have your affairs at paris, i have my work here; let us go in early, for i must rise with the sun to-morrow." xii. father dodu. i was about to reply, to fall at her feet and offer her my uncle's house which i could purchase, as the little estate had not been apportioned among the numerous heirs, but just then we reached loisy, where supper awaited us and the onion-soup was diffusing its patriarchal odour. neighbours had been invited to celebrate the day after the feast, and i recognised at a glance father dodu, an old wood-cutter who used to amuse or frighten us, in the evenings by his stories. shepherd, carrier, gamekeeper, fisherman and even poacher, by turns, father dodu made clocks and turnspits in his leisure moments. for a long time he acted as guide to the english tourists at hermenonville, and while he recounted the last moments of the philosopher, would lead them to rousseau's favourite spots for meditation. he was the little boy employed to classify the herbs and gather the hemlock twigs from which the sage pressed the juice into his cup of coffee. the landlord of the golden cross contested this point and a lasting feud resulted. father dodu had once borne the reproach of possessing some very innocent secrets, such as how to cure cows by saying a rhyme backwards and making the sign of the cross with the left foot, but he had renounced these superstitions--thanks, he declared, to his conversations with jean jacques. "that you, little parisian?" said father dodu; "have you come to carry off our pretty girls?" "i, father dodu?" "you take them into the woods when the wolf is away!" "father dodu, you are the wolf." "i was as long as i could find sheep, but at present i meet only goats, and they know how to take care of themselves! as for you, why, you are all rascals in paris. jean jacques was right when he said, 'man grows corrupt in the poisonous air of cities.'" "father dodu, you know very well that men become corrupt everywhere." "father dodu began to roar out a drinking song, and it was impossible to stop him at a questionable couplet that everyone knew by heart. sylvie would not sing, in spite of our entreaties, on the plea that it was no longer customary to sing at table. i bad already noticed the lover of the ball, seated at her left, and his round face and tumbled hair seemed familiar. he rose and stood behind me, saying, "have you forgotten me, parisian?" a good woman who came back to dessert after serving us, whispered in my ear: "do you not recognize your foster-brother?" without this warning, i should have made myself ridiculous. "ah, it is _big curly-head_!" i cried; "the very same who pulled me out of the water." sylvie burst out laughing at the recollection. "without considering," said the youth em-bracing me, "that you had a fine silver watch and on the way home you were more concerned about it than yourself, because it had stopped. you said, 'the _creature is drowned_ does not go tick-tack; what will uncle say?'" "a watch is a creature," said father dodu; "that is what they tell children in paris!" sylvie was sleepy, and i fancied there was no hope for me. she went upstairs, and as i kissed her, said: "come again to-morrow." father dodu remained at table with sylvain and my foster-brother, and we talked a long time over a bottle of louvres ratafia. "all men are equal," said father dodu between glasses; "i drink with a pastry-cook as readily as with a prince." "where is the pastry-cook?" i asked. "by your side! there you see a young man who is ambitious to get on in life." my foster-brother appeared embarrassed and i understood the situation. fate had reserved for me a foster-brother in the very country made famous by rousseau, who opposed putting children out to nurse! i learned from father dodu that there was much talk of a marriage between sylvie and big curly-head, who wished to open a pastry-shop at dammartin. i asked no more. next morning the coach from nanteuil-le-haudouin took me back to paris. xiii aurÉlie. to paris, a journey of five hours! i was impatient for evening, and eight o'clock found me in my accustomed seat aurélie infused her own spirit and grace into the lines of the play, the work of a contemporary author evidently inspired by schiller. in the garden scene she was sublime. during the fourth act, when she did not appear, i went out to purchase a bouquet of madame prevost, slipping into it a tender effusion signed _an unknown_, "there," thought i, "is something definite for the future," but on the morrow i was on my way to germany. why did i go there? in the hope of com-posing my disordered fancy. if i were to write a book, i could never gain credence for the story of a heart torn by these two conflicting loves. i had lost sylvie through my own fault, but to see her for a day, sufficed to restore my soul. a glance from her had arrested me on the verge of the abyss, and henceforth i enshrined her as a smiling goddess in the temple of wisdom. i felt more than ever reluctant to present myself before aurélie among the throng of vulgar suitors who shone in the light of her favour for an instant only to fall blinded. "some day," said i, "we shall see whether this woman has a heart." one morning i learned from a newspaper that aurélie was ill, and i wrote to her from the mountains of salzburg, a letter so filled with german mysticism that i could hardly hope for a reply, indeed i expected none. i left it to chance or ... the _unknown._ months passed, and in the leisure intervals of travel i undertook to embody in poetic action the life-long devotion of the painter colonna to the fair laura who was constrained by her relatives to take the veil. something in the subject lent itself to my habitual train of thought, and as soon as the last verse of the drama was written, i hastened back to france. can i avoid repeating in my own history, that of many others? i passed through all the ordeals of the theatre. i "ate the drum and drank the cymbal," according to the apparently meaningless phrase of the initiates at eleusis, which probably signifies that upon occasion we must stand ready to pass the bounds of reason and absurdity; for me it meant to win and possess my ideal. aurélie accepted the leading part in the play which i brought back from germany. i shall never forget the day she allowed me to read it to her. the love scenes had been arranged expressly for her, and i am positive that i rendered them with feeling. in the conversation that followed i revealed myself as the "unknown" of the two letters. she said: "you are mad, but come again; i have never found anyone who knew how to love me." oh, woman! you seek for love ... but what of me? in the days which followed i wrote probably the most eloquent and touching letters that she ever received. her answers were full of good sense. once she was moved, sent for me and confessed that it was hard for her to break an attachment of long standing. "if you love me for myself alone, then you will understand that i can belong to but one." two months later, i received an effusive letter which brought me to her feet--in the meantime, someone volunteered an important piece of information. the handsome young man whom i had met one night at the club had just enlisted in the turkish cavalry. races were held at chantilly the next season, and the theatre troupe to which aurélie belonged gave a performance. once in the country, the company was for three days subject to the orders of the director. i had made friends with this worthy man, formerly the dorante of the comedies of marivaux and for a long time successful in lovers' parts. his latest triumph was achieved in the play imitated from schiller, when my opera-glass had discovered all his wrinkles. he had fire, however, and being thin, produced a good effect in the provinces. i accompanied the troupe in the quality of poet, and persuaded the manager to give performances at senlis and dammartin. he inclined to compiègne at first, but aurélie was of my opinion. next day, while arrangements with the local authorities were in progress, i ordered horses and we set out on the road to commelle to breakfast at the castle of queen blanche. aurélie, on horseback, with her blonde hair floating in the wind, rode through the forest like some queen of olden times, and the peasants were dazzled by her appearance. madame de _f_-----was the only woman they had ever seen so imposing and so graceful. after breakfast we rode down to the villages like swiss hamlets where the waters of the nonette turn the busy saw-mills. these scenes, which my remembrance cherished, interested aurélie, but did not move her to delay. i had planned to conduct her to the castle near orry, where i had first seen adrienne on the green. she manifested no emotion. then i told her all; i revealed the hidden spring of that love which haunted my dreams by night and was realized in her. she listened with attention and said: "you do not love me! you expect me to say 'the actress and the nun are the same'; you are merely arranging a drama and the issue of the plot is lacking. go! i no longer believe in you." her words were an illumination. the unnatural enthusiasm which had possessed me for so long, my dreams, my tears, my despair and my tenderness,--could they mean aught but love? what then is love? aurélie played that night at senlis, and i thought she displayed a weakness for the director, the wrinkled "young lover" of the stage. his character was exemplary, and he had already shown her much kindness. one day, aurélie said to me: "there is the man who loves me!" xiv. the last leaf. such are the fancies that charm and beguile us in the morning of life! i have tried to set them down here, in a disconnected fashion, but many hearts will understand me. one by one our illusions fall like husks, and the kernel thus laid bare is experience. its taste is bitter, but it yields an acrid flavour that invigorates,--to use an old-fashioned simile. rousseau says that the aspect of nature is a universal consolation. sometimes i seek again my groves of clarens lost in the fog to the north of paris, but now, all is changed! hermenonville, the spot where the ancient idyl blossomed again, transplanted by gessner, thy star has set, the star that glowed for me with two-fold lustre. blue and rose by turns, like the changeful aldebaran, it was formed by adrienne and sylvie, the two halves of my love. one was the sublime ideal, the other, the sweet reality. what are thy groves and lakes and thy desert to me now? othys, montagny, loiseaux, poor neighbouring hamlets, and chaâlis now to be restored, you guard for me no treasures of the past. occasionally, i feel a desire to return to those scenes of lonely musing, where i sadly mark the fleeting traces of a period when affectation invaded nature; sometimes i smile as i read upon the granite rocks certain lines from boucher, which i once thought sublime, or virtuous maxims inscribed above a fountain or a grotto dedicated to pan. the swans disdain the stagnant waters of the little lakes excavated at such an expense. the time is no more when the hunt of condé swept by with its proud riders, and the forest-echoes rang with answering horns! there is to-day no direct route to hermenonville, and sometimes i go by creil and senlis, sometimes by dammartin. it is impossible to reach dammartin before night, so i lodge at the image of saint john. they usually give me a neat room hung with old tapestry, with a glass between the windows. this room shows a return to the fashion for bric-à-brac which i renounced long ago. i sleep comfortably under the eider-down covering used there. in the morning, when i throw open the casement wreathed with vines and roses, i gaze with rapture upon a wide green landscape stretching away to the horizon, where a line of poplars stand like sentinels. here and there the villages nestle guarded by their protecting church-spires. first othys, then eve and ver; hermenonville would be visible beyond the wood, if it had a belfry, but in that philosophic spot the church has been neglected. having filled my lungs with the pure air of these uplands, i go down stairs in good humour and start for the pastry-cook's. "helloa, big curly-head!" "helloa, little parisian!" we greet each other with sly punches in the ribs as we did in childhood, then i climb a certain stair where two children welcome my coming. sylvie's athenian smile lights up her classic features, and i say to myself: "here, perhaps, is the happiness i have missed, and yet...." sometimes i call her lotty, and she sees in me some resemblance to werther without the pistols, which are out of fashion now. while big curly-head is busy with the breakfast, we take the children for a walk through the avenues of limes that border the ruins of the old brick towers of the castle. while the little ones practise with their bows and arrows, we read some poem or a few pages from one of those old books all too short, and long forgotten by the world. i forgot to say that when aurélie's troupe gave a performance at dammartin, i took sylvie to the play and asked her if she did not think the actress resembled someone she knew. "whom, pray?" "do you remember adrienne?" she laughed merrily, in reply. "what an idea!" then, as if in self-reproach, she added with a sigh: "poor adrienne! she died at the convent of saint s---- about ." appendix. '_el desdichado._' _gérard de nerval._ _i am that dark, that disinherited._ _that all dishonoured prince of aquitaine,_ _the star upon my scutcheon long hath fled;_ _a black sun on my lute doth yet remain!_ _oh, thou that didst console me not in vain,_ _within the tomb, among the midnight dead,_ _show me italian seas, and blossoms wed,_ _the rose, the vine-leaf, and the golden grain._ _say, am i love or phoebus? have i been_ _or lusignan or biron? by a queen_ _caressed within the mermaid's haunt i lay,_ _and twice i crossed the unpermitted stream,_ _and touched on orpheus' lute as in a dream,_ _sighs of a saint, and laughter of a fay!_ (andrew lang.) to alexander dumas. when it was currently reported that gérard de nerval had become insane, alexander dumas, who was then publishing that amusing journal _le mousquetaire,_ endeavored to explain and interpret the poet's peculiar form of mental alienation. gérard, who presently came to himself, as was his wont, took note of the study, and in return dedicated to dumas his _filles du feu_, thus acknowledging the obligation conferred by the great novelist in inditing the epitaph of the poet's "lost wits." this dedication, now done into english for the first time, is interesting and important, as embodying the author's own interpretation of his singular mental constitution. he confesses that he is unable to compose without incarnating himself in his creations so thoroughly as to lose his own identity. in illustration, he throws into the text the tragic history of a mythical hero. it is easy to trace in this story of a nameless prince, unable to prove his lofty origin, involved in a network of misfortunes through the crafty machinations of the arch plotter la rancune (malice) and abandoned by his mistress, the beautiful guiding star of his destiny, allegorical allusions to the poet, the heir of genius and of glory, unable to prove or justify his noble birthright, his highest impulses misunderstood and trampled upon by a heartless and vulgar world. lucie page. i dedicate this book to you, my dear master, as i dedicated _lorely_ to jules janin. i was indebted to him for the same service that i owe to you. a few years ago, it was reported that i was dead, and he wrote my biography. a few days ago, i was thought to have lost my reason, and you honoured me by devoting some of your most graceful lines to the epitaph of my intelligence. such an inheritance of glory has fallen to me before my time. how shall i venture, yet living, to deck my forehead with these shining crowns? it becomes me to assume an air of modesty and beg the public to accept, with suitable deductions, the eulogy bestowed upon my ashes, or rather upon the lost wits contained in the bottle which, like astolpho, i have been to seek in the moon, and which, i trust, i have now restored to their normal place in the seat of thought. being, therefore, no longer mounted upon the hippogriff, and having, in the popular conception, recovered what is vulgarly termed reason,--let us proceed to the exercise of that faculty. here is a fragment of what you wrote concerning me, the tenth of last december: "as you can readily perceive, he possesses a subtle and highly cultivated intellect, in which is manifested from time to time a singular phenomenon which, fortunately, let us hope, has no serious import to himself or his friends. at intervals, when preoccupied by literary toil, imagination goaded to frenzy masters reason and drives it from the brain; then, like an opium-smoker of cairo, or a hashish-eater of algiers, gérard finds again the talismans that evoke spirits. now he is king solomon waiting for the queen of sheba; then by turns sultan of the crimea, count of abyssinia, duke of egypt, or baron of smyrna. next day, he declares himself mad and relates the whole series of events from which his madness sprung, with such a joyous abandon, such an ingenious fertility of resource that one is ready to part with his wits in order to follow such a fascinating guide through the desert of dreams and hallucinations, sprinkled with oases fresher and greener than any which dot the route from alexandria to ammon. finally, melancholy becomes his muse of inspiration, and now, restrain your tears if you can, for never did werther, rené, or antony pour forth sobs and complaints more tender and pathetic!" i shall now endeavour to explain to you, my dear dumas, the phenomenon which you mention above. there are, as you well know, certain writers who cannot invent without identifying themselves with the creations of their imagination. you remember with what conviction our old friend nodier related how he had the misfortune to be guillotined in the revolution. the narrative was so convincing that we wondered instinctively how he had contrived to fasten his head on again. understand, therefore, that the ardour of production may conduce to a like result, that the author incarnates himself, as it were, in the hero of his imagination so completely that he loses himself and burns with the imaginary flames of this hero's love and ambition! this was precisely the effect produced upon me in narrating the history of a personage who figured under the title of brisacier, about the time of louis xv, i believe. where did i read the fatal biography of this adventurer? i have found again that of the abbé of bucquoy, but i cannot recall the slightest historical proof of the existence of this illustrious unknown. what for you, dear master, would have been but a pastime,--you, who have with clever artifices so bewildered our minds concerning the old chronicles, that posterity will never be able to disentangle truth from fiction, and is certain to credit your invention with all the characters from history that figure in your romances--this became for me a veritable obsession. to invent, is in reality only to recollect, says a certain moralist. finding no proofs of the material existence of my hero, i suddenly came to believe in the transmigration of souls, not less firmly than pythagoras or peter leroux. even the eighteenth century, in which i believed myself to have lived, was full of these illusions. do you remember that courtier who recalled distinctly that he was once a sofa? whereupon schahabaham exclaimed with enthusiasm, "what, you were once a sofa! why, that is delightful!--tell me, were you embroidered?" as for me, i was embroidered at every seam. from the moment when i first grasped the continuity of all my previous existences, i figured as readily in one character as another, prince, king, mage, genie, or even god; could i unite my memories in one masterpiece, it would represent the dream of scipio, the vision of tasso or the divine comedy of dante. renouncing, henceforth, all pretensions to inspiration or illumination, i can offer only what you so justly call impracticable theories, an impossible book, whose first chapter, subjoined below, seems but to furnish the context of the comic romance of scarron.... read and judge for yourself: a tragic romance. here i still languish in my prison, madame, still rash and culpable and alas! still trusting in that beautiful _star_ of comedy, which, for one brief instant, deigned to call me her _destiny_ the star and its destiny! what a charming couple to figure in a romance like the poet scarron's! and yet, how difficult we should find it to sustain the two characters now! the heavy vehicles which used to jolt us over the uneven pavements of mons, have been superseded by coach, post-chaise and other new inventions. where shall we find to-day those wild adventures, that gay, bohemian life that united us, poets and actresses, as comrades and equals? you have betrayed and deserted us, and left us to perish in some miserable inn, while you share the fortunes of some rich and gallant lord. here, in sooth, am i, but lately the brilliant actor, the prince in disguise, the disinherited son and the banished lover, no better treated than some provincial rhymer! my countenance disfigured by an enormous plaster only adds to my discomfiture. the landlord, tempted by the plausible story poured into his ears by la rancune, has consented to hold as security for the settlement of his account the person of the son of the great khan of the crimea, sent here to finish his education and well known throughout christian europe as brisacier. had the old intriguer, la rancune, left me a few gold pieces, or even a paltry watch set with false brilliants, i could, doubtless, have won the respect of my accusers and extricated myself from this unfortunate situation. but in addition, you have left my wardrobe furnished only with a puce-coloured smock-coat, a blue and black striped waist-coat and small clothes in a doubtful state of repair. the suspicions of the landlord were awakened upon lifting my valise after your departure, and he insulted me to my face by calling me an imposter, and a _contraband prince_, i sprang up to stab him, but la rancune had removed my sword, fearing lest despair on account of the ungrateful mistress who has abandoned me, might lead me to thrust it through my heart. this precaution was needless, o la rancune! an actor never stabs himself with the sword that he has worn in many a comedy; nor does he who is himself the hero of tragedy ape the hero of a romance. i call all my comrades to witness that such a death could never be represented with dignity upon the stage. i know that one may plant his sword in the earth and fall upon it with outstretched arms; but in spite of the cold weather, i have here a bare floor with no carpet. the window, too, is wide enough and at sufficient height to aid in putting an end to all despair. but ... but as i have told you a thousand times, i am an actor with a conscience. do you remember how i used to play achilles, when in passing through some third or fourth-rate town, the whim would seize us to re-establish the neglected cult of the old french tragedians? was i not noble and puissant in the gilded helmet with streaming locks of purple blackness, the glittering armor and azure cloak? what a spectacle to see a father as weak and cowardly as agamemnon contend with the priest calchas for the honour of immolating such a victim as poor, weeping iphigenia! i rushed like a thunderbolt into the midst of the forced and cruel action; i restored hope to the mothers and reawakened courage in the daughters, always sacrificed from a sense of duty, to stay the anger of a god, allay the vengeance of a nation, or advance the interests of a family. for it is easy to recognize here the eternal type of human marriage. the father will forevermore deliver up his daughter through ambition, and the mother will sell her through cupidity; but the lover is not always the worthy achilles, so gallant and terrible, albeit a trifle too rhetorical for a man of war! as for me, i often rebelled against declaiming long tirades in defense of a course so evidently just, in the face of an audience so easily convinced that i was in the right. i was tempted to stab the whole idiotic court of the king of kings, with its sleepy rows of super-numeraries, and so put an end to the piece. the public would have been delighted, but on second thoughts would have found the play too short, considering that time sufficient to witness the sufferings of a princess, a lover and a queen, was its rightful due; a period long enough to see them weep, rage and pour forth a torrent of poetic invective against the established authority of priest and king. that was well worth five acts and two hours of close attention, and the audience would not content itself with less. it desires the humiliation of this proud race seated upon the throne of greece, before whom achilles himself dares to thunder but in words; it must sound all the depths of misery hidden beneath this royal purple whose majesty seems so irresistible. the tears which fall from the most glorious eyes in the world upon the swelling bosom of iphigenia, excite the crowd no less than her beauty, her grace and the splendour of her royal robes. listen to the sweet voice that pleads for life with the touching reminder that, as yet, she stands but upon its threshold. who does not favour her lover? who could wish to see her slain? great gods, what heart so hard! none, surely!... on the contrary, the whole audience has already decided that she must die for the general good rather than live for one individual. achilles seems to all too grand, too superb! shall iphigenia be borne away by this thessalian vulture, as, not long ago, the daughter of leda was stolen by a shepherd prince from the voluptuous shores of asia? this is the question of paramount importance to the greeks and to the audience as well, which takes our measure when we act the part of hero. i felt myself as much an object of hatred to the men as of admiration to the women when i thus played the part of victorious lover, because it was no indifferent actress, taught to listlessly drone those immortal verses, that i was defending, but a true greek maiden, a pearl of grace, purity and love, worthy, indeed, to be rescued by all human efforts from the hands of the jealous gods. not iphigenia alone, she was junia, berenice, all the heroines rendered illustrious by the fair blue eyes of mlle. de champmeslé, or the charming graces of the noble maidens of saint cyr. poor aurélie! my comrade and my sister, wilt thou never regret those hours of triumph and rapture? didst thou not love me for an instant, cold star, when i fought and wept and suffered for thee? the audience questioned nightly: "who, pray, is this actress, so far beyond all that we have ever applauded? are we not mistaken? is she really as young, as dazzling, and as pure as she seems?" the young women envied, criticised or admired sadly. as for me, i needed to see her constantly, so as not to feel overpowered by her beauty and to be able to meet her eyes whenever the exigencies of the plot demanded.... this is why achilles was my triumph, although i was often embarrassed in other parts. what a pity that i could not change the situations to suit me, and sacrifice even the thoughts of genius to my love and respect! the character of a timid and captive lover like britannicus or bajazet, did not please me. the purple of the young caesar attracted me more; but what a misfortune to declaim in conclusion only cold and perfidious speeches! what! was this young nero, the idol of rome, the handsome athlete, the dancer, the poet whose only wish was to please the populace? is this what history and the conceptions of our poets have left of him? ah! give me his fury to interpret; his power i would fear to accept. nero! i have comprehended thee, not alas! according to racine, but according to my own heart, torn with agony whenever i have ventured to impersonate thee! yes, thou wast a god, thou who wouldst have burned rome. thou wast right, perhaps, since rome had insulted thee!... a hiss, a miserable hiss, in her presence, and because of her! a hiss of scorn which she attributes to herself--through my mistake, be it understood! alas! my friends, for an instant, i felt an impulse to show myself truly great, immortal, upon the stage of your theatre. instead of replying to the insult by another, which brought upon me the assault from which i still suffer, instead of provoking a vulgar audience to rush upon the scene and cowardly beat and belabour me, i held for a moment a sublime purpose, worthy of caesar himself, a purpose which none could hesitate to pronounce in harmony with the dramatic conceptions of the great racine himself! i thought to set fire to the theatre, and while the audience perished in the flames, bear away aurélie in my arms, her disheveled tresses streaming over her disordered dress. o remorse that fills my feverish nights and days of agony! what! i might have done this and i refrained! what! do ye still insult me, ye, who owe your lives to pity, rather than any fear on my part? i might have burned them all! judge for yourselves: the theatre of p---- has but one exit; ours opened upon a little street in the rear, but the green-room, where you were all assembled, is on the other side of the stage. in order to set fire to the curtain, i had only to snatch down one of the lamps; i ran no risk of detection, for the manager could not see me and i was alone listening to the insipid dialogue between britannicus and junia, waiting for my cue to reappear; all through that scene i was struggling with myself, and when i entered upon the stage i was turning and twisting in my fingers a glove that i had picked up; i expected to avenge myself more nobly than caesar himself of an insult that i had felt with all the heart of a caesar.... ah, well! the cowards dared not begin again; my glance confounded them, and i was on the point of pardoning the audience, if not junia herself, when she dared.... immortal gods!... hold, let me speak my mind! ... yes, since that night, it is my delusion to imagine myself a roman, an emperor; i have identified myself with my part, and the tunic of nero clings to my burning limbs as that of the centaur to the dying hercules. let us jest no more with sacred things, not even those of an age and nation long since past, lest perchance some tongue of flame yet quiver in the ashes of the gods of rome!... consider, friends, that in this scene more than a mere repetition of measured lines was involved and three hearts contended with equal chances, where as in the arena, life-blood itself might flow! the audience, that of a small town where there are no secrets, knew it well; those women, many of them ready to fall at my feet, could i be false to my one love, those men all jealous of me on her account, and the third, well chosen for the part of britannicus, the poor, stammering suitor, who trembled before me in her presence, but who was destined to be my conqueror in that fearful contest where all the honours were reserved for the latest comer.... ah! the no-vice in love knew his part well.... however, he had nothing to fear, for i am too just to condemn another for the same love that i feel myself; in this particular, i am far removed from the ideal monster of the poet racine; i could burn rome without hesitation, but, in saving junia, i should also save my brother, britannicus. yes, my brother, yes, frail child of art and fancy like myself, thou hast conquered in the struggle, having merited the prize for which we two contended. heaven preserve me from taking advantage of my age, strength, or the fierce courage of returning health to question the choice or the caprice of her, the all-powerful, impartial divinity of my dreams and life!... i only feared, for a time, lest my defeat profit thee nothing and the gay suitors of the town wrest from us both the prize lost only for me. the letter which i have just received from la caverne reassures me fully on that point. she advises me to renounce an art for which i have no capacity and which is incompatible with my necessities. the jest, in sooth, is bitter, for never did i stand in greater need, if not of my art, at least of its swift returns. this is just the point that you do not understand. you consider that you have acquitted yourself of all obligations toward me in recommending me to the authorities of soissons as a distinguished personage, whom his family cannot abandon, but whose violent illness has forced you to leave him behind in your journey. your tool, la rancune, presented himself at the town hall and the inn with all the airs of a spanish grandee forced by unpleasant circumstances to spend a couple of nights in such a disagreeable place; the rest of you obliged to leave p---- the day after my disaster, had, as i conceive, no reason to allow yourselves to pass merely for disreputable players: it is quite enough to wear that mask in places where no other course is possible. as for me, what can i say, how shall i extricate myself from the infernal network of conspiracy in which i find myself caught and held through the machinations of la rancune? the famous couplet from corneille's "menteur" assuredly aided him in his invention for the wit of such a rascal as he never reached such a pitch. think for a moment.... but what can i tell you that you do not know already and have not devised together to ruin me? have not the white fingers of the ingrate who is the cause of all my misfortunes, tangled inextricably all the silken threads that she could weave about her poor victim?... what a master-plot! ah, well! i am a captive and i confess it; i yield and implore mercy. you can take me back without fear now, and if the rapid post-chaises that bore you swiftly over the flanders' route, three months ago, have already given place to the humble equipages of our first adventures, deign at least to receive me in the quality of monster or phenomenon, fit to draw the crowd, and i promise to acquit myself of these duties in a manner calculated to appease the most exacting amateur of the province.... answer immediately and i will send a trusty messenger to bring me the letter from the post, as i fear the curiosity of mine host.... brisacier. how dispose now of this hero deserted by his mistress and his companions? is he, in truth, only a strolling player, rightly punished for insulting the public, for indulging in his mad jealousy and alleging ridiculous claims? how can he prove that he is the legitimate son of the khan of the crimea, according to the crafty recital of la rancune? how, from the depths of misery where he is plunged, can he rise to the highest destiny? these are points which would, doubtless, trouble you but little, but which have thrown my mind into a strange disorder. once persuaded that i was writing my own history, i was touched by this love for a fugitive star which deserted me in the dark night of my destiny; i have wept and shuddered over these visions. then a ray divine illumined my _inferno_; surrounded by dim and monstrous shapes of horror against which i struggled blindly, i seized at last the magic clue, the thread of ariadne, and since then all my visions have become celestial. one day, i shall write the history of this "descent to hades," and you will see that it has not been entirely devoid of reason, if it has always been wanting in fact. and, since you have been so rash as to cite one of my sonnets composed in this state of supernatural trance, as the germans call it, you must hear the rest. you will find them among my poems. they are little more obscure than the metaphysics of hegel or the visions of swedenborg, and would lose their charm with any attempt at explanation, were that possible;--probably my last illusion will be that of thinking myself a poet; criticism must dispel it. . proofreaders fenton's quest by m. e. braddon the author of "lady audley's secret," "aurora floyd," etc. etc. etc. cheap uniform edition of miss braddon's novels. price s. picture boards; s. d. cloth gilt; s. d. half parchment or half morocco; postage d. miss braddon's novels including "lady audley's secret," "vixen," "ishmael" etc. "no one can be dull who has a novel by miss braddon in hand. the most tiresome journey is beguiled, and the most wearisome illness is brightened, by any one of her books." "miss braddon is the queen of the circulating libraries."--_the world._ n.b.--there are now novels always in print; for full list see book of cover, or apply for a catalogue, to be sent (post free), london: j. and b. maxwell, milton house, and shoe lane, fleet street; and st. bride street, ludgate circus, e.o. and at all railway bookstalls, booksellers' and libraries. contents i. the common fever ii. marian's story iii. accepted iv. john saltram v. halcyon days vi. sentence of exile vii. "good-bye" viii. missing ix. john saltram's advice x. jacob nowell xi. the marriage at wygrove xii. a friendly counsellor xiii. mrs. pallinson has views xiv. father and son xv. on the track xvi. face to face xvii. miss carley's admirers xviii. jacob nowell's will xix. gilbert asks a question xx. drifting away xxi. father and daughter xxii. at lidford again xxiii. called to account xxiv. tormented by doubt xxv. missing again xxvi. in bondage xxvii. only a woman xxviii. at fault xxix. baffled, not beaten xxx. stricken down xxxi. ellen carley's trials xxxii. the padlocked door at wyncomb xxxiii. "what must be shall be" xxxiv. doubtful information xxxv. bought with a price xxxvi. coming round xxxvii. a full confession xxxviii. an ill-omened wedding xxxix. a domestic mystery xl. in pursuit xli. outward bound xlii. the pleasures of wyncomb xliii. mr. whitelaw makes an end of the mystery xliv. after the fire xlv. mr. whitelaw makes his will xlvi. ellen regains her liberty xlvii. closing scenes chapter i. the common fever. a warm summer evening, with a sultry haze brooding over the level landscape, and a sabbath stillness upon all things in the village of lidford, midlandshire. in the remoter corners of the old gothic church the shadows are beginning to gather, as the sermon draws near its close; but in the centre aisle and about the pulpit there is broad daylight still shining-in from the wide western window, across the lower half of which there are tall figures of the evangelists in old stained glass. there are no choristers at lidford, and the evening service is conducted in rather a drowsy way; but there is a solemn air of repose about the gray old church that should be conducive to tranquil thoughts and pious meditations. simple and earnest have been the words of the sermon, simple and earnest seem the countenances of the congregation, looking reverently upwards at the face of their pastor; and one might fancy, contemplating that grand old church, so much too spacious for the needs of the little flock gathered there to-night, that lidford was a forgotten, half-deserted corner of this earth, in which a man, tired of the press and turmoil of the world, might find an almost monastic solitude and calm. so thought a gentleman in the squire's pew--a good-looking man of about thirty, who was finishing his first sunday at lidford by devout attendance at evening service. he had been thinking a good deal about this quiet country life during the service, wondering whether it was not the best life a man could live, after all, and thinking it all the sweeter because of his own experience, which had lain chiefly in cities. he was a certain mr. gilbert fenton, an australian merchant, and was on a visit to his sister, who had married the principal landowner in lidford, martin lister--a man whose father had been called "the squire." the lady sat opposite her brother in the wide old family pew to-night--a handsome-looking matron, with a little rosy-cheeked damsel sitting by her side--a damsel with flowing auburn hair, tiny hat and feather, and bright scarlet stockings, looking very much as if she had walked out of a picture by mr. millais. the congregation stood up to sing a hymn when the sermon was ended, and gilbert fenton turned his face towards the opposite line of pews, in one of which, very near him, there was a girl, at whom mrs. lister had caught her brother looking very often, during the service just concluded. it was a face that a man could scarcely look upon once without finding his glances wandering back to it afterwards; not quite a perfect face, but a very bright and winning one. large gray eyes, with a wonderful light in them, under dark lashes and darker brows; a complexion that had a dusky pallor, a delicate semi-transparent olive-tint that one seldom sees out of a spanish picture; a sweet rosy mouth, and a piquant little nose of no particular order, made up the catalogue of this young lady's charms. but in a face worth looking at there is always a something that cannot be put into words; and the brightest and best attributes of this face were quite beyond translation. it was a face one might almost call "splendid"--there was such a light and glory about it at some moments. gilbert fenton thought so to-night, as he saw it in the full radiance of the western sunlight, the lips parted as the girl sang, the clear gray eyes looking upward. she was not alone: a portly genial-looking old man stood by her side, and accompanied her to the church-porch when the hymn was over. here they both lingered a moment to shake hands with mrs. lister, very much to gilbert fenton's satisfaction. they walked along the churchyard-path together, and gilbert gave his sister's arm a little tug, which meant, "introduce me." "my brother mr. fenton, captain sedgewick, miss nowell." the captain shook hands with gilbert. "delighted to know you, mr. fenton; delighted to know any one belonging to mrs. lister. you are going to stop down here for some time, i hope." "i fear not for very long, captain sedgewick. i am a business man, you see, and can't afford to take a long holiday from the city." mrs. lister laughed. "my brother is utterly devoted to commercial pursuits," she said; "i think he believes every hour wasted that he spends out of his counting-house." "and yet i was thinking in church this evening, that a man's life might be happier in such a place as this, drifting away in a kind of dreamy idleness, than the greatest successes possible to commerce could ever make it." "you would very soon be tired of your dreamy idleness," answered his sister, "and sigh for your office and your club." "the country suits old people, who have played their part in life, and made an end of it," said the captain. "it suits my little girl here very well, too," he added, with a fond glance at his companion; "she has her birds and her flowers, and her books and music; and i don't think she ever sighs for anything gayer than lidford." "never, uncle george," said the girl, slipping her hand through his arm. and gilbert fenton saw that those two were very fond of each other. they came to the end of a shady winding lane at this moment, and captain sedgewick and miss nowell wished mrs. lister and her brother good-evening, and went away down the lane arm-in-arm. "what a lovely girl she is!" said gilbert, when they were gone. "lovely is rather a strong word, gilbert," mrs. lister answered coldly; "she is certainly pretty, but i hope you are not going to lose your heart in that direction." "there is no fear of that. a man may admire a girl's face without being in any danger of losing his heart. but why not in that direction, belle? is there any special objection to the lady?" "only that she is a nobody, without either money or position and i think you ought to have both when you marry." "thanks for the implied compliment; but i do not fancy that an australian merchant can expect to secure a wife of very exalted position; and i am the last man in the world to marry for money." "i don't for a moment suppose you would marry any one you didn't like, from mercenary considerations; but there is no reason you should make a foolish match." "of course not. i think it very doubtful whether i shall ever marry at all. i am just the kind of man to go down to my grave a bachelor." "why so, gilbert?" "well, i can hardly tell you, my dear. perhaps i am rather difficult to please--just a little stony-hearted and invulnerable. i know that since i was a boy, and got over my schoolboy love affairs, i have never seen the woman who could touch my heart. i have met plenty of pretty women, and plenty of brilliant women, of course, in society; and have admired them, and there an end. i have never seen a woman whose face impressed me so much at first sight as the face of your friend, miss nowell." "i am very sorry for that." "but why, belle?" "because the girl is a nobody--less than nobody. there is an unpleasant kind of mystery about her birth." "how is that? her uncle, captain sedgewick, seems to be a gentleman." "captain sedgewick is very well, but he is not her uncle; he adopted her when she was a very little girl." "but who are her people, and how did she fall into his hands?" "i have never heard that. he is not very fond of talking about the subject. when we first came to know them, he told us that marian was only his adopted niece; and he has never told us any more than that." "she is the daughter of some friend, i suppose. they seem very much attached to each other." "yes, she is very fond of him, and he of her. she is an amiable girl; i have nothing to say against her--but----" "but what, belle?" "i shouldn't like you to fall in love with her." "but i should, mamma!" cried the damsel in scarlet stockings, who had absorbed every word of the foregoing conversation. "i should like uncle gil to love marian just as i love her. she is the dearest girl in the world. when we had a juvenile party last winter, it was marian who dressed the christmas-tree--every bit; and she played the piano for us all the evening, didn't she, mamma?" "she is very good-natured, lucy; but you mustn't talk nonsense; and you ought not to listen when your uncle and i are talking. it is very rude." "but i can't help hearing you, mamma." they were at home by this time, within the grounds of a handsome red-brick house of the early georgian era, which had been the property of the listers ever since it was built. without, the gardens were a picture of neatness and order; within, everything was solid and comfortable: the furniture of a somewhat ponderous and exploded fashion, but handsome withal, and brightened here and there by some concession to modern notions of elegance or ease--a dainty little table for books, a luxurious arm-chair, and so on. martin lister was a gentleman chiefly distinguished by good-nature, hospitable instincts, and an enthusiastic devotion to agriculture. there were very few things in common between him and his brother-in-law the australian merchant, but they got on very well together for a short time. gilbert fenton pretended to be profoundly interested in the thrilling question of drainage, deep or superficial, and seemed to enter unreservedly into every discussion of the latest invention or improvement in agricultural machinery; and in the mean time he really liked the repose of the country, and appreciated the varying charms of landscape and atmosphere with a fervour unfelt by the man who had been born and reared amidst those pastoral scenes. the two men smoked their cigars together in a quietly companionable spirit, strolling about the gardens and farm, dropping out a sentence now and then, and anon falling into a lazy reverie, each pondering upon his own affairs--gilbert meditating transactions with foreign houses, risky bargains with traders of doubtful solvency, or hazardous investments in stocks, as the case might be; the gentleman farmer ruminating upon the chances of a good harvest, or the probable value of his scotch short-horns. mr. lister had preferred lounging about the farm with a cigar in his mouth to attendance at church upon this particular sunday evening. he had finished his customary round of inspection by this time, and was sitting by one of the open windows of the drawing-room, with his body in one luxurious chair, and his legs extended upon another, deep in the study of the _gardener's chronicle_, which he flung aside upon the appearance of his family. "well, toddlekins," he cried to the little girl, "i hope you were very attentive to the sermon; listened for two, and made up for your lazy dad. that's a vicarious kind of devotion that ought to be permitted occasionally to a hard-working fellow like me.--i'm glad you've come back to give us some tea, belle. don't go upstairs; let susan carry up your bonnet and shawl. it's nearly nine o'clock. toddlekins wants her tea before she goes to bed." "lucy has had her tea in the nursery," said mrs. lister, as she took her seat before the cups and saucers. "but she will have some more with papa," replied martin, who had an amiable knack of spoiling his children. there were only two--this bright fair-haired lucy, aged nine, and a sturdy boy of seven. they sipped their tea, and talked a little about who had been at church and who had not been, and the room was filled with that atmosphere of dulness which seems to prevail in such households upon a summer sunday evening; a kind of palpable emptiness which sets a man speculating how many years he may have to live, and how many such sundays he may have to spend. he is apt to end by wondering a little whether life is really worth the trouble it costs, when almost the best thing that can come of it is a condition of comfortable torpor like this. gilbert fenton put down his cup and went over to one of the open windows. it was nearly as dark as it was likely to be that midsummer night. a new moon was shining faintly in the clear evening sky; and here and there a solitary star shone with a tremulous brightness. the shadows of the trees made spots of solemn darkness on the wide lawn before the windows, and a warm faint sweetness came from the crowded flower-beds, where all the flowers in this light were of one grayish silvery hue. "it's almost too warm an evening for the house," said gilbert; "i think i'll take a stroll." "i'd come with you, old fellow, but i've been all round the farm, and i'm dead beat," said good-natured martin lister. "thanks, martin; i wouldn't think of disturbing you. you look the picture of comfort in that easy-chair. i shall only stay long enough to finish a cigar." he walked slowly across the lawn--a noble stretch of level greensward with dark spreading cedars and fine old beeches scattered about it; he walked slowly towards the gates, lighting his cigar as he went, and thinking. he was thinking of his past life, and of his future. what was it to be? a dull hackneyed course of money-making, chequered only by the dreary vicissitudes of trade, and brightened only by such selfish pleasures as constitute the recreations of a business man--an occasional dinner at blackwall or richmond, a week's shooting in the autumn, a little easy-going hunting in the winter, a hurried scamper over some of the beaten continental roads, or a fortnight at a german spa? these had been his pleasures hitherto, and he had found life pleasant enough. perhaps he had been too busy to question the pleasantness of these things. it was only now that he found himself away from the familiar arena of his daily life, with neither employment nor distraction, that he was able to look back upon his career deliberately, and ask himself whether it was one that he could go on living without weariness for the remainder of his days. he had been at this time a little more than seven years in business. he had been bred-up with no expectation of ever having to take his place in the counting-house, had been educated at eton and oxford, and had been taught to anticipate a handsome fortune from his father. all these expectations had been disappointed by mr. fenton's sudden death at a period of great commercial disturbance. the business was found in a state of entanglement that was very near insolvency; and wise friends told gilbert fenton that the only hope of coming well out of these perplexities lay with himself. the business was too good to be sacrificed, and the business was all his father had left behind him, with the exception of a houseful of handsome furniture, two or three carriages, and a couple of pairs of horses, which were sold by auction within a few weeks of the funeral. gilbert fenton took upon himself the management of the business. he had a clear comprehensive intellect, which adapted itself very easily to commerce. he put his shoulder to the wheel with a will, and worked for the first three years of his business career as it is not given to many men to work in the course of their lives. by that time the ship had been steered clear of all rocks and quicksands, and rode the commercial waters gallantly. gilbert was not a rich man, but was in a fair way to become a rich man; and the name of fenton stood as high as in the palmiest days of his father's career. his sister had fortunately married martin lister some years before her father's death, and had received her dowry at the time of her marriage. gilbert had only himself to work for. at first he had worked for the sake of his dead father's honour and repute; later he fell into a groove, like other men, and worked for the love of money-making--not with any sordid love of money, but with that natural desire to accumulate which grows out of a business career. to-night he was in an unusually thoughtful humour, and inclined to weigh things in the balance with a doubtfulness as to their value which was new to him. the complete idleness and emptiness of his life in the country had made him meditative. was it worth living, that monotonous business life of his? would not the time soon come in which its dreariness would oppress him as the dulness of lidford house had oppressed him to-night? his youth was fast going--nay, had it not indeed gone from him for ever? had not youth left him all at once when he began his commercial career?--and the pleasures that had been fresh enough within the last few years were rapidly growing stale. he knew the german spas, the pine-groves where the band played, the gambling-saloons and their company, by heart, though he had never stayed more than a fortnight at any one of them. he had exhausted brittany and the south of france in these rapid scampers; skimmed the cream of their novelty, at any rate. he did not care very much for field-sports, and hunted and shot in a jog-trot safe kind of way, with a view to the benefit of his health, which savoured of old bachelorhood. and as for the rest of his pleasures--the social rubber at his club, the blackwall or richmond dinners--it seemed only custom that made them agreeable. "if i had gone to the bar, as i intended to do before my father's death, i should have had an object in life," he thought, as he puffed slowly at his cigar; "but a commercial man has nothing to hope for in the way of fame--nothing to work for except money. i have a good mind to sell the business, now that it is worth selling, and go in for the bar after all, late as it is." he had thought of this more than once; but he knew the fancy was a foolish one, and that his friends would laugh at him for his folly. he was beyond the grounds of lidford house by this time, sauntering onward in the fair summer night; not indifferent to the calm loveliness of the scene around him, only conscious that there was some void within himself which these things could not fill. he walked along the road by which he and his sister had come back from church, and turned into the lane at the end of which captain sedgewick had bidden them good night. he had been down this lane before to-night, and knew that it was one of the prettiest walks about lidford; so there was scarcely anything strange in the fact that he should choose this promenade for his evening saunter. the rustic way, wide enough for a wagon, and with sloping grassy banks, and tall straggling hedges, full of dog-roses and honeysuckle, led towards a river--a fair winding stream, which was one of the glories of lidford. a little before one came to the river, the lane opened upon a green, where there was a mill, and a miller's cottage, a rustic inn, and two or three other houses of more genteel pretensions. gilbert fenton wondered which of these was the habitation of captain sedgewick, concluding that the half-pay officer and his niece must needs live in one of them. he reconnoitred them as he went by the low garden-fences, over which he could see the pretty lawns and flower-beds, with clusters of evergreens here and there, and a wealth of roses and seringa. one of them, the prettiest and most secluded, was also the smallest; a low white-walled cottage, with casement windows above, and old-fashioned bow-windows below, and a porch overgrown with roses. the house lay back a little way from the green; and there was a tiny brook running beside the holly hedge that bounded the garden, spanned by a little rustic bridge before the gate. pausing just beside this bridge, mr. fenton heard the joyous barking of a dog, and caught a brief glimpse of a light muslin dress flitting across the little lawn at one side of the cottage while he was wondering about the owner of this dress, the noisy dog came rushing towards the gate, and in the next moment a girlish figure appeared in the winding path that went in and out among the flower-beds. gilbert fenton knew that tall slim figure very well. he had guessed rightly, and this low white-walled cottage was really captain sedgewick's. it seemed to him as if a kind of instinct brought him to that precise spot. miss nowell came to the gate, and stood there looking out, with a skye terrier in her arms. gilbert drew back a little, and flung his cigar into the brook. she had not seen him yet. her looks were wandering far away across the green, as if in search of some one. gilbert fenton stood quite still watching her. she looked even prettier without her bonnet than she had looked in the church, he thought: the rich dark-brown hair gathered in a great knot at the back of the graceful head; the perfect throat circled by a broad black ribbon, from which there hung an old-fashioned gold cross; the youthful figure set-off by the girlish muslin dress, so becoming in its utter simplicity. he could not stand there for ever looking at her, pleasant as it might be to him to contemplate the lovely face; so he made a little movement at last, and came a few steps nearer to the gate. "good-evening once more, miss nowell," he said. she looked up at him, surprised by his sudden appearance, but in no manner embarrassed. "good-evening, mr. fenton. i did not see you till this moment. i was looking for my uncle. he has gone out for a little stroll while he smokes his cigar, and i expect him home every minute." "i have been indulging in a solitary cigar myself," answered gilbert. "one is apt to be inspired with an antipathy to the house on this kind of evening. i left the listers yawning over their tea-cups, and came out for a ramble. the aspect of the lane at which we parted company this evening tempted me down this way. what a pretty house you have! do you know i guessed that it was yours before i saw you." "indeed! you must have quite a talent for guessing." "not in a general way; but there is a fitness in things. yes, i felt sure that this was your house." "i am glad you like it," she answered simply. "uncle george and i are very fond of it. but it must seem a poor little place to you after lidford house." "lidford house is spacious, and comfortable, and commonplace. one could hardly associate the faintest touch of romance with such a place. but about this one might fancy anything. ah, here is your uncle, i see." captain sedgewick came towards them, surprised at seeing mr. fenton, with whom he shook hands again very cordially, and who repeated his story about the impossibility of enduring to stop in the house on such a night. the captain insisted on his going in-doors with them, however; and he exhibited no disinclination to linger in the cottage drawing-room, though it was only about a fourth of the size of that at lidford house. it looked a very pretty room in the lamplight, with quaint old-fashioned furniture, the freshest and most delicate chintz hangings and coverings of chairs and sofas, and some valuable old china here and there. captain sedgewick had plenty to say for himself, and was pleased to find an intelligent stranger to converse with. his health had failed him long ago, and he had turned his back upon the world of action for ever; but he was as cheerful and hopeful as if his existence had been the gayest possible to man. of course they talked a little of military matters, the changes that had come about in the service--none of them changes for the better, according to the captain, who was a little behind the times in his way of looking at these things. he ordered in a bottle of claret for his guest, and gilbert fenton found himself seated by the open bow-window looking out at the dusky lawn and drinking his wine, as much at home as if he had been a visitor at the captain's for the last ten years. marian nowell sat on the other side of the room, with the lamplight shining on her dark-brown hair, and with that much-to-be-envied skye terrier on her lap. gilbert glanced across at her every now and then while he was talking with her uncle; and by and by she came over to the window and stood behind the captain's chair, with her clasped hands resting upon his shoulder. gilbert contrived to engage her in the conversation presently. he found her quite able to discuss the airy topics which he started--the last new volume of poems, the picture of the year, and so on. there was nothing awkward or provincial in her manner; and if she did not say anything particularly brilliant, there was good sense in all her remarks, and she had a bright animated way of speaking that was very charming. she had lived a life of peculiar seclusion, rarely going beyond the village of lidford, and had contrived to find perfect happiness in that simple existence. the captain told mr. fenton this in the course of their talk. "i have not been able to afford so much as a visit to london for my darling," he said; "but i do not know that she is any the worse for her ignorance of the great world. the grand point is that she should be happy, and i thank god that she has been happy hitherto." "i should be very ungrateful if i were not, uncle george," the girl said in a half whisper. captain sedgewick gave a thoughtful sigh, and was silent for a little while after this; and then the talk went on again until the clock upon the chimney-piece struck the half-hour after ten, and gilbert fenton rose to say good-night. "i have stayed a most unconscionable time, i fear," he said; "but i had really no idea it was so late." "pray, don't hurry away," replied the captain. "you ought to help me to finish that bottle. marian and i are not the earliest people in lidford." gilbert would have had no objection to loiter away another half-hour in the bow-window, talking politics with the captain, or light literature with miss nowell, but he knew that his prolonged absence must have already caused some amount of wonder at lidford house; so he held firmly to his good-night, shook hands with his new friends, holding marian nowell's soft slender hand in his for the first time, and wondering at the strange magic of her touch, and then went out into the dreamy atmosphere of the summer night a changed creature. "is this love at first sight?" he asked himself, as he walked homeward along the rustic lane, where dog-roses and the starry flowers of the wild convolvulus gleamed whitely in the uncertain light. "is it? i should have been the last of men to believe such a thing possible yesterday; and yet to-night i feel as if that girl were destined to be the ruling influence of my future life. why is it? because she is lovely? surely not. surely i am not so weak a fool as to be caught by a beautiful face! and yet what else do i know of her? absolutely nothing. she may be the shallowest of living creatures--the most selfish, the falsest, the basest. no; i do not believe she could ever be false or unworthy. there is something noble in her face--something more than mere beauty. heaven knows, i have seen enough of that in my time. i could scarcely be so childish as to be bewitched by a pair of gray eyes and a rosy mouth; there must be something more. and, after all, this is most likely a passing fancy, born out of the utter idleness and dulness of this place. i shall go back to london in a week or two, and forget marian nowell. marian nowell!" he repeated the name with unspeakable tenderness in his tone--a deeper feeling than would have seemed natural to a passing fancy. it was more like a symptom of sickening for life's great fever. it was close upon eleven when he made his appearance in his sister's drawing-room, where martin lister was enjoying a comfortable nap, while his wife stifled her yawns over a mild theological treatise. he had to listen to a good deal of wonderment about the length of his absence, and was fain to confess to an accidental encounter with captain sedgewick, which had necessitated his going into the cottage. "why, what could have taken you that way, gilbert?" "a truant fancy, i suppose, my dear. it is as good a way as any other." mrs. lister sighed, and shook her head doubtfully. "what fools you men are," she said, "about a pretty face!" "including martin, belle, when he fell in love with your fair self?" "martin did not stare me out of countenance in church, sir. but you have almost kept us waiting for prayers." the servants came filing in. martin lister woke with a start, and gilbert fenton knelt down among his sister's household to make his evening orisons. but his thoughts were not easily to be fixed that night. they wandered very wide of that simple family prayer, and made themselves into a vision of the future, in which he saw his life changed and brightened by the companionship of a fair young wife. chapter ii. marian's story. the days passed, and there was no more dulness or emptiness for gilbert fenton in his life at lidford. he went every day to the white-walled cottage on the green. it was easy enough to find some fresh excuse for each visit--a book or a piece of music which he had recommended to miss nowell, and had procured from london for her, or something of an equally frivolous character. the captain was always cordial, always pleased to see him. his visits were generally made in the evening; and it was his delight to linger over the pretty little round table by the bow-window, drinking tea dispensed by marian. the bright home-like room, the lovely face turned so trustingly to his; these were the things which made that fair vision of the future that haunted him so often now. he fancied himself the master of some pretty villa in the suburbs--at kingston or twickenham, perhaps--with a garden sloping down to the water's edge, a lawn on which he and his wife and some chosen friend might sit after dinner in the long summer evenings, sipping their claret or their tea, as the case might be, and watching the last rosy glow of the sunset fade and die upon the river. he fancied himself with this girl for his wife, and the delight of going back from the dull dryasdust labours of his city life to a home in which she would bid him welcome. he behaved with a due amount of caution, and did not give the young lady any reason to suspect the state of the case yet awhile. marian was perfectly devoid of coquetry, and had no idea that this gentleman's constant presence at the cottage could have any reference to herself. he liked her uncle; what more natural than that he should like that gallant soldier, whom marian adored as the first of mankind? and it was out of his liking for the captain that he came so often. the captain, however, had not been slow to discover the real state of affairs, and the discovery had given him unqualified satisfaction. for a long time his quiet contentment in this pleasant, simple, easy-going life had been clouded by anxious thoughts about marian's future. his death--should that event happen before she married--must needs leave her utterly destitute. the little property from which his income was derived was not within his power to bequeath. it would pass, upon his death, to one of his nephews. the furniture of the cottage might realize a few hundreds, which would most likely be, for the greater part, absorbed by the debts of the year and the expenses of his funeral. altogether, the outlook was a dreary one, and the captain had suffered many a sharp pang in brooding over it. lovely and attractive as marian was, the chances of an advantageous marriage were not many for her in such a place as lidford. it was natural, therefore, that captain sedgewick should welcome the advent of such a man as gilbert fenton--a man of good position and ample means; a thoroughly unaffected and agreeable fellow into the bargain, and quite handsome enough to win any woman's heart, the captain thought. he watched the two young people together, after the notion of this thing came into his mind, and about the sentiments of one of them he felt no shadow of doubt. he was not quite so clear about the feelings of the other. there was a perfect frankness and ease about marian that seemed scarcely compatible with the growth of that tender passion which generally reveals itself by a certain amount of reserve, and is more eloquent in silence than in speech. marian seemed always pleased to see gilbert, always interested in his society; but she did not seem more than this, and the captain was sorely perplexed. there was a dinner-party at lidford house during the second week of gilbert's acquaintance with these new friends, and captain sedgewick and his adopted niece were invited. "they are pleasant people to have at a dinner-party," mrs. lister said, when she discussed the invitation with her husband and brother; "so i suppose they may as well come,--though i don't want to encourage your folly, gilbert." "my folly, as you are kind enough to call it, is not dependent on your encouragement, belle." "then it is really a serious case, i suppose," said martin. "i really admire miss nowell--more than i ever admired any one before, if that is what you call a serious case, martin." "rather like it, i think," the other answered with a laugh. the dinner was a very quiet business--a couple of steady-going country gentlemen, with their wives and daughters, a son or two more or less dashing and sportsmanlike in style, the rector and his wife, captain sedgewick and miss nowell. gilbert had to take one of the portly matrons in to dinner, and found himself placed at some distance from miss nowell during the repast; but he was able to make up for this afterwards, when he slipped out of the dining-room some time before the rest of the gentlemen, and found marian seated at the piano, playing a dreamy reverie of goria's, while the other ladies were gathered in a little knot, discussing the last village scandal. he went over to the piano and stood by her while she played, looking fondly down at the graceful head, and the white hands gliding gently over the keys. he did not disturb her by much talk: it was quite enough happiness for him to stand there watching her as she played. later, when a couple of whist-tables had been established, and the brilliantly-lighted room had grown hot, these two sat together at one of the open windows, looking out at the moonlit lawn; one of them supremely happy, and yet with a kind of undefined sense that this supreme happiness was a dangerous thing--a thing that it would be wise to pluck out of his heart, and have done with. "my holiday is very nearly over, miss nowell," gilbert fenton said by and by. "i shall have to go back to london and the old commercial life, the letter-writing and interview-giving, and all that kind of thing." "your sister said you were very fond of the counting-house, mr. fenton," she answered lightly. "i daresay, if you would only confess the truth, you are heartily tired of the country, and will be delighted to resume your business life." "i should never be tired of lidford." "indeed! and yet it is generally considered such a dull place." "it has not been so to me. it will always be a shining spot in my memory, different and distinct from all other places." she looked up at him, wondering a little at his earnest tone, and their eyes met--his full of tenderness, hers only shy and surprised. it was not then that the words he had to speak could be spoken, and he let the conversation drift into a general discussion of the merits of town or country life. but he was determined that the words should be spoken very soon. he went to the cottage next day, between three and four upon a drowsy summer afternoon, and was so fortunate as to find marian sitting under one of the walnut-trees at the end of the garden reading a novel, with her faithful skye terrier in attendance. he seated himself on a low garden-chair by her side, and took the book gently from her hand. "i have come to spoil your afternoon's amusement," he said. "i have not many days more to spend in lidford, you know, and i want to make the most of a short time." "the book is not particularly interesting," miss nowell answered, laughing. "i'll go and tell my uncle you are here. he is taking an afternoon nap; but i know he'll be pleased to see you." "don't tell him just yet," said mr. fenton, detaining her. "i have something to say to you this afternoon,--something that it is wiser to say at once, perhaps, though i have been willing enough to put off the hour of saying it, as a man may well be when all his future life depends upon the issue of a few words. i think you must know what i mean, miss nowell. marian, i think you can guess what is coming. i told you last night how sweet lidford had been to me." "yes," she said, with a bright inquiring look in her eyes. "but what have i to do with that?" "everything. it is you who have made the little country village my paradise. o marian, tell me that it has not been a fool's paradise! my darling, i love you with all my heart and soul, with an honest man's first and only love. promise that you will be my wife." he took the hand that lay loosely on her lap, and pressed it in both his own. she withdrew it gently, and sat looking at him with a face that had grown suddenly pale. "you do not know what you are asking," she said; "you cannot know. captain sedgewick is not my uncle. he does not even know who my parents were. i am the most obscure creature in the world." "not one degree less dear to me because of that, marian; only the dearer. tell me, my darling, is there any hope for me?" "i never thought----" she faltered; "i had no idea----" "that to know you was to love you. my life and soul, i have loved you from the hour i first saw you in lidford church. i was a doomed man from that moment, marian. o my dearest, trust me, and it shall go hard if i do not make your future life a happy one. granted that i am ten years--more than ten years--your senior, that is a difference on the right side. i have fought the battle of life, and have conquered, and am strong enough to protect and shelter the woman i love. come, marian, i am waiting for a word of hope." "and do you really love me?" she asked wonderingly. "it seems so strange after so short a time." "i loved you from that first evening in the church, my dear." "i am very grateful to you," she said slowly, "and i am proud--i have reason to be proud--of your preference. but i have known you such a short time. i am afraid to give you any promise." "afraid of me, or of yourself, marian?" "of myself." "in what way?" "i am only a foolish frivolous girl. you offer me so much more than i deserve in offering me your love like this. i scarcely know if i have a heart to give to any one. i know that i have never loved anybody except my one friend and protector, my dear adopted uncle." "but you do not say that you cannot love me, marian. perhaps i have spoken too soon, after all. it seems to me that i have known you for a lifetime; but that is only a lover's fancy. i seem almost a stranger to you, perhaps?" "almost," she answered, looking at him with clear truthful eyes. "that is rather hard upon me, my dear. but i can wait. you do not know how patient i can be." he began to talk of indifferent subjects after this, a little depressed and disheartened by the course the interview had taken. he felt that he had been too precipitate. what was there in a fortnight's intimacy to justify such a step, except to himself, with whom time had been measured by a different standard since he had known marian nowell? he was angry with his own eagerness, which had brought upon him this semi-defeat. happily miss nowell had not told him that his case was hopeless, had not forbidden him to approach the subject again; nor had she exhibited any involuntary sign of aversion to him. surprise had appeared the chief sentiment caused by his revelation. surprise was natural to such girlish inexperience; and after surprise had passed away, more tender feelings might arise, a latent tenderness unsuspected hitherto. "i think a woman can scarcely help returning a man's love, if he is only as thoroughly in earnest as i am," gilbert fenton said to himself, as he sat under the walnut-trees trying to talk pleasantly, and to ignore the serious conversation which had preceded that careless talk. he saw the captain alone next day, and told him what had happened. george sedgewick listened to him with profound attention and a grave anxious face. "she didn't reject you?" he said, when gilbert had finished his story. "not in plain words. but there was not much to indicate hope. and yet i cling to the fancy that she will come to love me in the end. to think otherwise would be utter misery to me. i cannot tell you how dearly i love her, and how weak i am about this business. it seems contemptible for a man to talk about a broken heart; but i shall carry an empty one to my grave unless i win marian nowell for my wife." "you shall win her!" cried the captain energetically. "you are a noble fellow, sir, and will make her an excellent husband. she will not be so foolish as to reject such a disinterested affection. besides," he added, hesitating a little, "i have a very shrewd notion that all this apparent indifference is only shyness on my little girl's part, and that she loves you." "you believe that!" cried gilbert eagerly. "it is only guesswork on my part, of course. i am an old bachelor, you see, and have had very little experience as to the signs and tokens of the tender passion. but i will sound my little girl by and by. she will be more ready to confess the truth to her old uncle than she would to you, perhaps. i think you have been a trifle hasty about this affair. there is so much in time and custom." "it is only a cold kind of love that grows out of custom," gilbert answered gloomily. "but i daresay you are right, and that it would have been better for me to have waited." "you may hope everything, if you can only be patient," said the captain. "i tell you frankly, that nothing would make me happier than to see my dear child married to a good man. i have had many dreary thoughts about her future of late. i think you know that i have nothing to leave her." "i have never thought of that. if she were destined to inherit all the wealth of the rothschilds, she could be no dearer to me than she is." "ah, what a noble thing true love is! and do you know that she is not really my niece--only a poor waif that i adopted fourteen years ago?" "i have heard as much from her own lips. there is nothing, except some unworthiness in herself, that could make any change in my estimation of her." "unworthiness in herself! you need never fear that. but i must tell you marian's story before this business goes any farther. will you come and smoke your cigar with me to-night? she is going to drink tea at a neighbour's, and we shall be alone. they are all fond of her, poor child." "i shall be very happy to come. and in the meantime, you will try and ascertain the real state of her feelings without distressing her in any way; and you will tell me the truth with all frankness, even if it is to be a deathblow to all my hopes?" "even if it should be that. but i do not fear such a melancholy result. i think marian is sensible enough to know the value of an honest man's heart." gilbert quitted the captain in a more hopeful spirit than that in which he had gone to the cottage that day. it was only reasonable that this man should be the best judge of his niece's feelings. left alone, george sedgewick paced the room in a meditative mood, with his hands thrust deep into his trousers-pockets, and his gray head bent thoughtfully. "she must like him," he muttered to himself. "why should not she like him?--good-looking, generous, clever, prosperous, well-connected, and over head and ears in love with her. such a marriage is the very thing i have been praying for. and without such a marriage, what would be her fate when i am gone? a drudge and dependent in some middle-class family perhaps--tyrannised over and tormented by a brood of vulgar children." marian came in at the open window while he was still pacing to and fro with a disturbed countenance. "my dear uncle, what is the matter?" she asked, going up to him and laying a caressing hand upon his shoulder. "i know you never walk about like that unless you are worried by something." "i am not worried to-day, my love; only a little perplexed," answered the captain, detaining the caressing little hand, and planting himself face to face with his niece, in the full sunlight of the broad bow-window. "marian, i thought you and i had no secrets from each other?" "secrets, uncle george!" "yes, my dear. haven't you something pleasant to tell your old uncle--something that a girl generally likes telling? you had a visitor yesterday afternoon while i was asleep." "mr. fenton." "mr. fenton. he has been here with me just now; and i know that he asked you to be his wife." "he did, uncle george." "and you didn't refuse him, marian?" "not positively, uncle george. he took me so much by surprise, you see; and i really don't know how to refuse any one; but i think i ought to have made him understand more clearly that i meant no." "but why, my dear?" "because i am sure i don't care about him as much as i ought to care. i like him very well, you know, and think him clever and agreeable, and all that kind of thing." "that will soon grow into a warmer feeling, marian; at least i trust in god that it will do so." "why, dear uncle?" "because i have set my heart upon this marriage. o marian, my love, i have never ventured to speak to you about your future--the days that must come when i am dead and gone; and you can never know how many anxious hours i have spent thinking of it. such a marriage as this would secure you happiness and prosperity in the years to come." she clung about him fondly, telling him she cared little what might become of her life when he should be lost to her. _that_ grief must needs be the crowning sorrow of her existence; and it would matter nothing to her what might come afterwards. "but my dear love, 'afterwards' will make the greater part of your life. we must consider these things seriously, marian. a good man's affection is not to be thrown away rashly. you have known mr. fenton a very short time; and perhaps it is only natural you should think of him with comparative indifference." "i did not say i was indifferent to him, uncle george; only that i do not love him as he seems to love me. it would be a kind of sin to accept so much and to give so little." "the love will come, marian; i am sure that it will come." she shook her head playfully. "what a darling match-making uncle it is!" she said, and then kissed him and ran away. she thought of gilbert fenton a good deal during the rest of that day; thought that it was a pleasant thing to be loved so truly, and hoped that she might always have him for her friend. when she went out to drink tea in the evening his image went with her; and she found herself making involuntary comparisons between a specimen of provincial youth whom she encountered at her friend's house and mr. fenton, very much to the advantage of the australian merchant. while marian nowell was away at this little social gathering, captain sedgewick and gilbert fenton sat under the walnut-trees smoking their cigars, with a bottle of claret on a little iron table before them. "when i came back from india fourteen years ago on the sick-list," began the captain, "i went down to brighton, a place i had been fond of in my young days, to recruit. it was in the early spring, quite out of the fashionable season, and the town was very empty. my lodgings were in a dull street at the extreme east, leading away from the sea, but within sight and sound of it. the solitude and quiet of the place suited me; and i used to walk up and down the cliff in the dusk of evening enjoying the perfect loneliness of the scene. the house i lived in was a comfortable one, kept by an elderly widow who was a pattern of neatness and propriety. there were no children; for some time no other lodgers; and the place was as quiet as the grave. all this suited me very well. i wanted rest, and i was getting it. "i had been at brighton about a month, when the drawing-room floor over my head was taken by a lady, and her little girl of about five years old. i used to hear the child's feet pattering about the room; but she was not a noisy child by any means; and when i did happen to hear her voice, it had a very pleasant sound to me. the lady was an invalid, and was a good deal of trouble, my landlady took occasion to tell me, as she had no maid of her own. her name was nowell. "soon after this i encountered her on the cliff one afternoon with her little girl. the child and i had met once or twice before in the hall; and her recognition of me led to a little friendly talk between me and the mother. she was a fragile delicate-looking woman, who had once been very pretty, but whose beauty had for the most part been worn away, either by ill-health or trouble. she was very young, five-and-twenty at the utmost. she told me that the little girl was her only child, and that her husband was away from england, but that she expected his return before long. "after this we met almost every afternoon; and i began to look out for these meetings, and our quiet talk upon the solitary cliff, as the pleasantest part of my day. there was a winning grace about this mrs. nowell's manner that i had never seen in any other woman; and i grew to be more interested in her than i cared to confess to myself. it matters little now; and i may freely own how weak i was in those days. "i could see that she was very ill, and i did not need the ominous hints of the landlady, who had contrived to question mrs. nowell's doctor, to inspire me with the dread that she might never recover. i thought of her a great deal, and watched the fading light in her eyes, and listened to the weakening tones of her voice, with a sense of trouble that seemed utterly disproportionate to the occasion. i will not say that i loved her; neither the fact that she was another man's wife, nor the fact that she was soon to die, was ever absent from my mind when i thought of her. i will only say that she was more to me than any woman had ever been before, or has ever been since. it was the one sentimental episode of my life, and a very brief one. "the weeks went by, and her husband did not come. i think the trouble and anxiety caused by his delay did a good deal towards hastening the inevitable end; but she bore her grief very quietly, and never uttered a complaint of him in my hearing. she paid her way regularly enough for a considerable time, and then all at once broke down, and confessed to the landlady that she had not a shilling more in the world. the woman was a hard creature, and told her that if that was the case, she must find some other lodgings, and immediately. i heard this, not from mrs. nowell, but from the landlady, who seemed to consider her conduct thoroughly justified by the highest code of morals. she was a lone unprotected woman, and how was she to pay her rent and taxes if her best floor was occupied by a non-paying tenant? "i was by no means a rich man; but i could not endure to think of that helpless dying creature thrust out into the streets; and i told my landlady that i would be answerable for mrs. nowell's rent, and for the daily expenses incurred on her behalf. mr. nowell would in all probability appear in good time to relieve me from the responsibility, but in the mean while that poor soul upstairs was not to be distressed. i begged that she might know nothing of this undertaking on my part. "it was not long after this when our daily meetings on the cliff came to an end. mild as the weather was by this time, mrs. nowell's doctor had forbidden her going out any longer. i knew that she had no maid to send out with the child, so i sent the servant up to ask her if she would trust the little one for a daily walk with me. this she was very pleased to do, and marian became my dear little companion every afternoon. she had taken to me, as the phrase goes, from the very first. she was the gentlest, most engaging child i had ever met with--a little grave for her years, and tenderly thoughtful of others. "one evening mrs. nowell sent for me. i went up to the drawing-room immediately, and found her sitting in an easy-chair propped up by pillows, and very much changed for the worse since i had seen her last. she told me that she had discovered the secret of my goodness to her, as she called it, from the landlady, and that she had sent for me to thank me. "'i can give you nothing but thanks and blessings,' she said, 'for i am the most helpless creature in this world. i suppose my husband will come here before i die, and will relieve you from the risk you have taken for me; but he can never repay you for your goodness.' "i told her to give herself no trouble on my account; but i could not help saying, that i thought her husband had behaved shamefully in not coming to england to her long ere this. "'he knows that you are ill, i suppose?' i said. "'o yes, he knows that. i was ill when he sent me home. we had been travelling about the continent almost ever since our marriage. he married me against his father's will, and lost all chance of a great fortune by doing so. i did not know how much he sacrificed at the time, or i should never have consented to his losing so much for my sake. i think the knowledge of what he had lost came between us very soon. i know that his love for me has grown weaker as the years went by, and that i have been little better than a burden to him. i could never tell you how lonely my life has been in those great foreign cities, where there seems such perpetual gaiety and pleasure. i think i must have died of the solitude and dulness--the long dreary summer evenings, the dismal winter days--if it had not been for my darling child. she has been all the world to me. and, o god!' she cried, with a look of anguish that went to my heart, 'what will become of her when i am dead, and she is left to the care of a selfish dissipated man?' "'you need never fear that she will be without one friend while i live,' i said. 'little marian is very dear to me, and i shall make it my business to watch over her career as well as i can.' "the poor soul clasped my hand, and pressed her feverish lips to it in a transport of gratitude. what a brute a man must have been who could neglect such a woman! "after this i went up to her room every evening, and read to her a little, and cheered her as well as i could; but i believe her heart was broken. the end came very suddenly at last. i had intended to question her about her husband's family; but the subject was a difficult one to approach, and i had put it off from day to day, hoping that she might rally a little, and would be in a better condition to discuss business matters. "she never did rally. i was with her when she died, and her last act was to draw her child towards her with her feeble arms and lay my hand upon the little one's head, looking up at me with sorrowful pleading eyes. she was quite speechless then, but i knew what the look meant, and answered it. "'to the end of my life, my dear,' i said, 'i shall love and cherish her--to the end of my life.' "after this the child fell asleep in my arms as i sat by the bedside sharing the long melancholy watch with the landlady, who behaved very well at this sorrowful time. we sat in the quiet room all night, the little one wrapped in a shawl and nestled upon my breast. in the early summer morning lucy nowell died, very peacefully; and i carried marian down to the sofa in the parlour, and laid her there still asleep. she cried piteously for her mother when she awoke, and i had to tell her that which it is so hard to tell a child. "i wrote to mr. nowell at an address in brussels which i found at the top of his last letter to his wife. no answer came. i wrote again, after a little while, with the same result; and, in the mean time, the child had grown fonder of me and dearer to me every day. i had hired a nursemaid for her, and had taken an upper room for her nursery; but she spent the greater part of her life with me, and i began to fancy that providence intended i should keep her with me for the rest of her days. she told me, in her innocent childish way, that papa had never loved her as her mamma did. he had been always out of doors till very, very late at night. she had crept from her little bed sometimes when it was morning, quite light, and had found mamma in the sitting-room, with no fire, and the candles all burnt out, waiting for papa to come home. "i put an advertisement, addressed to mr. percival nowell, in the _times_ and in _galignani_, for i felt that the child's future might depend upon her father's acknowledgment of her in the present; but no reply came to these advertisements, and i settled in my own mind that this nowell was a scoundrel, who had deliberately deserted his wife and child. "the possessions of the poor creature who was gone were of no great value. there were some rather handsome clothes and a small collection of jewelry--some of it modern, the rest curious and old-fashioned. these latter articles i kept religiously, believing them to be family relics. the clothes and the modern trinkets i caused to be sold, and the small sum realised for them barely paid the expense of the funeral and grave. the arrears of rent and all other arrears fell upon me. i paid them, and then left brighton with the child and nurse. i was born not twenty miles from this place, and i had a fancy for ending my days in my native county; so i came down to this part of the world, and looked about me a little, living in farm-house lodgings here and there, until i found this cottage to let one day, and decided upon settling at lidford. and now you know the whole story of marian's adoption, mr. fenton. how happy we have been together, or what she has been to me since that time, i could never tell you." "the story does you credit, sir; and i honour you for your goodness," said gilbert fenton. "goodness, pshaw!" cried the captain, impetuously; "it has been a mere matter of self-indulgence on my part. the child made herself necessary to me from the very first. i was a solitary man, a confirmed bachelor, with every prospect of becoming a hard, selfish old fogey. marian nowell has been the sunshine of my life!" "you never made any farther discoveries about mr. nowell?" "never. i have sometimes thought, that i ought to have made some stronger efforts to place myself in communication with him. i have thought this, especially when brooding upon the uncertainties of my darling's future. from the little mrs. nowell told me about her marriage, i had reason to believe her husband's father must have been a rich man. he might have softened towards his grandchild, in spite of his disapproval of the marriage. i sometimes think i ought to have sought out the grandfather. but, you see, it would have been uncommonly difficult to set about this, in my complete ignorance as to who or what he was." "very difficult. and if you had found him, the chances are that he would have set his face against the child. marian nowell will have no need to supplicate for protection from an indifferent father or a hard-hearted grandfather, if she will be my wife. "heaven grant that she may love you as you deserve to be loved by her!" captain sedgewick answered heartily. he thought it would be the best thing that could happen to his darling to become this young man's wife, and he had a notion that a simple, inexperienced girl could scarcely help responding to the hopes of such a lover. to his mind gilbert fenton seemed eminently adapted to win a woman's heart. he forgot the fatality that belongs to these things, and that a man may have every good gift, and yet just miss the magic power to touch one woman's heart. chapter iii. accepted. mr. fenton lingered another week at lidford, with imminent peril to the safe conduct of affairs at his offices in great st. helens. he could not tear himself away just yet. he felt that he must have some more definite understanding of his position before he went back to london; and in the meantime he pondered with a dangerous delight upon that sunny vision of a suburban villa to which marian should welcome him when his day's work was done. he went every day to the cottage, and he bore himself in no manner like a rejected lover. he was indeed very hopeful as to the issue of his wooing. he knew that marian nowell's heart was free, that there was no rival image to be displaced before his own could reign there, and he thought that it must go hard with him if he did not win her love. so marian saw him every day, and had to listen to the captain's praises of him pretty frequently during his absence. and captain sedgewick's talk about gilbert fenton generally closed with a regretful sigh, the meaning of which had grown very clear to marian. she thought about her uncle's words and looks and sighs a good deal in the quiet of her own room. what was there she would not do for the love of that dearest and noblest of men? marry a man she disliked? no, that was a sin from which the girl's pure mind would have recoiled instinctively. but she did like gilbert fenton--loved him perhaps--though she had never confessed as much to herself. this calm friendship might really be love after all; not quite such love as she had read of in novels and poems, where the passion was always rendered desperate by the opposing influence of adverse circumstances and unkind kindred; but a tranquil sentiment, a dull, slow, smouldering fire, that needed only some sudden wind of jealousy or misfortune to fan it into a flame. she knew that his society was pleasant to her, that she would miss him very much when he left lidford; and when she tried to fancy him reconciled to her rejection of him, and returning to london to transfer his affections to some other woman, the thought was very obnoxious to her. he had not flattered her, he had been in no way slavish in his attentions to her; but he had surrounded her with a kind of atmosphere of love and admiration, the charm of which no girl thus beloved for the first time in her life could be quite proof against. thus the story ended, as romances so begun generally do end. there came a summer twilight, when gilbert fenton found himself once more upon the dewy lawn under the walnut-trees alone with marian nowell. he repeated his appeal in warmer, fonder tones than before, and with a kind of implied certainty that the answer must be a favourable one. it was something like taking the fortress by storm. he had his arm round her slim waist, his lips upon her brow, before she had time to consider what her answer ought to be. "my darling, i cannot live without you!" he said, in a low passionate voice. "tell me that you love me." she disengaged herself gently from his embrace, and stood a little way from him, with shy, downcast eyelids. "i think i do," she said slowly. "that is quite enough, marian!" cried gilbert, joyously. "i knew you were destined to be my wife." he drew her hand through his arm and took her back to the house, where the captain was sitting in his favourite arm-chair by the window, with a reading lamp on the little table by his side, and the _times_ newspaper in his hand. "your niece has brought you a nephew, sir," said gilbert. the captain threw aside his paper, and stretched out both his hands to the young man. "my dear boy, i cannot tell you how happy this makes me!" he cried. "didn't i promise you that all would go well if you were patient? my little girl is wise enough to know the value of a good man's love." "i am very grateful, uncle george," faltered marian, taking shelter behind the captain's chair; "only i don't feel that i am worthy of so much thought." "nonsense, child; not worthy! you are the best girl in christendom, and will make the brightest and truest wife that ever made a man's home dear to him." the evening went on very happily after that: marian at the piano, playing plaintive dreamy melodies with a tender expressive touch; gilbert sitting close at hand, watching the face he loved so dearly--an evening in paradise, as it seemed to mr. fenton. he went homewards in the moonlight a little before eleven o'clock, thinking of his new happiness--such perfect happiness, without a cloud. the bright suburban villa was no longer an airy castle, perhaps never to be realized; it was a delightful certainty. he began to speculate as to the number of months that must needs pass before he could make marian his wife. there was no reason for delay. he was well-off, his own master, and it was only her will that could hinder the speedy realization of that sweet domestic dream which had haunted him lately. he told his sister what had happened next morning, when martin lister had left the breakfast table to hold audience with his farm bailiff, and those two were together alone. he was a little tired of having his visits to the cottage criticised in mrs. lister's somewhat supercilious manner, and was very glad to be able to announce that marian nowell was to be his wife. "well, gilbert," exclaimed the matron, after receiving his tidings with tightly-closed lips and a generally antagonistic demeanour, "i can only say, that if you must marry at all--and i am sure i thought you had quite settled down as a bachelor, with your excellent lodgings in wigmore street, and every possible comfort in life--i think you might have chosen much better than this. of course, i don't want to be rude or unpleasant; but i cannot help saying, that i consider any man a fool who allows himself to be captivated by a pretty face." "i have found a great deal more than a pretty face to admire in marian nowell." "indeed! can you name any other advantages which she possesses?" "amiability, good sense, and a pure and refined nature." "what warrant have you for all those things? mind, gilbert, i like the girl well enough; i have nothing to say against her; but i cannot help thinking it a most unfortunate match for you." "how unfortunate?" "the girl's position is so very doubtful." "position!" echoed gilbert impatiently. "that sort of talk is one of the consequences of living in such a place as lidford. you talk about position, as if i were a prince of the blood-royal, whose marriage would be registered in every almanac in the kingdom." "if she were really the captain's niece, it would be a different thing," harped mrs. lister, without noticing this contemptuous interruption; "but to marry a girl about whose relations nobody knows anything! i suppose even you have not been told who her father and mother were." "i know quite enough about them. captain sedgewick has been candour itself upon the subject." "and are the father and mother both dead?" "miss nowell's mother has been dead many years." "and her father?" "captain sedgewick does not know whether he is dead or living." "ah!" exclaimed mrs. lister with a profound sigh; "i should have thought as much. and you are really going to marry a girl with this disreputable mystery about her belongings?" "there is nothing either disreputable or mysterious. people are sometimes lost sight of in this world. mr. nowell was a bad husband and an indifferent father, and captain sedgewick adopted his daughter; that is all." "and no doubt, after you are married, this mr. nowell will make his appearance some day, and be a burden upon you." "i am not afraid of that. and now, belle, as this is a subject upon which we don't seem very likely to agree, i think we had better drop it. i considered it only right to tell you of my engagement." on this his sister softened a little, and promised gilbert that she would do her best to be kind to miss nowell. "you won't be married for some time to come, of course," she said. "i don't know about that, belle. there is nothing to prevent a speedy marriage." "o, surely you will wait a twelvemonth, at least. you have known marian nowell such a short time. you ought to put her to the test in some manner before you make her your wife." "i have no occasion to put her to any kind of test. i have a most profound and perfect belief in her goodness." "why, gilbert, this is utter infatuation--about a girl whom you have only known a little more than three weeks!" it does seem difficult for a matter-of-fact, reasonable matron, whose romantic experiences are things of the remote past, to understand this sudden trust in, and all-absorbing love for, an acquaintance of a brief summer holiday. but gilbert fenton believed implicitly in his own instinct, and was not to be shaken. he went back to town by the afternoon express that day, for he dared not delay his return any longer. he went back regretfully enough to the dryasdust business life, after spending the greater part of the morning under the walnut-trees in captain sedgewick's garden, playing with fritz the skye terrier, and talking airy nonsense to marian, while she sat in a garden-chair hemming silk handkerchiefs for her uncle, and looking distractingly pretty in a print morning dress with tiny pink rosebuds on a white ground, and a knot of pink ribbon fastening the dainty collar. he ventured to talk a little about the future too; painting, with all the enthusiasm of claude melnotte, and a great deal more sincerity, the home which he meant to create for her. "you will have to come to town to choose our house, you know, marian," he said, after a glowing description of such a villa as never yet existed, except in the florid imagination of an auctioneer; "i could never venture upon such an important step without you: apart from all sentimental considerations, a woman's judgment is indispensable in these matters. the house might be perfection in every other point, and there might be no boiler, or no butler's pantry, or no cupboard for brooms on the landing, or some irremediable omission of that kind. yes, marian, your uncle must bring you to town for a week or so of house-hunting, and soon." she looked at him with a startled expression. "soon!" she repeated. "yes, dear, very soon. there is nothing in the world to hinder our marriage. why should we delay longer than to make all necessary arrangements? i long so for my new home, marian, i have never had a home in my life since i was a boy." "o mr. fenton--gilbert,"--she pronounced his christian name shyly, and in obedience to his reproachful look,--"remember how short a time we have known each other. it is much too soon to talk or think of marriage yet. i want you to have plenty of leisure to consider whether you really care for me, whether it isn't only a fancy that will die out when you go back to london. and we ought to have time to know each other very well, gilbert, to be quite sure we are suited to one another." this seemed an echo of his sister's reasoning, and vexed him a little. "have _you_ any fear that we shall not suit each other, marian?" he asked anxiously. "i know that you are only too good for me," she answered. upon which gilbert hindered the hemming of the captain's handkerchiefs by stooping down to kiss the little hands at work upon them. and then the talk drifted back to easier subjects, and he did not again press that question as to the date of the marriage. at last the time came for going to the station. he had arranged for mr. lister's gig to call for him at the cottage, so that he might spend every possible moment with marian. and at three o'clock the gig appeared, driven by martin lister himself, and gilbert was fain to say good-bye. his last lingering backward glance showed him the white figure under the walnut-trees, and a little hand waving farewell. how empty and dreary his comfortable bachelor lodgings seemed to him that night when he had dined, and sat by the open window smoking his solitary cigar, listening to the dismal street-noises, and the monotonous roll of ceaseless wheels yonder in oxford-street; not caring to go out to his club, caring still less for opera or theatre, or any of the old ways whereby he had been wont to dispose of his evenings! his mind was full of marian nowell. all that was grave and earnest in his nature gave force to this his first love. he had had flirtations in the past, of course; but they had been no more than flirtations, and at thirty his heart was as fresh and inexperienced as a boy's. it pleased him to think of marian's lonely position. better, a hundred times better, that she should be thus, than fettered by ties which might come between them and perfect union. the faithful and generous protector of her childhood would of necessity always claim her love; but beyond this one affection, she would be gilbert's, and gilbert's only. there would be no mother, no sisters, to absorb her time and distract her thoughts from her husband, perhaps prejudice her against him. domestic life for those two must needs be free from all the petty jars, the overshadowing clouds no bigger than a man's hand, forerunners of tempest, which mr. fenton had heard of in many households. he was never weary of thinking about that life which was to be. everything else he thought of was now considered only in relation to that one subject. he applied himself to business with a new ardour; never before had he been so anxious to grow rich. chapter iv. john saltram. the offices of fenton and co. in great st. helens were handsome, prosperous-looking premises, consisting of two large outer rooms, where half-a-dozen indefatigable clerks sat upon high stools before ponderous mahogany desks, and wrote industriously all day long; and an inner and smaller apartment, where there was a faded turkey-carpet instead of the kamptulicon that covered the floor of the outer offices, a couple of capacious, red-morocco-covered arm-chairs, and a desk of substantial and somewhat legal design, on which gilbert fenton was wont to write the more important letters of the house. in all the offices there were iron safes, which gave one a notion of limitless wealth stored away in the shape of bonds and bills, if not actual gold and bank-notes; and upon all the walls there were coloured and uncoloured engravings of ships framed and glazed, and catalogues of merchandise that had been sold, or was to be sold, hanging loosely one on the other. besides these, there were a great many of those flimsy papers that record the state of things on 'change, hanging here and there on the brass rails of the desks, from little hooks in the walls, and in any other available spot. and in all the premises there was an air of business and prosperity, which seemed to denote that fenton and co. were travelling at a rapid pace on the high-road to fortune. gilbert fenton sat in the inner office at noon one day about a week after his return from lidford. he had come to business early that morning, had initialed a good many accounts, and written half-a-dozen letters already, and had thrown himself back in his easy-chair for a few minutes' idle musing--musing upon that one sweet dream of his new existence, of course. from whatever point his thoughts started, they always drifted into that channel. while he was sitting like this, with his hands in his pockets and his chair tilted upon its hind legs, the half-glass door opened, and a gentleman came into the office--a man a little over middle height, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built, with a naturally dark complexion, which had been tanned still darker by sun and wind, black eyes and heavy black eyebrows, a head a little bald at the top, and a face that might have been called almost ugly but for the look of intellectual power in the broad open forehead and the perfect modelling of the flexible sensitive mouth; a remarkable face altogether, not easily to be forgotten by those who had once looked upon it. this man was john saltram, the one intimate and chosen friend of gilbert fenton's youth and manhood. they had met first at oxford, and had seldom lost sight of each other since the old university days. they had travelled a good deal together during the one idle year that had preceded gilbert's sudden plunge into commerce. they had been up the nile together in the course of these wanderings; and here, remote from all civilized aid, gilbert had fallen ill of a fever--a long tedious business which brought him to the very point of death, and throughout which john saltram had nursed him with a womanly tenderness and devotion that knew no abatement. if this had been wanting to strengthen the tie between them--which it was not--it would have brought them closer together. as it was, that dreary time of sickness and peril was only a memory which gilbert fenton kept in his heart of hearts, never to grow less sacred to him until the end of life. mr. saltram was a barrister, almost a briefless one at present, for his habits were desultory, not to say idle, and he had not taken very kindly to the slow drudgery of the bar. he had some money of his own, and added to his income by writing for the press in a powerful trenchant manner, with a style that was like the stroke of a sledge-hammer. in spite of this literary work, for which he got very well paid, mr. saltram generally contrived to be in debt; and there were few periods of his life in which he was not engaged more or less in the delicate operation of raising money by bills of accommodation. habit had given him quite an artistic touch for this kind of thing, and he did his work fondly, like some enthusiastic horticulturist who gives his anxious days to the budding forth of some new orchid or the production of a hitherto unobtainable tulip. it is doubtful whether money procured from any other source was ever half so sweet to this gentleman as the cash for which he paid sixty per cent to the jews. with these proclivities he managed to rub on from year to year somehow, getting about five hundred per annum in solid value out of an income of seven, and adding a little annually to the rolling mass of debt which he had begun to accumulate while he was at balliol. "why, jack," cried gilbert, starting up from his reverie at the entrance of his friend, and greeting him with a hearty handshaking, "this is an agreeable surprise! i was asking for you at the pnyx last night, and joe hawdon told me you were away--up the danube he thought, on a canoe expedition." "it is only under some utterly impossible dispensation that joseph hawdon will ever be right about anything. i have been on a walking expedition in brittany, dear boy, alone, and have found myself very bad company. i started soon after you went to your sister's, and only came back last night. that scoundrel levison promised me seventy-five this afternoon; but whether i shall get it out of him is a fact only known to himself and the powers with which he holds communion. and was the rustic business pleasant, gil? did you take kindly to the syllabubs and new milk, the summer sunrise over dewy fields, the pretty dairy-maids, and prize pigs, and daily inspections of the home-farm? or did you find life rather dull down at lidford? i know the place well enough, and all the country round about there. i have stayed at heatherly with sir david forster more than once for the shooting season. a pleasant fellow forster, in a dissipated good-for-nothing kind of way, always up to his eyes in debt. did you happen to meet him while you were down there?" "no, i don't think the listers know him." "so much the better for them! it is a vice to know him. and you were not dull at lidford?" "very far from it, jack. i was happier there than i have ever been in my life before." "eh, gil!" cried john saltram; "that means something more than a quiet fortnight with a married sister. come, old fellow, i have a vested right to a share in all your secrets." "there is no secret, jack. yes, i have fallen in love, if that's what you mean, and am engaged." "so soon! that's rather quick work, isn't it, dear boy?" "i don't think so. what is that the poet says?--'if not an adam at his birth, he is no love at all.' my passion sprang into life full-grown after an hour's contemplation of a beautiful face in lidford church." "who is the lady?" "o, her position is not worth speaking of. she is the adopted niece of a half-pay captain--an orphan, without money or connections." "humph!" muttered john saltram with the privileged candour of friendship; "not a very advantageous match for you, gilbert, from a worldly point of view." "i have not considered the matter from that point of view." "and the lady is all that is charming, of course?" "to my mind, yes." "very young?" "nineteen." "well, dear old follow, i wish you joy with all heartiness. you can afford to marry whom you please, and are very right to let inclination and not interest govern your choice. whenever i tie myself in the bondage of matrimony, it will be to a lady who can pay my debts and set me on my legs for life. whether such a one will ever consider my ugly face a fair equivalent for her specie, is an open question. you must introduce me to your future wife, gilbert, on the first opportunity. i shall be very anxious to discover whether your marriage will be likely to put an end to our friendship." "there is no fear of that, jack. that is a contingency never to arise. i have told marian a great deal about you already. she knows that i owe my life to you, and she is prepared to value you as much as i do." "she is very good; but all wives promise that kind of thing before marriage. and there is apt to come a day when the familiar bachelor friend falls under the domestic taboo, together with smoking in the drawing-room, brandy-and-soda, and other luxuries of the old, easy-going, single life." "marian is not very likely to prove a domestic tyrant. she is the gentlest dearest girl, and is very well used to bachelor habits in the person of her uncle. i don't believe she will ever extinguish our cigars, jack, even in the drawing-room. i look forward to the happiest home that ever a man possessed; and it would be no home of mine if you were not welcome and honoured in it. i hope we shall spend many a summer evening on the lawn, jack, with a bottle of pomard or st. julien between us, watching the drowsy old anglers in their punts, and the swift outriggers flashing past in the twilight. i mean to find some snug little place by the river, you know, saltram--somewhere about teddington, where the gardens slope down to the water's edge." "very pleasant! and you will make an admirable family man, gil. you have none of the faults that render me ineligible for the married state. i think your marian is a very fortunate girl. what is her surname, by the way?" "nowell." "marian nowell--a very pretty name! when do you think of going back to lidford?" "in about a month. my brother-in-law wants me to go back to them for the st of september." "then i think i shall run down to forster's, and have a pop at the pheasants. it will give me an opportunity of being presented to miss nowell." "i shall be very pleased to introduce you, old fellow. i know that you will admire her." "well, i am not a very warm admirer of the sex in general; but i am sure to like your future wife, gil, if it is only because you have chosen her." "and your own affairs, jack--how have they been going on?" "not very brightly. i am not a lucky individual, you know. destiny and i have been at odds ever since i was a schoolboy." "not in love yet, john?" "no," the other answered, with rather a gloomy look. he was sitting on a corner of the ponderous desk in a lounging attitude, gazing meditatively at his boots, and hitting one of them now and then with a cane he carried, in a restless kind of way. "you see, the fact of the matter is, gil," he began at last, "as i told you just now, if ever i do marry, mercenary considerations are likely to be at the bottom of the business. i don't mean to say that i would marry a woman i disliked, and take it out of her in ill-usage or neglect. i am not quite such a scoundrel as that. but if i had the luck to meet with a woman i _could_ like, tolerably pretty and agreeable, and all that kind of thing, and weak enough to care for me--a woman with a handsome fortune--i should be a fool not to snap at such a chance." "i see," exclaimed gilbert, "you have met with such a woman." "i have." again the gloomy look came over the dark strongly-marked face, the thick black eyebrows contracted in a frown, and the cane was struck impatiently against john saltram's boot. "but you are not in love with her; i see that in your face, jack. you'll think me a sentimental fool, i daresay, and fancy i look at things in a new light now that i'm down a pit myself; but, for god's sake, don't marry a woman you can't love. tolerably pretty and agreeable won't do, jack,--that means indifference on your part; and, depend upon it, when a man and woman are tied together for life, there is only a short step from indifference to dislike." "no, gilbert, it's not that," answered the other, still moodily contemplative of his boots. "i really like the lady well enough--love her, i daresay. i have not had much experience of the tender passion since i was jilted by an oxford barmaid--whom i would have married, by jove. but the truth is, the lady in question isn't free to marry just yet. there's a husband in the case--a feeble old anglo-indian, who can't live very long. don't look so glum, old fellow; there has been nothing wrong, not a word that all the world might not hear; but there are signs and tokens by which a man, without any vanity--and heaven knows i have no justification for that--may be sure a woman likes him. in short, i believe that if adela branston were a widow, the course would lie clear before me, and i should have nothing to do but go in and win. and the stakes will be worth winning, i assure you." "but this mr. branston may live for an indefinite number of years, during which you will be wasting your life on a shadow." "not very likely. poor old branston came home from calcutta a confirmed invalid, and i believe his sentence has been pronounced by all the doctors. in the mean time he makes the best of life, has his good days and bad days, and entertains a great deal of company at a delightful place near maidenhead--with a garden sloping to the river like that you were talking of just now, only on a very extensive scale. you know how often i have wanted you to run down there with me, and how there has been always something to prevent your going." "yes, i remember. rely upon it, i shall contrive to accept the next invitation, come what may. but i can't say i like the idea of this prospective kind of courtship, or that i consider it quite worthy of you, saltram." "my dear gilbert, when a fellow is burdened with debt and of a naturally idle disposition, he is apt to take rather a liberal view of such means of advancement in life as may present themselves to him. but there is no prospective courtship--nothing at all resembling a courtship in this case, believe me. mrs. branston knows that i like and admire her. she knows as much of almost every man who goes to rivercombe; for there are plenty who will be disposed to go in against me for the prize by-and-by. but i think that she likes me better than any one else, and that the chances will be all in my favour. from first to last there has not been a word spoken between us which old branston himself might not hear. as to adela's marrying again when he is gone, he could scarcely be so fatuous as not to foresee the probability of that." "is she pretty?" "very pretty, in rather a childish way, with blue eyes and fair hair. she is not my ideal among women, but no man ever marries his ideal. the man who has sworn by eyes as black as a stormy midnight and raven hair generally unites himself to the most insipid thing in blondes, and the idolater of golden locks takes to wife some frizzy-haired west indian with an unmistakable dip of the tar-brush. when will you go down to rivercombe?" "whenever you like." "the nabob is hospitality itself, and will be delighted to see you if he is to the fore when you go. i fancy there is some kind of regatta--a race or two, at any rate--on saturday afternoon. will that suit you?" "very well indeed." "then we can meet at the station. there is a train down at . . but we are going to see something of each other in the meantime, i hope. i know that i am a sore hindrance to business at such an hour as this. will you dine with me at the pnyx at seven to-night? i shall be able to tell you how i got on with levison." "with pleasure." and so they parted--gilbert fenton to return to his letter-writing, and to the reception of callers of a more commercial and profitable character; john saltram to loiter slowly through the streets on his way to the money-lender's office. they dined together very pleasantly that evening. mr. levison had proved accommodating for the nonce; and john saltram was in high spirits, almost boisterously gay, with the gaiety of a man for whom life is made up of swift transitions from brightness to gloom, long intervals of despondency, and brief glimpses of pleasure; the reckless humour of a man with whom thought always meant care, and whose soul had no higher aspiration than to beguile the march of time by such evenings as these. they met on the following saturday at the great western terminus, john saltram still in high spirits, and gilbert fenton quietly happy. that morning's post had brought him his first letter from marian--an innocent girlish epistle, which was as delicious to gilbert as if it had been the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of a sevigné. what could she say to him? very little. the letter was full of gratitude for his thoughtfulness about her, for the pretty tributes of his love which he had sent her, the books and music and ribbons and gloves, in the purchase whereof he had found such a novel pleasure. it had been a common thing for him to execute such commissions for his sister; but it was quite a new sensation to him to discuss the colours of gloves and ribbons, now that the trifles he chose were to give pleasure to marian nowell. he knew every tint that harmonised or contrasted best with that clear olive complexion--the brilliant blue that gave new brightness to the sparkling grey eyes, the pink that cast warm lights upon the firmly-moulded throat and chin--and he found a childish delight in these trivialities. there was one ribbon he selected for her at this time which he had strange reason to remember in the days to come--a narrow blue ribbon, with tiny pink rosebuds upon it, a daring mixture of the two colours. he had the letter in the breast-pocket of his coat when he met john saltram at the station, and entertained that gentleman with certain passages from it as they sped down to maidenhead. to which passages mr. saltram listened kindly, with a very vague notion of the writer. "i am afraid she is rather a namby-pamby person," he thought, "with nothing but her beauty to recommend her. that wonderful gift of beauty has such power to bewitch the most sensible man upon occasion." they chartered a fly at maidenhead, and drove about a mile and a half along a pleasant road before they came to the gates of rivercombe--a low straggling house with verandahs, over which trailed a wealth of flowering creepers, and innumerable windows opening to the ground. the gardens were perfection, not gardens of yesterday, with only the prim splendours of modern horticulture to recommend them, but spreading lawns, on which the deep springy turf had been growing a hundred years--lawns made delicious in summer time by the cool umbrage of old forest-trees; fertile rose-gardens screened from the biting of adverse winds by tall hedges of holly and yew, the angles whereof were embellished by vases and peacocks quaintly cut in the style of a bygone age; and for chief glory of all, the bright blue river, which made the principal boundary of the place, washing the edge of the wide sloping lawn, and making perpetual music on a summer day with its joyous ripple. there was a good deal of company already scattered about the lawn when john saltram and his friend were ushered into the pretty drawing-room. the cheerful sound of croquet-balls came from a level stretch of grass visible from the windows, and quite a little fleet of boats were jostling one another at the landing by the swiss boat-house. mrs. branston came in from the garden to welcome them, looking very pretty in a coquettish little white-chip hat with a scarlet feather, and a pale-gray silk dress looped up over an elaborately-flounced muslin petticoat. she was a slender little woman, with a brilliant complexion, sunny waving hair, and innocent blue eyes; the sort of woman whom a man would wish to shelter from all the storms of life, but whom he might scarcely care to choose for the companion of a perilous voyage. she professed herself very much pleased to see gilbert fenton. "i have heard so much of you from mr. saltram," she said. "he is always praising you. i believe he cares more for you than anyone else in the world." "i have not many people to care for," answered john saltram, "and gilbert is a friend of long standing." a sentimental expression came over mrs. branston's girlish face, and she gave a little regretful sigh. "i am sorry you will not see my husband to-day," she said, after a brief pause. "it is one of his bad days." the two gentlemen both expressed their regret upon this subject; and then they went out to the lawn with mrs. branston, and joined the group by the river-brink, who were waiting for the race. here gilbert found some pleasant people to talk to; while adela branston and john saltram strolled, as if by accident, to a seat a little way apart from the rest, and sat there talking in a confidential manner, which might not really constitute a flirtation, but which had rather that appearance to the eye of the ignorant observer. the boats came flashing by at last, and there was the usual excitement amongst the spectators; but it seemed to gilbert that mrs. branston found more interest in john saltram's conversation than in the race. it is possible she had seen too many such contests to care much for the result of this one. she scarcely looked up as the boats shot by, but sat with her little gloved hands clasped upon her knee, and her bright face turned towards john saltram. they all went into the house at about seven o'clock, after a good deal of croquet and flirtation, and found a free-and-easy kind of banquet, half tea, half luncheon, but very substantial after its kind, waiting for them in the long low dining-room. mrs. branston was very popular as a hostess, and had a knack of bringing pleasant people round her--journalists and musical men, clever young painters who were beginning to make their mark in the art-world, pretty girls who could sing or play well, or talk more or less brilliantly. against nonentities of all kinds adela branston set her face, and had a polite way of dropping people from whom she derived no amusement, pleading in her pretty childish way that it was so much more pleasant for all parties. that this mundane existence of ours was not intended to be all pleasure, was an idea that never yet troubled adela branston's mind. she had been petted and spoiled by everyone about her from the beginning of her brief life, and had passed from the frivolous career of a school-girl to a position of wealth and independence as michael branston's wife; fully believing that, in making the sacrifice involved in marrying a man forty years her senior, she earned the right to take her own pleasure, and to gratify every caprice of her infantile mind, for the remainder of her days. she was supremely selfish in an agreeable unconscious fashion, and considered herself a domestic martyr whenever she spent an hour in her husband's sick-room, listening to his peevish accounts of his maladies, or reading a _times_ leader on the threatening aspect of things in the city for the solace of his loneliness and pain. the popping of corks sounded merrily amidst the buzz of conversation, and great antique silver tankards of badminton and moselle cup were emptied as by magic, none knowing how except the grave judicial-looking butler, whose omniscient eye reigned above the pleasant confusion of the scene. and after about an hour and a half wasted in this agreeable indoor picnic, mrs. branston and her friends adjourned to the drawing-room, where the grand piano had been pushed into a conspicuous position, and where the musical business of the evening speedily began. it was very pleasant sitting by the open windows in the summer twilight, with no artificial light in the room, except the wax candles on the piano, listening to good music, and talking a little now and then in that subdued confidential tone to which music makes such an agreeable accompaniment. adela branston sat in the midst of a group in a wide bay window, and although john saltram was standing near her chair, he did not this time engage the whole of her attention. gilbert found himself seated next a very animated young lady, who rather bored him with her raptures about the music, and who seemed to have assisted at every morning and evening concert that had been given within the last two years. to any remoter period her memory did not extend, and she implied that she had been before that time in a chrysalis or non-existent condition. she told mr. fenton, with an air of innocent wonder, that she had heard there were people living who remembered the first appearance of jenny lind. a little before ten o'clock there was a general movement for the rail, the greater number of mrs. branston's guests having come from town. there was a scarcity of flys at this juncture, so john saltram and gilbert fenton walked back to the station in the moonlight. "well, gilbert, old fellow, what do you think of the lady?" mr. saltram asked, when they were a little way beyond the gates of rivercombe. "i think her very pretty, jack, and--well--yes--upon the whole fascinating. but i don't like the look of the thing altogether, and i fancy there's considerable bad taste in giving parties with an invalid husband upstairs. i was wondering how mr. branston liked the noise of all that talk and laughter in the dining-room, or the music that came afterwards." "my dear fellow, old branston delights in society. he is generally well enough to sit in the drawing-room and look on at his wife's parties. he doesn't talk much on those occasions. indeed, i believe he is quite incapable of conversing about anything except the rise and fall of indian stock, or the fluctuations in the value of indigo. and, you see, adela married him with the intention of enjoying her life. she confesses as much sometimes with perfect candour." "i daresay she is very candid, and just as shallow," said gilbert fenton, who was inclined to set his face against this entanglement of his friend's. "well--yes, i suppose she is rather shallow. those pretty pleasant little women generally are, i think. depth of feeling and force of mind are so apt to go along with blue spectacles and a rugged aspect. a woman's prettiness must stand for something. there is so much real pleasure in the contemplation of a charming face, that a man had need rescind a little in the way of mental qualifications. and i do not think adela branston is without a heart." "you praise her very warmly. are you really in love with her, john?" his friend asked seriously. "no, gilbert, upon my honour. i heartily wish i were. i wish i could give her more by-and-by, when death brings about her release from michael branston, than the kind of liking i feel for her. no, i am not in love with her; but i think she likes me; and a man must be something worse than a brute if he is not grateful for a pretty woman's regard." they said no more about mrs. branston. gilbert had a strong distaste for the business; but he did not care to take upon himself the office of mentor to a friend whose will he knew to be much stronger than his own, and to whose domination he had been apt to submit in most things, as to the influence of a superior mind. it disappointed him a little to find that john saltram was capable of making a mercenary marriage, capable even of the greater baseness involved in the anticipation of a dead man's shoes; but his heart was not easily to be turned against the chosen friend of his youth, and he was prompt in making excuses for the line of conduct he disapproved. chapter v. halcyon days. it was still quite early in september when gilbert fenton went back to lidford and took up his quarters once more in the airy chintz-curtained bedchamber set apart for him in his sister's house. he had devoted himself very resolutely to business during the interval that had gone by since his last visit to that quiet country house; but the time had seemed very long to him, and he fancied himself a kind of martyr to the necessities of commerce. the aspect of his affairs of late had not been quite free from unpleasantness. there were difficulties in the conduct of business in the melbourne branch of the house, that branch which was under the charge of a cousin of gilbert's, about whose business capacities the late mr. fenton had entertained the most exalted opinion. the melbourne trading had not of late done much credit to this gentleman's commercial genius. he had put his trust in firms that had crumbled to pieces before the bills drawn upon them came due, involving his cousin in considerable losses. gilbert was rich enough to stand these losses, however; and he reconciled himself to them as best he might, taking care to send his australian partner imperative instructions for a more prudent system of trading in the future. the uneasiness and vexation produced by this business was still upon him when he went down to lidford; but he relied upon marian nowell's presence to dissipate all his care. he did find himself perfectly happy in her society. he was troubled by no doubts as to her affection for him, no uncertainty as to the brightness of the days that were to come. her manner seemed to him all that a man could wish in the future partner of his life. an innocent trustfulness in his superior judgment, a childlike submission to his will which marian displayed upon all occasions, were alike flattering and delightful. nor did she ever appear to grow tired of that talk of their future which was so pleasant to her lover. there was no shadow of doubt upon her face when he spoke of the serene happiness which they two were to find in an existence spent together. he was the first who had ever spoken to her of these things, and she listened to him with an utter simplicity and freshness of mind. time had reconciled isabella lister to her brother's choice, and she now deigned to smile upon the lovers, very much to gilbert's satisfaction. he had been too proud to supplicate her good graces; but he was pleased that his only sister should show herself gracious and affectionate to the girl he loved so fondly. during this second visit of his, therefore, marian came very often to lidford house; sometimes accompanied by her uncle, sometimes alone; and there was perfect harmony between the elder and younger lady. the partridges upon martin lister's estate did not suffer much damage from his brother-in-law's gun that autumn. gilbert found it a great deal pleasanter to spend his mornings dawdling in the little cottage drawing-room or under the walnut-trees with marian, than to waste his noontide hours in the endeavour to fill a creditable game-bag. there is not very much to tell of the hours which those two spent together so happily. it was an innocent, frivolous, useless employment of time, and left little trace behind it, except in the heart of one of those two. gilbert wondered at himself when, in some sober interval of reflection, he happened to consider those idle mornings, those tranquil uneventful afternoons and evenings, remembering what a devoted man of business he had once been, and how a few months ago he would have denounced such a life in another. "well," he said to himself, with a happy laugh, "a man can take this fever but once in his life, and it is only wise in him to surrender himself utterly to the divine delirium. i shall have no excuse for neglecting business by-and-by, when my little wife and i are settled down together for the rest of our days. let me be her lover while i may. can i ever be less than her lover, i wonder? will marriage, or custom, or the assurance that we belong to each other for the rest of our days, take the poetry out of our lives? i think not; i think marian must always be to me what she has seemed to me from the very first--something better and brighter than the common things of this life." custom, which made marian nowell dearer to gilbert fenton every day, had by this time familiarised her with his position as her future husband. she was no longer surprised or distressed when he pleaded for a short engagement, and a speedy realization of that utopian home which they were to inhabit together. the knowledge of her uncle's delight in this engagement of hers might have reconciled her to it, even if she had not loved gilbert fenton. and she told herself that she did love him; or, more often putting the matter in the form of a question, asked herself whether she could be so basely ungrateful as not to love one who regarded her with such disinterested affection? it was settled finally, after a good deal of pleasant discussion, that the wedding should take place early in the coming spring--at latest in april. even this seemed a long delay to gilbert; but he submitted to it as an inevitable concession to the superior instinct of his betrothed, which harmonised so well with mrs. lister's ideas of wisdom and propriety. there was the house to be secured, too, so that he might have a fitting home to which to take his darling when their honeymoon was over; and as he had no female relation in london who could take the care of furnishing this earthly paradise off his hands, he felt that the whole business must devolve upon himself, and could not be done without time. captain sedgewick promised to bring marian to town for a fortnight in october, in order that she might assist her lover in that delightful duty of house-hunting. she looked forward to this visit with quite a childlike pleasure. her life at lidford had been completely happy; but it was a monotonous kind of happiness; and the notion of going about london, even at the dullest time of the year, was very delightful to her. the weather happened to be especially fine that september. it was the brightest month of the year, and the lovers took long rambles together in the woodland roads and lanes about lidford, sometimes alone, more often with the captain, who was a very fair pedestrian, in spite of having had a bullet or two through his legs in the days gone by. when the weather was too warm for walking, gilbert borrowed martin lister's dog-cart, and drove them on long journeys of exploration to remote villages, or to the cheery little market-town ten miles away. they all three set out for a walk one afternoon, when gilbert had been about a fortnight at lidford, with no particular destination, only bent on enjoying the lovely weather and the rustic beauty of woodland and meadow. the captain chose their route, as he always did on these occasions, and under his guidance they followed the river-bank for some distance, and then turned aside into a wood in which gilbert fenton had never been before. he said so, with an expression of surprise at the beauty of the place, where the fern grew deep under giant oaks and beeches, and where the mossy ground dipped suddenly down to a deep still pool which reflected the sunlit sky through a break in the dark foliage that sheltered it. "what, have you never been here?" exclaimed the captain; "then you have never seen heatherly, i suppose?" "never. by the way, is not that sir david forster's place?" asked gilbert, remembering john saltram's promise. he had seen very little more of his friend after that visit to rivercombe, and had half forgotten mr. saltram's talk of coming down to this neighbourhood on purpose to be presented to marian. "yes. it is something of a show-place, too; and we think a good deal of it in these parts. there are some fine sir joshuas among the family portraits, painted in the days when the forsters were better off and of more importance in the county than they are now. and there are a few other good pictures--dutch interiors, and some seascapes by bakhuysen. decidedly you ought to see heatherly. shall we push on there this afternoon?" "is it far from here?" "not much more than a mile. this wood joins the park, and there is a public right of way across the park to the lidford road, so the gate is always open. we can't waste our walk, and i know sir david quite well enough to ask him to let you see the pictures, if he should happen to be at home." "i should like it of all things," said gilbert eagerly. "my friend john saltram knows this sir david forster, and he talked of being down here at this time: i forgot all about it till you spoke of heatherly just now. i have a knack of forgetting things now-a-days." "i wonder that you should forget anything connected with mr. saltram, gilbert," said marian; "that mr. saltram of whom you think so much. i cannot tell you how anxious i am to see what kind of person he is; not handsome--you have confessed as much as that." "yes, marian, i admit the painful fact. there are people who call john saltram ugly. but his face is not a common one; it is a very picturesque kind of ugliness--a face that velasquez would have loved to paint, i think. it is a rugged, strongly-marked countenance with a villanously dark complexion; but the eyes are very fine, the mouth perfection; and there is a look of power in the face that, to my mind, is better than beauty." "and i think you owned that mr. saltram is hardly the most agreeable person in the world." "well, no, he is not what one could well call an eminently agreeable person. and yet he exercises a good deal of influence over the men he knows, without admitting many of them to his friendship. he is very clever; not a brilliant talker by any means, except on rare occasions, when he chooses to give full swing to his powers; he does not lay himself out for social successes; but he is a man who seems to know more of every subject than the men about him. i doubt if he will ever succeed at the bar. he has so little perseverance or steadiness, and indulges in such an erratic, desultory mode of life; but he has made his mark in literature already, and i think he might become a great man if he chose. whether he ever will choose is a doubtful question." "i am afraid he must be rather a dissipated, dangerous kind of person," said marian. "well, yes, he is subject to occasional outbreaks of dissipation. they don't last long, and they seem to leave not the faintest impression upon his herculean constitution; but of course that sort of thing does more or less injury to a man's mind, however comparatively harmless the form of his dissipation may be. there are very few men whom john saltram cannot drink under the table, and rise with a steady brain himself when the wassail is ended; yet i believe, in a general way, few men drink less than he does. at cards he is equally strong; a past-master in all games of skill; and the play is apt to be rather high at one or two of the clubs he belongs to. he has a wonderful power of self-restraint when he cares to exert it; will play six or seven hours every night for three weeks at a stretch, and then not touch a card for six months. poor old john," said gilbert fenton, with a half-regretful sigh; "under happy circumstances, he might be such a good man." "but i fear he is a dangerous friend for you, gilbert," exclaimed marian, horrified by this glimpse of bachelor life. "no, darling, i have never shared his wilder pleasures. there are a few chosen spirits with whom he consorts at such times. i believe this sir david forster is one of them." "sir david has the reputation of leading rather a wild life in london," said the captain, "and of bringing a dissipated set down here every autumn. things have not gone well with him. his wife, who was a very beautiful girl, and whom he passionately loved, was killed by a fall from her horse a few months after the birth of her first child. the child died too, and the double loss ruined sir david. he used to spend the greater part of his life at heatherly, and was a general favourite among the county people; but since that time he has avoided the place, except during the shooting season. he has a hunting-box in the shires, and is a regular daredevil over a big country they tell me." they had reached the little gate opening from the wood into the park by this time. there was not much difference in the aspect of the sylvan scene upon the other side of the fence. sir david's domain had been a good deal neglected of late years, and the brushwood and brambles grew thick under the noble old trees. the timber had not yet suffered by its owner's improvidence. the end of all things must have come for sir david before he would have consented to the spoliation of a place he fondly loved, little as he had cared to inhabit it since the day that shattered all that was brightest and best in his life. for some time captain sedgewick and his companions went along a footpath under the shelter of the trees, and then emerged upon a wide stretch of smooth turf, across which they commanded a perfect view of the principal front of the old house. it was a quadrangular building of the elizabethan period, very plainly built, and with no special beauty to recommend it to the lover of the picturesque. whatever charm of form it may have possessed in the past had been ruthlessly extirpated by the modernisation of the windows, which were now all of one size and form--a long gaunt range of unsheltered casements staring blankly out upon the spectator. there were no flower-beds, no terraced walks, or graceful flights of steps before the house; only a bare grassplot, with a stiff line of tall elms on each side, and a wide dry moat dividing it from the turf in the park. two lodges--ponderous square brick buildings with very small windows, each the exact counterpart of the other, and a marvel of substantial ugliness--kept guard over a pair of tall iron gates, about six hundred yards apart, approached by stone bridges that spanned the moat. captain sedgewick rang a bell hanging by the side of one of these gates, whereat there arose a shrill peal that set the rooks screaming in the tall elms overhead. an elderly female appeared in answer to this summons, and opened the gate in a slow mechanical way, without the faintest show of interest in the people about to enter, and looking as if she would have admitted a gang of obvious burglars with equal indifference. "rather a hideous style of place," said gilbert, as they walked towards the house; "but i think show-places, as a general rule, excel in ugliness. i daresay the owners of them find a dismal kind of satisfaction in considering the depressing influence their dreary piles of bricks-and-mortar must exercise on the minds of strangers; may be a sort of compensation for being obliged to live in such a gaol of a place." there was a clumsy low stone portico over the door, wide enough to admit a carriage; and lounging upon a bench under this stony shelter they found a sleepy-looking man-servant, who informed captain sedgewick that sir david was at heatherly, but that he was out shooting with his friends at this present moment. in his absence the man would be very happy to show the house to captain sedgewick and his party. gilbert fenton asked about john saltram. yes, mr. saltram had arrived at heatherly on tuesday evening, two nights ago. they went over the state-rooms, and looked at the pictures, which were really as good as the captain had represented them. the inspection occupied a little more than an hour, and they were ready to take their departure, when the sound of masculine voices resounded loudly in the hall, and their conductor announced that sir david and his friends had come in. there were only two gentlemen in the hall when they went into that spacious marble-paved chamber, where there were great logs burning on the wide open hearth, in spite of the warmth of the september day. one of these two was sir david forster, a big man, with a light-brown beard and a florid complexion. the other was john saltram, who sat in a lounging attitude on one of the deep window-seats examining his breech-loader. his back was turned towards the window, and the glare of the blazing logs shone full upon his dark face with a strange rembrandt-like effect. one glance told marian nowell who this man was. that powerful face, with its unfathomable eyes and thoughtful mouth, was not the countenance she had conjured up from the depths of her imagination when gilbert fenton had described his friend; yet she felt that this stranger lounging in the window was john saltram, and no other. he rose, and set down his gun very quietly, and stood by the window waiting while captain sedgewick introduced gilbert to sir david. then he came forward, shook hands with his friend, and was thereupon presented to marian and her uncle by gilbert, who made these introductions with a kind of happy eagerness. sir david was full of friendliness and hospitality, and insisted on keeping them to show gilbert and miss nowell some pictures in the billiard-room and in his own private snuggery, apartments which were not shown to ordinary visitors. they strolled through these rooms in a leisurely way, sir david making considerable pains to show gilbert fenton the gems of his collection, john saltram acting as cicerone to marian. he was curious to discover what this girl was like, whether she had indeed only her beauty to recommend her, or whether she was in sober reality the perfect being gilbert fenton believed her to be. she was very beautiful. the first brief look convinced mr. saltram that upon this point at least her lover had indulged in no loverlike exaggeration. there was a singular charm in the face; a higher, more penetrating loveliness than mere perfection of feature; a kind of beauty that would have been at once the delight and desperation of a painter--so fitting a subject for his brush, so utterly beyond the power of perfect reproduction, unless by one of those happy, almost accidental successes which make the triumphs of genius. john saltram watched marian nowell's face thoughtfully as he talked to her, for the most part, about the pictures which they were looking at together. before their inspection of these art-treasures was ended, he was fain to confess to himself that she was intelligent as well as beautiful. it was not that she had said anything particularly brilliant, or had shown herself learned in the qualities of the old dutch masters; but she possessed that charming childlike capacity for receiving information from a superior mind, and that perfect and rapid power of appreciating a clever man's conversation, which are apt to seem so delightful to the sterner sex when exhibited by a pretty woman. at first she had been just a little shy and constrained in her talk with john saltram. her lover's account of this man had not inspired her with any exalted opinion of his character. she was rather inclined to look upon him as a person to be dreaded, a friend whose influence was dangerous at best, and who might prove the evil genius of gilbert fenton's life. but whatever her opinion on this point might remain, her reserve soon melted before john saltram's clever talk and kindly conciliating manner. he laid himself out to please on this occasion, and it was very rarely he did that without succeeding. "i want you to think of me as a kind of brother, miss nowell," he said in the course of their talk. "gilbert and i have been something like brothers for the last twelve years of our lives, and it would be a hard thing, for one of us at least, if our friendship should ever be lessened. you shall find me discretion itself by-and-by, and you shall see that i can respect gilbert's altered position; but i shouldn't like to lose him, and i don't think you look capable of setting your face against your husband's old friend." marian blushed a little at this, remembering that only an hour or two ago she had been thinking that this friendship was a perilous one for gilbert, and that it would be well if john saltram's influence over him could be lessened somehow in the future. "i don't believe i should ever have the power to diminish gilbert's regard for you, mr. saltram, even were i inclined to do so," she said. "o yes, you would; your power over him will be illimitable, depend upon it. but now i have seen you, i think you will only use it wisely." marian shook her head, laughing gaily. "i am much more fitted to be ruled than to rule, mr. saltram," she said. "i am utterly inexperienced in the world, you know, and mr. fenton is my superior in every way." "your superior in years, i know, but in what else?" "in everything else. in intellect and judgment, as well as in knowledge of the world. you could never imagine what a quiet changeless life i have led." "your intellect is so much the clearer for that, i think. it has not been disturbed by all the narrow petty influences of a life spent in what is called 'society.'" before they left the house, gilbert and the captain were obliged to promise to dine at heatherly next day, very much to the secret distaste of the former, who must thus lose an evening with marian, but who was ashamed to reveal his hopeless condition by a persistent refusal. captain sedgewick begged john saltram to choose an early day for dining at the cottage, and gilbert gave him a general invitation to lidford house. these matters being settled, they departed, accompanied by mr. saltram, who proposed to walk as far as the wood with them, and who extended his walk still farther, only leaving them at the gate of the captain's modest domain. the conversation was general throughout the way back; and they all found plenty to talk about, as they loitered slowly on among the waving shadows of the trees flickering darkly on the winding path by which they went. gilbert lingered outside the gate after marian and her uncle had gone into the cottage--he was so eager to hear his friend praise the girl he loved. "well, john?" he asked. "well, dear old boy, she is all that is beautiful and charming, and i can only congratulate you upon your choice. miss nowell's perfection is a subject about which there cannot be two opinions." "and you think she loves me, jack?" "do i think she loves you? why, surely, gil, that is not a question upon which you want another man's judgment?" "no, of course not, but one is never tired of receiving the assurance of that fact. and you could see by her way of speaking about me----" "she spoke of you in the prettiest manner possible. she seems to consider you quite a superior being." "dear girl, she is so good and simple-hearted. do you know, jack, i feel as if i could never be sufficiently grateful to providence for my happiness in having won such an angel." "well, you certainly have reason to consider yourself a very lucky fellow; but i doubt if any man ever deserved good fortune better than you do, gilbert. and now, good-bye. it's getting unconscionably late, and i shall scarcely get back in time to change my clothes for dinner. we spend all our evenings in pious devotion to billiards, with a rubber or two, or a little lansquenet towards the small hours. don't forget your engagement to-morrow; good-bye." they had a very pleasant evening at heatherly. sir david's guests at this time consisted of a major foljambe, an elderly man who had seen a good deal of service in india; a mr. harker, who had been in the church, and had left it in disgust as alike unsuited to his tastes and capacity; mr. windus carr, a prosperous west-end solicitor, who had inherited a first-rate practice from his father, and who devoted his talents to the enjoyment of life, leaving his clients to the care of his partner, a steady-going stout gentleman, with a bald head, and an inexhaustible capacity for business; and last, but by no means least, john saltram, who possessed more influence over david forster than any one else in the world. chapter vi. sentence of exile. after the dinner at heatherly, john saltram came very often to the cottage. he did not care much for the fellows who were staying with sir david this year, he told gilbert. he knew all major foljambe's tiger stories by heart, and had convicted him of glaring discrepancies in his description of the havoc he and his brother officers had made among the big game. windus carr was a conceited presuming cad, who was always boring them with impossible accounts of his conquests among the fair sex; and that poor harker was an unmitigated fool, whose brains had run into his billiard-cue. this was the report which john saltram gave of his fellow-guests; and he left the shooting-party morning after morning to go out boating with gilbert and marian, or to idle away the sunny hours on the lawn listening to the talk of the two others, and dropping in a word now and then in a sleepy way as he lay stretched on the grass near them, looking up to the sky, with his arms crossed above his head. he called at lidford house one day when gilbert had told him he should stay at home to write letters, and was duly presented to the listers, who made a little dinner-party in his honour a few days afterwards, to which captain sedgewick and marian were invited--a party which went off with more brightness and gaiety than was wont to distinguish the lidford house entertainments. after this there was more boating--long afternoons spent on the winding river, with occasional landings upon picturesque little islands or wooded banks, where there were the wild-flowers marian nowell loved and understood so well; more idle mornings in the cottage garden--a happy innocent break in the common course of life, which seemed almost as pleasant to john saltram as to his friend. he had contrived to make himself popular with every one at lidford, and was an especial favourite with captain sedgewick. he seemed so thoroughly happy amongst them, and displayed such a perfect sympathy with them in all things, that gilbert fenton was taken utterly by surprise by his abrupt departure, which happened one day without a word of warning. he had dined at the cottage on the previous evening, and had been in his wildest, most reckless spirits--that mood to which he was subject at rare intervals, and in which he exercised a potent fascination over his companions. he had beguiled the little party at the cottage into complete forgetfulness of the hour by his unwonted eloquence upon subjects of a deeper, higher kind than it was his habit to speak about; and then at the last moment, when the clock on the mantelpiece had struck twelve, he had suddenly seated himself at the piano, and sung them moore's "farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour," in tones that went straight to the hearts of the listeners. he had one of those rare sympathetic voices which move people to tears unawares, and before the song was ended marian was fairly overcome, and had made a hasty escape from the room ashamed of her emotion. late as it was, gilbert accompanied his friend for a mile of his homeward route. he had secured a latch-key during his last visit to lidford house, and could let himself in quietly of a night without entrenching upon the regular habits of mrs. lister's household. once clear of the cottage, john saltram's gaiety vanished all in a moment, and gave place to a moody silence which gilbert was powerless to dissipate. "is there anything amiss, jack?" he asked. "i know high spirits are not always a sign of inward contentment with you. is there anything wrong to-night?" "no." "are you sure of that?" "quite sure. i may be a little knocked up perhaps; that's all." no hint of his intended departure fell from him when they shook hands and wished each other good-night; but early next morning a brief note was delivered to mr. fenton at his sister's house to the following effect:-- "my dear gilbert,--i find myself obliged to leave this place for london at once, and have not time to thank anyone for the kindness i have received during my stay. will you do the best to repair this omission on my part, and offer my warmest expressions of gratitude to captain sedgewick and miss nowell for their goodness to me? pray apologise for me also to mr. and mrs. lister for my inability to make my adieux in a more formal manner than this, a shortcoming which i hope to atone for on some future visit. tell lister i shall be very pleased to see him if he will look me up at the pnyx when he is next in town. "ever yours,--john saltram." this was all. there was no explanation of the reason for this hurried journey,--a strange omission between men who were on terms of such perfect confidence as obtained with these two. gilbert fenton was not a little disturbed by this unlooked-for event, fearing that some kind of evil had befallen his friend. "his money matters may have fallen into a desperate condition," he thought; "or perhaps that woman--that mrs. branston, is at the bottom of the business." he went to the cottage that morning as usual, but not with his accustomed feeling of unalloyed happiness. the serene heaven of his tranquil life was clouded a little by this strange conduct of john saltram's. it wounded him to think that his old companion was keeping a secret from him. "i suppose it is because i lectured him a little about mrs. branston the other day," he said to himself. "the business is connected with her in some way, i daresay, and poor jack does not care to arouse my virtuous indignation. that comes of taking a high moral tone with one's friend. he swallows the pill with a decent grace at the time, and shuts one out of his confidence ever afterwards." captain sedgewick expressed himself much surprised and disappointed by mr. saltram's departure. marian said very little upon the subject. there seemed nothing extraordinary to her in the fact that a gentleman should be summoned to london by the claims of business. gilbert might have brooded longer upon the mystery involved in his friend's conduct, but that evening's post brought him trouble in the shape of bad news from melbourne. his confidential clerk--an old man who had been with his father for many years, and who knew every intricacy of the business--wrote him a very long letter, dwelling upon the evil fortune which attended all their australian transactions of late, and hinting at dishonesty and double-dealing on the part of gilbert's cousin, astley fenton, the local manager. the letter was a very sensible one, calculated to arouse a careless man from a false sense of security. gilbert was so much disturbed by it, that he determined upon going back to london by the earliest fast train next morning. it was cutting short his holiday only by a few days. he had meant to return at the beginning of the following week, and he felt that he had already some reason to reproach himself for his neglect of business. he left lidford happy in the thought that captain sedgewick and marian were to come to london in october. the period of separation would be something less than a month. and after that? well, he would of course spend christmas at lidford; and he fancied how the holly and mistletoe, the church-decorations and carol-singing, and all the stereotyped genialities of the season,--things that had seemed trite and dreary to him since the days of his boyhood,--would have a new significance and beauty for him when he and marian kept the sacred festival together. and then how quickly would begin the new year, the year whose spring-tide would see them man and wife! perhaps there is no period of this mortal life so truly happy as that in which all our thoughts are occupied in looking forward to some great joy to come. whether the joy, when it does come, is ever so unqualified a delight as it seemed in the distance, or whether it ever comes at all, are questions which we have all solved for ourselves somehow or other. to gilbert fenton these day-dreams were bright and new, and he was troubled by no fear of their not being realized. he went at his business with considerable ardour, and made a careful and detailed investigation of all affairs connected with their melbourne trading, assisted throughout by samuel dwyer, the old clerk. the result of his examination convinced him that his cousin had been playing him false; that the men with whom his pretended losses had been made were men of straw, and the transactions were shadows invented to cover his own embezzlements. it was a complicated business altogether; and it was not until gilbert fenton had been engaged upon it for more than a week, and had made searching inquiries as to the status of the firms with which the supposed dealings had taken place, that he was able to arrive at this conclusion. having at last made himself master of the real state of things, as far as it was in any way possible to do so at that distance from the scene of action, gilbert saw that there was only one line of conduct open to him as a man of business. that was to go at once to melbourne, investigate his cousin's transactions on the spot, and take the management of the colonial house into his own hands. to do this would be a sore trial to him, for it would involve the postponement of his marriage. he could scarcely hope to do what he had to do in melbourne and to get back to england before a later date than that which he had hoped would be his wedding-day. yet to do anything less than this would be futile and foolish; and it was possible that the future stability of his position was dependent upon his arrangement of these melbourne difficulties. it was his home, the prosperity of his coming life that he had to fight for; and he told himself that he must put aside all weakness, as he had done once before, when he turned away from the easy-going studies and pleasures of young oxford life to undertake a hand-to-hand fight with evil fortune. he had conquered then, as he hoped to conquer now, having an energetic nature, and a strong faith in man's power to master fortune by honest work and patience. there was no time lost after once his decision was arrived at. he began to put his affairs in order for departure immediately, and wrote to marian within a few hours of making up his mind as to the necessity of this voyage. he told her frankly all that had happened, that their fortune was at stake, and that it was his bounden duty to take this step, hard as it might seem to him. he could not leave england without seeing her once more, he said, recently as they had parted, and brief as his leisure must needs be. there were so many things he would have to say to her on the eve of this cruel separation. he went down to lidford one evening when all the arrangements for his voyage were complete, and he had two clear days at his disposal before the vessel he was to go in left liverpool. the listers were very much surprised and shocked when he told them what he was going to do; mrs. lister bitterly bewailing the insecurity of all commercial positions, and appearing to consider her brother on the verge of bankruptcy. he found a warm welcome at the cottage from the captain, who heartily approved of the course he was taking, and was full of hopefulness about the future. "a few months more or less can make little difference," he said, when gilbert was lamenting the postponement of his wedding. "marian will be quite safe in her old uncle's care; and i do not suppose either of you will love each other any the less for the delay. i have such perfect confidence in you, gilbert, you see; and it is such a happiness to me to know that my darling's future is in the hands of a man i can so thoroughly trust. were you reduced to absolute poverty, with the battle of life to fight all over again, i would give you my dear girl without fear of the issue. i know you are of the stuff that is not to be beaten; and i believe that neither time nor circumstance could ever change your love for her." "you may believe that. every day makes her dearer to me. i should be ashamed to tell you how bitterly i feel this parting, and what a desperate mental struggle i went through before i could make up my mind to go." marian came into the room in the midst of this conversation. she was very pale, and her eyes had a dull, heavy look. the bad news in gilbert's letter had distressed her even more than he had anticipated. "my darling," he said tenderly, looking down at the changed face, with her cold hand clasped in his own, "how ill you are looking! i fear i made my letter too dismal, and that it frightened you." "oh no, no. i am very sorry you should have this bad fortune, gilbert, that is all." "there is nothing which i do not hope to repair, dear. the losses are not more than i can stand. all that i take to heart is the separation from you, marian." "i am not worth so much regret," she said, with her eyes fixed upon the ground, and her hands clasping and unclasping each other nervously. "not worth so much regret, marian!" he exclaimed. "you are all the world to me; the beginning and end of my universe." she looked a little brighter by-and-by, when her lover had done his best to cheer her with hopeful talk, which cost him no small effort in the depressed state of his mind. the day went by very slowly, although it was the last which those two were to spend together until gilbert fenton's return. it was a hopelessly wet day, with a perpetual drizzling rain and a leaden-gray sky; weather which seemed to harmonise well enough with the pervading gloom of gilbert's thoughts as he stood by the fire, leaning against an angle of the mantelpiece, and watching marian's needle moving monotonously in and out of the canvas. the captain, who led an easy comfortable kind of life at all times, was apt to dispose of a good deal of his leisure in slumber upon such a day as this. he sat down in his own particular easy-chair, dozing behind the shelter of a newspaper, and lulled agreeably by the low sound of gilbert and marian's conversation. so the quiet hours went by, overshadowed by the gloom of that approaching separation. after dinner, when they had returned to the drawing-room, and captain sedgewick had refreshed his intellectual powers with copious draughts of strong tea, he began to talk of marian's childhood, and the circumstances which had thrown her into his hand. "i don't suppose my little girl ever showed you her mother's jewel-case, did she, gilbert?" he asked. "never." "i thought as much. it contains that old-fashioned jewelry i spoke of--family relics, which i have sometimes fancied might be of use to her, if ever her birthright were worth claiming. but i doubt if that will ever happen now that so many years have gone by, and there has been no endeavour to trace her. run and fetch the case, marian. there are some of its contents which gilbert ought to see before he leaves england--papers which i intended to show him when i first told him your mother's story." marian left them, and came back in a few minutes carrying an old-fashioned ebony jewel-case, inlaid with brass. she unlocked it with a little key hanging to her watch-chain, and exhibited its contents to gilbert fenton. there were some curious old rings, of no great value; a seal-ring with a crest cut on a bloodstone--a crest of that common kind of device which does not imply noble or ancient lineage on the part of the bearer thereof; a necklace and earrings of amethyst; a gold bracelet with a miniature of a young man, whose handsome face had a hard disagreeable expression; a locket containing grey hair, and having a date and the initials "m.g." engraved on the massive plain gold case. these were all the trinkets. in a secret drawer there was a certificate of marriage between percival nowell, bachelor, gentleman, and lucy geoffry, spinster, at st. pancras church, london. the most interesting contents of the jewel-case consisted of a small packet of letters written by percival nowell to lucy geoffry before their marriage. "i have read them carefully ever so many times, with the notion that they might throw some light upon mr. and mrs. nowell's antecedents," said the captain, as gilbert held these in his hands, disinclined to look at documents of so private and sacred a character; "but they tell very little. i fancy that miss geoffry was a governess in some family in london--the envelopes are missing, you see, so there is no evidence as to where she was living, except that it _was_ in london--and that she left her employment to marry this percival nowell. you'd like to read the letters yourself, i daresay, gilbert. put them in your pocket, and look them over at your leisure when you get home. you can bring them back before you leave lidford." mr. fenton glanced at marian to see if she had any objection to his reading the letters. she was quite silent, looking absently at the trinkets lying in the tray before her. "you don't mind my reading your father's letters, marian?" he asked. "not at all. only i think you will find them very uninteresting." "i am interested in everything that concerns you." he put the papers in his pocket, and sat up for an hour in his room that night reading percival nowell's love letters. they revealed very little to him, except the unmitigated selfishness of the writer. that quality exhibited itself in every page. the lovers had met for the first time at the house of some mr. crosby, in whose family miss geoffry seemed to be living; and there were clandestine meetings spoken of in the regent's park, for which reason gilbert supposed mr. crosby's house must have been in that locality. there were broken appointments, for which miss geoffry was bitterly reproached by her lover, who abused the whole crosby household in a venomous manner for having kept her at home at these times. "if you loved me, as you pretend, lucy," mr. nowell wrote on one occasion, "you would speedily exchange this degrading slavery for liberty and happiness with me, and would be content to leave the future _utterly_ in my hands, without question or fear. a really generous woman would do this." there was a good deal more to the same effect, and it seemed as if the proposal of marriage came at last rather reluctantly; but it did come, and was repeated, and urged in a very pressing manner; while lucy geoffry to the last appeared to have hung back, as if dreading the result of that union. the letters told little of the writer's circumstances or social status. whenever he alluded to his father, it was with anger and contempt, and in a manner that implied some quarrel between them; but there was nothing to indicate what kind of man the father was. gilbert fenton took the packet back to the cottage next morning. he was to return to london that afternoon, and had only a few hours to spend with marian. the day was dull and cold, but there was no rain; and they walked together in the garden, where the leaves were beginning to fall, and whence every appearance of summer seemed to have vanished since gilbert's last visit. for some time they were both rather silent, pacing thoughtfully up and down the sheltered walk that bounded the lawn. gilbert found it impossible to put on an appearance of hopefulness on this last day. it was better wholly to give up the attempt, and resign himself to the gloom that brooded over him, shutting out the future. that airy castle of his--the villa on the banks of the thames--seemed to have faded and vanished altogether. he could not look beyond the australian journey to the happy time of his return. the hazards of time and distance bewildered him. he felt an unspeakable dread of the distance that was to divide him from marian nowell--a dread that grew stronger with every hour. he was destined to suffer a fresh pang before the moment of parting came. marian turned to him by-and-by with an earnest anxious face, and said,-- "gilbert, there is something which i think i ought to say to you before you go away." "what is that, my darling?" "it is rather hard to say. i fear it will give you pain. i have been thinking about it for a long time. the thought has been a constant reproach to me. gilbert, it would be better if we were both free; better if you could leave england without any tie to weigh you down with anxieties when you are out yonder, and will have so much occasion for perfect freedom of mind." "marian!" "o, pray, pray don't think me ungrateful or unmindful of your goodness to me. i am only anxious for your happiness. i am not steady enough, or fixed enough, in my mind. i am not worthy of all the thought and care you have given me." "marian, have i done anything to forfeit your love?" "o no, no." "then why do you say these things to me? do you want to break my heart?" "would it break your heart if i were to recall my promise, gilbert?" "yes, marian," he answered gravely, drawing her suddenly to him, and looking into her face with earnest scrutinising eyes; "but if you do not love me, if you cannot love me--and god knows how happy i have been in the belief that i had won your love long ago--let the word be spoken. i will bear it, my dear, i will bear it." "o no, no," she cried, shocked by the dead whiteness of his face, and bursting into tears. "i will try to be worthy of you. i will try to love you as you deserve to be loved. it was only a fancy of mine that it would be better for you to be free from all thoughts of me. i think it would seem very hard to me to lose your love. i don't think i could bear that, gilbert." she looked up at him with an appealing expression through her tears--an innocent, half-childish look that went to his heart--and he clasped her to his breast, believing that this proposal to set him free had been indeed nothing more than a girlish caprice. "my dearest, my life is bound up with your love," he said. "nothing can part us except your ceasing to love me." chapter vii. "good-bye." the hour for the final parting came at last, and gilbert fenton turned his back upon the little gate by which he had watched marian nowell standing upon that first summer sunday evening which sealed his destiny. he left lidford weary at heart, weighed down by a depression he had vainly struggled against, and he brooded over his troubles all the way back to town. it seemed as if all the hopes that had made life so sweet to him only a week ago had been swept away. he could not look beyond that dreary australian exile; he could not bring his thoughts to bear upon the time that was to come afterwards, and which need be no less bright because of this delay. "she may die while i am away," he thought. "o god, if that were to happen! if i were to come back and find her dead! such things have been; and men and women have borne them, and gone on living." he had one more duty to perform before he left england. he had to say good-bye to john saltram, whom he had not seen since they parted that night at lidford. he could not leave england without some kind of farewell to his old friend, and he had reserved this last evening for the duty. he went to the pnyx on the chance of finding saltram there, and failing in that, ate his solitary dinner in the coffee-room. the waiters told him that mr. saltram had not been at the club for some weeks. gilbert did not waste much time over his dinner, and went straight from the pnyx to the temple, where john saltram had a second-floor in figtree-court. mr. saltram was at home. it was his own sonorous voice which answered gilbert's knock, bidding him enter with a muttered curse upon the interruption by way of addendum. the room into which mr. fenton went upon receiving this unpromising invitation was in a state of chaotic confusion. an open portmanteau sprawled upon the floor, and a whole wardrobe of masculine garments seemed to have been shot at random on to the chairs near it; a dozen soda-water bottles, full and empty, were huddled in one corner; a tea-tray tottered on the extreme edge of a table heaped with dusty books and papers; and at a desk in the centre of the room, with a great paraffin lamp flaring upon his face as he wrote, sat john saltram, surrounded by fallen slips of copy, writing as if to win a wager. "who is it? and what do you want?" he asked in a husky voice, without looking up from his paper or suspending the rapid progress of his pen. "why, jack, i don't think i ever caught you so hard at work before." john saltram dropped his pen at the sound of his friend's voice and got up. he gave gilbert his hand in a mechanical kind of way. "no, i don't generally go at it quite so hard; but you know i have a knack of doing things against time. i have been giving myself a spell of hard work in order to pick up a little cash for the children of israel." he dropped back into his chair, and gilbert took one opposite him. the lamp shone full upon john saltram's face as he sat at his desk; and after looking at him for a moment by that vivid light, gilbert fenton gave a cry of surprise. "what is the matter, gil?" "you are the matter. you are looking as worn and haggard as if you'd had a long illness since i saw you last. i never remember you looking so ill. this kind of thing won't do, john. you'd soon kill yourself at this rate." "not to be done, my dear fellow. i am the toughest thing in creation. i have been sitting up all night for the last week or so, and that does rather impair the freshness of one's complexion; but i assure you there's nothing so good for a man as a week or two of unbroken work. i have been doing an exhaustive review of roman literature for one of the quarterlies, and the subject involved a little more reading than i was quite prepared for." "and you have really not been ill?" "not in the least. i am never ill." he pushed aside his papers, and sat with his elbow on the desk and his head leaning on his hand, waiting for gilbert to talk. he was evidently in one of those silent moods which were common to him at times. gilbert told him of his melbourne troubles, and of his immediate departure. the announcement roused him from his absent humour. he dropped his arm from the table suddenly, and sat looking full at gilbert with a very intent expression. "this is strange news," he said, "and it will cause the postponement of your marriage, i suppose?" "unhappily, yes; that is unavoidable. hard lines, isn't it, jack?" "well, yes; i daresay the separation seems rather a hardship; but you are young enough to stand a few months' delay. when do you sail?" "to-morrow." "so soon?" "yes. it is a case in which everything depends upon rapidity of action. i leave liverpool to-morrow afternoon. i came up from lidford to-day on purpose to spend a few farewell hours with you. and i have been thinking, jack, that you might run down to liverpool with me to-morrow, and see the last of me, eh, old fellow?" john saltram hesitated, looking doubtfully at his papers. "it would be only a kind thing to do, jack, and a wholesome change for yourself into the bargain. anything would be better for you than being shut up in these chambers another day." "well, gilbert, i'll go with you," said mr. saltram presently with a kind of recklessness. "it is a small thing to do for friendship. yes, i'll see you off, dear boy. egad, i wish i could go to australia with you. i would, if it were not for my engagements with the children and sundry other creditors. i think a new country might do me good. but there's no use in talking about that. i'm bound hand and foot to the old one." "that reminds me of something i had to say to you, john. there must have been some reason for your leaving lidford in that sudden way the other day, and your note explained nothing. i thought you and i had no secrets from each other, it's scarcely fair to treat me like that." "the business was hardly worth explaining," answered the other moodily. "a bill that i had forgotten for the time fell due just then, and i hurried off to set things straight." "let me help you somehow or other, jack." "no, gilbert; i will never suffer you to become entangled in the labyrinth of my affairs. you don't know what a hopeless wilderness you would enter if you were desperate enough to attempt my rescue. i have been past redemption for the last ten years, ever since i left oxford. nothing but a rich marriage will ever set me straight; and i sometimes doubt if that game is worth the candle, and whether it would not be better to make a clean sweep of my engagements, offer up my name to the execration of mankind and the fiery indignation of solvent journalists,--who would find subject for sensation leaders in my iniquities,--emigrate, and turn bushranger. a wild free life in the wilderness must be a happy exchange for all the petty worries and perplexities of this cursed existence." "and how about mrs. branston, john? by the way, i thought that she might have had something to do with your sudden journey to london." "no; she had nothing to do with it. i have not seen her since i came back from lidford." "indeed!" "no. your lecture had a potent effect, you see," said mr. saltram, with something of a sneer. "you have almost cured me of that passion." "my opinion would have very little influence if you were far gone, john. the fact is, mrs. branston, pretty and agreeable as she may be, is not the sort of woman to acquire any strong hold upon you." "you think not?" "i am sure of it." after this john saltram became more expansive. they sat together until late in the night, talking chiefly of the past, old friends, and half-forgotten days; recalling the scenes through which they had travelled together with a pensive tenderness, and dwelling regretfully upon that careless bygone time when life was fresh for both of them, and the future seemed to lie across the straightest, easiest high-road to reputation and happiness. gilbert spoke of that perilous illness of his in egypt, the fever in which he had been given over by every one, and only saved at last by the exemplary care and devotion of his friend. john saltram had a profound objection to this thing being talked about, and tried immediately to change the drift of the conversation; but to-night gilbert was not to be stopped. "you refuse the help of my purse, jack," he said, "and forget that i owe you my life. i should never have been to the fore to navigate the good ship fenton and co., if it hadn't been for your care. the doctor fellow at cairo told me as much in very plain terms. yes, john, i consider myself your debtor to the amount of a life." "saving a man's life is sometimes rather a doubtful boon. i think if i had a fever, and some officious fool dragged me through it when i was in a fair way to make a decent end, i should be very savagely disposed towards him." "why, john saltram, you are the last man in the world from whom i should expect that dreary kind of talk. yet i suppose it's only a natural consequence of shutting yourself up in these rooms for ten days at a stretch." "what good use have i made of my life in the past, gilbert?" demanded the other bitterly; "and what have i to look forward to in the future? to marry, and redeem my position by the aid of a woman's money. that's hardly the noblest destiny that can befall a man. and yet i think if adela branston were free, and willing to marry me, i might make something of my life. i might go into parliament, and make something of a name for myself. i could write books instead of anonymous articles. i should scarcely sink down into an idle mindless existence of dinner-giving and dinner-eating. yes, i think the best thing that could happen to me would be to marry adela branston." they parted at last, john saltram having faithfully promised his friend to work no more that night, and they met at euston square early the next morning for the journey to liverpool. gilbert had never found his friend's company more delightful than on this last day. it seemed as if john saltram put away every thought of self in his perfect sympathy with the thoughts and feelings of the traveller. they dined together, and it was dusk when they wished each other good-bye on the deck of the vessel. "good-bye, gilbert, and god bless you! if--if anything should happen to me--if i should have gone to the bad utterly before you come back, you must try to remember our friendship of the past. think that i have loved you very dearly--as well as one man ever loved another, perhaps." "my dear john, you have no need to tell me to think that. nothing can ever weaken the love between us. and you are not likely to go to the bad. good bye, dear old friend. i shall remember you every day of my life. you are second only to marian in my heart. i shall write you an account of my proceedings, and shall expect to hear from you. once more, good bye." the bell rang. gilbert fenton and his friend shook hands in silence for the last time, and in the next moment john saltram ran down the steps to the little steamer which had brought them out to the larger vessel. the sails spread wide in the cool evening wind, and the mighty ship glided away into the dusk. john saltram's last look showed him his friend's face gazing down upon him over the bulwarks full of trust and affection. he went back to london by the evening express, and reached his chambers at a late hour that night. there had been some attempt at tidying the rooms in his absence; but his books and papers had been undisturbed. some letters were lying on the desk, amongst them one in a big scrawling hand that was very familiar to mr. saltram, the envelope stamped "lidford." he tore this open eagerly. it was from sir david forster. "dear saltram" (wrote the baronet),--"what do you mean by this iniquitous conduct? you only obtained my consent to your hurried departure the other day on condition you should come back in a week, yet there are no signs of you. foljambe and the lawyer are gone, and i am alone with harker, whose stupidity is something marvellous. i am dying by inches of this dismal state of things. i can't tell the man to go, you see, for he is really a most worthy creature, although such a consummate fool. for pity's sake come to me. you can do your literary work down here as well as in london, and i promise to respect your laborious hours.--ever yours, "david forster." john saltram stood with this letter open in his hand, staring blankly at it, like a man lost in a dream. "go back!" he muttered at last--"go back, when i thought i did such a great thing in coming away! no, i am not weak enough for that folly." chapter viii. missing. on the th of july in the following year, gilbert fenton landed in england, after nearly ten months of exile. he had found hard work to do in the colonial city, and had done it; surmounting every difficulty by a steady resolute course of action. astley fenton had tried to shelter his frauds, heaping falsehood upon falsehood; and had ended by making a full confession, after receiving his cousin's promise not to prosecute. the sums made away with by him amounted to some thousands. gilbert found that he had been leading a life of reckless extravagance, and was a notorious gambler. so there came an evening when after a prolonged investigation of affairs, astley fenton put on his hat, and left his cousin's office for ever. when gilbert heard of him next, he was clerk to a bookseller in sydney. the disentanglement of the melbourne trading had occupied longer than gilbert expected; and his exile had been especially dreary to him during the last two months he spent in australia, from the failure of his english letters. the first two mails after his arrival had brought him letters from marian and her uncle, and one short note from john saltram. the mails that followed brought him nothing, and he was inexpressibly alarmed and distressed by this fact. if he could by any possibility have returned to england immediately after the arrival of the first mail which brought him no letter, he would have done so. but his journey would have been wasted had he not remained to complete the work of reorganization he had commenced; so he stayed, sorely against the grain, hoping to get a letter by the next mail. that came, and with the same dispiriting result to gilbert fenton. there was a letter from his sister, it is true; but that was written from switzerland, where she was travelling with her husband, and brought him no tidings of marian. he tried to convince himself that if there had been bad news, it must needs have come to him; that the delay was only the result of accident, some mistake of marian's as to the date of the mail. what more natural than that she should make such a mistake, at a place with such deficient postal arrangements as those which obtained at lidford? but, argue with himself as he might, this silence of his betrothed was none the less perplexing to him, and he was a prey to perpetual anxiety during the time that elapsed before the sailing of the vessel that was to convey him back to england. then came the long monotonous voyage, affording ample leisure for gloomy thoughts, for shapeless fears in the dead watches of the night, when the sea washed drearily against his cabin window, and he lay broad awake counting the hours that must wear themselves out before he could set foot on english ground. as the time of his arrival drew nearer, his mind grew restless and fitful, now full of hope and happy visions of his meeting with marian, now weighed down by the burden of some unspeakable terror. the day dawned at last, that sultry summer day, and gilbert was amongst those eager passengers who quitted the vessel at daybreak. he went straight from the quay to the railway-station, and the delay of an hour which he had to endure here seemed almost interminable to him. as he paced to and fro the long platform waiting for the london express, he wondered how he had borne all the previous delay, how he had been able to live through that dismal agonizing time. his own patience was a mystery to him now that the ordeal was over. the express started at last, and he sat quietly in his corner trying to read a newspaper; while his fellow-travellers discussed the state of trade in liverpool, which seemed from their account to be as desperate and hopeless as the condition of all commerce appears invariably to be whenever commercial matters come under discussion. gilbert fenton was not interested in the liverpool trade at this particular crisis. he knew that he had weathered the storm which had assailed his own fortunes, and that the future lay clear and bright before him. he did not waste an hour in london, but went straight from one station to another, and was in time to catch a train for fairleigh, the station nearest to lidford. it was five o'clock in the afternoon when he arrived at this place, and chartered a fly to take him over to lidford--a lovely summer afternoon. the sight of the familiar english scenery, looking so exquisite in its summer glory, filled him with a pleasure that was almost akin to pain. he had often walked this road with marian; and as he drove along he looked eagerly at every distant figure, half hoping to see his darling approach him in the summer sunlight. mr. fenton deposited his carpet-bag at the cosy village inn, where snow-white curtains fluttered gaily at every window in the warm western breeze, and innumerable geraniums made a gaudy blaze of scarlet against the wooden wall. he did not stop here to make any inquiries about those he had come to see. his heart was beating tumultuously in expectation of the meeting that seemed so near. he alighted from the fly, dismissed the driver, and walked rapidly across a field leading by a short cut to the green on which captain sedgewick's house stood. this field brought him to the side of the green opposite the captain's cottage. he stopped for a moment as he came through the little wooden gate, and looked across the grass, where a regiment of geese was marching towards the still pool of willow-shadowed water. the shutters of the upper rooms were closed, and there was a board above the garden-gate. the cottage was to be let. gilbert fenton's heart gave one great throb, and then seemed to cease beating altogether. he walked across the green slowly, stunned by this unlooked-for blow. yes, the house was empty. the garden, which he remembered in such exquisite order, had a weedy dilapidated look that seemed like the decay of some considerable time. he rang the bell several times, but there was no answer; and he was turning away from the gate with the stunned confused feeling still upon him, unable to consider what he ought to do next, when he heard himself called by his name, and saw a woman looking at him across the hedge of the neighbouring garden. "were you wishing to make any inquiries about the last occupants of hazel cottage, sir?" she asked. "yes," gilbert answered huskily, looking at her in an absent unseeing way. he had seen her often during his visits to the cottage, busy at work in her garden, which was much smaller than the captain's, but he had never spoken to her before to-day. she was a maiden lady, who eked out her slender income by letting a part of her miniature abode whenever an opportunity for so doing occurred. the care of this cottage occupied all her days, and formed the delight and glory of her life. it was a little larger than a good-sized doll's house, and furnished with spindle-legged chairs and tables that had been polished to the last extremity of brightness. "perhaps you would be so good as to walk into my sitting-room for a few moments, sir," said this lady, opening her garden-gate. "i shall be most happy to afford you any information about your friends." "you are very good," said gilbert, following her into the prim little parlour. he had recovered his self-possession in some degree by this time, telling himself that this desertion of hazel cottage involved no more than a change of residence. "my name is dodd," said the lady, motioning mr. fenton to a chair, "miss letitia dodd. i had the pleasure of seeing you very often during your visits next door. i was not on visiting terms with captain sedgewick and miss nowell, although we bowed to each other out of doors. i am only a tradesman's daughter--indeed my brother is now carrying on business as a butcher in fairleigh--and of course i am quite aware of the difference in our positions. i am the last person to intrude myself upon my superiors." "if you will be so kind as to tell me where they have gone?" gilbert asked, eager to stop this formal statement of miss dodd's social standing. "where _they_ have gone!" she repeated. "dear, dear! then you do not know----" "i do not know what?" "of captain sedgewick's death." "good god! my dear old friend! when did he die?" "at the beginning of the year. it was very sudden--a fit of apoplexy. he was seized in the night, poor dear gentleman, and it was only discovered when the servant went to call him in the morning. he only lived two days after the seizure; and never spoke again." "and miss nowell--what made her leave the cottage? she is still at lidford, i suppose?" "o dear no, mr. fenton. she went away altogether about a month after the captain's death." "where did she go?" "i cannot tell you that, i did not even know that she intended leaving hazel cottage until the day after she left. when i saw the shutters closed and the board up, you might have knocked me down with a feather. miss nowell was so much liked in lidford, and she had more than one invitation from friends to stay with them for the sake of a change after her uncle's death; but she would not visit anywhere. she stayed quite alone in the cottage, with only the old servant." "but there must surely be some one in the place who knows where she has gone!" exclaimed gilbert. "i think not. the landlord of hazel cottage does not know. he is my landlord also, and i was asking him about miss nowell when i paid my rent the other day. he said he supposed she had gone away to be married. that has been the general impression, in fact, at lidford. people made sure that miss nowell had left to be married to you." "i have only just returned from australia. i have come back to fulfil my engagement to miss nowell. can you suggest no one from whom i am likely to obtain information?" "there is the family at the rectory; they knew her very well, and were extremely kind to her after her uncle's death. it might be worth your while to call upon mr. marchant." "yes, i will call," gilbert answered; "thanks for the suggestion." he wished miss dodd good-afternoon, and left her standing at the gate of her little garden, watching him with profound interest as he walked away towards the village. there was a pleasing mystery in the affair, to the mind of miss dodd. gilbert fenton went at once to the rectory, although it was now past seven o'clock. he had met mr. and mrs. marchant several times, and had visited them with the listers. the rector was at home, sitting over his solitary glass of port by the open window of his snug dining-room, looking lazily out at a group of sons and daughters playing croquet on the lawn. he was surprised to see mr. fenton, but welcomed him with much cordiality. "i have come to you full of care, mr. marchant," gilbert began; "and the pressing nature of my business must excuse the lateness of my visit." "there is no occasion for any excuse. i am very glad to see you at this time. pray help yourself to some wine, there are clean glasses near you; and take some of those strawberries, on which my wife prides herself amazingly. people who live in the country all their days are obliged to give their minds to horticulture. and now, what is this care of yours, mr. fenton? nothing very serious, i hope." "it is very serious to me at present. i think you know that i am engaged to miss nowell." "perfectly. i had imagined until this moment that you and she were married. when she left lidford, i concluded that she had gone to stay with friends of yours, and that the marriage would, in all probability, take place at an early period, without any strict observance of etiquette as to her mourning for her uncle. it was natural that we should think this, knowing her solitary position." "then you do not know where she went on leaving this place?" "not in the faintest degree. her departure was altogether unexpected by us. my wife and daughters called upon her two or three times after the captain's death, and were even anxious that she should come here to stay for a short time; but she would not do that. she seemed grateful, and touched by their anxiety about her, but they could not bring her to talk of her future." "and she told them nothing of her intention to leave lidford?" "not a word." this was all that gilbert fenton could learn. his interview with the rector lasted some time longer; but it told him nothing. whom next could he question? he knew all marian's friends, and he spent the next day in calling upon them, but with the same result; no one could tell him her reason for leaving hazel cottage, or where she had gone. there remained only one person whom he could question, and that was the old servant who had lived with captain sedgewick nearly all the time of his residence at lidford, and whom gilbert had conciliated by numerous gifts during his visits to hazel cottage. she was a good-humoured honest creature, of about fifty, and had been devoted to the captain and marian. after a good deal of trouble, gilbert ascertained that this woman had not accompanied her young mistress when she left lidford, but had taken service in a grocer's family at fairleigh. having discovered this, mr. fenton set off immediately for the little market-town, on foot this time, and with his mind full of the days when he and marian had walked this way together. he found the shop to which he had been directed--a roomy old-fashioned emporium in the high-street, sunk three or four feet below the level of the pavement, and approached by a couple of steps; a shop with a low ceiling, that was made lower by bunches of candles, hams, bacon, and other merchandise hanging from the massive beams that spanned it. mr. fenton, having duly stated his business, was shown into the grocer's best parlour--a resplendent apartment, where there were more ornaments in the way of shell-and-feather flowers under glass shades, and bohemian glass scent-bottles, than were consistent with luxurious occupation, and where every chair and sofa was made a perfect veiled prophet by enshrouding antimacassors. here sarah down, the late captain's servant, came to mr. fenton, wiping her hands and arms upon a spotless canvas apron, and generally apologetic as to her appearance. to this woman gilbert repeated the question he had asked of others, with the same disheartening result. "the poor dear young lady felt the captain's loss dreadfully; as well she might, when they had been so fond of each other," sarah down said, in answer to one of gilbert's inquiries. "i never knew any one grieve so deeply. she wouldn't go anywhere, and she couldn't bear to see any one who came to see her. she used to shut herself up in the captain's room day after day, kneeling by his bedside, and crying as if her heart would break. i have looked through the keyhole sometimes, and seen her there on her knees, with her face buried in the bedclothes. she didn't care to talk about him even to me, and i had hard work to persuade her to eat or drink enough to keep life in her at this time. when the days were fine, i used to try and get her to walk out a little, for she looked as white as a ghost for want of air; and after a good deal of persuasion, she did go out sometimes of an afternoon, but she wouldn't ask any one to walk with her, though there were plenty she might have asked--the young ladies from the rectory and others. she preferred being alone, she told me, and i was glad that she should get the air and the change anyhow. she brightened a little after this, but very little. it was all of a sudden one day that she told me she was going away. i wanted to go with her, but she said that couldn't be. i asked her where she was going, and she told me, after hesitating a little, that she was going to friends in london. i knew she had been very fond of two young ladies that she went to school with at lidford, whose father lived in london; and i thought it was to their house she was going. i asked her if it was, and she said yes. she made arrangements with the landlord about selling the furniture. he is an auctioneer himself, and there was no difficulty about that. the money was to be sent to her at a post-office in london. i wondered at that, but she said it was better so. she paid every sixpence that was owing, and gave me a handsome present over and above my wages; though i didn't want to take anything from her, poor dear young lady, knowing that there was very little left after the captain's death, except the furniture, which wasn't likely to bring much. and so she went away about two days after she first mentioned that she was going to leave lidford. it was all very sudden, and i don't think she bade good-bye to any one in the place. she seemed quite broken down with grief in those two last days. i shall never forget her poor pale face when she got into the fly." "how did she go? from the station here?" "i don't know anything about that, except that the fly came to the cottage for her and her luggage. i wanted to go to the station with her, to see her off, but she wouldn't let me." "did she mention me during the time that followed captain sedgewick's death?" "only when i spoke about you, sir. i used to try to comfort her, telling her she had you still left to care for her, and to make up for him she'd lost. but she used to look at me in a strange pitiful sort of way, and shake her head. 'i am very miserable, sarah,' she would say to me; 'i am quite alone in the world now my dear uncle is gone, and i don't know what to do.' i told her she ought to look forward to the time when she would be married, and would have a happy home of her own; but i could never get her to talk of that." "can you tell me the name and address of her friends in london--the young ladies with whom she went to school?" "the name is bruce, sir; and they live, or they used to live at that time, in st. john's-wood. i have heard miss nowell say that, but i don't know the name of the street or number of the house." "i daresay i shall be able to find them. it is a strange business, sarah. it is most unaccountable that my dearest girl should have left lidford without writing me word of her removal and her intentions with regard to the future--that she should have sent me no announcement of her uncle's death, although she must have known how well i loved him. i am going to ask you a question that is very painful to me, but which must be asked sooner or later. do you know of any one else whom she may have liked better than me--any one whose influence may have governed her at the time she left lidford?" "no, indeed, sir," replied the woman, promptly. "who else was there? miss nowell knew so few gentlemen, and saw no one except the rector's family and two or three ladies after the uncle's death." "not at the cottage, perhaps. but she may have seen some one out-of-doors. you say she always went out alone at that time, and preferred to do so." "yes, sir, that is true. but it seemed natural enough that she should like to be alone on account of her grief." "there must have been some reason for her silence towards me, sarah. she could not have acted so cruelly without some powerful motive. heaven only knows what it may have been. the business of my life will be to find her--to see her face to face once more, and hear the explanation of her conduct from her own lips." he thanked the woman for her information, slipped a sovereign into her hand, and departed. he called upon the proprietor of hazel cottage, an auctioneer, surveyor, and house-agent in the high-street of fairleigh, but could obtain no fresh tidings from this gentleman, except the fact that the money realised by the captain's furniture had been sent to miss nowell at a post-office in the city, and had been duly acknowledged by her, after a delay of about a week. the auctioneer showed gilbert the letter of receipt, which was worded in a very formal business-like manner, and bore no address but "london." the sight of the familiar hand gave him a sharp pang. o god, how he had languished for a letter in that handwriting! he had nothing more to do after this in the neighbourhood of lidford, except to pay a pious visit to the captain's grave, where a handsome slab of granite recorded the virtues of the dead. it lay in the prettiest, most retired part of the churchyard, half-hidden under a wide-spreading yew. gilbert fenton sat down upon a low wall near at hand for a long time, brooding over his broken life, and wishing himself at rest beneath that solemn shelter. "she never loved me," he said to himself bitterly. "i shut my eyes obstinately to the truth, or i might have discovered the secret of her indifference by a hundred signs and tokens. i fancied that a man who loved a woman as i loved her must succeed in winning her heart at last. and i accepted her girlish trust in me, her innocent gratitude for my attentions, as the evidence of her love. even at the last, when she wanted to release me, i would not understand. i did not expect to be loved as i loved her. i would have given so much, and been content to take so little. what is there i would not have done--what sacrifice of my own pride that i would not have happily made to win her! o my darling, even in your desertion of me you might have trusted me better than this! you would have found me fond and faithful through every trial, your friend in spite of every wrong." he knelt down by the grave, and pressed his lips to the granite on which george sedgewick's name was chiselled. "i owe it to the dead to discover her fate," he said to himself, as he rose from that reverent attitude. "i owe it to the dead to penetrate the secret of her new life, to assure myself that she is happy, and has fallen under no fatal influence." the listers were still abroad, and gilbert was very glad that it was so. it would have excruciated him to hear his sister's comments on marian's conduct, and to perceive the suppressed exultation with which she would most likely have discussed this unhappy termination to an engagement which had been entered on in utter disregard of her counsel. chapter ix. john saltram's advice. mr. fenton discovered the bruce family in boundary-road, st. john's-wood, after a good deal of trouble. but they could tell him nothing of their dear friend miss nowell, of whom they spoke with the warmest regard. they had never seen her since they had left the school at lidford, where they had been boarders, and she a daily pupil. they had not even heard of captain sedgewick's death. gilbert asked these young ladies if they knew of any other acquaintance of marian's living in or near london. they both answered promptly in the negative. the school was a small one, and they had been the only pupils who came from town; nor had they ever heard marian speak of any london friends. thus ended mr. fenton's inquiries in this direction, leaving him no wiser than when he left lidford. he had now exhausted every possible channel by which he might obtain information. the ground lay open before him, and there was nothing left for him but publicity. he took an advertisement to the _times_ office that afternoon, and paid for six insertions in the second column:-- "miss marian nowell, late of lidford, midlandshire, is requested to communicate immediately with g.f., post-office, wigmore-street, to whom her silence has caused extreme anxiety. she may rely upon the advertiser's friendship and fidelity under all possible circumstances." gilbert felt a little more hopeful after having done this. he fancied this advertisement must needs bring him some tidings of his lost love. the mystery might be happily solved after all, and marian prove true to him. he tried to persuade himself that this was possible; but it was very difficult to reconcile her line of conduct with the fact of her regard for him. in the evening he went to the temple, eager to see john saltram, from whom he had no intention to keep the secret of his trouble. he found his friend at home, writing, with his desk pushed against the open window, and the dust and shabbiness of his room dismally obvious in the hot july sunshine. he started up as gilbert entered, and the dark face grew suddenly pale. "you took me by surprise," he said. "i didn't know you were in england." "i only landed two days ago," answered gilbert, as they shook hands. "i daresay i startled you a little, dear old fellow, coming in upon you without a moment's notice, when you fancied i was at the antipodes. but, you see, i hunted you up directly i was free." "you have done well out yonder, i hope, gilbert?" "yes; everything has gone well enough with me in business. but my coming home has been a dreary one." "how is that?" "captain sedgewick is dead, and marian nowell is lost." "lost! what do you mean by that?" mr. fenton told his friend all that had befallen him since his arrival in england. "i come to you for counsel and help, john," he said, when he had finished his story. "i will give you my help, so far as it is possible for one man to help another in such a business, and my counsel in all honesty," answered john saltram; "but i doubt if you will be inclined to receive it." "why should you doubt that?" "because it is not likely to agree with your own ideas." "speak out, john." "i think that if miss nowell had really loved you, she would never have taken this step. i think that she must have left lidford in order to escape from her engagement, perhaps expecting your early return. i believe your pursuit of her can only end in failure and disappointment; and although i am ready to assist you in any manner you wish, i warn you against sacrificing your life to a delusion." "it is not under the delusion that marian nowell loves me that i am going to search for her," gilbert fenton said slowly, after an interval of silence. "i am not so weak as to believe _that_ after what has happened, though i have tried to argue with myself, only this afternoon, that she may still be true to me and that there may have been some hidden reason for her conduct. granted that she wished to escape from her engagement, she might have trusted to my honour to give her a prompt release the moment i became acquainted with the real state of her feelings. there must have been some stronger influence than this at work when she left lidford. i want to know the true cause of that hurried departure, john. i want to be sure that marian nowell is happy, and in safe hands." "by what means do you hope to discover this?" "i rely a good deal upon repeated advertisements in the _times_. they may bring me tidings of marian--if not directly, from some person who has seen her since she left lidford." "if she really wished to hide herself from you, she would most likely change her name." "why should she wish to hide herself from me? she must know that she might trust me. of her own free will she would never do this cruel thing. there must have been some secret influence at work upon my darling's mind. it shall be my business to discover what that influence was; or, in plainer words still, to discover the man who has robbed me of marian nowell's heart." "it comes to that, then," said john saltram. "you suspect some unknown rival?" "yes; that is the most natural conclusion to arrive at. and yet heaven knows how unwillingly i take that into consideration." "there is no particular person whom you suspect?" "no one." "if there should be no result from your advertisement, what will you do?" "i cannot tell you just yet. unless i get some kind of clue, the business will seem a hopeless one. but i cannot imagine that the advertisements will fail completely. if she left lidford to be married, there must be some record of her marriage. should my first advertisements fail, my next shall be inserted with a view to discover such a record." "and if, after infinite trouble, you should find her the wife of another man, what reward would you have for your wasted time and lost labour?" "the happiness of knowing her to be in a safe and honourable position. i love her too dearly to remain in ignorance of her fate." "well, gilbert, i know that good advice is generally thrown away in such a case as this; but i have a fixed opinion on the subject. to my mind, there is only one wise course open to you, and that is, to let this thing alone, and resign yourself to the inevitable. i acknowledge that miss nowell was eminently worthy of your affection; but you know the old song--'if she be not fair to me, what care i how fair she be.' there are plenty of women in the world. the choice is wide enough." "not for me, john. marian nowell is the only woman i have ever loved, the only woman i ever can love." "my dear boy, it is so natural for you to believe that just now; and a year hence you will think so differently!" "no, john. but i am not going to make any protestations of my constancy. let the matter rest. i knew that my life is broken--that this blow has left me nothing to hope for or to live for, except the hope of finding the girl who has wronged me. i won't weary you with lamentations. my talk has been entirely of self since i came into this room. tell me your own affairs, jack, old friend. how has the world gone with you since we parted at liverpool last year?" "not too smoothly. my financial position becomes a little more obscure and difficult of comprehension every year, as you know; but i rub on somehow. i have been working at literature like a galley-slave; have contributed no end of stuff to the quarterlies; and am engaged upon a book,--yes gil, positively a book,--which i hope may do great things for me if ever i can finish it." "is it a novel?" "a novel! no!" cried john saltram, with a wry face; "it is the romance of reality i deal with. my book is a life of jonathan swift. he was always a favourite study of mine, you know, that brilliant, unprincipled, intolerant, cynical, irresistible, miserable man. scott's biography seems to me to give but a tame picture, and others are only sketches. mine will be a pre-raphaelite study--faithful as a photograph, careful as a miniature on ivory, and life-size." "i trust it will bring you fame and money when the time comes," answered gilbert. "and how about mrs. branston? is she as charming as ever?" "a little more so, if possible. poor old michael branston is dead--went off the hooks rather suddenly about a month ago. the widow looks amazingly pretty in her weeds." "and you will marry her, i suppose, jack, as soon as her mourning is over?" "well, yes; it is on the cards," john saltram said, in an indifferent tone. "why, how you say that! is there any doubt as to the lady's fortune?" "o no; that is all square enough. michael branston's will was in the _illustrated london news_; the personalty sworn under a hundred and twenty thousand,--all left to the widow,--besides real property--a house in cavendish square, the villa at maidenhead, and a place near leamington." "it would be a splendid match for you, jack." "splendid, of course. an unprecedented stroke of luck for such a fellow as i. yet i doubt very much if i am quite the man for that sort of life. i should be apt to fancy it a kind of gilded slavery, i think, gil, and there would be some danger of my kicking off the chains." "but you like mrs. branston, don't you, jack?" "like her? yes, i like her too well to deceive her. and she would expect devoted affection from a second husband. she is full of romantic ideas, school-girl theories of life which she was obliged to nip in the bud when she went to the altar with old branston, but which have burst into flower now that she is free." "have you seen her often since her husband's death?" "only twice;--once immediately after the funeral, and again yesterday. she is living in cavendish square just now." "i hope you will marry her. i should like to see you safe in smooth water, and with some purpose in life. i should like to see you turn your back upon the loneliness of these dreary chambers." "they are not very brilliant, are they? i don't know how many generations of briefless barristers these chairs and tables have served. the rooms have an atmosphere of failure; but they suit me very well. i am not always here, you know. i spend a good deal of my time in the country." "whereabouts?" "sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another; wherever my truant fancy leads me. i prefer such spots as are most remote from the haunts of men, unknown to cockneys; and so long as there is a river within reach of my lodging, i can make myself tolerably happy with a punt and a fishing-rod, and contrive to forget my cares." "you have not been to lidford since i left england, i suppose?" "yes; i was at heatherly a week or two in the winter. poor old david forster would not let me alone until i went down to him. he was ill, and in a very dismal condition altogether, abandoned by the rest of his cronies, and a close prisoner in the house which has so many painful associations for him. it was a work of charity to bear him company." "did you see captain sedgewick, or marian, while you were down there?" "no. i should have liked to have called upon the kind old captain; but forster was unconscionably exacting,--there was no getting away from him." gilbert stopped with his friend until late that night, smoking and drinking a mild mixture of brandy and soda-water, and talking of the things that had been doing on this side of the globe while he had been on the other. no more was said about marian, or gilbert's plans for the future. in his own mind that one subject reigned supreme, shutting out every other thought; but he did not want to make himself a nuisance to john saltram, and he knew that there are bounds to the endurance of which friendship is capable. the two friends seemed cheerful enough as they smoked their cigars in the summer dusk, the quiet of the flagged court below rarely broken by a passing footfall. it was the pleasantest evening which gilbert fenton had spent for a long time, in spite of the heavy burden on his mind, in spite of the depressing view which mr. saltram took of his position. "dear old john," he said, as they shook hands at parting, "i cannot tell you what a happiness it has been to me to see you again. we were never separated so long before since the day when i ate my first dinner at balliol." the other seemed touched by this expression of regard, but disinclined to betray his emotion, after the manner of englishmen on such occasions. "my dear gilbert, it ought to be very pleasant to me to hear that. but i doubt if i am worthy of so much. as far as my own liking for you goes, there is no inequality between us; but you are a better fellow than i am by a long way, and are not likely to profit much in the long-run by your friendship for a reprobate like me." "that's all nonsense, john. that kind of vague self-accusation means nothing. i have no doubt i shall live to see you a great man, and to be proud enough of being able to claim you as the chosen friend of my youth. mr. branston's death has cleared the way for you. the chances of a distinguished future are within your grasp." "the chances within my grasp! yes. my dear gilbert, i tell you there are some men for whom everything in this world comes too late." "what do you mean by that?" "only that i doubt if you will ever see me adela branston's husband." "i can't understand you, john." "my dear fellow, there is nothing strange in that. there are times when i cannot understand myself." chapter x. jacob nowell. the days went by, and brought gilbert fenton no reply to his advertisement. he called at the post-office morning and evening, only to find the same result; and a dull blank feeling, a kind of deadness of heart and mind, began to steal over him with the progress of the days. he went through the routine of his business-life steadily enough, working as hard as he had ever worked; but it was only by a supreme effort that he could bring his mind to bear upon the details of business--all interest in his office-work was gone. the advertisement had appeared for the sixth time, and gilbert had framed a second, offering a reward of twenty pounds for any direct evidence of the marriage of marian nowell; when a letter was handed to him one evening at the post-office--a letter in a common blue envelope, directed in a curious crabbed hand, and bearing the london post-mark. his heart beat loud and fast as he tore open this envelope. it contained only a half-sheet of paper, with these words written upon it in the cramped half-illegible hand which figured on the outside: "the person advertising for marian nowell is requested to call at no. , queen anne's court, wardour street, any evening after seven." this was all. little as this brief note implied, however, gilbert made sure that the writer must be in a position to give him some kind of information about the object of his search. it was six o'clock when he received the communication. he went from the post-office to his lodgings with his mind in a tumult of excitement, made a mere pretence of taking a hasty dinner, and set off immediately afterwards for wardour street. there was more than time for him to walk, and he hoped that the walk might have some effect in reducing the fever of his mind. he did not want to present himself before strangers--who, no doubt, only wanted to make a barter of any knowledge they possessed as to marian's whereabouts--in a state of mental excitement. the address to which he was going mystified him beyond measure. what could people living in such a place as this know of her whom he sought? he was in wardour street at a quarter before seven, but he had considerable trouble in finding queen anne's court, and the clocks of the neighbourhood were striking the hour as he turned into a narrow alley with dingy-looking shops on one side and a high dead wall on the other. the gas was glimmering faintly in the window of no. , and a good deal of old silver, tarnished and blackened, huddled together behind the wire-guarded glass, was dimly visible in the uncertain light. there was some old jewellery too, and a little wooden bowl of sovereigns or gold coins of some kind or other. on a brass plate upon the door of this establishment there appeared the name of jacob nowell, silversmith and money-changer. gilbert fenton stared in amazement at this inscription. it must needs be some relative of marian's he was about to see. he opened the door, bewildered a little by this discovery, and a shrill bell gave notice of his entrance to those within. a tall lanky young man, with a sallow face and sleek black hair, emerged quickly from some door in the obscure background, and asked in a sharp voice what the visitor pleased to want. "i wish to see mr. nowell, the writer of a letter addressed to the post-office in wigmore street." the sallow-faced young man disappeared without a word, leaving gilbert standing in the dimly lighted shop, where he saw more old silver crowded upon shelves behind glass doors, carved ebony cabinets looming out of the dusk, and here and there an old picture in a tarnished frame. on the counter there was a glass case containing foreign bank-notes and gold, some curious old watches, and other trinkets, a baby's coral, a battered silver cup, and a gold snuff-box. while gilbert waited thus he heard voices in a room at the back--the shrill tones of the sallow young man and a feeble old voice raised querulously--and then, after a delay which seemed long to his impatience, the young man reappeared and told him mr. nowell was ready to see him. gilbert went into the room at the end of the shop--a small dark parlour, more crowded with a heterogeneous collection of plate, pictures, and bric-a-brac of all kinds than the shop itself. sultry as the july evening was, there was a fire burning in the pinched rusty grate, and over this fire the owner of the room bent affectionately, with his slippered feet on the fender, and his bony hands clasping his bony knees. he was an old man, with long yellowish-white hair streaming from beneath a velvet skull-cap, and bright black eyes deep set in a pale thin face. his nose was a sharp aquiline, and gave something of a bird-like aspect to a countenance that must once have been very handsome. he was wrapped in a long dressing-gown of some thick grey woollen stuff. the sallow-faced young man lingered by the half-glass door between the parlour and the shop, as if he would fain have remained a witness to the interview about to take place between his master and the stranger; but the old man looked round at him sharply, and said,-- "that will do, tulliver; you can go back to the shop. if abrahams brings that little lot again to-night, tell him i'll give five-and-nine an ounce, not a fraction more." mr. tulliver retired, leaving the door ajar ever so little; but the penetrating black eyes of the master were quick to perceive this manoeuvre. "will you be so good as to shut that door, sir, quite securely?" he said to gilbert. "that young man is very inquisitive; i'm afraid i've kept him too long. people talk of old servants; but half the robberies in the world are committed by old servants. be seated, if you please, sir. you find this room rather close, perhaps. some people do; but i'm old and chilly, and i can't live without a fire." "i have come to you in great anxiety of mind," said gilbert, as he seated himself upon the only disengaged chair in the room, "and with some hope that you may be able to set my mind at ease by affording me information about miss marian nowell." "i can give you no information about her." "indeed!" cried gilbert, with a bitter pang of disappointment; "and yet you answered my advertisement." "i did, because i have some reason to suppose this marian nowell may be my granddaughter." "that is quite possible." "can you tell me her father's name?" "percival nowell. her mother was a miss lucy geoffry." "right," said the old man. "percival nowell was my only son--my only child of late years. there was a girl, but she died early. he was my only son, and his mother and i were foolish enough to be proud of his good looks and his clever ways; and we brought him up a gentleman, sent him to an expensive school, and after that to the university, and pinched ourselves in every way for his sake. my father was a gentleman; and it was only after i had failed as a professional man, through circumstances which i need not explain to you now, that i took to this business. i would have made any sacrifice in reason for that boy of mine. i wanted him to be a gentleman, and to make his way in one of the learned professions. after a great deal of chopping and changing, he fixed upon the bar, took chambers in the temple, made me pay all the fees, and pretended to study. but i soon found that he was leading a wild dissipated life, and was never likely to be good for anything. he got into debt, drew bills upon me, and behaved altogether in a most shameful manner. when i sent for him, and remonstrated with him upon his disgraceful conduct, he told me that i was a miser, that i spent my life in a dog-kennel for the sake of hoarding money, and that i deserved nothing better than his treatment of me. i may have been better off at this time than i had cared to let him know, for i had soon found out what a reckless scoundrel i had to deal with; but if he had behaved decently, he would have found me generous and indulgent enough. as it was, i told him to go about his business, and never to expect another sixpence from me as long as he lived. how he managed to exist after this, i hardly know. he was very much mixed up with a disreputable lot of turf-men, and i believe he made money by betting. his mother robbed me for him, i found out afterwards, and contrived to send him a good deal of money at odd times. my business as a dealer in second-hand silver was better then than it is now, and i had had so much money passing through my hands that it was pretty easy for my wife to cheat me. poor soul! she has been dead and gone these fifteen years, and i have freely forgiven her. she loved that young man to distraction. if he had wanted a step to reach the object of his wishes, she would have laid herself down in the dust and let him walk over her body. i suppose it is in the nature of mothers to love their sons like that. well, sir, i never saw my gentleman after that day. i had plenty of letters from him, all asking for money; threatening letters, pitiful letters, letters in which he swore he would destroy himself if he didn't receive a remittance by return of post; but i never sent him a shilling. about a year after our last meeting, i received the announcement of his marriage with miss geoffry. he wrote to tell me that, if i would allow him a decent income, he would reform and lead a steady life. that letter i did answer: to the effect that, if he chose to come here and act as my shopman, i would give him board and lodging for himself and his wife, and such wages as he should deserve. i told him that i had given him his chance as a gentleman, and he had thrown it away. i would give him the opportunity now of succeeding in a humbler career by sheer industry and perseverance as i had succeeded myself. if he thought that i had made a fortune, there was so much the more reason for him to try his luck. this was the last letter i ever wrote to him. it was unanswered; but about a year and a half afterwards there came a few lines to his mother, telling her of the birth of a daughter, which was to be called marian, after her. this last letter came from brussels." "and did you hear no more of your son after this?" gilbert asked. "nothing. i think his mother used to get letters from him in secret for some time; that these failed suddenly at last; and that anxiety about her worthless son--anxiety which she tried to hide from me--shortened her life. she never complained, poor soul! never mentioned percy's name until the last, when she begged me to be kind to him if he should ever come to throw himself upon my kindness. i gave her my promise that, if that came to pass, he should find me a better friend to him than he deserved. it is hard to refuse the last prayer of a faithful wife who has done her duty patiently for nearly thirty years." "have you any reason to suppose your son still living?" "i have no evidence of his death. often and often, after my poor wife was gone, i have sat alone here of a night thinking of him; thinking that he might come in upon me at any moment; almost listening for his footstep in the quiet of the place. but he never came. he would have found me very soft-hearted at such times. my mind changed to him a good deal after his mother's death. i used to think of him as he was in his boyhood, when marian and i had such great hopes of him, and would sit and talk of him for hours together by this fireside. an old man left quite alone as i was had plenty of time for such thoughts. night after night i have fancied i heard his step, and have looked up at that door expecting to see him open it and come in; but he never came. he may be dead. i suppose he is dead; or he would have come to make another attempt at getting money out of me." "you have never taken any measures for finding him?" inquired gilbert. "no. if he wanted me, he knew where i was to be found. _i_ was a fixture. it was his business to come to me. when i saw the name of marian nowell in your advertisement a week ago, i felt curious to know whether it could be my grandchild you were looking for. i held off till this morning, thinking it wasn't worth my while to make any inquiries about the matter; but i couldn't get it out of my head somehow; and it ended by my answering your advertisement. i am an old man, you see, without a creature belonging to me; and it might be a comfort to me to meet with some one of my own flesh and blood. the bit of money i may leave behind me when i die won't be much; but it might as well go to my son's child as to a stranger." "if your son's child can be found, you will discover her to be well worthy of your love. yes, though she has done me a cruel wrong, i believe her to be all that is good and pure and true." "what is the wrong that she has done you?" gilbert told jacob nowell the story of his engagement, and the bitter disappointment which had befallen him on his return from australia. the old man listened with every appearance of interest. he approved of gilbert's notion of advertising for the particulars of a possible marriage, and offered to bear his part in the expenses of the search for his granddaughter. gilbert smiled at this offer. "you do not know what a worthless thing money is to me now," he said, "or now lightly i hold my own trouble or loss in this matter." he left queen anne's court soon after this, after having promised jacob nowell to return and report progress so soon as there should be anything worth telling. he went back to wigmore street heavy-hearted, depressed by the reaction that followed the vain hope which the silversmith's letter had inspired. it mattered little to him to know the antecedents of marian's father, while marian's destiny remained still hidden from him. chapter xi. the marriage at wygrove. on the following day gilbert fenton took his second advertisement to the office in printing house square; an advertisement offering a reward of twenty pounds for any reliable information as to the marriage of marian nowell. a week went by, during which the advertisement appeared on alternate days; and at the end of that time there came a letter from the parish-clerk of wygrove, a small town about forty miles farther from london than lidford, stating that, on the th of march, john holbrook and marian nowell had been married at the church in that place. gilbert fenton left london by an early train upon the morning after his receipt of this letter; and at about three o'clock in the afternoon found himself on the outskirts of wygrove, rather a difficult place to reach, involving a good deal of delay at out-of-the-way junctions, and a six-mile journey by stage-coach from the nearest station. it was about the dullest dreariest little town to which his destiny had ever brought gilbert fenton, consisting of a melancholy high-street, with a blank market-place, and a town hall that looked as if it had not been opened within the memory of man; a grand old gothic church, much too large for the requirements of the place; a grim square brick box inscribed "ebenezer;" and a few prim villas straggling off into the country. on one side of the church there was a curious little old-fashioned court, wonderfully neat and clean, with houses the parlours whereof were sunk below the level of the pavement, after the manner of these old places. there was a great show of geraniums in the casements, and a general aspect of brightness and order distinguished all these modest dwellings. it was to this court that mr. fenton had been directed on inquiring for thomas stoneham, the parish-clerk, at the inn where the coach deposited him. he was fortunate enough to find mr. stoneham sunning himself on the threshold of his domicile, smoking an after-dinner pipe. a pleasant clattering of tea-things sounded from the neat little parlour within, showing that, early as it was, there were already preparations for the cup which cheers without inebriating in the stoneham household. thomas stoneham, supported by a freshly-painted door of a vivid green and an extensive brass plate engraved with his name and functions, was a personage of some dignity. he was a middle-aged man, ponderous and slow of motion, with a latent pomposity, which he rendered as agreeable as possible by the urbanity of his manners. he was a man of a lofty spirit, who believed in his office as something exalted above all other dignities of this earth--less lucrative, of course, than a bishopric or the woolsack, and of a narrower range, but quite as important on a small scale. "the world might get on pretty well without bishops," thought mr. stoneham, when he pondered upon these things as he smoked his churchwarden pipe; "but what would become of a parish in which there was no clerk?" this gentleman, seeing gilbert fenton approach, was quick to surmise that the stranger came in answer to the letter he had written the day before. the advent of a stranger in wygrove was so rare an occurrence, that it was natural enough for him to jump at this conclusion. "i believe you are mr. stoneham," said gilbert, "and the writer of a letter in answer to an advertisement in the _times_." "my name is stoneham, sir; i am the clerk of this parish, and have been for twenty years and more, as i think i may have stated in the letter to which you refer. will you be so kind as to step inside?" mr. stoneham waved his hand towards the parlour, to which apartment gilbert descended. here he found mrs. stoneham, a meek little sandy-haired woman, who seemed to be borne down by the weight of her lord's dignity; and miss stoneham, also meek and sandy, with a great many stiff little corkscrew ringlets budding out all over her head and a sharp little inquiring nose. these ladies would have retired on gilbert's entrance, but he begged them to remain; and after a good deal of polite hesitation they consented to do so, mrs. stoneham resuming her seat before the tea-tray, and miss stoneham retiring to a little table by the window, where she was engaged in trimming a bonnet. "i want to know all about this marriage, mr. stoneham," gilbert began, when he had seated himself in a shining mahogany arm-chair by the empty fire-place. "first and foremost, i want you to tell me where mr. and mrs. holbrook are now living." the parish-clerk shook his head with a stately slowness. "not to be done, sir," he said: "when mr. and mrs. holbrook left here they went the lord knows where. they went away the very day they were married. there was a fly waiting for them at the church-door, with their luggage upon it, when the ceremony was over, ready to drive them to grangewick station. i saw them get into it and drive away; and that's every mortal thing that i know as to what became of them after they were married in yonder church." "you don't know who this mr. holbrook is?" "no more than the babe unborn, sir. he was a stranger in this place, was only here long enough to get the license for his marriage. i should take him to be a gentleman; but he wasn't a pleasant person to speak to--rather stand-off-ish in his manners. he wasn't the sort of man i should have chosen if i'd been a pretty young woman like miss nowell; but there's no accounting for taste, and she seemed uncommonly fond of him. i never saw any one more agitated than she was when they were married. she was crying in a quiet way all through the service, and when it was over she fainted dead-off. i daresay it did seem hard to her to be married like that, without so much as a friend to give her away. she was in mourning, too, deep mourning." "can you give me any description of this man--this mr. holbrook?" "well, no, sir: he was an ordinary kind of person to look at; might be any age between thirty and forty; not a gentleman that i should have taken a fancy to myself, as i said before; but young women are that wayward and uncertain like, there's no knowing where to have them." "was miss nowell long at wygrove before her marriage?" "about three weeks. she lodged with miss long, up the town, a friend of my daughter's. if you'd like to ask any questions of miss long, our jemima might step round there with you presently." "i should be very glad to do so," gilbert answered quickly. he asked several more questions; but mr. stoneham could give him no information, except as to the bare fact of the marriage. gilbert knew now that the girl he had so fondly loved and so entirely trusted was utterly lost to him; that he had been jilted cruelly and heartlessly, as he could but own to himself. yes, she had jilted him--had in all probability never loved him. he blamed himself for having urged his suit too ardently, with little reference to marian's own feelings, with a rooted obstinate conviction that he needed only to win her in order to insure the happiness of both. having fully proved mr. stoneham's inability to afford him any further help in this business, gilbert availed himself of the fair jemima's willingness to "step round" to miss long's domicile with him, in the hope of obtaining fuller information from that lady. while miss stoneham was engaged in putting on her bonnet for this expedition, the clerk proposed to take gilbert across to the church and show him the entry of the marriage in the register. "with a view to the satisfactory settlement of the reward," mr. stoneham added in a fat voice, and with the air of a man to whom twenty pounds more or less was an affair of very little moment. gilbert assented to this, and accompanied mr. stoneham to a little side-door which admitted them into the old church, where the light shone dimly through painted windows, in which there seemed more leaden framework than glass. the atmosphere of the place was cold even on this sultry july afternoon, and the vestry to which mr. stoneham conducted his companion had a damp mouldy smell. he opened a cupboard, with a good deal of jingling of a great bunch of keys, and produced the register; a grim-looking volume bound in dingy leather, and calculated to inspire gloomy feelings in the minds of the bridegrooms and brides who had occasion to inscribe their names therein; a volume upon which the loves and the graces who hover around the entrance to the matrimonial state had shed no ray of glamour. thomas stoneham laid this book before gilbert, open at the page on which marian's marriage was recorded. yes, there was the familiar signature in the fair flowing hand he had loved so well. it was his marian, and no other, whom john holbrook had married in that gloomy old church. the signature of the bridegroom was in a stiff straight hand, all the letters formed with unusual precision, as if the name had been written in a slow laboured way. who could this john holbrook be? gilbert was quite certain that he had never heard the name at lidford, nor could he believe that if any attachment between this man and marian nowell had existed before his own acquaintance with her, captain sedgewick would have been so dishonourable as to keep the fact a secret from him. this john holbrook must needs, therefore, be some one who had come to lidford during gilbert's absence from england; yet sarah down had been able to tell him of no new visitor at hazel cottage. he copied the record of the marriage on a leaf in his pocket-book, paid mr. stoneham a couple of ten-pound notes, and left the church. the clerk's daughter was waiting for him in the little court outside, and they went at once to the house where miss nowell had lodged during her residence at wygrove. it was a house in a neat little terrace on the outskirts of the town; a house approached by a flight of steep stone steps of spotless purity, and a half-glass door, which opened at once into a bright airy-looking parlour, faintly perfumed with rose-leaves and lavender mouldering in the china vases on the mantelpiece. here gilbert was introduced to miss long, a maiden lady of uncertain age, who wore stiff bands of suspiciously black hair under an imposing structure of lace and artificial flowers, and a rusty black-silk dress, the body of which fitted so tightly as to seem like a kind of armour. this lady received mr. fenton very graciously, and declared herself quite ready to give him any information in her power about miss nowell. it happened unfortunately, however, that her power was of a most limited extent. "a sweeter young lady never lived than miss nowell," she said. "i've had a great many people occupying these apartments since my father's death left me thrown upon my own resources. i've had lodgers that i might call permanent, in a manner of speaking; but i never had any one that i took to as i took to miss nowell, though she was hardly with me three weeks from first to last." "did she seem happy in her mind during that time?" gilbert asked. "well, no; i cannot say that she did. i should have expected to see a young lady that was going to be married to the man she loved much more cheerful and hopeful about the future than miss nowell was. she told me that her uncle had not been dead many weeks, and i thought at first that this was the only grief she had on her mind; but after some time, when i found her very low and downhearted, and had won upon her to trust me almost as if i had been an old friend, she owned to me that she had behaved very badly to a gentleman she had been engaged to, and that the thought of her wickedness to him preyed upon her mind. 'i don't think any good can ever come of my marriage, miss long,' she said to me; 'i think i must surely be punished for my falsehood to the good man who loved me so truly. but there are some things in life that seem like fate. they come upon us in a moment, and we have no strength to fight against them. i believe it was my fate to love john holbrook. there is nothing in this world i could refuse to do for his sake. if he had asked me for my life, i must have given it to him as freely as i gave him my love. from the first hour in which i saw him he was my master.'" "this mr. holbrook was very fond of her, i suppose?" "i daresay he was, sir; but he was not a man that showed his feelings very much. they used to go for long walks together, though it was march and cold windy weather, and she always seemed happier when he brought her home. he came every evening to drink tea with her, and i used to hear them talking as i sat at work in the next room. she was happy enough when he was with her. it was only when she was alone that she would give way to low spirits and gloomy thoughts about the future." "did she ever tell you anything about mr. holbrook--his position or profession? how long she had known him? how and where they had first met?" "no, sir. she told me once that he was not rich; i think that is about all she ever said of him, except when she spoke of his influence over her, and her trust in him." "have you any idea where they were going to live after their marriage?" "i cannot tell you the name of the place. miss nowell said that a friend of mr. holbrook's was going to lend him an old farm-house in a very pretty part of the country. it would be very lonely, she said, and her husband would have sometimes to leave her to attend to his business in london; but she would not mind that. 'some day, i daresay, he will let me live in london with him,' she said; 'but i don't like to ask him that yet.'" "did she drop no hint as to the whereabouts of this place to which they were going?" "it was somewhere in hampshire; that is all i can remember." "i would give a great deal to know more," gilbert said with a sigh. "in what manner did this mr. holbrook impress you? you were interested in the young lady, and would therefore naturally be interested in her lover. did he strike you as worthy of her?" "_i_ cannot say that he did, sir," miss long answered doubtfully. "i could see that he had great power over her, though his manner to her was always very gentle; but i cannot say that i took to him myself. i daresay he is a very clever man; but he had a cold proud way that kept one at a distance from him, and i seemed to know no more of him at the last than i had known on the first day i saw him. i believe he loved miss nowell, and that's about all the good i do believe of him." after this, there was no more to be asked of miss long; so gilbert thanked her for her civility, and bade good evening at once to her and to miss stoneham. there was time for him to catch the last coach to grangewick station. he determined upon going from grangewick to lidford, instead of returning to london. he wanted, if possible, to find out something more about this man holbrook, who must surely have been known to some one at lidford during his secret courtship of marian nowell. he wasted two days at lidford, making inquiries on this subject, in as quiet a manner as possible and in every imaginable quarter; but without the slightest result. no one either at lidford or fairleigh had ever heard of mr. holbrook. gilbert's last inquiries were made in a singular direction. after exhausting every likely channel of information, he had a few hours left before the departure of the fast train by which he had determined to return to london; and this leisure he devoted to a visit to heatherly park, in the chance of finding sir david forster at home. it was just possible that mr. holbrook might be one of sir david's innumerable bachelor acquaintances. gilbert walked from lidford to heatherly by that romantic woodland path by which he had gone with marian and her uncle on the bright september afternoon when he first saw sir david's house. the solitary walk awakened very bitter thoughts; the memory of those hopes which had then made the sunshine of his life, and without which existence seemed a weary purposeless journey across a desert land. sir david was at home, the woman at the lodge told him; and he went on to the house, and rang a great clanging bell, which made an alarming clamour in the utter stillness of the place. a gray-haired old servant answered the summons, and ushered gilbert into the state drawing-room, an apartment with a lofty arched roof, eight long windows, and a generally ecclesiastical aspect, which was more suggestive of solemn grandeur than of domestic comfort. here gilbert waited for about ten minutes, at the end of which time the man returned, to request that he would be so kind as to go to sir david's study. his master was something of an invalid, the man told gilbert. they went through the billiard-room to a very snug little apartment, with dark-panelled walls and one large window opening upon a rose-garden on the southern side of the house. there was a ponderous carved-oak bookcase on one side of the room; on all the others the paraphernalia of sporting--gunnery and fishing-tackle, small-swords, whips, and boxing-gloves--artistically arranged against the panelling; and over the mantelpiece an elaborate collection of meerschaum pipes. through a half-open door gilbert caught a glimpse of a comfortable bedchamber leading out of this room. sir david was sitting on a low easy-chair near the window, with one leg supported on a luxuriously-cushioned rest, invented for the relief of gouty subjects. although not yet forty, the baronet was a chronic sufferer from this complaint. "my dear mr. fenton, how good of you to come to me!" he exclaimed, shaking hands very cordially with gilbert. "here i am, laid by the heels in this dreary old place, and quite alone. you can't imagine what a treat it is to see a friendly intelligent face from the outer world." "the purpose of my visit is such a purely selfish one, that i am really ashamed to receive such a kindly greeting, sir david. if i had known you were here and an invalid, i should have gladly come to see you; but i didn't know it. i have been at lidford on a matter of business for the last two days; and i came here on the hazard of finding you, and with a faint hope that you might be able to give me some help in an affair which is supremely important to me." sir david forster looked at gilbert fenton curiously for a moment, and then took up an empty meerschaum that lay upon a little table near him, and began to fill it with a thoughtful air. gilbert had dropped into an arm-chair on the opposite side of the open window, and was watching the baronet's face, puzzled a little by that curious transient expression which had just flitted across it. "what is the business?" sir david asked presently; "and how can i be of use to you?" "i think you knew all about my engagement to miss nowell, when i was here last september, sir david," gilbert began presently. "yes, saltram told me you were engaged; not but what it was easy enough to see how the land lay, without any telling." "miss nowell has jilted me. i love her too dearly to be able to entertain any vindictive feeling against her; but i do feel vindictively disposed towards the man who has robbed me of her, for i know that only a very powerful influence would have induced her to break faith with me; and this man must needs have known the dishonourable thing he was doing when he tempted her away from me. i want to know who he is, sir david, and how he came to acquire such an influence over my plighted wife." "my dear fenton, you are going on so fast! you say miss nowell has jilted you. she is married to some one else, then, i suppose?" "she is married to a mr. holbrook. i came to lidford the night before last, with the hope of finding out something about him; but all my endeavours have resulted in failure. it struck me at last, as a kind of forlorn hope, that this mr. holbrook might possibly be one of your autumnal visitors; and i came here to ask you that question." "no," answered the baronet; "i have had no visitor called holbrook. is the name quite strange to yourself?" "entirely strange." "and this mr. holbrook is now miss nowell's husband? and you want to know who he is? with what end?" "i want to find the man who has done me the deadliest wrong one man can do another." "my dear fellow, don't you see that it is fate, and not mr. holbrook, that has done you this wrong? if miss nowell had really loved you as she ought to have loved you, it would have been quite impossible for her to be tempted away from you. it was her destiny to marry this holbrook, rely upon it; and had you been on the spot to protect your own interests, the result would have been just the same. believe me, i am very sorry for you, and can fully sympathise with your feelings in this business; but i cannot see what good could possibly arise out of a meeting between you and your fortunate rival. the days of duelling are past; and even if it were not so, i think you are too generous to seek to deprive miss nowell of her husband." "i do not know about that. there are some wrongs which all a man's christianity is not wide enough to cover. i think if that man and i were to meet, there would be very little question of mercy on my side. i hold a man who could act as he has acted unworthy of all consideration--utterly unworthy of the woman he has won from me." "my dear fellow, you know the old saying. a man who is in love thinks everything fair. there is no such thing as honour in such a case as this. of course, i don't want to defend this holbrook; i only want to awaken your senses to the absurdity of any vindictive pursuit of the man. if the lady did not love you, believe me you are well out of the business." "yes, that is what every one would tell me, i daresay," gilbert answered impatiently. "but is there to be no atonement for my broken life, rendered barren to me by this man's act? i tell you, sir david, there is no such thing as pardon for a wrong like this. but i know how foolish this talk must seem to you: there is always something ridiculous in the sufferings of a jilted lover." "not at all, my dear fenton. i heartily wish that i could be of use to you in this matter; but there is very little chance of that; and, believe me, there is only one rational course open to you, which is, to forget miss nowell, or mrs. holbrook, with all possible assiduity." gilbert smiled, a melancholy incredulous smile. sir david's advice was only the echo of john saltram's counsel--the counsel which he would receive from every man of the world, no doubt--the counsel which he himself would most likely have given to a friend under the same circumstances. sir david was very cordial, and wanted his visitor to dine and sleep at heatherly; but this gilbert declined. he was eager to get back to london now that his business was finished. he arrived in town late that night; and went back to his office-work next day with a dreary feeling that he must needs go through the same dull routine day after day in all the time to come, without purpose or hope in his life, only because a man must go on living somehow to the end of his earthly pilgrimage, whether the sun shine upon him or not. he went to queen anne's court one evening soon after his return, and told mr. nowell all he had discovered at wygrove. the old man showed himself keenly interested in his grand-daughter's fate. "i would give a great deal to see her before i die," he said. "whatever i have to leave will be hers. it may be little or much--i won't speak about that; but i've lived a hard life, and saved where other men would have spent. i should like to see my son's child; i should like to have some one of my own flesh and blood about me in my last days." "would it not be a good plan to put an advertisement into the _times_, addressed to mrs. holbrook, from a relation? she would be likely to answer that, when she would not reply to any appeal coming directly from me." "yes," answered jacob nowell; "and her husband would let her come to me for the sake of what i may have to leave her. but that can't be helped, i suppose; it is the fate of a man who lives as i have lived, to be cared for at last only for what he has to give. i'll put in such an advertisement as you speak of; and we'll see what comes of it." chapter xii. a friendly counsellor. gilbert fenton called several times in the temple without being able to see john saltram; a slip of paper pasted on the outer door of that gentleman's chamber informed the public that he was "out of town," and that was all. gilbert took the trouble to penetrate the domicile of the laundress who officiated in mr. saltram's chambers, in order to obtain some more particular information as to her employer's movements, and after infinite difficulty succeeded in finding that industrious matron in the remote obscurity of a narrow court near the river. but the laundress could tell mr. fenton very little. she did not know whither mr. saltram had gone, or when he was likely to return. he was one of the most uncertingest gentlemen she had to do for; and he had been out of town a great deal lately; which was not to be wondered at, considering the trying hot weather, when it was not to be supposed that gentlefolks as was free to do what they pleased would stay in london. it was hard enough upon working people with five children to wash and mend and cook for, and over in the court besides, and provisions dearer than they had been these ten years. gilbert asked if mr. saltram had left any orders about his letters; but the woman told him, no; there never was such a careless gentleman about letters. he never cared about having them sent after him, and would let them lie in the box till the dust got thick upon them. gilbert left a brief note for john saltram with the woman--a note begging his friend to come to him when he was next in london; and having done this, he paid no more visits to the temple, but waited patiently for mr. saltram's coming, feeling very sure that his request would not be neglected. if anything could have intensified the gloom of his mind at this time it would have been the absence of that one friend, whom he loved better than he had ever loved any one in this world, except marian nowell. he stayed in town all through the blank august and september season, working harder than he had worked since the early days of his commercial life, taking neither pleasure nor interest in anything, and keeping as much as possible out of the way of all his old acquaintance. no answer came to jacob nowell's advertisement, although it appeared several times; and the old man began to despair of ever seeing his granddaughter. gilbert used to drop in upon him sometimes of an evening during this period, at his urgent request. he was interested in the solitary silversmith for marian's sake, and very willingly sacrificed an occasional evening for his gratification. he fancied that these visits of his inspired some kind of jealousy in the breast of the sallow-faced, sleek-haired shopman; who regarded him always on these occasions with a look of suppressed malevolence, and by every stratagem in his power tried to find out the nature of the conversation between the visitor and his employer, making all kinds of excuses to come into the parlour, and showing himself proof against the most humiliating treatment from his master. "does that young man expect you to leave him money? and does he look upon me as a possible rival?" gilbert asked one night, provoked by the shopman's conduct. "very likely," mr. nowell answered, with a malicious grin. "one gets good service from a man who expects his reward in the future. luke tulliver serves me very well indeed, and of course i am not responsible for his delusions." "do you know, mr. nowell, that is a man i should scarcely care to trust. to my mind there is a warning of danger in his countenance." "my dear sir, i have never trusted any one in my life," answered the silversmith promptly. "i don't for a moment suppose that luke tulliver would be honest if i gave him an opportunity to cheat me. as to the badness of his countenance, that is so much the better. i like to deal with an obvious rogue. the really dangerous subject is your honest fool, who goes on straight enough till he has lulled one into a false security, and then turns thief all at once at the instigation of some clever tempter." "that young man lives in the house with you, i suppose?" "yes; my household consists of luke tulliver, and an old woman who does the cooking and other work. there are a couple of garrets at the top of the house where the two sleep; my own bedroom is over this; and the room over the shop is full of pictures and other unsaleable stuff, which i have seldom occasion to show anybody. my business is not what it once was, mr. fenton. i have made some rather lucky hits in the way of picture-dealing in the course of my business career, but i haven't done a big line lately." gilbert was inclined to believe that jacob nowell was a much richer man than he cared to confess, and that the fortune which marian nowell might inherit in the future was a considerable one. the old man had all the attributes of a miser. the house in which he lived had the aspect of a place in which money has been made and hoarded day by day through long dull years. * * * * * it was not until the end of october that john saltram made his appearance at his old friend's lodgings. he had just come up from the country, and was looking his best--brighter and younger than gilbert had seen him look for a long time. "my dear jack, i began to think i should never see you again. what have you been doing all this time, and where have you been?" "i have been hard at work, as usual, for the reviews, down oxford way, at a little place on the river. and how has the world been going with you, gilbert? i saw your advertisement offering a reward for evidence of miss nowell's marriage. was there any result?" "yes; i know all about the marriage now, but i don't know who or what the man is," gilbert answered; and then went on to give his friend a detailed account of his experience at wygrove, and his visit to sir david forster. "my dear foolish gilbert," said john saltram, "how much useless trouble you have given yourself! was it not enough to know that this girl had broken faith with you? i think, were i in your place, that would be the end of the story for me. and now you know more than that--you know that she is another man's wife. if you find her, nothing can come of it." "it is the man i want to find, john; the man whom i shall make it the business of my life to discover." "for what good?" "for the deadliest harm to him," gilbert answered moodily. "if ever he and i meet, i will have some payment for my broken life; some compensation for my ruined hopes. we two should not meet and part lightly, rely upon it." "you can make no excuse for his love, that fatal irresistible passion, which outweighs truth and honour when they are set in the opposite scale. i did not think you could be so hard, gilbert; i thought you would have more mercy on the man who wronged you." "i could pardon any injury but this. i will never forgive this." john saltram shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating air. "it is a mistake, my dear fellow," he said. "life is not long enough for these strong passions. there is nothing in the world worth the price these bitter hatreds and stormy angers cost us. you have thrown away a great deal of deep feeling on a lady, whose misfortune it was not to be able to return your affection as she might have done--as you most fully deserved at her hands. why waste any further emotion in regrets that are as useless as they are foolish?" "you may as well ask me why i exist," gilbert answered quietly. "regret for all i have lost is a part of my life." after this there was no more to be said, and mr. saltram went on to speak of pleasanter topics. the two men dined together, and sat by the fire afterwards with a bottle of claret between them, smoking their cigars, and talking till late into the night. it was not to be supposed that adela branston's name could be omitted entirely from this confidential talk. "i have seen nothing and heard very little of her while i have been away," john saltram said, in answer to a question of gilbert's; "but i called in cavendish-square this afternoon, and was fortunate enough to find her at home. she wants me to dine with her next sunday, and i half promised to do so. will you come too? i know that she would be glad to see you." "i cannot see that i am wanted, john." "but i tell you that you are wanted. i wish you to go with me. mrs. branston likes you amazingly, if you care to know the opinion of so frivolous a person." "i am very much flattered by mrs. branston's kindly estimate of me, but i do not think i have any claim to it, except the fact that i am your friend. i shall be happy to go with you on sunday, if you really wish it." "i do really wish it. i shall drop mrs. branston a line to say you will come. she asked me to bring you whenever i had an opportunity. the dinner-hour is seven. i'll call for you here a few minutes before. i don't promise you a very lively evening, remember. there will only be adela, and a lady she has taken as her companion." "i don't care about lively evenings. i have been nowhere in society since i returned from melbourne. i have done with all that kind of thing." "my dear gilbert, that sort of renunciation will never do," john saltram said earnestly. "a man cannot turn his back upon society at your age. life lies all before you, and it rests with yourself to create a happy future. let the dead bury their dead." "yes, john; and what is left for the living when that burial is over? i don't want to make myself obnoxious by whining over my troubles, but they are not to be lessened by philosophy, and i can do nothing but bear them as best i may. i had long been growing tired of society, in the conventional acceptation of the word, and all the stereotyped pleasures of a commercial man's life. those things are less than nothing when a man has nothing brighter and fairer beyond them--no inner life by which the common things of this world are made precious. it is only dropping out of the arena a little earlier than i might have done otherwise. i have a notion that i shall wind up my affairs next year, sell my business, and go abroad. i could manage to retire upon a very decent income, in spite of my losses the other day." "don't dream of that, gilbert; for heaven's sake, don't dream of anything so mad as that. what would a man of your age be without some kind of career? a mere purposeless wanderer on the face of the earth. stick to business, dear old fellow. believe me, there is nothing like work to make a man forget any foolish trouble of this kind. and you will forget it, gilbert, be assured of that. if i were not certain it would be so, i should----" he stopped suddenly, staring absently at the fire with a darkening brow. "you would do what, john?" "hate this man holbrook almost as savagely as you hate him, for having come between you and your happiness. yet, if marian nowell did not love you--as a wife should love her husband, with all her heart and soul--it was ten thousand times better that the knot should be cut in time, however roughly. think what your misery would have been if you had discovered after your marriage that her heart had never been really yours." "i cannot imagine that possible. i have no shadow of doubt that i should have succeeded in winning her heart if this man had not robbed me of her. my absence gave him his opportunity. had i been at hand to protect my own interests, i do not think his influence could have prevailed against me." "it is quite natural that you should think that," john saltram said gravely. "yet you may be mistaken. a woman's love is such a capricious thing, and so often bestowed upon the least deserving amongst those who seek it." after this they were silent for some time, and then gilbert told his friend about his acquaintance with jacob nowell, and the old man's futile endeavours to find his grandchild; to all of which mr. saltram listened attentively. "then you fancy there is a good bit of money in question?" he said, when gilbert told him everything. "i fancy so. but i have no actual ground for the belief. the place in which the old man lives is poor enough, and he has carefully abstained from any hint as to what he might leave his granddaughter. whatever it is, marian ought to have it; and there is very little chance of that, unless she comes forward in response to mr. nowell's advertisements." "it is a pity she should lose the chance of this inheritance, certainly," said mr. saltram. and then the conversation changed, and they talked of other subjects until it was time for them to part. john saltram walked back to the temple in a very sombre mood, meditating upon his friend's trouble. "poor old gilbert," he said to himself, "this business has touched him more deeply than i could have thought possible. i wish things had happened otherwise. what is it lady macbeth says? 'naught's had, all's spent, when our desire is got without content.' i wonder whether the fulfilment of one's heart's desire ever does bring perfect contentment? i think not. there is always something wanting. and if a man comes by his wish basely, there is a taint of poison in the wine of life that neutralizes all its sweetness." chapter xiii. mrs. pallinson has views. at seven o'clock on sunday evening, as the neighbouring church bells were just sounding their last peal, mr. fenton found himself on the threshold of mrs. branston's house in cavendish-square. it was rather a gloomy mansion, pervaded throughout with evidences of its late owner's oriental career; old indian cabinets; ponderous chairs of elaborately-carved ebony, clumsy in form and barbaric in design; curious old china and lacquered ware of every kind, from gigantic vases to the tiniest cups and saucers; ivory temples, and gods in silver and clay, crowded the drawing-rooms and the broad landings on the staircase. the curtains and chair-covers were of indian embroidery; the carpets of oriental manufacture. everything had a gaudy semi-barbarous aspect. mrs. branston received her guests in the back drawing-room, a smaller and somewhat snugger apartment than the spacious chamber in front, which was dimly visible in the light of a single moderator lamp and the red glow of a fire through the wide-open archway between the two rooms. in the inner room the lamps were brighter, and the fire burned cheerily; and here mrs. branston had established for herself a comfortable nook in a deep velvet-cushioned arm-chair, very low and capacious, sheltered luxuriously from possible draughts by a high seven-leaved japanese screen. the fair adela was a chilly personage, and liked to bask in her easy-chair before the fire. she looked very pretty this evening, in her dense black dress, with the airiest pretence of a widow's cap perched on her rich auburn hair, and a voluminous indian shawl of vivid scarlet making a drapery about her shoulders. she was evidently very pleased to see john saltram, and gave a cordial welcome to his friend. on the opposite side of the fire-place there was a tall, rather grim-looking lady, also in mourning, and with an elaborate headdress of bugles and ornaments of a feathery and beady nature, which were supposed to be flowers. about her neck this lady wore numerous rows of jet beads, from which depended crosses and lockets of the same material: she had jet earrings and jet bracelets; and had altogether a beaded and bugled appearance, which would have been eminently fascinating to the untutored taste of a north american indian. this lady was mrs. pallinson, a widow of limited means, and a distant relation of adela branston's. left quite alone after her husband's death, and feeling herself thoroughly helpless, adela had summoned this experienced matron to her aid; whereupon mrs. pallinson had given up a small establishment in the far north of london, which she was in the habit of speaking about on occasions as her humble dwelling, and had taken up her quarters in cavendish-square, where she was a power of dread to the servants. gilbert fancied that mrs. pallinson was by no means too favourably disposed towards john saltram. she had sharp black eyes, very much like the jet beads with which her person was decorated, and with these she kept a close watch upon mrs. branston and mr. saltram when the two were talking together. gilbert saw how great an effort it cost her at these times to keep up the commonplace conversation which he had commenced with her, and how intently she was trying to listen to the talk upon the other side of the fire-place. the dinner was an admirable one, the wines perfection, mr. branston having been a past-master of the art of good living, and having stocked his cellars with a view to a much longer life than had been granted to him; the attendance was careful and complete; the dining-room, with its rather old-fashioned furniture and heavy crimson hangings, a picture of comfort; and mrs. branston a most charming hostess. even gilbert was fain to forget his own troubles and enjoy life a little in that agreeable society. the two gentlemen accompanied the ladies back to the drawing-room. there was a grand piano in the front room, and to this adela branston went at mr. saltram's request, and began to play some of handel's oratorio music, while he stood beside the piano, talking to her as she played. mrs. pallinson and gilbert were thus left alone in the back room, and the lady did her best to improve the occasion by extorting what information she could from mr. fenton about his friend. "adela tells me that you and mr. saltram are friends of very long standing, mr. fenton," she began, fanning herself slowly with a shining black fan as she sat opposite gilbert, awful of aspect in the sombre splendour of her beads and bugles. "yes; we were at oxford together, and have been fast friends ever since." "indeed!--how really delightful! the young men of the present day appear to me generally so incapable of a sincere friendship. and you and mr. saltram have been friends all that time? he is a literary man, i understand. i have not had the pleasure of reading any of his works; but adela tells me he is extremely clever." "he is very clever." "and steady, i hope. literary men are so apt to be wild and dissipated; and adela has such a high opinion of your friend. i hope he is steady." "i scarcely know what a lady's notion of steadiness may involve," gilbert answered, smiling; "but i daresay when my friend marries he will be steady enough. i cannot see that literary tastes and dissipated habits have any natural affinity. i should rather imagine that a man with resources of that kind would be likely to lead a quieter life than a man without such resources." "do you really think so? i fancied that artists and poets and people of that kind were altogether a dangerous class. and you think that mr. saltram will be steady when he is married? he is engaged to be married, i conclude by your manner of saying that." "i had no idea my words implied anything of the kind. no, _i_ do not think john saltram is engaged." mrs. pallinson glanced towards the piano, where the two figures seemed very close to each other in the dim light of the room. adela's playing had been going on in a desultory kind of manner, broken every now and then by her conversation with john saltram, and had evidently been intended to give pleasure only to that one listener. while she was still playing in this careless fitful way, a servant announced mr. pallinson; and a gentleman entered whom gilbert had no difficulty in recognizing as the son of the lady he had been conversing with. this new-comer was a tall pale-faced young man, with intensely penetrating black eyes exactly like his mother's, sharp well-cut features, and an extreme precision of dress and manner. his hands, which were small and thin, were remarkable for their whiteness, and were set-off by spotless wristbands, which it was his habit to smooth fondly with his slim fingers in the intervals of his discourse. mrs. pallinson rose and embraced this gentleman with stately affection. "my son theobald--mr. fenton," she said. "my son is a medical practitioner, residing at maida-hill; and it is a pleasure to him to spend an occasional evening with his cousin adela and myself." "whenever the exigencies of professional life leave me free to enjoy that happiness," mr. pallinson added in a brisk semi-professional manner. "adela has been giving you some music, i see. i heard one of handel's choruses as i came upstairs." he went into the front drawing-room, shook hands with mrs. branston, and established himself with a permanent air beside the piano. adela did not seem particularly glad to see him; and john saltram, who had met him before in cavendish-square, received him with supreme indifference. "i am blessed, as i daresay you perceive, mr. fenton, in my only son," mrs. pallinson said, when the young man had withdrawn to the adjoining apartment. "it was my misfortune to lose an admirable husband very early in life; and i have been ever since that loss wholly devoted to my son theobald. my care has been amply rewarded by his goodness. he is a most estimable and talented young man, and has already attained an excellent position in the medical profession." "you have reason to be proud of him," gilbert answered kindly. "i _am_ proud of him, mr. fenton. he is the sole delight and chief object of my life. his career up to this hour has been all that the fondest mother could desire. if i can only see him happily and advantageously married, i shall have nothing left to wish for." "indeed!" thought gilbert. "then i begin to perceive the reason of mrs. pallinson's anxiety about john saltram. she wants to secure mrs. branston's handsome fortune for this son of hers. not much chance of that, i think, fascinating as the doctor may be. plain john saltram stands to win that prize." they went into the front drawing-room presently, and heard mr. pallinson play the "hallelujah chorus," arranged as a duet, with his cousin. he was a young man who possessed several accomplishments in a small way--could sing a little, and play the piano and guitar a little, sketch a little, and was guilty of occasional effusions in the poetical line which were the palest, most invertebrate reflections of owen meredith. in the maida-hill and st. john's-wood districts he was accounted an acquisition for an evening party; and his dulcet accents and engaging manners had rendered him a favourite with the young mothers of the neighbourhood, who believed implicitly in mr. pallinson's gray powders when their little ones' digestive organs had been impaired by injudicious diet, and confided in mr. pallinson's carefully-expressed opinion as the fiat of an inscrutable power. mr. theobald pallinson himself cherished a very agreeable opinion of his own merits. life seemed to him made on purpose that theobald pallinson should flourish and succeed therein. he could hardly have formed any idea of the world except as an arena for himself. he was not especially given to metaphysics; but it would not have been very difficult for him to believe that the entire universe was an emanation from the brain of theobald pallinson--a phenomenal world existing only in his sense of sight and touch. happy in this opinion of himself, it is not to be supposed that the surgeon had any serious doubt of ultimate success with his cousin. he regarded john saltram as an interloper, who had gained ground in mrs. branston's favour only by the accident of his own absence from the stage. the pallinsons had not been on visiting terms with adela during the life of the east indian merchant, who had not shown himself favourably disposed to his wife's relations; and by this means mr. saltram had enjoyed advantages which theobald pallinson told himself could not have been his, had he, theobald, been at hand to engage his cousin's attention by those superior qualities of mind and person which must needs have utterly outshone the other. all that mr. pallinson wanted was opportunity; and that being now afforded him, he looked upon the happy issue of events as a certainty, and already contemplated the house in cavendish-square, the indian jars and cabinets, the ivory chessmen and filigree-silver rosewater-bottles, the inlaid desks and japanese screens, the ponderous plate and rare old wines, with a sense of prospective proprietorship. it seemed as if john saltram had favoured this gentleman's views by his prolonged absence from the scene, holding himself completely aloof from adela branston at a time when, had he been inclined to press his suit, he might have followed her up closely. mrs. branston had been not a little wounded by this apparent neglect on the part of one whom she loved better than anything else in the world; but she was inclined to believe any thing rather than that john saltram did not care for her; and she had contrived to console herself with the idea that his avoidance of her had been prompted by a delicate consideration for her reputation, and a respect for the early period of her mourning. to-night, in his society, she had an air of happiness which became her wonderfully; and gilbert fenton fancied that a man must needs be hard and cold whose heart could not be won by so bright and gracious a creature. she spoke more than once, in a half-playful way, of mr. saltram's absence from london; but the deeper feeling underneath the lightness of her manner was very evident to gilbert. "i suppose you will be running away from town again directly," she said, "without giving any one the faintest notice of your intention. i can't think what charm it is that you find in country life. i have so often heard you profess your indifference to shooting, and the ordinary routine of rustic existence. perhaps the secret is, that you fear your reputation as a man of fashion would suffer were you to be seen in london at such a barbarous season as this." "i have never rejoiced in a reputation for fashion," mr. saltram answered, with his quiet smile--a smile that gave a wonderful brightness to his face; "and i think i like london in the autumn better than at any other time. one has room to move about. i have been in the country of late because i really do appreciate rural surroundings, and have found myself able to write better in the perfect quiet of rural life." "it is rather hard upon your friends that you should devote all your days to literature." "and still harder upon the reading public, perhaps. but, my dear mrs. branston, remember, i must write to live." adela gave a little impatient sigh. she was thinking how gladly she would have made this man master of her ample fortune; wondering whether he would ever claim from her the allegiance she was so ready to give. mr. pallinson did his best to engage his cousin's attention during the rest of the evening. he brought her her tea-cup, and hovered about her while she sipped the beverage with that graceful air of suppressed tenderness which constant practice in the drawing-rooms of maida-hill had rendered almost natural to him; but, do what he would, he could not distract mrs. branston's thoughts and looks from john saltram. it was on him that her eyes were fixed while the accomplished theobald was giving her a lively account of a concert at the eyre arms; and it was the fascination of his presence which made her answer at random to her cousin's questions about the last volume of the laureate's, which she had been lately reading. even mr. pallinson, obtuse as he was apt to be when called upon to comprehend any fact derogatory to his own self-esteem, was fain to confess to himself that this evening's efforts were futile, and that this dark-faced stranger was the favourite for those matrimonial stakes he had entered himself to run for. he looked at mr. saltram with a critical eye many times in the course of the evening, wondering what possible merit any sensible woman could perceive in such a man. but then, as theobald pallinson reflected, the misfortune is that so few women are sensible; and it was gradually becoming evident to him that michael branston's widow was amongst the most foolish of her sex. mrs. pallinson kept a sharp watch upon adela throughout the evening, plunging into the conversation every now and then with a somewhat dictatorial and infallible air, and generally contriving to drag some praise of theobald into her talk: now dilating rapturously upon that fever case which he had managed so wonderfully the other day, proving his judgment superior to that of an eminent consulting physician; anon launching out into laudation of his last poem, which had been set to music by a young lady in st. john's-wood; and by-and-by informing the company of her son's artistic talents, and his extraordinary capacity as a judge of pictures. to these things the surgeon himself listened with a deprecating air, smoothing his wristbands, and caressing his slim white hands, while he playfully reproved his parent for her maternal weakness. mr. pallinson held his ground near his cousin's chair till the last moment, while john saltram sat apart by one of the tables, listlessly turning over a volume of engravings, and only looking up at long intervals to join in the conversation. he had an absent weary look, which puzzled gilbert fenton, who, being only a secondary personage in this narrow circle, had ample leisure to observe his friend. the three gentlemen left at the same time, mr. pallinson driving away in a neat miniature brougham, after politely offering to convey his cousin's guests to their destination. it was a bright starlight night, and gilbert walked to the temple with john saltram, through the quietest of the streets leading east-wards. they lit their cigars as they left the square, and walked for some time in a friendly companionable silence. when they did speak, their talk was naturally of adela branston. "i thought she was really charming to-night," gilbert said, "in spite of that fellow's efforts to absorb her attention. it is pretty easy to see how the land lies in that direction; and if such a rival were likely to injure you, you have a very determined one in mr. pallinson." "yes; the surgeon has evidently fixed his hopes upon poor old michael branston's money. but i don't think he will succeed." "you will not allow him to do so, i hope?" "i don't know about that. then you really admire the little woman, gilbert?" "very much; as much as i have ever admired any woman except marian nowell." "ah, your marian is a star, single and alone in her brightness, like that planet up yonder! but adela branston is a good little soul, and will make a charming wife. gilbert, i wish to heaven you would fall in love with her!" gilbert fenton stared aghast at his companion, as he tossed the end of his cigar into the gutter. "why, john, you must be mad to say such a thing." "no, it is by no means a mad notion. i want to see you cured, gilbert. i do like you, dear boy, you know, as much as it is possible for a selfish worthless fellow like me to like any man. i would give a great deal to see you happy; and i am sure that you might be so as adela branston's husband. i grant you that i am the favourite at present; but she is just the sort of woman to be won by any man who would really prove himself worthy of her. her liking for me is a mere idle fancy, which would soon die out for want of fuel. you are my superior in every way--younger, handsomer, better. why should you not go in for this thing, gil?" "because i have no heart to give any woman, john. and even if i were free, i would not give my heart to a woman whose affection had to be diverted from another channel before it could be bestowed upon me. i can't imagine what has put such a preposterous idea into your head, or why it is that you shrink from improving your own chances with mrs. branston." "you must not wonder at anything that i do or say, gilbert. it is my nature to do strange things--my destiny to take the wrong turning in life!" "when shall i see you again?" gilbert asked, when they were parting at the temple gates. "i can scarcely tell you that. i must go back to oxford to-morrow." "so soon?" "yes, my work gets on better down there. i will let you know directly i return to london." on this they parted, gilbert considerably mystified by his friend's conduct, but not caring to push his questions farther. he had his own affairs to think of, that one business which absorbed almost the whole of his thoughts--the business of his search for the man who had robbed him of his promised wife, this interval, in which he remained inactive, devoting himself to the duties of his commercial life, was only a pause in his labours. he was not the less bent upon bringing about a face-to-face meeting between himself and marian's husband because of this brief suspension of his efforts. chapter xiv. father and son. while gilbert fenton was deliberating what steps to take next in his quest of his unknown enemy, a gentleman arrived at a small hotel near charing cross--a gentleman who was evidently a stranger to england, and whose portmanteaus and other travelling paraphernalia bore the names of new york manufacturers. he was a portly individual of middle age, and was still eminently handsome. he dressed well, lived expensively, and had altogether a prosperous appearance. he took care to inform the landlord of the hotel that he was not an american, but had returned to the land of his birth after an absence of something like fifteen years, and after realizing a handsome fortune upon the other side of the atlantic. he was a very gracious and communicative person, and seemed to take life in an easy agreeable manner, like a man whose habit it was to look on the brighter side of all things, provided his own comfort was secured. norton percival was the name on this gentleman's luggage, and on the card which he gave to the waiter whom he desired to look after his letters. after dining sumptuously on the evening of his arrival in london, this mr. percival strolled out in the autumn darkness, and made his way through the more obscure streets between charing cross and wardour-street. the way seemed familiar enough to him, and he only paused now and then to take note of some alteration in the buildings which he had to pass. the last twenty years have not made much change in this neighbourhood, and the traveller from new york found little to surprise him. "the place looks just as dull and dingy as it used to look when i was a lad," he said to himself. "i daresay i shall find the old court unchanged in all these years. but shall i find the old man alive? i doubt that. dead more likely, and his money gone to strangers. i wonder whether he had much money, or whether he was really as poor as he made himself out. it's difficult to say. i know i made him bleed pretty freely, at one time and another, before he turned rusty; and it's just possible i may have had pretty nearly all he had to give." he was in wardour-street by this time, looking at the dimly-lighted shops where brokers' ware of more or less value, old oak carvings, doubtful pictures, and rusted armour loomed duskily upon the passer-by. at the corner of queen anne's court he paused, and peered curiously into the narrow alley. "the court is still here, at any rate," he muttered to himself, "and i shall soon settle the other question." his heart beat faster than it was wont to beat as he drew near his destination. was it any touch of real feeling, or only selfish apprehension, that quickened its throbbing? the man's life had been so utterly reckless of others, that it would be dangerous to give him credit for any affectionate yearning--any natural remorseful pang in such a moment as this. he had lived for self, and self alone; and his own interests were involved in the issue of to-night. a few steps brought him before jacob nowell's window. yes, it was just as he remembered it twenty years before--the same dingy old silver, the same little heap of gold, the same tray of tarnished jewelry glimmered in the faint light of a solitary gas-burner behind the murky glass. on the door-plate there was still jacob nowell's name. yet all this might mean nothing. the grave might have closed over the old silversmith, and the interest of trade necessitate the preservation of the familiar name. the gentleman calling himself percival went into the shop. how well he remembered the sharp jangling sound of the bell! and how intensely he had hated it and all the surroundings of his father's sordid life in the days when he was pursuing his headlong career as a fine gentleman, and only coming to queen anne's court for money! he remembered what an incubus the shop had been upon him; what a pursuing phantom and perpetual image of his degradation in the days of his university life, when he was incessantly haunted by the dread that his father's social status would be discovered. the atmosphere of the place brought back all the old feelings, and he was young again, a nervous supplicant for money, which was likely to be refused to him. the sharp peal of the bell produced mr. luke tulliver, who emerged from a little den in a corner at the back of the shop, where he had been engaged copying items into a stock-book by the light of a solitary tallow-candle. the stranger looked like a customer, and mr. tulliver received him graciously, turning up the gas over the counter, which had been burning at a diminished and economical rate hitherto. "did you wish to look at anything in antique silver, sir?" he asked briskly. "we have some very handsome specimens of the queen anne period." "no, i don't want to look at anything. i want to know whether jacob nowell is still living?" "yes, sir. mr. nowell is my master. you might have noticed his name upon the door-plate if you had looked! do you wish to see him?" "i do. tell him that i am an old friend, just come from america." luke tulliver went into the parlour behind the half-glass door, norton percival following upon him closely. he heard the old man's voice saying, "i have no friend in america; but you may tell the person to come in; i will see him." the voice trembled a little; and the silversmith had raised himself from his chair, and was looking eagerly towards the door as norton percival entered, not caring to wait for any more formal invitation. the two men faced each other silently in the dim light from one candle on the mantelpiece, jacob nowell looking intently at the bearded face of his visitor. "you can go, tulliver," he said sharply to the shopman. "i wish to be alone with this gentleman." luke tulliver departed with his usual reluctant air, closing the door as slowly as it was possible for him to close it, and staring at the stranger till the last moment that it was possible for him to stare. when he was gone the old man took the candle from the mantelpiece, and held it up before the bearded face of the traveller. "yes, yes, yes," he said slowly; "at last! it is you, percival, my only son. i thought you were dead long ago. i had a right to consider you dead." "if i had thought my existence could be a matter of interest to you, i should hardly have so long refrained from all communication with you. but your letters led me to suppose you utterly indifferent to my fate." "i offered you and your wife a home." "yes, but on conditions that were impossible to me. i had some pride in those days. my education had not fitted me to stand behind a counter and drive hard bargains with dealers of doubtful honesty. nor could i bring my wife to such a home as this." "the time came when you left that poor creature without any home," said the old man sternly. "necessity has no law, my dear father. you may imagine that my life, without a profession and without any reliable resources, has been rather precarious. when i seemed to have acted worst, i have been only the slave of circumstances." "indeed! and have you no pity for the fate of your wife, no interest in the life of your only child?" "my wife was a poor helpless creature, who contrived to make my life wretched," mr. nowell, alias percival, answered coolly. "i gave her every sixpence i possessed when i sent her home to england; but luck went dead against me for a long time after that, and i could neither send her money nor go to her. when i heard of her death, i heard in an indirect way that my child had been adopted by some old fool of a half-pay officer; and i was naturally glad of an accident which relieved me of a heavy incubus. an opportunity occurred about the same time of my entering on a tolerably remunerative career as agent for some belgian ironworks in america; and i had no option but to close with the offer at once or lose the chance altogether. i sailed for new york within a fortnight after poor lucy's death, and have lived in america for the last fifteen years. i have contrived to establish a tolerably flourishing trade there on my own account; a trade that only needs capital to become one of the first in new york." "capital!" echoed jacob nowell; "i thought there was something wanted. it would have been a foolish fancy to suppose that affection could have had anything to do with your coming to me." "my dear father, it is surely possible that affection and interest may sometimes go together. were i a pauper, i would not venture to present myself before you at all; but as a tolerably prosperous trader, with the ability to propose an alliance that should be to our mutual advantage, i considered i might fairly approach you." "i have no money to invest in your trade," the old man answered sternly. "i am a very poor man, impoverished for life by the wicked extravagance of your youth. if you have come to me with any hope of obtaining money from me, you have wasted time and trouble." "let that subject drop, then," percival nowell said lightly. "i suppose you have some remnant of regard for me, in spite of our old misunderstanding, and that my coming is not quite indifferent to you." "no," the other answered, with a touch of melancholy; "it is not indifferent to me. i have waited for your return these many years. you might have found me more tenderly disposed towards you, had you come earlier; but there are some feelings which seem to wear out as a man grows older,--affections that grow paler day by day, like colours fading in the sun. still, i am glad to see you once more before i die. you are my only son, and you must needs be something nearer to me than the rest of the world, in spite of all that i have suffered at your hands." "i could not come back to england sooner than this," the young man said presently. "i had a hard battle to fight out yonder." there had been very little appearance of emotion upon either side so far. percival nowell took things as coolly as it was his habit to take everything, while his father carefully concealed whatever deeper feeling might be stirred in the depths of his heart by this unexpected return. "you do not ask any questions about the fate of your only child," the old man said, by-and-by. "my dear father, that is of course a subject of lively interest to me; but i did not suppose that you could be in a position to give me any information upon that point." "i do happen to know something about your daughter, but not much." jacob nowell went on to tell his son all that he had heard from gilbert fenton respecting marian's marriage. of his own advertisements, and wasted endeavours to find her, he said nothing. "and this fellow whom she has jilted is pretty well off, i suppose?" percival said thoughtfully. "he is an australian merchant, and, i should imagine, in prosperous circumstances." "foolish girl! and this holbrook is no doubt an adventurer, or he would scarcely have married her in such a secret way. have you any wish that she should be found?" "yes, i have a fancy for seeing her before i die. she is my own flesh and blood, like you, and has not injured me as you have. i should like to see her." "and if she happened to take your fancy, you would leave her all your money, i suppose?" "who told you that i have money to leave?" cried the old man sharply. "have i not said that i am a poor man, hopelessly impoverished by your extravagance?" "bah, my dear father, that is all nonsense. my extravagance is a question of nearly twenty years ago. if i had swamped all you possessed in those days--which i don't for a moment believe--you have had ample time to make a fresh fortune since then. you would never have lived all those years in queen anne's court, except for the sake of money-making. why, the place stinks of money. i know your tricks: buying silver from men who are in too great a hurry to sell it to be particular about the price; lending money at sixty per cent, a sixty which comes to eighty before the transaction is finished. a man does not lead such a life as yours for nothing. you are rolling in money, and you mean to punish me by leaving it all to marian." the silversmith grew pale with anger during this speech of his son's. "you are a consummate scoundrel," he said, "and are at liberty to think what you please. i tell you, once for all, i am as poor as job. but if i had a million, i would not give you a sixpence of it." "so be it," the other answered gaily. "i have not performed the duties of a parent very punctually hitherto; but i don't mind taking some trouble to find this girl while i am in england, in order that she may not lose her chances with you." "you need give yourself no trouble on that score. mr. fenton has promised to find her for me." "indeed! i should like to see this mr. fenton." "you can see him if you please; but you are scarcely likely to get a warm reception in that quarter. mr. fenton knows what you have been to your daughter and to me." "i am not going to fling myself into his arms. i only want to hear all he can tell me about marian." "how long do you mean to stay in england?" "that is entirely dependent upon the result of my visit. i had hoped that if i found you living, which i most earnestly desired might be the case, i should find in you a friend and coadjutor. i am employed in starting a great iron company, which is likely--i may say certain--to result in large gains to all concerned in it; and i fancied i should experience no difficulty in securing your co-operation. there are the prospectuses of the scheme" (he flung a heap of printed papers on the table before his father), "and there is not a line in them that i cannot guarantee on my credit as a man of business. you can look over them at your leisure, or not, as you please. i think you must know that i always had an independent spirit, and would be the last of mankind to degrade myself by any servile attempt to alter your line of conduct towards me." "independent spirit! yes!" cried the old man in a mocking tone; "a son extorts every sixpence he can from his father and mother--ay, percy, from his weak loving mother; i know who robbed me to send you money--and then, when he can extort no more, boasts of his independence. but that will do. there is no need that we should quarrel. after twenty years' severance, we can afford to let bygones be bygones. i have told you that i am glad to see you. if you come to me with disinterested feelings, that is enough. you may take back your prospectuses. i have nothing to embark in yankee speculations. if your scheme is a good one, you will find plenty of enterprising spirits willing to join you; if it is a bad one, i daresay you will contrive to find dupes. you can come and see me again when you please. and now good-night. i find this kind of talk rather tiring at my age." "one word before i leave you," said percival. "on reflection, i think it will be as well to say nothing about my presence in england to this mr. fenton. i shall be more free to hunt for marian without his co-operation, even supposing he were inclined to give it. you have told me all that he could tell me, i daresay." "i believe i have." "precisely. therefore no possible good could come of an encounter between him and me, and i shall be glad if you will keep my name dark." "as you please, though i can see no reason for secrecy in the matter." "it is not a question of secrecy, but only of prudential reserve." "it may be as you wish," answered the old man, carelessly. "good-night." he shook hands with his son, who departed without having broken bread in his father's house, a little dashed by the coldness of his reception, but not entirely without hope that some profit might arise to him out of this connection in the future. "the girl must be found," he said to himself. "i am convinced there has been a great fortune made in that dingy hole. better that it should go to her than to a stranger. i'm very sorry she's married; but if this holbrook is the adventurer i suppose him, the marriage may come to nothing. yes; i must find her. a father returned from foreign lands is rather a romantic notion--the sort of notion a girl is pretty sure to take kindly to." chapter xv. on the track. gilbert fenton saw no more of his friend john saltram after that sunday evening which they had spent together in cavendish-square. he called upon mrs. branston before the week was ended, and was so fortunate as to find that lady alone; mrs. pallinson having gone on a shopping expedition in her kinswoman's dashing brougham. the pretty little widow received gilbert very graciously; but there was a slight shade of melancholy in her manner, a pensiveness which softened and refined her, gilbert thought. nor was it long before she allowed him to discover the cause of her sadness. after a little conventional talk upon indifferent subjects, she began to speak of john saltram. "have you seen much of your friend mr. saltram since sunday?" she asked, with that vain endeavour to speak carelessly with which a woman generally betrays her real feeling. "i have not seen him at all since sunday. he told me he was going back to oxford--or the neighbourhood of oxford, i believe--almost immediately; and i have not troubled myself to hunt him up at his chambers." "gone back already!" mrs. branston exclaimed, with a disappointed petulant look that was half-childish, half-womanly. "i cannot imagine what charm he finds in a dull village on the banks of the river. he has confessed that the place is the dreariest and most obscure in the world, and that he has neither shooting nor any other kind of amusement. there must be some mysterious attraction, mr. fenton. i think your friend is a good deal changed of late. haven't you found him so?" "no, mrs. branston, i cannot say that i have discovered any marked alteration in him since my return from australia. john saltram was always wayward and fitful. he may have been a little more so lately, perhaps, but that is all." "you have a very high opinion of him, i suppose?" "he is very dear to me. we were something more than friends in the ordinary acceptation of the word. do you remember the story of those two noble young venetians who inscribed upon their shield _fraires, non amici?_ saltram and i have been brothers rather than friends." "and you think him a good man?" adela asked anxiously. "most decidedly; i have reason to think so. i believe him to be a noble-hearted and honourable man; a little neglectful or disdainful of conventionalities, wearing his faith in god and his more sacred feelings anywhere than upon his sleeve; but a man who cannot fail to come right in the long-run." "i am so glad to hear you say that. i have known mr. saltram some time, as you may have heard and like him very much. but my cousin mrs. pallinson has quite an aversion to him, and speaks against him with such a positive air at times, that i have been almost inclined to think she must be right. i am very inexperienced in the ways of the world, and am naturally disposed to lean a little upon the opinions of others." "but don't you think there may be a reason for mrs. pallinson's dislike of my friend?" adela branston blushed at this question, and then laughed a little. "i think i know what you mean," she said. "yes, it is just possible that mrs. pallinson may be jealously disposed towards any acquaintance of mine, on account of that paragon of perfection, her son theobald. i have not been so blind as not to see her views in that quarter. but be assured, mr. fenton, that whatever may happen to me, i shall never become mrs. theobald pallinson." "i hope not. i am quite ready to acknowledge mr. pallinson's merits and accomplishments, but i do not think him worthy of you." "it is rather awful, isn't it, for me to speak of marriage at all within a few months of my husband's death? but when a woman has money, people will not allow her to forget that she is a widow for ever so short a time. but it is quite a question if i shall ever marry again. i have very little doubt that real happiness is most likely to be found in a wise avoidance of all the perils and perplexities of that foolish passion which we read of in novels, if one could only be wise; don't you think so, mr. fenton?" "my own experience inclines me to agree with you, mrs. branston," gilbert answered, smiling at the little woman's naïveté. "your own experience has been unfortunate, then? i wish i were worthy of your confidence. mr. saltram told me some time ago that you were engaged to a very charming young lady." "the young lady in question has jilted me." "indeed! and you are very angry with her, of course?" "i loved her too well to be angry with her. i reserve my indignation for the scoundrel who stole her from me." "it is very generous of you to make excuses for the lady," mrs. branston said; and would fain have talked longer of this subject, but gilbert concluded his visit at this juncture, not caring to discuss his troubles with the sympathetic widow. he left the great gloomy gorgeous house in cavendish square more than ever convinced of adela branston's affection for his friend, more than ever puzzled by john saltram's indifference to so advantageous an alliance. within a few days of this visit gilbert fenton left london. he had devoted himself unflinchingly to his business since his return to england, and had so planned and organized his affairs as to be able now to absent himself for some little time from the city. he was going upon what most men would have called a fool's errand--his quest of marian's husband; but he was going with a steady purpose in his breast--a determination never to abandon the search till it should result in success. he might have to suspend it from time to time, should he determine to continue his commercial career; but the purpose would be nevertheless the ruling influence of his life. he had but one clue for his guidance in setting out upon this voyage of discovery. miss long had told him that the newly-married couple were to go to some farm-house in hampshire which had been lent to mr. holbrook by a friend. it was in hampshire, therefore, that gilbert resolved to make his first inquiries. he told himself that success was merely a question of time and patience. the business of tracing these people, who were not to be found by any public inquiry, would be slow and wearisome no doubt. he was prepared for that. he was prepared for a thousand failures and disappointments before he alighted on the one place in which mr. holbrook's name must needs be known, the town or village nearest to the farm-house that had been lent to him. and even if, after unheard-of trouble and perseverance on his part, he should find the place he wanted, it was quite possible that marian and her husband would have gone elsewhere, and his quest would have to begin afresh. but he fancied that he could hardly fail to obtain some information as to their plan of life, if he could find the place where they had stayed after their marriage. his own scheme of action was simple enough. he had only to travel from place to place, making careful inquiries at post-offices and in all likely quarters at every stage of his journey. he went straight to winchester, having a fancy for the quiet old city and the fair pastoral scenery surrounding it, and thinking that mr. holbrook's borrowed retreat might possibly be in this neighbourhood. the business proved even slower and more tedious than he had supposed; there were so many farms round about winchester, so many places which seemed likely enough, and to which he went, only to find that no person of the name of holbrook had ever been heard of by the inhabitants. he made his head-quarters in the cathedral city for nearly a week, and explored the country round, in a radius of thirty miles, without the faintest success. it was fine autumn weather, calm and clear, the foliage still upon the trees, in all its glory of gold and brown, with patches of green lingering here and there in sheltered places. the country was very beautiful, and gilbert fenton's work would have been pleasant enough if the elements of peace had been in his breast. but they were not. bitter regrets for all he had lost, uneasy fears and wild imaginings about the fate of her whom he still loved with a fond useless passion,--these and other gloomy thoughts haunted him day by day, clouding the calm loveliness of the scenes on which he looked, until all outer things seemed to take their colour from his own mind. he had loved marian nowell as it is not given to many men to love; and with the loss of her, it seemed to him as if the very springs of his life were broken. all the machinery of his existence was loosened and out of gear, and he could scarcely have borne the dreary burden of his days, had it not been for that one feverish hope of finding the man who had wronged him. the week ended without bringing him in the smallest degree nearer the chance of success. happily for himself, he had not expected to succeed in a week. on leaving winchester, he started on a kind of vagabond tour through the county, on a horse which he hired in the cathedral city, and which carried him from twenty to thirty miles a day. this mode of travelling enabled him to explore obscure villages and out-of-the-way places that lay off the line of railway. everywhere he made the same inquiries, everywhere with the same result. another week came to an end. he had made his voyage of discovery through more than half of the county, as his pocket-map told him, and was still no nearer success than when he left london. he spent his sunday at a comfortable inn in a quiet little town, where there was a curious old church, and a fine peal of bells that seemed to him to be ringing all day long. it was a dull rainy day. he went to church in the morning, and in the afternoon stood at the coffee-room window watching the townspeople going by to their devotions in an absent unseeing way, and thinking of his own troubles; pausing, just a little, now and then, from that egotistical brooding to wonder how these people endured the dull monotonous round of their lives, and what crosses and disappointments they had to suffer in their small obscure way. the inn was very empty, and the landlord waited upon mr. fenton in person at his dinner. gilbert had the coffee-room all to himself, and it looked comfortable enough when the curtains were drawn, the lamps lighted, and the small dinner-table wheeled in front of a blazing fire. "i have been thinking over what you were asking me last night, sir," the host of the white swan began, while gilbert was eating his fish; "and though i can't say that i ever heard the name of holbrook, i fancy i may have seen the lady and gentleman you are looking for." "indeed!" exclaimed gilbert eagerly, pushing away his plate, and turning full on the landlord. "i hope you won't let me spoil your dinner, sir; i know that sole's fresh. i'm a pretty good judge of those things, and choose every bit of fish that's cooked in this house. but as i was saying, sir, with regard to this lady and gentleman, i think you said that the people you are looking for were strangers to this part of the country, and were occupying a farm-house that had been lent to them." "precisely." "well, sir, i remember some time in the early part of the year, i think it must have been about march----" "yes, the people i am looking for would have arrived in march." "indeed, sir! that makes it seem likely. i remember a lady and gentleman coming here from the railway station--we've got a station close by our town, as you know, sir, i daresay. they wanted a fly to take them and their luggage on somewhere--i can't for the life of me remember the name of the place--but it was a ten-mile drive, and it was a farm--_that_ i could swear to--something farm. if it had been a place i'd known, i think i should have remembered the name." "can i see the man who drove them?" gilbert asked quickly. "the young man that drove them, sir, has left me, and has left these parts a month come next tuesday. where he has gone is more than i can tell you. he was very good with horses; but he turned out badly, cheated me up hill and down dale, as you may say--though what hills and dales have got to do with it is more than i can tell--and i was obliged to get rid of him." "that's provoking. but if the people i want are anywhere within ten miles of this place, i don't suppose i should be long finding them. yet the mere fact of two strangers coming here, and going on to some place called a farm, seems very slight ground to go upon. the month certainly corresponds with the time at which mr. and mrs. holbrook came to hampshire. did you take any particular notice of them?" "i took particular notice of the lady. she was as pretty a woman as ever i set eyes upon--quite a girl. i noticed that the gentleman was very careful and tender with her when he put her into the carriage, wrapping her up, and so on. he looked a good deal older than her, and i didn't much like his looks altogether." "could you describe him?" "well--no, sir. the time was short, and he was wrapped up a good deal; the collar of his overcoat turned up, and a scarf round his neck. he had dark eyes, i remember, and rather a stern look in them." this was rather too vague a description to make any impression upon gilbert. it was something certainly to know that his rival had dark eyes, if indeed this man of whom the landlord spoke really were his rival. he had never been able to make any mental picture of the stranger who had come between him and his betrothed. he had been inclined to fancy that the man must needs be much handsomer than himself, possessed of every outward attribute calculated to subjugate the mind of an inexperienced girl like marian; but the parish-clerk at wygrove and miss long had both spoken in a disparaging tone of mr. holbrook's personal appearance; and, remembering this, he was fain to believe that marian had been won by some charm more subtle than that of a handsome face. he went on eating his dinner in silence for some little time, meditating upon what the landlord had told him. then, as the man cleared the table, lingering over his work, as if eager to impart any stray scraps of information he might possess, gilbert spoke to him again. "i should have fancied that, as a settled inhabitant of the place, you would be likely to know every farm and farm-house within ten miles--or within twenty miles," he said. "well, sir, i daresay i do know the neighbourhood pretty well, in a general way. but i think, if i'd known the name of the place this lady and gentleman were going to, it would have struck me more than it did, and i should have remembered it. i was uncommonly busy through that afternoon, for it was market-day, and there were a mort of people going in and out. i never did interfere much with the fly business; it was only by taking the gentleman out some soda-and-brandy that i came to take the notice i did of the lady's looks and his care of her. i know it was a ten-mile drive, and that i told the gentleman the fare, so as there might be no bother between him and william tyler, my man, at the end; and he agreed to it in a liberal off-hand kind of way, like a man who doesn't care much for money. as to farms within ten miles of here, there are a dozen at least, one way and another--some small, and some large." "do you know of any place in the ownership of a gentleman who would be likely to lend his house to a friend?" "i can't say i do, sir. they're tenant-farmers about here mostly, and rather a roughish lot, as you may say. there's a place over beyond crosber, ten miles off and more; i don't know the name of it, or the person it belongs to; but i've noticed it many a time as i've driven by; a curious old-fashioned house, standing back off one of the lanes out of crosber, with a large garden before it. a queer lonesome place altogether. i should take it to be two or three hundred years old; and i shouldn't think the house had had money spent upon it within the memory of man. it's a dilapidated tumbledown old gazabo of a place, and yet there's a kind of prettiness about it in summer-time, when the garden is full of flowers. there's a river runs through some of the land about half a mile from the house." "what kind of a place is crosber?" "a bit of a village on the road from here to portsmouth. the house i'm telling you about is a mile from crosber at the least, away from the main road. there's two or three lanes or by-roads about there, and it lies in one of them that turns sharp off by the blue boar, which is about the only inn where you can bait a horse thereabouts." "i'll ride over there to-morrow morning, and have a look at this queer old house. you might give me the names of any other farms you know about this neighbourhood, and their occupants." this the landlord was very ready to do. he ran over the names of from ten to fifteen places, which gilbert jotted down upon a leaf of his pocket-book, afterwards planning his route upon the map of the county which he carried for his guidance. he set out early the next morning under a low gray sky, with clouds in the distance that threatened rain. the road from the little market-town to crosber possessed no especial beauty. the country was flat and uninteresting about here, and needed the glory of its summer verdure to brighten and embellish it. but mr. fenton did not give much thought to the scenes through which he went at this time; the world around and about him was all of one colour--the sunless gray which pervaded his own life. to-day the low dull sky and the threatening clouds far away upon the level horizon harmonised well with his own thoughts--with the utter hopelessness of his mind. hopelessness!--yes, that was the word. he had hazarded all upon this one chance, and its failure was the shipwreck of his life. the ruin was complete. he could not build up a new scheme of happiness. in the full maturity of his manhood, his fate had come to him. he was not the kind of man who can survive the ruin of his plans, and begin afresh with other hopes and still fairer dreams. it was his nature to be constant. in all his life he had chosen for himself only one friend--in all his life he had loved but one woman. he came to the little village, with its low sloping-roofed cottages, whose upper stories abutted upon the road and overshadowed the casements below; and where here and there a few pennyworths of gingerbread, that seemed mouldy with the mould of ages, a glass pickle-bottle of bull's-eyes or sugar-sticks, and half a dozen penny bottles of ink, indicated the commercial tendencies of crosber. a little farther on, he came to a rickety-looking corner-house, with a steep thatched roof overgrown by stonecrop and other parasites, which was evidently the shop of the village, inasmuch as one side of the window exhibited a show of homely drapery, while the other side was devoted to groceries, and a shelf above laden with great sprawling loaves of bread. this establishment was also the post-office, and here gilbert resolved to make his customary inquiries, when he had put up his horse. almost immediately opposite this general emporium, the sign of the blue boar swung proudly across the street in front of a low rather dilapidated-looking hostelry, with a wide frontage, and an archway leading into a spacious desolate yard, where one gloomy cock of spanish descent was crowing hoarsely on the broken roof of a shed, surrounded by four or five shabby-looking hens, all in the most wobegone stage of moulting, and appearing as if eggs were utterly remote from their intentions. this blue boar was popularly supposed to have been a most distinguished and prosperous place in the coaching days, when twenty coaches passed daily through the village of crosber; and was even now much affected as a place of resort by the villagers, to the sore vexation of the rector and such good people as believed in the perfectibility of the human race and the ultimate suppression of public-houses. here mr. fenton dismounted, and surrendered his horse to the keeping of an unkempt bareheaded youth who emerged from one of the dreary-looking buildings in the yard, announced himself as the hostler, and led off the steed in triumph to a wilderness of a stable, where the landlord's pony and a fine colony of rats were luxuriating in the space designed for some twelve or fifteen horses. having done this, gilbert crossed the road to the post-office, where he found the proprietor, a deaf old man, weighing half-pounds of sugar in the background, while a brisk sharp-looking girl stood behind the counter sorting a little packet of letters. it was to the damsel, as the more intelligent of these two, that gilbert addressed himself, beginning of course with the usual question. did she know any one, a stranger, sojourning in that neighbourhood called holbrook? the girl shook her head without a moment's hesitation. no, she knew no one of that name. "and i suppose all the letters for people in this neighbourhood pass through your hands?" "yes, sir, all of them; i couldn't have failed to notice if there had been any one of that name." gilbert gave a little weary sigh. the information given him by the landlord of the white swan had seemed to bring him so very near the object of his search, and here he was thrown back all at once upon the wide field of conjecture, not a whit nearer any certain knowledge. it was true that crosber was only one among several places within ten miles of the market-town, and the strangers who had been driven from the white swan in march last might have gone to any one of those other localities. his inquiries were not finished yet, however. "there is an old house about a mile from here," he said to the girl; "a house belonging to a farm, in the lane yonder that turns off by the blue boar. have you any notion to whom it belongs, or who lives there?" "an old house in that lane across the way?" the girl said, reflecting. "that's golder's lane, and leads to golder's-green. there's not many houses there; it's rather a lonesome kind of place. do you mean a big old-fashioned house standing far back in a garden?" "yes; that must be the place i want to know about." "it must be the grange, surely. it was a gentleman's house once; but there's only a bailiff lives there now. the farm belongs to some gentleman down in midlandshire, a baronet; i can't call to mind his name at this moment, though i have heard it often enough. mr. carley's daughter--carley is the name of the bailiff at the grange--comes here for all they want." gilbert gave a little start at the name of midlandshire. lidford was in midlandshire. was it not likely to be a midlandshire man who had lent marian's husband his house? "do you know if these people at the grange have had any one staying with them lately--any lodgers?" he asked the girl. "yes; they have lodgers pretty well every summer. there were some people this year, a lady and gentleman; but they never seemed to have any letters, and i can't tell you their names." "are they living there still?" "i can't tell you that. i used to see them at church now and then in the summer-time; but i haven't seen them lately. there's a church at golder's-green almost as near, and they may have been there." "will you tell me what they were like?" gilbert asked eagerly. his heart was beating loud and fast, making a painful tumult in his breast. he felt assured that he was on the track of the people whom the innkeeper had described to him; the people who were, in all probability, mr. and mrs. holbrook. "the lady is very pretty and very young--quite a girl. the gentleman older, dark, and not handsome." "yes. has the lady gray eyes, and dark-brown hair, and a very bright expressive face?" "yes, sir." "pray try to remember the name of the gentleman to whom the grange belongs. it is of great importance to me to know that." "i'll ask my father, sir," the girl answered good-naturedly; "he's pretty sure to know." she went across the shop to the old man who was weighing sugar, and bawled her question into his ear. he scratched his head in a meditative way for some moments. "i've heard the name times and often," he said, "though i never set eyes upon the gentleman. william carley has been bailiff at the grange these twenty years, and i don't believe as the owner has ever come nigh the place in all that time. let me see,--it's a common name enough, though the gentleman is a baronight. forster--that's it--sir something forster." "sir david?" cried gilbert. "you've hit it, sir. sir david forster--that's the gentleman." sir david forster! he had little doubt after this that the strangers at the grange had been marian and her husband. treachery, blackest treachery somewhere. he had questioned sir david, and had received his positive assurance that this man holbrook was unknown to him; and now, against that there was the fact that the baronet was the owner of a place in hampshire, to be taken in conjunction with that other fact that a place in hampshire had been lent to mr. holbrook by a friend. at the very first he had been inclined to believe that marian's lover must needs be one of the worthless bachelor crew with which the baronet was accustomed to surround himself. he had only abandoned that notion after his interview with sir david forster; and now it seemed that the baronet had deliberately lied to him. it was, of course, just possible that he was on a false scent after all, and that it was to some other part of the country mr. holbrook had brought his bride; but such a coincidence seemed, at the least, highly improbable. there was no occasion for him to remain in doubt very long, however. at the grange he must needs be able to obtain more definite information. chapter xvi. face to face. gilbert fenton left the homely little post-office and turned into the lane leading to golder's-green--a way which may have been pleasant enough in summer, but had no especial charm at this time. the level expanse of bare ploughed fields on each side of the narrow road had a dreary look; the hedges were low and thin; a tall elm, with all its lower limbs mercilessly shorn, uplifted its topmost branches to the dull gray sky, here and there, like some transformed prophetess raising her gaunt arms in appeal or malediction; an occasional five-barred gate marked the entrance to some by-road to the farm; on one side of the way a deep black-looking ditch lay under the scanty shelter of the low hedge, and hinted at possible water rats to the traveller from cities who might happen to entertain a fastidious aversion to such small deer. the mile seemed a very long one to gilbert fenton. since his knowledge of sir david forster's ownership of the house to which he was going, his impatience was redoubled. he had a feverish eagerness to come at the bottom of this mystery. that sir david had lied to him, he had very little doubt. whoever this mr. holbrook was, it was more likely that he should have escaped the notice of lidford people as a guest at heatherly than under any other circumstances. at heatherly it was such a common thing for strangers to come and go, that even the rustic gossips had left off taking much interest in the movements of the baronet or his guests. there was one thought that flashed suddenly into gilbert's mind during that gloomy walk under the lowering gray sky. if this man holbrook were indeed a friend of sir david forster's, how did it happen that john saltram had failed to recognize his name? the intimacy between forster and saltram was of such old standing, that it seemed scarcely likely that any acquaintance of sir david's could be completely unknown to the other. were they all united in treachery against him? had his chosen friend--the man he loved so well--been able to enlighten him, and had he coldly withheld his knowledge? no, he told himself, that was not possible. sir david forster might be the falsest, most unprincipled of mankind; but he could not believe john saltram capable of baseness, or even coldness, towards him. he was at the end of his journey by this time. the grange stood in front of him--a great rambling building, with many gables, gray lichen-grown walls, and quaint old diamond-paned casements in the upper stories. below, the windows were larger, and had an elizabethan look, with patches of stained glass here and there. the house stood back from the road, with a spacious old-fashioned garden before it; a garden with flower-beds of a dutch design, sheltered from adverse winds by dense hedges of yew and holly; a pleasant old garden enough, one could fancy, in summer weather. the flower-beds were for the most part empty now, and the only flowers to be seen were pale faded-looking chrysanthemums and michaelmas daises. the garden was surrounded by a high wall, and gilbert contemplated it first through the rusty scroll-work of a tall iron gate, surmounted by the arms and monogram of the original owner. on one side of the house there was a vast pile of building, comprising stables and coach-houses, barns and granaries, arranged in a quadrangle. the gate leading into this quadrangle was open, and gilbert saw the cattle standing knee-deep in a straw-yard. he rang a bell, which had a hoarse rusty sound, as if it had not been rung very often of late; and after he had waited for some minutes, and rung a second time, a countrified-looking woman emerged from the house, and came slowly along the wide moss-grown gravel-walk towards him. she stared at him with the broad open stare of rusticity, and did not make any attempt to open the gate, but stood with a great key in her hand, waiting for gilbert to speak. "this is sir david forster's house, i believe," he said. "yes, sir, it be; but sir david doesn't live here." "i know that. you have some lodgers here--a lady and gentleman called holbrook." he plunged at once at this assertion, as the easiest way of arriving at the truth. he had a conviction that this solitary farm-house was the place to which his unknown rival had brought marian. "yes, sir," the woman answered, still staring at him in her slow stupid way. "mrs. holbrook is here, but mr. holbrook is away up in london. did you wish to see the lady?" gilbert's heart gave a great throb. she was here, close to him! in the next minute he would be face to face with her, with that one woman whom he loved, and must continue to love, until the end of his life. "yes," he said eagerly, "i wish to see her. you can take me to her at once. i am an old friend. there is no occasion to carry in my name." he had scarcely thought of seeing marian until this moment. it was her husband he had come to seek; it was with him that his reckoning was to be made; and any meeting between marian and himself was more likely to prove a hindrance to this reckoning than otherwise. but the temptation to seize the chance of seeing her again was too much for him. whatever hazard there might be to his scheme of vengeance in such an encounter slipped out of his mind before the thought of looking once more at that idolised face, of hearing the loved voice once again. the woman hesitated for a few moments, telling gilbert that mrs. holbrook never had visitors, and she did not know whether she would like to see him; but on his administering half-a-crown through the scroll-work of the gate, she put the key in the lock and admitted him. he followed her along the moss-grown path to a wide wooden porch, over which the ivy hung like a voluminous curtain, and through a half-glass door into a low roomy hall, with massive dark oak-beams across the ceiling, and a broad staircase of ecclesiastical aspect leading to a gallery above. the house had evidently been a place of considerable grandeur and importance in days gone by; but everything in it bore traces of neglect and decay. the hall was dark and cold, the wide fire-place empty, the iron dogs red with rust. some sacks of grain were stored in one corner, a rough carpenter's bench stood under one of the mullioned windows, and some garden-seeds were spread out to dry in another. the woman opened a low door at the end of this hall, and ushered gilbert into a sitting-room with three windows looking out upon a dutch bowling-green, a quadrangle of smooth turf shut in by tall hedges of holly. the room was empty, and the visitor had ample leisure to examine it while the woman went to seek mrs. holbrook. it was a large room with a low ceiling, and a capacious old-fashioned fire-place, where a rather scanty fire was burning in a dull slow way. the furniture was old and worm-eaten,--furniture that had once been handsome,--and was of a ponderous fashion that defied time. there was a massive oaken cabinet on one side of the room, a walnut-wood bureau with brass handles on the other. a comfortable looking sofa, of an antiquated design, with chintz-covered cushions, had been wheeled near the fire-place; and close beside it there was a small table with an open desk upon it, and some papers scattered loosely about. there were a few autumn flowers in a homely vase upon the centre table, and a work-basket with some slippers, in berlin wool work, unfinished. gilbert fenton contemplated all these things with supreme tenderness. it was here that marian had lived for so many months--alone most likely for the greater part of the time. he had a fixed idea that the man who had stolen his treasure was some dissipated worldling, altogether unworthy so sacred a trust. the room had a look of loneliness to him. he could fancy the long solitary hours in this remote seclusion. he had to wait for some little time, walking slowly up and down; very eager for the interview that was to come, yet with a consciousness that his fate would seem only so much the darker to him afterwards, when he had to turn his back upon this place, with perhaps no hope of ever seeing marian again. at last there came a light footfall; the door was opened, and his lost love came into the room. gilbert fenton was standing near the fire-place, with his back to the light. for the first few moments it was evident that marian did not recognize him. she came towards him slowly, with a wondering look in her face, and then stopped suddenly with a faint cry of surprise. "you here!" she exclaimed. "o, how did you find this place? why did you come?" she clasped her hands, looking at him in a half-piteous way that went straight to his heart. what he had told mrs. branston was quite true. it was not in him to be angry with this girl. whatever bitterness there might have been in his mind until this moment fled away at sight of her. his heart had no room for any feeling but tenderness and pity. "did you imagine that i should rest until i had seen you once more, marian? did you suppose i should submit to lose you without hearing from your own lips why i have been so unfortunate?" "i did not think you would waste time or thought upon any one so wicked as i have been towards you," she answered slowly, standing before him with a pale sad face and downcast eyes. "i fancied that whatever love you had ever felt for me--and i know how well you did love me--would perish in a moment when you found how basely i had acted. i hoped that it would be so." "no, marian; love like mine does not perish so easily as that. o, my love, my love, why did you forsake me so cruelly? what had i done to merit your desertion of me?" "what had you done! you had only been too good to me. i know that there is no excuse for my sin. i have prayed that you and i might never meet again. what can i say? from first to last i have been wrong. from first to last i have acted weakly and wickedly. i was flattered and gratified by your affection for me; and when i found that my dear uncle had set his heart upon our marriage, i yielded against my own better reason, which warned me that i did not love you as you deserved to be loved. then for a long time i was blind to the truth. i did not examine my own heart. i was quite able to estimate all your noble qualities, and i fancied that i should be very happy as your wife. but you must remember that at the last, when you were leaving england, i asked you to release me, and told you that it would be happier for both of us to be free." "why was that, marian?" "because at that last moment i began to doubt my own heart." "had there been any other influence at work, marian? had you seen your husband, mr. holbrook, at that time?" she blushed crimson, and the slender hands nervously clasped and unclasped themselves before she spoke. "i cannot answer that question," she said at last. "that is quite as good as saying 'yes.' you had seen this man; he had come between us already. o, marian, marian, why were you not more candid?" "because i was weak and foolish. i could not bear to make you unhappy. o, believe me, gilbert, i had no thought of falsehood at that time. i fully meant to be true to my promise, come what might." "i am quite willing to believe that," he answered gently. "i believe that you acted from first to last under the influence of a stronger will than your own. you can see that i feel no resentment against you. i come to you in sorrow, not in anger. but i want to understand how this thing came to pass. why was it that you never wrote to me to tell me the complete change in your feelings?" "it was thought better not," marian faltered, after a pause. "by you?" "no; by my husband." "and you suffered him to dictate to you in that matter. against your own sense of right?" "i loved him," she answered simply. "i have never refused to obey him in anything. i will own that i thought it would be better to write and tell you the truth; but my husband thought otherwise. he wished our marriage to remain a secret from you, and from all the world for some time to come. he had his own reasons for that--reasons i was bound to respect. i cannot think how you came to discover this out-of-the-world place." "i have taken some trouble to find you, marian, and it is a hard thing to find you the wife of another; but the bitterness of it must be borne. i do not want to reproach you when i tell you that my life has been broken utterly by this blow. i want you to believe in my truth and honour, to trust me now as you might have trusted me when you first discovered that you could not love me. since i am not to be your husband, let me be the next best thing--your friend. the day may come in which you will have need of an honest man's friendship." she shook her head sadly. "you are very good," she said; "but there is no possibility of friendship between you and me. if you will only say that you can forgive me for the great wrong i have done you, there will be a heavy burden lifted from my heart; and whatever you may think now, i cannot doubt that in the future you will find some one far better worthy of your love than ever i could have been." "that is the stereotyped form of consolation, marian, a man is always referred to--that shadowy and perfect creature who is to appear in the future, and heal all his wounds. there will be no such after-love for me. i staked all when i played the great game; and have lost all. but why cannot i be your friend, marian?" "can you forgive my husband for his part in the wrong that has been done you? can you be his friend, knowing what he has done?" "no!" gilbert answered fiercely between his set teeth. "i can forgive your weakness, but not the man's treachery." "then you can never be mine," marian said firmly. "remember, i am not talking of a common friendship, a friendship of daily association. i offer myself to you as refuge in the hour of trouble, a counsellor in perplexity, a brother always waiting in the background of your life to protect or serve you. of course, it is quite possible you may never have need of protection or service--god knows, i wish you all happiness--but there are not many lives quite free from trouble, and the day may come in which you will want a friend." "if it ever does, i will remember your goodness." gilbert looked scrutinisingly at marian holbrook as she stood before him with the cold gray light of the sunless day full upon her face. he wanted to read the story of her life in that beautiful face, if it were possible. he wanted to know whether she was happy with the man who had stolen her from him. she was very pale, but that might be fairly attributed to the agitation caused by his presence. gilbert fancied that there was a careworn look in her face, and that her beauty had faded a little since those peaceful days at lidford, when these two had wasted the summer hours in idle talk under the walnut trees in the captain's garden. she was dressed very plainly in black. there was no coquettish knot of ribbon at her throat; no girlish trinkets dangled at her waist--all those little graces and embellishments of costume which seem natural to a woman whose life is happy, were wanting in her toilet to-day; and slight as these indications were, gilbert did not overlook them. did he really wish her to be happy--happy with the rival he so fiercely hated? he had said as much; and in saying so, he had believed that he was speaking the truth. but he was only human; and it is just possible that, tenderly as he still loved this girl, he may have been hardly capable of taking pleasure in the thought of her happiness. "i want you to tell me about your husband, marian," he said after a pause; "who and what he is." "why should i do that?" she asked, looking at him with a steady, almost defiant, expression. "you have said that you will never forgive him. what interest can you possibly feel in his affairs?" "i am interested in him upon your account." "i cannot tell you anything about him. i do not know how you could have discovered even his name." "i learned that at wygrove, where i first heard of your marriage." "did you go to wygrove, then?" "yes; i have told you that i spared no pains to find you. nor shall i spare any pains to discover the history of the man who has wronged me. it would be wiser for you to be frank with me, marian. rely upon it that i shall sooner or later learn the secret underlying this treacherous business." "you profess to be my friend, and yet are avowedly say husband's enemy. why cannot you be truly generous, gilbert, and pardon him? believe me, he was not willingly treacherous; it was his fate to do you this wrong." "a poor excuse for a man, marian. no, my charity will not stretch far enough for that. but i do not come to you quite on a selfish errand, to speak solely of my own wrongs. i have something to tell you of real importance to yourself." "what is that?" gilbert fenton described the result of his first advertisement, and his acquaintance with jacob nowell. "it is my impression that this old man is rich, marian; and there is little doubt that he would leave all he possesses to you, if you went to him at once." "i do not care very much about money for my own sake," she answered with rather a mournful smile; "but we are not rich, and i should be glad of anything that would improve my husband's position. i should like to see my grandfather: i stand so much alone in the world that it would be very sweet to me to find a near relation." "your husband must surely have seen mr. nowell's advertisement," gilbert said after a pause. "it was odd that he did not tell you about it--that he did not wish you to reply to it." "the advertisement may have escaped him, or he may have looked upon it as a trap to discover our retreat," marian answered frankly. "i cannot understand the motive for such secrecy." "there is no occasion that you should understand it. every life has its own mystery--its peculiar perplexities. when i married my husband, i was prepared to share all his troubles. i have been obedient to him in everything." "and has your marriage brought you happiness, marian?" "i love my husband," she answered with a plaintive reproachful look, as if there had been a kind of cruelty in his straight question. "i do not suppose that there is such a thing as perfect happiness in the world." the answer was enough for gilbert fenton. it told him that this girl's life was not all sunshine. he had not the heart to push his inquiries farther. he felt that he had no right to remain any longer, when in all probability his presence was a torture to the girl who had injured him. "i will not prolong my visit, marian," he said regretfully. "it was altogether a foolish one, perhaps; but i wanted so much to see you once more, to hear some explanation of your conduct from your own lips." "my conduct can admit of neither explanation nor justification," she replied humbly. "i know how wickedly i have acted. believe me, gilbert, i am quite conscious of my unworthiness, and how little right i have to expect your forgiveness." "it is my weakness, rather than my merit, not to be able to cherish any angry feeling against you, marian. mine has been a slavish kind of love. i suppose that sort of thing never is successful. women have an instinctive contempt for men who love them with such blind unreasonable idolatry." "i do not know how that may be; but i know that i have always respected and esteemed you," she answered in her gentle pleading way. "i am grateful to you even for so much as that. and now i suppose i must say good-bye--rather a hard word to say under the circumstances. heaven knows when you and i may meet again." "won't you stop and take some luncheon? i dine early when my husband is away; it saves trouble to the people of the house. the bailiff's daughter always dines with me when i am alone; but i don't suppose you will mind sitting down with her. she is a good girl, and very fond of me." "i would sit down to dinner with a chimney-sweep, if he were a favourite of yours, marian--or mrs. holbrook; i suppose i must call you that now." after this they talked of captain sedgewick for a little, and the tears came to marian's eyes as she spoke of that generous and faithful protector. while they were talking thus, the door was opened, and a bright-faced countrified-looking girl appeared carrying a tray. she was dressed in a simple pretty fashion, a little above her station as a bailiff's daughter, and had altogether rather a superior look, in spite of her rusticity, gilbert thought. she was quite at her ease in his presence, laying the cloth briskly and cleverly, and chattering all the time. "i am sure i'm very glad any visitor should come to see mrs. holbrook," she said; "for she has had a sad lonely time of it ever since she has been here, poor dear. there are not many young married women would put up with such a life." "nelly," marian exclaimed reproachfully, "you know that i have had nothing to put up with--that i have been quite happy here." "ah, it's all very well to say that, mrs. holbrook; but i know better. i know how many lonely days you've spent, so downhearted that you could scarcely speak or look up from your book, and that only an excuse for fretting.--if you're a friend of mr. holbrook's, you might tell him as much, sir; that he's killing his pretty young wife by inches, by leaving her so often alone in this dreary place. goodness knows, it isn't that i want to get rid of her. i like her so much that i sha'n't know what to do with myself when she's gone. but i love her too well not to speak the truth when i see a chance of its getting to the right ears." "i am no friend of mr. holbrook's," gilbert answered; "but i think you are a good generous-hearted girl." "you are a very foolish girl," marian exclaimed; "and i am extremely angry with you for talking such utter nonsense about me. i may have been a little out of spirits sometimes in my husband's absence; but that is all. i shall begin to think that you really do want to get rid of me, nell, say what you will." "that's a pretty thing, when you know that i love you as dearly as if you were my sister; to say nothing of father, who makes a profit by your being here, and would be fine and angry with me for interfering. no, mrs. holbrook; it's your own happiness i'm thinking of, and nothing else. and i do say that it's a shame for a pretty young woman like you to be shut up in a lonely old farm-house while your husband is away, enjoying himself goodness knows where; and when he is here, i can't see that he's very good company, considering that he spends the best part of his time--" the girl stopped abruptly, warned by a look from marian. gilbert saw this look, and wondered what revelation of mr. holbrook's habits the bailiff's daughter had been upon the point of making; he was so eager to learn something of this man, and had been so completely baffled in all his endeavours hitherto. "i will not have my affairs talked about in this foolish way, ellen carley," marian said resolutely. and then they all three sat down to the dinner-table. the dishes were brought in by the woman who had admitted gilbert. the dinner was excellent after a simple fashion, and very nicely served; but for mr. fenton the barn-door fowl and home-cured ham might as well have been the grass which the philosopher believed the french people might learn to eat. he was conscious of nothing but the one fact that he was in marian's society for perhaps the last time in his life. he wondered at himself not a little for the weakness which made it so sweet to him to be with her. the moment came at last in which he must needs take his leave, having no possible excuse for remaining any longer. "good-bye, marian," he said. "i suppose we are never likely to meet again." "one never knows what may happen; but i think it is far better we should not meet, for many reasons." "what am i to tell your grandfather when i see him?" "that i will come to him as soon as i can get my husband's permission to do so." "i should not think there would be any difficulty about that, when he knows that this relationship is likely to bring you fortune." "i daresay not." "and if you come to london to see mr. nowell, there will be some chance of our meeting again." "what good can come of that?" "not much to me, i daresay. it would be a desperate, melancholy kind of pleasure. anything is better than the idea of losing sight of you for ever--of leaving this room to-day never to look upon your face again." he wrote jacob nowell's address upon one of his own cards, and gave it to marian; and then prepared to take his departure. he had an idea that the bailiff's daughter would conduct him to the gate, and that he would be able to make some inquiries about mr. holbrook on his way. it is possible that marian guessed his intentions in this respect; for she offered to go with him to the gate herself; and he could not with any decency refuse to be so honoured. they went through the hall together, where all was as still and lifeless as it had been when he arrived, and walked slowly side by side along the broad garden-path in utter silence. at the gate gilbert stopped suddenly, and gave marian his hand. "my darling," he said, "i forgive you with all my heart; and i will pray for your happiness." "will you try to forgive my husband also?" she asked in her plaintive beseeching way. "i do not know what i am capable of in that direction. i promise that, for your sake, i will not attempt to do him any injury." "god bless you for that promise! i have so dreaded the chance of a meeting between you two. it has often been the thought of that which has made me unhappy when that faithful girl, nelly, has noticed my low spirits. you have removed a great weight from my mind." "and you will trust me better after that promise?" "yes; i will trust you as you deserve to be trusted, with all my heart." "and now, good-bye. it is a hard word for me to say; but i must not detain you here in the cold." he bent his head, and pressed his lips upon the slender little hand which held the key of the gate. in the next moment he was outside that tall iron barrier; and it seemed to him as if he were leaving marian in a prison. the garden, with its poor pale scentless autumn flowers, had a dreary look under the dull gray sky. he thought of the big empty house, with its faded traces of vanished splendour, and of marian's lonely life in it, with unspeakable pain. how different from the sunny home which he had dreamed of in the days gone by--the happy domestic life which he had fancied they two might lead! "and she loves this man well enough to endure the dullest existence for his sake," he said to himself as he turned his back at last upon the tall iron gate, having lingered there for some minutes after marian had re-entered the house. "she could forget all our plans for the future at his bidding." he thought of this with a jealous pang, and with all his old anger against his unknown rival. moved by an impulse of love and pity for marian, he had promised that this man should suffer no injury at his hands; and, having so pledged himself, he must needs keep his word. but there were certain savage feelings and primitive instincts in his breast not easily to be vanquished; and he felt that now he had bound himself to keep the peace in relation to mr. holbrook, it would be well that those two should not meet. "but i will have some explanation from sir david forster as to that lie he told me," he said to himself; "and i will question john saltram about this man holbrook." john saltram--john holbrook. an idea flashed into his brain that seemed to set it on fire. what if john saltram and john holbrook were one! what if the bosom friend whom he had introduced to his betrothed had played the traitor, and stolen her from him! in the next moment he put the supposition away from him, indignant with himself for being capable of thinking such a thing, even for an instant. of all the men upon earth who could have done him this wrong, john saltram was the last he could have believed guilty. yet the thought recurred to him many times after this with a foolish tiresome persistence; and he found himself going over the circumstances of his friend's acquaintance with marian, his hasty departure from lidford, his return there later during sir david forster's illness. let him consider these facts as closely as he might, there was no especial element of suspicion in them. there might have been a hundred reasons for that hurried journey to london--nay, the very fact itself argued against the supposition that mr. saltram had fallen in love with his friend's plighted wife. and now, the purpose of his life being so far achieved, gilbert fenton rode back to winchester next day, restored his horse to its proprietor, and went on to london by an evening train. chapter xvii. miss carley's admirers. there were times in which marian holbrook's life would have been utterly lonely but for the companionship of ellen carley. this warm-hearted outspoken country girl had taken a fancy to mr. holbrook's beautiful wife from the hour of her arrival at the grange, one cheerless march evening, and had attached herself to marian from that moment with unalterable affection and fidelity. the girl's own life at the grange had been lonely enough, except during the brief summer months, when the roomy old house was now and then enlivened a little by the advent of a lodger,--some stray angler in search of a secluded trout stream, or an invalid who wanted quiet and fresh air. but in none of these strangers had ellen ever taken much interest. they had come and gone, and made very little impression upon her mind, though she had helped to make their sojourn pleasant in her own brisk cheery way. she was twenty-one years of age, very bright-looking, if not absolutely pretty, with dark expressive eyes, a rosy brunette complexion, and very white teeth. the nose belonged to the inferior order of pug or snub; the forehead was low and broad, with dark-brown hair rippling over it--hair which seemed always wanting to escape from its neat arrangement into a multitude of mutinous curls. she was altogether a young person whom the admirers of the soubrette style of beauty might have found very charming; and, secluded as her life at the grange had been, she had already more than one admirer. she used to relate her love affairs to marian holbrook in the quiet summer evenings, as the two sat under an old cedar in the meadow nearest the house--a meadow which had been a lawn in the days when the grange was in the occupation of great folks; and was divided from a broad terrace-walk at the back of the house by a dry grass-grown moat, with steep sloping banks, upon which there was a wealth of primroses and violets in the early spring. ellen carley told mrs. holbrook of her admirers, and received sage advice from that experienced young matron, who by-and-by confessed to her humble companion the error of her own girlhood, and how she had jilted the most devoted and generous lover that ever a woman could boast of. for some months--for the bright honeymoon period of her wedded life--marian had been completely happy in that out-of-the-world region. it is not to be supposed that she had done so great a wrong to gilbert fenton except under the influence of a great love, or the dominion of a nature powerful enough to subjugate her own. both these influences had been at work. too late she had discovered that she had never really loved gilbert fenton; that the calm grateful liking which she had told herself must needs be the sole version of the grand passion whereof her nature was capable, had been only the tamest, most ordinary kind of friendship after all, and that in the depths of her soul there was a capacity for an utterly different attachment--a love which was founded on neither respect nor gratitude, but which sprang into life in a moment, fatal and all-absorbing from its birth. heaven knows she had struggled bravely against this luckless passion, had resisted long and steadily the assiduous pursuit, the passionate half-despairing pleading, of her lover, who would not be driven away, and who invented all kinds of expedients for seeing her, however difficult the business might be, or however resolutely she might endeavour to avoid him. it was only after her uncle's death, when her mind was weakened by excessive grief, that her strong determination to remain faithful to her absent betrothed had at last given way before the force of those tender passionate prayers, and she had consented to the hasty secret marriage which her lover had proposed. her consent once given, not a moment had been lost. the business had been hurried on with the utmost eagerness by the impetuous lover, who would give her as little opportunity as possible of changing her mind, and who had obtained complete mastery of her will from the moment in which she promised to be his wife. she loved him with all the unselfish devotion of which her nature was capable; and no thought of the years to come, or of what her future life might be with this man, of whose character and circumstances she knew so very little, ever troubled her. having sacrificed her fidelity to gilbert fenton, she held all other sacrifices light as air--never considered them at all, in fact. when did a generous romantic girl of nineteen ever stop to calculate the chances of the future, or fear to encounter poverty and trouble with the man she loved? to marian this man was henceforth all the world. it was not that he was handsomer, or better, or in any obvious way superior to gilbert fenton. it was only that he was just the one man able to win her heart. that mysterious attraction which reason can never reduce to rule, which knows no law of precedent or experience, reigned here in full force. it is just possible that the desperate circumstances of the attachment, the passionate pursuit of the lover, not to be checked by any obstacle, may have had an influence upon the girl's mind. there was a romance in such love as this that had not existed in mr. fenton's straightforward wooing; and marian was too young to be quite proof against the subtle charm of a secret, romantic, despairing passion. for some time she was very happy; and the remote farm-house, with its old-fashioned gardens and fair stretch of meadow-land beyond them, where all shade and beauty had not yet been sacrificed to the interests of agriculture, seemed to her in those halcyon days a kind of earthly paradise. she endured her husband's occasional absence from this rural home with perfect patience. these absences were rare and brief at first, but afterwards grew longer and more frequent. nor did she ever sigh for any brighter or gayer life than this which they led together at the grange. in him were the beginning and end of her hopes and dreams; and so long as he was pleased and contented, she was completely happy. it was only when a change came in him--very slight at first, but still obvious to his wife's tender watchful eyes--that her own happiness was clouded. that change told her that whatever he might be to her, she was no longer all the world to him. he loved her still, no doubt; but the bright holiday-time of his love was over, and his wife's presence had no longer the power to charm away every dreary thought. he was a man in whose disposition there was a lurking vein of melancholy--a kind of chronic discontent very common to men of whom it has been said that they might do great things in the world, and who have succeeded in doing nothing. it is not to be supposed that mr. holbrook intended to keep his wife shut away from the world in a lonely farm-house all her life. the place suited him very well for the present; the apartments at the grange, and the services of mr. carley and his dependents, had been put at his disposal by the owner of the estate, together with all farm and garden produce. existence here therefore cost him very little; his chief expenses were in gifts to the bailiff and his underlings, which he bestowed with a liberal hand. his plans for the future were as yet altogether vague and unsettled. he had thoughts of emigration, of beginning life afresh in a new country--anything to escape from the perplexities that surrounded him here; and he had his reasons for keeping his wife secluded. nor did his conscience disturb him much--he was a man who had his conscience in very good training--as to the unfairness of this proceeding. marian was happy, he told himself; and when time came for some change in the manner of her existence, he doubted if the change would be for the better. so the days and weeks and months had passed away, bringing little variety with them, and none of what the world calls pleasure. marian read and worked and rambled in the country lanes and meadows with ellen carley, and visited the poor people now and then, as she had been in the habit of doing at lidford. she had not very much to give them, but gave all she could; and she had a gentle sympathetic manner, which made her welcome amongst them, most of all where there were children, for whom she had always a special attraction. the little ones clung to her and trusted her, looking up at her lovely face with spontaneous affection. william carley, the bailiff, was a big broad-shouldered man, with a heavy forbidding countenance, and a taciturn habit by no means calculated to secure him a large circle of friends. his daughter and only child was afraid of him; his wife had been afraid of him in her time, and had faded slowly out of a life that had been very joyless, unawares, hiding her illness from him to the last, as if it had been a sort of offence against him to be ill. it was only when she was dying that the bailiff knew he was going to lose her; and it must be confessed that he took the loss very calmly. whatever natural grief he may have felt was carefully locked in his own breast. his underlings, the farm-labourers, found him a little more "grumpy" than usual, and his daughter scarcely dared open her lips to him for a month after the funeral. but from that time forward miss carley, who was rather a spirited damsel, took a very different tone with her father. she was not to be crushed and subdued into a mere submissive shadow, as her mother had been. she had a way of speaking her mind on all occasions which was by no means agreeable to the bailiff. if he drank too much overnight, she took care to tell him of it early next morning. if he went about slovenly and unshaven, her sharp tongue took notice of the fact. yet with all this, she waited upon him, and provided for his comfort in a most dutiful manner. she saved his money by her dexterous management of the household, and was in all practical matters a very treasure among daughters. william carley liked comfort, and liked money still better, and he was quite aware that his daughter was valuable to him, though he was careful not to commit himself by any expression of that opinion. he knew her value so well that he was jealously averse to the idea of her marrying and leaving him alone at the grange. when young frank randall, the lawyer's son, took to calling at the old house very often upon summer evenings, and by various signs and tokens showed himself smitten with ellen carley, the bailiff treated the young man so rudely that he was fain to cease from coming altogether, and to content himself with an occasional chance meeting in the lane, when ellen had business at crosber, and walked there alone after tea. he would not have been a particularly good match for any one, being only an articled clerk to his father, whose business in the little market-town of malsham was by no means extensive; and william carley spoke of him scornfully as a pauper. he was a tall good-looking young fellow, however, with a candid pleasant face and an agreeable manner; so ellen was not a little angry with her father for his rudeness, still more angry with him for his encouragement of her other admirer, a man called stephen whitelaw, who lived about a mile from the grange, and farmed his own land, an estate of some extent for that part of the country. "if you must marry," said the bailiff, "and it's what girls like you seem to be always thinking about, you can't do better than take up with steph whitelaw. he's a warm man, nell, and a wife of his will never want a meal of victuals or a good gown to her back. you'd better not waste your smiles and your civil words on a beggar like young randall, who won't have a home to take you to for these ten years to come--not then, perhaps--for there's not much to be made by law in malsham now-a-days. and when his father dies--supposing he's accommodating enough to die in a reasonable time, which it's ten to one he won't be--the young man will have his mother and sisters to keep upon the business very likely, and there'd be a nice look-out for you. now, if you marry my old friend steph, he can make you a lady." this was a very long speech for mr. carley. it was grumbled out in short spasmodic sentences between the slow whiffs of his pipe, as he sat by the fire in a little parlour off the hall, with his indefatigable daughter at work at a table near him. "stephen whitelaw had need be a gentleman himself before he could make me a lady," nelly answered, laughing. "i don't think fine clothes can make gentlefolks; no, nor farming one's own land, either, though that sounds well enough. i am not in any hurry to leave you, father, and i'm not one of those girls who are always thinking of getting married; but come what may, depend upon it, i shall never marry mr. whitelaw." "why not, pray?" the bailiff asked savagely. nelly shook out the shirt she had been repairing for her father, and then began to fold it, shaking her head resolutely at the same time. "because i detest him," she said; "a mean, close, discontented creature, who can see no pleasure in life except money-making. i hate the very sight of his pale pinched face, father, and the sound of his hard shrill voice. if i had to choose between the workhouse and marrying stephen whitelaw, i'd choose the workhouse; yes, and scrub, and wash, and drudge, and toil there all my days, rather than be mistress of wyncomb farm." "well, upon my word," exclaimed the father, taking the pipe from his mouth, and staring aghast at his daughter in a stupor of indignant surprise, "you're a pretty article; you're a nice piece of goods for a man to bring up and waste his substance upon--a piece of goods that will turn round upon one and refuse a man who farms his own land. mind, he hasn't asked you yet, my lady; and never may, for aught i know." "i hope he never will, father," nelly answered quietly, unsubdued by this outburst of the bailiff's. "if he does, and you don't snap at such a chance, you need never look for a sixpence from me; and you'd best make yourself scarce pretty soon into the bargain. i'll have no such trumpery about my house." "very well, father; i daresay i can get my living somewhere else, without working much harder than i do here." this open opposition on the girl's part made william carley only the more obstinately bent upon that marriage, which seemed to him such a brilliant alliance, which opened up to him the prospect of a comfortable home for his old age, where he might repose after his labours, and live upon the fat of the land without toil or care. he had a considerable contempt for the owner of wyncomb farm, whom he thought a poor creature both as a man and a farmer; and he fancied that if his daughter married stephen whitelaw, he might become the actual master of that profitable estate. he could twist such a fellow as stephen round his fingers, he told himself, when invested with the authority of a father-in-law. mr. whitelaw was a pale-faced little man of about five-and-forty years of age; a man who had remained a bachelor to the surprise of his neighbours, who fancied, perhaps, that the owner of a good house and a comfortable income was in a manner bound by his obligation to society to take to himself a partner with whom to share these advantages. he had remained unmarried, giving no damsel ground for complaint by any delusive attentions, and was supposed to have saved a good deal of money, and to be about the richest man in those parts, with the exception of the landed gentry. he was by no means an attractive person in this the prime of his manhood. he had a narrow mean-looking face, with sharp features, and a pale sickly complexion, which looked as if he had spent his life in some close london office rather than in the free sweet air of his native fields. his hair was of a reddish tint, very sleek and straight, and always combed with extreme precision upon each side of his narrow forehead; and he had scanty whiskers of the same unpopular hue, which he was in the habit of smoothing with a meditative air upon his sallow cheeks with the knobby fingers of his bony hand. he was of a rather nervous temperament, inclined to silence, like his big burly friend, william carley, and had a deprecating doubtful way of expressing his opinion at all times. in spite of this humility of manner, however, he cherished a secret pride in his superior wealth, and was apt to remind his associates, upon occasion, that he could buy up any one of them without feeling the investment. after having attained the discreet age of forty-five without being a victim to the tender passion, mr. whitelaw might reasonably have supposed himself exempt from the weakness so common to mankind. but such self-gratulation, had he indulged in it, would have been premature; for after having been a visitor at the grange, and boon-companion of the bailiff's for some ten years, it slowly dawned upon him that ellen carley was a very pretty girl, and that he would have her for his wife, and no other. her brisk off-hand manner had a kind of charm for his slow apathetic nature; her rosy brunette face, with its bright black eyes and flashing teeth, seemed to him the perfection of beauty. but he was not an impetuous lover. he took his time about the business, coming two or three times a week to smoke his pipe with william carley, and paying nelly some awkward blundering compliment now and then in his deliberate hesitating way. he had supreme confidence in his own position and his money, and was troubled by no doubt as to the ultimate success of his suit. it was true that nelly treated him in by no means an encouraging manner--was, indeed, positively uncivil to him at times; but this he supposed to be mere feminine coquetry; and it enhanced the attractions of the girl he designed to make his wife. as to her refusing him when the time came for his proposal, he could not for a moment imagine such a thing possible. it was not in the nature of any woman to refuse to be mistress of wyncomb, and to drive her own whitechapel cart--a comfortable hooded vehicle of the wagonette species, which was popular in those parts. so stephen whitelaw took his time, contented to behold the object of his affection two or three evenings a week, and to gaze admiringly upon her beauty as he smoked his pipe in the snug little oak-wainscoted parlour at the grange, while his passion grew day by day, until it did really become a very absorbing feeling, second only to his love of money and wyncomb farm. these dull sluggish natures are capable of deeper passions than the world gives them credit for; and are as slow to abandon an idea as they are to entertain it. it was ellen carley's delight to tell marian of her trouble, and to protest to this kind confidante again and again that no persuasion or threats of her father's should ever induce her to marry stephen whitelaw--which resolution mrs. holbrook fully approved. there was a little gate opening from a broad green lane into one of the fields at the back of the grange; and here sometimes of a summer evening they used to find frank randall, who had ridden his father's white pony all the way from malsham for the sake of smoking his evening cigar on that particular spot. they used to find him seated there, smoking lazily, while the pony cropped the grass in the lane close at hand. he was always eager to do any little service for mrs. holbrook; to bring her books or anything else she wanted from malsham--anything that might make an excuse for his coming again by appointment, and with the certainty of seeing ellen carley. it was only natural that marian should be inclined to protect this simple love-affair, which offered her favourite a way of escape from the odious marriage that her father pressed upon her. the girl might have to endure poverty as frank randall's wife; but that seemed a small thing in the eyes of marian, compared with the horror of marrying that pale-faced mean-looking little man, whom she had seen once or twice sitting by the fire in the oak parlour, with his small light-grey eyes fixed in a dull stare upon the bailiff's daughter. chapter xviii. jacob nowell's will. at his usual hour, upon the evening after his arrival in london, gilbert fenton called at the silversmith's shop in queen anne's court. he found jacob nowell weaker than when he had seen him last, and with a strange old look, as if extreme age had come upon him suddenly. he had been compelled to call in a medical man, very much against his will; and this gentleman had told him that his condition was a critical one, and that it would be well for him to arrange his affairs quickly, and to hold himself prepared for the worst. he seemed to be slightly agitated when gilbert told him that his granddaughter had been found. "will she come to me, do you think?" he asked. "i have no doubt that she will do so, directly she hears how ill you have been. she was very much pleased at the idea of seeing you, and only waited for her husband's permission to come. but i don't suppose she will wait for that when she knows of your illness. i shall write to her immediately." "do," jacob nowell said eagerly; "i want to see her before i die. you did not meet the husband, then, i suppose?" "no; mr. holbrook was not there." he told jacob nowell all that it was possible for him to tell about his interview with marian; and the old man seemed warmly interested in the subject. death was very near him, and the savings of the long dreary years during which his joyless life had been devoted to money-making must soon pass into other hands. he wanted to know something of the person who was to profit by his death; he wanted to be sure that when he was gone some creature of his own flesh and blood would remember him kindly; not for the sake of his money alone, but for something more than that. "i shall make my will to-morrow," he said, before gilbert left him. "i don't mind owning to you that i have something considerable to bequeath; for i think i can trust you. and if i should die before my grandchild comes to me, you will see that she has her rights, won't you? you will take care that she is not cheated by her husband, or by any one else?" "i shall hold it a sacred charge to protect her interests, so far as it is possible for me to do so." "that's well. i shall make you one of the executors to my will, if you've no objection." "no. the executorship will bring me into collision with mr. holbrook, no doubt; but i have resolved upon my line of conduct with regard to him, and i am prepared for whatever may happen. my chief desire now is to be a real friend to your granddaughter; for i believe she has need of friends." the will was drawn up next day by an attorney of by no means spotless reputation, who had often done business for mr. nowell in the past, and who may have known a good deal about the origin of some of the silver which found its way to the old silversmith's stores. he was a gentleman frequently employed in the defence of those injured innocents who appear at the bar of the old bailey; and was not at all particular as to the merits of the cases he conducted. this gentleman embodied mr. nowell's desires with reference to the disposal of his worldly goods in a very simple and straightforward manner. all that jacob nowell had to leave was left to his granddaughter, marian holbrook, for her own separate use and maintenance, independent of any husband whatsoever. this was clear enough. it was only when there came the question, which a lawyer puts with such deadly calmness, as to what was to be done with the money in the event of marian holbrook's dying intestate, that any perplexity arose. "of course, if she has children, you'd like the money to go to them," said mr. medler, the attorney; "that's clear enough, and had better be set out in your will. but suppose she should have no children, you'd scarcely like all you leave to go to her husband, who is quite a stranger to you, and who may be a scoundrel for aught you know." "no; i certainly shouldn't much care about enriching this holbrook." "of course not; to say nothing of the danger there would be in giving him so strong an interest in his wife's death. not but what i daresay he'll contrive to squander the greater part of the money during her lifetime. is it all in hard cash?" "no; there is some house-property at islington, which pays a high interest; and there are other freeholds." "then we might tie those up, giving mrs. holbrook only the income. it is essential to provide against possible villany or extravagance on the part of the husband. women are so weak and helpless in these matters. and in the event of your granddaughter dying without children, wouldn't you rather let the estate go to your son?" "to him!" exclaimed jacob nowell. "i have sworn that i would not leave him sixpence." "that's a kind of oath which no man ever considers himself bound to keep," said the lawyer in his most insinuating tone. "remember, it's only a remote contingency. the chances are that your granddaughter will have a family to inherit this property, and that she will survive her father. and then, if we give her power to make a will, of course it's pretty certain that she'll leave everything to this husband of hers. but i don't think we ought to do that, mr. nowell. i think it would be a far wiser arrangement to give this young lady only a life interest in the real estate. that makes the husband a loser by her death, instead of a possible gainer to a large amount. and i consider that your son's name has a right to come in here." "i cannot acknowledge that he has any such right. his extravagance almost ruined me when he was a young man; and his ingratitude would have broken my heart, if i had been weak enough to suffer myself to be crushed by it." "time works changes amongst the worst of us, mr. nowell, i daresay your son has improved his habits in all these years and is heartily sorry for the errors of his youth." "have you seen him, medler?" the old man asked quickly. "seen your son lately? no; indeed, my dear sir, i had no notion that he was in england." the fact is, that percival nowell had called upon mr. medler more than once since his arrival in london; and had discussed with that gentleman the chances of his father's having made, or not made, a will, and the possibility of the old man's being so far reconciled to him as to make a will in his favour. percival nowell had gone farther than this, and had promised the attorney a handsome percentage upon anything that his father might be induced to leave him by mr. medler's influence. the discussion lasted for a long time; mr. medler pushing on, stage by stage, in the favour of his secret client, anxious to see whether jacob nowell might not be persuaded to allow his son's name to take the place of his granddaughter, whom he had never seen, and who was really no more than a stranger to him, the attorney took care to remind him. but on this point the old man was immovable. he would leave his money to marian, and to no one else. he had no desire that his son should ever profit by the labours and deprivations of all those joyless years in which his fortune had been scraped together. it was only as the choice of the lesser evil that he would consent to percival's inheriting the property from his daughter, rather than it should fall into the hands of mr. holbrook. the lawyer had hard work before he could bring his client to this point; but he did at last succeed in doing so, and percival nowell's name was written in the will. "i don't suppose nowell will thank me much for what i've done, though i've had difficulty enough in doing it," mr. medler said to himself, as he walked slowly homewards after this prolonged conference in queen anne's court. "for of course the chances are ten to one against his surviving his daughter. still these young women sometimes go off the hooks in an unexpected way, and he _may_ come into the reversion." there was only one satisfaction for the attorney, and that lay in the fact that this long, laborious interview had been all in the way of business, and could be charged for accordingly: "to attending at your own house with relation to drawing up the rough draft of your will, and consultation of two hours and a half thereupon;" and so on. the will was to be executed next day; and mr. medler was to take his clerk with him to queen anne's court, to act as one of the witnesses. he had obtained one other triumph in the course of the discussion, which was the insertion of his own name as executor in place of gilbert fenton, against whom he raised so many specious arguments as to shake the old man's faith in marian's jilted lover. percival nowell dropped in upon his father that night, and smoked his cigar in the dingy little parlour, which was so crowded with divers kinds of merchandise as to be scarcely habitable. the old man's son came here almost every evening, and behaved altogether in a very dutiful way. jacob nowell seemed to tolerate rather than to invite his visits, and the adventurer tried in vain to get at the real feelings underlying that emotionless manner. "i think i might work round the governor if i had time," this dutiful son said to himself, as he reflected upon the aspect of affairs in queen anne's court; "but i fancy the old chap has taken his ticket for the next world--booked through--per express train, and the chances are that he'll keep his word and not leave me sixpence. rather hard lines that, after my taking the trouble to come over here and hunt him up." there was one fact that mr. nowell the younger seemed inclined to ignore in the course of these reflections; and that was the fact that he had not left america until he had completely used up that country as a field for commercial enterprise, and had indeed made his name so far notorious in connection with numerous shady transactions as to leave no course open to him except a speedy departure. since his coming to england he had lived entirely on credit; and, beyond the fine clothes he wore and the contents of his two portmanteaus, he possessed nothing in the world. it was quite true that he had done very well in new york; but his well-being had been secured at the cost of other people; and after having started some half-dozen speculations, and living extravagantly upon the funds of his victims, he was now as poor as he had been when he left belgium for america, the commission-agent of a house in the iron trade. in this position he might have prospered in a moderate way, and might have profited by the expensive education which had given him nothing but showy agreeable manners, had he been capable of steadiness and industry. but of these virtues he was utterly deficient, possessing instead a genius for that kind of swindling which keeps just upon the safe side of felony. he had lived pleasantly enough, for many years, by the exercise of this agreeable talent; so pleasantly indeed that he had troubled himself very little about his chances of inheriting his father's savings. it was only when he had exhausted all expedients for making money on "the other side" that he turned his thoughts in the direction of queen anne's court, and began to speculate upon the probability of jacob nowell's good graces being worth the trouble of cultivation. the prospectuses which he had shown his father were mere waste paper, the useless surplus stationery remaining from a scheme that had failed to enlist the sympathies of a transatlantic public. but he fancied that his only chance with the old man lay in an assumption of prosperity; so he carried matters with a high hand throughout the business, and swaggered in the little dusky parlour behind the shop just as he had swaggered on new-york broadway or at delmonico's in the heyday of his commercial success. he called at mr. medler's office the day after jacob nowell's will had been executed, having had no hint of the fact from his father. the solicitor told him what had been done, and how the most strenuous efforts on his part had only resulted in the insertion of percival's name after that of his daughter. whatever indignation mr. nowell may have felt at the fact that his daughter had been preferred before him, he contrived to keep hidden in his own mind. the lawyer was surprised at the quiet gravity with which he received the intelligence. he listened to mr. medler's statement of the case with the calmest air of deliberation, seemed indeed to be thinking so deeply that it was as if his thoughts had wandered away from the subject in hand to some theme which allowed of more profound speculation. "and if she should die childless, i should get all the free-hold property?" he said at last, waking up suddenly from that state of abstraction, and turning his thoughtful face upon the lawyer. "yes; all the real estate would be yours." "have you any notion what the property is worth?" "not an exact notion. your father gave me a list of investments. altogether, i should fancy, the income will be something handsome--between two and three thousand a year, perhaps. strange, isn't it, for a man with all that money to have lived such a life as your father's?" "strange indeed," percival nowell cried with a sneer. "and my daughter will step into two or three thousand a year," he went on: "very pleasant for her, and for her husband into the bargain. of course i'm not going to say that i wouldn't rather have had the income myself. you'd scarcely swallow that, as a man of the world, you see, medler. but the girl is my only child, and though circumstances have divided us for the greater part of our lives, blood is thicker than water; and in short, since there was no getting the governor to do the right thing, and leave this money to me, it's the next best thing that he should leave it to marian." "to say nothing of the possibility of her dying without children, and your coming into the property after all," said mr. medler, wondering a little at mr. nowell's philosophical manner of looking at the question. "sir," exclaimed percival indignantly, "do you imagine me capable of speculating upon the untimely death of my only child?" the lawyer shrugged his shoulders doubtfully. in the course of his varied experience he had found men and women capable of very queer things when their pecuniary interests were at stake; and he had not a most exalted opinion of mr. nowell's virtue--he knew too many secrets connected with his early career. "remember, if ever by any strange chance you should come into this property, you have me to thank for getting your name into the will, and for giving your daughter only a life interest. she would have had every penny left to her without reserve, if i hadn't fought for your interests as hard as ever i fought for anything in the whole course of my professional career." "you're a good fellow, medler; and if ever fortune should favour me, which hardly seems on the cards, i sha'n't forget what i promised you the other day. i daresay you did the best you could for me, though it doesn't amount to much when it's done." long after percival nowell had left him, mr. medler sat idle at his desk meditating upon his interview with that gentleman. "i can't half understand his coolness," he said to himself; "i expected him to be as savage as a bear when he found that the old man had left him nothing. i thought i should hear nothing but execrations and blasphemies; for i think i know my gentleman pretty well of old, and that he's not a person to take a disappointment of this kind very sweetly. there must be something under that quiet manner of his. perhaps he knows more about his daughter than he cares to let out; knows that she is sickly, and that he stands a good chance of surviving her." there was indeed a lurking desperation under percival nowell's airy manner, of which the people amongst whom he lived had no suspicion. unless some sudden turn in the wheel of fortune should change the aspect of affairs for him very soon, ruin, most complete and utter, was inevitable. a man cannot go on very long without money; and in order to pay his hotel-bill mr. nowell had been obliged to raise the funds from an accommodating gentleman with whom he had done business in years gone by, and who was very familiar with his own and his father's autograph. the bill upon which this gentleman advanced the money in question bore the name of jacob nowell, and was drawn at three months. percival had persuaded himself that before the three months were out his father would be in his grave, and his executors would scarcely be in a position to dispute the genuineness of the signature. in the meantime the money thus obtained enabled him to float on. he paid his hotel-bill, and removed to lodgings in one of the narrow streets to the north-east of tottenham court road; an obscure lodging enough, where he had a couple of comfortable rooms on the first floor, and where his going out and coming in attracted little notice. here, as at the hotel, he chose to assume the name of norton instead of his legitimate cognomen. chapter xix. gilbert asks a question. gilbert fenton called at john saltram's chambers within a day or two of his return from hampshire. he had a strange, almost feverish eagerness to see his old friend again; a sense of having wronged him for that one brief moment of thought in which the possibility of his guilt had flashed across his mind; and with this feeling there was mingled a suspicion that john saltram had not acted quite fairly to him; that he had kept back knowledge which must have come to him as an intimate ally of sir david forster. he found mr. saltram at home in the familiar untidy room, with the old chaos of books and papers about him. he looked tired and ill, and rose to greet his visitor with a weary air, as if nothing in the world possessed much interest for him now-a-days. "why, john, you are as pallid as a ghost!" gilbert exclaimed, grasping the hand extended to him, and thinking of that one moment in which he had fancied he was never to touch that hand again. "you have been at the old work, i suppose--overdoing it, as usual!" "no, i have been working very little for these last few days. the truth is, i have not been able to work. the divine afflatus wouldn't come down upon me. there are times when a man's brain seems to be made of melted butter. mine has been like that for the last week or so." "i thought you were going back to your fishing village near oxford." "no, i was not in spirits for that. i have dined two or three times in cavendish square, and have been made much of, and have contrived to forget my troubles for a few hours." "you talk of your troubles as if you were very heavily burdened; and yet, for the life of me, i cannot see what you have to complain of," gilbert said wonderingly. "of course not. that is always the case with one's friends--even the best of them. it's only the man who wears the shoe that knows why it pinches and galls him. but what have you been doing since i saw you last?" "i have been in hampshire." "indeed!" said john saltram, looking him full in the face. "and what took you into that quarter of the world?" "i thought you took more interest in my affairs than to have to ask that question. i went to look for marian holbrook,--and i found her." "poor old fellow!" mr. saltram said gently. "and was there any satisfaction for you in the meeting?" "yes, and no. there was a kind of mournful pleasure in seeing the dear face once more." "she must have been surprised to see you." "she was, no doubt, surprised--unpleasantly, perhaps; but she received me very kindly, and was perfectly frank upon every subject except her husband. she would tell me nothing about him--neither his position in the world, nor his profession, if he has one, as i suppose he has. she owned he was not rich, and that is about all she said of him. poor girl, i do not think she is happy!" "what ground have you for such an idea?" "her face, which told me a great deal more than her words. her beauty is very much faded since the summer evening when i first saw her in lidford church. she seems to lead a lonely life in the old farm-house to which her husband brought her immediately after their marriage--a life which few women would care to lead. and now, john, i want to know how it is you have kept back the truth from me in this matter; that you have treated me with a reserve which i had no right to expect from a friend." "what have i kept from you" "your knowledge of this man holbrook." "what makes you suppose that i have any knowledge of him?" "the fact that he is a friend of sir david forster's. the house in which i found marian belongs to sir david, and was lent by him to mr. holbrook." "i do not know every friend of forster's. he is a man who picks up his acquaintance in the highways and byways, and drops them when he is tired of them." "will you tell me, on your honour, that you know nothing of this mr. holbrook?" "certainly." gilbert fenton gave a weary sigh, and then seated himself silently opposite mr. saltram. he could not afford to doubt this friend of his. the whole fabric of his life must have dropped to pieces if john saltram had played him false. his single venture as a lover having ended in shipwreck, he seemed to have nothing left him but friendship; and that kind of hero-worship which had made his friend always appear to him something better than he really was, had grown stronger with him since marian's desertion. "o jack," he said presently, "i could bear anything in this world better than the notion that you could betray me--that you could break faith with me for the sake of another man." "i am not likely to do that. there is no man upon this earth i care for very much except you. i am not a man prone to friendship. in fact, i am a selfish worthless fellow at the best, gilbert, and hardly merit your serious consideration. it would be wiser of you to think of me as i really am, and to think very little of me." "you did not show yourself remarkably selfish when you nursed me through that fever, at the hazard of your own life." "pshaw! that was nothing. i could not have done less in the position in which we two were. such sacrifices as those count for very little. it is when a man's own happiness is in the scale that the black spot shows itself. i tell you, gilbert, i am not worth your friendship. it would be better for you to go your own way, and have nothing more to do with me." mr. saltram had said this kind of thing very often in the past, so that the words had no especial significance to gilbert. he only thought that his friend was in one of those gloomy moods which were common to him at times. "i could not do without your friendship, jack," he said. "remember how barren the world is to me now. i have nothing left but that." "a poor substitute for better things, gilbert. i am never likely to be much good to you or to myself. by the way, have you seen anything lately of that old man you told me about--miss nowell's grandfather?" "i saw him the other night. he is very ill--dying, i believe. i have written to marian to tell her that if she does not come very quickly to see him, there is a chance of her not finding him alive." "and she will come of course." "i suppose so. she talked of waiting for her husband's consent; but she will scarcely do that when she knows her grandfather's precarious state. i shall go to queen anne's court after i leave you, to ascertain if there has been any letter from her to announce her coming. she is a complete stranger in london, and may be embarrassed if she arrives at the station alone. but i should imagine her husband would meet her there supposing him to be in town." mr. fenton stayed with his friend about an hour after this; but john saltram was not in a communicative mood to-night, and the talk lagged wearily. it was almost a relief to gilbert when they had bidden each other good-night, and he was out in the noisy streets once more, making his way towards queen anne's court. chapter xx. drifting away. gilbert fenton found jacob nowell worse; so much worse, that he had been obliged to take to his bed, and was lying in a dull shabby room upstairs, faintly lighted by one tallow candle on the mantelpiece. marian was there when gilbert went in. she had arrived a couple of hours before, and had taken her place at once by the sick-bed. her bonnet and shawl were thrown carelessly upon a dilapidated couch by the window. gilbert fancied she looked like a ministering angel as she sat by the bed, her soft brown hair falling loosely round the lovely face, her countenance almost divine in its expression of tenderness and pity. "you came to town alone, marian?" he asked in a low voice. the old man was in a doze at this moment, lying with his pinched withered face turned towards his granddaughter, his feeble hand in hers. "yes, i came alone. my husband had not come back, and i would not delay any longer after receiving your letter. i am very glad i came. my poor grandfather seemed so pleased to see me. he was wandering a little when i first came in, but brightened wonderfully afterwards, and quite understood who i was." the old man awoke presently. he was in a semi-delirious state, but seemed to know his granddaughter, and clung to her, calling her by name with senile fondness. his mind wandered back to the past, and he talked to his son as if he had been in the room, reproaching him for his extravagance, his college debts, which had been the ruin of his careful hard-working father. at another moment he fancied that his wife was still alive, and spoke to her, telling her that their grandchild had been christened after her, and that she was to love the girl. and then the delirium left him for a time, his mind grew clearer, and he talked quite rationally in his low feeble way. "is that mr. fenton?" he asked; "the room's so dark, i can't see very well. she has come to me, you see. she's a good girl. her eyes are like my wife's. yes, she's a good girl. it seems a hard thing that i should have lived all these years without knowing her; lived alone, with no one about me but those that were on the watch for my money, and eager to cheat me at every turn. my life might have been happier if i'd had a grandchild to keep me company, and i might have left this place and lived like a gentleman for her sake. but that's all past and gone. you'll be rich when i'm dead, marian; yes, what most people would count rich. you won't squander the money, will you, my dear, as your father would, if it were left to him?" "no, grandfather. but tell me about my father. is he still living?" the girl asked eagerly. "never mind him, child," answered jacob nowell. "he hasn't troubled himself about you, and you can't do better than keep clear of him. no good ever came of anything he did yet, and no good ever will come. don't you have anything to do with him, marian. he'll try to get all your money away from you, if you give him a chance--depend upon that." "he is living, then? o, my dear grandfather, do tell me something more about him. remember that whatever his errors may have been, he is my father--the only relation i have in the world except yourself." "his whole life has been one long error," answered jacob nowell. "i tell you, child, the less you know of him the better." he was not to be moved from this, and would say no more about his son, in spite of marian's earnest pleading. the doctor came in presently, for the second time that evening, and forbade his patient's talking any more. he told gilbert, as he left the house, that the old man's life was now only a question of so many days or so many hours. the old woman who did all the work of jacob nowell's establishment--a dilapidated-looking widow, whom nobody in that quarter ever remembered in any other condition than that of widowhood--had prepared a small bedroom at the back of the house for marian; a room in which percival had slept in his early boyhood, and where the daughter found faint traces of her father's life. mr. macready as othello, in a spangled tunic, with vest of actual satin let into the picture, after the pre-raphaelite or realistic tendency commonly found in such juvenile works of art, hung over the narrow painted mantelpiece. the fond mother had had this masterpiece framed and glazed in the days when her son was still a little lad, unspoiled by university life and those splendid aspirations which afterwards made his home hateful to him. there were some tattered books upon a shelf by the bed--school prizes, an old virgil, a "robinson crusoe" shorn of its binding. the boy's name was written in them in a scrawling schoolboy hand; not once, but many times, after the fashion of juvenile bibliopoles, with primitive rhymes in latin and english setting forth his proprietorship in the volumes. caricatures were scribbled upon the fly-leaves and margins of the books, the date whereof looked very old to marian, long before her own birth. it was not till very late that she consented to leave the old man's side and go to the room which had been got ready for her, to lie down for an hour. she would not hear of any longer rest though the humble widow was quite pathetic in her entreaties that the dear young lady would try to get a good night's sleep, and would leave the care of mr. nowell to her, who knew his ways, poor dear gentleman, and would watch over him as carefully as if he had been her own poor husband, who kept his bed for a twelvemonth before he died, and had to be waited on hand and foot. marian told this woman that she did not want rest. she had come to town on purpose to be with her grandfather, and would stay with him as long as he needed her care. she did, however, consent to go to her room for a little in the early november dawn, when jacob nowell had fallen into a profound sleep; but when she did lie down, sleep would not come to her. she could not help listening to every sound in the opposite room--the falling of a cinder, the stealthy footfall of the watcher moving cautiously about now and then; listening still more intently when all was silent, expecting every moment to hear herself summoned suddenly. the sick-room and the dark shadow of coming death brought back the thought of that bitter time when her uncle was lying unconscious and speechless in the pretty room at lidford, with the wintry light shining coldly upon his stony face; while she sat by his pillow, watching him in hopeless silent agony, waiting for that dread change which they had told her was the only change that could come to him on earth. the scene re-acted itself in her mind to-night, with all the old anguish. she shut it out at last with a great effort, and began to think of what her grandfather had said to her. she was to be rich. she who had been a dependant upon others all her life was to know the security and liberty that must needs go along with wealth. she was glad of this, much more for her husband's sake than her own. she knew that the cares which had clouded their life of late, which had made him seem to love her less than he had loved her at first, had their chief origin in want of money. what happiness it would be for her to lift this burden from his life, to give him peace and security for the years to come! her thoughts wandered away into the bright region of day-dreams after this, and she fancied what their lives might be without that dull sordid trouble of pecuniary embarrassments. she fancied her husband, with all the fetters removed that had hampered his footsteps hitherto, winning a name and a place in the world. it is so natural for a romantic inexperienced girl to believe that the man she loves was born to achieve greatness; and that if he misses distinction, it is from the perversity of his surroundings or from his own carelessness, never from the fact of his being only a very small creature after all. it was broad daylight when marian rose after an hour of sleeplessness and thought, and refreshed herself with the contents of the cracked water-jug upon the rickety little wash-stand. the old man was still asleep when she went back to his room; but his breathing was more troubled than it had been the night before, and the widow, who was experienced in sickness and death, told marian that he would not last very long. the shopman, luke tulliver, had come upstairs to see his master, and was hovering over the bed with a ghoulish aspect. this young man looked very sharply at marian as she came into the room--seemed indeed hardly able to take his eyes from her face--and there was not much favour in his look. he knew who she was, and had been told how kindly the old man had taken to her in those last moments of his life; and he hated her with all his heart and soul, having devoted all the force of his mind for the last ten years to the cultivation of his employer's good graces, hoping that mr. nowell, having no one else to whom to leave his money, would end by leaving it all to him. and here was a granddaughter, sprung from goodness knows where, to cheat him out of all his chances. he had always suspected gilbert fenton of being a dangerous sort of person, and it was no doubt he who had brought about this introduction, to the annihilation of mr. tulliver's hopes. this young man took his place in a vacant chair by the fire, as if determined to stop; while marian seated herself quietly by the sleeper's pillow, thinking only of that one occupant of the room, and supposing that mr. tulliver's presence was a mark of fidelity. the old man woke with a start presently, and looked about him in a slow bewildered way for some moments. "who's that?" he asked presently, pointing to the figure by the hearth. "it's only mr. tulliver, sir," the widow answered. "he's so anxious about you, poor young man." "i don't want him," said jacob nowell impatiently. "i don't want his anxiety; i want to be alone with my granddaughter." "don't send me away, sir," mr. tulliver pleaded in a piteous tone. "i don't deserve to be sent away like a stranger, after serving you faithfully for the last ten years----" "and being well paid for your services," gasped the old man. "i tell you i don't want you. go downstairs and mind the shop." "it's not open yet, sir," remonstrated mr. tulliver. "then it ought to be. i'll have no idling and shirking because i'm ill. go down and take down the shutters directly. let the business go on just as if i was there to watch it." "i'm going, sir," whimpered the young man; "but it does seem rather a poor return after having served you as i have, and loved you as if you'd been my own father." "very much men love their fathers now-a-days! i didn't ask you to love me, did i? or hire you for that, or pay you for it? pshaw, man, i know you. you wanted my money like the rest of them, and i didn't mind your thinking there was a chance of your getting it. i've rather encouraged the notion at odd times. it made you a better servant, and kept you honest. but now that i'm dying, i can afford to tell the truth. this young lady will have all my money, every sixpence of it, except five-and-twenty pounds to mrs. mitchin yonder. and now you can go. you'd have got something perhaps in a small way, if you'd been less of a sneak and a listener; but you've played your cards a trifle too well." the old man had raised himself up in his bed, and rallied considerably while he made this speech. he seemed to take a malicious pleasure in his shopman's disappointment. but when luke tulliver had slowly withdrawn from the room, with a last venomous look at marian, jacob nowell sank back upon his pillow exhausted by his unwonted animation. "you don't know what a deep schemer that young man has been, marian," he said, "and how i have laughed in my sleeve at his manoeuvres." the dull november day dragged itself slowly through, marian never leaving her post by the sick-bed. jacob nowell spent those slow hours in fitful sleep and frequent intervals of wakefulness, in which he would talk to marian, however she might urge him to remember the doctor's injunctions that he should be kept perfectly quiet. it seemed indeed to matter very little whether he obeyed the doctor or not, since the end was inevitable. one of the curates of the parish came in the course of the day, and read and prayed beside the old man's bed, jacob nowell joining in the prayers in a half-mechanical way. for many years of his life he had neglected all religious duties. it was years since he had been inside a church; perhaps he had not been once since the death of his wife, who had persuaded him to go with her sometimes to the evening service, when he had generally scandalised her by falling asleep during the delivery of the sermon. all that the curate told him now about the necessity that he should make his peace with his god, and prepare himself for a world to come, had a far-off sound to him. he thought more about the silver downstairs, and what it was likely to realize in the auction-room. even in this supreme hour his conscience did not trouble him much about the doubtful modes by which some of the plate he had dealt in had reached his hands. if he had not bought the things, some other dealer would have bought them. that is the easy-going way in which he would have argued the question, had he been called upon to argue it at all. mr. fenton came in the evening to see the old man, and stood for a little time by the bedside watching him as he slept, and talking in a low voice to marian. he asked her how long she was going to remain in queen anne's court, and found her ideas very vague upon that subject. "if the end is so near as the doctor says, it would be cruel to leave my grandfather till all is over," she said. "i wonder that your husband has not come to you, if he is in london," gilbert remarked to her presently. he found himself very often wondering about her husband's proceedings, in no indulgent mood. "he may not be in london," she answered, seeming a little vexed by the observation. "i am quite sure that he will do whatever is best." "but if he should not come to you, and if your grandfather should die while you are alone here, i trust you will send for me and let me give you any help you may require. you can scarcely stay in this house after the poor old man's death." "i shall go back to hampshire immediately; if i am not wanted here for anything--to make arrangements for the funeral. o, how hard it seems to speak of that while he is still living!" "you need give yourself no trouble on that account. i will see to all that, if there is no more proper person to do so." "you are very good. i am anxious to go back to the grange as quickly as possible." gilbert left soon after this. he felt that his presence was of no use in the sick-room, and that he had no right to intrude upon marian at such a time. chapter xxi. father and daughter. almost immediately after gilbert's departure, another visitor appeared in the dimly lighted shop, where luke tulliver was poring over a newspaper at one end of the counter under a solitary gas-burner. the new-comer was percival nowell, who had not been to the house since his daughter's arrival. "well," said this gentleman, in his usual off-hand manner, "how's the governor?" "very ill; going fast, the doctor says." "eh? as bad as that? then there's been a change since i was here last." "yes; mr. nowell was taken much worse yesterday morning. he had a kind of fit, i fancy, and couldn't get his speech for some time afterwards. but he got over that, and has talked well enough since then," mr. tulliver concluded ruefully, remembering his master's candid remarks that morning. "i'll step upstairs and have a look at the old gentleman," said percival. "there's a young lady with him," mr. tulliver remarked, in a somewhat mysterious tone. "a young lady!" the other cried. "what young lady?" "his granddaughter." "indeed!" "yes; she came up from the country yesterday evening, and she's been sitting with him ever since. he seems to have taken to her very much. you'd think she'd been about him all her life; and she's to have all his money, he says. i wonder what his only son will say to that," added mr. tulliver, looking very curiously at percival nowell, "supposing him to be alive? rather hard upon him, isn't it?" "uncommonly," the other answered coolly. he saw that the shopman suspected his identity, though he had carefully avoided all reference to the relationship between himself and the old man in luke tulliver's presence, and had begged his father to say nothing about him. "i should like to see this young lady before i go up to mr. nowell's room," he said presently. "will you step upstairs and ask her to come down to me?" "i can go if you wish, but i don't suppose she'll leave the old gentleman." "never mind what you suppose. tell her that i wish to say a few words to her upon particular business." luke tulliver departed upon his errand, while percival nowell went into the parlour, and seated himself before the dull neglected fire in the lumbering old arm-chair in which his father had sat through the long lonely evenings for so many years. mr. nowell the younger was not disturbed by any sentimental reflections upon this subject, however; he was thinking of his father's will, and the wrong which was inflicted upon him thereby. "to be cheated out of every sixpence by my own flesh and blood!" he muttered to himself. "that seems too much for any man to bear." the door was opened by a gentle hand presently, and marian came into the room. percival nowell rose from his seat hastily and stood facing her, surprised by her beauty and an indefinable likeness which she bore to her mother--a likeness which brought his dead wife's face back to his mind with a sudden pang. he had loved her after his own fashion once upon a time, and had grown weary of her and neglected her after the death of that short-lived selfish passion; but something, some faint touch of the old feeling, stirred his heart as he looked at his daughter to-night. the emotion was as brief as the breath of a passing wind. in the next moment he was thinking of his father's money, and how this girl had emerged from obscurity to rob him of it. "you wish to speak to me on business, i am told," she said, in her clear low voice, wondering at the stranger's silence and deliberate scrutiny of her face. "yes, i have to speak to you on very serious business, marian," he answered gravely. "you are an utter stranger to me, and yet call me by my christian name." "i am not an utter stranger to you. look at me, mrs. holbrook. have you never seen my face before?" "never." "are you quite sure of that? look a little longer before you answer again." "yes!" she cried suddenly, after a long pause. "you are my father!" there had come back upon her, in a rapid flash of memory, the picture of a room in brussels--a room lighted dimly by two wax-candles on the chimney-piece, where there was a tall dark man who snatched her up in his arms and kissed her before he went out. she remembered caring very little for his kisses, and having a childish consciousness of the fact that it was he who made her mamma cry so often in the quiet lonely evenings, when the mother and child were together in that desolate continental lodging. yet at this moment she was scarcely disposed to think much about her father's ill-conduct. she considered only that he was her father, and that they had found each other after long years of separation. she stretched out her arms, and would have fallen upon his breast; but something in his manner repelled her, something downcast and nervous, which had a chilling effect upon her, and gave her time to remember how little cause she had to love him. he did not seem aware of the affectionate impulse which had moved her towards him at first. he gave her his hand presently. it was deadly cold, and lay loosely in her own. "i was asking my grandfather about you this morning," she said, wondering at his strange manner, "but he would not tell me where you were." "indeed! i am surprised to find you felt so much interest in me; i'm aware that i don't deserve as much. yet i could plead plenty of excuses for my life, if i cared to trouble you with them; but i don't. it would be a long story; and when it was told, you might not believe it. most men are, more or less, the slave of circumstances. i have suffered that kind of bondage all my life. i have known, too, that you were in good hands--better off in every way than you could have been in my care--or i should have acted differently in relation to you." "there is no occasion to speak of the past," marian replied gravely. "providence was very good to me; but i know my poor mother's last days were full of sorrow. i cannot tell how far it might have been in your power to prevent that. it is not my place to blame, or even to question your conduct." "you are an uncommonly dutiful daughter," mr. nowell exclaimed with rather a bitter laugh; "i thought that you would have repudiated me altogether perhaps; would have taken your tone from my father, who has grown pig-headed with old age, and cannot forgive me for having had the aspirations of a gentleman." "it is a pity there should not be union between my grandfather and you at such a moment as this," marian said. "o, we are civil enough to each other. i bear no malice against the old man, though many sons in my position might consider themselves hardly used. and now i may as well go upstairs and pay my respects. why is not your husband with you, by the bye?" "he is not wanted here; and i do not even know that he is in london." "humph! he seems rather a mysterious sort of person, this husband of yours." marian took no notice of this remark, and the father and daughter went upstairs to the sick-room together. the old silversmith received his son with obvious coolness, and was evidently displeased at seeing marian and her father together. percival nowell, however, on his part, appeared to be in an unusually affectionate and dutiful mood this evening. he held his place by the bedside resolutely, and insisted on sharing marian's watch that night. so all through the long night those two sat together, while the old man passed from uneasy slumber to more uneasy wakefulness, and back to troubled sleep again, his breathing growing heavier and more laboured with every hour. they were very quiet, and could have found but little to say to each other, had there been no reason for their silence. that first brief impulsive feeling of affection past, marian could only think of this newly-found father as the man who had made her mother's life lonely and wretched while he pursued his own selfish pleasures; and who had allowed her to grow to womanhood without having been the object of one thought or care upon his part. she could not forget these things, as she sat opposite to him in the awful silence of the sick-room, stealing a glance at his face now and then, and wondering at the strange turn of fortune which had brought them thus together. it was not a pleasant face by any means--not a countenance to inspire love or confidence. handsome still, but with a faded look, like a face that had grown pallid and wrinkled in the feverish atmosphere of vicious haunts--under the flaring gas that glares down upon the green cloth of a rouge-et-noir table, in the tumult of crowded race-courses, the press and confusion of the betting-ring--it was the face of a battered _roué_, who had lived his life, and outlived the smiles of fortune; the face of a man to whom honest thoughts and hopes had long been unknown. there was a disappointed peevish look about the drooping corners of the mouth, an angry glitter in the eyes. he did not look at his daughter very often as they sat together through that weary vigil, but kept his eyes for the greater part of the time upon the wasted face on the pillow, which looked like a parchment mask in the dim light. he seemed to be deep in thought, and several times in the night marian heard him breathe an impatient sigh, as if his thoughts were not pleasant to him. more than once he rose from his chair and paced the room softly for a little time, as if the restlessness of his mind had made that forced quiet unendurable. the early morning light came at last, faint and wan and gray, across a forest of blackened chimney-pots, and by that light the watchers could see that jacob nowell had changed for the worse. he lingered till late that afternoon. it was growing dusk when he died, making a very peaceful end of life at the last, with his head resting upon marian's shoulder, and his cold hand clasped in hers. his son stood by the bed, looking down upon him at that final moment with a fixed inscrutable face. gilbert fenton called that evening, and heard of the old man's death from luke tulliver. he heard also that mrs. holbrook intended to sleep in queen anne's court that night, and did not therefore intrude upon her, relying upon being able to see her next morning. he left his card, with a few words of condolence written upon it in pencil. mr. nowell was with his daughter in the little parlour behind the shop when luke tulliver gave her this card. he asked who the visitor was. "mr. fenton, a gentleman i knew at lidford in my dear uncle's lifetime. my grandfather liked him very much." "mr. fenton! yes, my father told me all about him. you were engaged to him, and jilted him for this man you have married--very foolishly, as it seems to me; for he could certainly have given you a better position than that which you appear to occupy now." "i chose for my own happiness," marian answered quietly, "and i have only one subject for regret; that is, that i was compelled to act with ingratitude towards a good man. but mr. fenton has forgiven me; has promised to be my friend, if ever i should have need of his friendship. he has very kindly offered to take all trouble off my hands with respect to--to the arrangements for the funeral." "he is remarkably obliging," said percival nowell with a sneer; "but as the only son of the deceased, i consider myself the proper person to perform that final duty." "i do not wish to interfere with your doing so. of course i did not know how near at hand you were when mr. fenton made that offer, or i should have told him." "you mean to remain until the funeral is over, i suppose?" "i think not; i want to go back to hampshire as soon as possible--by an early train to-morrow morning, if i can. i do not see that there is any reason for my remaining. i could not prove my respect or affection for my grandfather any more by staying." "certainly not," her father answered promptly. "i think you will be quite right in getting away from this dingy hole as quick as you can." "it is not for that. but i have promised to return directly i was free to do so." "and you go back to hampshire? to what part of hampshire?" marian told him the name of the place where she was living. he wrote the address in his pocket-book, and was especially careful that it should be correctly written, as to the name of the nearest town, and in all other particulars. "i may have to write to you, or to come to you, perhaps," he said. "it's as well to be prepared for the contingency." after this mr. nowell sent out for a "railway guide," in order to give his daughter all necessary information about the trains for malsham. there was a tolerably fast train that left waterloo at seven in the morning, and marian decided upon going by that. she had to spend the evening alone with her father while mrs. mitchin kept watch in the dismal chamber upstairs. mr. nowell asked his daughter's permission to light his cigar, and having obtained it, sat smoking moodily all the evening, staring into the fire, and very rarely addressing his companion, who had taken a bible out of her travelling-bag, and was reading those solemn, chapters which best harmonised with her feelings at this moment; thinking as she read of the time when her guardian and benefactor lay in his last calm rest, and she had vainly tried to find comfort in the same words, and had found herself staring blankly at the sacred page, with eyes that were dry and burning, and to which there came no merciful relief from tears. her father glanced at her askance now and then from his arm-chair by the fire, as she sat by the little round table looking down at her book, the light of the candles shining full upon her pensive face. he looked at her with no friendliness in his eyes, but with that angry sparkle which had grown almost habitual to them of late, since the world had gone ill with him. after one of those brief stolen looks, a strange smile crept over his face. he was thinking of a little speech of shakespeare's richard about his nephew, the youthful prince of wales: so young, so wise, they say do ne'er live long. "how pious she is!" he said to himself with a diabolical sneer. "did the half-pay captain teach her that, i wonder? or does church-going, and psalm-singing, and bible-reading come natural to all women? i know my mother was good at it, and my wife too. she used to fly to her bible as a man flies to dram-drinking, or his pipe, when things go wrong." he got tired of his cigar at last, and went out into the shop, where he began to question mr. tulliver as to the extent and value of the stock-in-trade, and upon other details of the business; to all of which inquiries the shopman replied in a suspicious and grudging spirit, giving his questioner the smallest possible amount of information. "you're an uncommonly cautious young man," mr. nowell exclaimed at last. "you'll never stand in your own light by being too anxious to oblige other people. i daresay, though, you could speak fast enough, if it was made worth your while." "i don't see what is to make it worth my while," luke tulliver answered coolly. "my duty is to my dead master, and those that are to come after him. i don't want strangers coming sniffing and prying into the stock. mr. nowell's books were kept so that i couldn't cheat him out of a sixpence, or the value of a sixpence; and i mean to hand 'em over to the lawyer in a manner that will do me credit. my master has not been a generous master to me, considering how i've served him, and i've got nothing but my character to look to; but that i have got, and i don't want it tampered with." "who is going to tamper with it?" said mr. nowell. "so you'll hand over the stock-books to the lawyer, will you, without a leaf missing, or an erasure, or an item marked off as sold that never was sold, or any little dodges of that kind, eh, mr. tulliver?" "of course," answered the shopman, looking defiantly at the questioner, who was leaning across the counter with folded arms, staring at luke tulliver with an ironical grin upon his countenance. "then you are a very remarkable man. i should have thought such a chance as a death as unexpected as my--as old mr. nowell's would have made the fortune of a confidential clerk like you." "i'm not a thief," answered mr. tulliver with an air of virtuous indignation; "and you can't know much about old jacob nowell if you think that anybody could cheat him, living or dead. there's not an entry in the book that isn't signed with his initials, in his own hand. when a thing was sold and crossed off the book, he put his initials to the entry of the sale. he went through the books every night till a week ago, and he'd as soon have cut his own head off as omit to do it, so long as he could see the figures in the book or hold his pen." mr. medler the lawyer came in while percival nowell and the shopman were talking. he had been away from his office upon business that evening, and had only just received the tidings of the silversmith's death. luke tulliver handed him the books and keys of the cases in which the tarnished plate was exhibited. he went into all the details of the business carefully, setting his seal upon books and papers, and doing all that he could to make matters secure without hindrance to the carrying on of the trade. he was surprised to hear that mrs. holbrook was in the house, and proposed paying his respects to her that evening; but this mr. nowell prevented. she was tired and out of spirits, he told the attorney; it would be better for him to see her next day. it was convenient to mr. nowell to forget marian's intention of returning to hampshire by an early train on the following morning at this juncture. when he went back to the parlour by-and-by, after mr. medler had finished his business in the shop, and was trudging briskly towards his own residence, mr. nowell told his daughter that the lawyer had been there, but did not inform her of his desire to see her. "i suppose you know all about your grandfather's will?" he said by-and-by, when he had half-finished another cigar. marian had put away her book by this time, and was looking dreamily at the fire, thinking of her husband, who need never know those weary sordid cares about money again, now that she was to be rich. her father's question startled her out of that agreeable day-dream. "yes," she said; "my grandfather told me that he had left all his money to me. i know that must seem unjust to you, papa; but i hope my husband will allow me to do something towards repairing that injustice in some measure." "in some measure!" mr. nowell thought savagely. "that means a pittance that would serve to keep life in a pauper, i suppose; and that is to be contingent upon her husband's permission." he made no audible reply to his daughter's speech, and seemed, indeed, so much absorbed in his own thoughts, that marian doubted if he had heard her; and so the rest of the long evening wore itself out in dismal silence, whilst stealthy footsteps sounded now and then upon the stairs. later mr. nowell was summoned to a conference with some mysterious person in the shop, whom marian supposed to be the undertaker; and returning from this interview with a gloomy face, he resumed his seat by the fire. it seemed very strange to marian that they two, father and daughter, should be together thus, so near and yet so wide apart; united by the closest tie of kindred, brought together thus after years of severance, yet with no bond of sympathy between them; no evidence of remorseful tenderness on the side of him whose life had been one long neglect of a father's duty. "how could i expect that he would care for me in the smallest degree, after his desertion of my mother?" marian thought to herself, as she meditated upon her father's coldness, which at first had seemed so strange to her. she had fancied that, what ever his sins in the past had been, his heart would have melted at the sight of his only child. she had thought of him and dreamed of him so often in her girlhood, elevating him in her romantic fancy into something much better and brighter than he really was--a sinner at best, it is true, but a sinner of a lofty type, a noble nature gone astray. she had imagined a reunion with him in the days to come, when it should be her delight to minister to his declining years--to be the consolation of his repentant soul. and now she had found him she knew these things could never be--that there was not one feeling of sympathy possible between her and that broken-down, dissipated-looking man of the world. the dismal evening came to an end at last, and marian bade her father good-night, and went upstairs to the little room where the traces of his boyhood had interested her so keenly when first she looked upon them. mr. nowell promised to come to queen anne's court at a quarter past six next morning, to escort his daughter to the station, an act of parental solicitude she had not expected from him. he took his departure immediately afterwards, being let out of the shop-door by luke tulliver, who was in a very cantankerous humour, and took no pains to disguise the state of his feelings. the lawyer mr. medler had pried into everything, the shopman told percival nowell; had declared himself empowered to do this, as the legal adviser of the deceased; and had seemed as suspicious as if he, luke tulliver, meant to rob his dead master. mr. tulliver's sensitive nature had been outraged by such a line of conduct. "and what has he done with the books?" mr. nowell asked. "they're all in the desk yonder, and that fellow medler has taken away the keys." "sharp practice," said mr. nowell; "but to a man with your purity of intention it can't matter what precautions are taken to insure the safety of the property." "of course it don't matter," the other answered peevishly; "but i like to be treated as a gentleman." "humph! and you expect to retain your place here, i suppose, if the business is carried on?" "it's too good a business to be let drop," replied mr. tulliver; "but i shouldn't think that young lady upstairs would be much of a hand at trade. i wouldn't mind offering a fair price for the business,--i've got a tidy little bit of money put away, though my salary has been small enough, goodness knows; but i've lived with the old gentleman, and never wasted a penny upon pleasure; none of your music-halls, or dancing-saloons, or anything of that kind, for me,--or i wouldn't mind paying an annual sum out of the profits of the trade for a reasonable term. if you've any influence with the young lady, perhaps you could put it to her, and get her to look at things in that light," mr. tulliver added, becoming quite obsequious as it dawned upon him that this interloping stranger might be able to do him a service. "i'll do my best for you, tulliver," mr. nowell replied, in a patronising tone. "i daresay the young lady will be quite willing to entertain any reasonable proposition you may make." faithful to his promise mr. nowell appeared at a quarter past six next morning, at which hour he found his daughter quite ready for her journey. she was very glad to get away from that dreary house, made a hundredfold more dismal by the sense of what lay in the closed chamber, where the candles were still burning in the yellow fog of the november morning, and to which marian had gone with hushed footsteps to kneel for the last time beside the old man who was so near her by the ties of relationship, and whom she had known for so brief a space. she was glad to leave that dingy quarter of the town, which to one who had never lived in an english city seemed unspeakably close and wretched; still more glad to think that she was going back to the quiet home, where her husband would most likely join her very soon. she might find him there when she arrived, perhaps; for he knew nothing of this journey to london, or could only hear of it at the grange, where she had left a letter for him, enclosing that brief note of gilbert fenton's which had informed her of her grandfather's fatal illness. there were special reasons why she should not ask him to meet her in queen anne's court, however long she might have been compelled to stay there. mr. nowell was much more affectionate in his manner to his daughter this morning, as they sat in the cab driving to the station, and walked side by side upon the platform in the quarter of an hour's interval before the departure of the train. he questioned her closely upon her life in the present, and her plans for the future, expressing himself in a remarkably generous manner upon the subject of her grandfather's will, and declaring himself very well pleased that his own involuntary neglect was to be so amply atoned for by the old man's liberality. he found his daughter completely ignorant of the world, as gentle and confiding as he had found her mother in the past. he sounded the depths of her innocent mind during that brief promenade; and when the train bore her away at last, and the platform was clear, he remained for some time walking up and down in profound meditation, scarcely knowing where he was. he looked round him in an absent way by-and-by, and then hurriedly left the station, and drove straight to mr. medler's office, which was upon the ground floor of a gloomy old house in one of the dingier streets in the soho district, and in the upper chambers whereof the attorney's wife and numerous offspring had their abode. he came down to his client from his unpretending breakfast-table in a faded dressing-gown, with smears of egg and greasy traces of buttered toast about the region of his mouth, and seemed not particularly pleased to see mr. nowell. but the conference that followed was a long one; and it is to be presumed that it involved some chance of future profit, since the lawyer forgot to return to his unfinished breakfast, much to the vexation of mrs. medler, a faded lady with everything about her in the extremest stage of limpness, who washed the breakfast-things with her own fair hands, in consideration of the multitudinous duties to be performed by that hapless solitary damsel who in such modest households is usually denominated "the girl." chapter xxii. at lidford again. gilbert fenton called in queen anne's court within a few hours of marian's departure, and was not a little disappointed when he was told that she had gone back to hampshire. he had relied upon seeing her again--not once only, but several times--before her return. he had promised jacob nowell that he would watch over and protect her interests; and it was a sincere unqualified wish to do this that influenced him now. more than a dear friend, the sweetest and dearest of all womankind, she could never be to him. he accepted the position with resignation. the first sharp bitterness of her loss was over. that he should ever cease to love her was impossible; but it seemed to him that a chivalrous friendship for her, a disinterested brotherly affection, was in no manner incompatible with that hapless silent love. no word of his, in all their intercourse to come, should ever remind her of that hidden devotion; no shadow of the past should ever cloud the calm brightness of the present. it was a romantic fancy, perhaps, for a man of business, whose days were spent in the very press and tumult of commercial life; but it had lifted gilbert fenton out of that slough of despond into which he had fallen when marian seemed utterly lost to him--vanished altogether out of his existence. he had a sense of bitter disappointment, therefore, when he found that she had gone, leaving neither letter nor message for him. how little value his friendship must needs possess for her, when she could abandon him thus without a word! he had felt sure that she would consult him upon her affairs; but no, she had her husband to whom to appeal, and had no need of any other counsellor. "i was a fool to think that i could ever be anything to her, even a friend," he said to himself bitterly; "women are incapable of friendship. it is all or nothing with them; a blind self-abnegation or the coldest indifference. devotion cannot touch them, unless the man who gives it happen to be that one man out of a thousand who has the power to bewitch their senses. truth and affection, of themselves, have no value with them. how many people spoke to me of this holbrook as an unattractive man; and yet he won my love away from me, and holds her with an influence so complete, that my friendship seems worthless to her. she cannot give me a word or a thought." mr. fenton made some inquiries about the funeral arrangements and found that these had been duly attended to by the lawyer, and a gentleman who had been with jacob nowell a good deal of late, who seemed to be some relation to the old man, mr. tulliver said, and took a great deal upon himself. this being done, there was, of course, no occasion for gilbert to interfere, and he was glad to be released from all responsibility. having ascertained this, he asked for the address of the late mr. nowell's lawyer; and being told it, went at once to mr. medler's office. he did not consider himself absolved from the promise he had made the old man by marian's indifference, and was none the less anxious to watch over her interests because she seemed to set so little value on his friendship. he told mr. medler who he was, and the promise he had given to jacob nowell, abstaining, of course, from any reference to the position he had once occupied towards marian. he described himself as her friend only--a friend of long standing, who had been intimate with her adopted guardian. "i know how ignorant mrs. holbrook is of the world and of all business matters," he went on to say, "and i am naturally anxious that her interests should be protected." "i should think there was very little doubt that her husband will see after those," the lawyer answered, with something of a sneer; "husbands are generally supposed to do that, especially where there is money at stake." "i do not know mr. holbrook; and he has kept himself in the background so persistently up to this point, and has been altogether so underhanded in his proceedings, that i have by no means a good opinion of him. mr. nowell told me that he intended to leave his money to his granddaughter in such a manner, that it would be hers and hers only--free from the control of any husband. he has done so, i presume?" "yes," mr. medler replied, with the air of a man who would fain have withheld the information; "he has left it for her own separate use and maintenance." "and it is a property of some importance, i conclude?" "of some importance--yes," the lawyer answered, in the same tone. "ought not mrs. holbrook to have remained to hear the reading of the will?" "well, yes, decidedly; it would have been more in the usual way of things; but her absence can have no ill effect upon her interests. of course it will be my duty to make her acquainted with the contents of the will." gilbert fenton was not prepossessed by mr. medler's countenance, which was not an open candid index to a spotless soul, nor by his surroundings, which were of the shabbiest; but the business being in this man's hands, it might be rather difficult to withdraw it--dangerous even. the man held the will, and in holding that had a certain amount of power. "there is no one except mrs. holbrook interested in mr. nowell's will, i suppose?" gilbert said presently. "no one directly and immediately, except an old charwoman, who has a legacy of five-and-twenty pounds." "but there is some one else interested in an indirect manner i infer from your words?" "yes. mrs. holbrook takes the whole of the personalty, but she has only a life-interest in the real estate. if she should have children, it will go to them on her death; if she should die childless, it will go to her father, supposing him to survive her." "to her father? that is rather strange, isn't it?" "i don't know that. it was the old man's wish that the will should be to that effect." "i understood from him that he did not know whether his son was alive or dead." "indeed! i believe he had news of his son very lately." "curious that he should not have told me, knowing as he did my interest in everything relating to mrs. holbrook." "old people are apt to be close; and jacob nowell was about one of the closest customers i ever met with," answered the lawyer. gilbert left him soon after this, and chartered a hansom in the next street, which carried him back to the city. he was very uncertain as to what he ought to do for marian, doubtful of mr. medler's integrity, and yet anxious to abstain from any act that might seem uncalled for or officious. she had her husband to look after her interests, as the lawyer had reminded him, and it was scarcely probable that mr. holbrook would neglect any steps necessary to secure his wife's succession to whatever property jacob nowell had left. it seemed to gilbert that he could do nothing at present, except write to marian, telling her of his interview with the lawyer, and advising her to lose no time in placing the conduct of her affairs in more respectable hands than those of mr. medler. he mentioned his own solicitors, a city firm of high standing, as gentlemen whom she might wisely trust at this crisis of her life. this done, he could only wait the issue of events, and he tried to occupy himself as much as possible with his business at st. helens--that business which he seriously intended getting rid of as soon as he could meet with a favourable opportunity for so doing. he worked with that object in view. in spite of his losses in australia, he was in a position to retire from commerce with a very fair income. he had lost all motive for sustained exertion, all desire to become rich. a man who has no taste for expensive bachelor pleasures and no home has very little opportunity for getting rid of large sums of money. mr. fenton had taken life pleasantly enough, and yet had never spent five hundred a year. he could retire with an income of eight hundred and having abandoned all idea of ever marrying this seemed to him more than sufficient. the listers had come back to england, and mrs. lister had written to her brother more than once, begging him to run down to lidford. of course she had expressed herself freely upon the subject of marian's conduct in these letters, reprobating the girl's treachery and ingratitude, and congratulating gilbert upon his escape from so ineligible a connection. mr. fenton had put his sister off with excuses hitherto, and had subjected himself thereby to sundry feminine reproaches upon his coldness and want of affection for mrs. lister and her children. "it was very different when marian nowell was here," she wrote; "you thought it no trouble to come to us then." no answer came to his letter to mrs. holbrook--which scarcely called for a reply, unless it had been a few lines of thanks, in acknowledgment of his interest in her behalf. he had looked for such a letter, and was a little disappointed by its non-appearance. the omission, slight as it was, served to strengthen his bitter feeling that his friendship in this quarter was unneeded and unvalued. business in the city happened to be rather slack at this time; and it struck mr. fenton all at once that he could scarcely have a better opportunity for wasting two or three days in a visit of duty to the listers, and putting an end to his sister's reproachful letters. he had a second motive for going to lidford; a motive which had far greater weight with him than his brotherly affection just at this time. he wanted to see sir david forster, to call that gentleman to some account for the deliberate falsehood he had uttered at their last meeting. he had no bloodthirsty or ferocious feelings upon the subject, he could even understand that the baronet might have been bound by his own ideas of honour to tell a lie in the service of his friend; but he wanted to extort some explanation of the line of conduct sir david had taken, and he wanted to ascertain from him the character of marian's husband. he had made inquiries about sir david at the club, and had been told that he was still at heatherly. he went down to lidford by an afternoon train, without having troubled himself to give mrs. lister any notice of his coming. the november evening had closed in upon the quiet rural landscape when he drove from the station to lidford. a cold white mist enfolded all things here, instead of the stifling yellow fog that had filled the london streets when he walked westwards from the city at the same hour on the previous evening. above his head the sky was clear and bright, the mist-wreaths melting away as they mounted towards the stars. the lighted windows in the village street had a pleasant homely look; the snug villas, lying back from the high road with a middle distance of dark lawn and glistening shrubbery, shone brightly upon the traveller as he drove by, the curtains not yet drawn before some of the windows, the rooms ruddy in the firelight. in one of them he caught a brief glimpse of a young matron seated by the fire with her children clustered at her knee, and the transient picture struck him with a sudden pang. he had dreamed so fondly of a home like this; pleasant rooms shining in the sacred light of the hearth, his wife and children waiting to bid him welcome when the day's work was done. all other objects which men live and toil for seemed to him poor and worthless in the absence of this one dear incentive to exertion, this one sweet recompense for every care. even lidford house, which had never before seemed to him the perfection of a home, had a new aspect for him to-night, and reminded him sharply of his own loss. he envied martin lister the quiet jog-trot happiness of his domestic life; his love for and pride in his children; the calm haven of that comfortable hearth by which he sat to-night, with his slippered feet stretched luxuriously upon a fender-stool of his wife's manufacture, and his daughter sitting on a hassock close to his easy-chair, reading in a book of fairy tales. of course they were all delighted to see him, at once pleased and surprised by the unexpected visit. he had brought a great parcel of toys for the two children; and selwyn lister, a fine boisterous boy in a highland costume, was summoned downstairs to assist at the unpacking of these treasures. it was half-past seven, and the listers had dined at six: but in an incredibly short space of time the sutherland table had been drawn out to a cosy position near the fire and spread with a substantial repast, while mrs. lister took her place behind the ponderous old silver urn which had been an heirloom in her husband's family for the last two centuries. the listers were full of talk about their own travels--a long-delayed continental tour which had been talked of ever since their return from the honeymoon trip to geneva and chamouni; and were also very eager to hear gilbert's adventures in australia, of which he had given them only very brief accounts in his letters. there was nothing said that night about marian, and gilbert was grateful for his sister's forbearance. chapter xxiii. called to account. gilbert walked over to heatherly after luncheon next day, taking of preference the way which led him past captain sedgewick's cottage and through the leafless wood where he and marian had walked together when the foliage was in its summer glory. the leaves lay thick upon the mossy ground now; and the gaunt bare branches of the trees had a weird awful look in the utter silence of the place. his footsteps trampling upon the fallen leaves had an echo; and he turned to look behind him more than once, fancying he was followed. the old house, with its long lines of windows, had a prison-like aspect under the dull november day. gilbert wondered how such a man as sir david forster could endure his existence there, embittered as it was by the memory of that calamity which had taken all the sunlight out of his life, and left him a weary and purposeless hunter after pleasure. but sir david had been prostrate under the heavy hand of his hereditary foe, the gout, for a long time past; and was fain to content himself with such company as came to him at heatherly, and such amusement as was to be found in the society of men who were boon companions rather than friends. gilbert fenton heard the familiar clash of the billiard-balls as he went into the hall, where a couple of liver-coloured setters were dozing before a great fire that roared half-way up the wide chimney. there was no other life in the hall; and mr. fenton was conducted to the other end of the house, and ushered into that tobacco-tainted snuggery in which he had last seen the baronet. his suspicions were on the alert this time; and he fancied he could detect a look of something more than surprise in sir david's face when the servant announced him--an uneasy look, as of a man taken at a disadvantage. the baronet was very gracious, however, and gave him a hearty welcome. "i'm uncommonly glad to see you, my dear fenton," he said, "indeed, i have been pleased to see worse fellows than you lately, since this infernal gout has laid me up in this dreary old place. the house is pretty full now, i am happy to say. i have friends who will come to shoot my partridges, though they won't remember my solitude in a charitable spirit before the first of september. you'll stop and dine, i hope; or perhaps you can put up here altogether for a week or so. my housekeeper shall find you a good room; and i can promise you pleasant company. say yes, now, like a good fellow, and i'll send a man to lidford for your traps." "thanks--no. you are very kind; but i am staying with my sister for a few days, and must return to town before the end of the week. the fact of the matter is, sir david, i have come here to-day to ask you for some explanation of your conduct at our last interview. i don't want to say anything rude or disagreeable; for i am quite willing to believe that you felt kindly towards me, even at the time when you deceived me. i suppose there are some positions in which a man can hardly expect fair play, and that mine was such a position. but you certainly did deceive me, sir david, and grossly." "that last is rather an unpleasant word, mr. fenton. in what respect did i deceive you?" "i came here on purpose to ask you if mr. holbrook, the man who robbed me of my promised wife, were a friend of yours, and you denied all knowledge of him." "granted. and what then, my dear sir?" "when i came to ask you that question, i had no special reason for supposing this mr. holbrook was known to you. it only struck me that, being a stranger in the village, as the result of my inquiries had proved to me, he might be one of your many visitors. i knew at that time that mr. holbrook had taken his wife to a farm-house in hampshire immediately after their marriage--a house lent to him by a friend; but i did not know that you had any estate in that county. i have been to hampshire since then, and have found mrs. holbrook at the grange, near crosber--in your house." "you have found her! well, mr. fenton, the circumstantial evidence is too strong for me, so i must plead guilty. yes; i did deceive you when i told you that holbrook was unknown to me; but i pledged my word to keep his secret--to give you no clue, should you ever happen to question me, that could lead to your discovery of your lost love's whereabouts. it was considered, i conclude, that any meeting between you two must needs result unpleasantly. at any rate, there was a strong desire to avoid you; and in common duty to my friend i was compelled to respect that desire." "not a very manly wish on the part of my successful rival," said gilbert. "it may have been the lady's wish rather than mr. holbrook's." "i have reason to know that it was otherwise. i have heard from marian's own lips that she would have written a candid confession of the truth had she been free to do so. it was her husband who prevented her giving me notice of my desertion." "i cannot pretend to explain his conduct," sir david answered gravely. "i only know that i pledged myself to keep his secret; and felt bound to do so, even at the cost of a lie." "and this man is your friend. you must know whether he is worthy to be marian nowell's husband. the circumstances of her life do not seem to me favourable to happiness, so far as i have been able to discover them; nor did i think her looking happy when we met. but i should be glad to know that she has not fallen into bad hands." "and i suppose by this time your feelings have cooled down a little. you have abandoned those revengeful intentions you appeared to entertain, when you were last in this house?" "in a great measure, yes. i have promised marian that, should i and her husband meet, as we must do, i believe, sooner or later, she need apprehend no violence on my part. he has won the prize; any open resentment would seem mere schoolboy folly. but you cannot suppose that i feel very kindly towards him, or ever shall." "upon my soul, i think men are hardly responsible for their actions where a woman is concerned," sir david exclaimed after a pause. "we are the veriest slaves of destiny in these matters. a man sees the only woman in the world he can love too late to win her with honour. if he is strong enough to act nobly, he turns his back upon the scene of his temptation, all the more easily should the lady happen to be staunch to her affianced, or her husband, as the case may be. but if _she_ waver--if he sees that his love is returned--heaven help him! honour, generosity, friendship, all go by the board; and for the light in those fatal eyes, for the dangerous music of that one dear voice, he sacrifices all that he has held highest in life until that luckless time. i _know_ that holbrook held it no light thing to do you this wrong; i know that he fought manfully against temptation. but, you see, fate was the stronger; and he had to give way at the last." "i cannot agree with that way of looking at things, sir david. the world is made up of people who take their own pleasure at any cost to others, and then throw the onus of their misdoings upon providence. i have long ago forgiven the girl who jilted me, and have sworn to be her faithful and watchful friend in all the days to come. i want to be sure that her future is a bright one--much brighter than it seemed when i saw her in your lonely old house near crosber. she has had money left her since then; so poverty can no longer be a reason for her being hidden from the world." "i am very glad to hear that; my friend is not a rich man." "so marian told me. but i want to learn something more than that about him. up to this moment he has been the most intangible being i ever heard of. will you tell me who and what he is--his position in the world, and so on?" "humph!" muttered sir david meditatively; "i don't know that i can tell you much about him. his position is like that of a good many others of my acquaintance--rather vague and intangible, to use the word you employed just now. he is not well off; he is a gentleman by birth, with some small means of his own, and he 'lives, sir, lives.' that is about all i can say of him--from a worldly point of view. with regard to his affection for miss nowell, i know that he loved her passionately, devotedly, desperately--the strongest expression you can supply to describe a man's folly. i never saw any fellow so far gone. heaven knows, i did my best to argue him out of his fancy--urged your claim, the girl's poverty, every reason against the marriage; but friendly argumentation of that kind goes very little way in such a case. he took his own course. it was only when i found the business was decided upon, that i offered him my house in hampshire; a place to which i never go myself, but which brings me in a decent income in the hands of a clever bailiff. i knew that holbrook had no home ready for his wife, and i thought it would give them a pleasant retreat enough for a few months, while the honey and rose-leaves still sweetened the wine-cup of their wedded life. they have stayed there ever since, as you seem to know; so i conclude they have found the place agreeable. confoundedly dreary, i should fancy it myself; but then i'm not a newly married man." the baronet gave a brief sigh, and his thoughts went back for a moment to the time when he too was in arcadia; when a fair young wife was by his side, and when no hour of his existence seemed ever dull or weary to him. it was all changed now! he had billiards and whist, and horses and hounds, and a vast collection of gunnery, and great stores of wine in the gloomy arched vaults beneath the house, where a hundred prisoners had been kept under lock and key when heatherly had fallen into the hands of the cromwellian soldiery, and the faithful retainers of the household were fain to lay down their arms. he had all things that make up the common pleasures and delights of a man's existence; but he had lost the love which had given these things a new charm, and without which all life seemed to him flat, stale, and unprofitable. he could sympathise with gilbert fenton much more keenly than that gentleman would have supposed possible; for a man suffering from this kind of affliction is apt to imagine that he has a copyright in that species of grief, and that no other man ever did or ever can experience a like calamity. the same manner of trouble may come to others, of course, but not with a similar intensity. others will suffer and recover, and find a balm elsewhere. he alone is constant until death! "and you can tell me nothing more about mr. holbrook?" he asked after a pause. "upon my honour, nothing. i think you will do wisely to leave these two people to take their own way in the future without any interference on your part. you speak of watchful friendship and all that kind of thing, and i can quite appreciate your disinterested desire to befriend the woman whom you once hoped to make your wife. but, believe me, my dear fenton, no manner of good can possibly come of your intervention. those two have chosen their road in life, and must travel along it, side by side, through good or evil fortune. holbrook would naturally be jealous of any friendship between his wife and you; while such a friendship could not fail to keep alive bitter thoughts in your mind--could not fail to sharpen the regret which you fancy just now is to be life-long. i have no doubt i seem to speak in a hard worldly spirit." "you speak like a man of the world, sir david," the other answered quietly; "and i cannot deny that there is a certain amount of wisdom in your advice. no, my friendship is not wanted by either of those two, supposing even that i were generous enough to be able to give it to both. i have learnt that lesson already from marian herself. but you must remember that i promised her poor old grandfather--the man who died a few days ago--that i would watch over her interests with patient fidelity, that i would be her friend and protector, if ever the hour should come in which she would need friendship and protection. i am not going to forget this promise, or to neglect its performance; and in order to be true to my word, i am bound to make myself acquainted with the circumstances of her married life, and the character of her husband." "cannot you be satisfied with knowing that she is happy?" "i have seen her, sir david, and am by no means assured of her happiness." "and yet it was a love-match on both sides. holbrook, as i have told you, loved her passionately." "that passionate kind of love is apt to wear itself out very quickly with some men. your bailiff's daughter complained bitterly of mr. holbrook's frequent absence from the grange, of the dulness and loneliness of my poor girl's life." "women are apt to be exacting," sir david answered with a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. "my friend holbrook has the battle of life to fight, and could not spend all his days playing the lover. if his wife has had money left her, that will make some difference in their position. a man is never at his best when he is worried by debts and financial difficulties." "and mr. holbrook was in debt when he married, i suppose?" "he was. i must confess that i find that complaint a very common one among my acquaintance," the baronet added with a laugh. "will you tell me what this holbrook is like in person, sir david? i have questioned several people about him, and have never obtained anything beyond the vaguest kind of description." sir david forster laughed aloud at this request. "what! you want to know whether your rival is handsome, i suppose? like a woman, who always commences her inquiries about another woman by asking whether she is pretty. my dear fenton, all personal descriptions are vague. it is almost impossible to furnish a correct catalogue of any man's features. holbrook is just one of those men whom it is most difficult to describe--not particularly good-looking, nor especially ill-looking; very clever, and with plenty of expression and character in his face. older than you by some years, and looking older than he really is." "thanks; but there is not one precise statement in your description. is the man dark or fair--short or tall?" "rather dark than fair; rather tall than short." "that will do, sir david," gilbert said, starting suddenly to his feet, and looking the baronet in the face intently. "the man who robbed me of my promised wife is the man whom i introduced to her; the man who has come between me and all my hopes, who hides himself from my just anger, and skulks in the background under a feigned name, is the one friend whom i have loved above all other men--john saltram!" sir david faced him without flinching. if it was acted surprise which appeared upon his countenance at the sound of john saltram's name, the acting was perfect. gilbert could discover nothing from that broad stare of blank amazement. "in heaven's name, what can have put such a preposterous notion into your head?" sir david asked coolly. "i cannot tell you. the conviction has grown upon me, against my own will. yes, i have hated myself for being able to suspect my friend. you do not know how i have loved that man, or how our friendship began at oxford long ago with something like hero-worship on my side. i thought that he was born to be great and noble; and heaven knows i have felt the disappointments and shortcomings of his career more keenly than he has felt them himself. no, sir david, i don't think it is possible for any man to comprehend how i have loved john saltram." "and yet, without a shred of evidence, you believe him guilty of betraying you." "will you give me your word of honour that marian's husband and john saltram are not one and the same person?" "no," answered sir david impatiently; "i am tired of the whole business. you have questioned and cross-questioned me quite long enough, mr. fenton, and i have answered you to the best of my ability, and have given you rational advice, which you will of course decline to take. if you think your friend has wronged you, go to him, and tax him with that wrong. i wash my hands of the affair altogether, from this moment; but, without wishing to be offensive, i cannot help telling you, that to my mind you are acting very foolishly in this business." "i daresay it may seem so to you. you would think better of me if i could play the stoic, and say, 'she has jilted me, and is dead to me henceforward.' but i cannot do that. i have the memory of her peaceful girlhood--the happy days in which i knew her first--the generous protector who sheltered her life. i am pledged to the dead, sir david." he left heatherly soon after this, though the baronet pressed him to stay to dinner. chapter xxiv. tormented by doubt. the long homeward walk gave gilbert ample leisure for reflection upon his interview with sir david; a very unsatisfactory interview at the best. yes, the conviction that the man who had wronged him was no other than his own familiar friend, had flashed upon him with a new force as the baronet answered his questions about john holbrook. the suspicion which had entered his mind after he left the lonely farm-house near crosber, and which he had done his uttermost to banish, as if it had been a suggestion of the evil one, came back to him to-day with a form and reality which it had lacked before. it seemed no longer a vague fancy, a dark unwelcome thought that bordered on folly. it had taken a new shape altogether, and appeared to him almost a certainty. sir david's refusal to make any direct denial of the fact seemed to confirm his suspicion. yet it was, on the other hand, just possible that sir david, finding him on a false scent, should have been willing to let him follow it, and that the real offender should be screened by this suspicion of john saltram. but then there arose in his mind a doubt that had perplexed him sorely for a long time. if his successful rival had been indeed a stranger to him, what reason could there be for so much mystery in the circumstances of the marriage? and why should marian have so carefully avoided telling him anything about her husband? that his friend, having betrayed him, should shrink from the revelation of his falsehood, should adopt any underhand course to avoid discovery, seemed natural enough. yet to believe this was to think meanly of the man whom he had loved so well, whom he had confided in so implicitly until the arising of this cruel doubt. he had known long ago, when the first freshness of his boyish delusions faded away before the penetrating clear daylight of reality, he had known long ago that his friend was not faultless; that except in that one faithful alliance with himself, john saltram had been fickle, wayward, vacillating, unstable, and inconstant, true to no dream of his youth, no ambition of his early manhood, content to drop one purpose after another, until his life was left without any exalted aim. but gilbert had fancied his friend's nature was still a noble one in spite of the comparative failure of his life. it was very difficult for him to imagine it possible that this friend could act falsely and ungenerously, could steal his betrothed from him, and keep the secret of his guilt, pretending to sympathise with the jilted lover all the while. but though mr. fenton told himself at one moment that this was impossible, his thoughts travelled back to the same point immediately afterwards, and the image of john saltram arose before him as that of his hidden foe. he remembered the long autumn days which he and his friend had spent with marian--those unclouded utterly happy days, which he looked back upon now with a kind of wonder. they had been so much together, marian so bright and fascinating in her innocent enjoyment of the present, brighter and happier just then than she had ever seemed to him before, gilbert remembered with a bitter pang. he had been completely unsuspicious at the time, untroubled by one doubtful thought; but it appeared to him now that there had been a change in marian from the time of his friend's coming--a new joyousness and vivacity, a keener delight in the simple pleasures of their daily life, and withal a fitfulness, a tendency to change from gaiety to thoughtful silence, that he had not remarked in her before. was it strange if john saltram had fallen in love with her? was it possible to see her daily in all the glory of her girlish loveliness, made doubly bewitching by the sweetness of her nature, the indescribable charm of her manner--was it possible to be with her often, as john saltram had been, and not love her? gilbert fenton had thought of his friend as utterly impregnable to any such danger; as a man who had spent all his stock of tender emotion long ago, and who looked upon matrimony as a transaction by which he might mend his broken fortunes. that this man should fall a victim to the same subtle charm which had subjugated himself, was a possibility that never occurred to gilbert's mind, in this happy period of his existence. he wanted his friend's approval of his choice; he wished to see his passion justified in the eyes of the man whom it was his habit to regard in somewise as a superior creature; and it had been a real delight to him to hear mr. saltram's warm praises of marian. looking back at the past to-day from a new point of view, he wondered at his own folly. what was more natural than that john saltram should have found his doom, as he had found it, unthought of, undreamed of, swift, and fatal? nor was it difficult for him to believe that marian--who had perhaps never really loved him, who had been induced to accept him by his own pertinacity and her uncle's eager desire for the match--should find a charm and a power in john saltram that had been wanting in himself. he had seen too many instances of his friend's influence over men and women, to doubt his ability to win this innocent inexperienced girl, had he set himself to win her. he recalled with a bitter smile how his informants had all described his rival in a disparaging tone, as unworthy of so fair a bride; and he knew that it was precisely those qualities which these common people were unable to appreciate that constituted the subtle charm by which john saltram influenced others. the rugged power and grandeur of that dark face, which vulgar critics denounced as plain and unattractive, the rare fascination of a manner that varied from an extreme reserve to a wild reckless vivacity, the magic of the deep full voice, with its capacity for the expression of every shade of emotion--these were attributes to be passed over and ignored by the vulgar, yet to exercise a potent influence upon sensitive sympathetic natures. "how that poor little anglo-indian widow loves him, without any effort to win or hold her affection on his side!" gilbert said to himself, as he walked back to lidford in the darkening november afternoon, brooding always on the one subject which occupied all his thoughts; "and can i doubt his power to supersede me if he cared to do so--if he really loved marian, as he never has loved mrs. branston? what shall i do? go to him at once, and tell him my suspicion, tax him broadly with treachery, and force him to a direct confession or denial? shall i do this? or shall i bide my time, wait and watch with dull dogged patience, till i can collect some evidence of his guilt? yes, let it be so. if he has been base enough to do me this great wrong--mean enough to steal my betrothed under a false name, and to keep the secret of his wrong-doing at any cost of lies and deceit--let him go on to the end, let him act out the play to the last; and when i bring his falsehood home to him, as i must surely do, sooner or later,--yes, if he is capable of deceiving me, he shall continue the lie to the last, he shall endure all the infamy of his false position." and then, after a pause, he said to himself,-- "and at the end, if my suspicions are confirmed, i shall have lost all i have ever valued in life since my mother died--my plighted wife, and the one chosen friend whose companionship could make existence pleasant to me. god grant that this fancy of mine is as baseless as sir david forster declared it to be! god grant that i may never find a secret enemy in john saltram!" tossed about thus upon a sea of doubts, mr. fenton returned to lidford house, where he was expected to be bright and cheerful, and entertain his host and hostess with the freshest gossip of the london world. he did make a great effort to keep up a show of cheerfulness at the dinner-table; but he felt that his sister's eyes were watching him with a pitiless scrutiny, and he knew that the attempt was an ignominious failure. when honest martin was snoring in his easy-chair before the drawing-room fire, with the red light shining full upon his round healthy countenance, mrs. lister beckoned her brother over to her side of the hearth, where she had an embroidery-frame, whereon was stretched some grand design in berlin wool-work, to which she devoted herself every now and then with a great show of industry. she had been absorbed in a profound calculation of the stitches upon the canvas and on the coloured pattern before her until this moment; but she laid aside her work with a solemn air when gilbert went over to her, and he knew at once what was coming. "sit down, gilbert," she said; and her brother dropped into a chair by her side with a faint sigh of resignation. "i want to talk to you seriously, as a sister ought to talk to a brother, without any fear of offending. i'm very sorry to see you have not yet forgotten that wicked ungrateful girl marian nowell." "who told you that i have not forgotten her?" "your own face, gilbert. it's no use for you to put on a pretence of being cheerful and light-hearted with me. i know you too well to be deceived by that kind of thing--i could see how absent-minded you were all dinner-time, in spite of your talk. you can't hoodwink an affectionate sister." "i don't wish to hoodwink you, my dear," mr. fenton answered quietly, "or to affect a happiness which i do not feel, any more than i wish to make a parade of my grief. it is natural for an englishman to be reticent on such matters; but i do not mind owning to you that marian nowell is unforgotten by me, and that the loss of her will have an enduring influence upon my life; and having said as much as that, belle, i must request that you will not expatiate any more upon this poor girl's breach of faith. i have forgiven her long ago, and i shall always regard her as the purest and dearest of women." "what! you can hold her up as a paragon of perfection after she has thrown you over in the most heartless manner? upon my word, gilbert, i have no common patience with such folly. your weakness in this affair from first to last has been positively deplorable." "i am sorry you disapprove of my conduct, belle; but as it is not a very pleasant subject, don't you think we may as well avoid it now and henceforward?" "o, very well, gilbert," the lady exclaimed, with an offended air; "of course, if you choose to exclude me from your confidence, i must submit; but i do think it rather hard that your only sister should not be allowed to speak of a business that concerns you so nearly." "what good can arise out of any discussion of this subject, belle? you think me weak and foolish; granted that i am both, you cannot cure me of my weakness or my folly." "and am i never to hope that you will find some one else, better worthy of your regard than marian nowell?" "i fear not, belle. for me there is no one else." mrs. lister breathed a profound sigh, and resumed the counting of her stitches. yet perhaps, after all, it was better that her brother should cherish the memory of this unlucky attachment. it would preserve him from the hazard of any imprudent alliance in the future, and leave his fortune free, to descend by-and-by to the juvenile listers. isabella was not a particularly mercenary person, but she was a woman of the world, and had an eye to the future aggrandisement of her children. she was very kind and considerate to gilbert after this, carefully avoiding any farther allusions to his lost love, and taking all possible pains to make his visit pleasant to him. she was so affectionate and cordial, and seemed so really anxious for him to stay, that he could not in common decency hurry back to town quite so soon as he had intended. he prolonged his visit to the end of that week, and then to the beginning of the next; and when he did at last find himself free to return to london, the second week was nearly ended. chapter xxv. missing again. gilbert fenton was very glad to have made his escape from lidford at last, for his mind was full of anxiety about marian. again and again he had argued with himself upon the folly and uselessness of this anxiety. she, for whose interests he was so troubled, was safe enough no doubt, protected by a husband, who was most likely a man of the world, and quite as able to protect her as gilbert himself could be. he told himself this; but still the restless uneasy sense that he was neglecting his duty, that he was false to the promise made to old jacob nowell, tormented and perplexed him. he felt that he ought to be doing something--that he had no right to remain in ignorance of the progress of marian's affairs--that he should be at hand to frustrate any attempt at knavery on the part of the lawyer--to be sure that the old man's wealth suffered no diminution before it reached the hands of his heiress. gilbert fenton felt that his promise to the dead bound him to do these things, and felt at the same time the weakness of his own position with relation to marian. by what right could he interfere in the conduct of her affairs? what claim could he assert to defend her interests? who would listen to any romantic notion about a promise made to the dead? he went to queen anne's court upon the night of his return to london. the silversmith's shop looked exactly the same as when he had first seen it: the gas burning dimly, the tarnished old salvers and tankards gleaming duskily in the faint light, with all manner of purple and greenish hues. mr. tulliver was in his little den at the back of the shop, and emerged with his usual rapidity at the ringing of the door-bell. "o, it's you, is it, sir?" he asked in an indifferent, half-insolent tone. "what can i do for you this evening?" "is your late master's granddaughter, mrs. holbrook, here?" gilbert asked. "no; mrs. holbrook went away on the morning after my master's death. i told you that when you called here last." "i am quite aware of that; but i thought it likely mrs. holbrook might return here with her husband, to take possession of the property, which i suppose you know now belongs to her." "yes, i know all about that; but she hasn't come yet to take possession; she doesn't seem in such a desperate hurry about it. i daresay she knows that things are safe enough. medler the lawyer is not the kind of party to be cheated out of sixpence. he has taken an inventory of every article in the place, and the weight and value of every article. your friend mrs. holbrook needn't be afraid. i suppose she's some relation of yours, by-the-bye, sir, judging by the interest you seem to take in her affairs?" "yes," gilbert said, not caring to answer this question directly, "i do take a warm interest in mrs. holbrook's affairs, and i am very anxious to see her placed in undisputed possession of her late grandfather's property." "i should think her husband would see after that," mr. tulliver remarked with a sneer. gilbert left the court after having asked a few questions about jacob nowell's funeral. the old man had been buried at kensalgreen, followed to the grave only by the devoted tulliver, mr. medler, and the local surgeon who had attended him in his last illness. he had lived a lonely friendless life, holding himself aloof from his fellow-creatures; and there were neither neighbours nor friends to lament his ending. the vagabond boys of the neighbourhood had clustered round the door to witness the last dismal ceremony of mr. nowell's existence, and had hung about the shop-front for some time after the funeral _cortège_ had departed, peering curiously down into the darksome area, and speculating upon the hoards of wealth which the old miser had hidden away in coal-cellars and dust-bins, under the stone flags of the scullery, or in the crannies of the dilapidated walls. there were no bounds to the imagination of these street arabs, who had been in the habit of yelping and whooping at the old man's heels when he took his infrequent walks abroad, assailing him with derisive epithets alluding to his miserly propensities. amongst the elders of the court there was some little talk about the dead man, and the probable disposal of his property, with a good deal of argument and laying down of the law on the part of the graver and wiser members of that community; some people affecting to know to a sixpence the amount of jacob nowell's savings, others accrediting him with the possession of fabulous riches, and all being unanimous in the idea that the old man's heir or heirs, as the case might be, would speedily scatter his long-hoarded treasures. many of these people could remember the silversmith's prodigal son; but none among them were aware of that gentleman's return. they wondered a good deal as to whether he was still living, and whether the money had been left to him or to that pretty young woman who had appeared in the last days of the old man's life, no one knowing whence she had come. there was nothing to be gained from questioning luke tulliver, the court knew of old experience. the most mysterious dungeons of the spanish inquisition, the secret chambers under the leads in venice, were not closer or deeper than the mind of that young man. the court had been inclined to think that luke tulliver would come into all his master's money; and opinion inclined that way even yet, seeing that mr. tulliver still held his ground in the shop, and that no strangers had been seen to enter the place since the funeral. from queen anne's court gilbert fenton went on to the gloomy street where mr. medler had his office and abode. it was not an hour for a professional visit; but gilbert found the lawyer still hard at work at his desk, under the lurid light of a dirty-looking battered old oil-lamp, which left the corners of the dingy wainscoted room in profound obscurity. he looked up from his papers with some show of surprise on hearing mr. fenton's name announced by the slipshod maid-of-all-work who had admitted the late visitor, mr. medler's solitary clerk having departed to his own dwelling some hours before. "i must ask you to excuse this untimely call, mr. medler," gilbert said politely; "but the fact of the matter is, i am a little anxious about my friend mrs. holbrook and her affairs, and i thought you the most likely person to give me some information about them. i should have called in business hours; but i have only just returned from the country, and did not care to delay my inquiries until to-morrow. i have just come from queen anne's court, and am rather surprised to find that neither mrs. holbrook nor her husband has been there. you have seen or heard from them since the funeral, i suppose?" "no, mr. fenton, i have neither seen nor heard of them. i wrote a formal letter to mrs. holbrook, setting out the contents of the will; but there has been no answer as yet." "strange, is it not?" gilbert exclaimed, with an anxious look. "well, yes, it is certainly not the usual course of proceeding. however, there is time enough yet. the funeral has not been over much more than a week. the property is perfectly safe, you know." "of course; but it is not the less extraordinary that mr. holbrook should hang back in this manner. i will go down to hampshire the first thing to-morrow and see mrs. holbrook." "humph!" muttered the lawyer; "i can't say that i see any necessity for that. but of course you know best." gilbert fenton did start for hampshire early the next morning by the same train in which marian had travelled after her grandfather's death. it was still quite early in the day when he found himself at malsham, that quiet comfortable little market-town where he had first discovered a clue to the abode of his lost love. he went to the hotel, and hired a fly to take him to crosber, where he left the vehicle at the old inn, preferring to walk on to the grange. it was a bright november day, with a pale yellow sunlight shining on the level fields, and distant hills that rose beyond them crowned with a scanty fringe of firs, that stood out black and sharp against the clear autumn sky. it was a cheerful day, and a solitary bird was singing here and there, as if beguiled by that pleasant warmth and sunshine into the fond belief that winter was still far off and the glory of fields and woods not yet departed. gilbert's spirits rose in some degree under the influence of that late brightness and sweet rustic calm. he fancied that there might be still some kind of happiness for him in the long years to come; pale and faint like the sunlight of to-day--an autumnal calm. if he might be marian's friend and brother, her devoted counsellor, her untiring servant, it seemed to him that he could be content, that he could live on from year to year moderately happy in the occasional delight of her society; rewarded for his devotion by a few kind words now and then,--a letter, a friendly smile,--rewarded still more richly by her perfect trust in him. these thoughts were in his mind to-day as he went along the lonely country lane leading to the grange; thoughts which seemed inspired by the tranquil landscape and peaceful autumn day; thoughts which were full of the purest love and charity,--yes, even for his unknown rival, even if that rival should prove to be the one man in all this world from whom a deep wrong would seem most bitter. "what am i, that i should measure the force of his temptation," he said to himself, "or the strength of his resistance? let me be sure that he loves my darling as truly as i love her, that the chief object of his life has been and will be her happiness, and then let me put away all selfish vindictive thoughts, and fall quietly into the background of my dear one's life, content to be her brother and her friend." the grange looked unchanged in its sombre lonely aspect. the chrysanthemums were all withered by this time, and there were now no flowers in the old-fashioned garden. the bell was answered by the same woman who had admitted him before, and who made no parley about letting him in this time. "my young missus said i was to be sure and let her know if you came, sir," she said; "she's very anxious to see you." "your young mistress; do you mean mrs. holbrook?" "no, sir; miss carley, master's daughter." "indeed! i remember the young lady; i shall be very happy to see her if she has anything to say to me; but it is mrs. holbrook i have come to see. she is at home, i suppose?" "o dear no, sir; mrs. holbrook has left, without a word of notice, gone nobody knows where. that is what has made our young missus fret about it so." "mrs. holbrook has left!" gilbert exclaimed in blank amazement; "when?" "it's more than a week ago now, sir." "and do none of you know why she went away, or where she has gone?" "no more than the dead, sir. but you'd better see miss carley; she'll be able to tell you all about it." the woman led him into the house, and to the room in which he had seen marian. there was no fire here to-day, and the room had a desolate unoccupied look, though the sun was shining cheerfully on the old-fashioned many-paned windows. there were a few books, which gilbert remembered as marian's literary treasures, neatly arranged on a rickety old chiffonier by the fire-place, and the desk and work-basket which he had seen on his previous visit. he was half bewildered by what the woman had told him, and his heart beat tumultuously as he stood by the empty hearth, waiting for ellen carley's coming. it seemed to him as if the girl never would come. the ticking of an old eight-day clock in the hall had a ghastly sound in the dead silence of the house, and an industrious mouse made itself distinctly heard behind the wainscot. at last a light rapid footstep came tripping across the hall, and ellen carley entered the room. she was looking paler than when gilbert had seen her last, and the bright face was very grave. "for heaven's sake tell me what this means, miss carley," gilbert began eagerly. "your servant tells me that mrs. holbrook has left you--in some mysterious way, i imagine, from what the woman said." "o, sir, i am so glad you have come here; i should have written to you if i had known where to address a letter. yes, sir, she has gone--that dear sweet young creature--and i fear some harm has come to her." the girl burst into tears, and for some minutes could say no more. "pray, pray be calm," gilbert said gently, "and tell me all you can about this business. how did mrs. holbrook leave this place? and why do you suspect that any harm has befallen her?" "there is every reason to think so, sir. is it like her to leave us without a word of notice, knowing, as she must have known, the unhappiness she would cause to me, who love her so well, by such a step? she knew how i loved her. i think she had scarcely a secret from me." "if you will only tell me the manner of her departure," gilbert said rather impatiently. "yes, yes, sir; i am coming to that directly. she seemed happier after she came back from london, poor dear; and she told me that her grandfather had left her money, and that she was likely to become quite a rich woman. the thought of this gave her so much pleasure--not for her own sake, but for her husband's, whose cares and difficulties would all come to an end now, she told me. she had been back only a few days, when i left home for a day and a night, to see my aunt--an old woman and a constant invalid, who lives at malsham. i had put off going to her for a long time, for i didn't care about leaving mrs. holbrook; but i had to go at last, my aunt thinking it hard that i couldn't spare time to spend a day with her, and tidy up her house a bit, and see to the girl that waits upon her, poor helpless thing. so i started off before noon one day, after telling mrs. holbrook where i was going, and when i hoped to be back. she was in very good spirits that morning, for she expected her husband next day. 'i have told him nothing about the good fortune that has come to me, nelly,' she said; 'i have only written to him, begging him to return as quickly as possible, and he will be here to-morrow by the afternoon express.' mr. holbrook is a great walker, and generally walks from malsham here, by a shorter way than the high-road, across some fields and by the river-bank. his wife used always to go part of the way to meet him when she knew he was coming. i know she meant to go and meet him this time. the way is very lonely, and i have often felt fidgety about her going alone, but she hadn't a bit of fear; and i didn't like to offer to go with her, feeling sure that mr. holbrook would be vexed by seeing me at such a time. well, sir, i had arranged everything comfortably, so that she should miss nothing by my being away, and i bade her good-bye, and started off to walk to malsham. i can't tell you how hard it seemed to me to leave her, for it was the first time we had been parted for so much as a day since she came to the grange. i thought of her all the while i was at my aunt's; who has very fidgety ways, poor old lady, and isn't a pleasant person to be with. i felt quite in a fever of impatience to get home again; and was very glad when a neighbour's spring-cart dropped me at the end of the lane, and i saw the gray old chimneys above the tops of the trees. it was four o'clock in the afternoon when i got home; father was at tea in the oak-parlour where we take our meals, and the house was as quiet as a grave. i came straight to this room, but it was empty; and when i called martha, she told me mrs. holbrook had gone out at one o'clock in the day, and had not been home since, though she was expected back to dinner at three. she had been away three hours then, and at a time when i knew she could not expect mr. holbrook, unless she had received a fresh letter from him to say that he was coming by an earlier train than usual. i asked martha if there had been any letters for mrs. holbrook that day; and she told me yes, there had been one by the morning post. it was no use asking martha what kind of letter it looked, and whether it was from mr. holbrook, for the poor ignorant creature can neither read nor write, and one handwriting is the same as another to her. mrs. holbrook had told her nothing as to where she was going, only saying that she would be back in an hour or two. martha let her out at the gate, and watched her take the way towards the river-bank, and, seeing this, made sure she was going to meet her husband. well, sir, five o'clock struck, and mrs. holbrook had not come home. i began to feel seriously uneasy about her. i told my father so; but he took the matter lightly enough at first, saying it was no business of ours, and that mrs. holbrook was just as well able to take care of herself as any one else. but after five o'clock i couldn't rest a minute longer; so i put on my bonnet and shawl and went down by the river-bank, after sending one of the farm-labourers to look for my poor dear in the opposite direction. it's a very lonely walk at the best of times, though a few of the country folks do go that way between malsham and crosber on market-days. there's scarcely a house to be seen for miles, except wyncomb farmhouse, stephen whitelaw's place, which lies a little way back from the river-bank, about a mile from here; besides that and a solitary cottage here and there, you won't see a sign of human life for four or five miles. anybody might be pushed into the river and made away with in broad daylight, and no one need be the wiser. the loneliness of the place struck me with an awful fear that afternoon, and from that moment i began to think that i should never see mrs. holbrook again." "what of her husband? he was expected on this particular afternoon, you say?" "he was, sir; but he did not come till the next day. it was almost dark when i went to the river-bank. i walked for about three miles and a half, to a gate that opened into the fields by which mr. holbrook came across from malsham. i knew his wife never went farther than this gate, but used to wait for him here, if she happened to be the first to reach it. i hurried along, half running all the way, and calling aloud to mrs. holbrook every now and then with all my might. but there was no answer. some men in a boat loaded with hay stopped to ask me what was the matter, but they could tell me nothing. they were coming from malsham, and had seen no one along the bank. i called at mr. whitelaw's as i came back, not with much hope that i should hear anything; but what could i do but make inquiries anywhere and everywhere? i was almost wild with fright by this time. they could tell me nothing at wyncomb farm. stephen whitelaw was alone in the kitchen smoking his pipe by a great fire. he hadn't been out all day, he told me, and none of his people had seen or heard anything out of the common. as to any harm having come to mrs. holbrook by the river-bank, he said he didn't think that was possible, for his men had been at work in the fields near the river all the afternoon, and must have seen or heard if there had been anything wrong. there was some kind of comfort in this, and i left the farm with my mind a little lighter than it had been when i went in there. i knew that stephen whitelaw was no friend to mrs. holbrook; that he had a kind of grudge against her because she had been on some one else's side--in--in something." ellen carley blushed as she came to this part of her story, and then went on rather hurriedly to hide her confusion. "he didn't like her, sir, you see. i knew this, but i didn't think it possible he could deceive me in a matter of life and death. so i came home, hoping to find mrs. holbrook there before me. but there were no signs of her, nor of her husband either, though i had fully expected to see him. even father owned that things looked bad now, and he let me send every man about the place--some one way, and some another--to hunt for my poor darling. i went into crosber myself, though it was getting late by this time, and made inquiries of every creature i knew in the village; but it was all no good: no one had seen anything of the lady i was looking for." "and the husband?" gilbert asked again; "what of him?" "he came next day at the usual hour, after we had been astir all night, and the farm-labourers had been far and wide looking for mrs. holbrook. i never saw any one seem so shocked and horrified as he did when we told him how his wife had been missing for more than four-and-twenty hours. he is not a gentleman to show his feelings much at ordinary times, and he was quiet enough in the midst of his alarm; but he turned as white as death, and i never saw the natural colour come back to his face all the time he was down here." "how long did he stay?" "he only left yesterday. he was travelling about the country all the time, coming back here of a night to sleep, and with the hope that we might have heard something in his absence. the river was dragged for three days; but, thank god, nothing came of that. mr. holbrook set the malsham police to work--not that they're much good, i think; but he wouldn't leave a stone unturned. and now i believe he has gone to london to get help from the police there. but o, sir, i can't make it out, and i have lain awake, night after night thinking of it, and puzzling myself about it, until all sorts of dreadful fancies come into my mind." "what fancies?" "o, sir, i scarcely dare tell you; but i loved that sweet young lady so well, that i have been as watchful and jealous in all things that concerned her as if she had been my own sister. i have thought sometimes that her husband had grown tired of her; that, however dearly he might have loved her at first, as i suppose he did, his love had worn out little by little, and he felt her a burden to him. what other reason could there be for him to keep her hidden away in this dull place, month after month, when he must have seen that her youth and beauty and gaiety of heart were slowly vanishing away, if he had eyes to see anything?" "but, good heavens!" gilbert exclaimed, startled by the sudden horror of the idea which ellen carley's words suggested, "you surely do not imagine that marian's husband had any part in her disappearance? that he could be capable of----" "i don't know what to think, sir," the girl answered, interrupting him. "i know that i have never liked mr. holbrook--never liked or trusted him from the first, though he has been civil enough and kind enough in his own distant way to me. that dear young lady could not disappear off the face of the earth, as it seems she has done, without the evil work of some one. as to her leaving this place of her own free will, without a word of warning to her husband or to me, that i am sure she would never dream of doing. no, sir, there has been foul play of some kind, and i'm afraid i shall never see that dear face again." the girl said this with an air of conviction that sent a deadly chill to gilbert fenton's heart. it seemed to him in this moment of supreme anguish as if all his trouble of the past, all his vague fears and anxieties about the woman he loved, had been the foreshadowing of this evil to come. he had a blank helpless feeling, a dismal sense of his own weakness, which for the moment mastered him. against any ordinary calamity he would have held himself bravely enough, with the natural strength of an ardent hopeful character; but against this mysterious catastrophe courage and manhood could avail nothing. she was gone, the fragile helpless creature he had pledged himself to protect; gone from all who knew her, leaving not the faintest clue to her fate. could he doubt that this energetic warm-hearted girl was right, and that some foul deed had been done, of which marian holbrook was the victim? "if she lives, i will find her," he said at last, after a long pause, in which he had sat in gloomy silence, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, meditating the circumstances of marian's disappearance. "living or dead, i will find her. it shall be the business of my life from this hour. all my serious thoughts have been of her from the moment in which i first knew her. they will be doubly hers henceforward." "how good and true you are!" ellen carley exclaimed admiringly; "and how you must have loved her! i guessed when you were here last that it was you to whom she was engaged before her marriage, and told her as much; but she would not acknowledge that i was right. o, how i wish she had kept faith with you! how much happier she might have been as your wife!" "people have different notions of happiness, you see, miss carley," gilbert answered with a bitter smile. "yes, you were right; it was i who was to have been marian nowell's husband, whose every hope of the future was bound up in her. but all that is past; whatever bitterness i felt against her at first--and i do not think i was ever very bitter--has passed away. i am nothing now but her friend, her steadfast and constant friend." "thank heaven that she has such a friend," ellen said earnestly. "and you will make it your business to look for her, sir?" "the chief object of my life, from this hour." "and you will try to discover whether her husband is really true, or whether the search that he has made for her has been a blind to hide his own guilt?" "what grounds have you for supposing his guilt possible?" asked gilbert. "there are crimes too detestable for credibility; and this would be such a one. you may imagine that i have no friendly feeling towards this man, yet i cannot for an instant conceive him capable of harming a hair of his wife's head." "because you have not brooded upon this business as i have, sir, for hours and hours together, until the smallest things seem to have an awful meaning. i have thought of every word and every look of mr. holbrook's in the past, and all my thoughts have pointed one way. i believe that he was tired of his sweet young wife; that his marriage was a burden and a trouble to him somehow; that it had arisen out of an impulse that had passed away." "all this might be, and yet the man be innocent." "he might be--yes, sir. it is a hard thing, perhaps, even to think him guilty for a moment. but it is so difficult to account in any common way for mrs. holbrook's disappearance. if there had been murder done" (the girl shuddered as she said the words)--"a common murder, such as one hears of in lonely country places--surely it must have come to light before this, after the search that has been made all round about. but it would have been easy enough for mr. holbrook to decoy his wife away to london or anywhere else. she would have gone anywhere with him, at a moment's notice. she obeyed him implicitly in everything." "but why should he have taken her away from this place in a secret manner?" asked gilbert; "he was free to remove her openly. and then you describe him as taking an amount of trouble in his search for her, which might have been so easily avoided, had he acted with ordinary prudence and caution. say that he wanted to keep the secret of his marriage from the world in which he lives, and to place his wife in even a more secluded spot than this--which scarcely seems possible--what could have been easier for him than to take her away when and where he pleased? no one here would have had any right to question his actions." ellen carley shook her head doubtfully. "i don't know, sir," she answered slowly; "i daresay my fancies are very foolish; they may have come, perhaps, out of thinking about this so much, till my brain has got addled, as one may say. but it flashed upon me all of a sudden one night, as mr. holbrook was standing in our parlour talking about his wife--it flashed upon me that he was in the secret of her disappearance, and that he was only acting with us in his pretence of anxiety and all that; i fancied there was a guilty look in his face, somehow." "did you tell him about his wife's good fortune--the money left her by her grandfather?" "i did, sir; i thought it right to tell him everything i could about my poor dear young lady's journey to london. she had told him of that in her letters, it seemed, but not about the money. she had been keeping that back for the pleasure of telling him with her own lips, and seeing his face light up, she said to me, when he heard the good news. i asked him about the letter which had come in the morning of the day she disappeared, and whether it was from him; but he said no, he had not written, counting upon being with his wife that evening. it was only at the last moment he was prevented coming." "you have looked for that letter, i suppose?" "o yes, sir; i searched, and mr. holbrook too, in every direction, but the letter wasn't to be found. he seemed very vexed about it, very anxious to find it. we could not but think that mrs. holbrook had gone to meet some one that day, and that the letter had something to do with her going out. i am sure she would not have gone beyond the garden and the meadow for pleasure alone. she never had been outside the gate without me, except when she went to meet her husband." "strange!" muttered gilbert. he was wondering about that letter: what could have been the lure which had beguiled marian away from the house that day; what except a letter from her husband? it seemed hardly probable that she would have gone to meet any one but him, or that any one else would have appointed a meeting on the river-bank. the fact that she had gone out at an earlier hour than the time at which she had been in the habit of meeting her husband when he came from the malsham station, went some way to prove that the letter had influenced her movements. gilbert thought of the fortune which had been left to marian, and which gave her existence a new value, perhaps exposed her to new dangers. her husband's interests were involved in her life; her death, should she die childless, must needs deprive him of all advantage from jacob nowell's wealth. the only person to profit from such an event would be percival nowell; but he was far away, gilbert believed, and completely ignorant of his reversionary interest in his father's property. there was medler the attorney, a man whom gilbert had distrusted from the first. it was just possible that the letter had been from him; yet most improbable that he should have asked mrs. holbrook to meet him out of doors, instead of coming to her at the grange, or that she should have acceded to such a request, had he made it. the whole affair was encompassed with mystery, and gilbert fenton's heart sank as he contemplated the task that lay before him. "i shall spend a day or two in this neighbourhood before i return to town," he said to ellen carley presently; "there are inquiries that i should like to make with my own lips. i shall be only going over old ground, i daresay, but it will be some satisfaction to me to do it for myself. can you give me house-room here for a night or two, or shall i put up at crosber?" "i'm sure father would be very happy to accommodate you here, sir. we've plenty of room now; too much for my taste. the house seems like a wilderness now mrs. holbrook is gone." "thanks. i shall be very glad to sleep here. there is just the chance that you may have some news for me, or i for you." "ah, sir, it's only a very poor chance, i'm afraid," the girl answered hopelessly. she went with gilbert to the gate, and watched him as he walked away towards the river. his first impulse was to follow the path which marian had taken that day, and to see for himself what manner of place it was from which she had so mysteriously vanished. chapter xxvi. in bondage. adela branston found life very dreary in the splendid gloom of her town house. she would have infinitely preferred the villa near maidenhead for the place of her occupation, had it not been for the fact that in london she was nearer john saltram, and that any moment of any day might bring him to her side. the days passed, however--empty useless days, frittered away in frivolous occupations, or wasted in melancholy idleness; and john saltram did not come, or came so rarely that the only effect of his visits was to keep up the fever and restlessness of the widow's mind. she had fancied that life would be so bright for her when the day of her freedom came; that she would reap so rich a harvest of happiness as a reward for the sacrifice which she had made in marrying old michael branston, and enduring his peevishness and ill-health with tolerable good-humour during the half-dozen years of their wedded life. she had fancied this; and now her release had come to her, and was worthless in her sight, because the one man she cared for had proved himself cold and indifferent. in spite of his coldness, however, she told herself that he loved her, that he had loved her from the earliest period of their acquaintance. she was a poor weak little woman, the veriest spoilt child of fortune, and she clung to this belief with a fond foolish persistence, a blind devoted obstinacy, against which the arguments of mrs. pallinson were utterly vain, although that lady devoted a great deal of time and energy to the agreeable duty which she called "opening dear adela's eyes about that dissipated good-for-nothing mr. saltram." to a correct view of this subject adela branston's eyes were not to be opened in any wise. she was wilfully, resolutely blind, clinging to the hope that this cruel neglect on john saltram's part arose only from his delicacy of feeling, and tender care for her reputation. "but o, how i wish that he would come to me!" she said to herself again and again, as those slow dreary days went by, burdened and weighed down by the oppressive society of mrs. pallinson, as well as by her own sad thoughts. "my husband has been dead ever so long now, and what need have we to study the opinion of the world so much? of course i wouldn't marry him till a year, or more, after poor michael's death; but i should like to see him often, to be sure that he still cares for me as he used to care--yes, i am sure he used--in the dear old days at maidenhead. why doesn't he come to me? he knows that i love him. he must know that i have no brighter hope than to make him the master of my fortune; and yet he goes on in those dismal temple chambers, toiling at his literary work as if he had not a thought in the world beyond earning so many pounds a week." this was the perpetual drift of mrs. branston's meditations; and in the absence of any sign or token of regard from john saltram, all mrs. pallinson's attempts to amuse her, all the fascinations and accomplishments of the elegant theobald, were thrown away upon an unreceptive soil. there were not many amusements open to a london public at that dull season of the year, except the theatres, and for those places of entertainment mrs. pallinson cherished a shuddering aversion. but there were occasional morning and evening "recitals," or concerts, where the music for the most part was of a classical and recondite character--feasts of melody, at which long-buried and forgotten sonatas of gluck, or bach, or chembini were introduced to a discriminating public for the first time; and to these mrs. pallinson and theobald conducted poor adela branston, whose musical proclivities had never yet soared into higher regions than those occupied by the sparkling joyous genius of rossini, and to whom the revived sonatas, or the familiar old-established gems of classical art, were as unintelligible as so much hebrew or syriac. perhaps they were not much more delightful to mrs. pallinson; but that worthy matron had a profound veneration for the conventionalities of life, and these classical matinées and recitals seemed to her exactly the correct sort of thing for the amusement of a young widow whose husband had not very long ago been consigned to the tomb. so poor adela was dragged hither and thither to gloomy concert-rooms, where the cold winter's light made the performers look pale and wan, or to aristocratic drawing-rooms, graciously lent to some favoured pianiste by their distinguished owners; and so, harassed and weary, but lacking spirit to oppose her own feeble inclinations to the overpowering force of mrs. pallinson's will, the helpless little widow went submissively wherever they chose to take her, tormented all the while by the thought of john saltram's coldness, and wondering when this cruel time of probation would be at an end, and he would show himself her devoted slave once more. it was very weak and foolish to think of him like this, no doubt; undignified and unwomanly, perhaps; but adela branston was little more than a child in knowledge of the world, and john saltram was the only man who had ever touched her heart. she stood quite alone in the world too, lonely with all her wealth, and there was no one to share her affection with this man, who had acquired so complete an influence over her. she endured the dreary course of her days patiently enough for a considerable time, not knowing any means whereby she might release herself from the society of her kinswoman, or put an end to the indefatigable attentions of the popular maida hill doctor. she would have gladly offered mrs. pallinson a liberal allowance out of her fortune to buy that lady off, and be her own mistress once more, free to act and think for herself, had she dared to make such a degrading proposition to a person of mrs. pallinson's dignity. but she could not venture to do this; and she felt that no one but john saltram, in the character of her future husband, could release her from the state of bondage into which she had weakly suffered herself to fall. in the meantime she defended the man she loved with an unflinching spirit, resolutely refusing to have her eyes opened to the worthlessness of his character, and boldly declaring her disbelief of those sad accounts which theobald affected to have heard from well-informed acquaintance of his own, respecting the follies and dissipations of mr. saltram's career, his debts, his love of gambling, his dealings with money-lenders, and other foibles common to the rake's progress. it was rather a hard battle for the lonely little woman to fight, but she had fortune on her side; and at the worst, her kinsfolk treated her with a certain deference, even while they were doing their utmost to worry her into an untimely grave. if little flatteries, and a perpetual indulgence in all small matters, such as a foolish nurse might give to a spoilt child, could have made adela happy, she had certainly no reason to complain, for in this manner mrs. pallinson was the most devoted and affectionate of companions. if her darling adela looked a little paler than usual, or confessed to suffering from a headache, or owned to being nervous or out of spirits, mrs. pallinson's anxiety knew no bounds, and theobald was summoned from maida hill without a minute's delay, much to poor adela's annoyance. indeed, she grew in time to deny the headaches, and the low spirits, or the nervousness resolutely, rather than bring upon herself a visitation from mr. theobald pallinson; and in spite of all this care and indulgence she felt herself a prisoner in her own house, somehow; more dependent than the humblest servant in that spacious mansion; and she looked out helplessly and hopelessly for some friend through whose courageous help she might recover her freedom. perhaps she only thought of one champion as at all likely to come to her rescue; indeed, her mind had scarcely room for more than that one image, which occupied her thoughts at all times. her captivity had lasted for a period which seemed a very long time, though it was short enough when computed by the ordinary standard of weeks and months, when a circumstance occurred which gave her a brief interval of liberty. mr. pallinson fell a victim to some slight attack of low fever; and his mother, who was really most devoted to this paragon of a son, retired from the citadel in cavendish square for a few days in order to nurse him. it was not that the surgeon's illness was in any way dangerous, but the mother could not trust her darling to the care of strangers and hirelings. adela branston seemed to breathe more freely in that brief holiday. relieved from mrs. pallinson's dismal presence, life appeared brighter and pleasanter all at once; a faint colour came back to the pale cheeks, and the widow was even beguiled into laughter by some uncomplimentary observations which her confidential maid ventured upon with reference to the absent lady. "i'm sure the house itself seems lighter and more cheerful-like without her, ma'am," said this young person, who was of a vivacious temperament, and upon whom the dowager's habitual dreariness had been a heavy affliction; "and you're looking all the better already for not being worried by her." "berners, you really must not say such things," mrs. branston exclaimed reproachfully. "you ought to know that my cousin is most kind and thoughtful, and does everything for the best." "o, of course, ma'am; but some people's best is quite as bad as other people's worst," the maid answered sharply; "and as to kindness and thoughtfulness, mrs. pallinson is a great deal too kind and thoughtful, i think; for her kindness and thoughtfulness won't allow you a moment's rest. and then, as if anybody couldn't see through her schemes about that precious son of hers--with his finicking affected ways!" and at this point the vivacious berners gave a little imitation of theobald pallinson, with which liberty adela pretended to be very much offended, laughing at the performance nevertheless. mrs. branston passed the first day of her freedom in luxurious idleness. it was such an inexpressible relief not to hear the perpetual click of mrs. pallinson's needle travelling in and out of the canvas, as that irreproachable matron sat at her embroidery-frame, on which a group of spaniels, after sir edwin landseer, were slowly growing into the fluffy life of berlin wool; a still greater relief, not to be called upon to respond appropriately to the dull platitudes which formed the lady's usual conversation, when she was not abusing john saltram, or sounding the praises of her beloved son. the day was a long one for adela, in spite of the pleasant sense of freedom; for she had begun the morning with the thought of what a delightful thing it would be if some happy accident should bring mr. saltram to cavendish-square on this particular day; and having once started with this idea, she found herself counting the hours and half-hours with impatient watchfulness until the orthodox time for visiting was quite over, and she could no longer beguile herself with the hope that he would come. she wanted so much to see him alone. since her husband's death, they had met only in the presence of mrs. pallinson, beneath the all-pervading eye and within perpetual ear-shot of that oppressive matron. adela fancied that if they could only meet for one brief half-hour face to face, without the restraint of that foreign presence, all misunderstanding would be at an end between them, and john saltram's affection for her, in which she believed with a fond credulity, would reveal itself in all its truth and fulness. "i daresay it is my cousin pallinson who has kept him away from me all this time," adela said to herself with a very impatient feeling about her cousin pallinson. "i know how intolerant he is of any one he dislikes; and no doubt he has taken a dislike to her; she has done everything to provoke it, indeed, by her coldness and rudeness to him." that day went by, and the second and third day of the dowager's absence; but there was no sign of john saltram. adela thought of writing to ask him to come to her; but that seemed such a desperate step, she could not think how she should word the letter, or how she could give it to one of the servants to post. no, she would contrive to post it herself, if she did bring herself to write. and then she thought of a still more desperate step. what if she were to call upon mr. saltram at his temple chambers? it would be a most unwarrantable thing for her to do, of course; an act which would cause mrs. pallinson's hair to stand on end in virtuous horror, could it by any means come to her knowledge; but adela did not intend that it ever should be known to mrs. pallinson; and about the opinion of the world in the abstract, mrs. branston told herself that she cared very little. what was the use of being a rich widow, if she was to be hedged-in by the restrictions which encompass the steps of an unwedded damsel just beginning life? emboldened by the absence of her dowager kinswoman, mrs. branston felt herself independent, free to do a foolish thing, and ready to abide the hazard of her folly. so, upon the fourth day of her freedom, despairing of any visit from john saltram, adela branston ordered the solemn-looking butler to send for a cab, much to the surprise of that portly individual. "josephs has just been round asking about the carriage, mum," he said, in a kind of suggestive way; "whether you'd please to want the b'rouche or the broom, and whether you'd drive before or after luncheon." "i shall not want the carriage this morning; send for a cab, if you please, parker. i am going into the city, and don't care about taking the horses there." the solemn parker bowed and retired, not a little mystified by this order. his mistress was a kind little woman enough, but such extreme consideration for equine comfort is hardly a feminine attribute, and mr. parker was puzzled. he told josephs the coachman as much when he had dispatched an underling to fetch the cleanest four-wheeler procurable at an adjacent stand. "she's a-going to her banker's i suppose," he said meditatively; "going to make some new investments perhaps. women are always a-fidgeting and chopping and changing with their money." mrs. branston kept the cab waiting half an hour, according to the fairest reckoning. she was very particular about her toilette that morning, and inclined to be discontented with the sombre plainness of her widow's garb, and to fancy that the delicate border of white crape round her girlish face made her look pale, not to say sallow. she came downstairs at last, however, looking very graceful and pretty in her trailing mourning robes and fashionable crape bonnet, in which the profoundest depth of woe was made to express itself with a due regard to elegance. she came down to the homely hackney vehicle attended by the obsequious berners, whose curiosity was naturally excited by this solitary expedition. "where shall i tell the man to drive, mum?" the butler asked with the cab-door in his hand. mrs. branston felt herself blushing, and hesitated a little before she replied. "the union bank, chancery-lane. tell him to go by the strand and temple-bar." "i can't think what's come to my mistress," miss berners remarked as the cab drove off. "catch _me_ driving in one of those nasty vulgar four-wheel cabs, if i had a couple of carriages and a couple of pairs of horses at my disposal. there's some style about a hansom; but i never could abide those creepy-crawley four-wheelers." "i admire your taste, miss berners; and a dashing young woman like you's a credit to a hansom," replied mr. parker gallantly. "but there's no accounting for the vagaries of the female sex; and i fancy somehow mrs. b. didn't want any of us to know where she was going; she coloured-up so when i asked her for the direction. you may depend there's something up, jane berners. she's going to see some poor relation perhaps--mile-end or kentish-town way--and was ashamed to give the address." "i don't believe she has any relations, except old mother pallinson and her son," miss berners answered. and thereupon the handmaiden withdrew to her own regions with a discontented air, as one who had been that day cheated out of her legitimate rights. chapter xxvii. only a woman. the cabman did not hurry his tall raw-boned steed, and the drive to temple-bar seemed a very long one to adela branston, whose mind was disturbed by the consciousness that she was doing a foolish thing. many times during the journey, she was on the point of stopping the man and telling him to drive back to cavendish-square; but in spite of these moments of doubt and vacillation she suffered the vehicle to proceed, and only stopped the man when they were close to temple-bar. here she told him where she wanted to go; upon which he plunged down an obscure side street, and stopped at one of the entrances to the temple. here mrs. branston alighted, and had to inquire her way to mr. saltram's chambers. she was so unaccustomed to be out alone, that this expedition seemed something almost awful to her when she found herself helpless and solitary in that strange locality. she had fancied that the cab would drive straight to mr. saltram's door. the busy lawyers flitting across those grave courts and passages turned to glance curiously at the pretty little widow. she had the air of a person not used to be on foot and unattended--a kind of aerial butterfly air, as of one who belonged to the useless and ornamental class of society; utterly different from the appearance of such humble female pedestrians as were wont to make the courts and alleys of the temple a short-cut in their toilsome journeys to and fro. happily a porter appeared, who was able to direct her to mr. saltram's chambers, and civilly offered to escort her there; for which service she rewarded him with half-a-crown, instead of the sixpence which he expected as his maximum recompense; she was so glad to have reached the shelter of the dark staircase in safety. the men whom she had met had frightened her by their bold admiring stares; and yet she was pleased to think that she was looking pretty. the porter did not leave her until she had been admitted by mr. saltram's boy, and then retired, promising to be in the way to see her back to her carriage. how the poor little thing trembled when she found herself on the threshold of that unfamiliar door! what a horrible dingy lobby it was! and how she pitied john saltram for having to live in such place! he was at home and alone, the boy told her; would she please to send in her card? no, mrs. branston declined to send in her card. the boy could say that a lady wished to see mr. saltram. the truth was, she wanted to surprise this man; to see how her unlooked-for presence would affect him. she fancied herself beloved by him, poor soul! and that she would be able to read some evidence of his joy at seeing her in this unexpected manner. the boy went in to his master and announced the advent of a lady, the first he had ever seen in those dismal premises. john saltram started up from his desk and came with a hurried step to the door, very pale and almost breathless. "a lady!" he gasped, and then fell back a pace or two on seeing adela, with a look which was very much like disappointment. "you here, mrs. branston!" he exclaimed; "i--you are the last person in the world i should have expected to see." perhaps he felt that there was a kind of rudeness in this speech, for he added hastily, and with a faint smile,-- "of course i am not the less honoured by your visit." he moved a chair forward, the least dilapidated of the three or four which formed his scanty stock, and placed it near the neglected fire, which he tried to revive a little by a judicious use of the poker. "you expected to see some one else, i think," adela said; quite unable to hide her wounded feelings. she had seen the eagerness in his pale face when he came to the door, and the disappointed look with which he had recognised her. "scarcely; but i expected to receive news of some one else." "some one you are very anxious to hear about, i should imagine, from your manner just now," said adela, who could not forbear pressing the question a little. "yes, mrs. branston, some one about whom i am anxious; a relation, in short." she looked at him with a puzzled air. she had never heard him talk of his relations, had indeed supposed that he stood almost alone in the world; but there was no reason that it should be so, except his silence on the subject. she watched him for some moments in silence, as he stood leaning against the opposite angle of the chimney-piece waiting for her to speak. he was looking very ill, much changed since she had seen him last, haggard and worn, with the air of a man who had not slept properly for many nights. there was an absent far-away look in his eyes: and adela branston felt all at once that her presence was nothing to him; that this desperate step which she had taken had no more effect upon him than the commonest event of every-day life; in a word, that he did not love her. a cold deathlike feeling came over her as she thought this. she had set her heart upon this man's love, and had indeed some justification for supposing that it was hers. it seemed to her that life was useless--worse than useless, odious and unendurable--without it. but even while she was thinking this, with a cold blank misery in her heart, she had to invent some excuse for this unseemly visit. "i have waited so anxiously for you to call," she said at last, in a nervous hesitating way, "and i began to fear that you must be ill, and i wished to consult you about the management of my affairs. my lawyers worry me so with questions which i don't know how to answer, and i have so few friends in the world whom i can trust except you; so at last i screwed up my courage to call upon you." "i am deeply honoured by your confidence, mrs. branston," john saltram answered, looking at her gravely with those weary haggard eyes, with the air of a man who brings his thoughts back to common life from some far-away region with an effort. "if my advice or assistance can be of any use to you, they are completely at your service. what is this business about which your solicitor bothers you?" "i'll explain that to you directly," adela answered, taking some letters from her pocket-book. "how good you are! i knew that you would help me; but tell me first why you have never been to cavendish-square in all this long time. i fear i was right; you have been ill, have you not?" "not exactly ill, but very much worried and overworked." a light dawned on adela branston's troubled mind. she began to think that mr. saltram's strange absent manner, his apparent indifference to her presence, might arise from preoccupation, caused by those pecuniary difficulties from which the pallinsons declared him so constant a sufferer. yes, she told herself, it was trouble of this kind that oppressed him, that had banished him from her all this time. he was too generous to repair his shattered fortunes by means of her money; he was too proud to confess his fallen state. a tender pity took possession of her. all that was most sentimental in her nature was awakened by the idea of john saltram's generosity. what was the use of her fortune, if she could not employ it for the relief of the man she loved? "you are so kind to me, mr. saltram," she faltered, after a troubled pause; "so ready to help me in my perplexities, i only wish you would allow me to be of some use to you in yours, if you have any perplexities; and i suppose everybody has, of some kind or other. i should be so proud if you would give me your confidence--so proud and happy!" her voice trembled a little as she said this, looking up at him all the while with soft confiding blue eyes, the fair delicate face looking its prettiest in the coquettish widow's head-gear. a man must have been harder of heart than john saltram who could remain unmoved by a tenderness so evident. this man was touched, and deeply. the pale careworn face grew more troubled, the firmly-moulded lips quivered ever so little, as he looked down at the widow's pleading countenance; and then he turned his head aside with a sudden half-impatient movement. "my dear mrs. branston, you are too good to me; i am unworthy, i am in every way unworthy of your kindness." "you are not unworthy, and that is no answer to my question; only an excuse to put me off. we are such old friends, mr. saltram, you might trust me. you own that you have been worried--overworked--worried about money matters, perhaps. i know that gentlemen are generally subject to that kind of annoyance; and you know how rich i am, how little employment i have for my money, though you can never imagine how worthless and useless it seems to me. why won't you trust me? why won't you let me be your banker?" she blushed crimson as she made this offer, dreading that the man she loved would turn upon her fiercely in a passion of offended pride. she sat before him trembling, dreading the might of his indignation. but there was no anger in john saltram's face when he looked round at her; only grief and an expression that was like pity. "the offer is like you," he said with suppressed feeling; "but the worries of which i spoke just now are not money troubles. i do not pretend to deny that my affairs are embarrassed, and have been for so long that entanglement has become their normal state; but if they were ever so much more desperate, i could not afford to trade upon your generosity. no, mrs. branston, that is just the very last thing in this world that i could consent to do." "it is very cruel of you to say that," adela answered, with the tears gathering in her clear blue eyes, and with a little childish look of vexation, which would have seemed infinitely charming in the eyes of a man who loved her. "there can be no reason for your saying this, except that you do not think me worthy of your confidence--that you despise me too much to treat me like a friend. if i were that mr. fenton now, whom you care for so much, you would not treat me like this." "i never borrowed a sixpence from gilbert fenton in my life, though i know that his purse is always open to me. but friendship is apt to end when money transactions begin. believe me, i feel your goodness, mrs. branston, your womanly generosity; but it is my own unworthiness that comes between me and your kindness. i can accept nothing from you but the sympathy which it is your nature to give to all who need it." "i do indeed sympathise with you; but it seems so hard that you will not consent to make some use of all that money which is lying idle. it would make me so happy if i could think it were useful to you; but i dare not say any more. i have said too much already, perhaps; only i hope you will not think very badly of me for having acted on impulse in this way." "think badly of you, my dear kind soul! what can i think, except that you are one of the most generous of women?" "and about these other troubles, mr. saltram, which have no relation to money matters; you will not give me your confidence?" "there is nothing that i can confide in you, mrs. branston. others are involved in the matter of which i spoke, i am not free to talk about it." poor adela felt herself repulsed at every point. it seemed very hard. had she been mistaken about this man all the time? mistaken and deluded in those old happy days during her husband's lifetime, when he had been so constant a visitor at the river-side villa, and had seemed exactly what a man might seem who cherished a tenderness which he dared not reveal in the present, but which in a brighter future might blossom into the full-blown flower of love? "and now about your own affairs, my dear mrs. branston?" john saltram said with a forced cheerfulness, drawing his chair up to the table and assuming a business-like manner. "these tiresome letters of your lawyers'; let me see what use i can be in the matter." adela branston produced the letters with rather an absent air. they were letters about very insignificant affairs; the renewal of a lease or two; the reinvestment of a sum of money that had been lent on mortgage, and had fallen in lately; transactions that scarcely called for the employment of mr. saltram's intellectual powers. but he gave them very serious attention nevertheless, well aware, all the time that this business consultation was only the widow's excuse for her visit; and while she seemed to be listening to his advice, her eyes were wandering round the room all the time, noting the dust and confusion, the soda-water bottles huddled in one corner, the pile of books heaped in a careless mass in another, the half-empty brandy-bottle between a couple of stone ink-jars on the mantelpiece. she was thinking what a dreary place it was, and that there was the stamp of decay and ruin somehow upon the man who occupied it. and she loved him so well, and would have given all the world to have redeemed his life. it is doubtful whether adela branston heard one syllable of that counsel which mr. saltram administered so gravely. her mind was full of the failure of this desperate step which she had taken. he seemed farther from her now than before they had met, obstinately adverse to profit by her friendship, cold and cruel. "you will come and dine with us very soon, i hope," she said as she rose to go, "my cousin, mrs. pallinson, will be home in a day or two. she has been nursing her son for the last few days; but he is much better, and i expect her back immediately. we shall be so pleased to see you; you will name an early day, won't you? monday shall we say, or sunday? you can't plead business on sunday." "my dear mrs. branston, i really am not well enough for visiting." "but dining with us does not come under the head of visiting. we will be quite alone, if you wish it. i shall be hurt if you refuse to come." "if you put it in that way, i cannot refuse; but i fear you will find me wretched company." "i am not afraid of that. and now i must ask you to forgive me for having wasted so much of your time, before i say good-morning." "there has been no time of mine wasted. i have learned to know your generous heart even better than i knew it before, and i think i always knew that it was a noble one. believe me, i am not ungrateful or indifferent to so much goodness." he accompanied her downstairs, and through the courts and passages to the place where she had left her cab, in spite of the ticket-porter, who was hanging about ready to act as escort. he saw her safely seated in the hackney vehicle, and then walked slowly back to his chambers, thinking over the interview which had just concluded. "poor little soul," he said softly to himself; "dear little soul! there are men who would go to the end of the world for a woman like that; yes, if she had not a sixpence. and to think that i, who thought myself so strong in the wisdom of the world, should have let such a prize slip through my fingers? for what? for a fancy, for a caprice that has brought confusion and shame upon me--disappointment and regret." he breathed a profound sigh. from first to last life had been more or less a disappointment to this man. he had lived alone; lived for himself, despising the ambitious aims and lofty hopes of other men, thinking the best prizes this world can give scarcely worth that long struggle which is so apt to end in failure; perfect success was so rare a result, it seemed to him. he made a rough calculation of his chances in any given line when he was still fresh from college, and finding the figures against him, gave up all thoughts of doing great things. by-and-by, when his creditors grew pressing and it was necessary for him to earn money in some way, he found that it was no trouble to him to write; so he wrote with a spasmodic kind of industry, but a forty-horse power when he chose to exercise it. for a long time he had no thought of winning name or fame in literature. it was only of late it had dawned upon him that he had wasted labour and talent, out of which a wiser man would have created for himself a reputation; and that reputation is worth something, if only as a means of making money. this conviction once arrived at, he had worked hard at a book which he thought must needs make some impression upon the world whenever he could afford time to complete it. in the meanwhile his current work occupied so much of his life, that he was fain to lay the _magnum opus_ aside every now and then, and it still needed a month or two of quiet labour. chapter xxviii. at fault. gilbert fenton took up his abode at the dilapidated old inn at crosber, thinking that he might be freer there than at the grange; a dismal place of sojourn under the brightest circumstances, but unspeakably dreary for him who had only the saddest thoughts for his companions. he wanted to be on the spot, to be close at hand to hear tidings of the missing girl, and he wanted also to be here in the event of john holbrook's return--to come face to face with this man, if possible, and to solve that question which had sorely perplexed him of late--the mystery that hung about the man who had wronged him. he consulted ellen carley as to the probability of mr. holbrook's return. the girl seemed to think it very unlikely that marian's husband would ever again appear at the grange. his last departure had appeared like a final one. he had paid every sixpence he owed in the neighbourhood, and had been liberal in his donations to the servants and hangers-on of the place. marian's belongings he had left to ellen carley's care, telling her to pack them, and keep them in readiness for being forwarded to any address he might send. but his own books and papers he had carefully removed. "had he many books here?" gilbert asked. "not many," the girl answered; "but he was a very studious gentleman. he spent almost all his time shut up in his own room reading and writing." "indeed!" in this respect the habits of the unknown corresponded exactly with those of john saltram. gilbert fenton's heart beat a little quicker at the thought that he was coming nearer by a step to the solution of that question which was always uppermost in his mind now. "do you know if he wrote books--if he was what is called a literary man--living by his pen?" he asked presently. "i don't know; i never heard his wife say so. but mrs. holbrook was always reserved about him and his history. i think he had forbidden her to talk about his affairs. i know i used to fancy it was a dull life for her, poor soul, sitting in his room hour after hour, working while he wrote. he used not to allow her to be with him at all at first, but little by little she persuaded him to let her sit with him, promising not to disturb him by so much as a word; and she never did. she seemed quite happy when she was with him, contented, and proud to think that her presence was no hindrance to him." "and you think he loved her, don't you?" "at first, yes; but i think a kind of weariness came over him afterwards, and that she saw it, and almost broke her heart about it. she was so simple and innocent, poor darling, it wasn't easy for her to hide anything she felt." gilbert asked the bailiff's daughter to describe mr. holbrook to him, as she had done more than once before. but this time he questioned her closely, and contrived that her description of this man's outward semblance should be especially minute and careful. yes, the picture which arose before him as ellen carley spoke was the picture of john saltram. the description seemed in every particular to apply to the face and figure of his one chosen friend. but then all such verbal pictures are at best vague and shadowy, and gilbert knew that he carried that one image in his mind, and would be apt unconsciously to twist the girl's words into that one shape. he asked if any picture or photograph of mr. holbrook had been left at the grange, and ellen carley told him no, she had never even seen a portrait of marian's husband. he was therefore fain to be content with the description which seemed so exactly to fit the friend he loved, the friend to whom he had clung with a deeper, stronger feeling since this miserable suspicion had taken root in his mind. "i think i could have forgiven him if he had come between us in a bold and open way," he said to himself, brooding over this harassing doubt of his friend; "yes, i think i could have forgiven him, in spite of the bitterness of losing her. but to steal her from me with cowardly treacherous secrecy, to hide my treasure in an obscure corner, and then grow weary of her, and blight her fair young life with his coldness,--can i forgive him these things? can all the memory of the past plead with me for him when i think of these things? o god, grant that i am mistaken; that it is some other man who has done this, and not john saltram; not the man i have loved and honoured for fifteen years of my life!" but his suspicions were not to be put away, not to be driven out of his mind, let him argue against them as he might. he resolved, therefore, that as soon as he should have made every effort and taken every possible means towards the recovery of the missing girl, he would make it his business next to bring this thing home to john saltram, or acquit him for ever. it is needless to dwell upon that weary work, which seemed destined to result in nothing but disappointment. the local constabulary and the london police alike exerted all their powers to obtain some trace of marian holbrook's lost footsteps; but no clue to the painful mystery was to be found. from the moment when she vanished from the eyes of the servant-woman watching her departure from the grange gate, she seemed to have disappeared altogether from the sight of mankind. if by some witchcraft she had melted into the dim autumnal mist that hung about the river-bank, she could not have left less trace, or vanished more mysteriously than she had done. the local constabulary gave in very soon, in spite of gilbert fenton's handsome payment in the present, and noble promises of reward in the future. the local constabulary were honest and uninventive. they shook their heads gloomily, and said "drownded." "but the river has been dragged," gilbert cried eagerly, "and there has been nothing found." he shuddered at the thought of that which might have been hauled to shore in the foul weedy net. the face he loved, changed, disfigured, awful--the damp clinging hair. "holes," replied the chief of the local constabulary, sententiously; "there's holes in that there river where you might hide half a dozen drownded men, and never hope to find 'em, no more than if they was at the bottom of the atlantic ocean. lord bless your heart, sir, you londoners don't know what a river is, in a manner of speaking," added the man, who was most likely unacquainted with the existence of the thames, compared with which noble stream this sluggish hampshire river was the veriest ditch. "i've known a many poor creatures drownded in that river, and never one of 'em to come to light--not that the river was dragged for _them_. their friends weren't of the dragging class, they weren't." the london police were more hopeful and more delusive. they were always hearing of some young lady newly arrived at some neighbouring town or village who seemed to answer exactly to the description of mrs. holbrook. and, behold, when gilbert fenton hurried off post-haste to the village or town, and presented himself before the lady in question, he found for the most part that she was ten years older than marian, and as utterly unlike her as it was possible for one englishwoman to be unlike another. he possessed a portrait of the missing girl--a carefully finished photograph, which had been given to him in the brief happy time when she was his promised wife; and he caused this image to be multiplied and distributed wherever the search for marian was being made. he neglected no possible means by which he might hope to obtain tidings; advertising continually, in town and country, and varying his advertisements in such a manner as to insure attention either from the object of his inquiries, or any one acquainted with her. but all his trouble was in vain. no reply, or, what was worse, worthless and delusive replies, came to his advertisements. the london police, who had pretended to be so hopeful at first, began to despair in a visible manner, having put all their machinery into play, and failed to obtain even the most insignificant result. they were fain to confess at last that they could only come to pretty much the same conclusion as that arrived at by their inferiors, the rustic officials; and agreed that in all probability the river hid the secret of marian holbrook's fate. she had been the victim of either crime or accident. who should say which? the former seemed the more likely, as she had vanished in broad daylight, when it was scarcely possible that her footsteps could go astray; while in that lonely neighbourhood a crime was never impossible. "she had a watch and chain, i suppose?" the officer inquired. "ladies will wear 'em." gilbert ascertained from ellen carley that marian had always worn her watch and chain, had worn them when she left the grange for the last time. she had a few other trinkets too, which she wore habitually, quaint old-fashioned things, of some value. how well gilbert remembered those little family treasures, which she had exhibited to him at captain sedgewick's bidding! "ah," muttered the officer when he heard this, "quite enough to cost her her life, if she met with one of your ugly customers. i've known a murder committed for the sake of three-and-sixpence in my time; and pushing a young woman into the river don't count for murder among that sort of people. you see, some one may come by and fish her out again; so it can't well be more than manslaughter." a dull horror came over gilbert fenton as he heard these professional speculations, but at the worst he could not bring himself to believe that these men were right, and that the woman he loved had been the victim of some obscure wretch's greed, slain in broad daylight for the sake of a few pounds' worth of jewelry. when everything had been done that was possible to be done in that part of the country, mr. fenton went back to london. but not before he had become very familiar with the household at the grange. from the first he had liked and trusted ellen carley, deeply touched by her fidelity to marian. he made a point of dropping in at the grange every evening, when not away from crosber following up some delusive track started by his metropolitan counsellors. he always went there with a faint hope that ellen carley might have something to tell him, and with a vague notion that john holbrook might return unexpectedly, and that they two might meet in the old farm-house. but mr. holbrook did not reappear, nor had ellen any tidings for her evening visitor; though she thought of little else than marian, and never let a day pass without making some small effort to obtain a clue to that mystery which now seemed so hopeless. gilbert grew to be quite at home in the little wainscoted parlour at the grange, smoking his cigar there nightly in a tranquil contemplative mood, while mr. carley puffed vigorously at his long clay pipe. there was a special charm for him in the place that had so long been marian's home. he felt nearer to her, somehow, under that roof, and as if he must needs be on the right road to some discovery. the bailiff, although prone to silence, seemed to derive considerable gratification from mr. fenton's visits, and talked to that gentleman with greater freedom than he was wont to display in his intercourse with mankind. ellen was not always present during the whole of the evening, and in her absence the bailiff would unbosom himself to gilbert on the subject of his daughter's undutiful conduct; telling him what a prosperous marriage the girl might make if she had only common sense enough to see her own interests in the right light, and wasn't the most obstinate self-willed hussy that ever set her own foolish whims and fancies against a father's wishes. "but a woman's fancies sometimes mean a very deep feeling, mr. carley," pleaded gilbert; "and what worldly-wise people call a good home, is not always a happy one. it's a hard thing for a young woman to marry against her inclination." "humph!" muttered the bailiff in a surly tone. "it's a harder thing for her to marry a pauper, i should think, and to bring a regiment of children into the world, always wanting shoes and stockings. but you're a bachelor, you see, mr. fenton, and can't be expected to know what shoes and stockings are. now there happens to be a friend of mine--a steady, respectable, middle-aged man--who worships the ground my girl walks on, and could make her mistress of as good a house as any within twenty miles of this, and give a home to her father in his old age, into the bargain; for i'm only a servant here, and it can't be expected that i am to go on toiling and slaving about this place for ever. i don't say but what i've saved a few pounds, but i haven't saved enough to keep me out of the workhouse." this seemed to gilbert rather a selfish manner of looking at a daughter's matrimonial prospects, and he ventured to hint as much in a polite way. but the bailiff was immovable. "what a young woman wants is a good home," he said decisively; "whether she has the sense to know it herself, or whether she hasn't, that's what she's got to look for in life." gilbert had not spent many evenings at the grange before he had the honour of being introduced to the estimable middle-aged suitor, whose claims mr. carley was always setting forth to his daughter. he saw stephen whitelaw, and that individual's colourless expressionless countenance, redeemed from total blankness only by the cunning visible in the small grey eyes, impressed him with instant distrust and dislike. "god forbid that frank warm-hearted girl should ever be sacrificed to such a fellow as this," he said to himself, as he sat on the opposite side of the hearth, smoking his cigar, and meditatively contemplating mr. whitelaw conversing in his slow solemn fashion with the man who was so eager to be his father-in-law. in the course of that first evening of their acquaintance, gilbert was surprised to see how often stephen whitelaw looked at him, with a strangely-attentive expression, that had something furtive in it, some hidden meaning, as it seemed to him. whenever gilbert spoke, the farmer looked up at him, always with the same sharp inquisitive glance, the same cunning twinkle in his small eyes. and every time he happened to look at mr. whitelaw during that evening, he found the watchful eyes turned towards him in the same unpleasant manner. the sensation caused by this kind of surveillance on the part of the farmer was so obnoxious to him, that at parting he took occasion to speak of it in a friendly way. "i fancy you and i must have met before to-night, mr. whitelaw," he said; "or that you must have some notion to that effect. you've looked at me with an amount of interest my personal merits could scarcely call for." "no, no, sir," the farmer answered in his usual slow deliberate way; "it isn't that; i never set eyes on you before i came into this room to-night. but you see, ellen, she's interested in you, and i take an interest in any one she takes to. and we've all of us thought so much about your searching for that poor young lady that's missing, and taking such pains, and being so patient-like where another would have given in at the first set-off--so, altogether, you're a general object of interest, you see." gilbert did not appear particularly flattered by this compliment. he received it at first with rather an angry look, and then, after a pause, was vexed with himself for having been annoyed by the man's clumsy expression of sympathy--for it was sympathy, no doubt, which mr. whitelaw wished to express. "it has been sad work, so far," he said. "i suppose you can give me no hint, no kind of advice as to any step to be taken in the future." "lord bless you, no sir. everything that could be done was done before you came here. mr. holbrook didn't leave a stone unturned. he did his duty as a man and a husband, sir. the poor young lady was drowned--there's no doubt about that." "i don't believe it," gilbert said, with a quiet resolute air, which seemed quite to startle mr. whitelaw. "you don't believe she was drowned! you mean to say you think she's alive, then?" he asked, with unusual sharpness and quickness of speech. "i have a firm conviction that she still lives; that, with god's blessing, i shall see her again." "well, sir," mr. whitelaw replied, relapsing into his accustomed slowness, and rubbing his clumsy chin with his still clumsier hand, in a thoughtful manner, "of course it ain't my place to go against any gentleman's convictions--far from it; but if you see mrs. holbrook before the dead rise out of their graves, my name isn't stephen whitelaw. you may waste your time and your trouble, and you may spend your money as it was so much water, but set eyes upon that missing lady you never will; take my word for it, or don't take my word for it, as you please." gilbert wondered at the man's earnestness. did he really feel some kind of benevolent interest in the fate of a helpless woman, or was it only a vulgar love of the marvellous and horrible that moved him? gilbert leaned to the latter opinion, and was by no means inclined to give stephen whitelaw credit for any surplus stock of benevolence. he saw a good deal more of ellen carley's suitor in the course of his evening visits to the grange, and had ample opportunity for observing mr. whitelaw's mode of courtship, which was by no means of the demonstrative order, consisting in a polite silence towards the object of his affections, broken only by one or two clumsy but florid compliments, delivered in a deliberate but semi-jocose manner. the owner of wyncomb farm had no idea of making hard work of his courtship. he had been angled for by so many damsels, and courted by so many fathers and mothers, that he fancied he had but to say the word when the time came, and the thing would be done. any evidence of avoidance, indifference, or even dislike upon ellen carley's part, troubled him in the smallest degree. he had heard people talk of young randall's fancy for her, and of her liking for him, but he knew that her father meant to set his heel upon any nonsense of this kind; and he did not for a moment imagine it possible that any girl would resolutely oppose her father's will, and throw away such good fortune as he could offer her--to ride in her own chaise-cart, and wear a silk gown always on sundays, to say nothing of a gold watch and chain; and mr. whitelaw meant to endow his bride with a ponderous old-fashioned timepiece and heavy brassy-looking cable which had belonged to his mother. chapter xxix. baffled, not beaten. the time came when gilbert fenton was fain to own to himself that there was no more to be done down in hampshire: professional science and his own efforts had been alike futile. if she whom he sought still lived--and he had never for a moment suffered himself to doubt this--it was more than likely that she was far away from crosber grange, that there had been some motive for her sudden flight, unaccountable as that flight might seem in the absence of any clue to the mystery. every means of inquiry being exhausted in hampshire, there was nothing left to gilbert but to return to london--that marvellous city, where there always seems the most hope of finding the lost, wide as the wilderness is. "in london i shall have clever detectives always at my service," gilbert thought; "in london i may be able to solve the question of john holbrook's identity." so, apart from the fact that his own affairs necessitated his prompt return to the great city, gilbert had another motive for leaving the dull rural neighbourhood where he had wasted so many anxious hours, so much thought and care. for the rest, he knew that ellen carley would be faithful--always on the watch for any clue to the mystery of marian holbrook's fate, always ready to receive the wanderer with open arms, should any happy chance bring her back to the grange. assured of this, he felt less compunction in turning his back upon the spot where his lost love had vanished from the eyes of men. before leaving, he gave ellen a letter for marian's husband, in the improbable event of that gentleman's reappearance at the grange--a few simple earnest lines, entreating mr. holbrook to believe in the writer's faithful and brotherly affection for his wife, and to meet him in london on an early occasion, in order that they might together concert fresh means for bringing about her restoration to her husband and home. he reminded mr. holbrook of his friendship for captain sedgewick, and that good man's confidence in him, and declared himself bound by his respect for the dead to be faithful to the living--faithful in all forgiveness of any wrong done him in the past. he went back to london cruelly depressed by the failure of his efforts, and with a blank dreary feeling that there was little more for him to do, except to wait the working of providence, with the faint hope that one of those happy accidents which sometimes bring about a desired result when all human endeavour has been in vain, might throw a sudden light on marian holbrook's fate. during the whole of that homeward journey he brooded an those dark suspicions of mr. holbrook which ellen carley had let fall in their earlier interviews. he had checked the girl on these occasions, and had prevented the full utterance of her thoughts, generously indignant that any suspicion of foul play should attach to marian's husband, and utterly incredulous of such a depth of guilt as that at which the girl's hints pointed; but now that he was leaving hampshire, he felt vexed with himself for not having urged her to speak freely--not having considered her suspicions, however preposterous those suspicions might have appeared to him. marian's disappearance had taken a darker colour in his mind since that time. granted that she had left the grange of her own accord, having some special reason for leaving secretly, at whose bidding would she have so acted except her husband's--she who stood so utterly alone, without a friend in the world? but what possible motive could mr. holbrook have had for such an underhand course--for making a conspiracy and a mystery out of so simple a fact as the removal of his wife from a place whence he was free to remove her at any moment? fair and honest motive for such a course there could be none. was it possible, looking at the business from a darker point of view, to imagine any guilty reason for the carrying out of such a plot? if this man had wanted to bring about a life-long severance between himself and his wife, to put her away somewhere, to keep her hidden from the eyes of the world--in plainer words, to get rid of her--might not this pretence of losing her, this affectation of distress at her loss, be a safe way of accomplishing his purpose? who else was interested in doing her any wrong? who else could have had sufficient power over her to beguile her away from her home? pondering on these questions throughout all that weary journey across a wintry landscape of bare brown fields and leafless trees, gilbert fenton travelled london-wards, to the city which was so little of a home for him, but in which his life had seemed pleasant enough in its own commonplace fashion until that fatal summer evening when he first saw marian nowell's radiant face in the quiet church at lidford. he scarcely stopped to eat or drink at the end of his journey, regaling himself only with a bottle of soda-water, imperceptibly flavoured with cognac by the hands of a ministering angel at the refreshment-counter of the waterloo station, and then hurrying on at once in a hansom to that dingy street in soho where mr. medler sat in his parlour, like the proverbial spider waiting for the advent of some too-confiding fly. the lawyer was at home, and seemed in no way surprised to see mr. fenton. "i have come to you about a bad business, mr. medler," gilbert began, seating himself opposite the shabby-looking office-table, with its covering of dusty faded baize, upon which there seemed to be always precisely the same array of papers in little bundles tied with red tape; "but first let me ask you a question: have you heard from mrs. holbrook?" "not a line." "and have you taken no further steps, no other means of communicating with her?" gilbert asked. "not yet. i think of sending my clerk down to hampshire, or of going down myself perhaps, in a day or two, if my business engagements will permit me." "do you not consider the case rather an urgent one, mr. medler? i should have supposed that your curiosity would have been aroused by the absence of any reply to your letters--that you would have looked at the business in a more serious light than you appear to have done--that you would have taken alarm, in short." "why should i do so?" the lawyer demanded carelessly. "it is mrs. holbrook's business to look after her affairs. the property is safe enough. she can administer to the will as soon as she pleases. i certainly wonder that the husband has not been a little sharper and more active in the business." "you have heard nothing of him, then, i presume?" "nothing." gilbert remembered what ellen carley had told him about marian's keeping the secret of her newly-acquired fortune from her husband, until she should be able to tell it to him with her own lips; waiting for that happy moment with innocent girlish delight in the thought that he was to owe prosperity to her. it seemed evident, therefore, that mr. holbrook could know nothing of his wife's inheritance, nor of mr. medler's existence, supposing the lawyer's letter to have reached the grange before marian's disappearance, and to have been destroyed or carried away by her. he inquired the date of this letter; whereupon mr. medler referred to a letter-book in which there was a facsimile of the document. it had been posted three days before marian left the grange. gilbert now proceeded to inform mr. medler of his client's mysterious disappearance, and all the useless efforts that had been made to solve the mystery. the lawyer listened with an appearance of profound interest and astonishment, but made no remark till the story was quite finished. "you are right, mr. fenton," he said at last. "it is a bad business, a very bad business. may i ask you what is the common opinion among people in that part of the world--in the immediate neighbourhood of the event, as to this poor lady's fate?" "an opinion with which i cannot bring myself to agree--an opinion which i pray god may prove as unfounded as i believe it to be. it is generally thought that mrs. holbrook has fallen a victim to some common crime--that she was robbed, and then thrown into the river." "the river has been dragged, i suppose?" "it has; but the people about there seem to consider that no conclusive test." "had mrs. holbrook anything valuable about her at the time of her disappearance?" "her watch and chain and a few other trinkets." "humph! there are scoundrels about the country who will commit the darkest crime for the smallest inducement. i confess the business has rather a black look, mr. fenton, and that i am inclined to concur with the country people." "an easy way of settling the question for those not vitally interested in the lady's fate," gilbert answered bitterly. "the lady is my client, sir, and i am bound to feel a warm interest in her affairs," the lawyer said, with the lofty tone of a man whose finer feelings have been outraged. "the lady was once my promised wife, mr. medler," returned gilbert, "and now stands to me in the place of a beloved and only sister. for me the mystery of her fate is an all-absorbing question, an enigma to the solution of which i mean to devote the rest of my life, if need be." "a wasted life, mr. fenton; and in the meantime that river down yonder may hide the only secret." "o god!" cried gilbert passionately, "how eager every one is to make an end of this business! even the men whom i paid and bribed to help me grew tired of their work, and abandoned all hope after the feeblest, most miserable attempts to earn their reward." "what can be done in such a case, mr. fenton?" demanded the lawyer, shrugging his shoulders with a deprecating air. "what can the police do more than you or i? they have only a little more experience, that's all; they have no recondite means of solving these social mysteries. you have advertised, of course?" "yes, in many channels, with a certain amount of caution, but in such a manner as to insure mrs. holbrook's identification, if she had fallen into the hands of any one willing to communicate with me, and to insure her own attention, were she free to act for herself." "humph! then it seems to me that everything has been done that can be done." "not yet. the men whom i employed in hampshire--they were recommended to me by the scotland-yard authorities, certainly--may not have been up to the mark. in any case, i shall try some one else. do you know anything of the detective force?" mr. medler assumed an air of consideration, and then said, "no, he did not know the name of a single detective; his business did not bring him in contact with that class of people." he said this with the tone of a man whose practice was of the loftiest and choicest kind--conveyancing, perhaps, and the management of estates for the landed gentry, marriage-settlements involving the disposition of large fortunes, and so on; whereas mr. medler's business lying chiefly among the criminal population, his path in life might have been supposed to be not very remote from the footsteps of eminent police-officers. "i can get the information elsewhere," gilbert said carelessly. "believe me, i do not mean to let this matter drop." "my dear sir, if i might venture upon a word of friendly advice--not in a professional spirit, but as between man and man--i should warn you against wasting your time and fortune upon a useless pursuit. if mrs. holbrook has vanished from the world of her own free will--a thing that often happens, eccentric as it may be--she will reappear in good time of her own free will. if she has been the victim of a crime, that crime will no doubt come to light in due course, without any efforts of yours." "that is the common kind of advice, mr. medler," answered gilbert. "prudent counsel, no doubt, if a man could be content to take it, and well meant; but, you see, i have loved this lady, love her still, and shall continue so to love her till the end of my life. it is not possible for me to rest in ignorance of her fate." "although she jilted you in favour of mr. holbrook?" suggested the lawyer with something of a sneer. "that wrong has been forgiven. fate did not permit me to be her husband, but i can be her friend and brother. she has need of some one to stand in that position, poor girl! for her lot is very lonely. and now i want you to explain the conditions of her grandfather's will. it is her father who would profit, i think i gathered from our last conversation, in the event of marian's death." "in the event of her dying childless--yes, the father would take all." "then he is really the only person who could profit by her death?" "well, yes," replied the lawyer with some slight hesitation; "under her grandfather's will, yes, her father would take all. of course, in the event of her father having died previously, the husband would come in as heir-at-law. you see it was not easy to exclude the husband altogether." "and do you believe that mr. nowell is still living to claim his inheritance?" "i believe so. i fancy the old man had some tidings of his son before the will was executed; that he, in short, heard of his having been met with not long ago, over in america." "no doubt he will speedily put in an appearance now," said gilbert bitterly--"now that there is a fortune to be gained by the assertion of his identity." "humph!" muttered the lawyer. "it would not be very easy for him to put his hand on sixpence of jacob nowell's money, in the absence of any proof of mrs. holbrook's death. there would be no end of appeals to the court of chancery; and after all manner of formulas he might obtain a decree that would lock up the property for twenty-four years. i doubt, if the executor chose to stick to technicals, and the business got into chancery, whether percival nowell would live long enough to profit by his father's will." "i am glad of that," said gilbert. "i know the man to be a scoundrel, and i am very glad that he is unlikely to be a gainer by any misfortune that has befallen his daughter. had it been otherwise, i should have been inclined to think that he had had some hand in this disappearance." the lawyer looked at mr. fenton with a sharp inquisitive glance. "in other words, you would imply that percival nowell may have made away with his daughter. you must have a very bad opinion of human nature, mr. fenton, to conceive anything so horrible." "my suspicions do not go quite so far as that," said gilbert. "god forbid that it should be so. i have a firm belief that marian holbrook lives. but it is possible to get a person out of the way without the last worst crime of which mankind is capable." "it would seem more natural to suspect the husband than the father, i should imagine," mr. medler answered, after a thoughtful pause. "i cannot see that. the husband had nothing to gain by his wife's disappearance, and everything to lose." "he might have supposed the father to be dead, and that he would step into the fortune. he might not know enough of the law of property to be aware of the difficulties attending a succession of that kind. there is a most extraordinary ignorance of the law of the land prevailing among well-educated englishmen. or he may have been tired of his wife, and have seen his way to a more advantageous alliance. men are not always satisfied with one wife in these days, and a man who married in such a strange underhand manner would be likely to have some hidden motive for secrecy." the suggestion was not without force for gilbert fenton. his face grew darker, and he was some time before he replied to mr. medler's remarks. that suspicion which of late had been perpetually floating dimly in his brain--that vague distrust of his one chosen friend, john saltram, flashed upon him in this moment with a new distinctness. if this man, whom he had so loved and trusted, had betrayed him, had so utterly falsified his friend's estimate of his character, was it not easy enough to believe him capable of still deeper baseness, capable of growing weary of his stolen wife, and casting her off by some foul secret means, in order to marry a richer woman? the marriage between john holbrook and marian nowell had taken place several months before michael branston's death, at a time when perhaps adela branston's admirer had begun to despair of her release. and then fate had gone against him, and mrs. branston's fortune lay at his feet when it was too late. thus, and thus only, could gilbert fenton account in any easy manner for john saltram's avoidance of the anglo-indian's widow. a little more than a year ago it had seemed as if the whole plan of his life was built upon a marriage with this woman; and now that she was free, and obviously willing to make him the master of her fortune, he recoiled from the position, unreasonably and unaccountably blind or indifferent to its advantages. "there shall be an end of these shapeless unspoken doubts," gilbert said to himself. "i will see john saltram to-day, and there shall be an explanation between us. i will be his dupe and fool no longer. i will get at the truth somehow." gilbert fenton said very little more to the lawyer, who seemed by no means sorry to get rid of him. but at the door of the office he paused. "you did not tell me the names of the executors to jacob nowell's will," he said. "you didn't ask me the question," answered mr. medler curtly. "there is only one executor--myself." "indeed! mr. nowell must have had a very high opinion of you to leave you so much power." "i don't know about power. jacob nowell knew me, and he didn't know many people. i don't say that he put any especial confidence in me--for it was his habit to trust no one, his boast that he trusted no one. but he was obliged to name some one for his executor, and he named me." "shall you consider it your duty to seek out or advertise for percival nowell?" asked gilbert. "i shall be in no hurry to do that, in the absence of any proof of his daughter's death. my first duty would be to look for her." "god grant you may be more fortunate than i have been! there is my card, mr. medler. you will be so good as to let me have a line immediately, at that address, if you obtain any tidings of mrs. holbrook." "i will do so." chapter xxx. stricken down. a hansom carried gilbert fenton to the temple, without loss of time. there was a fierce hurry in his breast, a heat and fever which he had scarcely felt since the beginning of his troubles; for his lurking suspicion of his friend had gathered shape and strength all at once, and possessed his mind now to the exclusion of every other thought. he ran quickly up the stairs. the outer and inner doors of john saltram's chambers were both ajar. gilbert pushed them open and went in. the familiar sitting-room looked just a little more dreary than usual. the litter of books and papers, ink-stand and portfolio, was transferred to one of the side-tables, and in its place, on the table where his friend had been accustomed to write, gilbert saw a cluster of medicine-bottles, a jug of toast-and-water, and a tray with a basin of lukewarm greasy-looking beef-tea. the door between the two rooms stood half open, and from the bedchamber within gilbert heard the heavy painful breathing of a sleeper. he went to the door and looked into the room. john saltram was lying asleep, in an uneasy attitude, with both arms thrown over his head. his face had a haggard look that was made all the more ghastly by two vivid crimson spots upon his sunken cheeks; there were dark purple rings round his eyes, and his beard was of more than a week's growth. "ill," gilbert muttered, looking aghast at this dreary picture, with strangely conflicting feelings of pity and anger in his breast; "struck down at the very moment when i had determined to know the truth." the sick man tossed himself restlessly from side to side in his feverish sleep, changed his position two or three times with evident weariness and pain, and then opened his eyes and stared with a blank unseeing gaze at his friend. that look, without one ray of recognition, went to gilbert's heart somehow. "o god, how fond i was of him!" he said to himself. "and if he has been a traitor! if he were to die like this, before i have wrung the truth from him--to die, and i not dare to cherish his memory--to be obliged to live out my life with this doubt of him!" this doubt! had he much reason to doubt two minutes afterwards, when john saltram raised himself on his gaunt arm, and looked piteously round the room? "marian!" he called. "marian!" "yes," muttered gilbert, "it is all true. he is calling his wife." the revelation scarcely seemed a surprise to him. little by little that suspicion, so vague and dim at first, had gathered strength, and now that all his doubts received confirmation from those unconscious lips, it seemed to him as if he had known his friend's falsehood for a long time. "marian, come here. come, child, come," the sick man cried in feeble imploring tones. "what, are you afraid of me? is this death? am i dead, and parted from her? would anything else keep her from me when i call for her, the poor child that loved me so well? and i have wished myself free of her--god forgive me!--wished myself free." the words were muttered in broken gasping fragments of sentences; but gilbert heard them and understood them very easily. then, after looking about the room, and looking full at gilbert without seeing him, john saltram fell back upon his tumbled pillows and closed his eyes. gilbert heard a slipshod step in the outer room, and turning round, found himself face to face with the laundress--that mature and somewhat depressing matron whom he had sought out a little time before, when he wanted to discover mr. saltram's whereabouts. this woman, upon seeing him, burst forth immediately into jubilation. "o, sir, what a providence it is that you've come!" she cried. "poor dear gentleman, he has been that ill, and me not knowing what to do more than a baby, except in the way of sending for a doctor when i see how bad he was, and waiting on him myself day and night, which i have done faithful, and am that worn-out in consequence, that i shake like a haspen, and can't touch a bit of victuals. i had but just slipped round to the court, while he was asleep, poor dear, to give my children their dinner; for it's a hard trial, sir, having a helpless young family depending upon one; and it would but be fair that all i have gone through should be considered; for though i says it as shouldn't, there isn't one of your hired nurses would do more; and i'm willing to continue of it, provisoed as i have help at nights, and my trouble considered in my wages." "you need have no apprehension; you shall be paid for your trouble. has he been long ill?" "well, sir, he took the cold as were the beginning of his illness a fortnight ago come next thursday. you may remember, perhaps, as it came on awful wet in the afternoon, last thursday week, and mr. saltram was out in the rain, and walked home in it,--not being able to get a cab, i suppose, or perhaps not caring to get one, for he was always a careless gentleman in such respects,--and come in wet through to the skin; and instead of changing his clothes, as a christian would have done, just gives himself a shake like, as he might have been a new-fondling dog that had been swimming, and sits down before the fire, which of course drawed out the steam from his things and made it worse, and writes away for dear life till twelve o'clock that night, having something particular to finish for them magazines, he says; and so, when i come to tidy-up a bit the last thing at night, i found him sitting at the table writing, and didn't take no more notice of me than a dog, which was his way, though never meant unkindly--quite the reverse." the laundress paused to draw breath, and to pour a dose of medicine from one of the bottles on the table. "well, sir, the next day, he had a vi'lent cold, as you may suppose, and was low and languid-like, but went on with his writing, and it weren't no good asking him not. 'i want money, mrs. pratt,' he said; 'you can't tell how bad i want money, and these people pay me for my stuff as fast as i send it in.' the day after that he was a deal worse, and had a wandering way like, as if he didn't know what he was doing; and sat turning over his papers with one hand, and leaning his head upon the other, and groaned so that it went through one like a knife to hear him. 'it's no use,' he said at last; 'it's no use!' and then went and threw hisself down upon that bed, and has never got up since, poor dear gentleman! i went round to fetch a doctor out of essex street, finding as he was no better in the evening, and awful hot, and still more wandering-like--mr. mew by name, a very nice gentleman--which said as it were rheumatic fever, and has been here twice a day ever since." "has mr. saltram never been in his right senses since that day?" gilbert asked. "o yes, sir; off and on for the first week he was quite hisself at times; but for the last three days he hasn't known any one, and has talked and jabbered a deal, and has been dreadful restless." "does the doctor call it a dangerous case?" "well, sir, not to deceive you, he ast me if mr. saltram had any friends as i could send for; and i says no, not to my knowledge; 'for,' says mr. mew, 'if he have any relations or friends near at hand, they ought to be told that he's in a bad way;' and only this morning he said as how he should like to call in a physician, for the case was a bad one." "i see. there is danger evidently," gilbert said gravely. "i will wait and hear what the doctor says. he will come again to-day, i suppose?" "yes, sir; he's sure to come in the evening." "good; i will stay till the evening. i should like you to go round immediately to this mr. mew's house, and ask for the address of some skilled nurse, and then go on, in a cab if necessary, and fetch her." "i could do that, sir, of course,--not but what i feel myself capable of nursing the poor dear gentleman." "you can't nurse him night and day, my good woman. do what i tell you, and bring back a professional nurse as soon as you can. if mr. mew should be out, his people are likely to know the address of such a person." he gave the woman some silver, and despatched her; and then, being alone, sat down quietly in the sick-room to think out the situation. yes, there was no longer any doubt; that piteous appeal to marian had settled the question. john saltram, the friend whom he had loved, was the traitor. john saltram had stolen his promised wife, had come between him and his fair happy future, and had kept the secret of his guilt in a dastardly spirit that made the act fifty times blacker than it would have seemed otherwise. sitting in the dreary silence of that sick chamber, a silence broken only by the painful sound of the sleeper's difficult breathing, many things came back to his mind; circumstances trivial enough in themselves, but invested with a grave significance when contemplated by the light of today's revelation. he remembered those happy autumn afternoons at lidford; those long, drowsy, idle days in which john saltram had given himself up so entirely to the pleasure of the moment, with surely something more than mere sympathy with his friend's happiness. he remembered that last long evening at the cottage, when this man had been at his best, full of life and gaiety; and then that sudden departure, which had puzzled him so much at the time, and yet had seemed no surprise to marian. it had been the result of some suddenly-formed resolution perhaps, gilbert thought. "poor wretch! he may have tried to be true to me," he said to himself, with a sharp bitter pain at his heart. he had loved this man so well, that even now, knowing himself to have been betrayed, there was a strange mingling of pity and anger in his mind, and mixed with these a touch of contempt. he had believed in john saltram; had fancied him nobler and grander than himself, somehow; a man who, under a careless half-scornful pretence of being worse than his fellows, concealed a nature that was far above the common herd; and yet this man had proved the merest caitiff, a weak cowardly villain. "to take my hand in friendship, knowing what he had done, and how my life was broken! to pretend sympathy; to play out the miserable farce to the very last! great heaven! that the man i have honoured could be capable of so much baseness!" the sleeper moved restlessly, the eyes were opened once more and turned upon gilbert, not with the same utter blankness as before, but without the faintest recognition. the sick man saw some one watching him, and the figure was associated with an unreal presence, the phantom of his brain, which had been with him often in the day and night. "the man again!" he muttered. "when will she come?" and then raising himself upon his elbow, he cried imploringly, "mother, you fetch her!" he was speaking to his mother, whom he had loved very dearly--his mother who had been dead fifteen years. gilbert's mind went back to that far-away time in egypt, when he had lain like this, helpless and unconscious, and this man had nursed and watched him with unwearying tenderness. "i will see him safely through this," he said to himself, "and then----" and then the account between them must be squared somehow. gilbert fenton had no thought of any direful vengeance. he belonged to an age in which injuries are taken very quietly, unless they are wrongs which the law can redress--wounds which can be healed by a golden plaster in the way of damages. he could not kill his friend; the age of duelling was past, and he not romantic enough to be guilty of such an anachronism as mortal combat. yet nothing less than a duel to the death could avenge such a wrong. so friendship was at an end between those two, and that was all; it was only the utter severance of a tie that had lasted for years, nothing more. yet to gilbert it seemed a great deal. his little world had crumbled to ashes; love had perished, and now friendship had died this sudden bitter death, from which there was no possible resurrection. in the midst of such thoughts as these he remembered the sick man's medicine. mrs. pratt had given him a few hurried directions before departing on her errand. he looked at his watch, and then went over to the table and prepared the draught and administered it with a firm and gentle hand. "who's that?" john saltram muttered faintly. "it seems like the touch of a friend." he dropped back upon the pillow without waiting for any reply, and fell into a string of low incoherent talk, with closed eyes. the laundress was a long time gone, and gilbert sat alone in the dismal little bedroom, where there had never been the smallest attempt at comfort since john saltram had occupied it. he sat alone, or with that awful companionship of one whose mind was far away, which was so much more dreary than actual loneliness--sat brooding over the history of his friend's treachery. what had he done with marian? was her disappearance any work of his, after all? had he hidden her away for some secret reason of his own, and then acted out the play by pretending to search for her? knowing him for the traitor he was, could gilbert fenton draw any positive line of demarcation between the amount of guilt which was possible and that which was not possible to him? what had he done with marian? how soon would he be able to answer that question? or would he ever be able to answer it? the thought of this delay was torture to gilbert fenton. he had come here to-day thinking to make an end of all his doubts, to force an avowal of the truth from those false lips. and behold, a hand stronger than his held him back. his interrogation must await the answer to that awful question--life or death. the woman came in presently, bustling and out of breath. she had found a very trustworthy person, recommended by mr. mew's assistant--a person who would come that evening without fail. "it was all the way up at islington, sir, and i paid the cabman three-and-six altogether, which he said it were his fare. and how has the poor dear been while i was away?" asked mrs. pratt, with her head on one side and an air of extreme solicitude. "very much as you see him now. he has mentioned a name once or twice, the name of marian. have you ever heard that?" "i should say i have, sir, times and often since he's been ill. 'marian, why don't you come to me?' so pitiful; and then, 'lost, lost!' in such a awful wild way. i think it must be some favourite sister, sir, or a young lady as he has kep' company with." "marian!" cried the voice from the bed, as if their cautious talk had penetrated to that dim brain. "marian! o no, no; she is gone; i have lost her! well, i wished it; i wanted my freedom." gilbert started, and stood transfixed, looking intently at the unconscious speaker. yes, here was the clue to the mystery. john saltram had grown tired of his stolen bride--had sighed for his freedom. who should say that he had not taken some iniquitous means to rid himself of the tie that had grown troublesome to him? gilbert fenton remembered ellen carley's suspicions. he was no longer inclined to despise them. it was dreary work to sit by the bedside watching that familiar face, to which fever and delirium had given a strange weird look; dismal work to count the moments, and wonder when that voice, now so thick of utterance as it went on muttering incoherent sentences and meaningless phrases, would be able to reply to those questions which gilbert fenton was burning to ask. was it a guilty conscience, the dull slow agony of remorse, which had stricken this man down--this strong powerfully-built man, who was a stranger to illness and all physical suffering? was the body only crushed by the burden of the mind? gilbert could not find any answer to these questions. he only knew that his sometime friend lay there helpless, unconscious, removed beyond his reach as completely as if he had been lying in his coffin. "o god, it is hard to bear!" he said half aloud: "it is a bitter trial to bear. if this illness should end in death, i may never know marian's fate." he sat in the sick man's room all through that long dismal afternoon, waiting to see the doctor, and with the same hopeless thoughts repeating themselves perpetually in his mind. it was nearly eight o'clock when mr. mew at last made his evening visit. he was a grave gray-haired little man, with a shrewd face and a pleasant manner; a man who inspired gilbert with confidence, and whose presence was cheering in a sick-room; but he did not speak very hopefully of john saltram. "it is a bad case, sir--a very bad case," he said gravely, after he had made his careful examination of the patient's condition. "there has been a violent cold caught, you see, through our poor friend's recklessness in neglecting to change his damp clothes, and rheumatic fever has set in. but it appears to me that there are other causes at work--mental disturbance, and so on. our friend has been taxing his brain a little too severely, i gather from mrs. pratt's account of him; and these things will tell, sir; sooner or later they have their effect." "then you apprehend danger?" "well, yes; i dare not tell you that there is an absence of danger. mr. saltram has a fine constitution, a noble frame; but the strain is a severe one, especially upon the mind." "you spoke just now of over-work as a cause for this mental disturbance. might it not rather proceed from some secret trouble of mind, some hidden care?" gilbert asked anxiously. "that, sir, is an open question. the mind is unhinged; there is no doubt of that. there is something more here than the ordinary delirium we look for in fever cases." "you have talked of a physician, mr. mew; would it not be well to call one in immediately?" "i should feel more comfortable if my opinion were supported, sir: not that i believe there is anything more can be done for our patient than i have been doing; but the case is a critical one, and i should be glad to feel myself supported." "if you will give me the name and address of the gentleman you would like to call in, i will go for him immediately." "to-night? nay, my dear sir, there is no occasion for such haste; to-morrow morning will do very well." "to-morrow morning, then; but i will make the appointment to-night, if i can." mr. mew named a physician high in reputation as a specialist in such cases as john saltram's; and gilbert dashed off at once in a hansom to obtain the promise of an early visit from this gentleman on the following morning. he succeeded in his errand; and on returning to the temple found the professional nurse installed, and the sick-room brightened and freshened a little by her handiwork. the patient was asleep, and his slumber was more quiet than usual. gilbert had eaten nothing since breakfast, and it was now nearly nine o'clock in the evening; but before going out to some neighbouring tavern to snatch a hasty dinner, he stopped to tell mrs. pratt that he should sleep in his friend's chamber that night. "why, you don't mean that, sir, sure to goodness," cried the laundress, alarmed; "and not so much as a sofy bedstead, nor nothing anyways comfortable." "i could sleep upon three or four chairs, if it were necessary; but there is an old sofa in the bedroom. you might bring that into this room for me; and the nurse can have it in the day-time. she won't want to be lying down to-night, i daresay. i don't suppose i shall sleep much myself, but i am a little knocked up, and shall be glad of some sort of rest. i want to be on the spot, come what may." "but, sir, with the new nurse and me, there surely can't be no necessity; and you might be round the first thing in the morning like to see how the poor dear gentleman has slep'." "i know that, but i would rather be on the spot. i have my own especial reasons. you can go home to your children." "thank you kindly, sir; which i shall be very glad to take care of 'em, poor things. and i hope, sir, as you won't forget that i've gone through a deal for mr. saltram--if so be as he shouldn't get better himself, which the lord forbid--to take my trouble into consideration, bein' as he were always a free-handed gentleman, though not rich." "your services will not be forgotten, mrs. pratt, depend upon it. perhaps i'd better give you a couple of sovereigns on account: that'll make matters straight for the present." "yes, sir; and many thanks for your generosity," replied the laundress, agreeably surprised by this prompt donation, and dropping grateful curtseys before her benefactor; "and mr. saltram shall want nothing as my care can provide for him, you may depend upon it." "that is well. and now i am going out to get some dinner; i shall be back in half an hour." the press and bustle of the day's work was over at the tavern to which gilbert bent his steps. dinners and diners seemed to be done with for one more day; and there were only a couple of drowsy-looking waiters folding table-cloths and putting away cruet-stands and other paraphernalia in long narrow closets cut in the papered walls, and invisible by day. one of these functionaries grew brisk again, with a wan factitious briskness, at sight of gilbert, made haste to redecorate one of the tables, and in bland insinuating tones suggested a dinner of six courses or so, as likely to be agreeable to a lonely and belated diner; well aware in the depths of his inner consciousness that the six courses would be all more or less warmings-up of viands that had figured in the day's bill of fare. "bring me a chop or a steak, and a pint of dry sherry," gilbert said wearily. "have a slice of turbot and lobster-sauce, sir--the turbot are uncommon fine to-day; and a briled fowl and mushrooms. it will be ready in five minutes." "you may bring me the fowl, if you like: i won't wait for fish. i'm in a hurry." the attendant gave a faint sigh, and communicated the order for the fowl and mushrooms through a speaking-tube. it was the business of his life to beguile his master's customers into over-eating themselves, and to set his face against chops and steaks; but he felt that this particular customer was proof against his blandishments. he took gilbert an evening paper, and then subsided into a pensive silence until the fowl appeared in an agreeable frizzling state, fresh from the gridiron, but a bird of some experience notwithstanding, and wingless. it was a very hasty meal. gilbert was eager to return to those chambers in the temple--eager to be listening once more for some chance words of meaning that might be dropped from john saltram's pale parched lips in the midst of incoherent ravings. come what might, he wanted to be near at hand, to watch that sick-bed with a closer vigil than hired nurse ever kept; to be ready to surprise the briefest interval of consciousness that might come all of a sudden to that hapless fever-stricken sinner. who should say that such an interval would not come, or who could tell what such an interval might reveal? gilbert fenton paid for his dinner, left half his wine undrunk, and hurried away; leaving the waiter with rather a contemptuous idea of him, though that individual condescended to profit by his sobriety, and finished the dry sherry at a draught. it was nearly ten when gilbert returned to the chambers, and all was still quiet, that heavy slumber continuing; an artificial sleep at the best, produced by one of mr. mew's sedatives. the sofa had been wheeled from the bedroom to the sitting-room, and placed in a comfortable corner by the fire. there were preparations too for a cup of tea, to be made and consumed at any hour agreeable to the watcher; a small teakettle simmering on the hob; a tray with a cup and saucer, and queer little black earthenware teapot, on the table; a teacaddy and other appliances close at hand,--all testifying to the grateful attention of the vanished pratt. gilbert shared the nurse's watch till past midnight. long before that john saltram woke from his heavy sleep, and there was more of that incoherent talk so painful to hear--talk of people that were dead, of scenes that were far away, even of those careless happy wanderings in which those two college friends had been together; and then mere nonsense talk, shreds and patches of random thought, that scorned to be drawn from some rubbish-chamber, some waste-paper basket of the brain. it was weary work. he woke towards eleven, and a little after twelve dropped asleep again; but this time, the effect of the sedative having worn off, the sleep was restless and uneasy. then came a brief interval of quiet; and in this gilbert left him, and flung himself down upon the sofa, to sink into a slumber that was scarcely more peaceful than that of the sick man. he was thoroughly worn out, however, and slept for some hours, to be awakened suddenly at last by a shrill cry in the next room. he sprang up from the sofa, and rushed in. john saltram was sitting up in bed, propped by the pillows on which his two elbows were planted, looking about him with a fierce haggard face, and calling for "marian." the nurse had fallen asleep in her arm-chair by the fire, and was slumbering placidly. "marian," he cried, "marian, why have you left me? god knows i loved you; yes, even when i seemed cold and neglectful. everything was against me; but i loved you, my dear, i loved you! did i ever say that you came between me and fortune--was i mean enough, base enough, ever to say that? it was a lie, my love; you were my fortune. were poverty and obscurity hard things to bear for you? no, my darling, no; i will face them to-morrow, if you will come back to me. o no, no, she is gone; my life has gone: i broke her heart with my hard bitter words; i drove my angel away from me." he had not spoken so coherently since gilbert had been with him that day. surely this must be an interval of consciousness, or semi-consciousness. gilbert went to the bedside, and, seating himself there quietly, looked intently at the altered face, which stared at him without a gleam of recognition. "speak to me, john saltram," he said. "you know me, don't you--the man who was once your friend, gilbert fenton?" the other burst into a wild bitter laugh. "gilbert fenton--my friend, the man who trusts me still! poor old gilbert! and i fancied that i loved him, that i would have freely sacrificed my own happiness for his." "and yet you betrayed him," gilbert said in a low distinct voice. "but that may be forgiven, if you have been guilty of no deeper wrong than that. john saltram, as you have a soul to be saved, what have you done with marian--with--your wife?" it cost him something, even in that moment of excitement, to pronounce those two words. "killed her!" the sick man answered with the same mad laugh. "she was too good for me, you see; and i grew weary of her calm beauty, and i sickened of her tranquil goodness. first i sacrificed honour, friendship, everything to win her; and then i got tired of my prize. it is my nature, i suppose; but i loved her all the time; she had twined herself about my heart somehow. i knew it when she was lost." "what have you done with her?" repeated gilbert, in a low stern voice, with his grasp upon john saltram's arm. "what have i done with her? i forget. she is gone--i wanted my freedom; i felt myself fettered, a ruined man. she is gone; and i am free, free to make a better marriage." "o god!" muttered gilbert, "is this man the blackest villain that ever cumbered the earth? what am i to think, what am i to believe?" again he repeated the same question, with a stern kind of patience, as if he would give this guilty wretch the benefit of every possible doubt, the unwilling pity which his condition demanded. alas! he could obtain no coherent answer to his persistent questioning. vague self-accusation, mad reiteration of that one fact of his loss; nothing more distinct came from those fevered lips, nor did one look of recognition flash into those bloodshot eyes. the time at which this mystery was to be solved had not come yet; there was nothing to be done but to wait, and gilbert waited with a sublime patience through all the alternations of a long and wearisome sickness. "talk of friends," mrs. pratt exclaimed, in a private conference with the nurse; "never did i see such a friend as mr. fenting, sacrificing of himself as he do, day and night, to look after that poor creature in there, and taking no better rest than he can get on that old horsehair sofy, which brickbats or knife boards isn't harder, and never do you hear him murmur." and yet for this man, whose battle with the grim enemy, death, he watched so patiently, what feeling could there be in gilbert fenton's heart in all the days to come but hatred or contempt? he had loved him so well, and trusted him so completely, and this was the end of it. christmas came while john saltram was lying at death's door, feebly fighting that awful battle, struggling unconsciously with the bony hand that was trying to drag him across that fatal threshold; just able to keep himself on this side of that dread portal beyond which there lies so deep a mystery, so profound a darkness. christmas came; and there were bells ringing, and festive gatherings here and there about the great dreary town, and gilbert fenton was besieged by friendly invitations from mrs. lister, remonstrating with him for his want of common affection in preferring to spend that season among his london friends rather than in the bosom of his family. gilbert wrote: to his sister telling her that he had particular business which detained him in town. but had it been otherwise, had he not been bound prisoner to john saltram's sick-room, he would scarcely have cared to take his part in the conventional feastings and commonplace jovialities of lidford house. had he not dreamed of a bright home which was to be his at this time, a home beautified by the presence of the woman he loved? ah, what delight to have welcomed the sacred day in the holy quiet of such a home, they two alone together, with all the world shut out! chapter xxxi. ellen carley's trials. christmas came in the old farm-house near crosber; and ellen carley, who had no idea of making any troubled thoughts of her own an excuse for neglect of her household duties, made the sombre panelled rooms bright with holly and ivy, laurel and fir, and busied herself briskly in the confection of such pies and puddings as hampshire considered necessary to the due honour of that pious festival. there were not many people to see the greenery and bright holly-berries which embellished the grave old rooms, not many whom ellen very much cared for to taste the pies and puddings; but duty must be done, and the bailiff's daughter did her work with a steady industry which knew no wavering. her life had been a hard one of late, very lonely since mrs. holbrook's disappearance, and haunted with a presence which was most hateful to her. stephen whitelaw had taken to coming to the grange much oftener than of old. there was seldom an evening now on which his insignificant figure was not to be seen planted by the hearth in the snug little oak-parlour, smoking his pipe in that dull silent way of his, which was calculated to aggravate a lively person like ellen carley into some open expression of disgust or dislike. of late, too, his attentions had been of a more pronounced character; he took to dropping sly hints of his pretensions, and it was impossible for ellen any longer to doubt that he wanted her to be his wife. more than this, there was a tone of assurance about the man, quiet as he was, which exasperated miss carley beyond all measure. he had the air of being certain of success, and on more than one occasion spoke of the day when ellen would be mistress of wyncomb farm. on his repetition of this offensive speech one evening, the girl took him up sharply:-- "not quite so fast, if you please, mr. whitelaw," she said; "it takes two to make a bargain of that kind, just the same as it takes two to quarrel. there's many curious changes may come in a person's life, no doubt, and folks never know what's going to happen to them; but whatever changes may come upon me, _that_ isn't one of them. i may live to see the inside of the workhouse, perhaps, when i'm too old for service; but i shall never sleep under the roof of wyncomb farmhouse." mr. whitelaw gave a spiteful little laugh. "what a spirited one she is, ain't she, now?" he said with a sneer. "o, you won't, won't you, my lass; you turn up that pretty little nose of yours--it do turn up a bit of itself, don't it, though?--at wyncomb farm and stephen whitelaw; your father tells a different story, nell." "then my father tells a lying story," answered the girl, blushing crimson with indignation; "and it isn't for want o' knowing the truth. he knows that, if it was put upon me to choose between your house and the union, i'd go to the union--and with a light heart too, to be free of you. i didn't want to be rude, mr. whitelaw; for you've been civil-spoken enough to me, and i daresay you're a good friend to my father; but i can't help speaking the truth, and you've brought it on yourself with your nonsense." "she's got a devil of a tongue of her own, you see, whitelaw," said the bailiff, with a savage glance at his daughter; "but she don't mean above a quarter what she says--and when her time comes, she'll do as she's bid, or she's no child of mine." "o, i forgive her," replied mr. whitelaw, with a placid air of superiority; "i'm not the man to bear malice against a pretty woman, and to my mind a pretty woman looks all the prettier when she's in a passion. i'm not in a hurry, you see, carley; i can bide my time; but i shall never take a mistress to wyncomb unless i can take the one i like." after this particular evening, mr. whitelaw's presence seemed more than ever disagreeable to poor ellen. he had the air of her fate somehow, sitting rooted to the hearth night after night, and she grew to regard him with a half superstitious horror, as if he possessed some occult power over her, and could bend her to his wishes in spite of herself. the very quietude of the man became appalling to her. such a man seemed capable of accomplishing anything by the mere force of persistence, by the negative power that lay in his silent nature. "i suppose he means to sit in that room night after night, smoking his pipe and staring with those pale stupid eyes of his, till i change my mind and promise to marry him," ellen said to herself, as she meditated angrily on the annoyance of mr. whitelaw's courtship. "he may sit there till his hair turns gray--if ever such red hair does turn to anything better than itself--and he'll find no change in me. i wish frank were here to keep up my courage. i think if he were to ask me to run away with him, i should be tempted to say yes, at the risk of bringing ruin upon both of us; anything to escape out of the power of that man. but come what may, i won't endure it much longer. i'll run away to service soon after christmas, and father will only have himself to thank for the loss of me." it was mr. whitelaw who appeared as principal guest at the grange on christmas-day; mr. whitelaw, supported on this occasion by a widowed cousin of his who had kept house for him for some years, and who bore a strong family likeness to him both in person and manner, and ellen carley thought that it was impossible for the world to contain a more disagreeable pair. these were the guests who consumed great quantities of ellen's pies and puddings, and who sat under her festal garlands of holly and laurel. she had been especially careful to hang no scrap of mistletoe, which might have afforded mr. whitelaw an excuse for a practical display of his gallantry; a fact which did not escape the playful observation of his cousin, mrs. tadman. "young ladies don't often forget to put up a bit of mistletoe," said this matron, "when there's a chance of them they like being by;" and she glanced in a meaning way from ellen to the master of wyncomb farm. "miss carley isn't like the generality of young ladies," mr. whitelaw answered with a glum look, and his kinswoman was fain to drop the subject. alone with ellen, sly mrs. tadman took occasion to launch out into enthusiastic praises of her cousin; to which the girl listened in profound silence, closely watched all the time by the woman's sharp gray eyes. and then by degrees her tone changed ever so little, and she owned that her kinsman was not altogether faultless; indeed it was curious to perceive what numerous shortcomings were coexistent with those shining merits of his. "he has been a good friend to me," continued the matron; "that i never have denied and never shall deny. but i have been a good servant to him; ah! there isn't a hired servant as would toil and drudge, and watch and pinch, as i have done to please him, and never have had payment from him more than a new gown at christmas, or a five-pound note after harvest. and of course, if ever he marries, i shall have to look for a new home; for i know too much of his ways, i daresay, for a wife to like to have me about her--and me of an age when it seem a hard to have to go among strangers--and not having saved sixpence, where i might have put by a hundred pounds easy, if i hadn't been working without wages for a relation. but i've not been called a servant, you see; and i suppose stephen thinks that's payment enough for my trouble. goodness knows i've saved him many a pound, and that he'll know when i'm gone; for he's near, is stephen, and it goes to his heart to part with a shilling." "but why should you ever leave him, mrs. tadman?" ellen asked kindly. "i shouldn't think he could have a better housekeeper." "perhaps not," answered the widow, shaking her head with mysterious significance; "but his wife won't think that; and when he's got a wife he'll want her to be his housekeeper, and to pinch and scrape as i've pinched and scraped for him. lord help her!" concluded mrs. tadman, with a faint groan, which was far from complimentary to her relative's character. "but perhaps he never will marry," argued ellen coolly. "o, yes, he will, miss carley," replied mrs. tadman, with another significant movement of her head; "he's set his heart on that, and he's set his heart on the young woman he means to marry." "he can't marry her unless she's willing to be his wife, any how," said ellen, reddening a little. "o, he'll find a way to make her consent, miss carley, depend upon that. whatever stephen whitelaw sets his mind upon, he'll do. but i don't envy that poor young woman; for she'll have a hard life of it at wyncomb, and a hard master in my cousin stephen." "she must be a very weak-minded young woman if she marries him against her will," ellen said laughing; and then ran off to get the tea ready, leaving mrs. tadman to her meditations, which were not of a lively nature at the best of times. that christmas-day came to an end at last, after a long evening in the oak parlour enlivened by a solemn game at whist and a ponderous supper of cold sirloin and mince pies; and looking out at the wintry moonlight, and the shadowy garden and flat waste of farm-land from the narrow casement in her own room. ellen carley wondered what those she loved best in the world were doing and thinking of under that moonlit sky. where was marian holbrook, that new-found friend whom she had loved so well, and whose fate remained so profound a mystery? and what was frank randall doing, far away in london, where he had gone to fill a responsible position in a large city firm of solicitors, and whence he had promised to return faithful to his first love, as soon as he found himself fairly on the road to a competence wherewith to endow her? thus it was that poor ellen kept the close of her christmas-day, looking out over the cold moonlit fields, and wondering how she was to escape from the persecution of stephen whitelaw. that obnoxious individual had invited mr. carley and his daughter to spend new-year's-day at wyncomb; a display of hospitality so foreign to his character, that it was scarcely strange that mrs. tadman opened her eyes and stared aghast as she heard the invitation given. it had been accepted too, much to ellen's disgust; and her father told her more than once in the course of the ensuing week that she was to put on her best gown, and smarten herself up a bit, on new-year's-day. "and if you want a new gown, nell, i don't mind giving it you," said the bailiff, in a burst of generosity, and with the prevailing masculine idea that a new gown was a panacea for all feminine griefs. "you can walk over to malsham and buy it any afternoon you like." but ellen did not care for a new gown, and told her father so, with a word or two of thanks for his offer. she did not desire fine dresses; she had indeed been looking over and furbishing up her wardrobe of late, with a view to that possible flight of hers, and it was to her cotton working gowns that she had paid most attention: looking forward to begin a harder life in some stranger's service--ready to endure anything rather than to marry stephen whitelaw. and of late the conviction had grown upon her that her father was very much in earnest, and that before long it would be a question whether she should obey him, or be turned out of doors. she had seen his dealings with other people, and she knew him to be a passionate determined man, hard as iron in his anger. "i won't give him the trouble to turn me out of doors," ellen said to herself. "when i know his mind, and that there's no hope of turning him, i'll get away quietly, and find some new home. he has no real power over me, and i have but to earn my own living to be independent of him. and i don't suppose frank will think any the worse of me for having been a servant," thought the girl, with something like a sob. it seemed hard that she must needs sink lower in her lover's eyes, when she was so far beneath him already; he a lawyer's son, a gentleman by education, and she an untaught country girl. chapter xxxii. the padlocked door at wyncomb. the countenance of the new year was harsh, rugged, and gloomy--as of a stony-hearted, strong-minded new year, that had no idea of making his wintry aspect pleasant, or brightening the gloom of his infancy with any deceptive gleams of january sunshine. a bitter north wind made a dreary howling among the leafless trees, and swept across the broad bare fields with merciless force--a bleak cruel new-year's-day, on which to go out a-pleasuring; but it was more in harmony with ellen carley's thoughts than brighter weather could have been; and she went to and fro about her morning's work, up and down cold windy passages, and in and out of the frozen dairy, unmoved by the bitter wind which swept the crisp waves of dark brown hair from her low brows, and tinged the tip of her impertinent little nose with a faint wintry bloom. the bailiff was in very high spirits this first morning of the new year--almost uproarious spirits indeed, which vented themselves in snatches of boisterous song, as he bustled backwards and forwards from house to stables, dressed in his best blue coat and bright buttons and a capacious buff waistcoat; with his ponderous nether limbs clothed in knee-cords, and boots with vinegar tops; looking altogether the typical british farmer. those riotous bursts of song made his daughter shudder. somehow, his gaiety was more alarming to her than his customary morose humour. it was all the more singular, too, because of late william carley had been especially silent and moody, with the air of a man whose mind is weighed down by some heavy burden--so gloomy indeed, that his daughter had questioned him more than once, entreating to know if he were distressed by any secret trouble, anything going wrong about the farm, and so on. the girl had only brought upon herself harsh angry answers by these considerate inquiries, and had been told to mind her own business, and not pry into matters that in no way concerned her. "but it does concern me to see you downhearted, father," she answered gently. "does it really, my girl? what! your father's something more than a stranger to you, is he? i shouldn't have thought it, seeing how you've gone again me in some things lately. howsomedever, when i want your help, i shall know how to ask for it, and i hope you'll give it freely. i don't want fine words; they never pulled anybody out of the ditch that i've heard tell of." whatever the bailiff's trouble had been, it seemed to be lightened to-day, ellen thought; and yet that unusual noisy gaiety of his gave her an uncomfortable feeling: it did not seem natural or easy. her household work was done by noon, and she dressed hurriedly, while her father called for her impatiently from below--standing at the foot of the wide bare old staircase, and bawling up to her that they should be late at wyncomb. she looked very pretty in her neat dark-blue merino dress and plain linen collar, when she came tripping downstairs at last, flushed with the hurry of her toilet, and altogether so bright a creature that it seemed a hard thing she should not be setting out upon some real pleasure trip, instead of that most obnoxious festival to which she was summoned. her father looked at her with a grim kind of approval. "you'll do well enough, lass," he said; "but i should like you to have had something smarter than that blue stuff. i wouldn't have minded a couple of pounds or so to buy you a silk gown. but you'll be able to buy yourself as many silk gowns as ever you like by-and-by, if you play your cards well and don't make a fool of yourself." ellen knew what he meant well enough, but did not care to take any notice of the speech. the time would soon come, no doubt, when she must take her stand in direct opposition to him, and in the meanwhile it would be worse than foolish to waste breath in idle squabbling. they were to drive to wyncomb in the bailiff's gig; rather an obsolete vehicle, with a yellow body, a mouldy leather apron, and high wheels picked out with red, drawn by a tall gray horse that did duty with the plough on ordinary occasions. stephen whitelaw's house was within an easy walk of the grange; but the gig was a more dignified mode of approach than a walk, and the bailiff insisted on driving his daughter to her suitor's abode in that conveyance. wyncomb was a long low gray stone house, of an unknown age; a spacious habitation enough, with many rooms, and no less than three staircases, but possessing no traces of that fallen grandeur which pervaded the grange. it had been nothing better than a farm-house from time immemorial, and had been added to and extended and altered to suit the convenience of successive generations of farmers. it was a gloomy-looking house at all times, ellen carley thought, but especially gloomy under that leaden winter sky; a house which it would have been almost impossible to associate with pleasant family gatherings or the joyous voices of young children; a grim desolate-looking house, that seemed to freeze the passing traveller with its cold blank stare, as if its gloomy portal had a voice to say to him, "however lost you may be for lack of shelter, however weary for want of rest, come not here!" idle fancies, perhaps; but they were the thoughts with which wyncomb farmhouse always inspired ellen carley. "the place just suits its master's hard miserly nature," she said. "one would think it had been made on purpose for him; or perhaps the whitelaws have been like that from generation to generation." there was no such useless adornment as a flower-garden at wyncomb. stephen whitelaw cared about as much for roses and lilies as he cared for greek poetry or beethoven's sonatas. at the back of the house there was a great patch of bare shadowless ground devoted to cabbages and potatoes, with a straggling border of savoury herbs; a patch not even divided from the farm land beyond, but melting imperceptibly into a field of mangel-wurzel. there were no superfluous hedges upon mr. whitelaw's dominions; not a solitary tree to give shelter to the tired cattle in the long hot summer days. noble old oaks and patriarch beeches, tall sycamores and grand flowering chestnuts, had been stubbed up remorselessly by that economical agriculturist; and he was now the proud possessor of one of the ugliest and most profitable farms in hampshire. in front of the gray-stone house the sheep browsed up to the parlour windows, and on both sides of the ill-kept carriage-drive leading from the white gate that opened into the meadow to the door of mr. whitelaw's abode. no sweet-scented woodbine or pale monthly roses beautified the front of the house in spring or summer time. the neglected ivy had overgrown one end of the long stone building and crept almost to the ponderous old chimneys; and this decoration, which had come of itself, was the only spot of greenery about the place. five tall poplars grew in a row about a hundred yards from the front windows; these, strange to say, mr. whitelaw had suffered to remain. they served to add a little extra gloom to the settled grimness of the place, and perhaps harmonised with his tastes. within wyncomb farmhouse was no more attractive than without. the rooms were low and dark; the windows, made obscure by means of heavy woodwork and common glass, let in what light they did admit with a grudging air, and seemed to frown upon the inmates of the chamber they were supposed to beautify. there were all manner of gloomy passages, and unexpected flights of half-a-dozen stairs or so, in queer angles of the house, and there was a prevailing darkness everywhere; for the whitelaws of departed generations, objecting to the window tax, had blocked up every casement that it was possible to block up; and the stranger exploring wyncomb farmhouse was always coming upon those blank plastered windows, which had an unpleasant ghostly aspect, and set him longing for a fireman's hatchet to hew them open and let in the light of day. the furniture was of the oldest, black with age, worm-eaten, ponderous; queer old four-post bedsteads, with dingy hangings of greenish brown or yellowish green, from which every vestige of the original hue had faded long ago; clumsy bureaus, and stiff high-backed chairs with thick legs and gouty feet, heavy to move and uncomfortable to sit upon. the house was clean enough, and the bare floors of the numerous bed-chambers, which were only enlivened here and there with small strips or bands of dutch carpet, sent up a homely odour of soft soap; for mrs. tadman took a fierce delight in cleaning, and the solitary household drudge who toiled under her orders had a hard time of it. there was a dismal kind of neatness about everything, and a bleak empty look in the sparsely furnished rooms, which wore no pleasant sign of occupation, no look of home. the humblest cottage, with four tiny square rooms and a thatched roof, and just a patch of old-fashioned garden with a sweetbrier hedge and roses growing here and there among the cabbages; would have been a pleasanter habitation than wyncomb, ellen carley thought. mr. whitelaw exhibited an unwonted liberality upon this occasion. the dinner was a ponderous banquet, and the dessert a noble display of nuts and oranges, figs and almonds and raisins, flanked by two old-fashioned decanters of port and sherry; and both the bailiff and his host did ample justice to the feast. it was a long dreary afternoon of eating and drinking; and ellen was not sorry to get away from the prim wainscoted parlour, where her father and mr. whitelaw were solemnly sipping their wine, to wander over the house with mrs. tadman. it was about four o'clock when she slipped quietly out of the room at that lady's invitation, and the lobbies and long passages had a shadowy look in the declining light. there was light enough for her to see the rooms, however; for there were no rare collections of old china, no pictures or adornments of any kind, to need a minute inspection. "it's a fine old place, isn't it?" asked mrs. tadman. "there's not many farmers can boast of such a house as wyncomb." "it's large enough," ellen answered, with a tone which implied the reverse of admiration; "but it's not a place i should like to live in. i'm not one to believe in ghosts or such nonsense, but if i could have any such foolish thoughts, i should have them here. the house looks as if it was haunted, somehow." mrs. tadman laughed a shrill hard laugh, and rubbed her skinny hands with an air of satisfaction. "you're not easy to please, miss carley," she said; "most folks think a deal of wyncomb; for, you see, it's only them that live in a house as can know how dull it is; and as to the place being haunted, i never heard tell of anything of that kind. the whitelaws ain't the kind of people to come back to this world, unless they come to fetch their money, and then they'd come fast enough, i warrant. i used to see a good deal of my uncle, john whitelaw, when i was a girl, and never did a son take after his father closer than my cousin stephen takes after him; just the same saving prudent ways, and just the same masterful temper, always kept under in that quiet way of his." as ellen carley showed herself profoundly indifferent to the lights and shades of mr. whitelaw's character, mrs. tadman did not pursue the subject, but with a gentle sigh led the way to another room, and so on from room to room, till they had explored all that floor of the house. "there's the attics above; but you won't care to see _them_," she said. "the shepherd and five other men sleep up there. stephen thinks it keeps them steadier sleeping under the same roof with their master; and he's able to ring them up of a morning, and to know when they go to their work. it's wearying for me to have to get up and see to their breakfasts, but i can't trust martha holden to do that, or she'd let them eat us out of house and home. there's no knowing what men like that can eat, and a side of bacon would go as fast as if you was to melt it down to tallow. but you must know what they are, miss carley, having to manage for your father." "yes," ellen answered, "i'm used to hard work." "ah," murmured the matron, with a sigh, "you'd have plenty of it, if you came here." they were at the end of a long passage by this time; a passage leading to the extreme end of the house, and forming part of that ivy-covered wing which seemed older than the rest of the building. it was on a lower level than the other part, and they had descended two or three steps at the entrance to this passage. the ceilings were lower too, the beams that supported them more massive, the diamond-paned windows smaller and more heavily leaded, and there was a faint musty odour as of a place that was kept shut up and uninhabited. "there's nothing more to see here," said mrs. tadman quickly; "i had better go back. i don't know what brought me here; it was talking, i suppose, made me come without thinking. there's nothing to show you this way." "but there's another room there," ellen said, pointing to a door just before them--a heavy clumsily-made door, painted black. "that room--well, yes; it's a kind of a room, but hasn't been used for fifty years and more, i've heard say. stephen keeps seeds there and such-like. it's always locked, and he keeps the key of it." there was nothing in this closed room to excite either curiosity or interest in ellen's mind, and she was turning away from the door with perfect indifference, when she started and suddenly seized mrs. tadman's arm. "hark!" she said, in a frightened, breathless way; "did you hear that?" "what, child?" "did you say there was no one in there--no one?" "lord bless your heart, no, miss carley, nor ever is. what a turn you did give me, grasping hold of my arm like that!" "i heard something in there--a footstep. it must be the servant." "what, martha holden! i should like to see her venturing into any room stephen keeps private to himself. besides, that door's kept locked; try it, and satisfy yourself." the door was indeed locked--a door with a clumsy old-fashioned latch, securely fastened by a staple and padlock. ellen tried it with her own hand. "is there no other door to the room?" she asked. "none; and only one window, that looks into the wood-yard, and is almost always blocked up with the wood piled outside it. you must have heard the muslin bags of seed blowing about, if you heard anything." "i heard a footstep," said ellen firmly; "a human footstep. i told you the house was haunted, mrs. tadman." "lor, miss carley, i wish you wouldn't say such things; it's enough to make one's blood turn cold. do come downstairs and have a cup of tea. it's quite dark, i declare; and you've given me the shivers with your queer talk." "i'm sorry for that; but the noise i heard must have been either real or ghostly, and you won't believe it's real." "it was the seed-bags, of course." "they couldn't make a noise like human footsteps. however, it's no business of mine, mrs. tadman, and i don't want to frighten you." they went downstairs to the parlour, where the tea-tray and a pair of candles were soon brought, and where mrs. tadman stirred the fire into a blaze with an indifference to the consumption of fuel which made her kinsman stare, even on that hospitable occasion. the blaze made the dark wainscoted room cheerful of aspect, however, which the two candles could not have done, as their light was almost absorbed by the gloomy panelling. after tea there was whist again, and a considerable consumption of spirits-and-water on the part of the two gentlemen, in which mrs. tadman joined modestly, with many protestations, and, with the air of taking only an occasional spoonful, contrived to empty her tumbler, and allowed herself to be persuaded to take another by the bailiff, whose joviality on the occasion was inexhaustible. the day's entertainment came to an end at last, to ellen's inexpressible relief; and her father drove her home in the yellow gig at rather an alarming pace, and with some tendency towards heeling over into a ditch. they got over the brief journey safely, however, and mr. carley was still in high good humour. he went off to see to the putting up of his horse himself, telling his daughter to wait till he came back, he had something particular to say to her before she went to bed. chapter xxxiii. "what must be shall be." ellen carley waited in the little parlour, dimly lighted by one candle. the fire had very nearly gone out, and she had some difficulty in brightening it a little. she waited very patiently, wondering what her father could have to say to her, and not anticipating much pleasure from the interview. he was going to talk about stephen whitelaw and his hateful money perhaps. but let him say what he would, she was prepared to hold her own firmly, determined to provoke him by no open opposition, unless matters came to an extremity, and then to let him see at once and for ever that her resolution was fixed, and that it was useless to persecute her. "if i have to go out of this house to-night, i will not flinch," she said to herself. she had some time to wait. it had been past midnight when they came home, and it was a quarter to one when william carley came into the parlour. he was in an unusually communicative mood to-night, and had been superintending the grooming of his horse, and talking to the underling who had waited up to receive him. he was a little unsteady in his gait as he came into the parlour, and ellen knew that he had drunk a good deal at wyncomb. it was no new thing for her to see him in this condition unhappily, and the shrinking shuddering sensation with which he inspired her to-night was painfully familiar. "it's very late, father," she said gently, as the bailiff flung himself heavily into an arm-chair by the fire-place. "if you don't want me for anything particular, i should be glad to go to bed." "would you, my lass?" he asked grimly. "but, you see, i do want you for something particular, something uncommon particular; so there's no call for you to be in a hurry. sit down yonder," he added, pointing to the chair opposite his own. "i've got something to say to you, something serious." "father," said the girl, looking him full in the face, pale to the lips, but very firm, "i don't think you're in a state to talk seriously of anything." "o, you don't, don't you, miss impudence? you think i'm drunk, perhaps. you'll find that, drunk or sober, i've only one mind about you, and that i mean to be obeyed. sit down, i tell you. i'm not in the humour to stand any nonsense to-night. sit down." ellen obeyed this mandate, uttered with a fierceness unusual even in mr. carley, who was never a soft-spoken man. she seated herself quietly on the opposite side of the hearth, while her father took down his pipe from the chimney-piece, and slowly filled it, with hands that trembled a little over the accustomed task. when he had lighted the pipe, and smoked about half-a-dozen whiffs with a great assumption of coolness, he addressed himself to his daughter in an altered and conciliating tone. "well, nelly," he said, "you've had a rare day at wyncomb, and a regular ramble over the old house with steph's cousin. what do you think of it?" "i think it's a queer gloomy old place enough, father. i wonder there's any one can live in it. the dark bare-looking rooms gave me the horrors. i used to think this house was dull, and seemed as if it was haunted; but it's lively and gay as can be, compared to wyncomb." "humph!" muttered the bailiff. "you're a fanciful young lady, miss nell, and don't know a fine substantial old house when you see one. life's come a little too easy to you, perhaps. it might have been better for you if you'd seen more of the rough side. being your own missus too soon, and missus of such a place as this, has spoiled you a bit. i tell you, nell, there ain't a better house in hampshire than wyncomb, though it mayn't suit your fanciful notions. do you know the size of stephen whitelaw's farm?" "no, father; i've never thought about it." "what do you say to three hundred acres--over three hundred, nigher to four perhaps?" "i suppose it's a large farm, father. but i know nothing about such things." "you suppose it's large, and you know nothing about such things!" cried the bailiff, with an air of supreme irritation. "i don't believe any man was ever plagued with such an aggravating daughter as mine. what do you say to being mistress of such a place, girl?--mistress of close upon four hundred acres of land; not another man's servant, bound to account for every blade of grass and every ear of corn, as i am, but free and independent mistress of the place, with the chance of being left a widow by and by, and having it all under your own thumb; what do you say to that?" "only the same that i have always said, father. nothing would ever persuade me to marry stephen whitelaw. i'd rather starve." "and you shall starve, if you stick to that," roared william carley with a blasphemous oath. "but you won't be such a fool, nell. you'll hear reason; you won't stand out against your poor old father and against your own interests. the long and the short of it is, i've given whitelaw my promise that you shall be his wife between this and easter." "what!" exclaimed ellen, with a faint cry of horror; "you don't mean that you've promised that, father! you can't mean it!" "i can and do mean it, lass." "then you've made a promise that will never be kept. you might have known as much when you made it. i'm sure i've been plain-spoken enough about stephen whitelaw." "that was a girl's silly talk. i didn't think to find you a fool when i came to the point. i let you have your say, and looked to time to bring you to reason. come, nell, you're not going against your father, are you?" "i must, father, in this. i'd rather die twenty deaths than marry that man. there's nothing i wouldn't rather do." "isn't there? you'd rather see your father in gaol, i suppose, if it came to that?" "see you in gaol!" cried the girl aghast. "for heaven's sake, what do you mean, father? what fear is there of your being sent to prison, because i won't marry stephen whitelaw? i'm not a baby," she added, with a hysterical laugh; "you can't frighten me like that." "no; you're a very wise young woman, i daresay; but you don't know everything. you've seen me downhearted and out of sorts for this last half-year; but i don't suppose you've troubled yourself much about it, except to worry me with silly questions sometimes, when i've not been in the humour to be talked to. things have been going wrong with me ever since hay-harvest, and i haven't sent sir david sixpence yet for last year's crops. i've put him off with one excuse after another from month to month. he's a careless master enough at most times, and never over-sharp with my accounts. but the time has come when i can't put him off any longer. he wants money badly, he says; and i'm afraid he begins to suspect something. any way, he talks of coming here in a week or so to look into things for himself. if he does that, i'm ruined." "but the money, father--the money for the crops--how has it gone? you had it, haven't you?" "yes," the bailiff answered with a groan; "i've had it, worse luck." "and how has it gone?" "what's that to you? what's the good of my muddling my brains with figures to-night? it's gone, i tell you. you know i'm fond of seeing a race, and never miss anything in that way that comes-off within a day's drive of this place. i used to be pretty lucky once upon a time, when i backed a horse or bet against one. but this year things have gone dead against me; and my bad luck made me savage somehow, so that i went deeper than i've been before, thinking to get back what i'd lost." "o, father, father! how could you, and with another man's money?" "don't give me any of your preaching," the bailiff answered gloomily; "i can get enough of that at malsham chapel if i want it. it's in your power to pull me through this business if you choose." "how can i do that, father?" "a couple of hundred pounds will set me square. i don't say there hasn't been more taken, first and last; but that would do it. stephen whitelaw would lend me the money--give it me, indeed, for it comes to that--the day he gets your consent to be his wife." "and you'd sell me to him for two hundred pounds, father?" the girl asked bitterly. "i don't want to go to gaol." "and if you don't get the money from stephen, what will happen?" "i can't tell you that to a nicety. penal servitude for life, most likely. they'd call mine a bad case, i daresay." "but sir david might be merciful to you, father. you've served him for along time." "what would he care for that? i've had his money, and he's not a man that can afford to lose much. no, nell, i look for no mercy from sir david; those careless easy-going men are generally the hardest in such a business as this. it's a clear case of embezzlement, and nothing can save me unless i can raise money enough to satisfy him." "couldn't you borrow it of some one else besides stephen whitelaw?" "who else is there that would lend me two hundred pounds? ask yourself that, girl. why, i haven't five pounds' worth of security to offer." "and mr. whitelaw will only lend the money upon one condition?" "no, curse him!" cried william carley savagely. "i've been at him all this afternoon, when you and that woman were out of the room, trying to get it out of him as a loan, without waiting for your promise; but he's too cautious for that. 'the day ellen gives her consent, you shall have the money,' he told me; 'i can't say anything fairer than that or more liberal.'" "he doesn't suspect why you want it, does he, father?" ellen asked with a painful sense of shame. "who can tell what he may suspect? he's as deep as satan," said the bailiff, with a temporary forgetfulness of his desire to exhibit this intended son-in-law of his in a favourable light. "he knows that i want the money very badly; i couldn't help his knowing that; and he must think it's something out of the common that makes me want two hundred pounds." "i daresay he guesses the truth," ellen said, with a profound sigh. it seemed to her the bitterest trial of all, that her father's wrong-doing should be known to stephen whitelaw. that hideous prospect of the dock and the gaol was far off as yet; she had not even begun to realise it; but she did fully realise the fact of her father's shame, and the blow seemed to her a heavy one, heavier than she could bear. for some minutes there was silence between father and daughter. the girl sat with her face hidden in her hands; the bailiff smoked his pipe in sullen meditation. "is there no other way?" ellen asked at last, in a plaintive despairing tone; "no other way, father?" "none," growled william carley. "you needn't ask me that question again; there is no other way; you can get me out of my difficulties if you choose. i should never have been so venturesome as i was, if i hadn't made sure my daughter would soon be a rich woman. you can save me if you like, or you can hold-off and let me go to prison. there's no good preaching about it or arguing about it; you've got the choice and you must make it. most young women in your place would think themselves uncommon lucky to have such a chance as you've got, instead of making a trouble about it, let alone being able to get their father out of a scrape. but you're your own mistress, and you must do as you please." "let me have time to think," the girl pleaded piteously; "let me have only a little time to think, father. and you do believe that i'm sorry for you, don't you?" she asked, kneeling beside him and clasping his unwilling hand. "o father, i hope you believe that!" "i shall know what to believe when i know what you're going to do," the bailiff answered moodily; and his daughter knew him too well to hope for any more gracious speech than this. she bade him good-night, and went slowly up to her own room to spend the weary wakeful hours in a bitter struggle, praying that she might be enlightened as to what she ought to do; praying that she might die rather than become the wife of stephen whitelaw. when she and her father met at breakfast in the dull gray january morning, his aspect was even darker than it had been on the previous night; but he did not ask her if she had arrived at any conclusion. he took his meal in sullen silence, and left her without a word. they met again a little before noon, at which hour it was mr. carley's habit to consume a solid luncheon. he took his seat in the same gloomy silence that he had preserved at breakfast-time, but flung an open letter across the table towards his daughter. "am i to read this?" she asked gently. "yes, read it, and see what i've got to look to." the letter was from sir david forster; an angry one, revealing strong suspicions of his agent's dishonesty, and announcing that he should be at the grange on the fifth of the month, to make a close investigation of all matters connected with the bailiff's administration. it was a letter that gave little hope of mercy, and ellen carley felt that it was so. she saw that there were no two sides to the question: she must save her father by the utter sacrifice of her own feelings, or suffer him to perish. she sat for some minutes in silence, with sir david's letter in her hand, staring blankly at the lines in a kind of stupor; while her father ate cold roast-beef and pickled-cabbage--she wondered how he could eat at such a time--looking up at her furtively every now and then. at last she laid down the letter, and lifted her eyes to his face. a deadly whiteness and despair had come over the bright soubrette beauty, and even william carley's hard nature was moved a little by the altered expression of his daughter's countenance. "it must be as you wish, father," she said slowly; "there is no help for it; i cannot see you brought to disgrace. stephen whitelaw must have the price he asks for his money." "that's a good lass," cried the bailiff, springing up and clasping his daughter in his arms, a most unusual display of affection on his part; "that's bravely spoken, nell, and you never need repent the choice that'll make you mistress of wyncomb farm, with a good home to give your father in his old age." the girl drew herself hastily from his embrace, and turned away from him with a shudder. he was her father, and there was something horrible in the idea of his disgrace; but there was very little affection for him in her mind. he was willing to sell her into bondage in order to save himself. it was in this light she regarded the transaction with stephen whitelaw. chapter xxxiv. doubtful information. the early days of the new year brought little change in john saltram's condition. mr. mew, and the physician who saw him once in every three days, seemed perhaps a shade more hopeful than they had been, but would express no decided opinion when gilbert pressed them with close questioning. the struggle was still going on--the issue still doubtful. "if we could keep the mind at rest," said the physician, "we should have every chance of doing better; but this constant restlessness, this hyper-activity of the brain, of which you and mr. mew tell me, must needs make a perpetual demand upon the patient's physical powers. the waste is always going on. we cannot look for recovery until we obtain more repose." several weeks had passed since the beginning of john saltram's illness, and there were no tidings from mr. medler. every day gilbert had expected some communication from that practitioner, only to be disappointed. he had called twice in soho, and on both occasions had been received by a shabby-looking clerk, who told him that mr. medler was out, and not likely to come home within any definite time. he was inclined to fancy, by the clerk's manner on his second visit, that there was some desire to avoid an interview on mr. medler's part; and this fancy made him all the more anxious to see that gentleman. he did not, therefore, allow much time to elapse between this second visit to the dingy chambers in soho and a third. this time he was more fortunate; for he saw the lawyer let himself in at the street-door with his latch-key, just as the cab that drove him approached the house. the same shabby clerk opened the door to him. "i want to see your master," he said decisively, making a move towards the office-door. the clerk contrived to block his way. "i beg your pardon, sir, i don't think mr. medler's in; but i'll go and see." "you needn't give yourself the trouble. i saw your master let himself in at this door a minute ago. i suppose you were too busy to hear him come in." the clerk coughed a doubtful kind of cough, significant of perplexity. "upon my word, sir, i believe he's out; but i'll see." "thanks; i'd rather see myself, if you please," gilbert said, passing the perturbed clerk before that functionary could make up his mind whether he ought to intercept him. he opened the office-door and went in. mr. medler was sitting at his desk, bending over some formidable document, with the air of a man who is profoundly absorbed by his occupation; with the air also, gilbert thought, of a man who has been what is vernacularly called "on the listen." "good-morning, mr. medler," gilbert said politely; "your clerk had such a conviction of your being out, that i had some difficulty in convincing him you were at home." "i've only just come in; i suppose lucas didn't hear me." "i suppose not; i've been here twice before in search of you, as i conclude you have been told. i have expected to hear from you daily." "well, yes--yes," replied the lawyer in a meditative way; "i am aware that i promised to write--under certain circumstances." "am i to conclude, then, that you were silent because you had nothing to communicate? that you have obtained no tidings of any kind respecting mrs. holbrook?" mr. medler coughed; a cough no less expressive of embarrassment than that of his clerk. "why, you see, mr. fenton," he began, crossing his legs, and rubbing his hands in a very deliberate manner, "when i made that promise with reference to mrs. holbrook, i made it of course without prejudice to the interests or inclinations of my client. i might be free to communicate to you any information i received upon this subject--or i might find myself pledged to withhold it." gilbert's face flushed with sudden excitement. "what!" he cried, "do you mean to say that you have solved the mystery of marian holbrook's fate? that you know her to be alive--safe--well, and have kept back the knowledge from me?" "i have been compelled to submit to the wishes of my client. i will not say that i have not offered considerable opposition to her desire upon this point, but finding her resolution fixed, i was bound to respect it." "she is safe--then all this alarm has been needless? you have seen her?" "yes, mr. fenton, i have seen her." "and she--she forbade you to let me know of her safety? she was willing that i should suffer all the anguish of uncertainty as to her fate? i could not have believed her so unkind." "mrs. holbrook had especial reasons for wishing to avoid all communication with former acquaintances. she explained those reasons to me, and i fully concurred in them." "she might have such reasons with regard to other people; she could have none with reference to me." "pardon me, she mentioned your name in a very particular manner." "and yet she has had good cause to trust in my fidelity." "she has a very great respect and esteem for you, i am aware. she said as much to me. but her reasons for keeping her affairs to herself just now are quite apart from her personal feeling for yourself." "i cannot understand this. i am not to see her then, i suppose; not to be told her address?" "no; i am strictly forbidden to disclose her address to any one." "yet you can positively assure me that she is in safety--her own mistress--happy?" "she is in perfect safety--her own mistress--and as happy as it is possible she can be under the unfortunate circumstances of her married life. she has left her husband for ever; i will venture to tell you so much as that." "i am quite aware of that fact." "how so? i thought mr. holbrook was quite unknown to you?" "i have learnt a good deal about him lately." "indeed!" exclaimed the lawyer, with a genuine air of surprise. "but of course your client has been perfectly frank in her communications with you upon this subject?" gilbert said. "yes; i know that mrs. holbrook has left her husband, but i did not for a moment suppose she had left him of her own free will. from my knowledge of her character and sentiments, that is just the last thing i could have imagined possible. there was no quarrel between them; indeed, she was expecting his return with delight at the very time when she left her home in hampshire. the thought of sharing her fortune with him was one of perfect happiness. how can you explain her abrupt flight from him in the face of this?" "i am not free to explain matters, mr. fenton," answered the lawyer; "you must be satisfied with the knowledge that the lady about whom you have been so anxious is safe." "i thank god for that," gilbert said earnestly; "but that, knowledge of itself is not quite enough. i shall be uneasy so long as there is this secrecy and mystery surrounding her fate. there is something in this sudden abandonment of her husband which is painfully inexplicable to me." "mrs. holbrook may have received some sudden revelation of her husband's unworthiness. you are aware that a letter reached her a few hours before she left hampshire? there is no doubt that letter influenced her actions. i do not mind admitting a fact which is so obvious." "the revelation that could move her to such a step must have been a very startling one." "it was strong enough to decide her course," replied the lawyer gravely. "and you can assure me that she is in good hands?" gilbert asked anxiously. "i have every reason to suppose so. she is with her father." mr. medler announced this fact as if there were nothing extraordinary in it. gilbert started to his feet. "what!" he exclaimed; "she is with mr. nowell--the father who neglected her in her youth, who of course seeks her now only for the sake of her fortune? and you call that being in good hands, mr. medler? for my own part, i cannot imagine a more dangerous alliance. when did percival nowell come to england?" "a very short time ago. i have only been aware of his return within the last two or three weeks. his first step on arriving in this country was to seek for his daughter." "yes; when he knew that she was rich, no doubt." "i do not think that he was influenced by mercenary motives," the lawyer said, with a calm judicial air. "of course, as a man of the world, i am not given to look at such matters from a sentimental point of view. but i really believe that mr. nowell was anxious to find his daughter, and to atone in some measure for his former neglect." "a very convenient repentance," exclaimed gilbert, with a short bitter laugh. "and his first act is to steal his daughter from her home, and hide her from all her former friends. i don't like the look of this business, mr. medler; i tell you so frankly." "mr. nowell is my client, you must remember, mr. fenton. i cannot consent to listen to any aspersion of his character, direct or indirect." "and you positively refuse to tell me where mrs. holbrook is to be found?" "i am compelled to respect her wishes as well as those of her father." "she has been placed in possession of her property, i suppose?" "yes; her grandfather's will has been proved, and the estate now stands in her name. there was no difficulty about that--no reason for delay." "will you tell me if she is in london?" gilbert asked impatiently. "pardon me, my dear sir, i am pledged to say nothing about mrs. holbrook's whereabouts." gilbert gave a weary sigh. "well, i suppose it is useless to press the question, mr. medler," he said. "i can only repeat that i don't like the look of this business. your client, mr. nowell, must have a very strong reason for secrecy, and my experience of life has shown me that there is very seldom mystery without wrong doing of some kind behind it. i thank god that mrs. holbrook is safe, for i suppose i must accept your assurance that she is so; but until her position is relieved from all this secrecy, i shall not cease to feel uneasy as to her welfare. i am glad, however, that the issue of events has exonerated her husband from any part in her disappearance." he was glad to know this--glad to know that however base a traitor to himself, john saltram had not been guilty of that deeper villany which he had at times been led to suspect. gilbert fenton left mr. medler's office a happier man than when he had entered it, and yet only half satisfied. it was a great thing to know that marian was safe; but he would have wished her in the keeping of any one rather than of him whom the world would have called her natural protector. nor was his opinion of mr. medler by any means an exalted one. no assertion of that gentleman inspired him with heart-felt confidence; and he had not left the lawyer's office long before he began to ask himself whether there was truth in any portion of the story he had heard, or whether he was not the dupe of a lie. strange that marian's father should have returned at so opportune a moment; still more strange that marian should suddenly desert the husband she had so devotedly loved, and cast in her lot with a father of whom she knew nothing but his unkindness. what if this man medler had been lying to him from first to last, and was plotting to get old jacob nowell's fortune into his own hands? "i must find her," gilbert said to himself; "i must be certain that she is in safe hands. i shall know no rest till i have found her." harassed and perplexed beyond measure, he walked through the busy streets of that central district for some time without knowing where he was going, and without the faintest purpose in his steps. then the notion suddenly flashed upon him that he might hear something of percival nowell at the shop in queen anne's court, supposing the old business to be still carried on there under the sway of mr. tulliver; and it seemed too early yet for the probability of any change in that quarter. gilbert was in the strand when this notion occurred to him. he turned his steps immediately, and went back to wardour-street, and thence to the dingy court where he had first discovered marian's grandfather. there was no change; the shop looked exactly the same as it had looked in the lifetime of jacob nowell. there were the same old guineas in the wooden bowl, the same tarnished tankards and teapots on view behind the wire-guarded glass, the same obscure hints of untold riches within, in the general aspect of the place. mr. tulliver darted forward from his usual lurking-place as gilbert went in at the door. "o!" he exclaimed, with undisguised disappointment, "it's you, is it, sir? i thought it was a customer." "i am sorry to disappoint your expectation of profit. i have looked in to ask you two or three questions, mr. tulliver; that is all." "any information in my power i'm sure i shall be happy to afford, sir. won't you be pleased to take a seat?" "how long is it since you saw mr. nowell, your former employer's son?" gilbert asked, dropping into the chair indicated by the shopman, and coming at once to the point. mr. tulliver was somewhat startled by the question. that was evident, though he was not a man who wore his heart upon his sleeve. "how long is it since i've seen mr. nowell--mr. percival nowell, sir?" he repeated, staring thoughtfully at his questioner. "yes; you need not be afraid to speak freely to me; i know mr. nowell is in london." "well, sir, i've not seen him often since his father's death." since his father's death! and according to mr. medler, jacob nowell's son had only arrived in england after the old man's death;--or stay, the lawyer had declared that he had been only aware of percival's return within the last two or three weeks. that was a different thing, of course; yet was it likely this man could have returned, and his father's lawyer have remained ignorant of his arrival? gilbert did not allow the faintest expression of surprise to appear on his countenance. "not often since your master's death: but how often before?" "well, he used to come in pretty often before the old man died; but they were both of 'em precious close. mr. percival never let out that he was my master's son, but i guessed as much before he'd been here many times." "how was it that i never came across him?" "chance, i suppose; but he's a deep one. if you'd happened to come in when he was here, i daresay he'd have contrived to slip away somehow without your seeing him." "when did he come here last?" asked gilbert. "about a fortnight ago. he came with mr. medler, the lawyer, who introduced him formally as my master's son; and they took possession of the place between them for mrs. holbrook, making an arrangement with me to carry on the business, and making precious hard terms too." "have you seen mrs. holbrook since that morning when she left london for hampshire, immediately after her grandfather's death?" "never set eyes on her since then; but she's in london, they told me, living with her father. she came up to claim the property. i say, the husband must be rather a curious party, mustn't he, to stand that kind of thing, and part company with her just when she's come into a fortune?" "have you any notion where mrs. holbrook or her father is to be found? i should be glad to make you a handsome present if you could enlighten me upon that point." "i wish i could, sir. no, i haven't the least idea where the gentleman hangs out. oysters ain't closer than that party. i thought he'd get his paw upon his father's money, somehow, when i used to see him hanging about this place. but i don't believe the old man ever meant him to have a sixpence of it." there was very little satisfaction, to be obtained from mr. tulliver; and except as to the one fact of percival nowell's return, gilbert left queen anne's court little wiser than when he entered it. brooding upon the revelations of that day as he walked slowly westward, he began to think that percival and mr. medler had been in league from the time of the prodigal son's return, and that his own exclusion from the will as executor, and the substitution of the lawyer's name, had been brought about for no honourable purpose. what would a weak inexperienced woman be between two such men? or what power could marian have, once under her father's influence, to resist his will? how she had fallen under that influence so completely as to leave her husband and her quiet country home, without a word of explanation, was a difficult question to answer; and gilbert fenton meditated upon it with a troubled mind. he walked westward, indifferent where he went in the perplexity of his thoughts, anxious to walk off a little of his excitement if he could, and to return to his sick charge in the temple in a calmer frame of mind. it was something gained, at the worst, to be able to return to john saltram's bedside freed from that hideous suspicion which had tormented him of late. walking thus, he found himself, towards the close of the brief winter day, at the marble arch. he went through the gate into the empty park, and was crossing the broad road near the entrance, when an open carriage passed close beside him, and a woman's voice called to the coachman to stop. the carriage stopped so abruptly and so near him that he paused and looked up, in natural wonderment at the circumstance. a lady dressed in mourning was leaning forward out of the carriage, looking eagerly after him. a second glance showed him that this lady was mrs. branston. "how do you do, mr. fenton," she cried, holding out her little black-gloved hand: "what an age since i have seen you! but you have not forgotten me, i hope?" "that is quite impossible, mrs. branston. if i had not been very much absorbed in thought just now, i should have recognised you sooner. it was very kind of you to stop to speak to me." "not at all. i have something most particular to say to you. if you are not in a very great hurry, would you mind getting into the carriage, and letting me drive you round the park? i can't keep you standing in the road to talk." "i am in no especial hurry, and i shall be most happy to take a turn round the park with you." mrs. branston's footman opened the carriage-door, and gilbert took his seat opposite the widow, who was enjoying her afternoon drive alone for once in a way; a propitious toothache having kept mrs. pallinson within doors. "i have been expecting to see you for ever so long, mr. fenton. why do you never call upon me?" the pretty little widow began, with her usual frankness. "i have been so closely occupied lately; and even if i had not been so, i should have scarcely expected to find you in town at this unfashionable season." "i don't care the least in the world for fashion," mrs. branston said, with an impatient shrug of her shoulders. "that is only an excuse of yours, mr. fenton; you completely forgot my existence, i have no doubt. all my friends desert me now-a-days--older friends than you. there is mr. saltram, for instance. i have not seen him for--o, not for ever so long," concluded the widow, blushing in the dusk as she remembered that visit of hers to the temple--that daring step which ought to have brought john saltram so much nearer to her, but which had resulted in nothing but disappointment and regret--bitter regret that she should have cast her womanly pride into the very dust at this man's feet to no purpose. but adela branston was not a proud woman; and even in the midst of her regret for having done this foolish thing, she was always ready to make excuses for the man she loved, always in danger of committing some new folly in his behalf. gilbert fenton felt for the poor foolish little woman, whose fair face was turned to him with such a pleading look in the wintry twilight. he knew that what he had to tell her must needs carry desolation to her heart--knew that in the background of john saltram's life there lurked even a deeper cause of grief for this gentle impressionable little soul. "you will not wonder that mr. saltram has not called upon you lately when you know the truth," he said gravely: "he has been very ill." mrs. branston clasped her hands, with a faint cry of terror. "very ill--that means dangerously ill?" "yes; for some time he was in great danger. i believe that is past now; but i am not quite sure of his safety even yet. i can only hope that he may recover." hope that he might recover, yes; but to be a friend of his, gilbert's, never more. it was a dreary prospect at best. john saltram would recover, to seek and reclaim his wife, and then those two must needs pass for ever out of gilbert fenton's life. the story would be finished, and his own part of it bald enough to be told on the fly-leaf at the end of the book. mrs. branston bore the shock of his ill news better than gilbert had expected. there is good material even in the weakest of womankind when the heart is womanly and true. she was deeply shocked, intensely sorry; and she made no attempt to mask her sorrow by any conventional speech or pretence whatsoever. she made gilbert give her all the details of john saltram's illness, and when he had told her all, asked him plainly if she might be permitted to see the sick man. "do let me see him, if it is possible," she said; "it would be such a comfort to me to see him." "i do not say such a thing is not possible, my dear mrs. branston; but i am sure it would be very foolish." "o, never mind that; i am always doing foolish things. it would only be one folly more, and would hardly count in my history. dear mr. fenton, do let me see him." "i don't think you quite know what you are asking, mrs. branston. such a sick-bed as john saltram's would be a most painful scene for you. he has been delirious from the beginning of his illness, and is so still. he rarely has an interval of anything like consciousness, and in all the time that i have been with him has never yet recognised me; indeed, there are moments when i am inclined to fear that his brain may be permanently deranged." "god forbid!" exclaimed adela, in a voice that was choked with tears. "yes, such a result as that would be indeed a sore calamity. i have every wish to set your mind at ease, believe me, mrs. branston, but in john saltram's present state i am sure it would be ill-advised for you to see him." "of course i cannot press the question if you say that," adela answered despondently; "but i should have been so glad if you could have allowed me to see him. not that i pretend to the smallest right to do so; but we were very good friends once--before my husband's death. he has changed to me strangely since that time." gilbert felt that it was almost cruel to keep this poor little soul in utter ignorance of the truth. he did not consider himself at liberty to say much; but some vague word of warning might serve as a slight check upon the waste of feeling which was going on in the widow's heart. "there may be a reason for that change, mrs. branston," he said. "mr. saltram may have formed some tie of a kind to withdraw him from all other friendships." "some attachment, you mean!" exclaimed the widow; "some other attachment," she added, forgetting how much the words betrayed. "do you think that, mr. fenton? do you think that john saltram has some secret love-affair upon his mind?" "i have some reason to suspect as much, from words that he has dropped during his delirium." there was a look of unspeakable pain in mrs. branston's face, which had grown deadly pale when gilbert first spoke of john saltram's illness. the pretty childish lips quivered a little, and her companion knew that she was suffering keenly. "have you any idea who the lady is?" she asked quietly, and with more self-command than gilbert had expected from her. "i have some idea." "it is no one whom i know, i suppose?" "the lady is quite a stranger to you." "he might have trusted me," she said mournfully; "it would have been kinder in him to have trusted me." "yes, mrs. branston; but mr. saltram has unfortunately made concealment the policy of his life. he will find it a false policy sooner or late." "it was very cruel of him not to tell me the truth. he might have known that i should look kindly upon any one he cared for. i may be a very foolish woman, mr. fenton, but i am not ungenerous." "i am sure of that," gilbert said warmly, touched by her candour. "you must let me know every day how your friend is going on, mr. fenton," adela said after a pause; "i shall consider it a very great favour if you will do so." "i will not fail." they had returned to cumberland-gate by this time, and at gilbert's request mrs. branston allowed him to be set down near the arch. he called a cab, and drove to the temple; while poor adela went back to the splendid gloom of cavendish-square, with all the fabric of her future life shattered. until this hour she had looked upon john saltram's fidelity to herself as a certainty; she knew, now that her hope was slain all at once, what a living thing it had been, and how great a portion of her own existence had taken its colour therefrom. it was fortunate for mrs. branston that mrs. pallinson's toothache, and the preparations and medicaments supplied to her by her son--all declared to be infallible, and all ending in ignominious failure--occupied that lady's attention at this period, to the exclusion of every other thought, or adela's pale face might have excited more curiosity than it did. as it was, the matron contented herself by making some rather snappish remarks upon the folly of going out to drive late on a january afternoon, and retired to administer poultices and cataplasms to herself in the solitude of her own apartment soon after dinner, leaving adela branston free to ponder upon john saltram's cruelty. "if he had only trusted me," she said to herself more than once during those mournful meditations; "if he had only given me credit for some little good sense and generosity, i should not feel it as keenly as i do. he must have known that i loved him--yes, i have been weak enough to let him see that--and i think that once he used to like me a little--in those old happy days when he came so often to maidenhead. yes, i believe he almost loved me then." and then the thought that this man was lying desperately ill, perhaps in danger of death, blotted out every other thought. it was so bitter to know him in peril, and to be powerless to go to him; worse than useless to him were she by his side, since it was another whose image haunted his wandering brain--another whose voice he longed to hear. she spent a sleepless melancholy night, and had no rest next day, until a commissionnaire brought her a brief note from gilbert fenton, telling her that if there were any change at all in the patient, it was on the side of improvement. chapter xxxv. bought with a price. ellen carley was not allowed any time to take back the promise given to her father, had she been inclined to do so. mr. whitelaw made his appearance at the grange early in the evening of the nd of january, with a triumphant simper upon his insipid countenance, which was inexpressibly provoking to the unhappy girl. it was clear to her, at first sight of him, that her father had been at wyncomb that afternoon, and her hateful suitor came secure of success. his wooing was not a very romantic episode in his commonplace existence. he did not even attempt to see ellen alone; but after he had been seated for about half-an-hour in the chimney-corner, nestling close to the fire in a manner he much affected, being of a particularly chilly temperament, given to shiver and turn blue on the smallest provocation, he delivered himself solemnly of the following address:-- "i make no doubt, miss carley, that you have taken notice for some time past of my sentiments towards yourself. i have never made any secret of those sentiments, neither have i talked much about them, not being a man of many words. i used to fancy myself the very reverse of a marrying man, and i don't say but what at this moment i think the man who lives and dies a bachelor does the wisest for his own comfort and his own prosperity. but we are not the masters of our feelings, miss carley. you have growed upon me lately somehow, so that i've got not to care for my life without you. ask mrs. tadman if my appetite hasn't fell off within this last six months to a degree that has frightened her; and a man of my regular habits must be very far gone in love, miss carley, when his appetite forsakes him. from the time i came to know you as a young woman, in the bloom of a young woman's beauty, i said to myself, 'that's the girl i'll marry, and no other.' your father can bear me out in that, for i said the same to him. and finding that i had his approval, i was satisfied to bide my time, and wait till you came round to the same way of thinking. your father tells me yesterday afternoon, and again this afternoon, that you have come round to that way of feeling. i hope he hasn't deceived me, miss carley." this was a very long speech for stephen whitelaw. it was uttered in little gasps or snatches of speech, the speaker stopping at the end of every sentence to take breath. ellen carley sat on that side of the comfortable round table most remote from mr. whitelaw, deadly pale, with her hands clasped before her. once she lifted her eyes with a piteous look to her father's face; but he was smoking his pipe solemnly, with his gaze fixed upon the blazing logs in the grate, and contrived not to see that mute despairing appeal. he had not looked at his daughter once since stephen whitelaw's arrival, nor had he made any attempt to prepare her for this visit, this rapid consummation of the sacrifice. "come, miss carley," said the former rather impatiently, after there had been a dead silence of some minutes, "i want to get an answer direct from your own lips. your father hasn't been deceiving me, has he?" "no," ellen said in a low voice, almost as if the reply were dragged from her by some physical torture. "if my father has given you a promise for me, i will keep it. but i don't want to deceive you, on my part, mr. whitelaw," she went on in a somewhat firmer tone. "i will be your wife, since you and my father have settled that it must be so; but i can promise no more than that. i will be dutiful and submissive to you as a wife, you may be sure--only----" mr. whitelaw smiled a very significant smile, which implied that it would be his care to insure his wife's obedience, and that he was troubled by no doubts upon that head. the bailiff broke-in abruptly at this juncture. "lord bless the girl, what need is there of all this talk about what she will be and what she won't be? she'll be as good a wife as any woman in england, i'll stake my life upon that. she's been a good daughter, as all the world knows, and a good daughter is bound to make a good wife. say no more about it, nell. stephen whitelaw knows he'll make no bad bargain in marrying you." the farmer received this remark with a loud sniff, expressive of offended dignity. "very likely not, william carley," he said; "but it isn't every man that can make your daughter mistress of such a place as wyncomb; and such men as could do it would look for money with a wife, however young and pretty she might be. there's two sides to a bargain, you see, william, and i should like things to be looked at in that light between you and me." "you've no call to take offence, steph," answered the bailiff with a conciliating grin. "i never said you wasn't a good match for my girl; but a pretty girl and a prudent clever housekeeper like nell is a fortune in herself to any man." "then the matter's settled, i suppose," said mr. whitelaw; "and the sooner the wedding comes off the better, to my mind. if my wife that is to be wants anything in the way of new clothes, i shall be happy to put down a twenty-pound note--or i'd go as far as thirty--towards 'em." ellen shook her head impatiently. "i want nothing new," she said; "i have as many things as i care to have." "nonsense, nell," cried her father, frowning at her in a significant manner to express his disapproval of this folly, and in so doing looking at her for the first time since her suitor's advent. "every young woman likes new gowns, and of course you'll take steph's friendly offer, and thank him kindly for it. he knows that i'm pretty hard-up just now, and won't be able to do much for you; and it wouldn't do for mrs. whitelaw of wyncomb to begin the world with a shabby turn-out." "of course not," replied the farmer; "i'll bring you the cash to-morrow evening, nell; and the sooner you buy your wedding-gown the better. there's nothing to wait for, you see. i've got a good home to take you to. mother tadman will march, of course, between this and my wedding-day. i sha'n't want her when i've a wife to keep house for me." "of course not," said the bailiff. "relations are always dangerous about a place--ready to make mischief at every hand's turn." "o, mr. whitelaw, you won't turn her out, surely--your own flesh and blood, and after so many years of service. she told me how hard she had worked for you." "ah, that's just like her," growled the farmer. "i give her a comfortable home for all these years, and then she grumbles about the work." "she didn't grumble," said ellen hastily. "she only told me how faithfully she had served you." "yes; that comes to the same thing. i should have thought you would have liked to be mistress of your house, nell, without any one to interfere with you." "mrs. tadman is nothing to me," answered ellen, who had been by no means prepossessed by that worthy matron; "but i shouldn't like her to be unfairly treated on my account." "well, we'll think about it, nell; there's no hurry. she's worth her salt, i daresay." mr. whitelaw seemed to derive a kind of satisfaction from the utterance of his newly-betrothed's christian name, which came as near the rapture of a lover as such a sluggish nature might be supposed capable of. to ellen there was something hideous in the sound of her own name spoken by those hateful lips; but he had a sovereign right so to address her, now and for evermore. was she not his goods, his chattels, bought with a price, as much as a horse at a fair? that nothing might be wanting to remind her of the sordid bargain, mr. whitelaw drew a small canvas bag from his pocket presently--a bag which gave forth that pleasant chinking sound that is sweet to the ears of so many as the music of gold--and handed it across the hearth to william carley. "i'm as good as my word, you see," he said with a complacent air of patronage. "there's the favour you asked me for; i'll take your iou for it presently, if it's all the same to you--as a matter of form--and to be given back to you upon my wedding-day." the bailiff nodded assent, and dropped the bag into his pocket with a sigh of relief. and then the two men went on smoking their pipes in the usual stolid way, dropping out a few words now and then by way of social converse; and there was nothing in mr. whitelaw's manner to remind ellen that she had bound herself to the awful apprenticeship of marriage without love. but when he took his leave that night he approached her with such an evident intention of kissing her as could not be mistaken by the most inexperienced of maidens. poor ellen indulged in no girlish resistance, no pretty little comedy of alarm and surprise, but surrendered her pale lips to the hateful salute with the resignation of a martyr. it was better that she should suffer this than that her father should go to gaol. that thought was never absent from her mind. nor was this sacrifice to filial duty quite free from the leaven of selfishness. for her own sake, as much as for her father's, ellen carley would have submitted to any penalty rather than disgrace. to have him branded as a thief must needs be worse suffering than any life-long penance she might endure in matrimony. to lose frank randall's love was less than to let him learn her father's guilt. "the daughter of a thief!" she said to herself. "how he would despise himself for having ever loved me, if he knew me to be that!" chapter xxxvi. coming round. possessed with a thorough distrust of mr. medler and only half satisfied as to the fact of marian's safety, gilbert fenton lost no time in seeking professional aid in the work of investigating this perplexing social mystery. he went once more to the metropolitan detective who had been with him in hampshire, and whose labours there had proved so futile. the task now to be performed seemed easy enough. mr. proul (proul was the name of the gentleman engaged by gilbert) had only to discover the whereabouts of percival nowell; a matter of no great difficulty, gilbert imagined, since it was most likely that marian's father had frequent personal communication with the lawyer; nor was it improbable that he would have business with his agent or representative, mr. tulliver, in queen anne's court. provided with these two addresses, gilbert fancied that mr. proul's work must needs be easy enough. that gentleman, however, was not disposed to make light of the duty committed to him; whether from a professional habit of exaggerating the importance of any mission undertaken by him, or in perfect singleness of mind, it is not easy to say. "it's a watching business, you see sir," he told gilbert, "and is pretty sure to be tedious. i may put a man to hang about this mr. medler's business all day and every day for a month at a stretch, and he may miss his customer at the last, especially as you can't give me any kind of description of the man you want." "surely your agent could get some information out of medler's clerk; it's in his trade to do that kind of thing, isn't it?" "well, yes, sir; i don't deny that i might put a man on to the clerk, and it might answer. on the other hand, such a gentleman's clerk would be likely to be uncommon well trained and uncommon little trusted." "but we want to know so little," gilbert exclaimed impatiently; "only where this man lives, and who lives with him." "yes," murmured mr. proul, rubbing his chin thoughtfully; "it ain't much, as you say, and it might be got out of the clerk, if the clerk knows it; but as to mrs. holbrook having got away from hampshire and come to london, that's more than i can believe. i worked that business harder and closer than ever i worked any business yet. you told me to spare neither money nor time, and i didn't spare either; though it was more a question of time than money, for my expenses were light enough, as you know. i don't believe mrs. holbrook could have got away from malsham station up to the time when i left hampshire. i'm pretty certain she couldn't have left the place any other way than by rail; i'm more than certain she couldn't have been living anywhere in the neighbourhood when i was hunting for her. in short, it comes to this--i stick to my old opinion, that the poor lady was drowned in malsham river." this was just what gilbert, happily for his own peace, could not bring himself to believe. he was ready to confide in mr. medler as a model of truth and honesty, rather than admit the possibility of marian's death. "we have this man medler's positive assertion, that mrs. holbrook is with her father, you see, mr. proul," he said doubtfully. "_that_ for medler's assertion!" exclaimed the detective contemptuously; "there are lawyers in london who will assert anything for a consideration. let him produce the lady; and if he does produce her, i give him leave to say that thomas henry proul is incapable of his business; or, putting it in vulgar english, that t.h.p. is a duffer. of course i shall carry out any business you like to trust me with, mr. fenton, and carry it out thoroughly. i'll set a watch upon mr. medler's offices, and i'll circumvent him by means of his clerk, if i can; but it's my rooted conviction that mrs. holbrook never left hampshire." this was discouraging; and with that ready power to adapt itself to circumstances which is a distinguishing characteristic of the human mind, gilbert fenton began to entertain a very poor opinion of the worthy proul's judgment. but not knowing any better person whose aid he could enlist in this business, he was fain to confide his chances of success to that gentleman, and to wait with all patience for the issue of events. much of this dreary interval of perpetual doubt and suspense was spent beside john saltram's sick bed. there were strangely mingled feelings in the watcher's breast; a pitying regret that struggled continually with his natural anger; a tender remembrance of past friendship, which he despised as a shameful weakness in his nature, but could not banish from his mind, as he sat in the stillness of the sick-room, watching the helpless creature who had once kept as faithful a vigil for him. to john saltram's recovery he looked also as to his best chance of restoring marian to her natural home. the influence that he himself was powerless to bring to bear upon percival nowell's daughter might be easily exerted by her husband. "she was lured away from him, perhaps, by some specious lie of her father's, some cruel slander of the husband. there had been bitter words between them. saltram has betrayed as much in his wandering talk; but to the last there was no feeling but love for him in her heart. ellen carley is my witness for that; nothing less than some foul lie could have tempted her away from him." in the meantime, pending the sick man's recovery, the grand point was to discover the whereabouts of marian and her father; and for this discovery gilbert was compelled to trust to the resources of the accomplished proul. so eager was he for the result, that if he could have kept a watch upon mr. medler's office with his own eyes, he would have done so; but this being out of the question, and the more prudent course a complete avoidance of the lawyer's neighbourhood, he could only await the result of his paid agent's researches, in the hope that mr. nowell was still in london, and would have need of frequent communication with his late father's solicitor. the first month of the year dragged itself slowly to an end, and the great city underwent all those pleasing alternations, from snow to mud, from the slipperiness of a city paved with plate-glass to the sloppiness of a metropolis ankle-deep in a rich brown compound of about the consistency and colour of mock-turtle soup, which are common to great cities at this season; and still john saltram lingered on in the shabby solitude of his temple chambers, slowly mending, mr. mew declared, towards the end of the month, and in a fair way towards recovery. the time came at last when the fevered mind began to cease from its perpetual wanderings; when the weary brain, sorely enfeebled by its long interval of unnatural activity, dropped suddenly into a state of calm that was akin to apathy. the change came with an almost alarming suddenness. it was at the beginning of february, close upon the dead small hours of a bleak windy night, and gilbert was keeping watch alone in the sick-room, while the professional nurse slept comfortably on the sofa in the sitting-room. it was his habit now to spend the early part of the night in such duty as this, and to go home to bed between four and five in the morning, at which time the nurse was ready to relieve guard. he had been listening to the dismal howling of the winds, threatening damage to neighbouring chimney-pots of rickety constitution, and thinking idly of the men that had come and gone amidst those old buildings, and how few amongst them all had left any mark behind them; inclined to speculate too how many of them had been men capable of better work than they had done, only carelessly indifferent to the doing of it, like him who lay on that bed yonder, with one muscular arm, powerful even in its wasted condition, thrown wearily above his head, and an undefinable look, that seemed half pain, half fatigue, upon his haggard face. suddenly, while gilbert fenton was meditating in this idle desultory manner, the sleeper awakened, looked full at him, and called him by his name. "gilbert," he said very quietly, "is it really you?" it was the first time, in all his long watches by that bed, that john saltram had recognised him. the sick man had talked of him often in his delirium; but never before had he looked his former friend in the face with one ray of recognition in his own. an indescribable thrill of pain went through gilbert's heart at the sound of that calm utterance of his name. how sweet it would have been to him, what a natural thing it would have seemed, to have fallen upon his old friend's breast and wept aloud in the deep joy of this recovery! but they were friends no longer. he had to remember how base a traitor this man had been to him. "yes, john, it is i." "and you have been here for a long time. o god, how many months have i been lying here? the time seems endless; and there have been so many people round me--a crowd of strange faces--all enemies, all against me. and people in the next room--that was the worst of all. i have never seen them, but i have always known that they were there. they could not deceive me as to that--hiding behind that door, and watching me as i lay here. you might have turned them out, gilbert," he added peevishly; "it seems a hard thing that you could let them stay there to torment me." "there has been no one in either of the rooms, john; no one but myself and the hired nurse, the doctors, and mrs. pratt now and then. these people have no existence out of your sick fancy. you have been very ill, delirious, for a long time. i thank god that your reason has been restored to you; yes, i thank god with all my heart for that." "have i been mad?" the other asked. "your mind has wandered. but that has passed at last with the fever, as the doctors hoped it might. you are calm now, and must try to keep yourself quiet; there must be no more talk between us to-night." the sick man took no notice of this injunction; but for the time was not disobedient, and lay for some minutes staring at the watcher's face with a strange half-vacant smile upon his own. "gilbert," he said at last, "what have they done with my wife? why has she been kept away from me?" "your wife? marian?" "yes marian. you know her name, surely. did she know that i was ill, and yet stayed away from me?" "was her place here, john saltram?--that poor girl whom you married under a false name, whom you tried to hide from all the world. have you ever brought her here? have you ever given her a wife's license, or a wife's place? how many lies have you not told to hide that which any honest man would have been proud to confess to all the world?" "yes, i have lied to you about her, i have hidden my treasure. but it was for your sake, gilbert; it was for the sake of our old friendship. i could not bear to lose you; i could not bear to stand revealed before you as the weak wretch who betrayed your trust and stole your promised wife. yes, gilbert, i have been guilty beyond all measure. i have looked you in the face and told you lies. i wanted to keep you for my friend; i could not stand the thought of a life-long breach between us. gilbert, old friend, have pity on me. i was weak--wicked, if you like--but i loved you very dearly." he stretched out his bony hand with an appealing gesture, but it was not taken. gilbert sat with his head turned away, his face hidden from the sick man. "anything would have been better than the course you chose," he said at last in a very quiet voice. "if she loved you better than me--than me, who would have thought it so small a thing to lay down my life for her happiness, or to stand aloof and keep the secret of my broken heart while i blest her as the cherished wife of another--if you had certain reason to be sure she loved you, you should have asserted your right to claim her love like a man, and should have been prompt to tell me the bitter truth. i am a man, and would have borne the blow as a man should bear it. but to sneak into my place behind my back, to steal her away from me, to marry her under a false name--a step that might go far to invalidate the marriage, by the way--and then leave me to piece-out the broken story, syllable by syllable, to suffer all the torture of a prolonged suspense, all the wasted passion of anger and revenge against an imaginary enemy, to find at last that the man i had loved and trusted, honoured and admired beyond all other men throughout the best years of my life, was the man who had struck this secret blow--it was the conduct of a villain and a coward, john saltram. i have no words to speak my contempt for so base a betrayal. and when i remember your pretended sympathy, your friendly counsel--o god! it was the work of a social judas; nothing was wanted but the kiss." "yes," the other answered with a faint bitter laugh; "it was very bad. once having begun, you see, it was but to add one lie to another. anything seemed better than to tell you the truth. i fancied your devotion for marian would wear itself out much sooner than it did--that you would marry some one else; and then i thought, when you were happy, and had forgotten that old fancy, i would have confessed the truth, and told you it was your friend who was your rival. it might have seemed easy to you to forgive me under those happier circumstances, and so our old friendship might never have been broken. i waited for that, gilbert. don't suppose that it was not painful to me to act so base a part; don't suppose that i did not suffer. i did--in a hundred ways. you have seen the traces of that slow torture in my face. in every way i had sinned from my weak desire to win my love and yet keep my friend; and god knows the burden of my sin has been heavy upon me. i will tell you some day--if ever i am strong enough for so many words, and if you will hear me out patiently--the whole story of my temptation; how i struggled against it, and only gave way at last when life seemed insupportable to me without the woman i loved." after this he lay quiet again for some minutes, exhausted by having spoken so long. all the factitious strength, which had made him loud and violent in his delirium, was gone; he seemed as weak as a sick child. "where is she?" he asked at last; "why doesn't she come to me? you have not answered that question." "i have told you that her place is not here," gilbert replied evasively. "you have no right to expect her here, never having given her the right to come." "no; it is my own fault. she is in hampshire still, i suppose. poor girl, i would give the world to see her dear face looking down at me. i must get well and go back to her. when shall i be strong enough to travel?--to-morrow, or if not to-morrow, the next day; surely the next day--eh, gilbert?" he raised himself in the bed in order to read the answer in gilbert's face, but fell back upon the pillows instantly, exhausted by the effort. memory had only returned to him in part. it was clear that he had forgotten the fact of marian's disappearance,--a fact of which he had seemed half-conscious long ago in his delirium. "how did you find out that marian was my wife?" he asked presently, with perfect calmness. "who betrayed my secret?" "your own lips, in your delirious talk of her, which has been incessant; and if collateral evidence were needed to confirm your words, this, which i found the other day marking a place in your shakespeare." gilbert took a scrap of ribbon from his breast, a ribbon with a blue ground and a rosebud on it,--a ribbon which he had chosen himself for marian, in the brief happy days of their engagement. john saltram contemplated the scrap of colour with a smile that was half sombre, half ironical. "yes, it was hers," he said; "she wore it round that slim swan's throat of hers; and one morning, when i was leaving her in a particularly weak frame of mind, i took it from her neck and brought it away in my bosom, for the sake of having something about me that she had worn; and then i put it in the book, you see, and forgot all about it. a fitting emblem of my love--full of passion and fervour to-day, at the point of death to-morrow. there have been times when i would have given the world to undo what i had done, when my life seemed blighted by this foolish marriage; and again, happier moments, when my wife was all the universe to me, and i had not a thought or a dream beyond her. god bless her! you will let me go to her, gilbert, the instant i am able to travel, as soon as i can drag myself anyhow from this bed to the railway? you will not stand between me and my love?" "no, john saltram; god knows, i have never thought of that." "and you knew i was a traitor--you knew it was my work that had destroyed your scheme of happiness--and yet have been beside me, watching me patiently through this wretched illness?" "that was a small thing to do you did as much, and a great deal more, for me, when i was ill in egypt. it was a mere act of duty." "not of friendship. it was christian charity, eh, gilbert? if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; and so on. it was not the act of a friend?" "no, john saltram, between you and me there can never again be any such word as friendship. what little i have done for you i think i would have done for a stranger, had i found a stranger as helpless and unfriended as i found you. i am quite sure that to have done less would have been to neglect a sacred duty. there is no question of obligation. till you are on your feet again, a strong man, i will stand by you; when that time comes, we part for ever." john saltram sank back upon his pillow with a heavy sigh, but uttered no protest against this sentence. and this was all that came of gilbert's vengeful passion against the man who had wronged him; this was the end of a long-cherished anger. "a lame and impotent conclusion," perhaps, but surely the only end possible under the circumstances. he could not wage war against a feeble creature, whose hold on life was still an uncertainty; he could not forget his promise to marian, that no harm should come to her husband through any act of his. so he sat quietly by the bedside of his prostrate foe, watched him silently as he fell into a brief restless slumber, and administered his medicine when he woke with a hand that was as gentle as a woman's. between four and five o'clock the nurse came in from the next room to take her place, refreshed by a sleep of several hours; and then gilbert departed in the chill gloom of the winter's morning, still as dark as night,--departed with his mind lightened of a great load; for it had been very terrible to him to think that the man who had once been his friend might go down to the grave without an interval of reason. chapter xxxvii. a full confession. gilbert did not go to the temple again till he had finished his day's work at st. helen's, and had eaten his modest dinner at a tavern in fleet-street. he found that mr. mew had already paid his second visit to the sick-room, and had pronounced himself much relieved and delighted by the favourable change. "i have no fear now," he had said to the nurse. "it is now only a question of getting back the physical strength, which has certainly fallen to a very low ebb. perfect repose and an entire freedom from care are what we have to look to." this the nurse told gilbert. "he has been very restless all day," she added, "though i've done what i could to keep him quiet. but he worries himself, now that his senses have come back, poor gentleman; and it isn't easy to soothe him any way. he keeps on wondering when he'll be well enough to move, and so on, over and over again. once, when i left the room for a minute and went back again, i found him attempting to get out of bed--only to try his strength, he said. but he's no more strength than a new-born baby, poor soul, and it will be weeks before he's able to stir. if he worries and frets, he'll put himself back for a certainty; but i daresay you'll have more influence over him than i, sir, and that you may be able to keep him quiet." "i doubt that," answered gilbert; "but i'll do my best. has he been delirious to-day?" "no, sir, not once; and of course that's a great thing gained." a feeble voice from the inner room called gilbert by name presently, and he went in at its bidding. "is that you, gilbert? come in, for pity's sake. i was sure of the voice. so you have come on your errand of charity once more. i am very glad to see you, though you are not my friend. sit down, ministering christian, sit by my side; i have some questions to ask you." "you must not talk much, john. the doctor insists upon perfect tranquillity." "he might just as well insist upon my making myself emperor of all the russias; one demand would be about as reasonable as the other. how long have i been lying here like a log--a troublesome log, by the way; for i find from some hints the nurse dropped to-day as to the blessing of my recovery, that i have been somewhat given to violence;--how long have i been ill, gilbert?" "a very long time." "give me a categorical answer. how many weeks and days?" "you were taken ill about the middle of december, and we are now in the first week of february." "nearly two months; and in all that time i have been idle--_ergo_, no remittances from publishers. how have i lived, gilbert? how have the current expenses of my illness been paid? and the children of israel--have they not been clamorous? there was a bill due in january, i know. i was working for that when i got pulled up. how is it that my vile carcass is not in their hands?" "you need give yourself no trouble; the bill has been taken up." "by you, of course? yes; you do not deny it. and you have been spending your money day by day to keep me alive. but then you would have done as much for a stranger. great heaven, what a mean hound i seem to myself, as i lie here and think what you have done for me, and how i have acted towards you!" he turned himself in his bed with a great effort, and lay with his face to the wall. "let me hide my face from you," he said; "i am a shameful creature." "believe me, once more, there is not the faintest shadow of an obligation," gilbert responded eagerly; "i can very well afford anything i have done; shall never feel myself the poorer for it by a sixpence. i cannot bear that these things should be spoken of between us. you know how often i have begged you to let me help you in the past, and how wounded i have been by your refusal." "yes, when we were friends, before i had ever wronged you. if i had taken your help then, i should hardly have felt the obligation. but, stay, i am not such a pauper as i seem. my wife will have money; at least you told me that the old man was rich." "yes, your wife will have money, plenty of money. you have no need to trouble yourself about financial matters. you have only to consider what the doctor has said. your recovery depends almost entirely upon your tranquillity of mind. if you want to get well speedily, you must remember this." "i do want to get well. i am in a fever to get well; i want to see my wife. but my recovery will be evidently a tedious affair. i cannot wait to see her till i am strong enough to travel. why should she not come to me here? she can--she must come. write to her, gilbert; tell her how i languish for her presence; tell her how ill i have been." "yes; i will write by and by." "by and by! your tone tells me that you do not mean what you say. there is something you are keeping from me. o, my god, what was that happened before i was ill? my wife was missing. i was hunting for her without rest for nearly a week; and then they told me she was drowned, that there was no hope of finding her. was that real, gilbert? or only a part of my delirium? speak to me, for pity's sake. was it real?" "yes, john; your perplexity and trouble were real, but unnecessary; your wife is safe." "safe? where?" "she is with her father." "she did not even know that her father was living." "no, not till very lately. he has come home from america, it seems, and marian is now under his protection." "what! she could desert me without a word of warning--without the faintest hint of her intention--to go to a father of whom she knew nothing, or nothing that was not eminently to his discredit!" "there may have been some strong influence brought to bear to induce her to take such a step." "what influence?" "do not worry yourself about that now; make all haste to get well, and then it will be easy for you to win her back." "yes; only place me face to face with her, and i do not think there would be much question as to that. but that she should forsake me of her own free will! it is so unlike my marian--my patient, long-suffering marian; i can scarcely believe such a thing possible. but that question can soon be put at rest. write to her, gilbert; tell her that i have been at death's door; that my chance of recovery hangs upon her will. father or no father, _that_ will bring her to my side." "i will do so, directly i know her address." "you do not know where she is?" "not yet. i am expecting to obtain that information every day. i have taken measures to ascertain where she is." "and how do you know that she is with her father?" "i have the lawyer's authority for that; a lawyer whom the old man, jacob nowell, trusted, whom he left sole executor to his will." it was necessary above all things that john saltram's mind should be set at rest; and in order to secure this result gilbert was fain to affect a supreme faith in mr. medler. "you believe this man, gilbert?" the invalid asked anxiously. "of course. he has no reason for deceiving me." "but why withhold the father's address?" "it is easy enough to conjecture his reasons for that; a dread of your influence robbing him of his daughter. her fortune has made her a prize worth disputing, you see. it is natural enough that the father should wish to hide her from you." "for the sake of the money?--yes, i suppose that is the beginning and end of his scheme. my poor girl! no doubt he has told her all manner of lies about me, and so contrived to estrange that faithful heart. will you insert an advertisement in the _times_, gilbert, under initials, telling her of my illness, and entreating her to come to me?" "i will do so if you like; but i daresay nowell will be cautious enough to keep the advertisement-sheet away from her, or to watch it pretty closely, and prevent her seeing anything we may insert. i am taking means to find them, john. i must entreat you to rest satisfied with that." "rest satisfied,--when i am uncertain whether i shall ever see my wife again! that is a hard thing to do." "if you harass yourself, you will not live to see her again. trust in me, john; marian's safety is as dear to me as it can be to you. i am her sworn friend and brother, her self-appointed guardian and defender. i have skilled agents at work; we shall find her, rely upon it." it was a strange position into which gilbert found himself drifting; the consoler of this man who had so basely robbed him. they could never be friends again, these two; he had told himself that, not once, but many times during the weary hours of his watching beside john saltram's sick-bed. they could never more be friends; and yet he found himself in a manner compelled to perform the offices of friendship. nor was it easy to preserve anything like the neutral standing which he had designed for himself. the life of this sometime friend of his hung by so frail a link, he had such utter need of kindness; so what could gilbert do but console him for the loss of his wife, and endeavour to inspire him with a hopeful spirit about her? what could he do less than friendship would have done, although his affection for this old friend of his youth had perished for evermore? the task of consolation was not an easy one. once restored to his right mind, with a vivid sense of all that had happened to him before his illness, john saltram was not to be beguiled into a false security. the idea that his wife was in dangerous hands pursued him perpetually, and the consciousness of his own impotence to rescue her goaded him to a kind of mental fever. "to be chained here, gilbert, lying on this odious bed like a dog, when she needs my help! how am i to bear it?" "like a man," the other answered quietly. "were you as well as i am this moment, there's nothing you could do that i am not doing. do you think i should sit idly here, if the best measures had not been taken to find your wife?" "forgive me. yes; i have no doubt you have done what is best. but if i were astir, i should have the sense of doing something. i could urge on those people you employ, work with them even." "you would be more likely to hinder than to assist them. they know their work, and it is a slow drudging business at best, which requires more patience than you possess. no, john, there is nothing to be done but to wait, and put our trust in providence and in time." this was a sermon which gilbert fenton had occasion to preach very often in the slow weary days that followed john saltram's recovery of his right senses. the sick man, tossing to and fro upon the bed he loathed with such an utter loathing, could not refrain from piteous bewailings of his helplessness. he was not a good subject for sickness, had never served his apprenticeship to a sick-bed until now, and the ordeal seemed to him a very long one. in all that period of his delirious wanderings there had been an exaggerated sense of time in his mind. it seemed to him that he had been lying there for years, lost in a labyrinth of demented fancies. looking back at that time, now that his reason had been restored to him, he was able to recall his delusions one by one, and it was very difficult for him to understand, even now, that they were all utterly groundless, the mere vagabondage of a wandering brain; that the people he had fancied close at hand, lurking in the next room--he had rarely seen them close about his bed, but had been possessed with a vivid sense of their neighbourhood--had been never near him; that the old friends and associates of his boyhood, who had been amongst these fancied visitors, were for the greater number dead and passed away long before this time; that he had been, in every dream and every fancy of that weary interval, the abject slave of his own hallucinations. little by little his strength came back to him by very slow degrees--so slowly, indeed, that the process of recovery might have sorely tried the patience of any man less patient than gilbert. there came a day at last when the convalescent was able to leave his bed for an hour or so, just strong enough to crawl into the sitting-room with the help of gilbert's arm, and to sit in an easy-chair, propped up by pillows, very feeble of aspect, and with a wan haggard countenance that pleaded mutely for pity. it was impossible to harbour revengeful feelings against a wretch so stricken. mr. mew was much elated by this gradual improvement in his patient, and confessed to gilbert, in private, that he had never hoped for so happy a result. "nothing but an iron constitution, and your admirable care, could have carried our friend through such an attack, sir," he said decisively. "and now that we are getting round a little, we must have change of air--change of air and of scene; that is imperatively necessary. mr. saltram talks of a loathing for these rooms; very natural under the circumstances. we must take him away directly he can bear the removal." "i rather doubt his willingness to stir," gilbert answered, thoughtfully. "he has anxieties that are likely to chain him to london." "if there is any objection of that kind it must be conquered," mr. mew said. "a change will do your friend more good than all the physic i can give him." "where would you advise me to take him?" "not very far. he couldn't stand the fatigue of a long journey. i should take him to some quiet little place near town--the more countrified the better. it isn't a very pleasant season for the country; but in spite of that, the change will do him good." gilbert promised to effect this arrangement, as soon as the patient was well enough to be moved. he would run down to hampton or kingston, he told mr. mew, in a day or two, and look for suitable lodgings. "hampton or kingston by all means," replied the surgeon cheerily. "both very pleasant places in their way, and as mild as any neighbourhood within easy reach of town. don't go too near the water, and be sure your rooms are dry and airy--that's the main point. we might move him early next week, i fancy; if we get him up for an hour or two every day in the interval." gilbert had kept mrs. branston very well informed as to john saltram's progress, and that impetuous little woman had sent a ponderous retainer of the footman species to the temple daily, laden now with hothouse grapes, and anon with dainty jellies, clear turtle-soups, or delicate preparations of chicken, blancmanges and iced drinks; the conveyance whereof was a sore grievance to the ponderous domestic, in spite of all the aid to be derived from a liberal employment of cabs. adela branston had sent these things in defiance of her outraged kinswoman, mrs. pallinson, who was not slow to descant upon the impropriety of such a proceeding. "i wonder you can talk in such a way, when you know how friendless this poor mr. saltram is, and how little trouble it costs me to do as much as this for him. but i daresay the good samaritan had some one at home who objected to the waste of that twopence he paid for the poor traveller." mrs. pallinson gave a little shriek of horror on hearing this allusion, and protested against so profane a use of the gospel. "but the gospel was meant to be our guide in common things, wasn't it, mrs. pallinson? however, there's not the least use in your being angry; for i mean to do what i can for mr. saltram, and there's no one in the world could turn me from my intention." "indeed!" cried the elder lady, indignantly; "and when he recovers you mean to marry him, i daresay. you will be weak enough to throw away your fortune upon a profligate and a spendthrift, a man who is certain to make any woman miserable." and hereupon there arose what sheridan calls "a very pretty quarrel" between the two ladies, which went very near to end in mrs. pallinson's total withdrawal from cavendish-square. very nearly, but not quite, to that agreeable consummation did matters proceed; for, on the very verge of the final words which could have spoken the sentence of separation, mrs. pallinson was suddenly melted, and declared that nothing, no outrage of her feelings--"and heaven knows how they have been trodden on this day," the injured matron added in parenthesis--should induce her to desert her dearest adela. and so there was a hollow peace patched up, and mrs. branston felt that the blessings of freedom, the delightful relief of an escape from pallinsonian influences, were not yet to be hers. directly she heard from gilbert that change of air had been ordered for the patient, she was eager to offer her villa near maidenhead for his accommodation. "the house is always kept in apple-pie order," she wrote to gilbert; "and i can send down more servants to make everything comfortable for the invalid." "i know he is fond of the place," she added in conclusion, after setting out all the merits of the villa with feminine minuteness; "at least i know he used to like it, and i think it would please him to get well there. i can only say that it would make _me_ very happy; so do arrange it, dear mr. fenton, if possible, and oblige yours ever faithfully, adela branston." "poor little woman," murmured gilbert, as he finished the letter. "no; we will not impose upon her kindness; we will go somewhere else. better for her that she should see and hear but little of john saltram for all time to come; and then the foolish fancy will wear itself out perhaps, and she may live to be a happy wife yet; unless she, too, is afflicted with the fatal capability of constancy. is that such a common quality, i wonder? are there many so luckless as to love once and once only, and who, setting all their hopes upon one cast, lose all if that be fatal?" gilbert told john saltram of mrs. branston's offer, which he was as prompt to decline as gilbert himself had been. "it is like her to wish it," he said; "but no, i should feel myself a double traitor and impostor under her roof. i have done her wrong enough already. if i could have loved her, gilbert, all might have been well for you and me. god knows i tried to love her, poor little woman; and she is just the kind of woman who might twine herself about any man's heart--graceful, pretty, gracious, tender, bright and intelligent enough for any man; and not too clever. but _my_ heart she never touched. from the hour i saw that _other_, i was lost. i will tell you all about that some day. no; we will not go to the villa. write and give mrs. branston my best thanks for the generous offer, and invent some excuse for declining it; that's a good fellow." by-and-by, when the letter was written, john saltram said,--"i do not want to go out of town at all, gilbert. it's no use for the doctor to talk; i can't leave london till we have news of marian." gilbert had been prepared for this, and set himself to argue the point with admirable patience. mr. proul's work would go on just as well, he urged, whether they were in london or at hampton. a telegram would bring them any tidings as quickly in the one place as the other. "i am not asking you to go far, remember," he added. "you will be within an hour's journey of london, and the doctors declare this change is indispensable to your recovery. you have told us what a horror you have of these rooms." "yes; i doubt if any one but a sick man can understand his loathing of the scene of his illness. that room in there is filled with the shadows that haunted me in all those miserable nights--when the fever was at its worst, and i lived amidst a crowd of phantoms. yes, i do most profoundly hate that room. as for this matter of change of air, gilbert, dispose of me as you please; my worthless existence belongs to you." gilbert was quick to take advantage of this concession. he went down to hampton next day, and explored the neighbourhood on both sides of the thames. his choice fell at last on a pretty little house within a stone's throw of the palace gates, the back windows whereof looked out upon the now leafless solitude of bushy park, and where there was a comfortable-looking rosy-faced landlady, whose countenance was very pleasant to contemplate after the somewhat lachrymose visage of mrs. pratt. here he found he could have all the accommodation he required, and hither he promised to bring the invalid early in the following week. there were as yet no tidings worth speaking of from mr. proul. that distinguished member of the detective profession waited upon gilbert fenton with his budget twice a week, but the budget was a barren one. mr. proul's agent pronounced mr. medler's clerk the toughest individual it had ever been his lot to deal with. no amount of treating at the public-house round the corner--and the agent had ascended from the primitive simplicity of a pint of porter to the highest flights in the art of compound liquors--could exert a softening influence upon that rigid nature. either the clerk knew nothing about percival nowell, or had been so well schooled as to disclose nothing of what he knew. money had been employed by the agent, as well as drink, as a means of temptation; but even every insidious hint of possible gains had failed to move the ill-paid underling to any revelation. "it's my belief the man knows nothing, or else i should have had it out of him by hook or by crook," mr. proul's agent told him, and mr. proul repeated to his client. this first agent having thus come to grief, and having perhaps made himself a suspected person in the eyes of the medler office by his manoeuvres, a second spy had been placed to keep close watch upon the house, and to follow any person who at all corresponded with the detective idea of mr. nowell. it could be no more than an idea, unfortunately, since gilbert had been able to give the accomplished proul no description of the man he wanted to trace. above all, the spy was to take special note of any lady who might be seen to enter or leave the office, and to this end he was furnished with a close description of marian. gilbert called upon mrs. branston before carrying john saltram out of town; he fancied that her offer of the maidenhead villa would be better acknowledged personally than by a letter. he found the pretty little widow sorely disappointed by mr. saltram's refusal to occupy her house, and it was a little difficult to explain to her why they both preferred other quarters for the convalescent. "why will he not accept the smallest favour from me?" adela branston asked plaintively. "he ought to know that there is no _arrière pensée_ in any offer which i make him--that i have no wish except for his welfare. why does he not trust me a little more?" "he will do so in future, i think, mrs. branston," gilbert answered gravely. "i fancy he has learned the folly and danger of all underhand policy, and that he will put more faith in his friends for the rest of his life." "and he is really much better, quite out of danger? do the doctors say that?" "he is as much out of danger as a man can well be whose strength has all been wasted in a perilous illness. he has that to regain yet, and the recovery will be slow work. of course in his condition a relapse would be fatal; but there is no occasion to apprehend a relapse." "thank heaven for that! and you will take care of him, mr. fenton, will you not?" "i will do my very best. he saved my life once; so you see that i owe him a life." the invalid was conveyed to hampton on a bright february day, when there was an agreeable glimpse of spring sunshine. he went down by road in a hired brougham, and the journey seemed a long one; but it was an unspeakable relief to john saltram to see the suburban roads and green fields after the long imprisonment of the temple,--a relief that moved him almost to tears in his extreme weakness. "could you believe that a man would be so childish, gilbert?" he said apologetically. "it might have been a good thing for me to have died in that dismal room, for heaven only knows what heavy sorrow lies before me in the future. yet the sight of these common things touches me more keenly than all the glory of the jungfrau touched me ten years ago. what a gay bright-looking world it is! and yet how many people are happy in it? how many take the right road? i suppose there is a right road by which we all might travel, if we only knew how to choose it." he felt the physical weariness of the journey acutely, but uttered no complaint throughout the way; though gilbert could see the pale face growing paler, the sunken cheeks more pinched of aspect, as they went on. to the last he pronounced himself delighted by that quiet progress through the familiar landscape; and then having reached his destination, had barely strength to totter to a comfortable chintz-covered sofa in the bright-looking parlour, where he fainted away. the professional nurse had been dismissed before they left london, and gilbert was now the invalid's only attendant. the woman had performed her office tolerably well, after the manner of her kind; but the presence of a sick nurse is not a cheering influence, and john saltram was infinitely relieved by her disappearance. "how good you are to me, gilbert!" he said, that first evening of his sojourn at hampton, after he had recovered from his faint, and was lying on the sofa sipping a cup of tea. "how good! and yet you are my friend no longer; all friendship is at an end between us. well, god knows i am as helpless as that man who fell among thieves; i cannot choose but accept your bounty." chapter xxxviii. an ill-omened wedding. after that promise wrung from her by such a cruel agony, that fatal bond made between her and stephen whitelaw, ellen carley's life seemed to travel past her as if by some enchantment. time lost its familiar sluggishness; the long industrious days, that had been so slow of old, flew by the bailiff's daughter like the shadows from a magic-lantern. at the first, after that desperate miserable day upon which the hateful words were uttered that were to bind her for life to a detested master, the girl had told herself that something must happen to prevent the carrying out of this abhorrent bargain. something would happen. she had a vague faith that providence would interfere somehow to save her. day after day she looked into her father's face, thinking that from him, perhaps, might come some sign of wavering, some hint of possible release. vain hope. the bailiff having exacted the sacrifice, pretended to think his daughter's welfare secured by that very act. he did not hesitate to congratulate her on her good fortune, and to protest, with an accustomed oath, that there was not a sensible woman in england who would not envy her so excellent a match. once poor ellen, always impetuous and plain-spoken, lost all patience with him, and asked how he dared to say such things. "you know that i hate this man, father!" she cried passionately; "and that i hate myself for what i am going to do. you know that i have promised to be his wife for your sake, for your sake only; and that if i could have saved you from disgrace by giving you my life, i should have done it gladly to escape this much greater sacrifice. never speak to me about stephen whitelaw again, father, unless you want to drive me mad. let me forget what sin i am going to commit, if i can; let me go on blindfold." it was to be observed that from the hour of her betrothal ellen carley as far as possible avoided her father's companionship. she worked more busily than ever about the big old house, was never tired of polishing the little-used furniture and dusting the tenantless bed-chambers; she seemed, indeed, to be infected with mrs. tadman's passion for superhuman cleanliness. to her dairy duties also she devoted much more time than of old; anything to escape the parlour, where her father sat idle for a considerable portion of the day, smoking his pipe, and drinking rather more than was good for him. nor did mr. carley, for his part, appear to dislike this tacit severance between his daughter and himself. as the foolish young woman chose to accept good fortune in a perverse spirit, it was well that they two should see as little of each other as possible. every evening found mr. whitelaw a punctual visitor in the snug panelled parlour, and at such times the bailiff insisted upon his daughter's presence; she was obliged to sit there night after night, stitching monotonously at some unknown calico garment--which might well from the state of mind of the worker have been her winding-sheet; or darning one of an inexhaustible basket of woollen stockings belonging to her father. it was her irksome duty to be there, ready to receive any awkward compliment of her silent lover's, ready to acquiesce meekly in his talk of their approaching wedding. but at all other times mr. carley was more than content with her absence. at first the bailiff had made a feeble attempt to reconcile his daughter to her position by the common bribe of fine clothes. he had extorted a sum of money from stephen whitelaw for this purpose, and had given that sum, or a considerable part of it, to his daughter, bidding her expend it upon her wedding finery. the girl took the money, and spent a few pounds upon the furbishing-up of her wardrobe, which was by no means an extensive one; but the remaining ten-pound note she laid by in a secret place, determined on no account to break in upon it. "the time may come when all my life will depend upon the possession of a few pounds," she said to herself; "when i may have some chance of setting myself free from that man." she had begun to contemplate such a possibility already, before her wedding-day. it was for her father's sake she was going to sell her liberty, to take upon herself a bondage most odious to her. the time might come when her father would be beyond the reach of shame and disgrace, when she might find some manner of escape from her slavery. in the meantime the days hurried on, and providence offered her no present means of rescue. the day of doom came nearer and nearer; for the bailiff took part with his future son-in-law, and would hear of no reasons which ellen could offer for delay. he was eager to squeeze the farmer's well-filled purse a little tighter, and he fancied he might do this when his daughter was stephen whitelaw's wife. so suitor and father were alike pitiless, and the wedding was fixed for the th of march. there were no preparations to be made at wyncomb farmhouse. mr. whitelaw did not mean to waste so much as a five-pound note upon the embellishment of those barely-furnished rooms in honour of his bright young bride; although mrs. tadman urged upon him the necessity of new muslin curtains here, and new dimity there, a coat or so of paint and new whitewash in such and such rooms, and other small revivals of the same character; not sorry to be able to remind him in this indirect manner that marriage was an expensive thing. "a young woman like that will expect to see things bright and cheerful about her," said mrs. tadman, in her most plausible tone, and rubbing her thin hands with an air of suppressed enjoyment. "if you were going to marry a person of your own age, it would be different, of course; but young women have such extravagant notions. i could see miss carley did not think much of the furniture when i took her over the house on new-year's-day. she said the rooms looked gloomy, and that some of them gave her the horrors, and so on. if you don't have the place done up a bit at first, you'll have to get it done at last, depend upon it; a young wife like that will make the money spin, you may be sure." "will she?" said mr. whitelaw, with a satisfied grin. "that's my look-out. i don't think you've had very much chance of making my money spin, eh, mrs. tadman?" the widow cast up her hands and eyes towards the ceiling of the parlour where they were sitting. "goodness knows i've had precious little chance of doing that, stephen whitelaw," she replied. "i should reckon not; and my wife will have about as much." there was some cold comfort in this. mrs. tadman had once hoped that if her cousin ever exalted any woman to the proud position of mistress of wyncomb, she herself would be that favoured individual; and it was a hard thing to see a young person, who had nothing but a certain amount of good looks to recommend her, raised to that post of honour in her stead. it was some consolation, therefore, to discover that the interloper was to reign with very limited powers, and that none of the privileges or indulgences usually granted to youthful brides by elderly bridegrooms were to be hers. it was something, too, for mrs. tadman to be allowed to remain beneath the familiar shelter of that gloomy old house, and this boon had been granted to her at ellen's express request. "i suppose she's going to turn lazy as soon as she's married, or she wouldn't have wanted to keep you," the farmer said in rather a sulky manner, after he had given mrs. tadman his gracious permission to remain in his service. "but if she is, we must find some way of curing her of that. i don't want a fine lady about _my_ place. there's the dairy, now; we might do more in that way, i should think, and get more profit out of butter-making than we do by sending part of the milk up to london. butter fetches a good price now-a-days from year's end to year's end, and ellen is a rare hand at a dairy; i know that for certain." thus did mr. whitelaw devote his pretty young wife to an endless prospect of butter-making. he had no intention that the alliance should be an unprofitable one, and he was already scheming how he might obtain some indirect kind of interest for that awful sum of two hundred pounds advanced to william carley. sir david forster had not come to make that threatened investigation of things at the grange. careless always in the management of his affairs, the receipt of a handsome sum of money from the bailiff had satisfied him, and he had suffered his suspicions to be lulled to rest for the time being, not caring to undertake the trouble of a journey to hampshire, and an examination of dry business details. it was very lucky for mr. carley that his employer was so easy and indolent a master; for there were many small matters at the grange which would have hardly borne inspection, and it would have been difficult for sir david to come there without making some discovery to his bailiff's disadvantage. the evil day had been warded off, however, by means of stephen whitelaw's money, and william carley meant to act more cautiously, more honestly even, in future. he would keep clear of race-courses and gambling booths, he told himself, and of the kind of men who had beguiled him into dishonourable dealing. "i have had an uncommon narrow squeak of it," he muttered to himself occasionally, as he smoked a meditative pipe, "and have been as near seeing the inside of portland prison as ever a man was. but it'll be a warning to me in future. and yet who could have thought that things would have gone against me as they did? there was sir philip christopher's bay colt pigskin, for instance; that brute was bound to win." february came to an end; and when march once began, there seemed no pause or breathing-time for ellen carley till the th. and yet she had little business to occupy her during those bleak days of early spring. it was the horror of that rapid flight of time, which seemed independent of her own life in its hideous swiftness. idle or busy, it was all the same. the days would not linger for her; the dreaded th was close at hand. frank randall was still in london, in that solicitor's office--a firm of some standing in the city--to which he had gone on leaving his father. he had written two or three times to ellen since he left hampshire, and she had answered his letters secretly; but pleasant though it was to her to hear from him, she begged him not to write, as her father's anger would be extreme if a letter should by any evil chance fall into his hands. so within the last few months there had been no tidings of ellen's absent lover, and the girl was glad that it was so. what could she have said to him if she had been compelled to tell him of her engagement to stephen whitelaw? what excuse could she have made for marrying a man about whom she had been wont to express herself to frank randall in most unequivocal terms? excuse there was none, since she could not betray her father. it was better, therefore, that young randall should hear of her marriage in the common course of things, and that he should think of her just as badly as he pleased. this was only one more poisoned drop in a cup that was all bitterness. "he will believe that i was a hypocrite at heart always," the unhappy girl said to herself, "and that i value stephen whitelaw's money more than his true heart--that i can marry a man i despise and dislike for the sake of being rich. what can he think worse of me than that? and how can he help thinking that? he knows that i have a good spirit of my own, and that my father could not make me do anything against my will. he will never believe that this marriage has been all my father's doing." the wedding morning came at last, bright and spring-like, with a sun that shone as gaily as if it had been lighting the happiest union that was ever recorded in the hymeneal register. there were the first rare primroses gleaming star-like amidst the early greenery of high grassy banks in solitary lanes about crosber, and here and there the tender blue of a violet. it would have seemed a very fair morning upon which to begin the first page in the mystic volume of a new life, if ellen carley had been going to marry a man she loved; but no hapless condemned wretch who ever woke to see the sun shining upon the day of his execution could have been more profoundly wretched than the bailiff's daughter, as she dressed herself mechanically in her one smart silk gown, and stood in a kind of waking trance before the quaint old-fashioned looking-glass which reflected her pale hopeless face. she had no girlish companion to assist in that dismal toilet. long ago there had been promises exchanged between ellen carley and her chosen friend, the daughter of a miller who lived a little way on the other side of crosber, to the effect that whichever was first to marry should call upon the other to perform the office of bridesmaid; and sarah peters, the miller's daughter, was still single and eligible for the function. but there was to be no bridesmaid at this blighted wedding. ellen had pleaded urgently that things might be arranged as quietly as possible; and the master of wyncomb, who hated spending money, and who apprehended that the expenses of any festivity would in all probability fall upon his own shoulders, was very well pleased to assent to this request of his betrothed. "quite right, nell," he said; "we don't want any foolish fuss, or a pack of people making themselves drunk at our expense. you and your father can come quietly to crosber church, and mrs. tadman and me will meet you there, and the thing's done. the marriage wouldn't be any the tighter if we had a hundred people looking on, and the bishop of winchester to read the service." it was arranged in this manner, therefore; and on that pleasant spring morning william carley and his daughter walked to the quiet village where gilbert fenton had discovered the secret of marian's retreat. the face under the bride's little straw bonnet was deadly pale, and the features had a rigid look that was new to them. the bailiff glanced at his daughter in a furtive way every now and then, with an uneasy sense of this strange look in her face. even in his brute nature there were some faint twinges of compunction, now that the deed he had been so eager to compass was well-nigh done--some vague consciousness that he had been a hard and cruel father. "and yet it's all for her own good," he told himself, "quite as much as for mine. better to marry a rich man than a pauper any day; and to take a dislike to a man's age or a man's looks is nothing but a girl's nonsense. the best husband is the one that can keep his wife best; and if i hadn't forced on this business, she'd have taken up with lawyer randall's son, who's no better than a beggar, and a pretty life she'd have had of it with him." by such reasoning as this william carley contrived to set his conscience at rest during that silent walk along the rustic lane between the grange and crosber church. it was not a conscience very difficult to appease. and as for his daughter's pallid looks, those of course were only natural to the occasion. mr. whitelaw and mrs. tadman were at the church when the bailiff and his daughter arrived. the farmer had made a scarecrow of himself in a new suit of clothes, which he had ordered in honour of this important event, after a great deal of vacillation, and more than one countermand to the malsham tailor who made the garments. at the last he was not quite clear in his mind as to whether he wanted the clothes, and the outlay was a serious one. mrs. tadman had need to hold his every-day coat up to the light to convince him that the collar was threadbare, and that the sleeves shone as if purposely polished by some ingenious process. "marriage is an expensive thing," she told him again, with a sigh; "and young girls expect to see a man dressed ever so smart on his wedding-day." "i don't care for her expectations," mr. whitelaw muttered, in reply to this remark; "and if i don't want the clothes, i won't have 'em. do you think i could get over next christmas with them as i've got?" mrs. tadman said "no" in a most decisive manner. perhaps she derived a malicious pleasure from the infliction of that tailor's bill upon her cousin whitelaw. so the new suit had been finally ordered; and stephen stood arrayed therein before the altar-rails in the gray old church at crosber, a far more grotesque and outrageous figure to contemplate than any knight templar, or bearded cavalier of the days of the first english james, whose effigies were to be seen in the chancel. mrs. tadman stood a little way behind him, in a merino gown, and a new bonnet, extorted somehow from the reluctant stephen. she was full of smiles and cordial greetings for the bride, who did not even see her. neither did ellen carley see the awkward figure of her bridegroom. a mist was before her eyes, as if there had been an atmosphere of summer blight or fog in the village church. she knelt, or rose, as her prayer-book taught her, and went through the solemn service as placidly as if she had been a wondrous piece of mechanism constructed to perform such movements; and then, like a creature in a dream, she found herself walking out of the church presently, with her hand on stephen whitelaw's arm. she had a faint consciousness of some ceremony in the vestry, where it had taken stephen a long time to sign his name in the register, and where the clergyman had congratulated him upon his good fortune in having won for himself such a pretty young wife; but it was all more or less like a dreadful oppressive dream. mr. whitelaw's chaise-cart was waiting for them; and they all four got in, and drove at once to wyncomb; where there was another ponderous dinner, very much like the banquet of new-year's-day, and where the bailiff drank freely, after his wont, and grew somewhat uproarious towards tea-time, though mr. whitelaw's selections of port and sherry were not of a kind to tempt a connoisseur. there was to be no honeymoon trip. stephen whitelaw did not understand the philosophy of running away from a comfortable home to spend money in furnished lodgings; and he had said as much, when the officious tadman suggested a run to weymouth, or bournemouth, or a fortnight in the isle of wight. to ellen it was all the same where the rest of her life should be spent. it could not be otherwise than wretched henceforward, and the scene of her misery mattered nothing. so she uttered no complaint because her husband brought her straight home to wyncomb farmhouse, and her wedded life began in that dreary dwelling-place. chapter xxxix. a domestic mystery. it was near the end of march, but still bleak cold weather. ellen carley had been married something less than a fortnight, and had come to look upon the dismal old farm-house by the river with a more accustomed eye than when mrs. tadman had taken her from room to room on a journey of inspection. not that the place seemed any less dreary and ugly to her to-day than it had seemed at the very first. familiarity could not make it pleasant. she hated the house and everything about and around it, as she hated her husband, with a rooted aversion, not to be subdued by any endeavour which she might make now and then--and she did honestly make such endeavour--to arrive at a more christian-like frame of mind. notwithstanding this deeply-seated instinctive dislike to all her surroundings, she endured her fate quietly, and did her duty with a patient spirit which might fairly be accepted as an atonement for those inward rebellious feelings which she could not conquer. having submitted to be the scapegoat of her father's sin, she bore her burden very calmly, and fulfilled the sacrifice without any outward mark of martyrdom. she went about the work of the farm-house with a resolute active air that puzzled mrs. tadman, who had fully expected the young wife would play the fine lady, and leave all the drudgery of the household to her. but it really seemed as if ellen liked hard work. she went from one task to another with an indefatigable industry, an energy that never gave way. only when the day's work in house and dairy was done did her depression of spirits become visible. then, indeed, when all was finished, and she sat down, neatly dressed for the afternoon, in the parlour with mrs. tadman, it was easy to see how utterly hopeless and miserable this young wife was. the pale fixed face, the listless hands clasped loosely in her lap, every attitude of the drooping figure, betrayed the joyless spirit, the broken heart. at these times, when they were alone together, waiting stephen whitelaw's coming home to tea, mrs. tadman's heart, not entirely hardened by long years of self-seeking, yearned towards her kinsman's wife; and the secret animosity with which she had at first regarded her changed to a silent pity, a compassion she would fain have expressed in some form or other, had she dared. but she could not venture to do this. there was something in the girl, a quiet air of pride and self-reliance, in spite of her too evident sadness, which forbade any overt expression of sympathy; so mrs. tadman could only show her friendly feelings in a very small way, by being especially active and brisk in assisting all the household labours of the new mistress of wyncomb, and by endeavouring to cheer her with such petty gossip as she was able to pick up. ellen felt that the woman was kindly disposed towards her, and she was not ungrateful; but her heart was quite shut against sympathy, her sorrow was too profound to be lightened ever so little by human friendship. it was a dull despair, a settled conviction that for her life could never have again a single charm, that her days must go on in their slow progress to the grave unlightened by one ray of sunshine, her burden carried to the end of the dreary journey unrelieved by one hour of respite. it seemed very hard for one so young, not quite three-and-twenty yet, to turn her back upon every hope of happiness, to be obliged to say to herself, "for me the sun can never shine again, the world i live in can never more seem beautiful, or beautiful only in bitter contrast to my broken heart." but ellen told herself that this fate was hers, and that she must needs face it with a resolute spirit. the household work employed her mind in some measure, and kept her, more or less, from thinking; and it was for this reason she worked with such unflinching industry, just as she had worked in the last month or two at the grange, trying to shut her eyes to that hateful future which lay so close before her. mr. whitelaw had no reason to retract what he had said in his pride of heart about ellen carley's proficiency in the dairy. she proved herself all that he had boasted, and the dairy flourished under the new management. there was more butter, and butter of a superior quality, sent to market than under the reign of mrs. tadman; and the master of wyncomb made haste to increase his stock of milch cows, in order to make more money by this branch of his business. to have won for himself a pretty young wife, who, instead of squandering his substance, would help him to grow richer, was indeed a triumph, upon which mr. whitelaw congratulated himself with many a suppressed chuckle as he went about his daily labours, or jogged slowly home from market in his chaise-cart. as to his wife's feelings towards himself, whether those were cold indifference or hidden dislike, that was an abstruse and remote question which mr. whitelaw never took the trouble to ask himself. she was his wife. he had won her, that was the grand point; whatever disinclination she might have felt for the alliance, whatever love she might have cherished for another, had been trampled down and subjugated, and he, stephen whitelaw, had obtained the desire of his heart. he had won her, against that penniless young jackanapes, lawyer randall's son, who had treated him with marked contempt on more than one occasion when they happened to come across each other in malsham corn-exchange, which was held in the great covered quadrangular courtyard of the chief inn at malsham, and was a popular lounge for the inhabitants of that town. he had won her; her own sentiments upon the subject of this marriage were of very little consequence. he had never expected to be loved by his wife, his own ideas of that passion called love being of the vaguest; but he meant to be obeyed by her. she had begun well, had taken her new duties upon herself in a manner that gladdened his sordid soul; and although they had been married nearly a fortnight, she had given no hint of a desire to know the extent of his wealth, or where he kept any little hoard of ready money that he might have by him in the house. nor on market-day had she expressed any wish to go with him to malsham to spend money on drapery; and he had an idea, sedulously cultivated by mrs. tadman, that young women were perpetually wanting to spend money at drapers' shops. altogether, that first fortnight of his married life had been most satisfactory, and mr. whitelaw was inclined to regard matrimony as a wise and profitable institution. the day's work was done, and ellen was sitting with mrs. tadman in the every-day parlour, waiting for the return of her lord and master from malsham. it was not a market-day, but stephen whitelaw had announced at dinner-time that he had an appointment at malsham, and had set out immediately after dinner in the chaise-cart, much to the wonderment of mrs. tadman, who was an inveterate gossip, and never easy until she arrived at the bottom of any small household mystery. she wondered not a little also at ellen's supreme indifference to her husband's proceedings. "i can't for the life of me think what's taken him to malsham to-day," she said, as she plied her rapid knitting-needles in the manufacture of a gray-worsted stocking. "i haven't known him go to malsham, except of a market-day, not once in a twelvemonth. it must be a rare business to take him there in the middle of the week; for he can't abide to leave the farm in working-hours, except when he's right down obliged to it. nothing goes on the same when his back's turned, he says; there's always something wrong. and if it was an appointment with any one belonging to malsham, why couldn't it have stood over till saturday? it must be something out of the common that won't keep a couple of days." mrs. tadman went on with her knitting, gazing at ellen with an expectant countenance, waiting for her to make some suggestion. but the girl was quite silent, and there was a blank expression in her eyes, which looked out across the level stretch of grass between the house and the river, a look that told mrs. tadman very few of her words had been heard by her companion. it was quite disheartening to talk to such a person; but the widow went on nevertheless, being so full of her subject that she must needs talk to some one, even if that some one were little better than a stock or a stone. "there was a letter that came for stephen before dinner to-day; he got it when he came in, but it was lying here for an hour first. perhaps it was that as took him to malsham; and yet that's strange, for it was a london letter--and it don't seem likely as any one could be coming down from london to meet steph at malsham. i can't make top nor tail of it." mrs. tadman laid down her knitting, and gave the fire a vigorous stir. she wanted some vent for her vexation; for it was really too provoking to see ellen whitelaw sitting staring out of the window like a lifeless statue, and not taking the faintest interest in the mystery of her husband's conduct. she stirred the fire, and then busied herself with the tea-table, giving a touch here and there where no re-arrangement was wanted, for the sake of doing something. the room looked comfortable enough in the cold light of the spring afternoon. it was the most occupied room in the house, and the least gloomy. the glow of a good fire brightened the scanty shabby furniture a little, and the table, with its white cloth, homely flowered cups and saucers, bright metal teapot, and substantial fare in the way of ham and home-made bread, had a pleasant look enough in the eyes of any one coming in from a journey through the chill march atmosphere. mr. whitelaw's notion of tea was a solid meal, which left him independent of the chances of supper, and yet open to do something in that way; in case any light kickshaw, such as liver and bacon, a boiled sheep's head, or a beef-steak pie, should present itself to his notice. ellen roused herself from her long reverie at last. there was the sound of wheels upon the cart-track across the wide open field in front of the house. "here comes mr. whitelaw," she said, looking out into the gathering dusk; "and there's some one with him." "some one with him!" cried mrs. tadman. "why, my goodness, who can that be?" she ran to the window and peered eagerly out. the cart had driven up to the door by this time, and mr. whitelaw and his companion were alighting. the stranger was rather a handsome man, mrs. tadman saw at the first glance, tall and broad-shouldered, clad in dark-gray trousers, a short pilot-coat, and a wide-awake hat; but with a certain style even in this rough apparel which was not the style of agricultural malsham, an unmistakable air that belongs to a dweller in great cities. "i never set eyes upon him before," exclaimed mrs. tadman, aghast with wonder; for visitors at wyncomb were of the rarest, and an unknown visitor above all things marvellous. mr. whitelaw opened the house-door, which opened straight into a little lobby between the two parlours. there was a larger door and a spacious stone entrance-hall at one end of the house; but that door had not been opened within the memory of man, and the hall was only used as a storehouse now-a-days. there was some little mumbling talk in the lobby before the two men came in, and then mrs. tadman's curiosity was relieved by a closer view of the stranger. yes, he was certainly handsome, remarkably handsome even, for a man whose youth was past; but there was something in his face, a something sinister and secret, as it were, which did not strike mrs. tadman favourably. she could not by any means have explained the nature of her sensations on looking at him, but, as she said afterwards, she felt all in a moment that he was there for no good. and yet he was very civil-spoken too, and addressed both the ladies in a most conciliating tone, and with a kind of florid politeness. ellen looked at him, interested for the moment in spite of her apathetic indifference to all things. the advent of a stranger was something so rare as to awaken a faint interest in the mind most dead to impressions. she did not like his manner; there was something false and hollow in his extreme politeness. and his face--what was it in his face that startled her with such a sudden sense of strangeness and yet of familiarity? had she ever seen him before? yes; surely that was the impression which sent such a sudden shock through her nerves, which startled her from her indifference into eager wonder and perplexity. where had she seen him before? where and when? long ago, or only very lately? she could not tell. yet it seemed to her that she had looked at eyes like those, not once, but many times in her life. and yet the man was utterly strange to her. that she could have seen him before appeared impossible. it must have been some one like him she had seen, then. yes, that was it. it was the shadow of another face in his that had startled her with so strange a feeling, almost as if she had been looking upon some ghostly thing. another face, like and yet unlike. but what face? whose face? she could not answer that question, and her inability to solve the enigma tormented her all tea-time, as the stranger sat opposite to her, making a pretence of eating heartily, in accordance with mr. whitelaw's hospitable invitation, while that gentleman himself ploughed away with a steady persistence that made awful havoc with the ham, and reduced the loaf in a manner suggestive of jack the giant-killer. the visitor presently ventured to remark that tea-drinking was not much in his way, and that, if it were all the same to mr. whitelaw, he should prefer a glass of brandy-and-water; whereupon the brandy-bottle was produced from a cupboard by the fire-place, of which stephen himself kept the key, judiciously on his guard against a possible taste for ardent spirits developing itself in mrs. tadman. after this the stranger sat for some time, drinking cold brandy-and-water, and staring moodily at the fire, without making the faintest attempt at conversation, while mr. whitelaw finished his tea, and the table was cleared; and even after this, when the farmer had taken his place upon the opposite side of the hearth, and seemed to be waiting for his guest to begin business. he was not a lively stranger; he seemed, indeed, to have something on his mind, to be brooding upon some trouble or difficulty, as mrs. tadman remarked to her kinsman's wife afterwards. both the women watched him; ellen always perplexed by that unknown likeness, which seemed sometimes to grow stronger, sometimes to fade away altogether, as she looked at him; mrs. tadman in a rabid state of curiosity, so profound was the mystery of his silent presence. what was he there for? what could stephen want with him? he was not one of stephen's sort, by any means; had no appearance of association with agricultural interests. and yet there he was, a silent inexplicable presence, a mysterious figure with a moody brow, which seemed to grow darker as mrs. tadman watched him. at last, about an hour after the tea-table had been cleared, he rose suddenly, with an abrupt gesture, and said, "come, whitelaw, if you mean to show me this house of yours, you may as well show it to me at once." his voice had a harsh unpleasant sound as he said this. he stood with his back to the women, staring at the fire, while stephen whitelaw lighted a candle in his slow dawdling way. "be quick, man alive," the stranger cried impatiently, turning sharply round upon the farmer, who was trimming an incorrigible wick with a pair of blunted snuffers. "remember, i've got to go back to malsham; i haven't all the night to waste." "i don't want to set my house afire," mr. whitelaw answered sullenly; "though, perhaps, _you_ might like that. it might suit your book, you see." the stranger gave a sudden shudder, and told the farmer with an angry oath to "drop that sort of insolence." "and now show the way, and look sharp about it," he said in an authoritative tone. they went out of the room in the next moment. mrs. tadman gazed after them, or rather at the door which had closed upon them, with a solemn awe-stricken stare. "i don't like the look of it, ellen," she said; "i don't at all like the look of it." "what do you mean?" the girl asked indifferently. "i don't like the hold that man has got over stephen, nor the way he speaks to him--almost as if steph was a dog. did you hear him just now? and what does he want to see the house for, i should like to know? what can this house matter to him, unless he was going to buy it? that's it, perhaps, ellen. stephen has been speculating, and has gone and ruined himself, and that strange man is going to buy wyncomb. he gave me a kind of turn the minute i looked at him. and, depend upon it, he's come to turn us all out of house and home." ellen gave a faint shudder. what if her father's wicked scheming were to come to such an end as this! what if she had been sold into bondage, and the master to whom she had been given had not even the wealth which had been held before her as a bait in her misery! for herself she cared little whether she were rich or poor. it could make but a difference of detail in the fact of her unhappiness, whether she were mistress of wyncomb or a homeless tramp upon the country roads. the workhouse without stephen whitelaw must needs be infinitely preferable to wyncomb farm with him. and for her father, it seemed only a natural and justifiable thing that his guilt and his greed should be so punished. he had sold his daughter into life-long slavery for nothing but that one advance of two hundred pounds. he had saved himself from the penalty of his dishonesty, however, by that sacrifice; and would, no doubt, hold his daughter's misery lightly enough, even if poverty were added to the wretchedness of her position. the two women sat down on opposite sides of the hearth; mrs. tadman, too anxious to go on with her accustomed knitting, only able to wring her hands in a feeble way, and groan every now and then, or from time to time burst into some fragmentary speech. "and stephen's just the man to have such a thing on his mind and keep it from everybody till the last moment," she cried piteously. "and so many speculations as there are now-a-days to tempt a man to his ruin--railways and mines, and loans to turks and red indians and such-like foreigners; and steph might so easy be tempted by the hope of larger profits than he can make by farming." "but it's no use torturing yourself like that with fears that may be quite groundless," ellen said at last, rousing herself a little in order to put a stop to the wailing and lamentations of her companion. "there's no use in anticipating trouble. there may be nothing in this business after all. mr. whitelaw may have a fancy for showing people his house. he wanted me to see it, if you remember, that new-year's afternoon." "yes; but that was different. he meant to marry you. why should he want to show the place to a stranger? i can't believe but what that strange man is here for something, and something bad. i saw it in his face when he first came in." it was useless arguing the matter; mrs. tadman was evidently not to be shaken; so ellen said no more; and they sat on in silence, each occupied with her own thoughts. ellen's were not about stephen whitelaw's financial condition, but they were very sad ones. she had received a letter from frank randall since her marriage; a most bitter letter, upbraiding her for her falsehood and desertion, and accusing her of being actuated by mercenary motives in her marriage with stephen whitelaw. "how often have i heard you express your detestation of that fellow!" the young man wrote indignantly. "how often have i heard you declare that no earthly persuasion should ever induce you to marry him! and yet before my back has been turned six months, i hear that you are his wife. without a word of warning, without a line of explanation to soften the blow--if anything could soften it--the news comes to me, from a stranger who knew nothing of my love for you. it is very hard, ellen; all the harder because i had so fully trusted in your fidelity." "i will own that the prospect i had to offer you was a poor one; involving long delay before i could give you such a home as i wanted to give you; but o, nelly, nelly, i felt so sure that you would be true to me! and if you found yourself in any difficulty, worried beyond your power of resistance by your father--though i did not think you were the kind of girl to yield weakly to persuasion--a line from you would have brought me to your side, ready to defend you from any persecution, and only too proud to claim you for my wife, and carry you away from your father's unkindness." the letter went on for some time in the same upbraiding strain. ellen shed many bitter tears over it in the quiet of her own room. it had been delivered to her secretly by her old friend sarah peters, the miller's daughter, who had been the confidante of her love affairs; for even in his indignation mr. randall had been prudent enough to consider that such a missive, falling perchance into stephen whitelaw's hands, might work serious mischief. cruel as the letter was, ellen could not leave it quite unanswered; some word in her own defence she must needs write; but her reply was of the briefest. "there are some things that can never be explained," she wrote, "and my marriage is one of those. no one could save me from it, you least of all. there was no help for me; and i believe, with all my heart, that, in acting as i did, i only did my duty. i had not the courage to write to you beforehand to tell you what was going to be. i thought it was almost better you should hear it from a stranger. the more hardly you think of me, the easier it will be for you to forget me. there is some comfort in that. i daresay it will be very easy for you to forget. but if, in days to come, when you are happily married to some one else, you can teach yourself to think more kindly of me, and to believe that in what i did i acted for the best, you will be performing an act of charity towards a poor unhappy girl, who has very little left to hope for in this world." it was a hard thing for ellen to think that, in the estimation of the man she loved, she must for ever seem the basest and most mercenary of womankind; and yet how poor an excuse could she offer in the vague pleading of her letter! she could not so much as hint at the truth; she could not blacken her father's character. that frank randall should despise her, only made her trial a little sharper, her daily burden a little heavier, she told herself. with her mind full of these thoughts, she had very little sympathy to bestow upon mrs. tadman, whose fragmentary lamentations only worried her, like the murmurs of some troublesome not-to-be-pacified child; whereby that doleful person, finding her soul growing heavier and heavier, for lack of counsel or consolation, could at last endure this state of suspense no longer in sheer inactivity, but was fain to bestir herself somehow, if even in the most useless manner. she got up from her seat therefore, went over to the door, and, softly opening it, peered out into the darkness beyond. there was nothing, no glimmer of stephen's candle, no sound of men's footsteps or of men's voices; the merest blankness, and no more. the two men had been away from the parlour something more than half an hour by this time. for about five minutes mrs. tadman stood at the open door, peering out and listening, and still without result. then, with a shrill sudden sound through the long empty passages, there came a shriek, a prolonged piercing cry of terror or of pain, which turned mrs. tadman's blood to ice, and brought ellen to her side, pale and breathless. "what was that?" "what was that?" both uttered the same question simultaneously, looking at each other aghast, and then both fled in the direction from which that shrill cry had come. a woman's voice surely; no masculine cry ever sounded with such piercing treble. they hurried off to discover the meaning of this startling sound, but were neither of them very clear as to whence it had come. from the upper story no doubt, but in that rambling habitation there was so much scope for uncertainty. they ran together, up the staircase most used, to the corridor from which the principal rooms opened. before they could reach the top of the stairs, they heard a scuffling hurrying sound of heavy footsteps on the floor above them, and on the landing met mr. whitelaw and his unknown friend; face to face. "what's the matter?" asked the farmer sharply, looking angrily at the two scared faces. "that's just what we want to know," his wife answered. "who was it that screamed just now? who's been hurt?" "my friend stumbled against a step in the passage yonder, and knocked his shin. he cried out a bit louder than he need have done, if that's what you mean, but not loud enough to cause all this fuss. get downstairs again, you two, and keep quiet. i've no patience with such nonsense; coming flying upstairs as if you'd both gone mad." "it was not your friend's voice we heard," ellen answered resolutely; "it was a woman's cry. you must have heard it surely, stephen whitelaw." "i heard nothing but what i tell you," the farmer muttered sulkily. "get downstairs, can't you?" "not till i know what's the matter," his wife said, undismayed by his anger. "give me your light, and let me go and see." "you can go where you like, wench, and see what you can; and an uncommon deal wiser you'll be for your trouble." and yet, although mr. whitelaw gave his wife the candlestick with an air of profound indifference, there was an uneasy look in his countenance which she could plainly see, and which perplexed her not a little. "come, mrs. tadman," she said decisively, "we had better see into this. it was a woman's voice, and must have been one of the girls, i suppose. it may be nothing serious, after all,--these country girls scream out for a very little,--but we'd better get to the bottom of it." mr. whitelaw burst into a laugh--and he was a man whose laughter was as unpleasant as it was rare. "ay, my wench, you'd best get to the bottom of it," he said, "since you're so uncommon clever. me and my friend will go back to the parlour, and take a glass of grog." the gentleman whom mr. whitelaw honoured with his friendship had stood a little way apart all this time, wiping his forehead with a big orange coloured silk handkerchief. that blow upon his shin must have been rather a sharp one, if it had brought that cold sweat out upon his ashen face. "yes," he muttered; "come along, can't you? don't stand cawing here all night;" and hurried downstairs before his host. it had been all the business of a couple of minutes. ellen whitelaw and mrs. tadman went down to the ground floor by another staircase leading directly to the kitchen. the room looked comfortable enough, and the two servant-girls were sitting at a table near the fire. one was a strapping rosy-cheeked country girl, who did all the household work; the other an overgrown clumsy-looking girl, hired straight from the workhouse by mr. whitelaw, from economical motives; a stolid-looking girl, whose intellect was of the lowest order; a mere zoophyte girl, one would say--something between the vegetable and animal creation. this one, whose name was sarah batts, was chiefly employed in the poultry-yard and dairy. she had a broad brawny hand, which was useful for the milking of cows, and showed some kind of intelligence in the management of young chickens and the treatment of refractory hens. martha holden, the house-servant, was busy making herself a cap as her mistress came into the kitchen, droning some hampshire ballad by way of accompaniment to her work. sarah batts was seated in an attitude of luxurious repose, with her arms folded, and her feet on the fender. "was it either of you girls that screamed just now?" ellen asked anxiously. "screamed, ma'am! no, indeed," martha holden answered, with an air of perfect good faith. "what should we scream for? i've been sitting here at my work for the last hour, as quiet as could be." "and, sarah,--was it you, sarah? for goodness' sake tell the truth." "me, mum! lor no, mum. i was up with master showing him and the strange gentleman a light." "you were upstairs with your master? and did you hear nothing? a piercing shriek that rang through the house;--you must surely have heard it, both of you." martha shook her head resolutely. "not me, mum; i didn't hear a sound. the kitchen-door was shut all the time sarah was away, and i was busy at work, and thinking of nothing but my work. i wasn't upon the listen, as you may say." the kitchen was at the extreme end of the house, remote from that direction whence the unexplainable cry seemed to have come. "it is most extraordinary," ellen said gravely, perplexed beyond all measure. "but you, sarah; if you were upstairs with your master, you must surely have heard that shriek; it seemed to come from upstairs." "did master hear it?" asked the girl deliberately. "he says not." "then how should i, mum? no, mum, i didn't hear nothink; i can take my bible oath of that." "i don't want any oaths; i only want to know the meaning of this business. there would have been no harm in your screaming. you might just as well speak the truth about it." "lor, mum, but it warn't me," answered sarah batts with an injured look. "whatever could go to put it in your head as it was me?" "it must have been one or other of you two girls. there's no other woman in the house; and as you were upstairs, it seems more likely to have been you. however, there's no use talking any more about it. only we both heard the scream, didn't we, mrs. tadman?" "i should think we did, indeed," responded the widow with a vehement shudder. "my flesh is all upon the creep at this very moment. i don't think i ever had such a turn in my life." they went back to the parlour, leaving the two servants still sitting by the fire; sarah batts with that look of injured innocence fixed upon her wooden countenance, martha holden cheerfully employed in the construction of her sunday cap. in the parlour the two men were both standing by the table, the stranger with his back to the women as they entered, stephen whitelaw facing him. the former seemed to have been counting something, but stopped abruptly as the women came into the room. there was a little heap of bank-notes lying on the table. stephen snatched them up hastily, and thrust them in a bundle into his waistcoat-pocket; while the stranger put a strap round a bulky red morocco pocket-book with a more deliberate air, as of one who had nothing to hide from the world. that guilty furtive air of stephen's, and, above all, that passage of money between the two men, confirmed mrs. tadman in her notion that wyncomb farm was going to change hands. she resumed her seat by the fire with a groan, and accepted ellen's offer of a glass of spirits-and-water with a doleful shake of her head. "didn't i tell you so?" she whispered, as mrs. whitelaw handed her the comforting beverage. the stranger was evidently on the point of departure. there was a sound of wheels on the gravel outside the parlour window--the familiar sound of stephen whitelaw's chaise-cart; and that gentleman was busy helping his visitor on with his great-coat. "i shall be late for the last train," said the stranger, "unless your man drives like the very devil." "he'll drive fast enough, i daresay, if you give him half-a-crown," mr. whitelaw answered with a grin; "but don't let him go and do my horse any damage, or you'll have to pay for it." "of course. you'd like to get the price of a decent animal out of me for that broken-kneed hard-mouthed brute of yours," replied the stranger with a scornful laugh. "i think there never was such a money-grubbing, grinding, grasping beggar since the world began. however, you've seen the last shilling you're ever likely to get out of me; so make the best of it; and remember, wherever i may be, there are friends of mine in this country who will keep a sharp look-out upon you, and let me know precious quick if you don't stick to your part of our bargain like an honest man, or as nearly like one as nature will allow you to come. and now good-night, mr. whitelaw.--ladies, your humble servant." he was gone before ellen or mrs. tadman could reply to his parting salutation, had they been disposed to do so. mr. whitelaw went out with him, and gave some final directions to the stable-lad who was to drive the chaise-cart, and presently came back to the parlour, looking considerably relieved by his guest's departure. mrs. tadman rushed at once to the expression of her fears. "stephen whitelaw," she exclaimed solemnly, "tell us the worst at once. it's no good keeping things back from us. that man has come here to turn us out of house and home. you've sold wyncomb." "sold wyncomb! have you gone crazy, you old fool?" cried mr. whitelaw, contemplating his kinswoman with a most evil expression of countenance. "what's put that stuff in your head?" "your own doings, stephen, and that man's. what does he come here for, with his masterful ways, unless it's to turn us out of house and home? what did you show him the house for? nigh upon an hour you were out of this room with him, if you were a minute. why did money pass from him to you? i saw you put it in your pocket--a bundle of bank-notes." "you're a prying old catemeran!" cried mr. whitelaw savagely, "and a drunken old fool into the bargain.--why do you let her muddle herself with the gin-bottle like that, ellen? you ought to have more respect for my property. you don't call that taking care of your husband's house.--as for you, mother tadman, if you treat me to any more of this nonsense, you will find yourself turned out of house and home a precious deal sooner than you bargained for; but it won't be because of my selling wyncomb. sell wyncomb, indeed! i've about as much thought of going up in a balloon, as of parting with a rood or a perch of my father's land." this was a very long speech for mr. whitelaw; and, having finished it, he sank into his chair, quite exhausted by the unusual effort, and refreshed himself with copious libations of gin-and-water. "what was that man here for, then, stephen? it's only natural i should want to know that," said mrs. tadman, abashed, but not struck dumb by her kinsman's reproof. "what's that to you? business. yes, there _has_ been money pass between us, and it's rather a profitable business for me. perhaps it was horse-racing, perhaps it wasn't. that's about all you've any call to know. i've made money by it, and not lost. and now, don't let me be bothered about it any more, if you and me are to keep friends." "i'm sure, stephen," mrs. tadman remonstrated in a feebly plaintive tone, "i've no wish to bother you; there's nothing farther from my thoughts; but it's only natural that i should be anxious about a place where i've lived so many years. not but what i could get my living easy enough elsewhere, as you must know, stephen, being able to turn my hand to almost anything." to this feeble protest mr. whitelaw vouchsafed no answer. he had lighted his pipe by this time, and was smoking and staring at the fire with his usual stolid air--meditative, it might be, or only ruminant, like one of his own cattle. but all through that night mr. whitelaw, who was not commonly a seer of visions or dreamer of dreams, had his slumbers disturbed by some unwonted perplexity of spirit. his wife lay broad awake, thinking of that prolonged and piercing cry, which seemed to her, the more she meditated upon it, in have been a cry of anguish or of terror, and could not fail to notice this unusual disturbance of her husband's sleep. more than once he muttered to himself in a troubled manner; but his words, for the most part, were incoherent and disjointed--words of which that perplexed listener could make nothing. once she heard him say, "a bad job--dangerous business." chapter xl. in pursuit. john saltram improved daily at hampton court. in spite of his fierce impatience to get well, in order to engage in the search for marian--an impatience which was in itself sufficient to militate against his well-being--he did make considerable progress on the road to recovery. he was still very weak, and it must take time to complete his restoration; but he was no longer the pale ghost of his former self that gilbert had brought down to the quiet suburb. it would have been a cruel thing to leave him much alone at such a time, or it would have seemed very cruel to gilbert fenton, who had ever present in his memory those old days in egypt when this man had stood him in such good stead. he remembered the days of his own sickness, and contrived to perform his business duties within the smallest time possible, and so spend the rest of his life in the comfortable sitting-rooms looking out upon bushy-park on the one side, and on the other upon the pretty high road before the palace grounds. nor was there any sign in the intercourse of those two that the bond of friendship between them was broken. there was, it is true, a something deprecating in john saltram's manner that had not been common to him of old, and in gilbert fenton a deeper gravity than was quite natural; but that was all. it was difficult to believe that any latent spirit of animosity could lurk in the mind of either. in sober truth, gilbert, in his heart of hearts, had forgiven his treacherous friend. again and again he had told himself that the wrong he had suffered was an unpardonable offence, a thing not to be forgiven upon any ground whatever. but, lo, when he looked into his mind to discover the smouldering fires of that burning anger which he had felt at first against the traitor, he could find nothing but the gray ashes of a long-expired flame. the wrong had been suffered, and he loved his old friend still. yes, there was that in his heart for john saltram which no ill-doing could blot out. so he tended the convalescent's couch with a quiet devotion that touched the sinner very deeply, and there was a peace between those two which had in it something almost sacred. in the mind of the one there was a remorseful sense of guilt, in the heart of the other a pitying tenderness too deep for words. one night, as they were together on opposite sides of the fire, john saltram lying on a low sofa drawn close to the hearth, gilbert seated lazily in an easy-chair, the invalid broke out suddenly into a kind of apology for his wrong-doing. the conversation had flagged between them after the tea-things had been removed by the brisk little serving-maid of the lodgings; gilbert gazing meditatively at the fire, john saltram so quiet that his companion had thought him asleep. "i said once that i would tell you all about that business," he began at last, in a sudden spasmodic way; "but, after all there is so little to tell. there is no excuse for what i did; i know that better than you can know it. a man in my position, who had a spark of generosity or honour, would have strangled his miserable passion in its birth, would have gone away directly he discovered his folly, and never looked upon marian nowell's face again. i did try to do that, gilbert. you remember that last night we ever spent together at lidford--what a feverishly-happy night it was; only a cottage-parlour with a girl's bright face shining in the lamplight, and a man over head and ears in love, but a glimpse of paradise to that man. i meant that it should be the last of my weakness, gilbert. i had pledged myself to that by all the outspoken oaths wherewith a man can bind himself to do his duty. and i did turn my back upon the scene of my temptation, as you know, heartily resolved never to approach the edge of the pit again. i think if you had stayed in england, gilbert, if you had been on the spot to defend your own rights, all would have gone well, i should have kept the promise i had made for myself." "it was so much the more sacred because of my absence, john," gilbert said. "perhaps. after all, i suppose it was only a question of opportunity. that particular devil who tempts men to their dishonour contrived that the business should be made fatally easy for me. you were away, and the coast was clear, you know. i loved you, gilbert; but there is a passion stronger than the love which a man feels for his dearest friend. i meant most steadfastly to keep my faith with you; but you were away, and that fellow forster plagued me to come to him. i refused at first--yes, i held out for a couple of months; but the fever was strong upon me--a restless demon not to be exorcised by hard work, or dissipation even, for i tried both. and then before you were at the end of your journey, while you were still a wanderer across the desolate sea, happy in the thought of your dear love's fidelity, my courage gave way all at once, and i went down to heatherly. and so i saw her, and saw that she loved me--all unworthy as i was; and from that hour i was a lost man; i thought of nothing but winning her." "if you had only been true to me, even then, john; if you had written to me declaring the truth, and giving me fair warning that you were my rival, how much better it would have been! think what a torture of suspense, what a world of wasted anger, you might have saved me." "yes, it would have been the manlier course, no doubt," the other answered; "but i could not bring myself to that. i could not face the idea of your justifiable wrath. i wanted to win my wife and keep my friend. it was altogether a weak notion, that idea of secrecy, of course, and couldn't hold water for any time, as the result has shown; but i thought you would get over your disappointment quickly--those wounds are apt to heal so speedily--and fall in love elsewhere; and then it would have been easy for me to tell you the truth. so i persuaded my dear love, who was easily induced to do anything i wished, to consent to our secret being kept from you religiously for the time being, and to that end we were married under a false name--not exactly a false name either. you remember my asking you if you had ever heard the name of holbrook before your hunt after marian's husband? you said no; yet i think you must have seen the name in some of my old college books. i was christened john holbrook. my grandmother was one of the holbrooks of horley-place, sussex, people of some importance in their day, and our family were rather proud of the name. but i have dropped it ever since i was a lad." "no, i don't think i can ever have seen the name; i must surely have remembered it, if i had seen it." "perhaps so. well, gilbert, there is no more to be said. i loved her, selfishly, after the manner of mankind. i could not bring myself to give her up, and pursued her with a passionate persistence which must plead _her_ excuse. if her uncle had lived, i doubt whether i should ever have succeeded. but his death left the tender womanly heart weakened by sorrow; and so i won her, the dearest, truest wife that ever man was blest withal. yet, i confess to you, so wayward is my nature, that there have been moments in which i repented my triumph--weak hours of doubt and foreboding, in which i fear that dear girl divined my thoughts. since our wretched separation i have fancied sometimes that a conviction of this kind on her part is at the root of the business, that she has alienated herself from me, believing--in plain words--that i was tired of her." "such an idea as that would scarcely agree with ellen carley's account of marian's state of mind during that last day or two at the grange. she was eagerly expecting your return, looking forward with delight to the pleasant surprise you were to experience when you heard of jacob nowell's will." "yes, the girl told me that. great heavens, why did i not return a few days earlier! i was waiting for money, not caring to go back empty-handed; writing and working like a nigger. i dared not meet my poor girl at her grandfather's, since in so doing i must risk an encounter with you." after this they talked of marian's disappearance for some time, going over the same ground very often in their helplessness, and able, at last, to arrive at no satisfactory conclusion. if she were with her father, she was with a bad, unscrupulous man. that was a fact which gilbert fenton no longer pretended to deny. they sat talking till late, and parted for the night in very different spirits. gilbert had a good deal of hard work in the city on the following day; a batch of foreign correspondence too important to be entrusted to a clerk, and two or three rather particular interviews. all this occupied him up to so late an hour, that he was obliged to sleep in london that night, and to defer his return to hampton till the next day's business was over. this time he got over his work by an early hour, and was able to catch a train that left waterloo at half-past five. he felt a little uneasy at having been away from the convalescent so long though he knew that john saltram was now strong enough to get on tolerably without him, and that the people of the house were careful and kindly, ready at any moment to give assistance if it were wanted. "strange," he thought to himself, as the train approached the quiet, river-side village--"strange that i should be so fond of the fellow, in spite of all; that i should care more for his society than that of any man living. it is the mere force of habit, i suppose. after all these years of liking, the link between us is not to be broken, even by the deepest wrong that one man can do another." the spring twilight was closing in as he crossed the bridge and walked briskly along an avenue of leafless trees at the side of the green. the place had a peaceful rustic look at this dusky hour. there were no traces of that modern spoiler the speculative builder just hereabouts; and the quaint old houses near the barracks, where lights were twinkling feebly here and there, had a look of days that are gone, a touch of that plaintive poetry which pervades all relics of the past. gilbert felt the charm of the hour; the air still and mild, the silence only broken by the cawing of palatial rooks; and whatever tenderness towards john saltram there was lurking in his breast seemed to grow upon him as he drew nearer to their lodgings; so that his mood was of the softest when he opened the little garden-gate and went in. "i will make no further pretence of enmity," he said to himself; "i will not keep up this farce of estrangement. we two will be friends once more. life is not long enough for the rupture of such a friendship." there was no light shining in the parlour window, no pleasant home-glow streaming out upon the night. the blank created by this unwonted darkness chilled him somehow, and there was a vague sense of dread in his mind as he opened the door. there was no need to knock. the simple household was untroubled by the fear of burglariously-disposed intruders, and the door was rarely fastened until after dark. gilbert went into the parlour; all was dark and silent in the two rooms, which communicated with folding doors, and made one fair-sized apartment. there were no preparations for dinner; he could see that in the deepening dusk. the fire had been evidently neglected, and was at an expiring point. "john!" he called, stirring the fire with a vigorous hand, whereby he gave it the _coup-de-grace_, and the last glimmer sank to darkness. "john, what are you doing?" he fancied the convalescent had fallen asleep upon the sofa in the inner room; but when he went in search of him, he found nothing but emptiness. he rang the bell violently, and the brisk maid-servant came flying in. "oh, dear, sir, you did give me and missus such a turn!" she said, gasping, with her hand on her heart, as if that organ had been seriously affected. "we never heard you come in, and when the bell rung----" "is mr. saltram worse?" gilbert asked, eagerly. "worse, poor dear gentleman; no, sir, i should hope not, though he well may be, for there never was any one so imprudent, not of all the invalids i've ever had to do with--and hampton is a rare place for invalids. and i feel sure if you'd been here, sir, you wouldn't have let him do it." "let him do what? are you crazy, girl? what, in heaven's name, are you talking of?" "you wouldn't have let him start off to london post-haste, as he did yesterday afternoon, and scarcely able to stand alone, in a manner of speaking." "gone to london! do you mean to say that my friend mr. saltram went to london?" "yes, sir; yesterday afternoon between four and five." "what utter madness! and when did he come back?" "lor' bless you, sir, he ain't come back yet. he told missus as his coming back was quite uncertain, and she was not to worry herself about him. she did all she could, almost to going down on her knees, to hinder him going; but it was no use. it was a matter of life and death as he was going upon, he said, and that there was no power on earth could keep him back, not if he was ten times worse than he was. the strange gentleman hadn't been in the house much above a quarter of an hour, when they was both off together in a fly to the station." "what strange gentleman?" "a stout middle-aged man, sir, with gray whiskers, that came from london, and asked for you first, and then for mr. saltram; and those two hadn't been together more than five minutes, when mr. saltram rang the bell in a violent hurry, and told my missus he was going to town immediate, on most particular business, and would she pack him a carpet-bag with a couple of shirts, and so on. and then she tried all she could to turn him from going; but it was no good, as i was telling you, sir, just now. go he would, and go he did; looking quite flushed and bright-like when he went out, so as you'd have scarcely known how ill he'd been. and he left a bit of a note for you on the chimbley-piece, sir." gilbert found the note; a hurried scrawl upon half a sheet, of paper, twisted up hastily, and unsealed. "she is found, gilbert," wrote john saltram. "proul has traced the father to his lair at last, and my darling is with him. they are lodging at , coleman-street, tottenham-court-road. i am off this instant. don't be angry with me, true and faithful friend; i could not rest an hour away from her now that she is found. i have no plan of action, but leave all to the inspiration of the moment. you can follow me whenever you please. marian must thank you for your goodness to me. marian must persuade you to forgive my sin against you--ever yours, j.s." follow him! yes, of course. gilbert had no other thought. and she was found at last, after all their suspense, their torturing anxiety. she was found; and whatever danger there might be in her association with percival nowell, she was safe so far, and would be speedily extricated from the perilous alliance by her husband. it seemed at first so happy a thing that gilbert could scarcely realise it; and yet, throughout the weary interval of ignorance as to her fate, he had always declared his belief in her safety. had he been really as confident as he had seemed, as the days had gone by, one after another, without bringing him any tidings of her? had there been no shapeless terror in his mind, no dark dread that when the knowledge came, it might be something worse than ignorance? yes, now in the sudden fulness of his joy, he knew how much he had feared, how very near he had been to despair. but john saltram, what of him? was it not at the hazard of his life that he had gone upon this sudden journey, reckless and excited, in a fever of hope and delight? "providence will surely be good to him," gilbert thought. "he bore the journey from town when he was much worse than he is now. surely he will bear a somewhat rougher journey now, buoyed up by hope." the landlady came in presently, and insisted upon giving mr. fenton her own version of the story which he had just heard from her maid; and a very close and elaborate version it was, though not remarkable for any new facts. he was fain to listen to it with a show of patience, however, and to consent to eat a mutton chop which the good woman insisted upon cooking for him, after his confession that he had eaten nothing since breakfast. he kept telling himself that there was no hurry; that he was not wanted in coleman-street; that his presence there was a question of his own gratification and nothing else; but the fever in his mind was not to be set at rest go easily. there was a sense of hurry upon him that he could not shake off, argue with himself as wisely as he would. he took a hasty meal, and started off to the railway station directly afterwards, though there was no train to carry him back to london for nearly an hour. it was weary work waiting at the little station, while the keen march wind blew sharply across the unsheltered platform on which gilbert paced to and fro in his restlessness; weary work waiting, with that sense of hurry and anxiety upon him, not to be shaken off by any effort he could make to take a hopeful view of the future. he tried to think of those two whom he loved best on earth, whose union he had taught himself, by a marvellous effort of unselfishness, to contemplate with serenity, tried to think of them in the supreme happiness of their restoration to each other; but he could not bring his mind to the realisation of this picture. after all those torments of doubt and perplexity which he had undergone during the last three months, the simple fact of marian's safety seemed too good a thing to be true. he was tortured by a vague sense of the unreality of this relief that had come so suddenly to put an end to all perplexities. "i feel as if i were the victim of some hoax, some miserable delusion," he said to himself. "not till i see her, not till i clasp her by the hand, shall i believe that she is really given back to us." and in his eagerness to do this, to put an end to that slow torture of unreasonable doubt which had come upon him since the reading of john saltram's letter, the delay at the railway station was an almost intolerable ordeal; but the hour came to an end at last, the place awoke from its blank stillness to a faint show of life and motion, a door or two banged, a countrified-looking young woman with a good many bundles and a band-box came out of the waiting-room and arranged her possessions in readiness for the coming train, a porter emerged lazily from some unknown corner and looked up the line--then, after another five minutes of blankness, there came a hoarse throbbing in the distance, a bell rang, and the up-train panted into the station. it was a slow train, unluckily for gilbert's impatience, which stopped everywhere, and the journey to london took him over an hour. it was past nine when a hansom drove him into coleman-street, a dull unfrequented-looking thoroughfare between tottenham-court-road and gower-street, overshadowed a little by the adjacent gloom of the university hospital, and altogether a low-spirited street. gilbert looked up eagerly at the windows of number , expecting to see lights shining, and some visible sign of rejoicing, even upon the house front; but there was nothing. either the shutters were shut, or there was no light within, for the windows were blank and dark. it was a slight thing, but enough to intensify that shapeless foreboding against which he had been struggling throughout his journey. "you must have come to the wrong house," he said to the cabman as he got out. "no, sir, this is ." yes, it was the right number. gilbert read it on the door; and yet it could scarcely be the right house; for tied to the door-handle was a placard with "apartments" engraved upon it, and this house would hardly be large enough to accommodate other lodgers besides mr. nowell and his daughter. yet there is no knowing the capabilities of a london lodging-house in an obscure quarter, and there might be some vacant garret in the roof, or some dreary two-pair back, dignified by the name of "apartments." gilbert gave a loud hurried knock. there was a delay which seemed to him interminable, then a hasty shuffling of slipshod feet upon the basement stairs, then the glimmer of a light through the keyhole, the removal of a chain, and at last the opening of the door. it was opened by a young person with her hair dressed in the prevailing fashion, and an air of some gentility, which clashed a little with a certain slatternliness that pervaded her attire. she was rather a pretty girl, but had the faded london look of late hours, and precocious cares, instead of the fresh bloom and girlish brightness which should have belonged to her. "did you please to wish to see the apartments, sir?" she asked politely. "no; i want to see mr. and mrs.--the lady and gentleman who are lodging here." he scarcely knew under what name he ought to ask for marian. it seemed unnatural to him now to speak of her as mrs. holbrook. "the lady and gentleman, sir!" the girl exclaimed with a surprised air. "there's no one lodging here now. mr. nowell and his daughter left yesterday morning." "left yesterday morning?" "yes, sir. they went away to liverpool; they are going to america--to new york." "mr. nowell and his daughter, mrs. holbrook?" "yes, sir, that was the lady's name." "it's impossible," cried gilbert; "utterly impossible that mrs. holbrook would go to america! she has ties that would keep her in england; a husband whom she would never abandon in that manner. there must be some mistake here." "o no, indeed, sir, there's no mistake. i saw all the luggage labelled with my own eyes, and the direction was new york by steam-packet _oronoco_; and mrs. holbrook had lots of dresses made, and all sorts of things. and as to her husband, sir, her father told me that he'd treated her very badly, and that she never meant to go back to him again to be made unhappy by him. she was going to new york to live with mr. nowell all the rest of her life." "there must have been some treachery, some underhand work, to bring this about. did she go of her own free will?" "o, dear me, yes, sir. mr. nowell was kindness itself to her, and she was very fond of him, and pleased to go to america, as far as i could make out." "and she never seemed depressed or unhappy?" "i never noticed her being so, sir. they were out a good deal, you see; for mr. nowell was a gay gentleman, very fond of pleasure, and he would have mrs. holbrook always with him. they were away in paris ever so long, in january and the beginning of february, but kept on the lodgings all the same. they were very good lodgers." "had they many visitors?" "no, sir; scarcely any one except a gentleman who used to come sometimes of an evening, and sit drinking spirits-and-water with mr. nowell; he was his lawyer, i believe, but i never heard his name." "did no one come here yesterday to inquire for mrs. holbrook towards evening?" "yes, sir; there was a gentleman came in a cab. he looked very ill, as pale as death, and was in a dreadful way when he found they were gone. he asked me a great many questions, the same as you've asked me, and i think i never saw any one so cut-up as he seemed. he didn't say much about that either, but it was easy to see it in his face. he wanted to look at the apartments, to see whether he could find anything, an old letter or such-like, that might be a help to him in going after his friends, and mother took him upstairs." "did he find anything?" "no, sir; mr. nowell hadn't left so much as a scrap of paper about the place. so the gentleman thanked mother, and went away in the same cab as had brought him." "do you know where he was going?" "i fancy he was going to liverpool after mr. nowell and his daughter. he seemed all in a fever, like a person that's ready to do anything desperate. but i heard him tell the cabman cavendish-square." "cavendish-square! yes, i can guess where he was going. but what could he want there?" gilbert said to himself, while the girl stared at him wonderingly, thinking that he, as well as the other gentleman, had gone distraught on account of mr. nowell's daughter. "thank you for answering my questions so patiently, and good-night," said gilbert, slipping some silver into her hand; for his quick eye had observed the faded condition of her finery, and a general air of poverty conspicuous in her aspect. "stay," he added, taking out his card-case; "if you should hear anything farther of these people, i should be much obliged by your sending me word at that address." "i won't forget, sir; not that i think we're likely to hear any more of them, they being gone straight off to america." "perhaps not. but if you do hear anything, let me know." he had dismissed his cab on alighting in coleman-street, believing that his journey was ended; but the walk to cavendish-square was a short one, and he set out at a rapid pace. the check that had befallen him was a severe one. it seemed a deathblow to all hope, a dreary realization of that vague dread which had pursued him from the first. if marian had indeed started for america, what new difficulties must needs attend every effort to bring her back; since it was clear that her father's interests were involved in keeping her under his influence, and separating her entirely from her husband. the journey to new york was no doubt intended to secure this state of things. in america, in that vast country, with which this man was familiar with long residence, how easy for him to hide her for ever from her friends! how vain would all inquiries, all researches be likely to prove! at the ultimate moment, in the hour of hope and rejoicing, she was lost to them irrevocably. "yet criminals have been traced upon the other side of the atlantic, where the police have been prompt to follow them," gilbert said to himself, glancing for an instant at the more hopeful side of the question; "but not often where they've got anything like a start. did john saltram really mean to follow those two to liverpool, i wonder? such a journey would seem like madness, in his state; and yet what a triumph if he should have been in time to prevent their starting by the _oronoco_!" and then, after a pause, he asked himself, "what could he want with mrs. branston, at a time when every moment was precious? money, perhaps. he could have had none with him. yes, money, no doubt; but i shall discover that from her presently, and may learn something of his plans into the bargain." gilbert went into a stationer's shop and purchased a _bradshaw_. there was a train leaving euston station for liverpool at a quarter to eleven. he might be in time for that, after seeing mrs. branston. that lady happened fortunately to be at home, and received gilbert alone in her favourite back drawing-room, where he found her ensconced in that snug retreat made by the six-leaved japanese screen, which formed a kind of temple on one side of the fire-place. there had been a final rupture between adela and mrs. pallinson a few days before, and that matron, having shown her cards a little too plainly, had been routed by an unwonted display of spirit on the part of the pretty little widow. she was gone, carrying all her belongings with her, and leaving peace and liberty behind her. the flush of triumph was still upon mrs. branston; and this unexpected victory, brief and sudden in its occurrence, like most great victories, was almost a consolation to her for that disappointment which had stricken her so heavily of late. adela branston welcomed her visitor very graciously; but gilbert had no time to waste upon small talk, and after a hasty apology for his untimely intrusion, dashed at once into the question he had come to ask. "john saltram was with you yesterday evening, mrs. branston," he said. "pray tell me the purpose that brought him here, and anything you know of his plan of action after leaving you." "i can tell you very little about that. he was going upon a journey he told me, that evening, immediately indeed; a most important journey; but he did not tell me where he was going." "i think i can guess that," said gilbert. "did he seem much agitated?" "no; he was quite calm; but he had a resolute air, like a man who has some great purpose to achieve. i thought him looking very white and weak, and told him that i was sure he was too ill to start upon a long journey, or any journey. i begged him not to go, if it were possible to avoid going, and used every argument i could think of to persuade him to abandon the idea of such a thing. but it was all no use. 'if i had only a dozen hours to live, i must go,' he said." "he came to ask you for money for his journey, did he not?" "he did. i suppose to so close a friend as you are to him, there can be no breach of confidence in my admitting that. he came to borrow any ready-money i might happen to have in the house. fortunately, i had a hundred and twenty pounds by me in hard cash." "and he took that?--he wanted as much as that?" asked gilbert eagerly. "yes, he said he was likely to require as much as that." "then he must have thought of going to america." "to america! travel to america in his weak state of health?" cried mrs. branston, aghast. "yes. it seems like madness, does it not? but there are circumstances under which a man may be excused for being almost mad. john saltram has gone in pursuit of some one very dear to him, some one who has been separated from him by treachery." "a woman?" adela branston's fair face flushed crimson as she asked the question. a woman? yes, no doubt he was in pursuit of that woman whom he loved better than her. "i cannot stop to answer a single question now, my dear mrs. branston," gilbert said gently. "you shall know all by-and-by, and i am sure your generous heart will forgive any wrong that has been done you in this business. good night. i have to catch a train at a quarter to eleven; i am going to liverpool." "after mr. saltram?" "yes; i do not consider him in a fitting condition to travel alone. i hope to be in time to prevent his doing anything rash." "but how will you find him?" "i must make a round of the hotels till i discover his head-quarters. good night." "let me order my carriage to take you to the station." "a thousand thanks, but i shall be there before your carriage would be ready. i can pick up a cab close by and shall have time to call at my lodgings for a carpet-bag. once more, good night." it was still dark when gilbert fenton arrived at liverpool. he threw himself upon a sofa in the waiting-room, where he had an hour or so of uncomfortable, unrefreshing sleep, and then roused himself and went out to begin his round of the hotels. a surly fly-driver of unknown age and prodigious deafness carried him from house to house; first to all the principal places of entertainment, aristocratic, family, and commercial; then to more obscure taverns and boarding-houses, until the sun was high and the commerce of liverpool in full swing; and at all these places gilbert questioned night-porters, and chief waiters, and head chamber-maids, until his brain grew dizzy by mere repetition of his questions; but no positive tidings could he obtain of john saltram. there was a coffee-house near the quay where it seemed just possible that he had slept; but even here the description was of the vaguest, and the person described might just as well have been john smith as john saltram. gilbert dismissed the fly-man and his vehicle at last, thoroughly wearied out with that morning's work. he went to one of the hotels, took a hasty breakfast, and then hurried off to the offices belonging to the owners of the _oronoco_. that vessel had started for new york at nine o'clock on the previous morning, and john saltram had gone with her. his name was the last on the list of passengers; he had only taken his passage an hour before the steamer left liverpool, but there his name was in black and white. the names of percival nowell, and of mrs. holbrook, his daughter, were also in the list. the whole business was clear enough, and there was nothing more that gilbert could do. had john saltram been strong and well, his friend would have felt nothing but satisfaction in the thought that he was going in the same vessel with marian, and would without doubt bring her back in triumph. but the question of his health was a painful one to contemplate. could he, or could he not endure the strain that he had put upon himself within the last eight-and-forty hours? in desperate straits men can do desperate things--there was always that fact to be remembered; but still john saltram might break down under the burden he had taken upon himself; and when gilbert went back to london that afternoon he was sorely anxious about this feeble traveller. he found a letter from him at the lodgings in wigmore-street; a hurried letter written at liverpool the night before john saltram's departure. he had arrived there too late to get on board the _oronoco_ that night, and had ascertained that the vessel was to leave at nine next morning. "i shall take my passage in her in case of the worst," he wrote; "and if i cannot see marian and persuade her to come on shore with me, i must go with her to new york. heaven knows what power her father may use against me in the brief opportunity i shall have for seeing her before the vessel starts; but he can't prevent my being their fellow-passenger, and once afloat it shall go hard with me if i cannot make my dear girl hear reason. do not be uneasy about my health, dear old friend; you see how well i am keeping up under all this strain upon body and mind. you will see me come back from america a new man, strong enough to prove my gratitude for your devotion, in some shape or other, i trust in god." chapter xli. outward bound. the bustle of departure was at its culminating point when john saltram went on board the _oronoco_, captain and officers scudding hither and thither, giving orders and answering inquiries at every point, with a sharp, short, decisive air, as of commanding powers in the last half-hour before a great battle; steward and his underlings ubiquitous; passengers roaming vaguely to and fro, in quest of nothing particular, and in a state of semi-distraction. in this scene of confusion there was no one to answer mr. saltram's eager inquires about those travellers whom he had pursued to this point. he did contrive, just about ten minutes before the vessel sailed, to capture the ubiquitous steward by the button-hole, and to ask for tidings of mr. nowell, before that excited functionary could wrench himself away. "mr. nowell, sir; upon my word, sir, i can't say. yes, there is a gentleman of that name on board; state-rooms number and ; got a daughter with him--tall dark gentleman, with a moustache and beard. yes, sir, he was on deck just now, on the bridge; but i don't see him, i suppose he's gone below. better look for him in the saloon, sir." the ten minutes were over before john saltram had seen half the faces on board the crowded vessel; but in his hurried wanderings to and fro, eager to see that one face which he so ardently desired to behold once wore, he had met nothing but strangers. there was no help for it: the vessel would steam out seaward presently, and he must needs go with her. at the best, he had expected this. it was not likely that, even if he could have obtained speech with his wife, she could have been prevailed upon immediately to desert the father whose fortunes she had elected to follow, and return to shore with the husband she had abandoned. her mind must have been poisoned, her judgment perverted, before she could have left him thus of her own free will; and it would need the light of calm reason to set things right again. no; john saltram could scarcely hope to carry her off by a _coup-de-main_, in the face of the artful schemer who had evidently obtained so strong an influence over her. that she could for a moment contemplate this voyage to america with her father, was enough to demonstrate the revolution that must have taken place in her feelings towards her husband. "slander and lies are very strong," john saltram said to himself; "but i do not think, when my dear love and i are once face to face, any power on earth can prevail against me. she must be changed indeed, if it can; she must be changed indeed, if anything but a lie can part us." he had come on board the _oronoco_ prepared for the worst, and furnished with a slender outfit for the voyage, hurriedly purchased at a liverpool clothier's. he had plenty of money in his pocket--enough to pay for his own and his wife's return passage; and the thought of this useless journey across the atlantic troubled him very little. what did it matter where he was, if she were with him? the mental torture he had undergone during all this time, in which he had seemed in danger of losing her altogether, had taught him how dear she was--how precious and perfect a treasure he had held so lightly. the vessel steamed put of the mersey, and john saltram, indifferent to the last glimpse of his native land, was still roaming hither and thither, in quest of the familiar face he longed with such a passionate yearning to see; but up to this point he sought for his wife in vain. mrs. holbrook had evidently retired at once to her cabin. there was nothing for him to do but to establish a channel of communication with her by means of the stewardess. he found this official with some trouble, and so desperately busy that it was no easy matter to obtain speech with her, pursued as she was by forlorn and distracted female passengers, clamorously eager to know where she had put that "waterproof cloak," or "maud," or "travelling-bag," or "dressing-case." he did at last contrive to enlist her services in his behalf, and extort some answer to his questions. "yes," she told him, "mrs. holbrook was on board--state-room number . she had gone to her room at once, but would appear at dinner-time, no doubt, if she wasn't ill." john saltram tore a blank leaf from his pocket-book, and wrote one hasty line: "i am here, marian; let me see you for god's sake. "john holbrook." "if you'll take that to the lady in number , i shall be exceedingly obliged," he said to the stewardess, slipping half-a-crown into her willing hand at the same time. "yes, sir, this very minute, sir." john saltram sat down upon a bench outside the ladies' cabin, in a sort of antechamber between the steward's pantry and store-rooms, strongly perfumed with the odour of grocery, and waited for marian's coming. he had no shadow of doubt that she would come to him instantly, in defiance of any other guardian or counseller. whatever lies might have been told her--however she might have been taught to doubt him--he had a perfect faith in the power of his immediate presence. they had but to meet face to face, and all would be well. indeed, there was need that things should be well for john saltram very speedily. he had set nature at defiance so far, acting as if physical weakness were unknown to him. there are periods in a man's life in which nothing seems impossible to him; in which by the mere force of will he triumphs over impossibility. but such conquests are apt to be of the briefest. john saltram felt that he must very soon break down. the heavily throbbing heart, the aching limbs, the dizzy sight, and parched throat, told him how much this desperate chase had cost him. if he had strength enough to clasp his wife's hand, to give her loving greeting and tell her that he was true, it would be about as much as he could hope to achieve; and then he felt that he would be glad to crawl into any corner of the vessel where he might find rest. the stewardess came back to him presently, with rather a discomfited air. "the lady says she is too ill to see any one, sir," she told john saltram; "but under any circumstances she must decline to see you." "she said that--my wife told you that?" "your wife, sir! good gracious me, is the lady in number your wife? she came on board with her father, and i understood they were only two in party." "yes; she came with her father. her father's treachery has separated her from me; but a few words would explain everything, if i could only see her." he thought it best to tell the woman the truth, strange as it might seem to her. her sympathies were more likely to be enlisted in his favour if she knew the actual state of the case. "did mrs. holbrook positively decline to see me?" he asked again, scarcely able to believe that marian could have resisted even that brief appeal scrawled upon a scrap of paper. "she did indeed, sir," answered the stewardess. "nothing could be more positive than her manner. i told her how anxious you seemed--for i could see it in your face, you see, sir, when you gave me the paper--and i really didn't like to bring you such a message; but it was no use. 'i decline to see him,' the lady said, 'and be sure you bring me no more messages from this gentleman;' and with that, sir, she tore up the bit of paper, as cool as could be. but, dear me, sir, how ill you do look, to be sure!" "i have been very ill. i came from a sick-room to follow my wife." "hadn't you better go and lie down a little, sir? you look as if you could scarcely stand. shall i fetch the steward for you?" "no, thanks. i can find my way to my berth, i daresay. yes, i suppose i had better go and lie down. i can do no more yet awhile." he could do no more, and had indeed barely strength to stagger to his sleeping-quarters, which he discovered at last with some difficulty. here he flung himself down, dressed as he was, and lay like a log, for hours, not sleeping, but powerless to move hand or foot, and with his brain racked by torturing thoughts. "as soon as i am able to stand again, i will see her father, and exact a reckoning from him," he said to himself again and again, during those long dreary hours of prostration; but when the next day came, he was too weak to raise himself from his narrow bed, and on the next day after that he was no better. the steward was much concerned by his feeble condition, especially as it was no common case of sea-sickness; for john saltram had told him that he was never sea-sick. he brought the prostrate traveller soda-water and brandy, and tried to tempt him to eat rich soups of a nutritious character; but the sick man would take nothing except an occasional draught of soda-water. on the third day of the voyage the steward was very anxious to bring the ship's surgeon to look at mr. saltram; but against this john saltram resolutely set his face. "for pity's sake, don't bore me with any more doctors!" he cried fretfully. "i have had enough of that kind of thing. the man can do nothing for me. i am knocked up with over exertion and excitement--that's all; my strength will come back to me sooner or later if i lie quietly here." the steward gave way, for the time being, upon this appeal, and the surgeon was not summoned; but mr. saltram's strength seemed very slow to return to him. he could not sleep; he could only lie there listening to all the noises of the ship, the perpetual creaking and rattling, and tramping of footsteps above his head, and tortured by his impatience to be astir again. he would not stand upon punctilio this time, he told himself; he would go straight to the door of marian's cabin, and stand there until she came out to him. was she not his wife--his very own--powerless to hold him at bay in this manner? his strength did not come back to him; that wakeful prostration in which the brain was always busy, while the aching body lay still, did not appear to be a curative process. in the course of that third night of the voyage john saltram was delirious, much to the alarm of his fellow-passenger, the single sharer of his cabin, a nervous elderly gentleman, who objected to his illness altogether as an outrage upon himself, and was indignantly desirous to know whether it was contagious. so the doctor was brought to the sick man early next morning whether he would or not, and went through the usual investigations, and promised to administer the usual sedatives, and assured the anxious passenger that mr. saltram's complaint was in nowise infectious. "he has evidently been suffering from serious illness lately, and has been over-exerting himself," said the doctor; "that seems very clear. we shall contrive to bring him round in a few days, i daresay, though he certainly has got into a very low state." the doctor said this rather gravely, on which the passenger again became disturbed of aspect. a death on board ship must needs be such an unpleasant business, and he really had not bargained for anything of that kind. what was the use of paying first-class fare on board a first-class vessel, if one were subject to annoyance of this sort? in the steerage of an overcrowded emigrant ship such a thing might be a matter of course--a mere natural incident of the voyage--but on board the _oronoco_ it was most unlooked for. "he's not going to die, is he?" asked the passenger, with an injured air. "o dear, no, i should hope not. i have no apprehension of that sort," replied the surgeon promptly. he would no doubt have said the same thing up to within an hour or so of the patient's decease. "there is an extreme debility, that is all," he went on quite cheerfully; "and if we can induce him to take plenty of nourishment, we shall get on very well, i daresay." after this the nervous passenger was profoundly interested in the amount of refreshment consumed by the patient, and questioned the steward about him with a most sympathetic air. john saltram, otherwise john holbrook, was not destined to die upon this outward voyage. he was very eager to be well, or at least to be at liberty to move about again; and perhaps this impatient desire of his helped in some measure to bring about his recovery. the will, physiologists tell us, has a great deal to do with these things. the voyage was a prosperous one. the good ship steamed gaily across the atlantic through the bleak spring weather; and there was plenty of eating and drinking, and joviality and flirtation on board her, while john saltram lay upon his back, very helpless, languishing to be astir once more. during these long dreary days and nights he had contrived to send several messages to the lady in the state-cabin, feeble pencil scrawls, imploring her to come to him, telling her that he was very ill, at death's door almost, and desired nothing so much as to see her, if only for a moment. but the answer--by word of mouth of the steward or stewardess always--was unfailingly to the same effect:--the lady in number refused to hold any communication with the sick gentleman. "she's a hard one!" the steward remarked to the stewardess, when they talked the matter over in a comfortable manner during the progress of a snug little supper in the steward's cabin, "she must be an out-and-out hard-hearted one to stand out against him like that, if he is her husband, and i suppose he is. i told her to-day--when i took his message--how bad he was, and that it was a chance if he ever went ashore alive; but she was walking up and down deck with her father ten minutes afterwards, laughing and talking like anything. i suppose he's been a bad lot, mrs. peterson, and deserves no better from her; but still it does seem hard to see him lying there, and his wife so near him, and yet refusing to go and see him." "i've no common patience with her," said the stewardess with acrimony; "the cold-hearted creature!--flaunting about like that, with a sick husband within a stone's throw of her. suppose he is to blame, mr. martin; whatever his faults may have been, it isn't the time for a wife to remember them." to this mr. martin responded dubiously, remarking that there were some carryings on upon the part of husbands which it was difficult for a wife not to remember. the good ship sped on, unhindered by adverse winds or foul weather, and was within twenty-four hours of her destination when john saltram was at last able to crawl out of the cabin, where he had lain for some eight or nine days crippled and helpless. the first purpose which he set himself to accomplish was an interview with marian's father. he wanted to grapple his enemy somehow--to ascertain the nature of the game that was being played against him. he had kept himself very quiet for this purpose, wishing to take percival nowell by surprise; and on this last day but one of the voyage, when he was able for the first time to rise from his berth, no one but the steward and the surgeon knew that he intended so to rise. he had taken the steward in some measure into his confidence; and that official, after helping him to dress, left him seated in the cabin, while he went to ascertain the whereabouts of mr. nowell. mr. martin, the steward, came back after about five minutes. "he's in the saloon, sir, reading, quite alone. you couldn't have a better opportunity of speaking to him." "that's a good fellow. then i'll go at once." "you'd better take my arm, sir; you're as weak as a baby, and the ship lurches a good deal to-day." "i'm not very strong, certainly. i begin to think i never shall be strong again. do you know, martin, i was once stroke in a university eight. not much vigour in my biceps now, eh?" it was only a few paces from one cabin to the other; but mr. saltram could scarcely have gone so far without the steward's supporting arm. he was a feeble-looking figure, with a white wan face, as he tottered along the narrow passage between the tables, making his way to that end of the saloon where percival nowell lounged luxuriously, with his legs stretched at full length upon the sofa, and a book in his hand. "mr. nowell, i believe," said the sick man, as the other looked up at him with consummate coolness. whatever his feelings might be with regard to his daughter's husband, he had had ample time to prepare himself for an encounter with him. "yes, my name is nowell. but i have really not the honour to----" "you do not know me," answered john saltram. "no, but it is time you did so. i am your daughter's husband, john holbrook." "indeed. i have heard that she has been persecuted by the messages of some person calling himself her husband. you are that person, i presume." "i have tried to persuade my wife to see me. yes; and i mean to see her before this vessel arrives in port." "but if the lady in question refuses to have anything to say to you?" "we shall soon put that to the test. i have been too ill to stir ever since i came on board, or you would have heard of me before this, mr. nowell. now that i can move about once more, i shall find a way to assert my claims, you may be sure. but in the first place, i want to know by what right you stole my wife away from her home--by what right you brought her on this voyage?" "before i answer that question, mr.--mr. holbrook, as you choose to call yourself, i'll ask you another. by what right do you call yourself my daughter's husband? what evidence have you to produce to prove that you are not a bare-faced impostor? you don't carry your marriage-certificate about with you, i daresay; and in the absence of some kind of documentary evidence, what is to convince me that you are what you pretend to be--my daughter's husband?" "the evidence of your daughter's own senses. place me face to face with her; she will not deny my identity." "but how, if my daughter declines to see you, as she does most positively? she has suffered enough at your hands, and is only too glad to be released from you." "she has suffered--she is glad to be released! why, you most consummate scoundrel!" cried john saltram, "there never was an unkind word spoken between my wife and me! she was the best, most devoted of women; and nothing but the vilest treachery could have separated us. i know not what villanous slander you have made her believe, or by what means you lured her away from me; but i know that a few words between us would let in the light upon your plot. you had better make the best of a bad position, mr. nowell. as my wife's father, you know, you are pretty sure to escape. whatever my inclination might be, my regard for her would make me indulgent to you. you'll find candour avail you best in this case, depend upon it. your daughter has inherited a fortune, and you want to put your hand upon it altogether. it would be wiser to moderate your desires, and be content with a fair share of the inheritance. your daughter is not the woman to treat you ungenerously, nor am i the man to create any hindrance to her generosity." "i can make no bargain with you, sir," replied mr. nowell, with the same cool audacity of manner that had distinguished him throughout the interview; "nor am i prepared to admit your claim to the position you assume. but if my daughter is your wife, she left you of her own free will, under no coercion of mine; and she must return to you in the same manner, or you must put the machinery of the law in force to compel her. and _that_, i flatter myself, in a free country like america, will be rather a difficult business." it was hard for john saltram to hear any man talk like this, and not be able to knock him down. but in his present condition marian's husband could not have grappled a child, and he knew it. "you are an outrageous scoundrel!" he said between his set teeth, tortured by that most ardent desire to dash his clenched fist into mr. nowell's handsome dissolute-looking face. "you are a most consummate villain, and you know it!" "hard words mean so little," returned mr. nowell coolly, "and go for so little. that kind of language before witnesses would be actionable; but, upon my word, it would be mere child's play on my part to notice it, especially to a man in your condition. you'd better claim your wife from the captain, and see what he will say to you. i have told him that there's some semi-lunatic on board, who pretends to be mrs. holbrook's husband; so he'll be quite prepared to hear your statement." john saltram left the saloon in silence. it was worse than useless talking to this man, who presumed upon his helpless state, and openly defied him. his next effort must be to see marian. this he found impossible, for the time being at any rate. the state-room number was an apartment a little bigger than a rabbit-hutch, opening out of a larger cabin, and in that cabin there reposed a ponderous matron who had suffered from sea-sickness throughout the voyage, and who could in no wise permit a masculine intruder to invade the scene of her retirement. the idea of any blockade of marian's door was therefore futile. he must needs wait as patiently as he might, till she appeared of her own free will. he could not have to wait very long; something less than a day and a night, the steward had told him, would bring them to the end of the voyage. mr. saltram went on deck, still assisted by the friendly steward, and seated himself in a sheltered corner of the vessel, hoping that the sea-breeze might bring him back some remnant of his lost strength. the ship's surgeon had advised him to get a little fresh air as soon as he felt himself able to bear it; so he sat in his obscure nook, very helpless and very feeble, meditating upon what he should do when the final moment came and he had to claim his wife. he had no idea of making his wrongs known to the captain, unless as a last desperate resource. he could not bring himself to make marian the subject of a vulgar squabble. no, it was to herself alone he would appeal; it was in the natural instinct of her own heart that he would trust. very long and weary seemed the remaining hours of that joyless voyage. mr. saltram was fain to go back to his cabin after an hour on deck, there to lie and await the morrow. he had need to husband his strength for the coming encounter. the steward told him in the evening that mrs. holbrook had not dined in the saloon that day, as usual. she had kept her cabin closely, and complained of illness. the morning dawned at last, after what had seemed an endless night to john saltram, lying awake in his narrow berth--a bleak blusterous morning, with the cold gray light staring in at the port-hole, like an unfriendly face. there was no promise in such a daybreak; it was only light, and nothing more. mr. saltram, having duly deliberated the matter during the long hours of that weary night, had decided that his wisest course was to lie _perdu_ until the last moment, the very moment of landing, and then to come boldly forward and make his claim. it was useless to waste his strength in any futile endeavour to baffle so hardy a scoundrel as percival nowell. at the last, when marian was leaving the ship, it would be time for him to assert his right as her husband, and to defy the wretch who had beguiled her away from him. having once arrived at this decision, he was able to await the issue of events with some degree of tranquility. he had no doubt, even now, of his wife's affection for him, no fear as to the ultimate triumph of her love over all the lies and artifices of that scheming scoundrel, her father. it was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon when the steward came to tell him that they were on the point of arriving at their destination. the wharf where they were to land was within sight. the man had promised to give him due warning of this event, and john saltram had therefore contrived to keep himself quiet amidst all the feverish impatience and confusion of mind prevailing amongst the other passengers. he was rewarded for his prudence; for when he rose to go on deck, he found himself stronger than he had felt yet. he went up the companion-ladder, took his place close to the spot at which the passengers must all leave the vessel, and waited. new york was very near. the day had been cold and showery, but the sun was shining now, and the whole scene looked bright and gay. every one seemed in high spirits, as if the new world they were about to touch contained for them a certainty of elysium. it was such a delicious relief to arrive at the great lively yankee city, after the tedium of a ten-day's voyage, pleasant and easy as the transit had been. john saltram looked eagerly among the faces of the crowd, but neither percival nowell nor his daughter were to be seen amongst them. presently the vessel touched the wharf, and the travellers began to move towards the gangway. he watched them, one by one, breathlessly. at the very last, mr. nowell stepped quickly forward, with a veiled figure on his arm. she was closely veiled, her face quite hidden by thick black lace, and she was clinging with something of a frightened air to her companion's arm. john saltram sprang up from his post of observation, and confronted the two before they could leave the vessel. "marian," he said, in slow decided tone, "let go that man's arm. you will leave this vessel with me, and with no one else." "stand out of the way, fellow," cried percival nowell; "my daughter can have nothing to say to you." "marian, for god's sake, obey me! there is the vilest treachery in this man's conduct. let go his arm. my love, my darling, come with me!" there was a passionate appeal in his tone, but it produced no answer. "marian!" he cried, still interposing himself between these two and the passage to the landing wharf. "marian, i will have some answer!" "you have had your answer, sir," said percival nowell, trying to push him aside. "this lady does not know you. do you want to make a scene, and render yourself ridiculous to every one here? there are plenty of lunatic asylums in new york that will accommodate you, if you are determined to make yourself eligible for them." "marian!" repeated john saltram, without vouchsafing the faintest notice of this speech. "marian, speak to me!" and then, as there came no answer from that shrinking clinging figure, with a sudden spring forward, that brought him quite close to her, john saltram tore the veil away from the hidden face. "this must be some impostor," he said; "this is not my wife." he was right. the creature clinging to percival nowell's arm was a pretty woman enough, with rather red hair, and a common face. she was about marian's height; and that was the only likeness between them. the spectators of this brief fracas crowded round the actors in it, seeing nothing but the insult offered to a lady, and highly indignant with john saltram; and amidst their murmurs percival nowell pushed his way to the shore, with the woman still clinging to his arm. chapter xlii. the pleasures of wyncomb. that shrill anguish-stricken cry which ellen whitelaw had heard on the night of the stranger's visit to wyncomb farm haunted her afterwards with a wearisome persistence. she could not forget that wild unearthly sound; she could not help continually trying to find some solution for the mystery, until her brain was tired with the perpetual effort. ponder upon this matter as she might, she could find no reasonable explanation of the enigma; and in spite of her common sense--a quality of which she possessed a very fair share--she was fain to believe at last that this grim bare-looking old house was haunted, and that the agonised shriek she and mrs. tadman had heard that night was only the ghostly sound of some cry wrung from a bleeding heart in days gone by, the echo of an anguish that had been in the far past. she even went so far as to ask her husband one day if he had ever heard that the house was haunted, and whether there was any record of crime or wrong that had been done in it in the past. mr. whitelaw seemed scarcely to relish the question; but after one of his meditative pauses laughed his wife's inquiry to scorn, and told her that there were no ghosts at wyncomb except the ghosts of dead rats that had ravaged the granaries--and certainly _they_ seemed to rise from their graves in spite of poison and traps, cats and ferrets--and that, as to anything that had been done in the house in days gone by, he had never heard tell that his ancestors had ever done anything but eat and drink and sleep, and save money from year's end to year's end; and a hard time they'd had of it to pay their way and put something by, in the face of all the difficulties that surround the path of a farmer. if ellen whitelaw's life had been as the lives of happier women, full of small daily cares and all-engrossing domestic interests, the memory of that unearthly scream would no doubt have faded out of her mind ere long, instead of remaining, as it did, a source of constant perplexity to her. but there was no interest, no single charm in her life. there was nothing in the world left for her to care for. the fertile flats around wyncomb farmhouse bounded her universe. day by day she rose to perform the same monotonous duties, sustained by no lofty aim, cheered by neither friendship nor affection; for she could not teach herself to feel anything warmer than toleration for her daily companion, mrs. tadman--only working laboriously because existence was more endurable to her when she was busy than when she was idle. it was scarcely strange, then, that she brooded upon the memory of that night when the nameless stranger had come to wyncomb, and that she tried to put the fact of his coming and that other incident of the cry together, and to make something out of the two events by that means; but put them together as she might, she was no nearer any solution of the mystery. that her husband and the stranger could have failed to hear that piercing shriek seemed almost impossible: yet both had denied hearing it. the story of the stranger having knocked his shin and cried out on doing so, appeared like a feeble attempt to account for that wild cry. vain and hopeless were all her endeavours to arrive at any reasonable explanation, and her attempts to get anything like an opinion out of mrs. tadman were utterly useless. mr. whitelaw's cousin was still inclined to take a gloomy view of the stranger's visit, in spite of her kinsman's assurance that the transaction between himself and the unknown was a profitable one. horse-racing--if not parting with a farm--mrs. tadman opined was at the bottom of the business; and when did horse-racing ever fail to lead to ruin sooner or later? it was only a question of time. ellen sighed, remembering how her father had squandered his employer's money on the race-course, and how, for that folly of his, she had been doomed to become stephen whitelaw's wife. but there did not seem to her to be anything of the horsey element in her husband's composition. he was never away from home, except to attend to his business at market; and she had never seen him spelling over the sporting-papers, as her father had been wont to do, night after night, with a perplexed brow and an anxious face, making calculations upon the margin of the print every now and then with a stump of lead pencil, and chewing the end of it meditatively in the intervals of his lection. although mrs. whitelaw did not, like mrs. tadman, associate the idea of the stranger's visit with any apprehension of her husband's impending ruin, she could not deny that some kind of change had arisen in him since that event. he had always drunk a good deal, in his slow quiet manner, which impressed people unacquainted with his habits with a notion of his sobriety, even when he was steadily emptying the bottle before him; but he drank more now, and sat longer over his drink, and there was an aspect of trouble and uneasiness about him at times which fairly puzzled his wife. of course the most natural solution for all this was the one offered by the dismally prophetic tadman. stephen whitelaw had been speculating or gambling, and his affairs were in disorder. he was not a man to be affected by anything but the most sordid considerations, one would suppose. say that he had lost money, and there you had a key to the whole. he got into a habit of sitting up at night, after the rest of the household had gone to bed. he had done this more or less from the time of his marriage; and mrs. tadman had told ellen that the habit was one which had arisen within the last few months. "he would always see to the fastenings of the house with his own eyes," mrs. tadman said; "but up to last autumn he used to go upstairs with me and the servants. it's a new thing for him to sit up drinking his glass of grog in the parlour by himself." the new habit seemed to grow upon mr. whitelaw more rapidly after that visit of the stranger's. he took to sitting up till midnight--an awful hour in a farm-house; and ellen generally found the spirit-bottle empty in the morning. night after night, he went to bed soddened with drink. once, when his kinswoman made some feeble remonstrance with him about this change in his habits, he told her savagely to hold her tongue--he could afford to drink as much as he pleased--he wasn't likely to come upon _her_ to pay for what he took. as for his wife, she unhappily cared nothing what he did. he could not become more obnoxious to her than he had been from the first hour of her acquaintance with him, let him do what he would. little by little, finding no other explanation possible, mrs. whitelaw grew to believe quite firmly in the supernatural nature of that unforgotten cry. she remembered the unexplainable footstep which she had heard in the padlocked room in the early dusk of that new-year's-day, when mrs. tadman and she explored the old house; and she associated these two sounds in her mind as of a like ghostly character. from this time forward she shrank with a nervous terror from that darksome passage leading to the padlocked door at the end of the house. she had never any occasion to go in this direction. the rooms in this wing were low, dark, and small, and had been unused for years. it was scarcely any wonder if rats had congregated behind the worm-eaten wainscot, to scare nervous listeners with their weird scratchings and scramblings. but no one could convince ellen whitelaw that the sounds she had heard on new-year's-day were produced by anything so earthly as a rat. with that willingness to believe in a romantic impossibility, rather than in a commonplace improbability so natural to the human mind, she was more ready to conceive the existence of a ghost than that her own sense of hearing might have been less powerful than her fancy. about the footsteps she was quite as positive as she was about the scream; and in the last instance she had the evidence of mrs. tadman's senses to support her. she was surprised to find one day, when the household drudge, martha holden, had been cleaning the passage and rooms in that deserted wing--a task very seldom performed--that the girl had the same aversion to that part of the house which she felt herself, but of which she had never spoken in the presence of the servants. "if it wasn't for mrs. tadman driving and worrying after me all the time i'm at work, i don't think i could stay there, mum," martha told her mistress. "it isn't often i like to be fidgetted and followed; but anything's better than being alone in that unked place." "it's rather dark and dreary, certainly, martha," ellen answered with an admirable assumption of indifference; "but, as we haven't any of us got to live there, that doesn't much matter." "it isn't that, mum. i wouldn't mind the darkness and the dreariness--and i'm sure such a place for spiders i never did see in my life; there was one as i took down with my broom to-day, and scrunched, as big as a small crab--but it's worse than that: the place is haunted." "who told you that?" "sarah batts." "sarah batts! why, how should she know anything about it? she hasn't been here so long as you; and she came straight from the workhouse." "i think master must have told her, mum." "your master would never have said anything so foolish. i know that _he_ doesn't believe in ghosts; and he keeps all his garden-seeds in the locked room at the end of the passage; so he must go there sometimes himself." "o yes, mum; i know that master goes there. i've seen him go that way at night with a candle." "well, you silly girl, he wouldn't use the room if he thought it was haunted, would he? there are plenty more empty rooms in the house." "i don't know about that, i'm sure, mum; but anyhow i know sarah batts told me that passage was haunted. 'don't you never go there, martha,' she says, 'unless you want to have your blood froze. i've heard things there that have froze mine.' and i never should go, mum, if it wasn't for moth--mrs. tadman's worrying and driving, about the place being cleaned once in a way. and sarah batts is right, mum, however she may have got to know it; for i have heard things." "what things?" "moaning and groaning like, as if it was some one in pain; but all very low; and i never could make out where it came from. but as to the place being haunted, i've no more doubt about it than about my catechism." "but, martha, you ought to know it's very silly and wicked to believe in such things," ellen whitelaw said, feeling it her duty to lecture the girl a little, and yet half inclined to believe her. "the moanings and groanings, as you call them, were only sounds made by the wind, i daresay." "o dear no, mum," martha answered, shaking her head in a decided manner; "the wind never made such noises as _i_ heard. but i don't want to make you nervous, mum; only i'd sooner lose a month's wages than stay for an hour alone in the west wing." it was strange, certainly; a matter of no importance, perhaps, this idle belief of a servant's, these sounds which harmed no one; and yet all these circumstances worried and perplexed ellen whitelaw. having so little else to think of, she brooded upon them incessantly, and was gradually getting into a low nervous way. if she complained, which she did very rarely, there was no one to sympathise with her. mrs. tadman had so many ailments of her own, such complicated maladies, such deeply-rooted disorders, that she could be scarcely expected to give much attention to the trivial sufferings of another person. "ah, my dear," she would exclaim with a groan, if ellen ventured to complain of a racking headache, "when you've lived as long as i have, and gone through what i've gone through, and have got such a liver as i've got, you'll know what bad health means. but at your age, and with your constitution, it's nothing more than fancy." and then mrs. tadman would branch off into a graphic description of her own maladies, to which ellen was fain to listen patiently, wondering vaguely as she listened whether the lapse of years would render her as wearisome a person as mrs. tadman. she had no sympathy from anyone. her father came to wyncomb farm once a week or so, and sat drinking and smoking with mr. whitelaw; but ellen never saw him alone. he seemed carefully to avoid the chance of being alone with her, guiltily conscious of his part in the contriving of her marriage, and fearing to hear some complaint about her lot. he pretended to take it for granted that her fate was entirely happy, congratulated her frequently upon her prosperity, and reminded her continually that it was a fine thing to be the sole mistress of the house she lived in, instead of a mere servant--as he himself was, and as she had been at the grange--labouring for the profit of other people. up to this time mr. carley had had some reason to be disappointed with the result of his daughter's marriage, so far as his own prosperity was affected thereby. not a sixpence beyond that one advance of the two hundred pounds had the bailiff been able to extort from his son-in-law. it was the price that mr. whitelaw had paid for his wife, and he meant to pay no more. he told william carley as much one day when the question of money matters was pushed rather too far--told him in the plainest language. this was hard; but that two hundred pounds had saved the bailiff from imminent destruction. he was obliged to be satisfied with this advantage, and to bide his time. "i'll have it out of the mean hound sooner or later," he muttered to himself as he walked homewards, after a social evening with the master of wyncomb. one evening mr. carley brought his daughter a letter. it was from gilbert fenton, who was quite unaware of ellen's marriage, and had written to her at the grange. this letter afforded her the only pleasure she had known since fate had united her to stephen whitelaw. it told her that marian holbrook was living, and in all probability safe--though by no means in good hands. she had sailed for america with her father; but her husband was in hot pursuit of her, and her husband was faithful. "i have schooled myself to forgive him," gilbert went on to say, "for i know that he loves her--and that must needs condone my wrongs. i look forward anxiously to their return from america, and hope for a happy reunion amongst us all--when your warm friendship shall not be forgotten. i am waiting impatiently for news from new york, and will write to you again directly i hear anything definite. we have suffered the torments of suspense for a long weary time, but i trust and believe that the sky is clearing." this was not much, but it was more than enough to relieve ellen carley's mind of a heavy load. her dear young lady, as she called marian, was not dead--not lying at the bottom of that cruel river, at which ellen had often looked with a shuddering horror, of late, thinking of what might be. she was safe, and would no doubt be happy. this was something. amid the wreck of her own fortunes, ellen whitelaw was unselfish enough to rejoice in this. her husband asked to see mr. fenton's letter, which he spelt over with his usual deliberate air, and which seemed to interest him more than ellen would have supposed likely--knowing as she did how deeply he had resented marian's encouragement of frank randall's courtship. "so she's gone to america with her father, has she?" he said, when he had perused the document twice. "i shouldn't have thought anybody could have persuaded her to leave that precious husband of hers. and she's gone off to america, and he after her! that's rather a queer start, ain't it, nell?" mrs. whitelaw did not care to discuss the business with her husband. there was something in his tone, a kind of veiled malice, which made her angry. "i don't suppose you care whether she's alive or dead," she said impatiently; "so you needn't trouble yourself to talk about her." "needn't i? o, she's too grand a person to be talked of by such as me, is she? never mind, nell; don't be cross. and when mrs. holbrook comes back to england, you shall go and see her." "i will," answered ellen; "if i have to walk to london to do it." "o, but you sha'n't walk. you shall go by rail. i'll spare you the money for that, for once in a way, though i'm not over fond of wasting money." day by day mr. whitelaw's habits grew more secluded and morose. it is not to be supposed that he was troubled by those finer feelings which might have made the misery of a better man; but even in his dull nature there may have been some dim sense that his marriage was a failure and mistake; that in having his own way in this matter he had in nowise secured his own happiness. he could not complain of his wife's conduct in any one respect. she was obedient to his will in all things, providing for his comfort with scrupulous regularity, industrious, indefatigable even. as a housekeeper and partner of his fortunes, no man could have desired a better wife. yet dimly, in that sluggish soul, there was the consciousness that he had married a woman who hated him, that he had bought her with a price; and, being a man prone to think the worst of his fellow-creatures, mr. whitelaw believed that, sooner or later, his wife meant to have her revenge upon him somehow. she was waiting for his death perhaps; calculating that, being so much her senior, and a hard-working man, he would die soon enough to leave her a young widow. and then, of course, she would marry frank randall; and all the money which he, stephen, had amassed, by the sacrifice of every pleasure in life, would enrich that supercilious young coxcomb. it was a hard thing to think of, and stephen pondered upon the expediency of letting off wyncomb farm, and sinking all his savings in the purchase of an annuity. he could not bring himself to contemplate selling the house and lands that had belonged to his race for so many generations. he clung to the estate, not from any romantic reverence for the past, not from any sentimental associations connected with those who had gone before him, but from the mere force of habit, which rendered this grim ugly old house and these flat shelterless fields dearer to him than all the rest of the universe. he was a man to whom to part with anything was agony; and if he loved anything in the world, he loved wyncomb. the possession of the place had given him importance for twenty years past. he could not fancy himself unconnected with wyncomb. his labours had improved the estate too; and he could not endure to think how some lucky purchaser might profit by his prudence and sagacity. there had been some fine old oaks on the land when he inherited it, all mercilessly stubbed-up at the beginning of his reign; there had been tall straggling hedgerows, all of a tangle with blackberry bushes, ferns, and dog-roses, hazel and sloe trees, all done away with by his order. no, he could never bring himself to sell wyncomb. nor was the purchase of an annuity a transaction which he was inclined to accomplish. it was a pleasing notion certainly, that idea of concentrating all his hoarded money upon the remaining years of his life--retiring from the toils of agriculture, and giving himself up for the rest of his days to an existence of luxurious idleness. but, on the other hand, it would be a bitter thing to surrender his fondly-loved money for the poor return of an income, to deprive himself of all opportunity of speculating and increasing his store. so the annuity scheme lay dormant in his brain, as it were, for the time being. it was something to have in reserve, and to carry out any day that his wife gave him fair cause to doubt her fidelity. in the mean time he went on living his lonely sulky kind of life, drinking a great deal more than was good for him in his own churlish manner, and laughing to scorn any attempt at remonstrance from his wife or mrs. tadman. some few times ellen had endeavoured to awaken him to the evil consequences that must needs ensue from his intemperate habits, feeling that it would be a sin on her part to suffer him to go on without some effort to check him; but her gently-spoken warnings had been worse than useless. chapter xliii. mr. whitelaw makes an end of the mystery. mrs. whitelaw had been married about two months. it was bright may weather, bright but not yet warm; and whatever prettiness wyncomb farm was capable of assuming had been put on with the fresh spring green of the fields and the young leaves of the poplars. there were even a few hardy flowers in the vegetable-garden behind the house, humble perennials planted by dead and gone whitelaws, which had bloomed year after year in spite of stephen's utilitarian principles. it was a market-day, the household work was finished, and ellen was sitting with mrs. tadman in the parlour, where those two spent so many weary hours of their lives, the tedium whereof was relieved only by woman's homely resource, needlework. even if mrs. whitelaw had been fond of reading, and she only cared moderately for that form of occupation, she could hardly have found intellectual diversion of that kind at wyncomb, where a family bible, a few volumes of the _annual register_, which had belonged to some half-dozen different owners before they came from a stall in malsham market to the house of whitelaw, a grim-looking old quarto upon domestic medicine, and a cookery-book, formed the entire library. when the duties of the day were done, and the local weekly newspaper had been read--an intellectual refreshment which might be fairly exhausted in ten minutes--there remained nothing to beguile the hours but the perpetual stitch--stitch--stitch of an industriously-disposed sempstress; and the two women used to sit throughout the long afternoons with their work-baskets before them, talking a little now and then of the most commonplace matters, but for the greater part of their time silent. sometimes, when the heavy burden of mrs. tadman's society, and the clicking of needles and snipping of scissors, grew almost unendurable, ellen would run out of the house for a brief airing in the garden, and walk briskly to and fro along the narrow pathway between the potatoes and cabbages, thinking of her dismal life, and of the old days at the grange when she had been full of gaiety and hope. there was not perhaps much outward difference in the two lives. in her father's house she had worked as hard as she worked now; but she had been free in those days, and the unknown future all before her, with its chances of happiness. now, she felt like some captive who paces the narrow bounds of his prison-yard, without hope of release or respite, except in death. this particular spring day had begun brightly, the morning had been sunny and even warm; but now, as the afternoon wore away, there were dark clouds, with a rising wind and a sharp gusty shower every now and then. ellen took a solitary turn in the garden between the showers. it was market-day; stephen whitelaw was not expected home till tea-time, and the meal was to be eaten at a later hour than usual. the rain increased as the time for the farmer's return drew nearer. he had gone out in the morning without his overcoat, mrs. tadman remembered, and was likely to get wet through on his way home, unless he should have borrowed some extra covering at malsham. his temper, which of late had been generally at its worst, would hardly be improved by this annoyance. there was a very substantial meal waiting for him: a ponderous joint of cold roast beef, a dish of ham and eggs preparing in the kitchen, with an agreeable frizzling sound, a pile of hot buttered cakes kept hot upon the oven top; but there was no fire in the parlour, and the room looked a little cheerless in spite of the well-spread table. they had discontinued fires for about a fortnight, at mr. whitelaw's command. he didn't want to be ruined by his coal-merchant's bill if it was a chilly spring, he told his household; and at his own bidding the fire-place had been polished and garnished for the summer. but this evening was colder than any evening lately, by reason of that blusterous rising wind, which blew the rain-drops against the window-panes with as sharp a rattle as if they had been hailstones; and mr. whitelaw coming in presently, disconsolate and dripping, was by no means inclined to abide by his own decision about the fires. "why the ---- haven't you got a fire here?" he demanded savagely. "it was your own wish, stephen," answered mrs. tadman. "my own fiddlesticks! of course i didn't care to see my wood and coals burning to waste when the sun was shining enough to melt any one. but when a man comes home wet to the skin, he doesn't want to come into a room like an ice-house. call the girl, and tell her to light a blazing fire while i go and change my clothes. let her bring plenty of wood, and put a couple of logs on top of the coals. i'm frozen to the very bones driving home in the rain." mrs. tadman gave a plaintive sigh as she departed to obey her kinsman. "that's just like stephen," she said; "if it was you or me that wanted a fire, we might die of cold before we got leave to light one; but he never grudges anything for his own comfort!" martha came and lighted a fire under mrs. tadman's direction. that lady was inclined to look somewhat uneasily upon the operation; for the grate had been used constantly throughout a long winter, and the chimney had not been swept since last spring, whereby mrs. tadman was conscious of a great accumulation of soot about the massive old brickwork and ponderous beams that spanned the wide chimney. she had sent for the malsham sweep some weeks ago; but that necessary individual had not been able to come on the particular day she wished, and the matter had been since then neglected. she remembered this now with a guilty feeling, more especially as stephen had demanded a blazing fire, with flaring pine-logs piled half-way up the chimney. he came back to the parlour presently, arrayed in an old suit of clothes which he kept for such occasions--an old green coat with basket buttons, and a pair of plaid trousers of an exploded shape and pattern--and looking more like a pinched and pallid scarecrow than a well-to-do farmer. mrs. tadman had only carried out his commands in a modified degree, and he immediately ordered the servant to put a couple of logs on the fire, and then drew the table close up to the hearth, and sat down to his tea with some appearance of satisfaction. he had had rather a good day at market, he condescended to tell his wife during the progress of the meal; prices were rising, his old hay was selling at a rate which promised well for the new crops, turnips were in brisk demand, mangold enquired for--altogether mr. whitelaw confessed himself very well satisfied with the aspect of affairs. after tea he spent his evening luxuriantly, sitting close to the fire, with his slippered feet upon the fender, and drinking hot rum-and-water as a preventive of impending, or cure of incipient, cold. the rum-and-water being a novelty, something out of the usual order of his drink, appeared to have an enlivening effect upon him. he talked more than usual, and even proposed a game at cribbage with mrs. tadman; a condescension which moved that matron to tears, reminding her, she said, of old times, when they had been so comfortable together, before he had taken to spend his evenings at the grange. "not that i mean any unkindness to you, ellen," the doleful tadman added apologetically, "for you've been a good friend to me, and if there's one merit i can lay claim to, it's a grateful heart; but of course, when a man marries, he never is the same to his relations as when he was single. it isn't in human nature that he should be." here mrs. tadman's amiable kinsman requested her to hold her jaw, and to bring the board if she was going to play, or to say as much if she wasn't. urged by this gentle reminder, mrs. tadman immediately produced a somewhat dingy-looking pack of cards and a queer little old-fashioned cribbage-board. the game lasted for about an hour or so, at the end of which time the farmer threw himself back in his chair with a yawn, and pronounced that he had had enough of it. the old eight-day clock in the lobby struck ten soon after this, and the two women rose to retire, leaving stephen to his night's libations, and not sorry to escape out of the room, which he had converted into a kind of oven or turkish bath by means of the roaring fire he had insisted upon keeping up all the evening. he was left, therefore, with his bottle of rum about half emptied, to finish his night's entertainment after his own fashion. mrs. tadman ventured a mild warning about the fire when she wished him good night; but as she did not dare to hint that there had been any neglect in the chimney-sweeping, her counsel went for very little. mr. whitelaw threw on another pine-log directly the two women had left him, and addressed himself to the consumption of a fresh glass of rum-and-water. "there's nothing like being on the safe side," he muttered to himself with an air of profound wisdom. "i don't want to be laid up with the rheumatics, if i can help it." he finished the contents of his glass, and went softly out of the room, carrying a candle with him. he was absent about ten minutes, and then came back to resume his comfortable seat by the fire, and mixed himself another glass of grog with the air of a man who was likely to finish the bottle. while he sat drinking in his slow sensual way, his young wife slept peacefully enough in one of the rooms above him. early rising and industrious habits will bring sleep, even when the heart is hopeless and the mind is weary. mrs. whitelaw slept a tranquil dreamless sleep to-night, while mrs. tadman snored with a healthy regularity in a room on the opposite side of the passage. there was a faint glimmer of dawn in the sky, a cold wet dawn, when ellen was awakened suddenly by a sound that bewildered and alarmed her. it was almost like the report of a pistol, she thought, as she sprang out of bed, pale and trembling. it was not a pistol shot, however, only a handful of gravel thrown sharply against her window. "stephen," she cried, half awake and very much, frightened, "what was that?" but, to her surprise, she found that her husband was not in the room. while she sat on the edge of her bed hurrying some of her clothes on, half mechanically, and wondering what that startling sound could have been, a sudden glow of red light shone in at her window, and at the same moment her senses, which had been only half awakened before, told her that there was an atmosphere of smoke in the room. she rushed to the door, forgetting that to open it was perhaps to admit death, and flung it open. yes, the passage was full of smoke, and there was a strange crackling sound below. there could be little doubt as to what had happened--the house was on fire. she remembered how repeatedly mrs. tadman had declared that stephen would inevitably set the place on fire some night or other, and how little weight she had attached to the dismal prophecy. but the matron's fears had not been groundless, it seemed. the threatened calamity had come. "stephen!" she cried, with all her might, and then flew to mrs. tadman's door and knocked violently. she waited for no answer, but rushed on to the room where the two women-servants slept together, and called to them loudly to get up for their lives, the house was on fire. there were still the men in the story above to be awakened, and the smoke was every moment growing thicker. she mounted a few steps of the staircase, and called with all her strength. it was very near their time for stirring. they must hear her, surely. suddenly she remembered an old disused alarm-bell which hung in the roof. she had seen the frayed rope belonging to it hanging in an angle of the passage. she flew to this, and pulled it vigorously till a shrill peal rang out above; and once having accomplished this, she went on, reckless of her own safety, thinking only how many there were to be saved in that house. all this time there was no sign of her husband, and a dull horror came over her with the thought that he might be perishing miserably below. there could be no doubt that the fire came from downstairs. that crackling noise had increased, and every now and then there came a sound like the breaking of glass. the red glow shining in at the front windows grew deeper and brighter. the fire had begun in the parlour, of course, where they had left stephen whitelaw basking in the warmth of his resinous pine-logs. ellen was still ringing the bell, when she heard a man's footstep coming along the passage towards her. it was not her husband, but one of the farm-servants from the upper story, an honest broad-shouldered fellow, as strong as hercules. "lord a mercy, mum, be that you?" he cried, as he recognised the white half-dressed figure clinging to the bell-rope "let me get 'ee out o' this; the old place'll burn like so much tinder;" and before she could object, he had taken her up in his arms as easily as if she had been a child, and was carrying her towards the principal staircase. here they were stopped. the flames and smoke were mounting from the lobby below; the man turned immediately, wasting no time by indecision, and ran to the stairs leading down to the kitchen. in this direction all was safe. there was smoke, but in a very modified degree. "robert," ellen cried eagerly, when they had reached the kitchen, where all was quiet, "for god's sake, go and see what has become of your master. we left him drinking in the parlour last night. i've called to him again and again, but there's been no answer." "don't you take on, mum; master's all right, i daresay. here be the gals and mrs. tadman coming downstairs; they'll take care o' you, while i go and look arter him. you've no call to be frightened. if the fire should come this way, you've only got to open yon door and get out into the yard. you're safe here." the women were all huddled together in the kitchen by this time, half dressed, shivering, and frightened out of their wits. ellen whitelaw was the only one among them who displayed anything like calmness. the men were all astir. one had run across the fields to malsham to summon the fire-engine, another was gone to remove some animals stabled near the house. the noise of burning wood was rapidly increasing, the smoke came creeping under the kitchen-door presently, and, five minutes after he had left them, the farm-servant came back to say that he could find no traces of his master. the parlor was in flames. if he had been surprised by the fire in his sleep, it must needs be all over with him. the man urged his mistress to get out of the house at once; the fire was gaining ground rapidly, and it was not likely that anything he or the other men could do would stop its progress. the women left the kitchen immediately upon this warning, by a door leading into the yard. it was broad daylight by this time; a chilly sunless morning, and a high wind sweeping across the fields and fanning the flames, which now licked the front wall of wyncomb farmhouse. the total destruction of the place seemed inevitable, unless help from malsham came very quickly. the farm servants were running to and fro with buckets of water from the yard, and flinging their contents in at the shattered windows of the front rooms; but this was a small means of checking the destruction. the house was old, built for the most part of wood, and there seemed little hope for it. ellen and the other women went round to the front of the house, and stood there, dismal figures in their scanty raiment, with woollen petticoats pinned across their shoulders, and disordered hair blown about their faces by the damp wind. they stood grouped together in utter helplessness, looking at the work of ruin with a half-stupid air; almost like the animals who had been hustled from one place of shelter to another, and were evidently lost in wonder as to the cause of their removal. but presently, as the awful scene before them grew more familiar, the instincts of self-interest arose in each breast. mrs. tadman piteously bewailed the loss of her entire wardrobe, and some mysterious pocket-book which she described plaintively as her "little all." she dwelt dolefully upon the merits of each particular article, most especially upon a french-merino dress she had bought for stephen's wedding, which would have lasted her a lifetime, and a paisley shawl, the gift of her deceased husband, which had been in her possession twenty years, and had not so much as a thin place in it. nor was the disconsolate matron the only one who lamented her losses. sarah batts, with clasped hands and distracted aspect, wept for the destruction of her "box." "there was money in it," she cried, "money! oh, don't you think the men could get to my room and save it?" "money!" exclaimed mrs. tadman, sharply, aroused from the contemplation of her own woes by this avowal; "you must be cleverer than i took you for, sarah batts, to be able to save money, and yet be always bedizened with some new bit of finery, as you've been." "it was give to me," sarah answered indignantly, "by them as had a right to give it." "for no good, i should think," replied mrs. tadman; "what should anybody give you money for?" "never you mind; it was mine. o dear, o dear! if one of the men would only get my box for me." she ran to intercept one of the farm-labourers, armed with his bucket, and tried to bribe him by the promise of five shillings as a reward for the rescue of her treasures. but the man only threatened to heave the bucket of water at her if she got in his way; and miss batts was obliged to abandon this hope. the fire made rapid progress meanwhile, unchecked by that ineffectual splashing of water. it had begun at the eastern end of the building, the end most remote from those disused rooms in the ivy-covered west wing; but the wind was blowing from the north-east, and the flames were spreading rapidly towards that western angle. there was little chance that any part of the house could be saved. while ellen whitelaw was looking on at the work of ruin, with a sense of utter helplessness, hearing the selfish lamentations of mrs. tadman and sarah batts like voices in a dream, she was suddenly aroused from this state of torpor by a loud groan, which sounded from not very far off. it came from behind her, from the direction of the poplars. she flew to the spot, and on the ground beneath one of them she found a helpless figure lying prostrate, with an awful smoke-blackened face--a figure and face which for some moments she did not recognize as her husband's. she knew him at last, however, and knelt down beside him. he was groaning in an agonized manner, and had evidently been fearfully burnt before he made his escape. "stephen!" she cried. "o, thank god you are here! i thought you were shut up in that burning house. i called with all my might, and the men searched for you." "it isn't much to be thankful for," gasped the farmer. "i don't suppose there's an hour's life in me; i'm scorched from head to foot, and one arm's helpless. i woke up all of a sudden, and found the room in a blaze. the flames had burst out of the great beam that goes across the chimney-piece. the place was all on fire, so that i couldn't reach the door anyhow; and before i could get out of the window, i was burnt like this. you'd have been burnt alive in your bed but for me. i threw up a handful of gravel at your window. it must have woke you, didn't it?" "yes, yes, that was the sound that woke me; it seemed like a pistol going off. you saved my life, stephen. it was very good of you to remember me." "yes; there's men in my place who wouldn't have thought of anybody but themselves." "can i do anything to ease you, stephen?" asked his wife. she had seated herself on the grass beside him, and had taken his head on her lap, supporting him gently. she was shocked to see the change the fire had made in his face, which was all blistered and distorted. "no, nothing; till they come to carry me away somewhere. i'm all one burning pain." his eyes closed, and he seemed to sink into a kind of stupor. ellen called to one of the men. they might carry him to some place of shelter surely, at once, where a doctor could be summoned, and something done for his relief. there was a humble practitioner resident at crosber, that is to say, about two miles from wyncomb. one of the farm-servants might take a horse and gallop across the fields to fetch this man. robert dunn, the bailiff, heard her cries presently and came to her. he was very much shocked by his master's condition, and at once agreed to the necessity of summoning a surgeon. he proposed that they should carry stephen whitelaw to some stables, which lay at a safe distance from the burning house, and make up some kind of bed for him there. he ran back to dispatch one of the men to crosber, and returned immediately with another to remove his master. but when they tried to raise the injured man between them, he cried out to them to let him alone, they were murdering him. let him lie where he was; he would not be moved. so he was allowed to lie there, with his head on his wife's lap, and his tortured body covered by a coat, which one of the men brought him. his eyes closed again, and for some time he lay without the slightest motion. the fire was gaining ground every instant, and there was yet no sign of the engine from malsham; but ellen whitelaw scarcely heeded the work of destruction. she was thinking only of the helpless stricken creature lying with his head upon her lap; thinking of him perhaps in this hour of his extremity with all the more compassion, because he had always been obnoxious to her. she prayed for the rapid arrival of the surgeon, who must surely be able to give some relief to her husband's sufferings, she thought. it seemed dreadful for him to be lying like this, with no attempt made to lessen his agony. after a long interval he lifted his scorched eyelids slowly, and looked at her with a strange dim gaze. "the west wing," he muttered; "is that burnt?" "no, stephen, not yet; but there's little hope they'll save any part of the house." "they must save that; the rest don't matter--i'm insured heavily; but they must save the west wing." his wife concluded from this that he had kept some of his money in one of those western rooms. the seed-room perhaps, that mysterious padlocked chamber, where she had heard the footstep. and yet she had heard him say again and again that he never kept an unnecessary shilling in the house, and that every pound he had was out at interest. but such falsehoods and contradictions are common enough amongst men of miserly habits; and stephen whitelaw would hardly be so anxious about those western rooms unless something of value were hidden away there. he closed his eyes again, and lay groaning faintly for some time; then opened them suddenly with a frightened look and asked, in the same tone, "the west wing--is the west wing afire yet?" "the wind blows that way, stephen, and the flames are spreading. i don't think they could save it--not if the engine was to come this minute." "but i tell you they must!" cried stephen whitelaw. "if they don't, it'll be murder--cold-blooded murder. o, my god, i never thought there was much harm in the business--and it paid me well--but it's weighed me down like a load of lead, and made me drink more to drown thought. but if it should come to this--don't you understand? don't sit staring at me like that. if the fire gets to the west wing, it will be murder. there's some one there--some one locked up--that won't be able to stir unless they get her out." "some one locked up in the west wing! are you mad, stephen?" "it's the truth. i wouldn't do it again--no, not for twice the money. let them get her out somehow. they can do it, if they look sharp." that unforgotten footstep and equally unforgotten scream flashed into mrs. whitelaw's mind with these words of her husband's. some one shut up there; yes, that was the solution of the mystery that had puzzled and tormented her so long. that cry of anguish was no supernatural echo of past suffering, but the despairing shriek of some victim of modern cruelty. a poor relation of stephen's perhaps--a helpless, mindless creature, whose infirmities had been thus hidden from the world. such things have been too cruelly common in our fair free country. ellen laid her husband's head gently down upon the grass and sprang to her feet. "in which room?" she cried. but there was no answer. the man lay with closed eyes--dying perhaps--but she could do nothing for him till medical help came. the rescue of that unknown captive was a more urgent duty. she was running towards the burning house, when she heard a horse galloping on the road leading from the gate. she stopped, hoping that this was the arrival of the doctor; but a familiar voice called to her, and in another minute her father had dismounted and was close at her side. "thank god you're safe, lass!" he exclaimed, with some warmer touch of paternal feeling than he was accustomed to exhibit. "our men saw the fire when they were going to their work, and i came across directly. where's steph?" "under the trees yonder, very much hurt; i'm afraid fatally. but there's nothing we can do for him till the doctor comes. there's someone in still greater danger, father. for god's sake, help us to save her--some one shut up yonder, in a room at that end of the house." "some one shut up! one of the servants, do you mean?" "no, no, no. some one who has been kept shut up there--hidden--ever so long. stephen told me just now. o, father, for pity's sake, try to save her!" "nonsense, lass. your husband's brain must have been wandering. who should be shut up there, and you live in the house and not know it? why should stephen hide any one in his house? what motive could he have for such a thing? it isn't possible." "i tell you, father, it is true. there was no mistaking stephen's words just now, and, besides that, i've heard noises that might have told me as much, only i thought the house was haunted. i tell you there is some one--some one who'll be burnt alive if we're not quick--and every moment's precious. won't you try to save her?" "of course i will. only i don't want to risk my life for a fancy. is there a ladder anywhere?" "yes, yes. the men have ladders." "and where's this room where you say the woman is shut up?" "at that corner of the house," answered ellen, pointing. "there's a door at the end of the passage, but no window looking this way. there's only one, and that's over the wood-yard." "then it would be easiest to get in that way?" "no, no, father. the wood's all piled up above the window. it would take such a time to move it." "never mind that. anything's better than the risk of going into yonder house. besides, the room's locked, you say. have you got the key?" "no; but i could get it from stephen, i daresay." "we won't wait for you to try. we'll begin at the wood-yard." "take robert dunn with you, father. he's a good brave fellow." "yes, i'll take dunn." the bailiff hurried away to the wood-yard, accompanied by dunn and another man carrying a tall ladder. the farm-servants had ceased from their futile efforts at quenching the fire by this time. it was a labour too hopeless to continue. the flames had spread to the west wing. the ivy was already crackling, as the blaze crept over it. happily that shut-up room was at the extreme end of the building, the point to which the flames must come last. and here, just at the moment when the work of devastation was almost accomplished, came the malsham fire-engine rattling along gaily through the dewy morning, and the malsham amateur fire-brigade, a very juvenile corps as yet, eager to cover itself with laurels, but more careful in the adjustment of its costume than was quite consistent with the desperate nature of its duty. here came the brigade, in time to do something at any rate, and the engine soon began to play briskly upon the western wing. ellen whitelaw was in the wood-yard, watching the work going on there with intense anxiety. the removal of the wood pile seemed a slow business, well as the three men performed their work, flinging down great crushing piles of wood one after another without a moment's pause. they were now joined by the malsham fire-escape men, who had got wind of some one to be rescued from this part of the house, and were eager to exhibit the capabilities of a new fire-escape, started with much hubbub and glorification, after an awful fire had ravaged malsham high-street, and half-a-dozen lives had been wasted because the old fire-escape was out of order and useless. "we don't want the fire-escape," cried mr. carley as the tall machine was wheeled into the yard. "the room we want to get at isn't ten feet from the ground. you can give us a hand with this wood if you like. that's all we want." the men clambered on to the wood-pile. it was getting visibly lower by this time, and the top of the window was to be seen. ellen watched with breathless anxiety, forgetting that her husband might be dying under the poplars. he was not alone there; she had sent mrs. tadman to watch him. only a few minutes more and the window was cleared. a pale face could be dimly seen peering out through the dusty glass. william carley tried to open the lattice, but it was secured tightly within. one of the firemen leapt forward upon his failure, and shattered every pane of glass and every inch of the leaden frame with a couple of blows from his axe, and then the bailiff clambered into the room. he was hidden from those below about five minutes, and then emerged from the window, somehow or other, carrying a burden, and came struggling across the wood to the ladder by which he and the rest had mounted. the burden which he carried was a woman's figure, with the face hidden by his large woollen neckerchief. ellen gave a cry of horror. the woman must surely be dead, or why should he have taken such pains to cover her face? he brought his burden down the ladder very carefully, and gave the lifeless figure into ellen's arms. "help me to carry her away yonder, while robert gets the cart ready," he said to his daughter; "she's fainted." and then he added in a whisper, "for god's sake, don't let any one see her face! it's mrs. holbrook." chapter xliv. after the fire. yes, it was marian. she whom gilbert fenton had sought so long and patiently, with doubt and anguish in his heart; she whose double john saltram had followed across the atlantic, had been within easy reach of them all the time, hidden away in that dreary old farm-house, the innocent victim of percival nowell's treachery, and stephen whitelaw's greed of gain. the whole story was told by-and-by, when the master of wyncomb farm lay dying. william carley and his daughter took her to the grange as soon as the farmer's spring cart was ready to convey her thither. it was all done very quickly, and none of the farm-servants saw her face. even if they had done so, it is more than doubtful that they would have recognised her, so pale a shadow of her former self had she become during that long dreary imprisonment; the face wan and wasted, with a strange sharpened look about the features which was like the aspect of death; all the brightness and colour vanished out of the soft brown hair; an ashen pallor upon her beauty, that made her seem like a creature risen from the grave. they lifted her into the cart, still insensible, and seated her there, wrapped in an old horse-cloth, with her head resting on mrs. whitelaw's shoulder; and so they drove slowly away. it was only when they had gone some little distance from the farm, that the fresh morning air revived her, and she opened her eyes and looked about her, wildly at first, and with a faint shuddering sigh. then, after a few moments, full consciousness came back to her, and a sudden cry of rapture broke from the pale lips. "o god!" she exclaimed, "am i set free?" "yes, dear mrs. holbrook, you are free, never again to go back to that cruel place. o, to think that you should be used so, and i so near!" marian lifted her head from ellen's shoulder, and recognised her with a second cry of delight. "ellen, is it you? then i am safe; i must be safe with you." "safe! yes, dear. i would die sooner than any harm should come to you again. who could have brought this cruelty about? who could have shut you up in that room?" "my father," marian answered with a shudder. "he wanted my money, i suppose; and instead of killing me, he shut me up in that place." she said no more just then, being too weak to say much; and ellen, who was employed in soothing and comforting her, did not want her to talk. it was afterwards, when she had been established in her old rooms at the grange, and had taken a little breakfast, that she told ellen something more about her captivity. "o, ellen, if i were to tell you what i have suffered! but no, there are no words can tell that. it's not that they ill-used me. the girl who waited on me brought me good food, and even tried to make me comfortable in her rough way; but to sit there day after day, ellen, alone, with only a dim light from the top of the window above the wood-stack; to sit there wondering about my husband, whether he was searching for me still, and would ever find me, or whether, as was more likely, he had given me up for dead. think of me, ellen, if you can, sitting there for weeks and months in my despair, trying to reckon the days sometimes by the aid of some old newspaper which the girl brought me now and then, at other times losing count of them altogether." "dear mrs. holbrook, i can't understand it even yet. tell me how it all came about--how they ever lured you into that place." "it was easy enough, ellen; i wasn't conscious when they took me there. the story is very short. you remember that day when you left the grange, how happy i was, looking forward to my husband's return, and thinking of the good news i had to tell him. we were to be rich, and our lives free and peaceful henceforward; and i had seen him suffer so much for the want of money. it was the morning after you left when the post brought me a letter from my father--a letter with the malsham post-mark. i had seen him in town, as you know, and was scarcely surprised that he should write to me. but i was surprised to find him so near me, and the contents of the letter were very perplexing. my father entreated me to meet him on the river-side pathway, between malsham station and this house. he had been informed of my habits, he said, and that i was accustomed to walk there. that was curious, when, so far as i knew, he had never been near this place; but i hardly thought about the strangeness of it then. he begged me so earnestly to see him; it was a matter of life or death, he said. what could i do, nelly? he was my father, and i felt that i owed him some duty. i could not refuse to see him; and if he had some personal objection to coming here, it seemed a small thing for me to take the trouble to go and meet him. i could but hear what he had to say." "i wish to heaven i had been here!" exclaimed ellen; "you shouldn't have gone alone, if i had known anything about it." "i think, if you had been here, i should have told you about the letter, for it puzzled me a good deal, and i knew how well i could trust you. but you were away; and my father's request was so urgent--the hour was named--i could do nothing but accede to it. so i went, leaving no message for you or for my husband, feeling so sure of my return within an hour or two." "and you found your father waiting for you?" "yes, on the river-bank, within a short distance of mr. whitelaw's house. he began by congratulating me on the change in my prospects,--i was a rich woman, he said. and then he went on to vilify my husband in such hateful words, ellen; telling me that i had married a notorious scoundrel and profligate, and that he could produce ample evidence of what he affirmed; and all this with a pretended pity for my weakness and ignorance of the world. i laughed his shameful slanders to scorn, and told him that i knew my husband too thoroughly to be alarmed even for a moment by such groundless charges. he still affected to compassionate me as the weakest and most credulous of women, and then came to a proposal which he said he had travelled to hampshire on purpose to make to me. it was, that i should leave my husband, and place myself under his protection; that i should go to america with him when he returned there, and so preserve my fortune from the clutches of a villain. 'my fortune?' i said; 'yes, i see that it is _that_ alone you are thinking of. how can you suppose me so blind as not to understand that? you had better be candid with me, and say frankly what you want. i have no doubt my husband will allow me to make any reasonable sacrifice in your favour.'" "what did he say to that?" "he laughed bitterly at my offer. 'your husband!' he said 'i am not likely to see the colour of my father's money, if you are to be governed by him.' 'you do him a great wrong,' i answered. 'i am sure that he will act generously, and i shall be governed by him.'" "he was very angry, i suppose?" "no doubt of it; but for some time he contrived to suppress all appearance of anger, and urged me to believe his statements about my husband, and to accept his offer of a home and protection with him. i cannot tell you how plausible his words were--what an appearance of affection and interest in my welfare he put on. then, finding me firm, he changed his tone, and there were hidden threats mixed with his entreaties. it would be a bad thing for me if i refused to go with him, he said; i would have cause to repent my folly for the rest of my life. he said a great deal, using every argument it is possible to imagine; and there was always the same threatening under-tone. he could not move me in the least, as you may fancy, nell. i told him that nothing upon earth would induce me to leave my husband, or to think ill of him. and in this manner we walked up and down for nearly two hours, till i began to feel very tired and faint. my father saw this, and when we came within sight of wyncomb farmhouse, proposed that i should go in and rest, and take a glass of milk or some kind of refreshment. i was surprised at this proposal, and asked him if he knew the people of the house. he said yes, he knew something of mr. whitelaw; he had met him the night before in the coffee-room of the inn at malsham." "then your father had slept at malsham the night before?" "evidently. his letter to me had been posted at malsham, you know. i asked him how long he had been in this part of the country, and he rather evaded the question. not long, he said; and he had come down here only to see me. at first i refused to go into mr. whitelaw's house, being only anxious to get home as quickly as possible. but my father seemed offended by this. i wanted to get rid of him, he said, although this was likely to be our last interview--the very last time in his life that he would ever see me, perhaps. i could not surely grudge him half an hour more of my company. i could scarcely go on refusing after this; and i really felt so tired and faint, that i doubted my capability of walking back to this house without resting. so i said yes, and we went into wyncomb farmhouse. the door was opened by a girl when my father knocked. there was no one at home, she told him; but we were quite welcome to sit down in the parlour, and she would bring me a glass of fresh milk and a slice of bread-and-butter. "the house had a strange empty look, i thought. there was none of the life or bustle one expects to see at a farm; all was silent as the grave. the gloom and quietness of the place chilled me somehow. there was a fire burning in the parlour, and my father made me sit down very close to it, and i think the heat increased that faintness which i had felt when i came into the house. "again and again he urged his first demand, seeming as if he would wear down all opposition by persistence. i was quite firm; but the effect of all this argument was very wearisome, and i began to feel really ill. "i think i must have been on the point of fainting, when the door was opened suddenly, and mr. whitelaw came in. in the next moment, while the room was spinning round before my eyes, and that dreadful giddiness that comes before a dead faint was growing worse, my father snatched me up in his arms, and threw a handkerchief over my face. i had just sense enough to know that there was chloroform upon it, and that was all. when i opened my eyes again, i was lying on a narrow bed, in a dimly-lighted room, with a small fire burning in a rusty grate in one corner, and some tea-things, with a plate of cold meat, on a table near it. there was a scrap of paper on this table, with a few lines scrawled upon it in pencil, in my father's hand: 'you have had your choice, either to share a prosperous life with me, or to be shut up like a mad woman. you had better make yourself as comfortable as you can, since you have no hope of escape till it suits my purpose to have you set free. good care will be taken of you. you must have been a fool to suppose that i would submit to the injustice of j.n.'s will.' "for a long time i sat like some stupid bewildered creature, going over these words again and again, as if i had no power to understand them. it was very long before i could believe that my father meant to shut me up in that room for an indefinite time--for the rest of my life, perhaps. but, little by little, i came to believe this, and to feel nothing but a blank despair. o, nelly, i dare not dwell upon that time! i suffered too much. god has been very merciful to me in sparing me my mind; for there were times when i believe i was quite mad. i could pray sometimes, but not always. i have spent whole days in prayer, almost as if i fancied that i could weary out my god with supplications." "and stephen; did you see him?" "yes, now and then--once in several days, in a week perhaps. he used to come, like the master of a madhouse visiting his patients, to see that i was comfortable, he said. at first i used to appeal to him to set me free--kneeling at his feet, promising any sacrifice of my fortune for him or for my father, if they would release me. but it was no use. he was as hard as a rock; and at last i felt that it was useless, and used to see him come and go with hopeless apathy. no, ellen, there are no words can describe what i suffered. i appealed to the girl who waited on me daily, but who came only once a-day, and always after dark. i might as well have appealed to the four walls of my room; the girl was utterly stolid. she brought me everything i was likely to want from day to day, and gave me ample means of replenishing my fire, and told me that i ought to make myself comfortable. i had a much better life than any one in the workhouse, she said; and i must be very wicked if i complained. i believe she really thought i was a harmless madwoman, and that her master had a right to shut me up in that room. one night, after i had been there for a time that seemed like eternity, my father came----" "what!" cried ellen whitelaw, "the stranger! i understand. that man was your father; he came to see you that night; and as he was leaving you, you gave that dreadful shriek we heard downstairs. o, if i had known the truth--if i had only known!" "_you_ heard me, ellen? you were there?" marian exclaimed, surprised. she was, as yet, entirely ignorant of ellen's marriage, and had been too much bewildered by the suddenness of her escape to wonder how the bailiff's daughter had happened to be so near at hand in that hour of deadly peril. "yes, yes, dear mrs. holbrook; i was there, and i did not help you. but never mind that now; tell me the rest of your story; tell me how your father acted that night." "he was with me alone for about ten minutes; he came to give me a last chance, he said. if i liked to leave my husband for ever, and go to america with him, i might do so; but before he let me out of that place, he must have my solemn oath that i would make no attempt to see my husband; that i would never again communicate with any one i had known up to that time; that i would begin a new life, with him, my father, for my sole protector. i had had some experience of the result of opposing him, he said, and he now expected to find me reasonable. "you can imagine my answer, ellen. i would do anything, sacrifice anything, except my fidelity to my husband. heaven knows i would have given twenty years of my life to escape from that dismal place, with the mere chance of being able to get back to my husband; but i would not take a false oath; i could not perjure myself, as that man would have made me perjure myself, in order to win my release. i knelt at his feet and clung about him, beseeching him with all the power i had to set me free; but he was harder than iron. just at the end, when he had the door open, and was leaving me, telling me that i had lost my last chance, and would never see him again, i clung about him with one wild desperate cry. he flung me back into the room violently, and shut the door in my face. i fancied afterwards that that cry must have been heard, and that, if there had been any creature in the house inclined to help me, there would have come an end to my sufferings. but the time passed, and there was no change; only the long dreary days, the wretched sleepless nights." this was all. there were details of her sufferings which marian told her faithful friend by-and-by, when her mind was calmer, and they had leisure for tranquil talk; but the story was all told; and marian lay down to rest in the familiar room, unspeakably grateful to god for her rescue, and only eager that her husband should be informed of her safety. she had not yet been told that he had crossed the atlantic in search of her, deluded by a false scent. ellen feared to tell her this at first; and she had taken it for granted that john saltram was still in london. it was easy to defer any explanation just yet, on account of marian's weakness. the exertion of telling the brief story of her sufferings had left her prostrate; and she was fain to obey her friendly nurse. "we will talk about everything, and arrange everything, by-and-by, dear mrs. holbrook," ellen said resolutely; "but for the present you _must_ rest, and you must take everything that i bring you, and be very good." and with that she kissed and left her, to perform another and less agreeable duty--the duty of attendance by her husband's sick-bed. chapter xlv. mr. whitelaw makes his will. they had carried stephen whitelaw to the grange; and he lay a helpless creature, beyond hope of recovery, in one of the roomy old-fashioned bed-chambers. the humble crosber surgeon had done his best, and had done it skilfully, being a man of large experience amongst a lowly class of sufferers; and to the aid of the crosber surgeon had come a more prosperous practitioner from malsham, who had driven over in his own phaeton; but between them both they could make nothing of stephen whitelaw. his race was run. he had been severely burnt; and if his actual injuries were not enough to kill him, there was little chance that he could survive the shock which his system had received. he might linger a little; might hold out longer than they expected; but his life was a question of hours. the doomed man had seemed from the first to have a conviction of the truth, and appeared in no manner surprised when, in answer to his questions, the malsham doctor admitted that his case was fatal, and suggested that, if he had anything to do in the adjustment of his affairs, he could scarcely do it too soon. at this mr. whitelaw groaned aloud. if he could in any manner have adjusted his affairs so as to take his money with him, the suggestion might have seemed sensible enough; but, that being impracticable, it was the merest futility. he had never made a will; it cost him too much anguish to give away his money even on paper. and now it was virtually necessary that he should do so, or else, perhaps, his wealth would, by some occult process, be seized upon by the crown--a power which he had been accustomed to regard in the abstract with an antagonistic feeling, as being the root of queen's taxes. to leave all to his wife, with some slight pension to mrs. tadman, seemed the most obvious course. he had married for love, and the wife of his choice had been very dutiful and submissive. what more could he have demanded from her? and why should he grudge her the inheritance of his wealth? well, he would not have grudged it to her, perhaps, since some one must have it, if it had not been for that aggravating conviction that she would marry again, and that the man she preferred to him would riot in the possession of his hardly-earned riches. she would marry frank randall; and between them they would mismanage, and ultimately ruin, the farm. he remembered the cost of the manure he had put upon his fields that year, and regretted that useless outlay. it was a hard thing to have enriched his land only that others might profit by the produce. "and if i've laid down a yard of drain-pipes since last year, i've laid down a dozen mile. there's not a bit of swampy ground or a patch of sour grass on the farm," he thought bitterly. he lay for some hours deliberating as to what he should do. death was near, but not so very close to him just yet. he had time to think. no, come what might, he would not leave the bulk of his property to fall into the keeping of frank randall. he remembered that there were charitable institutions, to which a man, not wishing to enrich an ungrateful race, might bequeath his money, and obtain some credit for himself thereby, which no man could expect from his own relations. there was an infirmary at malsham, rather a juvenile institution as yet, in aid whereof mr. whitelaw had often been plagued for subscriptions, reluctantly doling out half-a-guinea now and then, more often refusing to contribute anything. he had never thought of this place in his life before; but the image of it came into his mind now, as he had seen it on market-days for the last four years--a bran new red-brick building in malsham high-street. he thought how his name would look, cut in large letters on a stone tablet on the face of that edifice. it would be something to get for his money; a very poor and paltry something, compared with the delight of possession, but just a little better than nothing. he lay for some time pondering upon this, with that image of the stone tablet before his eyes, setting forth that the new wing of this institution had been erected at the desire of the late stephen whitelaw, esq., of wyncomb farm, who had bequeathed a sum of money to the infirmary for that purpose, whereby two new wards had, in memory of that respected benefactor, been entitled the whitelaw wards--or something to the like effect. he composed a great many versions of the inscription as he lay there, tolerably easy as to his bodily feelings, and chiefly anxious concerning the disposal of the money; but, being unaccustomed to the task of composition, he found it more difficult than he could have supposed to set forth his own glory in a concise form of words. but the tablet would be there, of course, the very centre and keystone of the building, as it were; indeed, mr. whitelaw resolved to make his bequest contingent upon the fulfilment of this desire. later in the evening he told william carley that he had made up his mind about his will, and would be glad to see mr. pivott, of malsham, rival solicitor to mr. randall, of the same town, as soon as that gentleman could be summoned to his bedside. the bailiff seemed surprised at this request. "why, surely, steph, you can't want a lawyer mixed up in the business!" he said. "those sort of chaps only live by making work for one another. you know how to make your will well enough, old fellow, without any attorney's aforesaids and hereinafters. half a sheet of paper and a couple of sentences would do it, i should think; the fewer words the better." "i'd rather have pivott, and do it in a regular manner," mr. whitelaw answered quietly. "i remember, in a forgery case that was in the papers the other day, how the judge said of the deceased testator, that, being a lawyer, he was too wise to make his own will. yes, i'd rather see pivott, if you'll send for him, carley. it's always best to be on the safe side. i don't want my money wasted in a chancery suit when i'm lying in my grave." william carley tried to argue the matter with his son-in-law; but the attempt was quite useless. mr. whitelaw had always been the most obstinate of men--and lying on his bed, maimed and helpless, was no more to be moved from his resolve than if he had been a roman gladiator who had just trained himself for an encounter with lions. so the bailiff was compelled to obey him, unwillingly enough, and dispatched one of the men to malsham in quest of mr. pivott the attorney. the practitioner came to the grange as fast as his horse could carry him. every one in malsham knew by this time that stephen whitelaw was a doomed man; and mr. pivott felt that this was a matter of life and death. he was an eminently respectable man, plump and dapper, with a rosy smooth-shaven face, and an air of honesty that made the law seem quite a pleasant thing. he was speedily seated by mr. whitelaw's bed, with a pair of candles and writing materials upon a little table before him, ready to obey his client's behests, and with the self-possessed aspect of a man to whom a last will and testament involving the disposal of a million or so would have been only an every-day piece of practice. william carley had shown himself very civil and obliging in providing for the lawyer's comfort, and having done so, now took up his stand by the fire-place, evidently intending to remain as a spectator of the business. but an uneasy glance which the patient cast from time to time in the direction of his father-in-law convinced mr. pivott that he wanted that gentleman to be got rid of before business began. "i think, mr. carley, it would be as well for our poor friend and i to be alone," he said in his most courteous accents. "fiddlesticks!" exclaimed the bailiff contemptuously. "it isn't likely that stephen can have any secrets from his wife's father. i'm in nobody's way, i'm sure, and i'm not going to put my spoke in the wheel, let him leave his money how he may." "very likely not, my dear sir. indeed, i am sure you would respect our poor friend's wishes, even if they were to take a form unpleasing to yourself, which is far from likely. but still it may be as well for mr. whitelaw and myself to be alone. in cases of this kind the patient is apt to be nervous, and the business is done more expeditiously if there is no third party present. so, my dear mr. carley, if you have _no_ objection----" "steph," said the bailiff abruptly, "do _you_ want me out of the room? say the word, if you do." the patient writhed, hesitated, and then replied with some confusion,-- "if it's all the same to you, william carley, i think i'd sooner be alone with mr. pivott." and here the polite attorney, having opened the door with his own hands, bowed the bailiff out; and, to his extreme mortification, william carley found himself on the outside of his son-in-law's room, before he had time to make any farther remonstrance. he went downstairs, and paced the wainscoted parlour in a very savage frame of mind. "there's some kind of devil's work hatching up there," he muttered to himself. "why should he want me out of the room? he wouldn't, if he was going to leave all his money to ellen, as he ought to leave it. who else is there to get it? not that old mother tadman, surely. she's an artful old harridan; and if my girl had not been a fool, she'd have got rid of her out of hand when she married. sure to goodness _she_ can never stand between stephen and his wife. and who else is there? no one that i know of; no one. stephen wouldn't have kept any secret all these years from the folks he's lived amongst. it isn't likely. he _must_ leave it all to his wife, except a hundred or so, perhaps, to mother tadman; and it was nothing but his natural closeness that made him want me out of the way." and at this stage of his reflections, mr. carley opened a cupboard near the fire-place and brought therefrom a case-bottle, from the contents of which he found farther solace. it was about half-an-hour after this that he was summoned by a call from the lawyer, who was standing on the broad landing-place at the top of the stairs with a candle in his hand, when the bailiff emerged from the parlour. "if you'll step up here, and bring one of your men with you, i shall be obliged, mr. carley," the attorney said, looking over the banisters; "i want you to witness your son-in-law's will." mr. carley's spirits rose a little at this. he was not much versed in the ways of lawyers, and had a notion that mr. pivott would read the will to him, perhaps, before he signed it. it flashed upon him presently that a legatee could not benefit by a will which he had witnessed. it was obvious, therefore, that stephen did not mean him to have anything. well, he had scarcely expected anything. if his daughter inherited all, it would be pretty much the same thing; she would act generously of course. he went into the kitchen, where the head man, who had been retained on the premises to act as special messenger in this time of need, was sitting in the chimney-corner smoking a comfortable pipe after his walk to and from malsham. "you're wanted upstairs a minute, joe," he said; and the two went clumping up the wide old oaken staircase. the witnessing of the will was a very brief business. mr. pivott did not offer to throw any light upon its contents, nor was the bailiff, sharpsighted as he might be, able to seize upon so much as one paragraph or line of the document during the process of attaching his signature thereto. when the ceremony was concluded, stephen whitelaw sank back upon his pillow with an air of satisfaction. "i don't think i could have done any better," he murmured. "it's a hard thing for a man of my age to leave everything behind him; but i don't see that i could have done better." "you have done that, my dear sir, which might afford comfort to any death-bed," said the lawyer solemnly. he folded the will, and put it into his pocket. "our friend desires me to take charge of this document," he said to william carley. "you will have no reason to complain, on your daughter's account, when you become familiar with its contents. she has been fairly treated--i may say very fairly treated." the bailiff did not much relish the tone of this assurance. fair treatment might mean very little. "i hope she has been well treated," he answered in a surly manner. "she's been a good wife to stephen whitelaw, and would continue so to be if he was to live twenty years longer. when a pretty young woman marries a man twice her age, she's a right to expect handsome treatment, mr. pivott. it can't be too handsome for justice, in my opinion." the solicitor gave a little gentle sigh. "as an interested party, mr. carley," he said, "your opinion is not as valuable as it might be under other circumstances. however, i don't think your daughter will complain, and i am sure the world will applaud what our poor friend has done--of his own accord, mind, mr. carley, wholly and solely of his own spontaneous desire. it is a thing that i should only have been too proud to suggest; but the responsibility of such a suggestion is one which i could never have taken upon myself. it would have been out of my province, indeed. you will be kind enough to remember this by-and-by, my dear sir." the bailiff was puzzled, and showed mr. pivott to the door with a moody countenance. "i thought there was some devil's work," he muttered to himself, as he watched the lawyer mount his stiff brown cob and ride away into the night; "but what does it all mean? and what has stephen whitelaw done with his money? we shall know that pretty soon, anyhow. he can't last long." chapter xlvi. ellen regains her liberty. stephen whitelaw lingered for two days and two nights, and at the expiration of that time departed this life, making a very decent end of it, and troubled by no thought that his existence had been an unworthy one. before he died, he told his wife something of how he had been tempted into the doing of that foul deed whereof marian saltram had been the victim. those two were alone together the day before he died, when stephen, of his own free will, made the following statement:---- "it was mrs. holbrook's father, you see," he said, in a plausible tone, "that put it to me, how he might want his daughter taken care of for a time--it might be a short time, or it might be rather a longish time, according to how circumstances should work out. we'd met once before at the king's arms at malsham, where mr. nowell was staying, and where i went in of an evening, once in a way, after market; and he'd made pretty free with me, and asked me a good many questions about myself, and told me a good bit about himself, in a friendly way. he told me how his daughter had gone against him, and was likely to go against him, and how some property that ought in common justice to have been left to him, had been left to her. he was going to give her a fair chance, he said, if she liked to leave her husband, who was a scheming scoundrel, and obey him. she might have a happy home with him, if she was reasonable. if not, he should use his authority as a father. "he came to see me at wyncomb next day--dropped in unawares like, when mother tadman was out of the way--not that i had asked him, you see. he seemed to be quite taken with the place, and made me show him all over the house; and then he took a glass of something, and sat and talked a bit, and went away, without having said a word about his daughter. but before he went he made me promise that i'd go and see him at the king's arms that night. "well, you see, nell, as he seemed to have taken a fancy to me, as you may say, and had told me he could put me up to making more of my money, and had altogether been uncommonly pleasant, i didn't care to say no, and i went. i was rather taken aback at the king's arms when they showed me to a private room, because i'd met mr. nowell before in the commercial; however, there he was, sitting in front of a blazing fire, and with a couple of decanters of wine upon the table. "he was very civil, couldn't have been more friendly, and we talked and talked; he was always harping on his daughter; till at last he came out with what he wanted. would i give her house-room for a bit, just to keep her out of the way of her husband and such-like designing people, supposing she should turn obstinate and refuse to go abroad with him? 'you've a rare old roomy place,' he said. 'i saw some rooms upstairs at the end of a long passage which don't seem to have been used for years. you might keep my lady in one of those; and that fine husband of hers would be as puzzled where to find her as if she was in the centre of africa. it would be a very easy thing to do,' he said; 'and it would be only friendly in you to do it.'" "o, stephen!" cried his wife reproachfully, "how could you ever consent to such a wicked thing?" "i don't know about the wickedness of it," mr. whitelaw responded, with rather a sullen air; "a daughter is bound to obey her father, isn't she? and if she don't, i should think he had the power to do what he liked with her. that's how i should look at it, if i was a father. it's all very well to talk, you see, nell, but you don't know the arguments such a man as that can bring to bear. i didn't want to do it; i was against it from the first. it was a dangerous business, and might bring me into trouble. but that man bore down upon me to that extent that he made me promise anything; and when i went home that night, it was with the understanding that i was to fit up a room--there was a double door to be put up to shut out sound, and a deal more--ready for mrs. holbrook, in case her father wanted to get her out of the way for a bit." "he promised to pay you, of course?" ellen said, not quite able to conceal the contempt and aversion which this confession of her husband's inspired. "well, yes, a man doesn't put himself in jeopardy like that for nothing. he was to give me a certain sum of money down the first night that mrs. holbrook slept in my house; and another sum of money before he went to america, and an annual sum for continuing to take care of her, if he wanted to keep her quiet permanently, as he might. altogether it would be a very profitable business, he told me, and i ought to consider myself uncommonly lucky to get such a chance. as to the kindness or unkindness of the matter, it was better than shutting her up in a lunatic asylum, he said; and he might have to do that, if i refused to take her. she was very weak in her head, he said, and the doctors would throw no difficulty in his way, if he wanted to put her into a madhouse." "but you must have known that was a lie!" exclaimed ellen indignantly. "you had seen and talked to her; you must have known that mrs. holbrook was as sane as you or i." "i couldn't be supposed to know better than her own father," answered mr. whitelaw, in an injured tone; "he had a right to know best. however, it's no use arguing about it now. he had such a power over me that i couldn't go against him; so i gave in, and mrs. holbrook came to wyncomb. she was to be treated kindly and made comfortable, her father said; that was agreed between us; and she has been treated kindly and made comfortable. i had to trust some one to wait upon her, and when mr. nowell saw the two girls he chose sarah batts. 'that girl will do anything for money,' he said; 'she's stupid, but she's wise enough to know her own interest, and she'll hold her tongue.' so i trusted sarah batts, and i had to pay her pretty stiffly to keep the secret; but she was a rare one to do the work, and she went about it as quiet as a mouse. not even mother tadman ever suspected her." "it was a wicked piece of business--wicked from first to last," said ellen. "i can't bear to hear about it." and then, remembering that the sinner was so near his end, and that this voluntary confession of his was in some manner a sign of repentance, she felt some compunction, and spoke to him in a softer tone. "still i'm grateful to you for telling me the truth at last, stephen," she said; "and, thank god, there's no harm done that need last for ever. thank god that dear young lady did not lose her life, shut up a prisoner in that miserable room, as she might have done." "she had her victuals regular," observed mr. whitelaw, "and the best." "eating and drinking won't keep any one alive, if their heart's breaking," said ellen; "but, thank heaven, her sufferings have come to an end now, and i trust god will forgive your share in them, stephen." and then, sitting by his bedside through the long hours of that night, she tried in very simple words to awaken him to a sense of his condition. it was not an easy business to let any glimmer of spiritual light in upon the darkness of that sordid mind. there did arise perhaps in this last extremity some dim sense of remorse in the breast of mr. whitelaw, some vague consciousness that in that one act of his life, and in the whole tenor of his life, he had not exactly shaped his conduct according to that model which the parson had held up for his imitation in certain rather prosy sermons, indifferently heard, on the rare occasions of his attendance at the parish church. but whatever terrors the world to come might hold for him seemed very faint and shapeless, compared with the things from which he was to be taken. he thought of his untimely death as a hardship, an injustice almost. when his wife entreated him to see the vicar of crosber before he died, he refused at first, asking what good the vicar's talk could do him. "if he could keep me alive as long as till next july, to see how those turnips answer with the new dressing, i'd see him fast enough," he said peevishly; "but he can't; and i don't want to hear his preaching." "but it would be a comfort to you, surely, stephen, to have him talk to you a little about the goodness and mercy of god. he won't tell you hard things, i'm sure of that." "no, i suppose he'll try and make believe that death's uncommon pleasant," answered mr. whitelaw with a bitter laugh; "as if it could be pleasant to any man to leave such a place as wyncomb, after doing as much for the land, and spending as much labour and money upon it, as i have done. it's like nurses telling children that a dose of physic's pleasant; they wouldn't like to have to take it themselves." and then by-and-by, when his last day had dawned, and he felt himself growing weaker, mr. whitelaw expressed himself willing to comply with his wife's request. "if it's any satisfaction to you, nell, i'll see the parson," he said. "his talk can't do me much harm, anyhow." whereupon the rector of crosber and hallibury was sent for, and came swiftly to perform his duty to the dying man. he was closeted with mr. whitelaw for some time, and did his best to awaken christian feelings in the farmer's breast; but it was doubtful if his pious efforts resulted in much. the soul of stephen whitelaw was in his barns and granaries, with his pigs and cattle. he could not so much as conceive the idea of a world in which there should be no such thing as sale and profit. his end came quietly enough at last, and ellen was free. her time of bondage had been very brief, yet she felt herself twenty years older than she had seemed before that interval of misery began. when the will was read by mr. pivott on the day of stephen whitelaw's funeral, it was found that the farmer had left his wife two hundred a year, derivable from real estate. to mrs. rebecca tadman, his cousin, he bequeathed an annuity of forty pounds, the said annuity to revert to ellen upon mrs. tadman's death should ellen survive. the remaining portion of his real estate he bequeathed to one john james harris, a distant cousin, who owned a farm in wiltshire, with whom stephen whitelaw had spent some years of his boyhood, and from whom he had learned the science of agriculture. it was less from any love the testator bore john james harris than from a morbid jealousy of his probable successor frank randall, that the wiltshire farmer had been named as residuary legatee. if stephen whitelaw could have left his real estate to the infirmary, he would have so left it. his personal estate, consisting of divers investments in railway shares and other kinds of stock, all of a very safe kind, was to be realized, and the entire proceeds devoted to the erection of an additional wing for the extension of malsham infirmary, and his gift was to be recorded on a stone tablet in a conspicuous position on the front of that building. this, which was an absolute condition attached to the bequest, had been set forth with great minuteness by the lawyer, at the special desire of his client. mr. carley's expression of opinion after hearing this will read need not be recorded here. it was forcible, to say the least of it; and mr. pivott, the malsham solicitor, protested against such language as an outrage upon the finer feelings of our nature. "some degree of disappointment is perhaps excusable upon your part, my dear sir," said the lawyer, who wished to keep the widow for his client, and had therefore no desire to offend her father; "but i am sure that in your calmer moments you will admit that the work to which your son-in-law has devoted the bulk of his accumulations is a noble one. for ages to come the sick and the suffering among our townsfolk will bless the name of whitelaw. there is a touching reflection for you, mr. carley! and really now, your amiable daughter, with an income of two hundred per annum--to say nothing of that reversion which must fall in to her by-and-by on mrs. tadman's decease--is left in a very fair position. i should not have consented to draw up that will, sir, if i had considered it an unjust one." "then there's a wide difference between your notion of justice and mine," growled the bailiff; who thereupon relapsed into grim silence, feeling that complaint was useless. he could no more alter the conditions of mr. whitelaw's will than he could bring mr. whitelaw back to life--and that last operation was one which he was by no means eager to perform. ellen herself felt no disappointment; she fancied, indeed, that her husband, whom she had never deceived by any pretence of affection, had behaved with sufficient generosity towards her. two hundred a year seemed a large income to her. it would give her perfect independence, and the power to help others, if need were. chapter xlvii. closing scenes. it was not until the day of her husband's funeral that ellen whitelaw wrote to mr. fenton to tell him what had happened. she knew that her letter was likely to bring him post-haste to the grange, and she wished his coming to be deferred until that last dismal day was over. nor was she sorry that there should be some little pause--a brief interval of ignorance and tranquillity--in marian's life before she heard of her husband's useless voyage across the atlantic. she was in sad need of rest of mind and body, and even in those few days gained considerable strength, by the aid of mrs. whitelaw's tender nursing. she had not left her room during the time that death was in the darkened house, and it was only on the morning after the funeral that she came downstairs for the first time. her appearance had improved wonderfully in that interval of little more than a week. her eyes had lost their dim weary look, the deathly pallor of her complexion had given place to a faint bloom. but grateful as she was for her own deliverance, she was full of anxiety about her husband. ellen whitelaw's vague assurances that all would be well, that he would soon be restored to her, were not enough to set her mind at ease. ellen had not the courage to tell her the truth. it was better that gilbert fenton should do that, she thought. he who knew all the circumstances of mr. holbrook's journey, and the probabilities as to his return, would be so much better able to comfort and reassure his wife. "he will come to-day, i have no doubt," ellen said to herself on the morning after her husband's funeral. she told marian how she had written to mr. fenton on the day before, in order to avoid the agitation of a surprise, should he appear at the grange without waiting to announce his coming. nor was she mistaken as to the probability of his speedy arrival. it was not long after noon when there came a loud peal of the bell that rang so rarely. ellen ran herself to the gate to admit the visitor. she had told him of her husband's death in her last letter, and her widow's weeds were no surprise to him. he was pale, but very calm. "she is well?" he asked eagerly. "yes, sir, she is as well as one could look for her to be, poor dear, after what she has gone through. but she is much changed since last you saw her. you must prepare yourself for that, sir. and she is very anxious about her husband. i don't know how she'll take it, when she hears that he has gone to america." "yes, that is a bad business, mrs. whitelaw," gilbert answered gravely. "he was not in a fit state to travel, unfortunately. he was only just recovering from a severe illness, and was as weak as a child." "o dear, o dear! but you won't tell mrs. holbrook that, sir?" "i won't tell her more than i can help; of course i don't want to alarm her; but i am bound to tell her some portion of the truth. you did her husband a great wrong, you see, mrs. whitelaw, when you suspected him of some share in this vile business. he has shown himself really devoted to her. i thank god that it has proved so. and now tell me more about this affair; your letter explains so little." "i will tell you all, sir." they walked in the garden for about a quarter of an hour before gilbert went into the house. eager as he was to see marian, he was still more anxious to hear full particulars of that foul plot of which she had been made the victim. ellen whitelaw told him the story very plainly, making no attempt to conceal her husband's guilty part in the business; and the story being finished, she took him straight to the parlour where he had seen marian for the first time after her marriage. it was a warm bright day, and all three windows were open. marian was sitting by one of them, with some scrap of work lying forgotten in her lap. she started up from her seat as gilbert went into the room, and hastened forward to meet him. "how good of you to come!" she cried. "and you have brought me news of my husband? i am sure of that." "yes, dear mrs. holbrook--mrs. saltram; may i not call you by that name now?--i know all; and have forgiven all." "then you know how deeply he sinned against you, and how much he valued your friendship? he would never have played so false a part but for that. he could not bear to think of being estranged from you." "we are not estranged. i have tried to be angry with him; but there are some old ties that a man cannot break. he has used me very ill, marian; but he is still my friend." his voice broke a little as he uttered the old familiar name. yes, she was changed, cruelly changed, by that ordeal of six months' suffering. the brightness of her beauty had quite faded; but there was something in the altered face that touched him more deeply than the old magic. she was dearer to him, perhaps, in this hour than she had ever been yet. dearer to him, and yet divided from him utterly, now that he professed himself her husband's friend as well as her own. friendship, brotherly affection, those chastened sentiments which he had fancied had superseded all warmer feelings--where were they now? by the passionate beating of his heart, by his eager longing to clasp that faded form to his breast, he knew that he loved her as dearly as on the day when she promised to be his wife; that he must love her with the same measure till the end of his existence. "thank god for that," marian said gently; "thank god that you are still friends. but why did he not come with you to-day? you have told him about me, i suppose?" "not yet, marian; i have not been able to do that. nor could he come with me to-day. he has left england--on a false scent." and then he told her, in a few words, the story of john saltram's voyage to new york; making very light of the matter, and speaking cheerily of his early return. "he will come back at once, of course, when he finds how he has been deceived," gilbert said. marian was cruelly distressed by this disappointment. she tried to bear the blow bravely, and listened with a gentle patience to gilbert's reassuring arguments; but it was a hard thing to bear. "he will be back soon, you say," she said; "but soon is such a vague word; and you have not told me when he went." gilbert told her the date of john saltram's departure. she began immediately to question him as to the usual length of the voyage, and to calculate the time he had had for his going and return. taking the average length of the voyage as ten days, and allowing ten days for delay in new york, a month would give ample time for the two journeys; and john saltram had been away more than a month. gilbert could see that marian was quick to take alarm on discovering this. "my dear mrs. saltram, be reasonable," he said gently. "finding such a cheat put upon him, your husband would naturally be anxious to bring your father to some kind of reckoning, to extort from him the real secret of your fate. he would no doubt stay in new york to do this; and we cannot tell how difficult the business might prove, or how long it would occupy him." "but if he had been detained like that, he would surely have written to you," said marian; "and you have heard nothing from him since he left england." "unhappily nothing. but he is not the best correspondent in the world, you know." "yes, yes, i know that. yet, in such a case as this, he would surely have written, if he were well." her eyes met gilbert's as she said this. she stopped abruptly, dismayed by something in his face. "you are hiding some misfortune from me," she cried; "i can see it in your face. you have had bad news of him." "upon my honour, no. he was not in very strong health when he left england, that is all; and, like yourself, i am naturally anxious." he had not meant to admit even as much as this just yet; but having said this, he found himself compelled to say more. marian questioned him so closely, that she finally extorted from him the whole history of john saltram's illness. after that it was quite in vain to attempt consolation. she was very gentle, very patient, troubling him with no vain wailings and lamentations; but he could see that her heart was almost broken. he left her at the end of a few hours to return to london, promising to go on to liverpool next day, in order to be on the spot to await her husband's return, and to send her the earliest possible tidings of it. "your friendship for us has given you nothing but trouble and pain," she said; "but if you will do this for me, i shall be grateful to you for the rest of my life." there was no occasion for that journey to liverpool. when he arrived in london that night, gilbert fenton found a letter waiting for him at his wigmore-street lodgings--a letter with the new york post-mark, but _not_ addressed in his friend's hand. he tore it open hurriedly, just a little alarmed by this fact. his first feeling was one of relief. there were three separate sheets of paper in the envelope, and the first which he took up was in john saltram's hand--a hurried eager letter, dated some weeks before. "my dear gilbert," he wrote, "i have been duped. this man nowell is a most consummate scoundrel. the woman with him is not marian, but some girl whom he has picked up to represent her--his wife perhaps, or something worse. i was very ill on the passage out, and only discovered the trick at the last. since then i have traced the scoundrel to his quarters, and have had an interview with him--rather a stormy one, as you may suppose. but the long and short of it is that he defies me. he tells me that my wife is in england, and safe, but will admit no more. i have consulted a lawyer here, but it seems i can do nothing against him--or nothing that will not involve a more complicated and protracted business than i have time or patience for. i don't want this wretch to go scot-free. it is evident that he has hatched this plot in order to get possession of his daughter's money, and i have little doubt the lawyer medler is in it. but of course my first duty, as well as my most ardent desire, is to find marian; and for this purpose i shall come back to england by the first steamer that will convey me, leaving mr. nowell's punishment to the chances of the future. my dear girl's property, as well as herself, will be best protected by my presence in england." there was a pause here, and the next paragraph was dated two days after. "if i have strength to come, i shall return by the next steamer; but the fact is, my dear gilbert, i am very ill--have been completely prostrate since writing the above--and a doctor here tells me i must not think of the voyage yet awhile. but i shan't allow his opinion to govern me. if i can crawl to the steamer, which starts three days hence, i shall come." then there was another break, and again the writer went on in a weak and more straggling hand, without any date this time. "my dear gil, it's nearly a week since i wrote the last lines, and i've been in bed ever since. i'm afraid there's no hope for me; in plain words, i believe i'm dying. to you i leave the duty i am not allowed to perform. marian is living, and in england. i believe that scoundrelly father of hers told me the truth when he declared that. you will not rest till you find her, i know; and you will protect her fortune from that wretch. god bless you, faithful old friend! heaven knows how i yearn for the sight of your honest face, lying here among strangers, to be buried in a foreign land. see that my wife pays mrs. branston the money i borrowed to come here; and tell her that i was grateful to her, and thought of her on my dying bed. to my wife i send no message. she knows that i loved her; but how dear she has been to me in this bitter time of separation, she can never know. "you will find a bulky ms. at my chambers, in the bottom drawer on the right side of my desk. it is my life of swift--unfinished as my own life. if, after reading it, you should think it worth publishing, as a fragment, with my name to it, i should wish you to arrange its publication. i should be glad to leave my name upon something." in a stranger's hand, and upon another sheet of paper, gilbert read the end of his friend's history. "sir,--i regret to inform you that your friend mr. saltram expired at eleven o'clock last night (wednesday, may nd), after an illness of a fortnight's duration, throughout which i gave him my best attention as his medical adviser. he will be buried in the cypress-hill cemetery, on long island, at his own request; and he has left sufficient funds for the necessary expenses, and the payment of his hotel bill, as well as my own small claim against him. any surplus which may be left i shall forward to you, when these payments have been made. i enclose a detailed account of the case for your satisfaction, and have the honour to be, sir, "yours very obediently, "silas warren, m.d. " sixteenth-street, new york, "may , --." this was all. and gilbert had to carry these tidings to marian. for a time he was almost paralyzed by the blow. he had loved this man as a brother; if he had ever doubted the strength of his attachment to john saltram, he knew it now. but the worst of all was, that one bitter fact--marian must be told, and by him. he went back to the grange next day. again and again upon that miserable journey he acted over the scene which was to take place when he came to the end of it--in spite of himself, as it were--going over the words he was to say, while marian's face rose before him like a picture. how was he to tell her? would not the very fact of this desolation coming to her from his lips be sufficient to make him hateful to her in all the days to come? more than once upon that journey he was tempted to turn back, and to leave his dismal news to be told in a letter. but when the fatal moment did at last arrive, the event in no manner realized the picture of his imagination. time was not given to him to speak those solemn preliminary words by which he had intended to prepare the victim for her deathblow. his presence there, and his presence alone, were all sufficient to prepare her for some calamity. "you have come back to me, and without him!" she exclaimed. "tell me what has happened; tell me at once." he had no time to defer the stroke. his face told her so much. in a few moments--before his broken words could shape themselves into coherence--she knew all. there are some things that can never be forgotten. never, to his dying day, can gilbert fenton forget the quiet agony he had to witness then. she was very ill for a long time after that day--in danger of death. all that she had suffered during her confinement at wyncomb seemed to fall upon her now with a double weight. only the supreme devotion of those who cared for her could have carried her through that weary time; but the day did at last come when the peril was pronounced a thing of the past, and the feeble submissive patient might be carried away from the grange--from the scene of her brief married life and of her bitter widowhood. she went with ellen whitelaw to ventnor. it was late in august before she was able to bear this journey; and in this mild refuge for invalids she remained throughout the winter. even during that trying time, when it seemed more than doubtful whether she could live to profit by her grandfather's bequest, her interests had been carefully watched by gilbert fenton. it was tolerably evident to his mind that mr. medler had been a tacit accomplice in percival nowell's fraud; or, at any rate, that he had enabled the pretended mrs. holbrook to obtain a large sum of ready money with greater ease than she could have done had he, as executor, been scrupulously careful to obtain her identification from some more trustworthy person than he knew percival nowell to be. whether these suspicions of gilbert's were correct, whether the lawyer had been actually deceived, or had willingly lent himself to the furtherance of nowell's design, must remain unascertained; as well as the amount of profit which mr. medler may have secured to himself by the transaction. the law held him liable for the whole of the moneys thus paid over in fraud or error; but the law could do very little against a man whose sole earthly possessions appeared to be comprised by the worm-eaten desks and shabby chairs and tables in his dingy offices. the poor consolation remained of making an attempt to get him struck off "the rolls;" but when the city firm of solicitors in whose hands gilbert had placed mrs. saltram's affairs suggested this, marian herself entreated that the man might have the benefit of the doubt as to his complicity with her father, and that no effort should be made to bring legal ruin upon him. "there has been enough misery caused by this money already," she said. "let the matter rest. i am richer than i care to be, as it is." of course mr. medler was not allowed to retain his position as executor. the court of chancery was appealed to in the usual manner, and intervened for the future protection of mrs. saltram's interests. about nowell's conduct there was, of course, no doubt; but after wasting a good deal of money and trouble in his pursuit, gilbert was fain to abandon all hope of catching him in the wide regions of the new world. it was ascertained that the woman who had accompanied him in the _orinoco_ as his daughter was actually his wife--a girl whom he had met at some low london dancing-rooms, and married within a fortnight of his introduction to her. it is possible that prudence as well as attachment may have had something to do with this alliance. mr. nowell knew that, once united to him in the bonds of holy matrimony, the accomplice of his fraud would have no power to give evidence against him. the amount which he had contrived to secure to himself by this plot amounted in all to something under four thousand pounds; and out of this it may fairly be supposed that mr. medler claimed a considerable percentage. the only information that gilbert fenton could ever obtain from america was, of a shabby swindler arrested in a gambling-house in one of the more remote western cities, whose description corresponded pretty closely with that of marian's father. there comes a time for the healing of all griefs. the cruel wound closes at last, though the scar, and the bitter memory of the stroke, may remain for ever. there came a time--some years after john saltram's death--when gilbert fenton had his reward. and if the woman he won for his wife in these latter days was not quite the fresh young beauty he had wooed under the walnut-trees in captain sedgewick's garden, she was still infinitely more beautiful than all other women in his eyes; she was still the dearest and best and brightest and purest of all earthly creatures for him. in that happy time--that perfect summer and harvest of his life--all his fondest dreams have been realized. he has the home he so often pictured, the children whose airy voices sounded in his dreams, the dear face always near him, and, sweeter than all, the knowledge that he is loved almost as he loves. the bitter apprenticeship has been served, and the full reward has been granted. for ellen whitelaw too has come the period of compensation, and the farmer's worst fears have been realized as to frank randall's participation in that money he loved so well. the income grudgingly left to his wife by stephen has enabled mr. randall to begin business as a solicitor upon his own account, in a small town near london, with every apparent prospect of success. ellen's home is within easy reach of the river-side villa occupied by mr. and mrs. fenton; so she is able to see her dear marian as often as she likes; nor is there any guest at the villa more welcome than this faithful friend. the half-written memoir of jonathan swift was published; and reviewers, who had no compunction in praising the dead, were quick to recognize the touch of a master hand, the trenchant style of a powerful thinker. for the public the book is of no great value; it is merely a curiosity of literature; but it is the only monument of his own rugged genius which bears the name of john saltram. poor little mrs. branston has not sacrificed all the joys of life to the manes of her faithless lover. she is now the happy wife of a dashing naval officer, and gives pleasant parties which bring life and light into the great house in cavendish-square; parties to which theobald pallinson comes, and where he shines as a small feeble star when greater lights are absent--singing his last little song, or reciting his last little poem, for the delight of some small coterie of single ladies not in the first bloom of youth; but parties from which mrs. pallinson keeps aloof in a stern spirit of condemnation, informing her chosen familiars that she was never more cruelly deceived than in that misguided ungrateful young woman, adela branston. note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/ / / / / / -h.zip) transcriber's note: some inconsistencies of spelling and grammar have been corrected, while others have been retained. the complete works of gustave flaubert embracing romances, travels, comedies, sketches and correspondence with a critical introduction by ferdinand brunetiere of the french academy and a biographical preface by robert arnot, m.a. printed only for subscribers by m. walter dunne, new york and london [illustration] [illustration: ah! thanks! you are going to save me!] sentimental education or, the history of a young man by gustave flaubert volume ii. m. walter dunne new york and london copyright, , by m. walter dunne entered at stationers' hall, london contents sentimental education (_continued._) page chapter xi. a dinner and a duel chapter xii. little louise grows up chapter xiii. rosanette as a lovely turk chapter xiv. the barricade chapter xv. "how happy could i be with either" chapter xvi. unpleasant news from rosanette chapter xvii. a strange betrothal chapter xviii. an auction chapter xix. a bitter-sweet reunion chapter xx. "wait till you come to forty year" illustrations facing page "ah! thanks! you are going to save me!" (see page ) _frontispiece_ "can i live without you?" when a woman suddenly came in sentimental education [_continued_] chapter xi. a dinner and a duel. frederick passed the whole of the next day in brooding over his anger and humiliation. he reproached himself for not having given a slap in the face to cisy. as for the maréchale, he swore not to see her again. others as good-looking could be easily found; and, as money would be required in order to possess these women, he would speculate on the bourse with the purchase-money of his farm. he would get rich; he would crush the maréchale and everyone else with his luxury. when the evening had come, he was surprised at not having thought of madame arnoux. "so much the better. what's the good of it?" two days after, at eight o'clock, pellerin came to pay him a visit. he began by expressing his admiration of the furniture and talking in a wheedling tone. then, abruptly: "you were at the races on sunday?" "yes, alas!" thereupon the painter decried the anatomy of english horses, and praised the horses of gericourt and the horses of the parthenon. "rosanette was with you?" and he artfully proceeded to speak in flattering terms about her. frederick's freezing manner put him a little out of countenance. he did not know how to bring about the question of her portrait. his first idea had been to do a portrait in the style of titian. but gradually the varied colouring of his model had bewitched him; he had gone on boldly with the work, heaping up paste on paste and light on light. rosanette, in the beginning, was enchanted. her appointments with delmar had interrupted the sittings, and left pellerin all the time to get bedazzled. then, as his admiration began to subside, he asked himself whether the picture might not be on a larger scale. he had gone to have another look at the titians, realised how the great artist had filled in his portraits with such finish, and saw wherein his own shortcomings lay; and then he began to go over the outlines again in the most simple fashion. after that, he sought, by scraping them off, to lose there, to mingle there, all the tones of the head and those of the background; and the face had assumed consistency and the shades vigour--the whole work had a look of greater firmness. at length the maréchale came back again. she even indulged in some hostile criticisms. the painter naturally persevered in his own course. after getting into a violent passion at her silliness, he said to himself that, after all, perhaps she was right. then began the era of doubts, twinges of reflection which brought about cramps in the stomach, insomnia, feverishness and disgust with himself. he had the courage to make some retouchings, but without much heart, and with a feeling that his work was bad. he complained merely of having been refused a place in the salon; then he reproached frederick for not having come to see the maréchale's portrait. "what do i care about the maréchale?" such an expression of unconcern emboldened the artist. "would you believe that this brute has no interest in the thing any longer?" what he did not mention was that he had asked her for a thousand crowns. now the maréchale did not give herself much bother about ascertaining who was going to pay, and, preferring to screw money out of arnoux for things of a more urgent character, had not even spoken to him on the subject. "well, and arnoux?" she had thrown it over on him. the ex-picture-dealer wished to have nothing to do with the portrait. "he maintains that it belongs to rosanette." "in fact, it is hers." "how is that? 'tis she that sent me to you," was pellerin's answer. if he had been thinking of the excellence of his work, he would not have dreamed perhaps of making capital out of it. but a sum--and a big sum--would be an effective reply to the critics, and would strengthen his own position. finally, to get rid of his importunities, frederick courteously enquired his terms. the extravagant figure named by pellerin quite took away his breath, and he replied: "oh! no--no!" "you, however, are her lover--'tis you gave me the order!" "excuse me, i was only an intermediate agent." "but i can't remain with this on my hands!" the artist lost his temper. "ha! i didn't imagine you were so covetous!" "nor i that you were so stingy! i wish you good morning!" he had just gone out when sénécal made his appearance. frederick was moving about restlessly, in a state of great agitation. "what's the matter?" sénécal told his story. "on saturday, at nine o'clock, madame arnoux got a letter which summoned her back to paris. as there happened to be nobody in the place at the time to go to creil for a vehicle, she asked me to go there myself. i refused, for this was no part of my duties. she left, and came back on sunday evening. yesterday morning, arnoux came down to the works. the girl from bordeaux made a complaint to him. i don't know what passed between them; but he took off before everyone the fine i had imposed on her. some sharp words passed between us. in short, he closed accounts with me, and here i am!" then, with a pause between every word: "furthermore, i am not sorry. i have done my duty. no matter--you were the cause of it." "how?" exclaimed frederick, alarmed lest sénécal might have guessed his secret. sénécal had not, however, guessed anything about it, for he replied: "that is to say, but for you i might have done better." frederick was seized with a kind of remorse. "in what way can i be of service to you now?" sénécal wanted some employment, a situation. "that is an easy thing for you to manage. you know many people of good position, monsieur dambreuse amongst others; at least, so deslauriers told me." this allusion to deslauriers was by no means agreeable to his friend. he scarcely cared to call on the dambreuses again after his undesirable meeting with them in the champ de mars. "i am not on sufficiently intimate terms with them to recommend anyone." the democrat endured this refusal stoically, and after a minute's silence: "all this, i am sure, is due to the girl from bordeaux, and to your madame arnoux." this "your" had the effect of wiping out of frederick's heart the slight modicum of regard he entertained for sénécal. nevertheless, he stretched out his hand towards the key of his escritoire through delicacy. sénécal anticipated him: "thanks!" then, forgetting his own troubles, he talked about the affairs of the nation, the crosses of the legion of honour wasted at the royal fête, the question of a change of ministry, the drouillard case and the bénier case--scandals of the day--declaimed against the middle class, and predicted a revolution. his eyes were attracted by a japanese dagger hanging on the wall. he took hold of it; then he flung it on the sofa with an air of disgust. "come, then! good-bye! i must go to nôtre dame de lorette." "hold on! why?" "the anniversary service for godefroy cavaignac is taking place there to-day. he died at work--that man! but all is not over. who knows?" and sénécal, with a show of fortitude, put out his hand: "perhaps we shall never see each other again! good-bye!" this "good-bye," repeated several times, his knitted brows as he gazed at the dagger, his resignation, and the solemnity of his manner, above all, plunged frederick into a thoughtful mood, but very soon he ceased to think about sénécal. during the same week, his notary at havre sent him the sum realised by the sale of his farm--one hundred and seventy-four thousand francs. he divided it into two portions, invested the first half in the funds, and brought the second half to a stock-broker to take his chance of making money by it on the bourse. he dined at fashionable taverns, went to the theatres, and was trying to amuse himself as best he could, when hussonnet addressed a letter to him announcing in a gay fashion that the maréchale had got rid of cisy the very day after the races. frederick was delighted at this intelligence, without taking the trouble to ascertain what the bohemian's motive was in giving him the information. it so happened that he met cisy, three days later. that aristocratic young gentleman kept his counteance, and even invited frederick to dine on the following wednesday. on the morning of that day, the latter received a notification from a process-server, in which m. charles jean baptiste oudry apprised him that by the terms of a legal judgment he had become the purchaser of a property situated at belleville, belonging to m. jacques arnoux, and that he was ready to pay the two hundred and twenty-three thousand for which it had been sold. but, as it appeared by the same decree that the amount of the mortgages with which the estate was encumbered exceeded the purchase-money, frederick's claim would in consequence be completely forfeited. the entire mischief arose from not having renewed the registration of the mortgage within the proper time. arnoux had undertaken to attend to this matter formally himself, and had then forgotten all about it. frederick got into a rage with him for this, and when the young man's anger had passed off: "well, afterwards----what?" "if this can save him, so much the better. it won't kill me! let us think no more about it!" but, while moving about his papers on the table, he came across hussonnet's letter, and noticed the postscript, which had not at first attracted his attention. the bohemian wanted just five thousand francs to give the journal a start. "ah! this fellow is worrying me to death!" and he sent a curt answer, unceremoniously refusing the application. after that, he dressed himself to go to the maison d'or. cisy introduced his guests, beginning with the most respectable of them, a big, white-haired gentleman. "the marquis gilbert des aulnays, my godfather. monsieur anselme de forchambeaux," he said next--(a thin, fair-haired young man, already bald); then, pointing towards a simple-mannered man of forty: "joseph boffreu, my cousin; and here is my old tutor, monsieur vezou"--a person who seemed a mixture of a ploughman and a seminarist, with large whiskers and a long frock-coat fastened at the end by a single button, so that it fell over his chest like a shawl. cisy was expecting some one else--the baron de comaing, who "might perhaps come, but it was not certain." he left the room every minute, and appeared to be in a restless frame of mind. finally, at eight o'clock, they proceeded towards an apartment splendidly lighted up and much more spacious than the number of guests required. cisy had selected it for the special purpose of display. a vermilion épergne laden with flowers and fruit occupied the centre of the table, which was covered with silver dishes, after the old french fashion; glass bowls full of salt meats and spices formed a border all around it. jars of iced red wine stood at regular distances from each other. five glasses of different sizes were ranged before each plate, with things of which the use could not be divined--a thousand dinner utensils of an ingenious description. for the first course alone, there was a sturgeon's jowl moistened with champagne, a yorkshire ham with tokay, thrushes with sauce, roast quail, a béchamel vol-au-vent, a stew of red-legged partridges, and at the two ends of all this, fringes of potatoes which were mingled with truffles. the apartment was illuminated by a lustre and some girandoles, and it was hung with red damask curtains. four men-servants in black coats stood behind the armchairs, which were upholstered in morocco. at this sight the guests uttered an exclamation--the tutor more emphatically than the rest. "upon my word, our host has indulged in a foolishly lavish display of luxury. it is too beautiful!" "is that so?" said the vicomte de cisy; "come on, then!" and, as they were swallowing the first spoonful: "well, my dear old friend aulnays, have you been to the palais-royal to see _père et portier_?" "you know well that i have no time to go!" replied the marquis. his mornings were taken up with a course of arboriculture, his evenings were spent at the agricultural club, and all his afternoons were occupied by a study of the implements of husbandry in manufactories. as he resided at saintonge for three fourths of the year, he took advantage of his visits to the capital to get fresh information; and his large-brimmed hat, which lay on a side-table, was crammed with pamphlets. but cisy, observing that m. de forchambeaux refused to take wine: "go on, damn it, drink! you're not in good form for your last bachelor's meal!" at this remark all bowed and congratulated him. "and the young lady," said the tutor, "is charming, i'm sure?" "faith, she is!" exclaimed cisy. "no matter, he is making a mistake; marriage is such a stupid thing!" "you talk in a thoughtless fashion, my friend!" returned m. des aulnays, while tears began to gather in his eyes at the recollection of his own dead wife. and forchambeaux repeated several times in succession: "it will be your own case--it will be your own case!" cisy protested. he preferred to enjoy himself--to "live in the free-and-easy style of the regency days." he wanted to learn the shoe-trick, in order to visit the thieves' taverns of the city, like rodolphe in the _mysteries of paris_; drew out of his pocket a dirty clay pipe, abused the servants, and drank a great quantity; then, in order to create a good impression about himself, he disparaged all the dishes. he even sent away the truffles; and the tutor, who was exceedingly fond of them, said through servility; "these are not as good as your grandmother's snow-white eggs." then he began to chat with the person sitting next to him, the agriculturist, who found many advantages from his sojourn in the country, if it were only to be able to bring up his daughters with simple tastes. the tutor approved of his ideas and toadied to him, supposing that this gentleman possessed influence over his former pupil, whose man of business he was anxious to become. frederick had come there filled with hostility to cisy; but the young aristocrat's idiocy had disarmed him. however, as the other's gestures, face, and entire person brought back to his recollection the dinner at the café anglais, he got more and more irritated; and he lent his ears to the complimentary remarks made in a low tone by joseph, the cousin, a fine young fellow without any money, who was a lover of the chase and a university prizeman. cisy, for the sake of a laugh, called him a "catcher"[a] several times; then suddenly: "ha! here comes the baron!" at that moment, there entered a jovial blade of thirty, with somewhat rough-looking features and active limbs, wearing his hat over his ear and displaying a flower in his button-hole. he was the vicomte's ideal. the young aristocrat was delighted at having him there; and stimulated by his presence, he even attempted a pun; for he said, as they passed a heath-cock: "there's the best of la bruyère's characters!"[b] after that, he put a heap of questions to m. de comaing about persons unknown to society; then, as if an idea had suddenly seized him: "tell me, pray! have you thought about me?" the other shrugged his shoulders: "you are not old enough, my little man. it is impossible!" cisy had begged of the baron to get him admitted into his club. but the other having, no doubt, taken pity on his vanity: "ha! i was forgetting! a thousand congratulations on having won your bet, my dear fellow!" "what bet?" "the bet you made at the races to effect an entrance the same evening into that lady's house." frederick felt as if he had got a lash with a whip. he was speedily appeased by the look of utter confusion in cisy's face. [a] _voleur_ means, at the same time, a "hunter" and a "thief." this is the foundation for cisy's little joke.--translator. [b] _coq de bruyère_ means a heath-cock or grouse; hence the play on the name of la bruyère, whose _caractères_ is a well-known work.--translator. in fact, the maréchale, next morning, was filled with regret when arnoux, her first lover, her good friend, had presented himself that very day. they both gave the vicomte to understand that he was in the way, and kicked him out without much ceremony. he pretended not to have heard what was said. the baron went on: "what has become of her, this fine rose? is she as pretty as ever?" showing by his manner that he had been on terms of intimacy with her. frederick was chagrined by the discovery. "there's nothing to blush at," said the baron, pursuing the topic, "'tis a good thing!" cisy smacked his tongue. "whew! not so good!" "ha!" "oh dear, yes! in the first place, i found her nothing extraordinary, and then, you pick up the like of her as often as you please, for, in fact, she is for sale!" "not for everyone!" remarked frederick, with some bitterness. "he imagines that he is different from the others," was cisy's comment. "what a good joke!" and a laugh ran round the table. frederick felt as if the palpitations of his heart would suffocate him. he swallowed two glasses of water one after the other. but the baron had preserved a lively recollection of rosanette. "is she still interested in a fellow named arnoux?" "i haven't the faintest idea," said cisy, "i don't know that gentleman!" nevertheless, he suggested that he believed arnoux was a sort of swindler. "a moment!" exclaimed frederick. "however, there is no doubt about it! legal proceedings have been taken against him." "that is not true!" frederick began to defend arnoux, vouched for his honesty, ended by convincing himself of it, and concocted figures and proofs. the vicomte, full of spite, and tipsy in addition, persisted in his assertions, so that frederick said to him gravely: "is the object of this to give offence to me, monsieur?" and he looked cisy full in the face, with eyeballs as red as his cigar. "oh! not at all. i grant you that he possesses something very nice--his wife." "do you know her?" "faith, i do! sophie arnoux; everyone knows her." "you mean to tell me that?" cisy, who had staggered to his feet, hiccoughed: "everyone--knows--her." "hold your tongue. it is not with women of her sort you keep company!" "i--flatter myself--it is." frederick flung a plate at his face. it passed like a flash of lightning over the table, knocked down two bottles, demolished a fruit-dish, and breaking into three pieces, by knocking against the épergne, hit the vicomte in the stomach. all the other guests arose to hold him back. he struggled and shrieked, possessed by a kind of frenzy. m. des aulnays kept repeating: "come, be calm, my dear boy!" "why, this is frightful!" shouted the tutor. forchambeaux, livid as a plum, was trembling. joseph indulged in repeated outbursts of laughter. the attendants sponged out the traces of the wine, and gathered up the remains of the dinner from the floor; and the baron went and shut the window, for the uproar, in spite of the noise of carriage-wheels, could be heard on the boulevard. as all present at the moment the plate had been flung had been talking at the same time, it was impossible to discover the cause of the attack--whether it was on account of arnoux, madame arnoux, rosanette, or somebody else. one thing only they were certain of, that frederick had acted with indescribable brutality. on his part, he refused positively to testify the slightest regret for what he had done. m. des aulnays tried to soften him. cousin joseph, the tutor, and forchambeaux himself joined in the effort. the baron, all this time, was cheering up cisy, who, yielding to nervous weakness, began to shed tears. frederick, on the contrary, was getting more and more angry, and they would have remained there till daybreak if the baron had not said, in order to bring matters to a close: "the vicomte, monsieur, will send his seconds to call on you to-morrow." "your hour?" "twelve, if it suits you." "perfectly, monsieur." frederick, as soon as he was in the open air, drew a deep breath. he had been keeping his feelings too long under restraint; he had satisfied them at last. he felt, so to speak, the pride of virility, a superabundance of energy within him which intoxicated him. he required two seconds. the first person he thought of for the purpose was regimbart, and he immediately directed his steps towards the rue saint-denis. the shop-front was closed, but some light shone through a pane of glass over the door. it opened and he went in, stooping very low as he passed under the penthouse. a candle at the side of the bar lighted up the deserted smoking-room. all the stools, with their feet in the air, were piled on the table. the master and mistress, with their waiter, were at supper in a corner near the kitchen; and regimbart, with his hat on his head, was sharing their meal, and even disturbed the waiter, who was compelled every moment to turn aside a little. frederick, having briefly explained the matter to him, asked regimbart to assist him. the citizen at first made no reply. he rolled his eyes about, looked as if he were plunged in reflection, took several strides around the room, and at last said: "yes, by all means!" and a homicidal smile smoothed his brow when he learned that the adversary was a nobleman. "make your mind easy; we'll rout him with flying colours! in the first place, with the sword----" "but perhaps," broke in frederick, "i have not the right." "i tell you 'tis necessary to take the sword," the citizen replied roughly. "do you know how to make passes?" "a little." "oh! a little. this is the way with all of them; and yet they have a mania for committing assaults. what does the fencing-school teach? listen to me: keep a good distance off, always confining yourself in circles, and parry--parry as you retire; that is permitted. tire him out. then boldly make a lunge on him! and, above all, no malice, no strokes of the la fougère kind.[c] no! a simple one-two, and some disengagements. look here! do you see? while you turn your wrist as if opening a lock. père vauthier, give me your cane. ha! that will do." he grasped the rod which was used for lighting the gas, rounded his left arm, bent his right, and began to make some thrusts against the partition. he stamped with his foot, got animated, and pretended to be encountering difficulties, while he exclaimed: "are you there? is that it? are you there?" and his enormous silhouette projected itself on the wall with his hat apparently touching the ceiling. the owner of the café shouted from time to time: "bravo! very good!" his wife, though a little unnerved, was likewise filled with admiration; and théodore, who had been in the army, remained riveted to the spot with amazement, the fact being, however, that he regarded m. regimbart with a species of hero-worship. next morning, at an early hour, frederick hurried to the establishment in which dussardier was employed. after having passed through a succession of departments all full of clothing-materials, either adorning shelves or lying on tables, while here and there shawls were fixed on wooden racks shaped like toadstools, he saw the young man, in a sort of railed cage, surrounded by account-books, and standing in front of a desk at which he was writing. the honest fellow left his work. [c] in , a certain la fougère brought out a work entitled _l'art de n'être jamais tué ni blessé en duel sans avons pris aucune leçon d'armes et lors même qu'on aurait affaire au premier tireur de l'univers._ --translator. the seconds arrived before twelve o'clock. frederick, as a matter of good taste, thought he ought not to be present at the conference. the baron and m. joseph declared that they would be satisfied with the simplest excuses. but regimbart's principle being never to yield, and his contention being that arnoux's honour should be vindicated (frederick had not spoken to him about anything else), he asked that the vicomte should apologise. m. de comaing was indignant at this presumption. the citizen would not abate an inch. as all conciliation proved impracticable, there was nothing for it but to fight. other difficulties arose, for the choice of weapons lay with cisy, as the person to whom the insult had been offered. but regimbart maintained that by sending the challenge he had constituted himself the offending party. his seconds loudly protested that a buffet was the most cruel of offences. the citizen carped at the words, pointing out that a buffet was not a blow. finally, they decided to refer the matter to a military man; and the four seconds went off to consult the officers in some of the barracks. they drew up at the barracks on the quai d'orsay. m. de comaing, having accosted two captains, explained to them the question in dispute. the captains did not understand a word of what he was saying, owing to the confusion caused by the citizen's incidental remarks. in short, they advised the gentlemen who consulted them to draw up a minute of the proceedings; after which they would give their decision. thereupon, they repaired to a café; and they even, in order to do things with more circumspection, referred to cisy as h, and frederick as k. then they returned to the barracks. the officers had gone out. they reappeared, and declared that the choice of arms manifestly belonged to h. they all returned to cisy's abode. regimbart and dussardier remained on the footpath outside. the vicomte, when he was informed of the solution of the case, was seized with such extreme agitation that they had to repeat for him several times the decision of the officers; and, when m. de comaing came to deal with regimbart's contention, he murmured "nevertheless," not being very reluctant himself to yield to it. then he let himself sink into an armchair, and declared that he would not fight. "eh? what?" said the baron. then cisy indulged in a confused flood of mouthings. he wished to fight with firearms--to discharge a single pistol at close quarters. "or else we will put arsenic into a glass, and draw lots to see who must drink it. that's sometimes done. i've read of it!" the baron, naturally rather impatient, addressed him in a harsh tone: "these gentlemen are waiting for your answer. this is indecent, to put it shortly. what weapons are you going to take? come! is it the sword?" the vicomte gave an affirmative reply by merely nodding his head; and it was arranged that the meeting should take place next morning at seven o'clock sharp at the maillot gate. dussardier, being compelled to go back to his business, regimbart went to inform frederick about the arrangement. he had been left all day without any news, and his impatience was becoming intolerable. "so much the better!" he exclaimed. the citizen was satisfied with his deportment. "would you believe it? they wanted an apology from us. it was nothing--a mere word! but i knocked them off their beam-ends nicely. the right thing to do, wasn't it?" "undoubtedly," said frederick, thinking that it would have been better to choose another second. then, when he was alone, he repeated several times in a very loud tone: "i am going to fight! hold on, i am going to fight! 'tis funny!" and, as he walked up and down his room, while passing in front of the mirror, he noticed that he was pale. "have i any reason to be afraid?" he was seized with a feeling of intolerable misery at the prospect of exhibiting fear on the ground. "and yet, suppose i happen to be killed? my father met his death the same way. yes, i shall be killed!" and, suddenly, his mother rose up before him in a black dress; incoherent images floated before his mind. his own cowardice exasperated him. a paroxysm of courage, a thirst for human blood, took possession of him. a battalion could not have made him retreat. when this feverish excitement had cooled down, he was overjoyed to feel that his nerves were perfectly steady. in order to divert his thoughts, he went to the opera, where a ballet was being performed. he listened to the music, looked at the _danseuses_ through his opera-glass, and drank a glass of punch between the acts. but when he got home again, the sight of his study, of his furniture, in the midst of which he found himself for the last time, made him feel ready to swoon. he went down to the garden. the stars were shining; he gazed up at them. the idea of fighting about a woman gave him a greater importance in his own eyes, and surrounded him with a halo of nobility. then he went to bed in a tranquil frame of mind. it was not so with cisy. after the baron's departure, joseph had tried to revive his drooping spirits, and, as the vicomte remained in the same dull mood: "however, old boy, if you prefer to remain at home, i'll go and say so." cisy durst not answer "certainly;" but he would have liked his cousin to do him this service without speaking about it. he wished that frederick would die during the night of an attack of apoplexy, or that a riot would break out so that next morning there would be enough of barricades to shut up all the approaches to the bois de boulogne, or that some emergency might prevent one of the seconds from being present; for in the absence of seconds the duel would fall through. he felt a longing to save himself by taking an express train--no matter where. he regretted that he did not understand medicine so as to be able to take something which, without endangering his life, would cause it to be believed that he was dead. he finally wished to be ill in earnest. in order to get advice and assistance from someone, he sent for m. des aulnays. that worthy man had gone back to saintonge on receiving a letter informing him of the illness of one of his daughters. this appeared an ominous circumstance to cisy. luckily, m. vezou, his tutor, came to see him. then he unbosomed himself. "what am i to do? my god! what am i do?" "if i were in your place, monsieur, i should pay some strapping fellow from the market-place to go and give him a drubbing." "he would still know who brought it about," replied cisy. and from time to time he uttered a groan; then: "but is a man bound to fight a duel?" "'tis a relic of barbarism! what are you to do?" out of complaisance the pedagogue invited himself to dinner. his pupil did not eat anything, but, after the meal, felt the necessity of taking a short walk. as they were passing a church, he said: "suppose we go in for a little while--to look?" m. vezou asked nothing better, and even offered him holy water. it was the month of may. the altar was covered with flowers; voices were chanting; the organ was resounding through the church. but he found it impossible to pray, as the pomps of religion inspired him merely with thoughts of funerals. he fancied that he could hear the murmurs of the _de profundis_. "let us go away. i don't feel well." they spent the whole night playing cards. the vicomte made an effort to lose in order to exorcise ill-luck, a thing which m. vezou turned to his own advantage. at last, at the first streak of dawn, cisy, who could stand it no longer, sank down on the green cloth, and was soon plunged in sleep, which was disturbed by unpleasant dreams. if courage, however, consists in wishing to get the better of one's own weakness, the vicomte was courageous, for in the presence of his seconds, who came to seek him, he stiffened himself up with all the strength he could command, vanity making him realise that to attempt to draw back now would destroy him. m. de comaing congratulated him on his good appearance. but, on the way, the jolting of the cab and the heat of the morning sun made him languish. his energy gave way again. he could not even distinguish any longer where they were. the baron amused himself by increasing his terror, talking about the "corpse," and of the way they meant to get back clandestinely to the city. joseph gave the rejoinder; both, considering the affair ridiculous, were certain that it would be settled. cisy kept his head on his breast; he lifted it up slowly, and drew attention to the fact that they had not taken a doctor with them. "'tis needless," said the baron. "then there's no danger?" joseph answered in a grave tone: "let us hope so!" and nobody in the carriage made any further remark. at ten minutes past seven they arrived in front of the maillot gate. frederick and his seconds were there, the entire group being dressed all in black. regimbart, instead of a cravat, wore a stiff horsehair collar, like a trooper; and he carried a long violin-case adapted for adventures of this kind. they exchanged frigid bows. then they all plunged into the bois de boulogne, taking the madrid road, in order to find a suitable place. regimbart said to frederick, who was walking between him and dussardier: "well, and this scare--what do we care about it? if you want anything, don't annoy yourself about it; i know what to do. fear is natural to man!" then, in a low tone: "don't smoke any more; in this case it has a weakening effect." frederick threw away his cigar, which had only a disturbing effect on his brain, and went on with a firm step. the vicomte advanced behind, leaning on the arms of his two seconds. occasional wayfarers crossed their path. the sky was blue, and from time to time they heard rabbits skipping about. at the turn of a path, a woman in a madras neckerchief was chatting with a man in a blouse; and in the large avenue under the chestnut-trees some grooms in vests of linen-cloth were walking horses up and down. cisy recalled the happy days when, mounted on his own chestnut horse, and with his glass stuck in his eye, he rode up to carriage-doors. these recollections intensified his wretchedness. an intolerable thirst parched his throat. the buzzing of flies mingled with the throbbing of his arteries. his feet sank into the sand. it seemed to him as if he had been walking during a period which had neither beginning nor end. the seconds, without stopping, examined with keen glances each side of the path they were traversing. they hesitated as to whether they would go to the catelan cross or under the walls of the bagatelle. at last they took a turn to the right; and they drew up in a kind of quincunx in the midst of the pine-trees. the spot was chosen in such a way that the level ground was cut equally into two divisions. the two places at which the principals in the duel were to take their stand were marked out. then regimbart opened his case. it was lined with red sheep's-leather, and contained four charming swords hollowed in the centre, with handles which were adorned with filigree. a ray of light, passing through the leaves, fell on them, and they appeared to cisy to glitter like silver vipers on a sea of blood. the citizen showed that they were of equal length. he took one himself, in order to separate the combatants in case of necessity. m. de comaing held a walking-stick. there was an interval of silence. they looked at each other. all the faces had in them something fierce or cruel. frederick had taken off his coat and his waistcoat. joseph aided cisy to do the same. when his cravat was removed a blessed medal could be seen on his neck. this made regimbart smile contemptuously. then m. de comaing (in order to allow frederick another moment for reflection) tried to raise some quibbles. he demanded the right to put on a glove, and to catch hold of his adversary's sword with the left hand. regimbart, who was in a hurry, made no objection to this. at last the baron, addressing frederick: "everything depends on you, monsieur! there is never any dishonour in acknowledging one's faults." dussardier made a gesture of approval. the citizen gave vent to his indignation: "do you think we came here as a mere sham, damn it! be on your guard, each of you!" the combatants were facing one another, with their seconds by their sides. he uttered the single word: "come!" cisy became dreadfully pale. the end of his blade was quivering like a horsewhip. his head fell back, his hands dropped down helplessly, and he sank unconscious on the ground. joseph raised him up and while holding a scent-bottle to his nose, gave him a good shaking. the vicomte reopened his eyes, then suddenly grasped at his sword like a madman. frederick had held his in readiness, and now awaited him with steady eye and uplifted hand. "stop! stop!" cried a voice, which came from the road simultaneously with the sound of a horse at full gallop, and the hood of a cab broke the branches. a man bending out his head waved a handkerchief, still exclaiming: "stop! stop!" m. de comaing, believing that this meant the intervention of the police, lifted up his walking-stick. "make an end of it. the vicomte is bleeding!" "i?" said cisy. in fact, he had in his fall taken off the skin of his left thumb. "but this was by falling," observed the citizen. the baron pretended not to understand. arnoux had jumped out of the cab. "i have arrived too late? no! thanks be to god!" he threw his arms around frederick, felt him, and covered his face with kisses. "i am the cause of it. you wanted to defend your old friend! that's right--that's right! never shall i forget it! how good you are! ah! my own dear boy!" he gazed at frederick and shed tears, while he chuckled with delight. the baron turned towards joseph: "i believe we are in the way at this little family party. it is over, messieurs, is it not? vicomte, put your arm into a sling. hold on! here is my silk handkerchief." then, with an imperious gesture: "come! no spite! this is as it should be!" the two adversaries shook hands in a very lukewarm fashion. the vicomte, m. de comaing, and joseph disappeared in one direction, and frederick left with his friends in the opposite direction. as the madrid restaurant was not far off, arnoux proposed that they should go and drink a glass of beer there. "we might even have breakfast." but, as dussardier had no time to lose, they confined themselves to taking some refreshment in the garden. they all experienced that sense of satisfaction which follows happy _dénouements_. the citizen, nevertheless, was annoyed at the duel having been interrupted at the most critical stage. arnoux had been apprised of it by a person named compain, a friend of regimbart; and with an irrepressible outburst of emotion he had rushed to the spot to prevent it, under the impression, however, that he was the occasion of it. he begged of frederick to furnish him with some details about it. frederick, touched by these proofs of affection, felt some scruples at the idea of increasing his misapprehension of the facts. "for mercy's sake, don't say any more about it!" arnoux thought that this reserve showed great delicacy. then, with his habitual levity, he passed on to some fresh subject. "what news, citizen?" and they began talking about banking transactions, and the number of bills that were falling due. in order to be more undisturbed, they went to another table, where they exchanged whispered confidences. frederick could overhear the following words: "you are going to back me up with your signature." "yes, but you, mind!" "i have negotiated it at last for three hundred!" "a nice commission, faith!" in short, it was clear that arnoux was mixed up in a great many shady transactions with the citizen. frederick thought of reminding him about the fifteen thousand francs. but his last step forbade the utterance of any reproachful words even of the mildest description. besides, he felt tired himself, and this was not a convenient place for talking about such a thing. he put it off till some future day. arnoux, seated in the shade of an evergreen, was smoking, with a look of joviality in his face. he raised his eyes towards the doors of private rooms looking out on the garden, and said he had often paid visits to the house in former days. "probably not by yourself?" returned the citizen. "faith, you're right there!" "what blackguardism you do carry on! you, a married man!" "well, and what about yourself?" retorted arnoux; and, with an indulgent smile: "i am even sure that this rascal here has a room of his own somewhere into which he takes his friends." the citizen confessed that this was true by simply shrugging his shoulders. then these two gentlemen entered into their respective tastes with regard to the sex: arnoux now preferred youth, work-girls; regimbart hated affected women, and went in for the genuine article before anything else. the conclusion which the earthenware-dealer laid down at the close of this discussion was that women were not to be taken seriously. "nevertheless, he is fond of his own wife," thought frederick, as he made his way home; and he looked on arnoux as a coarse-grained man. he had a grudge against him on account of the duel, as if it had been for the sake of this individual that he risked his life a little while before. but he felt grateful to dussardier for his devotedness. ere long the book-keeper came at his invitation to pay him a visit every day. frederick lent him books--thiers, dulaure, barante, and lamartine's _girondins_. the honest fellow listened to everything the other said with a thoughtful air, and accepted his opinions as those of a master. one evening he arrived looking quite scared. that morning, on the boulevard, a man who was running so quickly that he had got out of breath, had jostled against him, and having recognised in him a friend of sénécal, had said to him: "he has just been taken! i am making my escape!" there was no doubt about it. dussardier had spent the day making enquiries. sénécal was in jail charged with an attempted crime of a political nature. the son of an overseer, he was born at lyons, and having had as his teacher a former disciple of chalier, he had, on his arrival in paris, obtained admission into the "society of families." his ways were known, and the police kept a watch on him. he was one of those who fought in the outbreak of may, , and since then he had remained in the shade; but, his self-importance increasing more and more, he became a fanatical follower of alibaud, mixing up his own grievances against society with those of the people against monarchy, and waking up every morning in the hope of a revolution which in a fortnight or a month would turn the world upside down. at last, disgusted at the inactivity of his brethren, enraged at the obstacles that retarded the realisation of his dreams, and despairing of the country, he entered in his capacity of chemist into the conspiracy for the use of incendiary bombs; and he had been caught carrying gunpowder, of which he was going to make a trial at montmartre--a supreme effort to establish the republic. dussardier was no less attached to the republican idea, for, from his point of view, it meant enfranchisement and universal happiness. one day--at the age of fifteen--in the rue transnonain, in front of a grocer's shop, he had seen soldiers' bayonets reddened with blood and exhibiting human hairs pasted to the butt-ends of their guns. since that time, the government had filled him with feelings of rage as the very incarnation of injustice. he frequently confused the assassins with the gendarmes; and in his eyes a police-spy was just as bad as a parricide. all the evil scattered over the earth he ingenuously attributed to power; and he hated it with a deep-rooted, undying hatred that held possession of his heart and made his sensibility all the more acute. he had been dazzled by sénécal's declamations. it was of little consequence whether he happened to be guilty or not, or whether the attempt with which he was charged could be characterised as an odious proceeding! since he was the victim of authority, it was only right to help him. "the peers will condemn him, certainly! then he will be conveyed in a prison-van, like a convict, and will be shut up in mont saint-michel, where the government lets people die! austen had gone mad! steuben had killed himself! in order to transfer barbès into a dungeon, they had dragged him by the legs and by the hair. they trampled on his body, and his head rebounded along the staircase at every step they took. what abominable treatment! the wretches!" he was choking with angry sobs, and he walked about the apartment in a very excited frame of mind. "in the meantime, something must be done! come, for my part, i don't know what to do! suppose we tried to rescue him, eh? while they are bringing him to the luxembourg, we could throw ourselves on the escort in the passage! a dozen resolute men--that sometimes is enough to accomplish it!" there was so much fire in his eyes that frederick was a little startled by his look. he recalled to mind sénécal's sufferings and his austere life. without feeling the same enthusiasm about him as dussardier, he experienced nevertheless that admiration which is inspired by every man who sacrifices himself for an idea. he said to himself that, if he had helped this man, he would not be in his present position; and the two friends anxiously sought to devise some contrivance whereby they could set him free. it was impossible for them to get access to him. frederick examined the newspapers to try to find out what had become of him, and for three weeks he was a constant visitor at the reading-rooms. one day several numbers of the _flambard_ fell into his hands. the leading article was invariably devoted to cutting up some distinguished man. after that came some society gossip and some scandals. then there were some chaffing observations about the odéon carpentras, pisciculture, and prisoners under sentence of death, when there happened to be any. the disappearance of a packet-boat furnished materials for a whole year's jokes. in the third column a picture-canvasser, under the form of anecdotes or advice, gave some tailors' announcements, together with accounts of evening parties, advertisements as to auctions, and analysis of artistic productions, writing in the same strain about a volume of verse and a pair of boots. the only serious portion of it was the criticism of the small theatres, in which fierce attacks were made on two or three managers; and the interests of art were invoked on the subjects of the decorations of the rope-dancers' gymnasium and of the actress who played the part of the heroine at the délassements. frederick was passing over all these items when his eyes alighted on an article entitled "a lass between three lads." it was the story of his duel related in a lively gallic style. he had no difficulty in recognising himself, for he was indicated by this little joke, which frequently recurred: "a young man from the college of sens who has no sense." he was even represented as a poor devil from the provinces, an obscure booby trying to rub against persons of high rank. as for the vicomte, he was made to play a fascinating part, first by having forced his way into the supper-room, then by having carried off the lady, and, finally, by having behaved all through like a perfect gentleman. frederick's courage was not denied exactly, but it was pointed out that an intermediary--the _protector_ himself--had come on the scene just in the nick of time. the entire article concluded with this phrase, pregnant perhaps with sinister meaning: "what is the cause of their affection? a problem! and, as bazile says, who the deuce is it that is deceived here?" this was, beyond all doubt, hussonnet's revenge against frederick for having refused him five thousand francs. what was he to do? if he demanded an explanation from him, the bohemian would protest that he was innocent, and nothing would be gained by doing this. the best course was to swallow the affront in silence. nobody, after all, read the _flambard_. as he left the reading-room, he saw some people standing in front of a picture-dealer's shop. they were staring at the portrait of a woman, with this fine traced underneath in black letters: "mademoiselle rosanette bron, belonging to m. frederick moreau of nogent." it was indeed she--or, at least, like her--her full face displayed, her bosom uncovered, with her hair hanging loose, and with a purse of red velvet in her hands, while behind her a peacock leaned his beak over her shoulder, covering the wall with his immense plumage in the shape of a fan. pellerin had got up this exhibition in order to compel frederick to pay, persuaded that he was a celebrity, and that all paris, roused to take his part, would be interested in this wretched piece of work. was this a conspiracy? had the painter and the journalist prepared their attack on him at the same time? his duel had not put a stop to anything. he had become an object of ridicule, and everyone had been laughing at him. three days afterwards, at the end of june, the northern shares having had a rise of fifteen francs, as he had bought two thousand of them within the past month, he found that he had made thirty thousand francs by them. this caress of fortune gave him renewed self-confidence. he said to himself that he wanted nobody's help, and that all his embarrassments were the result of his timidity and indecision. he ought to have begun his intrigue with the maréchale with brutal directness and refused hussonnet the very first day. he should not have compromised himself with pellerin. and, in order to show that he was not a bit embarrassed, he presented himself at one of madame dambreuse's ordinary evening parties. in the middle of the anteroom, martinon, who had arrived at the same time as he had, turned round: "what! so you are visiting here?" with a look of surprise, and as if displeased at seeing him. "why not?" and, while asking himself what could be the cause of such a display of hostility on martinon's part, frederick made his way into the drawing-room. the light was dim, in spite of the lamps placed in the corners, for the three windows, which were wide open, made three large squares of black shadow stand parallel with each other. under the pictures, flower-stands occupied, at a man's height, the spaces on the walls, and a silver teapot with a samovar cast their reflections in a mirror on the background. there arose a murmur of hushed voices. pumps could be heard creaking on the carpet. he could distinguish a number of black coats, then a round table lighted up by a large shaded lamp, seven or eight ladies in summer toilets, and at some little distance madame dambreuse in a rocking armchair. her dress of lilac taffeta had slashed sleeves, from which fell muslin puffs, the charming tint of the material harmonising with the shade of her hair; and she sat slightly thrown back with the tip of her foot on a cushion, with the repose of an exquisitely delicate work of art, a flower of high culture. m. dambreuse and an old gentleman with a white head were walking from one end of the drawing-room to the other. some of the guests chatted here and there, sitting on the edges of little sofas, while the others, standing up, formed a circle in the centre of the apartment. they were talking about votes, amendments, counter-amendments, m. grandin's speech, and m. benoist's reply. the third party had decidedly gone too far. the left centre ought to have had a better recollection of its origin. serious attacks had been made on the ministry. it must be reassuring, however, to see that it had no successor. in short, the situation was completely analogous to that of . as these things bored frederick, he drew near the ladies. martinon was beside them, standing up, with his hat under his arm, showing himself in three-quarter profile, and looking so neat that he resembled a piece of sèvres porcelain. he took up a copy of the _revue des deux mondes_ which was lying on the table between an _imitation_ and an _almanach de gotha_, and spoke of a distinguished poet in a contemptuous tone, said he was going to the "conferences of saint-francis," complained of his larynx, swallowed from time to time a pellet of gummatum, and in the meantime kept talking about music, and played the part of the elegant trifler. mademoiselle cécile, m. dambreuse's niece, who happened to be embroidering a pair of ruffles, gazed at him with her pale blue eyes; and miss john, the governess, who had a flat nose, laid aside her tapestry on his account. both of them appeared to be exclaiming internally: "how handsome he is!" madame dambreuse turned round towards him. "please give me my fan which is on that pier-table over there. you are taking the wrong one! 'tis the other!" she arose, and when he came across to her, they met in the middle of the drawing-room face to face. she addressed a few sharp words to him, no doubt of a reproachful character, judging by the haughty expression of her face. martinon tried to smile; then he went to join the circle in which grave men were holding discussions. madame dambreuse resumed her seat, and, bending over the arm of her chair, said to frederick: "i saw somebody the day before yesterday who was speaking to me about you--monsieur de cisy. you know him, don't you?" "yes, slightly." suddenly madame dambreuse uttered an exclamation: "oh! duchesse, what a pleasure to see you!" and she advanced towards the door to meet a little old lady in a carmelite taffeta gown and a cap of guipure with long borders. the daughter of a companion in exile of the comte d'artois, and the widow of a marshal of the empire; who had been created a peer of france in , she adhered to the court of a former generation as well as to the new court, and possessed sufficient influence to procure many things. those who stood talking stepped aside, and then resumed their conversation. it had now turned on pauperism, of which, according to these gentlemen, all the descriptions that had been given were grossly exaggerated. "however," urged martinon, "let us confess that there is such a thing as want! but the remedy depends neither on science nor on power. it is purely an individual question. when the lower classes are willing to get rid of their vices, they will free themselves from their necessities. let the people be more moral, and they will be less poor!" according to m. dambreuse, no good could be attained without a superabundance of capital. therefore, the only practicable method was to intrust, "as the saint-simonians, however, proposed (good heavens! there was some merit in their views--let us be just to everybody)--to intrust, i say, the cause of progress to those who can increase the public wealth." imperceptibly they began to touch on great industrial undertakings--the railways, the coal-mines. and m. dambreuse, addressing frederick, said to him in a low whisper: "you have not called about that business of ours?" frederick pleaded illness; but, feeling that this excuse was too absurd: "besides, i need my ready money." "is it to buy a carriage?" asked madame dambreuse, who was brushing past him with a cup of tea in her hand, and for a minute she watched his face with her head bent slightly over her shoulder. she believed that he was rosanette's lover--the allusion was obvious. it seemed even to frederick that all the ladies were staring at him from a distance and whispering to one another. in order to get a better idea as to what they were thinking about, he once more approached them. on the opposite side of the table, martinon, seated near mademoiselle cécile, was turning over the leaves of an album. it contained lithographs representing spanish costumes. he read the descriptive titles aloud: "a lady of seville," "a valencia gardener," "an andalusian picador"; and once, when he had reached the bottom of the page, he continued all in one breath: "jacques arnoux, publisher. one of your friends, eh?" "that is true," said frederick, hurt by the tone he had assumed. madame dambreuse again interposed: "in fact, you came here one morning--about a house, i believe--a house belonging to his wife." (this meant: "she is your mistress.") he reddened up to his ears; and m. dambreuse, who joined them at the same moment, made this additional remark: "you appear even to be deeply interested in them." these last words had the effect of putting frederick out of countenance. his confusion, which, he could not help feeling, was evident to them, was on the point of confirming their suspicions, when m. dambreuse drew close to him, and, in a tone of great seriousness, said: "i suppose you don't do business together?" he protested by repeated shakes of the head, without realising the exact meaning of the capitalist, who wished to give him advice. he felt a desire to leave. the fear of appearing faint-hearted restrained him. a servant carried away the teacups. madame dambreuse was talking to a diplomatist in a blue coat. two young girls, drawing their foreheads close together, showed each other their jewellery. the others, seated in a semicircle on armchairs, kept gently moving their white faces crowned with black or fair hair. nobody, in fact, minded them. frederick turned on his heels; and, by a succession of long zigzags, he had almost reached the door, when, passing close to a bracket, he remarked, on the top of it, between a china vase and the wainscoting, a journal folded up in two. he drew it out a little, and read these words--_the flambard_. who had brought it there? cisy. manifestly no one else. what did it matter, however? they would believe--already, perhaps, everyone believed--in the article. what was the cause of this rancour? he wrapped himself up in ironical silence. he felt like one lost in a desert. but suddenly he heard martinon's voice: "talking of arnoux, i saw in the newspapers, amongst the names of those accused of preparing incendiary bombs, that of one of his _employés_, sénécal. is that our sénécal?" "the very same!" martinon repeated several times in a very loud tone: "what? our sénécal! our sénécal!" then questions were asked him about the conspiracy. it was assumed that his connection with the prosecutor's office ought to furnish him with some information on the subject. he declared that he had none. however, he knew very little about this individual, having seen him only two or three times. he positively regarded him as a very ill-conditioned fellow. frederick exclaimed indignantly: "not at all! he is a very honest fellow." "all the same, monsieur," said a landowner, "no conspirator can be an honest man." most of the men assembled there had served at least four governments; and they would have sold france or the human race in order to preserve their own incomes, to save themselves from any discomfort or embarrassment, or even through sheer baseness, through worship of force. they all maintained that political crimes were inexcusable. it would be more desirable to pardon those which were provoked by want. and they did not fail to put forward the eternal illustration of the father of a family stealing the eternal loaf of bread from the eternal baker. a gentleman occupying an administrative office even went so far as to exclaim: "for my part, monsieur, if i were told that my brother were a conspirator i would denounce him!" frederick invoked the right of resistance, and recalling to mind some phrases that deslauriers had used in their conversations, he referred to delosmes, blackstone, the english bill of rights, and article of the constitution of ' . it was even by virtue of this law that the fall of napoléon had been proclaimed. it had been recognised in , and inscribed at the head of the charter. besides, when the sovereign fails to fulfil the contract, justice requires that he should be overthrown. "why, this is abominable!" exclaimed a prefect's wife. all the rest remained silent, filled with vague terror, as if they had heard the noise of bullets. madame dambreuse rocked herself in her chair, and smiled as she listened to him. a manufacturer, who had formerly been a member of the carbonari, tried to show that the orléans family possessed good qualities. no doubt there were some abuses. "well, what then?" "but we should not talk about them, my dear monsieur! if you knew how all these clamourings of the opposition injure business!" "what do i care about business?" said frederick. he was exasperated by the rottenness of these old men; and, carried away by the recklessness which sometimes takes possession of even the most timid, he attacked the financiers, the deputies, the government, the king, took up the defence of the arabs, and gave vent to a great deal of abusive language. a few of those around him encouraged him in a spirit of irony: "go on, pray! continue!" whilst others muttered: "the deuce! what enthusiasm!" at last he thought the right thing to do was to retire; and, as he was going away, m. dambreuse said to him, alluding to the post of secretary: "no definite arrangement has been yet arrived at; but make haste!" and madame dambreuse: "you'll call again soon, will you not?" frederick considered their parting salutation a last mockery. he had resolved never to come back to this house, or to visit any of these people again. he imagined that he had offended them, not realising what vast funds of indifference society possesses. these women especially excited his indignation. not a single one of them had backed him up even with a look of sympathy. he felt angry with them for not having been moved by his words. as for madame dambreuse, he found in her something at the same time languid and cold, which prevented him from defining her character by a formula. had she a lover? and, if so, who was her lover? was it the diplomatist or some other? perhaps it was martinon? impossible! nevertheless, he experienced a sort of jealousy against martinon, and an unaccountable ill-will against her. dussardier, having called this evening as usual, was awaiting him. frederick's heart was swelling with bitterness; he unburdened it, and his grievances, though vague and hard to understand, saddened the honest shop-assistant. he even complained of his isolation. dussardier, after a little hesitation, suggested that they ought to call on deslauriers. frederick, at the mention of the advocate's name, was seized with a longing to see him once more. he was now living in the midst of profound intellectual solitude, and found dussardier's company quite insufficient. in reply to the latter's question, frederick told him to arrange matters any way he liked. deslauriers had likewise, since their quarrel, felt a void in his life. he yielded without much reluctance to the cordial advances which were made to him. the pair embraced each other, then began chatting about matters of no consequence. frederick's heart was touched by deslauriers' display of reserve, and in order to make him a sort of reparation, he told the other next day how he had lost the fifteen thousand francs without mentioning that these fifteen thousand francs had been originally intended for him. the advocate, nevertheless, had a shrewd suspicion of the truth; and this misadventure, which justified, in his own mind, his prejudices against arnoux, entirely disarmed his rancour; and he did not again refer to the promise made by his friend on a former occasion. frederick, misled by his silence, thought he had forgotten all about it. a few days afterwards, he asked deslauriers whether there was any way in which he could get back his money. they might raise the point that the prior mortgage was fraudulent, and might take proceedings against the wife personally. "no! no! not against her!" exclaimed frederick, and, yielding to the ex-law-clerk's questions, he confessed the truth. deslauriers was convinced that frederick had not told him the entire truth, no doubt through a feeling of delicacy. he was hurt by this want of confidence. they were, however, on the same intimate terms as before, and they even found so much pleasure in each other's society that dussardier's presence was an obstacle to their free intercourse. under the pretence that they had appointments, they managed gradually to get rid of him. there are some men whose only mission amongst their fellow-men is to serve as go-betweens; people use them in the same way as if they were bridges, by stepping over them and going on further. frederick concealed nothing from his old friend. he told him about the coal-mine speculation and m. dambreuse's proposal. the advocate grew thoughtful. "that's queer! for such a post a man with a good knowledge of law would be required!" "but you could assist me," returned frederick. "yes!--hold on! faith, yes! certainly." during the same week frederick showed dussardier a letter from his mother. madame moreau accused herself of having misjudged m. roque, who had given a satisfactory explanation of his conduct. then she spoke of his means, and of the possibility, later, of a marriage with louise. "that would not be a bad match," said deslauriers. frederick said it was entirely out of the question. besides, père roque was an old trickster. that in no way affected the matter, in the advocate's opinion. at the end of july, an unaccountable diminution in value made the northern shares fall. frederick had not sold his. he lost sixty thousand francs in one day. his income was considerably reduced. he would have to curtail his expenditure, or take up some calling, or make a brilliant catch in the matrimonial market. then deslauriers spoke to him about mademoiselle roque. there was nothing to prevent him from going to get some idea of things by seeing for himself. frederick was rather tired of city life. provincial existence and the maternal roof would be a sort of recreation for him. the aspect of the streets of nogent, as he passed through them in the moonlight, brought back old memories to his mind; and he experienced a kind of pang, like persons who have just returned home after a long period of travel. at his mother's house, all the country visitors had assembled as in former days--mm. gamblin, heudras, and chambrion, the lebrun family, "those young ladies, the augers," and, in addition, père roque, and, sitting opposite to madame moreau at a card-table, mademoiselle louise. she was now a woman. she sprang to her feet with a cry of delight. they were all in a flutter of excitement. she remained standing motionless, and the paleness of her face was intensified by the light issuing from four silver candlesticks. when she resumed play, her hand was trembling. this emotion was exceedingly flattering to frederick, whose pride had been sorely wounded of late. he said to himself: "you, at any rate, will love me!" and, as if he were thus taking his revenge for the humiliations he had endured in the capital, he began to affect the parisian lion, retailed all the theatrical gossip, told anecdotes as to the doings of society, which he had borrowed from the columns of the cheap newspapers, and, in short, dazzled his fellow-townspeople. next morning, madame moreau expatiated on louise's fine qualities; then she enumerated the woods and farms of which she would be the owner. père roque's wealth was considerable. he had acquired it while making investments for m. dambreuse; for he had lent money to persons who were able to give good security in the shape of mortgages, whereby he was enabled to demand additional sums or commissions. the capital, owing to his energetic vigilance, was in no danger of being lost. besides, père roque never had any hesitation in making a seizure. then he bought up the mortgaged property at a low price, and m. dambreuse, having got back his money, found his affairs in very good order. but this manipulation of business matters in a way which was not strictly legal compromised him with his agent. he could refuse père roque nothing, and it was owing to the latter's solicitations that m. dambreuse had received frederick so cordially. the truth was that in the depths of his soul père roque cherished a deep-rooted ambition. he wished his daughter to be a countess; and for the purpose of gaining this object, without imperilling the happiness of his child, he knew no other young man so well adapted as frederick. through the influence of m. dambreuse, he could obtain the title of his maternal grandfather, madame moreau being the daughter of a comte de fouvens, and besides being connected with the oldest families in champagne, the lavernades and the d'etrignys. as for the moreaus, a gothic inscription near the mills of villeneuve-l'archevèque referred to one jacob moreau, who had rebuilt them in ; and the tomb of his own son, pierre moreau, first esquire of the king under louis xiv., was to be seen in the chapel of saint-nicholas. so much family distinction fascinated m. roque, the son of an old servant. if the coronet of a count did not come, he would console himself with something else; for frederick might get a deputyship when m. dambreuse had been raised to the peerage, and might then be able to assist him in his commercial pursuits, and to obtain for him supplies and grants. he liked the young man personally. in short, he desired to have frederick for a son-in-law, because for a long time past he had been smitten with this notion, which only grew all the stronger day by day. now he went to religious services, and he had won madame moreau over to his views, especially by holding before her the prospect of a title. so it was that, eight days later, without any formal engagement, frederick was regarded as mademoiselle roque's "intended," and père roque, who was not troubled with many scruples, often left them together. chapter xii. little louise grows up. deslauriers had carried away from frederick's house the copy of the deed of subrogation, with a power of attorney in proper form, giving him full authority to act; but, when he had reascended his own five flights of stairs and found himself alone in the midst of his dismal room, in his armchair upholstered in sheep-leather, the sight of the stamped paper disgusted him. he was tired of these things, and of restaurants at thirty-two sous, of travelling in omnibuses, of enduring want and making futile efforts. he took up the papers again; there were others near them. they were prospectuses of the coal-mining company, with a list of the mines and the particulars as to their contents, frederick having left all these matters in his hands in order to have his opinion about them. an idea occurred to him--that of presenting himself at m. dambreuse's house and applying for the post of secretary. this post, it was perfectly certain, could not be obtained without purchasing a certain number of shares. he recognised the folly of his project, and said to himself: "oh! no, that would be a wrong step." then he ransacked his brains to think of the best way in which he could set about recovering the fifteen thousand francs. such a sum was a mere trifle to frederick. but, if he had it, what a lever it would be in his hands! and the ex-law-clerk was indignant at the other being so well off. "he makes a pitiful use of it. he is a selfish fellow. ah! what do i care for his fifteen thousand francs!" why had he lent the money? for the sake of madame arnoux's bright eyes. she was his mistress! deslauriers had no doubt about it. "there was another way in which money was useful!" and he was assailed by malignant thoughts. then he allowed his thoughts to dwell even on frederick's personal appearance. it had always exercised over him an almost feminine charm; and he soon came to admire it for a success which he realised that he was himself incapable of achieving. "nevertheless, was not the will the main element in every enterprise? and, since by its means we may triumph over everything----" "ha! that would be funny!" but he felt ashamed of such treachery, and the next moment: "pooh! i am afraid?" madame arnoux--from having heard her spoken about so often--had come to be depicted in his imagination as something extraordinary. the persistency of this passion had irritated him like a problem. her austerity, which seemed a little theatrical, now annoyed him. besides, the woman of the world--or, rather, his own conception of her--dazzled the advocate as a symbol and the epitome of a thousand pleasures. poor though he was, he hankered after luxury in its more glittering form. "after all, even though he should get angry, so much the worse! he has behaved too badly to me to call for any anxiety about him on my part! i have no assurance that she is his mistress! he has denied it. so then i am free to act as i please!" he could no longer abandon the desire of taking this step. he wished to make a trial of his own strength, so that one day, all of a sudden, he polished his boots himself, bought white gloves, and set forth on his way, substituting himself for frederick, and almost imagining that he was the other by a singular intellectual evolution, in which there was, at the same time, vengeance and sympathy, imitation and audacity. he announced himself as "doctor deslauriers." madame arnoux was surprised, as she had not sent for any physician. "ha! a thousand apologies!--'tis a doctor of law! i have come in monsieur moreau's interest." this name appeared to produce a disquieting effect on her mind. "so much the better!" thought the ex-law-clerk. "since she has a liking for him, she will like me, too!" buoying up his courage with the accepted idea that it is easier to supplant a lover than a husband. he referred to the fact that he had the pleasure of meeting her on one occasion at the law-courts; he even mentioned the date. this remarkable power of memory astonished madame arnoux. he went on in a tone of mild affectation: "you have already found your affairs a little embarrassing?" she made no reply. "then it must be true." he began to chat about one thing or another, about her house, about the works; then, noticing some medallions at the sides of the mirror: "ha! family portraits, no doubt?" he remarked that of an old lady, madame arnoux's mother. "she has the appearance of an excellent woman, a southern type." and, on being met with the objection that she was from chartres: "chartres! pretty town!" he praised its cathedral and public buildings, and coming back to the portrait, traced resemblances between it and madame arnoux, and cast flatteries at her indirectly. she did not appear to be offended at this. he took confidence, and said that he had known arnoux a long time. "he is a fine fellow, but one who compromises himself. take this mortgage, for example--one can't imagine such a reckless act----" "yes, i know," said she, shrugging her shoulders. this involuntary evidence of contempt induced deslauriers to continue. "that kaolin business of his was near turning out very badly, a thing you may not be aware of, and even his reputation----" a contraction of the brows made him pause. then, falling back on generalities, he expressed his pity for the "poor women whose husbands frittered away their means." "but in this case, monsieur, the means belong to him. as for me, i have nothing!" no matter, one never knows. a woman of experience might be useful. he made offers of devotion, exalted his own merits; and he looked into her face through his shining spectacles. she was seized with a vague torpor; but suddenly said: "let us look into the matter, i beg of you." he exhibited the bundle of papers. "this is frederick's letter of attorney. with such a document in the hands of a process-server, who would make out an order, nothing could be easier; in twenty-four hours----" (she remained impassive; he changed his manoeuvre.) "as for me, however, i don't understand what impels him to demand this sum, for, in fact, he doesn't want it." "how is that? monsieur moreau has shown himself so kind." "oh! granted!" and deslauriers began by eulogising him, then in a mild fashion disparaged him, giving it out that he was a forgetful individual, and over-fond of money. "i thought he was your friend, monsieur?" "that does not prevent me from seeing his defects. thus, he showed very little recognition of--how shall i put it?--the sympathy----" madame arnoux was turning over the leaves of a large manuscript book. she interrupted him in order to get him to explain a certain word. he bent over her shoulder, and his face came so close to hers that he grazed her cheek. she blushed. this heightened colour inflamed deslauriers, he hungrily kissed her head. "what are you doing, monsieur?" and, standing up against the wall, she compelled him to remain perfectly quiet under the glance of her large blue eyes glowing with anger. "listen to me! i love you!" she broke into a laugh, a shrill, discouraging laugh. deslauriers felt himself suffocating with anger. he restrained his feelings, and, with the look of a vanquished person imploring mercy: "ha! you are wrong! as for me, i would not go like him." "of whom, pray, are you talking?" "of frederick." "ah! monsieur moreau troubles me little. i told you that!" "oh! forgive me! forgive me!" then, drawling his words, in a sarcastic tone: "i even imagined that you were sufficiently interested in him personally to learn with pleasure----" she became quite pale. the ex-law-clerk added: "he is going to be married." "he!" "in a month at latest, to mademoiselle roque, the daughter of m. dambreuse's agent. he has even gone down to nogent for no other purpose but that." she placed her hand over her heart, as if at the shock of a great blow; but immediately she rang the bell. deslauriers did not wait to be ordered to leave. when she turned round he had disappeared. madame arnoux was gasping a little with the strain of her emotions. she drew near the window to get a breath of air. on the other side of the street, on the footpath, a packer in his shirt-sleeves was nailing down a trunk. hackney-coaches passed. she closed the window-blinds and then came and sat down. as the high houses in the vicinity intercepted the sun's rays, the light of day stole coldly into the apartment. her children had gone out; there was not a stir around her. it seemed as if she were utterly deserted. "he is going to be married! is it possible?" and she was seized with a fit of nervous trembling. "why is this? does it mean that i love him?" then all of a sudden: "why, yes; i love him--i love him!" it seemed to her as if she were sinking into endless depths. the clock struck three. she listened to the vibrations of the sounds as they died away. and she remained on the edge of the armchair, with her eyeballs fixed and an unchanging smile on her face. the same afternoon, at the same moment, frederick and mademoiselle louise were walking in the garden belonging to m. roque at the end of the island. old catherine was watching them, some distance away. they were walking side by side and frederick said: "you remember when i brought you into the country?" "how good you were to me!" she replied. "you assisted me in making sand-pies, in filling my watering-pot, and in rocking me in the swing!" "all your dolls, who had the names of queens and marchionesses--what has become of them?" "really, i don't know!" "and your pug moricaud?" "he's drowned, poor darling!" "and the _don quixote_ of which we coloured the engravings together?" "i have it still!" he recalled to her mind the day of her first communion, and how pretty she had been at vespers, with her white veil and her large wax-taper, whilst the girls were all taking their places in a row around the choir, and the bell was tinkling. these memories, no doubt, had little charm for mademoiselle roque. she had not a word to say; and, a minute later: "naughty fellow! never to have written a line to me, even once!" frederick urged by way of excuse his numerous occupations. "what, then, are you doing?" he was embarrassed by the question; then he told her that he was studying politics. "ha!" and without questioning him further: "that gives you occupation; while as for me----!" then she spoke to him about the barrenness of her existence, as there was nobody she could go to see, and nothing to amuse her or distract her thoughts. she wished to go on horseback. "the vicar maintains that this is improper for a young lady! how stupid these proprieties are! long ago they allowed me to do whatever i pleased; now, they won't let me do anything!" "your father, however, is fond of you!" "yes; but----" she heaved a sigh, which meant: "that is not enough to make me happy." then there was silence. they heard only the noise made by their boots in the sand, together with the murmur of falling water; for the seine, above nogent, is cut into two arms. that which turns the mills discharges in this place the superabundance of its waves in order to unite further down with the natural course of the stream; and a person coming from the bridge could see at the right, on the other bank of the river, a grassy slope on which a white house looked down. at the left, in the meadow, a row of poplar-trees extended, and the horizon in front was bounded by a curve of the river. it was flat, like a mirror. large insects hovered over the noiseless water. tufts of reeds and rushes bordered it unevenly; all kinds of plants which happened to spring up there bloomed out in buttercups, caused yellow clusters to hang down, raised trees in distaff-shape with amaranth-blossoms, and made green rockets spring up at random. in an inlet of the river white water-lilies displayed themselves; and a row of ancient willows, in which wolf-traps were hidden, formed, on that side of the island, the sole protection of the garden. in the interior, on this side, four walls with a slate coping enclosed the kitchen-garden, in which the square patches, recently dug up, looked like brown plates. the bell-glasses of the melons shone in a row on the narrow hotbed. the artichokes, the kidney-beans, the spinach, the carrots and the tomatoes succeeded each other till one reached a background where asparagus grew in such a fashion that it resembled a little wood of feathers. all this piece of land had been under the directory what is called "a folly." the trees had, since then, grown enormously. clematis obstructed the hornbeams, the walks were covered with moss, brambles abounded on every side. fragments of statues let their plaster crumble in the grass. the feet of anyone walking through the place got entangled in iron-wire work. there now remained of the pavilion only two apartments on the ground floor, with some blue paper hanging in shreds. before the façade extended an arbour in the italian style, in which a vine-tree was supported on columns of brick by a rail-work of sticks. soon they arrived at this spot; and, as the light fell through the irregular gaps on the green herbage, frederick, turning his head on one side to speak to louise, noticed the shadow of the leaves on her face. she had in her red hair, stuck in her chignon, a needle, terminated by a glass bell in imitation of emerald, and, in spite of her mourning, she wore (so artless was her bad taste) straw slippers trimmed with pink satin--a vulgar curiosity probably bought at some fair. he remarked this, and ironically congratulated her. "don't be laughing at me!" she replied. then surveying him altogether, from his grey felt hat to his silk stockings: "what an exquisite you are!" after this, she asked him to mention some works which she could read. he gave her the names of several; and she said: "oh! how learned you are!" while yet very small, she had been smitten with one of those childish passions which have, at the same time, the purity of a religion and the violence of a natural instinct. he had been her comrade, her brother, her master, had diverted her mind, made her heart beat more quickly, and, without any desire for such a result, had poured out into the very depths of her being a latent and continuous intoxication. then he had parted with her at the moment of a tragic crisis in her existence, when her mother had only just died, and these two separations had been mingled together. absence had idealised him in her memory. he had come back with a sort of halo round his head; and she gave herself up ingenuously to the feelings of bliss she experienced at seeing him once more. for the first time in his life frederick felt himself beloved; and this new pleasure, which did not transcend the ordinary run of agreeable sensations, made his breast swell with so much emotion that he spread out his two arms while he flung back his head. a large cloud passed across the sky. "it is going towards paris," said louise. "you'd like to follow it--wouldn't you?" "i! why?" "who knows?" and surveying him with a sharp look: "perhaps you have there" (she searched her mind for the appropriate phrase) "something to engage your affections." "oh! i have nothing to engage my affections there." "are you perfectly certain?" "why, yes, mademoiselle, perfectly certain!" in less than a year there had taken place in the young girl an extraordinary transformation, which astonished frederick. after a minute's silence he added: "we ought to 'thee' and 'thou' each other, as we used to do long ago--shall we do so?" "no." "why?" "because----" he persisted. she answered, with downcast face: "i dare not!" they had reached the end of the garden, which was close to the shell-bank. frederick, in a spirit of boyish fun, began to send pebbles skimming over the water. she bade him sit down. he obeyed; then, looking at the waterfall: "'tis like niagara!" he began talking about distant countries and long voyages. the idea of making some herself exercised a fascination over her mind. she would not have been afraid either of tempests or of lions. seated close beside each other, they collected in front of them handfuls of sand, then, while they were chatting, they let it slip through their fingers, and the hot wind, which rose from the plains, carried to them in puffs odours of lavender, together with the smell of tar escaping from a boat behind the lock. the sun's rays fell on the cascade. the greenish blocks of stone in the little wall over which the water slipped looked as if they were covered with a silver gauze that was perpetually rolling itself out. a long strip of foam gushed forth at the foot with a harmonious murmur. then it bubbled up, forming whirlpools and a thousand opposing currents, which ended by intermingling in a single limpid stream of water. louise said in a musing tone that she envied the existence of fishes: "it must be so delightful to tumble about down there at your ease, and to feel yourself caressed on every side." [illustration] [illustration: can i live without you?] she shivered with sensuously enticing movements; but a voice exclaimed: "where are you?" "your maid is calling you," said frederick. "all right! all right!" louise did not disturb herself. "she will be angry," he suggested. "it is all the same to me! and besides----" mademoiselle roque gave him to understand by a gesture that the girl was entirely subject to her will. she arose, however, and then complained of a headache. and, as they were passing in front of a large cart-shed containing some faggots: "suppose we sat down there, _under shelter_?" he pretended not to understand this dialectic expression, and even teased her about her accent. gradually the corners of her mouth were compressed, she bit her lips; she stepped aside in order to sulk. frederick came over to her, swore he did not mean to annoy her, and that he was very fond of her. "is that true?" she exclaimed, looking at him with a smile which lighted up her entire face, smeared over a little with patches of bran. he could not resist the sentiment of gallantry which was aroused in him by her fresh youthfulness, and he replied: "why should i tell you a lie? have you any doubt about it, eh?" and, as he spoke, he passed his left hand round her waist. a cry, soft as the cooing of a dove, leaped up from her throat. her head fell back, she was going to faint, when he held her up. and his virtuous scruples were futile. at the sight of this maiden offering herself to him he was seized with fear. he assisted her to take a few steps slowly. he had ceased to address her in soothing words, and no longer caring to talk of anything save the most trifling subjects, he spoke to her about some of the principal figures in the society of nogent. suddenly she repelled him, and in a bitter tone: "you would not have the courage to run away with me!" he remained motionless, with a look of utter amazement in his face. she burst into sobs, and hiding her face in his breast: "can i live without you?" he tried to calm her emotion. she laid her two hands on his shoulders in order to get a better view of his face, and fixing her green eyes on his with an almost fierce tearfulness: "will you be my husband?" "but," frederick began, casting about in his inner consciousness for a reply. "of course, i ask for nothing better." at that moment m. roque's cap appeared behind a lilac-tree. he brought his young friend on a trip through the district in order to show off his property; and when frederick returned, after two days' absence, he found three letters awaiting him at his mother's house. the first was a note from m. dambreuse, containing an invitation to dinner for the previous tuesday. what was the occasion of this politeness? so, then, they had forgiven his prank. the second was from rosanette. she thanked him for having risked his life on her behalf. frederick did not at first understand what she meant; finally, after a considerable amount of circumlocution, while appealing to his friendship, relying on his delicacy, as she put it, and going on her knees to him on account of the pressing necessity of the case, as she wanted bread, she asked him for a loan of five hundred francs. he at once made up his mind to supply her with the amount. the third letter, which was from deslauriers, spoke of the letter of attorney, and was long and obscure. the advocate had not yet taken any definite action. he urged his friend not to disturb himself: "'tis useless for you to come back!" even laying singular stress on this point. frederick got lost in conjectures of every sort; and he felt anxious to return to paris. this assumption of a right to control his conduct excited in him a feeling of revolt. moreover, he began to experience that nostalgia of the boulevard; and then, his mother was pressing him so much, m. roque kept revolving about him so constantly, and mademoiselle louise was so much attached to him, that it was no longer possible for him to avoid speedily declaring his intentions. he wanted to think, and he would be better able to form a right estimate of things at a distance. in order to assign a motive for his journey, frederick invented a story; and he left home, telling everyone, and himself believing, that he would soon return. chapter xiii. rosanette as a lovely turk. his return to paris gave him no pleasure. it was an evening at the close of august. the boulevards seemed empty. the passers-by succeeded each other with scowling faces. here and there a boiler of asphalt was smoking; several houses had their blinds entirely drawn. he made his way to his own residence in the city. he found the hangings covered with dust; and, while dining all alone, frederick was seized with a strange feeling of forlornness; then his thoughts reverted to mademoiselle roque. the idea of being married no longer appeared to him preposterous. they might travel; they might go to italy, to the east. and he saw her standing on a hillock, or gazing at a landscape, or else leaning on his arm in a florentine gallery while she stood to look at the pictures. what a pleasure it would be to him merely to watch this good little creature expanding under the splendours of art and nature! when she had got free from the commonplace atmosphere in which she had lived, she would, in a little while, become a charming companion. m. roque's wealth, moreover, tempted him. and yet he shrank from taking this step, regarding it as a weakness, a degradation. but he was firmly resolved (whatever he might do) on changing his mode of life--that is to say, to lose his heart no more in fruitless passions; and he even hesitated about executing the commission with which he had been intrusted by louise. this was to buy for her at jacques arnoux's establishment two large-sized statues of many colours representing negroes, like those which were at the prefecture at troyes. she knew the manufacturer's number, and would not have any other. frederick was afraid that, if he went back to their house, he might once again fall a victim to his old passion. these reflections occupied his mind during the entire evening; and he was just about to go to bed when a woman presented herself. "'tis i," said mademoiselle vatnaz, with a laugh. "i have come in behalf of rosanette." so, then, they were reconciled? "good heavens, yes! i am not ill-natured, as you are well aware. and besides, the poor girl--it would take too long to tell you all about it." in short, the maréchale wanted to see him; she was waiting for an answer, her letter having travelled from paris to nogent. mademoiselle vatnaz did not know what was in it. then frederick asked her how the maréchale was going on. he was informed that she was now _with_ a very rich man, a russian, prince tzernoukoff, who had seen her at the races in the champ de mars last summer. "he has three carriages, a saddle-horse, livery servants, a groom got up in the english fashion, a country-house, a box at the italian opera, and a heap of other things. there you are, my dear friend!" and the vatnaz, as if she had profited by this change of fortune, appeared gayer and happier. she took off her gloves and examined the furniture and the objects of virtù in the room. she mentioned their exact prices like a second-hand dealer. he ought to have consulted her in order to get them cheaper. then she congratulated him on his good taste: "ha! this is pretty, exceedingly nice! there's nobody like you for these ideas." the next moment, as her eyes fell on a door close to the pillar of the alcove: "that's the way you let your friends out, eh?" and, in a familiar fashion, she laid her finger on his chin. he trembled at the contact of her long hands, at the same time thin and soft. round her wrists she wore an edging of lace, and on the body of her green dress lace embroidery, like a hussar. her bonnet of black tulle, with borders hanging down, concealed her forehead a little. her eyes shone underneath; an odour of patchouli escaped from her head-bands. the carcel-lamp placed on a round table, shining down on her like the footlights of a theatre, made her jaw protrude. she said to him, in an unctuous tone, while she drew forth from her purse three square slips of paper: "you will take these from me?" they were three tickets for delmar's benefit performance. "what! for him?" "certainly." mademoiselle vatnaz, without giving a further explanation, added that she adored him more than ever. if she were to be believed, the comedian was now definitely classed amongst "the leading celebrities of the age." and it was not such or such a personage that he represented, but the very genius of france, the people. he had "the humanitarian spirit; he understood the priesthood of art." frederick, in order to put an end to these eulogies, gave her the money for the three seats. "you need not say a word about this over the way. how late it is, good heavens! i must leave you. ah! i was forgetting the address--'tis the rue grange-batelier, number ." and, at the door: "good-bye, beloved man!" "beloved by whom?" asked frederick. "what a strange woman!" and he remembered that dussardier had said to him one day, when talking about her: "oh, she's not much!" as if alluding to stories of a by no means edifying character. next morning he repaired to the maréchale's abode. she lived in a new house, the spring-roller blinds of which projected into the street. at the head of each flight of stairs there was a mirror against the wall; before each window there was a flower-stand, and all over the steps extended a carpet of oil-cloth; and when one got inside the door, the coolness of the staircase was refreshing. it was a man-servant who came to open the door, a footman in a red waistcoat. on a bench in the anteroom a woman and two men, tradespeople, no doubt, were waiting as if in a minister's vestibule. at the left, the door of the dining-room, slightly ajar, afforded a glimpse of empty bottles on the sideboards, and napkins on the backs of chairs; and parallel with it ran a corridor in which gold-coloured sticks supported an espalier of roses. in the courtyard below, two boys with bare arms were scrubbing a landau. their voices rose to frederick's ears, mingled with the intermittent sounds made by a currycomb knocking against a stone. the man-servant returned. "madame will receive monsieur," and he led frederick through a second anteroom, and then into a large drawing-room hung with yellow brocatel with twisted fringes at the corners which were joined at the ceiling, and which seemed to be continued by flowerings of lustre resembling cables. no doubt there had been an entertainment there the night before. some cigar-ashes had been allowed to remain on the pier-tables. at last he found his way into a kind of boudoir with stained-glass windows, through which the sun shed a dim light. trefoils of carved wood adorned the upper portions of the doors. behind a balustrade, three purple mattresses formed a divan; and the stem of a narghileh made of platinum lay on top of it. instead of a mirror, there was on the mantelpiece a pyramid-shaped whatnot, displaying on its shelves an entire collection of curiosities, old silver trumpets, bohemian horns, jewelled clasps, jade studs, enamels, grotesque figures in china, and a little byzantine virgin with a vermilion ape; and all this was mingled in a golden twilight with the bluish shade of the carpet, the mother-of-pearl reflections of the foot-stools, and the tawny hue of the walls covered with maroon leather. in the corners, on little pedestals, there were bronze vases containing clusters of flowers, which made the atmosphere heavy. rosanette presented herself, attired in a pink satin vest with white cashmere trousers, a necklace of piasters, and a red cap encircled with a branch of jasmine. frederick started back in surprise, then said he had brought the thing she had been speaking about, and he handed her the bank-note. she gazed at him in astonishment; and, as he still kept the note in his hand, without knowing where to put it: "pray take it!" she seized it; then, as she flung it on the divan: "you are very kind." she wanted it to meet the rent of a piece of ground at bellevue, which she paid in this way every year. her unceremoniousness wounded frederick's sensibility. however, so much the better! this would avenge him for the past. "sit down," said she. "there--closer." and in a grave tone: "in the first place, i have to thank you, my dear friend, for having risked your life." "oh! that's nothing!" "what! why, 'tis a very noble act!"--and the maréchale exhibited an embarrassing sense of gratitude; for it must have been impressed upon her mind that the duel was entirely on account of arnoux, as the latter, who believed it himself, was not likely to have resisted the temptation of telling her so. "she is laughing at me, perhaps," thought frederick. he had nothing further to detain him, and, pleading that he had an appointment, he rose. "oh! no, stay!" he resumed his seat, and presently complimented her on her costume. she replied, with an air of dejection: "'tis the prince who likes me to dress in this fashion! and one must smoke such machines as that, too!" rosanette added, pointing towards the narghileh. "suppose we try the taste of it? have you any objection?" she procured a light, and, finding it hard to set fire to the tobacco, she began to stamp impatiently with her foot. then a feeling of languor took possession of her; and she remained motionless on the divan, with a cushion under her arm and her body twisted a little on one side, one knee bent and the other leg straight out. the long serpent of red morocco, which formed rings on the floor, rolled itself over her arm. she rested the amber mouthpiece on her lips, and gazed at frederick while she blinked her eyes in the midst of the cloud of smoke that enveloped her. a gurgling sound came from her throat as she inhaled the fumes, and from time to time she murmured: "the poor darling! the poor pet!" he tried to find something of an agreeable nature to talk about. the thought of vatnaz recurred to his memory. he remarked that she appeared to him very lady-like. "yes, upon my word," replied the maréchale. "she is very lucky in having me, that same lady!"--without adding another word, so much reserve was there in their conversation. each of them felt a sense of constraint, something that formed a barrier to confidential relations between them. in fact, rosanette's vanity had been flattered by the duel, of which she believed herself to be the occasion. then, she was very much astonished that he did not hasten to take advantage of his achievement; and, in order to compel him to return to her, she had invented this story that she wanted five hundred francs. how was it that frederick did not ask for a little love from her in return? this was a piece of refinement that filled her with amazement, and, with a gush of emotion, she said to him: "will you come with us to the sea-baths?" "what does 'us' mean?" "myself and my bird. i'll make you pass for a cousin of mine, as in the old comedies." "a thousand thanks!" "well, then, you will take lodgings near ours." the idea of hiding himself from a rich man humiliated him. "no! that is impossible." "just as you please!" rosanette turned away with tears in her eyes. frederick noticed this, and in order to testify the interest which he took in her, he said that he was delighted to see her at last in a comfortable position. she shrugged her shoulders. what, then, was troubling her? was it, perchance, that she was not loved. "oh! as for me, i have always people to love me!" she added: "it remains to be seen in what way." complaining that she was "suffocating with the heat," the maréchale unfastened her vest; and, without any other garment round her body, save her silk chemise, she leaned her head on his shoulder so as to awaken his tenderness. a man of less introspective egoism would not have bestowed a thought at such a moment on the possibility of the vicomte, m. de comaing, or anyone else appearing on the scene. but frederick had been too many times the dupe of these very glances to compromise himself by a fresh humiliation. she wished to know all about his relationships and his amusements. she even enquired about his financial affairs, and offered to lend him money if he wanted it. frederick, unable to stand it any longer, took up his hat. "i'm off, my pet! i hope you'll enjoy yourself thoroughly down there. _au revoir!_" she opened her eyes wide; then, in a dry tone: "_au revoir!_" he made his way out through the yellow drawing-room, and through the second anteroom. there was on the table, between a vase full of visiting-cards and an inkstand, a chased silver chest. it was madame arnoux's. then he experienced a feeling of tenderness, and, at the same time, as it were, the scandal of a profanation. he felt a longing to raise his hands towards it, and to open it. he was afraid of being seen, and went away. frederick was virtuous. he did not go back to the arnouxs' house. he sent his man-servant to buy the two negroes, having given him all the necessary directions; and the case containing them set forth the same evening for nogent. next morning, as he was repairing to deslauriers' lodgings, at the turn where the rue vivienne opened out on the boulevard, madame arnoux presented herself before him face to face. the first movement of each of them was to draw back; then the same smile came to the lips of both, and they advanced to meet each other. for a minute, neither of them uttered a single word. the sunlight fell round her, and her oval face, her long eyelashes, her black lace shawl, which showed the outline of her shoulders, her gown of shot silk, the bouquet of violets at the corner of her bonnet; all seemed to him to possess extraordinary magnificence. an infinite softness poured itself out of her beautiful eyes; and in a faltering voice, uttering at random the first words that came to his lips: "how is arnoux?" "well, i thank you!" "and your children?" "they are very well!" "ah! ah! what fine weather we are getting, are we not?" "splendid, indeed!" "you're going out shopping?" and, with a slow inclination of the head: "good-bye!" she put out her hand, without having spoken one word of an affectionate description, and did not even invite him to dinner at her house. no matter! he would not have given this interview for the most delightful of adventures; and he pondered over its sweetness as he proceeded on his way. deslauriers, surprised at seeing him, dissembled his spite; for he cherished still through obstinacy some hope with regard to madame arnoux; and he had written to frederick to prolong his stay in the country in order to be free in his manoeuvres. he informed frederick, however, that he had presented himself at her house in order to ascertain if their contract stipulated for a community of property between husband and wife: in that case, proceedings might be taken against the wife; "and she put on a queer face when i told her about your marriage." "now, then! what an invention!" "it was necessary in order to show that you wanted your own capital! a person who was indifferent would not have been attacked with the species of fainting fit that she had." "really?" exclaimed frederick. "ha! my fine fellow, you are betraying yourself! come! be honest!" a feeling of nervous weakness stole over madame arnoux's lover. "why, no! i assure you! upon my word of honour!" these feeble denials ended by convincing deslauriers. he congratulated his friend, and asked him for some details. frederick gave him none, and even resisted a secret yearning to concoct a few. as for the mortgage, he told the other to do nothing about it, but to wait. deslauriers thought he was wrong on this point, and remonstrated with him in rather a churlish fashion. he was, besides, more gloomy, malignant, and irascible than ever. in a year, if fortune did not change, he would embark for america or blow out his brains. indeed, he appeared to be in such a rage against everything, and so uncompromising in his radicalism, that frederick could not keep from saying to him: "here you are going on in the same way as sénécal!" deslauriers, at this remark, informed him that that individual to whom he alluded had been discharged from sainte-pelagie, the magisterial investigation having failed to supply sufficient evidence, no doubt, to justify his being sent for trial. dussardier was so much overjoyed at the release of sénécal, that he wanted to invite his friends to come and take punch with him, and begged of frederick to be one of the party, giving the latter, at the same time, to understand that he would be found in the company of hussonnet, who had proved himself a very good friend to sénécal. in fact, the _flambard_ had just become associated with a business establishment whose prospectus contained the following references: "vineyard agency. office of publicity. debt recovery and intelligence office, etc." but the bohemian was afraid that his connection with trade might be prejudicial to his literary reputation, and he had accordingly taken the mathematician to keep the accounts. although the situation was a poor one, sénécal would but for it have died of starvation. not wishing to mortify the worthy shopman, frederick accepted his invitation. dussardier, three days beforehand, had himself waxed the red floor of his garret, beaten the armchair, and knocked off the dust from the chimney-piece, on which might be seen under a globe an alabaster timepiece between a stalactite and a cocoanut. as his two chandeliers and his chamber candlestick were not sufficient, he had borrowed two more candlesticks from the doorkeeper; and these five lights shone on the top of the chest of drawers, which was covered with three napkins in order that it might be fit to have placed on it in such a way as to look attractive some macaroons, biscuits, a fancy cake, and a dozen bottles of beer. at the opposite side, close to the wall, which was hung with yellow paper, there was a little mahogany bookcase containing the _fables of lachambeaudie_, the _mysteries of paris_, and norvins' _napoléon_--and, in the middle of the alcove, the face of béranger was smiling in a rosewood frame. the guests (in addition to deslauriers and sénécal) were an apothecary who had just been admitted, but who had not enough capital to start in business for himself, a young man of his own house, a town-traveller in wines, an architect, and a gentleman employed in an insurance office. regimbart had not been able to come. regret was expressed at his absence. they welcomed frederick with a great display of sympathy, as they all knew through dussardier what he had said at m. dambreuse's house. sénécal contented himself with putting out his hand in a dignified manner. he remained standing near the chimney-piece. the others seated, with their pipes in their mouths, listened to him, while he held forth on universal suffrage, from which he predicted as a result the triumph of democracy and the practical application of the principles of the gospel. however, the hour was at hand. the banquets of the party of reform were becoming more numerous in the provinces. piedmont, naples, tuscany---- "'tis true," said deslauriers, interrupting him abruptly. "this cannot last longer!" and he began to draw a picture of the situation. we had sacrificed holland to obtain from england the recognition of louis philippe; and this precious english alliance was lost, owing to the spanish marriages. in switzerland, m. guizot, in tow with the austrian, maintained the treaties of . prussia, with her zollverein, was preparing embarrassments for us. the eastern question was still pending. "the fact that the grand duke constantine sends presents to m. d'aumale is no reason for placing confidence in russia. as for home affairs, never have so many blunders, such stupidity, been witnessed. the government no longer even keeps up its majority. everywhere, indeed, according to the well-known expression, it is naught! naught! naught! and in the teeth of such public scandals," continued the advocate, with his arms akimbo, "they declare themselves satisfied!" the allusion to a notorious vote called forth applause. dussardier uncorked a bottle of beer; the froth splashed on the curtains. he did not mind it. he filled the pipes, cut the cake, offered each of them a slice of it, and several times went downstairs to see whether the punch was coming up; and ere long they lashed themselves up into a state of excitement, as they all felt equally exasperated against power. their rage was of a violent character for no other reason save that they hated injustice, and they mixed up with legitimate grievances the most idiotic complaints. the apothecary groaned over the pitiable condition of our fleet. the insurance agent could not tolerate marshal soult's two sentinels. deslauriers denounced the jesuits, who had just installed themselves publicly at lille. sénécal execrated m. cousin much more for eclecticism, by teaching that certitude can be deduced from reason, developed selfishness and destroyed solidarity. the traveller in wines, knowing very little about these matters, remarked in a very loud tone that he had forgotten many infamies: "the royal carriage on the northern line must have cost eighty thousand francs. who'll pay the amount?" "aye, who'll pay the amount?" repeated the clerk, as angrily as if this amount had been drawn out of his own pocket. then followed recriminations against the lynxes of the bourse and the corruption of officials. according to sénécal they ought to go higher up, and lay the blame, first of all, on the princes who had revived the morals of the regency period. "have you not lately seen the duc de montpensier's friends coming back from vincennes, no doubt in a state of intoxication, and disturbing with their songs the workmen of the faubourg saint-antoine?" "there was even a cry of 'down with the thieves!'" said the apothecary. "i was there, and i joined in the cry!" "so much the better! the people are at last waking up since the teste-cubières case."[d] "for my part, that case caused me some pain," said dussardier, "because it imputed dishonour to an old soldier!" "do you know," sénécal went on, "what they have discovered at the duchesse de praslin's house----?" but here the door was sent flying open with a kick. hussonnet entered. [d] this refers to a charge of corruption made in against a general who was a member of the ministry.--translator. "hail, messeigneurs," said he, as he seated himself on the bed. no allusion was made to his article, which he was sorry, however, for having written, as the maréchale had sharply reprimanded him on account of it. he had just seen at the théâtre de dumas the _chevalier de maison-rouge_, and declared that it seemed to him a stupid play. such a criticism surprised the democrats, as this drama, by its tendency, or rather by its scenery, flattered their passions. they protested. sénécal, in order to bring this discussion to a close, asked whether the play served the cause of democracy. "yes, perhaps; but it is written in a style----" "well, then, 'tis a good play. what is style? 'tis the idea!" and, without allowing frederick to say a word: "now, i was pointing out that in the praslin case----" hussonnet interrupted him: "ha! here's another worn-out trick! i'm disgusted at it!" "and others as well as you," returned deslauriers. "it has only got five papers taken. listen while i read this paragraph." and drawing his note-book out of his pocket, he read: "'we have, since the establishment of the best of republics, been subjected to twelve hundred and twenty-nine press prosecutions, from which the results to the writers have been imprisonment extending over a period of three thousand one hundred and forty-one years, and the light sum of seven million one hundred and ten thousand five hundred francs by way of fine.' that's charming, eh?" they all sneered bitterly. frederick, incensed against the others, broke in: "_the democratie pacifique_ has had proceedings taken against it on account of its feuilleton, a novel entitled _the woman's share_." "come! that's good," said hussonnet. "suppose they prevented us from having our share of the women!" "but what is it that's not prohibited?" exclaimed deslauriers. "to smoke in the luxembourg is prohibited; to sing the hymn to pius ix. is prohibited!" "and the typographers' banquet has been interdicted," a voice cried, with a thick articulation. it was that of an architect, who had sat concealed in the shade of the alcove, and who had remained silent up to that moment. he added that, the week before, a man named rouget had been convicted of offering insults to the king. "that gurnet[e] is fried," said hussonnet. this joke appeared so improper to sénécal, that he reproached hussonnet for defending the juggler of the hôtel de ville, the friend of the traitor dumouriez. "i? quite the contrary!" he considered louis philippe commonplace, one of the national guard types of men, all that savoured most of the provision-shop and the cotton night-cap! and laying his hand on his heart, the bohemian gave utterance to the rhetorical phrases: "it is always with a new pleasure.... polish nationality will not perish.... our great works will be pursued.... give me some money for my little family...." [e] _rouget_ means a gurnet.--translator. they all laughed hugely, declaring that he was a delightful fellow, full of wit. their delight was redoubled at the sight of the bowl of punch which was brought in by the keeper of a café. the flames of the alcohol and those of the wax-candles soon heated the apartment, and the light from the garret, passing across the courtyard, illuminated the side of an opposite roof with the flue of a chimney, whose black outlines could be traced through the darkness of night. they talked in very loud tones all at the same time. they had taken off their coats; they gave blows to the furniture; they touched glasses. hussonnet exclaimed: "send up some great ladies, in order that this may be more tour de nesles, have more local colouring, and be more rembrandtesque, gadzooks!" and the apothecary, who kept stirring about the punch indefinitely, began to sing with expanded chest: "i've two big oxen in my stable, two big white oxen----" sénécal laid his hand on the apothecary's mouth; he did not like disorderly conduct; and the lodgers pressed their faces against the window-panes, surprised at the unwonted uproar that was taking place in dussardier's room. the honest fellow was happy, and said that this recalled to his mind their little parties on the quai napoléon in days gone by; however, they missed many who used to be present at these reunions, "pellerin, for instance." "we can do without him," observed frederick. and deslauriers enquired about martinon. "what has become of that interesting gentleman?" frederick, immediately giving vent to the ill-will which he bore to martinon, attacked his mental capacity, his character, his false elegance, his entire personality. he was a perfect specimen of an upstart peasant! the new aristocracy, the mercantile class, was not as good as the old--the nobility. he maintained this, and the democrats expressed their approval, as if he were a member of the one class, and they were in the habit of visiting the other. they were charmed with him. the apothecary compared him to m. d'alton shée, who, though a peer of france, defended the cause of the people. the time had come for taking their departure. they all separated with great handshakings. dussardier, in a spirit of affectionate solicitude, saw frederick and deslauriers home. as soon as they were in the street, the advocate assumed a thoughtful air, and, after a moment's silence: "you have a great grudge, then, against pellerin?" frederick did not hide his rancour. the painter, in the meantime, had withdrawn the notorious picture from the show-window. a person should not let himself be put out by trifles. what was the good of making an enemy for himself? "he has given way to a burst of ill-temper, excusable in a man who hasn't a sou. you, of course, can't understand that!" and, when deslauriers had gone up to his own apartments, the shopman did not part with frederick. he even urged his friend to buy the portrait. in fact, pellerin, abandoning the hope of being able to intimidate him, had got round them so that they might use their influence to obtain the thing for him. deslauriers spoke about it again, and pressed him on the point, urging that the artist's claims were reasonable. "i am sure that for a sum of, perhaps, five hundred francs----" "oh, give it to him! wait! here it is!" said frederick. the picture was brought the same evening. it appeared to him a still more atrocious daub than when he had seen it first. the half-tints and the shades were darkened under the excessive retouchings, and they seemed obscured when brought into relation with the lights, which, having remained very brilliant here and there, destroyed the harmony of the entire picture. frederick revenged himself for having had to pay for it by bitterly disparaging it. deslauriers believed in frederick's statement on the point, and expressed approval of his conduct, for he had always been ambitious of constituting a phalanx of which he would be the leader. certain men take delight in making their friends do things which are disagreeable to them. meanwhile, frederick did not renew his visits to the dambreuses. he lacked the capital for the investment. he would have to enter into endless explanations on the subject; he hesitated about making up his mind. perhaps he was in the right. nothing was certain now, the coal-mining speculation any more than other things. he would have to give up society of that sort. the end of the matter was that deslauriers was dissuaded from having anything further to do with the undertaking. from sheer force of hatred he had grown virtuous, and again he preferred frederick in a position of mediocrity. in this way he remained his friend's equal and in more intimate relationship with him. mademoiselle roque's commission had been very badly executed. her father wrote to him, supplying him with the most precise directions, and concluded his letter with this piece of foolery: "at the risk of giving you _nigger on the brain_!" frederick could not do otherwise than call upon the arnouxs', once more. he went to the warehouse, where he could see nobody. the firm being in a tottering condition, the clerks imitated the carelessness of their master. he brushed against the shelves laden with earthenware, which filled up the entire space in the centre of the establishment; then, when he reached the lower end, facing the counter, he walked with a more noisy tread in order to make himself heard. the portières parted, and madame arnoux appeared. "what! you here! you!" "yes," she faltered, with some agitation. "i was looking for----" he saw her handkerchief near the desk, and guessed that she had come down to her husband's warehouse to have an account given to her as to the business, to clear up some matter that caused her anxiety. "but perhaps there is something you want?" said she. "a mere nothing, madame." "these shop-assistants are intolerable! they are always out of the way." they ought not to be blamed. on the contrary, he congratulated himself on the circumstance. she gazed at him in an ironical fashion. "well, and this marriage?" "what marriage?" "your own!" "mine? i'll never marry as long as i live!" she made a gesture as if to contradict his words. "though, indeed, such things must be, after all? we take refuge in the commonplace, despairing of ever realising the beautiful existence of which we have dreamed." "all your dreams, however, are not so--candid!" "what do you mean?" "when you drive to races with women!" he cursed the maréchale. then something recurred to his memory. "but it was you begged of me yourself to see her at one time in the interest of arnoux." she replied with a shake of her head: "and you take advantage of it to amuse yourself?" "good god! let us forget all these foolish things!" "'tis right, since you are going to be married." and she stifled a sigh, while she bit her lips. then he exclaimed: "but i tell you again i am not! can you believe that i, with my intellectual requirements, my habits, am going to bury myself in the provinces in order to play cards, look after masons, and walk about in wooden shoes? what object, pray, could i have for taking such a step? you've been told that she was rich, haven't you? ah! what do i care about money? could i, after yearning long for that which is most lovely, tender, enchanting, a sort of paradise under a human form, and having found this sweet ideal at last when this vision hides every other from my view----" and taking her head between his two hands, he began to kiss her on the eyelids, repeating: "no! no! no! never will i marry! never! never!" she submitted to these caresses, her mingled amazement and delight having bereft her of the power of motion. the door of the storeroom above the staircase fell back, and she remained with outstretched arms, as if to bid him keep silence. steps drew near. then some one said from behind the door: "is madame there?" "come in!" madame arnoux had her elbow on the counter, and was twisting about a pen between her fingers quietly when the book-keeper threw aside the portière. frederick started up, as if on the point of leaving. "madame, i have the honour to salute you. the set will be ready--will it not? i may count on this?" she made no reply. but by thus silently becoming his accomplice in the deception, she made his face flush with the crimson glow of adultery. on the following day he paid her another visit. she received him; and, in order to follow up the advantage he had gained, frederick immediately, without any preamble, attempted to offer some justification for the accidental meeting in the champ de mars. it was the merest chance that led to his being in that woman's company. while admitting that she was pretty--which really was not the case--how could she for even a moment absorb his thoughts, seeing that he loved another woman? "you know it well--i told you it was so!" madame arnoux hung down her head. "i am sorry you said such a thing." "why?" "the most ordinary proprieties now demand that i should see you no more!" he protested that his love was of an innocent character. the past ought to be a guaranty as to his future conduct. he had of his own accord made it a point of honour with himself not to disturb her existence, not to deafen her with his complaints. "but yesterday my heart overflowed." "we ought not to let our thoughts dwell on that moment, my friend!" and yet, where would be the harm in two wretched beings mingling their griefs? "for, indeed, you are not happy any more than i am! oh! i know you. you have no one who responds to your craving for affection, for devotion. i will do anything you wish! i will not offend you! i swear to you that i will not!" and he let himself fall on his knees, in spite of himself, giving way beneath the weight of the feelings that oppressed his heart. "rise!" she said; "i desire you to do so!" and she declared in an imperious tone that if he did not comply with her wish, she would never see him again. "ha! i defy you to do it!" returned frederick. "what is there for me to do in the world? other men strive for riches, celebrity, power! but i have no profession; you are my exclusive occupation, my whole wealth, the object, the centre of my existence and of my thoughts. i can no more live without you than without the air of heaven! do you not feel the aspiration of my soul ascending towards yours, and that they must intermingle, and that i am dying on your account?" madame arnoux began to tremble in every limb. "oh! leave me, i beg of you?" the look of utter confusion in her face made him pause. then he advanced a step. but she drew back, with her two hands clasped. "leave me in the name of heaven, for mercy's sake!" and frederick loved her so much that he went away. soon afterwards, he was filled with rage against himself, declared in his own mind that he was an idiot, and, after the lapse of twenty-four hours, returned. madame was not there. he remained at the head of the stairs, stupefied with anger and indignation. arnoux appeared, and informed frederick that his wife had, that very morning, gone out to take up her residence at a little country-house of which he had become tenant at auteuil, as he had given up possession of the house at saint-cloud. "this is another of her whims. no matter, as she is settled at last; and myself, too, for that matter, so much the better. let us dine together this evening, will you?" frederick pleaded as an excuse some urgent business; then he hurried away of his own accord to auteuil. madame arnoux allowed an exclamation of joy to escape her lips. then all his bitterness vanished. he did not say one word about his love. in order to inspire her with confidence in him, he even exaggerated his reserve; and on his asking whether he might call again, she replied: "why, of course!" putting out her hand, which she withdrew the next moment. from that time forth, frederick increased his visits. he promised extra fares to the cabman who drove him. but often he grew impatient at the slow pace of the horse, and, alighting on the ground, he would make a dash after an omnibus, and climb to the top of it out of breath. then with what disdain he surveyed the faces of those around him, who were not going to see her! he could distinguish her house at a distance, with an enormous honeysuckle covering, on one side, the planks of the roof. it was a kind of swiss châlet, painted red, with a balcony outside. in the garden there were three old chestnut-trees, and on a rising ground in the centre might be seen a parasol made of thatch, held up by the trunk of a tree. under the slatework lining the walls, a big vine-tree, badly fastened, hung from one place to another after the fashion of a rotten cable. the gate-bell, which it was rather hard to pull, was slow in ringing, and a long time always elapsed before it was answered. on each occasion he experienced a pang of suspense, a fear born of irresolution. then his ears would be greeted with the pattering of the servant-maid's slippers over the gravel, or else madame arnoux herself would make her appearance. one day he came up behind her just as she was stooping down in the act of gathering violets. her daughter's capricious disposition had made it necessary to send the girl to a convent. her little son was at school every afternoon. arnoux was now in the habit of taking prolonged luncheons at the palais-royal with regimbart and their friend compain. they gave themselves no bother about anything that occurred, no matter how disagreeable it might be. it was clearly understood between frederick and her that they should not belong to each other. by this convention they were preserved from danger, and they found it easier to pour out their hearts to each other. she told him all about her early life at chartres, which she spent with her mother, her devotion when she had reached her twelfth year, then her passion for music, when she used to sing till nightfall in her little room, from which the ramparts could be seen. he related to her how melancholy broodings had haunted him at college, and how a woman's face shone brightly in the cloudland of his imagination, so that, when he first laid eyes upon her, he felt that her features were quite familiar to him. these conversations, as a rule, covered only the years during which they had been acquainted with each other. he recalled to her recollection insignificant details--the colour of her dress at a certain period, a woman whom they had met on a certain day, what she had said on another occasion; and she replied, quite astonished: "yes, i remember!" their tastes, their judgments, were the same. often one of them, when listening to the other, exclaimed: "that's the way with me." and the other replied: "and with me, too!" then there were endless complaints about providence: "why was it not the will of heaven? if we had only met----!" "ah! if i had been younger!" she sighed. "no, but if i had been a little older." and they pictured to themselves a life entirely given up to love, sufficiently rich to fill up the vastest solitudes, surpassing all other joys, defying all forms of wretchedness, in which the hours would glide away in a continual outpouring of their own emotions, and which would be as bright and glorious as the palpitating splendour of the stars. they were nearly always standing at the top of the stairs exposed to the free air of heaven. the tops of trees yellowed by the autumn raised their crests in front of them at unequal heights up to the edge of the pale sky; or else they walked on to the end of the avenue into a summer-house whose only furniture was a couch of grey canvas. black specks stained the glass; the walls exhaled a mouldy smell; and they remained there chatting freely about all sorts of topics--anything that happened to arise--in a spirit of hilarity. sometimes the rays of the sun, passing through the venetian blind, extended from the ceiling down to the flagstones like the strings of a lyre. particles of dust whirled amid these luminous bars. she amused herself by dividing them with her hand. frederick gently caught hold of her; and he gazed on the twinings of her veins, the grain of her skin, and the form of her fingers. each of those fingers of hers was for him more than a thing--almost a person. she gave him her gloves, and, the week after, her handkerchief. she called him "frederick;" he called her "marie," adoring this name, which, as he said, was expressly made to be uttered with a sigh of ecstasy, and which seemed to contain clouds of incense and scattered heaps of roses. they soon came to an understanding as to the days on which he would call to see her; and, leaving the house as if by mere chance, she walked along the road to meet him. she made no effort whatever to excite his love, lost in that listlessness which is characteristic of intense happiness. during the whole season she wore a brown silk dressing-gown with velvet borders of the same colour, a large garment, which united the indolence of her attitudes and her grave physiognomy. besides, she had just reached the autumnal period of womanhood, in which reflection is combined with tenderness, in which the beginning of maturity colours the face with a more intense flame, when strength of feeling mingles with experience of life, and when, having completely expanded, the entire being overflows with a richness in harmony with its beauty. never had she possessed more sweetness, more leniency. secure in the thought that she would not err, she abandoned herself to a sentiment which seemed to her won by her sorrows. and, moreover, it was so innocent and fresh! what an abyss lay between the coarseness of arnoux and the adoration of frederick! he trembled at the thought that by an imprudent word he might lose all that he had gained, saying to himself that an opportunity might be found again, but that a foolish step could never be repaired. he wished that she should give herself rather than that he should take her. the assurance of being loved by her delighted him like a foretaste of possession, and then the charm of her person troubled his heart more than his senses. it was an indefinable feeling of bliss, a sort of intoxication that made him lose sight of the possibility of having his happiness completed. apart from her, he was consumed with longing. ere long the conversations were interrupted by long spells of silence. sometimes a species of sexual shame made them blush in each other's presence. all the precautions they took to hide their love only unveiled it; the stronger it grew, the more constrained they became in manner. the effect of this dissimulation was to intensify their sensibility. they experienced a sensation of delight at the odour of moist leaves; they could not endure the east wind; they got irritated without any apparent cause, and had melancholy forebodings. the sound of a footstep, the creaking of the wainscoting, filled them with as much terror as if they had been guilty. they felt as if they were being pushed towards the edge of a chasm. they were surrounded by a tempestuous atmosphere; and when complaints escaped frederick's lips, she made accusations against herself. "yes, i am doing wrong. i am acting as if i were a coquette! don't come any more!" then he would repeat the same oaths, to which on each occasion she listened with renewed pleasure. his return to paris, and the fuss occasioned by new year's day, interrupted their meetings to some extent. when he returned, he had an air of greater self-confidence. every moment she went out to give orders, and in spite of his entreaties she received every visitor that called during the evening. after this, they engaged in conversations about léotade, m. guizot, the pope, the insurrection at palermo, and the banquet of the twelfth arrondissement, which had caused some disquietude. frederick eased his mind by railing against power, for he longed, like deslauriers, to turn the whole world upside down, so soured had he now become. madame arnoux, on her side, had become sad. her husband, indulging in displays of wild folly, was flirting with one of the girls in his pottery works, the one who was known as "the girl from bordeaux." madame arnoux was herself informed about it by frederick. he wanted to make use of it as an argument, "inasmuch as she was the victim of deception." "oh! i'm not much concerned about it," she said. this admission on her part seemed to him to strengthen the intimacy between them. would arnoux be seized with mistrust with regard to them? "no! not now!" she told him that, one evening, he had left them talking together, and had afterwards come back again and listened behind the door, and as they both were chatting at the time of matters that were of no consequence, he had lived since then in a state of complete security. "with good reason, too--is that not so?" said frederick bitterly. "yes, no doubt!" it would have been better for him not to have given so risky an answer. one day she was not at home at the hour when he usually called. to him there seemed to be a sort of treason in this. he was next displeased at seeing the flowers which he used to bring her always placed in a glass of water. "where, then, would you like me to put them?" "oh! not there! however, they are not so cold there as they would be near your heart!" not long afterwards he reproached her for having been at the italian opera the night before without having given him a previous intimation of her intention to go there. others had seen, admired, fallen in love with her, perhaps; frederick was fastening on those suspicions of his merely in order to pick a quarrel with her, to torment her; for he was beginning to hate her, and the very least he might expect was that she should share in his sufferings! one afternoon, towards the middle of february, he surprised her in a state of great mental excitement. eugène had been complaining about his sore throat. the doctor had told her, however, that it was a trifling ailment--a bad cold, an attack of influenza. frederick was astonished at the child's stupefied look. nevertheless, he reassured the mother, and brought forward the cases of several children of the same age who had been attacked with similar ailments, and had been speedily cured. "really?" "why, yes, assuredly!" "oh! how good you are!" and she caught his hand. he clasped hers tightly in his. "oh! let it go!" "what does it signify, when it is to one who sympathises with you that you offer it? you place every confidence in me when i speak of these things, but you distrust me when i talk to you about my love!" "i don't doubt you on that point, my poor friend!" "why this distrust, as if i were a wretch capable of abusing----" "oh! no!----" "if i had only a proof!----" "what proof?" "the proof that a person might give to the first comer--what you have granted to myself!" and he recalled to her recollection how, on one occasion, they had gone out together, on a winter's twilight, when there was a fog. this seemed now a long time ago. what, then, was to prevent her from showing herself on his arm before the whole world without any fear on her part, and without any mental reservation on his, not having anyone around them who could importune them? "be it so!" she said, with a promptness of decision that at first astonished frederick. but he replied, in a lively fashion: "would you like me to wait at the corner of the rue tronchet and the rue de la ferme?" "good heavens, my friend!" faltered madame arnoux. without giving her time to reflect, he added: "next tuesday, i suppose?" "tuesday?" "yes, between two and three o'clock." "i will be there!" and she turned aside her face with a movement of shame. frederick placed his lips on the nape of her neck. "oh! this is not right," she said. "you will make me repent." he turned away, dreading the fickleness which is customary with women. then, on the threshold, he murmured softly, as if it were a thing that was thoroughly understood: "on tuesday!" she lowered her beautiful eyes in a cautious and resigned fashion. frederick had a plan arranged in his mind. he hoped that, owing to the rain or the sun, he might get her to stop under some doorway, and that, once there, she would go into some house. the difficulty was to find one that would suit. he made a search, and about the middle of the rue tronchet he read, at a distance on a signboard, "furnished apartments." the waiter, divining his object, showed him immediately above the ground-floor a room and a closet with two exits. frederick took it for a month, and paid in advance. then he went into three shops to buy the rarest perfumery. he got a piece of imitation guipure, which was to replace the horrible red cotton foot-coverlets; he selected a pair of blue satin slippers, only the fear of appearing coarse checked the amount of his purchases. he came back with them; and with more devotion than those who are erecting processional altars, he altered the position of the furniture, arranged the curtains himself, put heather in the fireplace, and covered the chest of drawers with violets. he would have liked to pave the entire apartment with gold. "to-morrow is the time," said he to himself. "yes, to-morrow! i am not dreaming!" and he felt his heart throbbing violently under the delirious excitement begotten by his anticipations. then, when everything was ready, he carried off the key in his pocket, as if the happiness which slept there might have flown away along with it. a letter from his mother was awaiting him when he reached his abode: "why such a long absence? your conduct is beginning to look ridiculous. i understand your hesitating more or less at first with regard to this union. however, think well upon it." and she put the matter before him with the utmost clearness: an income of forty-five thousand francs. however, "people were talking about it;" and m. roque was waiting for a definite answer. as for the young girl, her position was truly most embarrassing. "she is deeply attached to you." frederick threw aside the letter even before he had finished reading it, and opened another epistle which came from deslauriers. "dear old boy,--the _pear_ is ripe. in accordance with your promise, we may count on you. we meet to-morrow at daybreak, in the place du panthéon. drop into the café soufflot. it is necessary for me to have a chat with you before the manifestation takes place." "oh! i know them, with their manifestations! a thousand thanks! i have a more agreeable appointment." and on the following morning, at eleven o'clock, frederick had left the house. he wanted to give one last glance at the preparations. then, who could tell but that, by some chance or other, she might be at the place of meeting before him? as he emerged from the rue tronchet, he heard a great clamour behind the madeleine. he pressed forward, and saw at the far end of the square, to the left, a number of men in blouses and well-dressed people. in fact, a manifesto published in the newspapers had summoned to this spot all who had subscribed to the banquet of the reform party. the ministry had, almost without a moment's delay, posted up a proclamation prohibiting the meeting. the parliamentary opposition had, on the previous evening, disclaimed any connection with it; but the patriots, who were unaware of this resolution on the part of their leaders, had come to the meeting-place, followed by a great crowd of spectators. a deputation from the schools had made its way, a short time before, to the house of odillon barrot. it was now at the residence of the minister for foreign affairs; and nobody could tell whether the banquet would take place, whether the government would carry out its threat, and whether the national guards would make their appearance. people were as much enraged against the deputies as against power. the crowd was growing bigger and bigger, when suddenly the strains of the "marseillaise" rang through the air. it was the students' column which had just arrived on the scene. they marched along at an ordinary walking pace, in double file and in good order, with angry faces, bare hands, and all exclaiming at intervals: "long live reform! down with guizot!" frederick's friends were there, sure enough. they would have noticed him and dragged him along with them. he quickly sought refuge in the rue de l'arcade. when the students had taken two turns round the madeleine, they went down in the direction of the place de la concorde. it was full of people; and, at a distance, the crowd pressed close together, had the appearance of a field of dark ears of corn swaying to and fro. at the same moment, some soldiers of the line ranged themselves in battle-array at the left-hand side of the church. the groups remained standing there, however. in order to put an end to this, some police-officers in civilian dress seized the most riotous of them in a brutal fashion, and carried them off to the guard-house. frederick, in spite of his indignation, remained silent; he might have been arrested along with the others, and he would have missed madame arnoux. a little while afterwards the helmets of the municipal guards appeared. they kept striking about them with the flat side of their sabres. a horse fell down. the people made a rush forward to save him, and as soon as the rider was in the saddle, they all ran away. then there was a great silence. the thin rain, which had moistened the asphalt, was no longer falling. clouds floated past, gently swept on by the west wind. frederick began running through the rue tronchet, looking before him and behind him. at length it struck two o'clock. "ha! now is the time!" said he to himself. "she is leaving her house; she is approaching," and a minute after, "she would have had time to be here." up to three he tried to keep quiet. "no, she is not going to be late--a little patience!" and for want of something to do he examined the most interesting shops that he passed--a bookseller's, a saddler's and a mourning warehouse. soon he knew the names of the different books, the various kinds of harness, and every sort of material. the persons who looked after these establishments, from seeing him continually going backwards and forwards, were at first surprised, and then alarmed, and they closed up their shop-fronts. no doubt she had met with some impediment, and for that reason she must be enduring pain on account of it. but what delight would be afforded in a very short time! for she would come--that was certain. "she has given me her promise!" in the meantime an intolerable feeling of anxiety was gradually seizing hold of him. impelled by an absurd idea, he returned to his hotel, as if he expected to find her there. at the same moment, she might have reached the street in which their meeting was to take place. he rushed out. was there no one? and he resumed his tramp up and down the footpath. he stared at the gaps in the pavement, the mouths of the gutters, the candelabra, and the numbers above the doors. the most trifling objects became for him companions, or rather, ironical spectators, and the regular fronts of the houses seemed to him to have a pitiless aspect. he was suffering from cold feet. he felt as if he were about to succumb to the dejection which was crushing him. the reverberation of his footsteps vibrated through his brain. when he saw by his watch that it was four o'clock, he experienced, as it were, a sense of vertigo, a feeling of dismay. he tried to repeat some verses to himself, to enter on a calculation, no matter of what sort, to invent some kind of story. impossible! he was beset by the image of madame arnoux; he felt a longing to run in order to meet her. but what road ought he to take so that they might not pass each other? he went up to a messenger, put five francs into his hand, and ordered him to go to the rue de paradis to jacques arnoux's residence to enquire "if madame were at home." then he took up his post at the corner of the rue de la ferme and of the rue tronchet, so as to be able to look down both of them at the same time. on the boulevard, in the background of the scene in front of him, confused masses of people were gliding past. he could distinguish, every now and then, the aigrette of a dragoon or a woman's hat; and he strained his eyes in the effort to recognise the wearer. a child in rags, exhibiting a jack-in-the-box, asked him, with a smile, for alms. the man with the velvet vest reappeared. "the porter had not seen her going out." what had kept her in? if she were ill he would have been told about it. was it a visitor? nothing was easier than to say that she was not at home. he struck his forehead. "ah! i am stupid! of course, 'tis this political outbreak that prevented her from coming!" he was relieved by this apparently natural explanation. then, suddenly: "but her quarter of the city is quiet." and a horrible doubt seized hold of his mind: "suppose she was not coming at all, and merely gave me a promise in order to get rid of me? no, no!" what had prevented her from coming was, no doubt, some extraordinary mischance, one of those occurrences that baffled all one's anticipations. in that case she would have written to him. and he sent the hotel errand-boy to his residence in the rue rumfort to find out whether there happened to be a letter waiting for him there. no letter had been brought. this absence of news reassured him. he drew omens from the number of coins which he took up in his hand out of his pocket by chance, from the physiognomies of the passers-by, and from the colour of different horses; and when the augury was unfavourable, he forced himself to disbelieve in it. in his sudden outbursts of rage against madame arnoux, he abused her in muttering tones. then came fits of weakness that nearly made him swoon, followed, all of a sudden, by fresh rebounds of hopefulness. she would make her appearance presently! she was there, behind his back! he turned round--there was nobody there! once he perceived, about thirty paces away, a woman of the same height, with a dress of the same kind. he came up to her--it was not she. it struck five--half-past five--six. the gas-lamps were lighted, madame arnoux had not come. the night before, she had dreamed that she had been, for some time, on the footpath in the rue tronchet. she was waiting there for something the nature of which she was not quite clear about, but which, nevertheless, was of great importance; and, without knowing why, she was afraid of being seen. but a pestiferous little dog kept barking at her furiously and biting at the hem of her dress. every time she shook him off he returned stubbornly to the attack, always barking more violently than before. madame arnoux woke up. the dog's barking continued. she strained her ears to listen. it came from her son's room. she rushed to the spot in her bare feet. it was the child himself who was coughing. his hands were burning, his face flushed, and his voice singularly hoarse. every minute he found it more difficult to breathe freely. she waited there till daybreak, bent over the coverlet watching him. at eight o'clock the drum of the national guard gave warning to m. arnoux that his comrades were expecting his arrival. he dressed himself quickly and went away, promising that he would immediately be passing the house of their doctor, m. colot. at ten o'clock, when m. colot did not make his appearance, madame arnoux despatched her chambermaid for him. the doctor was away in the country; and the young man who was taking his place had gone out on some business. eugène kept his head on one side on the bolster with contracted eyebrows and dilated nostrils. his pale little face had become whiter than the sheets; and there escaped from his larynx a wheezing caused by his oppressed breathing, which became gradually shorter, dryer, and more metallic. his cough resembled the noise made by those barbarous mechanical inventions by which toy-dogs are enabled to bark. madame arnoux was seized with terror. she rang the bell violently, calling out for help, and exclaiming: "a doctor! a doctor!" ten minutes later came an elderly gentleman in a white tie, and with grey whiskers well trimmed. he put several questions as to the habits, the age, and the constitution of the young patient, and studied the case with his head thrown back. he next wrote out a prescription. the calm manner of this old man was intolerable. he smelt of aromatics. she would have liked to beat him. he said he would come back in the evening. the horrible coughing soon began again. sometimes the child arose suddenly. convulsive movements shook the muscles of his breast; and in his efforts to breathe his stomach shrank in as if he were suffocating after running too hard. then he sank down, with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open. with infinite pains, madame arnoux tried to make him swallow the contents of the phials, hippo wine, and a potion containing trisulphate of antimony. but he pushed away the spoon, groaning in a feeble voice. he seemed to be blowing out his words. from time to time she re-read the prescription. the observations of the formulary frightened her. perhaps the apothecary had made some mistake. her powerlessness filled her with despair. m. colot's pupil arrived. he was a young man of modest demeanour, new to medical work, and he made no attempt to disguise his opinion about the case. he was at first undecided as to what he should do, for fear of compromising himself, and finally he ordered pieces of ice to be applied to the sick child. it took a long time to get ice. the bladder containing the ice burst. it was necessary to change the little boy's shirt. this disturbance brought on an attack of even a more dreadful character than any of the previous ones. the child began tearing off the linen round his neck, as if he wanted to remove the obstacle that was choking him; and he scratched the walls and seized the curtains of his bedstead, trying to get a point of support to assist him in breathing. his face was now of a bluish hue, and his entire body, steeped in a cold perspiration, appeared to be growing lean. his haggard eyes were fixed with terror on his mother. he threw his arms round her neck, and hung there in a desperate fashion; and, repressing her rising sobs, she gave utterance in a broken voice to loving words: "yes, my pet, my angel, my treasure!" then came intervals of calm. she went to look for playthings--a punchinello, a collection of images, and spread them out on the bed in order to amuse him. she even made an attempt to sing. she began to sing a little ballad which she used to sing years before, when she was nursing him wrapped up in swaddling-clothes in this same little upholstered chair. but a shiver ran all over his frame, just as when a wave is agitated by the wind. the balls of his eyes protruded. she thought he was going to die, and turned away her eyes to avoid seeing him. the next moment she felt strength enough in her to look at him. he was still living. the hours succeeded each other--dull, mournful, interminable, hopeless, and she no longer counted the minutes, save by the progress of this mental anguish. the shakings of his chest threw him forward as if to shatter his body. finally, he vomited something strange, which was like a parchment tube. what was this? she fancied that he had evacuated one end of his entrails. but he now began to breathe freely and regularly. this appearance of well-being frightened her more than anything else that had happened. she was sitting like one petrified, her arms hanging by her sides, her eyes fixed, when m. colot suddenly made his appearance. the child, in his opinion, was saved. she did not realise what he meant at first, and made him repeat the words. was not this one of those consoling phrases which were customary with medical men? the doctor went away with an air of tranquillity. then it seemed as if the cords that pressed round her heart were loosened. "saved! is this possible?" suddenly the thought of frederick presented itself to her mind in a clear and inexorable fashion. it was a warning sent to her by providence. but the lord in his mercy had not wished to complete her chastisement. what expiation could she offer hereafter if she were to persevere in this love-affair? no doubt insults would be flung at her son's head on her account; and madame arnoux saw him a young man, wounded in a combat, carried off on a litter, dying. at one spring she threw herself on the little chair, and, letting her soul escape towards the heights of heaven, she vowed to god that she would sacrifice, as a holocaust, her first real passion, her only weakness as a woman. frederick had returned home. he remained in his armchair, without even possessing enough of energy to curse her. a sort of slumber fell upon him, and, in the midst of his nightmare, he could hear the rain falling, still under the impression that he was there outside on the footpath. next morning, yielding to an incapacity to resist the temptation which clung to him, he again sent a messenger to madame arnoux's house. whether the true explanation happened to be that the fellow did not deliver his message, or that she had too many things to say to explain herself in a word or two, the same answer was brought back. this insolence was too great! a feeling of angry pride took possession of him. he swore in his own mind that he would never again cherish even a desire; and, like a group of leaves carried away by a hurricane, his love disappeared. he experienced a sense of relief, a feeling of stoical joy, then a need of violent action; and he walked on at random through the streets. men from the faubourgs were marching past armed with guns and old swords, some of them wearing red caps, and all singing the "marseillaise" or the "girondins." here and there a national guard was hurrying to join his mayoral department. drums could be heard rolling in the distance. a conflict was going on at porte saint-martin. there was something lively and warlike in the air. frederick kept walking on without stopping. the excitement of the great city made him gay. on the frascati hill he got a glimpse of the maréchale's windows: a wild idea occurred to him, a reaction of youthfulness. he crossed the boulevard. the yard-gate was just being closed; and delphine, who was in the act of writing on it with a piece of charcoal, "arms given," said to him in an eager tone: "ah! madame is in a nice state! she dismissed a groom who insulted her this morning. she thinks there's going to be pillage everywhere. she is frightened to death! and the more so as monsieur has gone!" "what monsieur?" "the prince!" frederick entered the boudoir. the maréchale appeared in her petticoat, and her hair hanging down her back in disorder. "ah! thanks! you are going to save me! 'tis the second time! you are one of those who never count the cost!" "a thousand pardons!" said frederick, catching her round the waist with both hands. "how now? what are you doing?" stammered the maréchale, at the same time, surprised and cheered up by his manner. he replied: "i am the fashion! i'm reformed!" she let herself fall back on the divan, and continued laughing under his kisses. they spent the afternoon looking out through the window at the people in the street. then he brought her to dine at the trois frères provençaux. the meal was a long and dainty one. they came back on foot for want of a vehicle. at the announcement of a change of ministry, paris had changed. everyone was in a state of delight. people kept promenading about the streets, and every floor was illuminated with lamps, so that it seemed as if it were broad daylight. the soldiers made their way back to their barracks, worn out and looking quite depressed. the people saluted them with exclamations of "long live the line!" they went on without making any response. among the national guard, on the contrary, the officers, flushed with enthusiasm, brandished their sabres, vociferating: "long live reform!" and every time the two lovers heard this word they laughed. frederick told droll stories, and was quite gay. making their way through the rue duphot, they reached the boulevards. venetian lanterns hanging from the houses formed wreaths of flame. underneath, a confused swarm of people kept in constant motion. in the midst of those moving shadows could be seen, here and there, the steely glitter of bayonets. there was a great uproar. the crowd was too compact, and it was impossible to make one's way back in a straight line. they were entering the rue caumartin, when suddenly there burst forth behind them a noise like the crackling made by an immense piece of silk in the act of being torn across. it was the discharge of musketry on the boulevard des capucines. "ha! a few of the citizens are getting a crack," said frederick calmly; for there are situations in which a man of the least cruel disposition is so much detached from his fellow-men that he would see the entire human race perishing without a single throb of the heart. the maréchale was clinging to his arm with her teeth chattering. she declared that she would not be able to walk twenty steps further. then, by a refinement of hatred, in order the better to offer an outrage in his own soul to madame arnoux, he led rosanette to the hotel in the rue tronchet, and brought her up to the room which he had got ready for the other. the flowers were not withered. the guipure was spread out on the bed. he drew forth from the cupboard the little slippers. rosanette considered this forethought on his part a great proof of his delicacy of sentiment. about one o'clock she was awakened by distant rolling sounds, and she saw that he was sobbing with his head buried in the pillow. "what's the matter with you now, my own darling?" "'tis the excess of happiness," said frederick. "i have been too long yearning after you!" chapter xiv. the barricade. he was abruptly roused from sleep by the noise of a discharge of musketry; and, in spite of rosanette's entreaties, frederick was fully determined to go and see what was happening. he hurried down to the champs-elysées, from which shots were being fired. at the corner of the rue saint-honoré some men in blouses ran past him, exclaiming: "no! not that way! to the palais-royal!" frederick followed them. the grating of the convent of the assumption had been torn away. a little further on he noticed three paving-stones in the middle of the street, the beginning of a barricade, no doubt; then fragments of bottles and bundles of iron-wire, to obstruct the cavalry; and, at the same moment, there rushed suddenly out of a lane a tall young man of pale complexion, with his black hair flowing over his shoulders, and with a sort of pea-coloured swaddling-cloth thrown round him. in his hand he held a long military musket, and he dashed along on the tips of his slippers with the air of a somnambulist and with the nimbleness of a tiger. at intervals a detonation could be heard. on the evening of the day before, the spectacle of the wagon containing five corpses picked up from amongst those that were lying on the boulevard des capucines had charged the disposition of the people; and, while at the tuileries the aides-de-camp succeeded each other, and m. molé, having set about the composition of a new cabinet, did not come back, and m. thiers was making efforts to constitute another, and while the king was cavilling and hesitating, and finally assigned the post of commander-in-chief to bugeaud in order to prevent him from making use of it, the insurrection was organising itself in a formidable manner, as if it were directed by a single arm. men endowed with a kind of frantic eloquence were engaged in haranguing the populace at the street-corners, others were in the churches ringing the tocsin as loudly as ever they could. lead was cast for bullets, cartridges were rolled about. the trees on the boulevards, the urinals, the benches, the gratings, the gas-burners, everything was torn off and thrown down. paris, that morning, was covered with barricades. the resistance which was offered was of short duration, so that at eight o'clock the people, by voluntary surrender or by force, had got possession of five barracks, nearly all the municipal buildings, the most favourable strategic points. of its own accord, without any effort, the monarchy was melting away in rapid dissolution, and now an attack was made on the guard-house of the château d'eau, in order to liberate fifty prisoners, who were not there. frederick was forced to stop at the entrance to the square. it was filled with groups of armed men. the rue saint-thomas and the rue fromanteau were occupied by companies of the line. the rue de valois was choked up by an enormous barricade. the smoke which fluttered about at the top of it partly opened. men kept running overhead, making violent gestures; they vanished from sight; then the firing was again renewed. it was answered from the guard-house without anyone being seen inside. its windows, protected by oaken window-shutters, were pierced with loop-holes; and the monument with its two storys, its two wings, its fountain on the first floor and its little door in the centre, was beginning to be speckled with white spots under the shock of the bullets. the three steps in front of it remained unoccupied. at frederick's side a man in a greek cap, with a cartridge-box over his knitted vest, was holding a dispute with a woman with a madras neckerchief round her shoulders. she said to him: "come back now! come back!" "leave me alone!" replied the husband. "you can easily mind the porter's lodge by yourself. i ask, citizen, is this fair? i have on every occasion done my duty--in , in ' , in ' , and in ' ! to-day they're fighting again. i must fight! go away!" and the porter's wife ended by yielding to his remonstrances and to those of a national guard near them--a man of forty, whose simple face was adorned with a circle of white beard. he loaded his gun and fired while talking to frederick, as cool in the midst of the outbreak as a horticulturist in his garden. a young lad with a packing-cloth thrown over him was trying to coax this man to give him a few caps, so that he might make use of a gun he had, a fine fowling-piece which a "gentleman" had made him a present of. "catch on behind my back," said the good man, "and keep yourself from being seen, or you'll get yourself killed!" the drums beat for the charge. sharp cries, hurrahs of triumph burst forth. a continual ebbing to and fro made the multitude sway backward and forward. frederick, caught between two thick masses of people, did not move an inch, all the time fascinated and exceedingly amused by the scene around him. the wounded who sank to the ground, the dead lying at his feet, did not seem like persons really wounded or really dead. the impression left on his mind was that he was looking on at a show. in the midst of the surging throng, above the sea of heads, could be seen an old man in a black coat, mounted on a white horse with a velvet saddle. he held in one hand a green bough, in the other a paper, and he kept shaking them persistently; but at length, giving up all hope of obtaining a hearing, he withdrew from the scene. the soldiers of the line had gone, and only the municipal troops remained to defend the guard-house. a wave of dauntless spirits dashed up the steps; they were flung down; others came on to replace them, and the gate resounded under blows from iron bars. the municipal guards did not give way. but a wagon, stuffed full of hay, and burning like a gigantic torch, was dragged against the walls. faggots were speedily brought, then straw, and a barrel of spirits of wine. the fire mounted up to the stones along the wall; the building began to send forth smoke on all sides like the crater of a volcano; and at its summit, between the balustrades of the terrace, huge flames escaped with a harsh noise. the first story of the palais-royal was occupied by national guards. shots were fired through every window in the square; the bullets whizzed, the water of the fountain, which had burst, was mingled with the blood, forming little pools on the ground. people slipped in the mud over clothes, shakos, and weapons. frederick felt something soft under his foot. it was the hand of a sergeant in a grey great-coat, lying on his face in the stream that ran along the street. fresh bands of people were continually coming up, pushing on the combatants at the guard-house. the firing became quicker. the wine-shops were open; people went into them from time to time to smoke a pipe and drink a glass of beer, and then came back again to fight. a lost dog began to howl. this made the people laugh. frederick was shaken by the impact of a man falling on his shoulder with a bullet through his back and the death-rattle in his throat. at this shot, perhaps directed against himself, he felt himself stirred up to rage; and he was plunging forward when a national guard stopped him. "'tis useless! the king has just gone! ah! if you don't believe me, go and see for yourself!" this assurance calmed frederick. the place du carrousel had a tranquil aspect. the hôtel de nantes stood there as fixed as ever; and the houses in the rear; the dome of the louvre in front, the long gallery of wood at the right, and the waste plot of ground that ran unevenly as far as the sheds of the stall-keepers were, so to speak, steeped in the grey hues of the atmosphere, where indistinct murmurs seemed to mingle with the fog; while, at the opposite side of the square, a stiff light, falling through the parting of the clouds on the façade of the tuileries, cut out all its windows into white patches. near the arc de triomphe a dead horse lay on the ground. behind the gratings groups consisting of five or six persons were chatting. the doors leading into the château were open, and the servants at the thresholds allowed the people to enter. below stairs, in a kind of little parlour, bowls of _café au lait_ were handed round. a few of those present sat down to the table and made merry; others remained standing, and amongst the latter was a hackney-coachman. he snatched up with both hands a glass vessel full of powdered sugar, cast a restless glance right and left, and then began to eat voraciously, with his nose stuck into the mouth of the vessel. at the bottom of the great staircase a man was writing his name in a register. frederick was able to recognise him by his back. "hallo, hussonnet!" "yes, 'tis i," replied the bohemian. "i am introducing myself at court. this is a nice joke, isn't it?" "suppose we go upstairs?" and they reached presently the salle des maréchaux. the portraits of those illustrious generals, save that of bugeaud, which had been pierced through the stomach, were all intact. they were represented leaning on their sabres with a gun-carriage behind each of them, and in formidable attitudes in contrast with the occasion. a large timepiece proclaimed it was twenty minutes past one. suddenly the "marseillaise" resounded. hussonnet and frederick bent over the balusters. it was the people. they rushed up the stairs, shaking with a dizzying, wave-like motion bare heads, or helmets, or red caps, or else bayonets or human shoulders with such impetuosity that some people disappeared every now and then in this swarming mass, which was mounting up without a moment's pause, like a river compressed by an equinoctial tide, with a continuous roar under an irresistible impulse. when they got to the top of the stairs, they were scattered, and their chant died away. nothing could any longer be heard but the tramp of all the shoes intermingled with the chopping sound of many voices. the crowd not being in a mischievous mood, contented themselves with looking about them. but, from time to time, an elbow, by pressing too hard, broke through a pane of glass, or else a vase or a statue rolled from a bracket down on the floor. the wainscotings cracked under the pressure of people against them. every face was flushed; the perspiration was rolling down their features in large beads. hussonnet made this remark: "heroes have not a good smell." "ah! you are provoking," returned frederick. and, pushed forward in spite of themselves, they entered an apartment in which a dais of red velvet rose as far as the ceiling. on the throne below sat a representative of the proletariat in effigy with a black beard, his shirt gaping open, a jolly air, and the stupid look of a baboon. others climbed up the platform to sit in his place. "what a myth!" said hussonnet. "there you see the sovereign people!" the armchair was lifted up on the hands of a number of persons and passed across the hall, swaying from one side to the other. "by jove, 'tis like a boat! the ship of state is tossing about in a stormy sea! let it dance the cancan! let it dance the cancan!" they had drawn it towards a window, and in the midst of hisses, they launched it out. "poor old chap!" said hussonnet, as he saw the effigy falling into the garden, where it was speedily picked up in order to be afterwards carried to the bastille and burned. then a frantic joy burst forth, as if, instead of the throne, a future of boundless happiness had appeared; and the people, less through a spirit of vindictiveness than to assert their right of possession, broke or tore the glasses, the curtains, the lustres, the tapers, the tables, the chairs, the stools, the entire furniture, including the very albums and engravings, and the corbels of the tapestry. since they had triumphed, they must needs amuse themselves! the common herd ironically wrapped themselves up in laces and cashmeres. gold fringes were rolled round the sleeves of blouses. hats with ostriches' feathers adorned blacksmiths' heads, and ribbons of the legion of honour supplied waistbands for prostitutes. each person satisfied his or her caprice; some danced, others drank. in the queen's apartment a woman gave a gloss to her hair with pomatum. behind a folding-screen two lovers were playing cards. hussonnet pointed out to frederick an individual who was smoking a dirty pipe with his elbows resting on a balcony; and the popular frenzy redoubled with a continuous crash of broken porcelain and pieces of crystal, which, as they rebounded, made sounds resembling those produced by the plates of musical glasses. then their fury was overshadowed. a nauseous curiosity made them rummage all the dressing-rooms, all the recesses. returned convicts thrust their arms into the beds in which princesses had slept, and rolled themselves on the top of them, to console themselves for not being able to embrace their owners. others, with sinister faces, roamed about silently, looking for something to steal, but too great a multitude was there. through the bays of the doors could be seen in the suite of apartments only the dark mass of people between the gilding of the walls under a cloud of dust. every breast was panting. the heat became more and more suffocating; and the two friends, afraid of being stifled, seized the opportunity of making their way out. in the antechamber, standing on a heap of garments, appeared a girl of the town as a statue of liberty, motionless, her grey eyes wide open--a fearful sight. they had taken three steps outside the château when a company of the national guards, in great-coats, advanced towards them, and, taking off their foraging-caps, and, at the same time, uncovering their skulls, which were slightly bald, bowed very low to the people. at this testimony of respect, the ragged victors bridled up. hussonnet and frederick were not without experiencing a certain pleasure from it as well as the rest. they were filled with ardour. they went back to the palais-royal. in front of the rue fromanteau, soldiers' corpses were heaped up on the straw. they passed close to the dead without a single quiver of emotion, feeling a certain pride in being able to keep their countenance. the palais overflowed with people. in the inner courtyard seven piles of wood were flaming. pianos, chests of drawers, and clocks were hurled out through the windows. fire-engines sent streams of water up to the roofs. some vagabonds tried to cut the hose with their sabres. frederick urged a pupil of the polytechnic school to interfere. the latter did not understand him, and, moreover, appeared to be an idiot. all around, in the two galleries, the populace, having got possession of the cellars, gave themselves up to a horrible carouse. wine flowed in streams and wetted people's feet; the mudlarks drank out of the tail-ends of the bottles, and shouted as they staggered along. "come away out of this," said hussonnet; "i am disgusted with the people." all over the orléans gallery the wounded lay on mattresses on the ground, with purple curtains folded round them as coverlets; and the small shopkeepers' wives and daughters from the quarter brought them broth and linen. "no matter!" said frederick; "for my part, i consider the people sublime." the great vestibule was filled with a whirlwind of furious individuals. men tried to ascend to the upper storys in order to put the finishing touches to the work of wholesale destruction. national guards, on the steps, strove to keep them back. the most intrepid was a chasseur, who had his head bare, his hair bristling, and his straps in pieces. his shirt caused a swelling between his trousers and his coat, and he struggled desperately in the midst of the others. hussonnet, who had sharp sight, recognised arnoux from a distance. then they went into the tuileries garden, so as to be able to breathe more freely. they sat down on a bench; and they remained for some minutes with their eyes closed, so much stunned that they had not the energy to say a word. the people who were passing came up to them and informed them that the duchesse d'orléans had been appointed regent, and that it was all over. they were experiencing that species of comfort which follows rapid _dénouements_, when at the windows of the attics in the château appeared men-servants tearing their liveries to pieces. they flung their torn clothes into the garden, as a mark of renunciation. the people hooted at them, and then they retired. the attention of frederick and hussonnet was distracted by a tall fellow who was walking quickly between the trees with a musket on his shoulder. a cartridge-box was pressed against his pea-jacket; a handkerchief was wound round his forehead under his cap. he turned his head to one side. it was dussardier; and casting himself into their arms: "ah! what good fortune, my poor old friends!" without being able to say another word, so much out of breath was he with fatigue. he had been on his legs for the last twenty-four hours. he had been engaged at the barricades of the latin quarter, had fought in the rue rabuteau, had saved three dragoons' lives, had entered the tuileries with colonel dunoyer, and, after that, had repaired to the chamber, and then to the hôtel de ville. "i have come from it! all goes well! the people are victorious! the workmen and the employers are embracing one another. ha! if you knew what i have seen! what brave fellows! what a fine sight it was!" and without noticing that they had no arms: "i was quite certain of finding you there! this has been a bit rough--no matter!" a drop of blood ran down his cheek, and in answer to the questions put to him by the two others: "oh! 'tis nothing! a slight scratch from a bayonet!" "however, you really ought to take care of yourself." "pooh! i am substantial! what does this signify? the republic is proclaimed! we'll be happy henceforth! some journalists, who were talking just now in front of me, said they were going to liberate poland and italy! no more kings! you understand? the entire land free! the entire land free!" and with one comprehensive glance at the horizon, he spread out his arms in a triumphant attitude. but a long file of men rushed over the terrace on the water's edge. "ah, deuce take it! i was forgetting. i must be off. good-bye!" he turned round to cry out to them while brandishing his musket: "long live the republic!" from the chimneys of the château escaped enormous whirlwinds of black smoke which bore sparks along with them. the ringing of the bells sent out over the city a wild and startling alarm. right and left, in every direction, the conquerors discharged their weapons. frederick, though he was not a warrior, felt the gallic blood leaping in his veins. the magnetism of the public enthusiasm had seized hold of him. he inhaled with a voluptuous delight the stormy atmosphere filled with the odour of gunpowder; and, in the meantime, he quivered under the effluvium of an immense love, a supreme and universal tenderness, as if the heart of all humanity were throbbing in his breast. hussonnet said with a yawn: "it would be time, perhaps, to go and instruct the populace." frederick followed him to his correspondence-office in the place de la bourse; and he began to compose for the troyes newspaper an account of recent events in a lyric style--a veritable tit-bit--to which he attached his signature. then they dined together at a tavern. hussonnet was pensive; the eccentricities of the revolution exceeded his own. after leaving the café, when they repaired to the hôtel de ville to learn the news, the boyish impulses which were natural to him had got the upper hand once more. he scaled the barricades like a chamois, and answered the sentinels with broad jokes of a patriotic flavour. they heard the provisional government proclaimed by torchlight. at last, frederick got back to his house at midnight, overcome with fatigue. "well," said he to his man-servant, while the latter was undressing him, "are you satisfied?" "yes, no doubt, monsieur; but i don't like to see the people dancing to music." next morning, when he awoke, frederick thought of deslauriers. he hastened to his friend's lodgings. he ascertained that the advocate had just left paris, having been appointed a provincial commissioner. at the _soirée_ given the night before, he had got into contact with ledru-rollin, and laying siege to him in the name of the law schools, had snatched from him a post, a mission. however, the doorkeeper explained, he was going to write and give his address in the following week. after this, frederick went to see the maréchale. she gave him a chilling reception. she resented his desertion of her. her bitterness disappeared when he had given her repeated assurances that peace was restored. all was quiet now. there was no reason to be afraid. he kissed her, and she declared herself in favour of the republic, as his lordship the archbishop of paris had already done, and as the magistracy, the council of state, the institute, the marshals of france, changarnier, m. de falloux, all the bonapartists, all the legitimists, and a considerable number of orléanists were about to do with a swiftness indicative of marvellous zeal. the fall of the monarchy had been so rapid that, as soon as the first stupefaction that succeeded it had passed away, there was amongst the middle class a feeling of astonishment at the fact that they were still alive. the summary execution of some thieves, who were shot without a trial, was regarded as an act of signal justice. for a month lamartine's phrase was repeated with reference to the red flag, "which had only gone the round of the champ de mars, while the tricoloured flag," etc.; and all ranged themselves under its shade, each party seeing amongst the three colours only its own, and firmly determined, as soon as it would be the most powerful, to tear away the two others. as business was suspended, anxiety and love of gaping drove everyone into the open air. the careless style of costume generally adopted attenuated differences of social position. hatred masked itself; expectations were openly indulged in; the multitude seemed full of good-nature. the pride of having gained their rights shone in the people's faces. they displayed the gaiety of a carnival, the manners of a bivouac. nothing could be more amusing than the aspect of paris during the first days that followed the revolution. frederick gave the maréchale his arm, and they strolled along through the streets together. she was highly diverted by the display of rosettes in every buttonhole, by the banners hung from every window, and the bills of every colour that were posted upon the walls, and threw some money here and there into the collection-boxes for the wounded, which were placed on chairs in the middle of the pathway. then she stopped before some caricatures representing louis philippe as a pastry-cook, as a mountebank, as a dog, or as a leech. but she was a little frightened at the sight of caussidière's men with their sabres and scarfs. at other times it was a tree of liberty that was being planted. the clergy vied with each other in blessing the republic, escorted by servants in gold lace; and the populace thought this very fine. the most frequent spectacle was that of deputations from no matter what, going to demand something at the hôtel de ville, for every trade, every industry, was looking to the government to put a complete end to its wretchedness. some of them, it is true, went to offer it advice or to congratulate it, or merely to pay it a little visit, and to see the machine performing its functions. one day, about the middle of the month of march, as they were passing the pont d'arcole, having to do some commission for rosanette in the latin quarter, frederick saw approaching a column of individuals with oddly-shaped hats and long beards. at its head, beating a drum, walked a negro who had formerly been an artist's model; and the man who bore the banner, on which this inscription floated in the wind, "artist-painters," was no other than pellerin. he made a sign to frederick to wait for him, and then reappeared five minutes afterwards, having some time before him; for the government was, at that moment, receiving a deputation from the stone-cutters. he was going with his colleagues to ask for the creation of a forum of art, a kind of exchange where the interests of Æsthetics would be discussed. sublime masterpieces would be produced, inasmuch as the workers would amalgamate their talents. ere long paris would be covered with gigantic monuments. he would decorate them. he had even begun a figure of the republic. one of his comrades had come to take it, for they were closely pursued by the deputation from the poulterers. "what stupidity!" growled a voice in the crowd. "always some humbug, nothing strong!" it was regimbart. he did not salute frederick, but took advantage of the occasion to give vent to his own bitterness. the citizen spent his days wandering about the streets, pulling his moustache, rolling his eyes about, accepting and propagating any dismal news that was communicated to him; and he had only two phrases: "take care! we're going to be run over!" or else, "why, confound it! they're juggling with the republic!" he was discontented with everything, and especially with the fact that we had not taken back our natural frontiers. the very name of lamartine made him shrug his shoulders. he did not consider ledru-rollin "sufficient for the problem," referred to dupont (of the eure) as an old numbskull, albert as an idiot, louis blanc as an utopist, and blanqui as an exceedingly dangerous man; and when frederick asked him what would be the best thing to do, he replied, pressing his arm till he nearly bruised it: "to take the rhine, i tell you! to take the rhine, damn it!" then he blamed the reactionaries. they were taking off the mask. the sack of the château of neuilly and suresne, the fire at batignolles, the troubles at lyons, all the excesses and all the grievances, were just now being exaggerated by having superadded to them ledru-rollin's circular, the forced currency of bank-notes, the fall of the funds to sixty francs, and, to crown all, as the supreme iniquity, a final blow, a culminating horror, the duty of forty-five centimes! and over and above all these things, there was again socialism! although these theories, as new as the game of goose, had been discussed sufficiently for forty years to fill a number of libraries, they terrified the wealthier citizens, as if they had been a hailstorm of aërolites; and they expressed indignation at them by virtue of that hatred which the advent of every idea provokes, simply because it is an idea--an odium from which it derives subsequently its glory, and which causes its enemies to be always beneath it, however lowly it may be. then property rose in their regard to the level of religion, and was confounded with god. the attacks made on it appeared to them a sacrilege; almost a species of cannibalism. in spite of the most humane legislation that ever existed, the spectre of ' reappeared, and the chopper of the guillotine vibrated in every syllable of the word "republic," which did not prevent them from despising it for its weakness. france, no longer feeling herself mistress of the situation, was beginning to shriek with terror, like a blind man without his stick or an infant that had lost its nurse. of all frenchmen, m. dambreuse was the most alarmed. the new condition of things threatened his fortune, but, more than anything else, it deceived his experience. a system so good! a king so wise! was it possible? the ground was giving way beneath their feet! next morning he dismissed three of his servants, sold his horses, bought a soft hat to go out into the streets, thought even of letting his beard grow; and he remained at home, prostrated, reading over and over again newspapers most hostile to his own ideas, and plunged into such a gloomy mood that even the jokes about the pipe of flocon[f] had not the power to make him smile. as a supporter of the last reign, he was dreading the vengeance of the people so far as concerned his estates in champagne when frederick's lucubration fell into his hands. then it occurred to his mind that his young friend was a very useful personage, and that he might be able, if not to serve him, at least to protect him, so that, one morning, m. dambreuse presented himself at frederick's residence, accompanied by martinon. [f] this is another political allusion. flocon was a well-known member of the ministry of the day.--translator. this visit, he said, had no object save that of seeing him for a little while, and having a chat with him. in short, he rejoiced at the events that had happened, and with his whole heart adopted "our sublime motto, _liberty, equality, and fraternity_," having always been at bottom a republican. if he voted under the other _régime_ with the ministry, it was simply in order to accelerate an inevitable downfall. he even inveighed against m. guizot, "who has got us into a nice hobble, we must admit!" by way of retaliation, he spoke in an enthusiastic fashion about lamartine, who had shown himself "magnificent, upon my word of honour, when, with reference to the red flag----" "yes, i know," said frederick. after which he declared that his sympathies were on the side of the working-men. "for, in fact, more or less, we are all working-men!" and he carried his impartiality so far as to acknowledge that proudhon had a certain amount of logic in his views. "oh, a great deal of logic, deuce take it!" then, with the disinterestedness of a superior mind, he chatted about the exhibition of pictures, at which he had seen pellerin's work. he considered it original and well-painted. martinon backed up all he said with expressions of approval; and likewise was of his opinion that it was necessary to rally boldly to the side of the republic. and he talked about the husbandman, his father, and assumed the part of the peasant, the man of the people. they soon came to the question of the elections for the national assembly, and the candidates in the arrondissement of la fortelle. the opposition candidate had no chance. "you should take his place!" said m. dambreuse. frederick protested. "but why not?" for he would obtain the suffrages of the extremists owing to his personal opinions, and that of the conservatives on account of his family; "and perhaps also," added the banker, with a smile, "thanks to my influence, in some measure." frederick urged as an obstacle that he did not know how to set about it. there was nothing easier if he only got himself recommended to the patriots of the aube by one of the clubs of the capital. all he had to do was to read out, not a profession of faith such as might be seen every day, but a serious statement of principles. "bring it to me; i know what goes down in the locality; and you can, i say again, render great services to the country--to us all--to myself." in such times people ought to aid each other, and, if frederick had need of anything, he or his friends---- "oh, a thousand thanks, my dear monsieur!" "you'll do as much for me in return, mind!" decidedly, the banker was a decent man. frederick could not refrain from pondering over his advice; and soon he was dazzled by a kind of dizziness. the great figures of the convention passed before his mental vision. it seemed to him that a splendid dawn was about to rise. rome, vienna and berlin were in a state of insurrection, and the austrians had been driven out of venice. all europe was agitated. now was the time to make a plunge into the movement, and perhaps to accelerate it; and then he was fascinated by the costume which it was said the deputies would wear. already he saw himself in a waistcoat with lapels and a tricoloured sash; and this itching, this hallucination, became so violent that he opened his mind to dambreuse. the honest fellow's enthusiasm had not abated. "certainly--sure enough! offer yourself!" frederick, nevertheless, consulted deslauriers. the idiotic opposition which trammelled the commissioner in his province had augmented his liberalism. he at once replied, exhorting frederick with the utmost vehemence to come forward as a candidate. however, as the latter was desirous of having the approval of a great number of persons, he confided the thing to rosanette one day, when mademoiselle vatnaz happened to be present. she was one of those parisian spinsters who, every evening when they have given their lessons or tried to sell little sketches, or to dispose of poor manuscripts, return to their own homes with mud on their petticoats, make their own dinner, which they eat by themselves, and then, with their soles resting on a foot-warmer, by the light of a filthy lamp, dream of a love, a family, a hearth, wealth--all that they lack. so it was that, like many others, she had hailed in the revolution the advent of vengeance, and she delivered herself up to a socialistic propaganda of the most unbridled description. the enfranchisement of the proletariat, according to the vatnaz, was only possible by the enfranchisement of woman. she wished to have her own sex admitted to every kind of employment, to have an enquiry made into the paternity of children, a different code, the abolition, or at least a more intelligent regulation, of marriage. in that case every frenchwoman would be bound to marry a frenchman, or to adopt an old man. nurses and midwives should be officials receiving salaries from the state. there should be a jury to examine the works of women, special editors for women, a polytechnic school for women, a national guard for women, everything for women! and, since the government ignored their rights, they ought to overcome force by force. ten thousand citizenesses with good guns ought to make the hôtel de ville quake! frederick's candidature appeared to her favourable for carrying out her ideas. she encouraged him, pointing out the glory that shone on the horizon. rosanette was delighted at the notion of having a man who would make speeches at the chamber. "and then, perhaps, they'll give you a good place?" frederick, a man prone to every kind of weakness, was infected by the universal mania. he wrote an address and went to show it to m. dambreuse. at the sound made by the great door falling back, a curtain gaped open a little behind a casement, and a woman appeared at it he had not time to find out who she was; but, in the anteroom, a picture arrested his attention--pellerin's picture--which lay on a chair, no doubt provisionally. it represented the republic, or progress, or civilisation, under the form of jesus christ driving a locomotive, which was passing through a virgin forest. frederick, after a minute's contemplation, exclaimed: "what a vile thing!" "is it not--eh?" said m. dambreuse, coming in unexpectedly just at the moment when the other was giving utterance to this opinion, and fancying that it had reference, not so much to the picture as to the doctrine glorified by the work. martinon presented himself at the same time. they made their way into the study, and frederick was drawing a paper out of his pocket, when mademoiselle cécile, entering suddenly, said, articulating her words in an ingenuous fashion: "is my aunt here?" "you know well she is not," replied the banker. "no matter! act as if you were at home, mademoiselle." "oh! thanks! i am going away!" scarcely had she left when martinon seemed to be searching for his handkerchief. "i forgot to take it out of my great-coat--excuse me!" "all right!" said m. dambreuse. evidently he was not deceived by this manoeuvre, and even seemed to regard it with favour. why? but martinon soon reappeared, and frederick began reading his address. at the second page, which pointed towards the preponderance of the financial interests as a disgraceful fact, the banker made a grimace. then, touching on reforms, frederick demanded free trade. "what? allow me, now!" the other paid no attention, and went on. he called for a tax on yearly incomes, a progressive tax, a european federation, and the education of the people, the encouragement of the fine arts on the liberal scale. "when the country could provide men like delacroix or hugo with incomes of a hundred thousand francs, where would be the harm?" at the close of the address advice was given to the upper classes. "spare nothing, ye rich; but give! give!" he stopped, and remained standing. the two who had been listening to him did not utter a word. martinon opened his eyes wide; m. dambreuse was quite pale. at last, concealing his emotion under a bitter smile: "that address of yours is simply perfect!" and he praised the style exceedingly in order to avoid giving his opinion as to the matter of the address. this virulence on the part of an inoffensive young man frightened him, especially as a sign of the times. martinon tried to reassure him. the conservative party, in a little while, would certainly be able to take its revenge. in several cities the commissioners of the provisional government had been driven away; the elections were not to occur till the twenty-third of april; there was plenty of time. in short, it was necessary for m. dambreuse to present himself personally in the aube; and from that time forth, martinon no longer left his side, became his secretary, and was as attentive to him as any son could be. frederick arrived at rosanette's house in a very self-complacent mood. delmar happened to be there, and told him of his intention to stand as a candidate at the seine elections. in a placard addressed to the people, in which he addressed them in the familiar manner which one adopts towards an individual, the actor boasted of being able to understand them, and of having, in order to save them, got himself "crucified for the sake of art," so that he was the incarnation, the ideal of the popular spirit, believing that he had, in fact, such enormous power over the masses that he proposed by-and-by, when he occupied a ministerial office, to quell any outbreak by himself alone; and, with regard to the means he would employ, he gave this answer: "never fear! i'll show them my head!" frederick, in order to mortify him, gave him to understand that he was himself a candidate. the mummer, from the moment that his future colleague aspired to represent the province, declared himself his servant, and offered to be his guide to the various clubs. they visited them, or nearly all, the red and the blue, the furious and the tranquil, the puritanical and the licentious, the mystical and the intemperate, those that had voted for the death of kings, and those in which the frauds in the grocery trade had been denounced; and everywhere the tenants cursed the landlords; the blouse was full of spite against broadcloth; and the rich conspired against the poor. many wanted indemnities on the ground that they had formerly been martyrs of the police; others appealed for money in order to carry out certain inventions, or else there were plans of phalansteria, projects for cantonal bazaars, systems of public felicity; then, here and there a flash of genius amid these clouds of folly, sudden as splashes, the law formulated by an oath, and flowers of eloquence on the lips of some soldier-boy, with a shoulder-belt strapped over his bare, shirtless chest. sometimes, too, a gentleman made his appearance--an aristocrat of humble demeanour, talking in a plebeian strain, and with his hands unwashed, so as to make them look hard. a patriot recognised him; the most virtuous mobbed him; and he went off with rage in his soul. on the pretext of good sense, it was desirable to be always disparaging the advocates, and to make use as often as possible of these expressions: "to carry his stone to the building," "social problem," "workshop." delmar did not miss the opportunities afforded him for getting in a word; and when he no longer found anything to say, his device was to plant himself in some conspicuous position with one of his arms akimbo and the other in his waistcoat, turning himself round abruptly in profile, so as to give a good view of his head. then there were outbursts of applause, which came from mademoiselle vatnaz at the lower end of the hall. frederick, in spite of the weakness of orators, did not dare to try the experiment of speaking. all those people seemed to him too unpolished or too hostile. but dussardier made enquiries, and informed him that there existed in the rue saint-jacques a club which bore the name of the "club of intellect." such a name gave good reason for hope. besides, he would bring some friends there. he brought those whom he had invited to take punch with him--the bookkeeper, the traveller in wines, and the architect; even pellerin had offered to come, and hussonnet would probably form one of the party, and on the footpath before the door stood regimbart, with two individuals, the first of whom was his faithful compain, a rather thick-set man marked with small-pox and with bloodshot eyes; and the second, an ape-like negro, exceedingly hairy, and whom he knew only in the character of "a patriot from barcelona." they passed though a passage, and were then introduced into a large room, no doubt used by a joiner, and with walls still fresh and smelling of plaster. four argand lamps were hanging parallel to each other, and shed an unpleasant light. on a platform, at the end of the room, there was a desk with a bell; underneath it a table, representing the rostrum, and on each side two others, somewhat lower, for the secretaries. the audience that adorned the benches consisted of old painters of daubs, ushers, and literary men who could not get their works published. in the midst of those lines of paletots with greasy collars could be seen here and there a woman's cap or a workman's linen smock. the bottom of the apartment was even full of workmen, who had in all likelihood come there to pass away an idle hour, and who had been introduced by some speakers in order that they might applaud. frederick took care to place himself between dussardier and regimbart, who was scarcely seated when he leaned both hands on his walking-stick and his chin on his hands and shut his eyes, whilst at the other end of the room delmar stood looking down at the assembly. sénécal appeared at the president's desk. the worthy bookkeeper thought frederick would be pleased at this unexpected discovery. it only annoyed him. the meeting exhibited great respect for the president. he was one who, on the twenty-fifth of february, had desired an immediate organisation of labour. on the following day, at the prado, he had declared himself in favour attacking the hôtel de ville; and, as every person at that period took some model for imitation, one copied saint-just, another danton, another marat; as for him, he tried to be like blanqui, who imitated robespierre. his black gloves, and his hair brushed back, gave him a rigid aspect exceedingly becoming. he opened the proceedings with the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen--a customary act of faith. then, a vigorous voice struck up béranger's "souvenirs du peuple." other voices were raised: "no! no! not that!" "'la casquette!'" the patriots at the bottom of the apartment began to howl. and they sang in chorus the favourite lines of the period: "doff your hat before my cap-- kneel before the working-man!" at a word from the president the audience became silent. one of the secretaries proceeded to inspect the letters. some young men announced that they burned a number of the _assemblée nationale_ every evening in front of the panthéon, and they urged on all patriots to follow their example. "bravo! adopted!" responded the audience. the citizen jean jacques langreneux, a printer in the rue dauphin, would like to have a monument raised to the memory of the martyrs of thermidor. michel evariste népomucène, ex-professor, gave expression to the wish that the european democracy should adopt unity of language. a dead language might be used for that purpose--as, for example, improved latin. "no; no latin!" exclaimed the architect. "why?" said the college-usher. and these two gentlemen engaged in a discussion, in which the others also took part, each putting in a word of his own for effect; and the conversation on this topic soon became so tedious that many went away. but a little old man, who wore at the top of his prodigiously high forehead a pair of green spectacles, asked permission to speak in order to make an important communication. it was a memorandum on the assessment of taxes. the figures flowed on in a continuous stream, as if they were never going to end. the impatience of the audience found vent at first in murmurs, in whispered talk. he allowed nothing to put him out. then they began hissing; they catcalled him. sénécal called the persons who were interrupting to order. the orator went on like a machine. it was necessary to catch him by the shoulder in order to stop him. the old fellow looked as if he were waking out of a dream, and, placidly lifting his spectacles, said: "pardon me, citizens! pardon me! i am going--a thousand excuses!" frederick was disconcerted with the failure of the old man's attempts to read this written statement. he had his own address in his pocket, but an extemporaneous speech would have been preferable. finally the president announced that they were about to pass on to the important matter, the electoral question. they would not discuss the big republican lists. however, the "club of intellect" had every right, like every other, to form one, "with all respect for the pachas of the hôtel de ville," and the citizens who solicited the popular mandate might set forth their claims. "go on, now!" said dussardier. a man in a cassock, with woolly hair and a petulant expression on his face, had already raised his hand. he said, with a stutter, that his name was ducretot, priest and agriculturist, and that he was the author of a work entitled "manures." he was told to send it to a horticultural club. then a patriot in a blouse climbed up into the rostrum. he was a plebeian, with broad shoulders, a big face, very mild-looking, with long black hair. he cast on the assembly an almost voluptuous glance, flung back his head, and, finally, spreading out his arms: "you have repelled ducretot, o my brothers! and you have done right; but it was not through irreligion, for we are all religious." many of those present listened open-mouthed, with the air of catechumens and in ecstatic attitudes. "it is not either because he is a priest, for we, too, are priests! the workman is a priest, just as the founder of socialism was--the master of us all, jesus christ!" the time had arrived to inaugurate the kingdom of god. the gospel led directly to ' . after the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the proletariat. they had had the age of hate--the age of love was about to begin. "christianity is the keystone and the foundation of the new edifice----" "you are making game of us?" exclaimed the traveller in wines. "who has given me such a priest's cap?" this interruption gave great offence. nearly all the audience got on benches, and, shaking their fists, shouted: "atheist! aristocrat! low rascal!" whilst the president's bell kept ringing continuously, and the cries of "order! order!" redoubled. but, aimless, and, moreover, fortified by three cups of coffee which he had swallowed before coming to the meeting, he struggled in the midst of the others: "what? i an aristocrat? come, now!" when, at length, he was permitted to give an explanation, he declared that he would never be at peace with the priests; and, since something had just been said about economical measures, it would be a splendid one to put an end to the churches, the sacred pyxes, and finally all creeds. somebody raised the objection that he was going very far. "yes! i am going very far! but, when a vessel is caught suddenly in a storm----" without waiting for the conclusion of this simile, another made a reply to his observation: "granted! but this is to demolish at a single stroke, like a mason devoid of judgment----" "you are insulting the masons!" yelled a citizen covered with plaster. and persisting in the belief that provocation had been offered to him, he vomited forth insults, and wished to fight, clinging tightly to the bench whereon he sat. it took no less than three men to put him out. meanwhile the workman still remained on the rostrum. the two secretaries gave him an intimation that he should come down. he protested against the injustice done to him. "you shall not prevent me from crying out, 'eternal love to our dear france! eternal love all to the republic!'" "citizens!" said compain, after this--"citizens!" and, by dint of repeating "citizens," having obtained a little silence, he leaned on the rostrum with his two red hands, which looked like stumps, bent forward his body, and blinking his eyes: "i believe that it would be necessary to give a larger extension to the calf's head." all who heard him kept silent, fancying that they had misunderstood his words. "yes! the calf's head!" three hundred laughs burst forth at the same time. the ceiling shook. at the sight of all these faces convulsed with mirth, compain shrank back. he continued in an angry tone: "what! you don't know what the calf's head is!" it was a paroxysm, a delirium. they held their sides. some of them even tumbled off the benches to the ground with convulsions of laughter. compain, not being able to stand it any longer, took refuge beside regimbart, and wanted to drag him away. "no! i am remaining till 'tis all over!" said the citizen. this reply caused frederick to make up his mind; and, as he looked about to the right and the left to see whether his friends were prepared to support him, he saw pellerin on the rostrum in front of him. the artist assumed a haughty tone in addressing the meeting. "i would like to get some notion as to who is the candidate amongst all these that represents art. for my part, i have painted a picture." "we have nothing to do with painting pictures!" was the churlish remark of a thin man with red spots on his cheek-bones. pellerin protested against this interruption. but the other, in a tragic tone: "ought not the government to make an ordinance abolishing prostitution and want?" and this phrase having at once won to his side the popular favour, he thundered against the corruption of great cities. "shame and infamy! we ought to catch hold of wealthy citizens on their way out of the maison d'or and spit in their faces--unless it be that the government countenances debauchery! but the collectors of the city dues exhibit towards our daughters and our sisters an amount of indecency----" a voice exclaimed, some distance away: "this is blackguard language! turn him out!" "they extract taxes from us to pay for licentiousness! thus, the high salaries paid to actors----" "help!" cried pellerin. he leaped from the rostrum, pushed everybody aside, and declaring that he regarded such stupid accusations with disgust, expatiated on the civilising mission of the player. inasmuch as the theatre was the focus of national education, he would record his vote for the reform of the theatre; and to begin with, no more managements, no more privileges! "yes; of any sort!" the actor's performance excited the audience, and people moved backwards and forwards knocking each other down. "no more academies! no more institutes!" "no missions!" "no more bachelorships! down with university degrees!" "let us preserve them," said sénécal; "but let them be conferred by universal suffrage, by the people, the only true judge!" besides, these things were not the most useful. it was necessary to take a level which would be above the heads of the wealthy. and he represented them as gorging themselves with crimes under their gilded ceilings; while the poor, writhing in their garrets with famine, cultivated every virtue. the applause became so vehement that he interrupted his discourse. for several minutes he remained with his eyes closed, his head thrown back, and, as it were, lulling himself to sleep over the fury which he had aroused. then he began to talk in a dogmatic fashion, in phrases as imperious as laws. the state should take possession of the banks and of the insurance offices. inheritances should be abolished. a social fund should be established for the workers. many other measures were desirable in the future. for the time being, these would suffice, and, returning to the question of the elections: "we want pure citizens, men entirely fresh. let some one offer himself." frederick arose. there was a buzz of approval made by his friends. but sénécal, assuming the attitude of a fouquier-tinville, began to ask questions as to his christian name and surname, his antecedents, life, and morals. frederick answered succinctly, and bit his lips. sénécal asked whether anyone saw any impediment to this candidature. "no! no!" but, for his part, he saw some. all around him bent forward and strained their ears to listen. the citizen who was seeking for their support had not delivered a certain sum promised by him for the foundation of a democratic journal. moreover, on the twenty-second of february, though he had had sufficient notice on the subject, he had failed to be at the meeting-place in the place de panthéon. "i swear that he was at the tuileries!" exclaimed dussardier. "can you swear to having seen him at the panthéon?" dussardier hung down his head. frederick was silent. his friends, scandalised, regarded him with disquietude. "in any case," sénécal went on, "do you know a patriot who will answer to us for your principles?" "i will!" said dussardier. "oh! this is not enough; another!" frederick turned round to pellerin. the artist replied to him with a great number of gestures, which meant: "ah! my dear boy, they have rejected myself! the deuce! what would you have?" thereupon frederick gave regimbart a nudge. "yes, that's true; 'tis time! i'm going." and regimbart stepped upon the platform; then, pointing towards the spaniard, who had followed him: "allow me, citizens, to present to you a patriot from barcelona!" the patriot made a low bow, rolled his gleaming eyes about, and with his hand on his heart: "ciudadanos! mucho aprecio el honor that you have bestowed on me! however great may be vuestra bondad, mayor vuestra atención!" "i claim the right to speak!" cried frederick. "desde que se proclamo la constitutión de cadiz, ese pacto fundamental of las libertades españolas, hasta la ultima revolución, nuestra patria cuenta numerosos y heroicos mártires." frederick once more made an effort to obtain a hearing: "but, citizens!----" the spaniard went on: "el martes proximo tendra lugar en la iglesia de la magdelena un servicio fúnebre." "in fact, this is ridiculous! nobody understands him!" this observation exasperated the audience. "turn him out! turn him out!" "who? i?" asked frederick. "yourself!" said sénécal, majestically. "out with you!" he rose to leave, and the voice of the iberian pursued him: "y todos los españoles descarien ver alli reunidas las disputaciónes de los clubs y de la milicia nacional. an oración fúnebre en honour of the libertad española y del mundo entero will be prononciado por un miembro del clero of paris en la sala bonne nouvelle. honour al pueblo frances que llamaria yo el primero pueblo del mundo, sino fuese ciudadano de otra nación!" "aristo!" screamed one blackguard, shaking his fist at frederick, as the latter, boiling with indignation, rushed out into the yard adjoining the place where the meeting was held. he reproached himself for his devotedness, without reflecting that, after all, the accusations brought against him were just. what fatal idea was this candidature! but what asses! what idiots! he drew comparisons between himself and these men, and soothed his wounded pride with the thought of their stupidity. then he felt the need of seeing rosanette. after such an exhibition of ugly traits, and so much magniloquence, her dainty person would be a source of relaxation. she was aware that he had intended to present himself at a club that evening. however, she did not even ask him a single question when he came in. she was sitting near the fire, ripping open the lining of a dress. he was surprised to find her thus occupied. "hallo! what are you doing?" "you can see for yourself," said she, dryly. "i am mending my clothes! so much for this republic of yours!" "why do you call it mine?" "perhaps you want to make out that it's mine!" and she began to upbraid him for everything that had happened in france for the last two months, accusing him of having brought about the revolution and with having ruined her prospects by making everybody that had money leave paris, and that she would by-and-by be dying in a hospital. "it is easy for you to talk lightly about it, with your yearly income! however, at the rate at which things are going on, you won't have your yearly income long." "that may be," said frederick. "the most devoted are always misunderstood, and if one were not sustained by one's conscience, the brutes that you mix yourself up with would make you feel disgusted with your own self-denial!" rosanette gazed at him with knitted brows. "eh? what? what self-denial? monsieur has not succeeded, it would seem? so much the better! it will teach you to make patriotic donations. oh, don't lie! i know you have given them three hundred francs, for this republic of yours has to be kept. well, amuse yourself with it, my good man!" under this avalanche of abuse, frederick passed from his former disappointment to a more painful disillusion. he withdrew to the lower end of the apartment. she came up to him. "look here! think it out a bit! in a country as in a house, there must be a master, otherwise, everyone pockets something out of the money spent. at first, everybody knows that ledru-rollin is head over ears in debt. as for lamartine, how can you expect a poet to understand politics? ah! 'tis all very well for you to shake your head and to presume that you have more brains than others; all the same, what i say is true! but you are always cavilling; a person can't get in a word with you! for instance, there's fournier-fontaine, who had stores at saint-roch! do you know how much he failed for? eight hundred thousand francs! and gomer, the packer opposite to him--another republican, that one--he smashed the tongs on his wife's head, and he drank so much absinthe that he is going to be put into a private asylum. that's the way with the whole of them--the republicans! a republic at twenty-five percent. ah! yes! plume yourself upon it!" frederick took himself off. he was disgusted at the foolishness of this girl, which revealed itself all at once in the language of the populace. he felt himself even becoming a little patriotic once more. the ill-temper of rosanette only increased. mademoiselle vatnaz irritated him with her enthusiasm. believing that she had a mission, she felt a furious desire to make speeches, to carry on disputes, and--sharper than rosanette in matters of this sort--overwhelmed her with arguments. one day she made her appearance burning with indignation against hussonnet, who had just indulged in some blackguard remarks at the woman's club. rosanette approved of this conduct, declaring even that she would take men's clothes to go and "give them a bit of her mind, the entire lot of them, and to whip them." frederick entered at the same moment. "you'll accompany me--won't you?" and, in spite of his presence, a bickering match took place between them, one of them playing the part of a citizen's wife and the other of a female philosopher. according to rosanette, women were born exclusively for love, or in order to bring up children, to be housekeepers. according to mademoiselle vatnaz, women ought to have a position in the government. in former times, the gaulish women, and also the anglo-saxon women, took part in the legislation; the squaws of the hurons formed a portion of the council. the work of civilisation was common to both. it was necessary that all should contribute towards it, and that fraternity should be substituted for egoism, association for individualism, and cultivation on a large scale for minute subdivision of land. "come, that is good! you know a great deal about culture just now!" "why not? besides, it is a question of humanity, of its future!" "mind your own business!" "this is my business!" they got into a passion. frederick interposed. the vatnaz became very heated, and went so far as to uphold communism. "what nonsense!" said rosanette. "how could such a thing ever come to pass?" the other brought forward in support of her theory the examples of the essenes, the moravian brethren, the jesuits of paraguay, the family of the pingons near thiers in auvergne; and, as she gesticulated a great deal, her gold chain got entangled in her bundle of trinkets, to which was attached a gold ornament in the form of a sheep. suddenly, rosanette turned exceedingly pale. mademoiselle vatnaz continued extricating her trinkets. "don't give yourself so much trouble," said rosanette. "now, i know your political opinions." "what?" replied the vatnaz, with a blush on her face like that of a virgin. "oh! oh! you understand me." frederick did not understand. there had evidently been something taking place between them of a more important and intimate character than socialism. "and even though it should be so," said the vatnaz in reply, rising up unflinchingly. "'tis a loan, my dear--set off one debt against the other." "faith, i don't deny my own debts. i owe some thousands of francs--a nice sum. i borrow, at least; i don't rob anyone." mademoiselle vatnaz made an effort to laugh. "oh! i would put my hand in the fire for him." "take care! it is dry enough to burn." the spinster held out her right hand to her, and keeping it raised in front of her: "but there are friends of yours who find it convenient for them." "andalusians, i suppose? as castanets?" "you beggar!" the maréchale made her a low bow. "there's nobody so charming!" mademoiselle vatnaz made no reply. beads of perspiration appeared on her temples. her eyes fixed themselves on the carpet. she panted for breath. at last she reached the door, and slamming it vigorously: "good night! you'll hear from me!" "much i care!" said rosanette. the effort of self-suppression had shattered her nerves. she sank down on the divan, shaking all over, stammering forth words of abuse, shedding tears. was it this threat on the part of the vatnaz that had caused so much agitation in her mind? oh, no! what did she care, indeed, about that one? it was the golden sheep, a present, and in the midst of her tears the name of delmar escaped her lips. so, then, she was in love with the mummer? "in that case, why did she take on with me?" frederick asked himself. "how is it that he has come back again? who compels her to keep me? where is the sense of this sort of thing?" rosanette was still sobbing. she remained all the time stretched at the edge of the divan, with her right cheek resting on her two hands, and she seemed a being so dainty, so free from self-consciousness, and so sorely troubled, that he drew closer to her and softly kissed her on the forehead. thereupon she gave him assurances of her affection for him; the prince had just left her, they would be free. but she was for the time being short of money. "you saw yourself that this was so, the other day, when i was trying to turn my old linings to use." no more equipages now! and this was not all; the upholsterer was threatening to resume possession of the bedroom and the large drawing-room furniture. she did not know what to do. frederick had a mind to answer: "don't annoy yourself about it. i will pay." but the lady knew how to lie. experience had enlightened her. he confined himself to mere expressions of sympathy. rosanette's fears were not vain. it was necessary to give up the furniture and to quit the handsome apartment in the rue drouot. she took another on the boulevard poissonnière, on the fourth floor. the curiosities of her old boudoir were quite sufficient to give to the three rooms a coquettish air. there were chinese blinds, a tent on the terrace, and in the drawing-room a second-hand carpet still perfectly new, with ottomans covered with pink silk. frederick had contributed largely to these purchases. he had felt the joy of a newly-married man who possesses at last a house of his own, a wife of his own--and, being much pleased with the place, he used to sleep there nearly every evening. one morning, as he was passing out through the anteroom, he saw, on the third floor, on the staircase, the shako of a national guard who was ascending it. where in the world was he going? frederick waited. the man continued his progress up the stairs, with his head slightly bent down. he raised his eyes. it was my lord arnoux! the situation was clear. they both reddened simultaneously, overcome by a feeling of embarrassment common to both. arnoux was the first to find a way out of the difficulty. "she is better--isn't that so?" as if rosanette were ill, and he had come to learn how she was. frederick took advantage of this opening. "yes, certainly! at least, so i was told by her maid," wishing to convey that he had not been allowed to see her. then they stood facing each other, both undecided as to what they would do next, and eyeing one another intently. the question now was, which of the two was going to remain. arnoux once more solved the problem. "pshaw! i'll come back by-and-by. where are you going? i go with you!" and, when they were in the street, he chatted as naturally as usual. unquestionably he was not a man of jealous disposition, or else he was too good-natured to get angry. besides, his time was devoted to serving his country. he never left off his uniform now. on the twenty-ninth of march he had defended the offices of the _presse_. when the chamber was invaded, he distinguished himself by his courage, and he was at the banquet given to the national guard at amiens. hussonnet, who was still on duty with him, availed himself of his flask and his cigars; but, irreverent by nature, he delighted in contradicting him, disparaging the somewhat inaccurate style of the decrees; and decrying the conferences at the luxembourg, the women known as the "vésuviennes," the political section bearing the name of "tyroliens"; everything, in fact, down to the car of agriculture, drawn by horses to the ox-market, and escorted by ill-favoured young girls. arnoux, on the other hand, was the upholder of authority, and dreamed of uniting the different parties. however, his own affairs had taken an unfavourable turn, and he was more or less anxious about them. he was not much troubled about frederick's relations with the maréchale; for this discovery made him feel justified (in his conscience) in withdrawing the allowance which he had renewed since the prince had left her. he pleaded by way of excuse for this step the embarrassed condition in which he found himself, uttered many lamentations--and rosanette was generous. the result was that m. arnoux regarded himself as the lover who appealed entirely to the heart, an idea that raised him in his own estimation and made him feel young again. having no doubt that frederick was paying the maréchale, he fancied that he was "playing a nice trick" on the young man, even called at the house in such a stealthy fashion as to keep the other in ignorance of the fact, and when they happened to meet, left the coast clear for him. frederick was not pleased with this partnership, and his rival's politeness seemed only an elaborate piece of sarcasm. but by taking offence at it, he would have removed from his path every opportunity of ever finding his way back to madame arnoux; and then, this was the only means whereby he could hear about her movements. the earthenware-dealer, in accordance with his usual practice, or perhaps with some cunning design, recalled her readily in the course of conversation, and asked him why he no longer came to see her. frederick, having exhausted every excuse he could frame, assured him that he had called several times to see madame arnoux, but without success. arnoux was convinced that this was so, for he had often referred in an eager tone at home to the absence of their friend, and she had invariably replied that she was out when he called, so that these two lies, in place of contradicting, corroborated each other. the young man's gentle ways and the pleasure of finding a dupe in him made arnoux like him all the better. he carried familiarity to its extreme limits, not through disdain, but through assurance. one day he wrote saying that very urgent business compelled him to be away in the country for twenty-four hours. he begged of the young man to mount guard in his stead. frederick dared not refuse, so he repaired to the guard-house in the place du carrousel. he had to submit to the society of the national guards, and, with the exception of a sugar-refiner, a witty fellow who drank to an inordinate extent, they all appeared to him more stupid than their cartridge-boxes. the principal subject of conversation amongst them was the substitution of sashes for belts. others declaimed against the national workshops. one man said: "where are we going?" the man to whom the words had been addressed opened his eyes as if he were standing on the verge of an abyss. "where are we going?" then, one who was more daring than the rest exclaimed: "it cannot last! it must come to an end!" and as the same kind of talk went on till night, frederick was bored to death. great was his surprise when, at eleven o'clock, he suddenly beheld arnoux, who immediately explained that he had hurried back to set him at liberty, having disposed of his own business. the fact was that he had no business to transact. the whole thing was an invention to enable him to spend twenty-four hours alone with rosanette. but the worthy arnoux had placed too much confidence in his own powers, so that, now in the state of lassitude which was the result, he was seized with remorse. he had come to thank frederick, and to invite him to have some supper. "a thousand thanks! i'm not hungry. all i want is to go to bed." "a reason the more for having a snack together. how flabby you are! one does not go home at such an hour as this. it is too late! it would be dangerous!" frederick once more yielded. arnoux was quite a favorite with his brethren-in-arms, who had not expected to see him--and he was a particular crony of the refiner. they were all fond of him, and he was such a good fellow that he was sorry hussonnet was not there. but he wanted to shut his eyes for one minute, no longer. "sit down beside me!" said he to frederick, stretching himself on the camp-bed without taking off his belt and straps. through fear of an alarm, in spite of the regulation, he even kept his gun in his hand, then stammered out some words: "my darling! my little angel!" and ere long was fast asleep. those who had been talking to each other became silent; and gradually there was a deep silence in the guard-house. frederick tormented by the fleas, kept staring about him. the wall, painted yellow, had, half-way up, a long shelf, on which the knapsacks formed a succession of little humps, while underneath, the muskets, which had the colour of lead, rose up side by side; and there could be heard a succession of snores, produced by the national guards, whose stomachs were outlined through the darkness in a confused fashion. on the top of the stove stood an empty bottle and some plates. three straw chairs were drawn around the table, on which a pack of cards was displayed. a drum, in the middle of the bench, let its strap hang down. a warm breath of air making its way through the door caused the lamp to smoke. arnoux slept with his two arms wide apart; and, as his gun was placed in a slightly crooked position, with the butt-end downward, the mouth of the barrel came up right under his arm. frederick noticed this, and was alarmed. "but, no, i'm wrong, there's nothing to be afraid of! and yet, suppose he met his death!" and immediately pictures unrolled themselves before his mind in endless succession. he saw himself with her at night in a post-chaise, then on a river's bank on a summer's evening, and under the reflection of a lamp at home in their own house. he even fixed his attention on household expenses and domestic arrangements, contemplating, feeling already his happiness between his hands; and in order to realise it, all that was needed was that the cock of the gun should rise. the end of it could be pushed with one's toe, the gun would go off--it would be a mere accident--nothing more! frederick brooded over this idea like a playwright in the agonies of composition. suddenly it seemed to him that it was not far from being carried into practical operation, and that he was going to contribute to that result--that, in fact, he was yearning for it; and then a feeling of absolute terror took possession of him. in the midst of this mental distress he experienced a sense of pleasure, and he allowed himself to sink deeper and deeper into it, with a dreadful consciousness all the time that his scruples were vanishing. in the wildness of his reverie the rest of the world became effaced, and he could only realise that he was still alive from the intolerable oppression on his chest. "let us take a drop of white wine!" said the refiner, as he awoke. arnoux sprang to his feet, and, as soon as the white wine was swallowed, he wanted to relieve frederick of his sentry duty. then he brought him to have breakfast in the rue de chartres, at parly's, and as he required to recuperate his energies, he ordered two dishes of meat, a lobster, an omelet with rum, a salad, etc., and finished this off with a brand of sauterne of and one of ' romanée, not to speak of the champagne at dessert and the liqueurs. frederick did not in any way gainsay him. he was disturbed in mind as if by the thought that the other might somehow trace on his countenance the idea that had lately flitted before his imagination. with both elbows on the table and his head bent forward, so that he annoyed frederick by his fixed stare, he confided some of his hobbies to the young man. he wanted to take for farming purposes all the embankments on the northern line, in order to plant potatoes there, or else to organise on the boulevards a monster cavalcade in which the celebrities of the period would figure. he would let all the windows, which would, at the rate of three francs for each person, produce a handsome profit. in short, he dreamed of a great stroke of fortune by means of a monopoly. he assumed a moral tone, nevertheless, found fault with excesses and all sorts of misconduct, spoke about his "poor father," and every evening, as he said, made an examination of his conscience before offering his soul to god. "a little curaçao, eh?" "just as you please." as for the republic, things would right themselves; in fact, he looked on himself as the happiest man on earth; and forgetting himself, he exalted rosanette's attractive qualities, and even compared her with his wife. it was quite a different thing. you could not imagine a lovelier person! "your health!" frederick touched glasses with him. he had, out of complaisance, drunk a little too much. besides, the strong sunlight dazzled him; and when they went up the rue vivienne together again, their shoulders touched each other in a fraternal fashion. when he got home, frederick slept till seven o'clock. after that he called on the maréchale. she had gone out with somebody--with arnoux, perhaps! not knowing what to do with himself, he continued his promenade along the boulevard, but could not get past the porte saint-martin, owing to the great crowd that blocked the way. want had abandoned to their own resources a considerable number of workmen, and they used to come there every evening, no doubt for the purpose of holding a review and awaiting a signal. in spite of the law against riotous assemblies, these clubs of despair increased to a frightful extent, and many citizens repaired every day to the spot through bravado, and because it was the fashion. all of a sudden frederick caught a glimpse, three paces away, of m. dambreuse along with martinon. he turned his head away, for m. dambreuse having got himself nominated as a representative of the people, he cherished a secret spite against him. but the capitalist stopped him. "one word, my dear monsieur! i have some explanations to make to you." "i am not asking you for any." "pray listen to me!" it was not his fault in any way. appeals had been made to him; pressure had, to a certain extent, been placed on him. martinon immediately endorsed all that he had said. some of the electors of nogent had presented themselves in a deputation at his house. "besides, i expected to be free as soon as----" a crush of people on the footpath forced m. dambreuse to get out of the way. a minute after he reappeared, saying to martinon: "this is a genuine service, really, and you won't have any reason to regret----" all three stood with their backs resting against a shop in order to be able to chat more at their ease. from time to time there was a cry of, "long live napoléon! long live barbès! down with marie!" the countless throng kept talking in very loud tones; and all these voices, echoing through the houses, made, so to speak, the continuous ripple of waves in a harbour. at intervals they ceased; and then could be heard voices singing the "marseillaise." under the court-gates, men of mysterious aspect offered sword-sticks to those who passed. sometimes two individuals, one of whom preceded the other, would wink, and then quickly hurry away. the footpaths were filled with groups of staring idlers. a dense crowd swayed to and fro on the pavement. entire bands of police-officers, emerging from the alleys, had scarcely made their way into the midst of the multitude when they were swallowed up in the mass of people. little red flags here and there looked like flames. coachmen, from the place where they sat high up, gesticulated energetically, and then turned to go back. it was a case of perpetual movement--one of the strangest sights that could be conceived. "how all this," said martinon, "would have amused mademoiselle cécile!" "my wife, as you are aware, does not like my niece to come with us," returned m. dambreuse with a smile. one could scarcely recognise in him the same man. for the past three months he had been crying, "long live the republic!" and he had even voted in favour of the banishment of orléans. but there should be an end of concessions. he exhibited his rage so far as to carry a tomahawk in his pocket. martinon had one, too. the magistracy not being any longer irremovable, he had withdrawn from parquet, so that he surpassed m. dambreuse in his display of violence. the banker had a special antipathy to lamartine (for having supported ledru-rollin) and, at the same time, to pierre leroux, proudhon, considérant, lamennais, and all the cranks, all the socialists. "for, in fact, what is it they want? the duty on meat and arrest for debt have been abolished. now the project of a bank for mortgages is under consideration; the other day it was a national bank; and here are five millions in the budget for the working-men! but luckily, it is over, thanks to monsieur de falloux! good-bye to them! let them go!" in fact, not knowing how to maintain the three hundred thousand men in the national workshops, the minister of public works had that very day signed an order inviting all citizens between the ages of eighteen and twenty to take service as soldiers, or else to start for the provinces to cultivate the ground there. they were indignant at the alternative thus put before them, convinced that the object was to destroy the republic. they were aggrieved by the thought of having to live at a distance from the capital, as if it were a kind of exile. they saw themselves dying of fevers in desolate parts of the country. to many of them, moreover, who had been accustomed to work of a refined description, agriculture seemed a degradation; it was, in short, a mockery, a decisive breach of all the promises which had been made to them. if they offered any resistance, force would be employed against them. they had no doubt of it, and made preparations to anticipate it. about nine o'clock the riotous assemblies which had formed at the bastille and at the châtelet ebbed back towards the boulevard. from the porte saint-denis to the porte saint-martin nothing could be seen save an enormous swarm of people, a single mass of a dark blue shade, nearly black. the men of whom one caught a glimpse all had glowing eyes, pale complexions, faces emaciated with hunger and excited with a sense of wrong. meanwhile, some clouds had gathered. the tempestuous sky roused the electricity that was in the people, and they kept whirling about of their own accord with the great swaying movements of a swelling sea, and one felt that there was an incalculable force in the depths of this excited throng, and as it were, the energy of an element. then they all began exclaiming: "lamps! lamps!" many windows had no illumination, and stones were flung at the panes. m. dambreuse deemed it prudent to withdraw from the scene. the two young men accompanied him home. he predicted great disasters. the people might once more invade the chamber, and on this point he told them how he should have been killed on the fifteenth of may had it not been for the devotion of a national guard. "but i had forgotten! he is a friend of yours--your friend the earthenware manufacturer--jacques arnoux!" the rioters had been actually throttling him, when that brave citizen caught him in his arms and put him safely out of their reach. so it was that, since then, there had been a kind of intimacy between them. "it would be necessary, one of these days, to dine together, and, since you often see him, give him the assurance that i like him very much. he is an excellent man, and has, in my opinion, been slandered; and he has his wits about him in the morning. my compliments once more! a very good evening!" frederick, after he had quitted m. dambreuse, went back to the maréchale, and, in a very gloomy fashion, said that she should choose between him and arnoux. she replied that she did not understand "dumps of this sort," that she did not care about arnoux, and had no desire to cling to him. frederick was thirsting to fly from paris. she did not offer any opposition to this whim; and next morning they set out for fontainebleau. the hotel at which they stayed could be distinguished from others by a fountain that rippled in the middle of the courtyard attached to it. the doors of the various apartments opened out on a corridor, as in monasteries. the room assigned to them was large, well-furnished, hung with print, and noiseless, owing to the scarcity of tourists. alongside the houses, people who had nothing to do kept passing up and down; then, under their windows, when the day was declining, children in the street would engage in a game of base; and this tranquillity, following so soon the tumult they had witnessed in paris, filled them with astonishment and exercised over them a soothing influence. every morning at an early hour, they went to pay a visit to the château. as they passed in through the gate, they had a view of its entire front, with the five pavilions covered with sharp-pointed roofs, and its staircase of horseshoe-shape opening out to the end of the courtyard, which is hemmed in, to right and left, by two main portions of the building further down. on the paved ground lichens blended their colours here and there with the tawny hue of bricks, and the entire appearance of the palace, rust-coloured like old armour, had about it something of the impassiveness of royalty--a sort of warlike, melancholy grandeur. at last, a man-servant made his appearance with a bunch of keys in his hand. he first showed them the apartments of the queens, the pope's oratory, the gallery of francis i., the mahogany table on which the emperor signed his abdication, and in one of the rooms cut in two the old galerie des cerfs, the place where christine got monaldeschi assassinated. rosanette listened to this narrative attentively, then, turning towards frederick: "no doubt it was through jealousy? mind yourself!" after this they passed through the council chamber, the guards' room, the throne room, and the drawing-room of louis xiii. the uncurtained windows sent forth a white light. the handles of the window-fastenings and the copper feet of the pier-tables were slightly tarnished with dust. the armchairs were everywhere hidden under coarse linen covers. above the doors could be seen reliquaries of louis xiv., and here and there hangings representing the gods of olympus, psyche, or the battles of alexander. as she was passing in front of the mirrors, rosanette stopped for a moment to smooth her head-bands. after passing through the donjon-court and the saint-saturnin chapel, they reached the festal hall. they were dazzled by the magnificence of the ceiling, which was divided into octagonal apartments set off with gold and silver, more finely chiselled than a jewel, and by the vast number of paintings covering the walls, from the immense chimney-piece, where the arms of france were surrounded by crescents and quivers, down to the musicians' gallery, which had been erected at the other end along the entire width of the hall. the ten arched windows were wide open; the sun threw its lustre on the pictures, so that they glowed beneath its rays; the blue sky continued in an endless curve the ultramarine of the arches; and from the depths of the woods, where the lofty summits of the trees filled up the horizon, there seemed to come an echo of flourishes blown by ivory trumpets, and mythological ballets, gathering together under the foliage princesses and nobles disguised as nymphs or fauns--an epoch of ingenuous science, of violent passions, and sumptuous art, when the ideal was to sweep away the world in a vision of the hesperides, and when the mistresses of kings mingled their glory with the stars. there was a portrait of one of the most beautiful of these celebrated women in the form of diana the huntress, and even the infernal diana, no doubt in order to indicate the power which she possessed even beyond the limits of the tomb. all these symbols confirmed her glory, and there remained about the spot something of her, an indistinct voice, a radiation that stretched out indefinitely. a feeling of mysterious retrospective voluptuousness took possession of frederick. in order to divert these passionate longings into another channel, he began to gaze tenderly on rosanette, and asked her would she not like to have been this woman? "what woman?" "diane de poitiers!" he repeated: "diane de poitiers, the mistress of henry ii." she gave utterance to a little "ah!" that was all. her silence clearly demonstrated that she knew nothing about the matter, and had failed to comprehend his meaning, so that out of complaisance he said to her: "perhaps you are getting tired of this?" "no, no--quite the reverse." and lifting up her chin, and casting around her a glance of the vaguest description, rosanette let these words escape her lips: "it recalls some memories to me!" meanwhile, it was easy to trace on her countenance a strained expression, a certain sense of awe; and, as this air of gravity made her look all the prettier, frederick overlooked it. the carps' pond amused her more. for a quarter of an hour she kept flinging pieces of bread into the water in order to see the fishes skipping about. frederick had seated himself by her side under the linden-trees. he saw in imagination all the personages who had haunted these walls--charles v., the valois kings, henry iv., peter the great, jean jacques rousseau, and "the fair mourners of the stage-boxes," voltaire, napoléon, pius vii., and louis philippe; and he felt himself environed, elbowed, by these tumultuous dead people. he was stunned by such a confusion of historic figures, even though he found a certain fascination in contemplating them, nevertheless. at length they descended into the flower-garden. it is a vast rectangle, which presents to the spectator, at the first glance, its wide yellow walks, its square grass-plots, its ribbons of box-wood, its yew-trees shaped like pyramids, its low-lying green swards, and its narrow borders, in which thinly-sown flowers make spots on the grey soil. at the end of the garden may be seen a park through whose entire length a canal makes its way. royal residences have attached to them a peculiar kind of melancholy, due, no doubt, to their dimensions being much too large for the limited number of guests entertained within them, to the silence which one feels astonished to find in them after so many flourishes of trumpets, to the immobility of their luxurious furniture, which attests by the aspect of age and decay it gradually assumes the transitory character of dynasties, the eternal wretchedness of all things; and this exhalation of the centuries, enervating and funereal, like the perfume of a mummy, makes itself felt even in untutored brains. rosanette yawned immoderately. they went back to the hotel. after their breakfast an open carriage came round for them. they started from fontainebleau at a point where several roads diverged, then went up at a walking pace a gravelly road leading towards a little pine-wood. the trees became larger, and, from time to time, the driver would say, "this is the frères siamois, the pharamond, the bouquet de roi," not forgetting a single one of these notable sites, sometimes even drawing up to enable them to admire the scene. they entered the forest of franchard. the carriage glided over the grass like a sledge; pigeons which they could not see began cooing. suddenly, the waiter of a café made his appearance, and they alighted before the railing of a garden in which a number of round tables were placed. then, passing on the left by the walls of a ruined abbey, they made their way over big boulders of stone, and soon reached the lower part of the gorge. it is covered on one side with sandstones and juniper-trees tangled together, while on the other side the ground, almost quite bare, slopes towards the hollow of the valley, where a foot-track makes a pale line through the brown heather; and far above could be traced a flat cone-shaped summit with a telegraph-tower behind it. half-an-hour later they stepped out of the vehicle once more, in order to climb the heights of aspremont. the roads form zigzags between the thick-set pine-trees under rocks with angular faces. all this corner of the forest has a sort of choked-up look--a rather wild and solitary aspect. one thinks of hermits in connection with it--companions of huge stags with fiery crosses between their horns, who were wont to welcome with paternal smiles the good kings of france when they knelt before their grottoes. the warm air was filled with a resinous odour, and roots of trees crossed one another like veins close to the soil. rosanette slipped over them, grew dejected, and felt inclined to shed tears. but, at the very top, she became joyous once more on finding, under a roof made of branches, a sort of tavern where carved wood was sold. she drank a bottle of lemonade, and bought a holly-stick; and, without one glance towards the landscape which disclosed itself from the plateau, she entered the brigands' cave, with a waiter carrying a torch in front of her. their carriage was awaiting them in the bas breau. a painter in a blue blouse was working at the foot of an oak-tree with his box of colours on his knees. he raised his head and watched them as they passed. in the middle of the hill of chailly, the sudden breaking of a cloud caused them to turn up the hoods of their cloaks. almost immediately the rain stopped, and the paving-stones of the street glistened under the sun when they were re-entering the town. some travellers, who had recently arrived, informed them that a terrible battle had stained paris with blood. rosanette and her lover were not surprised. then everybody left; the hotel became quiet, the gas was put out, and they were lulled to sleep by the murmur of the fountain in the courtyard. on the following day they went to see the wolf's gorge, the fairies' pool, the long rock, and the _marlotte_.[g] two days later, they began again at random, just as their coachman thought fit to drive them, without asking where they were, and often even neglecting the famous sites. they felt so comfortable in their old landau, low as a sofa, and covered with a rug made of a striped material which was quite faded. the moats, filled with brushwood, stretched out under their eyes with a gentle, continuous movement. white rays passed like arrows through the tall ferns. sometimes a road that was no longer used presented itself before them, in a straight line, and here and there might be seen a feeble growth of weeds. in the centre between four cross-roads, a crucifix extended its four arms. in other places, stakes were bending down like dead trees, and little curved paths, which were lost under the leaves, made them feel a longing to pursue them. at the same moment the horse turned round; they entered there; they plunged into the mire. further down moss had sprouted out at the sides of the deep ruts. [g] the "overall." the word _marlotte_ means a loose wrapper worn by ladies in the sixteenth century.--translator. they believed that they were far away from all other people, quite alone. but suddenly a game-keeper with his gun, or a band of women in rags with big bundles of fagots on their backs, would hurry past them. when the carriage stopped, there was a universal silence. the only sounds that reached them were the blowing of the horse in the shafts with the faint cry of a bird more than once repeated. the light at certain points illuminating the outskirts of the wood, left the interior in deep shadow, or else, attenuated in the foreground by a sort of twilight, it exhibited in the background violet vapours, a white radiance. the midday sun, falling directly on wide tracts of greenery, made splashes of light over them, hung gleaming drops of silver from the ends of the branches, streaked the grass with long lines of emeralds, and flung gold spots on the beds of dead leaves. when they let their heads fall back, they could distinguish the sky through the tops of the trees. some of them, which were enormously high, looked like patriarchs or emperors, or, touching one another at their extremities formed with their long shafts, as it were, triumphal arches; others, sprouting forth obliquely from below, seemed like falling columns. this heap of big vertical lines gaped open. then, enormous green billows unrolled themselves in unequal embossments as far as the surface of the valleys, towards which advanced the brows of other hills looking down on white plains, which ended by losing themselves in an undefined pale tinge. standing side by side, on some rising ground, they felt, as they drank in the air, the pride of a life more free penetrating into the depths of their souls, with a superabundance of energy, a joy which they could not explain. the variety of trees furnished a spectacle of the most diversified character. the beeches with their smooth white bark twisted their tops together. ash trees softly curved their bluish branches. in the tufts of the hornbeams rose up holly stiff as bronze. then came a row of thin birches, bent into elegiac attitudes; and the pine-trees, symmetrical as organ pipes, seemed to be singing a song as they swayed to and fro. there were gigantic oaks with knotted forms, which had been violently shaken, stretched themselves out from the soil and pressed close against each other, and with firm trunks resembling torsos, launched forth to heaven despairing appeals with their bare arms and furious threats, like a group of titans struck motionless in the midst of their rage. an atmosphere of gloom, a feverish languor, brooded over the pools, whose sheets of water were cut into flakes by the overshadowing thorn-trees. the lichens on their banks, where the wolves come to drink, are of the colour of sulphur, burnt, as it were, by the footprints of witches, and the incessant croaking of the frogs responds to the cawing of the crows as they wheel through the air. after this they passed through the monotonous glades, planted here and there with a staddle. the sound of iron falling with a succession of rapid blows could be heard. on the side of the hill a group of quarrymen were breaking the rocks. these rocks became more and more numerous and finally filled up the entire landscape, cube-shaped like houses, flat like flagstones, propping up, overhanging, and became intermingled with each other, as if they were the ruins, unrecognisable and monstrous, of some vanished city. but the wild chaos they exhibited made one rather dream of volcanoes, of deluges, of great unknown cataclysms. frederick said they had been there since the beginning of the world, and would remain so till the end. rosanette turned aside her head, declaring that this would drive her out of her mind, and went off to collect sweet heather. the little violet blossoms, heaped up near one another, formed unequal plates, and the soil, which was giving way underneath, placed soft dark fringes on the sand spangled with mica. one day they reached a point half-way up a hill, where the soil was full of sand. its surface, untrodden till now, was streaked so as to resemble symmetrical waves. here and there, like promontories on the dry bed of an ocean, rose up rocks with the vague outlines of animals, tortoises thrusting forward their heads, crawling seals, hippopotami, and bears. not a soul around them. not a single sound. the shingle glowed under the dazzling rays of the sun, and all at once in this vibration of light the specimens of the brute creation that met their gaze began to move about. they returned home quickly, flying from the dizziness that had seized hold of them, almost dismayed. the gravity of the forest exercised an influence over them, and hours passed in silence, during which, allowing themselves to yield to the lulling effects of springs, they remained as it were sunk in the torpor of a calm intoxication. with his arm around her waist, he listened to her talking while the birds were warbling, noticed with the same glance the black grapes on her bonnet and the juniper-berries, the draperies of her veil, and the spiral forms assumed by the clouds, and when he bent towards her the freshness of her skin mingled with the strong perfume of the woods. they found amusement in everything. they showed one another, as a curiosity, gossamer threads of the virgin hanging from bushes, holes full of water in the middle of stones, a squirrel on the branches, the way in which two butterflies kept flying after them; or else, at twenty paces from them, under the trees, a hind strode on peacefully, with an air of nobility and gentleness, its doe walking by its side. rosanette would have liked to run after it to embrace it. she got very much alarmed once, when a man suddenly presenting himself, showed her three vipers in a box. she wildly flung herself on frederick's breast. he felt happy at the thought that she was weak and that he was strong enough to defend her. that evening they dined at an inn on the banks of the seine. the table was near the window, rosanette sitting opposite him, and he contemplated her little well-shaped white nose, her turned-up lips, her bright eyes, the swelling bands of her nut-brown hair, and her pretty oval face. her dress of raw silk clung to her somewhat drooping shoulders, and her two hands, emerging from their sleeves, joined close together as if they were one--carved, poured out wine, moved over the table-cloth. the waiters placed before them a chicken with its four limbs stretched out, a stew of eels in a dish of pipe-clay, wine that had got spoiled, bread that was too hard, and knives with notches in them. all these things made the repast more enjoyable and strengthened the illusion. they fancied that they were in the middle of a journey in italy on their honeymoon. before starting again they went for a walk along the bank of the river. the soft blue sky, rounded like a dome, leaned at the horizon on the indentations of the woods. on the opposite side, at the end of the meadow, there was a village steeple; and further away, to the left, the roof of a house made a red spot on the river, which wound its way without any apparent motion. some rushes bent over it, however, and the water lightly shook some poles fixed at its edge in order to hold nets. an osier bow-net and two or three old fishing-boats might be seen there. near the inn a girl in a straw hat was drawing buckets out of a well. every time they came up again, frederick heard the grating sound of the chain with a feeling of inexpressible delight. he had no doubt that he would be happy till the end of his days, so natural did his felicity appear to him, so much a part of his life, and so intimately associated with this woman's being. he was irresistibly impelled to address her with words of endearment. she answered with pretty little speeches, light taps on the shoulder, displays of tenderness that charmed him by their unexpectedness. he discovered in her quite a new sort of beauty, in fact, which was perhaps only the reflection of surrounding things, unless it happened to bud forth from their hidden potentialities. when they were lying down in the middle of the field, he would stretch himself out with his head on her lap, under the shelter of her parasol; or else with their faces turned towards the green sward, in the centre of which they rested, they kept gazing towards one another so that their pupils seemed to intermingle, thirsting for one another and ever satiating their thirst, and then with half-closed eyelids they lay side by side without uttering a single word. now and then the distant rolling of a drum reached their ears. it was the signal-drum which was being beaten in the different villages calling on people to go and defend paris. "oh! look here! 'tis the rising!" said frederick, with a disdainful pity, all this excitement now presenting to his mind a pitiful aspect by the side of their love and of eternal nature. and they talked about whatever happened to come into their heads, things that were perfectly familiar to them, persons in whom they took no interest, a thousand trifles. she chatted with him about her chambermaid and her hairdresser. one day she was so self-forgetful that she told him her age--twenty-nine years. she was becoming quite an old woman. several times, without intending it, she gave him some particulars with reference to her own life. she had been a "shop girl," had taken a trip to england, and had begun studying for the stage; all this she told without any explanation of how these changes had come about; and he found it impossible to reconstruct her entire history. she related to him more about herself one day when they were seated side by side under a plane-tree at the back of a meadow. at the road-side, further down, a little barefooted girl, standing amid a heap of dust, was making a cow go to pasture. as soon as she caught sight of them she came up to beg, and while with one hand she held up her tattered petticoat, she kept scratching with the other her black hair, which, like a wig of louis xiv.'s time, curled round her dark face, lighted by a magnificent pair of eyes. "she will be very pretty by-and-by," said frederick. "how lucky she is, if she has no mother!" remarked rosanette. "eh? how is that?" "certainly. i, if it were not for mine----" she sighed, and began to speak about her childhood. her parents were weavers in the croix-rousse. she acted as an apprentice to her father. in vain did the poor man wear himself out with hard work; his wife was continually abusing him, and sold everything for drink. rosanette could see, as if it were yesterday, the room they occupied with the looms ranged lengthwise against the windows, the pot boiling on the stove, the bed painted like mahogany, a cupboard facing it, and the obscure loft where she used to sleep up to the time when she was fifteen years old. at length a gentleman made his appearance on the scene--a fat man with a face of the colour of boxwood, the manners of a devotee, and a suit of black clothes. her mother and this man had a conversation together, with the result that three days afterwards--rosanette stopped, and with a look in which there was as much bitterness as shamelessness: "it was done!" then, in response to a gesture of frederick. "as he was married (he would have been afraid of compromising himself in his own house), i was brought to a private room in a restaurant, and told that i would be happy, that i would get a handsome present. "at the door, the first thing that struck me was a candelabrum of vermilion on a table, on which there were two covers. a mirror on the ceiling showed their reflections, and the blue silk hangings on the walls made the entire apartment resemble an alcove; i was seized with astonishment. you understand--a poor creature who had never seen anything before. in spite of my dazed condition of mind, i got frightened. i wanted to go away. however, i remained. "the only seat in the room was a sofa close beside the table. it was so soft that it gave way under me. the mouth of the hot-air stove in the middle of the carpet sent out towards me a warm breath, and there i sat without taking anything. the waiter, who was standing near me, urged me to eat. he poured out for me immediately a large glass of wine. my head began to swim, i wanted to open the window. he said to me: "'no, mademoiselle! that is forbidden.'" "and he left me. "the table was covered with a heap of things that i had no knowledge of. nothing there seemed to me good. then i fell back on a pot of jam, and patiently waited. i did not know what prevented him from coming. it was very late--midnight at last--i couldn't bear the fatigue any longer. while pushing aside one of the pillows, in order to hear better, i found under my hand a kind of album--a book of engravings, they were vulgar pictures. i was sleeping on top of it when he entered the room." she hung down her head and remained pensive. the leaves rustled around them. amid the tangled grass a great foxglove was swaying to and fro. the sunlight flowed like a wave over the green expanse, and the silence was interrupted at intervals by the browsing of the cow, which they could no longer see. rosanette kept her eyes fixed on a particular spot, three paces away from her, her nostrils heaving, and her mind absorbed in thought. frederick caught hold of her hand. "how you suffered, poor darling!" "yes," said she, "more than you imagine! so much so that i wanted to make an end of it--they had to fish me up!" "what?" "ah! think no more about it! i love you, i am happy! kiss me!" and she picked off, one by one, the sprigs of the thistles which clung to the hem of her gown. frederick was thinking more than all on what she had not told him. what were the means by which she had gradually emerged from wretchedness? to what lover did she owe her education? what had occurred in her life down to the day when he first came to her house? her latest avowal was a bar to these questions. all he asked her was how she had made arnoux's acquaintance. "through the vatnaz." "wasn't it you that i once saw with both of them at the palais-royal?" he referred to the exact date. rosanette made a movement which showed a sense of deep pain. "yes, it is true! i was not gay at that time!" but arnoux had proved himself a very good fellow. frederick had no doubt of it. however, their friend was a queer character, full of faults. he took care to recall them. she quite agreed with him on this point. "never mind! one likes him, all the same, this camel!" "still--even now?" said frederick. she began to redden, half smiling, half angry. "oh, no! that's an old story. i don't keep anything hidden from you. even though it might be so, with him it is different. besides, i don't think you are nice towards your victim!" "my victim!" rosanette caught hold of his chin. "no doubt!" and in the lisping fashion in which nurses talk to babies: "have always been so good! never went a-by-by with his wife?" "i! never at any time!" rosanette smiled. he felt hurt by this smile of hers, which seemed to him a proof of indifference. but she went on gently, and with one of those looks which seem to appeal for a denial of the truth: "are you perfectly certain?" "not a doubt of it!" frederick solemnly declared on his word of honour that he had never bestowed a thought on madame arnoux, as he was too much in love with another woman. "why, with you, my beautiful one!" "ah! don't laugh at me! you only annoy me!" he thought it a prudent course to invent a story--to pretend that he was swayed by a passion. he manufactured some circumstantial details. this woman, however, had rendered him very unhappy. "decidedly, you have not been lucky," said rosanette. "oh! oh! i may have been!" wishing to convey in this way that he had been often fortunate in his love-affairs, so that she might have a better opinion of him, just as rosanette did not avow how many lovers she had had, in order that he might have more respect for her--for there will always be found in the midst of the most intimate confidences restrictions, false shame, delicacy, and pity. you divine either in the other or in yourself precipices or miry paths which prevent you from penetrating any farther; moreover, you feel that you will not be understood. it is hard to express accurately the thing you mean, whatever it may be; and this is the reason why perfect unions are rare. the poor maréchale had never known one better than this. often, when she gazed at frederick, tears came into her eyes; then she would raise them or cast a glance towards the horizon, as if she saw there some bright dawn, perspectives of boundless felicity. at last, she confessed one day to him that she wished to have a mass said, "so that it might bring a blessing on our love." how was it, then, that she had resisted him so long? she could not tell herself. he repeated his question a great many times; and she replied, as she clasped him in her arms: "it was because i was afraid, my darling, of loving you too well!" on sunday morning, frederick read, amongst the list of the wounded given in a newspaper, the name of dussardier. he uttered a cry, and showing the paper to rosanette, declared that he was going to start at once for paris. "for what purpose?" "in order to see him, to nurse him!" "you are not going, i'm sure, to leave me by myself?" "come with me!" "ha! to poke my nose in a squabble of that sort? oh, no, thanks!" "however, i cannot----" "ta! ta! ta! as if they had need of nurses in the hospitals! and then, what concern is he of yours any longer? everyone for himself!" he was roused to indignation by this egoism on her part, and he reproached himself for not being in the capital with the others. such indifference to the misfortunes of the nation had in it something shabby, and only worthy of a small shopkeeper. and now, all of a sudden, his intrigue with rosanette weighed on his mind as if it were a crime. for an hour they were quite cool towards each other. then she appealed to him to wait, and not expose himself to danger. "suppose you happen to be killed?" "well, i should only have done my duty!" rosanette gave a jump. his first duty was to love her; but, no doubt, he did not care about her any longer. there was no common sense in what he was going to do. good heavens! what an idea! frederick rang for his bill. but to get back to pans was not an easy matter. the leloir stagecoach had just left; the lecomte berlins would not be starting; the diligence from bourbonnais would not be passing till a late hour that night, and perhaps it might be full, one could never tell. when he had lost a great deal of time in making enquiries about the various modes of conveyance, the idea occurred to him to travel post. the master of the post-house refused to supply him with horses, as frederick had no passport. finally, he hired an open carriage--the same one in which they had driven about the country--and at about five o'clock they arrived in front of the hôtel du commerce at melun. the market-place was covered with piles of arms. the prefect had forbidden the national guards to proceed towards paris. those who did not belong to his department wished to go on. there was a great deal of shouting, and the inn was packed with a noisy crowd. rosanette, seized with terror, said she would not go a step further, and once more begged of him to stay. the innkeeper and his wife joined in her entreaties. a decent sort of man who happened to be dining there interposed, and observed that the fighting would be over in a very short time. besides, one ought to do his duty. thereupon the maréchale redoubled her sobs. frederick got exasperated. he handed her his purse, kissed her quickly, and disappeared. on reaching corbeil, he learned at the station that the insurgents had cut the rails at regular distances, and the coachman refused to drive him any farther; he said that his horses were "overspent." through his influence, however, frederick managed to procure an indifferent cabriolet, which, for the sum of sixty francs, without taking into account the price of a drink for the driver, was to convey him as far as the italian barrier. but at a hundred paces from the barrier his coachman made him descend and turn back. frederick was walking along the pathway, when suddenly a sentinel thrust out his bayonet. four men seized him, exclaiming: "this is one of them! look out! search him! brigand! scoundrel!" and he was so thoroughly stupefied that he let himself be dragged to the guard-house of the barrier, at the very point where the boulevards des gobelins and de l'hôpital and rues godefroy and mauffetard converge. four barricades formed at the ends of four different ways enormous sloping ramparts of paving-stones. torches were glimmering here and there. in spite of the rising clouds of dust he could distinguish foot-soldiers of the line and national guards, all with their faces blackened, their chests uncovered, and an aspect of wild excitement. they had just captured the square, and had shot down a number of men. their rage had not yet cooled. frederick said he had come from fontainebleau to the relief of a wounded comrade who lodged in the rue bellefond. not one of them would believe him at first. they examined his hands; they even put their noses to his ear to make sure that he did not smell of powder. however, by dint of repeating the same thing, he finally satisfied a captain, who directed two fusiliers to conduct him to the guard-house of the jardin des plantes. they descended the boulevard de l'hôpital. a strong breeze was blowing. it restored him to animation. after this they turned up the rue du marché aux chevaux. the jardin des plantes at the right formed a long black mass, whilst at the left the entire front of the pitié, illuminated at every window, blazed like a conflagration, and shadows passed rapidly over the window-panes. the two men in charge of frederick went away. another accompanied him to the polytechnic school. the rue saint-victor was quite dark, without a gas-lamp or a light at any window to relieve the gloom. every ten minutes could be heard the words: "sentinels! mind yourselves!" and this exclamation, cast into the midst of the silence, was prolonged like the repeated striking of a stone against the side of a chasm as it falls through space. every now and then the stamp of heavy footsteps could be heard drawing nearer. this was nothing less than a patrol consisting of about a hundred men. from this confused mass escaped whisperings and the dull clanking of iron; and, moving away with a rhythmic swing, it melted into the darkness. in the middle of the crossing, where several streets met, a dragoon sat motionless on his horse. from time to time an express rider passed at a rapid gallop; then the silence was renewed. cannons, which were being drawn along the streets, made, on the pavement, a heavy rolling sound that seemed full of menace--a sound different from every ordinary sound--which oppressed the heart. the sounds was profound, unlimited--a black silence. men in white blouses accosted the soldiers, spoke one or two words to them, and then vanished like phantoms. the guard-house of the polytechnic school overflowed with people. the threshold was blocked up with women, who had come to see their sons or their husbands. they were sent on to the panthéon, which had been transformed into a dead-house; and no attention was paid to frederick. he pressed forward resolutely, solemnly declaring that his friend dussardier was waiting for him, that he was at death's door. at last they sent a corporal to accompany him to the top of the rue saint-jacques, to the mayor's office in the twelfth arrondissement. the place du panthéon was filled with soldiers lying asleep on straw. the day was breaking; the bivouac-fires were extinguished. the insurrection had left terrible traces in this quarter. the soil of the streets, from one end to the other, was covered with risings of various sizes. on the wrecked barricades had been piled up omnibuses, gas-pipes, and cart-wheels. in certain places there were little dark pools, which must have been blood. the houses were riddled with projectiles, and their framework could be seen under the plaster that was peeled off. window-blinds, each attached only by a single nail, hung like rags. the staircases having fallen in, doors opened on vacancy. the interiors of rooms could be perceived with their papers in strips. in some instances dainty objects had remained in them quite intact. frederick noticed a timepiece, a parrot-stick, and some engravings. when he entered the mayor's office, the national guards were chattering without a moment's pause about the deaths of bréa and négrier, about the deputy charbonnel, and about the archbishop of paris. he heard them saying that the duc d'aumale had landed at boulogne, that barbès had fled from vincennes, that the artillery were coming up from bourges, and that abundant aid was arriving from the provinces. about three o'clock some one brought good news. truce-bearers from the insurgents were in conference with the president of the assembly. thereupon they all made merry; and as he had a dozen francs left, frederick sent for a dozen bottles of wine, hoping by this means to hasten his deliverance. suddenly a discharge of musketry was heard. the drinking stopped. they peered with distrustful eyes into the unknown--it might be henry v. in order to get rid of responsibility, they took frederick to the mayor's office in the eleventh arrondissement, which he was not permitted to leave till nine o'clock in the morning. he started at a running pace from the quai voltaire. at an open window an old man in his shirt-sleeves was crying, with his eyes raised. the seine glided peacefully along. the sky was of a clear blue; and in the trees round the tuileries birds were singing. frederick was just crossing the place du carrousel when a litter happened to be passing by. the soldiers at the guard-house immediately presented arms; and the officer, putting his hand to his shako, said: "honour to unfortunate bravery!" this phrase seemed to have almost become a matter of duty. he who pronounced it appeared to be, on each occasion, filled with profound emotion. a group of people in a state of fierce excitement followed the litter, exclaiming: "we will avenge you! we will avenge you!" the vehicles kept moving about on the boulevard, and women were making lint before the doors. meanwhile, the outbreak had been quelled, or very nearly so. a proclamation from cavaignac, just posted up, announced the fact. at the top of the rue vivienne, a company of the garde mobile appeared. then the citizens uttered cries of enthusiasm. they raised their hats, applauded, danced, wished to embrace them, and to invite them to drink; and flowers, flung by ladies, fell from the balconies. at last, at ten o'clock, at the moment when the cannon was booming as an attack was being made on the faubourg saint-antoine, frederick reached the abode of dussardier. he found the bookkeeper in his garret, lying asleep on his back. from the adjoining apartment a woman came forth with silent tread--mademoiselle vatnaz. she led frederick aside and explained to him how dussardier had got wounded. on saturday, on the top of a barricade in the rue lafayette, a young fellow wrapped in a tricoloured flag cried out to the national guards: "are you going to shoot your brothers?" as they advanced, dussardier threw down his gun, pushed away the others, sprang over the barricade, and, with a blow of an old shoe, knocked down the insurgent, from whom he tore the flag. he had afterwards been found under a heap of rubbish with a slug of copper in his thigh. it was found necessary to make an incision in order to extract the projectile. mademoiselle vatnaz arrived the same evening, and since then had not quitted his side. she intelligently prepared everything that was needed for the dressings, assisted him in taking his medicine or other liquids, attended to his slightest wishes, left and returned again with footsteps more light than those of a fly, and gazed at him with eyes full of tenderness. frederick, during the two following weeks, did not fail to come back every morning. one day, while he was speaking about the devotion of the vatnaz, dussardier shrugged his shoulders: "oh! no! she does this through interested motives." "do you think so?" he replied: "i am sure of it!" without seeming disposed to give any further explanation. she had loaded him with kindnesses, carrying her attentions so far as to bring him the newspapers in which his gallant action was extolled. he even confessed to frederick that he felt uneasy in his conscience. perhaps he ought to have put himself on the other side with the men in blouses; for, indeed, a heap of promises had been made to them which had not been carried out. those who had vanquished them hated the republic; and, in the next place, they had treated them very harshly. no doubt they were in the wrong--not quite, however; and the honest fellow was tormented by the thought that he might have fought against the righteous cause. sénécal, who was immured in the tuileries, under the terrace at the water's edge, had none of this mental anguish. there were nine hundred men in the place, huddled together in the midst of filth, without the slightest order, their faces blackened with powder and clotted blood, shivering with ague and breaking out into cries of rage, and those who were brought there to die were not separated from the rest. sometimes, on hearing the sound of a detonation, they believed that they were all going to be shot. then they dashed themselves against the walls, and after that fell back again into their places, so much stupefied by suffering that it seemed to them that they were living in a nightmare, a mournful hallucination. the lamp, which hung from the arched roof, looked like a stain of blood, and little green and yellow flames fluttered about, caused by the emanations from the vault. through fear of epidemics, a commission was appointed. when he had advanced a few steps, the president recoiled, frightened by the stench from the excrements and from the corpses. as soon as the prisoners drew near a vent-hole, the national guards who were on sentry, in order to prevent them from shaking the bars of the grating, prodded them indiscriminately with their bayonets. as a rule they showed no pity. those who were not beaten wished to signalise themselves. there was a regular outbreak of fear. they avenged themselves at the same time on newspapers, clubs, mobs, speech-making--everything that had exasperated them during the last three months, and in spite of the victory that had been gained, equality (as if for the punishment of its defenders and the exposure of its enemies to ridicule) manifested itself in a triumphal fashion--an equality of brute beasts, a dead level of sanguinary vileness; for the fanaticism of self-interest balanced the madness of want, aristocracy had the same fits of fury as low debauchery, and the cotton cap did not show itself less hideous than the red cap. the public mind was agitated just as it would be after great convulsions of nature. sensible men were rendered imbeciles for the rest of their lives on account of it. père roque had become very courageous, almost foolhardy. having arrived on the th at paris with some of the inhabitants of nogent, instead of going back at the same time with them, he had gone to give his assistance to the national guard encamped at the tuileries; and he was quite satisfied to be placed on sentry in front of the terrace at the water's side. there, at any rate, he had these brigands under his feet! he was delighted to find that they were beaten and humiliated, and he could not refrain from uttering invectives against them. one of them, a young lad with long fair hair, put his face to the bars, and asked for bread. m. roque ordered him to hold his tongue. but the young man repeated in a mournful tone: "bread!" "have i any to give you?" other prisoners presented themselves at the vent-hole, with their bristling beards, their burning eyeballs, all pushing forward, and yelling: "bread!" père roque was indignant at seeing his authority slighted. in order to frighten them he took aim at them; and, borne onward into the vault by the crush that nearly smothered him, the young man, with his head thrown backward, once more exclaimed: "bread!" "hold on! here it is!" said père roque, firing a shot from his gun. there was a fearful howl--then, silence. at the side of the trough something white could be seen lying. after this, m. roque returned to his abode, for he had a house in the rue saint-martin, which he used as a temporary residence; and the injury done to the front of the building during the riots had in no slight degree contributed to excite his rage. it seemed to him, when he next saw it, that he had exaggerated the amount of damage done to it. his recent act had a soothing effect on him, as if it indemnified him for his loss. it was his daughter herself who opened the door for him. she immediately made the remark that she had felt uneasy at his excessively prolonged absence. she was afraid that he had met with some misfortune--that he had been wounded. this manifestation of filial love softened père roque. he was astonished that she should have set out on a journey without catherine. "i sent her out on a message," was louise's reply. and she made enquiries about his health, about one thing or another; then, with an air of indifference, she asked him whether he had chanced to come across frederick: "no; i didn't see him!" it was on his account alone that she had come up from the country. some one was walking at that moment in the lobby. "oh! excuse me----" and she disappeared. catherine had not found frederick. he had been several days away, and his intimate friend, m. deslauriers, was now living in the provinces. louise once more presented herself, shaking all over, without being able to utter a word. she leaned against the furniture. "what's the matter with you? tell me--what's the matter with you?" exclaimed her father. she indicated by a wave of her hand that it was nothing, and with a great effort of will she regained her composure. the keeper of the restaurant at the opposite side of the street brought them soup. but père roque had passed through too exciting an ordeal to be able to control his emotions. "he is not likely to die;" and at dessert he had a sort of fainting fit. a doctor was at once sent for, and he prescribed a potion. then, when m. roque was in bed, he asked to be as well wrapped up as possible in order to bring on perspiration. he gasped; he moaned. "thanks, my good catherine! kiss your poor father, my chicken! ah! those revolutions!" and, when his daughter scolded him for having made himself ill by tormenting his mind on her account, he replied: "yes! you are right! but i couldn't help it! i am too sensitive!" chapter xv. "how happy could i be with either." madame dambreuse, in her boudoir, between her niece and miss john, was listening to m. roque as he described the severe military duties he had been forced to perform. she was biting her lips, and appeared to be in pain. "oh! 'tis nothing! it will pass away!" and, with a gracious air: "we are going to have an acquaintance of yours at dinner with us,--monsieur moreau." louise gave a start. "oh! we'll only have a few intimate friends there--amongst others, alfred de cisy." and she spoke in terms of high praise about his manners, his personal appearance, and especially his moral character. madame dambreuse was nearer to a correct estimate of the state of affairs than she imagined; the vicomte was contemplating marriage. he said so to martinon, adding that mademoiselle cécile was certain to like him, and that her parents would accept him. to warrant him in going so far as to confide to another his intentions on the point, he ought to have satisfactory information with regard to her dowry. now martinon had a suspicion that cécile was m. dambreuse's natural daughter; and it is probable that it would have been a very strong step on his part to ask for her hand at any risk. such audacity, of course, was not unaccompanied by danger; and for this reason martinon had, up to the present, acted in a way that could not compromise him. besides, he did not see how he could well get rid of the aunt. cisy's confidence induced him to make up his mind; and he had formally made his proposal to the banker, who, seeing no obstacle to it, had just informed madame dambreuse about the matter. cisy presently made his appearance. she arose and said: "you have forgotten us. cécile, shake hands!" at the same moment frederick entered the room. "ha! at last we have found you again!" exclaimed père roque. "i called with cécile on you three times this week!" frederick had carefully avoided them. he pleaded by way of excuse that he spent all his days beside a wounded comrade. for a long time, however, a heap of misfortunes had happened to him, and he tried to invent stories to explain his conduct. luckily the guests arrived in the midst of his explanation. first of all m. paul de grémonville, the diplomatist whom he met at the ball; then fumichon, that manufacturer whose conservative zeal had scandalised him one evening. after them came the old duchesse de montreuil nantua. but two loud voices in the anteroom reached his ears. they were that of m. de nonancourt, an old beau with the air of a mummy preserved in cold cream, and that of madame de larsillois, the wife of a prefect of louis philippe. she was terribly frightened, for she had just heard an organ playing a polka which was a signal amongst the insurgents. many of the wealthy class of citizens had similar apprehensions; they thought that men in the catacombs were going to blow up the faubourg saint-germain. some noises escaped from cellars, and things that excited suspicion were passed up to windows. everyone in the meantime made an effort to calm madame de larsillois. order was re-established. there was no longer anything to fear. "cavaignac has saved us!" as if the horrors of the insurrection had not been sufficiently numerous, they exaggerated them. there had been twenty-three thousand convicts on the side of the socialists--no less! they had no doubt whatever that food had been poisoned, that gardes mobiles had been sawn between two planks, and that there had been inscriptions on flags inciting the people to pillage and incendiarism. "aye, and something more!" added the ex-prefect. "oh, dear!" said madame dambreuse, whose modesty was shocked, while she indicated the three young girls with a glance. m. dambreuse came forth from his study accompanied by martinon. she turned her head round and responded to a bow from pellerin, who was advancing towards her. the artist gazed in a restless fashion towards the walls. the banker took him aside, and conveyed to him that it was desirable for the present to conceal his revolutionary picture. "no doubt," said pellerin, the rebuff which he received at the club of intellect having modified his opinions. m. dambreuse let it slip out very politely that he would give him orders for other works. "but excuse me. ah! my dear friend, what a pleasure!" arnoux and madame arnoux stood before frederick. he had a sort of vertigo. rosanette had been irritating him all the afternoon with her display of admiration for soldiers, and the old passion was re-awakened. the steward came to announce that dinner was on the table. with a look she directed the vicomte to take cécile's arm, while she said in a low tone to martinon, "you wretch!" and then they passed into the dining-room. under the green leaves of a pineapple, in the middle of the table-cloth, a dorado stood, with its snout reaching towards a quarter of roebuck and its tail just grazing a bushy dish of crayfish. figs, huge cherries, pears, and grapes (the first fruits of parisian cultivation) rose like pyramids in baskets of old saxe. here and there a bunch of flowers mingled with the shining silver plate. the white silk blinds, drawn down in front of the windows, filled the apartment with a mellow light. it was cooled by two fountains, in which there were pieces of ice; and tall men-servants, in short breeches, waited on them. all these luxuries seemed more precious after the emotion of the past few days. they felt a fresh delight at possessing things which they had been afraid of losing; and nonancourt expressed the general sentiment when he said: "ah! let us hope that these republican gentlemen will allow us to dine!" "in spite of their fraternity!" père roque added, with an attempt at wit. these two personages were placed respectively at the right and at the left of madame dambreuse, her husband being exactly opposite her, between madame larsillois, at whose side was the diplomatist and the old duchesse, whom fumichon elbowed. then came the painter, the dealer in faïence, and mademoiselle louise; and, thanks to martinon, who had carried her chair to enable her to take a seat near louise, frederick found himself beside madame arnoux. she wore a black barège gown, a gold hoop on her wrist, and, as on the first day that he dined at her house, something red in her hair, a branch of fuchsia twisted round her chignon. he could not help saying: "'tis a long time since we saw each other." "ah!" she returned coldly. he went on, in a mild tone, which mitigated the impertinence of his question: "have you thought of me now and then?" "why should i think of you?" frederick was hurt by these words. "you are right, perhaps, after all." but very soon, regretting what he had said, he swore that he had not lived a single day without being ravaged by the remembrance of her. "i don't believe a single word of it, monsieur." "however, you know that i love you!" madame arnoux made no reply. "you know that i love you!" she still kept silent. "well, then, go be hanged!" said frederick to himself. and, as he raised his eyes, he perceived mademoiselle roque at the other side of madame arnoux. she thought it gave her a coquettish look to dress entirely in green, a colour which contrasted horribly with her red hair. the buckle of her belt was large and her collar cramped her neck. this lack of elegance had, no doubt, contributed to the coldness which frederick at first displayed towards her. she watched him from where she sat, some distance away from him, with curious glances; and arnoux, close to her side, in vain lavished his gallantries--he could not get her to utter three words, so that, finally abandoning all hope of making himself agreeable to her, he listened to the conversation. she now began rolling about a slice of luxembourg pineapple in her pea-soup. louis blanc, according to fumichon, owned a large house in the rue saint-dominique, which he refused to let to the workmen. "for my part, i think it rather a funny thing," said nonancourt, "to see ledru-rollin hunting over the crown lands." "he owes twenty thousand francs to a goldsmith!" cisy interposed, "and 'tis maintained----" madame darnbreuse stopped him. "ah! how nasty it is to be getting hot about politics! and for such a young man, too! fie, fie! pay attention rather to your fair neighbour!" after this, those who were of a grave turn of mind attacked the newspapers. arnoux took it on himself to defend them. frederick mixed himself up in the discussion, describing them as commercial establishments just like any other house of business. those who wrote for them were, as a rule, imbeciles or humbugs; he gave his listeners to understand that he was acquainted with journalists, and combated with sarcasms his friend's generous sentiments. madame arnoux did not notice that this was said through a feeling of spite against her. meanwhile, the vicomte was torturing his brain in the effort to make a conquest of mademoiselle cécile. he commenced by finding fault with the shape of the decanters and the graving of the knives, in order to show his artistic tastes. then he talked about his stable, his tailor and his shirtmaker. finally, he took up the subject of religion, and seized the opportunity of conveying to her that he fulfilled all his duties. martinon set to work in a better fashion. with his eyes fixed on her continually, he praised, in a monotonous fashion, her birdlike profile, her dull fair hair, and her hands, which were unusually short. the plain-looking young girl was delighted at this shower of flatteries. it was impossible to hear anything, as all present were talking at the tops of their voices. m. roque wanted "an iron hand" to govern france. nonancourt even regretted that the political scaffold was abolished. they ought to have all these scoundrels put to death together. "now that i think of it, are we speaking of dussardier?" said m. dambreuse, turning towards frederick. the worthy shopman was now a hero, like sallesse, the brothers jeanson, the wife of pequillet, etc. frederick, without waiting to be asked, related his friend's history; it threw around him a kind of halo. then they came quite naturally to refer to different traits of courage. according to the diplomatist, it was not hard to face death, witness the case of men who fight duels. "we might take the vicomte's testimony on that point," said martinon. the vicomte's face got very flushed. the guests stared at him, and louise, more astonished than the rest, murmured: "what is it, pray?" "he _sank_ before frederick," returned arnoux, in a very low tone. "do you know anything, mademoiselle?" said nonancourt presently, and he repeated her answer to madame dambreuse, who, bending forward a little, began to fix her gaze on frederick. martinon did not wait for cécile's questions. he informed her that this affair had reference to a woman of improper character. the young girl drew back slightly in her chair, as if to escape from contact with such a libertine. the conversation was renewed. the great wines of bordeaux were sent round, and the guests became animated. pellerin had a dislike to the revolution, because he attributed to it the complete loss of the spanish museum. this is what grieved him most as a painter. as he made the latter remark, m. roque asked: "are you not yourself the painter of a very notable picture?" "perhaps! what is it?" "it represents a lady in a costume--faith!--a little light, with a purse, and a peacock behind." frederick, in his turn, reddened. pellerin pretended that he had not heard the words. "nevertheless, it is certainly by you! for your name is written at the bottom of it, and there is a line on it stating that it is monsieur moreau's property." one day, when père roque and his daughter were waiting at his residence to see him, they saw the maréchale's portrait. the old gentleman had even taken it for "a gothic painting." "no," said pellerin rudely, "'tis a woman's portrait." martinon added: "and a living woman's, too, and no mistake! isn't that so, cisy?" "oh! i know nothing about it." "i thought you were acquainted with her. but, since it causes you pain, i must beg a thousand pardons!" cisy lowered his eyes, proving by his embarrassment that he must have played a pitiable part in connection with this portrait. as for frederick, the model could only be his mistress. it was one of those convictions which are immediately formed, and the faces of the assembly revealed it with the utmost clearness. "how he lied to me!" said madame arnoux to herself. "it is for her, then, that he left me," thought louise. frederick had an idea that these two stories might compromise him; and when they were in the garden, mademoiselle cécile's wooer burst out laughing in his face. "oh, not at all! 'twill do you good! go ahead!" what did he mean? besides, what was the cause of this good nature, so contrary to his usual conduct? without giving any explanation, he proceeded towards the lower end, where the ladies were seated. the men were standing round them, and, in their midst, pellerin was giving vent to his ideas. the form of government most favourable for the arts was an enlightened monarchy. he was disgusted with modern times, "if it were only on account of the national guard"--he regretted the middle ages and the days of louis xiv. m. roque congratulated him on his opinions, confessing that they overcame all his prejudices against artists. but almost without a moment's delay he went off when the voice of fumichon attracted his attention. arnoux tried to prove that there were two socialisms--a good and a bad. the manufacturer saw no difference whatever between them, his head becoming dizzy with rage at the utterance of the word "property." "'tis a law written on the face of nature! children cling to their toys. all peoples, all animals are of my opinion. the lion even, if he were able to speak, would declare himself a proprietor! thus i myself, messieurs, began with a capital of fifteen thousand francs. would you be surprised to hear that for thirty years i used to get up at four o'clock every morning? i've had as much pain as five hundred devils in making my fortune! and people will come and tell me i'm not the master, that my money is not my money; in short, that property is theft!" "but proudhon----" "let me alone with your proudhon! if he were here i think i'd strangle him!" he would have strangled him. after the intoxicating drink he had swallowed fumichon did not know what he was talking about any longer, and his apoplectic face was on the point of bursting like a bombshell. "good morrow, arnoux," said hussonnet, who was walking briskly over the grass. he brought m. dambreuse the first leaf of a pamphlet, bearing the title of "the hydra," the bohemian defending the interests of a reactionary club, and in that capacity he was introduced by the banker to his guests. hussonnet amused them by relating how the dealers in tallow hired three hundred and ninety-two street boys to bawl out every evening "lamps,"[h] and then turning into ridicule the principles of ' , the emancipation of the negroes, and the orators of the left; and he even went so far as to do "prudhomme on a barricade," perhaps under the influence of a kind of jealousy of these rich people who had enjoyed a good dinner. the caricature did not please them overmuch. their faces grew long. this, however, was not a time for joking, so nonancourt observed, as he recalled the death of monseigneur affre and that of general de bréa. these events were being constantly alluded to, and arguments were constructed out of them. m. roque described the archbishop's end as "everything that one could call sublime." fumichon gave the palm to the military personage, and instead of simply expressing regret for these two murders, they held disputes with a view to determining which ought to excite the greatest indignation. a second comparison was next instituted, namely, between lamoricière and cavaignac, m. dambreuse glorifying cavaignac, and nonancourt, lamoricière. [h] the word also means "grease-pots."--translator. not one of the persons present, with the exception of arnoux, had ever seen either of them engaged in the exercise of his profession. none the less, everyone formulated an irrevocable judgment with reference to their operations. frederick, however, declined to give an opinion on the matter, confessing that he had not served as a soldier. the diplomatist and m. dambreuse gave him an approving nod of the head. in fact, to have fought against the insurrection was to have defended the republic. the result, although favourable, consolidated it; and now they had got rid of the vanquished, they wanted to be conquerors. as soon as they had got out into the garden, madame dambreuse, taking cisy aside, chided him for his awkwardness. when she caught sight of martinon, she sent him away, and then tried to learn from her future nephew the cause of his witticisms at the vicomte's expense. "there's nothing of the kind." "and all this, as it were, for the glory of m. moreau. what is the object of it?" "there's no object. frederick is a charming fellow. i am very fond of him." "and so am i, too. let him come here. go and look for him!" after two or three commonplace phrases, she began by lightly disparaging her guests, and in this way she placed him on a higher level than the others. he did not fail to run down the rest of the ladies more or less, which was an ingenious way of paying her compliments. but she left his side from time to time, as it was a reception-night, and ladies were every moment arriving; then she returned to her seat, and the entirely accidental arrangement of the chairs enabled them to avoid being overheard. she showed herself playful and yet grave, melancholy and yet quite rational. her daily occupations interested her very little--there was an order of sentiments of a less transitory kind. she complained of the poets, who misrepresent the facts of life, then she raised her eyes towards heaven, asking of him what was the name of a star. two or three chinese lanterns had been suspended from the trees; the wind shook them, and lines of coloured light quivered on her white dress. she sat, after her usual fashion, a little back in her armchair, with a footstool in front of her. the tip of a black satin shoe could be seen; and at intervals madame dambreuse allowed a louder word than usual, and sometimes even a laugh, to escape her. these coquetries did not affect martinon, who was occupied with cécile; but they were bound to make an impression on m. roque's daughter, who was chatting with madame arnoux. she was the only member of her own sex present whose manners did not appear disdainful. louise came and sat beside her; then, yielding to the desire to give vent to her emotions: "does he not talk well--frederick moreau, i mean?" "do you know him?" "oh! intimately! we are neighbours; and he used to amuse himself with me when i was quite a little girl." madame arnoux cast at her a sidelong glance, which meant: "i suppose you are not in love with him?" the young girl's face replied with an untroubled look: "yes." "you see him often, then?" "oh, no! only when he comes to his mother's house. 'tis ten months now since he came. he promised, however, to be more particular." "the promises of men are not to be too much relied on, my child." "but he has not deceived me!" "as he did others!" louise shivered: "can it be by any chance that he promised something to her;" and her features became distracted with distrust and hate. madame arnoux was almost afraid of her; she would have gladly withdrawn what she had said. then both became silent. as frederick was sitting opposite them on a folding-stool, they kept staring at him, the one with propriety out of the corner of her eye, the other boldly, with parted lips, so that madame dambreuse said to him: "come, now, turn round, and let her have a good look at you!" "whom do you mean?" "why, monsieur roque's daughter!" and she rallied him on having won the heart of this young girl from the provinces. he denied that this was so, and tried to make a laugh of it. "is it credible, i ask you? such an ugly creature!" however, he experienced an intense feeling of gratified vanity. he recalled to mind the reunion from which he had returned one night, some time before, his heart filled with bitter humiliation, and he drew a deep breath, for it seemed to him that he was now in the environment that really suited him, as if all these things, including the dambreuse mansion, belonged to himself. the ladies formed a semicircle around him while they listened to what he was saying, and in order to create an effect, he declared that he was in favor of the re-establishment of divorce, which he maintained should be easily procurable, so as to enable people to quit one another and come back to one another without any limit as often as they liked. they uttered loud protests; a few of them began to talk in whispers. little exclamations every now and then burst forth from the place where the wall was overshadowed with aristolochia. one would imagine that it was a mirthful cackling of hens; and he developed his theory with that self-complacency which is generated by the consciousness of success. a man-servant brought into the arbour a tray laden with ices. the gentlemen drew close together and began to chat about the recent arrests. thereupon frederick revenged himself on the vicomte by making him believe that he might be prosecuted as a legitimist. the other urged by way of reply that he had not stirred outside his own room. his adversary enumerated in a heap the possible mischances. mm. dambreuse and grémonville found the discussion very amusing. then they paid frederick compliments, while expressing regret at the same time that he did not employ his abilities in the defence of order. they grasped his hand with the utmost warmth; he might for the future count on them. at last, just as everyone was leaving, the vicomte made a low bow to cécile: "mademoiselle, i have the honour of wishing you a very good evening." she replied coldly: "good evening." but she gave martinon a parting smile. pére roque, in order to continue the conversation between himself and arnoux, offered to see him home, "as well as madame"--they were going the same way. louise and frederick walked in front of them. she had caught hold of his arm; and, when she was some distance away from the others she said: "ah! at last! at last! i've had enough to bear all the evening! how nasty those women were! what haughty airs they had!" he made an effort to defend them. "first of all, you might certainly have spoken to me the moment you came in, after being away a whole year!" "it was not a year," said frederick, glad to be able to give some sort of rejoinder on this point in order to avoid the other questions. "be it so; the time appeared very long to me, that's all. but, during this horrid dinner, one would think you felt ashamed of me. ah! i understand--i don't possess what is needed in order to please as they do." "you are mistaken," said frederick. "really! swear to me that you don't love anyone!" he did swear. "you love nobody but me alone?" "i assure you, i do not." this assurance filled her with delight. she would have liked to lose her way in the streets, so that they might walk about together the whole night. "i have been so much tormented down there! nothing was talked about but barricades. i imagined i saw you falling on your back covered with blood! your mother was confined to her bed with rheumatism. she knew nothing about what was happening. i had to hold my tongue. i could stand it no longer, so i took catherine with me." and she related to him all about her departure, her journey, and the lie she told her father. "he's bringing me back in two days. come to-morrow evening, as if you were merely paying a casual visit, and take advantage of the opportunity to ask for my hand in marriage." never had frederick been further from the idea of marriage. besides, mademoiselle roque appeared to him a rather absurd young person. how different she was from a woman like madame dambreuse! a very different future was in store for him. he had found reason to-day to feel perfectly certain on that point; and, therefore, this was not the time to involve himself, from mere sentimental motives, in a step of such momentous importance. it was necessary now to be decisive--and then he had seen madame arnoux once more. nevertheless he was rather embarrassed by louise's candour. he said in reply to her last words: "have you considered this matter?" "how is that?" she exclaimed, frozen with astonishment and indignation. he said that to marry at such a time as this would be a piece of folly. "so you don't want to have me?" "nay, you don't understand me!" and he plunged into a confused mass of verbiage in order to impress upon her that he was kept back by more serious considerations; that he had business on hand which it would take a long time to dispose of; that even his inheritance had been placed in jeopardy (louise cut all this explanation short with one plain word); that, last of all, the present political situation made the thing undesirable. so, then, the most reasonable course was to wait patiently for some time. matters would, no doubt, right themselves--at least, he hoped so; and, as he could think of no further grounds to go upon just at that moment, he pretended to have been suddenly reminded that he should have been with dussardier two hours ago. then, bowing to the others, he darted down the rue hauteville, took a turn round the gymnase, returned to the boulevard, and quickly rushed up rosanette's four flights of stairs. m. and madame arnoux left pére roque and his daughter at the entrance of the rue saint-denis. husband and wife returned home without exchanging a word, as he was unable to continue chattering any longer, feeling quite worn out. she even leaned against his shoulder. he was the only man who had displayed any honourable sentiments during the evening. she entertained towards him feelings of the utmost indulgence. meanwhile, he cherished a certain degree of spite against frederick. "did you notice his face when a question was asked about the portrait? when i told you that he was her lover, you did not wish to believe what i said!" "oh! yes, i was wrong!" arnoux, gratified with his triumph, pressed the matter even further. "i'd even make a bet that when he left us, a little while ago, he went to see her again. he's with her at this moment, you may be sure! he's finishing the evening with her!" madame arnoux had pulled down her hat very low. "why, you're shaking all over!" "that's because i feel cold!" was her reply. as soon as her father was asleep, louise made her way into catherine's room, and, catching her by the shoulders, shook her. "get up--quick! as quick as ever you can! and go and fetch a cab for me!" catherine replied that there was not one to be had at such an hour. "will you come with me yourself there, then?" "where, might i ask?" "to frederick's house!" "impossible! what do you want to go there for?" it was in order to have a talk with him. she could not wait. she must see him immediately. "just think of what you're about to do! to present yourself this way at a house in the middle of the night! besides, he's asleep by this time!" "i'll wake him up!" "but this is not a proper thing for a young girl to do!" "i am not a young girl--i'm his wife! i love him! come--put on your shawl!" catherine, standing at the side of the bed, was trying to make up her mind how to act. she said at last: "no! i won't go!" "well, stay behind then! i'll go there by myself!" louise glided like an adder towards the staircase. catherine rushed after her, and came up with her on the footpath outside the house. her remonstrances were fruitless; and she followed the girl, fastening her undervest as she hurried along in the rear. the walk appeared to her exceedingly tedious. she complained that her legs were getting weak from age. "i'll go on after you--faith, i haven't the same thing to drive me on that you have!" then she grew softened. "poor soul! you haven't anyone now but your catau, don't you see?" from time to time scruples took hold of her mind. "ah, this is a nice thing you're making me do! suppose your father happened to wake and miss you! lord god, let us hope no misfortune will happen!" in front of the théâtre des variétés, a patrol of national guards stopped them. louise immediately explained that she was going with her servant to look for a doctor in the rue rumfort. the patrol allowed them to pass on. at the corner of the madeleine they came across a second patrol, and, louise having given the same explanation, one of the national guards asked in return: "is it for a nine months' ailment, ducky?" "oh, damn it!" exclaimed the captain, "no blackguardisms in the ranks! pass on, ladies!" in spite of the captain's orders, they still kept cracking jokes. "i wish you much joy!" "my respects to the doctor!" "mind the wolf!" "they like laughing," catherine remarked in a loud tone. "that's the way it is to be young." at length they reached frederick's abode. louise gave the bell a vigorous pull, which she repeated several times. the door opened a little, and, in answer to her inquiry, the porter said: "no!" "but he must be in bed!" "i tell you he's not. why, for nearly three months he has not slept at home!" and the little pane of the lodge fell down sharply, like the blade of a guillotine. they remained in the darkness under the archway. an angry voice cried out to them: "be off!" the door was again opened; they went away. louise had to sit down on a boundary-stone; and clasping her face with her hands, she wept copious tears welling up from her full heart. the day was breaking, and carts were making their way into the city. catherine led her back home, holding her up, kissing her, and offering her every sort of consolation that she could extract from her own experience. she need not give herself so much trouble about a lover. if this one failed her, she could find others. chapter xvi. unpleasant news from rosanette. when rosanette's enthusiasm for the gardes mobiles had calmed down, she became more charming than ever, and frederick insensibly glided into the habit of living with her. the best portion of the day was the morning on the terrace. in a light cambric dress, and with her stockingless feet thrust into slippers, she kept moving about him--went and cleaned her canaries' cage, gave her gold-fishes some water, and with a fire-shovel did a little amateur gardening in the box filled with clay, from which arose a trellis of nasturtiums, giving an attractive look to the wall. then, resting, with their elbows on the balcony, they stood side by side, gazing at the vehicles and the passers-by; and they warmed themselves in the sunlight, and made plans for spending the evening. he absented himself only for two hours at most, and, after that, they would go to some theatre, where they would get seats in front of the stage; and rosanette, with a large bouquet of flowers in her hand, would listen to the instruments, while frederick, leaning close to her ear, would tell her comic or amatory stories. at other times they took an open carriage to drive to the bois de boulogne. they kept walking about slowly until the middle of the night. at last they made their way home through the arc de triomphe and the grand avenue, inhaling the breeze, with the stars above their heads, and with all the gas-lamps ranged in the background of the perspective like a double string of luminous pearls. frederick always waited for her when they were going out together. she was a very long time fastening the two ribbons of her bonnet; and she smiled at herself in the mirror set in the wardrobe; then she would draw her arm over his, and, making him look at himself in the glass beside her: "we produce a good effect in this way, the two of us side by side. ah! my poor darling, i could eat you!" he was now her chattel, her property. she wore on her face a continuous radiance, while at the same time she appeared more languishing in manner, more rounded in figure; and, without being able to explain in what way, he found her altered, nevertheless. one day she informed him, as if it were a very important bit of news, that my lord arnoux had lately set up a linen-draper's shop for a woman who was formerly employed in his pottery-works. he used to go there every evening--"he spent a great deal on it no later than a week ago; he had even given her a set of rosewood furniture." "how do you know that?" said frederick. "oh! i'm sure of it." delphine, while carrying out some orders for her, had made enquiries about the matter, she must, then, be much attached to arnoux to take such a deep interest in his movements. he contented himself with saying to her in reply: "what does this signify to you?" rosanette looked surprised at this question. "why, the rascal owes me money. isn't it atrocious to see him keeping beggars?" then, with an expression of triumphant hate in her face: "besides, she is having a nice laugh at him. she has three others on hand. so much the better; and i'll be glad if she eats him up, even to the last farthing!" arnoux had, in fact, let himself be made use of by the girl from bordeaux with the indulgence which characterises senile attachments. his manufactory was no longer going on. the entire state of his affairs was pitiable; so that, in order to set them afloat again, he was at first projecting the establishment of a _café chantant_, at which only patriotic pieces would be sung. with a grant from the minister, this establishment would become at the same time a focus for the purpose of propagandism and a source of profit. now that power had been directed into a different channel, the thing was impossible. his next idea was a big military hat-making business. he lacked capital, however, to give it a start. he was not more fortunate in his domestic life. madame arnoux was less agreeable in manner towards him, sometimes even a little rude. berthe always took her father's part. this increased the discord, and the house was becoming intolerable. he often set forth in the morning, passed his day in making long excursions out of the city, in order to divert his thoughts, then dined at a rustic tavern, abandoning himself to his reflections. the prolonged absence of frederick disturbed his habits. then he presented himself one afternoon, begged of him to come and see him as in former days, and obtained from him a promise to do so. frederick did not feel sufficient courage within him to go back to madame arnoux's house. it seemed to him as if he had betrayed her. but this conduct was very pusillanimous. there was no excuse for it. there was only one way of ending the matter, and so, one evening, he set out on his way. as the rain was falling, he had just turned up the passage jouffroy, when, under the light shed from the shop-windows, a fat little man accosted him. frederick had no difficulty in recognising compain, that orator whose motion had excited so much laughter at the club. he was leaning on the arm of an individual whose head was muffled in a zouave's red cap, with a very long upper lip, a complexion as yellow as an orange, a tuft of beard under his jaw, and big staring eyes listening with wonder. compain was, no doubt, proud of him, for he said: "let me introduce you to this jolly dog! he is a bootmaker whom i include amongst my friends. come and let us take something!" frederick having thanked him, he immediately thundered against rateau's motion, which he described as a manoeuvre of the aristocrats. in order to put an end to it, it would be necessary to begin ' over again! then he enquired about regimbart and some others, who were also well known, such as masselin, sanson, lecornu, maréchal, and a certain deslauriers, who had been implicated in the case of the carbines lately intercepted at troyes. all this was new to frederick. compain knew nothing more about the subject. he quitted the young man with these words: "you'll come soon, will you not? for you belong to it." "to what?" "the calf's head!" "what calf's head?" "ha, you rogue!" returned compain, giving him a tap on the stomach. and the two terrorists plunged into a café. ten minutes later frederick was no longer thinking of deslauriers. he was on the footpath of the rue de paradis in front of a house; and he was staring at the light which came from a lamp in the second floor behind a curtain. at length he ascended the stairs. "is arnoux there?" the chambermaid answered: "no; but come in all the same." and, abruptly opening a door: "madame, it is monsieur moreau!" she arose, whiter than the collar round her neck. "to what do i owe the honour--of a visit--so unexpected?" "nothing. the pleasure of seeing old friends once more." and as he took a seat: "how is the worthy arnoux going on?" "very well. he has gone out." "ah, i understand! still following his old nightly practices. a little distraction!" "and why not? after a day spent in making calculations, the head needs a rest." she even praised her husband as a hard-working man. frederick was irritated at hearing this eulogy; and pointing towards a piece of black cloth with a narrow blue braid which lay on her lap: "what is it you are doing there?" "a jacket which i am trimming for my daughter." "now that you remind me of it, i have not seen her. where is she, pray?" "at a boarding-school," was madame arnoux's reply. tears came into her eyes. she held them back, while she rapidly plied her needle. to keep himself in countenance, he took up a number of _l'illustration_ which had been lying on the table close to where she sat. "these caricatures of cham are very funny, are they not?" "yes." then they relapsed into silence once more. all of a sudden, a fierce gust of wind shook the window-panes. "what weather!" said frederick. "it was very good of you, indeed, to come here in the midst of this dreadful rain." "oh! what do i care about that? i'm not like those whom it prevents, no doubt, from going to keep their appointments." "what appointments?" she asked with an ingenuous air. "don't you remember?" a shudder ran through her frame and she hung down her head. he gently laid his hand on her arm. "i assure you that you have given me great pain." she replied, with a sort of wail in her voice: "but i was frightened about my child." she told him about eugène's illness, and all the tortures which she had endured on that day. "thanks! thanks! i doubt you no longer. i love you as much as ever." "ah! no; it is not true!" "why so?" she glanced at him coldly. "you forget the other! the one you took with you to the races! the woman whose portrait you have--your mistress!" "well, yes!" exclaimed frederick, "i don't deny anything! i am a wretch! just listen to me!" if he had done this, it was through despair, as one commits suicide. however, he had made her very unhappy in order to avenge himself on her with his own shame. "what mental anguish! do you not realise what it means?" madame arnoux turned away her beautiful face while she held out her hand to him; and they closed their eyes, absorbed in a kind of intoxication that was like a sweet, ceaseless rocking. then they stood face to face, gazing at one another. "could you believe it possible that i no longer loved you?" she replied in a low voice, full of caressing tenderness: "no! in spite of everything, i felt at the bottom of my heart that it was impossible, and that one day the obstacle between us two would disappear!" "so did i; and i was dying to see you again." "i once passed close to you in the palais-royal!" "did you really?" and he spoke to her of the happiness he experienced at coming across her again at the dambreuses' house. "but how i hated you that evening as i was leaving the place!" "poor boy!" "my life is so sad!" "and mine, too! if it were only the vexations, the anxieties, the humiliations, all that i endure as wife and as mother, seeing that one must die, i would not complain; the frightful part of it is my solitude, without anyone." "but you have me here with you!" "oh! yes!" a sob of deep emotion made her bosom swell. she spread out her arms, and they strained one another, while their lips met in a long kiss. a creaking sound on the floor not far from them reached their ears. there was a woman standing close to them; it was rosanette. madame arnoux had recognised her. her eyes, opened to their widest, scanned this woman, full of astonishment and indignation. at length rosanette said to her: "i have come to see monsieur arnoux about a matter of business." "you see he is not here." "ah! that's true," returned the maréchale. "your nurse is right! a thousand apologies!" and turning towards frederick: "so here you are--you?" the familiar tone in which she addressed him, and in her own presence, too, made madame arnoux flush as if she had received a slap right across the face. "i tell you again, he is not here!" then the maréchale, who was looking this way and that, said quietly: "let us go back together! i have a cab waiting below." he pretended not to hear. "come! let us go!" "ah! yes! this is a good opportunity! go! go!" said madame arnoux. they went off together, and she stooped over the head of the stairs in order to see them once more, and a laugh--piercing, heart-rending, reached them from the place where she stood. frederick pushed rosanette into the cab, sat down opposite her, and during the entire drive did not utter a word. the infamy, which it outraged him to see once more flowing back on him, had been brought about by himself alone. he experienced at the same time the dishonour of a crushing humiliation and the regret caused by the loss of his new-found happiness. just when, at last, he had it in his grasp, it had for ever more become impossible, and that through the fault of this girl of the town, this harlot. he would have liked to strangle her. he was choking with rage. when they had got into the house he flung his hat on a piece of furniture and tore off his cravat. "ha! you have just done a nice thing--confess it!" she planted herself boldly in front of him. "ah! well, what of that? where's the harm?" "what! you are playing the spy on me?" "is that my fault? why do you go to amuse yourself with virtuous women?" "never mind! i don't wish you to insult them." "how have i insulted them?" he had no answer to make to this, and in a more spiteful tone: "but on the other occasion, at the champ de mars----" "ah! you bore us to death with your old women!" "wretch!" he raised his fist. "don't kill me! i'm pregnant!" frederick staggered back. "you are lying!" "why, just look at me!" she seized a candlestick, and pointing at her face: "don't you recognise the fact there?" little yellow spots dotted her skin, which was strangely swollen. frederick did not deny the evidence. he went to the window, and opened it, took a few steps up and down the room, and then sank into an armchair. this event was a calamity which, in the first place, put off their rupture, and, in the next place, upset all his plans. the notion of being a father, moreover, appeared to him grotesque, inadmissible. but why? if, in place of the maréchale----and his reverie became so deep that he had a kind of hallucination. he saw there, on the carpet, in front of the chimney-piece, a little girl. she resembled madame arnoux and himself a little--dark, and yet fair, with two black eyes, very large eyebrows, and a red ribbon in her curling hair. (oh, how he would have loved her!) and he seemed to hear her voice saying: "papa! papa!" rosanette, who had just undressed herself, came across to him, and noticing a tear in his eyelids, kissed him gravely on the forehead. he arose, saying: "by jove, we mustn't kill this little one!" then she talked a lot of nonsense. to be sure, it would be a boy, and its name would be frederick. it would be necessary for her to begin making its clothes; and, seeing her so happy, a feeling of pity for her took possession of him. as he no longer cherished any anger against her, he desired to know the explanation of the step she had recently taken. she said it was because mademoiselle vatnaz had sent her that day a bill which had been protested for some time past; and so she hastened to arnoux to get the money from him. "i'd have given it to you!" said frederick. "it is a simpler course for me to get over there what belongs to me, and to pay back to the other one her thousand francs." "is this really all you owe her?" she answered: "certainly!" on the following day, at nine o'clock in the evening (the hour specified by the doorkeeper), frederick repaired to mademoiselle vatnaz's residence. in the anteroom, he jostled against the furniture, which was heaped together. but the sound of voices and of music guided him. he opened a door, and tumbled into the middle of a rout. standing up before a piano, which a young lady in spectacles was fingering, delmar, as serious as a pontiff, was declaiming a humanitarian poem on prostitution; and his hollow voice rolled to the accompaniment of the metallic chords. a row of women sat close to the wall, attired, as a rule, in dark colours without neck-bands or sleeves. five or six men, all people of culture, occupied seats here and there. in an armchair was seated a former writer of fables, a mere wreck now; and the pungent odour of the two lamps was intermingled with the aroma of the chocolate which filled a number of bowls placed on the card-table. mademoiselle vatnaz, with an oriental shawl thrown over her shoulders, sat at one side of the chimney-piece. dussardier sat facing her at the other side. he seemed to feel himself in an embarrassing position. besides, he was rather intimidated by his artistic surroundings. had the vatnaz, then, broken off with delmar? perhaps not. however, she seemed jealous of the worthy shopman; and frederick, having asked to let him exchange a word with her, she made a sign to him to go with them into her own apartment. when the thousand francs were paid down before her, she asked, in addition, for interest. "'tisn't worth while," said dussardier. "pray hold your tongue!" this want of moral courage on the part of so brave a man was agreeable to frederick as a justification of his own conduct. he took away the bill with him, and never again referred to the scandal at madame arnoux's house. but from that time forth he saw clearly all the defects in the maréchale's character. she possessed incurable bad taste, incomprehensible laziness, the ignorance of a savage, so much so that she regarded doctor derogis as a person of great celebrity, and she felt proud of entertaining himself and his wife, because they were "married people." she lectured with a pedantic air on the affairs of daily life to mademoiselle irma, a poor little creature endowed with a little voice, who had as a protector a gentleman "very well off," an ex-clerk in the custom-house, who had a rare talent for card tricks. rosanette used to call him "my big loulou." frederick could no longer endure the repetition of her stupid words, such as "some custard," "to chaillot," "one could never know," etc.; and she persisted in wiping off the dust in the morning from her trinkets with a pair of old white gloves. he was above all disgusted by her treatment of her servant, whose wages were constantly in arrear, and who even lent her money. on the days when they settled their accounts, they used to wrangle like two fish-women; and then, on becoming reconciled, used to embrace each other. it was a relief to him when madame dambreuse's evening parties began again. there, at any rate, he found something to amuse him. she was well versed in the intrigues of society, the changes of ambassadors, the personal character of dressmakers; and, if commonplaces escaped her lips, they did so in such a becoming fashion, that her language might be regarded as the expression of respect for propriety or of polite irony. it was worth while to watch the way in which, in the midst of twenty persons chatting around her, she would, without overlooking any of them, bring about the answers she desired and avoid those that were dangerous. things of a very simple nature, when related by her, assumed the aspect of confidences. her slightest smile gave rise to dreams; in short, her charm, like the exquisite scent which she usually carried about with her, was complex and indefinable. while he was with her, frederick experienced on each occasion the pleasure of a new discovery, and, nevertheless, he always found her equally serene the next time they met, like the reflection of limpid waters. but why was there such coldness in her manner towards her niece? at times she even darted strange looks at her. as soon as the question of marriage was started, she had urged as an objection to it, when discussing the matter with m. dambreuse, the state of "the dear child's" health, and had at once taken her off to the baths of balaruc. on her return fresh pretexts were raised by her--that the young man was not in a good position, that this ardent passion did not appear to be a very serious attachment, and that no risk would be run by waiting. martinon had replied, when the suggestion was made to him, that he would wait. his conduct was sublime. he lectured frederick. he did more. he enlightened him as to the best means of pleasing madame dambreuse, even giving him to understand that he had ascertained from the niece the sentiments of her aunt. as for m. dambreuse, far from exhibiting jealousy, he treated his young friend with the utmost attention, consulted him about different things, and even showed anxiety about his future, so that one day, when they were talking about père roque, he whispered with a sly air: "you have done well." and cécile, miss john, the servants and the porter, every one of them exercised a fascination over him in this house. he came there every evening, quitting rosanette for that purpose. her approaching maternity rendered her graver in manner, and even a little melancholy, as if she were tortured by anxieties. to every question put to her she replied: "you are mistaken; i am quite well." she had, as a matter of fact, signed five notes in her previous transactions, and not having the courage to tell frederick after the first had been paid, she had gone back to the abode of arnoux, who had promised her, in writing, the third part of his profits in the lighting of the towns of languedoc by gas (a marvellous undertaking!), while requesting her not to make use of this letter at the meeting of shareholders. the meeting was put off from week to week. meanwhile the maréchale wanted money. she would have died sooner than ask frederick for any. she did not wish to get it from him; it would have spoiled their love. he contributed a great deal to the household expenses; but a little carriage, which he hired by the month, and other sacrifices, which were indispensable since he had begun to visit the dambreuses, prevented him from doing more for his mistress. on two or three occasions, when he came back to the house at a different hour from his usual time, he fancied he could see men's backs disappearing behind the door, and she often went out without wishing to state where she was going. frederick did not attempt to enquire minutely into these matters. one of these days he would make up his mind as to his future course of action. he dreamed of another life which would be more amusing and more noble. it was the fact that he had such an ideal before his mind that rendered him indulgent towards the dambreuse mansion. it was an establishment in the neighbourhood of the rue de poitiers. there he met the great m. a., the illustrious b., the profound c., the eloquent z., the immense y., the old terrors of the left centre, the paladins of the right, the burgraves of the golden mean; the eternal good old men of the comedy. he was astonished at their abominable style of talking, their meannesses, their rancours, their dishonesty--all these personages, after voting for the constitution, now striving to destroy it; and they got into a state of great agitation, and launched forth manifestoes, pamphlets, and biographies. hussonnet's biography of fumichon was a masterpiece. nonancourt devoted himself to the work of propagandism in the country districts; m. de grémonville worked up the clergy; and martinon brought together the young men of the wealthy class. each exerted himself according to his resources, including cisy himself. with his thoughts now all day long absorbed in matters of grave moment, he kept making excursions here and there in a cab in the interests of the party. m. dambreuse, like a barometer, constantly gave expression to its latest variation. lamartine could not be alluded to without eliciting from this gentleman the quotation of a famous phrase of the man of the people: "enough of poetry!" cavaignac was, from this time forth, nothing better in his eyes than a traitor. the president, whom he had admired for a period of three months, was beginning to fall off in his esteem (as he did not appear to exhibit the "necessary energy"); and, as he always wanted a savior, his gratitude, since the affair of the conservatoire, belonged to changarnier: "thank god for changarnier.... let us place our reliance on changarnier.... oh, there's nothing to fear as long as changarnier----" m. thiers was praised, above all, for his volume against socialism, in which he showed that he was quite as much of a thinker as a writer. there was an immense laugh at pierre leroux, who had quoted passages from the philosophers in the chamber. jokes were made about the phalansterian tail. the "market of ideas" came in for a meed of applause, and its authors were compared to aristophanes. frederick patronised the work as well as the rest. political verbiage and good living had an enervating effect on his morality. mediocre in capacity as these persons appeared to him, he felt proud of knowing them, and internally longed for the respectability that attached to a wealthy citizen. a mistress like madame dambreuse would give him a position. he set about taking the necessary steps for achieving that object. he made it his business to cross her path, did not fail to go and greet her with a bow in her box at the theatre, and, being aware of the hours when she went to church, he would plant himself behind a pillar in a melancholy attitude. there was a continual interchange of little notes between them with regard to curiosities to which they drew each other's attention, preparations for a concert, or the borrowing of books or reviews. in addition to his visit each night, he sometimes made a call just as the day was closing; and he experienced a progressive succession of pleasures in passing through the large front entrance, through the courtyard, through the anteroom, and through the two reception-rooms. finally, he reached her boudoir, which was as quiet as a tomb, as warm as an alcove, and in which one jostled against the upholstered edging of furniture in the midst of objects of every sort placed here and there--chiffoniers, screens, bowls, and trays made of lacquer, or shell, or ivory, or malachite, expensive trifles, to which fresh additions were frequently made. amongst single specimens of these rarities might be noticed three etretat rollers which were used as paper-presses, and a frisian cap hung from a chinese folding-screen. nevertheless, there was a harmony between all these things, and one was even impressed by the noble aspect of the entire place, which was, no doubt, due to the loftiness of the ceiling, the richness of the portières, and the long silk fringes that floated over the gold legs of the stools. she nearly always sat on a little sofa, close to the flower-stand, which garnished the recess of the window. frederick, seating himself on the edge of a large wheeled ottoman, addressed to her compliments of the most appropriate kind that he could conceive; and she looked at him, with her head a little on one side, and a smile playing round her mouth. he read for her pieces of poetry, into which he threw his whole soul in order to move her and excite her admiration. she would now and then interrupt him with a disparaging remark or a practical observation; and their conversation relapsed incessantly into the eternal question of love. they discussed with each other what were the circumstances that produced it, whether women felt it more than men, and what was the difference between them on that point. frederick tried to express his opinion, and, at the same time, to avoid anything like coarseness or insipidity. this became at length a species of contest between them, sometimes agreeable and at other times tedious. whilst at her side, he did not experience that ravishment of his entire being which drew him towards madame arnoux, nor the feeling of voluptuous delight with which rosanette had, at first, inspired him. but he felt a passion for her as a thing that was abnormal and difficult of attainment, because she was of aristocratic rank, because she was wealthy, because she was a devotee--imagining that she had a delicacy of sentiment as rare as the lace she wore, together with amulets on her skin, and modest instincts even in her depravity. he made a certain use of his old passion for madame arnoux, uttering in his new flame's hearing all those amorous sentiments which the other had caused him to feel in downright earnest, and pretending that it was madame dambreuse herself who had occasioned them. she received these avowals like one accustomed to such things, and, without giving him a formal repulse, did not yield in the slightest degree; and he came no nearer to seducing her than martinon did to getting married. in order to bring matters to an end with her niece's suitor, she accused him of having money for his object, and even begged of her husband to put the matter to the test. m. dambreuse then declared to the young man that cécile, being the orphan child of poor parents, had neither expectations nor a dowry. martinon, not believing that this was true, or feeling that he had gone too far to draw back, or through one of those outbursts of idiotic infatuation which may be described as acts of genius, replied that his patrimony, amounting to fifteen thousand francs a year, would be sufficient for them. the banker was touched by this unexpected display of disinterestedness. he promised the young man a tax-collectorship, undertaking to obtain the post for him; and in the month of may, , martinon married mademoiselle cécile. there was no ball to celebrate the event. the young people started the same evening for italy. frederick came next day to pay a visit to madame dambreuse. she appeared to him paler than usual. she sharply contradicted him about two or three matters of no importance. however, she went on to observe, all men were egoists. there were, however, some devoted men, though he might happen himself to be the only one. "pooh, pooh! you're just like the rest of them!" her eyelids were red; she had been weeping. then, forcing a smile: "pardon me; i am in the wrong. sad thoughts have taken possession of my mind." he could not understand what she meant to convey by the last words. "no matter! she is not so hard to overcome as i imagined," he thought. she rang for a glass of water, drank a mouthful of it, sent it away again, and then began to complain of the wretched way in which her servants attended on her. in order to amuse her, he offered to become her servant himself, pretending that he knew how to hand round plates, dust furniture, and announce visitors--in fact, to do the duties of a _valet-de-chambre_, or, rather, of a running-footman, although the latter was now out of fashion. he would have liked to cling on behind her carriage with a hat adorned with cock's feathers. "and how i would follow you with majestic stride, carrying your pug on my arm!" "you are facetious," said madame dambreuse. was it not a piece of folly, he returned, to take everything seriously? there were enough of miseries in the world without creating fresh ones. nothing was worth the cost of a single pang. madame dambreuse raised her eyelids with a sort of vague approval. this agreement in their views of life impelled frederick to take a bolder course. his former miscalculations now gave him insight. he went on: "our grandsires lived better. why not obey the impulse that urges us onward?" after all, love was not a thing of such importance in itself. "but what you have just said is immoral!" she had resumed her seat on the little sofa. he sat down at the side of it, near her feet. "don't you see that i am lying! for in order to please women, one must exhibit the thoughtlessness of a buffoon or all the wild passion of tragedy! they only laugh at us when we simply tell them that we love them! for my part, i consider those hyperbolical phrases which tickle their fancy a profanation of true love, so that it is no longer possible to give expression to it, especially when addressing women who possess more than ordinary intelligence." she gazed at him from under her drooping eyelids. he lowered his voice, while he bent his head closer to her face. "yes! you frighten me! perhaps i am offending you? forgive me! i did not intend to say all that i have said! 'tis not my fault! you are so beautiful!" madame dambreuse closed her eyes, and he was astonished at his easy victory. the tall trees in the clouds streaked the sky with long strips of red, and on every side there seemed to be a suspension of vital movements. then he recalled to mind, in a confused sort of way, evenings just the same as this, filled with the same unbroken silence. where was it that he had known them? he sank upon his knees, seized her hand, and swore that he would love her for ever. then, as he was leaving her, she beckoned to him to come back, and said to him in a low tone: "come by-and-by and dine with us! we'll be all alone!" it seemed to frederick, as he descended the stairs, that he had become a different man, that he was surrounded by the balmy temperature of hot-houses, and that he was beyond all question entering into the higher sphere of patrician adulteries and lofty intrigues. in order to occupy the first rank there all he required was a woman of this stamp. greedy, no doubt, of power and of success, and married to a man of inferior calibre, for whom she had done prodigious services, she longed for some one of ability in order to be his guide. nothing was impossible now. he felt himself capable of riding two hundred leagues on horseback, of travelling for several nights in succession without fatigue. his heart overflowed with pride. just in front of him, on the footpath, a man wrapped in a seedy overcoat was walking, with downcast eyes, and with such an air of dejection that frederick, as he passed, turned aside to have a better look at him. the other raised his head. it was deslauriers. he hesitated. frederick fell upon his neck. "ah! my poor old friend! what! 'tis you!" and he dragged deslauriers into his house, at the same time asking his friend a heap of questions. ledru-rollin's ex-commissioner commenced by describing the tortures to which he had been subjected. as he preached fraternity to the conservatives, and respect for the laws to the socialists, the former tried to shoot him, and the latter brought cords to hang him with. after june he had been brutally dismissed. he found himself involved in a charge of conspiracy--that which was connected with the seizure of arms at troyes. he had subsequently been released for want of evidence to sustain the charge. then the acting committee had sent him to london, where his ears had been boxed in the very middle of a banquet at which he and his colleagues were being entertained. on his return to paris---- "why did you not call here, then, to see me?" "you were always out! your porter had mysterious airs--i did not know what to think; and, in the next place, i had no desire to reappear before you in the character of a defeated man." he had knocked at the portals of democracy, offering to serve it with his pen, with his tongue, with all his energies. he had been everywhere repelled. they had mistrusted him; and he had sold his watch, his bookcase, and even his linen. "it would be much better to be breaking one's back on the pontoons of belle isle with sénécal!" frederick, who had been fastening his cravat, did not appear to be much affected by this news. "ha! so he is transported, this good sénécal?" deslauriers replied, while he surveyed the walls with an envious air: "not everybody has your luck!" "excuse me," said frederick, without noticing the allusion to his own circumstances, "but i am dining in the city. we must get you something to eat; order whatever you like. take even my bed!" this cordial reception dissipated deslauriers' bitterness. "your bed? but that might inconvenience you!" "oh, no! i have others!" "oh, all right!" returned the advocate, with a laugh. "pray, where are you dining?" "at madame dambreuse's." "can it be that you are--perhaps----?" "you are too inquisitive," said frederick, with a smile, which confirmed this hypothesis. then, after a glance at the clock, he resumed his seat. "that's how it is! and we mustn't despair, my ex-defender of the people!" "oh, pardon me; let others bother themselves about the people henceforth!" the advocate detested the working-men, because he had suffered so much on their account in his province, a coal-mining district. every pit had appointed a provisional government, from which he received orders. "besides, their conduct has been everywhere charming--at lyons, at lille, at havre, at paris! for, in imitation of the manufacturers, who would fain exclude the products of the foreigner, these gentlemen call on us to banish the english, german, belgian, and savoyard workmen. as for their intelligence, what was the use of that precious trades' union of theirs which they established under the restoration? in they joined the national guard, without having the common sense to get the upper hand of it. is it not the fact that, since the morning when dawned, the various trade-bodies had not reappeared with their banners? they have even demanded popular representatives for themselves, who are not to open their lips except on their own behalf. all this is the same as if the deputies who represent beetroot were to concern themselves about nothing save beetroot. ah! i've had enough of these dodgers who in turn prostrate themselves before the scaffold of robespierre, the boots of the emperor, and the umbrella of louis philippe--a rabble who always yield allegiance to the person that flings bread into their mouths. they are always crying out against the venality of talleyrand and mirabeau; but the messenger down below there would sell his country for fifty centimes if they'd only promise to fix a tariff of three francs on his walk. ah! what a wretched state of affairs! we ought to set the four corners of europe on fire!" frederick said in reply: "the spark is what you lack! you were simply a lot of shopboys, and even the best of you were nothing better than penniless students. as for the workmen, they may well complain; for, if you except a million taken out of the civil list, and of which you made a grant to them with the meanest expressions of flattery, you have done nothing for them, save to talk in stilted phrases! the workman's certificate remains in the hands of the employer, and the person who is paid wages remains (even in the eye of the law), the inferior of his master, because his word is not believed. in short, the republic seems to me a worn-out institution. who knows? perhaps progress can be realised only through an aristocracy or through a single man? the initiative always comes from the top, and whatever may be the people's pretensions, they are lower than those placed over them!" "that may be true," said deslauriers. according to frederick, the vast majority of citizens aimed only at a life of peace (he had been improved by his visits to the dambreuses), and the chances were all on the side of the conservatives. that party, however, was lacking in new men. "if you came forward, i am sure----" he did not finish the sentence. deslauriers saw what frederick meant, and passed his two hands over his head; then, all of a sudden: "but what about yourself? is there anything to prevent you from doing it? why would you not be a deputy?" in consequence of a double election there was in the aube a vacancy for a candidate. m. dambreuse, who had been re-elected as a member of the legislative assembly, belonged to a different arrondissement. "do you wish me to interest myself on your behalf?" he was acquainted with many publicans, schoolmasters, doctors, notaries' clerks and their masters. "besides, you can make the peasants believe anything you like!" frederick felt his ambition rekindling. deslauriers added: "you would find no trouble in getting a situation for me in paris." "oh! it would not be hard to manage it through monsieur dambreuse." "as we happened to have been talking just now about coal-mines," the advocate went on, "what has become of his big company? this is the sort of employment that would suit me, and i could make myself useful to them while preserving my own independence." frederick promised that he would introduce him to the banker before three days had passed. the dinner, which he enjoyed alone with madame dambreuse, was a delightful affair. she sat facing him with a smile on her countenance at the opposite side of the table, whereon was placed a basket of flowers, while a lamp suspended above their heads shed its light on the scene; and, as the window was open, they could see the stars. they talked very little, distrusting themselves, no doubt; but, the moment the servants had turned their backs, they sent across a kiss to one another from the tips of their lips. he told her about his idea of becoming a candidate. she approved of the project, promising even to get m. dambreuse to use every effort on his behalf. as the evening advanced, some of her friends presented themselves for the purpose of congratulating her, and, at the same time, expressing sympathy with her; she must be so much pained at the loss of her niece. besides, it was all very well for newly-married people to go on a trip; by-and-by would come incumbrances, children. but really, italy did not realise one's expectations. they had not as yet passed the age of illusions; and, in the next place, the honeymoon made everything look beautiful. the last two who remained behind were m. de grémonville and frederick. the diplomatist was not inclined to leave. at last he departed at midnight. madame dambreuse beckoned to frederick to go with him, and thanked him for this compliance with her wishes by giving him a gentle pressure with her hand more delightful than anything that had gone before. the maréchale uttered an exclamation of joy on seeing him again. she had been waiting for him for the last five hours. he gave as an excuse for the delay an indispensable step which he had to take in the interests of deslauriers. his face wore a look of triumph, and was surrounded by an aureola which dazzled rosanette. "'tis perhaps on account of your black coat, which fits you well; but i have never seen you look so handsome! how handsome you are!" in a transport of tenderness, she made a vow internally never again to belong to any other man, no matter what might be the consequence, even if she were to die of want. her pretty eyes sparkled with such intense passion that frederick took her upon his knees and said to himself: "what a rascally part i am playing!" while admiring his own perversity. chapter xvii. a strange betrothal. m. dambreuse, when deslauriers presented himself at his house, was thinking of reviving his great coal-mining speculation. but this fusion of all the companies into one was looked upon unfavourably; there was an outcry against monopolies, as if immense capital were not needed for carrying out enterprises of this kind! deslauriers, who had read for the purpose the work of gobet and the articles of m. chappe in the _journal des mines_, understood the question perfectly. he demonstrated that the law of established for the benefit of the grantee a privilege which could not be transferred. besides, a democratic colour might be given to the undertaking. to interfere with the formation of coal-mining companies was against the principle even of association. m. dambreuse intrusted to him some notes for the purpose of drawing up a memorandum. as for the way in which he meant to pay for the work, he was all the more profuse in his promises from the fact that they were not very definite. deslauriers called again at frederick's house, and gave him an account of the interview. moreover, he had caught a glimpse of madame dambreuse at the bottom of the stairs, just as he was going out. "i wish you joy--upon my soul, i do!" then they had a chat about the election. there was something to be devised in order to carry it. three days later deslauriers reappeared with a sheet of paper covered with handwriting, intended for the newspapers, and which was nothing less than a friendly letter from m. dambreuse, expressing approval of their friend's candidature. supported by a conservative and praised by a red, he ought to succeed. how was it that the capitalist had put his signature to such a lucubration? the advocate had, of his own motion, and without the least appearance of embarrassment, gone and shown it to madame dambreuse, who, thinking it quite appropriate, had taken the rest of the business on her own shoulders. frederick was astonished at this proceeding. nevertheless, he approved of it; then, as deslauriers was to have an interview with m. roque, his friend explained to him how he stood with regard to louise. "tell them anything you like; that my affairs are in an unsettled state, that i am putting them in order. she is young enough to wait!" deslauriers set forth, and frederick looked upon himself as a very able man. he experienced, moreover, a feeling of gratification, a profound satisfaction. his delight at being the possessor of a rich woman was not spoiled by any contrast. the sentiment harmonised with the surroundings. his life now would be full of joy in every sense. perhaps the most delicious sensation of all was to gaze at madame dambreuse in the midst of a number of other ladies in her drawing-room. the propriety of her manners made him dream of other attitudes. while she was talking in a tone of coldness, he would recall to mind the loving words which she had murmured in his ear. all the respect which he felt for her virtue gave him a thrill of pleasure, as if it were a homage which was reflected back on himself; and at times he felt a longing to exclaim: "but i know her better than you! she is mine!" it was not long ere their relations came to be socially recognised as an established fact. madame dambreuse, during the whole winter, brought frederick with her into fashionable society. he nearly always arrived before her; and he watched her as she entered the house they were visiting with her arms uncovered, a fan in her hand, and pearls in her hair. she would pause on the threshold (the lintel of the door formed a framework round her head), and she would open and shut her eyes with a certain air of indecision, in order to see whether he was there. she drove him back in her carriage; the rain lashed the carriage-blinds. the passers-by seemed merely shadows wavering in the mire of the street; and, pressed close to each other, they observed all these things vaguely with a calm disdain. under various pretexts, he would linger in her room for an entire additional hour. it was chiefly through a feeling of ennui that madame dambreuse had yielded. but this latest experience was not to be wasted. she desired to give herself up to an absorbing passion; and so she began to heap on his head adulations and caresses. she sent him flowers; she had an upholstered chair made for him. she made presents to him of a cigar-holder, an inkstand, a thousand little things for daily use, so that every act of his life should recall her to his memory. these kind attentions charmed him at first, and in a little while appeared to him very simple. she would step into a cab, get rid of it at the opening into a by-way, and come out at the other end; and then, gliding along by the walls, with a double veil on her face, she would reach the street where frederick, who had been keeping watch, would take her arm quickly to lead her towards his house. his two men-servants would have gone out for a walk, and the doorkeeper would have been sent on some errand. she would throw a glance around her--nothing to fear!--and she would breathe forth the sigh of an exile who beholds his country once more. their good fortune emboldened them. their appointments became more frequent. one evening, she even presented herself, all of a sudden, in full ball-dress. these surprises might have perilous consequences. he reproached her for her lack of prudence. nevertheless, he was not taken with her appearance. the low body of her dress exposed her thinness too freely. it was then that he discovered what had hitherto been hidden from him--the disillusion of his senses. none the less did he make professions of ardent love; but in order to call up such emotions he found it necessary to evoke the images of rosanette and madame arnoux. this sentimental atrophy left his intellect entirely untrammelled; and he was more ambitious than ever of attaining a high position in society. inasmuch as he had such a stepping-stone, the very least he could do was to make use of it. one morning, about the middle of january, sénécal entered his study, and in response to his exclamation of astonishment, announced that he was deslauriers' secretary. he even brought frederick a letter. it contained good news, and yet it took him to task for his negligence; he would have to come down to the scene of action at once. the future deputy said he would set out on his way there in two days' time. sénécal gave no opinion on the other's merits as a candidate. he spoke about his own concerns and about the affairs of the country. miserable as the state of things happened to be, it gave him pleasure, for they were advancing in the direction of communism. in the first place, the administration led towards it of its own accord, since every day a greater number of things were controlled by the government. as for property, the constitution of ' , in spite of its weaknesses, had not spared it. the state might, in the name of public utility, henceforth take whatever it thought would suit it. sénécal declared himself in favour of authority; and frederick noticed in his remarks the exaggeration which characterised what he had said himself to deslauriers. the republican even inveighed against the masses for their inadequacy. "robespierre, by upholding the right of the minority, had brought louis xvi. to acknowledge the national convention, and saved the people. things were rendered legitimate by the end towards which they were directed. a dictatorship is sometimes indispensable. long live tyranny, provided that the tyrant promotes the public welfare!" their discussion lasted a long time; and, as he was taking his departure, sénécal confessed (perhaps it was the real object of his visit) that deslauriers was getting very impatient at m. dambreuse's silence. but m. dambreuse was ill. frederick saw him every day, his character of an intimate friend enabling him to obtain admission to the invalid's bedside. general changarnier's recall had powerfully affected the capitalist's mind. he was, on the evening of the occurrence, seized with a burning sensation in his chest, together with an oppression that prevented him from lying down. the application of leeches gave him immediate relief. the dry cough disappeared; the respiration became more easy; and, eight days later, he said, while swallowing some broth: "ah! i'm better now--but i was near going on the last long journey!" "not without me!" exclaimed madame dambreuse, intending by this remark to convey that she would not be able to outlive him. instead of replying, he cast upon her and upon her lover a singular smile, in which there was at the same time resignation, indulgence, irony, and even, as it were, a touch of humour, a sort of secret satisfaction almost amounting to actual joy. frederick wished to start for nogent. madame dambreuse objected to this; and he unpacked and re-packed his luggage by turns according to the changes in the invalid's condition. suddenly m. dambreuse spat forth considerable blood. the "princes of medical science," on being consulted, could not think of any fresh remedy. his legs swelled, and his weakness increased. he had several times evinced a desire to see cécile, who was at the other end of france with her husband, now a collector of taxes, a position to which he had been appointed a month ago. m. dambreuse gave express orders to send for her. madame dambreuse wrote three letters, which she showed him. without trusting him even to the care of the nun, she did not leave him for one second, and no longer went to bed. the ladies who had their names entered at the door-lodge made enquiries about her with feelings of admiration, and the passers-by were filled with respect on seeing the quantity of straw which was placed in the street under the windows. on the th of february, at five o'clock, a frightful hæmoptysis came on. the doctor who had charge of him pointed out that the case had assumed a dangerous aspect. they sent in hot haste for a priest. while m. dambreuse was making his confession, madame kept gazing curiously at him some distance away. after this, the young doctor applied a blister, and awaited the result. the flame of the lamps, obscured by some of the furniture, lighted up the apartment in an irregular fashion. frederick and madame dambreuse, at the foot of the bed, watched the dying man. in the recess of a window the priest and the doctor chatted in low tones. the good sister on her knees kept mumbling prayers. at last came a rattling in the throat. the hands grew cold; the face began to turn white. now and then he drew a deep breath all of a sudden; but gradually this became rarer and rarer. two or three confused words escaped him. he turned his eyes upward, and at the same moment his respiration became so feeble that it was almost imperceptible. then his head sank on one side on the pillow. for a minute, all present remained motionless. madame dambreuse advanced towards the dead body of her husband, and, without an effort--with the unaffectedness of one discharging a duty--she drew down the eyelids. then she spread out her two arms, her figure writhing as if in a spasm of repressed despair, and quitted the room, supported by the physician and the nun. a quarter of an hour afterwards, frederick made his way up to her apartment. there was in it an indefinable odour, emanating from some delicate substances with which it was filled. in the middle of the bed lay a black dress, which formed a glaring contrast with the pink coverlet. madame dambreuse was standing at the corner of the mantelpiece. without attributing to her any passionate regret, he thought she looked a little sad; and, in a mournful voice, he said: "you are enduring pain?" "i? no--not at all." as she turned around, her eyes fell on the dress, which she inspected. then she told him not to stand on ceremony. "smoke, if you like! you can make yourself at home with me!" and, with a great sigh: "ah! blessed virgin!--what a riddance!" frederick was astonished at this exclamation. he replied, as he kissed her hand: "all the same, you were free!" this allusion to the facility with which the intrigue between them had been carried on hurt madame dambreuse. "ah! you don't know the services that i did for him, or the misery in which i lived!" "what!" "why, certainly! was it a safe thing to have always near him that bastard, a daughter, whom he introduced into the house at the end of five years of married life, and who, were it not for me, might have led him into some act of folly?" then she explained how her affairs stood. the arrangement on the occasion of her marriage was that the property of each party should be separate.[i] the amount of her inheritance was three hundred thousand francs. m. dambreuse had guaranteed by the marriage contract that in the event of her surviving him, she should have an income of fifteen thousand francs a year, together with the ownership of the mansion. but a short time afterwards he had made a will by which he gave her all he possessed, and this she estimated, so far as it was possible to ascertain just at present, at over three millions. frederick opened his eyes widely. [i] a marriage may take place in france under the _régime de communauté_, by which the husband has the enjoyment and the right of disposing of the property both of himself and his wife; the _régime dotal_, by which he can only dispose of the income; and the _régime de séparation de biens_, by which husband and wife enjoy and exercise control over their respective estates separately.--translator. "it was worth the trouble, wasn't it? however, i contributed to it! it was my own property i was protecting; cécile would have unjustly robbed me of it." "why did she not come to see her father?" as he asked her this question madame dambreuse eyed him attentively; then, in a dry tone: "i haven't the least idea! want of heart, probably! oh! i know what she is! and for that reason she won't get a farthing from me!" she had not been very troublesome, he pointed out; at any rate, since her marriage. "ha! her marriage!" said madame dambreuse, with a sneer. and she grudged having treated only too well this stupid creature, who was jealous, self-interested, and hypocritical. "all the faults of her father!" she disparaged him more and more. there was never a person with such profound duplicity, and with such a merciless disposition into the bargain, as hard as a stone--"a bad man, a bad man!" even the wisest people fall into errors. madame dambreuse had just made a serious one through this overflow of hatred on her part. frederick, sitting opposite her in an easy chair, was reflecting deeply, scandalised by the language she had used. she arose and knelt down beside him. "to be with you is the only real pleasure! you are the only one i love!" while she gazed at him her heart softened, a nervous reaction brought tears into her eyes, and she murmured: "will you marry me?" at first he thought he had not understood what she meant. he was stunned by this wealth. she repeated in a louder tone: "will you marry me?" at last he said with a smile: "have you any doubt about it?" then the thought forced itself on his mind that his conduct was infamous, and in order to make a kind of reparation to the dead man, he offered to watch by his side himself. but, feeling ashamed of this pious sentiment, he added, in a flippant tone: "it would be perhaps more seemly." "perhaps so, indeed," she said, "on account of the servants." the bed had been drawn completely out of the alcove. the nun was near the foot of it, and at the head of it sat a priest, a different one, a tall, spare man, with the look of a fanatical spaniard. on the night-table, covered with a white cloth, three wax-tapers were burning. frederick took a chair, and gazed at the corpse. the face was as yellow as straw. at the corners of the mouth there were traces of blood-stained foam. a silk handkerchief was tied around the skull, and on the breast, covered with a knitted waistcoat, lay a silver crucifix between the two crossed hands. it was over, this life full of anxieties! how many journeys had he not made to various places? how many rows of figures had he not piled together? how many speculations had he not hatched? how many reports had he not heard read? what quackeries, what smiles and curvets! for he had acclaimed napoléon, the cossacks, louis xviii., , the working-men, every _régime_, loving power so dearly that he would have paid in order to have the opportunity of selling himself. but he had left behind him the estate of la fortelle, three factories in picardy, the woods of crancé in the yonne, a farm near orléans, and a great deal of personal property in the form of bills and papers. frederick thus made an estimate of her fortune; and it would soon, nevertheless, belong to him! first of all, he thought of "what people would say"; then he asked himself what present he ought to make to his mother, and he was concerned about his future equipages, and about employing an old coachman belonging to his own family as the doorkeeper. of course, the livery would not be the same. he would convert the large reception-room into his own study. there was nothing to prevent him by knocking down three walls from setting up a picture-gallery on the second-floor. perhaps there might be an opportunity for introducing into the lower portion of the house a hall for turkish baths. as for m. dambreuse's office, a disagreeable spot, what use could he make of it? these reflections were from time to time rudely interrupted by the sounds made by the priest in blowing his nose, or by the good sister in settling the fire. but the actual facts showed that his thoughts rested on a solid foundation. the corpse was there. the eyelids had reopened, and the pupils, although steeped in clammy gloom, had an enigmatic, intolerable expression. frederick fancied that he saw there a judgment directed against himself, and he felt almost a sort of remorse, for he had never any complaint to make against this man, who, on the contrary---- "come, now! an old wretch!" and he looked at the dead man more closely in order to strengthen his mind, mentally addressing him thus: "well, what? have i killed you?" meanwhile, the priest read his breviary; the nun, who sat motionless, had fallen asleep. the wicks of the three wax-tapers had grown longer. for two hours could be heard the heavy rolling of carts making their way to the markets. the window-panes began to admit streaks of white. a cab passed; then a group of donkeys went trotting over the pavement. then came strokes of hammers, cries of itinerant vendors of wood and blasts of horns. already every other sound was blended with the great voice of awakening paris. frederick went out to perform the duties assigned to him. he first repaired to the mayor's office to make the necessary declaration; then, when the medical officer had given him a certificate of death, he called a second time at the municipal buildings in order to name the cemetery which the family had selected, and to make arrangements for the funeral ceremonies. the clerk in the office showed him a plan which indicated the mode of interment adopted for the various classes, and a programme giving full particulars with regard to the spectacular portion of the funeral. would he like to have an open funeral-car or a hearse with plumes, plaits on the horses, and aigrettes on the footmen, initials or a coat-of-arms, funeral-lamps, a man to display the family distinctions? and what number of carriages would he require? frederick did not economise in the slightest degree. madame dambreuse was determined to spare no expense. after this he made his way to the church. the curate who had charge of burials found fault with the waste of money on funeral pomps. for instance, the officer for the display of armorial distinctions was really useless. it would be far better to have a goodly display of wax-tapers. a low mass accompanied by music would be appropriate. frederick gave written directions to have everything that was agreed upon carried out, with a joint undertaking to defray all the expenses. he went next to the hôtel de ville to purchase a piece of ground. a grant of a piece which was two metres in length and one in breadth[j] cost five hundred francs. did he want a grant for fifty years or forever? "oh, forever!" said frederick. he took the whole thing seriously and got into a state of intense anxiety about it. in the courtyard of the mansion a marble-cutter was waiting to show him estimates and plans of greek, egyptian, and moorish tombs; but the family architect had already been in consultation with madame; and on the table in the vestibule there were all sorts of prospectuses with reference to the cleaning of mattresses, the disinfection of rooms, and the various processes of embalming. after dining, he went back to the tailor's shop to order mourning for the servants; and he had still to discharge another function, for the gloves that he had ordered were of beaver, whereas the right kind for a funeral were floss-silk. when he arrived next morning, at ten o'clock, the large reception-room was filled with people, and nearly everyone said, on encountering the others, in a melancholy tone: "it is only a month ago since i saw him! good heavens! it will be the same way with us all!" [j] a metre is about - / feet--translator. "yes; but let us try to keep it as far away from us as possible!" then there were little smiles of satisfaction; and they even engaged in conversations entirely unsuited to the occasion. at length, the master of the ceremonies, in a black coat in the french fashion and short breeches, with a cloak, cambric mourning-bands, a long sword by his side, and a three-cornered hat under his arm, gave utterance, with a bow, to the customary words: "messieurs, when it shall be your pleasure." the funeral started. it was the market-day for flowers on the place de la madeleine. it was a fine day with brilliant sunshine; and the breeze, which shook the canvas tents, a little swelled at the edges the enormous black cloth which was hung over the church-gate. the escutcheon of m. dambreuse, which covered a square piece of velvet, was repeated there three times. it was: _sable, with an arm sinister or and a clenched hand with a glove argent_; with the coronet of a count, and this device: _by every path_. the bearers lifted the heavy coffin to the top of the staircase, and they entered the building. the six chapels, the hemicycles, and the seats were hung with black. the catafalque at the end of the choir formed, with its large wax-tapers, a single focus of yellow lights. at the two corners, over the candelabra, flames of spirits of wine were burning. the persons of highest rank took up their position in the sanctuary, and the rest in the nave; and then the office for the dead began. with the exception of a few, the religious ignorance of all was so profound that the master of the ceremonies had, from time to time, to make signs to them to rise, to kneel, or to resume their seats. the organ and the two double-basses could be heard alternately with the voices. in the intervals of silence, the only sounds that reached the ear were the mumblings of the priest at the altar; then the music and the chanting went on again. the light of day shone dimly through the three cupolas, but the open door let in, as it were, a stream of white radiance, which, entering in a horizontal direction, fell on every uncovered head; and in the air, half-way towards the ceiling of the church, floated a shadow, which was penetrated by the reflection of the gildings that decorated the ribbing of the pendentives and the foliage of the capitals. frederick, in order to distract his attention, listened to the _dies iræ_. he gazed at those around him, or tried to catch a glimpse of the pictures hanging too far above his head, wherein the life of the magdalen was represented. luckily, pellerin came to sit down beside him, and immediately plunged into a long dissertation on the subject of frescoes. the bell began to toll. they left the church. the hearse, adorned with hanging draperies and tall plumes, set out for père-lachaise drawn by four black horses, with their manes plaited, their heads decked with tufts of feathers, and with large trappings embroidered with silver flowing down to their shoes. the driver of the vehicle, in hessian boots, wore a three-cornered hat with a long piece of crape falling down from it. the cords were held by four personages: a questor of the chamber of deputies, a member of the general council of the aube, a delegate from the coal-mining company, and fumichon, as a friend. the carriage of the deceased and a dozen mourning-coaches followed. the persons attending at the funeral came in the rear, filling up the middle of the boulevard. the passers-by stopped to look at the mournful procession. women, with their brats in their arms, got up on chairs, and people, who had been drinking glasses of beer in the cafés, presented themselves at the windows with billiard-cues in their hands. the way was long, and, as at formal meals at which people are at first reserved and then expansive, the general deportment speedily relaxed. they talked of nothing but the refusal of an allowance by the chamber to the president. m. piscatory had shown himself harsh; montalembert had been "magnificent, as usual," and mm. chamballe, pidoux, creton, in short, the entire committee would be compelled perhaps to follow the advice of mm. quentin-bauchard and dufour. this conversation was continued as they passed through the rue de la roquette, with shops on each side, in which could be seen only chains of coloured glass and black circular tablets covered with drawings and letters of gold--which made them resemble grottoes full of stalactites and crockery-ware shops. but, when they had reached the cemetery-gate, everyone instantaneously ceased speaking. the tombs among the trees: broken columns, pyramids, temples, dolmens, obelisks, and etruscan vaults with doors of bronze. in some of them might be seen funereal boudoirs, so to speak, with rustic armchairs and folding-stools. spiders' webs hung like rags from the little chains of the urns; and the bouquets of satin ribbons and the crucifixes were covered with dust. everywhere, between the balusters on the tombstones, may be observed crowns of immortelles and chandeliers, vases, flowers, black discs set off with gold letters, and plaster statuettes--little boys or little girls or little angels sustained in the air by brass wires; several of them have even a roof of zinc overhead. huge cables made of glass strung together, black, white, or azure, descend from the tops of the monuments to the ends of the flagstones with long folds, like boas. the rays of the sun, striking on them, made them scintillate in the midst of the black wooden crosses. the hearse advanced along the broad paths, which are paved like the streets of a city. from time to time the axletrees cracked. women, kneeling down, with their dresses trailing in the grass, addressed the dead in tones of tenderness. little white fumes arose from the green leaves of the yew trees. these came from offerings that had been left behind, waste material that had been burnt. m. dambreuse's grave was close to the graves of manuel and benjamin constant. the soil in this place slopes with an abrupt decline. one has under his feet there the tops of green trees, further down the chimneys of steam-pumps, then the entire great city. frederick found an opportunity of admiring the scene while the various addresses were being delivered. the first was in the name of the chamber of deputies, the second in the name of the general council of the aube, the third in the name of the coal-mining company of saone-et-loire, the fourth in the name of the agricultural society of the yonne, and there was another in the name of a philanthropic society. finally, just as everyone was going away, a stranger began reading a sixth address, in the name of the amiens society of antiquaries. and thereupon they all took advantage of the occasion to denounce socialism, of which m. dambreuse had died a victim. it was the effect produced on his mind by the exhibitions of anarchic violence, together with his devotion to order, that had shortened his days. they praised his intellectual powers, his integrity, his generosity, and even his silence as a representative of the people, "for, if he was not an orator, he possessed instead those solid qualities a thousand times more useful," etc., with all the requisite phrases--"premature end; eternal regrets; the better land; farewell, or rather no, _au revoir!_" the clay, mingled with stones, fell on the coffin, and he would never again be a subject for discussion in society. however, there were a few allusions to him as the persons who had followed his remains left the cemetery. hussonnet, who would have to give an account of the interment in the newspapers, took up all the addresses in a chaffing style, for, in truth, the worthy dambreuse had been one of the most notable _pots-de-vin_[k] of the last reign. then the citizens were driven in the mourning-coaches to their various places of business; the ceremony had not lasted very long; they congratulated themselves on the circumstance. frederick returned to his own abode quite worn out. [k] the reader will excuse this barbarism on account of its convenience. _pot-de-vin_ means a gratuity or something paid to a person who has not earned it.--translator. when he presented himself next day at madame dambreuse's residence, he was informed that she was busy below stairs in the room where m. dambreuse had kept his papers. the cardboard receptacles and the different drawers had been opened confusedly, and the account-books had been flung about right and left. a roll of papers on which were endorsed the words "repayment hopeless" lay on the ground. he was near falling over it, and picked it up. madame dambreuse had sunk back in the armchair, so that he did not see her. "well? where are you? what is the matter!" she sprang to her feet with a bound. "what is the matter? i am ruined, ruined! do you understand?" m. adolphe langlois, the notary, had sent her a message to call at his office, and had informed her about the contents of a will made by her husband before their marriage. he had bequeathed everything to cécile; and the other will was lost. frederick turned very pale. no doubt she had not made sufficient search. "well, then, look yourself!" said madame dambreuse, pointing at the objects contained in the room. the two strong-boxes were gaping wide, having been broken open with blows of a cleaver, and she had turned up the desk, rummaged in the cupboards, and shaken the straw-mattings, when, all of a sudden, uttering a piercing cry, she dashed into corner where she had just noticed a little box with a brass lock. she opened it--nothing! "ah! the wretch! i, who took such devoted care of him!" then she burst into sobs. "perhaps it is somewhere else?" said frederick. "oh! no! it was there! in that strong-box, i saw it there lately. 'tis burned! i'm certain of it!" one day, in the early stage of his illness, m. dambreuse had gone down to this room to sign some documents. "'tis then he must have done the trick!" and she fell back on a chair, crushed. a mother grieving beside an empty cradle was not more woeful than madame dambreuse was at the sight of the open strong-boxes. indeed, her sorrow, in spite of the baseness of the motive which inspired it, appeared so deep that he tried to console her by reminding her that, after all, she was not reduced to sheer want. "it is want, when i am not in a position to offer you a large fortune!" she had not more than thirty thousand livres a year, without taking into account the mansion, which was worth from eighteen to twenty thousand, perhaps. although to frederick this would have been opulence, he felt, none the less, a certain amount of disappointment. farewell to his dreams and to all the splendid existence on which he had intended to enter! honour compelled him to marry madame dambreuse. for a minute he reflected; then, in a tone of tenderness: "i'll always have yourself!" she threw herself into his arms, and he clasped her to his breast with an emotion in which there was a slight element of admiration for himself. madame dambreuse, whose tears had ceased to flow, raised her face, beaming all over with happiness, and seizing his hand: "ah! i never doubted you! i knew i could count on you!" the young man did not like this tone of anticipated certainty with regard to what he was pluming himself on as a noble action. then she brought him into her own apartment, and they began to arrange their plans for the future. frederick should now consider the best way of advancing himself in life. she even gave him excellent advice with reference to his candidature. the first point was to be acquainted with two or three phrases borrowed from political economy. it was necessary to take up a specialty, such as the stud system, for example; to write a number of notes on questions of local interest, to have always at his disposal post-offices or tobacconists' shops, and to do a heap of little services. in this respect m. dambreuse had shown himself a true model. thus, on one occasion, in the country, he had drawn up his wagonette, full of friends of his, in front of a cobbler's stall, and had bought a dozen pairs of shoes for his guests, and for himself a dreadful pair of boots, which he had not even the courage to wear for an entire fortnight. this anecdote put them into a good humour. she related others, and that with a renewal of grace, youthfulness, and wit. she approved of his notion of taking a trip immediately to nogent. their parting was an affectionate one; then, on the threshold, she murmured once more: "you love me--do you not?" "eternally," was his reply. a messenger was waiting for him at his own house with a line written in lead-pencil informing him that rosanette was about to be confined. he had been so much preoccupied for the past few days that he had not bestowed a thought upon the matter. she had been placed in a special establishment at chaillot. frederick took a cab and set out for this institution. at the corner of the rue de marbeuf he read on a board in big letters: "private lying-in-hospital, kept by madame alessandri, first-class midwife, ex-pupil of the maternity, author of various works, etc." then, in the centre of the street, over the door--a little side-door--there was another signboard: "private hospital of madame alessandri," with all her titles. frederick gave a knock. a chambermaid, with the figure of an abigail, introduced him into the reception-room, which was adorned with a mahogany table and armchairs of garnet velvet, and with a clock under a globe. almost immediately madame appeared. she was a tall brunette of forty, with a slender waist, fine eyes, and the manners of good society. she apprised frederick of the mother's happy delivery, and brought him up to her apartment. rosanette broke into a smile of unutterable bliss, and, as if drowned in the floods of love that were suffocating her, she said in a low tone: "a boy--there, there!" pointing towards a cradle close to her bed. he flung open the curtains, and saw, wrapped up in linen, a yellowish-red object, exceedingly shrivelled-looking, which had a bad smell, and which was bawling lustily. "embrace him!" he replied, in order to hide his repugnance: "but i am afraid of hurting him." "no! no!" then, with the tips of his lips, he kissed his child. "how like you he is!" and with her two weak arms, she clung to his neck with an outburst of feeling which he had never witnessed on her part before. the remembrance of madame dambreuse came back to him. he reproached himself as a monster for having deceived this poor creature, who loved and suffered with all the sincerity of her nature. for several days he remained with her till night. she felt happy in this quiet place; the window-shutters in front of it remained always closed. her room, hung with bright chintz, looked out on a large garden. madame alessandri, whose only shortcoming was that she liked to talk about her intimate acquaintanceship with eminent physicians, showed her the utmost attention. her associates, nearly all provincial young ladies, were exceedingly bored, as they had nobody to come to see them. rosanette saw that they regarded her with envy, and told this to frederick with pride. it was desirable to speak low, nevertheless. the partitions were thin, and everyone stood listening at hiding-places, in spite of the constant thrumming of the pianos. at last, he was about to take his departure for nogent, when he got a letter from deslauriers. two fresh candidates had offered themselves, the one a conservative, the other a red; a third, whatever he might be, would have no chance. it was all frederick's fault; he had let the lucky moment pass by; he should have come sooner and stirred himself. "you have not even been seen at the agricultural assembly!" the advocate blamed him for not having any newspaper connection. "ah! if you had followed my advice long ago! if we had only a public print of our own!" he laid special stress on this point. however, many persons who would have voted for him out of consideration for m. dambreuse, abandoned him now. deslauriers was one of the number. not having anything more to expect from the capitalist, he had thrown over his _protégé_. frederick took the letter to show it to madame dambreuse. "you have not been to nogent, then?" said she. "why do you ask?" "because i saw deslauriers three days ago." having learned that her husband was dead, the advocate had come to make a report about the coal-mines, and to offer his services to her as a man of business. this seemed strange to frederick; and what was his friend doing down there? madame dambreuse wanted to know how he had spent his time since they had parted. "i have been ill," he replied. "you ought at least to have told me about it." "oh! it wasn't worth while;" besides, he had to settle a heap of things, to keep appointments and to pay visits. from that time forth he led a double life, sleeping religiously at the maréchale's abode and passing the afternoon with madame dambreuse, so that there was scarcely a single hour of freedom left to him in the middle of the day. the infant was in the country at andilly. they went to see it once a week. the wet-nurse's house was on rising ground in the village, at the end of a little yard as dark as a pit, with straw on the ground, hens here and there, and a vegetable-cart under the shed. rosanette would begin by frantically kissing her baby, and, seized with a kind of delirium, would keep moving to and fro, trying to milk the she-goat, eating big pieces of bread, and inhaling the odour of manure; she even wanted to put a little of it into her handkerchief. then they took long walks, in the course of which she went into the nurseries, tore off branches from the lilac-trees which hung down over the walls, and exclaimed, "gee ho, donkey!" to the asses that were drawing cars along, and stopped to gaze through the gate into the interior of one of the lovely gardens; or else the wet-nurse would take the child and place it under the shade of a walnut-tree; and for hours the two women would keep talking the most tiresome nonsense. frederick, not far away from them, gazed at the beds of vines on the slopes, with here and there a clump of trees; at the dusty paths resembling strips of grey ribbon; at the houses, which showed white and red spots in the midst of the greenery; and sometimes the smoke of a locomotive stretched out horizontally to the bases of the hills, covered with foliage, like a gigantic ostrich's feather, the thin end of which was disappearing from view. then his eyes once more rested on his son. he imagined the child grown into a young man; he would make a companion of him; but perhaps he would be a blockhead, a wretched creature, in any event. he was always oppressed by the illegality of the infant's birth; it would have been better if he had never been born! and frederick would murmur, "poor child!" his heart swelling with feelings of unutterable sadness. they often missed the last train. then madame dambreuse would scold him for his want of punctuality. he would invent some falsehood. it was necessary to invent some explanations, too, to satisfy rosanette. she could not understand how he spent all his evenings; and when she sent a messenger to his house, he was never there! one day, when he chanced to be at home, the two women made their appearance almost at the same time. he got the maréchale to go away, and concealed madame dambreuse, pretending that his mother was coming up to paris. ere long, he found these lies amusing. he would repeat to one the oath which he had just uttered to the other, send them bouquets of the same sort, write to them at the same time, and then would institute a comparison between them. there was a third always present in his thoughts. the impossibility of possessing her seemed to him a justification of his perfidies, which were intensified by the fact that he had to practise them alternately; and the more he deceived, no matter which of the two, the fonder of him she grew, as if the love of one of them added heat to that of the other, and, as if by a sort of emulation, each of them were seeking to make him forget the other. "admire my confidence in you!" said madame dambreuse one day to him, opening a sheet of paper, in which she was informed that m. moreau and a certain rose bron were living together as husband and wife. "can it be that this is the lady of the races?" "what an absurdity!" he returned. "let me have a look at it!" the letter, written in roman characters, had no signature. madame dambreuse, in the beginning, had tolerated this mistress, who furnished a cloak for their adultery. but, as her passion became stronger, she had insisted on a rupture--a thing which had been effected long since, according to frederick's account; and when he had ceased to protest, she replied, half closing her eyes, in which shone a look like the point of a stiletto under a muslin robe: "well--and the other?" "what other?" "the earthenware-dealer's wife!" he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. she did not press the matter. but, a month later, while they were talking about honour and loyalty, and he was boasting about his own (in a casual sort of way, for the sake of precaution), she said to him: "it is true--you are acting uprightly--you don't go back there any more?" frederick, who was at the moment thinking of the maréchale, stammered: "where, pray?" "to madame arnoux's." he implored her to tell him from whom she got the information. it was through her second dressmaker, madame regimbart. so, she knew all about his life, and he knew nothing about hers! in the meantime, he had found in her dressing-room the miniature of a gentleman with long moustaches--was this the same person about whose suicide a vague story had been told him at one time? but there was no way of learning any more about it! however, what was the use of it? the hearts of women are like little pieces of furniture wherein things are secreted, full of drawers fitted into each other; one hurts himself, breaks his nails in opening them, and then finds within only some withered flower, a few grains of dust--or emptiness! and then perhaps he felt afraid of learning too much about the matter. she made him refuse invitations where she was unable to accompany him, stuck to his side, was afraid of losing him; and, in spite of this union which was every day becoming stronger, all of a sudden, abysses disclosed themselves between the pair about the most trifling questions--an estimate of an individual or a work of art. she had a style of playing on the piano which was correct and hard. her spiritualism (madame dambreuse believed in the transmigration of souls into the stars) did not prevent her from taking the utmost care of her cash-box. she was haughty towards her servants; her eyes remained dry at the sight of the rags of the poor. in the expressions of which she habitually made use a candid egoism manifested itself: "what concern is that of mine? i should be very silly! what need have i?" and a thousand little acts incapable of analysis revealed hateful qualities in her. she would have listened behind doors; she could not help lying to her confessor. through a spirit of despotism, she insisted on frederick going to the church with her on sunday. he obeyed, and carried her prayer-book. the loss of the property she had expected to inherit had changed her considerably. these marks of grief, which people attributed to the death of m. dambreuse, rendered her interesting, and, as in former times, she had a great number of visitors. since frederick's defeat at the election, she was ambitious of obtaining for both of them an embassy in germany; therefore, the first thing they should do was to submit to the reigning ideas. some persons were in favour of the empire, others of the orléans family, and others of the comte de chambord; but they were all of one opinion as to the urgency of decentralisation, and several expedients were proposed with that view, such as to cut up paris into many large streets in order to establish villages there, to transfer the seat of government to versailles, to have the schools set up at bourges, to suppress the libraries, and to entrust everything to the generals of division; and they glorified a rustic existence on the assumption that the uneducated man had naturally more sense than other men! hatreds increased--hatred of primary teachers and wine-merchants, of the classes of philosophy, of the courses of lectures on history, of novels, red waistcoats, long beards, of independence in any shape, or any manifestation of individuality, for it was necessary "to restore the principle of authority"--let it be exercised in the name of no matter whom; let it come from no matter where, as long as it was force, authority! the conservatives now talked in the very same way as sénécal. frederick was no longer able to understand their drift, and once more he found at the house of his former mistress the same remarks uttered by the same men. the salons of the unmarried women (it was from this period that their importance dates) were a sort of neutral ground where reactionaries of different kinds met. hussonnet, who gave himself up to the depreciation of contemporary glories (a good thing for the restoration of order), inspired rosanette with a longing to have evening parties like any other. he undertook to publish accounts of them, and first of all he brought a man of grave deportment, fumichon; then came nonancourt, m. de grémonville, the sieur de larsilloix, ex-prefect, and cisy, who was now an agriculturist in lower brittany, and more christian than ever. in addition, men who had at one time been the maréchale's lovers, such as the baron de comaing, the comte de jumillac, and others, presented themselves; and frederick was annoyed by their free-and-easy behaviour. in order that he might assume the attitude of master in the house, he increased the rate of expenditure there. then he went in for keeping a groom, took a new habitation, and got a fresh supply of furniture. these displays of extravagance were useful for the purpose of making his alliance appear less out of proportion with his pecuniary position. the result was that his means were soon terribly reduced--and rosanette was entirely ignorant of the fact! one of the lower middle-class, who had lost caste, she adored a domestic life, a quiet little home. however, it gave her pleasure to have "an at home day." in referring to persons of her own class, she called them "those women!" she wished to be a society lady, and believed herself to be one. she begged of him not to smoke in the drawing-room any more, and for the sake of good form tried to make herself look thin. she played her part badly, after all; for she grew serious, and even before going to bed always exhibited a little melancholy, just as there are cypress trees at the door of a tavern. he found out the cause of it; she was dreaming of marriage--she, too! frederick was exasperated at this. besides, he recalled to mind her appearance at madame arnoux's house, and then he cherished a certain spite against her for having held out against him so long. he made enquiries none the less as to who her lovers had been. she denied having had any relations with any of the persons he mentioned. a sort of jealous feeling took possession of him. he irritated her by asking questions about presents that had been made to her, and were still being made to her; and in proportion to the exciting effect which the lower portion of her nature produced upon him, he was drawn towards her by momentary illusions which ended in hate. her words, her voice, her smile, all had an unpleasant effect on him, and especially her glances with that woman's eye forever limpid and foolish. sometimes he felt so tired of her that he would have seen her die without being moved at it. but how could he get into a passion with her? she was so mild that there was no hope of picking a quarrel with her. deslauriers reappeared, and explained his sojourn at nogent by saying that he was making arrangements to buy a lawyer's office. frederick was glad to see him again. it was somebody! and as a third person in the house, he helped to break the monotony. the advocate dined with them from time to time, and whenever any little disputes arose, always took rosanette's part, so that frederick, on one occasion, said to him: "ah! you can have with her, if it amuses you!" so much did he long for some chance of getting rid of her. about the middle of the month of june, she was served with an order made by the law courts by which maître athanase gautherot, sheriff's officer, called on her to pay him four thousand francs due to mademoiselle clemence vatnaz; if not, he would come to make a seizure on her. in fact, of the four bills which she had at various times signed, only one had been paid; the money which she happened to get since then having been spent on other things that she required. she rushed off at once to see arnoux. he lived now in the faubourg saint-germain, and the porter was unable to tell her the name of the street. she made her way next to the houses of several friends of hers, could not find one of them at home, and came back in a state of utter despair. she did not wish to tell frederick anything about it, fearing lest this new occurrence might prejudice the chance of a marriage between them. on the following morning, m. athanase gautherot presented himself with two assistants close behind him, one of them sallow with a mean-looking face and an expression of devouring envy in his glance, the other wearing a collar and straps drawn very tightly, with a sort of thimble of black taffeta on his index-finger--and both ignobly dirty, with greasy necks, and the sleeves of their coats too short. their employer, a very good-looking man, on the contrary, began by apologising for the disagreeable duty he had to perform, while at the same time he threw a look round the room, "full of pretty things, upon my word of honour!" he added, "not to speak of the things that can't be seized." at a gesture the two bailiff's men disappeared. then he became twice as polite as before. could anyone believe that a lady so charming would not have a genuine friend! a sale of her goods under an order of the courts would be a real misfortune. one never gets over a thing like that. he tried to excite her fears; then, seeing that she was very much agitated, suddenly assumed a paternal tone. he knew the world. he had been brought into business relations with all these ladies--and as he mentioned their names, he examined the frames of the pictures on the walls. they were old pictures of the worthy arnoux, sketches by sombary, water-colours by burieu, and three landscapes by dittmer. it was evident that rosanette was ignorant of their value, maître gautherot turned round to her: "look here! to show that i am a decent fellow, do one thing: give me up those dittmers here--and i am ready to pay all. do you agree?" at that moment frederick, who had been informed about the matter by delphine in the anteroom, and who had just seen the two assistants, came in with his hat on his head, in a rude fashion. maître gautherot resumed his dignity; and, as the door had been left open: "come on, gentlemen--write down! in the second room, let us say--an oak table with its two leaves, two sideboards----" frederick here stopped him, asking whether there was not some way of preventing the seizure. "oh! certainly! who paid for the furniture?" "i did." "well, draw up a claim--you have still time to do it." maître gautherot did not take long in writing out his official report, wherein he directed that mademoiselle bron should attend at an enquiry in chambers with reference to the ownership of the furniture, and having done this he withdrew. frederick uttered no reproach. he gazed at the traces of mud left on the floor by the bailiff's shoes, and, speaking to himself: "it will soon be necessary to look about for money!" "ah! my god, how stupid i am!" said the maréchale. she ransacked a drawer, took out a letter, and made her way rapidly to the languedoc gas lighting company, in order to get the transfer of her shares. she came back an hour later. the interest in the shares had been sold to another. the clerk had said, in answer to her demand, while examining the sheet of paper containing arnoux's written promise to her: "this document in no way constitutes you the proprietor of the shares. the company has no cognisance of the matter." in short, he sent her away unceremoniously, while she choked with rage; and frederick would have to go to arnoux's house at once to have the matter cleared up. but arnoux would perhaps imagine that he had come to recover in an indirect fashion the fifteen thousand francs due on the mortgage which he had lost; and then this claim from a man who had been his mistress's lover seemed to him a piece of baseness. selecting a middle course, he went to the dambreuse mansion to get madame regimbart's address, sent a messenger to her residence, and in this way ascertained the name of the café which the citizen now haunted. it was the little café on the place de la bastille, in which he sat all day in the corner to the right at the lower end of the establishment, never moving any more than if he were a portion of the building. after having gone successively through the half-cup of coffee, the glass of grog, the "bishop," the glass of mulled wine, and even the red wine and water, he fell back on beer, and every half hour he let fall this word, "bock!" having reduced his language to what was actually indispensable. frederick asked him if he saw arnoux occasionally. "no!" "look here--why?" "an imbecile!" politics, perhaps, kept them apart, and so frederick thought it a judicious thing to enquire about compain. "what a brute!" said regimbart. "how is that?" "his calf's head!" "ha! explain to me what the calf's head is!" regimbart's face wore a contemptuous smile. "some tomfoolery!" after a long interval of silence, frederick went on to ask: "so, then, he has changed his address?" "who?" "arnoux!" "yes--rue de fleurus!" "what number?" "do i associate with the jesuits?" "what, jesuits!" the citizen replied angrily: "with the money of a patriot whom i introduced to him, this pig has set up as a dealer in beads!" "it isn't possible!" "go there, and see for yourself!" it was perfectly true; arnoux, enfeebled by a fit of sickness, had turned religious; besides, he had always had a stock of religion in his composition, and (with that mixture of commercialism and ingenuity which was natural to him), in order to gain salvation and fortune both together, he had begun to traffick in religious objects. frederick had no difficulty in discovering his establishment, on whose signboard appeared these words: "_emporium of gothic art_--restoration of articles used in ecclesiastical ceremonies--church ornaments--polychromatic sculpture--frankincense of the magi, kings, &c., &c." at the two corners of the shop-window rose two wooden statues, streaked with gold, cinnabar, and azure, a saint john the baptist with his sheepskin, and a saint genevieve with roses in her apron and a distaff under her arm; next, groups in plaster, a good sister teaching a little girl, a mother on her knees beside a little bed, and three collegians before the holy table. the prettiest object there was a kind of châlet representing the interior of a crib with the ass, the ox, and the child jesus stretched on straw--real straw. from the top to the bottom of the shelves could be seen medals by the dozen, every sort of beads, holy-water basins in the form of shells, and portraits of ecclesiastical dignitaries, amongst whom monsignor affre and our holy father shone forth with smiles on their faces. arnoux sat asleep at his counter with his head down. he had aged terribly. he had even round his temples a wreath of rosebuds, and the reflection of the gold crosses touched by the rays of the sun fell over him. frederick was filled with sadness at this spectacle of decay. through devotion to the maréchale he, however, submitted to the ordeal, and stepped forward. at the end of the shop madame arnoux showed herself; thereupon, he turned on his heel. "i couldn't see him," he said, when he came back to rosanette. and in vain he went on to promise that he would write at once to his notary at havre for some money--she flew into a rage. she had never seen a man so weak, so flabby. while she was enduring a thousand privations, other people were enjoying themselves. frederick was thinking about poor madame arnoux, and picturing to himself the heart-rending impoverishment of her surroundings. he had seated himself before the writing-desk; and, as rosanette's voice still kept up its bitter railing: "ah! in the name of heaven, hold your tongue!" "perhaps you are going to defend them?" "well, yes!" he exclaimed; "for what's the cause of this display of fury?" "but why is it that you don't want to make them pay up? 'tis for fear of vexing your old flame--confess it!" he felt an inclination to smash her head with the timepiece. words failed him. he relapsed into silence. rosanette, as she walked up and down the room, continued: "i am going to hurl a writ at this arnoux of yours. oh! i don't want your assistance. i'll get legal advice." three days later, delphine rushed abruptly into the room where her mistress sat. "madame! madame! there's a man here with a pot of paste who has given me a fright!" rosanette made her way down to the kitchen, and saw there a vagabond whose face was pitted with smallpox. moreover, one of his arms was paralysed, and he was three fourths drunk, and hiccoughed every time he attempted to speak. this was maître gautherot's bill-sticker. the objections raised against the seizure having been overruled, the sale followed as a matter of course. for his trouble in getting up the stairs he demanded, in the first place, a half-glass of brandy; then he wanted another favour, namely, tickets for the theatre, on the assumption that the lady of the house was an actress. after this he indulged for some minutes in winks, whose import was perfectly incomprehensible. finally, he declared that for forty sous he would tear off the corners of the poster which he had already affixed to the door below stairs. rosanette found herself referred to by name in it--a piece of exceptional harshness which showed the spite of the vatnaz. she had at one time exhibited sensibility, and had even, while suffering from the effects of a heartache, written to béranger for his advice. but under the ravages of life's storms, her spirit had become soured, for she had been forced, in turn, to give lessons on the piano, to act as manageress of a _table d'hôte_, to assist others in writing for the fashion journals, to sublet apartments, and to traffic in lace in the world of light women, her relations with whom enabled her to make herself useful to many persons, and amongst others to arnoux. she had formerly been employed in a commercial establishment. there it was one of her functions to pay the workwomen; and for each of them there were two livres, one of which always remained in her hands. dussardier, who, through kindness, kept the amount payable to a girl named hortense baslin, presented himself one day at the cash-office at the moment when mademoiselle vatnaz was presenting this girl's account, , francs, which the cashier paid her. now, on the very day before this, dussardier had entered down the sum as , in the girl baslin's book. he asked to have it given back to him on some pretext; then, anxious to bury out of sight the story of this theft, he stated that he had lost it. the workwoman ingenuously repeated this falsehood to mademoiselle vatnaz, and the latter, in order to satisfy her mind about the matter, came with a show of indifference to talk to the shopman on the subject. he contented himself with the answer: "i have burned it!"--that was all. a little while afterwards she quitted the house, without believing that the book had been really destroyed, and filled with the idea that dussardier had preserved it. on hearing that he had been wounded, she rushed to his abode, with the object of getting it back. then, having discovered nothing, in spite of the closest searches, she was seized with respect, and presently with love, for this youth, so loyal, so gentle, so heroic and so strong! at her age such good fortune in an affair of the heart was a thing that one would not expect. she threw herself into it with the appetite of an ogress; and she had given up literature, socialism, "the consoling doctrines and the generous utopias," the course of lectures which she had projected on the "desubalternization of woman"--everything, even delmar himself; finally she offered to unite herself to dussardier in marriage. although she was his mistress, he was not at all in love with her. besides, he had not forgotten her theft. then she was too wealthy for him. he refused her offer. thereupon, with tears in her eyes, she told him about what she had dreamed--it was to have for both of them a confectioner's shop. she possessed the capital that was required beforehand for the purpose, and next week this would be increased to the extent of four thousand francs. by way of explanation, she referred to the proceedings she had taken against the maréchale. dussardier was annoyed at this on account of his friend. he recalled to mind the cigar-holder that had been presented to him at the guard-house, the evenings spent in the quai napoléon, the many pleasant chats, the books lent to him, the thousand acts of kindness which frederick had done in his behalf. he begged of the vatnaz to abandon the proceedings. she rallied him on his good nature, while exhibiting an antipathy against rosanette which he could not understand. she longed only for wealth, in fact, in order to crush her, by-and-by, with her four-wheeled carriage. dussardier was terrified by these black abysses of hate, and when he had ascertained what was the exact day fixed for the sale, he hurried out. on the following morning he made his appearance at frederick's house with an embarrassed countenance. "i owe you an apology." "for what, pray?" "you must take me for an ingrate, i, whom she is the----" he faltered. "oh! i'll see no more of her. i am not going to be her accomplice!" and as the other was gazing at him in astonishment: "isn't your mistress's furniture to be sold in three days' time?" "who told you that?" "herself--the vatnaz! but i am afraid of giving you offence----" "impossible, my dear friend!" "ah! that is true--you are so good!" and he held out to him, in a cautious fashion, a hand in which he clasped a little pocket-book made of sheep-leather. it contained four thousand francs--all his savings. "what! oh! no! no!----" "i knew well i would wound your feelings," returned dussardier, with a tear in the corner of his eye. frederick pressed his hand, and the honest fellow went on in a piteous tone: "take the money! give me that much pleasure! i am in such a state of despair. can it be, furthermore, that all is over? i thought we should be happy when the revolution had come. do you remember what a beautiful thing it was? how freely we breathed! but here we are flung back into a worse condition of things than ever. "now, they are killing our republic, just as they killed the other one--the roman! ay, and poor venice! poor poland! poor hungary! what abominable deeds! first of all, they knocked down the trees of liberty, then they restricted the right to vote, shut up the clubs, re-established the censorship and surrendered to the priests the power of teaching, so that we might look out for the inquisition. why not? the conservatives want to give us a taste of the stick. the newspapers are fined merely for pronouncing an opinion in favour of abolishing the death-penalty. paris is overflowing with bayonets; sixteen departments are in a state of siege; and then the demand for amnesty is again rejected!" he placed both hands on his forehead, then, spreading out his arms as if his mind were in a distracted state: "if, however, we only made the effort! if we were only sincere, we might understand each other. but no! the workmen are no better than the capitalists, you see! at elboeuf recently they refused to help at a fire! there are wretches who profess to regard barbès as an aristocrat! in order to make the people ridiculous, they want to get nominated for the presidency nadaud, a mason--just imagine! and there is no way out of it--no remedy! everybody is against us! for my part, i have never done any harm; and yet this is like a weight pressing down on my stomach. if this state of things continues, i'll go mad. i have a mind to do away with myself. i tell you i want no money for myself! you'll pay it back to me, deuce take it! i am lending it to you." frederick, who felt himself constrained by necessity, ended by taking the four thousand francs from him. and so they had no more disquietude so far as the vatnaz was concerned. but it was not long ere rosanette was defeated in her action against arnoux; and through sheer obstinacy she wished to appeal. deslauriers exhausted his energies in trying to make her understand that arnoux's promise constituted neither a gift nor a regular transfer. she did not even pay the slightest attention to him, her notion being that the law was unjust--it was because she was a woman; men backed up each other amongst themselves. in the end, however, she followed his advice. he made himself so much at home in the house, that on several occasions he brought sénécal to dine there. frederick, who had advanced him money, and even got his own tailor to supply him with clothes, did not like this unceremoniousness; and the advocate gave his old clothes to the socialist, whose means of existence were now of an exceedingly uncertain character. he was, however, anxious to be of service to rosanette. one day, when she showed him a dozen shares in the kaolin company (that enterprise which led to arnoux being cast in damages to the extent of thirty thousand francs), he said to her: "but this is a shady transaction, and you have now a grand chance!" she had the right to call on him to pay her debts. in the first place, she could prove that he was jointly bound to pay all the company's liabilities, since he had certified personal debts as collective debts--in short, he had embezzled sums which were payable only to the company. "all this renders him guilty of fraudulent bankruptcy under articles and of the commercial code, and you may be sure, my pet, we'll send him packing." rosanette threw herself on his neck. he entrusted her case next day to his former master, not having time to devote attention to it himself, as he had business at nogent. in case of any urgency, sénécal could write to him. his negotiations for the purchase of an office were a mere pretext. he spent his time at m. roque's house, where he had begun not only by sounding the praises of their friend, but by imitating his manners and language as much as possible; and in this way he had gained louise's confidence, while he won over that of her father by making an attack on ledru-rollin. if frederick did not return, it was because he mingled in aristocratic society, and gradually deslauriers gave them to understand that he was in love with somebody, that he had a child, and that he was keeping a fallen creature. the despair of louise was intense. the indignation of madame moreau was not less strong. she saw her son whirling towards the bottom of a gulf the depth of which could not be determined, was wounded in her religious ideas as to propriety, and as it were, experienced a sense of personal dishonour; then all of a sudden her physiognomy underwent a change. to the questions which people put to her with regard to frederick, she replied in a sly fashion: "he is well, quite well."' she was aware that he was about to be married to madame dambreuse. the date of the event had been fixed, and he was even trying to think of some way of making rosanette swallow the thing. about the middle of autumn she won her action with reference to the kaolin shares. frederick was informed about it by sénécal, whom he met at his own door, on his way back from the courts. it had been held that m. arnoux was privy to all the frauds, and the ex-tutor had such an air of making merry over it that frederick prevented him from coming further, assuring sénécal that he would convey the intelligence to rosanette. he presented himself before her with a look of irritation on his face. "well, now you are satisfied!" but, without minding what he had said: "look here!" and she pointed towards her child, which was lying in a cradle close to the fire. she had found it so sick at the house of the wet-nurse that morning that she had brought it back with her to paris. all the infant's limbs were exceedingly thin, and the lips were covered with white specks, which in the interior of the mouth became, so to speak, clots of blood-stained milk. "what did the doctor say?" "oh! the doctor! he pretends that the journey has increased his--i don't know what it is, some name in 'ite'--in short, that he has the thrush.[l] do you know what that is?" frederick replied without hesitation: "certainly," adding that it was nothing. but in the evening he was alarmed by the child's debilitated look and by the progress of these whitish spots, resembling mould, as if life, already abandoning this little frame, had left now nothing but matter from which vegetation was sprouting. his hands were cold; he was no longer able to drink anything; and the nurse, another woman, whom the porter had gone and taken on chance at an office, kept repeating: "it seems to me he's very low, very low!" [l] this disease, consisting of ulceration of the tongue and palate, is also called _aphthæ_--translator. rosanette was up all night with the child. in the morning she went to look for frederick. "just come and look at him. he doesn't move any longer." in fact, he was dead. she took him up, shook him, clasped him in her arms, calling him most tender names, covered him with kisses, broke into sobs, turned herself from one side to the other in a state of distraction, tore her hair, uttered a number of shrieks, and then let herself sink on the edge of the divan, where she lay with her mouth open and a flood of tears rushing from her wildly-glaring eyes. then a torpor fell upon her, and all became still in the apartment. the furniture was overturned. two or three napkins were lying on the floor. it struck six. the night-light had gone out. frederick, as he gazed at the scene, could almost believe that he was dreaming. his heart was oppressed with anguish. it seemed to him that this death was only a beginning, and that behind it was a worse calamity, which was just about to come on. suddenly, rosanette said in an appealing tone: "we'll preserve the body--shall we not?" she wished to have the dead child embalmed. there were many objections to this. the principal one, in frederick's opinion, was that the thing was impracticable in the case of children so young. a portrait would be better. she adopted this idea. he wrote a line to pellerin, and delphine hastened to deliver it. pellerin arrived speedily, anxious by this display of zeal to efface all recollection of his former conduct. the first thing he said was: "poor little angel! ah, my god, what a misfortune!" but gradually (the artist in him getting the upper hand) he declared that nothing could be made out of those yellowish eyes, that livid face, that it was a real case of still-life, and would, therefore, require very great talent to treat it effectively; and so he murmured: "oh, 'tisn't easy--'tisn't easy!" "no matter, as long as it is life-like," urged rosanette. "pooh! what do i care about a thing being life-like? down with realism! 'tis the spirit that must be portrayed by the painter! let me alone! i am going to try to conjure up what it ought to be!" he reflected, with his left hand clasping his brow, and with his right hand clutching his elbow; then, all of a sudden: "ha, i have an idea! a pastel! with coloured mezzotints, almost spread out flat, a lovely model could be obtained with the outer surface alone!" he sent the chambermaid to look for his box of colours; then, having a chair under his feet and another by his side, he began to throw out great touches with as much complacency as if he had drawn them in accordance with the bust. he praised the little saint john of correggio, the infanta rosa of velasquez, the milk-white flesh-tints of reynolds, the distinction of lawrence, and especially the child with long hair that sits in lady gower's lap. "besides, could you find anything more charming than these little toads? the type of the sublime (raphael has proved it by his madonnas) is probably a mother with her child?" rosanette, who felt herself stifling, went away; and presently pellerin said: "well, about arnoux; you know what has happened?" "no! what?" "however, it was bound to end that way!" "what has happened, might i ask?" "perhaps by this time he is----excuse me!" the artist got up in order to raise the head of the little corpse higher. "you were saying----" frederick resumed. and pellerin, half-closing his eyes, in order to take his dimensions better: "i was saying that our friend arnoux is perhaps by this time locked up!" then, in a tone of satisfaction: "just give a little glance at it. is that the thing?" "yes, 'tis quite right. but about arnoux?" pellerin laid down his pencil. "as far as i could understand, he was sued by one mignot, an intimate friend of regimbart--a long-headed fellow that, eh? what an idiot! just imagine! one day----" "what! it's not regimbart that's in question, is it?" "it is, indeed! well, yesterday evening, arnoux had to produce twelve thousand francs; if not, he was a ruined man." "oh! this perhaps is exaggerated," said frederick. "not a bit. it looked to me a very serious business, very serious!" at that moment rosanette reappeared, with red spots under her eyes, which glowed like dabs of paint. she sat down near the drawing and gazed at it. pellerin made a sign to the other to hold his tongue on account of her. but frederick, without minding her: "nevertheless, i can't believe----" "i tell you i met him yesterday," said the artist, "at seven o'clock in the evening, in the rue jacob. he had even taken the precaution to have his passport with him; and he spoke about embarking from havre, he and his whole camp." "what! with his wife?" "no doubt. he is too much of a family man to live by himself." "and are you sure of this?" "certain, faith! where do you expect him to find twelve thousand francs?" frederick took two or three turns round the room. he panted for breath, bit his lips, and then snatched up his hat. "where are you going now?" said rosanette. he made no reply, and the next moment he had disappeared. chapter xviii. an auction. twelve thousand francs should be procured, or, if not, he would see madame arnoux no more; and until now there had lingered in his breast an unconquerable hope. did she not, as it were, constitute the very substance of his heart, the very basis of his life? for some minutes he went staggering along the footpath, his mind tortured with anxiety, and nevertheless gladdened by the thought that he was no longer by the other's side. where was he to get the money? frederick was well aware from his own experience how hard it was to obtain it immediately, no matter at what cost. there was only one person who could help him in the matter--madame dambreuse. she always kept a good supply of bank-notes in her escritoire. he called at her house; and in an unblushing fashion: "have you twelve thousand francs to lend me?" "what for?" that was another person's secret. she wanted to know who this person was. he would not give way on this point. they were equally determined not to yield. finally, she declared that she would give nothing until she knew for what purpose it was wanted. frederick's face became very flushed; and he stated that one of his comrades had committed a theft. it was necessary to replace the sum this very day. "let me know his name? his name? come! what's his name?" "dussardier!" and he threw himself on his knees, imploring of her to say nothing about it. "what idea have you got into your head about me?" madame dambreuse replied. "one would imagine that you were the guilty party yourself. pray, have done with your tragic airs! hold on! here's the money! and much good may it do him!" he hurried off to see arnoux. that worthy merchant was not in his shop. but he was still residing in the rue de paradis, for he had two domiciles. in the rue de paradis, the porter said that m. arnoux had been away since the evening before. as for madame, he ventured to say nothing; and frederick, having rushed like an arrow up the stairs, laid his ear against the keyhole. at length, the door was opened. madame had gone out with monsieur. the servant could not say when they would be back; her wages had been paid, and she was leaving herself. suddenly he heard the door creaking. "but is there anyone in the room?" "oh, no, monsieur! it is the wind." thereupon he withdrew. there was something inexplicable in such a rapid disappearance. regimbart, being mignot's intimate friend, could perhaps enlighten him? and frederick got himself driven to that gentleman's house at montmartre in the rue l'empereur. attached to the house there was a small garden shut in by a grating which was stopped up with iron plates. three steps before the hall-door set off the white front; and a person passing along the footpath could see the two rooms on the ground-floor, the first of which was a parlour with ladies' dresses lying on the furniture on every side, and the second the workshop in which madame regimbart's female assistants were accustomed to sit. they were all convinced that monsieur had important occupations, distinguished connections, that he was a man altogether beyond comparison. when he was passing through the lobby with his hat cocked up at the sides, his long grave face, and his green frock-coat, the girls stopped in the midst of their work. besides, he never failed to address to them a few words of encouragement, some observation which showed his ceremonious courtesy; and, afterwards, in their own homes they felt unhappy at not having been able to preserve him as their ideal. no one, however, was so devoted to him as madame regimbart, an intelligent little woman, who maintained him by her handicraft. as soon as m. moreau had given his name, she came out quickly to meet him, knowing through the servants what his relations were with madame dambreuse. her husband would be back in a moment; and frederick, while he followed her, admired the appearance of the house and the profusion of oil-cloth that was displayed in it. then he waited a few minutes in a kind of office, into which the citizen was in the habit of retiring, in order to be alone with his thoughts. when they met, regimbart's manner was less cranky than usual. he related arnoux's recent history. the ex-manufacturer of earthenware had excited the vanity of mignot, a patriot who owned a hundred shares in the _siècle_, by professing to show that it would be necessary from the democratic standpoint to change the management and the editorship of the newspaper; and under the pretext of making his views prevail in the next meeting of shareholders, he had given the other fifty shares, telling him that he could pass them on to reliable friends who would back up his vote. mignot would have no personal responsibility, and need not annoy himself about anyone; then, when he had achieved success, he would be able to secure a good place in the administration of at least from five to six thousand francs. the shares had been delivered. but arnoux had at once sold them, and with the money had entered into partnership with a dealer in religious articles. thereupon came complaints from mignot, to which arnoux sent evasive answers. at last the patriot had threatened to bring against him a charge of cheating if he did not restore his share-certificates or pay an equivalent sum--fifty thousand francs. frederick's face wore a look of despondency. "that is not the whole of it," said the citizen. "mignot, who is an honest fellow, has reduced his claim to one fourth. new promises on the part of the other, and, of course, new dodges. in short, on the morning of the day before yesterday mignot sent him a written application to pay up, within twenty-four hours, twelve thousand francs, without prejudice to the balance." "but i have the amount!" said frederick. the citizen slowly turned round: "humbug!" "excuse me! i have the money in my pocket. i brought it with me." "how you do go at it! by jove, you do! however, 'tis too late now--the complaint has been lodged, and arnoux is gone." "alone?" "no! along with his wife. they were seen at the havre terminus." frederick grew exceedingly pale. madame regimbart thought he was going to faint. he regained his self-possession with an effort, and had even sufficient presence of mind to ask two or three questions about the occurrence. regimbart was grieved at the affair, considering that it would injure the cause of democracy. arnoux had always been lax in his conduct and disorderly in his life. "a regular hare-brained fellow! he burned the candle at both ends! the petticoat has ruined him! 'tis not himself that i pity, but his poor wife!" for the citizen admired virtuous women, and had a great esteem for madame arnoux. "she must have suffered a nice lot!" frederick felt grateful to him for his sympathy; and, as if regimbart had done him a service, pressed his hand effusively. "have you done all that's necessary in the matter?" was rosanette's greeting to him when she saw him again. he had not been able to pluck up courage to do it, he answered, and walked about the streets at random to divert his thoughts. at eight o'clock, they passed into the dining-room; but they remained seated face to face in silence, gave vent each to a deep sigh every now and then, and pushed away their plates. frederick drank some brandy. he felt quite shattered, crushed, annihilated, no longer conscious of anything save a sensation of extreme fatigue. she went to look at the portrait. the red, the yellow, the green, and the indigo made glaring stains that jarred with each other, so that it looked a hideous thing--almost ridiculous. besides, the dead child was now unrecognisable. the purple hue of his lips made the whiteness of his skin more remarkable. his nostrils were more drawn than before, his eyes more hollow; and his head rested on a pillow of blue taffeta, surrounded by petals of camelias, autumn roses, and violets. this was an idea suggested by the chambermaid, and both of them had thus with pious care arranged the little corpse. the mantelpiece, covered with a cloth of guipure, supported silver-gilt candlesticks with bunches of consecrated box in the spaces between them. at the corners there were a pair of vases in which pastilles were burning. all these things, taken in conjunction with the cradle, presented the aspect of an altar; and frederick recalled to mind the night when he had watched beside m. dambreuse's death-bed. nearly every quarter of an hour rosanette drew aside the curtains in order to take a look at her child. she saw him in imagination, a few months hence, beginning to walk; then at college, in the middle of the recreation-ground, playing a game of base; then at twenty years a full-grown young man; and all these pictures conjured up by her brain created for her, as it were, the son she would have lost, had he only lived, the excess of her grief intensifying in her the maternal instinct. frederick, sitting motionless in another armchair, was thinking of madame arnoux. no doubt she was at that moment in a train, with her face leaning against a carriage window, while she watched the country disappearing behind her in the direction of paris, or else on the deck of a steamboat, as on the occasion when they first met; but this vessel carried her away into distant countries, from which she would never return. he next saw her in a room at an inn, with trunks covering the floor, the wall-paper hanging in shreds, and the door shaking in the wind. and after that--to what would she be compelled to turn? would she have to become a school-mistress or a lady's companion, or perhaps a chambermaid? she was exposed to all the vicissitudes of poverty. his utter ignorance as to what her fate might be tortured his mind. he ought either to have opposed her departure or to have followed her. was he not her real husband? and as the thought impressed itself on his consciousness that he would never meet her again, that it was all over forever, that she was lost to him beyond recall, he felt, so to speak, a rending of his entire being, and the tears that had been gathering since morning in his heart overflowed. rosanette noticed the tears in his eyes. "ah! you are crying just like me! you are grieving, too?" "yes! yes! i am----" he pressed her to his heart, and they both sobbed, locked in each other's arms. madame dambreuse was weeping too, as she lay, face downwards, on her bed, with her hands clasped over her head. olympe regimbart having come that evening to try on her first coloured gown after mourning, had told her about frederick's visit, and even about the twelve thousand francs which he had ready to transfer to m. arnoux. so, then, this money, the very money which he had got from her, was intended to be used simply for the purpose of preventing the other from leaving paris--for the purpose, in fact, of preserving a mistress! at first, she broke into a violent rage, and determined to drive him from her door, as she would have driven a lackey. a copious flow of tears produced a soothing effect upon her. it was better to keep it all to herself, and say nothing about it. frederick brought her back the twelve thousand francs on the following day. she begged of him to keep the money lest he might require it for his friend, and she asked a number of questions about this gentleman. who, then, had tempted him to such a breach of trust? a woman, no doubt! women drag you into every kind of crime. this bantering tone put frederick out of countenance. he felt deep remorse for the calumny he had invented. he was reassured by the reflection that madame dambreuse could not be aware of the facts. all the same, she was very persistent about the subject; for, two days later, she again made enquiries about his young friend, and, after that, about another--deslauriers. "is this young man trustworthy and intelligent?" frederick spoke highly of him. "ask him to call on me one of these mornings; i want to consult him about a matter of business." she had found a roll of old papers in which there were some bills of arnoux, which had been duly protested, and which had been signed by madame arnoux. it was about these very bills frederick had called on m. dambreuse on one occasion while the latter was at breakfast; and, although the capitalist had not sought to enforce repayment of this outstanding debt, he had not only got judgment on foot of them from the tribunal of commerce against arnoux, but also against his wife, who knew nothing about the matter, as her husband had not thought fit to give her any information on the point. here was a weapon placed in madame dambreuse's hands--she had no doubt about it. but her notary would advise her to take no step in the affair. she would have preferred to act through some obscure person, and she thought of that big fellow with such an impudent expression of face, who had offered her his services. frederick ingenuously performed this commission for her. the advocate was enchanted at the idea of having business relations with such an aristocratic lady. he hurried to madame dambreuse's house. she informed him that the inheritance belonged to her niece, a further reason for liquidating those debts which she should repay, her object being to overwhelm martinon's wife by a display of greater attention to the deceased's affairs. deslauriers guessed that there was some hidden design underlying all this. he reflected while he was examining the bills. madame arnoux's name, traced by her own hand, brought once more before his eyes her entire person, and the insult which he had received at her hands. since vengeance was offered to him, why should he not snatch at it? he accordingly advised madame dambreuse to have the bad debts which went with the inheritance sold by auction. a man of straw, whose name would not be divulged, would buy them up, and would exercise the legal rights thus given him to realise them. he would take it on himself to provide a man to discharge this function. towards the end of the month of november, frederick, happening to pass through the street in which madame arnoux had lived, raised his eyes towards the windows of her house, and saw posted on the door a placard on which was printed in large letters: "sale of valuable furniture, consisting of kitchen utensils, body and table linen, shirts and chemises, lace, petticoats, trousers, french and indian cashmeres, an erard piano, two renaissance oak chests, venetian mirrors, chinese and japanese pottery." "'tis their furniture!" said frederick to himself, and his suspicions were confirmed by the doorkeeper. as for the person who had given instructions for the sale, he could get no information on that head. but perhaps the auctioneer, maître berthelmot, might be able to throw light on the subject. the functionary did not at first want to tell what creditor was having the sale carried out. frederick pressed him on the point. it was a gentleman named sénécal, an agent; and maître berthelmot even carried his politeness so far as to lend his newspaper--the _petites affiches_--to frederick. the latter, on reaching rosanette's house, flung down this paper on the table spread wide open. "read that!" "well, what?" said she with a face so calm that it roused up in him a feeling of revolt. "ah! keep up that air of innocence!" "i don't understand what you mean." "'tis you who are selling out madame arnoux yourself!" she read over the announcement again. "where is her name?" "oh! 'tis her furniture. you know that as well as i do." "what does that signify to me?" said rosanette, shrugging her shoulders. "what does it signify to you? but you are taking your revenge, that's all. this is the consequence of your persecutions. haven't you outraged her so far as to call at her house?--you, a worthless creature! and this to the most saintly, the most charming, the best woman that ever lived! why do you set your heart on ruining her?" "i assure you, you are mistaken!" "come now! as if you had not put sénécal forward to do this!" "what nonsense!" then he was carried away with rage. "you lie! you lie! you wretch! you are jealous of her! you have got a judgment against her husband! sénécal is already mixed up in your affairs. he detests arnoux; and your two hatreds have entered into a combination with one another. i saw how delighted he was when you won that action of yours about the kaolin shares. are you going to deny this?" "i give you my word----" "oh, i know what that's worth--your word!" and frederick reminded her of her lovers, giving their names and circumstantial details. rosanette drew back, all the colour fading from her face. "you are astonished at this. you thought i was blind because i shut my eyes. now i have had enough of it. we do not die through the treacheries of a woman of your sort. when they become too monstrous we get out of the way. to inflict punishment on account of them would be only to degrade oneself." she twisted her arms about. "my god, who can it be that has changed him?" "nobody but yourself." "and all this for madame arnoux!" exclaimed rosanette, weeping. he replied coldly: "i have never loved any woman but her!" at this insult her tears ceased to flow. "that shows your good taste! a woman of mature years, with a complexion like liquorice, a thick waist, big eyes like the ventholes of a cellar, and just as empty! as you like her so much, go and join her!" "this is just what i expected. thank you!" rosanette remained motionless, stupefied by this extraordinary behaviour. she even allowed the door to be shut; then, with a bound, she pulled him back into the anteroom, and flinging her arms around him: "why, you are mad! you are mad! this is absurd! i love you!" then she changed her tone to one of entreaty: "good heavens! for the sake of our dead infant!" "confess that it was you who did this trick!" said frederick. she still protested that she was innocent. "you will not acknowledge it?" "no!" "well, then, farewell! and forever!" "listen to me!" frederick turned round: "if you understood me better, you would know that my decision is irrevocable!" "oh! oh! you will come back to me again!" "never as long as i live!" and he slammed the door behind him violently. rosanette wrote to deslauriers saying that she wanted to see him at once. he called one evening, about five days later; and, when she told him about the rupture: "that's all! a nice piece of bad luck!" she thought at first that he would have been able to bring back frederick; but now all was lost. she ascertained through the doorkeeper that he was about to be married to madame dambreuse. deslauriers gave her a lecture, and showed himself an exceedingly gay fellow, quite a jolly dog; and, as it was very late, asked permission to pass the night in an armchair. then, next morning, he set out again for nogent, informing her that he was unable to say when they would meet once more. in a little while, there would perhaps be a great change in his life. two hours after his return, the town was in a state of revolution. the news went round that m. frederick was going to marry madame dambreuse. at length the three mesdemoiselles auger, unable to stand it any longer, made their way to the house of madame moreau, who with an air of pride confirmed this intelligence. père roque became quite ill when he heard it. louise locked herself up; it was even rumoured that she had gone mad. meanwhile, frederick was unable to hide his dejection. madame dambreuse, in order to divert his mind, no doubt, from gloomy thoughts, redoubled her attentions. every afternoon they went out for a drive in her carriage; and, on one occasion, as they were passing along the place de la bourse, she took the idea into her head to pay a visit to the public auction-rooms for the sake of amusement. it was the st of december, the very day on which the sale of madame arnoux's furniture was to take place. he remembered the date, and manifested his repugnance, declaring that this place was intolerable on account of the crush and the noise. she only wanted to get a peep at it. the brougham drew up. he had no alternative but to accompany her. in the open space could be seen washhand-stands without basins, the wooden portions of armchairs, old hampers, pieces of porcelain, empty bottles, mattresses; and men in blouses or in dirty frock-coats, all grey with dust, and mean-looking faces, some with canvas sacks over their shoulders, were chatting in separate groups or hailing each other in a disorderly fashion. frederick urged that it was inconvenient to go on any further. "pooh!" and they ascended the stairs. in the first room, at the right, gentlemen, with catalogues in their hands, were examining pictures; in another, a collection of chinese weapons were being sold. madame dambreuse wanted to go down again. she looked at the numbers over the doors, and she led him to the end of the corridor towards an apartment which was blocked up with people. he immediately recognised the two whatnots belonging to the office of _l'art industriel_, her work-table, all her furniture. heaped up at the end of the room according to their respective heights, they formed a long slope from the floor to the windows, and at the other sides of the apartment, the carpets and the curtains hung down straight along the walls. there were underneath steps occupied by old men who had fallen asleep. at the left rose a sort of counter at which the auctioneer, in a white cravat, was lightly swinging a little hammer. by his side a young man was writing, and below him stood a sturdy fellow, between a commercial traveller and a vendor of countermarks, crying out: "furniture for sale." three attendants placed the articles on a table, at the sides of which sat in a row second-hand dealers and old-clothes' women. the general public at the auction kept walking in a circle behind them. when frederick came in, the petticoats, the neckerchiefs, and even the chemises were being passed on from hand to hand, and then given back. sometimes they were flung some distance, and suddenly strips of whiteness went flying through the air. after that her gowns were sold, and then one of her hats, the broken feather of which was hanging down, then her furs, and then three pairs of boots; and the disposal by sale of these relics, wherein he could trace in a confused sort of way the very outlines of her form, appeared to him an atrocity, as if he had seen carrion crows mangling her corpse. the atmosphere of the room, heavy with so many breaths, made him feel sick. madame dambreuse offered him her smelling-bottle. she said that she found all this highly amusing. the bedroom furniture was now exhibited. maître berthelmot named a price. the crier immediately repeated it in a louder voice, and the three auctioneer's assistants quietly waited for the stroke of the hammer, and then carried off the article sold to an adjoining apartment. in this way disappeared, one after the other, the large blue carpet spangled with camellias, which her dainty feet used to touch so lightly as she advanced to meet him, the little upholstered easy-chair, in which he used to sit facing her when they were alone together, the two screens belonging to the mantelpiece, the ivory of which had been rendered smoother by the touch of her hands, and a velvet pincushion, which was still bristling with pins. it was as if portions of his heart had been carried away with these things; and the monotony of the same voices and the same gestures benumbed him with fatigue, and caused within him a mournful torpor, a sensation like that of death itself. there was a rustle of silk close to his ear. rosanette touched him. it was through frederick himself that she had learned about this auction. when her first feelings of vexation was over, the idea of deriving profit from it occurred to her mind. she had come to see it in a white satin vest with pearl buttons, a furbelowed gown, tight-fitting gloves on her hands, and a look of triumph on her face. he grew pale with anger. she stared at the woman who was by his side. madame dambreuse had recognised her, and for a minute they examined each other from head to foot minutely, in order to discover the defect, the blemish--the one perhaps envying the other's youth, and the other filled with spite at the extreme good form, the aristocratic simplicity of her rival. at last madame dambreuse turned her head round with a smile of inexpressible insolence. the crier had opened a piano--her piano! while he remained standing before it he ran the fingers of his right hand over the keys, and put up the instrument at twelve hundred francs; then he brought down the figures to one thousand, then to eight hundred, and finally to seven hundred. madame dambreuse, in a playful tone, laughed at the appearance of some socket that was out of gear. the next thing placed before the second-hand dealers was a little chest with medallions and silver corners and clasps, the same one which he had seen at the first dinner in the rue de choiseul, which had subsequently been in rosanette's house, and again transferred back to madame arnoux's residence. often, during their conversations his eyes wandered towards it. he was bound to it by the dearest memories, and his soul was melting with tender emotions about it, when suddenly madame dambreuse said: "look here! i am going to buy that!" "but it is not a very rare article," he returned. she considered it, on the contrary, very pretty, and the appraiser commended its delicacy. "a gem of the renaissance! eight hundred francs, messieurs! almost entirely of silver! with a little whiting it can be made to shine brilliantly." and, as she was pushing forward through the crush of people: "what an odd idea!" said frederick. "you are annoyed at this!" "no! but what can be done with a fancy article of that sort?" "who knows? love-letters might be kept in it, perhaps!" she gave him a look which made the allusion very clear. "a reason the more for not robbing the dead of their secrets." "i did not imagine she was dead." and then in a loud voice she went on to bid: "eight hundred and eighty francs!" "what you're doing is not right," murmured frederick. she began to laugh. "but this is the first favour, dear, that i am asking from you." "come, now! doesn't it strike you that at this rate you won't be a very considerate husband?" some one had just at that moment made a higher bid. "nine hundred francs!" "nine hundred francs!" repeated maître berthelmot. "nine hundred and ten--fifteen--twenty--thirty!" squeaked the auctioneer's crier, with jerky shakes of his head as he cast a sweeping glance at those assembled around him. "show me that i am going to have a wife who is amenable to reason," said frederick. and he gently drew her towards the door. the auctioneer proceeded: "come, come, messieurs; nine hundred and thirty. is there any bidder at nine hundred and thirty?" madame dambreuse, just as she had reached the door, stopped, and raising her voice to a high pitch: "one thousand francs!" there was a thrill of astonishment, and then a dead silence. "a thousand francs, messieurs, a thousand francs! is nobody advancing on this bid? is that clear? very well, then--one thousand francs! going!--gone!" and down came the ivory hammer. she passed in her card, and the little chest was handed over to her. she thrust it into her muff. frederick felt a great chill penetrating his heart. madame dambreuse had not let go her hold of his arm; and she had not the courage to look up at his face in the street, where her carriage was awaiting her. she flung herself into it, like a thief flying away after a robbery, and then turned towards frederick. he had his hat in his hand. "are you not going to come in?" "no, madame!" and, bowing to her frigidly, he shut the carriage-door, and then made a sign to the coachman to drive away. the first feeling that he experienced was one of joy at having regained his independence. he was filled with pride at the thought that he had avenged madame arnoux by sacrificing a fortune to her; then, he was amazed at his own act, and he felt doubled up with extreme physical exhaustion. next morning his man-servant brought him the news. the city had been declared to be in a state of siege; the assembly had been dissolved; and a number of the representatives of the people had been imprisoned at mazas. public affairs had assumed to his mind an utterly unimportant aspect, so deeply preoccupied was he by his private troubles. he wrote to several tradesmen countermanding various orders which he had given for the purchase of articles in connection with his projected marriage, which now appeared to him in the light of a rather mean speculation; and he execrated madame dambreuse, because, owing to her, he had been very near perpetrating a vile action. he had forgotten the maréchale, and did not even bother himself about madame arnoux--absorbed only in one thought--lost amid the wreck of his dreams, sick at heart, full of grief and disappointment, and in his hatred of the artificial atmosphere wherein he had suffered so much, he longed for the freshness of green fields, the repose of provincial life, a sleeping existence spent beneath his natal roof in the midst of ingenuous hearts. at last, when wednesday evening arrived, he made his way out into the open air. on the boulevard numerous groups had taken up their stand. from time to time a patrol came and dispersed them; they gathered together again in regular order behind it. they talked freely and in loud tones, made chaffing remarks about the soldiers, without anything further happening. "what! are they not going to fight?" said frederick to a workman. "they're not such fools as to get themselves killed for the well-off people! let them take care of themselves!" and a gentleman muttered, as he glanced across at the inhabitants of the faubourgs: "socialist rascals! if it were only possible, this time, to exterminate them!" frederick could not, for the life of him, understand the necessity of so much rancour and vituperative language. his feeling of disgust against paris was intensified by these occurrences, and two days later he set out for nogent by the first train. the houses soon became lost to view; the country stretched out before his gaze. alone in his carriage, with his feet on the seat in front of him, he pondered over the events of the last few days, and then on his entire past. the recollection of louise came back to his mind. "she, indeed, loved me truly! i was wrong not to snatch at this chance of happiness. pooh! let us not think any more about it!" then, five minutes afterwards: "who knows, after all? why not, later?" his reverie, like his eyes, wandered afar towards vague horizons. "she was artless, a peasant girl, almost a savage; but so good!" in proportion as he drew nearer to nogent, her image drew closer to him. as they were passing through the meadows of sourdun, he saw her once more in imagination under the poplar-trees, as in the old days, cutting rushes on the edges of the pools. and now they had reached their destination; he stepped out of the train. then he leaned with his elbows on the bridge, to gaze again at the isle and the garden where they had walked together one sunshiny day, and the dizzy sensation caused by travelling, together with the weakness engendered by his recent emotions, arousing in his breast a sort of exaltation, he said to himself: "she has gone out, perhaps; suppose i were to go and meet her!" the bell of saint-laurent was ringing, and in the square in front of the church there was a crowd of poor people around an open carriage, the only one in the district--the one which was always hired for weddings. and all of a sudden, under the church-gate, accompanied by a number of well-dressed persons in white cravats, a newly-married couple appeared. he thought he must be labouring under some hallucination. but no! it was, indeed, louise! covered with a white veil which flowed from her red hair down to her heels; and with her was no other than deslauriers, attired in a blue coat embroidered with silver--the costume of a prefect. how was this? frederick concealed himself at the corner of a house to let the procession pass. shamefaced, vanquished, crushed, he retraced his steps to the railway-station, and returned to paris. the cabman who drove him assured him that the barricades were erected from the château d'eau to the gymnase, and turned down the faubourg saint-martin. at the corner of the rue de provence, frederick stepped out in order to reach the boulevards. it was five o'clock. a thin shower was falling. a number of citizens blocked up the footpath close to the opera house. the houses opposite were closed. no one at any of the windows. all along the boulevard, dragoons were galloping behind a row of wagons, leaning with drawn swords over their horses; and the plumes of their helmets, and their large white cloaks, rising up behind them, could be seen under the glare of the gas-lamps, which shook in the wind in the midst of a haze. the crowd gazed at them mute with fear. in the intervals between the cavalry-charges, squads of policemen arrived on the scene to keep back the people in the streets. but on the steps of tortoni, a man--dussardier--who could be distinguished at a distance by his great height, remained standing as motionless as a caryatide. one of the police-officers, marching at the head of his men, with his three-cornered hat drawn over his eyes, threatened him with his sword. the other thereupon took one step forward, and shouted: "long live the republic!" the next moment he fell on his back with his arms crossed. a yell of horror arose from the crowd. the police-officer, with a look of command, made a circle around him; and frederick, gazing at him in open-mouthed astonishment, recognised sénécal. [illustration] [illustration: when a woman suddenly came in.] chapter xix. a bitter-sweet reunion. he travelled. he realised the melancholy associated with packet-boats, the chill one feels on waking up under tents, the dizzy effect of landscapes and ruins, and the bitterness of ruptured sympathies. he returned home. he mingled in society, and he conceived attachments to other women. but the constant recollection of his first love made these appear insipid; and besides the vehemence of desire, the bloom of the sensation had vanished. in like manner, his intellectual ambitions had grown weaker. years passed; and he was forced to support the burthen of a life in which his mind was unoccupied and his heart devoid of energy. towards the end of march, , just as it was getting dark, one evening, he was sitting all alone in his study, when a woman suddenly came in. "madame arnoux!" "frederick!" she caught hold of his hands, and drew him gently towards the window, and, as she gazed into his face, she kept repeating: "'tis he! yes, indeed--'tis he!" in the growing shadows of the twilight, he could see only her eyes under the black lace veil that hid her face. when she had laid down on the edge of the mantelpiece a little pocket-book bound in garnet velvet, she seated herself in front of him, and they both remained silent, unable to utter a word, smiling at one another. at last he asked her a number of questions about herself and her husband. they had gone to live in a remote part of brittany for the sake of economy, so as to be able to pay their debts. arnoux, now almost a chronic invalid, seemed to have become quite an old man. her daughter had been married and was living at bordeaux, and her son was in garrison at mostaganem. then she raised her head to look at him again: "but i see you once more! i am happy!" he did not fail to let her know that, as soon as he heard of their misfortune, he had hastened to their house. "i was fully aware of it!" "how?" she had seen him in the street outside the house, and had hidden herself. "why did you do that?" then, in a trembling voice, and with long pauses between her words: "i was afraid! yes--afraid of you and of myself!" this disclosure gave him, as it were, a shock of voluptuous joy. his heart began to throb wildly. she went on: "excuse me for not having come sooner." and, pointing towards the little pocket-book covered with golden palm-branches: "i embroidered it on your account expressly. it contains the amount for which the belleville property was given as security." frederick thanked her for letting him have the money, while chiding her at the same time for having given herself any trouble about it. "no! 'tis not for this i came! i was determined to pay you this visit--then i would go back there again." and she spoke about the place where they had taken up their abode. it was a low-built house of only one story; and there was a garden attached to it full of huge box-trees, and a double avenue of chestnut-trees, reaching up to the top of the hill, from which there was a view of the sea. "i go there and sit down on a bench, which i have called 'frederick's bench.'" then she proceeded to fix her gaze on the furniture, the objects of virtù, the pictures, with eager intentness, so that she might be able to carry away the impressions of them in her memory. the maréchale's portrait was half-hidden behind a curtain. but the gilding and the white spaces of the picture, which showed their outlines through the midst of the surrounding darkness, attracted her attention. "it seems to me i knew that woman?" "impossible!" said frederick. "it is an old italian painting." she confessed that she would like to take a walk through the streets on his arm. they went out. the light from the shop-windows fell, every now and then, on her pale profile; then once more she was wrapped in shadow, and in the midst of the carriages, the crowd, and the din, they walked on without paying any heed to what was happening around them, without hearing anything, like those who make their way across the fields over beds of dead leaves. they talked about the days which they had formerly spent in each other's society, the dinners at the time when _l'art industriel_ flourished, arnoux's fads, his habit of drawing up the ends of his collar and of squeezing cosmetic over his moustache, and other matters of a more intimate and serious character. what delight he experienced on the first occasion when he heard her singing! how lovely she looked on her feast-day at saint-cloud! he recalled to her memory the little garden at auteuil, evenings at the theatre, a chance meeting on the boulevard, and some of her old servants, including the negress. she was astonished at his vivid recollection of these things. "sometimes your words come back to me like a distant echo, like the sound of a bell carried on by the wind, and when i read passages about love in books, it seems to me that it is about you i am reading." "all that people have found fault with as exaggerated in fiction you have made me feel," said frederick. "i can understand werther, who felt no disgust at his charlotte for eating bread and butter." "poor, dear friend!" she heaved a sigh; and, after a prolonged silence: "no matter; we shall have loved each other truly!" "and still without having ever belonged to each other!" "this perhaps is all the better," she replied. "no, no! what happiness we might have enjoyed!" "oh, i am sure of it with a love like yours!" and it must have been very strong to endure after such a long separation. frederick wished to know from her how she first discovered that he loved her. "it was when you kissed my wrist one evening between the glove and the cuff. i said to myself, 'ah! yes, he loves me--he loves me;' nevertheless, i was afraid of being assured of it. so charming was your reserve, that i felt myself the object, as it were, of an involuntary and continuous homage." he regretted nothing now. he was compensated for all he had suffered in the past. when they came back to the house, madame arnoux took off her bonnet. the lamp, placed on a bracket, threw its light on her white hair. frederick felt as if some one had given him a blow in the middle of the chest. in order to conceal from her his sense of disillusion, he flung himself on the floor at her feet, and seizing her hands, began to whisper in her ear words of tenderness: "your person, your slightest movements, seemed to me to have a more than human importance in the world. my heart was like dust under your feet. you produced on me the effect of moonlight on a summer's night, when around us we find nothing but perfumes, soft shadows, gleams of whiteness, infinity; and all the delights of the flesh and of the spirit were for me embodied in your name, which i kept repeating to myself while i tried to kiss it with my lips. i thought of nothing further. it was madame arnoux such as you were with your two children, tender, grave, dazzlingly beautiful, and yet so good! this image effaced every other. did i not think of it alone? for i had always in the very depths of my soul the music of your voice and the brightness of your eyes!" she accepted with transports of joy these tributes of adoration to the woman whom she could no longer claim to be. frederick, becoming intoxicated with his own words, came to believe himself in the reality of what he said. madame arnoux, with her back turned to the light of the lamp, stooped towards him. he felt the caress of her breath on his forehead, and the undefined touch of her entire body through the garments that kept them apart. their hands were clasped; the tip of her boot peeped out from beneath her gown, and he said to her, as if ready to faint: "the sight of your foot makes me lose my self-possession." an impulse of modesty made her rise. then, without any further movement, she said, with the strange intonation of a somnambulist: "at my age!--he--frederick! ah! no woman has ever been loved as i have been. no! where is the use in being young? what do i care about them, indeed? i despise them--all those women who come here!" "oh! very few women come to this place," he returned, in a complaisant fashion. her face brightened up, and then she asked him whether he meant to be married. he swore that he never would. "are you perfectly sure? why should you not?" "'tis on your account!" said frederick, clasping her in his arms. she remained thus pressed to his heart, with her head thrown back, her lips parted, and her eyes raised. suddenly she pushed him away from her with a look of despair, and when he implored of her to say something to him in reply, she bent forward and whispered: "i would have liked to make you happy!" frederick had a suspicion that madame arnoux had come to offer herself to him, and once more he was seized with a desire to possess her--stronger, fiercer, more desperate than he had ever experienced before. and yet he felt, the next moment, an unaccountable repugnance to the thought of such a thing, and, as it were, a dread of incurring the guilt of incest. another fear, too, had a different effect on him--lest disgust might afterwards take possession of him. besides, how embarrassing it would be!--and, abandoning the idea, partly through prudence, and partly through a resolve not to degrade his ideal, he turned on his heel and proceeded to roll a cigarette between his fingers. she watched him with admiration. "how dainty you are! there is no one like you! there is no one like you!" it struck eleven. "already!" she exclaimed; "at a quarter-past i must go." she sat down again, but she kept looking at the clock, and he walked up and down the room, puffing at his cigarette. neither of them could think of anything further to say to the other. there is a moment at the hour of parting when the person that we love is with us no longer. at last, when the hands of the clock got past the twenty-five minutes, she slowly took up her bonnet, holding it by the strings. "good-bye, my friend--my dear friend! i shall never see you again! this is the closing page in my life as a woman. my soul shall remain with you even when you see me no more. may all the blessings of heaven be yours!" and she kissed him on the forehead, like a mother. but she appeared to be looking for something, and then she asked him for a pair of scissors. she unfastened her comb, and all her white hair fell down. with an abrupt movement of the scissors, she cut off a long lock from the roots. "keep it! good-bye!" when she was gone, frederick rushed to the window and threw it open. there on the footpath he saw madame arnoux beckoning towards a passing cab. she stepped into it. the vehicle disappeared. and this was all. chapter xx. "wait till you come to forty year." about the beginning of this winter, frederick and deslauriers were chatting by the fireside, once more reconciled by the fatality of their nature, which made them always reunite and be friends again. frederick briefly explained his quarrel with madame dambreuse, who had married again, her second husband being an englishman. deslauriers, without telling how he had come to marry mademoiselle roque, related to his friend how his wife had one day eloped with a singer. in order to wipe away to some extent the ridicule that this brought upon him, he had compromised himself by an excess of governmental zeal in the exercise of his functions as prefect. he had been dismissed. after that, he had been an agent for colonisation in algeria, secretary to a pasha, editor of a newspaper, and canvasser for advertisements, his latest employment being the office of settling disputed cases for a manufacturing company. as for frederick, having squandered two thirds of his means, he was now living like a citizen of comparatively humble rank. then they questioned each other about their friends. martinon was now a member of the senate. hussonnet occupied a high position, in which he was fortunate enough to have all the theatres and entire press dependent upon him. cisy, given up to religion, and the father of eight children, was living in the château of his ancestors. pellerin, after turning his hand to fourrièrism, homoeopathy, table-turning, gothic art, and humanitarian painting, had become a photographer; and he was to be seen on every dead wall in paris, where he was represented in a black coat with a very small body and a big head. "and what about your chum sénécal?" asked frederick. "disappeared--i can't tell you where! and yourself--what about the woman you were so passionately attached to, madame arnoux?" "she is probably at rome with her son, a lieutenant of chasseurs." "and her husband?" "he died a year ago." "you don't say so?" exclaimed the advocate. then, striking his forehead: "now that i think of it, the other day in a shop i met that worthy maréchale, holding by the hand a little boy whom she has adopted. she is the widow of a certain m. oudry, and is now enormously stout. what a change for the worse!--she who formerly had such a slender waist!" deslauriers did not deny that he had taken advantage of the other's despair to assure himself of that fact by personal experience. "as you gave me permission, however." this avowal was a compensation for the silence he had maintained with reference to his attempt with madame arnoux. frederick would have forgiven him, inasmuch as he had not succeeded in the attempt. although a little annoyed at the discovery, he pretended to laugh at it; and the allusion to the maréchale brought back the vatnaz to his recollection. deslauriers had never seen her any more than the others who used to come to the arnoux's house; but he remembered regimbart perfectly. "is he still living?" "he is barely alive. every evening regularly he drags himself from the rue de grammont to the rue montmartre, to the cafés, enfeebled, bent in two, emaciated, a spectre!" "well, and what about compain?" frederick uttered a cry of joy, and begged of the ex-delegate of the provisional government to explain to him the mystery of the calf's head. "'tis an english importation. in order to parody the ceremony which the royalists celebrated on the thirtieth of january, some independents founded an annual banquet, at which they have been accustomed to eat calves' heads, and at which they make it their business to drink red wine out of calves' skulls while giving toasts in favour of the extermination of the stuarts. after thermidor, the terrorists organised a brotherhood of a similar description, which proves how prolific folly is." "you seem to me very dispassionate about politics?" "effect of age," said the advocate. and then they each proceeded to summarise their lives. they had both failed in their objects--the one who dreamed only of love, and the other of power. what was the reason of this? "'tis perhaps from not having taken up the proper line," said frederick. "in your case that may be so. i, on the contrary, have sinned through excess of rectitude, without taking into account a thousand secondary things more important than any. i had too much logic, and you too much sentiment." then they blamed luck, circumstances, the epoch at which they were born. frederick went on: "we have never done what we thought of doing long ago at sens, when you wished to write a critical history of philosophy and i a great mediæval romance about nogent, the subject of which i had found in froissart: 'how messire brokars de fenestranges and the archbishop of troyes attacked messire eustache d'ambrecicourt.' do you remember?" and, exhuming their youth with every sentence, they said to each other: "do you remember?" they saw once more the college playground, the chapel, the parlour, the fencing-school at the bottom of the staircase, the faces of the ushers and of the pupils--one named angelmare, from versailles, who used to cut off trousers-straps from old boots, m. mirbal and his red whiskers, the two professors of linear drawing and large drawing, who were always wrangling, and the pole, the fellow-countryman of copernicus, with his planetary system on pasteboard, an itinerant astronomer whose lecture had been paid for by a dinner in the refectory, then a terrible debauch while they were out on a walking excursion, the first pipes they had smoked, the distribution of prizes, and the delightful sensation of going home for the holidays. it was during the vacation of that they had called at the house of the turkish woman. this was the phrase used to designate a woman whose real name was zoraide turc; and many persons believed her to be a mohammedan, a turk, which added to the poetic character of her establishment, situated at the water's edge behind the rampart. even in the middle of summer there was a shadow around her house, which could be recognised by a glass bowl of goldfish near a pot of mignonette at a window. young ladies in white nightdresses, with painted cheeks and long earrings, used to tap at the panes as the students passed; and as it grew dark, their custom was to hum softly in their hoarse voices at the doorsteps. this home of perdition spread its fantastic notoriety over all the arrondissement. allusions were made to it in a circumlocutory style: "the place you know--a certain street--at the bottom of the bridges." it made the farmers' wives of the district tremble for their husbands, and the ladies grow apprehensive as to their servants' virtue, inasmuch as the sub-prefect's cook had been caught there; and, to be sure, it exercised a fascination over the minds of all the young lads of the place. now, one sunday, during vesper-time, frederick and deslauriers, having previously curled their hair, gathered some flowers in madame moreau's garden, then made their way out through the gate leading into the fields, and, after taking a wide sweep round the vineyards, came back through the fishery, and stole into the turkish woman's house with their big bouquets still in their hands. frederick presented his as a lover does to his betrothed. but the great heat, the fear of the unknown, and even the very pleasure of seeing at one glance so many women placed at his disposal, excited him so strangely that he turned exceedingly pale, and remained there without advancing a single step or uttering a single word. all the girls burst out laughing, amused at his embarrassment. fancying that they were turning him into ridicule, he ran away; and, as frederick had the money, deslauriers was obliged to follow him. they were seen leaving the house; and the episode furnished material for a bit of local gossip which was not forgotten three years later. they related the story to each other in a prolix fashion, each supplementing the narrative where the other's memory failed; and, when they had finished the recital: "that was the best time we ever had!" said frederick. "yes, perhaps so, indeed! it was the best time we ever had," said deslauriers. [illustration: "she slipped on her knees, and burst into a passionate fit of weeping."] vain fortune a novel by george moore _with five illustrations by__maurice greiffenhagen_ new edition completely revised london: walter scott, ltd. paternoster square edinburgh: t. and a. constable, printers to her majesty prefatory note i hope it will not seem presumptuous to ask my critics to treat this new edition of _vain fortune_ as a new book: for it is a new book. the first edition was kindly noticed, but it attracted little attention, and very rightly, for the story as told therein was thin and insipid; and when messrs. scribner proposed to print the book in america, i stipulated that i should be allowed to rewrite it. they consented, and i began the story with emily watson, making her the principal character instead of hubert price. some months after i received a letter from madam couperus, offering to translate the english edition into dutch. i sent her the american edition, and asked her which she would prefer to translate from. madam couperus replied that many things in the english edition, which she would like to retain, had been omitted from the american edition, that the hundred or more pages which i had written for the american edition seemed to her equally worthy of retention. she pointed out that, without the alteration of a sentence, the two versions could be combined. the idea had not occurred to me; i saw, however, that what she proposed was not only feasible but advantageous. i wrote, therefore, giving her the required permission, and thanking her for a suggestion which i should avail myself of when the time came for a new english edition. the union of the texts was no doubt accomplished by madam couperus, without the alteration of a sentence; but no such accomplished editing is possible to me; i am a victim to the disease of rewriting, and the inclusion of the hundred or more pages of new matter written for the american edition led me into a third revision of the story. but no more than in the second has the skeleton, or the attitude of the skeleton been altered in this third version, only flesh and muscle have been added, and, i think, a little life. _vain fortune_, even in its present form, is probably not my best book, but it certainly is far from being my worst. but my opinion regarding my own work is of no value; i do not write this prefatory note to express it, but to ask my critics and my readers to forget the original _vain fortune_, and to read this new book as if it were issued under another title. g.m. i the lamp had not been wiped, and the room smelt slightly of paraffin. the old window-curtains, whose harsh green age had not softened, were drawn. the mahogany sideboard, the threadbare carpet, the small horsehair sofa, the gilt mirror, standing on a white marble chimney-piece, said clearly, 'furnished apartments in a house built about a hundred years ago.' there were piles of newspapers, there were books on the mahogany sideboard and on the horsehair sofa, and on the table there were various manuscripts,--_the gipsy_, act i.; _the gipsy_, act iii., scenes iii. and iv. a sheet of foolscap paper, and upon it a long slender hand. the hand traced a few lines of fine, beautiful caligraphy, then it paused, correcting with extreme care what was already written, and in a hesitating, minute way, telling of a brain that delighted in the correction rather than in the creation of form. the shirt-cuff was frayed and dirty. the coat was thin and shiny. a half-length figure of a man drew out of the massed shadows between the window and sideboard. the red beard caught the light, and the wavy brown hair brightened. then a look of weariness, of distress, passed over the face, and the man laid down the pen, and, taking some tobacco from a paper, rolled a cigarette. rising, and leaning forward, he lighted it over the lamp. he was a man of about thirty-six feet, broad-shouldered, well-built, healthy, almost handsome. the time he spent in dreaming his play amounted to six times, if not ten times, as much as he devoted to trying to write it; and he now lit cigarette after cigarette, abandoning himself to every meditation,--the unpleasantness of life in lodgings, the charm of foreign travel, the beauty of the south, what he would do if his play succeeded. he plunged into calculation of the time it would take him to finish it if he were to sit at home all day, working from seven to ten hours every day. if he could but make up his mind concerning the beginning and the middle of the third act, and about the end, too,--the solution,--he felt sure that, with steady work, the play could be completed in a fortnight. in such reverie and such consideration he lay immersed, oblivious of the present moment, and did not stir from his chair until the postman shook the frail walls with a violent double knock. he hoped for a letter, for a newspaper--either would prove a welcome distraction. the servant's footsteps on the stairs told him the post had brought him something. his heart sank at the thought that it was probably only a bill, and he glanced at all the bills lying one above another on the table. it was not a bill, nor yet an advertisement, but a copy of a weekly review. he tore it open. an article about himself! after referring to the deplorable condition of the modern stage, the writer pointed out how dramatic writing has of late years come to be practised entirely by men who have failed in all other branches of literature. then he drew attention to the fact that signs of weariness and dissatisfaction with the old stale stories, the familiar tricks in bringing about 'striking situations,' were noticeable, not only in the newspaper criticisms of new plays, but also among the better portion of the audience. he admitted, however, that hitherto the attempts made by younger writers in the direction of new subject-matter and new treatment had met with little success. but this, he held, was not a reason for discouragement. did those who believed in the old formulas imagine that the new formula would be discovered straight away, without failures preliminary? besides, these attempts were not utterly despicable; at least one play written on the new lines had met with some measure of success, and that play was mr. hubert price's _divorce_. 'yes, the fellow is right. the public is ready for a good play: it wasn't when _divorce_ was given. i must finish _the gipsy_. there are good things in it; that i know. but i wish i could get that third act right. the public will accept a masterpiece, but it will not accept an attempt to write a masterpiece. but this time there'll be no falling off in the last acts. the scene between the gipsy lover and the young lord will fetch 'em.' taking up the review, hubert glanced over the article a second time. 'how anxious the fellows are for me to achieve a success! how they believe in me! they desire it more than i do. they believe in me more than i do in myself. they want to applaud me. they are hungry for the masterpiece.' at that moment his eye was caught by some letters written on blue paper. his face resumed a wearied and hunted expression. 'there's no doubt about it, money i must get somehow. i am running it altogether too fine. there isn't twenty pounds between me and the deep sea.' * * * * * he was the son of the rev. james price, a shropshire clergyman. the family was of welsh extraction, but in hubert none of the physical characteristics of the celt appeared. he might have been selected as a typical anglo-saxon. the face was long and pale, and he wore a short reddish beard; the eyes were light blue, verging on grey, and they seemed to speak a quiet, steadfast soul. hubert had always been his mother's favourite, and the scorn of his elder brothers, two rough boys, addicted in early youth to robbing orchards, and later on to gambling and drinking. the elder, after having broken his father's heart with debts and disgraceful living, had gone out to the cape. news of his death came to the rectory soon after; but james's death did not turn henry from his evil courses, and one day his father and mother had to go to london on his account, and they brought him back a hopeless invalid. hubert was twelve years of age when he followed his brother to the grave. it was at his brother's funeral that hubert met for the first time his uncle, mr. burnett. mr. burnett had spent the greater part of his life in new zealand, where he had made a large fortune by sheep-farming and investments in land. he had seemed to be greatly taken with his nephew, and for many years it was understood that he would leave him the greater part, if not the whole, of his fortune. but mr. burnett had come under the influence of some poor relations, some distant cousins, the watsons, and had eventually decided to adopt their daughter emily and leave her his fortune. he did not dare intimate his change of mind to his sister; but the news having reached mrs. price in various rumours, she wrote to her brother asking him to confirm or deny these rumours; and when he admitted their truth, mrs. price never spoke to him again. she was a determined woman, and the remembrance of the wrong done to her son never left her. while the other children had been a torment and disgrace, hubert had been to his parents a consolation and a blessing. they had feared that he too might turn to betting and drink, but he had never shown sign of low tastes. he played no games, nor did he care for terriers or horses; but for books and drawing, and long country walks. immediately on hearing of his disinheritance he had spoken at once of entering a profession; and for many months this was the subject of consideration in the rectory. hubert joined in these discussions willingly, but he could not bring himself to accept the army or the bar. it was indeed only necessary to look at him to see that neither soldier's tunic nor lawyer's wig was intended for him; and it was nearly as clear that those earnest eyes, so intelligent and yet so undetermined in their gaze, were not those of a doctor. but if his eyes failed to predict his future, his hands told the story of his life distinctly enough--those long, white, languid hands, what could they mean but art? and very soon hubert began to draw, evincing some natural aptitude. then an artist came into the neighbourhood, the two became friends, and went together on a long sketching tour. life in the open air, the shade of the hedge, the glare of the highway, the meditation of the field, the languor of the river-side, the contemplation of wooded horizons, was what hubert's pastoral nature was most fitted to enjoy; and, for the sake of the life it afforded him, he pursued the calling of a landscape painter long after he had begun to feel his desire turning in another direction. when the landscape on the canvas seemed hopelessly inadequate, he laid aside the brush for the pencil, and strove to interpret the summer fields in verse. from verse he drifted into the article and the short story, and from the story into the play. and it was in this last form that he felt himself strongest, and various were the dramas and comedies that he dreamed from year's end to year's end. while he was in the midst of his period of verse-writing his mother died, and in the following year, just as he was working at his stories, he received a telegram calling him to attend his father's death-bed. when the old man was laid in the shadow of the weather-beaten village church, hubert gathered all his belongings and bade farewell for ever to the shropshire rectory. in london hubert made few friends. there were some two or three men with whom he was frequently seen--quiet folk like himself, whose enjoyment consisted in smoking a tranquil pipe in the evening, or going for long walks in the country. he was one of those men whose indefiniteness provokes curiosity, and his friends noticed and wondered why it was that he was so frequently the theme of their conversation. his simple, unaffected manners were full of suggestion, and in his writings there was always an indefinable rainbow-like promise of ultimate achievement. so, long before he had succeeded in writing a play, detached scenes and occasional verses led his friends into gradual belief that he was one from whom big things might be expected. and when the one-act play which they had all so heartily approved of was produced, and every newspaper praised it for its literary quality, the friends took pride in this public vindication of their opinion. after the production of his play people came to see the new author, and every saturday evening some fifteen or twenty men used to assemble in hubert's lodgings to drink whisky, smoke cigars, and talk drama. encouraged by his success, hubert wrote _divorce_. he worked unceasingly upon it for more than a year, and when he had written the final scene, he was breaking into his last hundred pounds. the play was refused twice, and then accepted by a theatrical speculator, to whom it seemed to afford opportunity for the exhibition of the talents of a lady he was interested in. the success of the play was brief. but before it was withdrawn, hubert had sold the american rights for a handsome sum, and within the next two years he had completed a second play, which he called _an ebbing tide_. some of the critics argued that it contained scenes as fine as any in _divorce_, but it was admitted on all sides that the interest withered in the later acts. but the failure of the play did not shake the established belief in hubert's genius; it merely concentrated the admiration of those interested in the new art upon _divorce_, the partial failure of which was now attributed to the acting. if it had only been played at the haymarket or the lyceum, it could not have failed. the next three years hubert wasted in various aestheticisms. he explained the difference between the romantic and realistic methods in the reviews; he played with a poetic drama to be called _the king of the beggars_, and it was not until the close of the third year that he settled down to definite work. then all his energies were concentrated on a new play--_the gipsy_. a young woman of bohemian origin is suddenly taken with the nostalgia of the tent, and leaves her husband and her home to wander with those of her race. he had read portions of this play to his friends, who at last succeeded in driving montague ford, the popular actor-manager, to hubert's door; and after hearing some few scenes he had offered a couple of hundred pounds in advance of fees for the completed manuscript. 'but when can i have the manuscript?' said ford, as he was about to leave. 'as soon as i can finish it,' hubert replied, looking at him wistfully out of pale blue-grey eyes. 'i could finish it in a month, if i could count on not being worried by duns or disturbed by friends during that time.' ford looked at hubert questioningly; then he said 'i have always noticed that when a fellow wants to finish a play, the only way to do it is to go away to the country and leave no address.' but the country was always so full of pleasure for him, that he doubted his power to remain indoors with the temptation of fields and rivers before his eyes, and he thought that to escape from dunning creditors it would be sufficient to change his address. so he left norfolk street for the more remote quarter of fitzroy street, where he took a couple of rooms on the second floor. one of his fellow-lodgers, he soon found, was rose massey, an actress engaged for the performance of small parts at the queen's theatre. the first time he spoke to her was on the doorstep. she had forgotten her latch-key, and he said, 'will you allow me to let you in?' she stepped aside, but did not answer him. hubert thought her rude, but her strange eyes and absent-minded manner had piqued his curiosity, and, having nothing to do that night, he went to the theatre to see her act. she was playing a very small part, and one that was evidently unsuited to her--a part that was in contradiction to her nature; but there was something behind the outer envelope which led him to believe she had real talent, and would make a name for herself when she was given a part that would allow her to reveal what was in her. in the meantime, rose had been told that the gentleman she had snubbed in the passage was mr. hubert price, the author of _divorce_. 'oh, it was very silly of me,' she said to annie. 'if i had only known!' 'lor', he don't mind; he'll be glad enough to speak to you when you meets him again.' and when they met again on the stairs, rose nodded familiarly, and hubert said-- 'i went to the queen's the other night.' 'did you like the piece?' 'i did not care about the piece; but when you get a wild, passionate part to play, you'll make a hit. the sentimental parts they give you don't suit you.' a sudden light came into the languid face. 'yes, i shall do something if i can get a part like that.' hubert told her that he was writing a play containing just such a part. her eyes brightened again. 'will you read me the play?' she said, fixing her dark, dreamy eyes on him. 'i shall be very glad.... do you think it won't bore you?' and his wistful grey eyes were full of interrogation. 'no, i'm sure it won't.' and a few days after she sent annie with a note, reminding him of his promise to read her what he had written. as she had only a bedroom, the reading had to take place in his sitting-room. he read her the first and second acts. she was all enthusiasm, and begged hard to be allowed to study the part--just to see what she could do with it--just to let him see that he was not mistaken in her. her interest in his work captivated him, and he couldn't refuse to lend her the manuscript. ii rose often came to see hubert in his rooms. her manner was disappointing, and he thought he must be mistaken in his first judgment of her talents. but one afternoon she gave him a recitation of the sleep-walking scene in _macbeth_. it was strange to see this little dark-complexioned, dark-eyed girl, the merest handful of flesh and bone, divest herself at will of her personality, and assume the tragic horror of lady macbeth, or the passionate rapture of juliet detaining her husband-lover on the balcony of her chamber. hubert watched in wonderment this girl, so weak and languid in her own nature, awaking only to life when she assumed the personality of another. there she lay, her wispy form stretched in his arm-chair, her great dark eyes fixed, her mind at rest, sunk in some inscrutable dream. her thin hand lay on the arm of the chair: when she woke from her day-dream she burst into irresponsible laughter, or questioned him with petulant curiosity. he looked again: her dark curling hair hung on her swarthy neck, and she was somewhat untidily dressed in blue linen. 'were you ever in love?' she said suddenly. 'i don't suppose you could be; you are too occupied with your play. i don't know, though; you might be in love, but i don't think that many women would be in love with you.... you are too good a man, and women don't like good men.' hubert laughed, and without a trace of offended vanity in his voice he said, 'i don't profess to be much of a lady-killer.' 'you don't know what i mean,' she said, looking at him fixedly, a maze of half-childish, half-artistic curiosity in her handsome eyes. perplexed in his shy, straightford nature, hubert inquired if she took sugar in her tea. she said she did; stretched her feet to the fire, and lapsed into dream. she was one of the enigmas of stageland. she supported herself, and went about by herself, looking a poor, lost little thing. she spoke with considerable freedom of language on all subjects, but no one had been able to fix a lover upon her. 'what a part lady hayward is! but tell me,--i don't quite catch your meaning in the second act. is this it?' and starting to her feet, she became in a moment another being. with a gesture, a look, an intonation, she was the woman of the play,--a woman taken by an instinct, long submerged, but which has floated to the surface, and is beginning to command her actions. in another moment she had slipped back into her weary lymphatic nature, at once prematurely old and extravagantly childish. she could not talk of indifferent things; and having asked some strange questions, and laughed loudly, she wished hubert 'good-afternoon' in her curious, irresponsible fashion, taking her leave abruptly. the next two days hubert devoted entirely to his play. there were things in it which he knew were good, but it was incomplete. montague ford would not produce it in its present form. he must put his shoulder to the wheel and get it right; one more push, that was all that was wanted. and he could be heard walking to and fro, up and down, along and across his tiny sitting-room, stopping suddenly to take a note of an idea that had occurred to him. one day he went to hampstead heath. a long walk, he thought, would clear his mind, and he returned home thinking of his play. the sunset still glittering in the skies; the bare trees were beautifully distinct on the blue background of the suburban street, and at the end of the long perspective, a 'bus and a hansom could be seen coming towards him. as they grew larger, his thoughts defined themselves, and the distressing problem of his fourth act seemed to solve itself. that very evening he would sketch out a new dramatic movement around which all the other movements of the act would cluster. but at the corner of fitzroy square, within a few yards of no. , he was accosted by a shabbily-dressed man, who inquired if he were mr. price. on being answered in the affirmative, the shabbily-dressed man said, 'then i have something for ye; i have been a-watching for ye for the last three days, but ye didn't come out; missed yer this morning: 'ere it is;' and he thrust a folded paper into hubert's hand. 'what is this?' 'don't yer know?' he said with a grin; 'messrs. tomkins & co., tailors, writ--twenty-two pound odd.' hubert made no answer; he put the paper in his pocket, opened the door quietly, stole up to his room, and sat down to think. the first thing to do was to examine into his finances. it was alarming to find that he was breaking into his last five-pound note. true that he was close on the end of his play, and when it was finished he would be able to draw on ford. but a summons to appear in the county court could not fail to do him immense injury. he had heard of avoiding service, but he knew little of the law, and wondered what power the service of the writ gave his creditor over him. his instinct was to escape--hide himself where they would not be able to find him, and so obtain time to finish his play. but he owed his landlady money, and his departure would have to be clandestine. as he reflected on how many necessaries he might carry away in a newspaper, he began to feel strangely like a criminal, and while rolling up a couple of shirts, a few pairs of socks, and some collars, he paused, his hands resting on the parcel. he did not seem to know himself, and it was difficult to believe that he really intended to leave the house in this disreputable fashion. mechanically he continued to add to his parcel, thinking all the while that he must go, otherwise his play would never be written. he had been working very well for the last few days, and now he saw his way quite clearly; the inspiration he had been so long waiting for had come at last, and he felt sure of his fourth act. at the same time he wished to conduct himself honestly, even in this distressing situation. should he tell his landlady the truth? but the desire to realise his idea was intolerable, and, yielding as if before an irresistible force, he tied the parcel and prepared to go. at that moment he remembered that he must leave a note for his landlady, and he was more than ever surprised at the naturalness with which lying phrases came into his head. but when it came to committing them to paper, he found he could not tell an absolute lie, and he wrote a simple little note to the effect that he had been called away on urgent business, and hoped to return in about a week. he descended the stairs softly. mrs. wilson's sitting-room opened on to the passage; she might step out at any moment, and intercept his exit. he had nearly reached the last flight when he remembered that he had forgotten his manuscripts. his flesh turned cold, his heart stood still. there was nothing for it but to ascend those creaking stairs again. his already heavily encumbered pockets could not be persuaded to receive more than a small portion of the manuscripts. he gathered them in his hand, and prepared to redescend the perilous stairs. he walked as lightly as possible, dreading that every creak would bring mrs. wilson from her parlour. a few more steps, and he would be in the passage. a smell of dust, sounds of children crying, children talking in the kitchen! a few more steps, and, with his eyes on the parlour door, hubert had reached the rug at the foot of the stairs. he hastened along, the passage. mrs. wilson was a moment too late. his hand was on the street-door when she appeared at the door of her parlour. 'mr. price, i want to speak to you before you go out. there has----' 'i can't wait--running to catch a train. you'll find a letter on my table. it will explain.' hubert slipped out, closed the door, and ran down the street, and it was not until he had put two or three streets between him and fitzroy street that he relaxed his pace, and could look behind him without dreading to feel the hand of the 'writter' upon his shoulder. iii then he wandered, not knowing where he was going, still in the sensation of his escape, a little amused, and yet with a shadow of fear upon his soul, for he grew more and more conscious of the fact that he was homeless, if not quite penniless. suddenly he stopped walking. night was thickening in the street, and he had to decide where he would sleep. he could not afford to pay more than five or six shillings a week for a room, and he thought of holloway, as being a neighbourhood where creditors would not be able to find him. so he retraced his steps, and, tired and footsore, entered the tottenham court road by the oxford street end. there the omnibuses stopped. a conductor shouted for fares, with the light of the public-house lamps on his open mouth. there was smell of mud, of damp clothes, of bad tobacco, and where the lights of the costermongers' barrows broke across the footway the picture was of a group of three coarse, loud-voiced girls, followed by boys. there were fish shops, cheap italian restaurants, and the long lines of low houses vanished in crapulent night. the characteristics of the tottenham court road impressed themselves on hubert's mind, and he thought how he would have to bear for at least three weeks with all the grime of its poverty. it would take about that time to finish his play, and the neighbourhood would suit his purpose excellently well. so long as he did not pass beyond it he ran little risk of discovery, and to secure himself against friends and foes he penetrated farther northward, not stopping till he reached the confines of holloway. then a little dim street caught his eye, and he knocked at the door of the first house exhibiting a card in the parlour window. but they did not let their bedroom under seven shillings, and this seemed to hubert to be an extravagant price. he tried farther on, and at last found a clean room for six shillings. having no luggage, he paid a week's rent in advance, and the landlady promised to get him a small table, on which he could write, a small table that would fit in somewhere near the window. she asked him when he would like to be called, and put the candlestick on the chair. hubert looked round the room, and a moment sufficed to complete the survey. it was about seven feet long. the lower half of the window was curtained by a piece of muslin hardly bigger than a good-sized pocket-handkerchief; to do anything in this room except to lie in bed seemed difficult, and hubert sat down on the bed and emptied out his pockets. he had just four pounds, and the calculation how long he could live on such a sum took him some time. his breakfast, whether he had it at home or in the coffee-house, would cost him at least fourpence. he thought he would be able to obtain a fairly good dinner in one of the little italian restaurants for ninepence. his tea would cost the same as his breakfast. to these sums he must add twopence for tobacco and a penny for an evening paper--impossible to do without tobacco, and he must know what was going on in the world. he could therefore live for one shilling and eightpence a day--eleven shillings a week--to which he would have to add six shillings a week for rent, altogether seventeen shillings a week. he really did not see how he could do it cheaper. four times seventeen are sixty-eight; sixty-eight shillings for a month of life, and he had eighty shillings--twelve shillings for incidental expenses; and out of that twelve shillings he must buy a shirt, a sponge, and a tooth brush, and when they were bought there would be very little left. he must finish his play under the month. nothing could be clearer than that. next morning he asked the landlady to let him have a cup of tea and some bread and butter, and he ate as much bread as he could, to save himself from being hungry in the middle of the day. he began work immediately, and continued until seven, and feeling then somewhat light-headed, but satisfied with himself, went to the nearest italian restaurant. the food was better than he expected; but he spent twopence more than he had intended, so, to accustom himself to a life of strict measure and discipline, he determined to forego his tea that evening. and so he lived and worked until the end of the week. but the situation he had counted on to complete his fourth act had proved almost impracticable in the working out; he laboured on, however, and at the end of the tenth day at least one scene satisfied him. he read it over slowly, carefully, thought about it, decided that it was excellent, and lay down on his bed to consider it. at that moment it struck him that he had better calculate how much he had spent in the last ten days. he gathered himself into a sitting posture and counted his money; he had spent thirty shillings, and at that rate his money would not hold out till the end of the month. he must reduce his expenditure; but how? impossible to find a room where he could live more cheaply than in the one he had got, and it is not easy to dine in london on less than ninepence. only the poor can live cheaply. he pressed his hands to his face. his head seemed like splitting, and his monetary difficulty, united with his literary difficulties, produced a momentary insanity. work that morning was impossible, so he went out to study the eating-houses of the neighbourhood. he must find one where he could dine for sixpence. or he might buy a pound of cooked beef and take it home with him in a paper bag; but that would seem an almost intolerable imprisonment in his little room. he could go to a public-house and dine off a sausage and potato. but at that moment his attention was caught by black letters on a dun, yellowish ground: 'lockhart's cocoa rooms.' not having breakfasted, he decided to have a cup of cocoa and a roll. it was a large, barn-like place, the walls covered with a coat of grey-blue paint. under the window there was a zinc counter, with zinc urns always steaming, emiting odours of tea, coffee, and cocoa. the seats were like those which give a garden-like appearance to the tops of some omnibuses. each was made to hold two persons, and the table between them was large enough for four plates and four pairs of hands. a few hollow-chested men, the pale vagrants of civilisation, drowsed in the corners. they had been hunted through the night by the policeman, and had come in for something hot. hubert noted the worn frock-coats, and the miserable arms coming out of shirtless sleeves. one looked up inquiringly, and hubert thought how slight had become the line that divided him from the outcast. a serving-maid collected the plates, knives and forks, when the customers left, and carried them back to the great zinc counter. impressed by his appearance, she brought him what he had ordered and took the money for it, although the custom of the place was for the customer to pay for food at the counter and carry it himself to the table at which he chose to eat. hubert learnt that there was no set dinner, but there was a beef-steak pudding at one, price fourpence, a penny potatoes, a penny bread. so by dining at lockhart's he would be able to cut down his daily expense by at least twopence; that would extend the time to finish his play by nearly a week. and if his appetite were not keen, he could assuage it with a penny plum pudding; or he could take a middle course, making his dinner off a sausage and mashed potatoes. the room was clean, well lighted, and airy; he could read his paper there, and forget his troubles in the observation of character. he even made friends. an old wizen creature, who had been a prize-fighter, told him of his triumphs. if he hadn't broke his hand on somebody's nose he'd have been champion light-weight of england. 'and to think that i have come to this,' he added emphatically. 'even them boys knock me about now, and 'alf a century ago i could 'ave cleared the bloomin' place.' there was a merry little waif from the circus who loved to come and sit with hubert. she had been a rider, she said, but had broken her leg on one occasion, and cut her head all open on another, and had ended by running away with some one who had deserted her. 'so here i am,' she remarked, with a burst of laughter, 'talking to you. did you never hear of dolly dayrell?' hubert confessed that he had not. 'why,' she said, 'i thought every one had.' about eight o'clock in the evening, the table near the stairs was generally occupied by flower-girls, dressed in dingy clothes, and brightly feathered hats. they placed their empty baskets on the floor, and shouted at their companions--men who sold newspapers, boot-laces, and cheap toys. about nine the boys came in, the boys who used to push the old prize-fighter about, and hubert soon began to perceive how representative they were of all vices--gambling, theft, idleness, and cruelty were visible in their faces. they were led by a jew boy who sold penny jewellery at the corner of oxford street, and they generally made for the tables at the end of the room, for there, unless custom was slack indeed, they could defeat the vigilance of the serving-maid and play at nap at their ease. the tray of penny jewellery was placed at the corner of a table, and a small boy set to watch over it. his duty was also to shuffle his feet when the servant-maid approached, and a precious drubbing he got if he failed to shuffle them loud enough. the ''ot un,' as he was nicknamed, always had a pack of cards in his pocket, and to annex everything left on the tables he considered to be his privilege. one day, when he was asked how he came by the fine carnation in his buttonhole, he said it was a present from sally, neglecting to add that he had told the child to steal it from a basket which a flower-girl had just put down. [illustration: "'a dirty, hignominious lot, them boys is.'"] hubert hated this boy, and once could not resist boxing his ears. the ''ot un' writhed easily out of his reach, and then assailed him with foul language, and so loud were his words that they awoke the innocent cause of the quarrel, a weak, sickly-looking man, with pale blue eyes and a blonde beard. hubert had protected him before now against the brutality of the boys, who, when they were not playing nap, divided their pleasantries between him and the decrepit prize-fighter. he came in about nine, took a cup of coffee from the counter, and settled himself for a snooze. the boys knew this, and it was their amusement to keep him awake by pelting him with egg-shells and other missiles. hubert noticed that he had always with him a red handkerchief full of some sort of loose rubbish, which the boys gathered when it fell about the floor, or purloined from the handkerchief when they judged that the owner was sufficiently fast asleep. hubert now saw that the handkerchief was filled with bits of coloured chalk, and guessed that the man must be a pavement artist. 'a dirty, hignominious lot, them boys is,' said the artist, fixing his pale, melancholy eyes on hubert; 'bad manners, no eddication, and, above all, no respect.' 'they are an unmannerly lot--that jew boy especially. i don't think there's a vice he hasn't got.' the artist stared at hubert a long time in silence. a thought seemed to be stirring in his mind. 'i'm speaking, i can see, to a man of eddication. i'm a fust-rate judge of character, though i be but a pavement artist; but a picture's none the less a picture, no matter where it is drawn. that's true, ain't it?' 'quite true. a horse is a horse, and an ass is an ass, no matter what stable you put them into.' the artist laughed a guttural laugh, and, fixing his pale blue porcelain eyes on hubert, he said-- 'yes; see i made no bloomin' error when i said you was a man of eddication. a literary gent, i should think. in the reporting line, most like. down in the luck like myself. what was it--drink? got the chuck?' 'no,' said hubert, 'never touch it. out of work.' 'no offence, master, we're all mortal, we is all weak, and in misfortune we goes to it. it was them boys that drove me to it.' 'how was that?' 'they was always round my show; no getting rid of them, and their remarks created a disturbance; the perlice said he wouldn't 'ave it, and when the perlice won't 'ave it, what's a poor man to do? they are that hignorant. but what's the use of talking of it, it only riles me.' the blue-eyed man lay back in his seat, and his head sank on his chest. he looked as if he were going to sleep again, but on hubert's asking him to explain his troubles, he leaned across the table. 'well, i'll tell yer. yer be an eddicated man, and i likes to talk to them that 'as 'ad an eddication. yer says, and werry truly, just now, that changing the stable don't change an 'orse into a hass, or a hass into an 'orse. that is werry true, most true, none but a eddicated man could 'ave made that 'ere hobservation. i likes yer for it. give us yer 'and. the public just thinks too much of the stable, and not enough of what's inside. leastways that's my experience of the public, and i 'ave been a-catering for the public ever since i was a growing lad--sides of bacon, ships on fire, good old ship on fire.... i knows the public. yer don't follow me?' 'not quite.' 'a moment, and i'll explain. you'll admit there's no blooming reason except the public's blooming hignorance why a man shouldn't do as good a picture on the pavement as on a piece of canvas, provided he 'ave the blooming genius. there is no doubt that with them 'ere chalks and a nice smooth stone that raphael--i 'ave been to the national gallery and 'ave studied 'is work, and werry fine some of it is, although i don't altogether hold--but that's another matter. what was i a-saying of? i remember,--that with them 'ere chalks, and a nice smooth stone, there's no reason why a masterpiece shouldn't be done. that's right, ain't it? i ask you, as a man of eddication, to say if that ain't right; as a representative of the press, i asks you to say.' hubert nodded, and the pale-eyed man continued. 'well, that's what the public won't see, can't see. raphael, says i, could 'ave done a masterpiece with them 'ere chalks and a nice smooth stone. but do yer think 'e 'd 'ave been allowed? do yer think the perlice would 'ave stood it? do yer think the public would 'ave stood him doing masterpieces on the pavement? i'd give 'im just one afternoon. them boys would 'ave got 'im into trouble, just as they did me. raphael would 'ave been told to wipe them out just as i was.' the conversation paused; and, half amused, half frightened, hubert considered the pale vague face, and he was struck by the scattered look of aspiration that wandered in the pale blue eyes. 'i'll tell you,' said the man, growing more excited, and leaning further across the table; 'i'll tell you, because i knows you for an eddicated man, and won't blab. s'pose yer thinks, like the rest of the world, that the chaps wot smears, for it ain't drawing, the pavement with bits of bacon, a ship on fire, and the regulation oysters, does them out of their own 'eads?' hubert nodded. 'i'm not surprised that you do, all the world do, and the public chucks down its coppers to the poor hartist; but 'e aint no hartist, no more than is them 'ere boys that did for my show.' leaning still further forward, he lowered his voice to a whisper. 'they learns it all by 'art; there is schools for the teaching of it down in whitechapel. they can just do what they learns by 'art, not one of them could draw that 'ere chair or table from natur'; but i could. i 'ave an original talent. it was a long time afore i found out it was there,' he said, tapping his forehead; 'but it is there,' he said, fixing his eyes on hubert, 'and when it is there they can't take it away--i mean my mates--though they do laugh at my ideas. they call me "the genius," for they don't believe in me, but i believe in myself, and they laughs best that laughs last.... i don't know,' he said, looking round him, his eyes full of reverie, 'that the public liked my fancy landscapes better than the ship on fire, but i said the public will come to them in time, and i continued my fancy landscapes. but one day in trafalgar square it came on to rain very 'eavy, and i went for shelter into the national gallery. it was my fust visit, and i was struck all of a 'eap, and ever since i can 'ardly bring myself to go on with the drudgery of the piece of bacon, and the piece of cheese, with the mouse nibbling at it. and ever since my 'ead 'as been filled with other things, though for a long time i could not make exactly out what. i 'ave 'eard that that is always the case with men that 'as an idea--daresay you 'ave found it so yourself. so in my spare time i goes to the national to think it out, and in studying the pictures there i got wery interested in a chap called hetty, and 'e do paint the female form divine. i says to myself, why not go in for lovely woman? the public may not care for fancy landscapes, but the public allus likes a lovely woman, and, as well as being popular, lovely woman is 'igh 'art. so, after dinner hour, i sets to work, and sketches in a blue sea with three bathers, and two boxes, with the 'orse's head looking out from behind one of the boxes. for a fust attempt at the nude, i assure you--it ain't my way to blow my own trumpet, but i can say that the crowd that 'ere picture did draw was bigger than any that 'ad assembled about the bits o' bacon and ship-a-fire of all the other coves. 'ad i been let alone, i should 'ave made my fortune, but the crowd was so big and the curiosity so great that it took the perlice all their time to keep the pavement from being blocked. it wasn't that the public didn't like it enough, it was that the public liked it too much, that was the reason of my misfortune.' 'what do you mean?' said hubert. 'well, yer see them boys was a-hawking their cheap toys in the neighbourhood, and when they got wind of my success they comes round to see, and they remains on account of the crowd. pockets was picked, i don't say they wasn't, and the perlice turned rusty, and then a pious old gent comes along, and 'earing the remarks of them boys, which i admit wasn't nice, complains to the hauthorities, and i was put down! now, what i wants to know is why my art should be made to suffer for the beastly-mindedness of them 'ere boys.' hubert admitted that there seemed to be an injustice somewhere, and asked the artist if he had never tried again. 'try again? should think i did. when once a man 'as tasted of 'igh art, he can't keep his blooming fingers out of it. it was impossible after the success of my bathers to go back to the bacon, so i thought i would circumvent the hauthorities. i goes to the national gallery, makes a sketch, 'ere it is,' and after some fumbling in his breast pocket, he produced a greasy piece of paper, which he handed to hubert. 's'pose yer know the picture?' hubert admitted that he did not. 'well, that is a drawing from gainsborough's celebrated picture of medora a-washing of her feet.... but the perlice wouldn't 'ave it any more than my original, 'e said it was worse than the bathers at margaret, and when i told the hignorant brute wot it was, 'e said he wanted no hargument, that 'e wouldn't 'ave it.' hubert had noticed, during the latter part of the narrative, a look of dubious cunning twinkling in the pale eyes; but now this look died away, and the eyes resumed their habitual look of vague reverie. 'i've been 'ad up before the beak: from him i expected more enlightenment, but he, too, said 'e wouldn't 'ave it, and i got a month. but i'll beat them yet, the public is on my side, and if it worn't for them 'ere boys, i'd say that the public could be helevated. they calls me "the genius," and they is right.' then something seemed to go out like a flame, the face grew dim, and changed expression. 'it is 'ere all right,' he said, no longer addressing hubert, but speaking to himself, 'and since it is there, it must come out.' iv hubert at last found himself obliged to write to ford for an advance of money. but ford replied that he would advance money only on the delivery of the completed manuscript. and the whole of one night, in a room hardly eight feet long, sitting on his bed, he strove to complete the fourth and fifth acts. but under the pressure of such necessity ideas died within him. and all through the night, and even when the little window, curtained with a bit of muslin hardly bigger than a pocket-handkerchief, had grown white with dawn, he sat gazing at the sheet of paper, his brain on fire, unable to think. laying his pen down in despair, he thought of the thousands who would come to his aid if they only knew--if they only knew! and soon after he heard life beginning again in the little brick street. he felt that his brain was giving way, that if he did not find change, whatever it was, he must surely run raving mad. he had had enough of england, and would leave it for america, australia--anywhere. he wanted change. the present was unendurable. how would he get to america? perhaps a clerkship on board one of the great steamships might be obtained. the human animal in extreme misery becomes self-reliant, and hubert hardly thought of making application to his uncle. the last time he had applied for help his letter had remained unanswered, and he now felt that he must make his own living or die. and, quite indifferent as to what might befall him, he walked next day to the victoria docks. he did not know where or how to apply for work, and he tired himself in fruitless endeavour. at last he felt he could strive with fate no longer, and wandered mile after mile, amused and forgetful of his own misery in the spectacle of the river--the rose sky, the long perspectives, the houses and warehouses showing in fine outline, and then the wonderful blue night gathering in the forest of masts and rigging. he was admirably patient. there was no fretfulness in his soul, nor did he rail against the world's injustice, but took his misfortunes with sweet gentleness. he slept in a public-house, and next day resumed his idle search for employment. the weather was mild and beautiful, his wants were simple, a cup of coffee and a roll, a couple of sausages, and the day passed in a sort of morose and passionless contemplation. he thought of everything and nothing, least of all of how he should find money for the morrow. when the day came, and the penny to buy a cup of coffee was wanting, he quite naturally, without giving it a second thought, engaged himself as a labourer, and worked all day carrying sacks of grain out of a vessel's hold. for a large part of his nature was patient and simple, docile as an animal's. there was in him so much that was rudimentary, that in accepting this burden of physical toil he was acting not in contradiction to, but in full and perfect harmony with, his true nature. but at the end of a week his health began to give way, and, like a man after a violent debauch, he thought of returning to a more normal existence. he had left the manuscript of his unfortunate play in the north. had they destroyed it? the involuntary fear of the writer for his child made him smile. what did it matter? clearly the first thing to do would be to write to the editor of _the cosmopolitan_, and ask if he could find him some employment, something certain; writing occasional articles for newspapers, that he couldn't do. hubert had saved twelve shillings. he would therefore be able to pay his landlady: he smiled--one of his landladies! the earlier debt was now hopelessly out of his reach, and seemed to represent a social plane from which he had for ever fallen. if he had succeeded in getting that play right, what a difference it would have made! he would have been able to do a number of things he had never done, things which he had always desired to do. he had desired above all to travel--to see france and italy; to linger, to muse in the shadows of the world's past; and after this he had desired marriage, an english wife, an english home, beautiful children, leisure, the society of friends. a successful play would have given him all these things, and now his dream must remain for ever unrealised by him. he had sunk out of sight and hearing of such life. rose was another; she might sink as he had sunk; she might never find the opportunity of realising her desire. how well she would have played that part! he knew what was in her. and now! what did his failure to write that play condemn him to? heaven only knows, he did not wish to think. strange, was it not strange?... a man of genius--many believed him a genius--and yet he was incapable of earning his daily bread otherwise than by doing the work of a navvy. even that he could not do well, society had softened his muscles and effeminised his constitution. indeed, he did not know what life fate had willed him for. he seemed to be out of place everywhere. his best chance was to try to obtain a clerkship. the editor of _the cosmopolitan_ might be able to do that for him; if he could not, far better it would be to leave a world in which he was _out of place_, and through no fault of his own--that was the hard part of it. hard part! nonsense! what does fate know of our little rights and wrongs--or care? her intentions are inscrutable; she watches us come and go, and gives no sign. prayers are vain. the good man is punished, and the wicked is sent on his way rejoicing. in such mournful thought, his clothes stained and torn, with all the traces of a week's toil in the docks upon them, hubert made his way round st. paul's and across holborn. as he was about to cross into oxford street, he heard some one accost him,-- 'oh, mr. price, is that you?' it was rose. 'where have you been all this time?' she seemed so strange, so small, and so much alone in the great thoroughfare, that hubert forgot all his own troubles in a sudden interest in this little mite. 'where have you been hiding yourself?... it is lucky i met you. don't you know that ford has decided to revive _divorce_?' 'you don't mean it!' 'yes; ford said that the last acts of _the gipsy_ were not satisfactorily worked out, and as there was something wrong with that hamilton brown's piece, he has decided to revive _divorce_. he says it never was properly played ... he thinks he'll make a hit in the husband's part, and i daresay he will. but i have been unfortunate again; i wanted the part of the adventuress. i really could play it. i don't look it, i know ... i have no weight, but i could play it for all that. the public mightn't see me in it at first, but in five minutes they would.' 'and what part has he cast you for--the young girl?' 'of course; there's no other part. he says i look it; but what's the good of looking it when you don't feel it? if he had cast me for mrs. barrington, i should have had just the five minutes in the second act that i have been waiting for so long, and i should have just wiped miss osborne out, acted her off the stage.... i know i should; you needn't believe it if don't like, but i know i should.' hubert wondered how any one could feel so sure of herself, and then he said, 'yes, i think you could do just what you say.... how do you think miss osborne will play the part?' 'she'll be correct enough; she'll miss nothing, and yet somehow she'll miss the whole thing. but you must go at once to ford. he was saying only this morning that if you didn't turn up soon, he'd have to give up the idea.' 'i can't go and see him to-night. you see what a state i'm in.' 'you're rather dusty; where have you been? what have you been doing?' 'i've been down at the dock.... i thought of going to america.' 'well, we'll talk about that another time. it doesn't matter if you are a bit dusty and worn-out-looking. now that he's going to revive your play, he'll let you have some money. you might get a new hat, though. i don't know how much they cost, but i've five shillings; can you get one for that?' hubert thanked her. 'but you are not offended?' 'offended, my dear rose! i shall be able to manage. i'll get a brush up somewhere.' 'that's all right. now i'm going to jump into that 'bus,' and she signed with her parasol to the conductor. 'mind you see ford to-night,' she cried; and a moment after he saw a small space of blue back seated against one of the windows. v there was much prophecy abroad. stiggins' words, 'the piece never did, and never will draw money,' were evidently present in everybody's mind. they were visible in ford's face, and more than once hubert expected to hear that--on account of severe indisposition--mr. montague ford has been obliged to indefinitely postpone his contemplated revival of mr. hubert price's play _divorce_. but, besides the apprehension that stiggins' unfavourable opinion of his enterprise had engendered in him, ford was obviously provoked by hubert's reluctance to execute the alterations he had suggested. night after night, sometimes until six in the morning, hubert sat up considering them. thanks to ford's timely advance he was back in his old rooms in fitzroy street. all was as it had been. he was working at his play every evening, waiting for rose's footsteps on the stairs. and yet a change had come into his life! he believed now that his feet were set on the way to fortune--that he would soon be happy. he stared at the bright flame of the lamp, he listened to the silence. the clock chimed sharply, and the windows were growing grey. hubert had begun to drowse in his chair; but he had promised to rewrite the young girl's part, ford having definitely refused to intrust rose with the part of the adventuress. he was sorry for this. he believed that rose had not only talent, but genius. besides, they were friends, neighbours; he would like to give her a chance of distinguishing herself--the chance which she was seeking. all the time he could not but realise that, however he might accentuate and characterise the part of the sentimental girl, rose would not be able to do much with it. to bring out her special powers something strange, wild, or tragic was required. but of what use thinking of what was not to be? having made some alterations and additions he folded his papers up, and addressed them to miss massey. he wrote on a piece of paper that they were to be given to her at once, and that he was to be called at ten. there was a rehearsal at twelve. on the night of the first performance, hubert asked rose to dine in his rooms. mr. wilson proposed that they should have a roast chicken, and annie was sent to fetch a bottle of champagne from the grocer's. annie had been given a ticket for the pit. mrs. wilson was going to the upper boxes. annie said,-- 'why, you look as if you was going to a funeral, and not to a play. why don't ye laugh?' in truth, hubert and rose were a little silent. rose was thinking how she could say certain lines. she had said them right once at rehearsal, but had not since been able to reproduce to her satisfaction a certain effect of voice. hubert was too nervous to talk. there was nothing in his mind but 'will the piece succeed? what shall i do if it fails?' he could give heed to nothing but himself, all the world seemed blotted out, and he suffered the pain of excessive self-concentration. rose, on the other hand, had lost sight of herself, and existed almost unconsciously in the soul of another being. she was sometimes like a hypnotised spectator watching with foolish, involuntary curiosity the actions of one whom she had been bidden to watch. then a little cloud would gather over her eyes, and then this other being would rise as if out of her very entrails and recreate her, fashioning her to its own image and likeness. she did not answer when she was spoken to, and when the question was repeated, she awoke with a little start. dinner was eaten in morbid silence, with painful and fitful efforts to appear interested in each other. walking to the theatre, they once took the wrong turning and had to ask the way. at the stage door they smiled painfully, nodded, glad to part. hubert went up to montague ford's room. he found the comedian on a low stool, seated before a low table covered with brushes and cosmetics, in front of a triple glass. 'my dear friend, do not trouble me now. i am thinking of my part.' hubert turned to go. 'stay a moment,' cried the actor. 'you know when the husband meets the wife he has divorced?' hubert remembered the moment referred to, and, with anxious, doubting eyes, the comedian sought from the author justification for some intonations and gestures which seemed to him to form part and parcel of the nature of the man whose drunkenness he had so admirably depicted on his face. '"_this is most unfortunate, very unlucky--very, my dear louisa; but----_" '"_i am no longer obliged to bear with your insults; i can now defend myself against you._" [illustration: "in the third row harding stood talking to a young man."] 'now, is that your idea of the scene?' a pained look came upon hubert's face. 'don't question me now, my dear fellow. i cannot fix my attention. i can see, however, that your make-up is capital--you are the man himself.' the actor was satisfied, and in his satisfaction he said, 'i think it will be all right, old chap.' hubert hoped to reach his box without meeting critics or authors. the serving-maids bowed and smiled,--he was the author of the play. 'they'll think still more of me if the notices are right,' he thought, as he hurried upstairs, and from behind the curtain of his box he peeped down and counted the critics who edged their way down the stalls. harding stood in the third row talking to a young man. he said, 'you mean the woman with the black hair piled into a point, and fastened with a steel circlet. a face of sheep-like sensuality. red lips and a round receding chin. a large bosom, and two thin arms showing beneath the opera cloak, which she has not yet thrown from her shoulders. i do not know her--_une laideur attirante_. many a man might be interested in her. but do you see the woman in the stage-box? you would not believe it, but she is sixty, and has only just begun to speak of herself as an old woman. she kept her figure, and had an admirer when she was fifty-eight.' 'what has become of him?' 'they quarrelled; two years ago he told her he hoped never to see her ugly old face again. and that delicate little creature in the box next to her--that pale diaphanous face?' 'with a young man hanging over her whispering in her ear?' 'yes. she hates the theatre; it gives her neuralgia; but she attends all the first nights because her one passion is to be made love to in public. if her admirer did not hang over her in front of the box just as that man is doing, she would not tolerate him for a week.' at that moment the conversation was interrupted by a new-comer, who asked if he had seen the play when it was first produced. 'yes,' said harding; 'i did.' and he continued his search for acquaintances amid white rows of female backs, necks, and half-seen profiles--amid the black cloth shoulders cut sharply upon the illumined curtain. 'and what do you think of it? do you think it will succeed this time?' 'ford will create an impression in the part; but i don't think the piece will run.' 'and why? because the public is too stupid?' 'partly, and partly because price is only an intentionist. he cannot carry an idea quite through.' 'are you going to write about it?' 'i may.' 'and what will you say?' 'oh, most interesting things to be said. let's take the case of hubert price ... ah, there, the curtain is going up.' the curtain rolled slowly up, and in a small country drawing-room, in very simple but very pointedly written dialogue, the story of mrs. holmes' domestic misfortunes was gradually unfolded. it appeared that she had flirted with captain grey; he had written her some compromising letters, and she had once been to his rooms alone. so the court had pronounced a decree _nisi_. but mrs. holmes had not been unfaithful to her husband. she had flirted with captain grey because her husband's attentions to a certain mrs. barrington had maddened her, and in her jealous rage had written foolish letters, and been to see captain grey. hubert noticed that folk were still asking for their seats, and pushing down the very rows in which the most influential critics were sitting. they exchanged a salutation with their friends in the dress-circle, and, when they were seated, looked around, making observations regarding the appearance of the house; and all the while the actors were speaking. hubert trembled with fear and rage. would these people never give their attention to the stage? if they had been sitting by him, he could have struck them. then a line turned into nonsense by the actress who played mrs. holmes was a lancinating pain; and the actor who played captain grey, played so slowly that hubert could hardly refrain from calling from his box. he looked round the theatre, noticing the indifferent faces of the critics, and the women's shoulders seemed to him especially vacuous and imbecile. the principal scene of the second act was between mrs. holmes and the man who had divorced her. he has-been driven to drink by the vile behaviour of his second wife; he is ruined in health and in pocket, and has come to the woman he wronged to beg forgiveness; he knows she has learnt to love captain grey, but will not marry him, because she believes that once married always married. there is only one thing he can do to repair the wrong he has done--he will commit suicide, and so enable her to marry the man she loves. he tells her that he has bought the pistol to do it with, and the words, 'not here! not here!' escape from her; and he answers, 'no, not here, but in a cab. i've got one at the door.' he goes out; captain grey enters, and mrs. holmes begs him to save her husband. while they are discussing how this is to be done, he re-enters, saying that his conscience smote him as he was going to pull the trigger. will she forgive him? if she won't, he must make an end of himself. she says she will. in the third act hubert had attempted to paint mr. holmes' vain efforts to reform his life. but the constant presence of captain grey in the household, his attempts to win mrs. holmes from her husband, and the drunken husband's amours with the servant-maid disgusted rather than horrified. in the fourth act the wretched husband admits that his reformation is impossible, and that, although he has no courage to commit suicide and set his wife free, he will return to his evil courses; they will sooner or later make an end of him. the slowness and deadly gravity with which ford took this scene rendered it intolerable; and, notwithstanding the beauty of the conclusion, when the deserted wife, in the silence of her drawing-room, reads again captain grey's letter, telling her that he has left england for ever, and with another, the success of the play was left in doubt, and the audience filed out, talking, chattering, arguing, wondering what the public verdict would be. to avoid commiseration of heartless friends and the triumphant glances of literary enemies, hubert passed through the door leading on to the stage. scene-shifters were brutally pushing away what remained of his play; and the presence of hamilton brown, the dramatic author, talking to ford, was at that moment particularly disagreeable. on catching sight of hubert, brown ran to him, shook him by the hand, and murmured some discreet congratulations. he preferred the piece, however, as it had been originally written, and suggested to ford the advisability of returning to the first text. then ford went upstairs to take his paint off, and hubert walked about the stage with brown. brown's insincerity was sufficiently transparent; but men in hubert's position catch at straws, and he soon began to believe that the attitude of the public towards his play was not so unfavourable as he had imagined. hubert tried to summon up a smile for the stage-door keeper, who, he feared, had heard that the piece had failed, and then the moment they got outside he begged rose to tell him the exact truth. she assured him that ford had said that he had always counted on a certain amount of opposition; but that he believed that the general public, being more free of prejudice and less sophisticated, would be impressed by the simple humanity of the play. the conversation paused, and at the end of an irritating silence he said, 'you were excellent, as good as any one could be in a part that did not suit them. ah, if he had cast you for the adventuress, how you would have played it!...' 'i'm so glad you are pleased. i hope my notices will be good. do you think they will?' 'yes, your notices will be all right,' he answered, with a sigh. 'and your notices will be all right too. no one can say what is going to succeed. there was a call after each of the last three acts.... i don't see how a piece could go better. it is the suspense....' 'ah, yes, the suspense!' they lingered on the landing, and hubert said, 'won't you come in for a moment?' she followed him into the room. his calm face, usually a perfect picture of repose and self-possession, betrayed his emotion by a certain blankness in the eyes, certain contractions in the skin of the forehead. 'i'm afraid,' he said, 'there's no hope.' 'oh, you mustn't say that!' she replied. 'i think it went very well indeed.... i know i did nothing with the young girl. i oughtn't to have undertaken the part.' 'you were excellent. if we only get some good notices. if we don't, i shall never get another play of mine acted.' he looked at her imploringly, thirsting for a woman's sympathy. but the little girl was thinking of certain effects which she would have made, and which the actress who had played the adventuress had failed to make. 'i watched her all the time,' she said, 'following every line, saying all the time, "oh yes, that's all very nice and very proper, my young woman; but it's not it; no, not at all--not within a hundred miles of it." i don't think she ever really touched the part--do you?' hubert did not answer, and a quiver of distraction ran through the muscles of her face. 'why don't you answer me?' 'i can't answer you,' he said abruptly. then remembering, he added, 'forgive me; i can think of nothing now.' he hid his face in his hands, and sobbed twice--two heavy, choking sobs, pregnant with the weight of anguish lying on his heart. seeing how much he suffered, she laid her hand on his shoulder. 'i am very sorry; i wish i could help you. i know how it tears the heart when one cannot get out what one has in one's brain.' her artistic appreciation of his suffering only jarred him the more. what he longed for was some kind, simple-hearted woman who would say, 'never mind, dear; the play was perfectly right, only they did not understand it; i love you better than ever.' but rose could not give him the sympathy he wanted; and to be alone was almost a relief. he dared not go to bed; he sat looking into space. the roar of london hushed till it was no more than a faint murmur, the hissing of the gas grew louder, and still hubert sat thinking, the same thoughts battling in his brain. he looked into the future, but could see nothing but suicide. his uncle? he had applied to him before for help; there was no hope there. then he tramped up and down, maddened by the infernal hissing of the gas; and then threw himself into his arm-chair. and so a terrible night wore away; and it was not until long after the early carts had begun to rattle in the streets that exhaustion brought an end to his sufferings, and he rolled into bed. vi 'what will ye 'ave to eat? eggs and bacon?' 'no, no!' 'well, then, 'ave a chop?' 'no, no!' 'ye must 'ave something.' 'a cup of tea, a slice of toast. i'm not hungry.' 'well, ye are worse than a young lady for a happetite. miss massey 'as sent you down these 'ere papers.' the servant-girl laid the papers on the bed, and hubert lay back on his pillow, so that he might collect his thoughts. stretching forth his hands, he selected the inevitable paper. 'for those who do not believe that our english home life is composed mainly, if not entirely, of lying, drunkenness, and conjugal infidelity, and its sequel divorce, yester evening at the queen's theatre must have been a sad and dismal experience. that men and women who have vowed to love each other do sometimes prove false to their troth no reasonable man will deny. with the divorce court before our eyes, even the most enthusiastic believer in the natural goodness and ultimate perfectibility of human nature must admit that men and women are frail. but drunkenness and infidelity are happily not characteristic of our english homes. then why, we ask, should a dramatist select such a theme, and by every artifice of dialogue force into prominence all that is mean and painful in an unfortunate woman's life? always the same relentless method; the cold, passionless curiosity of the vivisector; the scalpel is placed under the nerve, and we are called upon to watch the quivering flesh. never the kind word, the tears, the effusion, which is man's highest prerogative, and which separates him from the brute and signifies the immortal end for which he was created. we hold that it is a pity to see so much talent wasted, and it was indeed a melancholy sight to see so many capable actors and actresses labouring to----' 'this is even worse than usual,' said hubert; and glancing through half a column of hysterical commonplace, he came upon the following:-- 'but if this woman had succeeded in reclaiming from vice the man who unjustly divorced her, and who in his misery goes back to ask her forgiveness for pity's sake, what a lesson we should have had! and, with lightened and not with heavier hearts, we should have left the theatre comforted, better and happier men and women. but turning his back on the goodness, truth, and love whither he had induced us to believe he was leading us, the author flagrantly makes the woman contradict her whole nature in the last act; and, because her husband falls again, she, instead of raising him with all the tender mercies and humanities of wifehood, declares that her life has been one long mistake, and that she accepts the divorce which the court had unjustly granted. the moral, if such a word may be applied to such a piece is this: "the law may be bad, but human nature is worse."' the other morning papers took the same view,--a great deal of talent wasted on a subject that could please no one. hubert threw the papers aside, lay back, and in the lucid idleness of the bed his thoughts grew darker. it was hardly possible that the piece could survive such notices; and if it did not? well, he would have to go. but until the piece was taken out of the bills it would be a weakness to harbour the ugly thought. there were, however, the evening papers to look forward to, and soon after midday annie was sent to buy all that had appeared. hubert expected to find in these papers a more delicate appreciation of his work. many of the critics of the evening press were his personal friends, and nearly all were young men in full sympathy with the new school of dramatic thought. he read paper after paper with avidity; and annie was sent in a cab to buy one that had not yet found its way so far north as fitzroy street. the opinion of this paper was of all importance, and hubert tore it open with trembling fingers. although more temperately written than the others, it was clearly favourable, and hubert sighed a sweet sigh of relief. a weight was lifted from him; the world suddenly seemed to grow brighter; and he went to the theatre that evening, and, half doubting and half confidently, presented himself at the door of montague ford's dressing-room. the actor had not yet begun to dress, and was busy writing letters. he stretched his hand hurriedly to hubert. 'excuse me, my dear fellow; i have a couple of letters to finish.' hubert sat down, glancing nervously from the actor to the morning papers with which the table was strewn. there was not an evening paper there. had he not seen them? at the end of about ten minutes the actor said,-- 'well, this is a bad business; they are terribly down on us--aren't they? what do you think?' 'have you seen the evening papers--_the telephone_, for instance?' 'oh yes, i've seen them all; but the evening papers don't amount to much. stiggins's article was terrible. i am afraid he has killed the piece.' 'don't you think it will run, then?' 'well, that depends upon the public, of course. if they like it, i'll keep it on.' 'how's the booking?' 'not good.' montague ford moved his papers absent-mindedly. at the end of a long silence he said, 'even if the piece did catch on, it would take a lot of working up to undo the mischief of those articles. of course you can rely on me to give it every chance. i shan't take it out of the bills if i can possibly help.' 'there is my _gipsy_.' 'i have another piece ready to put into rehearsal; it was arranged for six months ago. i only consented to produce your play because--well, because there has been such an outcry lately about art.... tremendous part for me in the new piece... i'm sure you'll like it.' the business did improve, but so very slowly that hubert was afraid ford would lose patience and take the play out of the bills. but while the fate of the play hung in the balance, hubert's life was being rendered unbearable by duns. they had found him out, one and all; to escape being served was an impossibility; and now his table was covered with summonses to appear at the county court. this would not matter if the piece once took the public taste. then he would be able to pay every one, and have some time to rest and think. and there seemed every prospect of its catching on. discussions regarding the morality of the play had arisen in the newspapers, and the eternal question whether men and women are happier married or unmarried had reached its height. hubert spent the afternoon addressing letters to the papers, striving to fan the flame of controversy. every evening he listened for rose's footstep on the stairs.--how did the piece go?--was there a better house? money or paper?--have you seen the notice in the ----?--first-rate, wasn't it?--that ought to do some good.--i've heard there was a notice in the ----, but i haven't seen it. have you?--no; but so-and-so saw the paper, and said there was nothing in it. and, do you know, i hear there's going to be a notice in _the modern review_, and that so-and-so is writing it. every post brought newspapers; the room was filled with newspapers--all kinds of newspapers--papers one has never heard of,--french papers, welsh papers, north of england papers, scotch and irish papers. hubert read columns about himself, anecdotes of all kinds,--where he was born, who were his parents, and what first induced him to attempt writing for the stage; his personal appearance, mode of life, the cut of his clothes; his religious, moral, and political views. had he been the plaintiff in an action for criminal libel, greater industry in the collection and the fabrication of personal details could hardly have been displayed. but at these articles hubert only glanced; he was interested in his piece, not in himself, and when annie brought up _the modern review_ he tore it open, knowing he would find there criticism more fundamental, more searching. but as he read, the expression of hope which his face wore changed to one of pain pitiful to look upon. the article began with a sketch of the general situation, and in a tone of commiseration, of benevolent malice, the writer pointed out how inevitable it was that the critics should have taken mr. price, when _divorce_ was first produced, for the new dramatic genius they were waiting for. 'there comes a moment,' said this caustic writer, 'in the affairs of men when the new is not only eagerly accepted, but when it is confounded with the original. wearied by the old stereotyped form of drama, the critics had been astonished by a novelty of subject, more apparent than real, and by certain surface qualities in the execution; they had hailed the work as being original both in form and in matter, whereas all that was good in the play had been borrowed from france and scandinavia. _divorce_ was the inevitable product of the time. it had been written by mr. price, but it might have been written by a dozen other young men--granting intelligence, youth, leisure, a university education, and three or four years of london life--any one of a dozen clever young men who frequent west end drawing-rooms and dabble in literature might have written it. all that could be said was that the play was, or rather had been, _dans le mouvement_; and original work never is _dans le mouvement_. _divorce_ was nothing more than the product of certain surroundings, and remembering mr. price's other plays, there seemed to be no reason to believe that he would do better. mr. price had tried his hand at criticism, and that was a sure sign that the creative faculty had begun to wither. his critical essays were not rich nor abundant in thought, they were not the skirmishing of a man fighting for his ideas, they were not preliminary to a great battle; they were at once vague and pedantic, somewhat futile, _les ébats d'un esprit en peine_, and seemed to announce a talent in progress of disintegration rather than of reconstruction. 'sometimes the critic's phrases seemed wet with tears; sometimes, abandoning his tone of commiseration, he would assume one of scientific indifference. the phenomenon was the commonest. there were dozens of hubert prices in london. the universities and the newspapers, working singly and in collaboration, turned them out by the dozen. and the mission of these men of intelligent culture seemed to be to _poser des lapins sur la jeune presse_. each one came in turn with his little volume of poems, his little play, his little picture; all were men of "advanced ideas"; in other words, they were all _dans le mouvement_. there was the rough hubert price, who made mild consternation in the drawing-room, and there was the sophisticated hubert price, who cajoled the drawing-room; there was the sincere and the insincere, and the price that suffered and the price that didn't. each one brought a different _nuance_, a thousand infinitesimal variations of the type, but, considered merely in its relation to art, the species may be said to be divided into two distinct categories. in the first category are those who rise almost at the first bound to a certain level, who produce quickly, never reaching again the original standard, dropping a little lower at each successive effort until their work becomes indistinguishable from the ordinary artistic commercialism of the time. the fate of those in the second category is more pathetic; they gradually wither and die away like flowers planted in a thin soil. among these men many noble souls are to be found, men who have surrendered all things for love of their art, and who seemed at starting to be the best equipped to win, but who failed, impossible to tell how or why. sometimes their failure turns to comedy, sometimes to tragedy. they may become refined, delicate, elderly bachelors, the ornaments of drawing-rooms, professional diners-out--men with brilliant careers behind them. but if fate has not willed that they should retire into brilliant shells; if chance does not allow them to retreat, to separate themselves from their kind, but arbitrarily joins them to others, linking their fate to the fate of others' unhappiness, disaster may and must accrue from the alliance; honesty of purpose, trueness of heart, deep love, every great, good, and gracious quality to be found in nature, will not suffice to save them.' the paper dropped from his hands, and he recollected all his failures. 'once i could do good work; now i can do neither good work nor bad. were i a rich man, i should collect my scattered papers and write songs to be sung in drawing-rooms; but being a poor one, i must--i suppose i must get out. positively, there is no hope,--debts on every side. fate has willed me to go as went haydon, gerard de nerval, and maréchal. the first cut his throat, the second hanged himself, and the third blew out his brains. clearly the time has come to consider how i shall make my exit. it is a little startling to be called upon so peremptorily to go.' in this moment of extreme dejection it seemed to hubert that the writer of the article had told him the exact truth. he refused to admit the plea of poverty. it was of course hard to write when one is being harassed by creditors. but if he had had it in him, it would have come out. the critic had very probably told him the truth. he could not hope to make a living out of literature. he had not the strength to write the masterpiece which the perverse cruelty of nature had permitted him only to see, and he was hopelessly unfit for journalism. but in his simple, wholesome mind there was no bent towards suicide; and he scanned every horizon. once again he thought of his uncle. five years ago he had written, asking him for the loan of a hundred pounds. he had received ten. and how vain it would be to write a second time! a few pounds would only serve to prolong his misery. no; he would not drift from degradation to degradation. he only glanced at the letter which annie had brought up with the copy of _the modern review_. it was clearly a lawyer's letter. should he open it? why not spare himself the pain? he could alter nothing; and in these last days---- leaving the thought unfinished, he sought for his keys; he went to his box, unlocked it, and took out a small paper package. of the fifty pounds he had received from ford about twenty remained: he had been poorer before, but hardly quite so hopeless. he scanned every horizon--all were barred. the thought of suicide, and with it the instinctive shrinking from it, came into his mind again. suppose he took, that very night, an overdose of chloral? he tried to put the thought from him, and returned, a little dazed and helpless, to his chair. had the critic in _the modern review_ told him the truth? was he incapable of earning a living? it seemed so. above all, was he incapable of finishing _the gipsy_ as he intended? no; that he felt was a lie. give him six months' quiet, free from worry and all anxiety, and he would do it. many a year had passed since he had enjoyed a month of quiet; and glancing again at the letter on the table, he thought that perhaps at that very moment a score of gallery boys were hissing his play. perhaps at that very moment ford was making up his mind to announce the last six nights of _divorce_. at a quarter to twelve he heard rose's foot on the stairs. he opened the door. 'how did the piece go to-night?' 'pretty well.' 'only pretty well? won't you come in for a few minutes?... so the piece didn't go very well to-night?' 'oh yes, it did. i've seen it go better; but----' 'did you get a call?' 'yes, after the second act.' 'not after the third?' 'no. that act never goes well. harding came behind; i was speaking to him, and he said something which struck me as being very true. ford, he said, plays the part a great deal too seriously. when the piece was first produced, it was played more good-humouredly by indifferent actors, who let the thing run without trying to bring out every point. ford makes it as hard as nails. i think those were his exact words.' hubert did not answer. at the end of a long silence he said,-- 'did you hear anything about the last night's?' 'no,' she said; 'i heard nothing of that.' 'ford appeared quite satisfied then?' 'yes, quite,' she answered, with difficulty; for his eyes were fixed on her, and she felt he knew she was not telling the truth. the conversation paused again, and to turn it into another channel she said, 'why, you have not opened your letter!' 'i can see it is a lawyer's letter, on account of some unpaid bill. if i could pay it, i would; but as i can't----' 'you are afraid to open it,' said rose. ashamed of his weakness, hubert opened the letter, and began to read. rose saw that the letter was not such an one as he had expected, and a moment after his face told her that fortunate news had come to him. the signs of the tumult within were represented by the passing of the hand across the brow, as if to brush aside some strange hallucination, and the sudden coming of a vague look of surprise and fear into the eyes. he said,-- 'read it! read it!' relieved of much detail and much cumbersome legal circumlocution, it was to the following effect:--that about three months ago mr. burnett had come up from his place in sussex, and at the offices of messrs. grandly & co. had made a will, in which he had disinherited his adopted daughter, miss emily watson, and left everything to mr. hubert price. there was no question as to the validity of the will; but messrs. grandly deemed it their duty to inform mr. hubert price of the circumstances under which it had been made, and also of the fact that a few weeks before his death mr. burnett had told mr. john grandly, who was then staying with mr. burnett at ashwood, that he intended adding a codicil, leaving some two or three hundred a year to miss watson. it was unfortunate that mr. burnett had not had time to do this; for miss watson was an orphan, eighteen years of age, and entirely unprovided for. messrs. grandly begged to submit these facts to the consideration of mr. hubert price. miss watson was now residing at ashwood. she was there with a friend of hers, mrs. bentley; and should mr. hubert price feel inclined to do what mr. burnett had left undone, messrs. grandly would have very great pleasure in carrying his wishes into effect. 'i'm not dreaming, am i?' 'no, you are not. it is quite true. your uncle has left his money to you. i am so glad; indeed i am. you will be able to finish your play, and take a theatre and produce it yourself if you like. i hope you won't forget me. i do want to play that part. you can't quite know what i shall do with it. one can't explain oneself in a scene here and there.... what are you thinking of?' 'i'm thinking of that poor girl, emily watson. it comes very hard upon her.' 'who is she?' 'the girl my uncle disinherited.' 'oh, she! well, you can marry her if you like. that would not be a bad notion. but if you do, you'll forget all about me and lady hayward.' 'no; i shall never forget you, rose.' he stretched his hand to her; but, irrespective of his will, the gesture seemed full of farewell. 'i'm so much obliged to you,' he said; 'had it not been for you, i might never have opened that letter.' 'even if you hadn't, it wouldn't have mattered; you would have heard of your good fortune some other way. but it is getting very late. i must say good-night. i hope you will have a pleasant time in the country, and will finish your play. good-night.' returning from the door, he stopped to think. 'we have been very good friends--that is all. how strangely determined she is!... more so than i am. she is bound to succeed. there is in her just that note of individual passion.... perhaps some one will find her out before i have finished,--that would be a pity. i wonder which of us will succeed first?' then the madness of good fortune came upon him suddenly; he could think no more of rose, and had to go for a long walk in the streets. vii 'dearest emily, you must prepare yourself for the worst.' 'is he dead?' 'yes; he passed away quite quietly. to look at him one would say he was asleep; he does not appear to have suffered at all.' 'oh, julia, julia, do you think he forgave me? i could not do what he asked me.... i loved him very dearly as a father, but i could not have married him.' 'no, dear, you could not. such a marriage would have been most unnatural; he was more than forty years older than you.' 'i do not think he ever thought of such a thing until about a month or six weeks ago. you remember how i ran to you? i was as white as a ghost, and i trembled like a leaf. i could hardly speak.... you remember?' 'yes, i remember; and some hours after, when i came into this room, he was standing there, just there, on the hearth-rug; there was a fearful look of pain and despair on his face--he looked as if he was going mad. i never saw such a look before, and i never wish to see such a look again. and the effort he made to appear unconcerned when he saw me was perhaps the worst part of it. i pretended to see nothing, and walked away towards the window and looked out. but all the while i could feel that some terrible drama was passing behind me. at last i had to look round. he was sitting in that chair, his elbows on his knees, clasping his head with both hands, the old, gnarled fingers twined in the iron-grey hair. then, unable to contain himself any longer, he rushed out of the room, out of the house, and across the park.' 'you say that he passed away quietly; he did not seem to suffer at all?' 'no, he never recovered consciousness.' 'but do you think that my refusal to marry him had anything to do with his death?' 'oh no, emily; a fit of apoplexy, with a man of his age, generally ends fatally.' 'even if i had known it all beforehand i don't think i could have acted differently. i could not have married him. indeed i couldn't, julia, not even if i knew i should save his life by doing so. i daresay it is very wicked of me, but----' 'dearest emily, you must not give way to such thoughts; you did quite right in refusing to marry mr. burnett. it was very wrong of him even to think of asking you, and if he had lived he would have seen how wrong it was of him to desire such a thing.' 'if he had lived! but then he didn't live, not even long enough to forgive me, and when we think of how much he suffered--i don't mean in dying, you say he passed away quietly, but all this last month how heart-broken he looked! you remember when he sat at the head of the table, never speaking to us, and how frightened i was lest i should meet him on the stairs; i used to stand at the door of my room, afraid to move. i know he suffered, poor old man. i was very, very sorry for him. indeed i was, julia, for i'm not selfish, and when i think now that he died without forgiving me, i feel, i feel--oh, i feel as if i should like to die myself. why do such things happen to me? i feel just as miserable now as i used to when i lived with father and mother, who could not agree. i have often told you how miserable i was then, but i don't think you ever quite understood. i feel just the same now, just as if i never wanted to see any one or anything again. i was so unhappy when i was a child, they thought i would die, and i should have died if i had remained listening to father and mother any longer. ... every one thought i was so lucky when mr. burnett decided to adopt me and leave me all his money, and he has done that, poor old man, so i suppose i should be happy; but i'm not.' the girl's eyes turned instinctively towards the window and rested for a moment on the fair, green prospects of the park. 'i hated to listen to father and mother quarrelling, but i loved them, and i had not been here a year before father died, and darling mother was not long following him--only six months. then i had no one: a few distant relatives, whom i knew nothing of, whom i did not care for, so i gave all my love to mr. burnett. he was so good to me; he never denied me anything; he gave me everything, even you, dearest julia. when he thought i wanted a companion, he found you for me. i learnt to love you. you became my best and dearest friend. then things seemed to brighten up, and i thought i was happy, when all this dreadful trouble came upon us. don't let's speak of it more than we can help. i often wished myself dead. didn't you, julia?' emily watson told the story of her misfortunes in a low, musical voice, heedless of two or three interruptions, hardly conscious of her listener, impressed and interested by the fatality of circumstances which she believed in design against her. she was a small, slender girl of about eighteen. her abundant chestnut hair--exquisite, soft, and silky--was looped picturesquely, and fastened with a thin tortoiseshell comb. the tiny mouth trembled, and the large, prominent eyes reflected a strange, yearning soul. she was dressed in white muslin, and the fantastically small waist was confined with a white band. her friend and companion, julia bentley, was a woman of about thirty, well above the medium height, full-bosomed and small-waisted. the type was anglo-saxon even to commonplace. the face was long, with a look of instinctive kindness upon it. she was given to staring, and as she looked at emily, her blue eyes filled with an expression which told of a nature at once affectionate and intelligent. she was dressed in yellow linen, and wore a gold bracelet on a well-turned arm. the room was a long, old-fashioned drawing-room. it had three windows, and all three were filled with views of the park, now growing pale in the evening air. the flower-gardens were drawn symmetrically about the house and were set with blue flower-vases in which there were red geraniums. it was a very large room, nearly forty feet long, with old portraits on the walls--ugly things and ill done; and where there were no portraits the walls were decorated with vine leaves and mountains. the parqueted floor was partially covered with skins, and the furniture seemed to have known many a generation; some of it was heavy and cumbersome, some of it was modern. there was a grand piano, and above it two full-length portraits--a lady in a blue dress and a man in black velvet knee-breeches. at the end of a long silence, emily suddenly threw herself weeping into julia's arms. 'oh, you are my only friend; you will not leave me now.... we shall always love one another, shall we not? if anything ever came between us it would kill me.... that poor old man lying dead up-stairs! he loved me very dearly, and i loved him, too. yet i said just now i could not have married him even if i had known it would save his life. i was wrong; yes, i would have married him if i had known.... you don't believe me?' 'my dearest girl, you must try to forget that mr. burnett ever entertained so foolish a thought. he was a very good man, and loved you for a long time as he should have loved you--as a daughter. we shall respect his memory best by forgetting the events of the last six weeks. and now, emily, dinner will be ready at seven o'clock, and it is now six. what are you going to do?' 'i shall go out for a little walk. i shall go down and see the swans.' 'shall i come with you?' 'no, thank you, dear; i think i'd sooner be alone. i want to think.' julia looked a moment anxiously at this fragile girl, whose tiny head was poised on a long, delicate neck like a fruit on its stem. 'yes, go for a walk, dear,' said julia; 'it will do you good. shall i go and fetch your hat and jacket?' 'no, thank you, i will not trouble you; i'll go myself.' 'no, emily, i think you had better let me go.' 'oh, no; i am not afraid.' and she went up the wide oak staircase, thinking of the man who lay dead in the room at the end of the passage. she was conscious of a sense of dread; the house seemed to wear a strange air, and her dog, dandy, was conscious of it, too; he was more silent, less joyful than usual. and when she came from her room, dressed to go out, instead of rushing down-stairs, barking with joy, he dropped his tail and lingered at the end of the passage. she called him; he still hesitated, and then, yielding to a sudden desire, she went down the passage and knocked at the door of the room. the nurse answered her knock. 'oh, don't come in, miss.' 'why not? i want to see him before he goes away for ever.' upon the limp, white curtains of an old four-posted bed she saw the memorable profile--stern, unrelenting. how still he lay! never would that face speak or laugh or see again. although sixty-five, his head was covered with short, thick, iron-grey hair; the beard, too, was short and thick, and iron-grey. the face was rugged, and when emily touched the coarse hand, telling of a life of toil, she started--it was singularly cold. fear and sorrow in like measure choked her, and her soul awoke, and tremblingly she walked out of the house, glad to breathe the sweet evening air. she walked towards the artificial water. the sky was melancholy and grey, and the park lay before her, hushed and soundless. through the shadows of the darkening island two swans floated softly, leaving behind slight silver lines; above, the swallows flew high in the evening. there was sensation of death, too, in this cold, mournful water, and in the silence that hung about it, and in some vague way it reminded emily of her own life. she had known little else but death; her life seemed full of death; and those reflections, so distinct and so colourless, were like death. then, in a sudden expansion of youth she wondered. her own life, how strange, how personal, how intense! what did it mean, what meaning had it in the great, wide world? and the impressive tranquillity, the pale death of the day, lying like a flower on the water, seemed to symbolise her thought, and she felt more distinctly than she had ever done before. and there arose in her a nervous and passionate interest in herself. she seemed so strange, so wonderful. her childhood was in itself an enigma. that sad and sorrowful childhood of hers, passed in that old london house; her mother's love for her; her cruel, stern stepfather, and the endless quarrels between her father and mother, which made her young life so unbearable, so wretched, that she could never think of those years without tears rising to her eyes. and then the going away, coming to live with mr. burnett! the death of her father and her dear mother, so sudden, following so soon one after the other. how much there had been in her life, how wonderful it was! her love of mr. burnett, and then that bitter and passionate change in him! that proposal of marriage; could she ever forget it? and then this cruel and sudden death. everything she had ever loved had been taken from her. only julia remained, and should julia be taken from her, she felt that she must die. but that would not, could not, happen. she was now mistress of ashwood, she was a great heiress; and she and julia would live always together, they would always love one another, they would always live here in this beautiful place which they loved so well. viii there were at the funeral a few personal friends who lived in the neighbourhood, the farmers on the estate, and the labourers; and when the little crowd separated outside the church, emily and julia walked back to ashwood with mr. grandly, mr. burnett's intimate friend and solicitor. they returned through the park, hardly speaking at all, emily absent-minded as usual, waving her parasol occasionally at a passing butterfly. the grass was warm and beautiful to look on, and they lingered, prolonging the walk. it was very good of mr. grandly to accompany them back; he might have gone on straight to the station, so julia thought, and she was surprised indeed when, instead of bidding them good-bye at the front door, he said-- 'before i return to london i have a communication to make to both you ladies. will it suit you to come into the drawing-room with me?' 'perfectly, so far as i'm concerned; and you, emily?' 'oh, i've nothing to do; but if it is about business, julia will attend----' 'i think you had better be present, miss watson.' mr. grandly was a tall, massive man with benevolent features; his bald, pink skull was partly covered with one lock of white hair. there was an anxious look in his pale, deep-set eyes which impressed julia, and she said: 'i hope this communication you have to make to us is not of a painful nature. we have----' 'yes, mrs. bentley, i know that you have been severely tried lately, but there is no help for it. i cannot keep you in ignorance any longer of certain facts relating to mr. burnett's will.' the words 'will' and 'facts' struck on emily's ear. she had been thinking about her fortune. the very ground she was walking on was hers. she was the owner of this beautiful park; it seemed like a fairy tale. and that house, that dear, old-fashioned house, that rambling, funny old place of all sizes and shapes, full of deep staircases and pictures, was hers. her eyes wandered along the smooth wide drive, down to the placid water crossed by the great ornamental bridge, the island where she had watched the swans floating last night--all these things were hers. so the words 'will' and 'facts' and 'ignorance of them' jarred her clutching little dream, and she turned her eyes--they wore an anxious look--towards mr. grandly, and said with an authoritative air: 'yes, let us go into the drawing-room; i want to hear what mr. grandly has to say about----let us go into the drawing-room at once.' julia took the chair nearest to her. emily stood at the window, waiting impatiently for mr. grandly to begin. he laid his hat on the parquet, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, and drew an arm-chair forward. 'mr. burnett, as you know, made a will some years ago, in favour of his cousin and adopted daughter, miss emily watson. in that will he left his entire fortune to her, ashwood park and all his invested money. no other person was mentioned in that will, except miss watson. it was i who drew up this will. i remember discussing its provisions with mr. burnett, and advising him to leave something, even if it were only a few hundred pounds, to his nephew, hubert price. but mr. burnett was always a very headstrong man; he had quarrelled with this young man, as he said, irreparably, and could not be induced to leave him even a hundred pounds. i thought this was harsh, and as mr. burnett's friend i told him so--i have always been opposed to extreme measures,--but he was not to be gainsaid. so the matter remained for many years; never did mr. burnett mention his nephew's name. i thought he had forgotten the young man's existence, when, suddenly, without warning, mr. burnett came into my office and told me that he intended to alter his will, leaving all his property to his nephew, hubert price. you know what old friends we were, and, presuming on our friendship, i told him what i thought of his project of disinheritance, for it amounted to that. well, suffice it to say, we very nearly quarrelled over the matter. i refused to draw up the will, so iniquitous did it seem to me. he said: "very well, grandly, i'll go elsewhere." then i remembered that if i allowed him to go elsewhere i should lose all hold over him, and i consented to draw up the will.' emily listened, a vague expression of pain in her pathetic eyes. then this house, this room where she was sitting, was not hers, and a strange man would come soon and drive her away! 'and he has left ashwood to mr. price, is not that his name?' she said, abruptly. 'yes; he has left ashwood to mr. price.' 'and when did he make this new will?' 'i think it is just about a month ago.' emily leaned forward, and her great eyes, full of light and sorrow, were fixed in space, her little pale hands linked, and the great mass of chestnut hair slipping from the comb. she was, in truth, at that moment the subject of a striking picture, and she was even more impressive when she said, speaking slowly: 'then that old man was even wickeder than i thought. oh, what i have learned in the last three or four weeks! oh, what wickedness, what wickedness!... but go on,' she said, looking at mr. grandly; 'tell me all.' 'i suppose there was some very serious reason, but on that point mr. burnett absolutely refused to answer me. he said his reasons were his own, and that he intended to leave his money to whom he pleased.' 'there was----' julia stopped short, and looked interrogatively at emily. 'go on, julia, tell him; we have nothing to conceal.' 'mr. burnett asked emily to marry him a short time ago; she, of course, refused, and ever since he seemed more like----' 'a madman than anything else,' broke in emily. 'oh, for the last month we have led a miserable life! it was a happy release.' 'is it possible,' said mr. grandly, 'that mr. burnett seriously contemplated marriage with miss watson?' 'yes, and her refusal seemed to drive him out of his mind.' 'i never was more surprised.' the placid face of the eminently respectable solicitor lapsed into contemplation. 'i often tried,' he said, suddenly, 'to divine the reason why he changed his will. disappointed love seemed the only conceivable reason, but i rejected it as being quite inconceivable. well, it only shows how little we know what is passing in each other's minds.' 'then,' said julia, 'mr. burnett has divided his fortune, leaving ashwood to mr. price, and all his invested money to emily?' a look of pain passed over mr. grandly's benevolent face, and he answered: 'unfortunately he has left everything to mr. price.' 'i'm glad,' exclaimed emily, 'that he has left me nothing. once he thought fit to disinherit me because i would not marry him, i prefer not to have anything to do with his money.' mr. grandly and julia looked at each other; they did not need to speak; each knew that the girl did not realise at once the full and irretrievable nature of this misfortune. the word 'destitute' was at present unrealised, and she only thought that she had been deprived of what she loved best in the world--ashwood. mr. grandly glanced at her, and then speaking a little more hurriedly, said-- 'i was saying just now that i only consented to draw up the will so that i might be able at some future time to induce mr. burnett to add a codicil to it. later on i spoke to him again on the subject, and he promised to consider it, and a few days after he wrote to me, saying that he had decided to take my advice and add a codicil. subsequently, in another letter he mentioned three hundred a year as being the sum he thought he would be in honour bound to leave miss watson. unfortunately, he did not live long enough to carry this intention into execution. but the letters he addressed to me on the subject exist, and i have every hope that the heir, mr. price, will be glad to make some provision for his cousin.' 'have you any reason for thinking that mr. price will do so?' said julia. 'no. but it seems impossible for any honourable man to act otherwise.' 'he cannot bear enmity against emily, who of course knew nothing of his quarrel with his uncle. do you know anything about mr. price? what is he? where does he live?' 'he is a literary man, i believe. i have heard that he writes plays!' 'oh, a writer of plays.' 'yes. i am glad of it; he may be easier to deal with. i daresay it is a mistaken notion, but one is apt to imagine that these artist folk are more generous with their money than ordinary mortals.' 'is he married?' said julia, and involuntarily she glanced toward emily. mr. grandly, too, looked toward the girl, and then he said: 'i don't know if mr. price is married; i hope not.' 'why do you hope so?' said emily, suddenly. 'because if he isn't, there will only be one person to deal with. if he had a wife, she would have a voice in the matter; and in such circumstances as ours a man is easier to deal with. i earnestly hope mr. hubert price is not married, and shall consider it a great point in our favour if on returning to town i find he is not.' then assuming a lighter tone, for the nervous strain of the last ten minutes had been intense, he said: 'if he is not married, who knows--you may take a fancy to him, and he to you; then things would be just the same as before--only better.' 'i should not marry him--i hate him already. i wonder how you can think of such a thing, mr. grandly? you know that he must be a very wicked man for uncle to have disinherited him. i have always heard that--but i don't know what i am saying.' tears welled up into her eyes. 'i daresay my cousin is not so bad as--but i can talk no more.... i am very miserable, i have always been miserable, and i don't know why; i never did harm to any one.' soon after mr. grandly bade the ladies good-bye. julia followed him to the front door. 'you will do all you can to help us? that poor child is too young, too inexperienced, to realise what her position is.' 'i know, i know,' said mr. grandly, extending both hands to julia; 'in the whole course of my experience i never met with a sadder case. but we must not take too sad a view of it. perhaps all will come right in the end. the young man cannot refuse to make good his uncle's intentions. he cannot see his cousin go to the workhouse. i will do the best i can for you. the moment i get back to london, i'll set inquiries on foot and find out his address, and when i have seen him i'll write. good-bye.' then, resolving that it were better to leave the girl to herself, julia took up her key-basket and hurried away on household business. but in the middle of her many occupations she would now and then stop short to think. she had never heard of anything so cruel before. that poor girl--she must go to her; she must not leave her alone any longer. but it would be well to avoid the subject as much as possible. she must think of something to distract her thoughts. the pony-chaise. it might be the last time they had a carriage to go out in. but they could not go out driving on the day of the funeral. that evening, as they were going to bed, emily said, lifting her sweet, pathetic little face, looking all love and gentleness: 'oh, to think of a common, vulgar writer coming here, with a common, vulgar wife and a horrid crowd of children. oh, julia, doesn't it seem impossible? and yet i suppose it is true. i cannot bear to think of it. i can see the horrid children tramping up and down the stairs, breaking the things we have known and loved so long; and they will destroy all my flowers, and no one will remember to feed the poor swans. dandy, my beloved, i shall be able to take you with me.' and she caught up the rough-haired terrier and hugged him, kissing his dear old head. 'dandy is mine; they can't take him from me, can they? but do you think the swans belong to them or to us? i suppose it would be impossible to take them with us if we go to live in london. they couldn't live in a backyard.' 'but, dearest emily, who are "they"? you don't know that he is married--literary men don't often marry. for all you know, he is a handsome young man, who will fall madly in love with you.' 'no one ever fell in love with me except that horrid old man--how i hate him, how i detest to think of it! i thought i should have died when he asked to marry me. the very memory of it is enough to make me hate all men, and prevent me from liking any one. i don't think i could like him; i should always see that wicked old man's hoary, wrinkled face in his.' 'oh, emily, i cannot think how such ideas can come into your head. it is not right, indeed it isn't.' and this simple englishwoman looked at this sensitive girl in sheer wonderment and alarm. 'i only say what i think. i am glad the old man did disinherit me. i'm glad we are leaving ashwood; i cannot abide the place when i think of him.... there, that is his chair. i can see him sitting in it now. he is grinning at us; he is saying, "ha! ha! i have made beggars of you both." you remember how we used to tremble when we met his terrible old face on the stairs; you remember how he used to sit glaring at us all through dinner?' 'yes, emily, i remember all that; but i do not think it natural that you should forget all the years of kindness; he was very good to you, and loved you very much, and if he forgot himself at the end of his life, we must remember the weakness of age.' 'the hideousness of age,' emily replied, in a low tone. the conversation paused, and then julia said-- 'you are speaking wildly, emily, and will live to regret your words. let us speak no more of mr. burnett... i daresay you will find your cousin a charming young man. i should laugh if it were all to end in a marriage. and how glad i should be to see you off on your honeymoon, to bid you good-bye!' 'oh, julia, don't speak like that; you will never bid me good-bye. you will never leave me--promise me that--you are my only friend. oh, julia, promise me that you will never leave me.' tears rose in julia's eyes, and taking the girl in her arms, she said, 'i'll never leave you, my dear girl, until you yourself wish it.' 'i wish it? oh, julia, you do not know me. i have lost everything, julia, but i mustn't lose you... after all, it doesn't so much matter, so long as we are not separated. i don't care about money, and we can have a nice little house in london all to ourselves. and if we get too hard up, we'll both go out as daily governesses. i think i could teach a little music, to young children, you know; you'd teach the older ones.' emily looked at julia inquiringly, and going over to the piano, attempted to play her favourite polka. julia, who had once worked for her daily bread, and earned it in a sort of way by giving music-lessons, smiled sadly at the girl's ignorance of life. 'i see,' said emily, who was quick to divine every shade of sentiment passing in the minds of those she loved; 'you don't think i could teach even the little children.' 'my dear emily, i hope it will never come to your having to try.' 'i must do something to get a living,' she replied, looking vaguely and wistfully into the fire. 'how unfortunate all this is--that horrid, horrid old man. but supposing he had asked you to marry him--he wasn't nice, but you are older than i, and if you had married him you would have become, in a way, my stepmother. but what a charming stepmother! oh, how i should have loved that!' 'come, emily, it is time to go to bed; you let your imagination run away with you.' 'julia, you are not cross because----' 'no, dear, i'm not cross. i'm only a little tired. we have talked too long.' emily's allusion to music-teaching had revived in julia all her most painful memories. if this man were to cast them penniless out of ashwood! supposing, supposing that were to happen? starving days, pale and haggard, rose up in her memory. what should she do, what should she do, and with that motherless girl dependent on her for food and clothes and shelter? she buried her face in the pillow and prayed that she might be saved from such a destiny. if this man--this unknown creature--were to refuse to help them, she and emily would have to go to london, and she would have to support emily as best she might. she would hold to her and fight for her with all her strength, but would she not fall vanquished in the fight; and then, and then? the same thoughts, questions, and fears turned in her head like a wheel, and it was not until dawn had begun to whiten the window-panes that she fell asleep. a few days after, the post brought a letter for julia. after glancing hastily down the page she said: 'this is a letter from mr. grandly, and it is good news. oh, what a relief!...' 'read it.' '"dear mrs. bentley,--immediately i arrived in london, i set to work to find out mr. price's address. it was the easiest matter in the world, for he has a play now running at one of the theatres. so i directed my letter to the theatre, and next morning i had a visit from him. after explaining to him the resources of the brilliant fortune he had come into, i told him of his uncle's intention to add a codicil to his will, leaving miss watson three hundred a year; i told him that this last will had left her entirely unprovided for. he said, at once, that he fully agreed with me, and that he would consider what was the most honourable course for him to take in regard to his 'cousin. this is exactly what he said, but his manner was such that before leaving he left no doubt in my mind whatever that he will act very generously indeed. i should not be surprised if he settled even more than the proposed three hundred a year on miss watson. he is a very quiet, thoughtful young man of about two or three and thirty. he looks poor, and i fancy he has lived through very hard times. he wears an air of sadness and disappointment which makes him attractive, and his manners are gentle and refined. i tell you these things, for i know they will interest you. i have not been able to find out if he is married, but i am sorry to say that his play has not succeeded. i should have found out more, but he was not in my office above ten minutes; he had to hurry away to keep an appointment at the theatre, for, as he explained, it was to be decided that very day if the play was to be taken out of the bills at the end of the week. he promised to call again, and our interview is fixed for eleven o'clock the day after to-morrow. in the meantime take heart, for i think i am justified in telling you i feel quite sanguine as to the result."' 'well,' said julia, laying down the letter, 'i don't think that anything could be more satisfactory, and just fancy dear old mr. grandly being able to describe a young man as well as that.' 'he doesn't say if he is short or tall, or dark or fair.' 'no, he doesn't. i think he might have told us something about his personal appearance, but it is a great relief to hear that he is not the vulgar bohemian we have always understood him to be. mr. grandly says his manners are refined; you might take a fancy to him after all.' 'but you don't know that he isn't married. i suppose mr. grandly wasn't able to find that out. i should like to know--but not because i want to marry him or any one else; only i don't like the idea of a great, vulgar woman, and a pack of children scampering about the place when we go.' 'do you dislike children so much, then, emily?' 'i don't know that i ever thought about them; but i'm sure i shouldn't like his children. i dreamt of him last night. do you believe in dreams?' 'what did you dream?' 'i cannot remember, but i woke up crying, feeling more unhappy than i ever felt in my life before. it is curious that i should dream of him last night, and that you should receive that letter this morning, isn't it?' 'i don't see anything strange in it. nothing more natural than that you should dream about him, and it was certain that i should receive a letter from mr. grandly; he promised to write to me in a few days.' 'then you believe what is in that letter--i don't. something tells me that he will not act kindly, but i don't know how.' 'i'm quite sure you are wrong, emily. mr. grandly would never have written this letter unless he knew for certain that mr. price would do all or more than he promised.' 'i can't see from the letter that he has promised anything... even if he does give me three hundred a year, i shall have to leave ashwood.' 'my dear emily, i'm cross with you: of course, if you will insist on always looking at the melancholy side.... now i'm going; i've to see after the housekeeping. are you going into the garden?' 'yes, presently.' emily did not seem to know what she was going to do. she looked out of the window, she lingered in the corridor; finally she wandered into the library. the quaint, old-fashioned room recalled her childhood to her. it was here she used to learn her lessons. here was the mahogany table, at which she used to sit with her governess, learning to read and write; and there, far away at the other end of the long room, was the round table, where lay the old illustrated editions of _gulliver's travels_ and _the arabian nights_, which she used to run to whenever her governess left the room. and at the bottom of the book-cases there were drawers full of strange papers; these drawers she used to open in fear and trembling, so mysterious did they seem to her. and there was the book-cases full of the tall folios, behind which lay, in dark and dim recesses, stores of books which she used to pull out, expecting at every moment to come upon long-forgotten treasures. she smiled now, as she recalled these childish imaginings, and lifting tenderly the coarse drugget, she looked at the great green globe which her fingers used to turn in infantile curiosity. then leaving the library, she roamed through the house, pausing on the first landing to gaze on the picture of the fine gentleman in a red coat, his hand for ever on his sword. she remembered how she used to wonder whom he was going to kill, and how sure she used to feel that at last he would grant his adversary his life. and close by was the picture of the wind-mill, set on the edge of the down, with the shepherd driving sheep in the foreground. her whole life seemed drenched with tears at the thought of parting with these things. every room was full of memories for her. she was a little girl when she came to live at ashwood, and the room at the top of the stairs had been her nursery. there were the two beds; both were now dismantled and bare. it was in the little bed in the corner that she used to sleep; it was in the old four-poster that her nurse slept. and there was the very place, in front of the fire, where she used to have her tea. the table had disappeared, and the grate, how rusty it was! in the far corner, by the window, there used to be a press, in which nurse kept tea and sugar. that press had been removed. the other press was there still, and throwing open the doors she surveyed the shelves. she remembered the very peg on which her hat and jacket used to hang. and the long walks in the great park, which was to her, then, a world of wonderment! she wandered about the old corridor, in and out of odd rooms, all associated with her childhood--quaint old rooms, many of them lumber rooms, full of odd corners and old cupboards, the meaning of which she used to strive to divine. how their silence and mystery used to thrill her little soul! faded rooms whose mystery had departed, but whose gloom was haunted with tenderest recollections. in one corner was the reading-chair in which mr. burnett used to sit. at that time she used to sit on his knee, and when the chair gave way beneath their weight, he had said she was too big a girl to sit on his knee any longer. the words had seemed to her a little cruel. she had forgotten the old chair, but now she remembered the very moment when the servants came to take it away. under the window were some fragments of a china bowl which she had broken when quite a little child. there was a hoop-stick and the hoop which had been taken down to the blacksmith's to be mended. he had mended it, but she did not remember ever using it again. and there was an old box of water-colours, with which she used to colour all the uncoloured drawings in her picture-books. emily took the hoop-stick, the old doll, and the broken box of water-colours, and packed them away carefully. she would be able to find room for them in the little house in london where she and julia were going to live. a few days after, the post brought letters from mr. grandly, one for emily and one for julia. julia's letter ran as follows: 'dear mrs. bentley,---i write by this post to miss watson, advising her that her cousin, mr. price, is most anxious to make her acquaintance, and asking her to send the dog-cart to-morrow to meet him at the station. i must take upon myself the responsibility for this step. i have seen mr. price again, and he has confirmed me in my good opinion of him. he seems most anxious, not only to do everything right, but to make matters as pleasant and agreeable as possible for his cousin. he has written me a letter recognising miss watson's claim upon him, and constituting himself her trustee. i have not had yet time to prepare a deed of gift, but there can be little doubt that miss watson's position is now quite secure. so far so good; but more than ever does the only clear and satisfactory way out of this miserable business seem to me to be a marriage between mr. hubert price and miss watson. i have already told you that he is a nice, refined young man, of gentlemanly bearing, good presence, and excellent speech, though a trifle shy and reserved; and, as i have since discovered that he is not married, i have taken upon myself the responsibility of advising him to jump into a train and to go and tell his cousin the conclusion he has come to regarding the will of the late mr. burnett. as i have said, he is a shy man, and it was some time before i could induce him to take so decisive a step; he wanted to meet miss watson in my office, but i succeeded in persuading him. he will go down to you to-morrow by the five o'clock, and i need not impress upon you the necessity that you should use your influence with miss watson, and that his reception should be as cordial as circumstances permit. i have only to add that i see no need that you should show this letter to miss watson, for the very fact of knowing that we desired to bring about a marriage might prejudice her against this young man, whom she otherwise cannot fail to find charming.' hearing some one at her door, julia put the letter away. it was emily. 'i've just received a letter from mr. grandly, saying that that man is coming here to-day, and that we are to send the dog-cart for him.' 'is not that the very best thing that----' 'we cannot remain here, we must leave a note for him, or something of that kind. i wouldn't remain here to meet him for worlds. i really couldn't, julia.' 'and why not, emily?' 'to meet the man who is coming to turn me out of ashwood!' 'how do you know that he is coming to turn you out of ashwood? you imagine these things.... do you suppose that mr. grandly would send him down here if he did not know what his intentions were?' 'but we shall have to leave ashwood.' 'very likely, but not in the way you imagine. remember, mr. price is your cousin; you may like him very much. let's be guided by mr. grandly; i have not seen your letter, but apparently he advises us to remain here and receive him.' 'i don't think i can, julia. i have misgivings.' 'have you been dreaming again?' 'no; i've not been dreaming, but i have misgivings.' 'you are a silly little goose, emily. come and give me a kiss, and promise to take my advice.' 'dearest julia, you do love me, don't you? promise me that we shall not be separated, and then i don't mind.' 'yes, dear, i promise you that, and you will promise me to try to like your cousin?' 'i'll try, julia, but i'm awfully frightened, and--i don't think i could like him, no matter what he was like. i feel a sort of hatred in my heart. don't you know what i mean?' and the girl looked questioningly into her friend's eyes. ix 'i am miss watson,' she said in her low musical voice, 'and this is my friend, mrs. bentley.' hubert bowed, and sought for words. he found none, and the irritating silence was broken again by miss watson. 'won't you sit down?' she said. 'thank you.' he pulled off his gloves. the pained, troubled look which he had met in miss watson's face seemed a reproach, and he regretted not having followed his own idea, and invited the young lady to meet him at mr. grandly's office. he glanced nervously from one lady to the other. 'i hope you have had a pleasant journey, mr. price,' said mrs. bentley. 'the country is looking very beautiful just at present. do you know this part of the country?' mrs. bentley's words were very welcome, and hubert replied eagerly-- 'no; i do not know the country at all well. i have been very little out of london for some years, but i hope now to see more of the country. this is a beautiful place.' at that moment he met mrs. bentley's eyes, and, feeling that he was touching on delicate ground, he stopped speaking. when he turned his head, he met miss watson's great sad eyes, which seemed to absorb the entire face, fixed upon him. they expressed such depth of pathetic appeal that he trembled with apprehension, and the instinct in him was to beg for pardon. but it became suddenly necessary to say something, and, speaking at random, his head full of whirling words, he said-- 'of course nothing could be more sad than my poor uncle's death,--so unexpected... having lived so long together, you must have----' then it was hubert's turn to look appealingly at miss watson; but her great eyes seemed to say, 'go on, go on; heap cruelty on cruelty!' then he plunged desperately, hoping to retrieve his mistakes. 'he died about a month ago. mr. grandly told me i should still find you here, so i thought----' the intensity of his emotion perhaps caused hubert to accentuate his words, so that they conveyed a meaning different from that which he intended. certainly his hesitations were capable of misinterpretation, and miss watson said, her voice trembling,-- 'of course we know we have no right here, we are intruding; but we are making preparations.... i daresay that to-morrow we shall be able to----' 'oh, i beg pardon, miss watson; let me assure you ... i am sorry if----' taking a little handkerchief out of her black dress, emily covered her face in her thin, tiny hands. she sobbed aloud, and ran out of the room. hubert turned to mrs. bentley, his face full of consternation. 'i am very sorry, but she did not give me time to speak. will you go and fetch her, mrs. bentley? i want to tell her i hope she will never leave ashwood. ... i believe she thinks that i came down here to ask her to leave as soon as possible. it is really quite awful that she should think such a thing.' 'she is an exceedingly sensitive girl, and is now a little overwrought. the events of the last month have proved too much for her.' 'mr. grandly informed me that it was mr. burnett's intention to add a codicil to his will, leaving miss watson three hundred a year. this money i am prepared to give her, and i'm quite sure she is welcome to stay here as long as she pleases. indeed, she will do me a great favour by remaining. please go and tell her. i cannot bear to see a girl cry; to hear her sob like that is quite terrible.' 'you will be able to tell her yourself during the course of the evening. i think it will come better from you.' 'after what has happened, it will be very difficult for me to meet her until she is informed that she is mistaken. i charged mr. grandly to explain everything in his letter. apparently he omitted to do so.' 'he only said you wanted to see emily on a matter of business. of course we did not expect such generosity.' they were standing quite close together, and suddenly hubert became conscious of mrs. bentley's beauty. her blue eyes were at that moment full of tender admiration for the instinctive generosity which hubert so unwittingly exhibited, and her eyes told what was passing in her soul. suddenly they both seemed to understand each other better, and, playing with the bracelet on her arm, she said-- 'you do not know emily; she is strangely sensitive. but i will go and try to persuade her to return.... although only distantly related, you are cousins, after all--are you not?' 'yes, we are cousins, but the relationship is remote. tell her everything; beg of her to come down-stairs.' hubert imagined emily's little black figure thrown upon her bed, sobbing convulsively. he was very much agitated, and looked about the room, at first hardly seeing it. at last its novelty drew his thoughts from his cousin's tears, and he wondered what was the history of the house. 'the old man,' he thought, 'bought it all, furniture and ancestors, from some ruined landowner, and attempted very few alterations--that's clear.' then he reproached himself. 'how could i have been so stupid? i did not know what i was saying. i was so horribly nervous. those strange eyes of hers quite upset me. i do hope mrs. bentley will tell her that i wish to act generously, that i am prepared to do everything in my power to make her happy. poor little thing! she looks as if she had never been happy.' again the room drew hubert's thoughts away from his cousin. it was still lit with the faint perfumed glow of the sunset. the paint of the old decorations was cracked and faded. a man in a plum-coloured coat with gold facings fixed his eyes upon him, and the tall lady in blue satin had no doubt played there in short clothes. he walked up and down, he turned over the music on the piano, and, hearing a step, looked round. it was only the servant coming to tell him that his room was ready. he dressed for dinner, hoping to find the two ladies in the drawing-room, and it was a disappointment to find only mrs. bentley there. 'i have told emily everything you said. she is very grateful, and begs of me to thank you for your kind intentions. but i am afraid you must excuse her absence from dinner. i really don't think she is in a fit state to come down; she couldn't possibly take part in the conversation.' 'but why? i hope she isn't ill? had we better send for the doctor?' 'oh no; she'll be all right in the morning. she has been crying. she suffers from depression of spirits. she is, i assure you, all right,' said mrs. bentley, replying to hubert's alarmed and questioning face. 'i assure you there is no need for you to reproach yourself. dinner is ready.' she took his arm, and they went into the dining-room. no further mention was made of mr. burnett, of money matters, or of the young lady up-stairs; and with considerable tact mrs. bentley introduced the subject of literature, alluding gracefully to hubert's position as a dramatist. 'your play, _divorce_, is now running at the queen's theatre?' no; i'm sorry to say it was taken out of the bills last saturday. saturday night was the last performance.' 'that was not a long run. and the papers spoke so favourably of it.' 'it is a play that only appeals to the few.' and, encouraged by mrs. bentley's manner, hubert told her how happy endings and comic love-scenes were essential to secure a popular success. 'i am afraid you will think me very stupid, but i do not quite understand.' in a quiet, unobtrusive way hubert was a graceful talker, and he knew how to adapt his theme, and bring it within the circle of the sympathies of his listeners. there was some similarity of temperament between himself and mrs. bentley; they were both quiet, fair, meditative saxons. she lent her whole mind to the conversation, interested in the account that the young man gave of his dramatic aspirations. from the dining-room window looking over the park the long road wound through the vaporous country. the town stood in the middle distance, its colour blotted out, and its smoke hardly distinguishable. in the room a yellow dress turned grey, and the gold of a bracelet grew darker, and the pink of delicate finger-nails was no longer visible. but the pensive dusk of the dining-room, which blackened the claret in the decanters, leaving only the faintest ruby glow in the glass which hubert raised to his lips, suited the tenor of the conversation, which had wandered from the dramatic to the social side of the question. what did he think of divorce? she sighed, and he wondered what her story might be. they passed out of the dining-room, and stood on the gravel, watching the night gathering in the open country. in the light of the moon, which had just risen above the woods, the white road grew whiter, the town was faintly seen in the tide of blue vapour, which here and there allowed a field to appear. in the foreground a great silver fir, spiky and solitary, rose up in the blue night. beyond it was seen a corner of the ornamental bridge. the island and its shadow were one black mass rising from the park up to the level of the moon, which, a little to the right, between the town and the island, lay reflected in a narrow strip of water. farther away some reeds were visible in the illusive light, and the meditative chatter of dozing ducks stirred the silence which wrapped the country like a cloak. hubert and mrs. bentley stood looking at the landscape. the fragrance of his cigar, the presence of the woman, the tenderness of the hour, combined to make him strangely happy; his past life seemed to him like a harsh, cruel pain that had suddenly ceased. more than he had ever desired seemed to be fulfilled; the reality exceeded the dream. what greater happiness than to live here, and with this woman! his thoughts paused, for he had forgotten the girl up-stairs. she was not happy; but he would make her happy--of that he was quite certain. at that moment mrs. bentley said-- 'i hope you like your home. is not the prospect a lovely one?' 'yes; but i was thinking at that moment of emily. i suppose i must accustom myself to call her by her christian name. she is my cousin, and we are going to live together. but, by the way, she cannot stay here alone. i hope--i may trust that you will remain with her?' mrs. bentley turned her face towards him; he noticed the look of pleasure that had passed into it. 'thank you; it is very good of you. i shall be glad to remain with emily as long as she cares for my society. it is needless to say i shall do my best to deserve your approval.' [illustration: "they dined at the café royal."] her voice fell, and he heard her sigh, and in his happiness it seemed to him to be a pity that he should find unhappiness in others. they went into the drawing-room. mrs. bentley asked him if he liked music, and she went to the piano and sang some scotch songs very sweetly. then she took a book from the table and bade him good-night. she was sure that he would excuse her. she must go and see after emily. when the door closed, the woman who had just left him seemed like some one he had seen in a dream; and still more shadowy and illusive did the girl seem--that pale and plaintive beauty, looking like a pastel, who had so troubled him with her enigmatic eyes! and the lodging-house that he had left only a few hours ago! and rose. on sunday he had taken rose out to dinner. they dined at the café-royal. he had tried to talk to her about hamilton brown's new drama, which they had just heard would follow _divorce_; but he was unable to detach his thoughts from ashwood and the ladies he was going to visit to-morrow evening. hubert and rose had felt like two school-fellows, one of whom is leaving school; the link that had bound them had snapped; henceforth their ways lay separate; and they were sad at parting just as school-friends are sad. 'you are not rich; you offered to lend me money once. i want to lend you some now.' 'oh yes; five shillings, wasn't it?' 'it doesn't matter what the sum was--we were both very poor then----' 'and i'm still poorer now.' 'all the more reason why you should allow me to help you.... allow me to write you a cheque for a hundred pounds. i assure you i can afford it.' 'i think i had better not.... i have some things i can sell.' 'but you must not sell your things. indeed, you must allow me----' 'i think i'd rather not. i shall be all right--that is to say, if ford engages me for brown's new piece; and i think he will.' 'but if he doesn't?' 'then,' she said, with a sweet and natural smile, 'i'll write to you.... we have been excellent friends--comrades--have we not?' 'yes, we have indeed, and i shall never forget. there is my address; that will always find me.' he had written a play--a play that the most competent critics had considered a work of genius; in any case, a play that had interested his generation more than any other. it had failed, and failed twice; but did that prove anything? fortune had deserted him, and he had been unable to finish _the gipsy_. was it the fault of circumstances that he had not been able to finish that play? or was it that the slight vein of genius that had been in him once had been exhausted? he remembered the article in _the modern review_, and was frightened to think that the critic might have divined the truth. once it had seemed impossible to finish that play; but fortune had come to his aid, accident had made him master of his destiny; he could spend three years, five years if he liked, on _the gipsy_. but why think of the play at all? what did it matter even if he never wrote it? there were many things to do in life besides writing plays. there was life! his life was henceforth his own, and he could live it as he pleased. what should he do with it? to whom should he give it? should he keep it all for himself and his art? it were useless to make plans. all he knew for certain was that henceforth he was master of his own life, and could dispense it as he pleased. and then, in sensuous curiosity, his thoughts turned on the pleasure of life in this beautiful house, in the society of two charming women. 'perhaps i shall marry one of them. which do i like the better? i haven't the least idea.' and then, as his thoughts detached themselves, he remembered emily's tears. x it was a day of english summer, and the meadows and trees drowsed in the moist atmosphere; a few white clouds hung lazily in the blue sky; the garden was bright with geraniums and early roses, and the closely cropped privets were in full leaf. hubert's senses were taken with the beauty of the morning, and there came the thought, so delicious, 'all this is mine.' he noticed the glitter of the greenhouses, and thought the cawing of some young rooks a sweet sound; a great tortoiseshell cat lay basking in the middle of the greensward, whisking its furry tail. hubert stroked the animal; it arched its back, and rubbed itself against his legs. at that moment a half-bred fox-terrier barked noisily at him; he heard some one calling the dog, and saw a slight black figure hastening down one of the side-walks. despite the dog's attempts on his legs, he ran forward. 'emily! emily!' he called. she stopped, turned, and stood looking at him. 'my dear cousin,' he said. 'i'm sorry about last night. i hope that mrs. bentley has told you. i begged of her to do so.' 'yes; she told me of your kind intentions. i have to thank you.' they walked on in silence, neither knowing what to say. 'go away, dandy!' said emily, thrusting her black silk parasol at the dog, who had begun an attack on hubert's trousers. the dog retreated; hubert laughed. 'i'm afraid he doesn't like me.' 'he'll soon get to know you. are you fond of animals?' 'i don't know that i am, particularly.' 'oh!' she said, looking at him reproachfully, 'how can you?' her eyes seemed to say, 'i never can like you after that.' 'i adore animals,' she said. 'my dear dog--there is nothing in the world i love as i love my dandy; come here, dear.' the dog came, wagging his tail, putting back his ears, knowing he was going to be caressed. emily stooped down, took his rough head in her hands, and kissed him. 'is he not a dear?' she said, looking up; and then she said, 'i hope you won't object to having him in the house;' her face clouded. 'oh, my dear emily, how can you ask such a question? i shall never object to anything you desire.' the conversation paused, and they walked some paces in silence. emily had just begun to speak of her flowers, when they came upon the gardener, who was standing in consternation over the fragments of a broken mowing-machine. jack--that was the donkey--had been left to himself just for a moment. it was impossible to say what wild freak had taken him; but instead of waiting, as he was expected to wait, stolidly, he had started off on a wild career, regardless of the safety of the machine. at the first bound it had come in contact with a flower-vase, which had been sent in many pieces over the sward; at the second it had met with some stone coping; and at the third it had turned over in complete dissolution, and jack was free to tear up the turf with his hoofs, until finally his erratic course was stopped by the small boy who was responsible for the animal's behaviour. the arrival of hubert and emily saved the small boy from many a cuff and the donkey from a kick or two; and jack stood amid the ruin he had created, as quiet and as docile a creature as the mind could imagine. 'oh, you--you wicked jack! who would have thought it of you?' said emily, throwing her arms round the animal's neck. 'and at your age, too! this is my old donkey,' she said, turning her dreamy eyes on hubert. 'i used to ride him every day until about two years ago. i love my dear old jack, and would not have him beaten for worlds, although he is so wicked as to break the mowing-machine. look what you have done to the flower-vase.' the animal shook its long ears. hubert and emily strolled down a long walk, wondering what they should talk about. 'these are really very pretty grounds,' he said at last. 'i am sure i shall enjoy myself immensely here.' the remark appeared to him to be of doubtful taste, and he hastened to add, 'that is to say, if i have completely made it up with my pretty cousin.' 'but you have not seen the place yet,' she said, speaking still with a certain tremor in her voice. 'you haven't even seen the gardens. come, and i'll show them to you.' hubert would have preferred to walk with her through these ornamental swards; and he liked the espalier apple-trees with which the garden was divided better than the glare and heat of the greenhouses into which she took him. 'do you care for flowers?' 'not very much.' 'these are all my flowers,' she said, pointing to many rows of flower-pots. 'those are julia's. you see i run a line of thread around mine, so that there shall be no mistake. she is not nearly so careful as i am, and it isn't nice to find that the plants you have been tending for weeks have been spoilt by over-watering. i don't say she doesn't love them, but she forgets them.... just look at those; they are devoured by insects. they want to be taken out and given a thorough cleansing. even then i doubt if they would come out right,--a plant never forgives you; it is just like a human being.' 'and doesn't a human being ever forgive?' 'oh, i didn't mean that!' she said, blushing; 'but sometimes i could cry over the poor plants which she neglects. i daresay you will think me very ridiculous, but i do cry sometimes, and sometimes i cannot resist taking them out on the sly, and giving them a thoroughly good syringing,--only you must not tell her; we have agreed not to touch each other's flowers. but i cannot bear to see the poor things dying. how do we know that they do not suffer?' 'i don't think it probable.' 'but we don't know for certain,' she said, fixing her great eyes on him. 'do we?' 'we know nothing for certain,' he answered; and then he said, 'you and mrs. bentley have lived a long time together?' 'no; not very long. about a couple of years. i was about thirteen when i came to ashwood. i am now eighteen. mrs. bentley is a sort of connection. she is very poor--that is why mr. burnett asked her to come and live here; besides, as i grew up i wanted a companion. she has been very good to me. we have been very happy together--at least, as happy as one may be; for i don't think that any one is ever very happy. have you been very happy?' 'i have not always been happy. but tell me more about mrs. bentley.' 'there is little more to tell. i naturally love her very much. she nursed me when i was ill--and i'm often ill; she taught me all i know; she cheered me when i was sad--when i thought my heart would break; when everybody else seemed unkind she was kind. besides, i could not remain here without her.' emily lowered her eyes, and the conversation seemed to pause. 'i have arranged all that,' hubert answered hurriedly. 'i spoke to her last night, and she has consented to remain.' 'that is very good of you.' emily raised her eyes and looked shyly at hubert; and then, as if doubtful of herself, she said, 'do you like her? i'm sure you do. every one does. do you not think she is very handsome?' 'i think her an exceedingly pleasant woman, and i'm sure we shall all get on very well together.' 'but don't you think her very handsome?' 'yes; she is a handsome woman.' nothing more was said. emily drew meditatively on the gravel with the point of her parasol. the gardeners looked up from their work. 'i have to go now,' she said, raising her eyes timidly, 'to feed the swans. you would not care to go so far?' 'on the contrary, i should like it, of all things. a walk by the water on a day like this will be quite a treat.' 'then will you wait a moment? i will go and fetch the bread.' she returned soon after with a small basket; and a large retriever, tied up in the corner of the yard, barked and lugged at his chain. 'he knows where i am going, and is afraid i shall forget him--aren't you, dear old don? you wouldn't like to miss a walk with your mistress, would you, dear?' the dog bounded and rushed from side to side; it was with difficulty that emily loosed him. once free, he galloped down the drive, returning at intervals for a caress and a sniff at the basket which his mistress carried. 'there's nothing there for you, my beautiful don!' the drive sloped from the house down to the artificial water, passing under some large elms; and in the twilight of the branches where the sunlight played, and the silence was tremulous with wings, hubert felt that emily had forgiven him. she wore the same black dress that he had admired her in the night before; her waist was confined by the same black band; but the chestnut hair seemed more beautiful beneath the black silk sunshade, leaned so gracefully, the black handle held between thumb and forefinger. and the little black figure seemed a part of the beautiful english park, now so green and fragrant in all the flower and sunlight of june, and decorated with a blue summer sky, and white clouds moving lazily over the tops of the trees. and the impression of the beautiful park was enforced by its reflection, which lay, with the mute magic of reflected things, in the still water, stirred only when, with exquisite motion of webbed feet, the swans propelled their freshness to and fro, balancing themselves in the current where they knew the bread must surely fall. 'they are waiting for me. cannot you see their black eyes turned towards the bridge?' and she threw the bread from the basket, and the beautiful birds unbent their curved necks, devouring it voraciously under the water. in the larger portion of this artificial lake there were two islands, thickly wooded. in the smaller, which lay behind emily and hubert, there was one small island covered with reeds and low bushes, and this was a favourite haunt for the waterfowl, which now came swimming forward, not daring to approach too near the dangerous swans. 'these are my friends,' said emily. 'they will follow me to the other end, and i shall be able to feed them as we walk along the meadow.' don and dandy bounded through the tall grass; sometimes foolishly giving chase to the birds that rose up out of the golden grasses, barking in mad eagerness--sometimes pursuing a hare into the distant woods. the last chase had led them far, and both dogs returned panting to walk till they recovered breath by their mistress's side; and to satisfy the retriever's affection emily held one hand to him. playing gently with his ears, she said-- 'did you ever see much of mr. burnett?' 'not since i was a boy, ten or twelve years ago, when i was at the university. there was absolutely no reason for his doing what he did.' 'yes; there was,' she said in a strangely decisive tone. 'may i ask----' 'i do not know if i ought to tell you. it would be better not to. you know,' she continued, speaking now with a nervous tremor in her voice, 'that i do not want you to think that i am so very disappointed. i do not know that i am disappointed at all. you have acted so generously, and it will be pleasanter to live here with you than with that old man.' the conversation fell; but the sweet meadow seemed to induce confidences, and they were so happy in their youth and the sorcery of the sunshine. 'five years ago i wrote to him,' said hubert, speaking very slowly, 'asking him to lend me fifty pounds, and he refused. since then i have not heard from him.' at the end of a long silence, the girl said-- 'so long as you know that i am no longer angry with him for having disinherited me, i do not mind telling you the reason. two months before he died he asked me to marry him, and i refused.' they walked several yards without speaking. 'do you not think i was right? i was only eighteen, and he was over sixty.' 'it seems to me quite shocking that he could have even contemplated such a thing.' 'but look at these poor ducks; they have followed us all the way, and i have forgotten to feed them!' taking out all the bread that remained in the basket, emily threw it to the ducks that had collected where the dammed-up stream that filled the lake trickled over a wooden sluice. there was a plank by which to cross the deep cutting. hubert and emily paused, and stood gazing at the large beech wood that swept over some rising ground. don had not been seen for some time, and they both shouted to him. presently a black mass was seen bounding through the flowers, and the panting animal once more ensconced himself by his mistress's side. 'i was very fond of mr. burnett,' she said, 'but i could not marry him. i could not marry any man i did not love.' 'and because you refused to marry him, he did not mention you in his will. i never heard of such selfishness before!' 'men are always selfish,' she said sententiously. 'but it really does not matter; things are just the same; he hasn't succeeded in altering anything--at least, not for the worse. we shall get on very well together.' the conversation paused. then emily went on: 'you won't tell any one i told you? i only told you because i did not want you to think me selfish. i was afraid that after the foolish way i behaved last night you might think i hated you. indeed, i do not. perhaps everything has happened for the best. i was very fond of the old man. i gave him my whole heart; no father ever had a daughter more attached; but i could not marry him. and it was the remembrance of my love for him that made me burst out crying. i do not think i realised until i saw you how cruelly i had been treated. but you won't tell any one? you won't tell mrs. bentley? she knows, of course; but do not tell her that i told you. i do not care that my feelings should be made a subject of discussion. you promise me?' 'i promise you.' they had now reached the tennis-lawn. the gong sounded, and emily said, 'that is lunch, and we shall find julia waiting for us in the dining-room.' it was as she said. mrs. bentley was standing by the sideboard, her basket of keys in her hand; she had not quite finished her housekeeping, and was giving some last instructions to the butler. hubert noticed that the place at the head of the table was for him, and he sat down a little embarrassed, to carve a chicken. so much home after so many years of homelessness seemed strange. xi on the third day, as soon as breakfast was over, hubert introduced the subject of his departure. julia waited, but as emily did not speak, she said, 'we thought you liked the country better than town.' 'so i do, but----' 'he's tired of us, and we had better leave,' emily said, abruptly. hubert started a little; he looked appealingly at julia, and seeing the look of genuine pain upon his face, she took pity on him. 'you should not speak like that, emily dear; i can see that you pain mr. price very much.' 'i hope, emily, that you will stay here as long as you like,' he said, in a low, gentle voice; 'as long as it is convenient and agreeable to you.' 'we cannot stay here without you,' emily replied; 'we are your guests.' 'and,' said julia, smiling, 'if there are guests, there must be a host. but if you have business in london, of course you must go.' 'i was not thinking of myself,' said hubert, 'but of you ladies. i was afraid that you were already tired of me; that you might like to be left alone; that you had business, preparations. i daresay i was all wrong; but if emily knew----' 'i'm sorry, hubert; i did not mean to offend you. i'm very unlucky. you'll forgive me.' 'i've nothing to forgive; i only hope that you'll never think again that i want to get rid of you. i hope that you'll stop at ashwood as long as ever it suits you to do so. i don't see how i can say more.' 'i like to stop here as long as you are here,' emily said, in a low voice. 'that is all i meant.' 'then we're all of one mind, i don't want to go back to london. if you don't find me in your way, i shall be delighted to stay.' 'of course,' said julia, 'we poor country folk can hardly hope to amuse you.' 'i don't know about that!' exclaimed emily. 'where would he find any one to play and sing to him in the evenings as you can?' the conversation paused, and all were happier that morning, though none knew why. days passed, desultory and sweet, and with a pile of books about him, he lay in a long cane chair under the trees; then the book would drop on his knees, and blowing smoke in curling wreaths, he lost himself in dramatic meditations. it was pleasant to see that emily had grown innocently, childishly fond of her cousin, and her fondness expressed itself in a number of pretty ways. 'now, hubert, hubert, get out of my way,' she would say, feigning a charming petulance; or she would come and drag him out of his chair, saying, 'come, hubert, i can't allow you to lie there any longer; i have to go to south water, and want you to come with me?' and walking together, they seemed like an italian greyhound and a tall, shaggy setter. a cloud only appeared on emily's face when julia spoke of their departure. julia had proposed that they should leave at the end of the month, and emily had consented to this arrangement. the end of the month had appeared to her indefinitely distant, but three weeks of the subscribed time had passed, and signs of departure had become more numerous and more peremptory. allusion had been made to the laundress, and julia had asked emily if she could get all her things into a single box; if not, they would have to send to brighton for another. emily had no notion of what her box would hold, and she showed little disposition to count her dresses or put her linen in order. she seemed entirely taken up thinking what books, what pictures, what china she could take away. she would like to have this bookcase, and might she not take the wardrobe from her own room? and she had known the clock all her life, and it did seem so hard to part with it. 'my dear girl, all these things belong to mr. price; you really cannot take them away without asking him.' 'but he won't refuse; he'll let me have anything i like.' 'he can't very well refuse, so i think it would be nicer on your part not to ask for anything.' 'i must have some of these things: i want to make the house we are going to live in, in london, look as much like ashwood as possible.' 'you'd like to take the whole house with you if you could.' 'yes; i think i should.' and emily turned and looked vaguely up and down the passage. 'i wonder if he'd give me the picture of the windmill?' 'the landing would look very bare without it.' 'it would indeed, and when we came down here on a visit--for i suppose we shall come down here sometimes on visits--i should miss the picture dreadfully, so i don't think i'll ask him for it. but i must take some pictures away with me. there are a lot of old things in the lumber-room at the top of the house, that no one knows anything about. i think i'll ask him to let me have them. i'll take him for a good long ramble through the house. he hasn't seen any of it yet, except just the rooms we live in down-stairs.' emily went straight to hubert. he was lying in the long wicker chair, his straw hat drawn over his eyes, for the sun was finding its sharp, white way through the leaves of the beeches. 'now, hubert, i want you. are you asleep?' 'asleep! no, i was only thinking.' he threw his legs over the edge of the low chair and stood up. 'if i tell you what i want, you won't refuse me, will you?' 'no,' he said smilingly; 'i don't think i shall.' 'are you sure?' she said, looking at him enigmatically. then in a lighter tone: 'i want you to give me a lot of things--oh, not a great many, nothing very valuable, but----' 'but what, emily?... you can have anything you want.' 'well, we shall see. you must come with me; i must show you what--i shan't want them unless you like to give them. come along. oh, you must come. i should not care about them unless you came with me, and let me point them out.' she passed her little hand into the arm of his rough coat, and led him towards the house. 'you know nothing of your own house, so before i go i intend to show you all over it. you have no idea what a funny old place it is up-stairs--endless old lumber-rooms which you would never think of going into if i didn't take you. when i was a little girl i wasn't often allowed down-stairs: the top of the house still seems to me more real than any other part.' throwing open a door at the head of the stairs, she said: 'this used to be my nursery. it is all bare and deserted now, but i remember it quite different. i used to spend hours looking out of that window. from it you can see all over the park, and the park used to be my great delight. i used to sit there and make resolutions that next time i went out i would be braver, and explore the hollows full of bushes and tall ferns.' 'did you never break your resolutions?' 'sometimes. i was afraid of meeting fairies or elves. there are glades and hollows that used to seem very wonderful. and they still seem very wonderful, only not quite in the same way. doesn't the world seem very wonderful to you? i'm always wondering at things. but i know i'm only a silly little girl, and yet i like to talk to you about my fancies. down there in the beech wood there is a beautiful glade. i loved to play there better than anywhere else. i used to lie there on a fur rug and play at paper dolls. i always fancied myself a duchess or a princess.' 'you are full of dreams, emily.' 'yes; i suppose i am. everything is pleasant and happy in dreams. i love dreaming. they thought i'd never learn to read; but it wasn't because i was stupid, but because i wouldn't study. i'd put my hands to my head, and, looking at the book, which i didn't see, i'd think of all sorts of things, imagine myself a fairy princess.' 'and it was in this room that you dreamed all those dreams?' 'yes; in this dear old room. you see that picture: that is one of the things i intended to ask you to give me.' 'what? that old, dilapidated print?' 'you mustn't abuse my picture. i used to spend hours wondering if those horsemen galloping so madly through the wood were robbers, and if they had robbed the castle shown between the trees. i used to wonder if they would succeed in escaping. they wouldn't gallop their horses like that unless they were being pursued.... can i have the picture?' 'of course you can. is that--that is not all you are going to ask me for?' 'i did think of asking you for a few more things. do you mind?' 'no, not the least. the more you ask for, the more i shall be pleased.' 'then you must come down-stairs.' they went down to the next landing. emily stopped before a bed-room, and, looking at hubert shyly and interrogatively, she said-- 'this is my room. i don't know if it is in a fit state to show you. i'm not a very tidy girl. i'll look first.' 'yes; it will do,' she said, drawing back. 'you can look in. i want you to give me that wardrobe. it isn't a very handsome one, but i've used it ever since i was a little girl; it has a hollow top, and i used to hide things there. do you think you can spare it?' 'yes; i think i can,' he said, smiling. then she led him up-stairs through the old lumber rooms, picking out here and there some generally broken and always worthless piece of furniture, pleading for it timidly, and strangely delighted when he nodded, granting her every request. she asked him to pull out what she had chosen from the _débris_, and a curious collection they made in the passage--dim and worm-eaten pictures, small book-cases, broken vases which she proposed mending. hubert wiped the dust from his hands and coat-sleeves. 'what a lot of things you have given me! now we shall be able to get on nicely with our furnishing.' 'what furnishing?' 'the furnishing of the little house in london where julia and i are going to live. you said you intended to add a hundred a year to the three hundred a year which mr. burnett should have left me; i don't see why you should do such a thing, but if you do we shall have four hundred a year to live upon. julia says that we shall then be able to afford to give fifty pounds a year for a house. we can get a very nice little house, she says, for that--of course, in one of the suburbs. the great expense will be the furnishing; we are going to do it on the hire system. i daresay one can get very nice things in that way, but i do want to make the place look a little like ashwood; that is why i'm asking you for these things. i was always fond of playing in these old lumber-rooms, and these dim old pictures, which i don't think any one knows anything of except myself, will remind me of ashwood. they will look very well, indeed, hanging round our little dining-room. you are sure you don't want them, do you?' 'no; i won't want them. i'm only too pleased to be able to give them to you.' 'you are very good, indeed you are. look at these old haymakers; i never saw but one little corner of this picture before; it was stowed away behind a lot of lumber, and i hadn't the strength to pull it out.... i'm afraid you've got yourself rather dusty.' 'oh no; it will brush off.' 'i shall hang this picture over the fireplace; it will look very well there. i daresay you don't see anything in it, but i'd sooner have these pictures than those down-stairs. i love the picture of the windmill on the first landing----' 'then why not have it? i'll have it taken down at once.' 'no; i could not think of taking it. how would the landing look without it? i should miss it dreadfully when i came here--for i daresay you will ask us to visit you occasionally, when you are lonely, won't you?' 'my dear emily, whenever you like, i hope you will come here.' 'and you will come and stay with us in london? your room will be always ready; i'll look after that. we shall feel very offended, indeed, if you ever think of going to an hotel. of course, you mustn't expect much; we shall only be able to keep one servant, but we shall try to make you comfortable, and, when you come, you'll take me to the theatres, to see one of your own plays.' 'if my play's being played, certainly. but would it be right for me to pay you visits in london?' 'they would be very wicked people indeed who saw anything wrong in it; you are my cousin. but why do you say such things? you destroy all my pleasure, and i was so happy just now.' 'i'm afraid, emily, your happiness hangs on a very slender thread.' she looked at him inquiringly, but feeling that it would be unwise to attempt an explanation, he said in a different tone-- 'but, emily, if you love ashwood so well, why do you go away?' 'why do i go away? we have been here now some time.... i can't live here always.' 'why not? why not let things go on just as they are?' 'and live here with you, i and julia?' 'yes; why not?' 'we should bore you; you want to write your plays, you'd get tired of me.' 'your being here would not prevent my writing my plays. i have been thinking all the while of asking you to remain, but was afraid you would not care to live here.' 'not care to live here! but you'll get tired of us; we might quarrel.' 'no; we shall never quarrel. you will be doing me a great favour by remaining. just fancy living alone in this great house, not a soul to speak to all day! i'm sure i should end by going out and hanging myself on one of those trees.' 'you wouldn't do that, would you?' hubert laughed. 'you and mrs. bentley will be doing me a great favour by remaining. if you go away i shall be robbed right and left, the gardens will go to rack and ruin, and when you come down here you won't know the place, and then, perhaps, we shall quarrel.' 'i shouldn't like ashwood to go to rack and ruin--and my poor flowers! and i'm sure you'd forget to feed the swans. if you did that, i could not forgive you.' 'well, let these grave considerations decide you to remain.' 'are you really serious?' 'i never was more serious in my life.' 'well then, may i run and tell julia?' 'certainly, and i'll--no, i won't. i'll look up the housemaids and tell them to restore this interesting collection of antiquities to their original dust.' xii he was, perhaps, a little too conscious of his happiness; and he feared to do anything that would endanger the pleasure of his present life. it seemed to him like a costly thing which might slip from his hand or be broken; and day by day he appreciated more and more the delicate comfort of this well-ordered house--its brightness, its ample rooms, the charm of space within and without, the health of regular and wholesome meals, the presence of these two women, whose first desire was to minister to his least wish or caprice. these, the first spoilings he had received, combined to render him singularly happy. bohemianism, he often thought, had been forced upon him--it was not natural to him, and though spiritual belief was dead, he experienced in church a resurrection of influences which misfortune had hypnotised, but which were stirring again into life. he was conscious again of this revival of his early life in the evenings when mrs. bentley went to the piano; and when playing a game of chess or draughts, remembrances of the old shropshire rectory came back, sudden, distinct, and sweet. in these days the disease of fame and artistic achievement only sang monotonously, plaintively, like the wind in the valleys where the wind never wholly rests. sometimes, when moved by the novel he was reading, he would discuss its merits and demerits with the two women who sat by him in the quiet of the dim drawing-room, their work on their knees, thinking of him. in the excitement of criticism his thoughts wandered to his own work, and the women's eyes filled with reveries, and their hands folded languidly over their knees. he spoke without emphasis, his words seeming to drop from the thick obsession of his dream. at ten the ladies gathered up their work, bade him good-night; and nightly these good-nights grew tenderer, and nightly they went up-stairs more deeply penetrated with a sense of their happiness. but at heart he was a man's man. he hardly perceived life from a woman's point of view; and in the long evenings which he spent with these women he sometimes had to force himself to appear interested in their conversation. he was as far removed from one as from the other. emily's wilfulness puzzled him, and he did not seem to have anything further to talk about to mrs. bentley. he missed the bachelor evenings of former days--the whisky and water, the pipes, and the literary discussion; and as the days went by he began to think of london; his thoughts turned affectionately towards the friends he had not seen for so long, and at the end of july he announced his intention of running up to town for a few days. so one morning breakfast was hurried through; emily was sure there was plenty of time; hubert looked at the clock and said he must be off; julia ran after him with parcels which he had forgotten; farewell signs were waved; the dog-cart passed out of sight, and, after lingering a moment, the women returned to the drawing-room thoughtfully. 'i wonder if he'll catch the train,' said emily, without taking her face from the window. 'i hope so; it will be very tiresome for him if he has to come back. there isn't another train before three o'clock.' 'if he missed this train he wouldn't go until to-morrow morning.... i wonder how long he'll stay away. supposing something happened, and he never came back!' emily turned round and looked at julia in dreamy wonderment. 'not come back at all? what nonsense you are talking, emily! he won't be away more than a fortnight or three weeks.' 'three weeks! that seems a very long while. how shall we get through our evenings?' emily had again turned towards the window. julia did not trouble to reply. she smiled a little, as she paused on the threshold, for she remembered that no more than a few weeks ago emily had addressed to her passionate speeches declaring her to be her only friend, and that they would like to live together, content in each other's companionship, always ignoring the rest of the world. although she had not mistaken these speeches for anything more than the nervous passion of a moment, the suddenness of the recantation surprised her a little. three or four days after, the girl was in a different mood, and when they came into the drawing-room after dinner she threw her arms about julia's neck, saying, 'isn't this like old times? here we are, living all alone together, and i'm not boring myself a bit. i never shall have another friend like you, julia.' 'but you'll be very glad when hubert comes back.' 'there's no harm in that, is there? i should be very ungrateful if i wasn't. think how good he has been to us.... i'm afraid you don't like him, julia.' 'oh, yes, i do, emily.' 'not so much as i do.' and raising herself--she was sitting on julia's knees--emily looked at julia. 'perhaps not,' julia replied, smiling; 'but then i never hated him as much as you did.' a cloud came over emily's face. 'i did hate him, didn't i? you remember that first evening? you remember when you came up-stairs and found me trembling in the passage--i was afraid to go to bed. ... i begged you to allow me to sleep with you. you remember how we listened for his footstep in the passage, as he went up to bed, and how i clung to you? then the dreams of that night. i never told you what my dreams were, but you remember how i woke up with a cry, and you asked me what was the matter?' 'yes, i remember.' 'i dreamt i was with him in a garden, and was trying to get away; but he held me by a single hair, and the hair would not break. how absurd dreams are! and the garden was full of flowers, but every time i tried to gather them, he pulled me back by that single hair. i don't remember any more, only something about running wildly away from him, and losing myself in a dark forest, and there the ground was soft like a bog, and it seemed as if i were going to be swallowed up every moment. it was a terrible sensation. all of a sudden i woke with a cry. the room was grey with dawn, and you said: "emily dear, what have you been dreaming, to cry out like that?" i was too tired and frightened to tell you much about my dream, and next morning i had forgotten it. i did not remember it for a long time after, but all the same some of it came true. don't you remember how i met hubert next morning on the lawn? we went into the garden and spent the best part of the morning walking about the lake.... i don't know if i told you--i ran away when i heard him coming, and should have got away had it not been for this tiresome dog. he called after me, using my christian name. i was so angry i think i hated him then more than ever. we walked a little way, and the next thing i remember was thinking how nice he was. i don't know how it all happened. now i think of it, it seems like magic. it was the day that my old donkey ran away with the mowing machine and broke the flower-vase, the dear old thing; we had a long talk about "jack." and then i took hubert into the garden and showed him the flowers. i don't think he cares much about flowers; he pretended, but i could see it was only to please me. then i knew that he liked me, for when i told him i was going to feed the swans, he said he loved swans and begged to be allowed to come too. i don't think a man would say that if he didn't like you, do you?' emily's mind seemed to contain nothing but memories of hubert. what he had said on this occasion, how he had looked at her on another. the conversation paused and emily sunned herself in the enchantment of recollection, until at last breaking forth again, she said-- 'have you noticed how ethel eastwick goes after him? and the odd part of it is, that she can't see that he dislikes her. he thinks nothing of her singing; he remained talking to me in the conservatory the whole time. i asked him to come into the drawing-room, but he pretended to misunderstand me, and asked me if i felt a draught. he said, "let me get you a shawl." i said, "i assure you, hubert, i don't feel any draught." but he would not believe me, and said he could not allow me to sit there without something on my shoulders. i begged of him not to move, for i knew that ethel would never forgive me if i interrupted her singing; but he said he could get me a wrap without interrupting any one. he opened the conservatory door, ran across the lawn round to the front door, and came back with--what do you think? with two wraps instead of one; one was mine, and the other belonged to--i don't know who it belonged to. so i said, "oh, what ever shall we do? i cannot let you go back again. if any one was to come in and find me alone, what ever would they think!" hubert said, "will you come with me? a walk in the garden will be pleasanter than sitting in the conservatory." i didn't like going at first, but i thought there couldn't be much harm.' it seemed to emily very terrible and very wonderful, and she experienced throughout her numbed sense a strange, thrilling pain, akin to joy, and she sat, her little fragile form lost in the arm-chair, her great eyes fixed in ecstasy, seeing still the dark garden with the great star risen like a phantom above the trees. that evening had been to her a wonder and an enchantment, and her pausing thoughts dwelt on the moment when the distant sound of a bell reached their ears, and the bell came nearer, clanging fiercely in the sonorous garden. then they saw a light--some one had come for them with a lantern--a joke, a suitable pleasantry, and amid joyous laughter, watching the setting moon, they had gone back to the tiled house, where dancers still passed the white-curtained windows. hubert had sat by her at supper, serving her with meat and drink. in the sway of memory she trembled and started, looking in the great arm-chair like a little bird that the moon keeps awake in its soft nest. she no longer wished to tell julia of that night in the garden; her sensation of it lay far beyond words; it was her secret, and it shone through her dreamy youth even as the star had shone through the heavens that night. suddenly she said-- 'i wonder what hubert is doing in london? i wonder where he is now?' 'now? it is just nine. i suppose he's in some theatre.' 'i suppose he goes a great deal to the theatre. i wonder who he goes with. he has lots of friends in london--actresses, i suppose; he knows them who play in his plays. he dines at his club----' 'or at a restaurant.' 'i wonder what a restaurant is like; ladies dine at restaurants, don't they?' as julia was about to make reply, the servant brought her a letter. she opened the envelope, and took out a long, closely-written letter; she turned it over to see the signature, and then looking toward emily, she said, with a pleasant smile-- 'now i shall be able to answer your questions better; this letter is from mr. price.' 'oh, what does he say? read it.' 'wait a moment, let me glance through it first; it is very difficult to read.' a few moments after, julia said, 'there's not much that would interest you in the letter, emily; it is all about his play. he says he would have written before if he had not been so busy looking out for a theatre, and engaging actors and actresses. he hopes to start rehearsing next week. "i say i hope, because there are still some parts of the play which do not satisfy me, particularly the third act. i intend to work steadily on the play till, next thursday, five or six hours every day; i am in perfect health and spirits, and ought to be able to get the thing right. should i fail to satisfy myself, or should any further faults appear when we begin to rehearse the piece, i shall dismiss my people, pack up my traps, and return to ashwood. there i shall have quiet; here, people are continually knocking at my door, and i cannot deny my friends the pleasure of seeing me, if that is a pleasure. but at ashwood, as i say, i shall be sure of quiet, and can easily finish the play this autumn, and february is a better time than september to produce a play."' 'then he goes on,' said julia, 'to explain the alterations he contemplates making. there's no use reading you all that.' 'i suppose you think i should not understand.' 'my dear emily, if you want to read the letter, there it is.' 'i don't want to see your letter.' 'what do you mean, emily?' 'nothing, only i think it rather strange that he didn't write to me.' some days after, emily took up the book that julia had laid down. '"shakespeare's plays." i suppose you are reading them so that you'll be able to talk to him better.' 'i never thought of such a thing, emily.' at the end of a long silence emily said-- 'do you think clever men like clever women?' 'i don't know. some say they do, some say they don't. i believe that really clever men, men of genius, don't.' 'i wonder if hubert is a man of genius. what do you think?' 'i really am not capable of expressing an opinion on the matter.' another week passed away, and emily began to assume an air of languor and timid yearning. one day she said-- 'i wonder he doesn't write. he hasn't answered my letter yet. has he answered yours?' 'he has not written to me again. he hasn't time for letter-writing. he is working night and day at his play.' 'i suppose he'd never think of coming down by the morning train. he'd be sure to come by the five o'clock.' 'he won't come without writing. he'd be sure to write for the dog-cart.' 'i suppose so. there's no use in looking out for him.' but, notwithstanding her certitude on the point, emily could not help choosing five o'clock as the time for a walk, and julia noticed that the girl's feet seemed to turn instinctively towards the lodge. often she would leave the flowers she was tending on the terrace, and stand looking through the dim, sun-smitten landscape toward the red-brown spot, which was southwater, in the middle of the long plain. xiii hubert felt called upon to entertain his friends, and one evening they all sat dining at hurlingham in the long room. the conversation, as usual, had been about books and pictures. it was the moment when strings of lanterns were hoisted from tree to tree. in front of a large space of sky the coloured globes were crude and trivial; but in the shadows of the trees by the river, where the mist rose into the branches, they had begun to awaken the first impression of melancholy and the sadness of _fête_. it was the moment when the great trees hung heavy and motionless, strangely green and solemn beneath a slate-coloured sky; and the plaintive waltz cried on hungarian fiddle-strings, till it seemed the soul of this feminine evening. the fashionable crowd had moved out upon the lawn; the white dresses were phantom blue, and the men's coats faded into obscure masses, darkening the gathering shadows. it was the moment when voices soften, and every heart, overpowered with yearning, is impelled to tell of grief and disillusion; and every moment the wail of the fiddles grew more unbearable, tearing the heart to its very depths. author and actor-manager walked up the lawn puffing at their cigars. the others sat watching, knowing that the opportunity had come for criticism of their friend. 'he does not change much,' said harding. 'circumstances haven't affected him. a year ago he lived in a garret re-writing his play _divorce_. he now rewrites _divorce_ in a handsome house in sussex.' 'i thought he had finished his play,' said thompson. 'i heard that he was going to take a theatre and produce it himself.' 'but did you not hear him say at dinner that he was re-writing as he rehearsed? i met one of the actors yesterday. he doesn't know what to make of it. he gets a new part every week to learn.' 'do you think he'll ever produce it?' 'i doubt it. at the last moment he'll find that the third act doesn't satisfy him, and will postpone the production till the spring.' 'what do you think of his work?' 'very intelligent, but a little insipid--like himself. look at him. _il est bien l'homme de ses ouvres_. there is something dry about him, and his writings are like himself--hard, dry and wanting in personal passion.' 'yet he talks charmingly, with vivacity and intelligence, and he is so full of appreciation of shakespeare, goethe, and such genuine love for antiquity.' 'i've heard him talk shakespeare, goethe, and ibsen,' said harding, 'but i never heard him say anything new, anything personal. it seems to me that you mistake quotation for perception. he assimilates, but he originates nothing. he has read a great deal; he is covered with literature like a rock with moss and lichen. he's appreciative, i will say that for him. he would make a capital editor, or a tutor, or a don, an oxford don. he would be perfectly happy as a don; he could read up the german critics and expound sophocles. he would be perfectly happy as a don. as it is, he is perfectly miserable.' 'there was a fellow who had a studio over mine,' said thompson. 'he had been in the army and used to paint a bit. the academy by chance hung a portrait, so he left the army and turned portrait-painter. one day he saw a picture by velasquez, and he understood how horrid were the red things he used to send to the academy. he used to come down to see me; he used to say, "i wish i had never seen a picture, by gad, it is driving me out of my mind." poor chap, i wanted him to go back to the army. i said, why paint? no one forces you to; it makes you miserable; don't do so any more. when you have anything to say, art is a joy; when you haven't, it is a curse to yourself and to others.' philipps, the editor of _the cosmopolitan_, turned towards harding, and he said-- 'i cannot follow you in your estimate of hubert price. i don't see him either mentally or physically as you do. it seems to me that you distort the facts to make them fit in with your theory. he is tall and thin, but i do not think that his nature is hard and dry. i should, on the contrary, say that he was of a soft rather than a hard nature. the expression of his face is mild and melancholy. i do not detect the dry, hard, rocky basis of which you speak. i should say that price was a sentimental man.' 'i have never heard of him being in love,' said harding. 'i should say that he had been entirely uninfluenced by women.' 'but love of women is only one form of sentimentality and not the highest, nor the deepest,' said philipps. 'i can imagine a man being exceedingly sentimental and not caring about women at all.' 'what you say is true,' said harding. his face showed that he felt the observation to be true and was interested in it. 'but i think i described him truly when i said he was like a rock overgrown with moss and lichen. there is not sufficient root-hold for any idea to grow in him, it withers and dies. examine his literature, and you'll see it is as i say. he has written some remarkable plays, i don't say he hasn't. but they seem to be better than they are. he gets a picturesque situation, but there is always something mechanical about it. there's a human emotion somewhere, but it's never really there; it might have been, but it is not.... it is very well done, it is very intelligent; but it does not seem to live, to palpitate.... in like manner there are men who have read everything, who understand everything, who can theorise; they can tell you all about the masterpiece, but when it comes to producing one, well, they're not on in that scene.' 'what an excellent character he would make in a novel! a drama of sterility,' said phillips. 'or the dramas which they bring about,' said harding. 'yes, or the dramas they bring about. but what drama can price bring about--he shuts himself up in a room and tries to write a play,' said phillips. 'i don't see how he can dramatise any life but his own.' 'all deviations from the normal tend to bring about drama,' said harding. 'then, why don't you do a hubert price in a book? it would be most interesting. do you think you ever will?' 'i don't think so.' 'why not? because he is a friend of yours, and you would not like----' 'i never allow my private life to interfere with my literature. no; for quite other reasons. i admit that he represents physically and mentally a great deal of the intellectual impotence current in our time. but it would be difficult, i think, to bring vividly before the reader that tall, thin, blonde man, with his pale gentle eyes and his insipid mind. i should take quite a different kind of man as my model.' 'what kind of man?' said phillips, and the five or six writers and painters leaned forward to listen to harding. 'i think i should imagine a man about the medium height. a nice figure, light, trim, neat. good-looking, straight nose, eyes bright and intelligent. i think he would have beard, a very close-cut beard. the turn of his mind would be metaphysical and poetic--an intense subtility of mind combined with much order. he would be full of little habits. he would have note-books of a special kind in which to enter his ideas. the tendency of his mind would be towards concision, and he would by degrees extend his desire for concision into the twilight and the night of symbolism.' 'a sort of constipated browning,' said phillips. 'exactly,' said harding. 'and would you have him married?' asked john norton. 'certainly. i imagine him living in a tiny little house somewhere near the river--westminster or chelsea. his wife would be a dreadful person, thin, withered, herring-gutted--a sort of red herring with a cap. but his daughter would be charming, she would have inherited her father's features. i can imagine these women living in admiration of this man, tending on him, speaking very little, removed from worldly influences, seeing only the young men who come every tuesday evening to listen to the poet's conversation--i don't hear them saying much--i can see them sitting in a corner listening for the ten thousandth time to aestheticisms not one word of which they understand, and about ten o'clock stealing away to some mysterious chamber. something of the poet's sterility would have descended upon them.' 'that is how you imagine _un génie raté_,' said phillips. 'your conception is clear enough; why don't you write the book?' 'because there is nothing more to say on the subject. it is a subject for a sketch, not for a book. but of this i'm sure, that the dry-rock man would come out more clearly in a book than the soft, insipid, gentle, companionable, red-bearded fellow.' 'if price were the dry, sterile nature you describe, we should feel no interest in him, we should not be discussing him as we are,' said phillips. 'yes, we should--price suffers; we're interested in him because he suffers--because he suffers in public--"i never was happy except on those rare occasions when i thought i was a great man." in that sentence you'll find the clew to his attractiveness. but in him there is nothing of the irresponsible passion which is genius. there's that little rose massey--that little baby who spends half her day dreaming, and who is as ignorant as a cod-fish. well, she has got that something--that undefinable but always recognisable something. it was price who discovered her. we used to laugh at him when he said she had genius. he was right; we were wrong. the other night i was standing in the wings; she was coming down from her dressing-room--she lingered on the stairs, looking the most insignificant little thing you can well imagine; but the moment her cue came a strange light came into her eyes and a strange life was fused in her limbs; she was transformed, and went on the stage a very symbol of passion and romance.' the slate colour of the sky did not seem to change, and yet the night grew visibly denser in the park; and there had come the sensation of things ended, a movement of wraps thrown over shoulders and thought of bedtime and home. the crowd was moving away, and nearly lost in the darkness hubert came towards his friends. he had just knocked the ash from his cigar, and as he drew in the smoke the glow of the lighted end fled over his blonde face. xiv one day a short letter came from hubert, asking mrs. bentley to send the dog-cart to the station to fetch him. he had decided to come home at once, and postpone the production of his play till the coming spring. every rehearsal had revealed new and serious faults of construction. these he had attempted to remove when he went home in the evening, but though he often worked till daybreak, he did not achieve much. the very knowledge that he must come to rehearsal with the re-written scene seemed to produce in him a sort of mental paralysis, and, striking the table with his fist, he would get up, and a thought would cross his mind of how he might escape from this torture. after one terrible night, in which he feared his brain was really giving way, he went down to the theatre and dismissed the company, for he had resolved to return to ashwood and spend another autumn and another winter re-writing _the gipsy_. if it did not come right then, he would bother no more about it. why should he? there was so much else in life besides literature. he had plenty of money, and was determined in any case to enjoy himself. so did his thoughts run as he leaned back on the cushions of a first-class carriage, glancing casually through the evening paper. presently his eye was caught by a paragraph narrating an odd calamity which had overtaken a scene carpenter, an honest, respectable, sober, hard-working man, who had fulfilled all social obligations as perfectly as the most exacting could desire, until the day he had conceived the idea of a machine for the better exhibition of advertisements on the hoardings. his system was based on the roller-towel. the roller was moved by clockwork, and the advertisements went round like the towel. at first he spent his spare time and his spare money upon it, but as the hobby took possession of him, he devoted all his time and all his money to it; then he pawned his clothes, and then he raised money on the furniture; the brokers came in, and finally the poor fellow was taken to a lunatic asylum, and his wife and family were thrown on the parish. the story impressed hubert strangely. he saw an analogy between himself and the crazy inventor, and he asked himself if he would go on re-writing _the gipsy_ until he went out of his mind. 'even if i do,' he thought, 'i can hurt no one but myself. no one else is dependent on me; my hobby can hurt no one but myself.' these forebodings passed away, and his mind filled up with schemes of work. he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and he looked forward to doing it. he wanted quiet, he wanted long days alone with himself. such were his thoughts in the dog-cart as he drove home, and it was therefore vaguely unpleasant to him to meet the two ladies waiting for him at the lodge gate. their smiles of welcome irritated him; he longed for the solitude of his study, the companionship of his work; and instead he had to sit with them in the drawing-room, and tell them how he liked london, what he had done there, whom he had seen there, and why he had been unable to finish his play to his satisfaction. in the morning emily or mrs. bentley was generally about to pour out his coffee for him and keep him company. one day hubert noticed that it was no longer mrs. bentley but emily who met him in the passage, and followed him into the dining-room. and while he was eating she sat with her feet on the fender, talking of some girls in the neighbourhood--their jealousies, and how edith eastwick could not think of anything for herself, but always copied her dresses. dandy drowsed at her feet, and very often she would take him to the window and make him go through all his tricks, calling on hubert to admire him. she had a knack of monopolising hubert, and since his return from london, her desire to do so had become almost a determination. hubert showed no disinclination, and after breakfast they were to be seen together in the gardens. hubert was a great catch, and there were other young ladies eager to be agreeable to him; but he did not seem to desire flirtation with any. so they came to speak of him as a very clever man, no doubt; but as they knew nothing about plays, he very probably did not care to talk to them. hubert was not attractive in general society, and he would soon have failed to interest them at all had it not been for emily. she was proud of her influence over him, and for the first time showed a desire to go into society. day by day her conversation turned more and more on tennis-parties, and she even spoke about a ball. he consented to take her; and he had to dance with her, and she refused nearly every one, saying she was tired, leading hubert away for long conversations in the galleries and on the staircases. hubert had positively nothing to say to her; but she seemed quite happy as long as she was with him. and as they drove through the dawn emily chattered of a hundred trifles,--what edith had said, what mabel wore, of the possibility of a marriage, and the arrival of a detachment of some cavalry regiment. hubert found it hard to affect interest in these conversations. his brain was weary with waltz tunes, the shape of shoulders, and the glare and rustle of silk; but as she chattered, rubbing the misted windows from time to time, so as to determine how far they were from home, he wondered if he should ever marry, and half playfully he thought of her as his wife. but without warning his dreams were broken by a sudden thought, and he said-- 'another time, i think it will be better, my dear emily, that mrs. bentley should take you out.' 'why should you not take me out?... i suppose you don't care to--i bore you.' 'no; on the contrary, i enjoy it--i like to see you amused; but i think you should have a proper chaperon.' emily did not answer; and a little cloud came over her face. hubert thought she looked even prettier in her displeasure than she had done in her joy; and he went to sleep thinking of her. never had he thought her so beautiful--never had she touched him with so personal an interest; and next morning, when he lounged in his study, he was glad to hear her knock at the door; and the half-hour he spent with her there, yielding to her pleading to come for a walk with her, or drive her over to southwater in the dog-cart, was one of unalloyed pleasure. but a few days after, as he lay in bed, a new idea came to him for his third act. so he said he would have breakfast in his study. he dressed, thinking the whole time how he could round off his idea and bring it into the act. so clear and precise did it seem in his mind that he sat down immediately after breakfast, forgetting even his matutinal cigar, and wrote with a flowing pen. he had left orders that he was not to be disturbed; and was annoyed when the door opened and emily entered. 'i am very sorry, but you must not be cross with me; i do so want you to come and see the eastwicks with me.' 'my dear emily, i could not think of such a thing this morning. i am very busy--indeed i am.' 'what are you doing? nothing very important, i can see. you are only writing your play. you might come with me.' 'my play is as important to me as a visit to the eastwicks is to you,' he answered, smiling. 'i have promised edith.... i really do wish you would come.' 'my dear emily, it is quite impossible: do let me get on with my work!' emily's face instantly changed expression; she turned to leave the room, and hubert had to go after her and beg her to forgive him--he really had not meant to be rude to her. 'you don't care to talk to me. i am not clever enough for you.' then pity took him, and he made amends by suggesting they should go for a walk in the park, and she often succeeded in leading him even to dry, uninteresting neighbours. but the burden grew heavier, and soon he could endure no longer the evenings of devotion to her in the drawing-room, where the presence of mrs. bentley seemed to fill her with incipient rebellion. one evening after dinner, as he was about to escape up-stairs, emily took his arm, pleading that he should play at least one game of backgammon with her. he played three; and then, thinking he had done enough, he took up a novel and began to read. emily was bitterly offended. she sat in a corner, a picture of deep misery; and whenever he spoke to mrs. bentley, he thought she would burst into tears. it was exasperating to be the perpetual victim of such folly; and, pressed by the desire to talk to mrs. bentley about the book he was reading, he suggested that she should come with him to the meet. the harriers met for the first time that season at not five miles from ashwood. mrs. bentley pleaded an engagement. she had promised to go over to tea at the rectory. 'oh, we shall be back in plenty of time; i'll leave you at the rectory on our way home.' 'thank you, mr. price; but i do not think i can go.' 'and why, may i ask?' 'well, perhaps emily would like to go.' 'emily has a cold, and it would be folly of her to venture a long drive on a cold morning.' 'my cold is quite well.' 'you were complaining before dinner how bad it was.' 'if you don't want to take me, say so.' tears were now streaming down her cheeks. 'my dear emily, i am only too pleased to have you with me; i was only thinking of your cold.' 'my cold is quite gone,' she said, with brightening face; and next morning she came down with her waterproof on her arm, and she had on a new cloth dress which she had just received from london. hubert recognised in each article of attire a sign that she was determined to carry her point. it seemed cruel to tell her to take her things off, and he glanced at mrs. bentley and wondered if she were offended. 'i hope the drive won't tire you; you know the meet is at least five miles from here.' emily did not answer. she looked charming with her great boa tied about her throat, and sprang into the dog-cart all lightness and joy. 'i hope you are well wrapped up about the knees,' said mrs. bentley. 'oh yes, thank you; hubert is looking after me.' mrs. bentley's calm, statuesque face, whereon no trace of envy appeared, caught hubert's attention as he gathered up the reins, and he thought how her altruism contrasted with the passionate egotism of the young girl. 'i hope julia was not disappointed. i know she wanted to come; but----' 'but what?' 'well, no one likes julia more than i do, and i don't want to say anything against her; but, having lived so long with her, i see her faults better than you can. she is horribly selfish! it never occurs to her to think of me.' hubert did not answer, and emily looked at him inquiringly. at last she said, 'i suppose you don't think so?' 'well, emily, since you ask me, i must say that i think she took it very good-humouredly. you said you were ill, and it was all arranged that i should drive her to the meet; then you suddenly interposed, and said you wanted to go; and the moment you mentioned your desire to go, she gave way without a word. i really don't know what more you want.' 'you don't know julia. you cannot read her face. she never forgets anything, and is storing it up, and will pay me out for it sooner or later.' 'my dear emily, how can you say such things? i never heard---- she is always ready to sacrifice herself for you.' 'you think so. she has a knack of pretending to be more unselfish than another; but she is in reality intensely selfish.' 'all i can say is that it does not strike me so. i never saw any one give way more good-humouredly than she did to-day.' 'i don't think that that is so wonderful, after all. she is only a paid companion; and i do not see why she should go driving about the country with you, and i be left at home.' hubert was somewhat shocked. the conversation paused. 'she gets on very well with men,' emily said at last, breaking an irritating silence somewhat suddenly. 'they say she is very good-looking. don't you think so?' 'oh yes, she is certainly a pretty woman--or, i should say, a good-looking woman. she is too tall to be what one generally understands as a pretty woman.' 'do you like tall women?' at that moment the hunt appeared in the field at the bottom of the hill. a grey horse had just got rid of his rider, and after galloping round and round, his head in the air, stopped and began to graze. the others jumped the hedge, and the greater part of the field got over the brook in capital style. emily and hubert watched them with delighted eyes, for the sight was indeed picturesque this fine autumn day. even their horse pricked up his ears and began neighing, and hubert had to hold him tight in hand, lest he should break away while they were enjoying the spectacle. at that moment a poor little animal, with fear-haunted eyes, and in all the agony of fatigue, appeared above the crest of the hill, and immediately after came the straining hounds, one within a dozen yards of the poor little beast, now running in a circle, uttering the most plaintive and pitiful cries. 'oh, they are not going to kill it!' cried emily. 'oh, save it, save it, hubert!' she hid her face in her hands. 'did it escape? is it killed?' she said, looking round. 'oh, it is too cruel!' the huntsman was calling to the hounds, holding something above them, and at every moment horses' heads appeared over the brow of the hill. there was more hunting; and when the october night began to gather, and the lurid sunset flared up in the west, hubert got out another wrap, and placed it about emily's shoulders. but although the chill night had drawn them close together in the dog-cart, they were as widely separated as if oceans were between them. so far as lay in his power he had hidden the annoyance that the intrusion of her society had occasioned him; and, to deceive her, very little concealment was necessary. so long as she saw him she seemed to live in a dream, unconscious of every other thought. they rolled through a gradual effacement of things, seeing the lights of the farmhouses in the long plain start into existence, and then remain fixed, like gold beetles pinned on a blue curtain. the chill evening drew her to him, till they seemed one; and full of the intimate happiness of the senses which comes of a long day spent in the open air, she chattered of indifferent things. he thought how pleasant the drive would be were he with mrs. bentley--or, for the matter of that, with any one with whom he could talk about the novel that had interested him. they rolled along the smooth wide road, watching the streak of light growing narrower in a veil of light grey cloud drawn athwart the sky. overpowered by her love, the girl hardly noticed his silence; and when they passed through the night of an overhanging wood her flesh thrilled, and a little faintness came over her; for the leaves that brushed her face had seemed like a kiss from her lover. xv one afternoon, about the end of september, hubert came down from his study about tea-time, and announced that he had written the last scene of his last act. emily was alone in the drawing-room. 'oh, how glad i am! then it is done at last. why not write at once and engage the theatre? when shall we go to london?' 'well, i don't mean that the play could be put into rehearsal to-morrow. it still requires a good deal of overhauling. besides, even if it were completely finished, i should not care to produce it at once. i should like to lay it aside for a couple of months, and see how it read then.' 'what a lot of trouble you do take! does every one who writes plays take so much trouble?' 'no, i'm afraid they do not, nor is it necessary they should. their plays are merely incidents strung together more or less loosely; whereas my play is the development of a temperament, of temperamental characteristics which cannot be altered, having been inherited through centuries; it must therefore pursue its course to a fatal conclusion. in shakespeare---- but no, no! these things have no interest for you. you shall have the nicest dress that money can buy; and if the play succeeds----' the girl raised her pathetic eyes. in truth, she cared not at all what he talked to her about; she was occupied with her own thoughts of him, and just to sit in the room with him, and to look at him occasionally, was sufficient. but for once his words had pained her. it was because she could not understand that he did not care to talk to her. why did she not understand? it was hard for a little girl like her to understand such things as he spoke about; but she would understand; and then her thoughts passed into words, and she said-- 'i understand quite as well as julia. she, knows the names of more books than i, and she is very clever at pretending that she knows more than she does.' at that moment mrs. bentley entered. she saw that emily was enjoying her talk with her cousin, and tried to withdraw. but hubert told her that he had written the last act; she pretended to be looking for a book, and then for some work which she said had dropped out of her basket. 'if emily would only continue the talking,' she thought, 'i should be able to get away.' but emily said not a word. she sat as if frozen in her chair; and at length mrs. bentley was obliged to enter, however cursorily, into the conversation. 'if you have written out _the gipsy_ from end to end, i should advise you to produce it without further delay. once it is put on the stage, you will be able to see better where it is wrong.' 'then it will be too late. the critics will have expressed their opinion; the work will be judged. there are only one or two points about which i am doubtful. i wish harding were here. i cannot work unless i have some one to talk to about my work. i don't mean to say that i take advice; but the very fact of reading an act to a sympathetic listener helps me. i wrote the first act of _divorce_ in that way. it was all wrong. i had some vague ideas about how it might be mended. a friend came in; i told him my difficulties; in telling them they vanished, and i wrote an entirely new act that very night.' 'i'm sorry,' said mrs. bentley, 'that i am not mr. harding. it must be very gratifying to one's feelings to be able to help to solve a literary difficulty, particularly if one cannot write oneself.' 'but you can--i'm sure you can. i remember asking your advice once before; it was excellent, and was of immense help to me. are you sure it will not bore you? i shall be so much obliged if you will.' 'bore me! no, it won't bore me,' said mrs. bentley. 'i'm sure i feel very much flattered.' the colour mounted to her cheek, a smile was on her lips; but it went out at the sight of emily's face. 'then come up to my study. we shall have just time to get through the first act before dinner.' mrs. bentley hesitated; and, noticing her hesitation, hubert looked surprised. at that moment emily said-- 'may i not come too?' 'well, i don't know, emily. you see that we wish to see if there is anything in the play that a young girl should not hear.' 'always an excuse to get rid of me. you want to be alone. i never come into the room that you do not stop speaking. oh, i can bear it no longer!' 'my dear emily!' 'don't touch me! go to her; shut yourself up together. don't think of me. i can bear it no longer!' and she fled from the room, leaving behind her a sensation of alarm and pity. hubert and mrs. bentley stood looking at each other, both at a loss for words. at last he said-- 'that poor child will cry herself into her grave. have you noticed how poorly she is looking?' 'not noticed! but you do not know half of it. it has been going on now a long time. you don't know half!' 'i have noticed that things are not settling down as i hoped they would. it really has become quite dreadful to see that poor face looking reproachfully at you all day long. and i am quite at a loss to know what's the right thing to do.' 'it is worse than you think. you have not noticed that we hardly speak now?' 'you--who were such friends--surely not!' then she told him hurriedly, in brief phrases, of the change that had taken place in emily in the last three months. 'it was only the other night she accused me of going after you, of having designs upon you. it is very painful to have to tell you these things, but i have no choice in the matter. she lay on her bed crying, saying that every one hated her, that she was thoroughly miserable. somehow she seems naturally an unhappy child. she was unhappy at home before she came here; but then i believe she had excellent reasons,--her mother was a very terrible person. however, all that is past; we have to consider the present now. she accused me of having designs on you, insisting all the while that every one was talking about it, and that she was fretting solely because of my good name. of course, it is very ridiculous; but it is very pitiful, and will end badly if we don't take means to put a stop to it. i shouldn't be surprised if she went off her head. we ought to have the best medical advice.' 'this is very serious,' he said. and then, at the end of a long silence, he said again, 'this is very serious--perhaps far more serious than we think.' 'not more serious than i think. i ought to have spoken about it to you before; but the subject is a delicate one. she hardly sleeps at all at night; she cries sometimes for hours; she works herself up into such fits of nervousness that she doesn't know what she is saying,--accuses me of killing her, and then repents, declaring that i am the only one who has ever cared for her, and begs of me not to leave her. i do assure you it is becoming very serious.' 'have you any proposal to make regarding her? i need hardly say that i'm ready to carry out any idea of yours.' 'you know what the cause of it is, i suppose?' 'i do not know; i am not certain. i daresay i'm mistaken.' 'no, you are not; i wish you were--that is to say, unless---- but i was saying that it is most serious. the child's health is affected; she is working herself up into an awful state of mind; she is losing all self-control. i'm sure i'm the last person who would say anything against her; but the time has come to speak out. well, the other day, when we were at the eastwicks, you took the chair next to mine when she left the room. when she returned, she saw that you had changed your place, and she said to ethel eastwick, "oh, i'm fainting. i cannot go in there; they are together." ethel had to take her up to her room. well, this morbid sensitiveness is most unhealthy. if i walk out on the terrace, she follows, thinking that i have made an appointment to meet you. jealousy of me fills up her whole mind. i assure you that i am most seriously alarmed. something occurs every day--trifles, no doubt; and in anybody else they would mean nothing, but in her they mean a great deal.' 'but what do you propose?' 'unless you intend to marry her--forgive me for speaking so plain--there is only one thing to do. i must leave.' 'no, no; you must not leave! she could not live alone with me. but does she want you to leave?' 'no; that is the worst of it. i have proposed it; she will not hear of it; to mention the subject is to provoke a scene. she is afraid if i left that you would come and see me; and the very thought of my escaping her vigilance is intolerable.' 'it is very strange.' 'yes, it is very strange; but, opposed though she be to all thoughts of it, i must leave.' 'as a favour i ask you to stay. do me this service, i beg of you. i have set my heart on finishing my play this autumn. if it isn't finished now, it never will be finished; and your leaving would create so much trouble that all thought of work would be out of the question. emily could not remain alone here with me. i should have to find another companion for her; and you know how difficult that would be. i'm worried quite enough as it is.' a look of pain passed through his eyes, and mrs. bentley wondered what he he could mean. 'no,' he said, taking her hands, 'we are good friends--are we not? do me this service. stay with me until i finish this play; then, if things do not mend, go, if you like, but not now. will you promise me?' 'i promise.' 'thank you. i am deeply obliged to you.' at the end of a long silence, hubert said, 'will you not come up-stairs, and let me read you the first act?' 'i should like to, but i think it better not. if emily heard that you had read me your play, she would not close her eyes to-night; it would be tears and misery all the night through.' xvi the study in which he had determined to write his masterpiece had been fitted up with taste and care. the floor was covered with a rare persian carpet, and the walls were lined with graceful bookcases of chippendale design; the volumes, half morocco, calf, and the yellow paper of french novels, showed through the diamond panes. the writing-table stood in front of the window; like the bookcases, it was chippendale, and on the dark mahogany the handsome silver inkstand seemed to invite literary composition. there was a scent of flowers in the room. emily had filled a bowl of old china with some pale september roses. the curtains were made of a modern cretonne--their colour was similar to the bowl of roses; and the large couch on which hubert lay was covered with the same material. on one wall there was a sea-piece by courbet, and upon another a river landscape, with rosy-tinted evening sky, by corot. the chimney-piece was set out with a large gilt timepiece, and candelabra in dresden china. hubert had bought these works of art on the occasion of his last visit to london, about two months ago. it was twelve o'clock. he had finished reading his second act, and the reading had been a bitter disappointment. the idea floated, pure and seductive, in his mind; but when he tried to reduce it to a precise shape upon paper, it seemed to escape in some vague, mysterious way. enticingly, like a butterfly it fluttered before him; he followed like a child, eagerly--his brain set on the mazy flight. it led him through a country where all was promise of milk and honey. he followed, sure that the alluring spirit would soon choose a flower; then he would capture it. often it seemed to settle. he approached with palpitating heart; but lo! when the net was withdrawn it was empty. a look of pain and perplexity came upon his face; he remembered the lodging at seven shillings a week in the tottenham court road. he had suffered there; but it seemed to him that he was suffering more here. he had changed his surroundings, but he had not changed himself. success and failure, despair and hope, joy and sorrow, lie within and not without us. his pain lay at his heart's root; he could not pluck it forth, and its gratification seemed more than ever impossible. he changed his position on the couch. suddenly his thoughts said, 'perhaps i am mistaken in the subject. perhaps that is the reason. perhaps there is no play to be extracted from it; perhaps it would be better to abandon it and choose another.' for a few seconds he scanned the literary horizon of his mind. 'no, no!' he said bitterly, 'this is the play i was born to write. no other subject is possible; i can think of nothing else. this is all i can feel or see.' it was the second act that now defied his efforts. it had once seemed clear and of exquisite proportions; now no second act seemed possible: the subject did not seem to admit of a second act; and, clasping his forehead with his hands, he strove to think it out. any distraction from the haunting pain, now become chronic, is welcome, and he answers with a glad 'come in!' the knock at the door. 'i'm sorry,' said mrs. bentley, 'for disturbing you, but i should like to know what fish you would like for your dinner--soles, turbot, or whiting? immersed in literary problems as you are, i daresay these details are very prosaic; but i notice that later in the day----' hubert laughed. 'i find such details far more agreeable than literature. i can do nothing with my play.' 'aren't you getting on this morning?' 'no, not very well.' 'what do you think of turbot?' 'i think turbot very nice. emily likes turbot.' 'very well, then. i'll order turbot.' as mrs. bentley was about to withdraw, she said, 'i'm sorry you are not getting on. what stops you now? that second act?' 'come, you are not very busy. i'll read you the act as it stands, and then tell you how i think it ought to be altered. nothing helps me so much as to talk it over; not only does it clear up my ideas, but it gives me desire to write. my best work has always been done in that way.' 'i really don't think i can stay. if emily heard that you had been reading your play to me----' 'i'm tired of hearing of what emily thinks. i can put up with a good deal, and i know that it is my duty to show much forbearance; but there is a limit to all things!' this was the first time mrs. bentley had seen him show either excitement or anger; she hardly knew him in this new aspect. in a moment the blonde calm of the saxon had dropped from him, and some celtic emphasis appeared in his speech. 'this hysterical girl,' he continued, 'is a sore burden. tears about this, and sighs about that; fainting fits because i happen to take a chair next to yours. you may depend upon it our lives are already the constant gossip of the neighbourhood.' 'i know it is very annoying; and i, i assure you, receive my share. every look and word is misinterpreted. i must not stay here.' 'you must not go! i really want you. i assure you that your opinion will be of value.' 'but think of emily. it will make her wretched if she hears of it. you do not know how it affects her. the slightest thing! you hardly see anything; i see it all.' 'but there is no sense in it; it is pure madness. i'm writing a play, trying to work out a most difficult problem, and am in want of an audience, and i ask you if you will be kind enough to let me read you the act, and you cannot listen to it because--because--yes, that's just it--because!' 'you do not know how she suffers. let me go; spare her the pain.' 'she is not the only one who suffers. do you think that i don't suffer? i've set my heart--my very life is set on this play. i must get through with it; they are all waiting for it. my enemies say i cannot write it, but i shall if you will help me.' [illustration: "sometimes, in an exciting passage, the hands were clasped."] 'poor emily's heart is equally broken. her life is equally set----' mrs. bentley did not finish. hubert just caught the words. their significance struck him; he looked questioningly into mrs. bentley's eyes; then, pretending not to have understood, he begged her to remain. with the air of one who yields to a temptation, she came into the room. he felt strangely happy, and, drawing over an arm-chair for her, he threw himself on the couch. he noticed that she wore a loose white jacket, and once during the reading of the act he was conscious of a beautiful hand hanging over the rail of the chair. sometimes, in an exciting passage, the hands were clasped. the black slippers and the slender black-stockinged ankles showed beneath the skirt; and when he raised his eyes from the manuscript, he saw the blonde face and hair, and the pale eyes were always fixed upon him. she listened with a keen and penetrating interest to his criticism of the act, agreeing with him generally, sometimes quietly contesting a point, and with some strange fascination drawing new and unexpected ideas from him; and in the intellectual warmth of her femininity his brain seemed to clear and his ideas took new shape. 'ah,' he said, after two hours' delightful talk, 'how much i'm indebted to you! at last i see my mistakes; in two days i shall have written the act. and he wrote rapidly for nearly two hours, reconstructing the opening scenes of his second act.' he then threw himself on the couch, smoked a cigar, and after half an hour's rest continued writing till dinner-time. when he came down-stairs, the thought of what he had been writing was still so vivid in him that he did not notice at once the silence of those with whom he was dining. he complimented mrs. bentley on the freshness of the turbot; she hardly answered; and then he became aware that something had gone wrong. what? only one thing was possible. emily had heard that mrs. bentley had been in his study. looking from the woman to the girl, he saw that the latter had been weeping. she was still in a highly hysterical state, and might burst into tears and fly from the dinner-table at any moment. his face changed expression, and it was with difficulty that he restrained his temper. his life had been made up of a constant recurrence of these scenes, and he was wholly weary of them; and the thought of the absolute want of reason in the causeless jealousy, and the misery that these little bickerings made of his life, exasperated him beyond measure. the dinner proceeded in silence, and every slight remark was a presage of storm. hubert hoped the girl would say nothing until the servant left the room, and with that view he never spoke a word except to ask the ladies what they would take to eat. these tactics might have succeeded if mrs. bentley had not unfortunately said that next week she intended to go to london for a couple of days. 'the eastwicks are there now, and they've asked me to stay with them.' 'i think i shall go up with you. i want to go to london,' said emily. 'it will be very nice if you'll come; but we cannot both stay with the eastwicks; they have only one spare room.' 'i suppose you'd like me to go to an hotel.' 'my dear emily, how can you think of such a thing? a young girl like you could not stay at an hotel alone. i shall be only too pleased if you will go to the eastwicks; i will go to the hotel.' emily's lip quivered, and in the irritating silence both hubert and mrs. bentley saw that she was trying to overcome her passion. they fervently hoped she would succeed; for at that moment the servant was handing round the wine, and the time he took to accomplish this service seemed endless. he had filled the last glass, had handed round the dessert, and was preparing to leave the room when emily said-- 'the hotel will suit you very well. you'll be free to see hubert whenever you like.' hubert looked up quickly, hoping mrs. bentley would not answer, but before he could make a sign she said-- 'what do you mean, emily? i did not know that hubert was going to london.' 'you hardly expect me to believe that, do you?' the servant was still in the room; but no look of astonishment appeared on his face, and hubert hoped he had not heard. an awful silence glowered upon the dinner-table. the moment the door closed hubert said, turning angrily to emily-- 'really, i am quite surprised, emily, that you should make such observations in the presence of servants! this has been going on quite long enough; you are making the house intolerable. i shall not be able to live here any longer.' emily burst into a passionate flood of tears. she declared she was wretchedly miserable, and that she fully understood that hubert had begun to regret that he had asked her to stay at ashwood. everything had been taken from her; every one was against her. her sobs shook her frail little frame as if they would break it, and hubert's heart was wrung at the sight of such genuine suffering. 'my dear emily, i assure you you are mistaken. we both love you very much.' he got up from his chair, and, putting his arm about her, besought her to dry her eyes; but she shook him passionately from her, and fled from the room. three days after, emily tore up one of her songs, because mrs. bentley had sung it without her leave. and so on and so on, week after week. no sooner was one quarrel allayed than signs of another began to appear. hubert despaired. 'how is this to end?' he asked himself every day. mrs. bentley begged him to cancel her promise, and allow her to go. but that was impossible. he could not remain alone with emily; if he left her she would not fail to believe that he had gone after her rival. the situation had become so tense that they ended by discussing these questions almost without reserve. to make matters worse, emily had begun visibly to lose her health. there was neither colour in her cheeks nor light in her eyes; she hardly slept at all, and had grown more than ever like a little shadow. the doctor had been summoned, and, after prescribing a tonic, had advised quiet and avoidance of all excitement. therefore hubert and mrs. bentley agreed never to meet except when emily was present, and then strove to speak as little as possible to each other. but the very fact of having to restrain themselves in looks, glances, and every slightest word--for emily misinterpreted all things--whetted their appetites for each other's society. in the misery of his study, when he watched the sheet of paper, he often sought relief in remembrance of her sweet manner, and the happy morning he had spent in her companionship. what he had written under the direct influence of her inspiration still seemed to him to be less bad than the rest of his play; and he began to feel sure that, if ever this play were written, it would be written in the benign charm of her sweet encouragement, in the reposeful shadow of her presence. but that presence was forbidden him--that presence that seemed so necessary; and for what reason? turning on the circumstances of his life, he raged against them, declaring that it would be folly to allow his very life's desire to be frittered away to gratify a young girl's caprice,--a caprice which in a few years she would laugh at. and whenever he was not thinking of his play, he remembered the charm of mrs. bentley's company, and the beneficent effect it had on his work. he had never known a woman he had liked so much, and he felt--he started at the thought, so like an inspiration did it seem to him--that the only possible solution of the present situation was his marriage with her. once he was married, emily would soon learn to forget him. they would take her up to london for the season; and, amid the healthy excitement of balls and parties, her girlish fancy would evaporate. no doubt she would meet again the young cavalry officer whose addresses she had received so coldly. she would be sure to meet him again--be sure to think him the most charming man in the world; they would marry, and she would make him the best possible wife. the kindest action they could do emily would be to marry. there was nothing else to do, and they must do something, or else the girl would die. it seemed wonderful to hubert that he had not thought of all this before. 'it is the very obvious solution of the problem,' he said; and his heart beat as he heard mrs. bentley's step in the corridor. it died away in the distance; but a few days after, when he heard it again, he jumped from his chair, and ran to the door. 'come,' he said, 'i want to speak to you.' 'no, no, i beg of you!' 'i must speak to you!' he laid his hand upon her arm, and said, 'i beg of you. i have something to say--it is of great importance. come in.' they looked at each other a moment, and it seemed as if they could see into each other's souls. then a look of yielding passed into her eyes, and she said-- 'well, what is it?' the familiarity of the words struck her, and she saw by the kindling tenderness in his eyes that they had given him pleasure. she almost knew he was going to tell her that he loved her. he looked towards the open door, and, guessing his intention, she said-- 'don't shut it! speak quickly. remember that she may pass at any moment. were she to find us together, she would suffer; it would be tears and reproaches. what you have to say to me is about her?' 'of course; we never speak of anything else. but we must not be overheard. i must shut the door.' she noticed a certain embarrassment in his manner. suddenly relinquishing his intention to take her hands, he said-- 'this cannot go on; our lives are being made unbearable. you agree with me--do you not?' 'yes,' she said, with a curious inquiring look in her eyes. 'you had better let me leave. it is the only way out of the difficulty.' 'you know very well, julia, that that is impossible.' it was the first time he had used her christian name, and she knew now he was going to ask her to marry him. a frightened look passed into her face; she turned from him; he took her hands. 'no, julia,' he said; 'there is another and better way out of the difficulty. you will stop here--you will be my wife?' reading the look of pain that had come into her eyes, he said, 'you will not refuse me? i want you--i can do nothing without you. if you leave me, i shall never be able to write my play; it can only be written under your influence. i love you, julia!' she allowed him to draw her towards him, and then she broke away. 'oh,' she said, 'why do you say these things? you only make my task harder. you know that i cannot betray my friend. why do you tempt me to do a dishonourable action?' 'a dishonourable action! what do you mean? it is the only way to save her. once we are married, she will forget. no doubt she will shed a few tears; but to save the body we must often lose a limb. it is even so. things cannot go on as they are. we cannot watch her withering away under our very eyes; and that is what is actually happening. i have thought it all over, considered it from every point of view, and have come to the conclusion that--that, well, that we had better marry. you must have seen that i always liked you. i did not myself know how much until a few days ago. say that i am not wholly disagreeable to you.' 'no; i will not listen to you! my conscience tells me plainly where my duty lies. not for all the world will i play emily false. i shudder to think of such a thing; it would be the basest ingratitude. i owe everything to her. when i hadn't a penny in the world, and when in my homelessness i wrote to mr. burnett, she pleaded in my favour, and decided him to take me as a companion. no, no! a thousand times no! let go my hands. do you not know what it is to be loyal?' 'i hope i do. but, as i have explained, it is the only solution. the romantic attachments of young girls, unless nipped in the bud, often end fatally. do you not see how ill she is looking? she is wearing her life away. we shall be acting in her best interests. besides, she is not the only person to be considered. do i not love you? are you not the very woman whose influence, whose guidance, is necessary, so that i should succeed? without your help i shall never write my play. a woman's influence is necessary to every undertaking. the greatest writers owe their best inspiration to----' 'her heart is as closely set upon you as yours is upon your play.' 'but,' cried hubert, 'i do not love her! under no circumstances would i marry her. that i swear to you. if she and i were alone on a desert island----' julia looked at him one moment doubtingly, inquiringly. then she said-- 'hers is no evanescent fancy, but a passion that goes to the very roots of her nature, and will kill her if it be not satisfied.' 'or cut out in time.' 'i must leave.' 'that will not mend matters.' 'my departure will, at all events, remove all cause for jealousy; and when i am gone you may learn to love her.' 'no; that i swear is impossible!' 'you very likely think so now; but i'm bound to give her every chance of winning you.' 'i say again that that is impossible! i have never seen a woman except yourself i could marry. i tell you so: believe me as you like.... in this matter you are acting like a woman,--you allow your emotions and not your intellect to lead you. by acting thus, you are certainly sacrificing two lives--hers and mine. of your own i do not speak, not knowing what is passing in your heart; but if by any chance you should care for me, you are adding your own happiness to the general holocaust.' neither spoke again for some time. 'why should you not marry her?' julia said, at the end of a long silence. 'some people think her quite a pretty girl.' the lovers looked at each other and smiled sadly. and then, in pathetic phrases, hubert tried to explain why he could never love emily. he spoke of his age, and of difference of tastes,--he liked clever women. the conversation fell. at the end of a long silence, julia said-- 'there is nothing for it but my departure, and the sooner the better.' 'you are not in earnest? you are surely not in earnest?' 'yes, indeed i am.' 'then, if you go, you must take her with you. she cannot remain here alone with me. and even if she could, i could not live with her. her folly has destroyed any liking i may have ever had for her. you'll have to take her with you.' 'she would not come with me. i spoke to her once of a trip abroad.' 'and she refused?' 'she said she only wanted things to go on just as they are.' xvii in some trepidation julia knocked. receiving no reply, she opened the door, and her candle burnt in what a moment before must have been inky darkness. emily lay on her bed--on the edge of it; and the only movement she made was to avert her eyes from the light. 'what! all alone in this darkness, emily!... shall i light your candles?' she had to repeat the question before she could get an answer. 'no, thank you; i want nothing; i have no wish to see anything. i like the dark.' 'have you been asleep?' 'no; i have not.... why do you come to torment me? it cannot matter to you whether i lie in the dark or the light. oh, take that candle away! it is blinding me.' julia put the candle on the washstand. then full of pity for the grieving girl, she stood, her hand resting on the bed-rail. 'aren't you coming down to dinner, emily? come, let me pour out some water for you. when you have bathed your eyes----' 'i don't want any dinner.' 'it will look very strange if you remain in your room the whole evening. you do not want to vex him, do you?' 'i suppose he is very angry with me. but i did not mean to vex him. is he very angry?' 'no, he is not angry at all; he is merely distressed. you distress him dreadfully when----' 'i don't know why i should distress him. i'm sure i don't mean to. you know more about it than i. you are always whispering together--talking about me.' 'i assure you, emily, you are mistaken. mr. price and i have no secrets whatever.' 'why should you tell me these falsehoods? they make me so miserable.' 'falsehoods, emily! when did you ever know me to tell a falsehood?' 'you say you have no secrets! do you think i am blind? you think, i suppose, i did not see you showing him a ring? you took it off, too; and i suppose you gave it to him,--an engagement ring, very likely.' 'i lost a stone from my ring, and i asked mr. price if he would take the ring to london and have the stone replaced.... that is all. so you see how your imagination has run away with you.' emily did not answer. at last she said, breaking the silence abruptly-- 'is he very angry? has he gone to his study? do you think he will come down to dinner?' 'i suppose he'll come down for dinner.' 'will you go and ask him?' 'i hardly see how i can do that. he is very busy.... and if you would listen to any advice of mine, it would be to leave him to himself as much as possible for the present. he is so taken up with his play; i know he's most anxious about it.' 'is he? i don't know. he never speaks to me about it. i hate that play, and i hate to see him go up to that study! i cannot understand why he should trouble himself about writing plays; he doesn't want the money, and it can't be agreeable sitting up there all alone thinking.... it is easy to see that it only makes him unhappy. but you encourage him to go on with it. oh yes, you do; there's no use saying you don't. you are always talking to him about it; you bring the conversation up. you think i don't see how you do it, but i do; and you like doing it, because then you have him all to yourself. i can't talk to him about that play; and i wouldn't if i could, for it only makes him unhappy. but you don't care whether he's unhappy or not; you only think of yourself.' 'you surely don't believe what you are saying is true? to-morrow you will be sorry for what you have said. you cannot think that i would deceive you, emily? remember what friends we have been.' 'i remember everything. you think i don't; but i do. and you think also that there's no reason why i should be miserable; but there is. because you do not feel my misery, you think it doesn't exist. i daresay you think, too, that you are very good and kind; but you aren't. you think you deceive me; but you don't. i know all that is passing between you and hubert. i know a great deal more than i can explain....' 'but tell me, emily, what is it you suspect? what do you accuse me of?' 'i accuse you of nothing. can't you understand that things may go wrong without it being any one's fault in particular?' julia wondered how emily could think so wisely. she seemed to have grown wiser in her grief. but grief helped her no further in her instinctive perception of the truth, and she resumed her puerile attack on her friend. 'nothing has gone well with me ever since you came here. i was disinherited; and i daresay you were glad, for you knew that if the money did not come to me it would go to hubert, and i do know----' 'what are you saying, emily? i never heard of such wild accusations before! you know very well that i never set eyes on mr. price until he came down here.' 'how should i know what you know or don't know? but i know that all my life every one has been plotting against me. and i cannot make out why. i never did harm to any one.' the conversation paused. emily flung herself back on the pillow. not even a sob. the candle burned like a long yellow star in the shadows, yielding only sufficient light for julia to see the outlines of a somewhat untidy room,--an old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe, cloudy and black, upon old-fashioned grey paper, some cardboard boxes, and a number of china ornaments, set out on a small table covered with a tablecloth in crewel-work. 'i would do anything in the world for you, emily. i am your best friend, and yet----' 'i have no friend. i don't believe in friends. you think people are your friends, and then you find they are not.' 'how can i convince you of the injustice of your suspicions?' 'i see all plainly enough; it is fate, i suppose.... selfishness. we all think of ourselves--we can't help it; and that's what makes life so miserable.... he would be a very good match. you have got him to like you. perhaps you didn't intend to; but you have done it all the same.' 'but, emily dear, listen! there is no question of marriage between me and mr. price. if you will only have patience, things will come right in the end.' 'for you, perhaps.' 'emily, emily! ... you should try to understand things better.' 'i feel them, even if i don't understand.' 'admit that you were wrong about the ring. have i not convinced you that you were wrong?' emily did not answer. but at the end of a long silence, in which she had been pursuing a different train of thought, she said, 'then you mean that he has never asked you to marry him?' the directness of the question took julia by surprise, and, falsehood being unnatural to her, she hesitated, hardly knowing what to answer. her hesitation was only momentary; but in that moment there came up such a wave of pity for the grief-stricken girl that she lied for pity's sake, 'no, he never asked me to marry him. i assure you that he never did. if you do not believe me----' as she was about to say, 'i will swear it if you like,' an irresponsible sensation of pride in her ownership of his love surged up through her, overwhelming her will, and she ended the sentence, 'i am very sorry, but i cannot help it.' the words were still well enough; it was in the accent that the truth transpired. and then yielding still further to the force which had subjugated her will, she said-- 'i admit that we have talked about a great many things.' (again she strove not to speak, but the words rose red-hot to her lips.) 'he has said that he would like to marry, but i should not think of accepting----' 'then it is just as i thought!' emily cried; 'he wants to get rid of me!' julia was shocked and surprised at the depth of disgraceful vanity and cowardice which special circumstances had brought within her consciousness. the julia bentley of the last few moments was not the julia bentley she was accustomed to meet and interrogate, and she asked herself how she might exorcise the meanness that had so unexpectedly appeared in her. should she pile falsehood on falsehood? she felt it would be cruel not to do so; but emily said, 'he wants to marry to get rid of me, and not because he loves you.' then it was hard to deny herself the pleasure of telling the whole truth; but she mastered her desire of triumph, and, actuated by nothing but sincerest love and pity, she said-- 'oh, emily dear, he never asked me to marry him; he does not love me at all! why will you not believe me?' 'because i cannot!' she cried passionately. 'i only ask to be left alone.' 'a little patience, emily, and all will come right. mr. price does not want to get rid of you. you wrong him just as you wrong me. he has often said how much he likes you; indeed he has.' although speaking from the bottom of her heart, it seemed to julia that she was playing the part of a cruel, false woman, who was designingly plotting to betray a helpless girl; and not understanding why this was so, she was at once puzzled and confused. it seemed to her that she was being borne on in a wind of destiny, and her will seemed to beat vainly against it, like a bird's wings when a storm is blowing. she was conscious of a curious powerlessness; it surprised her, and she could not understand why she continued talking, so vain and useless did words seem to her--an idle patter. she continued-- 'you think that i stand between you and mr. price. now, i assure you that it is not so. i tell you i should refuse mr. price, even if he were to ask me to marry him, here, at this very moment. i pledge you my word on this. give me your hand, emily. you will not refuse it?' emily gave her hand. 'it is quite ridiculous to promise, for he will never ask me; but i promise not to marry him even if he should ask me.' she gave the promise, determined to keep it; and yet she knew she would not keep it. she argued passionately with herself, a prey to an inward dread; for no matter how firmly she forced resolution upon resolution, they all seemed to melt in her soul like snow on a blazing fire. then, determined to rid herself of a numb sensation of powerlessness, and achieve the end she desired, she said, 'i'll tell you, emily, what i'll do. i'll not stay here; i will go away. let me go away, dear, and then it will be all right.' 'no, no! you mustn't leave; i don't want you to leave. it would be said everywhere that i had you sent away.... you promise me not to leave?' raising herself, emily clung to julia's arm, detaining her until she had extorted the desired promise. 'very well; i promise,' she said sadly. 'but i think you are wrong; indeed i do. i have always thought that "the only solution of the problem" was my departure.' memory had betrayed her into hubert's own phrase. 'why should you go? you think, i suppose, that i'm in love with hubert? i'm not. all i want is for things to go on just the same--for us to be friends as we were before.' 'very well, emily--very well.... but in the meantime you must not neglect your meals as you have been doing lately. if you don't take care, you'll lose your health and your looks. i have been noticing how thin you are looking.' 'i suppose you have told him that i am looking thin and ill.... men like tall, big, healthy women like you--don't they?' 'i see, emily, that it is hopeless; every word one utters is misinterpreted. dinner will be ready in a few minutes; or, if you like, i will dine up-stairs; and you and mr. price----' 'but is he coming down to dinner? i thought you said he had gone to his study; sometimes he dines there.' 'i can tell you nothing about mr. price. i don't know whether he'll dine up-stairs or down.' at that moment a knock was heard at the door, and the servant announced that dinner was ready. 'mr. price has sent down word, ma'am, that he is very busy writing; he hopes you'll excuse him, and he'll be glad if you will send him his dinner up on a tray.' 'very well; i shall be down directly.' the slight interruption had sufficed to calm julia's irritation, and she stood waiting for emily. but seeing that she showed no signs of moving, she said, 'aren't you coming down to dinner, emily?' it was a sense of strict duty that impelled the question, for her heart sank at the prospect of spending the evening alone with the girl. but seeing the tears on emily's cheeks, she sat down beside her, and said, 'dearest emily, if you would only confide in me!' 'there's nothing to confide....' 'you mustn't give way like this; you really mustn't. come down and have some dinner.' 'it is no use; i couldn't eat anything.' 'he may come into the drawing-room in the course of the evening, and will be so disappointed and grieved to hear that you have not been down.' 'no; he will spend the whole evening in his room; we shall not see him again.' 'but if i go and ask him to come; if i tell him----' 'no; do not speak to him about me; he'd only say that i was interfering with his work.' 'that is unjust, emily; he has never reproached you with interfering with his work. shall i go and tell him that you won't come down because you think he is angry with you?' ten minutes passed, and no answer could be obtained from emily--only passionate and illusive refusals, denials, prayer to be left alone; and these mingled with irritating suggestions that julia had better go at once, that hubert might be waiting for her. but julia bore patiently with her and did not leave her until hubert sent to know why his dinner was delayed. emily had begun to undress; and, tearing off her things, she hardly took more than five minutes to get into bed. 'shall i light a candle?' julia asked before leaving. 'no, thank you.' 'shall i send you up some soup?' 'no; i could not touch it.' 'you are not going to remain in the dark? let me light a night-light?' 'no, thank you; i like the dark.' xviii hubert and mrs. bentley stood by the chimney-piece in the drawing-room, waiting for the doctor; they had left him with emily, and stood facing each other absorbed in thought, when the door opened, and the doctor entered. hubert said-- 'what do you think, doctor? is she seriously ill?' 'there is nothing, so far as i can make out, organically the matter with her, but the system is running down. she is very thin and weak. i shall prescribe a tonic, but----' 'but what, doctor?' 'she seems to be suffering from extreme depression of spirits. do you know of any secret grief--any love affair? at her age, anything of that sort fills the entire mind, and the consequences are often grave.' 'and supposing it were so, what would be your advice? change of air and scene?' 'certainly.' 'have you spoken to her on the subject?' 'yes; but she says she will not leave ashwood.' 'we cannot send her away by force. what would you advise us to do?' 'there's nothing to be done. we must hope for the best. there is no immediate cause for fear.... but, by the way, she looks as if she suffered from sleeplessness.' 'yes, she does; but she has been ordered chloral. any harm in that?' 'in her case, it is a necessity; but do you think she takes it?' 'oh yes, she has been taking choral.' the conversation paused; the doctor went over to the writing-table, wrote a prescription, made a few remarks, and took his leave, announcing his intention of returning that day fortnight. hubert said, and his tone implied reference to some anterior conversation, 'we are powerless in this matter. you see we can do nothing. we only succeed in making ourselves unhappy; we do not change in anything. i am wretchedly unhappy!' 'believe me,' she said, raising her arms in a beautiful feminine movement, 'i do not wish to make you unhappy.' 'then why do you persist? why do you refuse to take the only step that may lead us out of this difficulty?' 'how can you ask me? oh, hubert, i did not think you could be so cruel! it would be a shameful action.' it was the first time she had used his christian name, and his face changed expression. 'i cannot,' she said, 'and i will not, and i do not understand how you can ask me--you who are so loyal, how can you ask me to be disloyal?' 'spare me your reproaches. fate has been cruel. i have never told you the story of my life. i have suffered deeply; my pride has been humiliated, and i have endured hunger and cold; but those sufferings were light compared to this last misfortune.' she looked at him with sublime pity in her eyes. 'i do not conceal from you,' she said, 'that i love you very much. i, too, have suffered, and i had thought for one moment that fate had vouchsafed me happiness; but, as you would say--the irony of life.' 'julia, do not say you never will?' 'we cannot look into the future. but this i can say--i will not do emily any wrong, and so far as is in my power i will avoid giving her pain. there is only one way out of this difficulty. i must leave this house as soon as i can persuade her to let me go.' the door opened; involuntarily the speakers moved apart; and though their faces and attitudes were strictly composed when emily entered, she knew they had been standing closer together. 'i'm afraid i'm interrupting you,' she said. 'no, emily; pray do not go away. we were only talking about you.' 'if i were to leave every time you begin to talk about me, i should spend my life in my room. i daresay you have many faults to find. let me hear all about your fresh discoveries.' it was a thin november day: leaves were whirling on the lawn, and at that moment one blew rustling down the window-pane. and, even as it, she seemed a passing thing. her face was like a plate of fine white porcelain, and the deep eyes filled it with a strange and magnetic pathos; the abundant chestnut hair hung in the precarious support of a thin tortoiseshell; and there was something unforgetable in the manner in which her aversion for the elder woman betrayed itself--a mere nothing, and yet more impressive than any more obvious and therefore more vulgar expression of dislike would have been. 'a little patience, emily. you will not have me here much longer.' 'i suppose that i am so disagreeable that you cannot live with me. why should you go away?' 'my dear emily, you must not excite yourself. the doctor----' 'i want to know why she said she was going to leave. has she been complaining about me to you? what is her reason for wanting to go?' 'we do not get on together as we used to--that is all, emily. i can please you no longer.' 'it is not my fault if we do not get on. i don't see why we shouldn't, and i do not want you to go.' 'emily, dear, everything shall be as you like it.' the girl looked at him with the shy, doubting look of an animal that would like, and still does not dare, to go to the beckoning hand. how frail seemed the body in the black dress! and how thin the arms in the black sleeves! hubert took the little hand in his. at his touch a look of content and rest passed into her eyes, and she yielded herself as the leaf yields to the wind. she was all his when he chose. mrs. bentley left the room; and, seeing her go, a light of sudden joy illuminated the thin, pale face; and when the door closed, and she was alone with him, the bleak, unhappy look, which had lately grown strangely habitual to her, faded out of her face and eyes. he fetched her shawl, and took her hand again in his, knowing that by so doing he made her happy. he could not refuse her the peace from pain that these attentions brought her, though he would have held himself aloof from all women but one. she knew the truth well enough; but they who suffer much think only of the cessation of pain. he wondered at the inveigling content that introduced itself into her voice, face, and gesture. settling herself comfortably on the sofa, she said-- 'now tell me what the doctor said. did he say i would soon recover? did he say that i was very bad? tell me all.' 'he said that you ought to have a change--that you should go south somewhere.' 'and you agree with him that i ought to go away?' 'is he not the best judge?--the doctor's orders!' 'then you, too, have learnt to hate me. you, too, want to send me away?' 'my dear emily, i only want to do as you like. you asked me what the doctor said, and i told you.' hubert got up and walked aside. he passed his hand across his eyes. he could hardly contain himself; the emotion that discussion with this sick girl caused him went to his head. she looked at him curiously, watching his movement, and he failed to understand what pleasure it could give her to have him by her side, knowing, as she clearly did, that his heart was elsewhere. turning suddenly, he said-- 'but tell me, emily, how are you feeling? you are, after all, the best judge.' 'i feel rather weak. i should get strong enough if----' she paused, as if waiting for hubert to ask her to finish the sentence. but he hurriedly turned the conversation. 'the doctor said you looked as if you had not had any sleep for several nights. i told him that that was strange, for you were taking chloral.' 'i sleep well enough,' she said. 'but sometimes life seems so sad, that i do not think i shall be able to bear with it any longer. you do not know how unfortunate i have been. when i was a child, father and mother used to quarrel always, and i was the only child. that was why mr. burnett asked me to come and live at ashwood. i came at first on a visit; and when father and mother died, he said he wished to adopt me. i thought he loved me; but his love was only selfishness. no one has ever loved me. i feel so utterly alone in this world--that is why i am unhappy.' her eyes filled with tears, and at the sight of her tears hubert's feelings were overwrought, and again he had to walk aside. he would give her all things; but she was dying for him, and he could not save her. no longer was there any disguisement between them. the words they uttered were as nothing, so clearly did the thought shine out of their eyes, 'i am dying of love for you,' and then the answer, 'i know that is so, and i cannot help it.' her whole soul was spoken in her eyes, and he felt that his eyes betrayed him equally plainly. they stood in a sort of mental nakedness. the woman no longer sought for words to cover herself with; the man did, but he did not find them. they had not spoken for some time; they had been thinking of each other. at last she said, and with the querulous perversity of the sick--- 'but even if i wished to go abroad, with whom could i go?' hubert fell into the trap, and, noticing the sudden brightness in his eyes, a cloud of disappointment shadowed hers. 'of course, with mrs. bentley. i assure you, my dear emily, that you----' 'no, no, i am not mistaken! she hates me, and i cannot bear her. it is she who is making me ill.' 'hate you! why should she hate you?' emily did not reply. hubert watched her, noticing the pallor of her cheek, so entirely white and blue, hardly a touch of warm colour anywhere, even in the shadow of the heavy hair. 'i would give anything to see you friends again.' 'that is impossible! i can never be friends with julia as i once was. she has---- no, never can we be friends again. but why do you always take her part against me? that is what grieves me most. if only you thought----' 'emily dear, these are but idle fancies. you are mistaken.' the conversation fell. the girl lay quite still, her hands clasped across the shawl, her little foot stretched beyond the limp black dress, the hem of which fell over the edge of the grey sofa. hubert sat by her on a low chair, and he looked into the fire, whose light wavered over the walls, now and again bringing the face of one of the pictures out of the darkness. the wind whined about the windows. then, speaking as if out of a dream, emily said-- 'julia and i can never be friends again--that is impossible.' 'but what has she done?' hubert asked incautiously, regretting his words as soon as he had uttered them. 'what has she done?' she said, looking at him curiously. 'well, one thing, she has got it reported that--that i am in love with you, and that that is the reason of my illness.' 'i am sure she never said any such thing. you are entirely mistaken. mrs. bentley is incapable of such wickedness.' 'a woman, when she is jealous, will say anything. if she did not say it, can you tell me how it got about?' 'i don't believe any one ever said such a thing.' 'oh yes, lots have said so--things come back to me. julia always was jealous of me. she cannot bear me to speak to you. have you not noticed how she follows us? do you think she would have left the room just now if she could have helped it?' 'if you think this is so, had she not better leave?' emily did not answer at once. motionless she lay on the sofa, looking at the grey november day with vague eyes that bespoke an obsession of hallucination. suddenly she said, 'i do not want her to go away. she would spread a report that i was jealous of her, and had asked you to send her away. no; it would not be wise to send her away. besides,' she said, fixing her eyes, now full of melancholy reproach, 'you would like her to remain.' 'i have said before, emily, and i assure you i am speaking the truth, i want you to do what you like. say what you wish to be done, and it shall be done.' 'is that really true? i thought no one cared for me. you must care for me a little to speak like that.' 'of course i care for you, emily.' 'i sometimes think you might have if it had not been for that play; for, of course, i'm not clever, and cannot discuss it with you.... julia, i suppose, can--that is the reason why you like her. am i not right?' 'mrs. bentley is a clever woman, who has read a great deal, and i like to talk an act over with her before i write it.' 'is that all? then why do people say you are going to marry her?' 'but nobody ever said so.' 'oh yes, they have. is it true?' 'no, emily; it is not true.' 'are you quite sure?' 'yes, quite sure.' 'if that is so,' she said, turning her eyes on hubert, and looking as if she could see right down into his soul, 'i shall get well very soon. then we can go on just the same; but if you married her, i----' 'i what?' 'nothing! i feel quite happy now. i did not want you to marry her. i could not bear it. it would be like having a step-mother--worse, for she would not have me here at all; she would drive me away.' hubert shook his head. 'you don't know julia as well as i do. however, it is no use discussing what is not going to be. you have been very nice to-day. if you would be always nice, as you are to-day, i should soon get well.' her pale profile seemed very sharp in the fading twilight, and her delicate arms and thin bosom were full of the charm and fascination of deciduous things. she turned her face and looked at hubert. 'you have made me very happy. i am content.' he was afraid to look back at her, lest she should, in her subtle, wilful manner, read the thought that was passing in his soul. even now she seemed to read it. she seemed conscious of his pity for her. so little would give her happiness, and that little was impossible. his heart was irreparably another's. but though emily's eyes seemed to know all, they seemed to say, 'what matter? i regret nothing, only let things remain as they are.' and then her voice said-- 'i think i could sleep a little; happiness has brought me sleep. don't go away. i shall not be asleep long.' she looked at him, and dozed, and then fell asleep. hubert waited till her breathing grew deeper; then he laid the hand he held in his by her side, and stole on tiptoe from the room. the strain of the interview had become too intense; the house was unbearable. he went into the air. the november sky was drawing into wintry night; the grey clouds darkened, clinging round the long plain, overshadowing it, blotting out colour, leaving nothing but the severe green of the park, and the yellow whirling of dishevelled woods. 'i must,' he said to himself, 'think no more about it. i shall go mad if i do. nature will find her own solution. god grant that it may be a merciful one! i can do nothing.' and to escape from useless consideration, to release his overwrought brain, he hastened his steps, extending his walk through the farthest woods. as he approached the lodge gate he came upon mrs. bentley. she stood, her back turned from him, leaning on the gate, her thoughts lost in the long darkness of autumnal fields and woods. 'julia!' 'you have left emily. how did you leave her?' 'she is fast asleep on the sofa. she fell asleep. then why should i remain? the house was unbearable. she went to sleep, saying she felt very happy.' 'really! what induced such a change in her? did you----' 'no; i did not ask her to marry me; but i was able to tell her that i was not going to marry you, and that seemed entirely to satisfy her.' 'did she ask you?' 'yes. and when i told her i was not, she said that that was all she wanted to know--that she would soon get well now. how we human beings thrive in each other's unhappiness!' 'quite true, and we have been reproaching ourselves for our selfishness.' 'yes, and hers is infinitely greater. she is quite satisfied not to be happy herself, so long as she can make sure of our unhappiness. and what is so strange is her utter unconsciousness of her own fantastic and hardly conceivable selfishness.... it is astonishing!' 'she is very young, and the young are naturally egotistic.' 'possibly. still, it is hardly more agreeable to encounter. come, let's go for a walk; and, above all things, let's talk no more about emily.' the roads were greasy, and the hedges were torn and worn with incipient winter, and when they dipped the town appeared, a reddish-brown mass in the blue landscape. hubert thought of his play and his love; but not separately--they seemed to him now as one indissoluble, indivisible thing; and he told her that he never would be able to write it without her assistance. that she might be of use to him in his work was singularly sweet to hear, and the thought reached to the end of her heart, causing her to smile sadly, and argue vainly, and him to reply querulously. they walked for about a mile; and then, wearied with sad expostulation, the conversation fell, and at the end of a long silence julia said-- 'i think we had better turn back.' the suggestion filled hubert's heart with rushing pain, and he answered-- 'why should we return? i cannot go back to that girl. oh, the miserable life we are leading!' 'what can we do? we must go back; we cannot live in a tent by the wayside. we have no tent to set up.' 'come to london, and be my wife.' 'no,' she said; 'that is impossible. let us not speak of it.' hubert did not answer; and, turning their faces homeward, they walked some way in silence. suddenly hubert said-- 'no; it is impossible. i cannot return. there is no use. i'm at the end of my tether. i cannot.' she looked at him in alarm. 'hubert,' she said, 'this is folly! i cannot return without you.' 'you ruin my life; you refuse me the only happiness. i'm more wretched than i can tell you!' 'and i! do you think that i'm not wretched?' she raised her face to his; her eyes were full of tears. he caught her in his arms, and kissed her. the warm touch of her lips, the scent of her face and hair, banished all but desire of her. 'you must come with me, julia. i shall go mad if you don't. i can care for no one but you. all my life is in you now. you know i cannot love that girl, and we cannot continue in this wretched life. there is no sense in it; it is a voluntary, senseless martyrdom!' 'hubert, do not tempt me to be disloyal to my friend. it is cruel of you, for you know i love you. but no, nothing shall tempt me. how can i? we do not know what might happen. the shock might kill her. she might do away with herself.' 'you must come with me,' said hubert, now completely lost in his passion. 'nothing will happen. girls do not do away with themselves; girls do not die of broken hearts. nothing happens in these days. a few more tears will be shed, and she will soon become reconciled to what cannot be altered. a year or so after, we will marry her to a nice young man, and she will settle down a quiet mother of children.' 'perhaps you are right.' an empty fly, returning to the town, passed them. the fly-man raised his whip. 'take you to the railway station in ten minutes!' hubert spoke quietly; nevertheless there was a strange nervousness in his eyes when he said-- 'fate comes to help me; she offers us the means of escape. you will not refuse, julia?' her upraised face was full of doubt and pain, and she was perplexed by the fly-man's dull eyes, his starved horse, his ramshackle vehicle, the wet road, the leaden sky. it was one of those moments when the familiar appears strange and grotesque. then, gathering all her resolution, she said-- 'no, no; it is impossible! come back, come back.' he caught her arm: quietly and firmly he led her across the road. 'you must listen to me.... we are about to take a decisive step. are you sure that----' 'no, no, hubert, i cannot; let us return home.' 'i go back to ashwood! if i did, i should commit suicide.' 'don't speak like that.... where will you go?' 'i shall travel.... i shall visit italy and greece.... i shall live abroad.' 'you are not serious?' 'yes, i am, julia. that cab may not take both, but it certainly will take one of us away from ashwood, and for ever.' 'take you to southwater, sir--take you to the station in ten minutes,' said the fly-man, pulling in his horse. a zig-zag fugitive thought passed: why did the fly-man speak of taking them to the station? how was it that he knew where they wanted to go? they stopped and wondered. the poor horse's bones stood out in strange projections, the round-shouldered little fly-man sat grinning on his box, showing three long yellow fangs. the vehicle, the horse, and the man, his arm raised in questioning gesture, appeared in strange silhouette upon the grey clouds, assuming portentous aspect in their tremulous and excited imaginations. 'take you to southwater in ten minutes!' the voice of the fly-man sounded hard, grating, and derisive in their ears. he had stopped in the middle of the road, and they walked slowly past, through a great puddle, which drenched their feet. 'get in, julia. shall i open the door?' 'no, no; think of emily. i cannot, hubert,--i cannot; it would kill her.' the conversation paused, and in a long silence they wondered if the fly-man had heard. then they walked several yards listening to the tramp of the hoofs, and then they heard the fly-man strike his horse with the whip. the animal shuffled into a sort of trot, and as the carriage passed them the fly-man again raised his arm and again repeated the same phrase, 'drive you to the station in ten minutes!' the carriage was her temptation, and julia hoped the man would linger no longer. for the promise she had given to emily lay like a red-hot coal upon her heart; its fumes rose to her head, and there were times when she thought they would choke her, and she grew so sick with the pain of self-denial that she could have thrown herself down in the wet grass on the roadside, and laid her face on the cold earth for relief. would nothing happen? what madness! night was coming on, and still they followed the road to southwater. rain fell in heavy drops. 'we shall get wet,' she murmured, as if she were answering the fly-man, who had said again, 'drive you to the station in ten minutes!' she hated the man for his persistency. 'say you will come with me!' hubert whispered; and all the while the rain came down heavier. 'no, no, hubert.... i cannot; i promised emily that i never would. i am going back.' 'then we must say good-bye. i will not go back.' 'you don't mean it. you don't really intend me to go back to emily and tell her?... she will not believe me; she will think i have sent you away to gain my own end. hubert, you mustn't leave me ... and in all this wet. see how it rains! i shall never be able to get home alone.' 'i will drive you on as far as the lodge-gate; farther than the lodge i will not go. nothing in the world shall tempt me to pass it.' at a sign from hubert the little fly-man scrambled down from his box. he was a little old man, almost hunchbacked, with small mud-coloured eyes and a fringe of white beard about his sallow, discoloured face. he was dressed in a pale yellow jacket and waistcoat, and they both noticed that his crooked little legs were covered with a pair of pepper-and-salt trousers. they felt sure he must have overheard a large part of their conversation, for as he opened the carriage door he grinned, showing his three yellow fangs.... his appearance was not encouraging. julia wished he were different, and then she looked at hubert. she longed to throw herself into his arms and weep. but at that moment the heavens seemed to open, and the rain came down like a torrent, thick and fast, splashing all along the road in a million splashes. 'horrible weather, sir; shan't be long a-takin' you to southwater. what part of the town be yer going to--the railway station?' julia still hesitated. the rain beat on their faces, and when some chilling drops rolled down her neck she instinctively sought shelter in the carriage. 'drive me to the station as fast as you can. catch the half-past five to london, and i'll give you five shillings.' the leather thong sounded on the starved animal's hide, the crazy vehicle rocked from side to side, and the wet country almost disappeared in the darkness. hedges and fields swept past them in faintest outline, here and there a blurred mass, which they recognised as a farm building. his arm was about her, and she heard him murmur over and over again-- 'dearest julia, you are what i love best in the world.' the words thrilled her a little, but all the while she saw emily's eyes and heard her voice. hubert, however, was full of happiness--the sweet happiness of the quiet, docile creature that has at last obtained what it loves. xix emily awoke shivering; the fire had gone out, the room was in darkness, and the house seemed strange and lonely. she rang the bell, and asked the servant if he had seen mr. price. mr. price had gone out late in the afternoon, and had not come in. where was mrs. bentley? mrs. bentley had gone out earlier in the afternoon, and had not come in. she suspected the truth at once. they had gone to london to be married. the servant lighted a candle, made up the fire, and asked if she would wait dinner. emily made no answer, but sat still, her eyes fixed, looking into space. the man lingered at the door. at that moment her little dog bounded into the room, and, in a paroxysm of delight, jumped on his mistress's lap. she took him in her arms and kissed him, and this somewhat reassured the alarmed servant, who then thought it was no more than one of miss emily's queer ways. dandy licked his mistress's face, and rubbed his rough head against her shoulder. he seemed more than usually affectionate that evening. suddenly she caught him up in her arms, and kissed him passionately. 'not even for your sake, dearest dandy, can i bear with it any longer! we are all very selfish, and it is selfish of me to leave you, but i cannot help it.' then a doubt crossed her mind, and she raised her head and listened to it. it seemed difficult to believe that he had told her a falsehood--cruel, wicked falsehood--he who had been so kind. and yet---- ah! yes, she knew well enough that it was all true; something told her so. the lancinating pain of doubt passed away, and she remained thinking of the impossibility of bearing any longer with the life. an hour passed, and the servant came with the news that mr. price and mrs. bentley had gone to london; they had taken the half-past five train. 'yes,' she said, 'i know they have.' her voice was calm. there was a strange hollow ring in it, and the servant wondered. a few minutes after, dinner was announced; and to escape observation and comment she went into the dining-room, tasted the soup, and took a slice of mutton on her plate. she could not eat it. she gave it to dandy. it was the last time she should feed him. how hungry he was! she hoped he would not care to eat it; he would not if he knew she was going to leave him. in the drawing-room he insisted on being nursed; and alone, amid the faded furniture, watched over by the old portraits, her pale face fixed and her pale hands clasping her beloved dog, she sat thinking, brooding over the unhappiness, the incurable unhappiness, of her little life. she was absorbed in self, and did not rail against hubert, or even julia. their personalities had somehow dropped out of her mind, and merely represented forces against which she found herself unable any longer to contend. nor was she surprised at what had happened. there had always been in her some prescience of her fate. she and unhappiness had always seemed so inseparable, that she had never found it difficult to believe that this last misfortune would befall her. she had thought it over, and had decided that it would be unendurable to live any longer, and had borne many a terrible insomnia so that she might collect sufficient chloral to take her out of her misery; and now, as she sat thinking, she remembered that she had never, never been happy. oh! the miserable evenings she used to spend, when a child, between her father and mother, who could not agree--why, she never understood. but she used to have to listen to her mother addressing insulting speeches to her father in a calm, even voice that nothing could alter; and, though both were dead and years divided her from that time, the memory survived, and she could see it all again--that room, the very paper on the wall, and her father being gradually worked up into a frenzy. when she was left an orphan, mr. burnett had adopted her, and she remembered the joy of coming to ashwood. she had thought to find happiness there; but there, as at home, fate had gone against her, and she was hardly eighteen when mr. burnett had asked her to marry him. she had loved that old man, but he had not loved her; for when she had refused to marry him he had broken all his promises and left her penniless, careless of what might become of her. then she had given her whole heart to julia, and julia, too, had deceived her. and had she not loved hubert?--no one would ever know how much; she did not know herself,--and had he not lied to her? oh, it was very cruel to deceive a poor little girl in this heartless way! there was no heart in the world, that was it--and she was all heart; and her heart had been trampled on ever since she could remember. and when they came back they would revenge themselves upon her--insult her with their happiness; perhaps insist on sending her away. dandy drowsed on her lap. the servant brought in the tea, and when he returned to the kitchen he said he had never seen any one look so ghost-like as miss emily. the clock ticked loudly in the silence of the old room, the hands moving slowly towards ten. she waited for the hour to strike; it was then that she usually went to bed. her thoughts moved as in a nightmare; and paramount in this chaotic mass of sensation was an acute sense of the deception that had been practised on her; with the consciousness, now firm and unalterable, that it had become impossible for her to live. when the clock struck she got up from her chair, and the movement seemed to react on her brain; her thoughts unclouded, and she went up-stairs thinking clearly of her love of this old house. the old gentleman in the red coat, his hand on his sword, looked on her benignly; and the lady playing the spinet smiled as sweetly as was her wont. emily held up the candle to the picture of the windmill. she had always loved that picture, and the sad thought came that she should never see it again. dandy, who had galloped up-stairs, stood looking through the banisters, wagging his tail. the moment she got into her room she wrote the following note: 'i have taken an overdose of chloral. my life was too miserable to be borne any longer. i forgive those who have caused my unhappiness, and i hope they will forgive me any unhappiness i have caused them.' they were nothing to her now; they were beyond her hate, and the only pang she felt was parting with her beloved dandy. there he stood looking at her, standing on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to cover him up and put him to sleep in his own corner. 'yes, dandy, in a moment, dear--have patience.' she looked round the little room, and, remembering all that she had suffered there, thought that the walls must be saturated with grief, like a sponge. it was a common thing at that time for her to stand before the glass and address such words as these to herself: 'my poor girl, how i pity you, how i pity you!' and now, looking at herself very sadly, she said, 'my poor girl, i shall never pity you any more!' having hung up her dress, she fetched a chair and took various doses of chloral out of the hollow top of her wardrobe, where she had hidden things all her life--sweets, novels, fireworks. they more than half-filled the tumbler; and, looking at the sticky, white liquid, she thought with repugnance of drinking so much of it. but, wanting to make quite sure of death, she resolved to take it all, and she undressed quickly. she was very cold when she got into bed. then a thought struck her, and she got out of bed to add a postscript to her letter. 'i have only one request to make. i hope dandy will always be taken care of.' surprised that she had not wrapped him up and told him he was to go to sleep, the dog stood on the edge of the bed, watching her so earnestly that she wondered if he knew what she was going to do. 'no, you don't know, dear--do you? if you did, you wouldn't let me do it; you'd bark the house down, i know you would, my own darling.' clasping him to her breast, she smothered him with kisses, then put him away in his corner, covering him over for the night. she felt neither grief nor fear. through much suffering, thought and sensation were, to a great extent, dead in her; and, in a sort of emotive numbness, she laid her candlestick in its usual place on the chair by her bedside; and, sitting up in bed, her night-dress carefully buttoned, holding the tumbler half-filled with chloral, she tried to take a dispassionate survey of her life. she thought of what she had endured, and what she would have to endure if she did not take it. then she felt she must go, and without hesitation drank off the chloral. she placed the tumbler by the candlestick, and lay down, remembering vaguely that a long time ago she had decided that suicide was not wrong in itself. the last thing she remembered was the clock striking eleven. for half an hour she slept like stone. then her eyes opened, and they told of sickness now in motion within her. and, strangely enough, through the overpowering nausea rising from her stomach to her brain, the thought that she was not going to die appeared perfectly clear, and with it a sense of disappointment; she would have to begin it all over again. it was with great difficulty that she struck a match and lighted a candle. it seemed impossible to get up. at last she managed to slip her legs out of bed, and found she could stand, and through the various assaults of retching she thought of the letter: it must be destroyed; and, leaning in the corner against the wall and the wardrobe, she tried to recover herself. a dull, deep sleep was pressing on her brain, and she thought she would never be able to cross the room to where the letter was. dandy looked out of his rug; she caught sight of his bright eyes. on cold and shaky feet she attempted to make her way towards the letter; but the room heaved up at her, and, fearing she should fall, and knowing if she did that she would not be able to regain her feet, she clung to the toilette-table. she must destroy that letter: if it were found, they would watch her; and, however impossible her life might become, she would not be able to escape from it. this consideration gave her strength for a final effort. she tore the letter into very small pieces, and then, clinging to a chair, strove to grasp the rail of the bed; but the bed rolled worse than any ship. making a supreme effort, she got in; and then, neither dreams nor waking thoughts, but oblivion complete. hours and hours passed, and when she opened her eyes her maid stood over the bed, looking at her. 'oh, miss, you looked so tired and ill that i didn't wake you. you do seem poorly, miss. it is nearly two o'clock. should you like to sleep a little longer, or shall i bring you up some breakfast?' 'no, no, no, thank you. i couldn't touch anything. i'm feeling wretched; but i'll get up.' the maid tried to dissuade her; but emily got out of bed, and allowed herself to be dressed. she was very weak--so weak that she could hardly stand up at the washstand; and the maid had to sponge her face and neck. but when she had drunk a cup of tea and eaten a little piece of toast, she said she felt better, and was able to walk into the drawing-room. she thought no more of death, nor of her troubles; thought drowned in her; and in a passive, torpid state she sat looking into the fire till dinner-time, hardly caring to bestow a casual caress on dandy, who seemed conscious of his mistress's neglect, for, in his sly, coaxing way, he sometimes came and rubbed himself against her feet. she went into the dining-room, and the servant was glad to see that she finished her soup, and, though she hardly tasted it, she finished a wing of a chicken, and also the glass of wine which the man pressed upon her. half an hour after, when he brought out the tea, he found her sitting on her habitual chair nursing her dog, and staring into the fire so drearily that her look frightened him, and he hesitated before he gave her the letter which had just come up from the town; but it was marked 'immediate.' when he left the room she opened it. it was from mrs. bentley:-- 'dearest emily,--i know that hubert told you that he was not going to marry me. he thought he was not, for i had refused to marry him; but a short time after we met in the park quite accidentally, and--well, fate took the matter out of our hands, and we are to be married to-morrow. hubert insists on going to italy, and i believe we shall remain there two months. we have made arrangements for your aunt to live with you until we come back; and when we do come back, i hope all the little unpleasantnesses which have marred our friendship for this last month or two will be forgotten. so far as i am concerned, nothing shall be left undone to make you happy. your will shall be law at ashwood so long as i am there. if you would like to join us in italy, you have only to say the word. we shall be delighted to have you.' emily could read no more. 'join them in italy!' she dashed the letter into the fire, and an intense hatred of them both pierced her heart and brain. it was the kiss of judas. oh, those hateful, lying words! to live here with her aunt until they came back, to wait here quietly until she returned in triumph with him--him who had been all the world to her. oh no; that was not possible. death, death--escape she must. but how? she had no more chloral. suddenly she thought of the lake. 'yes, yes; the lake, the lake!' and then a keen, swift, passionate longing for death, such as she had not felt at all the night before, came upon her. there was the knowledge too that by killing herself she would revenge herself on those who had killed her. she was just conscious that her suicide would have this effect, but hardly a trace of such intention appeared in the letter she wrote; it was as melancholy and as brief as the letter she had torn up, and ended, like it, with a request that dandy should be well looked after. she had only just directed the envelope when she heard the servant coming to take away the tea-things. she concealed the letter; and when his steps died away in the corridor and the house-door closed, she knew she could slip out unobserved. instinctively she thought of her hat and jacket, and, without a shudder, remembered she would not need them. she sped down the pathway through the shadow of the firs. it was one of those warm nights of winter when a sulphur-coloured sky hangs like a blanket behind the wet, dishevelled woods; and, though there was neither moon nor star, the night was strangely clear, and the shadow of the bridge was distinct in the water. when she approached the brink the swans moved slowly away. they reminded her of the cold; but the black obsession of death was upon her; and, hastening her steps, she threw herself forward. she fell into shallow water and regained her feet, and for a moment it seemed uncertain if she would wade to the bank or fling herself into a deeper place. suddenly she sank, the water rising to her shoulders. she was lifted off her feet. a faint struggle, a faint cry, and then nothing--nothing but the whiteness of the swans moving through the sultry night slowly towards the island. xx its rich, inanimate air proclaimed the room to be an expensive bedroom in a first-class london hotel. interest in the newly-married couple, who were to occupy the room, prompted the servants to see that nothing was forgotten; and as they lingered steps were heard in the passage, and hubert and julia entered. the maid-servants stood aside to let them pass, and one inquired if madame wanted anything, so that her eyes might be gratified with a last inquisition of the happy pair. 'how wonderful! oh, how wonderful! i don't think i ever saw any one act before like that--did you?' 'she certainly had three or four moments that could not be surpassed. her entrance in the sleep-walking scene--what vague horror! what pale presentiment! how she filled the stage! nothing seemed to exist but she.' 'and ford; what did you think of ford's macbeth?' 'very good. everything he does is good. talent; but the other has genius.' 'i shall never forget this evening. what an awful tragedy!' 'perhaps i should have taken you to see something more cheerful; but i wanted to see miss massey play lady macbeth. but let us talk of something else. splendid fire--is it not?' hubert threw off his overcoat, the movement attracted julia's attention, and it startled her to see how old he seemed to have grown. she noticed as she had not noticed before the grey in his beard and the pathetic weary look that haunted his eyes. and she understood in that instant that the look his face wore was the look of those who have failed in their vocation. and at that very moment he was wondering if he really loved her, if his marriage were a mistake. the passion he had felt when walking with her on the wet country road he felt no longer, only an undefinable sadness and a weariness which he could not understand. he looked at his wife, and fearing that she divined his thoughts, he kissed her. she returned his kiss coldly and he wondered if she loved him. he thought that it was improbable that she did. why should she love him? he had never loved any one. he had never inspired love in any one, except perhaps emily. 'i wonder if you really wished to be married,' she said. 'i always wished to be married,' he replied. 'i hated the bohemianism i was forced to live in. i longed for a home, for a wife.' 'you were very poor once?' 'yes: i've lived on tenpence and a shilling a day. i've worked in the docks as a labourer. i went down there hoping to get a clerkship on board one of the transatlantic steamers. i had had enough of england, and thought of seeking fortune elsewhere.' 'i can hardly believe you worked as a labourer in the docks.' 'yes; i did. i saw some men going to work, and i joined them. i don't think i thought much about it at the time. a very little misery rubs all the psychology out of us, and we return more easily than one thinks to the animal.' 'and then?' 'at the end of a week the work began to tell upon me, and i drifted back in search of my manuscript.' 'but you must have been in a dreadful condition; your clothes----' 'ah! thereby hangs a tale. an actress lived in one of the houses i had been lodging in.' 'oh, tell me about her! this is getting very interesting.' then passing his arm round his wife's neck, and with her sweet blonde face looking upon him, and the insinuating warmth of the fire about them, he told her the story of his failure. 'but,' she said, her voice trembling, 'you would not have committed suicide?' 'no man knows beforehand whether he will commit suicide. i can only say that every other issue was closed.' at the end of a long silence julia said, 'i wish you hadn't spoken about suicide. i cannot but think of emily. if she were to make away with herself! the very possibility turns my heart to ice. what should i do--what should we do? i ought never to have given way; we were both abominably selfish. i can see that poor girl sitting alone in that house grieving her heart out.' 'you think that we ought never to have given way!' 'i suppose we ought not. i tried very hard, you know i did.... but do you regret?' she said, looking at him suddenly. 'no; i don't regret, but i wish it had happened otherwise.' 'you don't fear anything. nothing will happen. what can happen?' 'the most terrible things often happen--have happened.' 'emily may have been fond of me--i think she was; but it was no more than the hysterical caprice of a young girl. besides, people do not die for love; and i assure you it will be all right. this is not a time for gloomy thoughts.' 'i'll try not to think of her. well, what were we talking about? i know: about the actress who lived in fitzroy street. tell me about her.' 'she was a real good girl. if she hadn't lent me that five shillings, i don't know where i should be now.' 'were you very fond of her?' 'no; there never was anything of that sort between us. we were merely friends.' 'and what has become of this actress?' 'you saw her to-night?' 'was she acting in the piece we saw to-night?' 'it was she who played lady macbeth.' 'you are joking.' 'no, i'm not. i always knew she had genius, and they have found it out; but i must say they have taken their time about it.' 'how wonderful! she has succeeded!' 'yes, _she_ has succeeded!' 'and she is really the girl you intended to play lady hayward?' 'yes; and i hope she will play the part one of these days.' 'of course, she is just the woman for it. what a splendid success she has had! all london is talking about her.' 'and i remember when ford refused to cast her for the adventuress in _divorce_. if he had, there is no doubt she would have carried the piece through. life is but a bundle of chances; she has succeeded, whatever that may mean.' 'but you will let her have the part of lady hayward?' 'yes, of course--that is to say, if----' 'why "if"?' 'my thoughts are with you, dear; literature seems to have passed out of sight.' 'but you must not sacrifice your talent in worship of me. i shall not allow you. for my sake, if not for hers, you must finish that play. i want you to be famous. i should be for ever miserable if my love proved a upas-tree.' 'a upas-tree! it will be you who will help me; it will be your presence that will help me to write my play. i was always vaguely conscious that you were a necessary element in my life; but i did not wake up to any knowledge of it until that day--do you remember?--when you came into my study to ask me what fish i'd like for dinner, and i begged of you to allow me to read to you that second act. it is that second act that stops me.' 'i thought you had written the second act to your satisfaction. you said that after the talk we had that afternoon you wrote for three hours without stopping, and that you had never done better work.' 'yes, i wrote a great deal; but on reading it over i found that--i don't mean to say that none of it will stand; some still seems to me to be all right, but a great deal will require alteration.' the conversation fell. at the end of a long silence hubert said-- 'what are you thinking of, dearest?' 'i was thinking that supposing you were mistaken--if i failed to help you in your work.' 'and i never succeeded in writing my play?' 'no; i don't mean that. of course you will write your play; all you have to do is to be less critical.' 'yes, i know--i have heard that before; but, unfortunately, we cannot change ourselves. i'll either carry my play through completely, realise my ideal, or----' 'remain for ever unsatisfied?' 'whether i write it or no, i shall be happy in your love.' 'yes, yes; let us be happy.' they looked at each other. he did not speak, but his thought said-- 'there is no happiness on earth for him who has not accomplished his task.' 'shall we be happy? i wonder. we have both suffered,' she said, 'we are both tired of suffering, and it is only right that we should be happy.' 'yes, we shall be happy, i will be happy. it shall be my pleasure to attend to you, to give you all your desire. but you said just now that you had suffered. i have told you my past. tell me yours. i know nothing except that you were unhappily married.' 'there is little else to know; a woman's life is not adventurous, like a man's. i have not known the excitement of "first nights," nor the striving and the craving for an artistic ideal. my life has been essentially a woman's life,--suppression of self and monotonous duty, varied by heart-breaking misfortune. i married when i was very young; before i had even begun to think about life i found---- but why distress these hours with painful memories?' 'it is pleasant to look back on the troubles we have passed through.' 'well, i learnt in one year the meaning of three terrible words--poverty, neglect, and cruelty. in the second year of my marriage my husband died of drink, and i was left a widow at twenty, entirely penniless. i went to live with my sister, and she was so poor that i had to support myself by giving music-lessons. you think you know the meaning of poverty: you may; but you do not know what a young woman who wants to earn her bread honestly has to put up with, trudging through wet and cold, mile after mile, to give a lesson, paid for at the rate of one-and-sixpence or two shillings an hour.' julia took her eyes from her husband's face, and looked dreamily into the fire. then, raising her face from the flame, she looked around with the air of one seeking for some topic of conversation. at that moment she caught sight of the corner of a letter lying on the mantelpiece. reaching forth her hand, she took it. it was addressed to her husband. 'here is a letter for you, hubert.... why, it comes from ashwood. yes, and it is in the hand-writing of one of the servants. oh, it is black's writing! it may be about emily. something may have happened to her. open it quickly.' 'that is not probable. nothing can have happened to her.' 'look and see. be quick!' hubert opened the letter, and he had not read three lines when julia's face caught expression from his, which had become overcast. 'it is bad news, i know. something has happened. what is it? don't keep me waiting. the suspense is worse than the truth.' 'it is very awful, julia. don't give way.' 'tell me what it is. is she dead? 'yes; she is dead.' julia got up from her husband's knees and stood by the mantelpiece, leaning upon it. 'it is more than mere death.' 'what do you mean? she killed herself--is that it?' 'yes; she drowned herself the night before last in the lake.' 'oh, it is too horrible! then we have murdered her. our unpardonable selfishness! i cannot bear it!' her eyes closed and her lips trembled. hubert caught her in his arms, laid her on the chair, and, fetching some water in a tumbler, sprinkled her face; then he held it to her lips; she drank a little, and revived. 'i'm not going to faint. tell me--tell me when the unfortunate child----' 'they don't know exactly. she was in the drawing-room at tea-time, and the drawing-room was empty when black went round three-quarters of an hour after to lock up. he thought she had gone to her room. it was the gardener who brought in the news in the morning about nine.' 'oh, good god!' 'black says he noticed that she looked very depressed the day before, but he thought she was looking better when he brought in the tea.' 'it was then she got my letter. does black say anything about giving her a letter?' 'yes, that is to say----' 'i knew it! i knew it!' said julia; and her eyes were wild with grief, and she rocked herself to and fro. 'it was that letter that drove her to it. it was most ill-advised. i told you so. you should have written. she would have borne the news better had it come from you. my instinct told me so, but i let myself be persuaded. i told you how it would happen. i told you. you can't say i didn't. oh! why did you persuade me--why--why--why?' 'julia dear, we are not responsible. we were in nowise bound to sacrifice our happiness to her----' 'don't say a word! i say we were bound. life can never be the same to me again.' hubert did not answer. nothing he could say would be of the slightest avail, and he feared to say anything that might draw from her expressions which she would afterwards regret. he had never seen her moved like this, nor did he believe her capable of such agitation, and the contrast of her present with her usual demeanour made it the more impressive. 'oh,' she said, leaning forward and looking at him fixedly, 'take this nightmare off my brain, or i shall go mad! it isn't true; it cannot be true. but--oh! yes, it's true enough.' 'like you, julia, i am overwhelmed; but we can do nothing.' 'do nothing!' she cried; 'do nothing! we can do nothing but pray for her--we who sacrificed her.' and she slipped on her knees and burst into a passionate fit of weeping. 'the best thing that could have happened,' thought hubert; and his thought said, clearly and precisely, 'yes; it is awful, shocking, cruel beyond measure!' the fire was sinking, and he built it up quietly, ashamed of this proof of his regard for physical comfort, and hoping it would pass unnoticed. his pain expressed itself less vehemently than julia's; but for all that his mind ached. he remembered how he had taken everything from her--fortune, happiness, and now life itself. it was an appalling tragedy--one of those senseless cruelties which we find nature constantly inventing. a thought revealed an unexpected analogy between him and his victim. in both lives there had been a supreme desire, and both had failed. 'hers was the better part,' he said bitterly. 'those whose souls are burdened with desire that may not be gratified had better fling the load aside. they are fools who carry it on to the end.... if it were not for julia----' then he sought to determine what were his exact feelings. he knew he was infinitely sorry for poor emily; but he could not stir himself into a paroxysm of grief, and, ashamed of his inability to express his feelings, he looked at julia, who still wept. 'no doubt,' he thought, 'women have keener feelings than we have.' at that moment julia got up from her knees. she had brushed away her tears. her face was shaken with grief. 'my heart is breaking,' she said. 'this is too cruel--too cruel! and on my wedding night.' their eyes met; and, divining each other's thought, each felt ashamed, and julia said-- 'oh, what am i saying? this dreadful selfishness, from which we cannot escape, that is with us even in such a moment as this! that poor child gone to her death, and yet amid it all we must think of ourselves.' 'my dear julia, we cannot escape from our human nature; but, for all that, our grief is sincere. we can do nothing. do not grieve like that.' 'and why not? she was my best friend. how have i repaid her? alas! as woman always repays woman for kindness done. the old story. i cannot forgive myself. no, no! do not kiss me! i cannot bear it. leave me. i can see nothing but emily's reproachful face.' she covered her face in her hands and sobbed again. the same scenes repeated themselves over and over again. the same fits of passionate grief; the same moment of calm, when words impregnated with self dropped from their lips. the same nervous sense that something of the dead girl stood between them. and still they sat by the fire, weary with sorrow, recrimination, long regret, and pain. they could grieve no more; and before dawn sleep pressed upon their eyelids, and at the end of a long silence he dozed--a pale, transparent sleep, through which the realities of life appeared almost as plainly as before. suddenly he awoke, and he shivered in the chill room. the fire was sinking; dawn divided the window-curtains. he looked at his wife. she seemed to him very beautiful as she slept, her face turned a little on one side, and again he asked himself if he loved her. then, going to the window, he drew the curtains softly, so as not to awaken her; and as he stood watching a thin discoloured day breaking over the roofs, it again seemed to him that emily's suicide was the better part. 'those who do not perform their task in life are never happy.' the words drilled themselves into his brain with relentless insistency. he felt a terrible emptiness within him which he could not fill. he looked at his wife and quailed a little at the thought that had suddenly come upon him. she was something like himself--that was why he had married her. we are attracted by what is like ourselves. emily's passion might have stirred him. now he would have to settle down to live with julia, and their similar natures would grow more and more like one another. then, turning on his thoughts, he dismissed them. they were the morbid feverish fancies of an exceptional, of a terrible night. he opened the window quietly so as not to awaken his wife. and in the melancholy greyness of the dawn he looked down into the street and wondered what the end would be. he did not think that he would live long. disappointed men--those who have failed in their ambition--do not live to make old bones. there were men like him in every profession--the arts are crowded with them. he had met barristers and soldiers and clergy-men, just like himself. one hears of their deaths--failure of the heart's action, paralysis of the brain, a hundred other medical causes--but the real cause is, lack of appreciation. he would hang on for another few years, no doubt; during that time he must try to make his wife happy. his duty was now to be a good husband, at all events, there was that. his wife lay asleep in the arm-chair, and fearing she might catch cold, he came into the room closing the window very gently behind him. the end printed by t. and a. constable, printers to her majesty at the edinburgh university press. (images generously made available by the hathi trust.) dodo a detail of the day by e.f. benson in two volumes vol. i fourth edition methuen & co london and far out, drifting helplessly on that grey, angry sea, i saw a small boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. and my guide said to me, 'some call the sea "falsehood," and that boat "truth," and others call the sea "truth," and the boat "falsehood;" and, for my part, i think that one is right as the other.'--the professor of ignorance. chapter one poets of all ages and of all denominations are unanimous in assuring us that there was once a period on this grey earth known as the golden age. these irresponsible hards describe it in terms of the vaguest, most poetic splendour, and, apart from the fact, upon which they are all agreed, that the weather was always perfectly charming, we have to reconstruct its characteristics in the main for ourselves. perhaps if the weather was uniformly delightful, even in this nineteenth century, the golden age might return again. we all know how perceptibly our physical, mental and spiritual level is raised by a few days of really charming weather; but until the weather determines to be always golden, we can hardly expect it of the age. yet even now, even in england, and even in london, we have every year a few days which must surely be waifs and strays from the golden age, days which have fluttered down from under the hands of the recording angel, as he tied up his reports, and, after floating about for years in dim, interplanetary space, sometimes drop down upon us. they may last a week, they have been known to last a fortnight; again, they may curtail themselves into a few hours, but they are never wholly absent. at the time at which this story opens, london was having its annual golden days; days to be associated with cool, early rides in the crumbly row, with sitting on small, green chairs beneath the trees at the corner of the park; with a general disinclination to exert oneself, or to stop smoking cigarettes; with a temper distinctly above its normal level, and a corresponding absence of moods. the crudeness of spring had disappeared, but not its freshness; the warmth of the summer had come, but not its sultriness; the winter was definitely over and past, and even in hyde park the voice of the singing bird was heard, and an old gentleman, who shall be nameless, had committed his annual perjury by asserting in the _morning post_ that he had heard a nightingale in the elm-trees by the ladies' mile, which was manifestly impossible. the sky was blue; the trees, strange to say, were green, for the leaves were out, and even the powers of soot which hover round london had not yet had time to shed their blackening dew upon them. the season was in full swing, but nobody was tired of it yet, and "all london" evinced a tendency to modified rural habits, which expressed themselves in the way of driving down to hurlingham, and giving water parties at richmond. to state this more shortly, it was a balmy, breezy day towards the middle of june. the shady walks that line the side of the row were full of the usual crowds of leisurely, well-dressed people who constitute what is known as london. anyone acquainted with that august and splendid body would have seen at once that something had happened; not a famine in china, nor a railway accident, nor a revolution, nor a war, but emphatically "something." conversation was a thing that made time pass, not a way of passing the time. obviously the larger half of london was asking questions, and the smaller half was enjoying its superiority, in being able to give answers. these indications are as clear to the practised eye as the signs of the weather appear to be to the prophet zadkiel. to the amateur one cloud looks much like another cloud: the prophet, on the other hand, lays a professional finger on one and says "thunder," while the lurid bastion, which seems fraught with fire and tempest to the amateur, is dismissed with the wave of a contemptuous hand. a tall, young man was slowly making his way across the road from the arch. he was a fair specimen of "the exhausted seedlings of our effete aristocracy"--long-limbed, clean-shaven, about six feet two high, and altogether very pleasant to look upon. he wore an air of extreme leisure and freedom from the smallest touch of care or anxiety, and it was quite clear that such was his normal atmosphere. he waited with serene patience for a large number of well-appointed carriages to go past, and then found himself blocked by another stream going in the opposite direction. however, all things come to an end, even the impossibility of crossing from the arch at the entrance of the park to the trees on a fine morning in june, and on this particular morning i have to record no exception to the rule. a horse bolting on to the row narrowly missed knocking him down, and he looked up with mild reproach at its rider, as he disappeared in a shower of dust and soft earth. this young gentleman, who has been making his slow and somewhat graceful entrance on to our stage, was emphatically "london," and he too saw at once that something had happened. he looked about for an acquaintance, and then dropped in a leisurely manner into a chair by his side. "morning, bertie," he remarked; "what's up?" bertie was not going to be hurried. he finished lighting a cigarette, and adjusted the tip neatly with his fingers. "she's going to be married," he remarked. jack broxton turned half round to him with a quicker movement than he had hitherto shown. "not dodo?" he said. "yes." jack gave a low whistle. "it isn't to you, i suppose?" bertie arbuthnot leaned back in his chair with extreme languor. his enemies, who, to do him justice, were very few, said that if he hadn't been the tallest man in london, he would never have been there at all. "no, it isn't to me." "is she here?" said jack, looking round. "no i think not; at least i haven't seen her." "well, i'm----" jack did not finish the sentence. then as an after-thought he inquired: "whom to?" "chesterford," returned the other. jack made a neat little hole with the ferrule of his stick in the gravel in front of him, and performed a small burial service for the end of his cigarette. the action was slightly allegorical. "he's my first cousin," he said. "however, i may be excused for not feeling distinctly sympathetic with my first cousin. must i congratulate him?" "that's as you like," said the other. "i really don't see why you shouldn't. but it is rather overwhelming, isn't it? you know dodo is awfully charming, but she hasn't got any of the domestic virtues. besides, she ought to be an empress," he added loyally. "i suppose a marchioness is something," said jack. "but i didn't expect it one little bit. of course he is hopelessly in love. and so dodo has decided to make him happy." "it seems so," said bertie, with a fine determination not to draw inferences. "ah, but don't you see----" said jack. "oh, it's all right," said bertie. "he is devoted to her, and she is clever and stimulating. personally i shouldn't like a stimulating wife. i don't like stimulating people, i don't think they wear well. it would be like sipping brandy all day. fancy having brandy at five o'clock tea. what a prospect, you know! dodo's too smart for my taste." "she never bores one," said jack. "no, but she makes me feel as if i was sitting under a flaming gas-burner, which was beating on to what nature designed to be my brain-cover." "nonsense," said jack. "you don't know her. there she is. ah!" a dog-cart had stopped close by them, and a girl got out, leaving a particularly diminutive groom at the pony's head. if anything she was a shade more perfectly dressed than the rest of the crowd, and she seemed to know it. behind her walked another girl, who was obviously intended to walk behind, while dodo was equally obviously made to walk in front. just then dodo turned round and said over her shoulder to her,-- "maud, tell the boy he needn't wait. you needn't either unless you like." maud turned round and went dutifully back to the dog-cart, where she stood irresolutely a few moments after giving her message. dodo caught sight of the two young men on the chairs, and advanced to them. the radiant vision was evidently not gifted with that dubious quality, shyness. "why, jack," she exclaimed in a loudish voice, "here i am, you see, and i have come to be congratulated! what are you and bertie sitting here for like two patiences on monuments? really, jack, you would make a good patience on a monument. "was patience a man? i never saw him yet. i would come and sketch you if you stood still enough. what are you so glum about? you look as if you were going to be executed. i ought to look like that much more than you. jack, i'm going to be a married woman, and stop at home, and mend the socks, and look after the baby, and warm chesterford's slippers for him. where's chesterford? have you seen him? oh, i told maud to go away. maud," she called, "come back and take bertie for a stroll: i want to talk to jack. go on, bertie; you can come back in half an hour, and if i haven't finished talking then, you can go away again--or go for a drive, if you like, with maud round the park. take care of that pony, though; he's got the devil of a temper." "i suppose i may congratulate you first?" asked bertie. "that's so dear of you," said dodo graciously, as if she was used to saying it. "good-bye; maud's waiting, and the pony will kick himself to bits if he stands much longer. thanks for your congratulations. good-bye." bertie moved off, and dodo sat down next jack. "now, jack, we're going to have a talk. in the first place you haven't congratulated me. never mind, we'll take that as done. now tell me what you think of it. i don't quite know why i ask you, but we are old friends." "i'm surprised," said he candidly; "i think it's very odd." dodo frowned. "john broxton," she said solemnly, "don't be nasty. don't you think i'm a very charming girl, and don't you think he's a very charming boy?" jack was silent for a minute or two, then he said,-- "what is the use of this, dodo? what do you want me to say?" "i want you to say what you think. jack, old boy, i'm very fond of you, though i couldn't marry you. oh, you must see that. we shouldn't have suited. we neither of us will consent to play second fiddle, you know. then, of course, there's the question of money. i must have lots of money. yes, a big must _and_ a big lot. it's not your fault that you haven't got any, and it wouldn't have been your fault if you'd been born with no nose; but i couldn't marry a man who was without either." "after all, dodo," said he, "you only say what every one else thinks about that. i don't blame you for it. about the other, you're wrong. i am sure i should not have been an exacting husband. you could have had your own way pretty well." "oh, jack, indeed no," said she;--"we are wandering from the point, but i'll come back to it presently. my husband must be so devoted to me that anything i do will seem good and charming. you don't answer that requirement, as i've told you before. if i can't get that--i have got it, by the way--i must have a man who doesn't care what i do. you would have cared, you know it. you told me once i was in dreadfully bad form. of course that clinched the matter. to my husband i must never be in bad form. if others did what i do, it might be bad form, but with me, no. bad form is one of those qualities which my husband must think impossible for me, simply because i am i. oh, jack, you must see that--don't be stupid! and then you aren't rich enough. it's all very well to call it a worldly view, but it is a perfectly true one for me. don't you see i must have everything i want. it is what i live on, all this," she said, spreading her hands out. "all these people must know who i am, and that they should do that, i must have everything at my command. oh, it's all very well to talk of love in a cottage, but just wait till the chimney begins to smoke." dodo nodded her head with an air of profound wisdom. "it isn't for you that i'm anxious," said jack, "it's for chesterford. he's an awfully good fellow. it is a trifle original to sing the husband's praise to the wife, but i do want you to know that. and he isn't one of those people who don't feel things because they don't show it--it is just the other way. the feeling is so deep that he can't. you know you like to turn yourself inside out for your friend's benefit, but he doesn't do that. and he is in love with you." "yes, i know," she said, "but you do me an injustice. i shall be very good to him. i can't pretend that i am what is known as being in love with him--in fact i don't think i know what that means, except that people get in a very ridiculous state, and write sonnets to their mistress's front teeth, which reminds me that i am going to the dentist to-morrow. come and hold my hand--yes, and keep withered flowers and that sort of thing. ah, jack, i wish that i really knew what it did mean. it can't be all nonsense, because chesterford's like that, and he is an honest man if you like. and i do respect and admire him very much, and i hope i shall make him happy, and i hear he's got a delightful new yacht; and, oh! do look at that arbuthnot girl opposite with a magenta hat. it seems to me inconceivably stupid to have a magenta hat. really she is a fool. she wants to attract attention, but she attracts the wrong sort. now _she_ is in bad form. bertie doesn't look after his relations enough." "oh, bother the arbuthnot girl," said jack angrily. "i want to have this out with you. don't you see that that sort of thing won't do with chesterford? he is not a fool by any means, and he knows the difference between the two things." "indeed he doesn't," said dodo. "the other day he was talking to me, and i simply kept on smiling when i was thinking of something quite different, and he thought i was adorably sympathetic. and, besides, i am not a fool either. he is far too happy for me to believe that he is not satisfied." "well, but you'll have to keep it up," said jack. "don't you see i'm not objecting to your theory of marriage in itself--though i think it's disgusting--but it strikes me that you have got the wrong sort of man to experiment upon. it might do very well if he was like you." "jack, you sha'n't lecture me," said dodo; "i shall do precisely as i like. have you ever known me make a fool of myself? of course you haven't. well, if i was going to make a mess of this, it would be contrary to all you or anyone else knows of me. i'm sorry i asked your opinion at all. i didn't think you would be so stupid." "you told me to tell you what i thought," said jack in self-defence. "i offered to say what you wanted, or to congratulate or condole or anything else; it's your own fault, and i wish i'd said it was charming and delightful, and just what i had always hoped." dodo laughed. "i like to see you cross, jack," she remarked, "and now we'll be friends again. remember what you have said to-day--we shall see in time who is right, you or i. if you like to bet about it you may--only you would lose. i promise to tell you if you turn out to be right, even if you don't see it, which you must if it happens, which it won't, so you won't," she added with a fine disregard of grammar. jack was silent. "jack, you are horrible," said dodo impatiently, "you don't believe in me one bit. i believe you are jealous of chesterford; you needn't be." then he interrupted her quickly. "ah, dodo, take care what you say. when you say i needn't be, it implies that you are not going to do your share. i want to be jealous of chesterford, and i am sorry i am not. if i thought you loved him, or would ever get to love him, i should be jealous. i wish to goodness i was. really, if you come to think of it, i am very generous. i want this to be entirely a success. if there is one man in the world who deserves to be happy it is chesterford. he is not brilliant, he does not even think he is, which is the best substitute. it doesn't much matter how hard you are hit if you are well protected. try to make him conceited--it is the best you can do for him." he said these words in a low tone, as if he hardly wished dodo to hear. but dodo did hear. "you don't believe in me a bit," she said. "never mind, i will force you to. that's always the way--as long as i amuse you, you like me well enough, but you distrust me at bottom. a woman's a bore when she is serious. isn't it so? because i talk nonsense you think i am entirely untrustworthy about things that matter." dodo struck the ground angrily with the point of her parasol. "i have thought about it. i know i am right," she went on. "i shall be immensely happy as his wife, and he will be immensely happy as my husband." "i don't think it's much use discussing it," said he. "but don't be vexed with me, dodo. you reminded me that we were old friends at the beginning of this extremely candid conversation. i have told you that i think it is a mistake. if he didn't love you it wouldn't matter. unfortunately he does." "well, jack," she said, "i can't prove it, but you ought to know me well enough by this time not to misjudge me so badly. it is not only unjust but stupid, and you are not usually stupid. however, i am not angry with you, which is the result of my beautiful nature. come, jack, shake hands and wish me happiness." she stood up, holding out both her hands to him. jack was rather moved. "dodo, of course i do. i wish all the best wishes that my nature can desire and my brain conceive, both to you and him, him too; and i hope i shall be outrageously jealous before many months are over." he shook her hands, and then dropped them. she stood for a moment with her eyes on the ground, looking still grave. then she retreated a step or two, leaned against the rail, and broke into a laugh. "that's right, jack, begone, dull care. i suppose you'll be chesterford's best man. i shall tell him you must be. really he is an excellent lover; he doesn't say too much or too little, and he lets me do exactly as i like. jack, come and see us this evening; we're having a sort of barnum's show, and i'm to be the white elephant. come and be a white elephant too. oh, no, you can't; chesterford's the other. the elephant is an amiable beast, and i am going to be remarkably amiable. come to dinner first, the show begins afterwards. no, on the whole, don't come to dinner, because i want to talk to chesterford all the time, and do my duty in that state of life in which it has pleased chesterford to ask me to play my part. that's profane, but it's only out of the catechism. who wrote the catechism? i always regard the catechism as only a half-sacred work, and so profanity doesn't count, at least you may make two profane remarks out of the catechism, which will only count as one. i shall sing, too. evelyn has taught me two little nigger minstrel songs. shall i black my face? i'm not at all sure that i shouldn't look rather well with my face blacked, though i suppose it would frighten chesterford. here are maud and bertie back again. i must go. i'm lunching somewhere, i can't remember where, only maud will know. maud, where are we lunching, and have you had a nice drive, and has bertie been making love to you? good-bye, jack. remember to come this evening. you can come, too, bertie, if you like. i have had a very nice talk with jack, and he has been remarkably rude, but i forgive him." jack went with her to her dog-cart, and helped her in. "this pony's name is beelzebub," she remarked, as she took the reins, "because he is the prince of the other things. good-bye." then he went back and rejoined bertie. "there was a scene last night," said bertie. "maud told me about it. she came home with dodo and chesterford, and stopped to open a letter in the hall, and when she went upstairs into the drawing-room, she found dodo sobbing among the sofa cushions, and chesterford standing by, not quite knowing what to do. it appeared that he had just given her the engagement ring. she was awfully-pleased with it, and said it was charming, then suddenly she threw it down on the floor, and buried her face in the cushions. after that she rushed out of the room, and didn't appear again for a quarter of an hour, and then went to the foreign office party, and to two balls." jack laughed hopelessly for a few minutes. then he said,-- "it is too ridiculous. i don't believe it can be all real. that was drama, pure spontaneous drama. but it's drama for all that. i'm sure i don't know why i laughed, now i come to think of it. it really is no laughing matter. all the same i wonder why she didn't tell me that. but her sister has got no business to repeat those kind of things. don't tell anyone else, bertie." then after a minute he repeated to himself, "i wonder why she didn't tell me that." "jack," said bertie after another pause, "i don't wish you to think that i want to meddle in your concerns, and so don't tell me unless you like, but was anything ever up between you and dodo? lie freely if you would rather not tell me, please." "yes," he said simply. "i asked her to marry me last april, and she said 'no.' i haven't told anyone till this minute, because i don't like it to be known when i fail. i am like dodo in that. you know how she detests not being able to do anything she wants. it doesn't often happen, but when it does, dodo becomes damnable. she has more perseverance than i have, though. when she can't get anything, she makes such a fuss that she usually does succeed eventually. but i do just the other thing. i go away, and don't say anything about it. that was a bad failure. i remember being very much vexed at the time." jack spoke dreamily, as if he was thinking of something else. it was his way not to blaze abroad anything that affected him deeply. like dodo he would often dissect himself in a superficial manner, and act as a kind of showman to his emotions; but he did not care to turn himself inside out with her thoroughness. and above all, as he had just said, he hated the knowledge of a failure; he tried to conceal it even from himself. he loved to show his brighter side to the world. when he was in society he always put on his best mental and moral clothes, those that were newest and fitted him most becomingly; the rags and tatters were thrown deep into the darkest cupboard, and the key sternly turned on them. now and then, however, as on this occasion, a friend brought him the key with somewhat embarrassing openness, and manners prevented him from putting his back to the door. but when it was unlocked he adopted the tone of, "yes, there are some old things in there, i believe. may you see? oh, certainly; but please shut it after you, and don't let anyone else in. i quite forget what is in there myself, it's so long since i looked." bertie was silent. he was on those terms of intimacy with the other that do not need ordinary words of condolence or congratulation. besides, from his own point of view, he inwardly congratulated jack, and this was not the sort of occasion on which to tell him that congratulation rather than sympathy was what the event demanded. then jack went on, still with the air of a spectator than of a principal character,-- "dodo talked to me a good deal about her marriage. i am sorry about it, for i think that chesterford will be terribly disillusioned. you know he doesn't take things lightly, and he is much too hopelessly fond of dodo ever to be content with what she will grant him as a wife. but we cannot do anything. i told her what i thought, not because i hoped to make any change in the matter, but because i wished her to know that for once in her life she has made a failure--a bad, hopeless mistake. that has been my revenge. come, it's after one, i must go home. i shall go there this evening; shall i see you?" chapter two jack went home meditating rather bitterly on things in general. he had a sense that fate was not behaving very prettily to him. she had dealt him rather a severe blow in april last, which had knocked him down, and, having knocked him down, she now proceeded in a most unsportsmanlike way to kick him. jack had a great idea of fair play, and fate certainly was not playing fair. he would have liked to have a few words with her on the subject. the world had been very kind on the whole to him. he had always been popular, and his life, though perhaps rather aimless, was at least enjoyable. and since the world had been kind to him, he was generous to the world in general, and to his friends in particular. it had always held a high opinion of him, as a thoroughly healthy-minded and pleasant companion, and he was disposed to hold a similar opinion of it. consequently, when dodo had refused him that spring, he had not thought badly of her. he did not blame her, or get bitter about it; but though he had flattered himself that he was used to dodo's ways, and had always recognised her capabilities in the way of surprising her friends, he had not been quite prepared for the news of her engagement. in fact, he was surprised, and also rather resentful, chiefly against the general management of mundane affairs, but partly also against dodo herself. dodo had not told him of her engagement; he had been left to find it out for himself. then, again, she was engaged to a man who was hopelessly and entirely in love with her, and for whom, apart from a quiet, unemotional liking, she did not care two straws, except in so far as he was immensely rich and had a title, two golden keys which unlocked the most secret doors of that well-furnished apartment known as society, which constituted dodo's world. hitherto her position had been precarious: she had felt that she was on trial. her personality, her great attractiveness and talents, had secured for herself a certain footing on the very daïs of that room; but she had always known that unless she married brilliantly she would not be sure of her position. if she married a man who would not be always certain of commanding whatever money and position--for she would never have married a wealthy brewer--could command, or, worst of all, if in her unwillingness to accept anything but the best she could get, she did not marry at all, dodo knew that she never would have that unquestioned position that she felt was indispensable to her. jack knew all this perfectly well--in fact dodo had referred to it that morning--and he accepted it philosophically as being inevitable. but what he did not like was being told that he would not have done on general grounds, that he was too fond of his own way, that he would not have given dodo rein enough. he had known dodo too long and too well, when he proposed to her, to have any of a lover's traditional blindness to the faults of his love. he knew that she was, above all things, strongly dramatic, that she moved with a view to effect, that she was unscrupulous in what she did, that her behaviour was sometimes in questionable taste; but this he swallowed whole, so to speak. he was genuinely attached to her, and felt that she possessed the qualities that he would most like to have in his wife. bertie had said to him that morning that she was stimulating, and would not wear well. stimulating she certainly was--what lovable woman is not?--and personally he had known her long, and she did wear well. the hidden depths and unsuspected shallows were exactly what he loved her for; no one ever fell in love with a canal; and though the shallows were commoner than the depths, and their presence was sometimes indicated by a rather harsh jarring of the keel, yet he believed, fully and sincerely, in the dark, mysterious depths for love to lose itself in. besides, a wife, whose actions and thoughts were as perfectly calculable and as accurately calculated as the trains in a bradshaw, was possessed of sterling qualities which, however estimable, were more suited to a housekeeper than a mistress. these reflections were the outcome of an intimate knowledge of dodo in the mind of a man who was in the habit of being honest with himself and the object of his love, a quality rare enough whether the lover is rejected or accepted. he had had time to think over the matter quietly to himself. he knew, and had known for many weeks, that dodo was out of his reach, and he sat down and thought about the inaccessible fruit, not with the keen feelings of one who still hoped to get it, but with a resignation which recognised that the fruit was desirable, but that it must be regarded from a purely speculative point of view. and to do him justice, though he was very sorry for himself, he was much more sorry for chesterford. chesterford was his cousin, they had been brought up together at eton and oxford, and he knew him with that intimacy which is the result of years alone. chesterford's old friends had all a great respect and liking for him. as dodo had said, "he was an honest man if you like." slight acquaintances called him slow and rather stupid, which was true on purely intellectual grounds. he was very loyal, and very much devoted to what he considered his duty, which consisted in being an excellent landlord and j.p. of his county, in voting steadily for the conservative party in the house of lords, in giving largely and anonymously to good objects, in going to church on sunday morning, where he sang hymns with fervour, and read lessons with respect, in managing a hunt in a liberal and satisfactory manner, and in avoiding any introspection or speculation about problems of life and being. he walked through the world with an upright gait, without turning his eyes or his steps to the right hand or the left, without ever concerning himself with what was not his business, but directing all his undoubtedly sterling qualities to that. he had a perfect genius for doing his duty. nobody had ever called him shallow or foolish, but nobody on the other hand had ever, called him either deep or clever. he had probably only made one real mistake in his life, and that was when he asked dodo to marry him; and we have seen that jack, who knew dodo well, and whose opinion might be considered to be based on good grounds, thought that dodo had committed her first grand error in accepting him. the worst of the business certainly was that he was in love with dodo. if he had been a different sort of man, if he had proposed to dodo with the same idea that dodo had, when she accepted him, if he had wanted a brilliant and fascinating woman to walk through life with, who could not fail to be popular, end who would do the duties of a mistress of a great house in a regal fashion, he could not have chosen better. but what he wanted in a wife was someone to love. he loved dodo, and apparently it had not entered his calculations that she, in accepting him, might be doing it from a different standpoint from his own in proposing to her. dodo had smiled on him with the air of a benignant goddess who marries a mortal, when he offered her his hand and heart, and he had taken that smile as a fulfilment of his own thought. decidedly jack might have justification for feeling apprehensive. jack's only hope lay in that vein which did exist in dodo, and which she had manifested in that outburst of tears the night before. he put it down to her dramatic instincts to a large extent, but he knew there was something besides, for dodo did not care to play to an empty house, and the presence of her future husband alone constituted anything but a satisfactory audience. jack had always had a considerable belief in dodo: her attractiveness and cleverness were, of course, beyond dispute, and required proof no more than the fact that the sun rose in the morning; but he believed in something deeper than this, which prompted such actions as these. he felt that there was some emotion that she experienced at that moment, of which her tears were the legitimate outcome, and, as he thought of this, there occurred to him the remark that dodo had made that morning, when she expressed her regret at never having felt the sort of love that she knew chesterford felt for her. mrs. vane was perhaps perfectly happy that night. was not her daughter engaged to a marquis and a millionaire? was not her house going to be filled with the brightest and best of our land? she had often felt rather resentful against dodo, who alternately liked and despised people whom mrs. vane would have given her right hand to be in a position to like, and both hands to be in a position to despise. dodo was excellent friends with "london," only "london" did not come and seek her at her own house, but preferred asking her to theirs. consequently, on mrs. vane and maud devolved the comparatively menial duty of leaving their cards and those of dodo, and attending her in the capacity of the necessary adjunct. they would be asked to the same houses as dodo, but that was all; when they got there they had the privilege of seeing dodo performing her brilliant evolutions, but somehow none of dodo's glory got reflected on to them. to be the mirror of dodo was one of mrs. vane's most cherished ideas, and she did not recollect that there are many substances whose nature forbids their acting as such to the most brilliant of illuminations. mr. vane was kept still more in the background. it was generally supposed that he was looking after his affairs in the country, whilst the rest of the family were amusing themselves in london. it was well known that he was the proprietor of a flourishing iron foundry somewhere in lancashire, and apparently the iron needed special care during the months of may, june and july. in any case he was a shadow in the background, rather than a skeleton at the banquet, whom it was not necessary to ignore, because he never appeared in a position in which he could be ignored. mrs. vane had two principal objects in life, the first of which was to live up to dodo, and the second to obtain, in course of time, a suitable brilliant son-in-law. the latter of these objects had been practically obtained by dodo herself, and the first of them was in a measure realised by the large and brilliant company who assembled in her rooms that night. mrs. vane was a large, high-coloured woman of about middle age, whose dress seemed to indicate that she would rather not, but that, of course, may only have been the fault of the dressmaker. she had an effusive manner, which sometimes made her guests wonder what they could have done to have made her so particularly glad to see them. she constantly lamented mr. vane's absence from london, and remarked, with a brilliant smile, that she felt quite deserted. mrs. vane's smile always suggested a reformed vampire, who had permanently renounced her bloodthirsty habits, but had not quite got out of the way of gloating on what would have been her victims in the unregenerate days. it is only fair to say that this impression was due to the immensity of her smile, which could hardly be honestly accounted for by this uncharitable world. she was busily employed in receiving her guests when jack came, and was, perhaps, more stupendously cordial than ever. "so kind of you to come," she was just saying to a previous arrival when jack came in. "i know dodo was dying to see you and be congratulated. darling," she said, turning to maud, "run and tell dodo that lord burwell has arrived. so good of you to come. and how do you do, dear mr. broxton? of course dodo has told you of our happiness. thanks, yes--we are all charmed with her engagement. and the marquis is your cousin, is he not? how nice! may i tell maud she may call you cousin jack? _such_ pleasure to have you. dodo is simply expiring to see you. did she see you this morning? really! she never told me of it, and my sweet child usually tells me everything." dodo was playing the amiable white elephant to some purpose. she was standing under a large chandelier in the centre of the room, with chesterford beside her, receiving congratulations with the utmost grace, and talking nonsense at the highest possible speed. jack thought to himself that he had never seen anyone so thoroughly charming and brilliant, and almost wondered whether he had not been doing her an injustice all day. he saw it was impossible to get near her for the present, so he wandered off among other groups, exchanging greetings and salutations. he had made the circuit of the room, and was standing about near the door, feeling a little lonely, when dodo came quickly towards him. she was looking rather white and impatient. "come away out of this, jack," she said; "this is horrible. we've done our duty, and now i want to talk. i've been smiling and grinning till my cheeks are nearly cracked, and everyone says exactly the same thing. come to my room--come." she turned round, beckoning to him, and found herself face to face with chesterford. "dear old boy," she said to him, "i'm not going to bore you any more to-night. i shall bore you enough after we are married. jack and i are going away to talk, and he's going to tell me to be a good girl, and do as his cousin bids me. good-night; come again to-morrow morning." "i came here on purpose to congratulate you," said jack, grasping chesterford's hand, "and i wish you all joy and prosperity." "come, jack," said dodo. "oh, by the way, chesterford, ask jack to be your best man. you couldn't have a better, and you haven't got any brother, you know." "i was just going to," said chesterford. "jack, you will be, won't you? you must." "of course i will," said jack. "all the same we're all awfully jealous of you, you know, for carrying dodo off." "so you ought to be," said he, enthusiastically. "why, i'm almost jealous of myself. but now go and talk to dodo, if she wants you." the sight of chesterford with dodo made jack groan in spirit. he had accepted dodo's rejection of him as quite final, and he never intended to open that closed book again. but this was too horrible. he felt a genuine impulse of pure compassion for chesterford, and an irritated disgust for dodo. dodo was an admirable comrade, and, for some, he thought, an admirable wife. but the idea of her in comradeship with chesterford was too absurd, and if she could never be his comrade, by what perversity of fate was it that she was going to become his wife? jack's serenity was quite gone, and he wondered what had become of it. all he was conscious of was a chafing refusal to acquiesce just yet, and the anticipation of a somewhat intimate talk with dodo. he felt half inclined to run away from the house, and not see her again, and as he followed her up to her room, he began to think that his wisdom had followed his serenity. after all, if he asked her again about her resolution to marry chesterford, what was he doing but continuing the conversation they had in the park that morning, in which dodo herself had taken the initiative. "these things are on the knees of the gods," thought jack to himself piously, as the door of dodo's room closed behind him. dodo threw herself down in a low arm-chair with an air of weariness. "go on talking to me, jack," she said. "interest me, soothe me, make me angry if you like. chesterford's very nice. don't you like him immensely? i do." jack fidgeted, lit a match and blew it out again. really it was not his fault that the conversation was going to be on this subject. he again laid the responsibility on the knees of the gods. then he said,-- "dodo, is this irrevocable? are you determined to marry this man? i swear i don't ask you for any selfish reasons, but only because i am sincerely anxious for your happiness and his. it is a confounded liberty i am taking, but i sha'n't apologise for it. i know that it isn't any business of mine, but i risk your displeasure." dodo was looking at him steadily. her breath came rather quickly, and the look of weariness had left her face. "jack," she said, "don't say this sort of thing to me again. you are quite right, it is a confounded liberty, as you say. i shall do as i please in this matter. ah, jack, don't be angry with me," she went on as he shrugged his shoulders, and half turned away. "i know you are sincere, but i must do it. i want to be safe. i want to be married. chesterford is very safe. jack, old boy, don't make me quarrel with you. you are the best friend i have, but i'm sure you're wrong about this." she rose and stood by him, and laid one hand on his as it lay on the mantelpiece. he did not answer her. he was disappointed and baffled. then she turned away from him, and suddenly threw up her arms. "oh, my god," she said, "i don't know what to do. it isn't my fault that i am made like this. i want to know what love is, but i can't--i can't. you say i shall make him unhappy, and i don't want to do that. i don't believe i shall. jack, why did you come here suggesting these horrible things?" there was a great anger in her voice, and she stood trembling before him. just then the door opened, and a middle-aged lady walked in. she did not seem at all surprised. nobody who had known dodo long was often surprised. she walked up to dodo and kissed her. "i came late," she said, "and your mother said you were in your room, so i came up to congratulate you with all my heart." "thank you very much," said dodo, returning the kiss. "jack, do you know mrs. vivian?--mr. broxton." mrs. vivian bowed, and jack bowed, and then nobody seemed quite to know what to say next. mrs. vivian recovered herself first. "i wish you would show me the necklace lord chesterford has given you," she said to dodo. "mrs. vane said the diamonds were magnificent." "certainly, i will fetch it," said dodo, with unusual docility. "don't go away, jack." dodo left the room, and mrs. vivian turned to jack. "my dear young man," she said, "i am old enough to be your mother, and you mustn't mind what i am going to say. this sort of thing won't do at all. i know who you are perfectly well, and i warn you that you are playing with fire. you were at liberty to do so before dodo was engaged, and i daresay you have burned your fingers already. several young men have--but now it won't do. besides that, it isn't fair on either chesterford or dodo herself." jack wanted to think "what an impertinent old woman," but there was something in her manner that forbade it. "i believe you are right," he said simply; "but it wasn't wholly my fault." then he felt angry with himself for having shifted any of the blame on to dodo. "_honi soit_," said the other ambiguously. "i don't mean that--ah, here is dodo." the diamonds were duly shown and admired, and the three went downstairs again. mrs. vivian took her leave shortly. she was very gracious to jack, and as they parted she said,-- "come and see me at any time; i should like to talk to you. here is my address." jack sought mrs. vane to inquire who mrs. vivian was. mrs. vane was even more effusive than usual. "oh, she is quite one of our leading people," she said.--"she has not been in london, or, in fact, in england for two years. she was unhappily married. her husband was a scamp, and after his death she suddenly left london, and has only just returned. she is quite an extraordinary woman--everyone used to rave about her. she never gave herself airs, but somehow she was more looked up to than anyone else. quite royal in fact. i feel immensely honoured by her presence here. i hardly dared to ask her--so fascinating, and so clever." dodo came up to jack before he left. "jack," she said, "i was angry with you, and i am sorry. don't bear me malice. if mrs. vivian had not come in, i should have said something abominable. i am afraid of her. i don't quite know why. she always seems to be taking stock of one, and noticing how very small one is. don't forget to-morrow. we're all going on a water-party at richmond. mind you come." "i think i had better not," said jack bluntly. dodo lifted her eyebrows in surprise that may have been genuine. "why not?" she asked. jack had no reasonable answer to give her. "what did mrs. vivian say to you?" asked dodo suddenly. jack paused. "a few polite nothings," he said; "and half the royal motto. mrs. vane said she was quite royal, which, of course, explains it." "i can't conceive what you're talking about," remarked dodo. "it seems to me to be sheer nonsense." jack smiled. "on the whole, i think it is sheer nonsense," he said. "yes, i'll come." dodo swept him the prettiest little curtsey. "how good of you," she said. "good-night, jack. don't be cross, it really isn't worth while, and you can behave so prettily if you like. oh, such a nice gentleman!" "no, i expect it isn't worth while," said jack. chapter three there is a particular beauty about the thames valley for which you may search for years elsewhere, and not find; a splendid lavishness in the way that the woods are cast down broadcast along the river, and a princely extravagance of thick lush hayfields, that seem determined not to leave a spare inch of land between them and the water. the whole scene has been constructed with a noble disregard of expense, in the way of water, land, and warm wood-land air. the tall, clean-limbed beech-trees have room to stretch their great, lazy arms without being prosecuted for their clumsy trespasses, and the squirrels that chatter at you from their green houses seem to have a quite unusual sleekness about them, and their insolent criticisms to each other about your walk, and general personal unattractiveness, are inspired by a larger share of animal spirits than those of other squirrels. as you row gently up in the middle of the stream, you may see a heron standing in the shallows, too lazy to fish, too supremely confident to mind the approach of anything so inferior as yourself, and from the cool shadow of the woods you may hear an old cock pheasant talking to himself, and not troubling to practise a new and original method of rocketing in june, for he knows that his time is not yet. at this time of year, too, you need not trouble to look round, to see if there are large boats full of noisy people bearing down on you; like the pheasant, their time is not yet. but now and then the long strings of creamy bubbles appearing on the deep, quiet water, and a sound rich in associations of cool plunges into frothy streams, warns you that a lock is near. and above you may see some small village clustering down to the river's edge, to drink of its sweet coolness, or a couple of shaggy-footed cart-horses, looking with mild wonder at this unexpected method of locomotion, lifting their dripping noses from the bright gravelly shallows to stare at you, before they proceed to finish their evening watering. dodo was very fond of the thames valley, and she really enjoyed giving up a day of june in london to the woods and waters. they were to start quite early in the morning, dodo explained, and everyone was to wear their very oldest clothes, for they were going to play ducks and drakes, and drink milk in dairies, and pick buttercups, and get entirely covered with freckles. dodo herself never freckled, and she was conscious of looking rather better for a slight touch of the sun, and it would be very dear of mrs. vivian if she would come too, if she didn't mind being silly all day; and, if so, would she call for them, as they were on her way? chesterford, of course, was going, and jack, and maud and her mother; it was quite a small party; and wasn't jack a dear? mrs. vane had got hold of a certain idea about mrs. vivian, distinctly founded on fact. she was one of those women who cannot help making an impression. how it is done, or exactly what it is, one would be puzzled to define, but everyone noticed when she came info a room, and was aware when she went out. it was not her personal appearance, for she was short rather than tall, stout rather than graceful, and certainly middle-aged rather than young. dodo has mentioned the effect she produced on her, and many people felt in the same way that mrs. vivian was somehow on a higher plane than they, that her mind was cast in a larger mould. happily for our peace of mind such people are not very common; most of our fellow-men are luckily much on the same level, and they are not more than units among units. but mrs. vivian was much more than a unit. dodo had said of her that she was two or three at least. and evidently nothing was further from mrs. vivian's wishes than trying to make an impression, in fact, the very impressive element was rather due to her extreme naturalness. we are most of us so accustomed to see people behave, and to behave ourselves, in a manner not quite natural, that to see anyone who never does so, is in itself calculated to make one rather nervous. mrs. vivian evidently intended to take her life up again at the point where she had left off, so to speak--in other words, at the period before her marriage. of her husband, perhaps, the less said the better. he died, owing to an accident, after ten years of married unhappiness, and left mrs. vivian poorer than she had been before. after his death she had travelled abroad for two years, and then returned to england to live with her sister, who had married a rich judge and kept house rather magnificently in prince's gate. lady fuller had always disapproved of her sister's marriage, and she was heartily glad to see her well quit of her husband, and, on her return to england, received her with open arms, and begged her, on behalf of her husband and herself, to make their home hers. mrs. vivian accordingly settled down in the "extremely commodious" house in prince's gate, and, as i said, took up her life where it had left off. a standing grievance that her husband had had with her was, that she interested herself in the poor, and in the east end slums, that she went to cabmen's shelters, and espoused the cause of overdriven factory girls. he had told her that it was meddling with other people's business; that nothing was so objectionable as an assumption of charitable airs; that a woman who went to balls and dinner-parties was a hypocrite if she pretended to care about the state of the poor, and that she only did it because she wished to appear unlike other people. but he altogether failed to perceive that her actions were entirely uninfluenced by the impression they were to make, and mistook her extreme naturalness for the subtlest affectation. however, mrs. vivian resolutely banished from her mind the remembrance of those ten years, and, being unable to think of her husband with tenderness or affection, she preferred to forget her married life altogether. the vanes had been their neighbours in the country for many years, and she had known dodo since she was a child. dodo had once asked to accompany her in her visits to the east end, and had been immensely struck by what she saw, and determined to be charitable too. this sort of thing seemed extremely chic to dodo's observant mind. so she took up a factory of miserable match-girls, and asked them all to tea, and got mrs. vivian to promise her help; but when the afternoon came, dodo particularly wished to go to a morning concert, and on mrs. vivian's arrival she found, indeed, plenty of match-girls, but no dodo. dodo came back later and made herself extremely fascinating. she kissed the cleanest of the girls, and patted the rest on the shoulder, and sang several delightful little french songs to them to her own accompaniment on the banjo, and thanked mrs. vivian for being "such a dear about the slums." but on the next occasion when she had nothing to do, and called on mrs. vivian to ask to be taken to another of those "darling little slums," mrs. vivian hinted that, though she would be charmed to take her, she thought that dodo had perhaps forgotten that the four-in-hand club met that day in hyde park. dodo had forgotten it, and, as she had bespoken the box seat on one of her friends' coaches, she hurried home again, feeling it freshly borne in upon her that mrs. vivian thought she was very contemptible indeed. altogether mrs. vivian knew dodo well, and when she went home that evening, she thought a good deal about the approaching marriage. she was glad to have had that occasion of speaking to jack, he seemed to her to be worth doing it for. she knew that she ran the risk of being told, in chillingly polite english, that she was stepping outside her province, and that jack did not belong to the east end class who welcomed any charitable hand; but she had a remarkably keen eye, and her intuitive perception told her at once that jack's sense of the justice of her remark would stifle any feeling he might have that she was officious and meddlesome, and the event had justified her decision. in the course of the next few days she met jack several times. they both went to the water-party dodo spoke of, and she took the opportunity to cultivate his acquaintance. they were sitting on the bank of the river below the clivedon woods, a little apart from the others, and she felt that as he had behaved so well, she owed him some apology. "it was very nice of you, mr. broxton," she said, "to be so polite to me last night. to tell you the truth, i did know you, though you didn't know me. i was an old friend of your mother's, but i hadn't time to explain that, and you were good enough to take me without explanations. i always wonder what our attitude towards old friends of our mothers ought to be. i really don't see why they should have any claim upon one." jack laughed. "the fact was that i knew you were right as soon as you spoke to me, though i wanted to resent it. i had been putting it differently to myself; that was why i spoke to dodo." "tell me more," she said. "from the momentary glance i had of you and her, i thought you had been remonstrating with her, and she had been objecting. i don't blame you for remonstrating in the general way. dodo's conduct used not to be always blameless. but it looked private, and that was what i did object to. i daresay you think me a tiresome, impertinent, old woman." jack felt more strongly than ever that this woman could not help being well-bred in whatever she did. "it sounds disloyal to one's friends, i know," he said, "but it was because i really did care for both of them that i acted as i did. what will happen will be that he will continue to adore her, and by degrees she will begin to hate him. he will not commit suicide, and i don't think dodo will make a scandal. her regard for appearances alone would prevent that. it would be a confession of failure." mrs. vivian looked grave. "did you tell dodo this?" "more or less," he replied. "except about the scandal and the suicide." mrs. vivian's large, grey, serious eyes twinkled with some slight amusement. "i think while i was about it i should have told her that too," she said; "that's the sort of argument that appeals to dodo. you have to scream if you want her to listen to what she doesn't want to hear. but i don't think it was quite well judged of you, you know." "i think she ought to know it," said jack, "though i realise i ought to have been the last person to tell her, for several reasons." mrs. vivian looked at him inquiringly. "you mean for fear of her putting a wrong construction on it? i see," she said. jack felt that it could not have been more delicately done. "how did you know?" "oh," she said, "that is the kind of intuition which is the only consolation we women have for getting old. we are put on the shelf, no doubt, after a certain age, but we get a habit of squinting down into the room below. that is the second time i have shown myself a meddling old woman, and you have treated me very nicely both times. let us join the others. i see tea is ready." dodo meanwhile had walked chesterford off among the green cool woods that bordered the river. she had given jack's remarks a good deal of consideration, and, whether or no she felt that he was justified in them on present data, she determined that she would make the event falsify his predictions. dodo had an unlimited capacity for interfering in the course of destiny. she devoted herself to her aims, whatever they might be, with a wonderful singleness of purpose, and since it is a fact that one usually gets what one wants in this world, if one tries hard enough, it followed that up to this time she had, on the whole, usually got her way. but she was now dealing with an unknown quantity, which she could not gauge. she had confessed to jack her inability to understand what love meant, and it was with a certain sense of misgiving that she felt that her answers for the future would be expressed in terms of that unknown quantity "x." to dodo's concrete mind this was somewhat discouraging, but she determined to do her best to reduce things to an equation in which the value of "x" could be found in terms of some of those many symbols which she did know. dodo had an inexhaustible fund of vivacity, which was a very useful instrument to her; like a watch-key that fits all watches, she was able to apply it as required to very different pieces of mechanism. when she wished to do honour to a melancholy occasion, for instance, her vivacity turned any slight feeling of sorrow she had into hysterical weeping; when the occasion was joyful, it became a torrent of delightful nonsense. to-day the occasion was distinctly joyful. she had a large sense of success. chesterford was really a very desirable lover; his immense wealth answered exactly the requirements of dodo's wishes. furthermore, he was safe and easily satisfied; the day was charming; jack was there; she had had a very good lunch, and was shortly going to have a very good tea; and chesterford had given orders for his yacht to be in readiness to take them off for a delightful honeymoon, directly after their marriage--in short, all her circumstances were wholly satisfactory. she had said to him after lunch, as they were sitting on the grass, "come away into those delicious woods, and leave these stupid people here," and he was radiant in consequence, for, to tell the truth, she had been rather indulgent of his company than eager for it the last day or two. she was in the highest spirits as they strolled away. "oh do give me a cigarette," she said, as soon as they had got out of sight. "i didn't dare smoke with that vivian woman there. chesterford, i am frightened of her. she is as bad as the inquisition, or that odious man in browning who used to walk about, and tell the king if anything happened. i am sure she puts it down in a book whenever i say anything i shouldn't. you know that's so tantalising. it is a sort of challenge to be improper. chesterford, if you put down in a book anything i do wrong, i swear i shall go to the bad altogether." to chesterford this seemed the most attractive nonsense that ever flowed from female lips. "why, you can't do anything wrong, dodo," he said simply; "at least not what i think wrong. and what does it matter what other people think?" dodo patted his hand, and blew him a kiss approvingly. "that's quite right," she said; "bear that in mind and we shall never have a quarrel. chesterford, we won't quarrel at all, will we? everybody else does, i suppose, now and then, and that proves it's vulgar. mrs. vivian used to quarrel with her husband, so she's vulgar. oh, i'm so glad she's vulgar. i sha'n't care how much she looks at me now. bother! i believe it was only her husband that used to swear at her. never mind, he must have been vulgar to do that, and she must have vulgar tastes to have married a vulgar person. i don't think i'm vulgar, do you? really it's a tremendous relief to have found out that she's vulgar. but i am afraid i shall forget it when i see her again. you must remind me. you must point at her and say v, if you can manage it. or are you afraid of her too?" "oh, never mind mrs. vivian," said he, "she can wait." "that's what she's always doing," said dodo. "waiting and watching with large serious eyes. i can't think why she does it, for she doesn't make use of it afterwards. now when i know something discreditable of a person, if i dislike him, i tell everybody else, and if i like him, i tell him that i know all about it, and i am _so_ sorry for him. then he thinks you are charming and sympathetic, and you have a devoted admirer for life." chesterford laughed. he had no desire to interrupt this rapid monologue of dodo's. he was quite content to play the part of the greek chorus. "i'm going to sit down here," continued dodo. "do you mind my smoking cigarettes? i'm not sure that it is in good form, but i mean to make it so. i want to be the fashion. would you like your wife to be the fashion?" he bent over her as she sat with her head back, smiling up at him. "my darling," he said, "do you know, i really don't care a straw whether you are the fashion or not, as long as you are satisfied. you might stand on your head in piccadilly if you liked, and i would come and stand too. all i care about is that you are you, and that you have made me the happiest man on god's earth." dodo was conscious again of the presence of this unknown quantity. she would much prefer striking it out altogether; it seemed to have quite an unreasonable preponderance. chesterford did not usually make jokes, in fact she had never heard him make one before, and his remark about standing on his head seemed to be only accounted for by this perplexing factor. dodo had read about love in poems and novels, and had seen something of it, too, but it remained a puzzle to her. she hoped her calculations might not prove distressingly incorrect owing to this inconvenient factor. but she laughed with her habitual sincerity, and replied,-- "what a good idea; let's do it to-morrow morning. will ten suit you? we can let windows in all the houses round. i'm sure there would be a crowd to see us. it really would be interesting, though perhaps not a very practical thing to do. i wonder if mrs. vivian would come. she would put down a very large bad mark to me for that, but i shall tell her it was your suggestion." chesterford laughed with pure pleasure. "dodo," he said, "you are not fair on mrs. vivian. she is a very good woman." "oh, i don't doubt that," said dodo, "but, you see, being good doesn't necessarily make one a pleasant companion. now, i'm not a bit good, but you must confess you would rather talk to me than to the vivian." "oh, you are different," said he rapturously. "you are dodo." dodo smiled contentedly. this man was so easy to please. she had felt some slight dismay at jack's ill-omened prophecies, but jack was preposterously wrong about this. they rejoined the others in course of time. dodo made fearful ravages on the eatables, and after tea she suddenly announced,-- "mrs. vivian, i'm going to smoke a cigarette. do you feel dreadfully shocked?" mrs. vivian laughed. "my dear dodo, i should never venture to be shocked at anything you did. you are so complete that i should be afraid to spoil you utterly, if i tried to suggest corrections." dodo lit a cigarette with a slightly defiant air. mrs. vivian's manner had been entirely sincere, but she felt the same sort of resentment that a prisoner might feel if the executioner made sarcastic remarks to him. she looked on mrs. vivian as a sort of walking inquisition. "my darling dodo," murmured mrs. vane, "i do so wish you would, not smoke, it will ruin your teeth entirely." dodo turned to mrs. vivian. "that means you think it would be very easy to spoil me, as you call it." "not at all," said that lady. "i don't understand you, that's all, and i might be pulling out the key-stone of the arch unawares. not that i suppose your character depends upon your smoking." dodo leaned back and laughed. "oh, this is too dreadfully subtle," she exclaimed. "i want to unbend my mind. chesterford, come and talk to me, you are deliciously unbending." chapter four lord and lady chesterford were expected home on the th of december. the marriage took place late in august, and they had gone off on the yacht directly afterwards, in order to spend a few warm months in the mediterranean. dodo had written home occasionally to mrs. vane, and now and then to jack. to jack her letters had never been more than a word or two, simply saying that they were enjoying themselves enormously, and that jack had been hopelessly wrong. mrs. vane also had much reason to be satisfied. she had spent her autumn in a variety of fashionable watering-places, where her dresses had always been the awe and wonder of the town; she had met many acquaintances, to whom she had poured out her rapture over dodo's marriage; had declared that chesterford was most charming, and that he and dodo were quite another adam and eve in paradise, and that she was really quite jealous of dodo. when they left england, they had intended to spend the winter abroad and not come back till february, but early in december a telegram had arrived at winston, lord chesterford's country house, saying that they would be back in ten days. about the same time jack received a letter, saying that their change of plans was solely owing to the fact that dodo was rather tired of the sea, and the weather was bad, and that she had never been so happy in her life. dodo's eagerness to assure jack of this struck him as being in rather bad taste. she ought to have entirely ignored his warnings. the happiness of a newly-married woman ought to be so absorbing, as to make her be unaware of the existence of other people; and this consciousness in dodo of her triumphant superiority of knowledge, led him to suppose he was right rather than wrong. he was unfeignedly sorry not to be sure that she had been right. when he told dodo that he wished to be jealous of chesterford, he was quite sincere. since he could not have dodo himself, at any rate let her make someone happy. dodo also informed him that they were going to have a house-party that christmas and that he must come, and she had asked mrs. vivian, to show that she wasn't afraid of her any longer, and that maud was coming, and she wished jack would marry her. then followed a dozen other names belonging to dodo's private and particular set, who had all been rather disgusted at her marrying what they chose to call a philistine. it had been quite hoped that she would marry jack. jack was not a philistine at all, though the fact of his having proposed to her remained a secret. maud, on the other hand, was a philistine; and it was one of dodo's merits that she did not drop those who originally had claims on her, when she became the fashion. she was constantly trying to bring maud into notice, but maud resisted the most well-meant shoves. she had none of dodo's vivacity and talents; in fact, her talents lay chiefly in the direction of arranging the places at a dinner-party, and in doing a great deal of unnecessary worsted work. what happened to her worsted work nobody ever knew. it was chiefly remarkable for the predominance of its irregularities, and a suggestion of damaged goods about it, in consequence of much handling. to dodo it seemed an incredible stupidity that anyone should do worsted work, or, if they did do it, not do it well. she used to tell maud that it was done much more cheaply in shops, and much better. then maud would drop it for a time, and take to playing the piano, but that was even more oppressively stupid to dodo's mind than the worsted work. maud had a perfect genius for not letting her right hand know what her left hand was doing, a principle which was abhorrent to dodo in every application. the consequence of all this was, that dodo was apt to regard her sister as a failure, though she still, as in the present instance, liked giving maud what she considered a helping hand. it must be confessed that dodo's efforts were not altogether unselfish. she liked her environment to be as great a success as herself, as it thus added to her own completeness, just as a picture looks better in a good frame than in a shabby one. maud, however, had no desire to be a success. she was perfectly happy to sit in the background and do the worsted work. she longed to be let alone. at times she would make her escape to the iron works and try to cultivate the domestic virtues in attending to her father. she thought with a kind of envy of the daughters of country clergymen, whose mediocre piano-playing was invaluable to penny readings and village concerts, and for whose worsted work there was a constant demand, in view of old women and almshouses. she had hoped that dodo's slumming experiences would bring her into connection with this side of life, and had dispensed tea and buns with a kind of rapture on the occasion of dodo's tea-party, but her sister had dropped her slums, as we have seen, at this point, and maud was too shy and uninitiative to take them up alone. she had an excellent heart, but excellent hearts were out of place in mrs. vane's establishment. dodo had confessed her inability to deal with them. dodo's general invitation to jack was speedily followed by a special one from winston, naming the first week in january as the time of the party. jack was met on his arrival by chesterford, and as they drove back the latter gave him particulars about the party in the house. "they are chiefly dodo's friends," he said. "do you know, jack, except for you, i think i am rather afraid of dodo's friends, they are so dreadfully clever, you know. of course they are all very charming, but they talk about character. now i don't care to talk about character. i know a good man when i see him, and that's all that matters as far as i can judge. dodo was saying last night that her potentiality for good was really much stronger than her potentiality for evil, and that her potentiality for evil was only skin deep, and they all laughed, and said they didn't believe it. and dodo said, 'ask chesterford if it isn't,' and god only knows what i said." jack laughed. "poor old fellow," he said, "you and i will go to the smoking-room, and talk about nothing at all subtle. i don't like subtleties either." "ah, but they expect great things of you," said chesterford ruefully. "dodo was saying you were an apostle. are you an apostle, jack?" "oh, that's only a nickname of dodo's," he said, smiling. "but who are these dreadfully clever people?" "oh, there's ledgers--you know him, i suppose--and a miss edith staines, and a girl whom i don't know, called miss grantham, whom ledgers said, when she was out of the room last night, that he had 'discovered.' what he meant heaven knows. then there's maud, who is a nice girl. she went round to the keeper's with me this afternoon, and played with the baby. then there's bertie arbuthnot, and i think that's all." jack laughed. "i don't think we need mind them," he said. "we'll form a square to resist cavalry.". "bertie's the best of the lot," said chesterford, "and they laughed at him rather, i think. but he is quite unconscious of it." they drove on in silence a little way. then. chesterford said,-- "jack, dodo makes me the happiest of men. i am afraid sometimes that she is too clever, and wishes i was more so, but it makes no difference. last night, as i was in the smoking-room she sent to say she wanted to see me, and i went up. she said that she wanted to talk to me, now she had got rid of all those tiresome people, and said so many charming things that i got quite conceited, and had to stop her. i often wonder, jack, what i have done to deserve her. and she went on talking about our yachting, and those months in london when we were first engaged, and she told me to go on smoking, and she would have a cigarette too. and we sat on talking, till i saw she was tired, and then i went away, though he would hardly let me." this communication had only the effect of making jack rather uncomfortable. knowing what he did, he knew that this was not all genuine on dodo's part. it was obviously an effort to keep it up, to use a vulgar term. and since it was not all genuine, the doubt occurred as to whether any of it was. jack had a profound belief in dodo's dramatic talents. that the need for keeping it up had appeared already was an alarming symptom, but the real tragedy would begin on that day when dodo first failed to do so. and from that moment jack regarded his prophecy as certain to be fulfilled. the overture had begun, and in course of time the curtain would rise on a grim performance. they drove up to the door, and entered the large oak-panelled hall, hung all round with portraits of the family. the night was cold, and there was a fire sparkling in the wide, open grate. as they entered, an old collie, who was enjoying the fruits of a well-spent life on the hearthrug, stretched his great, tawny limbs, and shoved a welcoming nose into chesterford's hand. this produced heartburnings of the keenest order in the mind of a small fox-terrier pup, who consisted mainly of head and legs, which latter he evidently considered at present more as a preventive towards walking than an aid. being unable to reach his hand the puppy contented himself with sprawling over his boots, and making vague snaps at the collie. it was characteristic of chesterford that all animals liked him. he had a tender regard for the feelings of anything that was dependent on him. dodo thought this almost inexplicable. she disliked to see animals in pain, because they usually howled, but the dumb anguish of a dog who considers himself neglected conveyed nothing to her. from within a door to the right, came sounds of talking and laughter. there was something pathetic in the sight of this beautiful home, and its owner standing with his back to the fire, as jack divested himself of his coat. chesterford was so completely happy, so terribly unconscious of what jack felt sure was going on. he looked the model of the typical english gentleman, with his tall stature and well-bred face. jack remembered passing on the road a labourer who was turning into his cottage. the firelight had thrown a bright ray across the snow-covered road, and inside he had caught a momentary glimpse of the wife with a baby in her arms, and a couple of girls laying the table-cloth. he remembered afresh dodo's remark about waiting until the chimney smoked, and devoutly hoped that the chimney of this well-appointed house was in good order. chesterford led the way to the drawing-room door, and pushed it open for jack to enter. dodo was sitting at the tea-table, talking to some half-dozen people who were grouped round her. as jack entered, she rose and came towards him with a smile of welcome. "ah, jack," she said, "this is delightful; i am tremendously glad to see you! let's see, whom do you know? may i introduce you to miss grantham? mr. broxton. i think you know everybody else. chesterford, come here and sit by me at once. you've been an age away. i expect you've been getting into mischief." she wheeled a chair up for him, and planted him down in it. he looked radiantly happy. "now, jack," she went on, "tell us what you've been doing all these months. it's years since we saw you. i think you look all right. no signs of breaking down yet. i hoped you would have gone into a rapid consumption, because i was married, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference to anybody except chesterford and me. jack, don't you think i shall make an excellent matron? i shall get maud to teach me some of her crochet-stitches. have you ever been here before? chesterford, you shut it up, didn't you, for several years, until you thought of bringing me here? sugar, jack? two lumps? chesterford, you mustn't eat sugar, you're getting quite fat already. you must obey me, you know. you promised to love, honour and obey. oh, no; i did that. however, sugar is bad for you." "dodo keeps a tight hand on me, you see," said chesterford, from the depths of his chair. "dodo, give me the sugar, or we shall quarrel." dodo laughed charmingly. "he would quarrel with his own wife for a lump of sugar," said dodo dramatically; "but she won't quarrel with him. take it then." she glanced at jack for a moment as she said this, but jack was talking to miss grantham, and either did not see, or did not seem to. jack had a pleasant impression of light hair, dark grey eyes, and a very fair complexion. but somehow it produced no more effect on him than do those classical profiles which are commoner on the lids of chocolate boxes than elsewhere. her "discoverer" was sitting in a chair next her, talking to her with something of the air of a showman exhibiting the tricks of his performing bear. his manner seemed to say, "see what an intelligent animal." the full sublimity of lord ledgers' remark had not struck him till that moment. miss grantham was delivering herself of a variety of opinions in a high, penetrating voice. "oh, did you never hear him sing last year?" she was saying to lord ledgers. "mr. broxton, you must have heard him. he has the most lovely voice. he simply sings into your inside. you feel as if someone had got hold of your heart, and was stroking it. don't you know how some sounds produce that effect? i went with dodo once. she simply wept floods, but i was too far gone for that. he had put a little stopper on my tear bottle, and though i was dying to cry, i couldn't." "i always wonder how sorry we are when we cry," said lord ledgers in a smooth, low voice. "it always strikes me that people who don't cry probably feel most." "oh, you are a horrid, unfeeling monster," remarked miss grantham; "that's what comes of being a man. just because you are not in the habit of crying yourself, you think that you have all the emotions, but stoically repress them. now i cultivate emotions. i would walk ten miles any day in order to have an emotion. wouldn't you, mr. broxton?" "it obviously depends on what sort of emotion i should find when i walked there," said jack. "there are some emotions that i would walk further to avoid." "oh, of course, the common emotions, 'the litany things,' as dodo calls them," said miss grantham, dismissing them lightly with a wave of her hand. "but what i like is a nice little sad emotion that makes you feel so melancholy you don't know what to do with yourself. i don't mean deaths and that sort of thing, but seeing someone you love being dreadfully unhappy and extremely prosperous at the same time." "but it's rather expensive for the people you love," said jack. "oh, we must all make sacrifices," said miss grantham. "it's quite worth while if you gratify your friends. i would not mind being acutely unhappy, if i could dissect my own emotions, and have them photographed and sent round to my friends." "what a charming album we might all make," said lord ledgers. "page . miss grantham's heart in the acute stage. page . mortification setting in. page . the lachrymatory gland permanently closed by a tenor voice." "poor old chesterford," thought jack, "this is rather hard on him." but chesterford was not to be pitied just now, for dodo was devoting her exclusive conversation to him in defiance of her duties as hostess. she was recounting to him how she had spent every moment of his absence at the station. certainly she was keeping it up magnificently at present. "and mrs. vivian comes to-morrow," she was saying. "you like her, don't you, chesterford? you must be awfully good to her, and take her to see all the drunken idlers in the village. that will be dear of you. it's just what she likes. she has sort of passion for drunken cabmen, who stamp on their wives. if you stamped on me a little every evening, she would cultivate you to any extent. shall i lie down on the floor for you to begin?" chesterford leant back in his chair in a kind of ecstasy. "ah, dodo," he said, "you are wonderfully good to me. but i must go and write two notes before dinner; and you must amuse your guests. i am very glad jack has come. he is a very good chap. but don't make him an apostle." dodo laughed. "i shall make a little golden hoop for him like the apostles in the arundels, and another for you, and when nobody else is there you can take them off, and play hoops with them. i expect the apostles did that when they went for a walk. you couldn't wear it round your hat, could you?" miss grantham instantly annexed dodo. "dodo," she said, "come and take my part. these gentlemen say you shouldn't cultivate emotions." "no, not that quite," corrected jack. "i said it was expensive for your friends if they had to make themselves miserable, in order to afford food for your emotions." "now, isn't that selfish?" said miss grantham, with the air of a martyr at the stake. "here am i ready to be drawn and quartered for anyone's amusement, and you tell me you are sorry for your part, but that it costs too much. maud, come off that sofa, and take up the daggers for a too unselfish woman." "i expect i don't know much about these things," said maud. "no; maud would not go further than wrapping herself in a winding-sheet of blue worsted," remarked dodo incisively. maud flushed a little. "oh, dodo!" she exclaimed deprecatingly. "it's no use hitting maud," said dodo pensively. "you might as well hit a feather bed. now, if you hit jack, he will hit back." "well, i'd prefer you hit me," said jack, "than that you should hit anyone who can't hit back." "can't you see that i have determined not to hit feather beds," said dodo in a low tone. "really, jack, you do me an injustice." jack looked up at her quickly. "do you say that already?" he asked. "oh, if you are going to whisper, i shall whisper too," remarked miss grantham calmly. "lord ledgers, i want to tell you a secret." "i was only telling. jack he was stupid," said dodo. "i thought i would spare him before you all, but i see i have to explain. have you seen bertie yet, jack? he's in the smoking-room, i think. edith staines is probably there too. she always smokes after tea, and chesterford doesn't like it in the drawing-room. you know her, don't you? she's writing a symphony or something, and she's no use except at meal-times. i expect she will play it us afterwards. we must make bertie sing too. there's the dressing-bell. i'm going to be gorgeous to-night in honour of you, jack." jack found himself making a quantity of reflections, when he retired to his room that night. he became aware that he had enjoyed himself more that evening than he had done for a very long time. he questioned himself as to when he had enjoyed himself so much, and he was distinctly perturbed to find that the answer was, when he had last spent an evening with dodo. he had formed an excellent habit of being exactly honest with himself, and he concluded that dodo's presence had been the cause of it. it was a very unpleasant blow to him. he had accepted her refusal with an honest determination to get over it. he had not moped, nor pined, nor striven, nor cried. he had no intentions of dying of a broken heart, but the stubborn fact remained that dodo exercised an unpleasantly strong influence over him. he could have repeated without effort all she had said that night. she had not said anything particularly remarkable, but somehow he felt that the most striking utterances of other men and women would not have produced any such effect on him. it really was very inconvenient. dodo had married a man who adored her, for whom she did not care two pins' heads, and this man was one of his oldest friends. decidedly there was something left-handed about this particular disposition of destiny. and the worst of it was that chesterford was being hopelessly duped. about that he felt no doubt. dodo's acting was so remarkably life-like, that he mistook it at present for reality. but the play must end some time, and the sequel was too dark and involved to be lightly followed out. he could not conceive why this elaborate drama on dodo's part did not disgust him more. he wished he had been deceived by it himself, but having been behind the scenes, he had seen dodo, as it were, in the green-room, putting on the rouge and powder. but failing that, he wished that a wholesome impulse of disgust and contempt had superseded his previous feelings with regard to her. but he believed with her that under the circumstances it was the best thing to do. the marriage was a grand mistake, true, but given that, was not this simply so many weeks of unhappiness saved? then he had an immense pity for dodo's original mistake. she had told him once that she was no more responsible for her philosophy than for the fact that she happened to be five foot eight in height, and had black eyes and black hair. "it was nature's doing," she had said; "go and quarrel with her, but don't blame me. if i had made myself, i should have given myself a high ideal; i should have had something to live up to. now, i have no ideal. the whole system of things seems to me such an immense puzzle, that i have given up trying to find a solution. i know what i like, and what i dislike. can you blame me for choosing the one, and avoiding the other? i like wealth and success, and society and admiration. in a degree i have secured them, and the more i secure them the more reason i have to be satisfied. to do otherwise would be like putting on boots that were too large for me--they are excellent for other people, but not for me. i cannot accept ideals that i don't feel. i can understand them, and i can sympathise with them, and i can and do wish they were mine; but, as nature has denied me them, i must make the best of what i have." jack felt hopeless against this kind of reasoning, and angry with himself for letting this woman have such dominion over him. in a measure he felt himself capable of views bounded by a horizon not so selfishly fatalistic, and the idea of the smoking chimney in the cottage did not seem to matter, provided that dodo was sitting on the other side of the hearthrug. he would willingly have sacrificed anything else, to allow himself to give full reins to his thought on this point. but the grand barrier which stood between him and dodo, was not so much her refusal of him, but the existence of her husband. at this jack pulled himself up sharp. there are certain feelings of loyalty that still rank above all other emotions. miss grantham would certainly have classed such among the litany things. there was nothing heroic about it. it simply consisted in a sturdy refusal to transgress, even in vaguest thought, a code which deals with the most ordinary and commonplace virtues and vices. there is nothing heroic in a street boy passing by the baker's cart without a grab at the loaves, and it sounds almost puritanical to forbid him to cast a glance at them, or inhale a sniff of their warm fragrance. "certainly this side of morality is remarkably dull," thought jack; and the worst of it is, that it is not only dull but difficult. with practice most of us could become a simeon stylites, provided we are gifted with a steady head, and a constitution that defies showers. it is these commonplace acts of loyalty, the ordinary and rational demands of friendship and society, that are so dreadfully taxing to most of us who have the misfortune not to be born saints. then jack began to feel ill-used. "why the deuce should chesterford be born a marquis and not i? what has he done to have a title and fortune and dodo that i have been given the chance to do?" it struck him that his reflections were deplorably commonplace, and that his position ought to be made much more of. he wondered whether this sort of situation was always so flat. in novels there is always a touch of the heroic in the faithful friend who is loyal to his cousin, and steadily avoids his cousin's wife; but here he is in identically the same situation, feeling not at all heroic, but only discontented and quarrelsome with this ill-managed world. decidedly he would go to bed. owing to a certain habit that he had formed early in life he slept soundly, and morning found him not only alive, but remarkably well and hearty, and with a certain eagerness to follow up what he had thought out on the previous night. he was in an excellently managed household, which imposed no rules on its inhabitants except that they should do what they felt most inclined to do; he was in congenial company, and his digestion was good. it is distressing how important those material matters are to us. the deeper emotions do but form a kind of background to our coarser needs. we come down in the morning feeling rather miserable, but we eat an excellent breakfast, and, in spite of ourselves, we are obliged to confess that we feel distinctly better. as jack crossed the hall, he met a footman carrying a breakfast tray into the drawing-room. the door was half open, and there came from within the sounds of vigorous piano-playing, and now and then a bar or two of music sung in a rich, alto voice. these tokens seemed to indicate that miss edith staines was taking her breakfast at the piano. jack found himself smiling at the thought; it was a great treat to find anyone so uniformly in character as miss staines evidently was. he turned into the dining-room, where he found miss grantham sitting at the table alone. dodo was lolling in a great chair by the fire, and there were signs that lord chesterford had already breakfasted. dodo was nursing a little persian kitten with immense tenderness. apparently she had been disagreeing with miss grantham on some point, and had made the kitten into a sort of arbitrator. "oh, you dear kitten," she was saying, "you must agree with me, if you think it over. now, supposing you were very fond of a tom-cat that had only the woodshed to lie in, and another very presentable torn belonging to the queen came--ah, jack, here you are. chesterford's breakfasted, and there's going to be a shoot to-day over the home covers. edith is composing and breakfasting. she says she has--an idea. so grantie and i are going to bring you lunch to the keeper's cottage at half-past one." "and bertie?" asked jack. "oh, you must get edith to tell you what bertie's going to do. perhaps she'll want him to turn over the pages for her, or give her spoonfuls of egg and bacon, while she does her music. he's in the drawing-room now. edith's appropriated him. she usually does appropriate somebody. we told chesterford to get bertie to come if possible, but edith's leave is necessary. maud is going to meet mrs. vivian, who comes this afternoon, and, as she has some shopping to do, she will lunch in harchester, and drive out afterwards; ledgers has had a telegram, and has made a blasphemous departure for town. he comes back this evening." "well, dodo," remarked miss grantham, "now let's go on with what we were discussing. mr. broxton will make a much better umpire than the kitten." "oh, shut up, grantie," said dodo, with fine candour, "jack agrees with neither of us." "tell me what it is," said jack, "and then i'll promise to agree with somebody." "i don't care about your agreeing with me," said miss grantham. "i know i'm right, so it doesn't signify what anybody else thinks." miss grantham, it may be noticed, showed some signs of being ruffled: "oh, now, grantie's angry," said dodo. "grantie, do be amiable. call her grantie, jack," she added with feeling. "dodo, darling," said miss grantham, "you're really foolish, now and then. i'm perfectly amiable. but, you know, if you don't care for a man at all, and he does care for you a great deal, it's sure to be a failure. i can't think of any instance just now, but i know i'm right." dodo looked up and caught jack's eye for a moment. then she turned to miss grantham. "dear grantie, please shut up. it's no use trying to convince me. i know a case in point just the other way, but i am not at liberty to mention it. am i, jack?" "if you mean the same as the case i'm thinking of, certainly not," said jack. "well, i'm sure this is very pleasant for me," said miss grantham, in high, cool tones. at this moment a shrill voice called dodo from the drawing-room. "dodo, dodo," it cried, "the man brought me two tepid poached eggs! do send me something else. is there such a thing as a grilled bone?" these remarks were speedily followed up by the appearance of miss staines at the dining-room door. in one hand she held the despised eggs, in the other a quire of music paper. behind her followed a footman with her breakfast-tray, in excusable ignorance as to what was required of him. "dear dodo," she went on, "you know when i'm composing a symphony i want something more exciting than two poached eggs. mr. broxton, i know, will take my side. you couldn't eat poached eggs at a ball--could you? they might do very well for a funeral march or a nocturne, but they won't do for a symphony, especially for the scherzo. a brandy-and-soda and a grilled bone is what one really wants for a scherzo, only that would be quite out of the question." edith staines talked in a loud, determined voice, and emphasised her points with little dashes and nourishes of the dish of poached eggs. at this moment one of them flew on to the floor and exploded. but it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and at any rate this relieved the footman from his state of indecision. his immediate mission was clearly to remove it. dodo threw herself back in her chair with a peal of laughter. "go on, go on," she cried, "you are too splendid. tell us what you write the presto on." "i can't waste another moment," said edith. "i'm in the middle of the most entrancing motif, which is working out beautifully. do you mind my smoking in the drawing-room? i am awfully sorry, but it makes all the difference to my work. burn a little incense there afterwards. do send me a bone, dodo. come and hear me play the scherzo later on. it's the best thing i've ever done. oh, by the way, i telegraphed to herr truffen to come to-morrow--he's my conductor, you know. you can put him up in the village or the coal-hole, if you like. he's quite happy if he gets enough beer. he's my german conductor, you know. i made him entirely. i took him to the princess the other day when i was at aix, and we all had beer together in the verandah of the beau site. you'll be amused with him." "oh, rather," said dodo; "that will be all right. he can sleep in the house. will he come early to-morrow? let's see--to-morrow's sunday. edith, i've got an idea. we'll have a dear little service in the house--we can't go to church if it snows--and you shall play your mass, and herr what's-his-name shall conduct, and bertie, and grantie, and you and i will sing. won't it be lovely? you and i will settle all that this afternoon. telegraph to truffler, or whatever his name is, to come by the eight-twenty. then he'll be here by twelve, and we'll have the service at a quarter past." "dodo, that will be grand," said edith. "i can't wait now. good-bye. hurry up my breakfast--i'm awfully sharp-set." edith went back to the drawing-room, whistling in a particularly shrill manner. "_oh_, did you ever!" said dodo, who was laughing feebly in her chair. "edith really is splendid. she is so dreadfully sure of herself, and she tells you so. and she does talk so loud--it goes right through your head like a chirping canary. chesterford can't bear her." jack laughed. "she was giving him advice about the management of his kennels at dinner last night," he said. "i heard her say to him impressively, as she left the room, 'try brimstone.' it took chesterford at least five minutes to recover. he was dreadfully depressed." "he must take mrs. vivian in to-night," said dodo. "you'll hear them talking about slums, and over-crowding, and marriage among minors, and the best cure for dipsomaniacs. the other night they were talking about someone called 'charlie,' affectionately but gravely, and i supposed they meant your brother, jack, but it was the second laundress's young man. oh, they shook their heads over him." "i don't think common people are at all interesting," said miss grantham. "they only think about things to eat, and heaven, and three aces, and funerals." she had by this time finished her breakfast, and stood warming her back in a gentlemanly manner by the fire. the door opened and lord chesterford came in. "morning, jack," he said, "what a lazy chap you are. it's half-past ten, and you're still breakfasting. dodo, what a beastly smell of smoke." "oh, it's edith," remarked dodo. "you mustn't mind her, dear. you know she's doing a symphony, and she has to smoke to keep the inspiration going. dear old boy, you are so sweet about these things; you've never made a fuss since i knew you first. you look very nice this morning. i wish i could dress in a homespun norfolk jacket and knickerbockers. grantie and i are going to bring you lunch. what should you like? you'd better have some champagne. don't step in that egg, dear; it will make your nice brown boots all beastly. it's awfully cold. you'd better have two bottles. tell raikes to send you two. chesterford, i wish you'd tell raikes to cut off the end of his nose. i'm always afraid he'll hit me with it when he hands things. he might have it grafted into his chin, you know; he hasn't got any chin. jack, have you finished? yes, you'd better start. we'll meet you at the bothy. i'll go and ask edith if she can spare bertie." "what does she want bertie for?" said chesterford. "oh, i expect she'll let him come," remarked dodo; "she's really busy this morning. she's been composing since a quarter past eight." dodo went across the hall and opened the drawing-room door. edith was completely absorbed in her work. the grilled bone lay untouched on a small table by the piano. bertie was sitting before the fire. "bertie," said dodo, "are you coming shooting?" this woke edith up. "oh, it's splendid," she said. "dodo, listen to this." she ran her hands over the piano, and then broke out into a quick, rippling scherzo. the music flew on, as if all the winds of heaven were blowing it; then it slowed down, halted a moment, and repeated itself till dodo burst out: "oh, edith, it's lovely! i want to dance." she wheeled a table out of the way, kicked a chair across the room, and began turning and twisting with breathless rapidity. her graceful figure looked admirable in the quick movements of her impromptu dance. bertie thought he had never seen anything so deliciously fresh. dodo danced with peculiar abandon. every inch of her moved in perfect time and harmony to the music. she had caught up a thin, indian shawl from one of the sofas, and passed it behind her back, round her head, this way and that, bending, till at one moment it swept the ground in front of her, at another flew in beautiful curves high above her head, till at last the music stopped, and she threw herself down exhausted in an arm-chair. "oh, that was glorious," she panted. "edith, you are a genius. i never felt like that before. i didn't dance at all, it was the music that danced, and pulled me along with it." "that was the best compliment my music has ever received," said edith. "that scherzo was meant to make you want to dance. now, dodo, could i have done that after eating two poached eggs?" "you may have grilled bones seven times a day," said dodo, "if you'll compose another scherzo." "i wanted a name for the symphony," said edith, "and i shall call it the 'dodo.' that's a great honour, dodo. now, if you only feel miserable during the 'andante,' i shall be satisfied. but you came about something else, i forget what." "oh, about bertie. is he coming shooting?". "i wish it was right for women to shoot," said edith. "i do shoot when i'm at home, and there's no one there. anyhow i couldn't to-day. i must finish this. dodo, if you are going to take lunch with them, i'll come with you, if you don't go too early. you know this music makes me perfectly wild, but it can't be done on poached eggs. now set me down at the handel festival, and i'll be content with high, tea--cold meat and muffins, you know. handel always reminds me of high tea, particularly the muffins. he must have written the 'messiah' between tea and dinner on sunday evening, after an afternoon service in summer. i've often thought of taking the salvation army hymn-book and working the tunes up into fugual choruses, and publishing them as a lost work of handel's, noah, or zebedee's children, or the five foolish virgins. i don't believe anyone would know the difference." dodo was turning over the leaves of edith's score book. "i give it up," she said at last; "you are such a jumble of opposites. you sit down and write a sanctus, which makes one feel as if one wants to be a roman catholic archbishop, and all the time you are smoking cigarettes and eating grilled bone." "oh, everyone's a jumble of opposites," said edith, "when you come to look at them. it's only because my opposites are superficial, that you notice them. a sanctus is only a form of expression for thoughts which everyone has, even though their tastes appear to lie in the music-hall line; and music is an intelligible way of expressing these thoughts. most people are born dumb with regard to their emotions, and you therefore conclude that they haven't got any, or that they are expressed by their ordinary actions." "no, it's not that," said dodo. "what i mean is that your sanctus emphasises an emotion i should think you felt very little." "i!" said edith with surprise. "my dear dodo, you surely know me better than that. just because i don't believe that grilled bones are necessarily inconsistent with deep religious feeling, you assume that i haven't got the feeling." dodo laughed. "i suppose one associates the champions of religion with proselytising," she said. "you don't proselytise, you know." "no artist does," said edith; "it's their business to produce--to give the world an opportunity of forming conclusions, not to preach their own conclusions to the world." "yes; but your music is the expression of your conclusions, isn't it?" "yes, but i don't argue about it, and try to convert the world to it. if someone says to me, 'i don't know what you mean! handel seems to me infinitely more satisfactory, i can understand him,' i simply say, 'for heaven's sake, then, why don't you go to hear handel? why leave a creed that satisfies you?' music is a conviction, but handel's music has nothing to do with my convictions, nor mine with handel's." edith sat down sternly, and buried herself in heir convictions. chapter five it was a perfect winter's day, and when, two hours afterwards, dodo and the others drove off to meet the shooting-party, the grass in the shadow was still crisp with the light, hoar frost, but where the sun had touched it, the fields were covered with a moist radiance. it had just begun to melt the little pieces of ice that hung from the bare, pendulous twigs of the birch-trees, and send them, shivering to the ground. through the brown bracken you could hear the startled scuttle of the rabbit, or the quick tapping of a pheasant, who had realised that schemes were on foot against him. a night of hard frost had turned the wheel-ruts into little waves and billows of frozen mud, which the carriage wheels levelled as they passed over them. they caught up the shooting party shortly before lunch, and, as it was cold, edith and dodo got out, leaving miss grantham, who preferred being cold to walking under any circumstances, to gather up the extra rugs round her. "see that there's a good fire, grantie," called dodo after her, "and tell them to have the champagne opened." the sight of abundant game was too much for edith, and, as lord chesterford fell out of line to join dodo, she asked him if she might have a couple of shots. the keeper's face expressed some reasonable surprise when he observed edith snapping the cartridges into her gun with a practised hand. his previous views with regard to women in connection with guns were based upon the idea that most women screamed, when they saw a gun, and considered it a purely unaccountable weapon, which might go off without the least encouragement or warning, and devastate the country for miles round. he was still more surprised when he saw her pick off a couple of pheasants with precision and deadliness of aim. she gave her gun back to lord chesterford as they neared the lodge, and volunteered to join them after lunch for an hour, if they didn't mind. chesterford stole an appealing glance, at dodo, who, however, only gave him a half-amused, half-pitying look, and nodded assent. "the worst of it is," said edith, "i care for such lots of things. there's my music, and then there's any sort of game--have you ever seen me play tennis?--and there isn't time for everything. i am a musician, and a good shot, and an excellent rider, and a woman, and heaps of other things. it isn't conceit when i say so--i simply know it." dodo laughed. "well, you know, edith, you're not modest. your worst enemies don't accuse you of that. i don't mean to say that i am, for that matter. did you ever play, the game of marking people for beauty, and modesty, and cleverness, and so on? we played it here the night before you came, and you didn't get a single mark from anybody for modesty. i only got eleven, and five of those were from chesterford, and six from myself. but i don't believe your husband will ever give you five. you see, bertie didn't give you any, if you're thinking of marrying him." "oh, i'm not going to marry anybody," said edith. "you know i get frightfully attached to someone about three times a week, and after that never think of any of them again. it isn't that i get tired of them, but somebody else turns up, and i want to know him too. there are usually several good points about everyone, and they show those to new acquaintances first; after that, you find something in them you don't like, so the best thing is to try somebody else." "oh, that depends on the people," said dodo, meditatively. "some people wear well, you know, and those improve on acquaintance. now i don't. the first time a man sees me, he usually thinks i'm charming, and sympathetic, and lively. well, so i am, to do myself justice. that remains all through. but it turns out that i've got a bad temper, that i smoke and swear, and only amuse myself. then they begin to think they rated me too high at first, and if they happen to be people who wear well themselves, it is just then that you begin to like them, which is annoying. so one goes on, disgusting the people one wants to like, and pleasing people whom one doesn't like at all. it's fate, i suppose." dodo plucked a piece of dead bracken, and pulled it to bits with a somewhat serious air. "you oughtn't to complain, dodo," said edith. "you're married to a man who, i am sure, wears well, as you call it, though it's a dreadfully coarse expression, and he doesn't seem to get tired of you. i always wonder if it's really worth while trotting oneself out or analysing one's nature in this way. i don't think it is. it makes one feel small and stupid." "ah, but it's better to do it yourself, than to feel that other people think you small and stupid," said dodo. "that's disagreeable, if you like. wait till mrs. vivian comes, and she'll do it for you. she's the only person who makes me feel really cheap--about three-halfpence a dozen, including the box." "oh, but she won't make me feel small," said edith coolly, "because i'm not small really. it's only myself that makes me feel small." "i don't think i should call you morbidly modest," said dodo. "but here's the keeper's cottage. i'm awfully hungry. i hope they've brought some _pâté,_ don't you like _pâté_? of course one's very sorry for the poor, diseased goose with a bad inside, but there are so many other things to think about besides diseased geese, that it doesn't signify much. come on, chesterford, they can count the dead things afterwards. grantie's waiting. jack, pick up that pheasant by you. have you shot well? look at the sun through those fir-trees--isn't it lovely? edith, why aren't we two nice, little simple painters who could sit down, and be happy to paint that, instead of turning ourselves inside out? but, after all, you know, one is much more interesting than anybody or anything else, at least i am. aren't you? what a blessing it is one didn't happen to be born a fool!" dodo was sitting alone late in the afternoon. the shooting-party had come back, and dispersed to their rooms to wash and dress. "you all look remarkably dirty and funny," dodo had said when they came in, "and you had better have tea sent up to you. does shooting bring on the inspiration, edith? take a bath." edith had gone up to her room, after insisting on having two of dodo's bottles of eau-de-cologne in her hot bath. "there is nothing so refreshing," she said, "and you come out feeling like a goddess." certainly edith looked anything but a goddess just now. her hat was pushed rakishly on to the side of her head, there was a suggestion of missing hair-pins about her hair; she wafted with her about the room a fine odour of tobacco and gunpowder; she had burned her dress with a fusee head that had fallen off; her boots were large and unlaced, and curiously dirty, and her hands were black with smoke and oil, and had a sort of trimming in the way of small feathers and little patches of blood. decidedly, if she came out feeling or looking like a goddess, the prescription ought to want no more convincing testimonial. but she insisted she had never enjoyed herself so much, she talked, and screamed, and laughed as if nothing serious had occurred since breakfast. as dodo sat in the drawing-room, opening a few letters and skipping all except the shortest paragraphs in the _times_, she heard the noise of wheels outside, and hurried into the hall to meet mrs. vivian. somehow she looked forward to mrs. vivian's coming with a good deal of pleasure and interest. she was aware that another strain in the house might be advisable. bertie and jack, and miss grantham and edith, were all somewhat on the same lines. personally, she very much preferred those lines; and it was chiefly for her husband's sake that she wanted the new arrival. lord chesterford had done his duty nobly, but dodo's observant eye saw how great an effort it was to him; at lunch he had been silent, at tea even more so. dodo acknowledged that edith had relieved the party from any sense of the necessity of supporting conversation, but it was obvious to her that chesterford was hopelessly out of his element, and she felt a keen desire to please him. she had sat by him after lunch, as they smoked and talked, before resuming the shooting, and dodo had patted his hand and called him a "dear old darling" when nobody happened to be listening, but she had a distinct sense of effort all day in attending to him, and enjoying the company of the others as much as she wished. there was certainly a want of balance in the party, and mrs. vivian's weight would tend to keep things even. dodo had even aroused herself to a spasmodic interest in the new curate, but lord chesterford had exhibited such unmistakable surprise at this new departure, that she at once fell back on the easier and simpler expedient of blowing smoke rings at him, and drinking out of the same glass by mistake. mrs. vivian was extremely gracious, and apparently very much pleased to see dodo. she kissed her on both cheeks, and shook both her hands, and said what a pleasant drive she had had with dear maud, and she hoped lord chesterford was as well and happy as dodo appeared to be, and they both deserved to be. "and you must have a great talk with me, dodo," she said, "and tell me all about your honeymoon." dodo was pleased and rather flattered. apparently mrs. vivian had left off thinking she was very small. anyhow, it was a good thing to have her. lord chesterford would be pleased to see her, and he was building some charming almshouses for old women, who appeared to dodo to be supremely uninteresting and very ugly. dodo had a deep-rooted dislike for ugly things, unless they amused her very much. she could not bear babies. babies had no profiles, which seemed to her a very lamentable deficiency, and they were not nearly so nice to play with as kittens, and they always howled, unless they were eating or sleeping. but mrs. vivian seemed to revel in ugly things. she was always talking to drunken cabmen, or workhouse people, or dirty little boys who played in the gutter. dodo's cometic interest in the east end had been entirely due to her. that lady had a masterly and efficient way of managing, that won dodo's immediate admiration, and had overcome for the moment her distaste for the necessary ugliness. anything masterly always found a sympathetic audience in dodo. success was of such paramount importance in her eyes, that even a successful organiser of days in the country for match-girls was to be admired, and even copied, provided the other circumstances of success were not too expensive. mrs. vivian was a complete and immediate success on this occasion. dodo made a quantity of mental notes on the best way to behave, when you have the misfortune to become middle-aged and rather plain. everyone who already knew her seemed to consider her arrival as the last drop in their cup of happiness. lord chesterford, on entering the room, had said, "my dear mrs. vivian, this is too delightful of you. we are all charmed to see you," and he had sat down by her, and quite seemed to forget that dodo was sitting on the other side of the fire. jack also had, so to speak, flown into her arms. dodo immediately resolved to make a friend of her; a person who could be as popular among the aristocracy as she was among cabmen was distinctly a person to cultivate. she decidedly wanted the receipt. "it is so good of you, dodo, to ask me like this," said mrs. vivian, when dodo went and sat by her. "it always seems to me a great compliment to ask people quietly to your house when only a few friends are there. if you have a great houseful of people, it does not matter much whom you ask, but i mean to take this as a sign that you consider me an old friend." dodo was always quick at seeing what was required of her. "of course i do," she answered. "who are my old friends if you are not?" "that is so nice of you," said mrs. vivian. "i want to have a long talk with you, and learn all about you. i am going to stay with your mother next week, and she will never forgive me unless i give a full and satisfactory account of you. satisfactory it cannot help being." she looked across to lord chesterford, who was talking to miss grantham, and laughing politely at her apostolic jokes. "oh, dodo, you ought to be very happy!" dodo felt that this was rather like the ten minutes before dinner. she had a vague idea of telling chesterford to sound the gong, but she was skilled at glances with meaning, and she resorted to this method. "lord chesterford tells me you have miss staines with you," continued mrs. vivian. "i am so anxious to meet her. she has a wonderful gift for music, i hear." at this moment the sound of hurrying feet was heard in the hall. the drawing-room door flew open and edith entered. dodo laughed inwardly and hopelessly. edith began to talk at the top of her voice, before, she was fairly inside the room. "dodo, dodo," she screamed, "we must settle about the service at once. i have heard from herr truffen, and he, will be here by twelve; and we must have everything ready, and we'd better do my mass in g flat; on the whole it's the easiest. i suppose you couldn't hire four or five french horns in the village. if you could, we might do the one in a; but we must have them for the gloria. we must have a practice to-night. have you got any musical footmen or housemaids?" "mrs. vivian, miss edith staines," remarked dodo sweetly. there was a moment's silence, and then dodo broke down. "oh, edith, you are a good chap; isn't she, mrs. vivian? mrs. vivian was just talking about you, and you came in so opportunely that, until you began talking about masses, i really thought you must be the other thing. oh, chesterford, i haven't told you. we're going to have a delicious little service in the drawing-room to-morrow morning, and we are going to sing a mass. grantie can't possibly go to church in this weather, and jack and bertie are not as good about it as they might be, so you see it would be really removing the temptation of not going to church if we have church here, and can you sing, mrs. vivian? will you come, chesterford? you might go to church first, and then come in here afterwards; that will be two services. how dreadfully unbearably conceited you will be all the afternoon. you might read the second lesson for us; no, i think i shall read both. yes, edith, i'll come in a few minutes. i don't know of any musical footmen. you might have them up one by one and make them sing scales, and jack can try the housemaids' voices. i'm awfully glad herr truffen is coming. he's a tremendous german swell, mrs. vivian, and conducts at the crystal palace, and st. james's, and st. paul's and everywhere." "that will be charming," said mrs. vivian. "i shall certainly avail myself of it, dodo, if i may, only i think i shall go to church first with lord chesterford. he has promised to show me all his schemes for the village. i think maud means to go too. but if you will let me, i will go to my room, and write a few letters, and then you will be free to practise. it will be a great pleasure to hear your mass, miss staines; i am very fortunate in coming just in time." "really, dodo," said edith, "you ought to cultivate the musical talents of your establishment. last winter i was in the pyrenees, and there was only an old sexton, who was also a charcoal burner, and my maid, and charlie and his valet and his wife, but we had magnificent music, and a midnight service on new year's eve. charlie took tenor, and sybil treble, and i alto, and the sexton bass. you have no idea of the trouble it was to get the sexton to learn his part. i had to hunt him up in those little brutal sheds, and thrust the book into his hand, and forbid him to eat chestnuts, and force him to drink porter and spanish liquorice. come on; let's begin." the practice went off satisfactorily, and edith expressed herself as pleased. she and dodo then had a talk to arrange what dodo called the "play-bill." dodo had arranged to read the lessons, and wished to make a small selection of prayers, but there edith put her foot down. "no, dodo," she said, "you're taking a wrong idea of it. i don't believe you're serious. now i am. i want to do this mass because i believe we can do it well, but i haven't the least confidence in your reading prayers well, or caring at all about them. i am rather in doubt about the lessons, but i suppose we can have those." it was distinctly news to dodo that edith was serious. for herself she had only wished to have a nice little amusement for sunday morning, which, in dodo's experience, was rather a tiresome time if you stopped at home, but on the whole preferable there than at a country church. but edith was really in earnest whatever she did, whether it was shooting, or music, or playing lawn-tennis. frivolity, was the one charge she could not brook for a moment. her amusements might, indeed, be frivolous, but she did them with all her heart. so the service was arranged to consist of a lesson, a mass, and another lesson. the choice of lessons was left to dodo. accordingly, next morning lord chesterford and mrs. vivian drove off with maud to eleven o'clock church, leaving the others still at breakfast. after that meal was over dodo announced she was going to get the drawing-room ready. "we must move all the sofas out of the room, because they don't look religious," she said; "and i shall cover up the picture of venus and adonis. i have got the sweetest little praying-table upstairs, and a skull. do you think we'd better have the skull, edith? i think it makes one feel sunday-like. i shall put the praying-table in the window, and shall read the lessons from there. perhaps the skull might frighten old truffler. i have found two dreadfully nice lessons. i quite forgot the bible was such a good book. i think i shall go on with it. one of them is about the bones in ezekiel, which were very dry--you know it--and the other is out of the revelation. i think----" "dodo," broke in edith, "i don't believe you're a bit serious. you think it will be rather amusing, and that's all. if you're not serious i sha'n't come." "dear edith," said dodo demurely, "i'm perfectly serious. i want it all to be just as nice as it can be. do you think i should take all the trouble with the praying-table and so on, if i wasn't?" "you want to make it dramatic," said edith decidedly. "now, i mean to be religious. you are rather too dramatic at times, you know, and this isn't an occasion for it. you can be dramatic afterwards, if you like. herr truffen is awfully religious. i used to go with him to roman catholic services, and once to confession. i nearly became a roman catholic." "oh, i should like to be a nice little nun," said dodo; "those black and white dresses are awfully becoming, with a dear trotty rosary, you know, on one side, and a twisty cord round one's waist, and an alms-box. but i must go and arrange the drawing-room. tell me when your conductor comes. i hope he isn't awfully german. would he like some beer first? i think the piano is in tune. i suppose he'll play, won't he? make him play a voluntary, when we come in. i'm afraid we can't have a procession though. that's a pity. oh, i'm sorry, edith. i'm really going to be quite serious. i think it will be charming." dodo completed her arrangements in good time, and forebore to make any more frivolous allusions to the service. she was sitting in the drawing-room, regarding her preparations with a satisfied air, when herr truffen was announced. dodo greeted him in the hall as if it was the most natural thing in the world that he should be called upon to accompany edith's mass. "we're going to have service directly, if you're ready. we want you to accompany miss staines's mass in g flat, but you mustn't take the kyrie too quick, if you don't mind. bertie arbuthnot's singing tenor, and he's not very quick--are you, bertie? oh, by the way, this is bertie. his other name is mr. arbuthnot." herr truffen was most gratified by so charming an arrangement, and so great a musical treat. when edith came down she greeted him effusively. "my dear professor, this is delightful," she said. "it's quite like old times, isn't it? we're going to do the mass in g flat. i wanted the one in a, only there are no french horns in the village--isn't that benighted? and would you believe it, lady chesterford has positively got not one musical footman." herr truffen was a large, spectacled german, who made everyone else look unnecessarily undersized. he laughed and fitted his fingers together with great nicety. "are we to begin at once?" he asked. "the congregation--haf they arrived?" "oh, there's no congregation," explained dodo; "we are all performers. it is only a substitute for going to church. i hope you aren't shocked; it was such a disgusting morning." "lady chesterford is surely a congregation in herself," remarked herr truffen, with elephantine elegance. "lord chesterford is coming by-and-by," continued dodo. "he has gone to church. i don't know whether he will be in time for the mass." "then you haf all the service in a little chapel here, no doubt," said the professor. "oh, no," said dodo; "we're going to have two lessons and the mass, and there isn't a chapel, it's only in the drawing-room. i'm going to read the lessons." herr truffen bowed with undiminished composure, and dodo led the way back into the drawing-room. miss grantham and jack were introduced, and dodo took her place at the praying-table, and herr truffen at the piano. dodo gave out the lesson, and read the chapter through.. "oh, it is nice!" she exclaimed. "sha'n't i go on to the next chapter? no, i think i won't." "it would spoil the delightful impression of the very dry bones?" interrogated herr truffen from the piano. "ah, that is splendid; but you should hear it in the fatherland tongue." "now, dodo, come here," said edith. "we must go on with this. you can discuss it afterwards. on the third beat. will you give us the time, professor?" the mass had scarcely begun when lord chesterford came in, followed by mrs. vivian and maud. the professor, who evidently did not quite understand that he was merely a sort of organist, got up and shook hands all round with laboured cordiality. edith grew impatient. "come," she said, "you mustn't do that. remember you are practically in church, professor. please begin again." "ah, i forgot for the moment," remarked the professor; "this beautiful room made me not remember. come--one, two. we must begin better than that. now, please." this time the start was made in real earnest. edith's magnificent voice, and the professor's playing, would alone have been sufficient to make it effective. the four performers knew their parts well, and when it was finished, there followed that silence which is so much more appreciative than applause. then herr truffen turned to edith. "ah, how you have improved," he said. "who taught you this? it is beyond me. perhaps you prayed and fasted, and then it came to you." as edith had chiefly written the mass while smoking cigarettes after a hearty breakfast she merely said,-- "how does anything come to anyone? it is part of oneself, as much as one's arms and legs. but the service is not over yet." dodo meanwhile had gone back to the praying-table. "i can't find it," she said, in a distracted whisper. "it's a chapter in the revelation about a grey horse and a white horse." "dodo," said edith, in an awful voice. "yes, dear," said dodo. "ah, here it is." dodo read the chapter with infinite feeling in her beautiful clear, full voice. chesterford was charmed. he had not seen this side of dodo before. after she had finished, he came and sat by her side, while the others got up and began talking among themselves. "dodo," he said, "i never knew you cared about these things. what an unsympathetic brute i must seem to you. i never talked to you about such things, because i thought you did not care. will you forgive me?" "i don't think you need forgiveness much," said dodo softly. "if you only knew----" she stopped and finished her sentence by a smile. "dodo," he said again, "i've often wanted to suggest something to you, but i didn't quite like to. why don't we have family prayers here? i might build a little chapel." dodo felt a sudden inclination to laugh. her æsthetic pleasure in the chapter of revelation was gone. she felt annoyed and amused at this simple-minded man, who thought her so perfect, and ascribed such fatiguingly high interpretations to all her actions. he really was a little stupid and tiresome. he had broken up all her little pleasant thoughts. "oh, family prayers always strike me as rather ridiculous," she said, with a half yawn. "a row of gaping servants is not conducive to the emotions." she got up and joined the other groups, and then suddenly became aware that, for the first time, she had failed in her part. jack was watching her, and saw what had happened. chesterford had remained, seated at the window, pulling his long, brown moustache, with a very perceptible shade of annoyance on his face. dodo felt a sudden impulse of anger with herself at her stupidity. she went back to chesterford. "dear old boy," she said, "i don't know why i said that. i was thinking of something else. i don't know that i like family prayers very much. we used to have them at home, when my father was with us, and it really was a trial to hear him read the litany. i suppose it is that which has made me rather tired of them. come and talk to the professor." then she went across to jack. "jack," she said, in a low voice, "don't look as if you thought you were right." chapter six the same afternoon chesterford took mrs. vivian off to see "almshouses and drunkards," as dodo expressed it to jack. she also told him that edith and her herr were playing a sort of chopsticks together in the drawing-room. maud had, as usual, effaced herself, and bertie was consuming an alarming number of cigarettes in the smoking-room, and pretending to write letters. it was natural, therefore, that when jack strolled into the hall, to see what was going on, he should find dodo there with her toes on the fender of the great fireplace, having banished the collie to find other quarters for himself. dodo was making an effort to read, but she was not being very successful, and hailed jack's entrance with evident pleasure. "come along," she said; "i sent the dog off, but i can find room for you. sit here, jack." she moved her chair a little aside, and let him pass. "i can't think why a merciful providence sends us a day like this," she said. "i want to know whom it benefits to have a thick snowfall. listen at that, too," she added, as a great gust of wind swept round the corner of the house, and made a deep, roaring sound up in the heart of the chimney. "it makes it all the more creditable in chesterford and mrs. vivian to go to see the drunkards," remarked jack. "oh, but that's no credit," said dodo. "they like doing it, it gives them real pleasure. i don't see why that should be any better, morally speaking, than sitting here and talking. they are made that way, you and i are made this. we weren't consulted, and we both follow our inclinations. besides, they will have their reward, for they will have immense appetites at tea." "and will give us something to talk about now," remarked jack lazily. "don't you like grantie, jack?" asked dodo presently. "she and ledgers are talking about life and being in my room. i went to get a book from here, and the fire was so nice that i stopped." "i wish ledgers wouldn't treat her like a menagerie, and put her through her tricks," said jack. "i think she is very attractive, but she belongs too much to a class." "what class?" demanded dodo. "oh, the class that prides itself on not being of any class--the all things to all men class." "oh, i belong to that," said dodo. "no, you don't," said he. "you are all things to some men, i grant, but not to all." "oh, jack, that's a bad joke," said dodo, reprovingly. "it's quite serious all the same," said he. "i'm all things to the only man to whom it matters that i should be," said dodo complacently. jack felt rather disgusted. "i wish you would not state things in that cold-blooded way," he said. "your very frankness to me about it shows you know that it is an effort." "yes," she said, "it is an effort sometimes, but i don't think i want to talk about it. you take things too ponderously. don't be ponderous; it doesn't suit you in the least. besides, there is nothing to be ponderous about." dodo turned in her chair and looked jack full in the face. her face had a kind of triumph about it. "i want to say something more," said jack. "well, i'm magnanimous to-day," said dodo. "go on." "all you are doing," said he gravely, "is to keep up the original illusion he had about you. it is not any good keeping up an illusion, and thinking you're doing your whole duty." "jack, that's enough," said dodo, with a certain finality in her tone. "if you go on, you may make me distrust myself. i do not mean that as a compliment to your powers, but as a confession to a stupid superstitious weakness in myself. i am afraid of omens." they sat silent a minute or two, until a door at the far end of the hall opened and miss grantham came through, with her showman in tow. "lord ledgers and i were boring each other so," said miss grantham, "that we came to bore someone else. when you are boring people you may as well do it wholesale. what a pity it is that one hasn't got a tail like a dog, that cannot help wagging if the owner is pleased, and which stops wagging when he isn't." "i shall certainly buy a tail," said dodo, with grave consideration. "one or two, in case the first gets out of order. must you wag it whenever you are pleased, grantie? is it to be an honest tail? suppose you only think you are pleased, when you are not really, what does the tail do then? oh, it's very complicated." "the tail shares the same illusions as the dog," said miss grantham. "jack and i were talking about illusions," said dodo. "i'm going to get a quantity of illusions," said miss grantham. "in any case, what did you find to say about them?" "jack said it was a bad thing to keep an illusion up," said dodo, broadly. miss grantham was staring pensively at the fire. "i saw two boys sitting on a gate yesterday," she said, "and they pushed each other off, and each time they both roared with laughter. i'm sure it was an illusion that they were amused. i would go and sit on a gate with pleasure and get my maid to push me off, if i thought it would amuse either of us. mr. broxton, would you like me to push you off a gate?" "oh, i'm certain that the people with many illusions are the happiest," said dodo. "consequently, i wouldn't willingly destroy any illusion anyone held about anything." "what a lot of anys," said miss grantham. lord ledgers was leaning back in his chair with a sense of pleased proprietorship. it really was a very intelligent animal. jack almost expected him to take a small whip from his pocket and crack it at her. but his next remark, jack felt, was a good substitute; at any rate, he demanded another performance. "what about delusions, miss grantham?" he said. "oh, delusions are chiefly unpleasant illusions," she said. "madmen have delusions that somebody wants to kill them, or they want to kill somebody, or that king charles's head isn't really cut off, which would be very unsettling now." "grantie, i believe you're talking sheer, arrant nonsense," said dodo. "it's all your fault, tommy. when one is asked a question, one has to answer it somehow or other in self-defence. if you asked me about the habits of giraffes i should say something. edith is the only really honest person i know. she would tell you she hadn't any idea what a giraffe was, so would chesterford, and you would find him looking up giraffes in the _encyclopædia_ afterwards." lord ledgers laughed a low, unpleasant laugh. "a very palpable hit," he murmured. the remark was inaudible to all but jack. he felt quite unreasonably angry with him, and got up from his chair. dodo saw something had happened, and looked at him inquiringly. jack did not meet her eye, but whistled to the collie, who flopped down at his feet. "i really don't know where i should begin if i was going to turn honest," said miss grantham. "i don't think i like honest people. they are like little cottages, which children draw, with a door in the middle, and a window at each side, and a chimney in the roof with smoke coming out. long before you know them well, you are perfectly certain of all that you will find inside them. they haven't got any little surprises, or dark passages, or queer little cupboards under the stairs." "do you know the plant called honesty, grantie?" asked dodo. "it's a very bright purple, and you can see it a long way off, and it isn't at all nicer when you get close than it looks from a distance." "oh, if you speak of someone as an honest man," said miss grantham, "it implies that he's nothing particular besides. i don't mind a little mild honesty, but it should be kept in the background." "i've got a large piece of honesty somewhere about me," said jack. "i can't always lay my hand on it, but every now and then i feel it like a great lump inside me." "yes," said dodo, "i believe you are fundamentally honest, jack. i've always thought that." "does that mean that he is not honest in ordinary matters?" asked miss grantham. "i've noticed that people who are fundamentally truthful, seldom tell the truth." "in a way it does," said dodo. "but i'm sure jack would be honest in any case where it really mattered." "oh, i sha'n't steal your spoons, you know," said miss grantham. "that's only because you don't really want them," remarked dodo. "i can conceive you stealing anything you wanted." "trample on me," said miss grantham serenely. "tell us what i should steal." "oh, you'd steal lots of things," said dodo. "you'd steal anyone's self-respect if you could manage to, and you couldn't get what you wanted any other way. oh, yes, you'd steal anything important. jack wouldn't. he'd stop just short of that; he would never be really disloyal. he'd finger things to any extent, but i am pretty sure that he would drop them at the last minute." "how dreadfully unpleasant i am really," said miss grantham meditatively. "a kind of eugene aram." jack was acutely uncomfortable, but he had the satisfaction of believing that what dodo said about him was true. he had come to the same conclusion himself two nights ago. he believed that he would stop short of any act of disloyalty, but he did not care about hearing dodo give him so gratuitous a testimonial before miss grantham and the gentleman whom he mentally referred to as "that ass of a showman." the front door opened, and a blast of cold wind came blustering round into the inner hall where they were sitting, making the thick tapestry _portière_ belly and fill like a ship's sail, when the wind first catches it. the collie pricked his ears, and thumped his tail on the floor with vague welcome. mrs. vivian entered, followed by lord chesterford. he looked absurdly healthy and happy. "it's a perfectly beastly day," he said cheerfully, advancing to the fireplace. "mrs. vivian, let dodo send you some tea up to your room. you must be wet through. surely it is tea-time, dodo." "i told you so," said dodo to jack. "has jack been saying it isn't tea-time?" asked chesterford. "no," said dodo. "i only said that your virtue in going to see almshouses would find its immediate reward in an appetite for tea." mrs. vivian laughed. "you mustn't reduce our virtues to the lowest terms, as if we were two vulgar fractions." "do you suppose a vulgar fraction knows how vulgar it is?" asked miss grantham. "vulgar without being funny," said. jack, with the air of helping her out of a difficulty. "i never saw anything funny in vulgar fractions," remarked lord ledgers. "chesterford and i used to look up the answers at the end of the book, and try to make them correspond with the questions." dodo groaned. "oh, chesterford, don't tell me you're not honest either." "what do you think about honesty, mrs. vivian?" asked miss grantham. mrs. vivian considered. "honesty is much maligned by being called the best policy," she said; "it' isn't purely commercial. honesty is rather fine sometimes." "oh, i'm sure mrs. vivian's honest," murmured miss grantham. "she thinks before, she tells you her opinion. i always give my opinion first, and think about it afterwards." "i've been wanting to stick up for honesty all the afternoon," said dodo to mrs. vivian, "only i haven't dared. everyone has been saying that it is dull and obtrusive, and like labourers' cottages. i believe we are all a little honest, really. no one has got any right to call it the best policy. it makes you feel as if you were either a kind of life assurance, or else a thief." chesterford looked a trifle puzzled. dodo turned to him. "poor old man," she said, "did they call him names? never mind. we'll go and be labelled 'best policy. no others need apply.'" she got up from her chair, and pulled chesterford's moustache. "you look so abominably healthy, chesterford," she said. "how's charlie getting on? tell him if he beats his wife anymore, i shall; beat you. you wouldn't like that, you know. will you ring for tea, dear? mrs. vivian, i command you to go to your room. i had your fire lit, and i'll send tea up. you're a dripping sop." mrs. vivian pleaded guilty, and vanished. sounds of music still came from the drawing-room. "it's no use telling edith to come to tea," remarked dodo. "she said the other day that if anyone ever proposed to her, whom she cared to marry, she will feel it only fair to tell him that the utmost she can offer him, is to play second fiddle to her music." edith's music was strongly exciting, and in the pause that followed, dodo went to the door and opened it softly, and a great tangle of melody poured out and filled the hall. she was playing the last few pages of the overture to an opera that she had nearly completed. the music was gathering itself up for the finale. note after note was caught up, as it were, to join an army of triumphant melody overhead, which grew fuller and more complete every moment, and seemed to hover, waiting for some fulfilment. ah, that was it. suddenly from below crashed out a great kingly motif, strong with the strength of a man who is pure and true, rising higher and higher, till it joined the triumph overhead, and moved away, strong to the end. there was a dead silence; dodo was standing by the door, with her lips slightly parted, feeling that there was something in this world better and bigger, perhaps, than her own little hair-splittings and small emotions. with this in her mind, she looked across to where chesterford was standing. the movement was purely instinctive, and she could neither have accounted for it, nor was she conscious of it, but in her eyes there was the suggestion of unshed tears, and a look of questioning shame. though a few bars of music cannot change the nature of the weakest of us, and dodo was far from weak, she was intensely impressionable, and that moment had for her the germ of a possibility which might--who could say it could not?--have taken root in her and borne fruit. the parable of the mustard seed is as-old and as true as time. but chesterford was not musical; he had taken a magazine from the table, and was reading about grouse disease. chapter seven dodo was sitting in a remarkably easy-chair in her own particular room at the house in eaton square. as might have been expected, her room was somewhat unlike other rooms. it had a pale orange-coloured paper, with a dado of rather more intense shade of the same colour, an orange-coloured carpet and orange-coloured curtains. dodo had no reason to be afraid of orange colour just yet. it was a room well calculated to make complete idleness most easy. the tables were covered with a mass of albums, vases of flowers, and a quantity of entirely useless knick-knacks. the walls were hung with several rather clever sketches, french prints and caricatures of dodo's friends. a small bookcase displayed a quantity of flaring novels and a large tune hymn-book, and in a conspicuous corner was dodo's praying-table, on which the skull regarded its surroundings with a mirthless and possibly contemptuous grin. the mantelpiece was entirely covered with photographs, all signed by their prototypes. these had found their quarters gradually becoming too small for them, and had climbed half way up the two-sides of a louis quinze mirror, that formed a sort of overmantel. the photographs were an interesting study, and included representatives from a very wide range of classes. no one ever accused dodo of being exclusive. in the corner of the room were a heap of old cotillion toys, several hunting-whips, and a small black image of the virgin, which dodo had picked up abroad. above her head a fox's mask grinned defiantly at another fox's brush opposite. on the writing table there was an inkstand made of the hoof of dodo's favourite hunter, which had joined the majority shortly after christmas, and the "dodo" symphony, which had just come out with great _éclat_ at the albert hall, leant against the wall. a banjo case and a pair of castanets, with a dainty silver monogram on them, perhaps inspired dodo when she sat down to her writing-table. dodo's hands were folded on her lap, and she was lazily regarding a photograph of herself which stood oh the mantelpiece. though the afternoon was of a warm day in the end of may, there was a small fire on the hearth which crackled pleasantly. dodo got up and looked at the photograph more closely. "i certainly look older," she thought to herself, "and yet that was only taken a year ago. i don't feel a bit older, at least i sha'n't when i get quite strong again. i wish jack could have been able to come this afternoon. i am rather tired of seeing nobody except chesterford and the baby. however, mrs. vivian will be here soon." dodo had made great friends with mrs. vivian during the last months. her sister and brother-in-law had been obliged to leave england for a month at easter, and dodo had insisted that mrs. vivian should spend it with them, and to-day was the first day that the doctor had let her come down, and she had written to jack and mrs. vivian to come and have tea with her. a tap was heard at the door, and the nurse entered, bearing the three weeks' old baby. dodo was a little disappointed; she had seen a good deal of the baby, and she particularly wanted mrs. vivian. she stood with her hands behind her back, without offering to take it. the baby regarded her with large wide eyes, and crowed at the sight of the fire. really it was rather attractive, after all. "well, lord harchester," remarked dodo, "how is your lordship to-day? did it ever enter your very pink head that you were a most important personage? really you have very little sense of your dignity. oh, you _are_ rather, nice. come here, baby." she held out her arms to take it, but his lordship apparently did not approve of this change. he opened his mouth in preparation for a decent protest. "ah, do you know, i don't like you when you howl," said dodo; "you might be an irish member instead of a piece of landed interest. oh, do stop. take him please, nurse; i've got a headache, and i don't like that noise. there, you unfilial scoundrel, you're quiet enough now." dodo nodded at the baby with the air of a slight acquaintance. "i wonder if you'll be like your father," she said; "you've got his big blue eyes. i rather wish your eyes were dark. do a baby's eyes change when he gets older? ah, here's your godmother. i am so glad to see you," she went on to mrs. vivian. "you see his lordship has come down to say how do you do." "dear dodo," said mrs. vivian, "you are looking wonderfully better. why don't they let you go out this lovely day?" "oh, i've got a cold," said dodo, "at least i'm told so. there--good-bye, my lord. you'd better take him upstairs again, nurse. i am so delighted to see you," she continued; pouring out tea. "i've been rather dull all day. don't you know how, when you particularly want to see people; they never come. edith looked in this morning, but she did nothing but whistle and drop things. i asked jack to come, but he couldn't." "ah," said mrs. vivian softly, "he has come back, has he?" "yes," said dodo, "and i wanted to see him. did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous as his going off in that way. you know he left england directly after his visit to us in january, and he's only just back. it's too absurd for jack to pretend he was ill. he swore his doctor had told him to leave england for three months. of course that's nonsense. it was very stupid of him." mrs. vivian sipped her tea reflectively without answering. "chesterford is perfectly silly about the baby," dodo went on. "he's always afraid it's going to be ill, and he goes up on tiptoe to the nursery, to see if it's all right. last night he woke me up about half-past ten, to say that he heard it cough several times, and did i think it was the whooping cough." mrs. vivian did not seem to be listening. "i heard from mr. broxton once," she said; "he wrote from moscow, and asked how you were, and three weeks ago he telegraphed, when he heard of the birth of the baby." "i don't know what's the matter with jack," said dodo, rather petulantly. "he wrote to me once, the silliest letter you ever saw, describing the kremlin, and trèves cathedral, and the falls of the rhine. the sort of letter one writes to one's great-aunt. now i'm not jack's great-aunt at all." there was another tap at the door. "that's chesterford," remarked dodo, "he always raps now, and if i don't answer he thinks i'm asleep, and then he goes away. you just see." the tap came again, and after a moment's interval the door opened. "jack!" exclaimed dodo. she got up from her chair and went quickly towards him. jack was pale, and his breath came rather short, as if he had been running. "why, dodo," he cried, "i thought i couldn't come, and then i thought i could, so i did." he broke off rather lamely, and greeted mrs. vivian. "dear old jack," said dodo, "it does me good to see you. your face is so nice and familiar, and i've wanted you awfully. jack, what do you mean by writing me such a stupid letter? especially when i'd written to you so nicely. really, i'm not your grand-mother yet, though i am a mother. have you seen the baby? it isn't particularly interesting at present, though of course it's rather nice to think that that wretched little morsel of flesh and bones is going to be one of our landed proprietors. he'll be much more important than you will ever be, jack. aren't you jealous?" dodo was conscious of quite a fresh tide of interest in her life. her intellectual faculties, she felt, had been neglected. she could not conceive why, because she had a husband and baby, she should be supposed not to care for other interests as well. chesterford was an excellent husband, with a magnificent heart; but dodo had told herself so often that he was not very clever, that she had ceased trying to take an intellectual pleasure in his society, and the baby could not be called intellectual by the fondest parent at present. there were a quantity of women who were content to pore on their baby's face for hour after hour, with no further occupation than saying "didums" occasionally. dodo had given what she considered a fair trial to this treatment, and she found it bored her to say "didums" for an indefinite period, and she did not believe it amused the baby. she had a certain pride in having given birth to the son and heir of one of the largest english properties, and she was extremely glad to have done so, and felt a certain pleased sort of proprietorship in the little pink morsel, but she certainly had experienced none of the absorbing pleasures of maternity. she had got used to not being in love with her husband, and she accepted as part of this same deficiency the absence of absorbing pleasure in the baby. not that she considered it a deficiency, it was merely another type turned out of nature's workshop. dodo laid all the blame on nature. she shrugged her shoulders and said: "you made me so without consulting me. it isn't my fault!" but dodo was aware that nature had given her a brain, and she found a very decided pleasure in the company of clever people. perhaps it was the greatest pleasure of her life to be admired and amused by clever people. of course chesterford always admired her, but he was in love with her, and he was not clever. dodo had felt some difficulty before her marriage in dealing with this perplexing unknown quantity, and she had to confess it puzzled her still. the result was, that when it occurred, she had to admit her inability to tackle it, and as soon as possible to turn to another page in this algebra of life. but she still felt that her marriage had been a great success. chesterford had entirely fulfilled what she expected of him: he was immensely rich, he let her do as she liked, he adored her. dodo quite felt that it was better that he should adore her. as long as that lasted, he would be blind to any fault of hers, and she acknowledged that, to a man of chesterford's character, she must seem far from faultless, if he contemplated her calmly. but he was quite unable to contemplate her calmly. for him she walked in a golden cloud that dazzled and entranced him. dodo was duly grateful to the golden cloud. but she felt that the element which jack, and mrs. vivian, and other friends of hers brought, had been conspicuously absent, and she welcomed its return with eagerness. "you know we haven't been leading a very intellectual life lately," dodo continued. "chesterford is divinely kind to me, but he is careful not to excite me. so he talks chiefly about the baby, and how he lost his umbrella at the club; it is very soothing, but i have got past that now. i want stimulating. sometimes i go to sleep, and then he sits as still as a mouse till i wake again. pity me, jack, i have had a dull fortnight; and that is worse than anything else. i really never remember being bored before!" dodo let her arms drop beside her with a little hopeless gesture. "i know one's got no business to be bored, and it's one's own fault as a rule if one is," she went on. "for instance, that woman in the moated grange ought to have swept away the blue fly that buzzed in the pane, and set a mouse-trap for the mouse that shrieked, and got the carpenter to repair the mouldering wainscot, and written to the psychical research, how she had heard her own sad name in corners cried, and it couldn't have been the cat, or she would have caught the shrieking mouse. oh, there were a hundred things she might have done, before she sat down and said, 'he cometh not,' but i have had a period of enforced idleness. if i had set a trap for the mouse, the doctor would have told me not to exert myself so much.' i used to play halma with chesterford, only i always beat him; and then nobody ever cried my name in sad corners, that i remember; it would have been quite interesting." jack laughed. "what a miserable story, dodo," he said. "i always said--you had none of the domestic virtues, and i am right, it seems." "oh, it isn't that," said dodo, "but i happen to have a brain as well, and if i don't use it, it decays, and when it decays, it breeds maggots. i've got a big maggot in my head now, and that is, that the ineffable joys of maternity are much exaggerated. don't look shocked, geraldine. i know it's a maggot, and simply means that i haven't personally experienced them, but the maggot says, 'you are a woman, and if you don't experience them, either they don't exist, or you are abnormal.' well, the maggot lies, i know it, i believe they do exist, and i am sure i am not abnormal. ah, this is unprofitable, isn't it. you two have come to drive the maggot out." mrs. vivian felt a sudden impulse of anger, which melted into pity. "poor dodo," she said, "leave the maggot alone, and he will die of inanition. at present give me some more tea. this really is very good tea, and you drink it the proper way, without milk or sugar, and with a little slice of lemon." "tea is such a middle-aged thing any other way," said dodo, pouring out another cup. "i feel like an old woman in a workhouse if i put milk and sugar in it. besides, you should only drink tea at tea. it produces the same effect as tobacco, a slight soothing of the nerves. one doesn't want to be soothed at breakfast, otherwise the tedious things we all have to do in the morning are impossible. chesterford has a passion for the morning. he quoted something the other day about the divine morning. it isn't divine, it is necessary; at least you can't get to the evening without a morning, in this imperfect world. now if it had only been 'the evening and the evening were the first day,' what a difference it would have made." mrs. vivian laughed. "you always bring up the heavy artillery to defend a small position, dodo," she said. "keep your great guns for great occasions." "oh, i always use big guns," said jack. "they do the work quicker. besides, you never can tell that the small position is not the key to the large. the baby, for instance, that dodo thinks very extremely insignificant now, may be horribly important in twenty years." "yes, i daresay chesterford and i will quarrel about him," said dodo. "supposing he falls in love with a curate's daughter, chesterford will say something about love in a cottage, and i shall want him to marry a duke's daughter, and i shall get my way, and everybody concerned will be extremely glad afterwards." "poor baby," said mrs. vivian, "you little think what a worldly mother you have." "oh, i know i am worldly," said dodo. "i don't deny it for a moment. jack and i had it out before my marriage. but i believe i am capable of an unworldly action now and then. why, i should wish maud to marry a curate very much. she would do her part admirably, and no one could say it was a worldly fate. but i like giving everybody their chance. that is why i have maud to stay with me, and let her get a good look at idle worldly people like jack. after a girl has seen every sort, i wish her to choose, and i am unworldly enough to applaud her choice, if it is unworldly; only i shouldn't do it myself. i have no ideal; it was left out." jack was conscious of a keen resentment at dodo's words. he had accepted her decision, but he didn't like to have it flaunted before him in dodo's light voice and careless words. he made an uneasy movement in his chair. dodo saw it. "ah, jack, i have offended you," she said; "it was stupid of me. but i have been so silent and lonely all these days, that it is such a relief to let my tongue wag at all, whatever it says. ah, here's chesterford. what an age you have been! here am i consoling myself as best i can. isn't it nice to have jack again?" chesterford saw the fresh light in her eyes, and the fresh vivaciousness in her speech, and he was so unfeignedly glad to see her more herself again, that no thought of jealousy entered his heart. he thought without bitterness, "how glad she must be to have her friends about her again! she looks better already. decidedly i am a stupid old fellow, but i think dodo loves me a little." he shook hands with jack, and beamed delightedly on dodo. "jack, it is good of you to come so soon," he said; "dodo has missed you dreadfully. have you seen the boy? dodo, may i have him down?" "oh, he's been down," said she, "and has only just gone up again. he's rather fractious to-day. i daresay it's teeth. it's nothing to bother about; he's as well as possible." lord chesterford looked disappointed, but ac-quiesced. "i should like jack to see him all the same," he remarked. "may he come up to the nursery?" "oh, jack doesn't care about babies," said dodo, "even when they belong to you and me. do you, jack? i assure you it won't amuse you a bit." "i can't go away without seeing the baby," said jack, "so i think i'll go with chesterford, and then i must be off. good-bye, dodo. get well quickly. may i come and see you to-morrow?" "i wish chesterford wouldn't take jack off in that way," said dodo rather querulously, as they left the room. "jack came to see me, and i wanted to talk more to him--i'm very fond of jack. if he wasn't so fearfully lazy, he'd make no end of a splash. but he prefers talking to his friends to talking to a lot of irish members. i wonder why he came after he said he wouldn't. jack usually has good reasons." dodo lay back in her chair and reflected. "you really are the most unnatural mother," said mrs. vivian, with a laugh. "i am glad mr. broxton went with your husband, or he would have been disappointed, i think." dodo looked a little anxious. "he wasn't vexed, was he?" she asked. "i hate vexing people, especially chesterford. but he really is ridiculous about the baby. it is absurd to suppose it is interesting yet." "i don't suppose he would call it interesting," said mrs. vivian. "but you know there are other things beside that." dodo grew a trifle impatient. "ah, that's a twice-told tale," she said. "i consider i have done my duty admirably, but just now i confess i am pining for a little amusement. i have been awfully dull. you know one can't exist on pure love." mrs. vivian rose to go. "well, i must be off," she said. "good-night, dodo; and remember this, if ever anything occurs on which you want advice or counsel, come to me for it. you know i have been through all this; and--and remember lord chesterford loves you very deeply." dodo looked up inquiringly. "yes, of course, i know that," she said, "and we get on magnificently together. in any case i should always ask you for advice. you know i used to be rather afraid of you." mrs. vivian stood looking out of the window. her eyes suddenly filled with tears. "ah, my dear, don't be afraid of me," she said. dodo wondered, when she had gone, what made her so suddenly grave. her own horizon was singularly free from clouds. she had been through an experience which she had looked forward to with something like dread. but that was over; she and the baby were both alive and well. chesterford was more devoted than ever, and she?--well, she was thoroughly satisfied. and jack had come back, and all was going delightfully. "they all talk about love as if it were something very dreadful," she thought. "i'm sure it isn't dreadful at all. it is rather a bore sometimes; at least one can have enough of it, but that is a fault on the right side." the door opened softly, and chesterford came in. "i am glad to find you alone, darling," he said, "i haven't seen you all day. you are looking much better. get jack to come and see you again as soon as he can." dodo smiled benignantly on him. "the baby really is wonderful," he continued. "it was sitting up with its bottle just now, and i really believe it winked at me when it saw me. do you think it knows me?" "oh, i daresay it does," said dodo; "it sees enough of you anyhow." "isn't it all wonderful," he went on, not noticing her tone. "just fancy. sometimes i wonder whether it's all real." "it's real enough when it cries," said dodo. "but it is rather charming, i do think." "it's got such queer little fists," said he, "with nice pink nails." dodo laughed rather wearily. "are you a little tired, darling?" he said. "won't you go to bed? you know you've been up quite a long time. perhaps you'd like to see the baby before you go." "oh, i said good-night to the baby," said dodo. "i think i will go to bed. i wish you'd send wilkins here." he bent over her and kissed her forehead softly. "ah, my darling, my darling," he whispered. dodo lay with half-shut eyes. "good-night, dear," she said languidly. chapter eight the questions about which a man is apt to, say that he alone can judge, are usually exactly those questions in which his judgment is most likely to be at fault, for they concern him very intimately--a truth which he expresses by saying that he alone can judge about them, and for that very reason his emotions are apt to colour what he considers his sober decision. jack was exactly in this position when he left the chesterfords' door that afternoon. it was only six o'clock when he went away, and he wished to be alone, and to think about it. but the house seemed stuffy and unsuggestive, and he ordered a horse, and sat fuming and frowning till it came round. it fidgeted and edged away from the pavement when he tried to mount it, and he said, "get out, you brute," with remarkable emphasis, and asked the groom whether he hadn't yet learned to hold a horse quiet. this was sufficient to show that he was in a perturbed frame of mind. the row was rather empty, for a great race meeting was going on, and jack cantered quickly up to the end, and cursed his stupidity for not having gone to sandown. then he put his horse to a quiet pace, and determined to think the matter out. he had left the chesterfords in january with a full realisation of his position. he was in love with dodo, perhaps more deeply than ever, and dodo was hopelessly, irrevocably out of his reach. the only thing left to be done was to get over it; but his ordinary circle and its leisurely duties were quite impossible just at present, and he adopted the traditional english method of travelling, and shooting unoffending animals. whether the absence of faith was responsible, is an open question; at any rate, the remedy did not result in a cure. he was intensely bored with foreign countries; they were quite as distasteful as england, and, on the whole, had less to offer. and he came back to london again as suddenly as he had left it. he only remembered one incident in his four months abroad which gave him any pleasure; that was when he received a letter from dodo at berlin, which said nothing particular, and wound up with a little mild chaff on the absurdity of his going abroad at all. "i hope you are really better," wrote dodo, "though i didn't know that you were in any immediate danger of breaking down when you left us. anyhow, come back. london is particularly wholesome, and, to tell you the truth, it's just a wee bit dull. don't be conceited." of course he came back; it was no good remaining abroad, and yawning in front of the sistine madonna, who, in her impossible serene mildness, had no message whatever for him. he wanted to see dodo; why on earth shouldn't he? she was the only thing he really cared about, and she was quite out of his reach. where was the harm? for two days after his arrival in london he was still undecided, and made no effort to see her, and on the third day her note came. london was as bad as dresden, and again, where was the harm? he wrote a note saying he would come, then he tore that up and sent a refusal, offering no excuse; and after all, he had gone, and parted from her with the words that he would come again the next day. but ah, how sweet it was to see her again! such were the facts upon which jack wished to form a conclusion. all this indecision was really too annoying. what was the use of a conscience that took the sugar out of your tea, and yet could not prevent you from drinking it? it was not strong enough to prevent him going to see dodo, and it took the malicious line of making the visit as little enjoyable as possible. well, it must be settled one way or the other. the problem obviously depended on one question. did his desire for dodo grow stronger with seeing her? he decided that it did not make much difference to the quality or degree of his longing, but, on the other hand, her society gave him an inestimable pleasure. when she had refused him a year ago, he had gone on seeing her day after day, without the horrible, unsatisfied emptiness he had felt abroad. that absorbing craving for her, he remembered, began when she was on her wedding tour. then why not see her freely and frequently? no harm could possibly come out of it. dodo, he thought, cared for him only as she cared for a dozen other friends, why should he, then, who cared so deeply for her, cut himself off from her? again his deep-rooted affection and respect for her husband was an immense safeguard. quixotism was a doubtful virtue at the best, and decidedly out of date, and besides, what would dodo think if she suddenly found that one of her best friends invariably declined to meet her under any circumstances? she would certainly guess the reason, and if there was one possible solution of this stupid problem more undesirable than another, it was that. and jack made up his mind. well, that was settled, and here was bertie riding down upon him. he felt as if he wished to record a deliberate and sober conclusion. they joined forces and rode up together. then jack said suddenly,-- "bertie, i have been making a fool of myself, but i am better now." "that's good," said bertie placidly. there was something indefinably soothing about bertie's manner. jack determined to be more explicit. it is often a relief to tell a friend one's own resolutions, especially if one does not expect unseasonable objections. "it's about dodo," he said. "you see i'm dreadfully in love with her. awkward, isn't it?" "devilish," said bertie, without a shade of emotion passing over his face. "and the less i see of her," said jack, "the worse i get, so i've determined that the more i see of her in the ordinary way, the better. it sounds an unusual treatment, i know, but you must acknowledge i gave the other method a fair chance. i went and killed pigs in austria, and climbed the matterhorn, but it wouldn't do." they rode on a little time in silence. then bertie said,-- "do you want my advice?" "well, yes," said jack rather dubiously. "then i'm dashed if i like it, jack," he said. "it's too dangerous. just think----" but jack broke in,-- "don't you see my friendship for chesterford is an absolute safeguard. dodo gives me more pleasure than anyone i know, and when i can't see her, life becomes unbearable. chesterford is one of those men to whom one couldn't do a mean thing, and, furthermore, dodo doesn't love me. if those two facts don't ensure safety, i don't know what would. besides, bertie, i'm not a rascal." "i can't like it," said bertie. "if one has a propensity for falling into the fire, it's as well to keep off the hearthrug. i know you're not a rascal, but this is a thing one can't argue about. it is a matter of feeling." "i know," said jack, "i've felt it too. but i think it's outweighed by other considerations. if i thought any mischief could come of it, i should deserve to be horse-whipped." "i don't like it," repeated bertie stolidly. jack went to see dodo the next afternoon, and for many afternoons during the next fortnight he might have been seen on chesterford's doorstep, either coming or going. her husband seemed almost as glad as dodo that jack should come often. his visits were obviously very pleasant to her, and she had begun to talk nonsense again as fluently as ever. with jack, however, she had some rather serious talks; his future appeared to be exercising her mind somewhat. jack's life at this time was absolutely aimless. before he had gone abroad he had been at the bar, and had been called, but his chambers now knew him no more. he had no home duties, being, as dodo expressed it, "a poor little orphan of six foot two," and he had enough money for an idle bachelor life. dodo took a very real interest in the career of her friends. it was part of her completeness, as i have said before, to be the centre of a set of successful people. jack could do very well, she felt, in the purely ornamental line, and she by no means wished to debar him from the ornamental profession, but yet she was vaguely dissatisfied. she induced him one day to state in full, exactly the ideas he had about his own future. "you dangle very well indeed," she said to him, "and i'm far from wishing you not to dangle, but, if it's to be your profession, you must do it more systematically. lady wrayston was here yesterday, and she said no one ever saw you now. that's lazy; you're neglecting your work." jack was silent a few minutes. the truth of the matter was that he was becoming so preoccupied with dodo, that he was acquiring a real distaste for other society. his days seemed to have dwindled down to an hour or two hours each, according to the time he passed with dodo. the interval between his leaving the house one day and returning to it the next, had got to be merely a tedious period of waiting, which he would gladly have dispensed with. in such intervals society appeared to him not a distraction, but a laborious substitute for inaction, and labour at any time was not congenial to him. his life, in fact, was a series of conscious pulses with long-drawn pauses in between. he was dimly aware that this sort of thing could not go on for ever. the machine would stop, or get quicker or slower, and there were endless complications imminent in either case. "i don't know that i really care for dangling," said jack discontentedly. "at the same time it is the least objectionable form of amusement." "well, you can't dangle for ever in any case," said dodo. "you ought to marry and settle down. chesterford is a sort of apotheosis of a dangler. by performing, with scrupulous care, a quantity of little things that don't matter much, like being j.p., and handing the offertory plate, he is in a way quite a busy man, to himself at least, though nothing would happen if he ceased doing any or all of these things; and the dangler, who thinks himself busy, is the happiest of men, because he gets all the advantages of dangling, and none of the disadvantages, and his conscience--have you got a conscience, jack?--so far from pricking him, tells him he's doing the whole duty of man. then again he's married--to me, too. that's a profession in itself." "ah, but i can't be married to you too," remarked jack. "you're absurd," said dodo; "but really, jack, i wish you'd marry someone else. i sha'n't think you unfaithful." "i don't flatter myself that you would," said jack, with a touch of irritation. dodo looked up rather surprised at the hard ring in his voice. she thought it wiser to ignore this last remark. "i never can quite make out whether you are ambitious or not," she said. "now and then you make me feel as if you would rather like to go and live in a small cathedral town----" "and shock the canons?" suggested jack. "not necessarily; but cultivate sheer domesticity. you're very domestic in a way. bertie would do admirably in a cathedral town. he'd be dreadfully happy among dull people. they would all think him so brilliant and charming, and the bishop would ask him over to dine at the palace whenever anyone came down from london." "i'm not ambitious in the way of wanting to score small successes," said jack. "anyone can score them. i don't mind flying at high game and missing. if you miss of course you have to load again, but i'd sooner do that than make a bag of rabbits. besides, you can get your rabbits sitting, as you go after your high game. but i don't want rabbits." "what is your high game?" asked dodo. jack considered. "it's this," he said. "you may attain it, or at any rate strive after it, by doing nothing, or working like a horse. but, anyhow, it's being in the midst of things, it's seeing the wheels go round, and forming conclusions as to why they go round, it's hearing the world go rushing by like a river in flood, it's knowing what everyone thinks about, it's guessing why one woman falls in love with one man, and why another man falls in love with her. you don't get that in cathedral towns. the archdeacon's daughter falls in love with the dean's son, and nobody else is at all in love with either of them. the world doesn't rattle in cathedral towns, they take care to oil it; the world doesn't come down in flood in cathedral towns, there is nothing so badly regulated as that. i don't know why i should choose cathedral towns particularly to say these things about. i think you suggested that i should live in one. if you like you can plunge into the river in flood and go down with it--that's what they call having a profession--but it's just as instructive to stand on the bank and watch it; more instructive, perhaps, because you needn't swim, and can give your whole attention to it. on the whole, that is what i mean to do." "that's good, jack," said dodo; "but you're not consistent. the fact that you haven't been going out lately, shows that you're standing with your back to it, with your hands in your pocket. after all, what you say only conies to this, that you are interested in the problem of human life. well, there's just as much human life in your cathedral town." "ah, but there's no go about it," said he. "it's no more like life than a duck pond is to the river in flood." "oh, you're wrong there," said dodo. "it goes on just the same, though it doesn't make such a fuss. but in any case you are standing with your back to it now, as i said." "i'm going into details, just at present," said jack. "how do you mean?" "i'm watching a little bit of it." "i suppose you mean chesterford and me. do you find us very interesting?" demanded dodo. "very." jack was rather uncomfortable. he wanted to say more, and wished he hadn't said so much. he wondered how dodo would take it. dodo did not take it at all. she was, for the time at any rate, much more interested in jack's prospects as they concerned him, than as they bore on herself. "what is the upshot of all your observations?" she asked. jack hardly knew whether to feel relieved or slighted. was dodo's apparent unconsciousness of the tenor of what he had said genuine or affected? on that he felt a great deal depended. but whether it was genuine or not, the matter was closed for the present. dodo repeated her question. "my observations on you, or on the world in general?" he asked. "either will do," said dodo; "we're very normal. any conclusion you have formed about the rest of the world will apply to us." "my conclusion is that you are not quite normal," said he. dodo laughed. "oh, i'm dreadfully normal," she said; "all my inconsistencies lie on the surface--i'm married, i've got a baby, i'm honest, i'm lazy. i'm all i should and shouldn't be. and chesterford----" "oh, then chesterford's normal too," said jack. chapter nine june was drawing to a close in a week of magnificent weather. it was too hot to do much during the middle of the day, and the park was full of riders every morning from eight till ten. dodo' was frequently to be seen there, usually riding a vicious black mare, that plunged and shied more than lord chesterford quite liked. but dodo insisted on riding it. "the risks one runs every moment of one's life," she told him, "are so many, that one or two more really don't matter. besides, i can manage the brute." on this particular morning dodo descended the stairs feeling unusually happy. the period of enforced idleness was over, and she was making up for lost time with a vengeance. they had given a dance the night before, and dodo had not gone to bed till after four; but for all that she was down again at half-past eight, and her mare was waiting for her. she turned into the dining-room to have a cup of tea before starting, and waited somewhat impatiently for lord chesterford to join her. he came in, in the course of a few minutes, looking rather worried. "you look as if you had not gone to bed for a week," said dodo, "and your hair is dreadfully untidy. look at me now. here i am a weak little woman, and i feel fit to move mountains, and you look as if you wanted quinine and iron. don't come, if you'd rather not. stop at home and play with the baby." "i'm all right," said he, "but i'm rather worried about the boy. the nurse says he's not been sleeping much all night, but kept waking and crying, and he looks rather flushed. i think i'll send for the doctor." dodo felt a little impatient. "he's as right as possible," she said. "you shouldn't worry so, chesterford. you've wanted to send for the doctor a hundred times in the last month, either for him or me. but don't come if you'd rather not. vivy is coming to breakfast at half-past nine; i quite forgot that. if you feel inclined to stop, you might give her breakfast, and i'll lengthen my ride. i shall be back at half-past ten. she's going to take me to see wainwright's new turner." "are you sure you don't mind, dodo?" said he, still wavering. "if you don't, i really think i will stop, and perhaps see the doctor about him. the nurse says she would like to have the doctor here." "just as you like," said dodo. "you'll have to pay a swinging bill anyhow. good-bye, old boy. don't worry your silly old head. i'm sure it's all right." dodo went off perfectly at ease in her mind. chesterford was rather fussy, she thought, and she congratulated herself on not being nervous. "a pretty pair we should make if i encouraged him in his little ways," she said to herself. "we should one of us, live in the nursery." she put her horse into a quick trot, and felt a keen enjoyment in managing the vicious animal. the streets were somewhat crowded even at this hour, and dodo had her work cut out for her. however, she reached the park in safety, and went up the row at a swinging gallop, with her horse tearing at the rein and tossing its head. after a time the brute grew quieter, and dodo joined a well-known figure who was riding some way in front of her. "good old jack," she cried, "isn't it splendid! i had no idea how i loved motion and exercise and dancing and all that till i began again. didn't you think our ball went off rather well? did you stop, to the end? oh, of course you did. that silly dowager what's-her-name was quite shocked at me, just because we had the looking-glass figure in the cotillion. it's the prettiest of the lot, i think. old major ewart gave me a pair of ivory castanets with silver mountings last night, the sweetest things in the world. i really think he is seriously gone on me, and he must be sixty if he's an hour. i think i shall appeal to chesterford for protection. what fun it would be to make chesterford talk to him gravely like a grandson. he stopped at home this morning to look after the baby. i think i shall get jealous of the nurse, and pretend that he's sweet on her, and that's why he goes to the nursery so much." jack laughed. "between you, you hit the right average pretty well," he said. "if it wasn't for chesterford, the baby would certainly have fallen downstairs half a dozen times. you don't half realise how important he is." "oh, you're entirely wrong, jack," said dodo calmly. "it's just that which i do recognise; what i don't recognise is that i should be supposed to find ineffable joys in watching it eat and sleep and howl. you know one baby is very much like another." "in other words, supposing the boy had no expectations," said jack, "and was not the heir-apparent of half staffordshire, you would find him much less interesting." "would you think me very heartless if i said 'yes'?" asked dodo. "well, i never held a very high opinion of your heart, you know," said jack, laughing, "and i don't know that i think much worse of it now." "you judge so stupidly," said dodo; "you elevate matrimony into a sacrament. now i don't. it is a contract for mutual advantage. the husband gives wealth, position and all that, and the wife gives him a housekeeper, and heirs to his property. don't frown, jack. that's my eminently common-sense view of the question. it answers excellently, as i find by experience. but, of course, there are marriages for love. i suppose most of the lower middle-class marry for love, at least they haven't got any position or wealth to marry for. but we, the disillusioned and unromantic upper classes, see beyond that. i daresay our great grandfathers married for love, but the fact that so many of us don't, shows that ours is the more advanced and probably correct view. you know all wine-tasters agree on the superiority of one wine, and the inferiority of another. that's the result of education. the amateur thinks they are all more or less alike, and very probably prefers some sweet bad kind. that's the middle-class view of love-marriages. the more i think of it, the more i feel that love is an illusion. think of all the people who marry for love, and get eternally tired of each other afterwards. they can't keep it up. the lovers grow into friends, and the friends into enemies. those are the enviable ones who remain friends; but it is better to marry as a friend than as a lover, because in the latter case there is a reaction and a disappointment, which may perhaps ruin the friendship. aren't i a wise woman, jack? i think i shall set up a general advice office." jack was, rather pale, and his fingers twitched nervously at his reins. "have you never felt that illusion?" he asked, in a low voice. "really, jack," said dodo, "you behave as if you were the inquisition. but i don't see why i shouldn't tell you. for chesterford i never have. he is the most excellent husband, and i esteem and admire him immensely. don't make your horse so fidgety, jack. as i was saying, i don't see why i shouldn't tell you, considering you proposed to me once, and confessed to the same illusion yourself. have you got over it, by the way? if i had married you, you certainly would have by this time." there was a long pause. then jack said,-- "no, dodo, i have never got over it." the moment after he had said it, he would have given his right hand to have it unsaid. dodo was silent for a moment, and jack found himself noticing the tiny, trivial things about him. he observed a fly trying to alight oh his horse's ear, but the animal flicked it off with a little jerk, before it got fairly settled. he wondered whether the fly had illusions about that ear, and whether it imagined that it would be happy for ever and ever, if it could once settle there. "you know we are saying the most frightfully unconventional things to each other," said dodo. "i am very sorry for you, jack, and i will administer consolation. when i said 'no' to you, i did it with real regret, with quite a different sort of feeling to that which i should have had if i had said 'no' to chesterford. it was quite an unreasonable feeling, i couldn't define it, but i think it must have been because----" then jack recovered his self-respect in a moment, by one of those strange contradictions in our nature, which urged him to stop his ears to what, a week before, he had been almost tempting her to say. "ah, stop, stop," he said, "you don't know what you are saying. dodo, this won't do. think of chesterford." "chesterford and the baby," said dodo softly. "i believe you are right, jack. this is unprofitable. but, jack, since we renounce that, let us still be friends. don't let this have made any difference to us. try and realise that it is all an illusion." dodo half turned towards him, with a long glance in her brown eyes, and a little smile playing about her mouth. "yes, yes," said jack, laughing nervously. "i told bertie so the other day. i have been a madman for half an hour, but that is over. shall we turn?" they wheeled their horses round, and cantered down the row. "oh, this beautiful world," exclaimed dodo. "you've no idea what it is to me to come out of the house again, and ride, and dance and sing. i really believe, jack, that i enjoy things more than anyone else i know. everything that enjoys itself appeals to me. jack, do enjoy yourself, although we settled you mustn't appeal to me. who is that girl standing there with the poodle? i think i shall get chesterford to buy me a poodle. there's a woman next her awfully like vivy, do you see, shading her eyes with her hand. it is vivy." dodo's face suddenly grew grave and frightened. she reined her horse in opposite to where mrs. vivian was standing. "quick, quick," she said, "tell me what has happened!" mrs. vivian looked up at dodo with infinite compassion in her eyes. "dodo, darling," she said, "give your horse to the groom. please help her to dismount, mr. broxton." dodo got off, and mrs. vivian led her to a seat. dodo had a sudden flash of remembrance of how she had sat here with jack a year ago. "tell me quickly," she said again. "my poor dodo," said mrs. vivian, softly stroking the back of dodo's hand. "you will be brave, won't you? it is worth while being brave. it is all over. the baby died this morning, half an hour after you had gone." dodo's first feeling was one of passionate anger and resentment. she felt she had been duped and tricked in a most unjustifiable manner. fate had led her to expect some happy days, and she had been cruelly disappointed. it was not fair; she had been released from two tedious months of inactivity, only to be caught again. it was like a cat playing with a mouse. she wanted to revenge herself on something. "oh, it is too awful," she said. "vivy, what can i do? it is cruel." then her better nature came to her aid. "poor chesterford, poor dear old boy," she said simply. mrs. vivian's face grew more tender. "i am glad you thought of him," she said. "his first thought was for you. he was there all the time. as soon as it was over he said to himself, 'please, god, help dodo to bear it.' you bear it very well, dear. come, the carriage is waiting." "oh, i can't, i can't," said dodo passionately; "let me sit here a little while, and then go away somewhere else. i can bear it better alone. i can't see chesterford." "no, dodo," she said, "you must not be cowardly. i know it is the worst part of it for you. but your duty lies with him. you must comfort him. you must make him feel that he has got you left. he is terribly broken, but he will be brave for your sake. be brave for his." dodo sighed wearily. "i suppose you are right," she said; "i will come." she turned and looked round on to the gay scene. the row was full of riders, and bright with the flooding sunlight. "oh, it is cruel," she said. "i only wanted to be happy, and i mayn't even be that. what is the good of it all, if i mayn't enjoy it? why was the baby ever born? i wish it never had been. what good does it do anyone that i should suffer?" mrs. vivian felt horribly helpless and baffled. how could she appeal to this woman, who looked at everything from only her own standpoint? "come, dodo," she said. they drove back in silence. chesterford was standing in the hall as they entered, waiting for them. he came forward to meet dodo. "my poor, poor darling," he said, "it is very hard on you. but we can bear it together, dodo." dodo turned from him passionately, and left him standing there. dodo was sitting in the window of her morning-room late on the same afternoon. she and lord chesterford had been together to look at the baby as it lay there, with the little features that had been racked and distorted with pain, calm and set again, as if it only slept; and dodo had at that moment one real pang of grief. her first impulse, as we have seen, was one of anger and impatience at the stupidity of destiny. she had been enjoying herself, in a purely animal way so intensely, at that moment when she saw mrs. vivian waiting for her under the trees. she was just released from a tedious period of inactivity, and inactivity was to dodo worse than anything in the inferno. "i daresay i should get accustomed to being roasted," she had said once to miss grantham. "it really would be rather interesting seeing your fingers curling up like fried bacon, but imagine being put in a nicely-furnished room with nobody to talk to, and a view over hyde park one side and melton mowbray the other, and never being able to get out! the longer that lasted, the worse it would become." and so she had felt the sort of rapture with which "the prisoner leaps to loose his chains" when she had gone out that morning, and again knew the infinite delight of feeling a fine horse answer to her hand, under a sort of playful protest. then this had come upon her, and dodo felt that language, failed her to express her profound contempt and dislike for the destiny that shapes our ends. but her generosity and sense of fair play had come to her aid. she was not alone in this matter, and she quite realised that it was worse for chesterford than herself. chesterford had evinced the most intense interest in the baby in itself. dodo, on the other hand, had frankly declared that the baby's potentialities possessed a far greater attraction, for her than its actualities. but she had voluntarily linked her life with his; and she must do her part--they had had a great loss, and he must not feel that he bore it alone. dodo shook her head hopelessly over the unknown factor, that made her so much to him, and left him so little to her, but she accepted it as inevitable. almost immediately after she had left him in the hall, she felt angry with herself for haying done so, just as she had been vexed at her reception of his proposal of family prayers, and a few minutes afterwards she sent for him, and they had gone together to see the baby. and then, because she was a woman, because she was human, because she was genuinely sorry for this honest true man who knelt beside her and sobbed as if his heart was broken, but with a natural instinct turned to her, and sorrowed more for her than for himself, her intense self-centredness for the time vanished, and with a true and womanly instinct she found her consolation in consoling him. dodo felt as if she had lived years since this morning, and longed to cut the next week out of her life, to lose it altogether. she wanted to get away out of the whole course of events, to begin again without any past. from a purely worldly point of view she was intensely vexed at the baby's death; she had felt an immense pride in having provided an heir, and it was all no use; it was over, it might as well never have been born. and, as the day wore on, she felt an overwhelming disgust of all the days that were to follow, the darkened house, the quieted movements, the enforced idleness. if only no one knew, dodo felt that she would fling herself at once, this very minute, into the outside world again. what was the use of all this retirement? it only made a bad job worse. surely, when misfortune comes on one, it is best to forget it as soon as possible, and dodo's eminently practical way of forgetting anything was to absorb herself in something else. "what a sensible man david was," she thought. "he went and oiled himself, which, i suppose, is the equivalent of putting on one's very best evening dress." she felt an inward laughter, more than half hysterical, as to what would happen if she went and oiled chesterford. she got up and went languidly across to the window. lord chesterford's room was on the story below, and was built on a wing by itself, and a window looked out on her side of the house. looking down she saw him kneeling at his table, with his face buried in his hands. dodo was conscious of a lump rising in her throat, and she went back to her chair, and sat down again. "he is such a good, honest old boy," she thought, "and somehow, in a dim-lit way, he finds consolation in that. it is a merciful arrangement." she walked downstairs to his study, and went in. he had heard her step, and stood near the door waiting to receive her. dodo felt infinitely sorry for him. chesterford drew her into a chair, and knelt down beside her. "you've no idea what a help you have been to me, darling," he said. "it makes me feel as if i was an awful coward, when i see you so brave." dodo stroked his hand. "yes, yes," she said, "we must both be brave, we must help one another." "ah, my own wife," he said, "what should i have done if it had been you? and i was dreadfully afraid at one time! you know you are both the baby and yourself to me now, and yet i thought before you were all you could be." dodo felt horribly uncomfortable. she had been aware before that there had been moments when, as jack expressed it, she was "keeping it up," but never to this extent. "tell me about it, chesterford," she said. "it was only half an hour after you went," he said, "that he suddenly got worse. the doctor came a few minutes after that. it was all practically over by then. it was convulsions, you know. he was quite quiet, and seemed out of pain for a few minutes before the end, and he opened his eyes, and put out his little arms towards me. do you think he knew me, dodo?" "yes, dear, yes," said dodo softly. "i should be so happy to think he did," said lord chesterford. "poor little chap, he always took to me from the first, do you remember? i hope he knew me then. mrs. vivian came very soon after, and she offered to go for you, and met you in the park, didn't she?" "yes," said dodo; "jack and i were together. she is very good to us. would you like to see her to-night?" "ah no, dodo," he said, "i can't see anyone but your dear self. but make her come and see you if you feel inclined, only come and talk to me again afterwards." "no, dear," said dodo. "i won't have her, if you feel against it." "then we shall have an evening together again, dodo," he said. "i seem to have seen you so little, since you began to go about again," he added wistfully. "oh, it must be so," said dodo; "you have one thing to do, and i have another. i've seen so many different people this last week, that i feel as if i had seen no one person." "you are so active," he said; "you do half a dozen things while i am doing one." "oh, but you do great important man things," said dodo, "and i do silly little woman things." she felt the conversation was becoming much more bearable. chesterford smiled. dodo seized on it as a favourable omen. "i like seeing you smile, old boy," she said; "you look more yourself than you did two hours ago." he looked at her earnestly. "dodo, you will not think me preaching or being priggish, will you, darling? you know me too well for that. there is one way of turning this into a blessing. we must try and see why this was sent us, and if we cannot see why, we must take it in faith, and go on living our lives simply and straightforwardly, and then, perhaps, we shall know sometime. ah, my darling, it has taught me one thing already, for i never knew before how much i loved you. i loved you all i could before this, but it has somehow given me fresh power to love. i think the love i had for the boy has been added to the love i had for you, and it is yours, darling, all of it, always." chapter ten that same evening edith staines and miss grantham were seated together in a box at the opera. the first act was just over, and edith, who had mercilessly silenced every remark miss grantham had made during it, relaxed a little. miss grantham's method of looking at an opera was to sit with her hack to the stage, so as to command a better view of the house, and talk continuously. but edith would not stand that. she had before her a large quarto containing the full score, and she had a pencil in her hand with which she entered little corrections, and now and then she made comments to herself. "i shall tell mancinelli of that," she murmured. "the whole point of the motif is that rapid run with the minim at the end, and he actually allowed that beast to make a rallentando." but the act was over now, and she shut the book with a bang. "come outside, grantie," she said, "it's so fearfully hot. i had to hurry over dinner in order to get here in time. the overture is one of the best parts. it isn't like so many overtures that give you a sort of abstract of the opera, but it hints at it all, and leaves you to think it out." "oh, i didn't hear the overture," said miss grantham. "i only got here at mephistopheles' appearance. i think edouard is such a dear. he really looks a very attractive devil. i suppose it's not exactly the beauty of holiness, but extremes meet, you know." "i must open the door," said edith. "i want to sit in a draught." "there's mr. broxton," remarked miss grantham. "i think he sees us. i hope he'll come up. i think it's simply charming, to see how devoted he still is to dodo. i think he is what they call faithful." "i think it's scandalous," said edith hotly. "he's got no business to hang about like that. it's very weak of him--i despise weak people. it's no use being anything, unless you're strong as well; it's as bad as being second-rate. you may be of good quality, but if you're watered down, it's as bad as being inferior." jack meantime had made his way up to the box. "we've just been saying all sorts of nice things about you," remarked miss grantham sweetly. "have you seen dodo to-day?" "haven't you heard?" asked jack. edith frowned. "no; what?" she asked. "their baby died this morning," he said. edith's score fell to the ground with a crash. "good heavens! is it true?" she asked. "who told you?" "i was riding with dodo this morning," said he, "and mrs. vivian met dodo and told her. i knew something had happened, so i went to inquire. no one has seen either of them again." "did you try and see her?" said edith severely. "yes, i went this evening." "ah!" edith frowned again. "how does he take it?" she asked. "i don't know," he said; "no one has seen them since." edith picked up her score. "good-night, grantie," she said. "good-night, mr. broxton. i must go." miss grantham looked up in astonishment. edith was folding her opera cloak round her. jack offered to help her. "thanks, i can do it," she said brusquely. "what are you going for?" asked miss grantham, in surprise. "it's all right," said edith. "i've got to see someone. i shall come back, probably." the door closed behind her. "of course it's awfully sad," remarked miss grantham, "but i don't see why edith should go like that. i wonder where she's gone. don't you adore the opera, mr. broxton? i think it's simply lovely. it's so awfully sad about marguerite, isn't it? i wish life was really like this. it would be so nice to sing a song whenever anything important happened. it would smooth things so. oh, yes, this is the second act, isn't it? it's where mephisto sings that song to the village people. it always makes me feel creepy. poor dodo!" "i am more sorry for him," said jack; "you know he was simply wrapped up in the baby." "dodo certainly finds consolation quickly," said miss grantham. "i think she's sensible. it really is no use crying over spilt milk. i suppose she won't go out again this season. dear me, it's lady bretton's ball the week after next, in honour of lucas's coming of age. dodo was to have led the cotillion with lord ledgers. that was a good note. isn't the scene charming?" "i don't know what dodo will do," said jack. "i believe they will leave london, only--only--" miss grantham looked at him inquiringly. "you see dodo has to be amused," said jack. "i don't know what she would do, if she was to have to shut herself up again. she was frightfully bored after the baby's birth." miss grantham was casting a roving london eye over the occupants of the stalls. "there's that little mr. spencer, the clergyman at kensington," she said. "i wonder how his conscience lets him come to see anything so immoral. isn't that maud next him? dear me, how interesting. bring them up here after the act, mr. broxton. i suppose maud hasn't heard?" "i think she's been with her father somewhere in lancashire," said jack. "she can only have come back to-day. there is mrs. vane, too. dodo can't have telegraphed to them." "oh, that's so like dodo," murmured miss grantham; "it probably never occurred to her. dear me, this act is over. i am afraid we must have missed the 'virgo.' what a pity. do go, and ask them all to come up here." "so charmed,", murmured mrs. vane, as she rustled into the box. "isn't it a lovely night? dear prince waldenech met me in the hall, and he asked so affectionately after dodo. charming, wasn't it? yes. and do you know mr. spencer, dear miss grantham? shall we tell miss grantham and mr. broxton our little secret, maud? cupid has been busy here," she whispered, with a rich elaborateness to miss grantham. "isn't it charming? we are delighted. yes, mr. spencer, miss grantham and mr. broxton, of course--mr. spencer." mr. spencer bowed and smiled, and conducted himself as he should. he was a fashionable rector in a rich parish, who had long felt that the rich deserved as much looking after as the poor, and had been struck with maud's zeal for the latter, and thought it would fit in very well with his zeal for the former, had won maud's heart, and now appeared as the happy accepted lover. mrs. vane was anxious to behave in the way it was expected that she should, and, finding that miss grantham sat with her back to the stage and talked, took up a corresponding attitude herself. miss grantham quickly decided that she did not know about the death of dodo's baby, and determined not to tell her. in the first place, it was to be supposed that she did not know either, and in the second, she was amused by the present company, and knew that to mention it was to break up the party. mr. spencer had a little copy of the words, with the english on one side and the italian on the other. when he came to a passage that he thought indelicate, he turned his attention to the italian. maud sat between him and miss grantham. "i am so delighted, maud," miss grantham was saying, "and i am sure dodo will be charmed. she doesn't know yet, i suppose? when is it to be?" "oh, i don't quite know," said maud confusedly. "algy, that is mr. spencer, is going to leave london, you know, and take a living at gloucester. i shall like that. there is a good deal of poverty at gloucester." miss grantham smiled sympathetically. "how sweet of you," she said; "and you will go and work among the poor, and give them soup and prayer-books, won't you? i should love to do that. mrs. vivian will tell you all about those things, i suppose?" "oh, she took me to an awful slum before we left london," said maud, in a sort of rapture--"you know we have been away at manchester for a week with my father--and i gave them some things i had worked. i am doing a pair of socks for dodo's baby." miss grantham turned her attention to the stage. "the jewel song is perfectly lovely," she remarked. "i wish edith was here. don't you think that girl sings beautifully? i wonder who she is." at that moment the door of the box opened, and edith entered. she grasped the situation at once, and felt furiously angry with miss grantham and jack. she determined to put a stop to it. "dear mrs. vane, you can't have heard. i only knew this evening, and i suppose mrs. vivian's note has missed you somehow. i have just left her, and she told me she had written to you. you know dodo's baby has been very ill, quite suddenly, and this morning--yes, yes--" mrs. vane started up distractedly. "oh, my poor dodo," she cried, "i never knew! and here i am enjoying myself, when she--maud, did you hear? dodo's baby--only this morning. my poor dodo!" she began crying in a helpless sort of way. maud turned round with a face full of horror. "how awful! poor dodo! come, mother, we must go." mr. spencer dropped his english and italian version. "let me see you to your carriage," he said. "let me give you an arm, mrs. vane." maud turned to jack, and for once showed some of dodo's spirit. "mr. broxton," she said, "i have an idea you knew. perhaps i am wrong. if i am, i beg your pardon; if not, i consider you have behaved in a way i didn't expect of you, being a friend of dodo's. i think--" she broke off, and followed the others. jack felt horribly uncomfortable. he and edith and miss grantham stood in silence for a moment. "it was horrible of you, grantie," said edith, "to let them sit here, and tell them nothing about it." "my dear edith, i could do nothing else," said miss grantham, in an even, calm voice. "there would have been a scene, and i can't bear scenes. there has been a scene as it is, but you are responsible for that. you are rather jumpy to-night. where have you been?" "i have been to see mrs. vivian," said edith. "i wanted to know about this. i told her i was coming back here, and she gave me this for you, mr. broxton." she handed him a note. then she picked up her big score, and sat down again with her pencil. the note contained only two lines, requesting mr. broxton to come and see her in the morning. jack read it and tore it up. he felt undecided how to act. edith was buried in her score, and gave no sign. miss grantham had resumed her place, and was gazing languidly, at the box opposite. he picked up his hat, and turned to leave. edith looked up from her score. "i think i ought to tell you," she said, "that mrs. vivian and i talked about you, and that note is the result. i don't care a pin what you think." jack opened his eyes in astonishment. edith had always struck him as being rather queer; and this statement seemed to him very queer indeed. her manner was not conciliatory. he bowed. "i feel complimented by being the subject of your conversation," he replied with well-bred insolence, and closed the door behind him. miss grantham laughed. a scene like this pleased her; it struck her as pure comedy. "really, edith, you are very jumpy; i don't understand you a bit. you are unnecessarily rude. why did you say you did not care a pin what he thought?" "you won't understand, grantie," said edith. "don't you see how dangerous it is all becoming? i don't care the least whether i am thought meddlesome. jack broxton is awfully in love with dodo, anyone can see that, and dodo evidently cares for him; and that poor, dear, honest fool chesterford is completely blind to it all. it was bad enough before, but the baby's death makes it twice as bad. dodo will want to be amused; she will hate this retirement, and she will expect mr. broxton to amuse her. don't you see she is awfully bored with her husband, and she will decline to be entirely confined to his company. while she could let off steam by dancing and riding and so on, it was safe; she only met mr. broxton among fifty other people. but decency, even dodo's, will forbid her to meet those fifty other people now. and each time she sees him, she will return to her husband more wearied than before. it is all too horrible. i don't suppose she is in love with jack broxton, but she finds him attractive, and he knows it, and he is acting disgracefully in letting himself see her so much. everyone knows he went abroad to avoid her--everyone except dodo, that is, and she must guess. i respected him for that, but now he is playing the traitor to chesterford. and mrs. vivian quite agrees with me." "oh, it's awfully interesting if you're right," said miss grantham reflectively; "but i think you exaggerate. jack is not a cad. he doesn't mean any harm. besides, he is a great friend of chesterford's." "well, he's got no business to play with fire," said edith. "his sense of security only increases the real danger. if chesterford knew exactly how matters stood it would be different, but he is so simple-hearted that he is only charmed to see jack broxton, and pleased that dodo likes him." "oh, it's awfully interesting," murmured miss grantham. "i could cry when i think of chesterford," said edith. "the whole thing is such a fearful tragedy. if only they can get over this time safely, it may all blow over. i wish dodo could go out again to her balls and concerts. she finds such frantic interest in everything about her, that she doesn't think much of any particular person. but it is this period, when she is thrown entirely on two or three people, that is so dangerous. she really is a frightful problem. chesterford was a bold or a blind man to marry her. oh, i can't attend to this opera to-night. i shall go home. it's nearly over. faust is singing hopelessly out of tune." she shut her book, and picked up her fan and gloves. "dear edith," said miss grantham languidly, "i think you mean very well, but you are rather over-drawing things. are you really going? i think i shall come too." jack meantime was finding his way home in a rebellious and unchristian frame of mind. in the first place, he had just lost his temper, which always seemed to him to be a most misdirected effort of energy; in the second place, he resented edith's interference with all his heart and soul; and in the third, he did not feel so certain that she was wrong. of course he guessed what mrs. vivian's wish to see him meant, for it had occurred to him very vividly what consequences the death of the baby would have on him and dodo: and he anticipated another period like that which had followed the birth. jack could hardly dare to trust himself to think of that time. he knew it had been very pleasant to him, and that he had enjoyed dodo's undisturbed company during many days in succession, but it was with a certain tingling of the ears that he thought of the events of the morning, and his mad confession to her. "i have a genius for spoiling things," thought jack to himself. "everything was going right; i was seeing dodo enough to keep me happy, and free from that hateful feeling of last autumn, and then i spoilt it all by a stupid remark that could do no good, nor help me in any conceivable way. how will dodo have taken it?" but he was quite sure of one thing--he would not go and see mrs. vivian. he was, he felt, possessed of all the facts of the case, and he was competent to form a judgment on them--at any rate mrs. vivian was not competent to do it for him. no, he would give it another chance. he would again reason out the pros and cons of the case, he would be quite honest, and he would act accordingly. that he should arrive at the same conclusion was inevitable. the one thing in the world that no man can account for, or allow for, is change in himself. if jack had been able to foresee, when he went abroad, that he would be acting thus with regard to dodo, he would have thought himself mad, and it would have been as impossible for him to act thus then, as it was inevitable for him to act thus now. if we judge by our own standards, and our own standards alter, we cannot expect our verdicts to remain invariable. under a strong attachment a man drifts, and he cannot at any one moment allow for, or feel the force of the current, for he is moving in it, though he thinks himself at rest. the horrible necessities of cause and effect work in us, as well as around us. as edith had said, his sense of security was his danger, for his standard of security was not the same as it had been. he sat down and wrote a note to mrs. vivian, saying that he regretted being unable to call on her to-morrow, and purposely forebore to give any reason. he had considerable faith in her power of reading between the lines, and the fact, baldly stated, was an unnecessary affront to her intellect. mrs. vivian read the note with very little surprise, but with a good deal of regret. she was genuinely sorry for him, but she had other means at her disposal, though they were not so pleasant to use. they involved a certain raking up of old dust-heaps, and a certain awakening of disagreeable memories. but it never occurred to her to draw back. naturally enough she went to see dodo next morning, and found her alone. mrs. vivian had her lesson by heart, and she was only waiting for dodo to tell her to begin, so to speak. dodo hailed her with warmth; she had evidently found matters a little tedious. "dear vivy," she said, "i'm so glad you've come; and chesterford told me to ask you to see him, before you went away, in case you called. so you will, won't you? but i must have you for a long time first." "how is he?" asked mrs. vivian. "oh, he's quite well," said dodo, "but he feels it frightfully. but he is fortunate, he has spiritual consolation as his aid. i haven't, not one atom. it's a great nuisance, i know, but i don't see how to help it. can the ethiopian change his skin?" "ah, dodo," said she, with earnestness in her tone, "you have a great opportunity--i don't think you realise how great." "why, what do you mean?" said dodo. "of course i know what you feel," said mrs. vivian, "and it is necessary that with your grief there must be mixed up a great deal of vexation and annoyance. isn't it so?" "yes, yes," said dodo. "you don't despise me for feeling that?" "despise you!" said mrs. vivian. "you know me better than that. but you must not dwell on it. there is something more important than the cancelling of your smaller engagements. you have a big engagement, you know, which must not be cancelled." dodo rose from her chair with wide eyes. "ah, vivy," she said, "you have guessed it, have you? it is quite true. let me tell you all about it. it is just that which bothers me. these days when i only see chesterford bore me more than i can say. i don't know why i tell you this; it isn't want of loyalty to him, but i want help. i don't know how to deal with him.. yes, he bores me. i always foresaw this, but i hoped i shouldn't mind. i was wrong and jack was right. he warned me of it, but he must never know he was right. of course you see why. i think i did not expect that chesterford's love for me would last. i thought he would cease being my lover, and i am terribly wrong. it gets stronger and stronger. he told me so last night, and i felt a brute. but i comforted him and deceived him again. ah, what could i do? i don't love him. i would give anything to do so. i think i felt once what love was, but only once, and not for him." mrs. vivian looked up inquiringly. "no, i shan't tell you about that," said dodo, speaking rapidly and excitedly; "it would be a sort of desecration. there is something divine about chesterford's feeling for me. i know it, but it doesn't really touch me. i am not capable of it, and what happens is that i continue to amuse myself on my own lines, and all that goes over my head. but i make him believe i understand. it makes him happy. and i know, i know, that when i am out of this, i shall go on just as usual, except that i shall feel like a prisoner escaped, and revel in my liberty. i know i shall. sometimes i almost determine to make some sacrifice for him in a blind sort of way, like a heathen sacrificing to what he fears, yes, fears, but then that mood passes and i go on as usual. i long to get away from him. sometimes i am afraid of hating him, if i see him too much or too exclusively." "yes, dodo, i know, i know," said mrs. vivian. "i don't see how you are to learn it, unless it comes to you; but what you can do, is to act as if you felt it, not only in little tiny ways, like calling him an 'old darling,' but in living for him more." "ah, those are only words," said dodo impatiently. "i realise it all, but i can't do it." there was a long silence. then mrs. vivian said,-- "dodo, i am going to tell you what i have never told anyone before, and that is the story of my marriage. i know the current version very well, that i married a brute who neglected me. that he neglected me is true, but that is not all. like you, i married without love, without even liking. there were reasons for it, which i need not trouble you with. i used to see a good deal of a man with whom i was in love, when i married mr. vivian. he interested me and made my life more bearable. my husband grew jealous of him, almost directly after my marriage. i saw it, and, god forgive me, it amused me, and i let it go on--in fact, i encouraged it. that was my mistake, and i paid dearly for it. i believe he loved me at first; it was my fault that he did not continue to do so. then my baby was born, and, a month afterwards, somehow or other we quarrelled, and he said things to me which no woman ever forgets. he said it was not his child. i never forgot it, and it is a very short time ago that i forgave it. for two years after his death, as you know, i travelled abroad, and i fought against it, and i believe, before god, that i have forgiven him. then i came back to london. but after that day when he said those things to me, we grew further and further apart. i interested myself in other things, in the poor, and so on, and he took to drinking. that killed him. he was run over in the street, as he came back from somewhere where he had been dining. but he was run over because he was dead drunk at the time. when i was abroad i came under the influence of a certain roman catholic priest. he did not convert me, nor did he try to, but he helped me very much; and one day, i remember the day very well, i was almost in despair, because i could not forgive the wrong my dead husband had done me, somehow a change began in me. i can tell you no more than that a change comes, and it is there. it is the grace of god. there, dodo, that is my history, and there is this you may learn from it, that you must be on your guard against making a mistake. you must never let chesterford know how wide the gulf is between you. it will be a constant effort, i know, but it is all you can do. set a watch on yourself; let your indifference be your safeguard, your warning." mrs. vivian stood up. her eyes were full of tears, and she laid her hands on dodo's shoulders. dodo felt comfort in the presence of this strong woman, who had wrestled and conquered. dodo looked affectionately at her, and, with one of those pretty motions that came so naturally to her, she pressed her back into her chair, and knelt beside her. "dear vivy," she said, "my little troubles have made you cry. i am so sorry, dear. you are very good to me. but i want to ask you one thing. about that man your husband was jealous of--" "no, no," said mrs. vivian quickly; "that was only one of the incidents which i had to tell you to make the story intelligible." dodo hesitated. "you are sure you aren't thinking of anyone in my case--of jack, for instance?" she suddenly said. mrs. vivian did not answer for a moment. then she said,-- "dodo, i am going to be very frank with you. he is an instance--in a way. i don't mean to suppose for a moment that chesterford is jealous of him, in fact, i know he can't be--it isn't in him; but he is a good instance of the sort of thing that makes you tend to neglect your husband." "but you don't think he is an instance in particular?" demanded dodo. "i don't mean to bind myself in any way, but i simply want to know." mrs. vivian went straight to the point: "that is a question which you can only decide for yourself," she said. "i cannot pretend to judge." dodo smiled. "then i will decide for myself," she said. "you see, jack is never dull. i daresay you may think him so, but i don't. he always manages to amuse me, and, on the whole, the more i am amused the less bored i get in the intervals. he tides me over the difficult places. i allow they are difficult." "ah, that is exactly what you mustn't allow," said mrs. vivian. "you don't seem to realise any possible deficiency in yourself." "oh, yes, i do," said dodo, as if she was announcing the most commonplace fact in the world. "i know i am deficient. i don't appreciate devotion, i don't appreciate the quality that makes one gaze and gaze, as it says in the hymn. it is rather frog-like that gazing; what do you call it--batrachian. now, maud is batrachian. i daresay it is a very high quality, but i don't quite live up to it. there are, of course, heaps of excellent things one doesn't live up to, like the accounts of the stock exchange in the _times_. i fully understand that the steadiness of stockings makes a difference to somebody, only it doesn't make any difference to me." "dodo, you are incorrigible," said mrs. vivian, laughing in spite of herself. "i give you up--only, do the best you can. i believe, in the main, you agree with me. and now i must be off. you said lord chesterford wished to see me. i suppose he is downstairs." "i think i shall come too," said dodo. so they went down together. lord chesterford was in his study. "do you know what mrs. vivian has been saying to me?" remarked dodo placidly, as she laid her hand on his shoulder. "she has been telling me i do not love you enough--isn't she ridiculous?" mrs. vivian for the moment was nonplussed, but she recovered herself quickly. "dodo is very naughty to-day," she said. "she misconstrues everything i say." "i don't think it's likely you said that," said he, capturing dodo's hand, "because it isn't true." "i am certainly _de trop_," murmured mrs. vivian, turning to go. dodo's hand lay unresistingly in his. "she has been so good and brave," said lord chesterford to mrs. vivian, "she makes me feel ashamed." mrs. vivian felt an immense admiration for him. "i said you deserved a very great deal," she said, putting out her hand to him. "i must go, my carriage has been waiting an hour." he retained dodo's hand, and they saw her to the door. the footman met them in the hall. "mr. broxton wants to know whether you can see him, my lady," he said to dodo. "would you like to see jack?" she asked chesterford. "i would rather you told him you can't," he said. "of course i will," she answered. she turned to the footman. "say i am engaged, but he may come again to-morrow and i will see him. you don't mind my seeing him, do you, chesterford?" "no, no, dear," he said. dodo and chesterford turned back to the drawing-room. jack was on the steps. "i thought you were engaged at this hour," mrs. vivian said to him. "so i was," he answered. "dodo asked me to come and see her." dodo a detail of the day by e.f. benson in two volumes vol. ii fourth edition methuen & co london and far out, drifting helplessly on that grey, angry sea, i saw a small boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. and my guide said to me, 'some call the sea "falsehood," and that boat "truth," and others call the sea "truth," and the boat "falsehood;" and, for my part, i think that one is right as the other.'--the professor of ignorance. chapter eleven it was just three weeks after the baby's death, and dodo was sitting in her room about eleven o'clock in the morning, yawning dismally over a novel, but she was conscious of a certain relief, a sense of effort suspended. late the evening before, lord chesterford had consulted her about some business down at harchester, and dodo, in a moment of inspiration, had said that it must be done by someone on the spot, that an agent was not to be trusted, and that if chesterford liked she would go. this, of course, led to his offering to go himself, and would dodo come with him? dodo had replied that she was quite willing to go, but that there was no need of both of them making a tiresome journey on an infernally hot day. chesterford had felt, rather wistfully, that he would not mind the journey if dodo was with him, but he had learned lately not to say such things. dodo was apt to treat them as nonsense. "my coming with you wouldn't make it any cooler, or less insufferably dusty," she would have said. the result was that chesterford went, and dodo was left alone' in london, with a distinct sense of relief and relaxation. dodo's next move was to send a note to jack, saying that he was going to come and lunch with her. she was not conscious of any sense of deception in this, but she had seen that chesterford had not cared to see anybody since the baby's death, except mrs. vivian, whereas she longed to be in the midst of people again. so, whenever opportunities occurred, she had been in the habit of seeing what she could of her friends, but was very careful not to bore her husband with them. she was quite alive to the truth of mrs. vivian's remarks. but though dodo felt a great relief in her husband's absence, she was more than ever conscious of the unutterable stupidity of spending, day after day doing nothing. it was something even to keep it up with chesterford, but now there was nothing to do--nothing. still, jack, was coming to lunch, and perhaps she might get through a few hours that way. chesterford had said be would be back that night late or next morning. the footman came in bearing a card. "jack already," thought dodo, with wonder. but it was not jack. dodo looked at it and pondered a moment. "tell lady bretton i will see her," she said. a few moments afterwards lady bretton rustled into the room. dodo had always thought her rather like a barmaid, and she was sure that she would attract many customers at any public-house. she was charmingly pretty, and always said the right thing. dodo felt she ought to know why she had come, but couldn't quite remember. but she was not left in doubt long. "dearest dodo," said lady bretton, "i have wanted to come and see you dreadfully, only i haven't been able. you know lucas has been at home all this week." then it flashed upon dodo. "he comes of age to-day, you know, and we are giving a ball. i was so dreadfully shocked to hear your bad news, and am delighted to see you looking so well considering. is lord chesterford at home?" "no," said dodo, as if weighing something in her mind. "he may come to-night, but i don't really expect him till to-morrow morning." "has he gone on some visit?" asked she. "i didn't suppose--" "no, he's only gone on business to harchester. he hasn't, of course, been out at all. but--" dodo paused. then she got quickly up from her chair, and clapped her hands. "yes, i will come. i am dying to go out again. who leads the cotillion with me? tommy ledgers, isn't it? oh, i shall enjoy it. i'm nearly dead for want of something to do. and he can dance, too. yes, i'll come, but i must be back by half-past two. chesterford will perhaps come by the night train getting here at two. i daresay it will be late. are you going to have the mirror figure? do have it. there's no one like ledgers for leading that. he led it here with me. it will be like escaping from penal servitude for life. talk of treadmills! i'm at the point of death for want of a dance. let it begin punctually. i'll be there by ten sharp if you like. tell prince waldenech i'm coming. he wrote to say he wouldn't go unless i did. he's badly in love with me. that doesn't matter, but he can dance. all those austrians can. i'm going to have a regular debauch." "i'm delighted," said lady bretton. "i came here to ask you whether you couldn't possibly come, but i hardly dated. dear dodo, it's charming of you. it will make all the difference. i was in despair this morning. i had asked milly cornish to lead with ledgers, but she refused, unless i asked you again first. we'll have a triumphant arch, if you like, with 'welcome to dodo' on it." "anything you like," said dodo; "the madder the merrier. let's see, how does the hoop figure go?" dodo snatched up an old cotillion hoop from where it stood in the corner with fifty other relics, and began practising it. "we must have this right," she said; "it's quite new to most people. you must tell tommy to come here for an hour this afternoon, and we'll rehearse. you start with it in the left hand, don't you? and then cross it over, and hold your partner's hoop in the right. damn--i beg your pardon--but it doesn't go right. no, you must send ledgers. shall i want castanets? i think i'd better. we must have the new spanish figure. ah, that is right." dodo went through a series of mysterious revolutions with the hoop. "i feel like a vampire who's got hold of blood again," said dodo, pausing to get her breath. "i feel like a fish put back into the water, like a convict back in his own warm nest. no charge for mixed metaphors. supplied free, gratis, _and_ for nothing," she said, with emphasis. lady bretton put her head a little on one side, and gushed at her. her manners were always perfect. "now, i'm going to send you off," said dodo. "jack's coming to lunch, and i've got a lot to do. jack who?' jack broxton, of course. will he be with, you to-night? no?--i shall tell him i'm coming. you see if he doesn't come too. you sent him a card, of course. after lunch i shall want tommy. mind he comes. good-bye." dodo felt herself again. there was the double relief of chesterford's absence, and there was something to do. she hummed a little french song, snapped her castanets, and pitched her novel into the grate. "oh, this great big world," she said, "you've been dead, and i've been dead for a month. won't we have a resurrection this evening! come in, jack," she went on, as the door opened. "here's your hoop. catch it! do you know the hoop figure? that's right; no, in your left hand. that's all with the hoop. now we waltz." jack had a very vague idea as to why he happened to be waltzing with dodo. it seemed to him rather like "alice in wonderland." however, he supposed it was all right, and on they went. a collision with the table, and a slow stygian stream of ink dropping in a fatal, relentless manner on to the carpet, caused a stoppage, and dodo condescended to explain, which she did all in one sentence. "chesterford's gone to harchester after some stuffy business, and i'm going to the brettons' ball, you must come, jack, i'm going to lead the cotillion with tommy, i simply must go, i'm dying to go out again; and, oh, jack, i'm awfully glad to see you, and why haven't you been here for the last twenty years, and i'm out of breath, never mind the ink." dodo stopped from sheer exhaustion, and dropped a blotting-pad on to the pool of ink, which had now assumed the importance of an inland lake. "blanche has been here this morning," she continued, "and i told her i'd come, and would bring you. you must come, jack. you're an awfully early bird, and i haven't got any worms for you, because they've all turned, owing to the hot weather, i suppose, and i feel so happy i can't talk sense. tommy's coming this afternoon to practise. what time is it? let's go and have lunch. that will do instead of worms. if chesterford goes to attend to bailiff's business, why shouldn't i go and dance? it really is a kindness to blanche. nothing ought to stand in the way of a kindness. she was in despair; she told me so: herself. she might have committed suicide. it would have been pleasant to have a countess's corpse's blood on your head, wouldn't it?" "i thought chesterford was here," said jack. "oh, i'm not good enough for you," remarked dodo. "that's very kind of you. i suppose you, wouldn't have come, if you had known i should have had no one to meet you. well, there isn't a soul, so you can go away if you like, or join the footmen in the servants' hall. oh, i am so glad to be doing something again." "i'm awfully glad you're coming to-night," said jack; "it'll do you good." "ain't it a lark?" remarked dodo, in pure lancashire dialect, helping herself largely to beefsteak. "jack, what'll you drink? do you want beer? i'll treat you to what you like. you may dissolve my pearls in vinegar, if it will give you any satisfaction. fetch mr. broxton my pearls, i mean some beer," said dodo, upsetting the salt. "really, jack, i believe i've gone clean cracked. i've upset a lot of salt over your coat. pour some claret upon it. oh, no, that's the other way round, but i don't see why it shouldn't do. have some more steak, jack. where's the gravy spoon? jack, have you been trying to steal the silver? oh, there it is. have some chopped carrots with it. who's that ringing at our door-bell? i'm a little--who is it, walter? just go out and see. miss staines? tell her there's lunch going on and jack's here. there's an inducement. jack, do you like edith? she's rather loud. yes, i agree, but we all make a noise at times. can't she stop? oh, very well, she may go away again. i believe she wouldn't come because you were here, jack. i don't think she likes you, but you're a very good sort in your way. jack, will you say grace? chesterford always says grace. well, for a christian gentleman not to know a grace! bring some cigarettes, walter, or would you rather have a cigar, jack? and some black coffee. well, i'm very grateful for _my_ good dinner, and i don't mind saying so." dodo went on talking at the top of her voice, quite continuously. she asked jack a dozen questions without waiting for the answer. "where shall we go now, jack?" she continued, when they had finished coffee--dodo took three cups and a cigarette with each. "we must go somewhere. i can leave word for ledgers to wait. let's go to the zoo and see all the animals in cages. ah, i sympathise with them. i have only just got out of my cage myself." dodo dragged jack off to the zoo, on the top of a bus, and bought buns for the animals and fruit for the birds, and poked a fierce lion with the end of her parasol, which the brute bit off, and nearly fell over into the polar bear's tank, and had all her money stolen by a pickpocket. then she went back home, and found lord ledgers, whom she put through his paces, and then she had tea, and dressed for the ball. she had ordered a very remarkable ball-dress from worth's, just before the baby's death, which had never yet seen the light. it was a soft grey texture, which dodo said looked like a sunlit mist, and it was strictly half mourning. she felt it was a badge of her freedom, and put it on with a fresh burst of exultation. she had a large bouquet of orchids, which lord bretton had caused to be sent her, and a fan painted by watteau, and a french hair-dresser came and "did" her hair. by this time dinner was ready; and after dinner she sat in her room smoking and singing french songs to lord ledgers, who had come to fetch her, and at half-past nine the carriage was announced. about the same moment another carriage drove up to the door, and as dodo ran downstairs she found her husband in the hall. she looked at him a moment with undisguised astonishment, and a frown gathered on her forehead. "you here?" she said. "i thought you weren't coming till late." "i caught the earlier train," he said; "and where are you off to?" "i'm going to the brettons' ball," said dodo frankly; "i can't wait." he turned round and faced her. "oh, dodo, so soon?" he said. "yes, yes, i must," said dodo. "you know this kills me, this, sticking here with nothing to do from day to day, and nothing to see, and nobody to talk to. it's death; i can't bear it." "very well," he said gently, "you are quite right to go if you want to. but i am not coming, dodo." dodo's face brightened. "no, dear, they don't expect you. i thought you wouldn't be back." "i shouldn't go in any case," said he. lord ledgers was here heard to remark "by gad!" dodo laid her hand on his shoulder, conscious of restraining her impatience. "no, that's just the difference between us," she said. "go on, tommy, get into the carriage. you don't want me not to go, dear, do you?" "no, you are right to go, if you wish to," he said again. dodo grew impatient. "really, you might be more cordial about it," she said. "i needn't have consulted you at all." lord chesterford was not as meek as moses. he was capable of a sense of injustice. "i don't know that you did consult me much," he said, "you mean to go in any case." "very well," said dodo, "i do mean to go. good-night, old boy. i sha'n't be very late. but i don't mean to quarrel with you." lord chesterford turned into his room. but he would not keep dodo, as she wished to go, even if he could have done so. ledgers was waiting in the carriage. "oh, the devil," said dodo, as she stepped in. lady bretton's ball is still talked about, i believe, in certain circles, though it ought to have been consigned, with all other events of last year, to oblivion. it was very brilliant, and several princes shed the light of their presence on it. but, as lord ledgers was heard to remark afterwards, "there are many princes, but there is only one dodo." he felt as if he was adapting a quotation from the koran, which was somehow suitable to the positive solemnity of the occasion. dodo can only be described as having been indescribable. lucas, lady bretton's eldest son, in honour of whose coming of age the ball was given, can hardly allude to it even now. his emotions expressed themselves feebly in his dressing with even more care than usual, in hanging round eaton square, and in leaving cards on the chesterfords as often as was decent. dodo was conscious of a frenzied desire to make the most of it, and to drown remembrance, for in the background of her mind was another picture, that she did not care to look at. there was a man she knew, leaning over a small dead child. the door of the room was half open, and a woman, brilliantly dressed, was turning to go out, looking back over her shoulder with a smile, half of impatience, half of pity, at the kneeling figure in the room. through the half-open door came sounds of music and rhythmical steps, and a blaze of light. this picture had started unbidden into dodo's mind, as she and ledgers drove up to lady bretton's door, with such sudden clearness that she half wondered whether she had ever actually seen it. it reminded her of one of orchardson's silent, well-appointed tragedies. in any case it gave her a rather unpleasant twinge, and she determined to shut it out for the rest of the evening, and, to do her justice, no one would have guessed that dodo's brilliance was due to anything but pure spontaneity, or that, even in the deepest shades of her inmost mind, there was any remembrance that it needed an effort to stifle. many women, though few men, were surprised to see her there, and there was no one who was not glad; but the question arose more than once in the minds of two or three people, "would society stand it if she didn't happen to be herself?" dodo had treated a select party of her friends to a private exhibition of skirt-dancing during supper-time. the music from the band was quite loud enough to be heard distinctly in a small, rather unfrequented sitting-out room, and there dodo had displayed her incomparable grace of movement and limb to the highest advantage. dodo danced that night with unusual perfection, and who has not felt the exquisite beauty of such motion? her figure, clad in its long, clinging folds of diaphanous, almost luminous texture, stood out like a radiant statue of dawn against the dark panelling of the room; her graceful figure bending this way and that, her wonderful white arms now holding aside her long skirt, or clasped above her head; above all, the supreme distinction and conscious modesty of every posture seemed, to the little circle who saw her, to be almost a new revelation of the perfection of form, colour and grace. jack knew dodo pretty well, but he stood and wondered. was she a devil? was she a tiger? or was she, after all, a woman? dodo had told him what had happened that evening, and yet he did not condemn her utterly. he knew how prison-like her life must have been to her during the last month. it was a thousand pities that dodo's meat was chesterford's poison, but he no more blamed dodo for eating her meat than he blamed chesterford for avoiding his poison; and to advance the conventional argument against dodo, that her behaviour was not usual, was, equivalent to saying, "why do you behave like yourself?" rather than, "why don't you behave like other people?" dodo's estimate of herself, as purely normal, was only another instance of her very abnormalness. no, on the whole, she was not a devil. the other question was harder to settle. jack remembered a tigress he had seen that day with her at the zoo. the brute had a small and perfectly fascinating tiger cub, in which she took a certain maternal pride; but when feeding-time came near, and the cub continued to be importunate, she gave it a cuff with her big velvety paw, and sent it staggering to the corner. dodo's tiger cub was a mixture between chesterford and the dead child, and dodo's feeding-time had come round. here she was feeding with an enviable appetite, and where was the cub? the tigress element was not wholly absent. and yet, withal, she was a woman. is it that certain attributes of pure womanliness run through the female of animals, or that every woman has a touch of the tigress about her? jack felt incompetent to decide. dodo's dance came to an end. she accepted prince waldenech's arm, and went down to supper. as he advanced to her, dodo dropped a curtsey, and he stooped and kissed her hand. "the brute," thought jack, as he strolled out into the ballroom, where people were beginning to collect again. many turned and looked at dodo as, she passed out with her handsome partner. the glow of exercise and excitement and success burned brightly in her cheeks, and no one accused dodo of using rouge. the supper was spread on a number of small tables, laid for four or six each. the prince led her to an empty one, and sat down by her side. "i have seen many beautiful things," he said, in french, which permits a man to say more than he may i in english, "but none so beautiful as what i have seen to-night." dodo was far too accomplished a coquette to pretend not to know what he meant. she made him a charming little obeisance. "politeness required that of your highness," she said. "that is only my due, you know." "i can never give you your due," said he. "my due in this case is the knowledge i have pleased you." dodo felt suddenly a little uncomfortable. the forgotten picture flashed for a moment across her inward eye. she spoke of other things: praised the prettiness of the ballroom, the excellence of the band. "lady bretton has given a fine setting to the diamond," said the prince, "but the diamond is not hers." dodo laughed. he was a little ponderous, and he deserved to be told so. "you austrians have beautiful manners," she said, "but you are too serious. english are always accused of sharing that fault, but anyhow, when they pay compliments, they have at least the air of not meaning what they say." "that is the fault of the english, or of the compliment." "no one means what they say when they pay compliments," said dodo. "they are only a kind of formula to avoid the unpleasantness of saying nothing." "austrians seldom pay compliments," said he; "but when they do, they mean them." "ouf," said dodo; "that sounds homelike to you, doesn't it? all austrians say 'ouf' in books--do they really say 'ouf,' by the way?--what a bald way of saying that i needn't expect any more to-night. really, prince, that's rather unflattering to you. no, don't excuse yourself; i understand perfectly. i'm not fishing for any more. come, there's the _pas de quatre_ beginning. that's the 'old kent road' tune. it's much the best. what do you suppose 'knocked 'em in the old kent road' means? no foreigner has ever been able to translate it to me yet. this is your dance, isn't it? o dear me, half the night's gone, and i feel as if i hadn't begun yet. some people are in bed now; what a waste of time, you know." the ball went on and on, and dodo seemed to gather fresh strength and brilliance with each hour. extra dances were added and still added, and many who were tired with dancing stayed and watched her. the princes went away, and nobody noticed their departure. if cleopatra herself had suddenly entered the ballroom, she would have found herself at a discount. it was the culmination of dodo's successes. she seemed different in kind, as well as in degree, from the crowd around her. pretty women seemed suddenly plain and middle-aged; well-dressed women looked dowdy beside her, and when at length, as the electric light began to pale perceptibly before the breaking day, dodo asked her partner to take her to lady bretton, the dancers stopped, and followed dodo and prince waldenech, for she was dancing with him, to where lady bretton was standing. "it has been heavenly," said dodo. "it's a dreadful bore to have people come and say how much they have enjoyed themselves, but i've done it now. tell lucas i wish he would come of age every year; he really is a public benefactor." she took prince waldenech's arm, and stood waiting with him, while her carriage detached itself from the others which lined the square, and drove up to the door. and, as they stood there, the crowd followed her slowly out of the ballroom, still silent, and still watching her, and lined the stairs, as she passed down to the front door. then, when she had got into her carriage, and had driven off, they looked at each other as if they had all been walking in their sleep, and no one knew exactly why they were there. and a quarter of an hour later the rooms were completely empty. meanwhile, as dodo drove back through the still, cool, morning air, she threw down the windows of her carriage, and drew in deep satisfied breaths of its freshness. she thought of the crowds who had followed her down to the door, and laughed for pleasure. "it's life, it's life," she thought. "they followed me like sheep. ah, how i love it!" it was nearly six when she reached home; "decidedly it would be too absurd to go to bed," she thought. "i shall go for a glorious gallop, and come back to breakfast with chesterford. tell them to saddle starlight at once," she said to the footman: "i sha'n't want a groom. and tell lord chesterford, when he wakes, that i shall be back to breakfast." chapter twelve chesterford did not let dodo see how strongly he had felt on the subject of the ball. he argued to himself that it would do no good. dodo would not understand, or, understanding, would misunderstand the strength of his feeling, and he did not care that she should know that he thought her heartless. he was quite conscious that matters were a little strained between them, though dodo apparently was sublimely unaware, of it. she had a momentary nervousness when they met at breakfast, on the morning after the ball, that chesterford was going to make a fuss, and she could not quite see what it would end in, if the subject was broached. but he came in looking as usual. he told her how matters had gone with him on the previous day, and had recounted, with a certain humour, a few sharp words which an old lady in his railway carriage had addressed to him, because he didn't help her to hand out two large cages of canaries which she was taking home. dodo welcomed all this as a sign of grace, and was only too happy to meet her husband half-way. he had been a trifle melodramatic on the previous evening, but we are all liable to make mountains out of molehills at times, she thought. personally her inclination was to make molehills out of mountains, but that was only a difference in temperament; both implied a judgment at fault, and she was quite willing to forgive and forget. in a word, she was particularly nice to him, and when breakfast was over she took his arm, and led him away to her room. "sit down in that very big chair, old boy," she said, "and twiddle your thumbs while i write some notes. i'm going to see mrs. vivian this morning, and your lordship may come in my ladyship's carriage if it likes. is lordship masculine, feminine, or neuter, chesterford? anyhow, it's wrong to say your lordship may come in your carriage, because lordship is the nominative to the sentence, and is in the third person--what was i saying? oh, yes, you may come if it likes, and drop me there, and then go away for about half an hour, and then come back, and then we'll have lunch together at home." "i've got to go to some stupid committee at the club," said chesterford, "but that's not till twelve. i'll send your carriage back for you, but i sha'n't be able to be in at lunch." "oh, very good," remarked dodo. "i'm sorry i married you. i might be a lone lorn widdy for all you care. he prefers lunching at his club," she went on, dramatically, addressing the black virgin, "to having his chop at home with the wife of his bosom. how sharper than a serpent's tooth to have a thankless chesterford!". dodo proceeded to write her notes, and threw them one by one at her husband as he sat contentedly by the window, in the very big chair that dodo had indicated. dodo's correspondence was as varied as the collection of photographs on her mantelpiece. the first note was to her groom at winston, telling him to have another riding-horse sent up at once, as her own particular mare had gone lame. it missed chesterford's head, and fell with an ominous clatter among some _bric-à-brac_ and china. "that'll be a bill for you to pay, darling," said dodo sweetly. "why didn't you put your silly old head in the light?" the next was a slightly better shot, and fell right side upwards on to chesterford's knee, but with the address upside down to him. he looked at it vaguely. "his serene highness who?" he asked, spelling it out. "that's not grammar," said dodo. "it's only to prince waldenech. he is serene, isn't he? he looks it, anyhow. he was at the brettons' last night. austrian but amiable." chesterford was fingering the envelope. "he's an unmitigated blackguard," he said, after a little consideration. "i wish you'd let me tear it up, dodo. what on earth have you got to say to him?" "i shall have to write it again, dear, if you do," said she, conscious of bridling a rising irritation. "he really is an awful brute," he repeated. "oh, my dear chesterford, what does that matter?" asked dodo, impatiently tapping the floor with the toe of her shoe. "it isn't my business to go raking up the character of people i'm introduced to." "you mean you don't mind what a man's character is as long as he's agreeable." "it isn't my business to be court inquisitor," she said. "half of what one hears about people isn't true, and the other half--well, all you can say is, that it isn't exactly false." dodo could lose her temper very quickly on occasions, especially when she was in a hurry, as she was now. "my dear dodo, do you happen to know the story of--" "no, i don't," she said vehemently. "shall i seem rude if i say i don't want to? i really think you might find something better to do than tell scandalous stories about people you don't know." "i know all i want to know about prince waldenech," said chesterford, rising. "you'll know more about him soon," remarked dodo, "because i've asked him to stay at winston. i suppose you think i wanted to make a secret about it. i have no such intention, i assure you." "is this note to ask him to come?" he inquired. "certainly it is," said dodo defiantly. "i may as well tear it up," said he. "i don't mean him to be asked, dodo. i don't wish to have him in the house." dodo had lost her temper thoroughly. "his being asked to winston is immaterial," she said, with scorn in her voice. "you certainly have the power to prevent his coming to your house. your power i must regard, your wishes i shall not. i can see him in london with perfect ease." "you mean you attach no weight to my wishes in this matter?" said chesterford. "none." "will no knowledge of what the man is really like, stop you holding further intercourse with him?" he asked. "none whatever, now!" "i don't wish it to be known that my wife associates with such people," he said. "your wife does not regard it in that light," replied dodo. "i have no intention of proclaiming the fact from the housetops." to do chesterford justice he was getting angry too. "it's perfectly intolerable that there should be this sort of dispute between you and me, dodo," he said. "that is the first point on which we have not differed." "you entirely decline to listen to reason?" "to your reason, you mean," said dodo. "to mine or any honest man's." dodo burst out into a harsh, mirthless laugh. "ah, you're beginning to be jealous," she said. "it is very bourgeois to be jealous." chesterford coloured, angrily. "that is an insult, dodo," he said. "remember that there is a courtesy due even from a wife to her husband. besides that, you know the contrary." "really, i know nothing of the sort," she remarked. "your whole conduct, both last night and this morning, has been so melodramatic, that i begin to suspect all sorts of latent virtues in you." "we are wandering from the point," said he. "do you mean that nothing will deter you from seeing this austrian?" "he is received in society," said dodo; "he is presentable, he is even amusing. am i to tell him that my husband is afraid he'll corrupt my morals? if people in general cut him, i don't say that i should continue to cultivate his acquaintance. it is absurd to run amuck of such conventions. if you had approached me in a proper manner, i don't say that i mightn't have seen my way to meeting your wishes." "i don't feel i am to blame in that respect," said he. "that shows you don't know how far we are apart," she replied. he was suddenly frightened. he came closer to her. "far apart, dodo? we?" "it seems to me that this interview has revealed some astonishing differences of opinion between us," she said. "i don't wish to multiply words. you have told me what you think on the subject, and i have told you what i think. you have claimed the power a husband certainly possesses, and i claim the liberty that my husband cannot deprive me of. or perhaps you wish to lock me up. we quite understand one another. let us agree to differ. give me that note, please. i suppose you can trust me not to send it. i should like to keep it. it is interesting to count the milestones." dodo spoke with the recklessness of a woman's anger, which is always much more unwanton than that of a man. a man does not say cruel things when he is angry, because they are cruel, but because he is angry. dodo was cruel because she wished to be cruel. he gave her the note, and turned to leave the room. dodo's last speech made it impossible for him to say more. the only thing he would not sacrifice to his love was his honour or hers. but dodo suddenly saw the horrible impossibility of the situation. she had not the smallest intention of living on bad terms with her husband. they had quarrelled, it was a pity, but it was over. a storm may only clear the air; it is not always the precursor of bad weather. the air wanted clearing, and dodo determined that it should not be the prelude of rain and wind. to her, of course, the knowledge that she did not love her husband had long been a commonplace, but to him the truth was coming in fierce, blinding flashes, and by their light he could see that a great flood had come down into his happy valley, carrying desolation before it, and between him and dodo stretched a tawny waste of water. but dodo had no intention of quarrelling with him, or maintaining a dignified reserve in their daily intercourse. that would be quite unbearable, and she wished there to be no misunderstanding on that point. "chesterford," she said, "we've quarrelled, and that's a pity. i hardly ever quarrel, and it was stupid of me. i am sorry. but i have no intention of standing on my dignity, and i sha'n't allow you to stand on yours. i shall pull you down, and you'll go flop. you object to something which i propose to do, you exert your rights, as far as having him in the house goes, and i exert mine by going to see him. i shall go this afternoon. your veto on his coming to winston seems quite as objectionable to me, as my going to see him does to you. that's our position; accept it. let us understand each other completely. _c'est aimer_." as she spoke she recovered her equanimity, and she smiled serenely on him. scenes like this left no impression on her. the tragedy passed over her head; and, though it was written in the lines of her husband's face, she did not trouble to read it. she got up from her chair and went to him. he was standing with his hands clasped behind him near the door. she laid her hands on his shoulder, and gave him a little shake. "now, chesterford, i'm going to make it up," she said. "twenty minutes is heaps of time for the most quarrelsome people to say sufficient nasty things in, and time's up. i'm going to behave exactly as usual. i hate quarrelling, and you don't look as if it agreed with you. kiss me this moment. no, not on the top of my head. that's better. my carriage ought to be ready by this time, and you are coming with me as far as prince's gate." chapter thirteen lord and lady chesterford were sitting at breakfast at winston towards the end of september. he had an open letter in front of him propped up against his cup, and between mouthfuls of fried fish he glanced at it. "dodo." no answer. "dodo," rather louder. dodo was also reading a letter, which covered two sheets and was closely written. it seemed to be interesting, for she had paused with a piece of fish on the end of her fork, and had then laid it down again. this time, however; she heard. "oh, what?" she said abstractedly. "jack's coming to-day; i've just heard from him. he's going to bring his hunter. you can get some cub-hunting, i suppose, chesterford? the hunt itself doesn't begin till the th, does it?" "ah, i'm glad he can come," said chesterford. "little spencer would be rather hard to amuse alone. but that isn't what i was going to say." "what is it?" said dodo, relapsing into her letter. "the bailiff writes to tell me that they have discovered a rich coal shaft under the far oaks." a pause. "but, dodo, you are not listening." "i'm sorry," she said. "do you know, jack nearly shot himself the other day at a grouse drive?" "i don't care," said chesterford brutally. "listen, dodo. tompkinson says they've discovered a rich coal shaft under the far oaks. confound the man, i wish he hadn't." "oh, chesterford, how splendid!" said dodo, dropping her letter in earnest. "dig it up and spend it on your party, and they'll make you a duke for certain. i want to be a duchess very much. good morning, your grace," said dodo reflectively. "oh, that's impossible," said he. "i never thought of touching it, but the ass tells me that he's seen the news of it in the _staffordshire herald_. so i suppose everybody knows, and i shall be pestered." "but do you mean to say you're going to let the coal stop there?" asked dodo. "yes, dear, i can't possibly touch it. it goes right under all those oaks, and under the memorial chapel, close to the surface." "but what does that matter?" asked dodo, in real surprise. "i can't possibly touch it," said he; "you must see that. why, the chapel would have to come down, and the oaks, and we don't want a dirty coal shaft in the park." "chesterford, how ridiculous!" exclaimed dodo. "do you mean you're going to leave thousands of pounds lying there in the earth?" "i can't discuss it, dear, even with you," said he. "the only question is whether we can stop the report of it going about." dodo felt intensely irritated. "really you are most unreasonable," she said. "i did flatter myself that i had a reasonable husband. you were unreasonable about the brettons' ball, and you were unreasonable about prince waldenech's coming here, and you are unreasonable about this." chesterford lost his patience a little. "about the brettons' ball," he said, "there was only one opinion, and that was mine. about the prince's coming here, which we agreed not to talk about, you know the further reason. i don't like saying such things. you are aware what that officious ass clayton told me was said at the club. of course it was an insult to you, and a confounded lie, but i don't care for such things to be said about my wife. and about this--" "about this," said dodo, "you are as obstinate as you were about those other things. excuse me if i find you rather annoying." chesterford felt sick at heart. "ah, dodo," he said, "cannot you believe in me at all?" he rose and stood by her. "my darling, you must know how i would do anything for love of you. but these are cases in which that clashes with duty. i only want to be loved a little. can't you see there are some things i cannot help doing, and some i must do?" "the things that you like doing," said dodo, in a cool voice pouring out some more tea. "i don't wish to discuss this either. you know my opinion. it is absurd to quarrel; i dislike quarrelling with anybody, and more especially a person whom i live with. please take your hand away, i can't reach the sugar." dodo returned to her letter. chesterford stood by her for a moment, and then left the room. "it gets more and more intolerable every day. i can't bear quarrelling; it makes me ill," thought dodo, with a fine sense of irresponsibility. "and i know he'll come and say he was sorry he said what he did. thank goodness, jack comes to-day." chesterford, meanwhile, was standing in the hall, feeling helpless and bewildered. this sort of thing was always happening now, do what he could; and the intervals were not much better. dodo treated him with a passive tolerance that was very hard to bear. even her frank determination to keep on good terms with her husband had undergone considerable modification. she was silent and indifferent. now and then when he came into her room he heard, as he passed down the passage, the sound of her piano or her voice, but when he entered dodo would break off and ask him what he wanted. he half wished that he did not love her, but he found himself sickening and longing for dodo to behave to him as she used. it would have been something to know that his presence was not positively distasteful to her. dodo no longer "kept it up," as jack said. she did not pat his hand, or call him a silly old dear, or pull his moustache, as once she did. he had once taken those little things as a sign of her love. he had found in them the pleasure that dodo's smallest action always had for him; but now even they, the husk and shell of what had never existed, had gone from him, and he was left with that which was at once his greatest sorrow and his greatest joy, his own love for dodo. and dodo--god help him! he had learned it well enough now--dodo did not love him, and never had loved him. he wondered what the end would be--whether his love, too, would die. in that case he foresaw that they would very likely go on living together as fifty other people lived--being polite to each other, and gracefully tolerant of each other's presence; that nobody would know, and the world would say, "what a model and excellent couple." so he stood there, biting the ends of his long moustache. then he said to himself, "i was beastly to her. what the devil made me say all those things." he went back to the dining-room, and found dodo as he had left her. "dodo, dear," he said, "forgive me for being so cross. i said a lot of abominable things." dodo was rather amused. she knew this would happen. "oh, yes," she said; "it doesn't signify. but are you determined about the coal mine?" chesterford was disappointed and chilled. he turned on his heel and went out again. dodo raised her eyebrows, shrugged her shoulders imperceptibly, and returned to her letter. if you had asked dodo when this state of things began she could probably not have told you. she would have said, "oh, it came on by degrees. it began by my being bored with him, and culminated when i no longer concealed it." but chesterford, to whom daily intercourse had become an awful struggle between his passionate love for dodo and his bitter disappointment at what he would certainly have partly attributed to his own stupidity and inadequacy, could have named the day and hour when he first realised how far he was apart from his wife. it was when he returned by the earlier train and met dodo in the hall going to her dance; that moment had thrown a dangerous clear light over the previous month. he argued to himself, with fatal correctness, that dodo could not have stopped caring for him in a moment, and he was driven to the inevitable conclusion that she had been drifting away from him for a long time before that; indeed, had she ever been near him? but he was deeply grateful to those months when he had deceived himself, or she had deceived him, into believing that she cared for him. he knew well that they had been the happiest in his life, and though the subsequent disappointment was bitter, it had not embittered him. his love for dodo had a sacredness for him that nothing could remove; it was something separate from the rest of his life, that had stooped from heaven and entered into it, and lo! it was glorified. that memory was his for ever, nothing could rob him of that. in august dodo had left him. they had settled a series of visits in scotland, after a fortnight at their own house, but after that dodo had made arrangements apart from him. she had to go and see her mother, she had to go here and there, and half way through september, when chesterford had returned to harchester expecting her the same night, he found a postcard from her, saying she had to spend three days with someone else, and the three days lengthened into a week, and it was only yesterday that dodo had come and people were arriving that very evening. there was only one conclusion to be drawn from all this, and not even he could help drawing it. jack and mr. spencer and maud, now mrs. spencer, arrived that evening. maud had started a sort of small store of work, and the worsted and crochet went on with feverish rapidity. it had become a habit with her before her marriage, and the undeveloped possibilities, that no doubt lurked within it, had blossomed under her husband's care. for there was a demand beyond the limits of supply for her woollen shawls and comforters. mr. spencer's parish was already speckled with testimonies to his wife's handiwork, and maud's dream of being some day useful to somebody was finding a glorious fulfilment. dodo, i am sorry to say, found her sister more unsatisfactory than ever. maud had a sort of confused idea that it helped the poor if she dressed untidily, and this was a ministry that came without effort. dodo took her in hand as soon as she arrived, and made her presentable. "because you are a clergy-man's wife, there is no reason that you shouldn't wear a tucker or something round your neck," said she. "your sister is a marchioness, and when you stay with her you must behave as if you were an honourable. there will be time to sit in the gutter when you get back to gloucester." dodo also did her duty by mr. spencer. she called him algernon in the friendliest way, and gave him several lessons at billiards. this done, she turned to jack. the three had been there several days, and dodo was getting impatient. jack and chesterford went out shooting, and she was left to entertain the other two. mr. spencer's reluctance to shoot was attributable not so much to his aversion to killing live animals, as his inability to slay. but when dodo urged on him that he would soon learn, he claimed the higher motive. she was rather silent, for she was thinking about something important. dodo was surprised at the eagerness with which she looked forward to jack's coming. somehow, in a dim kind of way, she regarded him as the solution of her difficulties. she felt pretty certain jack would do as he was asked, and she had made up her mind that when jack went away she would go with him to see friends at other houses to which he was going. and chesterford? dodo's scheme did not seem to take in chesterford. she had painted a charming little picture in her own mind as to where she should go, and whom she would see, but she certainly was aware that chesterford did not seem to come in. it would spoil the composition, she thought, to introduce another figure. that would be a respite, anyhow. but after that, what then? dodo had found it bad enough coming back this september, and she could not contemplate renewing this _tête-à-tête_ that went on for months. and by degrees another picture took its place--a dim one, for the details were not worked out--but in that picture there were only two figures. the days went on and dodo could bear it no longer. one evening she went into the smoking-room after tea. chesterford was writing letters, and maud and her husband were sitting in the drawing-room. it may be presumed that maud was doing crochet. jack looked up with a smile as dodo entered. "hurrah," he said, "i haven't had a word with you since we came. come and talk, dodo." but dodo did not smile. "how have you been getting on?" continued jack, looking at the fire. "you see i haven't lost my interest in you." "jack," said dodo solemnly, "you are right, and i was wrong. and i can't bear it any longer." jack did not need explanations. "ah!"--then after a moment, "poor chesterford!" "i don't see why 'poor chesterford,'" said dodo, "any more than 'poor me.' he was quite satisfied, anyhow, for some months, for a year in fact, more or less, and i was never satisfied at all. i haven't got a particle of pride left in me, or else i shouldn't be telling you. i can't bear it. if you only knew what i have been through you would pity me as well. it has been a continual effort with me; surely that is something to pity. and one day i broke down; i forget when, it is immaterial. oh, why couldn't i love him! i thought i was going to, and it was all a wretched mistake." dodo sat with her hands clasped before her, with something like tears in her eyes. "i am not all selfish," she went on; "i am sorry for him, too, but i am so annoyed with him that i lose my sorrow whenever i see him. why couldn't he have accepted the position sooner? we might have been excellent friends then, but now that is impossible. i have got past that. i cannot even be good friends with him. oh, it isn't my fault; you know i tried to behave well." jack felt intensely uncomfortable. "i can't help you, dodo," he said. "it is useless for me to say i am sincerely sorry. that is no word between you and me." dodo, for once in her life, seemed to have something to say, and not be able to say it. at last it came out with an effort. "jack, do you still love me?" dodo did not look at him, but kept her eyes on the fire. jack did not pause to think. "before god, dodo,", he said, "i believe i love you more than anything in the world." "will you do what i ask you?" this time he did pause. he got up and stood before the fire. still dodo did not look at him. "ah, dodo," he said, "what are you going to ask? there are some things i cannot do." "it seems to me this love you talk of is a very weak thing," said dodo. "it always fails, or is in danger of failing, at the critical point. i believe i could do anything for the man i loved. i did not think so once. but i was wrong, as i have been in my marriage." dodo paused; but jack said nothing; it seemed to him as if dodo had not quite finished. "yes," she said; then paused again. "yes, you are he." there was a dead silence. for one moment time seemed to jack to have stopped, and he could have believed that that moment lasted for years--for ever. "oh, my god," he murmured, "at last." he was conscious of dodo sitting there, with her eyes raised to his, and a smile on her lips. he felt himself bending forward towards her, and he thought she half rose in her chair to receive his embrace. but the next moment she put out her hand as if to stop him. "stay," she said. "not yet, not yet. there is something first. i will tell you what i have done. i counted on this. i have ordered the carriage after dinner at half-past ten. you and i go in that, and leave by the train. jack, i am yours--will you come?" dodo had taken the plunge. she had been wavering on the brink of this for days. it had struck her suddenly that afternoon that jack was going away next day, and she was aware she could not contemplate the indefinite to-morrow and to-morrow without him. like all dodo's actions it came suddenly. the forces in her which had been drawing her on to this had gathered strength and sureness imperceptibly, and this evening they had suddenly burst through the very flimsy dam that dodo had erected between the things she might do, and the things she might not, and their possession was complete. in a way it was inevitable. dodo felt that her life was impossible. chesterford, with infinite yearning and hunger at his heart, perhaps felt it too. jack felt as if he was waking out of some blissful dream to a return of his ordinary everyday life, which, unfortunately, had certain moral obligations attached to it. if dodo's speech had been shorter, the result might have been different. he steadied himself for a moment, for the room seemed to reel and swim, and then he answered her. "no, dodo," he said hoarsely, "i cannot do it. think of chesterford! think of anything! don't tempt me. you know i cannot. how dare you ask me?" dodo's face grew hard and white. she tried to laugh, but could not manage it. "ah," she said, "the old story, isn't it? potiphar's wife again. i really do not understand what this love of yours is. and now i have debased and humbled myself before you, and there you stand in your immaculate virtue, not caring--" "don't, dodo," he said. "be merciful to me, spare me. not caring--you know it is not so. but i cannot do this. my dodo, my darling." the strain was too great for him. he knelt down beside her, and kissed her hand passionately. "i will do anything for you," he whispered, "that is in my power to do; but this is impossible. i never yet did, with deliberate forethought, what seemed to me mean or low, and i can't now. i don't want credit for it, because i was made that way; i don't happen to be a blackguard by nature. don't tempt me--i am too weak. but you mustn't blame me for it. you know--you must know that i love you. i left england last autumn to cure myself of it, but it didn't answer a bit. i don't ask more than what you have just told me. that is something--isn't it, dodo? and, if you love me, that is something for you. don't let us degrade it, let it be a strength to us and not a weakness. you must feel it so." * * * * * there was a long silence, and in that silence the great drama of love and life; and good and evil, which has been played every day of every year since the beginning of this world, and which will never cease till all mankind are saints or sexless, filled the stage. dodo thought, at any rate, that she loved him, and that knowledge made her feel less abased before him. all love--the love for children, for parents, for husband, for wife, for lover, for mistress--has something divine about it, or else it is not love. the love jack felt for her was divine enough not to seek its own, to sacrifice itself on the altar of duty and loyalty and the pure cold gods, and in its tumultuous happiness it could think of others. and dodo's love was touched, though ever so faintly, with the same divine spark, a something so human that it touched heaven. now it had so happened that, exactly three minutes before this, maud had found that she had left a particularly precious skein of wool in another room. about ten seconds' reflection made her remember she had left it in the smoking-room, where she had sat with dodo after lunch, who had smoked cigarettes, and lectured her on her appearance. the smoking-room had two doors, about eight yards apart, forming a little passage lighted with a skylight. the first of those doors was of wood, the second, which led into the smoking-room, of baize. the first door was opened in the ordinary manner, the second with a silent push. maud had made this silent push at the moment when jack was kneeling by dodo's side, kissing her hand. maud was not versed in the wickedness of this present world, but she realised that this was a peculiar thing for jack to do, and she let the door swing quietly back, and ran downstairs, intending to ask her husband's advice. chesterford's study opened into the drawing-room. during the time that maud had been upstairs he had gone in to fetch dodo, and seeing she was not there he went back, but did not close the door behind him. a moment afterwards maud rushed into the drawing-room from the hall, and carefully shutting the door behind her, lest anyone should hear, exclaimed:-- "algy, i've seen something awful! i went into the smoking-room to fetch my wool, and i saw jack kissing dodo's hand. what am i to do?" algernon was suitably horrified. he remarked, with much reason, that it was no use telling dodo and jack, because they knew already. at this moment the door of lord chesterford's study was closed quietly. he did not wish to hear any more just yet. but they neither of them noticed it. he had overheard something which was not meant for his ears, related by a person who had overseen what she was not meant to see; he hated learning anything that was not his own affair, but he had learned it, and it turned out to be unpleasantly closely connected with him. his first impulse was to think that jack had behaved in a treacherous and blackguardly manner, and this conclusion surprised him so much that he set to ponder over it. the more he thought of it, the more unlikely it appeared to him. jack making love to his wife under cover of his own roof was too preposterous an idea to be entertained. he held a very high opinion of jack, and it did not at all seem to fit in with this. was there any other possibility? it came upon him with a sense of sickening probability that there was. he remembered the long loveless months; he remembered dodo's indifference to him, then her neglect, then her dislike. had jack been hideously tempted and not been able to resist? chesterford almost felt a friendly feeling for not being able to resist dodo. what did all this imply? how long had it been going on? how did it begin? where would it stop? he felt he had a right to ask these questions, and he meant to ask them of the proper person. but not yet. he would wait; he would see what happened. he was afraid of judging both too harshly. maud's account might have been incorrect; anyhow it was not meant for him. his thoughts wandered on dismally and vaguely. but the outcome was, that he said to himself, "poor dodo, god forgive her." he had been so long used to the altered state of things that this blow seemed to him only a natural sequence. but he had been used to feed his starved heart with promises that dodo would care for him again; that those months when they were first married were only the bud of a flower that would some day blossom. it was this feeble hope that what he had heard destroyed. if things had gone as far as that it was hopeless. "yes," he repeated, "it is all gone." if anything could have killed his love for dodo he felt that it would have been this. but, as he sat there, he said to himself, "she shall never know that i know of it." that was his final determination. dodo had wronged him cruelly; his only revenge was to continue as if she had been a faithful wife, for she would not let him love her. dodo should never know, she should not even suspect. he would go on behaving to her as before, as far as lay in his power. he would do his utmost to make her contented, to make her less sorry--yes, less sorry--she married him. meanwhile dodo and jack were sitting before the fire in the smoking-room. he still retained dodo's hand, and it lay; unresistingly in his. dodo was the first to speak. "we must make the best of it, jack," she said; "and you must help me. i cannot trust myself any longer. i used to be so sure of myself, so convinced that i could be happy. i blame myself for it, not him; but then, you see, i can't get rid of myself, and i can of him. hence this plan. i have been a fool and a beast. and he, you know, he is the best of men. poor, dear old boy. it isn't his fault, but it isn't mine. i should like to know who profits by this absurd arrangement. why can't i love him? why can't i even like him? why can't i help hating him? yes, jack, it has come to that. god knows there is no one more sorry than i am about it. but this is only a mood. i daresay in half an hour's time i shall only feel angry with him, and not sorry at all. i wonder if this match was made in heaven. oh, i am miserable." jack was really to be pitied more than dodo. he knelt by her with her hand in his, feeling that he would have given his life without question to make her happy, but knowing that he had better give his life than do so. the struggle itself was over. he felt like a chain being pulled in opposite directions. he did not wrestle any longer; the two forces, he thought, were simply fighting it out over his rigid body. he wondered vaguely whether something would break, and, if so, what? but he did not dream for a moment of ever reconsidering his answer to dodo. the question did not even present itself. so he knelt by her, still holding her hand, and waiting for her to speak again. "you mustn't desert me, jack," dodo went on. "it is easier for chesterford, as well as for me, that you should be with us often, and i believe it is easier for you too. if i never saw you at all, i believe the crash would come. i should leave chesterford, not to come to you, for that can't be, but simply to get away." "ah, don't," said jack, "don't go on talking about it like that. i can't do what you asked, you know that, simply because i love you and am chesterford's friend. think of your duty to him. think, yes, think of our love for each other. let it be something sacred, dodo. don't desecrate it. help me not to desecrate it. let it be our safeguard. it is better to have that, isn't it? than to think of going on living, as you must, without it. you said so yourself when you asked me to be with you often. to-night a deep joy has come into my life; let us keep it from disgrace. ah, dodo, thank god you love me." "yes, jack, i believe i do," said dodo. "and you are right; i always knew i should rise to the occasion if it was put forcibly before me. i believe i have an ideal--which i have never had before--something to respect and to keep very clean. fancy me with an ideal! mother wouldn't know me again--there never was such a thing in the house." they were silent for a few minutes. "but i must go to-morrow," said jack, "as i settled to, by the disgusting early train. and the dressing-bell has sounded, and the ideal inexorably forbids us to be late for dinner, so i sha'n't see you alone again." he pressed her hand and she rose.. "poor little ideal," said dodo. "i suppose it would endanger its life if you stopped, wouldn't it, jack? it must live to grow up. poor little ideal, what a hell of a time it will have when you're gone. poor dear." dinner went off as usual. dodo seemed to be in her ordinary, spirits. chesterford discussed parochial help with mrs. vivian. he glanced at dodo occasionally through the little grove of orchids that separated them, but dodo did not seem to notice. she ate a remarkably good dinner, and talked nonsense to mr. spencer who sat next her, and showed him how to construct a sea-sick passenger out of an orange, and smoked two cigarettes after the servants had left the room. maud alone was ill at ease. she glanced apprehensively at jack, as if she expected him to begin kissing dodo's hand again, and, when he asked her casually where she had been since tea, she answered; "in the smoking-room--i mean the drawing-room." jack merely raised his eyebrows, and remarked that he had been there himself, and did not remember seeing her. in the drawing-room again dodo was in the best spirits. she gave mr. spencer lessons as to how to whistle on his fingers, and sang a french song in a brilliant and somewhat broad manner. the ladies soon retired, as there was a meet early on the following morning, and, after they had gone, jack went up to the smoking-room, leaving chesterford to finish a letter in his study. shortly afterwards the latter heard the sound of wheels outside, and a footman entered to tell him the carriage was ready. chesterford was writing when the man entered, and did not look up. "i did not order the carriage," he said. "her ladyship ordered it for half-past ten," said the man. "she gave the order to me." still lord chesterford did not look up, and sat silent so long that the man spoke again. "shall i tell her ladyship it is round?" he asked. "i came to your lordship, as i understood her ladyship had gone upstairs." "you did quite right," he said. "there has been a mistake; it will not be wanted. don't disturb lady chesterford, or mention it to her." "very good, my lord." he turned to leave the room, when lord chesterford stopped him again. he spoke slowly. "did lady chesterford give you any other orders?" "she told me to see that mr. broxton's things were packed, my lord, as he would go away to-night. but she told me just before dinner that he wouldn't leave till the morning." "thanks," said lord chesterford. "that's all, i think. when is mr. broxton leaving?" "by the early train to-morrow, my lord." "go up to the smoking-room and ask him to be so good as to come here a minute." the man left the room, and gave his message. jack wondered a little, but went down. lord chesterford was standing with his back to the fire. he looked up when jack entered. he seemed to find some difficulty in speaking. "jack, old boy," he said at last, "you and i have been friends a long time, and you will not mind my being frank. can you honestly say that you are still a friend of mine?" jack advanced towards him. "i thank god that i can," he said simply, and held out his hand. he spoke without reflecting, for he did not know how much chesterford knew. of course, up to this moment, he had not been aware that he knew anything. but chesterford's tone convinced him. but a moment afterwards he saw that he had made a mistake, and he hastened to correct it. "i spoke at random," he said, "though i swear that what i said was true. i do not know on what grounds you put the question to me." lord chesterford did not seem to be attending. "but it was true?" he asked. jack felt in a horrible mess. if he attempted to explain, it would necessitate letting chesterford know the whole business. he chose between the two evils, for he would not betray dodo. "yes, it is true," he said. chesterford shook his hand. "forgive me for asking you, jack," he said. "then that's done with. but there is something more, something which it is hard for me to say." he paused, and jack noticed that he was crumpling a piece of paper he held in his hand into a tight hard ball. "then--then dodo is tired of me?" jack felt helpless and sick. he could not trust himself to speak. "isn't it so?" asked chesterford again. jack for reply held out both his hands without speaking. there was something horrible in the sight of this strong man standing pale and trembling before him. in a moment chesterford turned away, and stood warming his hands at the fire. "i heard something i wasn't meant to hear," he said, "and i know as much as i wish to. it doesn't much matter exactly what has happened. you have told me you are still my friend, and i thank you for it. and dodo--dodo is tired of me. i can reconstruct as much as is necessary. you are going off to-morrow, aren't you? i sha'n't see you again. good-bye, jack; try to forget i ever mistrusted you. i must ask you to leave me; i've got some things to think over." but jack still lingered. "try to forgive dodo," he said; "and forgive me for saying so, but don't be hard on her. it will only make things worse." "hard on her?" asked chesterford. "poor dodo, it is hard on her enough without that. she shall never know that i know, if i can help. i am not going to tell you what i know either. if you feel wronged that i even asked you that question, i am sorry for it, but i had grounds, and i am not a jealous man. the whole thing has been an awful mistake. i knew it in july, but i shall not make it worse by telling dodo." jack went out from his presence with a kind of awe. he did not care to know how chesterford had found out, or how much. all other feelings were swallowed up in a vast pity for this poor man, whom no human aid could ever reach. the great fabric which his love had raised had been shattered hopelessly, and his love sat among its ruins and wept. it was all summed up in that short sentence, "dodo is tired of me," and jack knew that it was true. the whole business was hopeless. dodo had betrayed him, and he knew it. he could no longer find a cold comfort in the thought that some day, if the difficult places could be tided over, she might grow to love him again. that was past. and yet he had only one thought, and that was for dodo. "she shall never know i know it." truly there is something divine in those men we thought most human. jack went to his room and thought it all over. he was horribly vexed with himself for having exculpated himself, but the point of chesterford's question was quite clear, and there was only one answer to it. chesterford obviously did mean to ask whether he had been guilty of the great act of disloyalty which dodo had proposed, and on the whole he would reconstruct the story in his mind more faithfully than if he had answered anything else, or had refused to answer. but jack very much doubted whether chesterford would reconstruct the story at all. the details had evidently no interest for him. all that mattered was expressed in that one sentence, "dodo is tired of me." jack would have given his right hand to have been able to answer "no," or to have been able to warn dodo; but he saw that there was nothing to be done. the smash had come, chesterford had had a rude awakening. but his love was not dead, though it was stoned and beaten and outcast. with this in mind jack took a sheet of paper from his writing-case, and wrote on it these words:-- "do not desecrate it; let it help you to make an effort." he addressed it to dodo, and when he went downstairs the next morning he slipped it among the letters that were waiting for her. the footman told him she had gone hunting. "is lord chesterford up yet?" said jack. "yes, sir; he went hunting too with her ladyship," replied the man. chapter fourteen dodo was called that morning at six, and she felt in very good spirits. there was something exhilarating in the thought of a good gallop again. there had been frost for a week before, and hunting had been stopped, but dodo meant to make up all arrears. and, on the whole, her interview with jack had consoled her, and it had given her quite a new feeling of duty. dodo always liked new things, at any rate till the varnish had rubbed off, and she quite realised that jack was making a sacrifice to the same forbidding goddess. "well, i will make a sacrifice, too," she thought as she dressed, "and when i die i shall be st. dodo. i don't think there ever was a saint dodo before, or is it saintess? anyhow, i am going to be very good. jack really is right; it is the only thing to do. i should have felt horribly mean if i had gone off last night, and i daresay i should have had to go abroad, which would have been a nuisance. i wonder if chesterford's coming. i shall make him, i think, and be very charming indeed. westley, go and tap at the door of lord chesterford's room, and tell him he is coming hunting, and that i've ordered his horse, and send his man to him, and let us have breakfast at once for two instead of one." dodo arranged her hat and stood contemplating her own figure at a cheval glass. it really did make a charming picture, and dodo gave two little steps on one side, holding her skirt up in her left hand. "just look at that, just look at this, i really think i'm not amiss," she hummed to herself. "hurrah for a gallop." she ran downstairs and made tea, and began breakfast. a moment afterwards she heard steps in the hall, and chesterford entered. dodo was not conscious of the least embarrassment, and determined to do her duty. "morning, old boy," she said, "you look as sleepy as a d. p. or dead pig. look at my hat. it's a new hat, chesterford, and is the joy of my heart. isn't it sweet? have some tea, and give me another kidney --two, i think. what happens to the sheep after they take its kidneys out? do you suppose it dies? i wonder if they put india-rubber kidneys in. kidneys do come from sheep, don't they? or is there a kidney tree? kidneys look like a sort of mushroom, and i suppose the bacon is the leaves, kidnonia baconiensis; now you're doing latin, chesterford, as you used to at eton. i daresay you've forgotten what the latin for kidneys is. i should like to have seen you at eton, chesterford. you must have been such a dear, chubby boy with blue eyes. you've got rather good eyes. i think i shall paint mine blue, and we shall have a nice little paragraph in the _sportsman_. extraordinary example of conjugal devotion. the beautiful and fascinating lady c. (you know i am beautiful and fascinating, that's why you married me), the wife of the charming and manly lord c. (you know you are charming and manly, or i shouldn't have married you, and where would you have been then? like methusaleh when the candle went out), who lived not a hundred miles from the ancient city of harchester,' etc. now it's your turn to say something, i can't carry on a conversation alone. besides, i've finished breakfast, and i shall sit by you and feed you. don't take such large mouthfuls. that was nearly a whole kidney you put in then. you'll die of kidneys, and then people will think you had something wrong with your inside, but i shall put on your tombstone, 'because he ate them, two at a time.'" chesterford laughed. dodo had not behaved like this for months. what did it all mean? but the events of the night before were too deeply branded on his memory to let him comfort himself very much. but anyhow it was charming to see dodo like this again. and she shall never know. "you'll choke if you laugh with five kidneys in your mouth," dodo went on. "they'll get down into your lungs and bob about, and all your organs will get mixed up together, and you won't be able to play on them. i suppose americans have american organs in their insides, which accounts for their squeaky voices. now, have you finished? oh, you really can't have any marmalade; put it in your pocket and eat it as you go along." dodo was surprised at the ease with which she could talk nonsense again. she abused herself for ever having let it drop. it really was much better than yawning and being bored. she had no idea how entertaining she was to herself. and chesterford had lost his hang-dog look. he put her hat straight for her, and gave her a little kiss just as he used to. after all, things were not so bad. it was a perfect morning. they left the house about a quarter to seven, and the world was beginning to wake again. there was a slight hoar-frost on the blades of grass that lined the road, and on the sprigs of bare hawthorn. in the east the sky was red with the coming day. dodo sniffed the cool morning air with a sense of great satisfaction. "decidedly somebody washes the world every night," she said, "and those are the soapsuds which are still clinging to the grass. what nice clean soap, all in little white crystals and spikes. and oh, how good it smells! look at those poor little devils of birds looking for their breakfast. poor dears, i suppose they'll be dead when the spring comes. there are the hounds. come on, chesterford, they're just going to draw the far cover. it is a sensible plan beginning hunting by seven. you get five hours by lunch-time." none of dodo's worst enemies accused her of riding badly. she had a perfect seat, and that mysterious communication with her horse that seems nothing short of magical. "if you tell your horse to do a thing the right way," she used to say, "he does it. it is inevitable. the question is, 'who is master?' as humpty dumpty said. but it isn't only master; you must make him enjoy it. you must make him feel friendly as well, or else he'll go over the fence right enough, but buck you off on the other side, as a kind of protest, and quite right too." dodo had a most enjoyable day's hunting, and returned home well pleased with herself and everybody else. she found jack's note waiting for her. she read it thoughtfully, and said to herself, "he is quite right, and that is what i mean to do. my young ideal, i am teaching you how to shoot." she took up a pen, meaning to write to him, but laid it down again. "no," she said, "i can do without that at present. i will keep that for my bad days. i suppose the bad days will come, and i won't use my remedies before i get the disease." the days passed on. they went hunting every morning, and dodo began to form very high hopes of her new child, as she called her ideal. the bad days did not seem to be the least imminent. chesterford behaved almost like a lover again in the light of dodo's new smiles. he kept his bad times to himself. they came in the evening usually when the others had gone to bed. he used to sit up late by himself over his study fire, thinking hopelessly, of the day that had gone and the day that was to come. it was a constant struggle not to tell dodo all he knew. he could scarcely believe that he had heard what maud had said, or that he ever had had that interview with jack. he could not reconcile these things with dodo's altered behaviour, and he gave it up. dodo was tired of him, and he knew that he loved her more than ever. a more delicately-strung mind might almost have given way under the hourly struggle, but it is the fate of a healthy simple man to be capable of more continued suffering than one more highly developed. the latter breaks down, or he gets numbed with the pain; but chesterford went on living under the slow ache, and his suffering grew no less. but through it all he looked back with deep gratitude to the chance that had sent dodo in his way. he did not grow bitter, and realised in the midst of his suffering how happy he had been. he had only one strong wish. "oh, god," he cried, "give me her back for one moment! let her be sorry just once for my sake." but there is a limit set to human misery, and the end had nearly come. it was about a fortnight after jack had gone. maud and mr. spencer had gone too, but mrs. vivian was with them still. dodo had more than once thought of telling her what had happened, but she could not manage it. when mrs. vivian had spoken of going, dodo entreated her to stop, for she had a great fear of being left alone with chesterford. they had been out hunting, and dodo had got home first. it was about three in the afternoon, and it had begun to snow. she had had lunch, and was sitting in the morning-room in a drowsy frame of mind. she was wondering whether chesterford had returned, and whether he would come up and see her, and whether she was not too lazy to exert herself. she heard a carriage come slowly up the drive, and did not feel interested enough to look out of the window. she was sitting with her shoes off warming her feet at the fire, with a novel in her lap, which she was not reading, and a cigarette in her hand. she heard the opening and shutting of doors, and slow steps on the stairs. then the door opened and mrs. vivian came in. dodo had seen that look in her face once before, when she was riding in the park with jack, and a fearful certainty came upon her. she got up and turned towards her. "is he dead?" she asked. mrs. vivian drew her back into her seat. "i will tell you all," she said. "he has had a dangerous fall hunting, and it is very serious. the doctors are with him. there is some internal injury, and he is to have an operation. it is the only chance of saving his life, and even then it is a very slender one. he is quite conscious, and asked me to tell you. you will not be able to see him for half an hour. the operation is going on now." dodo sat perfectly still. she did not speak a word; she scarcely even thought anything. everything seemed to be a horrible blank to her. "ah god, ah god!" she burst out at last. "can't i do anything to help? i would give my right hand to help him. it is all too horrible. to think that i--" she walked up and down the room, and then suddenly opened the door and went downstairs. she paced up and down the drawing-room, paused a moment, and went into his study. his papers were lying about in confusion on the table, but on the top was a guide-book to the riviera. dodo remembered his buying this at mentone on their wedding-tour, and conscientiously walking about the town sight-seeing. she sat down in his chair and took it up. she remembered also that he had bought her that day a new volume of poems which had just come out, and had read to her out of it. there was in it a poem called "paris and helen." he had read that among others, and had said to her, as they were being rowed back to the yacht again that evening, "that is you and i, dodo, going home." on the fly-leaf of the guide-book he had written it out, and, as she sat there now, dodo read it. as o'er the swelling tides we slip that know not wave nor foam, behold the helmsman of our ship, love leads us safely home. his ministers around us move to aid the westering breeze, he leads us softly home, my love, across the shining seas. my golden helen, day and night love's light is o'er us flung, each hour for us is infinite, and all the world is young. there is none else but thou and i beneath the heaven's high dome, love's ministers around us fly, love leads us safely home. dodo buried her face in her hands with a low cry. "i have been cruel and wicked," she sobbed to herself. "i have despised the best that any man could ever give me, and i can never make him amends. i will tell him all. i will ask him to forgive me. oh, poor chesterford, poor chesterford!" she sat there sobbing in complete misery. she saw, as she had never seen before, the greatness of his love for her, and her wretched, miserable return for his gift. "it is all over; i know he will die," she sobbed. "supposing he does not know me--supposing he dies before i can tell him. oh, my husband, my husband, live to forgive me!" she was roused by a touch on her shoulder. mrs. vivian stood by her. "you must be quick, dodo," she said. "there is not much time." dodo did not answer her, but went upstairs. before the bedroom door she stopped. "i must speak to him alone," she said. "send them all out." "they have gone into the dressing-room," said mrs. vivian; "he is alone." dodo stayed no longer, but went in. he was lying facing the door, and the shadow of death was on his face. but he recognised dodo, and smiled and held out his hand. dodo ran to the bedside and knelt by it. "oh, chesterford," she sobbed, "i have wronged you cruelly, and i can never make it up. i will tell you all." "there is no need," said he; "i knew it all along." dodo raised her head. "you knew it all?" she asked. "yes, dear," he said; "it was by accident that i knew it." "and you behaved to me as usual," said dodo. "yes, my darling," said he; "you wouldn't have had me beat you, would you? don't speak of it--there is not much time." "ah, forgive me, forgive me!" she cried. "how could i have done it?" "it was not a case of forgiving," he said. "you are you, you are dodo. my darling, there is not time to say much. you have been very good to me, and have given me more happiness than i ever thought i could have had." "chesterford! chesterford!" cried dodo pleadingly. "yes, darling," he answered; "my own wife. dodo, i shall see the boy soon, and we will wait for you together. you will be mine again then. there shall be no more parting." dodo could not answer him. she could only press his hand and kiss his lips, which were growing very white. it was becoming a fearful effort for him to speak. the words came slowly with long pauses. "there is one more thing," he said. "you must marry jack. you must make him very happy--as you have made me." "ah, don't say that," said dodo brokenly; "don't cut me to the heart." "my darling," he said, "my sweet own wife, i am so glad you told me. it has cleared up the only cloud. i wondered whether you would tell me. i prayed god you might, and he has granted it me. good-bye, my own darling, good-bye." dodo lay in his arms, and kissed him passionately. "good-bye, dear," she sobbed. he half raised himself in bed. "ah, my dodo, my sweet wife," he said. then he fell back and lay very still. how long dodo remained there she did not know. she remembered mrs. vivian coming in and raising her gently, and they left the darkened room together. chapter fifteen picture to yourself, or let me try to picture for you, a long, low, rambling house, covering a quite unnecessary area of ground, with many gables, tall, red-brick chimneys, unexpected corners, and little bow windows looking out from narrow turrets-a house that looks as if it had grown, rather than been designed and built. it began obviously with that little grey stone section, which seems to consist of small rooms with mullion windows, over which the ivy has asserted so supreme a dominion. the next occupant had been a man who knew how to make himself comfortable, but did not care in the least what sort of appearance his additions would wear to the world at large; to him we may assign that uncompromising straight wing which projects to the right of the little core of grey stone. then came a series of attempts to screen the puritanical ugliness of the offending block. some one ran up two little turrets at one end, and a clock tower in the middle; one side of it was made the main entrance of the house, and two red-tiled lines of building were built at right angles to it to form a three-sided quadrangle, and the carriage drive was brought up in a wide sweep to the door, and a sun-dial was planted down in the grass plot in the middle, in such a way that the sun could only peep at it for an hour or two every day, owing to the line of building which sheltered it on every side except the north. so the old house went on growing, and got more incongruous and more delightful with every addition. the garden has had to take care of itself under such circumstances, and if the house has been pushing it back in one place, it has wormed itself in at another, and queer little lawns with flower beds of old-fashioned, sweet-smelling plants have crept in where you least expect them. this particular garden has always seemed to me the ideal of what a garden should be. it is made to sit in, to smoke in, to think in, to do nothing in. a wavy, irregular lawn forbids the possibility of tennis, or any game that implies exertion or skill, and it is the home of sweet smells, bright colour, and chuckling birds. there are long borders of mignonette, wallflowers and hollyhocks, and many old-fashioned flowers, which are going the way of all old fashions. london pride, with its delicate spirals and star-like blossoms, and the red drooping velvet of love-lies-a-bleeding. the thump of tennis balls, the flying horrors of ring-goal, even the clash of croquet is tabooed in this sacred spot. down below, indeed, beyond that thick privet hedge, you may find, if you wish, a smooth, well-kept piece of grass, where, even now--if we may judge from white figures that cross the little square, where a swinging iron gate seems to remonstrate hastily and ill-temperedly with those who leave these reflective shades for the glare and publicity of tennis--a game seems to be in progress. if you had exploring tendencies in your nature, and had happened to find yourself, on the afternoon of which i propose to speak, in this delightful garden, you would sooner or later have wandered into a low-lying grassy basin, shut in on three sides by banks of bushy rose-trees. the faint, delicate smell of their pale fragrance would have led you there, or, perhaps, the light trickling of a fountain, now nearly summer dry. perhaps the exploring tendency would account for your discovery. there, lying back in a basket-chair, with a half-read letter in her hand, and an accusing tennis racquet by her side, you would have found edith staines. she had waited after lunch to get her letters, and going out, meaning to join the others, she had found something among them that interested her, and she was reading a certain letter through a second time when you broke in upon her. after a few minutes she folded it up, put it back in the envelope, and sat still, thinking. "so she's going to marry him," she said half aloud, and she took up her racquet and went down to the tennis courts. ten days ago she had come down to stay with miss grantham, at the end of the london season. miss grantham's father was a somewhat florid baronet of fifty years of age. he had six feet of height, a cheerful, high-coloured face, and a moustache, which he was just conscious had military suggestions about it--though he had never been in the army--which was beginning to grow grey. his wife had been a lovely woman, half spanish by birth, with that peculiarly crisp pronunciation that english people so seldom possess, and which is almost as charming to hear as a child's first conscious grasp of new words. she dressed remarkably well; her reading chiefly consisted of the _morning post_, french novels, and small books of morbid poetry, which seemed to her very _chic_, and she was worldly to the tips of her delicate fingers. she had no accomplishments of any sort, except a great knowledge of foreign languages. she argued, with much reason, that you could get other people to do your accomplishments for you. "why should i worry myself with playing scales?" she said. "i can hire some poor wretch" (she never could quite manage the english "r") "to play to me by the hour. he will play much better than i ever should, and it is a form of charity as well." edith had made great friends with her, and disagreed with her on every topic under the sun. lady grantham admired edith's vivacity, though her own line was serene elegance, and respected her success. success was the one accomplishment that she really looked up to (partly, perhaps, because she felt she had such a large measure of it herself), and no one could deny that edith was successful. she had enough broadness of view to admire success in any line, and would have had a vague sense of satisfaction in accepting the arm of; the best crossing-sweeper in london to take her in to dinner. she lived in a leonine atmosphere, and if you did not happen to meet a particular lion at her house, it was because "he was here on monday, or is coming on wednesday"; at any rate, not because he had not been asked. edith, however, felt thoroughly pleased with her quarters. she had hinted once that she had to go the day after to-morrow, but nora grantham had declined to argue the question. "you're only going home to do your music," she said. "we've got quite as good a piano here as you have, and, we leave you entirely to your own devices. besides, you're mother's lion just now--isn't she, mother?--and you're not going to get out of the menagerie just yet. there is going to be a big feeding-time next week, and you will have to roar." edith's remark about the necessity of going had been dictated only by a sense of duty, in order to give her hosts an opportunity of getting rid of her if they wished, and she was quite content to stop. she strolled down across the lawn to the tennis courts in a thoughtful frame of mind, and met miss grantham, who was coming to look for her. "where have you been, edith?" she said. "they're all clamouring for you. mother is sitting in the summer-house wondering why anybody wants to play tennis. she says none of them will ever be as good as cracklin, and he's a cad." "grantie," said edith, "dodo's engaged." "oh, dear, yes," said miss grantham. "i knew she would be. how delightful. jack's got his reward at last. may i tell everyone? how funny that she should marry a lord chesterford twice. it was so convenient that the first one shouldn't have had any brothers, and dodo won't have to change her visiting cards; or have new handkerchiefs or anything. what a contrast, though!" "no, it's private at present," said edith. "dodo has just written to me; she told me i might tell you. do you altogether like it?" "of course i do," said miss grantham. "only i should like to marry jack myself. i wonder if he asked dodo, or if dodo asked him." "i suppose it was inevitable," said edith. "dodo says that chesterford's last words to her were that she should marry jack." "that was so sweet of him," murmured miss grantham. "he was very sweet and dear and remembering, wasn't he?" edith was still grave and doubtful. "i'm sure there was nearly a crash," she said. "do you remember the brettons' ball? chesterford didn't like that, and they quarrelled, i know, next morning." "oh, _how_ interesting," said miss grantham. "but dodo was quite right to go, i think. she was dreadfully bored, and she will not stand being bored. she might have done something much worse." "it seems to be imperatively necessary for dodo to do something unexpected," said edith. "i wonder, oh, i wonder--jack will be very happy for a time," she added inconsequently. edith's coming was the signal for serious play to begin. she entirely declined to play except with people who considered it, for the time being, the most important thing in the world, and naturally she played well. a young man, of military appearance on a small scale, was sitting by lady grantham in the tent, and entertaining her with somewhat unfledged remarks. "miss staines does play so arfly well, doesn't she?" he was saying. "look at that stroke, perfectly rippin' you know, what?" mr. featherstone had a habit of finishing all his sentences with "what?" he pronounced it to rhyme with heart. lady grantham was reading loti's book of pity and death. it answered the double purpose of being french and morbid. "what book have you got hold of there?" continued featherstone. "it's an awful bore reading books, dontcherthink, what? i wish one could get a feller to read them for me, and then tell one about them." "i rather enjoy some books," said lady grantham. "this, for instance, is a good one," and she held the book towards him. "oh, that's french, isn't it?" remarked featherstone. "i did french at school; don't know a word now. it's an arful bore having to learn french, isn't it? couldn't i get a feller to learn it for me?" lady grantham reflected. "i daresay you could," she replied. "you might get your man--tiger--how do you call him?--to learn it. it's capable of comprehension to the lowest intellect," she added crisply. "oh, come, lady grantham," he replied, "you don't think so badly of me as that, do you?" lady grantham was seized with a momentary desire to run her parasol through his body, provided it could be done languidly and without effort. her daughter had come up, and sat down in a low chair by her. featherstone was devoting the whole of his great mind to the end of his moustache. "nora," she said, quietly, "this little man must be taken away. i can't quite manage him. tell him to go and play about." "dear mother," she replied, "bear him a little longer. he can't play about by himself." lady grantham got gently up from her chair, and thrust an exquisite little silver paper-knife between the leaves of her book. "i think i will ask you to take my chair across to that tree opposite," she said to him, without looking at him. he followed her, dragging the chair after him. halfway across the lawn they met a footman bringing tea down into the ground. "take the chair," she said. then she turned to her little man. "many thanks. i won't detain you," she said, with a sweet smile. "so good of you to have come here this afternoon." featherstone was impenetrable. he lounged back, if so small a thing can be said to lounge, and sat down again by miss grantham. "fascinatin' woman your mother is," he said. "arfly clever, isn't she? what? knows french and that sort of thing. i can always get along all right in france. if you only swear at the waiters they understand what you want all right, you know." two or three other fresh arrivals made it possible for another set to be started, and mr. featherstone was induced to play, in spite of his protestations that he had quite given up tennis for polo. lady grantham finished her loti, and moved back to the tea-table, where edith was sitting, fanning herself with a cabbage leaf, and receiving homage on the score of her tennis-playing. lady grantham did not offer to give anybody any tea; she supposed they would take it when they wanted it, but she wished someone would give her a cup. "what's the name of the little man and his moustache?" she asked edith, indicating mr. featherstone, who was performing wild antics in the next court. edith informed her. "how did he get here?" demanded lady grantham. "oh, he's a friend of mine. i think he came to see me," replied edith. "he lives somewhere about. i suppose you find him rather trying. it doesn't matter; he's of no consequence." "my dear edith, between your sporting curate, and your german conductor, and your roman catholic cure, and this man, one's life isn't safe." "you won't see the good side of those sort of people," said edith. "if they've got rather overwhelming manners, and aren't as silent and bored as you think young men ought to be, you think they're utter outsiders." "i only want to know if there are any more of that sort going to turn up. think of the positions you put me in! when i went into the drawing-room yesterday, for instance, before lunch, i find a roman catholic priest there, who puts up two fingers at me, and says 'benedicite.'" edith lay back in her chair and laughed. "how i should like to have seen you! did you think he was saying grace, or did you tell him not to be insolent?" "i behaved with admirable moderation," said lady grantham. "i even prepared to be nice to him. but he had sudden misgivings, and said, 'i beg your pardon, i thought you were miss staines.' i saw i was not wanted, and retreated. that is not all. bob told me that i had to take a curate in to dinner last night, and asked me not to frighten him. i suppose he thought i wanted to say 'bo,' or howl at him. the curate tried me. i sat down when we got to the table, and he turned to me and said, 'i beg your pardon'--they all beg my pardon--'but i'm going to say grace.' then i prepared myself to talk night schools and district visiting; but he turned on me, and asked what i thought of orme's chances for the st. leger." "oh, dear! oh, dear!" cried edith; "he told me afterwards that you seemed a very serious lady." "i didn't intend to encourage that," continued lady grantham; "so i held on to district visiting. we shook our heads together over dissent in wales. we split over calvinism--who was calvin? we renounced society; and i was going to work him a pair of slippers. we were very edifying. then he sang comic songs in the drawing-room, and discussed the methods of cheating at baccarat. i was a dead failure." "anyhow, you're a serious lady," said edith. "that young man will come to a bad end," said lady grantham; "so will your german conductor. he ordered beer in the middle of the morning, to-day--the second footman will certainly give notice--and he smoked a little clay pipe after dinner in the dining-room. then this afternoon comes this other friend of yours. he says, 'arfly rippin' what.'" "he said you were arfly fascinatin' what," interpolated miss grantham, "when you went away to read your book. you were very rude to him." sir robert grantham had joined the party. he was a great hand at adapting his conversation to his audience, and making everyone conscious that they ought to feel quite at home. he recounted at some length a series of tennis matches which he had taken part in a few years ago. a strained elbow had spoiled his chances of winning, but the games were most exciting, and it was generally agreed at the time that the form of the players was quite first-class. he talked about wagner and counterpoint to edith. he asked his vicar abstruse questions on the evidence of the immortality of the soul after death; he discussed agriculture and farming with tenants, to whom he always said "thank ye," instead of "thank you," in order that they might feel quite at their ease; he lamented the want of physique in the english army to mr. featherstone, who was very short, and declared that the average height of englishmen was only five feet four. as he said this he drew himself up, and made it quite obvious that he himself was six feet high, and broad in proportion. a few more cups of tea were drunk, and a few more sets played, and the party dispersed. edith was the only guest in the house, and she and frank, the oxford son, stopped behind to play a game or two more before dinner. lady grantham and nora strolled up through the garden towards the house, while sir robert remained on the ground, and mingled advice, criticism, and approbation to the tennis players; frank's back-handed stroke, he thought, was not as good as it might be, and edith could, certainly put half fifteen on to her game if judiciously coached. neither of the players volleyed as well as himself, but volleying was his strong point, and they must not be discouraged. frank's attitude to his father was that of undisguised amusement; but he found him very entertaining. they were all rather late for dinner, and lady grantham was waiting for them in the drawing-room. frank and his father were down before edith, and lady grantham was making remarks on their personal appearance. "you look very, hot and red," she was saying to her son, "and i really wish you would brush your hair better. i don't know what young men are coming to, they seem to think that everything is to be kept waiting for them." frank's attitude was one of serene indifference. "go on, go on," he said; "i don't mind." edith was five minutes later. lady grantham remarked on the importance of being in time for dinner, and hoped they wouldn't all die from going to bed too soon afterwards. frank apologised for his mother. "don't mind her, miss staines," he said, "they're only her foreign manners. she doesn't know how to behave. it's all right. i'm going to take you in, mother. are we going to have grouse?" that evening miss grantham and edith "talked dodo," as the latter called it, till the small hours. she produced dodo's letter, and read extracts. "of course, we sha'n't be married till after next november," wrote dodo. "jack wouldn't hear of it, and it would seem very unfeeling. don't you think so? it will be odd going back to winston again. mind you come and stay with us at easter." "i wonder if dodo ever thinks with regret of anything or anybody," said edith. "imagine writing like that--asking me if i shouldn't think it unfeeling." "oh, but she says she would think it unfeeling," said miss grantham. "that's so sweet and remembering of her." "but don't you see," said edith, "she evidently thinks it is so good of her to have feelings about it at all. she might as well call attention to the fact that she always puts her shoes and stockings on to go to church." "there's a lot of women who would marry again before a year was out if it wasn't for convention," said miss grantham. "that's probably the case with dodo," remarked edith. "dodo doesn't care one pin for the memory of that man. she knows it, and she knows i know it. why does she say that sort of thing to me? he was a good man, too, and i'm not sure that he wasn't great. chesterford detested me, but i recognised him." "oh, i don't think he was great," said miss grantham. "didn't he always strike you as a little stupid?" "i prefer stupid people," declared edith roundly. "they are so restful. they're like nice; sweet, white bread; they quench your hunger as well as _pâté de foie gras_, and they are much better for you." "i think they make you just a little thirsty," remarked miss grantham. "i should have said they were more like cracknels. besides, do you think that it's an advantage to associate with people who are good for you? it produces a sort of rabies in me. i want to bite them." "you like making yourself out worse than you are, grantie," said edith. "i think you like making dodo out worse than she is," returned nora. "i always used to think you were very fond of her." "i am fond of her," said edith; "that's why i'm dissatisfied with her." "what a curious way of showing your affection," said miss grantham. "i love dodo, and if i was a man i should like to many her." "dodo is too dramatic," said edith. "she never gets off the stage; and sometimes she plays to the gallery, and then the stalls say, 'how cheap she's making herself.' she has the elements of a low comedian about her." "and the airs of a tragedy queen, i suppose," added miss grantham. "exactly," said edith; "and the consequence is that she as a burlesque sometimes: she is her own parody." "darling dodo," said grantie with feeling. "i _do_ want to see her again." "all her conduct after his death," continued edith, "that was the tragedy queen; she shut herself up in that great house, quite alone, for two months, and went to church with a large prayer-book every morning, at eight. but it was burlesque all the same. dodo isn't sorry like that. the gallery yelled with applause." "i thought it was so sweet of her," murmured grantie. "i suppose i'm gallery too." "then she went abroad," continued edith, "and sat down and wept by the waters of aix. but she soon took down her harp. she gave banjo parties on the lake, and sang coster songs." "mrs. vane told me she recovered her spirits wonderfully at aix," remarked miss grantham. "and played baccarat, and recovered other people's money," pursued edith. "if she'd taken the first train for aix after the funeral, i should have respected her." "oh, that would have been horrid," said miss grantham; "besides, it wouldn't have been the season." "that's true," said edith. "dodo probably remembered that." "oh, you sha'n't abuse dodo any more," said miss grantham. "i think it's perfectly horrid of you. go and play me something." perhaps the thought of chesterford was in edith's mind as she sat down to the piano, for she played a piece of mozart's "requiem," which is the saddest music in the world. miss grantham shivered a little. the long wailing notes, struck some chord, within her, which disturbed her peace of mind. "what a dismal thing," she said, when edith had finished. "you make me feel like sunday evening after a country church." edith stood looking out of the window. the moon was up, and the great stars were wheeling in their courses through the infinite vault. a nightingale was singing loud in the trees, and the little mysterious noises of night stole about among the bushes. as edith thought of chesterford she remembered how the greeks mistook the passionate song of the bird for the lament of the dead, and it did not seem strange to her. for love, sometimes goes hand-in-hand with death. she turned back into the room again. "god forgive her," she said, "if we cannot." "i'm not going to bed with that requiem in my ears," said miss grantham. "i should dream of hearses." edith went to the piano, and broke into a quick, rippling movement. miss grantham listened, and felt she ought to know what it was. "what is it?" she said, when edith had finished. "it is the scherzo from the 'dodo symphony,'" she said. "i composed it two years ago at winston." chapter sixteen dodo had written to edith from zermatt, where she was enjoying herself amazingly. mrs. vane was there, and mr. and mrs. algernon spencer, and prince waldenech and jack. as there would have been some natural confusion in the hotel if dodo had called herself lady chesterford, when lord chesterford was also there, she settled to be called miss vane. this tickled prince waldenech enormously; it seemed to him a capital joke. dodo was sitting in the verandah of the hotel one afternoon, drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes. half the hotel were scandalised at her, and usually referred to her as "that miss vane"; the other half adored her, and went [on] expeditions with her, and took minor parts in her theatricals, and generally played universal second fiddle. dodo enjoyed this sort of life. there was in her an undeveloped germ of simplicity, that found pleasure in watching the slow-footed, cows driven home from the pastures, in sitting with jack--regardless of her assumed name--in the crocus-studded meadows, or by the side of the swirling glacier-fed stream that makes the valley melodious. she argued, with great reason, that she had already shocked all the people that were going to be shocked, so much that it didn't matter what she did; while the other contingent, who were not going to be shocked, were not going to be shocked. "everyone must either be shocked or not shocked," she said, "and they're that already. that's why prince waldenech and i are going for a moonlight walk next week when the moon comes back." dodo had made great friends with the prince's half-sister, a russian on her mother's side, and she was reading her extracts out of her unwritten book of the _philosophy of life_, an interesting work, which varied considerably according to dodo's mood. just now it suited dodo to be in love with life. "you are a russian by nature and sympathy, my dear princess," she was saying, "and you are therefore in a continual state of complete boredom. you think you are bored here, because it is not paris; in paris you are quite as much bored with all your _fêtes_, and dances, and parties as you are here. i tell you frankly you are wrong. why don't you come and sit in the grass, and look at the crocuses, and throw stones into the stream like me." the princess stretched out a delicate arm. "i don't think i ever threw a stone in my life," she said dubiously. "would it amuse me, do you think?" "not at first," said dodo; "and you will never be amused at all if you think about it." "what am i to think about then?" she asked. "you must think about the stone," said dodo decisively, "you must think about the crocuses, you must think about the cows." "it's all so new to me," remarked the princess. "we never think about cows in russia." "that's just what i'm saying," said dodo. "you must get out of yourself. anything, does to think about, and nobody is bored unless they think about being bored. when one has the whole world to choose from, and only one subject in it that can make one feel bored, it really shows a want of resource to think about that. then you ought to take walks and make yourself tired." the princess cast a vague eye on the matterhorn. "that sort of horror?" she asked. "no, you needn't begin with the matterhorn," said dodo, laughing. "go to the glaciers, and get rather cold and wet. boredom is chiefly physical." "i'm sure being cold and wet would bore me frightfully," she said. "no, no--a big no," cried dodo. "no one is ever bored unless they are comfortable. that's the great principle. there isn't time for it. you cannot be bored and something else at the same time. being comfortable doesn't count; that's our normal condition. but you needn't be uncomfortable in order to be bored. it's very comfortable sitting here with you, and i'm not the least bored. i should poison myself if i were bored: i can't think why you don't." "i will do anything you recommend," said the princess placidly. "you are the only woman i know who never appears to be bored. i wonder if my husband would bore you. he is very big, and very good, and he eats a large breakfast, and looks after his serfs. he bores me to extinction. he would wear black for ten years if i poisoned myself." a shade of something passed over dodo's face. it might have been regret, or stifled remembrance, or a sudden twinge of pain, and it lasted an appreciable fraction of a second. "i can imagine being bored with that kind of man," she said in a moment. the princess was lying back in her chair,' and did not notice a curious hardness in dodo's voice. "i should so-like to introduce you to him," said she. "i should like to shut you up with him for a month at our place on the volga. it snows a good deal there, and he goes out in the snow and shoots animals, and comes back in the evening with a red face, and tells me all about it. it is very entertaining, but a trifle monotonous. he does not know english, nor german, nor french. he laughs very loud. he is devoted to me. do go and stay with him. i think i'll join you when you've been there three weeks. he is quite safe. i shall not be afraid. he writes to me every day, and suggests that he should join me here." dodo shifted her position and looked up at the matterhorn. "yes," she said. "i should certainly be bored with him, but i'm not sure that i would show it." "he wouldn't like you at all," continued the princess. "he would think you loud. that is so odd. he thinks it unfeminine to smoke. he has great ideas about the position of women. he gave me a book of private devotions bound in the parchment from a bear he had shot on my last birthday." dodo laughed. "i'm sure you need not be bored with him," she said. "he must have a strong vein of unconscious humour about him." "i'm quite unconscious of it," said the princess. "you cannot form the slightest idea of what he's like till you see him. i almost feel inclined to tell him to come here." "ah, but you russian women have such liberty," said dodo. "you can tell your husband not to expect to see you again for three months. we can't do that. an english husband and wife are like two siamese twins. until about ten years ago they used to enter the drawing-room, when they were going out to dinner, arm-in-arm." "that's very bourgeois," said the princess. "you are rather a bourgeois race. you are very hearty, and pleased to see one, and all that. there's lord chesterford. you're a great friend of his, aren't you? he looks very distinguished. i should say he was usually bored." "he was my husband's first cousin," said dodo. princess alexandrina of course knew that miss vane was a widow. "i was always an old friend of his--as long as i can remember, that's to say. jack and i are going up towards the eiffel to watch the sunset. come with us." "i think i'll see the sunset from here," she said. "you're going up a hill, i suppose?" "oh, but you can't see it from here," said dodo. "that great mass of mountain is in the way." the princess considered. "i don't think i want to see the sunset after all," she said. "i've just found the _kreutzer sonata._ i've been rural enough for one day, and i want a breath of civilised air. do you know, i never feel bored when you are talking to me." "oh, that's part of my charm, isn't it?" said dodo to jack, who had lounged up to where they were sitting. "dodo's been lecturing me, lord chesterford," said the princess. "does she ever lecture you?" "she gave me quite a long lecture once," said he. "she recommended me to live in a cathedral town." "a cathedral town," said the princess. "that's something fearful, isn't it? why did you tell him to do that?" she said. "i think it was a mistake," said dodo. "anyhow, jack didn't take my advice. i shouldn't recommend him to do it now, but he has a perfect genius for being domestic. everyone is very domestic in cathedral towns. they all dine at seven and breakfast at a quarter past eight--next morning, you understand. that quarter past is delightful. but jack said he didn't want to score small successes," she added, employing a figure grammatically known as "hiatus." "my husband is very domestic," said the princess. "but he isn't a bit like lord chesterford. he would like to live with me in a little house in the country, and never have anyone to stay with us. that would be so cheerful during the winter months." "jack, would you like to live with your wife in a little house in the country?" demanded dodo. "i don't think i should ever marry a woman who wanted to," remarked jack, meeting dodo's glance. "imagine two people really liking each other better than all the rest of the world," said the princess, "and living on milk, and love, and wild roses, and fresh eggs! i can't bear fresh eggs." "my egg this morning wasn't at all fresh," said dodo. "i wish i'd thought of sending it to your room." "would you never get tired of your wife, don't you think," continued the princess, "if you shut yourselves up in the country? supposing she wished to pick roses when you wanted to play lawn tennis?" "oh, jack, it wouldn't do," said dodo. "you'd make her play lawn tennis." "my husband and i never thought of playing lawn tennis," said the princess. "i shall try that when we meet next. it's very amusing, isn't it?" "it makes you die of laughing," said dodo, solemnly. "come, jack, we're going to see the sunset. good-bye, dear. go and play with your maid. she can go out of the room while you think of something, and then come in and guess what you've thought of." jack and dodo strolled up through the sweet-smelling meadows towards the riffelberg. a cool breeze was streaming down from the "furrow cloven alls" of the glacier, heavy with the clean smell of pine woods and summer flowers, and thick with a hundred mingling sounds. the cows were being driven homewards, and the faint sounds of bells were carried down to them from the green heights above. now and then they passed a herd of goats, still nibbling anxiously at the wayside grass, followed by some small ragged shepherd, who brushed his long hair away from his eyes to get a better look at this dazzling, fair-skinned woman, who evidently belonged to quite another order of beings from his wrinkled, early-old mother. one of them held out to dodo a wilted little bunch of flowers, crumpled with much handling, but she did not seem to notice him. after they had passed he tossed them away, and ran off after his straying flock. southwards, high above them, stretched the long lines of snow spread out under the feet of the matterhorn, which sat like some huge sphinx, unapproachable, remote. just below lay the village, sleeping in the last rays of the sun, which shone warmly on the red, weathered planks. light blue smoke curled slowly up from the shingled roofs, and streamed gently down the valley in a thin, transparent haze. "decidedly, it's a very nice world," said dodo. "i'm so glad i wasn't born a russian. the princess never enjoys anything at all, except telling one how bored she is. but she's very amusing, and i gave her a great deal of good advice." "what have you been telling her to do," asked jack. "oh, anything. i recommended her to sit in the meadows, and throw stones and get her feet wet. it's not affectation at all in her, she really is hopelessly bored. it's as easy for her to be bored as for me not to be. jack, what will you do to me if i get bored when we're married?" "i shall tell you to throw stones," said he. "as long as you don't look at me reproachfully," said dodo, "i sha'n't mind. oh, look at the matterhorn. isn't it big?" "i don't like it," said jack; "it always looks as if it was taking notice, and reflecting how dreadfully small one is." "i used to think vivy was like that," said dodo. "she was very good to me once or twice. i wonder what i shall be like when i'm middle-aged. i can't bear the thought of getting old, but that won't stop it. i don't want to sit by the fire and purr. i don't think i could do it." "one won't get old all of a sudden, though," said jack; "that's a great consideration. the change will come so gradually that one won't know it." "ah, don't," said dodo quickly. "it's like dying by inches, losing hold of life gradually. it won't come to me like that. i shall wake up some morning and find i'm not young any more." "well, it won't come yet," said jack with sympathy. "well, i'm not going to bother my head about it," said dodo, "there isn't time. there's maud and her little spencer. he's a dear little man, and he ought to be put in a band-box with some pink cotton-wool, and taken out every sunday morning." dodo whistled shrilly on her fingers to attract their attention. mr. spencer had been gathering flowers and putting them into a neat, little tin box, which he slung over his shoulders. he was dressed in a norfolk jacket carefully buttoned round his waist, with knickerbockers and blue worsted stockings. he wore a small blue ribbon in his top button-hole, and a soft felt hat. he carried his flowers home in the evening, and always remembered to press them before he went to bed. he and maud were sitting on a large grey rock by the wayside, reading the psalms for the seventeenth evening of the month. dodo surveyed her critically, and laid herself out to be agreeable. "well, algy," she said, "how are the flowers going on? oh, what a sweet little gentian. where did you get it? we're going to have some theatricals this evening, and you must come. it's going to be a charade, and you'll have to guess the word afterwards. jack and i are going to look at the sunset. we shall be late for dinner. what's that book, maud?" "we were reading the psalms for the evening," said maud. "oh, how dear of you!" said dodo. "what a lovely church this makes. algy, why don't you have service out of doors at gloucester? i always feel so much more devotional on fine evenings out in the open air. i think that's charming. good-bye. jack and i must go on." dodo was a good walker, and they were soon among the pines that climb up the long steep slope to the eiffel. their steps were silent on the carpet of needles, and they walked on, not talking much, but each intensely conscious of the presence of the other. at a corner high up on the slope they stopped, for the great range in front of them had risen above the hills on the other side of the valley, and all the snow was flushed with the sunset. dodo laid her hand on jack's. "how odd it is that you and i should be here together, and like this," she said. "i often used to wonder years ago whether this would happen. jack, you will make me very happy? promise me that." and jack promised. "i often think of chesterford," dodo went on. "he wished for this, you know. he told me so as he was dying. did you ever know, jack--" even dodo found it hard to get on at this moment--"did you ever know--he knew all? i began to tell him, and he stopped me, saying he knew." jack's face was grave. "he told me he knew," he said; "at least, i saw he did. i never felt so much ashamed. it was my fault. i would have given a great deal to save him that knowledge." "god forgive me if i was cruel to him," said dodo. "but, oh, jack, i did try. i was mad that night i think." "don't talk of it," said he suddenly; "it was horrible; it was shameful." they were silent a moment. then jack said,-- "dodo, let us bury the thought of that for ever. there are some memories which are sacred to me. the memory of chesterford is one. he was very faithful, and he was very unhappy. i feel as if i was striking his dead body when you speak of it. requiescat." they rose and went down to the hotel; the sun had set, and it grew suddenly cold. the theatricals that night were a great success. dodo was simply inimitable. two maiden ladies left the hotel the next morning. chapter seventeen dodo's marriage was announced in september. it was to be celebrated at the beginning of december, and was to be very grand indeed. duchesses were expected to be nothing accounted of. she was still in switzerland when it was made known, and events had developed themselves. the announcement came out in the following manner. she had taken her moonlight walk, but not with prince waldenech. she had mentioned to him incidentally that jack was coming as well, and after dinner the prince found he had important despatches waiting for him. dodo was rather amused at the inadequacy of this statement, as no post had come in that morning. the thought that the prince particularly wished to take a romantic walk with her was entertaining. next morning, however, while dodo was sitting in her room, looking out over the wide, green valley, her maid came in and asked if prince waldenech might have permission to speak to her. "good morning," said dodo affably, as he entered. "i wish you had been with us last night. we had a charming walk, but jack was dreadfully dull. why didn't you come?" the prince twisted his long moustaches. "certainly i had no despatches," he declared with frankness; "that was--how do you call it?--oh, a white lie." "did you expect me to believe it?" asked dodo. "assuredly not," he returned. "it would have been an insult to your understanding. but such statements are better than the truth sometimes. but i came here for another purpose--to say good-bye." "you're not going?" said dodo surprisedly. "unless you tell me to stop," he murmured, advancing to her. dodo read his meaning at once, and determined to stop his saying anything more. "certainly i tell you to stop," she said. "you mustn't break up our charming party so soon. besides, i have a piece of news for you this morning. i ask for your congratulations." "ah, those despatches," murmured the prince. "no, it was not the fault of your despatches," said dodo, laughing. "it was settled some time ago. i shall be lady chesterford again next year. allow me to introduce the marchioness of chesterford elect to your highness," and she swept him a little curtsey. the prince bowed. "the marquis of chesterford is a very fortunate man," he said. "decidedly i had better go away to-morrow." dodo felt annoyed with him. "i thought he was clever enough not to say that," she thought to herself. "no, my dear prince, you shall do nothing of the sort," she said. "you are very happy here, and i don't choose that you should go away--i tell you to stop. you said you would if i told you." "i am a man of honour still," said he, with mock solemnity. he put both hands together and bowed. "i shall be the first to congratulate the marquis," he said, "and may i hope the marchioness will think with pity on those less fortunate than he." dodo smiled benignantly. he really had got excellent manners. the scene was artistic, and it pleased her. "i should think you were too proud to accept pity," she said. "have you ever seen me other than humble--to you?" he asked. "take it then," said dodo; "as much as your case requires. but i feel it is insolent of me to offer it." "i take all the pity you have," said he, smiling gravely. "i want it more than any other poor devil you might think of bestowing it on." he bowed himself gracefully out of the room. he and dodo had been discussing english proverbs the day before, and dodo asserted broadly that they were all founded on universal truths. the prince thought that pity was quite a promising gift. dodo was a little uneasy after he had gone. she was always a trifle afraid of him, though, to do her justice, no one would have guessed it. he had acted the rejected lover in the theatricals of the week before, and his acting had been rather too good. the scene she had just gone through reminded her very forcibly of it. she had found that she could not get the play out of her head afterwards, and had had long waking dreams that night, in which the prince appeared time after time, and her refusal got more faint as he pressed his suit. she felt that he was the stronger of the two, and such a scene as the last inspired her with a kind of self-distrust. "he will not make himself 'cheap,'" dodo said to herself. she was very glad he was going to stop, and had been surprised to feel how annoyed she was when he said he had come to wish good-bye. but she felt he had a certain power over her, and did not quite like it. she would take jack out for a walk and make things even. jack had no power over her, and she thought complacently how she could turn him round her little finger. dear old jack! what a good time they were going to have. she went downstairs and met the prince and jack on the verandah. the former was murmuring congratulatory speeches, and jack was saying "thanks awfully" at intervals. he had once said to dodo that the prince was "an oily devil," which was putting it rather strongly. dodo had stuck up for him. "you only say he's oily," she said, "because he's got much better manners than you, and can come into the room without looking ridiculous, and i rather like devils as a rule, and him in particular, though i don't say he is one. anyhow he is a friend of mine, and you can talk about something else." jack followed dodo into the square, and sat down by her. "what made you tell that chap that we were engaged?" he asked. "oh, i had excellent reasons," said dodo. the memory of the interview was still rather strong in her mind, and she felt not quite sure of herself. "no doubt," said jack; "but i wish you'd tell me what they were." "don't talk as if you were the inquisition, old boy," she said. "i don't see why i should tell you if i don't like." "please yourself," said jack crossly, and got up to walk away. "jack, behave this minute," said dodo. "apologise instantly for speaking like that." "i beg its little pardon," said jack contentedly. he liked being hauled over the coals by dodo. "that's right; now, if you'll be good, i'll tell you. has he gone quite away?" "quite; thank goodness," said jack. "well," said dodo, "i told him because he was just going to propose to me himself, and i wanted to stop him." "nasty brute," said jack. "i hope you gave it him hot." "that's a very rude thing to say, jack," said she. "it argues excellent taste in him. besides, you did it yourself. nasty brute!" "what right has he got to propose to you, i should like to know?" asked jack. "just as much as you had." "then i ought to be kicked for doing it." dodo applied the toe of a muddy shoe to jack's calf. "now, i've dirtied your pretty stockings," she said. "serves you right for proposing to me. how dare you, you nasty brute!" jack made a grab at her foot, and made his fingers dirty. "jack, behave," said dodo; "there are two thousand people looking." "let them look," said jack recklessly. "i'm not going to be kicked in broad daylight within shouting distance of the hotel. dodo, if you kick me again i shall call for help." "call away," said dodo. jack opened his mouth and howled. an old gentleman, who was just folding his paper into a convenient form for reading, on a seat opposite, put on his spectacles and stared at them in blank amazement. "i told you i would," remarked jack parenthetically, "it's only lord chesterford," exclaimed dodo, in a shrill, treble voice, to the old gentleman. "i don't think he's very well. i daresay it's nothing." "most distressin'," said the old gentleman, in a tone of the deepest sarcasm, returning to his paper. "most distressin'," echoed dodo pianissimo to jack, who was laughing in a hopeless internal manner. dodo led him speechless away, and they wandered off to the little, low wall that separates the street from the square. "now, we'll go on talking,", said jack, when he had recovered somewhat. "we were talking about that austrian. what did you say to him?" "oh, i've told you. i simply stopped him asking me by telling him i was going to marry someone else." "what did he say then?" demanded jack. "oh, he asked me for sympathy," said dodo. "which you gave him?" "certainly," she answered. "i was very sorry for him, and i told him so; but we did it very nicely and politely, without stating anything, but only hinting at it." "a nasty, vicious, oily brute," observed jack. "jack, you're ridiculous," said she; "he's nothing of the sort. i've told him to come and see us when we're in england, and you'll have to be very polite and charming to him." "oh, he can come then," said jack, "but i don't like him." they strolled down the street towards the church, and dodo insisted on buying several entirely useless brackets, with chamois horns stuck aimlessly about them. "i haven't got any money," she observed. "fork up, jack. seven and eight are fifteen and seven are twenty-two. thanks." dodo was dissatisfied with one of her brackets before they reached the hotel again, and presented it to jack. "it's awfully good of you," said he; "do you mean that you only owe me fifteen?" "only fourteen," said dodo; "this was eight francs. it will be very useful to you, and when you look at it, you can think of me," she observed with feeling. "i'd sooner have my eight francs." "then you just won't get them," said dodo, with finality; "and you sha'n't have that unless you say, 'thank you.'" the verandah was empty, as lunch had begun; so jack said, "thank you." the news of their engagement soon got about the hotel, and caused a much more favourable view to be taken of dodo's behaviour to jack, in the minds of the hostile camp. "of course, if she was engaged to lord chesterford all along," said the enemy, "it puts her conduct in an entirely different light. they say he's immensely rich, and we hope we shall meet them in london. her acting the other night was really extremely clever." mrs. vane gave quite a number of select little teas on the verandah to the penitent, and showed her teeth most graciously. "darling dodo, of course it's a great happiness to me," she would say, "and the marquis is such a very old friend of ours. so charming, isn't he? yes. and they are simply devoted to each other."--the speeches seemed quite familiar still to her. dodo regarded the sudden change in the minds of the "shocked section" with much amusement. "it appears i'm quite proper after all," she thought. "that's a blessing anyhow. the colonial bishop will certainly ask me to share his mitre, now he knows i'm a good girl." "jack," she called out to him as he passed, "you said the salon smelled like a church this morning. well, it's only me. i diffuse an odour of sanctity, i find." the princess expressed her opinions on the engagement. "i'm sorry that you can't marry my brother," she said. "you would have suited him admirably, and it would have been only natural for you to stay with your brother-in-law. what shall i give you for a wedding present? there's the bear-skin prayer-book, if you like. waldenech is very cross about it. he says you told him he mightn't go away, so he has to stop. are you going out on the picnic? waldenech's getting up a picnic. he's ordered champagne. do you think it will be amusing? they will drink the health of you and lord chesterford. if you'll promise to reply in suitable terms i'll come. why didn't you come and see me this morning? i suppose you were engaged. of course my brother was proposing to you after breakfast, and then you had to go and talk to your young man. come to the picnic, dodo. you shall show me how to throw stones." they were going to walk up to a sufficiently remote spot in the rising ground to the east of zermatt, and find their lunch ready for them. the prince had no sympathy with meat sandwiches and a little sherry out of a flask, and his sister had expressed her antipathy to fresh eggs; so he had told the hotel-keeper that lunch would be wanted, and that there were to be no hard-boiled eggs and no sandwiches, and plenty of deck-chairs. the princess firmly refused to walk as far, and ordered what she said "was less unlike a horse than the others"; and asked dodo to wait for her, as she knew she wouldn't be in time. she was one of those people who find it quite impossible to be punctual at whatever time she had an engagement. she was always twenty minutes late, but, as dodo remarked, "that's the same thing as being punctual when people know you. i think punctuality is a necessity," she added, "more than a virtue." "haven't you got a proverb about making a virtue of necessity?" said the princess vaguely. "that's what i do on the rare occasions on which i am punctual. all my virtues are the result of necessity, which is another word for inclination." "yes, inclination is necessity when it's sufficiently strong," said dodo; "consequently, even when it's weak, it's still got a touch of necessity about it. that really is a comfortable doctrine. i shall remember that next time i want not to go to church." "my husband is a very devout roman catholic," remarked the princess. "he's got an admirable plan of managing such things. first of all, he does what his conscience--he's got a very fine conscience--tells him he shouldn't. it must be very amusing to have a conscience. you need never feel lonely. then he goes and confesses, which makes it all right, and to make himself quite safe he gives a hundred roubles to the poor. he's very rich, you know; it doesn't matter to him a bit. that gets him an indulgence. i fancy he's minus about six weeks' purgatory. he's got a balance. i expect he'll give it me. you have to be very rich to have a balance. he pays for his pleasures down in hard cash, you see; it's much better than running up a bill. he is very anxious about my spiritual welfare sometimes." "does he really believe all that?" asked dodo. "dear me, yes," said the princess. "he has a most childlike faith. if the priest told him there was an eligible building site in heaven going cheap, he'd buy it at once. personally i don't believe all those things. they don't seem to me in the least probable." "what do you believe?" asked dodo. "oh, i've got plenty of beliefs," said the princess. "i believe it's wiser being good than bad, and fitter being sane than mad. i don't do obviously low things, i am sorry for the poor devils of this world, i'm not mean, i'm not coarse, i don't care about taking an unfair advantage of other people. my taste revolts against immorality; i should as soon think of going about with dirty nails. if i believed what the priests tell me i should be a very good woman, according to their lights. as it is, though my conduct in all matters of right and wrong is identical with what it would be, i'm one of the lost." "english people are just as irrational in their way," said dodo, "only they don't do such things in cold blood. they appeal to little morbid emotions, excited by sunday evening and slow tunes in four sharps. i went to a country church once, on a lovely summer evening, and we all sang, 'hark, hark, my soul!' at the tops of our voices, and i walked home with my husband, feeling that i'd never do anything naughty any more, and maud and her husband, and he and i, sang hymns after dinner. it was simply delicious. the world was going to be a different place ever afterwards, and i expected to die in the night. but i didn't, you know, and next morning all the difference was that i'd caught a cold sitting in a hayfield--and that was the end." "no, it's no use," said the princess. "but i envy those who have 'the religion,' as they say in our country. it makes things so much easier." "what i couldn't help wondering," said dodo, "was whether i should be any better if i had kept up the feeling of that sunday night. i should have stopped at home singing hymns, i suppose, instead of going out to dinner; but what then? should i have been less objectionable when things went wrong? should i have been any kinder to--to anybody? i don't believe it." "of course you wouldn't," said the princess. "you go about it the wrong way. we neither of us can help it, because we're not made like that. it would be as sensible to cultivate eccentricity in order to become a genius. people who have 'the religion' like singing hymns, but they didn't get the religion by singing hymns. they sing hymns because they've got it. what is so absurd is to suppose, as my husband does, that a hundred roubles at stated intervals produces salvation. that's his form of singing hymns, and the priests encourage him. i gave it up long ago. if i thought singing hymns or encouraging priests would do any good, i'd sell my diamonds and buy a harmonium, and give the rest away. but i don't think anything so absurd." "david was so sensible," said dodo. "i've got a great affection for david. he told his people to sing praises with understanding. you see you've got to understand it first. i wonder if he would have understood 'hark, hark, my soul!' i didn't, but it made me feel good inside." "somebody said religion was morality touched with emotion," said the princess. "my husband hasn't got any morality, and his emotions are those excited by killing bears. yet the priests say he's wonderfully religious." "there's something wrong somewhere," said dodo. the party were waiting for them when they came up. the prince led dodo to a place next him, and the princess sat next jack. "i'm so sorry," said dodo; "i'm afraid we're dreadfully late." "my sister is never in time," said the prince. "she kept the emperor waiting half an hour once. his imperial majesty swore." "oh, you're doing me an injustice,", said she. "i was in time the other day." "let us do her justice," said the prince. "she was in time, but that was because she forgot what the time was." "that's the cause of my being unpunctual, dear," remarked the princess. "to-day it was also because the thing like a horse wouldn't go, and dodo and i talked a good deal." mrs. vane was eating her chicken with great satisfaction. a picnic with a prince was so much capital to her. "i can't think why we don't all go and live in the country always," she said, "and have little picnics like this every day. such a good idea of your highness. so original--_and_ such a charming day." the prince remarked that picnics were not his invention, and that the credit for the weather was due elsewhere. "oh, but you said last night you were sure it was going to be fine," said mrs. vane, floundering a little. "dodo, dear, didn't you hear the prince say so?" "here's to the health of our zadkiel," said dodo, "may his shadow, etc: drink to old zadkiel, jack, the founder of the feast, who stands us champagne. i'll stand you a drink when you come to see us in england. his serenity," she said, emptying her glass. "what a lot of things i am," murmured the prince. "don't forget i'm a poor devil whom you pity as well." "do you find pity a satisfactory diet?" asked dodo saucily. she was determined not to be frightened of him any more. the prince decided on a bold stroke. "pity is akin to love," he said below his breath. but he had found his match, for the time being, at any rate. "don't mistake it for it's cousin, then," laughed dodo. the conversation became more general. the princess said the mountains were too high and large, and she didn't like them. jack remarked that it was purely a matter of degree, and the princess explained that it was exactly what she meant, they were so much bigger than she was. mr. spencer plunged violently into the conversation, and said that mount everest was twice as high as the matterhorn, and you never saw the top. the princess said, "oh," and jack asked how they knew how high it was, if the top was never seen, and mr. spencer explained vaguely that they did it with sextants. maud said she thought he meant theodolites, and dodo asked a bad riddle about sextons. on the whole the picnic went off as well as could be expected, and dodo determined to have lunch out of doors every day for the rest of her natural life. after lunch mr. spencer and maud wandered away to pick flowers, presumably. mrs. vane moved her chair into the shade, in such a position that she could command a view of the mountain, and fell asleep. jack smoked a short black pipe, chiefly because the prince offered him a cigar, and dodo smoked cigarettes and ate cherries backwards, beginning with the stalk, and induced the princess to do the same, receiving two seconds' start. "it's a form of throwing stones," dodo explained. the "most distressin'" old gentleman was sighted under a large white umbrella, moving slowly up the path a little below them, and dodo insisted on inviting him to lunch, as it was certain that he had just left the _table d'hôte_. "he thought it simply charming of me," she said, as she came back. "he's quite forgiven jack for shouting. besides, i took him the princess's compliments. he's english, you know." chapter eighteen edith had stayed on with the granthams till nearly the end of august. she declined to have breakfast with the family, after she had been there about a week, because she said it spoiled her mornings, and used to breakfast by herself at seven or half-past, which gave her extra' two hours at her music; and lady grantham complained of being wakened in the middle of the night by funeral marches. so edith promised to play with the soft pedal down, which she never did. at lunch sir robert used to make a point of asking her how she had got on, and described to her the admirable band in the casino at monte carlo. he was always extremely genial to her, and, when she played to them in the evening, he would beat time with one hand. now and then he even told her that she was not playing staccato enough, or that he heard it taken rather quicker at bayreuth. dodo had written to edith saying that she was coming to stay with her in september, and that edith must be at home by the second, because she would probably come that day or the third. edith happened to mention this one night in the hearing of lady grantham, who had been firing off home-truths at her husband and son like a minute gun, in a low, scornful voice. this habit of hers was rather embarrassing at times. at dinner, for instance, that evening, when he had been airing his musical views to edith as usual, she had suddenly said,-- "you don't know how silly you're making yourself, bob. everyone knows that you can't distinguish one note from another!" though edith felt on fairly intimate terms with the family, there were occasions when she didn't quite know how to behave. she attempted to continue her conversation with the baronet, but lady grantham would not allow it. "edith, you know he doesn't know 'god save the queen' when he hears it. you'll only make him conceited." "she's only like this when she's here, miss staines," remarked frank, alluding to his mother in the third person. "she's awfully polite when she's in london; she was to you the first week you were here, you know, but she can't keep it up. she's had a bad education. poor dear!" "oh, you are a queer family," said edith sometimes. "you really ought to have no faults left, any of you, you are so wonderfully candid to each other." "some people think mother so charming," continued frank. "i never yet found out what her particular charm is." on this occasion, when edith mentioned that dodo was coming to stay with her, lady grantham sounded truce at once, and left her unnatural offspring alone. "i wish you'd ask me to come and stay with you, too," said she presently. "bob and frank will be going off partridge shooting all day, and nora and i will be all alone, and they'll be sleepy in the evening, and snore in the drawing-room." "i'd make her promise to be polite, miss staines," remarked frank. "i want to meet lady chesterford very much," she continued. "i hear she is so charming. she's a friend of yours; isn't she, nora? why have you never asked her to stay here? what's the good of having friends if you don't trot them out?" "oh, i've asked her more than once, mother," said miss grantham, "but she couldn't ever come." "she's heard about ma at home," said frank. "i'm backing you, frank," remarked the baronet, who was still rather sore after his recent drubbing. "go in and win, my boy." "bob, you shouldn't encourage frank to be rude," said lady grantham. "he's bad enough without that." "that's what comes of having a mamma with foreign manners. there's no word for 'thank you' in spanish, is there, mother? were you here with charlie broxton, miss staines? she told him he didn't brush his hair, or his teeth, and she hated little men. charlie's five feet three. he was here as my friend." "do come," said edith, when this skirmishing was over. "nora will come with you, of course. we shall be only four. i don't suppose there will be anyone else at home." "hurrah," said frank, "we'll have a real good time, father. no nagging in the evenings. we won't dress, and we'll smoke in the drawing-room." "i long to see dodo again," remarked miss grantham. "she's one of the few people i never get at all tired of." "i know her by sight," said lady grantham. "she was talking very loud to prince waldenech when i saw her. it was at the brettons'." "dodo can talk loud when she wants," remarked miss grantham. "did you see her dance that night, mother? i believe she was splendid." "she was doing nothing else," replied lady grantham. "oh, but by herself," said edith. "she took a select party away, and tucked up her skirts and sent them all into raptures." "that's so like dodo," said miss grantham. "she never does anything badly. if she does it at all, it's good of its kind." "i should like to know her," said lady grantham. the remark was characteristic. lady grantham returned to the subject of dodo in the course of the evening. "everyone says she is so supremely successful," she said to edith. "what's her method?" all successful people, according to lady grantham, had a method. they found out by experience what _rôle_ suited them best, and they played it assiduously. to do her justice, there was a good deal of truth in it with regard to the people among whom she moved. "her method is purely to be dramatic, in the most unmistakable way," said edith, after some consideration. "she is almost always picturesque. to all appearance her only method is to have no method. she seems to say and do anything that comes into her head, but all she says and does is rather striking. she can accommodate herself to nearly any circumstances. she is never colourless; and she is not quite like anybody else i ever met. she has an immense amount of vitality, and she is almost always doing something. it's hopeless to try and describe her; you will see. she is beautiful, unscrupulous, dramatic, warm-hearted, cold-blooded, and a hundred other things." "oh, you don't do her justice, edith," remarked miss grantham. "she's much more than all that. she has got genius, or something very like it. i think dodo gives me a better idea of the divine fire than anyone else." "then the divine fire resembles something not at all divine on occasions," observed edith. "i don't think that the divine fire talks so much nonsense either." lady grantham got up. "i expect to be disappointed," she said. "geniuses are nearly always badly dressed, or they wear spectacles, or they are very short. however, i shall come. come, nora, it's time to go to bed." lady grantham never said "good-night" or "good-morning" to the members of her family. "they all sleep like hogs," she said, "and they are very cheerful in the morning. they get on quite well enough without my good wishes. it is very plebeian to be cheerful in the morning." although, as i have mentioned before, sir robert was an adept at choosing his conversation to suit his audience, there was one subject on which he considered that he might talk to anyone, and in which the whole world must necessarily take an intelligent and eager interest. the romans used to worship the bones and spirits of their ancestors, and sir robert, perhaps because he was undoubtedly of roman imperial blood, kept up the same custom. frank used irreverently to call it "family prayers." to know how the granthams were connected with the campbells, and the vere de veres, and the stanleys, and the montmorencies, and fifty other bluest strains, seemed to sir robert to be an essential part of a liberal education. to try to be late for family prayers was hopeless. they were at no fixed hour, and were held as many times during the day as necessary. sometimes they were cut down to a sentence or two; suggested by the mention of some ducal name; sometimes they involved a lengthy, pious orgie in front of the portraits. to-night edith was distinctly to blame, for she deliberately asked the name of the artist who had painted the picture hanging over the door into the library. sir robert, according to custom, seemed rather bored by the subject. "let's see," he said; "i've got no head for names. i think that's the one, of my great-grandfather, isn't it? a tall, handsome man in peer's robes?" "now he's off." this _sotto voce_ from frank, who was reading badminton on cover shooting. sir robert drew his hand over his beautiful moustache once or twice. "ah, yes, how stupid of me. that's the reynolds, of course. reynolds was quite unknown when he did that portrait. lord linton, that was my great-grand-father--he was made an earl after that portrait was taken--saw a drawing in a little shop in piccadilly, which took his fancy, and he inquired the name of the artist. the shopman didn't know; but he said that the young man came very often with drawings to sell, and he gave him a trifle for them. well, lord linton sent for him, and gave him a commission to do his portrait, had it exhibited, and young reynolds came into notice. the portrait came into possession of my grandfather, who, as you know, was a younger son; don't know how, and there it is." "it's a beautiful picture," remarked edith. "ah, you like it? lord sandown, my first cousin, was here last week, and he said, 'didn't know you'd been raised to the peerage yet, bob.' he thought it was a portrait of me. it is said to be very like. you'd noticed the resemblance, no doubt?" "a tall, handsome man," remarked frank to the fireplace. "i don't know as much as i ought about my ancestors," continued sir robert, who was doing himself a gross injustice. "you ought to get sandown on the subject. i found a curious old drawing the other day in a scrapbook belonging to my father. the name grantham is printed in the centre of a large folio sheet, with a circle round it to imitate the sun, and from it go out rays in all directions, with the names of the different families with which we have intermarried." "i haven't got any ancestors," remarked edith. "my grandfather was a draper in leeds, and made his fortune there. i should think ancestors were a great responsibility; you have to live up to them, or else they live down to you." "i'm always saying to frank," said sir robert, "that you have to judge a man by himself, and not by his family. if a man is a pleasant fellow it doesn't matter whether his family came over with the conqueror or not. our parson here, for instance, he's a decent sensible fellow, and i'm always delighted to give him a few days' shooting, or see him to dinner on sunday after his services. his father was a tobacconist in the village, you know. there's the shop there now." edith rose to go. sir robert lighted her candle for her. "i should like to show you the few portraits we've got," he said. "there are some interesting names amongst them; but, of course, most of our family things are at langfort." "my grandfather's yard measure is the only heirloom that we've got," said edith. "i'll show it to lady grantham when she comes to stay with me." frank had followed them into the hall. "family prayers over yet, father?" he asked. "i shall go and smoke. i hope you've been devout, miss staines." edith left the granthams two days after this, "to buy legs of mutton," she explained, "and hire a charwoman. i don't suppose there's anyone at home. but i shall have things straight by the time you come." sir robert was very gracious, and promised to send her a short memoir he was writing on the fortunes of the family. it was to be bound in white vellum, with their arms in gilt upon the outside. edith, found no one at home but a few servants on board wages, who did not seem at all pleased to see her. she devoted her evening to what she called tidying, which consisted in emptying the contents of a quantity of drawers on to the floor of her room, and sitting down beside them. she turned them over with much energy for about half an hour, and then decided that she could throw nothing away, and told her maid to put them back again, and played her piano till bed-time. lady grantham and nora followed in a few days, and dodo was to come the same evening. they were sitting put in the garden after dinner, when the sound of wheels was heard, and edith went round to the front door to welcome her. dodo had not dined, so she went and "made hay among the broken meats," as she expressed it. travelling produced no kind of fatigue in her; and the noise, and shaking, and smuts, that prey on most of us in railway carriages always seemed to leave her untouched. dodo was particularly glad to get to england. she had had rather a trying time of it towards the end, for jack and the prince got on extremely badly together, and, as they both wished to be with dodo, collisions were frequent. she gave the story of her adventure to edith with singular frankness as she ate her broken meats. "you see, jack got it into his head that the prince is a cad and a brute," said dodo. "i quite admit that he may be, only neither jack nor i have the slightest opportunity for judging. socially he is neither, and what he is morally doesn't concern me. how should it? it isn't my business to inquire into his moral character. i'm not his mother nor his mother confessor. he is good company. i particularly like his sister, whom you must come and see, edith. she and the prince are going to stay with us when we get back to winston; and he knows how to behave. jack has a vague sort of feeling that his morals ought to prevent him from tolerating the prince, which made him try to find opportunities for disliking him. but jack didn't interfere with me." "no," said edith; "i really don't see why private individuals shouldn't associate with whom they like. one doesn't feel bound to be friends with people of high moral character, so i don't see why one should be bound to dislike people of low ditto." "that's exactly my view," said dodo; "morals don't come into the question at all. i particularly dislike some of the cardinal virtues--and the only reason for associating with anybody is that one takes pleasure in their company. of course one wouldn't go about with a murderer, however amusing, because his moral deficiencies-might produce unpleasant physical consequences to yourself. but my morals are able to look after themselves. i'm not afraid of moral cut-throats. morals don't come into the social circle. you might as well dislike a man because he's got a sharp elbow-joint. he won't use it on your ribs, you know, in the drawing-room. to get under the influence of an immoral man would be different. we'll, i've finished. where are the others? give me a cigarette, edith. i sha'n't shock your servants, shall i? i've given up shocking people." dodo and edith strolled out, and dodo was introduced to lady grantham. "what an age you and edith have been," said miss grantham. "i have been dying to see you, dodo." "we were talking," said dodo, "and for once edith agreed with me." "she never agrees with me," remarked lady grantham. "i wonder if i should always agree with you then," said dodo. "do things that disagree with the same thing agree with one another?" "what did edith agree with you about?" asked miss grantham. "i'm not sure that i did really agree with her," interpolated edith. "oh, about morals," said dodo. "i said that a man's morals did not matter in ordinary social life. that they did not come into the question at all." "no, i don't think i do agree with you," said edith. "all social life is a degree of intimacy, and you said yourself that you wouldn't get under the influence of an immoral man--in other words, you wouldn't be intimate with him." "oh, being intimate hasn't anything to do with being under a man's influence," said dodo. "i'm very intimate with lots of people. jack, for instance, but i'm not under his influence." "then you think it doesn't matter whether society is composed of people without morals?" said edith. "i think it's a bad thing that morals should deteriorate in any society," said dodo; "but i don't think that society should take cognisance of the moral code. public opinion don't touch that. if a man is a brute, he won't be any better for knowing that other people disapprove of him. if he knows that, and is worth anything at all, it will simply have the opposite effect on him. he very likely will try to hide it; but that doesn't make it any better. a whited sepulchre is no better than a sepulchre unwhitened. you must act by your own lights. if an action doesn't seem to you wrong nothing in the world will prevent your doing it, if your desire is sufficiently strong. you cannot elevate tone by punishing offences. there are no fewer criminals since the tread-mill was invented and botany bay discovered." "you mean that there would be no increase in crime if the law did not punish?" "i mean that punishment is not the best way of checking crime, though that is really altogether a different question. you won't check immorality by dealing with it as a social crime." there was a short silence, broken only by the whispering of the wind in the fir trees. then on the stillness came a light, rippling laugh. dodo got out of her chair, and plucked a couple of roses from a bush near her. "i can't be serious any longer," she said; "not a single moment longer. i'm so dreadfully glad to be in england again. really, there is no place like it. i hate the insolent extravagant beauty of switzerland --it is like chromo lithographs. look at that long, flat, grey distance over there. there is nothing so beautiful as that abroad." dodo fastened the roses in the front of her dress, and laughed again. "i laugh for pure happiness," she continued. "i laughed when i saw the cliff of dover to-day, not because i was sea-sick--i never am sea-sick--but simply because i was coming home again. jack parted from me at dover. i am very happy about jack. i believe in him thoroughly." dodo was getting serious again in spite of herself. lady grantham was watching her curiously, and without any feeling of disappointment. she did not wear spectacles, she was, at least, as tall as herself, and she dressed, if anything, rather better. she was still wearing half-mourning, but half-mourning suited dodo very well. "decidedly it's a pity to analyse one's feelings," dodo went on, "they do resolve themselves into such very small factors. i am well, i am in england, where you can eat your dinner without suspicion of frogs, or caterpillars in your cauliflower. i had two caterpillars in my cauliflower at zermatt one night. i shall sleep in a clean white bed, and i shall not have to use keating. i can talk as ridiculously as i like, without thinking of the french for anything. oh, i'm entirely happy." dodo was aware of more reasons for happiness than she mentioned. she was particularly conscious of the relief she felt in getting away from the prince. for some days past she had been unpleasantly aware of his presence. she could not manage to think of him quite as lightly as she thought of anyone else. it was a continual effort to her to appear quite herself in his presence, and she was constantly rushing into extremes in order to seem at her ease. he was stronger, she felt, than she was, and she did not like it. the immense relief which his absence brought more than compensated for the slight blankness that his absence left. in a way she felt dependent on him, which chafed and irritated her, for she had never come under such a yoke before. she had had several moments of sudden anger against herself on her way home. she found herself always thinking about him when she was not thinking about anything else; and though she was quite capable of sending her thoughts off to other subjects, when they had done their work they always fluttered back again to the same resting-place, and dodo was conscious of an effort, slight indeed, but still an effort, in frightening them off. her curious insistence on her own happiness had struck edith. she felt it unnatural that dodo should mention it, and she drew one of two conclusions from it; either that dodo had had a rather trying time, for some reason or other, or that she wished to convince herself, by constant repetition, of something that she was not quite sure about; and both of these conclusions were in a measure correct. "who was out at zermatt when you were there?" inquired miss grantham. "oh, there was mother there, and maud and her husband, and a russian princess, waldenech's sister, and jack, of course," said dodo. "wasn't prince waldenech there himself?" she asked. "the prince? oh yes, he was there; didn't i say so?" said dodo. "he's rather amusing, isn't he?" said miss grantham. "i don't know him at all." "oh, yes," said dodo; "a little ponderous, you know, but very presentable, and good company." edith looked up suddenly at dodo. there was an elaborate carelessness, she thought, in her voice. it was just a little overdone. the night was descending fast, and she could only just see the lines of her face above the misty folds of her grey dress. but even in that half light she thought that her careless voice did not quite seem a true interpretation of her expression. it might have been only the dimness of the shadow, but she thought she looked anxious and rather depressed. lady grantham drew her shawl more closely round her shoulders, and remarked that it was getting cold. edith got up and prepared to go in, and miss grantham nestled in her chair. only dodo stood quite motionless, and edith noticed that her hands were tearing one of the roses to pieces, and scattering the petals on the grass. "are you going in, dodo?" she asked; "or would you rather stop out a little longer?" "i think i won't come in just yet," said dodo; "it's so delightful to have a breath of cool air, after being in a stuffy carriage all day. but don't any of you stop out if you'd rather go in. i shall just smoke one more cigarette." "i'll stop with you, dodo," said miss grantham. "i don't want to go in at all. edith, if you're going in, throw the windows in the drawing-room open, and play to us." lady grantham and edith went towards the house. "i didn't expect her to be a bit like that," said lady grantham. "i always heard she was so lively, and talked more nonsense in half an hour than we can get through in a year. she's very beautiful." "i think dodo must be tired or something," said edith. "i never saw her like that before. she was horribly serious. i hope nothing has happened." the piano in the drawing-room was close to a large french window opening on to the lawn. edith threw it open, and stood for a moment looking out into the darkness. she could just see dodo and nora sitting where they had left them, though they were no more than two pale spots against the dark background. she was conscious of a strange feeling that there was an undercurrent at work in dodo, which showed itself by a few chance bubbles and little sudden eddies on the surface, which she thought required explanation. dodo certainly was not quite like herself. there was no edge to her vivacity: her attempts not to be serious had been distinctly forced, and she was unable to keep it up. edith felt a vague sense of coming disaster; slight but certain. however, she drew her chair to the piano and began to play. miss grantham was conscious of the same sort of feeling. since the others had gone in, dodo had sat quite silent, and she had not taken her cigarette. "you had a nice time then, abroad?" she remarked at length. "oh, yes," said dodo, rousing herself. "i enjoyed it a good deal. the hotel was full of the hotel class, you know. a little trying at times, but not to matter. we had a charming party there. algernon is getting quite worldly. however, he is ridiculously fond of maud, and she'll keep him straight. do you know the prince?" "hardly at all," said miss grantham. "what do you think of him, as far as you've seen?" asked dodo. "i think he is rather impressive," said miss grantham. "i felt i should do as he told me." "ah, you think that, do you?" asked dodo, with the most careful carelessness. "he struck me that way, too, a little." "i should think he was an instance of what edith meant when she said that to be intimate with anyone was to be under their influence." "edith's awfully wrong, i think, about the whole idea," said dodo, hastily. "i should hate to be under anyone's influence; yet, i think, the only pleasure of knowing people is to be intimate. i would sooner have one real friend than fifty acquaintances." "did you see much of him?" asked miss grantham. "yes, a good deal," she said, "a great deal, in fact. i think edith's right about intimacy as regards him, though he's an exception. in general, i think, she's wrong. what's that she's playing?" "anyhow, it's wagner," said miss grantham. "i know it," said dodo. "it's the 'tannhauser' overture. listen, there's the venus motif crossing the pilgrim's march. ah, that's simply wicked. the worst of it is, the venus part is so much more attractive than the other. it's horrible." "you're dreadfully serious to-night, dodo," said miss grantham. "i'm a little tired, i think," she said. "i was travelling all last night, you know. come, let's go in." dodo went to bed soon afterwards. she said she was tired, and a little overdone. edith looked at her rather closely as she said good-night. "you're sure it's nothing more?" she asked. "there's nothing wrong with you, is there?" "i shall be all right in the morning," said dodo, rather wearily. "don't let them call me till nine." dodo went upstairs and found that her maid had unpacked for her. a heap of books was lying on the table, and from among these she drew out a large envelope with a photograph inside. it was signed "waldenech." dodo looked at it a moment, then placed it back in its envelope, and went to the window. she felt the necessity of air. the room seemed close and hot, and she threw it wide open. she stood there for ten minutes or more quite still, looking out into the night. then she went back to the table and took up the envelope again. with a sudden passionate gesture she tore it in half, then across again, and threw the pieces into the grate. chapter nineteen dodo slept long and dreamlessly that night; the deep, dreamless sleep which an evenly-balanced fatigue of body and mind so often produces, though we get into bed feeling that our brain is too deep in some tangle of unsolved thought to be able to extricate itself, and fall into the dim immensity of sleep. the waking from such a sleep is not so pleasant. the first moment of conscious thought sometimes throws the whole burden again on to our brain with a sudden start of pain that is almost physical. there is no transition. we were asleep and we are awake, and we find that sleep has brought us only a doubtful gift, for with our renewed strength of body has come the capability of keener suffering. when we are tired, mental distress is only a dull ache, but in the hard, convincing morning it strikes a deadlier and deeper pain. but sometimes nature is more merciful. she opens the sluices of our brain quietly, and, though the water still rushes in turbidly and roughly, yet the fact that our brain fills by degrees makes us more able to bear the full weight, than when it comes suddenly with a wrenching and, perhaps, a rending of our mental machinery. it was in this way that dodo woke. the trouble of the day came to her gradually during the moments of waking. she dreamed she was waiting for jack in the garden where she had been sitting the night before. it was perfectly dark, and she could not see him coming, but she heard a step along the gravel path, and started up with a vague alarm, for it did not sound like his. then a greyness, as of dawn, began to steal over the night, and she saw the outline of the trees against the sky, and the outline of a man's figure near her, and it was a figure she knew well, but it was not jack. on this dream the sense of waking was pure relief; it was broad day, and her maid was standing by her and saying that it was a quarter past nine. dodo lay still a few moments longer, feeling a vague joy that her dream was not true, that the helplessness of that grey moment, when she saw that it was not jack, was passed, that she was awake again, and unfettered, save by thoughts which could be consciously checked and stifled. it was with a vast sense of satisfaction that she remembered her last act on the evening before, of which the scattered fragments in the grate afforded ocular proof. she felt as if she had broken a visible, tangible fetter--one strand, at any rate, of the cord that hound her was lying broken before her eyes. if she had been quite securely tied she could not have done that..-- the sense of successful effort, with a visible result, gave her a sudden feeling of power to do more; the absence of bodily fatigue, and the presence of superfluous physical health, all seemed part of a different order of things to that of the night before. she got up and dressed quickly, feeling more like her own self than she had done for several days. the destruction of his photograph was really a great achievement. she had no idea how far things had gone till she felt the full effect of conscious effort and its result. she could see now exactly where she had stood on the evening before, very unpleasantly close to the edge of a nasty place, slippery and steep. anyhow, she was one step nearer that pleasant, green-looking spot at the top of the slope--a quiet, pretty place, not particularly extensive, but very pleasing, and very safe. the three others were half-way through breakfast when dodo came down. lady grantham was feeling a little bored. dodo flung open the door and came marching in, whistling "see the conquering hero comes." "that's by handel, you know, edith," she said. "handel is very healthy, and he never bothers you with abstruse questions in the scandalous way that wagner does. i'm going to have a barrel-organ made with twelve tunes by handel, you only have to turn the handle and out he comes. i don't mean that for a pun. your blood be on your own head if you notice it. i shall have my barrel-organ put on the box of my victoria, and the footman shall play tunes all the time i'm driving, and i shall hold out my hat and ask for pennies. some of jack's tenants in ireland have refused to pay their rents this year, and he says we'll have to cut off coffee after dinner if it goes on. but we shall be able to have coffee after all with the pennies i collect. i talked so much sense last night that i don't mean to make another coherent remark this week." dodo went to the sideboard and cut a large slice of ham, which she carried back to her place on the end of her fork. "i'm going for a ride this morning, edith, if you've got a horse for me," she said. "i haven't ridden for weeks. i suppose you can give me something with four legs. oh, i want to take a big fence again." dodo waved her fork triumphantly, and the slice of ham flew into the milk-jug. she became suddenly serious, and fished for it with the empty fork. "the deep waters have drowned it," she remarked, "and it will be totally uneatable for evermore. make it into ham-sandwiches and send it to the workhouse, edith. _jambon au lait_. i'm sure it would be very supporting." "it's unlucky to spill things, isn't it?" dodo went on. "i suppose it means i shall die, and shall go, we hope, to heaven, at the age of twenty-seven. i'm twenty-nine really. i don't look it, do i, lady grantham? how old are you, edith? you're twenty-nine too, aren't you? we're two twin dewdrops, you and i; you can be the dewdrops, and i'll be the twin. i suppose if two babies are twins, each of them is a twin. twin sounds like a sort of calico. two yards of twin, please, miss. there was a horrid fat man in the carriage across france, who called me miss. jack behaved abominably. he called me miss, too, and wore the broadest grin on his silly face all the time. he really is a perfect baby, and i'm another, and how we shall keep house together i can't think. it'll be like a sort of game." dodo was eating her breakfast with an immense appetite and alarming rapidity, and she had finished as soon as the others. "i want to smoke this instant minute," she said, going to the door as soon as she had eaten all she wanted. "where do you keep your cigarettes, edith? oh, how you startled me!" as she opened the door two large collies came bouncing in, panting from sheer excitement. "oh, you sweet animals," said dodo, sitting down on the floor and going off at another tangent. "come here and talk at once. edith, may i give them the milky ham? here you are; drink the milk first, and then eat the ham, and then say grace, and then you may get down." dodo poured the milk into two clean saucers, and set them on the floor. there were a few drops left at the bottom of the jug, and she made a neat little pool on the head of each of the dogs. "what are their names?" she asked. "they ought to be tweedledum and tweedledee, or huz and buz, or ananias and sapphira, or darby and joan, or harris and ainsworth. it ought to be harris and ainsworth. i'm sure, no one man could have written all that rot himself. little spencer is very fond of harrison ainsworth; he said it was instructive as well as palatable. i don't want to be instructed, and it isn't palatable. i hate having little bits of information wrapped up and given to me to swallow, like a powder in jam. did you have to take powders when you were little, lady grantham?" dodo's questions were purely rhetorical; they required no answer, and she did not expect one. "it is much nicer being completely ignorant and foolish like me," she said. "nobody ever expects me to know anything, or to be instructive on any subject under the sun. jack and i are going to be a simple little couple, who are very nice and not at all wise. nobody dislikes one if one never pretends to be wise. but i like people to have a large number of theories on every subject. everyone is bound to form conclusions, but what i dislike are people who have got good grounds for their conclusions, who knock you slap down with statistics, if you try to argue with them. it's impossible to argue with anyone who has reasons for what he says, because you get to know sooner or later, and then the argument is over. arguments ought to be like epic poems, they leave off, they don't come to an end." dodo delivered herself of these surprising statements with great rapidity, and left the room to get her cigarettes. she left the door wide open, and in a minute or two her voice was heard from the drawing-room, screaming to edith. "edith, here's the 'dodo symphony'; come and play it to me this moment." "there's not much wrong with her this morning," thought edith, as she went to the drawing-room, where dodo was playing snatches of dance music. "play the scherzo, edith," commanded dodo. "here you are. now, quicker, quicker, rattle it out; make it buzz." "oh, i remember your playing that so well," said dodo, as edith finished. "it was that morning at winston when you insisted on going shooting. you shot rather well, too, if i remember right." lady grantham had followed edith, and sat down, with her atmosphere of impenetrable leisure, near the piano. dodo made her feel uncomfortably old. she felt dodo's extravagantly high spirits were a sort of milestone to show, how far she herself had travelled from youth. it was impossible to conceive of dodo ever getting middle-aged or elderly. she had racked her brains in vain to try to think of any woman of her own age who could possibly ever have been as insolently young as dodo. she had the habit, as i have mentioned before, of making strangely direct remarks, and she turned to dodo and said:-- "i should so like to see you ten years hence. i wonder if people like you ever grow old." "i shall never grow old," declared dodo confidently. "something, i feel sure, will happen to prevent that. i shall stop young till i go out like a candle, or am carried off in a whirlwind or something. i couldn't be old; it isn't in me. i shall go on talking nonsense till the end of my life, and i can't talk nonsense if i have to sit by the fire and keep a shawl over my mouth, which i shall have to do if i get old. wherefore i never shall. it's a great relief to be certain of that. i used to bother my head about it at one time! and it suddenly flashed upon me, about ten days ago, that i needn't bother about it any more, as i never should be old." "would you dislike having to be serious very much?" asked edith. "it isn't that i should dislike it," said dodo; "i simply am incapable of it. i was serious last night for at least an hour, and a feverish reaction has set in. i couldn't be serious for a week together, if i was going to be beheaded the next moment, all the time. i daresay it would be very nice to be serious, just as i'm sure it would be very nice to live at the bottom of the sea and pull the fishes' tails, but it isn't possible." dodo had quite forgotten that she had intended to go for a ride, and she went into the garden with nora, and played ducks and drakes on the pond, and punted herself about, and gathered water-lilies. then she was seized with an irresistible desire to fish, and caught a large pike, which refused to be killed, and dodo had to fetch the gardener to slay it. she then talked an astonishing amount of perfect nonsense, and thought that it must be lunch-time. accordingly, she went back to the house, and was found by edith, a quarter of an hour later, playing hide-and-seek with the coachman's children, whom she had lured in from the stable-yard as she went by. the rules were that the searchers were to catch the hiders, and dodo had entrenched herself behind the piano, and erected an impregnable barricade, consisting of a revolving bookcase and the music-stool. the two seekers entirely declined to consider that she had won, and dodo, with a show of reason, was telling them that they hadn't caught her yet at any rate. the situation seemed to admit of no compromise and no solution, unless, as dodo suggested, they got a pound or two of blasting powder and destroyed her defences. however, a _deus ex machina_ appeared in the person of the coachman himself, who had come in for orders, and hinted darkly that maternal vengeance was brewing if certain persons did not wash their hands in time for dinner, which was imminent. "there's a telegram for you somewhere," said edith to dodo, as she emerged hot and victorious. "i sent a man out into the garden with it. the messenger is waiting for an answer." dodo became suddenly grave. "i suppose he's gone to the pond," she said; "that's where i was seen last. i'll go and get it." she met the man walking back to the house, having looked for her in vain. she took the telegram and opened it. it had been forwarded from her london house. it was very short. "i arrive in london to-day. may i call? --"waldenech." dodo experienced, in epitome at that moment, all she had gone through the night before. she went to a garden-seat, and remained there in silence so long that the footman asked her: "will there be an answer, my lady? the messenger is waiting." dodo held out her hand for the telegraph form. she addressed it to the caretaker at her london house. it also was very short: "address uncertain; i leave here to-day. forward nothing." she handed it to the man, and gave orders that it should go at once. dodo did not move. she sat still with her hands clasped in front of her, unconscious of active thought, only knowing that a stream of pictures seemed to pass before her eyes. she saw the prince standing on her doorstep, learning with surprise that lady chesterford was not at home, and that her address was not known. she saw him turn away, baffled but not beaten; she saw him remaining in london day after day, waiting for the house in eaton square to show some signs of life. she saw--ah, she dismissed that picture quickly. she had one sudden impulse to call back the footman and ask for another telegraph form; but she felt if she could only keep a firm hand on herself for a few moments, the worst would be passed; and it was with a sense of overwhelming relief that she saw the telegraph boy walk off down the drive with the reply in his hand. then it suddenly struck her that the prince was waiting for the answer at dover station. "how savage he will be," thought dodo. "there will be murder at the telegraph office if he waits for his answer there. well, somebody must suffer, and it will be the telegraph boys." the idea of the prince waiting at dover was distinctly amusing, and dodo found a broad smile to bestow on the thought before she continued examining the state of her feelings and position. the prince's influence over her she felt was local and personal, so to speak, and now she had made her decision, she was surprised at the ease with which it had been made. had he been there in person, with his courtly presence and his serene remoteness from anything ordinary, and had said, in that smooth, well-modulated, voice, "may i hope to find you in to-morrow?" dodo felt that she would have said "come." her pride was in frantic rebellion at these admissions; even the telegram she had sent was a confession of weakness. she would not see him, because she was afraid. was there any other reason? she asked herself. yes; she could not see him because she longed to see him. "has it come to that?" she thought, as she crumpled up the telegram which had fluttered down from her lap on to the grass. dodo felt she was quite unnecessarily honest with herself in making this admission. but what followed? nothing followed. she was going to marry jack, and be remarkably happy, and prince waldenech should come and stay with them because she liked him very much, and she would be delightfully kind to him, and jack should like him too. dear old jack, she would write him a line this minute, saying when she would be back in london. dodo felt a sudden spasm of anger against the prince. what right had he to behave like this? he was making it very hard for her, and he would get nothing by it. her decision was irrevocable; she would not see him again, for some time at any rate. she would get over this ridiculous fear of him. what was he that other men were not? what was the position, after all? he had wanted to marry her; she had refused him because she was engaged to jack. if there had been no jack--well, there was a jack, so it was unnecessary to pursue that any further. he had given her his photograph, and had said several things that he should not have said. dodo thought of that scene with regret. she had had an opportunity which she had missed; she might easily have made it plain to him that his murmured speeches went beyond mere courtesy. instead of that she had said she would always regard him as a great friend, and hoped he would see her often. she tapped the ground impatiently as she thought of missed opportunities. it was stupid, inconceivably stupid of her. then he had followed her to england, and sent this telegram. she did not feel safe. she longed, and dreaded to see him again. it was too absurd that she should have to play this gigantic game of hide-and-seek. "i shall have to put on a blue veil and green goggles when i go back to london," thought dodo. "well, the seekers have to catch the hiders, and he hasn't caught me yet." meanwhile the prince was smoking a cigar at dover station. the telegram had not come, though he had waited an hour, and he had settled to give it another half-hour and then go on to london. he was not at all angry; it was as good as a game of chess. the prince was very fond of chess. he enjoyed exercising a calculating long-sightedness, and he felt that the marchioness of chesterford elect was a problem that enabled him to exercise this faculty, of which he had plenty, to the full. he had a sublime sense of certainty as to what he was going to do. he fully intended to marry dodo, and he admitted no obstacles. she was engaged to jack, was she? so much the worse for jack. she wished to marry jack, did she? so much the worse for her, and none the worse, possibly the better, for him. as it was quite certain that he himself was going to marry dodo, these little hitches were entertaining than otherwise. it is more fun to catch your salmon after a quarter of an hour's rather exciting fight with him than to net him. half the joy of a possession lies in the act of acquisition, and the pleasure of acquisition consists, at least in half of the excitement attendant on it. to say that the prince ever regarded anyone's feelings would be understating the truth. the fact that his will worked its way in opposition to, and at the expense of others, afforded him a distinct and appreciable pleasure. if he wanted anything he went straight for it, and regarded neither man, nor devil, nor angel; and he wanted dodo. his mind, then, was thoroughly made up. she seemed to him immensely original and very complete. he read her, he thought, like a book, and the book was very interesting reading. his sending of the telegram with "reply paid," was a positive stroke of genius. dodo had told him that she was going straight to london, but, as we have seen, she did not stop the night there, but went straight on to edith's home in berkshire. there were two courses open to her; either to reply "yes" or "no" to the telegram, or to leave it unanswered. if she left it "unanswered" it would delight him above measure, and it seemed that his wishes were to be realised. not answering the telegram would imply that she did not think good to see him, and he judged that this decision was probably prompted by something deeper than mere indifference to his company. it must be dictated by a strong motive. his calculations were a little at fault, because dodo had not stopped in london, but this made no difference, as events had turned out, to the correctness of his deductions. he very much wished dodo to be influenced by strong motives in her dealings with him. he would not have accepted, even as a gift, the real, quiet liking she had for jack. real, quiet likings seemed to him to be as dull as total indifference. he would not have objected to her regarding him with violent loathing, that would be something to correct; and his experience in such affairs was that strong sympathies and antipathies were more akin to each other than quiet affection or an apathetic indifference were to either. he walked up and down the platform with the smile of a man who is waiting for an interesting situation in a theatrical representation to develop itself. he had no wish to hurry it. the by-play seemed to him to be very suitable, and he bought a morning paper. he glanced through the leaders, and turned to the small society paragraphs. the first that struck his eye was this: "the marchioness of chesterford arrived in london yesterday afternoon from the continent." he felt it was the most orthodox way of bringing the scene to its climax. enter a newsboy, who hands paper to prince, and exit. prince unfolds paper and reads the news of--well, of what he is expecting. he snipped the paragraph neatly out from the paper, and put it in his card-case. his valet was standing by the telegraph office, waiting for the message. the prince beckoned to him. "there will be no telegram," he said. "we leave by the next train." the prince had a carriage reserved for him, and he stepped in with a sense of great satisfaction. he even went so far as to touch his hat in response to the obeisances of the obsequious guard, and told his valet to see that the man got something. he soon determined on his next move--a decided "check," and rather an awkward one; and for the rest of his journey he amused himself by looking out of the window, and admiring the efficient english farming. all the arrangements seemed to him to be very solid and adequate. the hedges were charming. the cart horses were models of sturdy strength, and the hop harvest promised to be very fine. he was surprised when they drew near london. the journey had been shorter than he expected. he gave a few directions to his valet about luggage, and drove off to eaton square. the door was opened by an impenetrable caretaker. "is lady chesterford in?" asked the prince. "her ladyship is not in london, sir," replied the man. the prince smiled. dodo was evidently acting up to her refusal to answer his telegram. "ah, just so," he remarked. "please take this to her, and say i am waiting." he drew from his pocket a card, and the cutting from the _morning post_. "her ladyship is not in london," the man repeated. "perhaps you would let me have her address," said the prince, feeling in his pockets. "a telegram has come to-day, saying that her ladyship's address is uncertain," replied the caretaker. "would you be so good as to let me see the telegram?" certainly, he would fetch it. the prince waited serenely. everything was going admirably. the telegram was fetched. it had been handed in at wokingham station at a quarter to one. "after she had received my telegram," reflected the prince. "do you know with whom she has been staying?" he asked blandly. "with miss staines." the prince was very much obliged. he left a large gratuity in the man's hand, and wished him good afternoon. he drove straight to his house, and sent for his valet, whom he could trust implicitly, and who had often been employed on somewhat delicate affairs. "take the first train for wokingham to-morrow morning," he said. "find out where a miss staines lives. inquire whether lady chesterford left the house to-day." "yes, your highness." "and hold your tongue about the whole business," said the prince negligently, turning away and lighting a cigar. "and send me a telegram from wokingham: 'left yesterday,' or 'still here.'" the prince was sitting over a late breakfast on the following morning, when a telegram was brought in. he read it, and his eyes twinkled with genuine amusement. "i think," he said to himself, "i think that's rather neat." chapter twenty if dodo had felt some excusable pride in having torn up the prince's photograph, her refusal to let him know where she was gave her a still more vivid sense of something approaching heroism. she did not blame anyone but herself for the position into which she had drifted during those weeks in switzerland. she was quite conscious that she might have stopped any intimacy of this sort arising, and consequently the establishment of this power over her. but she felt she was regaining her lost position. each sensible refusal to admit his influence over her was the sensible tearing asunder of the fibres which enveloped her. it was hard work, she admitted, but she was quite surprised to find how comfortable she was becoming. jack really made a very satisfactory background to her thoughts. she was very fond of him, and she looked forward to their marriage with an eager expectancy, which, was partly, however, the result of another fear. she was sitting in the drawing-room next day with miss grantham, talking about nothing particular very rapidly. "of course, one must be good to begin with," she was saying; "one takes that for granted. the idea of being wicked never comes into my reckoning at all. i should do lots of things if i didn't care what i did, that i shouldn't think of doing at all now. i've got an admirable conscience. it is quite good, without being at all priggish. it isn't exactly what you might call in holy orders, but it is an ecclesiastical layman, and has great sympathy with the church. a sort of lay-reader, you know." "i haven't got any conscience at all," said miss grantham. "i believe i am fastidious in a way, though, which prevents me doing conspicuously beastly things." "oh, get a conscience, grantie," said dodo fervently, "it is such a convenience. it's like having someone to make up your mind for you. i like making up other people's minds, but i cannot make up my own; however, my conscience does that for me. it isn't me a bit. i just give it a handful of questions which i want an answer upon, and it gives me them back, neatly docketed, with 'yes' or 'no' upon them." "that's no use," said miss grantham. "i know the obvious 'yeses' and 'noes' myself. what i don't know are the host of things that don't matter much in themselves, which you can't put down either right or wrong." "oh, i do all those," said dodo serenely, "if i want to, and if i don't, i have an excellent reason for not doing them, because i am not sure whether they are right. when i set up my general advice office, which i shall do before i die, i shall make a special point of that for other people. i shall give decided answers in most cases, but i shall reserve a class of things indifferent, which are simply to be settled by inclination." "what do you call indifferent things?" asked miss grantham, pursuing the socratic method. "oh, whether you are to play lawn tennis on sunday afternoon," said dodo, "or wear mourning for second cousins, or sing alto in church for the sake of the choir; all that sort of thing." "your conscience evidently hasn't taken orders," remarked miss grantham. "that's got nothing to do with my conscience," said dodo. "my conscience doesn't touch those things at all. it only concerns itself with right and wrong." "you're very moral this morning," said miss grantham. "edith," she went on, as miss staines entered in a howling wilderness of dogs, "dodo has discovered a conscience." "whose?" asked edith. "why, my own, of course," said dodo; "but it's no discovery. i always knew i had one." "there's someone waiting to see you," said edith. "i brought his card in." she handed dodo a card. "prince waldenech," she said quietly to herself, "let him come in here, edith. you need not go away." dodo got up and stood by the mantelpiece, and displayed an elaborate attention to one of edith's dogs. she was angry with herself for needing this minute of preparation, but she certainly used it to the best advantage; and when the prince entered she greeted him with an entirely natural smile of welcome. "ah, this is charming," she said, advancing to him. "how clever of you to find out my address." "i am staying at a house down here," said the prince, lying with conscious satisfaction as he could not be contradicted, "and i could not resist the pleasure." dodo introduced him to edith and miss grantham, and sat down again. "i sent no address, as i really did not know where i might be going," she said, following the prince's lead. "that i was not in london was all my message meant. i did not know you would be down here." "lord chesterford is in england?" asked the prince. "oh, yes, jack came with me as far as dover, and then he left me for the superior attractions of partridge-shooting. wasn't it rude of him?" "he deserves not to be forgiven," said the prince. "i think i shall send you to call him out for insulting me," said dodo lightly; "and you can kill each other comfortably while i look on. dear old jack." "i should feel great pleasure in fighting lord chesterford if you told me to," said the prince, "or if you told him to, i'm sure he would feel equal pleasure in killing me." dodo laughed. "duelling has quite gone out," she said. "i sha'n't require you ever to do anything of that kind." "i am at your service," he said. "i wish you'd open that window then," said dodo; "it is dreadfully stuffy. edith, you really have too many flowers in the room." "why do you say that duelling has done out?" he asked. "you might as well say that devotion has gone out." "no one fights duels now," said dodo; "except in prance, and no one, even there, is ever hurt, unless they catch cold in the morning air, like mark twain." "certainly no one goes out with a pistol-case, and a second, and a doctor," said the prince; "that was an absurd way of duelling. it is no satisfaction to know that you are a better shot than your antagonist." "still less to know that he is a better shot than you," remarked miss grantham. "charming," said the prince; "that is worthy of lady chesterford. and higher praise--" "go on about duelling," said dodo, unceremoniously. "the old system was no satisfaction, because the quarrel was not about who was the better shot. duelling is now strictly decided by merit. two men quarrel about a woman. they both make love to her; in other words, they both try to cut each other's throats, and one succeeds. it is far more sensible. pistols are stupid bull-headed weapons. words are much finer. they are exquisite sharp daggers. there is no unnecessary noise or smoke, and they are quite orderly." "are those the weapons you would fight lord chesterford with, if dodo told you to?" asked edith, who was growing uneasy. the prince, as dodo once said, never made a fool of himself. it was a position in which it was extremely easy for a stupid man to say something very awkward. lady grantham, with all her talent for asking inconvenient questions, could not have formed a more unpleasant one. he looked across at dodo a moment, and said, without a perceptible pause,-- "if i ever was the challenger of lady chesterford's husband, the receiver of the challenge has the right to choose the weapons." the words startled dodo somehow. she looked up and met his eye. "your system is no better than the old one," she said. "words become the weapons instead of pistols, and the man who is most skilful with words has the same advantage as the good shot. you are not quarrelling about words, but about a woman." "but words are the expression of what a man is," said the prince. "you are pitting merit against merit." dodo rose and began to laugh. "don't quarrel with jack, then," she said. "he would tell the footman to show you the door. you would have to fight the footman. jack would not speak to you." dodo felt strongly the necessity of putting an end to this conversation, which was effectually done by this somewhat uncourteous speech. the fencing had become rather too serious to please her, and she did not wish to be serious. but she felt oppressively conscious of this man's personality, and saw that he was stronger than she was herself. she decided to retreat, and made a desperate effort to be entirely flippant. "i hope the princess has profited by the advice i gave her," she said. "i told her how to be happy though married, and how not to be bored though a russian. but she's a very bad case." "she said to me dreamily as i left," said the prince, "'you'll hear of my death on the matterhorn. tell lady chesterford it was her fault.'" dodo laughed. "poor dear thing," she said, "i really am sorry for her. it's a great pity she didn't marry a day labourer and have to cook the dinner and slap the children. it would have been the making of her." "it would have been a different sort of making," remarked the prince. "i believe you can even get _blasé_ of being bored," said miss grantham, "and then, of course, you don't get bored any longer, because you are bored with it." this remarkable statement was instantly contradicted by edith. "being bored is a bottomless pit," she remarked. "you never get to the end, and the deeper you go the longer it takes to get out. i was never bored in my life. i like listening to what the dullest people say." "oh, but it's when they don't say anything that they're so trying," said miss grantham. "i don't mind that a bit," remarked dodo. "i simply think aloud to them. the less a person says the more i talk, and then suddenly i see that they're shocked at me, or that they don't understand. the prince is often shocked at me, only he's too polite to say so. i don't mean that you're a dull person, you know, but he always understands. you know he's quite intelligent," dodo went on, introducing him with a wave of her hand, like a showman with a performing animal. "he knows several languages. he will talk on almost any subject you wish. he was thirty-five years of age last may, and will be thirty-six next may." "he has an admirable temper," said the prince, "and is devoted to his keeper." "oh, i'm not your keeper," said dodo. "i wouldn't accept the responsibility. i'm only reading extracts from the advertisement about you." "i was only reading extracts as well," observed the prince. "surely the intelligent animal, who knows several languages, may read its own advertisement?" "i'm not so sure about your temper," said dodo, reflectively: "i shall alter it to 'is believed to have an admirable temper.'" "never shows fight," said the prince. "but is willing to fight if told to," said she. "he said so himself." "oh, but i only bark when i bite," said the prince, alluding to his modern system of duelling. "then your bite is as bad as your bark," remarked dodo, "which is a sign of bad temper. and now, my dear prince, if we talk any more about you, you will get intolerably conceited, and that won't do at all. i can't bear conceited men. they always seem to me to be like people on stilts. they are probably not taller than oneself really, and they're out of all proportion, all legs, and no body or head. i don't want anyone to bring themselves down to my level when they talk to me. conceited people always do that. they get off their stilts. if there's one thing that amuses me more than another, it is getting hold of their stilts and sawing them half through. then, when they get up again they come down 'bang,' and you say: 'oh, i hope you haven't hurt yourself. i didn't know you went about on stilts. they are very unsafe, aren't they?'" dodo was conscious of talking rather wildly and incoherently. she felt like a swimmer being dragged down by a deep undercurrent. all she could do was to make a splash on the surface. she could not swim quietly or strongly out of its reach. she stood by the window playing with the blind cord, wishing that the prince would not look at her. he had a sort of deep, lazy strength about him that made dodo distrust herself--the indolent consciousness of power that a tiger has when he plays contemptuously with his prey before hitting it with one deadly blow of that soft cushioned paw. "why can't i treat him like anyone else?" she said to herself impatiently. "surely i am not afraid of him. i am only afraid of being afraid. he is handsome, and clever, and charming, and amiable, and here am i watching every movement and listening to every word he says. it's all nonsense. here goes." dodo plunged back into the room, and sat down in the chair next him. "what a charming time we had at zermatt," she said. "that sort of place is so nice if you simply go there in order to amuse yourself without the bore of entertaining people. half the people who go there treat it as their great social effort of the year. as if one didn't make enough social efforts at home!" "ah, zermatt," said the prince, meditatively. "it was the most delightful month i ever spent." "did you like it?" said dodo negligently. "i should have thought that sort of place would have bored you. there was nothing to do. i expected you would rush off as soon as you got there, and go to shoot or something." "like lord chesterford and the partridges," suggested edith. "oh, that's different," said dodo. "jack thinks it's the duty of every english landlord to shoot partridges. he's got great ideas of his duty." "even when it interferes with what must have been his pleasure, apparently," said the prince. "oh; jack and i will see plenty of each other in course of time. i'm not afraid he will go and play about without me." "you are too merciful," said the prince. "oh, i sha'n't be hard on jack. i shall make every allowance for his shortcomings, and i shall expect that he will make allowance for mine." "he will have the best of the bargain;" said the prince. "you mean that he won't have to make much allowance for me?" asked dodo. "my dear prince, that shows how little you really know about me. i can be abominable. ask miss staines if i can't. i can make a man angry quicker than any woman i know. i could make you angry in a minute and a quarter, but i am amiable this morning, and i will spare you." "please make me angry," said the prince. dodo laughed, and held out her hand to him. "then you will excuse my leaving you?" she said. "i've got a letter to write before the midday post. that ought to make you angry. are you stopping to lunch? no? _au revoir_, then. we shall meet again sometime soon, i suppose. one is always running up against people." "dodo shook hands with elaborate carelessness and went towards the door, which the prince opened for her. "you have made me angry," he murmured, as she passed out, "but you will pacify me again, i know." dodo went upstairs into her bedroom. she was half frightened at her own resolution, and the effort of appearing quite unconcerned had given her a queer, tired feeling. she heard a door shut in the drawing-room below, and steps in the hall. a faint flush came over her face, and she got up quickly from her chair and rah downstairs. the prince was in the hall, and he did not look the least surprised to see dodo again. "ah, you are just off?" she asked. then she stopped dead, and he waited as if expecting more. dodo's eyes wandered round the walls and came back to his face again. "come and see me in london any time," she said in a low voice. "i shall go back at the end of the week." the prince bowed. "i knew you would pacify me again," he said. chapter twenty-one dodo was up again in london at the end of the week, as she had told the prince. jack was also staying in town, and they often spent most of the day together; riding occasionally in the deserted row, or sitting, as they were now, in dodo's room in the eaton square house. they were both leaving for the country in a few days' time, where they had arranged to come across one another at various houses, and dodo, at least, was finding these few days rather trying. she and jack had arranged to have them together, quite alone, while they were in switzerland, and dodo had overlooked the fact that they might be rather hard to fill up. not that she was disappointed in jack. he was exactly what she had always supposed him to be. she never thought that he was very stimulating, though never dull, and she was quite conscious of enough stimulus in herself for that. for the rest he was quite satisfactory. but she was distinctly disappointed in herself. she felt as if her taste had been vitiated by drinking brandy. mild flavours and very good bouquets of vintages that had pleased her before, sent no message from her palate to her brain. it was like the effect produced by the touch of hot iron on the skin, that forms a hard numb surface, which is curiously insensitive to touch. dodo felt as if her powers of sensation had been seared in this way. her perceptions no longer answered quickly to the causes that excited them; a layer of dull, unresponsive material lay between her and her world. she thought that her nerves and tissues were sound enough below. this numbness was only superficial, the burn would heal, and her skin would become pliant and soft again; and if she was conscious of all this and its corresponding causes, it could hardly be expected that jack would be unconscious of it and its corresponding effects. on this particular morning dodo was particularly aware of it. it was raining dismally outside, and the sky was heavy and grey. the road was being repaired, and a traction engine was performing its dismal office in little aimless runs backwards and forwards. the official with a red flag had found there were no vehicles for him to warn and he had sat down on a heap of stones, and was smoking. there was a general air of stagnation, a sense of the futility of doing anything, and no one was more conscious of it than dodo. she felt that there was only one event that was likely to interest her, and yet, in a way, she shrank from that. it was the searing process over again. she wondered whether it would do any good to tell jack of the fact that the prince was down at wokingham. she found the burden of an unshared secret exceptionally trying. dodo had been so accustomed to be before the footlights all her life, that anything of the nature of a secret was oppressive. her conduct to her first husband she did not regard as such. it was only an admirable piece of by-play, which the audience fully appreciated. did dodo then never think of her late husband with tenderness? well, not often. a thought seldom remained long in dodo's mind without finding expression. she turned round suddenly. "jack, prince waldenech was at wokingham." "what was he there for?" asked jack quickly. "i think he came to see me," remarked dodo serenely. "i hope you didn't see him," he replied. dodo felt a slight stimulus in this subject. "i saw him," she said, "because he came to see me, as they say in the french exercise books. i couldn't hide my head under the hearthrug like an ostrich--hot that they hide their heads under hearth-rugs, but the principle is the same. he walked in as cool as a cucumber, and said, 'howdy?' so we talked, and he said he'd be glad to call you out, and you'd be glad to call him out, and we generally chattered, and then i made him angry." "why did he propose to call me out?" asked jack coldly. "oh, he said he wouldn't call you out," remarked dodo. "he said nothing would induce him to. i never said he proposed to call you out. you're stupid this morning, jack." "that man is an unutterable cad." dodo opened her eyes. "oh, he's nothing of the kind," she said. "besides, he's a great friend of mine, so even if he was a cad it wouldn't matter." "how did you make him angry?" demanded jack. "i told him i was going away to write some letters. it was rather damping, wasn't it? i hadn't got any letters to write, and he knew it, and i knew he knew it, and so on." jack was silent. he had been puzzled by dodo's comparative reserve during the last few days. he felt as if he had missed a scene in a play, that there were certain things unexplained. he had even gone so far as to ask dodo if anything was the matter, an inquiry which she detested profoundly. she laid down a universal rule on this occasion. "nothing is ever the matter," she had said, "and if it was, my not telling you would show that i didn't wish for sympathy, or help, or anything else. i tell you all i want you to know." "you mean something is the matter, and you don't want me to know it," said jack, rather unwisely. they had been riding together when this occurred, and at that point dodo had struck her horse savagely with her whip, and put an end to the conversation by galloping furiously off. when jack caught her up she was herself again, and described how a selection of edith's dogs had kept the postman at bay one morning, until the unusual absence of barking and howling had led their mistress to further investigations, which were rewarded by finding the postman sitting in the boat-house, and defending himself with the punt pole. jack was singularly easy-going, and very trustful, and he did not bother his head any more about it at the time. but we have to attain an almost unattainable dominion over our minds to prevent thoughts suddenly starting up in front of us. when a thought has occurred to one, it is a matter of training and practice to encourage or dismiss it, but the other is beyond the reach of the general. and as dodo finished these last words, jack found himself suddenly face to face with a new thought. it was so new that it startled him, and he looked at it again. at moments like these two people have an almost supernatural power of intuition towards each other. dodo was standing in the window, and jack was sitting in a very low chair, looking straight towards her, with the light from the window full on his face, and at that moment she read his thought as clearly as if he had spoken it, for it was familiar already to her. she felt a sudden impulse of anger. "how dare you think that?" she said. jack needed no explanation, and he behaved well. "dodo," he said gently, "you have no right to say that, but you have said it now. if there is not anything i had better know, just tell me so, for your own sake and for mine. i can only plead for your forgiveness. it was by no will of mine that such a thought crossed my mind. you can afford to be generous, dodo." something in his speech made dodo even angrier. "you are simply forcing my confidence," she said. "if it was something you had better know, do you suppose that----" she stopped abruptly. jack rose from his chair and stood by her in the window. "you are not very generous to me," he said. "we are old friends though we are lovers." "take care you don't lose my friendship, then," said dodo fiercely. "it is no use saying 'auld lang syne' when 'auld lang syne' is in danger. it would be like singing 'god save the queen' when she was dying. you should never recall old memories when they are strained." jack was getting a little impatient, though he was not frightened yet. "dodo, you really are rather unreasonable," he said. "to begin with, you quarrel with an unspoken thought, and you haven't even given me a definite accusation." "that is because it is unnecessary, and you know it," said dodo. "however, as you like. you think you have cause to be jealous or foolish or melodramatic about prince waldenech. dear me, it is quite like old times." jack turned on her angrily. "if you propose to treat me as you treated that poor man, who was the best man i ever knew," he said, "the sooner you learn your mistake the better for us both. it would have been in better taste not to have referred to that." "at present that is beside the point," said dodo. "was that your unspoken thought, or was it not?" "if i would not insult you by speaking my thought whether you are right or not," said jack, "i shall not insult you by answering that question. my answer shall take another form. listen, dodo. the prince is in love with you. he proposed to you at zermatt. that passionless inhuman piece of mechanism, his sister, told me how much he was in love with you. she meant it as a compliment. he is a dangerous, bad man. he forces himself on you. he went down to wokingham to see you; you told me so yourself. he is dangerous and strong. for god's sake keep away from him. i don't distrust you; but i am afraid you may get to distrust yourself. he will make you afraid of crossing his will. dodo, will you do this for me? it is quite unreasonable probably, but i am unreasonable when i think of you." "oh, my dear jack," said dodo impatiently, "you really make me angry. it is dreadfully bad form to be angry, and it is absurd that you and i should quarrel. you've got such a low opinion of me; though i suppose that's as much my fault as yours. your opinion is fiction, but i am the fact on which it is founded, and what do you take me for? the prince telegraphed from dover to ask if i would see him, and i deliberately sent no answer. how he found out where i was i don't know. i suppose he got hold of the telegram i sent here to say my address was uncertain. does that look as if i wanted to see him so dreadfully?" "i never said you did want to see him," said jack. "i said he very much wanted to see you, and what you say proves it." "well, what then?" said dodo. "you wanted to see me very much when i was married. would you have thought it reasonable if chesterford had entreated me never to see you--to keep away for god's sake, as you said just now?" "i am not the prince," said jack, "neither am i going to be treated as you treated your husband. do not let us refer to him again; it is a desecration." "you mean that in the light of subsequent events it would have been reasonable in him to ask me to keep away from you?" "yes," said he. jack looked dodo full in the face, in the noble shame of a confessed sin: in that moment he was greater, perhaps, and had risen higher above his vague self-satisfied indifference than ever before. dodo felt it, and it irritated her, it seemed positively unpardonable. "perhaps you do not see that you involve me in your confession," she said with cold scorn. "i decline to be judged by your standards, thanks." jack felt a sudden immense pity and anger for her. she would not, or could not, accept the existence of other points of view than her own. "apparently you decline to consider the fact of other standards at all." "i don't accept views which seem to me unreasonable," she said. "i only ask you to consider this particular view. the story you have just told me shows that he is anxious to see you, which was my point. that he is dangerous and strong i ask you to accept." "what if i don't?" she asked. "this," said he. "when a man of that sort desires anything, as he evidently desires you, there is danger. if you are alive to it, and as strong as he is, you are safe. that you are not alive to it you show by your present position; that you are as strong as he, i doubt." "you assume far too much," said dodo. "what you mean by my present position i don't care to know. but i am perfectly alive to the whole state of the case. wait. i will speak. i entirely decline to be dictated to. i shall do as i choose in this matter." "do you quite realise what that means?" said jack, rising. dodo had risen too; she was standing before him with a great anger burning in her eyes. her face was very pale, and she moved towards the bell. when a boat is in the rapids the cataract is inevitable. "it means this," she said. "he will be here in a minute or two; i told him i should be in at twelve. i am going to ring the bell and tell the man to show him up. you will stay here, and treat him as one man should treat another. if you are insolent to him, understand that you include me. you will imply that you distrust me. perhaps you would ring the bell for me, as you are closer to it." she sat down by her writing-table and waited. jack paused with his hand on the bell. "i will be perfectly explicit with you," he said. "if you see him, you see him alone. i do not wish to hear what he has to say to you. as he enters the door i leave it. that is all. you may choose." he rang the bell. "there is no reason for you to wait till then," said dodo. "i am going to see him as soon as he comes. tell prince waldenech that i am in," she said to the footman. "show him up as soon as he comes." jack leant against the chimney-piece. "well?" said dodo. "i am making up my mind." there was a dead silence. "what on earth are we quarrelling about?" thought jack to himself. "is it simply whether i stop here and talk to that cad? i wonder if all women are as obstinate as this." it did seem a little ridiculous, but he felt that his dignity forbade him to yield. he had told her he did not distrust her; that was enough. no, he would go away, and when he came back to-morrow dodo would be more reasonable. "i think i am going," remarked he. "i sha'n't see you again till to-morrow afternoon. i am away to-night." dodo was turning over the pages of a magazine and did not answer. jack became a little impatient. "really, this is extraordinarily childish," he said. "i sha'n't stop to see the prince because he is a detestable cad. think it over, dodo." at the mention of the prince, if jack had been watching dodo more closely, he might have seen a sudden colour rush to her face, faint but perceptible. but he was devoting his attention to keeping his temper, and stifling a vague dread and distrust, which he was too loyal to admit. at the door he paused a moment. "ah, dodo," he said, with entreaty in his voice. dodo did not move nor look at him. he left the room without more words, and on the stair he met the prince. he bowed silently to his greeting, and stood aside for him to pass. the prince glanced back at him with amusement. "his lordship does me the honour to be jealous of me," he said to himself. * * * * * next day jack called at dodo's house. the door was opened by a servant, whose face he thought he ought to know; that he was not one of dodo's men he felt certain. in another moment it had flashed across him that the man had been with the prince at zermatt. "is lady chesterford in?" he asked. the man looked at him a moment, and then, like all well-bred servants, dropped his eyes before he answered,-- "her serene highness left for paris this morning." the sorrows of young werther by j.w. von goethe translated by r.d. boylan edited by nathen haskell dole the sorrows of young werther preface i have carefully collected whatever i have been able to learn of the story of poor werther, and here present it to you, knowing that you will thank me for it. to his spirit and character you cannot refuse your admiration and love: to his fate you will not deny your tears. and thou, good soul, who sufferest the same distress as he endured once, draw comfort from his sorrows; and let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion. book i may . how happy i am that i am gone! my dear friend, what a thing is the heart of man! to leave you, from whom i have been inseparable, whom i love so dearly, and yet to feel happy! i know you will forgive me. have not other attachments been specially appointed by fate to torment a head like mine? poor leonora! and yet i was not to blame. was it my fault, that, whilst the peculiar charms of her sister afforded me an agreeable entertainment, a passion for me was engendered in her feeble heart? and yet am i wholly blameless? did i not encourage her emotions? did i not feel charmed at those truly genuine expressions of nature, which, though but little mirthful in reality, so often amused us? did i not--but oh! what is man, that he dares so to accuse himself? my dear friend i promise you i will improve; i will no longer, as has ever been my habit, continue to ruminate on every petty vexation which fortune may dispense; i will enjoy the present, and the past shall be for me the past. no doubt you are right, my best of friends, there would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men--and god knows why they are so fashioned--did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity. be kind enough to inform my mother that i shall attend to her business to the best of my ability, and shall give her the earliest information about it. i have seen my aunt, and find that she is very far from being the disagreeable person our friends allege her to be. she is a lively, cheerful woman, with the best of hearts. i explained to her my mother's wrongs with regard to that part of her portion which has been withheld from her. she told me the motives and reasons of her own conduct, and the terms on which she is willing to give up the whole, and to do more than we have asked. in short, i cannot write further upon this subject at present; only assure my mother that all will go on well. and i have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. at all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence. in other respects i am very well off here. solitude in this terrestrial paradise is a genial balm to my mind, and the young spring cheers with its bounteous promises my oftentimes misgiving heart. every tree, every bush, is full of flowers; and one might wish himself transformed into a butterfly, to float about in this ocean of perfume, and find his whole existence in it. the town itself is disagreeable; but then, all around, you find an inexpressible beauty of nature. this induced the late count m to lay out a garden on one of the sloping hills which here intersect each other with the most charming variety, and form the most lovely valleys. the garden is simple; and it is easy to perceive, even upon your first entrance, that the plan was not designed by a scientific gardener, but by a man who wished to give himself up here to the enjoyment of his own sensitive heart. many a tear have i already shed to the memory of its departed master in a summer-house which is now reduced to ruins, but was his favourite resort, and now is mine. i shall soon be master of the place. the gardener has become attached to me within the last few days, and he will lose nothing thereby. may . a wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which i enjoy with my whole heart. i am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. i am so happy, my dear friend, so absorbed in the exquisite sense of mere tranquil existence, that i neglect my talents. i should be incapable of drawing a single stroke at the present moment; and yet i feel that i never was a greater artist than now. when, while the lovely valley teems with vapour around me, and the meridian sun strikes the upper surface of the impenetrable foliage of my trees, and but a few stray gleams steal into the inner sanctuary, i throw myself down among the tall grass by the trickling stream; and, as i lie close to the earth, a thousand unknown plants are noticed by me: when i hear the buzz of the little world among the stalks, and grow familiar with the countless indescribable forms of the insects and flies, then i feel the presence of the almighty, who formed us in his own image, and the breath of that universal love which bears and sustains us, as it floats around us in an eternity of bliss; and then, my friend, when darkness overspreads my eyes, and heaven and earth seem to dwell in my soul and absorb its power, like the form of a beloved mistress, then i often think with longing, oh, would i could describe these conceptions, could impress upon paper all that is living so full and warm within me, that it might be the mirror of my soul, as my soul is the mirror of the infinite god! o my friend--but it is too much for my strength--i sink under the weight of the splendour of these visions! may . i know not whether some deceitful spirits haunt this spot, or whether it be the warm, celestial fancy in my own heart which makes everything around me seem like paradise. in front of the house is a fountain,--a fountain to which i am bound by a charm like melusina and her sisters. descending a gentle slope, you come to an arch, where, some twenty steps lower down, water of the clearest crystal gushes from the marble rock. the narrow wall which encloses it above, the tall trees which encircle the spot, and the coolness of the place itself,--everything imparts a pleasant but sublime impression. not a day passes on which i do not spend an hour there. the young maidens come from the town to fetch water,--innocent and necessary employment, and formerly the occupation of the daughters of kings. as i take my rest there, the idea of the old patriarchal life is awakened around me. i see them, our old ancestors, how they formed their friendships and contracted alliances at the fountain-side; and i feel how fountains and streams were guarded by beneficent spirits. he who is a stranger to these sensations has never really enjoyed cool repose at the side of a fountain after the fatigue of a weary summer day. may . you ask if you shall send me books. my dear friend, i beseech you, for the love of god, relieve me from such a yoke! i need no more to be guided, agitated, heated. my heart ferments sufficiently of itself. i want strains to lull me, and i find them to perfection in my homer. often do i strive to allay the burning fever of my blood; and you have never witnessed anything so unsteady, so uncertain, as my heart. but need i confess this to you, my dear friend, who have so often endured the anguish of witnessing my sudden transitions from sorrow to immoderate joy, and from sweet melancholy to violent passions? i treat my poor heart like a sick child, and gratify its every fancy. do not mention this again: there are people who would censure me for it. may . the common people of the place know me already, and love me, particularly the children. when at first i associated with them, and inquired in a friendly tone about their various trifles, some fancied that i wished to ridicule them, and turned from me in exceeding ill-humour. i did not allow that circumstance to grieve me: i only felt most keenly what i have often before observed. persons who can claim a certain rank keep themselves coldly aloof from the common people, as though they feared to lose their importance by the contact; whilst wanton idlers, and such as are prone to bad joking, affect to descend to their level, only to make the poor people feel their impertinence all the more keenly. i know very well that we are not all equal, nor can be so; but it is my opinion that he who avoids the common people, in order not to lose their respect, is as much to blame as a coward who hides himself from his enemy because he fears defeat. the other day i went to the fountain, and found a young servant-girl, who had set her pitcher on the lowest step, and looked around to see if one of her companions was approaching to place it on her head. i ran down, and looked at her. "shall i help you, pretty lass?" said i. she blushed deeply. "oh, sir!" she exclaimed. "no ceremony!" i replied. she adjusted her head-gear, and i helped her. she thanked me, and ascended the steps. may . i have made all sorts of acquaintances, but have as yet found no society. i know not what attraction i possess for the people, so many of them like me, and attach themselves to me; and then i feel sorry when the road we pursue together goes only a short distance. if you inquire what the people are like here, i must answer, "the same as everywhere." the human race is but a monotonous affair. most of them labour the greater part of their time for mere subsistence; and the scanty portion of freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every exertion to get rid of it. oh, the destiny of man! but they are a right good sort of people. if i occasionally forget myself, and take part in the innocent pleasures which are not yet forbidden to the peasantry, and enjoy myself, for instance, with genuine freedom and sincerity, round a well-covered table, or arrange an excursion or a dance opportunely, and so forth, all this produces a good effect upon my disposition; only i must forget that there lie dormant within me so many other qualities which moulder uselessly, and which i am obliged to keep carefully concealed. ah! this thought affects my spirits fearfully. and yet to be misunderstood is the fate of the like of us. alas, that the friend of my youth is gone! alas, that i ever knew her! i might say to myself, "you are a dreamer to seek what is not to be found here below." but she has been mine. i have possessed that heart, that noble soul, in whose presence i seemed to be more than i really was, because i was all that i could be. good heavens! did then a single power of my soul remain unexercised? in her presence could i not display, to its full extent, that mysterious feeling with which my heart embraces nature? was not our intercourse a perpetual web of the finest emotions, of the keenest wit, the varieties of which, even in their very eccentricity, bore the stamp of genius? alas! the few years by which she was my senior brought her to the grave before me. never can i forget her firm mind or her heavenly patience. a few days ago i met a certain young v--, a frank, open fellow, with a most pleasing countenance. he has just left the university, does not deem himself overwise, but believes he knows more than other people. he has worked hard, as i can perceive from many circumstances, and, in short, possesses a large stock of information. when he heard that i am drawing a good deal, and that i know greek (two wonderful things for this part of the country), he came to see me, and displayed his whole store of learning, from batteaux to wood, from de piles to winkelmann: he assured me he had read through the first part of sultzer's theory, and also possessed a manuscript of heyne's work on the study of the antique. i allowed it all to pass. i have become acquainted, also, with a very worthy person, the district judge, a frank and open-hearted man. i am told it is a most delightful thing to see him in the midst of his children, of whom he has nine. his eldest daughter especially is highly spoken of. he has invited me to go and see him, and i intend to do so on the first opportunity. he lives at one of the royal hunting-lodges, which can be reached from here in an hour and a half by walking, and which he obtained leave to inhabit after the loss of his wife, as it is so painful to him to reside in town and at the court. there have also come in my way a few other originals of a questionable sort, who are in all respects undesirable, and most intolerable in their demonstration of friendship. good-bye. this letter will please you: it is quite historical. may . that the life of man is but a dream, many a man has surmised heretofore; and i, too, am everywhere pursued by this feeling. when i consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when i see how all our energies are wasted in providing for mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive resignation, whilst we amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes,--when i consider all this, wilhelm, i am silent. i examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power. then everything swims before my senses, and i smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world. all learned professors and doctors are agreed that children do not comprehend the cause of their desires; but that the grown-up should wander about this earth like children, without knowing whence they come, or whither they go, influenced as little by fixed motives, but guided like them by biscuits, sugar-plums, and the rod,--this is what nobody is willing to acknowledge; and yet i think it is palpable. i know what you will say in reply; for i am ready to admit that they are happiest, who, like children, amuse themselves with their playthings, dress and undress their dolls, and attentively watch the cupboard, where mamma has locked up her sweet things, and, when at last they get a delicious morsel, eat it greedily, and exclaim, "more!" these are certainly happy beings; but others also are objects of envy, who dignify their paltry employments, and sometimes even their passions, with pompous titles, representing them to mankind as gigantic achievements performed for their welfare and glory. but the man who humbly acknowledges the vanity of all this, who observes with what pleasure the thriving citizen converts his little garden into a paradise, and how patiently even the poor man pursues his weary way under his burden, and how all wish equally to behold the light of the sun a little longer,--yes, such a man is at peace, and creates his own world within himself; and he is also happy, because he is a man. and then, however limited his sphere, he still preserves in his bosom the sweet feeling of liberty, and knows that he can quit his prison whenever he likes. may . you know of old my ways of settling anywhere, of selecting a little cottage in some cosy spot, and of putting up in it with every inconvenience. here, too, i have discovered such a snug, comfortable place, which possesses peculiar charms for me. about a league from the town is a place called walheim. (the reader need not take the trouble to look for the place thus designated. we have found it necessary to change the names given in the original.) it is delightfully situated on the side of a hill; and, by proceeding along one of the footpaths which lead out of the village, you can have a view of the whole valley. a good old woman lives there, who keeps a small inn. she sells wine, beer, and coffee, and is cheerful and pleasant notwithstanding her age. the chief charm of this spot consists in two linden-trees, spreading their enormous branches over the little green before the church, which is entirely surrounded by peasants' cottages, barns, and homesteads. i have seldom seen a place so retired and peaceable; and there often have my table and chair brought out from the little inn, and drink my coffee there, and read my homer. accident brought me to the spot one fine afternoon, and i found it perfectly deserted. everybody was in the fields except a little boy about four years of age, who was sitting on the ground, and held between his knees a child about six months old: he pressed it to his bosom with both arms, which thus formed a sort of arm-chair; and, notwithstanding the liveliness which sparkled in its black eyes, it remained perfectly still. the sight charmed me. i sat down upon a plough opposite, and sketched with great delight this little picture of brotherly tenderness. i added the neighbouring hedge, the barn-door, and some broken cart-wheels, just as they happened to lie; and i found in about an hour that i had made a very correct and interesting drawing, without putting in the slightest thing of my own. this confirmed me in my resolution of adhering, for the future, entirely to nature. she alone is inexhaustible, and capable of forming the greatest masters. much may be alleged in favour of rules, as much may be likewise advanced in favour of the laws of society: an artist formed upon them will never produce anything absolutely bad or disgusting; as a man who observes the laws, and obeys decorum, can never be an absolutely intolerable neighbour, nor a decided villain: but yet, say what you will of rules, they destroy the genuine feeling of nature, as well as its true expression. do not tell me "that this is too hard, that they only restrain and prune superfluous branches, etc." my good friend, i will illustrate this by an analogy. these things resemble love. a warmhearted youth becomes strongly attached to a maiden: he spends every hour of the day in her company, wears out his health, and lavishes his fortune, to afford continual proof that he is wholly devoted to her. then comes a man of the world, a man of place and respectability, and addresses him thus: "my good young friend, love is natural; but you must love within bounds. divide your time: devote a portion to business, and give the hours of recreation to your mistress. calculate your fortune; and out of the superfluity you may make her a present, only not too often,--on her birthday, and such occasions." pursuing this advice, he may become a useful member of society, and i should advise every prince to give him an appointment; but it is all up with his love, and with his genius if he be an artist. o my friend! why is it that the torrent of genius so seldom bursts forth, so seldom rolls in full-flowing stream, overwhelming your astounded soul? because, on either side of this stream, cold and respectable persons have taken up their abodes, and, forsooth, their summer-houses and tulip-beds would suffer from the torrent; wherefore they dig trenches, and raise embankments betimes, in order to avert the impending danger. may . i find i have fallen into raptures, declamation, and similes, and have forgotten, in consequence, to tell you what became of the children. absorbed in my artistic contemplations, which i briefly described in my letter of yesterday, i continued sitting on the plough for two hours. toward evening a young woman, with a basket on her arm, came running toward the children, who had not moved all that time. she exclaimed from a distance, "you are a good boy, philip!" she gave me greeting: i returned it, rose, and approached her. i inquired if she were the mother of those pretty children. "yes," she said; and, giving the eldest a piece of bread, she took the little one in her arms and kissed it with a mother's tenderness. "i left my child in philip's care," she said, "whilst i went into the town with my eldest boy to buy some wheaten bread, some sugar, and an earthen pot." i saw the various articles in the basket, from which the cover had fallen. "i shall make some broth to-night for my little hans (which was the name of the youngest): that wild fellow, the big one, broke my pot yesterday, whilst he was scrambling with philip for what remained of the contents." i inquired for the eldest; and she had scarcely time to tell me that he was driving a couple of geese home from the meadow, when he ran up, and handed philip an osier-twig. i talked a little longer with the woman, and found that she was the daughter of the schoolmaster, and that her husband was gone on a journey into switzerland for some money a relation had left him. "they wanted to cheat him," she said, "and would not answer his letters; so he is gone there himself. i hope he has met with no accident, as i have heard nothing of him since his departure." i left the woman, with regret, giving each of the children a kreutzer, with an additional one for the youngest, to buy some wheaten bread for his broth when she went to town next; and so we parted. i assure you, my dear friend, when my thoughts are all in tumult, the sight of such a creature as this tranquillises my disturbed mind. she moves in a happy thoughtlessness within the confined circle of her existence; she supplies her wants from day to day; and, when she sees the leaves fall, they raise no other idea in her mind than that winter is approaching. since that time i have gone out there frequently. the children have become quite familiar with me; and each gets a lump of sugar when i drink my coffee, and they share my milk and bread and butter in the evening. they always receive their kreutzer on sundays, for the good woman has orders to give it to them when i do not go there after evening service. they are quite at home with me, tell me everything; and i am particularly amused with observing their tempers, and the simplicity of their behaviour, when some of the other village children are assembled with them. it has given me a deal of trouble to satisfy the anxiety of the mother, lest (as she says) "they should inconvenience the gentleman." may . what i have lately said of painting is equally true with respect to poetry. it is only necessary for us to know what is really excellent, and venture to give it expression; and that is saying much in few words. to-day i have had a scene, which, if literally related, would, make the most beautiful idyl in the world. but why should i talk of poetry and scenes and idyls? can we never take pleasure in nature without having recourse to art? if you expect anything grand or magnificent from this introduction, you will be sadly mistaken. it relates merely to a peasant-lad, who has excited in me the warmest interest. as usual, i shall tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant. it is walheim once more--always walheim--which produces these wonderful phenomena. a party had assembled outside the house under the linden-trees, to drink coffee. the company did not exactly please me; and, under one pretext or another, i lingered behind. a peasant came from an adjoining house, and set to work arranging some part of the same plough which i had lately sketched. his appearance pleased me; and i spoke to him, inquired about his circumstances, made his acquaintance, and, as is my wont with persons of that class, was soon admitted into his confidence. he said he was in the service of a young widow, who set great store by him. he spoke so much of his mistress, and praised her so extravagantly, that i could soon see he was desperately in love with her. "she is no longer young," he said: "and she was treated so badly by her former husband that she does not mean to marry again." from his account it was so evident what incomparable charms she possessed for him, and how ardently he wished she would select him to extinguish the recollection of her first husband's misconduct, that i should have to repeat his own words in order to describe the depth of the poor fellow's attachment, truth, and devotion. it would, in fact, require the gifts of a great poet to convey the expression of his features, the harmony of his voice, and the heavenly fire of his eye. no words can portray the tenderness of his every movement and of every feature: no effort of mine could do justice to the scene. his alarm lest i should misconceive his position with regard to his mistress, or question the propriety of her conduct, touched me particularly. the charming manner with which he described her form and person, which, without possessing the graces of youth, won and attached him to her, is inexpressible, and must be left to the imagination. i have never in my life witnessed or fancied or conceived the possibility of such intense devotion, such ardent affections, united with so much purity. do not blame me if i say that the recollection of this innocence and truth is deeply impressed upon my very soul; that this picture of fidelity and tenderness haunts me everywhere; and that my own heart, as though enkindled by the flame, glows and burns within me. i mean now to try and see her as soon as i can: or perhaps, on second thoughts, i had better not; it is better i should behold her through the eyes of her lover. to my sight, perhaps, she would not appear as she now stands before me; and why should i destroy so sweet a picture? june . "why do i not write to you?" you lay claim to learning, and ask such a question. you should have guessed that i am well--that is to say--in a word, i have made an acquaintance who has won my heart: i have--i know not. to give you a regular account of the manner in which i have become acquainted with the most amiable of women would be a difficult task. i am a happy and contented mortal, but a poor historian. an angel! nonsense! everybody so describes his mistress; and yet i find it impossible to tell you how perfect she is, or why she is so perfect: suffice it to say she has captivated all my senses. so much simplicity with so much understanding--so mild, and yet so resolute--a mind so placid, and a life so active. but all this is ugly balderdash, which expresses not a single character nor feature. some other time--but no, not some other time, now, this very instant, will i tell you all about it. now or never. well, between ourselves, since i commenced my letter, i have been three times on the point of throwing down my pen, of ordering my horse, and riding out. and yet i vowed this morning that i would not ride to-day, and yet every moment i am rushing to the window to see how high the sun is. i could not restrain myself--go to her i must. i have just returned, wilhelm; and whilst i am taking supper i will write to you. what a delight it was for my soul to see her in the midst of her dear, beautiful children,--eight brothers and sisters! but, if i proceed thus, you will be no wiser at the end of my letter than you were at the beginning. attend, then, and i will compel myself to give you the details. i mentioned to you the other day that i had become acquainted with s--, the district judge, and that he had invited me to go and visit him in his retirement, or rather in his little kingdom. but i neglected going, and perhaps should never have gone, if chance had not discovered to me the treasure which lay concealed in that retired spot. some of our young people had proposed giving a ball in the country, at which i consented to be present. i offered my hand for the evening to a pretty and agreeable, but rather commonplace, sort of girl from the immediate neighbourhood; and it was agreed that i should engage a carriage, and call upon charlotte, with my partner and her aunt, to convey them to the ball. my companion informed me, as we drove along through the park to the hunting-lodge, that i should make the acquaintance of a very charming young lady. "take care," added the aunt, "that you do not lose your heart." "why?" said i. "because she is already engaged to a very worthy man," she replied, "who is gone to settle his affairs upon the death of his father, and will succeed to a very considerable inheritance." this information possessed no interest for me. when we arrived at the gate, the sun was setting behind the tops of the mountains. the atmosphere was heavy; and the ladies expressed their fears of an approaching storm, as masses of low black clouds were gathering in the horizon. i relieved their anxieties by pretending to be weather-wise, although i myself had some apprehensions lest our pleasure should be interrupted. i alighted; and a maid came to the door, and requested us to wait a moment for her mistress. i walked across the court to a well-built house, and, ascending the flight of steps in front, opened the door, and saw before me the most charming spectacle i had ever witnessed. six children, from eleven to two years old, were running about the hall, and surrounding a lady of middle height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. she was holding a rye loaf in her hand, and was cutting slices for the little ones all around, in proportion to their age and appetite. she performed her task in a graceful and affectionate manner; each claimant awaiting his turn with outstretched hands, and boisterously shouting his thanks. some of them ran away at once, to enjoy their evening meal; whilst others, of a gentler disposition, retired to the courtyard to see the strangers, and to survey the carriage in which their charlotte was to drive away. "pray forgive me for giving you the trouble to come for me, and for keeping the ladies waiting: but dressing, and arranging some household duties before i leave, had made me forget my children's supper; and they do not like to take it from any one but me." i uttered some indifferent compliment: but my whole soul was absorbed by her air, her voice, her manner; and i had scarcely recovered myself when she ran into her room to fetch her gloves and fan. the young ones threw inquiring glances at me from a distance; whilst i approached the youngest, a most delicious little creature. he drew back; and charlotte, entering at the very moment, said, "louis, shake hands with your cousin." the little fellow obeyed willingly; and i could not resist giving him a hearty kiss, notwithstanding his rather dirty face. "cousin," said i to charlotte, as i handed her down, "do you think i deserve the happiness of being related to you?" she replied, with a ready smile, "oh! i have such a number of cousins, that i should be sorry if you were the most undeserving of them." in taking leave, she desired her next sister, sophy, a girl about eleven years old, to take great care of the children, and to say good-bye to papa for her when he came home from his ride. she enjoined to the little ones to obey their sister sophy as they would herself, upon which some promised that they would; but a little fair-haired girl, about six years old, looked discontented, and said, "but sophy is not you, charlotte; and we like you best." the two eldest boys had clambered up the carriage; and, at my request, she permitted them to accompany us a little way through the forest, upon their promising to sit very still, and hold fast. we were hardly seated, and the ladies had scarcely exchanged compliments, making the usual remarks upon each other's dress, and upon the company they expected to meet, when charlotte stopped the carriage, and made her brothers get down. they insisted upon kissing her hands once more; which the eldest did with all the tenderness of a youth of fifteen, but the other in a lighter and more careless manner. she desired them again to give her love to the children, and we drove off. the aunt inquired of charlotte whether she had finished the book she had last sent her. "no," said charlotte; "i did not like it: you can have it again. and the one before was not much better." i was surprised, upon asking the title, to hear that it was ____. (we feel obliged to suppress the passage in the letter, to prevent any one from feeling aggrieved; although no author need pay much attention to the opinion of a mere girl, or that of an unsteady young man.) i found penetration and character in everything she said: every expression seemed to brighten her features with new charms,--with new rays of genius,--which unfolded by degrees, as she felt herself understood. "when i was younger," she observed, "i loved nothing so much as romances. nothing could equal my delight when, on some holiday, i could settle down quietly in a corner, and enter with my whole heart and soul into the joys or sorrows of some fictitious leonora. i do not deny that they even possess some charms for me yet. but i read so seldom, that i prefer books suited exactly to my taste. and i like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life,--and the friends who are about me, whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence,--which, without being absolutely paradise, is, on the whole, a source of indescribable happiness." i endeavoured to conceal the emotion which these words occasioned, but it was of slight avail; for, when she had expressed so truly her opinion of "the vicar of wakefield," and of other works, the names of which i omit (though the names are omitted, yet the authors mentioned deserve charlotte's approbation, and will feel it in their hearts when they read this passage. it concerns no other person.), i could no longer contain myself, but gave full utterance to what i thought of it: and it was not until charlotte had addressed herself to the two other ladies, that i remembered their presence, and observed them sitting mute with astonishment. the aunt looked at me several times with an air of raillery, which, however, i did not at all mind. we talked of the pleasures of dancing. "if it is a fault to love it," said charlotte, "i am ready to confess that i prize it above all other amusements. if anything disturbs me, i go to the piano, play an air to which i have danced, and all goes right again directly." you, who know me, can fancy how steadfastly i gazed upon her rich dark eyes during these remarks, how my very soul gloated over her warm lips and fresh, glowing cheeks, how i became quite lost in the delightful meaning of her words, so much so, that i scarcely heard the actual expressions. in short, i alighted from the carriage like a person in a dream, and was so lost to the dim world around me, that i scarcely heard the music which resounded from the illuminated ballroom. the two messrs. andran and a certain n. n. (i cannot trouble myself with the names), who were the aunt's and charlotte's partners, received us at the carriage-door, and took possession of their ladies, whilst i followed with mine. we commenced with a minuet. i led out one lady after another, and precisely those who were the most disagreeable could not bring themselves to leave off. charlotte and her partner began an english country dance, and you must imagine my delight when it was their turn to dance the figure with us. you should see charlotte dance. she dances with her whole heart and soul: her figure is all harmony, elegance, and grace, as if she were conscious of nothing else, and had no other thought or feeling; and, doubtless, for the moment, every other sensation is extinct. she was engaged for the second country dance, but promised me the third, and assured me, with the most agreeable freedom, that she was very fond of waltzing. "it is the custom here," she said, "for the previous partners to waltz together; but my partner is an indifferent waltzer, and will feel delighted if i save him the trouble. your partner is not allowed to waltz, and, indeed, is equally incapable: but i observed during the country dance that you waltz well; so, if you will waltz with me, i beg you would propose it to my partner, and i will propose it to yours." we agreed, and it was arranged that our partners should mutually entertain each other. we set off, and, at first, delighted ourselves with the usual graceful motions of the arms. with what grace, with what ease, she moved! when the waltz commenced, and the dancers whirled around each other in the giddy maze, there was some confusion, owing to the incapacity of some of the dancers. we judiciously remained still, allowing the others to weary themselves; and, when the awkward dancers had withdrawn, we joined in, and kept it up famously together with one other couple,--andran and his partner. never did i dance more lightly. i felt myself more than mortal, holding this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying, with her as rapidly as the wind, till i lost sight of every other object; and o wilhelm, i vowed at that moment, that a maiden whom i loved, or for whom i felt the slightest attachment, never, never should waltz with any one else but with me, if i went to perdition for it!--you will understand this. we took a few turns in the room to recover our breath. charlotte sat down, and felt refreshed by partaking of some oranges which i had had secured,--the only ones that had been left; but at every slice which, from politeness, she offered to her neighbours, i felt as though a dagger went through my heart. we were the second couple in the third country dance. as we were going down (and heaven knows with what ecstasy i gazed at her arms and eyes, beaming with the sweetest feeling of pure and genuine enjoyment), we passed a lady whom i had noticed for her charming expression of countenance; although she was no longer young. she looked at charlotte with a smile, then, holding up her finger in a threatening attitude, repeated twice in a very significant tone of voice the name of "albert." "who is albert," said i to charlotte, "if it is not impertinent to ask?" she was about to answer, when we were obliged to separate, in order to execute a figure in the dance; and, as we crossed over again in front of each other, i perceived she looked somewhat pensive. "why need i conceal it from you?" she said, as she gave me her hand for the promenade. "albert is a worthy man, to whom i am engaged." now, there was nothing new to me in this (for the girls had told me of it on the way); but it was so far new that i had not thought of it in connection with her whom, in so short a time, i had learned to prize so highly. enough, i became confused, got out in the figure, and occasioned general confusion; so that it required all charlotte's presence of mind to set me right by pulling and pushing me into my proper place. the dance was not yet finished when the lightning which had for some time been seen in the horizon, and which i had asserted to proceed entirely from heat, grew more violent; and the thunder was heard above the music. when any distress or terror surprises us in the midst of our amusements, it naturally makes a deeper impression than at other times, either because the contrast makes us more keenly susceptible, or rather perhaps because our senses are then more open to impressions, and the shock is consequently stronger. to this cause i must ascribe the fright and shrieks of the ladies. one sagaciously sat down in a corner with her back to the window, and held her fingers to her ears; a second knelt down before her, and hid her face in her lap; a third threw herself between them, and embraced her sister with a thousand tears; some insisted on going home; others, unconscious of their actions, wanted sufficient presence of mind to repress the impertinence of their young partners, who sought to direct to themselves those sighs which the lips of our agitated beauties intended for heaven. some of the gentlemen had gone down-stairs to smoke a quiet cigar, and the rest of the company gladly embraced a happy suggestion of the hostess to retire into another room which was provided with shutters and curtains. we had hardly got there, when charlotte placed the chairs in a circle; and, when the company had sat down in compliance with her request, she forthwith proposed a round game. i noticed some of the company prepare their mouths and draw themselves up at the prospect of some agreeable forfeit. "let us play at counting," said charlotte. "now, pay attention: i shall go round the circle from right to left; and each person is to count, one after the other, the number that comes to him, and must count fast; whoever stops or mistakes is to have a box on the ear, and so on, till we have counted a thousand." it was delightful to see the fun. she went round the circle with upraised arm. "one," said the first; "two," the second; "three," the third; and so on, till charlotte went faster and faster. one made a mistake, instantly a box on the ear; and, amid the laughter that ensued, came another box; and so on, faster and faster. i myself came in for two. i fancied they were harder than the rest, and felt quite delighted. a general laughter and confusion put an end to the game long before we had counted as far as a thousand. the party broke up into little separate knots: the storm had ceased, and i followed charlotte into the ballroom. on the way she said, "the game banished their fears of the storm." i could make no reply. "i myself," she continued, "was as much frightened as any of them; but by affecting courage, to keep up the spirits of the others, i forgot my apprehensions." we went to the window. it was still thundering at a distance: a soft rain was pouring down over the country, and filled the air around us with delicious odours. charlotte leaned forward on her arm; her eyes wandered over the scene; she raised them to the sky, and then turned them upon me; they were moistened with tears; she placed her hand on mine and said, "klopstock!" at once i remembered the magnificent ode which was in her thoughts: i felt oppressed with the weight of my sensations, and sank under them. it was more than i could bear. i bent over her hand, kissed it in a stream of delicious tears, and again looked up to her eyes. divine klopstock! why didst thou not see thy apotheosis in those eyes? and thy name so often profaned, would that i never heard it repeated! june . i no longer remember where i stopped in my narrative: i only know it was two in the morning when i went to bed; and if you had been with me, that i might have talked instead of writing to you, i should, in all probability, have kept you up till daylight. i think i have not yet related what happened as we rode home from the ball, nor have i time to tell you now. it was a most magnificent sunrise: the whole country was refreshed, and the rain fell drop by drop from the trees in the forest. our companions were asleep. charlotte asked me if i did not wish to sleep also, and begged of me not to make any ceremony on her account. looking steadfastly at her, i answered, "as long as i see those eyes open, there is no fear of my falling asleep." we both continued awake till we reached her door. the maid opened it softly, and assured her, in answer to her inquiries, that her father and the children were well, and still sleeping. i left her asking permission to visit her in the course of the day. she consented, and i went, and, since that time, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course: i know not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me. june . my days are as happy as those reserved by god for his elect; and, whatever be my fate hereafter, i can never say that i have not tasted joy,--the purest joy of life. you know walheim. i am now completely settled there. in that spot i am only half a league from charlotte; and there i enjoy myself, and taste all the pleasure which can fall to the lot of man. little did i imagine, when i selected walheim for my pedestrian excursions, that all heaven lay so near it. how often in my wanderings from the hillside or from the meadows across the river, have i beheld this hunting-lodge, which now contains within it all the joy of my heart! i have often, my dear wilhelm, reflected on the eagerness men feel to wander and make new discoveries, and upon that secret impulse which afterward inclines them to return to their narrow circle, conform to the laws of custom, and embarrass themselves no longer with what passes around them. it is so strange how, when i came here first, and gazed upon that lovely valley from the hillside, i felt charmed with the entire scene surrounding me. the little wood opposite--how delightful to sit under its shade! how fine the view from that point of rock! then, that delightful chain of hills, and the exquisite valleys at their feet! could i but wander and lose myself amongst them! i went, and returned without finding what i wished. distance, my friend, is like futurity. a dim vastness is spread before our souls: the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision; and we desire earnestly to surrender up our whole being, that it may be filled with the complete and perfect bliss of one glorious emotion. but alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant there becomes the present here, all is changed: we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness. so does the restless traveller pant for his native soil, and find in his own cottage, in the arms of his wife, in the affections of his children, and in the labour necessary for their support, that happiness which he had sought in vain through the wide world. when, in the morning at sunrise, i go out to walheim, and with my own hands gather in the garden the pease which are to serve for my dinner, when i sit down to shell them, and read my homer during the intervals, and then, selecting a saucepan from the kitchen, fetch my own butter, put my mess on the fire, cover it up, and sit down to stir it as occasion requires, i figure to myself the illustrious suitors of penelope, killing, dressing, and preparing their own oxen and swine. nothing fills me with a more pure and genuine sense of happiness than those traits of patriarchal life which, thank heaven! i can imitate without affectation. happy is it, indeed, for me that my heart is capable of feeling the same simple and innocent pleasure as the peasant whose table is covered with food of his own rearing, and who not only enjoys his meal, but remembers with delight the happy days and sunny mornings when he planted it, the soft evenings when he watered it, and the pleasure he experienced in watching its daily growth. june . the day before yesterday, the physician came from the town to pay a visit to the judge. he found me on the floor playing with charlotte's children. some of them were scrambling over me, and others romped with me; and, as i caught and tickled them, they made a great noise. the doctor is a formal sort of personage: he adjusts the plaits of his ruffles, and continually settles his frill whilst he is talking to you; and he thought my conduct beneath the dignity of a sensible man. i could perceive this by his countenance. but i did not suffer myself to be disturbed. i allowed him to continue his wise conversation, whilst i rebuilt the children's card houses for them as fast as they threw them down. he went about the town afterward, complaining that the judge's children were spoiled enough before, but that now werther was completely ruining them. yes, my dear wilhelm, nothing on this earth affects my heart so much as children. when i look on at their doings; when i mark in the little creatures the seeds of all those virtues and qualities which they will one day find so indispensable; when i behold in the obstinate all the future firmness and constancy of a noble character; in the capricious, that levity and gaiety of temper which will carry them lightly over the dangers and troubles of life, their whole nature simple and unpolluted,--then i call to mind the golden words of the great teacher of mankind, "unless ye become like one of these!" and now, my friend, these children, who are our equals, whom we ought to consider as our models, we treat them as though they were our subjects. they are allowed no will of their own. and have we, then, none ourselves? whence comes our exclusive right? is it because we are older and more experienced? great god! from the height of thy heaven thou beholdest great children and little children, and no others; and thy son has long since declared which afford thee greatest pleasure. but they believe in him, and hear him not,--that, too, is an old story; and they train their children after their own image, etc. adieu, wilhelm: i will not further bewilder myself with this subject. july . the consolation charlotte can bring to an invalid i experience from my own heart, which suffers more from her absence than many a poor creature lingering on a bed of sickness. she is gone to spend a few days in the town with a very worthy woman, who is given over by the physicians, and wishes to have charlotte near her in her last moments. i accompanied her last week on a visit to the vicar of s--, a small village in the mountains, about a league hence. we arrived about four o'clock: charlotte had taken her little sister with her. when we entered the vicarage court, we found the good old man sitting on a bench before the door, under the shade of two large walnut-trees. at the sight of charlotte he seemed to gain new life, rose, forgot his stick, and ventured to walk toward her. she ran to him, and made him sit down again; then, placing herself by his side, she gave him a number of messages from her father, and then caught up his youngest child, a dirty, ugly little thing, the joy of his old age, and kissed it. i wish you could have witnessed her attention to this old man,--how she raised her voice on account of his deafness; how she told him of healthy young people, who had been carried off when it was least expected; praised the virtues of carlsbad, and commended his determination to spend the ensuing summer there; and assured him that he looked better and stronger than he did when she saw him last. i, in the meantime, paid attention to his good lady. the old man seemed quite in spirits; and as i could not help admiring the beauty of the walnut-trees, which formed such an agreeable shade over our heads, he began, though with some little difficulty, to tell us their history. "as to the oldest," said he, "we do not know who planted it,--some say one clergyman, and some another: but the younger one, there behind us, is exactly the age of my wife, fifty years old next october; her father planted it in the morning, and in the evening she came into the world. my wife's father was my predecessor here, and i cannot tell you how fond he was of that tree; and it is fully as dear to me. under the shade of that very tree, upon a log of wood, my wife was seated knitting, when i, a poor student, came into this court for the first time, just seven and twenty years ago." charlotte inquired for his daughter. he said she was gone with herr schmidt to the meadows, and was with the haymakers. the old man then resumed his story, and told us how his predecessor had taken a fancy to him, as had his daughter likewise; and how he had become first his curate, and subsequently his successor. he had scarcely finished his story when his daughter returned through the garden, accompanied by the above-mentioned herr schmidt. she welcomed charlotte affectionately, and i confess i was much taken with her appearance. she was a lively-looking, good-humoured brunette, quite competent to amuse one for a short time in the country. her lover (for such herr schmidt evidently appeared to be) was a polite, reserved personage, and would not join our conversation, notwithstanding all charlotte's endeavours to draw him out. i was much annoyed at observing, by his countenance, that his silence did not arise from want of talent, but from caprice and ill-humour. this subsequently became very evident, when we set out to take a walk, and frederica joining charlotte, with whom i was talking, the worthy gentleman's face, which was naturally rather sombre, became so dark and angry that charlotte was obliged to touch my arm, and remind me that i was talking too much to frederica. nothing distresses me more than to see men torment each other; particularly when in the flower of their age, in the very season of pleasure, they waste their few short days of sunshine in quarrels and disputes, and only perceive their error when it is too late to repair it. this thought dwelt upon my mind; and in the evening, when we returned to the vicar's, and were sitting round the table with our bread end milk, the conversation turned on the joys and sorrows of the world, i could not resist the temptation to inveigh bitterly against ill-humour. "we are apt," said i, "to complain, but--with very little cause, that our happy days are few, and our evil days many. if our hearts were always disposed to receive the benefits heaven sends us, we should acquire strength to support evil when it comes." "but," observed the vicar's wife, "we cannot always command our tempers, so much depends upon the constitution: when the body suffers, the mind is ill at ease." "i acknowledge that," i continued; "but we must consider such a disposition in the light of a disease, and inquire whether there is no remedy for it." "i should be glad to hear one," said charlotte: "at least, i think very much depends upon ourselves; i know it is so with me. when anything annoys me, and disturbs my temper, i hasten into the garden, hum a couple of country dances, and it is all right with me directly." "that is what i meant," i replied; "ill-humour resembles indolence: it is natural to us; but if once we have courage to exert ourselves, we find our work run fresh from our hands, and we experience in the activity from which we shrank a real enjoyment." frederica listened very attentively: and the young man objected, that we were not masters of ourselves, and still less so of our feelings. "the question is about a disagreeable feeling," i added, "from which every one would willingly escape, but none know their own power without trial. invalids are glad to consult physicians, and submit to the most scrupulous regimen, the most nauseous medicines, in order to recover their health." i observed that the good old man inclined his head, and exerted himself to hear our discourse; so i raised my voice, and addressed myself directly to him. "we preach against a great many crimes," i observed, "but i never remember a sermon delivered against ill-humour." "that may do very well for your town clergymen," said he: "country people are never ill-humoured; though, indeed, it might be useful, occasionally, to my wife for instance, and the judge." we all laughed, as did he likewise very cordially, till he fell into a fit of coughing, which interrupted our conversation for a time. herr schmidt resumed the subject. "you call ill humour a crime," he remarked, "but i think you use too strong a term." "not at all," i replied, "if that deserves the name which is so pernicious to ourselves and our neighbours. is it not enough that we want the power to make one another happy, must we deprive each other of the pleasure which we can all make for ourselves? show me the man who has the courage to hide his ill-humour, who bears the whole burden himself, without disturbing the peace of those around him. no: ill-humour arises from an inward consciousness of our own want of merit, from a discontent which ever accompanies that envy which foolish vanity engenders. we see people happy, whom we have not made so, and cannot endure the sight." charlotte looked at me with a smile; she observed the emotion with which i spoke: and a tear in the eyes of frederica stimulated me to proceed. "woe unto those," i said, "who use their power over a human heart to destroy the simple pleasures it would naturally enjoy! all the favours, all the attentions, in the world cannot compensate for the loss of that happiness which a cruel tyranny has destroyed." my heart was full as i spoke. a recollection of many things which had happened pressed upon my mind, and filled my eyes with tears. "we should daily repeat to ourselves," i exclaimed, "that we should not interfere with our friends, unless to leave them in possession of their own joys, and increase their happiness by sharing it with them! but when their souls are tormented by a violent passion, or their hearts rent with grief, is it in your power to afford them the slightest consolation? "and when the last fatal malady seizes the being whose untimely grave you have prepared, when she lies languid and exhausted before you, her dim eyes raised to heaven, and the damp of death upon her pallid brow, there you stand at her bedside like a condemned criminal, with the bitter feeling that your whole fortune could not save her; and the agonising thought wrings you, that all your efforts are powerless to impart even a moment's strength to the departing soul, or quicken her with a transitory consolation." at these words the remembrance of a similar scene at which i had been once present fell with full force upon my heart. i buried my face in my handkerchief, and hastened from the room, and was only recalled to my recollection by charlotte's voice, who reminded me that it was time to return home. with what tenderness she chid me on the way for the too eager interest i took in everything! she declared it would do me injury, and that i ought to spare myself. yes, my angel! i will do so for your sake. july . she is still with her dying friend, and is still the same bright, beautiful creature whose presence softens pain, and sheds happiness around whichever way she turns. she went out yesterday with her little sisters: i knew it, and went to meet them; and we walked together. in about an hour and a half we returned to the town. we stopped at the spring i am so fond of, and which is now a thousand times dearer to me than ever. charlotte seated herself upon the low wall, and we gathered about her. i looked around, and recalled the time when my heart was unoccupied and free. "dear fountain!" i said, "since that time i have no more come to enjoy cool repose by thy fresh stream: i have passed thee with careless steps, and scarcely bestowed a glance upon thee." i looked down, and observed charlotte's little sister, jane, coming up the steps with a glass of water. i turned toward charlotte, and i felt her influence over me. jane at the moment approached with the glass. her sister, marianne, wished to take it from her. "no!" cried the child, with the sweetest expression of face, "charlotte must drink first." the affection and simplicity with which this was uttered so charmed me, that i sought to express my feelings by catching up the child and kissing her heartily. she was frightened, and began to cry. "you should not do that," said charlotte: i felt perplexed. "come, jane," she continued, taking her hand, and leading her down the steps again, "it is no matter: wash yourself quickly in the fresh water." i stood and watched them; and when i saw the little dear rubbing her cheeks with her wet hands, in full belief that all the impurities contracted from my ugly beard would be washed off by the miraculous water, and how, though charlotte said it would do, she continued still to wash with all her might, as though she thought too much were better than too little, i assure you, wilhelm, i never attended a baptism with greater reverence; and, when charlotte came up from the well, i could have prostrated myself as before the prophet of an eastern nation. in the evening i would not resist telling the story to a person who, i thought, possessed some natural feeling, because he was a man of understanding. but what a mistake i made. he maintained it was very wrong of charlotte, that we should not deceive children, that such things occasioned countless mistakes and superstitions, from which we were bound to protect the young. it occurred to me then, that this very man had been baptised only a week before; so i said nothing further, but maintained the justice of my own convictions. we should deal with children as god deals with us, we are happiest under the influence of innocent delusions. july . what a child is man that he should be so solicitous about a look! what a child is man! we had been to walheim: the ladies went in a carriage; but during our walk i thought i saw in charlotte's dark eyes--i am a fool--but forgive me! you should see them,--those eyes.--however, to be brief (for my own eyes are weighed down with sleep), you must know, when the ladies stepped into their carriage again, young w. seldstadt, andran, and i were standing about the door. they are a merry set of fellows, and they were all laughing and joking together. i watched charlotte's eyes. they wandered from one to the other; but they did not light on me, on me, who stood there motionless, and who saw nothing but her! my heart bade her a thousand times adieu, but she noticed me not. the carriage drove off; and my eyes filled with tears. i looked after her: suddenly i saw charlotte's bonnet leaning out of the window, and she turned to look back, was it at me? my dear friend, i know not; and in this uncertainty i find consolation. perhaps she turned to look at me. perhaps! good-night--what a child i am! july . you should see how foolish i look in company when her name is mentioned, particularly when i am asked plainly how i like her. how i like her! i detest the phrase. what sort of creature must he be who merely liked charlotte, whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbed by her. like her! some one asked me lately how i liked ossian. july . madame m--is very ill. i pray for her recovery, because charlotte shares my sufferings. i see her occasionally at my friend's house, and to-day she has told me the strangest circumstance. old m--is a covetous, miserly fellow, who has long worried and annoyed the poor lady sadly; but she has borne her afflictions patiently. a few days ago, when the physician informed us that her recovery was hopeless, she sent for her husband (charlotte was present), and addressed him thus: "i have something to confess, which, after my decease, may occasion trouble and confusion. i have hitherto conducted your household as frugally and economically as possible, but you must pardon me for having defrauded you for thirty years. at the commencement of our married life, you allowed a small sum for the wants of the kitchen, and the other household expenses. when our establishment increased and our property grew larger, i could not persuade you to increase the weekly allowance in proportion: in short, you know, that, when our wants were greatest, you required me to supply everything with seven florins a week. i took the money from you without an observation, but made up the weekly deficiency from the money-chest; as nobody would suspect your wife of robbing the household bank. but i have wasted nothing, and should have been content to meet my eternal judge without this confession, if she, upon whom the management of your establishment will devolve after my decease, would be free from embarrassment upon your insisting that the allowance made to me, your former wife, was sufficient." i talked with charlotte of the inconceivable manner in which men allow themselves to be blinded; how any one could avoid suspecting some deception, when seven florins only were allowed to defray expenses twice as great. but i have myself known people who believed, without any visible astonishment, that their house possessed the prophet's never-failing cruse of oil. july . no, i am not deceived. in her dark eyes i read a genuine interest in me and in my fortunes. yes, i feel it; and i may believe my own heart which tells me--dare i say it?--dare i pronounce the divine words?--that she loves me! that she loves me! how the idea exalts me in my own eyes! and, as you can understand my feelings, i may say to you, how i honour myself since she loves me! is this presumption, or is it a consciousness of the truth? i do not know a man able to supplant me in the heart of charlotte; and yet when she speaks of her betrothed with so much warmth and affection, i feel like the soldier who has been stripped of his honours and titles, and deprived of his sword. july . how my heart beats when by accident i touch her finger, or my feet meet hers under the table! i draw back as if from a furnace; but a secret force impels me forward again, and my senses become disordered. her innocent, unconscious heart never knows what agony these little familiarities inflict upon me. sometimes when we are talking she lays her hand upon mine, and in the eagerness of conversation comes closer to me, and her balmy breath reaches my lips,--when i feel as if lightning had struck me, and that i could sink into the earth. and yet, wilhelm, with all this heavenly confidence,--if i know myself, and should ever dare--you understand me. no, no! my heart is not so corrupt, it is weak, weak enough but is not that a degree of corruption? she is to me a sacred being. all passion is still in her presence: i cannot express my sensations when i am near her. i feel as if my soul beat in every nerve of my body. there is a melody which she plays on the piano with angelic skill,--so simple is it, and yet so spiritual! it is her favourite air; and, when she plays the first note, all pain, care, and sorrow disappear from me in a moment. i believe every word that is said of the magic of ancient music. how her simple song enchants me! sometimes, when i am ready to commit suicide, she sings that air; and instantly the gloom and madness which hung over me are dispersed, and i breathe freely again. july . wilhelm, what is the world to our hearts without love? what is a magic-lantern without light? you have but to kindle the flame within, and the brightest figures shine on the white wall; and, if love only show us fleeting shadows, we are yet happy, when, like mere children, we behold them, and are transported with the splendid phantoms. i have not been able to see charlotte to-day. i was prevented by company from which i could not disengage myself. what was to be done? i sent my servant to her house, that i might at least see somebody to-day who had been near her. oh, the impatience with which i waited for his return! the joy with which i welcomed him! i should certainly have caught him in my arms, and kissed him, if i had not been ashamed. it is said that the bonona stone, when placed in the sun, attracts the rays, and for a time appears luminous in the dark. so was it with me and this servant. the idea that charlotte's eyes had dwelt on his countenance, his cheek, his very apparel, endeared them all inestimably to me, so that at the moment i would not have parted from him for a thousand crowns. his presence made me so happy! beware of laughing at me, wilhelm. can that be a delusion which makes us happy? july . "i shall see her today!" i exclaim with delight, when i rise in the morning, and look out with gladness of heart at the bright, beautiful sun. "i shall see her today!" and then i have no further wish to form: all, all is included in that one thought. july . i cannot assent to your proposal that i should accompany the ambassador to ------. i do not love subordination; and we all know that he is a rough, disagreeable person to be connected with. you say my mother wishes me to be employed. i could not help laughing at that. am i not sufficiently employed? and is it not in reality the same, whether i shell peas or count lentils? the world runs on from one folly to another; and the man who, solely from regard to the opinion of others, and without any wish or necessity of his own, toils after gold, honour, or any other phantom, is no better than a fool. july . you insist so much on my not neglecting my drawing, that it would be as well for me to say nothing as to confess how little i have lately done. i never felt happier, i never understood nature better, even down to the veriest stem or smallest blade of grass; and yet i am unable to express myself: my powers of execution are so weak, everything seems to swim and float before me, so that i cannot make a clear, bold outline. but i fancy i should succeed better if i had some clay or wax to model. i shall try, if this state of mind continues much longer, and will take to modelling, if i only knead dough. i have commenced charlotte's portrait three times, and have as often disgraced myself. this is the more annoying, as i was formerly very happy in taking likenesses. i have since sketched her profile, and must content myself with that. july . yes, dear charlotte! i will order and arrange everything. only give me more commissions, the more the better. one thing, however, i must request: use no more writing-sand with the dear notes you send me. today i raised your letter hastily to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge. july . i have often determined not to see her so frequently. but who could keep such a resolution? every day i am exposed to the temptation, and promise faithfully that to-morrow i will really stay away: but, when tomorrow comes, i find some irresistible reason for seeing her; and, before i can account for it, i am with her again. either she has said on the previous evening "you will be sure to call to-morrow,"--and who could stay away then?--or she gives me some commission, and i find it essential to take her the answer in person; or the day is fine, and i walk to walheim; and, when i am there, it is only half a league farther to her. i am within the charmed atmosphere, and soon find myself at her side. my grandmother used to tell us a story of a mountain of loadstone. when any vessels came near it, they were instantly deprived of their ironwork: the nails flew to the mountain, and the unhappy crew perished amidst the disjointed planks. july . albert is arrived, and i must take my departure. were he the best and noblest of men, and i in every respect his inferior, i could not endure to see him in possession of such a perfect being. possession!--enough, wilhelm: her betrothed is here,--a fine, worthy fellow, whom one cannot help liking. fortunately i was not present at their meeting. it would have broken my heart! and he is so considerate: he has not given charlotte one kiss in my presence. heaven reward him for it! i must love him for the respect with which he treats her. he shows a regard for me, but for this i suspect i am more indebted to charlotte than to his own fancy for me. women have a delicate tact in such matters, and it should be so. they cannot always succeed in keeping two rivals on terms with each other; but, when they do, they are the only gainers. i cannot help esteeming albert. the coolness of his temper contrasts strongly with the impetuosity of mine, which i cannot conceal. he has a great deal of feeling, and is fully sensible of the treasure he possesses in charlotte. he is free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault i detest most. he regards me as a man of sense; and my attachment to charlotte, and the interest i take in all that concerns her, augment his triumph and his love. i shall not inquire whether he may not at times tease her with some little jealousies; as i know, that, were i in his place, i should not be entirely free from such sensations. but, be that as it may, my pleasure with charlotte is over. call it folly or infatuation, what signifies a name? the thing speaks for itself. before albert came, i knew all that i know now. i knew i could make no pretensions to her, nor did i offer any, that is, as far as it was possible, in the presence of so much loveliness, not to pant for its enjoyment. and now, behold me like a silly fellow, staring with astonishment when another comes in, and deprives me of my love. i bite my lips, and feel infinite scorn for those who tell me to be resigned, because there is no help for it. let me escape from the yoke of such silly subterfuges! i ramble through the woods; and when i return to charlotte, and find albert sitting by her side in the summer-house in the garden, i am unable to bear it, behave like a fool, and commit a thousand extravagances. "for heaven's sake," said charlotte today, "let us have no more scenes like those of last night! you terrify me when you are so violent." between ourselves, i am always away now when he visits her: and i feel delighted when i find her alone. august . believe me, dear wilhelm, i did not allude to you when i spoke so severely of those who advise resignation to inevitable fate. i did not think it possible for you to indulge such a sentiment. but in fact you are right. i only suggest one objection. in this world one is seldom reduced to make a selection between two alternatives. there are as many varieties of conduct and opinion as there are turns of feature between an aquiline nose and a flat one. you will, therefore, permit me to concede your entire argument, and yet contrive means to escape your dilemma. your position is this, i hear you say: "either you have hopes of obtaining charlotte, or you have none. well, in the first case, pursue your course, and press on to the fulfilment of your wishes. in the second, be a man, and shake off a miserable passion, which will enervate and destroy you." my dear friend, this is well and easily said. but would you require a wretched being, whose life is slowly wasting under a lingering disease, to despatch himself at once by the stroke of a dagger? does not the very disorder which consumes his strength deprive him of the courage to effect his deliverance? you may answer me, if you please, with a similar analogy, "who would not prefer the amputation of an arm to the periling of life by doubt and procrastination!" but i know not if i am right, and let us leave these comparisons. enough! there are moments, wilhelm, when i could rise up and shake it all off, and when, if i only knew where to go, i could fly from this place. the same evening. my diary, which i have for some time neglected, came before me today; and i am amazed to see how deliberately i have entangled myself step by step. to have seen my position so clearly, and yet to have acted so like a child! even still i behold the result plainly, and yet have no thought of acting with greater prudence. august . if i were not a fool, i could spend the happiest and most delightful life here. so many agreeable circumstances, and of a kind to ensure a worthy man's happiness, are seldom united. alas! i feel it too sensibly,--the heart alone makes our happiness! to be admitted into this most charming family, to be loved by the father as a son, by the children as a father, and by charlotte! then the noble albert, who never disturbs my happiness by any appearance of ill-humour, receiving me with the heartiest affection, and loving me, next to charlotte, better than all the world! wilhelm, you would be delighted to hear us in our rambles, and conversations about charlotte. nothing in the world can be more absurd than our connection, and yet the thought of it often moves me to tears. he tells me sometimes of her excellent mother; how, upon her death-bed, she had committed her house and children to charlotte, and had given charlotte herself in charge to him; how, since that time, a new spirit had taken possession of her; how, in care and anxiety for their welfare, she became a real mother to them; how every moment of her time was devoted to some labour of love in their behalf,--and yet her mirth and cheerfulness had never forsaken her. i walk by his side, pluck flowers by the way, arrange them carefully into a nosegay, then fling them into the first stream i pass, and watch them as they float gently away. i forget whether i told you that albert is to remain here. he has received a government appointment, with a very good salary; and i understand he is in high favour at court. i have met few persons so punctual and methodical in business. august . certainly albert is the best fellow in the world. i had a strange scene with him yesterday. i went to take leave of him; for i took it into my head to spend a few days in these mountains, from where i now write to you. as i was walking up and down his room, my eye fell upon his pistols. "lend me those pistols," said i, "for my journey." "by all means," he replied, "if you will take the trouble to load them; for they only hang there for form." i took down one of them; and he continued, "ever since i was near suffering for my extreme caution, i will have nothing to do with such things." i was curious to hear the story. "i was staying," said he, "some three months ago, at a friend's house in the country. i had a brace of pistols with me, unloaded; and i slept without any anxiety. one rainy afternoon i was sitting by myself, doing nothing, when it occurred to me i do not know how that the house might be attacked, that we might require the pistols, that we might in short, you know how we go on fancying, when we have nothing better to do. i gave the pistols to the servant, to clean and load. he was playing with the maid, and trying to frighten her, when the pistol went off--god knows how!--the ramrod was in the barrel; and it went straight through her right hand, and shattered the thumb. i had to endure all the lamentation, and to pay the surgeon's bill; so, since that time, i have kept all my weapons unloaded. but, my dear friend, what is the use of prudence? we can never be on our guard against all possible dangers. however,"--now, you must know i can tolerate all men till they come to "however;"--for it is self-evident that every universal rule must have its exceptions. but he is so exceedingly accurate, that, if he only fancies he has said a word too precipitate, or too general, or only half true, he never ceases to qualify, to modify, and extenuate, till at last he appears to have said nothing at all. upon this occasion, albert was deeply immersed in his subject: i ceased to listen to him, and became lost in reverie. with a sudden motion, i pointed the mouth of the pistol to my forehead, over the right eye. "what do you mean?" cried albert, turning back the pistol. "it is not loaded," said i. "and even if not," he answered with impatience, "what can you mean? i cannot comprehend how a man can be so mad as to shoot himself, and the bare idea of it shocks me." "but why should any one," said i, "in speaking of an action, venture to pronounce it mad or wise, or good or bad? what is the meaning of all this? have you carefully studied the secret motives of our actions? do you understand--can you explain the causes which occasion them, and make them inevitable? if you can, you will be less hasty with your decision." "but you will allow," said albert; "that some actions are criminal, let them spring from whatever motives they may." i granted it, and shrugged my shoulders. "but still, my good friend," i continued, "there are some exceptions here too. theft is a crime; but the man who commits it from extreme poverty, with no design but to save his family from perishing, is he an object of pity, or of punishment? who shall throw the first stone at a husband, who, in the heat of just resentment, sacrifices his faithless wife and her perfidious seducer? or at the young maiden, who, in her weak hour of rapture, forgets herself in the impetuous joys of love? even our laws, cold and cruel as they are, relent in such cases, and withhold their punishment." "that is quite another thing," said albert; "because a man under the influence of violent passion loses all power of reflection, and is regarded as intoxicated or insane." "oh! you people of sound understandings," i replied, smiling, "are ever ready to exclaim 'extravagance, and madness, and intoxication!' you moral men are so calm and so subdued! you abhor the drunken man, and detest the extravagant; you pass by, like the levite, and thank god, like the pharisee, that you are not like one of them. i have been more than once intoxicated, my passions have always bordered on extravagance: i am not ashamed to confess it; for i have learned, by my own experience, that all extraordinary men, who have accomplished great and astonishing actions, have ever been decried by the world as drunken or insane. and in private life, too, is it not intolerable that no one can undertake the execution of a noble or generous deed, without giving rise to the exclamation that the doer is intoxicated or mad? shame upon you, ye sages!" "this is another of your extravagant humours," said albert: "you always exaggerate a case, and in this matter you are undoubtedly wrong; for we were speaking of suicide, which you compare with great actions, when it is impossible to regard it as anything but a weakness. it is much easier to die than to bear a life of misery with fortitude." i was on the point of breaking off the conversation, for nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when i am talking from my inmost heart. however, i composed myself, for i had often heard the same observation with sufficient vexation; and i answered him, therefore, with a little warmth, "you call this a weakness--beware of being led astray by appearances. when a nation, which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant, rises at last and throws off its chains, do you call that weakness? the man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease, which, in the absence of excitement, he could scarcely move; he who, under the rage of an insult, attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies, are such persons to be called weak? my good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness?" albert looked steadfastly at me, and said, "pray forgive me, but i do not see that the examples you have adduced bear any relation to the question." "very likely," i answered; "for i have often been told that my style of illustration borders a little on the absurd. but let us see if we cannot place the matter in another point of view, by inquiring what can be a man's state of mind who resolves to free himself from the burden of life,--a burden often so pleasant to bear,--for we cannot otherwise reason fairly upon the subject. "human nature," i continued, "has its limits. it is able to endure a certain degree of joy, sorrow, and pain, but becomes annihilated as soon as this measure is exceeded. the question, therefore, is, not whether a man is strong or weak, but whether he is able to endure the measure of his sufferings. the suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever." "paradox, all paradox!" exclaimed albert. "not so paradoxical as you imagine," i replied. "you allow that we designate a disease as mortal when nature is so severely attacked, and her strength so far exhausted, that she cannot possibly recover her former condition under any change that may take place. "now, my good friend, apply this to the mind; observe a man in his natural, isolated condition; consider how ideas work, and how impressions fasten on him, till at length a violent passion seizes him, destroying all his powers of calm reflection, and utterly ruining him. "it is in vain that a man of sound mind and cool temper understands the condition of such a wretched being, in vain he counsels him. he can no more communicate his own wisdom to him than a healthy man can instil his strength into the invalid, by whose bedside he is seated." albert thought this too general. i reminded him of a girl who had drowned herself a short time previously, and i related her history. she was a good creature, who had grown up in the narrow sphere of household industry and weekly appointed labour; one who knew no pleasure beyond indulging in a walk on sundays, arrayed in her best attire, accompanied by her friends, or perhaps joining in the dance now and then at some festival, and chatting away her spare hours with a neighbour, discussing the scandal or the quarrels of the village, trifles sufficient to occupy her heart. at length the warmth of her nature is influenced by certain new and unknown wishes. inflamed by the flatteries of men, her former pleasures become by degrees insipid, till at length she meets with a youth to whom she is attracted by an indescribable feeling; upon him she now rests all her hopes; she forgets the world around her; she sees, hears, desires nothing but him, and him only. he alone occupies all her thoughts. uncorrupted by the idle indulgence of an enervating vanity, her affection moving steadily toward its object, she hopes to become his, and to realise, in an everlasting union with him, all that happiness which she sought, all that bliss for which she longed. his repeated promises confirm her hopes: embraces and endearments, which increase the ardour of her desires, overmaster her soul. she floats in a dim, delusive anticipation of her happiness; and her feelings become excited to their utmost tension. she stretches out her arms finally to embrace the object of all her wishes and her lover forsakes her. stunned and bewildered, she stands upon a precipice. all is darkness around her. no prospect, no hope, no consolation--forsaken by him in whom her existence was centred! she sees nothing of the wide world before her, thinks nothing of the many individuals who might supply the void in her heart; she feels herself deserted, forsaken by the world; and, blinded and impelled by the agony which wrings her soul, she plunges into the deep, to end her sufferings in the broad embrace of death. see here, albert, the history of thousands; and tell me, is not this a case of physical infirmity? nature has no way to escape from the labyrinth: her powers are exhausted: she can contend no longer, and the poor soul must die. "shame upon him who can look on calmly, and exclaim, 'the foolish girl! she should have waited; she should have allowed time to wear off the impression; her despair would have been softened, and she would have found another lover to comfort her.' one might as well say, 'the fool, to die of a fever! why did he not wait till his strength was restored, till his blood became calm? all would then have gone well, and he would have been alive now.'" albert, who could not see the justice of the comparison, offered some further objections, and, amongst others, urged that i had taken the case of a mere ignorant girl. but how any man of sense, of more enlarged views and experience, could be excused, he was unable to comprehend. "my friend!" i exclaimed, "man is but man; and, whatever be the extent of his reasoning powers, they are of little avail when passion rages within, and he feels himself confined by the narrow limits of nature. it were better, then--but we will talk of this some other time," i said, and caught up my hat. alas! my heart was full; and we parted without conviction on either side. how rarely in this world do men understand each other! august . there can be no doubt that in this world nothing is so indispensable as love. i observe that charlotte could not lose me without a pang, and the very children have but one wish; that is, that i should visit them again to-morrow. i went this afternoon to tune charlotte's piano. but i could not do it, for the little ones insisted on my telling them a story; and charlotte herself urged me to satisfy them. i waited upon them at tea, and they are now as fully contented with me as with charlotte; and i told them my very best tale of the princess who was waited upon by dwarfs. i improve myself by this exercise, and am quite surprised at the impression my stories create. if i sometimes invent an incident which i forget upon the next narration, they remind one directly that the story was different before; so that i now endeavour to relate with exactness the same anecdote in the same monotonous tone, which never changes. i find by this, how much an author injures his works by altering them, even though they be improved in a poetical point of view. the first impression is readily received. we are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them. august . must it ever be thus,--that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? the full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harasses me. when in bygone days i gazed from these rocks upon yonder mountains across the river, and upon the green, flowery valley before me, and saw all nature budding and bursting around; the hills clothed from foot to peak with tall, thick forest trees; the valleys in all their varied windings, shaded with the loveliest woods; and the soft river gliding along amongst the lisping reeds, mirroring the beautiful clouds which the soft evening breeze wafted across the sky,--when i heard the groves about me melodious with the music of birds, and saw the million swarms of insects dancing in the last golden beams of the sun, whose setting rays awoke the humming beetles from their grassy beds, whilst the subdued tumult around directed my attention to the ground, and i there observed the arid rock compelled to yield nutriment to the dry moss, whilst the heath flourished upon the barren sands below me, all this displayed to me the inner warmth which animates all nature, and filled and glowed within my heart. i felt myself exalted by this overflowing fulness to the perception of the godhead, and the glorious forms of an infinite universe became visible to my soul! stupendous mountains encompassed me, abysses yawned at my feet, and cataracts fell headlong down before me; impetuous rivers rolled through the plain, and rocks and mountains resounded from afar. in the depths of the earth i saw innumerable powers in motion, and multiplying to infinity; whilst upon its surface, and beneath the heavens, there teemed ten thousand varieties of living creatures. everything around is alive with an infinite number of forms; while mankind fly for security to their petty houses, from the shelter of which they rule in their imaginations over the wide-extended universe. poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little. from the inaccessible mountains, across the desert which no mortal foot has trod, far as the confines of the unknown ocean, breathes the spirit of the eternal creator; and every atom to which he has given existence finds favour in his sight. ah, how often at that time has the flight of a bird, soaring above my head, inspired me with the desire of being transported to the shores of the immeasurable waters, there to quaff the pleasures of life from the foaming goblet of the infinite, and to partake, if but for a moment even, with the confined powers of my soul, the beatitude of that creator who accomplishes all things in himself, and through himself! my dear friend, the bare recollection of those hours still consoles me. even this effort to recall those ineffable sensations, and give them utterance, exalts my soul above itself, and makes me doubly feel the intensity of my present anguish. it is as if a curtain had been drawn from before my eyes, and, instead of prospects of eternal life, the abyss of an ever open grave yawned before me. can we say of anything that it exists when all passes away, when time, with the speed of a storm, carries all things onward,--and our transitory existence, hurried along by the torrent, is either swallowed up by the waves or dashed against the rocks? there is not a moment but preys upon you,--and upon all around you, not a moment in which you do not yourself become a destroyer. the most innocent walk deprives of life thousands of poor insects: one step destroys the fabric of the industrious ant, and converts a little world into chaos. no: it is not the great and rare calamities of the world, the floods which sweep away whole villages, the earthquakes which swallow up our towns, that affect me. my heart is wasted by the thought of that destructive power which lies concealed in every part of universal nature. nature has formed nothing that does not consume itself, and every object near it: so that, surrounded by earth and air, and all the active powers, i wander on my way with aching heart; and the universe is to me a fearful monster, for ever devouring its own offspring. august . in vain do i stretch out my arms toward her when i awaken in the morning from my weary slumbers. in vain do i seek for her at night in my bed, when some innocent dream has happily deceived me, and placed her near me in the fields, when i have seized her hand and covered it with countless kisses. and when i feel for her in the half confusion of sleep, with the happy sense that she is near, tears flow from my oppressed heart; and, bereft of all comfort, i weep over my future woes. august . what a misfortune, wilhelm! my active spirits have degenerated into contented indolence. i cannot be idle, and yet i am unable to set to work. i cannot think: i have no longer any feeling for the beauties of nature, and books are distasteful to me. once we give ourselves up, we are totally lost. many a time and oft i wish i were a common labourer; that, awakening in the morning, i might have but one prospect, one pursuit, one hope, for the day which has dawned. i often envy albert when i see him buried in a heap of papers and parchments, and i fancy i should be happy were i in his place. often impressed with this feeling i have been on the point of writing to you and to the minister, for the appointment at the embassy, which you think i might obtain. i believe i might procure it. the minister has long shown a regard for me, and has frequently urged me to seek employment. it is the business of an hour only. now and then the fable of the horse recurs to me. weary of liberty, he suffered himself to be saddled and bridled, and was ridden to death for his pains. i know not what to determine upon. for is not this anxiety for change the consequence of that restless spirit which would pursue me equally in every situation of life? august . if my ills would admit of any cure, they would certainly be cured here. this is my birthday, and early in the morning i received a packet from albert. upon opening it, i found one of the pink ribbons which charlotte wore in her dress the first time i saw her, and which i had several times asked her to give me. with it were two volumes in duodecimo of wetstein's "homer," a book i had often wished for, to save me the inconvenience of carrying the large ernestine edition with me upon my walks. you see how they anticipate my wishes, how well they understand all those little attentions of friendship, so superior to the costly presents of the great, which are humiliating. i kissed the ribbon a thousand times, and in every breath inhaled the remembrance of those happy and irrevocable days which filled me with the keenest joy. such, wilhelm, is our fate. i do not murmur at it: the flowers of life are but visionary. how many pass away, and leave no trace behind--how few yield any fruit--and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! and yet there are flowers enough! and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen, to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed? farewell! this is a glorious summer. i often climb into the trees in charlotte's orchard, and shake down the pears that hang on the highest branches. she stands below, and catches them as they fall. august . unhappy being that i am! why do i thus deceive myself? what is to come of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? i cannot pray except to her. my imagination sees nothing but her: all surrounding objects are of no account, except as they relate to her. in this dreamy state i enjoy many happy hours, till at length i feel compelled to tear myself away from her. ah, wilhelm, to what does not my heart often compel me! when i have spent several hours in her company, till i feel completely absorbed by her figure, her grace, the divine expression of her thoughts, my mind becomes gradually excited to the highest excess, my sight grows dim, my hearing confused, my breathing oppressed as if by the hand of a murderer, and my beating heart seeks to obtain relief for my aching senses. i am sometimes unconscious whether i really exist. if in such moments i find no sympathy, and charlotte does not allow me to enjoy the melancholy consolation of bathing her hand with my tears, i feel compelled to tear myself from her, when i either wander through the country, climb some precipitous cliff, or force a path through the trackless thicket, where i am lacerated and torn by thorns and briers; and thence i find relief. sometimes i lie stretched on the ground, overcome with fatigue and dying with thirst; sometimes, late in the night, when the moon shines above me, i recline against an aged tree in some sequestered forest, to rest my weary limbs, when, exhausted and worn, i sleep till break of day. o wilhelm! the hermit's cell, his sackcloth, and girdle of thorns would be luxury and indulgence compared with what i suffer. adieu! i see no end to this wretchedness except the grave. september . i must away. thank you, wilhelm, for determining my wavering purpose. for a whole fortnight i have thought of leaving her. i must away. she has returned to town, and is at the house of a friend. and then, albert--yes, i must go. september . oh, what a night, wilhelm! i can henceforth bear anything. i shall never see her again. oh, why cannot i fall on your neck, and, with floods of tears and raptures, give utterance to all the passions which distract my heart! here i sit gasping for breath, and struggling to compose myself. i wait for day, and at sunrise the horses are to be at the door. and she is sleeping calmly, little suspecting that she has seen me for the last time. i am free. i have had the courage, in an interview of two hours' duration, not to betray my intention. and o wilhelm, what a conversation it was! albert had promised to come to charlotte in the garden immediately after supper. i was upon the terrace under the tall chestnut trees, and watched the setting sun. i saw him sink for the last time beneath this delightful valley and silent stream. i had often visited the same spot with charlotte, and witnessed that glorious sight; and now--i was walking up and down the very avenue which was so dear to me. a secret sympathy had frequently drawn me thither before i knew charlotte; and we were delighted when, in our early acquaintance, we discovered that we each loved the same spot, which is indeed as romantic as any that ever captivated the fancy of an artist. from beneath the chestnut trees, there is an extensive view. but i remember that i have mentioned all this in a former letter, and have described the tall mass of beech trees at the end, and how the avenue grows darker and darker as it winds its way among them, till it ends in a gloomy recess, which has all the charm of a mysterious solitude. i still remember the strange feeling of melancholy which came over me the first time i entered that dark retreat, at bright midday. i felt some secret foreboding that it would, one day, be to me the scene of some happiness or misery. i had spent half an hour struggling between the contending thoughts of going and returning, when i heard them coming up the terrace. i ran to meet them. i trembled as i took her hand, and kissed it. as we reached the top of the terrace, the moon rose from behind the wooded hill. we conversed on many subjects, and, without perceiving it, approached the gloomy recess. charlotte entered, and sat down. albert seated himself beside her. i did the same, but my agitation did not suffer me to remain long seated. i got up, and stood before her, then walked backward and forward, and sat down again. i was restless and miserable. charlotte drew our attention to the beautiful effect of the moonlight, which threw a silver hue over the terrace in front of us, beyond the beech trees. it was a glorious sight, and was rendered more striking by the darkness which surrounded the spot where we were. we remained for some time silent, when charlotte observed, "whenever i walk by moonlight, it brings to my remembrance all my beloved and departed friends, and i am filled with thoughts of death and futurity. we shall live again, werther!" she continued, with a firm but feeling voice; "but shall we know one another again what do you think? what do you say?" "charlotte," i said, as i took her hand in mine, and my eyes filled with tears, "we shall see each other again--here and hereafter we shall meet again." i could say no more. why, wilhelm, should she put this question to me, just at the moment when the fear of our cruel separation filled my heart? "and oh! do those departed ones know how we are employed here? do they know when we are well and happy? do they know when we recall their memories with the fondest love? in the silent hour of evening the shade of my mother hovers around me; when seated in the midst of my children, i see them assembled near me, as they used to assemble near her; and then i raise my anxious eyes to heaven, and wish she could look down upon us, and witness how i fulfil the promise i made to her in her last moments, to be a mother to her children. with what emotion do i then exclaim, 'pardon, dearest of mothers, pardon me, if i do not adequately supply your place! alas! i do my utmost. they are clothed and fed; and, still better, they are loved and educated. could you but see, sweet saint! the peace and harmony that dwells amongst us, you would glorify god with the warmest feelings of gratitude, to whom, in your last hour, you addressed such fervent prayers for our happiness.'" thus did she express herself; but o wilhelm! who can do justice to her language? how can cold and passionless words convey the heavenly expressions of the spirit? albert interrupted her gently. "this affects you too deeply, my dear charlotte. i know your soul dwells on such recollections with intense delight; but i implore--" "o albert!" she continued, "i am sure you do not forget the evenings when we three used to sit at the little round table, when papa was absent, and the little ones had retired. you often had a good book with you, but seldom read it; the conversation of that noble being was preferable to everything,--that beautiful, bright, gentle, and yet ever-toiling woman. god alone knows how i have supplicated with tears on my nightly couch, that i might be like her." i threw myself at her feet, and, seizing her hand, bedewed it with a thousand tears. "charlotte!" i exclaimed, "god's blessing and your mother's spirit are upon you." "oh! that you had known her," she said, with a warm pressure of the hand. "she was worthy of being known to you." i thought i should have fainted: never had i received praise so flattering. she continued, "and yet she was doomed to die in the flower of her youth, when her youngest child was scarcely six months old. her illness was but short, but she was calm and resigned; and it was only for her children, especially the youngest, that she felt unhappy. when her end drew nigh, she bade me bring them to her. i obeyed. the younger ones knew nothing of their approaching loss, while the elder ones were quite overcome with grief. they stood around the bed; and she raised her feeble hands to heaven, and prayed over them; then, kissing them in turn, she dismissed them, and said to me, 'be you a mother to them.' i gave her my hand. 'you are promising much, my child,' she said: 'a mother's fondness and a mother's care! i have often witnessed, by your tears of gratitude, that you know what is a mother's tenderness: show it to your brothers and sisters, and be dutiful and faithful to your father as a wife; you will be his comfort.' she inquired for him. he had retired to conceal his intolerable anguish,--he was heartbroken, 'albert, you were in the room.' she heard some one moving: she inquired who it was, and desired you to approach. she surveyed us both with a look of composure and satisfaction, expressive of her conviction that we should be happy,--happy with one another." albert fell upon her neck, and kissed her, and exclaimed, "we are so, and we shall be so!" even albert, generally so tranquil, had quite lost his composure; and i was excited beyond expression. "and such a being," she continued, "was to leave us, werther! great god, must we thus part with everything we hold dear in this world? nobody felt this more acutely than the children: they cried and lamented for a long time afterward, complaining that men had carried away their dear mamma." charlotte rose. it aroused me; but i continued sitting, and held her hand. "let us go," she said: "it grows late." she attempted to withdraw her hand: i held it still. "we shall see each other again," i exclaimed: "we shall recognise each other under every possible change! i am going," i continued, "going willingly; but, should i say for ever, perhaps i may not keep my word. adieu, charlotte; adieu, albert. we shall meet again." "yes: tomorrow, i think," she answered with a smile. tomorrow! how i felt the word! ah! she little thought, when she drew her hand away from mine. they walked down the avenue. i stood gazing after them in the moonlight. i threw myself upon the ground, and wept: i then sprang up, and ran out upon the terrace, and saw, under the shade of the linden-trees, her white dress disappearing near the garden-gate. i stretched out my arms, and she vanished. book ii. october . we arrived here yesterday. the ambassador is indisposed, and will not go out for some days. if he were less peevish and morose, all would be well. i see but too plainly that heaven has destined me to severe trials; but courage! a light heart may bear anything. a light heart! i smile to find such a word proceeding from my pen. a little more lightheartedness would render me the happiest being under the sun. but must i despair of my talents and faculties, whilst others of far inferior abilities parade before me with the utmost self-satisfaction? gracious providence, to whom i owe all my powers, why didst thou not withhold some of those blessings i possess, and substitute in their place a feeling of self-confidence and contentment? but patience! all will yet be well; for i assure you, my dear friend, you were right: since i have been obliged to associate continually with other people, and observe what they do, and how they employ themselves, i have become far better satisfied with myself. for we are so constituted by nature, that we are ever prone to compare ourselves with others; and our happiness or misery depends very much on the objects and persons around us. on this account, nothing is more dangerous than solitude: there our imagination, always disposed to rise, taking a new flight on the wings of fancy, pictures to us a chain of beings of whom we seem the most inferior. all things appear greater than they really are, and all seem superior to us. this operation of the mind is quite natural: we so continually feel our own imperfections, and fancy we perceive in others the qualities we do not possess, attributing to them also all that we enjoy ourselves, that by this process we form the idea of a perfect, happy man,--a man, however, who only exists in our own imagination. but when, in spite of weakness and disappointments, we set to work in earnest, and persevere steadily, we often find, that, though obliged continually to tack, we make more way than others who have the assistance of wind and tide; and, in truth, there can be no greater satisfaction than to keep pace with others or outstrip them in the race. november . i begin to find my situation here more tolerable, considering all circumstances. i find a great advantage in being much occupied; and the number of persons i meet, and their different pursuits, create a varied entertainment for me. i have formed the acquaintance of the count c--and i esteem him more and more every day. he is a man of strong understanding and great discernment; but, though he sees farther than other people, he is not on that account cold in his manner, but capable of inspiring and returning the warmest affection. he appeared interested in me on one occasion, when i had to transact some business with him. he perceived, at the first word, that we understood each other, and that he could converse with me in a different tone from what he used with others. i cannot sufficiently esteem his frank and open kindness to me. it is the greatest and most genuine of pleasures to observe a great mind in sympathy with our own. december . as i anticipated, the ambassador occasions me infinite annoyance. he is the most punctilious blockhead under heaven. he does everything step by step, with the trifling minuteness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself. i like to do business regularly and cheerfully, and, when it is finished, to leave it. but he constantly returns my papers to me, saying, "they will do," but recommending me to look over them again, as "one may always improve by using a better word or a more appropriate particle." i then lose all patience, and wish myself at the devil's. not a conjunction, not an adverb, must be omitted: he has a deadly antipathy to all those transpositions of which i am so fond; and, if the music of our periods is not tuned to the established, official key, he cannot comprehend our meaning. it is deplorable to be connected with such a fellow. my acquaintance with the count c--is the only compensation for such an evil. he told me frankly, the other day, that he was much displeased with the difficulties and delays of the ambassador; that people like him are obstacles, both to themselves and to others. "but," added he, "one must submit, like a traveller who has to ascend a mountain: if the mountain was not there, the road would be both shorter and pleasanter; but there it is, and he must get over it." the old man perceives the count's partiality for me: this annoys him, and, he seizes every opportunity to depreciate the count in my hearing. i naturally defend him, and that only makes matters worse. yesterday he made me indignant, for he also alluded to me. "the count," he said, "is a man of the world, and a good man of business: his style is good, and he writes with facility; but, like other geniuses, he has no solid learning." he looked at me with an expression that seemed to ask if i felt the blow. but it did not produce the desired effect: i despise a man who can think and act in such a manner. however, i made a stand, and answered with not a little warmth. the count, i said, was a man entitled to respect, alike for his character and his acquirements. i had never met a person whose mind was stored with more useful and extensive knowledge,--who had, in fact, mastered such an infinite variety of subjects, and who yet retained all his activity for the details of ordinary business. this was altogether beyond his comprehension; and i took my leave, lest my anger should be too highly excited by some new absurdity of his. and you are to blame for all this, you who persuaded me to bend my neck to this yoke by preaching a life of activity to me. if the man who plants vegetables, and carries his corn to town on market-days, is not more usefully employed than i am, then let me work ten years longer at the galleys to which i am now chained. oh, the brilliant wretchedness, the weariness, that one is doomed to witness among the silly people whom we meet in society here! the ambition of rank! how they watch, how they toil, to gain precedence! what poor and contemptible passions are displayed in their utter nakedness! we have a woman here, for example, who never ceases to entertain the company with accounts of her family and her estates. any stranger would consider her a silly being, whose head was turned by her pretensions to rank and property; but she is in reality even more ridiculous, the daughter of a mere magistrate's clerk from this neighbourhood. i cannot understand how human beings can so debase themselves. every day i observe more and more the folly of judging of others by ourselves; and i have so much trouble with myself, and my own heart is in such constant agitation, that i am well content to let others pursue their own course, if they only allow me the same privilege. what provokes me most is the unhappy extent to which distinctions of rank are carried. i know perfectly well how necessary are inequalities of condition, and i am sensible of the advantages i myself derive therefrom; but i would not have these institutions prove a barrier to the small chance of happiness which i may enjoy on this earth. i have lately become acquainted with a miss b--, a very agreeable girl, who has retained her natural manners in the midst of artificial life. our first conversation pleased us both equally; and, at taking leave, i requested permission to visit her. she consented in so obliging a manner, that i waited with impatience for the arrival of the happy moment. she is not a native of this place, but resides here with her aunt. the countenance of the old lady is not prepossessing. i paid her much attention, addressing the greater part of my conversation to her; and, in less than half an hour, i discovered what her niece subsequently acknowledged to me, that her aged aunt, having but a small fortune, and a still smaller share of understanding, enjoys no satisfaction except in the pedigree of her ancestors, no protection save in her noble birth, and no enjoyment but in looking from her castle over the heads of the humble citizens. she was, no doubt, handsome in her youth, and in her early years probably trifled away her time in rendering many a poor youth the sport of her caprice: in her riper years she has submitted to the yoke of a veteran officer, who, in return for her person and her small independence, has spent with her what we may designate her age of brass. he is dead; and she is now a widow, and deserted. she spends her iron age alone, and would not be approached, except for the loveliness of her niece. january , . what beings are men, whose whole thoughts are occupied with form and ceremony, who for years together devote their mental and physical exertions to the task of advancing themselves but one step, and endeavouring to occupy a higher place at the table. not that such persons would otherwise want employment: on the contrary, they give themselves much trouble by neglecting important business for such petty trifles. last week a question of precedence arose at a sledging-party, and all our amusement was spoiled. the silly creatures cannot see that it is not place which constitutes real greatness, since the man who occupies the first place but seldom plays the principal part. how many kings are governed by their ministers--how many ministers by their secretaries? who, in such cases, is really the chief? he, as it seems to me, who can see through the others, and possesses strength or skill enough to make their power or passions subservient to the execution of his own designs. january . i must write to you from this place, my dear charlotte, from a small room in a country inn, where i have taken shelter from a severe storm. during my whole residence in that wretched place d--, where i lived amongst strangers,--strangers, indeed, to this heart,--i never at any time felt the smallest inclination to correspond with you; but in this cottage, in this retirement, in this solitude, with the snow and hail beating against my lattice-pane, you are my first thought. the instant i entered, your figure rose up before me, and the remembrance! o my charlotte, the sacred, tender remembrance! gracious heaven! restore to me the happy moment of our first acquaintance. could you but see me, my dear charlotte, in the whirl of dissipation,--how my senses are dried up, but my heart is at no time full. i enjoy no single moment of happiness: all is vain--nothing touches me. i stand, as it were, before the raree-show: i see the little puppets move, and i ask whether it is not an optical illusion. i am amused with these puppets, or, rather, i am myself one of them: but, when i sometimes grasp my neighbour's hand, i feel that it is not natural; and i withdraw mine with a shudder. in the evening i say i will enjoy the next morning's sunrise, and yet i remain in bed: in the day i promise to ramble by moonlight; and i, nevertheless, remain at home. i know not why i rise, nor why i go to sleep. the leaven which animated my existence is gone: the charm which cheered me in the gloom of night, and aroused me from my morning slumbers, is for ever fled. i have found but one being here to interest me, a miss b--. she resembles you, my dear charlotte, if any one can possibly resemble you. "ah!" you will say, "he has learned how to pay fine compliments." and this is partly true. i have been very agreeable lately, as it was not in my power to be otherwise. i have, moreover, a deal of wit: and the ladies say that no one understands flattery better, or falsehoods you will add; since the one accomplishment invariably accompanies the other. but i must tell you of miss b--. she has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep blue eyes. her rank is a torment to her, and satisfies no one desire of her heart. she would gladly retire from this whirl of fashion, and we often picture to ourselves a life of undisturbed happiness in distant scenes of rural retirement: and then we speak of you, my dear charlotte; for she knows you, and renders homage to your merits; but her homage is not exacted, but voluntary, she loves you, and delights to hear you made the subject of conversation. oh, that i were sitting at your feet in your favourite little room, with the dear children playing around us! if they became troublesome to you, i would tell them some appalling goblin story; and they would crowd round me with silent attention. the sun is setting in glory; his last rays are shining on the snow, which covers the face of the country: the storm is over, and i must return to my dungeon. adieu!--is albert with you? and what is he to you? god forgive the question. february . for a week past we have had the most wretched weather: but this to me is a blessing; for, during my residence here, not a single fine day has beamed from the heavens, but has been lost to me by the intrusion of somebody. during the severity of rain, sleet, frost, and storm, i congratulate myself that it cannot be worse indoors than abroad, nor worse abroad than it is within doors; and so i become reconciled. when the sun rises bright in the morning, and promises a glorious day, i never omit to exclaim, "there, now, they have another blessing from heaven, which they will be sure to destroy: they spoil everything,--health, fame, happiness, amusement; and they do this generally through folly, ignorance, or imbecility, and always, according to their own account, with the best intentions!" i could often beseech them, on my bended knees, to be less resolved upon their own destruction. february . i fear that my ambassador and i shall not continue much longer together. he is really growing past endurance. he transacts his business in so ridiculous a manner, that i am often compelled to contradict him, and do things my own way; and then, of course, he thinks them very ill done. he complained of me lately on this account at court; and the minister gave me a reprimand,--a gentle one it is true, but still a reprimand. in consequence of this, i was about to tender my resignation, when i received a letter, to which i submitted with great respect, on account of the high, noble, and generous spirit which dictated it. he endeavoured to soothe my excessive sensibility, paid a tribute to my extreme ideas of duty, of good example, and of perseverance in business, as the fruit of my youthful ardour, an impulse which he did not seek to destroy, but only to moderate, that it might have proper play and be productive of good. so now i am at rest for another week, and no longer at variance with myself. content and peace of mind are valuable things: i could wish, my dear friend, that these precious jewels were less transitory. february . god bless you, my dear friends, and may he grant you that happiness which he denies to me! i thank you, albert, for having deceived me. i waited for the news that your wedding-day was fixed; and i intended on that day, with solemnity, to take down charlotte's profile from the wall, and to bury it with some other papers i possess. you are now united, and her picture still remains here. well, let it remain! why should it not? i know that i am still one of your society, that i still occupy a place uninjured in charlotte's heart, that i hold the second place therein; and i intend to keep it. oh, i should become mad if she could forget! albert, that thought is hell! farewell, albert farewell, angel of heaven farewell, charlotte! march . i have just had a sad adventure, which will drive me away from here. i lose all patience!--death!--it is not to be remedied; and you alone are to blame, for you urged and impelled me to fill a post for which i was by no means suited. i have now reason to be satisfied, and so have you! but, that you may not again attribute this fatality to my impetuous temper, i send you, my dear sir, a plain and simple narration of the affair, as a mere chronicler of facts would describe it. the count of o--likes and distinguishes me. it is well known, and i have mentioned this to you a hundred times. yesterday i dined with him. it is the day on which the nobility are accustomed to assemble at his house in the evening. i never once thought of the assembly, nor that we subalterns did not belong to such society. well, i dined with the count; and, after dinner, we adjourned to the large hall. we walked up and down together: and i conversed with him, and with colonel b--, who joined us; and in this manner the hour for the assembly approached. god knows, i was thinking of nothing, when who should enter but the honourable lady accompanied by her noble husband and their silly, scheming daughter, with her small waist and flat neck; and, with disdainful looks and a haughty air they passed me by. as i heartily detest the whole race, i determined upon going away; and only waited till the count had disengaged himself from their impertinent prattle, to take leave, when the agreeable miss b--came in. as i never meet her without experiencing a heartfelt pleasure, i stayed and talked to her, leaning over the back of her chair, and did not perceive, till after some time, that she seemed a little confused, and ceased to answer me with her usual ease of manner. i was struck with it. "heavens!" i said to myself, "can she, too, be like the rest?" i felt annoyed, and was about to withdraw; but i remained, notwithstanding, forming excuses for her conduct, fancying she did not mean it, and still hoping to receive some friendly recognition. the rest of the company now arrived. there was the baron f--, in an entire suit that dated from the coronation of francis i.; the chancellor n--, with his deaf wife; the shabbily-dressed i--, whose old-fashioned coat bore evidence of modern repairs: this crowned the whole. i conversed with some of my acquaintances, but they answered me laconically. i was engaged in observing miss b--, and did not notice that the women were whispering at the end of the room, that the murmur extended by degrees to the men, that madame s--addressed the count with much warmth (this was all related to me subsequently by miss b--); till at length the count came up to me, and took me to the window. "you know our ridiculous customs," he said. "i perceive the company is rather displeased at your being here. i would not on any account--" "i beg your excellency's pardon!" i exclaimed. "i ought to have thought of this before, but i know you will forgive this little inattention. i was going," i added, "some time ago, but my evil genius detained me." and i smiled and bowed, to take my leave. he shook me by the hand, in a manner which expressed everything. i hastened at once from the illustrious assembly, sprang into a carriage, and drove to m--. i contemplated the setting sun from the top of the hill, and read that beautiful passage in homer, where ulysses is entertained by the hospitable herdsmen. this was indeed delightful. i returned home to supper in the evening. but few persons were assembled in the room. they had turned up a corner of the table-cloth, and were playing at dice. the good-natured a--came in. he laid down his hat when he saw me, approached me, and said in a low tone, "you have met with a disagreeable adventure." "i!" i exclaimed. "the count obliged you to withdraw from the assembly!" "deuce take the assembly!" said i. "i was very glad to be gone." "i am delighted," he added, "that you take it so lightly. i am only sorry that it is already so much spoken of." the circumstance then began to pain me. i fancied that every one who sat down, and even looked at me, was thinking of this incident; and my heart became embittered. and now i could plunge a dagger into my bosom, when i hear myself everywhere pitied, and observe the triumph of my enemies, who say that this is always the case with vain persons, whose heads are turned with conceit, who affect to despise forms and such petty, idle nonsense. say what you will of fortitude, but show me the man who can patiently endure the laughter of fools, when they have obtained an advantage over him. 'tis only when their nonsense is without foundation that one can suffer it without complaint. march . everything conspires against me. i met miss b--walking to-day. i could not help joining her; and, when we were at a little distance from her companions, i expressed my sense of her altered manner toward me. "o werther!" she said, in a tone of emotion, "you, who know my heart, how could you so ill interpret my distress? what did i not suffer for you, from the moment you entered the room! i foresaw it all, a hundred times was i on the point of mentioning it to you. i knew that the s----s and t----s, with their husbands, would quit the room, rather than remain in your company. i knew that the count would not break with them: and now so much is said about it." "how!" i exclaimed, and endeavoured to conceal my emotion; for all that adelin had mentioned to me yesterday recurred to me painfully at that moment. "oh, how much it has already cost me!" said this amiable girl, while her eyes filled with tears. i could scarcely contain myself, and was ready to throw myself at her feet. "explain yourself!" i cried. tears flowed down her cheeks. i became quite frantic. she wiped them away, without attempting to conceal them. "you know my aunt," she continued; "she was present: and in what light does she consider the affair! last night, and this morning, werther, i was compelled to listen to a lecture upon my acquaintance with you. i have been obliged to hear you condemned and depreciated; and i could not--i dared not--say much in your defence." every word she uttered was a dagger to my heart. she did not feel what a mercy it would have been to conceal everything from me. she told me, in addition, all the impertinence that would be further circulated, and how the malicious would triumph; how they would rejoice over the punishment of my pride, over my humiliation for that want of esteem for others with which i had often been reproached. to hear all this, wilhelm, uttered by her in a voice of the most sincere sympathy, awakened all my passions; and i am still in a state of extreme excitement. i wish i could find a man to jeer me about this event. i would sacrifice him to my resentment. the sight of his blood might possibly be a relief to my fury. a hundred times have i seized a dagger, to give ease to this oppressed heart. naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. i am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty. march . i have tendered my resignation to the court. i hope it will be accepted, and you will forgive me for not having previously consulted you. it is necessary i should leave this place. i know all you will urge me to stay, and therefore i beg you will soften this news to my mother. i am unable to do anything for myself: how, then, should i be competent to assist others? it will afflict her that i should have interrupted that career which would have made me first a privy councillor, and then minister, and that i should look behind me, in place of advancing. argue as you will, combine all the reasons which should have induced me to remain, i am going: that is sufficient. but, that you may not be ignorant of my destination, i may mention that the prince of--is here. he is much pleased with my company; and, having heard of my intention to resign, he has invited me to his country house, to pass the spring months with him. i shall be left completely my own master; and, as we agree on all subjects but one, i shall try my fortune, and accompany him. april . thanks for both your letters. i delayed my reply, and withheld this letter, till i should obtain an answer from the court. i feared my mother might apply to the minister to defeat my purpose. but my request is granted, my resignation is accepted. i shall not recount with what reluctance it was accorded, nor relate what the minister has written: you would only renew your lamentations. the crown prince has sent me a present of five and twenty ducats; and, indeed, such goodness has affected me to tears. for this reason i shall not require from my mother the money for which i lately applied. may . i leave this place to-morrow; and, as my native place is only six miles from the high road, i intend to visit it once more, and recall the happy dreams of my childhood. i shall enter at the same gate through which i came with my mother, when, after my father's death, she left that delightful retreat to immure herself in your melancholy town. adieu, my dear friend: you shall hear of my future career. may . i have paid my visit to my native place with all the devotion of a pilgrim, and have experienced many unexpected emotions. near the great elm tree, which is a quarter of a league from the village, i got out of the carriage, and sent it on before, that alone, and on foot, i might enjoy vividly and heartily all the pleasure of my recollections. i stood there under that same elm which was formerly the term and object of my walks. how things have since changed! then, in happy ignorance, i sighed for a world i did not know, where i hoped to find every pleasure and enjoyment which my heart could desire; and now, on my return from that wide world, o my friend, how many disappointed hopes and unsuccessful plans have i brought back! as i contemplated the mountains which lay stretched out before me, i thought how often they had been the object of my dearest desires. here used i to sit for hours together with my eyes bent upon them, ardently longing to wander in the shade of those woods, to lose myself in those valleys, which form so delightful an object in the distance. with what reluctance did i leave this charming spot; when my hour of recreation was over, and my leave of absence expired! i drew near to the village: all the well-known old summerhouses and gardens were recognised again; i disliked the new ones, and all other alterations which had taken place. i entered the village, and all my former feelings returned. i cannot, my dear friend, enter into details, charming as were my sensations: they would be dull in the narration. i had intended to lodge in the market-place, near our old house. as soon as i entered, i perceived that the schoolroom, where our childhood had been taught by that good old woman, was converted into a shop. i called to mind the sorrow, the heaviness, the tears, and oppression of heart, which i experienced in that confinement. every step produced some particular impression. a pilgrim in the holy land does not meet so many spots pregnant with tender recollections, and his soul is hardly moved with greater devotion. one incident will serve for illustration. i followed the course of a stream to a farm, formerly a delightful walk of mine, and paused at the spot, where, when boys, we used to amuse ourselves making ducks and drakes upon the water. i recollected so well how i used formerly to watch the course of that same stream, following it with inquiring eagerness, forming romantic ideas of the countries it was to pass through; but my imagination was soon exhausted: while the water continued flowing farther and farther on, till my fancy became bewildered by the contemplation of an invisible distance. exactly such, my dear friend, so happy and so confined, were the thoughts of our good ancestors. their feelings and their poetry were fresh as childhood. and, when ulysses talks of the immeasurable sea and boundless earth, his epithets are true, natural, deeply felt, and mysterious. of what importance is it that i have learned, with every schoolboy, that the world is round? man needs but little earth for enjoyment, and still less for his final repose. i am at present with the prince at his hunting lodge. he is a man with whom one can live happily. he is honest and unaffected. there are, however, some strange characters about him, whom i cannot at all understand. they do not seem vicious, and yet they do not carry the appearance of thoroughly honest men. sometimes i am disposed to believe them honest, and yet i cannot persuade myself to confide in them. it grieves me to hear the prince occasionally talk of things which he has only read or heard of, and always with the same view in which they have been represented by others. he values my understanding and talents more highly than my heart, but i am proud of the latter only. it is the sole source of everything of our strength, happiness, and misery. all the knowledge i possess every one else can acquire, but my heart is exclusively my own. may . i have had a plan in my head of which i did not intend to speak to you until it was accomplished: now that it has failed, i may as well mention it. i wished to enter the army, and had long been desirous of taking the step. this, indeed, was the chief reason for my coming here with the prince, as he is a general in the service. i communicated my design to him during one of our walks together. he disapproved of it, and it would have been actual madness not to have listened to his reasons. june . say what you will, i can remain here no longer. why should i remain? time hangs heavy upon my hands. the prince is as gracious to me as any one could be, and yet i am not at my ease. there is, indeed, nothing in common between us. he is a man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. his conversation affords me no more amusement than i should derive from the perusal of a well-written book. i shall remain here a week longer, and then start again on my travels. my drawings are the best things i have done since i came here. the prince has a taste for the arts, and would improve if his mind were not fettered by cold rules and mere technical ideas. i often lose patience, when, with a glowing imagination, i am giving expression to art and nature, he interferes with learned suggestions, and uses at random the technical phraseology of artists. july . once more i am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. but what else are you! july . whither am i going? i will tell you in confidence. i am obliged to continue a fortnight longer here, and then i think it would be better for me to visit the mines in--. but i am only deluding myself thus. the fact is, i wish to be near charlotte again, that is all. i smile at the suggestions of my heart, and obey its dictates. july . no, no! it is yet well all is well! i her husband! o god, who gave me being, if thou hadst destined this happiness for me, my whole life would have been one continual thanksgiving! but i will not murmur--forgive these tears, forgive these fruitless wishes. she--my wife! oh, the very thought of folding that dearest of heaven's creatures in my arms! dear wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when i see albert put his arms around her slender waist! and shall i avow it? why should i not, wilhelm? she would have been happier with me than with him. albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of such a heart. he wants a certain sensibility; he wants--in short, their hearts do not beat in unison. how often, my dear friend, i'm reading a passage from some interesting book, when my heart and charlotte's seemed to meet, and in a hundred other instances when our sentiments were unfolded by the story of some fictitious character, have i felt that we were made for each other! but, dear wilhelm, he loves her with his whole soul; and what does not such a love deserve? i have been interrupted by an insufferable visit. i have dried my tears, and composed my thoughts. adieu, my best friend! august . i am not alone unfortunate. all men are disappointed in their hopes, and deceived in their expectations. i have paid a visit to my good old woman under the lime-trees. the eldest boy ran out to meet me: his exclamation of joy brought out his mother, but she had a very melancholy look. her first word was, "alas! dear sir, my little john is dead." he was the youngest of her children. i was silent. "and my husband has returned from switzerland without any money; and, if some kind people had not assisted him, he must have begged his way home. he was taken ill with fever on his journey." i could answer nothing, but made the little one a present. she invited me to take some fruit: i complied, and left the place with a sorrowful heart. august . my sensations are constantly changing. sometimes a happy prospect opens before me; but alas! it is only for a moment; and then, when i am lost in reverie, i cannot help saying to myself, "if albert were to die?--yes, she would become--and i should be"--and so i pursue a chimera, till it leads me to the edge of a precipice at which i shudder. when i pass through the same gate, and walk along the same road which first conducted me to charlotte, my heart sinks within me at the change that has since taken place. all, all, is altered! no sentiment, no pulsation of my heart, is the same. my sensations are such as would occur to some departed prince whose spirit should return to visit the superb palace which he had built in happy times, adorned with costly magnificence, and left to a beloved son, but whose glory he should find departed, and its halls deserted and in ruins. september . i sometimes cannot understand how she can love another, how she dares love another, when i love nothing in this world so completely, so devotedly, as i love her, when i know only her, and have no other possession. september . it is even so! as nature puts on her autumn tints it becomes autumn with me and around me. my leaves are sere and yellow, and the neighbouring trees are divested of their foliage. do you remember my writing to you about a peasant boy shortly after my arrival here? i have just made inquiries about him in walheim. they say he has been dismissed from his service, and is now avoided by every one. i met him yesterday on the road, going to a neighbouring village. i spoke to him, and he told me his story. it interested me exceedingly, as you will easily understand when i repeat it to you. but why should i trouble you? why should i not reserve all my sorrow for myself? why should i continue to give you occasion to pity and blame me? but no matter: this also is part of my destiny. at first the peasant lad answered my inquiries with a sort of subdued melancholy, which seemed to me the mark of a timid disposition; but, as we grew to understand each other, he spoke with less reserve, and openly confessed his faults, and lamented his misfortune. i wish, my dear friend, i could give proper expression to his language. he told me with a sort of pleasurable recollection, that, after my departure, his passion for his mistress increased daily, until at last he neither knew what he did nor what he said, nor what was to become of him. he could neither eat nor drink nor sleep: he felt a sense of suffocation; he disobeyed all orders, and forgot all commands involuntarily; he seemed as if pursued by an evil spirit, till one day, knowing that his mistress had gone to an upper chamber, he had followed, or, rather, been drawn after her. as she proved deaf to his entreaties, he had recourse to violence. he knows not what happened; but he called god to witness that his intentions to her were honourable, and that he desired nothing more sincerely than that they should marry, and pass their lives together. when he had come to this point, he began to hesitate, as if there was something which he had not courage to utter, till at length he acknowledged with some confusion certain little confidences she had encouraged, and liberties she had allowed. he broke off two or three times in his narration, and assured me most earnestly that he had no wish to make her bad, as he termed it, for he loved her still as sincerely as ever; that the tale had never before escaped his lips, and was only now told to convince me that he was not utterly lost and abandoned. and here, my dear friend, i must commence the old song which you know i utter eternally. if i could only represent the man as he stood, and stands now before me, could i only give his true expressions, you would feel compelled to sympathise in his fate. but enough: you, who know my misfortune and my disposition, can easily comprehend the attraction which draws me toward every unfortunate being, but particularly toward him whose story i have recounted. on perusing this letter a second time, i find i have omitted the conclusion of my tale; but it is easily supplied. she became reserved toward him, at the instigation of her brother who had long hated him, and desired his expulsion from the house, fearing that his sister's second marriage might deprive his children of the handsome fortune they expected from her; as she is childless. he was dismissed at length; and the whole affair occasioned so much scandal, that the mistress dared not take him back, even if she had wished it. she has since hired another servant, with whom, they say, her brother is equally displeased, and whom she is likely to marry; but my informant assures me that he himself is determined not to survive such a catastrophe. this story is neither exaggerated nor embellished: indeed, i have weakened and impaired it in the narration, by the necessity of using the more refined expressions of society. this love, then, this constancy, this passion, is no poetical fiction. it is actual, and dwells in its greatest purity amongst that class of mankind whom we term rude, uneducated. we are the educated, not the perverted. but read this story with attention, i implore you. i am tranquil to-day, for i have been employed upon this narration: you see by my writing that i am not so agitated as usual. i read and re-read this tale, wilhelm: it is the history of your friend! my fortune has been and will be similar; and i am neither half so brave nor half so determined as the poor wretch with whom i hesitate to compare myself. september . charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the country, where he was detained by business. it commenced, "my dearest love, return as soon as possible: i await you with a thousand raptures." a friend who arrived, brought word, that, for certain reasons, he could not return immediately. charlotte's letter was not forwarded, and the same evening it fell into my hands. i read it, and smiled. she asked the reason. "what a heavenly treasure is imagination:" i exclaimed; "i fancied for a moment that this was written to me." she paused, and seemed displeased. i was silent. september . it cost me much to part with the blue coat which i wore the first time i danced with charlotte. but i could not possibly wear it any longer. but i have ordered a new one, precisely similar, even to the collar and sleeves, as well as a new waistcoat and pantaloons. but it does not produce the same effect upon me. i know not how it is, but i hope in time i shall like it better. september . she has been absent for some days. she went to meet albert. to-day i visited her: she rose to receive me, and i kissed her hand most tenderly. a canary at the moment flew from a mirror, and settled upon her shoulder. "here is a new friend," she observed, while she made him perch upon her hand: "he is a present for the children. what a dear he is! look at him! when i feed him, he flutters with his wings, and pecks so nicely. he kisses me, too, only look!" she held the bird to her mouth; and he pressed her sweet lips with so much fervour that he seemed to feel the excess of bliss which he enjoyed. "he shall kiss you too," she added; and then she held the bird toward me. his little beak moved from her mouth to mine, and the delightful sensation seemed like the forerunner of the sweetest bliss. "a kiss," i observed, "does not seem to satisfy him: he wishes for food, and seems disappointed by these unsatisfactory endearments." "but he eats out of my mouth," she continued, and extended her lips to him containing seed; and she smiled with all the charm of a being who has allowed an innocent participation of her love. i turned my face away. she should not act thus. she ought not to excite my imagination with such displays of heavenly innocence and happiness, nor awaken my heart from its slumbers, in which it dreams of the worthlessness of life! and why not? because she knows how much i love her. september . it makes me wretched, wilhelm, to think that there should be men incapable of appreciating the few things which possess a real value in life. you remember the walnut trees at s--, under which i used to sit with charlotte, during my visits to the worthy old vicar. those glorious trees, the very sight of which has so often filled my heart with joy, how they adorned and refreshed the parsonage yard, with their wide-extended branches! and how pleasing was our remembrance of the good old pastor, by whose hands they were planted so many years ago: the schoolmaster has frequently mentioned his name. he had it from his grandfather. he must have been a most excellent man; and, under the shade of those old trees, his memory was ever venerated by me. the schoolmaster informed us yesterday, with tears in his eyes, that those trees had been felled. yes, cut to the ground! i could, in my wrath, have slain the monster who struck the first stroke. and i must endure this!--i, who, if i had had two such trees in my own court, and one had died from old age, should have wept with real affliction. but there is some comfort left, such a thing is sentiment, the whole village murmurs at the misfortune; and i hope the vicar's wife will soon find, by the cessation of the villagers' presents, how much she has wounded the feelings of the neighborhhood. it was she who did it, the wife of the present incumbent (our good old man is dead), a tall, sickly creature who is so far right to disregard the world, as the world totally disregards her. the silly being affects to be learned, pretends to examine the canonical books, lends her aid toward the new-fashioned reformation of christendom, moral and critical, and shrugs up her shoulders at the mention of lavater's enthusiasm. her health is destroyed, on account of which she is prevented from having any enjoyment here below. only such a creature could have cut down my walnut trees! i can never pardon it. hear her reasons. the falling leaves made the court wet and dirty; the branches obstructed the light; boys threw stones at the nuts when they were ripe, and the noise affected her nerves; and disturbed her profound meditations, when she was weighing the difficulties of kennicot, semler, and michaelis. finding that all the parish, particularly the old people, were displeased, i asked "why they allowed it?" "ah, sir!" they replied, "when the steward orders, what can we poor peasants do?" but one thing has happened well. the steward and the vicar (who, for once, thought to reap some advantage from the caprices of his wife) intended to divide the trees between them. the revenue-office, being informed of it, revived an old claim to the ground where the trees had stood, and sold them to the best bidder. there they still lie on the ground. if i were the sovereign, i should know how to deal with them all, vicar, steward, and revenue-office. sovereign, did i say? i should, in that case, care little about the trees that grew in the country. october . only to gaze upon her dark eyes is to me a source of happiness! and what grieves me, is, that albert does not seem so happy as he--hoped to be--as i should have been--if--i am no friend to these pauses, but here i cannot express it otherwise; and probably i am explicit enough. october . ossian has superseded homer in my heart. to what a world does the illustrious bard carry me! to wander over pathless wilds, surrounded by impetuous whirlwinds, where, by the feeble light of the moon, we see the spirits of our ancestors; to hear from the mountain-tops, mid the roar of torrents, their plaintive sounds issuing from deep caverns, and the sorrowful lamentations of a maiden who sighs and expires on the mossy tomb of the warrior by whom she was adored. i meet this bard with silver hair; he wanders in the valley; he seeks the footsteps of his fathers, and, alas! he finds only their tombs. then, contemplating the pale moon, as she sinks beneath the waves of the rolling sea, the memory of bygone days strikes the mind of the hero, days when approaching danger invigorated the brave, and the moon shone upon his bark laden with spoils, and returning in triumph. when i read in his countenance deep sorrow, when i see his dying glory sink exhausted into the grave, as he inhales new and heart-thrilling delight from his approaching union with his beloved, and he casts a look on the cold earth and the tall grass which is so soon to cover him, and then exclaims, "the traveller will come,--he will come who has seen my beauty, and he will ask, 'where is the bard, where is the illustrious son of fingal?' he will walk over my tomb, and will seek me in vain!" then, o my friend, i could instantly, like a true and noble knight, draw my sword, and deliver my prince from the long and painful languor of a living death, and dismiss my own soul to follow the demigod whom my hand had set free! october . alas! the void the fearful void, which i feel in my bosom! sometimes i think, if i could only once but once, press her to my heart, this dreadful void would be filled. october . yes, i feel certain, wilhelm, and every day i become more certain, that the existence of any being whatever is of very little consequence. a friend of charlotte's called to see her just now. i withdrew into a neighbouring apartment, and took up a book; but, finding i could not read, i sat down to write. i heard them converse in an undertone: they spoke upon indifferent topics, and retailed the news of the town. one was going to be married; another was ill, very ill, she had a dry cough, her face was growing thinner daily, and she had occasional fits. "n--is very unwell too," said charlotte. "his limbs begin to swell already," answered the other; and my lively imagination carried me at once to the beds of the infirm. there i see them struggling against death, with all the agonies of pain and horror; and these women, wilhelm, talk of all this with as much indifference as one would mention the death of a stranger. and when i look around the apartment where i now am--when i see charlotte's apparel lying before me, and albert's writings, and all those articles of furniture which are so familiar to me, even to the very inkstand which i am using,--when i think what i am to this family--everything. my friends esteem me; i often contribute to their happiness, and my heart seems as if it could not beat without them; and yet---if i were to die, if i were to be summoned from the midst of this circle, would they feel--or how long would they feel the void which my loss would make in their existence? how long! yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart, of his beloved, there also he must perish,--vanish,--and that quickly. october . i could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. no one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which i do not naturally possess; and, though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, i cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent. october : evening. i possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. i possess so much, but without her i have nothing. october . one hundred times have i been on the point of embracing her. heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! and laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. do not children touch everything they see? and i! november . witness, heaven, how often i lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that i may never awaken again. and in the morning, when i open my eyes, i behold the sun once more, and am wretched. if i were whimsical, i might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. but, alas! i feel it too sadly. i am alone the cause of my own woe, am i not? truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my sorrow, as it previously contained the source of all my pleasure. am i not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who, at every step, saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded toward the whole world? and this heart is now dead, no sentiment can revive it; my eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. i suffer much, for i have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me,--it is no more. when i look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart, i feel that in such a moment i stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. oftentimes do i then bend my knee to the earth, and implore god for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn. but i feel that god does not grant sunshine or rain to our importunate entreaties. and oh, those bygone days, whose memory now torments me! why were they so fortunate? because i then waited with patience for the blessings of the eternal, and received his gifts with the grateful feelings of a thankful heart. november . charlotte has reproved me for my excesses, with so much tenderness and goodness! i have lately been in the habit of drinking more wine than heretofore. "don't do it," she said. "think of charlotte!" "think of you!" i answered; "need you bid me do so? think of you--i do not think of you: you are ever before my soul! this very morning i sat on the spot where, a few days ago, you descended from the carriage, and--" she immediately changed the subject to prevent me from pursuing it farther. my dear friend, my energies are all prostrated: she can do with me what she pleases. november . i thank you, wilhelm, for your cordial sympathy, for your excellent advice; and i implore you to be quiet. leave me to my sufferings. in spite of my wretchedness, i have still strength enough for endurance. i revere religion--you know i do. i feel that it can impart strength to the feeble and comfort to the afflicted, but does it affect all men equally? consider this vast universe: you will see thousands for whom it has never existed, thousands for whom it will never exist, whether it be preached to them, or not; and must it, then, necessarily exist for me? does not the son of god himself say that they are his whom the father has given to him? have i been given to him? what if the father will retain me for himself, as my heart sometimes suggests? i pray you, do not misinterpret this. do not extract derision from my harmless words. i pour out my whole soul before you. silence were otherwise preferable to me, but i need not shrink from a subject of which few know more than i do myself. what is the destiny of man, but to fill up the measure of his sufferings, and to drink his allotted cup of bitterness? and if that same cup proved bitter to the god of heaven, under a human form, why should i affect a foolish pride, and call it sweet? why should i be ashamed of shrinking at that fearful moment, when my whole being will tremble between existence and annihilation, when a remembrance of the past, like a flash of lightning, will illuminate the dark gulf of futurity, when everything shall dissolve around me, and the whole world vanish away? is not this the voice of a creature oppressed beyond all resource, self-deficient, about to plunge into inevitable destruction, and groaning deeply at its inadequate strength, "my god! my god! why hast thou forsaken me?" and should i feel ashamed to utter the same expression? should i not shudder at a prospect which had its fears, even for him who folds up the heavens like a garment? november . she does not feel, she does not know, that she is preparing a poison which will destroy us both; and i drink deeply of the draught which is to prove my destruction. what mean those looks of kindness with which she often--often? no, not often, but sometimes, regards me, that complacency with which she hears the involuntary sentiments which frequently escape me, and the tender pity for my sufferings which appears in her countenance? yesterday, when i took leave she seized me by the hand, and said, "adieu, dear werther." dear werther! it was the first time she ever called me dear: the sound sunk deep into my heart. i have repeated it a hundred times; and last night, on going to bed, and talking to myself of various things, i suddenly said, "good night, dear werther!" and then could not but laugh at myself. november i cannot pray, "leave her to me!" and yet she often seems to belong to me. i cannot pray, "give her to me!" for she is another's. in this way i affect mirth over my troubles; and, if i had time, i could compose a whole litany of antitheses. november . she is sensible of my sufferings. this morning her look pierced my very soul. i found her alone, and she was silent: she steadfastly surveyed me. i no longer saw in her face the charms of beauty or the fire of genius: these had disappeared. but i was affected by an expression much more touching, a look of the deepest sympathy and of the softest pity. why was i afraid to throw myself at her feet? why did i not dare to take her in my arms, and answer her by a thousand kisses? she had recourse to her piano for relief, and in a low and sweet voice accompanied the music with delicious sounds. her lips never appeared so lovely: they seemed but just to open, that they might imbibe the sweet tones which issued from the instrument, and return the heavenly vibration from her lovely mouth. oh! who can express my sensations? i was quite overcome, and, bending down, pronounced this vow: "beautiful lips, which the angels guard, never will i seek to profane your purity with a kiss." and yet, my friend, oh, i wish--but my heart is darkened by doubt and indecision--could i but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the sin! what sin? november . oftentimes i say to myself, "thou alone art wretched: all other mortals are happy, none are distressed like thee!" then i read a passage in an ancient poet, and i seem to understand my own heart. i have so much to endure! have men before me ever been so wretched? november . i shall never be myself again! wherever i go, some fatality occurs to distract me. even to-day alas--for our destiny! alas for human nature! about dinner-time i went to walk by the river-side, for i had no appetite. everything around seemed gloomy: a cold and damp easterly wind blew from the mountains, and black, heavy clouds spread over the plain. i observed at a distance a man in a tattered coat: he was wandering among the rocks, and seemed to be looking for plants. when i approached, he turned round at the noise; and i saw that he had an interesting countenance in which a settled melancholy, strongly marked by benevolence, formed the principal feature. his long black hair was divided, and flowed over his shoulders. as his garb betokened a person of the lower order, i thought he would not take it ill if i inquired about his business; and i therefore asked what he was seeking. he replied, with a deep sigh, that he was looking for flowers, and could find none. "but it is not the season," i observed, with a smile. "oh, there are so many flowers!" he answered, as he came nearer to me. "in my garden there are roses and honeysuckles of two sorts: one sort was given to me by my father! they grow as plentifully as weeds; i have been looking for them these two days, and cannot find them. there are flowers out there, yellow, blue, and red; and that centaury has a very pretty blossom: but i can find none of them." i observed his peculiarity, and therefore asked him, with an air of indifference, what he intended to do with his flowers. a strange smile overspread his countenance. holding his finger to his mouth, he expressed a hope that i would not betray him; and he then informed me that he had promised to gather a nosegay for his mistress. "that is right," said i. "oh!" he replied, "she possesses many other things as well: she is very rich." "and yet," i continued, "she likes your nosegays." "oh, she has jewels and crowns!" he exclaimed. i asked who she was. "if the states-general would but pay me," he added, "i should be quite another man. alas! there was a time when i was so happy; but that is past, and i am now--" he raised his swimming eyes to heaven. "and you were happy once?" i observed. "ah, would i were so still!" was his reply. "i was then as gay and contented as a man can be." an old woman, who was coming toward us, now called out, "henry, henry! where are you? we have been looking for you everywhere: come to dinner." "is he your son?" i inquired, as i went toward her. "yes," she said: "he is my poor, unfortunate son. the lord has sent me a heavy affliction." i asked whether he had been long in this state. she answered, "he has been as calm as he is at present for about six months. i thank heaven that he has so far recovered: he was for one whole year quite raving, and chained down in a madhouse. now he injures no one, but talks of nothing else than kings and queens. he used to be a very good, quiet youth, and helped to maintain me; he wrote a very fine hand; but all at once he became melancholy, was seized with a violent fever, grew distracted, and is now as you see. if i were only to tell you, sir--" i interrupted her by asking what period it was in which he boasted of having been so happy. "poor boy!" she exclaimed, with a smile of compassion, "he means the time when he was completely deranged, a time he never ceases to regret, when he was in the madhouse, and unconscious of everything." i was thunderstruck: i placed a piece of money in her hand, and hastened away. "you were happy!" i exclaimed, as i returned quickly to the town, "'as gay and contented as a man can be!'" god of heaven! and is this the destiny of man? is he only happy before he has acquired his reason, or after he has lost it? unfortunate being! and yet i envy your fate: i envy the delusion to which you are a victim. you go forth with joy to gather flowers for your princess,--in winter,--and grieve when you can find none, and cannot understand why they do not grow. but i wander forth without joy, without hope, without design; and i return as i came. you fancy what a man you would be if the states general paid you. happy mortal, who can ascribe your wretchedness to an earthly cause! you do not know, you do not feel, that in your own distracted heart and disordered brain dwells the source of that unhappiness which all the potentates on earth cannot relieve. let that man die unconsoled who can deride the invalid for undertaking a journey to distant, healthful springs, where he often finds only a heavier disease and a more painful death, or who can exult over the despairing mind of a sinner, who, to obtain peace of conscience and an alleviation of misery, makes a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre. each laborious step which galls his wounded feet in rough and untrodden paths pours a drop of balm into his troubled soul, and the journey of many a weary day brings a nightly relief to his anguished heart. will you dare call this enthusiasm, ye crowd of pompous declaimers? enthusiasm! o god! thou seest my tears. thou hast allotted us our portion of misery: must we also have brethren to persecute us, to deprive us of our consolation, of our trust in thee, and in thy love and mercy? for our trust in the virtue of the healing root, or in the strength of the vine, what is it else than a belief in thee from whom all that surrounds us derives its healing and restoring powers? father, whom i know not,--who wert once wont to fill my soul, but who now hidest thy face from me,--call me back to thee; be silent no longer; thy silence shall not delay a soul which thirsts after thee. what man, what father, could be angry with a son for returning to him suddenly, for falling on his neck, and exclaiming, "i am here again, my father! forgive me if i have anticipated my journey, and returned before the appointed time! the world is everywhere the same,--a scene of labour and pain, of pleasure and reward; but what does it all avail? i am happy only where thou art, and in thy presence am i content to suffer or enjoy." and wouldst thou, heavenly father, banish such a child from thy presence? december . wilhelm, the man about whom i wrote to you--that man so enviable in his misfortunes--was secretary to charlotte's father; and an unhappy passion for her which he cherished, concealed, and at length discovered, caused him to be dismissed from his situation. this made him mad. think, whilst you peruse this plain narration, what an impression the circumstance has made upon me! but it was related to me by albert with as much calmness as you will probably peruse it. december . i implore your attention. it is all over with me. i can support this state no longer. to-day i was sitting by charlotte. she was playing upon her piano a succession of delightful melodies, with such intense expression! her little sister was dressing her doll upon my lap. the tears came into my eyes. i leaned down, and looked intently at her wedding-ring: my tears fell--immediately she began to play that favourite, that divine, air which has so often enchanted me. i felt comfort from a recollection of the past, of those bygone days when that air was familiar to me; and then i recalled all the sorrows and the disappointments which i had since endured. i paced with hasty strides through the room, my heart became convulsed with painful emotions. at length i went up to her, and exclaimed with eagerness, "for heaven's sake, play that air no longer!" she stopped, and looked steadfastly at me. she then said, with a smile which sunk deep into my heart, "werther, you are ill: your dearest food is distasteful to you. but go, i entreat you, and endeavour to compose yourself." i tore myself away. god, thou seest my torments, and wilt end them! december . how her image haunts me! waking or asleep, she fills my entire soul! soon as i close my eyes, here, in my brain, where all the nerves of vision are concentrated, her dark eyes are imprinted. here--i do not know how to describe it; but, if i shut my eyes, hers are immediately before me: dark as an abyss they open upon me, and absorb my senses. and what is man--that boasted demigod? do not his powers fail when he most requires their use? and whether he soar in joy, or sink in sorrow, is not his career in both inevitably arrested? and, whilst he fondly dreams that he is grasping at infinity, does he not feel compelled to return to a consciousness of his cold, monotonous existence? the editor to the reader. it is a matter of extreme regret that we want original evidence of the last remarkable days of our friend; and we are, therefore, obliged to interrupt the progress of his correspondence, and to supply the deficiency by a connected narration. i have felt it my duty to collect accurate information from the mouths of persons well acquainted with his history. the story is simple; and all the accounts agree, except in some unimportant particulars. it is true, that, with respect to the characters of the persons spoken of, opinions and judgments vary. we have only, then, to relate conscientiously the facts which our diligent labour has enabled us to collect, to give the letters of the deceased, and to pay particular attention to the slightest fragment from his pen, more especially as it is so difficult to discover the real and correct motives of men who are not of the common order. sorrow and discontent had taken deep root in werther's soul, and gradually imparted their character to his whole being. the harmony of his mind became completely disturbed; a perpetual excitement and mental irritation, which weakened his natural powers, produced the saddest effects upon him, and rendered him at length the victim of an exhaustion against which he struggled with still more painful efforts than he had displayed, even in contending with his other misfortunes. his mental anxiety weakened his various good qualities; and he was soon converted into a gloomy companion, always unhappy and unjust in his ideas, the more wretched he became. this was, at least, the opinion of albert's friends. they assert, moreover, that the character of albert himself had undergone no change in the meantime: he was still the same being whom werther had loved, honoured, and respected from the commencement. his love for charlotte was unbounded: he was proud of her, and desired that she should be recognised by every one as the noblest of created beings. was he, however, to blame for wishing to avert from her every appearance of suspicion? or for his unwillingness to share his rich prize with another, even for a moment, and in the most innocent manner? it is asserted that albert frequently retired from his wife's apartment during werther's visits; but this did not arise from hatred or aversion to his friend, but only from a feeling that his presence was oppressive to werther. charlotte's father, who was confined to the house by indisposition, was accustomed to send his carriage for her, that she might make excursions in the neighbourhood. one day the weather had been unusually severe, and the whole country was covered with snow. werther went for charlotte the following morning, in order that, if albert were absent, he might conduct her home. the beautiful weather produced but little impression on his troubled spirit. a heavy weight lay upon his soul, deep melancholy had taken possession of him, and his mind knew no change save from one painful thought to another. as he now never enjoyed internal peace, the condition of his fellow creatures was to him a perpetual source of trouble and distress. he believed he had disturbed the happiness of albert and his wife; and, whilst he censured himself strongly for this, he began to entertain a secret dislike to albert. his thoughts were occasionally directed to this point. "yes," he would repeat to himself, with ill-concealed dissatisfaction, "yes, this is, after all, the extent of that confiding, dear, tender, and sympathetic love, that calm and eternal fidelity! what do i behold but satiety and indifference? does not every frivolous engagement attract him more than his charming and lovely wife? does he know how to prize his happiness? can he value her as she deserves? he possesses her, it is true, i know that, as i know much more, and i have become accustomed to the thought that he will drive me mad, or, perhaps, murder me. is his friendship toward me unimpaired? does he not view my attachment to charlotte as an infringement upon his rights, and consider my attention to her as a silent rebuke to himself? i know, and indeed feel, that he dislikes me, that he wishes for my absence, that my presence is hateful to him." he would often pause when on his way to visit charlotte, stand still, as though in doubt, and seem desirous of returning, but would nevertheless proceed; and, engaged in such thoughts and soliloquies as we have described, he finally reached the hunting-lodge, with a sort of involuntary consent. upon one occasion he entered the house; and, inquiring for charlotte, he observed that the inmates were in a state of unusual confusion. the eldest boy informed him that a dreadful misfortune had occurred at walheim,--that a peasant had been murdered! but this made little impression upon him. entering the apartment, he found charlotte engaged reasoning with her father, who, in spite of his infirmity, insisted on going to the scene of the crime, in order to institute an inquiry. the criminal was unknown; the victim had been found dead at his own door that morning. suspicions were excited: the murdered man had been in the service of a widow, and the person who had previously filled the situation had been dismissed from her employment. as soon as werther heard this, he exclaimed with great excitement, "is it possible! i must go to the spot--i cannot delay a moment!" he hastened to walheim. every incident returned vividly to his remembrance; and he entertained not the slightest doubt that that man was the murderer to whom he had so often spoken, and for whom he entertained so much regard. his way took him past the well-known lime trees, to the house where the body had been carried; and his feelings were greatly excited at the sight of the fondly recollected spot. that threshold where the neighbours' children had so often played together was stained with blood; love and attachment, the noblest feelings of human nature, had been converted into violence and murder. the huge trees stood there leafless and covered with hoarfrost; the beautiful hedgerows which surrounded the old churchyard wall were withered; and the gravestones, half covered with snow, were visible through the openings. as he approached the inn, in front of which the whole village was assembled, screams were suddenly heard. a troop of armed peasants was seen approaching, and every one exclaimed that the criminal had been apprehended. werther looked, and was not long in doubt. the prisoner was no other than the servant, who had been formerly so attached to the widow, and whom he had met prowling about, with that suppressed anger and ill-concealed despair, which we have before described. "what have you done, unfortunate man?" inquired werther, as he advanced toward the prisoner. the latter turned his eyes upon him in silence, and then replied with perfect composure; "no one will now marry her, and she will marry no one." the prisoner was taken into the inn, and werther left the place. the mind of werther was fearfully excited by this shocking occurrence. he ceased, however, to be oppressed by his usual feeling of melancholy, moroseness, and indifference to everything that passed around him. he entertained a strong degree of pity for the prisoner, and was seized with an indescribable anxiety to save him from his impending fate. he considered him so unfortunate, he deemed his crime so excusable, and thought his own condition so nearly similar, that he felt convinced he could make every one else view the matter in the light in which he saw it himself. he now became anxious to undertake his defence, and commenced composing an eloquent speech for the occasion; and, on his way to the hunting-lodge, he could not refrain from speaking aloud the statement which he resolved to make to the judge. upon his arrival, he found albert had been before him: and he was a little perplexed by this meeting; but he soon recovered himself, and expressed his opinion with much warmth to the judge. the latter shook, his head doubtingly; and although werther urged his case with the utmost zeal, feeling, and determination in defence of his client, yet, as we may easily suppose, the judge was not much influenced by his appeal. on the contrary, he interrupted him in his address, reasoned with him seriously, and even administered a rebuke to him for becoming the advocate of a murderer. he demonstrated, that, according to this precedent, every law might be violated, and the public security utterly destroyed. he added, moreover, that in such a case he could himself do nothing, without incurring the greatest responsibility; that everything must follow in the usual course, and pursue the ordinary channel. werther, however, did not abandon his enterprise, and even besought the judge to connive at the flight of the prisoner. but this proposal was peremptorily rejected. albert, who had taken some part in the discussion, coincided in opinion with the judge. at this werther became enraged, and took his leave in great anger, after the judge had more than once assured him that the prisoner could not be saved. the excess of his grief at this assurance may be inferred from a note we have found amongst his papers, and which was doubtless written upon this very occasion. "you cannot be saved, unfortunate man! i see clearly that we cannot be saved!" werther was highly incensed at the observations which albert had made to the judge in this matter of the prisoner. he thought he could detect therein a little bitterness toward himself personally; and although, upon reflection, it could not escape his sound judgment that their view of the matter was correct, he felt the greatest possible reluctance to make such an admission. a memorandum of werther's upon this point, expressive of his general feelings toward albert, has been found amongst his papers. "what is the use of my continually repeating that he is a good and estimable man? he is an inward torment to me, and i am incapable of being just toward him." one fine evening in winter, when the weather seemed inclined to thaw, charlotte and albert were returning home together. the former looked from time to time about her, as if she missed werther's company. albert began to speak of him, and censured him for his prejudices. he alluded to his unfortunate attachment, and wished it were possible to discontinue his acquaintance. "i desire it on our own account," he added; "and i request you will compel him to alter his deportment toward you, and to visit you less frequently. the world is censorious, and i know that here and there we are spoken of." charlotte made no reply, and albert seemed to feel her silence. at least, from that time he never again spoke of werther; and, when she introduced the subject, he allowed the conversation to die away, or else he directed the discourse into another channel. the vain attempt werther had made to save the unhappy murderer was the last feeble glimmering of a flame about to be extinguished. he sank almost immediately afterward into a state of gloom and inactivity, until he was at length brought to perfect distraction by learning that he was to be summoned as a witness against the prisoner, who asserted his complete innocence. his mind now became oppressed by the recollection of every misfortune of his past life. the mortification he had suffered at the ambassador's, and his subsequent troubles, were revived in his memory. he became utterly inactive. destitute of energy, he was cut off from every pursuit and occupation which compose the business of common life; and he became a victim to his own susceptibility, and to his restless passion for the most amiable and beloved of women, whose peace he destroyed. in this unvarying monotony of existence his days were consumed; and his powers became exhausted without aim or design, until they brought him to a sorrowful end. a few letters which he left behind, and which we here subjoin, afford the best proofs of his anxiety of mind and of the depth of his passion, as well as of his doubts and struggles, and of his weariness of life. december . dear wilhelm, i am reduced to the condition of those unfortunate wretches who believe they are pursued by an evil spirit. sometimes i am oppressed, not by apprehension or fear, but by an inexpressible internal sensation, which weighs upon my heart, and impedes my breath! then i wander forth at night, even in this tempestuous season, and feel pleasure in surveying the dreadful scenes around me. yesterday evening i went forth. a rapid thaw had suddenly set in: i had been informed that the river had risen, that the brooks had all overflowed their banks, and that the whole vale of walheim was under water! upon the stroke of twelve i hastened forth. i beheld a fearful sight. the foaming torrents rolled from the mountains in the moonlight,--fields and meadows, trees and hedges, were confounded together; and the entire valley was converted into a deep lake, which was agitated by the roaring wind! and when the moon shone forth, and tinged the black clouds with silver, and the impetuous torrent at my feet foamed and resounded with awful and grand impetuosity, i was overcome by a mingled sensation of apprehension and delight. with extended arms i looked down into the yawning abyss, and cried, "plunge!'" for a moment my senses forsook me, in the intense delight of ending my sorrows and my sufferings by a plunge into that gulf! and then i felt as if i were rooted to the earth, and incapable of seeking an end to my woes! but my hour is not yet come: i feel it is not. o wilhelm, how willingly could i abandon my existence to ride the whirlwind, or to embrace the torrent! and then might not rapture perchance be the portion of this liberated soul? i turned my sorrowful eyes toward a favourite spot, where i was accustomed to sit with charlotte beneath a willow after a fatiguing walk. alas! it was covered with water, and with difficulty i found even the meadow. and the fields around the hunting-lodge, thought i. has our dear bower been destroyed by this unpitying storm? and a beam of past happiness streamed upon me, as the mind of a captive is illumined by dreams of flocks and herds and bygone joys of home! but i am free from blame. i have courage to die! perhaps i have,--but i still sit here, like a wretched pauper, who collects fagots, and begs her bread from door to door, that she may prolong for a few days a miserable existence which she is unwilling to resign. december . what is the matter with me, dear wilhelm? i am afraid of myself! is not my love for her of the purest, most holy, and most brotherly nature? has my soul ever been sullied by a single sensual desire? but i will make no protestations. and now, ye nightly visions, how truly have those mortals understood you, who ascribe your various contradictory effects to some invincible power! this night i tremble at the avowal--i held her in my arms, locked in a close embrace: i pressed her to my bosom, and covered with countless kisses those dear lips which murmured in reply soft protestations of love. my sight became confused by the delicious intoxication of her eyes. heavens! is it sinful to revel again in such happiness, to recall once more those rapturous moments with intense delight? charlotte! charlotte! i am lost! my senses are bewildered, my recollection is confused, mine eyes are bathed in tears--i am ill; and yet i am well--i wish for nothing--i have no desires--it were better i were gone. under the circumstances narrated above, a determination to quit this world had now taken fixed possession of werther's soul. since charlotte's return, this thought had been the final object of all his hopes and wishes; but he had resolved that such a step should not be taken with precipitation, but with calmness and tranquillity, and with the most perfect deliberation. his troubles and internal struggles may be understood from the following fragment, which was found, without any date, amongst his papers, and appears to have formed the beginning of a letter to wilhelm. "her presence, her fate, her sympathy for me, have power still to extract tears from my withered brain. "one lifts up the curtain, and passes to the other side,--that is all! and why all these doubts and delays? because we know not what is behind--because there is no returning--and because our mind infers that all is darkness and confusion, where we have nothing but uncertainty." his appearance at length became quite altered by the effect of his melancholy thoughts; and his resolution was now finally and irrevocably taken, of which the following ambiguous letter, which he addressed to his friend, may appear to afford some proof. december . i am grateful to your love, wilhelm, for having repeated your advice so seasonably. yes, you are right: it is undoubtedly better that i should depart. but i do not entirely approve your scheme of returning at once to your neighbourhood; at least, i should like to make a little excursion on the way, particularly as we may now expect a continued frost, and consequently good roads. i am much pleased with your intention of coming to fetch me; only delay your journey for a fortnight, and wait for another letter from me. one should gather nothing before it is ripe, and a fortnight sooner or later makes a great difference. entreat my mother to pray for her son, and tell her i beg her pardon for all the unhappiness i have occasioned her. it has ever been my fate to give pain to those whose happiness i should have promoted. adieu, my dearest friend. may every blessing of heaven attend you! farewell. we find it difficult to express the emotions with which charlotte's soul was agitated during the whole of this time, whether in relation to her husband or to her unfortunate friend; although we are enabled, by our knowledge of her character, to understand their nature. it is certain that she had formed a determination, by every means in her power to keep werther at a distance; and, if she hesitated in her decision, it was from a sincere feeling of friendly pity, knowing how much it would cost him, indeed, that he would find it almost impossible to comply with her wishes. but various causes now urged her to be firm. her husband preserved a strict silence about the whole matter; and she never made it a subject of conversation, feeling bound to prove to him by her conduct that her sentiments agreed with his. the same day, which was the sunday before christmas, after werther had written the last-mentioned letter to his friend, he came in the evening to charlotte's house, and found her alone. she was busy preparing some little gifts for her brothers and sisters, which were to be distributed to them on christmas day. he began talking of the delight of the children, and of that age when the sudden appearance of the christmas-tree, decorated with fruit and sweetmeats, and lighted up with wax candles, causes such transports of joy. "you shall have a gift too, if you behave well," said charlotte, hiding her embarrassment under sweet smile. "and what do you call behaving well? what should i do, what can i do, my dear charlotte?" said he. "thursday night," she answered, "is christmas eve. the children are all to be here, and my father too: there is a present for each; do you come likewise, but do not come before that time." werther started. "i desire you will not: it must be so," she continued. "i ask it of you as a favour, for my own peace and tranquillity. we cannot go on in this manner any longer." he turned away his face walked hastily up and down the room, muttering indistinctly, "we cannot go on in this manner any longer!" charlotte, seeing the violent agitation into which these words had thrown him, endeavoured to divert his thoughts by different questions, but in vain. "no, charlotte!" he exclaimed; "i will never see you any more!" "and why so?" she answered. "we may--we must see each other again; only let it be with more discretion. oh! why were you born with that excessive, that ungovernable passion for everything that is dear to you?" then, taking his hand, she said, "i entreat of you to be more calm: your talents, your understanding, your genius, will furnish you with a thousand resources. be a man, and conquer an unhappy attachment toward a creature who can do nothing but pity you." he bit his lips, and looked at her with a gloomy countenance. she continued to hold his hand. "grant me but a moment's patience, werther," she said. "do you not see that you are deceiving yourself, that you are seeking your own destruction? why must you love me, me only, who belong to another? i fear, i much fear, that it is only the impossibility of possessing me which makes your desire for me so strong." he drew back his hand, whilst he surveyed her with a wild and angry look. "'tis well!" he exclaimed, "'tis very well! did not albert furnish you with this reflection? it is profound, a very profound remark." "a reflection that any one might easily make," she answered; "and is there not a woman in the whole world who is at liberty, and has the power to make you happy? conquer yourself: look for such a being, and believe me when i say that you will certainly find her. i have long felt for you, and for us all: you have confined yourself too long within the limits of too narrow a circle. conquer yourself; make an effort: a short journey will be of service to you. seek and find an object worthy of your love; then return hither, and let us enjoy together all the happiness of the most perfect friendship." "this speech," replied werther with a cold smile, "this speech should be printed, for the benefit of all teachers. my dear charlotte, allow me but a short time longer, and all will be well." "but however, werther," she added, "do not come again before christmas." he was about to make some answer, when albert came in. they saluted each other coldly, and with mutual embarrassment paced up and down the room. werther made some common remarks; albert did the same, and their conversation soon dropped. albert asked his wife about some household matters; and, finding that his commissions were not executed, he used some expressions which, to werther's ear, savoured of extreme harshness. he wished to go, but had not power to move; and in this situation he remained till eight o'clock, his uneasiness and discontent continually increasing. at length the cloth was laid for supper, and he took up his hat and stick. albert invited him to remain; but werther, fancying that he was merely paying a formal compliment, thanked him coldly, and left the house. werther returned home, took the candle from his servant, and retired to his room alone. he talked for some time with great earnestness to himself, wept aloud, walked in a state of great excitement through his chamber; till at length, without undressing, he threw himself on the bed, where he was found by his servant at eleven o'clock, when the latter ventured to enter the room, and take off his boots. werther did not prevent him, but forbade him to come in the morning till he should ring. on monday morning, the st of december, he wrote to charlotte the following letter, which was found, sealed, on his bureau after his death, and was given to her. i shall insert it in fragments; as it appears, from several circumstances, to have been written in that manner. "it is all over, charlotte: i am resolved to die! i make this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic passion, on this morning of the day when i am to see you for the last time. at the moment you read these lines, o best of women, the cold grave will hold the inanimate remains of that restless and unhappy being who, in the last moments of his existence, knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you! i have passed a dreadful night or rather, let me say, a propitious one; for it has given me resolution, it has fixed my purpose. i am resolved to die. when i tore myself from you yesterday, my senses were in tumult and disorder; my heart was oppressed, hope and pleasure had fled from me for ever, and a petrifying cold had seized my wretched being. i could scarcely reach my room. i threw myself on my knees; and heaven, for the last time, granted me the consolation of shedding tears. a thousand ideas, a thousand schemes, arose within my soul; till at length one last, fixed, final thought took possession of my heart. it was to die. i lay down to rest; and in the morning, in the quiet hour of awakening, the same determination was upon me. to die! it is not despair: it is conviction that i have filled up the measure of my sufferings, that i have reached my appointed term, and must sacrifice myself for thee. yes, charlotte, why should i not avow it? one of us three must die: it shall be werther. o beloved charlotte! this heart, excited by rage and fury, has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your husband--you--myself! the lot is cast at length. and in the bright, quiet evenings of summer, when you sometimes wander toward the mountains, let your thoughts then turn to me: recollect how often you have watched me coming to meet you from the valley; then bend your eyes upon the churchyard which contains my grave, and, by the light of the setting sun, mark how the evening breeze waves the tall grass which grows above my tomb. i was calm when i began this letter, but the recollection of these scenes makes me weep like a child." about ten in the morning, werther called his servant, and, whilst he was dressing, told him that in a few days he intended to set out upon a journey, and bade him therefore lay his clothes in order, and prepare them for packing up, call in all his accounts, fetch home the books he had lent, and give two months' pay to the poor dependants who were accustomed to receive from him a weekly allowance. he breakfasted in his room, and then mounted his horse, and went to visit the steward, who, however, was not at home. he walked pensively in the garden, and seemed anxious to renew all the ideas that were most painful to him. the children did not suffer him to remain alone long. they followed him, skipping and dancing before him, and told him, that after to-morrow and tomorrow and one day more, they were to receive their christmas gift from charlotte; and they then recounted all the wonders of which they had formed ideas in their child imaginations. "tomorrow and tomorrow," said he, "and one day more!" and he kissed them tenderly. he was going; but the younger boy stopped him, to whisper something in his ear. he told him that his elder brothers had written splendid new-year's wishes so large! one for papa, and another for albert and charlotte, and one for werther; and they were to be presented early in the morning, on new year's day. this quite overcame him. he made each of the children a present, mounted his horse, left his compliments for papa and mamma, and, with tears in his eyes, rode away from the place. he returned home about five o'clock, ordered his servant to keep up his fire, desired him to pack his books and linen at the bottom of the trunk, and to place his coats at the top. he then appears to have made the following addition to the letter addressed to charlotte: "you do not expect me. you think i will obey you, and not visit you again till christmas eve. o charlotte, today or never! on christmas eve you will hold this paper in your hand; you will tremble, and moisten it with your tears. i will--i must! oh, how happy i feel to be determined!" in the meantime, charlotte was in a pitiable state of mind. after her last conversation with werther, she found how painful to herself it would be to decline his visits, and knew how severely he would suffer from their separation. she had, in conversation with albert, mentioned casually that werther would not return before christmas eve; and soon afterward albert went on horseback to see a person in the neighbourhood, with whom he had to transact some business which would detain him all night. charlotte was sitting alone. none of her family were near, and she gave herself up to the reflections that silently took possession of her mind. she was for ever united to a husband whose love and fidelity she had proved, to whom she was heartily devoted, and who seemed to be a special gift from heaven to ensure her happiness. on the other hand, werther had become dear to her. there was a cordial unanimity of sentiment between them from the very first hour of their acquaintance, and their long association and repeated interviews had made an indelible impression upon her heart. she had been accustomed to communicate to him every thought and feeling which interested her, and his absence threatened to open a void in her existence which it might be impossible to fill. how heartily she wished that she might change him into her brother,--that she could induce him to marry one of her own friends, or could reestablish his intimacy with albert. she passed all her intimate friends in review before her mind, but found something objectionable in each, and could decide upon none to whom she would consent to give him. amid all these considerations she felt deeply but indistinctly that her own real but unexpressed wish was to retain him for herself, and her pure and amiable heart felt from this thought a sense of oppression which seemed to forbid a prospect of happiness. she was wretched: a dark cloud obscured her mental vision. it was now half-past six o'clock, and she heard werther's step on the stairs. she at once recognised his voice, as he inquired if she were at home. her heart beat audibly--we could almost say for the first time--at his arrival. it was too late to deny herself; and, as he entered, she exclaimed, with a sort of ill concealed confusion, "you have not kept your word!" "i promised nothing," he answered. "but you should have complied, at least for my sake," she continued. "i implore you, for both our sakes." she scarcely knew what she said or did; and sent for some friends, who, by their presence, might prevent her being left alone with werther. he put down some books he had brought with him, then made inquiries about some others, until she began to hope that her friends might arrive shortly, entertaining at the same time a desire that they might stay away. at one moment she felt anxious that the servant should remain in the adjoining room, then she changed her mind. werther, meanwhile, walked impatiently up and down. she went to the piano, and determined not to retire. she then collected her thoughts, and sat down quietly at werther's side, who had taken his usual place on the sofa. "have you brought nothing to read?" she inquired. he had nothing. "there in my drawer," she continued, "you will find your own translation of some of the songs of ossian. i have not yet read them, as i have still hoped to hear you recite them; but, for some time past, i have not been able to accomplish such a wish." he smiled, and went for the manuscript, which he took with a shudder. he sat down; and, with eyes full of tears, he began to read. "star of descending night! fair is thy light in the west! thou liftest thy unshorn head from thy cloud; thy steps are stately on thy hill. what dost thou behold in the plain? the stormy winds are laid. the murmur of the torrent comes from afar. roaring waves climb the distant rock. the flies of evening are on their feeble wings: the hum of their course is on the field. what dost thou behold, fair light? but thou dost smile and depart. the waves come with joy around thee: they bathe thy lovely hair. farewell, thou silent beam! let the light of ossian's soul arise! "and it does arise in its strength! i behold my departed friends. their gathering is on lora, as in the days of other years. fingal comes like a watery column of mist! his heroes are around: and see the bards of song, gray-haired ullin! stately ryno! alpin with the tuneful voice: the soft complaint of minona! how are ye changed, my friends, since the days of selma's feast! when we contended, like gales of spring as they fly along the hill, and bend by turns the feebly whistling grass. "minona came forth in her beauty, with downcast look and tearful eye. her hair was flying slowly with the blast that rushed unfrequent from the hill. the souls of the heroes were sad when she raised the tuneful voice. oft had they seen the grave of salgar, the dark dwelling of white-bosomed colma. colma left alone on the hill with all her voice of song! salgar promised to come! but the night descended around. hear the voice of colma, when she sat alone on the hill! "colma. it is night: i am alone, forlorn on the hill of storms. the wind is heard on the mountain. the torrent is howling down the rock. no hut receives me from the rain: forlorn on the hill of winds! "rise moon! from behind thy clouds. stars of the night, arise! lead me, some light, to the place where my love rests from the chase alone! his bow near him unstrung, his dogs panting around him! but here i must sit alone by the rock of the mossy stream. the stream and the wind roar aloud. i hear not the voice of my love! why delays my salgar; why the chief of the hill his promise? here is the rock and here the tree! here is the roaring stream! thou didst promise with night to be here. ah! whither is my salgar gone? with thee i would fly from my father, with thee from my brother of pride. our race have long been foes: we are not foes, o salgar! "cease a little while, o wind! stream, be thou silent awhile! let my voice be heard around! let my wanderer hear me! salgar! it is colma who calls. here is the tree and the rock. salgar, my love, i am here! why delayest thou thy coming? lo! the calm moon comes forth. the flood is bright in the vale. the rocks are gray on the steep. i see him not on the brow. his dogs come not before him with tidings of his near approach. here i must sit alone! "who lie on the heath beside me? are they my love and my brother? speak to me, o my friends! to colma they give no reply. speak to me: i am alone! my soul is tormented with fears. ah, they are dead! their swords are red from the fight. o my brother! my brother! why hast thou slain my salgar! why, o salgar, hast thou slain my brother! dear were ye both to me! what shall i say in your praise? thou wert fair on the hill among thousands! he was terrible in fight! speak to me! hear my voice! hear me, sons of my love! they are silent! silent for ever! cold, cold, are their breasts of clay! oh, from the rock on the hill, from the top of the windy steep, speak, ye ghosts of the dead! speak, i will not be afraid! whither are ye gone to rest? in what cave of the hill shall i find the departed? no feeble voice is on the gale: no answer half drowned in the storm! "i sit in my grief: i wait for morning in my tears! rear the tomb, ye friends of the dead. close it not till colma come. my life flies away like a dream. why should i stay behind? here shall i rest with my friends, by the stream of the sounding rock. when night comes on the hill when the loud winds arise my ghost shall stand in the blast, and mourn the death of my friends. the hunter shall hear from his booth; he shall fear, but love my voice! for sweet shall my voice be for my friends: pleasant were her friends to colma. "such was thy song, minona, softly blushing daughter of torman. our tears descended for colma, and our souls were sad! ullin came with his harp; he gave the song of alpin. the voice of alpin was pleasant, the soul of ryno was a beam of fire! but they had rested in the narrow house: their voice had ceased in selma! ullin had returned one day from the chase before the heroes fell. he heard their strife on the hill: their song was soft, but sad! they mourned the fall of morar, first of mortal men! his soul was like the soul of fingal: his sword like the sword of oscar. but he fell, and his father mourned: his sister's eyes were full of tears. minona's eyes were full of tears, the sister of car-borne morar. she retired from the song of ullin, like the moon in the west, when she foresees the shower, and hides her fair head in a cloud. i touched the harp with ullin: the song of morning rose! "ryno. the wind and the rain are past, calm is the noon of day. the clouds are divided in heaven. over the green hills flies the inconstant sun. red through the stony vale comes down the stream of the hill. sweet are thy murmurs, o stream! but more sweet is the voice i hear. it is the voice of alpin, the son of song, mourning for the dead! bent is his head of age: red his tearful eye. alpin, thou son of song, why alone on the silent hill? why complainest thou, as a blast in the wood as a wave on the lonely shore? "alpin. my tears, o ryno! are for the dead my voice for those that have passed away. tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. but thou shalt fall like morar: the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. the hills shall know thee no more: thy bow shall lie in thy hall unstrung! "thou wert swift, o morar! as a roe on the desert: terrible as a meteor of fire. thy wrath was as the storm. thy sword in battle as lightning in the field. thy voice was as a stream after rain, like thunder on distant hills. many fell by thy arm: they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. but when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow. thy face was like the sun after rain: like the moon in the silence of night: calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind is laid. "narrow is thy dwelling now! dark the place of thine abode! with three steps i compass thy grave, o thou who wast so great before! four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. a tree with scarce a leaf, long grass which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter's eye the grave of the mighty morar. morar! thou art low indeed. thou hast no mother to mourn thee, no maid with her tears of love. dead is she that brought thee forth. fallen is the daughter of morglan. "who on his staff is this? who is this whose head is white with age, whose eyes are red with tears, who quakes at every step? it is thy father, o morar! the father of no son but thee. he heard of thy fame in war, he heard of foes dispersed. he heard of morar's renown, why did he not hear of his wound? weep, thou father of morar! weep, but thy son heareth thee not. deep is the sleep of the dead, low their pillow of dust. no more shall he hear thy voice, no more awake at thy call. when shall it be morn in the grave, to bid the slumberer awake? farewell, thou bravest of men! thou conqueror in the field! but the field shall see thee no more, nor the dark wood be lightened with the splendour of thy steel. thou has left no son. the song shall preserve thy name. future times shall hear of thee they shall hear of the fallen morar! "the grief of all arose, but most the bursting sigh of armin. he remembers the death of his son, who fell in the days of his youth. carmor was near the hero, the chief of the echoing galmal. why burst the sigh of armin? he said. is there a cause to mourn? the song comes with its music to melt and please the soul. it is like soft mist that, rising from a lake, pours on the silent vale; the green flowers are filled with dew, but the sun returns in his strength, and the mist is gone. why art thou sad, o armin, chief of sea-surrounded gorma? "sad i am! nor small is my cause of woe! carmor, thou hast lost no son; thou hast lost no daughter of beauty. colgar the valiant lives, and annira, fairest maid. the boughs of thy house ascend, o carmor! but armin is the last of his race. dark is thy bed, o daura! deep thy sleep in the tomb! when shalt thou wake with thy songs? with all thy voice of music? "arise, winds of autumn, arise: blow along the heath. streams of the mountains, roar; roar, tempests in the groves of my oaks! walk through broken clouds, o moon! show thy pale face at intervals; bring to my mind the night when all my children fell, when arindal the mighty fell--when daura the lovely failed. daura, my daughter, thou wert fair, fair as the moon on fura, white as the driven snow, sweet as the breathing gale. arindal, thy bow was strong, thy spear was swift on the field, thy look was like mist on the wave, thy shield a red cloud in a storm! armar, renowned in war, came and sought daura's love. he was not long refused: fair was the hope of their friends. "erath, son of odgal, repined: his brother had been slain by armar. he came disguised like a son of the sea: fair was his cliff on the wave, white his locks of age, calm his serious brow. fairest of women, he said, lovely daughter of armin! a rock not distant in the sea bears a tree on its side; red shines the fruit afar. there armar waits for daura. i come to carry his love! she went she called on armar. nought answered, but the son of the rock. armar, my love, my love! why tormentest thou me with fear? hear, son of arnart, hear! it is daura who calleth thee. erath, the traitor, fled laughing to the land. she lifted up her voice--she called for her brother and her father. arindal! armin! none to relieve you, daura. "her voice came over the sea. arindal, my son, descended from the hill, rough in the spoils of the chase. his arrows rattled by his side; his bow was in his hand, five dark-gray dogs attended his steps. he saw fierce erath on the shore; he seized and bound him to an oak. thick wind the thongs of the hide around his limbs; he loads the winds with his groans. arindal ascends the deep in his boat to bring daura to land. armar came in his wrath, and let fly the gray-feathered shaft. it sung, it sunk in thy heart, o arindal, my son! for erath the traitor thou diest. the oar is stopped at once: he panted on the rock, and expired. what is thy grief, o daura, when round thy feet is poured thy brother's blood. the boat is broken in twain. armar plunges into the sea to rescue his daura, or die. sudden a blast from a hill came over the waves; he sank, and he rose no more. "alone, on the sea-beat rock, my daughter was heard to complain; frequent and loud were her cries. what could her father do? all night i stood on the shore: i saw her by the faint beam of the moon. all night i heard her cries. loud was the wind; the rain beat hard on the hill. before morning appeared, her voice was weak; it died away like the evening breeze among the grass of the rocks. spent with grief, she expired, and left thee, armin, alone. gone is my strength in war, fallen my pride among women. when the storms aloft arise, when the north lifts the wave on high, i sit by the sounding shore, and look on the fatal rock. "often by the setting moon i see the ghosts of my children; half viewless they walk in mournful conference together." a torrent of tears which streamed from charlotte's eyes and gave relief to her bursting heart, stopped werther's recitation. he threw down the book, seized her hand, and wept bitterly. charlotte leaned upon her hand, and buried her face in her handkerchief: the agitation of both was excessive. they felt that their own fate was pictured in the misfortunes of ossian's heroes, they felt this together, and their tears redoubled. werther supported his forehead on charlotte's arm: she trembled, she wished to be gone; but sorrow and sympathy lay like a leaden weight upon her soul. she recovered herself shortly, and begged werther, with broken sobs, to leave her, implored him with the utmost earnestness to comply with her request. he trembled; his heart was ready to burst: then, taking up the book again, he recommenced reading, in a voice broken by sobs. "why dost thou waken me, o spring? thy voice woos me, exclaiming, i refresh thee with heavenly dews; but the time of my decay is approaching, the storm is nigh that shall whither my leaves. tomorrow the traveller shall come, he shall come, who beheld me in beauty: his eye shall seek me in the field around, but he shall not find me." the whole force of these words fell upon the unfortunate werther. full of despair, he threw himself at charlotte's feet, seized her hands, and pressed them to his eyes and to his forehead. an apprehension of his fatal project now struck her for the first time. her senses were bewildered: she held his hands, pressed them to her bosom; and, leaning toward him with emotions of the tenderest pity, her warm cheek touched his. they lost sight of everything. the world disappeared from their eyes. he clasped her in his arms, strained her to his bosom, and covered her trembling lips with passionate kisses. "werther!" she cried with a faint voice, turning herself away; "werther!" and, with a feeble hand, she pushed him from her. at length, with the firm voice of virtue, she exclaimed, "werther!" he resisted not, but, tearing himself from her arms, fell on his knees before her. charlotte rose, and, with disordered grief, in mingled tones of love and resentment, she exclaimed, "it is the last time, werther! you shall never see me any more!" then, casting one last, tender look upon her unfortunate lover, she rushed into the adjoining room, and locked the door. werther held out his arms, but did not dare to detain her. he continued on the ground, with his head resting on the sofa, for half an hour, till he heard a noise which brought him to his senses. the servant entered. he then walked up and down the room; and, when he was again left alone, he went to charlotte's door, and, in a low voice, said, "charlotte, charlotte! but one word more, one last adieu!" she returned no answer. he stopped, and listened and entreated; but all was silent. at length he tore himself from the place, crying, "adieu, charlotte, adieu for ever!" werther ran to the gate of the town. the guards, who knew him, let him pass in silence. the night was dark and stormy,--it rained and snowed. he reached his own door about eleven. his servant, although seeing him enter the house without his hat, did not venture to say anything; and; as he undressed his master, he found that his clothes were wet. his hat was afterward found on the point of a rock overhanging the valley; and it is inconceivable how he could have climbed to the summit on such a dark, tempestuous night without losing his life. he retired to bed, and slept to a late hour. the next morning his servant, upon being called to bring his coffee, found him writing. he was adding, to charlotte, what we here annex. "for the last, last time i open these eyes. alas! they will behold the sun no more. it is covered by a thick, impenetrable cloud. yes, nature! put on mourning: your child, your friend, your lover, draws near his end! this thought, charlotte, is without parallel; and yet it seems like a mysterious dream when i repeat--this is my last day! the last! charlotte, no word can adequately express this thought. the last! to-day i stand erect in all my strength to-morrow, cold and stark, i shall lie extended upon the ground. to die! what is death? we do but dream in our discourse upon it. i have seen many human beings die; but, so straitened is our feeble nature, we have no clear conception of the beginning or the end of our existence. at this moment i am my own--or rather i am thine, thine, my adored! and the next we are parted, severed--perhaps for ever! no, charlotte, no! how can i, how can you, be annihilated? we exist. what is annihilation? a mere word, an unmeaning sound that fixes no impression on the mind. dead, charlotte! laid in the cold earth, in the dark and narrow grave! i had a friend once who was everything to me in early youth. she died. i followed her hearse; i stood by her grave when the coffin was lowered; and when i heard the creaking of the cords as they were loosened and drawn up, when the first shovelful of earth was thrown in, and the coffin returned a hollow sound, which grew fainter and fainter till all was completely covered over, i threw myself on the ground; my heart was smitten, grieved, shattered, rent--but i neither knew what had happened, nor what was to happen to me. death! the grave! i understand not the words.--forgive, oh, forgive me! yesterday--ah, that day should have been the last of my life! thou angel! for the first time in my existence, i felt rapture glow within my inmost soul. she loves, she loves me! still burns upon my lips the sacred fire they received from thine. new torrents of delight overwhelm my soul. forgive me, oh, forgive! "i knew that i was dear to you; i saw it in your first entrancing look, knew it by the first pressure of your hand; but when i was absent from you, when i saw albert at your side, my doubts and fears returned. "do you remember the flowers you sent me, when, at that crowded assembly, you could neither speak nor extend your hand to me? half the night i was on my knees before those flowers, and i regarded them as the pledges of your love; but those impressions grew fainter, and were at length effaced. "everything passes away; but a whole eternity could not extinguish the living flame which was yesterday kindled by your lips, and which now burns within me. she loves me! these arms have encircled her waist, these lips have trembled upon hers. she is mine! yes, charlotte, you are mine for ever! "and what do they mean by saying albert is your husband? he may be so for this world; and in this world it is a sin to love you, to wish to tear you from his embrace. yes, it is a crime; and i suffer the punishment, but i have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. i have inhaled a balm that has revived my soul. from this hour you are mine; yes, charlotte, you are mine! i go before you. i go to my father and to your father. i will pour out my sorrows before him, and he will give me comfort till you arrive. then will i fly to meet you. i will claim you, and remain your eternal embrace, in the presence of the almighty. "i do not dream, i do not rave. drawing nearer to the grave my perceptions become clearer. we shall exist; we shall see each other again; we shall behold your mother; i shall behold her, and expose to her my inmost heart. your mother--your image!" about eleven o'clock werther asked his servant if albert had returned. he answered, "yes;" for he had seen him pass on horseback: upon which werther sent him the following note, unsealed: "be so good as to lend me your pistols for a journey. adieu." charlotte had slept little during the past night. all her apprehensions were realised in a way that she could neither foresee nor avoid. her blood was boiling in her veins, and a thousand painful sensations rent her pure heart. was it the ardour of werther's passionate embraces that she felt within her bosom? was it anger at his daring? was it the sad comparison of her present condition with former days of innocence, tranquillity, and self-confidence? how could she approach her husband, and confess a scene which she had no reason to conceal, and which she yet felt, nevertheless, unwilling to avow? they had preserved so long a silence toward each other and should she be the first to break it by so unexpected a discovery? she feared that the mere statement of werther's visit would trouble him, and his distress would be heightened by her perfect candour. she wished that he could see her in her true light, and judge her without prejudice; but was she anxious that he should read her inmost soul? on the other hand, could she deceive a being to whom all her thoughts had ever been exposed as clearly as crystal, and from whom no sentiment had ever been concealed? these reflections made her anxious and thoughtful. her mind still dwelt on werther, who was now lost to her, but whom she could not bring herself to resign, and for whom she knew nothing was left but despair if she should be lost to him for ever. a recollection of that mysterious estrangement which had lately subsisted between herself and albert, and which she could never thoroughly understand, was now beyond measure painful to her. even the prudent and the good have before now hesitated to explain their mutual differences, and have dwelt in silence upon their imaginary grievances, until circumstances have become so entangled, that in that critical juncture, when a calm explanation would have saved all parties, an understanding was impossible. and thus if domestic confidence had been earlier established between them, if love and kind forbearance had mutually animated and expanded their hearts, it might not, perhaps, even yet have been too late to save our friend. but we must not forget one remarkable circumstance. we may observe from the character of werther's correspondence, that he had never affected to conceal his anxious desire to quit this world. he had often discussed the subject with albert; and, between the latter and charlotte, it had not unfrequently formed a topic of conversation. albert was so opposed to the very idea of such an action, that, with a degree of irritation unusual in him, he had more than once given werther to understand that he doubted the seriousness of his threats, and not only turned them into ridicule, but caused charlotte to share his feelings of incredulity. her heart was thus tranquillised when she felt disposed to view the melancholy subject in a serious point of view, though she never communicated to her husband the apprehensions she sometimes experienced. albert, upon his return, was received by charlotte with ill-concealed embarrassment. he was himself out of humour; his business was unfinished; and he had just discovered that the neighbouring official with whom he had to deal, was an obstinate and narrow-minded personage. many things had occurred to irritate him. he inquired whether anything had happened during his absence, and charlotte hastily answered that werther had been there on the evening previously. he then inquired for his letters, and was answered that several packages had been left in his study. he thereon retired, leaving charlotte alone. the presence of the being she loved and honoured produced a new impression on her heart. the recollection of his generosity, kindness, and affection had calmed her agitation: a secret impulse prompted her to follow him; she took her work and went to his study, as was often her custom. he was busily employed opening and reading his letters. it seemed as if the contents of some were disagreeable. she asked some questions: he gave short answers, and sat down to write. several hours passed in this manner, and charlotte's feelings became more and more melancholy. she felt the extreme difficulty of explaining to her husband, under any circumstances, the weight that lay upon her heart; and her depression became every moment greater, in proportion as she endeavoured to hide her grief, and to conceal her tears. the arrival of werther's servant occasioned her the greatest embarrassment. he gave albert a note, which the latter coldly handed to his wife, saying, at the same time, "give him the pistols. i wish him a pleasant journey," he added, turning to the servant. these words fell upon charlotte like a thunderstroke: she rose from her seat half-fainting, and unconscious of what she did. she walked mechanically toward the wall, took down the pistols with a trembling hand, slowly wiped the dust from them, and would have delayed longer, had not albert hastened her movements by an impatient look. she then delivered the fatal weapons to the servant, without being able to utter a word. as soon as he had departed, she folded up her work, and retired at once to her room, her heart overcome with the most fearful forebodings. she anticipated some dreadful calamity. she was at one moment on the point of going to her husband, throwing herself at his feet, and acquainting him with all that had happened on the previous evening, that she might acknowledge her fault, and explain her apprehensions; then she saw that such a step would be useless, as she would certainly be unable to induce albert to visit werther. dinner was served; and a kind friend whom she had persuaded to remain assisted to sustain the conversation, which was carried on by a sort of compulsion, till the events of the morning were forgotten. when the servant brought the pistols to werther, the latter received them with transports of delight upon hearing that charlotte had given them to him with her own hand. he ate some bread, drank some wine, sent his servant to dinner, and then sat down to write as follows: "they have been in your hands you wiped the dust from them. i kiss them a thousand times--you have touched them. yes, heaven favours my design, and you, charlotte, provide me with the fatal instruments. it was my desire to receive my death from your hands, and my wish is gratified. i have made inquiries of my servant. you trembled when you gave him the pistols, but you bade me no adieu. wretched, wretched that i am--not one farewell! how could you shut your heart against me in that hour which makes you mine for ever? charlotte, ages cannot efface the impression--i feel you cannot hate the man who so passionately loves you!" after dinner he called his servant, desired him to finish the packing up, destroyed many papers, and then went out to pay some trifling debts. he soon returned home, then went out again, notwithstanding the rain, walked for some time in the count's garden, and afterward proceeded farther into the country. toward evening he came back once more, and resumed his writing. "wilhelm, i have for the last time beheld the mountains, the forests, and the sky. farewell! and you, my dearest mother, forgive me! console her, wilhelm. god bless you! i have settled all my affairs! farewell! we shall meet again, and be happier than ever." "i have requited you badly, albert; but you will forgive me. i have disturbed the peace of your home. i have sowed distrust between you. farewell! i will end all this wretchedness. and oh, that my death may render you happy! albert, albert! make that angel happy, and the blessing of heaven be upon you!" he spent the rest of the evening in arranging his papers: he tore and burned a great many; others he sealed up, and directed to wilhelm. they contained some detached thoughts and maxims, some of which i have perused. at ten o'clock he ordered his fire to be made up, and a bottle of wine to be brought to him. he then dismissed his servant, whose room, as well as the apartments of the rest of the family, was situated in another part of the house. the servant lay down without undressing, that he might be the sooner ready for his journey in the morning, his master having informed him that the post-horses would be at the door before six o'clock. "past eleven o'clock! all is silent around me, and my soul is calm. i thank thee, o god, that thou bestowest strength and courage upon me in these last moments! i approach the window, my dearest of friends; and through the clouds, which are at this moment driven rapidly along by the impetuous winds, i behold the stars which illumine the eternal heavens. no, you will not fall, celestial bodies: the hand of the almighty supports both you and me! i have looked for the last time upon the constellation of the greater bear: it is my favourite star; for when i bade you farewell at night, charlotte, and turned my steps from your door, it always shone upon me. with what rapture have i at times beheld it! how often have i implored it with uplifted hands to witness my felicity! and even still--but what object is there, charlotte, which fails to summon up your image before me? do you not surround me on all sides? and have i not, like a child, treasured up every trifle which you have consecrated by your touch? "your profile, which was so dear to me, i return to you; and i pray you to preserve it. thousands of kisses have i imprinted upon it, and a thousand times has it gladdened my heart on departing from and returning to my home. "i have implored your father to protect my remains. at the corner of the churchyard, looking toward the fields, there are two lime-trees--there i wish to lie. your father can, and doubtless will, do this much for his friend. implore it of him. but perhaps pious christians will not choose that their bodies should be buried near the corpse of a poor, unhappy wretch like me. then let me be laid in some remote valley, or near the highway, where the priest and levite may bless themselves as they pass by my tomb, whilst the samaritan will shed a tear for my fate. "see, charlotte, i do not shudder to take the cold and fatal cup, from which i shall drink the draught of death. your hand presents it to me, and i do not tremble. all, all is now concluded: the wishes and the hopes of my existence are fulfilled. with cold, unflinching hand i knock at the brazen portals of death. oh, that i had enjoyed the bliss of dying for you! how gladly would i have sacrificed myself for you; charlotte! and could i but restore peace and joy to your bosom, with what resolution, with what joy, would i not meet my fate! but it is the lot of only a chosen few to shed their blood for their friends, and by their death to augment, a thousand times, the happiness of those by whom they are beloved. "i wish, charlotte, to be buried in the dress i wear at present: it has been rendered sacred by your touch. i have begged this favour of your father. my spirit soars above my sepulchre. i do not wish my pockets to be searched. the knot of pink ribbon which you wore on your bosom the first time i saw you, surrounded by the children--oh, kiss them a thousand times for me, and tell them the fate of their unhappy friend! i think i see them playing around me. the dear children! how warmly have i been attached to you, charlotte! since the first hour i saw you, how impossible have i found it to leave you. this ribbon must be buried with me: it was a present from you on my birthday. how confused it all appears! little did i then think that i should journey this road. but peace! i pray you, peace! "they are loaded--the clock strikes twelve. i say amen. charlotte, charlotte! farewell, farewell!" a neighbour saw the flash, and heard the report of the pistol; but, as everything remained quiet, he thought no more of it. in the morning, at six o'clock, the servant went into werther's room with a candle. he found his master stretched upon the floor, weltering in his blood, and the pistols at his side. he called, he took him in his arms, but received no answer. life was not yet quite extinct. the servant ran for a surgeon, and then went to fetch albert. charlotte heard the ringing of the bell: a cold shudder seized her. she wakened her husband, and they both rose. the servant, bathed in tears faltered forth the dreadful news. charlotte fell senseless at albert's feet. when the surgeon came to the unfortunate werther, he was still lying on the floor; and his pulse beat, but his limbs were cold. the bullet, entering the forehead, over the right eye, had penetrated the skull. a vein was opened in his right arm: the blood came, and he still continued to breathe. from the blood which flowed from the chair, it could be inferred that he had committed the rash act sitting at his bureau, and that he afterward fell upon the floor. he was found lying on his back near the window. he was in full-dress costume. the house, the neighbourhood, and the whole town were immediately in commotion. albert arrived. they had laid werther on the bed: his head was bound up, and the paleness of death was upon his face. his limbs were motionless; but he still breathed, at one time strongly, then weaker--his death was momently expected. he had drunk only one glass of the wine. "emilia galotti" lay open upon his bureau. i shall say nothing of albert's distress, or of charlotte's grief. the old steward hastened to the house immediately upon hearing the news: he embraced his dying friend amid a flood of tears. his eldest boys soon followed him on foot. in speechless sorrow they threw themselves on their knees by the bedside, and kissed his hands and face. the eldest, who was his favourite, hung over him till he expired; and even then he was removed by force. at twelve o'clock werther breathed his last. the presence of the steward, and the precautions he had adopted, prevented a disturbance; and that night, at the hour of eleven, he caused the body to be interred in the place which werther had selected for himself. the steward and his sons followed the corpse to the grave. albert was unable to accompany them. charlotte's life was despaired of. the body was carried by labourers. no priest attended. [frontispiece: "you have made me once more in love with the goodness of god, in love with life" see page ] adrian savage a novel by lucas malet author of "sir richard calmady" harper & brothers publishers new york and london mcmxi [illustration: title page] copyright, , by harper & brothers printed in the united states of america published october, to gabrielle francesca lilian mary this book is dedicated. upon her birthday. as a love-token by lucas malet the orchard, eversley august , contents i concerning the dead and the living chap. i. in which the reader is invited to make the acquaintance of the hero of this book ii. wherein a very modern young man tells a time-honored tale with but small encouragement iii. telling how rené dax cooked a savory omelette, and why gabrielle st. leger looked out of an open window at past midnight iv. climbing the ladder v. passages from joanna smyrthwaite's locked book vi. some consequences of putting new wine into old bottles vii. in which adrian helps to throw earth into an open grave viii. a modern antigone ii the drawings upon the wall i. a waster ii. the return of the native iii. a straining of friendship iv. in which adrian sets forth in pursuit of the further reason v. with deborah, under an oak in the parc monceau vi. recording the vigil of a scarlet homunculus and aristides the just iii the other side i. recording a brave man's effort to cultivate his private garden ii. a strategic movement which secures victory while simulating retreat iii. in which euterpe is called upon to play the part of interpreter iv. some passages from joanna smyrthwaite's locked book v. in which adrian's knowledge of some inhabitants of the tower house is sensibly increased vi. which plays seesaw between a game of lawn tennis and a prodigal son vii. pistols or politeness--for two viii. "nuit de mai" iv the folly of the wise i. re-enter a wayfaring gossip ii. in the track of the brain-storm iii. in which the storm breaks iv. on the heights v. de profundis v the living and the dead i. some passages from joanna smyrthwaite's locked book ii. recording a sisterly effort to let in light iii. in which joanna embraces a phantom bliss iv. "come unto these yellow sands" v. in which adrian makes disquieting acquaintance with the long arm of coincidence vi. concerning a curse, and the manner of its going home to roost vii. some passages from joanna smyrthwaite's locked book viii. in which a strong man adopts a very simple method of clearing his own path of thorns ix. wherein adrian savage succeeds in awakening la belle au bois dormant prefatory note i will ask my readers kindly to understand that this book is altogether a work of fiction. the characters it portrays, their circumstances and the episodes in which they play a part, are my own invention. every sincere and scientific student of human nature and the social scene must, of necessity, depend upon direct observation of life for his general types--the said types being the composite photographs with which study and observation have supplied him. but, for the shaping of individual characters out of the said types, he should, in my opinion, rely exclusively upon his imagination and his sense of dramatic coherence. exactly in proportion as he does this can he claim to be a true artist. since the novel, to be a work of art, must be impersonal, neither autobiographical nor biographical.--i am not, of course, speaking of the historical novel, whether the history involved be ancient or contemporary, nor am i speaking of an admitted satire. i wish further to assure my readers that the names of my characters have been selected at random; and belong, certainly in sequence of christian and surname, to no persons with whom i am, or ever have been, acquainted. i may also add that although i have often visited _stourmouth_ and its neighborhood--of which i am very fond--my knowledge of the social life of the district is of the smallest, while my knowledge of its municipal and commercial life is _nil_. finally, the lamented disappearance of _la gioconda_, from the _salon carré_ of the louvre, took place when the whole of my manuscript was already in the hands of the printers. may i express a pious hope that this most seductive of women will be safely restored to her former dwelling-place before any copies of my novel are in the hands of the public? lucas malet. _august_ , i concerning the dead and the living adrian savage chapter i in which the reader is invited to make the acquaintance of the hero of this book adrian savage--a noticeably distinct, well-groomed, and well-set-up figure, showing dark in the harsh light of the winter afternoon against the pallor of the asphalt--walked rapidly across the pont des arts, and, about half-way along the _quai malaquais_, turned in under the archway of a cavernous _porte-cochère_. the bare, spindly planes and poplars, in the center of the courtyard to which this gave access, shivered visibly. doubtless the lightly clad, lichen-stained nymph to whom they acted as body-guard would have shivered likewise had her stony substance permitted, for icicles fringed the lip of her tilted pitcher and caked the edge of the shell-shaped basin into which, under normal conditions, its waters dripped with a not unmusical tinkle. yet the atmosphere of the courtyard struck the young man as almost mild compared with that of the quay outside, along which the northeasterly wind scourged bitingly. upon the farther bank of the turgid, gray-green river the buildings of the louvre stood out pale and stark against a sullen backing of snow-cloud. for the past week paris had cowered, sunless, in the grip of a black frost. if those leaden heavens would only elect to unload themselves of their burden the weather might take up! to adrian savage, in excellent health and prosperous circumstances, the cold in itself mattered nothing--would, indeed, rather have acted as a stimulus to his chronic appreciation of the joy of living but for the fact that he had to-day been suddenly and unexpectedly called upon to leave paris and bid farewell to one of its inhabitants eminently and even perplexingly dear to him. having, for all his young masculine optimism, the artist's exaggerated sensibility to the aspects of outward things, and equally exaggerated capacity for conceiving--highly improbable--disaster, it troubled him to make his adieux under such forbidding meteorologic conditions. his regrets and alarms would, he felt, have been decidedly lessened had kindly sunshine set a golden frame about his parting impressions. nevertheless, as--raising his hat gallantly to the concierge, seated in her glass-fronted lodge, swathed mummy-like in shawls and mufflers--he turned shortly to the left along the backs of the tall, gray houses, a high expectation, at once delightful and disturbing, took possession of him to the exclusion of all other sensations. for the past eighteen months--ever since, indeed, the distressingly sudden death of his old friend, the popular painter horace st. leger--he had made this selfsame little pilgrimage as frequently as respectful discretion permitted. and invariably, at the selfsame spot--it was where, as he noted amusedly, between the third and fourth of the heavily barred ground-floor windows a square leaden water-pipe, running the height of the house wall from the parapet of the steep slated roof, reached the grating in the pavement--this quickening of his whole being came upon him, however occupied his thoughts might previously have been with his literary work, or with the conduct of the bi-monthly review of which he was at once assistant editor and part proprietor. this quickening remained with him, moreover, as he entered a doorway set in the near corner of the courtyard and ran up the flights of waxed wooden stairs to the third story. in no country of the civilized world, it may be confidently asserted, do affairs of the heart, even when virtuous, command more indulgent sympathy than in france. it followed that adrian entertained his own emotions with the same eager and friendly amenity which he would have extended to those of another man in like case. he was not in the least contemptuous or suspicious of them. he permitted cynicism no smallest word in the matter. on the contrary, he hailed the present ebullience of his affections as among those captivating surprises of earthly existence upon which one should warmly congratulate oneself, having liveliest cause for rejoicing. to-day, as usual, there was a brief pause before the door of the vestibule opened. a space of delicious anxiety---carrying him back to the poignant hopes and despairs of childhood, when the fate of some anticipated treat hangs in the balance--while he inquired of the trim waiting-maid whether her mistress was or was not receiving. followed by that other moment, childlike, too, in its deliciously troubled emotion and vision, when, passing from the corridor into the warm, vaguely fragrant atmosphere of the long, pale, rose-red and canvas-colored drawing-room, he once again beheld the lady of his desires and of his heart. from the foregoing it may be deduced, and rightly, that adrian savage was of a romantic temperament, and that he was very much in love. let it be immediately added, however, that he was a young gentleman whose head, to employ a vulgarism, was most emphatically screwed on the right way. only child of an eminent english physician of good family, long resident in paris, and of a french mother--a woman of great personal charm and some distinction as a poetess--he had inherited, along with a comfortable little income of about eighteen hundred pounds a year, a certain sagacity and decision in dealing with men and with affairs, as well as quick sensibility in relation to beauty and to drama. artist and practical man of the world went, for the most part, very happily hand and hand in him. at moments, however, they quarreled, to the production of complications. the death of both his parents occurred during his tenth year, leaving him to the guardianship of a devoted french grandmother. under the terms of doctor savage's will one-third of his income was to be applied to the boy's maintenance and education until his majority, the remaining two-thirds being set aside to accumulate until his twenty-third birthday. "at that age," so the document in question stated, "i apprehend that my son will have discovered in what direction his talents and aptitudes lie. i do not wish to fetter his choice of a profession; still i do most earnestly request him not to squander the considerable sum of money into possession of which he will then come, but to spend it judiciously, in the service of those talents and aptitudes, with the purpose of securing for himself an honorable and distinguished career." this idea that something definite, something notable even in the matter of achievement was demanded from him, clung to the boy through school and college, acting--since he was healthy, high-spirited, and confident--as a wholesome incentive to effort. even before fulfilling his term of military service, adrian had decided what his career should be. letters called him with no uncertain voice. he would be a writer--dramatist, novelist, an artist in psychology, in touch at all points with the inexhaustible riches of the human scene. his father's science, his mother's poetic gift, should combine, so he believed, to produce in him a very special vocation. his ambitions at this period were colossal. the raw material of his selected art appeared to him nothing less than the fee-simple of creation. he planned literary undertakings beside which the numerically formidable volumes of balzac or zola shriveled to positive next-to-nothingness. fortunately fuller knowledge begot a juster sense of proportion, while his native shrewdness lent a hand to knocking extravagant conceptions on the head. by the time he came into possession of the comfortable sum of money that had accumulated during his minority and he was free to follow his bent, adrian found himself contented with quite modest first steps in authorship. for a couple of years he traveled, resolved to broaden his acquaintance with men and things, to get some clear first-hand impressions both of the ancient, deep-rooted civilizations of the east and the amazing mushroom growths of america. on his return to paris, it so happened that a leading bi-monthly review, which had shown hospitality to his maiden literary productions, stood badly in need of financial support. adrian bought a preponderating interest in it; and by the time in question--namely, the winter of - and the dawn of his thirtieth year--had contrived to make it not only a powerful factor in contemporary criticism and literary output, but a solid commercial success. to be nine-and-twenty, the owner of a well-favored person, of admitted talent and business capacity, and to be honestly in love, is surely to be as happily circumstanced as mortal man can reasonably ask to be. that the course of true love should not run quite smooth, that the beloved one should prove elusive, difficult of access, that obstacles should encumber the path of achievement, that mists of doubt and uncertainty should drift across the face of the situation, obscuring its issues, only served in adrian's case to heighten interest and whet appetite. the last thing he asked was that the affair should move on fashionable, conventional lines, a matter for newspaper paragraphs and social gossip. the justifying charm of it, to his thinking, resided in precisely those elements of uncertainty and difficulty. if, in the twentieth century, a man is to subscribe to the constraints of marriage at all, let it at least be in some sort marriage by capture! and, as he told himself, what man worth the name, let alone what artist, what poet--vowed by his calling to confession of the transcendental, the eternally mystic and sacred in this apparently most primitive, even savage, of human relations--would choose to capture his exquisite prey amid the blatant materialism, the vulgar noise and chaffer of the modern social highway; rather than pursue it through the shifting lights and shadows of mysterious woodland places, the dread of its final escape always upon him, till his feet were weary with running, and his hands with dividing the thick, leafy branches, his ears, all the while, tormented by the baffling, piercing sweetness of the half-heard pipes of pan? not infrequently adrian would draw himself up short in the midst of such rhapsodizings, humorously conscious that the artistic side of his nature had got the bit, so to speak, very much between its teeth and was running away altogether too violently with its soberer, more practical, stable companion. for, as he frankly admitted, to the ordinary observer it must seem a rather ludicrously far cry from madame st. leger's pleasant, well-found flat, in the center of cosmopolitan twentieth-century paris, to the arcana of pagan myth and legend! yet, speaking quite soberly and truthfully, it was of such ancient, secret, and symbolic things he instinctively thought when looking into gabrielle st. leger's golden-brown eyes and noting the ironic loveliness of her smiling lips. that was just the delight, just the provocation, just what differentiated her from all other women of his acquaintance, from any other woman who, so far, had touched his heart or stirred his senses. her recondite beauty--to quote the phrase of this analytical lover--challenged his imagination with the excitement of something hidden; though whether hidden by intentional and delicate malice, or merely by lack of opportunity for self-declaration, he was at a loss to determine. daughter, wife, mother, widow--young though she still was, she had sounded the gamut of woman's most vital experiences. yet, it seemed to him, although she had fulfilled, and was fulfilling, the obligations incident to each of these several conditions in so gracious and irreproachable a manner, her soul had never been effectively snared in the meshes of any net. good catholic, good housewife, sympathetic hostess, intelligent and discriminating critic, still--he might be a fool for his pains, but what artist doesn't know better than to under-rate the fine uses of folly?--he believed her to be, either by fate or by choice, essentially a _belle au bois dormant_; and further believed himself, thanks to the workings of constitutional masculine vanity, to be the princely adventurer designed by providence for the far from disagreeable duty of waking her up. only just now providence, to put it roughly, appeared to have quite other fish for him to fry. and it was under compulsion of such prospective fish-frying that he sought her apartment overlooking the _quai malaquais_, this afternoon, reluctantly to bid her farewell. chapter ii wherein a very modern young man tells a time-honored tale with but small encouragement disappointment awaited him. madame st. leger was receiving; but, to his chagrin, another visitor had forestalled his advent--witness a woman's fur-lined wrap lying across the lid of the painted venetian chest in the corridor. adrian bestowed a glance of veritable hatred upon the garment. then, recognizing it, felt a little better. for it belonged to anastasia beauchamp, an old friend, not unsympathetic, as he believed, to his suit. sympathy, however, was hardly the note struck on his entrance. miss beauchamp and madame st. leger stood in the vacant rose-red carpeted space at the far end of the long room, in front of the open fire. both were silent; yet adrian was aware somehow they had only that moment ceased speaking, and that their conversation had been momentous in character. the high tension of it held them to the point of their permitting him to walk the whole length of the room before turning to acknowledge his presence. this was damping for adrian, who, like most agreeable young men, thought himself entitled to and well worth a welcome. but not a bit of it! the elder woman--high-shouldered, short-waisted, an admittedly liberal sixty, her arms disproportionate in their length and thinness to her low stature--continued to hold her hostess's right hand in both hers and look at her intently, as though enforcing some request or admonition. miss beauchamp, it may be noted in passing, affected a certain juvenility of apparel. to-day she wore a short purple serge walking-suit. a velvet toque of the same color, trimmed with sable and blush-roses, perched itself on her elaborately dressed hair, which, in obedience to the then prevailing fashion, showed not gray but a full coppery red. her eyebrows and eyelids were darkly penciled, and powder essayed to mask wrinkles and sallowness of complexion. yet the very frankness of these artifices tended to rob them of offense; or, in any serious degree--the first surprise of them over--to mar the genial promise of her quick blue-gray eyes and her thin, witty, strongly marked, rather masculine countenance. adrian usually accepted her superficial bedizenments without criticism, as just part of her excellent, if somewhat bizarre, personality. but to-day--his temper being slightly ruffled--under the cold, diffused light of the range of tall windows, they started, to his seeing, into quite unpardonable prominence--a prominence punctuated by the grace and the proudly youthful aspect of the woman beside her. madame st. leger was clothed in unrelieved black, from the frill, high about her long throat, to the hem of her trailing cling skirts. over her head she had thrown a black gauze scarf, soberly framing her heart-shaped face in fine semi-transparent folds, and obscuring the burnished lights in her brown hair, which stood away in soft, dense ridges on either side the parting and was gathered into a loose knot at the back of her head. her white skin was very clear, a faint scarlet tinge showing through it in the round of either cheek. but just now she was pale. and this, along with the framing black gauze scarf, developed the subtle likeness which--as adrian held--she bore, in the proportions of her face and molding of it, to leonardo's world-famous "mona lisa" in salon carré of the louvre. the strange recondite quality of her beauty, and the challenge it offered, were peculiarly in evidence; thereby making, as he reflected, cruel, though unconscious, havoc of the juvenile pretensions of poor anastasia. and this was painful to him. so that in wishing--as he incontestably did--the said anastasia absent, his wish may have been dictated almost as much by chivalry as by selfishness. all of which conflicting perceptions and emotions tended to rob him of his habitual and happy self-assurance. his voice took on quite plaintive tones, and his gay brown eyes a quite pathetic and orphaned expression, as he exclaimed: "ah! i see that i disturb you. i am in the way. my visit is inconvenient to you!" the faint tinge of scarlet leaped into madame st. leger's cheeks, and an engaging dimple indicated itself at the left corner of her closed and smiling mouth. meanwhile anastasia beauchamp broke forth impetuously: "no, no! on the contrary, it is i who am in the way, though our dear, exquisite friend is too amiable to tell me so. i have victimized her far too long already. i have bored her distractingly." "indeed, it is impossible you should ever bore me," the younger woman put in quietly. "then i have done worse. i have just a little bit angered you," miss beauchamp declared. "oh! i know i have been richly irritating, preaching antiquated doctrines of moderation in thought and conduct. but '_les vérités bêtes_' remain '_les vérités vraies_,' now as ever. with that i go. _ma toute chère et belle_, i leave you. and," she added, turning to adrian, "i leave you, you lucky young man, in possession. retrieve my failures! be as amusing as i have been intolerable.--but see, one moment, since the opportunity offers. tell me, you are going to accept those articles on the stage in the eighteenth century, by my poor little protégé, lewis byewater, for publication in the review?" "am i not always ready to attempt the impossible for your sake, dear mademoiselle?" adrian inquired gallantly. "hum--hum--is it as bad as that, then? are his articles so impossible? byewater has soaked himself in his subject. he has been tremendously conscientious. he has taken immense trouble over them." "he has taken immensely too much; that is just the worry. his conscience protrudes at every sentence. it prods, it positively impales you!" the speaker raised his neat black eyebrows and broad shoulders in delicate apology. "alas! he is pompous, pedantic, i grieve to report; he is heavy, very heavy, your little byewater. the eighteenth-century stage was many things which it had, no doubt, much better not have been, but was it heavy? assuredly not." "ah! poor child, he is young. he is nervous. he has not command of his style yet. you should be lenient. give him opportunity and encouragement, and he will find himself, will rise to the possibilities of his own talent. after all," she added, "every writer must begin some time and somewhere!" "but not necessarily in the pages of my review," adrian protested. "with every desire to be philanthropic, i dare not convert it into a _crèche_, a foundling hospital, for the maintenance of ponderous literary infants. my subscribers might, not unreasonably, object." "you floated rené dax." "but he is a genius," madame st. leger remarked quietly. "yes," adrian asserted, "there could be no doubt about his value from the first. he is extraordinary." "he is extraordinarily perverted," cried miss beauchamp. "i am much attached to m. rené dax." madame st. leger spoke deliberately; and a little silence followed, as when people listen, almost anxiously, to the sound of a pebble dropped into a well, trying to hear it touch bottom. miss beauchamp was the first to break it. she did so laughing. "in that case, _ma toute belle_, you also are perverse, though i trust not yet perverted. it amounts to this, then," she continued, pulling her long gloves up her thin arms: "i am to dispose of poor byewater, shatter his hopes, crush his ambitions, tell him, in short, that he won't do. just heaven, you who have arrived, how soon you become cruel!" she looked from the handsome black-bearded young man to the beautiful enigmatic young woman, and her witty, accentuated face bore a singular expression. "good-by, charming gabrielle," she said. "forgive me if i have been tedious, for truly i am devotedly fond of you. and good-by to you, mr. savage. yes! i go to dispose of the ill-fated byewater. but ah! ah! if you only knew all i have done this afternoon, or tried to do, to serve you!" whereupon adrian, smitten by sudden apprehension of deep and possibly dangerous issues, followed her to the door, crying eagerly: "wait, i implore you, dear mademoiselle. do not be too precipitate in disposing of byewater. i may have underrated the worth of his articles. i will re-read, i will reconsider. nothing presses. i have to leave paris for a week or two. let the matter rest till my return. i may find it possible, after all, to accept them." then, the door closed, he came back and stood on the vacant space of rose-red carpet in the pleasant glow of the fire. "she is a clever woman," he said, reflectively. "she has cornered me, and that is not quite fair--on the review. for they constitute a veritable atrocity of dullness, those articles by her miserable little byewater." "it is part of her code of friendship--it holds true all round. if she helps others--" madame st. leger left her sentence unfinished and, glancing with a hint of veiled mockery at her guest, sat down in a carven, high-backed, rose-cushioned chair at right angles to the fireplace, and picked up a bundle of white needlework from the little table beside it. "you mean that miss beauchamp does her best for me, too?" adrian inquired, tentatively. but the lady was too busy unfolding her work, finding needle and thimble to make answer. "i foresee that i shall be compelled to print the wretched little byewater in the end," he murmured, still tentatively. "did you not tell miss beauchamp you were going away?" gabrielle asked. she had no desire to continue the conversation on this particular note. "yes, i leave paris to-night. that is my excuse for asking to see you this afternoon. but i feel that my visit is ill-timed. i observed directly i came in that you looked a little fatigued. i fear you are suffering. ought you to undertake the exertion of receiving visitors? i doubt it. yet i should have been desolated had you refused me. for i leave, as i say, to-night in response to a sudden call to england upon business--that of certain members of my father's family. i am barely acquainted with them. but they claim my assistance, and i cannot refuse it. i could not do otherwise than tell you of this unexpected journey, could i? it distresses me to find you suffering." gabrielle had looked at him smiling, her lips closed, the little dimple again showing in her left cheek. his eagerness and volubility were diverting to her. they enabled her to think of him as still very young; and she quite earnestly wished thus to think of him. to do so made for security. at this period madame st. leger put a very high value upon security. "but, indeed," she said, "i am quite well. the corridor is chilly, and i have been going to and fro preparing a little _fête_ for bette. she has her friends, our neighbor madame bernard's two little girls, from the floor below, to spend the afternoon with her. my mother is now kindly guarding the small flock. but i could not burden her with preliminaries.--i am quite well, and, for the moment, i am quite at leisure. bring a chair. sit down. it is for me to condole with you rather than for you to condole with me," she went on, in her quiet voice, "for this is far from the moment one would select for a cross-channel journey! but then you are more english than french in all that. hereditary instincts assert themselves in you. you have the islander's inborn sense of being cramped by the modest proportions of his island, and craving to step off the edge of it into space." the young man placed his hat on the floor, opened the fronts of his overcoat, and drew a chair up to the near side of the low work-table whence he commanded an uninterrupted view of his hostess's charming person. "that is right," she said. "now tell me about this sudden journey. is it for long? when may we expect you back?" "what do i know?" he replied, spreading out his hands quickly. "it may be a matter of days. it may be a matter of weeks. i am ignorant of the amount of business entailed. the whole thing has come upon me as so complete a surprise. what induced my venerable cousin to select me as his executor remains inexplicable. i remember seeing him when, as a child, i visited england with my parents. i remember, also, that he filled me with alarm and melancholy. he lived in a big, solemn house on the outskirts of a great, noisy, dirty, manufacturing town in yorkshire. it was impressed upon me that i must behave in his presence with eminent circumspection, since he was very religious, very intellectual. i fear i was an impertinent little boy. he appeared to me to worship a most odious deity, who permitted no amusements, no holidays, no laughter; while his conversation--my cousin's, i mean, not that of the almighty--struck me as quite the dullest i had ever listened to. i cried, very loud and very often, to the consternation of the whole establishment, and demanded to be taken home to paris at once. i never saw him again until three years ago, when he spent a few days here, on a return journey from carlsbad. as in duty bound, i did what i could to render their stay agreeable to him and his companions." adrian's expression became at once apologetic and merry. "my efforts were not, as i supposed, crowned with at all flattering success. my venerable cousin still filled me with melancholy and alarm. in face of his immense seriousness i appeared to myself as some capering harlequin. therefore it is, as you will readily understand, with unqualified amazement that i learn he has intrusted the administration of his very considerable estate to my care. really, his faith in me constitutes a vastly embarrassing compliment. i wish to heaven he had formed a less exalted estimate of my probity and business acumen and looked elsewhere for an executor!" "he had no children, poor man?" madame st. leger inquired, sympathetically. "on the contrary, he leaves twin daughters. and it is in conjunction with the--briefly--elder of these two ladies that i am required to act." gabrielle moved slightly in her chair. her eyelids were half-closed. she looked at the young man sideways without turning her head. her resemblance to the mona lisa was startling just then; but it was mona lisa in a most mischievous humor. "in many ways you cannot fail to find that interesting," she said. "you are a professional psychologist, a student of character. and then, too, it is your nature to be untiring in kindness and helpfulness to women." "to women of flesh and blood, yes, possibly, if they are amiable enough to accept my services," adrian returned, somewhat warmly, a lover's resentment of any ascription of benevolence toward the sex, merely as such, all agog in him. "but are these ladies really of flesh and blood? they affected me, when i last saw them, rather as shadowy and harassed abstractions. i gazed at them in wonder. they are not old. but have they ever been young? i doubt it, with so aggressively ethical and educative a father. i was at a loss how to approach them; they were so silent, so restrained, so apparently bankrupt in the small change of social intercourse. if they did not add sensibly to my alarm they most unquestionably contributed to my melancholy--the humiliating, disintegrating melancholy of harlequin, capering in conscious fatuity before an audience morally and physically incapable of laughter. all this was bad enough when our connection was but superficial and transitory. it will be ten thousand times worse when we are forced into a position of unnatural intimacy." during this tirade, gabrielle had shaken out the thin folds of her needlework and begun setting quick stitches methodically. her hands were strong, square in the palm and the finger-tips, finely modeled, finely capable--more fitted, as it might seem, to hold maul-stick and palate, or even wield mallet and chisel, than to put rows of small, even, snippety stitches in a child's lawn frock. if the fifteenth century and the voluptuous humanism of the italian renaissance found subtle reflection in her face, the twentieth century and its awakening militant feminism found expression in her firm hands and their promise of fearless and ready strength. "i believe you do both yourself and those two ladies an injustice," she said, her head bent over her stitching. "it will not be the very least in the character of harlequin that they receive you, but rather in that of a savior, a liberator. for you will be delightful to them--ah! i see it all quite clearly--tactful, considerate, reassuring. that is your _rôle_, and you will play it to perfection. how can you do otherwise, since not only your sense of dramatic necessity but your goodness of heart will be engaged? and, take it from me, the enjoyment will not be exclusively on their side. for you will find it increasingly inspiring to act providence to those two shadowy old-young ladies as you see age vanish and youth return. i envy you. think what an admirable mission you are about to fulfil!" she glanced up suddenly, her eyes and the turn of her mouth conveying to unhappy adrian a distracting combination of friendliness--detestable sentiment, since it went no further!--and of raillery. then, her face positively brilliant with mischief, she gave him a final dig. "what a thousand pities, though, that there are two of these abstractions whom it is your office to materialize! had there been but one, how far simpler the problem of your position!" the young man literally bounded on to his feet, his expression eloquent of the liveliest repudiation and reproach. but madame st. leger's head was bent over her needlework again. she stitched, stitched, in the calmest manner imaginable, talking, meanwhile, in a quiet, even voice. "did i not tell you we are _en fête_? bette has her friends, the little bernards, to spend the afternoon with her. it is an excuse for keeping her indoors. the modern craze for sending children out in all weathers does not appeal to me. i do not believe in a system of hardening." "indeed?" adrian commented, with meaning. "for little girls?" she inquired. "oh no, decidedly not. for grown-up people, especially for men when they are young and in good health, it may, of course, have excellent results." "ah!" he said, resentfully. "they--the children, i mean--are busy in the dining-room making rather terrible culinary experiments with a new doll's cooking stove. shall we go and see how they are getting on? i ought, perhaps, to just take a look at them and assure myself they are not tiring my mother too much. and then they will be distressed, my mother and bette, if they do not have an opportunity to bid you good-by before your journey." for once adrian was guilty of ignoring his hostess's suggestions. he stood leaning one elbow upon the chimneypiece, and--above the powder-blue chinese jars and ivory godlings adorning it--scrutinizing his own image in the looking-glass. he had just suffered a sharp and, to his thinking, most uncalled-for rebuff. he smarted under it, unable for the moment to recover his equanimity. but, contemplating the image held by the mirror, his soul received a sensible measure of comfort. the smooth, opaque, colorless complexion; the pointed black beard, so close cut as in no degree to hide the forcible line of the jaw or distort the excellent proportions of the mask; the thick, well-trimmed mustache, standing upward from the lip and leaving the curved mouth free; the straight square-tipped nose, with its suggestion of pugnacity; let alone the last word of contemporary fashion in collar and tie and heavy box-cloth overcoat, the cut of which lent itself to the values of a tall, well-set-up figure--all these went to form a far from discouraging picture. yes! surely he was a good-looking fellow enough! one, moreover, with the promise of plenty of fight in him; daring, constitutionally obstinate, not in the least likely tamely to take "no" for an answer once his mind was made up. then, in thought, he made a rapid survey of the mental, social, moral, and financial qualifications of those who had formed the circle of poor horace st. leger's friends, and who, during the years of his marriage, had been permitted the _entrée_ of his house. a varied and remarkable company when one came to review it--savants, artists, politicians, men of letters, musicians, journalists, from octogenarian m. de cubières, member of the senate, member of the academy, and chevalier of the legion of honor, to that most disconcerting sport of wayward genius, vitriolic caricaturist and elegant minor poet, rené dax, whose immense domed head and neat little toy of a body had won him at school the nickname of _le tetard_--the tadpole--an appellation as descriptive as it was unflattering, and which--rather cruelly--had stuck to him ever since. adrian marshaled all these, examined their possible claims, and pronounced each, in turn, ineligible. some, thank heaven! were securely married already. others, though untrammeled by the bonds of holy matrimony, were trammeled by bonds in no wise holy, yet scarcely less prohibitive. some were too old, others too young or too poor. some, as, for example, rené dax, were altogether too eccentric. true, madame st. leger had just now declared herself warmly attached to him. but wasn't that the best proof of the absence of danger? a woman doesn't openly affirm her regard for a man unless that regard is of purely platonic and innocuous character. and then, after all--excellent thought!--was it not he, adrian savage, who had been admitted even during the tragic hours of poor horace's agony; who had watched by the corpse through a stifling summer night, a night too hot for sleep, restless with the continual sound of footsteps and voices, the smell of the asphalt and of the river? and, since then, was it not to him gabrielle and her mother, madame vernois, had repeatedly turned for advice in matters of business? fortified by which reflections, stimulated, though stung, by her teasing, defiant of all other possible and impossible lovers, the young man wheeled round and stood directly in front of gabrielle st. leger. "listen, _très chère madame et amie_, listen one little minute," he said, "i implore you. it is true that i go to-night, and for how long a time i am ignorant, to arrange the worldly affairs of my alarming old relative, montagu smyrthwaite, and, incidentally, to adjust those of his two dessicated daughters. but it is equally true--for i vehemently refuse such a solution of the problem of my relation to either of those ladies as your words seem to prefigure--i repeat, it is equally true that i shall return at the very earliest opportunity. and return in precisely the same attitude of mind as i go--namely, wholly convinced, wholly faithful, incapable of any attachment, indifferent to any sentiment save one." the corners of his mouth quivered and his gay brown eyes were misty with tears. "i do not permit myself to enlarge upon the nature of that sentiment to-day. to do so might seem intrusive, even wanting in delicacy. but i do permit myself--your own words have procured me the opportunity--both to declare its existence and to assert my profound assurance of its permanence. you may not smile upon it, dear madame. you may even regard it as an impertinence, a nuisance. yet it is there--there." adrian drummed with his closed fist upon the region of his heart. "it has been there for a longer period than i care to mention. and it declines to be eradicated. while life remains, it remains, unalterable. it is idle, absolutely idle, believe me, to invite it to lessen or to depart." madame st. leger had risen, too, laying her work down on the little table. her face was grave to the point of displeasure. the tinge of scarlet had died out in the round of her cheeks. she was about to speak, but the young man spread out his hands with an almost violent gesture. "no--no," he cried. "do not say anything. do not, i entreat, attempt to answer me. when i came here this afternoon i had no thought of making this avowal. it has been forced from me, and may well appear to you premature. therefore i entreat you for the moment ignore it. let everything between us remain as before. that is so easy, you see, since i am going away. only," he added, more lightly, "i think, if you will excuse me, i will not join that interesting conference of amateur chefs in the dining-room. my mind, i confess, at this moment is slightly preoccupied, and i might prove a but clumsy and distracted assistant. may i ask you, therefore, kindly to express to your mother, madame vernois, and to the ravishing mademoiselle bette my regret at being unable to make my farewells in person?" he picked up his hat, buttoned his overcoat, and, without attempting to take his hostess's hand, backed away from her. "with your permission i shall write at intervals during my unwilling exile," he said. "but merely to recount my adventures--nothing beyond my adventures, rest assured. these are likely to possess a certain piquancy, i imagine, and may serve to amuse you." something of his habitual happy self-confidence had returned to him. his air was high-spirited, courteous, instinct with the splendid optimism of his vigorous young manhood, as he paused, hat in hand, for a last word in the doorway. "_au revoir, très chère madame_," he cried. "i go to a land of penetrating fogs and a household of pensive abstractions, but i shall come back unaffected by either, since i carry a certain memory, a certain aspiration in my heart. _au revoir_. god keep you. ah! very surely, and with what a quite infinite gladness i shall come back!" chapter iii telling how renÉ dax cooked a savory omelette, and why gabrielle st. leger looked out of an open window at past midnight wrapped in a wadded silk dressing-gown, with frilled muslin cape and under-sleeves to it, gabrielle st. leger had made her nightly round. had seen that lights were switched off, fires safe, shutters bolted, and the maids duly retired to their bedchamber. had embraced her mother, and looked into details of night-light and spirit-lamp, lest the excessive cold should render some hot beverage advisable for the elder lady in the course of the night. had visited bette in the little room adjoining her own, and found the child snuggled down in her cot profoundly and deliciously asleep. then, being at last free of further obligation to house or household, she turned the key in the lock of her bedroom door and sat down to think. until the day's work, its courtesies as well as its duties, was fully done she had agreed with herself not to think. for even startling events and agitating experiences should, in her opinion, be dealt with methodically in their proper season and order, without fear and without haste. only so could you be both just and clear-sighted in respect of them. all of which---had she known it--went to prove a theory of adrian's--namely, that in her case, as in that of so many modern women between the ages of eighteen and, say, eight and twenty, the reasoning, the intellectual, rather than the sensuous and emotional elements are in the ascendant. and, indeed, gabrielle honestly regretted that which had to-day happened by the conversion of a valued friend into a declared lover. it was tiresome, really tiresome to a degree! nor was her vexation lessened by the fact that she could not excuse herself of blame. the catastrophe had been precipitated by her fatal habit of teasing. how constantly she resolved to be staid and serious in the presence of mankind! and then, all uninvited, a sprickety, mischievous humor would take her, making it irresistible delicately to poke fun at those large, self-confident, masculine creatures, to plague and trick them, placing them at a disadvantage; and, by so doing, to lower, for a moment at least, the crest of their over-weening self-complacency. only this afternoon, as she ruefully admitted, she had gone unwisely far, letting malice tread hard on the heels of mere mischief. this was what vexed her most. for why should malice find entrance in this particular connection? gabrielle would gladly have shirked the question. but it stood out in capital letters right in front of her, with a portly note of interrogation at the end of the sentence, asking, almost audibly, "why? why? why?" with a movement of her hands, at once impatient and deprecatory, the young woman lay back in her long chair. in part it was anastasia beauchamp's fault. anastasia had come rather close, venturing to criticize and to warn. anastasia was anti-feministe, distrustful of modern tendencies, of independence, of woman's life and outlook in and for itself. this genial unbeliever preached orthodoxy; this unmarried woman--with a legend, for there were those who reported events in the far past--preached matrimony. "in the end," she said, "in the end independence proved a mistake." and not improbably she was right in as far as her own generation was concerned. but now the world had moved forward a big piece. the conditions were different. and in this, gabrielle's generation, how, save by experiment, could you possibly prove that independence mightn't very much pay? whereupon her thought began to march down alluring avenues of speculation guarded by vague, masterful theories of feminine supremacy. the crimson shades of the electric lights above her dressing-table, the crimson silk coverlet of her bed, gave an effect of warmth and comfort to the otherwise cool-colored room, its carved, white furniture and blue-green carpet, curtains, and walls. formerly this had been a guest-chamber. but, since her husband's death, gabrielle had taken it for her own. her former room was too peopled with experiences and memories for solitude. and, like all strong and self-realized natures, gabrielle demanded solitude at times--a place not only for rest, but for those intimate unwitnessed battles which necessarily beset the strong. just now, however, the desired solitude was almost too complete. presently her attention began to be occupied by it to the exclusion of all other things. in the stillness of the sleeping house she heard the wind crying along the steep house-roofs and hissing against the windows. there was a note of homelessness, even of desolation, in the sound. involuntarily her thought returned upon adrian savage. she saw the mail steamer thrashing out from calais harbor into the black welter of blizzard and winter sea. saw, too, the young man's momentarily tremulous lips and tearful eyes as he declared his love. and the subsequent fine recovery of his natural gladness of aspect, as, standing hat in hand in the doorway, a notably gallant and handsome figure, he had asserted his speedy return rather than bade her good-by. for quite an appreciable space of time she gazed at this visualized recollection of him. then, shutting her eyes, she turned her back on it, and lay sideways in the long chair. she determined to be rid of it. almost fiercely she told it to go. for it was useless to deny that it both charmed and moved her. and she didn't want that and all which it involved and stood for. earnestly, honestly, she didn't want it!--ah! what misguided temerity to have teased! for she wanted--yes she did, anastasia beauchamp's middle-aged wisdom notwithstanding--to retain her but lately acquired freedom; not only the repose, but the stimulating clarity of mind and obligation, the conscious development of personality and broadening of thought which went along with that freedom. she had passed straight from the obedience of young girlhood to the obedience of young wifehood. now she wanted to belong wholly and exclusively to herself, not to be the property of any man, however devoted, talented, charming--not ever--not certainly for a long while yet. this craving for the conservation of her freedom took its rise neither in the fact that the memory of her husband was hateful to her, nor that it was so dear as to render the thought of a second marriage a desecration, shocking to the heart. she remembered horace st. leger with affection, in many respects with gratitude. he had been considerate, watchfully protective of her beauty and her youth. as the mother of his child he had yielded her a worship touched by an immense tenderness. he had been irreproachably loyal and indulgent. all this she admitted and valued. wasn't it, indeed, very much?--the circumstances of her marriage, moreover, had not been without their romantic aspect. madame vernois, after the death of her husband, who held a professorship at the collège de france, both from motives of economy and the wish to be near her own family, had retired to her native chambéry, in the _haute savoie_. it was in this strangely picturesque town, rich in remarkable buildings and in traditions both literary and historic, guarded by fantastic mountains and traversed by unruly torrents, that gabrielle vernois passed her childhood--mixing in a society both refined and devout though somewhat prejudiced and circumscribed of outlook, the members of it being more distinguished for the magnitude of their united ages and the multitude of their quarterings, than for the length of their purses or their acquaintance with the world as it now actually is. and it was here, too--she being barely nineteen, he little short of fifty--that horace st. leger had met her; had been captivated by her singular type of beauty and the delicious combination of her innocence and ready wit. he was something of a connoisseur in women. now he surely discovered a unique specimen! naturally he wished to acquire that specimen for himself. the years of his apprenticeship were over. he had made a name; had, within the limits of his capacity, evolved his style and mastered the exacting technique of his art. he was young for his age, too; well-preserved, in the plentitude of his popularity. he had made money and he had spent money, but he had never, to all appearance, been more secure of continuing to make. he could well afford to indulge his tastes, even when they took the expensive form of a serious establishment and a seductive wife. he hastened back to paris, put a final and satisfactory termination to a connection which had long lost its pristine ardors and begun to pall upon him, and then returned to chambéry, officially to offer this enchanting child of nineteen the sum total of his life's achievement in respect of fame, fortune, social opportunity, along with that suavity of temper and outlook which result from the successful cultivation of a facile talent untroubled by the torments and dislocations of genius. the young girl's dowry was of the slenderest. the marriage offered not only a secure and agreeable future for herself; but--and this influenced her decision at least equally--relief to her mother from straitened means and their attendant deprivations and anxieties. the subtle unrest, the haunting ambitions and curiosities of her awakening womanhood stirred in her, while the disparity of age between herself and her suitor seemed, to her inexperience, a matter of indifference. the marriage took place in due course, and ostensibly all went well. yet, looking back upon it now, sitting here alone in her bedchamber while the wind cried along the house-roofs and paris cowered in the grip of the bitter frost, gabrielle st. leger knew that she had learned life, the actualities both of human nature and civilized society, in a hard enough school. for indisputably the thirty years' difference in age between herself and her husband, which, before marriage, had seemed so negligible a quantity, entailed consequences that intruded themselves at every turn. st. leger's character and opinions were fixed, crystallized, insusceptible of change, while her own were still, if not in the actually fluid, yet in the distinctly malleable stage. this rendered any equality of intercourse impossible. her husband treated her as a child, whose ignorance one finds exquisitely entertaining, and enlightens with high, if indulgent, amusement--his attitude toward her quasi-paternal in its serene assumption of omniscience. yet, being quick-witted and observant, she soon perceived that assumption did not receive, by any means, universal indorsement. among the younger generation of the artistic and literary brotherhood it became evident to her that, though the man was held in affection, the painter was regarded as a bit of a charlatan, destitute of illumination and sincerity of method--as one who had never possessed the courage or the capacity to attempt any lifting the veil of isis and penetration of the mysteries it conceals. nor was she slow to learn, hearing the witty talk and covert allusions of the dinner-table and studio--although her guests made honest and honorable effort to restrain their tongues in her presence--that the rule of faith and morals which had been so earnestly enjoined upon her in her childhood was very much of a dead letter to the average man and woman of the world. the general scheme of existence was a far more complicated affair than she had been taught to suppose. the dividing line between the sheep and the goats was by no means always easy of recognition. delightful people did very shady, not to say very outrageous and abominable, things. she suffered moments of cruel perspicacity and consequent disgust, during which she was tempted to accuse even her dearly loved mother of having purposely misled and lied to her. for was it not idle to suppose that her husband differed from other men? or that his passion for her was unique, without predecessors? was it not very much more reasonable to see, in the perfection of tactful delicacy with which he treated her, proof positive of a large and varied emotional experience? then followed a further discovery. in this marriage she had looked confidently for a brilliant future. but, in plain truth, what future remained? st. leger had reached the zenith of his career. he was well on in middle life. the only possible future for him lay in the direction of decline and decay. she recognized that her mission, therefore, was not to share a brightening glory, but to maintain a fondly cherished illusion, to soften the asperities of his declension and mask the approach of age and lessening powers by the stimulus of her own radiant youth. one by one these revelations came upon her with the shock of detected and abiding deceptions. her pride suffered. her jealous respect for her own intelligence and personality was rudely shaken. but she kept her own counsel, making neither complaint nor outcry. silently, after a struggle which left its impress in the irony of her smiling eyes and lips, she faced each discovery in turn and reckoned with it. then she ranged herself, dismissing once and for all, as she believed, high-flown heroic conceptions of love between man and woman, accepting human nature and human relations as they actually are and forgiving--though it shrewdly taxed her longanimity--all those pious frauds which, from time immemorial, civilized parents and teachers have supposed it their duty to practise upon the children whom they at once adore and betray. it remained to her credit, however, that, even in the most searching hours of disillusionment, gabrielle did not lose her sense of justice or fail to discriminate, to the best of her ability, between that for which the society in which he moved and that for which her husband, personally, should be held responsible. so doing she admitted, and gladly, that any legitimate cause of quarrel with him was of the smallest. taking all the circumstances of the case into account, he had behaved well, even admirably, by her. the way of the world, its habits and standards, the constitution of human nature, rather than horace st. leger, was in fault. and it was precisely on that finding, as she told herself now, having reasoned it out sitting here alone in her bedchamber, that she deprecated any change of estate, the contraction of any fresh and intimate relation. if she had not known it might have been different--and there she paused a little wistfully, sorrowfully. but she did know, and therefore she could not consent to part with her freedom, with the repose of mind and the large liberty of thought and action her freedom permitted her. her body was her own. her soul, her emotions were her own. almost fiercely she protested they should remain so. hence it was useless, useless, that anastasia should warn, or that the image of adrian savage should solicit her, standing there handsome, devoted, and how maddeningly self-confident! she could not listen. she would not listen. no, no, simply she would not. having thus analyzed the position, summed up and delivered judgment upon it, clearly it was the part of common-sense to go to bed and to sleep. gabrielle stretched out her hand for the crystal and silver rosary lying, along with her missal and certain books of devotion, on a whatnot beside her chair. she fingered it, making an effort to concentrate and compose her thoughts. but they refused to be composed, darting hither and thither like a flight of startled birds. restlessness still possessed her, making recitation of the hallowed invocations which mark each separate bead trench perilously on profanity. she let the rosary drop and pressed her hands over her eyes. certain words, over and above the disturbing ones spoken by adrian savage, haunted her. for the agitations of the afternoon had not ended with his declaration and exit. a subsequent episode had contributed, in no small degree, to produce her existing state of perturbation. it had happened thus. a few minutes after adrian left her, going out on to the gallery, which runs the length of the flat from the vestibule and studio at one end to the dining-room and offices at the other, she had been struck by the strangely cold, haggard light filling it. the ceiling stared, while details of pictures and china upon the walls, the graceful statuette of a slim, unclad boy carrying a hooded hawk on his wrist, and, farther on, a portrait bust of horace st. leger--each set on an antique porphyry column--started into peculiar and shadowless prominence. the windows of the gallery gave on to the courtyard. gabrielle held aside one of the vitrine curtains and looked out. snow was falling. countless thin, fine flakes circled and eddied, drifted earthward, and swept up again caught in some local draught. through the lace work of black, quivering branches the backs of the houses across the courtyard showed pallid and gaunt. far below, on the frost-bitten grass-plat, the lichen-stained nymph tilted her ice-bound pitcher above the frozen basin. the familiar scene in its present aspect was indescribably dreary, provocative of doubting, distrustful thoughts. with a movement of impatience, her expression hard, her charming lips compressed, the young woman turned away, conscious of being foolishly, unreasonably out of conceit with most things. doing so, the bust of her husband confronted her, seeming to watch her from out the blank cavities in the eyeballs which so uncomfortably travesty sight. an expression of amused, slightly cynical inquiry rested upon the sculptured face. this, in her present somewhat irritable and over-sensitized condition, she resented, finding it singularly unpleasant. she moved rapidly away along the gallery. then stopped dead. from the dining-room came a joyful racket. but, to her astonishment, cutting through the rippling staccato of children's talk and laughter, came the grave tones of a man's voice. hearing which, steady of nerve and strong though she was, gabrielle turned faint. the blood left her heart. she made for the nearest window-seat and sank down on it.--horace was there, in the dining-room, playing with bette and her little friends as he so dearly loved to play. the fact of her widowhood, the past eighteen months of freedom, became as though they were not. in attitude and sentiment she found herself relegated to an earlier period, against which her whole nature rose in rebellion. she realized how quite horribly little she wanted to see horace again, or renew his and her former relation. realized her jealousy of him in respect of her child. realized, indeed, that, notwithstanding his many attractive qualities and invariable kindness, his resurrection must represent to her something trenching upon despair. yet it was cruel, she knew, heartless, to feel thus. she glanced in positive mental torment at the marble bust. it still watched her, through the haggard clarity of the snow-glare, with the same effect of cynically questioning criticism and amusement, almost, so she thought, as one should say: "my dear, be consoled. even had i the will, i am powerless to return and to claim you. follow your own fancy. make yourself perfectly easy. have no fear but that i am very effectually wiped out of your life." the blood rushed back to her heart. her face flamed. she felt humiliated, as though detected in a secret villainy, in an act of detestable meanness. it is an ugly thing to pillage the dead. but she was also very angry, for she understood what had happened. not horace--poor, undesired horace--but adrian savage was there in the dining-room. he had changed his mind after all; and, in the hope of somehow working upon her, had stayed to bid grandmother and grandchild good-by. this was a plot, a plant, and she was furious, her sense of justice suffering violent eclipse. for was it not abominable of him to have placed her in so unworthy and mortifying a position in respect of her dead husband, and, incidentally, to have given her such a dreadful fright? regardless of reason she piled his offenses mountain-high. however, this simplified matters in a way, disposing of a certain question forever. marry him? she'd as soon marry a ragpicker, a scavenger! she hoped devoutly he would have an atrocious crossing when he did at last seek foreign shores. thereupon she rose and swept onward, in the stateliest manner imaginable, with trailing, somber skirts, over the polished, shining floor. as she threw open the dining-room door a slender, white-frocked, black-silk-legged figure rushed upon her and clasped her about the hips with ecstatic cries. "ah! mamma," it piped. "at last you have come! i am so excited. we have waited and listened. but it was a secret. he forbade us to tell you he was here. it was to be a great surprise. now you may look, but you must promise not to interrupt with conversation. that is very important, you understand, because the next few moments are critical. m. dax is cooking an omelette in my tiny, weeny frying-pan for our dolls and teddy-bears." and so, once again upon this day of self-revelations, madame st. leger had to revise her position and own herself in the wrong. yet the relief of finding neither resuscitated husband nor importunate lover, but simply m. rené dax, in possession was so great that she greeted that eccentric and gifted young man with warm cordiality--wholly ignoring his affectations and the rumors current regarding his moral aberrations, remembering only the irreproachable correctness of his dress and manners, and the quaintly pathetic effect of his small, tired face, great domed head and bulging forehead--like those of a hydrocephalic baby--and the ingeniously fascinating qualities he displayed as self-elected playfellow of bette and her little friends. yes, she told herself, she really had a great regard for rené dax. he touched her. and now she, undoubtedly, passed a wholly delightful three-quarters of an hour in his and the little girls' company, madame vernois looking on, meanwhile, sympathetic yet slightly perplexed. for gabrielle, in her reaction of feeling, forgetful of her black dress and twenty-seven years, and the rather tedious restraints and dignities of her matronhood, was taken with the sprightliest humor. she remembered that three-quarters of an hour now with a degree of regret. if only it could have stopped at that! but, unfortunately, things went further. for, at parting, she had lingered in the gallery, where the haggard whiteness of the snow-glare struggled with the deepening twilight, thanking rené dax for his kindness to the children and for the happy afternoon he had given them. the sense of holiday, of playtime, was still upon her and she spoke with unaccustomed gaiety and intimacy of tone. the young man looked up at her attentively, queerly--the top of his head barely level with her shoulder--and answered, a certain harshness observable in his carefully modulated voice: "do not spoil it all by accusing me of a good action. in accusing me of that you do my intelligence a gross injustice. my conduct has been dictated, as always, by calculated selfishness." and, when she smilingly protested, he went on: "i have many faults, no doubt. but i am guiltless of the weakness of altruism--contemptible word, under which the modern mind tries to conceal its cowardice and absence of all sound philosophy. i am an egoist, dear madame, believe me, an egoist pure and simple." he paused, looking down with an effect of the utmost gravity at his very small and exquisitely shod feet. "it happened, for reasons with which it is superfluous to trouble you, that to-day i required a change of atmosphere. i needed to bathe myself in innocence. i cast about for the easiest method of performing such ablutions, and my thought traveled to mademoiselle bette. the weather being odious, it was probable i should find her in the house. my plan succeeded to admiration. have no delusions under that head. it is invariably the altruist, not the egoist, whose plans miscarry or are foiled!" he took a long breath, stretching his puny person. "i am better. i am cleansed," he said. "for the moment at least i am restored, renewed. and for this restoration the reason is at once simple and profound. you must understand," he went on, in a soft conversational manner, as one stating the most obvious common-place, "my soul when it first entered my body was already old, immeasurably old. it had traversed countless cycles of human history. it had heard things no man may repeat and live. it had fed on gilded and splendid corruptions. it had embraced the forbidden and hugged nameless abominations to its heart. it had gazed on the naked face of the ultimate self-existent terror whose breath drives the ever-turning wheel of being. it had galloped back, appalled, through the blank, shouting nothingness, and clothed itself in the flesh of an unborn, unquickened infant, thus for a brief space obtaining unconsciousness and repose." rené dax looked up at her again, his little, tired face very solemn, his eyes glowing as though a red lamp burned behind them. "has it ever occurred to you why we worship our mothers?" he asked. "it is not because they bring us into life, but because for nine sacred months they procure us blessed illusion of non-living. how can we ever thank them sufficiently for this? and that," he added, "is why at times, as to-day, i am driven to seek the society of young children. it rests and refreshes me to be near them, because they have still gone but a few steps along the horrible, perpetually retrodden pathway. they have not begun to recognize the landmarks. they have not yet begun to remember. they fancy they are here for the first time. past and future are alike unrealized by them. the aroma of the enchanted narcotic of non-living, which still exhales from their speech and laughter, renders their neighborhood infinitely soothing to a soul like mine, staggering beneath the paralyzing burden of a knowledge of accumulated lives." whether the young man had spoken sincerely, giving voice to a creed he actually, however mistakenly, held, or whether his utterances were merely a pose, the outcome of a perverse and morbid effort at singularity, madame st. leger was uncertain. still it was undeniable that those utterances--whether honest or not--and the somber visions evoked by them remained, distressing and perplexing her with a dreary horror of non-progression, of perpetual and futile spinning in a vicious circle, of perpetual and futile actual sameness throughout perpetual apparent change. so far all the essentials of the faith in which she had been born and educated remained to her. yet, too often now, as she sorrowfully admitted, her declaration of that faith found expression in the disciple's cry, "lord, i believe; help thou my unbelief." for unbelief, reasoned not merely scoffing, had, during these years of intercourse with the literary and artistic world of paris, become by no means inconceivable to her. more than half the people she met smiled at, if they might not openly repudiate, christianity. it followed that she no longer figured the faith to herself as a "fair land and large" wherein she could dwell in happy security, but rather as a fortress set on an island of somewhat friable rock, against which winds and waves beat remorselessly. and truly, at moments--cruel moments, which she dreaded--the onslaught of modern ideas, of the modern attitude in its contempt of tradition and defiance of authority--flinging back questions long since judged and conclusions long established into the seething pot of individual speculation--seemed to threaten final undermining of that rock and consequent toppling of the fortress of faith surmounting it into the waters of a laughing, envious, all-swallowing sea. this troubled her the more because certain modern ideas--notably that of emancipated and self-sustained womanhood--appealed to and attracted her. was there no middle way? was no marriage between the old faith and the new science, the new democracy, possible? if you accepted the latter, did negations and denials logically follow, compelling you to let the former go? and so it came about that to-night, she alone waking in the sleeping house, the gloomy pictures called up by rené dax's strange talk held her painfully. they stood between her and sleep, between her and prayer, heightening her restlessness and suggesting thoughts very subversive of christian theology and christian ethics. gabrielle rose from her chair and moved to and fro, her hands clasped behind her. she never remembered to have felt like this before. the room seemed too narrow, too neat, its appointments too finicking and orderly, to contain her erratic and overflowing mental activity. the abiding mystery which not only surrounds each individual life, but permeates each individual nature, the impassable gulf which divides even the nearest and most unselfishly loved--even she herself and her own darling little bette--from one another, presented itself oppressive and distressing as a nightmare. just now it appeared to her inconceivable that to-morrow she would rise just as usual, satisfied to accept conventions, subscribe to compromises, take things in general at their face value, while contentedly expending her energies of brain and body upon trivialities of clothes, housekeeping, gossip, the thousand and one ephemeral interests and occupations of a sheltered, highly civilized woman's daily existence. the inadequacy, the amazing futility of it all! then, half afraid of the great stillness, she stood perfectly quiet, listening to the desolate cry of the wind along the house-roofs and its hissing against the window-panes. "'my soul has gazed on the ultimate self-existent terror whose breath drives the ever-turning wheel of being,'" she murmured as she listened. "'it galloped back, appalled, through the blank, shouting nothingness'"-- yes, that was dreadful conception of human fate! but what if it were true? millions believed it, or something very closely akin to it, away in the east, in those frightening lands of yellow sunrise and yellow, expressionless peoples of whom it always alarmed her to think! swiftly her mind made a return upon the three men, living and dead, who to-day had so deeply affected her, breaking up her practised calm and self-restraint. she ranged them side by side, and, in her present state of exaltation, they severally and equally--though for very different reasons--appeared to her as enemies against whom she was called upon to fight. seemed to her as tyrants, either of whom to sustain his own insolent, masculine supremacy schemed to enslave her, to rob her of her intellectual and physical freedom, of her so jealously cherished ownership of herself. "'it galloped back through the blank, shouting nothingness,'" she repeated. but there came the sharpest sting of the situation. for to what covert? where could her soul take sanctuary since friendship and marriage proved so full of pitfalls, and her fortress of faith was just now, as she feared, shaken to the base? then, the homeless cry of the wind finding echo in her homelessness of spirit, a sort of anger upon her, blind anger against things as they are, she moved over to the window, drew back the curtains and opened the locked casements. the cold clutched her by the throat, making her gasp for breath, making her flesh sting and ache. yet the apprehension of a presence, steadying and fortifying in its great simplicity of strength, compelled her to remain. she knelt upon the window-seat and leaned out between the inward opening casements, planting her elbows on the window-ledge and covering her mouth with her hands to protect her lips from the blistering chill. outside was the wonder of an unknown paris, a vacant, frozen, voiceless paris, wrapped in a winding-sheet of newly fallen snow. under the lamps, along the quay immediately below, that winding-sheet glittered in myriad diamond points, a uniform surface as yet unbroken by wheel tracks or footprints--misery, pleasure, business, alike in hiding from the bitter frost. elsewhere it spread in a heavy, muffling bleachedness, from the bosom of which walls, buildings, bridges reared themselves strangely unsubstantial, every ledge and projection enameled in white. beneath the _pont des arts_ on the right and the _pont des saints pères_ on the left--each very distinct with glistening roadway and double row of lamps--the river ran black as ink. the trees bordering the quays were black, a spidery black, in their agitated, wind-tormented bareness. and the sky was black, too, impenetrable, starless, low and flat, engulfing the many domes, monuments, and towers of paris, engulfing even the roofs and pavilions of the louvre along the opposite bank of the seine, inclosing and curiously isolating the scene. this effect of an earth so much paler and, for the most part, so much less solid than the sky above it, this effect of buildings rising from that pallor to lose themselves in duskiness, was unnatural and disquieting in a high degree. the sentiment of this desert, voiceless paris was more disquieting still. for gabrielle retained something of the provincial's persistent distrust of the siren personality of _la ville lumière_. the wonderful and brilliant city had enthralled her imagination, but had never quite conquered her affections. now, leaning out of the high-set window, she gazed as far as sight carried, east, west, and north, while a vague, deep-seated excitement possessed her. it was as though she touched the verge of some extraordinary revelation, some tremendous crisis of the cosmic drama. had universal paralysis seized the heart of things, she asked herself, of which this desert, voiceless paris was the symbol? had the ever-turning wheel of being ceased to turn, struck into immobility, as the world-famous city appeared to be, by some miracle of incalculable frost? the cry of the wind answered. so the wind, at least, was alive and awake yet, as were the black seaward-flowing waters of the river. then suddenly, unexpectedly, along with that homeless cry of the wind hailing from she knew not what immense desolation of polar spaces, came a small, plaintive, human cry close at hand. hearing which last the young woman sprang down from her kneeling place, locked the gaping casements together, and ran lightly and swiftly into the adjoining room. there in the warm dimness, her hands outstretched grasping the rail of her cot on either side, slim little bette sat woefully straight up on end. "mamma, mamma," she wailed, "come and hold me tight, very tight! i have had a bad dream. i am frightened. m. rené dax touched all my toys, all my darling, tiny saucepans and kettles, all my dolls and teddy-bears with his little walking-cane. and it was terrifying. they all came alive and chased me. hold me tight. i am so frightened. they rushed along. they chased me and chased me. they panted. their mouths were open. i could see their red tongues. and they yelped as the little pet dogs do in the public gardens when they try to catch the sparrows. i called and called to you, but you were not there. you did not come. i tried very hard to run away, but my feet stuck to the floor. they were so very heavy i could not lift them. it is not true? tell me it is not true. he cannot touch all my toys with his little cane and make them come alive? i think i shall be afraid ever to play with them any more. they were so dreadfully unkind. tell me it is not true!" "no, no, my angel," gabrielle declared, soothingly. "it is not true, not in the very least true. it is only a silly dream. all the poor toys are quite good. you will find them obedient and loving, asking ever so prettily to be played with again to-morrow morning." she took the slender, soft, warm body up in her arms--it was sweet with the flower-like sweetness of perfect cleanliness and health--and held it close against her. and for the moment perplexities, far-reaching speculations and questionings were obliterated in a passion of tenderness for this innocent life, this innocent body, which was the fruit of her own life and her own body. all else fell away from her, leaving her motherhood triumphant and supreme. the child, making good the opportunity, began to wheedle and coax. "i think it is really very cold in my bed," she said. "i am sure it would be far warmer in yours. and i may dream m. dax came back and touched my toys with his little walking-cane and made them naughty if i remain here by myself. do not you think it would be rather dangerous to leave me here alone? i might wake grandmamma if i were to be terrified again and to scream. i like your big bed so very much best." the consequence of all of which was that gabrielle st. leger said her rosary that night fingering the beads with one hand while the other clasped the sleeping child, whose pretty head lay on her bosom. her mind grew calm. the fortress of faith stood firm again, as she thankfully believed, upon its foundation of rock. she recovered her justness of attitude toward departed husband and absent lover. but she determined to reduce her intercourse with m. rené dax to a minimum, since the tricks he played with his little walking-cane seemed liable to be of so revolutionary and disintegrating a character. chapter iv climbing the ladder the snow had been cleared away from the drive and carriage sweep, but still lay in thick billowy masses upon the branches of the fir and pine trees and upon the banks of laurel and rhododendron below. at sunset the sky had cleared somewhat, and a scarlet glow touched the under side of the vast perspective of pale, folded cloud, and blazed on the upper south westward-facing windows of the tower house as with a dazzle of fierce flame. joseph challoner, however, was unaware of these rather superb impressionist effects as, with his heavy, lunging step, he came out of the house on to the drive. the drawing-room had been hot, and he had gone through a somewhat emotional interview. a man at once hard and sentimental, just now sentiment was, so to speak, on the top. his upright face and head were decidedly flushed. he felt warm. he also felt excited, perceiving perspectives quite other than those presented by the folded clouds and the afterglow. usually joseph challoner affected a country-gentleman style of dress--tweeds of british manufacture, noted for their wear and wet-resisting qualities, symbolic of those sturdy, manly, no-nonsense sort of virtues, of which he reckoned himself so conspicuous an exponent, and which have, as we all know, gone to make england what she is. but to-day out of respect for his late client, montagu smyrthwaite, he had put on garments of ceremony, black braid-edged coat and waistcoat, pepper-and-salt-mixture overcoat with black-velvet collar, striped dove-gray and black trousers--which had served at a recent local wedding--and top hat. this costume tended to make an awkwardness of gait and action which belonged to him the more observable. over six feet in height, he was commonly described by his admirers--mostly women--as "a splendid-looking man." others, doubtless envious of his success with the fair sex and of his inches, compared him, with his straight, thick, up-and-down figure, as broad across the loins as at the shoulders, his large paw-like hands and feet and flattened, slightly mongolian caste of countenance, to a colossal infant. his opinion of his own appearance, concerning which he was in a chronic state of anxiety, fluctuated between these two extremes, with hopeful leanings toward the former. at the present moment, for private reasons, he hoped fervently that he was "a splendid-looking man." that he was a moist and hot one was undeniable. he took off his hat and passed his hand over his straight, shiny, reddish hair--carefully brushed across impending calvities--and sucked the ends of his rather ragged mustache nervously into the corners of his mouth. he was touched, very much touched. he had not felt so upset for years. he admired his own sensibility. yes, most distinctly he trusted that he was "a splendid-looking man"--and that she so regarded him. then, coming along the drive toward him, between the snow-patched banks of evergreen, he caught sight of the short, well-bred, well-dressed, busy, not to say fussy, little figure of that cherished institution of the best stourmouth society, colonel rentoul haig. this diverted his thoughts into another channel, or, to be perfectly accurate, set a second stream running alongside the first. both, it may be added, tended in the direction of personal self-aggrandizement. "good-day to you, challoner. glad to meet you," colonel haig said, a hint of patronage in his tone. "i heard the sad news from woodward at the club at luncheon-time, and i took the tram up as far as the county gates as soon as i could get away. we had a committee meeting at two-thirty. i felt it would be only proper to come and inquire." "yes," the other answered, in a suitably black-edged manner, "our poor friend passed away early this morning. i was sent for immediately." having a keen sense of the value of phrases, colonel haig pricked up his ears, so to speak. his attitude of mind was far from democratic, and "our poor friend" from a local solicitor struck him as a trifle familiar. he looked up sharply at the speaker. he felt very much tempted to teach the man his place. but there was such a lot he wanted to hear which only this man could tell him. and so, the inquisitive nose and puckered, gossipy mouth getting the better of the commanding military eye, he decided to postpone the snubbing of challoner to a more convenient season. "i came round this afternoon chiefly to see miss margaret," the latter continued. "she was terribly distressed and felt unequal to seeing me this morning. she is very sensitive, very sensitive and feminine. her father's death came as a great shock to her. and then owing to some mistake or neglect she was not present at the last. as she told me, she feels that very much indeed." the speaker's voice took a severe tone. he shifted his weight from one massive foot to the other, rather after the manner of a dancing bear. "her grief was painful to witness. and i think you'll agree with me, colonel, it was just one of the neglects which ought not to have occurred." "a pity, a pity!" the other admitted. "but on such occasions people will lose their heads. it's unavoidable. look here, challoner, i must go on and leave cards. but i sha'n't be more than five minutes. i shall not ask to see either of the ladies to-day. so if you'll wait i'll walk as far as the county gates with you, supposing you're going in my direction." the mongolian caste of countenance is conveniently non-committal, lending itself to no compromising play of expression. challoner was more than willing to wait. he had certain things to say, a favor, indeed, to ask. and it always looked well, moreover--conferred a sort of patent of social solvency upon you--to be seen in public with colonel haig. he wished the weather had been less inclement so that more people might be about! but he betrayed no eagerness. took out his watch, even, and noted the hour before answering. "yes, i think i may allow myself the pleasure," he said. "i have been too much engaged here to get down to my office to-day, and there will be a mass of business waiting for me at home--no taking it easy in my profession if you're to do your duty by your clients--but, yes, i shall be happy to wait for you." then, left alone in the still, clear cold, he became absorbed in thought again. when joseph challoner, the elder, settled at stourmouth in the early sixties of the last century, that famous health-resort had consisted of a single street of small shops, stationed along a level space about half a mile up the fir and pine clad valley from the sea, plus some dozen unattractive lodging-houses perched on the top of the west cliff. the beginnings of business had been meager. now stourmouth and the outlying residential districts to which it acts as center--among them the great stretch of pine-land known as the baughurst park estate--covers the whole thirteen miles, in an almost unbroken series of shops, boarding-houses, hotels, villas, and places of amusement, from the ancient abbey-town of marychurch at the junction of the rivers wilmer and arn, on the east, to barryport, the old sea-faring town, formerly of somewhat sinister reputation, set beside a wide, shallow, island-dotted, land-locked harbor to the west. along with the development of stourmouth the elder challoner's fortunes developed. so that when, as an old man, he died in the last of the eighties, his son, the younger joseph, succeeded to a by no means contemptible patrimony. as business increased other members came into the firm, which now figured as that of challoner, greatrex & pewsey. but, and that not in virtue of his senior partnership alone, joseph challoner's interest remained the largely predominant one. he was indefatigable, quick to spot a good thing, and, so some said, more clever than scrupulous in his pursuit of it. he came to possess the reputation of a man who it is safer to have for your friend than your enemy. so much for the hard side of his character. as to the sentimental side. when a youth of twenty he had fallen head over ears in love with the daughter of a local retail chemist, a pretty, delicate girl, with the marks of phthisis already upon her. she brought him a few hundred pounds. they married. and he was quite a good husband to her--as english husbands go. still this marriage had been, he came to see, a mistake. the money, after all, was but a modest sum, while her ill-health proved decidedly costly. and then he had grown to know more of the world, grown harder and stronger, grown to perceive among other things that connection with a shop is a handicap. the smell of it sticks. there's no ridding yourself of it. joseph challoner may be acquitted of being more addicted to peerage or money worship, to being a greater snob, in short, than the average self-respecting anglo-saxon; yet it would be idle to deny that when an all-wise and merciful providence permitted his poor, pretty young wife--after several unsuccessful attempts at the production of infant challoners--to die of consumption, her husband felt there were compensations. he recognized her death as a call, socially speaking, to come up higher. he set himself to obey that call, but he did not hurry. for close upon thirteen years now, though of an amorous and domestic disposition, he had remained a widower. and this of set purpose, for he proposed that the last whiff of the shop should have time to evaporate. by the period immediately in question he had reason to believe it really had done so. privately he expended a considerable sum in procuring his father-in-law a promising business near london. stourmouth knew that retail chemist no more. and so it followed that the dead wife's compromising origin was, practically, forgotten; only admiration of the constancy of the bereaved husband remained. to complete the divorce between past and present, challoner, some few years previously, had let the "upper part" over the firm's offices, at the corner where the old marychurch road opens upon the public gardens and the square in the center of stourmouth, to his junior partner, mr. pewsey, and removed to heatherleigh, a fair-sized villa on the baughurst park estate, which he bought at bargain price owing to the insolvency of its owner. here, with a married couple at the head of his household, as butler and cook-housekeeper, he lived in solid british comfort--so-called--giving tea and tennis parties at intervals during the summer months, and somewhat heavy dinners during the winter ones, followed by bridge and billiards. granted the man and his natural tendencies, it was impossible that the thirteen years which had elapsed since the death of his wife should have been altogether free from sentimental complications. these had, in point of fact, been numerous. upon several of them he could not look back with self-congratulation. still the main thing was that he had escaped, always managing to sheer off in time to avoid being "had," being run down and legally appropriated. the retreat may not have been graceful, might not, to a scrupulous conscience, even figure as strictly honorable, but it had been accomplished. and for that--standing here, now, to-day, on the snow-powdered carriage sweep of the tower house--with a movement of unsuspected cynicism and profanity he gave thanks, sober, heartfelt, deliberate thanks to god his maker. for his chance had come, the chance of a lifetime! he turned fiercely, grimly angry at the bare notion that any turn of events might have rendered him not free to embrace it. and his anger, as anger will, fixed itself vindictively upon a concrete object, upon a particular person. but, at this point, his meditations were broken in upon by the sound of colonel haig's slightly patronizing speech and the ring of his brisk returning footsteps over the hard gravel. "very obliging of you to wait for me, challoner," he said. "there are several things which i should be glad to hear, in confidence, about all this matter. since their father's death i feel a certain responsibility toward the miss smyrthwaites. they have only acquaintances here in the south of england--no old friends, no relatives. i really stand nearest to them, though we are but distantly connected." "i was not aware of even a distant connection," challoner returned. "probably not. i suppose hardly any one here is aware of it. in a watering-place like stourmouth, a place that has come up like a mushroom in a night, as you may say, only a very small and exclusive circle do know who is who. that is one of the things one has to put up with, though i confess i find it annoying at times. well, you see, my grandmother and poor smyrthwaite's mother were first cousins once removed--both savages, the yorkshire, not the irish, branch of the family. i have reason to believe there was a good deal of opposition to mrs. smyrthwaite's marriage. she was not a roman catholic, like most of her people. but they all were--and all are, i am thankful to say--people of very solid standing, landed gentry, soldiers, and so on. naturally they objected to a marriage with a manufacturer and a non-conformist. i am quite prepared to admit unitarians have more breeding than most dissenters, but still it isn't pleasant, it isn't quite the thing, you know. prejudice? perhaps. but gentle-people are naturally prejudiced in favor of their own class. and, upon my word, i am inclined to believe it is very happy for the community at large they should be so." the two men reached the gate opening from the grounds of the tower house on to the public road--a broad, straight avenue, the foot-paths on either side divided from the carriage-way by a double line of scotch firs rising from an undergrowth of rhododendron and laurel. at intervals the roofs, gables, and turrets of other jealously secluded villas--in widely differing styles and no-styles of architecture--were visible. but these struck the eye as accidental. the somber, far-stretching fir and pine woods were that which held the attention. they, and the great quiet of them; in which the cracking of a branch over-weighted with snow, the distant barking of a dog, or the twittering of a company of blue-tits foraging from tree-stem to tree-stem where the red scaling bark gave promise of insect provender, amounted to an arresting event. after a moment of just perceptible hesitation joseph challoner pushed open the heavy gate for the elder man and let him pass out first. several points in colonel haig's discourse pleased him exceedingly little, but, in dealing with men as with affairs, he never permitted minor issues to obscure his judgment regarding major ones. if the old lad chose to be a bit impertinent and showy, never mind. let him amuse himself that way if he wanted to. challoner had a use for him just now, and could be patient till he had used him--used him right up, in fine, and no longer had any use left for him. it followed that as, side by side, the two turned north-eastward up the avenue he answered in a noticeably conciliatory tone: "i really am indebted to you, colonel, for telling me this. i own my position looked awkward in some respects. i foresaw i might want to consult some one, unofficially, you understand, about the miss smyrthwaites' affairs; and, as you truly say, they've nothing beyond acquaintances here. i recognized there really wasn't a soul to whom i should feel at liberty to speak. but now that i know of your connection with and the interest you take in the family, i feel i have some one to turn to if i should need advice. it is a great relief." colonel haig's self-importance was agreeably tickled. "i am very happy to have the opportunity of being of service to you, challoner," he said, graciously, "particularly in connection with my cousin's affairs." then he became eminently businesslike. "the disposition of the property is intricate?" he asked. "no, not exactly. the provisions of the will--i drew it--are simple enough--in a way. but there is such a large amount of property to deal with." "yes, yes, smyrthwaite was very close, of course, very reticent. still i have always supposed there was a good deal of money. now, what about is the amount, approximately, i mean--if you are free to tell me?" "under the circumstances i see no reason why i should not tell you--in strict confidence, of course." "that is understood, my dear challoner. whatever you may feel it advisable, in the interests of these ladies, to say to me goes no farther, absolutely no farther." this from one whose face was irradiated with the joy of prospective gossipings struck his hearer as a trifle simple-minded. never mind. the said hearer had the game well in hand. "i take that for granted, colonel," he answered. "professional instinct made me allude to it. one gets so much into the habit of insisting on silence regarding confidential communications that one insists when, as in the present case, there's not the slightest necessity for doing so. a form of words--nothing more. with you i know i'm safe. well, the estate stands at about two hundred thousand, rather more than less, with a considerable yearly income from the mills at leeds in addition." haig stopped short. he went very red in the face. "yes, it makes a very tidy heiress of each of the ladies," challoner said, parenthetically. "it all goes to them?" "practically all of it." "i doubt if women should be left so much money," colonel haig exclaimed, explosively. remembrance of his own eight or nine hundred a year disgusted him. what a miserable pittance! he moved forward again, still red from mingled surprise and disgust, his neat, frizzly, gray mustache positively bristling. "yes, i doubt, i very much doubt," he repeated, "whether it is doing any woman a kindness, an unmarried woman, in particular, to leave her so much money. it opens the door to all sorts of risks. women have no idea of money. it's not in them. the position of an heiress is a most unfortunate one, in my opinion. it places her at the mercy of every description of rascally, unscrupulous fortune hunter." "you're perfectly right, colonel--i agree," challoner said. "it does." his face was unmoved, but his voice shook, gurgling in his throat like that of a man on the edge of a boisterous horse-laugh. for a few steps the two walked in silence, then he added: "and that is why i am so relieved at having you to turn to, colonel. unscrupulous fortune hunters are just the sort of dirty gentry we shall have to protect the two ladies against." "you may be sure of me, challoner," colonel haig said, with much seriousness. "we must work together." "yes, we must work together, colonel--in a good cause--that's it." and again his voice shook. "are you executor?" the other inquired, after a pause. "no, and, between ourselves, i am glad of it. i shall be able to safeguard the miss smyrthwaites' interests better since i am not dealing directly with the property. miss joanna and a distant relative are the executors. i think the second appointment a bad one, and ventured to say as much to mr. smyrthwaite when i drew this new will for him about two years ago." "a new will?" "yes; a name occurred in the earlier one which he wished to have cut out." the speaker paused, and the other man rose, metaphorically speaking, as a fish at a neatly cast fly. "ah! his son's, i suppose. poor bibby's--william, i mean, william smyrthwaite. everybody knew him as bibby." "yes," challoner said, "his son, william smyrthwaite. of course i am aware something went wrong there, but, to tell you the truth, colonel, i have never got fairly at the story." "well you may take it from me the story is a disgraceful one. i am a man of the world, challoner, and not squeamish. i can make excuses, but, you may take it from me, young smyrthwaite was a hopelessly bad lot. a low, vicious, ill-conditioned young fellow--degenerate, that is the only word, i am sorry to say. he was several years younger than his sisters. i heard all about it at the time through friends. there were nasty rumors about him at rugby, and he was expelled--quite properly. his father put him into the business. then things happened at leeds--gambling, chorus girls, drink. i need not go into particulars. there was some question, too, of embezzlement, and young smyrthwaite had to disappear. it was a terrible blow to his father. he decided to leave leeds. he came south, bought the tower house and settled here. i think he was quite right. the position was a very humiliating one, especially for his wife and daughters." joseph challoner listened carefully. "and what became of the boy?" "oh, dead--fortunately for everybody concerned, dead." "dead? very fortunate. but a proven case of death or only an accepted one?" "oh, proven, i take it. yes, unquestionably proven. i never heard there was the slightest doubt about that." "what a chattering fool the old bird is!" challoner said to himself irreverently, adding, aloud: "apparently, then, we may leave master bibby out of our count. that's a good thing, anyhow. i am extremely obliged to you for giving me such a clear account of the whole matter, colonel. it explains a great deal. really i can't be sufficiently glad that i happened to run across you this afternoon. i may call it providential. but now to go back to another young gentleman, miss joanna's coexecutor, who is not in the very least dead." "yes?" haig inquired, with avidity. "speak without reserve, challoner. ask me anything you are in any difficulty about." "i don't want to abuse your good nature. and i don't forget you have seen a lot more of the world than i have. your point of view may be different. i shall be only too glad if you can reassure me. for i tell you, colonel, it makes me uneasy. england's good enough for me, england and englishmen. i may be narrow-minded and insular, but i can do without the foreigner." "yes, and i'm not sure you are not right in that," the other said, rising at another clever cast. "yes?" "i am glad you agree. well, this coexecutor whom we have to look after is, to all intents and purposes, a foreigner, that is to say, born abroad--a parisian and a journalist. ah, exactly! i am not sorry to see it strikes you as it did me, colonel, when poor mr. smyrthwaite first broached the subject. doesn't sound very substantial, does it? and when you remember the amount of money that will pass through his hands! still you may be able to reassure me. by the way, i suppose he must be a relative of yours. his name is adrian savage." "never heard of him in my life," haig exclaimed, irritably. then, afraid he had altogether too roundly given away his ignorance, he went on: "but wait a moment, wait! yes, now i come to think, i do recollect that one of the savages, a younger son, went into the medical profession. i never saw anything of him. there was a strong feeling in the family about it. like marriage with a dissenter, they felt doctoring wasn't exactly the thing for a savage. so he was advised, if he must follow the medical profession, to follow it at a distance. i remember i heard he settled in paris and married there. this journalist fellow may be a son of his." the speaker cleared his throat. he was put about, uncertain what line it would be best to take. "at one time i used to be over there often. as a young man i knew my paris well enough--" "i'll be bound you did, colonel," challoner put in, with a flattering suggestiveness. "silly old goat!" he said to himself. "yes, i do not deny i have amused myself there a little in the past," the other acknowledged. "but somehow i never looked doctor savage up. it was unfriendly, perhaps, but--well--in point of fact i never did." "had neater and sweeter things to look up, eh, colonel?" challoner put in again. "i believe you. wish i'd ever had your luck." here resisted laughter got the better of him, jarring the quiet of the woods with a coarseness of quality startling even to his own ears. nothing betrays lack of breeding more than a laugh. he knew this, and it galled him. he felt angry, and hastened in so far as he might to recover himself. "seriously, though, joking apart, i very much wish, as things turn out, you had kept in touch with the doctor," he said. "then you would have been in a position to give me your views on this son of his. mr. smyrthwaite seems to have taken an awful fancy to him. but i don't attach much importance to that. he was ill and crotchety, just in the state of health to take unreasoning likes and dislikes. and i can't help being anxious, i tell you, colonel. it does not affect my pocket in any way--i'm not thinking of myself. and i am no sentimentalist. my line of business leaves neither time nor room for that. still i tell you candidly it goes tremendously against the grain with me to think of some irresponsible, long-haired, foreign, bohemian chap being mixed up with the affairs of two refined english gentlewomen like the miss smyrthwaites. of course he may turn out a less shadowy individual than i anticipate. nothing would please me better than that he should. but, in any case, i mean to keep my eye upon him. he's not going to play hanky-panky with the ladies' money if joseph challoner can prevent it. i hold myself responsible to you, as well as to them and to my own conscience, colonel, to keep things straight." "i am confident you will do your best," the other replied, graciously. "and i trust you to consult me whenever you think fit. don't hesitate to make use of me." "i won't, colonel. make yourself easy on that point. i am greatly indebted to you. i won't." the end of the long avenue had come into sight, where, between high stone gate-posts--surmounted by just-lighted gas-lamps--it opens upon the main road and tram-line running from stourmouth to barryport. after the silence and solitude of the woods the street appeared full of movement. a row of shop-fronts, across the roadway, threw a yellow glare over the pavement and on to the snow-heaps piled in the gutter. the overhead wires hummed in the frosty air. a gang of boys snowballed one another in the middle of the street, scattering before some passing cart, and rushed back, shouting, to renew the fight. groups of home-going workmen tramped along the pavement, their breath and the smoke of their pipes making a mist about their heads in the cold winter dusk. challoner held out a paw-like hand. "you'll excuse me if i leave you, colonel?" he said. "i have outstayed my time already. i am afraid i must be getting home--a lot of work waiting for me. good-night." he turned away. then, just inside the gates, a sudden thought apparently striking him, he hesitated and came back. "by the way," he said, "i had been meaning to write a line to you to-day, but this sad business at the tower house put it clean out of my head. i may just as well ask you by word of mouth. it'll save you the bother of a note. woodford has nominated me for election at the club. your name, as one of the oldest and most influential members, of course, carries much weight. if you second me you'll do me a great kindness." here the towering, well-lighted tram from barryport sailed majestically up, with a long-drawn growl, ending in a heavy clang and thin shriek as the powerful brakes gripped, bringing it to a stop. "all right. i may take it for settled, then. i have your promise. really i am awfully obliged to you. don't let me make you miss your tram, though. hi! conductor, steady a minute. colonel haig's going with you.--thanks, colonel, good-night," challoner cried, all in a breath, without giving the hustled, harried, almost apoplectic ex-warrior time to utter a syllable good or bad. "had him neatly," he said to himself, as he turned once more into the stillness and twilight of the woods. "he can't back out--daren't back out. their swagger, aristocratic, d-----your-impudence stourmouth club taken by assault!" and again he laughed, but this time the coarse quality of the sound failed to jar him. on the contrary, he rather relished its stridency. he was winning all along the line, so he could afford--for a little while here alone under the snow-laden fir-trees in the deepening dusk--to be himself. in the hall at heatherleigh his man-servant--a thin, yellowish, gentle, anxious-looking person, who played the part of shuttlecock to the battledores of his strong master and of a commanding wife, ten years his senior--met him. "mr. pewsey is waiting for you in the smoke-room, sir," he said, while helping challoner off with the pepper-and-salt-mixture overcoat. "and mrs. spencer, sir, called to leave this note. she said there was no answer, but i was to be sure and give it to you directly you came in." challoner took the note, and stopped for a minute under the hanging, colored-glass gas-lantern to read it. it was written in a large, showy, yet tentative hand, on highly scented mauve paper with a white border to it, and ran thus: "b. gone to mary church to dine and sleep. alone. come round if you can after dinner. want you. quite safe. love. gwynnie." challoner rolled the small scented sheet into a ball and tossed it viciously on to the fire, watching till the flame licked it up. "no, there's no answer. quite true, mrs. gwynnie--even even less answer than you suppose or will in the least bit like," he said, between his teeth. then he opened the door and passed into the smoking-room to join his junior partner, with a quite expressionless face. chapter v passages from joanna smyrthwaite's locked book "you won't go sitting up writing to-night, miss joanna? you should get right into bed, for you are properly worn out." "it would be useless for me to attempt to sleep yet, isherwood, but i shall not sit up late." this, between two women standing on the gallery of the spacious, heavily carpeted stair-head. save for the feeble light of their glass-shaded candles the place was in darkness. the atmosphere, oppressive from the heat given off by radiators in the hall below and upon the landing itself, was permeated by the clinging odor of some disinfectant. they spoke in subdued voices, covered and whispering as those of reverent-minded persons unwillingly compelled to hold conversation in church. the northeasterly wind--which, at this same hour, cried homeless along the steep house-roofs of the _quai malaquais_ to the disturbance of gabrielle st. leger's meditations upon the deceptions of modern marriage--raked the thick-set fir and pine trees bordering the carriage-drive outside, and shattered against the elaborately leaded panes of the high staircase windows, making the thick velvet curtains which covered them sway and quiver in the draught. "you had better let me wait and brush your hair as usual, miss joanna. it might soothe your nerves," the elder of the two women said. she was a comely, vigilant-eyed person, a touch of mustache on her long upper lip and a ruddiness upon her high cheek-bones as of sun-ripened fruit. though well on in the sixties, her carriage was upright, and her hair, looped window-curtain fashion over her ears and plaited in a round at the back of her head, still showed as black as her close-fitted black silk dress. first nurse in the smyrthwaite family, now for many years lady's maid and housekeeper, capable, prejudiced, caustic of speech, untiring in faithful devotion to those--the very few--whom she loved, mrs. isherwood, virgin and spinster, represented a domestic type becoming all too rapidly extinct. the younger woman made no immediate answer. her bearing and attitude bespoke a great lassitude as she stood resting her right hand on the ball of the newel-post. the light of the candle she carried was thrown upward, showing a face making but small claim to beauty. a thick, pasty complexion, straight, heavy, yellowish auburn hair turned back over a pad from the high, square forehead. no sufficient softening of the pale, anxious, blue-gray eyes by eyelash or eyebrow. an acquiline nose with upcut winged nostrils, and a mouth, which, but for the compression of the lips, might have argued a certain coarseness of nature. a face, in fine, almost painful in its effect of studied self-repression, patient as it was unsatisfied, an arrested, consciously resisted violence of feeling perceptible in every line of it. "i could hardly bear having my hair brushed to-night, i am afraid, isherwood," she said, presently. "i am really only fit to be alone. you say margaret is quite composed now? you think she will sleep?" "oh! dear me, yes, miss joanna, miss margaret will sleep. she drank a full tumbler of hot milk and fairly settled off before i left her. i wish i was half as easy about your night's rest as i am about hers." "my good isherwood," miss smyrthwaite said, softly, as she moved away across the landing. suddenly she paused and came hurriedly back. "isherwood, isherwood," she called under her breath, "the smell of that disinfectant seems so very strong. you're sure the door of--of papa's room is shut and locked?" "dear me, yes, miss joanna. i have the key here in my pocket. mr. smallbridge and i went in the last thing before i came up, and i locked the door myself. you've got the smell of that nasty stuff in your nose. anybody would, the amount those nurses used of it! now you promise you'll ring, miss joanna, if you should feel nervous or poorly in the night? you know it never troubles me the least to get up." "my good isherwood!" the younger woman said again. from the age of fourteen joanna smyrthwaite had been encouraged to keep a diary. for the diary was an acknowledged part of the system of feminine education--"forming the character," it used euphemistically to be called--that obtained so largely among serious-minded persons of leisure during the earlier half of the victorian era. thoughtfulness, reserve, methodical habits, the saving of time, hands never unemployed, the conforming of one's own conduct to and testing of the conduct of others by certain wholly arbitrary and conventional standards--these nominal rather than real virtues were perpetually pressed home upon the minds and consciences of the "well-brought-up" female child. inevitable reaction carried the majority of _fin-de-siècle_ female children notably far in the quite opposite direction. but in some instances the older system survived its appointed span--that of the smyrthwaite family may be cited as a case in point. the consequences were of doubtful benefit; since conditions have changed, and adaptability to environment is a necessity of mental as well as of physical health. joanna smyrthwaite was now in her twenty-ninth year. she still kept a diary. written in a very small, neat, scholarly hand, it filled many octavo volumes, bound in dark-purple leather, each with a clasp and lock to it, her initials and the date stamped in gold lettering on the back. she was a diarist absolutely innocent of any thought or wish of eventual print. a fierce modesty, indeed, overlay the whole matter of her diary. that it should be secret, unseen by any eyes save her own, gave it its value. she regarded it with a singular jealousy of possession. as nothing else belonging to her, her diaries were exclusively, inviolably her own. it may almost be asserted that she took refuge in them, as weaker women, under stress of unsatisfied passion, will take refuge in a drug. and so to-night, without waiting to make any change in her dress, feverishly, as one at last set free from unwelcome observation, she pushed back the cylinder of the handsome satinwood bureau in her bedroom, set lighted candles upon the flat desk of it, took the current volume of the diary out of one of the pigeon-holes, and sat down, her thin hands trembling with mingled fatigue and excitement, to write. "_wednesday, jan. , -_ "it has been impossible to put down anything for some days. the strain of nursing and the demands upon my time have been incessant and too great. i do not know that i am justified in writing to-night. isherwood begged me not to do so, but it is a relief. it will quiet me, and bring me into a more normal relation to myself and to my own thought. for days i have been a mere beast of burden, bearing the anxieties of the sick-room and of the household upon my back. my intellectual life has been at a standstill. i have read nothing, not even the newspapers--the times or last week's spectator. there has been perpetual friction between the servants and the nurses which i have had to adjust. margaret could not be looked to for help in this. she is too easily influenced, being disposed always to take sides with the person who last spoke to her. mr. savage cannot arrive before to-morrow afternoon. i am glad of this breathing space, for the thought of his coming is oppressive to me. he appeared so lively and so much a man of society, when we met him in paris, that i felt shy and awkward in talking to him. but it is useless to dwell upon this. he is coming. i must accept the fact. my head aches. i keep on fancying there are strange sounds in the house. but, as isherwood says, i am overtired. i meant to state quite simply what has occurred since i last wrote; but i find it difficult to concentrate my attention. "papa died just before five o'clock this morning. it was snowing and the wind was high. isherwood and i were in the room, with the night-nurse. margaret had gone to lie down and i did not call her. she has reproached me for this since and will probably continue to do so. perhaps i acted wrongly in not calling her, but i was dazed. everything appeared unreal, and i did not grasp what was occurring until they told me. we had watched so long that i had grown dull and unresponsive. i was sitting upon the ottoman--in which mamma's evening gowns used to be kept--at the foot of the bed, when isherwood came close to me and said, 'miss joanna, mr. smyrthwaite's going.' i said, 'where?' not understanding what she meant. 'you had better be quick,' the night-nurse said. her manner has never been respectful. i got up and went to the side of the bed. papa's eyes were open. they seemed to stare at something which made him angry. he used to look thus at poor bibby. i felt a spirit of opposition arise in me. this i now regret, for it was not a proper state of mind. presently the night-nurse felt his pulse and held a hand-mirror to his mouth. i saw that the surface of it remained unblurred. she looked across at isherwood and nodded familiarly. 'i thought so,' she said. then i understood that papa was dead; and i felt sorry for him, both because i knew how much he disliked the idea of dying, and also because i should never be afraid of him any more. "the night-nurse said, quite out loud--her offhand way of speaking has struck me, all along, as objectionable--'there is no reason miss smyrthwaite should stop any longer. i always prefer to do the laying-out by myself. i get through with it so much quicker.' "'isherwood will remain,' i said. i felt it right to assert my authority, and i so dread the upper servants being annoyed. it makes everything so difficult to manage. "'that is quite unnecessary,' she answered. 'if i require assistance for lifting i can call nurse bagot. she will be coming on duty anyhow in another hour, and as the case is over i should not mind disturbing her. she can finish her rest later.' "but i wish mrs. isherwood to remain,' i repeated. "'of course i shall stay, miss joanna,' isherwood said. 'it is my place to do so. it is not suitable or likely i should leave the laying-out to strangers. besides, i do not take orders from anybody in this house but you or miss margaret.' "to have a wrangle just then was painful; but i think both isherwood and i spoke under great provocation. "afterward i went to margaret. it was still dark, and i heard the wind and snow driving against the passage windows. i found margaret difficult to awaken. when i told her, she became hysterical and said i ought to have spoken less suddenly. but margaret cries readily. i believe it is a relief to her and enables her to get over trouble more easily. i have had no disposition to cry so far, yet i have been much more of a companion to papa than margaret ever has. latterly, in particular, she avoided being with him on the plea that was too exhausting for her. sometimes i have thought her selfish. when i asked her to sit with him she was so ready with excuses. still he cared for her more than for me. she is pretty and i am not--less than ever now, my eyes look so tired and have red rims to them--and then margaret never opposed him. she has a way of slipping out of things without expressing a direct opinion. i did oppose him during the terrible troubles about poor bibby, and when he spoke harshly or sarcastically before mamma. and i kept him at carlsbad, away from mamma, during the last days of her illness, by telegraphing false reports to him. that is nearly eight years ago. he never actually knew that i had deceived him, unless margaret has hinted at it, and i hardly think she would dare do so--she is not very courageous--but he suspected something, and he never forgave me, although he gradually grew more and more dependent upon me. i have examined my conscience strictly, and it is clear in relation to him. yet he looked angry this morning when he was dead. i suppose i shall always think of him as looking angry. but i think i do not care. how extraordinary it is to feel that--to feel that i have ceased to mind, to be afraid. "i sent round quite early to heatherleigh for mr. challoner. he came at once. he strongly expressed the wish to do all he can to help me, and inquired more than once for margaret. he said that, directly he heard of papa's death, he thought of margaret, as he feared she would be prostrated by the shock. he said she impressed him as so fragile and so sensitive. the words struck me because it had never occurred to me that margaret was fragile. she has better health than i have. she is more excitable than i am, and easily gets into a fuss, but i do not think her particularly sensitive. probably it was just mr. challoner's way of expressing himself, but i cannot think the terms are particularly applicable. i am afraid mr. challoner is vexed at papa having appointed mr. savage my coexecutor. he intimated that margaret had been slighted by the arrangement. i may do him an injustice, but i fancy he is disappointed at not being executor himself. in this i am not to blame. as i told him, i should have preferred to act with him rather than with mr. savage, as he knows so much about the property. i told him i urged papa, in as far as i could, to give up the idea of appointing mr. savage. i think this pleased him. he kindly sent off the telegram to mr. savage for me and the obituary notices for the newspapers himself. he said he would call later in the day to inquire for margaret, and to see if there was anything further he could do for us. i told margaret this. she became more composed when she knew he was coming, and ceased reproaching me for not having called her when papa was dying. she said she should be glad to see mr. challoner. she has always liked him better than i have. he is clever, but uncultivated. but margaret has never really cared about culture. i know mamma feared she might become frivolous and worldly if she was not under intellectual influences. if mamma had only lived till now!--i dare not develop all i mean in saying that. i foresee difficulties with margaret. i earnestly hope she will not take up the idea she has been slighted. i do not want to put myself forward, yet it is my duty not only to carry out papa's instructions, but, in as far as i know them, mamma's wishes also. "i tried to word the obituary notices as papa would have liked. perhaps i should have inserted the words _liberal_ and _unitarian_, so as to define his political and religious position. yet he differed from the main body of unitarians on so many points and condemned so many modern liberal tendencies and measures that i did not feel justified in employing those terms. they are generic, and, as it appeared to me, committed him to views he had long ceased actually to hold. i should have consulted margaret, but she was very fretful just then; and it was useless to ask mr. challoner, as he would not appreciate fine distinctions, i fancy. so i simply put 'at his residence, the tower house, baughurst park estate, stourmouth, hants, montagu priestly smyrthwaite, formerly of the priestly mills and of highdene, leeds, aged seventy-six. no flowers, by special request.' i suppose andrew merriman and others from the mills will attend the funeral. i dread seeing andrew merriman again. it will bring back all the terrible trouble about poor bibby. and i cannot think how mr. savage will get on with the people from the mills. it would have been simpler to have mr. challoner act officially in the capacity of host. i dare not think much about the funeral. "after luncheon i filled in their papers and dismissed the nurses. i think they expected some present, but i did not feel it necessary to give them any. they had only done what they were well paid to do; and i liked neither of them, though nurse bagot was the least patronizing and interfering. their refusing to take their meals in the housekeeper's room and the upper servants' objection to waiting upon them made arrangements very trying. i sympathized with the servants, but i had to consider the nurses, lest they should be quarrelsome and make everybody even more uncomfortable. i am thankful we had no professional nurses when mamma was ill, and that isherwood and i nursed her. but this case was different. we could not have done without professional help even had we wished to do so. "i went to papa's room this afternoon, when the undertakers had finished taking measurements for the coffin. i thought it my duty to go. i supposed margaret would have accompanied me, but she refused, saying it would only upset her again just as she was expecting mr. challoner. i told her i feared the servants might think it unnatural and unfeeling if she did not go into the room at all. she said if she felt better to-morrow she would make an effort to go then. i hope she will. i should not like her to expose herself to criticism, even though unspoken, on the part of the servants. one of our first duties, now we are alone, is to set an example to the household. i think she is wrong in putting off going. it will not be any less painful to-morrow than to-day. and if i can bear it, she should be able to bear it. we are different, but i do not pretend to be margaret's superior in any way. "the room was very cold. i suppose i remarked this particularly because of the high temperature which has been kept up in it for so many weeks. the upper sashes of all the windows were open behind the drawn blinds, which the air alternately inflated and sucked outward. this made an unpleasant dragging sound. i was foolish to mind it, but i am tired. there was a sheet over the bed, which was quite proper; but there were sheets over the toilet-glass, the cheval-glass, and the mirror above the chimneypiece also. this must have been isherwood's doing. it placed me in a difficulty. i did not want to hurt her feelings, but i know papa would have disapproved. he was so intolerant of all superstition, that the ignorant notion any one might see the dead person's face reflected in a looking-glass in the death-chamber, and that it would bring misfortune, would have made him extremely angry. he was contemptuous of uneducated people and of their ideas. i had begun taking the sheet off the cheval-glass when i saw that margaret's gray persian cat was in the room. i suppose it must have slipped in beside me without my noticing it. the light was very dim and i was thinking only of my own feelings. i called it, in a whisper, but it ran away from me mewing. it went twice right round the bed, squeezing in between the head of it and the wall. it stood upon its hind-legs, and then crouched, preparing to spring up over the footboard. i drove it away, but it kept on mewing. it hid under the bed and i could not dislodge it. i was afraid to go across and ring the bell lest it should attempt to spring up again. the room grew dark. it was weak of me, but i felt helpless and nervous. i seemed to see a movement upon the bed, as though some one was trying to crawl from underneath the sheet and had not sufficient strength to do so. no doubt this was the result of my brain being so exhausted by sleeplessness and anxiety, but i could not reason with myself just then. it seemed quite real and it terrified me. i was afraid i should scream. at last isherwood came. she had missed me and came to look for me. i could not explain at first, but when she understood, she called sarah, the second housemaid, of whom the cat is fond. sarah was frightened at entering the room, and isherwood had to speak sharply to her. it was all very dreadful. at last sarah coaxed the cat from under the bed. isherwood knelt down and pushed it behind with a broom. when sarah had taken it away, i lost my self-control and was quite overcome. i felt and spoke bitterly about the maids' and margaret's carelessness. during the whole of papa's illness the cat has been kept out of the south wing, and it would have been so easy to exercise care a little longer. i said it appeared things were intentionally neglected now that papa's authority is withdrawn, and that those who formerly cringed to him now took pleasure in defying his orders and wishes. this was an exaggerated statement; but the incident brought home to me how little any person, even the most important and autocratic, matters as soon as he or she is dead. death does more than level, it obliterates. "moreover, i could not rid my mind of the thought of those feeble, ineffectual movements beneath the sheet. this added to my distress and nervousness. i asked isherwood to uncover the bed so that i might assure myself the body remained in the same position. i looked closely at it, though it was extremely painful to me to do so. the eyes were now closed, but the face was still severe, expressive of disapproval. why, and for what? obviously it is useless to disapprove of whatever may follow death--if, indeed, anything does, sensibly, follow it. papa's belief in the survival of consciousness and individuality was of the slightest. so is mine. the so-called 'future life' is, i fear, but a 'fond thing vainly imagined.' the extinction of myriads of intelligent, highly organized and highly gifted beings after a few years--few, as against the vast stretch of astral or geologic periods--of earthly struggle, suffering, and attainment appears incredibly wasteful. but that constitutes no valid argument against extinction--at least, in my opinion, it would be weakly optimistic to accept it as a valid one. a very superficial study of biology convinces one of the supreme indifference of nature to waste. as far as sentient living creatures, other than man, are concerned, nature is certainly no economist. she destroys as lavishly as she creates. therefore it is safer to eliminate all hope of restitution or reward from one's outlook, and accustom oneself to the thought of extinction. i have long tried to school myself to this, but i find it difficult. i must try harder. "recalling the scene of this afternoon, i feel grateful to isherwood. i was childishly unreasonable and passionate, and she was very patient with me. she is always kind to me; but i must not permit myself to lean too much upon her. she is an uneducated woman, and has the prejudices and superstitions of her class. to lean upon her might prove enfeebling to my character and judgment. "i have not yet spoken to margaret about the cat; for, when i was sufficiently composed to go down-stairs, mr. challoner had just left and she began talking about his visit, which seemed to have pleased and excited her. she praised his thoughtfulness and sympathy. no doubt he has valuable qualities, but i own something in his manner and way of expressing himself jars upon me. he is not quite gentleman-like in mind or appearance. margaret called me proud and fastidious, and added that i took pleasure in depreciating those who showed her attention. that is neither true nor just, but i will be more careful what i say about people before her. it is unwise to be betrayed into discussions since she so often misunderstands me and so easily takes offense. later on she spoke about our mourning. i had not given the subject a thought, i admit, since there has been so very much else to occupy me. i took for granted madame pell would make it for us, in stourmouth, as she has done all our dressmaking lately. but margaret said madame pell's things were always rather old-fashioned and that she wished to have our mourning from grays'. i pointed out that it would be inconvenient and unsuitable for either of us to go up to london, for a day, just now. she replied that grays' would send some one down with a selection for us to choose from. i mentioned expense. margaret said that need not be considered, adding: "'mr. challoner tells me we shall both be rich. for years papa has lived very much below his income and has saved a great deal of money. all the property is left to you and me. we shall each have a large fortune.' "i was annoyed by her tone, which struck me as both exultant and unfeeling. i cannot forget that the greater proportion of papa's property would have been bibby's, and it is dreadful to me that margaret and i should profit by our brother's disgrace and death.--if he is dead! to the last mamma believed he was still alive, in hiding somewhere. i still believe it, and hope he may come back--poor, darling bibby! margaret, i am convinced, neither wishes nor hopes this. she has said more than once, lately, that if people do wrong it is better to put them out of one's life altogether, and i know she was thinking of bibby. i could never put him out of my life, even if i wished to do so. i had the greatest difficulty to-day in not speaking of him when she talked about our large fortunes, but i controlled myself. i was still shaken by the scene with her cat, and feared i might exhibit temper. i did reason with her about having our mourning from grays', as it seems to me ostentatious. but she became fretful and inclined to cry again, accusing me of always wanting my own way and of trying to deny her every little interest and amusement, so i thought it best to give in to her. "i promised isherwood i would not sit up, so i must stop writing. the smell of the disinfectant pursues and disgusts me, and i go on fancying that i hear strange noises in the house. i wish i could feel sorrow for papa's death. it would be more natural. but i feel none. i only feel resentment against mamma's suffering and bibby's disgrace. how cruel and purposeless the past seems! and i feel alarm in thinking of the future. i cannot picture margaret's and my life alone together. will it be cruel and purposeless, too? i shall not sleep, but i must not break my word to isherwood. i will stop writing and go to bed." two o'clock had struck before joanna smyrthwaite closed and locked her diary and replaced it in the pigeon-hole of the satin wood bureau. at the same hour, away in paris, gabrielle st. leger, answering little bette's cry, gathered the child's soft, warm body in her arms and found the solution of many perplexities in the god-ordered discipline of mother-love. the less fortunate englishwoman also received comfort--of a kind. her hands were stiff with cold. the small, neat writing on the last page of the diary showed cramped and almost illegible. she was faint from the long vigil. yet the fever of her spirit was somewhat appeased. for, in thus visualizing and recording her emotions, in thus setting the picture of her life outside her, she had, in a measure, lightened the strain of it. the drug from which she had sought relief acted, so to speak, allaying the ache of her loveless, unsatisfied heart. chapter vi some consequences of putting new wine into old bottles the next entry in joanna smyrthwaite's diary dates several days later. the handwriting, though quite clear, is less neat and studied than usual. "i have a sense of crowding and confusion, of incapacity to realize and deal with that which is happening around me and in my own thought. hence i have delayed writing. i hoped to attain composure and lucidity; but, since these seem as far off as ever, it is useless to wait any longer. possibly the act of writing may help me. "mr. savage arrived on thursday, immediately after luncheon. we had not expected him until the evening, and i felt unprepared. i am afraid my reception of him was awkward and ungracious, but his quick speech and brilliant manner made me nervous. he spoke at once of his respect for papa, and expressed sympathy for us in our bereavement, adding that he 'placed himself entirely at our disposition.' i found it difficult to make a suitable reply. i do not know whether he noticed this--probably he put it down to my grief--and i am not grieved. i am hard and cold, and, i am afraid, resentful. all of which is wrong. i do not attempt to justify my state of mind, but it would be dishonest to pretend, even to myself, about it. "to return to mr. savage. he speaks english fluently, but employs words and frames his sentences in a peculiar manner. this helps to give vivacity and point to all which he says, but it might also give rise to misunderstandings. i trust it will not do so when he and mr. challoner and andrew merriman discuss business. smallbridge valets him, not edwin. i was uncertain whether smallbridge would like to do so, but he said he preferred it. i think mr. savage has made a good impression upon the servants. i am glad of this. he is certainly very courteous to them. after margaret and i came up-stairs, the first evening he was here, she remarked that he was very handsome. she has repeated this frequently since. i suppose it is true. margaret is always very much occupied about personal appearance. mr. savage is, undoubtedly, very kind, and seems most anxious to save us trouble and take care of us. margaret evidently likes this. i am unaccustomed to being taken care of. i find it embarrassing. it adds to my nervousness. "i feel dissatisfied with myself, and anxious lest i should not behave with the dignity which my position, as head of the household, demands; but i am tired and so many new duties and new ideas crowd in on me. i seem to have lost my identity. ever since i can remember, papa has occupied the central place in my thoughts and plans. his will and wishes supplied the pivot on which all our lives turned, and i cannot accustom myself to the absence of his authority. i am pursued by a fear that i am forgetting some order of his, or neglecting some duty toward him, for which omission i shall presently be called to account. he represented fate, nemesis to me. as i see now, i had never questioned but that his power, or right to use that power, was absolute. even through all the trouble about poor bibby, though i protested against his action, i never doubted his right to act as he saw fit. now i cannot help reasoning about our relation to him, and asking myself whether--in the general scheme of things--it can be intended that one human being should exercise such complete and arbitrary control over the minds and consciences of others. i know that i was greatly his inferior in ability and knowledge, let alone that i am a woman and that, as his daughter, i owed him obedience. still i cannot help feeling that i may have been rendered unnecessarily stupid and diffident through subjection to him. something which mr. savage said to-day at luncheon about individualism--though i do not think he meant it to apply to papa--suggested to me that there are other forms of cannibalism besides that practised by the degraded savages who cook and eat the dead bodies of their captives. in civilized communities a more subtle, but more cruel, kind of cannibalism is neither impossible nor infrequent--a feeding upon the intelligence, the energies and personality of those about you, which, though it does not actually kill, leaves its victims sterile and helpless. i suppose this idea would be called morbid, and should not be encouraged. but my will is weak just now, and i cannot put it away from me. i am haunted by remembrance of the classic legend of saturn devouring his own children. it is monstrous and shocking, yet it does haunt me. if papa had been less stern and exacting with bibby, the latter might not have fallen into bad habits, or, at all events, might have had strength to recover from them. but papa's dominating personality made him hopeless and helpless, depriving him of self-respect and initiative. with me it has been the same, though in a lesser degree; and i am aware of this, especially when talking to mr. savage. then i feel how dull i am, like some blighted, half-dead thing incapable of self-expression and spontaneity. and i cannot help knowing that he perceives this and pities me--not merely on account of our present trouble, but for something inalienably wanting in myself. this fills me with resentment toward the past, as though, by my education and home circumstances, i had been wronged and deprived of a power of happiness which was my natural right. our lives were devoured--mamma's, bibby's, mine--by papa's love of power and pursuit of self-exaltation. only margaret, in virtue of her slighter nature, escaped. it was so. i see it clearly. but i must not dwell on this. i have said it once now. i must let that suffice. to enlarge upon it is useless and would further embitter me. "to go back to every-day matters. i asked mr. challoner to dine the night before last, so that he and mr. savage might make further acquaintance. i am afraid mr. savage found it a tedious dinner, after the brilliant society he has been accustomed to in paris. i know i have little conversation, and margaret, though she looked unusually animated, never really has very much to say. mr. challoner did not show to advantage. he is not at his ease with mr. savage. he is heavy and crude in speech and in appearance beside him. i thought he showed bad taste in his remarks about foreigners and his insistence on the superiority of everything english. i do not think margaret remarked this, but it made me hot and nervous. mr. savage behaved with great courtesy, for which i was grateful to him. i am afraid i was a poor hostess, but we have entertained so little since we left highdene, and then papa always led the conversation. we were merely listeners. the cooking was satisfactory with the exception of the cheese _soufflé_, the top of which was slightly burnt. i spoke to rossiter about it this morning and begged her to be more careful in future. "a young woman came from grays' yesterday, bringing a profusion of dresses and millinery. margaret seemed amused and interested, trying everything on, asking the young woman's advice and talking freely with her. i tried to be interested, too, but i did not find it easy. the styles seemed to me exaggerated and showy, and the prices exorbitant. i should prefer what is simpler for such deep mourning, but margaret did not agree with me. it would not do for us to be differently dressed, and when i suggested modifications the young woman, supported by margaret, overruled me. margaret is fond of elaborate styles, and the young woman said that a good deal of fullness and trimming was necessary for me as i have so little figure. it was foolish to attach importance to the remarks of a person in her position, yet what she said hurt me. she admired margaret's figure, or affected to do so, and paid her a number of compliments. i looked at myself in the long glass in my room last night, after margaret left me, and i see that i am very thin. my cheeks have fallen in and there are lines across my forehead and at the corners of my mouth. my face can give no pleasure to those who see it--the features are not good, and the expression is anxious. i look several years older than margaret. i do not know why i should mind this. long ago i accepted the fact that i was not pretty. but last night i was depressed by the realization of it. for the first time since papa's death i felt inclined to cry. when isherwood came to undress me i made an excuse and sent her away. i did not want her to see me cry. i feared she might ask questions; and i had no reason for crying--at least no fresh reason, none certainly that i could explain to isherwood. i am ashamed, remembering my state of mind last night. i could not write, neither could i sleep. i sat for a long while in front of the glass, looking at myself and crying. i seemed rarely to have seen a less pleasing woman. i have always valued intellect and talent more highly than beauty, but last night i doubted. my strongest convictions seemed to be slipping away from me. i suppose this is partly the result of physical strain. i must try not to give way thus to useless emotion. "mrs. paull and the woodfords called yesterday to inquire. so did mrs. spencer and marion chase. i was surprised at mrs. spencer calling. we have met her at garden-parties and at-homes, but we have never exchanged visits. no doubt her intention in calling was kind, but i should not care to be intimate with her. neither she nor her sister appear to me very ladylike. i hope margaret will not want to make friends with her now. she strikes me as a frivolous person, whose influence might be the reverse of desirable. margaret saw marion, saying she wished to consult her about some details of our mourning. i did not see her. she and margaret spent more than an hour together in the blue sitting-room. the pottingers and mrs. norbiton sent around cards of inquiry by a servant to-day. i think every one wishes to be kind. papa was very much respected, though perhaps he was not liked. he was more highly educated and more intellectual than any one here, and that helped to make him unpopular. his conversation and manner tended to make others aware of their mental inferiority, which they resented. this was only natural, yet it increased our isolation. "colonel rentoul haig called on the day of papa's death. he has written since, very civilly, asking if he can be of any help to us. he appears anxious to make mr. savage's acquaintance, but i do not want to ask any one here until after the funeral. colonel haig assumes the tone of a near relation. this pleased margaret, and she is annoyed at my unwillingness to invite him until after the funeral. i think she is flattered by his expression of interest in our affairs. "i am worried about margaret. mr. challoner is here constantly, and i cannot help observing how much attention he pays her. he refers to her on every occasion and insists upon asking her opinion. it is almost as though he placed her and himself in opposition to mr. savage and me; this causes delays in business, and unnecessary discussions which are very tiresome. his tone in speaking of or to margaret is protective, as though he thought she was not being well treated. perhaps i am unjust toward him, but he and margaret are so frequently together. he asks for her and goes up to the blue sitting-room to see her. i am sure mr. savage observes this. i feel very anxious lest any wrong impression should gain ground among the servants or others. i dread anything approaching gossip just now. since we left highdene we have always kept ourselves free of that. ever since we came here people have known little or nothing of our doings and affairs, and it would humiliate me that they should be canvassed now. i wish margaret would be more careful of appearances. then, too, although i do not like her, it is our duty to consider mrs. spencer. her name has been so freely associated with that of mr. challoner. every one has taken it for granted they will eventually marry. i ought to remind margaret of this, since she seems to ignore it, and i have not the moral courage to do so. i am afraid of her tears and reproaches. when the funeral is over, mr. challoner will have less excuse for coming so often. i think i will wait. things may arrange themselves, and i may be spared the unpleasantness of speaking. "something happened this evening which threw me into a strange excitement. i hardly know whether to set it down or not. i thought the impression would pass away, but i have been writing for more than an hour and it is still strongly upon me. my state of mind is exaggerated. perhaps if i set it down i shall become more composed. when i bade mr. savage good-night in the hall--margaret had gone on and was half-way up-stairs, she was not in a good temper--he spoke kindly about the responsibilities which have fallen upon me, and the amount i have had to do lately. he said he admired my business capacity and my high sense of duty. he addressed me as 'my dear cousin,' and kissed my right hand. this surprised and affected me. no one ever kissed my hand before. the tones of his voice are very varied. they caused me unexpected emotion. all was said and done very lightly and gracefully, almost playfully, but i cannot forget it. when i came up-stairs i locked the door of my room, and walked up and down in the firelight, looking at my hand, for a long while before i recovered sufficient self-control to light the candles and sit down and write. i have a strange feeling toward my own hand. it seems to have gained an intrinsic beauty and value, as of something quite apart from myself. i look at it with a sense of admiration. i enjoy touching it with my other hand. and yet i am doubtful whether to write this down. only these sensations are so new to me that, when they are past, i shall be glad, i think, to have some record of them. i wrote about other things first, to-night, to test whether the impression was fugitive or not. it is still with me, though i am quite composed now. i am composed, but i still look at my hand with emotion. i will not write any more. i think i shall sleep to-night." chapter vii in which adrian helps to throw earth into an open grave adrian savage, meanwhile, his native buoyancy of spirit notwithstanding, became increasingly sensible of the depressing moral atmosphere surrounding him. he was impatient of it. for did they not really take things rather ridiculously hard, these excellent english people? had they no sense of proportion? had they no power of averaging, no little consolations of good-tempered philosophy? he went so far, in moments of levity, as to accuse _le bon dieu_ of reprehensible squandering by thus bestowing the eminently good gift of life upon persons so deplorably incapable of profiting by it. to him they appeared thankless, cowardly, and quite unpardonably clumsy in their handling of opportunity. moreover, while curiously clannish, ready on the slightest provocation to stand back to back against the world, they waged internecine war, being permanently suspicious of, and unamiable toward, one another. if this represented a fair sample of the much-vaunted english home and the english character--well, for his part, adrian was of opinion they did these things quite as well, if not a great deal better, in france! he shrugged his shoulders, elevated his black eyebrows, stroked his neat beard, trying at once to overcome his sense of depression and stifle his sense of humor. the atmosphere would, he told himself, no doubt become more exhilarating when poor montagu smyrthwaite's body had been removed from that rather terrible best bedroom--apparently "turned up," as the maids have it, for spring cleaning--and finally consigned to the tomb. never had he seen a dead fellow-creature treated with such meager tribute, either in language or symbol, of human pity or eternal hope! it shocked his sensibility that the corpse should lie there, locked away by itself in a cold, dismal twilight of drawn blinds, without any orderly setting-out of the death-chamber, without watchers, or prayer offered, or lighted candles, or flowers, or other suggestion either of tenderness or of religious obligation. observances of this sort, he was given to understand by joseph challoner, were discredited in highly intellectual circles, such as that in which the smyrthwaites moved, as savoring of antiquated and unscientific superstitions. the result, to adrian's thinking, presented an effect at once so abjectly domestic, and so miserably deficient in any appreciation of the eternal mystery of human fate, that the crudest death-rites of the most degraded aborigines would have been preferable. and then, by a singular inversion of sentiment, it was held necessary as a testimony of respect to keep the poor, disagreeable old gentleman's body waiting such a quite inordinately long time for interment! during a, to adrian, positively endless week did it remain there, amid a doleful array of dusting-sheets and disinfectants! so that, what with the dark, snow-patched fir woods without, and the dark, neutral-tinted house within; what with conventionally hushed footsteps and lowered voices, plus an all-pervasive odor of iodiform tainting the close, heated air, the young man found the present among quite the most trying and distasteful of all his personal experiences. yet, as the interminable days went by--while joseph challoner, jealous alike of his own position and of the newcomer's breeding and ability, alternately bluffed, snarled and flattered, and pompous, little colonel haig fell headlong from attempted patronage to a certain fulsomeness of conciliation--against this dismal background the figure of joanna smyrthwaite came to stand out, to adrian's seeing, with an intensity of moral effort and sustained determination of duty both impressive and admirable. beneath the bloodless surface, behind the anxious, unlovely countenance and coldly nervous manner, he began to divine a remarkable character. he had been mistaken in calling her a shadow. she was a distinct entity, but she was also, to him, quite arrestingly unattractive. and, just on that account, the chivalry both of the man and the artist grew alert to be very gentle to her, to omit no smallest offering of friendliness or courtesy. the very reason and purpose of woman's existence being charm and beauty--his thought turned with a great yearning to remembrance of a certain enigmatic fair lady, the windows of whose rose-red and canvas-colored drawing-room overlooked the heart of paris from above the _quai malaquais_--it was pitiful in the extreme to see any woman thus disfranchised. the inherent tragedy of that disfranchisement was brought home to him, with peculiar force, on the evening following montagu smyrthwaite's funeral. for eventually, almost to adrian's surprise, the poor lonely corpse really did get itself buried! then, at the tower house, the blinds were drawn up, and the mourners, local and official, returning thither, discarding the appointed countenance assumed as due to the mournful character of the rites lately accomplished and resuming that common to them under ordinary conditions, prepared almost jovially to do justice to an excellent luncheon. the miss smyrthwaites excused themselves from attendance, no other ladies being there, so it fell to adrian's lot to preside at the banquet. he was amused to note the fact that they had left all which was mortal of the late owner of the house in the new west stourmouth cemetery--which, with its pale monuments, roads and pathways, showed as a gigantic scar upon the face of the dusky moorland--in no perceptible degree impaired the healthy appetite of any member of the company. to eat offers agreeably convincing testimony that one is as yet well within the pale of the living; and none of the eighteen or twenty gentlemen present, whatever their diversities of profession or of social standing, entertained the faintest desire to follow montagu smyrthwaite--their neighbor, kinsman, patron, or employer--to the grave in any sense save a strictly complimentary one. that final civility being now duly paid in respect of him, it was in the spirit of those who receive well-earned reward for well-performed labor that they sat down to feed. in adrian, both the latin and the catholic were still somewhat in revolt against this scant tenderness shown toward death. the whole matter from start to finish had been, as he reflected, notably of the earth-to-earth order. the alacrity, displayed by the assistants, in the direction of food and drink, was of the earth earthy, too. it, however, had at least the merit of being very human. therefore, to him, it came as a rather humorous relief. since his childhood his visits to england had been infrequent. with london and london society he was fairly well acquainted, but of provincial life and its social conditions he knew next to nothing. it followed that, in their racial and psychological aspects, the members of the present company were interesting to him. he tried to forget the poor, unloved corpse lying beneath the rattling snow-sodden gravel of the moorland and absorb himself in observation of the men seated on either side the dinner-table; to where, at the opposite end of it, the hard-featured, taciturn, sagacious, yorkshire manufacturer, andrew merriman, manager and part proprietor of the priestly woolen mills, faced him. this man had not taken off the appointed countenance, for the very good reason that he had never put it on, his nature being of a type which disdains conventional manifestations, either of joy or woe. throughout the day, in this as in other particulars, merriman's personality had struck adrian as distinct, standing away from the rest of the company, silently declaring itself as possessed of unusual vigor and independence. he tried to enter into conversation, but invariably joseph challoner contrived to intervene; and it was not till evening, shortly before merriman and the rest of the yorkshire contingent were due to depart to stourmouth on their return journey by the night mail to leeds, that he succeeded in getting private speech of him. then, after some brief mention of certain business details, merriman said to him, gruffly, and as though grudgingly: "i own i am more satisfied now i have met you, mr. savage. i did not much care about your appointment as executor. but i might have trusted mr. smyrthwaite's judgment. i have seldom known him wrong in his estimate of a man." "you wish me to understand that you believe me to be quite fairly honest and competent?" adrian returned, in mingled annoyance and pleasure. the intention was complimentary, but the address so singularly blunt! "i venture to agree with you, my dear sir. without vanity, i have reason to believe i really am both." "so much the better," merriman answered, sardonically. "i have no wish to offend you. but an uncommon amount of property, in which i am interested, is changing hands; and honest, trustworthy persons are pretty scarce." he glanced from under penthouse eyebrows across the room to where challoner, shifting his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, dancing-bear fashion, stood talking to colonel haig. "at least in my experience they are, mr. savage. when a family is dying out you generally find the males are debilitated specimens and the females the strongest. in this family, if miss smyrthwaite had been born a boy it would have been better for the name and for the business. only, then, you and i shouldn't have met here to-day, because mr. smyrthwaite would never have left highdene, and i should never have been manager at the mills." "which would have been a misfortune--for me, in any case," adrian returned, suavely. "maybe," the other said. "but i can tell you joanna smyrthwaite's all right. she has sound commercial instincts if she's allowed to use them. it is an all-fired pity she's a woman." an idea occurred to adrian. "she should have married," he said. this bluntness of statement became lamentably infectious! "every woman should marry. then her abilities find their natural expression and development." "quite right, sir. and it is on the cards, i am thinking, joanna would have married if a man had not been too much afraid of her father to ask her. mind," he added, "i have no quarrel with our late head. my father was a national schoolmaster. my grandfather was a mill-hand. i should not be where i am but for mr. smyrthwaite. he fancied my looks when i was quite a little nipper, picked me out and gave me my start. and i'm not boasting, any more than you were just now, if i say i know he never had reason to regret doing that." the speaker straightened up his heavy figure, looking adrian steadily in the eyes. "i told you he was a sure judge of men. but women, except to bring him children, and mind his house, and put up with his tempers, and fetch and carry for him, didn't enter into his calculations at all. he was a bit of a grand turk was mr. smyrthwaite. and joanna, from quite a little mite, made herself useful as his amanuensis and reader and so on. he looked upon her as his private property, and kept her busy, i promise you; so that the man who wanted to take her away from him didn't have a fighting chance." "but now the grand turk is finally removed," adrian declared. "haven't we just concluded all that?" "and now a man is afraid of her money, i'm thinking," the big yorkshireman returned, slowly, a grim smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "joanna was always the plain one of the two girls. and she has aged lately. you can't seem to picture her with a healthy baby on her lap. and so, nobody would believe--the man, though he wished it ever so, would hardly believe himself--it was the woman he wanted, the woman he was after, and not just her wealth." he stood silent a moment, his jaw set, and then held out a large, hard, but not unkindly hand to adrian. "i reckon our time's about up," he said. "write or wire me to come if i am needed, mr. savage. and, when you leave, i should be obliged if you'll remind joanna i'm always at her service. i shall look after the girls' interest at the mills right enough, but i can get away down here for twenty-four hours almost any time at a push. good-day to you, sir. i am glad we've met. now i must round up my lads and take 'em back home to work." this conversation, in its crude sincerity of language and statement, remained by adrian, and was still present to his mind next morning when he rose. early in his stay at the tower house he had petitioned smallbridge to bring him rolls and coffee when calling him, since a solid breakfast at nine, followed by a solid luncheon at one-thirty, proved too serious an undertaking for the comfort of the latin stomach. by the above arrangement he secured two or three hours to himself either for writing or for exercise. this morning he went out soon after eight and walked down the wide avenue, past large, jealously secluded villas, each standing in its acre or half acre of thickly planted grounds, to where the mouth of the long, dark wooded valley opens between striated gray and orange sand-cliffs, as through a giant gateway, upon the sea. thin, primrose-yellow sunlight glinted on the backs of the steel-blue waves. a great flight of gulls, driven inshore by stress of weather, swept, and dropped, and lifted again, with wild, yelping laughter, above the flowing tide. fringing the cliff edge the purple boles, red trunks, and black, ragged heads of a line of wind-tormented scotch firs, detached themselves, from foot to crown, against the colorless winter sky. the thirty or forty yards of level sand, stretching from the turn of the road in the valley bottom to the dark windrows of sea-wrack marking the tide-line, were pocketed by footsteps. but, at this hour, the place was wholly deserted, it being too early in the day, and too early in the season, for invasion by any advance guard of the mighty army of tourists and trippers which infests the coast from marychurch and stourmouth, westward to barryport, during the summer and autumn months. adrian found himself solitary, in a silent wilderness, save for the murmur of the pines, the plunge and hush of the waves, and harsh laughter of the strong-winged gulls. from where he stood, looking inland, the surface of the vast, somber amphitheater of blue-black fir forest, variegated here and there by the purple-brown of a grove of bare, deciduous trees, or the pallor of a snow-dusted space of tussock-grass and heather, was unbroken by house-roof or other sign of human habitation. looking seaward no shipping was visible. to adrian the scene appeared arrestingly northern in character, the spirit of it questioning, introspective, coldly complex, yet primitive and elfin, reminding him of grieg's occasional music to the haunting parable-poem of peer gynt. then, as he paced the harder sand to the seaward side of the tide-mark, the chill breeze pushing against him and the keen smell of the brine in his nostrils, his thought carried back vividly to his conversation of last night with andrew merriman. for, now that he came to think of it, might not joanna, the main subject of that conversation, in all her feminine leanness and overstrained mentality, have stepped straight out of one of those plays of ibsen's which, heretofore, had so perplexed him by their distance from any moral and racial conditions with which he was familiar? northern, joyless, uncertain in faith, burdened by scruples, prey to a misplaced intellectualism, yet clear-headed and able in practical matters, could not her prototype be found again and again in the norwegian playwright's penetrating and disheartening pages? and, if it came to that, in the relentless common-sense of the big yorkshireman's cruelly sagacious estimate of his own attitude toward her was there not an ibsenish element, too? for that andrew merriman was, himself, "the man" of whom he had spoken, adrian entertained no doubt. so he paced the sand, absorbed in analysis and in apprehension, while ripples of spent waves slipped, in foam-outlined curves, near and nearer to his feet. it seemed to him he touched something new here in human tendencies and human development; something which, in the coming social order, might very widely obtain, especially among protestant english-speaking peoples.--a democratic, scientific, unsparing self-knowledge, physical and mental, on the one hand, and a narrow, sectarian, self-sufficiency, on the other; a morbidly cold-blooded acknowledgment of fact and application of means to ends, in which neither poetry nor religion had any determining part. the artist in him protested hotly. for really a world so ordered did not look enticing in the very least! then, his thought fixing itself again exclusively on joanna, played around the everlastingly baffling problem of woman's mind, woman's outlook, in itself, divorced from her relation to man. it was not the first time his imagination had been held up by this problem, nor was he conceited enough to suppose it would be the last. woman in her relation to man was a stale enough, obvious enough, story. but in her relation to her fellow-woman, in her relation to herself--had not this tripped even the cleverest novelists and dramatists of his own sex? wasn't it, after all, easier for a woman rightly to imagine the life a man lives among men, than for a man to conceive woman's life with his own great self left out of it? he feared so, though the admission was far from flattering to masculine perspicacity. he resented his own inability to negotiate those moral and emotional lines of cleavage which do, so very actually, divide the sexes. to think, for example, that joanna smyrthwaite and gabrielle st. leger--their radical differences of circumstances, endowment, and experience notwithstanding--were still essentially nearer to each other, more capable of mutual sympathy and understanding in the deep places of their nature, than he, with all his acute sensibility and dramatic insight, could ever be to either of them! but there the young man stopped and fairly laughed outright. for to class gabrielle st. leger, the devoutly worshiped and desired, and poor joanna smyrthwaite together, even in passing, was a little too outrageously far-fetched. here, indeed, the study of psychology ran frankly and, in a sense, almost profanely mad. he looked away, through the shifting cloud of screaming gulls, over the steel-blue levels of the channel toward far-distant france, and a strong nostalgia took him for the delightful, quick-witted land of his birth. it seemed a thousand years since he left paris. what were they all doing over there, the dear people whose friendship spelled for him more than half the joy of living? save for one brief note, in the response to the announcement of his arrival, madame st. leger had given no sign. and he, in face of his last interview with her, wanted to know--wanted so very badly to know. he wanted to look at her. he wanted to hear her voice.--whereupon he turned positively vindictive. oh! most consoling doctrine of purgatory!--might montagu smyrthwaite very thoroughly suffer the depleting pains of it as punishment for this fiendishly tiresome legacy of an executorship! why couldn't he have left adrian free to pursue his delicious love campaign, and appointed somebody else--the unpleasant, heavy-weight challoner, say, or the worldly, feather-weight haig? either of them would have reveled in the brief authority it conferred, while to him it constituted an intolerable waste of time. he was sick to death, interesting racial and psychological researches notwithstanding, sick to death of the whole _corvée_. and then he skipped aside with quite undignified haste, for an incoming wave threatened his long-toed french boots with total immersion. chapter viii a modern antigone his retina still holding that northern elfin landscape and seascape, his ears the voices of the forest and of the wildly yelping gulls, his mind still working on the thought of that new moral and social order now coming into being, his heart and his manhood crying out for the woman he loved, adrian--the keen freshness of the winter morning pouring in through the open door along with him--entered the hall of the tower house. and down the broad staircase, over the thick, sound-muffling carpet, the wan light streaming in through the blurred, leaded glass of the great staircase windows falling upon her meager, flat-bosomed, crape-clad figure, yellowish-auburn hair and strained, anxious countenance, came the other woman, the ibsen woman, concerning whose nature and attributes he had just indulged in so much analytic speculation. joanna held up the front of her crape dress. her feet showed as she stepped down the shallow treads. and adrian, standing below, looking up at her, hat in hand, saw--though he didn't in the least want to see--that she wore black velvet slippers with square toes and no heels to them, and that both her feet and hands, though comparatively small, were lacking in individuality and in that sharpness of outline which is the mark of fineness of breeding. they might have been just anybody's hands and feet; and so--he felt amusedly ashamed of himself for admitting it--they were exactly the hands and feet one would expect joanna smyrthwaite to possess. taking himself to task for this involuntary cruelty of observation, his manner the more persuasive and gallant because he felt himself to blame, the young man advanced through the dull reds and browns of the spacious hall to the foot of the staircase. "ah! you are here! good-morning, _chère cousine_," he said. "i rose early and have already been out walking in your great woods and down on the shore. it is all a poem of the first days of creation, before man intruded his perplexing presence upon the earth. i felt quite rampantly decadent in this overcivilized twentieth-century costume, under obligation to offer the humblest apologies to the hairy mammoths and pterodactyls, which, at every turn of the road, i instinctively braced my courage to meet. but really it is rather wonderful how 'the desert and the sown' jostle one another here in england. the contrasts are so unexpected, so violent, so complete!" adrian talked on rather at random, smiling, his head thrown back, the expression of his handsome face gay yet subtlely apologetic; the general effect of him pleasantly healthy, self-secure, finished, and on excellently good terms both with fortune and with himself. and joanna, looking down at him, faltered, stopped in her descent, let slip the folds of her crape skirt, while she laid one hand hurriedly upon the baluster-rail and pressed the other nervously against her left side over her heart. "i am afraid," she said, "you get up and go out so early on our account--i mean so that you may devote all the rest of the day to us." "oh no," adrian returned, still smiling. "it is an old habit, one of my very few good habits, that of early rising. you see, i am quite a busy man in my own small way, what with my review, my friends, my literary work--" "i realize that, and so i am very much distressed at the demands which we are making upon your valuable time. i cannot justify or excuse it to myself. i do not think it was proper that papa should have appointed you as my coexecutor without consulting you and asking your permission first." she spoke with a suppressed violence of feeling which caused adrian to gulp down his complete agreement in these sentiments, and reply in soothing tones: "but, dear cousin, surely at this time of day it is superfluous to vex yourself about that! believe me, you are too scrupulous, too considerate. i assure you, as i have so often assured you before, that i am touched by the confidence your father showed me in thus temporarily intrusting not only his affairs, but yourself and your sister, to my care. my sole desire is worthily to fulfil that trust. to do so constitutes, in as far as my time is concerned, an all-sufficient reward. and then, after all," he added, gaily, "ten days, a fortnight even, should i have to go north to leeds for a brief visit, will see all imperative business through and so put a term to our joint labors." there he paused, looking discreetly aside as he unbuttoned his overcoat, since he was aware that the gladness of coming freedom might declare itself with unflattering distinctness. for in imagination he sprinted once again, three steps at a time, up the three flights of stairs to the top story of the tall, gray house overlooking the _quai malaquais_, while high expectation, at once delicious and disturbing, circulated through every fiber of his being. how adorable it would be--how richly, poignantly enchanting! but just then, though by no means easily open to hypnotic or mesmeric influences, he became conscious that joanna smyrthwaite's eyes--those tenacious, prominent, faded-blue eyes, with red-rimmed lids to them, which, to his seeing, so perpetually gave away the inward tempest of feeling to which the compressed lips refused utterance--were fixed upon him with an extraordinary intensity of questioning scrutiny. for a moment the young man felt frankly embarrassed, uncertain how to comport himself. for he had no answer whatever to give to that questioning scrutiny. he suddenly grew wary, fearing demand might create supply--of a fraudulent sort--courtesy betraying him into return glances dishonestly sympathetic in character. but, to his relief, the sound of an opening door, followed by that of two chattering feminine voices--high-pitched, unmusical in tone, one indeed peevish and complaining--coming from the gallery above created a diversion. he felt, rather than saw, joanna smyrthwaite start and look impatiently upward. thus the awkward minute passed, resolving itself; and the situation--if the little episode deserved so high-sounding a title--was saved. adrian backed away and slipped off his overcoat, doubling it together across his arm. joanna, her expression and manner agitated, descending the remaining treads of the staircase hastily, followed and stood close by him. "that is margaret," she said, in a hurried undertone. "marion chase is with her as usual. and mr. challoner comes here at half-past eleven. it was his own proposition. i had a note from him early this morning. i should have been glad to put aside legal business just for to-day, but margaret expressed unwillingness that i should refuse to receive him. there is something i feel i must explain to you, cousin adrian, before i see him. but i cannot speak of it before margaret, still less before marion chase. would it trouble you too much to come into the library with me? we should be alone. margaret would hardly attempt to bring marion in there, i should think." the young man assented readily, though the invitation was not very much to his taste. of all the rooms in this finely proportioned yet gloomy house, that distinctly masculine apartment, the library aforesaid, was, to his thinking, the most depressing. facing north and east, its windows were darkened by the rough corrugated trunks and scraggy lower branches of a grove of weymouth pines, spared when the rest of the site had been cleared for building. these, at close quarters and when old, are doleful trees, lifeless and unchanging in aspect, telling of sour soil and barren, unprofitable spaces. two sides of the room were lined, to within a couple of feet of the ceiling, with mahogany bookcases, the contents of which, in adrian's opinion, only too thoroughly harmonized in spirit with the doleful grove outside. they consisted of ranges of well-bound volumes upon such juiceless subjects as commercial and municipal law, ethics of citizenship and political economy, together with an extensive collection of pamphlets embodying the controversies of the last fifty years--social, political, ecclesiastical, and religious--neatly indexed and bound. not only did the complete works of adam smith, david hume, dugald stewart, and the two mills--elder and younger--decorate the shelves; but portrait prints of these authors, along with those of certain liberal statesmen and nonconformist divines, solidly framed and glazed, decorated the remaining wall spaces. the carpet and curtains were of a dull brown, patterned in dusky blues and greens. a writing-table of huge dimensions, fitted with many drawers; dark leather-covered chairs, various mechanical devices in the form of reading-desks and leg-rests, and an elaborate adjustable invalid couch constituted the other appointments of the room. following joanna's crape-clad figure into this severely educational sanctuary, adrian could not but think of the long joyless hours she must have spent there reading to or writing for that imperious old gentleman, the late lamented montagu. and this thought softened his attitude toward her, reawakening sentiments of chivalrous pity. for, though rich, highly educated, and clever, had not she, poor girl, every bit as much as her cautious, halting lover, been denied the very barest fighting chance? "you are tired, _chère cousine_," he said, consolingly. "is it any wonder after the painful fatigues of yesterday? see, i place this chair comfortably near the fire for you. sit down, and, while resting, tell me at your leisure what it is that you wish to explain." and joanna not only sat down obediently, but, rather to his consternation, bowed her lean person together and pressed a fine, black-bordered pocket-handkerchief--insisted upon by the stylish young person from grays' as a necessary part of her mourning equipment--against her faded eyes and wept. ah! poor thing! poor thing! she was a pitiful spectacle, a pitiful creature, inciting all the young man's goodness of heart, sense of personal success, delight in living, physical soundness and well-being, to claim sympathy and forbearance toward her! "yes, yes," he declared, almost tenderly. "i comprehend and associate myself with your grief. the trial has been so prolonged. you cannot expect to throw off painful impressions and adjust yourself to new conditions immediately. but that adjustment will come, dear cousin, believe me. it is merely a question of time, for you are young, and in youth our recuperative power is immense. so do not fight against your tears. if they relieve you, shed them freely." for a while joanna remained bowed together, then she threw herself back in her chair almost convulsively. "you must not be too kind to me," she cried. "i enjoy it, but it encourages my want of self-control." "don't you good english people set an exaggerated value upon self-control, perhaps?" adrian asked, gently, argumentatively. "why waste so much energy in the effort to maintain an appearance of red indian stoicism and impassivity? why fear to be human? sensibility is a grace rather than a fault, especially in a woman--" he moved away and stood by one of the eastern windows looking out into the pine grove. a draught of air, round the corner of the house, shook the stiff branches. he felt sorry for her, quite horribly sorry. but, just heaven, how plain she was, with that tear-blotched face and those quivering lips and nostrils! andrew merriman's appraisement of her appearance and the consequences entailed by it in respect of a possible suitor were not overstated. adrian waited, giving not only her, but himself, time to recover, and, approaching her again, did so smiling. "ah! that is well, dear cousin," he said. "already you feel better, you regain your serenity. well then, let us talk quietly about this matter which you wish to explain to me." "it was about our wills--margaret's and mine, i mean; about the disposition of our property." as she spoke she clenched her right hand, working it against the palm of her left, like a ball working in a socket. "mr. challoner has mentioned this subject to margaret, impressing upon her that we ought to attend to it without delay." "our good challoner is a little disposed to magnify his office," adrian put in, lightly. "so i have thought--sometimes," joanna agreed, a trace of eagerness in her flat, colorless voice, produced--as always--from the top of an empty lung. "but he has great influence over margaret. i do not want to be unjust, but i think the ideas he suggests to her are not always suitable. they tend to create difficulties between us. from what margaret tells me i gather that he has discussed this subject very freely with her. she refers to it and quotes him continually when we are alone. i gather that he thinks i ought to make a will exclusively in margaret's favor, so that in the event of my death the estate may pass to papa's direct descendants. he tells margaret, as i gather, that papa wished this although he left no written instructions regarding it. and he--he--mr. challoner, i mean--appears to take for granted that while margaret will almost certainly marry now, it is improbable i shall ever marry." "but," adrian cried, indignantly, though against his convictions and his better judgment, "in even hinting at such a thing challoner is guilty of a very great impertinence! he takes for granted that which is no concern of his, and takes it for granted altogether prematurely, thereby laying himself open to a well-deserved and very extensive snubbing." joanna's breath caught in her throat. again the young man felt her eyes fix on him with an extraordinary intensity of gaze. "cousin adrian," she said, hurriedly, "has any one ever told you--do you know--i think you ought to know--about our brother william--about bibby?" this time adrian met her gaze steadily. he felt it imperative to do so. to his relief, after a momentary fluttering, the red-rimmed eyelids were lowered. "i have heard a little about him, poor boy," he answered, gently and respectfully. "i have heard that he caused those who loved him anxiety and trouble." "and humiliation and disgrace," joanna whispered. "but what would you have, dear cousin? it must be so at times. life is a tremendous, a dangerous, though, in my opinion, a very splendid experiment. we all start as amateurs, in ignorance of the laws which govern it. is it not, therefore, inevitable that some should get off the true lines, and make mistakes injurious to themselves and lamentable to others?" "but papa did not permit mistakes. he never forgave them." "pardon me, but in not forgiving them did he not himself, perhaps, commit the very gravest of all mistakes?" adrian could not resist asking, though he feared the question trenched on levity. "i wish i could believe that." she spoke bitterly. "it would simplify so much for me. i should be so thankful to believe it. it would help to excuse bibby. i know he was weak in character; but he was so nervous and delicate as a child. papa alarmed him. he demanded too much of him, and was stern and sarcastic because bibby could not meet that demand. my brother did not go to a preparatory school, but at thirteen he was sent to rugby. it was papa's old school, and he believed the traditions and atmosphere of it were calculated to induce the serious sense of moral and intellectual responsibility in which he thought bibby deficient." "poor child!" adrian murmured. "yes," she said; "i am thankful you understand and pity him. i know papa's purpose was bibby's good, the improvement and development of his character; but the treatment was too severe. it did not brace him, but only broke his spirit. he was unaccustomed to associate with other boys. they frightened and bullied him. he was so miserable that at the beginning of his second term he ran away." she waited a moment, struggling against rising emotion, her hands working again ball-and-socket fashion. "it was all very dreadful. for nearly a week he was lost. we knew he could have very little money, for his allowance was small. papa held economy to be a duty for the young. i think, next to mamma, i suffered most, for i always loved bibby best--better than i did margaret. i shall never forget that week. i suppose papa suffered, too, in his own way. he was very silent, and looked angry. andrew merriman traced bibby to london and brought him home. mamma pleaded to keep him for a time, but he was sent straight back to school. about six months later papa received a request to remove him. he was accused of taking money from another boy's locker. nothing was actually proved, but suspicion clung to him, and as his general conduct was reported unsatisfactory, the authorities thought it better he should leave. papa sent him abroad to a private school at lausanne. he remained there three years, until he was seventeen. papa refused to let him spend the holidays at home, so during the whole of that time we only saw him twice, when we were traveling." the monotonous, colorless voice, the monotonous story of well-meaning, cold-blooded tyranny it narrated, got upon the listener's nerves. with difficulty he restrained explosive comment reflecting far from politely upon the so recently buried dead. he really could not sit still under the indignation it provoked in him. he got up, moved away and stood leaning his shoulder against the dark, polished woodwork of the eastern window, his back to the light. he thought it well the narrator should not see his expression too clearly. "it is almost inconceivable," he said. "i am not exaggerating, cousin adrian," joanna returned, straining her eyes in the effort to fix them upon his face. "all these events in their consecutive order are stamped indelibly upon my memory." "i am convinced you are not exaggerating, my dear cousin, and just on that very account it is the more inconceivable," adrian declared. "but in your present relation to us--to me--i feel you ought to know all about poor bibby, all about our--my--family history. my duty is to place the facts before you. i should be guilty of great self-indulgence if i concealed anything from you in that connection," joanna protested, with growing agitation. "i should do very wrong if, to spare myself pain, i deceived you." and again that sensation of embarrassment, of uncertainty how to comport himself, returned upon adrian. "but, dear cousin," he said, in a mildly argumentative manner, "don't you emphasize the obligation of truth-telling unnecessarily? i am here to be of help to you, to shield you, in so far as possible, from that which is distressing. in thus reviving painful memories do you not defeat the very object of my presence?" "oh no, no," joanna cried. "surely you realize how bitterly i might have cause to upbraid myself--later--if i now left anything untold which it was right you should have heard? it is incumbent upon me, a matter of--of honor, to be perfectly explicit." adrian raised his eyebrows the least bit. how providential he stood with his back to the light! he passed his left hand down over his neat black beard, and his lips parted silently. poor, dear young woman, what in the name of wonder did--and then he came near laughing. the idea was too preposterous, and, worse still--shame filled him at even momentary entertainment of it--too fatuous! he gave it unqualified dismissal. "no," she repeated, with a veiled and somber violence, "i should do very wrong by permitting you to remain in ignorance. i should deserve any after suffering which might come to me. for i have a duty to fulfil to bibby as well--that is what i wanted to explain to you before giving instructions to mr. challoner about drafting my will. some day my duty to bibby may appear to clash with another duty; and therefore it is necessary you should know clearly beforehand." joanna flung herself back in her chair. "whatever it may cost me now or--or--in the future, i must tell you the rest, adrian." more mystified than ever, startled by the use of his christian name without any qualifying prefix, at once affected and repelled by her excitement, the young man moved from his station at the window and stood near her, leaning his hands upon the head of the ungainly adjustable, couch. "pray tell me any and everything which may help to procure you relief," he said, kindly. and joanna, lying back, looked up at him, an immense appeal, a something desperate and unsatiable in her faded blue eyes, which made him consciously shrink. the ibsen woman--the ibsen woman in another manifestation!--it was not pleasant. he didn't like it in the very least.--then, as if at the touch of a spring, she sat bolt upright, looking past him out of the window at the dark, wind-shaken branches of the pines. "when my brother returned from lausanne," she began again in that colorless, monotonous voice, "he was put into andrew merriman's office at the mills. mamma and i were glad at first. we trusted andrew merriman. he had always been tactful and kind about bibby. but papa decided he--my brother--should live at home so that he might exert a direct personal authority over him. and the two had nothing, nothing in common. you can judge from the contents of this library what papa's tastes and pursuits were. my brother did not care anything about politics, or social reform, or that class of subject. he was pleasure-loving, and i do not think his long stay abroad improved him in that respect. papa supposed the discipline at m. leonard's school to be rigid. among the elder boys i have reason to fear it was decidedly lax." adrian made a slight movement of comprehension. he could picture the _régime_, and could well imagine the nice little games these exiled young gentlemen had been at! "papa was stern; bibby inattentive, sullen, and nervous. at dinner we--mamma and i--used constantly to be in dread of collisions. we were in perpetual anxiety as to what bibby might inadvertently say, or not say, which might provoke papa's sarcasm. then mamma's health began to give way. we went to torquay for the winter, taking the servants, and highdene was shut up. bibby went into lodgings near to andrew merriman, in the suburb of leeds, in which the mills are situated. papa wishing to train him in habits of economy, only allowed him the salary of a junior clerk. but every one there knew we were rich, so the tradespeople were only too ready to give bibby credit, while unscrupulous persons borrowed of him. he was naturally generous, and easily imposed upon, and he enjoyed the society of those who flattered and made much of him. it was said he frequented low company, that he gambled at cards and got intoxicated. i i do not know how far this was true, but he did get deeply into debt. more than once andrew merriman helped him, but he could not afford to be responsible for bibby's continued extravagance. and then--then--my brother manipulated certain accounts and embezzled a large sum of money. andrew merriman discovered this. he tried to shield him, and interceded with papa for him--" the speaker broke off, pausing for breath, bending down as though crushed by the weight of her recollections. "it was very, very dreadful," she said. "papa paid my brother's debts, but he forbade him all intercourse with us. he cut bibby out of our family life, as a surgeon might cut out some malignant growth. he regarded him thus, i think--indeed, he said so once--as a diseased part the excision of which was imperative if the moral health of the family was to be preserved. he gave andrew merriman a capital sum, which was to be remitted to bibby in small quarterly instalments. when that sum was exhausted he was to receive nothing further. we never saw him again. papa bought this house, and we moved here. he would not remain at highdene. the scandal had been too great. he could not forgive, nor could he endure pity. he made the business into a company, and retired. mamma had become a complete invalid. the doctors thought this climate might benefit her; and then this place is far away from our former friends and associations. we knew no one here." joanna raised herself, looking, not at adrian savage, but past him, out at the dusky pines. she wiped her lips with her black-bordered handkerchief. "that is all, cousin adrian," she said. but, when the young man would have spoken she held up one hand restrainingly, and he saw that she shivered. "except--except this," she went on. "papa ordered that bibby should be considered as dead. later andrew ceased to hear from him, and rumors came that he was actually dead--that he had died at buenos ayres, where he had gone as a member of some theatrical troupe. but mamma and i never credited those rumors. nor did andrew merriman. he does not credit them now." she turned her head, looking full at adrian with that same desperation of appeal. "i asked him yesterday," she said. "it was dreadful to speak to him on the subject, but i felt it my duty to do so. i felt i ought to know where i stood in regard to my fortune, because--because of the future. andrew believes my brother is still alive. and that is why i must refuse to make a will in margaret's favor. if, as you say, papa made the gravest of all mistakes in never pardoning mistakes, clearly my duty to his memory is to redress the mistake he made in the case of my brother in as far as it is possible for me to do so. margaret will have ample means of her own. i cannot be ruled by mr. challoner's opinion." joanna rose and walked over to the window, standing exactly where adrian had stood some ten minutes before. there seemed a definite purpose in her selection of the exact spot, both in the placing of her feet and the leaning of her shoulder against the window-frame. her back was to the light. adrian could not see the expression of her face distinctly. he was glad of this. he did not want to see it, for again he was conscious of shrinking from her. "after all, mr. challoner may be wrong--as you yourself just now said, cousin adrian--in taking for granted i shall never marry. i may marry. but, whatever happens, i shall not leave any part of my fortune to margaret. i shall leave two-thirds of it to bibby, and the rest--" smallbridge threw open the library door. "mr. challoner, ma'am," he said; and the stourmouth solicitor, his mongolian countenance quite strikingly devoid of all expression, ponderously entered the room. ii the drawings upon the wall chapter i a waster it was still cold, but the skies were clear. the snow had been carted away and paris was herself again; the note of her exhilarating, seductive, vibrant--a note at once curiously fiercer and more feminine than that of london. rené dax, crossing the _place du carrousel_, stood for a moment listening to that vibrant note, sensible of its charm and challenge; looking westward, meanwhile, across the tuileries gardens and _place de la concorde_ to the ascending perspective of the _champs-Élysées_. the superb _ensemble_ and detail of the scene, softened by lavender mist at the ground levels, was crowned by the blood-red and gold of a wide-flung frosty sunset--a city of fire, as the young man told himself, built on foundations of dreams! he had just come away from the press view of a one-man show of his own drawings. the rooms were crowded to suffocation. the success of the exhibition was already assured, promising to be prodigious, to amount to a veritable sensation. he was aware of this, yet his mood remained an unhappy one. as usual the critics showed themselves a herd of imbeciles. they praised the wrong things, or, more exasperating still, praising the right ones praised them wrongly, extolling their weak points rather than their fine ones, misinterpreting their message and inner meaning. had adrian savage been there--unluckily he was still in england--some sense might have been spoken. adrian was an austere critic, but always an intelligent and discriminating one. as for the rest of the confraternity--rené gazed mournfully at the flaming sunset splendor--they got upon his nerves, they nauseated him. and it all went deeper than that. for those many square yards of wall, plastered with his mordant verdict upon the human species, got upon his nerves, too, and nauseated him. he recoiled, as he had often recoiled before--taking it thus wholesale--from his own merciless exposure of the follies, vulgarities, the mental and physical deformities and distortions of his fellow-creatures; recoiled from the reek of his own rabelaisian humor, of his own extravagant ribaldry and ingenious grossness. it was his vocation, as that of other and more famous satirists, to wreak a vindictive vengeance thus upon humanity. only, in his care, reaction invariably followed. the devil of unsanctified laughter for the time satiated and cast out of him, he wandered--as this evening--a very sad and plaintive little being, firmly resolving--as how often before!--once and for all to throw away his rather horrible pencil, and betake himself exclusively to the construction of those delicate lyrics and rondels from which, whatever minor perversions of sentiment they might exhibit, the witty bestiality common to his caricatures was conspicuously absent. he wanted to forget the hot, close rooms, packed with admirers, male, and, though happily in a minority, female also. by rené dax that minority was held in particularly small respect. the woman who relished, or affected to relish, his art ought to be ashamed of herself--such at least was his opinion. his art was meant for men, not for women; and the women who couldn't arrive at that conclusion by instinct, unaided, were women for whom, especially in his existing mood, he had no use whatever, didn't want in the very least. that which he did want, under the head of things feminine, was something conspicuously different--a far-removed, stately, inaccessible type of womanhood. and, still more, he wanted the child who should grow into such womanhood--a tender, elusive, sprite-like, spotlessly innocent and unsoiled creature, to whom moral and physical ugliness were equally unknown and equally, saving the paradox, abhorrent. well, were not the tall, old-fashioned houses of the _quai malaquais_ across the river there just opposite, and was it not still early enough to pay a visit? but then, as he rather fretfully remembered, madame st. leger had been pertinaciously invisible of late. he had called several times, only to be told she was not receiving or that she was out. he had never succeeded in seeing her and little bette; never, now that he came to think of it, since the day of the great snow, the day when adrian, whose absence he had just been deploring, left for england. the bringing of these two facts into any relation of cause and effect had not previously occurred to him. it did not do so seriously even now. yet unquestionably the names of madame st. leger and adrian savage took up a position side by side in his mind, thereby subtly coloring his reflections. he had no friend upon whom he depended and who, in his capricious exacting fashion, he loved as he did adrian. the friendship had remained practically unbroken since the time when adrian, the healthier, happier-natured boy, protected him, the queer little tadpole, from tormentors at school. this friendship had been among the wholesomest influences of his life, and, amid many aberrations and perversities of thought and conduct, he clung to it. but it followed on his self-absorption and selfishness, natural and assumed, that his friend's interests and concerns, save in so far as they bore direct relation to his own, were a matter of indifference to him. he had never troubled himself as to the possible state or direction of adrian's affections, and perhaps consequently, this sudden juxtaposition of names came to him as a surprise, and an irritating one. slipping in and out between private cars, taxis, and humbler, horse-drawn vehicles, he crossed the roadway to the _pont des saints pères_. the sunset glories faded, while avenues of living white and glow-worm green lights sprang into being. still, here and there, red splashes, as of blood, stained the livid, swirling surface of the seine, which, in half flood, fed by the melted snow, hissed and gurgled under the arches and against the masonry of the bridge. as it happened, just then, a lull occurred in the cross-river traffic, a break in the quick-moving throng of foot-passengers, so that in front of rené dax the pale arc of the right-hand pavement showed empty in the whole of its length, save for a single tall, slouching, shabby figure, clothed in a blue-serge suit unmistakably english in cut and in pattern. as rené advanced, his mind still working around those two names set in such irritating juxtaposition, he saw the man in the english-made suit first glance sharply to right and left, then bend down, grasping the outer edge of the parapet, while slowly and, as it seemed, furtively, drawing one knee up on to the flat of the coping. --was it possible that madame st. leger's repeated refusals to receive him were other than accidental? was it possible they had some connection with adrian's absence? was it conceivable his friend had turned traitor, had interfered, saying or hinting at that which might, socially, justify such denial of admission? suspicion, resentment, self-pity, a lively sense of personal injury invaded him.-- the shabby, slouching loafer's right knee was fairly upon the coping now. he threw up both arms, threw back his head, his mouth opened wide as one letting loose a great cry. rené dax saw his extended arms, his bare head, his profile with that wide-open mouth, dark against a pale background of buildings and cold, translucent sky. the effect was of the strangest, the more so that no sound came from the apparently loud-crying mouth. suddenly his chin dropped on his breast. his hands were lowered, clutching at the edge of the parapet again, and he remained thus for a few seconds, immobile, crouched together, his left foot, in a well-cut but bulging hole-riddled boot, still resting upon the pavement. then in a flash, awakening from contemplation of his own lately discovered woes, rené realized what was about to occur. his height and reach were insufficient, encumbered as he was, moreover, by a thick fur-lined overcoat, for him to get his arms round the crouching figure. so he just clutched whatever came handiest, the back of the fellow's jacket, the slack of the seat of his trousers. exerting all his strength, rené hauled and jerked at these well-worn garments. the attack, though neither very forcible nor very scientific, was completely unexpected. the man's grip relaxed. his knee slipped and he fell back, an amorphous indigo and sandy-red heap, upon the pallid asphalt. rené pulled a scented pocket-handkerchief out of the breast-pocket of his coat and proceeded delicately to wipe the fingers and palms of his gray _suède_ gloves. he was unaccustomed to such exertion. his heart thumped against his ribs. his sight was blurred. he felt slightly faint and light-headed and was grateful for the cold back-draught of air off the rapidly flowing river. it was his pride, part of his pose, in fact, never to display emotion; and he now found himself excited and shaken, by no means fully self-possessed. he needed a space of quiet in which to regain his accustomed affectations of bearing and manner. he was aware, too, that those shabby garments were decidedly unpleasant to touch. therefore he stood still, breathing rather hard through his nostrils, and daintily wiping the neat, little gray suede gloves incasing his quick, clever little fingers. "i must express regret for my violence," he said, with the utmost civility, to the heap on the pavement, as soon as he judged his voice sufficiently steady for speech. "i must apologize to you for such absence of ceremony, but really, my dear sir, it appeared to me no time should be lost. you had, unconsciously of course, placed yourself in a highly ridiculous position from which it was clearly incumbent upon me, as an amiable and sympathetic person, immediately to remove you. at times one is compelled to act with decision rather than politeness. this was a case in point. doubtless you are at present annoyed with me. but a few moments' reflection will, i feel sure, commend my action to you. you will recognize how right, even to the point of an apparent sacrifice of personal dignity, i was." the man by now had got upon all fours, looking like some unsightly, shambling animal. limply he rose to his feet and, supporting himself against the balustrade, turned upon his savior a dissipated boyish countenance, down which tears dribbled miserably. "why the devil couldn't you leave me alone?" he asked, petulantly, in english. "what earthly concern is it of yours? aren't i my own master?" his voice rose to a wail. "i've been trying to--to do it all day, but there have been too many people about. they stared at me. they suspected and followed me. i could not dodge them. now i thought the opportunity had come. i was rid of them at last. i never saw you, curse you, you're so short. after all, one doesn't think of looking on the ground, except for vermin. and i'd just pulled myself together. i mayn't have the nerve to try again. i've lost my chance," he wailed, childishly, his weak, loose-lipped mouth twisted by the wretchedness of crying. "i've lost my chance through you, you beast. and you've torn my coat, too. it's the only one i have left; and i did want to look decent, when they found me, when i was dead." he flung away passionately, pressing his face down on his folded arms upon the parapet, while his angular shoulders heaved and his body shuddered under the ragged blue-serge jacket. "i shall not have the pluck again. i know myself, and i sha'n't have it. by now i should have been out of the whole accursed tangle. the whole show would have been over--over--i should know nothing more. i should be quit of my misery. i should be dead--ah! my god, dead--dead--" but rené dax continued to wipe his neat, little gray _suède_ gloves. for his mood had changed. the taunt regarding his smallness of stature had turned him wicked, so that the exquisite minor poet, yearning for the companionship of things pure, lovely, and of good report, fled away. the injured friend fled away likewise. and the satirist, the caricaturist, impure and unsimple, greedy of human ugliness and degradation, malignant, mercilessly scoffing, reigned in their stead. and here, in this loose-limbed, blue-eyed, tawny-headed foreign youth--whose voice and speech, coarseness of expression notwithstanding, witnessed to education and gentle blood--vainly essaying to drown himself under the dying sunset skies of the city of fire built on foundations of dreams, was a subject, surely made to the satirist's hand, a subject of great price! the despotism of his art came upon rené dax, that necessity for vengeance upon humanity; and this time, for him, the edge of vengeance was sharpened by personal insult. for this was no common vagabond wastrel, thrown up from the foul underlying dregs of the population, but a person of condition, once his social equal, whose insolence therefore touched his honor as that of a man of the people could not. "you are offensive, my young friend," he said, in careful, slightly over-pronounced, but fluent english. "you are also remarkably unattractive and wanting in intelligence. but i, being happily none of these things--offensive, i would say, unattractive or wanting in intelligence--can afford to be magnanimous. learn, then, that had i not intervened--at much inconvenience to myself--to prevent your projecting your unsavory carcass into the river, but permitted you to carry out your thrice-idiotic purpose, it would not, as you say, have been all over by now and you quit of your misery, not one bit of it! were you less crude in idea, less bestially ignorant, you would be aware that the principle of life is indestructible. choking and struggling in the black water there you would have suffered abominable discomfort. but, even when the process of asphyxiation was complete, you yourself would have been still alive, still conscious, and would have discovered, to your infinite chagrin, that you had merely exchanged one state of being for an other and more odious one." rené rested his elbows upon the top of the balustrade, and, putting his little, tired baby face close, spoke with incisive clearness of enunciation into the young man's ear. "be under no delusion," he said. "once alive, always alive. there is no breaking out of that prison. it is too cleverly constructed. you cannot get away. your sentence is for life; and there is no term to living--none, absolutely none, forever and forever. you might have killed your present very unpleasing body, i grant, but this would not have advanced matters. for your essential self, the me, the ego, would have remained and would have been compelled by incalculable and indomitable natural forces to surround itself with another body, in which to endure the shame of birth, the agonizing sorrows of childhood, and all that which, from childhood, has rendered existence intolerable to you, over again. or you might, very probably, have come to rebirth lower down in the scale of creation--as a beetle to be crushed under foot, a dog to be pinned out on the vivisector's table, a lamb to be flayed at the abattoir, a worm to writhe on the fisherman's hook, a formless grub to bloat itself with carrion." here the wretched youth raised his head and stared at his self-constituted mentor. tearful wretchedness had given place to an expression of moral terror, almost trenching on insanity--terror of immeasurable possibilities, of conceptions monstrous and unnatural. "who are you, what are you," he cried, "you mincing little devil? isn't it all horrible enough already without you trying to scare me? i hate you. and you haven't been dead. how can you know?" "ah! you begin to take notice, to listen. and although you continue offensive, that you should listen is satisfactory, as it assures me my amiable attentions and instructive conversation are not altogether wasted. learn then, my cherished pupil," rené added, in a soft, easy, small-talk tone, "that you are still in error, since i--i who so patiently reason with you--have unquestionably been dead scores, hundreds, probably thousands of times. i have sampled many different incarnations, just as you, doubtless, under less indigent circumstances, have sampled dinners at many different restaurants; with this distinction, however, that whereas, in paris at all events, you must have eaten a number of quite passable dinners, i have never yet experienced an incarnation which was not in the main detestable, a flagrant outrage on sensibility and good taste. hence, you see, i do not speak at random, but from a wide basis of fact. i know all about it. and, therefore, i just emphasize this point once more. engrave it upon the tablets of your memory. it is well worth remembering, particularly in reckless and exaggerated moments. life is indestructible. to end it is merely to begin it under slightly altered material conditions, with a prelude of acute mental and physical discomfort thrown in; hideous disappointment, moreover, waiting to transfix you when your higher faculties are--like mine--sufficiently developed for you to have acquired the power of looking backward and visualizing the premutations of your past." the speaker turned sideways, leaning on one elbow. he took his handkerchief neatly from his breast-pocket again and held it to his nose. "really, you do need washing rather badly, my young friend!" he said. "but not down there, not in the but dubiously cleanly waters of our beloved seine. a turkish bath, and a vigorous shampoo afterward, and, subsequently, a change of linen.--however, that, for the moment, must wait. to return to our little lesson in practical philosophy.--i have rescued you from the disaster of premature reincarnation. i have also striven to improve your mind, to enlighten you, and that at considerable discomfort to myself, for i find it very cold standing and instructing you in the fundamental principles of being, here on this remarkably draughty bridge. i risk double pneumonia in your service. be grateful, then, and make suitable acknowledgment of the immense charity i have shown you." "you are a devil, and i hate you. why can't you go away?" the young man answered in a terrified sulkiness. "truly you are mistaken," rené returned, imperturbably. "my charity is too great to permit me to go away until you, my pupil, are provided for. you have so much which it would be to your advantage to learn! i am not a devil. no--but i admit that i am, to-day, one of the most-talked-about persons in paris. i must therefore entreat you to adopt a more respectful tone and less accentuated manner. we have ceased to be alone. many people are crossing the bridge. among them must be those to whom my appearance is familiar; and, if i am remarked pleading thus with a debauched, would-be suicide, i shall certainly read in the morning papers that m. rené dax has discovered a new method of self-advertisement, a catchy puff for his picture-show. this would be disagreeable to me. my work is big enough to stand on its own merits. self-advertisement, in my case, is as superfluous as it is vulgar. compose yourself. cease to be ridiculous. and above all do not call me rude names in the hearing of the public. ah! excellent!--there is an empty cab." he hailed a passing taxi, and, as the chauffeur drew up to the curb, put his arm within that of his companion, persuasively, even affectionately. "come, then, my child," he said. "see, my charity is really inexhaustible! i will take you home with me, though i confess you are a far from fragrant fellow-traveler, pending that so desirable turkish bath. and, listen--i will take you home, i will also feed you. and i will draw little pictures of you, several little pictures, because i find in you a singularly edifying example of a singularly degraded type. after i have drawn as many little pictures as pleases me, i will have you washed, i will give you clothes, i will give you money, and then i will send you away without asking any questions, without so much as inquiring your name." he moved toward the waiting car, the door of which the chauffeur held open. but the young man showed a disposition to struggle and hang back. "get in, dirty animal, or i call the police," rené dax ordered, sharply, "and recount to them your recent exploit. they will not give you money or clothes, nor will they abstain from asking inconvenient questions. ah! you decide to accompany me? that is well." and, with a roughly helping hand from the chauffeur, he projected the limp, wretched figure into the cab. "a good tip, my son, and drive smartly," he added, after giving an address in the _boulevard du mont parnasse_. chapter ii the return of the native "yes, i have returned. i am here, veritably here, _chère madame et amie_. at last i have effected my escape from the land of egypt and the house of bondage--and such a bondage! ah! it is an incredibly happy thing to be back!" adrian permitted himself to hold his hostess's hand some seconds longer than is demanded by strict etiquette. his face was as glad as a spring morning. tender gallantry lurked in his eyes. his voice had a ring of joy irrepressible. his aspect was at once that of suppliant and of conqueror. and this whole brilliant effect was infectious, finding readier and more sympathetic reflection in madame st. leger's expression and humor than she at all intended or bargained for. for the moment, indeed, the charm and the rush of it came near sweeping her off her feet. she ceased to subscribe to theory, ceased to reason, yielded to spontaneous feeling, practice claiming her--the secular and delightful practice of he being man, she woman, and of both being fearless, high-spirited, beautifully human, and beautifully young. "in any case the house of bondage has not disagreed with you," she said, gaily. "for i have never seen you looking more admirably well." "ah! you must not put that down to the credit of the house of bondage, but to the fact of my entrancing escape from it, to the fact that once more i am here--here--with you." as he spoke adrian glanced round the dear rose-red-and-canvas-colored room. he wished to make sure that, in every detail, he found it precisely as he had left it, every article of furniture, every picture, every ornament in its accustomed position. he felt jealous of the minutest change of object or of place. "no, nothing is altered, nothing," he said, answering his own thought aloud in the greatness of his content. gabrielle abstained from comment. she owned herself moved, excited, uplifted, by the joyful atmosphere which his presence exhaled. indeed, that presence affected her far more deeply than she had anticipated, catching her imagination and emotions as in the dazzling meshes of a golden net. some men are gross, some absurd, some unspeakably tedious when in love. adrian was very certainly neither of these objectionable things. he struck, indeed, an almost perfect note. and that was just where the danger came in, just why she dared not let this interview continue at the enthusiastic level. she might suffer the charm of it too comprehensively, and--for already she began to reason again--that would entail regret, and, only too likely, worse than regret. so, steeling herself against the insidious charm which so worked on and quickened her, she moved away from the vacant place before the fire, where she had been standing with adrian savage, sat down in her high-backed, rose-cushioned chair and picked up the bundle of white lawn and lace lying on the little table beside it. she needed protection--whether from him or from herself she did not quite care to inquire--and reckoned it wiser to put a barrier of actual space and barrier of sobering employment between herself and this inconveniently moving returned guest and lover. she refused to be taken by storm. but adrian's buoyancy of spirit was not so easily to be crushed. "ah! only that was needed," he declared, "to complete my satisfaction--that you should place yourself thus and shake out your pretty needlework. it procures me the welcome belief that no time has really been lost or wasted; it almost convinces me that i have not been away at all. you cannot conceive what pleasure, what happiness it gives me, to be here, to see you again. but now that i am able to observe you calmly, _chère madame_--" "yes, calmly, calmly," she put in, without raising her eyes from her stitching. "how i value, how i appreciate calm!" "do you not appear a little tired, a little pale?" "very possibly," she answered. "i have been troubled about my mother recently. the extreme cold affected her circulation. for some days we were in grave anxiety. her vitality is low. indeed, i have passed through some trying hours." "and i was ignorant of her illness, ignorant of your anxiety! why did you not write and tell me?" "does not the difficulty of answering letters one has never received occur to you?" gabrielle inquired, mildly. "and it was not i, you know, who volunteered to write." the young man had drawn a chair up to the near side of the little table. now he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, both hands extended, as one who offers a petition. "do not reproach me with my silence or i shall be broken-hearted," he said. "my inclination was to write reams to you, volumes. i did, in fact, begin many letters. but i restrained myself. i destroyed them. to have sent them would have been selfish and indiscreet. i was bound, by my promise to you at parting, not to allude to the subject which most vitally touches my happiness. and i found over there so much which was perplexing and sad. i asked myself what right i had to inflict upon you a recital of melancholy impressions and events. i came to the conclusion that i really had none." madame st. leger looked at him sideways from between half-closed eyelids. the dimple showed in her cheek, but her smile was distinctly ironic. "why not admit that i was right in foretelling that you would find those shadowy ladies, and your mission to them, of absorbing interest? it occupied your time and thoughts to the exclusion of all else--now, was it not so? was i not right?" "yes and no, _chère madame_," he answered, presently, slowly and with so perceptible a change of tone that his hearer was startled to the point of finding it difficult to go on with her needlework. adrian sat silently watching her. the singular character of her beauty, both in its subtlety and suggestion of a reserve of moral force, had never been more evident to him. more than ever, in each gesture, in the long, suave lines of her body and limbs shrouded in clinging black, in the gleam of her furrowed hair as she turned or bent her charming head, in the abiding provocation and mystery of her eyes and lips, did she appear to him unique and infinitely desirable. watching her, he inclined to become lyrical and cry aloud his worship in heroic fashion, careless of twentieth-century decorum and restraint. but if her room, the material frame and setting of that beauty, to his immense content remained unchanged in every particular, her attitude of mind, to his immense discontent, evidently remained unchanged likewise. in the first surprise of his arrival she had yielded somewhat, catching alight from his flame. but with a determined hand she shut down those sympathetic fires, becoming obdurate as before. he could feel her will sensibly stiffening against his own; and this at once hurt him shrewdly and whipped up passion, preaching a reckless war of conquest, bidding him disregard promises, bidding him speak and thunder down opposition by sheer law of the strongest. in every man worth the name temptation must arise, at moments, to beat the defiant beloved object into an obedient and docile jelly--the defiant beloved object, it may confidently be added, would regard any man as unworthy of serious consideration did it not. but, in adrian's case, sitting watching her now, though such temptation did very really arise, its duration was brief. less primitive counsels prevailed. she was far from kind and he was hotly in love; but he was also the child of his age, and a fine gentleman at that, to whom, given time for reflection, berserker methods must inevitably present themselves as both unworthy and ludicrous. so, if she condemned him to play a waiting game, he would bow to her ruling and play it. he had considerable capital of self-confidence to draw upon. in as far as the ultimate issues were concerned he wasn't a bit afraid--as yet. he could afford, so he believed, to wait. only, since tormenting was about, all the fun of that amiable pastime shouldn't be on her side. and to this end now he would make her speak first. he remained silent, therefore, still observing her, until the color deepened in the round of her cheeks, and the stitches were set less regularly in the white work, while uneasiness gained on her causing her presently to look up. "yes and no?" she said, "yes and no? that is nothing of an answer. i am all attention. i am curious to hear your explanation. and then--yes and no--what next?" "this," he replied, "that on nearer acquaintance the two ladies proved anything but shadowy. they proved, in some respects, even a little tremendous. far from being absorbed in them, i came alarmingly near being absorbed by them--which is a very different matter." "ah, that is interesting. you did not like them?" "i really cannot say. they both--but particularly the elder sister, my cousin joanna--were new to my experience. i do not feel that i have even yet placed them in my mind. the members of all nations above a certain social level can meet on common ground. it is below that level national tendencies and eccentricities actually declare themselves. i went over, strong in the conceit of ignorance. i supposed i knew all about it and should find myself quite at home. i was colossally mistaken. the manners and mental attitude of the provincial middle-class english were a revelation to me of the blighting effects of a sea frontier and a puritan descent. the men have but three subjects of conversation--politics, games, and their own importance. the women"--adrian paused, looking full at madame st. leger--"i am very, very sorry for the women. ah! dear madame," he added, "let us return devout thanks that we were born on this side, the humane, the amiable, the artistic side of the channel, you and i. for they are really a very uncomfortable people those middle-class anglo-saxons. until i spent this age-long three weeks among them i had no conception what a convinced catholic--in sentiment, if not, to my shame, altogether in practice--and thorough-paced latin i was!" during the above harangue gabrielle's hands remained idle. he was really very good, meeting her thus half-way in the suppression of the personal and amatory note. she was obliged to him, of course; yet, in honest truth, was she so very much pleased by his readiness to take the hint? she could not but ask herself that--and then hurry away, so to speak, from the answer, her fingers in her pretty ears. his cue was an intelligent exchange of ideas then? an excellent one!--she stopped her ears more resolutely.--she, too, would be intelligent. "increased faith and increased patriotism as the result of your journey! how admirable! clearly it is highly beneficial to one's morale to cross the channel. were it rather later in the year, and were the weather less inclement, i should be disposed to take the little cure, without delay, myself." "it would not suit you in the least," adrian asserted. "you would dislike it all quite enormously." gabrielle st. leger at the tower house! the idea produced in him a violent unreasoning repulsion, as though she ran some actual physical danger. heaven forbid! "i should not go with any purpose of enjoyment, but rather as a penance, hoping the dislike of what i found over there might heighten my appreciation of all my blessings here at home." whereupon adrian, careless of diplomacy, clutched at his chance. "then you are not so entirely satisfied, _chère madame et amie_," he cried, laughing a little in his eagerness, "not so utterly happy and content!" "is one ever as devout, ever as patriotic, as one ought to be?" she asked, gravely. "or as sincere?" he returned, with corresponding gravity. the hot color deepened in the young woman's face, and she picked up her needlework again quickly. "i--insincere?" she asked. "is not that precisely why you find me slightly vexatious, my dear mr. savage, that i am only too sincere, a veritable model of sincerity?" and she rose, gracious, smiling, to receive another guest. "ah! _ma toute belle_, how are you, and how is the poor, darling mother? better? thank god for that! but still in her room? dear! dear! yet, after all, what can one expect? in such weather convalescence must necessarily be protracted. i am forced to come and ask for news in person since you refuse to have a telephone. just consider the many annoying intrusions, such as the present, which that useful instrument would spare you!" anastasia beauchamp, overdressed and genial as ever, interspersed these remarks with the unwinding of voluminous fox furs, all heads and tails and feebly dangling paws, the kissing of her hostess on either cheek, and finally a hand-shake to adrian. "so you are restored to us, my dear savage," she continued. "i am more than delighted to see you, though at this moment i am well aware that delight is not reciprocated.--there, there, it is superfluous to perjure yourself by a denial.--and you are back just in time to write a scathing criticism of your _protégé_ m. dax's exhibition, in the review. here is matter for sincere congratulation, for, believe me, very plain speaking is demanded. the newspapers are afraid of him. they cringe. their pusillanimity is disgusting. really this time he has broken his own record! it is just these things which create a wrong impression and bring france into bad odor with other nations. he is a traitor to the best traditions of the art of this country. i deplore it from that point of view. his exhibition is a scandal. the correctional police should step in." "you have yourself visited the exhibition, dear anastasia?" madame st. leger inquired, demurely. "naturally, i have been to see it. don't i see everything which is going? isn't that my acknowledged little hobby, my dear? then, too, where does the benefit of increasing age come in unless you claim the privileges of indiscretion conferred by it? still, even in senile indiscretion, one should observe a decent limit. i went alone, absolutely alone, to inspect those abominable productions. i wore a thick veil, too, and--i blushed behind it. needless to relate, i now and then quivered with laughter. one is but human after all, and to be human is also to be diverted by impropriety. but i could have whipped myself for laughing, even though quite alone and behind the veil. go and judge for yourself whether i am not justified in my disgust, my dear savage. and as for you, _ma toute belle_, do not, i implore you, go at all--unless you have had the misfortune to do so already--even though going would effectually cure you of any kindness you may entertain toward the artist--an end, in my poor opinion, greatly to be desired." "i have not seen m. dax's exhibition, nor have i seen m. dax himself for some length of time," gabrielle remarked, quietly. "you have dropped him? i rejoice to hear it. a man of so villainous an imagination is unfit to approach you." "i will not say that i have dropped him." as she spoke she was aware that adrian looked keenly, inquiringly at her. and this displeased her, as an intrusion upon her liberty of action. "m. dax has a charming devotion to my little bette," she continued. "no one whom i know is so perfect a playfellow to children. his sympathy with them is extraordinary. he understands their tastes and pleasures, and is unwearied in his kindness to them. only, perhaps, his games are a little overstimulating, overexciting. after his last visit my poor bette suffered from agitating dreams and awoke in the night frightened and crying. i had difficulty in soothing her." "praiseworthy babe, how profoundly right are her instincts!" miss beauchamp declared, fervently. "but, heaven help us, what's this!" she added, under her breath. "perfidious infant, how these praiseworthy babies can fool one!" she nodded and beckoned to adrian, still speaking under her breath. "as you value my friendship, don't go, on no account go, my dear savage. come and sit here by me and tell me about your time in england. like the chivalrous young man you are, stick to me. supply me with a valid excuse for remaining. for, manners or no manners, i am resolved not to leave her alone with that depraved little horror. i am resolved to outstay him." chapter iii a straining of friendship bette, light-footed, sprightly, in beaver cap, pelisse, and muff, brown cloth gaiters and boots to match, her face pink from air and exercise, her eyes wide and bright with consciousness of temerity, spricketed toward her mother, leading rené dax by the hand. "i found him outside in the courtyard as i returned from my walk with my little friends," she piped, the words tumbling over one another in her pretty haste. "he told me that he wished so much to see us, but that he never found us at home now. and he looked unhappy. you have always instructed me that it is our duty to console the unhappy. so i informed him that i knew you were at home to-day, because you would not leave my grandmother, and i assured him that, speaking in your name, it would give us much pleasure to receive him. and then i invited him to come up-stairs with me. and that was all quite proper, wasn't it, mamma, because we do not like him to be unhappy, and it does give us pleasure to receive m. dax, does it not?" "assuredly it gives us pleasure to receive m. dax," gabrielle said, her head carried high and a just perceptible ring of defiance in her voice. she smiled graciously upon the young man, and for an instant the three stood hand in hand--rené dax, the tadpole, offering the very strangest of connecting links between the beautiful mother and delicious little girl. miss beauchamp uttered a sharp exclamation, which she vainly attempted to mask by a cough. adrian savage looked, saw, and turned his back. he stared blindly out of window at paris beneath, sparkling in the keen-edged february sunshine. the sweat broke out on his forehead. he had received an agonizing, a hateful impression, amounting, sound and self-confident though he was, to acute physical pain. "no, not that, not that," he cried to himself. "of all conceivable combinations, not that one. it is hideous, unbearable, out of nature!" miss beauchamp touched him on the arm. her face spoke volumes. "talk to me, my dear savage," she said, urgently. "i can imagine what you feel. but talk. create some, any excuse for staying, and take _it_, that depraved little horror, away with you when you go. rally your resources, my dear friend. play up, i entreat you, play up." then louder. "you had a deplorable crossing--fog, coming into calais? yes, february is among the most odious months of the year. but i go over so seldom now, you know, since my poor brother's death. nearly all my friends are on this side; and, after all, one only has to wait. everybody who is anybody must pass through paris sooner or later.--talk, my dear savage, talk. support me.--ah yes, in london you observed many changes? i hear a mania has taken the authorities lately for improvements. you did not stay in town? ah no, of course not. stourmouth?--yes, i remember the place vaguely. interminable black fir-trees and interminable, perambulating pink-and-white consumptives--i like neither. yes, talk--talk--my own remarks are abysmal in their fatuity. but no matter. it's all in a good cause. let us keep on." rené, meanwhile, successfully affected ignorance of any human presences save those of his hostess and his little guide. "why have you refused me? why have you never let me see you?" he asked, gazing mournfully at madame st. leger. "i have not been receiving," she replied. "my mother has been ailing, and my time has been devoted to her." "but to see me, even to be aware that i was near her, would have done her good," he returned. "she has a great regard for me; and, in the case of a sensitive organization, the proximity of a person to whom one is attached acts as a restorative. it was on that account i have needed to come here. i, too, have been ailing. my exhibition is a howling success. being a person of refinement, this naturally has disagreed with me, inducing repeated fits of the spleen, flooring me with a dumb rage of melancholy. as a corrective i required the soothing society of madame, your mother, and of mademoiselle bette. i required also to be with you, madame, to look at you. this i believed would prove beneficial to my nerves, lacerated by frenzied public admiration. by excluding me, you have not only wounded my susceptibilities, but prolonged my ill health. as i have already proved to you, madame vernois's regrettable illness is no sufficient reason for that exclusion. there must have been some further reason." "there was a further reason," gabrielle replied, quietly. rené gazed up at her, a point of flame in his somber eyes. all of a sudden, with an amazingly quick, very vulgar, street-boy gesture and a wicked grimace, tipping his thumb over his shoulder, he indicated the other two guests holding uneasy converse at the other side of the room. the thing was done in a twinkling, and he regained his accustomed plaintive solemnity of aspect. "what further reason, that he, the janitor, otherwise adrian the magnificent, was away?" "you are impertinent," madame st. leger said, sternly. at first her anger concentrated itself upon rené dax. then, quite arbitrarily and unjustly, it took a wider sweep. she called bette to her; and, kneeling down, the train of her dress trailing out across the rosy carpet, her head bowed, began undoing the frogs of the child's fur pelisse. "pray understand," she said, still sternly, "mr. savage's presence or absence is a matter which in no degree affects my actions." while in the pause which followed adrian's voice, harsh from his effort to make it sound quite disengaged and natural, asserted itself forcibly. "yes," he was saying, "colonel rentoul haig.--you cannot surely have been so heartless as to have forgotten his existence, dear miss beauchamp, when he retains such enthusiastic memories of you and of the brilliancy of your conversation?" "rentoul haig? rentoul haig? ah! to be sure! i have it at last. yes, certainly, in the early eighties, at my cousin delamere beauchamp's place in midlandshire. of course, of course--a neat, little, tea-party subaltern, out in camp with some militia regiment, in general request for answering questions and running messages, and so on; qualifying, even then, as a walking hand-book of the english landed and titled gentry." "he has continued in that line until his genealogical learning has reached truly monumental proportions," adrian returned, in the same harsh voice. "it possesses and obsesses him, keeping him in a perpetual ferment of apprehension lest he should be called upon to associate with persons of no family in particular. in this connection my arrival, i fear, caused him cruel searchings of heart. his mother and my father were hundredth cousins. hence, alarms. should i prove presentable to the funny old gentlemen at the local club, or should i compromise him? he has hardly marched with the times, and pictured me--this i learned from his own ingenuous lips--as some long-haired, threadbare, starveling bohemian, straight out of the pages of henri mürger or eugène sue. my personal appearance did, i rejoice to say, reassure him to a certain extent. but your name, and recollections both of your cousin's fine place and of your own conversational powers, did much more toward allaying the torment of his social sense. he ended, indeed, by conveying to me that, my beloved mother's alien nationality and my beloved father's profession notwithstanding, i was really quite a credit to the united houses of savage and haig." "are you going again to exclude me, are you going to shut the door on me, because i have been that which you qualify by the word 'impertinent'?" rené dax asked, softly and sadly, as madame st. leger--the little girl's coat removed and her frilled white skirts straightened out--rose proudly to her feet. "you richly deserve that i should do so," she replied. "ah! _pardon_--but just consider. for to be cross with me, to repudiate me, is so conspicuously useless. it only serves to accentuate my faults--always supposing i really have any. i am controlled, i am led, by kindness, and i possess most engaging qualities. in the interests of all concerned you should encourage the display of those qualities." "pray do not be severe with m. dax any more," little bette put in, prettily and busily. "you have, perhaps, dear mamma, been so on my account, therefore it is for me to plead with you." madame st. leger's expression softened. the tadpole, his big overdeveloped brain and puny body, touched the springs of maternal compassion in her, somehow. she glanced at him. surely she had exaggerated the disturbing influences which could be exercised by so quaint and relatively insignificant a creature? then, stooping down, she took little bette up in her arms, smiling, her figure finely poised, both in lifting and bearing the weight of that graceful burden. in an ecstasy of affection the child snuggled against her, cheek to cheek. "i am no longer afraid of his little walking-cane," bette murmured, in a confidential whisper. "that was a silly dream. i assure you i shall not allow it to trouble me, should it repeat itself. so i entreat you, mamma, tell m. dax he may come here again and play with me and my little friends as he used to do." gabrielle's smile sweetened to a tender merriment. with her child pressed close against her, thus, she felt so satisfied, so secure in the strong, pure joys of her motherhood, that she gave caution the slip. so safeguarded, what, she asked herself, could disquiet her soul or harm her? rené dax was right, moreover, in saying he possessed engaging qualities--though it mightn't be the best taste in the world that he, himself, should announce the fact. what a good work, then, to nurture those qualities, and, by keeping them in play, strengthen and redeem all that was best in the young man's complex and wayward nature! a quite missionary spirit, toward the singular tadpole, arose in her. and something further--though this she did not willingly acknowledge--namely, a hot desire to assert the completeness of her personal liberty before witnesses just now present. she would conserve her freedom, and demonstrate unequivocally to present company that she intended so doing. "good, most precious one," she said, returning the child's fluttering kisses. then: "since my little daughter wishes it, the door shall remain open, m. dax." but here adrian savage, partially overhearing the conversation, partially divining that purpose of demonstration, smitten, moreover, by madame st. leger's resolved and exalted aspect, was overcome by alarm and distress altogether too acute for further concealment. miss beauchamp might wave her long, thin arms, and pour forth cascades of transparently artificial conversation in the effort to delay his departure, but he could bear the position no longer. she, after all, was actuated by motives of social expediency and of friendship only, was merely an onlooker at this drama, while he was a principal actor in it, all his dearest hopes, all his future happiness at stake. he had reached the limits of moral and emotional endurance. his handsome face was drawn and blanched to an unnatural pallor as against his black, pointed beard, black eyebrows, and dark, close-cropped hair. a few moments more and he felt he might be guilty of some irretrievable breach of good manners, might make a scene, commit some unpardonable folly of speech and action, or that just simply he might collapse, might faint. so, then and there, he bounded tiger-like, so to speak, into the open space before the fire where his hostess still stood, addressing her rapidly, imperatively, wholly ignoring her companion, rené dax. "pardon me, madame, that i interrupt you, but i have already, as i fear, greatly outstayed your patience and will delay no further to bid you good-by. my excuse, both for coming to-day and for remaining so long, must be that i am here, in paris, probably for but a few days on the business of the review. i may be recalled to england at any moment, and it is conceivable in the press of work which demands my attention that i may not have another opportunity of presenting myself to you before i go." "behold vesuvius in full eruption," rené murmured, gazing pensively at his hostess. the latter had stood little bette down on the seat of the rose-cushioned chair. she still held the child close, one arm round her waist. the unaccustomed tones of adrian's voice, his vehemence, and air of unmistakable suffering, agitated her. was it the price of her independence to hurt a faithful friend so sorely as all this? "i was unaware you were likely to leave paris again so soon," she said. "i supposed you had returned for good; and there is so much that i wished to hear, so much that i had promised myself the entertainment of having you recount to me." "unfortunately the claims of my venerable cousin's affairs are inexorable," adrian replied, with a not very successful attempt at lightness, looking her in the eyes while his lips perceptibly shook. "in death, as in life, he has proved himself an unscrupulously devouring old tyrant. indeed, i am quite unable to forecast, as yet, when i shall escape out of the house of bondage for good." "mamma, dearest," little bette whispered, politely, "i like it of course, but you will excuse me if i mention that you are squeezing me so very tight?" and thereupon, somehow, gabrielle's gentler mood evaporated. she ceased to be touched by the young man's troubled aspect, or to regret her share in the production of that trouble. she felt angry, though not very certainly with innocent bette. mockery supplanted concern in the expression of her beautiful face as she gave her hand to her unhappy lover. "in time the arrangement of even the richest succession must be terminated. when that termination is reached we shall hope to welcome you back, mr. savage--unless, of course, you have any thought of forming ties which will necessitate your settling permanently in england?" and, before adrian had either time or heart to parry this cruel thrust, rené intervened, patting him delicately on the back. "so you are going, _mon vieux_? see, i will accompany you. no, no--indeed, i gladly go with you, leaving mademoiselle beauchamp--who detests me--as she so earnestly desires, in possession of the field of battle. why should i not go, my dear fellow? you do not hurry my departure in the least. i have accomplished the object of my visit. i am restored, soothed comforted. i have got all--all that, for the moment, i want." as the door closed behind the two young men anastasia advanced. she re-adjusted her frisky hat, pulled her long gloves up at the elbow, cast the heads and tails and feebly dangling paws of her fox furs about her neck and shoulders. "_ma toute belle_, at the risk of your being angry and requesting me to mind my own business, i am constrained to tell you that i fear you are committing a very grave folly," she said. but madame st. leger was engaged in caressing little bette. chapter iv in which adrian sets forth in pursuit of the further reason coming from under the _porte-cochère_ into the street, adrian, pleading a business appointment as excuse, shook off his companion somewhat unceremoniously, and hailing the first empty motor-cab, sped away to the office, his review, in the _rue druoi_. the rush across the center of paris, through the thick of the afternoon traffic, with its lively chances of smashing or being smashed, served to steady him. yet he was still under the empire of considerable emotion when he entered his private room at the office, and emile konski, his secretary, a roundabout, pink-cheeked, gray-headed, alert little man of fifty, arose bowing and beaming to relieve him of hat, coat, and umbrella. "thanks, thanks, my good konski," he said. "and now just arrange the copy i have to revise, will you kindly, and take your own work into the outer office. i am rather hurried. i will call through to you should i want you." "perfectly, sir," the good konski returned, obediently; but he beamed no more. his employer was also the god of his ingenuous idolatry, and to leave the private room for the outer office was to leave the sanctuary for the court of the gentiles. opportunities of devotion had been limited lately, hence banishment became the more grievous. once alone, adrian sat down before his writing-table. the fortnightly _chronique_ of home and foreign politics awaited his revision, so did literary and art notices. among the latter a _critique_ of rené dax's picture-show remained to be written, adrian having expressed an intention of dealing with it himself. he meant to have passed an hour in the galleries after calling upon madame st. leger this afternoon, but had relinquished his purpose. for he desired rightly to divide the word of truth regarding rené's eccentric performances; and just now, for reasons quite independent of their inherent merits or demerits, he feared they might stink in his nostrils to a degree subversive of any just exercise of the critical faculty. he made an honest effort to settle to work and absorb himself in the affairs of morocco, the last new books, the last debates in the chamber. but the neatly typed words and sentences proved singularly lacking in interest or meaning. he read them over and over again, only to find them crumble into purposeless units, like so much dry sand, incapable of cohesion. for what mattered--so, in a crisis, is even the cleverest of us dominated by personal feeling--what mattered the future of morocco, for instance, though involving possibilities of war to all europe, as against the future of himself, adrian savage? and that future did, unquestionably, present itself just now as lamentably parlous. that he might fail, that madame st. leger might eventually and finally refuse to marry him, had never really seriously entered his head before. that he might have to diplomatize, to lay long and patient siege to the enchanting and enchanted beleaguered city before it fell he had long ago accepted; but that, in the end, it would most assuredly fall and he rapturously claim it by right of conquest, in his triumphant masculine optimism he had never, till this afternoon, doubted. now the doubt did very really present itself and proved a staggering one. nor was this all. for, save during those first few delicious moments of greeting he had been sensible of a sinister element battling against him, painfully affecting him, yet which he failed to define or to grasp. adrian stared at the copy outspread on his blotting-pad, and its blank, unmeaning sentences. never before had he realized what a terrible, imprisoning, stultifying thing it may be to love! morocco? morocco? what, in the name of all which makes a man's life worth living, did he care about the fate of that forbidding north african coast? let it stew in its own barbarous juice! all the same, his inability to concentrate his attention upon the subject of that disagreeable country served to increase his perturbation and distress. thanks to admirable physical health, he was accustomed to have his faculties thoroughly and immediately at command, and this refusal of his brain to work to order fairly infuriated him. there was the _critique_ of rené dax's picture-show to be written, too! adrian rose from the table and walked restlessly, almost distractedly, about the room. for where exactly, in respect of the resistance of that beloved beleaguered city, did rené come in? oh! that tadpole of perverted genius, that perniciously clever tadpole, who from childhood he had protected and befriended, whose fortunes he had so assiduously pushed! and again now, as when staring forth blindly from the high-set windows of _la belle_ gabrielle's thrice-sacred drawing-room at paris, glittering in the sharp-edged sunshine, adrian's whole being cried aloud against the blasphemy of a certain conceivable, yet inconceivable, combination in a passionate, agonized "god forbid!" but verbal protest against that combination, however loud-voiced and vehement, ranging ineffectually within the narrow confines of his office, was a transparently inadequate mode of self-expression. his native impetuosity rendered uncertainty and suspense intolerable to him. he must act, must make a reconnaissance, must discover some means of ascertaining whether anything had occurred during his absence which served to explain the apparently existing situation. but, here, the intrinsic delicacy of the said situation asserted itself; since precisely those questions to which an answer is most urgently needed are the questions which a person of fine feeling cannot ask. good breeding, sensibility, a chivalrous regard for the feelings of others are, as he reflected, at times a quite abominable handicap. he sat down once again at the writing-table. what should he do? at his elbow stood the ebonized upright of the telephone, the long, green, silk-covered wire of it trailing away across the parquet floor to the plug in the wainscot. from a man he could not ask advice or information. but from a woman--surely it was different, permissible? adrian left off pulling the ends of his upturned mustache and meditated. distraction slightly lifted and lessened. he looked up an address in the directory; and, after an at first polite then slightly acrimonious parley with the operator at the exchange, got into communication with the person wanted. would she be at home to-night after dinner, say about eight forty-five? might he call? and, with multiplied apologies, might he depend upon finding her alone? to these questions the replies proved satisfactory, so that, in a degree solaced, his thirst for immediate action in a measure appeased and his scattered wits consequently once more fairly at command, adrian resolutely turned his attention to the affairs of neglected morocco. as to rené dax's exhibition? well, till to-morrow, at all events, it must wait. ever since he could remember, miss beauchamp had occupied the same handsome, second-floor flat in a quiet street just off the _parc monceau_. adrian recalled a visit, in company with his mother, made to her there at a period when he still wore white frilled drawers and long-waisted holland tunics. later, during his early school-days, he vaguely recollected a period during which his grandmother rarely mentioned anastasia, and then with a suggestive pursing up of the lips and lift of the eyebrows. afterward he came to know how, for some years, miss beauchamp's name had been rather conspicuously associated with that of a certain famous hungarian composer resident in paris. but the said composer had long since gone the way of all flesh, and the question as to whether his and anastasia's friendship was, or was not, strictly platonic in character had long since ceased to interest society. other stars rose and set in the musical firmament. other scandals, real or imaginary, offered food for discussion to those greedy of such fly-blown provender. miss beauchamp, meanwhile, had become an institution; was received--as the phrase goes--everywhere. report declared her rich. her generosity to young musicians, artists, and _literati_ was, unquestionably, large to the verge of prodigality. the aspect of her domicile, when he entered it this evening, struck adrian as much the same now as on that long-ago visit with his mother. the suite of living-rooms was lofty, having coved and painted ceilings, captivating to his childish fancy. the rooms opened one from another in a sequence of three. the two first, both somewhat encumbered with furniture, pictures, and bric-à-brac--of very varying value and merit--were dimly lighted and vacant, places of silence and shadows, the atmosphere of them impregnated with a scent of cedar and sandal wood. from the third, the doorway of which was masked by thick curtains of oriental embroidery, came the sound of a grand piano, played, and in masterly fashion, by a man's hands. adrian stopped abruptly, turning to the elderly maid. "miss beauchamp informed me she would be alone," he said. "mademoiselle is alone," the maid answered. "she gave instructions no one was to be admitted save monsieur." "thanks--i will not detain you. i will announce myself," adrian said. he crossed the second and larger room, threading his way in and out of a perfect archipelago of furniture; and held one curtain partially aside, while the purpose of his visit and the smart of his own distractions alike were merged in a sensation of curiosity and surprise. miss beauchamp sat at a grand piano, placed in the middle of the bare polished floor at right angles to the doorway. adrian saw her face and high-shouldered, high-waisted figure in profile. she wore a cinnamon-colored tea-gown, opening over an under-dress of copper sequin-sewn net. a veritable pagoda of fiery curls crowned her head. yet, though thin and bony, hers were the man's hands which compelled such rich, forcible music from the piano, making it speak, declaim, sing, plead, touch tragedy, triumphantly affirm, in this so very convincing a manner. the method and mind of the player, in their largeness of conception and fearless security of execution, held the young man captive, raising his whole attitude and outlook to a nobler plane. the music, indeed, carried his imagination up to regions heroic. he was in no haste to have it cease. he waited, therefore. when the final chords were struck anastasia beauchamp, raising her hands from the keyboard, rested the tips of her fingers upon the edge of the empty music-desk, and sat motionless, absorbed in thought. then, as the seconds passed, adrian's position became, in his opinion, equivocal, courtesy demanding that he should either make his presence known or withdraw. he chose the former alternative and, taking a step forward, let the curtain fall into place behind him. imperiously, with a lift of the chin, miss beauchamp turned her head and looked full at him; and, for a moment, the young man was fairly taken aback. for, setting of flaming pagoda and frisky tea-gown notwithstanding, he beheld a countenance no longer bizarre, that of an accredited jester, but sibylline, that of a woman who, in respect of certain departments of human knowledge, has touched ultimate wisdom, so that, in respect of those departments, life has no further secrets to reveal. here was something outpacing the province of adrian's self-confident, young masculine attainment; and it was to his credit that he instantly recognized this, accepting it with quick-witted and intuitive sympathy. "forgive me if i have presumed upon your indulgence, dear lady," he said, advancing with a disarming air of admiration and modesty, "by remaining here unannounced. i could not permit any interruption of your wonderful playing. it would have amounted to profanity. your art is sublime, is so altogether impressively great. but oh! why," he added, as the sibylline countenance softened somewhat, "have you elected to let me, to let your many friends, remain in ignorance? why have you deprived us all of the joy of your superb musical gift?" "because that gift served its turn very fully many years ago, when you, my dear savage, were little more than a baby," she answered. "since then i have felt at liberty to regard my playing as a trifle of private property which i might keep to and for myself." as she spoke miss beauchamp rose from her seat at the piano, and began replacing a multiplicity of bracelets and rings, laid aside during the performance. "as we grow older we, most of us, are disposed to practise such reservations, i suppose, whether openly acknowledged or not," she continued. "they may take their rise in inclinations of a sentimental, avaricious, or penitential nature; but, however divergent their cause, their object is identical--namely, to keep intact one's individuality, menaced by the disintegrating wear and tear of outward things. the tendency of the modern world is to render one invertebrate, to pound one's character and opinions into a pulp. in self-defense one is forced to reserve and to cultivate some hidden garden, wherein one's poor, battered individual me may walk in assuaging solitude and recollection. especially"--she looked bravely at adrian through the shaded light, while her long-armed, ungainly, rusty-gold figure, and strangely wise face surmounted by that flaming top-knot, appeared to him more than ever impressive--"especially, perhaps, is this the case if that garden once represented--as my music possibly once did--a garden of paradise in which one did not walk altogether solitary. but, come. you want to speak to me. let us go into the drawing-room and have our talk there." "let us talk, by all means," adrian put in, quickly, "but let it be here, please. this room is sympathetic--full of splendid echoes good for the soul." anastasia's expression softened yet more. "that is charmingly said. we will stay here, since you wish it. the sofa? yes, this is my corner--thanks. and now, to be quite frank with you, understand that i had lost count of time and you were inordinately punctual, or you wouldn't have caught me making music. and understand, further, that had i not been unusually moved, by something which occurred this afternoon, i should not have made music at all. i rarely walk in the hidden garden now. as one grows older one has to economize one's emotions. they are too tiring, liable to endanger one's sleep afterward. but this evening circumstances, associations, were too strong for me. the garden called to me and--i walked." chapter v with deborah, under an oak in the parc monceau miss beauchamp leaned back against the piled-up sofa cushions shading her eyes with her left hand; and that hand must have been a little unsteady, since adrian heard the bracelets upon her wrist rattle and clink. "shall i tell you what the something was which so moved me?" she asked. "unless i am greatly mistaken it is the main cause of our present interview, so that to speak of it may help to make that interview easier for us both." "pray tell me." adrian felt curious as to what should follow; but his curiosity was tempered by deepening respect. "it comes to this, then, my dear young man, i think," she said. "for those who have once been acquainted with true love--i am not speaking of mere sexual passion, still less of silly flirtations or wanton amorettes--those who have once known that uniquely beautiful and illuminating condition can neither forget nor mistake it. they carry an infallible touchstone in their own eyes, and ears, and hearts. it is my privilege to carry such a touchstone; and this afternoon--there, there, don't wince; quite, quite reverently and gently i put my finger on the fact--i beheld true love again; but true love tormented and far from happy. wasn't it so?" "yes," adrian replied, with a touch of bitterness, "it was." "and that brought certain events and experiences--your dear mother's sympathy and friendship among them--so vividly before me that i could only come home here, to this practically deserted room, and make music, as long ago, when another man, another true lover, sat where you now sit. do you follow me?" adrian's heart was somewhat full. he bowed his head in silent assent. "the ice is satisfactorily broken then? i am an old woman now. many people, i don't doubt, describe me as a flighty, prankish old spinster, who apes departed youth in a highly ridiculous manner." she no longer shaded her eyes with her hand, but looked full at adrian, through the quiet light, smiling--half sibyl, half jester, but, as he felt, wholly wise, wholly kind. "such criticisms matter to me rather less than nothing," she continued, "since the hidden garden knows the why and wherefore of all that, and more besides. and now, my dear boy, i have said enough, i think, to show you that you can unburden yourself without reserve or hesitation. you will not speak to me of an undiscovered country." but just then adrian felt it difficult to speak. coming to this woman, he had found so much more than he had asked for or expected--namely, a finding of high romance, of almost reckless generosity, which made him feel humble, feel indeed quite quaintly ignorant and inexperienced. it followed that, when he did speak, he did so in child-like fashion, protesting his innocence as though needing to disarm censure. "believe me, i have not acted unworthily," he said. "from the first i was charmed, i was enthralled, but i made every effort to restrain myself. even in thought i was loyal to poor st. leger. i did my best to conceal my admiration--i kept away, as much as i could without discourtesy. you see, her very perfection is, in a sense, her safeguard, for how inconceivably vile to endanger the peace of mind of so adorable a creature by any hint, any suggestion! it is only since st. leger's death that i--" "yes, yes, i take all that for granted," anastasia broke in. "doesn't it stand to reason, since we are talking of true love?" and adrian could not forbear to smile, notwithstanding his humbled condition; the touch was so deliciously feminine in its assumption and non-logic. unless, by chance, she was laughing at him out of her larger wisdom? possibly she was. well, she could do nothing but right, anyhow--so he didn't care! whereupon he proceeded to pour forth the history of his affection in all its phases, from its first inception to the existing moment, with dramatic fervor, spreading abroad his hands descriptively, while the sentences galloped with increasing velocity and the mellow, baritone voice rose and fell. "ah! and can you not conceive it? after that dismal time in england, burying the dead, contending with all manner of tiresomenesses, with narrow-minded, over-strenuous, over-educated women and men--ye gods, such men!--to come back, to see her, was like coming from some underground cavern into the sunshine. she received me exquisitely. i tasted ecstasy. i was transported by hope. then, abruptly, her manner changed; and that change did not appear to me spontaneous, but calculated--as though, in obedience to some alien influence, she unwillingly put a constraint upon herself. since then i have reconstituted the scene repeatedly--" "my poor dear boy!" anastasia murmured. "yes, repeatedly, repeatedly. i try to convince myself that her change of manner was unwilling, not the result of caprice." "madame st. leger is not capricious." "i am sure of it. her nature, at bottom, is serious. she reasons and obeys reason. but in this case what reason? not dislike of me? no, no, my mind refuses such an explanation of her conduct. it would be too horrible, too desolating." "isn't there another rather obvious explanation of madame st. leger's attitude--the fear of liking you a little too much?" "but why should she fear to like me?" poor adrian cried. "i am no devouring monster! i have some talent, sufficient means, and no concealed vices." and there the thought of rené dax invaded him, scorching him with positively rampant jealousy and repulsion. for could this, which he had just asserted regarding himself, be asserted with equal truth regarding the tadpole of genius? he knew very well it could not. still, even so, he shrank from the _rôle_ of treacherous friend or detractor. "she can be gracious enough to others," he contented himself by saying, gazing at his hostess meanwhile, his expression altogether orphaned and pathetic. "dangerously gracious. and that is why i did all in my power to delay your departure this afternoon, although i knew perfectly well you were on the rack." "but, dear god in heaven!" he broke out, incoherently, burying his face in both hands, "you cannot imply, you cannot intend to convey to me your belief--" "that gabrielle st. leger contemplates marrying that libelous little horror, m. dax? never in life!" adrian got up and walked unsteadily--for indeed the floor seemed to shift and lurch beneath his feet--across the room. without the faintest conception of what he was looking at, he minutely examined a landscape hanging upon the opposite wall. he also blew his nose and wiped his eyes. while anastasia beauchamp, her jaw set, leaning back against the sofa cushions, very actually and poignantly walked in that hidden garden of hers--once a garden of eden, and not an adamless one--wrapped about by remembrance. after a time the young man came back and sat down beside her. his face was white and his eyes were luminous. "most dear and kind friend, forgive me," he said, very gently. "i have climbed giddy pinnacles of rapture, and tumbled off them--plop--into blackest morasses of despair to-day, and my nerves have suffered." "ah! it has got you!" she returned. "i'm not a bit sorry for you. on the contrary, i congratulate you. for you are very handsomely and hopelessly in love." adrian nodded assent, pushing up the ends of his mustache with a twist of his fingers and smiling. "yes, yes, indeed i know," he said. "it is a thing for which to be immeasurably thankful. yet, all the same, it has its little hours of inconvenience, as i have to-day discovered. it can hold the field to the exclusion of all else; and that with a quite demoralizing intensity, making one feel murderous toward one's oldest friends and, in respect of one's work, no better than a driveling idiot." "such are inevitable symptoms of the blessed state. i still congratulate you." "but you admit, at least, that they are practically extremely impeding? and so, dear mademoiselle, you whom my mother loved and who loved my mother, you who have done so much to help and comfort me in the last half-hour--will you do something more?" "i suppose i shall," anastasia answered, with a laugh which was against herself rather than against him. "i seem to be pretty thoroughly committed to this business for--well, for two people's sakes, perhaps." "yes, for her sake also--for hers as well as mine," adrian cried, impetuously. "those few words are beautifully full of encouragement. for see here," he went on, "in some ways i am just simply an obstinate, pig-headed englishman. you permit me to speak quite freely? loosing her, i cannot console myself elsewhere. it is not merely a wife that i want; having reached the age when a man should range himself a well-bred, healthy, and generally unexceptionable mother for his children! don't imagine that i would not like to make my subscription to humanity in the form of charming babies. of course i should. still those small people, however beguiling, are not to the point in this connection. i am not in pursuit of a suitable marriage, but of--" "_la belle gabrielle_--only and solely _la belle gabrielle_--that must be conspicuously evident to the meanest intelligence," anastasia put in, merrily. "but there, unfortunately, we run up against the crux of the whole situation. for, it is only fair to tell you, our exquisite young woman is even less in pursuit of a suitable marriage than you yourself are. we have had some intimate conversations, she and i. don't imagine for an instant your name, or any other name, has been hinted at, much less mentioned. but she has been good enough to bestow her confidence upon me, in as far as she bestows it upon any one. fundamentally she is a mysterious creature, and that's exactly why, i suppose, one finds her so endlessly interesting. and, from those conversations, i gather her mind is set on things quite other than marriage." "ah! just heaven--and what things, then?" poor adrian exclaimed, distraction again threatening him. "she would, i think, have very great difficulty in telling you." here distraction did more than threaten. it jumped on him, so that in his agitation he positively bounced, ball-like, upon the seat of the sofa. "i knew it," he cried. "i was sure of it. almost immediately i detected an alien and inimical influence intrude itself between us, as i have already told you, and battle against me. and this was the more detestable to me because i felt powerless to combat it, being ignorant whence it came and what its nature actually was." miss beauchamp looked at him indulgently. and he, distraction notwithstanding, perceived that her countenance once more had grown sibylline. this served sensibly to quiet and steady him. "i fancy that influence comes from very deep and very far," she said. "a woman of so much temperament and so much intelligence as gabrielle st. leger must, of necessity, be the child of the age in which she lives, in touch with the spirit of it. her eyes are turned toward the future, and the strange unrestful wind, the wind of modernity, which blows from out the future, is upon her face. this is the influence you have to battle against, my dear young man, i am afraid, nothing less than the spirit of the age, the spirit of modernity. you have your work cut out for you! to combat it successfully will be--to put it vulgarly--a mighty tough job." "like king david of old, i'd rather fall into the hands of god than into those of man," adrian returned, with rather rueful humor. "is one so very sure they are the hands of the almighty? too often one has reason to suspect they belong to exactly the opposite person--the inspirer--namely, of so many of your friend m. rené dax's unpardonable caricatures. but there," she added, "i don't want to give place to prejudice; though whether modernity is veritably the highroad to the state of human earthly felicity its exponents so confidently--and truculently--predict, or not rather to some appalling and final catastrophe, some armageddon, and twilight of the gods, appears to me, in the existing stage of its evolution, open to the liveliest question. fortunately, at my time of life one is free to stand aside and look on, passively awaiting the event without taking part in the production of it. but with madame st. leger, as with yourself, it is different. you are on the active list. whether you like or not, you are bound to participate in the production of the event--and she, at least, is by no means unwilling to do so." "but how, _chère mademoiselle_, but how?" adrian questioned. "after a fashion you can hardly be expected to indorse enthusiastically." miss beauchamp shaded her eyes with her left hand again, while the many bracelets slipping up her thin wrist clinked and rattled. "see here, my dear savage," she said, "among all the destructions and reconstructions, the changes--many of them nominal rather than real, and, consequently, superfluous--of which modernity is made up, one change is very real and has, i sincerely believe, come to stay. i mean the widespread change in thought and attitude of my sex toward yours." "feminism, in short." "in short, feminism." a little silence followed. then: "you take the dose very nicely," anastasia said. "perhaps i take it so nicely because i am convinced it is innocuous. on the other hand, perhaps i don't take it at all. really, i am not certain which." he shifted his position, planting his elbows on his knees and his chin in the hollow of his hands. "the deuce, the deuce!" he said, softly, tapping one long-toed boot meditatively upon the floor. miss beauchamp watched him, amused, observant, making no comment. "i am sorry," he went on, presently. "it's all moonshine, of course. nature's too strong for them. in the end they must come into line." "moonshine has often proved a very dangerous, because so very intangible an enemy. and the end promises to be far off." "yes, i am sorry," adrian repeated, "very sorry, we were over in england i could understand. women there have an excuse for revolt. all englishmen are pedants, even in their games, even in their sport. they have been called a nation of shopkeepers. they might with equal truth be called a nation of schoolmasters; not because they desire to impart knowledge, but because they crave to exercise power and prove, to themselves, their innate superiority by the chastisement of others. ah! i have witnessed plenty of that in the last month! truly, they are very disagreeable sons, husbands, and fathers, those middle-class britons, the schoolmaster, so to speak, permanently on top. and there are not even enough of them to go round! numerically they are inferior; and this helps to feed their arrogance and inflame their conceit. but even if there were enough, they wouldn't--if i may so express myself--go round. on the contrary, they would go in the opposite direction, to their own selfish pleasures, their clubs, their playing-fields, their interminable football, and cricket, and golf." "hum--hum! what about the british flag you waved so vigorously five minutes ago?" "did i? forget it, then. it was a passing aberration. i repent and wrap myself once more in the folds of the tricolor. most distinctly that is the flag under which a lover of your adorable sex should fight!" "with the gallic cock set symbolic at the top of the flag-staff?" "and why not? why not? who can do otherwise than behold with approval that smart, well-groomed, abundantly amatory, i grant you, but also abundantly chivalrous fowl? his absence is, in a sense, precisely that with which i quarrel on the other side of the channel. it goes to make the revolt of the englishwoman comprehensible. her countrymen's relation to her is so inartistic, so utilitarian, so without delicate humor. we hear of her freedom from annoyance, her personal security. but in what do these take their rise? simply in her countrymen's indifference to her--to her emotions, her mentality, her thousand and one delicate needs, elusive and charming necessities. if he thinks about her at all, it is with the schoolmaster's odious design of correcting her faults, of improving her. the blatant conceit of the animal! as if she could be improved, as if she were not perfect already! but stay. there i pause to correct myself. the englishwoman is susceptible of improvement. and how? by being snubbed, depressed, depreciated, grumbled at, scolded, made to think meanly of herself? never a bit.--she has suffered generations of that treatment already. by being admired, reverenced, playfully delighted in, appreciated, encouraged." adrian spread abroad his hands with the most amiably persuasive expression and gesture. "ah! believe me, dear friend," he cried, "when luther, the burly renegade german monk; calvin, the parchment-dry, middle-class picard lawyer, and english 'king hal,' of grossest memory, conspired to depose our blessed lady from her rightful throne in heaven, they, incidentally, went far to depose woman from her rightful throne here upon earth. so that, small wonder, having no eternal, universal mother, whose aid and patronage she can invoke in hours of perplexity and distress, the modern, non-catholic woman is constrained to rush around in prison-vans, or any other unlovely public vehicle which may come handy, invoking the aid of parliamentary suffrage and kindred dreary mechanical forms of protection against the tedious tyrannies of arrogant, sullen, selfish, slow-witted, birch-rod-wielding, pedagogic man. yes, truly, as over there, i understand, i sympathize. but here, where, though we may have tolerated, even invented, revolution, we have at least withstood that most time-serving and inartistic compromise, reformation--with an impudent capital letter--here, in the patrimony of chantecler, enveloped in the folds of the gallant tricolor, surely such revolt is unreasonable, is out of place! for here are we not all feminists, every man-jack of us? _chère mademoiselle_, you know that we are. what more, then, have the members of your adored sex to ask?" and, for the moment, anastasia beauchamp's usually ready tongue played her false. the whirl of words had been somewhat overpowering, while, through the whirl, his good faith was so transparently apparent, his argument suggested rather than aggressively pressed home, so evidently to himself conclusive, that a cogent answer was far from easy to frame. "what more have they to ask?" she said, presently, smiling at him. "well, just those alluring, because new, untried and intangible satisfactions which the spirit of the age promises so largely, and which you, my dear savage, if you'll pardon my saying, don't and can't promise at all." "the spirit of the age now, as so often in history, will prove a false prophet, a charlatan and juggler, making large promises which he will fail to redeem," adrian declared. "see, do not art, nature, the cumulative result of human experience, combine to discredit his methods and condemn his objects?" "convince gabrielle st. leger of that, and my thanks and applause will not be wanting." "i will convince her," adrian cried, with growing exaltation. "i will convince her. i devote my life to that purpose, to that end." and thereupon a certain solemnity seemed to descend upon and diffuse itself through the quiet, lofty room, affecting both speaker and listener, causing them to sit silent, as though in hushed suspense, awaiting the sensible ratification of some serious engagement entered into, some binding oath taken. in the stillness faint, fugitive echoes reached them of the palpitating life and movement of the city outside. the effect was arresting. to adrian it seemed as though he stood on the extreme edge, the crumbling, treacherous verge, of some momentous episode in which he was foredoomed to play a part, but a part alien to his desires and defiant of his control. while--and this touched him with intimate, though half-ashamed, shrinking and repudiation--not gabrielle st. leger, but joanna smyrthwaite appeared to stand beside him imploring rescue and safety upon that treacherously crumbling verge. his sense of her presence was so acute, so overmastering in its intensity, that he felt in an instant more he should hear her flat, colorless voice and be compelled--how unwillingly!--to meet the fixed scrutiny of her pale, insatiable eyes. then, startling in its suddenness as the ping of a rifle-bullet, came a very different sound to that of joanna's toneless voice close at hand. for, with a wrenching twang and thin, piercing, long-drawn vibration which shuddered through the air, shuddered through every object in the room, strangely setting in motion that pervasive scent of cedar and sandalwood, a string of the piano broke. miss beauchamp uttered an angry, yet smothered, cry, as one who receives and resents an unexpected hurt. and adrian, alarmed, agitated, hardly understanding what had actually occurred, turning to her, perceived that her countenance again had changed. now it was that neither of sibyl nor of jester, but vivid, keen with fight. yet, even as he looked, it grew gray, grief-smitten, immeasurably, frighteningly old. natural pity, and some inherited instinct of healing, made the young man lean toward her and take her hand in his, holding and chafing it, while his finger-tips sought and found the little space between the sinews of the wrist where the tides of life ebb and flow. her pulse was barely perceptible, intermittent, weak as a thread. adrian took the other passive hand, and, chafing both, used this contact as a conduit along which to transmit some of his own fine vitality. his act of willing this transmission was conscious, determined, his concentration of purpose great; so that presently, while he watched her, the grayness lifted, her lips regained their normal color, her pulse steadied and strengthened, and her face filled out, resuming its natural contours. then as she moved sat upright, smiling, an unusual softness in her expression. "don't attempt to speak yet," he said, still busy with and somewhat excited by his work of restoration. "rest a little. i have been a shameless egoist this evening. i have talked too much, have made too heavy a demand upon your sympathies, and so have exhausted you." "whatever you may have taken, you have more than paid back," she answered. she was touched--a nostalgia being upon her for things no longer possible, for youth and all the glory and sweetness of youth. "it is not for nothing that you are the son of a famous physician and of a woman of remarkable imaginative gifts," she went on. "you have _la main heureuse_, life-giving both to body and spirit. this is a power and a great one. but now that, thanks to you, my weakness is passed we will not remain in this room. you said it was full of splendid echoes, good for the soul. it is rather too full of them, since one's soul is still weighted with a body. i find them oppressive in their suggestion and demand. frankly, i dare not expose myself to their influence any longer." helped by adrian, she rose and, taking his arm, moved slowly toward the doorway. "sometimes, unexpectedly, the merciful dimness which holds our eyes is broken up, giving place to momentary clear-seeing of all which lies beyond and around the commonplace and conventional medium in which we live. unless one is rather abnormally constituted that clear-seeing is liable to blind rather than to illuminate. flesh and blood aren't quite equal to it. and so with the snapping of the piano string. doubtless the causes were simple enough--some peculiar atmospheric conditions, along with the fact that the instrument has been unused for many months. still in me it produced one of those fateful instants of clairvoyance. i knew it for the signing of a death-warrant. not my own. thanks to the kindly ministrations of _la main heureuse_ the signature of that particular warrant is postponed for a while yet. nor yours either, of that i am convinced. i cannot say whose. the clear-seeing was too rapidly obscured by failing bodily strength. i am not talking nonsense. this has happened twice before. the second time a string broke my brother's death followed within the year." "and the first time?" adrian felt impelled to ask. his recent expenditure of will-power had left his nerves in a state of slightly unstable equilibrium which rendered him highly impressionable. "the first time?" miss beauchamp repeated, lifting her hand from his arm. "the death of that other true lover, who listened here to my playing, of the friend who walked with me in the hidden garden, followed the breaking of the first string." adrian stepped forward and held aside the embroidered curtain, letting her pass into the drawing-room. here the air was lighter, the moral and emotional atmosphere, as it seemed to him, lighter likewise. he was aware of a relaxation of mental tension and a deadening of sensation which he at once welcomed and regretted. he waited a few seconds until he was sure that in his own case, too, any disquieting tendency to clairvoyance was over and the conventional and commonplace had fairly come back. miss beauchamp passed on into the first room of the suite. here the lights were turned on and he found her seated at a little supper-table, vivacious, accentuated in aspect and manner, flaming pagoda of curls and frisky cinnamon-colored, sequin-sewn tea-gown once again very much in evidence. but these things no longer jarred on him. he could view them in their true perspective, as the masquerade make-up with which a proud woman elected--in self-defense--to disguise too deep a knowledge, too sensitive a nature, and too passionate a heart. "yes, sit down, my dear savage," she cried, "sit down. eat and drink. for really it is about time we both indulged in what are vulgarly called 'light refreshments.' we have been surprisingly clever, you and i, and have rubbed our wits together to the emission of many sparks! i am not a bit above restoring wasted tissue in this practical manner--nor, i trust, are you. moreover, our lengthy discourse notwithstanding, i have still five words to say to you. for, see, very soon madame st. leger's period of mourning will be over. she will begin to go into society again." "alas! yes." adrian sighed. "you don't like it? probably not. you would prefer keeping her, like blessed st. barbara, shut up on the top of her tower, i dare say. but doesn't it occur to you that there are as insidious dangers on the tower top as in the world below--visits from the little horror, m. rené dax, for example? anyhow, she will shortly very certainly descend from the tower. for we are neither of us, i suppose, under the delusion she has buried all her joy of living in poor horace st. leger's grave." "i have no violent objection to her not having done so," adrian said, with becoming gravity. "that first descent after her long seclusion will be critical. she will need protection and advice." "her mother, madame vernois, is at hand," adrian remarked, perhaps rather tentatively. "yes, a sweet person and a devoted mother; but a little conspicuously with the outlook and moral standards of a past generation. she is at once too charitable and too humble-minded to be a judge of character--one born to follow rather than to lead--and, though a woman of breeding and position, always a provincial. she followed professor vernois as long as he was here to follow. then she followed her noble and needy relations away in chambéry. now she follows her beautiful daughter. and the daughter, in the near future, is going to be a mark for the archers--male and female. already i have reason to believe that archery practice has begun. the sweet, timid mother, though perplexed and anxious, hasn't a notion how to turn those arrows aside." miss beauchamp gazed into the shallow depths of her wine-glass. "it's an unsavory subject," she continued, "and, i agree with you, feminism has next to no legitimate excuse for existence here. that is just why, i imagine, it has allied itself with ideas and practices not precisely legitimate. it makes its appeal to by no means the most exalted elements of our very mixed human nature." "ah! but," adrian broke out in a white heat of anger, "it is not possible! such persons would never presume--" "they have already presumed. zélie de gand, helped by i don't quite know who, though i have my suspicions, has approached madame st. leger. she is crazy to recover lost ground, to get herself and her clique reinstated. madame st. leger's beauty, brains, and her reputation--so absolutely unsullied and above suspicion--represent an immense asset to any cause she may embrace." "but need she embrace any cause?" "my dear young man," miss beauchamp returned, smiling rather broadly, "you had better take it for said, once and for all, that a beautiful young woman of seven and twenty, who is beginning the world afresh after being relieved of a not entirely satisfactory marriage, is perfectly certain to embrace--well--well--something, if she doesn't embrace somebody." presently, after a silence, anastasia spoke again, gently and seriously. "i am altogether on your side," she said. "but i cannot pretend it is plain sailing for you. there is a reserve of enthusiasm in her nature, an heroic strain pushing her toward great enterprises. it may be she will suffer before she arrives, will be led astray, will follow delusions. her mind is critical rather than creative. she is disposed to distrust her instincts and to reason where she had ten thousand times better only feel. and, as i tell you, she looks toward the future; the restless wind of it is upon her face, alluring, exciting her. no--no--it is not plain sailing for you, my dear young man. but, for heaven's sake, don't let true love be your undoing, seducing you from work, from personal achievement in your own admirable world of letters. for remember, the greater your own success the more you have to offer. and the modern woman asks that. she requires not merely somebody to whom to give herself, but something which shall so satisfy her brain and her ambitions as to make that supreme act of giving worth while." anastasia smiled wistfully, sadly. "yes, indeed, times have changed and the fashion of them! man's supremacy is very quaintly threatened. for the first time in the history of the human race he finds sex at a discount.--but now good-night, my dear savage. whenever you think i can help you, come. you will always be welcome. and--this last word at parting--do your possible to keep that little horror away from her. in him modernity finds a most malign embodiment. farewell." chapter vi recording the vigil of a scarlet homunculus and aristides the just the gray lemur sat before the fire in a baby's scarlet-painted cane chair. he kept his knees well apart, so that the comfortable warmth, given off by the burning logs and bed of glowing ashes, might reach his furry concave stomach and the inside of his furry thighs. his long, ringed tail, slipped neatly under the arm of the little scarlet chair, lay, like a thick gray note of interrogation, upon the surface of the black aubusson carpet. now and again he leaned his slender, small-waisted body forward, grasping the chair-arms with his two hands--which resembled a baby's leather gloves with fur backs to them--and advanced a sensitive, inquisitive, pointed muzzle toward the blaze, his nose being cold. his movements were attractive in their composure and restraint. for this quadrumanous exile from sub-tropic madagascan forests was a dignified little personage, not in the least addicted, as the vulgar phrase has it, to giving himself away. at first sight the lemur, sitting thus before the fire, appeared to be the sole inhabitant of the bare white-walled studio. then, as the eye became accustomed to the dusky light, shed by hanging electric lamps with dark smoked-glass shades to them, other queer living creatures disclosed their presence. at the end of the great room farthest from the door, where it narrowed in two oblique angles under high, shelving skylights, in a glass tank--some five feet by three and about two feet deep--set on a square of mosaic pavement, goldfish swam lazily to and fro. in the center of the tank, about the rockwork built up around the jet of a little tinkling fountain, small, dull-hued tortoises with skinny necks and slimy carapaces and black-blotched, orange-bellied, crested tritons crawled. while all round the room, forming a sort of dado to the height of above five feet, ran an arabesque of scenes and figures, some life-size, some even colossal, some minute and exquisitely finished, some blurred and half obliterated, in places superimposed, sketched one over the other to the production of madly nightmarish effects of heads, limbs, trunks, and features attached, divided, flung broadcast, heaped together in horrible promiscuosity. all were drawn boldly, showing an astonishing vivacity of line and mastery of attitude and expression, in charcoal or red and black chalk, or were washed in with the brush in indian ink and light red. in the dusky lamplight and scintillating firelight this amazing decoration seemed endowed with life and movement, so that shamelessly, in unholy mirth, hideousness, and depravity it stalked and pranced, beckoned, squirmed, and flaunted upon those austerely snow-white walls. for the rest, chairs, tables, easels, even the model's movable platform, were, like the carpet, dead black. two low, wide divans upholstered in black brocade stood on either side of the deep outstanding chimney-breast; and upon the farther one, masked by a red-lacquer folding screen, amid a huddle of soft, black pillows, flat on its back, a human form reposed--but whether of living man or of cleverly disposed lay figure remained debatable, since it was shrouded from head to heel in a black silk _resai_, even the face being covered, and its immobility complete. on taking leave of anastasia beauchamp, adrian savage had found himself in no humor either for work or for sleep. his search for the further reason had led him a longer journey than he anticipated. and in some of its stages that journey offered disquieting episodes. he admitted he was still puzzled, still anxious; more than ever determined as to the final result, yet hardly more clear as to how the result in question might be obtained. there were points which needed thinking out, but to think them out profitably he must regain his normal attitude of mind and self-possession. so, reckoning it useless to go home to his well-found bachelor apartments in the _rue de l'université_, he decided to walk till such time as physical exercise had regulated both his bodily and mental circulation. it happened to be the moment of the turn-out of theaters and other places of entertainment, and, as the young man made his way down toward the _place de l'opéra_, the aspect of the town struck him as conspicuously animated and brilliant. his eyes, still focused to the quiet english atmosphere and landscape, were quick to note the contrast to these presented by his existing surroundings. he invited impressions, looking at the scene sympathetically, yet idly, as at the pages of a picture-book. strong effects of light and color held the ground plan, above which the tall, many-windowed houses rose as some pale striated cliff-face toward the strip of infinitely remote, star-pierced sky. it was sharply cold, and through the exciting tumult of the streets he could detect a shrill singing of wind in telegraph and telephone wires and amid the branches of the leafless trees. in like manner, passing from the material to the moral plane, through the accentuated vivacity of the amusement-seeking crowd, he seemed to detect, as so often in paris--is not that, indeed, half the secret of her magic and her charm?--a certain instability and menace, a shrill singing of possible social upheaval, of revolution always there close at hand awaiting her surely recurrent hour of opportunity. to adrian, after precedent-ridden, firmly planted, middle-class england and the english, that effect of instability, that shrill singing of social upheaval, proved stimulating. he breathed it in with conscious enjoyment while negotiating thickly peopled pavements or madly tram- and- motor-rushed crossings. for these dear parisians, as he told himself, alike in mind and in appearance, are both individual and individualists with a positive vengeance, possessing not only the courage of their physical types--and making, for beauty or the reverse, the very most of them--and the courage of their convictions; but the courage of their emotions likewise. and how refreshingly many are those emotions, how variegated, how incalculable, how explosive! how articulate, too, ready at a moment's notice to justify their existence by the discharge of salvos of impassioned rhetoric! if the english might fairly be called a nation of pedants, these might, with at least equal fairness, be called a nation of comedians; not in the sense of pretending, of intentionally playing a part--to that affectation the english were far more addicted--but in the sense of regarding themselves and life from a permanently dramatic standpoint. wasn't it worth while to have been away for a time, since absence had so heightened his appreciation of racial contrasts and power of recognizing them? and there he paused in his pæan. for on second thoughts, were these psychologic determinations so well worth the practical cost of them? is gain of the abstract ever worth loss in the concrete? his thought turned with impatience to stourmouth, to the tower house and its inhabitants, and to the loss of precious time which devotion to their affairs had, in point of fact, caused him. resultant appreciation of psychologic phenomena seemed but a meager recompense for such expenditure. for this absence had made him lose ground in relation to madame st. leger. miss beauchamp intimated as much; intimated, too, that while he lost ground others had gained it, had done their best to jump his claim, so to speak, and had, in a measure at least, succeeded--take mademoiselle zélie de gand, for example. whereupon adrian ceased to take any interest, philosophic or otherwise, in the wonderful midnight streets and midnight people; becoming himself actively, even aggressively, individualist, as he brushed his way through the throng, his expression the reverse of urbane and his pace almost headlong. for who, in the devil's name, had dared give that much-discussed, plausible, very astute and clever, also very much discredited arrivist and novelist--zélie de gand--an introduction to madame st. leger? miss beauchamp owned to a suspicion. and then, yes, of course he remembered last year meeting the great zélie at rené dax's studio! remembered, too, how rené had pressed a short story of hers upon him for publication in the review; and had sulked for a week afterward when--not without laughter--he had pronounced the said story quite clearly unprintable. did rené, after all, represent the further reason, not as aspirant to _la belle gabrielle's_ thrice-sacred hand indeed; but as her mental director, inciting her to throw in her lot with agitators and extremists, feminists, futurists, and such-like pestilent persons--enemies of marriage and of the family, of moral and spiritual authority, of all sane canons of art, music and literature, reckless anarchists in thought and purpose if not, through defective courage, in actual deed? was this what anastasia beauchamp hinted at? was it against risk of such abominable stabling of swine in his own particular holy of holies--for the young man's anger and alarm, now thoroughly aroused, tended to express themselves in no measured language--she did her best to warn him? again, as earlier that day, a necessity for immediate and practical action laid hold on him. delay became not only intolerable, but unpardonable. he must know, and he must also prevent this campaign of defilement and outrage going further. wherefore he bolted into the first empty cab, had himself whirled to the _boulevard du montparnasse_, and projected himself, bomb-like, bursting with protest and indignation, into rené dax's great, dusky, white-walled studio; to find, in the stillness, nothing more pertinent to the matter in hand than the gentle, gray lemur sitting in its scarlet-painted baby's chair before the fire, the orange-and-black blotched newts and small ancient tortoises crawling upon the rock-work of the little fountain, while in the glass tank the gleaming fishes swam lazily to and fro. of the owner of this quaint menagerie no signs were visible. but neither rené's absence nor the presence of his queer associates held adrian's attention more than a few seconds; for, upon an easel facing him as he entered, placed where the light of the hanging lamps fell strongest, was a drawing in red chalk, which at once fed his anger by its subject and commanded his unqualified admiration by its consummate beauty and art. nearly half life-size, the figure poised, the head slightly inclined, proudly yet lovingly, toward the delicious child she carried on her arm, gabrielle st. leger stepped toward him, as on air, from off the tall panel of ivory-tinted cartridge paper. the attitude was precisely that in which he had seen her this afternoon, when she told rené dax the "door should remain open since little bette wished it." the two figures were rendered with a suavity, yet precision, of treatment, a noble assurance of line and faithfulness of detail, little short of miraculous considering the time in which the drawing must have been executed.--yes, it was _la belle gabrielle_ to the life; and alive--how wonderfully alive! the tears came into the young man's eyes, so deeply did this counterfeit presentment of her move him, and so very deeply did he love her. he noted, in growing amazement, little details, even little blemishes, dear to his heart as a lover, since these differentiated her beauty from that of other beautiful women, giving the original, the intimate and finely personal note. and then anger shook him more sharply than ever, for how dare any man, save himself, note these infinitely precious, because exclusively personal, touches? how dare rené observe, still more how dare he record them? his offense was rank; since to do so constituted an unpardonable liberty, a gross intrusion upon her individuality. rené knew too much, quite too much, and, for the moment, adrian was assailed by a very simple and comprehensive desire to kill him. but now a wave of humiliation, salt and bitter, submerged this unhappy lover. for not only was that little devil of a tadpole's drawing a masterpiece in its realization of the outward aspect of gabrielle st. leger, but of insight into the present workings of her mind and heart. had not he apprehended and set forth here, with the clarity and force of undeniable genius, just all that which anastasia beauchamp had tried to tell him--adrian savage--about her? what he, adrian, notwithstanding the greatness of his devotion, fumbled over and misinterpreted, rené grasped unaided, and thus superbly chronicled! for, here indeed, to quote anastasia, gabrielle's eyes were turned toward the future and the strange unrestful wind--the wind of modernity--which blows from out the future, was upon her face; with the result that her expression and bearing were exalted, a noble going forth to meet fate in them, she herself as one consecrated, at once the embodiment and exponent of some compelling idea, the leader of some momentous movement, the elect spokeswoman of a new and tremendous age. beholding all which, poor adrian's spirits descended with most disintegrating velocity into his boots, and miserably camped at that abject level. for though he might declare, and very honestly believe, the idea in question, the movement in question, to be so much moonshine, and the spirit of the age a rank impostor, how did he propose to convince madame st. leger of that? the inquiry brought him up as against a brick wall. yes, miss beauchamp had been rather cruelly right when she told him his work was cut out for him and would prove a mighty tough job. for what, calmly considered, had he, after all, to offer as against those alluring and immense perspectives?--really, when he came to ask himself, it made him blush.--only an agreeable, fairly talented and well-conditioned young man--that was all; and marriage--marriage, an old story to gabrielle, a commonplace affair about which she already knew everything that there is to know. of course she didn't know everything about it, he went on, plucking up a little spirit again. hers had been a marriage of convenience; a marriage of reason. poor horace was by a whole generation her senior. whereas, in the present case, it all would be so different--a great and exclusive passion, et cetera, et cetera. he would have liked to wax eloquent, descanting upon that difference and its resultant illuminating values. but his eloquence stuck in his throat somehow. himself as a husband--humor compelled him to own, with a pretty sharp stab of mortification, this a rather stale and meager programme as alternative to cloudy splendors of self-consecration to the mighty purposes of modernity and the spirit of the age. "she is very beautiful, is she not, my madonna of the future?" rené dax asked the question in soft, confidential accents. he stood at adrian's elbow, clothed in a scarlet japanese silk smoking-suit. upon his neat bare feet he wore a pair of black afghan sandals. uttering little loving, crooning cries, the gray lemur balanced itself upon his shoulders, clasping his great domed head with thin furry arms and furry-backed, black-palmed hands, the finger-tips of which just met upon the center of his forehead. "i have been watching, from behind the screen, the effect she produced on you. i have given up going to bed, you see. i wrap myself in blankets and quilts and sleep here--when i do sleep--upon one of the divans. it is more artistic. it is simpler. the bed, when you come to consider it, is, like the umbrella, the mark of the bourgeois, of the bourgeoise and of all their infected progeny. it represents, as you may say, the battle-cry of middle-class civilization. the domestic hearth? no, no. the domestic bed. how far more scientific and philosophic a definition! therefore i abjure it.--so i was lying there on the divan in meditation. i am preparing illustrations for an _édition de luxe of les contes drolatiques_. it is not designed for family reading. it will probably be printed in belgium and sold at port said. i lie on my back. i cover my face, thus isolating myself from contemplation of surrounding objects, so that my imagination may play freely around those agreeable tales. in the midst of my meditation i heard you burst in. at first i felt annoyed. then i arose silently and watched the effect this portrait produced on you. i was rewarded; for it knocked the bluster pretty effectually out of you, eh, _mon vieux_? i saw you droop, grow dejected, pull your beard, wipe your eyes, eh? and you deserved all that, for your manner was offensive this afternoon. you treated me disrespectfully. have you now come to apologize? it would be only decent you should do so. but i do not press the point. i can afford to be magnanimous, since, in any case, i am even with you. my madonna is my revenge." "i did not come to apologize, but to demand explanation," adrian began, hotly. then his tone changed. truly he was very unhappy, very heavy of heart. "you are right," he added. "this drawing is your revenge." "you do not like my drawing." "on the contrary, i find it glorious, wonderful." "and it hurts you?" "yes, it hurts me," he answered hoarsely, backing away. "i hate it." "i am so glad," rené said, sweetly. he put his hand behind his scarlet back, and tweaked the tip of the lemur's long furry tail affectionately. "you hear, you rejoice with me, oh, venerable aristides!" he murmured. to which the little creature replied by clasping his head more tightly and making strange, coaxing noises. "but there,--for the moment my madonna has done precisely what i asked of her, so now let us talk about something else, _mon vieux_, something less controversial. why not? for here, after all, she is fixed, my madonna. she can't run away, happily. we can always return and, though she is mine, i will permit you to take another look at her. so--well--do you remark how i have changed my decorative scheme since you last visited me? is it original, startling, eh? that is what i intended. again i felt the need to simplify. i called for plasterers, painters, upholsterers. when they will be paid i haven't a conception; but that is a contemptible detail. i rushed them. i harried them. i drove them before me like a flock of geese, a troop of asses. 'work,' i screamed, 'work. delay is suffocation to my imagination. this transformation must be effected instantly.' for suddenly color sickened me. i comprehended what a fraud, what a subterfuge and inanity it is. form alone matters, alone is permanent and essential. color bears to form the same relation which emotion bears to reason, which sensation bears to intellect. it represents an attitude rather than an entity. i recognized it as adventitious, accidental, unscientific, hysterical. so i had them all washed out, ripped off, obliterated, my tender, tearful blues and greens, my caressing pinks, my luscious mauves and purples, my rapturously bilious, sugar-sweet yellows, all my adorably morbid florescence of putrifaction in neutral-tinted semi-tones, and limited my scheme to this harshly symbolic triad. see everywhere, everywhere, black, white, red--these three always and only--beating upon my brain, feeding my eyes with thoughts of darkness, night, death, the bottomless pit, despair, iniquity; of light, day, snow, the colorless ether, virtue, the child's blank soul, immaculate sterility. and then red--red, the horrid whipper-in and huntsman of us all, meaning life, fire, lust, pain, carnage, sex, revolution and war, scarlet-lipped scorn and mockery--the raw, gaping, ever-bleeding, ever-breeding wound, in short, upon the body of the cosmos which we call humanity." the young man's affectation of imperturbability for once deserted him. he was shaken by the force of his own speech. his voice rose, vibrating with passion, taking on, indeed, an almost maniacal quality, highly distressing to adrian and altogether terrifying to the lemur, which moaned audibly and shivered as it clutched at his forehead. "get down, aristides," he cried with sudden childish petulance. "unclasp your hands. you scratch. you hurt me. go back to your little chair. i am tired. i have worked too hard. the back of my head stabs with pain. i suffer, i suffer so badly." he came close to adrian, who, his nerves too very much on edge, still stood before the noble drawing of gabrielle st. leger. "i am not well," he said, plaintively. "certainly i have overworked, and it is all your fault. yet listen, _mon vieux_. your affection is necessary to me. therefore do not let us quarrel. i own you enraged me this afternoon. i did not want you just then." "nor i you," adrian returned, with some asperity. "and your manner was at once insufferably brusque and insufferably possessive. i could not let it pass. i felt it incumbent upon me to administer correction. but i would not descend to anything commonplace in the way of chastisement. i would lay an ingenious trap for you. i came straight home. i seated myself here. i set up this panel, and i drew, and drew, and drew, without pause, without food, in a tense frenzy of concentration, of recollection, till i had completed this portrait. i was possessed, inspired. never have i worked with such fury, such torment and ecstasy. for i had, at once, to assure myself of your sentiments toward the subject of that picture, and to read you a lesson. i had to prove to you that i, too, amount to something which has to be reckoned with; that i, too, have power." "you have commanding power," adrian answered, bitterly. "the power of genius." "then, then," rené dax cried, "since you acknowledge my power, will you consent to leave my madonna alone? will you consent not to make any further attempt to interfere between her and me, to pay court to and marry her?" the attack in its directness proved, for the moment, staggering. adrian stood, his eyes staring, his mouth half open, actually recovering his breath, which seemed fairly knocked out of him by the amazing impudence of this proposition. yet wasn't it perfectly in the part? wasn't it just exactly the egregious tadpole all over? his mind swung back instinctively to scenes of years ago in play-ground, class-room, dormitory, when--while though himself exasperated--he had intervened to protect rené, a boy brilliant as he was infuriating, from the consequences of some colossal impertinence in word or deed. and that swing back to recollection of their school-days produced in adrian a salutary lessening of nervous excitement, restoring his self-confidence, focusing his outlook, both on events and persons to a normal perspective. "so that i may leave the stage conveniently clear for you, _mon petit_?" he inquired, quite good-temperedly. "no, i am sorry, but i'm afraid i cannot consent to do anything of the kind." and then he moved away across the studio, leaving the egregious tadpole to digest his refusal. for he did not want to quarrel, either. far from it. that instinctive throw-back into their school-boy friendship brought home to him how very much attached to this wayward being he actually was. so that, of all things, he wanted to avoid a quarrel, if such avoidance were consonant with restraint of rené's influence in a certain dear direction and development of his own. "nothing will turn me from my purpose, _mon petit_," he said, gently, even gaily, over his shoulder. "nothing--make sure of that--nothing, nobody, past, present, or to come." he proceeded, with slightly ostentatious composure, to study the dado of pictured figures rioting along the surface of the white distempered walls. he had delivered his ultimatum. very soon he meant to depart, for it was no use attempting to hold further intercourse with rené to-night. once you brought him up short, like this, for a greater or lesser period he was certain to sulk. it was wisest to let him have his sulk out. and--his eyes growing accustomed to the dusky light--good heavens, how superbly clever, how grossly humorous those pictured figures were! was there any draftsman living who could compare with rené dax? no, decidedly he didn't want to quarrel with the creature. he only wanted to prevent his confusing certain issues and doing harm. yet, as he passed from group to group, from one outrageous witticism to another, the difficulty of maintaining an equable attitude increased upon him. for it was hateful to remember that the same hand and brain which had projected that heroic portrait of madame st. leger was responsible for these indecencies as well. looking at some of these, thinking of that, he could have found it in his heart, he feared, to take master rené by the throat and put an end to his drawing for ever, so atrocious a profanity did such coexistence, such, in a sense, correlation appear. and then, moving on again, he started and drew back in absolute consternation. for there, right in front of him, covering the wall for a space of two yards or more, he came on a series of sketches--some dashed in in charcoal, some carefully finished in red and black chalk--of joanna smyrthwaite.--joanna, arrayed in man's clothing, a slovenly, ragged jacket suit, sagging from her thin limbs and angular shoulders; she bareheaded, moreover, her hair cropped, her face telling of drink and dissipation, loose-lipped, repulsive to the point of disgust in its weakness and profligate misery, her attitudes degraded, almost bestial as she cringed on all fours or lay heaped together like so much shot rubbish. adrian put his hands over his eyes. looked again. turned indignantly to demand an answer to this hideous riddle. but his host had disappeared. only the gray lemur sat in its scarlet-painted baby's chair before the fire; and from off the tall white panel gabrielle st. leger, carrying her child on her arm, stepped forth to meet the future, while the unrestful wind which blows from out the future--the fateful wind of modernity--played upon her beloved face. iii the other side chapter i recording a brave man's effort to cultivate his private garden joseph challoner telephoned up to heatherleigh from his office in stourmouth that, being detained by business, he should dine in town to-night. this seemed to him the safest way to manage it, since you never could be quite sure how far your servants didn't shadow you. he had put off dealing with the matter in question from day to day, and week to week, because, in plain english, he funked it. true, this was not his first experience of the kind; but, looking back upon other--never mind about the exact number of them--other experiences of like nature, this struck him as very much the most unpleasant of the lot. his own moral and social standpoint had changed; there perhaps--he hoped so--was the reason. in more senses than one he had "come up higher," so that anything even distantly approaching scandal was actively alarming to him, giving him--as he expressed it--"the goose-skin all over." yet, funk or no funk, the thing had to be seen to. further shilly-shallying was not permissible. the by-election for the baughurst park ward, vacant through the impending retirement of mr. pottinger, was imminent. challoner had offered himself as a candidate. the seat was well worth gaining, since the baughurst park ward was the richest and, in many respects, most influential in the borough. to represent it was, with a little adroit manipulation, to control a very large amount of capital available for public purposes. moreover, in a year or so it must inevitably lead to the mayoralty; and joseph challoner fully intended one of these days to be mayor of stourmouth. not only did the mayoralty, in itself, confer much authority and local distinction, but it offered collateral opportunities of self-advancement. upon these challoner had long fixed his thoughts, so that already he had fully considered what course of action, in the present, promised the most profitable line of investment in view of that coveted future. should he push the construction of the new under-cliff drive, for instance? but, as he argued, at most you could invite a duke or field-marshal to perform the opening ceremony--the latter for choice, since it gives legitimate excuse for the military display, always productive of enthusiasm in a conspicuously non-combatant population such as that of stourmouth. unfortunately dukes and field-marshals, though very useful when, socially speaking, you could not get anything better, were not altogether up to challoner's requirements. he aspired, he in fact languished, to entertain royalty. but under-cliff drives were no use in that connection, only justifying a little patriotic beating of drums to the tune of coast defense, and incidental trotting-out of the hard-worked german invasion bogey. the first came too near party politics, the second too near family relationships, to be acceptable to the highest in the land. no, as he very well saw, you must sail on some other tack, cloaking your designs with the much-covering mantle of charity if you proposed successfully to exploit princes. and, after all, what simpler? was not stourmouth renowned as a health resort, and are not hospitals the accredited highroad to royal favor? a hospital, evidently; and, since it is always safest to specialize--that enables you to make play with scare-inducing statistics and impressive scientific formulæ, flavoring them here and there with the sentimental anecdotal note--clearly a hospital for the cure of tuberculosis--nothing just now more fashionable, nothing more popular! really, it suited him to a tee, for had not his own poor little wife fallen a victim to the fell disease in question? and had not he--here challoner just managed not to put his tongue in his cheek--had not he remained, through all these long, long years, affectingly faithful to her memory? therefore, not only upon the platform, but during the private pocket-pickings he projected among the wealthy residents of the baughurst park ward, he could give a personal turn to his appeal by alluding feelingly to the cutting short of his own early married happiness, to the pathetic wreck of "love's young dream" all through the operation of that terrible scourge, consumption. yes, quite undoubtedly, tuberculosis was, as he put it, "the ticket." he remembered, with a movement of active gratitude toward his maker--or was it perhaps toward that quite other deity, the god of chance, so ardently worshiped by all arrivists?--the big stretch of common, wytch heath, just beyond the new west stourmouth cemetery, recently thrown on the market and certain to go at a low figure. lying so high and dry, the air up there must be remarkably bracing--fit to cut you in two, indeed, when the wind was northerly. clearly it was a crying shame to waste so much salubrity upon the dead! true, stourmouth already bristled with sanatoria of sorts. but these were, for the most part, defective in construction or obsolete in equipment; whereas his, challoner's, new royal hospital should be absolutely up to date, furnished, regardless of expense, in accordance with the latest costly fad of the latest pathological faddist. no extravagance should be debarred, while, incidentally, handsome measure of commissions and perquisites should be winked at so as to keep the staff, both above and below stairs, in good humor. salaries must be on the same extensive scale as the rest. later, when a certain personal end had been gained, it would be plenty time enough to placate protesting subscribers by discovering reprehensible waste, and preaching reform and retrenchment. finally, royalty should be humbly prayed to declare the record-breaking institution open, during his, challoner's, tenure of office. he licked his lips, not figuratively but literally, thinking of it. "our public-spirited and philanthropic mayor, to whose generous expenditure of both time and money, combined with his untiring zeal in the service of his suffering fellow-creatures, we are mainly indebted for the inception and completion of this truly magnificent charity," et cetera, et cetera. let them pile on the butter, bless them--he could put up with any amount of that kind of basting--until royalty, impressed alike by the magnitude of his altruistic labors and touched by the tragedy of his early sorrow--for the sentimental personal chord should here be struck again softly--would feel constrained to bestow honors on so deeply tried and meritorious a subject. "sir joseph challoner."--he turned the delicious phrase over in his mouth, as a small boy turns a succulent lollipop, to get the full value and sweetness out of it. he amplified the luscious morsel, almost blushingly. "sir joseph and lady challoner"--not the poor little first wife, well understood, with the fatal stamp of disease and still more fatal stamp of her father's shop upon her, reminiscences of whose premature demise had contributed so tactfully to the realization of his present splendor; but the second, the coming wife, in the serious courting of whom he thirsted to embark immediately, since she offered such conspicuous contrast to the said poor little first one both in solid fortune and social opportunity. only, unluckily, before these bright unworldly dreams could even approximately be translated into fact, there was a nasty awkward bit of rooting up and clearing out to be done in, so to speak, challoner's own private back garden. and it was with a view to effecting such clearance, quietly, unobserved and undisturbed, that he elected to-night to eat a third-rate dinner at an obscure commercial tavern in stourmouth, where recognition was improbable, rather than a first-rate one in his own comfortable dining-room at heatherleigh. after the consummation of that unattractive meal, he took a tram up from the square to the top of hill street, where this joins the barryport road about three-quarters of a mile short of baughurst park and the county gates. here, alighting, he turned into the maze of roads, bordered by villas and small lodging-houses interspersed with undeveloped plots of building land, which extends from the left of the barryport road to the edge of the west cliff. the late march evening was fine and keen, and challoner, whose large frame cried out for exercise after a long day of sedentary employment, would have relished the walk in the moist salt air had it not been for that disagreeable bit of back-garden clearing work looming up as the ultimate purpose of it. in the recesses of his mind, moreover, lurked an uneasy suspicion that he would really be very much less of a cur if he felt a good deal more of one. this made him savage, since it appeared a reflection upon the purity of his motives and the solid worth of his character. he stated the case to himself, as he had stated it any number of times already, and found it a convincingly clear one. still that irritating suspicion of insufficient self-disgust continued to haunt him. he ran through the well-worn arguments again, pleading the justice of his own cause to his own conscience. for, when all is said and done, how can any man possessing an average allowance of susceptibility resist a pretty, showy woman if she throws herself at his head? and mrs. gwynnie had very much thrown herself at his head, pertinaciously coaxed, admired and flattered him. whatever had taken place was more than half her doing--before god it was. he might have been weak, might have been a confounded fool even; but then, hadn't every man, worth the name, a soft side to him? take all your famous heroes of history--weren't there funny little tales about every one of them, from the royal psalmist downward? if he, challoner, had been a fool, he could quote plenty of examples of that particular style of folly among the most aristocratic company. and, looking at the actual facts, wasn't the woman most to blame? hadn't she run after him just all she knew how? hadn't she subjected him to a veritable persecution? but now challoner found himself at the turn into silver chine road, the long, yellow-gray web of which meandered away through the twilight, small detached houses set in little gardens ranged on either side of it shoulder to shoulder, the walls of them shrouded by creepers, and their lower windows--where lights glowed faintly through muslin curtains and drawn blinds--masked by luxuriant growth of arbutus, escallonia, euonymus, myrtle and bay. now and again a solitary scotch fir, relic of the former moorland, raised its dense crown, velvet black, against the sulphur-stained crystal of the western sky. stourmouth is nothing if not well-groomed and neat, so that roads, fences, lawns and houses looked brushed up, polished and dusted as some show-case exhibit. only a misanthropic imagination could suppose questionable doings or primitive passions sheltering behind those tidy, clean-pinafored, self-respecting gray and red house-fronts, in their setting of trim turf, beds of just-opening snowdrops and crocuses, and fragrant glossy-leaved shrubs. joseph challoner drew up and stood, in large vexation and worry, contemplating the pleasant, well-to-do prospect. the alert calm of an early spring evening held the whole scene. faintly, in the distance, he could hear a long-drawn murmur of wind in the baughurst woods and the rhythmic plunge of the sea. and he was aware that--still to employ his own not very graceful vernacular--he funked the business in hand, consciously and very thoroughly funked it. he had all the mind in the world to retrace his steps, board the tram again and get home to heatherleigh. he took off his hat, hoping the chill, moist air might cool his tall brick-dust-red face and bare head, while he fenced thus grimly with indecision. for it had come to that--he had grown so ignominiously chicken-livered--had he the pluck to go on or should he throw up the game? let the whole show slide, in short--baughurst park ward, record-breaking hospital, probable mayoralty, possible knighthood, wealthy second wife, whose standing and ample fortune would lift him to the top of the best society stourmouth could offer--and all for the very inadequate reason that a flimsy, flirtatious, impecunious little anglo-indian widow had elected to throw her bonnet over the windmills for his sake? to challoner it seemed hard, beastly hard, he should be placed in such a fix. how could he be certain, moreover, that it was for his sake, and not mainly for her own, she had sent that precious bit of millinery flying? what assurance had he that it wasn't a put-up job to entangle and land him, not for love of him himself, of what he was, but for love of what he'd got? challoner dragged his handkerchief out of his shirt-cuff and wiped his forehead. of all his amatory experiences this one did, without question, "take the cake" for all-round inconvenience and exasperation! of course, he went on again, picking up the thread of the argument, if he could be convinced, could believe in the sincerity of her affection, be certain it was he, himself, whom she really loved and wanted, not just heatherleigh and a decent income, that would make just all the difference, put matters on an absolutely different footing and radically alter his feeling toward her. and then, with a horse-laugh, he spat on the ground, regardless of the stourmouth borough council's by-law prohibiting "expectoration in a public place under penalty of a fine not exceeding twenty shillings." the lie was so transparent, the hypocrisy so glaring, that, although no stickler for truth where the truth told against him, he was obliged to rid himself of this particular violation of it in some open and practical manner. for he knew perfectly well that her love, whether for the man or merely for his possessions, in no appreciable degree affected the question. not doubt as to the quality or object of mrs. gwynnie's affections, but rank personal cowardice in face of the situation, kept him standing here in this contemptible attitude of indecision amid the chill sweetness of the spring dusk. yet that coarse outward repudiation of inward deceit, if failing to make him a better man morally, had emotionally, and even physically, a beneficial effect. it braced him somehow, so that he squared his shoulders, while his native bullying pluck, his capacity of cynically measuring himself against fact and taking the risks of the duel, revived in him. for this shilly-shallying didn't pay. and it wasn't like him. every man has a soft side to him--granted; but he'd be hung if he was going to let himself turn a softie all over! the smart of his own gibes stimulated him wonderfully, so that in the pride of his recovered strength of mind, and consciousness of his brawny strength of body, he found himself growing almost sentimentally sorry for the fate of his puny adversary. poor little soul, perhaps she really was in love with him!--challoner wiped his face again with a flourish. well, plenty of people did call him "a splendid-looking man"! all the same, she'd got to go under. she must be rooted up and cleared out. he was sorry, for it's always a nasty thing for a woman to be made to understand she is only a side-show in a man's life. only if he meant to stand for the baughurst park ward--and unquestionably he did now mean to do so--his address to the electors must be printed and distributed and his canvass started within the week. yes, no doubt very, very sorry for her, still he was bound to make short work with this rooting up and clearing out of poor mrs. gwynnie. nor did his election supply the only reason against further shilly-shally. here challoner cleared his throat, while the brick-dust of his complexion deepened to crimson. it was funny how shy the thought of margaret smyrthwaite always turned him! but when once the winding up of old montagu smyrthwaite's estate was completed, he would no longer have a legitimate excuse for dropping in at the tower house at odd hours, indulging in nice confidential little chats with margaret in the blue sitting-room or taking a _tête-à-tête_ stroll with her around the gardens and through the conservatories. miss joanna did not like him, he was sure of that. she certainly wouldn't give him encouragement. so time pressed, for the completion of the winding up of the estate could not be delayed much longer. montagu smyrthwaite had left his affairs in quite vexatiously good order, from challoner's point of view, thereby obliging the latter to expend much ingenuity in the invention of obstacles to the completion of business. his object was to keep adrian savage out of england and away from his cousins as long as possible. but the young man--with how much heartiness challoner consigned him and all his works and ways to regions infernal!--might grow suspicious and run over from paris just to hasten matters. that would not suit challoner's little game in the least. he must make certain of his standing with margaret before that most unwelcome descent of the enemy. for the whole matter of adrian savage had become to him as the proverbial red rag to a bull. by its irritating associations it acted very sensibly upon him now, causing him to charge down the road headlong, with his heavy, lunging tread. had adrian proved a bad man of business, ignorant, careless, or bungling, challoner felt his superiority in other departments might have been more easily stomached. but to find this highly polished man of the world as smart a business man as his somewhat unpolished and provincial self rubbed him very shrewdly on the raw. when, with an eye to a not impossible future, he essayed so to jockey affairs as to secure some advantage to margaret smyrthwaite, in the disposition of her father's property, adrian invariably detected the attempted small swindle and promptly, though politely, checkmated it. such encounters had occurred more than once; and both his own failure and adrian's adroitness in disposing of them rankled so much still that challoner walked nearly half the length of silver chine road absorbed in disagreeable remembrance. then the name on a gate-post, which happened to catch his eye, acquainted him with the hardly less disagreeable fact that he neared the end of his journey. ferndale--and he went on repeating the names of the houses as he passed them, mostly by rote, occasionally refreshing his memory where the light permitted by a glance at gate or gate-post. ferndale, then ambleside, the hollies, st. miguel, killarney, followed by castlebar, the moorings, peshawar, mon repos, clovelly. and next, after crossing the end of st. cuthbert's road, leicester lodge, fairlawn, chatsworth, ben nevis, santander. less than a year ago these same names had been to him as mile-stones on love's pilgrimage, each one of which brought him a few steps nearer to a hotly coveted goal. now he waxed sarcastic at the expense of their far-fetched, high-flown titles. take chatsworth, for instance--a forty-five-pound-a-year house, rates and taxes included, with, at the outside, an eighth of an acre of garden to it--could snobbish silliness go much farther? but here was robin's rest, capping the climax, in respect of its title, by vulgar folly. challoner's large, stiff-jointed hands came down roughly on the top bar of the little white gate. he waited a few seconds, breathing rather stertorously. "robin's rest--why not joseph's coat?" he snarled, "a coat of many colors. convenient, that, when you happen to want to turn it, perhaps! now, no more squish-squash. straight ahead--go in and win, and my best wishes to you, sir joseph turncoat." with that he swung the gate open and tramped up the path to the front door, a certain bullying swagger in the carriage of his big person and tall, upright head. chapter ii a strategic movement which secures victory while simulating retreat mrs. spencer, the train of her mauve, cotton-back satin tea-gown thrown negligently over her arm, held aside the strings of the beaded chick, letting her guest pass into the inner hall. as she moved across to the open door of the much be-frilled and be-palmed little drawing-room, they rippled back into place behind her with a rattle of cane and tinkle of glass. the familiar sound gave challoner, who, heavily deliberate, deposited gloves and hat on the hall table, a catch in his throat. he found the first sight of mrs. gwynnie in her flimsy satin, cream lace, and rather tired turquoise-blue ribbons, upsetting. she was a straw-colored, insignificant-featured, fairly tall, fairly plump, fairly graceful, uncomfortably small-waisted woman; looking, at a distance, five-and-twenty, at close quarters, nearer five-and-thirty, cheaply pretty and effective, though slightly washed out. and this latter quality, or absence of quality, in her appearance took hold of challoner now with an appeal of pathos which he resented and made an effort to ignore. it did not tend to the improvement of his manners or of his temper. "since when have you taken to answering the front door yourself?" he inquired, in tones of heavy banter. "been having the periodic rumpus with the maids again?" "oh no; the maids are quite good, thank you," she answered, punctuating her speech with a little meaningless, neighing laugh habitual to her. "i'm on excellent terms with both of them, for a wonder. but it's the cook's evening out, and i gave esther leave to go with her. i didn't think we should have any particular use for them." again she laughed. "but didn't you get my note?" "yes, i got it right enough," challoner said. he had followed her into the drawing-room and stood with his hands behind him and his back to the hissing gas-fire, looking down at his seal-brown frieze trousers. the suit was almost new, yet the knees showed signs of bagging already. this vexed him. "that is why i am here. you said you wanted to see me. so i stayed and dined in town to save time, and came on just as i was." "so i perceive," she put in with meaning. challoner continued to contemplate the knees of his trousers. yet he was well aware that her eyes were fixed on another item of his costume--namely, his waistcoat, crocheted in red and white quarter-inch squares, and finished with a gray cloth border and flat white horn buttons. mrs. spencer had worked it for him last year as a christmas present. he wished to goodness he had not happened to be wearing it to-night! "yes," he repeated, without looking up, "i got your note right enough. but, do you know, i begin to think i get rather too many of those notes. you've fallen into the habit of writing too frequently. between ourselves, it worries me a lot." "why?" she asked. he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "why? because i have some regard for your reputation, i imagine. i don't care a twopenny damn on my own account, of course. my back's broad enough to bear the consequences of my own actions, even if they are disagreeable. but it is quite another matter for you; and i must say you're getting very reckless. that's not fair by me. i've been awfully careful from the first. but where's the use of my taking extensive precautions to shield you if you go and invite gossip like this?" "don't be cross and scold me," mrs. spencer said, archly. she had placed herself on the sofa at right angles to the fireplace, drawing the train of her tea-gown aside so as to leave room for a second occupant of this, the most solid seat in the room. the rest of the furniture ran to wicker chairs, colored madras muslin veiling their original cretonne coverings, and tables, whatnots, cabinets, and flower-pot stands with mottled brown-and-biscuit bamboo frames and plaited straw tops, brackets, and shelves to them. "i won't write so often if you really think it is dangerous," she added. "it is dangerous," challoner asserted, ignoring the invitation to share the sofa. "think for yourself. at heatherleigh there are my servants. at the office there are my clerks. do you suppose they haven't tongues in their mouths or eyes in their heads? if that does not constitute danger, i'll thank you to tell me what does." "but you forbid me to telephone, so how am i to communicate with you unless i write? you call so seldom. i hardly ever see you now." "oh! come," he remonstrated, "i was here sunday week." "but that's beattie's afternoon at home. you know i always give it up to her friends. and a whole crowd of them was here sunday week--fred lawley, and the busbridge boys, and marion chase. i didn't get three words with you." challoner glanced at her in sharp anxiety. "fred lawley come up to the scratch yet?" he asked. "if you mean has he proposed, i am sure i can't tell you. i don't know myself. i suppose if he had, bee would have told me. he seems tremendously gone on her. but you never can be sure of a man till your engagement has been publicly announced." it was challoner who laughed a little this time. "not quite invariably even then," he said. his chin settled into the v of the turned-back corners of his high shirt-collar, while his eyes returned to contemplation of those vexatiously baggy trousers. mrs. spencer began to speak, but he hulled down her voice by asking, rather loudly: "by the way, where is miss beattie?" "oh, she's gone over to marychurch to the quartermains. they asked her to stop the night because the progressive whist club meets at their house. i think those club parties awfully slow, but bee wouldn't miss one on any account. they don't play for money, only prizes." "china lucky pigs or a black velvet cat, home-made, with a pink ribbon around its neck--i know the style," challoner returned. "fred lawley's the attraction, i imagine, rather than those high-class works of art." "i don't think he'll be there. bee said something about his having gone to southampton to join his ship. you seem very interested in fred lawley. but i told you in my note bee was away to-night?" "very likely you did--i really don't remember," he replied, hastily. for he detected, or fancied he detected, a suggestion in her tone and words eminently unwelcome and embarrassing. he felt the brick-dust red of his face and neck deepening to crimson; and this both angered and alarmed him. notwithstanding repudiation of sentiment, was the soft side still uppermost? that would not do. he must buckram himself more resolutely against poor mrs. gwynnie's fascinations, and bring matters to a head at once. "but that reminds me--speaking of beattie, i mean--what do you want done about the lease of this house? it will be up at the end of the half quarter." so far mrs. spencer had lolled in attitudes of studied ease upon the sofa. now she sat bolt upright, clasping her small waist with both hands and advancing her bust. the little neighing laugh preceded, instead of punctuating, her speech. challoner observed a nervous ring in the quality of it. "oh! well that rests more with you than with me, doesn't it? of course i hadn't forgotten the lease is nearly up. it was partly--partly"--with emphasis--"about the house i wanted to see you to-night, and i think it awfully sweet of you to ask what i want done--" she paused, while her auditor, in growing uneasiness, again shifted his weight, dancing-bear fashion, from one to the other foot. "yes, it's awfully sweet of you to put it that way," she repeated. "and i quite know i ought to make up my mind. i suppose, on the whole, i had better ask you to renew the lease for a year, or six months, unless--unless--" "unless what?" challoner snapped. he could have bitten his tongue out immediately after, perceiving how woefully he had blundered. for, although he carefully abstained from looking at her, he knew that the light leaped into mrs. spencer's eyes and the pink into her cheek, while even her straw-colored hair, through the intricate convolutions of which a wisp of turquoise chiffon was twisted, took on a livelier tint. she blossomed, in short; her faded, crumpled, played-out prettiness of person and manner transformed into the younger, smarter, more convinced, and consequently more convincing, prettiness which had raised an evil spirit of covetousness in him when he first met her, and continued to provoke that covetousness until--well, until something very much more profitable, socially and financially, in the shape of possibly obtainable womanhood had risen above his horizon. the moment was a very nasty one for joseph challoner; since it could not but occur to him that, while responsible for much existing damage, he was about to render himself liable for far heavier damages in the near future. this taxed his courage. again, consciously, he "funked it"; so that for some few seconds gwynneth spencer's fate hung in the balance. but only for a few seconds did her fate so hang. ambition, and a brute obstinacy in face of attempted coercion, a certain animal necessity to prove to himself the fact of his own strength, carried the day. challoner turned his coat once and for all, in as far as poor light-weight gwynnie spencer was concerned, letting the underlying element of cruelty and cunning in his nature have free play. "unless what?" she echoed, laughing thinly. "why, unless you have any other plan to propose, joe; any arrangement which you'd like better and which i should like better than just sticking on here indefinitely at robin's rest." challoner had moved away to a rickety little bamboo table, set out with cheap flower-vases and knick-knacks. absently he picked up a photograph, in dilapidated silver frame, from among these treasures and stood fingering it. the coat of many colors was fairly turned; yet at the sound of his pet name challoner started, letting the object he held fall to the ground, where, to his relief, silver, leather, glass, cardboard and portrait incontinently parted company. "i need not put it more plainly, need i?" she quavered, an upward break in her voice. "but, of course, if you have any other plan to propose there would be no occasion to bother about the renewal of the lease." challoner knelt on one knee, his large hands groping over the carpet as he gathered up the _débris_. "bless me!" he said, "the wretched thing's smashed. what a nuisance! i hope you haven't any special affection for it. i am awfully sorry. can't imagine how i came to drop it! stupid of me, wasn't it? i must get you a new one. i saw some uncommonly tasty silver frames in a shop in the marychurch road to-day. i'll go in and buy you one the first time i pass. tell your girl to be careful when she sweeps in the morning, though, for the glass has splintered all over the place." he rose ponderously to his feet, and for the first time since his arrival looked full at her. "peuh!" he went on, blowing out his breath and laying one hand across the small of his back. "it strikes me i'm growing confoundedly stiff. old age comes on apace, eh, mrs. gwynnie? not in your case, i don't mean. you are one of the sort that wears well. i haven't seen you in better looks for months. some other plan to propose, did you say? yes, i have, otherwise i mightn't have been quite so ready to eat a beastly bad dinner down-town, so as to be free to come on here early to see you." his manner had become almost boisterously jocose. casting out the last remnant of pity, he cast out the last remnant of fear of her even in her present heightened prettiness. he came round behind the sofa and perched himself on the back of it, sitting sideways, looking down at her flushed, expectant, unimportant little face, and quite jauntily swinging his leg. "you'll not forget to tell them about the broken glass?" he queried, parenthetically, "or you'll have somebody getting badly cut. as to my alternative plan now, mrs. gwynnie, i have been thinking things over too; and i feel, like you, they can't very well continue as they are. this robin's rest arrangement, which served its purpose well enough at first, is pretty thoroughly played out. we may regret that, but it is. and, to tell you the truth, mrs. gwyn, i have been troubled by some little qualms of conscience lately. beattie's affairs have been on my mind a lot." "beattie, beattie?" she broke in, shrilly. "what on earth has bee to do with it?" "the question is not so much what beattie has to do with it"--laying stress on the last word--"as what it has to do with beattie," challoner returned, in a benevolent, heavy-father tone. "in my opinion she has been a mighty good little sister to you, and she must be mortally tired of keeping her eyes shut and playing gooseberry by this time. i see no reason why her prospects should be sacrificed. she's a perfect right to a look in of her own, poor girl." the answer to the above might appear obvious. but challoner gauged the mental caliber of the person he dealt with. mrs. spencer's shallow, trivial, fair-weather nature was ill-adapted to meet any great crisis. her small brain worked slowly, and with a permanent inclination toward the irrelevant and indirect. he counted upon these defects of perception and logic, and he was not disappointed. "but--but, when i marry," she said, essaying not very successfully to practise her little laugh, "i always meant to make it a condition that bee should share my home." "very nice and thoughtful. quite right of you," challoner replied, still benevolently jocose. "only i was talking about beattie's matrimonial projects just now, not about yours, you see. and you are to blame, mrs. gwyn. you have been careless. i don't want to pile on the agony, but you have been most awfully careless. there is ever so much gossip going round. i am afraid people are beginning to look just a little askance. and what reflects on you reflects on your sister. i have taken the trouble to make inquiries, and, from all i hear, fred lawley is a very decent young fellow and will come into some money when his grandfather dies. he is second officer now, and stands well for promotion. the pay is above the average, too, on that cape line. his people are in a good position; quite gentlefolk, a solid old clerical family--one of his uncles a canon of some cathedral or other, i forget which. it would be a first-class marriage for beattie. but you cannot expect people like that to be best pleased at his taking up with a girl out of such a queer stable as--well, as this one, mrs. gwyn. therefore i do not think i should be acting in your sister's interests if i renewed the lease of this house for you." "i see that," she said, her aspect brightening. "i see what you are coming round to. how you have thought it all out! i see--of course--go on." "i shall not renew the lease of this house," he repeated, slowly, "but i propose you and miss beattie shall move, bag and baggage, to marychurch, where--" "marychurch? why? i thought you meant heatherleigh! why? do you want to get rid of us? oh!" she gasped, "oh!" "yes," challoner said, jocosity waning somewhat. "exactly, mrs. gwynnie. how quick you are! i do want to get rid of you, for your own good, and my good, and beattie's good as well--principally for hers. this gossip must be stopped. i cannot have it. it is unpleasant for me, but for you it is disastrous. at marychurch beattie has the quartermains and plenty of other friends. it will be handy for her young man, too, when his vessel is at southampton. you would see ever so much more society there than you do here. and i can give you an uncommonly nice house, very superior in every respect to this one--sunnyside, the white house with a veranda, opposite the new borough recreation ground in wilmer road. nominally it belongs to old manby, but actually it belongs to me. it has been standing empty since christmas, and manby will think himself only too lucky to let it to any client of mine at a low rent--which i pay, of course. no one need know anything about that." challoner talked on, swinging his leg jauntily, though every nerve in his big body was strained with the effort to apprehend and follow the workings of his hearer's mind. so far, save for that passing outbreak, she had received his admonitions and propositions more reasonably than he had anticipated. so he must exercise patience, must not rush her; but give the idea time to sink in. "manby's property is mortgaged up to the hilt," he went on, "and he is more than half a year behind with the interest. if he doesn't come into my terms i shall threaten to foreclose. he knows i have got him between my finger and thumb, poor old chap, and he goes in terror of the time i may begin to squeeze. i admit it does seem rather rough on him, for he is in this hole through no fault of his own. his family has owned the property for three generations. but his business has dwindled to nothing, and that compelled him to raise money. the co-operative stores at stourmouth and southampton are crushing him and old-fashioned, jog-along, retail tradesmen like him out of existence. the same thing is happening all over the country. men of his type have neither enterprise nor capital to compete with those large company concerns." she sat so still, listening with such apparent docility, that challoner judged it safe to quit generalities. "sunnyside shall be properly done up and the sanitation inspected," he said. "i am willing to spend from seventy to a hundred on the place. it is bound to be my own sooner or later, so any money i lay out on it will come back to me in the end. too, i want to do the thing handsomely for you, mrs. gwyn. you and beattie could go out by tram to-morrow, or next day, and have a look at the place. i'll advise manby by telephone to-morrow, first thing, i have found him a very desirable tenant, so that he may open the house. better make a list of any little odds and ends you may think need doing. if you like, you can choose the wall-papers yourself." "that's awfully sweet of you. but supposing i don't like the house when i see it? i know i am rather fanciful and particular," she put in, with her little neighing laugh. "i'll guarantee you'll like it," he returned. "it's just the sort of house to appeal to your taste. really high class, nothing cheap or tawdry about it, built somewhere in the early seventies, tip-top style in its own line, quite a gentlewoman's house." mrs. spencer fingered the lace and ribbons of her tea-gown negligently, advanced her left foot, studied the pointed toe of her beaded slipper, then looked up archly in challoner's face. "but supposing," she said, "i really don't want a house at marychurch at all--what then? supposing i really prefer to remain at stourmouth? supposing i am really determined to stay on here at our dear old robin's rest?" challoner's expression darkened. he descended from his graceful perch and stood behind the sofa, towering above her. "very sorry, mrs. gwyn," he replied, "but i regret to say it can't be done. it doesn't suit me to have you stay on at robin's rest." "but why?" she insisted. challoner hesitated for an instant, decided to make exact truth subservient to expediency, and spoke. "why? well, if you press the point, not only for the very good reasons which i have already given you at some length, but because i want the house for another tenant. pewsey, my junior partner, has asked for it for his mother. i am anxious to oblige pewsey. i have promised him possession some time in the june quarter." "you have let robin's rest, let our house, joe, our own dear little house, without ever telling me? let it over my head?" looking at her upturned face, pretty, scared, brainless, challoner's memory played a queer trick on him, harking back to scenes of long ago, at which, as a schoolboy, he had more than once--to his shame--assisted, on the fairmead at marychurch, the great, flat, fifty-acre grass meadow which lies on the outskirts of the little town between the river wilmer and the castle moat. he saw, with startling vividness of detail, the agonized leaping rush of the shrill-squealing rabbits, wire-netting barrier in front of them and red-jawed, hot-breathing dogs behind. even then he had turned somewhat sick at the hellish pastime, although excitement, and a natural disposition to bully all creatures weaker than himself, made him yell and curse and urge on the dogs with the roughest of the crowd. he sickened now, watching this hapless, foolish, bewildered woman double and turn in desperate effort to elude pursuing, self-created fate, only to find herself brought up short against the irrefragable logic of the situation as demonstrated by his own relentless common-sense. yet, even while he sickened, excitement gained on him, and his bullying instinct began to find satisfaction in the inhuman sport. "yes, mrs. gwynnie," he said, "i own i have done just that--let robin's rest over your head. i saw it was the kindest thing, both by you and by your sister, though it might strike you as a bit arbitrary at first. my duty is to stop this infernal gossip at all costs. if you won't take proper care of your own reputation i must take care of it for you--isn't that as clear as mud?" "but i don't want to go away," she cried, again missing the point. "i refuse to be sent away. you have no right to interfere. it isn't your place. you can't order me about and push me aside like that. i am a lady, and i refuse to put up with such treatment. it is very rude of you and quite unsuitable. everybody would feel that. i shall appeal to my friends. i shall tell every one i know about it." "oh! as you please, of course. but just what will you tell them?" challoner asked. "why, the whole story--the whole truth." "as you please," he repeated. "only i'm afraid it's not a story likely, when told, to enlarge your local visiting-list." challoner perched on the back of the sofa again, domineering, masterful, leaning down and looking her straight in the eyes. "see here, gwynnie," he said. "you're in a tight place. listen to reason. don't be a fool and throw away your last chance in a pet." "i mean to expose you. i will tell everybody, everybody," she cried. "no," challoner said, "you won't. i give you credit for more worldly wisdom, more self-respect, more good feeling, than that. the injury you might do me, by publishing this little love-passage of ours, would not be a patch upon the injury you would do yourself. you don't want to commit social suicide, do you, and find every door shut in your face? tell any of these friends of yours, the woodfords, mrs. paull, marion chase, and they'd avoid you as they would a leper, drop you like a hot potato, cut you dead, whether they believed your charming little tale or not. you are fond of company, mrs. gwynnie--a gregarious being. you would not the least enjoy being left out in the cold all by yourself. and there is another point. i am perfectly willing to pay for my pleasure honestly, as a man should, but it is not wise to tax my good nature too far. doing your best to blast my reputation is not exactly the way to make me feel kindly or act generously toward you. there would be no more nice houses, rent free, mrs. gwyn, rates and taxes paid; no more quarterly allowance, i am afraid. i should cut off supplies, my dear. your widow's pension is paid in rupees, remember, not in sterling; and the value of the rupee is hardly likely to go up. so you had better look at the question all round before you take the neighborhood into your confidence. listen here, i will give you a hundred a year and the marychurch house--" "but if i tell everybody how you have treated me, public opinion will force you to marry me," she cried, with an air of announcing an annihilating truth. challoner swung his big body from side to side contemptuously. "faugh!" he said. "public opinion will do nothing of the sort. you forget it is a case of my word against yours, and that, considering our relative positions, my word will count a jolly sight most." "but you dare not deny--" "oh, indeed yes, i dare," challoner broke out. "i can deny and shall deny--or rather should, for it won't ever come to the test--that your accusations have any foundation whatsoever in fact. if a woman is mad enough to incriminate herself she must do so. but a man always denies, at least every man of honor and proper feeling does. no, no; be sensible. think of beattie. think of yourself. don't put all your eggs in one basket. you are a taking woman still, mrs. gwyn. give yourself another chance. for remember, you haven't a shred of evidence to offer in support of your attack. you have bombarded me with notes, but, except as lawyer to client, i have never written you two lines in my life." he paused. "no, thank goodness! even at my hottest i kept my head screwed on sufficiently the right way to avoid the old letter-writing trap." "then from the first, the very first," she gasped, "did you never mean to marry me?" challoner had the grace to hesitate, look down at the floor, and lower his voice as he answered. "no, my dear girl, never--from the day i found i could get what i wanted at the cheaper rate." gwynneth spencer stared blankly in front of her. then, as her small, slow-working brain began to take in the measure of her own disgrace, while the poor house of cards in which she trusted toppled and tumbled flat, her silly, little, neighing laugh rose to a shriek. beating the air with both hands, she flung herself at full length on the sofa, her body convulsed from head to foot and her throat torn by hysterical cries and sobs. challoner turned his back, put his hands over his ears. the squealing of the mangled rabbits, on the fairmead, had been a lullaby compared with this! but he found it useless to try and shut out the sounds. piercing, discordant, rasping, they echoed through the room. they must be heard next door. heard out in the road. heard, so it seemed to challoner, through the length and breadth of stourmouth. must resound, startling the high respectabilities of the baughurst park ward. must break in upon the dignified seclusion of the tower house itself, searing his name with infamy. he turned round, leaned down over the back of the sofa. he felt the greatest reluctance to touch the shrieking, struggling woman, but the noise was unendurable. he caught both her wrists, in one hand, and pinned them down among the ribbons and laces at her waist. the other hand he laid upon her open and distorted mouth. "hush," he said. "be quiet. hush, you fool! gwynnie, be a good girl. hush, gwyn. for god's sake, don't go on like this! hush--pull yourself together. try to control yourself. my dear little woman--curse you, leave off your caterwauling, you damned hell-cat. do you hear, hold your infernal row! gwynnie love, darling, chummy little sweetheart! leave off, will you, or you'll make me smother you. leave off.--ah! my god! that's better.--oh! oh!--ouf!" the next thing challoner knew clearly was that he stood in the little dining-room. upon the dinner-table, under the dim light of the turned-down-gas-jets, a square spirit decanter, a syphon of soda, and a couple of glasses were set out on a round red-lacquer tray. he remembered often to have seen them set out thus. but, for the moment, he could not recall why he was there or what he came for. he felt very tired. his hands shook, the veins stood out on his forehead, and great drops of perspiration ran down his face. he would be uncommonly glad of some brandy. then he started with a sudden movement of disgust. he might be brutal, cynical, callous, but there were depths to which he could not descend. never again could he eat or drink in this house. he remembered what he came for. a sound away in the offices arrested his attention. the maids had come in, he supposed. he was glad of that. he poured some brandy into a glass, and, crossing the hall, went back into the drawing-room, shutting the door softly behind him. mrs. spencer lay quite still, the fit of hysteric violence spent. her face was clay-colored. her lips blue. her eyes closed. her body limp and inert. she cried a little weakly and quietly. challoner knelt down beside the sofa, slipped one hand under the back of her head, with its elaborately dressed hair and wisp of turquoise chiffon, and held the glass to her lips. "drink this," he said, in a thick whisper. "it will help to bring you round. it will do you good." then, as she sipped it, drawing away now and then and spluttering a little as the raw spirit burned her tongue and throat, he went on: "you are going to be sensible and not throw away your chance?" "no--i mean yes," she said. "you will take beattie over to marychurch to look at the house?" "yes--oh! yes." "i'll give you a hundred and fifty a year--fifty more than i promised. you can do quite nicely on that?" "yes--thank you--yes." "and as long as you keep your part of the bargain i'll keep mine. if you play me false and talk--" "i sha'n't talk," she said, feebly and fretfully. "why should i talk now it's no use?" "ah," challoner returned, "i am very glad you have come to your senses, mrs. gwyn. i believed, give it a little thought, you'd see it all in a reasonable light. that's right." he rose and went out into the hall again, carrying the glass; put it down, took up his gloves and hat, crossed to the door leading to the offices, opened it and called. a young woman, in a trim black serge coat and skirt and pink sailor hat, appeared in the kitchen doorway with a knowing and slightly disconcerting smirk. "look here, esther," challoner said, "mrs. spencer has been extremely unwell. it was most fortunate i happened to call in to-night. if i hadn't, i don't quite know what would have become of her. she ought not to be left alone in the house. next time miss beattie is away, mind both of you do not go out. it is not safe." he felt among the loose coins in his trousers pocket; laid hold of a sovereign, considered that it was too much--might have the flavor of a bribe about it. found a couple of half-crowns, drew them out and put them into the young woman's hand. "you understand what i say? never let your mistress be alone in the house." once outside in the road, challoner took off his hat, walking slowly. he was grateful for the freshness and the soothing half-dark. he had gone about fifty yards when the blond road seemed to lurch. that horrible shrieking laughter was in his ears--or was it only the squealing of the tortured rabbits? he turned giddy, laid hold of the top of some garden palings for support. a spasm contracted his throat. he retched, vomited. and then passed onward, homeward, through the chill, moist fragrance of the spring night. chapter iii in which euterpe is called upon to play the part of interpreter the concert was over. coming out of the rotunda--a domed and pinnacled building of glass and iron, half conservatory, half theater, set on the hillside against a crown of evergreen-trees--the audience poured in a dark stream down the steep garden walks to where, flanked by red and yellow wooden kiosks, the turnstiles and entrance gates open on to the public road. joanna smyrthwaite was among the last to leave the auditorium. she did so in a dazed and almost sleep-walking condition, exhausted and enervated by the tumult of her own sensations. but that enervation was singularly pleasant to her, since, by reducing the claims of her overdeveloped intellectual and moral nature, it left the emotional element in undisputed ascendancy. she was, indeed, jealous of any interruption or curtailment of this condition. therefore she lingered, unwilling to leave the place where so much inward felicity had been procured her, and fearing to meet any of her acquaintance. dr. and mrs. norbiton and mrs. paull had, she believed, occupied stalls a couple of rows behind her. she wished to avoid conversation with them, and still more to avoid offering--her carriage was waiting at the entrance gates--to drive them to their respective homes. their comments upon the performance, however intelligent and appreciative, must, she knew, jar upon her in her present frame of mind. felicity would be extinguished in irritation, and for such deplorable downfall she should, she knew, hold her good neighbors responsible. it was wiser to avoid occasion of offense since she so wanted, so really needed, to be alone. her sister margaret's musical requirements went no further than the modern english ballad. for preference of the description in which roses, personal pronouns, cheap erotic sentiment, endearing diminutives, and tags of melody appropriated--without acknowledgment--from the works of early masters go to make up so remarkably meritricious a whole. of this joanna, while duly deploring margaret's artistic limitations, was really very glad. it enabled her to attend the weekly wednesday and friday classical concerts, at the rotunda, by herself. she had always wished to attend these concerts, but only since her father's demise had she felt free to gratify her wishes in respect of them. since that event, they had become first a permitted pleasure, then an indulgence crying aloud for gratification, and finally a duty of a semi-religious character on no account to be omitted. to-day the religious sentiment was conspicuously present, as the programme consisted of excerpts from wagner's operas. reared in a creed which sublimates the deity to an inoperative abstraction, joanna's thought reacted just now toward an exaggerated anthropomorphism. in her mind, as in those of many persons deficient in the finer and more catholic musical instinct, the titanic quality of so much of the great composer's work excited feelings of astonishment and awe which resulted in an attitude closely akin to worship. the elevation of primitive human passions--desire, remorse, anger, revenge, blood-hunger--to regions of portent and prodigy, so that they stalk, altogether phantasmal and gigantic clothed in rent garments of amazing and tormented harmonies across the world stage, their heads threatening the integrity of the constellations while their feet are made of, and squarely planted upon, very common clay, is, undoubtedly, a spectacle calculated at once to flatter human pride and provoke a species of idolatry. for some reason, moreover, lust is less readily conceivable in the neighborhood of the pole than in that of the equator; so that the bleak northern atmosphere, in which the wagnerian dramas move, procures for them an effect of austerity, not to say of chastity, almost amusingly misleading. humor, however, is indispensable to the recognition of the above little truths, and joanna's composition was innocent of the smallest admixture of that merrily nose-pulling ingredient. she took her emotions quite seriously; not only nursing them when present, but finding in them later assurance of the reality of certain fond dreams, vehement hopes and longings, which possessed her. therefore, standing under the glazed marquise of the rotunda she watched, with strained face and pale, anxious eyes, until the little company of her acquaintance--she could distinguish dr. norbiton by his height and the green felt hat, cleft in the crown, which he wore--reached the turnstiles and passed out toward the animated open space of the square. this last, like the flat of the valley, lay in shadow; faint pearl-gray mist veiling the modest stream whence stourmouth derives its name, and the lawns and borders--now gay with spring flowers--of the well-kept ornamental grounds through which it flows. but, across the valley, the fir plantation upon the opposite slope, and the houses and big hotels--the streaming flags of which supplied a welcome note of crude color in the landscape--rising behind the dark bar of it, along with the upward curve of shops and offices in marychurch road, and the three tall church spires--two of buff-gray stone, the third red-tiled and elegantly slender--were flooded with steady sunshine. thrushes sang loud in the grove at the back of the rotunda. perched on the outstanding ironwork of the dome, starlings creaked and whistled. a grind of tram wheels, hooting of motor horns, barking of dogs, and sound of voices, borne on the easterly breeze, arose from the square. the bell of an anglican church called to evensong. from the bandstand, situated at the far end of the public gardens, came the strains of a popular march; while with these, in a soft undertone, mingled the murmur of the many trees and hush of the sea. seeing and hearing all of which, in her present highly sensitized condition, realization of the inherent beauty of things, the inherent wonder and delight of being, pierced joanna smyrthwaite's understanding and heart. her whole nature was fused by the fires of a limitless tenderness and sympathy. and, being thus delivered from the tyranny of words and empty phrases, from the false standards of thought and conduct engendered by her upbringing, and from ever-present consciousness of her own circumscribed and discordant personality, for the first time in her experience she tasted the strong wine of life, pure and undiluted. during a few splendid moments she knew the joy of genius' sixth sense--becoming one with the soul and purpose of all that which she looked upon. hot tears rose to her eyes. she was broken by a mute ecstasy of thanksgiving. but it was impossible this happy state should continue. the malady of introspection was too deeply ingrained in her. tormenting fears and scruples again arose. innate pessimism laid its paralyzing influence upon her. she felt as one in whose hands a gift of great value has been placed; but whose muscles being too weak to grasp it, the precious lovely thing falls to the ground and is shattered. whereat tears of enraptured sensibility turned to tears of bitter humiliation. drawing a black-bordered handkerchief from the silver-mounted bag hanging at her waist, she pressed it against her wet, yet burning, face and hurried down the hill. at the gates the well-appointed barouche and pair of fine brown horses awaited her--johnson, the coachman, rotund and respectful, in his black livery, upon the box; edwin the footman, elongated and respectful, her rugs and wraps over his arm, at the carriage door. the spring evenings still grew chill toward sundown; and joanna's circulation was never of the best. she stood silent and abstracted while edwin put her cloak--a costly garment of persian lamb lined with ermine--about her thin shoulders; nor, until she was seated in the carriage, the fur rug warmly tucked round her, had her agitation subsided sufficiently for her to speak. she would not go the short way home by barryport road. she disliked the traffic. the trams made her nervous. she would go by the new drive along the west cliff, and across tantivy common. obediently the carriage turned to the left through the shadow, up the steep hill behind the rotunda. the horses climbed, straining at the collar. then, the top of the ascent being reached, they bowled along the broad, even road, snorting in the sparkle of the upland air and recovered sunshine. joanna sat stiffly upright, shivering a little and blinking in the strong light. she still held her handkerchief in her hand, and it was through a blur of again up-welling tears that she saw the uninviting red and gray terraces and large, straggling boarding-houses, set in a sparse fringe of fir-trees, on either side the road. this quarter of stourmouth, declining from fashion, is given over to cheap _pensions_, nursing-homes, and schools. the footwalks were infested by hospital nurses and bath-chairs, while long files of girls, marching two and two, meandered home and seaward. some of these maidens stared enviously at the young lady, wrapped in furs, driving along in her smart carriage, and sighed for the glorious days when mistresses and lessons would have no more dominion over them. but joanna remained unconscious of the interest she excited. her thoughts had returned upon a subject which now constantly and all too exclusively occupied them--a subject to which even the admirable playing of the rotunda orchestra and noble singing of the young dramatic soprano--though she had listened to both in a fervor of reverential emotion--supplied, after all, little more than a humble accompaniment. in the silver-mounted velvet bag hanging at her waist, neatly filed and dated, encircled by elastic bands to keep them perfectly flat and prevent their edges from crumpling, were all the letters she had received from adrian savage. even the thin french envelopes, cross-hatched with blue inside to secure opacity, had been carefully preserved. even the telegram she had received from adrian, in response to the announcement of her father's death, found a place there. the letters in question were discreet, even ceremonious epistles, dealing with business and plans, expressing regret at the delays in his return to england caused by "our good challoner's" slowness in preparing documents and accounts, and making civil inquiries as to joanna and her sister's health and well-being. quaint turns of phrase and vivacity of diction gave these letters a flavor of originality; but, taken as a whole, less intimate or more uncompromising effusions it would be difficult to conceive. by this fact, however, joanna was in no wise daunted. as all his many friends agreed, adrian savage was a dear, delightful, and very clever fellow, who would assuredly make a name for himself. but joanna went far beyond that, endowing him with enough virtues, graces, and talents to people this naughty old earth with sages and stock all heaven with saints. consequently in the graceful lightness and polite restraint of his letters, alike, she found food for admiration and security of hope--namely, consideration for the difficulties of her unprotected position, delicacy in face of her recent bereavement, a high-minded determination in no way to hurry her to a decision. at night joanna placed the slender packet in a russia-leather wallet beneath her pillow. by day she carried it in the bag at her waist. often, when alone, she drew it forth from its hiding-place and fondled it tremulously. she had done so this afternoon during the concert more than once. it was unnecessary for her to re-read the letters. she knew their contents by heart. adrian had touched them. he thought of her when writing them, when folding the thin sheets of paper, when stamping and addressing the envelopes. thus they constituted a direct material, as well as mental, link between herself and him. perpetually she dwelt on this fact, finding in it a pleasure almost painful in its intensity. only for a few minutes at a time, indeed, could she dare to hold or look at the packet. then, replacing it in the wallet or bag, she struggled to regain her composure, merely to take it out at the first favorable opportunity, and repeat the whole process again. in the same way, although longing for the young man's return, to the point of passion, she hailed each obstacle which postponed that return. to see him, to hear his voice and footsteps, meet his gallant and kindly eyes, to watch him come and go about the house, to listen to his clever and sympathetic talk, would constitute rapture, but a rapture from which she shrank in terror. she felt that she could hardly endure his presence. it would drain her of vitality. now, sitting upright in the carriage, while the horses carried her forward at a spanking pace through the sea and moorland freshness and the delights of the spring sunshine, a new form of these fears tortured her. adrian's love, constant association with him, participation in the varied interests and activities of his daily life and in that of the brilliant society in which he moved--this, and nothing less than this, in sum and in detail, constituted the lovely precious gift placed in her, till now, so sad and empty hands by a strange turn of fortune's wheel. were those poor hungry hands strong enough to close upon and hold it? or would they, weakly faltering and failing, let it fall to the ground and be shattered? the shame of such prospective failure agonized her. to renounce a crown may be heroic, but to have it incontinently tumble off, when you are straining every nerve, exerting every faculty, to keep it safely balanced on your head, is feeble, as she felt, to the point of ignominy. at last the schools, _pensions_, nursing-homes, and lodging-houses were left behind. the carriage reached the open common. tracts of gorse, thick-set with apricot-yellow blossom, broke up the silvery brown expanse of heather. in sharply green, grass-grown hollows ancient hawthorns, their tops clipped by the sea wind into quaint shapes, compact and ruddy, were dusted over by opening leaf-buds. high in air screaming gulls circled. the shadows were long, for the sun drew down toward its setting. then, as once before to-day, the happy appeal of outward things--in which, as in glass, man may, if he will, catch some faint reflection of god's glory--made its voice heard, awakening joanna smyrthwaite from the fever-dreams of her almost maniacal egoism. obeying a sudden impulse, she stopped the carriage, alighted, and walked out on to the little promontory the neck of which the road crosses. here the sand cliffs, dyed all shades from deepest rusty orange to palest lemon-yellow and glistening white, descend, almost perpendicularly in narrow water-worn shelves and ledges to the beach nearly a hundred feet below. looking eastward, up the wind, the sea horizon, stourmouth, its many buildings and its pier, and all the curving coastline away to stonehorse head--the dark mass of which guards the entrance to marychurch haven--showed through a film of fine gray mist. westward, the colors of both land and sea, though opaque, were warmer. across the golden gorse of the common in the immediate foreground joanna saw the great amphitheater of the baughurst park woods extending far inland, the rich blue-purple of the pines and firs pierced here and there by the living sunlight of a larch plantation. beyond barryport harbor, only the farthest coves and inlets of whose gleaming waters were visible, the quiet, rounded outlines of the slepe hills pushed seaward in blunt-nosed headland after headland, softening from heliotrope to ethereal lavender in the extreme distance, under a sky resembling the tint and texture of a pink pearl. joanna, her fur cloak gathered closely about her, stood a lonely black figure amid the splendor of the scented gorse. there is an exciting quality in the east wind. the harsh tang of it galvanized her into an unusual physical well-being, making her chest expand and her blood circulate more rapidly. a new thought came to her. to doubt her power of meeting the demands of adrian's affection and of rising to his level was really to doubt the vivifying power of that affection, to doubt his ability to raise her to his own level. her doubt of her own worthiness was, in point of fact, an accusation against his intelligence and his judgment. joanna slipped one hand inside the velvet bag under her cloak and clasped the thin packet of letters. with the other she momentarily covered her eyes, as though in apology and penitence. "ah! how miserably faithless i am," she murmured in her flat, toneless voice. "how wickedly ungrateful it is not to trust him. as though he were not capable of supplying all that is wanting in me--as though he did not know so far, far best!" chapter iv some passages from joanna symrthwaite's locked book that evening joanna went to her room early. she permitted mrs. isherwood to help her off with her evening dress and on with a purple lamb's-wool kimono, the color and cut of which were singularly ill-suited to her pasty complexion and narrow-chested figure. she then rather summarily dismissed the good woman, who retired accompanied by black silk rustlings indicative of respectful displeasure and protest. these joanna refused to let affect her. the experiences of the day had aroused an inherited, though until now latent, arrogance. she regarded herself as sealed to that altogether-otherwise-engaged young gentleman, adrian savage, and set apart. yet ingrained habits of obedience and self-repression still stirred within her, making her timid in the presence of any sort of established authority, even in that of her old nurse. she needed solitude to enable her to enjoy the luxury of such "sealing" to the full. therefore, when the door shut upon those remonstrant rustlings, she followed almost stealthily and locked it, stood for a moment listening to make sure of isherwood's final departure, then extended both arms with a voiceless cry of satisfaction, crossed to her satinwood bureau, opened it and took the current volume of her diary from a pigeon-hole, fetched lighted candles and the silver-mounted bag containing adrian's letters from off her dressing-table, and sat down to write. "_april , -_ "i have neglected my diary for many weeks. but i have feared i might set down that which i should afterward regret. indeed, all my accustomed occupations and employments have been neglected. they have appeared to me tedious and trivial. my mind has been strangely disordered. but to-night i feel this state is passed. i see my duty clearly, and shall not allow anything to interfere with it or deflect me from the pursuit of it. i owe this to the person who has so wonderfully chosen me." at this point the small, neat, scholarly writing became irregular and almost illegible. joanna rose and paced the room, pressing her hands against her high forehead. presently she returned and sat down again. "it is unwise to dwell too much on this. as yet i am unequal to any adequate expression of my feelings. when rearranging the books in library last week i happened to open a volume of mrs. browning's poems containing her 'sonnets from the portuguese.' they appeared to me singularly appropriate to my own case. i have, indeed, been weakly jealous that any other woman should have felt, and so exactly expressed, my own thoughts and emotions. yet i read and re-read the sonnets daily. they speak for me not only more eloquently, but more truthfully, than i can speak for myself. but, unhappily, i have less, terribly less, to offer in return than the poetess had. this has racked me with distress, annihilating my peace of mind, and in great measure dimming my gratitude, until to-day. i see how very wrong this has been. it has its root in pride. for, as i now understand, distrust of myself is nothing less than distrust of him. i am resolved to exterminate my pride and submit to be nothing, so that he may give everything. already i feel relief and a growing repose of mind from this resolve. already i feel my pride yielding. soon, i believe, i shall almost rejoice in my own absence of gifts and attractions, since it enlarges his opportunity for generosity." the chatter of young women upon the gallery, accompanied by smothered laughter, not to say giggling. joanna ceased writing, blotted the page, and returned the diary to its pigeonhole. she moved into the center of the room and stood anxiously listening. but to her relief no knock came at the door. the two voices grew faint along the corridor, and ceased. joanna could not, however, immediately settle to her diary again. the giggling had brought her down, from high poetic regions to common earth, with a bump. pride, cast out in one direction, pranced in another unrestrained--as is pride's wont. when joanna resumed her writing subject and treatment alike were changed. "marion chase is staying here, as usual," she wrote. "in some ways i am glad of this. it relieves me of any obligation to be constantly with margaret. to be constantly with her would be very irksome to me. i no longer pretend that she and i have much in common. since papa's authority has been removed the radical divergence between margaret's character and mine becomes more and more evident. marion chase has no intellectual life. her pleasures are active and practical. these margaret appears increasingly to enjoy sharing. to-day she and marion have been to southampton and back in a new motor-car margaret has on trial. mr. challoner selected it for her in london. it came down yesterday. margaret is very much excited about it. she is, of course, at liberty to buy a motor-car if she pleases, though i think it would have been better taste to wait until the business connected with our inheritance was finally settled before making any such costly purchase. i prefer johnson and the horses. motoring would, i feel sure, cause me nervousness. mr. challoner, i heard this evening, met them in stourmouth, and, under plea of seeing how the car worked before advising margaret to keep it, accompanied them to southampton and back. this appears to me quite unnecessary. i could not make out from marion whether his going was by previous arrangement or merely the result of a sudden thought and invitation. in either case i cannot but disapprove of his joining the party. he is still here very frequently, and margaret quotes his opinions on every occasion. those opinions are prejudiced and insular, as one might expect from a man who has enjoyed few social and educational advantages. papa used to say the worst enemies of patriotism were patriots. this is certainly true in the case of mr. challoner in as far as the effect of his conversation upon me is concerned. he knows nothing of foreign countries and foreign politics, and yet speaks contemptuously of whatever and whoever is not english. margaret has taken to echoing him until i grow weary and irritable. surely it might occur to her that reiterated depreciation of everything foreign must be displeasing to me. but margaret has no perception. argument is lost upon her, so i am constrained to remain silent. yet i cannot disguise from myself that her constant association with mr. challoner and the influence he undoubtedly has obtained over her may lead to great difficulties in the future--particularly in the event of my own marriage." here, once again, the neat writing became erratic. emotion gained upon joanna, compelling her to lay down her pen, rise, and pace the room. "my own marriage--my own marriage," she repeated, her head thrown back, her eyes shut, her arms hanging straight at her sides, while her hands worked, opening and closing in nervous, purposeless clutchings. presently she walked back to the bureau and took adrian's letters out of the velvet bag. resting her left hand, her fingers outstretched, upon the flat slab of the bureau for support, she held the letters in her right. their contact made her wince and shrink, as though she held white-hot metal instead of innocent bluey-white note-paper. only by degrees could she muster sufficient composure to look at the slim little packet upon which encircling elastic bands conferred a distinctly prosaic and even bill-like appearance. "'and yet because thou overcomest so, because thou art more noble and like a king, thou canst prevail against my fears and fling thy purple round me, till my heart--'" her voice failed, dying in her throat, leaving the quotation incomplete. hastily she pushed the packet of letters back into the bag, snapped to the silver catch, and, again pressing her hands to her forehead, paced the room till such time as her agitation had sufficiently subsided for her to resume her writing. "i must resist the temptation to dwell upon a certain subject, save in silence. to refer to it in words moves me too deeply. that subject is the life of my life. of this i am so utterly sure, so utterly convinced, that i can surely afford to keep silence. just in proportion as i know that my heart is beating, it becomes unnecessary to count the heart-beats. i had better write of practical things. to do so has lessened the worry they too often caused me in the past. i trust it may do so again. i mean this specially in connection with the anxiety margaret's association with mr. challoner occasions me. i fear margaret is disingenuous. mamma used to deplore a tendency to deceit in her, deceit in little things, even when she was a child. margaret enjoys concealment. it amuses her and gives her an idea of her own astuteness and superiority. i do not wish to be unjust, but i cannot help fearing this tendency to slyness is increased by her intercourse with mr. challoner and with marion. "in addition to the fact of mr. challoner's drive with them to southampton something else came out at dinner, to-night, which disturbed me. on my way home to-day, after crossing tantivy common, johnson turned along silver chine road. a pantechnicon van stood before one of the small houses which i recognized as that which margaret once pointed out to me as belonging to mrs. spencer. as the carriage passed, i saw mrs. spencer herself and her young sister, miss beatrice stacey, directing the men who were carrying out the furniture. i thought they both looked hard at me, but i did not bow. i sent cards to mrs. spencer, as to every one else who called here to inquire after papa's death, but i do not desire her acquaintance. on the few occasions when i have met her she appeared to me a frivolous, dressy person, whose influence upon margaret would not be for good. i do not wish to be uncharitable, but her manners struck me as unladylike. at dinner i mentioned the circumstances under which i saw her this afternoon. marion glanced at margaret with a singular expression of face. "'i heard mrs. spencer and bee were leaving soon,' she said. 'i believe they have taken a house at marychurch.' "i observed margaret flushed, but she did not speak. "'of course i don't believe there is any real harm in her,' marion added, again looking at margaret, 'or i should not have gone there so often. but i do think whatever talk there has been is entirely her own fault.' "then margaret began to speak of the car, and mr. challoner's advice to her about buying it, in a rather loud tone. she hardly spoke to me during the rest of the evening. i certainly had no intention of annoying her by mentioning mrs. spencer, but she was evidently very angry with me. i cannot help being anxious--yet i know my own great happiness should make me patient and tolerant, even when vulgar and trivial matters are pressed upon my attention. i am very weak. i ought to rise above all such things and rest calmly in the one wonderful thought that i am no longer alone, that i no longer belong to myself." joanna put her hand over her eyes. "'thou canst prevail against my fears and fling thy purple round me,'" she again quoted half aloud. then once more she wrote. "i am glad that i am rich. i have never felt glad of this till to-day. we have always been rich, and, though papa inculcated economy as a duty, i have taken riches for granted as a natural part of my own position. now i recognize their value. i have at least that to give--i mean, a not despicable amount of wealth, and the dignified ease which wealth obtains. in this respect at least i can make some slight return. since there has been time to look into affairs, we find papa's estate considerably larger than we supposed. margaret and i shall each have between seven and eight thousand a year. yes, i am very, very glad. at least i do not go to him an empty-handed beggar in material things." she sat awhile looking up, both hands resting on the edge of the slab. her mouth was half open, her eyes fixed, her face irradiated by an expression of ecstasy painful in its strained intensity. a little more and ecstasy might decline to idiocy. joanna doted; and always--though particularly under such circumstances as joanna's--it is a mistake to dote. chapter v in which adrian's knowledge of some inhabitants of the tower house is sensibly increased a week of the burning mid-may weather, such as often comes in the fir and heather country. the baughurst woods and all the coast-line from marychurch to barryport basked in the strong, still heat. over open spaces the heat became visible, dancing and swirling like the vapors off a lime-kiln as it baked all residue of moisture out of the light surface soil. aromatic scents given off by the lush foliage and lately risen sap filled the air. the furze-pods crackled and snapped. fir-cones fell, softly thudding, on to the deep, dry beds of fir-needles, and films of bark scaling off the red upper branches made small, ticking noises in the sun-scorch. all day long in the heart of the woodland turtle doves repeated their cozy, crooning lament. wandering cuckoos called. in the gardens blackbirds and thrushes, though silent at mid-day, sang early and late. great blue and green dragonflies hawked over the lawns, darting back and forth from the warm dappled shade of the fir plantations, where their enameled bodies and transparent wings glinted across long slanting shafts of sunlight. in the shrubberies rhododendrons, azaleas, pink thorns, and crab-trees were in flower. lilac and syringa blossom was about to break. the sky, high and unclouded, showed a deep, hot blue above the dark-plumed pines and fir-trees and against the red-tiled roofs and sextagonal red-brick tower--surmounted by a gilt weather-vane--of the tower house from sunrise to sunset. adrian savage lay back in a long cane chair set upon the veranda, around the fluted terra-cotta pillars of which trumpet-flowered honeysuckle, jasmine, and climbing roses flourished. he found the english heat heavy and somewhat enervating, clear though the atmosphere was. it made him lazy, inclined to dream and disinclined to act or think. he laid the times down on the wicker table beside him, put his panama hat on the top of it, returned a small illustrated french newspaper, of questionable modesty, to the breast-pocket of his jacket, stretched, stifled a yawn, and lighted his third cigarette. then, reclining in the chair again, he contemplated the perspective of his own person--clad in a suit of white flannel with a faint four-thread black stripe--to where the said perspective ended in a pair of tan boots. he had bought the boots in london. he knew they represented the last word of the right thing. so he ought to like them.--he crossed and re-crossed his feet.--but he wasn't sure he did like them. on the whole he thought not. therefore he sighed meditatively, pulled the tip of his close-cut black beard and pushed up the rather fly-away ends of his mustache. stared sadly at the tan boots, raised his eyebrows and shoulders just perceptibly, and mournfully shook his close-cropped black head. sighed again, and then looked away, across the gravel terrace and flower-beds immediately below it crowded with pink, mauve, and pale-yellow tulips, to where, on the sunk court at the far end of the long, wide lawn, four agile, ruddy-faced, white-clothed young people very vigorously played tennis. in the last three months adrian had lost weight. _la belle gabrielle_ had not been kind; not at all kind. more than ever did she appear elusive and baffling. more than ever was the mysterious element of her complex and enchanting personality in evidence. she frequented drawing-room meetings at which feminists, male as well as female, held forth. she received zélie de gand and other such vermin--the term is adrian's--at her thrice-sacred flat. finally, her attitude was altogether too maternal and beneficent toward m. rené dax. these things caused adrian rage and unhappiness. he lost flesh. in his eyes was a permanently pathetic and orphaned look. happily, his nose retained its native pugnacity of outline, testifying to the fact that, although he might voluminously sigh as a lover, as a high-spirited and perfectly healthy young gentleman he could still very handsomely spoil for a fight. but no legitimate fight presented itself--that was exactly where, from adrian's point of view, the worry came in. he might haunt _la belle gabrielle's_ staircase, spend hours in consultation with wise and witty anastasia beauchamp, exert all his ingenuity to achieve persuasion or excision of rené dax, but without practicable result. about as useful to try to bottle a shadow, play leap-frog with an echo, tie up the wind in a sack! really he felt quite glad to go away to england for a time, out of the vexatiously profitless wear and tear of it all. the sun, sloping westward, slanted in under the round-headed terra-cotta arches supporting the roof of the veranda. adrian drew his feet back out of the scorch, and in so doing sat more upright, thereby gaining a fuller view of the tennis players. marion chase happened to be serving. she interested him as a type produced by current english methods of mental and physical culture practically unknown in france. she stood--so she informed him with the utmost frankness--five feet ten in her stockings, took eight and a half in shoes, measured forty inches round the chest and twenty-nine and three-quarters round the waist. to these communicated details he could add from personal observation that she had the complexion of a channel pilot, owned a sensible, good-tempered, very managing face, and spoke in a full barytone voice. he accredited her with being very fairly honorable, irreproachably virtuous, and conspicuously devoid of either the religious or artistic sense--though she frequented concerts, picture galleries, and church services with praiseworthy regularity and persistence. he liked her rather, and wondered at her much--being unaccustomed to the society of such large-boned, athletic, and sexless persons, petticoated, yet conspicuously deficient in haunches and busts. miss chase, he further remarked, was permanently in waiting upon margaret smyrthwaite, while a tail of youths and maidens was almost as permanently in waiting upon miss chase. their relation to her was gregarious rather than sentimental, a mere herding of children who follow a leader at play. the said tail to-day consisted of the busbridge boys and amy woodford--the former two lanky, sandy-headed, quite innocuous young fellows in immaculate flannels, their nether garments sustained by green and orange silk handkerchiefs knotted--adrian trusted securely--about their waists; the latter a rather stout, dark-haired young lady, arrayed in white linen, who would have been very passably pretty had not her mouth been too small, her nose too long, and her bright, boot-button-black eyes set insufficiently far apart. idly he watched the quartette as the members of it ran, leaped, backed, called, stood breathing after a long rally, with, apparently, as little soul or mind in their active young bodies as a mob of colts and fillies. then his eyes traveled to margaret smyrthwaite sitting outside the larch-built, heather-thatched tennis pavilion beyond the court in the shade of a grove of tall fir and beech trees. if marion chase caused him wonder, margaret caused him very much more, though from a different angle. her development in the last three months struck him as phenomenal--a startling example of the adaptability to environment inherent in the feminine nature. from a rather negative and invertebrate being, with little to say and a manner alternately peevish and silly, she had grown into a self-possessed young woman, capable of making her presence, pleasure, and displeasure, definitely felt. the likeness and the unlikeness she bore to joanna had from the first appeared to adrian both pathetic and singular. now, on seeing the twin sisters again, this likeness and unlikeness passed the bounds of pathos and became, to his eyes, quite actively cruel. for they bore to each other--it was thus he put it--the same relation that the _édition de luxe_ of a book bears to its original rough copy--joanna, naturally, representing the rough copy. all the ungracious and ungrateful aspects of joanna's appearance were nicely corrected in her sister, fined down or filled out--heavy, yellowish auburn hair, improved to crisp copper; a pasty complexion giving place to a fair though freckled skin and bright color; blue eyes no longer prominent or anxious, but clear, self-content, and possibly a trifle sly. at forty adrian could imagine her fat and a little coarse-looking, but now her figure was graceful, and she dressed well, though with perhaps too great elaboration for impeccable taste. adrian trembled as to the flights of decorative fancy which might present themselves when her period of mourning was passed! to-day she wore a black muslin dress and a wide-brimmed, black chip hat, trimmed with four enormous black silk and gauze roses, the whole of rather studied candor of effect. yes, she was quite an agreeable object to look upon; but joanna, oh! poor, poor joanna! adrian lit a fourth cigarette, stretched himself in his chair again, crossing his legs and gazing up at the roof rafters. joanna afforded him an uncomfortable subject of thought, and one which he tried to avoid in so far as possible. he respected her. more than ever he felt a chivalrous pity toward her. but he did not like her, somehow. ridiculous though it might sound, he was a wee bit afraid of her, conscious of self-protective instincts, of an inclination to erect small barricades and throw up small earthworks behind which to shelter when alone with her. he was ashamed of his own sensations, but--and more particularly since he had seen those degraded drawings upon the wall of rené's studio which so dreadfully resembled her--she, to use a childish expression, gave him the creeps. then, suddenly penetrated by a conviction that her pale eyes were at that very moment fixed upon him, adrian whipped out of his chair and wheeled round, very alert and upright in his tan boots and light flannel suit. "ah! my dear cousin, it is you! i thought so," he said, quickly. "at last you come out to enjoy this ideal afternoon. that is well. is it not ravishing?" for quite a perceptible space of time joanna made no reply. she stood on the stone step of one of the large french windows opening on to the veranda. her lips were parted and upon her face was a singular expression, midway--so it struck adrian--between driveling folly and rapture. this recalled to him with such vividness those evil drawings upon the studio wall that had the likeness been completed by her sporting masculine attire it would hardly have surprised him. she, in point of fact, however, wore nothing more peculiar than a modest, slightly limp, black alpaca coat and skirt. adrian was aware of developing an unreasoning detestation of that innocent and very serviceable material. "i am so sorry," she said, at last, in a sort of hurried whisper. "i ought not to have come out unexpectedly thus, by the window. i have disturbed you. it was thoughtless of me and inconsiderate." "but--no--no--not in the least," he assured her. "i was doing absolutely nothing. the hot weather disposes one to idleness. i tried to read the times. i found it a monument of dullness. i looked into a little french paper i have here." he patted the breast-pocket of his jacket. "i found it quite too lively." the corners of his mouth gave slightly; for oh! how very far away from poor joanna's was the outlook upon things in general of that naughty little print! "have no fear," he added. "it shall remain safely stowed away. it is not, i admit, exactly designed for what you call family reading--unsuited, for example, to the ingenuous minds of those excellent young tennis players! ah, the energy they display! it puts me to shame." joanna came forward slowly, touching chairs, flower-stands, tables, in passing, as though blindly feeling her way. "i have wanted so much to speak to you alone," she said. "yes--yes?" adrian answered inquiringly, with a hasty mental looking around for suitable barricade-building material. "ever since you told me you had lately suffered anxiety and trouble," she continued. "ah! my dear cousin, you are too sympathetic, too kind. who among us is free from anxieties and troubles--_des ennuis_? one accepts them as an integral part of one's existence upon this astonishing planet. one even cherishes a certain affection for them, perhaps one's own dear little personal _ennuis_." joanna sank into a chair. her lips worked with emotion. "i wish i could feel as you do," she said. "but i am weak. i rebel against that which pains me or causes me anxiety. i have no large tolerance of philosophy. but, therefore, all the more do i admire it in you. now, when i allude to your trouble you try to put the matter aside gracefully out of consideration for me. indeed, i appreciate that consideration, but while it causes me gratitude, it increases my regret.--you will not think me officious or intrusive? but i cannot tell you how it distresses me that you should endure any mental suffering, that you should have troubles or anxieties. i had never thought of the possibility of anything unhappy in your life or circumstances. since you told me i think of it continually. forgive me if i appear presumptuous, but you have done so incalculably much for--for us--margaret, i mean, and me--especially, i know"--her voice faded to a mere thread--"i know, of course, for me--that i have wondered whether there was not anything in which i could be of some slight use to you, in which i could help you, in return?" adrian had subsided into his long chair again. he leaned sideways, his legs crossed, his right arm extended to its full length across the arm of the chair, holding his cigarette between his first and second fingers, as far from his companion as possible lest the smoke of it should be unpleasant to her. his lean, shapely hand and wrist showed brown against the hard white of his shirt-cuff, and the blue smoke from the smoldering cigarette curled delicately upward in the hot, fragrant air. and joanna watched his every movement; watched with the fixed intentness, the beatified idiocy, of those who dote. outwardly the young man remained charmingly debonair. inwardly he labored at the erection of barricades and the strengthening of earthworks with positive frenzy, distractedly apprehensive of what might be coming next. "sympathy so generously given as yours can never be otherwise than helpful, dear cousin," he said. "believe me, i am deeply touched by the interest you take in me. but the trouble i have on my mind--and which it was foolish and selfish of me ever to allude to--" "oh no," joanna interrupted, breathlessly. "do not say that. pray don't. it was entirely my doing. both margaret and i observed that you--you looked sad, that you had grown thinner. i questioned you. perhaps it was intrusive of me to do so. yet how could i remain silent when all which affects you necessarily concerns me so profoundly?" notwithstanding the high temperature, adrian felt something queerly like a trickle of iced water down the length of his spine. he just managed not to change his position, but remained leaning sideways toward her. "you are more than kind to me, dear cousin," he said. "really, more than kind and good. but i am sure your ready sympathy will make you comprehend there is a stage of most _ennuis_, private worries and bothers, when it is only discreet, only, indeed, honorable, to maintain silence. yet, believe me, i shall never forget your amiable solicitude for my happiness. some day in the future it may become possible for me to explain--" "yes--oh! yes--in the future--thank you--i know--in the future," joanna whispered, pressing her hands over her eyes. and adrian shrank away from her. he couldn't help it. mercifully, she wasn't looking. he uncrossed his legs, sat upright. then, leaning forward with bent head, he stared at the red and purple quarries of the pavement, resting his wrists upon his knees. he was about to reply, but joanna's toneless speech rushed onward. "pray, pray do not suppose that i wish to cross-question you or force myself into your confidence. nothing could be further from my intention than that. i am so sure you know far best what to tell and what to withhold from me. i could never question your judgment for an instant. in this, as in everything--yes, everything--i am ready and contented to wait. only sometimes there are practical ways of being helpful. i have lived among business people all my life, and i could not help thinking that if there was any scheme--connected with your review, for instance--forgive me if i am presumptuous--but any business affair in which you were interested and which might require capital, might need financing--" adrian raised his head slightly. his face was drawn and very pale. his nostrils quivered. he had sufficient self-control to keep his eyes steadily upon the white, capering forms of the tennis players there on the other side of the sunny lawn. was it conceivable that she, joanna--of all created women--was trying to buy him? the degradation, the infinite disgust of it!--but no, that really was too vile a thought. with all the cleanness, all the chivalry of his nature, adrian thrust it aside, refusing to dishonor her so much. again he nerved himself to speak, and again her speech rushed onward like--so it seemed to him--some toneless hissing of wind over a barren, treeless, seedless waste. "pray, pray do not be displeased with me," she pleaded. "i may be acting unconventionally in touching thus upon matters apparently outside my province. but, as i think you will admit, i am at most only forestalling the right, the privilege rather--for to me no privilege could be greater--which will be mine later on, in the future of which you just now spoke. please think of it thus. and if my action is premature, a little unbecoming or unusual, you--who understand everything--will most surely forgive. no--cousin adrian, do not answer me, i implore you--not just yet. i have longed so earnestly for this opportunity of talking alone with you. give me time. let me finish. i know i do not express myself well. but be patient with me. when we are together i am only conscious of your presence. i become miserably deficient in courage and resource. words fail me. i am so sensible of my own shortcomings. therefore i cannot consent to lose this opportunity. there is something i so intensely need to tell you, because i cannot help hoping it may lighten the anxieties which have been troubling you--" during this extraordinary address adrian held himself rigidly still, his head again bent, while he stared at the red and purple quarries. he could not trust himself to move by so much as an inch lest he should betray the repulsion with which she inspired him. meanwhile his mind worked like some high-powered engine at full pressure, for, indeed, the situation was extravagant in its unpleasantness. how to say anything conclusive without assuming too much passed human wit. yet what more fatuous, what more execrably bad taste than to assume just that too much? he wanted to spare the poor woman, and act toward her with as perfect charity, as perfect good breeding, as he might. "this is what i have so wanted to tell you, adrian," joanna went on. "lately i have felt quite differently about my unfortunate brother, about poor bibby, of whose unhappy career i spoke to you when you were here before. i have learned to think differently upon many subjects in the last three months--" joanna paused, pressing her hands against her forehead. "yes--upon many, many subjects," she said. "that is natural, inevitable, with the wonderful prospect which lies before me." the young man braced himself, each muscle growing taut, as a man braces himself for a life-and-death fight. but he did not alter his position. "when we talked of my brother before, i told you--i thought it right to do so--that i proposed to put aside the larger portion of my fortune for his benefit. i believed it my duty to do my utmost to make amends for papa's harshness toward him. but since then i have come to see the matter in a different light. i no longer feel that my brother has the first claim upon me. i no longer believe my first duty is to bibby. it is to some one else. and i have ceased to believe he is still living. a strange and deepening conviction has grown upon me that he is dead." adrian's muscles relaxed. he threw back his head and looked into the sky, into the strong, steady sunlight. for hearing joanna's last words, he hailed salvation--salvation coming, be it added, from the very queerest and most unexpected quarter. "consequently i have decided to alter my will," joanna continued. "i scrutinized my own motives carefully. i have earnestly tried not to be unduly influenced by my own inclinations, but to do what is just and right. i have not yet spoken to margaret about it, but i intend to make a redistribution of my property, devoting that portion of it which i held in reserve for my brother to another person--i mean another purpose. under my altered circumstances i feel not only that i am justified in doing this, but that it has become an imperative obligation. were my poor brother still living the news of papa's death must have reached him by this time and he would have communicated either with andrew merriman or with me. as he has not communicated with either of us, i am free to assume the fact of his death. you agree with me, adrian? i am at liberty to make this redistribution of my property? you--you assent?" "since you are good enough to ask my advice, dear cousin," adrian said, looking upon the ground and speaking quietly and distinctly, "i am compelled to answer you truthfully. you are not free at the present time, in my opinion, to make any alteration in your will which affects your bequest to your brother." "but," joanna protested, with a smoldering violence, "but if i am certain, morally certain, that my unfortunate brother is dead?" putting a strong force upon himself, adrian leaned sideways in his chair, again crossing his legs, turning his face toward joanna, and looking gravely and kindly at her. "dear cousin," he said, "perhaps i should have acted more wisely had i written or spoken to you before now of a certain discovery which i happened, accidentally, to make immediately after my return to france. i hesitated after the exhausting experiences you had recently passed through to subject you to further anxiety and suspense or to raise hopes which might be fated to disappointment. but i possess evidence--to myself conclusive--that your brother was living as lately as three months ago; that in february last he was in paris. yes, i know, i sympathize--i readily comprehend," he went on, feelingly, "how greatly this information is calculated to surprise you. on that account i have withheld it, and i grieve it is not possible to soften the shock of it by giving a happy account of your brother's state of mind or of his circumstances." here the speaker stopped, for joanna raised her hand with an almost menacing gesture. "wait, adrian," she cried, "wait! i cannot bear any more at present. i must accustom myself to this idea. it means so much, so dreadfully much. i must have time to think." chapter vi which plays seesaw between a game of lawn-tennis and a prodigal son coming in by the wicket gate from the carriage-drive, challoner sauntered with a deliberate and even proprietary tread along the shrubbery path skirting the eastern side of the lawn. he was clothed, with a view to sports and pastimes, in a loosely fitting gray norfolk jacket, white trousers, and a hard, white straw hat, the low crown of it encircled by a band of purple-and-scarlet-striped ribbon. the said hat, set on the top of his tall, upright head and neck, and straight, solid figure, gave him--in outline--an appearance remarkably suggestive of a large medicine bottle with the cork rammed well in. over his shoulder he carried a racket, from which dangled a pair of by no means diminutive tennis shoes. only recently had challoner received invitations to the tower house of this purely social character. they gave him the warmest satisfaction, as marking progress toward the goal of his ambitions. he had been elected to the baughurst park ward; by a narrow majority, it is true, still he had been elected--and that was the main thing, since it supplied a secure basis from which to manoeuver. before the next election, if all went well--and he would compel all, never fear, to go well--he would be in a position to ride rough-shod over the baughurst park ward, herding its voters to the poll like so many obedient sheep. his wits and professional standing plus margaret smyrthwaite's fortune and social standing would make him master not only of the baughurst park ward, but of all stourmouth. yes, sir joseph and lady challoner, sons, perhaps, at eton, daughters presented at court and marrying into the peerage! such beatific visions floated before him, and challoner felt then, indeed, he would not have lived in vain. the job of uprooting and deporting mrs. gwynnie had been a nasty one. it hit him very hard at the time. there were moments of it he didn't care to remember very clearly even now. but, as he sauntered slowly in the still afternoon heat through the aromatic atmosphere of the radiant garden, and glanced up at the imposing mass of the big red house, its gilt weather-vane cutting into the blazing blue, he thanked almighty god from his heart, piously, that he had had the pluck, and forethought, and resolution to go through with that nasty job of uprooting and deportation. only weak men let women wreck them; and, thank god, he, joseph challoner, wasn't weak. meanwhile--here piety had the grace to walk out and let honest cynicism walk in, winking--meanwhile margaret smyrthwaite grew better-looking and more accessible every day. yes, unquestionably providence is on the side of the clear-headed, helping those who help themselves, who know the chance of their lives when it comes along and don't allow sentimental scruples to prevent their fixing right on to it. only the unfit go under--such, for instance, as that flimsy little baggage, mrs. gwynnie. and, if you look at things all round calmly and scientifically, how very much better for everybody concerned, public morals included, that under such very unfit little feminine baggages should very completely and finally go! chewing the cud of which philosophic reflections, challoner pursued his prosperous and contented way. from the tennis court the players waved and called their greetings as he approached them. margaret smyrthwaite, leaving her seat in front of the pavilion, came forward to meet him, her smart black figure and enormous hat backed by a bank of crimson and pink rhododendron in full blossom. she moved with the rather studied grace of a girl who expects, and is altogether ready, to be admired. challoner had no quarrel with this. for his taste she could not be too ornate. he appraised her appearance, her costume, the general effect of her, as he might a fine piece of plate for his table. well, didn't he propose she should be, in a sense, just that--his domestic and social centerpiece? the more glory to him, then, the more expensive she looked! and she could afford to look expensive, thank god!--here piety stepped in again momentarily.--and he could afford to let her look so; for once that handsome fortune of hers in his keeping, be d----d if he would not double or treble it. he raised his hat and stood with it in his hand. his eyes covered her covetously. if she wanted admiration, it was hers to order. he could supply a perfectly genuine article in unlimited quantity. and, though his countenance was not an expressive one, he contrived to convey the above information to her quite clearly. the young lady responded. she talked of the weather, the heat, the game, and such-like inanities; but she displayed her fine plumage and trailed her wings all the while. challoner began to think of a game of tennis as a wholesome corrective. the temperature became high in more senses than the meteorologic one. presently she made a gesture calling his attention to her sister and adrian savage sitting on the veranda; smiled slyly, looking up at him, and then turned and sauntered a few steps beside him back along the path. witnessing all which suggestive pantomime from his distant station, adrian had much ado to maintain an attitude of circumspection and restraint. for was it conceivable that those two--margaret and challoner--in any degree shared, or affected to share, poor joanna's infatuated delusion? was ever man landed in so false a position! an atmosphere of intrigue surrounded him. he felt as though walking among treacherous quicksands, where every step spells danger of being sucked under and engulfed. inwardly he tore and plunged, cursing against the hateful, the dishonoring silence imposed upon him by circumstance. he was tempted to rush out on to the sun-bathed lawn, regardless of all mercy, of all decorum, and shout to the four winds of heaven his unique, inextinguishable devotion to gabrielle st. leger, his sole desire and love! only by some such public loud-tongued demonstration did he feel he could regain safe foothold and cleanse his honor from the detestable and insidious duplicity fathered upon him through no act or lapse of his. but here joanna's voice once more claimed his attention. it still hissed and whispered, causing him shrinking and repulsion. yet he detected a change in the spirit of it. some finer, more wholesome chord had been struck. she no longer cringed. "i am ready now, cousin adrian," she said, "to hear that which you have to tell me about my brother." and the young man, finding relief to his pent-up feelings in voluminous and rapid speech, told her how, calling late one night upon an old school-fellow, a widely known draftsman and caricaturist, he had seen certain drawings--here adrian picked his phrases a little--representing a young man of six or seven and twenty--"who," he said, "bore such a striking resemblance to you, my dear cousin, and to margaret, that i was transfixed with veritable amazement. i do not disguise from you that i was also pained, that for the moment i was furious. for these pictures were objectionable in character, in many respects odious. it appeared to me my friend had been guilty of an outrage for which it was my duty to administer sharp chastisement. but i could demand no immediate satisfaction, because he and i had already quarreled that evening, and he concealed himself from me, thereby rendering it impracticable that i should question him. this, perhaps, was as well, since i was heated and it gave me space for reflection. i realized the extreme improbability of his ever having seen either you or your sister--the absolute impossibility of his having done so recently, as you had been at home in england for some years. then i recalled the pathetic history of your brother which you had confided to me. i grasped the situation. i understood. i called upon my friend next day. still he was rancorous. he flew into a passion and refused to admit me. i restrained my resentment. i wrote to him explaining the gravity and urgency of the case. i appealed to his better nature, entreated him to be reasonable and to give me information. indeed, i conducted myself with praiseworthy reticence, while he remained obstinate to the point of exasperation. upon more than one count, i fear, i should have derived the very warmest satisfaction from wringing his neck." adrian's handsome eyes danced and glittered. his teeth showed white and wicked under his fly-away mustache. "yes, i, on my side, also possibly harbored a trifle of rancor," he said. "but i suppressed my legitimate annoyance. i ignored his provocations. i insisted. at last i elicited this much." "that was very noble of you; still it distresses me that, indirectly, i should have caused you this trouble. though i am grateful--some day i may find words in which to tell you how grateful," joanna whispered, leaning forward and working her hands together nervously in her black alpaca lap. all of which served to bring adrian, who had grown quite comparatively at ease and happy in his subjective belaborings of the unspeakable tadpole, back to the entanglements and distractions of the immediate present, with a bounce. "upon my word, my dear joanna," he replied almost brusquely, "i am afraid it very much remains to be proved whether i deserve your gratitude or not. i labor under the ungracious necessity of communicating much to you that is painful, that is sad. yet, having gone thus far it becomes imperative, for many reasons, that i should put you in possession of all the facts. then it will be for you to decide what further steps are to be taken next." "you will know best--far best," she murmured. the young man set his teeth. never before had he come so near being cruel to a woman. instinctively he crossed himself. _sancta maria, mater dei_, in mercy preserve him from the guilt of so dastardly a sin! he turned to joanna and spoke, dealing out his words slowly, so that the full meaning of them might reach her beclouded, love-sick brain. "my friend, rené dax, found this young man, whose likeness to you and your sister is so indisputable, so intimate, in the act of attempting his life." "ah! bibby, bibby!" joanna cried harshly, throwing back her head. "yes," adrian continued, pursuing his advantage, "unnerved by the horror of his friendless and destitute condition, the unhappy boy was about to throw himself from one of the bridges into the seine. at his age one must have suffered very greatly to take refuge in that! but from the drawings of which i have spoken one can form only too forcible a conception of his desperation. they supply a human document of a deplorably convincing order. rené, who, notwithstanding his eccentricity, possesses admirable instincts, struggled with him and succeeded in preventing the accomplishment of his fatal design. then, forcing him into a passing cab--kidnapping him, in short--carried him off with him home." "oh, wait, wait!" joanna broke in. "this is all so very dreadful. it is so remote from my experience, from all i am accustomed to, from all the habits and purposes of my life. i do not wish to be self-indulgent and shirk my duty. i wish to hear the whole, cousin adrian; but i must pause. i must recover and collect myself, if i am to follow your narrative intelligently." just then joseph challoner, having laid aside hat and jacket and put on tennis shoes, came out of the pavilion and joined the group, gathered around margaret smyrthwaite, on the terraced grass bank of the court. challoner had the reputation of being a formidable player, his height, and reach, and sureness of eye more than counterbalancing any lack of agility. it may be added that, along with a losing game, he had the reputation of too often mislaying his manners and losing his temper. but this afternoon no question presented itself of losing either game or temper. he had practised regularly lately. he felt in fine form. he felt in high good humor. while both sense and senses called for strong physical exercise as a wholesome outlet to emotion. amid discussion and laughter, marion chase tossed for partners. the elder of the busbridge boys fell to her lot, the younger to challoner's, and the set began. margaret returned to her chair, and amy woodford lolled on the pavilion step, in the shadow close beside her, fanning a very pink face with a large palm-leaf fan. as the game progressed the two girls commented and applauded, with clapping of hands and derisive or encouraging titterings and cries. against this gaily explosive feminine duet, the rapid thud of balls, and sharp calling of the score, joanna's voice asserted itself, with--to her hearer--a consuming dreariness of interminable and fruitless moral effort, a grayness of perpetual non-arrival, perpetual frustration, misconception and mistake. "i am composed now, adrian," she said. "my will again controls my feelings. please tell me the rest." "i am afraid there is disappointingly little more to tell," he replied. "for two days the unfortunate boy remained with my friend as his guest. rené clothed him properly, fed and cared for him, and paid him liberally for his services as a model. but on the third morning, under plea of requiring to obtain some particular drug from a neighboring pharmacy, the young man left my friend's studio. he did not return." "where did he go?" "that is what i have asked myself a thousand times, and made every effort to discover. i have friends at the prefecture of police. i consulted them. they were generous in their readiness to put their knowledge at my disposal and aid me in my research. unluckily i could only give them a verbal description of the missing man, for rené refused me all assistance, refused to allow any police agent to view the drawings, refused even to allow photographs of them to be taken. to do so, he declared, would constitute an unpardonable act of treachery, a violation of hospitality and crime against his own good faith. the unhappy fellow had trusted him on the understanding that no inquiry would be made regarding his family or his name. now the episode was closed. rené did not want it reopened. he had other things to think about. rather than have the drawings employed for purposes of identification, he would destroy them, obliterate them with a coat of paint. when it became evident, however, the young man had disappeared for good rené's valet, less scrupulous than his master, carefully examined the wretched clothes he had left behind. between the lining and stuff of the jacket he found a small photograph. it must have worked through from a rent in the breast-pocket. though creased and defaced, the subject of it was still in a degree distinguishable. i did not wish to agitate you, my dear cousin, by communicating this matter to you until i had made further efforts to discover the truth. i sent the photograph to mr. merriman. he tells me it represents the garden front of your old house, highdene, near leeds." joanna neither moved nor spoke, though her breath sighed and caught. the sounds from the tennis court, meanwhile, increased both in volume and in animation, causing adrian to look up. challoner stood as near to the net as is permissible, volleying or smashing down ball after ball, until his opponents began to lose heart and science and grow harried and spent. and adrian, watching, found himself, though unwillingly, impressed by and admiring the force, not only the great brute strength but determination of the man, which bestowed a certain dignity upon the game, raising it from the level of a mere amusement to that of a serious duel. and across the intervening space challoner became sensible of that unwilling admiration--the admiration of a quasi-enemy, curiously supplementing another admiration of which he was also conscious--namely, that of margaret smyrthwaite, of the woman who craves to be justified, by public exhibition of his skill and prowess, of the man to whom she meditates intrusting her person and her fate. this excited challoner, flattering his pride, stimulating his ambition and belief in himself.--yes, he would show them all what he was made of, show them all what he could do, what he was worth! so that now he no longer played simply to win a set at tennis from a harmless, lanky busbridge boy and amazon-like marion chase; but to revenge himself for adrian savage's past distrust of him, detection and prevention of his shady little business tricks, played to revenge himself for the younger man's superiority in breeding, knowledge of the world, culture, talents, charm of manner and of looks. he gave himself to the paying off of old scores in that game of tennis, all his bullying instinct, his necessity to beat down and trample opposition under foot, actively militant. yet since margaret smyrthwaite's approval, not to mention her goodly fortune, came into reckoning, the bullying instinct made him deadly cool and cunning rather than headlong or reckless in his play. presently joanna silently motioned adrian once again to take up his sordid story. and with a feeling of rather hopeless weariness he obeyed, recounting his scouring of paris, accompanied by a private detective. told her of clues found, or apparently found, only again to be lost. told her, incidentally, a little about the haunts of vagabondage and crime and vice, of the seething, foul-smelling, festering under-world which there, as in every great city, lies below the genial surface of things, ready to drag down and absorb the friendless and the weak. so doing--while he still watched challoner, and divined much of the human drama--finding expression in his masterful manipulation of racket and ball--adrian's imagination took fire. he forgot his companion, gave reign to his natural eloquence and described certain scenes, certain episodes, with only too telling effect. "but you must have been exposed to great danger," she broke in breathlessly at last. "ah! like that!" he cried, shrugging his shoulders and laughing a little fiercely. "danger is, after all, an excellent sauce to meat. i had entire confidence in the loyalty and discretion of my companion, and we were armed." joanna got up, pushing away her chair, which scrooped upon the quarries. "and you did all this for me--for my sake, because bibby is my brother!" she exclaimed. "you risked contracting some illness, receiving some injury! for me, because of bibby's relation to me, you endangered your life!" "but in point of fact, i didn't suffer in the least, my dear joanna," he replied, rising also. "i enlarged my acquaintance with a city of which i am quite incorrigibly fond; which, even at her dirtiest and naughtiest, i very heartily love. and here i am, as you see, in excellent health, perfectly intact, ready to start on my voyage of discovery again to-morrow, if there should seem any reasonable hope of its being crowned with success. common humanity demands that much of me. one cannot let a fellow-creature, especially one who has the claim of kinship, perish in degradation and misery without making every rational effort to rescue and rehabilitate him." joanna hardly appeared to listen. she moved to and fro, her arms hanging straight at her sides, her hands opening and closing in nervous, purposeless clutchings. "no," she declared violently, "no! when i think of the risks which you have exposed yourself, and the shocking and cruel things which might have happened to you, i cannot control my indignation. when i think that bibby might have been the cause of your death no vestige of affection for him is left in me. none--none--i cast him out of my heart. yes, it is dreadful. looking back, all the anguish of which my brother has been the cause is present to me--the constant anxiety which his conduct gave rise to, the concealments mamma and i had to practise to shield him from papa's anger, the atmosphere of nervousness and unrest which, owing to him, embittered my girlhood. he was the cause of estrangement between my parents; between papa and myself. he was the cause of the break-up of our home at leeds, of the severing of old friendships and associations, of the sense of disgrace which for so many years lay upon our whole establishment. it destroyed my mother's health. it emphasized the unsympathetic tendencies of my father's character. and now, now, when so much has happened to redress the unhappiness of the past, to glorify and enlarge my life, when my future is so inexpressibly full of hope and promise, it is too much, too much, that my brother should reappear, that he should intervene between us, adrian, between you and me--endangering your actual existence. and he will come back--i know it, i feel it," she added wildly. "i believed him dead because i wished him dead. i still wish it. but that is useless--useless." and, as though in ironic applause of joanna's passionate denunciation, the two young ladies watching the game of tennis broke into enthusiastic hand-clapping. "well played--good--good--splendid--played indeed!" they cried, their voices ringing out through the still, hot air. marion chase flung herself down on the terraced grass-bank. "you're out of sight too strong for us," she gasped, laughingly. "we didn't have the ghost of a chance." challoner stood wiping his face and neck with his handkerchief. he was puffed up with pride, almost boisterously exultant. ah! yes, let the hen-bird display her fine plumage and trail her wings ever so prettily, when it came to a fight the cock-bird had his innings, and could show he wasn't lacking in virility or spunk! he'd given them all a taste of his metal this afternoon, he flattered himself; taught them joseph challoner was something more than a common low-caste, office-bred, country attorney, half sharper, half lick-spittle sneak! "the gray mare isn't the better horse yet awhile, eh, miss marion, your friends the suffragettes notwithstanding?" he said, jocosely. "all the same, i congratulate you. you and your partner made a plucky stand." the elder busbridge boy lay on his back, panting and tightening the supporting silk handkerchief about his lean young waist. "my hat! that last rally was a breather though," he grunted. "i got regularly fed up with the way you kept me bargeing from side to side of that back court, challoner. double-demon, all-round champion terrifier--that's about the name to suit you, my good chap." joanna had come close to adrian. her prominent eyes were strained and clouded. seam-like lines showed in her forehead and cheeks. her poor mouth looked bruised, the outline of her lips frayed and discolored. her likeness to the drawings upon the wall was phenomenal just then. it shocked adrian, and it caused him to think. "they have finished playing," she said. "they will come in to tea directly. i cannot remain and meet them. i must show some respect for my own dignity. they are all margaret's friends. i do not care for them. i cannot expose myself to their observation. she must entertain them herself. i will go to my room. i must be alone until i have had time to regain my composure, until i know my own thought about this cruel, cruel event; until i have recovered in some degree from the shock i have suffered, and begin to see what my duty is." chapter vii pistols or politeness--for two "this is the last of the documents, mr. challoner?" "yes, that is the last of the lot. you noted the contents of schedule d, covering the period from the end of the december quarter to the date of mr. smyrthwaite's death, among the priestly mills statement of accounts? the typed one--quite right. yes, that's the lot." "we may consider the whole of our business concluded?" "that is so," challoner said. he stood in an easy attitude resting his elbow on the shelf of the red porphyry-mantelpiece of the smoking-room at heatherleigh--a heavily furnished apartment, the walls hung with chocolate-colored imitation leather, in a raised self-colored pattern of lozenge-shaped medallions, each centered with a tudor rose. the successes of the afternoon still inflated him. in addition to his triumphs in sports and pastimes, he had managed to say five words to margaret smyrthwaite. and, though the crucial question had neither been asked nor answered, he felt sure of her at last. his humor was hilarious and expansive--of the sort which chucks young women under the chin, digs old gentlemen in the ribs or slaps them familiarly upon the back. there was a covert sneer in the tail of challoner's eye and a braggart tang in his talk. he swaggered, every inch of his big body pleased with living, almost brutally self-congratulatory and content. "i am really under considerable obligation to you for giving up your evening to me, and letting me finish our business after office-hours thus. it will enable me to catch the night cross-channel boat from dover to-morrow. i shall be particularly glad to do so." as he spoke, adrian swung round the revolving chair, in which he sat before the large writing-table--loaded with bundles of folded papers, and legal documents engrossed on vellum tied round with pink tape. in turning, the light from the shaded incandescent gas-lamp, hanging directly above the table, brought his black hair and beard and white face into the high relief of some rembrandt portrait. "what's up with young master highty tighty?" challoner asked himself. "looks off color, somehow, as if he'd had an uncommon nasty blow below the belt." the windows and glass door stood open on to the garden, and the pungent scents of the great fir woods drawn forth by the day's sunshine mingled with that of challoner's cigar and adrian's cigarette. "oh! so you're off at once then, are you?" the former said. "that's something new, isn't it? i understood from the ladies you thought of stopping on here a bit. and when may we hope for the pleasure of seeing you again on this side of the silver strip?" adrian leaned back in his chair, stretching out his legs and crossing his feet. "at the present time i really have no idea," he replied. challoner could hardly conceal his glee. for an instant he debated. concluded he would venture on a reconnaissance. flicked the end off his cigar into the fireplace. "miss joanna will be sorry," he said. "both my cousins have been perfect in their amiability, in their hospitality, in their generous appreciation of any small services it has been in my power to render them," adrian declared, rolling his r's and speaking with the hint of a foreign accent common to him when tired or vexed. "my cousins know that they can command my co-operation at a moment's notice should they require counsel or advice. but my own affairs, as they kindly and readily comprehend, cannot be too long neglected. my interests and my work are necessarily abroad--in france. it becomes imperative that i should return to my work." "not a doubt about it," challoner said. "work stands first. though i own i'm glad my work doesn't oblige me to expatriate myself. i shouldn't relish that. not a bit. poor old england's good enough for me." "precisely--your interests and your work are here." challoner fitted the toe of his boot into the pattern of the hearth-rug, looking down and permitting himself a quiet laugh. "oh! lord, yes," he said, "to be sure. my work and my interests are here right enough--very much here. i'm not ashamed of the word 'local,' or of the word 'provincial' either, mr. savage. my father invented stourmouth, as you may say, and i've patented his invention. stourmouth owes a good deal to the two joseph challoners, father and son; and i propose it should owe a long sight more, one way and another, before i join my poor old daddy 'under the churchyard sod.'" "it is an act of piety to devote one's talents and energies to the welfare of one's native place," adrian returned. and therewith, judging he had made sufficient concession to the exigencies of the position in the matter of general conversation, he rose to depart. but challoner stopped him. "just half a minute, will you please, mr. savage," he said. "it occurs to me if we're not likely to meet for some time there's one matter i ought to mention to you. i don't exactly care to take the whole onus of the thing upon my own shoulders. of course, if you're cognizant of it, there's the beginning and end of the story as far as my responsibility goes. i may have my own opinion as to the wisdom, and--not to mince matters--the honesty of the arrangement. but, if you are aware of it and approve, my mouth, of course, is shut. has miss smyrthwaite told you of the alteration she proposes making in her will?" "yes, she spoke of it to-day; and i dissuaded her from making it." challoner sucked in his breath with a soft whistle. "indeed?" he said. "that's a self-denying ordinance." adrian held himself extremely erect. his eyebrows were raised and the tip of his pugnacious nose was very much in the air. "pardon me, but i do not quite follow you," he said. "miss smyrthwaite didn't explain the nature of the alterations very fully then, i take it?" "my cousin informed me that she proposed to revoke certain gifts and bequests she had made to her brother, william smyrthwaite--supposing him still to be living. of this i disapproved. i told her so, giving her the reasons for my disapproval." challoner looked down and fitted the toe of his boot into the hearth-rug pattern once more. "you hold the property should remain in the family--go to the direct heirs, the next of kin? a very sound principle; but one, if you'll excuse my saying so, few persons stick to where their personal advantage is involved." "i repeat, i fail to follow you," adrian returned, shrugging his shoulders and spreading out his hands with an impatient movement. "perhaps miss smyrthwaite omitted to explain that this redistribution of her property was exclusively in your favor; all she mulcted her precious specimen of a brother of was to go not to her direct heir--her sister--but to yourself." whereupon, it must be conceded, the younger man's bearing became not a little insolent. "preposterous, my dear challoner, utterly preposterous!" he cried. "for once your professional acumen must have quite scandalously deserted you, or you could not have so misunderstood my cousin's instructions." it was not challoner's cue to lose his temper. he had too many causes for self-congratulation to-night. and then, whether adrian was bluffing or not, he believed--though it was annoying to find the young man so unmercenary--this repudiation of the proffered inheritance to be sincere. "joanna--miss smyrthwaite, i mean, i beg her pardon--is too good a woman of business to trust to verbal instructions. i have got the whole thing on paper, in black and white, there"--he pointed to the table. "i can lay my hand on it in half a minute. possibly you'd like to look at it yourself, as you appear to doubt my word." but for the moment adrian was incapable of reply. this was what joanna had meant! it was even worse than he had feared. he felt humiliated, hot with shame. and then, in spirit, he clasped those infamous drawings upon the wall and the subject of them, bibby, the miserable wastrel bibby, to his breast. "do you wish to look at miss smyrthwaite's instructions as to the transfer of her property, mr. savage?" challoner repeated, a sneer in his voice. but the young man had recovered his native adroitness. "clearly it would be superfluous for me to do so; because, as i have already informed you, miss smyrthwaite, recognizing the validity of my arguments, decides to cancel those instructions, to make no alteration in the disposition of her property. happily i was in a position to convince her that it is premature to assume the fact of her brother's death. i have comparatively recent news of him." challoner's jaw dropped. "the devil you have," he said, under his breath. "yes--'the devil,' quite possibly--as you so delicately put it," adrian returned, lightly. "i have been tempted, at moments, to put it myself so, my dear mr. challoner. at others i have seemed to trace a really providential element in this strange affair. directly the facts of william smyrthwaite's reappearance came to my knowledge i placed mr. andrew merriman in full possession of them." "oh, you did, did you?" challoner commented. "yes. i considered this the correct course to pursue. mr. merriman was formerly employed by mr. smyrthwaite as the channel of communication between himself and his son." "graceless young hound!" challoner snarled, caution swamped by anger and chagrin. it made him mad to think adrian savage had had this eminently disconcerting piece of information up his sleeve all along! once more he'd been checkmated. "mr. merriman generously accepts all responsibility in the conduct of this matter," adrian went on. "and, i am sure you will feel with me, that his long and intimate connection with my cousins' family renders him quite the most suitable person to deal with it. therefore, until further developments declare themselves--i beg your pardon? you express a pious hope further developments never will declare themselves? possibly that might save trouble; but i fear the saving of trouble is hardly the main point in the present case. therefore, until they do declare themselves, you will, i feel sure, agree that it is most undesirable this subject should be spoken about. discussion of it can only cause my cousins agitation and heighten their suspense. this i am naturally most anxious they should be spared. nothing, meanwhile, will be neglected. i shall do my part. mr. merriman will do his. i will ask you therefore to consider this conversation as strictly confidential." "oh! you needn't be afraid i shall blab," challoner said. "poor girl," he went on presently, pronouncing that dangerous catch-word as though it rhymed with _curl_--"poor girl, poor miss margaret! it'll be an awful blow to her. she is so sensitive. she's given me to understand--indirectly, of course--when we've been talking over business, what an out-and-out rotter this precious brother of hers was. to my mind, you know, mr. savage, it's not a nice thing to turn such vermin as young smyrthwaite loose on two defenseless women. i don't like it. honestly i don't. so you needn't be afraid of my blabbing. my whole object, out of respect for the ladies and for poor old smyrthwaite's memory, will be to keep matters dark. at the same time i note what you say about merriman; which, i take it, is equivalent to telling me to keep my hands off. very good, mr. savage. what i have just said proves i think that i am more than willing to keep my hands very much off this very dirty job. still, there is one question which, even so, i imagine i am at liberty to ask. are you sure of your facts?" to adrian savage it appeared only two alternatives were open to him--namely, to treat his host with studied politeness or call him out. and england, perhaps unfortunately, is no longer a dueling country. adrian's manner became elaborately sweet. "as far as they go," he said, "i am, dear mr. challoner, absolutely sure of my facts." "as far as they go? well, there's room for hope they mayn't go very far, then--may be something of the nature of a scare, in short. and, if i may be allowed one question more, has this very edifying piece of family news been communicated to margaret?" "to--to whom?" adrian said, with a civil interrogatory face, raised eyebrows, and a slightly elongated neck. "sorry i didn't speak plainly enough," challoner snarled back. "communicated to your cousin, mr. savage, miss margaret smyrthwaite?" "not by me," the other returned, smiling affably. "and now, my dear mr. challoner," he went on, "since these labors in which we have been associated are at an end, let me thank you warmly for your able concurrence and for the priceless assistance you have given me in the administration of mr. smyrthwaite's estate. accept, also, my thanks for your courtesy in permitting me to come here to your charming house to-night." adrian glanced around the forbidding apartment. "i carry away with me so many interesting and instructive impressions," he said. "but now i really must trespass upon your time and indulgence no longer. again thanks--and, since i leave at a comparatively early hour to-morrow, good-by, mr. challoner--good-by, good-night." chapter viii "nuit de mai" some half-hour later adrian turned into the garden of the tower house by the wicket gate opening off the carriage-drive. and so doing, the tranquil beauty of the night made itself felt. during his walk from heatherleigh his preoccupation had been too great to admit of the bestowal of intelligent attention upon outward things, however poetic their aspect. he possessed the comfortable assurance, it is true, of having worsted the animal challoner in the only way possible, swords and pistols being forbidden. he also possessed the comfortable assurance of having scrupulously and successfully regulated the _affaire_ smyrthwaite, in as far as business was concerned, and taken his discharge in respect of it. but the events of the afternoon had proved to him, beyond all shadow of doubt and denial, the existence of a second _affaire_ smyrthwaite, compared with which regulation of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of property was, from his personal standpoint, but the veriest bagatelle! now the question of how to deal with this second _affaire_, alike scrupulously and successfully, racked his brain, usually so direct in decision, so prompt in honorable instinct and thought. and it was to the young man's credit that, while fully measuring the abominable nature of the hole in which the unhappy joanna had put him, he remained just and temperate in his judgment of joanna herself. the more to his credit, because, as a native of a country where certain subjects are treated in a spirit of merry common-sense--which, if it makes in some degree for license, also makes for absence of hypocrisy and much wholesome delight in life--joanna's attitude offered an obscure problem. were she a vicious woman his position would be a comparatively simple one. but joanna and vice were, he felt, far as the poles asunder. even that ugly matter of "trying to buy him"--as in his first overwhelming disgust he had defined it--proved, on calmer inspection, innocent of any intention of offense. she didn't know, poor, dear woman, she didn't know. in her virtuous ignorance of certain fundamental tendencies of human nature, of the correlative action of body and spirit, she had not a conception of the atrocities she was in process of committing! for she was essentially high-minded, deep-hearted, sincere; a positive slave to the demands of her own overdeveloped moral sense. but, heavens and earth, if only those responsible for her education had taught her a little more about the nature of the _genus homo_--male and female--and the physiology of her own emotions, and a little less about quite supererogatory theoretic ethics! the burning, though veiled, passion from which he recoiled was, he believed, in great measure the result of the narrow intellectualism on which she had been nurtured working upon a naturally ardent temperament. what she must have suffered! what she would suffer in the coming days! for it was that last which hit adrian hardest, in all this distracting imbroglio, giving him that "uncommon nasty blow below the belt" the effects of which joseph challoner had noted. the more he analyzed, and, analyzing, excused, joanna's attitude the more odiously distasteful did his own position become. in how far was he to blame? what had he done, by word, act, or look, to provoke or to foster joanna's most lamentable infatuation? he explored his memory, and, to his rather bitter amusement, found it an absolute blank. he had not flirted with her, even within the most restrained of the limits sanctioned by ordinary social intercourse. for this he did not commend himself. on the contrary, he felt almost penitent; since--there hadn't been any temptation to flirt. positively not any--though adrian knew himself to be by no means insensible to feminine influence. he loved madame st. leger. she constituted, so to speak, the religion of his heart. but he found dozens of other women charming, and did not scruple to--as good as--tell them so.--why not? are not such tellings the delightful and perfectly legitimate small change of a gallant man's affections? and out of the farthings and half-farthings, the very fractions of half-farthings, indeed--of such small change, joanna had constructed a great and serious romance terminating in matrimony! the young man could have beat his breast, torn his hair, poured ashes upon his thus forcibly denuded scalp, and rent his up-to-date and particularly well-tailored garments. he, adrian savage, the husband of joanna!--from this his lively gallic imagination galloped away, blushing in humorous horror, utterly refusing to contemplate the picture. at the same time his pity for her was immense. and how, oh! how, without gross and really sickening cruelty, to dispel her disastrous delusion? with the above question upon his lips, adrian turned by the wicket gate into the garden, where the tranquil beauty surrounding him compelled his observation. high above the dark-feathered crests of the firs, the moon, two days short of the full, rode in the south-eastern sky, obliterating all stars in the vicinity of her pathway. she showed to-night not as a flat disk plastered against the solid vault, but as a mammoth, delicately tarnished silver ball, traveling in stateliest fashion the steel-blue fields of space. the roofs and façade of the house, its multiplicity of glinting window-panes, the lawns and shrubberies, and all-encircling woodland, were alike overlaid with the searching whiteness of her light. the air was dry and very mellow, rich with a blending of forest and garden scents. faintly to northward adrian's ear could detect the rattle and grind of a belated tram on the barryport road, and, southward, the continuous wistful murmur of the mile-distant sea! now, as often before, he was sensible of the subtle charm produced by this conjunction of a highly finished, material civilization with gently savage and unsubjugated nature. england is, in so great measure, a sylvan country even yet; a country of close-coming, abounding, and invading trees. and when, as now, just upon midnight, its transitory human populations--which in silly pride suppose themselves proprietors of the soil and all that grows upon it--are herded safe indoors, abed and asleep, the trees resume their primitive sovereignty, making their presence proudly evident. they had no voice to-night, it is true. they stood becalmed and silent. yet the genius of them, both in their woodland unity and endless individual diversity of form and growth, declared itself nevertheless. for this last the infiltration of moonlight was partly accountable, since it lent each stem, branch, and twig, each differing species of foliage--the large leaves of laurel and rhododendron, the semi-transparent, fringed and fluted leaves of the beech, the finely spiked tufts of fir-needles--a definiteness and separateness such as hoar-frost might. each tree and bush stood apart from its fellows in charming completeness and relief, challenging the eye by a certain sprightly independence of mien and aspect. had they moved from their fixed places, the big trees mingling in some stately procession or dance, while the shrubs and bushes frisked upon the greensward, adrian would hardly have been surprised. a spirit of phantasy was abroad--here in the baughurst park ward, local municipal government notwithstanding--entrancing to his poetic sense. therefore he lingered, walking slowly along the path leading to the garden entrance of the house, here shaded by a broken line of tall scotch firs, their smooth stems rising like pillars, bare of branches for some twenty or thirty feet. now and again he stopped, held captive by the tranquil yet disquieting beauty of the scene. it reminded him strangely of gabrielle st. leger's beauty, and the something elusive, delicately malicious and ironic, in the character of it. her smiling, unclosed lips, the dimple in her left cheek; those mysterious oblique glances from beneath her long-shaped, half-closed eyelids, full at once of invitation and reserve; the untamed, deliciously tricksy spirit he apprehended in her; and a something majestic, too, as of those vast, calm, steel-blue fields of space,--these, all and severally, he, lover-like, found mirrored in the loveliness of this may night. on his left the lawns, flooded by moonlight, stretched away to the tennis court and the terrace walk in front of the pavilion. on his right, backed by the line of scotch firs aforesaid, a thick wall of deciduous shrubs--allspice, lilac, syringa, hydrangea, sweetbrier, and laburnum--shut out the carriage-drive. the quaint leathery flowers of the allspice gave off a powerful and luscious sweetness as of sun-ripened fruit. adrian paused, inhaling it, gazing meanwhile in fond imagination into _la belle gabrielle's_ golden-brown eyes, refreshingly forgetful of the distracting perplexities of the _affaire_ smyrthwaite no. . it was a good moment, at once chaste and voluptuous, wherein the very finest flame of ideal love burned upon his heart's altar. but it was broken up by an arresting apparition. for a white owl swept, phantom-like, out of the plantation behind the pavilion and beat over the moonlit turf in swift and absolutely noiseless flight. a soft thistle-down could hardly have passed more lightly or silently than the great wide-winged bird. beneath it, its shadow, skimming the close-cut surface of the grass, seemed as much alive and more substantial than itself. twice, while adrian watched, moved and a little startled, it quartered the lawn in search of prey; then flung itself up, high in air, vanishing among the tree-tops, with a long-drawn hoo-hoo-hooing of hollow laughter. and in the space of a few seconds, from the recesses of the woodland, its mate answered with a far-off elfin echo of its sinister note. then adrian heard a window open. and, on to the far end of the red-balustraded balcony--extending along the first floor of the house, in the recess above the veranda--a woman came. she was dressed in a white _négligé_ of some soft, woolen material, which hung straight in knife-edge pleatings from her shoulders to her feet, covering them--as the young man could see between the wide-spaced balusters--and lying outspread for some inches around her upon the floor. over this she wore a black cloak, straight-hanging too, made of some fine and supple fur. the fronts of it, which were thrown open, leaving her arms free, appeared to be lined with ermine. her peculiar garb and the perceptible angularity of her form and action suggested some crabbed medieval figure of church wood-carving or memorial brass. the woman looked so tall standing there as in a mural pulpit, high against the house-front, that at first sight adrian, took her to be marion chase. but medieval and ecclesiastical associations were a little too glaringly out of place in connection with that remarkably healthy young amazon and athlete. adrian dismissed them, with a sensible sinking of the heart. instinctively he moved aside, seeking the deepest of the shadows cast by the fir-trees, pressing himself back among the bushes of sweet-flowered allspice. of two evils one must choose the least. concealment was repugnant to him; but, to go forward meant to be recognized and compelled to speak. and, to play the part of hero in some grim travesty of the garden scene from "romeo and juliet," was of the two vastly the more repugnant. becoming aware of a movement in the garden below, the woman leaned forward and gazed fixedly in his direction, showing in the bleaching moonlight joanna smyrthwaite's heavy, upturned hair, strained, prominent eyes and almost terrible face, so ravaged was it by emotion. the night traffics in exaggerations; and adrian's senses and sensibilities were already somewhat over-stimulated. perhaps, therefore, it followed that, looking up at joanna, she appeared to him clothed in hieratic garments as the elect exponent and high-priestess of all lovelorn, unmated, childless womanhood throughout the world. to him, just then, her aspect gathered up and embodied the fiercely disguised sufferings of all the barren, the ugly, the ungifted, the undesired and unsought; of that disfranchised multitude of women whose ears have never listened to recitation of a certain song of songs. her youth--she was as young as he--her wealth, the ease, leisure, solid luxury which surrounded her, her possession of those material advantages which make for gaiety and security, for pleasant vanities, for participation in all the light-hearted activities of modern life, only deepened the tragedy. denied by man and--since she was without religion--denying god, she did indeed offer a piteous spectacle. the more so, that he apprehended a toughness of fiber in her, arguing a power of protracted and obstinate resistance. happier for her, surely, had she been made of weaker stuff, like her wretched brother of the vile drawings upon rené dax's studio wall! adrian's own personal share in this second and tragic _affaire_ smyrthwaite came home to him with added poignancy as he stood thus, in hiding, amid the luscious sweetness of the flowering allspice. for one intolerable moment he questioned whether he could, whether he should, sacrifice himself, transmuting joanna's besotted delusion into fact and truth. but reason, honor, love, the demands of his own rich vitality, his keen value of life and of the delights of living, his poetic and his artistic sense, the splendid call of all the coming years, his shrewdness, his caution, his english humor and his gallic wit, arose in hot and clamorous rebellion, shouting refusal final and absolute. he couldn't do it. death itself would be preferable. it came very simply to this--he could not. just then he saw joanna draw her costly cloak about her neck and shoulders, as though struck by sudden and sharp cold. again the sinister note of the owls in greeting and in answer came from the recesses of the great woodland. and again joanna, leaning forward, scrutinized the shadows of the garden path with pale, strained eyes. then raising both hands and pressing them against her forehead as though in physical pain, she turned and went indoors, closing the window behind her. both pity and policy kept the young man for another, far from agreeable, five minutes in the shelter of the allspice bushes before venturing into the open. upon the veranda he waited again, conscious of intense reluctance to enter the house. he knew his decision to be sane and right, the only one possible, in respect of joanna; yet he felt like a criminal, a betrayer, a profligate trader in women's affections. he called himself hard names, knowing them all the while to be inapplicable and unjust; but his sympathies were excited, his imagination horror-struck by that lately witnessed vision of feminine disfranchisement and distress. at his request the men-servants had left the door opening from the veranda unlocked. passing along the corridor into the hall, he became very sensible of the silence and suspended animation of the sleeping house. the curtains of the five-light, twenty-foot staircase window were drawn back. through the leaded panes of thickened clouded glass moonlight filtered, stamping misty diaper-work upon walls and floor, painting polished edges and surfaces of woodwork with lines and patches of shining white. on a small table at the foot of the stairs decanters and glasses, a cut-glass jug of iced water, a box of cigars, silver candlestick and matchbox had been placed against his return. but the young man was in no humor just now for superfluous drinks or superfluous lights. he felt apprehensive, childishly distrustful of the quiet reigning in the house, as though, behind it, some evil lay in wait to leap upon and capture him he felt nervous. this at once annoyed him and made him keenly observant and alert. he stood a moment listening, then ran up the wide, shallow tread of the stairs lightly, three steps at a time. on the level of the half-flight, under the great window, he paused. the air was hot and heavy. his heart beat. a door opened from the right on to the gallery above. some one came forward, with a soft dragging of draperies over the thick carpet, through the dim checkerings of the moonlight. "adrian," joanna called, whisperingly, "adrian, is that you?" the young man took a long breath. his nerves grew steady. he came calmly up the remaining half-flight, his head carried high, his face serious, his eyes a little hard and very bright. childish fears, exaggerations of self-condemnation, left him at the sound of joanna's voice; but he was sorry, very sorry, both for her and--for himself. "yes, cousin joanna," he answered, and his speech, to his own hearing, had a somewhat metallic ring in it. if there must be an interview at this highly indiscreet hour of the night it should at least be open and above-board, conducted in tones which the entire household could, if it chose, hear plainly enough. both for his own honor and joanna's this was best. "i have just come back from heatherleigh," he continued. "you will be glad to know that mr. challoner and i have finished the business connected with your father's property. all outstanding accounts and all duties upon the estate are now paid. all documents are signed, receipted, and in order." joanna made an impatient gesture as though thrusting aside some foolish obstruction. "yes," she said, "no doubt; but it is not about the property i need to speak to you, adrian. my mind is quite at ease about that. it is about something else. it is about myself." "ah, yes?" the young man inquired, gravely. "i did not come down to dinner to-night. i felt sure you would understand and excuse me. i could not. i could not have borne to be with margaret and marion chase and to listen to their trivial talk in your presence, after our conversation of this afternoon. i had to be alone that i might think, that i might bring my temper into subjection to my will. isherwood told me you had gone out after dinner. but i felt i could not rest without seeing you again to-night. i felt i must speak to you, must ask your forgiveness, must try to explain. so i waited up. the owls startled me, and i went on to the balcony. i fancied you were in the garden. but i could not see you. later i heard your footsteps"--joanna paused breathlessly--"your footsteps," she repeated, "upon the pavement of the veranda. my courage failed. i felt ashamed to meet you. but it would be so very dreadful to have you think harshly of me--so, so i came." owing to the vague quality of the light adrian failed to see her face distinctly, and for this he was thankful. but he knew that her arms hung straight at her sides, and that, under cover of her costly cloak, her poor hands clutched and clutched against the white knife-pleatings of her dress. "dear cousin," he said, "i have no cause to think harshly of you. indeed, my thought has been occupied with sympathy for the trials that you have already undergone, and with regret that i should be instrumental in recalling distressing events to your mind." "ah! i deserve no sympathy," she declared, vehemently, turning aside and moving restlessly to and fro. "i do not deserve that excuses should be made for me. this afternoon i showed my character in a shocking light. perhaps it was the true light. perhaps my character is objectionable. i both felt and said what was cruel and intemperate. i was selfish. i only considered my own happiness. i repudiated my duty toward my brother. i wished him dead, because his return, and all the anxiety and thought the probability of that return necessarily occasions, interfered with my own plans, with my own beautiful prospects and hopes." she came close, standing before the young man, her hands clasped, her body visibly shuddering beneath her hieratic garments. "now i have come to myself, adrian. i realize--indeed i realize--the enormity of my own callousness, my own selfishness. i realize, too, the dreadful impression of my nature which you must have received. if you repudiated me i should have no valid cause for complaint. my reason forces me to acknowledge that i deserve your censure; that if you turn from me--dreadful, dreadful as it would be--i shall have brought that misery upon myself. dreadful, dreadful," she moaned, "too dreadful to contemplate--yet deserved, invited by the exhibition of my own ungovernable temper--deserved--there is the sting of it." "but--but, my dear joanna," adrian broke forth, carried out of himself by the spectacle of her grief, "you are fighting with shadows. you are torturing yourself with non-existent iniquities. calm yourself, dear cousin. look at things quietly and in a reasonable spirit. your brother is, unfortunately, unsatisfactory and troublesome, a difficult person to deal with. his errors of conduct have caused his family grave inconvenience and sorrow. let us be honest. let us freely admit all that. he is not a young man to be proud of. what more natural then than that you should recoil from the idea of his return? that, in the first shock of the idea being presented to you, you should strongly express your alarm, your distaste? it is only human. who but a hypocrite or pedant would condemn you for that! calm yourself, dear cousin. be just to yourself. i could not permit you to revoke your gifts to your brother. my own honor was a little involved there perhaps--" adrian smiled at her reassuringly, putting some force upon himself. "let us be sensible," he continued. "let us be moderate. at the present time we have no reliable information as to where your brother is. we may not discover him. he may never come back. meanwhile, i implore you, dismiss this painful subject from your mind. be merciful to your own nerves, dear joanna. remember andrew merriman and i engage to do our best, to exercise all care, all delicacy, in the prosecution of our inquiries. when necessary we will consult with you"--he spread out his hands, his head a little on one side, consolatory, debonair, charming.--"ah! dear cousin, be advised--do not agitate yourself further. leave it all at that." joanna sighed once or twice. put up her hands, pressing them against her forehead. her body swayed slightly as she stood. her hands dropped at her side again. she looked fixedly, intently, at adrian savage. her mouth was a little open. the ecstatic expression, so nearly touching upon idiocy, had come back. "then nothing is changed--nothing is altered between us?" she whispered. the young man took her hand, and bowing low over it, kissed it. as he raised himself he looked her full in the face. "no, nothing, my dear cousin," he said. there were tears in his eyes, and his voice shook. he was filled with apology, with immeasurable concern and regret, with an immeasurable craving for her forgiveness, in that he spoke actual and literal truth. for nothing was changed--no, nothing.--he never had loved, he did not love, he never could love joanna smyrthwaite. he stayed for no further word or look. practically he ran away. but there is just one thing, on the face of the earth, from which a brave man may run without smallest accusation of cowardice--namely, a woman who loves him and whom he does not love! once in his room adrian bolted the door on the inside as well as locking it, and began to pack. he would take the mid-day rather than the night cross-channel boat to-morrow. then, with relief, he remembered that it was already to-morrow. in a few hours the servants would be about. twice before dawn he fancied he heard footsteps and a soft dragging of draperies over the carpet of the corridor. he opened the windows wide, and let in the singing of birds greeting the morning from the woodland. for the sound of those footsteps and softly dragging draperies cut him to the heart with sorrow for womanhood unfulfilled--womanhood denied by man, and, not having religion, denying god. iv the folly of the wise chapter i re-enter a wayfaring gossip the last of miss beauchamp's receptions for the season drew to a vivacious close. sunday would witness the running of the _grand prix_. then the world would begin to scatter, leaving paris to the inquiring foreigner, the staggering sunshine, some few millions of the governing classes--new style--the smells, the sparrows, and the dust. as a woman consciously looking threescore and ten in the face anastasia felt very tired. her throat was husky and her back ached. but, as a hostess, she felt elate, gratified, even touched. for everybody had come. had worn their smartest new summer clothes. had been animated, complimentary, appreciative. had drunk china tea or iced coffee; eaten strawberries and cream, sweetmeats, ices, and wonderful little cakes, and declared "mademoiselle beauchamp's ravishing 'five-o'clock'" to be entirely different from and superior to any other "five-o'clock" of the whole of their united and separate experience. art and letters were, of course, fully represented; but politics and diplomacy made a fair show as well. anastasia greeted three members of the chamber, two of the senate, a cabinet minister, and a contingent from the personnel of both the english and the italian embassies. the coveted red ribbon was conspicuous by its presence. and all these delightful people had the good sense to arrive in relays; so that the rooms--the furniture of them disposed against the walls--had never throughout the afternoon been too crowded for circulation, had never been too hot. delicious nanny legrenzi, of the _opéra comique_, sang--and looked--like an impudent angel. ludovico müller played like a whirlwind, a zephyr, a lost soul, a quite rampantly saved soul--what you will! and every one talked. heavenly powers, how they had talked!--their voices rising from a gentle adagio, through a tripping capriccioso, to the magnificently sustained fortissimo so welcome, so indescribably satisfying, to the ear of the practised hostess. yes, all had gone well, excellently well, and now they were in act of departing. anastasia, weary, but genial and amused, on capital terms with her fellow-creatures and with herself, stood in the embrasure of one of the windows in the second room of the suite. behind her red and pink rambler roses and ferns, in pots, formed a living screen against the glass, pleasantly tempering the light. ludovico müller had just made his bow and exit, leaving the music-room empty; while in the first and largest room madame st. leger, who helped her to receive to-day, bade farewell to the guests as they passed on into the cool, lofty hall. "i have entertained him the best i know, miss beauchamp," lewis byewater said. "but he did not appear keen to converse on general topics. seemed to need to specialize. wanted to have me tell him just who every one present was." "his talent always lay in the direction of biographical research--modern biography, well understood. and so, like a dear, kind young man, you told him who everybody was?" "within the limits of my own acquaintance, i did so. but, you see, in this crowd quite a number of persons were unknown to me," byewater--a clean, fair, ingenuous and slightly unfinished-looking youth, with a candid, shining forehead, carefully tooled and gilded teeth, a meager allowance of hair, a permanent pince-nez, and a pronounced transatlantic accent--explained conscientiously. "i did my best, and when i got through with my facts i started out to invent. i believe i thickened up the ranks of the french aristocracy to a perfectly scandalous extent. but the colonel appeared thirsty on titles." "a form of thirst entirely unknown to your side of the atlantic!" anastasia retorted. "never mind. if you have done violence to the purity of your republican principles by a promiscuous ennobling of my guests you have sinned in the cause of friendship, my dear byewater, and i am infinitely obliged to you. but where is colonel haig now?" "in the outer parlor, i believe, watching madame st. leger wish the rear-guard good-day. he proposes to remain to the bitter end of this reception, miss beauchamp. he confided as much to me. he is sensible of having the time of his life _re_ parisian society people, so he proposes to stick. but you must be pretty well through with any wish for entertaining by this," the kindly fellow went on--"so you just tell me truly if you would prefer to have me go off right now, or have me wait awhile till the colonel shows signs of getting more satiated and take him along too? i intended proposing to dine him somewhere, anyway, to-night." "you are the very nicest of all nice young men, and unquestionably i shall meet you in heaven," anastasia asserted, heartily. "and as i shall arrive there so long before you, you may count on my saying all manner of handsome things to st. peter about you. oh yes, stay, my dear boy, and carry the title-thirsty colonel away with you. by all manner of means, stay." byewater flushed up to the top of his shining forehead. he looked at her shyly out of his clear, guileless eyes. "i do not feel to worry any wearing amount over the apostle, miss beauchamp," he said, slowly. "i believe it is more mr. adrian savage at the present who stands to break up my rest. if you could say some favorable things about me to him, i own it would be a let up. he accepted my articles upon the eighteenth-century stage; but i do not seem any forwarder with getting them positively published. i suppose he is holding them over for the dead season. well, i presume there is appropriateness in that; for, seeing the time it has lain in his office, the manuscript must be very fairly moth-eaten by this." "oh, trust me!" anastasia cried, genially. "i'll jog his memory directly i see him--which i shall do as soon as he returns from england. never fear, i'll hustle him to some purpose if you'll stay now and deliver me from this military genealogical incubus. look--how precious a contrast!--here they come." madame st. leger entered the room, talking, smiling, while rentoul haig, short, but valiantly making the most of his inches, his chest well forward, neat as a new pin, his countenance rosy, furiously pleased and furiously busy, with something between a marching and a dancing step, paraded proudly beside her. _la belle gabrielle_ had discarded black garments, and blossomed delicately into oyster-gray chiffon and a silk netted tunic to match, finished with self-colored silk embroideries and deep, sweeping knotted fringe. the crown of her wide-brimmed gray hat was massed with soft, drooping ostrich plumes of the same reposeful tint, which lifted a little, waving slightly as she advanced. a scarlet tinge showed in the round of her charming cheeks. mischief looked out of her eyes and tipped the corners of her smiling mouth. she was, indeed, much diverted by the small and pompous british warrior strutting at her side. he offered example of a type hitherto unknown to her. she relished him greatly. she also relished the afternoon's experiences. they were exhilarating. she felt deliciously mistress of herself and deliciously light-hearted. it is comparatively easy to despise the world when you are out of it. but now, the seclusion of her mourning being over, returning to the world, she could not but admit it a vastly pleasant place. this afternoon it had broadly smiled upon her; and she found herself smiling back without any mental reservation in respect of ideas and causes. at seven and twenty, though you may hesitate to circumscribe your personal liberty by marriage with one man, the homage of many men--if respectfully offered--is by no manner of means a thing to be sneezed at. gabrielle st. leger did not sneeze at it. on the contrary she gathered admiring looks, nicely turned compliments, emulous attentions, veiled ardors of manner and of speech, into a bouquet, so to speak, to tuck gaily into her waistband. the sense of her own beauty, and of the power conferred by that beauty, was joyful to her. under the stimulus of success her tongue waxed merry, so that she came off with flying colors from more than one battle of wit. and, for some reason, all this went to make her think with unusual kindliness of her absent lover. in this vivacious, mundane atmosphere, adrian savage would be so eminently at home and in place! his presence, moreover, would give just that touch of romance, that touch of sentiment, to the sparkling present which--and there gabrielle thought it safest to stop. "ah! it has been so very, very agreeable, your party, most dear friend," she said in her pretty careful english, taking her hostess's hand in both hers. "i find myself quite sorrowful that it should be at an end. i could say 'and please how soon may we begin all over again' like my little bette when she too is happy." "dear child, dear child," anastasia returned affectionately, almost wistfully, for nostalgia of youth is great in those who, though bravely acquiescent, are no longer young. gray hair happened to be the fashion in paris this season. about a week previously miss beauchamp had mysteriously closed her door to all comers. to-day she emerged gray-headed. this transformation at once perplexed and pleased her many friends. if it admitted her age, and by lessening the eccentricity of her appearance made her less conspicuous, it gave her an added dignity, strangely softening and refining the expression of her large-featured, slightly masculine face. just now, in a highly ornate black lace and white silk gown, and suite of ruby ornaments set in diamonds--whereby hung a tale not unknown to a certain hidden garden--anastasia beauchamp, in the younger woman's opinion, showed not only as an impressive but as a noble figure. "ah yes, and you should know, colonel 'aig," the latter continued, the aspirate going under badly in her eagerness, "since you have not for so long a time seen her, that it is always thus with mademoiselle beauchamp at her parties. she produces a mutual sympathy between her guests so that, while in her presence, they adore one another. it is her secret. she makes all of us at our happiest, at our best. we laugh, but we are also gentle-hearted. we desire to do good." "that is so," byewater put in nasally. "i indorse your sentiments, madame st. leger. when i came over i believed i should find i had left the finest specimens of modern woman behind in america. but i was mistaken. miss beauchamp is positively great." "and--and me, mr. byewater?" gabrielle asked with a naughty mouth. "oh! well, you--madame st. leger," the poor youth faltered, turning away modestly, his countenance flaming very bright red. "i require no assurances regarding our hostess's brilliant social gifts," rentoul haig declared, mouthing his words so as to make himself intelligible to this foreign, or semi-foreign, audience. "my memory carries me back to--" "the year one, my dear colonel, the year one," anastasia interrupted--"the old days at beauchamp sulgrave. great changes there, alas, since my poor brother's death. between death duties and land taxes, my cousin can't afford to keep the place up, or thinks he can't, which amounts to much the same thing. he is trying to sell a lot of the farms at beauchamp st. anne's hear. "england is being ruined by those iniquitous land taxes, i give you my word, miss beauchamp, simply ruined. take beauchamp sulgrave, for instance. perfect example of an english country-house, amply large enough yet not too large for comfort, and really lovely grounds. just the type of place that always has appealed to me. i remember every stick and stone of it. i give you my word, i find it difficult to speak with moderation of these radical nobodies, whose thieving propensities endanger the preservation of such places on the old hospitable and stately basis. i remember my regiment was in camp at beauchamp st. anne's--i am afraid it was in the seventies--and your party from sulgrave used kindly to drive over to tea, regimental sports, and impromptu gymkhanas. charming summer! how it all comes back to me, miss beauchamp!" he cleared his throat, pursing up his lips and nodding his head quite sentimentally. "really, i cannot say what a resuscitation of pleasant memories it gave me, when our mutual friend savage mentioned your name one day at my cousin, the smyrthwaites' house, at stourmouth, this winter. directly my doctor ordered me to aix-les-bains.--a touch of gout, nothing more serious. my health is, and always has been, excellent, i am thankful to say.--i determined to remain a few days in paris on my way out, in the hope of renewing our acquaintance. savage told me--" gabrielle had dropped her friend's hand. "ah! these climbing roses, are they not ravishing?" she exclaimed, advancing her nose to the pink clusters daintily. "see then, m. byewater, if you please, can you tell me the name of them? i think i will buy some to decorate my own drawing-room. the colors would sympathize--'armonize--is it that, yes?--so prettily with my carpet.--you recall the tone of my carpet?--and of my curtains. though whether it is worth while, since i so soon leave paris!" "is that so, madame st. leger?" byewater asked rather blankly. "savage is a delightful fellow, a really delightful fellow," rentoul haig asserted largely. "for the summer, oh yes," _la belle gabrielle_ almost gabbled. "i take my mother and my little girl to the--how do you say?--to the sea-bathings. on the norman coast i have rented a _chalet_. the climate is invigorating. it will benefit my mother, whose health causes me anxieties. and my little girl will enjoy the society of some little friends, whose parents rent for this season a neighboring villa." "ah! precisely that is what i want to talk to you about. come and sit down, colonel haig." anastasia raised her voice slightly. "here--yes--on the settee. and now about adrian savage. i confess i begin to look upon this executorship as an imposition. it is not quite fair on him, poor dear fellow. it occupies time and thought which would be expended much more profitably elsewhere. he is as good as gold about it all, but i know he feels it a most inconvenient tie. it interferes with his literary work, which is serious, and with his social life here--with his friendships." "yes, i do not usually go to the coast. i accompany my mother to her native province--to savoy"--madame st. leger's voice had also risen. "to chambéry, where we have relations. you are not acquainted with chambéry, m. byewater? ah! but you make a mistake. you should be. it is quite the old france, very original, quite of the past ages. i love it; but this year--" "in my opinion it is quite time savage was set free." anastasia's tone waxed increasingly emphatic. "you must forgive my saying the smyrthwaite ladies are very exacting, colonel haig. they appear to trade upon his chivalry and forbearance to a remarkable extent. doesn't it occur to them that a young man, in his position, has affairs of his own in plenty to attend to?" "this year the sea-bathing will certainly be more efficacious. no doubt the mountain air in savoy is also invigorating; but the changes of climate are so rapid, so injurious--" "perhaps there are other attractions, of a not strictly business character. one cannot help hearing rumors, you know. and recently i have been a good deal at the miss smyrthwaites' myself. as a connection of their mother's, in their rather unprotected condition, i have felt it incumbent upon me to keep my eye on matters." rentoul haig settled himself comfortably upon the settee beside his hostess, inclining sideways, a little toward her. he spoke low, confidentially, as one communicating state secrets, his nose inquisitive, his mouth puckered, his whole dapper person irradiated by a positive rapture of gossip. he simmered, he bubbled, he only just managed not to boil over, in his luxury of enjoyment. anastasia listened, now fanning herself, now punctuating his discourse with incredulous ejaculations and gestures descriptive of the liveliest dissent. "incredible! my dear colonel," she cried. "you must be misinformed. savage is regarded as a most desirable _parti_ here in paris. he can marry whom he pleases. impossible! i know better." "then do you tell me it is unhappily quite true that m. rené dax is ill, m. byewater?" gabrielle st. leger inquired in unnecessarily loud, clear accents. "well, i would hesitate to make you feel too badly about him, madame st. leger," the conscientious youth returned cautiously. "i cannot speak from first-hand knowledge, since i would not presume to give myself out as among m. dax's intimates. he has been a made man this long time, while i am only now starting out on schemes for arriving at fame myself way off in the far by and by." "never in life!" anastasia cried, in response to further confidential bubblings. "you misread our friend savage altogether if you suppose his heart could be influenced by the lady's wealth. he is the least mercenary person i know. the modern fortune-hunting madness has not touched him, i am delighted to say. then, he is really quite comfortably off already. he has every reasonable prospect of being rich eventually. he is very shrewd in money matters; and he has friends whom, i can undertake to say, will not forget him when the final disposition of their worldly goods is in question. he is a man of sensibility, of deep feeling, capable of a profound and lasting attachment." she paused, glancing at _la belle gabrielle_. "i would not like to have you think i underrate mr. dax's talent." this from byewater. "i recognize he is just as clever as anything. but i am from a country where the standards are different, and much of mr. dax's art is way over the curve of the world where my sympathy fails to follow. this being so, i have never made any special effort to get into direct personal contact--" "you may take it from me, my dear colonel, that profound and lasting attachment is already in existence." "but i was lunching with lenty b. stacpole, our leading black-and-white artist, yesterday. maybe you are not acquainted with his work, madame st. leger? most of the time he puts it right on the american market, and does not show here. and, lenty told me mr. dax is so badly broken up with neurasthenia that if he does not quit work and exercise more, and cultivate normal habits generally, he risks soon being just as sick a man as any but a coroner's jury can have use for." "it is a matter of fact, i may almost say of common knowledge"--fatigue and huskiness notwithstanding, anastasia's voice rang out in a veritable war-cry. "all his friends are aware that for years he has been devoted--honorably and honestly devoted--to a most lovely woman, here, in paris." she paused, again looking the bubbling little warrior hard in the eye. "here," she repeated. "but that pains me so much"--gabrielle also spoke for the benefit of all and any hearers. "without doubt i did know that m. rené dax was ailing; but that he was so very ill--no--no." miss beauchamp laid her fan lightly upon colonel haig's coat-cuff, silently drawing his attention to the somewhat unfinished american youth and the perfectly finished young frenchwoman, standing together in the embrasure of the window backed by the trellis of red and pink rambler roses. again she looked him hard in the eye. "now does it occur to you why any other affair of the heart, in mr. savage's case, is preposterous and unthinkable?" she inquired. he swallowed, nodded: "upon my word--indeed! most interesting." "and most convincing?" "my dear lady, is it necessary to ask that question, in face of such remarkable charm and beauty? enviable fellow! upon my word, is it convincing?" but here _la belle gabrielle_, conscious alike of their scrutiny and the purport of their partly heard conversation, advanced from the window. the ostrich plumes upon her hat lifted and waved as she moved. the scarlet tinge in her cheeks had deepened, and her eyes were at once troubled and daring. rentoul haig got upon his feet in a twinkling. "enviable fellow!" he repeated feelingly. then added, "i--i am at liberty to mention this very interesting piece of information, miss beauchamp?" "cry it aloud from the housetops if you will. i vouch for the truth of it," anastasia replied, rising also. "all her friends wish him success. i say advisedly friends. in such a case, as you can readily imagine, there are others"--she turned to madame st. leger. "why, _ma toute belle_, is anything wrong? you appear a little disturbed, disquieted." "m. byewater has just communicated a very unhappy news to me," she replied. "heartless young man! as punishment let us send him packing instantly." anastasia smiled at the perplexed youth in the kindest and most encouraging fashion. "i am ever so mortified to have caused madame st. leger to feel badly," he said. "oh! she will get over it. in time she will forgive you. leave her to me! i will reason with her. you must be going, too, colonel haig?" anastasia held out her hand, cheerfully enforcing farewell. "ah! well, it has been very nice, very nice indeed, to see you and talk over old times and so on. don't fail to look me up whenever you pass through paris. i give you a standing invitation. you're sure to find me. i am as much a fixture as the _bois_ or the river." as the two men passed from the outer room into the hall anastasia sank down on the settee again. "just heaven!" she said, "but i expire with fatigue, simply expire." gabrielle looked at her mutinously. then, sitting down beside her, she kissed her lightly on the cheek. "you are malicious," she said; "you are very obstinate. perhaps i too am obstinate. you will not succeed in driving me into--into marriage." "never a bit! i trust your own heart, dearest child, to do the driving." "ah! my heart--have i any left? save where my mother and bette are concerned, i sometimes wonder!" "you don't give your heart the chance to speak. you are afraid of it, because you know beforehand what it would say, what it is already saying." madame st. leger rose, shaking her head, big hat, waving plumes and all, with captivating petulance. "how can i tell, how can i tell?" she exclaimed. "is not marriage for me ancient history? did i not read it all years ago, when i was still but an infant?" "that is exactly the reason why you should read it again, now that you are no longer an infant--conceivably." "but i do not care to read again that which i have already read. i have learned all the lessons that particular ancient history has to teach." her tone and expression were not without a point of bitterness. "i want to go forward, to learn a new science, rather than to repeat discredited fables." anastasia sighed, raising her shoulders, smiling keenly and sadly. "ah! you are still a baby," she said; "very much a baby, stretching out soft, eager fingers toward any and every untried thing which sparkles, or jiggets, or rattles. poor enough stuff, my dear, for the most part, when you do contrive to grasp it! not new at all, either, save for the high-sounding modern names with which it is labeled--only old clothes made over to ape new fashions! believe me, the love of a clever and handsome young man is a thousand times more satisfying, more entertaining, than any such sartorial reconstructions from the world-old rag-bag of social experiment. ah! vastly more entertaining," she added, placing her fan against her lips, and looking at the younger woman over the top of it with meaning. "m. byewater informs me that m. rené dax is really, really ill," gabrielle remarked rather hastily, her eyes turned upon the roses. "umph--and pray what, my dear, has that precious piece of information to do with it?" "he may perhaps even die." "i, for one, should survive his loss with conspicuous resignation and fortitude." "but for the past week he has written to me almost daily." "an impertinence which makes me the more resigned to his speedy demise." "yes--piteous, eloquent little letters, telling me how he suffers. and i have not answered." "i take that for granted, _ma toute belle_." "i did not reply because--i am sorry now--i did not quite believe him. his eloquence was affecting. but it was also misleading. i thought it improbable any person would write so very well if he were so very ill. i lament my suspicions. i have added to his sufferings. he implores me, in each letter, since it is impossible he should at present visit me, that i should go, if only for a few moments, to see him." "out of all question--a monstrous and infamous proposal!" "so i myself thought at first. but if it is true that he may die? listen, dear friend, tell me--" with a rapid, sweeping movement gabrielle again sat down beside her friend. again kissed her lightly on the cheek, manoeuvering the wide-brimmed hat skilfully, so as to avoid scrapings and collisions. "listen," she repeated coaxingly--"for really i find myself in a dilemma. i cannot consult my mother. she is timid and diffident before questions such as these, of what is and is not socially permissible. her charity, dear, sainted being, is limitless. it conflicts with her natural timidity. between the two she becomes incapable of exercising clear judgment. she does not comprehend modern life." "few of us do," anastasia commented. "and her health is, alas, still far from being re-established. i desire to spare her all physical as well as all moral exertion. therefore i cannot propose that she should accompany me to visit m. rené dax. that would render my position comparatively simple; but the excitement and fatigue of such a proceeding are practically prohibitive for her." "am i then to understand," anastasia inquired somewhat grimly, "that you kindly propose i should play duenna, and call on that singularly objectionable young man in company with you?" "ah! if it only could be arranged! but i fear he might not improbably refuse to receive you." "execrable taste on his part, of course. yet i thank him, for it disposes of the matter, since you cannot go alone." "but if he should be dying? ah, forgive me," she cried, with charming penitence. "i weary, i even annoy you, most dear anastasia, most cherished, most valued friend. it is unconscionable to do so after you have given me the enjoyment of so charming, so inspiriting, an afternoon. you should rest. i will ask nothing more of you. i will go." "but not to call on m. rené dax--" she caught _la belle gabrielle's_ two hands in hers. "my darling child, you must surely perceive the impropriety, the scandal, of such a _démarche_ on your part--at your age, with your attractions, well known as you are--and, putting prejudice aside, with his reputation, whether deserved or not, for libertinism, for grossness of ideas, for reckless indiscretion--" madame st. leger had risen. the elder woman still held her hands imprisoned. she stood looking down, the brim of her hat forming a gray halo about her abundant burnished hair, and pale, grave, heart-shaped face. "i perceive all that," she answered quietly. "i have thought carefully of it. i did so while i yet was doubtful of the actuality of his illness. but now that i am no longer doubtful, that i am assured he is practising no deceit upon me, i ask myself whether i--who embrace the nobler and larger conceptions of the office of woman--am not thereby committed to disregard such conventions. whether it is not of the essence of the reforms, the ideals for which we work that we should, each one of us, have the courage, when occasion arises, to defy tradition. only to talk, is silly. to make a protest of action gives the true measure of our faith, our sincerity. the making of such a protest against current usages cannot be agreeable. i do not make it light-heartedly, with any satisfaction in my own audacity. to gratify myself, to obtain amusement or frivolous pleasure, i would never risk outraging the accepted code of conduct, the accepted proprieties. but for the sake of one who suffers, of one to whom--without vanity--i believe my friendship to have been helpful--for the sake of one whose attitude toward me has been irreproachable, and who, though so gifted, is in many ways so greatly to be pitied--" she bent her head and kissed her hostess. "farewell," she said gently. "i shall not in any case go to-day. it is now too late. but, beyond that, i make no promises for fear i may perjure myself. yes, i have been so happy, so happy this afternoon. for this, most dear friend, all my thanks." regardless of aching back and aching throat, anastasia beauchamp went to the telephone. first she told the operator, at the exchange, to ring up the number of adrian's bachelor flat in the _rue de l'université_. from thence no response was obtainable. nothing daunted, anastasia requested to be put into communication with the office in the _rue druot_. here with polite alacrity the good konski's amiable voice answered her. "alas, no! to the desolation of his colleagues m. savage had not yet returned. but in a few days he would without doubt do so. the conduct of the review compelled it. without him, the machine refused any longer to work. his presence became imperative. madame would write? precisely. her letter should receive his," the good konski's, "most eager attention. let madame repose entire confidence in his assiduity, resting assured that not an instant's delay should occur in the delivery of her distinguished communication." chapter ii in the track of the brain-storm "at last you have arrived. through an interminable progression of hours i have waited, the days and nights mixing themselves into one abominable salad of expectation, disappointment, rage against those whom i pictured as interfering to detain you; and, as dressing and sauce to the whole infernal compound, a yearning for the assuaging repose of your presence which gnawed, like the undying worm, at my entrails." this address, although delivered in the young man's accustomed unemotional manner, with studied, carefully modulated utterance, was hardly calculated to allay the embarrassment or disquietude aroused by the uncompromising stare of the concierge, and very evident, though more deferential, curiosity of giovanni, the bright-eyed, velvet-spoken italian man-servant who admitted her. nor were other sources of discomfort lacking. madame st. leger, like all persons of temperament, in whom mind and body, the soul and senses, are constantly and actively interpenetrative, instinctively responded to the spiritual influences which reside in places and even in material objects. now, coming directly into it from the glitter and movement, the thousand and one very articulate activities of the sun-bathed city, the vivid foliage of whose many trees tossed in the crisp freshness of the summer wind, rené dax's studio struck her as the strangest and, perhaps, most repellant human habitation she had ever yet set foot in. struck her, too, as belonging to a section of that exclusively man's world, in which woman's part is at once fugitive and not a little suspect. the black hangings and furniture stared at, the bare immaculately white walls bluffed, her. only a mournful travesty of the splendid daylight, reigning out of doors, filtered down through the gathered black-stuff blinds drawn across the great, sloping skylights, and contended languidly against the harsh clarity of a couple of electric lights--with flat smoked-glass shades to them--hanging, spider-like, at the end of long black cords from the beam supporting the central span of the arched ceiling. notwithstanding the height of the room and its largeness of area, the atmosphere was stagnant, listless, and dead. this constituted madame st. leger's initial impression. this, and a singular persuasion--returning upon her stealthily, persistently, though she strove honestly to cast it out--that the studio, although apparently so bare and empty, was, in point of fact, crowded by forms and conceptions the reverse of wholesome or ennobling, which pushed upon and jostled her, while, by their number and grossness, they further exhausted the already lifeless air. the sense of suffocation, thus produced, so oppressed her that her heart beat nervously and her pulse fluttered. though unwilling to discard the modest shelter it afforded and gain closer acquaintance with the details of her surroundings, gabrielle untwisted the flowing gray veil which she wore over her hat and around her throat, and threw it back from her face. then, for a while, all else was forgotten in the thought of, the sight of, rené dax. and, although that thought and seeing was in itself painful, it tended to restore both her outward serenity and her inward assurance and strength. "ah! my poor friend," she said, soothingly, "had i understood how suffering you were, how greatly in need of sympathy, i would have put aside obstacles and come to you sooner; though--though you will still remember, it is no small concession that i should come at all." "only by concessions is life rendered supportable," he answered. "i too have made concessions. if you defy conventional decorum for my sake, i, on the other hand, have sacrificed to it for your sake very royally. i have destroyed the labor of months, have obliterated priceless records to safeguard your delicacy, to insure you immunity--should you at last visit me--from all offense." and _la belle gabrielle_, listening, was moved and touched. but she asked no explanation--shrank from it, indeed, divining the sacrifice in question bore vital relation to that unseen yet jostling, unwholesome and ignoble crowd. she therefore rallied the mothering, ministering spirit within her, resolving to let speech, action and feeling be inspired and controlled by this, and this alone. for one thing was indisputable--namely, that rené dax, caricaturist and poet, was, as the cleanly young american yesterday told her, just as sick a man as any man need be. his puny person had wasted. he looked all head--all brain, rather, since his tired little face seemed to also have dwindled and to occupy the most restricted space permissible in proportion to the whole. the full, black linen painting-blouse, which he wore in place of a coat, produced, along with his lowness of stature, a queerly youthful and even childish effect. to stand on ceremony with this small, sad human being, still more to go in fear of it, to regard it as possibly dangerous, its poor little neighborhood as in any degree compromising, was to gabrielle st. leger altogether absurd and unworthy. let the overpunctilious or overworldly say what they pleased, she congratulated herself. she was glad to have disregarded opposition, glad to have come. where custom and humanity conflict--so she told herself--let it be custom which goes to the wall. therewith she drew herself up proudly, and, carrying her charming head high, looked bravely around the strange and somewhat sinister place. noted the wide divans on either side the fireplace and the diminutive scarlet cane chair set on the hearth-rug; the five-fold red lacquer screen; the trophy of arms--swords, rapiers, simitars, daggers, and other such uncomfortably cutting, ripping, and stabbing tools--upon the chimney-breast above the mantelpiece. noted, not without a shudder of disgust, the glass tank and its slimy swimming and crawling population; the tables loaded with books, materials and implements of the draftsman's craft; the model's platform; the array of portfolios, canvases, drawing-boards--surely the place had been very scrupulously swept and garnished against her coming! it was minutely, even rigidly, clean and neat. this pleased her as a pretty tribute of respect. finally, her eyes sought the nearly life-size red-chalk drawing set on an easel in the center of the studio immediately beneath the electric light. rené dax stood beside her. she tall, noticeably elegant in her short-waisted, long-coated, pale-gray, braided walking-dress. he reserved and weary in bearing, but very watchful and very intent. "you observe my drawing?" he inquired softly. "i have been waiting for that--waiting for you to grasp the fact that there is nothing new, nothing extraordinary in your being here with me--you, and mademoiselle bette. for months now you are my companions all day and all night--yes, then very sensibly also. look, i lie there upon the divan. i fold the red screen back--it is loot from the imperial palace at peking, that screen. grotesquely sanguinary scenes figure upon it. but i forget them and the entertainment they afford me.--i fold the screen back, i turn upon my side among the cushions and i look at you. i look until, on those nights when my will is active and yours in abeyance, or perhaps a little weak, you step off the paper and cross the room, there--between the platform and the long table--always carrying mademoiselle bette on your arm; and, coming close, you bend down over me. you never speak, neither do you touch me. but i cease to suffer. the tension of my nerves is relaxed. the hideous pain at the base of my skull, where the brain and spinal-cord form their junction, no longer tortures me. i am inexpressibly soothed. i become calm. i sleep." gabrielle st. leger had grown very serious. for this small, sad human being to whom she proposed to minister and to mother had disconcertingly original and even consternating ways with it. should she resent the said ways, soundly snubbing him? or, making allowance for his ill-health and acknowledged eccentricity, parley with and humor him? to steer a wise course was difficult. "i willingly believe your intention in making this drawing was not disloyal," she said, quietly. "yet i cannot but be displeased. before making it you should have asked my approval and obtained my consent." "which you would have refused?--no, i knew better than that. but dismiss the idea of disloyalty. rise above paltry considerations of expediency and etiquette. you can do so if you choose. accept the position in its gravity, in its permanent consequences both to me and to yourself. in making this drawing i thought not merely of the ease and relief i might obtain through it. i thought of you also. for i perceived the perversion which threatened you. i decided to intervene, to rescue you. i decided to co-operate with destiny, to interest myself in the evolution of your highest good. so now it amounts to no less than this--that your future and mine are inextricably conjoined, intermingled, incapable of separation henceforth." "gently, gently, my poor friend," gabrielle said. "are you not then sorry for me?" he asked quickly, with very disarming and child-like pathos. "is it a fraud, a heartless experiment, coming to-day to see me thus? have you no real desire to console or bring me hope?" "from my heart i pity and commiserate you," gabrielle said. "then where is your logic, where is your reason? for i--i--rené dax--i, and my recovery, my welfare, constitute your highest good. i am your destiny. your being here to-day regardless of etiquette, your stepping off the paper there upon the easel, crossing the room and bending over me at night, carrying the little maiden child, the flower of innocence, in your arms, these are at least a tacit admission of the truth of that." a point of fear came into madame st. leger's eyes. outward serenity, inward assurance, were not easy of maintenance. the more so, that again she was very sensible of the unseen crowd of ignoble forms and conceptions peopling the room, tainting and exhausting the air of it, pressing upon and--as she felt--deriding her. "you speak foolishly and extravagantly," she said, steadying her voice with effort. "i pardon that because i know that you are suffering and not altogether master of yourself. but i do not enjoy this conversation. i beg you to talk more becomingly, or i shall be unable to remain. i shall feel compelled to leave you." for an instant rené dax looked up at her with a positively diabolic expression of resentment. then his face was distorted by a sudden spasm. "it is only too true that i suffer," he cried bitterly. "my head aches--there at the base of my brain. it is like the grinding of iron knuckles. i become distracted. very probably i speak extravagantly. my sensations are extravagant, and my talk matches them. but do not leave me. i will not offend you. i will be altogether good, altogether mild and amiable. only remain. place yourself here in this chair. your presence comforts and pacifies me--but only if you are in sympathy with me. let your sympathy flow out then. do not restrain it. let it surround and support me, buoying me up, so that i float upon the surface of it as upon some divine river of peace. ah, madame, pity me. i am so tired of pain." reluctantly, out of her charity and against her better, her mundane judgment, gabrielle st. leger yielded. she sat down in the large, black brocade-covered chair indicated. her back was toward the drawing upon the easel. she was glad not to see it, glad that the electric light no longer glared in her eyes. she clasped her hands lightly in her lap, trying to subdue all inward agitation, to maintain a perfectly sane and normal outlook, thereby infusing something of her own health and sweetness as a disinfectant into this morbid atmosphere. the young man sat down, too, upon the edge of the divan just opposite to her. he set his elbows upon his knees, his big head projected forward, his eyes closed, his chin resting in the hollow of his hard, clever little hands. for a time there was silence, save for the dripping of the fountain in the glass tank, and the ticking of a clock. presently, very softly, he began to speak. "my art is killing me--killing me--and only you and mademoiselle bette can save me," he said. "and i am worth saving; for, not only am i the most accomplished draftsman of the century, but my knowledge of the human animal is unsurpassed. moreover, that i should die is so inconceivably purposeless. death is such a stupidity, such an outrage on intelligence and common-sense." gabrielle remained passive. to reason with him would, she felt, be useless as yet. she would wait her opportunity. "yes, my art is killing me," he went on. "it asks too much. more than once i have tried to sever myself from it; but it is the stronger. it refuses amputation. long ago, when, as a child--unhappy, devoured by fancies, by curiosity about myself, about other children, about everything which i saw--i found that i possessed this talent, i was both shy and enchanted. it gave me power. everything that i looked at belonged to me. i could reproduce it in beauty or the reverse. i could cover with ridicule those who annoyed me. by means of my talent i could torment. i played with it as naughty little boys play together, ingenious in provocation, in malice, in dirty monkey tricks. then as i grew older i enjoyed my talent languorously. i spent long days of dreams, long nights of love with it. that was a period when my heart was still soft. i believed. the trivial vices of the little boy were left behind. the full-blooded vices of manhood were untried as yet. later ambition took me. i would study. i would know. i would train my eye and my hand to perfect mastery in observation and in execution. my own mechanical skill, my power of memorizing, of visualizing, intoxicated me. i reviewed the work of famous draftsmen. i recognized that i was on the highroad to surpass it, both in effrontery of conception and perfection of technique. i refused my art nothing, shrank from nothing. i had loved my art as a companion in childish mischief; then as a youth loves his first mistress. now i loved it as a man loves his career, loves that which raises him above his contemporaries. i stood above others, alone. i was filled with an immense scorn of them. i unveiled their deceit, their hypocrisy, their ignorance, their vileness, the degradation of their minds and habits. i whipped them till the blood came. no one could escape. i jeered. i laughed. i made them laugh too. between the cuts of the lash, even while the blood flowed, they laughed. how could they help doing so? my wit was irresistible. they cursed me, yet shouted to me to lay on to them again." for a minute or more silence, save for the dripping fountain, the ticking clock, and a bubbling, sucking sound as one of the black-and-orange blotched newts dived from the rockwork down to the sandy, pebbly floor of the glass tank. madame st. leger leaned back in her chair. she pressed her handkerchief against her lips. she felt as one who witnesses some terrible drama upon the stage which holds the attention captive. she could not have gone away and left rené dax until the scene was concluded, even if she would. "that was the period of my apotheosis, when i appeared to myself as a god,--last year, the year before last, even this winter," he said, presently, "before the pain came and while still i myself was greater than my art. but now, now, to-day, i do not laugh any more, nor can i make others laugh. my art is greater than i. it has grown unruly, arrogant. i am unequal to its demands. it asks of me what i am no longer able to give. it hounds me along. it storms at me--'go further yet, imagine the unimaginable, pass all known limits. you are too squeamish, too fastidious, too modest, too nice. there yet remain sanctities to be defiled, shames to be depicted, agonies to be stewed in the vitriol juice of sarcasm. go forward. you are lazy. exert yourself. discover fresh subjects. invent new profanities. turn the spit on which you have impaled humanity faster and faster. draw better--you grow lethargic, indolent--draw better and better yet.'--but i cannot, i cannot," rené dax said, the corners of his mouth drooping like those of a tired baby. "we have changed places, my art and i. it is greater than me. it masters me instead of my mastering it. like some huge brazen moloch, with burning, brazen arms it presses me against its burning, brazen breast, scorching me to a cinder. it has squeezed me dry--dry--i am no longer able to collect my ideas, to memorize that which i see. my imagination is sterile. my hand refuses to obey my brain. my line, my beloved, my unexampled line, wavers, is broken, uncertain, loses itself. i scrabble unmeaning nonsense upon the paper." he unbuttoned the wristband of his blouse and stripped up the sleeve of it. "see," he went on, "how my muscles have deteriorated. my arm resembles some withered, sapless twig. soon i shall not possess sufficient strength to hold a pencil or a bit of charcoal. yes, yes, i know what you would say. others have already said it. travel, try change of scene, rest, consult doctors. but pah! butchers, carrion-feeders, what can they tell me which i do not know already? for--for--" he rose, came nearer to gabrielle st. leger, pointing to the inner corner of the great room in a line with the door. "there," he said, with a singular sly gleefulness, "there--you see, madame, behind the port folio-wagon? yes?--it has its lair there, its retreat in which it conceals itself. it always says one thing, and it always tells the truth. it has once been a man; now it has no skin. you can observe all the muscles and sinews in action, which is extremely instructive. but naturally it is red--red all over. and it is highly varnished, otherwise, of course, it would feel the cold too much. it places its red hands on the edges of the portfolios--thus--and it vaults into the room. it is astonishingly agile. i think it may formerly have been, by profession, an acrobat, it runs so very swiftly. its contortions are infinite. it avoids the pieces of furniture with extraordinary dexterity. sometimes it leaps over them. the rapidity of its movements excites me. the pain--here at the base of my skull--always increases when i see it. i cannot restrain myself. i pursue it with frenzy. i hurl books, pictures, firewood, anything i can lay hands upon, at it--even my precious daggers and javelins from off the wall. but it sustains no injury. they--these objects which i throw--pass clean through it; yet they leave no aperture, no mark. my servant afterward finds them scattered upon the ground quite clean and free from moisture. and, as it runs, it screams to me, over its red shoulder, in a rasping voice like the cutting of stone with a saw, 'you are going mad, rené dax. you are going mad--mad.'" madame st. leger raised both hands in mute horror, pity, protest. her lips trembled. the tears ran down her cheeks. the young man watched her for some seconds, the strangest expression of triumph upon his solemn little face. then, with a great sigh, he backed away and sat down on the divan once more. "ah! ah!" he said, quite calmly and gently. "it is so adorable to see you weep! better even than that you should step down off the easel, as you sometimes do at night, and, crossing the room, bend over me and give me sleep. still the red man speaks truth, madame, accurate, unassailable truth. it comes just to this. very soon now the final act of this infernal comedy will be reached. i shall be mad--unless--" chapter iii in which the storm breaks "unless--unless--what?" gabrielle st. leger asked the question not because she wished to ask it, but because outward things forced her. all disease is actually infecting, if not actively infectious, since contact with it disturbs the emotional and functional equilibrium, maintenance of which constitutes perfect health. such disturbance is most readily and injuriously produced in persons of fine sensibility. just now madame st. leger's faculties and feelings alike were in disarray. rené dax, his genius and the neurosis from which he suffered, his strange dwelling-place, all that which had happened in and--morally--adhered to it, combined to put compulsion upon her. in a sense, she knew the world. she was not inexperienced. but the amenities of a polished and highly civilized society, whose principal business it is to veil and mitigate the asperities of fact, had stood between her and direct acquaintance with the fundamental brutalities of life. now she consciously met the shock of those brutalities, and met it single-handed. this exclusively man's world, the gates of which she had forced with wilful self-confidence, produced in her humiliation and helplessness, a sense of having projected herself into regions where accustomed laws are inoperative and direction-posts--for guidance of wandering feminine footsteps--agitatingly non-existent. under this stress of circumstance her initiative deserted her. the vein of irony--running like a steel ribbon through her mentality--became suddenly and queerly worked out. she could not detach herself from the immediate position, stand aside, review it as a whole, and deal with it. that which made for individuality had gone under. only her womanhood as womanhood--a womanhood sheltered, petted, moving ever in a gracefully artificial atmosphere--was left. she had come, intending to console, to minister, sagely to advise. it looked quite anxiously much as though, tyrannized by rude, unfamiliar forces, she would remain to yield and to obey. thus, taking up the tag-end of rené dax's speech, she asked, unwillingly, almost fearfully: "unless--unless what?" "unless you consent to save me, madame," he replied, with insinuating gravity and sweetness. "unless you consecrate yourself to the work of my recovery, you and the delicious mademoiselle bette." "but, my poor friend," she reasoned, "how is it possible for me to do that?" "in a way very obvious and simple, wholly consonant to the most exalted aspirations of your nature," he returned. "i have planned it all out. no serious difficulties present themselves. good will, madame, on your part, some forethought on mine, and all is satisfactorily arranged. as to mademoiselle bette, she will find herself in a veritable paradise. you know her affection for me? and, putting aside my own gifts as a comrade, i have most pleasing little animals for her to play with. you have seen those in the aquarium? there is also aristides. to my anguish i struck him last night with a hearth-brush during my pursuit of the red man, and giovanni has charge of him in hospital to-day. the affair was purely accidental. i am convinced that he bears me no malice, poor cherished little cabbage; yet it cuts me to the quick to see his empty chair. but to return to your coming, madame. for it is thus that you will save me--by coming here to remain permanently, by devoting yourself to me unremittingly, exclusively--by coming here--here to live." the color rushed into madame st. leger's face and neck. then ebbed, leaving her white to the lips, deathly white as against the black brocade of the chair-back. here was a direction-post, at last, with information written upon it of--as it seemed to her--the very plainest and ugliest sort; the road which it signalized leading to well-known and wholly undesirable places, though trodden, only too frequently, by wandering feminine feet! for the moment she doubted his good faith; doubted whether he was not playing some infamous trick upon her; doubted whether his illness was not, after all, a treacherous fabrication. her mouth and throat went dry as a lime-kiln. she could barely articulate. "monsieur," she said sternly, "i fear it is already too late to save you. in making such a proposition you show only too convincingly that you are already mad." but the young man's expression lost nothing of its triumph or his manner of its sweetness. "madame, that is a very cruel speech," he said. "you deserve it should be cruel," she answered. "indeed," rené replied, looking calmly at her. "indeed, i do not. you rush too hastily to injurious conclusions. it is an error to do so. you cause yourself unnecessary annoyance. you, also, cause me a waste of tissue, which, in my existing condition of health, i can ill afford. it is irrevocably decided that you come here to live. evidently it has to be. i make no disloyal proposition to you. as i have told you, i earnestly consider your good. it is to rescue you from threatening perversions of office and of instinct, from declension to a lower emotional level, that i invite you, require you, to make your home with me. for i crave your presence not as other men crave for association with so beautiful a person--that is, sensually, for gratification of the beast within them--but spiritually, as an object of faith, an object of worship, as a healing and purifying aura, a divine emanation efficacious to the exorcism of that devouring devil, my art. mistress--wife--pah!--madame, my art has been all that to me, and more than that--not to mention those more active amatory excursions, common to generous youth, in which i do not deny participation. but my art has never been to me that thing so far more sacred, more human--a mother." rené dax leaned toward her, both arms wide extended, his somber eyes glowing as though a red lamp shone behind them, his features contracted by spasms of pain. "this," he pursued, "is what i ask, what in the depths and heights, in the utmost sincerity of my being, i need and must have.--the madonna of the future, the perfect woman, whose experience as woman is at once passionless and complete, human yet spiritual--the ever-lasting mother. a mother, moreover, such as in the entire course of the uncounted ages no man has ever yet possessed; still young, young as himself, unsoiled, untired, still in the spring-time of her charm, yet mysterious, in a sense awful, so that she is hedged about with inviolable reverence and respect, the intimate wonders of whose beauty never fully disclose themselves, but continue adorably unknown and remote. this is what i need; and this you only can give. it is your unique and commanding destiny. you must, rallying your fortitude and virtue, rise to it." he stood up, his head thrown back, his arms still extended, as he indicated the extent and appointments of the studio with large, sweeping gestures. "see," he cried, in increasing excitement, "here is the temple prepared for your worship! i had decorated the walls of it with obscenities which have caused rapture to the most emancipated intellects in paris. to spare you offense, when i decided that you should come to me, i sent for plasterers, for whitewashes, who, even while they worked, rocked with laughter at the masterpieces of humor they were in process of destroying. the more intelligent of them mutinied, declaring it vandalism to obliterate such expressions of genius. i seized a brush. i myself worked, hailing invectives upon them. i never rested till my purpose was achieved. then, when the temple was cleansed, i wrote to you." he sank down, squatting on the carpet, a queer black lump amid the surrounding blackness, his shoulders resting against the front of the divan, his hands clasped behind and supporting his pale, unwieldy head. "ah, ah!" he cried plaintively; "the pain, the pain--again it pierces me! it becomes extravagant. surely, madame, i need not explain to you any further? you witness my sufferings. terminate them. it is in your power to do so. you cannot refuse a request so wholly reasonable and natural! you consent to remain with me?--there need be no delay. giovanni, my servant, is a good fellow, trustworthy and intelligent. he will take a motor-cab and proceed immediately to the _quai malaquais_. after informing madame, your mother, that you remain here permanently, he will return accompanied by mademoiselle bette. within the course of half an hour the thing is done; it becomes an accomplished fact. your welfare is assured; and i, madame, i am rescued from the bottomless pit, from a hell of unspeakable disgust.--the pain ceases. the brazen moloch no longer presses me to his burning breast. i am recreated. my childhood is given back to me--but a childhood of such peace, such innocent gaiety as no child ever yet experienced. i sleep in exquisite content. i wake, not merely to find and pray for help from your image reflected there upon paper, but to find you yourself my guest and my savior, you here moving to and fro among my possessions, breathing, speaking, smiling, making day and night alike fragrant by your presence, distilling the healing virtue of a deified maternity, of an enshrined and consecrated life." as he finished speaking the young man rose to his feet. he came near to gabrielle, and stood looking down at her, solemn, imploring, yet with a strange, flickering impishness in his manner and his face. he clasped his hard little hands, turning the palms of them outward, alternately bowing over her and rising on tiptoe, holding himself stiffly erect. "can you hesitate, madame?" softly and sweetly he asked. "no--assuredly--it is inconceivable that you should hesitate!" gabrielle had stripped off her gloves, thrown back the fronts of her coat. her bosom rose and fell with an abrupt irregular motion under the lace and chiffon of her blouse. more than ever was the air dead, the atmosphere suffocating. more than ever did those depraved forms and conceptions, defying expulsion by plaster and whitewash, crowd in upon and oppress her. supernatural, moral, and physical terror, joining hands, created a very evil magic circle around her, isolating her, cutting her off from all familiar, amusing, pleasant, tender and gracious every-day matters dear to her social and domestic sense. she no longer entertained any doubt about the young man's mental condition. shut away with him here, alone, behind closed doors, beneath black-muffled skylights, with only clay-cold fish and reptiles as witnesses, the situation began to appear alarming in the extreme. how to effect her escape? how to temporize until rescue should in some form come to her? her circumstances were so incredible, so nightmarish in their improbability, their merciless reality, their insane logic, that her brain reeled under the strain. wordlessly but passionately she prayed for strength, guidance, help. "it is inconceivable, madame, that you still hesitate," rené repeated, insinuatingly. making a supreme effort, gabrielle rose from her chair. she felt braver, more mistress of herself standing up. with an assumption of ease and indifference she buttoned her coat and began drawing on her long gloves. "you are right," she replied, but without looking at him. "i no longer hesitate. you have made your meaning clear. you have also said many affecting and poetic things to me. but, as you will be the first to admit, there are certain filial obligations i am bound to discharge, and to discharge personally. my beloved mother has been my companion and my constant care for so long, that it is imperative i should go with giovanni; and, in a few words, tell her myself of the decision we have arrived at. to commit the communication of such news to a servant, however excellent, who is also a stranger, would be both cruel and impertinent. you, who reverence motherhood so deeply, will sympathize with this mother from whom you propose to take away those dearest to her." the sobs rose in gabrielle's throat. but she swallowed them courageously. if she once gave way, once lost her head--well-- "moreover," she continued, "unless i myself go, unless i myself claim her, my mother will, and rightly, refuse to part with my little bette." a pause followed, during which the young man appeared immersed in thought. during that pause a faint sound of footsteps seemed to reach gabrielle's fear-quickened hearing; but whether from the common stairway, the flat underneath, or here, nearer at hand, she could not determine. she prayed with all the fervor of her spirit, while deftly, daintily smoothing out the wrinkles in the wrists of her long gloves. "you appreciate the force of that which i say regarding my mother and my little bette?" she asked, glancing at him. "i do--most incontestably, i do." the answer came so spontaneously and in so perfectly natural a tone that gabrielle's glance steadied upon the speaker in swift inquiry and hope. had the cloud lifted, leaving his mind clear, permitting an interval of lucidity, of reason and normal thought? "ah, my poor friend, then all is well?" she cried, a great thankfulness irradiating her face. "perhaps, yes," he returned, in the same quiet and natural manner. "personally i should have preferred the other plan. to relinquish it disappoints me. all promised so well. but i put it aside, for toward madame, your mother, i am, believe me, incapable of an unsympathetic or discourteous act." gabrielle continued her little preparations for departure. she began to arrange her veil. raising both hands, she drew the edge of it forward over the crown of her hat. later, reaction would set in. safe in her own home, she would break down, paying in physical and mental exhaustion the price of this very terrible act of charity. but just now she felt strong and elate in her thankfulness for answered prayer and prospect of release. never had family affection, the love of friends, all the wholesome sentiments of human intercourse, appeared to her so delightful or so good. delicate color tinged her cheeks. kindness and pity softened her golden-brown eyes. standing there, with upraised hands and gently smiling lips, her beauty was very noble, full of soul as well as of victorious health and youth. for some seconds rené dax gazed at her, as though fascinated, studying every detail of her appearance. then, once more, a flickering impishness crossed his sad little face. he went down on one knee, laid hold of the hem of her dress, and, bowing his great head to the ground, kissed and again kissed it. "accept my worship, my homage, oh! madonna--madonna of the future!" he said. he sprang upright, clasping his little hands again, the palms turned outward. "yes," he went on reflectively, "honestly, i prefer the other plan. yet this one, as i increasingly perceive, possesses merits. let us dwell upon them. they will console us. for, after all, what i am about to carry out is, also, a masterpiece--daring, voluptuous, merciless, at once lovely and hideous--and conclusive. yes, amazingly conclusive. unmitigated--just that. it will set the public imagination on fire. all paris will seethe with it. all paris which can gain admittance will rush, fight, trample, to obtain a look at it. it will represent the most scathing of my revenges upon the unfathomable stupidity of mankind. but it will do more than that. it will constitute my supreme revenge upon my art. thus i sterilize the brazen moloch, rendering him voiceless, eyeless, handless, denying him all means of self-expression. in myself dying, i make him worse than dead--though he still exists. art, being eternal, necessarily still exists. yet what an existence! i, who have so long parted company with laughter, could almost laugh! yes, veritably i draw his teeth. by depriving him of my assistance as interpreter, by depriving him of the vehicle of my unrivaled technique, i annihilate his power. blind, deaf, maimed, impotent, yes--yes--is it not beyond all words magnificent? let us hasten, madame, to accomplish this." rené had delivered himself of his harangue with growing indications of excitement, his voice rising finally to a scream. throughout the nerve-shattering jar and rush of it, madame st. leger, in deepening terror, listened for any sound of delivering footsteps--listened and prayed. now his manner changed, became cool, matter-of-fact, rather horribly busy and business-like. "see, madame," he said, "the divan on the left will certainly be the most suitable. you will place yourself at the farther end of it. there are plenty of cushions.--when giovanni has filled the large bronze bowl--you see which i mean--there upon the ebony pedestal?" he pointed with one hand. with the other he laid hold of madame st. leger's wrist, the hard, short fingers closing down like the teeth of a steel trap. to struggle was useless. might god in his mercy hear and send help! "when giovanni, i repeat, has filled the bowl with warm water--warm, not too hot--and set it upon the center of the divan--thus--i will instruct him to draw the screen across, concealing us. you understand, we shall place ourselves on either side of the bowl, plunging our arms as far as the elbow into it. the warmth of the water at once soothes the nerves and accelerates the flow of blood.--ah, do not draw back from me!" he pleaded. "do not render my task more difficult. obey your highest instincts. be perfect in grace and in beneficence to the close. the pain racks my head. do not by opposition or reluctance oblige me to concentrate my brain upon further explanation or thought.--consider only that from which i save you. the degradation of marriage, of the embraces of a lover--of adrian, my old schoolfellow--the impious assumption of the beast!--of adrian savage.--from the shame of old age, too--from the anguish of tears shed beside the bedside of, possibly, your child, your little bette--of, certainly, madame, your mother! and, as against all these tragedies, to what does the other amount? i give you my word it will not hurt. you will barely be sensible of that which is occurring.--the merest scratch.--in my student days i obtained bodies from the hospitals. with minute and faithful accuracy i dissected them out. i know precisely where to cut, what portion of the arteries and sinews to sever.--and we shall sit here alone--alone--you and i, behind the red screen, while our veins empty themselves of their red liquor, and slowly, serenely life ebbs, our vision growing dim and yet more-- "help!" gabrielle called aloud. "help!" for truly the sound of voices and of footsteps came at last. the studio door was thrown open. a man entered. who he was she did not know; but, with a strength born of despair and of hope, she wrenched herself free from rené dax's grasp, ran across the big room, flung her arms round the man's neck, her beautiful head crushing down upon his breast, while her breath rushed out in great strangled, panting cries: "ah!" and again, "ah! ah!" chapter iv on the heights adrian stood on the edge of the pavement beside his well-appointed, blue-black automobile, the door of which the chauffeur held open. the hinged top of the limousine was folded back, and the sunshine, slanting down over the roofs of the high, white houses on the right, brought the pale, gray-clad figure of its occupant into charming relief as against the oatmeal-colored upholstering of the inside of the car in tones at once blending and standing finely apart. an itinerant flower-seller, bareheaded, short-skirted, trimly shod, her flat, wicker tray heaped up with vivid blossoms, held out a graceful bunch of crimson and yellow roses, with the smiling suggestion that--"monsieur should assuredly present them to madame, who could not fail to revel in their ravishing odor." monsieur, however, showed himself unflatteringly ignorant of her presence, while martin, the chauffeur, dissembling his natural inclination toward every member of the sex, motioned her away with, so to speak, a front of adamant. adrian put one foot on the step of the car, and there paused, hesitating. at last, with a point of eagerness piercing his constraint, he said: "instead of going directly to the _quai malaquais_, will you permit me to take you for a short, a quiet drive, madame? the air may refresh you." "i shall be grateful," gabrielle replied, briefly and hoarsely. adrian delivered himself of rapid, emphatic directions to his chauffeur, swung into the car, and placed himself beside her, arranging the thin dust-rug carefully over the skirt of her dress. then, his nostrils quivering slightly, his face noticeably drawn and set, he leaned back in his corner of the luxurious vehicle. martin slipped in behind the steering-wheel; and with a preliminary snarl and rattling vibration, gaining silence and smoothness as it made the pace, the car headed up the glittering perspective of the wide, tree-bordered street. somewhere in the back of his consciousness, when he had bought this car a few weeks prior to his last visit to stourmouth, there floated entrancing visions of circumstances such as the present. at that time his affair of the heart promised lamentably ill, and realization of such visions appeared both highly improbable and most wearifully distant. now a wholly unexpected turn of events had converted them into actual fact. through the delight of the brilliant summer afternoon, the caressing wind, and clear, brave sunlight he bore gabrielle st. leger away whither he would. verily he had his desire, but leanness withal in his soul. for, god in heaven! what a question squatted there upon the biscuit-colored seat, interposing its hateful presence between them, poisoning his mind with an anguish of suspense and doubt! he was still, even physically, under the dominion of the almost incredible scene in which he had recently taken part. he had carried rather than led madame st. leger down the five flights of stairs from rené dax's flat, and had just only not required the help of the chauffeur to lift her into the waiting car. his heart still thumped, sledge-hammer fashion, against his ribs. every muscle was strained and taut. not his eyes only, but the whole temper and spirit of him, were still hot with desire of vengeance. that loud, hardly human cry of gabrielle's as, lost to all dignity, lost almost to all modesty, she flung herself upon him still rang in his ears. the primitive savagery of it coming from the lips of so fastidious, elusive, quick-witted a creature, from those of so artistic a product of our complicated modern civilization, at once horrified and filled him with vicarious shame. in that wild moment of impact the dormant violence of the young man's passion had been aroused. yet a gross and cynical query was scrawled across his remembrance of it all. for what could, in point of fact, have happened previous to his arrival to produce so amazing a result? and to adrian not the least cruel part of this business was the duty, so clearly laid upon him, of rigid self-restraint, of maintaining, for her protection, as sparing and shielding her, his ordinary air of courteous, unaccentuated and friendly intercourse. good breeding and fine feeling alike condemned him to behave just as usual, not assuming by so much as a hair's breadth that closer intimacy which the events of the last half-hour might very reasonably justify. unless she herself chose to speak, this whole astounding episode must remain as though it never had been and was not.--and here his lover's and artist's imagination crimped him, projecting torments of unsatisfied conjecture extending throughout the unending cycles of eternity. yet in uncomplaining endurance of such torment, as he perceived, must the perfection of his attitude toward her declare itself, must the perfection of his loyalty come in. meanwhile as the car hummed along the upward-trending avenues toward the southern heights, leaving the more fashionable and populous districts of the city behind, the air grew lighter and the breeze more lively. adrian, still sitting tight in his corner, trusted himself to look at his companion. through the fluttering gray veil, as through some tenuous, drifting mist, he saw her proud, delicate profile. saw also that though she remained apparently passive and strove to hold all outward signs of emotion in check, the tears ran slowly down her cheek, while the rounded corner of her usually enigmatic, smiling mouth trembled nervously and drooped. presently, as he still watched, she slipped the chain of her gold and gray vanity-bag off her wrist and essayed to open it. but her fingers fumbled ineffectually with the gilt snap. the beautiful, capable hands he so fondly loved shook, having suddenly grown weak. tears came into adrian's eyes also. to him the helplessness of those dear hands stood for so very much. silently he took the little bag, opened and held it, while she pulled out a lace-bordered handkerchief, and, pushing it beneath the fluttering veil, wiped her wet eyes and wet cheeks. he kept the bag open, waiting for her to put the handkerchief back. but, without speaking, gabrielle shook her head slightly, in token that further drying operations might not improbably shortly be required. adrian obediently snapped to the gold catch; yet, since he really shut up such a very big slice of his own heart within it, was it not, after all, but natural and legitimate that he should retain possession of the little bag? this trifle of service rendered and accepted bore fruit, bringing the two into a more normal relation and lessening the tension of their mutual constraint. after a while gabrielle spoke, but low and hoarsely, her throat still strained by those hardly human cries. adrian found himself obliged to draw nearer to her if he would catch her words amid the clatter of the street and humming of the engines of the car. "there is that, i feel, i should without delay make you know," she said, speaking in english; for it comes easier, sometimes, to clothe the telling of ugly and difficult things with the circumscriptions of a foreign language. "yes?" adrian put in, as she paused. "you should know that he is insane. possibly my visiting him contributed to precipitate the crisis. i do not know. but he is now no longer responsible. therefore truly i commiserate rather than feel anger toward him." again the handkerchief went up under the fluttering veil. again, when it was withdrawn, adrian saw, as through thin, drifting mist, the proud, delicate profile. "i should make you know," she went on, resolutely, "it was my life--yes, my life--but my honor, no--never--which was in jeopardy." "thank god! thank god for that!" the young man almost groaned, bowing himself together, while his grasp tightened upon the pretty little gold and gray bag almost mercilessly. he sat upright, took a deep breath, staring with unseeing eyes at the bright, variegated prospect of shops, houses, trees, traffic, people scampering past on either side the rushing car. only now did he begin to gauge the vital character of his recent misery, and the tremendous force of the love which in so happily constituted and circumstanced a man as himself could render such a misery possible. until to-day, until, indeed, this thrice-blessed minute when he learned from her own lips that no shame sullied her, he had never really gauged the depth of his love for gabrielle st. leger, or quite realized how all the many ambitions, interests, satisfactions of his very agreeable existence were as so much dust, froth, garbage, burnt-out cinder in comparison to that love. he had told anastasia beauchamp, in the course of a certain memorable conversation, he would devote his life to that love. but, he now discovered, it was quite unnecessary that he should take active steps toward the production or maintenance of it, since his life was already almost alarmingly devoted, leaving room, in truth, as he now perceived, for nothing outside that same love. and thereupon--the balance essaying to right itself, as in sane, healthy natures it instinctively must and will--poor joanna smyrthwaite's face, and its expression of semi-idiot ecstasy, as he had seen it only two nights ago at the tower house on the gallery in the checkered moonlight, arose before him. adrian was conscious of pulling himself together sharply.--love--if you will--and with all the strength, all the vigor of his nature. but to dote? devil take the notion--no thank you! never, if he knew it, would he dote. wherefore, it followed that his wits were very thoroughly, if very tenderly, about him when next gabrielle st. leger spoke. "i see now," she said, "the method by which he proposed we--he and myself--should die amounted to an absurdity, since it involved the concurrence of his servant." covered by the noise of the car, adrian permitted himself the relief of cursing a little quietly under his breath. "but at the time i could not reason. i found myself too confused and terrified by the extraordinary and horrible things he told me--things in themselves demented, extravagant, yet as he told them so apparently sensible. his poor, disordered brain was so fertile in expedients that from moment to moment i could not foresee what fresh unnatural demand he might make on me, what new scheme he might not devise for my destruction." "alone with a maniac no degree of fear can be excessive," adrian asserted, warmly. for he perceived her pride was touched, so that her self-esteem called for support and encouragement. to his hearing her words conveyed a rather pathetic hint of apology, both to herself and to him, for that moment of wild self-abandonment. "it doesn't require much imagination," he went on, "to understand the danger you ran was appalling--in every way appalling--simply that. and, good heavens! why didn't i know?" he broke out, slapping his two hands down on his knees in sudden fury. "why didn't my instinct warn me, thick-headed fool that i am? why didn't i get to that hateful carrion-bird's roost of a studio an hour, half an hour earlier? pardon me, dear madame," he added, moderating his transports, "if i shock you by my violence. but when i consider what you must have endured, when i picture what might have happened, i confess i am almost beside myself with rage and distress." _la belle gabrielle_ had turned her head. she looked straight at him. the timid ghost of her mysterious, finely malicious smile visited her lips. yet seen through the mist of her fluttering veil her eyes were singularly soft and lovely, wistful--so, at least, it seemed to adrian--with the dawning of a sentiment other than that of bare friendship. whereupon the young man's heart began to thump against his ribs again, while the engines of the car broke into a most marvelous sweet singing. "i am not sure," she commenced, speaking with engaging hesitation, "whether, perhaps, since i am, thanks to _le bon dieu_, here in safety and about to return unhurt to my child and my mother, it is not well i should have had this trial. for you did come in time--yes, mercifully in time. i doubt if i could have endured much longer. there were other things," she went on, hurriedly, "besides those which i consciously heard or saw which combined to disgust and terrify me. you, too, believe, do you not, that thoughts may acquire a separate existence--thoughts, purposes, imaginations--and that they may inhabit particular places? i cannot explain, but by such things i believe myself to be surrounded. i felt they might break through whatever restraining medium withheld them, and become visible. a little longer and my reason, too, might have given way--" she paused. "but you came--you came--" "yes, i came," adrian repeated quietly. "and, that being so--i being mercifully spared the worst, being unhurt, i mean--" "yes, precisely--unhurt," he repeated with praiseworthy docility. "this experience may be of value. it may help to make me revise some mistaken ideas"--she turned away, and, though her head was held high, tears, as adrian noted, were again somewhat in evidence--"some perhaps foolishly self-willed and--how shall i say?--conceited opinions." in the last few minutes the car had traversed one of those unkempt and, in a sense, nomadic districts common to the fringe of all great cities. spaces of waste land, littered with nondescript rubbish and materials for new buildings in course of noisy construction, alternated with rows of low-class houses, off the walls of which the plaster cracked and scaled; with long lines of hoardings displaying liberal assortment of flaming posters; wine-shops at once shabby and showy, crude reds, greens, and yellows adorning their wooden balconies and striped, flapping awnings; gaudy-fronted dancing-booths and shooting-galleries tailing away at the back into neglected weed-grown gardens. all these, with a sparse population, male and female, very much to match; while here and there some solitary shuttered dwelling standing back from the wide avenue in an inclosed plot of ground betrayed a countenance suggestive of disquieting adventures. as madame st. leger finished making her, to adrian, very touching confession, the automobile, quitting these doubtful purlieus--which, however, thanks to a charm of early summer foliage and generous breadth of sunshine, took on an air of jovial devil-may-care vagabondage, inspiriting rather than objectionable--headed eastward, along the boulevard skirting the grass-grown slopes and mounds of the dismantled fortifications, and drew up opposite the entrance to the _parc de montsouris_. here, adrian proposed they should alight and stroll in the tree-shaded alleys, as a relief from the dust and noise of the streets. but once on her feet, gabrielle discovered how very tired she still was, weak-kneed and tremulous to the point of gladly accepting the support of her companion's arm. this renewed contact, though of a comparatively perfunctory and unofficial character, proved by no means displeasing to adrian. in truth it gave him such a lively sense of happiness, that to his dying day he will cherish a romantic affection for those remote and unfashionable pleasure-grounds upon the southern heights. happiness is really the simplest of god's creatures--easily gratified, large in charity, hospitable to all the minor poetry of life. whence it came about that this critical, traveled, shrewd, and smart young gentleman had never, surely, beheld trees so green, flower-borders so radiant, walks so smooth and well-swept, statues so noble, cascades so musical, lakes so limpid and so truthfully mirroring the limpid heavens above. even the rococo and slightly ridiculous reproduction of the palace of the bey of tunis, now used as an observatory, which crowns the highest ground, its domes, cupolas, somberly painted mural surfaces, peacock-blue encaustic tiles, and rows of horseshoe-headed moorish arches--looking in its modern western surroundings about as congruous as a camel in a cabbage-patch--presented itself to his happy eyes with all the allurements of some genii-and-gem-built palace from out the immortal pages of the _arabian nights_. gabrielle st. leger's hand rested upon his arm, her feet kept step with his feet. the folds of her dainty gown swept lightly against him as he walked. past and future fell out of the reckoning. nothing obtained save the beatified present, while his heart and his senses were, at once, sharply hungry and exquisitely at peace. the grounds were practically deserted. only a few employees from the observatory, blue-habited gardeners, a batch of cook's tourists--english and american--weary with sight-seeing, and some respectable french fathers of families, imparting, _al fresco_, instruction in local natural science, topography and art, to their progeny, were at hand to greet the passing couple with starings, sympathetic, self-consicous, or envious, as the case might be. among the first ranked the french fathers of families, who paused in frank admiration and interest. "for was not the lady arrestingly elegant?--_sapristi!_ if ever a young man had luck! yet, after all, why not? for he, too, repaid observation. truly a handsome fellow, and of a type of male beauty eminently gallic--refined yet virile; perfectly distinguished, moreover, in manner and in dress. she appeared languid. well, what more easily comprehensible, since--a marriage of inclination, without doubt--" whereupon, in the intervals of anxiously retrieving some strayed all too adventurous mimi or toto, the fond parental being beheld, in prophetic vision, adrian the magnificent also shepherding a delicious little human flock. "how did you know, or was it by chance that you came?" gabrielle presently inquired. and, in reply, adrian explained that, the affairs of the smyrthwaite inheritance being completed sooner than he anticipated, he had advanced his return--ah! shade, accusing shade, of joanna! but with _la belle gabrielle's_ hand resting confidingly upon his arm, he could hardly be expected to turn aside to appease that unhappy phantom. "unfortunately i missed the connection in london, and failed to catch the midday channel boat. consequently i only reached paris early this morning. i had passed two practically sleepless nights"--again accusing shade of joanna, sound of footsteps, and dragging of draperies upon the corridor outside his bedroom door!--"to my shame," he continued, "i made up for my broken rest to-day. it was already past three o'clock when i went to my office. i had omitted to warn my people there of my return. picture then, _chère madame_, my emotion when my secretary handed me a letter from our friend miss beauchamp!" "so it was anastasia," madame st. leger murmured; but whether resentfully or gratefully her hearer failed to determine. "i flung myself into the automobile--and--_enfin_--you know the rest." "yes," she agreed, "i know the rest." and, thereupon, she gave a little cry of astonishment. for, turning the eastern side of the would-be moorish palace and passing on to the terrace in front of it, the whole of paris was disclosed to view outspread below along the valley of the seine. in intermingling, finely gradated tones, blond and silver, the immense panorama presented itself; squares, gardens, monuments, world-famous streets and world-famous buildings seen in the splendid clarity of the sun-penetrated atmosphere, purple-stained here and there by the shadows of detached high-sailing clouds. upon the opposite height, crowning montmartre, the church of the _sacré coeur_ rose ivory-white, its dome and clock-tower seeming strangely adjacent to the vast blue arch of the summer sky; while, in the extreme distance both to right and left, beyond the precincts of the laughing city, a gray, angular grimness of outlying forts struck the vibrant and masculine note of the peril of war. for quite a sensible period of time gabrielle st. leger gazed at the scene in silence. then she took her hand from adrian's arm and moved a step away. but he could not quarrel with this, since she put up her veil and looked frankly yet wistfully at him, a great sweetness in her charming face. "ah!" she said, stretching out her hand with a gesture of welcome to the noble view, "this is a thing to do one good, to renew one's courage, one's sanity and hope. i am grateful to you. it was both wise and kind of you to bring me here and show me this. by so doing you have washed my mind of dark and sinister impressions. you have made me once more in love with the goodness of god, in love with life. but come," she added, quickly, almost shyly, "i must ask you to take me home to the _quai malaquais_. i can meet my mother and child now without betraying emotion--without letting them suspect the grave and terrible trial through which i have passed." and upon this speech adrian savage, being an astute and politic lover, offered no comment. he had gained so much to-day that he could afford to be patient, making no attempt to press his point. restraining his natural impetuosity, he rested in the happiness of the present and spoke no word of love. only his eyes, perhaps, gave him away just a little; and, undoubtedly, on the return journey in the merrily singing car he permitted himself to sit a little closer to _la belle gabrielle_ than on the journey out. at the foot of the shining, waxed, wooden staircase within the doorway at the corner of the courtyard, where, backed by her bodyguard of spindly planes and poplars, the lichen-stained nymph still poured the contents of her tilted pitcher into the shell-shaped basin below, adrian left madame st. leger. "no, i will not come farther, _chère madame et amie_," he said, his air at once gallant and tender, standing before her, hat in hand. "it will perhaps be easier, in face of the pious fraud you propose to practise upon madame, your mother, that you should meet her alone." he backed away. it was safer. farewells are treacherous. all had been perfect so far. he would give himself no chance of occasion for regret. "mount the stairs slowly, though, dear madame," he called after her, moved by sudden anxiety. "remember your recent fatigue--they are steep." then, the beloved gray gown and floating gray veil having passed upward out of sight, he turned and went. "and now for that poor, unhappy little devil of a tadpole," he said. chapter v de profundis "just now he is quieter. i have a hope that he sleeps. but, _per bacco_, monsieur, what a month, what a six weeks since i had the honor of speaking with you last! my poor master all the while going from bad to worse, becoming more exacting, more eccentric in his habits, showing tendencies toward cruelty quite foreign to his nature. and to-day, what a scene after you left! i had been on the alert all the afternoon, since he displayed signs of febrile excitement. i remained here, in the passage, not far from the door, prepared, notwithstanding his violent prohibition, to enter the studio should any sound of a disturbing character reach me. but his voice appeared calm. i trusted the visit of the signora--ah, _dio mio!_ what charm, what divine grace!--was producing a beneficial effect, soothing and pacifying my poor master. upon my honor, i declare to you it was only at the actual moment of my admitting you those heartrending cries for help arose. then, afterward, pouring forth words which made even my ears tingle, hardened old reprobate--the saints forgive me!--though i am, he rushed upon the drawing of the signora, which has been a glorious adornment of our studio for so long, tore it from the easel and reduced it to a thousand fragments, which--since i have not yet dared to remove them--monsieur will still find scattered upon the carpet. this work of destruction had the effect of appeasing his fury. he flung himself among the pillows of the divan, and has remained there ever since in a silence which justifies the hope that he sleeps." the spare, bright-eyed, velvet-spoken giovanni folded his hands as in prayer. "monsieur will take command, he will intervene to help us? otherwise a catastrophe may ensue, and the unrivaled genius of my poor master may be lost to the world." as adrian crossed the dusky studio in the now fading light rené dax moved among the cushions and raised himself on his elbow. "_mon vieux_, is that you?" he asked feebly. "they told me--they--it does not matter who--some one told me you had come back. i am glad, for i need attention. i apprehend some lesion of the brain. my memory plays me false. this causes inconveniences. something here, at the base of my skull, seems to have given way, to have snapped. i think it would be well that i should leave paris for a time, and take a cure of some description. it is not pretty"--he looked up at adrian with a child-like candor wholly disarming--"no, very certainly it is a far from pretty request, but i shall be indebted to you if you will make it your business to discover a private hospital for the insane--a civilized one, mind you--where i can be accommodated with a comfortable suite of rooms. i have money enough. my illustrations to the _contes drolatiques_ will pay for this agreeable little jaunt. but civilized, i repeat, where no objection will be made to receiving well-conducted domestic animals, since i shall require to take both giovanni with me and aristides the just." adrian sat down upon the divan. his speech was somewhat thick and broken as he answered. "yes, _mon petit_. rest content that i will do my very best to find you such a place as you want." "and you will come often to visit me?" "indeed, i will come very constantly to visit you," adrian said. rené dax raised himself higher and looked long and searchingly at his friend from head to foot. the red lamp began to glow behind his somber eyes again. "you do not possess one-tenth of my talent," he declared; "but you possess ten times my physique. therefore you will obtain. you will prosper. you will lie soft. from the most fastidious to the vilest all women are the same. the moslems are right. women have neither soul nor intellect, only bodies, bodies, bodies. all they want in a man is physique." his tone changed to a wheedling one. he crawled over the soft, black silk cushions and put his arm coaxingly about adrian's neck. "see, _mon vieux_, see, be amiable! do not loiter. come at once. let us search together diligently every corner, every nook. to recover it would fill me with rapture; and there is still time before the school-bell rings for class. come. help me to find my lost laughter," he said. and at that moment, with a startling emotion of hope and of relief, adrian observed, for the first time, that the infamous drawings upon the walls had been painted out, leaving the whole, from floor to ceiling, white. v the living and the dead chapter i some passages from joanna smyrthwaite's locked book the drought was slow in breaking. day after day ragged-headed thunder pillars boiled up along the southeastern horizon; and, drifting northward, inland, in portentous procession as the afternoon advanced, massed themselves as a mighty mountain range against the sulky blue of the upper sky. about their flanks, later, sheet lightning streaked and quivered, making the hot night unrestful, as with the winking of malevolent and monstrous eyes. owing to the lie of the land and the encircling trees, this aerial drama was not visible from the tower house. but the atmospheric pressure, and nervous tension produced by it, very sensibly invaded the great woodland. the french window of joanna smyrthwaite's bedroom stood wide open on to the balcony. she had drawn an easy-chair close up to it, and, dressed in her white woolen _négligé_, sat there in the half-dark. she left the _négligé_ unfastened at the neck, it being an unsuitably warm garment to wear on so hot a night. she was aware it caused her discomfort; despite which she wore it. the pristine freshness of it was passed. it was slightly soiled, and the knife-pleatings, losing their sharpness of edge, sagged irregularly in places, like the bellows of an old concertina. more than once mrs. isherwood had declared, "miss joanna ought to buy herself a new wrapper, or at any rate let this poor old object go to the cleaners'." but joanna refused, almost angrily, to part with it even for a week. she gave no reason for her refusal, but locked the insulted garment away in a drawer of her wardrobe, whence she extracted it with jealous tenderness after isherwood had left her at night. then she wore it, if but for half an hour; and, wearing it, she brooded, fondling her right hand, which, upon two occasions, adrian savage had kissed. at the opposite end of the lawn, in front of the tennis pavilion, figures sauntered to and fro and voices were raised in desultory talk. amy woodford giggled. the elder busbridge boy whistled "yip-i-addy," and, losing his breath, coughed. the odor of cigarettes mingled with that of the trumpet-honeysuckle and jasmine encircling the pillars of the veranda below the window. joanna neither looked at nor listened to the others. her eyes were fixed upon the circle of fir-trees, where the dense plumed darkness of their topmost branches met the only less dense darkness of the sky. and she brooded. once she kissed the hand which adrian savage had kissed. but the figures and voices came nearer. amy woodford, her oxford undergraduate brother, and the two busbridge boys were saying good-night. their feet tapped and scraped on the quarries of the veranda. somebody ran into a chair, toppled it over, gave a yelp, and the whole company laughed. these playful goings-on came between joanna and her brooding. she rose impatiently, crossed the room to her bureau, lighted the candles, and sat down to write. "_august , -_ "we are never alone. i try not to be irritable, but this constant entertaining wears me out. it is contrary to all the traditions of our home life. i cannot help thinking how strongly papa would have condemned it. even mamma would have disapproved. i fear i am wanting in moral courage and firmness in not expressing disapproval more often myself; but margaret always imputes wrong motives to me and inverts the meaning of that which i say. she cannot be brought to see that i object on principle, and accuses me of a selfish attempt to shirk exertion. she says i am inhospitable and elusive. she even accuses me of being niggardly and grudging my share in the increased household expenditure. this is unjust, and i cannot help resenting it. yesterday i remonstrated with her, and our discussion degenerated to a wrangle, which was painful and unbecoming. to-day she has avoided speaking to me unless positively obliged to do so. i feel i have failed in regard to margaret, and that i ought to have kept up a higher standard since papa died and i became, virtually, the head of the house. margaret is entirely occupied with amusement and with dress. this must be, in part, my fault, though dear mamma always feared frivolous inclinations in margaret. it is all very trying. i doubt whether marion chase's influence is good for her. i am sure mr. challoner's is not. marion is fairly well educated, but is without cultivated tastes. mr. challoner is not even well educated. they both flatter her and defer to her wishes far too much. other people flatter her too, even serious persons, such as the norbitons and mrs. paull. i do not think i am jealous of margaret, but i will scrutinize my own feelings more closely upon this point. "i am afraid the servants observe that she and i are not on happy terms. this worries me. i dread the household taking sides. isherwood and johnson, and, i believe, smallbridge are quite faithful to me. so is rossiter, though i cannot help attributing that mainly to her dislike of the increased work in the kitchen. but margaret's new maid and her chauffeur--whose manner i consider much too familiar--create a fresh element in our establishment. they both are showy, and i mistrust the effect of their companionship upon the younger servants. i no longer really feel mistress in my own house. my position is rendered undignified. sometimes i regret the old days at highdene, or here, before papa's death. but that is weak of me, even hypocritical, since it is dread of responsibility rather than affection for the past which dictates the wish. i must school myself to indifference, and try more earnestly to rise superior to these worries. i must look forward rather than look back." joanna laid down her pen, held up her right hand, kissed the back of it just above the ridge of the knuckles, thrust it within the open neck of her _négligé_ and, placing her left hand over it, pressed it against her meager bosom. "i must look forward," she said half aloud. "'nothing is changed between us.' he told me so himself the night before he left. i must rest in that." she got up and paced the length of the room for a while, repeating--"i must rest in that, must rest in that." a sound of voices still rose from the garden, now a man's and a woman's in low and evidently intimate talk. joanna stood still. the note of intimacy excited subconscious, unacknowledged envy within her. she did not distinguish, nor did she attempt to distinguish, the words said. the tones were enough. it got upon her nerves to hear a man and woman speak thus. a little longer and she felt she should be unable to bear it--she must command them to stop. she went back to her bureau again. here, at a distance from the window, the voices were less audible. she sat down and forced herself to write. "this is the second dinner-party we have given, or, rather, which margaret has given, within a week. i absented myself, pleading neuralgia, and remained up-stairs in the blue sitting-room. with the exception of marion and mr. challoner, it was a boy-and-girl party. i do not feel at my ease in such company. i fail to see the point of their slang expressions and their jokes, and i do not understand the technical terms regarding games which they so constantly employ. no doubt my dining up-stairs will be a cause of offense, but i cannot help it. if margaret invites her own friends here so often she must at least contrive sometimes to entertain them without my assistance. i will try to dismiss this subject from my mind. to dwell upon it only irritates me. "i really needed to be alone to-night. i live stupidly, from day to day. i feel that i ought to have a more definite routine of reading and of self-culture. i ought to spend the present interval in educating myself more thoroughly for my future occupations and duties. i will draw up some general scheme of study. and i will keep my diary more regularly. i so seldom write now, yet i know it is good for me. writing obliges me to be clear in my intentions and in my thought. i am self-indulgent and allow myself to be too indefinite and vague, to let my mind drift. papa always warned me against that. he used to say no woman was ever a sufficiently close thinker. the inherent inferiority of the feminine intelligence was, he held, proved by this cardinal defect. i know my inclination has always been toward too great introspection, and i regret now that i have not striven more consistently after mental directness and grasp. i have been reading the _révue de deux mondes_ lately, feeling it a duty to acquaint myself with modern french literature. the luminous objectivity of the french mind impresses me very strongly--an objectivity which is neither superficial nor unduly materialistic. when listening to adrian i was often struck by this quality--" joanna laid down her pen once more. she sat still, her hands resting upon the flat space of the desk on either side the blotting-pad, her head thrown back and her eyes closed. the voices in the garden had ceased, and the silence, save for the shutting of a door in a distant part of the house and the faint grinding of wheels and bell of a tram-car on the barryport road, was complete. for some minutes she remained in the same position, her body inert, her inward activity intense. at last she raised her hands as though in protest, and, bending down, fell to work upon her diary again with a smothered violence. "i have resisted the temptation to write about it till now. i have been afraid of myself, afraid for myself. but to-night i feel differently. i feel a necessity to refer to it--to set it down in words, and to relieve myself of the burden of the 'thing unspoken.' on former occasions when i have been greatly harassed and troubled i have found alleviation in so doing. "i want to make it quite clear to myself that i have never doubted consideration for me, a desire to spare me distress and agitation, dictated adrian's silence regarding his sudden and unexpected departure. he knew how painful it would be to me to part with him, particularly after our conversation regarding bibby. seeing how overwrought i had been by that conversation, he wished to put no further strain upon me. i want to make it quite clear to myself that the letter he left for us with smallbridge was all that good taste and courtesy demanded. yet it hurt me. it hurts me still. he took pains to thank us for our hospitality and to express his pleasure in having helped us through all the business connected with our succession to papa's property. he said a number of kind and friendly things. few persons could have written a more graceful or cousinly letter. i know all this. i entertain no doubt of his sincerity. still the letter did hurt me. margaret appropriated it. it was addressed to her as well as to me, so, i suppose, she believed herself to have a right to take possession of it. and i am not sure i wished to keep it. i could not have put it with his other letters, since it only belonged to me in part. yet i often wonder what margaret has done with it--thrown it into the waste-paper basket most likely! and it is very dreadful to think any letter of his has been thrown away or burned. just because it was only half mine i feel so bitterly about it. i am afraid i have allowed this bitterness to affect my attitude toward margaret; but it is very painful that she should share, in any degree, the correspondence which is of such infinite value to me. i do accept the fact that he acted in good faith, without an idea how deeply so apparently simple a thing would wound me. i excuse him of the most remote wish to wound me. but i was, and am, wounded; and his letters since then--there are five of them--have failed to heal the wound. "it is dreadful to write all this down; but it is far more dreadful to let it remain on my mind, corroding all my thought of him. not that it really does so. in my agitation i overstate. 'nothing is changed between us.' no, nothing, adrian--believe me, nothing. yet in those last five letters i do detect a change. they have not the playful frankness of the earlier ones. i detect effort in them. they are very interesting and very kind, i know; still there is something lacking which i can only describe as the personal note. they are written as a duty, they lack spontaneity. he tells me he has been detained in paris, all the summer, by the illness--nervous breakdown--of a former schoolfellow. he tells me of his continued efforts to trace bibby. but these are outside things, of which he might write to any acquaintance. i read and re-read these letters in the hope of discovering some word, some message, actual or implied, addressed to me as me, the woman he has so wonderfully chosen. but i do not find it, so the wound remains unhealed. "yet how ungrateful i am to complain! to do so shows me my own nature in a dreadful light--grasping, impatient, suspicious. innumerable duties and occupations may so readily interfere to prevent his writing more frequently or more fully! why cannot i trust him more? is it not the very height of ingratitude thus to cavil and to doubt?" overcome by emotion, joanna left the bureau and paced the room once more, her arms hanging straight at her sides, her hands plucking at the pleatings of her _négligé_. the heat seemed to her to have increased to an almost unbearable extent, notwithstanding which she clung to her woolen garment. crossing to the washing-stand, she dipped a handkerchief in the water and, folding it into a bandage, held it across her forehead. she blew out the candles and, returning to the open window, sank into the easy-chair. the sky remained unclouded, but in the last hour had so thickened with thunder haze that it was difficult to distinguish the tree-tops from it. joanna gazed fixedly at this hardly determinable line of junction. presently she began to talk to herself in short, hurried sentences. "i know i told him i would wait. i believed i had strength sufficient for entire submission. but i am weaker than i supposed. i despise myself for that weakness. but i cannot wait. he is my life. without him i have no life--none that is coherent and progressive. my loneliness and emptiness, apart from my relation to him, are dreadful. and lately jealousy has grown shockingly upon me. i think of nothing else. i am jealous of every person whom he sees, of every object which he touches, of his literary work because it interests him--jealous of the old schoolfellow whom he is nursing; jealous of bibby, for whom he searches; jealous of the very air he breathes and ground on which he treads. all these come between him and me, stealing from me that which should be mine, since they are close to him and engage his attention and thought." joanna stopped, breathless, and, closing her eyes, lay back in the chair, while drops oozing from the wet bandage trickled downward and dripped upon her thin neck and breast. "now at last i am honest with myself," she whispered. "i have spoken the truth--the hateful truth, since it lays bare to me the inner meanness of my own nature. i no longer palliate my own repulsive qualities or attempt to excuse myself to myself. i admit my many faults. i call them by their real names. now, possibly, i shall become calmer and more resigned. the completeness of my faith in him will come back. and then, some day in the future, when i tell him how i repent of my suspicions and rebellious doubts, he will forgive me and help me to eradicate my faults and make me more worthy of the wonderful gift of his love." then she lay still, exhausted by her paroxysm of self-accusation. "here you are at last! you do take an unconscionably long time saying good-night! i nearly gave up and went indoors to bed." this chaffingly, from the terrace outside the veranda, in marion chase's hearty barytone. "i imagine people in our situation usually have a good deal to say to each other." rustlings of silk and creakings followed, occasioned by the descent of a well-cushioned feminine body into a wicker chair. "and pray, how far did you go with him?" still chaffingly. "only to the end of the carriage-drive, and then into the road for a minute to see the lightning. really, it's too odd--quite creepy. looking toward the county gates, the sky seems to open and shut like the lid of a box." "i shouldn't mind its opening wider and giving us some rain. it's too stuffy for words to-night. and then he proceeded to walk back with you, i suppose?" "no, he didn't, because i dismissed him. i can be firm when i choose, you know; and i am sure it is wisest to begin as i mean to go on. i intend to be my own mistress--" "and his master?" "doesn't that follow as a matter of course--a 'necessary corollary,' as joanna would say? too, i didn't want to run the risk of meeting any of the servants coming in. he is liable to be a little demonstrative when we are alone, don't you know." "margaret!" "well, why not? i take demonstrations quite calmly so long as they are made in private. it would be silly to do otherwise. they're just, of course, part of the--" "whole show?" "yes, if you like to be vulgar, marion, and quote the busbridge boys--i limit my quotations to joanna--of the whole show." after a short pause. "maggie, did you settle any dates to-night? i thought he seemed preoccupied, as if he meant business of some sort. you don't mind my asking?" "not in the least. he says he is bothered because his position is an equivocal one." "so it is." this very sensibly from marion chase. "people begin to think you are simply mean to keep him dangling." "do they? how amusing!" "not for him, poor beast." and both young women laughed. "he is wild to have the announcement made at once." "in the papers, do you mean?" "yes, the times and morning post, of course, and two local ones. he suggests the stourmouth and marychurch chronicle and the barryport gazette. i should have thought the courier ranked higher, but he says it's not nearly so widely read as the chronicle. then we ought to put it in a yorkshire paper as well, i think." "how awfully thrilling!" at first to joanna, at the open window above, still laboring with the aftermath of her gloomy outbreaks of passion, this conversation had been but as a chirping of birds or squeaking of bats. such slipshod telegraphic chatterings between the two young ladies, obnoxious alike to her taste and scholarship, were her daily portion. joanna had scornfully trained herself to ignore them. she could not prevent their assailing her ears; but she could, and as a rule did, successfully prevent their reaching her understanding. to-night, however, strained and on edge as she was, her will proved incapable of prolonged effort, and indifference was unsustainable. gradually the manner of the speakers and significance of that which they said mastered her unwilling attention. surprise followed on surprise. she knew how the two friends talked in her presence. was this how they talked in her absence, disclosing--especially in the case of her sister--an attitude of mind, let alone definite purposes and actions, of which she had been in total ignorance? and--to carry the question a step farther--did this connote corresponding ignorance on her part in other directions? was she, joanna, living in worlds very much unrealized, where all manner of things of primary importance remained unknown to or misinterpreted by her? the thought opened up vistas packed with agitation and alarm. self-defense admits few scruples; and it appeared to poor joanna just then that every man's hand was against her. living in the midst of deceptions, what weapon except deceit--and in this case deceit was tacit only--remained to her? her sense of honor, and along with it the self-respect in which the roots of honor are set, went overboard. instead of leaving the window and refusing to hear more, joanna stayed. a morbid desire to know, to learn all that which was being kept from her, to get at the truth of these lives lived so close to her own, to get at the truth of their opinion of her, seized upon her. she took the moist handkerchief off her forehead, and, slipping noiselessly out of her chair, knelt upon the rug laid along the inner side of the window-sill, craning her neck forward so that no word of the conversation might escape her. "personally, as i told him, i was in no particular hurry." "pleasant news for him!" marion chase returned. "but i'm not. there are several good reasons for waiting--our mourning for one thing. and then the question of a house. heatherleigh's not large enough, or smart enough--all very well for a bachelor establishment, i dare say. what i should like is this house; but i doubt whether joanna would give it up, though it really is altogether too extensive a place for her alone. i don't mean that she could not afford to keep it up. she could afford to; but it would be ostentatious, ridiculously out of proportion for an unmarried woman." joanna's indignation nearly flamed into speech. she moved impatiently, causing the chair behind her to scrape on its casters. "what was that?" from marion chase. "a fir-cone falling probably. it's hotter than ever.--no, i haven't the smallest intention of not going through with this business; but i'm in no hurry. things are quite amusing as they are." "i believe you enjoy taking people in, you wicked old thing." "if keeping quiet about my own affairs is taking people in, i suppose i do enjoy it. and then, of course, you see i am bound to tell joanna first. there's no help for that--" "magsie, you know her windows are open? you don't think we can be overheard?" "no; it's all right. i looked when i came back. there's no light. either she's still in the blue sitting-room or she's gone to bed. too, i must do her the justice to say joanna is not the sort of person who listens. she would consider it wrong." joanna drew back and was on the point of rising. again the chair scraped. "and then she would never condescend to listen to anything i might happen to be saying. there is a compensating freedom in being beneath notice!" joanna remained on her knees at the open window. "i own i most cordially dislike the idea of telling her," margaret continued. "i know she will be unreasonable and say things which will lead to all sorts of disputes and disagreeables between us." "oh! but she must know perfectly well already, only she means to make you speak first," the other returned. "it's too absurd to suppose she hasn't spotted what's been going on. why, his state of mind has been patent for ages. she can't be off seeing." "i don't believe for a single moment she does see. she's so frightfully self-absorbed and self-occupied. you know yourself, marion, how extraordinarily obtuse she can be. she lives in the most hopeless state of dream--" joanna swayed a little as she knelt and laid hold of the folds of the striped tabaret window-curtain for support. "i know she always has been inclined to dream; but recently it has grown upon her. for me to say anything to her about it is worse than useless. she only sits upon me, and then we 'have words,' as isherwood says. at bottom joanna is awfully obstinate. in many ways she reminds me very much of papa; only, being a woman, unfortunately one can't get round her as one could round him. people are beginning to notice what an odd, moody state she is in. mrs. norbiton said something about it when they dined here on monday. she said joanna seemed so absent-minded, and asked whether i thought she wasn't well. and colonel haig mentioned it to me the afternoon we had tea with him at the golf club. that really led to his telling me what he had heard in paris." "telling you--oh, i remember! what he had heard about mr. savage?" marion chase remarked. joanna got on to her feet, went out on to the balcony, and hung over the red balustrade into the hot, thick darkness. "margaret!" she called. "margaret, i must speak to you. please come to my room. it is something urgent. come at once." chapter ii recording a sisterly effort to let in light when margaret smyrthwaite entered her sister's bedchamber she brought the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop along with her. under the elder and sterner reign scent-sprays and scent-caskets were unknown at the tower house, montagu smyrthwaite holding such adjuncts to the feminine toilet in hardly less abhorrence than powder or paint itself. a modest whiff of aromatic vinegar or of eau-de-cologne touched the high-water mark of permitted indulgence. but in the use of perfumes, as in other matters, margaret--so mrs. isherwood put it--"had broke out sadly since the poor old gentleman went." the intellectual streak common to the smyrthwaite family had from the first been absent in the young lady's composition; while the morbid streak, also common in the family, was now cauterized, if not actually eliminated, by the sunshine of her seven thousand a year. a north-country grit, a rather foxy astuteness and a toughness of fiber--also inherited--remained, however, very much to the fore in her, with the result that she would travel--was, indeed, already traveling--the grand trunk road of modern life without hesitation, or apology, or any of those anxious questionings of why, wherefrom, and whither which beset persons of nobler spiritual caliber. in the past few months she had shed the last uncertainties of girlhood. she had filled out and was in act of blossoming into that which gentlemen of the challoner order, in moments of expansion, not without a cocking of the eye and moistening of the lip, are tempted to describe as a "d--d fine woman." now the light of the candle she carried showed the rounded smoothness of her handsome neck and arms, through the transparent yoke and sleeves of her black evening blouse, touched the folds and curls of bright auburn hair upon her forehead, and brought the hard bright blue of her eyes into conspicuous evidence. a deficiency of eyelash and eyebrow caused her permanent vexation. this defect she intended to remedy--some day. not just at present, however, as both joanna and isherwood were too loyally wedded to the aromatic vinegar and eau-de-cologne régime for such facial reconstructions to pass without prejudiced and aggravating comment. advancing up the room, all of a piece and somewhat solid in tread, she offered a notable contrast to joanna, who awaited her palpitating and angular, ravaged by agonies and aspirations, indignantly trembling within the sagged knife-pleatings of her soiled white _négligé_. the rough copy and _édition de luxe_, as adrian had dubbed them, just then very forcibly presented their likeness and unlikeness; yet, possibly, to a discerning eye, the rough copy, though superficially so conspicuously lacking in charm, might commend itself as the essentially nobler of these two human documents. "what is the matter, joanna?" the _édition de luxe_ inquired. "why couldn't you send isherwood to say you wanted to speak to me? it's fortunate marion's and my nerves are steady, for your calling out gave us both an awful start." "i did listen," the other returned, in a breathlessness of strong emotion. "i was sitting at the window in the dark when you began talking. at first i paid no heed; but, as your conversation went on, i found it bore reference to matters which you are keeping from me and with which i ought to be acquainted. i found it concerned me--myself. i offer no apology. i acted in self-protection. i listened deliberately." margaret laid the magazines and illustrated fashion papers, she carried under her arm, upon the slab of the open bureau. she set down her flat candlestick beside them, thus creating a triad of lighted candles--unlucky omen! "then, nannie," she said, coolly, "you did something which was not at all nice." the word stung joanna by its grotesque inadequacy either to the depth of her sufferings or of her transgression against the laws of honor. to range at the tragic level, in relation to both, would have afforded her consolation and support. margaret denied such consolation by taking her own stand squarely upon the conventional and commonplace. joanna's transgression began to show merely vulgar. this compelled her to descend from tragic heights. "am i to understand that you really are engaged to mr. challoner?" she therefore asked, without further preamble. "if you listened you must have gathered as much, i imagine," margaret said. "i did--i did, but i refused to believe it. i thought i must be mistaken. i was unprepared for such news. it came to me as such a shock, such a distressing surprise." "really, it's quite your own fault, joanna," margaret returned. "what did you suppose he'd been coming here for constantly?" "not for that--" "thank you!" margaret said. "you know i have always objected to his being here so much. i tried to prevent it. i feared it might lead to gossip. i felt you did not consider that seriously enough. it is so dreadful that what we do or say should be commented upon. until the business connected with the property was settled i recognized a necessity for mr. challoner's frequent visits, but not since then, not for the last three months. i am quite willing to admit his good points. i quite believe he has served us faithfully in business.--pray do not suppose i underrate his services in that respect. but i never supposed he could presume to propose to you, margaret." "i don't see anything presumptuous in his proposing. he admires me very much. is it such an unheard-of thing that he should wish me to marry him?" "no--no--but that you should give him encouragement.--for you must have encouraged him--" "and"--with disconcerting composure from the _édition de luxe_--"why not?" joanna began to pace the room restlessly in her trailing draperies. "because--because"--she said--"your own instinct must tell you what an unsuitable marriage this would be for you--for our parents' daughter, for my sister. i don't want to be selfish, margaret, but i have a right to consider my own future to some extent; and mr. challoner--i dislike to seem to deprecate him--it is invidious to do so--indeed, it is intensely distasteful to me to point out his peculiarities--but when i think of him as a brother-in-law--his antecedents, his standard of manners and conversation strike me as so different to those to which we have always been accustomed. i cannot avoid seeing this. it is so very palpable. others must see it too--members of our family, i mean, with whom we are, or may in the future be, intimately associated." in her excitement clearness of statement failed somewhat. margaret stood listening, calmly obstinate, her head a little bent, while she straightened the magazines and picture papers lying on the slab of the bureau with her finger-tips. "i didn't for one moment imagine you would be pleased at my engagement--that's why i have not told you sooner. i was sure you'd be disagreeable about it. and you are disagreeable, joanna, very disagreeable indeed. like most people who plume themselves on being very high-minded, you end by being very vulgar-minded and worldly. i quite expected this tone from you; and so i put off telling you as long as possible. even now, you must remember, you have surprised my confidence. i have not given it voluntarily. useless discussions, such as this, bore me." "useless?" joanna interrupted. "quite useless, unless i happen to change my mind, which i shall not do. i have considered things all round. i have talked everything over with marion. you must make what you like of it, joanna; but i am going to marry challoner." the scriptural christian name annoyed her as suggesting possibilities of humorous retrospect. the "mister" under existing romantic circumstances savored of underbred, middle-class ceremony. so she struck for the surname, pure and simple, thereby conferring, in some sort, the noble conciseness of a title upon her admirer. "i don't share your very exalted opinions of our position and importance," she continued. "papa was a successful yorkshire mill owner. challoner is the head of a firm of successful south-country solicitors. you talk of his antecedents. his father was a very enterprising man, who built up the business here which he has carried on and developed. everybody in this part of england knows who challoner, greatrex & pewsey are. the firm's reputation is above suspicion. they opened a branch office four years ago at southampton, and one last year at weymouth. really, i can't see what you have to object to on the score of position, joanna? andrew merriman's grandfather was only a mill-hand." "you need not have alluded to that," the other cried, sharply. then, fighting for self-control, she added, "you know quite well it is a marriage you would never have thought of making while papa was living." "and you know equally well, nannie, it was utterly hopeless to think of any marriage whatever when papa was alive. we hardly ever saw a man. papa snubbed every one who came near us. no one dared propose, even if they wished to do so. remember all the andrew merriman business?" "pray don't refer to that again," joanna said. "i only wanted to give you an instance--nannie, would you mind sitting down? it makes me so dreadfully hot to watch you roaming about in that way. we could talk ever so much better if you would only keep still.--and there is a great deal which has to be talked over some time. as we have begun to-night, we may as well go on and get through with it. the heat makes me fidgety. i'm not inclined to go to bed." thus admonished, joanna sank into the easy-chair once more. she doubled herself together, working her hands nervously, ball-and-socket fashion, in her lap. the perception that this was a new margaret, a margaret wholly unreckoned with, grew upon her. and along with that perception an apprehension of fronting things unknown yet of vital significance, things which, when known, must inevitably color all her future outlook, grew upon her likewise. as yet the screen of ignorance, dense though impalpable as the dense thunder-thickened sky there outside, interposed between her and those fateful things veiling them. but margaret, the new, composed, practical, highly perfumed margaret, was in act of drawing that screen aside. then what would she, joanna, see? what concourse of cruel verities lurked behind, waiting to jump on her?--asking herself this, she shivered, notwithstanding the heat of the atmosphere and of her woolen gown, with premonition of coming chill--chill of loneliness, chill of disaster, of which such loneliness was at once the bitter flower and the root. her sister had followed her to the window, and stood just within it, nonchalant and comely, fanning herself with a little fan hanging by a ribbon from her waistband. the silver spangles upon the black gauze sparkled sharply in the candle-light, and the ebony sticks ticked as she waved it to and fro. "i do so wish you wouldn't make a tragedy of all this, nannie," she said. "but of course i knew you would, because you always think it your duty to get into a wild state of mind over everything i say or do. it would be so much more comfortable for both of us if you could get it into your head once and for all that you're not responsible for me in any way. we are equals. we're the same age--you always seem to forget that--and i'm quite as competent to manage my affairs as you are to manage yours. you have no authority over me of any description, legal or moral, none whatsoever, you know." "i am only too well aware that i have failed to influence you, margaret," joanna returned, while waves of scented air, set in motion by the black and silver fan, played upon her face. "i had been thinking of that to-night, before i overheard your and marion's conversation. i had been reproaching myself. i know we are the same age; but our dispositions are different, and i have always occupied an elder sister's position toward you. it is very distressing to me to realize how entirely i have failed to influence you. this contemplated marriage of yours gives the measure of my non-success." "oh! dear me! influence--failure--really, you know, nannie, you are most awfully provoking!" the other exclaimed. "i don't want to lose my temper and be cross, but i am so frightfully sick of this whole responsibility mania. it's been the bugbear of our lives ever since we were children. papa and mamma sacrificed themselves and sacrificed us to it, with the result that we've always been in an unnatural attitude, like dogs trying to walk on their hind legs." "margaret, margaret!" joanna protested, scandalized by the filial profanity of the suggested picture. "so we have, nannie. and in what has this everlasting preaching of responsibility ended? why, simply in making papa believe he was doing right by being rude and arrogant and dreadfully disagreeable over trifles. in making mamma a hopeless invalid. in ruining bibby, body and soul, making him untruthful and dishonest, and inclined to do all sorts of horrid, ungentlemanly things. hush? no, i am not going to hush, joanna. you asked me to come here, and you asked me a question. now you really must listen till i have said all i have to say in answer. i want to get it over. it's far too unpleasant to go through twice. and this mania about responsibility has been disastrous for you too--you know that perfectly well. it has spoiled your life by keeping you in a perpetual state of fuss and worry, and of dissatisfaction with your own conduct and everybody else's. as for me, it made me hysterical and fretful, and deceitful too. how could one help being deceitful when one was always dodging some silly trumped-up fault-finding or bother? i believe it would have broken up my nerves altogether if it had gone on much longer. and what on earth does it all mean? what were we responsible for? who were we responsible to?" she went on contemptuously. "i don't know. and i don't believe you know either, joanna, if you would only use your common-sense and give up worshiping words and phrases. the whole thing is nonsense, and rather lying nonsense--just a pretending to oneself that one is better and cleverer than other people. when you come to think of it, this craze for superiority is so frightfully conceited! for who cares, or ever has cared, whether we smyrthwaites were intellectual, and high-minded, and cultured, and well-read, and all the rest of it, or not? in my opinion the system on which our parents brought us up, and on which their parents brought them up, is nothing but an excuse for self-adulation and pharisaism. i am sick to death of the whole thing, and i mean to break away from it. and the simplest way to do so is to marry challoner. he's about as far away from it all as anybody well can be--just a modern, practical man, who cares for real things, not for advanced thought, and reform, and political economy, and questions of morals, and so on. he isn't a bit intellectual. he only reads the newspapers, or an occasional novel in the train when he's traveling, i am thankful to say. and, i am awfully glad he belongs to the church of england, for i mean to break with the unitarian connection, joanna. i don't care about doctrine one way or another; but i can see how narrow-minded and exclusive it makes people when they belong to a small sect. unitarians are always so frightfully pleased with themselves because they believe less than other people. they're always living up to their own cleverness in not believing; and it does make them awfully hind-leggy and boring.--and then, of course, being a nonconformist cuts one out of a lot. socially it is no end of a disadvantage to one. it didn't signify so much in the north, but here it has stood horridly in our way. lots of nice people would have called on us when we first came if we hadn't been dissenters. and, please understand, i mean to know everybody now and be popular. i should enjoy giving away prizes and opening bazaars, and entertaining on a big scale, and taking part in all that goes on here. it would amuse me. i can give large subscriptions, and i mean to give them. as i say, i intend to be popular and to be talked about. i intend to make myself a power in the place. and then, joanna, there's something more--i dare say you'll think it necessary to be scandalized--but there's this--" she stopped fanning herself, and looked out into the hot darkness, smiling, a certain luster upon her smooth skin and a fullness about her bosom and her lips. her voice took on richer tones when she spoke. "i want to marry, and i mean to marry. i am nine and twenty, and i'm tired of not knowing exactly what marriage is. so i'm not going to wait, and hawk myself and my fortune about on the chance of a smarter match. i have decided to be sensible and make the best of what i have--namely, challoner. i don't pretend he is perfect. i take him as he stands. after all, he is only just forty and he is in excellent health. i care about that, for i dislike sickly people, especially men. they're always horridly selfish and fanciful. either they oughtn't to marry at all or ought to marry hospital nurses.--then challoner is making a good income. we've talked quite frankly over the money question. and then--then--" for the first time she showed signs of slight embarrassment, laughing a little, pursing up her lips and fanning herself again lightly. "then," she repeated, "he is desperately in love with me, and i enjoy that. i want more of it. it interests and amuses me. it is exciting to find one can twist a great, hard-headed fellow like challoner round one's little finger; make him go hot and cold, grow nervous and all of a tremor just by a word or a look. he is like so much dough in my hands. i can shape him as i like. there's nothing he wouldn't do to please me. oh! yes, he is desperately in love with me!" this drawing back of the interposing screen and exhibition of the smyrthwaite tradition and system, stripped to the skin, stripped, indeed, to an almost primordial nothingness, had been richly distressing to poor joanna. for was not she intrinsically the product and exponent of the said tradition and system? did it not stand for the loom upon which the whole pattern of her character and conduct was woven? in thus stripping the system, she was painfully conscious that margaret stripped her also to a like miserable nakedness and nothingness. for, admitting the laws which she had been brought up to reverence, and to obey which she had trained herself with such unsparing diligence, were nugatory, what remained to her for guidance or inspiration? admitting her strenuously acquired mental attitude and habit to be but senseless posturing, as of dancing dogs, how deplorably she had wasted herself upon that which profiteth not! if the formative processes of her education and culture represented nothing better than laborious subscription to exploded fallacy, must she not make a return, with all possible speed, upon whatever remnant of unalloyed instinct and spontaneous purpose might still be left in her? but how to make such a return? how to reform, to recreate, her attitude and outlook? these questions assailed joanna, bewildering alike in their multiplicity and intricacy. the wheels of her over-taxed brain whizzed and whirred. for the curse of the system-ridden, of the pedant, of the doctrinaire, is loss of clear-seeing simplicity, of initiative, of that power of direct and unaided action which is the reward of simplicity. stripped of encompassing precept and precedent, deprived of sustaining prejudice, joanna found herself naked and helpless indeed. she ran wildly in search of fresh precept and precedent in which to clothe herself. and found them, after a fashion normal and natural enough had they happened to be grounded in fact instead of in most pitiful illusion. for as, distressedly watching her sister's rather cynical exposure of the family tradition, she asked herself--in face of the said exposure--what to her, personally, remained, she answered that adrian savage remained. and thereupon proceeded with all the intensity and pent-up passion of her morbidly introspective nature to fling herself upon the thought of that delightful young man and his matrimonial intentions. hounding out doubts, furiously repressing misgivings, she grappled herself to belief in adrian with hooks of iron, chained herself to it with links of steel, drank from the well of splendid promise which it offered to the verge of inebriety. in him she hailed her savior. adrian would make good the wasted years. adrian would teach her where she had been mistaken, and where her intelligence had gone astray. adrian would instruct and counsel her, would supply her with a rule of living at once just and distinguished. adrian would be gentle to her errors--had he not shown himself so already on more than one occasion?--would be sympathetic, playful and charming even in merited rebuke. she heard his voice once again. saw him, in his habit as he lived, gallant, courteous, eager yet debonair; and seeing, her poor heart spilled itself upon the ground like water at his conquering feet. joanna could sit still no longer. her agitation was too vital, too overmastering. she left the chair by the window and began to roam to and fro, her hands plucking at the pleatings of her dress, her pale, prominent eyes staring fixedly, her lips parted, her expression rapt. "'because thou art more noble and like a king,'" she quoted, silently, turning to the sonnets from the portuguese for adequate expression of her emotion. "'thou canst prevail against my fears and fling thy purple round me.'" the consequence of all of which was that she paid scant attention to the concluding portion of her sister's comprehensive argument in favor of her projected espousal of joseph challoner, and only awoke from the state of trance induced by her access of adrian-worship when the repetition of margaret's assertion of the violent character of challoner's affection and the slightly ambiguous laugh following that assertion struck her ear. then she turned upon the speaker with the righteous wrath of one who hears sacred words put to unworthy uses. "desperately in love?" she said harshly. "and do you intend me to understand, margaret, that you are desperately in love with mr. challoner in return?" "oh dear, no!" the lady addressed replied calmly enough. "though if i were, i see no occasion for your scolding me about it, nannie.--what does make you so restless and cross to-night? however, if you're determined to be uncomfortable, i'm not--so i shall sit down here in your chair. did you see the lightning then? no, i'm not the least silly about challoner; but then i should be very sorry to be silly about any man. i don't think it dignified for a woman to be in a wild state of mind about her _fiancé_. it's not nice. i like challoner well enough to marry him, and well enough not to mind his making love to me. that's quite sufficient, i think." jealous curiosity pricked joanna. she stopped in her agitated walk and stood stretching out her right hand and gazing abstractedly at it. "what--what precisely do you mean when you speak of his making love to you, margaret?" she said, in a thin, urgent whisper. "really, for a person who plumes herself upon being particularly refined you do say the most singular things, joanna!" the other exclaimed, laughing. "you can hardly expect me to go into details. making love is making love." "kissing your hand--do you mean?" joanna gasped, in awestruck accents, a dry sob rising in her throat. "one's hand? why, anybody might kiss one's hand. challoner's proceedings, i'm afraid, are considerably more unrestrained than that. but i positively can't go into details. how extraordinary you are, nannie! doesn't it occur to you there are questions which one doesn't ask?" streaks of pain shot across the back of joanna's right hand, as though it were struck again and again with a rod. moaning, just audibly, she thrust it within the open bosom of her white _négligé_, and laid her left hand upon it, fondling it as one striving to soothe some sorely wounded creature. margaret leaned back in the easy-chair, fingering her little fan, a sleekness, a suggestion of almost animal content in her expression and attitude. "no, really i can't explain any further," she said, laughing a little. "i'm quite hot enough as it is, and refuse to make myself any hotter. you must wait till somebody makes love to you, i'm afraid, nannie, if you want to know exactly what the process consists in. an object-lesson would be necessary, and i am hardly equal to supplying that." joanna's roamings had taken her as far as the door leading on to the gallery. she waited, leaning against it. the back of margaret's chair was toward her, so that she was safe from observation. for this she was not sorry, as the pain in her hand was acute, particularly upon the spot where adrian's lips had once touched it. there it throbbed and smarted, as though a live coal were pressing into the flesh. her face was drawn with suffering. she dreaded to have her sister ask what ailed her. but that young lady's thoughts were quite otherwise engaged. she spoke presently, over her shoulder. her voice sounded curiously cozy. "this evening, when he said good-by to me, challoner lifted me right off my feet when he was kissing me. he had never done so before. i liked it. it showed how strong he is. i felt a wee bit nervous, but i enjoyed it too. i revel in his strength. my ribs ache still.--there, nannie, is that little sample of love-making illuminating enough?" and, leaning against the polished surface of the door, joanna shivered, nursing and fondling her burning hand. chapter iii in which joanna embraces a phantom bliss the obscure psychological relation existing between twins necessarily produces either peculiar sympathy or peculiar opposition of tastes and sentiment. the record of these twin sisters was of the discordant sort. unspoken rivalry and jealousy had divided them. unconsciously, yet unremittingly, they had struggled for pre-eminence. at the present moment, in joanna's case these feelings combined to produce a sensation approaching active hatred. as she leaned shivering against her bedroom door, in the oppressive warmth of the summer night, all her petty griefs and grudges against her more attractive and popular sister complained in chorus. as a child margaret had been pretty and taking. at school, though lazy and by no means clever, she had been petted and admired. such affection as montagu smyrthwaite was capable of displaying he had displayed toward her. "margaret was sensitive, margaret was delicate"--which meant that margaret knew just when to cry loud enough to excite pity; just when to announce tiredness or a headache, so as to escape unwelcome exertion. she had, in short, reduced the practice of selfishness--so joanna thought--to a fine art. and now, finally, to-night, not timidly with disarming apology, but with flaunting assurance, margaret dared to infringe her--joanna's--copyright in the wonder-story of a man's love, thereby capping the climax of offense. her transcript of the said story might be of the grosser sort; yet on that very account it showed the more convincing. no misgivings, no agonized suspense, no tremulously anxious reading between the lines, were demanded. it was printed in large type, and in language coarsely vigorous as joseph challoner himself! morally it repelled joanna, although inflaming her imagination with vague drivings of desire. her whole poor being, indeed, was swept by conflicting and but half-comprehended passions, from amid the tempest of which this one thing declared itself in a rising scale of furious insistence--namely, that margaret should not once again best her; that no marriage margaret might elect to make should endanger her own marriage with adrian savage; that by some means, any means fair or foul, margaret must be prevented tasting the fullness of man's love--never mind how poor an edition of love this might be, how unpoetic, bow vulgar--as long as she, joanna, was denied love's fullness. yet so deeply were tradition and system ingrained in her that, even at this pass, she paid homage to their ruling, since instead of making a direct attack, and owning anger as the cause of it, she tricked herself with a fiction of moral obligation. "margaret," she began presently from her station at the door, speaking with such self-command as she could muster, "i dislike alluding to the subject very much. no doubt you will be annoyed and will accuse me of interference; still there is something i feel i ought to say to you. if i do not say it now, there may not be a suitable opportunity later." "then pray say it now. as i have told you, i want to get the whole thing thoroughly thrashed out to-night, so that we may avoid odious discussions in the future. what is it, joanna?" "i can't help observing that it is only since papa's death mr. challoner has paid you so much attention. before then--" margaret rose and faced round upon the speaker. her manner remained composed, but her blue eyes held the light of battle. "you mean it is not me, but my fortune, challoner is in love with? i quite expected you would tell me that, joanna, sooner or later; but i am bound to say it is not a very elegant compliment either to him or to me." "i did not intend to bring such an accusation against him," joanna protested. "it would be very dreadful to suppose any one's affection, any one's choice, could be seriously influenced by the fact we have money." "i'm afraid my views are less romantic than yours. it seems to me quite natural money should prove an attraction--particularly in cases where other attractions are rather wanting." for some reason joanna felt the stroke of a rod across her hand again. the pain excited her. she came forward a step or two. "you do not give me time to explain myself, margaret. before papa's death mr. challoner's name was very freely associated with that of mrs. spencer. both you and marion chase spoke of an engagement between them as certain. others spoke of it also. the probability of a marriage was accepted. i cannot forget this." margaret laughed. "really, it's too funny that you of all people should champion wretched little mrs. spencer! why, joanna, you invariably intimated she was quite beneath your notice, and have lost no opportunity of snubbing her. i've had to be nice, more than once, simply because i felt so awfully ashamed of your rudeness to her." "i do not like her. she is unladylike. still i think mr. challoner's change of attitude requires explanation." "do you?" margaret retorted. "here is the explanation then. simply that challoner is too kind-hearted to save himself at the expense of a woman, even when she has treated him badly. he told me all about her months ago. he felt i had better hear it from him, but he did his best to excuse her. he showed wonderfully nice feeling about it all. i was not prepared for his being so scrupulous, and it made me admire him. for she is the sort of person who spends her time in extracting money and presents from every man she can get hold of. challoner admits he was taken in by her at first, and was foolishly weak with her. she pretended to be almost penniless, and worked upon his feelings so much that he let her live in that house of his in silver chine road, rent free, for nearly two years. and when her demands became too extortionate, and she persecuted him so disgracefully that he was compelled in self-defense to get rid of her, he found her another house at marychurch, and, i believe, pays half the rent of it for her still. i know he gave her sister, beattie stacey--who is engaged to an officer on one of the cape liners--a beautifully fitted traveling-bag as a wedding present. marion saw it only last week.--those are the facts, joanna. i hope now your conscience is easy." she stood looking down, pressing back an upturned corner of the rug, upon which joanna had knelt earlier in the evening, with the pointed toe of her beaded slipper. "of course i sha'n't receive her," she said. "i told challoner my magnanimity wouldn't carry me as far as that after the abominable way in which she's exploited him. all the same, i'm rather grateful to the wretched little woman. but for her i mightn't have known how generous challoner could be. i really believe the satisfaction of rescuing him from her clutches is among my chief reasons for accepting him--that, and then, of course, cousin adrian savage." with a sort of rush joanna came close--the violence of some half-starved creature in her pale eyes, her drawn face and her parted lips. "adrian?" she cried. "adrian? what possible connection can there be between cousin adrian and your engagement to mr. challoner?" for some seconds margaret smyrthwaite looked hard and thoughtfully at her sister. then, holding the skirt of her dress aside, she pressed the upturned corner of the rug into place again with the pointed toe of her slipper. "i shall be so thankful," she said, "when you give up wearing that frightful old dressing-gown, nannie. decidedly, it is not as clean as it might be, and it looks so horridly stuffy. i never have understood your craze for hoarding--" "but--but--adrian?" joanna insisted. "adrian? surely you must have seen, nannie? it's just one of those things which aren't easy to put into words, but which i should have thought even you must have grasped, though you are so different to most people. i sometimes have wondered lately, though, whether you really are so different to other people, or whether you're only extraordinarily secretive.--but, naturally having a young man like cousin adrian staying so long in the house this winter, put ideas into one's head and made one think a good deal about marriage, and so on. i took for granted papa had some notion of that kind when he appointed adrian his executor. he had a great opinion of him, and would have liked him as a son-in-law--or fancied he would. of course he wanted to bring us together--that was the object of the appointment." "you think so?" joanna questioned. joy, anxious but great, arose in her. "i haven't a doubt about it. all the same i couldn't, out of respect for papa's wishes, make advances to a young man who showed quite clearly he didn't care a row of pins about me." "he was always kind and civil to you, margaret," joanna interrupted restrainingly. jealousy folded its beating wings, betaking itself to most unaccustomed repose. "civil and kind, i dare say. but--well, of course there are signs one can't mistake, unless one blinds oneself wilfully to their meaning." she tossed her head, her eyes hard and bright. joanna's expression meanwhile became increasingly ecstatic. "yes, there are signs one cannot mistake--signs which it would be weak and faithless to mistake," she whispered. "i don't deny i felt rather enraged," margaret continued, too busy with her own vexation to remark the other's singular aspect. "i could have been very much upset about it all if i had let myself go." "i am sorry," joanna murmured, touched by unexpected pity. "indeed, margaret, i am sorry." "oh, you weren't to blame in any way, nannie. and, you see, i didn't let myself go. i just turned my attention to challoner. there is nothing ambiguous about his admiration. and now"--she glanced curiously at her sister--"now," she continued, "as things have turned out, i'm most uncommonly glad i didn't allow myself to get into a state of mind about adrian." "as things have turned out?--i understand. i am pleased you do not blame me, margaret. yes, as things have turned out!" joanna repeated excitedly. for here, as she saw it, was the hour of her triumph, of assured and splendid victory. the room seemed too small to hold her rapture. hardly aware of that which she did, she brushed past her sister--still standing, fan in hand, beside the chair at the window--and went out on to the balcony. she required to be alone, so as to savor to the full the heady sweetness of her own emotion. she wanted to forget every one, everything, save that only. she wanted to abandon herself without reserve to the thought of adrian savage; to gloat over every incident of her intercourse with him, and project her imagination onward to the closer, the continuous and exclusive intercourse of the future. for had not margaret's confession--the more persuasive because reluctantly made--amounted to an admission that adrian's affection belonged to her, and to her only? did it not supply reasonable confirmation of her sorely tried faith in him, and ratify all her hopes by setting the seal of witness upon the fact of his love for her? such was the meaning she read into the recent conversation, piecing evidence together into a coherent whole. never before had she been absolutely certain. now, as she told herself, she was certain--could safely be so, in that margaret had admitted the fact, if not in so many words, yet implicitly. her father's wish and purpose had been that the young man should marry one of his two daughters--margaret had perceived this. and she, joanna, was the one he had chosen, thereby justifying all her past efforts and labors, and rehabilitating the poor, cynically denuded family system into the bargain. was not the whole habit and conduct of her life vindicated, inasmuch as it led to this superb result? the years had not been wasted, but were, on the contrary, the patient seed-time of this welcome harvest. she had been right from the first, right in every particular, so that not upon her or her methods, but upon those who differed from, undervalued, or slighted her rested the onus of proof. and here the intellectual and moral arrogance latent in joanna smyrthwaite's nature upheaved itself mightily and stood aggressively erect. overweening self-esteem, as on giant wings, sustained her. for to such disastrous inflations of pride are introspective persons liable when they fail--as they do so frequently fail--to discriminate between deeds and emotions, between the barren power to feel and the fertile, the life-giving power to act! of all traps set by satan for the catching of souls, the trap of "feelings" is perhaps the wiliest and the worst. and into this trap poor joanna walked, head in air, careless of consequence. she felt deified, lifted above the crawling, common ways of common men, defiant of all opposition, all criticism; since, being the chosen and desired of him whom she so dotingly worshiped, she became an object worthy of worship in and to herself. and the night--playing into the devil's hands somewhat, as at times the aspects of nature will--in its windless silence and opaque, hot darkness, appeared queerly reflective of and sympathetic to joanna's mood of portentous self-exaltation. the planes rather than the forms of all which composed the scene were perceptible. joanna's eyes detected the slope of the veranda roof immediately beneath the balcony, the flat outspread of the gardens and lawns, and the vertical palisade of lofty trees encircling them; but no single object detached itself--all were fused by and soaked in that thick broth of thunder-smoke. and this heated obscurity she welcomed, because it ministered to the sense of solitude and of aloofness which she craved. nothing visible interfered to distract her attention from herself and the thought of her high destiny. only once or twice the sky opened, for the distant storm had moved westward, striking the black canopies of the firs, their stems and many branches, into vivid and instantaneous relief, while behind and above them, midway to the zenith, lightning licked and flickered like some miracle of soundless, sardonic laughter playing over the livid features of a corpse nine days dead. it was in the moment of one such disquieting celestial display that margaret smyrthwaite, stifling an audible yawn, strolled on to the balcony. she had gathered up her magazines and papers again, and tucked them under her arm. "if you don't intend to come in and talk any more, nannie," she said, rather irritably, "i may as well go. i'm getting frightfully sleepy, and i've promised challoner to motor him over to weymouth to-morrow. we make an early start. too, marion's sure to be waiting to hear how my talk with you has gone off, and i've a conscience about keeping her up any longer.--now, you do quite understand, don't you, that i am going to marry challoner, and that opposition is absolutely no good? it would look ever so much better, and be so very much more comfortable for every one concerned, if you could only make up your mind to be nice about it. you're always saying how you hate people talking over our affairs. why give them occasion to talk then by being disagreeable and contrary about a thing which is really no business of yours, and which you are quite powerless to prevent?" contemptuously joanna turned from contemplation of that strangely flickering sky and contemplation of her own--subjective--glory. she resented the intrusion of margaret, with her perfumes and fashion papers, her complacent utilitarianism, her motor-car and underbred lover; but resented it half-pityingly, as the weakness of an inferior being behaving according to the manner of its kind. "i may be powerless to prevent your marriage," she said, "still i most deeply object to it. i cannot do otherwise. i consider it unsuitable and most unfortunate. i cannot disguise from myself that it will stand between us in the future and render intercourse difficult. there can be little sympathy between two persons whose aims and interests are as far apart as yours and mine must inevitably be. i feel it my duty to mention this to you, margaret, although i know that i have ceased to exercise any influence over you. it is all very sad. it is painful to me that you should repudiate our parents' teaching, all the more painful because i never understood as fully as i now do how noble that teaching is, and how much it has done to form my character and tastes, thus preparing me for the position and duties to which i am called." she drew her breath sharply, raising her hands to her forehead, greatly moved by the thought of that high calling. "this for us is the parting of the ways, margaret," she added, a singular effect of dramatic tension in her manner, her pale ungracious face and figure against the red-brick background of the house-front, momentarily illuminated by a swift amazement of lightning rippling and shuddering behind the fir-trees in the west. "the parting of the ways," she repeated. "you go yours, i mine. i deplore your choice. can i do otherwise, seeing how different my own prospects are? but as, after due consideration, you have made that choice, all further argument must, i fear, be wasted upon you." "very well, then--there's an end of the matter." as she spoke margaret crossed the balcony, and, leaning upon the balustrade, looked down into the gloom-shrouded garden. the candle-light streaming outward through the open window touched her shapely back and shoulders, and her bright, curled and folded, auburn hair. "there's an end of it, then," she repeated coldly, rather bitterly. "we agree to part. you might easily have been kinder and nicer to me; but i bear you no ill-will. i suppose you can't help being disagreeable. certainly it's nothing new.--only, nannie, though i don't want to upset you or make a quarrel, there is something i should like to be quite clear about, because, i own, i've been half afraid lately that you were getting yourself into a silly state over adrian savage." she stood upright, looking full at joanna. "i know you've corresponded with him a good deal, so, of course, you may know already. colonel haig told me. he met her in paris, on his way to carlsbad, and was awfully smitten with her. has cousin adrian ever spoken to you about madame st. leger?" silence followed. a distinct menace was perceptible in joanna's tone when she at last answered. "i have never attempted to force myself into adrian's confidence. to do so would be the worst possible taste under existing circumstances. i should never dream of asking him questions regarding his--his former friends." "then you don't know about madame st. leger, nannie?" "i do not know, nor have i the least wish to hear anything respecting any acquaintance of adrian's, except what he himself may choose to tell me." joanna spoke violently, her back against the wall, both in the literal and figurative sense. "that's all very proper, but i really think you ought to hear this. in the end it may save everybody a lot of misunderstanding and worry. i'm pretty sure colonel haig meant me to pass the information on to you. that was why he told me." joanna stretched her arms out on either side, the palms of her hands toward the wall. as her fingers worked, opening and closing, her nails gritted upon the rough surface of the brick. "i do not wish to hear anything, margaret, not anything," she repeated vehemently. "but evidently there's no secret about this whatever. every one, so haig says, knows the whole story in paris. the affair has been going on for ever so long; only until madame st. leger's husband died, of course, there couldn't be any question of marriage. i don't mean to imply the smallest harm. haig says there never has been the slightest scandal. but her husband was years and years her senior, and she is very beautiful--haig raves about her. i have never heard him so enthusiastic over any one. and he was told adrian has been in--" "i refuse to hear anything more. i will not, margaret--no--no--i will not. this is a wicked fabrication. i do not believe it. it is not true, i tell you--it is not true," joanna panted, her finger-nails tearing at the brickwork. "but what possible object could haig have in repeating the story if it wasn't true? i'm awfully sorry to put you in such a fuss, nannie, but haig believes it implicitly himself. there isn't the least doubt of that. and when one comes to think, it does explain adrian's behavior when he was with us. one sees, of course, how improbable it is that a young man like him should not have some attachment which--" joanna quitted the sheltering wall, and came toward the speaker, holding up her hands--the finger-tips frayed and reddened--with a threatening gesture. "go away, margaret!" she cried passionately. "go away! leave me alone--you had much better. this story is false--it is false, i tell you. and i forbid you to repeat it. i will not listen. i will not have it said. go--or i may do something dreadful to you. go--and never speak to me again about this--never dare to do so--never--never--do you hear?" "really, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, nannie," the other protested, half angry, half frightened. "i'm positively astonished at your making such an exhibition of yourself--" but joanna laid hold of her by the shoulders, and pushed her back forcibly through the open window, into the center of the quiet, softly lighted room. "take your candle and go," she said, and her face was terrible, forbidding argument or rebuke. "this is a wicked falsehood, concocted by some jealous person who is trying to alienate adrian's affection from me. who that person is i do not know. i had better not know. it is all very cruel, very dreadful; but i want no explanations, or questions, or advice. above all i want no sympathy. i only want to be alone.--and i warn you, margaret, if you ever betray what has happened here to-night i will take my own life. i shall be certain to find you out sooner or later, and i will not survive betrayal, so my death will lie at your door. remember that, if you are tempted to gossip about me with mr. challoner or marion chase.--and now, pray, go away, and leave me to myself. that is all i ask of you. don't call isherwood and send her to me. i want nothing--nobody. if she came i should not let her in. go away--here is your candle--go away and leave me alone!" joanna locked the door behind her sister, came back to the middle of the room and stood there motionless, her arms stiffly extended. she had no words, no thoughts, but an ache through mind and body of blank misery, at once incomprehensible and deadening from its very completeness. presently she blew out the lights. they irritated her as showing her definite objects, her own reflection in the cheval glass beside the dressing-table, her diary and silver writing-set upon the slab of the open bureau, all the ornaments and fittings of her bedroom. she called on the darkness to cover her, and to cover these things also, blotting remembrance of them out. she needed to make her loneliness more lonely, her solitude more unmitigated and absolute. an intolerable restlessness seized on her. she began to range blindly, aimlessly, to and fro. more than once she knocked against some angle or outstanding piece of furniture, bruising herself; but she was hardly sensible of pain. at last, treading upon the trailing fronts of her pleated _négligé_, she stumbled, fell her length, face downward, and lay exhausted for a time; then slowly dragging herself into a sitting position, she remained there, massed together stupidly, upon the floor--while, through the large, well-ordered, soberly luxurious house, the clocks chimed the hours and half-hours, to be answered by the chime of the stable clock out of doors. as the night drew toward morning the lightning became faint and infrequent behind the fir-trees in the west, for the drought still held and the refreshment of rain would not be yet. but in the gray of the dawn a cool breathing of wind came up from the sea. then, for a minute or so, the great woodland stirred, finding its lost voice; and the tree-tops swayed, singing together to hail the sun-rising and the coming day. the cool draught of air sweeping in at the still open window aroused joanna somewhat from her stupor. in the broadening light she looked about her. the room was in disorder--chairs pushed aside, a table thrown down, well-bound books, fragments of a gold and glass bowl, sprigs of lemon verbena and fading roses, the wallet in which she kept adrian savage's letters lying open, alongside its contents, scattered broadcast upon the ground. joanna stared at these treasured possessions apathetically. she put up her hands to push back her hair, which hung down in heavy strands over her face and shoulders. her fingers felt sticky. they pricked and smarted. she examined them. the nails were nicked and jagged, in places the tips were raw. "i will wait until they have healed," she said half aloud in her thin, toneless voice, "then i will write to adrian and ask him if it is true. but i must wait till they are healed, i think. now i had better sleep. there is nothing else left for me to do." she staggered to her feet, walked unsteadily across the intervening space and threw herself, unkempt and half-dressed as she was, upon the fine embroidered linen sheets and delicate lace coverlet of the satinwood bed. chapter iv "come unto these yellow sands" "a thousand times welcome, my dear savage!" anastasia beauchamp cried, taking adrian's hand in both hers and looking up at him affectionately from beneath a broad-brimmed brown hat crowned by a positive vineyard of purple and white glass grapes and autumn foliage, the whole inwrapped cloudily in a streaming blue gauze veil. "you have played the good samaritan quite long enough in my opinion, and it's high time you bestowed some attention upon the rest of us, though we are neither insane nor conspicuously immoral. and here we all are, that's to say, all of us who matter, in this really quite tidy, comfortable hotel, plus the amiable family bernard, my devoted, despised little byewater and his compatriot lenty b. stacpole--note the inevitable transatlantic initial, i beseech you! clever, excellent fellows both of them, though a trifle slight temperamentally. and here, to complete our circle, you arrive as the god in the car." anastasia's smile bore effective testimony to her appreciation of adrian's handsome looks and gallant bearing. "yes, very much the god in the car, my dear boy," she repeated. "you are the picture of health. playing the good samaritan, it must be conceded, hasn't damaged you.--and i honestly believe, though i won't swear to it for fear of committing an indiscretion, that every one, every one, mind you--save possibly our excellent americans, to whom your near neighborhood may reveal their own temperamental deficiencies--will be as genuinely happy to see you as i am myself." "kindest and most sympathetic of friends," adrian returned, touched both by her words and warmth of manner, "how inexpressibly good you are to me!" "i only pay an old debt. your mother was good to me once--well--" she caught at an end of her streaming veil and brought it to anchor under her chin. "well--when i stood in need of a wise and sweet counselor very badly. and i never forget. gratitude can be--mind, i don't say it always is, but it can be--a very delightful sentiment to entertain.--but now you are expiring for a detailed account of a certain dear lady. at this moment she is down on the beach with the rest of our company. they will be back shortly for tea. so come here with me on to the piazza, while we wait for them, and i'll give you all the news i can." adrian, the brave song of the engines still in his ears, his eyes still dazzled by the seventy-mile rush along the white roads of the rich and pleasant norman country, followed miss beauchamp and her somewhat bacchanalian headgear from the large, light-colored hotel saloon into the arcade, found her a comfortable seat, and stationed himself beside her. from thence he commanded a comprehensive view of the opposite side of the shallow valley, dotted with modest green-shuttered villas and rustic chalets set in ledges of roughly terraced garden. of the rutted road, bordered by elms and sycamores, leading down from the fertile uplands through the straggling gray village of ste. marie to the shore. of the high chalk cliffs forming the headland, which closed the view westward, and the quarter-mile-wide sweep of grass running up the back of it, stunted, bronzed oak and thorn thickets filling in the rounded hollows. of the curving beach, its rows of gaily painted wooden bathing-cabins, and chairs arranged in friendly groups along the fore-shore occupied by women in airy summer costumes,--their docile men-kind, assisted in some cases by white-capped nurses, dealing meanwhile with a slightly turbulent infant population upon the near shingle and the dark mussel and seaweed covered reef of rocks just below. upon that same friendly grouping of chairs adrian's glance directed itself eagerly, seeking a feminine presence acutely interesting to him, but without result. open parasols and hats of brobdingnagian proportions rendered their charming owners practically invisible. wistfully he relinquished the search. then, looking at the scene as a whole, his poetic sense was fired by the spaciousness and freedom of the expanse of gleaming sands for which ste. marie is celebrated. furrowed in places and edged by rare traceries of blue shadow, traversed by sparkling blue-green waterways, interspersed with broad, smooth lagoons--where the rather overdefined forms of pink-armed, pink-legged bathers, clad in abbreviated garments, swam, splashed, and floated--the sands ranged out under a translucent clearness of early afternoon sunshine to the first glinting ripples of the gently inflowing tide. farther still, along the horizon, the solid blue of the intervening belt of deep sea melted, by imperceptible gradations, into low-lying tracts of furrowed, semi-transparent opaline cloud. those gold and silver shimmering levels, washed by and rimmed with heavenly blue, commanded adrian's imagination. he found the strong air sweet to breathe, the keen scent of the brine pleasant to his nostrils. disease, age, death, and kindred ugly concomitants of human experience lost their vraisemblance and meaning. only glad and gracious things were credible. these in multitude innumerable; and along with them, making audible the note of pathos without which even perfect beauty still lacks perfection, the haunting solicitation of the beyond and of the unattained, forever beckoning the feet of man onward with the promise of stranger and more noble joys hidden from him as yet within the womb of the coming years. whereupon anastasia beauchamp, divining in some sort the trend of her companion's meditations, proceeded to pat him genially upon the arm. "my dear young god, 'come down off that roof right away,' as little byewater would put it, and listen to my recital of sordid domestic woes recently suffered by our _belle gabrielle_." adrian became practical, his nose at once pugnacious and furiously busy, on the instant. "great heavens!" he exclaimed, "who has dared to offer her annoyance?" "mice, my dear savage, beetles, and, to be quite plain with you, drains. yes, you may well make a grimace. that mild-looking little chalet yonder across the valley--the one with the parterre of marigolds--which she had rented without preliminary inspection, proved a veritable pest-house. when i arrived in july--mainly with a view to safeguarding your interests, since frankly i hold most seaside places in abhorrence--" "how can i ever be sufficiently grateful to you!" the young man murmured fervently. "i have no child--and--perhaps, at my age, even the ghost, even the fiction, of motherhood is better than nothing.--but this is a digression--sentimental or scientific, which? to return. i found madame vernois nervous and debilitated, little bette with a temperature and sore throat, the indispensable maid henriette drowned in tears and sulks, and our poor, beautiful gabrielle in a most admired distraction." harrowed by which description, her hearer gave way to smothered imprecations. "exactly. at the time i too made little remarks. then i sniffed once--twice. twice was quite sufficient. better sacrifice a month's rent than be poisoned. without ceremony i bundled them over here, bag and baggage, since when, dear creatures, they flourish. the bernards, who had taken the villa next door to the pest-house, also had cause for dissatisfaction. they joined us. this addition to our party i could have dispensed with. i entertain the highest respect for m. bernard's acquirements, only i could wish he had learned early in life that imparting information and making conversation are by no means synonymous. never am i alone with him for over five minutes but he positively lapidates me with the remains of the architectural past. conversation should be interchange of opinions, ideas, experiences, not a bombardment with facts which one is perfectly competent to read up for oneself if one's a mind to. should you ever be tempted to start a hobby--we none of us know what we may come to!--avoid archæology, my dear savage, i implore you, out of retrospective tenderness for my sufferings during the last few weeks! yes--and then i must record one truly alarming episode. the great zélie and a horde of her nauseating adherents threatened a descent upon madame st. leger. promptly i engaged all the vacant rooms in the hotel--fortunately they weren't very numerous--until the peril was over-past." "you are not only the kindest and the most superb of friends, but you are a great general. you should command armies," adrian declared. "forever shall archæology be anathema to me!" "saving the proposed raid of the objectionable zélie, our history has been of the simplest," anastasia continued. "people, pleasant and unpleasant, have come and gone; we remain--and there's the sum total of it. now tell me about yourself. how long do we keep you?" "alas, only until this evening. i must go back to rouen, where my letters await me. we have been moving daily from place to place, as inclination suggested. to-morrow i must rejoin rené dax--for a few days, a week probably, to observe how the new treatment prospers. it is decided that he shall remain in the country-house, near caen, of an intelligent young doctor who has been in attendance upon him during our touring. his man-servant, of course, is with him. and there he can also have his pet animals." "will he recover?" adrian raised his shoulders and spread out his hands. "god knows!" he answered. "he is quite gentle, quite tractable. at moments he is irresistibly entertaining. on his good days he composes little poems of an exquisite fancifulness and fragility--iridescent flowers as of spun glass. but whether he will ever draw or paint again is an open question." "it is pathetic," miss beauchamp put in musingly. "what a sequel to his extravagant popularity!" and both lapsed into silence, looking out across the immense expanse of gleaming sands. adrian was the first to speak. he did so with uncertain hesitation. "you said it was high time i came, _tres chère mademoiselle_. does that imply that i have stayed away too long? i feared to be precipitate, lest i might appear to take unfair advantage of the--" "the studio escapade--precisely." "and employ it to further my own interests. on that account i have resolutely effaced myself. to do so has constituted a severe penance; but to do otherwise would, in my opinion, have shown an odious lack of imagination and of delicacy." "i venture to doubt whether in affairs of the heart delicacy has not more miscarriages of happiness to answer for than precipitancy! the word too much, as between man and woman, is more easily forgiven than the word too little." "it is inconceivable," adrian broke out hotly, all of a fume and a fluster, "that madame st. leger should mistake my motives." "take it from me, my dear savage," anastasia replied, with a finely humorous smile, "that exactly in proportion as a woman is indifferent is she just and clear-sighted. let her care for one of you tiresome male creatures ever, yes, ever so little, and those praiseworthy qualities suffer instant suspension. reason and probability pick up their petticoats and scuttle. she develops a positively inordinate ingenuity in misconstruction and mistake." adrian turned an eagerly inquiring countenance upon the speaker, his whole soul in his eyes. "but, dearest, most deeply valued friend, tell me, tell me, may i believe that she does then care?" and asking it he bared his head, instinctively doing homage to that most lovely idea. miss beauchamp's smile changed in character, softening to a sweetness which held something of relinquishment and farewell. "ah! the good years, the good years," she said, "when love and all the world is young!--may you believe that she cares, my dear boy? well, without its being the least unnatural, she very well might care, i fancy. but you really must find that out for yourself. listen--the chirruping of the children. here they all come." she rose and went forward; and adrian, an odd tingling sensation in his blood, went forward too and stood beside her under the central arch of the arcade watching the little procession winding its way by the rough path up the broken grass slope from the beach. first, slender-legged, short-kilted, fresh as flowers, frisking lambkin-like and chattering in high-pitched, clear little voices, came bette and her two little friends. next m. bernard, dignified, serious, robust, wearing light-brown tweeds, panama in hand, decidedly warm, expounding, recounting, archæologically dilating to madame vernois--refined, fragile, dressed in black--who leaned upon his arm. at a little distance madame bernard, small, fair-haired, neat-featured, pretty, inclining to stoutness, her person rigorously controlled by the last word in corsets and clothed in the last word of mauve linen costumes and mauve and white hats. she was not an ardent pedestrian, and mounted laboriously with the help of a long-handled parasol, uttering reproachful little ejaculations and complaints the while for the benefit of the two young americans, who, good-naturedly loaded up with the ladies' folding chairs, rugs and cushions, followed close behind. and there, apparently, was an end of the procession. whereupon adrian turned to anastasia with a deeply injured countenance and a quite lamentably orphaned look in his handsome eyes. "madame st. leger is not with them? what can have occurred? where then can she be?" he demanded, in tones of child-like disappointment and distress. "there--there!" anastasia returned, merrily. "see, no ill-chance has befallen your goddess, my dear distracted young god. look--look--near the cliff edge, to the right." then noting the change which came over adrian's expression and bearing as his eyes followed her pointing hand, miss beauchamp's broadly amused smile faded. she shook her head, sighed, turned away, while the witty, large-featured face grew gray, aged, sibylline beneath the shadow of her broad-brimmed, vine-crowned, slightly rampageous hat. "like to like," she murmured. "however, others before now have gone through that enchanted and perilous gate! only may the almighty permit these two not to cram their romance into one flimsy, purple-patched, paper-bound yellow-back, but print it openly and honestly in three good, stout volumes, of which all save the first twenty or thirty pages deal with the married state." chapter v in which adrian makes disquieting acquaintance with the long arm of coincidence adrian sat well back in the car. the tires ate up the long perspectives of white road, while the brave music of the engines made accompaniment to the lyrics of his thought. on either side the lines of poplars galloped, and behind them the great gold, green and rusty-red squares of the crops, marked only by the nature of their respective growths, innocent of dividing fence or hedge-row, swished back, half the circle, as on a turn-table. in the valleys herds of oxen and stout-built, white-bellied, tortoise-shell cows moved leisurely through the rich meadow-grass. prosperous gray homesteads, flanked by mellow wide-ranging barns and sheds, orchards of reddening apples, and yards containing a cheerfully garrulous population of poultry, calves, and pigs, came into view only to vanish backward along with the rest. in places, tracts of forest, the trees crowded and for the most part very tall and slight, as is the habit of northern french woodlands, made a dark stain amid the gilded brightness, casting long shadows across the downward-sloping pastures at their foot. a note of pastel blue in farmers' and peasants' clothing, now and again of lustrous dappled gray in the barrel or buttocks of some well-shaped draught-horse, of orange or rose in a child's frock or walled garden close, of white in airing linen, struck momentarily into observation. but dominant was the gilt of the level sunlight, the gold of the harvest, and the silver powdering dust of the highway. all these found sublimated repetition in the iridescence of a sunset modulated to rare half-tones by the near neighborhood of the sea. and adrian sat well back in the car, restful yet keen, affected sensuously and passively rather than consciously and actively by the fair, fruitful landscape fleeting to right and left of him, revising his impressions of the past day. those impressions were, as he told himself, in a high degree both stimulating and poetic. he had been happy, very happy; but his happiness was of the traveling rather than the stationary order. no touch of satiety showed in it; rather much haunting solicitation of the unattained and the beyond. from pisgah height he had beheld the land of promise, for the first time reasonably secure of entrance into that ardently coveted and most delectable country. but the waters of jordan still rolled between; and whether these would pile themselves politely apart, bidding him cross dry-shod, or whether a pretty smart bit of swimming would be required before he touched the opposite bank, he was as yet by no means sure. _enfin_--he could swim for it, if all came to all, and would swim for it gaily and strongly enough! as that afternoon he first caught sight of gabrielle st. leger standing, tall and svelte in her light summer dress, upon a grass-grown mound on the turn of the slope, her strong yet pliant figure detaching itself in high relief against the immense expanse of ste. marie's blue lagoons and gleaming sands, adrian apprehended that she too suffered those solicitations of the unattained and the beyond. her attitude, indeed, was eloquent of questioning expectation. it recalled to him the superb and ill-fated drawing of her, uplifted amid the cruel and witty obscenities of poor rené dax's studio--the exalted madonna of the future, her child upon her arm, going forth from things habitual and familiar in obedience to the call of modernity, of the new and tremendous age. resemblance was there; yet as he looked a difference in her to-day's attitude soon disclosed itself to this analytic though ardent lover. for, assuredly, the sentiment of this second and living picture of her was less abstract, more warm and directly human? not devotion to a cause, to an impersonal ideal or idea, inspired that outlooking of questioning expectation across the shimmering levels to the freedom of the open sea, but some stirring of the heart, some demand of her sweet flesh for those natural joys which were its rightful portion. this difference--and then another, which, even here by himself in the rapidly running car, adrian approached sensitively and with inward deprecation. in to-day's picture she had been alone. she had not carried her child on her arm; so that only the woman, beautiful and youthful, not the already made mother, was present. and the above fact, it must be owned, contributed in no small degree to the young man's content. a thousand times, notwithstanding his love of analysis, he had refused and shied away from analysis of precisely this--namely, the feeling he entertained toward little bette. she was a delicious being, granted; but she was also poor horace st. leger's child, and from much which this implied adrian did quite incontestably shrink. _la belle gabrielle_ might still be, as he sincerely believed still was, essentially _la belle au bois dormant_, just as he himself was the princely adventurer selected by providence for the very agreeable task of waking her up. yet, during that protracted sleep of hers, things had happened, primitive and practical things, to the actuality of which delicious mademoiselle bette's existence bore indubitable witness. hence to carry away with him that other picture of gabrielle as seen to-day, interrogating the fair sunlit spaces unaccompanied, gave him quite peculiar satisfaction. in the glow of which his thoughts now turned affectionately to the memory of poor horace st. leger. for wasn't _la belle gabrielle_, after all, his, and not adrian's, discovery? and wasn't he, adrian, consequently under a gigantic debt of gratitude to horace for so speedily taking his departure and leaving the coast clear? he might have lived on--agonizing reflection!--ten, twenty, even--since centenarians are at present so conspicuously the fashion--a good thirty years longer; lived on, indeed, until it ceased to matter much whether he took his departure or not. thinking over all which, adrian forgave the poor man his abbreviated enjoyment of paternity, and in so doing made his final peace with the existence of little bette. not to have done so would, in his opinion, have betrayed a culpably ungenerous and churlish spirit. the more as when--her attention attracted by the pretty outcry of little bette herself and of madame vernois--gabrielle turning her gaze landward became aware of his presence, the light in her face and quick welcoming gesture of her hand showed his advent as far from displeasing to her. both expression and action struck him so spontaneous and unstudied that, without undue vanity, he might well believe himself to count for something in those allurements of the beyond and the unattained. delightfully certain it was, in any case, that she descended with haste from her grassy monticule, and--he could most joyfully have sworn--put some restraint upon herself so as to advance and offer her greetings with due soberness and dignity. all through his visit her manner had remained gentle, serious, touched even with a hint of embarrassment. from these signs he drew most hopeful auguries. after tea, under the quite perceptibly out-of-joint noses of the two excellent young americans, she had drawn him aside and plied him with questions respecting his nursing of rené dax. in response he gave her a detailed account of the last two months. with the artist's happy faculty for playing two mutually destructive parts at one and the same time in all sincerity, he mourned rené's mental affliction and felt the pity of it while looking into gabrielle's eyes, watching her every change of expression and reveling in the emotion his eloquent recital evoked. her quickness of sympathy and comprehension were enchanting. never had he found her so responsive. never had he felt so closely united to her in sentiment.--and that the egregious tadpole, of all living creatures, should prove so excellent a stalking-horse! putting aside the high delight of having madame st. leger as a listener, he found sensible relief in speaking freely of the subject. for the responsibility of his position had been severe and wearing. especially had it been so during those, at first, frequently recurrent periods of acute mania, when his affection and philosophy alike were strained to breaking-point, making him doubt whether the protracted struggle to keep wayward soul and distempered body together was either merciful or obligatory. if this unhappy lunatic of genius was so passionately desirous of letting loose that same wayward soul of his through a gaping wound in his throat, why the deuce should he, adrian, in company with three or four other strong and healthy men, be at such tremendous pains to prevent it? mightn't the poor tadpole know very much best what was best for him? and wouldn't it, therefore, be more humane and intelligent to leave nicely sharpened razors within easy reach, ignoring the probable consequences of such intentional negligence? are there not circumstances which render connivance at suicide more than permissible? time and again he had argued the vexed question with himself as to the binding necessity, even the practical morality, of preserving human life when, through disease, life has so cruelly lost its distinctively human characteristics and values. "and," gabrielle st. leger remarked, with a smile edged by engagingly gentle mockery, "then invariably ended, against your better judgment, by still carefully removing the razors!" that same smile dwelt in the young man's memory as singularly rich with promise, justifying the belief that a lifetime spent in _la belle gabrielle's_ society would fail to exhaust her power of--to put it vulgarly--jumping the unexpected upon you, and bracing your interest by the firing off of all manner of fine little surprises. monotony, he thanked heaven, would very certainly not be among the dangers to be feared in marriage with madame st. leger! but while his imagination played about these agreeable matters the music of the engines changed its tune, the brakes gripped under martin the chauffeur's boot-sole, and the car slowed down to a crawl in passing a flock of sheep. two large dogs, bobtailed and shaggy, their red mouths widely open as they raced barking to and fro, rounded up the scared and scattering flock into a compact, bleating, palpitating mass of bister color picked out with rusty black upon the dust-whitened strip of turf by the roadside. the shepherd, tall and lean, a long staff in his hand, his felt hat, hawk-nosed face, unkempt beard, ragged cloak and string-girt leggings, presenting a study in rich browns and umbers under the last glinting gold of the sunset, gesticulated and shouted, directing the evolutions of the racing dogs in a harsh and guttural patois. the scene, a somewhat violent pastoral, stamped itself as a picturesque inset upon the wide-margined page of adrian's reflections. the sheep once safely cleared and the pace again quickening, his thought centered complacently upon the moment of his farewells. for surely these showed handsomely on the credit side of his day's pleasure? the friendly little company--not exclusive of the forgiving though cheapened americans--had gathered at the hotel entrance to witness his start. anastasia's voice and manner were rich with meaning and affectionate admonition as she invited him speedily to return. in the expression of madame vernois's refined face he seemed to read something approaching appeal as she gracefully seconded that invitation. while gabrielle herself--she standing a little apart from the rest, nearer to the waiting automobile--answered, not lightly, but with a sweet and grave dignity, on his asking her: "and you, _chère madame et amie_, have i your invitation also? may i soon come back? without your sanction it would, perhaps, be preferable, be wiser, more desirable for me to stay away." "i, too, hope you may find it possible soon to return here. if your doing so depends in any degree upon my sanction i give that sanction readily." and thus speaking she had looked him full in the eyes. whereupon, though furiously unwilling to quit the dear sight and sound of her, this very modern young god mounted up into his very modern car in quite celestial serenity of spirit. but as the dusk deepened and the lights of rouen multiplied in the distance, happy retrospect gave place to happy on-looking, since, at nine and twenty, no sound and wholesome man seriously questions the existence of earthly bliss. yes, a week, possibly even a few days, would suffice to assure him all went well with rené in his new quarters. then he might reckon himself at liberty to return to ste. marie and the dear people there. and, once there, no overstrained delicacy should withhold him from putting it to the touch with gabrielle st. leger. bowing to anastasia's advice, he would risk saying the word too much, so as to avoid the greater danger of saying the word too little;--risk it the more gladly because he gratefully believed it mightn't prove the word too much, but the word acceptable, even the word actually, though silently and proudly, waited for. the immediate consequence of which belief was that, the car striking into the town through the _faubourg beauvosine_ and traveling the boulevard and the _rue st. hilaire_ successively, it appeared to adrian in act of traversing an altogether heavenly city, whose now poetic ancient buildings, now stately new ones, were alike built of silver, and whose deep-resounding streets, in the growing brilliance of the lamp-light, were paved with gold. such extravagant tricks, even in this machine-made, mammon-worshiping twentieth century, can love still contrive to play upon the happy lover! on the way to the hotel, where he had left his light traveling baggage when passing through from caen in the morning, adrian alighted at the central post-office, in the _rue jeanne d'arc_, to claim his two-days' mail forwarded from paris. coming out, he stood awhile at the edge of the pavement verifying the several items. two consignments of proofs--this pleased him. a slim one from the office, containing, as he knew, his fortnightly _chronique_ of current home and foreign politics for the forthcoming number of the review. the other--and his glance settled upon it affectionately--was stouter, holding the slips of a story of some forty pages. into that story he had put all the imaginative and verbal skill of which he, as yet, felt himself capable. it was a drama, at once pathetic and brutal, of the paris underworld which he had this year so intimately investigated during his unsuccessful search for bibby smyrthwaite. he felt keen to know how it looked and read in print; for in the back of his mind lurked a hope that just conceivably it might prove a little masterpiece and assure his place among those writers of contemporary fiction whose literary output really counts. and here for the moment it must be owned the lover was called upon to make room for the artist, while adrian promised himself the best of good hours, after dinner to-night, in revising punctuation, correcting misprints, and leisurely making those carefully considered alterations in wording so absorbing to one emulous of combining grace and high finish with pungency and vivacity of style. tenderly he laid the packet down on the seat of the waiting car, and raised his eyes as in invocation to the star-pierced blue of the summer sky roofing the perspective of silver-gray houses and silver-gilt street. for mightn't he take it as a fortunate omen that the proofs should come to hand on this so fortunate day? omen that the story would strike home and its readers acclaim him as a doer of notable and living work? he glanced rapidly at the envelopes of his private letters; and, while thus occupied, became aware that martin, the chauffeur, was engaged--as not infrequently--in an altercation. the man was a clever driver, and to him, adrian, a willing and trustworthy servant. but his temper was inconveniently inflammable, and he inclined to pick quarrels with half the men and make amorous overtures to more than half the women he met, thus involving both himself and his master in superfluously dramatic incidents. under provocation his language became variegated and astonishingly ripe. epithets of the latter description he was now in process of discharging upon some individual who had knocked up against him, in passing, as he stood at the edge of the pavement bending down to examine the tire of the near front wheel of the car. "martin, stop that, if you please," adrian said, warningly, over his shoulder, and returned to the survey of his letters. there was one from anastasia beauchamp. bless the dear woman, wasn't she indeed a jewel of a friend! and there was one, black-bordered, and addressed, though less neatly than usual, in joanna smyrthwaite's small, scholarly handwriting. adrian was conscious of impatience, of an unreasoning sense of injury. for why, of all days in the year, should he hear from joanna to-day? he had thought of her seldom lately, owing to preoccupation with and anxiety regarding rené dax; and it struck him as a rather wanton smirching of his delightful day's record and subtle menace to the success of his precious little story that the rather unpleasant matter of poor joanna should thus obtrude itself. undefinable apprehension of coming trouble flashed through his mind. all this was a matter of seconds; but during those seconds, the voice of the choleric chauffeur had risen from a gusty snarl into the screech of a blazing sky-rocket, bursting finally into a star-shower of unrecordable invective. adrian, imposingly tall in his long dust-colored frieze motor-coat, wheeled round upon the man angrily. "ah, _par exemple!_ but this is intolerable!" he exclaimed. "have i not already commanded you to be silent? do you propose to disgrace me, as well as yourself, by fighting in the open street? behave respectably, not like an idiot. do you hear--get in behind your steering-wheel and keep quiet until i am ready to start." "but, monsieur, the fellow has grossly insulted me. he cannoned into me by design, the thrice filthy animal, the sodden ass, and would have rolled me in the gutter had i not skilfully braced myself. clearly his intention was robbery. he is a danger to society, a thief, a pickpocket. only let monsieur look for himself, and declare whether a more verminous gaol-bird has ever been presented for his inspection?" and looking, adrian beheld the chauffeur, fiery-eyed, with bristling black mustache, and, struggling in his vicious grip, joanna smyrthwaite herself--joanna dissipated, degraded, with prominent, blear blue eyes and weak hanging underlip, masquerading in man's attire, as in those infamous, now obliterated drawings upon rené dax's studio wall. disgust, and a vague apprehension of something unnatural and outside reason, seized on adrian savage. the sight was loathsome, to a degree, both in suggestion and in fact. then he understood; and, understanding, suffered a moment of acute indecision. but a crowd was collecting. the police might arrive upon the scene. making a strong effort to surmount his disgust, he said: "let him go, martin. i know him. i will explain to you presently. now i require your help." then he added rapidly, in english: "pardon my servant's rudeness. in the end you shall not have cause to regret it. you are william smyrthwaite--bibby--are you not?" martin relinquished his hold sulkily. his victim, dazed and breathless, stood at bay; a ring of curious, contemptuous faces behind him, and adrian, stern, yet excited, and with difficulty repressing evidences of his repugnance, in front. "and, if i am bibby smyrthwaite, what the devil is that to you?" he answered petulantly in english. "i never set eyes on you before. why should you interfere with me? haven't i as much right to the pavement as that liveried brute of yours? i've got a job as cab-washer. if i'm late at the yard i shall forfeit my pay. and i want my pay." his loose-lipped mouth twisted miserably and tears began to dribble down his sunken cheeks. "let me go," he blubbered. "i haven't done you any harm, and i want my pay." then adrian, moved by compassion, came close to him and spoke kindly. "see here, my poor boy," he said. "i am commissioned by persons who have a regard for you to provide for you. you need not worry about your pay. i will take care of all that. for months i have tried to find you to tell you this. i am adrian savage, a cousin of your late father, and his executor." the tears ceased, and the young man's face was overspread by an expression of almost imbecile rapture. adrian turned sick. exactly thus had joanna looked, more than once. "is my father dead, then?" bibby asked. "yes, he is dead," adrian replied, in bewilderment. bibby reeled forward and squatted on the broad footboard of the car, his head thrown back, holding his sides, his thin, loose-jointed limbs and body writhing with and shaken by hysterical laughter. "dead!" he quavered out--"dead! by god! they've got him at last, then--got him, the stinking, slave-driving old hypocrite! and, please god, they're cooking him now--now--at this very identical minute--cooking him to a turn, down in hell." chapter vi concerning a curse, and the manner of its going home to roost the room, furnished in dark walnut, was upholstered in red utrecht velvet, the walls hung with a striped fawn-and-red paper. a mirror, in a florid gilt frame, was fixed above the low mantel-shelf. the atmosphere held odors reminiscent of cigarettes, patchouli, and food in process of cooking. the dinner-table had, by adrian's orders, been placed near the central window, the two casements of which stood open to the ground. after so many hours spent in the open air, dining in present company he felt the necessity of such freshness as he could by any means get. in the center of the long flagged courtyard the big palmate leaves of a row of pollarded chestnuts caught the light coming from the offices on the left. white-coated, white-capped _chefs_ and scullions passed to and fro. an old liver-colored bitch, basset as to her legs and pointer as to her body, waddled after them, her nose in the air, sniffing, permanently hopeful of scraps. on the flags, just outside the salon window, three tabby kittens played--stalking one another round pots of fuchsia and musk, bouncing out, leaping in the air, spitting, galloping sideways, highly diabolic with teapot-handle tails. farther along the courtyard, hidden by the lower branches of the intervening trees, a stable-helper sang and whistled as he washed down the hotel omnibus. the servants talked, laughed, scolded over their work. almost incessantly from the _rue jeanne d'arc_ came the long-drawn rattle and swish of the electric trams. and opposite to adrian at table, clad in a complete outfit of his, adrian's clothes--a white flannel suit with a faint four-thread black stripe on it, a soft, pale blue shirt, an immaculate collar and narrow black tie--sat william smyrthwaite, outwardly, at all events, surprisingly transformed. adrian had hesitated to propose him as an inmate; but an up-to-date motor-car, a ruffling chauffeur, a well-built suit-case and kit-bag bearing an english name, a very good paris address, are calculated to promote not only faith, but charity. the hotel proprietor, a short, fat, bland little man with a dancing step and a shrewd, rapacious norman eye, was sympathy itself. "that monsieur should remove his effects and seek another, an inferior, hotel would desolate him, was not to be thought of! he would arrange the affair on the instant. such lamentable lapses will occur at times--are there not, alas, members of the most respectable, the most distinguished, families who turn badly? let monsieur, then, rest assured he was infinitely touched by the confidence monsieur reposed in him. and, see"--tapping his forehead with a fat forefinger--"the little suite at the back on the ground floor, giving upon the courtyard, became precisely this morning vacant. true, these were not the rooms he should have selected for monsieur's occupation; but, under the circumstances, it was conceivable they would serve. they were comfortable though modest. they were retired--two bed-chambers connected by a salon. there monsieur and his guest could dine in private, secure from the intrusive observation of strangers. but, indeed, no--monsieur was too amiable! he himself was undeserving of thanks, since did it not become evident that monsieur was engaged in a work of the highest benevolence--the attempted reclamation of an unhappy fellow-creature?--with which work to be associated, even in the humblest capacity, could not but be esteemed by any person of feeling as a privilege." then with a rapid change of manner, becoming autocratic, napoleonic: "gustave," he cried, over his shoulder, "_portez les bagages de ces messieurs aux numeros sept et huit._"--and waving adrian to follow, he bounced lightly away down the corridor; his eyebrows drawn together as he inwardly debated how many francs extra he dared charge for the utrecht-velvet upholstered suite without seeming too flagrantly extortionate. after that first outbreak of unseemly rejoicing at the announcement of his father's death, young smyrthwaite subsided into a state of acquiescent apathy. he did as he was bid, but with what mental reservations, what underlying thoughts or emotions, adrian failed to discover. somewhere, in this weak, slipshod creature, he suspected a bed-rock of obstinacy. he also suspected predatory instincts. or, was it only that the instinct of self-preservation had taken--as under the stress of poverty it almost must take--a predatory form? at the beginning of dinner smyrthwaite spoke little, but sat, his elbows upon the table, his head bent low over his plate, putting away food with the sullen haste of an animal suspicious of its fellow-animal's intentions and appetite. and when adrian, to whom this exhibition of gluttony proved anything but agreeable, hinted civilly there was no cause for hurry, he looked across the nicely ordered table with a half-sneering yet oddly boyish smile. "oh! it's all very well for you," he said. "you're safe enough to have your solid three meals to-morrow, and all the other blooming to-morrows as long as you live. but, i tell you, i mean to make jolly sure of this meal while i can get it. i've learned not to put much trust in to-morrows. i want to be on the safe side, so that if the wind changes, as far as this meal goes, anyhow, i shall have nothing to repent of." "but, my good fellow, the wind will not change. that is exactly what i have been trying to assure you," adrian interposed, pity and repulsion playing see-saw within him to a bewildering extent. "for the future you can be just as secure of three meals a day as i myself am if you choose." "bully!" smyrthwaite said. "i wonder! the old man cut up well?" he added, his face again bent down over the table. "your father left a large fortune," adrian replied, repulsion now very much on the top. "to me? not likely!" "to your sisters. and joanna"--adrian hesitated, conscious of a singular distaste to using the christian name--"at once devoted a considerable sum of money to be employed, in the event of your return, for your maintenance." with his coarse, thick-jointed fingers smyrthwaite rubbed a bit of bread round his plate, sopping up the remains of the gravy. "that's no more than right," he said, "if you come to think of it. why should the girls have all the stuff?" his hand went out furtively across the table to a dish of braised beef and richly cooked vegetables which he proceeded to transfer to his own plate. "all the same, it's nice of nannie. we were rather chummy in the old days--the blasted old days which i've nearly forgot. but i didn't suppose she cared still. poor old nannie! what a beastly hash my father made of our lives! nannie ought to have married merriman. then i should have had a home. andrew's a bit peachy, but he's a rare good sort." he slushed in the food silently for a while; and adrian, anxious to avoid observation of the details of that process, watched the kittens sporting round the flower-pots on the flags just outside. he had searched for bibby, spending time, money, even risking personal safety, in that search. he had found bibby. he had brought him here to civilized quarters. he had clothed him from head to foot.--adrian felt a pang, for they were such nice clothes! he was rather fond of that particular flannel suit. really it cost him not a little to part with it; and, he could almost fancy, hanging now upon bibby's angular, narrow-chested frame, that it bore the plaintive air of a thing unkindly treated, consciously humiliated and disgraced. he apologized to it half sentimentally, half humorously, in spirit.--and then because the small things of life whip one's sense of the great ones into higher activity, the trivial matter of the ill-used flannel suit brought home to adrian with disquieting clearness the difficulties of this whole third _affaire_ smyrthwaite in which he had, as it now occurred to him, rather recklessly embarked. as if the two first _affaires_, those of father and daughter, hadn't been enough, he must needs go and add that of the degenerate son and brother! and who, after all, would thank him? wasn't he very much a fool, then, for his pains? psychologically and in the abstract, as an example of lapse and degradation, smyrthwaite presented an interesting and instructive study. but in the concrete, as a guest, a companion, as a young man, a relation, moreover, to be reclaimed from evil courses and socially reinstated, the situation took on quite other color. looking across the table now as, his plate again empty, bibby sank back in his chair, slouched together, his hands in his trousers pockets, his blue eyes turned upon the door, anxiously awaiting the advent of the _garçon_ with the next course, adrian was tempted to deplore his own philanthropic impulse. all hope of pulling the boy up to any permanently decent level of living seemed so unspeakably remote. and, as though some silent transmission of thought had taken place between them, bibby's next speech went to confirm adrian's fears. "you say if i choose," he began; "but the question is, can i choose? you see i'm so beastly out of the habit of all that.--now i'm getting full i seem to understand things, so i'd best talk at once." "i ask nothing better than that you should talk," adrian put in, good-temperedly. for heaven's sake, let him at least gain whatever scientific knowledge of and from bibby he could! "presently i shall turn sleepy," the other continued, with a curiously unblushing directness of statement. "i always do when i'm first filled up after going short. you see, i've never set eyes on you before, and you come along and tell me some blooming fairy story about poor old nannie and her money. it may be true or it may be false, but anyhow i don't seem to tumble to it. i fancy these clothes and i fancy this feed, but i don't feel to go much beyond that.--chicken?--yes, rather. leave me the breast. golly! i do like white meat! two or three years ago it would have set me on fire. i should have felt like bucking up and making play with it--repentant prodigal, don't you know, and all that kind of rot. but now i don't seem to be able to bother much. if it was winter i suppose i should be more ready to fix on to it, because i'm afraid of the cold. when you're empty half the time cold makes you so beastly sick; and then i get chilblains and my skin chaps. but in the summer i'd just as soon lie out.--say, can i have the rest of the fowl?" "by all means," adrian replied, handing him the dish. "you see, it's like this," he went on, picking up the bones and ripping off the meat with his teeth, "i've knocked about so long it's grown second nature. i have to move on. i can't stick to one job or stop in one place. i suppose that's left over from the old days, when my father was always down on me with some infernal row or other. he hated me like poison. it's a trick englishmen have with their sons. they've not got the knack of paternity like you french. i got into the habit of feeling i'd best run because he was sure to be after me; and that's a sort of feeling you can't be quit of. it keeps you always looking over your shoulder to see what's coming next. people haven't been half nasty to me on the whole, and i mightn't have done so badly if i could have stuck. a little mincing devil of an artist, with a head like the dome of st. paul's--draws for the comic papers--you may know him--rené dax--" "yes, i know him," adrian said. "he picked me up this winter when i was just pitching myself into the river. it was cold, you see, and i'd been drinking. it's silly to drink when you're empty. it gives you the hump. he took me home with him, and drew funny pictures of me. they were pretty low down some of them, but they made me laugh. he did me very well as to food and all that, but two or three days of it was enough. i couldn't stand the confinement. i pinched what i could and left." adrian raised his eyebrows and passed his hand down over his black beard meditatively. a sweet youth, a really sweet and promising youth this!--rené had never mentioned the thieving incident to him, and it explained much. it also showed rené's conception of the duty entailed by hospitality in an admirable light. even active exercise of the predatory instinct must be passed over in silence in the case of a guest. "what he paid me, with what i took, kept me going quite a good while," smyrthwaite said, stretching and yawning audibly. "but i'm turning thundering sleepy. i told you i should. i'll be shot if i can sit up on end jawing any more like this," he added querulously. "you might let a fellow have ten minutes' nap." ten minutes, twenty minutes, all the minutes of the unnumbered ages spent by bibby in slumber would, adrian just then felt, supply a more than grateful respite! he lit a cigarette and stepped out of the open window on to the flags, thereby startling the tabby kittens, who, with arched backs and frenzied spittings, vanished behind the flower-pots. an arc lamp was fixed to the wall just over the kitchen entrance. one of the white-clad _chefs_ brought out a chair, and sat there reading a flimsy, little two-page evening paper. the heavy foliage of the chestnuts hung motionless. in the distance a bugle sounded to quarters. and adrian thought of gabrielle st. leger, standing on the grass-grown monticle looking across the gleaming sands of ste. marie into the beckoning future. when next they met he would speak, she would answer--and adrian's eyes grew at once very gay and very gentle. he pushed up the ends of his mustache and smoothed the tip of his pointed beard. then he remembered on a sudden that in the houroosh over the finding of bibby he had forgotten all about his letters. so he took them out of his pocket and looked at them. it wasn't necessary to read dear anastasia's letter now, since he knew pretty well what it must contain, having seen her so lately. but here was joanna's black-edged envelope. he shrugged his shoulders.--oh! this interminable _famille_ smyrthwaite! why, the dickens, had his great-aunt committed the maddening error of marrying into it? with an expressive grimace, followed by an expression of saintly resignation, adrian tore the envelope open. the letter was a long one, worse luck! he read a few lines, and moved forward to where the arc lamp gave a fuller light. "_par exemple!_" he said, once or twice; also, very softly, "_sapristi!_" drawing in his breath. then all lurking sense of comedy deserted him. he straightened himself up, his face bleaching beneath its brown coating of sunburn and his eyes growing hot. the old dog waddled across from the offices and planted herself in front of him, wagging a disgracefully illegitimate tail, looking up in his face, sniffing and feebly grinning. he paid no heed to her feminine cajoleries; paid no heed to the fact that his cigarette had gone out, or to the antics of the again emergent kittens, or to the intermittent sounds from the courtyard and city, or to the all-pervasive stable and kitchen smells. "dear cousin adrian," joanna's letter ran, "i find it difficult and even painful to write to you, yet i can no longer refrain from writing. in refraining i might be guilty of an injustice toward you. this nerves me to write. i have suffered very greatly in the past week. i know suffering may purify, but i am not purified by this suffering. on the contrary, the tendencies of my nature which i least approve are brought into prominence by it. i owe it to whatever is best in me; i owe it to you--yes, above all to you--to take steps to check this dreadful florescence of evil in myself. "but before explaining the principal cause of my suffering, i must tell you this. you may have heard from margaret. in that case forgive my repeating what you already know. she has engaged herself to mr. challoner. the news came to me as a great shock. from every point of view such a marriage is displeasing to me. i have regretted mr. challoner's influence over margaret. already i cannot but see she is deteriorating, and adopting a view of life dreadfully wanting in elevation of feeling and thought. i know you will sympathize with me in this, and that you will also deplore margaret's choice. indeed, the thought of the effect that this news must have upon your mind has caused me much sorrow. you may so reasonably object to mr. challoner entering our family. i have never considered that he appreciated your great superiority to himself both in position and in attainments, or treated you with the deference due to you. mr. challoner is not a gentleman, and i am humiliated by the prospect of his becoming nearly connected with you by marriage. you are too just to visit this upon me; but it must color your thought of me and of all our future relation. "i speak of our future relation; and there the agony of suspense in which i have lately lived overcomes me. i can hardly write. believe me, adrian, i do not doubt you; i know you are incapable of an inconsiderate, still more of a cruel, action. my trust in you is as deep as my affection. it is myself whom i distrust. knowing my absence of talent and beauty, knowing my own faults of character from the first, the wonder of your love for me has been almost overpowering, almost incredible." adrian folded the thin sheets together and walked back and forth over the flags, looking up at the fair night sky above the big-leaved chestnuts. "my god! poor thing! poor joanna! what can one do? poor thing!" he said. then he stood still again in the lamplight and re-opened the letter. "and hence, when gossiping reports reach me, however contrary to my knowledge of you and however unworthy of credence they may be, aware as i am of my many shortcomings, they torture me. i cannot control my mind. it places dreadful ideas before me. i realize my utter dependence upon you for all that makes life desirable--i could almost say for all that makes its continuance possible. before you came to us, at the time of papa's death this winter, i was unhappy, but passively unhappy, as one born blind might be yearning for a sense denied and unknown to him. now, when fears regarding our relation to each other assail me i am like one who, having enjoyed the rapture and glory of sight, is struck blind, or who learns that sightlessness, absolute and incurable, awaits him. a horror of great darkness is upon me. only you can relieve me of that horror; therefore i write to you. "col. rentoul haig tells margaret he heard from acquaintances of yours in paris this summer that you have long been attached to a lady there who would in every respect be a suitable wife for you. i know that this cannot be true. indeed, i know it. but i implore you to tell me _yourself_ that it is not true. set my mind at rest. the limits of my endurance are reached. misery is undermining my health, as well as all the nobler elements of my character. i am a prey to insomnia, and to obtain sleep i am obliged to have recourse to drugs. i grow afraid of my own impulses. dear adrian, write to me. forgive me. comfort me. reassure me. yours, "joanna smyrthwaite." adrian folded up the letter slowly, returned it to his pocket, and stood thinking. thanks to his strong dramatic sense, at first the thing in itself, the isolating intensity of joanna's passion, filled his imagination. every word was sincere, dragged live and bleeding out of her heart. baldness of statement only made it the more telling. this was what she actually believed regarding herself, what she really felt and meant.--"the limits of my endurance are reached, i suffer too much, i grow afraid of my own impulses." this was not a way of talking, rhetoric, a pose; it was reasoned and accurate fact. and, if he understood joanna aright, her capacity of suffering was enormous. if the limit of endurance had now been reached, about all which lay short of that limit it was terrible to think! she had been tortured, and only in the extremity of torture did she cry for help. but here adrian's dramatic sense gave before the common instinct of humanity. the most callous of men might very well be moved by joanna's letter; and adrian was among the least callous of men, especially where a woman was concerned. therefore, for him, practically, what followed? this question struck him as quite the ugliest he had ever been called upon to answer in the whole course of his life. to use poor joanna's favorite catch-word, a "dreadful" question--a very dreadful question, as he saw it just now, taking the warmth out of the sunshine and the color out of life. he recalled those extremely disagreeable ten minutes, spent among the sweet-scented allspice bushes, in the garden of the tower house. he had argued out the question, or the equivalent of the question, then--and, as he had believed, answered it fully and finally, once and for all. but apparently he hadn't answered it finally, since on its recurring now the consequences of either alternative presented themselves to him with such merciless distinctness.--the fact that his conscience was clear in respect of joanna, that she was the victim of self-invented delusion--in as far as reciprocal affection on his part went--made little appreciable difference to the situation. indeed, to prove his own innocence was merely to cap the climax of her humiliation with conviction of presumptuous folly. indescribably perplexed and pained, shocked by the position in which he found himself, adrian passed absently back from the courtyard into the salon. he had forgotten the third _affaire_ smyrthwaite in the storm and stress of the second. here, the third _affaire_ presented itself to him under a guise far from encouraging. bibby, the whiteness of the flannel suit bringing out his limp, slatternly yet boyish figure into high relief as against the red utrecht velvet, lay crumpled sideways in the largest of the chairs. his legs dangled over one arm of it, his head nodded forward, sunk between his pointed shoulders, his chin rested on his breast. an ill-conditioned, hopeless, irreclaimable fellow! yet still the family likeness to joanna remained--to the degraded joanna of the "funny pictures" upon rené dax's studio wall--a joanna wearing his, adrian's, clothes, moreover, whose mouth hung open as he breathed stertorously in almost bestial after-dinner sleep. adrian looked once, picked up his hat, and fled. for the ensuing three or four hours he walked aimlessly up and down the streets of rouen, along the pleasant tree-planted boulevards and the quays beside the broad, silent-flowing seine. he was aware of lights, of blottings of black shadow, of venerable buildings rich in beautiful detail, of the brightly lighted interiors of wine-shops and cafes open to the pavement, of people loud-voiced and insistent, and of vehicles--these in lessening number as it drew toward midnight--passing by. but all his impressions were indefinite, his vision strangely blurred. he walked, as a living man might walk through a phantom city peopled by chaffering ghosts, for all that his surroundings meant to him, his thoughts concentrated upon the overwhelming personal drama, and personal question, raised by joanna's letter. must he, taking his courage rather brutally in both hands, disillusion her and risk the results of such disillusionment? chivalry, pity, humanity, the very honor of his manhood, protested as against some dastardly and unpardonable act of physical cruelty. how he wished she hadn't employed that illustration of blindness and sight! the thought of her pale eyes fixed on him, doting, imploring, worshiping, hungry with unsatisfied passion, starving for his love, pursued him, making itself almost visible to his outward sense. how was it possible to sear those poor eyes, extinguishing light in them forever by application of the white-hot iron of truth? before god, he could not do it! it was too horrible. and yet, the alternative--to lie to her, to lie to love, to be false to himself, to be false to the hope and purpose of years, didn't his manhood, every mental, and moral, and--very keenly--every physical fiber of him protest equally against that? he saw gabrielle as he had seen her only this afternoon, in her fresh, grave beauty, the promise of hidden delights, of enchanting discoveries in her mysterious smile. saw, as he so happily believed, a certain awakening of her heart and sense toward the joys which man has with woman and woman with man. how could he consent to cut himself from all this and take joanna's meager and unlovely body in his arms? it wasn't to be done. he turned faint with loathing and unspeakable distress, staggered as though drunk, nearly fell. bibby smyrthwaite and joseph challoner for brothers, margaret smyrthwaite for sister, joanna for bride--this, all which went along with it and which of necessity it implied, was more than he could face. he would rather be dead, rather ten thousand times. he said so in perfect honesty, knowing that were the final choice offered him now and here, notwithstanding his immense value of life and joy in living he would choose to die. but in point of fact no such choice was offered him, since in his opinion it is the act of a most contemptible poltroon to avoid the issue by means of self-inflicted death. no, he must take the consequences of his own actions, and poor joanna must take the consequences of her own actions--in obedience to the fundamental natural and moral law which none escape. and among those consequences, both of her and of his own past actions, was the cruel suffering which he found himself constrained to inflict. he shrank, he sickened, for to be cruel was hateful to him, a violation of his nature. in a sort of despair he went back upon the whole question, arguing it through once more, wearily, painfully, point by point. adrian's aimless wanderings had, now, conducted him to a small public garden laid out with flower borders, shrubberies, and carefully tended islands of turf, beneath the shadow of a chaste yet florid fifteenth-century church. clerestory windows glinted high above, touched by the lamplight, and flying buttresses, thick with fantastic carven flowers and little lurking demons, formed a lace-work of stone against the sky. he sat down on one of the garden benches, laying his hat beside him on the seat. he doubled himself together, his elbows upon his knees, pressing his hands against either side of his head. he was very tired. he was also desperately sad. never before had he felt the chill breath of a trouble from which there seemed no issue save by the creation of further, deeper trouble. never before had he--so it now appeared to him--gauged the possibilities of tragedy in human life. and the present situation had grown out of such wholly accidental happenings--well-meant kindnesses and courtesies, an overstrained delicacy in admitting the reality of poor joanna's infatuation and making her understand that his affections were engaged elsewhere. in his fear of assuming too much and appearing fatuous, he had let things drift. he had been guilty of saying that fatal word "too little" against which dear anastasia beauchamp to-day fulminated. there he was to blame. there was his real error, his real mistake. it gnawed mercilessly at his conscience and his sensibility. it would continue so to gnaw, whatever the upshot of this disastrous business, as long as he lived. in the restrained and conventional intercourse of modern, civilized life, the difficulty of avoiding that fatal word "too little" is so constant and so great. his mind, spent with thought and emotion, dwelt with languid persistence upon this point. in this particular he had shirked his duty both to joanna and to himself, with the terrible result that he was doomed to inflict a cruel injury upon her or to wreck his own life. and at that moment, dully, without any quickening of interest, amiable or the reverse, he perceived that a young woman sat at the farther end of the bench. when he came to think of it, he believed she had followed him through the streets for some little time. now she coughed slightly and moved rather nearer to him, fidgeted, pushing about the loose, shingly gravel, which made small rattling noises, with her foot. adrian still sat doubled together pressing his hands against either side of his head. presently she began to speak, making overtures to him, praising his handsome looks, his youth his dress, his bearing, his walk, flattering and wheedling him after the manner of her sorry kind. while expressing admiration and offering endearing phrases, her voice remained toneless and monotonous. and this peculiarity rather than what she said aroused adrian's attention. he looked round and received a definite impression, notwithstanding the dimness of the light. her reddish hair was turned loosely back from her forehead. her face was gaunt and worn under its layer of fard. her mouth was large, and the painted lips, though coarse, were sensitive--her soul had not yet been killed by her infamous trade. her eyes were pale, desperate with shame and with entreaty. and these were the eyes which, if he would save all which made life noble and dear to him, adrian must strike blind! during some few seconds he looked straight at her. then, feeling among the loose coins in his pocket, he found a gold twenty-franc piece and put it into her hand. "it is no use," he said gravely and very sadly--speaking whether to her or to joanna smyrthwaite he could not tell. "i do not want you. my poor woman, i do not want you. it is not possible that i ever should want you. i am bitterly grieved for you, but you waste your time." and he rose and moved away, having suddenly regained full possession of himself. he had ceased to doubt in respect of joanna. that passing of money was to him symbolic, setting him free. he understood that to marry joanna would be a crime against god-given instinct, against god-given love, against the god-given beauty of all wholesome and natural things. the sour, pedantic, man-imagined deity of some protestant sect might demand such hideous, almost blasphemous sacrifice from its votaries; but never that supreme artist, almighty god the creator, maker of man's flesh as well as of his spirit, _le bon dieu_ of the divinely reasonable and divinely human catholic church. to marry joanna would, in the end, constitute a blacker cruelty than to tell her the whole truth. for he couldn't live up to that lie and keep it going. he would hate her, and sooner or later show that he hated her; he would inevitably be unfaithful to her and leave her, thereby ruining her life as well as his own. he went back to the hotel. the little red utrecht-velvet upholstered _salon_ still smelled of cooking, patchouli, and cigarettes, plus the dregs of a tumbler of brandy and soda and a something human and insufficiently washed. smyrthwaite's door was shut, and no sound proceeded from behind it, for which adrian returned thanks and betook himself to bed. he was dog-tired. he slept till broad day. on making a morning reconnaissance he found smyrthwaite's door still locked, nor did knocking elicit any response. somewhat anxious, he went out into the courtyard. the window was ajar, the room vacant, the bed undisturbed. then he remembered to have seen a tall, slight, loosely made figure, wearing whitish garments, flitting hastily away down a dim side-street as he turned into the _rue jeanne d'arc_ on his way home. later adrian discovered that a pair of diamond and enamel sleeve-links, a set of pearl studs, some loose gold and a hundred-franc note were missing from his suit-case, of which the fastening had been forced. true to his predatory and roving instincts, bibby had "pinched" what he could and left. chapter vii some passages from joanna smyrthwaite's locked book the long drought broke at last in an afternoon and night of thunder and scourging violence of rain, drowning out summer. a week of chill westerly weather followed, lowering gray skies, a perpetual lament of wind through the great woodland, combined with a soaking, misty drizzle which forced the firs and pines into their blue-black winter habit and rusted the pink spires of the heather. the flower-garden, dashed by the initial downpour, became daily more sodden, its glory very sensibly departed. water stood in pools on the lawns. leaves, dessicated by the continuous sun-scorch, fell in dingy brown showers from the beeches; and a robin, perching upon one of the posts of the tennis-net, practised the opening, plaintively sweet notes of his autumn song. on the thursday evening of this wet week, joanna smyrthwaite went to her room immediately after dinner, and, lighting the candles, sat down at her bureau. the rain beat against the windows. she heard it drip with a continuous monotonous tapping off the edge of the balcony on to the glass and tile roof of the veranda below. she heard the intermittent sighing sweep of the wind through the near trees, and the wet sucking sob of it in the hinges and fastenings of the casements. nature wept, now petulantly, now, as it seemed, with the resignation of despair; and joanna, sitting at the bureau with her diary open before her, listened to that weeping. it offered a fitting accompaniment to her gloomy concentration and exaltation of mind. "_august , -_ "i supposed that i should have received an answer to my letter in the course of to-day at latest, but none has reached me," she wrote. "i am not conscious of regretting the delay. the reply, when it does come, can only confirm that which i already now know. i am no longer in suspense, and i wait to receive the reply merely to prevent the possibility of its falling into other hands than my own. that i could not permit. although it can modify neither my intention nor my thought, it is mine, it belongs to me alone; and i refuse to allow the vulgar curiosity of any third person to be satisfied by perusal of it. i am sure that i do not regret the delay. it gives me time to reckon with myself and with all that has occurred. it also gives me time to test myself and make sure that i am not swayed by impulse, but that my will is active and my reason unbiased by feeling. i am quite calm. i have been so all day. for this i am thankful, although whether my calmness arises from self-control or from physical incapacity of further emotion i cannot decide. i do not know that the cause really matters, yet i should prefer to believe it self-control." joanna paused, leaning upon her elbow and listening to the sobbing of wind and rain. "i suppose finality must always produce repose, however dreadful the cost at which finality is obtained. only so can i account for my existing attitude of mind. i want, if i can, to put down clearly and consecutively exactly what happened last night. i think it may be useful to me in face of this period of waiting for the answer to my letter; also, i wish to live through it again step by step. i have learned very much during the last twenty-four hours. i have learned that pain, self-inflicted pain, can be voluptuous. even a few days ago i should have been scandalized by such an admission. i am no longer scandalized. torture has emancipated me from many delusions and overnice prejudices. i have not time now, even had i still inclination, to be overnice. "margaret and marion chase dined in town and went to the theater with mr. challoner last night. a london touring company is giving some musical comedy at stourmouth. when they returned i was still awake. i had not taken any of the tabloids doctor norbiton gave me to procure sleep. i did not care to sleep. i preferred to think. margaret and marion remained some time upon the gallery laughing and talking rather excitedly. they kept on repeating scraps of a frivolous song which they had heard at the play; and of which, so margaret told me to-day--she apologized for the thoughtless disturbance they had made--neither could remember the exact tune. their voices and the interest they evidently took in so senseless and trivial a thing jarred upon me. i felt annoyed and resentful. their behavior offered such a startling contrast to my own trouble and to the whole tenor of my life that i could not but be displeased by their light-mindedness. i felt my own superiority. i did not attempt to disguise the fact of that superiority from myself. i despised them. i may have done wrong in despising them, but i did not care. the ambition to assert myself, in some striking and forcible manner which should compel recognition not only from margaret and marion, but from the whole circle of our acquaintance, took possession of me. i have always shrunk from publicity and been weakly sensitive to criticism and remark. i have been disposed to efface myself. to rule others has been an effort to me. any influence i may have exercised has been exercised in obedience not to inclination but to my sense of duty. now i felt differently. i felt my nature and intelligence had never found their full expression, that the strength of my character had never fully disclosed itself. i desired--i still desire--to manifest what i really am, of what i am capable. i even crave after the astonishment and possible alarm such a disclosure would create. "thinking steadily, i came to the conclusion this desire for entire and arresting self-expression is not actually new in me. i saw that i have always, implicitly though silently, entertained a conviction that the opportunity for self-expression would eventually present itself. this conviction has supported me under many mortifications. in the events of the last six months that opportunity appeared in process of taking tangible and very perfect shape. more than my imagination had ever dared suggest was in process of being granted me. if i married adrian--" joanna raised her hand from the paper, or rather it raised itself, with a jerk, refusing further obedience. she sat stiffly upright, listening to the wind and the rain. the steady drip off the edge of the balcony on to the roof below sounded indescribably mournful in its single, muffled, reiterated note. taken in connection with the words she had just written, that mournfulness threatened her composure. the muscles of her poor face twitched and her winged nostrils quivered, in her effort to repress an outbreak of emotion. after a struggle she turned fiercely to her open diary. "if i married adrian savage," she wrote, "this, in itself, would bear indisputable witness to the fact of my superiority, would justify me to myself and command the respect of others. but, last night, i saw it was necessary to go beyond that, and ask myself a question which, even in my worst hours of doubt, i have never had sufficient fortitude to ask myself before. i am anxious here to state positively that i did ask myself the said question; and that i answered it deliberately and calmly before certain things happened, which i shall presently set down. if i did not marry adrian--" again joanna's hand jerked away from the paper, while every nerve in her body was contracted by a spasm of almost intolerable pain. she put her left hand over her heart, gasping, the agony for the moment was so mercilessly acute. yet, during that same moment, the old doting, ecstatic expression overspread her face. in a sense she welcomed, she gloried, in this visitation of pain. "if i did not marry adrian," she went on, "what then? the need for self-justification, the need for entire self-expression, would in that very dreadful event become more than ever desirable--the only solace, indeed, which could remain to me. therefore, what had better happen? what--because i definitely and irrevocably willed it--must and should happen? i answered the question last night, and my purpose has never wavered. to-day i have spent some time in examining the stock arguments against this purpose of mine. they do not affect my determination, as i find that each one of them is based upon some assumption which my reason condemns as unsound and inadequate, or which is not applicable in my peculiar case. i know what i am going to do. the relief of that knowledge was immediate. it continues to sustain me." here joanna rose and paced the room. she still wore the black silk and lace evening gown she had worn at dinner. her hair was dressed with greater care than usual. plain, flat-bosomed, meager, hard lines seaming her cheeks and forehead, yet there was nothing broken or weak in her bearing or aspect. rather did she show as a somewhat tremendous creature, pacing thus, solitary, the familiar and soberly luxurious room, bearing with indomitable pride the whole realized depth and height of her trouble--a trouble to the thought of which, even while it racked her, she clung with jealous obstinacy as her sole possession of supreme and splendid worth. her restlessness being somewhat assuaged, she went back and sat down to write. "i do not attempt to account for what followed; i only set it down in good faith and with such accuracy as my memory permits. my memory has always been good, and, since now i have nothing left to gain or to lose, i have no temptation either to invent or to falsify. about an hour after margaret and marion chase returned from the theater, and without any intervening period of unconsciousness--my mind, indeed, still occupied with the decision i had arrived at regarding my future action--i found myself walking through the streets of some foreign city. i was anxiously following a person of whose name and character i was ignorant, but who i was aware had a message of great importance which he needed to deliver to me, and to whom i felt an overpowering wish to speak. he walked apparently without any particular destination in view, yet so rapidly that i found it difficult to keep him in sight. being tall, however, and of fashionable appearance, he, fortunately for me, was easily distinguishable from all other persons whom i met. "i say, _i_--yet i am conscious, dreadfully, even infamously, conscious, that throughout i shared this experience with a woman of different antecedents, of a lower social position and inferior education to myself. our two personalities inhabited one and the same body, for independent possession and control of which we contended without intermission, sometimes i, sometimes she, gaining the advantage. this association was very frightful to me. i felt soiled by it. and, not only did i in myself feel soiled, but hopes, emotions, aspirations which until now i had believed to be pure and elevated, assumed a vile aspect when shared by this woman's mind and heart. still i knew that of necessity i must remain with her, continue to be, in a sense, part of her, if i was to get speech of the man whom i--we--followed, and to receive the message which he had to deliver. "after long wandering through streets, some modern and reminding me of paris, others narrow, crooked, and lined with ancient houses, i came to a small, formally laid-out pleasure garden in the center of the town, dominated by a singularly beautiful gothic building, probably a church. benches were placed at intervals round the garden along the shingled paths, between massed shrubs and beds of heliotrope and roses. upon one of these benches, being overcome by fatigue and by a conviction of unescapable fate, i sat down. so doing, i perceived that, at the far end of the bench, the man whom i had so long followed already sat. his attitude was expressive of extreme dejection. his figure was bowed together. his elbows rested upon his knees, his hands were pressed against the sides of his head. i felt drawn to him not only by a very vital attraction, but by pity, for i could not doubt that, for some cause, he had recently suffered severely, and was suffering severely even now. i saw that this suffering blinded him to the outer things, rendering him quite indifferent to or unaware of my presence. notwithstanding which, i--or she--the woman to whom my personality was so horribly united--after making some vulgar efforts to arouse his attention, began to speak to him, pouring forth, to my utter and inextinguishable shame, a gross travesty of my love for adrian savage, of my most secret thoughts and sensations in relation to that love, of my joy in his presence, of my admiration for his talents, even for his person, employing words and phrases meanwhile of a nature revolting to me which outraged my sense of propriety and self-respect--words and phrases which i was utterly incapable of using and of which i had never indeed gauged the actual meaning until they passed her lips. "a considerable time passed before the man gave any sign that he heard what she--what i--said. he remained immersed in thought, his head bent, his hands supporting it. at last--" and joanna closed her eyes, waiting for a space, listening to the sobbing of wind and dripping of rain. "--he looked round at me. his face," she wrote, "was that of adrian; but of an adrian whom i had never seen before. it was worn and very pale. there were blue stains beneath the eyes. all the gaiety, the beautiful, self-confident strength and hopefulness were banished from his expression, which was very stern though not actually unkind. then i knew that he had received and read my letter; that the marks of suffering which he bore had been caused by the contents of my letter. i knew that the message which he had to deliver to me, and to obtain which i had followed him through the streets, forcing myself into union with this vicious woman--in whose speech and actions i so dreadfully participated--was nothing less than his answer to that letter. "at last, looking fixedly at me, he said, very sadly: 'it is no use. i do not want you. poor woman, i do not want you. it is not possible that i should ever want you. i am bitterly grieved for you; but you waste your time.' "as he spoke he placed some money in her hand, and, having finished speaking, he rose and went away. not once did he hesitate or look back, but held himself erect and walked as a man whose decision is deliberate. she clutched the money tightly, whimpering; but i had no part in her tears. i had no disposition to cry then; nor have i had any since. i understood what that piece of money meant. it was the price of adrian's freedom from my love. he paid me to go away. "i remember noticing the fantastic carven stonework of the church outlined against the night sky, while shame and despair devoured me--shame and despair intimate, merciless, unmitigated. still clutching the piece of money, the woman got up. i do not know anything more about her, what she did, or who she was, or where she went. for a time, as far as i am concerned, the pulse of the world ceased to beat. and then i lay here, at home, in my own room at the tower house, and heard the rain and wind in the trees just as i hear them to-night. "when isherwood brought me my tea, at half-past seven, she expressed concern at my appearance. i told her i had not slept and that i felt tired and faint. she insisted upon sending for doctor norbiton. i let her do so. it was matter of indifference to me whether i saw him or not. nothing can change either facts or the event. but isherwood has always been kind and faithful to me. i did not want to hurt her by opposing her wishes. doctor norbiton sounded my heart. he told both isherwood and margaret it was in a weak state; but added that he believed such mischief as exists to be functional rather than organic. he recommended me to take the tabloids, which he gave me for insomnia, sparingly, as their effect upon the heart is depressing. i listened and agreed. margaret expressed regret at my condition. she offered to see rossiter for me and spare me the trouble of housekeeping. i let her do so. "it has rained all day; but i have been fully occupied in going through papers and accounts, and making sure that my own affairs and those of the household are in perfect order. this almost mechanical work is soothing. i have always been fond of accounts. i remain quite calm. why should i be otherwise? i know the truth, and have nothing left, therefore, either to fear or to hope." the following evening joseph challoner was due to dine at the tower house. pleading a return of faintness and disinclination for conversation, joanna remained up-stairs in the blue sitting-room and retired early to bed. the next entry in her diary reads thus: "the tower house, _august_ , -, p.m. "i let isherwood undress me. i asked her for my white pleated _négligé_, which i found she had sent to the cleaners' during the time my hands were hurt and i had been obliged to give her my keys. i am glad to wear it to-night. isherwood was very kind and attentive to me. i could almost think she suspected something, but i did what i could to dissipate any suspicion she might entertain. i promised her i would call her if i wanted her during the night; but all that i really needed is quiet. this is perfectly true. i do need quiet, unbroken quiet. "still i must try to put down events in their proper order.--and first, i feel it is only just that i should note how much i have thought of papa during these last two very dreadful days. i have felt singularly near to him in spirit and in sympathy. i know that i have rebelled against his methods; and have both thought and spoken harshly of him. i am sorry for this. i see now that, in his position and possessing his authority, i should have acted as he did. he valued wealth as lightly as i do; though he was interested in the acquisition of it. business to him was an occupation rather than an end in itself. he craved for entire self-expression--as i have craved for it; and it was impossible for him to find such expression in business. in public affairs, economic or social reform, he might have found it; and to the last, i believe, he hoped some opportunity of entire self-expression would present itself. that, i think, was why he disliked the idea of dying. he was ambitious of impressing himself upon the mind of his generation in the manner he inwardly felt himself capable of doing. it hurt and angered him to leave life with his personal equation unrecorded. he knew himself--as i have known myself--to be superior to others both in intellect and in the nature of his aims and ambitions. he despised weakness. he despised what is common, trivial, ignorant. he could not tolerate that those about him should run after cheap pleasures in which the mind has no part. "this morning, about twelve o'clock, the rain lessened. i ordered the carriage and drove by myself to the west stourmouth cemetery. leaving the carriage at the entrance gates, i walked to his grave. the cemetery is still but partially laid out. patches of heather remain, making the tombstones and monuments look bare and white. i am glad papa's grave is on the highest ground. standing by it, i saw, through scuds of driving mist, the baughurst woods, sloping to the shore, and beyond them the sea. the loneliness of this growing camp of the dead was sympathetic to me. i am leaving instructions that i am to be buried beside papa's grave, if not in it. i have never been so much of a companion or help to any one as to him. he, at least, wanted me, though he often frightened and wounded me. so i will go back to him in death; and lie beside him in the rain, and snow, and wind, and sunshine out there under the barren gravel of the moor. "i received adrian's answer to my letter by the six-o'clock post this evening. i feared giving way to emotion on opening it; but i experienced very little emotion. of this i am glad. i am glad, too, infinitely glad, that i determined what i would do before i so strangely saw adrian and spoke with him the night before last. if i had not determined my state of mind would have been far more agonizing. calmness and self-respect would have been impossible. margaret was with me in the blue sitting-room when edwin brought me my letters. i do not know whether she observed that i received one from adrian. i fancy not. i waited until she had gone before reading it. it proved just such a letter as i might have anticipated, written with every intention of kindness. it exhibits his character in a very agreeable light--affectionate, courteous, penetrated by regret on my account. he does his utmost to spare my feelings and soften the blow he is compelled to deal me. i appreciate all this. he praises my intelligence, and points out to me, very gracefully, the advantages of my education and of my wealth. he points out, too, the endlessly varied interests of life. he admits that he has loved madame st. leger for many years; and he reproaches himself deeply with not having spoken to me about his affection for her when he stayed here in may, and when i pressed him to tell me whether he was suffering from any anxiety in which i could be helpful to him. "that is the answer of the man of society, the well-bred man of the world; the man, moreover, of sensibility and nice feeling. i quite appreciate the tone and tact of his letter. but i had already received the answer of the man himself. it was simpler, so simple as to need no supplement--'it is no use. i do not want you. my poor woman, i do not want you. it is not possible that i should ever want you. i am bitterly grieved for you; but you waste your time.' "_he has never wanted me. i have wasted my time._--that is all. and assuredly that is enough, and more than enough? i will waste no more time, adrian. i will go where time, thought, love, and the rejection of love are not. "the rain has come back. it drips and drips upon the veranda roof. i have burned all your letters. no one has ever seen or touched them save myself. this volume of my diary i leave to you. i shall seal it up, and direct it to you. at least read it--i am no longer ashamed. i want you to know me as i really am. life is already over. i am already dead. so i am not afraid. i welcome the darkness of the everlasting night which is about to absorb me into itself.--i wear the white gown i wore the second time you kissed my hand.--i do not blame you, adrian. it is just as natural that you should not love me as that i should have loved you. i understand that. "and very soon now all my trouble will be over and passed. soon i shall sleep in the arms of the lover who has never failed man or woman yet--in the arms of death. joanna smyrthwaite." chapter viii in which a strong man adopts a very simple method of clearing his own path of thorns challoner stood turning up the collar of his mackintosh. looking back between the lines of dark, wind-agitated trees, the red mass of the house, through a dull whiteness of driving rain, showed imposing both in height and in extent. challoner measured it with a satisfied, even triumphant, eye. its large size suited his own large proportions capitally. this evening, though early and still light, all the blinds were drawn down. this was as it should be. he favored the observance of such outward conventional decencies. then, as he moved away with his heavy, lunging tread, the rain and wind took him roughly on the quarter. this rearward onslaught caused him no annoyance, however, since his thoughts were altogether self-congratulatory. circumstance had played, and was playing, into his hands in the handsomest fashion. well, every one gets his deserts in the long run; so he could but suppose he deserved his present good fortune! only in this case the run had proved such an unexpectedly short and easy one. for hadn't he arrived, practically arrived, feeling every bit as fresh as when he started?--here a turn of half-superstitious, half-cynical piety took him. the lord helps those who have the nous to help themselves. he praised the lord! having offered which small tribute, or bribe, to the judge of all the earth who cannot do other than right, he proceeded to check off a few of his well-earned blessings. the announcement of his engagement to margaret smyrthwaite had appeared, about three weeks previously, in the society columns of local and london papers. stourmouth buzzed with the news, to a loudness which he found both humorous and flattering. in private challoner laughed a horse-laugh more than once at thus finding how he had made his fellow-townsmen "sit up." he enjoyed the joke of his own social elevation and prospective wealth hugely. and mrs. gwynnie had been quite good, thank the powers! if the rest of his acquaintance had been made to "sit up" by the news, she--to quote his own graceful manner of speech--had "taken it lying down." really he felt very kindly toward her. she'd given no trouble. but then the world was going a lot better with mrs. gwyn than she'd any right to expect. her rent and her quarterly allowance were paid with absolute regularity. not every man would have done as much for her after the dance she'd led him! beattie stacey was safely married last week to her young r.m.s. second officer. and, so challoner heard, mainly on the strength of the said young officer's excellent reputation, gwynnie herself had taken out a new lease of social life since her installation in the white house opposite the marychurch borough recreation ground. she'd been cute enough to throw herself into that department of anglican religio-parochial activity which busies itself with variety entertainments, rummage sales, concerts, "happy evenings," bazaars, and such-like contrivances for providing--under cover of charity--audiences for idle amateurs ambitious of publicity. curates waxed enthusiastic over "mrs. spencer's splendidly unselfish helpfulness" and "wonderful organizing power."--the thought of that poor little, earnest, light-weight, impecunious baggage of an anglo-indian widow in the character of a church-worker tickled her ex-lover consumedly. but now challoner felt constrained to put a term to the slightly ribald mirth induced by this checking of his well-deserved blessings, and bestow himself within the four corners of an appropriately black-edged manner. for, as he turned out of the gates at the end of the carriage-drive, he caught sight of col. rentoul haig's unmistakable figure, pompous and dapper even when clothed in an "aquascutum" and carrying a streaming umbrella, walking briskly down the avenue. making a pretense of deep abstraction, challoner passed him; then, drawing up suddenly, wheeled round. "you, colonel?" he said. "i beg your pardon. for the minute i didn't recognize you. my thoughts were elsewhere." he looked on the ground, as one who struggles with manly pride against strong emotion. "you may have heard of the trouble we are in at the tower house?" he added. rentoul haig disapproved the "we"; but then he warmly and articulately disapproved the whole matter of the challoner-smyrthwaite alliance. nevertheless he hungered for first-hand news, thirsted for retailable detail; and who could supply these better than challoner? he pocketed disapproval, and answered with fussy alacrity, peering upward, into the younger man's curiously non-committal countenance, from beneath the shelter of his umbrella. "very fortunate to run across you like this, challoner," he said. "i was coming to leave cards and inquire. shocking news this, most shocking. i heard the report from woodford, at the club, after luncheon, and, i give you my word, it quite upset me." "i'm not surprised, colonel," challoner put in gloomily. "why, only yesterday morning i saw her out driving between twelve and one--just upon the half-hour it must have been--as i was crossing the square on my way to the club. when woodford told me, i said, 'god bless my soul, it's incredible!'" challoner's lips parted with an unctuous smack. "incredible or not, colonel, it is only too sadly true. in the midst of life we are in death, you know. i don't set up to be a serious man, but an event like this does bring the meaning of those words home to you--makes you think a bit, reminds you what an uncommonly slippery hold even the healthiest of us has on life." watching the effect of these lugubrious moralizings upon his auditor, challoner had the pleasure of seeing the latter's face grow small and blue in the shade of the wet umbrella.--"looks like a sick frog under a toadstool," he reflected. "well, let snobby old froggy turn blue, feel blue--the bluer the better." it served him jolly well right. hadn't he said no end of nasty things about his, challoner's, coming marriage? then he proceeded with the amiable operation commonly known as "rubbing it in." "ah! yes," he said, "i knew how you'd feel it, colonel. without being oversentimental, it is a thing to break up one's sense of personal security. and a relation of yours too! only nine-and-twenty--a mere child compared to you, of course, colonel. it's always painful to see the younger generation go first. yes, i knew how you'd feel it. kind of you to come off at once like this to make inquiries. it will please margaret, poor, dear girl. she sent for me directly they made the discovery this morning, and i've been with her ever since, looking after her and putting things through. you see, joanna always kept the management of the establishment in her own hands, and the whole household fell to pieces like a bundle of sticks to-day. all the servants lost their heads. somebody had to step in and lay hold. margaret is behaving beautifully. this bearing up is all very well at first, but i'm afraid she's bound to pay later. however, thank god! i've the right, now, to take care of her." "quite so--no doubt--yes, exactly," haig responded, in rather chilly accents. "of course. but i have heard nothing but the bare fact, challoner. quite sudden, was it--quite unexpected?" "yes, and no." he spoke slowly, as one weighing his words. "i sincerely trust there isn't any question of an inquiry?" from his superior height challoner looked down at the speaker in momentary and sharp suspicion. what story was current in stourmouth, he wondered? could the servants have talked? had the empty tabloid bottle and the tumbler with a film of white sediment clouding the inside of it, become a matter of common knowledge? he found rentoul haig's expression reassuring. "certainly not--quite uncalled for, i am thankful to say," he replied largely. "no, no, colonel, nothing of that sort. an inquest is a pretty sickening business under ordinary circumstances; but it amounts to a positive insult, in my opinion, in the case of a refined, sensitive gentlewoman." rentoul haig came near dancing with impatience. "true, true," he murmured. "so, pray put that idea out of your head, and out of everybody else's head, colonel. you'll be doing margaret a kindness, doing poor joanna a kindness too. people are awfully unscrupulous in the reports they circulate. but then, of course, i know we can count on your gentlemanly feeling and good taste." a moment more and colonel haig believed he should burst. he was being patronized--patronized, he the bright, particular star of the most elect circle of stourmouth society, and by joseph challoner! "the fact is she hasn't been in a good state of health for some time. margaret has spoken to me about it and a lot of people have remarked upon it. her peculiarities seemed to grow upon her lately. and she was not an easy person to deal with--in some ways very like our poor friend her father. margaret hasn't said much to me, but i fancy she's found her sister's temper a little trying. health, i dare say, as much as anything. norbiton has been treating her for sleeplessness and general debility--nerves, you know. she always was highly strung. yesterday morning, they tell me, she looked appallingly ill and complained of having fainted in the night. they had norbiton in, and he sounded her--was not at all satisfied with the heart's action. i am not surprised at that. you remember how peculiar her eyes were--globular--" challoner looked down with rich enjoyment at the "pop-eyes," so he gracefully phrased it, staring eagerly, angrily up from beneath the streaming umbrella. "globular," he repeated; "and with that pale circle round the edge of the iris, which invariably, in my experience, indicates a weak heart. norbiton prescribed for her, and told her to keep quiet. margaret, poor, dear girl, did her best; but joanna insisted on driving out. i was dining there last night, and she didn't come down. they told me norbiton's opinion, but i supposed it was just a case for care. and then, when her maid went to call her this morning, she found her stone cold. she must have been dead several hours--died in her sleep." and both men stood silent, awed in spite of themselves, by the thought of joanna smyrthwaite lying dead. "shocking occurrence, very shocking indeed!" colonel haig remarked presently, fussily clearing his throat. "you say peculiarities had grown upon poor miss smyrthwaite recently. one would be glad to know why--to have some clue to the reason for that. there were rumors, i believe, a few months back of an--er--of an attachment on her part, which--it is a delicate subject to approach--was, in fact, rather misplaced. and--well--you know, one cannot help putting two and two together." "oh, as to anything of that sort," challoner returned somewhat roughly, throwing his big body back from the hips and moving a step aside, as though to conceal justifiable annoyance,--"you really must excuse me, colonel. standing in the relation i do to both the smyrthwaite ladies, it is a subject i hardly care to discuss. i can't help knowing a good deal, and i can't help what i've noticed; but i don't feel at liberty to speak. mr. savage stayed twice at the tower house this year, as you are aware; and--people have eyes in their heads. i don't mind telling you, he and i came to loggerheads over the division of the property. that's what first really brought margaret and me together. i had to protect her interests, or she would have come off a very bad second. and, though it's early days to mention it, i don't mind telling you in confidence--the strictest confidence, you understand, colonel--" "you know by this time, i hope, challoner, how entirely you can trust me?" the other remonstrated, at once famished for further information and bristling with offended dignity. "to be sure i do.--well, then, it may interest you to hear that margaret has the old home secured to her. i am pleased on her account, for she's fond of the place. personally, there are several houses in baughurst park i prefer. however, that's neither here nor there. if she's pleased i'm pleased, naturally. but, exclusive of the house and its contents, she hardly benefits at all under her sister's will." in his excitement rentoul haig lost control of his umbrella, which, tilting in a gust of wind, discharged a small cataract of water down the back of his neck. "bless my soul," he exclaimed, "you don't say so! what ungodly weather! where on earth does all her money go to?" "you may well ask," challoner replied grimly. "in the case of her dying unmarried her share in the mills and the rest of the yorkshire property is left to mr. andrew merriman, the partner and manager--a self-made man, who had the wit to get round old mr. smyrthwaite. he's feathered his own nest very tidily, it strikes me, one way and another. and the bulk of the invested property--prepare yourself for a pleasant surprise, colonel--joanna leaves, on trust, to her scrapegrace, rascally brother." a flashlight hope of a solid legacy had momentarily illuminated rentoul haig's horizon. but the light of hope was extinguished almost as soon as kindled, giving him just time to be mortally disappointed. his face fell, while challoner, watching, could barely repress his glee. "but, but," he bubbled, "every one has been assured for years that the good-for-nothing boy was dead!" "i don't want to be inhuman, but i can only say that, for the sake of my future wife's peace of mind, i most sincerely and cordially trust he is dead--dead and done with. judging by what you told me yourself, colonel, from a child he has been a downright bad lot, a regular waster. you may also be interested to hear we owe this precious bit of business to mr. adrian savage. he came to joanna, when he was over last, with some cock-and-bull story about young smyrthwaite's turning up, half-starved, in paris last winter. worked upon her feelings no end with a whole lot of frenchified false sentiment--brother and sister, the sacredness of family, and that sort of fluff-stuff. i am bound to say plainly i date the break-up of her health from that moment. he spoke to me about young smyrthwaite, but, of course, i refused to touch it. gave him a piece of my mind which i fancy he didn't quite relish, as he packed up and took himself off, on the quiet, next morning. as i told him, if he and merriman wanted to dump the young scoundrel upon his two unfortunate sisters they mustn't look to me for assistance--the job, as i told him, wasn't in joseph challoner's line, not at all. now, colonel, i ought not to detain you any longer. i'm pleased to have had the chance to set your mind at ease on one or two points. and you'll do both margaret and myself a favor if you will tell every one it was heart, just simply heart--a thing that might happen to any one of us, you or me, for instance, any day. margaret will feel it very kind and thoughtful of you to call, like this at once, to inquire. now i really must be off. good-evening to you. let you know the date of the funeral? of course--good-evening." and he swung up the avenue, in the shrinking light, under the swaying, dripping trees, highly elate. "choked old froggy off neatly," he said to himself, "and got my knife into highty-tighty cousin adrian too. i wonder if he did carry on with joanna. i'd give something to know--dare say it'll come out in time. anyhow, he wouldn't touch her money; though it would have been bad policy to acquaint old haig with that little fact. better take the short-cut home. stiff from standing so long in the wet; but it's worth while, if only for the fun of making old haig feel so confoundedly cheap." supported by these charitable reflections, he turned off the main road into a footpath which, after skirting the gardens of a large villa facing on to the avenue, struck northwestward across an as yet unreclaimed portion of the baughurst park estate. by following this route challoner took the base instead of the two sides of a triangle, thus saving about a quarter of a mile in his walk home to heatherleigh. a dark plain of high, straggling heather, broken here and there by a thicker darkness of advancing ranks of self-sown firs, lay on either side the grayness of the sand and flint strewn track. even in sunshine the region in question was cheerless, and, as seen now, in the driving rain and fading daylight, it bore a positively forbidding aspect. but to this challoner, having returned to enumeration of his well-deserved blessings, was sublimely indifferent. and among those blessings--here, alone, free to disregard conventional black-edged decencies and be honest with himself--joanna smyrthwaite's death, although an ugly suspicion of suicide did hang around it, might, he felt, be counted. making the admission, he had the grace to feel slightly ashamed of his own cynicism. in the first shock of the tragedy, when marion chase sent for him in the morning, he had been genuinely troubled and overset. but, as the day wore on, the advantages of the melancholy event disclosed themselves more and more clearly. joanna smyrthwaite never liked him, considered him her social inferior, didn't mince matters in expressing her objection to her sister's engagement. ignored him, when she got the chance, or snubbed him. distinctly she'd done her best to make him feel awkward; and there was bound to be friction in the future both in their family relation and in the management of the smyrthwaite property. joanna was uncommonly strong. he, for one, had never underrated the force of her character. he even owned himself a trifle afraid of her, afraid of some pull--as he expressed it--that she might have over margaret. now he would have margaret to himself, exclusively to himself--and challoner's blood grew hot, notwithstanding the chill dreariness of wind and wet, thinking of that. for his feeling toward margaret smyrthwaite had come to be the master power of his life, of all his schemes of self-aggrandizement. after the somewhat coarse and primitive manner of his kind, he was over head and ears in love with her. he was proud of her, almost sensitively anxious to please her; ready, for all his burly, bullying roughness, to play faithful dog, fetch and carry and slave for her. no woman had ever affected him or excited his passions as she did. in food he relished highly seasoned dishes to apprehend the flavor of which you do not need to shut your eyes and listen. and margaret smyrthwaite's attractions were of the highly seasoned order, the effect of her full-fleshed, slightly overdressed and overscented person presenting itself without any baffling reserve, frankly assailing and provoking the senses.--oh! he'd treat her like a queen; work for her; buy her jewels, motor-cars, aeroplanes if she fancied them; pet, amuse, make stourmouth bow down to, make himself a great man, for her!--sir joseph and lady challoner--a loftier flight than that--who could tell? maybe a peerage. lord and lady baughurst--why not? after all, if you play your cards cleverly enough such apparently improbable things do happen, particularly in this blessed twentieth century, when money is the prime factor. and there was money in plenty, would be more, unless he was uncommonly out of his reckoning. at the start, so he calculated, their united incomes--his own and margaret's--would amount to getting on for twelve thousand. all to the good, too, since there was no drain of a large landed estate absorbing more than half its yearly revenue in compulsory outgoings. they would be married soon, quite soon. her sister's death and her present loneliness supplied ample reason for pushing on the wedding. it must be a quiet one, of course, out of respect for black-edged decencies. but he didn't object to that. the thing was to get her.--and then he'd carry her away, right away, shaking her free of the dismal, old-fashioned, smyrthwaite rut altogether. they'd take a three months' honeymoon and travel somewhere, anywhere; go a yachting trip, say, up the mediterranean. never since he was a boy at school had he taken a holiday. it had been grind, grind, scheme, scheme, climb, climb without intermission. not but what he'd climbed to some purpose, since he'd got high enough at forty to pluck such a luscious mouthful as margaret off the apple-tree against which he'd set up his ladder! now he would take a holiday, if only to show other men what a prize joseph challoner had won in the shape of a woman. amorous, uxorious, his whole big body tingling with emotion, he forged along the path across the darkling moorland, breasting the wind-driven sheets of cold rain. "hi! slow up there, you great, lumbering, greasy-skinned elephant, and tell me where the devil i've got to in this blasted old wilderness!" a voice shouted. at the same time he was aware that a narrow strip of the gray pathway in front of him reared itself up on end, assuming human form--a human form, moreover, oddly resembling that of adrian savage. the style of the address was scarcely mollifying, and challoner had all a practical man's hatred both of being taken by surprise and of encountering phenomena which he could not account for at once in a quite satisfactory and obvious manner. he came straight to the baffling apparition, and looked it steadily, insolently, up and down, the bully in him stirred into rather dangerous activity. the ridicule of his personal appearance wounded his vanity. the interruption of his dreams of love and glory infuriated him; while the fancied likeness of the speaker to adrian savage sharpened the edge of both offenses. "i advise you to keep a civil tongue in your head, or you may happen to find this wilderness an even more blasted and blasting locality than will at all suit you," he said threateningly. at close quarters the slouching figure was certainly not that of adrian savage, nor was the weak, dissolute, blue-eyed face. yet, although seen indistinctly in the waning light, the said face struck challoner as unaccountably familiar. what on earth, who on earth was the fellow? not an ordinary tramp, for his speech, though thick with drink, and his clothes, though ill-kept and dirty, were those of a man of education and position. challoner continued to scrutinize him. and under that unfriendly and menacing scrutiny the young man's tone changed, declining to petulant almost whining apology. "you needn't bluster," he said. "i meant no harm; and you know you did look awfully funny and shiny! i want to know where i am. i came across from havre to barryport in an onion-boat, because it was cheapest. i'm not overflush of cash. so i've come to look up some of my people who live about here." "charming surprise for them," challoner said. "and it blew like blazes all last night. between the motion and the stench of the onions i was as sick as jonah's whale. nothing left inside of me except just myself. one of those breton sailor chaps, hawking his beastly vegetables, came a bit of the way from barryport with me. he told me to cut across these commons and i should be sure to come out all right; but i expect he lied just to get quit of me." "more than possible," challoner said. "i ought to have stuck to the tram-lines, but my head's rather light. i haven't got over the jonah business yet. i lost my bearings altogether somehow, through feeling so awfully slack. i've been sheltering in under those mangy old fir-trees for i don't know how long, hoping somebody might pass. and i'm wet to the skin, and as cold as charity." "very interesting indeed, but no earthly concern of mine. so if you've got to the end of your tale i'll continue my walk. good-day," challoner commented, preparing to resume his homeward journey. the young man caught him by the arm. "say, but you can't leave me alone in this god-forsaken hole?" "oh yes, i can," challoner answered. "kindly take your dirty paw off my sleeve, will you? else i may be compelled to have a word with the local authorities about a case of assault, attempted robbery with violence, and such sweet little games. however, it wouldn't be the first time you've made acquaintance with the inside of a police cell, unless i'm much mistaken." "i don't mean any harm. i only want you to tell me the way. i can't lie out here in the wet all night. it would rot me with chills and fever." the wind had increased in force. now the tumult of it was loud. it rushed through the firs, bending them low, tearing off dry branches and tufted tassels; then fled on, screaming, across the dark plain of heather like some demented thing let loose. the speaker craned his neck upward and raised his voice to a quavering shout in the effort to make himself heard. his face was close to challoner's; and again the latter was puzzled by something unaccountably familiar in the features and general effect of it. whereupon the bullying instinct gave place to caution. "see here," he said, "you must behave like a reasonable being, not like a driveling sot, if you want me to take any trouble about you. tell you your way, you young fool, your way where?" "to the tower house, something park--baughurst park--that's the blooming name of it, where my people live." challoner started; he could not help it. then he waited till the next gust of wind had spent its fury, and, in the lull which followed, spoke very slowly. "so that's the blooming name of the blooming place where your people live, is it? and who may your people be, if you please, and what is your business with them?" "what, the deuce, does that matter to you?" the other answered, trying to ruffle, yet shrinking away nervously, while the wind, gathering force again, whipped his legs and back, showing the lines of his wasted, large-boned frame through his thin, light-colored clothing. "as it happens, it matters very much to me," challoner retorted, "because some very particular friends of mine live at the tower house. it may amuse you to hear i have just come from there, and that you very certainly can't gain access to the tower house without my permission, and that i very certainly shall not give that permission. young gentlemen of your particular kidney aren't required there. the men-servants would kick you out, and quite properly. we know how to treat loafers and tippling impostors who try to sponge upon gentlewomen here in england.--now come along with me. i'll see you as far as the tram-line, and pay your fare to barryport, and you can go on board your onion-boat again. also i'll telephone through to the central police station directly i get home and give the stourmouth and barryport police a little description of you. so step out, if you please. no malingering." as he finished speaking challoner grasped the young man solidly by the shoulder, propelling him forward, but the latter, slippery as an eel, wriggled himself free. "let go, you great hulking beast!" he cried. "i'm not an impostor. i'm william smyrthwaite, and my sister joanna means to provide for me. i know all about that. a chap who i ran across three days ago in rouen told me. we always were chummy in the old days, nannie and i. she'll tell you i'm speaking the truth fast enough, and make you look d--d silly. she'll recognize and acknowledge me, see if she don't!" "upon my word, i'm afraid she's not likely to have an opportunity of doing anything of the kind, poor lady," challoner returned; and he laughed at his own rather horrible joke. "so come along, mr. who-ever-you-are, alias william smyrthwaite, esq. i begin to think i'd better see you safe on board your precious onion-boat myself, and have you affectionately looked after till she sails. it may save both of us trouble." "you beast, you cursed, great, shiny, black devil!" bibby shouted. and he clawed and struck at his tormentor passionately. the first touch of those striking, clawing hands let the underlying wild animal loose in challoner. a primitive lust of fight took him, along with a savage joy in the act of putting forth his own immense physical strength. still, at first, his temper remained fairly under control, and he played with his adversary, feinted and parried. but the wretched boy did not fight fair. he indulged in sneaking, tricky dodges learned amid the moral and social filth of the paris under-world and in south american gambling hells and doss-houses. soon challoner lost his temper, saw his chance, took it; delivered one blow, straight from the shoulder, which, landing on bibby's temple, dropped him like so much lead on the rain-washed flints of the crown of the pathway. then he stood breathing heavily, his eyes bloodshot, the veins standing out like cords on his forehead, the intoxication of battle at once stupefying and maddening him. presently bibby's limbs twitched; and, as though moved by a spring, he sat bolt upright, his elbows set back, his hands, the thick-jointed fingers wide apart, raised to the level of his shoulders. "he's done me in, the clumsy, murderous brute!" he panted. then childishly whimpering--"nannie," he wailed, "poor old nannie, so you're dead too. golly, what a sell! never mind. i'm just coming." he lurched and fell sideways, rolling over face downward into a long, sandy puddle edging the pathway. five minutes, nearly ten minutes passed, while challoner remained standing stock-still in the volleying wind and blinding rain and forlorn fading light of the moorland. at last he shook himself, went forward and knelt beside the motionless thing lying close against the black ragged fringe of heath, upon its stomach, in the sandy wetness. for some time he couldn't bring himself to touch it. then putting strong constraint upon himself, he turned it over and bent low, staring at it. it reminded him of the big, white, yellow-headed maggots he used to pick out of the decaying wood of the old summer-house in the little garden at home as a boy, and use for bait when he went fishing in the river at mary church. yes--it was queerly like those maggots. but somehow it wore the clothes of adrian savage. and its poor face was that of joanna smyrthwaite as he had seen her this morning in the agitated silence of her room, stretched cold and lifeless beneath the fine lace coverlet of her satin wood bed. only her eyes were shut, and this thing's eyes were wide, wide open. now its loose lips parted. its mouth opened too, while a dark thread trickled slowly down its chin into the hollow of its throat inside its dirty, crumpled collar. challoner tumbled up hastily and waited, breathing hard and brushing the rain and sweat off his face with the back of his hand. gradually his mind began to work clearly. his sense of ordinary every-day happenings, their correlation and natural consequences, of his own identity, his business, his hopes of worldly advancement, wealth and titles, came back to him. he understood that he must decide, act, cover up what he had done, get rid of this accusing, motionless thing lying open-eyed, open-mouthed in the pathway. he knelt down again, put his arms round the limp body, with a mighty lift and heave flung it sack-like across his shoulder, staggered on to his feet, and, heading southwestward in the teeth of the gale, laboring under the weight of that which he carried, plowed his way doggedly across the desolate outstretch of rough, resilient heather, down into the heart of the straining, bellowing, storm-swept woodland. it was late, long past his usual dinner-hour, when challoner reached heatherleigh. to his own surprise, he accounted for himself to his servant as the man helped him off with his mackintosh. he'd been detained, had got a chill, he believed; didn't know that he wanted any dinner. yes--let them send whatever they'd got ready--hot, and the plainer the better. he'd have it when he came down--in ten minutes. he must change first, he was so confoundedly wet. for the sake of appearances he made an effort to eat; but the sight and smell of food turned his stomach. still complaining of chill, he left the table and went into the smoking-room. though an abstemious man, both from habit and policy, he mixed himself a remarkably stiff brandy and soda, set it down on the large writing-table--loaded with bundles of folded papers, documents engrossed on vellum and tied with pink tape--and forgot to drink it. went round the room turning all the incandescent gas-lamps full on. the chocolate-colored imitation leather paper with which the walls were hung made the room dark; and challoner felt a strong aversion to the dark. he wanted to see every object quite plainly and in its entirety. he took a cigar from the cedar-lined silver box margaret smyrthwaite had given him, standing on the revolving bookcase--looked at it and put it back. somehow he couldn't smoke. sank down in an arm-chair and sat glowering, like some sullen, savage, trapped animal, into the empty grate. more than once, fatigue overcoming him, he dozed, only to wake, with a start, crying out loud: "it wasn't my fault. i didn't begin it. he hit me first." then, clearer understanding returning, he continued: "i struck him in self-defense--before god--as i hope to be saved, i did. at most they could bring it in manslaughter. i did it for margaret's sake, to save her from being exploited and sponged on by the drunken young rotter. ah! my god--but if it was true, if, as he claimed to be, he was her brother, how can i go to her with his blood on my hands? margaret--i'm in hell. forgive me--don't believe it! never know--my own poor, splendid darling--god, how i love her--margaret--margaret--never know--i can't, i can't lose you." and challoner broke down, sobs shaking his great, amorous body and tearing his bull throat. toward morning at the turn of the tide the gale abated and the rain ceased. when daylight came, but not until then, challoner went up-stairs to his bedroom, the windows of which faced east. he drew back the curtains, pulled up the wooden-slatted venetian blinds and watched the brightness widen outward and upward behind the ragged crests of the stone pines. as a rule he had not time or care to waste on the beauties of nature, but he found vague, inarticulate solace in the gaudy colors of this wild sunrise. he was calmer now, and the strong daylight helped to drive out exaggerations of sentiment and fearful fancies. in short, his impregnable health and physical courage, his convenient coarseness of moral fiber and indomitable tenacity of purpose, began to assert themselves. he began to argue and not unably to plead his own cause to himself. for, look at the ghastly episode what way you pleased, how could he be blamed for it? the whole thing was accident, accident pure and simple, which he could not foresee, and equally could not prevent. it had been sprung on him out of a clear sky. he was rushed, not given an instant's breathing space for consideration. and that was manifestly unfair. any man might lose his head and be betrayed into violence by such vile provocation. his spirits revived. and, when all came to all, there was not a tittle of evidence against him! after parting with haig he had not met a soul. he could swear no one had seen him turn out of the avenue into the footpath. the rain would have obliterated all traces of the struggle by this time, and wet heather, thank goodness, doesn't show tracks. though why he should trouble about such details he didn't know. it was blitheringly silly, for, who the devil would be on the lookout for tracks? a thousand to one the body would not be found until the estate foresters cut the bracken in november; and by then-- sweat broke out on challoner's forehead, and he was not sorry the sun stood high behind the pines, throwing slanting shafts of light between their dark stems across the rain-swamped garden, where the blackbirds and thrushes patroled, worm-hunting, on the turf. by that time, whatever was left would be in no condition to tell tales. "painful discovery in the baughurst park woods"--he could see the headlines in the local papers--"mysterious death"--"no clue to the identity of the remains"--none, thank the lord, none, none! but for a couple of francs and a few english coppers the boy's pockets were empty. challoner, praise to god! had mustered sufficient spunk to ascertain that. all the same--and here callousness failed him a little--his and margaret's honeymoon should be a long one, long enough to insure their being far away from stourmouth when the foresters cut the bracken in november. distance, travel, new scenes and new interests, are said to draw the sting of remembrance. and it was best, immeasurably best, not only for himself, but indirectly for margaret also, that remembrance should be blunted, that he should--if he only could--forget. for, after all--his spirits in the honest sunshine reviving yet further--what proof had he the miserable drink and vice corrupted wastrel had spoken the truth? wasn't it much more probable haig's story was the right one, and that this was some low, blackmailing scoundrel trading upon scraps of hearsay information he'd happened to pick up? a lying, misbegotten whelp, in short, of whom society at large was extremely well rid--really, to expend sentiment upon the summary removal of such refuse came near being maudlin. as to any fancied resemblance he bore to joanna smyrthwaite, one couldn't attach any serious importance to that. in the ghostly twilight it was impossible to see distinctly. and, after the uncommonly nasty upset of the morning and the bullying he'd been obliged to give that old grannie, norbiton, before the latter would consent to ignore the empty tabloid bottle, and certify the cause of death simply as syncope, it was hardly surprising if he'd got poor joanna's personal appearance a little upon his brain. no--it is an awful misfortune, no doubt, to be, however accidentally, the means of taking a fellow-creature's life; but, looking at the whole occurrence coolly, he--challoner--came to the comforting conclusion that he was hardly more to blame, more responsible, than he would be if some reckless fool had blundered across the road under the nose of his motor and got run down. whereupon, the sun having now cleared the crests of the pines and it being imperative not to give the servants any handle for gossip, challoner undressed and went to bed. he succeeded in advancing the date of the wedding; but during the five weeks which elapsed before it took place his moods caused some perplexity and no small discomfort to his poorer clients, junior partners, and clerks. at moments he indulged in boisterous mirth; but for the most part was abominably bad-tempered, irritable, and morose. colonel haig, however, noted unexpected signs of grace in him, concerning which he spoke to mr. woodford one day at the club. "challoner's coming more into line," he said; "he is less noisy and self-assertive--very much less so. a good deal of the improvement in his manner is due to me, i flatter myself. i have been at the trouble of giving him some very strong hints. if you propose to associate with gentlemen you must learn to behave like a gentleman. his election to the club vexed me at the time. too much country-attorney sharp practice in the methods he employed, i thought. so i am relieved, greatly relieved, he has taken my friendly admonitions to heart. it would have annoyed me extremely if his membership had lowered the social tone of the club. too, it's pleasanter for me personally, as i am bound, i suppose, to see a good deal of him in the future, on my cousin, margaret smyrthwaite's, account." when alone with his _fiancée_ during this period of waiting challoner's attitude alternated between anxious, almost servile, humility and extravagant making of love. margaret, however, being a young woman of limited imagination, put down both humility and "demonstrations" to the potent effect of her own charms, thus remaining altogether sensible, self-complacent, outwardly composed, inwardly excited, and, in fine, very well content. while unknown to her, unknown, indeed, to all save the man who so slavishly obeyed and fiercely caressed her, the unsightly thing, which had once been her playmate and brother, lay out, below the ever-talking trees, among the heath, and sedge-grass, and bracken, the tragedy and unspeakable disgrace of its decomposition not hidden by so much as a pauper's deal coffin-lid. chapter ix wherein adrian savage succeeds in awakening la belle au bois dormant in consequence of the bad weather every one returned to paris early that autumn. anastasia beauchamp's first reception--the fourth thursday in september--proved a crowded and animated function. each guest expressed rapture at meeting every other guest, and at being back, yes, once again veritably established in our dear, good, brave, inexhaustibly interesting, intelligent and entertaining paris! how they--the speakers--ever mustered sufficient fortitude to go away, still more to stay away, they could really now form no conception. but it was finished, thank heaven! the mortally tedious exile; and they were restored to the humanities, the arts, the sciences, in short, to civilization, of which last dear mademoiselle beauchamp's hospitality represented so integral and so wholly charming a part. this and much more to this effect. the french mind and french diction rarely fumble; but arrive, with graceful adroitness, squarely on the spot. lightness of touch and finish of phrase effectually safeguarded these raptures against any suggestion of insincerity or absurdity. they were diverting, captivating, as were the retailers of them. and anastasia listened, retorted, sympathized, capped a climax with further witty extravagance, heartily pleased and amused. nevertheless, to her, this yearly _rentrée_ was not without an element of pathos. in the matter of reminiscence and retrospect miss beauchamp was the least self-indulgent of women; her tendency to depress her juniors by exaltation of the past at expense of the present being of the smallest. to hours of solitary communing in her hidden garden she restricted all that. still this joyous homing, when the members of her acquaintance taking up their residence once again in paris blossomed into fullness of intellectual and social activity, left her a little wistful, a little sad. recognition of the perpetual shifting of the human scene, of the instability of human purpose, oppressed her. how few of those who greeted her to-day with such affectionate _empressement_ were precisely the same in thought, circumstance or character as when they bade her farewell at the end of may! she could not but note changes. those changes might be slight, infinitesimal, but they existed. not only do things, as a whole, march on; but the individual marches on also--marches on, too often, out completeness of sympathy, completeness of comprehension, or, through the ceaselessly centrifugal, scattering action of the social machine, marches on actually out of hearing and out of sight! and this thinning of the ranks, these changes in those who remained, did cause her sorrow. she could not bring herself to acquiesce in and accept them with entire philosophy. arrayed in a dress of clove carnation satin veiled with black _ninon de soie_, miss beauchamp stood near the door opening from the first of the suite of reception-rooms--in which tea had been served--on to the entrance hall. she had taken up her position there when bidding her guests adieu. in the second room two persons were talking, lewis byewater's slow, detached, slightly nasal accents making themselves clearly audible. "lenty stacpole feels madame vernois is just the loveliest mature french feminine type he has yet encountered. he would be gratified to work up those thumbnail sketches of her he made at ste. marie into a finished portrait for exhibition with his other work in new york this winter--" with an unconscious, but very expressive, little gesture of reprobation anastasia moved across to the embrasure of the near window, pleasant from the fresh, pungent scent of a bank of white and lemon-colored chrysanthemums. she looked up into the limpid clarity of the twilight sky seen above the house-roofs on the opposite side of the quiet street. ... yes, the perpetual shifting of the human scene, the instability of human purpose. and, as concrete example of all that, a portrait of gentle, shrinking, timid, pre-eminently old-world madame vernois on exhibition in new york! the shouting incongruity of the proposition! would her daughter, _la belle gabrielle_, entertain it? and there, as anastasia confessed to herself, she ran up against the provoking cause of her quarrel with existing conditions and tendencies. for, of the two living persons whom she had recently come to hold dearest, wasn't the one changed and the other absent? since that pleasant afternoon at ste. marie she had neither sight nor word of adrian savage. the young man appeared to have incontinently vanished. she rang up his office in the _rue druot_. the good konski replied over the telephone, "monsieur was, alas! _encore en voyage_." she rang up his home address in the _rue de l'université_, only to receive the same response; supplemented by the information that adrian had not notified the date of his return, nor left orders as to the forwarding of his letters. what did this mean? she became anxious. "lenty has worried quite a wearing amount," byewater was saying, "whether it would be suitable he should ask you to let him work up a portrait. i tell you, madame st. leger, lenty's silver-point is just a dream. do not go thinking it is because i am his friend i judge it so. mr. dax positively enthused when he saw some samples last fall; and lenty has broken his own record since then--" anastasia, still consulting the calm evening sky, began to play a quite other than calm little fantasia with the fingers of one hand upon the window-pane. for why, in the name of diplomacy, of logic, of eros himself, had adrian savage elected to vanish at this moment of all conceivable moments? the goal of his ambitions was in sight--hadn't she told him as much at ste. marie? eros awaiting, as she believed, to crown him victor in the long, faithful fight. and then that he, the dear, exasperating young idiot, should gallop off thus, the lord only knew whither, instead of claiming the enchanting fruit of his victory! really, it was too wildly irritating. for _la belle gabrielle_ wasn't pleased--not a bit of it. she resented his absence at this particular juncture, as any woman of spirit not unreasonably must. only too probably she would make him pay for his apparent slight of her. and to what extent would she make him pay? faster and faster grew the time of the fantasia upon the window-pane, for this question greatly disturbed anastasia. for if adrian must be cited as an example of the absent, _la belle gabrielle_ must be cited as among the changed. miss beauchamp, who watched her with affectionate solicitude, perceived something was a little bit wrong with her. she was not quite contented, not quite happy. her manner had lost its delightful repose, her beauty, though great, its high serenity. her wit had a sharp edge to it. she avoided occasions of intimacy. to-day she had helped anastasia receive; and the latter remarked that, during the whole course of the afternoon, men had gathered about her and that she flirted--gracefully--yet undeniably--with each and all in turn. since her return to paris she had discarded the last outward signs of mourning. the smoke-gray walking-suit she wore to-day was lavishly embroidered in faint pastel shades of mauve, turquoise, and shell-pink, the pattern outlined here and there in silver thread, which glinted slightly as she moved. the same delicate tones tipped the _panache_ of smoke-gray ostrich plumes set at the side of her large black hat. in this donning of charming colors anastasia read the signing of some private declaration of independence, some assertion, not only of her youth and youth's acknowledged privilege of joyous costume, but of intention to make capital out of the admiration her youth and beauty excited after the manner of other fair _mondaines_. clearly madame st. leger had arrived at a definite and momentous parting of the ways. her mourning, all which it implied and which went along with it, was a thing of the past. her nature was too rich--let it be added, too normal and wholesome--for the senses not to play their part in the shaping of her destiny. she had coquetted with feminism, it is true; but such appeals and opportunities as feminism has to offer the senses are not of an order wholesome natures can accept. to gabrielle those appeals and opportunities were, briefly, loathsome; while, in her existing attitude, an exclusively intellectual fanaticism--such as alone can render advanced feminism morally innocuous--no longer could control or satisfy her. against it her ironic and critical humor rebelled, making sport of it. it followed, therefore, as anastasia saw, that _la belle gabrielle_ would inevitably seek satisfaction, scope for her young energies, for her unimpaired joy of living, elsewhere. and this signaled possible danger. for, just now, being piqued, as anastasia believed, and pushed by wounded pride, she might commit a folly. she might marry the wrong man, marry for position merely, or for money. plenty of aspirants, judging by this afternoon, needed but little encouragement to declare themselves. she had borne the trials of one loveless marriage bravely, without faintest breath of scandal or hint of disaster. throughout she had been admirable, both in taste and in conduct. but what about a second loveless marriage, made now in the full bloom of her womanhood? miss beauchamp's fingers positively drummed upon the window. for she had come to love them both so closely, love them foolishly, even weakly, much--perhaps--this very attractive young couple, of whom the one, just now, was absent, the other changed! beyond measure would it grieve her if the consummation of their romance should be frustrated or should come about other than quite honest and noble lines. why, oh! why, in heaven's name, did adrian savage absent himself? why, at this eminently psychologic moment, was he not here? anastasia could have wept. then, becoming aware of footsteps, and some presence entering from the hall behind her, she turned round hastily to find herself confronted by adrian himself. "_enfin!_" she cried, enthusiastically. "what an inexpressible relief to see you, my dear savage! you discover me in the very act of exhaling my doubtfully pious soul in prayers for your speedy return. you are late, in some respects perhaps dangerously late; but 'better late than never'--immeasurably better in this connection. only, pardon me, where on earth have you been?" the young man held her hand affectionately. "in a land which possesses no frontiers, alas!" he said; "a land which bears no relation to geography." "hum! hum!" anastasia responded, just a trifle impatiently, shaking her head. "and in addition to its other peculiarities is this famous country devoid of a postal system, may i ask?" "practically, yes," adrian answered. "unless one is prepared to make oneself a really unpardonable bore. some people call it the land of regrets, dear friend, others call it purgatory. the two names are synonymous for most of us, i imagine. i have spent several weeks there, and the atmosphere of the accursed place still so clings to me that, although i needed immensely to see you, i shrank from coming here to-day until, as i supposed, all your other guests would have gone." then anastasia, looking at him, perceived that this delightful young man--her great fondness for whom she did not attempt to disguise or deny--must also be added to the number of the homing parisians who had suffered change since she saw them last. to begin with, he was in mourning of the correct french order, which, in man's attire only in a degree less than in woman's, prescribes uncompromising severity of black. but the change in him, as she quickly apprehended, went deeper than such merely outward acknowledgment of mournful occurrence. some profound note had been struck since she saw him at ste. marie of the gleaming sands and alluring horizons, revealing tremendous and vital issues to him; and, in view of those same issues, revealing him to himself. from the effect of this revelation his whole being was still vibrant. anastasia's heart went out to him in large and generous sympathy; but she abstained from question or comment. the matter, whatever it might be, was grave, not to be taken lightly or played with. if he intended to give her his confidence, he would find an opportunity for doing so himself. men, as she reflected, in their dealings with women are made that way. express no desire to learn what troubles them, and they hasten to tell you. show, however discreetly, your anxiety to hear, and they roll like hedgehogs, prickles outward, at once! so she merely said, smiling at him: "i am afraid you should have waited even longer, my dear savage, if your object was to avoid all my guests. two, in any case, still linger. listen--we cannot hope for solitude _à deux_ just yet." for once more byewater's slow, penetrating accents made themselves audible. "if you feel not to be able to entertain lenty stacpole's proposal, madame st. leger, i would not have you hesitate to tell me. i believe i catch on to your objection, though in america our ladies do not have such strong prejudices against publicity. i will explain to lenty the way you feel. i would not wish to put you to any worry of refusing his proposal yourself." "eh! _par exemple_! and pray what next?" adrian said, under his breath, with raised eyebrows, looking his hostess inquiringly in the face. "ste. marie offered only too many fatally magical quarters of an hour. they are both very hopelessly far gone, the two poor innocents!" "both? but it is preposterous, incredible! dearest friend, you do not say to me both--not both?" adrian cried, in a rising scale of heated protest. to which anastasia, hailing these symptoms of militant jealousy as altogether healthy, replied genially, taking his arm: "if you doubt my word, come and judge for yourself." lewis byewater, his hands clasped behind him, leaned his limp height against one of the few wall-spaces unincrusted with pictures, mirrors, china and other liberal confusion of ornament. madame st. leger stood near him, smoothing out the wrinkles in the wrists of her long gloves. to adrian, as he entered the room, her charming person presented itself in profile. he perceived, and this gave him a curious turn in the blood, half of subtle alarm, half of high promise, that she once more wore colors. anastasia beauchamp felt his arm tremble. "yes," she murmured, "a certain enchanting woman puts on her armor and takes the field again. believe me, it is time, high time, you came back!" "you are so very good to try to spare me the pain of making mr. stacpole a refusal," gabrielle was saying sweetly to the young american. "but you do always show yourself so very amiable, so thoughtful i think your countrymen are of the most--how do you say?--the most unselfish of any--" turning her head--"ah!" she exclaimed, quite sharply, living red leaping into the round of her cheeks and living light into her eyes--"it is you, mr. savage?" but even while the answering light leaped into adrian's eyes, very effectually for the moment dissipating their melancholy, her expression hardened, becoming mocking and ironic. "you have the pleasure to know my kind friend, m. byewater?" she asked, with a graceful wave of the hand toward that excellent youth, who had ceased to lounge against the wall and stood rather anxiously upright, the blankness of unexpected discomfiture upon his ingenuous countenance. "incontestably i have the pleasure of knowing m. byewater," adrian replied. "i have also had the pleasure of reading, and further, of publishing, two of his a little--yes, i fear, perhaps just a little--lengthy articles." "i did condense all i knew," byewater put in ruefully, addressing his hostess. "but i presume i was over-weighted by the amount of my material." "quite so; and the whole secret both of style and of holding your reader's attention lies in selection, in the intuitive knowledge of what to leave out," adrian declared, his eyes fixed with positively ferocious jealousy upon _la belle gabrielle's_ partially averted face. that poor, inoffensive byewater should receive this public roasting was flagrantly unjust, anastasia felt, still she abstained from intervention. the silence which followed was critical. she refused to break it. the responsibility of doing so appeared to her too great. one or other of the two principal actors in the little scene must undertake that. she really couldn't. at last, coldly, unwilling, as though forced against her inclination to speak, madame st. leger, turning to adrian savage, said: "it is long since we have any news of him. how is m. dax?" adrian shrugged his shoulders. "i have not heard, _chère madame_," he replied. whereupon miss beauchamp, satisfied that, whether for good or ill, relations were safely established between this altogether dear and not a little perverse young couple, called cheerfully to the american youth. "come here, come here, mr. byewater. i have hardly had one word with you all this afternoon, and there is something i greatly wish to ask you. what is this that i hear about our good, clever mr. stacpole's leaving for new york?" "it is so, miss beauchamp. lenty is fairly through with the work for his winter exhibition, and he looks to start the first of the month." "but i do not comprehend how it is you do not bring any news of m. dax. have you not then been with him all the time since we have last seen you?" "i have been abroad," adrian replied. "my cousin, of whom you may remember to have heard me speak--joanna smyrthwaite--" he hesitated, and his companion, though stoutly resolved against all yielding and pity in his direction, could not but note the melancholy and extreme pallor of his handsome face. "but certainly i remember," she returned rather hastily. "is she ill, then, poor lady, one of those pensive abstractions whom it has been your interesting mission to materialize and rejuvenate?" "she is no longer ill," he answered. "she is dead." "_ah! quel malheur inattendu_! truly that is most sad," gabrielle said in accents of concern. then for a moment she looked at adrian with a very singular expression. "i offer you my sympathy, my condolences, mr. savage, upon this unhappy event." and, turning aside, she began to move toward the doorway of the outer room, upon the threshold of which her hostess stood talking to byewater. but adrian arrested her impetuously. "stay, madame!" he cried, joining his hands as in supplication. "stay, i implore you, and permit me a few minutes' conversation. by this you will confer the greatest benefit upon me; for so, and so only, can misunderstandings and misconstructions be avoided." thus admonished, gabrielle paused. her aspect and bearing were reserved, as those of one who yields in obedience to good manners rather than to personal inclination. but adrian, nothing daunted, followed up his advantage. "i came here to-day, _chère madame_," he said, "as soon as possible after my return. my idea was to consult our friend miss beauchamp, to ask her advice and enlist her assistance. i feared my conduct might have appeared erratic, inexplicable. i proposed begging her to act as my ambassadress, asking her to recount to you certain things which have taken place since we parted at ste. marie--things very grievous, in a way unexampled and unnatural. but as i have the good fortune to find you here, i entreat you to wait and hear me while i acquaint you with those occurrences myself. you will remain, yes? let us go over there then, out of earshot of the insupportably recurrent mr. byewater. i need to speak to you alone, _chère madame_, without frivolous interruptions. and mr. byewater is forever at hand. he annoys me. he is so very far from decorative. he reminds me of a fish--of an underdone _filet de sole_." madame st. leger's reserve gave slightly. "unhappy mr. byewater!" she murmured. "yes, indeed unhappy, since you too observe the likeness," adrian pursued, darting positively envenomed glances in the direction of the doorway. "yet is it not unpardonable in any man to resemble the insufficiently fried section of a flat fish? you recognize it as unpardonable? sit down here then, _trés chère madame_, at the farthest distance possible from that lanky _poisson d'amérique_. ah! i am grateful to you," he added, with very convincing earnestness. "for in listening you will help to dissipate the blackness of regret which engulfs me. you will hear and you will judge; yes, it is for you, for you only and supremely to do that--to judge." "i fear you will be no end fatigued, miss beauchamp, standing all this long time talking," the excellent, and, fortunately, quite unconscious byewater was meanwhile saying. "i believe i ought to go right now. i had promised myself i would escort madame st. leger home to the _quai malaquais_. but i don't believe i stand to gain anything by waiting. recent developments hardly favor the supposition that promise is likely to condense into fact." he nodded his head, indicating the couple ensconced at the opposite end of the room in two pillowed, cane-seated, cane-backed gilt chairs of pseudo-classic pattern. the wall immediately behind them carried a broad, tall panel of looking-glass, the border of which blossomed on either side at about half its height into a cluster of shaded electric lamps. the mellow light from these covered the perfectly finished figures of the young man and woman, sitting there in such close proximity, and created a bright circle about them, as anastasia beauchamp noted, curiously isolating them from all surrounding objects save their own graceful images repeated in the great looking-glass. her eyes dwelt upon them in indulgent tenderness. might they prosper! and therewith, very genially, she turned her attention to the fish-like byewater once more. but that same bright isolation and close proximity worked strongly upon gabrielle st. leger. her pulse quickened. a subtle excitement took possession of her, which, just because of her anxiety to ignore and conceal it, obliged her to speak. "your cousin's death has evidently pained you. you mourn her very truly, very much?" "i cannot mourn enough." "indeed!" she said, dwelling upon the word with a peculiar and slightly incredulous inflection. "no," he repeated, "i cannot mourn enough. but to make my state of mind intelligible to you--and it is vitally important to me to do so--it is necessary you should know what has happened. i cannot deny that i am very sad." he bowed himself together, setting his elbows on his knees, pressing his hands against either side of his head. "i have cause to be sad," he continued. "involuntarily i have contributed to the commission of a crime. all the values are altered. i am become a stranger to myself. therefore i ask just this of you, to hear me and to judge." surprised, impressed, alarmed even, gabrielle st. leger gathered herself back gravely in her gilded, long-seated pseudo-classic chair. the young man's genuine and undisguised trouble combined with his actual physical nearness to threaten her emotional equilibrium. more eagerly than she cared to admit even to herself had she looked forward to his return to ste. marie. her disappointment was proportionate, causing her anger. the thought of the slight he had put upon her rankled. she was, or rather wished to be, angry still. but just now wishes and feeling ranged themselves in irritating opposition and conflict. and during the silence following his last strangely sorrowful and self-accusing words--he so very near to her, dejected, abstracted, with bent head--feeling gained, waxing masterful and intimate. the personal charm of the man, his distinction of appearance, his quick brain and eloquent speech, his unimpeachable sincerity, his virility--refined, but in no degree impaired by the artificial conditions of modern life--even his boyish outbreak of jealousy toward lewis byewater, stirred and agitated her, proving dangerous alike to her senses and her heart. the culminating moment of that terrible experience in rené dax's studio, when, half beside herself from the horror of madness and death, she had flung herself upon adrian's breast, there finding safety and restoration to all the dear joys of living, presented itself to her memory with importunate insistence. was it conceivable that she craved to have that moment repeat itself? "mr. savage--you asked me to listen. i listen," she said, and her voice shook. in response the young man looked up at her, a rather pitiful smile on his white face. "thank you--it was like this, then, _chère madame et amie_," he said. "pushed by certain sinister fears, without waiting to communicate with you or with any one, i went straight to england on receiving from her sister the announcement of my cousin's death. letters had passed between us during the previous fortnight which rendered that announcement peculiarly and acutely distressing to me." adrian bent his head again and sat staring blindly at the floor. "she had asked a pledge of me which neither in honor nor in honesty could i give," he said, bitterly. "my cousin was an admirable woman of business. i knew that all her worldly affairs were scrupulously regulated. i was in no way concerned in the distribution of her property. i went to attend her funeral as a tribute of regard and respect. i also went in the hope the sinister fears of which i have spoken might prove unfounded. i stayed in london, merely going down to stourmouth for a few hours. it was a wretched, wretched day, the weather cold and wet." he ceased speaking. for at this moment--whether through some inward compelling, some mental necessity to arrive at a just and comprehensive estimate of the history of the last eight months, or whether through some external influence emanating from the unseen world of spirit and striving to dominate and coerce him, he could neither then, nor afterward, determine--the whole gloomy _affaire_ smyrthwaite, in its entirety, from start to finish, presented itself to his mind. the slightly bizarre yet charming room, its crowded furniture, subdued gaiety of lights and flowers, even gabrielle st. leger's well-beloved and ardently desired presence, became strangely unreal to him and remote; while his mind fixed itself in turn upon the autocratic, self-centered husband and father warping the lives of wife and children in obedience to cold-blooded theory; upon the interruption of his own work, and prosecution of his fair romance, by the tedious labors of the executorship; of his long fruitless search amid the filth of the paris underworld for the wastrel degenerate, bibby; of the squalid finding, the still more squalid redisappearance of the wretched fellow, and the disquieting uncertainty which even now covered his whereabouts and his fate; and lastly, with sharp inward shrinking, upon the commencement, the progress, the extinction, of joanna's infatuation for himself. and as sum total and result what remained? what was there to show in the way of harvest for all that strenuous and painful sowing? only this--that now, very strangely, he himself at once participant and spectator, he saw in the mournful chill of the rain-swept september day a dark, straggling, ill-assorted procession passing up a trampled, puddle-pocketed road between ranks of pale and vulgarly commonplace monuments set against a backing of somber fir-trees and heather. margaret smyrthwaite, composed, callous, and comely, swathed in abundance of brand-new crape, walked beside him immediately behind a coffin--the hard, polished lines of which were unsoftened by pall or by flowers--carried shoulder high. the big yorkshireman, andrew merriman, followed in company with joseph challoner--the latter oddly subdued and nervous, obsequious even in bearing and in speech. next came fussy little colonel haig, doctor norbiton, and the amazon marion chase. a contingent of servants from the tower house, headed by smallbridge, the butler; johnson, the portly coachman, and mrs. isherwood, brought up the rear. isherwood, alone of the company, wept, silently but heart-brokenly, mourning not only a mistress who was to her as a daughter, but the passing of an order of things which had filled and molded her life and in the service of which she had grown old. to adrian the faithful woman's tears supplied the one sincere and human note in the otherwise cruelly barren and perfunctory performance. and, to his seeing, her desolation found sympathetic echo in the desolation of the autumn moorland, of the bare coffin, and the gray curtain of drifting mist blotting out the distance--the vast amphitheater of the baughurst park woods, the streets and buildings of stourmouth, and all the noble freedom of the sea. the hopelessness of that desolation clutched at him still, penetrating him, even now and here, with conviction of failure and futility, with doubt of any eternal and reasoned direction and purpose in things human, and with very searching doubt of himself. his fine and healthy optimism--in other words, his faith in god's goodness--suffered bitter eclipse. "i would not be surprised if i concluded to take the trip with lenty the first of the month, miss beauchamp." as he spoke lewis byewater's mild and honest eyes, half humorously, half reproachfully, sought the delightful young man and young woman sitting silent in their gilded chairs. "i am ever so grateful to you for all the splendid times you have given me," he continued, rather irrelevantly; "but i begin to have a notion it would prove healthier for me to leave paris this fall." again his eyes sought the silent couple enthroned before the tall mirror. "yes," he said, "i feel pretty confident i will accompany lenty. seems as though this gay city had turned ever so lonesome and foreign to-night. europe is enervating for a continuance. i know others who have found it affect them that way. there is too much atmosphere over here. i have a notion my moral system is in need of toning up; and i believe our bright american climate might help me some if i took a spell of it." madame st. leger threw back her head and loosened the lace scarf about her rounded throat. "return, mr. savage. again i remind you that i wait to hear that which you ask to tell me, that i listen. return, lest i grow too impatient of waiting," she said. adrian straightened himself. his looked dazed, absorbed. he passed his hands across his eyes and forehead, as one who awakens from a feverish sleep. "ah! forgive me, _chère madame_," he answered. "but that is precisely what i need, what i desire--just that--to return, to come back; and to come back by your invitation, at your calling. i ask nothing better, nothing else." he spread out his hands, leaning sideways in his chair, looking at her. "forgive me. i am very stupid, incoherent; but the events of the last three weeks are still so vividly present to me that they confuse and distract me. i cannot see my way clearly. i find it difficult to tell you what is necessary, just what i should. see, then, it had been the habit of my cousin to keep a journal daily from early childhood. the last volume of that journal she had, i found, left as a legacy to me. her sister gave it to me after the funeral. i took it back with me to london. the night was wet, and i was in no humor for amusement. i remained indoors, in my room at the hotel. the sinister fears which i entertained in connection with my cousin's death had not been allayed by my visit to stourmouth. a certain mystery appeared to surround the circumstances attending it. i perceived a great unwillingness to answer my inquiries on the part of those most nearly concerned. that night, after dinner, i opened the packet containing the journal, unwillingly, i own; i would rather have delayed. but i could not do so. with the muffled roar of the ceaseless london traffic in my ears i sat and read the journal from cover to cover. having once begun, i could not leave off. i did not go to bed that night. in the morning early i left london. i left england. i traveled. i hardly know where i went, madame. i wanted to escape. i wanted to get away from every person i knew, whom i had ever seen. above all i wanted to get away from myself; but i was obliged to take myself along with me. and i found myself a dreadful companion. i hated myself." madame st. leger moved slightly in her gilded chair. "my poor friend!" she murmured almost inaudibly. "yes, i hated myself," adrian repeated. "that journal is the most poignant, the most convincing human document i have ever read. my cousin had the misfortune to love a person who did not return her affection. in the pages of her journal, with uncompromising truthfulness, with appalling self-scrutiny, self-revelation and unflinching courage, with, i may add, the amazing abandon possible only to a rigidly virtuous woman, she has recorded the successive phases of that love, from its first unsuspected and almost unconscious inception to the hour when by an act of will, so extraordinary as to be little short of miraculous, she sent her soul out of her body, across land and sea, in pursuit of the man whom she loved and forced from his own lips the confession of his indifference to her." again madame st. leger moved slightly. "you tell me this soberly, mr. savage?" she asked. "in good faith?" adrian looked fixedly at her. her beautiful face, her whole attitude, was tense with excitement. "in absolute good faith, madame," he replied. "i have not only the detailed testimony of her journal, but the perfectly independent and equally detailed testimony of the person whom she loved. the two statements agree in every particular." "still," gabrielle cried, a sudden yearning in her eyes, "still i cannot count her as altogether unfortunate, your poor cousin! for it is not given to many--it is the mark of a very strong, a very great nature, to be capable of such love. and when she had obtained this man's confession?" "she decided to live no longer," adrian replied hoarsely. "she had no religion, no faith in almighty god or in the survival of human personality and consciousness, no hope of a hereafter, to restrain her from taking her own life. she made her preparations calmly and silently, with the dignity of sincere and very impressive stoicism. the concluding words of the terrible book, in which she has dissected out all the passion and agony of her heart, of her poor tortured body as well as her poor tortured soul, are words of pity, of tenderness, toward the man who found himself unable to return her affection." for a time both remained silent, while in the outer room miss beauchamp bade a genial farewell to the disconsolate byewater. "yes, go, my dear young man, go," she said, "and breathe the surprising air of your very surprising native land. i shall miss you. but i understand the position, and give you my blessing. later you will return to us--for europe is full of illumination and of instruction. you will return, and, be very sure, we shall all be delighted to see you. be sure, also, that you leave an altogether pleasant and friendly reputation behind you." "but, but," gabrielle said, presently, with a certain protest and hesitancy, "it pains, it angers me to think of so great a waste. for it is no ordinary thing, the bestowal by any woman of so magnificent a gift of love. that a woman, young and rich, should die for love--and now, at the present time, when our interest moves quickly from person to person, when we console ourselves easily with some new occupation, new friendship, when our morals are perhaps a little--how do you say?--easy, is it not particularly surprising, is it not, indeed, unique? to reject such affection, is not that to throw away, in a sense, a positive fortune? how could such devotion fail to attract, fail to create a response? why, monsieur, could not this man of whom you tell me return your cousin's great love?" adrian savage spread out his hands with a gesture at once hopeless and singularly appealing. "because, madame, because the man already loved you," he said. "and, that being so, for him there could be no possible room, no conceivable question, of any other love." madame st. leger remained absolutely motionless, expressionless, for a moment; then she threw back her head, closing her eyes. "ah!" she sighed, sharply. "ah!" and adrian waited, watching her, a sudden keenness in his face. for what, indeed, did it betoken, where did it lead to, this praise and advocacy of joanna smyrthwaite's tragic devotion, followed by that singularly unrestrained and unconventional little outcry? the said outcry struck right through him, giving him a queer turn in the blood--carrying him back in sentiment, moreover, to the horrible yet perfect experience in rené dax's studio, when he had felt the whole weight of gabrielle's beloved body flung against him and the clasp of her arms about his neck. he straightened himself, took a deep breath, his nostrils dilated, his lips parted. he emerged from the confusion and lethargy which had oppressed him, quickened by that same outcry into newness and fullness of life. to him all this was as the drawing aside of some gloomy, jealously impenetrable curtain--the curtain of desolate gray mist, was it, blotting out the distance, the town, the great woods, and the noble freedom of the sea, when he walked in that ill-assorted funeral procession up the wet road behind joanna's coffin?--a drawing of it aside and letting the glad and wholesome sunlight shine on him once more. he no longer felt a stranger to himself. the past--all which had happened, all which went to shape his character and inspire his action, all which he had desired and held infinitely dear before the _affaire_ smyrthwaite imposed itself upon him--linked up with the present, in sane and intelligible sequence of cause and effect. thus, chastened, it is true, a little older, sadder, wiser, but fearless, ardent, purposeful as ever, did adrian the magnificent come into his own again. he drew nearer to her, laid his right arm somewhat possessively upon the arm of madame st. leger's chair, and spoke softly, yet with much of his former impetuosity. "see, _chère madame_, see," he said; "do you perhaps remember, this winter, in the week of the great snow, when i came to tell you i was summoned to my cousins' home in england? you were not quite, quite kind. you mocked me a little, suggesting a solution of the problems raised by my impending visit. the solution you proposed was, as i ventured to explain to you, impossible then. it remained impossible to the end, the cruel end, and for the same reason." his manner changed. his voice deepened. "yet, believe me, when by degrees, against my will, against my respect for my cousin and sincere desire for her happiness, the fact of her unfortunate partiality was brought home to me, i tried with all my strength to command my heart. twice i faced the situation without reserve, and tried to submit, to sacrifice myself, rather than cause her humiliation and distress." adrian looked away across the crowded, pleasant room, with its scent of autumn flowers, cedar, and sandalwood, and its many shaded lights. his lips worked, but at first no sound passed them. "i could not do it," he said. "i could not. i loved you too much." he raised his hand from the arm of _la belle gabrielle's_ chair, turning proudly upon her, as a man who on his trial fiercely protests his own innocence. "i had given her no cause for her disastrous delusion--before god, madame, i had not. and my passion, too, has its authority, its unalienable rights. i could not, i dared not, betray them. it may be that the happiness to which i aspire will never be granted me. very well. i shall suffer, but i shall know how to accommodate myself. but to cut myself off voluntarily from all hope of that happiness by marriage with another woman was like asking me to mutilate myself. i refused. could the situation repeat itself, i should again refuse, although when i read her terrible journal and learned the reason of my cousin's suicide i was consumed by remorse, by grief and self-reproach." adrian paused. "now i have told you everything, madame," he added, quietly. "i leave myself in your hands. it is for you to condemn or to acquit me, to judge whether i have behaved as an honorable man, whether i have done right." after a silence, a pathetic bewilderment in her mysterious eyes, gabrielle st. leger answered brokenly: "i do not know. i do not know. i cannot presume to judge. what you tell me is all so difficult, so sad--only i may say, perhaps, that i am glad you did not sacrifice yourself." "you are glad? then--" adrian stammered, "then you will marry me?" "eh! but," _la belle gabrielle_ cried, and her voice shook, though whether with tears or with laughter she herself knew not, "you go so quick, so very quick!" "you are mistaken--pardon me. i do not go quick, but slow, slow as the centuries, as æons, as innumerable and cumulative eternities. have i not served for you, _tres chère madame_, a good seven years?" "so long as that?" "yes, as long as that. ever since the day i first saw you. you had but recently come to paris. much has happened--for both of us--since that date. yes, i can still describe to you the gown you wore, the manner in which your hair was dressed, can recall the subjects of our conversation, can repeat the words which you said." madame st. leger gathered herself back in her gilded chair, her head bent. for a quite perceptible space of time she remained absolutely still. the inclination of her head and the shadow cast by the brim of her hat concealed her face. adrian's heart thumped in his ears. his breath came short and thick. at last he could bear the suspense no longer. he leaned forward again. "madame, madame," he called softly, urgently, "think of the seven years. remember that i am young and that i am on fire, since i love as the young love. do not prolong my trial. give me my answer--yes or no--now, here, at once." thus adjured, madame st. leger raised her head, looked full at him with wide-open eyes, something profound, exalted, in a way desperate, in her expression. she shivered slightly, and holding out both her hands: "i surrender," she said. the young man took her extended hands in his, bent down and kissed them reverently; then looked back at her gravely, resolutely, though he was white to the lips. "but not under compulsion, not out of pity?" he said. "now, even now, with the consummation of all my hopes and desire within my grasp, i would rather you sent me away than, than--that--" _la belle gabrielle_ shook her head gently, smiling. "no, no," she answered. "not under compulsion, not out of pity, _mon ami_; but because i find nature is too strong for me. because i find i too love, and find--since you will have me lay bare my heart and tell you everything--it is you, precisely and solely you, whom i love." and from the inner room--into which anastasia beauchamp had passed unperceived by her two guests during this, for them, momentous colloquy--came strains of heroic music, good for the soul. the end sentimental education or, _the history of a young man_ by gustave flaubert _volume i._ m. walter dunne new york and london copyright, , by m. walter dunne publisher [illustration: she wore a wide straw hat with red ribbons, which fluttered in the wind behind her.] contents chapter i. a promising pupil chapter ii. damon and pythias chapter iii. sentiment and passion chapter iv. the inexpressible she! chapter v. "love knoweth no laws" chapter vi. blighted hopes chapter vii. change of fortune chapter viii. frederick entertains chapter ix. the friend of the family chapter x. at the races illustrations she wore a wide straw hat with red ribbons, which fluttered in the wind behind her "laugh, then! shed no more tears--be happy!" then she seized him by the ears and kissed him sentimental education chapter i. a promising pupil. on the th of september, , about six o'clock in the morning, the _ville de montereau_, just on the point of starting, was sending forth great whirlwinds of smoke, in front of the quai st. bernard. people came rushing on board in breathless haste. the traffic was obstructed by casks, cables, and baskets of linen. the sailors answered nobody. people jostled one another. between the two paddle-boxes was piled up a heap of parcels; and the uproar was drowned in the loud hissing of the steam, which, making its way through the plates of sheet-iron, enveloped everything in a white cloud, while the bell at the prow kept ringing continuously. at last, the vessel set out; and the two banks of the river, stocked with warehouses, timber-yards, and manufactories, opened out like two huge ribbons being unrolled. a young man of eighteen, with long hair, holding an album under his arm, remained near the helm without moving. through the haze he surveyed steeples, buildings of which he did not know the names; then, with a parting glance, he took in the Île st. louis, the cité, nôtre dame; and presently, as paris disappeared from his view, he heaved a deep sigh. frederick moreau, having just taken his bachelor's degree, was returning home to nogent-sur-seine, where he would have to lead a languishing existence for two months, before going back to begin his legal studies. his mother had sent him, with enough to cover his expenses, to havre to see an uncle, from whom she had expectations of his receiving an inheritance. he had returned from that place only yesterday; and he indemnified himself for not having the opportunity of spending a little time in the capital by taking the longest possible route to reach his own part of the country. the hubbub had subsided. the passengers had all taken their places. some of them stood warming themselves around the machinery, and the chimney spat forth with a slow, rhythmic rattle its plume of black smoke. little drops of dew trickled over the copper plates; the deck quivered with the vibration from within; and the two paddle-wheels, rapidly turning round, lashed the water. the edges of the river were covered with sand. the vessel swept past rafts of wood which began to oscillate under the rippling of the waves, or a boat without sails in which a man sat fishing. then the wandering haze cleared off; the sun appeared; the hill which ran along the course of the seine to the right subsided by degrees, and another rose nearer on the opposite bank. it was crowned with trees, which surrounded low-built houses, covered with roofs in the italian style. they had sloping gardens divided by fresh walls, iron railings, grass-plots, hot-houses, and vases of geraniums, laid out regularly on the terraces where one could lean forward on one's elbow. more than one spectator longed, on beholding those attractive residences which looked so peaceful, to be the owner of one of them, and to dwell there till the end of his days with a good billiard-table, a sailing-boat, and a woman or some other object to dream about. the agreeable novelty of a journey by water made such outbursts natural. already the wags on board were beginning their jokes. many began to sing. gaiety prevailed, and glasses of brandy were poured out. frederick was thinking about the apartment which he would occupy over there, on the plan of a drama, on subjects for pictures, on future passions. he found that the happiness merited by the excellence of his soul was slow in arriving. he declaimed some melancholy verses. he walked with rapid step along the deck. he went on till he reached the end at which the bell was; and, in the centre of a group of passengers and sailors, he saw a gentleman talking soft nothings to a country-woman, while fingering the gold cross which she wore over her breast. he was a jovial blade of forty with frizzled hair. his robust form was encased in a jacket of black velvet, two emeralds sparkled in his cambric shirt, and his wide, white trousers fell over odd-looking red boots of russian leather set off with blue designs. the presence of frederick did not discompose him. he turned round and glanced several times at the young man with winks of enquiry. he next offered cigars to all who were standing around him. but getting tired, no doubt, of their society, he moved away from them and took a seat further up. frederick followed him. the conversation, at first, turned on the various kinds of tobacco, then quite naturally it glided into a discussion about women. the gentleman in the red boots gave the young man advice; he put forward theories, related anecdotes, referred to himself by way of illustration, and he gave utterance to all these things in a paternal tone, with the ingenuousness of entertaining depravity. he was republican in his opinions. he had travelled; he was familiar with the inner life of theatres, restaurants, and newspapers, and knew all the theatrical celebrities, whom he called by their christian names. frederick told him confidentially about his projects; and the elder man took an encouraging view of them. but he stopped talking to take a look at the funnel, then he went mumbling rapidly through a long calculation in order to ascertain "how much each stroke of the piston at so many times per minute would come to," etc., and having found the number, he spoke about the scenery, which he admired immensely. then he gave expression to his delight at having got away from business. frederick regarded him with a certain amount of respect, and politely manifested a strong desire to know his name. the stranger, without a moment's hesitation, replied: "jacques arnoux, proprietor of _l'art industriel_, boulevard montmartre." a man-servant in a gold-laced cap came up and said: "would monsieur have the kindness to go below? mademoiselle is crying." _l'art industriel_ was a hybrid establishment, wherein the functions of an art-journal and a picture-shop were combined. frederick had seen this title several times in the bookseller's window in his native place on big prospectuses, on which the name of jacques arnoux displayed itself magisterially. the sun's rays fell perpendicularly, shedding a glittering light on the iron hoops around the masts, the plates of the barricades, and the surface of the water, which, at the prow, was cut into two furrows that spread out as far as the borders of the meadows. at each winding of the river, a screen of pale poplars presented itself with the utmost uniformity. the surrounding country at this point had an empty look. in the sky there were little white clouds which remained motionless, and the sense of weariness, which vaguely diffused itself over everything, seemed to retard the progress of the steamboat and to add to the insignificant appearance of the passengers. putting aside a few persons of good position who were travelling first class, they were artisans or shopmen with their wives and children. as it was customary at that time to wear old clothes when travelling, they nearly all had their heads covered with shabby greek caps or discoloured hats, thin black coats that had become quite threadbare from constant rubbing against writing-desks, or frock-coats with the casings of their buttons loose from continual service in the shop. here and there some roll-collar waistcoat afforded a glimpse of a calico shirt stained with coffee. pinchbeck pins were stuck into cravats that were all torn. list shoes were kept up by stitched straps. two or three roughs who held in their hands bamboo canes with leathern loops, kept looking askance at their fellow-passengers; and fathers of families opened their eyes wide while making enquiries. people chatted either standing up or squatting over their luggage; some went to sleep in various corners of the vessel; several occupied themselves with eating. the deck was soiled with walnut shells, butt-ends of cigars, peelings of pears, and the droppings of pork-butchers' meat, which had been carried wrapped up in paper. three cabinet-makers in blouses took their stand in front of the bottle case; a harp-player in rags was resting with his elbows on his instrument. at intervals could be heard the sound of falling coals in the furnace, a shout, or a laugh; and the captain kept walking on the bridge from one paddle-box to the other without stopping for a moment. frederick, to get back to his place, pushed forward the grating leading into the part of the vessel reserved for first-class passengers, and in so doing disturbed two sportsmen with their dogs. what he then saw was like an apparition. she was seated in the middle of a bench all alone, or, at any rate, he could see no one, dazzled as he was by her eyes. at the moment when he was passing, she raised her head; his shoulders bent involuntarily; and, when he had seated himself, some distance away, on the same side, he glanced towards her. she wore a wide straw hat with red ribbons which fluttered in the wind behind her. her black tresses, twining around the edges of her large brows, descended very low, and seemed amorously to press the oval of her face. her robe of light muslin spotted with green spread out in numerous folds. she was in the act of embroidering something; and her straight nose, her chin, her entire person was cut out on the background of the luminous air and the blue sky. as she remained in the same attitude, he took several turns to the right and to the left to hide from her his change of position; then he placed himself close to her parasol which lay against the bench, and pretended to be looking at a sloop on the river. never before had he seen more lustrous dark skin, a more seductive figure, or more delicately shaped fingers than those through which the sunlight gleamed. he stared with amazement at her work-basket, as if it were something extraordinary. what was her name, her place of residence, her life, her past? he longed to become familiar with the furniture of her apartment, all the dresses that she had worn, the people whom she visited; and the desire of physical possession yielded to a deeper yearning, a painful curiosity that knew no bounds. a negress, wearing a silk handkerchief tied round her head, made her appearance, holding by the hand a little girl already tall for her age. the child, whose eyes were swimming with tears, had just awakened. the lady took the little one on her knees. "mademoiselle was not good, though she would soon be seven; her mother would not love her any more. she was too often pardoned for being naughty." and frederick heard those things with delight, as if he had made a discovery, an acquisition. he assumed that she must be of andalusian descent, perhaps a creole: had she brought this negress across with her from the west indian islands? meanwhile his attention was directed to a long shawl with violet stripes thrown behind her back over the copper support of the bench. she must have, many a time, wrapped it around her waist, as the vessel sped through the midst of the waves; drawn it over her feet, gone to sleep in it! frederick suddenly noticed that with the sweep of its fringes it was slipping off, and it was on the point of falling into the water when, with a bound, he secured it. she said to him: "thanks, monsieur." their eyes met. "are you ready, my dear?" cried my lord arnoux, presenting himself at the hood of the companion-ladder. mademoiselle marthe ran over to him, and, clinging to his neck, she began pulling at his moustache. the strains of a harp were heard--she wanted to see the music played; and presently the performer on the instrument, led forward by the negress, entered the place reserved for saloon passengers. arnoux recognized in him a man who had formerly been a model, and "thou'd" him, to the astonishment of the bystanders. at length the harpist, flinging back his long hair over his shoulders, stretched out his hands and began playing. it was an oriental ballad all about poniards, flowers, and stars. the man in rags sang it in a sharp voice; the twanging of the harp strings broke the harmony of the tune with false notes. he played more vigorously: the chords vibrated, and their metallic sounds seemed to send forth sobs, and, as it were, the plaint of a proud and vanquished love. on both sides of the river, woods extended as far as the edge of the water. a current of fresh air swept past them, and madame arnoux gazed vaguely into the distance. when the music stopped, she moved her eyes several times as if she were starting out of a dream. the harpist approached them with an air of humility. while arnoux was searching his pockets for money, frederick stretched out towards the cap his closed hand, and then, opening it in a shamefaced manner, he deposited in it a louis d'or. it was not vanity that had prompted him to bestow this alms in her presence, but the idea of a blessing in which he thought she might share--an almost religious impulse of the heart. arnoux, pointing out the way, cordially invited him to go below. frederick declared that he had just lunched; on the contrary, he was nearly dying of hunger; and he had not a single centime in his purse. after that, it occurred to him that he had a perfect right, as well as anyone else, to remain in the cabin. ladies and gentlemen were seated before round tables, lunching, while an attendant went about serving out coffee. monsieur and madame arnoux were in the far corner to the right. he took a seat on the long bench covered with velvet, having picked up a newspaper which he found there. they would have to take the diligence at montereau for châlons. their tour in switzerland would last a month. madame arnoux blamed her husband for his weakness in dealing with his child. he whispered in her ear something agreeable, no doubt, for she smiled. then, he got up to draw down the window curtain at her back. under the low, white ceiling, a crude light filled the cabin. frederick, sitting opposite to the place where she sat, could distinguish the shade of her eyelashes. she just moistened her lips with her glass and broke a little piece of crust between her fingers. the lapis-lazuli locket fastened by a little gold chain to her wrist made a ringing sound, every now and then, as it touched her plate. those present, however, did not appear to notice it. at intervals one could see, through the small portholes, the side of a boat taking away passengers or putting them on board. those who sat round the tables stooped towards the openings, and called out the names of the various places they passed along the river. arnoux complained of the cooking. he grumbled particularly at the amount of the bill, and got it reduced. then, he carried off the young man towards the forecastle to drink a glass of grog with him. but frederick speedily came back again to gaze at madame arnoux, who had returned to the awning, beneath which she seated herself. she was reading a thin, grey-covered volume. from time to time, the corners of her mouth curled and a gleam of pleasure lighted up her forehead. he felt jealous of the inventor of those things which appeared to interest her so much. the more he contemplated her, the more he felt that there were yawning abysses between them. he was reflecting that he should very soon lose sight of her irrevocably, without having extracted a few words from her, without leaving her even a souvenir! on the right, a plain stretched out. on the left, a strip of pasture-land rose gently to meet a hillock where one could see vineyards, groups of walnut-trees, a mill embedded in the grassy slopes, and, beyond that, little zigzag paths over the white mass of rocks that reached up towards the clouds. what bliss it would have been to ascend side by side with her, his arm around her waist, while her gown would sweep the yellow leaves, listening to her voice and gazing up into her glowing eyes! the steamboat might stop, and all they would have to do was to step out of it; and yet this thing, simple as it might be, was not less difficult than it would have been to move the sun. a little further on, a château appeared with pointed roof and square turrets. a flower garden spread out in the foreground; and avenues ran, like dark archways, under the tall linden trees. he pictured her to himself passing along by this group of trees. at that moment a young lady and a young man showed themselves on the steps in front of the house, between the trunks of the orange trees. then the entire scene vanished. the little girl kept skipping playfully around the place where he had stationed himself on the deck. frederick wished to kiss her. she hid herself behind her nurse. her mother scolded her for not being nice to the gentleman who had rescued her own shawl. was this an indirect overture? "is she going to speak to me?" he asked himself. time was flying. how was he to get an invitation to the arnoux's house? and he could think of nothing better than to draw her attention to the autumnal hues, adding: "we are close to winter--the season of balls and dinner-parties." but arnoux was entirely occupied with his luggage. they had arrived at the point of the river's bank facing surville. the two bridges drew nearer. they passed a ropewalk, then a range of low-built houses, inside which there were pots of tar and splinters of wood; and brats went along the sand turning head over heels. frederick recognised a man with a sleeved waistcoat, and called out to him: "make haste!" they were at the landing-place. he looked around anxiously for arnoux amongst the crowd of passengers, and the other came and shook hands with him, saying: "a pleasant time, dear monsieur!" when he was on the quay, frederick turned around. she was standing beside the helm. he cast a look towards her into which he tried to put his whole soul. she remained motionless, as if he had done nothing. then, without paying the slightest attentions to the obeisances of his man-servant: "why didn't you bring the trap down here?" the man made excuses. "what a clumsy fellow you are! give me some money." and after that he went off to get something to eat at an inn. a quarter of an hour later, he felt an inclination to turn into the coachyard, as if by chance. perhaps he would see her again. "what's the use of it?" said he to himself. the vehicle carried him off. the two horses did not belong to his mother. she had borrowed one of m. chambrion, the tax-collector, in order to have it yoked alongside of her own. isidore, having set forth the day before, had taken a rest at bray until evening, and had slept at montereau, so that the animals, with restored vigour, were trotting briskly. fields on which the crops had been cut stretched out in apparently endless succession; and by degrees villeneuve, st. georges, ablon, châtillon, corbeil, and the other places--his entire journey--came back to his recollection with such vividness that he could now recall to mind fresh details, more intimate particulars.... under the lowest flounce of her gown, her foot showed itself encased in a dainty silk boot of maroon shade. the awning made of ticking formed a wide canopy over her head, and the little red tassels of the edging kept perpetually trembling in the breeze. she resembled the women of whom he had read in romances. he would have added nothing to the charms of her person, and would have taken nothing from them. the universe had suddenly become enlarged. she was the luminous point towards which all things converged; and, rocked by the movement of the vehicle, with half-dosed eyelids, and his face turned towards the clouds, he abandoned himself to a dreamy, infinite joy. at bray, he did not wait till the horses had got their oats; he walked on along the road ahead by himself. arnoux had, when he spoke to her, addressed her as "marie." he now loudly repeated the name "marie!" his voice pierced the air and was lost in the distance. the western sky was one great mass of flaming purple. huge stacks of wheat, rising up in the midst of the stubble fields, projected giant shadows. a dog began to bark in a farm-house in the distance. he shivered, seized with disquietude for which he could assign no cause. when isidore had come up with him, he jumped up into the front seat to drive. his fit of weakness was past. he had thoroughly made up his mind to effect an introduction into the house of the arnoux, and to become intimate with them. their house should be amusing; besides, he liked arnoux; then, who could tell? thereupon a wave of blood rushed up to his face; his temples throbbed; he cracked his whip, shook the reins, and set the horses going at such a pace that the old coachman repeatedly exclaimed: "easy! easy now, or they'll get broken-winded!" gradually frederick calmed down, and he listened to what the man was saying. monsieur's return was impatiently awaited. mademoiselle louise had cried in her anxiety to go in the trap to meet him. "who, pray, is mademoiselle louise?" "monsieur roque's little girl, you know." "ah! i had forgotten," rejoined frederick, carelessly. meanwhile, the two horses could keep up the pace no longer. they were both getting lame; and nine o'clock struck at st. laurent's when he arrived at the parade in front of his mother's house. this house of large dimensions, with a garden looking out on the open country, added to the social importance of madame moreau, who was the most respected lady in the district. she came of an old family of nobles, of which the male line was now extinct. her husband, a plebeian whom her parents forced her to marry, met his death by a sword-thrust, during her pregnancy, leaving her an estate much encumbered. she received visitors three times a week, and from time to time, gave a fashionable dinner. but the number of wax candles was calculated beforehand, and she looked forward with some impatience to the payment of her rents. these pecuniary embarrassments, concealed as if there were some guilt attached to them, imparted a certain gravity to her character. nevertheless, she displayed no prudery, no sourness, in the practice of her peculiar virtue. her most trifling charities seemed munificent alms. she was consulted about the selection of servants, the education of young girls, and the art of making preserves, and monseigneur used to stay at her house on the occasion of his episcopal visitations. madame moreau cherished a lofty ambition for her son. through a sort of prudence grounded on the expectation of favours, she did not care to hear blame cast on the government. he would need patronage at the start; then, with its aid, he might become a councillor of state, an ambassador, a minister. his triumphs at the college of sens warranted this proud anticipation; he had carried off there the prize of honour. when he entered the drawing-room, all present arose with a great racket; he was embraced; and the chairs, large and small, were drawn up in a big semi-circle around the fireplace. m. gamblin immediately asked him what was his opinion about madame lafarge. this case, the rage of the period, did not fail to lead to a violent discussion. madame moreau stopped it, to the regret, however, of m. gamblin. he deemed it serviceable to the young man in his character of a future lawyer, and, nettled at what had occurred, he left the drawing-room. nothing should have caused surprise on the part of a friend of père roque! the reference to père roque led them to talk of m. dambreuse, who had just become the owner of the demesne of la fortelle. but the tax-collector had drawn frederick aside to know what he thought of m. guizot's latest work. they were all anxious to get some information about his private affairs, and madame benoît went cleverly to work with that end in view by inquiring about his uncle. how was that worthy relative? they no longer heard from him. had he not a distant cousin in america? the cook announced that monsieur's soup was served. the guests discreetly retired. then, as soon as they were alone in the dining-room, his mother said to him in a low tone: "well?" the old man had received him in a very cordial manner, but without disclosing his intentions. madame moreau sighed. "where is she now?" was his thought. the diligence was rolling along the road, and, wrapped up in the shawl, no doubt, she was leaning against the cloth of the coupé, her beautiful head nodding asleep. he and his mother were just going up to their apartments when a waiter from the swan of the cross brought him a note. "what is that, pray?" "it is deslauriers, who wants me," said he. "ha! your chum!" said madame moreau, with a contemptuous sneer. "certainly it is a nice hour to select!" frederick hesitated. but friendship was stronger. he got his hat. "at any rate, don't be long!" said his mother to him. chapter ii. damon and pythias. charles deslauriers' father, an ex-captain in the line, who had left the service in , had come back to nogent, where he had married, and with the amount of the dowry bought up the business of a process-server,[ ] which brought him barely enough to maintain him. embittered by a long course of unjust treatment, suffering still from the effects of old wounds, and always regretting the emperor, he vented on those around him the fits of rage that seemed to choke him. few children received so many whackings as his son. in spite of blows, however, the brat did not yield. his mother, when she tried to interpose, was also ill-treated. finally, the captain planted the boy in his office, and all the day long kept him bent over his desk copying documents, with the result that his right shoulder was noticeably higher than his left. [footnote : the french word _huissier_ means a sheriff's officer, or a person whose business it is to serve writs, processes, and legal documents generally. the word "process-server" must not be understood in its colloquial english sense, for in france this business is sometimes a lucrative one.--translator.] in , on the invitation of the president, the captain sold his office. his wife died of cancer. he then went to live at dijon. after that he started in business at troyes, where he was connected with the slave trade; and, having obtained a small scholarship for charles, placed him at the college of sens, where frederick came across him. but one of the pair was twelve years old, while the other was fifteen; besides, a thousand differences of character and origin tended to keep them apart. frederick had in his chest of drawers all sorts of useful things--choice articles, such as a dressing-case. he liked to lie late in bed in the morning, to look at the swallows, and to read plays; and, regretting the comforts of home, he thought college life rough. to the process-server's son it seemed a pleasant life. he worked so hard that, at the end of the second year, he had got into the third form. however, owing to his poverty or to his quarrelsome disposition, he was regarded with intense dislike. but when on one occasion, in the courtyard where pupils of the middle grade took exercise, an attendant openly called him a beggar's child, he sprang at the fellow's throat, and would have killed him if three of the ushers had not intervened. frederick, carried away by admiration, pressed him in his arms. from that day forward they became fast friends. the affection of a _grandee_ no doubt flattered the vanity of the youth of meaner rank, and the other accepted as a piece of good fortune this devotion freely offered to him. during the holidays charles's father allowed him to remain in the college. a translation of plato which he opened by chance excited his enthusiasm. then he became smitten with a love of metaphysical studies; and he made rapid progress, for he approached the subject with all the energy of youth and the self-confidence of an emancipated intellect. jouffroy, cousin, laromiguière, malebranche, and the scotch metaphysicians--everything that could be found in the library dealing with this branch of knowledge passed through his hands. he found it necessary to steal the key in order to get the books. frederick's intellectual distractions were of a less serious description. he made sketches of the genealogy of christ carved on a post in the rue des trois rois, then of the gateway of a cathedral. after a course of mediæval dramas, he took up memoirs--froissart, comines, pierre de l'estoile, and brantôme. the impressions made on his mind by this kind of reading took such a hold of it that he felt a need within him of reproducing those pictures of bygone days. his ambition was to be, one day, the walter scott of france. deslauriers dreamed of formulating a vast system of philosophy, which might have the most far-reaching applications. they chatted over all these matters at recreation hours, in the playground, in front of the moral inscription painted under the clock. they kept whispering to each other about them in the chapel, even with st. louis staring down at them. they dreamed about them in the dormitory, which looked out on a burial-ground. on walking-days they took up a position behind the others, and talked without stopping. they spoke of what they would do later, when they had left college. first of all, they would set out on a long voyage with the money which frederick would take out of his own fortune on reaching his majority. then they would come back to paris; they would work together, and would never part; and, as a relaxation from their labours, they would have love-affairs with princesses in boudoirs lined with satin, or dazzling orgies with famous courtesans. their rapturous expectations were followed by doubts. after a crisis of verbose gaiety, they would often lapse into profound silence. on summer evenings, when they had been walking for a long time over stony paths which bordered on vineyards, or on the high-road in the open country, and when they saw the wheat waving in the sunlight, while the air was filled with the fragrance of angelica, a sort of suffocating sensation took possession of them, and they stretched themselves on their backs, dizzy, intoxicated. meanwhile the other lads, in their shirt-sleeves, were playing at base or flying kites. then, as the usher called in the two companions from the playground, they would return, taking the path which led along by the gardens watered by brooklets; then they would pass through the boulevards overshadowed by the old city walls. the deserted streets rang under their tread. the grating flew back; they ascended the stairs; and they felt as sad as if they had had a great debauch. the proctor maintained that they mutually cried up each other. nevertheless, if frederick worked his way up to the higher forms, it was through the exhortations of his friend; and, during the vacation in , he brought deslauriers to his mother's house. madame moreau disliked the young man. he had a terrible appetite. he was fond of making republican speeches. to crown all, she got it into her head that he had been the means of leading her son into improper places. their relations towards each other were watched. this only made their friendship grow stronger, and they bade one another adieu with heartfelt pangs when, in the following year, deslauriers left the college in order to study law in paris. frederick anxiously looked forward to the time when they would meet again. for two years they had not laid eyes on each other; and, when their embraces were over, they walked over the bridges to talk more at their ease. the captain, who had now set up a billiard-room at villenauxe, reddened with anger when his son called for an account of the expense of tutelage, and even cut down the cost of victuals to the lowest figure. but, as he intended to become a candidate at a later period for a professor's chair at the school, and as he had no money, deslauriers accepted the post of principal clerk in an attorney's office at troyes. by dint of sheer privation he spared four thousand francs; and, by not drawing upon the sum which came to him through his mother, he would always have enough to enable him to work freely for three years while he was waiting for a better position. it was necessary, therefore, to abandon their former project of living together in the capital, at least for the present. frederick hung down his head. this was the first of his dreams which had crumbled into dust. "be consoled," said the captain's son. "life is long. we are young. we'll meet again. think no more about it!" he shook the other's hand warmly, and, to distract his attention, questioned him about his journey. frederick had nothing to tell. but, at the recollection of madame arnoux, his vexation disappeared. he did not refer to her, restrained by a feeling of bashfulness. he made up for it by expatiating on arnoux, recalling his talk, his agreeable manner, his stories; and deslauriers urged him strongly to cultivate this new acquaintance. frederick had of late written nothing. his literary opinions were changed. passion was now above everything else in his estimation. he was equally enthusiastic about werther, rené, franck, lara, lélia, and other ideal creations of less merit. sometimes it seemed to him that music alone was capable of giving expression to his internal agitation. then, he dreamed of symphonies; or else the surface of things seized hold of him, and he longed to paint. he had, however, composed verses. deslauriers considered them beautiful, but did not ask him to write another poem. as for himself, he had given up metaphysics. social economy and the french revolution absorbed all his attention. just now he was a tall fellow of twenty-two, thin, with a wide mouth, and a resolute look. on this particular evening, he wore a poor-looking paletot of lasting; and his shoes were white with dust, for he had come all the way from villenauxe on foot for the express purpose of seeing frederick. isidore arrived while they were talking. madame begged of monsieur to return home, and, for fear of his catching cold, she had sent him his cloak. "wait a bit!" said deslauriers. and they continued walking from one end to the other of the two bridges which rest on the narrow islet formed by the canal and the river. when they were walking on the side towards nogent, they had, exactly in front of them, a block of houses which projected a little. at the right might be seen the church, behind the mills in the wood, whose sluices had been closed up; and, at the left, the hedges covered with shrubs, along the skirts of the wood, formed a boundary for the gardens, which could scarcely be distinguished. but on the side towards paris the high road formed a sheer descending line, and the meadows lost themselves in the distance under the vapours of the night. silence reigned along this road, whose white track clearly showed itself through the surrounding gloom. odours of damp leaves ascended towards them. the waterfall, where the stream had been diverted from its course a hundred paces further away, kept rumbling with that deep harmonious sound which waves make in the night time. deslauriers stopped, and said: "'tis funny to have these worthy folks sleeping so quietly! patience! a new ' is in preparation. people are tired of constitutions, charters, subtleties, lies! ah, if i had a newspaper, or a platform, how i would shake off all these things! but, in order to undertake anything whatever, money is required. what a curse it is to be a tavern-keeper's son, and to waste one's youth in quest of bread!" he hung down his head, bit his lips, and shivered under his threadbare overcoat. frederick flung half his cloak over his friend's shoulder. they both wrapped themselves up in it; and, with their arms around each other's waists, they walked down the road side by side. "how do you think i can live over there without you?" said frederick. the bitter tone of his friend had brought back his own sadness. "i would have done something with a woman who loved me. what are you laughing at? love is the feeding-ground, and, as it were, the atmosphere of genius. extraordinary emotions produce sublime works. as for seeking after her whom i want, i give that up! besides, if i should ever find her, she will repel me. i belong to the race of the disinherited, and i shall be extinguished with a treasure that will be of paste or of diamond--i know not which." somebody's shadow fell across the road, and at the same time they heard these words: "excuse me, gentlemen!" the person who had uttered them was a little man attired in an ample brown frock-coat, and with a cap on his head which under its peak afforded a glimpse of a sharp nose. "monsieur roque?" said frederick. "the very man!" returned the voice. this resident in the locality explained his presence by stating that he had come back to inspect the wolf-traps in his garden near the water-side. "and so you are back again in the old spot? very good! i ascertained the fact through my little girl. your health is good, i hope? you are not going away again?" then he left them, repelled, probably, by frederick's chilling reception. madame moreau, indeed, was not on visiting terms with him. père roque lived in peculiar relations with his servant-girl, and was held in very slight esteem, although he was the vice-president at elections, and m. dambreuse's manager. "the banker who resides in the rue d'anjou," observed deslauriers. "do you know what you ought to do, my fine fellow?" isidore once more interrupted. his orders were positive not to go back without frederick. madame would be getting uneasy at his absence. "well, well, he will go back," said deslauriers. "he's not going to stay out all night." and, as soon as the man-servant had disappeared: "you ought to ask that old chap to introduce you to the dambreuses. there's nothing so useful as to be a visitor at a rich man's house. since you have a black coat and white gloves, make use of them. you must mix in that set. you can introduce me into it later. just think!--a man worth millions! do all you can to make him like you, and his wife, too. become her lover!" frederick uttered an exclamation by way of protest. "why, i can quote classical examples for you on that point, i rather think! remember rastignac in the _comédie humaine_. you will succeed, i have no doubt." frederick had so much confidence in deslauriers that he felt his firmness giving way, and forgetting madame arnoux, or including her in the prediction made with regard to the other, he could not keep from smiling. the clerk added: "a last piece of advice: pass your examinations. it is always a good thing to have a handle to your name: and, without more ado, give up your catholic and satanic poets, whose philosophy is as old as the twelfth century! your despair is silly. the very greatest men have had more difficult beginnings, as in the case of mirabeau. besides, our separation will not be so long. i will make that pickpocket of a father of mine disgorge. it is time for me to be going back. farewell! have you got a hundred sous to pay for my dinner?" frederick gave him ten francs, what was left of those he had got that morning from isidore. meanwhile, some forty yards away from the bridges, a light shone from the garret-window of a low-built house. deslauriers noticed it. then he said emphatically, as he took off his hat: "your pardon, venus, queen of heaven, but penury is the mother of wisdom. we have been slandered enough for that--so have mercy." this allusion to an adventure in which they had both taken part, put them into a jovial mood. they laughed loudly as they passed through the streets. then, having settled his bill at the inn, deslauriers walked back with frederick as far as the crossway near the hôtel-dieu, and after a long embrace, the two friends parted. chapter iii. sentiment and passion. two months later, frederick, having debarked one morning in the rue coq-héron, immediately thought of paying his great visit. chance came to his aid. père roque had brought him a roll of papers and requested him to deliver them up himself to m. dambreuse; and the worthy man accompanied the package with an open letter of introduction in behalf of his young fellow-countryman. madame moreau appeared surprised at this proceeding. frederick concealed the delight that it gave him. m. dambreuse's real name was the count d'ambreuse; but since , gradually abandoning his title of nobility and his party, he had turned his attention to business; and with his ears open in every office, his hand in every enterprise, on the watch for every opportunity, as subtle as a greek and as laborious as a native of auvergne, he had amassed a fortune which might be called considerable. furthermore, he was an officer of the legion of honour, a member of the general council of the aube, a deputy, and one of these days would be a peer of france. however, affable as he was in other respects, he wearied the minister by his continual applications for relief, for crosses, and licences for tobacconists' shops; and in his complaints against authority he was inclined to join the left centre. his wife, the pretty madame dambreuse, of whom mention was made in the fashion journals, presided at charitable assemblies. by wheedling the duchesses, she appeased the rancours of the aristocratic faubourg, and led the residents to believe that m. dambreuse might yet repent and render them some services. the young man was agitated when he called on them. "i should have done better to take my dress-coat with me. no doubt they will give me an invitation to next week's ball. what will they say to me?" his self-confidence returned when he reflected that m. dambreuse was only a person of the middle class, and he sprang out of the cab briskly on the pavement of the rue d'anjou. when he had pushed forward one of the two gateways he crossed the courtyard, mounted the steps in front of the house, and entered a vestibule paved with coloured marble. a straight double staircase, with red carpet, fastened with copper rods, rested against the high walls of shining stucco. at the end of the stairs there was a banana-tree, whose wide leaves fell down over the velvet of the baluster. two bronze candelabra, with porcelain globes, hung from little chains; the atmosphere was heavy with the fumes exhaled by the vent-holes of the hot-air stoves; and all that could be heard was the ticking of a big clock fixed at the other end of the vestibule, under a suit of armour. a bell rang; a valet made his appearance, and introduced frederick into a little apartment, where one could observe two strong boxes, with pigeon-holes filled with pieces of pasteboard. in the centre of it, m. dambreuse was writing at a roll-top desk. he ran his eye over père roque's letter, tore open the canvas in which the papers had been wrapped, and examined them. at some distance, he presented the appearance of being still young, owing to his slight figure. but his thin white hair, his feeble limbs, and, above all, the extraordinary pallor of his face, betrayed a shattered constitution. there was an expression of pitiless energy in his sea-green eyes, colder than eyes of glass. his cheek-bones projected, and his finger-joints were knotted. at length, he arose and addressed to the young man a few questions with regard to persons of their acquaintance at nogent and also with regard to his studies, and then dismissed him with a bow. frederick went out through another lobby, and found himself at the lower end of the courtyard near the coach-house. a blue brougham, to which a black horse was yoked, stood in front of the steps before the house. the carriage door flew open, a lady sprang in, and the vehicle, with a rumbling noise, went rolling along the gravel. frederick had come up to the courtyard gate from the other side at the same moment. as there was not room enough to allow him to pass, he was compelled to wait. the young lady, with her head thrust forward past the carriage blind, talked to the door-keeper in a very low tone. all he could see was her back, covered with a violet mantle. however, he took a glance into the interior of the carriage, lined with blue rep, with silk lace and fringes. the lady's ample robes filled up the space within. he stole away from this little padded box with its perfume of iris, and, so to speak, its vague odour of feminine elegance. the coachman slackened the reins, the horse brushed abruptly past the starting-point, and all disappeared. frederick returned on foot, following the track of the boulevard. he regretted not having been able to get a proper view of madame dambreuse. a little higher than the rue montmartre, a regular jumble of vehicles made him turn round his head, and on the opposite side, facing him, he read on a marble plate: "jacques arnoux." how was it that he had not thought about her sooner? it was deslauriers' fault; and he approached the shop, which, however, he did not enter. he was waiting for _her_ to appear. the high, transparent plate-glass windows presented to one's gaze statuettes, drawings, engravings, catalogues and numbers of _l'art industriel_, arranged in a skilful fashion; and the amounts of the subscription were repeated on the door, which was decorated in the centre with the publisher's initials. against the walls could be seen large pictures whose varnish had a shiny look, two chests laden with porcelain, bronze, alluring curiosities; a little staircase separated them, shut off at the top by a wilton portière; and a lustre of old saxe, a green carpet on the floor, with a table of marqueterie, gave to this interior the appearance rather of a drawing-room than of a shop. frederick pretended to be examining the drawings. after hesitating for a long time, he went in. a clerk lifted the portière, and in reply to a question, said that monsieur would not be in the shop before five o'clock. but if the message could be conveyed---- "no! i'll come back again," frederick answered blandly. the following days were spent in searching for lodgings; and he fixed upon an apartment in a second story of a furnished mansion in the rue hyacinthe. with a fresh blotting-case under his arm, he set forth to attend the opening lecture of the course. three hundred young men, bare-headed, filled an amphitheatre, where an old man in a red gown was delivering a discourse in a monotonous voice. quill pens went scratching over the paper. in this hall he found once more the dusty odour of the school, a reading-desk of similar shape, the same wearisome monotony! for a fortnight he regularly continued his attendance at law lectures. but he left off the study of the civil code before getting as far as article , and he gave up the institutes at the _summa divisio personarum_. the pleasures that he had promised himself did not come to him; and when he had exhausted a circulating library, gone over the collections in the louvre, and been at the theatre a great many nights in succession, he sank into the lowest depths of idleness. his depression was increased by a thousand fresh annoyances. he found it necessary to count his linen and to bear with the door keeper, a bore with the figure of a male hospital nurse who came in the morning to make up his bed, smelling of alcohol and grunting. he did not like his apartment, which was ornamented with an alabaster time-piece. the partitions were thin; he could hear the students making punch, laughing and singing. tired of this solitude, he sought out one of his old schoolfellows named baptiste martinon; and he discovered this friend of his boyhood in a middle-class boarding-house in the rue saint-jacques, cramming up legal procedure before a coal fire. a woman in a print dress sat opposite him darning his socks. martinon was what people call a very fine man--big, chubby, with a regular physiognomy, and blue eyes far up in his face. his father, an extensive land-owner, had destined him for the magistracy; and wishing already to present a grave exterior, he wore his beard cut like a collar round his neck. as there was no rational foundation for frederick's complaints, and as he could not give evidence of any misfortune, martinon was unable in any way to understand his lamentations about existence. as for him, he went every morning to the school, after that took a walk in the luxembourg, in the evening swallowed his half-cup of coffee; and with fifteen hundred francs a year, and the love of this workwoman, he felt perfectly happy. "what happiness!" was frederick's internal comment. at the school he had formed another acquaintance, a youth of aristocratic family, who on account of his dainty manners, suggested a resemblance to a young lady. m. de cisy devoted himself to drawing, and loved the gothic style. they frequently went together to admire the sainte-chapelle and nôtre dame. but the young patrician's rank and pretensions covered an intellect of the feeblest order. everything took him by surprise. he laughed immoderately at the most trifling joke, and displayed such utter simplicity that frederick at first took him for a wag, and finally regarded him as a booby. the young man found it impossible, therefore, to be effusive with anyone; and he was constantly looking forward to an invitation from the dambreuses. on new year's day, he sent them visiting-cards, but received none in return. he made his way back to the office of _l'art industriel_. a third time he returned to it, and at last saw arnoux carrying on an argument with five or six persons around him. he scarcely responded to the young man's bow; and frederick was wounded by this reception. none the less he cogitated over the best means of finding his way to her side. his first idea was to come frequently to the shop on the pretext of getting pictures at low prices. then he conceived the notion of slipping into the letter-box of the journal a few "very strong" articles, which might lead to friendly relations. perhaps it would be better to go straight to the mark at once, and declare his love? acting on this impulse, he wrote a letter covering a dozen pages, full of lyric movements and apostrophes; but he tore it up, and did nothing, attempted nothing--bereft of motive power by his want of success. above arnoux's shop, there were, on the first floor, three windows which were lighted up every evening. shadows might be seen moving about behind them, especially one; this was hers; and he went very far out of his way in order to gaze at these windows and to contemplate this shadow. a negress who crossed his path one day in the tuileries, holding a little girl by the hand, recalled to his mind madame arnoux's negress. she was sure to come there, like the others; every time he passed through the tuileries, his heart began to beat with the anticipation of meeting her. on sunny days he continued his walk as far as the end of the champs-Élysées. women seated with careless ease in open carriages, and with their veils floating in the wind, filed past close to him, their horses advancing at a steady walking pace, and with an unconscious see-saw movement that made the varnished leather of the harness crackle. the vehicles became more numerous, and, slackening their motion after they had passed the circular space where the roads met, they took up the entire track. the horses' manes and the carriage lamps were close to each other. the steel stirrups, the silver curbs and the brass rings, flung, here and there, luminous points in the midst of the short breeches, the white gloves, and the furs, falling over the blazonry of the carriage doors. he felt as if he were lost in some far-off world. his eyes wandered along the rows of female heads, and certain vague resemblances brought back madame arnoux to his recollection. he pictured her to himself, in the midst of the others, in one of those little broughams like madame dambreuse's brougham. but the sun was setting, and the cold wind raised whirling clouds of dust. the coachmen let their chins sink into their neckcloths; the wheels began to revolve more quickly; the road-metal grated; and all the equipages descended the long sloping avenue at a quick trot, touching, sweeping past one another, getting out of one another's way; then, at the place de la concorde, they went off in different directions. behind the tuileries, there was a patch of slate-coloured sky. the trees of the garden formed two enormous masses violet-hued at their summits. the gas-lamps were lighted; and the seine, green all over, was torn into strips of silver moiré, near the piers of the bridges. he went to get a dinner for forty-three sous in a restaurant in the rue de la harpe. he glanced disdainfully at the old mahogany counter, the soiled napkins, the dingy silver-plate, and the hats hanging up on the wall. those around him were students like himself. they talked about their professors, and about their mistresses. much he cared about professors! had he a mistress? to avoid being a witness of their enjoyment, he came as late as possible. the tables were all strewn with remnants of food. the two waiters, worn out with attendance on customers, lay asleep, each in a corner of his own; and an odour of cooking, of an argand lamp, and of tobacco, filled the deserted dining-room. then he slowly toiled up the streets again. the gas lamps vibrated, casting on the mud long yellowish shafts of flickering light. shadowy forms surmounted by umbrellas glided along the footpaths. the pavement was slippery; the fog grew thicker, and it seemed to him that the moist gloom, wrapping him around, descended into the depths of his heart. he was smitten with a vague remorse. he renewed his attendance at lectures. but as he was entirely ignorant of the matters which formed the subject of explanation, things of the simplest description puzzled him. he set about writing a novel entitled _sylvio, the fisherman's son_. the scene of the story was venice. the hero was himself, and madame arnoux was the heroine. she was called antonia; and, to get possession of her, he assassinated a number of noblemen, and burned a portion of the city; after which achievements he sang a serenade under her balcony, where fluttered in the breeze the red damask curtains of the boulevard montmartre. the reminiscences, far too numerous, on which he dwelt produced a disheartening effect on him; he went no further with the work, and his mental vacuity redoubled. after this, he begged of deslauriers to come and share his apartment. they might make arrangements to live together with the aid of his allowance of two thousand francs; anything would be better than this intolerable existence. deslauriers could not yet leave troyes. he urged his friend to find some means of distracting his thoughts, and, with that end in view, suggested that he should call on sénécal. sénécal was a mathematical tutor, a hard-headed man with republican convictions, a future saint-just, according to the clerk. frederick ascended the five flights, up which he lived, three times in succession, without getting a visit from him in return. he did not go back to the place. he now went in for amusing himself. he attended the balls at the opera house. these exhibitions of riotous gaiety froze him the moment he had passed the door. besides, he was restrained by the fear of being subjected to insult on the subject of money, his notion being that a supper with a domino, entailing considerable expense, was rather a big adventure. it seemed to him, however, that he must needs love her. sometimes he used to wake up with his heart full of hope, dressed himself carefully as if he were going to keep an appointment, and started on interminable excursions all over paris. whenever a woman was walking in front of him, or coming in his direction, he would say: "here she is!" every time it was only a fresh disappointment. the idea of madame arnoux strengthened these desires. perhaps he might find her on his way; and he conjured up dangerous complications, extraordinary perils from which he would save her, in order to get near her. so the days slipped by with the same tiresome experiences, and enslavement to contracted habits. he turned over the pages of pamphlets under the arcades of the odéon, went to read the _revue des deux mondes_ at the café, entered the hall of the collége de france, and for an hour stopped to listen to a lecture on chinese or political economy. every week he wrote long letters to deslauriers, dined from time to time with martinon, and occasionally saw m. de cisy. he hired a piano and composed german waltzes. one evening at the theatre of the palais-royal, he perceived, in one of the stage-boxes, arnoux with a woman by his side. was it she? the screen of green taffeta, pulled over the side of the box, hid her face. at length, the curtain rose, and the screen was drawn aside. she was a tall woman of about thirty, rather faded, and, when she laughed, her thick lips uncovered a row of shining teeth. she chatted familiarly with arnoux, giving him, from time to time, taps, with her fan, on the fingers. then a fair-haired young girl with eyelids a little red, as if she had just been weeping, seated herself between them. arnoux after that remained stooped over her shoulder, pouring forth a stream of talk to which she listened without replying. frederick taxed his ingenuity to find out the social position of these women, modestly attired in gowns of sober hue with flat, turned-up collars. at the close of the play, he made a dash for the passages. the crowd of people going out filled them up. arnoux, just in front of him, was descending the staircase step by step, with a woman on each arm. suddenly a gas-burner shed its light on him. he wore a crape hat-band. she was dead, perhaps? this idea tormented frederick's mind so much, that he hurried, next day, to the office of _l'art industriel_, and paying, without a moment's delay, for one of the engravings exposed in the window for sale, he asked the shop-assistant how was monsieur arnoux. the shop-assistant replied: "why, quite well!" frederick, growing pale, added: "and madame?" "madame, also." frederick forgot to carry off his engraving. the winter drew to an end. he was less melancholy in the spring time, and began to prepare for his examination. having passed it indifferently, he started immediately afterwards for nogent. he refrained from going to troyes to see his friend, in order to escape his mother's comments. then, on his return to paris at the end of the vacation, he left his lodgings, and took two rooms on the quai napoléon which he furnished. he had given up all hope of getting an invitation from the dambreuses. his great passion for madame arnoux was beginning to die out. chapter iv. the inexpressible she! one morning, in the month of december, while going to attend a law lecture, he thought he could observe more than ordinary animation in the rue saint-jacques. the students were rushing precipitately out of the cafés, where, through the open windows, they were calling one another from one house to the other. the shop keepers in the middle of the footpath were looking about them anxiously; the window-shutters were fastened; and when he reached the rue soufflot, he perceived a large assemblage around the panthéon. young men in groups numbering from five to a dozen walked along, arm in arm, and accosted the larger groups, which had stationed themselves here and there. at the lower end of the square, near the railings, men in blouses were holding forth, while policemen, with their three-cornered hats drawn over their ears, and their hands behind their backs, were strolling up and down beside the walls making the flags ring under the tread of their heavy boots. all wore a mysterious, wondering look; they were evidently expecting something to happen. each held back a question which was on the edge of his lips. frederick found himself close to a fair-haired young man with a prepossessing face and a moustache and a tuft of beard on his chin, like a dandy of louis xiii.'s time. he asked the stranger what was the cause of the disorder. "i haven't the least idea," replied the other, "nor have they, for that matter! 'tis their fashion just now! what a good joke!" and he burst out laughing. the petitions for reform, which had been signed at the quarters of the national guard, together with the property-census of humann and other events besides, had, for the past six months, led to inexplicable gatherings of riotous crowds in paris, and so frequently had they broken out anew, that the newspapers had ceased to refer to them. "this lacks graceful outline and colour," continued frederick's neighbour. "i am convinced, messire, that we have degenerated. in the good epoch of louis xi., and even in that of benjamin constant, there was more mutinousness amongst the students. i find them as pacific as sheep, as stupid as greenhorns, and only fit to be grocers. gadzooks! and these are what we call the youth of the schools!" he held his arms wide apart after the fashion of frederick lemaitre in _robert macaire_. "youth of the schools, i give you my blessing!" after this, addressing a rag picker, who was moving a heap of oyster-shells up against the wall of a wine-merchant's house: "do you belong to them--the youth of the schools?" the old man lifted up a hideous countenance in which one could trace, in the midst of a grey beard, a red nose and two dull eyes, bloodshot from drink. "no, you appear to me rather one of those men with patibulary faces whom we see, in various groups, liberally scattering gold. oh, scatter it, my patriarch, scatter it! corrupt me with the treasures of albion! are you english? i do not reject the presents of artaxerxes! let us have a little chat about the union of customs!" frederick felt a hand laid on his shoulder. it was martinon, looking exceedingly pale. "well!" said he with a big sigh, "another riot!" he was afraid of being compromised, and uttered complaints. men in blouses especially made him feel uneasy, suggesting a connection with secret societies. "you mean to say there are secret societies," said the young man with the moustaches. "that is a worn-out dodge of the government to frighten the middle-class folk!" martinon urged him to speak in a lower tone, for fear of the police. "you believe still in the police, do you? as a matter of fact, how do you know, monsieur, that i am not myself a police spy?" and he looked at him in such a way, that martinon, much discomposed, was, at first, unable to see the joke. the people pushed them on, and they were all three compelled to stand on the little staircase which led, by one of the passages, to the new amphitheatre. the crowd soon broke up of its own accord. many heads could be distinguished. they bowed towards the distinguished professor samuel rondelot, who, wrapped in his big frock-coat, with his silver spectacles held up high in the air, and breathing hard from his asthma, was advancing at an easy pace, on his way to deliver his lecture. this man was one of the judicial glories of the nineteenth century, the rival of the zachariæs and the ruhdorffs. his new dignity of peer of france had in no way modified his external demeanour. he was known to be poor, and was treated with profound respect. meanwhile, at the lower end of the square, some persons cried out: "down with guizot!" "down with pritchard!" "down with the sold ones!" "down with louis philippe!" the crowd swayed to and fro, and, pressing against the gate of the courtyard, which was shut, prevented the professor from going further. he stopped in front of the staircase. he was speedily observed on the lowest of three steps. he spoke; the loud murmurs of the throng drowned his voice. although at another time they might love him, they hated him now, for he was the representative of authority. every time he tried to make himself understood, the outcries recommenced. he gesticulated with great energy to induce the students to follow him. he was answered by vociferations from all sides. he shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and plunged into the passage. martinon profited by his situation to disappear at the same moment. "what a coward!" said frederick. "he was prudent," returned the other. there was an outburst of applause from the crowd, from whose point of view this retreat, on the part of the professor, appeared in the light of a victory. from every window, faces, lighted with curiosity, looked out. some of those in the crowd struck up the "marseillaise;" others proposed to go to béranger's house. "to laffitte's house!" "to chateaubriand's house!" "to voltaire's house!" yelled the young man with the fair moustaches. the policemen tried to pass around, saying in the mildest tones they could assume: "move on, messieurs! move on! take yourselves off!" somebody exclaimed: "down with the slaughterers!" this was a form of insult usual since the troubles of the month of september. everyone echoed it. the guardians of public order were hooted and hissed. they began to grow pale. one of them could endure it no longer, and, seeing a low-sized young man approaching too close, laughing in his teeth, pushed him back so roughly, that he tumbled over on his back some five paces away, in front of a wine-merchant's shop. all made way; but almost immediately afterwards the policeman rolled on the ground himself, felled by a blow from a species of hercules, whose hair hung down like a bundle of tow under an oilskin cap. having stopped for a few minutes at the corner of the rue saint-jacques, he had very quickly laid down a large case, which he had been carrying, in order to make a spring at the policeman, and, holding down that functionary, punched his face unmercifully. the other policemen rushed to the rescue of their comrade. the terrible shop-assistant was so powerfully built that it took four of them at least to get the better of him. two of them shook him, while keeping a grip on his collar; two others dragged his arms; a fifth gave him digs of the knee in the ribs; and all of them called him "brigand," "assassin," "rioter." with his breast bare, and his clothes in rags, he protested that he was innocent; he could not, in cold blood, look at a child receiving a beating. "my name is dussardier. i'm employed at messieurs valincart brothers' lace and fancy warehouse, in the rue de cléry. where's my case? i want my case!" he kept repeating: "dussardier, rue de cléry. my case!" however, he became quiet, and, with a stoical air, allowed himself to be led towards the guard-house in the rue descartes. a flood of people came rushing after him. frederick and the young man with the moustaches walked immediately behind, full of admiration for the shopman, and indignant at the violence of power. as they advanced, the crowd became less thick. the policemen from time to time turned round, with threatening looks; and the rowdies, no longer having anything to do, and the spectators not having anything to look at, all drifted away by degrees. the passers-by, who met the procession, as they came along, stared at dussardier, and in loud tones, gave vent to abusive remarks about him. one old woman, at her own door, bawled out that he had stolen a loaf of bread from her. this unjust accusation increased the wrath of the two friends. at length, they reached the guard-house. only about twenty persons were now left in the attenuated crowd, and the sight of the soldiers was enough to disperse them. frederick and his companion boldly asked to have the man who had just been imprisoned delivered up. the sentinel threatened, if they persisted, to ram them into jail too. they said they required to see the commander of the guard-house, and stated their names, and the fact that they were law-students, declaring that the prisoner was one also. they were ushered into a room perfectly bare, in which, amid an atmosphere of smoke, four benches might be seen lining the roughly-plastered walls. at the lower end there was an open wicket. then appeared the sturdy face of dussardier, who, with his hair all tousled, his honest little eyes, and his broad snout, suggested to one's mind in a confused sort of way the physiognomy of a good dog. "don't you recognise us?" said hussonnet. this was the name of the young man with the moustaches. "why----" stammered dussardier. "don't play the fool any further," returned the other. "we know that you are, just like ourselves, a law-student." in spite of their winks, dussardier failed to understand. he appeared to be collecting his thoughts; then, suddenly: "has my case been found?" frederick raised his eyes, feeling much discouraged. hussonnet, however, said promptly: "ha! your case, in which you keep your notes of lectures? yes, yes, make your mind easy about it!" they made further pantomimic signs with redoubled energy, till dussardier at last realised that they had come to help him; and he held his tongue, fearing that he might compromise them. besides, he experienced a kind of shamefacedness at seeing himself raised to the social rank of student, and to an equality with those young men who had such white hands. "do you wish to send any message to anyone?" asked frederick. "no, thanks, to nobody." "but your family?" he lowered his head without replying; the poor fellow was a bastard. the two friends stood quite astonished at his silence. "have you anything to smoke?" was frederick's next question. he felt about, then drew forth from the depths of one of his pockets the remains of a pipe--a beautiful pipe, made of white talc with a shank of blackwood, a silver cover, and an amber mouthpiece. for the last three years he had been engaged in completing this masterpiece. he had been careful to keep the bowl of it constantly thrust into a kind of sheath of chamois, to smoke it as slowly as possible, without ever letting it lie on any cold stone substance, and to hang it up every evening over the head of his bed. and now he shook out the fragments of it into his hand, the nails of which were covered with blood, and with his chin sunk on his chest, his pupils fixed and dilated, he contemplated this wreck of the thing that had yielded him such delight with a glance of unutterable sadness. "suppose we give him some cigars, eh?" said hussonnet in a whisper, making a gesture as if he were reaching them out. frederick had already laid down a cigar-holder, filled, on the edge of the wicket. "pray take this. good-bye! cheer up!" dussardier flung himself on the two hands that were held out towards him. he pressed them frantically, his voice choked with sobs. "what? for me!--for me!" the two friends tore themselves away from the effusive display of gratitude which he made, and went off to lunch together at the café tabourey, in front of the luxembourg. while cutting up the beefsteak, hussonnet informed his companion that he did work for the fashion journals, and manufactured catchwords for _l'art industriel_. "at jacques arnoux's establishment?" said frederick. "do you know him?" "yes!--no!--that is to say, i have seen him--i have met him." he carelessly asked hussonnet if he sometimes saw arnoux's wife. "from time to time," the bohemian replied. frederick did not venture to follow up his enquiries. this man henceforth would fill up a large space in his life. he paid the lunch-bill without any protest on the other's part. there was a bond of mutual sympathy between them; they gave one another their respective addresses, and hussonnet cordially invited frederick to accompany him to the rue de fleurus. they had reached the middle of the garden, when arnoux's clerk, holding his breath, twisted his features into a hideous grimace, and began to crow like a cock. thereupon all the cocks in the vicinity responded with prolonged "cock-a-doodle-doos." "it is a signal," explained hussonnet. they stopped close to the théàtre bobino, in front of a house to which they had to find their way through an alley. in the skylight of a garret, between the nasturtiums and the sweet peas, a young woman showed herself, bare-headed, in her stays, her two arms resting on the edge of the roof-gutter. "good-morrow, my angel! good-morrow, ducky!" said hussonnet, sending her kisses. he made the barrier fly open with a kick, and disappeared. frederick waited for him all the week. he did not venture to call at hussonnet's residence, lest it might look as if he were in a hurry to get a lunch in return for the one he had paid for. but he sought the clerk all over the latin quarter. he came across him one evening, and brought him to his apartment on the quai napoléon. they had a long chat, and unbosomed themselves to each other. hussonnet yearned after the glory and the gains of the theatre. he collaborated in the writing of vaudevilles which were not accepted, "had heaps of plans," could turn a couplet; he sang out for frederick a few of the verses he had composed. then, noticing on one of the shelves a volume of hugo and another of lamartine, he broke out into sarcastic criticisms of the romantic school. these poets had neither good sense nor correctness, and, above all, were not french! he plumed himself on his knowledge of the language, and analysed the most beautiful phrases with that snarling severity, that academic taste which persons of playful disposition exhibit when they are discussing serious art. frederick was wounded in his predilections, and he felt a desire to cut the discussion short. why not take the risk at once of uttering the word on which his happiness depended? he asked this literary youth whether it would be possible to get an introduction into the arnoux's house through his agency. the thing was declared to be quite easy, and they fixed upon the following day. hussonnet failed to keep the appointment, and on three subsequent occasions he did not turn up. one saturday, about four o'clock, he made his appearance. but, taking advantage of the cab into which they had got, he drew up in front of the théàtre français to get a box-ticket, got down at a tailor's shop, then at a dressmaker's, and wrote notes in the door-keeper's lodge. at last they came to the boulevard montmartre. frederick passed through the shop, and went up the staircase. arnoux recognised him through the glass-partition in front of his desk, and while continuing to write he stretched out his hand and laid it on frederick's shoulder. five or six persons, standing up, filled the narrow apartment, which was lighted by a single window looking out on the yard, a sofa of brown damask wool occupying the interior of an alcove between two door-curtains of similar material. upon the chimney-piece, covered with old papers, there was a bronze venus. two candelabra, garnished with rose-coloured wax-tapers, supported it, one at each side. at the right near a cardboard chest of drawers, a man, seated in an armchair, was reading the newspaper, with his hat on. the walls were hidden from view beneath the array of prints and pictures, precious engravings or sketches by contemporary masters, adorned with dedications testifying the most sincere affection for jacques arnoux. "you're getting on well all this time?" said he, turning round to frederick. and, without waiting for an answer, he asked hussonnet in a low tone: "what is your friend's name?" then, raising his voice: "take a cigar out of the box on the cardboard stand." the office of _l'art industriel_, situated in a central position in paris, was a convenient place of resort, a neutral ground wherein rivalries elbowed each other familiarly. on this day might be seen there anténor braive, who painted portraits of kings; jules burrieu, who by his sketches was beginning to popularise the wars in algeria; the caricaturist sombary, the sculptor vourdat, and others. and not a single one of them corresponded with the student's preconceived ideas. their manners were simple, their talk free and easy. the mystic lovarias told an obscene story; and the inventor of oriental landscape, the famous dittmer, wore a knitted shirt under his waistcoat, and went home in the omnibus. the first topic that came on the carpet was the case of a girl named apollonie, formerly a model, whom burrieu alleged that he had seen on the boulevard in a carriage. hussonnet explained this metamorphosis through the succession of persons who had loved her. "how well this sly dog knows the girls of paris!" said arnoux. "after you, if there are any of them left, sire," replied the bohemian, with a military salute, in imitation of the grenadier offering his flask to napoléon. then they talked about some pictures in which apollonie had sat for the female figures. they criticised their absent brethren, expressing astonishment at the sums paid for their works; and they were all complaining of not having been sufficiently remunerated themselves, when the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a man of middle stature, who had his coat fastened by a single button, and whose eyes glittered with a rather wild expression. "what a lot of shopkeepers you are!" said he. "god bless my soul! what does that signify? the old masters did not trouble their heads about the million--correggio, murillo----" "add pellerin," said sombary. but, without taking the slightest notice of the epigram, he went on talking with such vehemence, that arnoux was forced to repeat twice to him: "my wife wants you on thursday. don't forget!" this remark recalled madame arnoux to frederick's thoughts. no doubt, one might be able to reach her through the little room near the sofa. arnoux had just opened the portière leading into it to get a pocket-handkerchief, and frédéric had seen a wash-stand at the far end of the apartment. but at this point a kind of muttering sound came from the corner of the chimney-piece; it was caused by the personage who sat in the armchair reading the newspaper. he was a man of five feet nine inches in height, with rather heavy eyelashes, a head of grey hair, and an imposing appearance; and his name was regimbart. "what's the matter now, citizen?" said arnoux. "another fresh piece of rascality on the part of government!" the thing that he was referring to was the dismissal of a schoolmaster. pellerin again took up his parallel between michael angelo and shakespeare. dittmer was taking himself off when arnoux pulled him back in order to put two bank notes into his hand. thereupon hussonnet said, considering this an opportune time: "couldn't you give me an advance, my dear master----?" but arnoux had resumed his seat, and was administering a severe reprimand to an old man of mean aspect, who wore a pair of blue spectacles. "ha! a nice fellow you are, père isaac! here are three works cried down, destroyed! everybody is laughing at me! people know what they are now! what do you want me to do with them? i'll have to send them off to california--or to the devil! hold your tongue!" the specialty of this old worthy consisted in attaching the signatures of the great masters at the bottom of these pictures. arnoux refused to pay him, and dismissed him in a brutal fashion. then, with an entire change of manner, he bowed to a gentleman of affectedly grave demeanour, who wore whiskers and displayed a white tie round his neck and the cross of the legion of honour over his breast. with his elbow resting on the window-fastening, he kept talking to him for a long time in honeyed tones. at last he burst out: "ah! well, i am not bothered with brokers, count." the nobleman gave way, and arnoux paid him down twenty-five louis. as soon as he had gone out: "what a plague these big lords are!" "a lot of wretches!" muttered regimbart. as it grew later, arnoux was much more busily occupied. he classified articles, tore open letters, set out accounts in a row; at the sound of hammering in the warehouse he went out to look after the packing; then he went back to his ordinary work; and, while he kept his steel pen running over the paper, he indulged in sharp witticisms. he had an invitation to dine with his lawyer that evening, and was starting next day for belgium. the others chatted about the topics of the day--cherubini's portrait, the hemicycle of the fine arts, and the next exhibition. pellerin railed at the institute. scandalous stories and serious discussions got mixed up together. the apartment with its low ceiling was so much stuffed up that one could scarcely move; and the light of the rose-coloured wax-tapers was obscured in the smoke of their cigars, like the sun's rays in a fog. the door near the sofa flew open, and a tall, thin woman entered with abrupt movements, which made all the trinkets of her watch rattle under her black taffeta gown. it was the woman of whom frederick had caught a glimpse last summer at the palais-royal. some of those present, addressing her by name, shook hands with her. hussonnet had at last managed to extract from his employer the sum of fifty francs. the clock struck seven. all rose to go. arnoux told pellerin to remain, and accompanied mademoiselle vatnaz into the dressing-room. frederick could not hear what they said; they spoke in whispers. however, the woman's voice was raised: "i have been waiting ever since the job was done, six months ago." there was a long silence, and then mademoiselle vatnaz reappeared. arnoux had again promised her something. "oh! oh! later, we shall see!" "good-bye! happy man," said she, as she was going out. arnoux quickly re-entered the dressing-room, rubbed some cosmetic over his moustaches, raised his braces, stretched his straps; and, while he was washing his hands: "i would require two over the door at two hundred and fifty apiece, in boucher's style. is that understood?" "be it so," said the artist, his face reddening. "good! and don't forget my wife!" frederick accompanied pellerin to the top of the faubourg poissonnière, and asked his permission to come to see him sometimes, a favour which was graciously accorded. pellerin read every work on æsthetics, in order to find out the true theory of the beautiful, convinced that, when he had discovered it, he would produce masterpieces. he surrounded himself with every imaginable auxiliary--drawings, plaster-casts, models, engravings; and he kept searching about, eating his heart out. he blamed the weather, his nerves, his studio, went out into the street to find inspiration there, quivered with delight at the thought that he had caught it, then abandoned the work in which he was engaged, and dreamed of another which should be finer. thus, tormented by the desire for glory, and wasting his days in discussions, believing in a thousand fooleries--in systems, in criticisms, in the importance of a regulation or a reform in the domain of art--he had at fifty as yet turned out nothing save mere sketches. his robust pride prevented him from experiencing any discouragement, but he was always irritated, and in that state of exaltation, at the same time factitious and natural, which is characteristic of comedians. on entering his studio one's attention was directed towards two large pictures, in which the first tones of colour laid on here and there made on the white canvas spots of brown, red, and blue. a network of lines in chalk stretched overhead, like stitches of thread repeated twenty times; it was impossible to understand what it meant. pellerin explained the subject of these two compositions by pointing out with his thumb the portions that were lacking. the first was intended to represent "the madness of nebuchadnezzar," and the second "the burning of rome by nero." frederick admired them. he admired academies of women with dishevelled hair, landscapes in which trunks of trees, twisted by the storm, abounded, and above all freaks of the pen, imitations from memory of callot, rembrandt, or goya, of which he did not know the models. pellerin no longer set any value on these works of his youth. he was now all in favour of the grand style; he dogmatised eloquently about phidias and winckelmann. the objects around him strengthened the force of his language; one saw a death's head on a prie-dieu, yataghans, a monk's habit. frederick put it on. when he arrived early, he surprised the artist in his wretched folding-bed, which was hidden from view by a strip of tapestry; for pellerin went to bed late, being an assiduous frequenter of the theatres. an old woman in tatters attended on him. he dined at a cook-shop, and lived without a mistress. his acquirements, picked up in the most irregular fashion, rendered his paradoxes amusing. his hatred of the vulgar and the "bourgeois" overflowed in sarcasms, marked by a superb lyricism, and he had such religious reverence for the masters that it raised him almost to their level. but why had he never spoken about madame arnoux? as for her son, at one time he called pellerin a decent fellow, at other times a charlatan. frederick was waiting for some disclosures on his part. one day, while turning over one of the portfolios in the studio, he thought he could trace in the portrait of a female bohemian some resemblance to mademoiselle vatnaz; and, as he felt interested in this lady, he desired to know what was her exact social position. she had been, as far as pellerin could ascertain, originally a schoolmistress in the provinces. she now gave lessons in paris, and tried to write for the small journals. according to frederick, one would imagine from her manners with arnoux that she was his mistress. "pshaw! he has others!" then, turning away his face, which reddened with shame as he realised the baseness of the suggestion, the young man added, with a swaggering air: "very likely his wife pays him back for it?" "not at all; she is virtuous." frederick again experienced a feeling of compunction, and the result was that his attendance at the office of the art journal became more marked than before. the big letters which formed the name of arnoux on the marble plate above the shop seemed to him quite peculiar and pregnant with significance, like some sacred writing. the wide footpath, by its descent, facilitated his approach; the door almost turned of its own accord; and the handle, smooth to the touch, gave him the sensation of friendly and, as it were, intelligent fingers clasping his. unconsciously, he became quite as punctual as regimbart. every day regimbart seated himself in the chimney corner, in his armchair, got hold of the _national_, and kept possession of it, expressing his thoughts by exclamations or by shrugs of the shoulders. from time to time he would wipe his forehead with his pocket-handkerchief, rolled up in a ball, which he usually stuck in between two buttons of his green frock-coat. he had trousers with wrinkles, bluchers, and a long cravat; and his hat, with its turned-up brim, made him easily recognised, at a distance, in a crowd. at eight o'clock in the morning he descended the heights of montmartre, in order to imbibe white wine in the rue nôtre dame des victoires. a late breakfast, following several games of billiards, brought him on to three o'clock. he then directed his steps towards the passage des panoramas, where he had a glass of absinthe. after the sitting in arnoux's shop, he entered the bordelais smoking-divan, where he swallowed some bitters; then, in place of returning home to his wife, he preferred to dine alone in a little café in the rue gaillon, where he desired them to serve up to him "household dishes, natural things." finally, he made his way to another billiard-room, and remained there till midnight, in fact, till one o'clock in the morning, up till the last moment, when, the gas being put out and the window-shutters fastened, the master of the establishment, worn out, begged of him to go. and it was not the love of drinking that attracted citizen regimbart to these places, but the inveterate habit of talking politics at such resorts. with advancing age, he had lost his vivacity, and now exhibited only a silent moroseness. one would have said, judging from the gravity of his countenence, that he was turning over in his mind the affairs of the whole world. nothing, however, came from it; and nobody, even amongst his own friends, knew him to have any occupation, although he gave himself out as being up to his eyes in business. arnoux appeared to have a very great esteem for him. one day he said to frederick: "he knows a lot, i assure you. he is an able man." on another occasion regimbart spread over his desk papers relating to the kaolin mines in brittany. arnoux referred to his own experience on the subject. frederick showed himself more ceremonious towards regimbart, going so far as to invite him from time to time to take a glass of absinthe; and, although he considered him a stupid man, he often remained a full hour in his company solely because he was jacques arnoux's friend. after pushing forward some contemporary masters in the early portions of their career, the picture-dealer, a man of progressive ideas, had tried, while clinging to his artistic ways, to extend his pecuniary profits. his object was to emancipate the fine arts, to get the sublime at a cheap rate. over every industry associated with parisian luxury he exercised an influence which proved fortunate with respect to little things, but fatal with respect to great things. with his mania for pandering to public opinion, he made clever artists swerve from their true path, corrupted the strong, exhausted the weak, and got distinction for those of mediocre talent; he set them up with the assistance of his connections and of his magazine. tyros in painting were ambitious of seeing their works in his shop-window, and upholsterers brought specimens of furniture to his house. frederick regarded him, at the same time, as a millionaire, as a _dilettante_, and as a man of action. however, he found many things that filled him with astonishment, for my lord arnoux was rather sly in his commercial transactions. he received from the very heart of germany or of italy a picture purchased in paris for fifteen hundred francs, and, exhibiting an invoice that brought the price up to four thousand, sold it over again through complaisance for three thousand five hundred. one of his usual tricks with painters was to exact as a drink-allowance an abatement in the purchase-money of their pictures, under the pretence that he would bring out an engraving of it. he always, when selling such pictures, made a profit by the abatement; but the engraving never appeared. to those who complained that he had taken an advantage of them, he would reply by a slap on the stomach. generous in other ways, he squandered money on cigars for his acquaintances, "thee'd" and "thou'd" persons who were unknown, displayed enthusiasm about a work or a man; and, after that, sticking to his opinion, and, regardless of consequences, spared no expense in journeys, correspondence, and advertising. he looked upon himself as very upright, and, yielding to an irresistible impulse to unbosom himself, ingenuously told his friends about certain indelicate acts of which he had been guilty. once, in order to annoy a member of his own trade who inaugurated another art journal with a big banquet, he asked frederick to write, under his own eyes, a little before the hour fixed for the entertainment, letters to the guests recalling the invitations. "this impugns nobody's honour, do you understand?" and the young man did not dare to refuse the service. next day, on entering with hussonnet m. arnoux's office, frederick saw through the door (the one opening on the staircase) the hem of a lady's dress disappearing. "a thousand pardons!" said hussonnet. "if i had known that there were women----" "oh! as for that one, she is my own," replied arnoux. "she just came in to pay me a visit as she was passing." "you don't say so!" said frederick. "why, yes; she is going back home again." the charm of the things around him was suddenly withdrawn. that which had seemed to him to be diffused vaguely through the place had now vanished--or, rather, it had never been there. he experienced an infinite amazement, and, as it were, the painful sensation of having been betrayed. arnoux, while rummaging about in his drawer, began to smile. was he laughing at him? the clerk laid down a bundle of moist papers on the table. "ha! the placards," exclaimed the picture-dealer. "i am not ready to dine this evening." regimbart took up his hat. "what, are you leaving me?" "seven o'clock," said regimbart. frederick followed him. at the corner of the rue montmartre, he turned round. he glanced towards the windows of the first floor, and he laughed internally with self-pity as he recalled to mind with what love he had so often contemplated them. where, then, did she reside? how was he to meet her now? once more around the object of his desire a solitude opened more immense than ever! "are you coming to take it?" asked regimbart. "to take what?" "the absinthe." and, yielding to his importunities, frederick allowed himself to be led towards the bordelais smoking-divan. whilst his companion, leaning on his elbow, was staring at the decanter, he was turning his eyes to the right and to the left. but he caught a glimpse of pellerin's profile on the footpath outside; the painter gave a quick tap at the window-pane, and he had scarcely sat down when regimbart asked him why they no longer saw him at the office of _l'art industriel_. "may i perish before ever i go back there again. the fellow is a brute, a mere tradesman, a wretch, a downright rogue!" these insulting words harmonised with frederick's present angry mood. nevertheless, he was wounded, for it seemed to him that they hit at madame arnoux more or less. "why, what has he done to you?" said regimbart. pellerin stamped with his foot on the ground, and his only response was an energetic puff. he had been devoting himself to artistic work of a kind that he did not care to connect his name with, such as portraits for two crayons, or pasticcios from the great masters for amateurs of limited knowledge; and, as he felt humiliated by these inferior productions, he preferred to hold his tongue on the subject as a general rule. but "arnoux's dirty conduct" exasperated him too much. he had to relieve his feelings. in accordance with an order, which had been given in frederick's very presence, he had brought arnoux two pictures. thereupon the dealer took the liberty of criticising them. he found fault with the composition, the colouring, and the drawing--above all the drawing; he would not, in short, take them at any price. but, driven to extremities by a bill falling due, pellerin had to give them to the jew isaac; and, a fortnight later, arnoux himself sold them to a spaniard for two thousand francs. "not a sou less! what rascality! and, faith, he has done many other things just as bad. one of these mornings we'll see him in the dock!" "how you exaggerate!" said frederick, in a timid voice. "come, now, that's good; i exaggerate!" exclaimed the artist, giving the table a great blow with his fist. this violence had the effect of completely restoring the young man's self-command. no doubt he might have acted more nicely; still, if arnoux found these two pictures---- "bad! say it out! are you a judge of them? is this your profession? now, you know, my youngster, i don't allow this sort of thing on the part of mere amateurs." "ah! well, it's not my business," said frederick. "then, what interest have you in defending him?" returned pellerin, coldly. the young man faltered: "but--since i am his friend----" "go, and give him a hug for me. good evening!" and the painter rushed away in a rage, and, of course, without paying for his drink. frederick, whilst defending arnoux, had convinced himself. in the heat of his eloquence, he was filled with tenderness towards this man, so intelligent and kind, whom his friends calumniated, and who had now to work all alone, abandoned by them. he could not resist a strange impulse to go at once and see him again. ten minutes afterwards he pushed open the door of the picture-warehouse. arnoux was preparing, with the assistance of his clerks, some huge placards for an exhibition of pictures. "halloa! what brings you back again?" this question, simple though it was, embarrassed frederick, and, at a loss for an answer, he asked whether they had happened to find a notebook of his--a little notebook with a blue leather cover. "the one that you put your letters to women in?" said arnoux. frederick, blushing like a young girl, protested against such an assumption. "your verses, then?" returned the picture-dealer. he handled the pictorial specimens that were to be exhibited, discovering their form, colouring, and frames; and frederick felt more and more irritated by his air of abstraction, and particularly by the appearance of his hands--large hands, rather soft, with flat nails. at length, m. arnoux arose, and saying, "that's disposed of!" he chucked the young man familiarly under the chin. frederick was offended at this liberty, and recoiled a pace or two; then he made a dash for the shop-door, and passed out through it, as he imagined, for the last time in his life. madame arnoux herself had been lowered by the vulgarity of her husband. during the same week he got a letter from deslauriers, informing him that the clerk would be in paris on the following thursday. then he flung himself back violently on this affection as one of a more solid and lofty character. a man of this sort was worth all the women in the world. he would no longer have any need of regimbart, of pellerin, of hussonnet, of anyone! in order to provide his friend with as comfortable lodgings as possible, he bought an iron bedstead and a second armchair, and stripped off some of his own bed-covering to garnish this one properly. on thursday morning he was dressing himself to go to meet deslauriers when there was a ring at the door. arnoux entered. "just one word. yesterday i got a lovely trout from geneva. we expect you by-and-by--at seven o'clock sharp. the address is the rue de choiseul _bis_. don't forget!" frederick was obliged to sit down; his knees were tottering under him. he repeated to himself, "at last! at last!" then he wrote to his tailor, to his hatter, and to his bootmaker; and he despatched these three notes by three different messengers. the key turned in the lock, and the door-keeper appeared with a trunk on his shoulder. frederick, on seeing deslauriers, began to tremble like an adulteress under the glance of her husband. "what has happened to you?" said deslauriers. "surely you got my letter?" frederick had not enough energy left to lie. he opened his arms, and flung himself on his friend's breast. then the clerk told his story. his father thought to avoid giving an account of the expense of tutelage, fancying that the period limited for rendering such accounts was ten years; but, well up in legal procedure, deslauriers had managed to get the share coming to him from his mother into his clutches--seven thousand francs clear--which he had there with him in an old pocket-book. "'tis a reserve fund, in case of misfortune. i must think over the best way of investing it, and find quarters for myself to-morrow morning. to-day i'm perfectly free, and am entirely at your service, my old friend." "oh! don't put yourself about," said frederick. "if you had anything of importance to do this evening----" "come, now! i would be a selfish wretch----" this epithet, flung out at random, touched frederick to the quick, like a reproachful hint. the door-keeper had placed on the table close to the fire some chops, cold meat, a large lobster, some sweets for dessert, and two bottles of bordeaux. deslauriers was touched by these excellent preparations to welcome his arrival. "upon my word, you are treating me like a king!" they talked about their past and about the future; and, from time to time, they grasped each other's hands across the table, gazing at each other tenderly for a moment. but a messenger came with a new hat. deslauriers, in a loud tone, remarked that this head-gear was very showy. next came the tailor himself to fit on the coat, to which he had given a touch with the smoothing-iron. "one would imagine you were going to be married," said deslauriers. an hour later, a third individual appeared on the scene, and drew forth from a big black bag a pair of shining patent leather boots. while frederick was trying them on, the bootmaker slyly drew attention to the shoes of the young man from the country. "does monsieur require anything?" "thanks," replied the clerk, pulling behind his chair his old shoes fastened with strings. this humiliating incident annoyed frederick. at length he exclaimed, as if an idea had suddenly taken possession of him: "ha! deuce take it! i was forgetting." "what is it, pray?" "i have to dine in the city this evening." "at the dambreuses'? why did you never say anything to me about them in your letters?" "it is not at the dambreuses', but at the arnoux's." "you should have let me know beforehand," said deslauriers. "i would have come a day later." "impossible," returned frederick, abruptly. "i only got the invitation this morning, a little while ago." and to redeem his error and distract his friend's mind from the occurrence, he proceeded to unfasten the tangled cords round the trunk, and to arrange all his belongings in the chest of drawers, expressed his willingness to give him his own bed, and offered to sleep himself in the dressing-room bedstead. then, as soon as it was four o'clock, he began the preparations for his toilet. "you have plenty of time," said the other. at last he was dressed and off he went. "that's the way with the rich," thought deslauriers. and he went to dine in the rue saint-jacques, at a little restaurant kept by a man he knew. frederick stopped several times while going up the stairs, so violently did his heart beat. one of his gloves, which was too tight, burst, and, while he was fastening back the torn part under his shirt-cuff, arnoux, who was mounting the stairs behind him, took his arm and led him in. the anteroom, decorated in the chinese fashion, had a painted lantern hanging from the ceiling, and bamboos in the corners. as he was passing into the drawing-room, frederick stumbled against a tiger's skin. the place had not yet been lighted up, but two lamps were burning in the boudoir in the far corner. mademoiselle marthe came to announce that her mamma was dressing. arnoux raised her as high as his mouth in order to kiss her; then, as he wished to go to the cellar himself to select certain bottles of wine, he left frederick with the little girl. she had grown much larger since the trip in the steamboat. her dark hair descended in long ringlets, which curled over her bare arms. her dress, more puffed out than the petticoat of a _danseuse_, allowed her rosy calves to be seen, and her pretty childlike form had all the fresh odour of a bunch of flowers. she received the young gentleman's compliments with a coquettish air, fixed on him her large, dreamy eyes, then slipping on the carpet amid the furniture, disappeared like a cat. after this he no longer felt ill at ease. the globes of the lamps, covered with a paper lace-work, sent forth a white light, softening the colour of the walls, hung with mauve satin. through the fender-bars, as through the slits in a big fan, the coal could be seen in the fireplace, and close beside the clock there was a little chest with silver clasps. here and there things lay about which gave the place a look of home--a doll in the middle of the sofa, a fichu against the back of a chair, and on the work-table a knitted woollen vest, from which two ivory needles were hanging with their points downwards. it was altogether a peaceful spot, suggesting the idea of propriety and innocent family life. arnoux returned, and madame arnoux appeared at the other doorway. as she was enveloped in shadow, the young man could at first distinguish only her head. she wore a black velvet gown, and in her hair she had fastened a long algerian cap, in a red silk net, which coiling round her comb, fell over her left shoulder. arnoux introduced frederick. "oh! i remember monsieur perfectly well," she responded. then the guests arrived, nearly all at the same time--dittmer, lovarias, burrieu, the composer rosenwald, the poet théophile lorris, two art critics, colleagues of hussonnet, a paper manufacturer, and in the rear the illustrious pierre paul meinsius, the last representative of the grand school of painting, who blithely carried along with his glory his forty-five years and his big paunch. when they were passing into the dining-room, madame arnoux took his arm. a chair had been left vacant for pellerin. arnoux, though he took advantage of him, was fond of him. besides, he was afraid of his terrible tongue, so much so, that, in order to soften him, he had given a portrait of him in _l'art industriel_, accompanied by exaggerated eulogies; and pellerin, more sensitive about distinction than about money, made his appearance about eight o'clock quite out of breath. frederick fancied that they had been a long time reconciled. he liked the company, the dishes, everything. the dining-room, which resembled a mediæval parlour, was hung with stamped leather. a dutch whatnot faced a rack for chibouks, and around the table the bohemian glasses, variously coloured, had, in the midst of the flowers and fruits, the effect of an illumination in a garden. he had to make his choice between ten sorts of mustard. he partook of daspachio, of curry, of ginger, of corsican blackbirds, and a species of roman macaroni called lasagna; he drank extraordinary wines, lip-fraeli and tokay. arnoux indeed prided himself on entertaining people in good style. with an eye to the procurement of eatables, he paid court to mail-coach drivers, and was in league with the cooks of great houses, who communicated to him the secrets of rare sauces. but frederick was particularly amused by the conversation. his taste for travelling was tickled by dittmer, who talked about the east; he gratified his curiosity about theatrical matters by listening to rosenwald's chat about the opera; and the atrocious existence of bohemia assumed for him a droll aspect when seen through the gaiety of hussonnet, who related, in a picturesque fashion, how he had spent an entire winter with no food except dutch cheese. then, a discussion between lovarias and burrieu about the florentine school gave him new ideas with regard to masterpieces, widened his horizon, and he found difficulty in restraining his enthusiasm when pellerin exclaimed: "don't bother me with your hideous reality! what does it mean--reality? some see things black, others blue--the multitude sees them brute-fashion. there is nothing less natural than michael angelo; there is nothing more powerful! the anxiety about external truth is a mark of contemporary baseness; and art will become, if things go on that way, a sort of poor joke as much below religion as it is below poetry, and as much below politics as it is below business. you will never reach its end--yes, its end!--which is to cause within us an impersonal exaltation, with petty works, in spite of all your finished execution. look, for instance, at bassolier's pictures: they are pretty, coquettish, spruce, and by no means dull. you might put them into your pocket, bring them with you when you are travelling. notaries buy them for twenty thousand francs, while pictures of the ideal type are sold for three sous. but, without ideality, there is no grandeur; without grandeur there is no beauty. olympus is a mountain. the most swagger monument will always be the pyramids. exuberance is better than taste; the desert is better than a street-pavement, and a savage is better than a hairdresser!" frederick, as these words fell upon his ear, glanced towards madame arnoux. they sank into his soul like metals falling into a furnace, added to his passion, and supplied the material of love. his chair was three seats below hers on the same side. from time to time, she bent forward a little, turning aside her head to address a few words to her little daughter; and as she smiled on these occasions, a dimple took shape in her cheek, giving to her face an expression of more dainty good-nature. as soon as the time came for the gentlemen to take their wine, she disappeared. the conversation became more free and easy. m. arnoux shone in it, and frederick was astonished at the cynicism of men. however, their preoccupation with woman established between them and him, as it were, an equality, which raised him in his own estimation. when they had returned to the drawing-room, he took up, to keep himself in countenance, one of the albums which lay about on the table. the great artists of the day had illustrated them with drawings, had written in them snatches of verse or prose, or their signatures simply. in the midst of famous names he found many that he had never heard of before, and original thoughts appeared only underneath a flood of nonsense. all these effusions contained a more or less direct expression of homage towards madame arnoux. frederick would have been afraid to write a line beside them. she went into her boudoir to look at the little chest with silver clasps which he had noticed on the mantel-shelf. it was a present from her husband, a work of the renaissance. arnoux's friends complimented him, and his wife thanked him. his tender emotions were aroused, and before all the guests he gave her a kiss. after this they all chatted in groups here and there. the worthy meinsius was with madame arnoux on an easy chair close beside the fire. she was leaning forward towards his ear; their heads were just touching, and frederick would have been glad to become deaf, infirm, and ugly if, instead, he had an illustrious name and white hair--in short, if he only happened to possess something which would install him in such intimate association with her. he began once more to eat out his heart, furious at the idea of being so young a man. but she came into the corner of the drawing-room in which he was sitting, asked him whether he was acquainted with any of the guests, whether he was fond of painting, how long he had been a student in paris. every word that came out of her mouth seemed to frederick something entirely new, an exclusive appendage of her personality. he gazed attentively at the fringes of her head-dress, the ends of which caressed her bare shoulder, and he was unable to take away his eyes; he plunged his soul into the whiteness of that feminine flesh, and yet he did not venture to raise his eyelids to glance at her higher, face to face. rosenwald interrupted them, begging of madame arnoux to sing something. he played a prelude, she waited, her lips opened slightly, and a sound, pure, long-continued, silvery, ascended into the air. frederick did not understand a single one of the italian words. the song began with a grave measure, something like church music, then in a more animated strain, with a crescendo movement, it broke into repeated bursts of sound, then suddenly subsided, and the melody came back again in a tender fashion with a wide and easy swing. she stood beside the keyboard with her arms hanging down and a far-off look on her face. sometimes, in order to read the music, she advanced her forehead for a moment and her eyelashes moved to and fro. her contralto voice in the low notes took a mournful intonation which had a chilling effect on the listener, and then her beautiful head, with those great brows of hers, bent over her shoulder; her bosom swelled; her eyes were wide apart; her neck, from which roulades made their escape, fell back as if under aërial kisses. she flung out three sharp notes, came down again, cast forth one higher still, and, after a silence, finished with an organ-point. rosenwald did not leave the piano. he continued playing, to amuse himself. from time to time a guest stole away. at eleven o'clock, as the last of them were going off, arnoux went out along with pellerin, under the pretext of seeing him home. he was one of those people who say that they are ill when they do not "take a turn" after dinner. madame arnoux had made her way towards the anteroom. dittmer and hussonnet bowed to her. she stretched out her hand to them. she did the same to frederick; and he felt, as it were, something penetrating every particle of his skin. he quitted his friends. he wished to be alone. his heart was overflowing. why had she offered him her hand? was it a thoughtless act, or an encouragement? "come now! i am mad!" besides, what did it matter, when he could now visit her entirely at his ease, live in the very atmosphere she breathed? the streets were deserted. now and then a heavy wagon would roll past, shaking the pavements. the houses came one after another with their grey fronts, their closed windows; and he thought with disdain of all those human beings who lived behind those walls without having seen her, and not one of whom dreamed of her existence. he had no consciousness of his surroundings, of space, of anything, and striking the ground with his heel, rapping with his walking-stick on the shutters of the shops, he kept walking on continually at random, in a state of excitement, carried away by his emotions. suddenly he felt himself surrounded by a circle of damp air, and found that he was on the edge of the quays. the gas-lamps shone in two straight lines, which ran on endlessly, and long red flames flickered in the depths of the water. the waves were slate-coloured, while the sky, which was of clearer hue, seemed to be supported by vast masses of shadow that rose on each side of the river. the darkness was intensified by buildings whose outlines the eye could not distinguish. a luminous haze floated above the roofs further on. all the noises of the night had melted into a single monotonous hum. he stopped in the middle of the pont neuf, and, taking off his hat and exposing his chest, he drank in the air. and now he felt as if something that was inexhaustible were rising up from the very depths of his being, an afflux of tenderness that enervated him, like the motion of the waves under his eyes. a church-clock slowly struck one, like a voice calling out to him. then, he was seized with one of those shuddering sensations of the soul in which one seems to be transported into a higher world. he felt, as it were, endowed with some extraordinary faculty, the aim of which he could not determine. he seriously asked himself whether he would be a great painter or a great poet; and he decided in favour of painting, for the exigencies of this profession would bring him into contact with madame arnoux. so, then, he had found his vocation! the object of his existence was now perfectly clear, and there could be no mistake about the future. when he had shut his door, he heard some one snoring in the dark closet near his apartment. it was his friend. he no longer bestowed a thought on him. his own face presented itself to his view in the glass. he thought himself handsome, and for a minute he remained gazing at himself. chapter v. "love knoweth no laws." before twelve o'clock next day he had bought a box of colours, paintbrushes, and an easel. pellerin consented to give him lessons, and frederick brought him to his lodgings to see whether anything was wanting among his painting utensils. deslauriers had come back, and the second armchair was occupied by a young man. the clerk said, pointing towards him: "'tis he! there he is! sénécal!" frederick disliked this young man. his forehead was heightened by the way in which he wore his hair, cut straight like a brush. there was a certain hard, cold look in his grey eyes; and his long black coat, his entire costume, savoured of the pedagogue and the ecclesiastic. they first discussed topics of the hour, amongst others the _stabat_ of rossini. sénécal, in answer to a question, declared that he never went to the theatre. pellerin opened the box of colours. "are these all for you?" said the clerk. "why, certainly!" "well, really! what a notion!" and he leaned across the table, at which the mathematical tutor was turning over the leaves of a volume of louis blanc. he had brought it with him, and was reading passages from it in low tones, while pellerin and frederick were examining together the palette, the knife, and the bladders; then the talk came round to the dinner at arnoux's. "the picture-dealer, is it?" asked sénécal. "a nice gentleman, truly!" "why, now?" said pellerin. sénécal replied: "a man who makes money by political turpitude!" and he went on to talk about a well-known lithograph, in which the royal family was all represented as being engaged in edifying occupations: louis philippe had a copy of the code in his hand; the queen had a catholic prayer-book; the princesses were embroidering; the duc de nemours was girding on a sword; m. de joinville was showing a map to his young brothers; and at the end of the apartment could be seen a bed with two divisions. this picture, which was entitled "a good family," was a source of delight to commonplace middle-class people, but of grief to patriots. pellerin, in a tone of vexation, as if he had been the producer of this work himself, observed by way of answer that every opinion had some value. sénécal protested: art should aim exclusively at promoting morality amongst the masses! the only subjects that ought to be reproduced were those which impelled people to virtuous actions; all others were injurious. "but that depends on the execution," cried pellerin. "i might produce masterpieces." "so much the worse for you, then; you have no right----" "what?" "no, monsieur, you have no right to excite my interest in matters of which i disapprove. what need have we of laborious trifles, from which it is impossible to derive any benefit--those venuses, for instance, with all your landscapes? i see there no instruction for the people! show us rather their miseries! arouse enthusiasm in us for their sacrifices! ah, my god! there is no lack of subjects--the farm, the workshop----" pellerin stammered forth his indignation at this, and, imagining that he had found an argument: "molière, do you accept him?" "certainly!" said sénécal. "i admire him as the precursor of the french revolution." "ha! the revolution! what art! never was there a more pitiable epoch!" "none greater, monsieur!" pellerin folded his arms, and looking at him straight in the face: "you have the appearance of a famous member of the national guard!" his opponent, accustomed to discussions, responded: "i am not, and i detest it just as much as you. but with such principles we corrupt the crowd. this sort of thing, however, is profitable to the government. it would not be so powerful but for the complicity of a lot of rogues of that sort." the painter took up the defence of the picture-dealer, for sénécal's opinions exasperated him. he even went so far as to maintain that arnoux was really a man with a heart of gold, devoted to his friends, deeply attached to his wife. "oho! if you offered him a good sum, he would not refuse to let her serve as a model." frederick turned pale. "so then, he has done you some great injury, monsieur?" "me? no! i saw him once at a café with a friend. that's all." sénécal had spoken truly. but he had his teeth daily set on edge by the announcements in _l'art industriel_. arnoux was for him the representative of a world which he considered fatal to democracy. an austere republican, he suspected that there was something corrupt in every form of elegance, and the more so as he wanted nothing and was inflexible in his integrity. they found some difficulty in resuming the conversation. the painter soon recalled to mind his appointment, the tutor his pupils; and, when they had gone, after a long silence, deslauriers asked a number of questions about arnoux. "you will introduce me there later, will you not, old fellow?" "certainly," said frederick. then they thought about settling themselves. deslauriers had without much trouble obtained the post of second clerk in a solicitor's office; he had also entered his name for the terms at the law school, and bought the indispensable books; and the life of which they had dreamed now began. it was delightful, owing to their youth, which made everything assume a beautiful aspect. as deslauriers had said nothing as to any pecuniary arrangement, frederick did not refer to the subject. he helped to defray all the expenses, kept the cupboard well stocked, and looked after all the household requirements; but if it happened to be desirable to give the door-keeper a rating, the clerk took that on his own shoulders, still playing the part, which he had assumed in their college days, of protector and senior. separated all day long, they met again in the evening. each took his place at the fireside and set about his work. but ere long it would be interrupted. then would follow endless outpourings, unaccountable bursts of merriment, and occasional disputes about the lamp flaring too much or a book being mislaid, momentary ebullitions of anger which subsided in hearty laughter. while in bed they left open the door of the little room where deslauriers slept, and kept chattering to each other from a distance. in the morning they walked in their shirt-sleeves on the terrace. the sun rose; light vapours passed over the river. from the flower-market close beside them the noise of screaming reached their ears; and the smoke from their pipes whirled round in the clear air, which was refreshing to their eyes still puffed from sleep. while they inhaled it, their hearts swelled with great expectations. when it was not raining on sunday they went out together, and, arm in arm, they sauntered through the streets. the same reflection nearly always occurred to them at the same time, or else they would go on chatting without noticing anything around them. deslauriers longed for riches, as a means for gaining power over men. he was anxious to possess an influence over a vast number of people, to make a great noise, to have three secretaries under his command, and to give a big political dinner once a month. frederick would have furnished for himself a palace in the moorish fashion, to spend his life reclining on cashmere divans, to the murmur of a jet of water, attended by negro pages. and these things, of which he had only dreamed, became in the end so definite that they made him feel as dejected as if he had lost them. "what is the use of talking about all these things," said he, "when we'll never have them?" "who knows?" returned deslauriers. in spite of his democratic views, he urged frederick to get an introduction into the dambreuses' house. the other, by way of objection, pointed to the failure of his previous attempts. "bah! go back there. they'll give you an invitation!" towards the close of the month of march, they received amongst other bills of a rather awkward description that of the restaurant-keeper who supplied them with dinners. frederick, not having the entire amount, borrowed a hundred crowns from deslauriers. a fortnight afterwards, he renewed the same request, and the clerk administered a lecture to him on the extravagant habits to which he gave himself up in the arnoux's society. as a matter of fact, he put no restraint upon himself in this respect. a view of venice, a view of naples, and another of constantinople occupying the centre of three walls respectively, equestrian subjects by alfred de dreux here and there, a group by pradier over the mantelpiece, numbers of _l'art industriel_ lying on the piano, and works in boards on the floor in the corners, encumbered the apartment which he occupied to such an extent that it was hard to find a place to lay a book on, or to move one's elbows about freely. frederick maintained that he needed all this for his painting. he pursued his art-studies under pellerin. but when he called on the artist, the latter was often out, being accustomed to attend at every funeral and public occurrence of which an account was given in the newspapers, and so it was that frederick spent entire hours alone in the studio. the quietude of this spacious room, which nothing disturbed save the scampering of the mice, the light falling from the ceiling, or the hissing noise of the stove, made him sink into a kind of intellectual ease. then his eyes, wandering away from the task at which he was engaged, roamed over the shell-work on the wall, around the objects of virtù on the whatnot, along the torsos on which the dust that had collected made, as it were, shreds of velvet; and, like a traveller who has lost his way in the middle of a wood, and whom every path brings back to the same spot, continually, he found underlying every idea in his mind the recollection of madame arnoux. he selected days for calling on her. when he had reached the second floor, he would pause on the threshold, hesitating as to whether he ought to ring or not. steps drew nigh, the door opened, and the announcement "madame is gone out," a sense of relief would come upon him, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. he met her, however. on the first occasion there were three other ladies with her; the next time it was in the afternoon, and mademoiselle marthe's writing-master came on the scene. besides, the men whom madame arnoux received were not very punctilious about paying visits. for the sake of prudence he deemed it better not to call again. but he did not fail to present himself regularly at the office of _l'art industriel_ every wednesday in order to get an invitation to the thursday dinners, and he remained there after all the others, even longer than regimbart, up to the last moment, pretending to be looking at an engraving or to be running his eye through a newspaper. at last arnoux would say to him, "shall you be disengaged to-morrow evening?" and, before the sentence was finished, he would give an affirmative answer. arnoux appeared to have taken a fancy to him. he showed him how to become a good judge of wines, how to make hot punch, and how to prepare a woodcock ragoût. frederick followed his advice with docility, feeling an attachment to everything connected with madame arnoux--her furniture, her servants, her house, her street. during these dinners he scarcely uttered a word; he kept gazing at her. she had a little mole close to her temple. her head-bands were darker than the rest of her hair, and were always a little moist at the edges; from time to time she stroked them with only two fingers. he knew the shape of each of her nails. he took delight in listening to the rustle of her silk skirt as she swept past doors; he stealthily inhaled the perfume that came from her handkerchief; her comb, her gloves, her rings were for him things of special interest, important as works of art, almost endowed with life like individuals; all took possession of his heart and strengthened his passion. he had not been sufficiently self-contained to conceal it from deslauriers. when he came home from madame arnoux's, he would wake up his friend, as if inadvertently, in order to have an opportunity of talking about her. deslauriers, who slept in the little off-room, close to where they had their water-supply, would give a great yawn. frederick seated himself on the side of the bed. at first, he spoke about the dinner; then he referred to a thousand petty details, in which he saw marks of contempt or of affection. on one occasion, for instance, she had refused his arm, in order to take dittmer's; and frederick gave vent to his humiliation: "ah! how stupid!" or else she had called him her "dear friend." "then go after her gaily!" "but i dare not do that," said frederick. "well, then, think no more about her! good night!" deslauriers thereupon turned on his side, and fell asleep. he felt utterly unable to comprehend this love, which seemed to him the last weakness of adolescence; and, as his own society was apparently not enough to content frederick, he conceived the idea of bringing together, once a week, those whom they both recognised as friends. they came on saturday about nine o'clock. the three algerine curtains were carefully drawn. the lamp and four wax-lights were burning. in the middle of the table the tobacco-pot, filled with pipes, displayed itself between the beer-bottles, the tea-pot, a flagon of rum, and some fancy biscuits. they discussed the immortality of the soul, and drew comparisons between the different professors. one evening hussonnet introduced a tall young man, attired in a frock-coat, too short in the wrists, and with a look of embarrassment in his face. it was the young fellow whom they had gone to release from the guard-house the year before. as he had not been able to restore the box of lace which he had lost in the scuffle, his employer had accused him of theft, and threatened to prosecute him. he was now a clerk in a wagon-office. hussonnet had come across him that morning at the corner of the street, and brought him along, for dussardier, in a spirit of gratitude, had expressed a wish to see "the other." he stretched out towards frederick the cigar-holder, still full, which he had religiously preserved, in the hope of being able to give it back. the young men invited him to pay them a second visit; and he was not slow in doing so. they all had sympathies in common. at first, their hatred of the government reached the height of an unquestionable dogma. martinon alone attempted to defend louis philippe. they overwhelmed him with the commonplaces scattered through the newspapers--the "bastillization" of paris, the september laws, pritchard, lord guizot--so that martinon held his tongue for fear of giving offence to somebody. during his seven years at college he had never incurred the penalty of an imposition, and at the law school he knew how to make himself agreeable to the professors. he usually wore a big frock-coat of the colour of putty, with india-rubber goloshes; but one evening he presented himself arrayed like a bridegroom, in a velvet roll-collar waistcoat, a white tie, and a gold chain. the astonishment of the other young men was greatly increased when they learned that he had just come away from m. dambreuse's house. in fact, the banker dambreuse had just bought a portion of an extensive wood from martinon senior; and, when the worthy man introduced his son, the other had invited them both to dinner. "was there a good supply of truffles there?" asked deslauriers. "and did you take his wife by the waist between the two doors, _sicut decet_?" hereupon the conversation turned on women. pellerin would not admit that there were beautiful women (he preferred tigers); besides the human female was an inferior creature in the æsthetic hierarchy. "what fascinates you is just the very thing that degrades her as an idea; i mean her breasts, her hair----" "nevertheless," urged frederick, "long black hair and large dark eyes----" "oh! we know all about that," cried hussonnet. "enough of andalusian beauties on the lawn. those things are out of date; no thank you! for the fact is, honour bright! a fast woman is more amusing than the venus of milo. let us be gallic, in heaven's name, and after the regency style, if we can! 'flow, generous wines; ladies, deign to smile!'[ ] [footnote : _coules, bons vins; femmes, deignez sourire._] we must pass from the dark to the fair. is that your opinion, father dussardier?" dussardier did not reply. they all pressed him to ascertain what his tastes were. "well," said he, colouring, "for my part, i would like to love the same one always!" this was said in such a way that there was a moment of silence, some of them being surprised at this candour, and others finding in his words, perhaps, the secret yearning of their souls. sénécal placed his glass of beer on the mantelpiece, and declared dogmatically that, as prostitution was tyrannical and marriage immoral, it was better to practice abstinence. deslauriers regarded women as a source of amusement--nothing more. m. de cisy looked upon them with the utmost dread. brought up under the eyes of a grandmother who was a devotee, he found the society of those young fellows as alluring as a place of ill-repute and as instructive as the sorbonne. they gave him lessons without stint; and so much zeal did he exhibit that he even wanted to smoke in spite of the qualms that upset him every time he made the experiment. frederick paid him the greatest attention. he admired the shade of this young gentleman's cravat, the fur on his overcoat, and especially his boots, as thin as gloves, and so very neat and fine that they had a look of insolent superiority. his carriage used to wait for him below in the street. one evening, after his departure, when there was a fall of snow, sénécal began to complain about his having a coachman. he declaimed against kid-gloved exquisites and against the jockey club. he had more respect for a workman than for these fine gentlemen. "for my part, anyhow, i work for my livelihood! i am a poor man!" "that's quite evident," said frederick, at length, losing patience. the tutor conceived a grudge against him for this remark. but, as regimbart said he knew sénécal pretty well, frederick, wishing to be civil to a friend of the arnoux, asked him to come to the saturday meetings; and the two patriots were glad to be brought together in this way. however, they took opposite views of things. sénécal--who had a skull of the angular type--fixed his attention merely on systems, whereas regimbart, on the contrary, saw in facts nothing but facts. the thing that chiefly troubled him was the rhine frontier. he claimed to be an authority on the subject of artillery, and got his clothes made by a tailor of the polytechnic school. the first day, when they asked him to take some cakes, he disdainfully shrugged his shoulders, saying that these might suit women; and on the next few occasions his manner was not much more gracious. whenever speculative ideas had reached a certain elevation, he would mutter: "oh! no utopias, no dreams!" on the subject of art (though he used to visit the studios, where he occasionally out of complaisance gave a lesson in fencing) his opinions were not remarkable for their excellence. he compared the style of m. marast to that of voltaire, and mademoiselle vatnaz to madame de staël, on account of an ode on poland in which "there was some spirit." in short, regimbart bored everyone, and especially deslauriers, for the citizen was a friend of the arnoux family. now the clerk was most anxious to visit those people in the hope that he might there make the acquaintance of some persons who would be an advantage to him. "when are you going to take me there with you?" he would say. arnoux was either overburdened with business, or else starting on a journey. then it was not worth while, as the dinners were coming to an end. if he had been called on to risk his life for his friend, frederick would have done so. but, as he was desirous of making as good a figure as possible, and with this view was most careful about his language and manners, and so attentive to his costume that he always presented himself at the office of _l'art industriel_ irreproachably gloved, he was afraid that deslauriers, with his shabby black coat, his attorney-like exterior, and his swaggering kind of talk, might make himself disagreeable to madame arnoux, and thus compromise him and lower him in her estimation. the other results would have been bad enough, but the last one would have annoyed him a thousand times more. the clerk saw that his friend did not wish to keep his promise, and frederick's silence seemed to him an aggravation of the insult. he would have liked to exercise absolute control over him, to see him developing in accordance with the ideal of their youth; and his inactivity excited the clerk's indignation as a breach of duty and a want of loyalty towards himself. moreover, frederick, with his thoughts full of madame arnoux, frequently talked about her husband; and deslauriers now began an intolerable course of boredom by repeating the name a hundred times a day, at the end of each remark, like the parrot-cry of an idiot. when there was a knock at the door, he would answer, "come in, arnoux!" at the restaurant he asked for a brie cheese "in imitation of arnoux," and at night, pretending to wake up from a bad dream, he would rouse his comrade by howling out, "arnoux! arnoux!" at last frederick, worn out, said to him one day, in a piteous voice: "oh! don't bother me about arnoux!" "never!" replied the clerk: "he always, everywhere, burning or icy cold, the pictured form of arnoux----"[ ] [footnote : _toujours lui! lui partout! ou brulante ou glacée, l'image de l'arnoux._] "hold your tongue, i tell you!" exclaimed frederick, raising his fist. then less angrily he added: "you know well this is a painful subject to me." "oh! forgive me, old fellow," returned deslauriers with a very low bow. "from this time forth we will be considerate towards mademoiselle's nerves. again, i say, forgive me. a thousand pardons!" and so this little joke came to an end. but, three weeks later, one evening, deslauriers said to him: "well, i have just seen madame arnoux." "where, pray?" "at the palais, with balandard, the solicitor. a dark woman, is she not, of the middle height?" frederick made a gesture of assent. he waited for deslauriers to speak. at the least expression of admiration he would have been most effusive, and would have fairly hugged the other. however, deslauriers remained silent. at last, unable to contain himself any longer, frederick, with assumed indifference, asked him what he thought of her. deslauriers considered that "she was not so bad, but still nothing extraordinary." "ha! you think so," said frederick. they soon reached the month of august, the time when he was to present himself for his second examination. according to the prevailing opinion, the subjects could be made up in a fortnight. frederick, having full confidence in his own powers, swallowed up in a trice the first four books of the code of procedure, the first three of the penal code, many bits of the system of criminal investigation, and a part of the civil code, with the annotations of m. poncelet. the night before, deslauriers made him run through the whole course, a process which did not finish till morning, and, in order to take advantage of even the last quarter of an hour, continued questioning him while they walked along the footpath together. as several examinations were taking place at the same time, there were many persons in the precincts, and amongst others hussonnet and cisy: young men never failed to come and watch these ordeals when the fortunes of their comrades were at stake. frederick put on the traditional black gown; then, followed by the throng, with three other students, he entered a spacious apartment, into which the light penetrated through uncurtained windows, and which was garnished with benches ranged along the walls. in the centre, leather chairs were drawn round a table adorned with a green cover. this separated the candidates from the examiners in their red gowns and ermine shoulder-knots, the head examiners wearing gold-laced flat caps. frederick found himself the last but one in the series--an unfortunate place. in answer to the first question, as to the difference between a convention and a contract, he defined the one as if it were the other; and the professor, who was a fair sort of man, said to him, "don't be agitated, monsieur! compose yourself!" then, having asked two easy questions, which were answered in a doubtful fashion, he passed on at last to the fourth. this wretched beginning made frederick lose his head. deslauriers, who was facing him amongst the spectators, made a sign to him to indicate that it was not a hopeless case yet; and at the second batch of questions, dealing with the criminal law, he came out tolerably well. but, after the third, with reference to the "mystic will," the examiner having remained impassive the whole time, his mental distress redoubled; for hussonnet brought his hands together as if to applaud, whilst deslauriers liberally indulged in shrugs of the shoulders. finally, the moment was reached when it was necessary to be examined on procedure. the professor, displeased at listening to theories opposed to his own, asked him in a churlish tone: "and so this is your view, monsieur? how do you reconcile the principle of article of the civil code with this application by a third party to set aside a judgment by default?" frederick had a great headache from not having slept the night before. a ray of sunlight, penetrating through one of the slits in a venetian blind, fell on his face. standing behind the seat, he kept wriggling about and tugging at his moustache. "i am still awaiting your answer," the man with the gold-edged cap observed. and as frederick's movements, no doubt, irritated him: "you won't find it in that moustache of yours!" this sarcasm made the spectators laugh. the professor, feeling flattered, adopted a wheedling tone. he put two more questions with reference to adjournment and summary jurisdiction, then nodded his head by way of approval. the examination was over. frederick retired into the vestibule. while an usher was taking off his gown, to draw it over some other person immediately afterwards, his friends gathered around him, and succeeded in fairly bothering him with their conflicting opinions as to the result of his examination. presently the announcement was made in a sonorous voice at the entrance of the hall: "the third was--put off!" "sent packing!" said hussonnet. "let us go away!" in front of the door-keeper's lodge they met martinon, flushed, excited, with a smile on his face and the halo of victory around his brow. he had just passed his final examination without any impediment. all he had now to do was the thesis. before a fortnight he would be a licentiate. his family enjoyed the acquaintance of a minister; "a beautiful career" was opening before him. "all the same, this puts you into a mess," said deslauriers. there is nothing so humiliating as to see blockheads succeed in undertakings in which we fail. frederick, filled with vexation, replied that he did not care a straw about the matter. he had higher pretensions; and as hussonnet made a show of leaving, frederick took him aside, and said to him: "not a word about this to them, mind!" it was easy to keep it secret, since arnoux was starting the next morning for germany. when he came back in the evening the clerk found his friend singularly altered: he danced about and whistled; and the other was astonished at this capricious change of mood. frederick declared that he did not intend to go home to his mother, as he meant to spend his holidays working. at the news of arnoux's departure, a feeling of delight had taken possession of him. he might present himself at the house whenever he liked without any fear of having his visits broken in upon. the consciousness of absolute security would make him self-confident. at last he would not stand aloof, he would not be separated from her! something more powerful than an iron chain attached him to paris; a voice from the depths of his heart called out to him to remain. there were certain obstacles in his path. these he got over by writing to his mother: he first of all admitted that he had failed to pass, owing to alterations made in the course--a mere mischance--an unfair thing; besides, all the great advocates (he referred to them by name) had been rejected at their examinations. but he calculated on presenting himself again in the month of november. now, having no time to lose, he would not go home this year; and he asked, in addition to the quarterly allowance, for two hundred and fifty francs, to get coached in law by a private tutor, which would be of great assistance to him; and he threw around the entire epistle a garland of regrets, condolences, expressions of endearment, and protestations of filial love. madame moreau, who had been expecting him the following day, was doubly grieved. she threw a veil over her son's misadventure, and in answer told him to "come all the same." frederick would not give way, and the result was a falling out between them. however, at the end of the week, he received the amount of the quarter's allowance together with the sum required for the payment of the private tutor, which helped to pay for a pair of pearl-grey trousers, a white felt hat, and a gold-headed switch. when he had procured all these things he thought: "perhaps this is only a hairdresser's fancy on my part!" and a feeling of considerable hesitation took possession of him. in order to make sure as to whether he ought to call on madame arnoux, he tossed three coins into the air in succession. on each occasion luck was in his favour. so then fate must have ordained it. he hailed a cab and drove to the rue de choiseul. he quickly ascended the staircase and drew the bell-pull, but without effect. he felt as if he were about to faint. then, with fierce energy, he shook the heavy silk tassel. there was a resounding peal which gradually died away till no further sound was heard. frederick got rather frightened. he pasted his ear to the door--not a breath! he looked in through the key-hole, and only saw two reed-points on the wall-paper in the midst of designs of flowers. at last, he was on the point of going away when he changed his mind. this time, he gave a timid little ring. the door flew open, and arnoux himself appeared on the threshold, with his hair all in disorder, his face crimson, and his features distorted by an expression of sullen embarrassment. "hallo! what the deuce brings you here? come in!" he led frederick, not into the boudoir or into the bedroom, but into the dining-room, where on the table could be seen a bottle of champagne and two glasses; and, in an abrupt tone: "there is something you want to ask me, my dear friend?" "no! nothing! nothing!" stammered the young man, trying to think of some excuse for his visit. at length, he said to arnoux that he had called to know whether they had heard from him, as hussonnet had announced that he had gone to germany. "not at all!" returned arnoux. "what a feather-headed fellow that is to take everything in the wrong way!" in order to conceal his agitation, frederick kept walking from right to left in the dining-room. happening to come into contact with a chair, he knocked down a parasol which had been laid across it, and the ivory handle got broken. "good heavens!" he exclaimed. "how sorry i am for having broken madame arnoux's parasol!" at this remark, the picture-dealer raised his head and smiled in a very peculiar fashion. frederick, taking advantage of the opportunity thus offered to talk about her, added shyly: "could i not see her?" no. she had gone to the country to see her mother, who was ill. he did not venture to ask any questions as to the length of time that she would be away. he merely enquired what was madame arnoux's native place. "chartres. does this astonish you?" "astonish me? oh, no! why should it! not in the least!" after that, they could find absolutely nothing to talk about. arnoux, having made a cigarette for himself, kept walking round the table, puffing. frederick, standing near the stove, stared at the walls, the whatnot, and the floor; and delightful pictures flitted through his memory, or, rather, before his eyes. then he left the apartment. a piece of a newspaper, rolled up into a ball, lay on the floor in the anteroom. arnoux snatched it up, and, raising himself on the tips of his toes, he stuck it into the bell, in order, as he said, that he might be able to go and finish his interrupted siesta. then, as he grasped frederick's hand: "kindly tell the porter that i am not in." and he shut the door after him with a bang. frederick descended the staircase step by step. the ill-success of this first attempt discouraged him as to the possible results of those that might follow. then began three months of absolute boredom. as he had nothing to do, his melancholy was aggravated by the want of occupation. he spent whole hours gazing from the top of his balcony at the river as it flowed between the quays, with their bulwarks of grey stone, blackened here and there by the seams of the sewers, with a pontoon of washerwomen moored close to the bank, where some brats were amusing themselves by making a water-spaniel swim in the slime. his eyes, turning aside from the stone bridge of nôtre dame and the three suspension bridges, continually directed their glance towards the quai-aux-ormes, resting on a group of old trees, resembling the linden-trees of the montereau wharf. the saint-jacques tower, the hôtel de ville, saint-gervais, saint-louis, and saint-paul, rose up in front of him amid a confused mass of roofs; and the genius of the july column glittered at the eastern side like a large gold star, whilst at the other end the dome of the tuileries showed its outlines against the sky in one great round mass of blue. madame arnoux's house must be on this side in the rear! he went back to his bedchamber; then, throwing himself on the sofa, he abandoned himself to a confused succession of thoughts--plans of work, schemes for the guidance of his conduct, attempts to divine the future. at last, in order to shake off broodings all about himself, he went out into the open air. he plunged at random into the latin quarter, usually so noisy, but deserted at this particular time, for the students had gone back to join their families. the huge walls of the colleges, which the silence seemed to lengthen, wore a still more melancholy aspect. all sorts of peaceful sounds could be heard--the flapping of wings in cages, the noise made by the turning of a lathe, or the strokes of a cobbler's hammer; and the old-clothes men, standing in the middle of the street, looked up at each house fruitlessly. in the interior of a solitary café the barmaid was yawning between her two full decanters. the newspapers were left undisturbed on the tables of reading-rooms. in the ironing establishments linen quivered under the puffs of tepid wind. from time to time he stopped to look at the window of a second-hand book-shop; an omnibus which grazed the footpath as it came rumbling along made him turn round; and, when he found himself before the luxembourg, he went no further. occasionally he was attracted towards the boulevards by the hope of finding there something that might amuse him. after he had passed through dark alleys, from which his nostrils were greeted by fresh moist odours, he reached vast, desolate, open spaces, dazzling with light, in which monuments cast at the side of the pavement notches of black shadow. but once more the wagons and the shops appeared, and the crowd had the effect of stunning him, especially on sunday, when, from the bastille to the madeleine, it kept swaying in one immense flood over the asphalt, in the midst of a cloud of dust, in an incessant clamour. he felt disgusted at the meanness of the faces, the silliness of the talk, and the idiotic self-satisfaction that oozed through these sweating foreheads. however, the consciousness of being superior to these individuals mitigated the weariness which he experienced in gazing at them. every day he went to the office of _l'art industriel_; and in order to ascertain when madame arnoux would be back, he made elaborate enquiries about her mother. arnoux's answer never varied--"the change for the better was continuing"--his wife, with his little daughter, would be returning the following week. the longer she delayed in coming back, the more uneasiness frederick exhibited, so that arnoux, touched by so much affection, brought him five or six times a week to dine at a restaurant. in the long talks which they had together on these occasions frederick discovered that the picture-dealer was not a very intellectual type of man. arnoux might, however, take notice of his chilling manner; and now frederick deemed it advisable to pay back, in a small measure, his polite attentions. so, being anxious to do things on a good scale, the young man sold all his new clothes to a second-hand clothes-dealer for the sum of eighty francs, and having increased it with a hundred more francs which he had left, he called at arnoux's house to bring him out to dine. regimbart happened to be there, and all three of them set forth for les trois frères provençaux. the citizen began by taking off his surtout, and, knowing that the two others would defer to his gastronomic tastes, drew up the _menu_. but in vain did he make his way to the kitchen to speak himself to the _chef_, go down to the cellar, with every corner of which he was familiar, and send for the master of the establishment, to whom he gave "a blowing up." he was not satisfied with the dishes, the wines, or the attendance. at each new dish, at each fresh bottle, as soon as he had swallowed the first mouthful, the first draught, he threw down his fork or pushed his glass some distance away from him; then, leaning on his elbows on the tablecloth, and stretching out his arms, he declared in a loud tone that he could no longer dine in paris! finally, not knowing what to put into his mouth, regimbart ordered kidney-beans dressed with oil, "quite plain," which, though only a partial success, slightly appeased him. then he had a talk with the waiter all about the latter's predecessors at the "provençaux":--"what had become of antoine? and a fellow named eugène? and théodore, the little fellow who always used to attend down stairs? there was much finer fare in those days, and burgundy vintages the like of which they would never see again." then there was a discussion as to the value of ground in the suburbs, arnoux having speculated in that way, and looked on it as a safe thing. in the meantime, however, he would lie out of the interest on his money. as he did not want to sell out at any price, regimbart would find out some one to whom he could let the ground; and so these two gentlemen proceeded at the close of the dessert to make calculations with a lead pencil. they went out to get coffee in the smoking-divan on the ground-floor in the passage du saumon. frederick had to remain on his legs while interminable games of billiards were being played, drenched in innumerable glasses of beer; and he lingered on there till midnight without knowing why, through want of energy, through sheer senselessness, in the vague expectation that something might happen which would give a favourable turn to his love. when, then, would he next see her? frederick was in a state of despair about it. but, one evening, towards the close of november, arnoux said to him: "my wife, you know, came back yesterday!" next day, at five o'clock, he made his way to her house. he began by congratulating her on her mother's recovery from such a serious illness. "why, no! who told you that?" "arnoux!" she gave vent to a slight "ah!" then added that she had grave fears at first, which, however, had now been dispelled. she was seated close beside the fire in an upholstered easy-chair. he was on the sofa, with his hat between his knees; and the conversation was difficult to carry on, as it was broken off nearly every minute, so he got no chance of giving utterance to his sentiments. but, when he began to complain of having to study legal quibbles, she answered, "oh! i understand--business!" and she let her face fall, buried suddenly in her own reflections. he was eager to know what they were, and even did not bestow a thought on anything else. the twilight shadows gathered around them. she rose, having to go out about some shopping; then she reappeared in a bonnet trimmed with velvet, and a black mantle edged with minever. he plucked up courage and offered to accompany her. it was now so dark that one could scarcely see anything. the air was cold, and had an unpleasant odour, owing to a heavy fog, which partially blotted out the fronts of the houses. frederick inhaled it with delight; for he could feel through the wadding of his coat the form of her arm; and her hand, cased in a chamois glove with two buttons, her little hand which he would have liked to cover with kisses, leaned on his sleeve. owing to the slipperiness of the pavement, they lost their balance a little; it seemed to him as if they were both rocked by the wind in the midst of a cloud. the glitter of the lamps on the boulevard brought him back to the realities of existence. the opportunity was a good one, there was no time to lose. he gave himself as far as the rue de richeliéu to declare his love. but almost at that very moment, in front of a china-shop, she stopped abruptly and said to him: "we are at the place. thanks. on thursday--is it not?--as usual." the dinners were now renewed; and the more visits he paid at madame arnoux's, the more his love-sickness increased. the contemplation of this woman had an enervating effect upon him, like the use of a perfume that is too strong. it penetrated into the very depths of his nature, and became almost a kind of habitual sensation, a new mode of existence. the prostitutes whom he brushed past under the gaslight, the female ballad-singers breaking into bursts of melody, the ladies rising on horseback at full gallop, the shopkeepers' wives on foot, the grisettes at their windows, all women brought her before his mental vision, either from the effect of their resemblance to her or the violent contrast to her which they presented. as he walked along by the shops, he gazed at the cashmeres, the laces, and the jewelled eardrops, imagining how they would look draped around her figure, sewn in her corsage, or lighting up her dark hair. in the flower-girls' baskets the bouquets blossomed for her to choose one as she passed. in the shoemakers' show-windows the little satin slippers with swan's-down edges seemed to be waiting for her foot. every street led towards her house; the hackney-coaches stood in their places to carry her home the more quickly; paris was associated with her person, and the great city, with all its noises, roared around her like an immense orchestra. when he went into the jardin des plantes the sight of a palm-tree carried him off into distant countries. they were travelling together on the backs of dromedaries, under the awnings of elephants, in the cabin of a yacht amongst the blue archipelagoes, or side by side on mules with little bells attached to them who went stumbling through the grass against broken columns. sometimes he stopped in the louvre before old pictures; and, his love embracing her even in vanished centuries, he substituted her for the personages in the paintings. wearing a hennin on her head, she was praying on bended knees before a stained-glass window. lady paramount of castile or flanders, she remained seated in a starched ruff and a body lined with whalebone with big puffs. then he saw her descending some wide porphyry staircase in the midst of senators under a dais of ostriches' feathers in a robe of brocade. at another time he dreamed of her in yellow silk trousers on the cushions of a harem--and all that was beautiful, the scintillation of the stars, certain tunes in music, the turn of a phrase, the outlines of a face, led him to think about her in an abrupt, unconscious fashion. as for trying to make her his mistress, he was sure that any such attempt would be futile. one evening, dittmer, on his arrival, kissed her on the forehead; lovarias did the same, observing: "you give me leave--don't you?--as it is a friend's privilege?" frederick stammered out: "it seems to me that we are all friends." "not all old friends!" she returned. this was repelling him beforehand indirectly. besides, what was he to do? to tell her that he loved her? no doubt, she would decline to listen to him or else she would feel indignant and turn him out of the house. but he preferred to submit to even the most painful ordeal rather than run the horrible risk of seeing her no more. he envied pianists for their talents and soldiers for their scars. he longed for a dangerous attack of sickness, hoping in this way to make her take an interest in him. one thing caused astonishment to himself, that he felt in no way jealous of arnoux; and he could not picture her in his imagination undressed, so natural did her modesty appear, and so far did her sex recede into a mysterious background. nevertheless, he dreamed of the happiness of living with her, of "theeing" and "thouing" her, of passing his hand lingeringly over her head-bands, or remaining in a kneeling posture on the floor, with both arms clasped round her waist, so as to drink in her soul through his eyes. to accomplish this it would be necessary to conquer fate; and so, incapable of action, cursing god, and accusing himself of being a coward, he kept moving restlessly within the confines of his passion just as a prisoner keeps moving about in his dungeon. the pangs which he was perpetually enduring were choking him. for hours he would remain quite motionless, or else he would burst into tears; and one day when he had not the strength to restrain his emotion, deslauriers said to him: "why, goodness gracious! what's the matter with you?" frederick's nerves were unstrung. deslauriers did not believe a word of it. at the sight of so much mental anguish, he felt all his old affection reawakening, and he tried to cheer up his friend. a man like him to let himself be depressed, what folly! it was all very well while one was young; but, as one grows older, it is only loss of time. "you are spoiling my frederick for me! i want him whom i knew in bygone days. the same boy as ever! i liked him! come, smoke a pipe, old chap! shake yourself up a little! you drive me mad!" "it is true," said frederick, "i am a fool!" the clerk replied: "ah! old troubadour, i know well what's troubling you! a little affair of the heart? confess it! bah! one lost, four found instead! we console ourselves for virtuous women with the other sort. would you like me to introduce you to some women? you have only to come to the alhambra." (this was a place for public balls recently opened at the top of the champs-elysées, which had gone down owing to a display of licentiousness somewhat ruder than is usual in establishments of the kind.) "that's a place where there seems to be good fun. you can take your friends, if you like. i can even pass in regimbart for you." frederick did not think fit to ask the citizen to go. deslauriers deprived himself of the pleasure of sénécal's society. they took only hussonnet and cisy along with dussardier; and the same hackney-coach set the group of five down at the entrance of the alhambra. two moorish galleries extended on the right and on the left, parallel to one another. the wall of a house opposite occupied the entire backguard; and the fourth side (that in which the restaurant was) represented a gothic cloister with stained-glass windows. a sort of chinese roof screened the platform reserved for the musicians. the ground was covered all over with asphalt; the venetian lanterns fastened to posts formed, at regular intervals, crowns of many-coloured flame above the heads of the dancers. a pedestal here and there supported a stone basin, from which rose a thin streamlet of water. in the midst of the foliage could be seen plaster statues, and hebes and cupid, painted in oil, and presenting a very sticky appearance; and the numerous walks, garnished with sand of a deep yellow, carefully raked, made the garden look much larger than it was in reality. students were walking their mistresses up and down; drapers' clerks strutted about with canes in their hands; lads fresh from college were smoking their regalias; old men had their dyed beards smoothed out with combs. there were english, russians, men from south america, and three orientals in tarbooshes. lorettes, grisettes, and girls of the town had come there in the hope of finding a protector, a lover, a gold coin, or simply for the pleasure of dancing; and their dresses, with tunics of water-green, cherry-red, or violet, swept along, fluttered between the ebony-trees and the lilacs. nearly all the men's clothes were of striped material; some of them had white trousers, in spite of the coolness of the evening. the gas was lighted. hussonnet was acquainted with a number of the women through his connection with the fashion-journals and the smaller theatres. he sent them kisses with the tips of his fingers, and from time to time he quitted his friends to go and chat with them. deslauriers felt jealous of these playful familiarities. he accosted in a cynical manner a tall, fair-haired girl, in a nankeen costume. after looking at him with a certain air of sullenness, she said: "no! i wouldn't trust you, my good fellow!" and turned on her heel. his next attack was on a stout brunette, who apparently was a little mad; for she gave a bounce at the very first word he spoke to her, threatening, if he went any further, to call the police. deslauriers made an effort to laugh; then, coming across a little woman sitting by herself under a gas-lamp, he asked her to be his partner in a quadrille. the musicians, perched on the platform in the attitude of apes, kept scraping and blowing away with desperate energy. the conductor, standing up, kept beating time automatically. the dancers were much crowded and enjoyed themselves thoroughly. the bonnet-strings, getting loose, rubbed against the cravats; the boots sank under the petticoats; and all this bouncing went on to the accompaniment of the music. deslauriers hugged the little woman, and, seized with the delirium of the cancan, whirled about, like a big marionnette, in the midst of the dancers. cisy and deslauriers were still promenading up and down. the young aristocrat kept ogling the girls, and, in spite of the clerk's exhortations, did not venture to talk to them, having an idea in his head that in the resorts of these women there was always "a man hidden in the cupboard with a pistol who would come out of it and force you to sign a bill of exchange." they came back and joined frederick. deslauriers had stopped dancing; and they were all asking themselves how they were to finish up the evening, when hussonnet exclaimed: "look! here's the marquise d'amaëgui!" the person referred to was a pale woman with a _retroussé_ nose, mittens up to her elbows, and big black earrings hanging down her cheeks, like two dog's ears. hussonnet said to her: "we ought to organise a little fête at your house--a sort of oriental rout. try to collect some of your friends here for these french cavaliers. well, what is annoying you? are you going to wait for your hidalgo?" the andalusian hung down her head: being well aware of the by no means lavish habits of her friend, she was afraid of having to pay for any refreshments he ordered. when, at length, she let the word "money" slip from her, cisy offered five napoleons--all he had in his purse; and so it was settled that the thing should come off. but frederick was absent. he fancied that he had recognised the voice of arnoux, and got a glimpse of a woman's hat; and accordingly he hastened towards an arbour which was not far off. mademoiselle vatnaz was alone there with arnoux. "excuse me! i am in the way?" "not in the least!" returned the picture-merchant. frederick, from the closing words of their conversation, understood that arnoux had come to the alhambra to talk over a pressing matter of business with mademoiselle vatnaz; and it was evident that he was not completely reassured, for he said to her, with some uneasiness in his manner: "you are quite sure?" "perfectly certain! you are loved. ah! what a man you are!" and she assumed a pouting look, putting out her big lips, so red that they seemed tinged with blood. but she had wonderful eyes, of a tawny hue, with specks of gold in the pupils, full of vivacity, amorousness, and sensuality. they illuminated, like lamps, the rather yellow tint of her thin face. arnoux seemed to enjoy her exhibition of pique. he stooped over her, saying: "you are nice--give me a kiss!" she caught hold of his two ears, and pressed her lips against his forehead. at that moment the dancing stopped; and in the conductor's place appeared a handsome young man, rather fat, with a waxen complexion. he had long black hair, which he wore in the same fashion as christ, and a blue velvet waistcoat embroidered with large gold palm-branches. he looked as proud as a peacock, and as stupid as a turkey-cock; and, having bowed to the audience, he began a ditty. a villager was supposed to be giving an account of his journey to the capital. the singer used the dialect of lower normandy, and played the part of a drunken man. the refrain-- "ah! i laughed at you there, i laughed at you there, in that rascally city of paris!"[ ] was greeted with enthusiastic stampings of feet. delmas, "a vocalist who sang with expression," was too shrewd to let the excitement of his listeners cool. a guitar was quickly handed to him and he moaned forth a ballad entitled "the albanian girl's brother." [footnote : _ah! j'ai l'y ri, j'ai l'y ri. dans ce gueusard de paris!_] the words recalled to frederick those which had been sung by the man in rags between the paddle-boxes of the steamboat. his eyes involuntarily attached themselves to the hem of the dress spread out before him. after each couplet there was a long pause, and the blowing of the wind through the trees resembled the sound of the waves. mademoiselle vatnaz blushed the moment she saw dussardier. she soon rose, and stretching out her hand towards him: "you do not remember me, monsieur auguste?" "how do you know her?" asked frederick. "we have been in the same house," he replied. cisy pulled him by the sleeve; they went out; and, scarcely had they disappeared, when madame vatnaz began to pronounce a eulogy on his character. she even went so far as to add that he possessed "the genius of the heart." then they chatted about delmas, admitting that as a mimic he might be a success on the stage; and a discussion followed in which shakespeare, the censorship, style, the people, the receipts of the porte saint-martin, alexandre dumas, victor hugo, and dumersan were all mixed up together. arnoux had known many celebrated actresses; the young men bent forward their heads to hear what he had to say about these ladies. but his words were drowned in the noise of the music; and, as soon as the quadrille or the polka was over, they all squatted round the tables, called the waiter, and laughed. bottles of beer and of effervescent lemonade went off with detonations amid the foliage; women clucked like hens; now and then, two gentlemen tried to fight; and a thief was arrested. the dancers, in the rush of a gallop, encroached on the walks. panting, with flushed, smiling faces, they filed off in a whirlwind which lifted up the gowns with the coat-tails. the trombones brayed more loudly; the rhythmic movement became more rapid. behind the mediæval cloister could be heard crackling sounds; squibs went off; artificial suns began turning round; the gleam of the bengal fires, like emeralds in colour, lighted up for the space of a minute the entire garden; and, with the last rocket, a great sigh escaped from the assembled throng. it slowly died away. a cloud of gunpowder floated into the air. frederick and deslauriers were walking step by step through the midst of the crowd, when they happened to see something that made them suddenly stop: martinon was in the act of paying some money at the place where umbrellas were left; and he was accompanying a woman of fifty, plain-looking, magnificently dressed, and of problematic social rank. "that sly dog," said deslauriers, "is not so simple as we imagine. but where in the world is cisy?" dussardier pointed out to them the smoking-divan, where they perceived the knightly youth, with a bowl of punch before him, and a pink hat by his side, to keep him company. hussonnet, who had been away for the past few minutes, reappeared at the same moment. a young girl was leaning on his arm, and addressing him in a loud voice as "my little cat." "oh! no!" said he to her--"not in public! call me rather 'vicomte.' that gives you a cavalier style--louis xiii. and dainty boots--the sort of thing i like! yes, my good friends, one of the old _régime_!--nice, isn't she?"--and he chucked her by the chin--"salute these gentlemen! they are all the sons of peers of france. i keep company with them in order that they may get an appointment for me as an ambassador." "how insane you are!" sighed mademoiselle vatnaz. she asked dussardier to see her as far as her own door. arnoux watched them going off; then, turning towards frederick: "did you like the vatnaz? at any rate, you're not quite frank about these affairs. i believe you keep your amours hidden." frederick, turning pale, swore that he kept nothing hidden. "can it be possible you don't know what it is to have a mistress?" said arnoux. frederick felt a longing to mention a woman's name at random. but the story might be repeated to her. so he replied that as a matter of fact he had no mistress. the picture-dealer reproached him for this. "this evening you had a good opportunity! why didn't you do like the others, each of whom went off with a woman?" "well, and what about yourself?" said frederick, provoked by his persistency. "oh! myself--that's quite a different matter, my lad! i go home to my own one!" then he called a cab, and disappeared. the two friends walked towards their own destination. an east wind was blowing. they did not exchange a word. deslauriers was regretting that he had not succeeded in making a _shine_ before a certain newspaper-manager, and frederick was lost once more in his melancholy broodings. at length, breaking silence, he said that this public-house ball appeared to him a stupid affair. "whose fault is it? if you had not left us, to join that arnoux of yours----" "bah! anything i could have done would have been utterly useless!" but the clerk had theories of his own. all that was necessary in order to get a thing was to desire it strongly. "nevertheless, you yourself, a little while ago----" "i don't care a straw about that sort of thing!" returned deslauriers, cutting short frederick's allusion. "am i going to get entangled with women?" and he declaimed against their affectations, their silly ways--in short, he disliked them. "don't be acting, then!" said frederick. deslauriers became silent. then, all at once: "will you bet me a hundred francs that i won't _do_ the first woman that passes?" "yes--it's a bet!" the first who passed was a hideous-looking beggar-woman, and they were giving up all hope of a chance presenting itself when, in the middle of the rue de rivoli, they saw a tall girl with a little bandbox in her hand. deslauriers accosted her under the arcades. she turned up abruptly by the tuileries, and soon diverged into the place du carrousel. she glanced to the right and to the left. she ran after a hackney-coach; deslauriers overtook her. he walked by her side, talking to her with expressive gestures. at length, she accepted his arm, and they went on together along the quays. then, when they reached the rising ground in front of the châtelet, they kept tramping up and down for at least twenty minutes, like two sailors keeping watch. but, all of a sudden, they passed over the pont-au-change, through the flower market, and along the quai napoléon. frederick came up behind them. deslauriers gave him to understand that he would be in their way, and had only to follow his own example. "how much have you got still?" "two hundred sous pieces." "that's enough--good night to you!" frederick was seized with the astonishment one feels at seeing a piece of foolery coming to a successful issue. "he has the laugh at me," was his reflection. "suppose i went back again?" perhaps deslauriers imagined that he was envious of this paltry love! "as if i had not one a hundred times more rare, more noble, more absorbing." he felt a sort of angry feeling impelling him onward. he arrived in front of madame arnoux's door. none of the outer windows belonged to her apartment. nevertheless, he remained with his eyes pasted on the front of the house--as if he fancied he could, by his contemplation, break open the walls. no doubt, she was now sunk in repose, tranquil as a sleeping flower, with her beautiful black hair resting on the lace of the pillow, her lips slightly parted, and one arm under her head. then arnoux's head rose before him, and he rushed away to escape from this vision. the advice which deslauriers had given to him came back to his memory. it only filled him with horror. then he walked about the streets in a vagabond fashion. when a pedestrian approached, he tried to distinguish the face. from time to time a ray of light passed between his legs, tracing a great quarter of a circle on the pavement; and in the shadow a man appeared with his dosser and his lantern. the wind, at certain points, made the sheet-iron flue of a chimney shake. distant sounds reached his ears, mingling with the buzzing in his brain; and it seemed to him that he was listening to the indistinct flourish of quadrille music. his movements as he walked on kept up this illusion. he found himself on the pont de la concorde. then he recalled that evening in the previous winter, when, as he left her house for the first time, he was forced to stand still, so rapidly did his heart beat with the hopes that held it in their clasp. and now they had all withered! dark clouds were drifting across the face of the moon. he gazed at it, musing on the vastness of space, the wretchedness of life, the nothingness of everything. the day dawned; his teeth began to chatter, and, half-asleep, wet with the morning mist, and bathed in tears, he asked himself, why should i not make an end of it? all that was necessary was a single movement. the weight of his forehead dragged him along--he beheld his own dead body floating in the water. frederick stooped down. the parapet was rather wide, and it was through pure weariness that he did not make the attempt to leap over it. then a feeling of dismay swept over him. he reached the boulevards once more, and sank down upon a seat. he was aroused by some police-officers, who were convinced that he had been indulging a little too freely. he resumed his walk. but, as he was exceedingly hungry, and as all the restaurants were closed, he went to get a "snack" at a tavern by the fish-markets; after which, thinking it too soon to go in yet, he kept sauntering about the hôtel de ville till a quarter past eight. deslauriers had long since got rid of his wench; and he was writing at the table in the middle of his room. about four o'clock, m. de cisy came in. thanks to dussardier, he had enjoyed the society of a lady the night before; and he had even accompanied her home in the carriage with her husband to the very threshold of their house, where she had given him an assignation. he parted with her without even knowing her name. "and what do you propose that i should do in that way?" said frederick. thereupon the young gentleman began to cudgel his brains to think of a suitable woman; he mentioned mademoiselle vatnaz, the andalusian, and all the rest. at length, with much circumlocution, he stated the object of his visit. relying on the discretion of his friend, he came to aid him in taking an important step, after which he might definitely regard himself as a man; and frederick showed no reluctance. he told the story to deslauriers without relating the facts with reference to himself personally. the clerk was of opinion that he was now going on very well. this respect for his advice increased his good humour. he owed to that quality his success, on the very first night he met her, with mademoiselle clémence daviou, embroideress in gold for military outfits, the sweetest creature that ever lived, as slender as a reed, with large blue eyes, perpetually staring with wonder. the clerk had taken advantage of her credulity to such an extent as to make her believe that he had been decorated. at their private conversations he had his frock-coat adorned with a red ribbon, but divested himself of it in public in order, as he put it, not to humiliate his master. however, he kept her at a distance, allowed himself to be fawned upon, like a pasha, and, in a laughing sort of way, called her "daughter of the people." every time they met, she brought him little bunches of violets. frederick would not have cared for a love affair of this sort. meanwhile, whenever they set forth arm-in-arm to visit pinson's or barillot's circulating library, he experienced a feeling of singular depression. frederick did not realise how much pain he had made deslauriers endure for the past year, while brushing his nails before going out to dine in the rue de choiseul! one evening, when from the commanding position in which his balcony stood, he had just been watching them as they went out together, he saw hussonnet, some distance off, on the pont d'arcole. the bohemian began calling him by making signals towards him, and, when frederick had descended the five flights of stairs: "here is the thing--it is next saturday, the th, madame arnoux's feast-day." "how is that, when her name is marie?" "and angèle also--no matter! they will entertain their guests at their country-house at saint-cloud. i was told to give you due notice about it. you'll find a vehicle at the magazine-office at three o'clock. so that makes matters all right! excuse me for having disturbed you! but i have such a number of calls to make!" frederick had scarcely turned round when his door-keeper placed a letter in his hand: "monsieur and madame dambreuse beg of monsieur f. moreau to do them the honour to come and dine with them on saturday the th inst.--r.s.v.p." "too late!" he said to himself. nevertheless, he showed the letter to deslauriers, who exclaimed: "ha! at last! but you don't look as if you were satisfied. why?" after some little hesitation, frederick said that he had another invitation for the same day. "be kind enough to let me run across to the rue de choiseul. i'm not joking! i'll answer this for you if it puts you about." and the clerk wrote an acceptance of the invitation in the third person. having seen nothing of the world save through the fever of his desires, he pictured it to himself as an artificial creation discharging its functions by virtue of mathematical laws. a dinner in the city, an accidental meeting with a man in office, a smile from a pretty woman, might, by a series of actions deducing themselves from one another, have gigantic results. certain parisian drawing-rooms were like those machines which take a material in the rough and render it a hundred times more valuable. he believed in courtesans advising diplomatists, in wealthy marriages brought about by intrigues, in the cleverness of convicts, in the capacity of strong men for getting the better of fortune. in short, he considered it so useful to visit the dambreuses, and talked about it so plausibly, that frederick was at a loss to know what was the best course to take. the least he ought to do, as it was madame arnoux's feast-day, was to make her a present. he naturally thought of a parasol, in order to make reparation for his awkwardness. now he came across a shot-silk parasol with a little carved ivory handle, which had come all the way from china. but the price of it was a hundred and seventy-five francs, and he had not a sou, having in fact to live on the credit of his next quarter's allowance. however, he wished to get it; he was determined to have it; and, in spite of his repugnance to doing so, he had recourse to deslauriers. deslauriers answered frederick's first question by saying that he had no money. "i want some," said frederick--"i want some very badly!" as the other made the same excuse over again, he flew into a passion. "you might find it to your advantage some time----" "what do you mean by that?" "oh! nothing." the clerk understood. he took the sum required out of his reserve-fund, and when he had counted out the money, coin by coin: "i am not asking you for a receipt, as i see you have a lot of expense!" frederick threw himself on his friend's neck with a thousand affectionate protestations. deslauriers received this display of emotion frigidly. then, next morning, noticing the parasol on the top of the piano: "ah! it was for that!" "i will send it, perhaps," said frederick, with an air of carelessness. good fortune was on his side, for that evening he got a note with a black border from madame dambreuse announcing to him that she had lost an uncle, and excusing herself for having to defer till a later period the pleasure of making his acquaintance. at two o'clock, he reached the office of the art journal. instead of waiting for him in order to drive him in his carriage, arnoux had left the city the night before, unable to resist his desire to get some fresh air. every year it was his custom, as soon as the leaves were budding forth, to start early in the morning and to remain away several days, making long journeys across the fields, drinking milk at the farm-houses, romping with the village girls, asking questions about the harvest, and carrying back home with him stalks of salad in his pocket-handkerchief. at length, in order to realise a long-cherished dream of his, he had bought a country-house. while frederick was talking to the picture-dealer's clerk, mademoiselle vatnaz suddenly made her appearance, and was disappointed at not seeing arnoux. he would, perhaps, be remaining away two days longer. the clerk advised her "to go there"--she could not go there; to write a letter--she was afraid that the letter might get lost. frederick offered to be the bearer of it himself. she rapidly scribbled off a letter, and implored of him to let nobody see him delivering it. forty minutes afterwards, he found himself at saint-cloud. the house, which was about a hundred paces farther away than the bridge, stood half-way up the hill. the garden-walls were hidden by two rows of linden-trees, and a wide lawn descended to the bank of the river. the railed entrance before the door was open, and frederick went in. arnoux, stretched on the grass, was playing with a litter of kittens. this amusement appeared to absorb him completely. mademoiselle vatnaz's letter drew him out of his sleepy idleness. "the deuce! the deuce!--this is a bore! she is right, though; i must go." then, having stuck the missive into his pocket, he showed the young man through the grounds with manifest delight. he pointed out everything--the stable, the cart-house, the kitchen. the drawing-room was at the right, on the side facing paris, and looked out on a floored arbour, covered over with clematis. but presently a few harmonious notes burst forth above their heads: madame arnoux, fancying that there was nobody near, was singing to amuse herself. she executed quavers, trills, arpeggios. there were long notes which seemed to remain suspended in the air; others fell in a rushing shower like the spray of a waterfall; and her voice passing out through the venetian blind, cut its way through the deep silence and rose towards the blue sky. she ceased all at once, when m. and madame oudry, two neighbours, presented themselves. then she appeared herself at the top of the steps in front of the house; and, as she descended, he caught a glimpse of her foot. she wore little open shoes of reddish-brown leather, with three straps crossing each other so as to draw just above her stockings a wirework of gold. those who had been invited arrived. with the exception of maître lefaucheur, an advocate, they were the same guests who came to the thursday dinners. each of them had brought some present--dittmer a syrian scarf, rosenwald a scrap-book of ballads, burieu a water-colour painting, sombary one of his own caricatures, and pellerin a charcoal-drawing, representing a kind of dance of death, a hideous fantasy, the execution of which was rather poor. hussonnet dispensed with the formality of a present. frederick was waiting to offer his, after the others. she thanked him very much for it. thereupon, he said: "why, 'tis almost a debt. i have been so much annoyed----" "at what, pray?" she returned. "i don't understand." "come! dinner is waiting!" said arnoux, catching hold of his arm; then in a whisper: "you are not very knowing, certainly!" nothing could well be prettier than the dining-room, painted in water-green. at one end, a nymph of stone was dipping her toe in a basin formed like a shell. through the open windows the entire garden could be seen with the long lawn flanked by an old scotch fir, three-quarters stripped bare; groups of flowers swelled it out in unequal plots; and at the other side of the river extended in a wide semi-circle the bois de boulogne, neuilly, sèvres, and meudon. before the railed gate in front a canoe with sail outspread was tacking about. they chatted first about the view in front of them, then about scenery in general; and they were beginning to plunge into discussions when arnoux, at half-past nine o'clock, ordered the horse to be put to the carriage. "would you like me to go back with you?" said madame arnoux. "why, certainly!" and, making her a graceful bow: "you know well, madame, that it is impossible to live without you!" everyone congratulated her on having so good a husband. "ah! it is because i am not the only one," she replied quietly, pointing towards her little daughter. then, the conversation having turned once more on painting, there was some talk about a ruysdaél, for which arnoux expected a big sum, and pellerin asked him if it were true that the celebrated saul mathias from london had come over during the past month to make him an offer of twenty-three thousand francs for it. "'tis a positive fact!" and turning towards frederick: "that was the very same gentleman i brought with me a few days ago to the alhambra, much against my will, i assure you, for these english are by no means amusing companions." frederick, who suspected that mademoiselle vatnaz's letter contained some reference to an intrigue, was amazed at the facility with which my lord arnoux found a way of passing it off as a perfectly honourable transaction; but his new lie, which was quite needless, made the young man open his eyes in speechless astonishment. the picture-dealer added, with an air of simplicity: "what's the name, by-the-by, of that young fellow, your friend?" "deslauriers," said frederick quickly. and, in order to repair the injustice which he felt he had done to his comrade, he praised him as one who possessed remarkable ability. "ah! indeed? but he doesn't look such a fine fellow as the other--the clerk in the wagon-office." frederick bestowed a mental imprecation on dussardier. she would now be taking it for granted that he associated with the common herd. then they began to talk about the ornamentation of the capital--the new districts of the city--and the worthy oudry happened to refer to m. dambreuse as one of the big speculators. frederick, taking advantage of the opportunity to make a good figure, said he was acquainted with that gentleman. but pellerin launched into a harangue against shopkeepers--he saw no difference between them, whether they were sellers of candles or of money. then rosenwald and burieu talked about old china; arnoux chatted with madame oudry about gardening; sombary, a comical character of the old school, amused himself by chaffing her husband, referring to him sometimes as "odry," as if he were the actor of that name, and remarking that he must be descended from oudry, the dog-painter, seeing that the bump of the animals was visible on his forehead. he even wanted to feel m. oudry's skull; but the latter excused himself on account of his wig; and the dessert ended with loud bursts of laughter. when they had taken their coffee, while they smoked, under the linden-trees, and strolled about the garden for some time, they went out for a walk along the river. the party stopped in front of a fishmonger's shop, where a man was washing eels. mademoiselle marthe wanted to look at them. he emptied the box in which he had them out on the grass; and the little girl threw herself on her knees in order to catch them, laughed with delight, and then began to scream with terror. they all got spoiled, and arnoux paid for them. he next took it into his head to go out for a sail in the cutter. one side of the horizon was beginning to assume a pale aspect, while on the other side a wide strip of orange colour showed itself in the sky, deepening into purple at the summits of the hills, which were steeped in shadow. madame arnoux seated herself on a big stone with this glittering splendour at her back. the other ladies sauntered about here and there. hussonnet, at the lower end of the river's bank, went making ducks and drakes over the water. arnoux presently returned, followed by a weather-beaten long boat, into which, in spite of the most prudent remonstrances, he packed his guests. the boat got upset, and they had to go ashore again. by this time wax-tapers were burning in the drawing-room, all hung with chintz, and with branched candlesticks of crystal fixed close to the walls. mère oudry was sleeping comfortably in an armchair, and the others were listening to m. lefaucheux expatiating on the glories of the bar. madame arnoux was sitting by herself near the window. frederick came over to her. they chatted about the remarks which were being made in their vicinity. she admired oratory; he preferred the renown gained by authors. but, she ventured to suggest, it must give a man greater pleasure to move crowds directly by addressing them in person, face to face, than it does to infuse into their souls by his pen all the sentiments that animate his own. such triumphs as these did not tempt frederick much, as he had no ambition. then he broached the subject of sentimental adventures. she spoke pityingly of the havoc wrought by passion, but expressed indignation at hypocritical vileness, and this rectitude of spirit harmonised so well with the regular beauty of her face that it seemed indeed as if her physical attractions were the outcome of her moral nature. she smiled, every now and then, letting her eyes rest on him for a minute. then he felt her glances penetrating his soul like those great rays of sunlight which descend into the depths of the water. he loved her without mental reservation, without any hope of his love being returned, unconditionally; and in those silent transports, which were like outbursts of gratitude, he would fain have covered her forehead with a rain of kisses. however, an inspiration from within carried him beyond himself--he felt moved by a longing for self-sacrifice, an imperative impulse towards immediate self-devotion, and all the stronger from the fact that he could not gratify it. he did not leave along with the rest. neither did hussonnet. they were to go back in the carriage; and the vehicle was waiting just in front of the steps when arnoux rushed down and hurried into the garden to gather some flowers there. then the bouquet having been tied round with a thread, as the stems fell down unevenly, he searched in his pocket, which was full of papers, took out a piece at random, wrapped them up, completed his handiwork with the aid of a strong pin, and then offered it to his wife with a certain amount of tenderness. "look here, my darling! excuse me for having forgotten you!" but she uttered a little scream: the pin, having been awkwardly fixed, had cut her, and she hastened up to her room. they waited nearly a quarter of an hour for her. at last, she reappeared, carried off marthe, and threw herself into the carriage. "and your bouquet?" said arnoux. "no! no--it is not worth while!" frederick was running off to fetch it for her; she called out to him: "i don't want it!" but he speedily brought it to her, saying that he had just put it into an envelope again, as he had found the flowers lying on the floor. she thrust them behind the leathern apron of the carriage close to the seat, and off they started. frederick, seated by her side, noticed that she was trembling frightfully. then, when they had passed the bridge, as arnoux was turning to the left: "why, no! you are making a mistake!--that way, to the right!" she seemed irritated; everything annoyed her. at length, marthe having closed her eyes, madame arnoux drew forth the bouquet, and flung it out through the carriage-door, then caught frederick's arm, making a sign to him with the other hand to say nothing about it. after this, she pressed her handkerchief against her lips, and sat quite motionless. the two others, on the dickey, kept talking about printing and about subscribers. arnoux, who was driving recklessly, lost his way in the middle of the bois de boulogne. then they plunged into narrow paths. the horse proceeded along at a walking pace; the branches of the trees grazed the hood. frederick could see nothing of madame arnoux save her two eyes in the shade. marthe lay stretched across her lap while he supported the child's head. "she is tiring you!" said her mother. he replied: "no! oh, no!" whirlwinds of dust rose up slowly. they passed through auteuil. all the houses were closed up; a gas-lamp here and there lighted up the angle of a wall; then once more they were surrounded by darkness. at one time he noticed that she was shedding tears. was this remorse or passion? what in the world was it? this grief, of whose exact nature he was ignorant, interested him like a personal matter. there was now a new bond between them, as if, in a sense, they were accomplices; and he said to her in the most caressing voice he could assume: "you are ill?" "yes, a little," she returned. the carriage rolled on, and the honeysuckles and the syringas trailed over the garden fences, sending forth puffs of enervating odour into the night air. her gown fell around her feet in numerous folds. it seemed to him as if he were in communication with her entire person through the medium of this child's body which lay stretched between them. he stooped over the little girl, and spreading out her pretty brown tresses, kissed her softly on the forehead. "you are good!" said madame arnoux. "why?" "because you are fond of children." "not all!" he said no more, but he let his left hand hang down her side wide open, fancying that she would follow his example perhaps, and that he would find her palm touching his. then he felt ashamed and withdrew it. they soon reached the paved street. the carriage went on more quickly; the number of gas-lights vastly increased--it was paris. hussonnet, in front of the lumber-room, jumped down from his seat. frederick waited till they were in the courtyard before alighting; then he lay in ambush at the corner of the rue de choiseul, and saw arnoux slowly making his way back to the boulevards. next morning he began working as hard as ever he could. he saw himself in an assize court, on a winter's evening, at the close of the advocates' speeches, when the jurymen are looking pale, and when the panting audience make the partitions of the prætorium creak; and after having being four hours speaking, he was recapitulating all his proofs, feeling with every phrase, with every word, with every gesture, the chopper of the guillotine, which was suspended behind him, rising up; then in the tribune of the chamber, an orator who bears on his lips the safety of an entire people, drowning his opponents under his figures of rhetoric, crushing them under a repartee, with thunders and musical intonations in his voice, ironical, pathetic, fiery, sublime. she would be there somewhere in the midst of the others, hiding beneath her veil her enthusiastic tears. after that they would meet again, and he would be unaffected by discouragements, calumnies, and insults, if she would only say, "ah, that is beautiful!" while drawing her light hand across his brow. these images flashed, like beacon-lights, on the horizon of his life. his intellect, thereby excited, became more active and more vigorous. he buried himself in study till the month of august, and was successful at his final examination. deslauriers, who had found it so troublesome to coach him once more for the second examination at the close of december, and for the third in february, was astonished at his ardour. then the great expectations of former days returned. in ten years it was probable that frederick would be deputy; in fifteen a minister. why not? with his patrimony, which would soon come into his hands, he might, at first, start a newspaper; this would be the opening step in his career; after that they would see what the future would bring. as for himself, he was still ambitious of obtaining a chair in the law school; and he sustained his thesis for the degree of doctor in such a remarkable fashion that it won for him the compliments of the professors. three days afterwards, frederick took his own degree. before leaving for his holidays, he conceived the idea of getting up a picnic to bring to a close their saturday reunions. he displayed the utmost gaiety on the occasion. madame arnoux was now with her mother at chartres. but he would soon come across her again, and would end by being her lover. deslauriers, admitted the same day to the young advocates' pleading rehearsals at orsay, had made a speech which was greatly applauded. although he was sober, he drank a little more wine than was good for him, and said to dussardier at dessert: "you are an honest fellow!--and, when i'm a rich man, i'll make you my manager." all were in a state of delight. cisy was not going to finish his law-course. martinon intended to remain during the period before his admission to the bar in the provinces, where he would be nominated a deputy-magistrate. pellerin was devoting himself to the production of a large picture representing "the genius of the revolution." hussonnet was, in the following week, about to read for the director of public amusements the scheme of a play, and had no doubt as to its success: "as for the framework of the drama, they may leave that to me! as for the passions, i have knocked about enough to understand them thoroughly; and as for witticisms, they're entirely in my line!" he gave a spring, fell on his two hands, and thus moved for some time around the table with his legs in the air. this performance, worthy of a street-urchin, did not get rid of sénécal's frowns. he had just been dismissed from the boarding-school, in which he had been a teacher, for having given a whipping to an aristocrat's son. his straitened circumstances had got worse in consequence: he laid the blame of this on the inequalities of society, and cursed the wealthy. he poured out his grievances into the sympathetic ears of regimbart, who had become every day more and more disillusioned, saddened, and disgusted. the citizen had now turned his attention towards questions arising out of the budget, and blamed the court party for the loss of millions in algeria. as he could not sleep without having paid a visit to the alexandre smoking-divan, he disappeared at eleven o'clock. the rest went away some time afterwards; and frederick, as he was parting with hussonnet, learned that madame arnoux was to have come back the night before. he accordingly went to the coach-office to change his time for starting to the next day; and, at about six o'clock in the evening, presented himself at her house. her return, the door keeper said, had been put off for a week. frederick dined alone, and then lounged about the boulevards. rosy clouds, scarf-like in form, stretched beyond the roofs; the shop-tents were beginning to be taken away; water-carts were letting a shower of spray fall over the dusty pavement; and an unexpected coolness was mingled with emanations from cafés, as one got a glimpse through their open doors, between some silver plate and gilt ware, of flowers in sheaves, which were reflected in the large sheets of glass. the crowd moved on at a leisurely pace. groups of men were chatting in the middle of the footpath; and women passed along with an indolent expression in their eyes and that camelia tint in their complexions which intense heat imparts to feminine flesh. something immeasurable in its vastness seemed to pour itself out and enclose the houses. never had paris looked so beautiful. he saw nothing before him in the future but an interminable series of years all full of love. he stopped in front of the theatre of the porte saint-martin to look at the bill; and, for want of something to occupy him, paid for a seat and went in. an old-fashioned dramatic version of a fairy-tale was the piece on the stage. there was a very small audience; and through the skylights of the top gallery the vault of heaven seemed cut up into little blue squares, whilst the stage lamps above the orchestra formed a single line of yellow illuminations. the scene represented a slave-market at pekin, with hand-bells, tomtoms, sweeping robes, sharp-pointed caps, and clownish jokes. then, as soon as the curtain fell, he wandered into the foyer all alone and gazed out with admiration at a large green landau which stood on the boulevard outside, before the front steps of the theatre, yoked to two white horses, while a coachman with short breeches held the reins. he had just got back to his seat when, in the balcony, a lady and a gentleman entered the first box in front of the stage. the husband had a pale face with a narrow strip of grey beard round it, the rosette of a government official, and that frigid look which is supposed to characterise diplomatists. his wife, who was at least twenty years younger, and who was neither tall nor under-sized, neither ugly nor pretty, wore her fair hair in corkscrew curls in the english fashion, and displayed a long-bodiced dress and a large black lace fan. to make people so fashionable as these come to the theatre at such a season one would imagine either that there was some accidental cause, or that they had got tired of spending the evening in one another's society. the lady kept nibbling at her fan, while the gentleman yawned. frederick could not recall to mind where he had seen that face. in the next interval between the acts, while passing through one of the lobbies, he came face to face with both of them. as he bowed in an undecided manner, m. dambreuse, at once recognising him, came up and apologised for having treated him with unpardonable neglect. it was an allusion to the numerous visiting-cards he had sent in accordance with the clerk's advice. however, he confused the periods, supposing that frederick was in the second year of his law-course. then he said he envied the young man for the opportunity of going into the country. he sadly needed a little rest himself, but business kept him in paris. madame dambreuse, leaning on his arm, nodded her head slightly, and the agreeable sprightliness of her face contrasted with its gloomy expression a short time before. "one finds charming diversions in it, nevertheless," she said, after her husband's last remark. "what a stupid play that was--was it not, monsieur?" and all three of them remained there chatting about theatres and new pieces. frederick, accustomed to the grimaces of provincial dames, had not seen in any woman such ease of manner combined with that simplicity which is the essence of refinement, and in which ingenuous souls trace the expression of instantaneous sympathy. they would expect to see him as soon as he returned. m. dambreuse told him to give his kind remembrances to père roque. frederick, when he reached his lodgings, did not fail to inform deslauriers of their hospitable invitation. "grand!" was the clerk's reply; "and don't let your mamma get round you! come back without delay!" on the day after his arrival, as soon as they had finished breakfast, madame moreau brought her son out into the garden. she said she was happy to see him in a profession, for they were not as rich as people imagined. the land brought in little; the people who farmed it paid badly. she had even been compelled to sell her carriage. finally, she placed their situation in its true colours before him. during the first embarrassments which followed the death of her late husband, m. roque, a man of great cunning, had made her loans of money which had been renewed, and left long unpaid, in spite of her desire to clear them off. he had suddenly made a demand for immediate payment, and she had gone beyond the strict terms of the agreement by giving up to him, at a contemptible figure, the farm of presles. ten years later, her capital disappeared through the failure of a banker at melun. through a horror which she had of mortgages, and to keep up appearances, which might be necessary in view of her son's future, she had, when père roque presented himself again, listened to him once more. but now she was free from debt. in short, there was left them an income of about ten thousand francs, of which two thousand three hundred belonged to him--his entire patrimony. "it isn't possible!" exclaimed frederick. she nodded her head, as if to declare that it was perfectly possible. but his uncle would leave him something? that was by no means certain! and they took a turn around the garden without exchanging a word. at last she pressed him to her heart, and in a voice choked with rising tears: "ah! my poor boy! i have had to give up my dreams!" he seated himself on a bench in the shadow of the large acacia. her advice was that he should become a clerk to m. prouharam, solicitor, who would assign over his office to him; if he increased its value, he might sell it again and find a good practice. frederick was no longer listening to her. he was gazing automatically across the hedge into the other garden opposite. a little girl of about twelve with red hair happened to be there all alone. she had made earrings for herself with the berries of the service-tree. her bodice, made of grey linen-cloth, allowed her shoulders, slightly gilded by the sun, to be seen. her short white petticoat was spotted with the stains made by sweets; and there was, so to speak, the grace of a young wild animal about her entire person, at the same time, nervous and thin. apparently, the presence of a stranger astonished her, for she had stopped abruptly with her watering-pot in her hand darting glances at him with her large bright eyes, which were of a limpid greenish-blue colour. "that is m. roque's daughter," said madame moreau. "he has just married his servant and legitimised the child that he had by her." chapter vi. blighted hopes. ruined, stripped of everything, undermined! he remained seated on the bench, as if stunned by a shock. he cursed fate; he would have liked to beat somebody; and, to intensify his despair, he felt a kind of outrage, a sense of disgrace, weighing down upon him; for frederick had been under the impression that the fortune coming to him through his father would mount up one day to an income of fifteen thousand livres, and he had so informed the arnoux' in an indirect sort of way. so then he would be looked upon as a braggart, a rogue, an obscure blackguard, who had introduced himself to them in the expectation of making some profit out of it! and as for her--madame arnoux--how could he ever see her again now? moreover, that was completely impossible when he had only a yearly income of three thousand francs, he could not always lodge on the fourth floor, have the door keeper as a servant, and make his appearance with wretched black gloves turning blue at the ends, a greasy hat, and the same frock-coat for a whole year. no, no! never! and yet without her existence was intolerable. many people were well able to live without any fortune, deslauriers amongst the rest; and he thought himself a coward to attach so much importance to matters of trifling consequence. need would perhaps multiply his faculties a hundredfold. he excited himself by thinking on the great men who had worked in garrets. a soul like that of madame arnoux ought to be touched at such a spectacle, and she would be moved by it to sympathetic tenderness. so, after all, this catastrophe was a piece of good fortune; like those earthquakes which unveil treasures, it had revealed to him the hidden wealth of his nature. but there was only one place in the world where this could be turned to account--paris; for to his mind, art, science, and love (those three faces of god, as pellerin would have said) were associated exclusively with the capital. that evening, he informed his mother of his intention to go back there. madame moreau was surprised and indignant. she regarded it as a foolish and absurd course. it would be better to follow her advice, namely, to remain near her in an office. frederick shrugged his shoulders, "come now"--looking on this proposal as an insult to himself. thereupon, the good lady adopted another plan. in a tender voice broken by sobs she began to dwell on her solitude, her old age, and the sacrifices she had made for him. now that she was more unhappy than ever, he was abandoning her. then, alluding to the anticipated close of her life: "a little patience--good heavens! you will soon be free!" these lamentations were renewed twenty times a day for three months; and at the same time the luxuries of a home made him effeminate. he found it enjoyable to have a softer bed and napkins that were not torn, so that, weary, enervated, overcome by the terrible force of comfort, frederick allowed himself to be brought to maître prouharam's office. he displayed there neither knowledge nor aptitude. up to this time, he had been regarded as a young man of great means who ought to be the shining light of the department. the public would now come to the conclusion that he had imposed upon them. at first, he said to himself: "it is necessary to inform madame arnoux about it;" and for a whole week he kept formulating in his own mind dithyrambic letters and short notes in an eloquent and sublime style. the fear of avowing his actual position restrained him. then he thought that it was far better to write to the husband. arnoux knew life and could understand the true state of the case. at length, after a fortnight's hesitation: "bah! i ought not to see them any more: let them forget me! at any rate, i shall be cherished in her memory without having sunk in her estimation! she will believe that i am dead, and will regret me--perhaps." as extravagant resolutions cost him little, he swore in his own mind that he would never return to paris, and that he would not even make any enquiries about madame arnoux. nevertheless, he regretted the very smell of the gas and the noise of the omnibuses. he mused on the things that she might have said to him, on the tone of her voice, on the light of her eyes--and, regarding himself as a dead man, he no longer did anything at all. he arose very late, and looked through the window at the passing teams of wagoners. the first six months especially were hateful. on certain days, however, he was possessed by a feeling of indignation even against her. then he would go forth and wander through the meadows, half covered in winter time by the inundations of the seine. they were cut up by rows of poplar-trees. here and there arose a little bridge. he tramped about till evening, rolling the yellow leaves under his feet, inhaling the fog, and jumping over the ditches. as his arteries began to throb more vigorously, he felt himself carried away by a desire to do something wild; he longed to become a trapper in america, to attend on a pasha in the east, to take ship as a sailor; and he gave vent to his melancholy in long letters to deslauriers. the latter was struggling to get on. the slothful conduct of his friend and his eternal jeremiads appeared to him simply stupid. their correspondence soon became a mere form. frederick had given up all his furniture to deslauriers, who stayed on in the same lodgings. from time to time his mother spoke to him. at length he one day told her about the present he had made, and she was giving him a rating for it, when a letter was placed in his hands. "what is the matter now?" she said, "you are trembling?" "there is nothing the matter with me," replied frederick. deslauriers informed him that he had taken sénécal under his protection, and that for the past fortnight they had been living together. so now sénécal was exhibiting himself in the midst of things that had come from the arnoux's shop. he might sell them, criticise, make jokes about them. frederick felt wounded in the depths of his soul. he went up to his own apartment. he felt a yearning for death. his mother called him to consult him about a plantation in the garden. this garden was, after the fashion of an english park, cut in the middle by a stick fence; and the half of it belonged to père roque, who had another for vegetables on the bank of the river. the two neighbours, having fallen out, abstained from making their appearance there at the same hour. but since frederick's return, the old gentleman used to walk about there more frequently, and was not stinted in his courtesies towards madame moreau's son. he pitied the young man for having to live in a country town. one day he told him that madame dambreuse had been anxious to hear from him. on another occasion he expatiated on the custom of champagne, where the stomach conferred nobility. "at that time you would have been a lord, since your mother's name was de fouvens. and 'tis all very well to talk--never mind! there's something in a name. after all," he added, with a sly glance at frederick, "that depends on the keeper of the seals." this pretension to aristocracy contrasted strangely with his personal appearance. as he was small, his big chestnut-coloured frock-coat exaggerated the length of his bust. when he took off his hat, a face almost like that of a woman with an extremely sharp nose could be seen; his hair, which was of a yellow colour, resembled a wig. he saluted people with a very low bow, brushing against the wall. up to his fiftieth year, he had been content with the services of catherine, a native of lorraine, of the same age as himself, who was strongly marked with small-pox. but in the year , he brought back with him from paris a handsome blonde with a sheep-like type of countenance and a "queenly carriage." ere long, she was observed strutting about with large earrings; and everything was explained by the birth of a daughter who was introduced to the world under the name of elisabeth olympe louise roque. catherine, in her first ebullition of jealousy, expected that she would curse this child. on the contrary, she became fond of the little girl, and treated her with the utmost care, consideration, and tenderness, in order to supplant her mother and render her odious--an easy task, inasmuch as madame Éléonore entirely neglected the little one, preferring to gossip at the tradesmen's shops. on the day after her marriage, she went to pay a visit at the sub-prefecture, no longer "thee'd" and "thou'd" the servants, and took it into her head that, as a matter of good form, she ought to exhibit a certain severity towards the child. she was present while the little one was at her lessons. the teacher, an old clerk who had been employed at the mayor's office, did not know how to go about the work of instructing the girl. the pupil rebelled, got her ears boxed, and rushed away to shed tears on the lap of catherine, who always took her part. after this the two women wrangled, and m. roque ordered them to hold their tongues. he had married only out of tender regard for his daughter, and did not wish to be annoyed by them. she often wore a white dress with ribbons, and pantalettes trimmed with lace; and on great festival-days she would leave the house attired like a princess, in order to mortify a little the matrons of the town, who forbade their brats to associate with her on account of her illegitimate birth. she passed her life nearly always by herself in the garden, went see-sawing on the swing, chased butterflies, then suddenly stopped to watch the floral beetles swooping down on the rose-trees. it was, no doubt, these habits which imparted to her face an expression at the same time of audacity and dreaminess. she had, moreover, a figure like marthe, so that frederick said to her, at their second interview: "will you permit me to kiss you, mademoiselle?" the little girl lifted up her head and replied: "i will!" but the stick-hedge separated them from one another. "we must climb over," said frederick. "no, lift me up!" he stooped over the hedge, and raising her off the ground with his hands, kissed her on both cheeks; then he put her back on her own side by a similar process; and this performance was repeated on the next occasions when they found themselves together. without more reserve than a child of four, as soon as she heard her friend coming, she sprang forward to meet him, or else, hiding behind a tree, she began yelping like a dog to frighten him. one day, when madame moreau had gone out, he brought her up to his own room. she opened all the scent-bottles, and pomaded her hair plentifully; then, without the slightest embarrassment, she lay down on the bed, where she remained stretched out at full length, wide awake. "i fancy myself your wife," she said to him. next day he found her all in tears. she confessed that she had been "weeping for her sins;" and, when he wished to know what they were, she hung down her head, and answered: "ask me no more!" the time for first communion was at hand. she had been brought to confession in the morning. the sacrament scarcely made her wiser. occasionally, she got into a real passion; and frederick was sent for to appease her. he often brought her with him in his walks. while he indulged in day-dreams as he walked along, she would gather wild poppies at the edges of the corn-fields; and, when she saw him more melancholy than usual, she tried to console him with her pretty childish prattle. his heart, bereft of love, fell back on this friendship inspired by a little girl. he gave her sketches of old fogies, told her stories, and devoted himself to reading books for her. he began with the _annales romantiques_, a collection of prose and verse celebrated at the period. then, forgetting her age, so much was he charmed by her intelligence, he read for her in succession, _atala_, _cinq-mars_, and _les feuilles d'automne_. but one night (she had that very evening heard _macbeth_ in letourneur's simple translation) she woke up, exclaiming: "the spot! the spot!" her teeth chattered, she shivered, and, fixing terrified glances on her right hand, she kept rubbing it, saying: "always a spot!" at last a doctor was brought, who directed that she should be kept free from violent emotions. the townsfolk saw in this only an unfavourable prognostic for her morals. it was said that "young moreau" wished to make an actress of her later. soon another event became the subject of discussion--namely, the arrival of uncle barthélemy. madame moreau gave up her sleeping-apartment to him, and was so gracious as to serve up meat to him on fast-days. the old man was not very agreeable. he was perpetually making comparisons between havre and nogent, the air of which he considered heavy, the bread bad, the streets ill-paved, the food indifferent, and the inhabitants very lazy. "how wretched trade is with you in this place!" he blamed his deceased brother for his extravagance, pointing out by way of contrast that he had himself accumulated an income of twenty-seven thousand livres a year. at last, he left at the end of the week, and on the footboard of the carriage gave utterance to these by no means reassuring words: "i am always very glad to know that you are in a good position." "you will get nothing," said madame moreau as they re-entered the dining-room. he had come only at her urgent request, and for eight days she had been seeking, on her part, for an opening--only too clearly perhaps. she repented now of having done so, and remained seated in her armchair with her head bent down and her lips tightly pressed together. frederick sat opposite, staring at her; and they were both silent, as they had been five years before on his return home by the montereau steamboat. this coincidence, which presented itself even to her mind, recalled madame arnoux to his recollection. at that moment the crack of a whip outside the window reached their ears, while a voice was heard calling out to him. it was père roque, who was alone in his tilted cart. he was going to spend the whole day at la fortelle with m. dambreuse, and cordially offered to drive frederick there. "you have no need of an invitation as long as you are with me. don't be afraid!" frederick felt inclined to accept this offer. but how would he explain his fixed sojourn at nogent? he had not a proper summer suit. finally, what would his mother say? he accordingly decided not to go. from that time, their neighbour exhibited less friendliness. louise was growing tall; madame Éléonore fell dangerously ill; and the intimacy broke off, to the great delight of madame moreau, who feared lest her son's prospects of being settled in life might be affected by association with such people. she was thinking of purchasing for him the registrarship of the court of justice. frederick raised no particular objection to this scheme. he now accompanied her to mass; in the evening he took a hand in a game of "all fours." he became accustomed to provincial habits of life, and allowed himself to slide into them; and even his love had assumed a character of mournful sweetness, a kind of soporific charm. by dint of having poured out his grief in his letters, mixed it up with everything he read, given full vent to it during his walks through the country, he had almost exhausted it, so that madame arnoux was for him, as it were, a dead woman whose tomb he wondered that he did not know, so tranquil and resigned had his affection for her now become. one day, the th of december, , about nine o'clock in the morning, the cook brought up a letter to his room. the address, which was in big characters, was written in a hand he was not acquainted with; and frederick, feeling sleepy, was in no great hurry to break the seal. at length, when he did so, he read: "justice of the peace at havre, rd arrondissement. "monsieur,--monsieur moreau, your uncle, having died intestate----" he had fallen in for the inheritance! as if a conflagration had burst out behind the wall, he jumped out of bed in his shirt, with his feet bare. he passed his hand over his face, doubting the evidence of his own eyes, believing that he was still dreaming, and in order to make his mind more clearly conscious of the reality of the event, he flung the window wide open. there had been a fall of snow; the roofs were white, and he even recognised in the yard outside a washtub which had caused him to stumble after dark the evening before. he read the letter over three times in succession. could there be anything more certain? his uncle's entire fortune! a yearly income of twenty-seven thousand livres![ ] and he was overwhelmed with frantic joy at the idea of seeing madame arnoux once more. with the vividness of a hallucination he saw himself beside her, at her house, bringing her some present in silver paper, while at the door stood a tilbury--no, a brougham rather!--a black brougham, with a servant in brown livery. he could hear his horse pawing the ground and the noise of the curb-chain mingling with the rippling sound of their kisses. and every day this was renewed indefinitely. he would receive them in his own house: the dining-room would be furnished in red leather; the boudoir in yellow silk; sofas everywhere! and such a variety of whatnots, china vases, and carpets! these images came in so tumultuous a fashion into his mind that he felt his head turning round. then he thought of his mother; and he descended the stairs with the letter in his hand. [footnote : about £ , .--translator.] madame moreau made an effort to control her emotion, but could not keep herself from swooning. frederick caught her in his arms and kissed her on the forehead. "dear mother, you can now buy back your carriage--laugh then! shed no more tears! be happy!" [illustration: laugh then! shed no more tears! be happy!] ten minutes later the news had travelled as far as the faubourgs. then m. benoist, m. gamblin, m. chambion, and other friends hurried towards the house. frederick got away for a minute in order to write to deslauriers. then other visitors turned up. the afternoon passed in congratulations. they had forgotten all about "roque's wife," who, however, was declared to be "very low." when they were alone, the same evening, madame moreau said to her son that she would advise him to set up as an advocate at troyes. as he was better known in his own part of the country than in any other, he might more easily find there a profitable connection. "ah, it is too hard!" exclaimed frederick. he had scarcely grasped his good fortune in his hands when he longed to carry it to madame arnoux. he announced his express determination to live in paris. "and what are you going to do there?" "nothing!" madame moreau, astonished at his manner, asked what he intended to become. "a minister," was frederick's reply. and he declared that he was not at all joking, that he meant to plunge at once into diplomacy, and that his studies and his instincts impelled him in that direction. he would first enter the council of state under m. dambreuse's patronage. "so then, you know him?" "oh, yes--through m. roque." "that is singular," said madame moreau. he had awakened in her heart her former dreams of ambition. she internally abandoned herself to them, and said no more about other matters. if he had yielded to his impatience, frederick would have started that very instant. next morning every seat in the diligence had been engaged; and so he kept eating out his heart till seven o'clock in the evening. they had sat down to dinner when three prolonged tolls of the church-bell fell on their ears; and the housemaid, coming in, informed them that madame Éléonore had just died. this death, after all, was not a misfortune for anyone, not even for her child. the young girl would only find it all the better for herself afterwards. as the two houses were close to one another, a great coming and going and a clatter of tongues could be heard; and the idea of this corpse being so near them threw a certain funereal gloom over their parting. madame moreau wiped her eyes two or three times. frederick felt his heart oppressed. when the meal was over, catherine stopped him between two doors. mademoiselle had peremptorily expressed a wish to see him. she was waiting for him in the garden. he went out there, strode over the hedge, and knocking more or less against the trees, directed his steps towards m. roque's house. lights were glittering through a window in the second story then a form appeared in the midst of the darkness, and a voice whispered: "'tis i!" she seemed to him taller than usual, owing to her black dress, no doubt. not knowing what to say to her, he contented himself with catching her hands, and sighing forth: "ah! my poor louise!" she did not reply. she gazed at him for a long time with a look of sad, deep earnestness. frederick was afraid of missing the coach; he fancied that he could hear the rolling of wheels some distance away, and, in order to put an end to the interview without any delay: "catherine told me that you had something----" "yes--'tis true! i wanted to tell you----" he was astonished to find that she addressed him in the plural; and, as she again relapsed into silence: "well, what?" "i don't know. i forget! is it true that you're going away?" "yes, i'm starting just now." she repeated: "ah! just now?--for good?--we'll never see one another again?" she was choking with sobs. "good-bye! good-bye! embrace me then!" and she threw her arms about him passionately. chapter vii. a change of fortune. then he had taken his place behind the other passengers in the front of the diligence, and when the vehicle began to shake as the five horses started into a brisk trot all at the same time, he allowed himself to plunge into an intoxicating dream of the future. like an architect drawing up the plan of a palace, he mapped out his life beforehand. he filled it with dainties and with splendours; it rose up to the sky; a profuse display of allurements could be seen there; and so deeply was he buried in the contemplation of these things that he lost sight of all external objects. at the foot of the hill of sourdun his attention was directed to the stage which they had reached in their journey. they had travelled only about five kilometres[ ] at the most. he was annoyed at this tardy rate of travelling. he pulled down the coach-window in order to get a view of the road. he asked the conductor several times at what hour they would reach their destination. however, he eventually regained his composure, and remained seated in his corner of the vehicle with eyes wide open. [footnote : a little over three miles.--translator.] the lantern, which hung from the postilion's seat, threw its light on the buttocks of the shaft-horses. in front, only the manes of the other horses could be seen undulating like white billows. their breathing caused a kind of fog to gather at each side of the team. the little iron chains of the harness rang; the windows shook in their sashes; and the heavy coach went rolling at an even pace over the pavement. here and there could be distinguished the wall of a barn, or else an inn standing by itself. sometimes, as they entered a village, a baker's oven threw out gleams of light; and the gigantic silhouettes of the horses kept rushing past the walls of the opposite houses. at every change of horses, when the harness was unfastened, there was a great silence for a minute. overhead, under the awning, some passenger might be heard tapping with his feet, while a woman sitting at the threshold of the door screened her candle with her hand. then the conductor would jump on the footboard, and the vehicle would start on its way again. at mormans, the striking of the clocks announced that it was a quarter past one. "so then we are in another day," he thought, "we have been in it for some time!" but gradually his hopes and his recollections, nogent, the rue de choiseul, madame arnoux, and his mother, all got mixed up together. he was awakened by the dull sound of wheels passing over planks: they were crossing the pont de charenton--it was paris. then his two travelling companions, the first taking off his cap, and the second his silk handkerchief, put on their hats, and began to chat. the first, a big, red-faced man in a velvet frock-coat, was a merchant; the second was coming up to the capital to consult a physician; and, fearing that he had disturbed this gentleman during the night, frederick spontaneously apologised to him, so much had the young man's heart been softened by the feelings of happiness that possessed it. the wharf of the wet dock being flooded, no doubt, they went straight ahead; and once more they could see green fields. in the distance, tall factory-chimneys were sending forth their smoke. then they turned into ivry. then drove up a street: all at once, he saw before him the dome of the panthéon. the plain, quite broken up, seemed a waste of ruins. the enclosing wall of the fortifications made a horizontal swelling there; and, on the footpath, on the ground at the side of the road, little branchless trees were protected by laths bristling with nails. establishments for chemical products and timber-merchants' yards made their appearance alternately. high gates, like those seen in farm-houses, afforded glimpses, through their opening leaves, of wretched yards within, full of filth, with puddles of dirty water in the middle of them. long wine-shops, of the colour of ox's blood, displayed in the first floor, between the windows, two billiard-cues crossing one another, with a wreath of painted flowers. here and there might be noticed a half-built plaster hut, which had been allowed to remain unfinished. then the double row of houses was no longer interrupted; and over their bare fronts enormous tin cigars showed themselves at some distance from each other, indicating tobacconists' shops. midwives' signboards represented in each case a matron in a cap rocking a doll under a counterpane trimmed with lace. the corners of the walls were covered with placards, which, three-quarters torn, were quivering in the wind like rags. workmen in blouses, brewers' drays, laundresses' and butchers' carts passed along. a thin rain was falling. it was cold. there was a pale sky; but two eyes, which to him were as precious as the sun, were shining behind the haze. they had to wait a long time at the barrier, for vendors of poultry, wagoners, and a flock of sheep caused an obstruction there. the sentry, with his great-coat thrown back, walked to and fro in front of his box, to keep himself warm. the clerk who collected the city-dues clambered up to the roof of the diligence, and a cornet-à-piston sent forth a flourish. they went down the boulevard at a quick trot, the whipple-trees clapping and the traces hanging loose. the lash of the whip went cracking through the moist air. the conductor uttered his sonorous shout: "look alive! look alive! oho!" and the scavengers drew out of the way, the pedestrians sprang back, the mud gushed against the coach-windows; they crossed dung-carts, cabs, and omnibuses. at length, the iron gate of the jardin des plantes came into sight. the seine, which was of a yellowish colour, almost reached the platforms of the bridges. a cool breath of air issued from it. frederick inhaled it with his utmost energy, drinking in this good air of paris, which seems to contain the effluvia of love and the emanations of the intellect. he was touched with emotion at the first glimpse of a hackney-coach. he gazed with delight on the thresholds of the wine-merchants' shops garnished with straw, on the shoe-blacks with their boxes, on the lads who sold groceries as they shook their coffee-burners. women hurried along at a jog-trot with umbrellas over their heads. he bent forward to try whether he could distinguish their faces--chance might have led madame arnoux to come out. the shops displayed their wares. the crowd grew denser; the noise in the streets grew louder. after passing the quai saint-bernard, the quai de la tournelle, and the quai montebello, they drove along the quai napoléon. he was anxious to see the windows there; but they were too far away from him. then they once more crossed the seine over the pont-neuf, and descended in the direction of the louvre; and, having traversed the rues saint-honoré, croix des petits-champs, and du bouloi, he reached the rue coq-héron, and entered the courtyard of the hotel. to make his enjoyment last the longer, frederick dressed himself as slowly as possible, and even walked as far as the boulevard montmartre. he smiled at the thought of presently beholding once more the beloved name on the marble plate. he cast a glance upwards; there was no longer a trace of the display in the windows, the pictures, or anything else. he hastened to the rue de choiseul. m. and madame arnoux no longer resided there, and a woman next door was keeping an eye on the porter's lodge. frederick waited to see the porter himself. after some time he made his appearance--it was no longer the same man. he did not know their address. frederick went into a café, and, while at breakfast, consulted the commercial directory. there were three hundred arnoux in it, but no jacques arnoux. where, then, were they living? pellerin ought to know. he made his way to the very top of the faubourg poissonnière, to the artist's studio. as the door had neither a bell nor a knocker, he rapped loudly on it with his knuckles, and then called out--shouted. but the only response was the echo of his voice from the empty house. after this he thought of hussonnet; but where could he discover a man of that sort? on one occasion he had waited on hussonnet when the latter was paying a visit to his mistress's house in the rue de fleurus. frederick had just reached the rue de fleurus when he became conscious of the fact that he did not even know the lady's name. he had recourse to the prefecture of police. he wandered from staircase to staircase, from office to office. he found that the intelligence department was closed for the day, and was told to come back again next morning. then he called at all the picture-dealers' shops that he could discover, and enquired whether they could give him any information as to arnoux's whereabouts. the only answer he got was that m. arnoux was no longer in the trade. at last, discouraged, weary, sickened, he returned to his hotel, and went to bed. just as he was stretching himself between the sheets, an idea flashed upon him which made him leap up with delight: "regimbart! what an idiot i was not to think of him before!" next morning, at seven o'clock, he arrived in the rue nôtre dame des victoires, in front of a dram-shop, where regimbart was in the habit of drinking white wine. it was not yet open. he walked about the neighbourhood, and at the end of about half-an-hour, presented himself at the place once more. regimbart had left it. frederick rushed out into the street. he fancied that he could even notice regimbart's hat some distance away. a hearse and some mourning coaches intercepted his progress. when they had got out of the way, the vision had disappeared. fortunately, he recalled to mind that the citizen breakfasted every day at eleven o'clock sharp, at a little restaurant in the place gaillon. all he had to do was to wait patiently till then; and, after sauntering about from the bourse to the madeleine, and from the madeleine to the gymnase, so long that it seemed as if it would never come to an end, frederick, just as the clocks were striking eleven, entered the restaurant in the rue gaillon, certain of finding regimbart there. "don't know!" said the restaurant-keeper, in an unceremonious tone. frederick persisted: the man replied: "i have no longer any acquaintance with him, monsieur"--and, as he spoke, he raised his eyebrows majestically and shook his head in a mysterious fashion. but, in their last interview, the citizen had referred to the alexandre smoking-divan. frederick swallowed a cake, jumped into a cab, and asked the driver whether there happened to be anywhere on the heights of sainte-geneviève a certain café alexandre. the cabman drove him to the rue des francs bourgeois saint-michel, where there was an establishment of that name, and in answer to his question: "m. regimbart, if you please?" the keeper of the café said with an unusually gracious smile: "we have not seen him as yet, monsieur," while he directed towards his wife, who sat behind the counter, a look of intelligence. and the next moment, turning towards the clock: "but he'll be here, i hope, in ten minutes, or at most a quarter of an hour. celestin, hurry with the newspapers! what would monsieur like to take?" though he did not want to take anything, frederick swallowed a glass of rum, then a glass of kirsch, then a glass of curaçoa, then several glasses of grog, both cold and hot. he read through that day's _siècle_, and then read it over again; he examined the caricatures in the _charivari_ down to the very tissue of the paper. when he had finished, he knew the advertisements by heart. from time to time, the tramp of boots on the footpath outside reached his ears--it was he! and some one's form would trace its outlines on the window-panes; but it invariably passed on. in order to get rid of the sense of weariness he experienced, frederick shifted his seat. he took up his position at the lower end of the room; then at the right; after that at the left; and he remained in the middle of the bench with his arms stretched out. but a cat, daintily pressing down the velvet at the back of the seat, startled him by giving a sudden spring, in order to lick up the spots of syrup on the tray; and the child of the house, an insufferable brat of four, played noisily with a rattle on the bar steps. his mother, a pale-faced little woman, with decayed teeth, was smiling in a stupid sort of way. what in the world could regimbart be doing? frederick waited for him in an exceedingly miserable frame of mind. the rain clattered like hail on the covering of the cab. through the opening in the muslin curtain he could see the poor horse in the street more motionless than a horse made of wood. the stream of water, becoming enormous, trickled down between two spokes of the wheels, and the coachman was nodding drowsily with the horsecloth wrapped round him for protection, but fearing lest his fare might give him the slip, he opened the door every now and then, with the rain dripping from him as if falling from a mountain torrent; and, if things could get worn out by looking at them, the clock ought to have by this time been utterly dissolved, so frequently did frederick rivet his eyes on it. however, it kept going. "mine host" alexandre walked up and down repeating, "he'll come! cheer up! he'll come!" and, in order to divert his thoughts, talked politics, holding forth at some length. he even carried civility so far as to propose a game of dominoes. at length when it was half-past four, frederick, who had been there since about twelve, sprang to his feet, and declared that he would not wait any longer. "i can't understand it at all myself," replied the café-keeper, in a tone of straightforwardness. "this is the first time that m. ledoux has failed to come!" "what! monsieur ledoux?" "why, yes, monsieur!" "i said regimbart," exclaimed frederick, exasperated. "ah! a thousand pardons! you are making a mistake! madame alexandre, did not monsieur say m. ledoux?" and, questioning the waiter: "you heard him yourself, just as i did?" no doubt, to pay his master off for old scores, the waiter contented himself with smiling. frederick drove back to the boulevards, indignant at having his time wasted, raging against the citizen, but craving for his presence as if for that of a god, and firmly resolved to drag him forth, if necessary, from the depths of the most remote cellars. the vehicle in which he was driving only irritated him the more, and he accordingly got rid of it. his ideas were in a state of confusion. then all the names of the cafés which he had heard pronounced by that idiot burst forth at the same time from his memory like the thousand pieces of an exhibition of fireworks--the café gascard, the café grimbert, the café halbout, the bordelais smoking-divan, the havanais, the havrais, the boeuf à la mode, the brasserie allemande, and the mère morel; and he made his way to all of them in succession. but in one he was told that regimbart had just gone out; in another, that he might perhaps call at a later hour; in a third, that they had not seen him for six months; and, in another place, that he had the day before ordered a leg of mutton for saturday. finally, at vautier's dining-rooms, frederick, on opening the door, knocked against the waiter. "do you know m. regimbart?" "what, monsieur! do i know him? 'tis i who have the honour of attending on him. he's upstairs--he is just finishing his dinner!" and, with a napkin under his arm, the master of the establishment himself accosted him: "you're asking him for m. regimbart, monsieur? he was here a moment ago." frederick gave vent to an oath, but the proprietor of the dining-rooms stated that he would find the gentleman as a matter of certainty at bouttevilain's. "i assure you, on my honour, he left a little earlier than usual, for he had a business appointment with some gentlemen. but you'll find him, i tell you again, at bouttevilain's, in the rue saint-martin, no. , the second row of steps at the left, at the end of the courtyard--first floor--door to the right!" at last, he saw regimbart, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, by himself, at the lower end of the refreshment-room, near the billiard-table, with a glass of beer in front of him, and his chin lowered in a thoughtful attitude. "ah! i have been a long time searching for you!" without rising, regimbart extended towards him only two fingers, and, as if he had seen frederick the day before, he gave utterance to a number of commonplace remarks about the opening of the session. frederick interrupted him, saying in the most natural tone he could assume: "is arnoux going on well?" the reply was a long time coming, as regimbart was gargling the liquor in his throat: "yes, not badly." "where is he living now?" "why, in the rue paradis poissonnière," the citizen returned with astonishment. "what number?" "thirty-seven--confound it! what a funny fellow you are!" frederick rose. "what! are you going?" "yes, yes! i have to make a call--some business matter i had forgotten! good-bye!" frederick went from the smoking-divan to the arnoux's residence, as if carried along by a tepid wind, with a sensation of extreme ease such as people experience in dreams. he found himself soon on the second floor in front of a door, at the ringing of whose bell a servant appeared. a second door was flung open. madame arnoux was seated near the fire. arnoux jumped up, and rushed across to embrace frederick. she had on her lap a little boy not quite three years old. her daughter, now as tall as herself, was standing up at the opposite side of the mantelpiece. "allow me to present this gentleman to you," said arnoux, taking his son up in his arms. and he amused himself for some minutes in making the child jump up in the air very high, and then catching him with both hands as he came down. "you'll kill him!--ah! good heavens, have done!" exclaimed madame arnoux. but arnoux, declaring that there was not the slightest danger, still kept tossing up the child, and even addressed him in words of endearment such as nurses use in the marseillaise dialect, his natal tongue: "ah! my fine picheoun! my ducksy of a little nightingale!" then, he asked frederick why he had been so long without writing to them, what he had been doing down in the country, and what brought him back. "as for me, i am at present, my dear friend, a dealer in faïence. but let us talk about yourself!" frederick gave as reasons for his absence a protracted lawsuit and the state of his mother's health. he laid special stress on the latter subject in order to make himself interesting. he ended by saying that this time he was going to settle in paris for good; and he said nothing about the inheritance, lest it might be prejudicial to his past. the curtains, like the upholstering of the furniture, were of maroon damask wool. two pillows were close beside one another on the bolster. on the coal-fire a kettle was boiling; and the shade of the lamp, which stood near the edge of the chest of drawers, darkened the apartment. madame arnoux wore a large blue merino dressing-gown. with her face turned towards the fire and one hand on the shoulder of the little boy, she unfastened with the other the child's bodice. the youngster in his shirt began to cry, while scratching his head, like the son of m. alexandre. frederick expected that he would have felt spasms of joy; but the passions grow pale when we find ourselves in an altered situation; and, as he no longer saw madame arnoux in the environment wherein he had known her, she seemed to him to have lost some of her fascination; to have degenerated in some way that he could not comprehend--in fact, not to be the same. he was astonished at the serenity of his own heart. he made enquiries about some old friends, about pellerin, amongst others. "i don't see him often," said arnoux. she added: "we no longer entertain as we used to do formerly!" was the object of this to let him know that he would get no invitation from them? but arnoux, continuing to exhibit the same cordiality, reproached him for not having come to dine with them uninvited; and he explained why he had changed his business. "what are you to do in an age of decadence like ours? great painting is gone out of fashion! besides, we may import art into everything. you know that, for my part, i am a lover of the beautiful. i must bring you one of these days to see my earthenware works." and he wanted to show frederick immediately some of his productions in the store which he had between the ground-floor and the first floor. dishes, soup-tureens, and washhand-basins encumbered the floor. against the walls were laid out large squares of pavement for bathrooms and dressing-rooms, with mythological subjects in the renaissance style; whilst in the centre, a pair of whatnots, rising up to the ceiling, supported ice-urns, flower-pots, candelabra, little flower-stands, and large statuettes of many colours, representing a negro or a shepherdess in the pompadour fashion. frederick, who was cold and hungry, was bored with arnoux's display of his wares. he hurried off to the café anglais, where he ordered a sumptuous supper, and while eating, said to himself: "i was well off enough below there with all my troubles! she scarcely took any notice of me! how like a shopkeeper's wife!" and in an abrupt expansion of healthfulness, he formed egoistic resolutions. he felt his heart as hard as the table on which his elbows rested. so then he could by this time plunge fearlessly into the vortex of society. the thought of the dambreuses recurred to his mind. he would make use of them. then he recalled deslauriers to mind. "ah! faith, so much the worse!" nevertheless, he sent him a note by a messenger, making an appointment with him for the following day, in order that they might breakfast together. fortune had not been so kind to the other. he had presented himself at the examination for a fellowship with a thesis on the law of wills, in which he maintained that the powers of testators ought to be restricted as much as possible; and, as his adversary provoked him in such a way as to make him say foolish things, he gave utterance to many of these absurdities without in any way inducing the examiners to falter in deciding that he was wrong. then chance so willed it that he should choose by lot, as a subject for a lecture, prescription. thereupon, deslauriers gave vent to some lamentable theories: the questions in dispute in former times ought to be brought forward as well as those which had recently arisen; why should the proprietor be deprived of his estate because he could furnish his title-deeds only after the lapse of thirty-one years? this was giving the security of the honest man to the inheritor of the enriched thief. every injustice was consecrated by extending this law, which was a form of tyranny, the abuse of force! he had even exclaimed: "abolish it; and the franks will no longer oppress the gauls, the english oppress the irish, the yankee oppress the redskins, the turks oppress the arabs, the whites oppress the blacks, poland----" the president interrupted him: "well! well! monsieur, we have nothing to do with your political opinions--you will have them represented in your behalf by-and-by!" deslauriers did not wish to have his opinions represented; but this unfortunate title xx. of the third book of the civil code had become a sort of mountain over which he stumbled. he was elaborating a great work on "prescription considered as the basis of the civil law and of the law of nature amongst peoples"; and he got lost in dunod, rogerius, balbus, merlin, vazeille, savigny, traplong, and other weighty authorities on the subject. in order to have more leisure for the purpose of devoting himself to this task, he had resigned his post of head-clerk. he lived by giving private tuitions and preparing theses; and at the meetings of newly-fledged barristers to rehearse legal arguments he frightened by his display of virulence those who held conservative views, all the young doctrinaires who acknowledged m. guizot as their master--so that in a certain set he had gained a sort of celebrity, mingled, in a slight degree, with lack of confidence in him as an individual. he came to keep the appointment in a big paletot, lined with red flannel, like the one sénécal used to wear in former days. human respect on account of the passers-by prevented them from straining one another long in an embrace of friendship; and they made their way to véfour's arm-in-arm, laughing pleasantly, though with tear-drops lingering in the depths of their eyes. then, as soon as they were free from observation, deslauriers exclaimed: "ah! damn it! we'll have a jolly time of it now!" frederick was not quite pleased to find deslauriers all at once associating himself in this way with his own newly-acquired inheritance. his friend exhibited too much pleasure on account of them both, and not enough on his account alone. after this, deslauriers gave details about the reverse he had met with, and gradually told frederick all about his occupations and his daily existence, speaking of himself in a stoical fashion, and of others in tones of intense bitterness. he found fault with everything; there was not a man in office who was not an idiot or a rascal. he flew into a passion against the waiter for having a glass badly rinsed, and, when frederick uttered a reproach with a view to mitigating his wrath: "as if i were going to annoy myself with such numbskulls, who, you must know, can earn as much as six and even eight thousand francs a year, who are electors, perhaps eligible as candidates. ah! no, no!" then, with a sprightly air, "but i've forgotten that i'm talking to a capitalist, to a mondor,[ ] for you are a mondor now!" [footnote : mondor was a celebrated italian charlatan, who, in the seventeenth century, settled in paris and made a large fortune.--translator.] and, coming back to the question of the inheritance, he gave expression to this view--that collateral successorship (a thing unjust in itself, though in the present case he was glad it was possible) would be abolished one of these days at the approaching revolution. "do you believe in that?" said frederick. "be sure of it!" he replied. "this sort of thing cannot last. there is too much suffering. when i see into the wretchedness of men like sénécal----" "always sénécal!" thought frederick. "but, at all events, tell me the news? are you still in love with madame arnoux? is it all over--eh?" frederick, not knowing what answer to give him, closed his eyes and hung down his head. with regard to arnoux, deslauriers told him that the journal was now the property of hussonnet, who had transformed it. it was called "_l'art_, a literary institution--a company with shares of one hundred francs each; capital of the firm, forty thousand francs," each shareholder having the right to put into it his own contributions; for "the company has for its object to publish the works of beginners, to spare talent, perchance genius, the sad crises which drench," etc. "you see the dodge!" there was, however, something to be effected by the change--the tone of the journal could be raised; then, without any delay, while retaining the same writers, and promising a continuation of the feuilleton, to supply the subscribers with a political organ: the amount to be advanced would not be very great. "what do you think of it? come! would you like to have a hand in it?" frederick did not reject the proposal; but he pointed out that it was necessary for him to attend to the regulation of his affairs. "after that, if you require anything----" "thanks, my boy!" said deslauriers. then, they smoked puros, leaning with their elbows on the shelf covered with velvet beside the window. the sun was shining; the air was balmy. flocks of birds, fluttering about, swooped down into the garden. the statues of bronze and marble, washed by the rain, were glistening. nursery-maids wearing aprons, were seated on chairs, chatting together; and the laughter of children could be heard mingling with the continuous plash that came from the sheaf-jets of the fountain. frederick was troubled by deslauriers' irritability; but under the influence of the wine which circulated through his veins, half-asleep, in a state of torpor, with the sun shining full on his face, he was no longer conscious of anything save a profound sense of comfort, a kind of voluptuous feeling that stupefied him, as a plant is saturated with heat and moisture. deslauriers, with half-closed eyelids, was staring vacantly into the distance. his breast swelled, and he broke out in the following strain: "ah! those were better days when camille desmoulins, standing below there on a table, drove the people on to the bastille. men really lived in those times; they could assert themselves, and prove their strength! simple advocates commanded generals. kings were beaten by beggars; whilst now----" he stopped, then added all of a sudden: "pooh! the future is big with great things!" and, drumming a battle-march on the window-panes, he declaimed some verses of barthélemy, which ran thus: "'that dread assembly shall again appear, which, after forty years, fills you with fear, marching with giant stride and dauntless soul'[ ] --i don't know the rest of it! but 'tis late; suppose we go?" [footnote : "elle reparaîtra, la terrible assemblée, dont, après quarante ans, votre tête est troublée, colosse qui sans peur marche d'un pas puissant."] and he went on setting forth his theories in the street. frederick, without listening to him, was looking at certain materials and articles of furniture in the shop-windows which would be suitable for his new residence in paris; and it was, perhaps, the thought of madame arnoux that made him stop before a second-hand dealer's window, where three plates made of fine ware were exposed to view. they were decorated with yellow arabesques with metallic reflections, and were worth a hundred crowns apiece. he got them put by. "for my part, if i were in your place," said deslauriers, "i would rather buy silver plate," revealing by this love of substantial things the man of mean extraction. as soon as he was alone, frederick repaired to the establishment of the celebrated pomadère, where he ordered three pairs of trousers, two coats, a pelisse trimmed with fur, and five waistcoats. then he called at a bootmaker's, a shirtmaker's, and a hatter's, giving them directions in each shop to make the greatest possible haste. three days later, on the evening of his return from havre, he found his complete wardrobe awaiting him in his parisian abode; and impatient to make use of it, he resolved to pay an immediate visit to the dambreuses. but it was too early yet--scarcely eight o'clock. "suppose i went to see the others?" said he to himself. he came upon arnoux, all alone, in the act of shaving in front of his glass. the latter proposed to drive him to a place where they could amuse themselves, and when m. dambreuse was referred to, "ah, that's just lucky! you'll see some of his friends there. come on, then! it will be good fun!" frederick asked to be excused. madame arnoux recognised his voice, and wished him good-day, through the partition, for her daughter was indisposed, and she was also rather unwell herself. the noise of a soup-ladle against a glass could be heard from within, and all those quivering sounds made by things being lightly moved about, which are usual in a sick-room. then arnoux left his dressing-room to say good-bye to his wife. he brought forward a heap of reasons for going out: "you know well that it is a serious matter! i must go there; 'tis a case of necessity. they'll be waiting for me!" "go, go, my dear! amuse yourself!" arnoux hailed a hackney-coach: "palais royal, no. montpensier gallery." and, as he let himself sink back in the cushions: "ah! how tired i am, my dear fellow! it will be the death of me! however, i can tell it to you--to you!" he bent towards frederick's ear in a mysterious fashion: "i am trying to discover again the red of chinese copper!" and he explained the nature of the glaze and the little fire. on their arrival at chevet's shop, a large hamper was brought to him, which he stowed away in the hackney-coach. then he bought for his "poor wife" pine-apples and various dainties, and directed that they should be sent early next morning. after this, they called at a costumer's establishment; it was to a ball they were going. arnoux selected blue velvet breeches, a vest of the same material, and a red wig; frederick a domino; and they went down the rue de laval towards a house the second floor of which was illuminated by coloured lanterns. at the foot of the stairs they heard violins playing above. "where the deuce are you bringing me to?" said frederick. "to see a nice girl! don't be afraid!" the door was opened for them by a groom; and they entered the anteroom, where paletots, mantles, and shawls were thrown together in a heap on some chairs. a young woman in the costume of a dragoon of louis xiv.'s reign was passing at that moment. it was mademoiselle rosanette bron, the mistress of the place. "well?" said arnoux. "'tis done!" she replied. "ah! thanks, my angel!" and he wanted to kiss her. "take care, now, you foolish man! you'll spoil the paint on my face!" arnoux introduced frederick. "step in there, monsieur; you are quite welcome!" she drew aside a door-curtain, and cried out with a certain emphasis: "here's my lord arnoux, girl, and a princely friend of his!" frederick was at first dazzled by the lights. he could see nothing save some silk and velvet dresses, naked shoulders, a mass of colours swaying to and fro to the accompaniment of an orchestra hidden behind green foliage, between walls hung with yellow silk, with pastel portraits here and there and crystal chandeliers in the style of louis xvi.'s period. high lamps, whose globes of roughened glass resembled snowballs, looked down on baskets of flowers placed on brackets in the corners; and at the opposite side, at the rear of a second room, smaller in size, one could distinguish, in a third, a bed with twisted posts, and at its head a venetian mirror. the dancing stopped, and there were bursts of applause, a hubbub of delight, as arnoux was seen advancing with his hamper on his head; the eatables contained in it made a lump in the centre. "make way for the lustre!" frederick raised his eyes: it was the lustre of old saxe that had adorned the shop attached to the office of _l'art industriel_. the memory of former days was brought back to his mind. but a foot-soldier of the line in undress, with that silly expression of countenance ascribed by tradition to conscripts, planted himself right in front of him, spreading out his two arms in order to emphasise his astonishment, and, in spite of the hideous black moustaches, unusually pointed, which disfigured his face, frederick recognised his old friend hussonnet. in a half-alsatian, half-negro kind of gibberish, the bohemian loaded him with congratulations, calling him his colonel. frederick, put out of countenance by the crowd of personages assembled around him, was at a loss for an answer. at a tap on the desk from a fiddlestick, the partners in the dance fell into their places. they were about sixty in number, the women being for the most part dressed either as village-girls or marchionesses, and the men, who were nearly all of mature age, being got up as wagoners, 'longshoremen, or sailors. frederick having taken up his position close to the wall, stared at those who were going through the quadrille in front of him. an old beau, dressed like a venetian doge in a long gown or purple silk, was dancing with mademoiselle rosanette, who wore a green coat, laced breeches, and boots of soft leather with gold spurs. the pair in front of them consisted of an albanian laden with yataghans and a swiss girl with blue eyes and skin white as milk, who looked as plump as a quail with her chemise-sleeves and red corset exposed to view. in order to turn to account her hair, which fell down to her hips, a tall blonde, a walking lady in the opera, had assumed the part of a female savage; and over her brown swaddling-cloth she displayed nothing save leathern breeches, glass bracelets, and a tinsel diadem, from which rose a large sheaf of peacock's feathers. in front of her, a gentleman who had intended to represent pritchard,[ ] muffled up in a grotesquely big black coat, was beating time with his elbows on his snuff-box. a little watteau shepherd in blue-and-silver, like moonlight, dashed his crook against the thyrsus of a bacchante crowned with grapes, who wore a leopard's skin over her left side, and buskins with gold ribbons. on the other side, a polish lady, in a spencer of nacarat-coloured velvet, made her gauze petticoat flutter over her pearl-gray stockings, which rose above her fashionable pink boots bordered with white fur. she was smiling on a big-paunched man of forty, disguised as a choir-boy, who was skipping very high, lifting up his surplice with one hand, and with the other his red clerical cap. but the queen, the star, was mademoiselle loulou, a celebrated dancer at public halls. as she had now become wealthy, she wore a large lace collar over her vest of smooth black velvet; and her wide trousers of poppy-coloured silk, clinging closely to her figure, and drawn tight round her waist by a cashmere scarf, had all over their seams little natural white camellias. her pale face, a little puffed, and with the nose somewhat _retroussé_, looked all the more pert from the disordered appearance of her wig, over which she had with a touch of her hand clapped a man's grey felt hat, so that it covered her right ear; and, with every bounce she made, her pumps, adorned with diamond buckles, nearly reached the nose of her neighbour, a big mediæval baron, who was quite entangled in his steel armour. there was also an angel, with a gold sword in her hand, and two swan's wings over her back, who kept rushing up and down, every minute losing her partner who appeared as louis xiv., displaying an utter ignorance of the figures and confusing the quadrille. [footnote : this probably refers to the english astronomer of that name.--translator.] frederick, as he gazed at these people, experienced a sense of forlornness, a feeling of uneasiness. he was still thinking of madame arnoux and it seemed to him as if he were taking part in some plot that was being hatched against her. when the quadrille was over, mademoiselle rosanette accosted him. she was slightly out of breath, and her gorget, polished like a mirror, swelled up softly under her chin. "and you, monsieur," said she, "don't you dance?" frederick excused himself; he did not know how to dance. "really! but with me? are you quite sure?" and, poising herself on one hip, with her other knee a little drawn back, while she stroked with her left hand the mother-of-pearl pommel of her sword, she kept staring at him for a minute with a half-beseeching, half-teasing air. at last she said "good night! then," made a pirouette, and disappeared. frederick, dissatisfied with himself, and not well knowing what to do, began to wander through the ball-room. he entered the boudoir padded with pale blue silk, with bouquets of flowers from the fields, whilst on the ceiling, in a circle of gilt wood, cupids, emerging out of an azure sky, played over the clouds, resembling down in appearance. this display of luxuries, which would to-day be only trifles to persons like rosanette, dazzled him, and he admired everything--the artificial convolvuli which adorned the surface of the mirror, the curtains on the mantelpiece, the turkish divan, and a sort of tent in a recess in the wall, with pink silk hangings and a covering of white muslin overhead. furniture made of dark wood with inlaid work of copper filled the sleeping apartment, where, on a platform covered with swan's-down, stood the large canopied bedstead trimmed with ostrich-feathers. pins, with heads made of precious stones, stuck into pincushions, rings trailing over trays, lockets with hoops of gold, and little silver chests, could be distinguished in the shade under the light shed by a bohemian urn suspended from three chainlets. through a little door, which was slightly ajar, could be seen a hot-house occupying the entire breadth of a terrace, with an aviary at the other end. here were surroundings specially calculated to charm him. in a sudden revolt of his youthful blood he swore that he would enjoy such things; he grew bold; then, coming back to the place opening into the drawing-room, where there was now a larger gathering--it kept moving about in a kind of luminous pulverulence--he stood to watch the quadrilles, blinking his eyes to see better, and inhaling the soft perfumes of the women, which floated through the atmosphere like an immense kiss. but, close to him, on the other side of the door, was pellerin--pellerin, in full dress, his left arm over his breast and with his hat and a torn white glove in his right. "halloa! 'tis a long time since we saw you! where the deuce have you been? gone to travel in italy? 'tis a commonplace country enough--italy, eh? not so unique as people say it is? no matter! will you bring me your sketches one of these days?" and, without giving him time to answer, the artist began talking about himself. he had made considerable progress, having definitely satisfied himself as to the stupidity of the line. we ought not to look so much for beauty and unity in a work as for character and diversity of subject. "for everything exists in nature; therefore, everything is legitimate; everything is plastic. it is only a question of catching the note, mind you! i have discovered the secret." and giving him a nudge, he repeated several times, "i have discovered the secret, you see! just look at that little woman with the head-dress of a sphinx who is dancing with a russian postilion--that's neat, dry, fixed, all in flats and in stiff tones--indigo under the eyes, a patch of vermilion on the cheek, and bistre on the temples--pif! paf!" and with his thumb he drew, as it were, pencil-strokes in the air. "whilst the big one over there," he went on, pointing towards a fishwife in a cherry gown with a gold cross hanging from her neck, and a lawn fichu fastened round her shoulders, "is nothing but curves. the nostrils are spread out just like the borders of her cap; the corners of the mouth are rising up; the chin sinks: all is fleshy, melting, abundant, tranquil, and sunshiny--a true rubens! nevertheless, they are both perfect! where, then, is the type?" he grew warm with the subject. "what is this but a beautiful woman? what is it but the beautiful? ah! the beautiful--tell me what that is----" frederick interrupted him to enquire who was the merry-andrew with the face of a he-goat, who was in the very act of blessing all the dancers in the middle of a pastourelle. "oh! he's not much!--a widower, the father of three boys. he leaves them without breeches, spends his whole day at the club, and lives with the servant!" "and who is that dressed like a bailiff talking in the recess of the window to a marquise de pompadour?" "the marquise is mademoiselle vandael, formerly an actress at the gymnase, the mistress of the doge, the comte de palazot. they have now been twenty years living together--nobody can tell why. had she fine eyes at one time, this woman? as for the citizen by her side, his name is captain d'herbigny, an old man of the hurdy-gurdy sort that you can play on, with nothing in the world except his cross of the legion of honour and his pension. he passes for the uncle of the grisettes at festival times, arranges duels, and dines in the city." "a rascal?" said frederick. "no! an honest man!" "ha!" the artist was going on to mention the names of many others, when, perceiving a gentleman who, like molière's physician, wore a big black serge gown opening very wide as it descended in order to display all his trinkets: "the person who presents himself there before you is dr. des rogis, who, full of rage at not having made a name for himself, has written a book of medical pornography, and willingly blacks people's boots in society, while he is at the same time discreet. these ladies adore him. he and his wife (that lean châtelaine in the grey dress) trip about together at every public place--aye, and at other places too. in spite of domestic embarrassments, they have a _day_--artistic teas, at which verses are recited. attention!" in fact, the doctor came up to them at that moment; and soon they formed all three, at the entrance to the drawing-room, a group of talkers, which was presently augmented by hussonnet, then by the lover of the female savage, a young poet who displayed, under a court cloak of francis i.'s reign, the most pitiful of anatomies, and finally a sprightly youth disguised as a turk of the barrier. but his vest with its yellow galloon had taken so many voyages on the backs of strolling dentists, his wide trousers full of creases, were of so faded a red, his turban, rolled about like an eel in the tartar fashion, was so poor in appearance--in short, his entire costume was so wretched and made-up, that the women did not attempt to hide their disgust. the doctor consoled him by pronouncing eulogies on his mistress, the lady in the dress of a 'longshorewoman. this turk was a banker's son. between two quadrilles, rosanette advanced towards the mantelpiece, where an obese little old man, in a maroon coat with gold buttons, had seated himself in an armchair. in spite of his withered cheeks, which fell over his white cravat, his hair, still fair, and curling naturally like that of a poodle, gave him a certain frivolity of aspect. she was listening to him with her face bent close to his. presently, she accommodated him with a little glass of syrup; and nothing could be more dainty than her hands under their laced sleeves, which passed over the facings of her green coat. when the old man had swallowed it, he kissed them. "why, that's m. oudry, a neighbor of arnoux!" "he has lost her!" said pellerin, smiling. a longjumeau postilion caught her by the waist. a waltz was beginning. then all the women, seated round the drawing-room on benches, rose up quickly at the same time; and their petticoats, their scarfs, and their head-dresses went whirling round. they whirled so close to him that frederick could notice the beads of perspiration on their foreheads; and this gyral movement, more and more lively, regular, provocative of dizzy sensations, communicated to his mind a sort of intoxication, which made other images surge up within it, while every woman passed with the same dazzling effect, and each of them with a special kind of exciting influence, according to her style of beauty. the polish lady, surrendering herself in a languorous fashion, inspired him with a longing to clasp her to his heart while they were both spinning forward on a sledge along a plain covered with snow. horizons of tranquil voluptuousness in a châlet at the side of a lake opened out under the footsteps of the swiss girl, who waltzed with her bust erect and her eyelashes drooping. then, suddenly, the bacchante, bending back her head with its dark locks, made him dream of devouring caresses in a wood of oleanders, in the midst of a storm, to the confused accompaniment of tabours. the fishwife, who was panting from the rapidity of the music, which was far too great for her, gave vent to bursts of laughter; and he would have liked, while drinking with her in some tavern in the "porcherons,"[ ] to rumple her fichu with both hands, as in the good old times. but the 'longshorewoman, whose light toes barely skimmed the floor, seemed to conceal under the suppleness of her limbs and the seriousness of her face all the refinements of modern love, which possesses the exactitude of a science and the mobility of a bird. rosanette was whirling with arms akimbo; her wig, in an awkward position, bobbing over her collar, flung iris-powder around her; and, at every turn, she was near catching hold of frederick with the ends of her gold spurs. [footnote : the "porcherons" was the name given to an old quarter of paris famous for its taverns, situated between the rue du faubourg montmartre and the rue de saint-lazare.--translator.] during the closing bar of the waltz, mademoiselle vatnaz made her appearance. she had an algerian handkerchief on her head, a number of piastres on her forehead, antimony at the edges of her eyes, with a kind of paletot made of black cashmere falling over a petticoat of sparkling colour, with stripes of silver; and in her hand she held a tambourine. behind her back came a tall fellow in the classical costume of dante, who happened to be--she now made no concealment any longer about it--the ex-singer of the alhambra, and who, though his name was auguste delamare, had first called himself anténor delamarre, then delmas, then belmar, and at last delmar, thus modifying and perfecting his name, as his celebrity increased, for he had forsaken the public-house concert for the theatre, and had even just made his _début_ in a noisy fashion at the ambigu in _gaspardo le pécheur_. hussonnet, on seeing him, knitted his brows. since his play had been rejected, he hated actors. it was impossible to conceive the vanity of individuals of this sort, and above all of this fellow. "what a prig! just look at him!" after a light bow towards rosanette, delmar leaned back against the mantelpiece; and he remained motionless with one hand over his heart, his left foot thrust forward, his eyes raised towards heaven, with his wreath of gilt laurels above his cowl, while he strove to put into the expression of his face a considerable amount of poetry in order to fascinate the ladies. they made, at some distance, a great circle around him. but the vatnaz, having given rosanette a prolonged embrace, came to beg of hussonnet to revise, with a view to the improvement of the style, an educational work which she intended to publish, under the title of "the young ladies' garland," a collection of literature and moral philosophy. the man of letters promised to assist her in the preparation of the work. then she asked him whether he could not in one of the prints to which he had access give her friend a slight puff, and even assign to him, later, some part. hussonnet had forgotten to take a glass of punch on account of her. it was arnoux who had brewed the beverage; and, followed by the comte's groom carrying an empty tray, he offered it to the ladies with a self-satisfied air. when he came to pass in front of m. oudry, rosanette stopped him. "well--and this little business?" he coloured slightly; finally, addressing the old man: "our fair friend tells me that you would have the kindness----" "what of that, neighbour? i am quite at your service!" and m. dambreuse's name was pronounced. as they were talking to one another in low tones, frederick could only hear indistinctly; and he made his way to the other side of the mantelpiece, where rosanette and delmar were chatting together. the mummer had a vulgar countenance, made, like the scenery of the stage, to be viewed from a distance--coarse hands, big feet, and a heavy jaw; and he disparaged the most distinguished actors, spoke of poets with patronising contempt, made use of the expressions "my organ," "my physique," "my powers," enamelling his conversation with words that were scarcely intelligible even to himself, and for which he had quite an affection, such as "_morbidezza_," "analogue," and "homogeneity." rosanette listened to him with little nods of approbation. one could see her enthusiasm bursting out under the paint on her cheeks, and a touch of moisture passed like a veil over her bright eyes of an indefinable colour. how could such a man as this fascinate her? frederick internally excited himself to greater contempt for him, in order to banish, perhaps, the species of envy which he felt with regard to him. mademoiselle vatnaz was now with arnoux, and, while laughing from time to time very loudly, she cast glances towards rosanette, of whom m. oudry did not lose sight. then arnoux and the vatnaz disappeared. the old man began talking in a subdued voice to rosanette. "well, yes, 'tis settled then! leave me alone!" and she asked frederick to go and give a look into the kitchen to see whether arnoux happened to be there. a battalion of glasses half-full covered the floor; and the saucepans, the pots, the turbot-kettle, and the frying-stove were all in a state of commotion. arnoux was giving directions to the servants, whom he "thee'd" and "thou'd," beating up the mustard, tasting the sauces, and larking with the housemaid. "all right," he said; "tell them 'tis ready! i'm going to have it served up." the dancing had ceased. the women came and sat down; the men were walking about. in the centre of the drawing-room, one of the curtains stretched over a window was swelling in the wind; and the sphinx, in spite of the observations of everyone, exposed her sweating arms to the current of air. where could rosanette be? frederick went on further to find her, even into her boudoir and her bedroom. some, in order to be alone, or to be in pairs, had retreated into the corners. whisperings intermingled with the shade. there were little laughs stifled under handkerchiefs, and at the sides of women's corsages one could catch glimpses of fans quivering with slow, gentle movements, like the beating of a wounded bird's wings. as he entered the hot-house, he saw under the large leaves of a caladium near the jet d'eau, delmar lying on his face on the sofa covered with linen cloth. rosanette, seated beside him, had passed her fingers through his hair; and they were gazing into each other's faces. at the same moment, arnoux came in at the opposite side--that which was near the aviary. delmar sprang to his feet; then he went out at a rapid pace, without turning round; and even paused close to the door to gather a hibiscus flower, with which he adorned his button-hole. rosanette hung down her head; frederick, who caught a sight of her profile, saw that she was in tears. "i say! what's the matter with you?" exclaimed arnoux. she shrugged her shoulders without replying. "is it on account of him?" he went on. she threw her arms round his neck, and kissing him on the forehead, slowly: "you know well that i will always love you, my big fellow! think no more about it! let us go to supper!" a copper chandelier with forty wax tapers lighted up the dining-room, the walls of which were hidden from view under some fine old earthenware that was hung up there; and this crude light, falling perpendicularly, rendered still whiter, amid the side-dishes and the fruits, a huge turbot which occupied the centre of the tablecloth, with plates all round filled with crayfish soup. with a rustle of garments, the women, having arranged their skirts, their sleeves, and their scarfs, took their seats beside one another; the men, standing up, posted themselves at the corners. pellerin and m. oudry were placed near rosanette. arnoux was facing her. palazot and his female companion had just gone out. "good-bye to them!" said she. "now let us begin the attack!" and the choir-boy, a facetious man with a big sign of the cross, said grace. the ladies were scandalised, and especially the fishwife, the mother of a young girl of whom she wished to make an honest woman. neither did arnoux like "that sort of thing," as he considered that religion ought to be respected. a german clock with a cock attached to it happening to chime out the hour of two, gave rise to a number of jokes about the cuckoo. all kinds of talk followed--puns, anecdotes, bragging remarks, bets, lies taken for truth, improbable assertions, a tumult of words, which soon became dispersed in the form of chats between particular individuals. the wines went round; the dishes succeeded each other; the doctor carved. an orange or a cork would every now and then be flung from a distance. people would quit their seats to go and talk to some one at another end of the table. rosanette turned round towards delmar, who sat motionless behind her; pellerin kept babbling; m. oudry smiled. mademoiselle vatnaz ate, almost alone, a group of crayfish, and the shells crackled under her long teeth. the angel, poised on the piano-stool--the only place on which her wings permitted her to sit down--was placidly masticating without ever stopping. "what an appetite!" the choir-boy kept repeating in amazement, "what an appetite!" and the sphinx drank brandy, screamed out with her throat full, and wriggled like a demon. suddenly her jaws swelled, and no longer being able to keep down the blood which rushed to her head and nearly choked her, she pressed her napkin against her lips, and threw herself under the table. frederick had seen her falling: "'tis nothing!" and at his entreaties to be allowed to go and look after her, she replied slowly: "pooh! what's the good? that's just as pleasant as anything else. life is not so amusing!" then, he shivered, a feeling of icy sadness taking possession of him, as if he had caught a glimpse of whole worlds of wretchedness and despair--a chafing-dish of charcoal beside a folding-bed, the corpses of the morgue in leathern aprons, with the tap of cold water that flows over their heads. meanwhile, hussonnet, squatted at the feet of the female savage, was howling in a hoarse voice in imitation of the actor grassot: "be not cruel, o celuta! this little family fête is charming! intoxicate me with delight, my loves! let us be gay! let us be gay!" and he began kissing the women on the shoulders. they quivered under the tickling of his moustaches. then he conceived the idea of breaking a plate against his head by rapping it there with a little energy. others followed his example. the broken earthenware flew about in bits like slates in a storm; and the 'longshorewoman exclaimed: "don't bother yourselves about it; these cost nothing. we get a present of them from the merchant who makes them!" every eye was riveted on arnoux. he replied: "ha! about the invoice--allow me!" desiring, no doubt, to pass for not being, or for no longer being, rosanette's lover. but two angry voices here made themselves heard: "idiot!" "rascal!" "i am at your command!" "so am i at yours!" it was the mediæval knight and the russian postilion who were disputing, the latter having maintained that armour dispensed with bravery, while the other regarded this view as an insult. he desired to fight; all interposed to prevent him, and in the midst of the uproar the captain tried to make himself heard. "listen to me, messieurs! one word! i have some experience, messieurs!" rosanette, by tapping with her knife on a glass, succeeded eventually in restoring silence, and, addressing the knight, who had kept his helmet on, and then the postilion, whose head was covered with a hairy cap: "take off that saucepan of yours! and you, there, your wolf's head! are you going to obey me, damn you? pray show respect to my epaulets! i am your commanding officer!" they complied, and everyone present applauded, exclaiming, "long live the maréchale! long live the maréchale!" then she took a bottle of champagne off the stove, and poured out its contents into the cups which they successively stretched forth to her. as the table was very large, the guests, especially the women, came over to her side, and stood erect on tiptoe on the slats of the chairs, so as to form, for the space of a minute, a pyramidal group of head-dresses, naked shoulders, extended arms, and stooping bodies; and over all these objects a spray of wine played for some time, for the merry-andrew and arnoux, at opposite corners of the dining-room, each letting fly the cork of a bottle, splashed the faces of those around them. the little birds of the aviary, the door of which had been left open, broke into the apartment, quite scared, flying round the chandelier, knocking against the window-panes and against the furniture, and some of them, alighting on the heads of the guests, presented the appearance there of large flowers. the musicians had gone. the piano had been drawn out of the anteroom. the vatnaz seated herself before it, and, accompanied by the choir-boy, who thumped his tambourine, she made a wild dash into a quadrille, striking the keys like a horse pawing the ground, and wriggling her waist about, the better to mark the time. the maréchale dragged out frederick; hussonnet took the windmill; the 'longshorewoman put out her joints like a circus-clown; the merry-andrew exhibited the manoeuvres of an orang-outang; the female savage, with outspread arms, imitated the swaying motion of a boat. at last, unable to go on any further, they all stopped; and a window was flung open. the broad daylight penetrated the apartment with the cool breath of morning. there was an exclamation of astonishment, and then came silence. the yellow flames flickered, making the sockets of the candlesticks crack from time to time. the floor was strewn with ribbons, flowers, and pearls. the pier-tables were sticky with the stains of punch and syrup. the hangings were soiled, the dresses rumpled and dusty. the plaits of the women's hair hung loose over their shoulders, and the paint, trickling down with the perspiration, revealed pallid faces and red, blinking eyelids. the maréchale, fresh as if she had come out of a bath, had rosy checks and sparkling eyes. she flung her wig some distance away, and her hair fell around her like a fleece, allowing none of her uniform to be seen except her breeches, the effect thus produced being at the same time comical and pretty. the sphinx, whose teeth chattered as if she had the ague, wanted a shawl. rosanette rushed up to her own room to look for one, and, as the other came after her, she quickly shut the door in her face. the turk remarked, in a loud tone, that m. oudry had not been seen going out. nobody noticed the maliciousness of this observation, so worn out were they all. then, while waiting for vehicles, they managed to get on their broad-brimmed hats and cloaks. it struck seven. the angel was still in the dining-room, seated at the table with a plate of sardines and fruit stewed in melted butter in front of her, and close beside her was the fishwife, smoking cigarettes, while giving her advice as to the right way to live. at last, the cabs having arrived, the guests took their departure. hussonnet, who had an engagement as correspondent for the provinces, had to read through fifty-three newspapers before his breakfast. the female savage had a rehearsal at the theatre; pellerin had to see a model; and the choir-boy had three appointments. but the angel, attacked by the preliminary symptoms of indigestion, was unable to rise. the mediæval baron carried her to the cab. "take care of her wings!" cried the 'longshorewoman through the window. at the top of the stairs, mademoiselle vatnaz said to rosanette: "good-bye, darling! that was a very nice evening party of yours." then, bending close to her ear: "take care of him!" "till better times come," returned the maréchale, in drawling tones, as she turned her back. arnoux and frederick returned together, just as they had come. the dealer in faïence looked so gloomy that his companion wished to know if he were ill. "i? not at all!" he bit his moustache, knitted his brows; and frederick asked him, was it his business that annoyed him. "by no means!" then all of a sudden: "you know him--père oudry--don't you?" and, with a spiteful expression on his countenance: "he's rich, the old scoundrel!" after this, arnoux spoke about an important piece of ware-making, which had to be finished that day at his works. he wanted to see it; the train was starting in an hour. "meantime, i must go and embrace my wife." "ha! his wife!" thought frederick. then he made his way home to go to bed, with his head aching terribly; and, to appease his thirst, he swallowed a whole carafe of water. another thirst had come to him--the thirst for women, for licentious pleasure, and all that parisian life permitted him to enjoy. he felt somewhat stunned, like a man coming out of a ship, and in the visions that haunted his first sleep, he saw the shoulders of the fishwife, the loins of the 'longshorewoman, the calves of the polish lady, and the head-dress of the female savage flying past him and coming back again continually. then, two large black eyes, which had not been at the ball, appeared before him; and, light as butterflies, burning as torches, they came and went, ascended to the cornice and descended to his very mouth. frederick made desperate efforts to recognise those eyes, without succeeding in doing so. but already the dream had taken hold of him. it seemed to him that he was yoked beside arnoux to the pole of a hackney-coach, and that the maréchale, astride of him, was disembowelling him with her gold spurs. chapter viii. frederick entertains frederick found a little mansion at the corner of the rue rumfort, and he bought it along with the brougham, the horse, the furniture, and two flower-stands which were taken from the arnoux's house to be placed on each side of his drawing-room door. in the rear of this apartment were a bedroom and a closet. the idea occurred to his mind to put up deslauriers there. but how could he receive her--_her_, his future mistress? the presence of a friend would be an obstacle. he knocked down the partition-wall in order to enlarge the drawing-room, and converted the closet into a smoking-room. he bought the works of the poets whom he loved, books of travel, atlases, and dictionaries, for he had innumerable plans of study. he hurried on the workmen, rushed about to the different shops, and in his impatience to enjoy, carried off everything without even holding out for a bargain beforehand. from the tradesmen's bills, frederick ascertained that he would have to expend very soon forty thousand francs, not including the succession duties, which would exceed thirty-seven thousand. as his fortune was in landed property, he wrote to the notary at havre to sell a portion of it in order to pay off his debts, and to have some money at his disposal. then, anxious to become acquainted at last with that vague entity, glittering and indefinable, which is known as "society," he sent a note to the dambreuses to know whether he might be at liberty to call upon them. madame, in reply, said she would expect a visit from him the following day. this happened to be their reception-day. carriages were standing in the courtyard. two footmen rushed forward under the marquée, and a third at the head of the stairs began walking in front of him. he was conducted through an anteroom, a second room, and then a drawing-room with high windows and a monumental mantel-shelf supporting a time-piece in the form of a sphere, and two enormous porcelain vases, in each of which bristled, like a golden bush, a cluster of sconces. pictures in the manner of espagnolet hung on the walls. the heavy tapestry portières fell majestically, and the armchairs, the brackets, the tables, the entire furniture, which was in the style of the second empire, had a certain imposing and diplomatic air. frederick smiled with pleasure in spite of himself. at last he reached an oval apartment wainscoted in cypress-wood, stuffed with dainty furniture, and letting in the light through a single sheet of plate-glass, which looked out on a garden. madame dambreuse was seated at the fireside, with a dozen persons gathered round her in a circle. with a polite greeting, she made a sign to him to take a seat, without, however, exhibiting any surprise at not having seen him for so long a time. just at the moment when he was entering the room, they had been praising the eloquence of the abbé coeur. then they deplored the immorality of servants, a topic suggested by a theft which a _valet-de-chambre_ had committed, and they began to indulge in tittle-tattle. old madame de sommery had a cold; mademoiselle de turvisot had got married; the montcharrons would not return before the end of january; neither would the bretancourts, now that people remained in the country till a late period of the year. and the triviality of the conversation was, so to speak, intensified by the luxuriousness of the surroundings; but what they said was less stupid than their way of talking, which was aimless, disconnected, and utterly devoid of animation. and yet there were present men versed in life--an ex-minister, the curé of a large parish, two or three government officials of high rank. they adhered to the most hackneyed commonplaces. some of them resembled weary dowagers; others had the appearance of horse-jockeys; and old men accompanied their wives, of whom they were old enough to be the grandfathers. madame dambreuse received all of them graciously. when it was mentioned that anyone was ill, she knitted her brows with a painful expression on her face, and when balls or evening parties were discussed, assumed a joyous air. she would ere long be compelled to deprive herself of these pleasures, for she was going to take away from a boarding-school a niece of her husband, an orphan. the guests extolled her devotedness: this was behaving like a true mother of a family. frederick gazed at her attentively. the dull skin of her face looked as if it had been stretched out, and had a bloom in which there was no brilliancy; like that of preserved fruit. but her hair, which was in corkscrew curls, after the english fashion, was finer than silk; her eyes of a sparkling blue; and all her movements were dainty. seated at the lower end of the apartment, on a small sofa, she kept brushing off the red flock from a japanese screen, no doubt in order to let her hands be seen to greater advantage--long narrow hands, a little thin, with fingers tilting up at the points. she wore a grey moiré gown with a high-necked body, like a puritan lady. frederick asked her whether she intended to go to la fortelle this year. madame dambreuse was unable to say. he was sure, however, of one thing, that one would be bored to death in nogent. then the visitors thronged in more quickly. there was an incessant rustling of robes on the carpet. ladies, seated on the edges of chairs, gave vent to little sneering laughs, articulated two or three words, and at the end of five minutes left along with their young daughters. it soon became impossible to follow the conversation, and frederick withdrew when madame dambreuse said to him: "every wednesday, is it not, monsieur moreau?" making up for her previous display of indifference by these simple words. he was satisfied. nevertheless, he took a deep breath when he got out into the open air; and, needing a less artificial environment, frederick recalled to mind that he owed the maréchale a visit. the door of the anteroom was open. two havanese lapdogs rushed forward. a voice exclaimed: "delphine! delphine! is that you, felix?" he stood there without advancing a step. the two little dogs kept yelping continually. at length rosanette appeared, wrapped up in a sort of dressing-gown of white muslin trimmed with lace, and with her stockingless feet in turkish slippers. "ah! excuse me, monsieur! i thought it was the hairdresser. one minute; i am coming back!" and he was left alone in the dining-room. the venetian blinds were closed. frederick, as he cast a glance round, was beginning to recall the hubbub of the other night, when he noticed on the table, in the middle of the room, a man's hat, an old felt hat, bruised, greasy, dirty. to whom did this hat belong? impudently displaying its torn lining, it seemed to say: "i have the laugh, after all! i am the master!" the maréchale suddenly reappeared on the scene. she took up the hat, opened the conservatory, flung it in there, shut the door again (other doors flew open and closed again at the same moment), and, having brought frederick through the kitchen, she introduced him into her dressing-room. it could at once be seen that this was the most frequented room in the house, and, so to speak, its true moral centre. the walls, the armchairs, and a big divan with a spring were adorned with a chintz pattern on which was traced a great deal of foliage. on a white marble table stood two large washhand-basins of fine blue earthenware. crystal shelves, forming a whatnot overhead, were laden with phials, brushes, combs, sticks of cosmetic, and powder-boxes. the fire was reflected in a high cheval-glass. a sheet was hanging outside a bath, and odours of almond-paste and of benzoin were exhaled. "you'll excuse the disorder. i'm dining in the city this evening." and as she turned on her heel, she was near crushing one of the little dogs. frederick declared that they were charming. she lifted up the pair of them, and raising their black snouts up to her face: "come! do a laugh--kiss the gentleman!" a man dressed in a dirty overcoat with a fur collar here entered abruptly. "felix, my worthy fellow," said she, "you'll have that business of yours disposed of next sunday without fail." the man proceeded to dress her hair. frederick told her he had heard news of her friends, madame de rochegune, madame de saint-florentin, and madame lombard, every woman being noble, as if it were at the mansion of the dambreuses. then he talked about the theatres. an extraordinary performance was to be given that evening at the ambigu. "shall you go?" "faith, no! i'm staying at home." delphine appeared. her mistress gave her a scolding for having gone out without permission. the other vowed that she was just "returning from market." "well, bring me your book. you have no objection, isn't that so?" and, reading the pass-book in a low tone, rosanette made remarks on every item. the different sums were not added up correctly. "hand me over four sous!" delphine handed the amount over to her, and, when she had sent the maid away: "ah! holy virgin! could i be more unfortunate than i am with these creatures?" frederick was shocked at this complaint about servants. it recalled the others too vividly to his mind, and established between the two houses a kind of vexatious equality. when delphine came back again, she drew close to the maréchale's side in order to whisper something in her ear. "ah, no! i don't want her!" delphine presented herself once more. "madame, she insists." "ah, what a plague! throw her out!" at the same moment, an old lady, dressed in black, pushed forward the door. frederick heard nothing, saw nothing. rosanette rushed into her apartment to meet her. when she reappeared her cheeks were flushed, and she sat down in one of the armchairs without saying a word. a tear fell down her face; then, turning towards the young man, softly: "what is your christian name?" "frederick." "ha! federico! it doesn't annoy you when i address you in that way?" and she gazed at him in a coaxing sort of way that was almost amorous. all of a sudden she uttered an exclamation of delight at the sight of mademoiselle vatnaz. the lady-artist had no time to lose before presiding at her _table d'hôte_ at six o'clock sharp; and she was panting for breath, being completely exhausted. she first took out of her pocket a gold chain in a paper, then various objects that she had bought. "you should know that there are in the rue joubert splendid suède gloves at thirty-six sous. your dyer wants eight days more. as for the guipure, i told you that they would dye it again. bugneaux has got the instalment you paid. that's all, i think. you owe me a hundred and eighty-five francs." rosanette went to a drawer to get ten napoleons. neither of the pair had any money. frederick offered some. "i'll pay you back," said the vatnaz, as she stuffed the fifteen francs into her handbag. "but you are a naughty boy! i don't love you any longer--you didn't get me to dance with you even once the other evening! ah! my dear, i came across a case of stuffed humming-birds which are perfect loves at a shop in the quai voltaire. if i were in your place, i would make myself a present of them. look here! what do you think of it?" and she exhibited an old remnant of pink silk which she had purchased at the temple to make a mediæval doublet for delmar. "he came to-day, didn't he?" "no." "that's singular." and, after a minute's silence: "where are you going this evening?" "to alphonsine's," said rosanette, this being the third version given by her as to the way in which she was going to pass the evening. mademoiselle vatnaz went on: "and what news about the old man of the mountain?" but, with an abrupt wink, the maréchale bade her hold her tongue; and she accompanied frederick out as far as the anteroom to ascertain from him whether he would soon see arnoux. "pray ask him to come--not before his wife, mind!" at the top of the stairs an umbrella was placed against the wall near a pair of goloshes. "vatnaz's goloshes," said rosanette. "what a foot, eh? my little friend is rather strongly built!" and, in a melodramatic tone, making the final letter of the word roll: "don't tru-us-st her!" frederick, emboldened by a confidence of this sort, tried to kiss her on the neck. "oh, do it! it costs nothing!" he felt rather light-hearted as he left her, having no doubt that ere long the maréchale would be his mistress. this desire awakened another in him; and, in spite of the species of grudge that he owed her, he felt a longing to see madame arnoux. besides, he would have to call at her house in order to execute the commission with which he had been entrusted by rosanette. "but now," thought he (it had just struck six), "arnoux is probably at home." so he put off his visit till the following day. she was seated in the same attitude as on the former day, and was sewing a little boy's shirt. the child, at her feet, was playing with a wooden toy menagerie. marthe, a short distance away, was writing. he began by complimenting her on her children. she replied without any exaggeration of maternal silliness. the room had a tranquil aspect. a glow of sunshine stole in through the window-panes, lighting up the angles of the different articles of furniture, and, as madame arnoux sat close beside the window, a large ray, falling on the curls over the nape of her neck, penetrated with liquid gold her skin, which assumed the colour of amber. then he said: "this young lady here has grown very tall during the past three years! do you remember, mademoiselle, when you slept on my knees in the carriage?" marthe did not remember. "one evening, returning from saint-cloud?" there was a look of peculiar sadness in madame arnoux's face. was it in order to prevent any allusion on his part to the memories they possessed in common? her beautiful black eyes, whose sclerotics were glistening, moved gently under their somewhat drooping lids, and her pupils revealed in their depths an inexpressible kindness of heart. he was seized with a love stronger than ever, a passion that knew no bounds. it enervated him to contemplate the object of his attachment; however, he shook off this feeling. how was he to make the most of himself? by what means? and, having turned the matter over thoroughly in his mind, frederick could think of none that seemed more effectual than money. he began talking about the weather, which was less cold than it had been at havre. "you have been there?" "yes; about a family matter--an inheritance." "ah! i am very glad," she said, with an air of such genuine pleasure that he felt quite touched, just as if she had rendered him a great service. she asked him what he intended to do, as it was necessary for a man to occupy himself with something. he recalled to mind his false position, and said that he hoped to reach the council of state with the help of m. dambreuse, the secretary. "you are acquainted with him, perhaps?" "merely by name." then, in a low tone: "_he_ brought you to the ball the other night, did he not?" frederick remained silent. "that was what i wanted to know; thanks!" after that she put two or three discreet questions to him about his family and the part of the country in which he lived. it was very kind of him not to have forgotten them after having lived so long away from paris. "but could i do so?" he rejoined. "have you any doubt about it?" madame arnoux arose: "i believe that you entertain towards us a true and solid affection. _au revoir!_" and she extended her hand towards him in a sincere and virile fashion. was this not an engagement, a promise? frederick felt a sense of delight at merely living; he had to restrain himself to keep from singing. he wanted to burst out, to do generous deeds, and to give alms. he looked around him to see if there were anyone near whom he could relieve. no wretch happened to be passing by; and his desire for self-devotion evaporated, for he was not a man to go out of his way to find opportunities for benevolence. then he remembered his friends. the first of whom he thought was hussonnet, the second, pellerin. the lowly position of dussardier naturally called for consideration. as for cisy, he was glad to let that young aristocrat get a slight glimpse as to the extent of his fortune. he wrote accordingly to all four to come to a housewarming the following sunday at eleven o'clock sharp; and he told deslauriers to bring sénécal. the tutor had been dismissed from the third boarding-school in which he had been employed for not having given his consent to the distribution of prizes--a custom which he looked upon as dangerous to equality. he was now with an engine-builder, and for the past six months had been no longer living with deslauriers. there had been nothing painful about their parting. sénécal had been visited by men in blouses--all patriots, all workmen, all honest fellows, but at the same time men whose society seemed distasteful to the advocate. besides, he disliked certain ideas of his friend, excellent though they might be as weapons of warfare. he held his tongue on the subject through motives of ambition, deeming it prudent to pay deference to him in order to exercise control over him, for he looked forward impatiently to a revolutionary movement, in which he calculated on making an opening for himself and occupying a prominent position. sénécal's convictions were more disinterested. every evening, when his work was finished, he returned to his garret and sought in books for something that might justify his dreams. he had annotated the _contrat social_; he had crammed himself with the _revue indépendante_; he was acquainted with mably, morelly, fourier, saint-simon, comte, cabet, louis blanc--the heavy cartload of socialistic writers--those who claim for humanity the dead level of barracks, those who would like to amuse it in a brothel or to bend it over a counter; and from a medley of all these things he constructed an ideal of virtuous democracy, with the double aspect of a farm in which the landlord was to receive a share of the produce, and a spinning-mill, a sort of american lacedæmon, in which the individual would only exist for the benefit of society, which was to be more omnipotent, absolute, infallible, and divine than the grand lamas and the nebuchadnezzars. he had no doubt as to the approaching realisation of this ideal; and sénécal raged against everything that he considered hostile to it with the reasoning of a geometrician and the zeal of an inquisitor. titles of nobility, crosses, plumes, liveries above all, and even reputations that were too loud-sounding scandalised him, his studies as well as his sufferings intensifying every day his essential hatred of every kind of distinction and every form of social superiority. "what do i owe to this gentleman that i should be polite to him? if he wants me, he can come to me." deslauriers, however, forced him to go to frederick's reunion. they found their friend in his bedroom. spring-roller blinds and double curtains, venetian mirrors--nothing was wanting there. frederick, in a velvet vest, was lying back on an easy-chair, smoking cigarettes of turkish tobacco. sénécal wore the gloomy look of a bigot arriving in the midst of a pleasure-party. deslauriers gave him a single comprehensive glance; then, with a very low bow: "monseigneur, allow me to pay my respects to you!" dussardier leaped on his neck. "so you are a rich man now. ah! upon my soul, so much the better!" cisy made his appearance with crape on his hat. since the death of his grandmother, he was in the enjoyment of a considerable fortune, and was less bent on amusing himself than on being distinguished from others--not being the same as everyone else--in short, on "having the proper stamp." this was his favourite phrase. however, it was now midday, and they were all yawning. frederick was waiting for some one. at the mention of arnoux's name, pellerin made a wry face. he looked on him as a renegade since he had abandoned the fine arts. "suppose we pass over him--what do you say to that?" they all approved of this suggestion. the door was opened by a man-servant in long gaiters; and the dining-room could be seen with its lofty oak plinths relieved with gold, and its two sideboards laden with plate. the bottles of wine were heating on the stove; the blades of new knives were glittering beside oysters. in the milky tint of the enamelled glasses there was a kind of alluring sweetness; and the table disappeared from view under its load of game, fruit, and meats of the rarest quality. these attentions were lost on sénécal. he began by asking for household bread (the hardest that could be got), and in connection with this subject, spoke of the murders of buzançais and the crisis arising from lack of the means of subsistence. nothing of this sort could have happened if agriculture had been better protected, if everything had not been given up to competition, to anarchy, and to the deplorable maxim of "let things alone! let things go their own way!" it was in this way that the feudalism of money was established--the worst form of feudalism. but let them take care! the people in the end will get tired of it, and may make the capitalist pay for their sufferings either by bloody proscriptions or by the plunder of their houses. frederick saw, as if by a lightning-flash, a flood of men with bare arms invading madame dambreuse's drawing-room, and smashing the mirrors with blows of pikes. sénécal went on to say that the workman, owing to the insufficiency of wages, was more unfortunate than the helot, the negro, and the pariah, especially if he has children. "ought he to get rid of them by asphyxia, as some english doctor, whose name i don't remember--a disciple of malthus--advises him?" and, turning towards cisy: "are we to be obliged to follow the advice of the infamous malthus?" cisy, who was ignorant of the infamy and even of the existence of malthus, said by way of reply, that after all, much human misery was relieved, and that the higher classes---- "ha! the higher classes!" said the socialist, with a sneer. "in the first place, there are no higher classes. 'tis the heart alone that makes anyone higher than another. we want no alms, understand! but equality, the fair division of products." what he required was that the workman might become a capitalist, just as the soldier might become a colonel. the trade-wardenships, at least, in limiting the number of apprentices, prevented workmen from growing inconveniently numerous, and the sentiment of fraternity was kept up by means of the fêtes and the banners. hussonnet, as a poet, regretted the banners; so did pellerin, too--a predilection which had taken possession of him at the café dagneaux, while listening to the phalansterians talking. he expressed the opinion that fourier was a great man. "come now!" said deslauriers. "an old fool who sees in the overthrow of governments the effects of divine vengeance. he is just like my lord saint-simon and his church, with his hatred of the french revolution--a set of buffoons who would fain re-establish catholicism." m. de cisy, no doubt in order to get information or to make a good impression, broke in with this remark, which he uttered in a mild tone: "these two men of science are not, then, of the same way of thinking as voltaire?" "that fellow! i make you a present of him!" "how is that? why, i thought----" "oh! no, he did not love the people!" then the conversation came down to contemporary events: the spanish marriages, the dilapidations of rochefort, the new chapter-house of saint-denis, which had led to the taxes being doubled. nevertheless, according to sénécal, they were not high enough! "and why are they paid? my god! to erect the palace for apes at the museum, to make showy staff-officers parade along our squares, or to maintain a gothic etiquette amongst the flunkeys of the château!" "i have read in the _mode_," said cisy, "that at the tuileries ball on the feast of saint-ferdinand, everyone was disguised as a miser." "how pitiable!" said the socialist, with a shrug of his shoulders, as if to indicate his disgust. "and the museum of versailles!" exclaimed pellerin. "let us talk about it! these idiots have foreshortened a delacroix and lengthened a gros! at the louvre they have so well restored, scratched, and made a jumble of all the canvases, that in ten years probably not one will be left. as for the errors in the catalogue, a german has written a whole volume on the subject. upon my word, the foreigners are laughing at us." "yes, we are the laughing-stock of europe," said sénécal. "'tis because art is conveyed in fee-simple to the crown." "as long as you haven't universal suffrage----" "allow me!"--for the artist, having been rejected at every _salon_ for the last twenty years, was filled with rage against power. "ah! let them not bother us! as for me, i ask for nothing. only the chambers ought to pass enactments in the interests of art. a chair of æsthetics should be established with a professor who, being a practical man as well as a philosopher, would succeed, i hope, in grouping the multitude. you would do well, hussonnet, to touch on this matter with a word or two in your newspaper?" "are the newspapers free? are we ourselves free?" said deslauriers in an angry tone. "when one reflects that there might be as many as twenty-eight different formalities to set up a boat on the river, it makes me feel a longing to go and live amongst the cannibals! the government is eating us up. everything belongs to it--philosophy, law, the arts, the very air of heaven; and france, bereft of all energy, lies under the boot of the gendarme and the cassock of the devil-dodger with the death-rattle in her throat!" the future mirabeau thus poured out his bile in abundance. finally he took his glass in his right hand, raised it, and with his other arm akimbo, and his eyes flashing: "i drink to the utter destruction of the existing order of things--that is to say, of everything included in the words privilege, monopoly, regulation, hierarchy, authority, state!"--and in a louder voice--"which i would like to smash as i do this!" dashing on the table the beautiful wine-glass, which broke into a thousand pieces. they all applauded, and especially dussardier. the spectacle of injustices made his heart leap up with indignation. everything that wore a beard claimed his sympathy. he was one of those persons who fling themselves under vehicles to relieve the horses who have fallen. his erudition was limited to two works, one entitled _crimes of kings_, and the other _mysteries of the vatican_. he had listened to the advocate with open-mouthed delight. at length, unable to stand it any longer: "for my part, the thing i blame louis philippe for is abandoning the poles!" "one moment!" said hussonnet. "in the first place, poland has no existence; 'tis an invention of lafayette! the poles, as a general rule, all belong to the faubourg saint-marceau, the real ones having been drowned with poniatowski." in short, "he no longer gave into it;" he had "got over all that sort of thing; it was just like the sea-serpent, the revocation of the edict of nantes, and that antiquated hum-bug about the saint-bartholomew massacre!" sénécal, while he did not defend the poles, extolled the latest remarks made by the men of letters. the popes had been calumniated, inasmuch as they, at any rate, defended the people, and he called the league "the aurora of democracy, a great movement in the direction of equality as opposed to the individualism of protestants." frederick was a little surprised at these views. they probably bored cisy, for he changed the conversation to the _tableaux vivants_ at the gymnase, which at that time attracted a great number of people. sénécal regarded them with disfavour. such exhibitions corrupted the daughters of the proletariat. then, it was noticeable that they went in for a display of shameless luxury. therefore, he approved of the conduct of the bavarian students who insulted lola montès. in imitation of rousseau, he showed more esteem for the wife of a coal-porter than for the mistress of a king. "you don't appreciate dainties," retorted hussonnet in a majestic tone. and he took up the championship of ladies of this class in order to praise rosanette. then, as he happened to make an allusion to the ball at her house and to arnoux's costume, pellerin remarked: "people maintain that he is becoming shaky?" the picture-dealer had just been engaged in a lawsuit with reference to his grounds at belleville, and he was actually in a kaolin company in lower brittany with other rogues of the same sort. dussardier knew more about him, for his own master, m. moussinot, having made enquiries about arnoux from the banker, oscar lefébvre, the latter had said in reply that he considered him by no means solvent, as he knew about bills of his that had been renewed. the dessert was over; they passed into the drawing-room, which was hung, like that of the maréchale, in yellow damask in the style of louis xvi. pellerin found fault with frederick for not having chosen in preference the neo-greek style; sénécal rubbed matches against the hangings; deslauriers did not make any remark. there was a bookcase set up there, which he called "a little girl's library." the principal contemporary writers were to be found there. it was impossible to speak about their works, for hussonnet immediately began relating anecdotes with reference to their personal characteristics, criticising their faces, their habits, their dress, glorifying fifth-rate intellects and disparaging those of the first; and all the while making it clear that he deplored modern decadence. he instanced some village ditty as containing in itself alone more poetry than all the lyrics of the nineteenth century. he went on to say that balzac was overrated, that byron was effaced, and that hugo knew nothing about the stage. "why, then," said sénécal, "have you not got the volumes of the working-men poets?" and m. de cisy, who devoted his attention to literature, was astonished at not seeing on frederick's table some of those new physiological studies--the physiology of the smoker, of the angler, of the man employed at the barrier. they went on irritating him to such an extent that he felt a longing to shove them out by the shoulders. "but they are making me quite stupid!" and then he drew dussardier aside, and wished to know whether he could do him any service. the honest fellow was moved. he answered that his post of cashier entirely sufficed for his wants. after that, frederick led deslauriers into his own apartment, and, taking out of his escritoire two thousand francs: "look here, old boy, put this money in your pocket. 'tis the balance of my old debts to you." "but--what about the journal?" said the advocate. "you are, of course, aware that i spoke about it to hussonnet." and, when frederick replied that he was "a little short of cash just now," the other smiled in a sinister fashion. after the liqueurs they drank beer, and after the beer, grog; and then they lighted their pipes once more. at last they left, at five o'clock in the evening, and they were walking along at each others' side without speaking, when dussardier broke the silence by saying that frederick had entertained them in excellent style. they all agreed with him on that point. then hussonnet remarked that his luncheon was too heavy. sénécal found fault with the trivial character of his household arrangements. cisy took the same view. it was absolutely devoid of the "proper stamp." "for my part, i think," said pellerin, "he might have had the grace to give me an order for a picture." deslauriers held his tongue, as he had the bank-notes that had been given to him in his breeches' pocket. frederick was left by himself. he was thinking about his friends, and it seemed to him as if a huge ditch surrounded with shade separated him from them. he had nevertheless held out his hand to them, and they had not responded to the sincerity of his heart. he recalled to mind what pellerin and dussardier had said about arnoux. undoubtedly it must be an invention, a calumny? but why? and he had a vision of madame arnoux, ruined, weeping, selling her furniture. this idea tormented him all night long. next day he presented himself at her house. at a loss to find any way of communicating to her what he had heard, he asked her, as if in casual conversation, whether arnoux still held possession of his building grounds at belleville. "yes, he has them still." "he is now, i believe, a shareholder in a kaolin company in brittany." "that's true." "his earthenware-works are going on very well, are they not?" "well--i suppose so----" and, as he hesitated: "what is the matter with you? you frighten me!" he told her the story about the renewals. she hung down her head, and said: "i thought so!" in fact, arnoux, in order to make a good speculation, had refused to sell his grounds, had borrowed money extensively on them, and finding no purchasers, had thought of rehabilitating himself by establishing the earthenware manufactory. the expense of this had exceeded his calculations. she knew nothing more about it. he evaded all her questions, and declared repeatedly that it was going on very well. frederick tried to reassure her. these in all probability were mere temporary embarrassments. however, if he got any information, he would impart it to her. "oh! yes, will you not?" said she, clasping her two hands with an air of charming supplication. so then, he had it in his power to be useful to her. he was now entering into her existence--finding a place in her heart. arnoux appeared. "ha! how nice of you to come to take me out to dine!" frederick was silent on hearing these words. arnoux spoke about general topics, then informed his wife that he would be returning home very late, as he had an appointment with m. oudry. "at his house?" "why, certainly, at his house." as they went down the stairs, he confessed that, as the maréchale had no engagement at home, they were going on a secret pleasure-party to the moulin rouge; and, as he always needed somebody to be the recipient of his outpourings, he got frederick to drive him to the door. in place of entering, he walked about on the footpath, looking up at the windows on the second floor. suddenly the curtains parted. "ha! bravo! père oudry is no longer there! good evening!" frederick did not know what to think now. from this day forth, arnoux was still more cordial than before; he invited the young man to dine with his mistress; and ere long frederick frequented both houses at the same time. rosanette's abode furnished him with amusement. he used to call there of an evening on his way back from the club or the play. he would take a cup of tea there, or play a game of loto. on sundays they played charades; rosanette, more noisy than the rest, made herself conspicuous by funny tricks, such as running on all-fours or muffling her head in a cotton cap. in order to watch the passers-by through the window, she had a hat of waxed leather; she smoked chibouks; she sang tyrolese airs. in the afternoon, to kill time, she cut out flowers in a piece of chintz and pasted them against the window-panes, smeared her two little dogs with varnish, burned pastilles, or drew cards to tell her fortune. incapable of resisting a desire, she became infatuated about some trinket which she happened to see, and could not sleep till she had gone and bought it, then bartered it for another, sold costly dresses for little or nothing, lost her jewellery, squandered money, and would have sold her chemise for a stage-box at the theatre. often she asked frederick to explain to her some word she came across when reading a book, but did not pay any attention to his answer, for she jumped quickly to another idea, while heaping questions on top of each other. after spasms of gaiety came childish outbursts of rage, or else she sat on the ground dreaming before the fire with her head down and her hands clasping her knees, more inert than a torpid adder. without minding it, she made her toilet in his presence, drew on her silk stockings, then washed her face with great splashes of water, throwing back her figure as if she were a shivering naiad; and her laughing white teeth, her sparkling eyes, her beauty, her gaiety, dazzled frederick, and made his nerves tingle under the lash of desire. nearly always he found madame arnoux teaching her little boy how to read, or standing behind marthe's chair while she played her scales on the piano. when she was doing a piece of sewing, it was a great source of delight to him to pick up her scissors now and then. in all her movements there was a tranquil majesty. her little hands seemed made to scatter alms and to wipe away tears, and her voice, naturally rather hollow, had caressing intonations and a sort of breezy lightness. she did not display much enthusiasm about literature; but her intelligence exercised a charm by the use of a few simple and penetrating words. she loved travelling, the sound of the wind in the woods, and a walk with uncovered head under the rain. frederick listened to these confidences with rapture, fancying that he saw in them the beginning of a certain self-abandonment on her part. his association with these two women made, as it were, two different strains of music in his life, the one playful, passionate, diverting, the other grave and almost religious, and vibrating both at the same time, they always increased in volume and gradually blended with one another; for if madame arnoux happened merely to touch him with her finger, the image of the other immediately presented itself to him as an object of desire, because from that quarter a better opportunity was thrown in his way, and, when his heart happened to be touched while in rosanette's company, he was immediately reminded of the woman for whom he felt such a consuming passion. this confusion was, in some measure, due to a similarity which existed between the interiors of the two houses. one of the trunks which was formerly to be seen in the boulevard montmartre now adorned rosanette's dining-room. the same courses were served up for dinner in both places, and even the same velvet cap was to be found trailing over the easy-chairs; then, a heap of little presents--screens, boxes, fans--went to the mistress's house from the wife's and returned again, for arnoux, without the slightest embarrassment, often took back from the one what he had given to her in order to make a present of it to the other. the maréchale laughed with frederick at the utter disregard for propriety which his habits exhibited. one sunday, after dinner, she led him behind the door, and showed him in the pocket of arnoux's overcoat a bag of cakes which he had just pilfered from the table, in order, no doubt, to regale his little family with it at home. m. arnoux gave himself up to some rogueries which bordered on vileness. it seemed to him a duty to practise fraud with regard to the city dues; he never paid when he went to the theatre, or if he took a ticket for the second seats always tried to make his way into the first; and he used to relate as an excellent joke that it was a custom of his at the cold baths to put into the waiters' collection-box a breeches' button instead of a ten-sous piece--and this did not prevent the maréchale from loving him. one day, however, she said, while talking about him: "ah! he's making himself a nuisance to me, at last! i've had enough of him! faith, so much the better--i'll find another instead!" frederick believed that the other had already been found, and that his name was m. oudry. "well," said rosanette, "what does that signify?" then, in a voice choked with rising tears: "i ask very little from him, however, and he won't give me that." he had even promised a fourth of his profits in the famous kaolin mines. no profit made its appearance any more than the cashmere with which he had been luring her on for the last six months. frederick immediately thought of making her a present. arnoux might regard it as a lesson for himself, and be annoyed at it. for all that, he was good-natured, his wife herself said so, but so foolish! instead of bringing people to dine every day at his house, he now entertained his acquaintances at a restaurant. he bought things that were utterly useless, such as gold chains, timepieces, and household articles. madame arnoux even pointed out to frederick in the lobby an enormous supply of tea-kettles, foot-warmers, and samovars. finally, she one day confessed that a certain matter caused her much anxiety. arnoux had made her sign a promissory note payable to m. dambreuse. meanwhile frederick still cherished his literary projects as if it were a point of honour with himself to do so. he wished to write a history of æsthetics, a result of his conversations with pellerin; next, to write dramas dealing with different epochs of the french revolution, and to compose a great comedy, an idea traceable to the indirect influence of deslauriers and hussonnet. in the midst of his work her face or that of the other passed before his mental vision. he struggled against the longing to see her, but was not long ere he yielded to it; and he felt sadder as he came back from madame arnoux's house. one morning, while he was brooding over his melancholy thoughts by the fireside, deslauriers came in. the incendiary speeches of sénécal had filled his master with uneasiness, and once more he found himself without resources. "what do you want me to do?" said frederick. "nothing! i know you have no money. but it will not be much trouble for you to get him a post either through m. dambreuse or else through arnoux. the latter ought to have need of engineers in his establishment." frederick had an inspiration. sénécal would be able to let him know when the husband was away, carry letters for him and assist him on a thousand occasions when opportunities presented themselves. services of this sort are always rendered between man and man. besides, he would find means of employing him without arousing any suspicion on his part. chance offered him an auxiliary; it was a circumstance that omened well for the future, and he hastened to take advantage of it; and, with an affectation of indifference, he replied that the thing was feasible perhaps, and that he would devote attention to it. and he did so at once. arnoux took a great deal of pains with his earthenware works. he was endeavouring to discover the copper-red of the chinese, but his colours evaporated in the process of baking. in order to avoid cracks in his ware, he mixed lime with his potter's clay; but the articles got broken for the most part; the enamel of his paintings on the raw material boiled away; his large plates became bulged; and, attributing these mischances to the inferior plant of his manufactory, he was anxious to start other grinding-mills and other drying-rooms. frederick recalled some of these things to mind, and, when he met arnoux, said that he had discovered a very able man, who would be capable of finding his famous red. arnoux gave a jump; then, having listened to what the young man had to tell him, replied that he wanted assistance from nobody. frederick spoke in a very laudatory style about sénécal's prodigious attainments, pointing out that he was at the same time an engineer, a chemist, and an accountant, being a mathematician of the first rank. the earthenware-dealer consented to see him. but they squabbled over the emoluments. frederick interposed, and, at the end of a week, succeeded in getting them to come to an agreement. but as the works were situated at creil, sénécal could not assist him in any way. this thought alone was enough to make his courage flag, as if he had met with some misfortune. his notion was that the more arnoux would be kept apart from his wife the better would be his own chance with her. then he proceeded to make repeated apologies for rosanette. he referred to all the wrongs she had sustained at the other's hands, referred to the vague threats which she had uttered a few days before, and even spoke about the cashmere without concealing the fact that she had accused arnoux of avarice. arnoux, nettled at the word (and, furthermore, feeling some uneasiness), brought rosanette the cashmere, but scolded her for having made any complaint to frederick. when she told him that she had reminded him a hundred times of his promise, he pretended that, owing to pressure of business, he had forgotten all about it. the next day frederick presented himself at her abode, and found the maréchale still in bed, though it was two o'clock, with delmar beside her finishing a _pâté de foie gras_ at a little round table. before he had advanced many paces, she broke out into a cry of delight, saying: "i have him! i have him!" then she seized him by the ears, kissed him on the forehead, thanked him effusively, "thee'd" and "thou'd" him, and even wanted to make him sit down on the bed. her fine eyes, full of tender emotion, were sparkling with pleasure. there was a smile on her humid mouth. her two round arms emerged through the sleeveless opening of her night-dress, and, from time to time, he could feel through the cambric the well-rounded outlines of her form. [illustration: then she seized him by the ears and kissed him.] all this time delmar kept rolling his eyeballs about. "but really, my dear, my own pet..." it was the same way on the occasion when he saw her next. as soon as frederick entered, she sat up on a cushion in order to embrace him with more ease, called him a darling, a "dearie," put a flower in his button-hole, and settled his cravat. these delicate attentions were redoubled when delmar happened to be there. were they advances on her part? so it seemed to frederick. as for deceiving a friend, arnoux, in his place, would not have had many scruples on that score, and he had every right not to adhere to rigidly virtuous principles with regard to this man's mistress, seeing that his relations with the wife had been strictly honourable, for so he thought--or rather he would have liked arnoux to think so, in any event, as a sort of justification of his own prodigious cowardice. nevertheless he felt somewhat bewildered; and presently he made up his mind to lay siege boldly to the maréchale. so, one afternoon, just as she was stooping down in front of her chest of drawers, he came across to her, and repeated his overtures without a pause. thereupon, she began to cry, saying that she was very unfortunate, but that people should not despise her on that account. he only made fresh advances. she now adopted a different plan, namely, to laugh at his attempts without stopping. he thought it a clever thing to answer her sarcasms with repartees in the same strain, in which there was even a touch of exaggeration. but he made too great a display of gaiety to convince her that he was in earnest; and their comradeship was an impediment to any outpouring of serious feeling. at last, when she said one day, in reply to his amorous whispers, that she would not take another woman's leavings, he answered. "what other woman?" "ah! yes, go and meet madame arnoux again!" for frederick used to talk about her often. arnoux, on his side, had the same mania. at last she lost patience at always hearing this woman's praises sung, and her insinuation was a kind of revenge. frederick resented it. however, rosanette was beginning to excite his love to an unusual degree. sometimes, assuming the attitude of a woman of experience, she spoke ill of love with a sceptical smile that made him feel inclined to box her ears. a quarter of an hour afterwards, it was the only thing of any consequence in the world, and, with her arms crossed over her breast, as if she were clasping some one close to her: "oh, yes, 'tis good! 'tis good!" and her eyelids would quiver in a kind of rapturous swoon. it was impossible to understand her, to know, for instance, whether she loved arnoux, for she made fun of him, and yet seemed jealous of him. so likewise with the vatnaz, whom she would sometimes call a wretch, and at other times her best friend. in short, there was about her entire person, even to the very arrangement of her chignon over her head, an inexpressible something, which seemed like a challenge; and he desired her for the satisfaction, above all, of conquering her and being her master. how was he to accomplish this? for she often sent him away unceremoniously, appearing only for a moment between two doors in order to say in a subdued voice, "i'm engaged--for the evening;" or else he found her surrounded by a dozen persons; and when they were alone, so many impediments presented themselves one after the other, that one would have sworn there was a bet to keep matters from going any further. he invited her to dinner; as a rule, she declined the invitation. on one occasion, she accepted it, but did not come. a machiavellian idea arose in his brain. having heard from dussardier about pellerin's complaints against himself, he thought of giving the artist an order to paint the maréchale's portrait, a life-sized portrait, which would necessitate a good number of sittings. he would not fail to be present at all of them. the habitual incorrectness of the painter would facilitate their private conversations. so then he would urge rosanette to get the picture executed in order to make a present of her face to her dear arnoux. she consented, for she saw herself in the midst of the grand salon in the most prominent position with a crowd of people staring at her picture, and the newspapers would all talk about it, which at once would set her afloat. as for pellerin, he eagerly snatched at the offer. this portrait ought to place him in the position of a great man; it ought to be a masterpiece. he passed in review in his memory all the portraits by great masters with which he was acquainted, and decided finally in favour of a titian, which would be set off with ornaments in the style of veronese. therefore, he would carry out his design without artificial backgrounds in a bold light, which would illuminate the flesh-tints with a single tone, and which would make the accessories glitter. "suppose i were to put on her," he thought, "a pink silk dress with an oriental bournous? oh, no! the bournous is only a rascally thing! or suppose, rather, i were to make her wear blue velvet with a grey background, richly coloured? we might likewise give her a white guipure collar with a black fan and a scarlet curtain behind." and thus, seeking for ideas, he enlarged his conception, and regarded it with admiration. he felt his heart beating when rosanette, accompanied by frederick, called at his house for the first sitting. he placed her standing up on a sort of platform in the midst of the apartment, and, finding fault with the light and expressing regret at the loss of his former studio, he first made her lean on her elbow against a pedestal, then sit down in an armchair, and, drawing away from her and coming near her again by turns in order to adjust with a fillip the folds of her dress, he watched her with eyelids half-closed, and appealed to frederick's taste with a passing word. "well, no," he exclaimed; "i return to my own idea. i will set you up in the venetian style." she would have a poppy-coloured velvet gown with a jewelled girdle; and her wide sleeve lined with ermine would afford a glimpse of her bare arm, which was to touch the balustrade of a staircase rising behind her. at her left, a large column would mount as far as the top of the canvas to meet certain structures so as to form an arch. underneath one would vaguely distinguish groups of orange-trees almost black, through which the blue sky, with its streaks of white cloud, would seem cut into fragments. on the baluster, covered with a carpet, there would be, on a silver dish, a bouquet of flowers, a chaplet of amber, a poniard, and a little chest of antique ivory, rather yellow with age, which would appear to be disgorging gold sequins. some of them, falling on the ground here and there, would form brilliant splashes, as it were, in such a way as to direct one's glance towards the tip of her foot, for she would be standing on the last step but one in a natural position, as if in the act of moving under the glow of the broad sunlight. he went to look for a picture-case, which he laid on the platform to represent the step. then he arranged as accessories, on a stool by way of balustrade, his pea-jacket, a buckler, a sardine-box, a bundle of pens, and a knife; and when he had flung in front of rosanette a dozen big sous, he made her assume the attitude he required. "just try to imagine that these things are riches, magnificent presents. the head a little on one side! perfect! and don't stir! this majestic posture exactly suits your style of beauty." she wore a plaid dress and carried a big muff, and only kept from laughing outright by an effort of self-control. "as regards the head-dress, we will mingle with it a circle of pearls. it always produces a striking effect with red hair." the maréchale burst out into an exclamation, remarking that she had not red hair. "nonsense! the red of painters is not that of ordinary people." he began to sketch the position of the masses; and he was so much preoccupied with the great artists of the renaissance that he kept talking about them persistently. for a whole hour he went on musing aloud on those splendid lives, full of genius, glory, and sumptuous displays, with triumphal entries into the cities, and galas by torchlight among half-naked women, beautiful as goddesses. "you were made to live in those days. a creature of your calibre would have deserved a monseigneur." rosanette thought the compliments he paid her very pretty. the day was fixed for the next sitting. frederick took it on himself to bring the accessories. as the heat of the stove had stupefied her a little, they went home on foot through the rue du bac, and reached the pont royal. it was fine weather, piercingly bright and warm. some windows of houses in the city shone in the distance, like plates of gold, whilst behind them at the right the turrets of nôtre dame showed their outlines in black against the blue sky, softly bathed at the horizon in grey vapours. the wind began to swell; and rosanette, having declared that she felt hungry, they entered the "patisserie anglaise." young women with their children stood eating in front of the marble buffet, where plates of little cakes had glass covers pressed down on them. rosanette swallowed two cream-tarts. the powdered sugar formed moustaches at the sides of her mouth. from time to time, in order to wipe it, she drew out her handkerchief from her muff, and her face, under her green silk hood, resembled a full-blown rose in the midst of its leaves. they resumed their walk. in the rue de la paix she stood before a goldsmith's shop to look at a bracelet. frederick wished to make her a present of it. "no!" said she; "keep your money!" he was hurt by these words. "what's the matter now with the ducky? we are melancholy?" and, the conversation having been renewed, he began making the same protestations of love to her as usual. "you know well 'tis impossible!" "why?" "ah! because----" they went on side by side, she leaning on his arm, and the flounces of her gown kept flapping against his legs. then, he recalled to mind one winter twilight when on the same footpath madame arnoux walked thus by his side, and he became so much absorbed in this recollection that he no longer saw rosanette, and did not bestow a thought upon her. she kept looking straight before her in a careless fashion, lagging a little, like a lazy child. it was the hour when people had just come back from their promenade, and equipages were making their way at a quick trot over the hard pavement. pellerin's flatteries having probably recurred to her mind, she heaved a sigh. "ah! there are some lucky women in the world. decidedly, i was made for a rich man!" he replied, with a certain brutality in his tone: "you have one, in the meantime!" for m. oudry was looked upon as a man that could count a million three times over. she asked for nothing better than to get free from him. "what prevents you from doing so?" and he gave utterance to bitter jests about this old bewigged citizen, pointing out to her that such an intrigue was unworthy of her, and that she ought to break it off. "yes," replied the maréchale, as if talking to herself. "'tis what i shall end by doing, no doubt!" frederick was charmed by this disinterestedness. she slackened her pace, and he fancied that she was fatigued. she obstinately refused to let him take a cab, and she parted with him at her door, sending him a kiss with her finger-tips. "ah! what a pity! and to think that imbeciles take me for a man of wealth!" he reached home in a gloomy frame of mind. hussonnet and deslauriers were awaiting him. the bohemian, seated before the table, made sketches of turks' heads; and the advocate, in dirty boots, lay asleep on the sofa. "ha! at last," he exclaimed. "but how sullen you look! will you listen to me?" his vogue as a tutor had fallen off, for he crammed his pupils with theories unfavourable for their examinations. he had appeared in two or three cases in which he had been unsuccessful, and each new disappointment flung him back with greater force on the dream of his earlier days--a journal in which he could show himself off, avenge himself, and spit forth his bile and his opinions. fortune and reputation, moreover, would follow as a necessary consequence. it was in this hope that he had got round the bohemian, hussonnet happening to be the possessor of a press. at present, he printed it on pink paper. he invented hoaxes, composed rebuses, tried to engage in polemics, and even intended, in spite of the situation of the premises, to get up concerts. a year's subscription was to give a right to a place in the orchestra in one of the principal theatres of paris. besides, the board of management took on itself to furnish foreigners with all necessary information, artistic and otherwise. but the printer gave vent to threats; there were three quarters' rent due to the landlord. all sorts of embarrassments arose; and hussonnet would have allowed _l'art_ to perish, were it not for the exhortations of the advocate, who kept every day exciting his mind. he had brought the other with him, in order to give more weight to the application he was now making. "we've come about the journal," said he. "what! are you still thinking about that?" said frederick, in an absent tone. "certainly, i am thinking about it!" and he explained his plan anew. by means of the bourse returns, they would get into communication with financiers, and would thus obtain the hundred thousand francs indispensable as security. but, in order that the print might be transformed into a political journal, it was necessary beforehand to have a large _clientèle_, and for that purpose to make up their minds to go to some expense--so much for the cost of paper and printing, and for outlay at the office; in short, a sum of about fifteen thousand francs. "i have no funds," said frederick. "and what are we to do, then?" said deslauriers, with folded arms. frederick, hurt by the attitude which deslauriers was assuming, replied: "is that my fault?" "ah! very fine. a man has wood in his fire, truffles on his table, a good bed, a library, a carriage, every kind of comfort. but let another man shiver under the slates, dine at twenty sous, work like a convict, and sprawl through want in the mire--is it the rich man's fault?" and he repeated, "is it the rich man's fault?" with a ciceronian irony which smacked of the law-courts. frederick tried to speak. "however, i understand one has certain wants--aristocratic wants; for, no doubt, some woman----" "well, even if that were so? am i not free----?" "oh! quite free!" and, after a minute's silence: "promises are so convenient!" "good god! i don't deny that i gave them!" said frederick. the advocate went on: "at college we take oaths; we are going to set up a phalanx; we are going to imitate balzac's thirteen. then, on meeting a friend after a separation: 'good night, old fellow! go about your business!' for he who might help the other carefully keeps everything for himself alone." "how is that?" "yes, you have not even introduced me to the dambreuses." frederick cast a scrutinising glance at him. with his shabby frock-coat, his spectacles of rough glass, and his sallow face, that advocate seemed to him such a typical specimen of the penniless pedant that he could not prevent his lips from curling with a disdainful smile. deslauriers perceived this, and reddened. he had already taken his hat to leave. hussonnet, filled with uneasiness, tried to mollify him with appealing looks, and, as frederick was turning his back on him: "look here, my boy, become my mæcenas! protect the arts!" frederick, with an abrupt movement of resignation, took a sheet of paper, and, having scrawled some lines on it, handed it to him. the bohemian's face lighted up. then, passing across the sheet of paper to deslauriers: "apologise, my fine fellow!" their friend begged his notary to send him fifteen thousand francs as quickly as possible. "ah! i recognise you in that," said deslauriers. "on the faith of a gentleman," added the bohemian, "you are a noble fellow, you'll be placed in the gallery of useful men!" the advocate remarked: "you'll lose nothing by it, 'tis an excellent speculation." "faith," exclaimed hussonnet, "i'd stake my head at the scaffold on its success!" and he said so many foolish things, and promised so many wonderful things, in which perhaps he believed, that frederick did not know whether he did this in order to laugh at others or at himself. the same evening he received a letter from his mother. she expressed astonishment at not seeing him yet a minister, while indulging in a little banter at his expense. then she spoke of her health, and informed him that m. roque had now become one of her visitors. "since he is a widower, i thought there would be no objection to inviting him to the house. louise is greatly changed for the better." and in a postscript: "you have told me nothing about your fine acquaintance, m. dambreuse; if i were you, i would make use of him." why not? his intellectual ambitions had left him, and his fortune (he saw it clearly) was insufficient, for when his debts had been paid, and the sum agreed on remitted to the others, his income would be diminished by four thousand at least! moreover, he felt the need of giving up this sort of life, and attaching himself to some pursuit. so, next day, when dining at madame arnoux's, he said that his mother was tormenting him in order to make him take up a profession. "but i was under the impression," she said, "that m. dambreuse was going to get you into the council of state? that would suit you very well." so, then, she wished him to take this course. he regarded her wish as a command. the banker, as on the first occasion, was seated at his desk, and, with a gesture, intimated that he desired frederick to wait a few minutes; for a gentleman who was standing at the door with his back turned had been discussing some serious topic with him. the subject of their conversation was the proposed amalgamation of the different coal-mining companies. on each side of the glass hung portraits of general foy and louis philippe. cardboard shelves rose along the panels up to the ceiling, and there were six straw chairs, m. dambreuse not requiring a more fashionably-furnished apartment for the transaction of business. it resembled those gloomy kitchens in which great banquets are prepared. frederick noticed particularly two chests of prodigious size which stood in the corners. he asked himself how many millions they might contain. the banker unlocked one of them, and as the iron plate revolved, it disclosed to view nothing inside but blue paper books full of entries. at last, the person who had been talking to m. dambreuse passed in front of frederick. it was père oudry. the two saluted one another, their faces colouring--a circumstance which surprised m. dambreuse. however, he exhibited the utmost affability, observing that nothing would be easier than to recommend the young man to the keeper of the seals. they would be too happy to have him, he added, concluding his polite attentions by inviting him to an evening party which he would be giving in a few days. frederick was stepping into a brougham on his way to this party when a note from the maréchale reached him. by the light of the carriage-lamps he read: "darling, i have followed your advice: i have just expelled my savage. after to-morrow evening, liberty! say whether i am not brave!" nothing more. but it was clearly an invitation to him to take the vacant place. he uttered an exclamation, squeezed the note into his pocket, and set forth. two municipal guards on horseback were stationed in the street. a row of lamps burned on the two front gates, and some servants were calling out in the courtyard to have the carriages brought up to the end of the steps before the house under the marquée. then suddenly the noise in the vestibule ceased. large trees filled up the space in front of the staircase. the porcelain globes shed a light which waved like white moiré satin on the walls. frederick rushed up the steps in a joyous frame of mind. an usher announced his name. m. dambreuse extended his hand. almost at the very same moment, madame dambreuse appeared. she wore a mauve dress trimmed with lace. the ringlets of her hair were more abundant than usual, and not a single jewel did she display. she complained of his coming to visit them so rarely, and seized the opportunity to exchange a few confidential words with him. the guests began to arrive. in their mode of bowing they twisted their bodies on one side or bent in two, or merely lowered their heads a little. then, a married pair, a family passed in, and all scattered themselves about the drawing-room, which was already filled. under the chandelier in the centre, an enormous ottoman-seat supported a stand, the flowers of which, bending forward, like plumes of feathers, hung over the heads of the ladies seated all around in a ring, while others occupied the easy-chairs, which formed two straight lines symmetrically interrupted by the large velvet curtains of the windows and the lofty bays of the doors with their gilded lintels. the crowd of men who remained standing on the floor with their hats in their hands seemed, at some distance, like one black mass, into which the ribbons in the button-holes introduced red points here and there, and rendered all the more dull the monotonous whiteness of their cravats. with the exception of the very young men with the down on their faces, all appeared to be bored. some dandies, with an expression of sullenness on their countenances, were swinging on their heels. there were numbers of men with grey hair or wigs. here and there glistened a bald pate; and the visages of many of these men, either purple or exceedingly pale, showed in their worn aspect the traces of immense fatigues: for they were persons who devoted themselves either to political or commercial pursuits. m. dambreuse had also invited a number of scholars and magistrates, two or three celebrated doctors, and he deprecated with an air of humility the eulogies which they pronounced on his entertainment and the allusions to his wealth. an immense number of men-servants, with fine gold-laced livery, kept moving about on every side. the large branched candlesticks, like bouquets of flame, threw a glow over the hangings. they were reflected in the mirrors; and at the bottom of the dining-room, which was adorned with a jessamine treillage, the side-board resembled the high altar of a cathedral or an exhibition of jewellery, there were so many dishes, bells, knives and forks, silver and silver-gilt spoons in the midst of crystal ware glittering with iridescence. the three other reception-rooms overflowed with artistic objects--landscapes by great masters on the walls, ivory and porcelain at the sides of the tables, and chinese ornaments on the brackets. lacquered screens were displayed in front of the windows, clusters of camelias rose above the mantel-shelves, and a light music vibrated in the distance, like the humming of bees. the quadrilles were not numerous, and the dancers, judged by the indifferent fashion in which they dragged their pumps after them, seemed to be going through the performance of a duty. frederick heard some phrases, such as the following: "were you at the last charity fête at the hôtel lambert, mademoiselle?" "no, monsieur." "it will soon be intolerably warm here." "oh! yes, indeed; quite suffocating!" "whose polka, pray, is this?" "good heavens, madame, i don't know!" and, behind him, three greybeards, who had posted themselves in the recess of a window, were whispering some _risqué_ remarks. a sportsman told a hunting story, while a legitimist carried on an argument with an orléanist. and, wandering about from one group to another, he reached the card-room, where, in the midst of grave-looking men gathered in a circle, he recognised martinon, now attached to the bar of the capital. his big face, with its waxen complexion, filled up the space encircled by his collar-like beard, which was a marvel with its even surface of black hair; and, observing the golden mean between the elegance which his age might yearn for and the dignity which his profession exacted from him, he kept his thumbs stuck under his armpits, according to the custom of beaux, and then put his hands into his waistcoat pockets after the manner of learned personages. though his boots were polished to excess, he kept his temples shaved in order to have the forehead of a thinker. after he had addressed a few chilling words to frederick, he turned once more towards those who were chatting around him. a land-owner was saying: "this is a class of men that dreams of upsetting society." "they are calling for the organisation of labour," said another: "can this be conceived?" "what could you expect," said a third, "when we see m. de genoude giving his assistance to the _siècle_?" "and even conservatives style themselves progressives. to lead us to what? to the republic! as if such a thing were possible in france!" everyone declared that the republic was impossible in france. "no matter!" remarked one gentleman in a loud tone. "people take too much interest in the revolution. a heap of histories, of different kinds of works, are published concerning it!" "without taking into account," said martinon, "that there are probably subjects of far more importance which might be studied." a gentleman occupying a ministerial office laid the blame on the scandals associated with the stage: "thus, for instance, this new drama of _la reine margot_ really goes beyond the proper limits. what need was there for telling us about the valois? all this exhibits loyalty in an unfavourable light. 'tis just like your press! there is no use in talking, the september laws are altogether too mild. for my part, i would like to have court-martials, to gag the journalists! at the slightest display of insolence, drag them before a council of war, and then make an end of the business!" "oh, take care, monsieur! take care!" said a professor. "don't attack the precious boons we gained in ! respect our liberties!" it would be better, he contended, to adopt a policy of decentralisation, and to distribute the surplus populations of the towns through the country districts. "but they are gangrened!" exclaimed a catholic. "let religion be more firmly established!" martinon hastened to observe: "as a matter of fact, it is a restraining force." all the evil lay in this modern longing to rise above one's class and to possess luxuries. "however," urged a manufacturer, "luxury aids commerce. therefore, i approve of the duc de nemours' action in insisting on having short breeches at his evening parties." "m. thiers came to one of them in a pair of trousers. you know his joke on the subject?" "yes; charming! but he turned round to the demagogues, and his speech on the question of incompatibilities was not without its influence in bringing about the attempt of the twelfth of may." "oh, pooh!" "ay, ay!" the circle had to make a little opening to give a passage to a man-servant carrying a tray, who was trying to make his way into the card-room. under the green shades of the wax-lights the tables were covered with two rows of cards and gold coins. frederick stopped beside one corner of the table, lost the fifteen napoleons which he had in his pocket, whirled lightly about, and found himself on the threshold of the boudoir in which madame dambreuse happened to be at that moment. it was filled with women sitting close to one another in little groups on seats without backs. their long skirts, swelling round them, seemed like waves, from which their waists emerged; and their breasts were clearly outlined by the slope of their corsages. nearly every one of them had a bouquet of violets in her hand. the dull shade of their gloves showed off the whiteness of their arms, which formed a contrast with its human flesh tints. over the shoulders of some of them hung fringe or mourning-weeds, and, every now and then, as they quivered with emotion, it seemed as if their bodices were about to fall down. but the decorum of their countenances tempered the exciting effect of their costumes. several of them had a placidity almost like that of animals; and this resemblance to the brute creation on the part of half-nude women made him think of the interior of a harem--indeed, a grosser comparison suggested itself to the young man's mind. every variety of beauty was to be found there--some english ladies, with the profile familiar in "keepsakes"; an italian, whose black eyes shot forth lava-like flashes, like a vesuvius; three sisters, dressed in blue; three normans, fresh as april apples; a tall red-haired girl, with a set of amethysts. and the bright scintillation of diamonds, which trembled in aigrettes worn over their hair, the luminous spots of precious stones laid over their breasts, and the delightful radiance of pearls which adorned their foreheads mingled with the glitter of gold rings, as well as with the lace, powder, the feathers, the vermilion of dainty mouths, and the mother-of-pearl hue of teeth. the ceiling, rounded like a cupola, gave to the boudoir the form of a flower-basket, and a current of perfumed air circulated under the flapping of their fans. frederick, planting himself behind them, put up his eyeglass and scanned their shoulders, not all of which did he consider irreproachable. he thought about the maréchale, and this dispelled the temptations that beset him or consoled him for not yielding to them. he gazed, however, at madame dambreuse, and he considered her charming, in spite of her mouth being rather large and her nostrils too dilated. but she was remarkably graceful in appearance. there was, as it were, an expression of passionate languor in the ringlets of her hair, and her forehead, which was like agate, seemed to cover a great deal, and indicated a masterful intelligence. she had placed beside her her husband's niece, a rather plain-looking young person. from time to time she left her seat to receive those who had just come in; and the murmur of feminine voices, made, as it were, a cackling like that of birds. they were talking about the tunisian ambassadors and their costumes. one lady had been present at the last reception of the academy. another referred to the _don juan_ of molière, which had recently been performed at the théâtre français. but with a significant glance towards her niece, madame dambreuse laid a finger on her lips, while the smile which escaped from her contradicted this display of austerity. suddenly, martinon appeared at the door directly in front of her. she arose at once. he offered her his arm. frederick, in order to watch the progress of these gallantries on martinon's part, walked past the card-table, and came up with them in the large drawing-room. madame dambreuse very soon quitted her cavalier, and began chatting with frederick himself in a very familiar tone. she understood that he did not play cards, and did not dance. "young people have a tendency to be melancholy!" then, with a single comprehensive glance around: "besides, this sort of thing is not amusing--at least for certain natures!" and she drew up in front of the row of armchairs, uttering a few polite remarks here and there, while some old men with double eyeglasses came to pay court to her. she introduced frederick to some of them. m. dambreuse touched him lightly on the elbow, and led him out on the terrace. he had seen the minister. the thing was not easy to manage. before he could be qualified for the post of auditor to the council of state, he should pass an examination. frederick, seized with an unaccountable self-confidence, replied that he had a knowledge of the subjects prescribed for it. the financier was not surprised at this, after all the eulogies m. roque had pronounced on his abilities. at the mention of this name, a vision of little louise, her house and her room, passed through his mind, and he remembered how he had on nights like this stood at her window listening to the wagoners driving past. this recollection of his griefs brought back the thought of madame arnoux, and he relapsed into silence as he continued to pace up and down the terrace. the windows shone amid the darkness like slabs of flame. the buzz of the ball gradually grew fainter; the carriages were beginning to leave. "why in the world," m. dambreuse went on, "are you so anxious to be attached to the council of state?" and he declared, in the tone of a man of broad views, that the public functions led to nothing--he could speak with some authority on that point--business was much better. frederick urged as an objection the difficulty of grappling with all the details of business. "pooh! i could post you up well in them in a very short time." would he like to be a partner in any of his own undertakings? the young man saw, as by a lightning-flash, an enormous fortune coming into his hands. "let us go in again," said the banker. "you are staying for supper with us, are you not?" it was three o'clock. they left the terrace. in the dining-room, a table at which supper was served up awaited the guests. m. dambreuse perceived martinon, and, drawing near his wife, in a low tone: "is it you who invited him?" she answered dryly: "yes, of course." the niece was not present. the guests drank a great deal of wine, and laughed very loudly; and risky jokes did not give any offence, all present experiencing that sense of relief which follows a somewhat prolonged period of constraint. martinon alone displayed anything like gravity. he refused to drink champagne, as he thought this good form, and, moreover, he assumed an air of tact and politeness, for when m. dambreuse, who had a contracted chest, complained of an oppression, he made repeated enquiries about that gentleman's health, and then let his blue eyes wander in the direction of madame dambreuse. she questioned frederick in order to find out which of the young ladies he liked best. he had noticed none of them in particular, and besides, he preferred the women of thirty. "there, perhaps, you show your sense," she returned. then, as they were putting on their pelisses and paletots, m. dambreuse said to him: "come and see me one of these mornings and we'll have a chat." martinon, at the foot of the stairs, was lighting a cigar, and, as he puffed it, he presented such a heavy profile that his companion allowed this remark to escape from him: "upon my word, you have a fine head!" "it has turned a few other heads," replied the young magistrate, with an air of mingled self-complacency and annoyance. as soon as frederick was in bed, he summed up the main features of the evening party. in the first place, his own toilet (he had looked at himself several times in the mirrors), from the cut of his coat to the knot of his pumps left nothing to find fault with. he had spoken to influential men, and seen wealthy ladies at close quarters. m. dambreuse had shown himself to be an admirable type of man, and madame dambreuse an almost bewitching type of woman. he weighed one by one her slightest words, her looks, a thousand things incapable of being analysed. it would be a right good thing to have such a mistress. and, after all, why should he not? he would have as good a chance with her as any other man. perhaps she was not so hard to win? then martinon came back to his recollection; and, as he fell asleep, he smiled with pity for this worthy fellow. he woke up with the thought of the maréchale in his mind. those words of her note, "after to-morrow evening," were in fact an appointment for the very same day. he waited until nine o'clock, and then hurried to her house. some one who had been going up the stairs before him shut the door. he rang the bell; delphine came out and told him that "madame" was not there. frederick persisted, begging of her to admit him. he had something of a very serious nature to communicate to her; only a word would suffice. at length, the hundred-sous-piece argument proved successful, and the maid let him into the anteroom. rosanette appeared. she was in a negligée, with her hair loose, and, shaking her head, she waved her arms when she was some paces away from him to indicate that she could not receive him now. frederick descended the stairs slowly. this caprice was worse than any of the others she had indulged in. he could not understand it at all. in front of the porter's lodge mademoiselle vatnaz stopped him. "has she received you?" "no." "you've been put out?" "how do you know that?" "'tis quite plain. but come on; let us go away. i am suffocating!" she made him accompany her along the street; she panted for breath; he could feel her thin arm trembling on his own. suddenly, she broke out: "ah! the wretch!" "who, pray?" "why, he--he--delmar!" this revelation humiliated frederick. he next asked: "are you quite sure of it?" "why, when i tell you i followed him!" exclaimed the vatnaz. "i saw him going in! now do you understand? i ought to have expected it for that matter--'twas i, in my stupidity, that introduced him to her. and if you only knew all; my god! why, i picked him up, supported him, clothed him! and then all the paragraphs i got into the newspapers about him! i loved him like a mother!" then, with a sneer: "ha! monsieur wants velvet robes! you may be sure 'tis a speculation on his part. and as for her!--to think that i knew her to earn her living as a seamstress! if it were not for me, she would have fallen into the mire twenty times over! but i will plunge her into it yet! i'll see her dying in a hospital--and everything about her will be known!" and, like a torrent of dirty water from a vessel full of refuse, her rage poured out in a tumultuous fashion into frederick's ear the recital of her rival's disgraceful acts. "she lived with jumillac, with flacourt, with little allard, with bertinaux, with saint-valéry, the pock-marked fellow! no, 'twas the other! they are two brothers--it makes no difference. and when she was in difficulties, i settled everything. she is so avaricious! and then, you will agree with me, 'twas nice and kind of me to go to see her, for we are not persons of the same grade! am i a fast woman--i? do i sell myself? without taking into account that she is as stupid as a head of cabbage. she writes 'category' with a 'th.' after all, they are well met. they make a precious couple, though he styles himself an artist and thinks himself a man of genius. but, my god! if he had only intelligence, he would not have done such an infamous thing! men don't, as a rule, leave a superior woman for a hussy! what do i care about him after all? he is becoming ugly. i hate him! if i met him, mind you, i'd spit in his face." she spat out as she uttered the words. "yes, this is what i think about him now. and arnoux, eh? isn't it abominable? he has forgiven her so often! you can't conceive the sacrifices he has made for her. she ought to kiss his feet! he is so generous, so good!" frederick was delighted at hearing delmar disparaged. he had taken sides with arnoux. this perfidy on rosanette's part seemed to him an abnormal and inexcusable thing; and, infected with this elderly spinster's emotion, he felt a sort of tenderness towards her. suddenly he found himself in front of arnoux's door. mademoiselle vatnaz, without his attention having been drawn to it, had led him down towards the rue poissonnière. "here we are!" said she. "as for me, i can't go up; but you, surely there is nothing to prevent you?" "from doing what?" "from telling him everything, faith!" frederick, as if waking up with a start, saw the baseness towards which she was urging him. "well?" she said after a pause. he raised his eyes towards the second floor. madame arnoux's lamp was burning. in fact there was nothing to prevent him from going up. "i am going to wait for you here. go on, then!" this direction had the effect of chilling him, and he said: "i shall be a long time up there; you would do better to return home. i will call on you to-morrow." "no, no!" replied the vatnaz, stamping with her foot. "take him with you! bring him there! let him catch them together!" "but delmar will no longer be there." she hung down her head. "yes; that's true, perhaps." and she remained without speaking in the middle of the street, with vehicles all around her; then, fixing on him her wild-cat's eyes: "i may rely on you, may i not? there is now a sacred bond between us. do what you say, then; we'll talk about it to-morrow." frederick, in passing through the lobby, heard two voices responding to one another. madame arnoux's voice was saying: "don't lie! don't lie, pray!" he went in. the voices suddenly ceased. arnoux was walking from one end of the apartment to the other, and madame was seated on the little chair near the fire, extremely pale and staring straight before her. frederick stepped back, and was about to retire, when arnoux grasped his hand, glad that some one had come to his rescue. "but i am afraid----" said frederick. "stay here, i beg of you!" he whispered in his ear. madame remarked: "you must make some allowance for this scene, monsieur moreau. such things sometimes unfortunately occur in households." "they do when we introduce them there ourselves," said arnoux in a jolly tone. "women have crotchets, i assure you. this, for instance, is not a bad one--see! no; quite the contrary. well, she has been amusing herself for the last hour by teasing me with a heap of idle stories." "they are true," retorted madame arnoux, losing patience; "for, in fact, you bought it yourself." "i?" "yes, you yourself, at the persian house." "the cashmere," thought frederick. he was filled with a consciousness of guilt, and got quite alarmed. she quickly added: "it was on saturday, the fourteenth." "the fourteenth," said arnoux, looking up, as if he were searching in his mind for a date. "and, furthermore, the clerk who sold it to you was a fair-haired young man." "how could i remember what sort of man the clerk was?" "and yet it was at your dictation he wrote the address, rue de laval." "how do you know?" said arnoux in amazement. she shrugged her shoulders. "oh! 'tis very simple: i went to get my cashmere altered, and the superintendent of the millinery department told me that they had just sent another of the same sort to madame arnoux." "is it my fault if there is a madame arnoux in the same street?" "yes; but not jacques arnoux," she returned. thereupon, he began to talk in an incoherent fashion, protesting that he was innocent. it was some misapprehension, some accident, one of those things that happen in some way that is utterly unaccountable. men should not be condemned on mere suspicion, vague probabilities; and he referred to the case of the unfortunate lesurques. "in short, i say you are mistaken. do you want me to take my oath on it?" "'tis not worth while." "why?" she looked him straight in the face without saying a word, then stretched out her hand, took down the little silver chest from the mantelpiece, and handed him a bill which was spread open. arnoux coloured up to his ears, and his swollen and distorted features betrayed his confusion. "but," he said in faltering tones, "what does this prove?" "ah!" she said, with a peculiar ring in her voice, in which sorrow and irony were blended. "ah!" arnoux held the bill in his hands, and turned it round without removing his eyes from it, as if he were going to find in it the solution of a great problem. "ah! yes, yes; i remember," said he at length. "'twas a commission. you ought to know about that matter, frederick." frederick remained silent. "a commission that père oudry entrusted to me." "and for whom?" "for his mistress." "for your own!" exclaimed madame arnoux, springing to her feet and standing erect before him. "i swear to you!" "don't begin over again. i know everything." "ha! quite right. so you're spying on me!" she returned coldly: "perhaps that wounds your delicacy?" "since you are in a passion," said arnoux, looking for his hat, "and can't be reasoned with----" then, with a big sigh: "don't marry, my poor friend, don't, if you take my advice!" and he took himself off, finding it absolutely necessary to get into the open air. then there was a deep silence, and it seemed as if everything in the room had become more motionless than before. a luminous circle above the lamp whitened the ceiling, while at the corners stretched out bits of shade resembling pieces of black gauze placed on top of one another. the ticking of the clock and the crackling of the fire were the only sounds that disturbed the stillness. madame arnoux had just seated herself in the armchair at the opposite side of the chimney-piece. she bit her lip and shivered. she drew her hands up to her face; a sob broke from her, and she began to weep. he sat down on the little couch, and in the soothing tone in which one addresses a sick person: "you don't suspect me of having anything to do with----?" she made no reply. but, continuing presently to give utterance to her own thoughts: "i leave him perfectly free! there was no necessity for lying on his part!" "that is quite true," said frederick. "no doubt," he added, "it was the result of arnoux's habits; he had acted thoughtlessly, but perhaps in matters of a graver character----" "what do you see, then, that can be graver?" "oh, nothing!" frederick bent his head with a smile of acquiescence. nevertheless, he urged, arnoux possessed certain good qualities; he was fond of his children. "ay, and he does all he can to ruin them!" frederick urged that this was due to an excessively easy-going disposition, for indeed he was a good fellow. she exclaimed: "but what is the meaning of that--a good fellow?" and he proceeded to defend arnoux in the vaguest kind of language he could think of, and, while expressing his sympathy with her, he rejoiced, he was delighted, at the bottom of his heart. through retaliation or need of affection she would fly to him for refuge. his love was intensified by the hope which had now grown immeasurably stronger in his breast. never had she appeared to him so captivating, so perfectly beautiful. from time to time a deep breath made her bosom swell. her two eyes, gazing fixedly into space, seemed dilated by a vision in the depths of her consciousness, and her lips were slightly parted, as if to let her soul escape through them. sometimes she pressed her handkerchief over them tightly. he would have liked to be this dainty little piece of cambric moistened with her tears. in spite of himself, he cast a look at the bed at the end of the alcove, picturing to himself her head lying on the pillow, and so vividly did this present itself to his imagination that he had to restrain himself to keep from clasping her in his arms. she closed her eyelids, and now she appeared quiescent and languid. then he drew closer to her, and, bending over her, he eagerly scanned her face. at that moment, he heard the noise of boots in the lobby outside--it was the other. they heard him shutting the door of his own room. frederick made a sign to madame arnoux to ascertain from her whether he ought to go there. she replied "yes," in the same voiceless fashion; and this mute exchange of thoughts between them was, as it were, an assent--the preliminary step in adultery. arnoux was just taking off his coat to go to bed. "well, how is she going on?" "oh! better," said frederick; "this will pass off." but arnoux was in an anxious state of mind. "you don't know her; she has got hysterical now! idiot of a clerk! this is what comes of being too good. if i had not given that cursed shawl to rosanette!" "don't regret having done so a bit. nobody could be more grateful to you than she is." "do you really think so?" frederick had not a doubt of it. the best proof of it was her dismissal of père oudry. "ah! poor little thing!" and in the excess of his emotion, arnoux wanted to rush off to her forthwith. "'tisn't worth while. i am calling to see her. she is unwell." "all the more reason for my going." he quickly put on his coat again, and took up his candlestick. frederick cursed his own stupidity, and pointed out to him that for decency's sake he ought to remain this night with his wife. he could not leave her; it would be very nasty. "i tell you candidly you would be doing wrong. there is no hurry over there. you will go to-morrow. come; do this for my sake." arnoux put down his candlestick, and, embracing him, said: "you are a right good fellow!" chapter ix. the friend of the family. then began for frederick an existence of misery. he became the parasite of the house. if anyone were indisposed, he called three times a day to know how the patient was, went to the piano-tuner's, contrived to do a thousand acts of kindness; and he endured with an air of contentment mademoiselle marthe's poutings and the caresses of little eugène, who was always drawing his dirty hands over the young man's face. he was present at dinners at which monsieur and madame, facing each other, did not exchange a word, unless it happened that arnoux provoked his wife with the absurd remarks he made. when the meal was over, he would play about the room with his son, conceal himself behind the furniture, or carry the little boy on his back, walking about on all fours, like the bearnais.[ ] at last, he would go out, and she would at once plunge into the eternal subject of complaint--arnoux. [footnote : henry iv.--translator.] it was not his misconduct that excited her indignation, but her pride appeared to be wounded, and she did not hide her repugnance towards this man, who showed an absence of delicacy, dignity, and honour. "or rather, he is mad!" she said. frederick artfully appealed to her to confide in him. ere long he knew all the details of her life. her parents were people in a humble rank in life at chartres. one day, arnoux, while sketching on the bank of the river (at this period he believed himself to be a painter), saw her leaving the church, and made her an offer of marriage. on account of his wealth, he was unhesitatingly accepted. besides, he was desperately in love with her. she added: "good heavens! he loves me still, after his fashion!" they spent the few months immediately after their marriage in travelling through italy. arnoux, in spite of his enthusiasm at the sight of the scenery and the masterpieces, did nothing but groan over the wine, and, to find some kind of amusement, organised picnics along with some english people. the profit which he had made by reselling some pictures tempted him to take up the fine arts as a commercial speculation. then, he became infatuated about pottery. just now other branches of commerce attracted him; and, as he had become more and more vulgarised, he contracted coarse and extravagant habits. it was not so much for his vices she had to reproach him as for his entire conduct. no change could be expected in him, and her unhappiness was irreparable. frederick declared that his own life in the same way was a failure. he was still a young man, however. why should he despair? and she gave him good advice: "work! and marry!" he answered her with bitter smiles; for in place of giving utterance to the real cause of his grief, he pretended that it was of a different character, a sublime feeling, and he assumed the part of an antony to some extent, the man accursed by fate--language which did not, however, change very materially the complexion of his thoughts. for certain men action becomes more difficult as desire becomes stronger. they are embarrassed by self-distrust, and terrified by the fear of making themselves disliked. besides, deep attachments resemble virtuous women: they are afraid of being discovered, and pass through life with downcast eyes. though he was now better acquainted with madame arnoux (for that very reason perhaps), he was still more faint-hearted than before. each morning he swore in his own mind that he would take a bold course. he was prevented from doing so by an unconquerable feeling of bashfulness; and he had no example to guide him, inasmuch as she was different from other women. from the force of his dreams, he had placed her outside the ordinary pale of humanity. at her side he felt himself of less importance in the world than the sprigs of silk that escaped from her scissors. then he thought of some monstrous and absurd devices, such as surprises at night, with narcotics and false keys--anything appearing easier to him than to face her disdain. besides, the children, the two servant-maids, and the relative position of the rooms caused insurmountable obstacles. so then he made up his mind to possess her himself alone, and to bring her to live with him far away in the depths of some solitude. he even asked himself what lake would be blue enough, what seashore would be delightful enough for her, whether it would be in spain, switzerland, or the east; and expressly fixing on days when she seemed more irritated than usual, he told her that it would be necessary for her to leave the house, to find out some ground to justify such a step, and that he saw no way out of it but a separation. however, for the sake of the children whom she loved, she would never resort to such an extreme course. so much virtue served to increase his respect for her. he spent each afternoon in recalling the visit he had paid the night before, and in longing for the evening to come in order that he might call again. when he did not dine with them, he posted himself about nine o'clock at the corner of the street, and, as soon as arnoux had slammed the hall-door behind him, frederick quickly ascended the two flights of stairs, and asked the servant-girl in an ingenuous fashion: "is monsieur in?" then he would exhibit surprise at finding that arnoux was gone out. the latter frequently came back unexpectedly. then frederick had to accompany him to the little café in the rue sainte-anne, which regimbart now frequented. the citizen began by giving vent to some fresh grievance which he had against the crown. then they would chat, pouring out friendly abuse on one another, for the earthenware manufacturer took regimbart for a thinker of a high order, and, vexed at seeing him neglecting so many chances of winning distinction, teased the citizen about his laziness. it seemed to regimbart that arnoux was a man full of heart and imagination, but decidedly of lax morals, and therefore he was quite unceremonious towards a personage he respected so little, refusing even to dine at his house on the ground that "such formality was a bore." sometimes, at the moment of parting, arnoux would be seized with hunger. he found it necessary to order an omelet or some roasted apples; and, as there was never anything to eat in the establishment, he sent out for something. they waited. regimbart did not leave, and ended by consenting in a grumbling fashion to have something himself. he was nevertheless gloomy, for he remained for hours seated before a half-filled glass. as providence did not regulate things in harmony with his ideas, he was becoming a hypochondriac, no longer cared even to read the newspapers, and at the mere mention of england's name began to bellow with rage. on one occasion, referring to a waiter who attended on him carelessly, he exclaimed: "have we not enough of insults from the foreigner?" except at these critical periods he remained taciturn, contemplating "an infallible stroke of business that would burst up the whole shop." whilst he was lost in these reflections, arnoux in a monotonous voice and with a slight look of intoxication, related incredible anecdotes in which he always shone himself, owing to his assurance; and frederick (this was, no doubt, due to some deep-rooted resemblances) felt more or less attracted towards him. he reproached himself for this weakness, believing that on the contrary he ought to hate this man. arnoux, in frederick's presence, complained of his wife's ill-temper, her obstinacy, her unjust accusations. she had not been like this in former days. "if i were you," said frederick, "i would make her an allowance and live alone." arnoux made no reply; and the next moment he began to sound her praises. she was good, devoted, intelligent, and virtuous; and, passing to her personal beauty, he made some revelations on the subject with the thoughtlessness of people who display their treasures at taverns. his equilibrium was disturbed by a catastrophe. he had been appointed one of the board of superintendence in a kaolin company. but placing reliance on everything that he was told, he had signed inaccurate reports and approved, without verification, of the annual inventories fraudulently prepared by the manager. the company had now failed, and arnoux, being legally responsible, was, along with the others who were liable under the guaranty, condemned to pay damages, which meant a loss to him of thirty thousand francs, not to speak of the costs of the judgment. frederick read the report of the case in a newspaper, and at once hurried off to the rue de paradis. he was ushered into madame's apartment. it was breakfast-time. a round table close to the fire was covered with bowls of _café au lait_. slippers trailed over the carpet, and clothes over the armchairs. arnoux was attired in trousers and a knitted vest, with his eyes bloodshot and his hair in disorder. little eugène was crying at the pain caused by an attack of mumps, while nibbling at a slice of bread and butter. his sister was eating quietly. madame arnoux, a little paler than usual, was attending on all three of them. "well," said arnoux, heaving a deep sigh, "you know all about it?" and, as frederick gave him a pitying look: "there, you see, i have been the victim of my own trustfulness!" then he relapsed into silence, and so great was his prostration, that he pushed his breakfast away from him. madame arnoux raised her eyes with a shrug of the shoulders. he passed his hand across his forehead. "after all, i am not guilty. i have nothing to reproach myself with. 'tis a misfortune. it will be got over--ay, and so much the worse, faith!" he took a bite of a cake, however, in obedience to his wife's entreaties. that evening, he wished that she should go and dine with him alone in a private room at the maison d'or. madame arnoux did not at all understand this emotional impulse, taking offence, in fact, at being treated as if she were a light woman. arnoux, on the contrary, meant it as a proof of affection. then, as he was beginning to feel dull, he went to pay the maréchale a visit in order to amuse himself. up to the present, he had been pardoned for many things owing to his reputation for good-fellowship. his lawsuit placed him amongst men of bad character. no one visited his house. frederick, however, considered that he was bound in honour to go there more frequently than ever. he hired a box at the italian opera, and brought them there with him every week. meanwhile, the pair had reached that period in unsuitable unions when an invincible lassitude springs from concessions which people get into the habit of making, and which render existence intolerable. madame arnoux restrained her pent-up feelings from breaking out; arnoux became gloomy; and frederick grew sad at witnessing the unhappiness of these two ill-fated beings. she had imposed on him the obligation, since she had given him her confidence, of making enquiries as to the state of her husband's affairs. but shame prevented him from doing so. it was painful to him to reflect that he coveted the wife of this man, at whose dinner-table he constantly sat. nevertheless, he continued his visits, excusing himself on the ground that he was bound to protect her, and that an occasion might present itself for being of service to her. eight days after the ball, he had paid a visit to m. dambreuse. the financier had offered him twenty shares in a coal-mining speculation; frederick did not go back there again. deslauriers had written letters to him, which he left unanswered. pellerin had invited him to go and see the portrait; he always put it off. he gave way, however, to cisy's persistent appeals to be introduced to rosanette. she received him very nicely, but without springing on his neck as she used to do formerly. his comrade was delighted at being received by a woman of easy virtue, and above all at having a chat with an actor. delmar was there when he called. a drama in which he appeared as a peasant lecturing louis xiv. and prophesying the events of ' had made him so conspicuous, that the same part was continually assigned to him; and now his function consisted of attacks on the monarchs of all nations. as an english brewer, he inveighed against charles i.; as a student at salamanca, he cursed philip ii.; or, as a sensitive father, he expressed indignation against the pompadour--this was the most beautiful bit of acting! the brats of the street used to wait at the door leading to the side-scenes in order to see him; and his biography, sold between the acts, described him as taking care of his aged mother, reading the bible, assisting the poor, in fact, under the aspect of a saint vincent de paul together with a dash of brutus and mirabeau. people spoke of him as "our delmar." he had a mission; he became another christ. all this had fascinated rosanette; and she had got rid of père oudry, without caring one jot about consequences, as she was not of a covetous disposition. arnoux, who knew her, had taken advantage of the state of affairs for some time past to spend very little money on her. m. roque had appeared on the scene, and all three of them carefully avoided anything like a candid explanation. then, fancying that she had got rid of the other solely on his account, arnoux increased her allowance, for she was living at a very expensive rate. she had even sold her cashmere in her anxiety to pay off her old debts, as she said; and he was continually giving her money, while she bewitched him and imposed upon him pitilessly. therefore, bills and stamped paper rained all over the house. frederick felt that a crisis was approaching. one day he called to see madame arnoux. she had gone out. monsieur was at work below stairs in the shop. in fact, arnoux, in the midst of his japanese vases, was trying to take in a newly-married pair who happened to be well-to-do people from the provinces. he talked about wheel-moulding and fine-moulding, about spotted porcelain and glazed porcelain; the others, not wishing to appear utterly ignorant of the subject, listened with nods of approbation, and made purchases. when the customers had gone out, he told frederick that he had that very morning been engaged in a little altercation with his wife. in order to obviate any remarks about expense, he had declared that the maréchale was no longer his mistress. "i even told her that she was yours." frederick was annoyed at this; but to utter reproaches might only betray him. he faltered: "ah! you were in the wrong--greatly in the wrong!" "what does that signify?" said arnoux. "where is the disgrace of passing for her lover? i am really so myself. would you not be flattered at being in that position?" had she spoken? was this a hint? frederick hastened to reply: "no! not at all! on the contrary!" "well, what then?" "yes, 'tis true; it makes no difference so far as that's concerned." arnoux next asked: "and why don't you call there oftener?" frederick promised that he would make it his business to go there again. "ah! i forgot! you ought, when talking about rosanette, to let out in some way to my wife that you are her lover. i can't suggest how you can best do it, but you'll find out that. i ask this of you as a special favour--eh?" the young man's only answer was an equivocal grimace. this calumny had undone him. he even called on her that evening, and swore that arnoux's accusation was false. "is that really so?" he appeared to be speaking sincerely, and, when she had taken a long breath of relief, she said to him: "i believe you," with a beautiful smile. then she hung down her head, and, without looking at him: "besides, nobody has any claim on you!" so then she had divined nothing; and she despised him, seeing that she did not think he could love her well enough to remain faithful to her! frederick, forgetting his overtures while with the other, looked on the permission accorded to him as an insult to himself. after this she suggested that he ought now and then to pay rosanette a visit, to get a little glimpse of what she was like. arnoux presently made his appearance, and, five minutes later, wished to carry him off to rosanette's abode. the situation was becoming intolerable. his attention was diverted by a letter from a notary, who was going to send him fifteen thousand francs the following day; and, in order to make up for his neglect of deslauriers, he went forthwith to tell him this good news. the advocate was lodging in the rue des trois-maries, on the fifth floor, over a courtyard. his study, a little tiled apartment, chilly, and with a grey paper on the walls, had as its principal decoration a gold medal, the prize awarded him on the occasion of taking out his degree as a doctor of laws, which was fixed in an ebony frame near the mirror. a mahogany bookcase enclosed under its glass front a hundred volumes, more or less. the writing-desk, covered with sheep-leather, occupied the centre of the apartment. four old armchairs upholstered in green velvet were placed in the corners; and a heap of shavings made a blaze in the fireplace, where there was always a bundle of sticks ready to be lighted as soon as he rang the bell. it was his consultation-hour, and the advocate had on a white cravat. the announcement as to the fifteen thousand francs (he had, no doubt, given up all hope of getting the amount) made him chuckle with delight. "that's right, old fellow, that's right--that's quite right!" he threw some wood into the fire, sat down again, and immediately began talking about the journal. the first thing to do was to get rid of hussonnet. "i'm quite tired of that idiot! as for officially professing opinions, my own notion is that the most equitable and forcible position is to have no opinions at all." frederick appeared astonished. "why, the thing is perfectly plain. it is time that politics should be dealt with scientifically. the old men of the eighteenth century began it when rousseau and the men of letters introduced into the political sphere philanthropy, poetry, and other fudge, to the great delight of the catholics--a natural alliance, however, since the modern reformers (i can prove it) all believe in revelation. but, if you sing high masses for poland, if, in place of the god of the dominicans, who was an executioner, you take the god of the romanticists, who is an upholsterer, if, in fact, you have not a wider conception of the absolute than your ancestors, monarchy will penetrate underneath your republican forms, and your red cap will never be more than the headpiece of a priest. the only difference will be that the cell system will take the place of torture, the outrageous treatment of religion that of sacrilege, and the european concert that of the holy alliance; and in this beautiful order which we admire, composed of the wreckage of the followers of louis xiv., the last remains of the voltaireans, with some imperial white-wash on top, and some fragments of the british constitution, you will see the municipal councils trying to give annoyance to the mayor, the general councils to their prefect, the chambers to the king, the press to power, and the administration to everybody. but simple-minded people get enraptured about the civil code, a work fabricated--let them say what they like--in a mean and tyrannical spirit, for the legislator, in place of doing his duty to the state, which simply means to observe customs in a regular fashion, claims to model society like another lycurgus. why does the law impede fathers of families with regard to the making of wills? why does it place shackles on the compulsory sale of real estate? why does it punish as a misdemeanour vagrancy, which ought not even to be regarded as a technical contravention of the code. and there are other things! i know all about them! and so i am going to write a little novel, entitled 'the history of the idea of justice,' which will be amusing. but i am infernally thirsty! and you?" he leaned out through the window, and called to the porter to go and fetch them two glasses of grog from the public-house over the way. "to sum up, i see three parties--no! three groups--in none of which do i take the slightest interest: those who have, those who have nothing, and those who are trying to have. but all agree in their idiotic worship of authority! for example, mably recommends that the philosophers should be prevented from publishing their doctrines; m. wronsky, the geometrician, describes the censorship as the 'critical expression of speculative spontaneity'; père enfantin gives his blessing to the hapsburgs for having passed a hand across the alps in order to keep italy down; pierre leroux wishes people to be compelled to listen to an orator; and louis blanc inclines towards a state religion--so much rage for government have these vassals whom we call the people! nevertheless, there is not a single legitimate government, in spite of their sempiternal principles. but 'principle' signifies 'origin.' it is always necessary to go back to a revolution, to an act of violence, to a transitory fact. thus, our principle is the national sovereignty embodied in the parliamentary form, though the parliament does not assent to this! but in what way could the sovereignty of the people be more sacred than the divine right? they are both fictions. enough of metaphysics; no more phantoms! there is no need of dogmas in order to get the streets swept! it will be said that i am turning society upside down. well, after all, where would be the harm of that? it is, indeed, a nice thing--this society of yours." frederick could have given many answers. but, seeing that his theories were far less advanced than those of sénécal, he was full of indulgence towards deslauriers. he contented himself with arguing that such a system would make them generally hated. "on the contrary, as we should have given to each party a pledge of hatred against his neighbour, all will reckon on us. you are about to enter into it yourself, and to furnish us with some transcendent criticism!" it was necessary to attack accepted ideas--the academy, the normal school, the consérvatoire, the comédie française, everything that resembled an institution. it was in that way that they would give uniformity to the doctrines taught in their review. then, as soon as it had been thoroughly well-established, the journal would suddenly be converted into a daily publication. thereupon they could find fault with individuals. "and they will respect us, you may be sure!" deslauriers touched upon that old dream of his--the position of editor-in-chief, so that he might have the unutterable happiness of directing others, of entirely cutting down their articles, of ordering them to be written or declining them. his eyes twinkled under his goggles; he got into a state of excitement, and drank a few glasses of brandy, one after the other, in an automatic fashion. "you'll have to stand me a dinner once a week. that's indispensable, even though you should have to squander half your income on it. people would feel pleasure in going to it; it would be a centre for the others, a lever for yourself; and by manipulating public opinion at its two ends--literature and politics--you will see how, before six months have passed, we shall occupy the first rank in paris." frederick, as he listened to deslauriers, experienced a sensation of rejuvenescence, like a man who, after having been confined in a room for a long time, is suddenly transported into the open air. the enthusiasm of his friend had a contagious effect upon him. "yes, i have been an idler, an imbecile--you are right!" "all in good time," said deslauriers. "i have found my frederick again!" and, holding up his jaw with closed fingers: "ah! you have made me suffer! never mind, i am fond of you all the same." they stood there gazing into each other's faces, both deeply affected, and were on the point of embracing each other. a woman's cap appeared on the threshold of the anteroom. "what brings you here?" said deslauriers. it was mademoiselle clémence, his mistress. she replied that, as she happened to be passing, she could not resist the desire to go in to see him, and in order that they might have a little repast together, she had brought some cakes, which she laid on the table. "take care of my papers!" said the advocate, sharply. "besides, this is the third time that i have forbidden you to come at my consultation-hours." she wished to embrace him. "all right! go away! cut your stick!" he repelled her; she heaved a great sigh. "ah! you are plaguing me again!" "'tis because i love you!" "i don't ask you to love me, but to oblige me!" this harsh remark stopped clémence's tears. she took up her station before the window, and remained there motionless, with her forehead against the pane. her attitude and her silence had an irritating effect on deslauriers. "when you have finished, you will order your carriage, will you not?" she turned round with a start. "you are sending me away?" "exactly." she fixed on him her large blue eyes, no doubt as a last appeal, then drew the two ends of her tartan across each other, lingered for a minute or two, and went away. "you ought to call her back," said frederick. "come, now!" and, as he wished to go out, deslauriers went into the kitchen, which also served as his dressing-room. on the stone floor, beside a pair of boots, were to be seen the remains of a meagre breakfast, and a mattress with a coverlid was rolled up on the floor in a corner. "this will show you," said he, "that i receive few marchionesses. 'tis easy to get enough of them, ay, faith! and some others, too! those who cost nothing take up your time--'tis money under another form. now, i'm not rich! and then they are all so silly, so silly! can you chat with a woman yourself?" as they parted, at the corner of the pont neuf, deslauriers said: "it's agreed, then; you'll bring the thing to me to-morrow as soon as you have it!" "agreed!" said frederick. when he awoke next morning, he received through the post a cheque on the bank for fifteen thousand francs. this scrap of paper represented to him fifteen big bags of money; and he said to himself that, with such a sum he could, first of all, keep his carriage for three years instead of selling it, as he would soon be forced to do, or buy for himself two beautiful damaskeened pieces of armour, which he had seen on the quai voltaire, then a quantity of other things, pictures, books and what a quantity of bouquets of flowers, presents for madame arnoux! anything, in short, would have been preferable to risking losing everything in that journal! deslauriers seemed to him presumptuous, his insensibility on the night before having chilled frederick's affection for him; and the young man was indulging in these feelings of regret, when he was quite surprised by the sudden appearance of arnoux, who sat down heavily on the side of the bed, like a man overwhelmed with trouble. "what is the matter now?" "i am ruined!" he had to deposit that very day at the office of maître beaumont, notary, in the rue saint-anne, eighteen thousand francs lent him by one vanneroy. "'tis an unaccountable disaster. i have, however, given him a mortgage, which ought to keep him quiet. but he threatens me with a writ if it is not paid this afternoon promptly." "and what next?" "oh! the next step is simple enough; he will take possession of my real estate. once the thing is publicly announced, it means ruin to me--that's all! ah! if i could find anyone to advance me this cursed sum, he might take vanneroy's place, and i should be saved! you don't chance to have it yourself?" the cheque had remained on the night-table near a book. frederick took up a volume, and placed it on the cheque, while he replied: "good heavens, my dear friend, no!" but it was painful to him to say "no" to arnoux. "what, don't you know anyone who would----?" "nobody! and to think that in eight days i should be getting in money! there is owing to me probably fifty thousand francs at the end of the month!" "couldn't you ask some of the persons that owe you money to make you an advance?" "ah! well, so i did!" "but have you any bills or promissory notes?" "not one!" "what is to be done?" said frederick. "that's what i'm asking myself," said arnoux. "'tisn't for myself, my god! but for my children and my poor wife!" then, letting each phrase fall from his lips in a broken fashion: "in fact--i could rough it--i could pack off all i have--and go and seek my fortune--i don't know where!" "impossible!" exclaimed frederick. arnoux replied with an air of calmness: "how do you think i could live in paris now?" there was a long silence. frederick broke it by saying: "when could you pay back this money?" not that he had it; quite the contrary! but there was nothing to prevent him from seeing some friends, and making an application to them. and he rang for his servant to get himself dressed. arnoux thanked him. "the amount you want is eighteen thousand francs--isn't it?" "oh! i could manage easily with sixteen thousand! for i could make two thousand five hundred out of it, or get three thousand on my silver plate, if vanneroy meanwhile would give me till to-morrow; and, i repeat to you, you may inform the lender, give him a solemn undertaking, that in eight days, perhaps even in five or six, the money will be reimbursed. besides, the mortgage will be security for it. so there is no risk, you understand?" frederick assured him that he thoroughly understood the state of affairs, and added that he was going out immediately. he would be sure on his return to bestow hearty maledictions on deslauriers, for he wished to keep his word, and in the meantime, to oblige arnoux. "suppose i applied to m. dambreuse? but on what pretext could i ask for money? 'tis i, on the contrary, that should give him some for the shares i took in his coal-mining company. ah! let him go hang himself--his shares! i am really not liable for them!" and frederick applauded himself for his own independence, as if he had refused to do some service for m. dambreuse. "ah, well," said he to himself afterwards, "since i'm going to meet with a loss in this way--for with fifteen thousand francs i might gain a hundred thousand! such things sometimes happen on the bourse--well, then, since i am breaking my promise to one of them, am i not free? besides, when deslauriers might wait? no, no; that's wrong; let us go there." he looked at his watch. "ah! there's no hurry. the bank does not close till five o'clock." and, at half-past four, when he had cashed the cheque: "'tis useless now; i should not find him in. i'll go this evening." thus giving himself the opportunity of changing his mind, for there always remain in the conscience some of those sophistries which we pour into it ourselves. it preserves the after-taste of them, like some unwholesome liquor. he walked along the boulevards, and dined alone at the restaurant. then he listened to one act of a play at the vaudeville, in order to divert his thoughts. but his bank-notes caused him as much embarrassment as if he had stolen them. he would not have been very sorry if he had lost them. when he reached home again he found a letter containing these words: "what news? my wife joins me, dear friend, in the hope, etc.--yours." and then there was a flourish after his signature. "his wife! she appeals to me!" at the same moment arnoux appeared, to have an answer as to whether he had been able to obtain the sum so sorely needed. "wait a moment; here it is," said frederick. and, twenty-four hours later, he gave this reply to deslauriers: "i have no money." the advocate came back three days, one after the other, and urged frederick to write to the notary. he even offered to take a trip to havre in connection with the matter. at the end of the week, frederick timidly asked the worthy arnoux for his fifteen thousand francs. arnoux put it off till the following day, and then till the day after. frederick ventured out late at night, fearing lest deslauriers might come on him by surprise. one evening, somebody knocked against him at the corner of the madeleine. it was he. and deslauriers accompanied frederick as far as the door of a house in the faubourg poissonnière. "wait for me!" he waited. at last, after three quarters of an hour, frederick came out, accompanied by arnoux, and made signs to him to have patience a little longer. the earthenware merchant and his companion went up the rue de hauteville arm-in-arm, and then turned down the rue de chabrol. the night was dark, with gusts of tepid wind. arnoux walked on slowly, talking about the galleries of commerce--a succession of covered passages which would have led from the boulevard saint-denis to the châtelet, a marvellous speculation, into which he was very anxious to enter; and he stopped from time to time in order to have a look at the grisettes' faces in front of the shop-windows, and then, raising his head again, resumed the thread of his discourse. frederick heard deslauriers' steps behind him like reproaches, like blows falling on his conscience. but he did not venture to claim his money, through a feeling of bashfulness, and also through a fear that it would be fruitless. the other was drawing nearer. he made up his mind to ask. arnoux, in a very flippant tone, said that, as he had not got in his outstanding debts, he was really unable to pay back the fifteen thousand francs. "you have no need of money, i fancy?" at that moment deslauriers came up to frederick, and, taking him aside: "be honest. have you got the amount? yes or no?" "well, then, no," said frederick; "i've lost it." "ah! and in what way?" "at play." deslauriers, without saying a single word in reply, made a very low bow, and went away. arnoux had taken advantage of the opportunity to light a cigar in a tobacconist's shop. when he came back, he wanted to know from frederick "who was that young man?" "oh! nobody--a friend." then, three minutes later, in front of rosanette's door: "come on up," said arnoux; "she'll be glad to see you. what a savage you are just now!" a gas-lamp, which was directly opposite, threw its light on him; and, with his cigar between his white teeth and his air of contentment, there was something intolerable about him. "ha! now that i think of it, my notary has been at your place this morning about that mortgage-registry business. 'tis my wife reminded me about it." "a wife with brains!" returned frederick automatically. "i believe you." and once more arnoux began to sing his wife's praises. there was no one like her for spirit, tenderness, and thrift; he added in a low tone, rolling his eyes about: "and a woman with so many charms, too!" "good-bye!" said frederick. arnoux made a step closer to him. "hold on! why are you going?" and, with his hand half-stretched out towards frederick, he stared at the young man, quite abashed by the look of anger in his face. frederick repeated in a dry tone, "good-bye!" he hurried down the rue de bréda like a stone rolling headlong, raging against arnoux, swearing in his own mind that he would never see the man again, nor her either, so broken-hearted and desolate did he feel. in place of the rupture which he had anticipated, here was the other, on the contrary, exhibiting towards her a most perfect attachment from the ends of her hair to the inmost depths of her soul. frederick was exasperated by the vulgarity of this man. everything, then, belonged to him! he would meet arnoux again at his mistress's door; and the mortification of a rupture would be added to rage at his own powerlessness. besides, he felt humiliated by the other's display of integrity in offering him guaranties for his money. he would have liked to strangle him, and over the pangs of disappointment floated in his conscience, like a fog, the sense of his baseness towards his friend. rising tears nearly suffocated him. deslauriers descended the rue des martyrs, swearing aloud with indignation; for his project, like an obelisk that has fallen, now assumed extraordinary proportions. he considered himself robbed, as if he had suffered a great loss. his friendship for frederick was dead, and he experienced a feeling of joy at it--it was a sort of compensation to him! a hatred of all rich people took possession of him. he leaned towards sénécal's opinions, and resolved to make every effort to propagate them. all this time, arnoux was comfortably seated in an easy-chair near the fire, sipping his cup of tea, with the maréchale on his knees. frederick did not go back there; and, in order to distract his attention from his disastrous passion, he determined to write a "history of the renaissance." he piled up confusedly on his table the humanists, the philosophers, and the poets, and he went to inspect some engravings of mark antony, and tried to understand machiavelli. gradually, the serenity of intellectual work had a soothing effect upon him. while his mind was steeped in the personality of others, he lost sight of his own--which is the only way, perhaps, of getting rid of suffering. one day, while he was quietly taking notes, the door opened, and the man-servant announced madame arnoux. it was she, indeed! and alone? why, no! for she was holding little eugène by the hand, followed by a nurse in a white apron. she sat down, and after a preliminary cough: "it is a long time since you came to see us." as frederick could think of no excuse at the moment, she added: "it was delicacy on your part!" he asked in return: "delicacy about what?" "about what you have done for arnoux!" said she. frederick made a significant gesture. "what do i care about him, indeed? it was for your sake i did it!" she sent off the child to play with his nurse in the drawing-room. two or three words passed between them as to their state of health; then the conversation hung fire. she wore a brown silk gown, which had the colour of spanish wine, with a paletot of black velvet bordered with sable. this fur made him yearn to pass his hand over it; and her head-bands, so long and so exquisitely smooth, seemed to draw his lips towards them. but he was agitated by emotion, and, turning his eyes towards the door: "'tis rather warm here!" frederick understood what her discreet glance meant. "ah! excuse me! the two leaves of the door are merely drawn together." "yes, that's true!" and she smiled, as much as to say: "i'm not a bit afraid!" he asked her presently what was the object of her visit. "my husband," she replied with an effort, "has urged me to call on you, not venturing to take this step himself!" "and why?" "you know m. dambreuse, don't you?" "yes, slightly." "ah! slightly." she relapsed into silence. "no matter! finish what you were going to say." thereupon she told him that, two days before, arnoux had found himself unable to meet four bills of a thousand francs, made payable at the banker's order and with his signature attached to them. she felt sorry for having compromised her children's fortune. but anything was preferable to dishonour; and, if m. dambreuse stopped the proceedings, they would certainly pay him soon, for she was going to sell a little house which she had at chartres. "poor woman!" murmured frederick. "i will go. rely on me!" "thanks!" and she arose to go. "oh! there is nothing to hurry you yet." she remained standing, examining the trophy of mongolian arrows suspended from the ceiling, the bookcase, the bindings, all the utensils for writing. she lifted up the bronze bowl which held his pens. her feet rested on different portions of the carpet. she had visited frederick several times before, but always accompanied by arnoux. they were now alone together--alone in his own house. it was an extraordinary event--almost a successful issue of his love. she wished to see his little garden. he offered her his arm to show her his property--thirty feet of ground enclosed by some houses, adorned with shrubs at the corners and flower-borders in the middle. the early days of april had arrived. the leaves of the lilacs were already showing their borders of green. a breath of pure air was diffused around, and the little birds chirped, their song alternating with the distant sound that came from a coachmaker's forge. frederick went to look for a fire-shovel; and, while they walked on side by side, the child kept making sand-pies in the walk. madame arnoux did not believe that, as he grew older, he would have a great imagination; but he had a winning disposition. his sister, on the other hand, possessed a caustic humour that sometimes wounded her. "that will change," said frederick. "we must never despair." she returned: "we must never despair!" this automatic repetition of the phrase he had used appeared to him a sort of encouragement; he plucked a rose, the only one in the garden. "do you remember a certain bouquet of roses one evening, in a carriage?" she coloured a little; and, with an air of bantering pity: "ah, i was very young then!" "and this one," went on frederick, in a low tone, "will it be the same way with it?" she replied, while turning about the stem between her fingers, like the thread of a spindle: "no, i will preserve it." she called over the nurse, who took the child in her arms; then, on the threshold of the door in the street, madame arnoux inhaled the odour of the flower, leaning her head on her shoulder with a look as sweet as a kiss. when he had gone up to his study, he gazed at the armchair in which she had sat, and every object which she had touched. some portion of her was diffused around him. the caress of her presence lingered there still. "so, then, she came here," said he to himself. and his soul was bathed in the waves of infinite tenderness. next morning, at eleven o'clock, he presented himself at m. dambreuse's house. he was received in the dining-room. the banker was seated opposite his wife at breakfast. beside her sat his niece, and at the other side of the table appeared the governess, an english woman, strongly pitted with small-pox. m. dambreuse invited his young friend to take his place among them, and when he declined: "what can i do for you? i am listening to whatever you have to say to me." frederick confessed, while affecting indifference, that he had come to make a request in behalf of one arnoux. "ha! ha! the ex-picture-dealer," said the banker, with a noiseless laugh which exposed his gums. "oudry formerly gave security for him; he has given a lot of trouble." and he proceeded to read the letters and newspapers which lay close beside him on the table. two servants attended without making the least noise on the floor; and the loftiness of the apartment, which had three portières of richest tapestry, and two white marble fountains, the polish of the chafing-dish, the arrangement of the side-dishes, and even the rigid folds of the napkins, all this sumptuous comfort impressed frederick's mind with the contrast between it and another breakfast at the arnouxs' house. he did not take the liberty of interrupting m. dambreuse. madame noticed his embarrassment. "do you occasionally see our friend martinon?" "he will be here this evening," said the young girl in a lively tone. "ha! so you know him?" said her aunt, fixing on her a freezing look. at that moment one of the men-servants, bending forward, whispered in her ear. "your dressmaker, mademoiselle--miss john!" and the governess, in obedience to this summons, left the room along with her pupil. m. dambreuse, annoyed at the disarrangement of the chairs by this movement, asked what was the matter. "'tis madame regimbart." "wait a moment! regimbart! i know that name. i have come across his signature." frederick at length broached the question. arnoux deserved some consideration; he was even going, for the sole purpose of fulfilling his engagements, to sell a house belonging to his wife. "she is considered very pretty," said madame dambreuse. the banker added, with a display of good-nature: "are you on friendly terms with them--on intimate terms?" frederick, without giving an explicit reply, said that he would be very much obliged to him if he considered the matter. "well, since it pleases you, be it so; we will wait. i have some time to spare yet; suppose we go down to my office. would you mind?" they had finished breakfast. madame dambreuse bowed slightly towards frederick, smiling in a singular fashion, with a mixture of politeness and irony. frederick had no time to reflect about it, for m. dambreuse, as soon as they were alone: "you did not come to get your shares?" and, without permitting him to make any excuses: "well! well! 'tis right that you should know a little more about the business." he offered frederick a cigarette, and began his statement. the general union of french coal mines had been constituted. all that they were waiting for was the order for its incorporation. the mere fact of the amalgamation had diminished the cost of superintendence, and of manual labour, and increased the profits. besides, the company had conceived a new idea, which was to interest the workmen in its undertaking. it would erect houses for them, healthful dwellings; finally, it would constitute itself the purveyor of its _employés_, and would have everything supplied to them at net prices. "and they will be the gainers by it, monsieur: there's true progress! that's the way to reply effectively to certain republican brawlings. we have on our board"--he showed the prospectus--"a peer of france, a scholar who is a member of the institute, a retired field-officer of genius. such elements reassure the timid capitalists, and appeal to intelligent capitalists!" the company would have in its favour the sanction of the state, then the railways, the steam service, the metallurgical establishments, the gas companies, and ordinary households. "thus we heat, we light, we penetrate to the very hearth of the humblest home. but how, you will say to me, can we be sure of selling? by the aid of protective laws, dear monsieur, and we shall get them!--that is a matter that concerns us! for my part, however, i am a downright prohibitionist! the country before anything!" he had been appointed a director; but he had no time to occupy himself with certain details, amongst other things with the editing of their publications. "i find myself rather muddled with my authors. i have forgotten my greek. i should want some one who could put my ideas into shape." and suddenly: "will you be the man to perform those duties, with the title of general secretary?" frederick did not know what reply to make. "well, what is there to prevent you?" his functions would be confined to writing a report every year for the shareholders. he would find himself day after day in communication with the most notable men in paris. representing the company with the workmen, he would ere long be worshipped by them as a natural consequence, and by this means he would be able, later, to push him into the general council, and into the position of a deputy. frederick's ears tingled. whence came this goodwill? he got confused in returning thanks. but it was not necessary, the banker said, that he should be dependent on anyone. the best course was to take some shares, "a splendid investment besides, for your capital guarantees your position, as your position does your capital." "about how much should it amount to?" said frederick. "oh, well! whatever you please--from forty to sixty thousand francs, i suppose." this sum was so trifling in m. dambreuse's eyes, and his authority was so great, that the young man resolved immediately to sell a farm. he accepted the offer. m. dambreuse was to select one of his disengaged days for an appointment in order to finish their arrangements. "so i can say to jacques arnoux----?" "anything you like--the poor chap--anything you like!" frederick wrote to the arnouxs' to make their minds easy, and he despatched the letter by a man-servant, who brought back the letter: "all right!" his action in the matter deserved better recognition. he expected a visit, or, at least, a letter. he did not receive a visit, and no letter arrived. was it forgetfulness on their part, or was it intentional? since madame arnoux had come once, what was to prevent her from coming again? the species of confidence, of avowal, of which she had made him the recipient on the occasion, was nothing better, then, than a manoeuvre which she had executed through interested motives. "are they playing on me? and is she an accomplice of her husband?" a sort of shame, in spite of his desire, prevented him from returning to their house. one morning (three weeks after their interview), m. dambreuse wrote to him, saying that he expected him the same day in an hour's time. on the way, the thought of arnoux oppressed him once more, and, not having been able to discover any reason for his conduct, he was seized with a feeling of wretchedness, a melancholy presentiment. in order to shake it off, he hailed a cab, and drove to the rue de paradis. arnoux was away travelling. "and madame?" "in the country, at the works." "when is monsieur coming back?" "to-morrow, without fail." he would find her alone; this was the opportune moment. something imperious seemed to cry out in the depths of his consciousness: "go, then, and meet her!" but m. dambreuse? "ah! well, so much the worse. i'll say that i was ill." he rushed to the railway-station, and, as soon as he was in the carriage: "perhaps i have done wrong. pshaw! what does it matter?" green plains stretched out to the right and to the left. the train rolled on. the little station-houses glistened like stage-scenery, and the smoke of the locomotive kept constantly sending forth on the same side its big fleecy masses, which danced for a little while on the grass, and were then dispersed. frederick, who sat alone in his compartment, gazed at these objects through sheer weariness, lost in that languor which is produced by the very excess of impatience. but cranes and warehouses presently appeared. they had reached creil. the town, built on the slopes of two low-lying hills (the first of which was bare, and the second crowned by a wood), with its church-tower, its houses of unequal size, and its stone bridge, seemed to him to present an aspect of mingled gaiety, reserve, and propriety. a long flat barge descended to the edge of the water, which leaped up under the lash of the wind. fowl perched on the straw at the foot of the crucifix erected on the spot; a woman passed with some wet linen on her head. after crossing the bridge, he found himself in an isle, where he beheld on his right the ruins of an abbey. a mill with its wheels revolving barred up the entire width of the second arm of the oise, over which the manufactory projected. frederick was greatly surprised by the imposing character of this structure. he felt more respect for arnoux on account of it. three paces further on, he turned up an alley, which had a grating at its lower end. he went in. the door-keeper called him back, exclaiming: "have you a permit?" "for what purpose?" "for the purpose of visiting the establishment." frederick said in a rather curt tone that he had come to see m. arnoux. "who is m. arnoux?" "why, the chief, the master, the proprietor, in fact!" "no, monsieur! these are mm. leboeuf and milliet's works!" the good woman was surely joking! some workmen arrived; he came up and spoke to two or three of them. they gave the same response. frederick left the premises, staggering like a drunken man; and he had such a look of perplexity, that on the pont de la boucherie an inhabitant of the town, who was smoking his pipe, asked whether he wanted to find out anything. this man knew where arnoux's manufactory was. it was situated at montataire. frederick asked whether a vehicle was to be got. he was told that the only place where he could find one was at the station. he went back there. a shaky-looking calash, to which was yoked an old horse, with torn harness hanging over the shafts, stood all alone in front of the luggage office. an urchin who was looking on offered to go and find père pilon. in ten minutes' time he came back, and announced that père pilon was at his breakfast. frederick, unable to stand this any longer, walked away. but the gates of the thoroughfare across the line were closed. he would have to wait till two trains had passed. at last, he made a dash into the open country. the monotonous greenery made it look like the cover of an immense billiard-table. the scoriæ of iron were ranged on both sides of the track, like heaps of stones. a little further on, some factory chimneys were smoking close beside each other. in front of him, on a round hillock, stood a little turreted château, with the quadrangular belfry of a church. at a lower level, long walls formed irregular lines past the trees; and, further down again, the houses of the village spread out. they had only a single story, with staircases consisting of three steps made of uncemented blocks. every now and then the bell in front of a grocery-shop could be heard tinkling. heavy steps sank into the black mire, and a light shower was falling, which cut the pale sky with a thousand hatchings. frederick pursued his way along the middle of the street. then, he saw on his left, at the opening of a pathway, a large wooden arch, whereon was traced, in letters of gold, the word "faïences." it was not without an object that jacques arnoux had selected the vicinity of creil. by placing his works as close as possible to the other works (which had long enjoyed a high reputation), he had created a certain confusion in the public mind, with a favourable result so far as his own interests were concerned. the main body of the building rested on the same bank of a river which flows through the meadowlands. the master's house, surrounded by a garden, could be distinguished by the steps in front of it, adorned with four vases, in which cactuses were bristling. heaps of white clay were drying under sheds. there were others in the open air; and in the midst of the yard stood sénécal with his everlasting blue paletot lined with red. the ex-tutor extended towards frederick his cold hand. "you've come to see the master? he's not there." frederick, nonplussed, replied in a stupefied fashion: "i knew it." but the next moment, correcting himself: "'tis about a matter that concerns madame arnoux. can she receive me?" "ha! i have not seen her for the last three days," said sénécal. and he broke into a long string of complaints. when he accepted the post of manager, he understood that he would have been allowed to reside in paris, and not be forced to bury himself in this country district, far from his friends, deprived of newspapers. no matter! he had overlooked all that. but arnoux appeared to pay no heed to his merits. he was, moreover, shallow and retrograde--no one could be more ignorant. in place of seeking for artistic improvements, it would have been better to introduce firewood instead of coal and gas. the shop-keeping spirit _thrust itself in_--sénécal laid stress on the last words. in short, he disliked his present occupation, and he all but appealed to frederick to say a word in his behalf in order that he might get an increase of salary. "make your mind easy," said the other. he met nobody on the staircase. on the first floor, he pushed his way head-foremost into an empty room. it was the drawing-room. he called out at the top of his voice. there was no reply. no doubt, the cook had gone out, and so had the housemaid. at length, having reached the second floor, he pushed a door open. madame arnoux was alone in this room, in front of a press with a mirror attached. the belt of her dressing-gown hung down her hips; one entire half of her hair fell in a dark wave over her right shoulder; and she had raised both arms in order to hold up her chignon with one hand and to put a pin through it with the other. she broke into an exclamation and disappeared. then, she came back again properly dressed. her waist, her eyes, the rustle of her dress, her entire appearance, charmed him. frederick felt it hard to keep from covering her with kisses. "i beg your pardon," said she, "but i could not----" he had the boldness to interrupt her with these words: "nevertheless--you looked very nice--just now." she probably thought this compliment a little coarse, for her cheeks reddened. he was afraid that he might have offended her. she went on: "what lucky chance has brought you here?" he did not know what reply to make; and, after a slight chuckle, which gave him time for reflection: "if i told you, would you believe me?" "why not?" frederick informed her that he had had a frightful dream a few nights before. "i dreamt that you were seriously ill--near dying." "oh! my husband and i are never ill." "i have dreamt only of you," said he. she gazed at him calmly: "dreams are not always realised." frederick stammered, sought to find appropriate words to express himself in, and then plunged into a flowing period about the affinity of souls. there existed a force which could, through the intervening bounds of space, bring two persons into communication with each other, make known to each the other's feelings, and enable them to reunite. she listened to him with downcast face, while she smiled with that beautiful smile of hers. he watched her out of the corner of his eye with delight, and poured out his love all the more freely through the easy channel of a commonplace remark. she offered to show him the works; and, as she persisted, he made no objection. in order to divert his attention with something of an amusing nature, she showed him the species of museum that decorated the staircase. the specimens, hung up against the wall or laid on shelves, bore witness to the efforts and the successive fads of arnoux. after seeking vainly for the red of chinese copper, he had wished to manufacture majolicas, faiënce, etruscan and oriental ware, and had, in fact, attempted all the improvements which were realised at a later period. so it was that one could observe in the series big vases covered with figures of mandarins, porringers of shot reddish-brown, pots adorned with arabian inscriptions, drinking-vessels in the style of the renaissance, and large plates on which two personages were outlined as it were on bloodstone, in a delicate, aërial fashion. he now made letters for signboards and wine-labels; but his intelligence was not high enough to attain to art, nor commonplace enough to look merely to profit, so that, without satisfying anyone, he had ruined himself. they were both taking a view of these things when mademoiselle marthe passed. "so, then, you did not recognise him?" said her mother to her. "yes, indeed," she replied, bowing to him, while her clear and sceptical glance--the glance of a virgin--seemed to say in a whisper: "what are you coming here for?" and she rushed up the steps with her head slightly bent over her shoulder. madame arnoux led frederick into the yard attached to the works, and then explained to him in a grave tone how different clays were ground, cleaned, and sifted. "the most important thing is the preparation of pastes." and she introduced him into a hall filled with vats, in which a vertical axis with horizontal arms kept turning. frederick felt some regret that he had not flatly declined her offer a little while before. "these things are merely the slobberings," said she. he thought the word grotesque, and, in a measure, unbecoming on her lips. wide straps ran from one end of the ceiling to the other, so as to roll themselves round the drums, and everything kept moving continuously with a provoking mathematical regularity. they left the spot, and passed close to a ruined hut, which had formerly been used as a repository for gardening implements. "it is no longer of any use," said madame arnoux. he replied in a tremulous voice: "happiness may have been associated with it!" the clacking of the fire-pump drowned his words, and they entered the workshop where rough drafts were made. some men, seated at a narrow table, placed each in front of himself on a revolving disc a piece of paste. then each man with his left hand scooped out the insides of his own piece while smoothing its surface with the right; and vases could be seen bursting into shape like blossoming flowers. madame arnoux had the moulds for more difficult works shown to him. in another portion of the building, the threads, the necks, and the projecting lines were being formed. on the floor above, they removed the seams, and stopped up with plaster the little holes that had been left by the preceding operations. at every opening in the walls, in corners, in the middle of the corridor, everywhere, earthenware vessels had been placed side by side. frederick began to feel bored. "perhaps these things are tiresome to you?" said she. fearing lest it might be necessary to terminate his visit there and then, he affected, on the contrary, a tone of great enthusiasm. he even expressed regret at not having devoted himself to this branch of industry. she appeared surprised. "certainly! i would have been able to live near you." and as he tried to catch her eye, madame arnoux, in order to avoid him, took off a bracket little balls of paste, which had come from abortive readjustments, flattened them out into a thin cake, and pressed her hand over them. "might i carry these away with me?" said frederick. "good heavens! are you so childish?" he was about to reply when in came sénécal. the sub-manager, on the threshold, had noticed a breach of the rules. the workshops should be swept every week. this was saturday, and, as the workmen had not done what was required, sénécal announced that they would have to remain an hour longer. "so much the worse for you!" they stooped over the work assigned to them unmurmuringly, but their rage could be divined by the hoarse sounds which came from their chests. they were, moreover, very easy to manage, having all been dismissed from the big manufactory. the republican had shown himself a hard taskmaster to them. a mere theorist, he regarded the people only in the mass, and exhibited an utter absence of pity for individuals. frederick, annoyed by his presence, asked madame arnoux in a low tone whether they could have an opportunity of seeing the kilns. they descended to the ground-floor; and she was just explaining the use of caskets, when sénécal, who had followed close behind, placed himself between them. he continued the explanation of his own motion, expatiated on the various kinds of combustibles, the process of placing in the kiln, the pyroscopes, the cylindrical furnaces; the instruments for rounding, the lustres, and the metals, making a prodigious display of chemical terms, such as "chloride," "sulphuret," "borax," and "carbonate." frederick did not understand a single one of them, and kept turning round every minute towards madame arnoux. "you are not listening," said she. "m. sénécal, however, is very clear. he knows all these things much better than i." the mathematician, flattered by this eulogy, proposed to show the way in which colours were laid on. frederick gave madame arnoux an anxious, questioning look. she remained impassive, not caring to be alone with him, very probably, and yet unwilling to leave him. he offered her his arm. "no--many thanks! the staircase is too narrow!" and, when they had reached the top, sénécal opened the door of an apartment filled with women. they were handling brushes, phials, shells, and plates of glass. along the cornice, close to the wall, extended boards with figures engraved on them; scraps of thin paper floated about, and a melting-stove sent forth fumes that made the temperature oppressive, while there mingled with it the odour of turpentine. the workwomen had nearly all sordid costumes. it was noticeable, however, that one of them wore a madras handkerchief, and long earrings. of slight frame, and, at the same time, plump, she had large black eyes and the fleshy lips of a negress. her ample bosom projected from under her chemise, which was fastened round her waist by the string of her petticoat; and, with one elbow on the board of the work-table and the other arm hanging down, she gazed vaguely at the open country, a long distance away. beside her were a bottle of wine and some pork chops. the regulations prohibited eating in the workshops, a rule intended to secure cleanliness at work and to keep the hands in a healthy condition. sénécal, through a sense of duty or a longing to exercise despotic authority, shouted out to her ere he had come near her, while pointing towards a framed placard: "i say, you girl from bordeaux over there! read out for me article !" "well, what then?" "what then, mademoiselle? you'll have to pay a fine of three francs." she looked him straight in the face in an impudent fashion. "what does that signify to me? the master will take off your fine when he comes back! i laugh at you, my good man!" sénécal, who was walking with his hands behind his back, like an usher in the study-room, contented himself with smiling. "article , insubordination, ten francs!" the girl from bordeaux resumed her work. madame arnoux, through a sense of propriety, said nothing; but her brows contracted. frederick murmured: "ha! you are very severe for a democrat!" the other replied in a magisterial tone: "democracy is not the unbounded license of individualism. it is the equality of all belonging to the same community before the law, the distribution of work, order." "you are forgetting humanity!" said frederick. madame arnoux took his arm. sénécal, perhaps, offended by this mark of silent approbation, went away. frederick experienced an immense relief. since morning he had been looking out for the opportunity to declare itself; now it had arrived. besides, madame arnoux's spontaneous movements seemed to him to contain promises; and he asked her, as if on the pretext of warming their feet, to come up to her room. but, when he was seated close beside her, he began once more to feel embarrassed. he was at a loss for a starting-point. sénécal, luckily, suggested an idea to his mind. "nothing could be more stupid," said he, "than this punishment!" madame arnoux replied: "there are certain severe measures which are indispensable!" "what! you who are so good! oh! i am mistaken, for you sometimes take pleasure in making other people suffer!" "i don't understand riddles, my friend!" and her austere look, still more than the words she used, checked him. frederick was determined to go on. a volume of de musset chanced to be on the chest of drawers; he turned over some pages, then began to talk about love, about his hopes and his transports. all this, according to madame arnoux, was criminal or factitious. the young man felt wounded by this negative attitude with regard to his passion, and, in order to combat it, he cited, by way of proof, the suicides which they read about every day in the newspapers, extolled the great literary types, phèdre, dido, romeo, desgrieux. he talked as if he meant to do away with himself. the fire was no longer burning on the hearth; the rain lashed against the window-panes. madame arnoux, without stirring, remained with her hands resting on the sides of her armchair. the flaps of her cap fell like the fillets of a sphinx. her pure profile traced out its clear-cut outlines in the midst of the shadow. he was anxious to cast himself at her feet. there was a creaking sound in the lobby, and he did not venture to carry out his intention. he was, moreover, restrained by a kind of religious awe. that robe, mingling with the surrounding shadows, appeared to him boundless, infinite, incapable of being touched; and for this very reason his desire became intensified. but the fear of doing too much, and, again, of not doing enough, deprived him of all judgment. "if she dislikes me," he thought, "let her drive me away; if she cares for me, let her encourage me." he said, with a sigh: "so, then, you don't admit that a man may love--a woman?" madame arnoux replied: "assuming that she is at liberty to marry, he may marry her; when she belongs to another, he should keep away from her." "so happiness is impossible?" "no! but it is never to be found in falsehood, mental anxiety, and remorse." "what does it matter, if one is compensated by the enjoyment of supreme bliss?" "the experience is too costly." then he sought to assail her with irony. "would not virtue in that case be merely cowardice?" "say rather, clear-sightedness. even for those women who might forget duty or religion, simple good sense is sufficient. a solid foundation for wisdom may be found in self-love." "ah, what shop-keeping maxims these are of yours!" "but i don't boast of being a fine lady." at that moment the little boy rushed in. "mamma, are you coming to dinner?" "yes, in a moment." frederick arose. at the same instant, marthe made her appearance. he could not make up his mind to go away, and, with a look of entreaty: "these women you speak of are very unfeeling, then?" "no, but deaf when it is necessary to be so." and she remained standing on the threshold of her room with her two children beside her. he bowed without saying a word. she mutely returned his salutation. what he first experienced was an unspeakable astonishment. he felt crushed by this mode of impressing on him the emptiness of his hopes. it seemed to him as if he were lost, like a man who has fallen to the bottom of an abyss and knows that no help will come to him, and that he must die. he walked on, however, but at random, without looking before him. he knocked against stones; he mistook his way. a clatter of wooden shoes sounded close to his ear; it was caused by some of the working-girls who were leaving the foundry. then he realised where he was. the railway lamps traced on the horizon a line of flames. he arrived just as the train was starting, let himself be pushed into a carriage, and fell asleep. an hour later on the boulevards, the gaiety of paris by night made his journey all at once recede into an already far-distant past. he resolved to be strong, and relieved his heart by vilifying madame arnoux with insulting epithets. "she is an idiot, a goose, a mere brute; let us not bestow another thought on her!" when he got home, he found in his study a letter of eight pages on blue glazed paper, with the initials "r. a." it began with friendly reproaches. "what has become of you, my dear? i am getting quite bored." but the handwriting was so abominable, that frederick was about to fling away the entire bundle of sheets, when he noticed in the postscript the following words: "i count on you to come to-morrow and drive me to the races." what was the meaning of this invitation? was it another trick of the maréchale? but a woman does not make a fool of the same man twice without some object; and, seized with curiosity, he read the letter over again attentively. frederick was able to distinguish "misunderstanding--to have taken a wrong path--disillusions--poor children that we are!--like two rivers that join each other!" etc. he kept the sheets for a long time between his fingers. they had the odour of orris; and there was in the form of the characters and the irregular spaces between the lines something suggestive, as it were, of a disorderly toilet, that fired his blood. "why should i not go?" said he to himself at length. "but if madame arnoux were to know about it? ah! let her know! so much the better! and let her feel jealous over it! in that way i shall be avenged!" chapter x. at the races. the maréchale was prepared for his visit, and had been awaiting him. "this is nice of you!" she said, fixing a glance of her fine eyes on his face, with an expression at the same time tender and mirthful. when she had fastened her bonnet-strings, she sat down on the divan, and remained silent. "shall we go?" said frederick. she looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. "oh, no! not before half-past one!" as if she had imposed this limit to her indecision. at last, when the hour had struck: "ah! well, _andiamo, caro mio_!" and she gave a final touch to her head-bands, and left directions for delphine. "is madame coming home to dinner?" "why should we, indeed? we shall dine together somewhere--at the café anglais, wherever you wish." "be it so!" her little dogs began yelping around her. "we can bring them with us, can't we?" frederick carried them himself to the vehicle. it was a hired berlin with two post-horses and a postilion. he had put his man-servant in the back seat. the maréchale appeared satisfied with his attentions. then, as soon as she had seated herself, she asked him whether he had been lately at the arnouxs'. "not for the past month," said frederick. "as for me, i met him the day before yesterday. he would have even come to-day, but he has all sorts of troubles--another lawsuit--i don't know what. what a queer man!" frederick added with an air of indifference: "now that i think of it, do you still see--what's that his name is?--that ex-vocalist--delmar?" she replied dryly: "no; that's all over." so it was clear that there had been a rupture between them. frederick derived some hope from this circumstance. they descended the quartier bréda at an easy pace. as it happened to be sunday, the streets were deserted, and some citizens' faces presented themselves at the windows. the carriage went on more rapidly. the noise of wheels made the passers-by turn round; the leather of the hood, which had slid down, was glittering. the man-servant doubled himself up, and the two havanese, beside one another, seemed like two ermine muffs laid on the cushions. frederick let himself jog up and down with the rocking of the carriage-straps. the maréchale turned her head to the right and to the left with a smile on her face. her straw hat of mother-of-pearl colour was trimmed with black lace. the hood of her bournous floated in the wind, and she sheltered herself from the rays of the sun under a parasol of lilac satin pointed at the top like a pagoda. "what loves of little fingers!" said frederick, softly taking her other hand, her left being adorned with a gold bracelet in the form of a curb-chain. "i say! that's pretty! where did it come from?" "oh! i've had it a long time," said the maréchale. the young man did not challenge this hypocritical answer in any way. he preferred to profit by the circumstance. and, still keeping hold of the wrist, he pressed his lips on it between the glove and the cuff. "stop! people will see us!" "pooh! what does it signify?" after passing by the place de la concorde, they drove along the quai de la conférence and the quai de billy, where might be noticed a cedar in a garden. rosanette believed that lebanon was situated in china; she laughed herself at her own ignorance, and asked frederick to give her lessons in geography. then, leaving the trocadéro at the right, they crossed the pont de jéna, and drew up at length in the middle of the champ de mars, near some other vehicles already drawn up in the hippodrome. the grass hillocks were covered with common people. some spectators might be seen on the balcony of the military school; and the two pavilions outside the weighing-room, the two galleries contained within its enclosure, and a third in front of that of the king, were filled with a fashionably dressed crowd whose deportment showed their regard for this as yet novel form of amusement. the public around the course, more select at this period, had a less vulgar aspect. it was the era of trouser-straps, velvet collars, and white gloves. the ladies, attired in showy colours, displayed gowns with long waists; and seated on the tiers of the stands, they formed, so to speak, immense groups of flowers, spotted here and there with black by the men's costumes. but every glance was directed towards the celebrated algerian bou-maza, who sat, impassive, between two staff officers in one of the private galleries. that of the jockey club contained none but grave-looking gentlemen. the more enthusiastic portion of the throng were seated underneath, close to the track, protected by two lines of sticks which supported ropes. in the immense oval described by this passage, cocoanut-sellers were shaking their rattles, others were selling programmes of the races, others were hawking cigars, with loud cries. on every side there was a great murmur. the municipal guards passed to and fro. a bell, hung from a post covered with figures, began ringing. five horses appeared, and the spectators in the galleries resumed their seats. meanwhile, big clouds touched with their winding outlines the tops of the elms opposite. rosanette was afraid that it was going to rain. "i have umbrellas," said frederick, "and everything that we need to afford ourselves diversion," he added, lifting up the chest, in which there was a stock of provisions in a basket. "bravo! we understand each other!" "and we'll understand each other still better, shall we not?" "that may be," she said, colouring. the jockeys, in silk jackets, were trying to draw up their horses in order, and were holding them back with both hands. somebody lowered a red flag. then the entire five bent over the bristling manes, and off they started. at first they remained pressed close to each other in a single mass; this presently stretched out and became cut up. the jockey in the yellow jacket was near falling in the middle of the first round; for a long time it was uncertain whether filly or tibi should take the lead; then tom pouce appeared in front. but clubstick, who had been in the rear since the start, came up with the others and outstripped them, so that he was the first to reach the winning-post, beating sir charles by two lengths. it was a surprise. there was a shout of applause; the planks shook with the stamping of feet. "we are amusing ourselves," said the maréchale. "i love you, darling!" frederick no longer doubted that his happiness was secure. rosanette's last words were a confirmation of it. a hundred paces away from him, in a four-wheeled cabriolet, a lady could be seen. she stretched her head out of the carriage-door, and then quickly drew it in again. this movement was repeated several times. frederick could not distinguish her face. he had a strong suspicion, however, that it was madame arnoux. and yet this seemed impossible! why should she have come there? he stepped out of his own vehicle on the pretence of strolling into the weighing-room. "you are not very gallant!" said rosanette. he paid no heed to her, and went on. the four-wheeled cabriolet, turning back, broke into a trot. frederick at the same moment, found himself button-holed by cisy. "good-morrow, my dear boy! how are you going on? hussonnet is over there! are you listening to me?" frederick tried to shake him off in order to get up with the four-wheeled cabriolet. the maréchale beckoned to him to come round to her. cisy perceived her, and obstinately persisted in bidding her good-day. since the termination of the regular period of mourning for his grandmother, he had realised his ideal, and succeeded in "getting the proper stamp." a scotch plaid waistcoat, a short coat, large bows over the pumps, and an entrance-card stuck in the ribbon of his hat; nothing, in fact, was wanting to produce what he described himself as his _chic_--a _chic_ characterised by anglomania and the swagger of the musketeer. he began by finding fault with the champ de mars, which he referred to as an "execrable turf," then spoke of the chantilly races, and the droll things that had occurred there, swore that he could drink a dozen glasses of champagne while the clock was striking the midnight hour, offered to make a bet with the maréchale, softly caressed her two lapdogs; and, leaning against the carriage-door on one elbow, he kept talking nonsense, with the handle of his walking-stick in his mouth, his legs wide apart, and his back stretched out. frederick, standing beside him, was smoking, while endeavouring to make out what had become of the cabriolet. the bell having rung, cisy took himself off, to the great delight of rosanette, who said he had been boring her to death. the second race had nothing special about it; neither had the third, save that a man was thrown over the shaft of a cart while it was taking place. the fourth, in which eight horses contested the city stakes, was more interesting. the spectators in the gallery had clambered to the top of their seats. the others, standing up in the vehicles, followed with opera-glasses in their hands the movements of the jockeys. they could be seen starting out like red, yellow, white, or blue spots across the entire space occupied by the crowd that had gathered around the ring of the hippodrome. at a distance, their speed did not appear to be very great; at the opposite side of the champ de mars, they seemed even to be slackening their pace, and to be merely slipping along in such a way that the horses' bellies touched the ground without their outstretched legs bending at all. but, coming back at a more rapid stride, they looked bigger; they cut the air in their wild gallop. the sun's rays quivered; pebbles went flying about under their hoofs. the wind, blowing out the jockeys' jackets, made them flutter like veils. each of them lashed the animal he rode with great blows of his whip in order to reach the winning-post--that was the goal they aimed at. one swept away the figures, another was hoisted off his saddle, and, in the midst of a burst of applause, the victorious horse dragged his feet to the weighing-room, all covered with sweat, his knees stiffened, his neck and shoulders bent down, while his rider, looking as if he were expiring in his saddle, clung to the animal's flanks. the final start was retarded by a dispute which had arisen. the crowd, getting tired, began to scatter. groups of men were chatting at the lower end of each gallery. the talk was of a free-and-easy description. some fashionable ladies left, scandalised by seeing fast women in their immediate vicinity. there were also some specimens of the ladies who appeared at public balls, some light-comedy actresses of the boulevards, and it was not the best-looking portion of them that got the most appreciation. the elderly georgine aubert, she whom a writer of vaudevilles called the louis xi. of her profession, horribly painted, and giving vent every now and then to a laugh resembling a grunt, remained reclining at full length in her big calash, covered with a sable fur-tippet, as if it were midwinter. madame de remoussat, who had become fashionable by means of a notorious trial in which she figured, sat enthroned on the seat of a brake in company with some americans; and thérèse bachelu, with her look of a gothic virgin, filled with her dozen furbelows the interior of a trap which had, in place of an apron, a flower-stand filled with roses. the maréchale was jealous of these magnificent displays. in order to attract attention, she began to make vehement gestures and to speak in a very loud voice. gentlemen recognised her, and bowed to her. she returned their salutations while telling frederick their names. they were all counts, viscounts, dukes, and marquises, and carried a high head, for in all eyes he could read a certain respect for his good fortune. cisy had a no less happy air in the midst of the circle of mature men that surrounded them. their faces wore cynical smiles above their cravats, as if they were laughing at him. at length he gave a tap in the hand of the oldest of them, and made his way towards the maréchale. she was eating, with an affectation of gluttony, a slice of _pâté de foie gras_. frederick, in order to make himself agreeable to her, followed her example, with a bottle of wine on his knees. the four-wheeled cabriolet reappeared. it _was_ madame arnoux! her face was startlingly pale. "give me some champagne," said rosanette. and, lifting up her glass, full to the brim as high as possible, she exclaimed: "look over there! look at my protector's wife, one of the virtuous women!" there was a great burst of laughter all round her; and the cabriolet disappeared from view. frederick tugged impatiently at her dress, and was on the point of flying into a passion. but cisy was there, in the same attitude as before, and, with increased assurance, he invited rosanette to dine with him that very evening. "impossible!" she replied; "we're going together to the café anglais." frederick, as if he had heard nothing, remained silent; and cisy quitted the maréchale with a look of disappointment on his face. while he had been talking to her at the right-hand door of the carriage, hussonnet presented himself at the opposite side, and, catching the words "café anglais": "it's a nice establishment; suppose we had a pick there, eh?" "just as you like," said frederick, who, sunk down in the corner of the berlin, was gazing at the horizon as the four-wheeled cabriolet vanished from his sight, feeling that an irreparable thing had happened, and that there was an end of his great love. and the other woman was there beside him, the gay and easy love! but, worn out, full of conflicting desires, and no longer even knowing what he wanted, he was possessed by a feeling of infinite sadness, a longing to die. a great noise of footsteps and of voices made him raise his head. the little ragamuffins assembled round the track sprang over the ropes and came to stare at the galleries. thereupon their occupants rose to go. a few drops of rain began to fall. the crush of vehicles increased, and hussonnet got lost in it. "well! so much the better!" said frederick. "we like to be alone better--don't we?" said the maréchale, as she placed her hand in his. then there swept past him with a glitter of copper and steel a magnificent landau to which were yoked four horses driven in the daumont style by two jockeys in velvet vests with gold fringes. madame dambreuse was by her husband's side, and martinon was on the other seat facing them. all three of them gazed at frederick in astonishment. "they have recognised me!" said he to himself. rosanette wished to stop in order to get a better view of the people driving away from the course. madame arnoux might again make her appearance! he called out to the postilion: "go on! go on! forward!" and the berlin dashed towards the champs-Élysées in the midst of the other vehicles--calashes, britzkas, wurths, tandems, tilburies, dog-carts, tilted carts with leather curtains, in which workmen in a jovial mood were singing, or one-horse chaises driven by fathers of families. in victorias crammed with people some young fellows seated on the others' feet let their legs both hang down. large broughams, which had their seats lined with cloth, carried dowagers fast asleep, or else a splendid machine passed with a seat as simple and coquettish as a dandy's black coat. the shower grew heavier. umbrellas, parasols, and mackintoshes were put into requisition. people cried out at some distance away: "good-day!" "are you quite well?" "yes!" "no!" "bye-bye!"--and the faces succeeded each other with the rapidity of chinese shadows. frederick and rosanette did not say a word to each other, feeling a sort of dizziness at seeing all these wheels continually revolving close to them. at times, the rows of carriages, too closely pressed together, stopped all at the same time in several lines. then they remained side by side, and their occupants scanned one another. over the sides of panels adorned with coats-of-arms indifferent glances were cast on the crowd. eyes full of envy gleamed from the interiors of hackney-coaches. depreciatory smiles responded to the haughty manner in which some people carried their heads. mouths gaping wide expressed idiotic admiration; and, here and there, some lounger, in the middle of the road, fell back with a bound, in order to avoid a rider who had been galloping through the midst of the vehicles, and had succeeded in getting away from them. then, everything set itself in motion once more; the coachmen let go the reins, and lowered their long whips; the horses, excited, shook their curb-chains, and flung foam around them; and the cruppers and the harness getting moist, were smoking with the watery evaporation, through which struggled the rays of the sinking sun. passing under the arc de triomphe, there stretched out at the height of a man, a reddish light, which shed a glittering lustre on the naves of the wheels, the handles of the carriage-doors, the ends of the shafts, and the rings of the carriage-beds; and on the two sides of the great avenue--like a river in which manes, garments, and human heads were undulating--the trees, all glittering with rain, rose up like two green walls. the blue of the sky overhead, reappearing in certain places, had the soft hue of satin. then, frederick recalled the days, already far away, when he yearned for the inexpressible happiness of finding himself in one of these carriages by the side of one of these women. he had attained to this bliss, and yet he was not thereby one jot the happier. the rain had ceased falling. the pedestrians, who had sought shelter between the columns of the public storerooms, took their departure. persons who had been walking along the rue royale, went up again towards the boulevard. in front of the residence of the minister of foreign affairs a group of boobies had taken up their posts on the steps. when it had got up as high as the chinese baths, as there were holes in the pavement, the berlin slackened its pace. a man in a hazel-coloured paletot was walking on the edge of the footpath. a splash, spurting out from under the springs, showed itself on his back. the man turned round in a rage. frederick grew pale; he had recognised deslauriers. at the door of the café anglais he sent away the carriage. rosanette had gone in before him while he was paying the postilion. he found her subsequently on the stairs chatting with a gentleman. frederick took her arm; but in the lobby a second gentleman stopped her. "go on," said she; "i am at your service." and he entered the private room alone. through the two open windows people could be seen at the casements of the other houses opposite. large watery masses were quivering on the pavement as it began to dry, and a magnolia, placed on the side of a balcony, shed a perfume through the apartment. this fragrance and freshness had a relaxing effect on his nerves. he sank down on the red divan underneath the glass. the maréchale here entered the room, and, kissing him on the forehead: "poor pet! there's something annoying you!" "perhaps so," was his reply. "you are not alone; take heart!"--which was as much as to say: "let us each forget our own concerns in a bliss which we shall enjoy in common." then she placed the petal of a flower between her lips and extended it towards him so that he might peck at it. this movement, full of grace and of almost voluptuous gentleness, had a softening influence on frederick. "why do you give me pain?" said he, thinking of madame arnoux. "i give you pain?" and, standing before him, she looked at him with her lashes drawn close together and her two hands resting on his shoulders. all his virtue, all his rancour gave way before the utter weakness of his will. he continued: "because you won't love me," and he took her on his knees. she gave way to him. he pressed his two hands round her waist. the crackling sound of her silk dress inflamed him. "where are they?" said hussonnet's voice in the lobby outside. the maréchale arose abruptly, and went across to the other side of the room, where she sat down with her back to the door. she ordered oysters, and they seated themselves at table. hussonnet was not amusing. by dint of writing every day on all sorts of subjects, reading many newspapers, listening to a great number of discussions, and uttering paradoxes for the purpose of dazzling people, he had in the end lost the exact idea of things, blinding himself with his own feeble fireworks. the embarrassments of a life which had formerly been frivolous, but which was now full of difficulty, kept him in a state of perpetual agitation; and his impotency, which he did not wish to avow, rendered him snappish and sarcastic. referring to a new ballet entitled _ozai_, he gave a thorough blowing-up to the dancing, and then, when the opera was in question, he attacked the italians, now replaced by a company of spanish actors, "as if people had not quite enough of castilles[ ] already!" frederick was shocked at this, owing to his romantic attachment to spain, and, with a view to diverting the conversation into a new channel, he enquired about the collége of france, where edgar quinet and mickiewicz had attended. but hussonnet, an admirer of m. de maistre, declared himself on the side of authority and spiritualism. nevertheless, he had doubts about the most well-established facts, contradicted history, and disputed about things whose certainty could not be questioned; so that at mention of the word "geometry," he exclaimed: "what fudge this geometry is!" all this he intermingled with imitations of actors. sainville was specially his model. [footnote : this pun of hussonnet turns on the double sense of the word "castille," which not only means a place in spain, but also an altercation.--translator.] frederick was quite bored by these quibbles. in an outburst of impatience he pushed his foot under the table, and pressed it on one of the little dogs. thereupon both animals began barking in a horrible fashion. "you ought to get them sent home!" said he, abruptly. rosanette did not know anyone to whom she could intrust them. then, he turned round to the bohemian: "look here, hussonnet; sacrifice yourself!" "oh! yes, my boy! that would be a very obliging act!" hussonnet set off, without even requiring to have an appeal made to him. in what way could they repay him for his kindness? frederick did not bestow a thought on it. he was even beginning to rejoice at finding himself alone with her, when a waiter entered. "madame, somebody is asking for you!" "what! again?" "however, i must see who it is," said rosanette. he was thirsting for her; he wanted her. this disappearance seemed to him an act of prevarication, almost a piece of rudeness. what, then, did she mean? was it not enough to have insulted madame arnoux? so much for the latter, all the same! now he hated all women; and he felt the tears choking him, for his love had been misunderstood and his desire eluded. the maréchale returned, and presented cisy to him. "i have invited monsieur. i have done right, have i not?" "how is that! oh! certainly." frederick, with the smile of a criminal about to be executed, beckoned to the gentleman to take a seat. the maréchale began to run her eye through the bill of fare, stopping at every fantastic name. "suppose we eat a turban of rabbits _à la richeliéu_ and a pudding _à la d'orléans_?"[ ] [footnote : the word "orléans" means light woollen cloth, and possibly cisy's pun might be rendered: "oh! no cloth pudding, please."--translator.] "oh! not orléans, pray!" exclaimed cisy, who was a legitimist, and thought of making a pun. "would you prefer a turbot _à la_ chambord?" she next asked. frederick was disgusted with this display of politeness. the maréchale made up her mind to order a simple fillet of beef cut up into steaks, some crayfishes, truffles, a pine-apple salad, and vanilla ices. "we'll see what next. go on for the present! ah! i was forgetting! bring me a sausage!--not with garlic!" and she called the waiter "young man," struck her glass with her knife, and flung up the crumbs of her bread to the ceiling. she wished to drink some burgundy immediately. "it is not taken in the beginning," said frederick. this was sometimes done, according to the vicomte. "oh! no. never!" "yes, indeed; i assure you!" "ha! you see!" the look with which she accompanied these words meant: "this is a rich man--pay attention to what he says!" meantime, the door was opening every moment; the waiters kept shouting; and on an infernal piano in the adjoining room some one was strumming a waltz. then the races led to a discussion about horsemanship and the two rival systems. cisy was upholding baucher and frederick the comte d'aure when rosanette shrugged her shoulders: "enough--my god!--he is a better judge of these things than you are--come now!" she kept nibbling at a pomegranate, with her elbow resting on the table. the wax-candles of the candelabrum in front of her were flickering in the wind. this white light penetrated her skin with mother-of-pearl tones, gave a pink hue to her lids, and made her eyeballs glitter. the red colour of the fruit blended with the purple of her lips; her thin nostrils heaved; and there was about her entire person an air of insolence, intoxication, and recklessness that exasperated frederick, and yet filled his heart with wild desires. then, she asked, in a calm voice, who owned that big landau with chestnut-coloured livery. cisy replied that it was "the comtesse dambreuse" "they're very rich--aren't they?" "oh! very rich! although madame dambreuse, who was merely a mademoiselle boutron and the daughter of a prefect, had a very modest fortune." her husband, on the other hand, must have inherited several estates--cisy enumerated them: as he visited the dambreuses, he knew their family history. frederick, in order to make himself disagreeable to the other, took a pleasure in contradicting him. he maintained that madame dambreuse's maiden name was de boutron, which proved that she was of a noble family. "no matter! i'd like to have her equipage!" said the maréchale, throwing herself back on the armchair. and the sleeve of her dress, slipping up a little, showed on her left wrist a bracelet adorned with three opals. frederick noticed it. "look here! why----" all three looked into one another's faces, and reddened. the door was cautiously half-opened; the brim of a hat could be seen, and then hussonnet's profile exhibited itself. "pray excuse me if i disturb the lovers!" but he stopped, astonished at seeing cisy, and that cisy had taken his own seat. another cover was brought; and, as he was very hungry, he snatched up at random from what remained of the dinner some meat which was in a dish, fruit out of a basket, and drank with one hand while he helped himself with the other, all the time telling them the result of his mission. the two bow-wows had been taken home. nothing fresh at the house. he had found the cook in the company of a soldier--a fictitious story which he had especially invented for the sake of effect. the maréchale took down her cloak from the window-screw. frederick made a rush towards the bell, calling out to the waiter, who was some distance away: "a carriage!" "i have one of my own," said the vicomte. "but, monsieur!" "nevertheless, monsieur!" and they stared into each other's eyes, both pale and their hands trembling. at last, the maréchale took cisy's arm, and pointing towards the bohemian seated at the table: "pray mind him! he's choking himself. i wouldn't care to let his devotion to my pugs be the cause of his death." the door closed behind him. "well?" said hussonnet. "well, what?" "i thought----" "what did you think?" "were you not----?" he completed the sentence with a gesture. "oh! no--never in all my life!" hussonnet did not press the matter further. he had an object in inviting himself to dinner. his journal,--which was no longer called _l'art_, but _le flambart_,[ ] with this epigraph, "gunners, to your cannons!"--not being at all in a flourishing condition, he had a mind to change it into a weekly review, conducted by himself, without any assistance from deslauriers. he again referred to the old project and explained his latest plan. [footnote : _the blaser._] frederick, probably not understanding what he was talking about, replied with some vague words. hussonnet snatched up several cigars from the tables, said "good-bye, old chap," and disappeared. frederick called for the bill. it had a long list of items; and the waiter, with his napkin under his arm, was expecting to be paid by frederick, when another, a sallow-faced individual, who resembled martinon, came and said to him: "beg pardon; they forgot at the bar to add in the charge for the cab." "what cab?" "the cab the gentleman took a short time ago for the little dogs." and the waiter put on a look of gravity, as if he pitied the poor young man. frederick felt inclined to box the fellow's ears. he gave the waiter the twenty francs' change as a _pour-boire_. "thanks, monseigneur," said the man with the napkin, bowing low.