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^^^

IN A WINTER CITY.

1 Shctch.

Ry OUIDA, ^..^ci.

AUIHMIJ OK 'iri.K,' sKiNA,' ' TKI' i>TKI \,' ' TWn LITTI.K
WOODKM SHOES," ETC.

A NEW EDITION.

SToronto :
BiVLFORD 'BROTHERS.

MDCCCLXXVII.

OUIDA'S NOVELS.

Uniform. Edition.

FOLLE FAlllNE.

IDALIA: A Homaiicc.

CHANDOS: A Novel.

UNDER TWO FLAGS.

TRICOTUIN.

CECIL CASTLEMAINE'S GACrt..

HELD IN BONDAGE.

PASCAREL : Only a Story.

PUCK: His Vicistitudes, Adventures, &c.

A DOG OF FLANDERS.

STRATHMORE.

TWO LITTLE WOODEN SHOES.

SIGNA.

IN A WINTER CITY.

BELFOKD lUlOlHEHS, Tohonto.

IN A WINTER CITY.

CHAPTER I.

Floralia was once a city of great fame. It
stands upon an historical river. It is adorned
with all that the Arts can assemble of beauty,
of grace, and of majesty. Its chronicles blaze
with heroical deeds and with the achievements
of genius. Great men have been bred within its
walls ; men so great that the world has never
seen their like again.

Floralia, in her liberties, in her citizens, in her
poets and paintexd and sculptors, once upon a

IN A WINTER CITY,

time had few rivals, perhaps, indeed, no equals,
upon earth.

By what strange irony of fate, by what
singular cynical caprice of accident, has this
fairest of cities, with her time-honoured towers
lilted to her radiant skies, become the universal
hostelry of cosmopolitan fashion and of fashion-
able idleness ? Sad vicissitudes of fallen fortunes !
— to such base uses do the greatest come.

It is Belisarius turned croupier to a gaming-
table ; it is Caesar selling cigars and news-
papers; it is Apelles drawing for th^ "Albums
pour Kh^e ; " it is Pindar rhyming the couplets
for " Fleur de The ;" it is Praxiteles designing
costumes for a Calico-baD ; it is Phidias form-
ing the poses of a ballet !

Perhaps the mighty ghosts of mediaeval FIo-
ralia do walk, sadly and ashamed, by midnight
under the shadow of its exquisite piles of marble
and of stone. If llicy do, nobody sees them :
the cigarette smoke is too thick.

As for the modern rulers of Floralia, they have
risen elastic and elated to the height of the situa-
tion, and have done their best and uttermost to de-

IN A WINTER CITY.

grade their city into clue accordance with her pre-
sent circumstances, and have destroyed as much
as they dared of her noble picturesqueness and
ancient ways. They have tacked or. to her vcn*
rable palaces and graceful towers, stucco man-
sions and straight hideous streets, and staring
walls covered with advertisements, and barren
boulevr.rds studded with toy t^'ees that are
cropped as soon as they presume to grow a
leaf, and have striven all they know to fit her
for her fortunes, as her inn-keepers, when
they take an antique palace, hasten to fit uj) a
smoking-room, and, making a paradise of gas
jets and liqueurs, write over it ** II Bar Ameri-
cano."

It is considered very clever to adapt oneself
to one's fortunes ; and if so, the rulers of Flo-
ralia are very clever indeed ; only the stucco
and the straight streets and the frightful
boulevards cost money, and Floralia has no
money and a very heavy and terrible debt ; and
whether it be really worth while to deface a
most beautiful and artistic city, and ruin your

nobles and gentry, and grind down youi' artizans

B 2

IN A WINTER CITY.

and peasants, and make your whole province
impoverished and ill-content for the mere sake
of pleasing some strangers hy the stucco and
the hoardings taat their eyes are used to at
home; — well, tJiat perhaps may be an open

question.

The Lady Hilda Vorarlberg had written thus
far when she got tired, left off, and looked out
of the window on to the mountain-bom and poet-
hymned river of Floralia. She had an idea that
she would write a novel ; she was always going
to do things that she never did do.

After all they were not her own ideas that
she had written ; but only those of a Floralian,
the Duca della Eocca, whom she had met the
night before. But then the ideas of every-
body have been somebody else's beforehand, —
Plato's, or Bion's, or Theophrastus's ; or your
ffivourite newspaper's ; — and the Lady Hilda, al-
though she had been but two days in the Winter
City, had already in her first drive shuddered
at the stucco end the hoardings, and shivered
at tlxe boulevards and the little shaven trees.
For she was a person o very refined and fasti-

IN A WINTER CITY.

dioiis taste, and did really know something about
the arts, and such persons suffer very acutely
from what the peculiar mind of your modern
municipalities calls, in its innocence, " improve-
ments."

The Lady Hilda had been to a reception too
the night before, and had gone with the pre-
conceived conviction that a certain illustrious
Sovereign had not been far wrong when she
had called Floralia the Botany Bay of modern
society ; but then the Lady Hilda was easily
bored, and not easily pleased, and liked very
few things, almost none ; — she liked her horses,
she liked M. Worth, she liked bric-k-brac, she
liked her brother. Lord Clau'vaux, and when she
came to think of it, — well, that was really all.

The Lady Hilda was a beautiful woman, and
knew it ; she was dressed in the height of
fashion, i.e., like a mediaeval saint out of a
picture ; her velvet robe clung close to her, and
her gold belt, with its chains and pouch and
fittings, would not have disgraced Cellini's own
working; her hair was in a cloud in front and
in a club behind ; her figure was perfect : M.

^ 1 ■ 1

IN A WINTER CITY.

Worth, who is accustomed to furnish figures as
well as clothes, had a great reverence for her;
in her, Nature, of whom general!}- speaking he
is disposed to think very poorl}', did not need
his assistance ; he thought it extraordinary, but
as he could not improve her in that respect, he
had to be content with draping Perfection,
which he did to perfection of course.

Her face also was left to nature, in a very
blamable degree for a woman of fashion. Her
friends argued to her that any woman, however
fair a skin she might have, must look washed
out without enamel or rouge at the least. But
the Lady Hilda, conscious of her own delicate
bloom, was obdurate on the point.

** I would rather look washed out than caked
over," she would reply : which was cruel but
conclusive. So she went into the world with-
out painting, and made them all look beside her
as if they had come out of a comic opera.

In everything else she was, however, as arti-
ficial as became her sex, her station, and her
century.

She was a very fortunate woman ; at least

IN A WINTER CITY.

society always ^aid so. The Clairvaux people
were very terribly poor, though very noble and
mighty. She had been married at sixteen,
immediately on her presentation, to a gi'cat
European capitalist of nondescript nationality, who
had made an enormous fortune upon the Stock
Exchanges in ways that were never enquired into,
and this gentleman, whose wealth was as solid as
it sounded fabulous, had had the good taste to die
in the first months of their wedded life, leaving
her fifty tliousand a year, and bequeathing the
rest of his money to the Prince Imperial.
Besides her large income she had the biggest
jewels, the choicest horses, the handsomest
house in London, the prettiest hotel in Paris,
Sic.f (fcc, &c. ; and she could very well afford to
have a fresh toilette a-day from her friend
Worth if she chose. Very often she did choose.
" What a lucky creature," said every other
woman : and so she was. B"t she would have
been still more so had she not been quite so
mucJi bored. Boredom is the ni-natured pebble
that dways will get in the golden slipper of the
pilgrim of pleasure.

IN A WINTER CITY,

The Lady Hilda looked out of the window and
found it raining heavily. When the sky of Flo-
ralia does rain, it does it thoroughly, and gets
the disagreeable duty over, which is much more
merciAil to mankind than the perpetual drizzle
and dripping of Scotland, Irelar^d, Wales, or
Middlesex. Il was the rain that had made her
almost inclined to think she would write a novel ;
she was so tired of reading them.

She countermanded her carnage ; had some
more wood thrown on the fire ; and felt disposed
to regret that she had decided to winter here. Phe
missed all her hihelotSy and all the wonderful shades
and graces of colour with which her ov n houses
were made as rich, yet as subdued in tone as any
old cloisonne enamel. She had the finest rooms,
here, in an hotel which had been the old palace of
Murat ; and she had sent for flowers to fill everj
nook and corner of them, an order which Floralia
will execute for as many francs as any other city
would ask in napoleons.

But there is always a nakedness and a
gaudiness in the finest suites of any hotel;
and the Lady Hilda, though she had educated

IN A WINTER CITY.

little else, had so educated her eyes and her
taste that a criant bit of furniture hurt her as
the grating of a false quantity hurts a scholar.
She knew the value of greys and creams and
lavenders and olive greens and pale sea blues
and dead gold and oriental blendings. She
had to seat herself now in tin arm-chair that was of
a brightness and newness in magenta brocade
that made her close her eyelids involuntarily to
avoid the hoiTor of it, as she took up some letters
from female friends and wondered why they wrote
them, and took up a tale of Zola's and threw
it aside in disgust, and began to think tliat
ghe would go to Algeria, since her doctors had
agreed that her lungs would not bear the cold
of Paris thib winter.

Only t^iere was no art in Algeria and tliere
was plenty in Flcralia, present and traditional,
and so far as a woman of fashion can demean
herself to think seriously of anything bayond
dress and rivalry, she had in a way studied art
of all kinds, languidly indeed and perhaps super-
ficially, but still with some true understanding
of it ; for, although she had done her best, as

IN A WINTER CITY.

became 9.femme comme ilfaut, to stifle the intel-
ligence she had been created with, slie yet had
moments in which M. Worth did not seem
Jehovah, and in which Society scarcely appeared
the Alpha and Omega of human existence, as of
course .-hey did to her when she was in her riglit
frame of mind.

*' I shall go to Algeria or Rome," she said to
herself: it rained pitilessly, hiding even the
bridges on the opposite side of the river; she
had a dreadful magenta-coloured chair, and the
window curtains were scarlet; the letters were
on thin foreign paper and crossed ; the hook was
unreadable ; at luncheon they had given her
horrible soup and a vol-au-vent that for all
flavour it possessed might have been made of
acorns, ship-biscuit and shalots ; and she had just
heard that her cousin the Countess do Caviare,
whom she never approved of, and who always bor-
rowed money of her, was coming also to the Hotel
Murat. It was not wonderful that she settled
in her own mind to leave Floralia as soon as she
had come to it.

It was four o'clock.

IN A WINTER CITY.

She thought she would send round to the
bric-a-hrac dealers, and tell them to bring her
what china and enamels p-nd things they had in
their shops for her to look at; little that is
worth having ever comes into the market in
these days, save when private collections are
publicly sold ; she knew the Hotel Drouot and
Christie and Manson's too well not to know that;
still it would be something to do.

Her hand was on the bell when one of her
servants entered. He had a card on a salver,

" Does Madame receive ? " he asked, in some
trepidation, for do what her servants might they
generally did wrong ; when they obeyed her she
had almost invariably changed her mind before
her command could be executed, and when thev
did not obey her, then the Clairvaux blood,
which . was crossed with French and Russian,
and had been Norman to begin with, made
itself felt in her usually tranquil veins.

She glanced at the card. It might be a bric-
a-brac dealer's.

On it was written ** Duca della Rocca." She
paused doubtfully some moments.

IN A WINTER CITY.

"It is raining very hard," she thought; then
gave a sign of assent.

Ever3^body wearied her after ten minutes ; still

when it was raining so hard-

CHAPTER IT.

" They say," the great assassin who slays as
many thousands as ever did plague or cholera,
drink or warfare ; " they say," the thief of re-
putation, who steals, with stealthy step and
coward's mask, to filch good names away in the
dead dark of irresponsible calumny ; "they
say," a giant murderer, iron-gloved to slay you,
a fleet, elusive, vaporous will-o'-the-wisp, wlicn
you would seize and choke it ; "they say,"
mighty Thug though it be which strangles from
behind the purest victim, had not been ever
known to touch the Lady Hilda.

She seemed very passionless and cold ; and
no one ever whispered that she was not what
she seemed. Possibly she enjoyed so unusual

IN A WINTER CITY.

an immunity, first, because she was so very
rich ; secondly, because she had many male
relations ; thirdly, because women, whilst they
envied, were afraid of her. Anyway, her name was
altogether without reproach ; the only defect to
be found in her in the estimate of many of her
adorers.

Married without any wish of her own being
consulted, and left so soon afterwards mistress
of herself and of very large wealth, she had
remained altogether indifferent and insensible to
all forms of love. Other women fell in love in
all sorts of ways, feebly or forcibly, according
to their natures, but she never.

The passions she excited broke against her
serene contempt, like surf on a rocky shore. She
was the despair of all the ** tueurs de femmes"
of Europe.

"Le mieux est rennemi du bien," she said
to her brother once, when she had refused the
hereditary Prince of Deutschland ; " 1 can do
exactly as I like ; I have everything I want ;
I can follow all my own whims ; I am per-
fectly happy ; why ever should I alter all this ?

IN A WINTER CITY.

What could any man ever offer me that would
be better?"

Lord Clakvaux was obliged to grumble that
he did not know what any man could.

" Unless you were to care for the man," he
muttered shamefacedly.

" Oh !— h !— h ! " said the Lady HUda, with
the most prolonged delicate and eloquent inter-
jection of amazed scorn.

Lord Clairvaux felt that he had been as silly
and rustic as if he were a ploughboy. He was an
affectionate creature himself, in character very
lilte a Newfoundland dog, and had none of his
sister's talent and temperament; he loved her
dearly, but he was always a little afraid of her.

** Hilda don't say much to you, but she just
gives you a look ; and don't you sink into your
shoes ! " he said once to a friend.

He stood six feet three without the shoes, to
whose level her single glance could so patheti-
cally reduce him.

But except before herself. Lord Clairvaux,
in liis shoes or out of them, was the bravest
and frankest gentleman that ever walked the

JiV A WINTER CITY.

earth ; and the universal recollection of him
and of his unhesitating hahit of " setting things
straight," probably kept so in awe the calumny-
makers, that he produced the miracle of a woman
who actually was blameless getting the credit of
being so. Usually snow is deemed black, and coal
is called swans- down, with that refreshing habit
of contrariety which alone saves society from
stagnation.

It never occurred to her what a tower of
strength for her honour was that good-looking,
good-tempered, stupid, big brother of her's, who
could not spell a trisyllable were it ever so, and
was only learned in racing stock and greyhound
pedigrees ; but she was fond of him in a cool
and careless way, as she might have been of a
big dog, and was prodigal in gifts to him of
great winners and brood mares.

She never went to stay with him at Broomsdon j
she disliked his wife, her sister-in-law, and she wad
always bored to death in English country houses,
where the men were out shooting all day, and
half asleep all the evening. The country people,
the salt of the earth in their own eyes, were in*

IN A WINTER CITY.

finitesimnl as ants in hers. She detested drives
in pony-carriages, humdrum chit chat, and after-
noon tea in the library ; she did not care in the
least who had hagi d how many brace ; the
details of fast runs with hounds were as horribly
tiresome to her as the boys homo from Eton ;
and she would rather have gone a pilgrimage to
Lourdes tlian have descended to the ball, where
all sorts of nondescripts had to be asked, and the
dresses positively haunted her like ghosts.

Five years before, at Broomsden, she had
taken up her candlestick after three nights of
unutterable boredom between her sister-in-law
and a fat duchess, and had mentally vowed never
to return there. The vow she had kept, and she
had always seen Claii'vaux in Paris, in London,
in Baden — anywhere rather than in the home
of their childhood, towards which she had no
tenderness of sentiment, but merely recollections
of the fierce tyrannies of many German
governesses.

She would often buy him a colt out of the La-
grange or Lafitte stables ; and always send half
Boissier's and Siraudin's shops to his child reu

IN A WINTER CITY,

at Christmas time. That done, she considered
nothing more could be expected of her : it was
certainly not necessary that she should bore her-
self.

To spend money was an easy undemonstrative
manner of acknowledging the ties of nature,
which pleased and suited her. Perhaps she
would have been capable of showing her afl'ec-
tion in nobler and more self-sacrificing ways ; but
then there was nothing in her circumstances to
call for that kind of tiling ; no trouble ever came
nigh her ; and the cliariot of her life rolled as
smoothly as her own victoria a huit ressorts.

For the ten years of her womanhood the Lady
Hilda had had the command of immense wealth.
Anything short of that seemed to her abject
poverty. She could theorise about making her-
self into Greuze or Gainsboro' pictures in serge
or dimity; but, in fact, she could not imagine
herself without all the black sables and silver
fox, the velvets and silks, the diamonds and
emeralds, the embroideries and laces tliat made
her a thing which Titian would have woKshipped.

She could not imagine herself for an instant

IN A WINTER CITY,

without power of limitless command, limitless
caprice, ceaseless indulge^ice, \ oundless patron-
age, and all the gratifications of whim and will
which go with the possession of a great fortune
and the enjoyment of an entire irresponsibilit3\

She was bored and annoyed very often indeed
because Pleasure is not as inventive a god as
he ought to be, and his catalogue is very soon
run through ; but it never by any chance oc-
curred to her that it might be her money which
bored her.

When, on a very dreary day early in November,
Lady Hilda, known by repute all over Europe as
the proudest, handsomest, coldest woman in the
world, and famous as an elegante in every fashion-
able city, arrived at the Hotel Murat, in the
town of Floralia, and it was known that she had
come to establish herself there for the winter (un-
less, indeed, she changed her mind, which was pro-
bable), the stir in the city was extraordinary. She
brought with her several servants, several carriage
horses, immense jewel cases, and a pug dog. She
was the great anival of the season.

There was a Grand Duchess of Dresden, in-

IN A WINTER CITY.

deed, who came at the same time, but she brought
no horses ; she hired her coiijic from a livery-
stable, and her star, notwithstanding its royalty,
paled in proportion. Besides, the Grand Duchess
was a verj' little, shabby, insignificant person, who
wore black stuff dresses, and a wig without any
art in it. She was music-mad, and Wagner was
her prophet. The Club took no account of her.

There is a club in Floralia, nay, it is the
Club ; — all other clubs being for pui-j)oses gymnas-
tic, patriotic, theatric, or political, and out of
society altogether.

The Club is very fond of black-balling, and
gives very odd reasons for doing so, instead of
the simple and true one, that it wants to keep
itself to itself. It has been known to object
to one man because his hair curled, and to an-
other because he was the son of a king, and to
another because his boots were not made in Paris.
Be its reasons, however, good, bad, or indifferent,
it pleases itself; by its fiat newly-arrived women
are exalted to the empyrean, or perish in obscu-
rity, and its members are the cream of masculine
Floralia, and sj)end all fine afternoons on the

IN A WINTER CITY.

steps and the pavement, blocking up the passage
way in the chief street, and criticising all equi-
pages and their occupants.

Wlien the Lady Hilda's victoria, with the two
blacks, and the white and black liveries, swept
past the Club, there was a great stir in these
l)hilosophers of the stones. Most knew her by
sight very well ; two or three knew her personally,
and these fortunate few, who had the privilege to
raise their hats as that carriage went by, rose im-
mediately in the esteem of their fellows.

" Je n'ai jamais rien connu de si ^patant,'* said
the French Due de St. Louis, who belongs to a
past generation, but is much more charming and
witty than anything to be found in the present
one.

" Twelve hundred and fifty thousand francs
a-year," murmured the Marchese Sampierdareno,
"dth a sigh. He was married himself.

*' Here is your * affaire,' Paolo," said Don
Carlo Mai'emma to a man next him.

The Duca della Rocca, to whom he spoke,
stroked his moustache, and smiled a little.

" She is a very beautiful person," he answered ;

'•■U

i.-'

IN A WINTER CITY.

*' I have seen her before at the Tuileries and at
Trouville, but I do not know her at all. I was
never presented."

" That will arrange itself easily," said the Due
de St. Louis, who was one of those who had
raised their hats ; ** Maremma is perfectly right ;
it is in every way the very thing for you. Moi,
je m'en charge."

The Dnca della Rocia shrugged his shoulders
a very little, and lighted a fresh cigar. But his
face grew grave, and he looked thoughtfully
after the black horses, and the white and black
liveries.

At the English reception that night, which
the Lady Hilda disdainfully hkened in her own
mind to a penal settlement, M. de St. Louis,
whom she knew very well, begged to be permitted
to present to her his friend the Duca della
Rocca.

She was dressed like a mediaeval saint of a
morning ; at night she was a mediaeval princess.

She had feuiUe morte velvet slashed with the
palest of ambers ; a high fraise ; sleeves of the
renaissance; pointed shoes, and a great many

IN A WINTER CITY.

jewels. Delia Eocca thought she might have
stepped down out of a Giorgione canvas, and ven-
tured to tell her so. He g"YC her the cai'te du
pays of the penal settlement around her, and
talked to her more seriously for some considerable
time. Himself and the Due de St. Louis were
the only people she deigned to take any notice of;
and she went away in an hcui, or rather less,
leaving a kind of flame from her many jewels be-
hind her, and a frozen sense of despair in the
hearts of the women, who had watched her,
appalled yet fascinated.

** Mais quelle femnie impossible ! " said Delia
Hocca, as he went out into the nigl.it air.

"Impossible! mais comment done ? " said the
Due de St. Louis, with vivacity and some anger.

The Due de St. Louis worshipped her, as eveiy
year of his life he worshipped three hundred and
sixty-five ladies.

*' Impossible ! " echoed Delia Hocca, with a
cigar in his mouth.

Nevertheless, the next day, when ^*\ie rain was
falling in such torrents tliat no female cr'^ature
was likely to be anywhere but before her fire, he

■ ^j

* •£

IN A WINTER CITY.

called at the Hotel Miirat, and inquired if
Miladi were visible, and being admitted, as better
than nothing, as she would have admitted the
bric-a-brac man, followed the servant upstairs,
and walked into an atmosphere scented with some
three hundred pots of tea roses, lilies of the val-
ley, and hothouse heliotrope.

**Ah, ah! you have been to see her. Quite
riglit," said the Due de St. Louis, meeting him
as he came down the steps of the hotel in the
rain, when it was half-past five by the clock. ** I
am going also so soon as I have seen Salvareo
at the Club about the theatricals ; it will not take
me a moment ; get into my cab. you are going
there too ? How is Miladi ? You found her

charming ? "

" Slie was in a very bad humour," replied
Delia llocca, closing the cab door on himself.

** Tlie more interesting for you to put her in a
good one."

** Would either good or bad last ten minutes?
—you know her : I do not, but I should doubt
it."

The Due arranged the fur collar of h.ia coat.

m\\

IN A WINTER CITY.

" She is a woman, and rich ; too rich, if one
can say so. Of course she has her caprices —
Delia Eocca shrugged his shoulders.

»>

"She is very handsome. But she does not
interest me."

The Due smiled, and glanced at him.

** Then you probably interested her. It is
much better you should not be interested. Men
who are interested may blunder."

**She is vain — she is selfish — she is arrogant,"
said Delia Eocca, with great decision.

** Oh ho ! — all that you find out already ? You
did not amuse her long ? "

** C'est une femme exageree en tout." pur-
sued Delia Rocca, disregarding.

" No ! Exaggeration is vulgar — is bad taste.
Her taste is excellent — unexceptionable "

" Exageree en tout ! " repeated Delia Eocca,
with much emphasis. " Dress — jewels — habits
— temper — everything. She had three hundred
pots of flowers in her room ! "

" Flower-pots, pooh ! that is English. It

is very odd," pursaed the Due pensively, **but
tliey really do like the smell of flowers." .

■XT-

IN A WINTER CITY.

** Only because tliey cost so much to rear in
their fogs. If they were common as with us, they
would throw them out of the window as we do."

*' Nevertheless, send her three nundred pots
more. II faut commencer la cour, mon cher."

Delia Eocca looked out into the rain.

** I have no inclination — I dislike a woman of
the world."

The Due chuckled a little.

" Ah, ah ! since when, caro mio ? "

** There is no simplicity — there is no inno-
cence — there is no sincerity-

**Bah!" said the Due, with much disdain;
** I do not know where you have got those new
ideas, nor do I think they are your own at all.
Have you fallen m love with a * jeune Mees * with
apple-red cheeks and sweatmeats in her pocket ?
Simplicity — innocence — sincerity. Very pretty.
Our old friend of a million vaudevilles, L'Ingenue.
"We all know her. What is she in real truth ? —
A swaddled bundle of Ignorance. Cut the swad-
dling band — ugh ! and Ignorance flies to Know-
ledge as Eve did, only Ignorance does not want
to know good and evil : the evil contents her :

IN A WINTER CITY,

she stops short at that. Yes — yes, L'Ingenue
will marry you that she may read Zola and
Belot ; that she may go to La Biche au Bois :
that she may smoke cigars with young men;
that she may have her dresses cut half-way
down her spL that she may romp like a half
drunk harlot in all the cotillons of the year !
Whereas your woman of the world, if well

chosen **

" Will have done all these things beforehand
at some one else's expense, and will have tired of

them, — or not have tired ; of the display of

spine and of the cotillon she will certainly never
have tired unless she be fifty—

»»

" That is not precisely what I mean," said the
Due, caressing his small white moustache. ** No ;
I said well cho£;en — well chosen. What it can
matter to you whether your wife smokes with
young men, or reads bad novels, or romps till
breakfast, I do not see myself. There is a
natural destiny for husbands. The unwise fret
over it — the wise profit by it. But considering
that you dislike these things in your own wife,
however much vou like and admire them in the

IN A WINTER CITY,

vjiYci of other i)ersons, I would still say, avoid
our friend of a million vaudevilles ^a petite Mees
de seize ans. Ignorance is not innocence, it is
a great mistake to suppose that it even secures
it. Your Mees would seize Belot and Zola a la
reveille des noces . Miladi yonder, for in-
stance, when they come to her from her book-
seller's, throws them aside, unread—

»>

** There was a book of Zola's on her table to-
day »'

" I would bet ten thousand francs that she
had not gone beyond the title-page," inteiTupted
the Due, with petulance. '* Taste, mon cher
Delia Rocca, is the only sure guarantee in these
matters. Women, believe me, never have any
principle. Principle is a backbone, and no wo-
man — except bodily — ever possesses any back-
bone. Their priests and their teachers and their
mothers fill them with doctrines and convention-
alities — all things of mere word and wind. No
woman has any settled principles ; if she have any
vague ones, it is the uttermost she ever reaches,
and those can always be overturned by any man
who has any influence over her. But Tasi-e is

IN A WINTER CITjT.

another matter altogether. A woman whose iaste
is excellent is preserved from nil eccentricities
and most follies. You never see a woman of
good sense afficher her improprieties or adver-
tise her liaisons as women of vulgarity do. Nay,
if her taste be perfect, though she have weak-
nesses, I doubt if she will ever have vices.
Vice will seem to her like a gaudy colour, or
too much gold braid, or very large plaids, or
buttons as big as saucers, or anything else such
as vulgar women like. Fastidiousness, at any
rate, is very good iiostiche for modesty : it is
always decent, it can never be coarse. Good
taste, inherent and ingrained, natural and culti-
vated, cannot alter. Principles — ouf ! — they go on
and off like a slipper; but good taste is inde-
structible; it is a compass that never errs. If
your wife have it — well, it is possible she ma}^ be
false to you; she is human, she is feminine; but
she will never make you ridiculous, she will never
compromise you, and she will rot romp in a
cotillon till the morning sun shows the paint oy
her face washed away in the rain of her perspira-
tion. Virtue is, after all, as Mme. de Montes-

12, A WINTER CITY.

!!tl

pan said, une chose tout purement gdographique.
It varies with tlie hemisphere like the human
skin and the human hair ; what is vile in one
latitude is harmless in another. No philosophic
person can put any trust in a thing which
merely depends upon climate; but, Good
Taste "

The cab stopped at the club, and the Due in
his disquisition,

** Va faire la cour," he said, paternally, to his
companion as they went through the doors of
their Cercle. " I can assure you, mon cher, that
the taste of Miladi is perfect."

" In dress, perhaps," assented Delia Rocca.

*' In everything. Va faire la cour."

Paolo, Duca della Rocca, was a very handsome
man, of the finest and the most delicate type of
beauty ; he was very tall, and he carried himself
with stateliness and grace ; his face was grave,
pensive, and poetic ; in the largest assembly people
who were strangers to him always looked at him,
and asked, " Who is that ? "

He was the head of a family, very ancient and
distinguished, but very impoverished ; in wars and

IN A WINTER CITY.

civil war all their possessions had drifted away
from them piece by piece, hence, he was a great
noble on a slender pittance. It had always been
said to him, and of him, as a matter of course, that
ho would mend his position by espousing a large
fortune, and he had been brought up to regard
such a transaction in the light of a painful but
inevitable destiny.

But although he was now thirty- eight years
of age, he had never seen, amongst the many
young persons pointed out to him as possessing
milUons, anyone to whom he could prevail upon
himself to sell his old name and title.

The Great Republic inspires, as it is well
known, a p*ission for social and titular distinc-
tions in its enterprising sons and daughters,
which is, to the original flunkeyism of the mother
country, as a Gloire de Dijon to a dog-rose, as a
Reine Claude to a common blue plum. Nor are
the pretty virgins whom the Atlantic wafts across,
in any way afflicted with delicacy or hesitation
if they can but see their way to getting what
they want ; and they strike the bargain, or their
mothers do so for them, with a cynical candour

III

t' .-1

% I

i-i,:

IN A WINTER CITY.

as to their object which would almost stagger tho
manager of a Bureau dc Mariage.

Many and various were the gold-laden damsels
of the West, who were offered; or offered them-
selves, to him. But he could not induce himself;
— his pride, or his taste, or his hereditary in-
stincts, were too strong for him to be able to
ally himself with rag and bone merchants from
New York, or oil-strikers from Pennsylvania, or
speculators from Wall Street.

No doubt it was very weak of him ; a dozen
men of the great old races of Europe married
thus every year, but Paolo della Rocca loved his
name, as a soldier does his flag, and he could not
brave the idea of possibly transmitting to his
children traits and taints of untraceable or ignoble
inherited influences.

Over and over again he allowed himself to be
the subject of discucsion amongst those ladies
whose especial i)leasure it is to arrange this
sort of matters; but when from discussion it
had been ready to pass into action, he had always
murmured to his match-making friend —

" A little more time ! — next year."

IN A WINTER CITY.

** Ball ! ce n'est qu'iine affaire do notaire,"
said his special protectress in those matters, a still
charming Russian ex-ambassadress, who con-
stantly wintered in Floralia, and who, having had
him as a lover when he was twenty and she was
thirty, felt quite a maternal interest in him
still as to his marriage and prospects.

Delia llocca was too much a man of the world
and of his countrv not to be well aware that she
spoke the truth; it was only an affair for the
notaries, like any other barter ; still he put it off ;
it would have to be done one day, but there was no
haste, — there would always be heiresses wilUng
and eager to become the Duchess della Rocca,
Princess of Palmarola, and Marchioness of Tavig-
nano, as his roll of old titles ran.

And so year by year had gone by, and he
vaguely imagined that he would in time meet what
he wanted without any drawbacks : a delusion
common to everyone, and realised by no one.

Meanwhile, the life he led, if somewhat pu^'
poseless, was not disagreeable ; being an Italian,
he Could live like a gentleman, with simplicity,
and effort to conceal his lack of riches;

' t

•'•♦

IX A WINTER CITY.

nor did he tliink liis dignity imperilled because he
did not get into debt for the sake of display ; ho
would dine frugally without thinking himself dis-
honoured; refuse to join in play withouf feeling
degraded; and look the finest gentleman in
Europe without owing his tailor a bill.

For other matters he was somewhat dt^soeuvre.
He had fought, like most other young men of
that time, in the campaign of '59, but the result
disappointed him ; and he was at heart too
honest and too disdainful to find any place for
himself in that struggle between cunning and cor-
ruption, of which the political life of our reg( ne-
rated Italy is at present composed. Besides, he
was also too indolent. So for his amusement he
went to the wovld, and chiefly to the world of
great ladies ; u ;«1 for his duties made sufficient for
himself out of the various interests of the neglect-
ed old estates which he had inherited ; for the
rest he was a man of the world ; that he had a
perfect manner, all society knew ; whether he had
character as well, nobody cared ; that he had a
heart at all, was only known to himself, his pea-
santry, and a few women.

CHAPTER III.

The next morning the sun f>hone brilliantly ;
the sky was blue ; the wind was a very gentle breeze
from the sea ; Lady Hilda's breakfast chocolate
was well made ; the tea-roses and the heliotrope
almost hid the magenta furniture and the gilded
plaster consoles, and the staring mirrors. They
had sent her in a new story of Octave Feuillet ;
M. de St. Louis had forwarded her a new
volume of charming verse by Sully Pi-udhomme,
only sold on the Boulevards two days before,
with a note of such grace and wit that i1; ought
to have been addressed to Elysium for Mme. de
SevJgne ; the post brought her only one letter,
which announced that her brother, Lord Clair-
vaux, would come thither to please her, after tlie

p 2

IN A WINTER CITY.

Newmarket Spring Meeting, or perhaps before,
since he had to see " Major Fridolin " in Paris,

On the whole, the next morning Lady Hilda,
looking out of the hotel window, decided to
stay in Floralia.

She ordered her carriage out early, and drove
hither and thither to enjoy tranquilly the innu-
merable treasures of all the arts in which the
city of Floralia is so rich.

A Monsignore whom she knew well, learned,
without pedantry, and who united the more
vivacious accomplishments of the virtuoso to the
polished softness of the churchman, accompanied
her. The Clairvaux people from time immemorial
had been good Catholics.

Lady Hilda for her part never troubled her
head about those things, but she thought un-
belief was very bad form, and tliat to throw
over your family re]igion was an impertinence
to your ancestors. Some things in the cere-
monials of her church grated on her oesthetic
and artistic ideas, but then these things she
attributed to the general decadence of the whole
age in taste.

IN A WINTER CITY.

Her Monsignore went home to luncheon with
her, and made himself as agreeable as a coui-tly
churchman always is to every one ; and afterwards
she studied the Penal Settlement more closely by
calling on those leaders of it whose cards lay in
a heap in her anteroom, and amused herself
with its mind and manners, its attributes and
antecedents.

** After all, the only people in any oountry that
one can trust oneself to know are the natives of
it," she said to herself, as she went to the weekly
** day " of the infinitely charming Marchesa
del Trasimenc, nata Da Bolsena, where she met
Delia Eocca and M. de St. Louis, as everybody
meets ever}'body else, morning, afternoon, and
evening, fifty times in the twenty -four hours in
Floralia, the results being antipathy or sympathy
in a fatal degree.

In her girations she herself excited extreme
attention and endless envy, especially in the
breasts of those unhappy outsiders whom she
termed the Penal Settlement,

There was something about her ! — Worth
Pingat and La Ferriere dressed the Penal Settle-

k-. I :

^%:
|n

iff?"'

if If:

It
$

IN A WINTEB CITY.

ment, or it said they did. Carlo Maremma
always swore that there was a little dressmalcer
who lived opposite his stable who could have
told sad truths about many of these Paris-born
toilettes ; but no doubt Marennna was wrong,
because men know nothing about these things,
and are not aware that a practised eye can tell
the sweep of Worth's scissors under the sjioii- "-
blades as surely as a connoisseur recognises the
hand of Boule or Vernis Martin on a cabinet or
an etid. At any rate, the Penal Settlement
swore it was adorned by Worth, Pingat and La
Ferriere in all the glories and eccentricities
imaginable of confections, unics and mtlangees,
Directoire and Premier Empire, Juive and
Louis Quinze ; and if talking about a theory
could prove it, certainly they proved that they
bore all Paris on their persons.

But there was something about her — it was
difficult to say what ; perhaps it was in the
tip of her Pompadour boot, or perhajjs it hid in
the back widths of her skirt, or perhaps it
lurked in the black sable fur of her dolman,
but a something that made them feel there was

m A WINTER CITY.

a gulf never to be passed between them and
this world-famed elegante.

Lady Hilda would have said her secret lay in
her always being just a quarter oi an hour in
advance of the iiishion. She was always the
first person to be seen, in what six weeks after-
wards was the rage : and when the rage came,
then Lady Hilda had dropped the fashion.
Hence she was the perpetual despair of all her
sex — a distinction which she was quite human
enough to enjoy in a contemptuous sort of way ;
as contemptuous of herself as of others ; for she
had a certain vague generosity and largeness of
mind which lifted her above mean and small
emotions in general.

She had been steeped in the world, as people
call that combination of ennui, excitement, selfish-
ness, fatigue, and glitter, which forms the various
delights of modem existence, till it had pene-
trated her through and through, as a petrifying
stream does the supple J^ough put in it. But
there were little corners in her mind which the
petrifaction had not reached.

This morning — it was lialf-past five o'clock in

■I

IN A WINTER CITY.

a November afternoon, and pitch dark, but of
course it was morning still as nobody had dined,
the advent of soup and sherry bringing the only
meridian recognised in society — the Lady Hilda
refreshed with a cup of tea from the samo-
var of her friend the Princess Olga Schouvaloff,
who came yearly to her palace in the historical
river- street of historical Fl or alia, and having
been assured by Princess Olga, that if they kept
quite amongst themselves, and never knew any-
body else but the Floralian Russian and German
nobility, and steadfastly refused to allow any-
body else to be i^resentcd to them, Floralia was
bearable — nay, even really agreeable, — she got
into her coupe, and was driven through the
gloom to her hotel.

Her head servant made her two announce'
ments : — Madame de Caviare had arrived that
morning, and honied to see her before dinner.

Lady Hilda's brows frowned a little.

The Duca della Rocca had sent these flowers.

Lady Hilda's eyes smiled a little.

They were only some cyclamens fresh from
the country, in moss. She had regretted to him

IN A WINTER CITY.

the day before that those lovely simple wood
flowers could not be found at florists' shops nor
in flower women's baskets.

After all, she said to herself, it did not matter
that Mila had come ; she was silly and not very
proper, and a nuisance altogether ; but Mila was
responsible for her own sins, and sometimes could
be amusing. So the Lady Hilda, in a good-
humoured and serene frame of mind, crossed the
corridor to the apartments her cousin had taken
just opposite to her own.

** He is certainly very striking looking — like a
Vandyke picture," she thought to herself irrele-
vantly, as she tapped at her cousin's door ; those
cyclamens had pleased her; yet she had let
thousands of the loveliest and costliest bouquets
wither in her anteroom every year of her life,
without deigning to ask or heed who were even
the senders of them.

" Come in, if it's you, dear," said Madame
Mila, ungrammatically and vaguely, in answer to
the tap.

The Countess de Caviare was an English-
woman, and a cousin, one of the great West

mi
Mm

isma

IN A WINIER CITY,

countiy Trehill3'ons whom everybody knows,
her mother havmg been a Claii'vaux. She had
been grandly married 'n her first season to a very
high and mighty and almost imperial Eussian,
himseli a most good-humoured and popular per-
son, who lolled all his horses with fast driving,
gambled very heavily, and never amused himself
anywhere so well as in the little low dancing
places round Paris.

Madame Mila, as her friends always called
her, was as pretty a little woman as could
be imagined, who enamelled herself to such
perfection that she had a face of fifteen, on the
most fashionable and wonderfully costumed of
bodies; she was very fond of her cousin Hilda,
because she could borrow so much money of
her, and she had come to Floralia this winter
because in Paris there was a rumour that she
had cheated at cards — false, of course, but still
odious.

If she had made a little pencil mark on some
of the aces, where was the harm in that ?

She almost always played with the same
people, and they had won heaps of money of her.

IN A WINTER CITY.

Whilst those horrid creatures in the city and
on the bourse were allowed to " rig the market,"
and nobody thought the worse of them for
spreading false news to send their shares up or
down, why should not one poor little woman
try to help on Chance a httit bit qt play ?

She was always in debt, though she admitted
that her husband allowed her liberally. She
had eighty thousand francs a year by her settle-
ments to spend on herself, and he gave her
another fifty thousand to do as she pleased
with : on the whole about one half what he
allowed to Blanche Souris, of the Chateau
Gaillard theatre.

She had had six children, three were living
and three were dead ; she thought herself a good
mother, because she gave her wet-nurses ever
so many silk gowns, and when she wanted the
childi'en for a fancy ball or u drive, always saw
that they were faultlessly dressed, and besides she
always took them to Trouville.

She bad never had any grief in her life, except
the loss of the Second Empire, and even that
she got over when she found that flying the Red

•if

^■'

I !

IN A WINTER CITY.

Cross flag had saved her hotel, without so much
as a teacup being broken in it, that MM. Worth
and Offenbach were safe from all bullets, and that
society, under the Septennate, promised to be
every bit as Icste as under the Empire.

In a word, Madame Mila was a type of the
women of her time.

The women who go semi-nude in an age which
has begun to discover that the nude in sculpture
is very immoral ; who discuss * Tue-la ' in a gene-
ration which decrees Moliere to be coarse, and
Beaumont and Fletcher indecent; who have
the Journal pci x* Hire on their tables in a day
when no one who respects himself would name
the Harlot's Progress ; who read Beaudelaire
and patronise Teresa and Schneider ir an

era which finds * Don Juan '

gross,

and

Shakespeare far too plain ; who strain all
their energies to rival Miles. Rose The and
La Petite Boulotte in everything ; who go
shi^imping or oyster-liunting on fashionable sea-
shores, with their legs bare to the knee ; who go
to the mountains with confections, high heels,
and gold-tipped canes, shriek over their gambling

IN A WINTER CITY.

as the dawn reddens over the Alps, and know no
more of the glories of earth and sky, of sunrise
and sunset, than do the porcelain pots that hold
their paint, or the silver dressing-hox that carries
tlieir hair-dye.

Women who are in convulsions one day, and
on the top of a drag the next; who are in
hysterics for tlieir lovers at noon-day, and in ecsta-
cies over haccarat at midnight ; who laugh in little
nooks together over each other's immoralities,
and have a moral code so elastic that it will pardon
anything except innocence ; who gossip over each
other's dresses, and each other's passions, in the
self-same, self-satisfied chirp of contentment, and
who never resent anything on earth, except any
eccentric suggestion that life could be anything
except a perpetual fete a la Watteau in a per-
petual blaze of lime-light.

Pain ? — Are there not chloral and a flatterinjr
doctor ? Sorrow ? — Are there not a course at the
Baths, play at Monte Carlo, and new cases from
Worth ? Shame ? — Is it not a famine fe\er which
never comes near a well laden table ? Old Age ?
— ^Is there not white and red paint, and heads of

1 '^.^A! J

\l\

IN A WINTER CITY.

dead hair, and even false bosoms? Death? —
Well, no doubt there is death, but they do not
realise it ; they hardly beUeve in it, they think
about it so little.

There is something unknown somewhere to
fall on them some day that they dread vaguely,
for they are terrible cowards. But they worry
as little about it as possible. They give the
milHonth part of what they possess away in its
name to whatever church they belong to, and they
think they have an'anged quite comfortably for all
possible contingencies hereafter.

If it make things safe, they will head bazaars
for the poor, or wear black in holy week, turn
lottery-wheels for charity, or put on fancy
dresses in the name of benevolence, or do any
little amiable trifle of that sort. But as for
changing their lives, — pas si lete !

A bird in ^iie hand thev hold worth two in the
bush ; and though your birds may be winged on
strong desire, and your bush the burning parterre
of Moses, they will have none of them.

These women are not all bad ; oh, no ! they are
like sheep, that is all. If it were fashionable to

IN A WINTER CITY.

be virtuous, very likely tliey would be so. If it

were chic to be devout, no doubt tliey would pass

their life on their knees. But, as it is, they

know that a flavoui* of vice is as necessary to their

reputation as great ladies, as sorrel-leaves to soup

a la bonne femme. They affect a license if they
take it not.

They are like the barber, who said, with much
pride, to Voltaire, "Je ne suis qu'un pauvre
diable de perruquier, mais je ne crois pas en Dieu
plus que les autres."

They may be worth very little, but they are
desperately afraid that you should make such a
mistake as to think them worth anything at all.
You are not likely, if you know them. Still,
they are apprehensive.

Though one were to arise from the dead to
preach to them, they would only make of him a
nine days* wonder, and then laugh a little, and
yawn a little, and go on in their own paths.

Out of the eater came forth meat, and from
evil there may be begotten good; but out of
nullity there can only come nullity. They
have wadded their ears, and though Jerehmia

i m

s»

JN A Wir ETt CITY.

wailed of desolation, or Isaiah thundered the
wrath of heaven, they would not hear, — they
would go on looking at each other's dresses.

What could Paul himself say that would change
them?

You cannot make saw-dust into marble ; you
cannot make sea-sand into gold. ** Let us alone,"
is all they ask ; and it is all that you could do,
though the force and flame of Horeb were in you.

Ilila, Countess de Caviare having arrive arly
in the morning and remained invisible an day,
had awakened at five to a cup of tea, an ex-
quisite dressing-gown, and her choicest enamel ;
she now gave many bii'd-like kisses to her
cousin, heaped innumerable endearments upon
her, and hearing there was nothing to do, sent
out for a box at the French Theatre.

" It is wretched acting," said the Lady Hilda ;
*'I went the other night but I did not stay
half-an-hour."

" Thai of course, ma chere," said Mt.\dame
Mila; **but we shall be sure to see people wc
laiow, — Cheaps of peo]3le."

** Such as they are," said the Lady Hilda.

IN A WINTER CITY.

"At any rate it is better than spcndinff an
evening alone. I never spent an evening alono
in my life," said Mme. dc Caviare, who could no
more live without a crowd about her than sho
could sleep without chlorodyne, or put on a
petticoat without two or three maids' assist-
ance.

The French company in Floralia is usually
about the average of the weakly patchwork
troops of poor actors tliat pass on third rate
little stnges in the French departments; but
Floralia, feminine and fashionable, ilocks to the
French company because it can rely on some-
thing tant soit peu hazanle, and is quite sure
not to be bored with decency, and if by any
oversight or bad taste the management should
put any serious sort of piece on the stage, it
can always turn its back to the stage and whisper
to its lovers, or chatter shrilly to its allies.

They went into their box as the second act
ended of Mme. de Scahreuse ; a play of the period,
written by a celebrated author; in which* the
lady married her nephew, and finding out that
he was enamoui'ed of her daughter, the offspring

-iif.

1 1:.

»*•*

IN A WINTER CITY.

of a first marriage, bought poison for them both,
and then suddenly changing her mind, with
magnificent magnanimity drank it herself, and
J)lessed the lovers as she died in great agonies.

It had been brought out in Paris with enor-
mous success., and as Lady Hilda and the
Countess had both seen it half-a-dozen times
they could take no interest in it.

** You ivould come ! " said the former, raising
her eyebrows and seating herself so as to see
nothing whatever of the stage and as little as
possible of the house.

** Of course," replied Madame Mila, whose
lorgnon was ranging hither and thither, like a
general's spy-glass before a battle. " There was
nothing else to do — at least you said there was no-
thing. Look ! some of those women have actually
got the ceuf de Paques corsage — good heaven ! —
those went out last year, utterly, utterly ! Ah,
there is Lucia San Luca — what big emeralds —
and there is Maria Castelfidai'do, how old she is
looking That is Lady Featherleigh — you re-
member that horrid scandal ? — Yes, I hear
iiiei^ do visit her here. How handsome Luina

IN A WINTER CITY.

Oitoseccoli loots ; powder becomes her so ;
her son is a pretty boy — oh, you never stoop
to boys ; you are wrong ; nothing amuses you
like a boy ; how they believe in one ! There
is that Canadian woman who tried to get
into notice in Paris two seasons ago — you
remember ? — they make her quite Creme in
this place — the idea ! She is dressed very
well, I dare say if she were always dumb she
might pass. She never would have been heard
of even here, only Attavante pushed her right
and left, bribed the best people to her parties,
and induced all his other tendrcsses to send her
cards. In love ! of course not ! Who is in love
with a face like a Mohican squaw's, and a
squeak like a goose's ? But they are immensely
rich ; at least they have mountains of ready
money ; he must have suffered dreadfully before
he made her dress well. Teach her gram-
mar, in any language, he never will. There is
the old Duchess — why, slie was a centenarian
when we were babies — but they say she plays
every atom as keenly as ever — nobody can beat

her for lace either — look at tluit Spanish point.

I 2

IN A WINTER CITY.

There are a few decent peoj)le here this winter ;
not many though ; I think it would have heen
wiser to have stopped at Nice. Ah mon cher,
comment 9a va ? — tell me, Maurice, who is that
woman in black with good diamonds, there, with
Sampierdareno and San Marco?"

'Maurice,' pressing her pretty hand, sank down
on to the hard bench behind her armchair, and
insinuated gracefully that the woman in black
with good diamonds was not " d*une vertu assez
forte," to be noticed by or described to such
ladies as Mila, Countess de Caviare ; but since
identification of her was insisted on, proceeded
to confess that she was no less a person than
the wild Duke of Stirling's Gloria.

" Ah ! is that Gloria ! " said [Madame, with
the keenest interest, bringing her lorgnon to
bear instantly. ** How curious ! I never chanced
to see her before. How quiet she looks, and
how plainly she is dressed."

** I am afraid we have left Gloria and he/
class no other way of being singular ! " said tlie
Lady Hilda, who had muttered her welcome
somewhat coldly to Maurice.

IN A WINTER CITY.

Maurice, Vicomte des Gommeux, was a young
Parisian, famous for leading cotillons and driving
piebalds; he followed Mme. de Caviare with
the regularity of her afternoon shadow ; was as
much an institution with her as her anodynes ;
and much more useful than her courier. To
avoid all appearances that might set a v/icked
world talking, he generally arrived in a city about
twenty-four hours after her, and, as she was a
woman of good-breeding who insisted on les
mceiirs, always went to another hotel. He had
held his present post actually so long as three
years, and there weie as yet no signs of iiis
being dismissed and replaced, for he was very
devoted, very obedient, very weak, saw nothing
that he was intended not to see, and was very
adroit at rolling cigarettes.

" II est si bon enfant j " said the Count de
Caviare, to everybody; he really was gi'atefnl
to the young man, some of whose prcdccessoja
had much disturbed his wife's temper and his
own personal peace.

**Bon soir, Mesdames," said the Due de St.
Louis, entering the box. " Comtesse, charme de

mm*

IN A WINTER CITY.

vous voir — Miladi a vos pieds. What a wretched
creature that is playing Julie de Scabreuse. I
blush for my country, Wlien I was a young man,
the smallest theatre in France would not have en-
dured that woman. There was a public then
with proper feeling for the histrionic as for every
other art ; a bad gesture or a false intonation was
hissed by every audience, were that audience
only composed of workmen and work girls ; but
now "

"May one enter, Mesdames?" asked his
friend, Delia Rocca.

" One may — if you will only shut the door.
Thanks for the cyclamens," said the Lady Hilda,
with a little of the weariness going oflf her deli-
cate, proud face.

Delia Rocca took the seat behind her, as the
slave Maurice surrendered his to M. de St. Louis.

" Happy flowers ! I found them in my own
woods this morning," he said, as he took his seat.
** You do not seem much amused, Madame."

" Amused ! The play is odious. Even poor
Desclee's genius could only give it a horrible fas-
cination."

IN A WINTER CITY,

*' It has the worst fault of all, it is unnatural."

" Yes ; it is very curious, hut the Frcncli will
have so much vice in the drama, and the English
must have so much virtue, that a natural or pos-
sible play is an impossibility now upon either
stage."

** You looked more interested in the Majolica
this morning " '

*' How, did you see me ? "

"I was passing through the tower of the
Podesta on business. Is it not wonderful our old
pottery? It is intensely to be regretted that
Ginori and Carocci imitate it so closely ; it vul-
garises a thing whose chief beauty after all is
association and age."

" Yes ; what charm there is in a marriage
plate of Maestro Giorgio's, or a sweetmeat dish
of your Orazio Fontana's ! But there is very
scanty pleasure in reproductions of them, how-
ever clever these may be, such as Pietro Gay
sends out to Paris and Vienna Exhibitions."

** You mean, there can be no mind in an imi-
tation?"

" Of course ; I would rather have the crudest

IN A WINTER CITY.

original thing than the mere galvanism of the
corpse of a dead genius. I would give a thousand
l^aintings by Froment, Damousse, or any of the
finest living artists of Sevres, for one piece by
old Yan der Meer of Delft ; but I would prefer a
painting on Sevres done yesterday by Froment
or Damousse, or even any much less famous
worker, provided only it had originality in it, to
the best reproduction of a Van der Meer that
modern manufacturers could produce."

** I think you are right ; but I fear our old
pottery painters were not very original. They
copied from the pictures and engravings of Man-
tegna, Raffaelle, Marcantonio, Marco di Ra-
venna, Beatricius, and a score of others."

** The application was original, and the senti-
ment they brought to it. Those old artists put
so much heart into their work."

"Because when they painted a stemma on
the glaze they had still feudal faith in nobility,
and when they painted a Madonna or Ecce Homo
they had still child-lilie belief in divinity. What
does the pottery painter of to-day care for the
coat of arms or the religious subject he may be

IN A WINTER CITY.

■m

commissioned to execute for a dinner service or
a chapel ? It may be admirable painting — if you
give a very high price — but it will still be only
manufacture."

" Then what pleasant lives those pottery paint-
ers of the early days must have led ! They were
never long stationary. They wandered about
decorating at their fancy, now here and now
there ; now a vase for a pharmacy, and now a
stove for a kmg. You find German names on
Italian ware, and Italian names on Ilemish gres ;
the Nuremberger would work in Venice, the
Dutchman would work in Eouen."

''Sometimes however they were accused of
sorcery ; the great potter, Hans Kraut, you re-
member, was feared by his townsmen as possessed
by the devil, and was buried ignominiously out-
side the gates, in his nook of the Black Forest.
But on the whole they were happy, no doubt :
men of simple habits and of wortliy lives.*'

** You care for art youi'self, M. Delia Rocca ? "

There came a gleam of interest in her hand-
some, languid hazel eyes, as she turned them
upon him.

;4'

IN A WINTER CITY.

** Every Italian does," he answered her. " I
do not think we are ever, or I think, if ever, very
seldom connoisseurs in the way that your Eng-
lishman and Frenchman is so. We are never verv
learned as to styles and drtes ; we cannot boast
the huckster's eye of the northern bric-a-brac
hunter ; it is quite another thing with us ; we
love art as children their nurses' tales and cradle
songs; it is a familiar affection with us, and
affection is never very analytical; the Robbia
over the chapel-door, the apostle-pot that the
men in the stables drink out of; the Sodoma or the
Beato Angelico that hangs before our eyes daily
as we dine ; the old bronze secchia that we wash
our hands in as boys in the Loggia — these are
all so homely and dear to us that we grow up
with a love for them all as natural as our love for
our mothers. You will say the children of all
rich people see beautiful and ancient things from
their birth ; so they do, but not as we see
them — here they are too often degraded to the
basest household uses, and made no more account
of than the dust which gathers on them ; but
that very neglect of them makes them the more

IN A WINTER CITY.

kindred to us. Art elsewhere is the guest of the
salon — with us she is the play-mate of the infant
and the serving-maid of the peasant : the mules
may drink from an Etruscan sarcophagus, and
the pigeons be fed from a patina of the twelfth
century."

Lady Plilda listened with the look of awakened
interest still in her large eyes ; he spoke in his own
tongue, and with feeling and grace ; it was new
to her to find a man with whom art was an emo-
tion instead of an opinion.

The art world she had met wHh was one
that was very positive, very eclectic, very hyper-
critical, very highly cultured ; it had many
theories and elegant phrases ; it laid down end-
less doctrines, and found pleasure in endless dis-
putations. Whenever she had tired of the world of
fashion, this was the world she had turned to ;
it had imbued her with knowledge of art, and
immeasurable contempt for those to whom avi
was a dead letter ; but art had remained with her
rather an intellectual dissipation than a tender-
ness of sentiment.

" As you care for these things, Madame," con-

IN A WINTER CITY.

tinuod Delia Rocca, with hesitation, "might I
one clay hope that you would honour my poor
villa ? It has little else left in it ; but there are
still a few rare pieces of Gubbio and Urbino and
Faenza, and I have a Calvary which, if not by
Lucca himself, is certainly by Andrea della
Robbia.*

**I shall be glad to see them. 7our villa is
near?"

" About ten miles' distance, up in the hills.
It was once a great stronghold as well as palace.
Now it can boast no interest save such as may
go with fallen fortunes. For more than a century
we have been too poor to be able to do any more
than keep wind and water out of it ; and it had
been cleared before my time of almost everything
of value. Happily, however, the chestnut woods
outside it have not been touched. They shroud
its nakedness."

"Your villa, Delia Rocca? " cried Madame de
Caviare, who had known him for several j'ears.
" I have never seen it ; we will drive out there
some day when the cold winds are gone—

t»

" Vous me comblez de bontds," he answered,

IN A WINTER CITY.

with a low bow. ** Alas, Madame, there is very
little that will repay you : it is hardly more than
a ruin. But if you and Miladi will indeed honour
it "

**It is a very fine place still," said the Due de
St. Louis, a little impatiently. " It has suffered
in sieges; and is by so much the more interesting.
For myself, I endure very much pain from having
a whole house, and one built no later than 1730.
My great grandfather pulled down the noble old
castle, built at the same time as Chateau Gaillard
— imagine the barbarism ! — and employed the pon-
derous rocaille of Oppenord to replace it. It is very
curious, but loss of taste in the nobles has always
been followed by a revolution of the mob. The
decadence always ushers in the democracy."

**\Ve may well be threatened then in this day
with universal equality ! " said the Lady Hilda,
hiding a very small ya .vn behind her fan.

*' Nay, Madame," said Delia Kocca. *' In this
day the nobles do not even do so much as to
lead a wrong taste ; they accept and adopt every
form of it, as imposed on them by their tailors,
their architects, their clubs and their munici-

-^?^

■ f '-■"

IN A WINTER CITY.

palities, as rocaille was imposed by the cabinet-
makers."

** How fearfully serious you all are ! " said
Madame de Caviare. *' There is that dreadful
Canadian woman standing up — what rubies !
how fond vulgar women always are of rubies.
That passe-partout of hers is rather pretty ; gold
thread on hlondine satin, is it not, Hilda ? My
glass is not very strong—

Lady Hilda looked through her glass, and
decided the important point in the affirma-
tive.

** How she is rouged ! " pursued the Countess.
*' I am sure Altavan^< did not lay that on ; he
is much too artistic. Maurice, have you a
cigarette ? "

"It is not allowed, ma chere," said the Lady
Hilda.

" Pooh ! " said Madame de Caviare, accepting
a little delicate paper roll. " It was very kind of
you, Hilda, to remind me of that ; you wished me
to enjoy it. Won't you have one too ?"

Lady Hilda said ** No " with her fan.

** If the Rocaille brought the Revolution,

IN A WINTER CITY.

Due," she asked, ** what will our smoking bring?
—the end of the world ? "

**It will bring animosity of the sexes, aboli-
tion of the marriage laws, and large increase of
paralysis," rei)lied M. de St. Louis with great
decision.

** You have answered me without a compliment
— what flattery to my intelligence."

** Miladi, I never flatter you. I am not in the
habit of imitating all the world."

** You look severe, Delia Eocca," said Madame
Mila. ** Do you disa^iprove of women smoking? "

" Madame, a woman of grace lends grace to all
she does, no doubt."

** That is to say, you don't approve ii'?'*

"Madame, I merely doubt whether Lionardo
would have painted Mona Lisa had she smoked."

" What a good idea you give me ! — I will be
painted by Millais or Cabanel, smoking. It will
be novel. The cigar shall be in my mouth.
I will send you the first photograph. Ah!
there is Nordlingen ; he will come over here,
and he is the greatest bore in Europe. You
know what your King here said, when Nord-

«!«r-

IN A WINTER CITY.

i I

lingen liad bored him at three audiences about
heaven knows what. — ' I iiever knew the use of
seutinels before; let that man be shot if he ask
audience again ! ' We cannot shoot him ; let i:s
go to supper. Due, you will follow us, with M,
des Gommeux? — and you, too, Delia Rocca?
There is that odious Canadian woman going;
let us make haste ; I should like to see that blon-
dine cloak close ; I shall know whether it looks
like Worth or Pingat."

She passed out on the Due's arm, and the Lady
Hilda accepted Delia llocca's, while the well-
trained Maurice, who knew his duties, rushed to
find the footmen in the vestibule, and to arrest
another gilded youth and kindred spirit, a M. des
Poisseux, whom Madame Mila had espied in the
crowd, and charged him to bring with him to
supper. Madame Mila preferred, to all the world,
the young men of her world of five and twenty or
less ; they had no mind whatever, they had not
character enough to be jealous, and they were as
full of the last new scandals as any dowager of

sixty..

it T

hey talk of the progress of this nge : con-

lon-

IN A WINTER CITY.

trast M. de 8t. Louis with M. des Gommeux and
M. des Poisseux ! " said the Lady Hilda, with her
little contemptuous smile

Delia Rocca laughed.

** You make me for the first time, Madame,
well content to belong to what the Gommeux and
the Poisseux would call a past generation. But
there are not many like our friend the Due ; he
has stepped down to us from the terraces of
Marly ; I am certain he went to sleep one night
after a gavotte with Montespan, and has only just
awakened."

The supper was gay and bright ; Lady Hilda,
rejecting chicken and champagne, and accepting
only ice-water and cigarettes, deigned to be
amusing, though sarcastic, and Madame Mila was
always in one of the two extremes — either syn-
cope, sal volatile, and hysterics, or laughter,
frolic, smoke and risqu-e stories.

She and her sisterhood spend their lives in this
see-saw ; the first state is for the mornings, when
they remember their losses at play, their lovers*
looks at other women, the compromising notes
they have written, and how much — too much to bo

.It

IN A WINTER CITY.

safe — their maids knew of them ; the second state
is for the evenings, when they have their war-paint
on, have taken a Httle nip of some stimulant at
afternoon tea, are going to half-a-dozen houses
hctween midnight and dawn, and are quite sure
their lovers never even see that any other women
exist.

" He could not have a better illustration of the
difference between a woman with taste and a
woman without it," thought the Due de St. Louis,
surveying the two ; the Countess had a million
or two of false curls in a tower above her pretty
tiny face, was almost as decolletee as a Greuze pic-
ture, chirped the fashionable slang of the boule-
vards and salons in the shrillest and swiftest of
voices, and poured forth slanders that were more
diverting than decorous.

Lady Hilda was dressed like a picture of Marie
Antoinette, in 1780 ; her rich hair was lifted from
her low fau' forehead in due keeping with her
costume, she swept aside her cousin's naughty
stories with as much tact as contempt, and spoke
a French which Mai'ie Antoinette could have
recognised as the language in which Voltaire once

IN A WINTER CITY.

scoffed, and Andre Clienier sighed. To be sure,
she did smoke a little, but then even the most
perfect taste cannot quite escape the cachet of its
era.

" It was not necessary, my friend, to say that
your place was so poor," said M. de St. Louis, as
they went out of the hotel together; he had
known his companion from boyhood.

" I am not ashamed of my poverty," said
Delia Eocca, somewhat coldly. " Besides," he
added, with a laugh which had not much mirth in
it, " our poverty is as well known as that of the
city. I think the most dishonest Delia Rocca
could not conceal it by any adroitness, any
more than Floralia could conceal her public
debt."

** "hat may be, but neither you nor the town
need roclaim the state of your affairs," said
the Due, who never gave up an opinion. "You
should let her be interested in you before
you make it so evident; such silence is quite
permissible. You need say nothing ; you need
hide nothing ; you need only let things alone."

**My dear Due," said Delia Rocca;, with a

IN A WINTER CITY.

laugh that had melancholy in it and some
irritation, *' think for one moment of that
woman's position, and say could anything ever
induce her to change it — except one thing ?
Riches could add nothing to her; the highest
rank could scarcely be any charm to her; she
has eveiything she can want or wish for ; — if she
had the power of wishing left, which I doubt. The
only spell that might enchain her would be love, if
she hav3 any capacity to feel it, which I doubt also.
Well — granted love aroused, — what would j)o-
verty or riches in her lover matter to one who
has secured for ever a golden pedestal of her own
from which to survey the woes of the world?
She refused the Prince of Deutchsland ; that I
know, since he told me himself; and men do
not boast of rejections ; — what position, pray,
would ever tempt her since she refused Deutchs-
land ? and he has all personal attractions, too, as
well as his future crown."

** Still, granting all that, to make your lack
of fortune so very conspicuous is to render youi'
purpose conspicuous also, and to draw her atten-
tion to it unwisely," said the Due, who viewed

IN A WINTER CITY.

In-

all these matters calmly, as a kind of mixture of
dii)lomacy and business.

" Caro mio ! " said Delia Kocca lightly, as
he descended the last step. " Be very sure
that if I ever have such a purpose, your Lady
Hilda has too much wit not to perceive it in a
day. But I have not such a purpose. I do
not Hke a woman who smokes."

And with a good night he walked away to his
own house, which was a street or two distant.
The Due chuckled, no wise discomfited.

" An Italian always swears he will never do the
thing he means to do in an hour," the Due re-
flected as he got in his cab.

The Delia Kocca Palace was let to many tenants
and in various divisions ; he himself retained only
a few chambers looking upon the old quiet green
garden, high walled, dark with ilex, and musical
with fountains.

He crossed the silent courts, mounted the vast
black stairways, and entered his solitary rooms.
There was a lamp burning ; and his dog got up
and welcomed him. He slipped on an old velvet
smoking coat, lighted a cigar, and sat do^vn : the

^''t:i

: '.u

IN A WINTER CITY.

councils and projects of M. de St. Louis were
not so entirely rejected by him as he had wished
tlie Due to suppose.

He admired her ; he did not approve her ; he
was not even sure that he liked her in any way ;
but he could not but see that here at last was the
marriage which would bring the resurrection of
all his fortunes.

Neither did he feel any of the humility which
he had expressed to M. de St. Louis. Though
she might be as cold as people all said she was, he
had little fear, if he once endeavoured, that he
would fail in making his way into her graces.
With an Italian, love is too perfect a science for
liim to be uncertain of its results.

Besides, he believed that he detected a different
character in her to what die world thought, and
she also thought was her own. He thought
men had all failed with her because they had not
gone the right way to work. After all, to make
a woman in love with you was easy enough. At
least he had always found it so.

She was a woman, too, of unusual beauty, and
of supreme grace, and a great alHance ; her

IN A WINTER CITY.

money would restore him to the lost pc .i^er of his
ancestors, and save a mighty and stainless name
from falling into that paralysis of poverty and
that dust of obscurity, which are, sooner or later,
its utter extinction. She seemed cast across his
path by a caress of Fortune, from which it would
be madness to turn aside. True, he had a wholly
different ideal for his wife ; he disliked those
world-famous elegantes ; he disliked women who
smoked, and knew their Paris as thoroughly as
Houssaye or Dumas ; he disliked the extrava-
gant, artificial, empty, frivolous life they led;
their endless chase after new excitements, and
their insatiable appetite for frissons nouveaux;
he disliked their literature, their habits, their
cynicism, their ennui, their sensuality, and their
dissipations; he knew them well, and disliked
them in all things ; what he desired in his
wife were natural emotions, unworn innocence,
serenity, simplicity, and freshness of enjoyment;
though he was of the world, he did not care
very much for it ; he had a meditative, imagina-
tive temperament, and the whirl of modern
society was soon wearisome to him ; on the other

I'i

7Jt

IN A WINTER CITY.

hand, he knew the world too well to want
a woman beside him who knew it equally
well.

On the whole, the project of M. de St. Louis
repelled as much as it attracted him. Yet his
wisdom told him that it was the marriage
beyond all others which would best fulfil
his destiny in the way which from his earUest
years he had been accustomed to regard as in-
evitable ; and, moreover, there was something
about her which charmed his senses, though his
judgment feared and in some things his taste dis-
approved her.

Besides, to make so self-engrossed a woman
love ; — he smi' t d as he sat and smoked in the
solitude of his great dim vaulted room, and then
he sighed impatiently.

After all, it was not a heau role to woo a
woiiian for the sheer sake of her fortune ; and
he was too true a gentleman not to know it.
And what would money do for him if it were
hers and not his ? — it would only humihate him,
— he felt no taste for the position of a prince
consort, — it would pass to his children certainly

IN A WINTER CITY.

after him, and so raise up the okl name to its
oklcn dignity ; but for himself

I£e got up and walked to the window; the
clear winter stars, large before morning, were
shining through the iron bars and lozenged
panes of the ancient casement; the fountain in
the cortile waa shining in the moonlight ; the
ducal coronet, carved in stone above the gate-
way, stood out whitely from the shadows.

** After all, she would despise me, and I should
despise myself," he thought ; the old coronet
had been sadly battered in war, but it had never
been chaffered and bought.

''4,1

CHAPTER IV.

" What do you think oi" Delia Rocca, Hilda,"
asked Madame Mila at the same hour that night,
toasting her pink satin slipper hefore her dress-
ing-room fire.

Lady Hilda yawned, unclasping her riviere of
sapphires.

** He has a very good manner. There is some
truth in what 01 ga SchouvalofF always maintains,
that after an Italian all other men seem boors."

** I am sure Maurice is not a boor ! " said the
Countess, j)ettishly.

"Oh no, my dear; he parts his hair in the
middle, talks the last new, unintelligible, aristo-
cratic argotf and has the charms of every
actress and dancer in Paris catalogued clearly in

IN A WINTER CITY.

• t

a brain otherwise duly clouded, as fashion re-
quii'es, by brandy in the morning and absinthe
before dinner ! Boors don't do those things, nor
yet get half as learned as to Mile. Rose The and
la Petite Boulotte."

Madame Mila reddened angrily.

"What spiteful things to say; he never looked
at that hideous little Boulotte, or any of the
horrible creatures, and he never drinks ; he is a
perfect gentleman."

" Not quite that, ma chore ; if he had been,
he would never have let himself be called hon
enfant by youi' husband ! "

Madame Mila raged in passionate wrath for
five minutes, and then began to cry a little,
whimperingly.

Lady Hilda gathered up her riviere, took her
candlestick, and bade her good night.

**It is no use makmg that noise, Mila," she
said C00II3'. " You have always known what I
think, but you prefer to be in the fashion ; of
course you must go on as you like ; only please
to remember, — don't let me see too much of
Des Gommeux."

III
pi

IN A WINTER CITY.

Madame Mila, left alone to the contemplation
of her inuk slippers, fumed and sulked felt
very angry indeed; but she had borrowed a
thousand pounds some six or eight times from
the Lady Hilda to pay her debts at i^lay ; and
of course it was such a trifle that she had
always forgotten to pay it again, because if ever
she had any ready money there was always
some jeweller, or man dressmaker, or creditor
of some kind who would not wait; and then,
though it was not her fault, because she i)layed
as high as she could any night she got a
chance to do so, somehow or other she generally
lost, and never had a single sou *o spare ;
— so she muttered her rage to the pink slip-
^)ers alone, and decided that it was never worth
<vhile to be put out about the Lady Hilda's
** ways."

** She is a bit of ice herself," she said to her
slippers, and wondered how Lady Hilda or any-
body else could object to what she did, or see
any harm in it. Maurice always went to another
hotel.

Mmo. Mila lived her life in a manner very

Hi'

IN A WINTER CITY.

closely resembling that of the horrible creatures
Miles. Rose The and Boulotte ; really, when
compared by a cynic there was very little dif-
ference to be found between those persons and
pretty Madame Mila. But Rose Tlie and Bou-
lotte of course were creatures, and she was a
very great little lady, and went to all the courts
and embassies in Europe, and was sought and
courted by the very best and stiffest people,
being very cJiic and very rich, and very lofty in
every way, and very careful to make Mjiurice go
to a different hotel.

She had had twenty Maurices in her time
indeed, but tnen the Count de Caviare never
complained, and was careful to drive with her
in the Bois, and pass at least three months
of each year under the same roof with her,
so that nobody could say anything ; it being
an accepted axiom with Society that when
the husband does not object to his own dis-
honour, there is no dishonour at all in the matter
for any one. If he be sensitive to it then
indeed you must cut his wife, and there will be
nothing too bad to be said of her j but if he

"lit" ™

IN A WINTER CITY.

cnly do but connive at his own shame himself,
then all is quite right, and everything is as it
should be.

When the Prince of Cracow, witli half Little
Russia in his possession, entertains the beautiful
Lady Lightwood at a banquet at his villa at
Frascati, Richmond, or Auteuil, a score of gilded
lackeys shout " La voiture de Madame la Com-
tesse ! " the assembled guests receive her sweet
good night, the Prince of Cracow bows low,
and thanks her for the honour she has done to
him ; she goes out at the hall door, and the
carriage bowls away with loud crash and fiery
steeds, and rolls on its way out of the park-gates.
Society is quite satisfied. Society knows very
well that a million roubles find their yearly wa^
into the empty pockets of Lord Lightwood, and
that a little later the carriage will sweep round
again to a side-door hidden under the laurels
wide open, and receive the beautiful Lady Light-
wood : but what is that to Society ? It has seen
her drive away ; that is quite sufficient, every-
body is satisfied with tliat.

If you give Society very good dinners, Society

IN A WINTER CIT^.

will never be so ill-bred as to see that side- door
under your laurels.

Do drive out at the hall-door ; — do ; — for sake
of les Bienseances — that is all Society asks of
you; there are sor«'^e things Society feels it owes
to Itself, and this is one of them.

Of course, whether you come back again or not,
can be nobody's business.

Society can swear to the fact of the hall-
door.

Madame Mila was attentive to the matter of the
hall-door ; indeed, abhorred a scandal ; it always
made everything uncomfortable. She was always
careful of appearances. Even if you called on
her unexpectedly, Des Gommeux was alwaj^s in an
inner room, unseen, and you could declare with
a clear conscience that you never found him alone
Wx.h her, were tlie oath ever required in any draw-
ing-room in defence of her character. Of course,
you have no sort of business with who or what
may be in inner rooms; Society does not
require you to search a house as if you were a
detective.

If you can say airily, " Oh, there's notliinfT in

IN A WINTER CITY.

it ; 1 never see him there," Society believes you,
and is quite satisfied : that is, if it wish to be-
lieve you; if it do not wish, nothing would ever
satisfy it. No, not though there rose one from
the dead to bear witness.

Madamo Mila would nut have done anything to
jeopardise her going to Courts, and having all the
Embassies to show her jewels in, for pv.y thing
that any man in the whole world could have
offered her.

Madame Mila thought a woman who left her
husband and made a scandal, a horrid creature ;
nay, she was wor«^e, she v/as a Blunder, and by
her blunder made a great deal of unpleasantness
for other and wiser women. After a stupid, open
thing of that kind, Society always gets so dread-
fully prudish for about three months, that it is
disagreeable for everybody. To run off with a
man, and lose your settlements, and very likely
have to end in a boarding-house in Boulogne ? —
could anything be more idiotic ?

Madame Mila thought that a woman so forget-
ting herself deserved even a worse fate than the
boarding-house, Madame Mila, who was quite

IN A WINTER CITY.

content that her husband should make a fool of
himself about Blanche Souris, or anybody else, so
long as he walked arm-in-arm now and then with
Des Gommeux, and called him *' mon cher," — was
indeed in every iota the true Femme Galante of
the 19th century.

The Femme Galante has passed through many
various changes, in many countries. The dames
of the Decamerone were unlike the fair athlete-
seekers of the days of Horace ; and the powdered
coquettes of the years of Moliere, were sisters only
by the kinship of a common vice to the frivolous
and fragile faggot of impulses, that is called
Frou-frou.

The Femme Galante has always been a feature
in every age ; poets from Juvenal to Mussct, have
railed at her ; artists, from Titian to Wintcrhalter,
have painted her ; dramatists, from Aiistophaiies
to Congreve and Dumas Fils, have pointed their
arrows at her; satirists, from Archilochus and
Simonides to Hogarth and Gavarni, have poured
out their aqua-foriis for her. But the real
Femme Galante of to-day has been missed
hitherto.

I*"
I

Mift1i<«MHM>W«W*l*MIRii)VriW

IN A WINTER CITY.

Frou-frou, who stands for her, is not 5a the
least the true type. Frou-frou is a creature that
can love, can suffer, can repent, can die. She
is false in sentiment and in art, hut she is
tender after all ; poor, feverish, wistful, change-
ful morsel of humanity. A slender, helpless,
breathless, and frail thing, who, under one sad,
short sin, sinks down to death.

But Frou-frou is in no sense the true Femme
Galante of her day. Frou-frou is much more a
fancy than a fact. It is not Frou-frou that Mo-
liere would have handed down to other genera-
tions in enduring ridicule, had he been living
now. To her he would have doffed his hat
with dim eyes ; what he would have fastened
for all time in his pillory would have been a
very different, and far irtore conspicuous,
offender.

The Femme Galante, who lias neither the
scruple:; nor the follies of poor Frou-frou, who
neither forfeits her place nor leaves her lord ;
who has studied adultery ,?,s one of the fine arts and
made it one of the dorj.estic virtue? • wiiO ti^.^.
lier wearied lover to her friends* Lou^tf SLf.s ^iw

IN A WINTER CITY.

takes lier muff or her dog, and teaches her sons
and daughters to call him hy familiar names ; who
writes to the victim of her passions with the
same pen that calls her boy home from school;
and who smooths her child's curls with the same
lingers that stray over her lover's lips ; who
challenges the world to find a flaw in her, and
who smiles serene at her husband's table on a
society she is careful to conciliate ; who has woven
the most sacred ties and most unholy pleasures
into so deft a braid, that none can say where one
commences or the other ends ; who uses the sanc-
tity of her maternity to cover the lawlessness of
her license ; and who, incapable alike of the self-
abandonment of love or of the self-sacrifice of
duty, has not even such poor, cheap honour as,
in the creatures of the streets, may make guilt
loyal to its dupe and partner.

This is the Femme Galante of the passing
century, who, with her hand on her husband's
arm, babbles of her virtue in complacent boast ;
and ignoring such a vulgar word as Sin, tall^s
with a smile of Friendship, Beside her Frou-frou
were innocence itself, Marion de rOiTiie were

■ m

i tw j w m rti.tffeHf^'^T' M i ' n»m i ii i » i--fiH'' mi wwi ■M H iii n ff^f^^ww.T^ywww^n^^y

IN A WINTER CITY.

honesty, Manon Lescaut were purity, Cleopatra
were chaste, and Faustine were faithful.

She is the female Tartuffe of seduction, the
Precieuse Ridicule of passion, the parody of
Love, the standing gibe of Womanhood.

CHAPTEE v..

TiTE next (ky the Duca della Rocca left cards
tftt ffAdy Hilda and the Comtesse de Caviare;
and "//>// //.T a fortnight never went near either
ot them except to exchange a few words with
them in other people's houses. M. de St.
Louis, who was vastly enamoured of his pro-
ject, because it was his project (what better
reason has anybody ?) was irritated and in des-
pair.

" You fly in the face of Fate ! " he said, with
much impatience.

Della llocca laughed.

" There is no such person as Fate — she
perished with all the rest of the Pagan world

m*tmmmwmm.rmwwt

ly A WINTER CITY.

when we put up our first gas-lamp. The two I
regret most of them all are Faunus and Picus ;
nowadays we make Faunus into a railway con-
tractor, and shoot Picus for the market-
stall."

" You are very romantic," said the Due, with
serene contempt. *' It is an unfortunate quality ;
and I confess," he added, with a sigh, as if
confessing a hlemish in a favourite horse,
" that, perhaps, she is a little deficient in
the other extreme, a little too cold, a little
too unimpvessionable ; there is absolutely no
shadow of cause to suppose she ever felt the
slightest emotion for anyone. That gives, per-
haps, a certain hardness. It is not natural.
* Une petite faiblesse donne tant de charme.' "

**In a wife, one might dispense with the
'petite faiblesse ' for anyone else," said Delia
Rocca, with a smile ; the blemish did not seem
much of a fault in his eyes.

" That is a romantic notion," said the Due,
with a little touch of disdain. " In real truth a
woman is easier to manage who has had — a past.
She knows what to expect. It is flattering to be

IN A WINTER CITY.

the first object of passion to a woman. But it
is troublesome : she exacts so much ! "

" If I were not that, I hav(5 seLlom cared to
be anj'thing," said Delia Rocca.

** That is an Italian amorous fancy. Romeo
and Othello are the typical Italian lovers. I
never can tell how a northerner like Shakspeare
could draw either. You are often very unfaith-
ful ; but tiihile you are faithful you are ardent,
and you are absorbed in the woman. That is
one of the reasons why an Italian succeeds in
love as no other man does. * L'art de bruler
silencieusement le coeur d'une femme "is a
supreme art with you. Compared with you, all
other men are children. You have been the
supreme masters of the great passion since the
days of Ovid.'*

" Because it is much more the supreme pursuit
of our lives than it is with other men. How can
Love be of much power where it is inferior to fox-
hunting, and a mere interlude when there is no
other sport to be had, as it is with Englishmen ?"

"And with a Frenchman it is always inferior
to himself ! " confessed the French Due, with a

i'f ' ''

IN A WINTER CIT7.

smile. *' At least they say so. But every hu-
man being loves his vanity first. * Only wounded
my vanity ? ' poor Lord Strangford used to say.
Pray what dearer and more integral part of my-
self could you wound ? ' He was very right. If
we are not on good terms with ourselves we can
never prevail with others."

"Yet a vain man seldom succeeds with
women ? "

" A man who lets them see that he is vain
does not : that is another matter. Vanity — ah !
there is Miladi, she has plenty of vanity ; yet it
is of a grandiose kind, and it would only take a
little more time and the first grey hair to turn
it into dissatisfaction. All kinds of discontent are
only superb vanities. Byron's, Musset's, Boling-
broke's "

A horse nearly knocked the Due down in the
midst of his philosophies as he picked his way
delicately amongst the standing and moving car-
riages to the place where the white great- coats
with the black velvet collars of the Lady Hilda's
servants were visible.

The Lady Hilda's victoria stood in that open

IN A WINTER CITY.

square wlieie it is the pleasure of fashionable
Floralia to stop its carriages iii the course of the
drive before dinner.

The piazza is the most unlovely part of the
park : it has a gaunt red cafe and a desert of
hard-beaten sand, and in the middle there are
some few plants, and a vast quantity of iron
bordering laid out in geometrical patterns, with
more hard-beaten sand between them, tliis
being the modern Florali- ii idea of a garden ; to
which fatal idea are sacrificed the noble ilex
shades, the bird-filled cedar groves, the deep de-
licious dreamful avenues, the moss-grown ways,
and the leaf-covered fountains, worthy tu shelter
Narcissus and to bathe Nuusicaa, which their
wiser forefathers knew were alike the blessing
and the glory of this land of the sun.

Nevertheless — perhaps because it is the last
place in the world where anybody would be sup-
posed ever voluntarily to stop a carriage — here
motley modern society delights to group its fusing
nationalities; and the same people who bored each
other in the morning's calls, and will bore each
other in the evening's receptions, bore each other

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IN A WINTER CITY.

sedulously in the open air, and would not omit
the sacred ceremonial for anything — unless,
indeed, it rained.

Perhaps after all Floralia reads aright the
generation that visits it. The ilex shadows and
the cedar-groves need Virgil and Horace, Tasso
and Petrarca, Milton and Shelley,

The Lady Hilda, who never by any chance
paused in the piazzone, had stopped a moment
there to please Madame Mila, who, in the loveliest
Incroyable bonnet, was seated beside her.

The men of their acquaintance flocked up to
the victoj-ia. Lady Hilda paid them scanty
attention, and occupied herself buying flowers
of the poor women who lifted their fragrant
basket-loads to the carriage. Madame Mila
chattered like the brightest of parrakeets^ and
was clamorous for news.

"Quid novi ? " is the cry in Floralia from morn-
ing till night, as in Athens. The most popular
people are those who, when the article is not to
be had of original growth, can manufacture it
Political news nobody attends to in Floralia ;
financial news interests society a little more, be-

miw

IN A Tl^INTEB CITY.

cause evorybody has stocks or shares in some-
thing somewhere ; but the news is Gossip, — dear
delicious perennial ever-blessed gossip, that re-
ports a beloved friend in difficulties, a rival in
extremis f a neighbour no better than she should
be, and some exalted personage or another cauglit
hiding a king in his sleeve at cards, or kissing
his wife's lady-of the-bedchamber.

Gossip goes the round of the city in winter as
the lemonade stands do in summer.

If you wish to be choye and asked out every
night, learn to manufacture it ; it is very easy :
take equal parts offlcwer of malice and essence of
impudence, with several pepper-corns of improba-
bility to spice it, some candied lemon-peel of
moral reflections, and a few drops of the ammonia
of indecency that will make it light of digestion,
and the toothsome morsel will procure you. wel-
come everywhere. If you can also chop up any
real Paschal Inmb of innocence in ve?y fine
pieces, so that it is minced and haslicd and
unrecognisable for ever, serve the mijice with
the vinegar of malignity, and the fresh mint
of novelty, and you will be the very Careme

IN A WINTER CITY.

of gossip henceforward. llun about society
with your concoctions in and out of the best
houses, as fiist as you can go, and there will
be no end to your popularity. You will be
as refreshing to the thirst of the dwellers in
them as are the lemonade-sellers to the throats
of the populace.

Perhaps Fate still lurked and worked in the
Latin land, and had hidden herself under the
delicate marabouts of the chapeau Incroyable ;
at any rate> Madame Mila welcomed the Duo
and his companion with eagerness^ and engaged
them both to dinner with her on the morrow in
a way which there was no refusing.

Madame Mila was discontented with the news
of the day. All her young men could only tell her
of one person's ruin — poor Victor de Salaris*,
which s^e had always predicted and contributed to
cause, and wliicli was therefore certamly the more
agreeable — and two scenes between married people
whom she knew : one because the brute of a hus-
band would not allow his wife to have her tallest
footman in silk stockings ; the other because the
no less a brute of a husband would not let his

TN A WINTER CITY.

wife have — a friendsliip. Miulanie Mila scarcely
knew which refusal to condemn as the most heart-
less and the most vulgar.

The Lady Hilda dined Vvitli her on the
morrow ; and the little Comtesse, with the fine
instinct at discovering future sympathies of a
woman " qui a vecu," took care that Delia
liocca took her cousin in to dinner.

** I would give all I possess to see Hilda atteii'
drie,^' she said to herself: as what she pos-
sessed just then was chiefly an enormous quantity
of unpaid bills, perhaps she would not have lost
so very much. But the Lady Hilda was not
attoulrie : she thought he talked better than most
men — at least, differently, — and he succeeded
in interesting her, probably because he had been '
so indifferent in calling upon her. That was all.
Lesides, his manner was perfect ; it was as vicille
coiir as M. de St. Louis's, and to the Itahan
noble alone is given the union of stateliest
dignity with easiest grace.

Lady Hilda, who should have been born under
Louis Quatorzc, had often suffered much in her
taste from an age when manner, except in tlie

III

IN A WINTER CITY.

south, is only u tradition, smothered under cigar-
ash, and buried in a gun-case.

As for him, he mused, while he talked to her, on
the words of the Due, who had known her all her
life. Was it true that she had never felt even a
passing "weakness?" Was it certain that she
liad always been as cold as she looked ?

He wished that he could be sure.

After all, she was a woman of wonderful charm,
though she did go about with Madame Mila,
smoke cigarettes after dinner, and correct you as
to the last mot made on the boulevards. He be-
gan to think that this was only the mere cachet
of the world she lived in ; only the mere accident
of contact and habit.

All women born under the Second Empire
have it more or less ; and, after all, she had but
little of it; she was very serene, very contemp-
tuous, very high-bred ; and her brilliant languid
hazel eyes looked so untroubled that it would
have moved any man into a wish to trouble their
still and luminous depths.

She seemed to him very objectless and some-
' al. It was a pity. Nature had made

IN A WINTER CITY.

her perfect in face and form, and gifted her witli
intelligence, and Fashion had made her useless,
tired, and vaguely cynical ahout everything, as
everybody else was in her world ; excej^t tliat yet
larger number who resembled Madame Mila — a
worse type still, according to his view.

It was a pity that the coldness and corruption
of the great world had entered thus deeply into
her; so he thought, watching the droop of her
long eyelashes, the curve of her beautiful mouth,
the even coming and going of her breath under
her shining necklace of opals and emeralds.

He began to believe that the Due was right.
There was no *' past " in that calmest of indolent
glances.

"You smoke, Madame?" he said, a little
abruptly to her, after dinner.

She looked at her slender roll of paper.

** It is a habit— -like all the rest of the things
one does. I do not care about it."

** Why do it then ? Are you not too proud to
follow a habit, and imitate a folly ? "

She smiled a little, and let the cigarette pale
its ineifectual fires and die out.

■i

IN A WINTER CITY,

** They have not known how to deal with her,"

lie thought to himself; and he sat down and
played ecart^, and allowed her to win, though he
was one of the best players in Europe.

Fate had certainly been under the Incroyable
bonnet of Madame Mila. For during the evening
sho suddenly recalled his villa, and announced
her intention of coming to see it. In her little
busy brain there was a clever notion that if she
only could get her cousin once drawn into what
the Due would call a " petite Mblesse," she her-
self would hear no more lectures about Maurice ;
and lectures are always tiresome, especially when
the lecturer has lent you several thousands, that
it would be the height of inconvenience ever to be
reminded to repay.

A woman who has " petites faiblesses " is
usually impatient with one who has none ; the
one who has none is a kind of standing insolence.
Women corrupt more women than men do.
Lovelace does not hate chastity in women ; but
Lady Bellaston does with all her might.

Pretty Madame Mila was too good-natured
and also too shallow to hate arything; but if

IN A WINTER CITY.

she could have seen her cousin " comx^romised "
she would have derived an exquisite satisfaction
and entertainment from the sight. She would
also have felt that Lady Hilda would have
become thereby more natural, and more com-
fortable company.

"Dear me, she might have done anything she
had liked all these years," thought Madame
Mila; "nobody would have known any tiling —
and nothing would hurt her if it were known,
whilst she has all that money."

For Madame Mila herself, perched on one of
the very topmost rungs of the ladder of the
world's greatness, and able therefore tr take a
bird's-eye view therefrom of everythiiig, was very
shrewd in her way, and knew that society never
was known yet to quarrel with the owner of fifty
thousand a-year.

So she carried her airy little person, laden
tliis night with gold embroideries on dull
Venetian red, until she looked like a little figure
made in Lac, over to the ecarte table when the
ecarte was finished, and arranged a morning
at Palestrina for tl

¥ •■ ,C

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'•t.V.

day

1*1

- -'a

IN A WINTER CITY,

13'-
if- '

could only express his happiness and honour,
and his regrets that Palcstrina was little more
than an empty shell for their inspection.

The day after the morrow was clear and cloud-
less, halmy and delicious ; such days as the
Floralian climate casts here and there generously
amidst the winter cold as a foretaste of its para-
dise of summer. The snow was on the more
distant mountains of course, hut only made the
landscape more lovely, changing to the softest
blush colour and rose under the brightness of
the noonday sun. The fields were green with
the springing cereals'; the pine-woods were fdling
with violets; the water-courses were brimming
and boisterously joyous.

It was winter still; but the sort of winter
that one would expect in Fairyland or in the
planet Venus.

Madame Mila, clad in the strictest directoire
costume, with a wonderful hat on her head that
carried feathers, grasses, oleander flowers, and a
bird of Dutch Guiana, and was twisted up on one
side in a miraculous manner, descended with
her Mauiice to the Lady Hilda's victoria, lent

^PIW^

JN A WINTER CITY.

her for the day. To drive into the country at
all was an act ahominable and appalling to all her
ideas.

In Paris, except on race days, she never went
further than the lake, and never showed her
toilettes in the Assembly at Versailles, because
of the endless, drive necessary as a means to get
there.

In countrj houses she carefully kept her own
room till about five o'clock; and, when forced
for her healtli to go to Vichy or St. Moritz, or
any such place, she played cards in the mornings,
and when she was obliged to go out, looked at
the other invalids' dresses. Mountains were
only unpleasant things to be tunnelled; forests
were tolerable, because one could wear such
pretty Louis Quinze hunting-habits and the curee
by torchlight was nice ; the sea again was made
endurable by bathing costumes, and it was fun
to go and tuck up your things and hunt for
prawns or pearls in the rock-pools and shallows —
it gave rise to many very pretty situations. But
merely to drive into the counti*y! — ^it was only
fit occupation for a maniac. Though she had

u 2

100

IN A WINTER CITY.

proposed it herself, the patient ^laurice had a
very mauvais qiiart-dlieiire as they drove.

The Lady Ilikla, who was too truly great an
elegante ever to condescend in the open air to
the eccentricities and hizarrcries of Madame
Mila — mountehankisms worthy a travelling show,
she considered them to he — was clad in her hlack
saWes, which contrasted so well with the fairness
of her skin, and drove out with the Princess
Olga ; Carlo Maremma and M. de St. Louis front-
ing them in the Schouvaloff harouche. She
did not hate the cold, and shiver from the fresh
sea-wind, and worry ahout the hadncss of the
steep roads as Madame Mila did ; on the con-
trary, she liked the drive, long though it was,
and felt a vague interest in the first sight of
Palestrina, its towers and belfries shining white
on the mountain side, with the little villages
clustered under its broad dark ring of forest.

** What a pity that Paolo is so poor ! " said
Carlo Maremma, looking upward at it.

" He carries his poverty with infinite grace,"
said the Princess Olga.

** He is worthy of riches," said the Due.

IN A WINTER CITY.

101

Lady Hilda said nothing.

Pak'strina was twelve miles and more from tlio
city, and stood on the high hills facing the
south-west ; it was half fortress, half i)alace ; in
early times its lords had ruled from its height all
the country round ; and later on, in the latter half
of the fifteenth century, a great Cardinal of the
Delia Rocca had made it into as sumptuous a
dwelling-place as Caprarola oi Poggio a Cajano.

Subsequently the family had ranged itself
against the ruling faction of the province, and
had suffered from war and confiscation; still
later, Palestrina had been plundered by the
French troops of Napoleon ; yet, despoiled and
impoverished as it was, it was majestic still, and
even beautiful ; for, unlike most such places, it had
kept its girdle of oak and ilex woods ; and its
gardens, though wild and neglected, were unshorn
of their fiiir proportions ; and the fountains
fell into their marble basins, and splashed the
maiden-hair ferns that hung ovei them as they
had done in another age for the delight of the
great Cardinal and his favourites.

Delia Pocca received them in the southern

102

TN A WINTER CITY.

loggia, a beautiful vaulted and frescoed open gal-
lery, designed by Bramante, and warm in the
noonday &un, as though January were June.

A king could not have had more grace of
welcome and dignity of coui'tosy than this ruined
gentleman — he had a very perfect manner, cer*
tainly, thought Iwdy Hilda once again. She was
one of those women (they_are many) upon whom
manner makes more imi)ression than mind or
morals. Why should it not? It is the charm
of life and the touchstone of breeding.

There was only one friend with him, a great
minister, who had retired from the world and
given himself up to the culture of roses and
strawberries. There was a simple repast, from
tlie produce of his own lands, ready in what had
been once the banqueting hall. It was made
graceful by the old Venetian glass, the old
Urbino plates, the old Cellini salt-cellars ; and
by grapes, regina and salamana, saved from the
autumn, and bouquets of Parma violets and
Bengal roses, in old blue Savona vases. It
waj a fnigal meal, but fit for the Tale-tellers of
the Decameron.

IN A WINTER CITY.

103

They rambled over the great buikliiig first,
with its vast windows showing the wide hmd-
scape of mountain and plain, and far away the
golden domes and air\' spires of the city shining
through a soft mist of olive trees. The glory of
Lixis house was gone, but it v/as beautiful still
with tilt sweet clear sunlight streaming through
its innumerable chambers, and touching the soft
hues of frescoed walls that had grown faded
with age, but had been painted by Spinello, by
Francia, by the great Frate, and by a host whose
names were lost, of earnest workers, and men
with whom art had been religion.

It was all dim and worn and grey with the
passage of time ; but it was harmonious, ma-
jestic, tranquil. It was like the close of a great
life withdrawn from the world into a cloistered
solitude and content to be alone with its God.

"Do not wish for riches," Gaid the Lady
Hilda to him, as ho said something to her of it.
" If you had riches you would desecrate this ; you
would * restore * it, you would * embellish * it,
you would ruin it.*'

He smiled a little sadly.

104

IN A WINTER CITY.

"As it is, I can only keep the rains from enter-
ing and the rats from destroying it. Poverty,
r^Iadame, is only poetical to those who do not
suffer it. Look ! " he added, with a laugh, "you
will not find a single chair, I fear, that is not
in tatters."

She glanced at the great old ebony chair she
was resting in, with its rich frayed tapestry seat,
and its carved armorial hearings.

" I have suffered much more from the staring,
gilded, and satin abominations in a millionaire's
drawing-room. You are ungrateful—

" And you, Madame, judge of pains that have
never touched, and cannot touch you. However,
I can be but too glad that Palestrina pleases you
in any way. It has the sunshine of heaven,
though not of fortune."

"And I am sure you would not give it up for
all the wealth of the Rothschilds."

"No."

" How lovely this place would look," jMndome
^^ila was saying at the same moment, out of his
hearing, to the Princess Olga, "if Owen Jones
could renovate it and Huby furnish it. Fancy

IN A WINTER CITY.

105

it with all the gilding re-gildod, and tlie pictures
restored, and Aubusson and Persian carpets
everywhere, and all those horrid old tapestries,
that must be full of spiders, pulled down and
burnt. "What a heavenly place it would be— and
what balls one might give in it ! Why, it would
hold ten tb.ousand people ! "

"Poor Paolo will never be able to do it," said
the Princess Schouvaloff, " unless—

»>

She glanced at the Lady Hilda where she sat,
at the further end of the chamber, whilst Delia
Rocca leaned against the embrasure of the
window.

" I think slie has a fancv for him," said
Madam Mila. ** But as for mai rying, you know,
— that, of course, is out of the question."

** I don't see why," said the Princess.

" Oh, out of the qutstion ; " said Madame Mila,
hastily. "But if she shouLl take a liking to him,
it would be great fun. She's been so awfully
exaltce about all 'diat sort of thing. Dear me,
what a pity all taose nasty, old, dull frescoes
can't be scraped off and something nice and
bright, like what they paint now, be put there ;

106

IN A WINTER CITY,

but I suppose it would take so much money. I
should hang silk over them ; all these clouds of
pale angels would make me melancholy mad.
There is no style I care a bit for but Louis
Quinze. I am having new wall hangings for my
salon done by the Ste. Marie Beparatrice girls ;
a lovely green satin — apple-green — embroidered
with wreaths of roses and broom, after flower-
groups by Fantin. Louis Quinze is so cheerful,
and lets you have such lots of gilding, and the
tables ha-'^e such nice straight legs, and you always
feel with it as if you were in a theatre and expect-
ing the Jeune Premier to enter. Here one feels
as if one were in a church."

" A monastery," suggested Princess Olga.

Thereon they went and had their luncheon, and
Madpme Mila studying the Capo da Monte des-
sert-service, appraised its value — for she was a
shrewd little woman — and wondered, if Paolo
della Eocca were so poor as they said, why did
he not send up all these old porcelains and
lovely potteries to the Hotel Drouot: Capo da
Monte, she reflected, sells for more than its
weight in gold, now that it is the rage of the

iammmm.^..

IN A WINTER CITY.

lo-;

fashion. She felt inclined to suggest this to him,
only she was not quite sure how he might take it.
Italians, she had heard, were so absurdly proud
and susceptible.

After luncheon, they went into the gi'een old
gardens ; green with ilex and arbutus and laurel
and cypress avenues, although it was mid-winter ;
and the great minister discoursed on the charms
of the country and the beauty of solitude in a
way that should almost have awakened the envy
of Horoce in his grave ; and the Due de St.
Louis disagreed with him in witty arguments that
might have made the shades of Eochefoucauld
and Eivarol jealous.

And they rambled and idled and talked and
sauntered in those charming hours which an
Italian villa alone can create ; and then the Ave
Maria chimed from the belfries of a convent up
above on the hill, and the winds grew chill, and
the carriages were called round to the steps of the
southern teri'ace, and the old steward brought to
each lady the parting gift of a great cluster of
the sweet Parma violets.

*' Well, it's been pleasanter than I thought

108

IN A WINTER CITY.

for," said Madame Mila, rolling homeward.
" But oh, this wretched, odious road ! I shall
catch my death of cold, and I daresay we shall
all he killed on these horrible hills in the dark ! "
Lady Hilda was very silent as they drove
downward, and left Palestrina alone to grow grey
in the shades of the twilight.

CHAPTER VI.

" I THINK Italians are like Russian tea ; they

spoil you for any other " wrote Lady Hilda

to her brother Glairvaux. It was not a very clear
phrase, nor very grammatical ; but she knew
what she meant herself, which is more than all
writers can say they do.

Russian tea, or rather tea imported through
Russia, is so much softer and of so much sweeter
and subtler a flavour, that once drinking it you
will find all other tea after it seem flat or coarse.
"When she had written this sentiment, however,
she tore up the sheet of note paper which
contamed it, and tossed it in the fire ; after all,
Clairvaux would not understand — he never uu-

IN A WINTER CITY.

derstood anything, dear old fellow — and he would
be very likely to say all sorts of foolish things
while there was not the slightest reason for any
one's supposing.

"Do come out here as soon as you can," she
wrote instead. ** Of course it will all depend on
your racing engagements ; but if you do go to
Paris to see Charles Lafitte, as you say, pray
come on here. Not that you will care for
Floralia at all ; you never do care for these art
cities, and it is its art, and its past, and its people
that make its irresistible charm. Floralia is
so graceful and so beautiful and so full of noble
memories, that one cannot but feel the motley
society of our own present day as a sort of dese-
cration to it; the cocottes and cocodettes, the
wheel-skaters and poker-players, the smokers and
the baigneuses, the viveurs and the viveuses of
our time suit it sadly ill ; it wants the scholars
of Academe, the story-tellers of Boccaccio ; it
wants Sordello and Stradella, Desdemona and
Giulietta.

" One feels oneself not one half good enough
for the stones one treads upon ; life here

IN A WINTER CITY.

Ill

should be a perpetual Kyrie Eleison ; instead of
which it is only a chorus of Offenbach's. Not
that society anywhere, now, ever does rise higlier
iluin that; only here it jars on one more than
elsewhere, and seems as ^)rofane as if one 'played
ball with Homer's skull.'

** Floralia is a golden Ostensoir filled with
great men's bones, and we choke it up with cigar
ashes and champagne dregs. It cannot be
helped, I suppose. The destiny of the age
seems to be to profane all that have preceded it.
It creates nothmg — it desecrates everything.
Society does not escape from the general influ-
ence ; its kings are all kings of Brentford.

"Mila — who is here and happy as a bird —
thinks Jack Cade and the Offenbach chorus the
perfection of delight at all times.

" For myself, I confess, neither entertain me ;
I fail to see the charm of a drawing-room demo-
cracy decollete and decousu ; and I never did
appreciate ladies who pas.« then* lives in balanc-
ing themselves awkwardly on the bar of Dumas's
famous Triangle ; but that may be a prejudice—

Mila says that it is.

112

IN A WINTER CITY.

" By-the-by, that odious young Des Gommeux
has followed her here — I make myself disagree-
able to him. I cannot do more. Spiridion
has never interfered, and * on ne pent pas etre
plus royaliste que le roi.* But you will skip
all this, or give it to your wife. I know I
never read letters myself, so why should I
expect you to do so ? I am so sorry to
hear of Vieille Garde's sprain ; it is too vex-
ing for you, just as he was so high in
the betting. I hope Sister to Simonides turns
out worth all we gave for her. There will be
racing here in April, but it would only make you
laugh — which would be rude ; or swear — which
would be worse. So please come long before it."

She folded up her letter, wrote " Pray try and
conie soon " across the top of it, and directed the
envelope to the Earl of Clairvaux, Broomsden,
Noi*thampton, and then was provoked to think
that she did not want good, clumsy, honest
Clairvaux to come at all — not in her heart of
hearts, because Clairvaux was always asking ques-
tions, and going straight to the bottom of things
in his own simple, sturdy fashion, and never

IN A WINTER CITY.

113

understood anything that was in the very least
complex.

And then again she was more irritated still
with herself, for admitting even to her own
thoughts that there was anything complex, or
that she did not want to examine too closely —
just yet. And then she sat and looked into the
fire, and thought of Palestrina, with its sweet
faint scent of Parma violets, and its dim noble
frescoes, and its mountain solitudes, under the
clear winter moon.

She sat dreaming about it a long time — for
her, because she was not a person that dreamed
at all usually. Her life was too brilliant, and too
much occupied, and too artificial. She was
thinking, with a great deal of money, without
desecrating it by " restoration ;" but by bringing
all the art knowledge in the world to its enrich-
ment, it would be possible to make it as gi'eat as
it had been in the days of its cardinal. What
a pastime it would be, what an interest, what an
occupation almost for a lifetime to render that
grand old palace once more the world's wonder it
had been in the sixteenth century 1

114

IN A WINTER CITY.

Then she rose suddenly with an impatient
sigh, and went into her bedroom, and found
fault with her maids : they had put Valen-
ciennes on her petticoats, and she hated Valen-
ciennes — no other lace had been so cheapened
by imitation ; they had put out her marron
velvet with the ostrich feathers for that day's
wearing, when they should have laid out tlio
silver-grey cloth with the Genoa buttons; they
were giving her glace gloves instead of peau
de Suede ; they had got out Pompadour boots, and
she required Paysanne shoes ; it was a fine dry
day. In point of fact, everything was wrong, and
they were idiots, and she told them so as strongly
as a high-bred lady can demean herself to speak.
Each costume was put all together — dress, bon-
net, boots, gloves — everything ; what business
had they to go and mix them all up and make
everything wrong ?

Her maids were used to her displeasure ; but
she was very generous, and if they were ill or
in sorrow she was kind, so that they bore it
meekly, and contented themselves with complain-
ing of her in all directions to their allies.

IN A WINTER CITY.

115

*' If she would only have her petites niTtiires like
other ladies she would he much easier to con-
tent," said her head maid, who had served the
aristocracy ever since the earliest days of the
Second Empire.

"When there were no lovers, there were much
fewer douceurs and perquisites; however, they
endured that deprivation because IMiladi was so
very rich, and so easily plundered.

Miladi, now, arrayed in the silver-grey cloth
witli the Genoa buttons and the marabout feather
trimming, went out to her victoria, en route to the
galleries, of which she never tired, and the visits
which immeasurably bored her. She had been in
the great world for ten years, and the gi'cat world
is too small to divert one for very long, unless one
be as Madame Mila.

Nevertheless, the Lady Hilda found that
Floralia interested her more than she would have
be].:°.ved that anything would do.

After all, Floralia was charming by the present,
not only by the 2:)ast.

If it had its kings of Brentford, with its
Offenbach choruses, so had every other place ; if

I 2

116

IN A WINTER CITY.

it had a pot pourri of nationalties, it had some of
the most agreeable persons of every nation ; if
trying to he very naughty it generally only became
very dull — that was the doom of modern society
everywhere.

There were charming houses in it, where there
were real wit, real music, and real welcome. If
people saw each other too often, strong friend-
ships could come out of such frequency as well
as animosities ; and there was a great charm in
the familiar, easy, pleasant intimacies which so
naturally grew out of the nrtistic idling under
these sombre and noble walls, and in the jjalaces
where all the arts once reigned.

She had begun to take the fair city into her
heart, as everyone who has a heart must needs
do, having once dwelt within the olive girdle of
its pure pale hills, and seen its gi'een waters wash
the banks erst peopled with the gorgeous splen-
dours of the Kenaissance.

She even began to like her daily life in it ; the
mornings dreamed away before some favourite
Giorgione or Veronese, or spent in dim old
Bhopsfull of the oddest mingling of rubbish and of

.1 -iJSM

IN A WINTER CITY,

117

treasure ; the twilights spent in picture-like old
chambers, wlier'B dames of high degree had made
their winter- quarters, fragrant with flowers and
quaint with old tapestries and porcelains; the
evenings passed in a society which, icio motley to
be intimate, yet too personal to dare be witty,
was gradually made more than endurable to her,
by the sound of one voice for which she listened
more often than she knew, by the sight of one
fiice which grew more necessary to her than she
was aware.

" If one could be only quite alone here it would
be too charming," she thought, driving this morn-
ing, while the sun shone on the golden reaches
of the river, and the softly-coloured marbles
caught the light, and the picturesque old shops
gleamed many-hued as harlequin under the beet-
hng brows of projecting roofs, and the carved stone
of dark archways.

But if she had looked close into her own heart
she would have seen that the solitude of her
ideal would have been one like the French poet's
-^solitude a deux.

She did not go, after all, to her visits ; she went

118

IN A WINTER CITY.

instead, in and out of the studios whose artists
r.dored her, tliough she was terrihly hard lo
please, and had much more acquaintance with
art than is desirable in a purchaser.

In one of the studios she chanced to meet the
master of Palestrina ; and he went with her to
another atelier, and another and another.

She had her Paj'sanne shoes on, and her gold-
headed cane, and let her victoria stand still while
she walked from one to the other of those sculp-
tors' and painters' dens, which lie so close toge-
ther, like heavers' work in the old grey quarters
of the city.

Up and down the dark staircases, and in and
out the gloomy vaulted passages, her silver-grey
cloth with the marabout ruches gleamed and
glisteTiCd, and to many of the artists proved as
beneficent as a silvery cloud to the thirsty fields
in summer.

She was surprised to find how much she liked
it. There was not much genius, and there was a
great deal of bad drawing, and worse modelling,
and she had educated herself in the very strictest
and coldest canons of art, and really cared for

' imtTi

ly A WINTER CITY.

nothing later than Luca Siguorelli, and abhorred
Canova and everj^thing that has come after him.

But there were some little figures in marble of
young children that she could conscientiously
buy; and the little Meissonier and Fortuny-
like pictures were clever, ii they were mere trick-
work and told no story; and the modern oak
carvings were really good ; and on the whole she
enjoyed her morning unusually; and her com-
panion looked pleased, because she found things
to piaise.

As she walked, with Delia Rocca beside her, in
and out the dusky passage ways, with the obnoxious
Valanciennes under her skirts sweeping the stones,
and. her silvery marabouts glancing like hoar-
frost in the shadows of the looming walls, the
Lady Hilda felt very happy, and on good tenns
with herself and the world. No doubt, she
thought, it was the fresh west wind blowing
u]) the river from the sea which had done her so
much good.

The golden Ostensoir, to which she had
likened Floralia, no longer seemed filled with
cigar-ash and absinthe dregs ; but full of the

120

IN A WINTER CITY,

fragrant rose-leaves oi an imperishable Past, and
the shining sands of a sweet unspent Time.

She made a poor sculptor: happy for a year ; she
freed a young and promising painter li om a heavy
debt ; she was often impatient with their produc-
tions, but she was most patient with their
troubles.

She was only a woman of the world, touched
for a day into warmer sympathies, but the bless-
ings she drew down on her sank somehow into
her heart, and made her half ashamed, half glad.

What was the use of writing fine contemptuous
things of society unless one tried to drop oneself
some little holy reUc into the golden Ostensoir ?
She went home contented, and was so gentle witli
her maids that they thought she must be going
to be unwell.

Her friend the Princess Olga came to chat
with her, and they had their tea cosily in her
dressing-room ; and at eight o'clock she went to
dine with Mrs. Washington, an American Paris-
ienne or Parisian American, known wherever
the world of fashion extended, and was taken into
dinner by the Duca della Eocca.

IN A WINTER CITY.

121

After dinner there was a new tenor, who was
less of a delusion than most new tenors are;
and there was n great deal of very aesthetic and
abstruse talk about music ; she said little herself,
but sat and listened to Delia Eocca, who spoke
often and elc / ">tly, with infinite grace and
accurate culture. To a woman who has cared
for no one all her life, there is the strangest and
sweetest pleasure in finding at last one voice
whose mere sound is melody to her.

On the whole she went to bed still with that
dreamliil content which had come on her in the day
— no doubt with the fresh sea wind. She knew
that she had looked at her best in a dress of pale
dead gold, with old black Spanish lace ; and she
had only one regret — that in too soft a mood she
had allowed an English person, a Lady Feather-
leigh, of whom she did not approve, to be pre-
sented to her.

She was habitually the one desire and the one
despair of all her countrywomen.

Except so far as her physical courage, her skill
in riding, and her beautiful complexion, v;hich no
cold could redden, and no heat could change,

122

IN A WINTER CITY.

might be counted as national characteristics, the
Lady Hilda was a very un-English Englishwoman
in everything.

Indeed j^^our true elegante is raised high above
all such small things as nationalities ; she floats
serenely in an atmosphere far too elevated to be
coloured by country ; a neutral ground on wliich
the leaders of every civilized land meet far away
fi'om all ordinary mortality.

In Floralia she found a few such choice spirits
accustomta to breathe the same aether as her-
self, and with those she lived, carefuU}'^ avoiding
the Penal Settlement as she continued to call the
cosmopolitan society ^vhicll was outside the zone
of her own supreme fashion.

She saw it, indeed, in ball-rooms and morning
receptions ; it sighed humbly after her, pined for
her notice, and would have been happy if she
would but even have recompensed it by an inso-
lence, but she merely ignored its existence^ and
always looked over its head innocently and cruelly
with that divine serenity of indifference and dis-
dain with which Nature had so liberally endowed
her.

.iMife

f'f^fM

IN A WINTER CT^'Y.

123

*' Why should I know them ? They wouldn't
please me," she would say to those who ventured
to remonstrate, and the answer was unanswer-
ahle.

"I can't think how you manage, Hilda, to keep
so clear of people," said Madame Mila, envi-
ously. " Now, / get inundated with hosts of the
liorridest '*

"Because you cheapen yourself," said Lady
Hilda, very coolly.

" I never could keep people off me," pursued
the Comtesse. " When Spiridion had the Em-
bassy in Ijondon, it was just the same ; I was
inundated ! It's good nature, I suppose. Cer-
tainly, you haven't got too much of that.^*

Lady Hilda smiled ; she thought of those six
or eight thousands which had gone for Madame
Mila's losses at play.

" Good nature is a very indifferent sort of
quality," she answered. ** It is compounded of
weakness, laziness, and vulgarity. Generally
speaking, it is only a desire for popularity, and
there is nothing more vulgar than that,'*

**I don't see that it is vulgar at all," said

124

JN A WINTER CITY.

Madame Mila, with some sharpness. " I Hke
to think I am popular ; to see a mob look after
me; to have the shop-boys rush out to get a
glimpse of me ; to hear the crowd on a race-day
call out ' ain't she a rare 'un ! my eye, ain't she
fit ! ' just as if I were one of the mares. I
often give a crossing-sweeper a shilling in Lon-
don, just to make him * bless my pretty eyes.'
"Why, even when I go to that beastly place of
Spiridion's in Russia, I make the hideous serfs in
love with me ; it puts one on good terms with
oneself. I often think when the people in the
streets don't turn after me as I go — then I shall
know that I'm old ! "

Lady Hilda's eyebrows expressed unutterable
contempt ; these were sentiments to her entirely
incomprehensible.

" How very agreeable — to make the streets the
barometer of one's looks — * fair or foul.' So you
live in apprehension of a railway porter's indiffer-
ence, and only approve of yourself if a racing
tout smiles ! My dear Mila, I never did believe
you would have gone lower in the scale of human
adorers than your Gommeux and Poisseux."

IN A WINTER CITY.

125

*'At all events I am not so vain as you are,
Hilda," retorted the Comtesse. ** You approve of
yourself eternally, whether all the world hates
you or not. I remember Charlie Barrington say-
ing of you once — * I wonder why that woman
keeps straight — why should she ? She don't care
a hang what anybody says of her.' "

" How discerning of Lord Barrington ! If
people only 'keep straight' for the sake of what
other people say of them, I think they may just
as well * go off the rails ' in any manner they like.
Certainly, what I chose to do, I should do, with-
out reference to the approbation of the mob —
either of the streets or of the drawing rooms."

"Exactly what Barrington said," returned
Madame Mila ; " but then why do you — I mean,
why don't you — amuse yourself ? "

The Lady Hilda laughed.

" My dear ! the Gommeux and the Poisseux
would not amuse me. I am not so happily con-
stituted as you are.'*

Madam.e Mila coloured.

"That's all very fine talk, but you know it
isn't natural "

126

IN A WINTER CITY.

" To live decently ? — no, I suppose it is not
now-a-days. Perhaps it never was. But, my
dear Mila, you needn't be too disquieted about
me. If it make you any more comfortable as to
my sanity, I can assure you it is not virtue ; no
one knows such a word ; it is only indifterencc."

"You are very queer, Hilda," said Madame
Mila, impatiently ; " all I know is, I should like
to see you in love, and see what you'd say
then,**

The Lady Hilda, who was never more moved
by her feather-headed cousin's words than a rock
by a butterfly, felt a sudden warmth on her face
^perhaps of anger.

" In love ! " she echoed, with less languor and
more of impetuosity than she had ever displayed,
" are you ever in love, any of you, ever? You
have senses and vanity and an inordinate fear of
not being in the fashion — and so you take your
lovers as you drink your stimulants and wear
your wigs and tie year skirts back — because
everybody else does it, and not to do it is to be
odd, or prudish, or something you would hate to
be called. Love ! it is an unknown thing to you all.

HLiii iii n.iia-m i .ii-. Jjuii-t'-im l u

^ .'immsthK i^^

IN A WINTER CITY.

127

You have a sort of miserable hectic passion, per-
haps, that is a drug you take as you take chloro-
dyne — ^just to excite you and make your jaded
nerves a Httle alive again, and yet you are such
cowards that you have not even the courage of
passion, but label your drug Friendship, and beg
Society to observe that you only keep it for
family uses like arnica or like glycerine. You want
notoriety ; you want to indulge your fancies, and
yet keep your place in the world. You like to
drag a young man about by a chain, as if he were
the dancing monkey that you depended upon for
subsistence. You like other women to see that you
are not too passee to be every whit as improper
as if you were twenty. You like to advertise
your successes as it were with drum and trumpet,
because if you did not, people might begin to
doubt that you had any. You like all that, and
you like to feel there is nothing you do not know
and no length you have not gone, and so you
ring all the changes on all the varieties of
intrigue and sensuality, and go over the gamut
of sicldy sentiment and nauseous license as an
or^''^'5stra tunes its strings up every night ! That

128

IN A WINTER CITY,

is "what all you people call love ; I am content
enough to have no knowledge of it "

'* Good gracious, Hilda ! " said Madame Mila,
with wide-open eyes of absolute amazement;
** you talk as if you were one of the angry hus-
bands in a comedy of Feuillet or Dumas. I don't
think you know anything about it at all ; how
should you ? You only admire yourself, and like
ai*t and all that kind of thing, and are as cold as
ice to everybody. 'A la place nu coeur, vous
n'avez qu'un caillou;' I've read that somewhere."

** ' EUe n'a qu'un ecusson,' " corrected Lady
Hilda, her serenity returning. ** If Hugo had
known much about women he would have said —
'qu'un chiffon ; ' but perhaps a dissyllable
wouldn't have scanned- "

** You never will convince me," continued
Madame de Caviare, "that you would not be a
happier woman if you had what you call senses
and the rest of it. One can't live without sensa-
tions and emotions of some sort. You never feci
any except before a bit of Kronenthal china or a
triptych of some old fogey of a painter. You do care
awfully about your horses to be sure, but then as

SasaBBBSaess*

IN A WINTER CITY.

129

3'ou don't bet on anything, I don't see what ex-
citement you can get out of them. You won't
play — which is tlie best thing to take to of all,
because it will last ; the older they grow, the
wilder women get about it ; look at Spiridion's
aunt Seraphine — over eighty — as keen as a
ferret over her winning^;, and as fierce as a
tom-cat over her losses. Now, that is a thing
that can't hui't any one, let you say what you
like ; everybody plays, why won't you ? If you
lost half your income in one night, it wouldn't
ruin you, and you have no idea how delicious it
is to get dizzy over the cards ; you know one bets
even at poker to any amount—

** Thanks; it won't temi)t me," answered Lady
Hilda. " I have played at Baden, to see if it
would amuse me, and it didn't amuse me in the
least ; no more than M. des Gommeux does !
My dearest Mila, I am sure that you people who
do excite yourselves over baccarat and poker, and
can feel really flattered at having a Maurice always
in attendance, and can divert yourselves with
oyster suppers and masked balls and cotillon
riots, are the happy women of this world, that I

130

IN A WINTER CITY.

quite grant you : oysters and Maurices and co-
tillon and poker are so very easy to be got —

>»

" And men like women who like them ! "
" That I grant too; poker and cotillons
don't excact any very fine manners, and men
nowadays always like to be, metaphorically, in
then* smoldng-coats. Only you see we are not
always all constituted of the same fortunate dis-
position ; poker and cotillons only bore me.
You should think it my misfortune not my fault.
I am sure it must be charming to drink a quan-
tity of champagne, and whirl round hke a South-
sea islander, and play i^ranks that pass in a
palace though the police would interfere in a
dancing garden, and be found by the sun drink-
ing soup at a supper-table : I am sure it must be
quite dehghtful. Only you see it doesn't amuse
me ; — no more than scrambling amongst a pack
of cards flung on their faces, which you say is
delightful too ; or keephig a Maurice in your
pocket, like your cigar-case and your handker-
chief, which you say is most delightful of hU,
But good b}e, my dear, we shall quarrel if wo
talk much longer like this; and ^e musi not

IN A WINTER CITY.

131

quarrel till to-morrow raorning, because your
Dissimulee dress will look nothing without my
Austraisienne one. What time shall I call for
you ? Make it as late as you can. I shall only
just show myself.'*

" Three o'clock, then — that is quite early
enough," muttered Madame Mila, somewhat
sulkily ; but she had teazed and prayed her
cousin into accompanying her in Louis Seize
costumes, most carefully compiled by Worth
from engravings and pictures of the period, to
the Trasimene costume baU, and would not fall
out with her just on the eve of it, because she
knew their entrance would be the effect of the
night, accompanied as they would be by the Due
de St. Louis and M. des Gommeux as Grand
Eeuyer de France, and as Petit Maitre eu
chenille, of the same century.

" Say half-past," answered the Lady Hilda,
as she closed the door and went into her own
rooms on the opposite side of the staircase.

** I really begin to think she is jealous of
Maurice ^.nd in love with him ! " thought Madame
Mila, in whose eyes Maurice was iri'esistibie,

K 2

I I

132

IN A WINTER CITY.

though with the peculiar optimism of ladies in
her position she was perfectly certain that he
was adamant also to all save herself. And the
idea of her fastidious cousin's hopeless passion
so tickled her fancy that she laughed herself into
a good humour as her maids disrobed her ; and
she curled herself up in her bed to get a good
night's sleep out before donning the Dissiri uf^.
costume for the Trasimene ball, so that she
should go at half-past three " as fresh as paint,'*
in the most literal sense of the word, to all the
joyous rioting of the cotillon which Maurice f/as
to lead.

**Yoii shine upon us late, Madame," said
Delia Rocca, advancing to meet the Lady Hilda,
when they reached, at four o'clock in the morn-
ing, the vast and lofty rooms glittering with fancy
dresses.

" I only came at all to please Mila, and she
only comes for the cotillon," she answered him,
and she thought how well he looked as she
glanced at him. He wore a white Louis Treiza
Mousquetau'e dress, and he had the collar of the
Golden Fleece about his throat, for, amongst his

IN A WINTER CITY.

133

many useless titles, and barren dignities, he was,
like many an Italian noble, also a grandee of
Spain.

*' You do not dance, Madame ? " he asked.

" Very seldom," she answered, as she accepted
his arm to move through the rooms. ** When
mediaeval dresses came in, dancing should have
been banished. Who could dance well in a long
close clinging robe tightly tied back, and heavy
with gold thread and bullion fringes ; they should
revive the minuet; we might go through that
without being ridiculous. But if they xvill have
the cotillon instead, they should dress like the
girls in Offenbach's pieces, as many of them
happen to be to-night. I do not object to a
mixture of epochs in furniture, but romping
in a renaissance skirt ! — that is really almost
blasphemy enough to raise the ghost of
Titian ! "

"I am afraid Madama Pampinet and the
Fiammina must have romped sometimes," said
Delia Rocca with a smile. ** But then you will
say the Decadence had abeady cast its shadow
before it."

134

IN A WINTER CITY.

** Yes ; but there never was an age so vulgar as
our own," said the Lady Hikla. ** That I am
positive of ; — look, even peasants are vulgar now :
they wear tall hats and tawdry bonnets on
Sundays ; and, as for our society, it is * rowdy : '
there is no other word for it, if you underfitaud
what that means.'*

" Canaille ? "

"Yes, Canaille. M. de St. Louis saj^s, the
* femme comme il faut ' of his youth is extinct
as the dodo : language is slang, society is a
mob, dress is displa}', amusement is riot, people
are let into society who have no other. claim to
be there but money and impudence, and are as
ignorant as our maids and our grooms, and more
so. It is all as bad as it can be, and I suppose
it will only go on getting worse. You Italians
are the only people with whom manner is not a
lost art."

*' You do us much honour. Perhaps we too
shall be infected before long. We are sending our
lads to public schools in your country : they will
probably come back unable to bow, ashamed of
natural grate, and ambitious to emulate the

TN A WINTER CITY.

135

groom model in everj'thing. This is thought an
advanced education."

Lady Hilda laughed.

" The rich Egyptians go to English universi-
ties, and take back to the Nile a passion for rat-
hunting a"nd brandy, and the most hideous hats
and coats in the universe ; and then think they
have improved on the age of the Pharaohs.
I hope Italy will never be infected, but I am
afraid ; you have gasworks, tramways, and mixed
mai'riages, and your populace has almost en-
tii'ely abandoned costume."

"And in the cities we have lost the instinct
of good taste in the most fatal manner. Per-
haps it has died out with the old costumes. Who
knows ? Dress is after all the thennometer of
taste. Modern male attire is of all others the
most frightful, the most grotesque, the most
gloomy, and, to our climate, the most unsuitable."

" Yes. Tall hats and tail coats appear to me
to be like the locusts, wherever they spread they
bear barrenness in their train. But the temper
of your people will always procure to you some
natural grace, some natural elegance."

1S6

IN A WINTER CITY.

" Let us hope so ; but in all public works our
taste ali'eady is gone. One may say, without
vanity, that in full pense of beauty and of pro-
portion, Italy surpassed of old all the world ;
how is it, I often ask myself, that we have lost
so much of this ? Here in Floralia, if we
require gas-works we erect their chimneys
on the very bank of our river, ruining one
of the loveliest views in the world, and one
that has been a tradition of beauty for ages.
If it be deemed necessary to break down and
widen our picturesque old bridges, we render
them hideous as any railway road, by hedging
them with frightful monotonous parapets of cast-
iron, the heaviest, most soulless, most hateful
thing that is manufactured. Do we make a fine
hill-drive, costing us enormously, when we have
no money to pay for it, we make one, indeed, as
fine as any in Europe ; and having made it, then
we ruin it by planting at every step cafes, and
guinguettes, and guard houses, and every artificial
abomination and vulgarity in stucco and brick-
work that can render its noble scenery ridiculous.
Do we deem it advisable, for sanitary or other

>mMm.

IN A WINTER CITY.

137

purposes, to turn the people out of the ancient
market where they keep theii* stalls under the
old palace walls happily enough, summer and
winter, like so many Dutch pictures, we build
a cage of iron and glass like an enormous cu-
cumber frame, inexpressibly nideors, and equally
incommodious, and only adapted to grill the
people in June and turn them to ice in January.
What is the reason? We have liberal givers
such as your countryman Sloane, such as my coun-
tryman Galliera, yet what single modern thing
worth producing can we show ? We have destroyed
much that will be as irreparable a loss to future
generations as the art destroyed in the great
siege is to us. But we have produced nothing
save deformity. Perhaps, indeed, we might not
have any second Michael Angelo to answer if we
called on him; but it is certain that we must
have architects capable of devisixig something in
carven stone to edge a bridge ; we must have
artists who, were they consulted, would say, * do
not insult a sublime panorama of the most poetic
and celebrated valley in the world by putting into
the foregi'ound a square guards' box, a stucco

138

IN A WINTER CITY.

drinking-house, and the gilded lamps of a dancing-
garden.* We must have men capable of so much
as that — 3^et they are either never employed
or never listened to ; the truth I fear is that a
public work now-a-days with us is like a plant
being carried to be planted in a city square, of
which every one who passes it plucks off a leaf r
by tlie time it reaches its destination the plant is
leafless. The public work is the plant, and the
money to be got from it is the foliage ; provided
each one plucks as much foliage as he can, no
one cares in what state the plant reaches the
piazza."

Lady Hilda looked at him as he spoke with
an eloquence and earnestness which absorbed
him for the moment, so that he forgot that he
was talking to a woman, and a woman whose
whole life was one of trifling, of languor, and of
extravagance.

" All that is very true," she said, with some
hesitation ; ** but why then do you hold yourself
aloof — why do you do nothing to change this
state of public things ? You see the evil, but
you prescribe no remedy."

^WWSSeKi^'^B-'i'

IN A WINTER CITY.

139

" The only remed}' will be Time," he answered
her. " Corruption has eaten too deeply into the
heart of this nation to he easily eradicated. The
knife of war has not cut it out; we can only
hope for what the medicines of education and of
open discussion may do ; the greatest danger lies
in the inertia of the people ; they are angry often,
but they do not move—

t»

" Neither do you move, though you are angry.'*
He smiled a little sadly.

" If I were a rich man I would do so. Poor as
I am I could not embrace public life without seem-
ing to seek my own private ends from office. A
man without wealth has no influence, and his
motives will always be suspected — at least here.'*

"But one should be above suspicion "

" Were one certain to do good — yes."
" But why should you despair ? You have a
country of boundless resources, a people affec-
tionate, impressionable, infinitely engaging, and
much more intelligent naturally than any other
populace, a soil that scarce needs touching
to yield the richest abundance, and in nearly
every small town or obscure city some legacy

wwmww^ifmiim

140

IN A WINTER CITY.

of ai't or architecture, such as no other land can
show-

"Despair! God forbid that I shoukl despair.
I think there is infinite hope, but I cannot dis-
guise from myself that there are infinite dangers
also. An uneducated peasantry has had its reli-
gion torn away from it, and has no other moral
landmark set to cling to ; old ways and old
venerations are kicked aside and nothing substi-
tuted ; public business means almost universally
public pillage; the new text placed before the
regenerated nation is, * make money, honestly if
you can — but make money ! * haste, avarice, accu-
mulation, cunning, neglect of all loveliness,
desecration of all ancientness — these, the modern
curses which accompany 'progress* — are set before
a scarcely awakened people as the proper objects
and idols of their eff*orts. We, who are chiefly
to be move'? by our affections and our imagina-
tions, are only bidden to be henceforth inspired
by a joyless prosperity and a loveless materialism.
We, the heirs of the godhead of the Arts, are only
counselled to emulate the mechanical inventions
and the unscrupulous commerce of the American

IN A WINTER CITY.

141

genius, and are ordered to learn to blush with
shame because our ancient cities, sacred with tlio
ashes of heroes, are not spurious brand-new lath
and plaster human ant-hills of the growth of yester-
day ! Forgive me, Madame," he said, inter-
rupting himself, with a little laugh, ** I forget that
I am tedious to you. "With the taxes at fifty-two
per cent., a poor landowner hke myself may incline
to think that all is not as well as it should be."

** You interest me," said the Lady Hilda, and
her eyes dwelt on him with a grave, musing
regard that they had given to no man, " and on
your own lands, with your own people — how is it
there?**

His face brightened.

** My people love me," he said, softly. ** As
for the lands — when one is poor, one cannot
do much ; but every one is content on them^
that is something."

** Is it not everything ? " said the Lady Hilda,
with a little sigh ; for she herself, who could
gratify her every wish, had never yet quite known
what content could mean. " Let us go and look
at the ball-room ; Mila will be coming to know

142

IN A WINTx.i CITY.

if we have heard of MacMahon's death, that we
talk so seriously."

She walked, on his arm, to the scene of tumult,
where being hemmed in by lookers-on till the
pressure left them scarcely any space to i)crform
upon, the dancers were going through a quadrille
with exceeding vivacity, and with strong reminis-
cences in it of some steps of the cancan ; Madame
Mila and Lady Featherleigh particularly distin-
guislm>g themselves by their iniitiitions of
Chimpanzee dance, as performed in the last
winter's operetta of Ching-aring-aring-ching.

They were of course being watched and ap-
plauded very loudly by the ring of spectators as
if they were really the actors in the Ching-aring-
aring-ching, which afforded them the liveliest
pleasure possible, great ladies being never so
happy now-a-days as when they are quite sure
that they might really be taken for comedians or
courtezans.

It was hard upon Madame Mila that just as
she had jumped so high that La Petite Boulotte
herself could scarcely have jumped higher, the
lookers-on turned their heads to see the Lady

JN A WINTER CITY.

143

Hilda ill the doorway on the arm of he J. white
Mousquetaire. Lady Hilda was beyond all dispute
the most beautiful woman of the rooms, she
threw them all into the shade as a rose dia-
mond throws stars of strass ; and many of the
men were so dazzled by her appearance there,
that they ictually lost the sight of Madame Mila's
rose-coloured stockings twinkling in the air.

*' Paolo fait bonn( fortune," they said to one
another, and began to make wagers that she
would marry him, or, on the other hand, that she
was only playing with him : opinion varied, and
bets ran high.

Society bets on everything — peace and love,
and honour and happiness, are only ** staying "
horses or " non-stayers," on whose running the
money is piled. It is fortunate indeed and rare
when the betting is " honest," and if the drinking
waters o^ peace be not poisoned on purpose, or
the smooth turf of a favourite's career be not
sprinkled with glass, by those who have laid the
odds heavily against it. So that they land their
bets, what do they care whether or no the sub-
ject of their speculations be lamed for life and

144

IN A WINTER CITY,

destined to drag out its weary days between the
cab-shafts till the end comes in the knacker's
yard ?

As for the Lady Hilda, she was so used to be
the observed of all observers wherever she went,
that she never heeded who looked at her, and
never troubled herself what anybody might say.

She walked about with Delia Roca, talked
with him, and let him sit by her in little shel-
tered camellia-fiUed velvet-hung nooks, because it
pleased her, and because he looked like an old
Velasquez picture in that white Louis Treize
dress. Of w!iac anybody might think she was
absolutely indifferent ; she was not mistress of
herself and of fifty thousand a year to care for
the tittle-tattle of a small winter city.

It was very pleasant to be mistress of herself —
to do absolutely as she chose — to have no earthly
creature to consult — to go to bed in Paris and
wake up in St. Petersburg if the fancy took her
— to buy big diamonds till she could outblaze
Lady D .dley- to buy thoroughbred horses and
old pictures and costly porcelains and all sorts of
biblots, ancient and curious, that might please her

IN A WINTER CITY.

145

taste — to obey every caprice of the moment and
to have no one to be responsible to for its indul-
gence — to write a cheque for a large amount if
she saw any great distress that was painful to
look upon — to adorn her various houses with all
that elegance of whim and culture of mind could
gather together from the treasures of centuries —
to do just as she pleased, in a word, without any
one else to ask, or any necessity to ponder
whether the expense were wise. It was very agx'ee-
able to be mistress of herself, and yet

There is a capitalist in Europe who is very un-
happy because all his wealth cannot purchase the
world-famous Key of the Strozzi Princes.

Lady Hilda was never unhappy, but she was
not quite content.

Out of the very abundance of her life she was
wear}^ and there was a certain coldness in it all ;
it was too hke one of her own diamonds.

She sighed a little to-night when her white
Mousquetaire had led her to her carnage, and
she was rolling across the bridge homeward,
whilst Madame Mila's gossamer skirts were still
twirling, and h^r ros^ stockiiigs still twinkling i\x

«•;!

146

IN A WINTER CITY,

all the intricacies and diversions with which tiie
Vicomte Maurice would keep the cotillon going
until nine o'clock in the morning.

In the darkness of her carriage, as it went over
the stones through the winding ill-lit streets, she
saw soft amorous eyes looking at her under their
dreamy lids ; she could not forget their look ;
she was haunted hy it — it had said so much.

The tale it had told was one she had heard in-
deed twenty times a year for ten long years, and it
had never moved her ; it had bored her — nothmg
more.

But now — a sudden warmth, a strange emotion,
thrilled in her, driving through the dark with the
pressure of his hand still seeming to linger upon
hers.

It was such an old old tale that his eyes had
told, and yet for once it had touched her some-
how and made her heart quicken, her colour
rise.

** It is too ridiculous ! '* she said to herself. " I
am dreaming. Fancy my caring ! "

And she was angiy with herself, and when she
reached her own rooms looked a moment at her

IN A WINTER CITY,

147

she
her

full reflection in the long mirrors, diamonds and
all, before she rang for her maid to come to her.

It was a brilliant and beautiful figure that she
saw there in the gorgeous colours copied from a
picture by Watteau le Jeune, and with the
great stones shining above her head and on her
breast like so many little dazzling suns.

She had loved herself veiy dearly all her life,
lived for herself, and in a refined and lofty way
had been as absolutely self-engrossed and amorous
of her own pleasure and her own vanities as the
greediest and cruellest of ordinary egotists.

** Am I a fool ? " sue said, angril}', to her own
image. "It is too absurd ! Why should he
move me more than anyone of all the otl rs ? "

And yet suddenly all the life which had so well
satisfied her seemed empty — seemed cold and
hard as one of her many diamonds.

She rang with haste and impatience for her
maid; and all they did, from the hot soup they
brought to the way they untwisted her hair, was
wrong ; and when she lay down in her bed she
could not sleep, and when the bright forenoon
came full of the sound of pealing bells and gay

148

IN A WINTER CITY.

street songs and hurrying feet, she fell into
feverish dreams, and, waking later, did not know
what ailed her.

From that time Delia Rocca ceased to avoid
the Hotel Murat ; he was received there oftener
than on her " day ; " he went about with her on
various pilgrimages to quaint old out-of-the-way
nooks of forgotten art which he could tell her of,
knowing every nook and corner of his native city ;
she almost always invited him when she had other
people to dine with her ; her cousin did the same,
and he was usually included in all those mani-
fold schemes for diversions which women like
Madame Mila are always setting on foot, thinking
with Diderot's vagabond that it is something at
any rate to have got rid of Time.

Sometimes he availed himself of these oppor-
tunities of Fortune, sometimes he did not. His
conduct had a variableness about it which did
more than anything else would have done to
arrest, the attention of a woman sated with
homage as the Lady Hilda had been all her
days. She missed him when he was absent;
^he was influenced by him when be was present.

IN A mNfLlt CITY.

149

Beneath the softness of his manner there was
a certain seriousness which had its weight with
her. He made her feel ashamed of many
things.

Something in his way of life also attracted her.
There are a freedom and simplicity in all the
habits of an Italian noble that are in strong con-
trast with the formal conventionalism of the ways
of other men ; there is a feudal affectionateness of
relation between him and his dependants which
is not like anything else ; when he knows any-
thing of agriculture, and interests himself per-
sonally in his people, the result is an existence
which makes the life of the Paris flaneurs and the
London idlers look very poor indeed.

Palestrina often saw its lord drive thither by
six in the morning, walk over his fields, hear
grievances and redress them, mark out new vine-
walks with his bailiff, watch his white oxen turn
the sods of the steep slopes, and plan trench-
cuttings to arrest the winter- swollen brooks, long
before the men of his degree in Paris or in Lon-
don opened their heavy eyes to call for their
morning taste of brandy, and awoke to the recol-

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IN A WINTER CITY.

;

lection of their night's gaming losses, or their
wagers on coming races.

The finest of fine gentlemen, the grandest of
grand seigneurs, in court or drawing-room or diplo-
matic circle, Paolo della Rocca, amongst his own
grey olive orchards and the fragrance of his
great wooden storehouses, was as simple as Cin-
cinnatus, laughed like a boy with his old steward,
caressed like a woman the broad heads of his
beasts at the plough, and sat under a great
mulberry to break his bread at noonday,
hearkening to the talk of his peasants as though
he were one of them.

The old Etrurian gentleness and love of the
rural life are still alive in this land ; may they
never i)erish, for they are to the nation, as the
timely rains to the vine, as the sweet strong sun
to the harvest.

This simplicity, this naturalness, which in the
Italian will often underlie the highest polish of
culture and of ceremony, had a curious fascination
for a woman in whose own life there had been
no place for simplicity and no thought for nature.

She had been in the bonds of the world always,

IN A WINTER CITY.

151

as a child in its swaddling bands ; none the less so
because she had been one of its leaders in those
matters of supreme fashion wherein she had
reigned as a goddess. Her life had been alto-
gether artificial; she had alwaj^s been a great
garden lily in a hothouse, she had never known
what it was to be blown by a fresh breeze on a
sun-swept moorland like a heather flower. The
hothouse shelters from all chills and is full of
perfume, but you can see no horizon from it ;
that alone is the joy of the moorland. Now and
then, garden lily in a stove-heated palace though
she was, some vague want, some dim unful-
filled wish, had stirred in her; she began to
think now that it had been for that unknown
horizon.

" Men live too much in herds, in crowded
rooms, amongst stoves and gas jets," he said to
her once. " There are only two atmospheres
that do one morally any good — the open air and
the air of the cloister."

" You mean that there are only two things that
are good — activity and meditation ? "

" I think so. The fault of society is that it

•T'

152

IN A WINTER CITY.

substitutes for those, stimulants and stagna-
tion."

He made her think — he influenced her more
than she knew. Under the caressing subserviency
to her as of a courtier, she felt the power of a
man who discerned life more clearly and more
wisely than herself.

The chief evil of society lies in the enormous
importance which it gives to trifles. She began
to feel that with all her splendour she had been
only occupied with trifles. Nature had been a
sealed book to her, and she began to doubt that
she had even understood Art.

" If you can be pleased with this," says a
great art-critic, * this ' being a little fresco of
St. Anne, ** you can see Floralia. But if not, —
by all means amuse yourself there, if you find it
amusing, as long as you like; you can never
see it."

The test may be a little exaggerated, but the
general meaning of his words is correct.

Cosmopolitan and Anglo-American I'loralia,
for the main part, do not see the city they come
to winter in; see nothing of its glories, of its

IN A WINTER CITY.

153

sanctities, of its almost divinities ; see only their
own friends, their own faces, their own fans,
flirtations, and fallals, reflected as in miiTors all
around them, and filling up their horizon.

**A Dutchman can be just as solemnly and
enth'ely contemplative of a lemon-pip and a cheese-
paring as an Italian of the Virgin in glor}'."

Cosmopolitan and Anglo-Ameiican Floralia is
in love with its lemon-pips, and has no eyes for
the Glory. When it has an eye, indeed, it is
almost worse, because it is bent then on buying
the Glor}' for its drawing-room staircase, or worse
yet, on selling it again at a profit.

The Lady Hilda, aIio did not love lemon-pips,
but who yet had never seen the Glory with that
simplicity, as of a child's worship, which alone
constitutes the time sight, began to unlearn many
of her theories, and to leam very much in
emotion and vision, as she carried her delicate
disdainful head into the little dusky chapels and
the quiet prayer-worn chauntries of Floralia.

Her love of Art had after all been a cold, she
began to think a poor, passion. She had studied
the philosophy of Art, had been learned in the

154

IN A WINTER CITY,

contemplative and the dramatic schools, had
known the signs manual of this epoch and the
other, had discoursed learnedly of Lombard and
Byzantine, of objective and subjective, of archaic
and naturalistic ; but all the while it had been
not very much more than a scholarly jargon, a
graceful pedantry, which had served to make
her doubly scornful of +hose more ignorant. Art
is a fashion in some circles, as religion is in
some, and license is in others ; and Art had been
scarcely deeper than a fashion with her, or cared
for more deeply than as a superior kind of
furniture.

But here, in this, the sweetest, noblest, most
hallowed city . of the world, which has been so
full of genius in other times, that the fragrance
thereof remains, as it were, upon the very
stones, like that Persian attar, to make one
ounce of which a himdred thousand roses die,
here something much deeper yet much simpler
came upon her.

Her theories melted away into pure rever-
ence, her philosophies faded into tenderness;
new revelations of human life came to her

IN A WINTER CITY.

155

before those spiritual imaginings of men to
whom the blue sky had seemed full of angels,
and the watches of the night been stirred by the
voice of God : before those old panels and old
frescoes, often so simple, often so pathetic, always
so sincere in faith and in work, she grew herself
simpler and of more humility, and learned that
art is a religion for whose right understanding
one must needs become ** even as a little
child."

She had been in great art cities before ; in
the home of Tintoretto and the Veronese, in the
asylum of the Madonna de San Sisto, in the
stone wilderi^ess of Ludwig where the Faun sleeps
in exile, in mighty Rome itself; but she had not
felt as she felt now. She had been full of appre-
ciation of their art, but they had left her as they
had found her, cold, vain, self-engrossed, entirely
shut in a Holy of Holfos of culture and of criti-
cism; she had covered her Cavalcaselle with
pencil notes, and had glanced from a predella or
a pieta to the pages of her Ruskin with a serene
smile of doubt.

But here and now Art ceased to be science,

166

Ilr A WINTER CITY,

and became emotion in her. Why was it ? — she
did not care to ask herself.

Only all her old philosophies seemed falling
about her like shed leaves, and her old self
seemed to her but a purposeless frivolous chilly
creature. The real reason she would not face, and
hideed as yet was not conscious of; the reason
that love had entered into her, and that love,
if it be worth the name, has always two hand-
maidens : swift sympathy, and sad humility,
keeping step together.

i '

I.,

CHAPTER VII.

Foreign Floralia, i.e., that portion of Floralia
which is not indigenous to the soil, but has only
flown south with the swallows, is remarkable for
a really god-like consciousness — it knows every-
thing about every body, and all things, past, pre-
sent, and to come, that ever did, could, would,
should, cannot, will not, or never shall happen;
and is aware of all things that have ever taken place,
and of a great many things that never have done
so. It is much better informed about you than
you are yourself ; knows your morals better than
your confessor, your constitution better than your
doctor, your income better than your banker, and
the day you were bom on, better than yom* mother.

^^;

158

IN A WINTER CITY.

It is omniscient and omnipresent, microscopic
and telescopic ; it is a court-edition of Scotland
Yard, and a pocket-edition of the Cabinet Noir ;
it speeds as many interrogations as a telegraph-
wire, and has as many mysteries as the agony
column of a newspaper — only it always answers
its own questions, and has all the keys to its own
mysteries, and what is still more comfoiiing,
always knows everything for ** certain."

It knows that you starve your servants because
you are poor and lilve to save on the butcher and
baker ; it knows that you overpay them because
you are rich and want them to keep your secrets ;
it knows that your great grandmother's second
cousin was hanged for forgery at Tybum; it
knows that your silk stockings have cotton tops
to them; it knows that your heirloom-guipure
is imitation, mc:de the other day at Rapallo ; it
knows that your Embassy only receives you be-
cause — hush — a great personage — ah, so very
shocking ; it knows that you had green peas six
weeks before anybody else; it knows that you have
had four dinner parties this week and are Hving on
your capital ; it knows that when you were ia

m A WINTER CITY,

159

Rome you only went to the Quirinal Wednesdays,
because {ichisper, tvhispe?', ivhisper) — oh, indeed
it is perfectly true — had it on the best authority —
dreadful, incredible, but perfectly true !

In point of fiict there is nothing it doesn't
know.

Except, to be sure, it never knows that Mrs.
Potiphar is not virtuous, or that Lady MessaUna
is not everything she should be; this it never
knows and never admits, because if it did it could
not very well drink the Potiphar champagne, and
might lose for its daughters the Messaluia balls.
Indeed its perpetual loquacity, which is "as the
waters come down at Lodore," has most solemn
and impressive interludes of refreshing dumbness
and deafness when any incautious speaker, not
trained to its ways, hints that Mrs. Potiphar
lives in a queer manner, or that Lady Messalina
would be out of society anywhere else; then in-
deed does Anglo-Saxon Floralia draw itself up
with an injured dignity, and rebuke you with the
murmur of — Chi'istian charity.

In other respects however it has the soul
of Samuel Pepys multiplied by five thousand.

160

IN A WINTER CITY.

It watched the progress of intimacy between
Lady Hilda and the ruined lord of Palestrina,
and knew "all about it," — knew a vast deal
more than the persons concerned, of course;
it always does, or what would be the use of
talking?

Gossiping over its bonbons and tea in
the many pleasant houses in which the south
wintering northern swallows nestle, it knew
that he and she had been in love years and
years before ; the family would not let her marry
him because he was so poor ; it was the discovery
of his letters to her that had killed poor old rich
Vorarlberg ; he and her brother had fought in the
Bois — indeed ! — oh yes, it was hushed uj) at the
time, but it was quite true, and he had shot her
brother in the shoulder; the surgeon who had
attended the wounded man had told the physician
who had attended the sister-in-law of the cousin of
the most intimate friend of the lady who had
vouched for this. There could not be better autho-
rity. But there never was anything against her ? —
oh dear me, no, never anything — everybody said
tins very warmly, because everybody had been,

IN A WINTER CITY.

161

lO-

lid

hoped to be, or at l^ast would not despair of being,
introduced to her and asked to dinner. It was very
romantic, really most interesting ; they had not
met for nine years, and now ! — ah, that explained
all her coldness then, and that extraordinary
rejection of the Crown Prince of Deutschland,
which nobody ever had been able to understand.
But was it not strange that he had never tried to
resume his old influence before ? No, he was as
proud as he was poor, and besides they had
quarrelled after the duel with her brother ; they
had parted one night very bitterly, after one of
the Empress's balls at St. Cloud, out on the
terrace there ; but he had always refused to give
up her portrait ; somebody had seen it upon his
chnst when he had been stripped in the hospital
after Custozza; oh yes, they remembered that
perfect ^y.

Altogether they made such a very pretty story
that it was quite a pity that it was not true, and
that the subjects of it had never met until the
Due de St. Louis had brought them face to face
that winter. The one real truth which did begin
to embitter the life of the Lady Hilda and lie

162

IN A WINTER CITY.

heavy on her thoughts, waking and sleeping, was
one that the garrulous gossiping Pepys-like
northern swallows, chirping so husily, did not
guess at all. Indeed, this is the sad fate which
generally befalls Gossip.

It is like the poor devil in the legend of
Fugger's Teuffelpalast at Trent ; it toils till cock-
crow picking up the widely-scattered grains of
corn by millions till the bushel measure is piled
high, and lo ! — the five grains that are the grains
always escape its sight and roll away and hide
themselves. The poor devil, being a primitive
creature, shrieked and flew away in despair at his
failure. Gossip hugs its false measure and says
loftily that the five real grains are of no conse-
quence whatever.

The Due de St. Louis, who had not got the five
grains any more than they had, yet who could
have told them their bushelful was all wrong,
like a wise man, seeing tha project of his affec-
tions in a fair way towards realization — at least,
so he thought — ^prudently abstained from saymg
one word about it to any one.

"Trop de zele" spoiled everything, he knew,

:*t1

IN A WINTER CITY.

163

»■'

from politics to omelettes, from the making of
proselytes to the frying of artichokes. A breath
too much has before now toppled down the most
carefully built house of cards. When to let
things alone is perhaps the subtlest, rarest, and
most useful of all knowledge.

A man here and there has it ; it may be said
that no woman has, has had, or ever will have it.
If Napoleon had had it he might have died at
eighty at St. Cloud instead of St. Helena. But
genius, like woman, never has been known to
have it. For genius and caution are as far apart
as the poles.

*' Tout va bien," the Due said to himself,
taking off his hat to her when he saw Delia
Rocca by her carriage ; meeting them in discus-
sion before some painting or statue that she was
about to buy; or watching them tete-a-tete on
some couch of a ballroom, or in some nook of a
gas-lit grove of camellias.

" Tout va bien," said the Due, smiling to him-
self, and speeding on his way to his various mis-
sions, reconciling angry ladies, making the prettiest
flatteries to pretty ones, seeking some imobtain-

M 2

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164

IN A WINTER CITY.

able enamel, ivory, or elzevir, penning sparkling
proverbs in verse, arranging costume qua-
drilles, preventing duels, and smiling on debu-
tantes, adjusting old quarrels, and hearing new
tenors ; always in a whii'l of engagements, always
courted and courteous, always the busiest, the
wittiest, the happiest, the most urbane, the most
charming, the most serene person in all Floralia,
** Tout va bien," said the Due, and the town
with him : the two persons concerned were
neither of them quite so sure.

Meanwhile, for a little space the name and fame
and ways and w^onders of the Lady Hilda which
filled Floralia with a blaze as of electric lights,
quelling all lesser luminaries, was almost dis-
regarded in a colossal sentiment, a gigantic dis-
cussion, a debate which, for endless eloquence
and breathless conflict, would require the dithy-
rambs of Pindar meetly to record : — the grave
question of who would, and who would not, go to
the Postiche ball.

" Number One goes to dine with Number Two,
only that he may say he did so to Number Three,"
some cynic has declared ; but Floralia improves

flWWRHP^^^W'* ' « "I (pill i^B^PK'i''

IN A WINTER CITY.

165

even on this ; before it goes to dine or dance,
it spends the whole week in trying to find
out who all the Number Fours will be, or in
declaring that if such and such a Number
Four goes it does not think it can go itself^
out of principle — all which diversions wile its
time away and serve to amuse it as a box of
toys a child. Not that it ever fails to go and
dine or dance, — only it likes to discuss it
dubiously in this way.

The Postiche ball was really a thing to move
society to its depths.

The wintering-swallows had never been so
fluttered about anything since the mighty and
immortal question of the previous season, when
a Prince of the H. R. Empire, a United Nether-
lands Minister, and a Due et Pair of France, had
all been asked to dinner together with their
respective wives at an American house, and the
hostess and all the swallows with her had lived in
agonies for ten days previously, torn to pieces by
the terrible doubts of Precedence ; beseeching
and receiving countless counsels and councillors,
and consulting authorities and quoting precedents

166

JN A WINTER CITY.

with the research of Max Miiller and the zeal of
Dr. Kenealy.

But the Postiche ball was a much wider, in-
deed almost an international matter ; because the
Anglo-Saxon races had staked their lives that it
should be a success ; and the Latin and INIusco-
vite had declared that it would be a failure ; and
everybody was dying to go, and yet everybody
was ashamed to go, a state of mind which con-
stitutes the highest sort of social ecstacy in tliis
age of composite emotions.

Mr. and Mrs. Joshua R. Postiche, some said,
were Jews, and some said were Dutch, and some
said were half-castes from Cuba, and some said
were Americans from Arkansas, and some said had
been usm'ers, and some gin-spinners, and some
opium dealers, and some things even yet worse ;
at any rate they had amassed, somehow or other,
:. great deal of money, and had therefore got into
society by dint of a very large expenditure and
the meekest endurance of insults; and had
made an ancient palace as gaudy and garish as
any brand-new hotel at Nice or Scarboro', and
gathered in it all the cosmopolitan crowd of

IN A WINTER CITY.

167

Floralia ; some of the Italian planets and Mus-
covite stars alone hanging aloof in a loftier
atmosiDhere, to the very great anguish of the
Joshua R. Postiches.

The ball was to be a wonderful ball, and the co-
tillon iiresents were whispered to have cost thirty
thousand francs, and there were various nimours
of a ** surprise " there would be at it, as poor
Louis Napoleon used to promise the Parisians
one for the New Year. Louis Napoleon's pro-
mises always ended in smoke, but the surprise
of the Joshua R. Postiches was always to be
reckoned on as something excellent : — salmon
come straight from the Scotch rivers ; lobsters
stewed in tokay du krone ; French comic actors
fetched from Paris; some great singer, paid
heaven knew what for merely opening her
mouth; some dove flying about with jewels in
his beak for everybody, or something of that
sort, which showed that the Joshua R. Postiches,
wherever they had been "raised," or even if they
had kept a drinking-bar and eating- shop in
Havaimah, as some people said, were at all events
persons who knew the requirements of their own

IN A WINTER CITY.

generation and the way to mount into " La
Haute."

Why they wanted to get there no mortal could
tell ; they had no children, and were hoth middle-
aged ; but no doubt, if you have not been used to
them, the cards of countesses are as balm in
Gilead, and to see a fashionable throng come up
your staircase is to have attained the height of
human desire.

At any rate, the J. ma K. Postiches had set
their souls on this sort of social success, and
they achieved it ; receiving at their parties many
distinguished and infinitely bored personages who
had nothing to do in Floralia, and would have
cut them in Paris, Vienna, or London, with the
blandest and blankest stare of imconsciousness.

Madame Mila was on the point of adding her-
self to those personages.

*' I must go to the ball," she said. ** Oh, it will
be the best thing of the season except Nina
Trasimene's — I must go to the ball — but then I
can't endure to know the woman."

" Can't you go without knowing her ? " said
the Lady Hilda. " That has been done "

I,'^'"-'^' -t-T —■-■*■>

JN A WINTER CITY.

1G9

Madame Mila did not feel tlie satire.

** Yes ; one could do it in Paiis or London ;
but not in a little place like this," she answcrrd,
innocently. " I must let them present her to
me — and I must leave a card. That is what's so
horrid. The woman is dreadful ; she murders
all the languages, and the man's always looking
about for a spittoon, and calls you my lady.
They are too dreadful! But I must go to
the ball. Besides, our own people want
Maurice to lead the cotillon. Now Guido
Salvareo is ill, there's nobody that can come
near Maiurice—

" But 1 suppose he would not dare to go if you
were not there?"

" Of course he would not go ; the idea ! But
I .nean to go — I must go. I'm only thinking
how I can get out of knowing the woman after-
wards. It's so difficult in a small place, and I am
always so good-natured in those things. I sup-
pose it's no use asking you to come, Hilda ? else,
if you would, yon could cut them afterwards most
deliciously, and I should do as you did. Left to
myself, I'm always too good-natured."

frfT

til!' ■%

170

IN A WINTER CITY.

I would do most things to please you, my
dear Mila," answered her cousin, " hut I don't
think I can do that. You know it's my rule
never to visit people that I won't let visit me —
and I don't like murdered languages, and being
called ' my lady.' "

" Oh, the people are horrid — I say so," an-
swered the Comtesse. " I shall have nothing to
do with them, of course — after their hall."

** But surely, it's very low, Mila, that sort of
thing. I know people do it nowadays. But
really, to be a guest of a person you intend to cut
next day "

** What does it matter ? She wants my name
on her list ; she gets it ; I'm uot bound to
give her anything more. There is nothing unfair
about it. She has what she wants, and more
than she could expect. Of course, all that kind of
persons must know perfectly well that we only go
to them as we go to the opera, and have no more
to do with them than we have with the opera
door-keepers. Of course they know we don't
visit them as we visit our own people. But if
snobbish creatures like those find pleasure in en-

IN A WINTER CITY.

171

tcrtaining us, though they know quite well what
wc think of them, and how wc esteem tliem, and
why wc go to them — well, I don't see that they
deserve anything hettcr."

*' Nor I," said the Lady Hilda. " Only I
shouldn't go to them — that's all. And it is very
limny, my love, that you, who have lived in all
the great courts of Europe, and have had your own
Embassy in London, should care one straw for a
hall at the Joshua R. rosticho's. Good gracious !
You must have seen about seventy thousand balls
in your time ! "

**I am only six years older than you, Hilda,"
said she, tartly. ** I sui)pose you've been telling
Delia Kocca not to go to the Postiche's — Olga
and the Baroness and Madame Valliyria, and
scores of them have been trying to persuade him
all the week, because if he stay away so many of
the other men will ; and none of us can stir him
an inch about it. * On pent etre de tres -braves
gens — mais je n'y vais pas,' that is all he says ;
as if their being * braves gens ' or not had any-
tliing to do with it ; and yet I saw him the other
day with his hand on a contadino's shoulder in

172

wmmm

IN A WINTER CITY.

the market-place, and he was calling him * caris-
simo mio.* "

" One of his own peasants, most likely/' said
the Lady Hilda, coldly. " I have never heard
those Postiches even mentioned by M. Delia
Rocca, and I certainly have nothing whatever to
do with where he goes or doesn't go."

" He is always with you, at any rate," said Ma-
dame Mila ; " and if you would make him go, it
would only be kind of you. You see we want
everybody we know, so that we may be sure to make
the square dances only of our own people, and
not to see anything of anybody the Postiches may
have asked themselves. Little Dickie Dorrian,
who's managing it all, said to the woman Pos-
tiche, 'I'll bring the English division if you'll
spend enough on the cotillon toys; but I won't
undertake the Italians.' Now if Delia Ilocca "

•* Would you want a new dress, Mila ? " said
the Lady Hilda ; " I am sure you must if you're
going to a woman you can't know the next
day." -

" I should like one, of course," said the Com-
tesse, ** but I've had thirty new ones this season

JN A WINTER CITY.

173

already — and what I owe Worth ! — not to talk
of the Maison Eoger—

i»

" Let me give you one," said the Lady Hilda.
** Worth will do anything at short notice for either
of ns ; and I must think this poor Postiehe woman
ought to see you in a new dress, as she's never to
see you again."

** You are a darling, Hilda ! " said Madame
Mila, with ardent effusion, rising to kiss her
cousin.

Lady Hilda turned to let the caress fall on the
old guipure lace fichu round her tlii'oat, and
drew her ^vl•iting-things to her to pen a telegram
to M. Worth.

" I suppose you don't care to say what colour ?"
she asked as she wrote,

" Oh no," answered the Comtesse. " He
remembers all the combinations I've had much
better than I do. You dictate to him a little too
much ; I've heard him say so "

" He never said so to me," said the Lady
Hilda, with a laugh. " Of course I dictate to
him. Whatever taste your dress-maker, nan or
woman, may have — and he has genius— there are

ii' — 'jr

174

IN A WINTER CITY.

little touches which should alwaj^s come from
oneself, and which can alone give originalit}'.
That is why all that herd of women, who really do
go to Worth hut yet are nobodies, look hardly the
better for him ; he tliinks about us, and we think
about ourselves ; but he doesn't think about
them, and as they have no thought themselves
the result is that they all look as conventional
and similar as if they were dolls dressed for a
bazaar. Women ought tc ^c educated to more
sense of colour ard form. Even an ugly woman
ought to be taught that it is her duty to make her
ugliness as little disagreeable as possible. If tho
eyes and the taste of women were cultivated by
artistic study, an ill-dressed woman would be-
come an imi^ossibility. If I were ever so poor,"
continued the Lady Hilda impressively, ** if I
were ever so poor, and liad to sew my own gowns,
and make them of serge or of dimity, I would cut
them so that Giorgione or G-ainsborough, if they
were living, would be able to look at me with
complaisancy — or at all events without a shudder.
It is not half so much a question of material as it
is of taste. But nowadays the people who cannot

IN A WINTER CITY.

17fi

afford material have no taste ; so that after us,
and the women whom Worth manages to make
look decently in spite of themselves, there is
nothing hut a multitude of hideously-attired
persons, who make the very streets appalling
either by dreariness or gaudiness : — they never
have any medium. Now a peasant girl of the
Marche, or of the Agro Romana, or of the Pays de
Vaud, is charming, because her garments have
beauty of hue in them, and that other beauty

which comes from perfect suitability and Ah !

come sta Duca ? " ~

She interrupted herself, and turned to Delia
Rocca, who was standing behind her, the sei^ant's
announcement of him having been unheard : it was
her day to receive.

" Oh, that the rest of your sex, Madame," he
said, after his salutations were made, *' could sit
at your feet and take in those words of wisdom !
Yes, I heard most that you said ; I can understand
your tongue a little ; you are so right ; it is the
duty of every woman to make herself as full of
grace as she can ; all cannot be lovely, but none
need be unlovely."

^,^}

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4

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■i.

176

IN A WINTER CITY.

" Exactly; women are reproached with thinking
too much about dress, but the real truth is, they
do not think enough about it — in the right way.
They tallc about it dreadfully, in the vulgarest
fashion, but bring any thought to it they don't.
Most women will wear anything if it be only de
rigueur. I believe if I, and Princess Metternich,
and Madame de Gallifet, and Madame Aguado,
and a few like us wore that pea-green silk coat
and waistcoat which the Advanced Thought
Ladies of America are advocatmg as the best
new kind of dress for women, that you would
see ten thousai d pea-green coats and waistcoats
blazing in the streets the week afterwards—

>»

" Not a bad idea for the Cotton Costume ball,"
said Madame Mila. " I will have a pea-green
coat and waistcoat, a tall hat, and hessians ; and
call myself * Advanced Thought.' "

** To be completely in character, Mila, you
must have blue spectacles, a penny whistle, a
phial full of nostrums, a magpie for your emblem,
and a calico banner, iijscribed ' Every ihing is
Nothing!' '*

''Charming! It shall beth- ^>estti'iv'' -lore.

IN A WINTER CITY.

177

Draw it for mc, Delia Rocca, and I will send the
sketch to Paris, so that it can all come in a box
together, magpie and all."

He drew a sheet of paper to him, and sketched
the figure in ink, with spirit.

** You have all the talents — so many thanks,"
said ]\Iiulame Mila, looking over his shoulder,

Delia Rocca sighed.

** If I have them I have hm'icd them, Madame
— ijut, indeed, I can make no such claim."

" So many thanks," echoed the Comtesse.
'*Pray, don't say a word about it, or we shall
have a dozen ' Advanced Tjioughts ' in calico.
Hilda, I am just going to Nina's to see about the
Miiscadins. I have resolved we shall play that
piece or no other. I shall be back in ten
minutes, ask Olga to wait ; " and Madame Mila
wafted herself out of the room, and downstairs to
the courtyard, where the coupe and the exemplary
Maurice were waiting.

"How she does amuse herself!" said Lady
Hilda, a little enviously. *' I wish I could do it.
What can it matter whether they play the MiiS"
cadins or anything else i **

'tfi

H" "it*

ft '':

it*

t'a'i

178

JJV A WINTER CITY.

"Plus on est fou, plus on rit," said Delia
Rocca, sketching arabesques with his pen. ** Na}',
that is too impolite in me to charming Madame
Mila. But, like all old proverbs, it is more true
than elegant."

" Do you know, Madame," he continued, with
a little hesitation, " I have often ventured to think
that, despite your brilliancy, and your position,
and all your enviable fate, you are not alto-
gether — quite happy ? Am I right ^ Or have I
committed too great an impertinence to be
answered?"

"No impertinence whatever," said the Lad/
Hilda, a little wearily. " You may be right ; I
don't know ; I am not unhappy certainlj ; I liave
n()thi//fjf to be unhfippy about ; but most thi//^,s
seem very stupid tu me. I confess Miitt'n /.iidless
diversjons and excitements are quite beyond tiwi
There is such a terrible sameness in everything,"

** Because you have no deeper interests," he
answered her. He still sat near her at her
writing-table beside the fire, and was playing with
the little jewelled boy who held her pen-wiper.

She did not answer him ; and he continued

»;^mm'

IN A WINTER CITY.

179

((

I think you have said yourself, Madame,
the cause why everything seems more or less
wearisome to you — you have * nothing to be
unhapi^y about'; that is — you have no one for
whom you care."

He thought that her proud delicate face
coloured a little; or it might be the warmth
from the fire of oak-logs and piua^-cones.

"No; I don't care about people," she an-
swered him indifferently. '" When you have seen
fi person a few times — it is enough. It is like
fi. ^HtuU you have read througli ; the interest is
gone ; ;/'/ }<now the mot cVeniymc.'"

" You speak of society ; I spoke of affec-
tions."

The Lady Hilda laughed a little.

"I can't follow yju. I do not feel them. I
like Clairvaux, my brother, certainly, but we
go years without seeing each other quite con-
tentedly."

** I spoke of affections, other affections," re-
l^lied Delia llocca, with a little impatience.
"There is nothing else that gives warmth or
colour to life. Without them there is no glow

N 2

iW^

180

IN A WINTER CITY.

in its pictures, they are all painted en grisaille.
Pleasure alone cannot content any one whose
character has any force, or mind any high intel-
ligence. Society is, as you say, a book we soon
read through, and know by heart till it loses all
interest. Art alone cannot fill more than a cer-
tain part of our emotions ; and culture, how-
ever i)erfect, leaves us unsatisfied. There is
onl}' one thing that can give to life what your
poet called the light that never was on sea or
land — and that is human love."

His eyes rested on her ; and for once in her
life her own eyes fell ; a troubled softness came
for a moment on her face, dispersing all its
languor and its coldness. In another moment
she recovered herself, and smiled a little.

"Ah! you are appassionato, as becomes your
country."

Delia Eocca looked at her with something
of disappointment and something of distaste ;
he rose and approached tlie grand piano.

"You allow me?" he said, and touched a
few of the chords. He sang very low, and almost
as it were to himself, a canzone of the people—

'i^iPli

IN A WINTER CITY,

181

*' Si tu mi lasci, lasciar non ti voglio,
Sc ni' abbandoni, ti vo scguitare
Sc passi 11 mare, il mar passaro io voglio,
Se giii il momlo, il mondo vo' girare,"&o.

The words were very simple, but the melody
was passionate and beautiful ; his voice, so low
at first, rose louder, with all the yeai iiing tender-
ness in it with which the song is laden ; and
the soft sounds echoed through the silent
room, as they had echoed ten thousand times
in moonlit nights of midsummer, over the
land where Romeo and Stradella and Ariosto
loved.

His voice sank softly into silence ; and Lady
Hilda did not move.

There was a mist that was almost like tears
in her proud eyes ; dhe gazed into the fire, with
her cheek leaning on her hand ; she did not
speak to him ; there was no sound but the
falling of some burning wood upon the hearth.

*' The simi^lest contadina in the land would
understand that," he said as he rose ; *' and you,
great lady though you are, cannot ? Madame,
there are things, after all, that you have
missed.'*

'Jf ,

■St . .J

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182

IN A WINTER CITY.

** Go hack and sing again," she said to hiui,
taking no notice of his words ; " I did not know
you ever sang "

** Every Italian does ; — or well or ill," he an-
swered her, ** AVe are horn with music in us,
like the hirds."

" But in society who hears you ? "
No one. An atmosplicrc of gas, candles,
ennui, perfume, heat, and inane flatteries ! ah no,
Madame — music is meant for silence, moon-
light, vinepaths, summer nights "

" This is winter and firelight, a few arm-
chairs and a great deal of street noise ; all the
same, go hack and sing me more."

She spoke indifferently and lightly, leaning
lier hand hack on her chair, and hiding a little
yawn with her hand ; she would not have him
see that he had touched her to any foolish,
momentary weakness. But he had seen. lie
smiled a little.

*'As you command," he answered, and he
went back and made her music as she wished ;
short love lyrics of the populace, sonnets set
to noble airs, wild mournful boat-songs, and

IN A WINTER CITY.

183

'4-U

snatches of soft melodies, such as eclio all the
Imrvest-time tlirouc,h the firefly-lighted corn :
things all familiar to him from his infancy, but
to her unlmown, and full of the force and
the yearning of the passicn which was un-
known to her also, and in a certain way derided
by her.

He broke off abruptly, and came and leaned
on the chimney-piece near her, with his arm
amongst the little pug-t gs in Saxe, and figures
and fountains in Capo di Monte, which she
had collected in a few weeks from the bric-a-brac
people. He did not spcaic ; he only looked at
her where she sat, with the firelight and the
dying daylight on the silver fox-furs fringing
her dress, on the repousse gold and silver work
of her loose girdle, on the ends of the old
Spanish lace about her throat; on the great
rings that sparkled on her white fingers, which
were lying so idly clasped together on her
lap.

" You sing very beautifully," she said, calmly,
at length, with her eyes half closed and her
head lying back on the chair-cushions. " It

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184

IxV A WINTER CITY.

is very strange you should be so mute in
society."

"I never sang to a crowd in my life, and
never would. Music is an impulse, or it is
nothing. I could never sing save to some
woman who "

He paused a moment.

" Who was music in herself,^' he added with
a smile; it was not what had oeen upon his
lips.

** Then you should not have sung to me," she
said, still with half- closed eyes and a careless
coldness in her voice. "lam all discord; have
you not found that out ? — every woman is, now-
a-days ; we have lost the secret of harmony ;
we are always wanting to be excited, and never
succeeding in being anything but bored.'*

" These are mere words, Madame," he an-
swered her, "I hope they are not true. By
discord I think you only mean inconsistency.
Pardon me — but I think you are all so wearied
because of the monotony of your lives. I dare
say that sounds very strangely to you, because
you pursue all the pleasures and all the cx-

IN A WINTER CITY,

183

travagances tliat are obtainable. But then all
these are no novelties, they are merely habits.
Habit is nothing better than a harness ; oven
when it is one silvered and belled. You have
exhausted everything too early ; how can it
have flavour ? You pursue an unvarying routine
of amusement : how can it amuse ? The Ufe of
the great vo^'ld is, after all, when we once know
it well, as tiresome as the life of the peasant —
perhaps more so. I know both.'*

"All that may be right enough," said the
Lady Hilda, *' but there is no help for it that
I see. If the world is not amusing, that is not
our fault. In the Beau Siecle, perhaps, or in
Augustan Rome — "

"Be very sure it was the same thing. An
artificial life must grow tiresome to any one with
a mind above that of a parrot or a monkey. If
we can be content with it, we deserve nothing
better. Wh^it you call your discord is nothing
but your dissatisfaction — the highest part of
you. If it were not treason to say so, treason
against this exquisite apparel, I would say that
ycu would be more likely to know happiness

186

IN A WINTER CITY.

were you condemned to the i^rge and the dimity
you spoke of to Madame Mila an hour ago."

He had sunk on a stool at her feet as he spoke,
and caressed the silver fox and the gold girdle
liglitly; his hand touched hers in passing, and
her face grew warm. She put a feather screen
between her and the fire.

*' That is the old argument of content in the
cottage &c.," she said, with a slight laugh. *' I
do not believe in it in the least. If it be * best
repenting in a coach and six ' it must be best to be
bored in an arm- chair "

" Perhaps ! It is not I, certainly, ^7ho should
praise poverty ! " he said, with some bitterness,
and more sadness ; " and, indeed, poverty or
riches has little to do with the question of
happiness; happiness can come but from one
^hing ."

" A. good conscience ? How terribly moral you

are.

** No : — from our emotions, from our passions,
from our sympathies ; in fine, from Love."

His hand still played with the gold gypsire of
tlie girdle as he sat at her feet ; his eyes were

IN A WINTER CITY.

187

lifted to her face ; his voice was veiy low ; in all
his attitude and action and regard there were an
unuttered solicitation, an eloquence of unspoken
meanii^g ; she was silent : — then the door opened ;
he dropped the girdle, and rose to his feet ; there
came a patter of high heels, and a chime of swift
aristocratic voices ; and into the room there
entered the Princess Olga, attended hy her con-
stant shadow, Don Carlo Marenima, with Lady
Featherleigh behind her, accompanied by her
attendant. Prince Nicolas Doggondorf.

" Ma chere, there is a regular riot going on at
Nina's," said the Princess Olga, advancing with
both hands outstretched. ''All about those
Muscad'ms. Mila has seceded in full form, and,
of course, M. des Gommeux with her. Blanche
will only play if they have * II faiit qiCune
l^ortCf c^c, which is as old as the hills, and Mila
won't play at all if Blanche be allowed to play
anything. They have quarrelled for hfe, so
have Mila and Nina. They are slanging each
other like two street boys. Alberto Rimini
is on his knees between them, and the Duo
Ss declai'ing for the five thousandth time that it is

iiii

188

IN A WINTER CITY.

the last he will ever have to do with theatricals.
I left wliile I could escape with life. What a
pity it is that plajdng for charity always developed
such fierce hostilities. Well, Paolo, — have you
thought better of the Postiche ball ? No ? How
stiff-necked you are ! I do believe Carlo will be
the only Italian there ! **

** It will be a distinction to inscribe on his
tombstone, Madame," said Delia Ilocca. **But
then he goes under command ."

" And under protest," murmured Don Carlo.

"Which does not count. When one is no
longer a free agent—

Princess Olga hit him a little blow with her
muff.

" But why should you not go to the Postiches ?
Just as you go to tlie Vcglione j it is nothing

more.

" Madame, — I am very old-f^xshioned in my
ideas, I dare say, but I confess I think that no
one should accept as a host a person he would
never accept as his guest. I may be wrong "

" Of course you are wrong. That is not the
question at all," said Princess Olga, who did

rJV A WINTER CITY,

IBb

not like people to differ with her. ''Joshua R.
Postiche will never dream of being asked to
shoot your wild ducks or your partridges. All he
wants is that you should just be seen going up
his staircase, and drinking his champagne.
Society is full of Postiches : low people, with a
craze 'or entertaining high people. They don't
care how we insult them, nor how we laugh at
them, provided our cards lie in the bowl in their
hall. "We take them at their own valuation, and
treat them as we treat the waiters at Spillman*s
or Doney's ; we have paid the bill with our cards."

** That is to say, we have paid with our names
— ^which should represent all the honour, dignity,
and self-respect that we have inherited, and are
bound to maintain, for our own sakes and for
those who may come after us."

** Oh, mon Dieu, quel grand serieux ! " cried
the Princess, impatiently. *' But, of course, if
youVe been sitting with Hilda you have got more
stiff-necked than ever. What do you say,
Hilda? Isn't it ill-natured of him? He need
only walk in, bow once to the woman, and look
on at the edge of the ball-room for twenty

-I

190

IN A WINTER CITY.

minutes. The other men will go if he will do
as much as that."

** I think M. della Kocca quite right not ' to do
as much as that,' " said the Lady Hilda. ** Why-
Society ever does as much as that, or half as
much, or anything at all, for Joshua R. Postiche,
I can never tell. As it does, — to be consistent
everybody should dine with the fruit woman from
the street corner, and play ccarte with their own
chimney sweeps."

" Oh, we shall come to that, Madame," said
Nicolas Doggondorf. **At least, if chiraney
sweeping ever make heaps of money; I don't
think it does ; it only chokes little boys ."

** Ce bon Monsiem' Postiche sold rum and
molasses," murmured Don Carlo.

"What's it to us what he sold?" said Lady
Feathcrleigh. ** We've nothing to do with him ;
we're only going to his ball. You talk as if we
asked the man to dinner."

** What does the Archduchess Anna always say :
* Ou je m'amuse — ^j'y vais.' So we do all. I hear
he has been put up for the Club ; is it true ? "
added the Princess to Carl > Maremma.

IJ^ A WINTER CITY,

191

**Yes, Krunensberg has put him up," ho
answered her, **but he shall never get into it,
while there are any of us alive."

**Et s'il n'y a qu'un, moi je serai celui-la,"
quoted Delia Rocca.

*' But he has lent Krunensberg heaven knows
what — some say two million francs," said Lady
Featherleigh.

Prince Krunensberg was a great personage,
and, for a foreigner, of gf'eat influence in the
Club.

" Chere dame," said Delia Eocca, " if we elect
all Krunensberg's creditors wc shall have to cover
three streets with our club-house ! "

"Oh my dear! I am half dead!" cried Madame
Mila, flashing into the room, gorgeous in the
feathers of the golden pheasant, arranged on the
most exquisite combination of violet satin, and
bronze velvet, and throwing her muff on one side
of licr and her parasol on the other, while Maurice
dcs Gommcux, who was the most admirable of
upper servants, stooped for them and smoothed
their ruffled elegance. ** I am half dead ! Such a
scene I never went through in my life. I, who

IN A WINTER CITY,

hate scenes, and never Ifave any hardly even with
Spiridion ! Oh, has Olga tokl you ? Yes ; it is
horrible, infamous, intolerable ! — after all I have
done for that odious Dumb Asylum — and my
costumes ordered for the Muscadins, and half
the part learnt 1 It is all Krunensbcrg's doing —
and the Due didn't stand out one half as he
should have done ; and Blanche ! — the idea —
tlie little wretch is made of wood, and can't
even open her mouth ! As for Krunens-
berg, he deserves to be shot ! It is all his in-
fluence that has set Nina against the Muscadins
— ^Just to spite me ! What I have gone through
about this wretched theatre — and then to have
that Httle chit of a Blanche set over my head, a
little creature, only married out of her convent
last year ; — it is unbearable ; of course, neither I
nor des Gommeux shall play. Oh, here comes
the Due ; — no. Due, it is not the slightest use ! If
you have that ridiculous musty old piece of
De Musset's, or if you have Blanche in it at all
you don't have Me in anything. A nice morn-
ing's work you have made of it ! Nina and I
shall never speak awn."

IN A WINTER CiTY

193

The Due laid his hat "aside; his delicate fea-
tures were puckered, weary, and troubled.

'* Mais, Madame, pardon !— mais vous avez
toutes dit les choses les plus affreuses !—

'* Women always do, Due, when they are in a
passion," said Lady Hilda. " There is nothing
like a scene for discovering our real opinions of
one another. Why ! you lock actually — worried !
I thought nothing ever ruffled you by any chance
whatever."

" Madame," said M. de St. Louis, stretching
himself, with a sigh, in a low chair beside her and
the fire, "I have always sedulously cultivated
serenity. I believe serenity to be the whole
secret of human health, happiness, longevity, good
taste, sound judgment, everything in point of fact
that is desirable in the life of a human being.
But, alas ! we are all mortal, and our best plana
are but finite. In an evil moment, when Pan-
dora's box was packed, there was put in with it
by the malice of Mercury a detonating powder,
called Amateur Kivalry. When all the other
discords were dispersed, this shot itself into the
loveliest forms and the gentlest bosoms: and

194

IN A WINTER CITY.

where it explodes — the wisest man stands help-
less. He cannot reconcile the warring elements
nor retain any personal peace himself. I am the
slave of Madame Mila ; I adore the dust of the
exquisite shoes of Madame Nina ; I am penetrated
with the most absolute devotion to JIadame
Blanche ; — when these heavenly graces are ready
to rend each other's hair, what can I do ? What
can I be except the most unhappy person upon
earth ? To reconcile ladies who are infuriated is
a hopeless dream ; it were easier to make whole
again a broken glass of Venice. It makes one
filmost wish," added the Due with a second sigh,
" almost wish that Moliere had never been
created, or, being created, had never written. But
for Moliere I doubt very much if the Drama, as an
Art, would have lingered on to the present
time."

" Console yourself, my dear Due," said Lady
Hilda, ** console yourself with a line from
Moliere: 'Cinq ou six coups de baton entre
gens qui s'aiment ne font que ragaillardir I'amitie.'
Mila, Nina, and Blanche will kiss each other
to-morrow ; they must, or what becomes of the

mti

IN A WINTER CUT,

105

great Contes de M6re d'Oie Quadrille to open
the Roubleskoff ball next week ? '*

** I shall never speak to either of them as long
as I live," said Madame Mila, stUl rufiling all her
golden feathers in highest wrath. *' As for the
quadrille — the Roubleskoff must do as they can.
I do think Krunensberg has made Nina perfectly
odious ; I never saw anybody so altered by a
man in my life. Well, the^'e's one thing, it won't
last. His * affairs * never do."

" It will last as long as her jewels do," said
Carlo Maremma.

" Oh, no, he can't be quite so bad as that."

" Foi d'honneur ! — since he left the Sant' An-
selmo you have never seen her family diamonds
except in the Paris paste replica, which she tells
you she wears for safety, and because it is such a
bore to have to employ policemen in plain clothes
at the balls "

" Talk of policemen ! '* said Madame Mila,
** they say we're to have a ca tion sent us from
the Prefecture about our playing baccarat the
other night at the cafe — they say no gambling is
allowed in the city — the idea I

»>

196

IN A WINTER CITY.

*' While the State organises the lotteries ! —
how v^ry consistent," said the Lady Hilda.

** All your gaming is against the law, angels
of my soul," said Carlo Marcmma.

** Then we'Jl all leave Floralia," said Madame
Mila. "The idea of not being able to do what
one chooses in one's own rooms ! — there is one
thing, we can always go hp to Roubleskoff 's ;- -
they will never dare to caution him. Eut what
is the use of all this fuss ? — everybody plays —
everybody always will play."

'*' The Prefect is much too wise a man ever to
imagine he can prevent ladies doing Mlmt they
like," said Maremma. "It is those tremendous
losses of young De Fabris the other night that
have made a stir, and the Prefect thinks it ne-
cessaiy to say something; he is afraid of a
Bcandal."

" Good gracious ! As if anything filled a citv
half so well as a scandal! Why don't Floralia
have a good gaming place like Monte Carlo?
we shouldn't want to use our own rooms
then "

**i confess," said the Due, in his gentle, medi-

jumi

IN A WI.NTEP. CITY.

197

tative voice, " I confess that, like Miladi here, I
fail to altogether appreciate the moral horror of
a game at baccarat entertained by a municipality
which in its legislation legalises the lottery. All
gaming may be prejudicial to the moral health
of manidnd ; it is certainly so to their purses. 1
am prepared to admit, even in face of Madame
Mila'o direst wrath, that all forms of hazard are
exceedingly injurious to the character and to the
fortunes of every person tempted by them. It
may be impossible even to exaggerate their bane-
ful influences or their disastrous consequences.
But how can a government which publicly
patronizes, sustains, and enriches itself by
lotteries, have any logic in condemning the
pastime of hazard in a private drawing-room
or a private club-ho ase ? I confess I cannot see
how they reconcile both courses. A govern-
ment, whatever it be, should never be an
anomaly."

** Lotteries are to us what biiU-fighting is to
Spaniardy, and revolutions are to the French,"
said Carlo Maremma, ** Every nation has its
especial craze. The lottery is our» "

ill!

198

IN A WINTER CITY.

"But is it for a government to intensify and
pander to, and profit by a national insanity ? "
said Delia Roccawitli much seriousness. **When
Rome bent to the yell of Panem et Circences,
the days of her greatness were numbered.
Besides, the Due is qui^e right — it is a ridiculous
anomaly to condemn games while you allow lot-
teries. Great harm may result from private
gambling — greater still from the public gaming-
tables — but the evil after all is not a millionth
part so terrible as the evil resulting from the
system of public lotteries. The persons wlio are
ruined by ordinary gaming, are, after all, persons
who would certainly be ruined by some vice or
another. The compound of avarice and excite-
ment which makes the attraction of hazard does
not allure the higher kinds of character ; besides,
the vice does not go to the player — the player
goes to the vice. Now, on the contrary, the
lottery attacks openly, and tries to allure in
very despite of themselves the much wider
multitude that is the very sap and support
of a nation — it entices the people themselves.
It lures the workman to throw away his wage —

IN A WINTER CITY.

199

the student to spend his time in feverish dreams
— the simple day-labourer to consume his con-
tent in senseless calculations that often bring his
poor empty brain, to madness. The lottery
assails them in the street, is carried to them in
their homes, drops them some poor prize at first
to chain them in torment for ever afterwards. It
changes honesty to cunning., peace to burning
desire, industry to a perpetual waiting upon
chance, manly effort to an imbecile abandonment
to the dictates of signs and portents, and the ex-
pectancy of a fortune which never comes. High-
born gamblers are only the topmost leaves of the
tree of the State ; they may rot away without
detriment to the tree, but the lottery lays the axe
to the very trunk and root of it, because it demo-
ralises the people."

Lady Hilda listen ?d, and watched him as he
spoke with a grave a'^d almost tender meditation
in her eyes ; which Jri. de St. Louis saw, and
seeing, smiled.

** Say all that in the Chamber, caro mio," mut-
tered Carlo Maremma.

** I would go to the Chambers to say it, or to

" i,1

•J

200

IN A WINTER CITY.

worse places even, were there any chance it would
be attended to. Madame Mila, have I been so
unhappy as to have offended you ? "

" I am a top leaf that may rot ! I was never
told anything so rude in my life — from you too !
the very soul of ceremonious courtesy."

Delia Rocca made his peace with her in flowery
flattery.

** Well, I shall play baccarat to-night in this
hotel, just because the Prefect has been so odious
and done that," said Madame Mila. "You will
all come home with me after the Eoubleskoff's
dinner ? Promise ! "

*' Of course," said the Princess Olga.

** Of course," said Lady Featherleigh.

** Of course," said everybody else.

" And if the gendarmes come in ? "

" We will shoot them ! "

"No; we will give them champagne — surer
and more humane,**

** I wish the Prefect would come himself — I
should like to tell him my mind," continued Ma-
dame Mila. " So impudent of the man ! — when
all the Royal Highnesses and Grand Dukes and

Tnttirti' — m

IN A WINTER CITY.

201

Duchesses in Europe only come to winter cities
for play. He must know that."

** My dear Mila, how you do put yourself out
about it," said the Lady Hilda. " Send ten
thousand francs to the public charities — you may
play all night long in the cafes then."

" Madame, j'ai I'honneur de vous saluer," mur-
mured Delia Rocca, bending low before her.

"When the door had closed upon him and left
the others behind, a sudden blankness and dull-
ness seemed to fall on her : she had never felt
the same thing before. Bored she had often been,
but this was not ennui, it was a kind of loneli-
ness — it was as if all about her grew grey and
cold and stupid.

More ladies came in, there were endless
laughter and chatter; Princess Olga wanted some
tea, and had it ; the other women cracked bon-
b'lns with their little teeth like pretty squirrels
cracking fir-cones ; they made charming groups
in the firelight and lamplight ; they made plans
for a hunclrcd diversions; they were full of the
gayest of scandals ; they dissected in the most
merciless manner all their absent friends ; they

202

IN A WINTER CITY.

scolded their lovers and gave them a thousand
contradictory orders ; they discussed all the
news and all the topics of the day, and arranged
for dinner parties, and driving parties, and costume
quadrilles, and hazaar stalls, and boxes at the
theatre, and suppers at the cafes; and agreed
that everything was as dull as ditchwater, and
yet that they never had a minute for anything ;
and the Lady Hilda with the jubilant noise and
the twittering laughter round her, thought how
silly they all were, and what a nuisance it was
having a day — only if one hadn't a day it was
worse still, because then they were always trying
to run in at all hours on every day, and one was
never free for a moment.

" Thank goodness, they are gone ! " she said,
half aloud, to the Saxe cups and the Capo di
Monte children on the mantelpiece, when the
last flutter of fur and velvot had vanished through
the door, and the last of those dearest friends
and born foes had kissed each other and sepa-
rated.

Left alone, she stood tliinking, by the fire,
with all the lights burning behind her in that

IN A WINTER CITY.

203

big, empty room. What she thought was a veiy
humble and pensive thought for so disdainful a
lady. It was only

" Is it myself ? or only the money ? "

She stood some time there, motionless, her
hand playing with the gold girdle as his hand had
done ; her face was pale, softened, troubled.

The clock amongst the Saxe dogs and the
Cai)o di Monte little figures chimed the half-
hour after six. She started as it struck, and
remembered that she was to dine at eight with
the Princess Roubleskoff; a big party for an
English royalty on his travels.

" Anyhow, it would be of no use," she said
to herself. " Even if I did wish it, it could
never be."

And she was angry with herself, as she had
been the night before ; she was impatient of these
new weaknesses which haunted her. Nevertheless
she was more particular about her appearance
that night than her maids had ever known her
be ; she was very difficult to satisfy ; tried and
discarded four wholly new confections of her
friend Worth's, miracles of invention and of

204

IN A WINTER CITY.

costliness, and at length had herself dressed
quite simply in black velvet, only relieved by all
her diamonds.

** He said fair women should always wear
black," she thought : it was not her Magister
of Paris of whom she was thinking as the
sayer of that wise phrase. And then again she
was angi'y with herself for remembering such a
thing, and attiring herself in obedience to it,
and would have had herself undrest again only
there was but one small quarter of an hour in
which to reach the Roubleskoif villa ; a palace of
the fairies four miles from the south-gate. So she
went as she was; casting a dubious impatient
glance behind her at the mirrors.

" I look well," she thought with a smile, and
her content returned.

She knew that he would be present at the
dinner. There is no escaping destiny in Flora-
lia : people meet too often.

The dinner disapi)ointed her.

She thought it very long and very stupid.
She sat between the Grand Duke of Kittersbiilm
and the Envoy of all the Eussias, and Delia

IN A WINTER CITY.

205

Kocca was not placed within her siglit; and
after the dinner the young English Prince
would talk to no one hut herself, delightedly
recalling to her how often she had howled
his wickets down ^'dien they had heen young
children playing on the lawns at Oshorne.
She felt disloyally thankless for his preference.
He monopolised her. And as the rooms
filled with the crowd of the reception she
merely saw the delicate dark head of Delia
Bocca afar off, hent down in eager and possibly
tender conversation with his beautiful country-
woman, the Duchess Medici-Malatesta. She
felt angered and impatient.

If she had sat alone and neglected, as less
lovely women often do, instead of being
monopolised by a prince, with tv/enty other
men sighing to take his place when etiquette
should permit them, she could scarcely have
been more ill-content.

Never in all her life had it befallen her to think
angrily of another woman's beauty ; and now she
caught herself irritatedly conning, across the width
of the room, the classic profile and the immense

206

JN A WINTER CITY.

jewel-like eyes of the Malatesta Semiraiuis.
Never iii all her life had it happened to her
to miss any one thing that she desired, and new
a strange sense of loneliness and emptiness came
upon her, unreasoned and unreasoning; and
she had such an impatience and contempt of
herself too all the while ! — that was the most
bitter part of it.

After all it was too absurd,

As soon as the departure of the royal guests
permitted anyone to leave, she went away, con-
temptuous, ill at ease, and out of temper with
herself and all the world ; half ignorant of what
moved her, and half unwilling to probe her own
emotions further.

" Plus on est fou, plus on rit," she murmured
to her pillow two hours later with irritable
disdain, as she heard the voices of Mme. Mila
and her troop noisily passing her door as they
returned to their night-long baccarat, which was
to be doubly delightful because of the Prefect's
interdict.

" I wish I had been born an idiot ! " thought
the Lady Hilda — as, indeed, any oue must do

^ M(i»mamif

IN A WINTER CITY.

207

who fill Is himself burdened with achuig brains
in this best of all possible worlds.

** Perhaps, after all, you we' <i right," said thu
Due de St. Louis, driving back into the town
with Delia Rocca that night, "Perhaps you were
right, Miladi is most lovely, most exquisite,
most perfect. But she has caprices — there is no
denying that she has caprices and extravagancies
which would ruin any one short of the despotic
sovereign of a very wealthy nation."

The Due was a very wise man, and knew that
the escalier derobe is the only way that leads in
conversation to any direct information. Their
demeanour had puzzled him, and he spoke ac-
cordingly with shrewd design.

Delia Rocca heard liim with a little annoy-
ance.

** She has not more caprices than other wo-
men that I know of," he answered. " Her faults
are the faults rather of her monde than of her-
self."

" But she has adopted them with much affec-
tion ! "

*' They are habits — hardly more,"

Kill

I'll

208

IN A WINTER CITY.

** And you were correct too in your diagnosis
when you saw her first/* continued the Due, piti-
lessly. ** To me she is most amiable always ;
but to the generality of people, it must be ad-
mitted that she is not so amiable.*'

** The amiability of most women," replied
Delia Rocca, **is nothing more than that insa-
tiate passion for admiration which makes them
show their persons almost nude at Trouville, and
copy the ways and manners oifemmes entretenues
in the endeavour to rival such with us. If
they wish to be decent, they do not dare to be ;
they must be popular and chic before all.*'

" You are severe, but perhaps you are right.
Miladi is certainly above all such vulgarities.
Indeed, she is only a little too much above every-
thing '*

"It is better than to be below everything —
even below our respect — as most of our great
ladies are.''

"Certainly. Stall she is a little — a little
selfish."

" How should she be otherwise ? She is quite
alone- she has no one to care for—

IN A WINTER CITY.

100

*' Most women make something to care for ;
slie has many family ties, if she cared for theni^
but she does not. No ; she is beautiful, charm-
ing, gratule dai/ie en tout — but I begin to think
that it is well for the peace of mankind that
she remains so invulnerable. She would pro-
bably make any man who loved her very un-
happy if she married him."

** If he wore a weak man, not otherwise."

'Touf! Do you think any man would ever
have control over her ? "

"I am quite sure that she would never care for
any man who had not."

" He would be a very bold person," murmured
the Due. " However, I am very glad that you
tliink more highly of her. You know, mon cher,
what always was my opinion as to yourself—

>»

Delia Eocca coloured, and saw too late that his
companion had forced his card from his hands
'u the most adroit manner. He busied himself
with lighting a cigar.

** For myself," he said, coldly, ** I can have no

bject in what I say. My own poverty is barrier

sufficient. But I should be unjust not to admit

I! '■ ' ■ ■

III

"'.S^

210

IN A WINTER CITY.

what 1 think of her, as a friend. I believe that
t'le habits of the workl are not so strong '>vith her
that they can satisfy hor ; and I believe that with
her affections touched, with tenderer ties than
she h9,s ever known, with a home, with children,
with a woman's natural life, in fact, she would be
a much hai^pier and very different person, Mais
tout cela ne me regarde pas."

The Duo glanced at him and laughed softly,
with much amusement.

" Qa V0U6 regarde de bien pres — bon succss et
bon soir! " 'he said, as he got out of the carriage
at his hotel in the city. " I told him to marry
her," he thought ; " but if he exjDect to convert
her too, he must be the boldest and most
sanguine man in Europe."

Lady Hilda made up her mind that she was
tired of Floralia, as she meditated over her choco-
late the next morning, after a night which chloral
had made pretty passable, only the baccarat
people had i^creamed so loudly with laughter or
the other side of the , corridor, that the ^ had
awakened her once or twice. Yes, she certainly
was tired of it. The town was charming, — but

IN A WINTER CITY.

Sll

then one couldu't live on pictiiros. marbles, iiiul
recollections, and one got so sick of seeing the
same people morning, noon, and night. I'he
fogs were very bad. The drainage was dreadful.
The thermometer was very neaiiy what it was in
Normandy or Northamptonshire for what she
could see. If one did take the trouble to go
into society, one might as well do it all for a big
world and not a little one. It was utter non-
sense about her lungs in Paris. She would
go back. She would telegraph her return to
Hubert.

Hubert was her maitre d'hotel.

She did telegraph, and told herself that she
svould fnid immense interest in the fresco paint-
ings which were being executed in the ball-room
of that very exquisite hotel ** entre cour et
jardin," which she had deserted in Paris, and
in making nooks and corners in her already over-
filled tables and cabinets for the tazze and bacini
and ivories and goldsmith's work ahe had col-
lected in the last two months ; and decided that
the wall decorations of the drawing-rooms, which
were of rose satin, with Louis t^uinze pu'x'lling,

p a

1 us*

212

IN A WINTER CITY.

were all very barbarous, utterly incorrect, and
should never have been borne with so long, and
should be altered at once ; ths palest amber satin
was the only possible thing, with silver mirrors
and silver cornices, and not a touch of gilding
anywhere ; the idea had occurred to her before a
picture in the galleries, where a silver casket
was painted against an amber curtain; she would
have it done immediately, and she would go back
to Paris and have her old Thursday evenings
again.

After all, Paris was the only place worth
living in, and doctors were always alarmists — old
women — everything that was stupid, unless you
were very very ill, when they did seem to dilate into
demi-gods, because of course you were weakened
with morphine and other stuff, and did not want
to die ; though you ought to want to die, being
a Christian, if you were in the very least degree
consistent ; since if you were quite siu'e that the
next world would be so very much better than
this, it was utterly illogical to be afraid of going
to it : — but then were you quite sure ?

The Lady Hilda sighed. This dreadful age,

IN A WINTER CITY.

fil3

which has produced communists, petroleuses, and
liberal thinkers, had communicated its vague
restlessness even to her ; although she belonged
to that higher region where nobody ever thinks
at all, and everybody is more or less devout in
seeming at any rate, because disbelief is vulgar,
and religion is an * affaire des moeurs,' like de-
cency, still the subtle philosophies and sad
negations which have always been afloat in the
air since Voltaire set them flying, had affected
her slightly.

She was a true believer, just as she was a well-
dressed woman, and had her creeds just as she
had her bath in the morning, as a matter of course.

Still, when she did come to think of it, she was
not so very sure. There was another world, and
biiints and angels and eternity, yes, of course, —
but how on earth would all those baccarat people
ever fit into it ? Who could, by any Etretch of
imagination, conceive Madame Mila and Maurice
des Gommeux in a spiritual existence around the
throne of Deity ?

And as for punishment and torment and all
that other side of futurity, who could even lliink

4 '4

^Hl

^■-■m

I !

214

IN A WINTER CITY.

of the mildost purgatory as suitable to tliose
poor flippertygibbet inanities who broke the
seventh commandment as gaily as a child
breaks his indiarubber ba I, and were as in-
capable of passion and crime as they were
incapable of heroism and virtue ?

There might be paradise for virtue, and hell
for crime, but what in the name of the universe
was to be done with creatures that were only all
Folly? Perhaps they would be always flying
about like the souls Virgil speaks of, " suspense
ad ventos," to purify themselves ; as the sails of a
ship spread out to dry. The Huron Indians pray to
the souls of the fish they catch ; well, why should
they not ? a fish has a soul if Modern Society
has one ; one could conceive a fish going softly
through shining waters forever and forever in
the ecstacy of motion ; but who could conceive
Modern Society in the spheres ?

Wandering thus from her drawing-room furni-
ture to problems of eternity, and only succeeding
in making herself unsettled and uncomfortable,
the Lady Hilda, out of tune with everything,
put off her cashmere dressing-gown, had herself

ry A WINTER CITY.

215

wrai^ped in her sables, and thought she would go
out ; — it was just twelve o'clock.

Looking out o^ the window she saw a lady all
sables like herself, going also out of the hotel to a
coupe, the image of her own.

" Wlio is that ? " she asked of her fiivouritc
maid.

" That is Mdlle. Lea, Miladi," said the maid.
" She came last niglit. She has the suite
above."

** How dare you mention her ? " said the Lady
Hilda.

The little accident filled up the measure of her
disgust. Mdlle. Jenny Lea was a young lady who
had seduced the affections of an Emperor, three
archdukes, and an untold number of the nobility
of all nations ; she was utterly uneducated, in-
conceivably coarse, and had first emerged from a
small drinking shop in the dens of Whitcchapel ;
she was the rage of the moment, having got a
needy literary hack to write her autobiogi'aphy,
which she published in her own name, as
" Aventures d'une Anglaise ; " the book had no
decency, and as little wit, but it professed to show

* w

■ ^M

" Ik

^,M

file

IN A WINTER CITY.

up the scandals of a great Court, and it made
some great men ridiculous and worse, so eighty
thousand copies of it had been sold over Europe,
and great ladies leaned from their carriages eager
to see Mdlle. Jenny Lea pass by them.

Mdlle. Jenny Lea, indeed, having put the finish-
ing stroke to her popularity by immense debts and
a forced sale of her effects in Paris, was the sensa-
tion of the hour, only sharing pubHc attention with
thePere Hilarion,ayoung and passionately earnest
Dominican, who was making a crusade against the
world, in a noble and entirely vain fervour, from
the pulpits of all the greatest churches on the
Continent. It was " the thing " to go and hear
Pere Hilarion, weep with him and pray with him,
and then coming out of the church doors to read
Jenny Lea and talk of her. It is by these admir-
able mixtures that Society manages to keep itself
alive.

The Pere Hilarion was breaking his great heart
over the vileness and the hopelessness of it all, as
anyone who has any soul in him must be dis-
posed to do. But to Society the Pere Hilarion
was only a sort of mental liqueur, as Jenny Lea

IN A WINTER CITY.

217

was an American " pick-me-up : " — that was all.
Society took them indifferently, one after the other.
Of the two, of com'se it preferred Jenny Lea.

The Lady Hilda in supreme disgust went out
in her sables, as Mdlle. Jenny Lea in hers drove
from the door.

" What good things sumptuary laws must have
been," she thought. " If such creatures had to
dress all in yellow now, as I think they had once
(or was it Jews ?), who would talk of them, who
would look at them, who would lose money about
them ? Not a soul. And to think that there
have been eighty thousand people who have bought
her book ! ''

" Has anything offended you, Madame ? Who
or what is so unhappy ? '* said the voice of Delia
Eocca, as she crossed the pavement of the court
between the lines of bowing hotel functionaries,
who had bent their spines double in just the same
way to Mdlle. Lea three minutes previously.

"Nothing in especial," she answered him,
coldly. " Those baccarat people kept me awake
half the night ; I wish the gendarmes had inter-
fered. What wretched weather it is ! "

•i

ill . , m

218

IN A WINTER CITY.

*' It is a little cold ; but it is very bright," said
Delia Rocca, in some surprise, for the day, indeed,
was magnificent and seasonable. " I was coming
in the liopo that I might bo admitted, though
I know it is too early, and not your day, and
evei*ything that it ought not to be. But I was
so unfortunate last night ; ^-ou were so mono-
polised "

She deigned to smile a little, but she continued
to move to her brougham.

" Your climate is the very Harpagonof climates.
I have not seen one warm day yet. I am thinking
of returning to Paris."

He grew very pale.

" Is not that very sudden ? " he asked her ;
xhere was a great change in his voice.

" Oh, no ; I have my house there, as j'ou know,
and Monsieur Odissot is painting the ball-room
in frescoes. I have quite a new idea for my
drawing-rooms, too ; after all, furnishing is
one of the fine arts; do you like that young
Odissot's talent? His drawing is perfection;
he was a pupil of Hippolyte Flandrin. Good

mornmg.

J^ A WINTER CITY.

21D

She was in her coupe by this time, and lie was
obliged to close the door on her ; but he kept his
hand upon it.

" Since you are leaving us so soon and so
cruelly, Madame, would you honour my own old
chapel frescoes as you promised ? — they might
give you some ideas for your bull-room."

Lady Hilda deigned to smile fairly and fully
this time.

" Is that a satire or a profanity — or both
together?"

** It is jealousy of Camillo Odissot ! I will go
to Paris and paint your iicacoes, Madame, if you
will let me ; I can paint in fresco and in tempera;
I was a student in the Academy ^f San Luca in
my time."

His words were light, and his manner also,
but his eyes had a language that made the Lady
Hilda colour a little and look out of the other
window of her coupe.

**I must first call upon Olga; I have pro-
mised," she answered, irrelevantly. ** But I will
join you at your palace in an hour ; perhaps she
will come with tac ; I shouh^ not like to leave,

220

IN A WINTER CITY,

certainly, without having seen your chapel. Au
revoir."

*' If you do leave, Madame, I follow ! — to paint
the ball-room."

He shut the carriage- door, and stood bare- '
headed in the wintry wind as the impatient horses
dashed away. When it had disappeared he put
his hat on, lighted a cigar, and strolled to his own
house.

" She will not go to Paris," he said to himself.

He knew women well.

In an hour and a half she arrived at his own
gates, bringing the Princess Olga with her.

She saw the grand old garden, the mighty
staircases, the courts that once held troops of
armed men ; she saw his own rooms, with their
tapestries that Flemish John Hosts had had the
doing of so many centuries before ; 3he saw the
exquisite dim silent chapel, whose walls, painted
by the Memmi in one portion and continued by
Masaccio, were amongst the famous things of the
city. She was moved and saddened; softened
too ; after all, the decay of a great race has an un-
utterable pathos : it will touch even a vulgar mind ;

IN A WINTER CITY.

221

she, arrogant and fastidious as to birth, as though
she had been bom before the 'SU, was touched by
it to the core.

She had heard, too, of liow lie lived ; without
debt, yet with dignity, with the utmost simplicity
and without reproach ; there was something
in his fortunes which seemed to her worthier
than all distinction and success, something that
stirred that more poetic side of her nature, which
the world had never all')wcd to awake, but which
had been born with her nevertheless. She was
serious and dreaming as she lingered in the beau-
tiful old chapel, under whose mosaic pavement
there lay the dust of so many generations of his
race. He noticed her silence and thought to
himself :

" Perhaps she is thinking how base it is in a
man as poor as I to seek a woman so rich as her-
self; " — but she was not thinking that at all as
she swept on in her sables, with her delicate
cheeks, fair as the lovely Niphetos rose, against
the darkness of the fur.

That immortality which she had been doubt-
ing in the morning, did not seem so absurdly

hJ2iLim

sas

IN A WINTER CITY.

impossible Lciu. There was religion in tlie place,
a (lilVerent one to what she had known kneeling
at the messc ties lyarcsscux in the IMudeleine ; the
sort of religion that a woman only becomes
aware of when she loves.

She started and seemed to wake from a dream
when Princess Olga suggested that it was time
to go ; Princess Olga was a person of innumer-
able engagements, who was always racing after
half an hour without ever catching it, like the
Minister-Duke of Newcastle, and like ninety-nine
people out of every hundred in the nineteenth
century. There was some bric-a-brac the Prin-
cess wanted somebody to cheapen foi her ;
she bade him come and do it ; he complied will-
ingly enough. They went all three to that bric-
a-brac shop, and thence to another, and yet
another 1 h in Princess Olga, who was used
to a more biilliant part than that of the "terza
incommoda," left them to themselves over the
faience and marqueterie.

Lady Hilda who, despite all her fashion, liked
walking like every healthy woman, dismissed her
horses, and walked the length of the river-street,

immmm

IN A WINTER CITY,

223

he with her. roox)le meethig them began to
make conjectures, and bets, harder than ever ; and
ItaUan hidies, looking out of their carriage win-
dows, wondered for the five-millionth time at the
reedoni of l^inglish women — as indeed Italian
ladies have good cause to do in far more repre-
hensible liberties.

They walked down to the piazzone and back
again. It was growing dusk. She went home to
her hotel, and let him enter with her, and had
some tea by the firelight ; all the while he made
love to her with eyes and gesture and word, as
only an Italian can, and she avoided ex^dicit
declaration of it, and direct need to reply to it,
with all the consunniiate tact that ten years* prac-
tice in such positions had polished in her.

It was a charming pastime — were it nothing
more. It was quite a pity when Madame Mila
entered unsuspecting, and full of new wrongs
in tlie matter of the Muscadins and fresh gos-
sip concerning some forty people's marriages,
divorces, debts, ignominies, and infamies. It is
fortunate tliat there are so many ivicked peojde in
Society, for if there were not, what would the

224

IN A WINTER CITY.

liSI!

good people have to talk about ? they would die
of paralysis of the tongue.

"You will not leave us for Paris, yet?** he
murniurod as he rose, with a sigh, only heard by
her ear.

She smiled, and balanced a Devoniensis tea-
rose idlv in her liauds.

" Not just yet, if your weather prove better."

He drew the tea-rose aw'ay from her fingers
unseen even by tlie (piick marmoset eyes of little
Madame INIila, who as it chanced was busied
making herself a cup of tea. She let it go,

** You slu>uUi have seen all the men looking
after that horrible Lea," said JMadamo Mila,
drinking her compound of cream and sugar, as
the door closed on him. ** Thoy have eyes for
nothing else, I do think; and only fancy her
having the very suite above mine — it is atrocious I
They say the things at her sale fetched fabulous
sums. Little pomatum and rouge pots, five hun-
dred francs each ! They say she has fixed her
mind on young Sant' Andrea here ; I suppose she
has heard he is enormously rich. Oh, did you
know G wendoleu Doncaster has come ? Siie has

IN A WINTER city:

225

lost all lior money at Monte Carlo, an<l she has
dyed hor hair a nice straw coauu' ; she looks fif-
teen years y<^nnger, I do assure yon. Don is
shooting in Dalniatia — of course she abuses liim
— poor old Dor. ! I wonder how we should have
got on if he had married me, as he wanted.
Owen told me Lord Derbyshire ims run oiX with
Mi*s. "NVheelskaitte — what he can see in lier! And
those open scandals are so stupid, whore is the
use of tliem ? Surely you can do what you like
without ciJling all the world in to see you doing
it. When a woman has an easv husband slie never
need compromise hei*aelf, and Wheelskaitte cer-
tainly always was that. Oh, you never would know
them, I remember, because they were new people ;
she was an odious creature nnd very ugly, but
they gave very good parties in Londt)n, and their
cottage was as nice a one as you could go to for
Ascot. You used to like little Wroxeter, did not
you ? he was such a pretty boy — he has just left
Eton, and he is wild to marry a girl out of a
music-hall, so Gwen says. Those creatures get
all the good marriages nowadr^ys : — and two hun-
dred debutantes waiting to be presented at the

22G

IN A WINTER CITY.

yii

Drawing-room this month ! Have you seen the
new book ' Confessions d'un Feu FoUet ' ? Mau-
rice has just brought it to me. It is rivalling
Jenny Lea, and they say it is worse — quite un-
mentionable — everybody is talking about it. It
was out last week, and they have sold five edi-
tions. The man called Bistrim in it is Bismarck.
No; I don't know that it is witty. I don't
think things are witty nowadays. It in .ii^rrible
and infecte — but you can't put it down till you've
done it. Old Lady Mauleverer is dying at the
Pace hotel here — of undigested scandal, Feather-
leigh says, but I believe it's gastritis — what a
nasty old woman she has always been. I have
just left a card with inquiries and regrets ; I do
hope she won't get better. I won ever so mu^h
at play last night. I forgot to tell you so .
bought that I'ocaille necklace on the Jewellers'
Bridge ; it was only six thousand francs, and it
really did belong to the Comtesse d' Albany. It's
very pretty too—

So Madame Mila discoursed, greatly to her
own satisfaction. She loved so much to hear her
own tongue, that she always chose the stupidest

IN A WINTER CITY.

227

and silliest of her lovers for her chief favours — a
clever man had always ideas of his own, and was
sure to want to express them sometime or another.
All she desired were listeners and echoes. Dis-
cussion may be the salt of lite to a few, but
listeners and echoes are the bonbons and cigarettes
that no woman can do without.

The Lady Hilda sitting looking into the fire,
with her eyes nearly closed, murmured yes, and no,
and indeed, in the proper places, and let her run
on, hearing not one word. Those fingers which had
entangled themselves so softly with her own with-
drawing the tea-rose, had left a magnetic thrill
upon her — a dreamy, lulling pleasure.

That evening the good Hubert received a
second telegram contradicting the first, which had
announced his mistress's return, and putting off
that return indefinitely. The good Hubert, who
was driving her best horses, drinking her best
wines, drawing large cheques for accounts never
examined, and generally enjoying his winter, was
much relieved, and hastened to communicate the
happy change to Monsieur Camille Odissot, whom
the first telegram had also cast into great conster-

228

IN A WINTER CITY.

nation ; since that clever but idle young gentleman,
having been pre-paid half the sum agreed on for
the fresco-painting, had been spending it joyously
after the tastes of young artists, assisted by a
pretty brown actress of the Folies Marigny, and
had not at that moment even begun to touch
the walls and the ceiling of the ball-room con-
fided to his genius.

" But you had better begin, though she is not
coming back," said the good Hubert, surveying
the blank waste of prepared plaster. ** Miladi is
not often out of temper, but when she is, ouf ! I
would as soon serve a Russian. Better begin ;
paint your best, because she knows — Miladi
knows, and she is hard to please in those things.
Not but what I dare say, as soon as you have
done it all, she will tnke it into her head that it
looks too cold, or looks too warm, or will not
compose well, or something or other, and will
cover it all up with silk and satin. But that will
not matter to you."

"Not at all," said Monsieur Camille, who,
though he had been a pupil of Flandrin, had
learned nothing of that true master's conscien-

IN A WINTER CITY.

229

tiousness in art, but was a clever young man of a
new generation, who drew beautifully, as mecha-
nically as a tailor stitches beautifully, and was of
the very wise opinion that money was every-
thing.

HI ■

CHAPTER Vin.

The Postiche ball came off, and was a brilliant
success. Madame Mila announced the next
morning when she got up that she had never
enjoyed anything better — ^not even at the Tuil-
eries.

" And the hostess ? '* said Lady Hilda.

** I didn't even see her, thank goodness," said
Madame Mila, frankly. ** 1 >Tent late, you know,
and she'd been standing at the door four hours,
and had got tired, and had gone off duty into the
crowd somewhere. Of course it wasn't my busi-
ness to go and look for her."

"Of course not, but you brought off your
cotillon things ? "

IN A WINTER CITY.

931

** Yes. There they are," said Madame Mila, un-
conscious of any satire. " I never saw such luxe
— no, not even in the dear old Emperor's time —
the tilings everybody got must have cost hundreds
of thousands of francs. Certainly little Dickie
managed it beautifully. He ordered the whole
affair, you know."

'* Little Dickie, or anybody else, could float
Medea herself in society if she would brew
cotillon toys of a new sort in her cauldron," said
the Lady Hilda.

"Medea?" saia Madame Mila, who knew
about her because she had seen Eistori so often.
** Poor thing ! it was that horrid Jason that
deserved to be put out of society, only men never
do get put out of it for anything they do ; I don't
know how it is — we cut no end of women, but
we never cut a man. "Well, I assure you, my
dear, the ball was charming — charming ^ though
you do look so contemptuous. We had all our
own people, and saw nobody else, all night. I
don't think I need bow to the woman, do you ?
I'm not supposed to have seen her, though I do
know her by sight, a little podgy sunburnt-looking

232

IN A WINTER CITY.

fat creature with liveries for all the world like
what the siieriffs have in England at assize time.
No ; I'm sm-e I needn't bow to her. I told
Dickie beforehand I shouldn't."

" No doubt Dickie was delighted to have you
on any terms."

" Of course ; and I'll send a card to-day," said
Madame Mila, with the magnanimous air of one
who does a very noble thing.

From that time thenceforward she would forget
the Joshua E. Postiches and everything concern-
ing them as absolutely as if she had never heard
anything about them ; the woman's second ball,
if she g",ve one, would be nothing new, and no
sort of fun whatever.

** You're always at me about Maurice," she
said, pursuing her own ideas, ** Look at Olga
with Carlo Maremma ! — she did make him go last
night, and he was the only Italian there. You
talk of Maurice — Olga is twice as careless as I
am —

>»

** Olga is my friend; don't discuss her, please."
" Oh, that's very fine ! — when you are always
finding fault with me about Maurice I "

IN A WINTER CITY.

233

" I should not let any third person blame you."

" You are very strange, Hilda," said Madame
Mila, eyeing her with a curious wonder, and
ruffling herself up in her embroidered pink
cashmere dressing-gown, as if she were a little
bird in the hcurt of a big rose. ** Why should
you defend people behind their back? No-
body ever does. We all say horrible things
of one another; but we don't mean half of
them, so what does it matter ? I don't blame
Olga, not in the least; Schouvaloif is a brute,
and, besides, he knows it veiy well, and he
doesn't mind a bit ; indeed, of course he's glad
enough '*

" I do blame Olga ; but I can't see how you
can," said her cousin, coldly.

Madame Mila ruffled herself more, looking
more and more like a little angry bird in the
middle of a pink rose.

** I ? Pray what can anybody say of me ?
Spiridion is always with me half the year at least.
Spiridion is extremely fond of Maurice, so are all
the children. He's at another hotel, right at the
other end of the place ; really I can't see why

H! I^.

If!--,

234

IN A WINTER CITY.

I must rush out of a town because a fiiend
happens to come into it also —

" My dear Mila, pray don't talk that nonsense
to me," said her cousin, serenely. " I daresay
ten years hence you will marry your little Lili to
M. des Gommeux; p 3ople do do that sort of thing,
though they find fault with the plots of the old
Greek plays. I suppose it " saves society ;" at
least, it saves appearances. Olga is imprudent,
I know, and wrong; but, at least she has the
courage of her opinions; she does not talk all
that pusillanimous prurient absurdity about
* friendship.' "

" Nobody can understand you, Hilda ; and I
don't know what you mean about Greek plays,"
muttered Madame Mila. " Everybody lives in
the same way : you talk as if it were only me !
Spiridion never says a word to me ; what business
have you?"

" None in the least, dear ; only you will bring
up the subject — Qui s'excuse s'accuse. That is
all. You are not coming out this morning?
Au revoir then; I am going to see a newly-
found San Cipriano il Mago outside the gates ;

IN A WINTER CITY.

235

they think it is by II Moretto. The face and
dress are Venetian, they say ; but you care no-
thing about all that, do you ? "

*' Nothing," said Madame Mila, with a yawn.
" I suppose if it take your fancy you'll be buying
the whole church with it in, if you can't get
it any other way. I wish I'd your money, I
wouldn't waste it on old pictures, that only make
a room dark ; and the kind of ligh^ they want is
horribly unbecoming to people."

" I promise you I shall not hang an altar-piece
in a room," said the Lady Hilda. ** I leave that
for the heretics and the bourgeoisie. Good-bye,
my dear.**

" Who's going with you ? " cried Madame
Mila, after her : Lady Hilda hesitated a moment.

** Nina is, and the French artist who has dis-
covered the Moretto, and M. della Rocca."

Madame Mila laughed, and took up a little
mirror to see if all the colour on her face were
quite right. One horrible never-to-be-forgotten
day — one eyebrow had been higher than the
other.

Lady Hilda, descending the hotel staircase,

236

IN A WINTER CITY,

'}'\

!;•

%..

met the faithful Maurice ascending. That slender
and indefatigable leader of cotillons swept
his hat to the ground, twisted the waxed ends of
his small moustache, and murmured that ho
was about to inquire of the servants if Madame
la Comtesse were *' tout-a-fait remise apres ses
fatigues incroyables."

Lady Hilda, whom he feared very greatly,
passed him with a chilly salutation, and he went
on n\) the stairs, and in two minutes' time was
assuring Madame Mila that she v "fraicho
comme la rosee du matin,*' which diii credit to his
ready chivalry of compliments, since he was aware
of all the mysteries of those bright cheeks and
that small pomegranate-like mouth, and had even
once or twice before great balls, given an artistic
touch or two to their completion, having
graduated with much skill and success in such
accomplishments under the tuition of Mademoi-
selle Rose The, and La Petite Boulotte.

The San Cipriano was to be found in a church
some five miles out of the city ; a lonely church set
high on a fragrant hill-side, with sheep amongst
the olive boughs, and the ox-plough under the

IN A WINTER CITY,

237

■ 5

vines that were nil about it, and high hedf^'oa of
wild roses and thickets of arbutus i-anibling
around its old walled graveyard.

The paths close round it were too steep for
the horses, and the last half mile had to be
climbed on foot.

It was one of those spring days which often
fall hi February ; the ground was blue with
violets, and the grass golden with crocus and
hepatica ; there wore butterflies and bees on the
air ; the mavis aud blackbird were singing.

The San Cipriano hung over a side altar in
the dark, desolate, grand old church, where no
worshipper ever came except a tired peasant, or
a shepherd sheltering from a storm,

Uella Rocca pulled aside the moth-eaten cur-
tains from the adjacent window, and let the sun-
shine in. Some little children were sitting on
the altar-steps stringing daisies and berries ; the
light made a halo about their heads ; the deep
Venetian colours of the forgotten picture glanced
like jewels through the film of the dust of ages.
Its theme was the martyrdom of the Magician
and of S. Justina ; beneath were the crowds of

•^1

238

Iir A WINTER CITY.

Nicomedia and the guards of Diocletian, above
were the heavens opened and the hosts of waiting
angels. It was a great theme greatly treated by
the great Brescian who, although the pnpil of
Titian and the rival of Veronese is so little
known, save in the cities that lie betwixt the
Dolomites and the Apennines.

" It is one of the most beautiful legends that
we have, to my thinking," said Delia Rocca, when
they had studied it minutely and in all lights.
** It has been very seldom selected by painters
for treatment ; one wonders why ; perhaps be-
cause there is too much human passion in it for
a sacrea subject."

" Yes," said Lady Hilda, dreamily. " One
can never divest oneself of the idea that S. Jus-
tina loved him with an earthly love."

** Oh, Hilda ! how pagan of you,** said the
Marchesa del Trasimene, a little aghast.

" Not at aU. Why should we doubt it ? '* said
Delia Rocca, quickly. *• Why should we deny
that a pure love would have power against the
lowers of the world ? "

Lady Hilda looked at him, and a great softness

m A WINTER CITY.

239

came into her face ; then she stooped to the little
children playing with the hemes on the altar-
steps, and put some money in their little hrown
hands.

** It is a very fine picture," she said, after a
moment's pause. " I do not think I have ever
seen brown and gold and crimson so beautifully
managed, and fused in so deep a glow of colour
save in Palma Vecchio's S. Barbara — you re-
member — in S. Maria Formosa in Venice ? "

" The portrait of Violante Palma — ^yes. But
this subject has a deeper and warmer interest.
S. Bai'bara with her tower and her cannon is too
strong to touch one very much. One cannot
think that she ever suffered.'*

" Yet S. Barbara has a very wide popularity,
if one may use the word to a saint."

** All symbols of strength have ; the people are
weak ; they love what will help them. It is very
singular what deep root and vast fame one saint
has, and how obscure remains another ; yet both
equal in holiness and life, and courage of death.
Perhaps the old painters have done it by the fre-
quency of their choice of certain themes."

■''■fi

■:!|l

240

IN A WINTER CITY,

" Oh, no," said Lady Hilda ; ** be sure the
painters rather followed the public preference than
directed it. Poets lead; painters only mirror.
I like this San Cipriano verj^ much. They did
not say too much of it. It is left to dust and
damp. Could I buy it do you think ? "

** I dare say, — I will inquire for you to-morrow.
We sell anything now. When the public debt is
a little heavier, and the salt tax is protested
against, we shall sell the Transfiguration — why
not? — we have a copy at S. Peter's. Indeed,
why keep the S. Cecilia doing nothing in a dark
old city like Bologna, when its sale with a few
others might make a minister or a senator well off
for life?"

" Do not be so bitter, Paolo," said the Mar-
chesa Nina, "you might have been a minister
yourself."

"And rebuilt Palestrina out of my commission
on the tax on cabbages ! Yes, I have lost my
opportunities."

The Lady Hilda was gazing at the clouds of
angels in the picture, who bore aloft the martyred
souls in their immortal union ; and from them

Iir A WINTER CITY,

241

she glanced at the little fair wondering faces of
the peasant children. She had never thought
about children ever in any way, save as little
figures that composed well in Stothard's draw-
ings, in Sir Joshua's pictures, in Correggio*s
frescoes. Now, for a second, the thought glanced
through her that women were happy who had
those tender soft ties with the future of the world.
What future had she? — ^You cannot make a
future out of diamonds, china, and M. Worth.

" You really wish to buy the San Cipriano ? "
he asked her, as they passed over the worn,
damp pavement towards the sunlight of the opon
door.

** Yes — ^j^ou seem to think it sacrilege ? "
** No ; I think the moral decadence of feeling
which makes it possible for my nati to sell such
things is a sacrilege against our past, and a
violation of the rights of our posterity; — but
that is another matter, and no fault of yours.
What will you do with it when you have it 1"
" I will put it in my oratory in Paris."
The answer jarred on him ; yet there was no
other which he could have expected.

242

IN A WINTER CITY.

" How naturally you think of buying all you
see ! " he said, a little impatiently. *' I suppose
that power of acquisition — that wand of posses-
sion — is very dear to you."

'* What do you mean ? I do not know— it is a
habit. Yes ; I suppose one likes it."

"No doubt. Your riches are to you as his
magic was to San Cipriano yonder : the >vil-
lingest of slaves."

" What !— an evil spi'it then ? "

" Not necessarily. But—

"But what?"

>»

**A despot, though a slave. One who holds
your soul ; as the powers of darkness held his,
until a great and spiritual love set him free."

They were passing out of the open doorway
into the calm golden light of the passing day.
Through the fine tracery of the olive-boughs the
beautiful valley shone like a summer sea. Before
them, above the southern mountains, the sun
was going down. Her eyes grew dim for a
moment as she looked. His hand had closed on
hers ; she let it lie within his clasp ; it was the
first gesture of tenderness she had ever allowed

IN A WINTER CITY,

243

to him. Then at a sudden recollection she with-
drew it, and she smiled with her old serene indif-
ference.

" You ivill talk to me in unknown tongues ! S.
Justina was a holy woman ; I am not. I am not
sure that I ever did any unselfish thing in all my
life. How many violets there are; — gather me
some."

The others drew near ; he left her and gathered
the violets. They were countless ; the old church
was left alone to perish ; no foot of priest or wor-
shipper now ever trod upon their purple glories.

She leaned over the low wall of the grave -yard,
and watched the setting sun. She felt that her
e3'es were full of tears.

** If I had met him earlier " she thought.

They walked down through the olive thickets,
along the grassy slopes of the hill, to the
carnage, and drove home in the now waning
light.

She was capricious, contemptuous, ironical,
arrogant, in everything she said, lying back with
the furs covering her from the chill evening
winds.

U''
It

, %

"•31.1

244

IN A WINTER CITY.

'* Does going to a church alway make you so
caustic, cara mia ? " said the Marchesa Nina.

Delia Rocca was very silent. The French artist
kept up the ball of talk with her and the lovely
Marchesa, and played the gay game well. The sun
sank quite ; the brief twilight came ; then darkness ;
the horses took them down through the walled
lanes and the rose hedges into the narrow streets,
where here and there the lamps were twinkling,
and the glow of the wood fires shone through the
grated casements.

The carriage paused first at the Hotel Murat.

" I shall see you to-night at Princess Fursten-
berg's, Hilda, of course ? " said the Marchesa.

** Oh, yes," said the Lady Hilda as she descen-
ded, drawing her sables closer around her. " You
will be there, I suppose?" she added, with a
little change of her voice, to Delia Rocca, as he
held his arm for her to alight. He looked
straight down into her eyes.

" J think not," he said, simply. '*Good uight,
Madame."

He stood with his head uncovered, whilst she
went up the steps of the hotel ; then, as the door

JN A WINTER CITY.

245

closed on her, he walked away to his own old
house.

Lady Hilda went up to her own rooms ; she
had a knot of violets with her. Before she put
them in water she touched them with her lips
— as any girl of sixteen or any peasant Gretchen
might have done.

That night at the Princess Fiirstcnb erg's — one
of the pleasantest houses of the winter city — men
and women both said to one another that they
had never seen her looking more beautiful, or more
magnificent in the blaze of her jewels, but they
found her colder, and more difficult to converse
with than ever, and were more than ever hope-
lessly impressed with the sense of their own abso-
lute nullity in her eyes.

He was not there.

She stayed but a brief time ; long enough to
chill every one there like ice, which was the effect
she always produced in society, when it was so
unhappy as not to please her; then, having
frozen it, she left it, — the ladies who remained
breathing freer when her delicate lovehness and
her mighty emeralds had ceased to outshine

If 'i

; ! I

21G

IN A WINTER CITY.

them. She sank back in her carriage with a
great sigh.

The homeward streets led past the palace of
the Delia Rocca, She let the window down, and
looked outward as she passed it. She saw a
single casement alone lighted in the great black
mass of frowning stone, with its machicolated
walls and iron stanchions. It was above the en-
trance ; she knew it was his favourite room ; where
his books were, and his old bronzes, and his
favourite weapons.

Her eyes filled with tears again as she looked
up at the solitary light. She felt for the little
cluster of violets that she had fastened under the
great emeralds in her bosom, — his hand had
gathered them.

" If anyone had told me I would care ! " she
thought to herself.

The tears on her lashes stole slowly down, and
dimmed the emeralds and refreshed the violets.

She was the most heartless creature in the
world; the coldest and most self-engrossed of
women, her friends and acquaintances were
saying after her departure, in the drawing-rooms

IN A WINTER CITY.

247

of the Princess Fiirstenberg ; not like her
cousin; dear little Madame Mila was all good
nature, all kindliness, all heart.

At the Fiera for the orphan children the week
before had not dear little Madame Mila slaved
herself to death ; bustling about in the most be-
witching costume ; whirling like a little Japanese
wind-mill; wearing the loveliest little muslin
apron, with huge pockets, into which thousands
of francs were poured ; turning the lottery-wheel
indefatigably for three days, and selling cigars
she had lighted, and lilies of the valley she had
kissed, fit the most fabulous prices for the good
of the poor? And had not Lady Hilda con-
temptuously refused to have anything to do with
the Fiera at all?

The almoner of the charities, indeed, had
received a fifty-thousand franc note anonymously.
But then, how could anybody divine that the
Lady Hilda had sent it because a chance word of
Delia Rocca's had sunk into her mind ? Whereas
everybody saw Madame Mila whirling, and saying
so prettily, ** Pour nos pauvres ! — pour nos chers

pauvres

- "')'■'■

U '^

CHAPTEB IX.

The next morning they brought her a note ; it
said that he had inquired about the San Cipriano,
but the matter had to be referred to some autho-
rity absent in Rome, and there could be no
answer for a few days, perhaps weeks ; the note
was signed with the assurance of the highest con-
sideration of the humblest of her servants, —
Paolo della Eocca.

The note might have been read from the house-
top : she had had letters from him of a different
strain ; charming little brief letters, about a
flower, about an opera-box, about a piece of pot-
tery, always about some trifle, but making the

IN A WINTER CITY,

249

trifle the medium of a delicately-veiletl homage,
and a softly-hinted tenderness.

She tossed the note into the fire, and saw his
name burn in the clear flame of a pine branch :
why could he not have called instead of writing ?

She was restless all day, and nothing pleased
her : — not even M. de St. Louis, who did call and
Bat a long time, and was in his most delightful
humour, and full of new anecdotes about every-
body and everything : — but he did not mention
Delia Rocca.

The Due found no topic that suited her. It
was the Corso di Gala that afternoon, would
she not go ?

No • her horses hated masks, and she hated
noise.

The Veglione on Sunday — would she not go
to that?

No : those things were well enough in the
daysj of Philippe d'Orldans, who invented them,
but they were only now as stupid as they were
vulgar ; anybody was let in for five francs.

Did she like the new weekly journal, that was
electrifying Paris ?

260

IN A WINTER CITY.

No : she could see nothing in it : there was no
wit now-a-(lays — only personalities, which grew
more gross every year.

The Due urged that personalities were as old
as Cratinus and Archiloclnis, and that five hun-
dred years hefore Christ the satires of Hipponax
drove Bupalus to hang himself.

She answered that a had thing was not the
better for being old.

People were talking of a clever English novel
translated everywhere, called " In a Hothouse,"
the hothouse being society — had she seen it ?

No : what was the use of reading novels of
society by people who never had been in it?
The last Eng . ih " society " novel she had read
had described a cabinet minister in London as
going to a Drawing-room in the crowd, with
everybody else, instead of by the jietlte entree ;
they were always full of such blunders^

Had she read the new French story '* Le Bal
de Mademoiselle Bibi ? "

No : she had heard too much of it ; it made
you almost wish for a Censorship of the Press.

The Due agreed that literature was terribly

IN A WINTER CITY.

161

but truly described ns " un tas d'ordurcs soig-
neusement enveloppe."

She said that the *' tas d'ordurcs" without the
envelope was sufficient for popularity, but that
the literature of any afje was not to be blamed
— it was only a natural growth, like a mushroom ;
if the soil were noxious, the fungus was bad.

The Due wondered what a censorship would
let pass if there were one.

She said that when there was one it had let
pass Crebillon, the Chevalier Le Clos, and
the "Bijoux Indiscrets;" it had proscribed Mar-
montel, Helvetius, and Lanjuinais. She did
not know how one man could be expected to bo
wiser than all his generation.

The Due admired some majolica she had pur-
chased.

She said she began to think that majolica was
a false taste ; the metallic lustre was fine, but
how clumsy the forms ; one might be led astray
by too great love of old work.

The Due praised a magnificent Sevres panel,
just painted by Riocreux and Goupil, and given
to her by Princess Olga on the New Year.

252

IN A WINTER CITY.

iii>

She said it was well done, but whaf charm
was there in it ? All their modern iron and zinc
colours, and hydrate of aluminum, and oxide of
chromium, and purple of Cassius, and all the rest
of it, never gave one tenth the charm of tliose old
painters who had only green greys and dull
blues and tawny yellows, and never could get
any kind of red whatever; Olga had meant to
please her, but she, for her part, would much
sooner have had a little panel of Abruzzi, with
all the holes and defects in the pottery, and a
brown contadina for a Madonna; there was
some interest in that, — there was no interest in
that gorgeous landscape and those brilliant
hunting figures.

The Due bore all the contradictions with im-
perturbable serenity and urbanity, smiled to him-
self, and bowed himself out in perfect good
humour.

"Tout va bien," he thought to himself;
"Miladi must be very much in love to be so cros^,"

The Due's personal experience amongst ladies
had made him of opinion that love did not im-
prove the temper.

IN A WINVER CITY,

253

** The carriage waits, Miladi," said her servant.

** I shall not drive to-day," said Lady Hilda.
" Tell them to saddle Saul.'*

It was a brilliant day ; all the bells were peal-
ing ; and the sunshine and the soft wind stream-
ing in. She thought a ten-mile stretch across
the open country might do her good; at any
rate, it would be better than sitting at home, or
pacing slowly in the procession of the Corso di
Gala, which was only a shade less stupid than
the pelting Corso.

Said was a swift, nervous, impetuous horse ;
the only sort of horse she cared to ride ; and he
soon bore her beyond the gates, leaving the
carriages of her friends to crush each other in
the twisting streets, and vie in state Hveries and
plumes and ribbons and powdered servants, and
amuse the good-natured, kindly, orderly crowds
of Floralia, clustered on the steps of churches
and under the walls of palaces.

She rode against the wind, as straight as
the state of the roads would permit her, as
wonderful a sight to the astonished country
people as though she had been S. Margaiita on

254

IN A WINTER CITY.

her dragon. Said took a few stone walls and
Bunkened fences, which put him on good terms
with himself. She was in no mood to spare him,
or avoid any risks it might amuse him to run ;
and they had soon covered many more miles than
she knew.

" Where are we ? " she asked her groom,
when Said slackened his pace at last.

The groom, who was a Scotchman, had no
idea and no power of asking.

** It does not matter," said his mistress, and
rode on again.

They were on a tolerably broad road, with a
village above them, on a steep green vine-clad
hill ; there were the usual olive orchards every-
where, with great almond trees full of blossom
and white as driven snow, and farther still all
around the countless curves of the many moun-
tain spurs that girdle the valley of Floraha.
There was another sione wall in front of them ;
beyond it the turf looked fresh and pleasant ;
she put Said at it, but someone from a distance
called out to her in Italian, *' For God's sake
stop the horse ! '*

IN A WINTER CITY.

255

On the other side of the wall the ground fell
suddenly to a depth of twenty feet.

She caught up Said's head in time only by a
moment; he stood erect on his hind legs a
second, but she kept her seat unshaken ; she
thought he would lose his balance and fall back
on her ; but she stilled and controlled him with
the coolest nerve. As he descended on his
front feet, Delia Kocca came through a high iron
gate on the left, leapt a ditch, and sprang to the
horse's head.

" How can you do such mad things ?" he said,
with a quiver in his voice. ** That gate was
locked ; I could only shout to you. I thought
I was too late "

His face was pale as death ; her colour had
not even changed. She looked at him and smiled
a little.

" So many thanks — it is a silly habit taking
walls ; I learned to like it when I was a child,
and rode with my brother. Said is not fright-
ened now ; you may let him alone. Where are
we?"

** On the ground of ralestriua,'*

' ■; -'•i;i

256

IN A WINTER CITY.

" Palestrina ! I see nothing of your villa."
** We are eight miles from the villa. It lies
beyond those other hills — but all the ground here
is mine. I was visiting one of my farms. By
heaven's mercy I saw you—

His voice still faltered, and his face was pale
with strong emotion ; his hand had closed on
hers, and rested on her knee.

** You were behind that tall gate then ? "

*' Yes ; I have the key of that gate, but the
lock was rusted. Come and rest a moment, you
are a long way from Floralia. There is an old
farmhouse here ; they are all my own people."

She dismounted and threw the bridle to her
groom.

" It terrifies you more than it did me," she
said, with a little laugh.

He took both her hands and kissed them ; he
did not answer, neither did she rebuke him.

He led her through the iron gate down a grassy
path between the gi-ey gnarled olive trees a^d
the maples with their lithe red boughs ; there
was a large old house with clouds of pigeons
round it, and great mulberry trees near, and sculp*

IN A WINTER CITY.

257

tured shields and lions on the walls ; women ran
to him delightedly, men left their ploughs afar
off and came, eager and bareheaded, to see if there
was any chance to serve him; he was their
prince, their lord, their idol, their best friend ; as
their fathers had followed his to the deoth, so
would they have followed him. Half a dozen
flew to do each word of his bidding ; brought in
the horse, brought out an oaken settle for her in
the sun, brought fresh water from the spring,
fresh lemons from the tree, fresh violets from the
hedges. At a sign from him one of the shepherd-
boys, who was famous for his singing, came and
stood before them, and sang to his guitar some of
the love-songs of the province in a sweet tenor
voice, liquid as the singing of nightingales. The
green and gracious country was around, the low
sun made the skies of the west radiant, the smell
of the woods and fields rose fresh from the
earth. She drank the draught he made for her,
and listened to the singing, and watched the
simple pastoral, old-world life around her, and
felt her heart thrill as she met the amorous
worship of his eyes.

858

IN A WINTER CITY.

She had never thought of natural beauty, or of
the lives of the poor, save now and then when
they had been recalled to her by some silvery
landscape of Corot, or some sad rural idyl of
Millet; as she sat here, she felt as if she had
passed all her life in some gorgeous heated
theatre, and had only now come out into the
open air, and under the arch of heaven.

There was a wonderful dreamy, lulling charm
in this olive-hidden solitude ; she did not care to
move, to think, to analyze. He did not speak to
her of love ; they both avoided words, which,
spoken, might break the spell of their present
peace and part them ; but every now and then his
eyes looked into hers, and were heavy with the
langour of silent passion, and stirred her heart to
strange sweet tumult,

AVhen the boy sang the passionate, plaintive
love-songs, then her face grew warm, and her
ej'^elids fell — it was no longer an unknown tongue
to her.

She would not think of the future— she re-
signed herself to the charm of the hour.

So also did he.

IN A WINTER CITY.

2b9

I I.

The night hcfore he had resolved to avoid her,
to cease to see her, to forj,jt her. She had
wounded hun, and he had told himself that it
was hest to let the world have her, body and soul.
Now chance had overruled his resolve : he could
not war with his fate — he let it come as it might.
He had found his way to influence hor ; he knew
that he could move her as no other could ; yet
he hesitated to say to her what must unite them
or part them.

Besides, since this woman had grown dear to
him with a passion born alike out of her phy-
sical beauty and his own sense of power on her,
and his insight into the richer possibilities of her
nature, the colder calculations which had occupied
him at his first knowledge of her seemed to him
base and unworthy : if he had not loved her he
would have pursued her with no pang of conscience ;
having grown to love her, to love her loveliness,
and her pride, and her variableness, and her
infinite charm, and her arrogant faults, to love
her in a word, and to desire indescribably to lead
her from the rank miasma of the pleasures and

pomps of the world into a clearer and higher

a 2

4- '

■J'

"■tm

■m
III

260

IN A WINTER CITX.

spiritual atmosphere, he recoiled more and more,
day by day, from seeking her as the medium of
his own fortune, he checked himself more and
more in the utterance of a passion which could
but seem to her mingled at the least with the
lowest of motives.

He was her lover, he did not disguise it from
himself or her ; but he paused before doing that
"which would make him win or lose it all ; not
l)ecause he feared his fate, but because he could
not bring himself to the acceptance of it.

" Sing me something yourself," she said to
him; and he took the boy's mandolin and,
leaning against the porch of the house, touched
a chord of it now and then, and sang her every
thing shv^ would, while the sun shone in the
silver of the olives and the afternoon shadows
stole slowly down the side of the mountains.
Then he sat down on the steps at her feet, and
talked to her of his people, of his land, of his
boyhood and his youth.

"I have lived very much in the great world,"
he said, after a time. " This world which you
think is the only one. But I am never so well

IN A WINTER CITY.

261

1 ii.

content as when I come back here under my
olives. I suppose you cannot understand tliat?"

** I am not sure — yes, perhaps. One grows
tired of everything," she answered with a little
sigh.

"Everything that is artificial, you mean.
People think Horace's love of the rural life an
affectation. I believe it to be most sincere.
After the strain of the conventionality and
the adulation of the Augustan Court, the
natural existence of the country must have
been welcome to him. I know it is the
fasliion to say that a love of Nature be-
longs only to the Moderns, but 1 do not
think so. Into Pindar, Theocritus, Meleager,
the passion for Nature must have entered very
strongly ; wliat is modern is the more subjective,
the more fanciful, feeling which makes Nature a
soimding-board to echo all the cries of man."

** But that is always a northern feeling ? "

"Inevitably. With us Natui'e is too nante
for us to grow morbid about it. The sunshine
that laughs around us nine months of every year,
the fruits that grow almost without culture, the

"'^'"^BSSSf^

2G2

JN A WINTER CITY.

flowers that we throw to the oxen to eat, the
very stones that are sweet with myrtle, the very
sea sand that is musical with bees in the rosemary,
everything we grow up amongst from infancy
makes our love of Nature only a kind of un-
conscious joy in it — hut here even the peasant
has that, and the songs of the men that
cannot read or write are full of it. If a field
labourer sing to his love he will sing of the
narcissus and the crocus, as Meleager sang to
Heliodora twenty, centuries ago "

** And your wild narcissus is the true narcis-
sus; the Greek narcissus, with its many bells
to one stem ? '*

**Yes. In March and April it will be out
everywlicre in the fields and woods about
here. I thought once that you loved flowers
as you loved art, merely as a decoration of
your salon. But I was wrong. They are
closer to your heart than that. AVhy do you
deny your emotions ? Why do you mask
yourself under such cold phrases as those you
used to me yesterday ? "

She smiled u little.

IN A WINTER CITY.

2G3

** How should I remember what I said so long
back as yesterday ? "

" Tliat is hard ! — for those who hear may
remember for a lifetime. Your words kept me
from wliere you were last night."

** What I say at any time is worth but little
thought. I fear you think too well of me always,"
she said, on a sudden vague impulse and the first
pang of humility that she had ever allowed to
smite the superb vanity that had always en-
wrapped her.

With a soft grace of action he touched with
his lips the hem of her riding skirt.

**No," he said simply, "j^ou might indeed *daze
one to blindness lilce the noonday sun.' But I
am not blind. I see in you many errors, more
against yourself than others ; I see the discontent
which always argues high unsatisfied desire, and
the caprice which is merely the offshoot of too
long indulgence of all passing fancies ; but what
matter these ? — your nature and the nobility of it
lie underneath them in a vein of gold unworked.
You have had the language of flattery to nausea :
I do not give it you ; I sny but what I believe."

'I .!■,

mil

se4

IN A WINTER CITY.

The tears sprang into her eyes, and the music
of his voice thrilled through her.

She did not care to wait for the words that
she knew woukl follow as his fingers stole and
clasped hers close, and she felt on her the gaze
she did not dare to meet. She rose, and
glanced to the west.

'* The sun is just gone hehind the hills. I
shall he late. Will you tell them to bring me
Said ? '

He rose, too, and did not oppose her departure.

" I rode here myself, fortunately," he said.
** You must allow me to go with you into
Floralia ; the roads are bad and hard to find."

They brought Said out of the great wooden
sweet-smelling outhouse, anc' lie raised her in
silence to her saddle. He gave her a little knot
of the fragrant leafless calycanthus with a few
sprays of myrtle ; she put it in her bosom ; it
was ah'eady dusk, and he saw the softened dim-
ness of her eyes.

They rode down together in the declining light
through tlie winding ways of the outlying
country into the town : it was quite dark when

IN A WINTER CITY,

26o

they reached the gates ; they had ridden fast and
spoken scarcely at all.

As he lifted her from Said in the gloom witliin
the scarcely lighted street, he pressed her softly
for one second in his arms, so that she felt the
beating of his heart.

** A rive derci ! " he murmured.

She left him in silence, and without rebuke.

** Is that you, Duca ? " said the voice of
Madame Mila in the darkness, as a carriage,
gorgeous with amber and gold liveries and with
Carnival camellias at the horses* heads, pulled
up with great noise and haste before the hotel
door.

** Is that you, Duca ? I am so glad ; I wanted
to speak to you. The Corso was horridly stujud.
I don't care a bit except for the pelting days, do
you. I sprained my arm last year in Rome with
the pelting, and I really blinded poor Salvareo
for a week. Why, dear me, that's Saul ! Have
you and Hilda been riding together? *'

** I met your cousin, Madame, by chance ; she
had lost her way. It is very easy to do so

amongst our hills."

266

IN A WINTER CITY,

" How very fortunate that you met her ! " said
Madame Mila, with a httle saucy laugh. " She
will kill herself riding that horrid Said some day
— perhaps she will liste-n to you if you tell her
not. What was it I wanted to say, — oh, I want a
very good hox for the Veglione. You are one of
the directors of the opera, are you not ? "

"Yes." .

" I thought so. Well, mind I have one ; big
enough to hold the supper table comfortably ;
and see Maurice about it, and dine with me to-
morrow, will you? Nina and Olga and the
usual people. Dear me, how these horses do
fidget. How very nice that you should have
met dear Hilda just when she *d lost lier way !
Good bye ; but, of course, you '11 be at the
Eoubleskoffs' to-night? I wish it wasn't cos-
tume. I'm England, and I'm embroidered all
over with Union Jacks ; and I have a little
Khedive on a gold stick that keeps tumbling up
and down ; and I carry a ship in full sail on the
top of my liend. I assure you it's very trying to
be a Nnval Power. How ever I shall be able to
waltz with that ship ! "

IN A WINTER CIT7.

2G7

Delia Rocca rode away in the darkness, as the
skirts of Madame Mila vanished in the hotel
doorway with the gleam of the golden-pheasant
trimmings shining under the gas lamp.

He went home to his solitary dinner, and
scarcely t nched it, and barely even noticed his
dog. He sat alone a long time, thinking, in the
same room where, four months before, he had
pondered on the Due de St. Louis's counsels, and
had decided to himself that this woman, beautiful
though she was, was arrogant, unimpressionable,
extravngantly capricious, and in every way anta-
gonistic to him.

Now, he was passionately in love witli her
himself ; he knew that she was deeply moved by
him ; he believed that he had only to ask an<l
have ; and yet he hesitated.

It was the marriage of all other marriages for
him ; he had softened and subdued her in a
manner which could not but intoxicate his vanity,
though he had less vanity than most men ; he
did not distrust her character, because lie believed
that there was a vague lofty nobility in it, and a
latent, though untouched, tend rncss ; of her

268

IN A WINTEE CITY.

caprices, of her changefulness, of her moods of
contempt, and of impatience, he had no fear; he
would substitute other emotions for them. And
yet he hesitated ; he was unresolved ; he was
doubtful whether to accept the empire he had
obtained.

He would liav^ concluded a marriage of interest
as coldly and tranquilly as any other man w'th n.
woman to vaiom he was indifferent. But with
this woman whose mere touch thrilled him to the
heart, and whose imp. .-ious eyes had only grown
gentle for his sake ! — never had he felt his
poverty so painfully as in tliis moment when
supreme Fortune seemed to have smiled upon
him.

Though he loved her with passion, he almost
wished that he had never seen her face.

After all, though gonerous, she was arrogant ; —
sooner or later sbe n\lght make him fee! that the
golden sceptre was l\{rs and not his. To his
temper, which, although gentle, was deeply in-
grained with the pride which had been transmitted
to him from many generations of a feudal nobility,
such a possibility seemed unendurable. He sat

\« I ■

IN A WINTER CITY.

2G9

At I

still lost in tliought till his lamp gi'ew low, and
the wind rising loud, shook the leaded panes of
the old higli windows.

** I suppose when Fortune does smile at us,
we always quarrel with her so," he thought, with
some impatience of his own irresolution.

After all, what other man in Europe would not
have been content ?

He got up, caressed the dog, turned the lamp
higher, and went into his bed-chamber.

" Get out the white mousquetaire dress," he
said to his old servant. ** I will go to the Roubles-
koffball."

All patrician Floralia was at the Roubleskoff
ball, one of the last great entertainments of the
expiring Carnival. In six more days there would
come the Day of Ashes ; and Floralia would repent
her sins in sadness, — that is, with only musical
parties, a dinner here and there, and no suppers
at all; (perhaps a ball might be squeezed in
once or twice by grace of the Russian Calendar,
but, then, if you took advantage of that you were
hrouille with all the codhii at once).

He reached the Eoubleskoff villa late, not so

4';*^
'*^.i.

270

IN A WINTER CITY.

late but what he was in time to see the arrival of
the woman who had sat with him ut her feet, and
talked with him of Meleager and the white nar-
cissus flowers.

Lady Hilda entered like a sovereign, and drew
all e^'es on herself.

She was attired as Vittoria Colonna, and
carried her purples and cloth of gold with more
than royal grace ; the colour on her cheek was
heightened, her eyes had a dewy brilliancy ;
what they spoke to her she seemed hardly to
hear.

He was as her shadow all the evening.

They w 3re both feverishly happy ; both curi-
ously troubled. Neither cared to look onward.

Society there assembled said that it was a
great thing for the Duca della Rocca ; and won-
dered whether they would live most in Floralia
or Paris.

** C'est moi qui a inspire cela," said the Ducde
St. Louis, with much self-complacency, sitting
down to the whist table ; he was quite sure that
all was right ; he Iiad seen the look in the eyes
of both of them.

u"«*'i

IN A Wj':fTEB CITY,

271

"She will compromise herself at last. Oh,
what a comfort it will he!" thought little
Madame Mila, carrying her frigate in full sail
aj"ily through the mazes of the cotillon, v'lh. a
sleeveless bodice on, cut so low that it was really
as good — or as bad — as if she had had nothing
at all. She did not wish any harm, of course,
only, really, Hilda, with a lover like other
people, would be so much more natural and
agreeable.

■'But they will marry, people say,'* suggested
M. des Gommeux, to whom alone she confided
these ideas.

** When do people ever say anything that is
true ? " said Madame Mila, with profound con-
tempt, tossing her little head till the Naval P )wer
of England v;as in jeopardy. She was irritated to
hear Maurice even talk about marriage ; it was
an improper thing for him even to mention, con-
sidering his relation to herself. When he
approaciied any young girl or marriageable
woman of any sort, Madame Mila bristled like
a little angry terrier tihiat sees a cat; on the
whole, she was still more exacting than Miles.

m V • r.mmt.f \ m u i w r iwww

272

IN A WINTEii CITY.

Hose The and Boulotte, and whereas in society
he could escape from them, he could in nowise
escape from her.

If it had been a question of marriage for her
cousin, indeed, Madame Mila would have opposed
it tooth and nail ; she had a feeling, a very
accurate one, that Delia Eocca did not approve of
herself, and that he would certainly never allow
his wife, if he had one, to be very intimate
with her. But Madame Mila knew what other
people did not ; that there c 'dd be no question
of such a marriage for her cousin ; and so she
smiled on JjiAXa Kocca, and was always engaging
him to dinner ; because J^ady Hilda, with her
lover about her, like any one else, would bo so
much more humanized and natural, and would
sympathise so much better wIMi other people.

That kind of virtue of ilildtt's — if it were
virtue — was such an odd, 'hilly, unpleasant thing,
she thought ; to Use in that way, with hundreds
of men seeking her, and cold alike to tiiem allj
was something so very unnatural ; it was almost
as bad as being one of those queer women who
wouldn't tie their skirts back, or wear high heels,

JN A WINTER CITY.

273

or dress their hair properly : — it was so strange,
too, in a person who, in all other matters, was
the very queen of fashion, the very head and
front of the most perfect worldliness.

It was very late and dayliglit quite when Lady
Hilda, contrary to her custom, left the hall ; she
had heen happy with a warmth and feverishness
of happiness altogether new to her ; notliing
more had passed between them, but tliey had
been together all the night, although never
alone.

She stood a moanent in the doorway facing
the daylight. Most women are ruined by such a
t0iS^f she looked but the fairer for it, with the
sunrise flush touching her cheeks, and the pearls
and Ihe diamonds in her haii*.

** I may come to you early," he murmured, as
she paused diat instant on the step.

** Yes — no. No ; I sliall be tired. Wait till
the evening. You are coming to Mila."

The words were a deniai ; but on her lips tliere
was sweetness, and in her eyes a soft emotion as
she moved onward and downward to the carilngo.

He was not dissatisfied nor dismayed. As

274

IN A WINTER CITY.

lici drew tlie furs over her gokl-laden skirts, his
Iiend hore h)wer nnd lower, and his lips touched
her hand and her arm.

*' The sun is up. I never am so late as this,"
she said, as though she did not feel those Idsses ;
hut, hy the clear light of tlie day-dawn, he saw
the hlood mantle over her throat and hosom, and
the tremulous shadow of a smile move her mouth.

The horses sprang forward ; he stood on the
lower step, grave and lost in thought.

** Is it too early to offer felicitations, my friend ? '*
Baid the Due de St. Louis, passmg to go home-
ward ; he had been playing whist all night.

*' I do not understand you," be answered, with
the tranquil falsehood of society.

The question annoyed him deepl3\ He loved
this woman with all the tenderness and passion
of his temperament, and loved her the more for
tlie ascendency he had gained over her and the
faults that he saw in her; he loved her generously,
truly, and with purer desire than most men.
Yet what would his Ipvo for her ever look to the
world ? — since he was poor,

Meanwliile she, with her fair haii' tumbled

IN A WINTER CITY.

275

about lier pillows, and lier gorgeous cloth of
gold lying on a couch like a queen's robes
iibiindoned, slept restlessly, yet with a smile
on her face, some few hours : when she awoke
it was with a smile, and with that vague sweet
sense of awakening to some great J03', which
is one of the most precious plfts of happiness ;
dreamful misty sense of expectation and recol-
lections bleriding in one, and making the light
of day beautiful.

She lay still some time, awake, and yet
dreaming, with half-closed eyelids and her thick
hair loosened and covering her shoulders, and
the sweet scent close at hand of a glassful of
myrtle and calycanthus, that she had been very
careful to tell them to set near her bed. Lazily,
after awhile, she rang a little bell, and bade her
maids open her shutters, the grand light of the
noonday poured into the chamber.

** Give me a mirror," she said to them.

"When they gave her one, she looked at herself
and smiled again : she was one of those women

who are lovely when they wake : there ai'e not
many,

T 2

270

IN A WINTER CITY.

They brought her her chocolate, and she sipped
a little of it, and lay still, looking at the myrtle
and hearing the ringing of church bells from
across the water ; she was happy ; it seemed to
her that all her life before had not been hai)pines3
after all ; — only pleasure.

An hour later her maid brought her a telegram.
She opened it with a little impatience. Why
should anything break in on her day dream ?

It merely said tlwit her brother was in Paris,
and would come onv/ard ; and be with her that
night. She let the papers fall, as though she
were stung by an adder.

It recalled to her what she had forgotten.

CHAPTER X.

Lord Clairvaux arrived in time for Madame
Mila's dinner. Pie as an affecti( nate and sunny-
tempered man ; he did not notice that his sister
did not once say she was glad to see him.

Delia llocca did notice it, with that delicate
mierring Italian perception, wliicii is as fine as a
needle and as suhtle as mercury.

He saw, too, that something had come over
her ; some cloud ; some change ; she had lost
much of her proud serenity, and she looked at
him now and then with what seemed to him
almost like contrition ; she avoided heing alone
with him ; he was trouhlcdat it, but not alarmed;
he knew very well that she loved him. He let
her be.

»■

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(716) 872-4503

278

IN A WINTER CITY.

An Italian has infinite passion, but lie has
also infinite patience in matters of lore. Nor
was he, now that he was assured of his power
over her, wholly content to use it ; if he mar-
ried her, the world would always say that it was
for her wealth. That means of raising his own
fortunes which had seemed to him so material
and legitimate all his life, now seemed to him
unworthy and unmanly since he had grown to
care for her. He knew that such riches as slie
possessed were precisely those with which lie
had always intended to rebuild the fallen great-
ness of his race ; but since he had loved her it
looked veiy different.

The charm of their intercourse to him was the
ascendency he had won over her, the power that
he had gained to lift her nature to a higher level:
where would his influence be when he had once
stooped to enrich himself by its means?

These fancies saddened him and checked
him, and made him not unwilling to linger on
about her, in all that indistinct sweetness of half-
recognised and half-unspoken love.

The position, uncertain as it was, i.ad its

'In '

IN A WINTER CITY.

279

charm ; he felt that this woman, with all her
insolence and indifference and absorption by the
worM, was, in his hands, only a creature of
emotions and of passions, who would flush at his
touch, and grow unnerved under his gaze; he
knew that he was very dear to her since, had he
not been, for the audacity of his caresses he
wouLl have been driven out of her presence.

" Ama chi t'ama, e lascia dir la gente,'' he
said to himself in the wise burden of the people's
love-song ; and he let destiny go as it would.

Meanwhile, she, dissatisfied, with a conscience
ill at ease, and disinclined to look into the future,
saw him morning, noon, and night, but avoided
seeing him alone, and usually had her brother
neai'.

Lord Clairvaux could only stay a week, and
was utterly unconscious that his presence was
unwelcome ; he was taken to see the two Arab
mares of Delia Rocca; he was taken to Palestrina;
he was taken to studios and chapels, which had
no more interest for him than they would have
had for a setter dog : but he was quite ignorant of
why he was taken.

280

IN A WINTER CITY.

He (lid what Lady Hilda <<old him to do ; he
always did when he and she were together ;
he was a simple, kindly, honest gentleman,
who regarded England as the universe, and all
the rest of the world as a mere accident.
His sister's contempt for her country and his
politics, her philosophy of indiflferentism, her
adoration of primitive art, her variable disdain,
and her intellectual pharisaism had always seemed
to him very wonderful, and not altogether com-
fortable ; but he admired her in a hopeless kind
of way, and it was not in his temper to puzzle
over people's differences of opinion or character.

" Hilda thinks all the old dead fellow3 were
gods, and she thinks all of us asses," he would
say humbly. ** I don't know, you know, — she's
awfully clever. I never was. It may be so,
only I never will believe that England is used
up, as she says ; and I like the east wind myself;
and what she can see in those saints she's
just bought, painted on their tiptoes, or in those
old crooked pots; — but if she'd stayed in the
country, and hunted twice a week all winter, you
know she would not have been like that."

IN A WINTER CITY.

281

*' It would liave been a great pity liad Miladi
been anything save what she is," said Delhi
Kocca, to whom he expressed Iiimself in this
manner, in such French as he could command,
and who was amused and astonished by him,
and who took him a day's wild fowl shooting in
the marshes, and a day's wild boar hunting in
the next province, and wondered constantly
why So kindly and gallant a gentleman should
have been made by the good God so very
stupid.

" Oh, you think so ; I don't," said Lord
Clairvaux. ** Hilda isn't my idea of a happy
woman. I don't believe she is happy. She
spends half her life thinking how she will dress
herself; and why will they dress now like the
ruffs and things of Queen Elizabeth, and the
effigies on the tombstones? and the other half
she spends buying things she never looks at,
and ordering things she dislikes when they're
done, and reading books that make her think
her own countrymen are a mere lot of block-
heads and barbarians. Not that I pretend to
understand lier; I never did; only I think if

282

IN A WINTER CITY.

she didn't think everybody else such a fool she'd
be more comfortable."

Delia Rocca smiled.

** Pardon me, — you will disturb the birds."

Lord Clairvaux recollected that he ought not
lo talk of his sister to a stranger, and, bringing
his gun to his shoulder, fired into a covey of wild
ducks.

" What a handsome fellow that is, like an old
picture," he thought to himself, as he looked at
Delia Rocca, who sat in the prow of the boat ;
but he did not connect him in his thoughts with
Lady Hilda in any way : for ten years he had
got so tired of vainly wondering why this man
and that did not please her, and had been made
so vexed and perplexed by her rejection of the
Prince of Deutschland, that he had ceased to
think of her as a woman who could possibly
ever care for anybody.

One night, however, when he had been there
^ive days, he was walked about in the crowd of
the Veglione by little IVladame Mila, masked, and
draped as black as a little beetle ; and Madame
Mila, who was getting tired of things standing

IN A WINTER CITY.

283

still, and could no more help putting her tiny
linger into all kinds of pasties, and making mis-
chief in a kittenish way, than she could help
going on enamelling since she had once hegun it,
laughed at him, teazed him, and told him, what
startled him,

" But she isn't here, and he is ! " he gasped
feebly, in protest at what he had heard, gazing
over the motley crowd.

" What a goose you are ; — as if that showed
anything ! They can meet much better than in
this place," said Madame Mila, with a saucy
laugh.

He turned on her with a heavy frown.

** Hang it, Mila ! you don't dare to mean "

Madame Mila was frightened in an instant.

** Oh, dear, no ; of course not ; only I do assure
you they've been always together ever since I've
been in Floralia. I thought you knew — -— "

"Damn it, no!" he muttered. "I beg your
pardon, I never see anytliing ; I mean, I'm quite
sure there's nothing to see."

** Well, ask hei:," said Madame ^lila : then she
added sweetly, "you Lnow I'm so fund of deru'

284

IN A WINTER CITY.

Hilda ; and people do talk so horridly here for
nothing at all; and Italians are not so scru-
pulous as we are.'*

He went home in haste, and was told that
Miladi had retired to hed full two hours before.
In the morning he sent to ask when he could see
her. She sent back word that she should be
happy to see him at breakfast at twelve. At ten
he received a telegram from his wife asking him
to return, because his eldest boy, Cheviot, was
unwell, and they feared typhoid fever.

" Damn it all, what a worry ! " said Lord
Clairvaux to himself, and then went out and
smoked on the bank of the river, and looked
over the stone parapet moodily.

" Bon-jour, monsieur," a voice said, passing
him.

Delia Rocca was driving past with a fiery
little horse on his way to Palestrina. Lord
Clairvaux felt inclined to stop the horse; but
what could he say if he did ?

What a nuisance it was, he thought ; but
what could go right in a country where they shot
their foxes, and called their brushes tails, and

m A WINTER CITY.

285

hung thein under the ears of cart-raulcs and
ponies ? — a country where they treated the foxes
as they did, to say nothing of the Holy Father,
must be a hind of malediction.

He smoked through two great cigars, and
walked about the town unhaj^pily, and when it
was noon went upstairs to his sister. lie did
not dare to go a moment before the time.

** Dear Freddie, is it you ? " said the Lady
Hilda, listlessly; she looked very lovely and
very languid, in a white cashmere morning
gown, with a quantity of lace about it, and her
liair all thrown back loosely, and tied like the
Venere alia Spina's.

" I have to go away by the night train. Poor
little Cheviot's ill," he said disconsolately, as he
took her hand ; he never ventured on kissing her;
years before she had taught him that such en-
dearments were very ridiculous and disagree-
able.

** Dear me, I am very sorry. Will you have
coffee, or tea, or wine?" she asked absently, as
she went to the table where the breakfast was.

** Chevy's very ill," said Lord Clairvau>:,

280

TN A WINTER CITY.

who thought she showed small sympathy. " You
used to like Chevy."

*' He was a pretty little child. I hate hoys.'*

** You wouldn't if you had them of your own,"
said Jiord Clairvaux, and grumbled inaudibly as
he took some cutlets.

Lady Hilda coloured a little.

** I have really not imagination enough to
follow you : — will you have coffee ? I hope it's
nothing serious with Cheviot ? "

" Fever, his mother thinks ; any way I must
go. I saw your friend the Duca della Rocca
this morning : he was out early."

He thought this was approaching the subject
in a masterly manner.

"Italians always rise early," said the Lady
Hilda, giving him his cup.

** And he was at the Veglione last night — **

** All Italians go to the Veglione."

" You have seen a great deal of him, haven't
you ? " asked Lord Clairvaux, looking at her
across the table, and thinking how pretty all that
white was which she had on, and what a difficult
person she was to begin anything with; he had

JN A WINTER CITY.

297

never felt so nervous since the time when he had
once been called on to move the Address when
Parliament oi^ened.

" One sees a great deal of everybody in a
small society like this."

** Because you know people talk about you
and him, — so they say at least."

*' They are very good, whoever they are : who
are they ? "

*' Who ?— Oh, I don't know ; I heard so."

'* How very nice of you to discuss me with
other people ! "

Lord Clairvaux cast a glance at her and was
very much fjightened at the offence he saw in
her contemptuous face : how pale she was looking
too, now he thought of it, and she had shadows
underneath her eyes quite new to her.

*' AVhat sort of a fellow is he ? " he muttered.
He seemed a duffer to me about his fields — such
ploughs, by heavens ! — and such waste in the
stackyards I never saw. But it isn't farming
here at all; it's letting things go wild just
anyhow — "

"It is not being wiser than Nature, and sacri-

1. ?:

m^mmmt

288

IxV A WINTER CITY,

ficing all loveliness to greed— if you mean thatf^
said Lady Hilda, with coldest disdain. " The
life here has btill the old Thcocritan idyllic
beauty, thank heaven."

" Theocritus ? Oh, I know ; I never could
construe him ; but I do know a straiglit furrow
and decently kopt land when I see it. But I
say, you know, I don't want to be oflicious or
anything ; but do you think it's wise to see so
very much of him ? You know he's an ItaliaL,
and I dare Fpy husn't a bit of principle, nor a
penny in his pocket."

The hazel eyes of the Lady Hilda flashed
golden beams of wrath.

"How very grateful of you! — when he has
entertained you to the best of his ability, and
went out of his way to find sport for you^ very
little to his own pleasure, moreover, for I can
assur<^ you Ids soul does not lie in his gun-
barrel!"

" I don*t want to say anything against him,'*
murmured Lord Clairvaux, who was the most
grateful and most just of mortals. " He was
very kind and courteous, and all that — and I

IN A WINTER CTTT.

2«D

don' say he*s a bad shot, though he's a bad
fanner — and he is an awfully good-looking fellow,
like an old picture, and all that. Only I must
go to-night, Hilda, and I do want to speak to
you."

** You are speaking all tliis time I believe,"
said Lady Hilda icily, looking across at him
with the coldest challenge in her darkening
eyes.

"I never could think why you didn't take
Deutschland," he muttered, reverting to an old
grievance.

" He didn't please me. Is that all you wanted
to say?"

"But I thought you'd have cared to be r
reigning sovereign ? "

"Of a small State?" said the Lady Hilda,
with an eloquent lift of her eyebrows.

" Well, there was De Ribeaupierre ; he was
everything anybody could want ; Vienna, too ; I
used to think an Ambassadress's life would just
suit you."

"Always calling on people and writing notes ?
No life on earth more tiresome,"

J ■■la

S90

IN A WINTER CITY,

" I suppose you want to be an Empress ? **

** Oh dear no," answered his sister. " I have
kuown two Empresses intimately ; and it is a
career of great tedium : you can never do what
you like."

"Then, I suppose, you are content as you
are ? *

" I .^ appose so, if anybody ever is. I don*t

tliink anyone is. I never met anybody who was.

They say pigs are ; but one sees so little of pigs

hat one can't make much psychological study of

them."

Lord Clairvaux grumbled, sighed, and took
his courage d deux mains,

*' Well, never mind the other men ; they
are past and gone, poor wretches ; what do you
mean to do about this one ? "

** This what ? " said Lady Hilda, looking
languidly at him through the flowers on the
breakfast table. She knew quite well what he
meant.

**What do you mean to do with him?" re-
peated Lord Clairvaux solemnly, pushing his
plate away. **It's all very pretty, I daresay.

IN A WINTER CITY.

201

liomeo and moonlight and poetry and all that
sort of thing ; Italians are the deuce and all
for that, only I shouldn't have thought you'd
have cared for it ; and besides, you know it can't
go on: — the man's a gentleman, that I grant;
and, by heaven, that's a great deal now-a-days,
such blackguards as we're getting, — three card
scandals in the club already this very winter, and
George Orme's was regular sharping, just what
any cad might do, by Jove ! But you know you
cant go on with it ; you can't possibly mean it
seriously, now, do you ? "

Lady Hilda laughed that little cold, con-
temptuous laughter which her brother always
shivered under, and which Delia Kocca had
never heard.

** I don't seriously mean to cheat at cards \ My
dear Frederic, you must say what you mean, if
you mean anything at all, a little more clearly,
please. Why will all Englishmen get their talk
into such odd confusion ? I suppose it comes of
never learning grammrr at Eton."

" Well, hang it then, I'll say it clearly," re-
torted Clairvaux, with some indignation. " Mila

^>8

»*i

IN A WINTER CITY.

tells me you and this Italian that's always after
you, have taken a liking to one another : is it
true ? — and what do you mean to do with him ?
There ! '*

He was horribly frightened when he had said
U, but what he thouglit was his duty, that iie
did : and he conceived it to be his duty to
speak.

All the blood leapt into the fair face of the
Lady Hilda, her nostrils dilated in a fine anger,
her lips grew pale.

" Mila is a little wretch ! " she said, with strong
passion j then was still ; she was too generous to
quote her own generosity, or urge her past gifts
as present claims. " She is a little fool ! " she
added, with bitter disdain ; " and how can you
cheapen my name by listening to her chattering
folly? Besides, what have you to do with me —
or what has she ? I am not used to dictation—
nor to interference ! "

** Oh, I know," said her brother, humbly.
*' And I beg your pardon, you are sure, and all
that ; — only, just tell me, how will it end ? "
" How will what end ? "

IN A WINTER CITY,

293

" This fancy of yours."

Lady Hilda grew very pale.

" My dear Cluirvaux," she said, with chilliest
contempt, "you f<.re not my keeper, nor my
husband, nor anything else, except one of my
trustees. I do not know that being a trustee
gives you a title to be impertinent. You really
talk as you might to your gamekeeper's daughter,
if you thought you saw the girl * going wrong.*
What M. Delia Rocca feels for me is merely
sympathy in ideas and tastes. But if it were
anything else, vhose business would it be ? "

Lord Clairvaux laughed.

"Yes! — ^you are a likely creature to inspire
friendship ! As if theic were ever a woman worth
looking at who could keep a man at that ! —
don't let us fence about it, Hilda. Perhaps I
haven't any right to say anything. You're your
own mistress ai d all that, and answerable to
nobody. Only, can you deny that I am your
brother ? "

" I have always understood you were ! I con-
fess you make me regret the circumstance.'*

" Now that's ill-natured, very ill-natured," ho

294

IN A WINTER CITY.

murmured pathetically. " But you won't make
me quarrel. There must be two to quarrel, and
I won't be one. We have always been good
friends, more than good friends. I thought I
was the only person on earth you did like—

}»

And, like everyone else, you consider that the
liking you inspire confers a privilege to be im-
pertinent," said his sister, with all that disdain-
ful anger flashing from her languid eyes, which
none of her family ever cared very much to meet.

She had risen from her chair, and was moving
to and fro with a restless, controlled impatience.
She remained very pale. Clairvaux kept his
position on the hearth-rug, with a dogged good
humour, and an uneasy confusion blended to-
gether which, at any other time, would have
diverted her,

"Perhaps I may be impertinent," he said,
humbly, "though, hang me, if I can see that
that's a natural sort of word to be used between
a brother and sister. I know you're a mighty
great lady, and * a law to yourself,' as some poet
says ; and never listen to anybody, and always
go your own ways, and all that, — but still, if you

IN A WINTER CITY.

295

never speak to me afterwards, I must say what
I want to say. This man is in love with you,
it*s my belief you're in love with him — Mila
says so, and she knows. Now, granted that it is
so (if it isn't there's nothing to be angry about),
what I say is, how do you mean it to end ?
Will you marry him ? "

Her face changed, flushed, and then grew pale
again.

" Of course not ! You know it is impos-
sible ! "

" Does he know why it is impossible ? "

" No — why should he ? Really you do not
know what you are talking about. You are
interfering, in the most uncalled-for manner,
where there is not the slightest necessity for any
interference."

" Then you are letting him fall in love with
you in the dark, and when you have had enough
of the sport will throw him over ? "

"You grow very coarse, Clairvaux. Oblige
me by dropping the subject."

"I didn't know I was coarse. That is what
you are going to do. You accept all his court

296

IN A WINTER CITY.

now — and then you'll turn round on him some
fine morning and say you've had enough of it.
At least, I can't see what else you will do — since
you cannot marry him. You'll hardly lower
yomxelf to Mila's level and all the other women's
—by heavens, if I thought you would, if I
thought you had done, I'd soon see if this fellow
were as fine a swordsman as they say ! "

Lady Hilda turned her face full on him.

" So my brother is the first person that v3ver
dared to insult me?" she said, with utmost
coldness, as she rose from the breakfast table
and swept his feet in passing with the lace
that fringed the hem of her cashmere robes.

She gave him one parting look, and lett the
chamber.

He stood cowed by the golden fire of those
superb imperious hazel eyes. He was nervous
at what he had done, and unhappy and per-
plexed. He stood alone, pulling at his fair
beard, in troubled repentance. He knew what
her wrath would be. She was not a woman who
quickly forgave.

" I've blundered ; I always do blunder," he

IN A WINTER CITY.

Tffl

♦bought sadly to himself. " She must care
awfully about him to be so angry."

He waited all aione many minutes; he was
sincerely sorry ; perhaps he had been coarse ; he
had not meant to be ; only, the idea of her talked
about, and with lovers ! — just like all those other
women whom their husbands or brothers ought
to strangle — it was only fashion, they said, only
the way of the world, all that immorality; —
'* Damn the world," he said to himself, ruffling
his beard in sad bewilderment.

He scribbled a trite, rough, penitent note, and
sent it to her by her maid. They brought him a
closed envelope : when he opened it he found
only his own note inside — sent back without any
word.

Honest Clairvaux*s eyes filled with tears.

*' She'll never see me again before I go to-
night," he thought to himself, tossing his poor
little rejected morsel into the wood fire. ** And
I must go to-night, because of poor little Chevy,
How horrid it is ! — I couldn't be angry like that
with her!"

He stood some moments more, knitting his

- ''14

298

IN A WINTER CITY.

fair, frank forehead, and wishing that he were
less stupid in managing things ; he had never in
his life before presumed to condemn and counsel
his sister — and this was the result !

Suddenly an idea struck him, and he rose. -

"I will tell him," he thought. "I will tell
him himself. And then I shall see what sort of
stuff he is made of ; — I can fight him afterwards
if he don't satisfy me ; — I'll tell him as if I
suspected nothing — I can make an excuse, but
when he hears it he'll show what he's made of; —
oh. Lord, if it were only an Englishman she'd
taken a liking to ! — and to think that she's
treated half the best men in Europe as if they
were only so many stones under her feet ! "

"With a groan. Lord Clairvaux took up his
hat, and went forth towards the Palazzo Delia
Eocca.

At six o'clock that evening he had to take his
departure without seeing his sister again. He
went away with a heavy heart.

** How extraordinary she is ! " he thought.
" Never even to ask me if T told the man any-
thing or not. And never to bid one good-bye !

IN A WINTER CITY.

299

Well, IVe done for the best — I can't help it.
She'll be sorry if poor little Chevy should die."

But the boy did not die ; so that his father
never learned whether that event would have
touched the heai of Lady Hilda or not.

All the following day she shut herself up in
her rooms. She said she was ill ; and, in truth,
she felt so. Delia Rocca called three times in
the day, but she did not see him ; he sent uj) a
great bouquet of the pale yellow tea rose of
which she was so fond; he had fastened the
flowers together with an antique silver zone, on
which was the Greek Love in relief ; the Love
of the early Hellenic poets, without wings and
with a mighty sword, the Love of Anacreon,
which forges the soul as a smith his iron, and
steeps it in icy waters after many blows.

She understood the message of the Love, but
she sent no message back.

It was a lovely day ; underneath the windows
the carriages were rolling ; there was the smile
of spring on the air as the fleecy clouds went
sailing past ; she could see the golden reaches
of the river raid the hyacinth-huod hills

, t « * St-

h:,..m

300

IN A WINTER CITY.

where Palostrina lay ; her lieart was heavy ; licr
pulse was quick ; her conscience was ill at
ease ; her thouf^hts were restless and perturbed.
Solitude and reflection were so new to her ; they
appalled her. When she had been unwell before,
which had been but seldom, she had always
beguiled herself by looking over the jewels in
their cases, sorting rare old Marcantonios and
Morghens, skimming French feuilletons, or
planning new confections for her vast stores of
old laces. But now none of these distractions
were possible to her ; she sat doing nothing,
weary, feverish, and full of a passionate pain.

The fact which her brother had told to Delia
Eocca was that, if she married again, all her riches
would pass away from her.

At the time of her marriage her father had
been deeply involved in debt ; gambling, racing,
and debts of every other kind had been about
him like spiders' webs ; the great capitalist,
Vorarlberg, had freed him on condition of
receiving the hand of his young daughter in ex-
change. She was allowed to know nothing of
these matters ; but under such circumstances it

IN A inXTKR CITY.

301

was impossible for the fjunil}' to be exacting
as regarded sentiments : she was abandoned en-
tirely to the old man'-* po.ver. Fortunately for
herself, he was taken ill on the very day of the
nuptials, and, after a lingering period of suffering,
died, leaving her mistress of half of one of the
finest fortunes in Europe. By birth he was a
Wallachian Jew, brought up in London and Paris,
but he had been naturalised in England, when a
youth, for commercial objects, and the disposi-
tion of his property lay under his own control.
A year or two after his death a later will was
found by his lawyers, still leaving her the same
income, but decreeing that in the event of her
second marriage everything should pass away
from her to the public charities, save alone her
jewels, her horses, all things she might have
purchased, the house in Paris, which had been
a gift, and some eight hundred a year already
secured to her. The new will was proved, and she
was informed that she could enjoy her fortune
only by tlds tenure. She was indifferent. She
was quite sure that she would never wish to
marry any one. She loved her wealth and spent

L.tl"

J()2

IN A WINTKR CITY.

it nmgnificeiitly; nnd wlicu men sought \wv whose
own position would liave made the loss of her
own money of no moment, she still repulsed
them, thinking always '^ le mieux est I'ennemi
du bien."

The fact of this later will was scarcely known
beyond the precincts of the law and the circle of
their own family ; but since she had met Delia
Rocca, the remembrance of it had kept her awake
many a night, and broken roughly many a day-
dream.

To sun'ender her fortune to become his
wife never once occurred to her as possible ;
ten years' enjoyment of her every whim
had made it seem so inalienably hers. She had
entered so early into her great possessions, that
they had gi-own to be a veiy part of her. The
old man who had been her husband but iii name
was but a mere ghostly shadow to her. The
freedom and the self-indulgence she had so long
enjoyed had become necessary to her as the air
she breathed. She could no more face the loss
of her fortune than she could have done that of
her jeauty. It was not the mere vulgar vaunt

IN A WINTER CITY.

303

or ostentation of woultli tlmt had attraction for
lier; it was all the supremacy, the ease, the
patronage, the habits, that great wealth alone
makes possible ; it was the reign which she had
held throughout Europe ; it was the charm of
perfectly irresponsible power. To give up these
and hear the cackle of all the fools she had
eclipsed mocking at her weakness ! — it would be
beyond all endurance.

What was she to do ?

The lax moralities of the women of her time
were impossible to her proud and loftier charac-
ter ; and besides, she felt that a woman who pre-
ferred the world to him, would not find in Delia
Rocca a forgiving or a submissive lover. When
he knew, what would he say ?

She turned sick at the thought. After all, she
had played with him and deceived him ; he would
have just cause of passionate reproach against
her. His love had no wings, but it had a sword.

" Wm Miladi be able to dine ? " her maid
asked her, vaguely alarmed at the strange stillness
and the great paleness of her face.

'* Was I to dine anywhere ? " she said wearily,

. * *rd

304

IN A WINTER CITY.

She was to dine at the Archduchess Anna's.
The Archduchess Anna was passing thron.gh
Floralia after three months at Palermo for health,
and was staying in strict incognita, and infinite
glee, as the Countess Von Feffers at the Hotel del
Re; enjoying herself endlessly, as the gay -hearted
lady that she was, even indulging once in the
supreme delight of driving in a cab, and with no
other recognition of her great rank than consisted
in the attendance upon her of the handsomest
of the king's chamberlains.

" Dress me, then," said Lady Hilda, with a
sigh. She could not excuse herself to the
Archduchess, whom she had known intimately for
years, and who was to leave Floraiia in a week.

" What gown does Madame select? " asked her
maid.

" Give me any you like," she answered.

She did not care how she would look; she
would not meet him ; she knew that he had no
acquaintance with the imperial lady.

The maids, left to themselves, gave her the
last new one from Worth ; only six days arrived ;
a dress entii*ely white, with knots of purple

IN A WINTER CITY.

305

velvet, exactly copied from a pictui'e of
Boucher, and with all the grace of dead
Versailles in its folds. She put a rococo neck-
lace on, with a portrait of Maria Theresa in it,
and went listlessly to the dinner; she was not
thinking ahout her appeai'ant'e that night, or she
would have said that she was too pale to wear all
that wliite.

" Goodness me, Hilda, how ill you do look,"
said Madame Mila, meeting her on the stairs,
and who was going also.

** No, thanks, I won't drive with you ; two
women can't go in a carriage without one heing
chiffonn^e. That's an exquisite toilette; that
white brocade is delicious — stamped with the
lilies of France, — ^very pretty; only you're too
pale for it to-night, and it's a pity to wear it only
for the Archduchess. She never knows what
anybody's got on their backs. Is anything the
matter, dear ? "

" Nothing in the world.**

" Then you must have got a headache 9 You
certainly do look very ill. I do so hope we shall
get away in time for the VogUouo. It 's the very

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IN A WINTER CITY.

last night, you know. I had such fun last time.
I intrigue *d heaps of people, and Dogfjendorff I
drove wild ; I told him everything shoni his wife
and Lelio Custeli^ucci, and all against himself
that she'd ever told me. It was such fun — he'd
not an idea who I was, for when we were at
supper, he came running in breathless to • sll us
of a horrible little mask with a voice like a
macav.''s ; — ^you know I'd put a pebble under my
tongue."

*'Very dangerous pastime, and a very vulgar
one," said the Lady Hilda, descending the stair-
case. ** How can you go down into that horrible
screeching mob, Mila ? It is so very low."

"My dear, I go anywhere to amuse myself,
and Maurice was always near me, you know, so if
I had been insulted— There's eight o'clock
striking."

The Hotel del Ee was but ten minutes' drive
along the famous river-street, which has such an
Arabian Nights-like beauty when the lamps are
lighted, and gleam in long lines ad own each
shore, and mirror themselves in the water, whilst
dome, and bell-tower, and palace-roof raise them*

IN A WINTER CITY.

307

selves darkly against the steel-blue sky of the
night.

The Archduchess had been spending a long
day in the galleries, studying art under the
guidance of the handsome chamberlain ; she was
hungry, happy, and full of the heartiest spirits;
she was a very merry and good-natured person,
about five-and-forty years old, fat and fair, very
badly dressed, and very agreeable, with a frank
laugh, and a strong love of humour ; she had had
more escapades than any princess in Europe, and
smoked more cigars than a French newspaper
writer, and had married more daughters to
German cousins than anybody else in the
Almanac de Gotha,

Had she been any lesser being, Society would
have tui'ned its back on her ; but, being who she
was, her nod was elevation, and her cigar-ash
honour, — and, to do her justice, she was one of
the most amiable creatures in all creation.

"Ma chere, you are lovelier than ever!—
and how do you like this place ? — and is the dear
littJe pug alive ? I lost my sweet Zaliote of
asthma in Palermo,** said the Ai-chduchess, wel-

X 2

308

IN A WINTER CITY.

coming the Lady Hilda, as she did everything
with ardour.

Lady Hilda, answering, felt her colourless
cheeks grow warm ; in the ircle standing round
she recognised Delia Rocca. The Archduchess
had taken a fancy to the look of him in the street,
and had bade the chamberlain present him, and
then had told him to come to dinner : she liked
to surround herself with handsome men. From
Madame Mila he had learned in the morning that
her cousin would dine there at night.

Mt»dame Mila concluded in her own mind that
Freddie had had a row with his sister upon the
matter, but that Delia Rocca had had nothing
said to him about it by either of them. Madame
Mila concluded also that Hilda had grown sen-
sible, and was doing like other women, though
why she looked so ill about it, Madame Mila could
not imagine. Madame Mila did not comprehend
scruples.

It was verj'' painful, for instance, to be allied
to any one of the Greek Church, and a great
grief to the Holy Father ; but still it was very
nice to be mai'ried to a Schismatic, because it

IN A WINTER CITY.

309

enabled you to go to balls a fortnight longer : if
it was still your husband's carnival, you know,
nobody couid say anything.

^Madame Mila thought you should always do
your best to please everybody; but then you
should take care that you pleased yourself first
most of an. The world was easy enough to
live in if you did not worry : there were always
unpaid bills to be sure, and they were odious.
But then Hilda never had any unpaid bills;
so she never could have anything to annoy
liei«

Apropos of bills, she hoped Delia Rocca would
not use his influence with her cousin so as to
prevent her paying other people's bills. Of
course he wouldn't do this just at present ; but
when men had been lovers a little while, she
reflected, they always turned the poetry into
prose, and gi'ew very nearly as bad as husbands.

Madame Mila watched them narrowly all
through dinner.

" If I thought Le'd make her sting}% I'd make
her jealous of Giulia Malatesta to-morrow," she
thought to herself. Madame Mila on occasion

310

IN A WINTER CITY.

had helped or hindered circumstance amongst
her friends and enemies with many ingenious
little devices and lucky little anonymous notes,
and other innocent shifts and stratagems. It
was no use being in the world at all unless you
interfered with the way it went ; to be a mere
puppet in the hands of Fate, with the strings of
accident dangling to and fro, seemed to her
clever little brains quite unworthy the intelli-
gence of woman.

She never meant to do any harm, oh, never ;
only she liked things to go as she wished them.
Who does not ? If a few men and women had
been made wretched for life, and people who
loved one another devotedly had been parted for
ever, and suspicion and hatred had crept into the
place of trust and tenderness in certain house-
holds, Madame Mila could not help that, any
more than one can help other people being
splashed with mud when one drives down a lane
in bad weather. And nobody ever thought
Madame Mila could do any harm ; pretty, good-
natured, loquacious, little Madame Mila, running
about with her little rosebuds at fancy fairs, and

IN A WINTER CITY.

311

sa3'ing so sweetl}^ "Pour nos pauvres — pour
iios cliers pauvres !"

** The best little woman in the world," as
everybody said, Madame Mila would kiss her
female enemies on both cheeks wherever she met
them; and when she had sent an anonymous
letter (for fun), always sent an invitation to dinne:
just after it, to the same direction.

*' I wish I knew how it is really between them,'*
she thought at the Archduchess's dinner-table,
divided between her natural desire to see her
cousin let fall that ** white flower of a blameless
life," which stinks as garlic in the nostrils of
those who have it not, and her equally natural
apprehension that Paolo della Pocca as a lover
would not let his mistress pay other persons'
debts, and would also be sure to see all her
letters.

" She'll tell him everything about everybody,"
thought Madame Mila, uncomfortably ; for Della
Rocca had a look in his eyes of assured happi-
ness, which, to the astute axperience of Madame
Miia, suggested volumes.

Meantime she was also harassed by an appre-

■M

f 'i

f4iiA

PBi

S19

IN A WINTER CITY.

hension that she would not be able to withdraw
in time for the Veglione, where Maurice, a baig-
noir, and a supper-table awaited her. If the Arch-
duchess should sit down to play of any sort hope
was over, escape would be impossible till daydawn j
and Madame Mila hated playing with the Arch-
duchess ; with such personages she was afraid to
cheat, and was obliged to ]my.

With all the ingenuity, therefore, of which she
T^as mistress, she introduced the idea of the
Veglione into the mind of her hostess, and so
contrived to fascinate her with the idea, that the
Archduchess, who had gone in her time to five
hundred public masked balls, was as hotly ani-
mated into a desire to go to this one as though
she had been just let out of a convent at eighteen
years old.

Madame Mila delightedly placed her baignoir
at the disposition of her imperial highness, and
her imperial highness invited all her guests to
accompany her j such invitations are not optional ;
and Lady Hilda, who hated noise as her horses
hated masks, was borne oflf by the mirthful, chat-
tering, and gay-hearted lady, who had no ob-

IN A WINTER CITY.

3)3

jection to noise, and loved fun and riot like a
street boy.

Lady Hilda thought a Veglione, and n liking
for it, both beneath contempt; yet she was not
unwilling to avoid all chance of being alone with
Delia Rocca even for a moment. She knew
what he would say : — his eyes had said it fdl the
evening a thousand times.

The Archduchess Anna and Madame Mila
were both in the very highest spirits ; they had
taken a good deal of champagne, as ladies will,
and had smoked a good deal and got thii'sty,
and had more champagne with some seltzer water,
and the result was the highest of high spirits.
Nothing could be more appropriate to a Veglione ;
as no reasonable being could stay by choice in
one for an hour, it is strongly advisable that
reason should be a little dethroned by a very dry
wine before entering the dingy paradise. Of
course nobody ever sees great ladies * the worse
for wine' ; they are only the better, as a Stilton
cheese is.

Happy and hilarious, shrouded and masked
beyond all possibility of identification, and ready

314

IN A WINTER CITY,

for any adventure, the Arcliduchess Anna was no
sooner in the box than she was out of it, and
declared her intention of going down into the
crowd. Madame Mihi, only too glad, went
with her, and some haif-dozen men formed their
escort. Lady Hilda excused herself on the plea
of a headache, a plea not untrue, and alone with
the Due de St. Louis awaited the return of her
hostess. She had only put on her masik for
e^itry, and had now laid it beside her ; she threw
aside her domino, for the heat of the box was
stifling, and the whiteness of her dress shone as
lilies do at moonlight. She leaned her cheek on
her hand, and looked down on to the romning,
screaming, many- coloured throngs.

" You are not well to-night, Madame ? " said
the Due, with the affectionate solicitude that he
felt for all pretty women.

He was puzzled as to how her relations could
stand with Delia Rocca: the previous night he
had though^ everything settled, but now he
did not feel quite so sure.

" The Archduchess is so noisy ; it always
gives me a headache to dine with her," said

IN A WINTER CITY.

315

Lady Hilda. ** She is very good-natured ; but
her talking is ! "

" She is an admirable heavy dragoon — mari'
quCf^ said the Due. " Most good-natured, as
you say, but trying to the tympanum and the
taste. So Clairvaux left last night ? "

** Yes : Cheviot was taken ill."

" I should have thought it was a racer taken
ill by the consternation he seemed to be in. I
saw him for a moment only."

She was silent, watching the whirling of
the pierrots, harlequins, scaramouches and domi-
noes, who were shrieking and yelling in the
throng below.

" I think he liked his shooting with Paolo ?"
said the Due, at a hazard.

" He likes shooting an}^here."

** Certainly there is something wrong," thought
the Due, stooping a little to look at her brocaded
white lilies. " What an exquisite toilette ! — is
one permitted to say so ? "

" Oh dear, no ! " said the Lady Hilda petu-
lantly. ** The incessant talk about dress is so
tiresome and so vulgar; the women who want

316

IN A WINTER CITY.

their costumes praised are women who have only
just begun to dress tolerably, and are still not
quite sure of the cifects ! "

** You are right, as always," said the Due,
with a little bow and a little smile. ** But
now and then perfection surprises us into in-
voluntary indiscretion. You nuist not be too
severe."

" Somebody should be severe," she said, con-
temptuously. " Society is a Battle of the Frogs,
for rivality in dress and debt."

The Due laughed.

** What do you know about it, Madame 9
You who are as above rivals as above debts ?
By the way, you told me you wanted some old
Pesaro vases. I found some yesterday at Bian-
gini's shop that might please you; they come
out ui riv old pharmacy in Verona; perhaps the
very pharmacy of Romeo's apothecary ; and there
are some fine old pots too "

" I am tired of buying things."

" The weariness of empire ! — nothing new.
You must take to keeping hens and chickens, as
the Emperor John Vatices did. How does

IN A WINTER CITY.

317

Camille Oclissot succeed with your ball-room
frescoes ? "

" T have no idea. Veiy ill, I dare say."
"Yes, it is a curious thing that we do not
succeed in fresco. The gi'acc is gone out of it ;
modern painters have not the lightness of touch
necessary ; they are used to masses of colour, and
they use the palette knife as a mason the trowel.
The art too, like the literature of our time,
is all detail ; the grand suggestive vagueness of
the Greek drama and of the Umbrian frescoes
are lost to us under a crowd of elaborated trivia-
lities ; perhaps it is because art has ceased to be
spiritual or tragic, and is merely domestic or melo-
dramatic ; the Greeks knew neither domesticity
nor melodrama, and the early Italian painters
were imbued with a faith which, if not so virile
as the worship of the Phidian Zeus, yet absorbed
them and elevated them in a degree impossible
in the tawdry Sadduceeism of our own day. By
the way, when the weather is inilder you must
go to Orvieto ; you have never been there, I
think ; it is the Prosodion of Signorclli. What a
fine Pagan he was at heart ! He admii'od masculiiie

318

IN A WINTER CITY.

beauty like a Greek ; he must have been a sin-
gularly happy man — -few more happy —

The Due paused as the handle of the door
turned ; he was only talking because he saw that
she was too weary or too languid to talk herself;
the door opened, and Delia Rocca entered the
box again, having escaped from the Arch-
duchess.

" We were speaking of Orvieto ; you know
more of it than I do. I was telling Miladi that
she must go there about Easter time," said the
Due, hunting for his crush hat beneath the
chair. " Take my seat, mon cher, for a mo-
ment ; I see Salvareo in the crowd, and I must
speak to him about her imperialissima's supper.
I shall be back in an instant."

lie departed, with no intention of returning,
and was assailed in the corridor by a party of
masks, who bore him off gaily between them
down the staii'case into the laughing, screaming,
and capering multitude.

Delia Rocca did not take his chau*, but sank
into the seat behind her, while his hand closed
on hers.

IN A WINTER CITY.

319

"Will you not even look at me?" he mur-
mured.

She drew her hand away, and put her mask
on, slipping its elastic roimd her delicate
ears.

" How the crowd yells ! " she said, impa-
tiently. ** Will the Ai'chduchess stay there long,
do you think ? "

With gentlest audacity and softest skill he had
slipped off the mask and had laid it behind him
before she had reahsed what he was doing ; his
hand had touched her as lightly as though a feather
brushed a rose.

She rose in amazed anger, and turned on him
coldly.

** M. Delia Ilocca ! how dare you presume so
far ? Give me my mask at once — "

" No," he said, softly ; and he took hold of
her hands and drew her towards the back of the
box where no eyes could reach them, and knelt
down before her as she sat there in the dusky
shadow of the dark red draperies.

** Oh, my love — my love ! " he murmured ;
Uiat was all; but his arms litole about her, and

320

IN A WINTER CITY.

his head drooped till his forehead rested on her
knees.

For the moment she did not repulse him
she did not stir nor speak ; she yielded herself
to the embrace, mute and very pale, and moved
to a strange tumult of emotion, whether of
anger or of gladness she barely knew.

He lifted his head, and his eyes 1 *>ked into
hers till her own could look no longer.

** You love me ? " he whispered to her, whilst
his arms still held her imprisoned.

She was silent; under the purple knot of
velvet at her breast, he saw her heart heave, her
breath come and go ; a hot colour flushed over
all her face, then faded, and left her again pale
as her white brocade.

" It were of no use if — if I did," she mut%- ' ' ^
" You forget yourself; — leave me."

But he knelt there, looking at her till the
look seemed to burn her like flame ; yet she did
not rise :— she, the very hem of whose garment
no man before him had ever dared to toucl-.

"You love me!" he murmured, and sajd the
same thing again and again and again, in all

JN A WINTER CITY.

321

the various eloquence of passion. She trembled
a little under his close cai'ess ; the dusky red of
the box whirled around her; the shouting of
the multitude below beat li'ce the sound of a
distant sea on her ears.

As he kneeled at her feet she touched his
forehead one moment with her hand in a gesture
of involuntary tenderness.

" It is of no use," she said, faintly again.
** You do not understand — ^you do not know."

" Yes : I do know,'* he answered her.

"You know!"

" Yes : your brother told me."

" And yet ?-

** Since we love one another, is not that
enough ? "

She breathed like a person suffocated; she
loosened herself from his arms, and drew away
from him, and rose.

** It makes no change in you, then ! " she said,
wonderingly, and looked at hirn through a blind-
ing mist, and felt sick and weary and bewildered,
as she had never thought it possible to feel.

** Change in me? >Yhat change? save that

322

IN A WINTER CITY,

I am freer to seek you — that is all. Oh, my
empress, my angel ! — is not love enough ? Has
your life without love contented you so well that
you fear to face love alone ? "

He still knelt at her feet and kissed her hands
and her dress, as he spoke ; he looked upward at
the pale heauty of her face.

She shivered a little as with cold.

" That is folly," she muttered. " You must
know it is of no use. I could not Hve — poor."

The word stung him : he rose to his feet ; he
was silent. After all, what had he to offer her ?
he loved her — that was all.

She loosened the loose chain ahout her
throat, and looked away heyond him at the
lights of the theatre. With an effort she re-
covered her old indifferent cold manner.

"You have forgotten yourself: it is all folly :
you must know that : you surprised me into —
weakness — for a moment. But it ia over now.
Give me my mask, and take me to the carriage."

"No 1 " He leaned against the door, and

looked down on her: all the rapture of ex-
pectancy and of triumph had faded from his

WINTER CITY.

323

face ; the pallor and suffering of a gi'eat passion
were on it; lie had known that she loved the
things of the world ; but he had believed that
she loved him more.

He was undeceived. He looked at this beau-
tiful woman with the gold chain loosed about her
throat, and the white brocaded lilies gleaming in
tlie gloom, and only by a supreme effort did he
subdue the bitterness and brutality which lie
underneath all strong passions.

** One moment ! " he said, as she moved to
reach the door. " Can you say you have no
love for me ? "

Her colour varied.

" What is the use ? Give me my mask.*'

" Can you say you do not love me ? '*

She hesitated; she wished to lie and could
not.

" I did not say that,'* she murmured. " Per-
haps if things were different But, as it is —

it is no use."

The half-confession sufficed, it loosened his
lips to passionate appeal ; with all the eloquence
natural to him and to his language, he pom^ed

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321

IN A WINTER CITY.

out on her all the supplication, all the entreaty,
all the persuasion, that he was master of; he
lavished e' ery amorous endearment that his lan-
guage held; he painted the joys of great and
mutual passion with a fervour and a force that
shook her like a whirlwind ; he upbraided her
with her caprices, with her coldness, with her
gelfishness, till the words cut her like sharp
stripes : he besought her by the love with which
he loved her till the voluptuous sweetness of it
stole over all her senses, and held her silent
and enthralled.

He knelt at her feet, and held her hands in his.

**Does your life content you?" he said at the
last. ** Can greatness of any sort content a woman
without love ? Can any eminence, or power, or
possession make her happiness without love?
Say that I am poor; that coming to me j^ou
would come to what in your sight were poverty ;
is wealth so great a thing measured against the
measureless strength of passion ? Are not the
real joys of our lives things unpurchaseable?
Oh, my love, my love ! If you had no preference
for me I were the vainest fool to urge you ; but.

IN A WINTER CITY.

325

as it is — does the world that tires you, tlie
society that wearies you, the men and women
who fatigue you — the adulation that nauseates
you — the expenditure that after all is but a vul-
garity in your sight — the acquisition that has
lost its charm for you with long habit, like the
toys of a child ; are all those things so supreme
with you that you can send me from you for
their sake? Is not one hour of mutual love
worth all the world can give ? "

His arms held her close, he drew her down
to liim nearer and nearer till his head rested on
her breast, and he felt the tumultuous throbbing
of her heart. For one moment of scarce con-
scious weakness she did not resist or repulse
him, but surrendered herself to the spell of his
power. He moved her as no mortal creature
had ever had strength to do ; a whole world
unknown opened to her with his touch and his
gaze ; she loved him. For one moment she
forgot all else.

But all the while, even in the temporary
oblivion to which she had yielded, she never
dreamed of granting what he prayed.

326

IN A WINTER CITY,

The :^erenity and pride in her were shaken to
their roots ; she was humbled in her own sight ;
she was ashamed of the momentary delirium to
which she had abandoned herself ; she strove in
vain to regain composure and indifference : come
what would, he was near to her as no other
man had ever been.

She drew her domino about her with a shudder,
though the blood coursed like fever in her veins.

" You must hate me — or forget me," she mur-
mured, as she tried to take her mask from his
hand. " You knotv it is no use. I could not live —
poor. Perhaps you are right ; all those things are
habiis, follies, egotisms — oh, perhaps. But such
as they are — such as I am — I could never live
without them."

He stood erect, and his face grew cold.

** That is your last word, Madame ? "

** Yes. What else should I say ? No other — "
her voice faltered a moment and grew very weak..
** No other man will ever be anything to me, if
that content you. But more — is impossible."

He bowed low in silence, and gave her up her
mask.

TTWWBTS^

IN A WINTER CITY.

927

She felt afraid to look up at Lis face.

The door opened on them noisily^ tho Arch-
duchess and Madame Mila were returning to re-
fresh themselves with their supper ere descending
again to fiesh diversions. Behind them came
the Due de St. Louis and all the men of their
party, and their servants with the tressels for the
setting of the table in their box.

They were fuller than ever of laughter, mirth,
high spirits, and riotous good humour ; their white
teeth shone under the lace of their loups, and
their eyes sparkled through the slits. They had
frightened some people, and teased more, and
had been mistaken for two low actresses and
jested with accordingly, and were as much flat-
tered as the acti'esses would have been had they
been taken for princesses.

The Lady Hilda prayed of the Archduchess's
goodness to be excused from awaiting the supper;
slie had been ill all day, and her headache was
very severe.

The Archduchess was in too high sphits to
listen very much, or to care who went or who
stayed.

QiH

328

IN A WINTER CITY.

** Take me to the carriage, Due," said Lady
Hilda, putting her hand on the arm of M. de St.
Louis.

Delia Rocca held the door open for her. He
bowed very low, one more, as she passed him.

L*. r

CHArTER XL

•^''i:'

The next clay was Ash Wednesday.

Madame Mila awoke too late for mass, and
with a feverish throbbing in her temples. She
and the Archduchess had only left the Veglione
as the morning sun came up bright and tranquil
over tlie shining waters of the river from behind
the eastern Iiills.

Madame IMihi yawned and yawned again a
score of times, drank a little green tea to waken
herself, thought how horrid Lent was, and ran
over in her mind how much she would confess
at confession.

She detennined to repent her sins very peni-
tently. She would only go to musical parties,

■" i-f-t "I?

■ii
II'.

'ih

\ 111

330

IN A WINTER CITY.

fihe would wetir no low bodices, she would eat fish
twice a-week — the red mullets were really very
nice — and she would go for all holy week en
retraite: if she did all that, the most severe
monitor could not require her to give up
Maurice.

Poor Maurice ! she smiled to herself, in the
middle of a yawn; how devoted he was! — he
only lived on her breath, and if she dismissed
him would kill himself with absinthe. She
really believed it. She did nc ^eam that
Maurice, submissive slave though he was, had
his consolations for slavery, and was at that
moment looking into the eyes of the prettiest
artist's model in Floralia.

It was the Day of Ashes, as all the bells of the
city had tolled out far and wide ; and Madame
Mila, over her green tea, really felt penitent.
For the post had brought her three terribly
thick letters, and the letters were bills ; and the
sum total that was wanted immediately was some
sixty thousand francs, and how could a poor
dear little woman who had spent all her money
send that or a tenth of it : and Spiridion

IN A WINTER CITY.

331

wouldn't— he had too many bills of Blanche
Souris' to pay ; and poor Maurice couldn't — ho
invariably lost at play much more than he pos-
sessed, after the manner of his generation.

Madame Mila really cried about it, and felt
ready to promise any amount of repentance if she
could get those sixty thousand francs this Lent.

'* And to think of me running myself off my
feet in that muslin apron collecting for the poor !"
she thougl , with a sense that heaven behaved
very ill to her in return for her charities. *' I
suppose I must ask Hilda," she reflected ; " she
always does give when you ask her — if that man
don't prevent her now.'

For the champagne and the mask and the great
joyousness of her soul had prevented Madame
Mila from observing any difference between her
cousin and Delia Rocca, and as he had left the
box immediately after her cousin, she had sup-
posed that they had gone away together — why
shouldn't they ?

** I must ask Hilda to lend it me," she said
to herself.

To say lend was agreeable to her feelings, not

M '{}

'•i

IP ill
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332

IN A WINTER CITY.

of course that there wes any serious necessity to
repay between such near relatives ; and she sent
her maid across the comdor to enquire when she
could come into her cousin's room.

The maid returned with a little unsealed note
which the Lady Hilda had desired should be
given to Madame Mila when she should awake.
The note only said : " I am gone to Rome for
some few weeks, dear; write to me at the lies
Britanniqaes if you want anything.*'

" Good gracious, what can have happened ! "
said Madame Mila, in utter amaze. " They must
have quarrelled last night." And she proceeded
to cross-Hxamine all the hotel people.

L?idy Hilda had left by the morning train,
and had not taken her carriage horses with
her, only the riding horses, and had kept on
her rooms at the Murat : that was all they
knew.

** She is very uncertain and uncomfortable to
have to do with," thought Madame Mila, in vague
irritation. " Anybody else would have asked me
t» go with her."

A sudden idea occurred to her, and she sent

1^1

IN A WINTER CITY.

333

her maid to find out if the Diica della Rooca
were in Floralia.

At his palace they said that he was.

" Dear me, perhaps he'll go after her," thought
Madame Mila. "But I don't know why she's
so secret ahout it, and takes such precautions.
Nohody'd cut her for anything she might do
so long as she's all that money ; and so long as
she don't marry she can't lose it."

Madame Mila did not understand it at all. Her
experience in the world assured her that her
cousin might have Della Rocca, or anybody else,
constantly beside her whenever she liked, and no-
body would say anything — so long as she had all
that money.

She felt that she was badly treated, that there
was something not confided to her, and also she
certainly ought to have been asked to go to Rome
at her cousin's expense. She was sulky and
irritated.

" Hilda i«? so queer and so selfish," she said to
herself, and began a letter to tlie lies Britanni-
ques ; with many tender endearments and much
pathos, and the most gracefully-worded appeal

iii

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If If

V T

! SlI

ii-'s

334

IN A WINTER CITY.

possible for the loan of the sixty thousand
francs.

She would have gone to Rome herself, being
well aware that written demands are much more
easily repulsed than spoken ones. But she had
no money at all. She had lost a quarter's in-
come at play since she had been in the town, and
she could net pay the hotel people till her hus-
band should send her more money, and he
was hunting bears on the Pic du Midi, with
Blanche Souris established at Pau, and when
that creature was with him he was always very
tardy in answering letters for money, bears or no
bears, and of course he would make the bears his
excuse now.

Fairly overwhelmed, poor little Madame Mila
had a long fit of hysterics, and her maids had to
send in great haste for ether and the Vicomte
Maurice.

She rallied by dinner time enough to eat
two dozen oysters, some lobster croquettes, an
omelette aux fines herhes, and some prawn
soup, with a nice little bottle of Veuve. Clicquot's
sweetest wine, the most maigre repast in tho

IN A WINTER CITY.

335

world, and one that must have satisfied even
S. Francis had he been there ; bat still things
were very dreadful, and on the whole she was in
tlie proper frame of mind for the Day of Ashes,
and in the confessional next morning sobbed
80 much that her confessor was really touched,
and was not too severe with her about her
Maurices, past, present, or to come.

9mm

CHAPTER XII.
— ^ —

In three weeks' time Lady Hilda returned from
Rome.

She had been affectionately received by the
Holy Father ; she had been the idol of the nobles
of the Black ; she had bought a quantity of
pictures, and marbles, and bronzes, and Castel-
lani jewellery ; she had gone to early mass every
day, and ridden hard every day ; she had thought
Totila would have been more bearable than
Signor Rosa, and she had shuddered at the
ruined flora of the Colosseum and the scrapings
and bedaubings of the Palace of the Ceesars.

She returned contemptuous, disgusted, tired
of the age she lived in, and regretful that she

m A WINTER CITY.

337

had not spai*ed herself the sight of so much
desecration. She conceived that Genseric or
the Constable de Bourbon must have been much
less painful than a syndicate and an army of
bricklayers. She refused to go out anywhere on the
score of its being Lent, and she meditated going
to London for the season to that very big house
in Eaton Square, which she honoured for about
three months in as many years. She hated
London, and its society was a mob, and its
atmosphere was thickened soda-water, and no
other place had such horrible endless dinner
parties. Still she was going; — when? — oh, to'
morrow or next week.

But to-morrow became yesterday, and next
week became last week, and her black and white
liveries were still auing themselves on the steps
of the Murat, and her black horses still were
trotting to and fro the stones of Floralia,
bearing little Madame Mila hither and
thither.

Their own mistress stirred out but little ; it
was damp weather, and she coughed, and she
shut herself ui3 with millions of hyacinths and

•-V!<UM9Vif^

338

IN A WINTER CITY.

narcissi, and painted a St. Ursula on wood for
her chapel in Paris. *

She painted well, but the St. Ursula pro*
gressed but slowly.

When she was alone she would let her palette
fall to her side and sit thinking ; and the bells
would ring across the waters till she hated them.

What was the use of painting a St. Ursula ?
St. Ursula did not want to be painted ; and all
art was nothing but repetition : nobody had
found out anything in colour realty, since
Giotto, though to be sure he could not paint
transparencies or reflections. And she would
leave her St. Ursula impatiently, and read
Cavalcaselle and Zugler and Winckelmann and
Eumohr and Passavant, and when she did go
out would go to some little remote, unvisited
chapel and sii for hours before some dim dis-
puted fresco.

She would be in London next weeic, in its blaze
of gas, jewels, luxury, and political discussion;
she said that she liked these calm, dusky, silent
places, alone with S. Louis and S. Giles and
S.Jerome.

IN A WINTER CITY.

339

Madame Mila puzzled over her conduct in
vain. She did not dare to ask anything, be-
cause there were those sixty thousand francs, and
her cousin had helped her about them, and you
cannot say very intrusive or impertinent things
to a person who is lending you money ; but it
was very odd, thought Madame Mila incessantly,
because she evidently was unhappy about the
man, and wanted him, and yet must have sent
him away. Of course she couldn't have mar-
ried him ; but still there were ways of managing
everything; and in Hilda's position she really
could do as she liked, and nobody ever would
even have said a word.

Of course she would not have married him ;
that Madame Mila knew ; but Society would have
made no objection to his being about her always
like her courier and her pug and the rest of her
following; and if Society doesn't object to a
thing, why on earth should you not do it ?

II ne faut pas etre plus royahste que le roi :
there cannot be the slightest necessity to be more
scrupulous than the people that are round
you; indeed, to attempt to be more so is to

z a

340

IN A WINTER CITY.

he disagreeable and tacitly impertinent to
others.

There is a certain latitude, which taken, makes
)^ou look much more amiable. Madame Mila was
kissed on both cheeks really with sincerity by
many ladies in many cities, merely because lier
nice management of her Maurice made their
Maurices easier for them, and their pleasant con-
sciousness of her frailty was the one touch which
made them all akin. Polyandry made easy is a
great charm in Society — there is no horrid scan-
dal for any one, and no fuss at all : Monsieur is
content and Madame enjoys herself, everybody
goes everywhere, and everything is as it should
be.

" If that old man had lived, Hilda would have
been glad to be like everyone else," Madame Mila
thought, with much impatience. " Of course,
because she is quite free, she don't care a bit to
use her freedom."

Madame Mila herself felt that although her
passion for Maurice was the filty-sixth passion of
ner soul, and the most ardent of all her existence,
that even Maurice himself would have lost some

IN A WINTER CITY.

341

of his attraction if he had lost the pleasant
savour of incorrectness that attached to him, and
if she had not had to take all those precautions
about his going to another hotel, &c., &c., which
enabled her to hold her place in coui*ts and em-
bassies, and made her friends all able to say witli
clear consciences, "Nothing in it, oh dear! no-
thing in it whatever ! " Not that she cared about
anyone believing that there was nothing in it;
she did not even wish anybody to believe it;
she only wanted it said — that was all ; because,
whilst it can be said, a woman ** goes every-
where " still, and though Heloise or Francesca
may be willing to ** lose the world for love," the
Femme Galante has no notion of doing anything
of the sort.

*' She must have refused him ? " the Due de
St. Louis said to her more than once, harassed
by chagrin at the failure of his project, and by
a curiosity which his good breeding for-

, the fountain

itisfy

head.

** Oh, I daresay she did," said Madame Mila.
** Of course she did. But if she care for him,

I'M

342

IN A WINTER CITY.

why should she send him away? — il y a des
moyens pour tout. They are brotiilles somehow,
that is certain. Oh, yes — certain ! He was here
when Hilda came back, and we passed him one
day in the street, and he took off his hat and
bowed, and looked very cold and pale and went
onwards; and he has never called once. Now
you ki^ow he is gone to the Marshes, and after
that they say he is going into Sicily to see after
that brigand Pibro. It is not like an Italian
to be so soon repulsed."

" It is very like an Italian to be too proud to
ask twice," said the Due, and added with a little
smile, ** He never said anything to me. Only
once lately he said that he was sure that Miladi
would be a very different creature if she had home
interests and children ! "

** Good gracious ! " said Madame Mila, '* she
was quite right to have nothing to do with him
if he have that kind of ideas. How little he
knows her too ! Hilda is quite unnatural about
children ; quite horrid ; she never speaks to
them; and when she saw my dear httle Lili
dressed as Madame TArchiduc for the babies'

IN A WINTER CITY.

343

;fi

fancy ball at the Elysee, what do you think
she said ? — slio told me that I polluted the
child's brain before it could distinguish right
from wrong, and that a mixture of Judic and
Fashion at five years old was disgusting ; and
Lili looked lovely ! — she was so prettily rouged,
and Maurice had given her a necklace of pink
pearls. But Hilda has no human feeling at all.'*

"Delia Rocca did not think so," said the
Due.

" Delia Rocca was in love," said Madame
Mila, scornfully, " with the beaux yeaux de sa
cassette too ; — as well. They may only have
quarrelled, you know. Hilda is very disagree-
able and difficult. By the wa}', Deutschland
went after her to Rome, and proposed to her
again."

" Indeed ! and she refused him again ?"

" Oh, yes. She refuses them all. I did fancy
she was touched by Delia Rocca, but you see it
came to nothing; she is as cold as a ciystal.
She likes to know that heaps of men are
wretched about her, and she likes to study those
dingy old paintings, and that is all she does

844

IN A WINTER CITY.

like, or ever will like. She will be very un-
happy as she grows older, and I dare say she
will be quite capable of leaving all her money
away from her family to build a cathedral, or
found a School of Aii;."

And Madame Mila, impatient, nodded to the
Due, and dashed away in the victoria behind
the white and black li/eries. She was managing
to enjoy her Lent after all : her mind being at
rest about those sixty thousand francs, there was
no occasion to be so very rigid ; low bodices
she did not wear, because she was a woman of
her word; but then she had half a hundred
divine confections, cut square, or adorned with
ruffs, or open en cceur with loveliest luce and
big bouquets of roses, to make that form of
renunciation simpler ; there was plenty going
on, and little " sauteries," which nobody could
call balls, and pleasant gatherings, quite harm-
less, because only summoned for "music," and
altogether, what with the oasis of mi-Careme,
and the prolongation of the Carnival in Russian
houses, life was very endurable ; and there were
Neapolitan oysters to fast upon comfortably.

IN A WINTER CITY.

345

Heaven tempers the wind to the shorn lamh,
and it would be hard if Society did not soften
penitence to the Femme Galante.

The Lady Hilda did keep her Lent, and kept
it strictly, and was never seen at the *' sauteries,"
and rarely at the musical parties. But then
everyone knew that she was devote (when she
was not slightly Voltairean), and it could not be
expected that a woman going to reign in the
vast world of London would put herself out to
be amiable in Floralia. Yet, had they only
known it, she loved Floralia in her own heart
as she had never loved any other place upon
earth. The beautiful small city set along its
shining waters, with all the grace of its classic
descent, its repose of contemplative art, its
sanctity of imperishable greatness, had a hold
upon her that no other spot under the sun
could ever gain. If she thought others unworthy
of it, she thought herself no less unworthy.
It seemed to her that to be worthy to dwell in
it, one needed to be wise and pure and half
divine, even as St. Ursula herself.

And all the pride in her was shaken to the

If-

I* .^ -

(if

34G

IN A WINTER CITY.

roots: she was full of a restless, di: satisfied
humility; there were times when she hated herself,
and was weary of herself to utter impatience.
She shut herself up with her art studies and the
old frescoes, because they pained her less than
any other thing. She was passionately un-
happy : though to other people she only seemed
a trifle more cynical and more contemptuous
than before, no more.

The easy morality with which her cousin
would have solved all difficulty, was not possible
to her. She would not have cheated the old
dead man from whom her riches came, by
evading him in the spirit of his will whilst
adhering to the letter. Unless she gave up her
riches, her lover could be nothing to her : and
the thought of giving them up never even occurred
to her as possible. She did not know it, because
she was so very tired of so many things ; but the
great world she had always lived in was very
necessary to her, and had absolute dominion
over her ; it became tiresome, as the trammels
of empire do to a monarch ; but to lay down her
sceptre would have been an abdication, and an

IN A WINTER CITY,

847

abnegation, impossible to ber. And she despised
herself because they were impossible ; despised
herself because to his generosity she had only
responded with what at best was but a v^iT.^*ir
egotism ; despised herself because she ha» . bt t.a
so weak that she had permitted his famiiiiL.iiies
and his caresses unrebuked ; despised herself
for everything with that self scorn of a proud
woman, which is far more intense and bitter
than any scorn that she has ever dealt out upon
others.

She had lived all her life on a height of un-
conscious, but no less absorbing, self-admi-
ration. She had looked down on all the aims
and objects and attainments and possessions of
all other persons with a bland and superb
vanity ; she liad been accustomed to regard
herself as perfect, as others all united to tell
her that she was ; and her immunity from mean
frailties and puerile emotions had given her a
belief that she was lifted high above the
passions and the follies of humankind; now,
all of a sudden, she had dropped to the lowest
depths of weakness and of selfishness — passion

..•«,-ii^.- .*,.-e-

348

IN A WINTER CITY.

had touched her, yet had left lier without ita
courage.

In those long, lonely, studious days in Lent,
studying her religious art with wandering
thoughts, she grew to hate herself; yet, to resign
her empire for another's sake never even dis-
tantly appeared to her as possible.

One day, in a little private chapel, where there
were some fine dim works in tempera, only to be
seen by earliest morning light, she was startled
by seeing him near her; he was coming from
the sacristy on business of the church ; he looked
at her quickly, and would have passed on with a
silent salutation, but she approached him on an
impulse which a moment later she regretted.

"Need you avoid me?" she said, hurriedly.
" Surely — I go from here so soon — we might still
bo friends ? People would talk less—

He looked down en her with a cold severity
which chilled her, like the passing of an icy wind.

"Madame," he answered her, with a fleeting
smile, *' your northern lovers, perhaps, may have
been content to accept such a position. I am, I
confess, thankless. I thought you too proud to

IN A WINTER CITY.

349

heed^ what * people said ' ; but if that trouble
you — 1 go myself to Sicily to-morrow."

Then he bowed very low once more, and, with
his salutation to the altar, went on his way
through the dusky shadows of the little chapel
out into the morning sunshine of the street.

Her eyes grew blind with tears, and she sank
down before a wooden bench upon her knees; yet
could not pray there for the bitterness and
tumult of her heart.

She found her master in him.

His passionless unpardoning gaze sank into
her very soul, and seemed like a rutliless light,
that showed her all the wretchedness of pride and
self-love and vainest ostentations, which she had
harboured there and set up as her gods.

She comprehended that she had wronged
him, and that he would not forgive. After
all — knowing what slie knew, she had had
no right to deal with him as she had done.
She had allowed him to bask in the sun of a fool's
paradise; and then had awakened liim rudely, and
had sent him adrift. She had been ungenerous :
she saw it, and hated her own fault with the

350

IN A WINTER CITY,

1 8

repentance of a generous temper. She had
gone through the world with but Httle heed
for the ijain of others ; but his pain smote
her conscience. After all, he had a title to up-
braid her j)assionately ; that he refrained from
doing so made her own self-reproach the keener.
There had been so many moments when with
justice he might have felt certain that she loved
him: and how could he guess the rest? She
knew that she had wronged him; and she was
humbled in her own sight ; she had lost her own
self-respect, and her own motives seemed to her
but poor, and almost base.

No amorous entreaty, no feverish pursuit of
her, had ever moved her so intensely as that
silent condemnation, as that contemptuous re-
jection, of her poor half-hearted oveiture of
peace.

When she left the chapel she loved him as she
had never done before ; yet it never occurred to
her to abandon her riches for his sake. 1'he
habits and the ways of the world were too close
about her ; its artificial needs and imperious
demands were too entirely her second nature ; its

IN A WINTER CITY,

351

admii'ation was too necessary to her, and her
custom of deference to its conventional laws too
much an instinct ; she had been too long accus-
tomed to regard the impulses of the heart as
insane follies, and poverty of life as pain and
madness.

The same evening he did leave the town for
Sicily, where he had lands wliich, though beau-
tiful, were utterly unproductive, and constantly
harried by the system of brigandage, which
paralysed the district. "He will get shot most
likely. He has declared that he will not return
without having captured Pibro," said an Italian
in her hearing, at a musical gathering, dedicated
to the music of Pergolese. Pibro was a notorious
Sicilian robber. The sweet chords sounded very
harsh and jangled in her ears; she left early,
and went home and took a heav}^ dose of chloral,
which only gave her dark and dreary dreams.

*'What miserable creatures we are!" she
thought, wearily. " We cannot even sleep natu-
rally — poor people can sleep ; — they lie on hai'd
benches, and dream with Bin lies on their faces."

id looked out at the moonlistht

■'V

got up

352

IN A WINTER CITY.

on the river, and walked to and fro her chamber ;
a lofty, slender, white figure in the pale gleam
of the lamp-rays.

A passionate, feverish, disordered pain con-
sumed her. It terrified her. Would it be thus
weeks, months, years — all her life ?

"Perhaps it is the chloral tliat unnerves cue,",
she thought ; " I will not take it any more."

** Only fancy, ma cliere," said Madame Mila to
her next morning, with the pretty cat-like cruelty
of the Mila species, **only fancy — that poor dear
Delia llocca is gone to his death in Sicily. So
they say. There is a horrid brigand who has
been hanging some of his farmers there to trees,
and burning their cottages, Delia Rocca's
farmers, you know ; and he is gone to see about
it, and to capture the wretched creature, — as if he
could when all the soldiers and all the police have
failed ! He will be quite certain to be shot ; isn't
it a pity ? He is so handsome, and if he would
marry that little American Spiffler girl with all
her millions he might be very happy. That little
Spiffler is really not unpresentable, and her people
will give the largest dot ever heard of if they can

t9«rrir'irj*nsstaam

IN A WINTER CITT.

363

get one of tlie very old titles; and they will make
no difficulty about religion ; they were Jumpers
or Shakers or something themselves ; he might
send her to the Sacre Coeur for a year or two.**

** If he be gone to be shot, what use would the
Spiffler dot be ? '* said Lady Hilda, with coolest
calm, as on a subject not even of most remote
interest, and she went on glazing a corner of the
draperies of her St. Ursula with carmine.

** The marriage was proposed to him, I know,*'
continued Madame Mila, unheeded. " The
Featherleighs undertook it, but he refused point
blank. *Je ne me vends pas,'' was all he said. It
was very rude, and really that little Spiffler might
be made something of; those very tiny creatiu'es
never look vulgar, and are so easy to dress ; as it
is, I dare say Furstenberg will take her, if Nina
will let him ; it is on the tapis, and Delia Rocca
won't come back alive, I suppose — isn't it a hare-
brained thing to do ? — there are gendarmes to
look after the brigands, but it seems he has some
fancy because they were his own people that suf-
fered — but no doubt he tuld you all about it, as
you and he are such friends."

354

IN A WINTER CITY.

I f

** He merely said he was going to Sicily," said
the Lady Hilda, languidly, still glazing her St.
Ursula.

Madame Mila eyed her curiously.

** You look very pale, dear ; I think you paint
too much, and read too much," she said, affec-
tionately. *'I wish you had tried to persuade
him into this Spiffler affiiir ; it would be just the
marriage for him, and a girl of seventeen may
be drilled into anything, especially when she has
small bones and little colour and good teeth ; if
Furstenberg gets her he will soon train her into
good form — only he will gamble away all her
money, let them tie it up as they may ; and they
car; ^ tie it up very much if they want to make a
high marriage. Good men won't sacrifice them-
selves unless they get some control of the
fortune. They wouldn't have tied it at all with
Delia Eocca. Wouldn't the little Spiffler have
been better for him than Sicily ? "

*' It depends upon taste," said the Lady Hilda,
changing her brushes.

" Very odd taste," said Madame Mila. " They
Bay Pibro alwavs cuts the heads off the men he

■ w.— ql

IN A WINTER CITY,

.356

takes, and sends them into Palermo — the heads
you know — with lemons in their mouths like
boars ; isn't it horrible ? And Delia Rocca intends
going up after the monster in his very fastnesses
upon the mountains ! Fancy that beautiful head

of his ! Really, dear, you do look very ill ;

when will you go to London ? "
** Oh, some time next week."

She went to the window and opened it ; the
room swam round her, the sounds of the streets
grew dull upon her ears.

** I wish you wouldn't go till after the races,"
said Madame Mila, placidly. " I mean to stay.
The place is really very nice, though one does
see the same people too often. Fancy poor
Paolo ending like John the Baptist — the head in
the charger, you know — I wonder you let him go,
for you had a great deal of influence over him,
and say what you like, the Spiffler gu-l would have
been better. How can you keep that window
open, with the tramontana blowing ? — thanks so
much for lending me the horses — goodness ! what
is the matter ? "

Madame Mila paused frightened ; for the first

▲ A 2

366

IN A WINTER CITY,

time in all her life Lady Hilda, leaning against
the strong north wind, had lost her consciousness
and had fainted.

** How very strange people are," thought
Madame Mila, when an hour later her cousin
had recovered herself, and had attributed her
weakness to the chloral at night and the
scent of her oil i)aints. ** If she cared for
him like that, why didn't she keep him when
she had goc liim ? — she might have hung
him to her skirt like her chatelaine ; nobody
would ever have said anything; I do begin
to think that with all her taste, and all her
cleverness, she has, after all, not so very much
savou' feiie."

No one had much savoir faire to Madame
Mila's mind who did not manage always to enjoy
themselves without scruples and also without
scenes.

The house in London was ordered to be kept
ready night and da)% but no one went to occupy
it. M. Camille Odissot, stimulated by dread of
his patroness's daily arrival in Paris, worked
marvels of celerity upon the baUi'oom walls, and

iiBilitfii

IN A WINTER CITY.

357

drew with most exquisite precision bands of
Greek youths and maidens in the linked mazes
of tlie dance, but none went to admire his
efforts and execution. No fashionable news-
papers announced the Lady Hilda's arrival in
either city ; she stayed on and on in Floralia.

" Wlien I know that he is safe out of Sicily I
will go," she said to herself; and let the piles
of letters and invitation cards lie and accumidate
as they would.

She ceased to paint, and left the St. Ursula
unfinished ; he had sketched it out for her on the
panel, and had first tinted it en gi'isaille. She
had not the courage to go on with it ; she changed
her mode of life, and rode or drove all the day
long in the sweet fresh spring weather. When she
was not in the open air she felt suffocated. The
danger which he ran was no mere exaggeration
of her cousin's malicious inventiveness, but was
a fact, true and ghastly enough ; no one heard of
or from him, but his friends said that it was the
most fatal madness that had led him to risk his
life in the fastnesses of the Sicilian thieves.

** It is sheer suicide," they said ai'ound her.

— j>»

308

IN A WINTER CITY.

** What had he to do there ? — if the law cannot
enforce itself, leave it alone iv its impotency.
But he had some idea that because his own
villages were amongst those who suffered most,
it was his place to go there and do what the law
cannot do: — he was always Quixotic, poor
Paolo. The last thing heard of him was that
he had left Palermo with an escort of men whom
he had chosen and paid himself, and had gone
up towards the mountains. His dead hody will
he the first tidings that we have ; the monster
Pibro has spies in all directions, and holds that
district in a perfect reign of terror."

She went out into society as Easter came,
and heard all that they said, and gave no
sign of what she suffered. Worth sent her new
marvels of the spring, and she wore them, and
was endlessly courted and envied, and quoted and
wondered at. She was a little chillier and more
cynical than ever, and women observed with
pleasure that she was looking ill and growing too
thin, which would spoil her beauty. That was
all. But she had never thought such pain
possible in life as she endured now.

br.a.ir. ^.:j.ijiS£i:)MemMia

IN A WINTER CITY.

** If he die it is I who will have killed him,"
she said in her own heart night and day.

Once she found herself in her long lonely rides
near Palestrina, and met the old steward, and
recognised him, and went into the sad, silent,
deserted house; and listened to the old man's
stories of his heloved lord's boyhood and man-
hood, and of the people's clinging feudal attach-
ment to him, and of his devotion to them in the
time of the cholera pestilence.

" There is not an old charcoal burner or a
little goatherd on the estates that would not give
his life for Prince Paolo," the steward said to
her, crying like a child because there was no
news from Sicily.

The same evening she went to a great Pasqua
ball at the Trasimene villa. As they fastened
the diamonds over her hair and in her bosom she
felt to hate the shining, senseless, soulless stones ;
— they were the emblem of the things for which
she had lost him; and at that very hour, for
ought they knew, he might be lying dead on
some solitary shore by the fair blue sea of
Theocritus !

360

IN A WINTER CITY.

With a heart sick with terror and uncertainty
she went to the brilliant crowds of the Trasimene
house ; to the talk that was so fiivolous and
tedious, to the dances she never joined in, to the
homage she was so tired of, to the monotonies
and personalities and trivialities that make up
society,

M. de St. Louis hurried up to her :
** Madame, quelle chance ! — our new Heraklea
has slain his Dragon. Maremma has just had
telegrams from Palermo. Delia Eocca has posi-
tively captured the scoundrel Pibro, and taken him
into the city, much wounded, but alive, and in the
king's gaoi by this time. A fine thing to have
done, is it not ? Of course we shall all praise it,
since it has succeeded; although, in truth, a
madder exploit never was attempted. Paolo
was ten days in the mountains living on a few
beans and berries : he has received no hurt
whatever ; I should think they will give him the
Granct Cordon of the Santissima Annunziata. It
is really a superb thing to have done. TJie mon-
ster has been the terror of that disti'ict for ten
years. Palermo went utterly mad witli joy. It

IN A WINTER CITY.

is quite a pity there is no Ariosto to celebrate
such a feat. It is very Ariosto-like. Indeed, all
the best Italians are so. Englishmen have long
ceased to be in any manner Shakesperian ; but
Italians remain like theii* poets."

The Due wandered away into the subtlest
and most discursive analysis of tlie Ariostian
school and of the national characteristics whicli
it displayed and was nurtured on ; but she had
no ear to hear it.

Outwardly she sat indifferent and calm, but
her brain and her heart were in tumult with the
sweetest, loftiest, grandest pride that she had
ever known — pride without egotism, without
vanity, without a thought of self; tmc pride,
exultant in heroism, not the arrogant pride of
self-culture, of self-worship, of self-love, not the
paltry pride o^ rank and acquisition and phy-
sical perfection, not the pride of which all the
while she had been half contemptuous herself.
And then — his life was safe !

Yet, had he stood before her then she must
have given him the same answer — at least, she
thought so.

362

IN A WINTER CITY.

*' What a fin€ thing to have done ! " said
Madame Mila, pausing by her in the middle of
a waltz, with her brocade train ablaze with gold,
" And now he can come back and marry the
Spiffler girl. What do you say, Due ? "

** He will never marry la petite Spiffler."
salii the Due, " nor any one else," he added,
with a glan :e of meaning at Lady Hilda.

All eyes turned upon her. She played idly
with her fan— one pamted long ago by Watteau.

"M. della Eocca has succeeded, so it is
heroism," she said, calmly. ** Had he failed, I
suppose it weald have been foolhardiuefc-s."

**0f course," said the Due. "Surely, Ma-
dame, Failure cannot expect to use the same
dictionary as Success ? "

"He must have the Santis">ima Annunziata, and
marry the big Spiffler dot," said Madame Mila.

" Nay, Comtesse,, that were bathos indeed,
to make la petite Spiffler cousinc du roi ! Any-
how, let us rejoice that he is living, and that
the old Latin race is still productive of heroes.
I sujDpose we shall have details the day after

to-morrow.

>»

IN A WINTER CITY,

363

** Whatever could he do it for?" said Madame
Mila, as she whii'led away again in the encirchng
arm of her Maurice : to Madame Mila such
trifles as duty, patriotism, or self-sacrifice could
not possibly be any motive power amongst
rational creatures. ** Whatever could he do it
for? — I suppose to soften Hilda. But he must
know very little about her ; she hates anything
romantic ; you heard she called it foolhard}'.
He never will be anything to her, not if he try
for ten years. She cares about him after her
fashion, but she cai'es much more about her-
self."

Lady Hilda did not sleep that night.

She did not even lie down; dry-eyed and
with fever in her veins, she sat by the window
watching the bright pale gold of the morning
widen over the skies, and the sea-green depths
of the river catch the first sun-rays and mirror
them.

She was so proud of him — ah heaven, so
proud ! Tlie courage of her temper answered to
the courage of his action. It was Heraklean —
it was Homeric — that going forth single-handed

3G4

IN A WINTER CITY.

iffi-'i-,_

to do what the law couhl not or woukl not do,
and set free from tyranny of brute force those
poor tillers of the soil who could not help
themselves. The very folly and madness of that
utter disregard of peril moved her to reverence ;
she who had all her life been environed with
the cool, calm, cautious, and circumspect cus-
toms of the world.

For one moment it seemed to her possible to
renounce everything for his sake. For one mo-
ment her own passion for the mere gauds and
pomps and possessions of the world looked to
her beside the simplicity und self-sacrifice of his
own lite so poor and mean that she shrank from
it in disgust. For one moment she said to
herself — " Love was enough."

He had been ready to give up his life for
a few poor labourers, who had no other claim
on him than that they lived upon the seU
he owned ; and she who loved him had not
the courage to renounce mere worldly riches
for his soke. She hated herself, and yet she
could not change herself. B' r ■■^n^. for power,
for supremacy, for indulgcn':^. f>r 'iytr; raganee ;

-m:

IN A WINTER CITY.

365

she dreaded to hear the tittering mockery
of the women siie had eclipsed so long at
all her present weakness ; it was all so i)Oor,
so base, so miworthy, yet it enchained her :
the world had been her religion ; no one casts
off a creed long held without hard and cruel
strife.

*' Oh, my love, how far beneath you I am ! '*
she thought, she whose pride had been a bye-
word, and whose superb vanity had been an
invulnerable aniiour.

She could have kneeled down and kissed his
hands for very liumihty ; yet she could not re-
solve to yield.

**I might see him once more, before I go,"
she thought, and so coward-like she put the
hour of decisi'm from her. They must part, but
she might see him once more hrst.

She would go away of course, and her life ui
the Winter City would be with the things of the
past, and she would grow used to the pain of dead
passion, and feel it less with time — other women
did, and why not she ?

So she uaid to herself; and yet at moments a sort

if' :'

•i .I'

lit

•III
ill

a06

IN J WINTER CITY,

II i

of despair appalled her : rliat would her future
be ? Only one long empty void, in whose hollow-
ness the *' pleasures " of the world would rattle
like dead bones. She began to understand that
for a gi'eat love there is no death possible. It is
like Ahasuerus the Jew : it must live on in tor-
ment for ever.

And how she had smiled at all these things
when others had spoken of them !

The days passed slowly one by one ; the
beautiful city was in its bpring glory, and ran
over witii the blossoms of flowers, as though it
were the basket that Persephone let fall. The
news-sheets were full of this deed wliich he had
done in Sicily; she bought them all, down to the
tawdriest little sheet ihi\t held his /mme,p'id read
the well known story again <*//'! flgain a hu/idred
and ten hundred limes j his friends expected him
to arrive in t)jie town each day, but no one heard
anything direct from iiimself.

** It is strange he writes to none of us,'* said
Maremma ; '* can anything have happened ? "

** Oh, no ; the papers would know it," said the
Due de St. Louis.

IN A WINTER CITY.

3G7

She overheard them, and listened with dry lips
and a beating heart.

Why did he write to no one ? The news-sheets
had announced that he had left Palermo fur
Floralia.

** He may be coming back by the marshes,"
someone else suggested ; "he is reclaiming land
there."

Perhaps he stayed away, she thought, because
he had heard that she still remained in his native
city.

It was mid -April. Madame Mila was organ-
ising picnics under old Etruscan walls, and air
//esco dinners in villa gardens, and she and her
kind were driving out on the tops of drags, and
playing baccarat upon anemone- studded lawns
by moonlight, and driving in again, at or after
midnight, singing Offenbach choruses, and going
to tlie big Cafe in the town for supper and
champagnes ; be it in winter or summer, spring
or autumn, town or country, youth or middle- age,
Madame Mila and her kind, contrive to make no
difference in their manner of life whatever ; they
would sing Schneider's songs in the Tombs of the

368

IN A WINTER CITY.

Prophets, they would eat lobster salad on Mount
Olivet, and they would scatter their cigar ash
over Vaucluse, Marathon, the Campo Santo, or the
grave at Ravenna with equal indifference ; they
are always amused, and defy alike the seasons and
the sanctities to stop them in their amusement.

It was mid-April, and with the beginning of
May would come the races, and with the races
the Winter City would become the Summer City,
and the winter-fashion always fled with one bound
to fresh fields and pastures new, and left the town
to silence, sunshine, roses, fruits, its own populace
with their summer songs and summer skies, and
perhaps here and there an artist or a poet, or
some such foolish person, who loved it best so in
its solitude.

*'Do come with us, Hilda," said Madame
Mila one mid-April morning.

Madame Mila was attired in the simplest
morning costume of cream-hued Sicilienne
covered with ecru lace, and she had a simple
country Dorothy hat of cream-coloured velvet,
lined hleu-dc-ciel, with wreaths of delicate
nemophilte and convolvuli and floating feathers,

IN A WINTER CITY.

3G9

set on one side of her head ; Lancret might have
painted her on a fan, or Fragonard on a cabinet ;
she was just going to drive out with five carriages
full of her friends to a picnic at Guide Salvareo's
villa; they were to dine there, play lansquenet
there, and come back in the small hours;
they had all postillions, silk-jackettcd, powdei'cd,
and with ribboned straw hats ; the horses were
belled, and the bells were jingling in the street ;
Madame Mila was in the most radiant spirits ;
she had won five hundred napoleons the night
before, and had them all to adventure over again
to-night.

"Do come with us, Hilda," she urged. "You
do nothing but go those stupid long drives by
yourself ; it is very bad for you ; and it will be
charming to-day ; Salvareo has such taste ; it is
really quite romantic to sit upon those anemones,
and have the goats come and stare at you ; and
he always does things so well, and his cook is so
good. Do curae with us ; I am sure it would do
you good."

Lady ITihla looked up from the S. Uisuk,
which she was finishing ;

;]|

370

IN A WINTER CITY.

l! '»

** My dear Mila ! — you know perfectly well how
I detest that kmd of thing. Teresa's songs,
drag seats, and eager eflforts to imitate the worst
kind of women !— go to it, if it amuse you ; but,
with all gratitude, allow me to decline."

** How disagreeable you are ! " said Madame
Mila, pettishly. " One must do something with
oneself all these long days : if it were Palestrina,
I suppose you would go.*'

Lady Hilda deigned to give no reply. She
touched in the gold background of her Saint.
Madame Mila looked at her with iriitation ; no one
likes to be despised, and she knew that her cousin
did very nearly despise her, and all the ways and
means of enjoyment in which her heart delighted.

Lady Hilda, tranquilly painting there, annoyed
h.&€ inexpressibly. AVhy should any woman be
above the box-seats of drags and all their con-
comitant attractions?

She took her revenge.

" Do as you like of course, but you always do
do that," she said carelessly. ** There are tno
seats vacant. St. Louis and Carlo Maremma were
to have gone with us, but they went to Delia

IN A WINTER CITY.

371

Bocca instead. Oh, didn't you know it? — he
reached 1 alestrina two days ago very ill with
marsh fever. It is fever and cholera and ague
and all sorts of dreadful things all together.
Isn't it odd? — to have escaped all that danger
in Sicily, and flien get this in the swamps
coming back ? Nobody know it till late last
night, when his steward got frightened, and
sent in for the physicians. He is very bad, I
believe — not likely to live. You know they go
down under that — sometimes in twenty-four
hours."

Lady Hilda seemed to reach her at a single
step, though the distance of the room was
between them.

** Is that true ? — or is it some jest?"

Madame Mila, appalled, looked up into her face.

** It is true, quite true. Oh, Hilda, take your
hand off; you hurt me. How could I tell you
would care about it like that."

" Is it true ? " muttered her cousin again.

"Indeed, indeed it is," she whimpered
trembling. ** Oh let me go, you spoil my lace.
If you cared for the man like that, why didn't

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372

IN A WINTER CITY.

you keep him when you had got hiir. ? I know
you could not have married him, but nobody
would have said anything."

Lady Hilda put her out into the corridor, and
closed the door and locked it within.

Madame Mila^ frightened, astonished, and out-
raged, went dovv^n to her Maurice, and the drag,
and the ribboned and powdered postillions, and
the horses with their jingling bells and plaited
tails ; the gay calvacade rattled off along the
river-street towards the city gates as the clocks
tolled three.

Lady Hilda and S. Ursula were left alone.

Within less than half-an-hour th3 black horses
were harnessed and bore their mistress towards
Palestrina. Never before moved by impulse,
impulse alone governed her now ; the impulse of
despair and remorse. She cared nothing who
saw her or who kne\/ ; for once she had forgotten
herself.

The long drive seemed eternity ; she thought
the steep winding mountain roads would never
end; when Palestrina came in sight, pale and
stately against its dark background of forest trees.

IN A WINTER CITY.

373

she felt as if her heart woukl break. He had
gone through all those perils afar o^', oidy to luts
dying there !

It was five o'clock by the convent chimes
when they reached the crest of the hill on which
the old place stood. The lovely hillside was
covered with the blue and white of the wild
hjacintho and gold of the wild daffodils. The lofty
stone pines spread their dark green roofs above
her head. Flocks of birds were singing, in the
myrtle thickets, their sweet shrill evensong.
The shining vi^ley lay below like a cloud of
amber light. The surpassing loveliness, the
intense stillness of it all, made the anguish
within her unbearable. What she had missed all

her life long !

There was a chapel not far from the house set
in the midst of the pines, with the cross on its
summit touching the branches, and its doorway
still hung round with the evergreens and flowers
of its passed Easter feasts. There were men and
women and children standing about on the turf
in front of it ; they were most of them crying
bitterly.

374

IN A WINTER CITY,

She stopped her hors( s there, and called a
woman to her, hut her lips would not frame the
question. The woman guessed it : —

" Yes, my beautiful lady," she said, with many
tears. " We have been praying for Prince Paolo.
He is very ill, up yonder. The marsh sickness
has got him. May the dear Mother of God save
him to us. But he is dying, they say—

" We would d^.e in his stead, if the good God
would let us," said one of the men, drawing near :
the others sobbed aloud.

She put out her hand to the man — the slender
proud hand that she had refused to princes.
Wondering, he fell on his knee and would have
kissed her hand. She drew back in horror.

"Do not kneel to me ! I have killed him ! "
she muttered ; and she urged her panting horses
forward to the house.

She bade them tell the Due de St. Louis to
come to her upon the terrace. She leaned there
tearless, white as death, still as marble ; the
beautiful, tranquil spring time all around, and the
valley shining like gold in the light of the des-
cending sun. It seemed to her that ages parsed

IN A WINTER CITY.

375

before the soft step of her old friend sounded near
her: he was surprised and startled, but he did
not show it.

"There is !:itill hope," he hastened to say, eie
she could speak. " Within the last hour he is
slightly better ; they give him quinine constantly.
If the chills and shivering do not return, it is just
possible that he rnay live. But "

His voice faltered in its serenity, and he turned
his head away.

"It is not likely?"

Her own voice had scarcely any sound of its
natural tone left in it, yet long habit was so strong
with her that she spoke calmly.

*' It is not likely. This deadly marsh-poison
is short and fierce. After the fatigue and fasting
in Sicily it has taken fearful hold on him. But
in an hour or two they will know — one way or
the other."

*' I will stay here. Come and tell me — often.
And if — if the worst come — let me see hi in.
Leave me now."

He looked at her, hesitated, then left her ns
she asked. He guessed all that passed in her

SYG

IN A WINTER CITY.

thoughts ; all that had gone before : and he knew
that she was not a woman who would bear pity,
and that she was best left thus in solitude.

Like a caged animal she paced to and fro the
long length of the stone terrace.

She was all alone.

The flower-like radiance of the declining day
shone everywhere around, the birds sang, the
dreamy bells rang in the Ave INIaria from hill to
hill, all was so still, so peaceful, so beautiful ;
yet with the setting of the sun, his life might
go out in darkness.

In her great misery, her soul was purified.
The fire that consumed her burned away the
dross of the world, the alloy of selfishness and
habit and vain passions. ** Oh, God ! give me
his life, and I will give him mine ! " she cried in
her heart all through those teirible hours ; and
yet recoiled in terror from the uselessness and
daring of her prayer. V/'hat had she ever done
that she could merit its fulfilment ?

He might have been hers, all hers; and she
had loved the base things of a worldly great-
ness better than himself. And now he lay

IN A WINTER CITY.

377

dying there, as the sun dropped westward and
night came.

She felt no chill of evening. She felt neither
hunger nor thirst. Crowds of weeping people
hung ahout in the gardens below. She heard
nothing that passed round her, save the few
words of her old friend, when from time to time
he came and told her that there was no change.

The moon rose, and its liglit fell on the stone
of the terrace, and through the vast deserted
chambers opening from it ; on the grey worn
marbles of the statues, and on the pale angels of
the frescoes.

It was ten o'clock : the chimes of the convent
above on the mountains told every hour. Un-
ceasingly she paced to and iro, to and fro, like
some mad, or wounded creature. The silence and
serenity of the night, the balmy fragrance of it,
and the silvery light, were so much mockery of
her wretchedness. She had never thought that

there could be agony like this and yet from

heaven no sign !

Nearly another hour had passed before her
friend approached her again. She caught the

{Is

378

IN A WINTER CITY.

sound of liis step in the darkness; her heart
stood still ; her blood was changed to ice, frozen
with the deadliness of the most deadly fear on
earth; she could only look at him with wide-
opened, strained, blind eyes.

For the first time he smiled : —

** Take comfort," he said, softly. ** He has
fallen asleep, he is less exhausted, they say that
he may live. How cold you are ! — this night will
idll you ! "

She dropped down upon her knees on the
stone pavement, and all her bowed frame was
shakened by convulsive weeping.

He drew aside in reverence and left her alone
in the light of the moon.

When midnight came hope was certain.

The sleep still lasted ; the fever had abated,
the cold chills had not returned.

She called her old friend to her out into the
terrace.

" I will go now. Send to me at daybreak and
keep my secret."

" May I tell him nothing ? "

" Tell him to come to me — when he is able."

IN A WINTER CITY.

371)

'* Nothing more ? "

" No ; nothing. He will know—

" But "

She turned her face to him in the full moon-
light, with the tears of her joy coursing down
her cheeks, and he started at the change in her
that this one night of suffering had wrought.

" No, say nothing more. But — hut — you
shall see what my atonement shall he, and my
thankfulness."

Then she went away from him softly in the
darkness and the fragrance of the April night.
The Due looked after the lights of her carriage
with a mist over his own eyes, but he shrugged
his shoulders with a sigh.

" Who can ever say that he knows a woman !
Who can ever predcit what she will not say,
or wdll not do, or will not be ! " he murmured,
as he turned and went within to watch beside
the bed of his friend, as the stars grew clearer
and the dawn approached.

CHAPTER Xiii.

A MONTH later Paolo della Rocca led his
wife through what had once been his mother's
chambers at Palestrina, and which were now
prepared for her, with all their wide windows
unclosed and looking out to the rose and golden
afternoon glories of the bright south-west.

In the little oratory, which opened out of the
bed-chamber, there was hung an altar picture ; it
was the picture of San Cipriano il Mago.

" Take it as my maniage gift," he murmured
to her. "You threw away your magic wand
and renounced the world for me, — oh, my love,
my love ! God grant j-ou the Saints' reward ! **

IN A WINTER CITY,

S61

She laid her hands upon his heart, and leant
her cheek upon them.

" My reward is here."

" And you will never repent ? "

" Did Cyprian repent when he hroke his
earthly bonds and gained eternal life? Once
I was blind, but now I see. The world is
nothing :— Love is enough ! "

CHAPTEIl XIV.

"C'est etonnant !" mummred the Due de St.
Louis the same evening softly to himself, stand-
ing on the steps of the Hotel Murat, after
assisting in the morning at those various civil
ceremonies and impediments with which our
beloved Italy, in her new character as a nation
of Free Thought, does her best to impede and
deter all such as cling to so old-world and
pedantic a prejudice as marriage.

The denoument of the drama which he
himself had first set in action had fallen upon
him like a thunder-boit. He had had no con-
ception of what would happen. He had thought
to enrich his friend by one of the finest fortunes

IN A WimER CITY.

383

in Europe, and lo ! — the Due renirtinsd in an
amazement and a sense of humiliation liom which
he coiUd not recover.

" C'est etonnant ! " he murmured again and
again. ** Who wouUl ever have heheved that
Miladi was a woman to heggar herself and play
the romance of the * world lost for love ? '
If I had onl}^ imagined — if I had only dreamed !
I v/ill never propose a marriage to any living
heing again ; never."

** You have nothing to he so remorseful ahout,
Due," said Lord Clairvaux, with a sigh, himself
utterly exhausted hy all the law work that he
had heen obliged to go through. *'It is very
funny certainly — she of all women in the w" \1 !
But they are happy enough, and he really is the
only living cieature that ever could manage her.
If anybody had ever told me that any man
would change Hilda like that ! "

" Happy ! " echoed M. de St. Louis, with his
delicate and incredulous smile. He was a man
who had no delusions ; he was perfectly aware
that there were no marriages that were happy ;
some were calm, this was the uttermost, find

^84

IN A WINTER CITY.

to remain calm required an immense income;
money alone was harmony.

Lord Clairvaux lighted a very big cigar, and
grumbled that it had been horrible to have to
leave England in the Epsom month, but that
he thanked goodness that it was the last of
her caprices that he would be worried with ; and
he hoped that this Italian would like them when
he had had a year or two of them.

** I don't know, though, but what it is the only
sensible caprice she ever did have in her life;
eh?" he added; "except buying Escargot and
giving him to me after the races — ^you remem-
ber ?— Hang it, I've never seen such a Chantilly
before or since as that was ! "

*'We never do see such a race as the one
that we happen to win," murmured M. de St.
Louis.

*' Of course it*s an awful cropper to take, and
all that ; but I'm not sure but what she's done
a wise thing, though all the women are howling
at her like mad," continued I^ord Clairvaux;
** a woman can't live for ever on chifoiiSf you

see

IN A WINTER CITY.

S35

'* Most women can — ftdmii'ably. They buy
at eighty as much white hair, the coiffeurs
tell me, as they buy blonde or black at
twent3^"

" Ah, but they can't, if they have a bit of
heart or mind in them. Hilda has both."

" The case is so rare I could not prescribe
for it — let us hope Miladi's own prescription
will suit her," said the Due, whose serene good-
humour was still slightly rujffled.

" Well, she always was all extremes and con-
traries," said Lord Clairvaux. " You never
could say one minute what she wouldn't do the
next. By George ! you know there is nothing
too odd for her to go in for ; T should not
wonder an atom if when we come here two or
three years hence, we find her worshipping a
curly Paolino, seeing to the silkworms, and
studying wine-making : she's really tried ever-
thing else, you know."

"Everything except happiness? Well, very
few of us get any chance of trying that, or
would appreciate it if we did get it. Happi-
ness," pursued the Due pensively, " must, after

386

IN A WINTER CITY.

all, be almost as monotonous as discontent —
when one is used to it. It is comforting to
think so ; for there is very little of it. I cannot
realize Miladi amongst the babies and the •wine-
presses ; but you may be right."

" Well, you know shs's tried everything else,**
repeated Lord Clairvaux. "It will be like
Julius Csesar and his cabbage-garden."

" You mean Diocletian," said the Due. " Do
you leave to-night ? We may as well go as far as
Paris together.*

And he turned back into the hotel to bid
farewell to Madame Mila.

Madame Mila, — who had made the rehgious
and civil ceremonies gorgeous in the last new
anomalous anachronisms, with a classic and cling-
ing dress, quite Greek in its cut, covered all
over with the eyes out of peacocks' feathers,
and a cotte de maille boddice, stiff as paste-
board, with gold and silver embroideries, — was
now on the point of departure from the Winter
City across the Mont Cenis, and was covered up
in the most wonderful of hooded cloaks trimmed
with the feathers of the Russian diver and the

IN A WINTER CITY. 387

grebe ; about one hundred and fifty birds, happy,
peaceful, and innocent under their native skies,
had died to trim the wiap, and it woukl probably
be worn about half-a-dozen times; for feathers
are so ver}' soon tumbled, as everybody knows.

" They are quite mad, both of them ! " said
the little lady, giving her small fingers in adieu,
and turning to see that Maurice had all the
things she wanted, and was duly hooking them
on to her ceinture of oxydised silver.

She travelled with her two maids, a courier,
and a footman, but none of them did as much
hard work as the indefatigable Maurice.

" Perhaps, Madame," said the Due, who in-
deed thought so himself ; but was not going to
admit it too strongly of two pt:fsons who, despite
their lamentable weakness, remained his fa-
vourites. **But if a few people were not mad
occasionally there would be no chance for the
sanity of the world."

" Well, they will repent hon-ibly, that is one
comfort; she most of all," said Madame Mila,
with asperity. " She ought to have been prevented;
treated for lunacy, you know; in France they

388

IN A WINTER CITY.

would have managed it at once with a conseil
de famille. Maurice, you are screwing the
top of that flacon on all wrong — do take more
care ! She will repent horribl}^ but she don't
see it now. Of course if she had had to lose
the jewels they would have brought her to reason.
As it is she don't in the least realise the horrible
thing that she's done ; — not in the least, not in
the least ! And the idea of going to his villa
to-day ! So unusual you know ; — so positively
improper! So utterly contrary to all custom!
"When I said to her, too, that she wouldn't
be able even to afford Worth, she laughed,
and answered, that she would have one dress
from him every year for old friendship's sake
for the Palestrina vintage balls, and that he
would be sure to embroider her the loveliest'
Bacchic symbolisms and put the cone of the
thyrsus for buttons !— only fancy! She could
actually jest about that ! How miserable she
will be in three months when she has come back
to her senses ; and how miserable she will make
him ! "

" Chere comtesse," said the Due, taking up

/iV" A WINTER CITY.

389

his hat and cane, - everybody repents everything.
It is a law of Fate. The only difference is
that some people repent pleasantly, and some
unpleasantly. Let us hope that our beautiful
Duchesse wHl repent pleasantly. Madame, j'ai
rhonneur de vous saluer — Bon voyage; au
re voir."

' < -T- /-» Ul '^

THE END.

BBADBURT, AONEW, & CO., PRINTJM, WHITE^BIAIM