THE SIEGE OF LONDON, 
 
 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES, JR. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "DAISY MILLER," "THE AMERICAN, 1 
 " THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
Copyright, 
 
 1879, BY HOUGHTON, OSGOOD, & Co. J 
 
 BY THE CENTURY COMPANY AND H. JAMES, JB. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 THIRD IMPRESSION 
 
 
 $T 
 r 
 
PS Z M 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE SIEGE OF LONDON . 3 
 
 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS . 139 
 
 THE POINT OF VIEW 223 
 
 (14! 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON, 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THAT solemn piece of upholstery, the curtain of 
 the Comedie Franchise, had fallen upon the first act 
 of the piece, and our two Americans had taken ad 
 vantage of the interval to pass out of the huge, hot 
 theatre, in company with the other occupants of the 
 stalls. But they were among the first to return, and 
 they beguiled the rest of the intermission with look 
 ing at the house, which had lately been cleansed of 
 its historic cobwebs and ornamented with frescos 
 illustrative of the classic drama. In the month of 
 September the audience at the Theatre Fra^ais is 
 comparatively thin, and on this occasion the cfema 
 L Aventuriere of Ernile Augier had no pretensions 
 to novelty. Many of the boxes were empty, others 
 were occupied by persons of provincial or nomadic 
 appearance. The boxes are far from the stage, near 
 which our spectators were placed ; but even at a 
 distance Eupert Waterville was able to appreciate 
 certain details. He was fond of appreciating details, 
 
 Copyright, 1882, by Henry James, Jr. 
 
4 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 and when he went to the theatre he looked about him 
 a good deal, making use of a dainty but remarkably 
 powerful glass. He knew that such a course was 
 wanting in true distinction, and that it was indelicate 
 to level at a lady an instrument which was often only 
 less injurious in effect than a double-barrelled pistol ; 
 but, he was always very curious, and he was sure, in 
 any case, that at that moment, at that antiquated 
 play so he was pleased to qualify the masterpiece 
 of an Academician he would not be observed by 
 any one he knew. Standing up therefore with his 
 back to the stage, he made the circuit of the boxes, 
 while several other persons, near him, performed the 
 same operation with even greater coolness. 
 
 "Not a single pretty woman," he remarked at last 
 to his friend ; an observation which Littlemore, sit 
 ting in his place and staring with a bored expression 
 at the new-looking curtain, received in perfect silence. 
 He rarely indulged in these optical excursions ; he 
 had been a great deal in Paris and had ceased to care 
 about it, or wonder about it, much ; he fancied that 
 the French capital could have no more surprises for 
 him, though it had had a good many in former days. 
 Waterville was still in the stage of surprise ; he sud 
 denly expressed this emotion. " By Jove ! " he ex 
 claimed ; "I beg your pardon I beg her pardon 
 there is, after all, a woman that may be called" he 
 paused a little, inspecting her "a kind of beauty!" 
 
 " What kind ? " Littlemore asked, vaguely. 
 
 " An unusual kind an indescribable kind." Lit- 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 5 
 
 tlemore was not heeding his answer, but he presently 
 heard himself appealed to. " I say, I wish very 
 much you would do me a favor." 
 
 "I did you a favor in coming here," said Little- 
 more. " It s insufferably hot, and the play is like a 
 dinner that has been dressed by the kitchen-maid. 
 The actors are all doullures" 
 
 " It s simply to answer me this : is she respectable, 
 now ? " Waterville rejoined, inattentive to his friend s 
 epigram. 
 
 Littlemore gave a groan, without turning his head. 
 " You are always wanting to know if they are respect 
 able. What on earth can it matter?" 
 
 " I have made such mistakes I have lost all con 
 fidence," said poor Waterville, to whom European 
 civilization had not ceased to be a novelty, and who 
 during the last six months had found himself con 
 fronted with problems long unsuspected. Whenever 
 he encountered a very nice-looking woman, he was 
 sure to discover that she belonged to the class rep 
 resented by the heroine of M. Augier s drama ; and 
 whenever his attention rested upon a person of a 
 florid style of attraction, there was the strongest prob 
 ability that she would turn out to be a countess. 
 The countesses looked so superficial and the others 
 looked so exclusive. Now Littlemore distinguished 
 at a glance ; he never made mistakes. 
 
 " Simply for looking at them, it does n t matter, I 
 suppose," said Waterville, ingenuously, answering his 
 companion s rather cynical inquiry. 
 
6 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " You stare at them all alike," Littlemore went on, 
 still without moving; "except indeed when I tell 
 you that they are not respectable then your atten 
 tion acquires a fixedness ! " 
 
 " If your judgment is against this lady, I promise 
 never to look at her again. I mean the one in the 
 third box from the passage, in white, with the red 
 flowers/ he added, as Littlemore slowly rose and stood 
 beside him. "The young man is leaning forward. 
 It is the young man that makes me doubt of her. 
 Will you have the glass ? " 
 
 Littlemore looked about him without concentra 
 tion. " No, I thank you, my eyes are good enough. 
 The young man s a very good young man/ he added 
 in a moment. 
 
 " Very indeed ; but he s several years younger 
 than she. Wait till she turns her head." 
 
 She turned it very soon she apparently had been 
 speaking to the ouvreuse, at the door of the box and 
 presented her face to the public a fair, well-drawn 
 face, with smiling eyes, smiling lips, ornamented 
 over the brow with delicate rings of black hair and, 
 in each ear, with the sparkle of a diamond sufficiently 
 large to be seen across the Theatre Francois. Little- 
 more looked at her ; then, abruptly, he gave an ex 
 clamation. " Give me the glass ! " 
 
 " Do you know her ? " his companion asked, as he 
 directed the little instrument. 
 
 Littlemore made no answer ; he only looked in si 
 lence ; then he handed back the glass. " No, she s 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 7 
 
 not respectable," he said. And he dropped into his 
 seat again. As Waterville remained standing, he 
 added, " Please sit down ; I think she saw me." 
 
 " Don t you want her to see you ? " asked Water 
 ville the interrogator, taking his seat. 
 
 Littlemore hesitated. " I don t want to spoil her 
 game." By this time the entr acte was at an end; 
 the curtain rose again. 
 
 It had been Waterville s idea that they should go 
 to the theatre. Littlemore, who was always for not 
 doing a thing, had recommended that, the evening 
 being lovely, they should simply sit and smoke at the 
 door of the Grand Cafe, in a decent part of the Bou 
 levard. Nevertheless Eupert Waterville enjoyed the 
 second act even less than he had done the first, which 
 he thought heavy. He began to wonder whether his 
 companion would wish to stay to the end ; a useless 
 line of speculation, for now that he had got to the 
 theatre, Littlemore s objection to doing things would 
 certainly keep him from going. Waterville also 
 wondered what he knew about the lady in the box. 
 Once or twice he glanced at his friend, and then he 
 saw that Littlemore was not following the play. He 
 was thinking of something else ; he was thinking of 
 that woman. When the curtain fell again he sat in 
 his place, making way for his neighbors, as usual, 
 to edge past him, grinding his knees his legs were 
 long with their own protuberances. When the 
 two men were alone in the stalls, Littlemore said : 
 " I think I should like to see her again, after all." 
 
8 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 He spoke as if Waterville might have known all 
 about her. Waterville was conscious of not doing so, 
 but as there was evidently a good deal to know, he 
 felt that he should lose nothing by being a little dis 
 creet. So, for the moment, he asked no questions ; 
 he only said 
 
 " Well, here s the glass." 
 
 Littlemore gave him a glance of good-natured com 
 passion. " I don t mean that I want to stare at her 
 with that beastly thing. I mean to see her as I 
 used to see her." 
 
 " How did you use to see her ? " asked Waterville, 
 bidding farewell to discretion. 
 
 " On the back piazza, at San Diego." And as his 
 interlocutor, in receipt of this information, only stared, 
 he went on " Come out where we can breathe, and 
 I 11 tell you more." 
 
 They made their way to the low and narrow door, 
 more worthy of a rabbit-hutch than of a great theatre, 
 by which you pass from the stalls of the Comedie to 
 the lobby, and as Littlemore went first, his ingenuous 
 friend, behind him, could see that he glanced up at 
 the box in the occupants of which they were inter 
 ested. The more interesting of these had her back to 
 the house ; she was apparently just leaving the box, 
 after her companion ; but as she had not put on her 
 mantle it was evident that they were not quitting 
 the theatre. Littlemore s pursuit of fresh air did not 
 lead him into the street ; he had passed his arm into 
 Waterville s, and when they reached that fine frigid 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 9 
 
 staircase which ascends to the Foyer, he began si 
 lently to mount it. Littlemore was averse to active 
 pleasures, but his friend reflected that now at least 
 he had launched himself he was going to look for 
 the lady whom, with a monosyllable, he appeared 
 to have classified The young man resigned himself 
 for the moment to asking no questions, and the 
 two strolled together into the shining saloon where 
 Houdon s admirable statue of Voltaire, reflected in a 
 dozen mirrors, is gaped at by visitors obviously less 
 acute than the genius expressed in those living fea 
 tures. Waterville knew that Voltaire was very witty ; 
 he had read Candida, and had already had several 
 opportunities of appreciating the statue. The Foyer 
 was not crowded ; only a dozen groups were scattered 
 over the polished floor, several others having passed 
 out to the balcony which overhangs the square of the 
 Palais EoyaL The windows were open, the brilliant 
 lights of Paris made the dull summer evening look 
 like an anniversary or a revolution ; a murmur of 
 voices seemed to come up from the streets, and even 
 in the Foyer one heard the slow click of the horses 
 arid the rumble of the crookedly-driven fiacres on the 
 hard, smooth asphalt. A lady and a gentleman, 
 with their backs to our friends, stood before the 
 image of Voltaire; the lady was dressed in white, 
 including a white bonnet. Littlemore felt, as so 
 many persons feel in that spot, that the scene was 
 conspicuously Parisian, and he gave a mysterious 
 laugh. 
 
 1* 
 
10 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " It seems comical to see her here ! The last time 
 was in New Mexico." 
 
 " In New Mexico ? " 
 
 " At San Diego." 
 
 " Oh, on tlie back piazza," said Waterville, putting 
 things together. He had not been aware of the posi 
 tion of San Diego, for if on the occasion of his lately 
 being appointed to a subordinate diplomatic post in 
 London, he had been paying a good deal of attention 
 to European geography, he had rather neglected that 
 of his own country. 
 
 They had not spoken loud, and they were not stand 
 ing near her ; but suddenly, as if she had heard them, 
 the lady in white turned round. Her eye caught 
 Waterville s first, and in that glance he saw that if 
 she had heard them it was not because they were 
 audible but because she had extraordinary quickness 
 of ear. There was no recognition in it there was 
 none, at first, even when it rested lightly upon George 
 Littlemore. But recognition flashed out a moment 
 later, accompanied with a delicate increase of color 
 and a quick extension of her apparently constant 
 smile. She had turned completely round ; she stood 
 there in sudden friendliness, with parted lips, with a 
 hand, gloved to the elbow, almost imperiously offered. 
 She was even prettier than at a distance. " Well, I 
 declare ! " she exclaimed : so loud that every one in 
 the room appeared to feel personally addressed. 
 Waterville was surprised ; he had not been prepared, 
 even after the mention of the back piazza, to find her 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 11 
 
 an American. Her companion turned round as she 
 spoke ; he was a fresh, lean young man, in evening 
 dress ; he kept his hands in his pockets ; Waterville 
 imagined that he at any rate was not an American. 
 He looked very grave for such a fair, festive young 
 man and gave Waterville and Littlemore, though 
 his height was not superior to theirs, a narrow, verti 
 cal glance. Then he turned back to the statue of 
 Voltaire, as if it had been, after all, among his pre 
 monitions that the lady he was attending would 
 recognize people he didn t know, and didn t even, 
 perhaps, care to know. This possibly confirmed 
 slightly Littlemore s assertion that she was not re 
 spectable. The young man was, at least; consum 
 mately so. " Where in the world did you drop from?" 
 the lady inquired. 
 
 "I have been here some time," Littlemore said, 
 going forward, rather deliberately, to shake hands 
 with her. He smiled a little, but he was more seri 
 ous than she ; he kept his eye on her own as if she 
 had been just a trifle dangerous ; it was the manner 
 in which a duly discreet person would have ap 
 proached some glossy, graceful animal which had an 
 occasional trick of biting. 
 
 " Here in Paris, do you mean ? " 
 
 " No ; here and there in Europe generally." 
 
 " Well, it s queer I haven t met you." 
 
 " Better late than never ! " said Littlemore. His 
 smile was a little fixed. 
 
 " Well, you look very natural," the lady went on. 
 
12 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " So do you or very charming it *s the same 
 thing," Littlemore answered, laughing, and evidently 
 wishing to be easy. It was as if, face to face, and 
 after a considerable lapse of time, he had found her 
 more imposing than he expected when, in the stalls 
 below, he determined to come and meet her. As he 
 spoke, the young man who was with her gave up his 
 inspection of Voltaire and faced about, listlessly, with 
 out looking either at Littlemore or at Waterville. 
 
 " I want to introduce you to my friend," she went 
 on. " Sir Arthur Demesne Mr. Littlemore. Mr. 
 Littlemore Sir Arthur Demesne. Sir Arthur 
 Demesne is an Englishman Mr. Littlemore is a 
 countryman of mine, an old friend. I have n t seen 
 him for years. For how long? Don t let s count ! 
 I wonder you knew me," she continued, addressing 
 Littlemore. " I m fearfully changed." All this was 
 said in a clear, gay tone, which was the more audible 
 as she spoke with a kind of caressing slowness. The 
 two men, to do honor to her introduction, silently 
 exchanged a glance; the Englishman, perhaps, col 
 ored a little. He was very conscious of his com 
 panion. " I have n t introduced you to many people 
 yet," she remarked. 
 
 " Oh, I don t mind," said Sir Arthur Demesne. 
 
 "Well, it s queer to see you !" she exclaimed, look 
 ing still at Littlemore. " You have changed, too 
 I can see that." 
 
 " Not where you are concerned." 
 
 " That s what I want to find out. Why don t you 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 13 
 
 introduce your friend ? I see he s dying to know 
 me ! " 
 
 Littlemore proceeded to this ceremony ; hut he 
 reduced it to its simplest elements, merely glancing 
 at Rupert Waterville, and murmuring his name. 
 
 "You didn t tell him my name," the lady cried, 
 while Waterville made her a formal salutation. " I 
 hope you have n t forgotten it ! " 
 
 Littlemore gave her a glance which was intended 
 to be more penetrating than what he had hitherto 
 permitted himself; if it had been put into words 
 it would have said, " Ah, but which name ? " 
 
 She answered the unspoken question, putting out 
 her hand, as she had done to Littlemore, " Happy to 
 make your acquaintance, Mr. Waterville. I m Mrs, 
 Headway perhaps you ve heard of me. If you ve 
 ever been in America, you must have heard of me, 
 Not so much in New York, but in the Western cities. 
 You are an American ? Well, then, we are all com 
 patriots except Sir Arthur Demesne. Let me in 
 troduce you to Sir Arthur. Sir Arthur Demesne, Mr. 
 Waterville Mr. Waterville, Sir Arthur Demesne. 
 Sir Arthur Demesne is a member of Parliament ; 
 don t he look young ? " She waited for no answer 
 to this question, but suddenly asked another, as 
 she moved her bracelets back over her long, loose 
 gloves. " Well, Mr. Littlemore, what are you think 
 ing of?" 
 
 He was thinking that he must indeed have forgot 
 ten her name, for the one that she had pronounced 
 
14 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 awakened no association. But lie could hardly tell 
 her that. 
 
 " I m thinking of San Diego." 
 
 " The back piazza, at my sister s ? Oh, don t ; it 
 was too horrid. She has left now. I believe every 
 one has left." 
 
 Sir Arthur Demesne drew out his watch with the 
 air of a man who could take no part in these domes 
 tic reminiscences ; he appeared to combine a generic 
 self-possession with a degree of individual shyness. 
 He said something about its being time they should 
 go back to their seats, but Mrs. Headway paid no 
 attention to the remark. Waterville wished her to 
 linger ; he felt in looking at her as if he had been 
 looking at a charming picture. Her low-growing 
 hair, with its fine dense undulations, was of a shade 
 of blackness that has now become rare; her com 
 plexion had the bloom of a white flower ; her profile, 
 when she turned her head, was as pure and fine as 
 the outline of a cameo. 
 
 " You know this is the first theatre," she said to 
 Waterville, as if she wished to be sociable. " And 
 this is Voltaire, the celebrated writer." 
 
 " I in devoted to the Comedie Franchise," Water 
 ville answered, smiling. 
 
 " Dreadfully bad house ; we clid n t hear a word/ 
 said Sir Arthur. 
 
 " Ah, yes, the boxes ! " murmured Waterville. 
 
 " I m rather disappointed," Mrs. Headway went on. 
 " But I want to see what becomes of that woman." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 15 
 
 " Dona Clorinde ? Oh, I suppose they 11 shoot 
 her ; they generally shoot the women, in French plays," 
 Littlemore said. 
 
 " It will remind me of San Diego ! " cried Mrs. 
 Headway. 
 
 " Ah, at San Diego the women did the shooting." 
 
 " They don t seem to have killed you ! " Mrs. Head 
 way rejoined, archly. 
 
 " No, but I am riddled with wounds." 
 
 " Well, this is very remarkable," the lady went on, 
 turning to Houdon s statue. " It s beautifully mod 
 elled." 
 
 " You are perhaps reading M. de Voltaire," Little- 
 more suggested. 
 
 " No ; but I ve purchased his works." 
 
 " They are not proper reading for ladies," said the 
 young Englishman, severely, offering his arm to Mrs. 
 Headway. 
 
 " Ah, you might have told me before I had bought 
 them ! " she exclaimed, in exaggerated dismay. 
 
 " I could n t imagine you would buy a hundred and 
 fifty volumes." 
 
 " A hundred and fifty ? I have only bought two." 
 
 " Perhaps two won t hurt you ? " said Littlemore 
 with a smile. 
 
 She darted him a reproachful ray. " I know what 
 you mean, that I m too bad already! Well, bad 
 as I am, you must come and see me." And she 
 threw him the name of her hotel, as she walked away 
 with her Englishman. Waterville looked after the 
 
1C THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 latter with a certain interest ; he had heard of him in 
 London, and had seen his portrait in " Vanity Fair." 
 
 It was not yet time to go down, in spite of this 
 gentleman s saying so, and Littlemore and his friend 
 passed out on the balcony of the Foyer. " Headway 
 -Headway? Where the deuce did she get that 
 name ? " Littlemore asked, as they looked down into 
 the animated dusk. 
 
 "From her husband, I suppose," Waterville sug 
 gested. 
 
 " From her husband ? From- which ? The last 
 was named Beck." 
 
 " How many has she had ? " Waterville inquired, 
 anxious to hear how it was that Mrs. Headway was 
 not respectable. 
 
 "I haven t the least idea. But it wouldn t be 
 difficult to find out, as I believe they are all living. 
 She was Mrs. Beck Nancy Beck when I knew 
 her." 
 
 " Nancy Beck ! " cried Waterville, aghast. He was 
 thinking of her delicate profile, like that of a pretty Eo- 
 man empress. There was a great deal to be explained. 
 
 Littlemore explained it in a few words before they 
 returned to their places, admitting indeed that he 
 was not yet able to elucidate her present situation. 
 She was a memory of his Western days ; he had seen 
 her last some six years before. He had known her 
 very well and in several places ; the circle of her 
 activity was chiefly the Southwest. This activity 
 was of a vague character, except in the sense that it 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 17 
 
 was exclusively social. She was supposed to have a 
 husband, one Philadelphia Beck, the editor of a Dem 
 ocratic newspaper, the Dakotah Sentinel; but Lit- 
 tlemore had never seen him the pair were living 
 apart and it was the impression at San Diego that 
 matrimony, for Mr. and Mrs. Beck, was about played 
 out. He remembered now to have heard afterwards 
 that she was getting a divorce. She got divorces very 
 easily, she was so taking in court. She had got one 
 or two before from a man whose name he had for 
 gotten, and there was a legend that even these were 
 not the first. She had been exceedingly divorced ! 
 When he first met her in California, she called her 
 self Mrs. Grenville, which he had been given to 
 understand was not an appellation acquired in matri 
 mony, but her parental name, resumed after the dis 
 solution of an unfortunate union. She had had these 
 episodes her unions were all unfortunate and 
 had borne half a dozen names. She was a charming 
 woman, especially for New Mexico ; but she had been 
 divorced too often it was a tax on one s credulity ; 
 she must have repudiated more husbands than she 
 had married. 
 
 At San Diego she was staying with her sister, 
 whose actual spouse (she, too, had been divorced), the 
 principal man of the place, kept a bank (with the 
 aid of a six-shooter), and who had never suffered 
 Nancy to want for a home during her unattached pe 
 riods. Nancy had begun very young ; she must be 
 about thirty-seven to-day. That was all he meant 
 
18 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 by her not being respectable. The chronology was 
 rather mixed ; her sister at least had once told him 
 that there was one winter when she did n t know her 
 self who was Nancy s husband. She had gone in 
 mainly for editors she esteemed the journalistic 
 profession. They must all have been dreadful ruffians, 
 for her own amiability was manifest. It was well 
 known that whatever she had done she had done in 
 self-defence. In fine, she had done things ; that was 
 the main point now ! She was very pretty, good- 
 natured and clever, and quite the best company in 
 those parts. She was a genuine product of the far 
 West a flower of the Pacific slope ; ignorant, auda 
 cious, crude, but full of pluck and spirit, of natural 
 intelligence, and of a certain intermittent, haphazard 
 good taste. She used to say that she only wanted a 
 chance apparently she had found it now. At one 
 time, without her, he did n t see how he could have 
 put up with the life. He had started a cattle-ranch, 
 to which San Diego was the nearest town, and he 
 used to ride over to see her. Sometimes he stayed 
 there for a week ; then he went to see her every even 
 ing. It was horribly hot ; they used to sit on the 
 back piazza. She was always as attractive, and very 
 nearly as well-dressed, as they had just beheld her. 
 As far as appearance went, she might have been 
 transplanted at an hour s notice from that dusty old 
 settlement to the city by the Seine. 
 
 "Some of those Western women are wonderful," 
 Littlemore said. " Like her, they only want a chance." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 19 
 
 He had not been in love with her there never 
 was anything of that sort between them. There 
 might have been of course ; but as it happened there 
 was not. Headway apparently was the successor of 
 Beck ; perhaps there had been others between. She 
 was in no sort of "society;" she only had a local 
 reputation (" the elegant and accomplished Mrs. 
 Beck," the newspapers called her the other editors, 
 to whom she was n t married), though, indeed, in that 
 spacious civilization the locality was large. She 
 knew nothing of the East, and to the best of his be 
 lief at that period had never seen New York. Vari 
 ous things might have happened in those six years, 
 however ; no doubt she had " come up." The West 
 was sending us everything (Littlemore spoke as a 
 New Yorker) ; no doubt it would send us at last our 
 brilliant women. This little woman used to look 
 quite over the head of New York; even in those 
 days she thought and talked of Paris, which there 
 was no prospect of her knowing ; that was the way 
 she had got on in New Mexico. She had had her 
 ambition, her presentiments ; she had known she was 
 meant for better things. Even at San Diego she had 
 prefigured her little Sir Arthur ; every now and then a 
 wandering Englishman came within her range. They 
 were not all baronets and M. P. s, but they were usu 
 ally a change from the editors. What she was doing 
 with her present acquisition he was curious to see. 
 She was certainly if he had any capacity for that 
 state of mind, which was not too apparent making 
 
20 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 him happy. She looked very splendid; Headway 
 had probably made a " pile," an achievement not to 
 be imputed to any of the others. She did n t accept 
 money he was sure she did n t accept money. 
 
 On their way back to their seats Littlemore, whose 
 tone had been humorous, but with that strain of the 
 pensive which is inseparable from retrospect, sud 
 denly broke into audible laughter. 
 
 " The modelling of a statue and the works of Vol 
 taire ! " he exclaimed, recurring to two or three things 
 she had said. " It s comical to hear her attempt 
 those nights, for in New Mexico she knew nothing 
 about modelling." 
 
 " She did n t strike me as affected," Water ville re 
 joined, feeling a vague impulse to take a considerate 
 view of her. 
 
 " Oh, no ; she s only as she says fearfully 
 changed." 
 
 They were in their places before the play went on 
 again, and they both gave another glance at Mrs. 
 Headway s box. She leaned back, slowly fanning 
 herself, and evidently watching Littlemore, as if she 
 had been waiting to see him come in. Sir Arthur 
 Demesne sat beside her, rather gloomily, resting a 
 round pink chin upon a high stiff collar ; neither of 
 them seemed to speak. 
 
 " Are you sure she makes him happy ? " Waterville 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes that s the way those people show it." 
 
 " But does she go^about alone with him that way ? 
 Where s her husband ? " 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 21 
 
 " I suppose she has divorced him." 
 
 " And does she want to marry the baronet ? " Wa- 
 terville asked, as if his companion were omniscient. 
 
 It amused Little more for the moment to appear so. 
 " He wants to marry her, I guess." 
 
 " And be divorced, like the others ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; this time she has got what she wants," 
 said Littlemore, as the curtain rose. 
 
 He suffered three days to elapse before he called 
 at the Hotel Meurice, which she had designated, 
 and we may occupy this interval in adding a few 
 words to the story we have taken from his lips. 
 George Littlemore s residence in the far West had 
 been of the usual tentative sort he had gone there 
 to replenish a pocket depleted by youthful extrava 
 gance. His first attempts had failed ; the days were 
 passing away when a fortune was to be picked up 
 even by a young man who might be supposed to have 
 inherited from an honorable father, lately removed, 
 some of those fine abilities, mainly dedicated to the 
 importation of tea, to which the elder Mr. Littlemore 
 was indebted for the power of leaving his son well 
 off. Littlemore had dissipated his patrimony, and he 
 was not quick to discover his talents, which, consist 
 ing chiefly of an unlimited faculty for smoking and 
 horse-breaking, appeared to lie in the direction of 
 none of the professions called liberal. He had been 
 sent to Harvard to have his aptitudes cultivated, but 
 here they took such a form that repression had been 
 found more necessary than stimulus repression 
 
22 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 embodied in an occasional sojourn in one of the lovely 
 villages of the Connecticut valley. Eustication saved 
 him, perhaps, in the sense that it detached him ; it 
 destroyed his ambitions, which had been foolish. At 
 the age of thirty, Littlemore had mastered none of 
 the useful arts, unless we include in the number the 
 great art of indifference. He was roused from his 
 indifference by a stroke of good luck. To oblige a 
 friend who was even in more pressing need of cash 
 than himself, he had purchased for a moderate sum 
 (the proceeds of a successful game of poker) a share 
 in a silver-mine which the disposer, with unusual 
 candor, admitted to be destitute of metal. Little- 
 more looked into his mine and recognized the truth 
 of the contention, which, however, was demolished 
 some two years later by a sudden revival of curiosity 
 on the part of one of the other shareholders. This 
 gentleman, convinced that a silver-mine without sil 
 ver is as rare as an effect without a cause, discovered 
 the sparkle of the precious element deep down in the 
 reasons of things. The discovery was agreeable to 
 Littlemore, and was the beginning of a fortune which, 
 through several dull years and in many rough places, 
 he had repeatedly despaired of, and which a man 
 whose purpose was never very keen did not perhaps 
 altogether deserve. It was before he saw himself 
 successful that he had made the acquaintance of the 
 lady now established at the Hotel Meurice. To-day 
 lie owned the largest share in his mine, which re 
 mained perversely productive, and which enabled 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 23 
 
 him to buy, among other things, in Montana, a cattle- 
 ranch of much finer proportions than the dry acres 
 near San Diego. Eanches and mines encourage secu 
 rity, and the consciousness of not having to watch 
 the sources of his income too anxiously (an obliga 
 tion which for a man of his disposition spoils every 
 thing) now added itself to his usual coolness. It was 
 not that this same coolness had not been consider 
 ably tried. To take only one the principal in 
 stance : he had lost his wife after only a twelve 
 month of marriage, some three years before the date 
 at which we meet him. He was more than forty 
 when he encountered and wooed a young girl of 
 twenty-three, who, like himself, had consulted all 
 the probabilities in expecting a succession of happy 
 years. She left him a small daughter, now intrusted 
 to the care of his only sister, the wife of an English 
 squire and mistress of a dull park in Hampshire. 
 This lady, Mrs. Dolphin by name, had captivated her 
 landowner during a journey in which Mr. Dolphin 
 had promised himself to examine the institutions of 
 the United States. The institution on which he re 
 ported most favorably was the pretty girls of the 
 larger towns, and he returned to New York a year or 
 two later to marry Miss Littlemore, who, unlike her 
 brother, had not wasted her patrimony. Her sister- 
 in-law, married many years later, and coming to Eu 
 rope on this occasion, had died in London where 
 she flattered herself the doctors were infallible a 
 week after the birth of her little girl; and poor Little- 
 
24 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 more, though relinquishing his child for the moment, 
 remained in these disappointing countries, to be 
 within call of the Hampshire nursery. He was 
 rather a noticeable man, especially since his hair and 
 mustache had turned white. Tall and strong, with 
 a good figure and a bad carriage, he looked capable 
 but indolent, and was usually supposed to have an 
 importance of which he was far from being conscious. 
 His eye was at once keen and quiet, his smile dim 
 and dilatory, but exceedingly genuine. His principal 
 occupation to-day was doing nothing, and he did it 
 with a sort of artistic perfection. This faculty ex 
 cited real envy on the part of Eupert Waterville, 
 who was ten years younger than he, and who had 
 too many ambitions and anxieties none of them 
 very important, but making collectively a consider 
 able incubus to be able to wait for inspiration. 
 He thought it a great accomplishment, he hoped some 
 day to arrive at it ; it made a man so independent ; 
 he had his resources within his own breast. Little- 
 more could sit for a whole evening, without utterance 
 or movement, smoking cigars and looking absently at 
 his finger-nails. As every one knew that he was a 
 good fellow and had made his fortune, this dull be 
 havior could not well be attributed to stupidity or 
 to moroseness. It seemed to imply a fund of reminis 
 cence, an experience of life which had left him hun 
 dreds of things to think about. Waterville felt that 
 if he could make a good use of these present years, 
 and keep a sharp look-out for experience, he too, at 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 25 
 
 forty-five, might have time to look at his finger-nails. 
 He had an idea that such contemplations not of 
 course in their literal, but in their symbolic -intensity 
 were a sign of a man of the world. Waterville, 
 reckoning possibly without an ungrateful Depart 
 ment of State, had also an idea that he had embraced 
 the diplomatic career. He was the junior of the two 
 Secretaries who render the personnel of the United 
 States Legation in London exceptionally numerous, 
 and was at present enjoying his annual leave of ab 
 sence. It became a diplomatist to be inscrutable, 
 and though he had by no means, as a whole, taken 
 Littlemore as his model there were much better 
 ones in the diplomatic body in London he thought 
 he looked inscrutable when of an evening, in Paris, 
 after he had been asked what he would like to do, 
 he replied that he should like to do nothing, and 
 simply sat for an interminable time in front of the 
 Grand Cafe, on the Boulevard de la Madeleine (he 
 was very fond of cafes), ordering a succession of demi- 
 tasses. It was very rarely that Littlemore cared even 
 to go to the theatre, and the visit to the Comedie Fran- 
 gaise, which we have described, had been undertaken 
 at Waterville s instance. He had seen Le Demi- 
 Monde a few nights before, and had been told that 
 L Aventuriere would show him a particular treatment 
 of the same subject the justice to be meted out to 
 unscrupulous women who attempt to thrust them 
 selves into honorable families. It seemed to him 
 that in both of these cases the ladies had deserved 
 
26 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 their fate, but lie wished it might have been brought 
 about by a little leas lying on the part of the repre 
 sentatives of honor. Littlemore and he, without be 
 ing intimate, were very good friends, and spent much 
 of their time together. As it turned out, Littlemore 
 was very glad he had gone to the theatre, for he 
 found himself much interested in this new incarna 
 tion of Nancy Beck. 
 
 II. 
 
 His delay in going to see her was nevertheless 
 calculated ; there were more reasons for it than it is 
 necessary to mention. But when he went, Mrs. 
 Headway was at home, and Littlemore was not sur 
 prised to see Sir Arthur Demesne in her sitting-room. 
 There was something in the air which seemed to in 
 dicate that this gentleman s visit had already lasted a 
 certain time. Littlemore thought it probable that, 
 given the circumstances, he would now bring it to a 
 close ; he must have learned from their hostess that 
 Littlemore was an old and familiar friend. He might 
 of course have definite rights he had every appear 
 ance of it; but the more definite they were the more 
 gracefully he could afford to waive them. Littlemore 
 made these reflections while Sir Arthur Demesne sat 
 there looking at him without giving any sign of de 
 parture. Mrs. Headway was very gracious she 
 had the manner of having known you a hundred 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 27 
 
 years ; she scolded Littlemore extravagantly for not 
 having been to see her sooner, but this was only a 
 form of the gracious. By daylight she looked a little 
 faded ; but she had an expression which could never 
 fade. She had the best rooms in the hotel, and an 
 air of extreme opulence and prosperity ; her courier 
 sat outside, in the ante-chamber, and she evidently 
 knew how to live. She attempted to include Sir Ar 
 thur in the conversation, but though the young man 
 remained in his place, he declined to be included. 
 He smiled, in silence ; but he was evidently uncomfort 
 able. The conversation, therefore, remained superfi 
 cial a quality that, of old, had by no means 
 belonged to Mrs. Headway s interviews with her 
 friends. The Englishman looked at Littlemore with 
 a strange, perverse expression which Littlemore, at 
 first, with a good deal of private amusement, simply 
 attributed to jealousy. 
 
 " My dear Sir Arthur, I wish very much you would 
 go," Mrs. Headway remarked, at the end of a quarter 
 of an hour. 
 
 Sir Arthur got up and took his hat. " I thought I 
 should oblige you by staying." 
 
 " To defend me against Mr. Littlemore ? I Ve 
 ^known him since I was a baby . I know the worst he 
 can do." She fixed her charming smile for a moment 
 on her retreating visitor, and she added, with much un 
 expectedness, " I want to talk to him about my past ! " 
 
 " That s just what I want to hear," said Sir Arthur, 
 with his hand on the door. 
 
28 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " We are going to talk American ; you would n t 
 understand us ! He speaks in the English style," 
 she explained, in her little sufficient way, as the bar 
 onet, who announced that at all events he would 
 come back in the evening, let himself out. 
 
 " He does n t know about your past ? " Littlemore 
 inquired, trying not to make the question sound im 
 pertinent. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; I Ve told him everything ; but he 
 does n t understand. The English are so peculiar ; I 
 think they are rather stupid. He has never heard of 
 a woman being But here Mrs. Headway 
 
 checked herself, while Littlemore filled out the blank. 
 " What are you laughing at ? It does n t matter," she 
 went on ; " there are more things in the world than 
 those people have heard of. However, I like them 
 very much ; at least I like him. He s such a gentle 
 man ; do you know what I mean ? Only, he stays 
 too long, and he is n t amusing. I m very glad to see 
 you, for a change." 
 
 " Do you mean I m not a gentleman ? " Littlemore 
 asked. 
 
 " No indeed ; you used to be, in New Mexico. I 
 think you were the only one and I hope you are 
 still. That s why I recognized you the other night ; 
 I might have cut you, you know." 
 
 " You can still, if you like. It s not too late." 
 
 " Oh, no ; that s not what I want. I want you to 
 help me." 
 
 " To help you ? " 
 
TEE SIEGE OF LONDON. 29 
 
 Mrs. Headway fixed her eyes for a moment on the 
 door. " Do you suppose that man is there still ? " 
 
 " That young man your poor Englishman ? " 
 
 "No; I mean Max. Max is my courier; said Mrs. 
 Headway, with a certain impressiveness. 
 
 " I have n t the least idea. I 11 see, if you like." 
 
 " No ; in that case I should have to give him an 
 order, and I don t know what in the world to ask him 
 to do. He sits there for hours ; with my simple hab 
 its I afford him no employment. I arn afraid I have 
 no imagination." 
 
 " The burden of grandeur," said Littlemore. 
 
 " Oh yes, I m very grand. But on the whole I 
 like it. I m only afraid he 11 hear. I talk so very 
 loud ; that s another thing I m trying to get over." 
 
 " Why do you want to be different ? " 
 
 " Well, because everything else is different," Mrs. 
 Headway rejoined, with a little sigh. "Did you 
 hear that I d lost my husband ? " she went on, 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Do you mean a Mr. ? " and Littlemore 
 
 paused, with an effect that did not seem to come 
 home to her. 
 
 "I mean Mr. Headway," she said, with dignity. 
 " I Ve been through a good deal since you saw me 
 last : marriage, and death, and trouble, and all sorts 
 of things." 
 
 "You had been through a good deal of marriage 
 before that," Littlemore ventured to observe. 
 
 She rested her eyes on him with soft brightness, 
 
30 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 and without a change of color. " Not so much not 
 so much " 
 
 "Not so much as might have been thought." 
 
 " Not so much as was reported. I forget whether 
 I was married when I saw you last." 
 
 " It was one of the reports," said Littlemore. " But 
 I never saw Mr. Beck." 
 
 " You did n t lose much ; he was a simple wretch ! 
 I have done certain things in my life which I have 
 never understood ; no wonder others can t under 
 stand them. But that s all over ! Are you sure Max 
 does n t hear ? " she asked, quickly. 
 
 " Not at all sure. But if you suspect him of listen 
 ing at the keyhole, I would send him away." 
 
 " I don t think he does that. I am always rushing 
 to the door." 
 
 " Then he does n t hear. I had no idea you had so 
 many secrets. When I parted with you, Mr. Head 
 way was in the future." 
 
 " Well, now lie s in the past. He was a pleasant 
 man I can understand my doing that. But he 
 only lived a year. He had neuralgia of the heart ; he 
 left me very well off." She mentioned these various 
 facts as if they were quite of the same order. 
 
 " I m glad to hear it ; you used to have expensive 
 tastes." 
 
 " I have plenty of money," said Mrs. Headway. 
 "Mr. Headway had property at Denver, which has 
 increased immensely in value. After his death I 
 tried New York. But I don t like New York." Lit- 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 31 
 
 tlemore s hostess uttered this last sentence in a tone 
 which was the resume of a social episode. " I mean 
 to live in Europe I like Europe," she announced ; 
 and the manner of the announcement had a touch of 
 prophecy, as the other words had had a reverberation 
 of history. 
 
 Littlemore was very much struck with all this, and 
 he was greatly entertained with Mrs. Headway. " Are 
 you travelling with that young man ? " he inquired, 
 with the coolness of a person who wishes to make his 
 entertainment go as far as possible. 
 
 She folded her arms as she leaned back in her chair. 
 " Look here, Mr. Littlemore," she said ; " I m about as 
 good-natured as I used to be in America, but I know 
 a great deal more. Of course I ain t travelling with 
 that young man ; he s only a friend." 
 
 " He is n t a lover ? " asked Littlemore, rather cru 
 elly. 
 
 " Do people travel with their lovers ? I don t want 
 you to laugh at me I want you to help me." She 
 fixed her eyes on him with an air of tender remon 
 strance that might have touched him ; she looked so 
 gentle and reasonable. " As I tell you, I have taken 
 a great fancy to this old Europe ; I feel as if I should 
 never go back. But I want to see something of the 
 life. I think it would suit me if I could get 
 started a little. Air. Littlemore," she added, in a mo 
 ment "I may as well be frank, for I ain t at all 
 ashamed. I want to get into society. That s what 
 1 m after ! " 
 
32 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 Littlemore settled himself in his chair, with the 
 feeling of a man who, knowing that he will have to 
 pull, seeks to obtain a certain leverage. It was in a 
 tone of light jocosity, almost of encouragement, how 
 ever, that he repeated : " Into society ? It seems to 
 me you are in it already, with baronets for your ador 
 ers." 
 
 " That s just what I want to know ! " she said, with 
 a certain eagerness. " Is a baronet much ? " 
 
 O 
 
 " So they are apt to think. But I know very little 
 about it." 
 
 " Ain t you in society yourself ? " 
 
 " I ? Never in the world ! Where did you get 
 that idea ? I care no more about society than about 
 that copy of the Figaro" 
 
 Mrs. Headway s countenance assumed for a mo 
 ment a look of extreme disappointment, and Little- 
 more could see that, having heard of his silver-mine 
 and his cattle-ranch, and knowing that he was living 
 in Europe, she had hoped to find him immersed in 
 the world of fashion. But she speedily recovered 
 herself. " I don t believe a word of it. You know 
 you re a gentleman you can t help yourself." 
 
 " I may be a gentleman, but I have none of the 
 habits of one." Littlemore hesitated a moment, and 
 then he added "I lived too long in the great South 
 west." 
 
 She flushed quickly; she instantly understood 
 understood even more that he had meant to say. 
 But she wished to make use of him, and it was of 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 33 
 
 more importance that she should appear forgiving 
 especially as she had the happy consciousness of be 
 ing so, than that she should punish a cruel speech. 
 She could afford, however, to be lightly ironical. 
 " That makes no difference a gentleman is always 
 a gentleman." 
 
 " Not always," said Littlemore, laughing. 
 
 "It s impossible that, through your sister, you 
 should n t know something about European society," 
 said Mrs. Headway. 
 
 At the mention of his sister, made with a studied 
 lightness of reference which he caught as it passed, 
 Littlemore was unable to repress a start. " What in 
 the world have you got to do with my sister ? " he 
 would have liked to say. The introduction of this 
 lady was disagreeable to him ; she belonged to quite 
 another order of ideas, and it was out of the question 
 that Mrs. Headway should ever make her acquaintance 
 
 if this \vas what, as that lady would have said 
 she was " after." But he took advantage of a side- 
 issue. "What do you mean by European soci 
 ety ? One can t talk about that. It s a very vague 
 phrase." 
 
 " Well, I mean English society I mean the so 
 ciety your sister lives in that s what I mean," said 
 Mrs. Headway, who was quite prepared to be defi 
 nite. " I mean the people I saw in London last May 
 
 the people I saw at the opera and in the park, the 
 people who go to the Queen s drawing-rooms. When 
 I was in London I stayed at that hotel on the corner 
 
34 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 of Piccadilly that looking straight down St. James s 
 Street and I spent hours together at the window 
 looking at the people in the carriages. I had a car 
 riage of my own, and when I was not at my window 
 I was driving all round. I was all alone ; I saw 
 every one, but I knew no one I had no one to tell 
 me. I did n t know Sir Arthur then I only met 
 him a month ago at Homburg. He followed me to 
 Paris that s how he came to be my guest." Se 
 renely, prosaically, without any of the inflation of 
 vanity, Mrs. Headway made this last assertion ; it 
 was as if she were used to being followed, or as if a 
 gentleman one met at Homburg would inevitably fol 
 low. In the same tone she w r ent on : "I attracted a 
 good deal of attention in London I could easily see 
 that." 
 
 " You 11 do that wherever you go," Littlernore said, 
 insufficiently enough, as he felt. 
 
 " I don t want to attract so much ; I think it s vul 
 gar," Mrs. Headway rejoined, with a certain soft 
 sweetness which seemed to denote the enjoyment of 
 a new idea. She was evidently open to new ideas. 
 
 " Every one was looking at you the other night at 
 the theatre," Littlernore continued. "How can you 
 hope to escape notice ? " 
 
 " I don t want to escape notice people have al 
 ways looked at me, and I suppose they always will. 
 P>ut there are different ways of being looked at, and I 
 know the way I want. I mean to have it, too ! " Mrs. 
 Headway exclaimed. Yes, she was very definite. 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 35 
 
 Littlemore sat there, face to face with her, and for 
 some time he said nothing. He had a mixture of 
 feelings, and the memory of other places, other hours, 
 was stealing over him. There had been of old a very 
 considerable absence of interposing surfaces between 
 these two he had known her as one knew people only 
 in the great Southwest. He had liked her extremely, 
 in a town where it would have been ridiculous to be 
 difficult to please. But his sense of this fact was 
 somehow connected with Southwestern conditions; 
 his liking for Nancy Beck was an emotion of which 
 the proper setting was a back piazza. She presented 
 herself here on a new basis she appeared to desire 
 to be classified afresh. Littlemore said to himself 
 that this was too much trouble ; he had taken her in 
 that way he could n t begin at this time of day to 
 take her in another way. He asked himself whether 
 she were going to be a bore. It was not easy to sup 
 pose Mrs. Headway capable of this offence ; but she 
 might become tiresome if she were bent upon being 
 different. It made him rather afraid when she began 
 to talk about European society, about his sister, about 
 things being vulgar. Littlemore was a very good 
 fellow, and he had at least the average human love 
 of justice ; but there was in his composition an ele 
 ment of the indolent, the sceptical, perhaps even the 
 brutal, which made him desire to preserve the sim 
 plicity of their former terms of intercourse. He had 
 no particular desire to see a woman rise again, as the 
 mystic process was called ; he did n t believe in wo- 
 
36 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 men s rising again. He believed in their not going 
 down; thought it perfectly possible and eminently 
 desirable, but held it was much better for society that 
 they should not endeavor, as the French say, to meler 
 Us genres. In general, he did n t pretend to say what 
 was good for society society seemed to him in 
 rather a bad way ; but he had a conviction on this 
 particular point. Nancy Beck going in for the great 
 prizes, that spectacle might be entertaining for a 
 simple spectator ; but it would be a nuisance, an em 
 barrassment, from the moment anything more than 
 contemplation should be expected of him. He had 
 no wish to be rough, but it might be well to show 
 her that he was not to be humbugged. 
 
 " Oh, if there s anything you want you 11 have it," 
 he said in answer to her last remark. "You have 
 always had what you want." 
 
 "Well, I want something new this time. Does 
 your sister reside in London?" 
 
 " My dear lady, what do you know about my sis 
 ter ? " Littlemore asked. " She s not a woman you 
 would care for." 
 
 Mrs. Headway was silent a moment. " You don t 
 respect me!" she exclaimed suddenly in a loud, al 
 most gay tone of voice. If Littlemore wished, as I 
 say, to preserve the simplicity of their old terms of 
 intercourse, she was apparently willing to humor 
 him. 
 
 " Ah, my dear Mrs. Beck . . . ! " he cried, vaguely, 
 protestingly, and using her former name quite by 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 37 
 
 accident. At San Diego he had never thought 
 whether he respected her or not; that never came 
 up. 
 
 " That s a proof of it calling me by that hateful 
 name ! Don t you believe I m married ? I have n t 
 been fortunate in my names," she added, pensively. 
 
 " You make it very awkward when you say such 
 mad things. My sister lives most of the year in the 
 country; she is very simple, rather dull, perhaps a 
 trifle narrow-minded. You are very clever, very 
 lively, and as wide as all creation. That s why I 
 think you would n t like her." 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed to run down your sis 
 ter ! " cried Mrs. Headway. " You told me once 
 at San Diego that she was the nicest woman you 
 knew. I made a note of that, you see. And you 
 told me she was just my age. So that makes it 
 rather uncomfortable for you, if you won t introduce 
 me !" And Littlemore s hostess gave a pitiless laugh. 
 " I m not in the least afraid of her being dull. It s 
 very distinguished to be dull. I m ever so much 
 too lively." 
 
 " You are indeed, ever so much ! But nothing is 
 more easy than to know my sister," said Littlemore, 
 who knew perfectly that what he said was untrue. 
 And then, as a diversion from this delicate topic, 
 he suddenly asked, "Are you going to marry Sir 
 Arthur ? " 
 
 "Don t you think I ve been married about 
 enough?" 
 
38 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 "Possibly; but this is a new line, it would be 
 different. An Englishman that s a new sensa 
 tion." 
 
 " If I should marry, it would be a European/ said 
 Mrs. Headway calmly. 
 
 " Your chance is very good ; they are all marrying 
 Americans." 
 
 " He would have to be some one fine, the man I 
 should marry now. I have a good deal to make up 
 for! That s what I want to know about Sir Ar 
 thur ; all this time you have n t told me." 
 
 " I have nothing in the world to tell I have 
 never heard of him. Has n t he told you himself ? " 
 
 " Nothing at all ; he is very modest. He does n t 
 brag, nor make himself out anything great. That s 
 what I like him for : I think it s in such sood taste. 
 
 O 
 
 I like good taste ! " exclaimed Mrs. Headway. " But 
 all this time," she added, " you have n t told me you 
 would help me." 
 
 " How can I help you ? I m no one, I have no 
 power." 
 
 " You can help me by not preventing me. I want 
 you to promise not to prevent me." She gave him 
 her fixed, bright gaze again ; her eyes seemed to look 
 far into his. 
 
 " Good Lord, how could I prevent you ? " 
 
 " I 111 not sure that you could. But you might 
 try." 
 
 " I in too indolent, and too stupid," said Little- 
 more jocosely. 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 39 
 
 " Yes/ she replied, musing as she still looked at 
 him. " I think you are too stupid. But I think you 
 are also too kind," she added more graciously. She 
 was almost irresistible when she said such a thing as 
 that. 
 
 They talked for a quarter of an hour longer, and at 
 last as if she had had scruples she spoke to him 
 of his own marriage, of the death of his wife, matters 
 to which she alluded more felicitously (as he thought) 
 than to some other points. " If you have a little 
 girl you ought to be very happy ; that s what I 
 should like to have. Lord, I should make her a nice 
 woman ! Not like me in another style ! " When 
 he rose to leave her, she told him that he must come 
 and see her very often ; she was to be some weeks 
 longer in Paris ; he must bring Mr. Waterville. 
 
 "Your English friend won t like that our coming 
 very often," Littlemore said, as he stood with his hand 
 on the door. 
 
 " I don t know what he has got to do with it," she 
 answered, staring. 
 
 "Neither do I. Only he must be in love with 
 you." 
 
 " That does n t give him any right. Mercy, if I 
 had had to put myself out for all the men that have 
 been in love with me ! " 
 
 " Of course you would have had a terrible life ! 
 Even doing as you please, you have had rather an 
 agitated one. But your young Englishman s senti 
 ments appear to give him the right to sit there, after 
 
40 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 one comes in, looking blighted and bored. That 
 might become very tiresome." 
 
 " The moment he becomes tiresome I send him 
 away. You can trust me for that." 
 
 " Oh," said Littlemore, " it does n t matter, after all/ 
 He remembered that it would be very inconvenient 
 to him to have undisturbed possession of Mrs. Head 
 way. 
 
 She came out with him into the antechamber. 
 Mr. Max, the courier, was fortunately not there. 
 She lingered a little ; she appeared to have more to 
 say. 
 
 " On the contrary, he likes you to come," she 
 remarked in a moment ; " he wants to study my 
 friends." 
 
 "To study them?" 
 
 "He wants to find out about me, and he thinks 
 they may tell him something. Some day he will ask 
 you right out, What sort of a woman is she, any 
 way ? " 
 
 " Has n t he found out yet ? " 
 
 " He does n t understand me," said Mrs. Headway, 
 surveying the front of her dress. " He has never seen 
 any one like me." 
 
 " I should imagine not ! " 
 
 " So he will ask you, as I say." 
 
 " I will tell him you are the most charming woman 
 in Europe." 
 
 " That ain t a description ! Besides, he knows it. 
 He wants to know if I m respectable." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 41 
 
 " He s very curious ! " Littlemore cried, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 She grew a little pale ; she seemed to be watching 
 his lips. " Mind you tell him," she went on with a 
 smile that brought none of her color back. 
 
 " Eespectable ? I 11 tell him you re adorable ! " 
 
 Mrs. Headway stood a moment longer. "Ah, 
 you re no use ! " she murmured. And she suddenly 
 turned away and passed back into her sitting-room, 
 slowly drawing her far-trailing skirts. 
 
 III. 
 
 " Elle ne se doute de rien I " Littlemore said to 
 himself as he walked away from the hotel; and he 
 repeated the phrase in talking about her to Waterville. 
 " She wants to be right," he added ; " but she will 
 never really succeed ; she has begun too late, she will 
 never be more than half-right. However, she won t 
 know when she s w r rong, so it does n t signify ! " And 
 then he proceeded to assert that in some respects she 
 would remain incurable ; she had no delicacy ; no 
 discretion, .no shading; she was a woman who 
 suddenly said to you, " You don t respect me ! " As if 
 that were a thing for a woman to say ! 
 
 " It depends upon what she meant by it." Water 
 ville liked to see the meanings of things. 
 
 " The more she meant by it the less she ought to 
 say it ! " Littlemore declared. 
 
42 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 But he returned to the Hotel Meurice, and on the 
 next occasion he took Waterville with him. The 
 Secretary of Legation, who had not often been in close 
 quarters with a lady of this ambiguous quality, was 
 prepared to regard Mrs. Headway as a very curious 
 type. He was afraid she might be dangerous ; but, on 
 the whole, he felt secure. The object of his devotion 
 at present was his country, or at least the Depart 
 ment of State ; he had no intention of being diverted 
 from that allegiance. Besides, he had his ideal of the 
 attractive woman a person pitched in a very much 
 lower key than this shining, smiling, rustling, chat 
 tering daughter of the Territories. The woman he 
 should care for would have repose, a certain love of 
 privacy she would sometimes let one alone. Mrs. 
 Headway was personal, familiar, intimate; she was 
 always appealing or accusing, demanding explanations 
 and pledges, saying things one had to answer. All this 
 was accompanied with a hundred smiles and radiations 
 and other natural graces, but the general effect of it 
 was slightly fatiguing. She had certainly a great 
 deal of charm, an immense desire to please, and a 
 wonderful collection of dresses and trinkets ; but she 
 was eager and preoccupied, and it was impossible 
 that other people should share her eagerness. If she 
 wished to get into society, there was no reason why 
 her bachelor visitors should wish to see her there ; for 
 it was the absence of the usual social incumbrances 
 which made her drawing-room attractive. There was 
 no doubt whatever that she was several women in one, 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 43 
 
 and she ought to content herself with that sort of 
 numerical triumph. Littlemore said to Waterville 
 that it was stupid of her to wish to scale the heights ; 
 she ought to know how much more she was in her 
 place down below. She appeared vaguely to irritate 
 him ; even her fluttering attempts at self-culture she 
 had become a great critic, and handled many of the 
 productions of the age with a bold, free touch con 
 stituted a vague invocation, an appeal for sympathy 
 which was naturally annoying to a man who disliked 
 the trouble of revising old decisions, consecrated by a 
 certain amount of reminiscence that might be called 
 tender. She had, however, one palpable charm ; she 
 was full of surprises. Even Waterville was obliged 
 to confess that an element of the unexpected was not 
 to be excluded from his conception of the woman who 
 should have an ideal repose. Of course there were two 
 kinds of surprises, and only one of them was thoroughly 
 pleasant, though Mrs. Headway dealt impartially in 
 both. She had the sudden delights, the odd exclama 
 tions, the queer curiosities of a person who has grown 
 up in a country where everything is new and many 
 things ugly, and who, with a natural turn for the arts 
 and amenities of life, makes a tardy acquaintance 
 with some of the finer usages, the higher pleasures. 
 She was provincial it was easy to see that she was 
 provincial ; that took no great cleverness. But what 
 was Parisian enough if to be Parisian was the 
 measure of success was the way she picked up 
 ideas and took a hint from every circumstance. " Only 
 
44 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 give me time, and I shall know all I have need of," 
 she said to Littlemore, who watched her progress 
 with a mixture of admiration and sadness. She de 
 lighted to speak of herself as a poor little barbarian 
 who was trying to pick up a few crumbs of knowledge, 
 and this habit took great effect from her delicate face, 
 her perfect dress, and the brilliancy of her manners. 
 
 One of her surprises was that after that first visit 
 she said no more to Littlemore about Mrs. Dolphin. 
 He did her perhaps the grossest injustice ; but he had 
 quite expected her to bring up this lady whenever 
 they met. " If she will only leave Agnes alone, she 
 may do what she will," he said to Waterville, express 
 ing his relief. " My sister would never look at her, 
 and it would be very awkward to have to tell her 
 so." She expected assistance ; she made him feel that 
 simply by the way she looked at him ; but for the 
 moment she demanded no definite service. She held 
 her tongue, but she waited, and her patience itself 
 was a kind of admonition. In the way of society, it 
 must be confessed, her privileges were meagre, Sir 
 Arthur Demesne and her two compatriots being, so 
 far as the latter could discover, her only visitors. 
 She might have had other friends, but she held her 
 head very high, and liked better to see no one than 
 not to see the best company. It was evident that she 
 ilattered herself that she produced the effect of being, 
 not neglected, but fastidious. There were plenty of 
 Americans in Paris, but in this direction she failed to 
 extend her acquaintance ; the nice people would n t 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 45 
 
 come and see her, and nothing would have induced 
 her to receive the others. She had the most exact 
 conception of the people she wished to see and to 
 avoid. Littlemore expected every day that she would 
 ask him why he did n t bring some of his friends, and 
 he had his answer ready. It was a very poor one, for 
 it consisted simply of a conventional assurance that 
 he wished to keep her for himself. She would be sure 
 to retort that this was very " thin," as, indeed, it was ; 
 but the days went by without her calling him to ac 
 count. The little American colony in Paris is rich 
 in amiable women, but there were none to whom 
 Littlemore could make up his mind to say that it 
 would be a favor to him to call on Mrs. Headway. 
 He should n t like them the better for doing so, and he 
 wished to like those of whom he might ask a favor. 
 Except, therefore, that he occasionally spoke of her as 
 a little Western woman, very pretty and rather queer, 
 who had formerly been a great chum of his, she re 
 mained unknown in the salons of the Avenue Gabriel 
 and the streets that encircle the Arch of Triumph. 
 To ask the men to go and see her, without asking the 
 ladies, would only accentuate the fact that he did n t 
 ask the ladies ; so he asked no one at all. Besides, 
 it was Jtrue just a little that he wished to keep 
 her to himself, and he was fatuous enough to believe 
 that she cared much more for him than for her 
 Englishman. Of course, however, he would never 
 dream of marrying her, whereas the Englishman 
 apparently was immersed in that vision. She hated 
 
46 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 her past ; she used to announce that very often, talk 
 ing of it as if it were an appendage of the same 
 order as a dishonest courier, or even an inconvenient 
 protrusion of drapery. Therefore, as Littlemore was 
 part of her past, it might have been supposed that she 
 would hate him too, and wish to banish him, with 
 all the images lie recalled, from her sight. But she 
 made -an exception in his favor, and if she disliked 
 their old relations as a chapter of her own history, she 
 seemed still to like them as a chapter of his. He 
 felt that she clung to him, that she believed he could 
 help her and in the long run would. It was to the 
 long run that she appeared little by little to have 
 attuned herself. 
 
 She succeeded perfectly in maintaining harmony 
 between Sir Arthur Demesne and her American 
 visitors, who spent much less time in her drawing- 
 room. She had easily persuaded him that there were 
 no grounds for jealousy, and that they had no wish, 
 as she said, to crowd him out ; for it was ridiculous to 
 be jealous of two persons at once, and Rupert Water- 
 ville, after he had learned the way to her hospitable 
 apartment, appeared there as often as his friend 
 Littlemore. The two, indeed, usually came together, 
 and they ended by relieving their competitor of a 
 certain sense of responsibility. This amiable and 
 excellent but somewhat limited and slightly pre 
 tentious young man, who had not yet made up his 
 mind, was sometimes rather oppressed with the mag 
 nitude of his undertaking, and when he was alone 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 47 
 
 with Mrs. Headway tlie tension of his thoughts 
 occasionally became quite painful. He was very 
 slim and straight, and looked taller than his height ; 
 he had the prettiest, silkiest hair, which waved away 
 from a large white forehead, and he was endowed 
 with a nose of the so-called Eoman model. He 
 looked younger than his years (in spite of those last 
 two attributes), partly on account of the delicacy of 
 his complexion and the almost childlike candor of 
 his round blue eye. He was diffident and self-con 
 scious ; there were certain letters he could not pro 
 nounce. At the same time he had the manners of 
 a young man who had been brought up to fill a con 
 siderable place in the world, with whom a certain 
 correctness had become a habit, and who, though he 
 might occasionally be a little awkward about small 
 things, would be sure to acquit himself honorably in 
 great ones. He was very simple, and he believed 
 himself very serious ; he had the blood of a score of 
 "Warwickshire squires in his veins ; mingled in the 
 last instance with the somewhat paler fluid which 
 animated the long-necked daughter of a banker who 
 had expected an earl for his son-in-law, but whp had 
 consented to regard Sir Baldwin Demesne as the 
 least insufficient of baronets. The boy, the only 
 one, had come into his title at five years of age ; his 
 mother, who disappointed her auriferous sire a sec 
 ond time when poor Sir Baldwin broke his neck in 
 the hunting field, watched over him with a tender 
 ness that burned as steadily as a candle shaded by 
 
48 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 a transparent hand. She never admitted, even to 
 herself, that he was not the cleverest of men ; but it 
 took all her own cleverness, which was much greater 
 than his, to maintain this appearance. Fortunately 
 he was not wild, so that he would never marry an 
 actress or a governess, like two or three of the young 
 men who had been at Eton with him. With this 
 ground of nervousness the less, Lady Demesne awaited 
 with an air of confidence his promotion to some high 
 office. He represented in Parliament the Conserva 
 tive instincts and vote of a red-roofed market town, 
 and sent regularly to his bookseller for all the new 
 publications on economical subjects, for he was deter 
 mined that his political attitude should have a firm 
 statistical basis. He was not conceited ; he was only 
 misinformed misinformed, I mean, about himself. 
 He thought himself indispensable in the scheme of 
 things not as an individual, but as an institution. 
 This conviction, however, was too sacred to betray 
 itself by vulgar assumptions. If he was a little man 
 in a big place, he never strutted nor talked loud ; he 
 merely felt it as a kind of luxury that he had a 
 large social circumference. It was like sleeping in a 
 big bed ; one did n t toss about the more, but one felt 
 a greater freshness. 
 
 He had never seen anything like Mrs. Headway ; 
 lie hardly knew by what standard to measure her. 
 She was not like an English lady not like those at 
 least with whom he had been accustomed to converse ; 
 and yet it was impossible not to see that she had a 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 49 
 
 standard of her own. He suspected that she was 
 provincial, but as he was very much under the charm 
 he compromised matters by saying to himself that 
 she was only foreign. It was of course provincial to 
 be foreign ; but this was, after all, a peculiarity which 
 she shared with a great many nice people. He was 
 not wild, and his mother had nattered herself that in 
 this all-important matter he would not be perverse ; 
 but it was all the same most unexpected that he 
 should have taken a fancy to an American widow, 
 five years older than himself, who knew no one and 
 who sometimes did n t appear to understand exactly 
 who he was. Though he disapproved of it, it was 
 precisely her foreignness that pleased him ; she 
 seemed to be as little as possible of his own race and 
 creed ; there was not a touch of Warwickshire in her 
 composition She was like an Hungarian or a Pole, 
 with the difference that he could almost understand 
 her language. The unfortunate young man was fas 
 cinated, though he had not yet admitted to himself 
 that he was in love. He would be very slow and de 
 liberate in such a position, for he was deeply con 
 scious of its importance. He was a young man who 
 had arranged his life ; he had determined to marry at 
 thirty-two. A long line of ancestors was watching 
 him ; he hardly knew what they would think of Mrs. 
 Headway. He hardly knew what he thought him 
 self; the only thing he was absolutely sure of was 
 that she made the time pass as it passed in no other 
 pursuit. He was vaguely uneasy ; he was by no 
 
50 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 means sure it was right the time should pass like 
 that. There was nothing to show for it but the frag 
 ments of Mrs. Headway s conversation, the peculiari 
 ties of her accent, the sallies of her wit, the audacities 
 of her fancy, her mysterious allusions to her past. Of 
 course he knew that she had a past ; she was not a 
 young girl, she was a widow and widows are essen 
 tially an expression of an accomplished fact. He 
 was not jealous of her antecedents, but he wished to 
 understand them, and it was here that the difficulty 
 occurred. The subject w r as illumined with fitful 
 flashes, but it never placed itself before him as a gen 
 eral picture. He asked her a good many questions, 
 but her answers were so startling that, like sudden 
 luminous points, they seemed to intensify the dark 
 ness round their edges. She had apparently spent 
 her life in an inferior province of an inferior country ; 
 but it didn t follow from this that she herself had 
 been low. She had been a lily among thistles ; and 
 there was something romantic in a man in his posi 
 tion taking an interest in such a woman. It pleased 
 Sir Arthur to believe he was romantic ; that had been 
 the case with several of his ancestors, who supplied a 
 precedent without which he would perhaps not have 
 ventured to trust himself. He was the victim of per 
 plexities from which a single spark of direct percep 
 tion would have saved him. He took everything in 
 the literal sense ; he had not a grain of humor. He 
 sat there vaguely waiting for something to happen, 
 and not committing himself by rash declarations. If 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 51 
 
 he was in love, it was in his own way, reflectively, 
 inexpressively, obstinately. He was waiting for the 
 formula which would justify his conduct and Mrs. 
 Headway s peculiarities. He hardly knew where it 
 would come from ; you might have thought from his 
 manner that lie would discover it in one of the elab 
 orate entrees that were served to the pair when Mrs. 
 Headway consented to dine with him at Bignon s or 
 the Cafe Anglais ; or in one of the numerous band 
 boxes that arrived from the Kue de la Paix, and from 
 which she often lifted the lid in the presence of her 
 admirer. There were moments when he got weary 
 of waiting in vain, and at these moments the arrival 
 of her American friends (he often wondered that she 
 had so few), seemed to lift the mystery from his 
 shoulders and give him a chance to rest. This formula 
 she herself was not yet able to give it, for she was 
 not aware how much ground it was expected to 
 cover. She talked about her past, because she 
 thought it the best thing to do ; she had a shrewd 
 conviction that it was better to make a good use of it 
 than to attempt to efface it. To efface it was impos 
 sible, though that was what she would have preferred. 
 She had no objection to telling fibs, but now that she 
 was taking a new departure, she wished to tell only 
 those that were necessary. She would have been de 
 lighted if it had been possible to tell none at all. A 
 few, however, were indispensable, and we need not 
 attempt to estimate more closely the ingenious re-ar 
 rangements of fact with which she entertained and 
 
52 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 mystified Sir Arthur. She knew of course that as a 
 product of fashionable circles she was nowhere, but 
 she mi "lit have great success as a child of nature. 
 
 IV. 
 
 RUPERT WATERVILLE, in the midst of intercourse 
 in which every one perhaps had a good many mental 
 reservations, never forgot that he was in a representa 
 tive position, that he was responsible, official ; and 
 he asked himself more than once how far it was per 
 mitted to him to countenance Mrs. Headway s pre 
 tensions to being an American lady typical even of 
 the newer phases. In his own way he was as puzzled 
 as poor Sir Arthur, and indeed he flattered himself 
 that he was as particular as any Englishman could 
 be. Suppose that after all this free association Mrs. 
 Headway should come over to London and ask at the 
 Legation to be presented to the Queen ? It would 
 be so awkward to refuse her of course they would 
 have to refuse her that he was very careful about 
 making tacit promises. She might construe any 
 thing as a tacit promise he knew how the smallest 
 gestures of diplomatists were studied and interpreted. 
 It was his effort therefore to be really the diploma 
 tist iii his relations with this attractive but danger 
 ous woman. The party of four used often to dine 
 together Sir Arthur pushed his confidence so far 
 and on these occasions Mrs. Headway, availing 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 53 
 
 herself of one of the privileges of a lady, even at the 
 most expensive restaurant used to wipe her glasses 
 with her napkin. One evening, when after polishing 
 a goblet she held it up to the light, giving it, with 
 her head on one side, the least glimmer of a wink, he 
 said to himself as he watched her that she looked 
 like a modern bacchante. He noticed at this mo 
 ment that the baronet was gazing at her too, and he 
 wondered if the same idea had come to him. He 
 often wondered what the baronet thought ; he had 
 devoted first and last a good deal of speculation to 
 the baronial class. Littlemore, alone, at this mo 
 ment, was not observing Mrs. Headway ; he never 
 appeared to observe her, though she often observed 
 him. Waterville asked himself among other things 
 why Sir Arthur had not brought his own friends 
 to see her, for Paris during the several weeks that 
 now elapsed was rich in English visitors. He won 
 dered whether she had asked him and he had re 
 fused ; he would have liked very much to know 
 whether she had asked him. He explained his curi 
 osity to Littlemore, who, however, took very little 
 interest in it. Littlemore said, nevertheless, that he 
 had no doubt she had asked him ; she never would 
 be deterred by false delicacy. 
 
 " She has been very delicate with you," Water 
 ville replied. " She has n t been at all pressing 
 of late." 
 
 " It is only because she has given me up ; she 
 thinks I m a brute." 
 
54 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " I wonder what she thinks of me," Waterville 
 said, pensively. 
 
 " Oh, she counts upon you to introduce her to the 
 Minister. It s lucky for you that our representa 
 tive here is absent." 
 
 "Well," Waterville rejoined, "the Minister has 
 settled two or three difficult questions, and I suppose 
 he can settle this one. I shall do nothing but by 
 the orders of my chief." He was very fond of talk 
 ing about his chief. 
 
 " She does me injustice," Littlemore added in a 
 moment. " I have spoken to several people about 
 her." 
 
 " Ah ; but what have you told them ? " 
 
 " That she lives at the Hotel Meurice ; and that 
 she wants to know nice people." 
 
 "They are flattered, I suppose, at your thinking 
 them nice, but they don t go," said Waterville. 
 
 " I spoke of her to Mrs. Bagshaw, and Mrs. Bag- 
 shaw has promised to go." 
 
 " Ah," Waterville murmured ; "you don t call 
 Mrs. Bagshaw nice ? Mrs. Headway won t see 
 her." 
 
 " That s exactly what she wants, to be able to 
 cut some one ! " 
 
 Waterville had a theory that Sir Arthur was keep 
 ing Mrs. Headway as a surprise he meant perhaps 
 to produce her during the next London season. He 
 presently, however, learned as much about the matter 
 as he could have desired to know. He had once 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 55 
 
 offered to accompany his beautiful compatriot to the 
 Museum of the Luxembourg and tell her a little 
 about the modern French school. She had not ex 
 amined this collection, in spite of her determination 
 to see everything remarkable (she carried her Murray 
 in her lap even when she went to see the great tailor 
 in the Rue de la Paix, to whom, as she said, she had 
 given no end of points) ;.for she usually went to such 
 places with Sir Arthur, and Sir Arthur w r as indiffer 
 ent to the modern painters of France. " He says 
 there are much better men in England. I must wait 
 for the Royal Academy, next year. He seems to 
 think one can wait for anything, but I m not so good 
 at waiting as he. I can t afford to wait I ve 
 waited long enough." So much as this Mrs. Head 
 way said on the occasion of her arranging with Rupert 
 Waterville that they should some day visit the Lux 
 embourg together. She alluded to the Englishman 
 as if he were her husband or her brother, her natural 
 protector and companion. 
 
 "I wonder if she knows how that sounds? " Water 
 ville said to himself. " I don t believe she would do 
 it if she knew how it sounds." And he made the 
 further reflection that when one arrived from San 
 Diego there was no end to .the things one had to 
 learn : it took so many things to make a well-bred 
 woman. Clever as she was, Mrs. Headway was right 
 in saying that she couldn t afford to wait. She 
 must learn quickly. She wrote to Waterville one 
 day to propo.se that they should go to the Museum 
 
56 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 on the morrow ; Sir Arthur s mother was in Paris, on 
 her way to Cannes, where she was to spend the win 
 ter. She was only passing through, but she would 
 be there three days and he would naturally give 
 himself up to her. She appeared to have the proper- 
 est ideas as to what a gentleman would propose to 
 do for his mother. She herself, therefore, would be 
 free, and she named the hour at which she should 
 expect him to call for her. He was punctual to the 
 appointment, and they drove across the river in the 
 large high-hung barouche in which she constantly 
 rolled about Paris. With Mr. Max on the box the 
 courier was ornamented with enormous whiskers 
 this vehicle had an appearance of great respectability, 
 though Sir Arthur assured her she repeated this to 
 her other friends that in London, next year, they 
 would do the thing much better for her. It struck 
 her other friends of course that the baronet was pre 
 pared to be very consistent, and this on the whole 
 was what Waterville would have expected of him. 
 Littlemore simply remarked that at San Diego she 
 drove herself about in a rickety buggy, with muddy 
 wheels, and with a mule very often in the shafts. 
 Waterville felt something like excitement as he asked 
 himself whether the baronet s mother would now con 
 sent to know her. She must of course be aware that 
 it was a woman who was keeping her sou in Paris at 
 a season when English gentlemen were most natu 
 rally employed in shooting partridges. 
 
 " She is staying at the Hotel du llhiii, and I have 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 57 
 
 made him feel that he must n t leave her while she is 
 here/ Mrs. Headway said, as they drove up the nar 
 row Rue de Seine. " Her name is Lady Demesne, 
 but her full title is the Honorable Lady Demesne, 
 as she s a Baron s daughter. Her father used to be 
 a banker, but he did something or other for the 
 Government the Tories, you know, they call them 
 and so he was raised to the peerage. So you see 
 one can be raised ! She has a lady with her as a 
 companion." Waterville s neighbor gave him this 
 information with a seriousness that made him smile; 
 he wondered whether she thought he did n t know 
 how a Baron s daughter was addressed. In that she 
 was very provincial ; she had a way of exaggerating 
 the value of her intellectual acquisitions and of as 
 suming that others had been as ignorant as she. He 
 noted, too, that she had ended by suppressing poor 
 Sir Arthur s name altogether, and designating him 
 only by a sort of conjugal pronoun. She had been 
 so much, and so easily, married, that she was full of 
 these misleading references to gentlemen. 
 
 V. 
 
 THEY walked through the gallery of the Luxem 
 bourg, and except that Mrs. Headway looked at 
 everything at once and at nothing long enough, 
 talked, as usual, rather too loud, and bestowed too 
 much attention on the bad copies that were being 
 
58 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 made of several indifferent pictures, she was a very 
 agreeable companion and a grateful recipient of 
 knowledge. She was very quick to understand, and 
 Waterville was sure that before she left the gallery 
 she knew something about the French school. She 
 was quite prepared to compare it critically with Lon 
 don exhibitions of the following year. As Littlemore 
 and he had remarked more than once, she was a very 
 odd mixture. Her conversation, her personality, 
 were full of little joints and seams, all of them very 
 visible, where the old and the new had been pieced 
 together. When they had passed through the differ 
 ent rooms of the palace Mrs. Headway proposed that 
 instead of returning directly they should take a stroll 
 in the adjoining gardens, which she wished very much 
 to see and was sure she should like. She had quite 
 seized the difference between the old Paris and the 
 new, and felt the force of the romantic associations of 
 the Latin quarter as perfectly as if she had enjoyed 
 all the benefits of modern culture. The autumn sun 
 was warm in the alleys and terraces of the Luxem 
 bourg ; the masses of foliage above them, clipped and 
 squared, rusty with ruddy patches, shed a thick lace- 
 work over the white sky, which was streaked with 
 the palest blue. The beds of flowers near the palace 
 were of the vividest yellow and red, and the sunlight 
 rested on the smooth gray walls of those parts of its 
 basement that looked south ; in front of which, on 
 the long green benches, a row of brown-cheeked 
 nurses, in white caps and white aprons, sat offering 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 59 
 
 nutrition to as many bundles of white drapery. 
 There were other white caps wandering in the broad 
 paths, attended by little brown French children ; the 
 small, straw-seated chairs were piled and stacked in 
 some places and disseminated in others. An old lady 
 in black, with white hair fastened over each of her 
 temples by a large black comb, sat on the edge of a 
 stone bench (too high for her delicate length), mo 
 tionless, staring straight before her and holding a large 
 door-key ; under a tree a priest was reading you 
 could see his lips move at a distance ; a young sol 
 dier, dwarfish and red-legged, strolled past with his 
 hands in his pockets, which were very much dis 
 tended. Waterville sat down with Mrs. Headway on 
 the straw-bottomed chairs, and she presently said, " I 
 like this ; it s even better than the pictures in the 
 gallery. It s more of a picture." 
 
 "Everything in France is a picture even things 
 that are ugly," Waterville replied. " Everything 
 makes a subject." 
 
 " Well, I like France ! " Mrs. Headway went on, 
 with a little incongruous sigh. Then, suddenly, from 
 an impulse even more inconsequent than her sigh, she 
 added, " He asked me to go and see her, but I told 
 him I would n t. She may come and see me if she 
 likes." This was so abrupt that Waterville was 
 slightly confounded ; but he speedily perceived that 
 she had returned by a short cut to Sir Arthur De 
 mesne and his honorable mother. Waterville liked 
 to know about other people s affairs, but he did not 
 
GO THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 like tliis taste to be imputed to him ; and therefore, 
 though lie was curious to see how the old lady, as he 
 called her, would treat his companion, he was rather 
 displeased with the latter for being so confidential. 
 He had never imagined he was so intimate with her 
 as that. Mrs. Headway, however, had a manner of 
 taking intimacy for granted ; a manner which Sir Ar 
 thur s mother at least would be sure not to like. He 
 pretended to wonder a little what she was talking 
 about, but she scarcely explained. She only went 
 on, through untraceable transitions : " The least she 
 can do is to come. I have been very kind to her son. 
 That s not a reason for my going to her it s a rea 
 son for her coming to me. Besides, if she does n t 
 like what I ve done, she can leave me alone. I want 
 to get into European society, but I want to get in in 
 my own way. I don t want to run after people ; I 
 want them to run after me. I guess they will, some 
 day ! " Waterville listened to this with his eyes on 
 the ground ; he felt himself blushing a little. There 
 was something in Mrs. Headway that shocked and 
 mortified him, and Littlemore had been right in say 
 ing that she had a deficiency of shading. She was 
 terribly distinct ; her motives, her impulses, her de 
 sires were absolutely glaring. She needed to see, to 
 hear, her own thoughts. Vehement thought, with 
 Mrs. Headway, was inevitably speech, though speech 
 was not always thought, and now she had suddenly 
 become vehement. " If she does once come then, 
 ah, then, I shall be too perfect with her ; I sha n t let 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 61 
 
 her go ! But she must take the first step. I confess, 
 I hope she 11 be nice." 
 
 " Perhaps she won t," said Waterville perversely. 
 
 "Well, I don t care if she isn t. He has never 
 told me anything about her ; never a word about any 
 of his own belongings. If I wished, I might believe 
 he s ashamed of them." 
 
 " I don t think it s that." 
 
 " I know it is n t. I know what it is. It s just 
 modesty. He does n t want to brag he s too much 
 of a gentleman. He does n t want to dazzle me he 
 wants me to like him for himself. Well, I do like 
 him," she added in a moment. " But I shall like him 
 still better if he brings his mother. They shall know 
 that in America." 
 
 " Do you think it will make an impression in 
 America ? " Waterville asked, smiling. 
 
 " It will show them that I am visited by the British 
 aristocracy. They won t like that." 
 
 " Surely they grudge you no innocent pleasure," 
 Waterville murmured, smiling still. 
 
 " They grudged me common politeness when I 
 was in New York ! Did you ever hear how they 
 treated me, when I came on from the West ? " 
 
 Waterville stared ; this episode was quite new to 
 him. His companion had turned towards him ; her 
 pretty head was tossed back like a flower in the 
 wind ; there was a flush in her cheek, a sharper light 
 in her eye. " Ah ! my dear New Yorkers, they re in 
 capable of rudeness ! " cried the young man. 
 
62 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " You re one of them, I see. But I don t speak of 
 the men. The men were well enough though they 
 did allow it," 
 
 " Allow what, Mrs. Headway ? " Waterville was 
 quite in the dark. 
 
 She would n t answer at once ; her eyes, glittering 
 a little, were fixed upon absent images. " What did 
 you hear about me over there ? Don t pretend you 
 heard nothing." 
 
 He had heard nothing at all ; there had not been a 
 word about Mrs. Headway in New York. He could n t 
 pretend, and he was obliged to tell her this. " But 
 I have been away," he added, " and in America I 
 did n t go out. There s nothing to go out for in New 
 York only little boys and girls." 
 
 " There are plenty of old women ! They decided I 
 was improper. I m very well known in the West 
 I m known from Chicago to San Francisco if not 
 personally (in all cases), at least by reputation. Peo 
 ple can tell you out there. In New York they de 
 cided I was n t good enough. Not good enough for 
 New York ! What do you say to that ? " And she 
 gave a sweet little laugh. Whether she had strug 
 gled with her pride before making this avowal, Wa 
 terville never knew. The crudity of the avowal 
 seemed to indicate that she had no pride, and yet 
 there was a spot in her heart which, as he now 
 perceived, was intensely sore and had suddenly be 
 gun to throb. " I took a house for the winter one 
 of the handsomest houses in the place but I sat 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 63 
 
 there all alone. They did n t think me proper. Such 
 as you see me here, I was n t a success ! I tell you 
 the truth, at whatever cost. Not a decent woman 
 came to see me ! " 
 
 Waterville was embarrassed ; diplomatist as he was, 
 he hardly knew what line to take. He could not see 
 what need there was of her telling him the truth, 
 though the incident appeared to have been most curi 
 ous, and he was glad to know the facts on the best 
 authority. It was the first he knew of this remark 
 able woman s having spent a winter in his native city 
 - which was virtually a proof of her having come 
 and gone in complete obscurity. It was vain for him 
 to pretend that he had been a good deal away, for he 
 had been appointed to his post in London only six 
 months before, and Mrs. Headway s social failure pre 
 ceded that event. In the midst of these reflections 
 he had an inspiration. He attempted neither to ex 
 plain, to minimize, nor to apologize ; he ventured 
 simply to lay his hand for an instant on her own and 
 to exclaim, as tenderly as possible, " I wish / had 
 known you were there ! " 
 
 " I had plenty of men but men don t count. If 
 they are not a positive help, they re a hinderance, 
 and the more you have, the worse it looks. The 
 women simply turned their backs." 
 
 " They were afraid of you they were jealous," 
 AVaterville said. 
 
 " It s very good of you to try and explain it away ; 
 all I know is, not one of them crossed my threshold. 
 
64 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 You need n t try and tone it down ; I know perfectly 
 how the case stands. In New York, if you please, I 
 was a failure ! " 
 
 " So much the worse for New York ! " cried Water- 
 ville, who, as he afterwards said to Littlemore, had 
 got quite worked up. 
 
 "And now you know why I want to get into 
 society over here ? " She jumped up and stood before 
 him ; with a dry, hard smile she looked down at him. 
 Her smile itself was an answer to her question ; it ex 
 pressed an urgent desire for revenge. There was an 
 abruptness in her movements which left Waterville 
 quite behind ; but as he still sat there, returning her 
 glance, he felt that he at last, in the light of that 
 smile, the flash of that almost fierce question, under 
 stood Mrs. Headway. 
 
 She turned away, to walk to the gate of the garden, 
 and he went with her, laughing vaguely, uneasily, at 
 her tragic tone. Of course she expected him to help 
 her to her revenge ; but his female relations, his 
 mother and his sisters, his innumerable cousins, had 
 been a party to the slight she suffered, and he reflected 
 as he walked along that after all they had been right. 
 They had been right in not going to see a woman who 
 could chatter that way about her social wrongs ; 
 whether Mrs. Headway were respectable or not, they 
 had a correct instinct, for at any rate she was vulgar. 
 European society might let her in, but European 
 society would be wrong. New York, Waterville said 
 to himself with a glow of civic pride, was quite 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 65 
 
 capable of taking a higher stand in such a matter" than 
 London. They went some distance without speaking ; 
 at last he said, expressing honestly the thought which 
 at that moment was uppermost in his mind, " I hate 
 that phrase, getting into society. I don t think 
 one ought to attribute to one s self that sort of am 
 bition. One ought to assume that one is in society 
 that one is society and to hold that if one has 
 good manners, one has, from the social point of 
 view, achieved the great thing. The rest regards 
 others." 
 
 For a moment she appeared not to understand; 
 then she broke out : " Well, I suppose I have n t good 
 manners ; at any rate, I m not satisfied ! Of course, I 
 don t talk right I know that very well. But let me 
 get where I want to first then I 11 look after my 
 expressions. If I once get there, I shall be perfect ! " 
 she cried with a tremor of passion. They reached the 
 gate of the garden and stood a moment outside, 
 opposite to the low arcade of the Odeon, lined with 
 bookstalls at which Waterville cast a slightly wistful 
 glance, waiting for Mrs. Headway s carriage, which 
 had drawn up at a short distance. The whiskered 
 Max had seated himself within, and on the tense, 
 elastic cushions had fallen into a doze. The carriage 
 got into motion without his awaking ; he came to his 
 senses only as it stopped again. He started up, 
 staring ; then, without confusion, he proceeded to 
 descend. 
 
 " I have learned it in Italy they say the siesta" 
 
06 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 he remarked with an agreeable smile, holding the 
 door open to Mrs. Headway. 
 
 " Well, I should think you had ! " this lady replied, 
 laughing amicably as she got into the vehicle, whither 
 Waterville followed her. It was not a surprise to him 
 to perceive that she spoiled her courier ; she naturally 
 would spoil her courier. But -civilization begins at 
 home, said Waterville ; and the incident threw an 
 ironical light upon her desire to get into society. It 
 failed, however, to divert her thoughts from the sub 
 ject she was discussing with Waterville, for as Max 
 ascended the box and the carriage went on its way, 
 she threw out another little note of defiance. "If 
 once I m all right over here, I can snap my fingers at 
 New York ! You 11 see the faces those women will 
 make." 
 
 Waterville was sure his mother and sisters would 
 make no faces ; but he felt afresh, as the carriage 
 rolled back to the Hotel Meurice, that now he under 
 stood Mrs. Headway. As they were about to enter 
 the court of the hotel a closed carriage passed before 
 them, and while a few moments later he helped his 
 companion to alight, he saw that Sir Arthur Demesne 
 had descended from the other vehicle. Sir Arthur 
 perceived Mrs. Headway, and instantly gave his hand 
 to a lady seated in the coup& This lady emerged with 
 a certain slow impressiveness, and as she stood before 
 the door of the hotel a woman still young and fair, 
 with a good deal of height, gentle, tranquil, plainly 
 dressed, yet distinctly imposing Waterville saw that 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON, 67 
 
 the baronet had brought his mother to call upon Nancy 
 Beck. Mrs. Headway s triumph had begun; the 
 Dowager Lady Demesne had taken the first step. 
 Waterville wondered whether the ladies in New York, 
 notified by some magnetic wave, were distorting their 
 features. Mrs. Headway, quickly conscious of what 
 had happened, was neither too prompt to appropriate 
 the visit, nor too slow to acknowledge it. She just 
 paused, smiling at Sir Arthur. 
 
 " I wish to introduce my mother she wants very 
 much to know you." He approached Mrs. Headway; 
 the lady had taken his arm. She was at once simple 
 and circumspect; she had all the resources of an 
 English matron. 
 
 Mrs. Headway, without advancing a step, put out 
 her hands as if to draw her visitor quickly closer. " I 
 declare, you re too sweet ! " Waterville heard her say. 
 
 He was turning away, as his own business was 
 over ; but the young Englishman, who had surrend 
 ered his mother to the embrace, as it might now 
 almost be called, of their hostess, just checked him 
 with a friendly gesture. "I daresay I sha n t see 
 you again I m going away." 
 
 " Good-by, then," said Waterville. " You return to 
 England ? " 
 
 " No ; I go to Cannes with my mother." 
 
 " You remain at Cannes ? " 
 
 " Till Christmas very likely." 
 
 The ladies, escorted by Mr. Max, had passed into 
 the hotel, and Waterville presently quitted his inter- 
 
68 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 locutor. He smiled as he walked away reflecting 
 that this personage had obtained a concession from 
 his mother only at the price of a concession. 
 
 The next morning he went to see Littlemore, from 
 whom he had a standing invitation to breakfast, and 
 who, as usual, was smoking a cigar and looking 
 through a dozen newspapers. Littlemore had a large 
 apartment and an accomplished cook ; he got up late 
 and wandered about his room all the morning, stop 
 ping from time to time to look out of his windows 
 which overhung the Place de la Madeleine. They 
 had not been seated many minutes at breakfast when 
 Waterville announced that Mrs. Headway was about 
 to be abandoned by Sir Arthur, who was going to 
 Cannes. 
 
 " That s no news to me," Littlemore said. " He 
 came last night to bid me good-by." 
 
 " To bid you good-by ? He was very civil all of a 
 sudden." 
 
 " He did n t come from civility he came from 
 curiosity. Having dined here, he had a pretext for 
 calling." 
 
 " I hope his curiosity was satisfied," Waterville 
 remarked, in the manner of a person who could enter 
 into such a sentiment. 
 
 Littlemore hesitated. " Well, I suspect not. He 
 sat here some time, but we talked about everything 
 but what he wanted to know." 
 
 " And what did he want to know ? " 
 
 " Whether I know anything against Nancy Beck." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 69 
 
 Waterville stared. "Did lie call her Nancy 
 Beck ? " 
 
 "We never mentioned her; but I saw what he 
 wanted, and that he wanted me to lead up to her 
 only I would n t do it." 
 
 " All, poor man ! " Waterville murmured. 
 
 " I don t see why you pity him," said Littlernore. 
 " Mrs. Beck s admirers were never pitied." 
 
 " Well, of course he wants to marry her." 
 
 "Let him do it, then. I have nothing to say 
 to it." 
 
 " He believes there s something in her past that s 
 hard to swallow." 
 
 " Let him leave it alone, then." 
 
 " How can he, if he s in love with her ? " Water 
 ville asked, in the tone of a man who could enter 
 into that sentiment too. 
 
 "Ah, my dear fellow, he must settle it himself. 
 He has no right, at any rate, to ask me such a ques 
 tion. There was a moment, just as he was going, 
 when he had it on his tongue s end. He stood there 
 in the doorway, he could n t leave me he was go 
 ing to plump out with it. He looked at me straight, 
 and I looked straight at him ; we remained that way 
 for almost a minute. Then he decided to hold his 
 tongue, and took himself off." 
 
 Waterville listened to this little description with 
 intense interest. " And if he had asked you, what 
 would you have said ? " 
 
 " What do you think ? " 
 
70 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 "Well, I suppose you would have said that his 
 question was n t fair ?" 
 
 " That would have been tantamount to admitting 
 the worst." 
 
 "Yes," said Waterville, thoughtfully, "you couldn t 
 do that. On the other hand, if he had put it to you 
 on your honor whether she were a woman to marry, 
 it would have been very awkward." 
 
 " Awkward enough. Fortunately, he has no busi 
 ness to put things to me on my honor. Moreover, 
 nothing has passed between us to give him the right 
 to ask me questions about Mrs. Headway. As she is 
 a great friend of mine, he can t pretend to expect me 
 to give confidential information about her." 
 
 " You don t think she s a woman to marry, all the 
 same," Waterville declared. " And if a man were to 
 ask you that, you might knock him down, but it 
 would n t be an answer." 
 
 "It would have to serve," said Littlemore. He 
 added in a moment, " There are certain cases where 
 it s a man s duty to commit perjury." 
 
 Waterville looked grave. " Certain cases ? " 
 
 " Where a woman s honor is at stake." 
 
 " I see what you mean. That s of course if he 
 has been himself concerned " 
 
 " Himself or another. It does n t matter." 
 
 " I think it does matter. I don t like perjury," 
 said Waterville. " It s a delicate question." 
 
 They were interrupted by the arrival of the ser 
 vant with a second course, and Littlemore gave a 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 71 
 
 laugh as he helped himself. " It would be a joke to 
 
 see her married to that superior being!" 
 " It would be a great responsibility." 
 " Eesponsibility or not, it would be very amusing." 
 " Do you mean to assist her, then ? " 
 " Heaven forbid ! But I mean to bet on her." 
 Waterville gave his companion a serious glance ; 
 
 he thought him strangely superficial. The situation, 
 
 however, was difficult, and he laid down his fork 
 
 with a little sigh. 
 
72 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE Easter holidays that year were unusually 
 genial; mild, watery sunshine assisted the progress 
 of the spring. The high, dense hedges, in Warwick 
 shire, were like walls of hawthorn imbedded in banks 
 of primrose, and the finest trees in England, spring 
 ing out of them with a regularity which suggested 
 conservative principles, began to cover themselves 
 with a kind of green downiness. Eupert Waterville, 
 devoted to his duties and faithful in attendance at 
 the Legation, had had little time to enjoy that rural 
 hospitality which is the great invention of the 
 English people and the most perfect expression of 
 their character. He had been invited now and then 
 for in London he commended himself to many 
 people as a very sensible young man but he had 
 been obliged to decline more proposals than he 
 accepted. It was still, therefore, rather a novelty to 
 him to stay at one of those fine old houses, surrounded 
 with hereditary acres, which from the first of his 
 coming to England he had thought of with such 
 curiosity and such envy. He proposed to himself 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 73 
 
 to see as many of them as possible, but he disliked 
 to do things in a hurry, or when his mind was 
 preoccupied, as it was so apt to be, with what he 
 believed to be business of importance. He kept the 
 country-houses in reserve ; he would take them up in 
 their order, after he should have got a little more 
 used to London. Without hesitation, however, he 
 had accepted the invitation to Longlands ; it had 
 come to him in a simple and familiar note, from 
 Lady Demesne, with whom he had no acquaintance. 
 He knew of her return from Cannes, where she had 
 spent the whole winter, for he had seen it related 
 in a Sunday newspaper; yet it was with a certain 
 surprise that he heard from her in these informal 
 terms. " Dear Mr. Waterville," she wrote, " my son 
 tells me that you will perhaps be able to come down 
 here on the 17th, to spend two or three days. If 
 you can, it will give us much pleasure. We can 
 promise you the society of your charming country 
 woman, Mrs. Headway." 
 
 He had seen Mrs. Headway ; she had written to 
 him a fortnight before from an hotel in Cork Street, 
 to say that she had arrived in London for the season 
 and should be very glad to see him. He had gone 
 to see her, trembling with the fear that she would 
 break ground about her presentation; but he was 
 agreeably surprised to observe that she neglected 
 this topic. She had spent the winter in Borne, trav 
 elling directly from that city to England, with just 
 a little stop in Paris, to buy a few clothes. She 
 
 4 
 
74 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 had taken much satisfaction in Borne, where she 
 made many friends ; she assured him that she knew 
 half the Koman nobility. " They are charming peo 
 ple ; they have only one fault, they stay too long," 
 she said. And, in answer to his inquiring glance, 
 " I mean when they come to see you," she explained. 
 " They used to come every evening, and they wanted 
 to stay till the next day. They were all princes 
 and counts. I used to give them cigars, &c. I knew 
 as many people as I wanted," she added, in a mo 
 ment, discovering perhaps in Water ville s eye the 
 traces of that sympathy with which six months 
 before he had listened to her account of her discom 
 fiture in New York. " There were lots of English ; 
 I knew all the English, and I mean to visit them 
 here. The Americans waited to see what the English 
 would do, so as to do the opposite. Thanks to that, I 
 was spared some precious specimens. There are, you 
 know, some fearful ones. Besides, in Eome, society 
 does n t matter, if you have a feeling for the ruins and 
 the Campagna; I had an immense feeling for the 
 Campagna. I was always mooning round in some 
 damp old temple. It reminded me a good deal of 
 the country round San Diego if it hadn t been for 
 the temples. I liked to think it all over, when I 
 was driving round ; I was always brooding over the 
 past." At this moment, however, Mrs. Headway had 
 dismissed the past ; she was prepared to give herself 
 up wholly to the actual. She wished Waterville to 
 advise her as to how she should live what she 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 75 
 
 should do. Should she stay at a hotel or should she 
 take a house ? She guessed she had better take a 
 house, if she could find a nice one. Max wanted 
 to look for one, and she did n t know but she d let 
 him ; he got her such a nice one in Eome. She said 
 nothing about Sir Arthur Demesne, who, it seemed 
 to Waterville, would have been her natural guide 
 and sponsor; he wondered whether her relations 
 with the baronet had come to an end. Waterville 
 had met him a couple of times since the opening of 
 Parliament, and they had exchanged twenty words, 
 none of which, however, had reference to Mrs. Head 
 way. Waterville had been recalled to London just 
 after the incident of which he was witness in the 
 court of the Hotel Meurice ; and all he knew of its 
 consequence was what he had learned from Little- 
 more, who, on his way back to America, where he 
 had suddenly ascertained that there were reasons for 
 his spending the winter, passed through the British, 
 capital. Littlemore had reported that Mrs. Head 
 way was enchanted with Lady Demesne, and had no 
 words to speak of her kindness and sweetness. "She 
 told me she liked to know her son s friends, and I 
 told her I liked to know my friends mothers," Mrs. 
 Headway had related. " I should be willing to be 
 old if I could be like that," she had added, oblivious 
 for the moment that she was at least as near to the 
 age of the mother as to that of the son. The mother 
 and son, at any rate, had retired to Cannes together, 
 and at this moment Littlemore had received letters 
 
76 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 from home which caused him to start for Arizona. 
 Mrs. Headway had accordingly been left to her own 
 devices, and he was afraid she had bored herself, 
 though Mrs. Bagshaw had called upon her. In 
 November she had travelled to Italy, not by way of 
 Cannes. 
 
 " What do you suppose she 11 do in Borne ? " 
 Waterville had asked; his imagination failing him 
 here, for he had not yet trodden the Seven Hills. 
 
 "I haven t the least idea. And I don t care!" 
 Littlemore added in a moment. Before he left Lon 
 don he mentioned to Waterville that Mrs. Headway, 
 on his going to take leave of her in Paris, had made 
 another, and a rather unexpected, attack. "About 
 the society business she said I must really do 
 something she could n t go on in that way. And 
 she appealed to me in the name I don t think I 
 quite know how to say it." 
 
 " I should be very glad if you would try," said 
 Waterville, who was constantly reminding himself 
 that Americans in Europe were, after all, in a man 
 ner, to a man in his position, as the sheep to the 
 shepherd. 
 
 " Well, in the name of the affection that we had 
 formerly entertained for each other." 
 
 " The affection ?" 
 
 " So she was good enough to call it. But I deny 
 it all. If one had to have an affection for every 
 woman one used to sit up evenings with ! " And 
 Littlemore paused, not defining the result of such an 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 77 
 
 obligation. Waterville tried to imagine what it 
 would be ; while his friend embarked for New York, 
 without telling him how, after all, he had resisted 
 Mrs. Headway s attack. 
 
 At Christmas, Waterville knew of Sir Arthur s 
 return to England, and believed that he also knew 
 that the baronet had not gone down to Rome. He 
 had a theory that Lady Demesne was a very clever 
 woman clever enough to make her son do what she 
 preferred and yet also make him think it his own 
 choice. She had been politic, accommodating, about 
 going to see Mrs. Headway; but, having seen her 
 and judged her, she had determined to break the 
 thing off. She had been sweet and kind, as Mrs. 
 Headway said, because for the moment that was 
 easiest ; but she had made her last visit on the same 
 occasion as her first. She had been sweet and kind, 
 but she had set her face as a stone, and if poor Mrs. 
 Headway, arriving in London for the season, expected 
 to find any vague promises redeemed, she would taste 
 of the bitterness of shattered hopes. He had made 
 up his mind that, shepherd as he was, and Mrs. 
 Headway one of his sheep, it was none of his present 
 duty to run about after her, especially as she could 
 be trusted not to stray too far. He saw her a second 
 time, and she still said nothing about Sir Arthur. 
 Waterville, who always had a theory, said to himself 
 that she was waiting, that the baronet had not turned 
 up. She was also getting into a house ; the courier 
 had found her in Chesterfield Street, May fair, a little 
 
78 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 gem, which was to cost her what jewels cost. After 
 all this, Waterville was greatly surprised at Lady 
 Demesne s note, and he went down to Longlands 
 with much the same impatience with which, in Paris, 
 he would have gone, if he had been able, to the first 
 night of a new comedy. It seemed to him that, 
 through a sudden stroke of good fortune, he had 
 received a billet d auteur. 
 
 It was agreeable to him to arrive at an English 
 country-house at the close of the day. He liked the 
 drive from the station in the twilight, the sight of the 
 fields and copses and cottages, vague and lonely in 
 contrast to his definite, lighted goal ; the sound of the 
 wheels on the long avenue, which turned and wound 
 repeatedly without bringing him to what he reached 
 however at last the wide, gray front, with a glow 
 in its scattered windows and a sweep of still firmer 
 gravel up to the door. The front at Longlands, which 
 was of this sober complexion, had a grand, pompous 
 air; it was attributed to the genius of Sir Chris 
 topher Wren. There were wings which came for 
 ward in a semicircle, with statues placed at intervals 
 on the cornice ; so that in the flattering dusk it looked 
 like an Italian palace, erected through some magical 
 evocation in an English park. Waterville had taken 
 a late train, which left him but twenty minutes to 
 dress for dinner. He prided himself considerably on 
 the art of dressing both quickly and well ; but this 
 operation left him no time to inquire whether the 
 apartment to which he had been assigned befitted 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 79 
 
 the dignity of a Secretary of Legation. On emerg 
 ing from his room he found there was an ambassador 
 in the house, and this discovery was a check to un 
 easy reflections. He tacitly assumed that he would 
 have had a better room if it had not been for the 
 ambassador, who was of course counted first. The 
 large, brilliant house gave an impression of the last 
 century and of foreign taste, of light colors, high, 
 vaulted ceilings, with pale mythological frescos, 
 gilded doors, surmounted by old French panels, faded 
 tapestries and delicate damasks, stores of ancient 
 china, among which great jars of pink roses were con 
 spicuous. The people in the house had assembled 
 for dinner in the principal hall, which was animated 
 by a fire of great logs, and the company was so 
 numerous that Waterville was afraid he was the last. 
 Lady Demesne gave him a smile and a touch of her 
 hand ; she was very tranquil, and, saying nothing in 
 particular, treated him as if he had been a constant 
 visitor. Waterville was not sure whether he liked 
 this or hated it; but these alternatives mattered 
 equally little to his hostess, who looked at her guests 
 as if to see whether the number were right. The 
 master of the house was talking to a lady before the 
 fire ; when he caught sight of Waterville across the 
 room, he waved him " how d ye do," with an air of 
 being delighted to see him. He had never had that 
 air in Paris, and Waterville had a chance to observe, 
 what he had often heard, to how much greater advan 
 tage the English appear in their country houses. 
 
80 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 Lady Demesne turned to him again, with her sweet 
 vague smile, which looked as if it were the same for 
 everything. 
 
 " We are waiting for Mrs. Headway," she said. 
 
 " Ah, she has arrived ? " Waterville had quite 
 forgotten her. 
 
 " She came at half-past five. At six she went to 
 dress. She has had two hours." 
 
 " Let us hope that the results will be proportionate," 
 said Waterville, smiling. 
 
 " Oh, the results ; I don t know," Lady Demesne 
 murmured, without looking at him ; and in these sim 
 ple words Waterville saw the confirmation of his the 
 ory that she was playing a deep game. He wondered 
 whether he should sit next to Mrs. Headway at din 
 ner, and hoped, with due deference to this lady s 
 charms, that he should have something more novel. 
 The results of a toilet which she had protracted 
 through two hours were presently visible. She ap 
 peared on the staircase which descended to the hall, 
 and which, for three minutes, as she came down 
 rather slowly, facing the people beneath, placed her 
 in considerable relief. Waterville, as he looked at 
 her, felt that this was a moment of importance for 
 her : it was virtually her entrance into English soci 
 ety. Mrs. Headway entered English society very 
 well, with her charming smile upon her lips and witli 
 the trophies of the Itue de la Paix trailing behind 
 her. She made a portentous rustling as she moved. 
 People turned their eyes toward her ; there was soon 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 81 
 
 a perceptible diminution of talk, though talk had not 
 been particularly audible. She looked very much 
 alone, and it was rather pretentious of her to come 
 down last, though it was possible that this was simply 
 because, before her glass, she had been unable to 
 please herself. For she evidently felt the importance 
 of the occasion, and Water ville was sure that her 
 heart was beating. She was very valiant, however ; 
 she smiled more intensely, and advanced like a 
 woman who was used to being looked at. She had at 
 any rate the support of knowing that she was pretty : 
 for nothing on this occasion was wanting to her pret- 
 tiness, and the determination to succeed, which might 
 have made her hard, was veiled in the virtuous con 
 sciousness that she had neglected nothing. Lady 
 Demesne went forward to meet her ; Sir Arthur took 
 no notice of her ; and presently Waterville found 
 himself proceeding to dinner with the wife of an ec 
 clesiastic, to whom Lady Demesne had presented him 
 for this purpose when the hall was almost empty. 
 The rank of this ecclesiastic in the hierarchy he 
 learned early on the morrow ; but in the mean time 
 it seemed to him strange, somehow, that in England 
 ecclesiastics should have wives. English life, even at 
 the end of a year, was full of those surprises. The 
 lady, however, was very easily accounted for ; she 
 was in no sense a violent exception, and there had 
 been no need of the Eeformation to produce her. 
 Her name was Mrs. April; she was wrapped in a 
 large lace shawl ; to eat her dinner she removed but 
 
 4* 
 
82 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 one glove, and the other gave Waterville at moments 
 an odd impression that the whole repast, in spite of 
 its great completeness, was something of the picnic 
 order. Mrs. Headway was opposite, at a little dis 
 tance ; she had been taken in, as Waterville learned 
 from his neighbor, by a general, a gentleman with a 
 lean, aquiline face and a cultivated whisker, and she 
 had on the other side a smart young man of an identity 
 less definite. Poor Sir Arthur sat between two ladies 
 much older than himself, whose names, redolent of 
 history, Waterville had often heard, and had associ 
 ated with figures more romantic. Mrs. Headway 
 gave Waterville no greeting ; she evidently had not 
 seen him till they were seated at table, when she 
 simply stared at him with a violence of surprise that 
 for a moment almost effaced her smile. It was a 
 copious and well-ordered banquet, but as Waterville 
 looked up and down the table he wondered whether 
 some of its elements might not be a little dull. As 
 he made this reflection he became conscious that he 
 was judging the affair much more from Mrs. Head 
 way s point of view than from his own. He knew no 
 one but Mrs. April, who, displaying an almost moth 
 erly desire to give him information, told him the 
 names of many of their companions ; in return for 
 which he explained to her that he \vas not in that set. 
 Mrs. Headway got on in perfection with her gen 
 eral ; Waterville watched her more than he appeared 
 to do, and saw that the general, who evidently 
 was a cool hand, was drawing her out. Water- 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 83 
 
 ville hoped she would be careful. He was a man 
 of fancy, in his way, and as he compared her with the 
 rest of the company he said to himself that she was a 
 very plucky little woman, and that her present under 
 taking had a touch of the heroic. She was alone 
 against many, and her opponents were a very serried 
 phalanx ; those who were there represented a thou 
 sand others. They looked so different from her that 
 to the eye of the imagination she stood very much on 
 her merits. All those people seemed so completely 
 made up, so unconscious of effort, so surrounded 
 with things to rest upon ; the men with their 
 clean complexions, their well-hung chins, their cold, 
 pleasant eyes, their shoulders set back, their ab 
 sence of gesture ; the women, several very handsome, 
 half strangled in strings of pearls, with smooth plain 
 tresses, seeming to look at nothing in particular, sup 
 porting silence as if it were as becoming as candle 
 light, yet talking a little, sometimes, in fresh, rich 
 voices. They were all wrapped in a community of 
 ideas, of traditions ; they understood each other s 
 accent, even each other s variations. Mrs. Headway, 
 with all her prettiness, seemed to transcend these 
 variations ; she looked foreign, exaggerated ; she 
 had too much expression ; she might have been 
 engaged for the evening. Waterville remarked, 
 moreover, that English society was always looking 
 out for amusement and that its transactions were 
 conducted on a cash basis. If Mrs. Headway were 
 amusing enough she would probably succeed, and 
 
84 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 her fortune if fortune there was would not be a 
 hinderance. 
 
 In the drawing-room, after dinner, he went up to 
 her, but she gave him no greeting. She only looked 
 at him with an expression he had never seen before 
 a strange, bold expression of displeasure. 
 
 " Why have you come down here ? " she asked. 
 " Have you come to watch me ? " 
 
 Waterville colored to the roots of his hair. He 
 knew it was terribly little like a diplomatist ; but he 
 was unable to control his blushes. Besides, he was 
 shocked, he was angry, and in addition he was 
 mystified. " I came because I was asked," he said. 
 
 "Who asked you?" 
 
 " The same person that asked you, I suppose 
 Lady Demesne." 
 
 " She s an old cat ! " Mrs. Headway exclaimed, 
 turning away from him. 
 
 He turned away from her as well. He did n t know 
 what he had done to deserve such treatment. It was 
 a complete surprise ; he had never seen her like that 
 before. She was a very vulgar woman ; that was 
 the way people talked, he supposed, at San Diego. 
 He threw himself almost passionately into the con 
 versation of the others, who all seemed to him, possi 
 bly a little by contrast, extraordinarily genial and 
 friendly. He had not, however, the consolation of 
 seeing Mrs. Headway punished for her rudeness, for 
 she was not in the least neglected. On the contrary, 
 in the part of the room where she sat the group was 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 85 
 
 denser, and every now and then it was agitated with 
 unanimous laughter. If she should amuse them, he 
 said to himself, she would succeed, and evidently she 
 
 was amusing them. 
 
 VII. 
 
 IF she was strange, he had not come to the end of 
 her strangeness. The next day was a Sunday and 
 uncommonly fine ; he was down before breakfast, and 
 took a walk in the park, stopping to gaze at the thin- 
 legged deer, scattered like pins on a velvet cushion 
 over some of the remoter slopes, and wandering along 
 the edge of a large sheet of ornamental water, which 
 had a temple, in imitation of that of Vesta, on an 
 island in the middle. He thought at this time no 
 more about Mrs. Headway ; he only reflected that 
 these stately objects had for more than a hundred 
 years furnished a background to a great deal of 
 family history. A little more reflection would perhaps 
 have suggested to him that Mrs. Headway was possibly 
 an incident of some importance in the history of 
 a family. Two or three ladies failed to appear at 
 breakfast ; Mrs. Headway was one of them. 
 
 " She tells me she never leaves her room till noon," 
 he heard Lady Demesne say to the general, her 
 companion of the previous evening, who had asked 
 about her. " She takes three hours to dress." 
 
 " She s a monstrous clever woman ! " the general 
 exclaimed. 
 
86 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " To do it in three hours ? " 
 
 " No, I mean the way she keeps her wits about 
 her." 
 
 " Yes ; I think she s very clever," said Lady 
 Demesne, in a tone in which Waterville flattered 
 himself that he saw more meaning than the general 
 could see. There was something in this tall, straight, 
 deliberate woman, who seemed at once benevolent 
 and distant, that Waterville admired. With her 
 delicate surface, her conventional mildness, he could 
 see that she was very strong ; she had set her patience 
 upon a height, and she carried it like a diadem. She 
 had very little to say to Waterville, but every now 
 and then she made some inquiry of him that showed 
 she had not forgotten him. Demesne himself was 
 apparently in excellent spirits, though there was 
 nothing bustling in his deportment, and he only went 
 about looking very fresh and fair, as if he took a 
 bath every hour or two, and very secure against the 
 unexpected. Waterville had less conversation with 
 him than with his mother ; but the young man had 
 found occasion to say to him the night before, in 
 the smoking-room, that he was delighted Waterville 
 had been able to come, and that if he was fond of 
 real English scenery there were several things about 
 there he should like very much to show him. 
 
 " You must give me an hour or two before you 
 go, you know ; I really think there are some things 
 you 11 like." 
 
 Sir Arthur spoke as if Waterville would be very 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 87 
 
 fastidious ; he seemed to wish to attach a vague 
 importance to him. On the Sunday morning after 
 breakfast he asked Waterville if he should care to 
 go to church ; most of the ladies and several of the 
 men were going. 
 
 "It s just as you please, you know; but it s 
 rather a pretty walk across the fields, and a curious 
 little church of King Stephen s time." 
 
 Waterville knew what this meant ; it was already a 
 picture. Besides, he liked going to church, especially 
 when he sat in the Squire s pew, which was some 
 times as big as a boudoir. So he replied that he 
 should be delighted. Then he added, without ex 
 plaining his reason 
 
 " Is Mrs. Headway going ? " 
 
 " I really don t know," said his host, with an 
 abrupt change of tone as if Waterville had asked 
 him whether the housekeeper were going. 
 
 "The English are awfully queer !" Waterville 
 indulged mentally in this exclamation, to which since 
 his arrival in England he had had recourse whenever 
 he encountered a gap in the consistency of things. 
 The church was even a better picture than Sir 
 Arthur s description of it, and Waterville said to 
 himself that Mrs. Headway had been a great fool not 
 to come. He knew what she was after ; she wished 
 to study English life, so that she might take posses 
 sion of it, and to pass in among a hedge of bobbing 
 rustics, and sit among the monuments of the old 
 Demesnes, would have told her a great deal about 
 
88 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 English life. If she wished to fortify herself for the 
 struggle she had better come to that old church.] 
 When he returned to Longlands he had walked 
 back across the meadows with the canon s wife, who 
 was a vigorous pedestrian it wanted half an hour of 
 luncheon, and he was unwilling to go indoors. He 
 remembered that he had not yet seen the gardens, 
 and he wandered away in search of them. They were 
 on a scale which enabled him to find them without 
 difficulty, and they looked as if they had been kept 
 up unremittingly for a century or two. He had not 
 advanced very far between their blooming borders 
 when he heard a voice that he recognized, and a 
 moment after, at the turn of an alley, he came upon 
 Mrs. Headway, who was attended by the master of 
 Longlands. She was bareheaded beneath her parasol, 
 which she flung back, stopping short, as she beheld 
 her compatriot. 
 
 " Oh, it s Mr. Waterville come to spy me out as 
 usual ! " It was with this remark that she greeted 
 the slightly embarrassed young man. 
 
 " Hallo ! you ve come home from church," Sir 
 Arthur said, pulling out his watch. 
 
 Waterville was struck with his coolness. He 
 admired it ; for, after all, he said to himself, it must 
 have been disagreeable to him to be interrupted. He 
 felt a little like a fool, and wished he had kept Mrs. 
 April with him, to give him the air of having come 
 for her sake. 
 
 Mrs. Headway looked adorably fresh, in a toilet 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 89 
 
 which Waterville, who had his ideas on such matters, 
 was sure would not be regarded as the proper thing 
 for a Sunday morning in an English country house ; 
 a ne gligg of white flounces and frills, interspersed with 
 yellow ribbons a garment which Madame de Pom 
 padour might have worn when she received a visit 
 from Louis XV., but would probably not have worn 
 when she went into the world. The sight of this 
 costume gave the finishing touch to Waterville s 
 impression that Mrs. Headway knew, on the whole, 
 what she was about. She would take a line of her 
 own ; she would not be too accommodating. She 
 would not come down to breakfast ; she would not go 
 to church ; she would wear on Sunday mornings little 
 elaborately informal dresses, and look dreadfully un- 
 British and un-Protestant. Perhaps, after all, this was 
 better. She began to talk with a certain volubility. 
 
 " Is n t this too lovely ? I walked all the way from 
 the house. I m not much at walking, but the grass 
 in this place is like a parlor. The whole thing is 
 beyond everything. Sir Arthur, you ought to go and 
 look after the Ambassador; it s shameful the way 
 I Ve kept you. You did n t care about the Ambassa 
 dor ? You said just now you had scarcely spoken to 
 him, and you must make it up. I never saw such a 
 way of neglecting your guests. Is that the usual 
 style over here ? Go and take him out for a ride, or 
 make him play a game of billiards. Mr. Waterville 
 will take me home ; besides, I want to scold him for 
 spying on me." 
 
90 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 Waterville sharply resented this accusation. " I 
 had no idea you were here," he declared. 
 
 " We were n t hiding," said Sir Arthur quietly. 
 " Perhaps you 11 see Mrs. Headway back to the 
 house. I think I ought to look after old Davidoff. 
 I believe lunch is at two." 
 
 He left them, and Waterville wandered through 
 the gardens with Mrs. Headway. She immediately 
 wished to know if he had come there to look after 
 her ; but this inquiry was accompanied, to his sur 
 prise, with the acrimony she had displayed the night 
 before. He was determined not to let that pass, how 
 ever ; when people had treated him in that way they 
 should not be allowed to forget it. 
 
 " Do you suppose I am always thinking of you ? " 
 he asked. " You re out of my mind sometimes. I 
 came here to look at the gardens, and if you had n t 
 spoken to me I should have passed on." 
 
 Mrs. Headway was perfectly good-natured ; she 
 appeared not even to hear his defence. " He has got 
 two other places," she simply rejoined. " That s just 
 what I wanted to know." 
 
 But Waterville would not be turned away from his 
 grievance. That mode of reparation to a person 
 w T hom you had insulted which consisted in forgetting 
 that you had done so, was doubtless largely in use in 
 New Mexico ; but a person of honor demanded some 
 thing more. "What did you mean last night by 
 accusing me of having come down here to watch 
 you ? You must excuse me if I tell you that I think 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 91 
 
 you were rather rude." The sting of this accusation 
 lay in the fact that there was a certain amount of 
 truth in it ; yet for a moment Mrs. Headway, looking 
 very blank, failed to recognize the allusion. " She s 
 a barbarian, after all," thought Waterville. " She 
 thinks a woman may slap a man s face and run 
 away ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Mrs. Headway, suddenly, " I remem 
 ber, I was angry with you ; I did n t expect to see 
 you. But I did n t really care about it at all. Every 
 now and then I am angry, like that, and I work it 
 off on any one that s handy. But it s over in three 
 minutes, and I never think of it again. I was angry 
 last night ; I was furious with the old woman." 
 
 " With the old woman ? " 
 
 " With Sir Arthur s mother. She has no business 
 here, any way. In this country, when the husband 
 dies, they re expected to clear out. She has a house 
 of her own, ten miles from here, and she has another 
 in Portman Square ; so she s got plenty of places to 
 live. But she sticks she sticks to him like a plaster. 
 All of a sudden it came over me that she didn t 
 invite me here because she liked me, but because 
 she suspects me. She s afraid we 11 make a match, 
 and she thinks I ain t good enough for her son. 
 She must think I m in a great hurry to get hold of 
 him. I never went after him, he came after me. I 
 should never have thought of anything if it had n t 
 been for him. He began it last summer at Homburg ; 
 he wanted to know why I did n t come to England ; 
 
92 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 he told me I should have great success. He does n t 
 know much about it, any way ; he has n t got much 
 gumption. But he s a very nice man, all the same ; 
 it s very pleasant to see him surrounded by his " 
 And Mrs. Headway paused a moment, looking admir 
 ingly about her " Surrounded by all his old heir 
 looms. I like the old place," she went on ; " it s 
 beautifully mounted ; I m quite satisfied with what 
 1 ve seen. I thought Lady Demesne was very 
 friundly ; she left a card on me in London, and very 
 soon after, she wrote to me to ask me here. But I m 
 very quick ; I sometimes see things in a flash. I saw 
 something yesterday, when she came to speak to me 
 at dinner-time. She saw I looked pretty, and it made 
 her blue with rage ; she hoped I would be ugly. I 
 should like very much to oblige her ; but what can 
 one do ? Then I saw that she had asked me here 
 only because he insisted. He did n t come to see me 
 when I first arrived he never came near me for 
 ton days. She managed to prevent him; she got 
 him to make some promise. But he changed his 
 mind after a little, and then he had to do something 
 really polite. He called three days in succession, and 
 lie made her come. She s one of those women that 
 resists as long as she can, and then seems to give 
 in, while she s really resisting more than ever. She 
 hates me like poison; I don t know what she thinks 
 1 ve done. She s very underhand ; she s a regular 
 old cat. When I saw you last night at dinner, I 
 thought she had got you here to help her." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 93 
 
 "To help her?" Waterville asked. 
 
 " To tell her about me. To give her information, 
 that she can make use of against me. You may tell 
 her what you like ! " 
 
 Waterville was almost breathless with the atten 
 tion he had given this extraordinary burst of confi 
 dence, and now he really felt faint. He stopped 
 short ; Mrs. Headway went on a few steps, and then, 
 stopping too, turned and looked at him. " You re 
 the most unspeakable woman ! " he exclaimed. She 
 seemed to him indeed a barbarian. 
 
 She laughed at him he felt she was laughing at 
 
 o o o 
 
 his expression of face and her laugh rang through 
 the stately gardens. " What sort of a woman is 
 that ? " 
 
 " You ve got no delicacy," said Waterville, reso 
 lutely. 
 
 She colored quickly, though, strange to say, she 
 appeared not to be angry. " No delicacy ? " she 
 repeated. 
 
 " You ought to keep those things to yourself." 
 
 " Oh, I know what you mean ; I talk about every 
 thing. When I m excited I Ve got to talk. But I 
 must do things in my own way. I ve got plenty of 
 delicacy, when people are nice to me. Ask Arthur 
 Demesne if I ain t delicate ask George Littlemore 
 if I ain t. Don t stand there all day; come in to 
 lunch ! " And Mrs. Headway resumed her walk, 
 while Eupert Waterville, raising his eyes for a mo 
 ment, slowly overtook her. " Wait till I get settled ; 
 
94 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 then I 11 be delicate," she pursued. " You can t be 
 delicate when you re trying to save your life. It s 
 very well for you to talk, with the whole American 
 Legation to back you. Of course I m excited. I ve 
 got hold of this thing, and I don t mean to let go ! " 
 Before they reached the house she told him why 
 he had been invited to Long-lands at the same time 
 as herself. Waterville would have liked to believe 
 that his personal attractions sufficiently explained 
 the fact; but she took no account of this supposi 
 tion. Mrs. Headway preferred to think that she 
 lived in an element of ingenious machination, and 
 that most things that happened had reference to 
 herself. Waterville had been asked because he rep 
 resented, however modestly, the American Legation, 
 and their host had a friendly desire to make it 
 appear that this pretty American visitor, of whom no 
 one knew anything, was under the protection of that 
 establishment. " It would start me better," said 
 Mrs. Headway, serenely. " You can t help yourself 
 you ve helped to start me. If he had known the 
 Minister he would have asked him or the first 
 secretary. But he don t know them." 
 
 They reached the house by the time Mrs. Headway 
 had developed this idea, which gave Waterville a 
 pretext more than sufficient for detaining her in the 
 portico. " Do you mean to say Sir Arthur told you 
 this ? " he inquired, almost sternly. 
 
 " Told me ? Of course not ! Do you suppose I 
 would let him take the tone with me that I need 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 95 
 
 any favors ? I. should like to hear him tell me that 
 I m in want of assistance ! " 
 
 " I don t see why he should n t at the pace you 
 go yourself. You say it to every one." 
 
 " To every one ? I say it to you, and to George 
 Littlemore when I m nervous. I say it to you 
 because I like you, and to him because I m afraid 
 of him. I m not in the least afraid of you, by the 
 way. I m all alone I have n t got any one. I 
 must have some comfort, must n t I ? Sir Arthur 
 scolded me for putting you off last night he 
 noticed it; and that was what made me guess his 
 idea." 
 
 " I m much obliged to him," said Waterville, rather 
 bewildered. 
 
 "So mind you answer for me. Don t you want 
 to give me your arm, to go in ? " 
 
 "You re a most extraordinary combination," he 
 murmured, as she stood smiling at him. 
 
 " Oh, come, don t you fall in love with me ! " she 
 cried, with a laugh; and, without taking his arm, 
 passed in before him. 
 
 That evening, before he went to dress for dinner, 
 Waterville wandered into the library, where he felt 
 sure that he should find some superior bindings. 
 There was no one in the room, and he spent a 
 happy half-hour among the treasures of literature 
 and the triumphs of old morocco. He had a great 
 esteem for good literature ; he held that it should 
 have handsome covers. The daylight had begun to 
 
96 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 wane, but whenever, in the rich-looking dimness, 
 he made out the glimmer of a well-gilded back, he 
 took down the volume and carried it to one of the 
 deep-set windows. He had just finished the inspec 
 tion of a delightfully fragrant folio, and was about 
 to carry it back to its niche, when he found himself 
 standing face to face with Lady Demesne. He was 
 startled for a moment, for her tall, slim figure, her 
 fair visage, which looked white in the high, brown 
 room, and the air of serious intention with which 
 she presented herself, gave something spectral to 
 her presence. He saw her smile, however, and heard 
 her say, in that tone of hers which was sweet almost 
 to sadness, " Are you looking at our books ? I m 
 afraid they are rather dull." 
 
 " Dull ? Why, they are as bright as the day they 
 were bound." And he turned the glittering panels 
 of his folio towards her. 
 
 " I m afraid I have n t looked at them for a long 
 time," she murmured, going nearer to the window, 
 where she stood looking out. Beyond the clear 
 pane the park stretched away, with the grayness of 
 evening beginning to hang itself on the great limbs 
 of the oaks. The place appeared cold and empty, 
 and the trees had an air of conscious importance, as 
 if nature herself had been bribed somehow to take 
 the side of county families. Lady Demesne was not 
 an easy person to talk with ; she was neither spon 
 taneous nor abundant ; she was conscious of herself, 
 conscious of many things. Her very simplicity was 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 97 
 
 conventional, though it was rather a noble conven 
 tion. You might have pitied her, if you had seen 
 that she lived in constant unrelaxed communion with 
 certain rigid ideals. This made her at times seem 
 tired, like a person who has undertaken too much. 
 She gave an impression of still brightness, which was 
 not at all brilliancy, but a carefully preserved purity. 
 She said nothing for a moment, and there was an 
 appearance of design in her silence, as if she wished 
 to let him know that she had a certain business with 
 him, without taking the trouble to announce it. She 
 had been accustomed to expect that people would 
 suppose things, and to be saved the trouble of expla 
 nations. Waterville made some hap-hazard remark 
 about the beauty of the evening (in point of fact, the 
 weather had changed for the worse), to which she 
 vouchsafed no reply. Then, presently, she said, with 
 her usual gentleness, "I hoped I should find you here 
 I wish to ask you something." 
 
 " Anything I can tell you I shall be delighted ! " 
 Waterville exclaimed. 
 
 She gave him a look, not imperious, almost appeal 
 ing, which seemed to say " Please be very simple 
 very simple indeed." Then she glanced about her, 
 as if there had been other people in the room ; she 
 did n t wish to appear closeted with him, or to have 
 come on purpose. There she was, at any rate, and 
 she went on. " When my son told me he should 
 ask you to come down, I was very glad. I mean, of 
 course, that we were delighted And she paused 
 
98 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 a moment. Then she added, simply, " I want to ask 
 you about Mrs. Headway." 
 
 " Ah, here it is ! " cried Waterville within himself. 
 More superficially, he smiled, as agreeably as pos 
 sible, and said, " Ah yes, I see ! " 
 
 " Do you mind my asking you ? I hope you don t 
 mind. I have n t any one else to ask." 
 
 " Your son knows her much better than I do." 
 Waterville said this without an intention of malice, 
 simply to escape from the difficulties of his situation ; 
 but after he had said it, he was almost frightened by 
 its mocking sound. 
 
 "I don t think he knows her. She knows him, 
 which is very different. When I ask him about her, 
 he merely tells me she is fascinating. She is fas 
 cinating," said her ladyship, with inimitable dryness. 
 
 "So I think, myself. I like her very much," 
 Waterville rejoined, cheerfully. 
 
 " You are in all the better position to speak of her, 
 then." 
 
 " To speak well of her," said Waterville, smiling. 
 
 " Of course, if you can. I should be delighted to 
 hear you do that. That s what I wish to hear 
 some good of her." 
 
 It might have seemed, after this, that nothing 
 would have remained but for Waterville to launch 
 himself in a panegyric of his mysterious country 
 woman ; but he was no more to be tempted into that 
 danger than into another. "I can only say I like 
 her," he repeated. " She has been very kind to me." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 99 
 
 " Every one seems to like her," said Lady De 
 mesne, with an unstudied effect of pathos. " She is 
 certainly very amusing." 
 
 " She is very good-natured ; she kas lots of good 
 intentions." 
 
 " What do you call good intentions ? " asked Lady 
 Demesne, very sweetly. 
 
 " Well, I mean that she wants to be friendly and 
 pleasant." 
 
 " Of course you have to defend her. She s your 
 countrywoman." 
 
 " To defend her I must wait till she s attacked," 
 said Waterville, laughing. 
 
 " That s very true. I need n t call your attention 
 to the fact that I am not attacking her. I should 
 never attack a person staying in this house. I only 
 want to know something about her, and if you can t 
 tell me, perhaps at least you can mention some one 
 who will." 
 
 " She 11 tell you herself. Tell you by the hour ! " 
 
 " What she has told my son ? I should n t under 
 stand it. My son does n t understand it. It s very 
 strange. I rather hoped you might explain it." 
 
 Waterville was silent a moment. " I rn afraid I 
 can t explain Mrs. Headway," he remarked at last. 
 
 " I see you admit she is very peculiar." 
 
 Waterville hesitated again. " It s too great a 
 responsibility to answer you." He felt that he 
 was very disobliging ; he knew exactly what Lady 
 Demesne wished him to say. He was unprepared to 
 
100 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 Might the reputation of Mrs. Headway to accommo 
 date Lady Demesne ; and yet, with his active little 
 imagination, he could enter perfectly into the feel 
 ings of this tender, formal, serious woman, who it 
 was easy to see had looked for her own happiness 
 in the cultivation of duty and in extreme constancy 
 to two or three objects of devotion chosen once for 
 all. She must, indeed, have had a vision of things 
 which would represent Mrs. Headway as both dis 
 pleasing and dangerous. But he presently became 
 aware that she had taken his last words as a conces 
 sion in which she might find help. 
 
 " You know why I ask you these things, then ? " 
 
 "I think I have an idea," said Waterville, per 
 sisting in irrelevant laughter. His laugh sounded 
 foolish in his own ears. 
 
 " If you know that, I think you ought to assist 
 me." Her tone changed as she spoke these words ; 
 there was a quick tremor in it ; he could see it was 
 a confession of distress. Her distress was deep ; he 
 immediately felt that it must have been, before she 
 made up her mind to speak to him. He was sorry 
 for her, and determined to be very serious. 
 
 " If I could help you I would. But my position is 
 very difficult." 
 
 "It s not so difficult as mine!" She was going 
 all lengths ; she was really appealing to him. " I 
 don t imagine that you are under any obligation to 
 Mrs. Headway you seem to me very different," 
 she added. 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 101 
 
 Waterville was not insensible to any discrimina 
 tion that told in his favor ; but these words gave him 
 a slight shock, as if they had been an attempt at 
 bribery. " I am surprised that you don t like her," 
 he ventured to observe. 
 
 Lady Demesne looked out of the window a little. 
 " I don t think you are really surprised, though pos 
 sibly you try to be. I don t like her, at any rate, 
 and I can t fancy why my son should. She s very 
 pretty, and she appears to be very clever ; but I don t 
 trust her. I don t know what has taken possession 
 of him ; it is not usual in his family to marry people 
 like that. I don t think she s a lady. The person 
 I should wish for him would be so very different 
 perhaps you can see what I mean. There s some 
 thing in her history that we don t understand. My 
 son understands it no better than I. If you could 
 only explain to us, that might be a help. I treat 
 you with great confidence the first time I see you ; 
 it s because I don t know where to turn. I am 
 exceedingly anxious." 
 
 It was very plain that she was anxious ; her man 
 ner had become more vehement ; her eyes seemed to 
 shine in the thickening dusk. " Are you very sure 
 there is danger ?" Waterville asked. "Has he asked 
 her to marry him, and has she consented ? " 
 
 " If I wait till they settle it all, it will be too late. 
 I have reason to believe that my son is not engaged, 
 but he is terribly entangled. At the same time he 
 is very uneasy, and that may save him yet. He has 
 
102 TEE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 a great sense of honor. He is not satisfied about her 
 
 O 
 
 past life ; he does n t know what to think of what we 
 have been told. Even what she admits is so strange. 
 She has been married four or five times she has 
 been divorced again and again it seems so extraor 
 dinary. She tells him that in America it is differ 
 ent, and I daresay you have not our ideas ; but really 
 there is a limit to everything. There must have been 
 some great irregularities I am afraid some great 
 scandals. It s dreadful to have to accept such things. 
 He has not told me all this ; but it s not necessary 
 he should tell me ; I know him well enough to 
 guess." 
 
 " Does he know that you have spoken to me ?" 
 Waterville asked. 
 
 " Not in the least. But I must tell you that I 
 shall repeat to him anything that you may say 
 against her." 
 
 " I had better say nothing, then. It s very deli 
 cate. Mrs. Headway is quite undefended. One may 
 like her or not, of course. I have seen nothing of 
 her that is not perfectly correct." 
 
 "And you have heard nothing?" 
 
 Waterville remembered Littlemore s assertion that 
 there were cases in which a man was bound in honor 
 to tell an untruth, and he wondered whether this 
 were such a case. Lady Demesne imposed herself, 
 she made him believe in the reality of her grievance, 
 and he saw the gulf that divided her from a pushing 
 little woman who had lived with Western editors. 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 103 
 
 She was right to wish not to be connected with Mrs. 
 Headway. After all, there had been nothing in his 
 relations with that lady to make it incumbent on 
 him to lie for her. He had not sought her acquaint 
 ance, she had sought his ; she had sent for him to 
 come and see her. And yet he couldn t give her 
 away, as they said in New York ; that stuck in his 
 throat. " I am afraid I really can t say anything. 
 And it would n t matter. Your son won t give her 
 up because I happen not to like her." 
 
 "If he were to believe she has done wrong, he 
 would give her up." 
 
 " Well, I have no right to say so," said Waterville. 
 
 Lady Demesne turned away ; she was much disap 
 pointed in him. He was afraid she was going to 
 break out "Why, then, do you suppose I asked you 
 here ? " She quitted her place near the window and 
 was apparently about to leave the room. But she 
 stopped short. "You know something against her, 
 but you won t say it." 
 
 Waterville hugged his folio and looked awkward. 
 " You attribute things to me. I shall never say any 
 thing." 
 
 " Of course you are perfectly free. There is some 
 one else who knows, I think another American 
 a gentleman who was in Paris when my son was 
 there. I have forgotten his name." 
 
 " A friend of Mrs. Headway s ? I suppose you 
 mean George Littlemore." 
 
 " Yes Mr. Littlemore. He has a sister, whom 
 
104 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 I have met ; I did n t know she was his sister till 
 to-day. Mrs. Headway spoke of her, but I find she 
 does n t know her. That itself is a proof, I think. 
 Do you think lie would help me ?" Lady Demesne 
 asked, very simply. 
 
 " I doubt it, but you can try." 
 
 " I wish he had come with you. Do you think he 
 would come ? " 
 
 " He is in America at this moment, but I believe 
 he soon comes back." 
 
 " I shall go to his sister ; I will ask her to bring 
 him to see me. She is extremely nice ; -I think she 
 will understand. Unfortunately there is very little 
 time." 
 
 "Don t count too much on Littlemore," said Water- 
 ville, gravely. 
 
 " You men have no pity." 
 
 " Why should we pity you ? How can Mrs. 
 Headway hurt such a person as you ? " 
 
 Lady Demesne hesitated a moment. "It hurts 
 me to hear her voice." 
 
 " Her voice is very sweet." 
 
 " Possibly. But she s horrible ! " 
 
 This was too much, it seemed to Waterville ; poor 
 Mrs. Headway was extremely open to criticism, 
 and lie himself had declared she was a barbarian. 
 Yet she was not horrible. " It s for your son to pity 
 you. If he doesn t, how can you expect it of 
 others ? " 
 
 " Oh, but he does I " And with a majesty that 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 105 
 
 was more striking even than her logic, Lady Demesne 
 moved towards the door. 
 
 Waterville advanced to open it for her, and as she 
 passed out he said, " There s one thing you can do 
 try to like her ! " 
 
 She shot him a terrible glance. " That would be 
 worst of all ! " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 GEORGE LITTLEMORE arrived in London on the 
 twentieth of May, and one of the first things he did 
 was to go and see Waterville at the Legation, where 
 he made known to him that he had taken for the 
 rest of the season a house at Queen Anne s Gate, so 
 that his sister and her husband, who, under the pres 
 sure of diminished rents, had let their own town- 
 residence, might come up and spend a couple of 
 months with him. 
 
 " One of the consequences of your having a house 
 will be that you will have to entertain Mrs. Head 
 way," Waterville said. 
 
 Littlemore sat there with his hands crossed upon 
 his stick ; he looked at Waterville with an eye that 
 failed to kindle at the mention of this lady s name. 
 " Has she got into European society ? " he asked, 
 rather languidly. 
 
 "Very much, I should say. She has a house, and 
 a carriage, and diamonds, and everything handsome. 
 She seems already to know a lot of people ; they put 
 
 5* 
 
106 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 her name in the Morning Post. She has come up 
 very quickly; she s almost famous. Every one is 
 asking about her you ll be plied with questions." 
 
 Little more listened gravely. " How did she get 
 in?" 
 
 "She met a large party at Longlands, and made 
 them all think her great fun. They must have taken 
 her up ; she only wanted a start." 
 
 Littlemore seemed suddenly to be struck with the 
 grotesqueness of this news, to which his first response 
 was a burst of quick laughter. " To think of Nancy 
 Beck ! The people here are queer people. There s 
 no one they won t go after. They would n t touch 
 her in New York." 
 
 " Oh, New York s old-fashioned," said Waterville ; 
 and he announced to his friend that Lady Demesne 
 was very eager for his arrival, and wanted to make 
 him help her prevent her son s bringing such a per 
 son into the family. Littlemore apparently was not 
 alarmed at her ladyship s projects, and intimated, in 
 the manner of a man who thought them rather 
 impertinent, that he could trust himself to keep out 
 of her way. " It is n t a proper marriage, at any 
 rate," Waterville declared. 
 
 " Why not, if he loves her ?" 
 
 " Oh, if that s all you want ! " cried Waterville, 
 witli a degree of cynicism that rather surprised his 
 companion. " Would you marry her yourself ? " 
 
 " Certainly, if I were in love with her." 
 
 " You took care not to be that." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 107 
 
 " Yes, I did and so Demesne had better have 
 done. But since he s bitten ! " and Littlemore 
 terminated his sentence in a suppressed yawn. 
 
 Waterville presently asked him how he would 
 manage, in view of his sister s advent, about asking 
 Mrs. Headway to his house ; and he replied that he 
 would manage by simply not asking her. Upon this, 
 Waterville declared that he was very inconsistent; 
 to which Littlemore rejoined that it was very pos 
 sible. But he asked whether they could n t talk 
 about something else than Mrs. Headway. He 
 could n t enter into the young man s interest in her, 
 and was sure to have enough of her later. 
 
 Waterville would have been sorry to give a false 
 idea of his interest in Mrs. Headway ; for he nattered 
 himself the feeling had definite limits. He had been 
 two or three times to see her ; but it was a relief to 
 think that she was now quite independent of him. 
 There had been no revival of that intimate inter 
 course which occurred during the visit to Longlands. 
 She could dispense with assistance now; she knew 
 herself that she was in the current of success. She 
 pretended to be surprised at her good fortune, espe 
 cially at its rapidity; but she was really surprised 
 at nothing. She took things as they came, and, being 
 essentially a woman of action, wasted almost as little 
 time in elation as she would have done in despond 
 ence. She talked a great deal about Lord Edward 
 and Lady Margaret, and about such other members 
 of the nobility as had shown a desire to cultivate her 
 
108 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 acquaintance ; professing to understand perfectly the 
 sources of a popularity which apparently was des 
 tined to increase. " They come to laugh at me/ she 
 said ; " they come simply to get things to repeat. I 
 can t open my mouth but they burst into fits. It s 
 a settled thing that I m an American humorist ; if I 
 say the simplest things, they begin to roar. I must 
 express myself somehow; and indeed when I hold 
 my tongue they think me funnier than ever. They 
 repeat what I say to a great person, and a great per 
 son told some of them the other night that he wanted 
 to hear me for himself. I 11 do for him what I do 
 for the others ; no better and no worse. I don t 
 know how I do it ; I talk the only way I can. They 
 tell me it is n t so much the things I say as the way 
 I say them. Well, they re very easy to please. 
 They don t care for me ; it s only to be able to repeat 
 Mrs. Headway s last. Every one wants to have it 
 first ; it s a regular race." When she found what 
 was expected of her, she undertook to supply the 
 article in abundance; arid the poor little woman 
 really worked hard at her Americanisms. If the 
 taste of London lay that way, she would do her best 
 to gratify it ; it was only a pity she had n t known 
 it before ; she would have made more extensive prep 
 arations. She thought it a disadvantage, of old, to 
 live in Arizona, in Dakotah, in the newly admitted 
 States ; but now she perceived that, as she phrased 
 it to herself, this was the best thing that ever had 
 happened to her. Sho tried to remember all the 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 109 
 
 queer stories she had heard out there, and keenly 
 regretted that she had not taken them down in writ 
 ing; she drummed up the echoes of the Eocky Moun 
 tains and practised the intonations of the Pacific 
 slope. When she saw her audience in convulsions, 
 she said to herself that this was success, and believed 
 that, if she had only come to London five years 
 sooner, she might have married a duke. That would 
 have been even a more absorbing spectacle for the 
 London world than the actual proceedings of Sir Ar 
 thur Demesne, who, however, lived sufficiently in the 
 eye of society to justify the rumor that there were 
 bets about town as to the issue of his already pro 
 tracted courtship. It was food for curiosity to see a 
 young man of his pattern one of the few " earnest" 
 young men of the Tory side, with an income suffi 
 cient for tastes more marked than those by which he 
 was known make up to a lady several years older 
 than himself, whose fund of Californian slang was 
 even larger than her stock of dollars. Mrs. Headway 
 had got a good many new ideas since her arrival in 
 London, but she also retained several old ones. The 
 chief of these it was now a year old was that 
 Sir Arthur Demesne was the most irreproachable 
 young man in the world. There were, of course, a 
 good many things that he was not. He was not 
 amusing ; he was not insinuating ; he was not of an 
 absolutely irrepressible ardor. She believed he was 
 constant ; but he was certainly not eager. With 
 these things, however, Mrs. Headway could perfectly 
 
110 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 dispense ; she had, in particular, quite outlived the 
 need of being amused. She had had a very exciting 
 life, and her vision of happiness at present was to 
 be magnificently bored. The idea of complete and 
 uncriticised respectability filled her soul with satisfac 
 tion; her imagination prostrated itself in the presence 
 of this virtue. She was aware that she had achieved 
 it but ill in her own person ; but she could now, at 
 least, connect herself with it by sacred ties. She 
 could prove in that way what was her deepest feeling. 
 This was a religious appreciation of Sir Arthur s 
 great quality his smooth and rounded, his bloom 
 ing, lily-like exemption from social flaws. 
 
 She was at home when Littlemore went to see her, 
 and surrounded by several visitors, to whom she was 
 giving a late cup of tea and to whom she introduced 
 her compatriot. He stayed till they dispersed, in 
 spite of the manoeuvres of a gentleman who evidently 
 desired to outstay him, but who, whatever might have 
 been his happy fortune on former visits, received on 
 this occasion no encouragement from Mrs. Headway. 
 He looked at Littlemore slowly, beginning with his 
 boots and travelling upwards, as if to discover the 
 reason of so unexpected a preference, and then, 
 without a salutation, left him face to face with their 
 hostess. 
 
 " I m curious to see what you 11 do for me, now 
 that you Ve got your sister with you," Mrs. Headway 
 presently remarked, having heard of this circumstance 
 from Rupert Waterville. " I suppose you 11 have to 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. Ill 
 
 do something, you know. I m sorry for you ; but I 
 don t see how you can get off. You might ask me 
 to dine some day when she s dining out. I would 
 come even then, I think, because I want to keep on 
 the right side of you." 
 
 " I call that the wrong side," said Littlemore. 
 
 " Yes, I see. It s your sister that s on the right 
 side. You re in rather an embarrassing position, 
 ain t you ? However, you take those things very 
 quietly. There s something in you that exasperates 
 me. What does your sister think of me ? Does 
 she hate me ? " 
 
 " She knows nothing about you." 
 
 " Have you told her nothing ? " 
 
 " Never a word." 
 
 " Has n t she asked you ? That shows that she 
 hates me. She thinks I ain t creditable to America. 
 I know all that. She wants to show people over 
 here that, however they may be taken in by me, 
 she knows much better. But she 11 have to ask 
 you about me ; she can t go on for ever. Then 
 what 11 you say ? " 
 
 "That you re the most successful woman in Europe." 
 
 " Oh, bother !" cried Mrs. Headway, with irritation. 
 
 " Have n t you got into European society ? " 
 
 " Maybe I have, maybe I have n t. It s too soon 
 to see. I can t tell this season. Every one says I ve 
 got to wait till next, to see if it s the same. Some 
 times they take you up for a few weeks, and then 
 never know you again. You ve got to fasten the 
 thing somehow to drive in a nail." 
 
112 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " You speak as if it were your coffin," said Little- 
 more. 
 
 " Well, it is a kind of coffin. I m burying my 
 past ! " 
 
 Littlemore winced at this. He was tired to death 
 of her past. He changed the subject, and made her 
 talk about London, a topic which she treated with a 
 great deal of humor. She entertained him for half 
 an hour, at the expense of most of her new acquaint 
 ances and of some of the most venerable features of 
 the great city. He himself looked at England from 
 the outside, as much as it was possible to do; but 
 in the midst of her familiar allusions to people and 
 things known to her only since yesterday, he was 
 struck with the fact that she would never really be 
 initiated. She buzzed over the surface of things like 
 a fly on a window-pane. She liked it immensely ; 
 she was flattered, encouraged, excited ; she dropped 
 her confident judgments as if she were scattering 
 flowers, and talked about her intentions, her pros 
 pects, her wishes. But she knew no more about 
 English life than about the molecular theory. The 
 words in which he had described her of old to 
 Waterville came back to him : " Elle ne se doute de 
 ricn ! " Suddenly she jumped up ; she was going 
 out to dine, and it was time to dress. " Before you 
 leave I want you to promise me something," she 
 said off-hand, but with a look which he had seen 
 before and which meant that the point was impor 
 tant. " You 11 be sure to be questioned about me." 
 And then she paused. 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON, 113 
 
 " How do people know I know you ? " 
 
 " You have n t bragged about it ? Is that what 
 you mean ? You can be a brute when you try. 
 They do know it, at any rate. Possibly I may have 
 told them. They 11 come to you, to ask about me. 
 I mean from Lady Demesne. She s in an awful 
 state she s so afraid her son 11 marry me." 
 
 Littlemore was unable to control a laugh. " I m 
 not, if he has n t done it yet." 
 
 " He can t make up his mind. He likes me so 
 much, yet he thinks I m not a woman to marry." It 
 was positively grotesque, the detachment with which 
 she spoke of herself. 
 
 " He must be a poor creature if he won t marry you 
 as you are," Littlemore said. 
 
 This was not a very gallant form of speech ; but 
 Mrs. Headway let it pass. She only replied, " Well, 
 he wants to be very careful, and so he ought to be ! " 
 
 "If he asks too many questions, he s not worth 
 marrying." 
 
 " I beg your pardon he s worth marrying what 
 ever he does he s worth marrying for me. And I 
 want to marry him that s what I want to do." 
 
 " Is he waiting for me, to settle it ? " 
 
 " He s waiting for I don t know what for some 
 one to come and tell him that I m the sweetest of 
 the sweet. Then he ll believe it. Some one who 
 has been out there and knows all about me. Of 
 course you re the man, you re created on purpose. 
 Don t you remember how I told you in Paris that he 
 
114 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 wanted to ask you ? He was ashamed, and he gave 
 it up ; he tried to forget me. But now it s all on 
 again ; only, meanwhile, his mother has been at him. 
 She works at him night and day, like a weasel in a 
 hole, to persuade him that I m far beneath him. 
 He s very fond of her, and he s very open to influ 
 ence I mean from his mother, not from any one 
 else. Except me, of course. Oh, I ve influenced him, 
 I ve explained everything fifty times over. But 
 some things are rather complicated, don t you know ; 
 and he keeps coming back to them. He wants every 
 little speck explained. He won t come to you him 
 self, but his mother will, or she 11 send some of her 
 people. I guess she 11 send the lawyer the family 
 solicitor, they call him. She wanted to send him out 
 to America to make inquiries, only she did n t know 
 where to send. Of course I could n t be expected to 
 give the places, they ve got to find them out for 
 themselves. She knows all about you, and she has 
 made the acquaintance of your sister. So you see 
 how much I know. She s waiting for you ; she 
 means to catch you. She has an idea she can fix you 
 make you say what 11 meet her views. Then 
 she 11 lay it before Sir Arthur. So you 11 be so good 
 as to deny everything." 
 
 Littlemore listened to this little address attentively, 
 but the conclusion left him staring. " You don t 
 mean that anything I can say will make a differ 
 ence ? " 
 
 " Don t be affected ! You know it will as well as I." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 115 
 
 " You make him out a precious idiot." 
 
 "Never mind what I make him out. I want to 
 
 marry him, that s all. And I appeal to you solemnly. 
 
 You can save me, as you can lose me. If you lose 
 
 me, you 11 be a coward. And if you say a word against 
 
 me, I shall be lost." 
 
 " Go and dress for dinner, that s your salvation," 
 
 Littlemore answered, separating from her at the head 
 
 of the stairs. 
 
 IX. 
 
 IT was very well for him to take that tone ; but he 
 felt as he walked home that he should scarcely know 
 what to say to people who were determined, as Mrs. 
 Headway put it, to catch him. She had worked a 
 certain spell ; she had succeeded in making him feel 
 responsible. The sight of her success, however, 
 rather hardened his heart ; he was irritated by her 
 ascending movement. He dined alone that evening, 
 while his sister and her husband, who had engage 
 ments every day for a month, partook of their repast 
 at the expense of some friends. Mrs. Dolphin, how 
 ever, came home rather early, and immediately sought 
 admittance to the small apartment at the foot of the 
 staircase, which was already spoken of as Littlemore s 
 den. Eeginald had gone to a " squash " somewhere, 
 and she had returned without delay, having some 
 thing particular to say to her brother. She was too 
 impatient even to wait till the next morning. She 
 
116 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 looked impatient ; she was very unlike George Little- 
 more. " I want you to tell me about Mrs. Headway," 
 she said, while he started slightly at the coincidence 
 of this remark with his own thoughts. He was just 
 making up his mind at last to speak to her. She 
 unfastened her cloak and tossed it over a chair, then 
 pulled off her long tight black gloves, which were not 
 so fine as those Mrs. Headway wore ; all this as if 
 she were preparing herself for an important inter 
 view. She was a small, neat woman, who had once 
 been pretty, with a small, thin voice, a sweet, quiet 
 manner, and a perfect knowledge of what it was proper 
 to do on every occasion in life. She always did it, 
 and her conception of it was so definite that failure 
 would have left her without excuse. She was usually 
 not taken for an American, but she made a point of 
 being one, because she flattered herself that she was of 
 a type which, in that nationality, borrowed, distinc 
 tion from its rarity. She was by nature a great con 
 servative, and had ended by being a better Tory than 
 her husband. She was thought by some of her old 
 friends to have changed immensely since her mar 
 riage. She knew as much about English society as if 
 she had invented it ; had a way, usually, of looking 
 as if she were dressed for a ride ; had also thin lips 
 and pretty teeth ; and was as positive as she was 
 amiable. She told her brother that Mrs. Headway 
 had given out that he was her most intimate friend, 
 and she thought it rather odd he had never spoken of 
 her. He admitted that he had known her a long 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 117 
 
 time, referred to the circumstances in which the 
 acquaintance had sprung up, and added that he had 
 seen her that afternoon. He sat there smoking his 
 cigar and looking at the ceiling, while Mrs. Dolphin 
 delivered herself of a series of questions. Was it 
 true that he liked her so much, was it true he thought 
 her a possible woman to marry, was it not true that 
 her antecedents had been most peculiar ? 
 
 " I may as well tell you that I have a letter from 
 Lady Demesne," Mrs. Dolphin said. " It came to me 
 just before I went out, and I have it in my pocket." 
 
 She drew forth the missive, which she evidently 
 wished to read to him ; but he gave her no invitation 
 to do so. He knew that she had come to him to ex 
 tract a declaration adverse to Mrs. Headway s projects, 
 and however little satisfaction he might take in this 
 lady s upward flight, he hated to be urged and pushed. 
 He had a great esteem for Mrs. Dolphin, who, among 
 other Hampshire notions, had picked up that of the 
 preponderance of the male members of a family, so 
 that she treated him with a consideration which made 
 his having an English sister rather a luxury. Never 
 theless he was not very encouraging about Mrs. Head 
 way. He admitted once for all that she had not 
 behaved properly it was n t worth while to split 
 hairs about that but he couldn t see that she was 
 much worse than many other women, and he could n t 
 get up much feeling about her marrying or not marry 
 ing. Moreover, it was none of his business, and he 
 intimated that it was none of Mrs. Dolphin s. 
 
118 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 "One surely can t resist the claims of common 
 humanity ! " his sister replied ; and she added that 
 he was very inconsistent. He didn t respect Mrs. 
 Headway, he knew the most dreadful things about 
 her, he didn t think her fit company for his own 
 flesh and blood. And yet he was willing to let poor 
 Arthur Demesne be taken in by her ! 
 
 " Perfectly willing ! " Littlemore exclaimed. " All 
 I ve got to do is not to marry her myself." 
 
 " Don t you think we have any responsibilities, any 
 duties?" 
 
 " I don t know what you mean. If she can suc 
 ceed, she s welcome. It s a splendid sight in its 
 way." 
 
 " How do you mean splendid ? " 
 
 " Why, she has run up the tree as if she were a 
 squirrel ! " 
 
 " It s very true that she has an audacity d toute 
 tprcuve. But English society has become scandal 
 ously easy. I never saw anything like the people 
 that are taken up. Mrs. Headway has had only to 
 appear to succeed. If they think there s something 
 bad about you they 11 be sure to run after you. It s 
 like the decadence of the Eoman Empire. You can 
 see to look at Mrs. Headway that she s not a lady. 
 She s pretty, very pretty, but she looks like a dissi 
 pated dressmaker. She failed absolutely in New 
 York. I have seen her three times she apparently 
 goes everywhere. I didn t speak of her I was 
 wanting to see what you would do. I saw that you 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON, 119 
 
 meant to do nothing, then this letter decided me. 
 It s written on purpose to be shown to you ; it s 
 what she wants you to do. She wrote to me before 
 I came to town, and I went to see her as soon as I 
 arrived. I think it very important. I told her that 
 if she would draw up a little statement I would put 
 it before you as soon as we got settled. She s in 
 real distress. I think you ought to feel for her. You 
 ought to communicate the facts exactly as they stand. 
 A woman has no right to do such things and come 
 and ask to be accepted. She may make it up with 
 her conscience, but she can t make it up with society. 
 Last night at Lady Dovedale s I was afraid she would 
 know who I was and come and speak to me. I was 
 so frightened that I went away. If Sir Arthur wishes 
 to marry her for what she is, of course he s welcome. 
 But at least he ought to know." 
 
 Mrs. Dolphin was not excited nor voluble; she 
 moved from point to point with a calmness which 
 had all the air of being used to have reason on its 
 side. She deeply desired, however, that Mrs. Head 
 way s triumphant career should be checked ; she had 
 sufficiently abused the facilities of things. Herself a 
 party to an international marriage, Mrs. Dolphin 
 naturally wished that the class to which she belonged 
 should close its ranks and carry its standard high. 
 
 " It seems to me that she s quite as good as the 
 little baronet," said Littlemore, lighting another cigar. 
 
 " As good ? What do you mean ? No one has 
 ever breathed a word against him." 
 
120 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 "Very likely. But lie s a nonentity, and she at 
 least is somebody. She s a person, and a very clever 
 one. Besides, she s quite as good as the women that 
 lots of them have married. I never heard that the 
 British gentry were so unspotted. * 
 
 " I know nothing about other cases," Mrs. Dolphin 
 said, "I only know about this one. It so happens 
 that I have been brought near to it, and that an 
 appeal has been made to me. The English are very 
 romantic the most romantic people in the world, if 
 that s what you mean. They do the strangest things, 
 from the force of passion even those from whom 
 you would least expect it. They marry their cooks 
 
 they marry their coachmen and their romances 
 always have the most miserable end. I m sure this 
 one would be most wretched. How can you pretend 
 that such a woman as that is to be trusted ? What I 
 see is a fine old race one of the oldest and most 
 honorable in England, people with every tradition of 
 good conduct and high principle and a dreadful, 
 disreputable, vulgar little woman, who has n t an idea 
 of what such things are, trying to force her way into 
 it. I hate to see such things I want to go to the 
 rescue ! " 
 
 "" I don t I don t care anything about the fine old 
 race." 
 
 " Not from interested motives, of course, any more 
 than I. But surely, on artistic grounds, on grounds 
 of decency ? " 
 
 ~" "Mrs. Headway isn t indecent you go too far. 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 121 
 
 You must remember that she s an old friend of 
 mine." Littlemore had become rather stern; Mrs. 
 Dolphin was forgetting the consideration due, from 
 an English point of view, to brothers. 
 
 She forgot it even a little more. " Oh, if you are 
 in love with her, too ! " she murmured, turning away. 
 
 He made no answer to this, and the words had 
 no sting for him. But at last, to finish the affair, 
 he asked what in the world the old lady wanted 
 him to do. Did she want him to go out into Pic 
 cadilly and announce to the passers-by that there 
 was one winter when even Mrs. Headway s sister 
 did n t know who was her husband ? 
 
 Mrs. Dolphin answered this inquiry by reading 
 out Lady Demesne s letter, which her brother, as 
 she folded it up again, pronounced one of the most 
 extraordinary letters he had ever heard. 
 
 " It s very sad it s a cry of distress," said Mrs. 
 Dolphin. " The whole meaning of it is that she 
 wishes you would come and see her. She does n t 
 say so in so many words, but I can read between the 
 lines. Besides, she told me she would give anything 
 to see you. Let me assure you it s your duty to go." 
 
 " To go and abuse Nancy Beck ? " 
 
 " Go and praise her, if you like ! " This was very 
 clever of Mrs. Dolphin, but her brother was not so 
 easily caught. He did n t take that view of his duty, 
 and he declined to cross her ladyship s threshold. 
 " Then she 11 come and see you," said Mrs. Dolphin, 
 with decision. 
 
 6 
 
122 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " If she does, I 11 tell her Nancy s an angel." 
 
 " If you can say so conscientiously, she 11 be 
 delighted to hear it," Mrs. Dolphin replied, as she 
 gathered up her cloak and gloves. 
 
 Meeting Rupert Waterville the next day, as he 
 often did, at the St. George s Club, which offers a 
 much-appreciated hospitality to secretaries of lega 
 tion and to the natives of the countries they assist 
 in representing, Littlemore let him know that his 
 prophecy had been fulfilled and that Lady Demesne 
 had been making proposals for an interview. " My 
 sister read me a most remarkable letter from her," 
 he said. 
 
 " What sort of a letter ? " 
 
 " The letter of a woman so scared that she will do 
 anything. I may be a great brute, but her fright 
 amuses me." 
 
 " You re in the position of Olivier de Jalin, in the 
 Demi-Monde" Waterville remarked. 
 
 " In the Demi-Monde ? " Littlemore was not quick 
 at catching literary allusions. 
 
 " Don t you remember the play we saw in Paris ? 
 Or like Don Fabrice in L Aventuriere. A bad woman 
 tries to marry an honorable man, who does n t know 
 how bad she is, and they who do know step in and 
 push her back." 
 
 "Yes, I remember. There was a good deal of 
 lying, all round." 
 
 " They prevented the marriage, however, which is 
 the great thing." 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 123 
 
 " The great thing, if you care about it. One of 
 them was the intimate friend of the fellow, the other 
 was his son. Demesne s nothing to me." 
 
 " He s a very good fellow," said Waterville. 
 
 " Go and tell him, then." 
 
 " Play the part of Olivier de Jalin ? Oh, I can t ; 
 I m not Olivier. But I wish he would come along. 
 Mrs. Headway ought n t really to be allowed to pass." 
 
 " I wish to heaven they d let me alone," Little- 
 more murmured, ruefully, staring for a while out of 
 the window. 
 
 " Do you still hold to that theory you propounded 
 in Paris ? Are you willing to commit perjury ? " 
 Waterville asked. 
 
 "Of course I can refuse to answer questions 
 even that one." 
 
 " As I told you before, that will amount to a con 
 demnation." 
 
 "It may amount to what it pleases. I think I 
 will go to Paris." 
 
 "That will be the same as not answering. But 
 it s quite the best thing you can do. I have been 
 thinking a great deal about it, and it seems to me, 
 from the social point of view, that, as I say, she 
 really ought n t to pass." Waterville had the air 
 of looking at the thing from a great elevation ; his 
 tone, the expression of his face, indicated this lofty 
 flight; the effect of which, as he glanced down at 
 his didactic young friend, Littlemore found pecul 
 iarly irritating. 
 
124 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 "No, after all, hanged if they shall drive me away ! " 
 he exclaimed abruptly; and walked off, while his 
 companion looked after him. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE morning after this Littlemore received a note 
 from Mrs. Headway a short and simple note, con 
 sisting merely of the words, " I shall be at home this 
 afternoon ; will you come and see me at five ? I 
 have something particular to say to you." He sent 
 no answer to this inquiry, but he went to the little 
 house in Chesterfield Street at the hour that its 
 mistress had designated. 
 
 " I don t believe you know what sort of woman I 
 am ! " she exclaimed, as soon as he stood before her. 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! " Littlemore groaned, dropping into a 
 chair. Then he added, " Don t begin on that sort of 
 thing ! " 
 
 " I shall begin that s what I wanted to say. 
 It s very important. You don t know me you 
 don t understand me. You think you do but you 
 don t." 
 
 " It is n t for the want of your having told me 
 - many, many times ! " And Littlemore smiled, 
 though he was bored at the prospect that opened 
 before him. The last word of all was, decidedly, that 
 Mrs. Headway was a nuisance. She did n t deserve 
 to be spared ! 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 125 
 
 She glared at him a little, at this ; her face was no 
 longer the face that smiled. She looked sharp and 
 violent, almost old ; the change was complete. But 
 she gave a little angry laugh. " Yes, I know ; men 
 are so stupid. They know nothing about women but 
 what women tell them. And women tell them things 
 on purpose, to see how stupid they can be. I ve told 
 you things like that, just for amusement, when it was 
 dull. If you believed them, it was your own fault. 
 But now I am serious, I want you really to know." 
 " I don t want to know. I know enough." 
 " How do you mean, you know enough ? " she cried, 
 with a flushed face. " What business have you to 
 know anything ? " The poor little woman, in her 
 passionate purpose, was not obliged to be consistent, 
 and the loud laugh with which Littlemore greeted 
 this interrogation must have seemed to her unduly 
 harsh. " You shall know what I want you to know, 
 however. You think me a bad woman you don t 
 respect me ; I told you that in Paris. I have done 
 things I don t understand, myself, to-day; that I 
 admit, as fully as you please. But I ve completely 
 changed, and I want to change everything. You 
 ought to enter into that ; you ought to see what I 
 want. I hate everything that has happened to me 
 before this ; I loathe it, I despise it. I went on that 
 way trying one thing and another. But now I ve 
 got what I want. Do you expect me to go down on 
 my knees to you ? I believe I will, I m so anxious. 
 You can help me no one else can do a thing no 
 
126 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 one can do anything they are only waiting to see 
 if lie 11 do it. I told you. in Paris you could help 
 me, and it s just as true now. Say a good word for 
 me, for God s sake ! You have n t lifted your little 
 finger, or I should know it by this time. It will 
 just make the difference. Or if your sister would 
 come and see me, I should be all right. Women are 
 pitiless, pitiless, and you are pitiless too. It is n t 
 that she s anything so great, most of my friends are 
 better than that! but she s the one woman who 
 knows, and people know that she knows. He knows 
 that she knows, and he knows she does n t come. So 
 she kills me she kills me ! I understand perfectly 
 what he wants I shall do everything, be anything, 
 I shall be the most perfect wife. The old woman 
 will adore me when she knows me it s too stupid 
 of her not to see. Everything in the past is over ; it 
 has all fallen away from me ; it s the life of another 
 woman. This was what I wanted ; I knew I should 
 find it some day. What could I do in those horrible 
 places ? I had to take what I could. But now I ve 
 got a nice country. I want you to do me justice ; 
 you have never done me justice ; that s what I sent 
 for you for." 
 
 Littlemore suddenly ceased to be bored ; but a vari 
 ety of feelings had taken the place of a single one. 
 It was impossible not to be touched ; she really 
 meant what she said. People don t change their 
 nature ; but they change their desires, their ideal, 
 their effort. This incoherent and passionate protes- 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 127 
 
 tation was an assurance that she was literally 
 panting to be respectable. But the poor woman, 
 whatever she did, was condemned, as Littlemore had 
 said of old, in Paris, to Waterville, to be only half- 
 right. The color rose to her visitor s face as he 
 listened to this outpouring of anxiety and egotism ; 
 she had not managed her early life very well, but 
 there was 110 need of her going down on her knees. 
 " It s very painful to me to hear all this/ he said. 
 " You are under no obligation to say such things to 
 me. You entirely misconceive my attitude my 
 influence." 
 
 " Oh yes, you shirk it you only wish to shirk it ! " 
 she cried, flinging away fiercely the sofa-cushion on 
 which she had been resting. 
 
 " Marry whom you please ! " Littlemore almost 
 shouted, springing to his feet. 
 
 He had hardly spoken when the door was thrown 
 open, and the servant announced Sir Arthur De 
 mesne. The baronet entered with a certain briskness, 
 but he stopped short on seeing that Mrs. Headway 
 had another visitor. Recognizing Littlemore, how 
 ever, he gave a slight exclamation, which might 
 have passed for a greeting. Mrs. Headway, who 
 had risen as he came in, looked with extraordinary 
 earnestness from one of the men to the other ; then, 
 like a person who had a sudden inspiration, she 
 clasped her hands together and cried out, " I in so 
 glad you ve met ; if I had arranged it, it could n t be 
 better ! " 
 
128 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. \ 
 
 " If you had arranged it ? " said Sir Arthur, crink 
 ling a little his high, white forehead, while the con 
 viction rose before Littlemore that she had indeed 
 arranged it. 
 
 " I m going to do something very strange," she 
 went on, and her eye glittered with a light that con 
 firmed her words. 
 
 " You re excited, I m afraid you re ill." Sir 
 Arthur stood there with his hat and his stick ; he was 
 evidently much annoyed. 
 
 " It s an excellent opportunity ; you must forgive 
 me if I take advantage." And she flashed a tender, 
 touching ray at the baronet. "I have wanted this 
 a long time perhaps you have seen I wanted it. 
 Mr. Littlemore has known me a long, long time ; he s 
 an old, old friend. I told you that in Paris, don t 
 you remember ? Well, he s my only one, and I 
 want him to speak for me." Her eyes had turned 
 now to Littlemore ; .they rested upon him with a 
 sweetness that only made the wdiole proceeding 
 more audacious. She had begun to smile again, 
 though she was visibly trembling. " He s my only 
 one," she continued ; " it s a great pity, you ought to 
 have known others. But 1 m very much alone, I 
 must make the best of what I have. I want so 
 much that some one else than myself should 
 speak for me. Women usually can ask that service 
 of a relative, or of another woman. I can t; it s 
 a great pity, but it s not my fault, it s my mis 
 fortune. None of my people are here ; and I m 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 129 
 
 terribly alone in the world. But Mr. Littlemore will 
 tell yon ; he will say he has known me for years. He 
 will tell you whether he knows any reason whether 
 he knows anything against me. He s been wanting 
 the chance ; but he thought he could n t begin him 
 self. You see I treat you as an old friend, dear Mr. 
 Littlemore. I will leave you with Sir Arthur. You 
 will both excuse me." The expression of her face, 
 turned towards Littlemore, as she delivered herself 
 of this singular proposal had the intentness of a 
 magician who wishes to work a spell. She gave Sir 
 Arthur another smile, and then she swept out of the 
 room. 
 
 The two men remained in the extraordinary posi 
 tion that she had created for them ; neither of them 
 moved even to open the door for her. She closed it 
 behind her, and for a moment there was a deep, por 
 tentous silence. Sir Arthur Demesne, who was very 
 pale, stared hard at the carpet. 
 
 "I am placed in an impossible situation," Little- 
 more said at last, " and I don t imagine that you 
 accept it any more than I do." 
 
 The baronet kept the same attitude ; he neither 
 looked up nor answered. Littlemore felt a sudden 
 gush of pity for him. Of course he could n t accept 
 the situation ; but all the same, he was half sick with 
 anxiety to see how this nondescript American, who 
 was both so valuable and so superfluous, so familiar 
 and so inscrutable, would consider Mrs. Headway s 
 challenge. 
 
 G* 
 
130 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 " Have you any question to ask nie ? " Littlemore 
 went on. 
 
 At this Sir Arthur looked up. Littlemore had 
 seen the look before ; he had described it to Water- 
 vine after the baronet came to call on him in Paris. 
 There were other things mingled with it now 
 shame, annoyance, pride ; but the great thing, the 
 intense desire to know, was paramount. 
 
 " Good God, how can I tell him ? " Littlemore 
 exclaimed to himself. 
 
 Sir Arthur s hesitation was probably extremely 
 brief; but Littlemore heard the ticking of the clock 
 while it lasted. " Certainly, I have no question to 
 ask," the young man said in a voice of cool, almost 
 insolent surprise. 
 
 " Good-day, then." 
 
 " Good-day." 
 
 And Littlemore left Sir Arthur in possession. He 
 expected to find Mrs. Headway at the foot of the 
 staircase ; but he quitted the house without interrup 
 tion. 
 
 On the morrow, after lunch, as he was leaving the 
 little mansion at Queen Anne s Gate, the postman 
 handed him a letter. Littlemore opened and read it 
 on the steps of his house, an operation which took 
 but a moment. It ran as follows : 
 
 " DEAR MR. LITTLEMORE, It will interest you to know 
 that I am engaged to be married to Sir Arthur Demesne, and 
 that our marriage is to take place as soon as their stupid old 
 Parliament rises. But it s not to come out for some days, and 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 131 
 
 I am sure that I can trust meanwhile to your complete 
 discretion. 
 
 tl Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "NANCY H. 
 
 " P.S. He made me a terrible scene for what I did yester 
 day, but he came back in the evening and made it up. That s 
 how the thing comes to be settled. He won t tell me what 
 passed between you he requested me never to allude to the 
 subject. I don t care ; I was bound you should speak ! " 
 
 Littlemore thrust this epistle into his pocket and 
 inarched away with it. He had come out to do vari 
 ous things, but he forgot his business for the time, 
 and before he knew it had walked into Hyde Park. 
 He left the carriages and riders to one side of him 
 and followed the Serpentine into Kensington Gar 
 dens, of which he made the complete circuit. He 
 felt annoyed, and more disappointed than he under 
 stood than he would have understood if he had 
 tried. Now that Nancy Beck had succeeded, her 
 success seemed offensive, and he was almost sorry 
 he had not said to Sir Arthur " Oh, well, she was 
 pretty bad, you know." However, now the thing 
 was settled, at least they would leave him alone. 
 He walked off his irritation, and before he went 
 about the business he had come out for, had ceased 
 to think about Mrs. Headway. He went home at 
 six o clock, and the servant who admitted him 
 informed him in doing so that Mrs. Dolphin had 
 requested he should be told on his return that 
 she wished to see him in the drawing-room. " It s 
 
132 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 another trap ! " he said to himself, instinctively ; but, 
 in spite of this reflection, he went upstairs. On 
 entering the apartment in which Mrs. Dolphin was 
 accustomed to sit, he found that she had a visitor. 
 This visitor, who was apparently on the point of 
 departing, was a tall, elderly woman, and the two 
 ladies stood together in the middle of the room. 
 
 " I m so glad you Ve come back," said Mrs. Dol 
 phin, without meeting her brother s eye. " I want 
 so much to introduce you to Lady Demesne, and I 
 hoped you would come in. Must you really go 
 won t you stay a little ? " she added, turning to her 
 companion ; and without waiting for an answer, went 
 on hastily "I must leave you a moment excuse 
 me. I will come back ! " Before he knew it, Little- 
 more found himself alone with Lady Demesne, and 
 he understood that, since he had not been willing to 
 go and see her, she had taken upon herself to make 
 an advance. It had the queerest effect, all the same, 
 to see his sister playing the same tricks as Nancy 
 Beck! 
 
 " Ah, she must be in a fidget ! " he said to himself 
 as he stood before Lady Demesne. She looked deli 
 cate and modest, even timid, as far as a tall, serene 
 woman who carried her head very well could look 
 so; and she was such a different type from Mrs. 
 Headway that his present vision of Nancy s triumph 
 gave her by contrast something of the dignity of the 
 vanquished. It made him feel sorry for her. She 
 lost no time ; she went straight to the point. She 
 
THE SIEGEf*tt 133 
 
 evidently felt that in the situation in which she had 
 placed herself, her only advantage could consist in 
 being simple and business-like, 
 
 " I m so glad to see you for a moment. I wish so 
 much to ask you if you can give me any information 
 about a person you know and about whom I have 
 been in correspondence with Mrs. Dolphin. I mean 
 Mrs. Headway." 
 
 " Won t you sit down ? " asked Littlemore. 
 
 " No, I thank you. I have only a moment." 
 
 " May I ask you why you make this inquiry ? " 
 
 " Of course I must give you my reason. I am 
 afraid my son will marry her." 
 
 Littlemore was puzzled for a moment ; then he felt 
 sure that she was not yet aware of the fact imparted 
 to him in Mrs. Headway s note. "You don t like 
 her ? " he said, exaggerating in spite of himself the 
 interrogative inflexion. 
 
 " Not at all," said Lady Demesne, smiling and look 
 ing at him. Her smile was gentle, without rancor ; 
 Littlemore thought it almost beautiful. 
 
 " What would you like me to say ? " he asked. 
 
 " Whether you think her respectable." 
 
 " What good will that do you ? How can it possi 
 bly affect the event ? " 
 
 " It will do me no good, of course, if your opinion 
 is favorable. But if you tell me it is not, I shall be 
 able to say to my son that the one person in London 
 who has known her more than six months thinks her 
 a bad woman." 
 
134 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 This epithet, on Lady Demesne s clear lips, evoked 
 no protest from Littlemore. He had suddenly be 
 come conscious of the need to utter the simple truth 
 with which he had answered Eupert Waterville s first 
 question at the Theatre Franc^ais. " I don t think 
 Mrs. Headway respectable," he said. 
 
 " I was sure you would say that." Lady Demesne 
 seemed to pant a little. 
 
 " I can say nothing more not a word. That s 
 my opinion. I don t think it will help you." 
 
 " I think it will. I wished to have it from your 
 own lips. That makes all the difference," said Lady 
 Demesne. " I am exceedingly obliged to you." And 
 she offered him her hand ; after which he accompa 
 nied her in silence to the door. 
 
 He felt no discomfort, no remorse, at what he had 
 said ; he only felt relief. Perhaps it was because lie 
 believed it would make no difference. It made a dif 
 ference only in what was at the bottom of all things 
 his own sense of fitness. He only wished he had 
 remarked to Lady Demesne that Mrs. Headway would 
 probably make her son a capital wife. But that, at 
 least, would make no difference. He requested his 
 sister, who had wondered greatly at the brevity of 
 his interview with Lady Demesne, to spare him all 
 questions on this subject ; and Mrs. Dolphin went 
 about for some days in the happy faith that there 
 were to be no dreadful Americans in English society 
 compromising her native land. 
 
 Her faith, however, was short-lived. Nothing had 
 
THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 135 
 
 made any difference ; it was, perhaps, too late. The 
 London world heard in the first days of July, not 
 that Sir Arthur Demesne was to marry Mrs. Head 
 way, but that the pair had been privately, and it 
 was to be hoped, as regards Mrs. Headway, on this 
 occasion indissolubly, united. Lady Demesne gave 
 neither sign nor sound ; she only retired to the 
 country. 
 
 "I think you might have done differently," said 
 Mrs. Dolphin, very pale, to her brother. "But of 
 course everything will come out now." 
 
 (t Yes, and make her more the fashion than ever ! " 
 Littlemore answered, with cynical laughter. After 
 his little interview with the elder Lady Demesne, he 
 did not feel himself at liberty to call again upon the 
 younger ; and he never learned he never even 
 wished to know whether in the pride of her suc 
 cess she forgave him. 
 
 Waterville it was very strange was positively 
 scandalized at this success. He held that Mrs. 
 Headway ought never to have been allowed to 
 marry a confiding gentleman; and he used, in 
 speaking to Littlemore, the same words as Mrs. 
 Dolphin. He thought Littlemore might have done 
 differently. 
 
 He spoke with such vehemence that Littlemore 
 looked at him hard hard enough to make him 
 blush. 
 
 " Did you want to marry her yourself ? " his friend 
 
136 THE SIEGE OF LONDON. 
 
 inquired. " My dear fellow, you r re in love with her ! 
 That s what s the matter with you." 
 
 This, however, blushing still more, Waterville 
 indignantly denied. A little later he heard from 
 New York that people were beginning to ask who in 
 the world was Mrs. Headway. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 i. 
 
 / I WAS not rich on the contrary ; and I had been 
 told the Pension Beaurepas was cheap. I had more 
 over been told that a boarding-house is a capital place 
 for the study of human nature. . I had a fancy for a 
 literary career," and a friend of mine had said to me, 
 " If you mean to write you ought to go and live in a 
 boarding-house ; there is no other such place to pick 
 up material." I had read something of this kind in a 
 letter addressed by Stendhal to his sister : " I have 
 a passionate desire to know human nature, and have 
 a great mind to live in a boarding-house, where peo 
 ple cannot conceal their real characters." I was an 
 admirer of the Chartreuse de Panne, and it appeared 
 to me that one could not do better than follow in the 
 footsteps of its author. I remembered, too, the mag 
 nificent boarding-house in Balzac s Pere Goriot, 
 the "pension bourgeoise des deux sexes et autres" kept 
 by Madame Vauquer, nee De Conflans. Magnifi 
 cent, I mean, as a piece of portraiture ; the establish 
 ment, as an establishment, was certainly sordid 
 
 Copyright, 1879, by Houghton, Osgood, & Co. 
 
140 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 enough, and I hoped for better things from the Pen 
 sion Beaurepas. This institution was one of the most 
 esteemed in Geneva, and, standing in a little garden 
 of its own, not far from the lake, had a very homely, 
 comfortable, sociable aspect. The regular entrance 
 was, as one might say, at the back, which looked 
 upon the street, or rather upon a little place, adorned 
 like every place in Geneva, great or small, with a 
 fountain. This fact was not prepossessing, for on 
 crossing the threshold you found yourself more or 
 less in the kitchen, encompassed with culinary odors. 
 This, however, was no great matter, for at the Pen 
 sion Beaurepas there was no attempt at gentility or 
 at concealment of the domestic machinery. The lat 
 ter was of a very simple sort. Madame Beaurepas 
 was an excellent little old woman, she w T as very 
 far advanced in life, and had been keeping a pension 
 for forty years, whose only faults were that she 
 was slightly deaf, that she was fond of a surreptitious 
 pinch of snuff, and that, at the age of seventy-three, 
 she wore flowers in her cap. There was a tradition 
 in the house that she was not so deaf as she pre 
 tended; that she feigned this infirmity in order to 
 possess herself of the secrets of her lodgers. But I 
 never subscribed to this theory ; I am convinced that 
 Madame Beaurepas had outlived the period of indis 
 creet curiosity. She was a philosopher, on a matter- 
 of-fact basis ; she had been having lodgers for forty 
 years, and all that she asked of them was that they 
 should pay their bills, make use of the door-mat, and 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 141 
 
 fold their napkins. She cared very little for their 
 secrets. " J eii ai vus de toutes les couleurs," she said 
 to me. She had quite ceased to care for individuals ; 
 she cared only for types, for categories. Her large 
 observation had made her acquainted with a great 
 number, and her mind was a complete collection of 
 " heads." She flattered herself that she knew at a 
 glance where to pigeon-hole a new-comer, and if she 
 made any mistakes her deportment never betrayed 
 them. I think that, as regards individuals, she had 
 neither likes nor dislikes ; but she was capable of ex 
 pressing esteem or contempt for a species. She had 
 her own ways, I suppose, of manifesting her approval, 
 but her manner of indicating the reverse was simple 
 and unvarying. "Je trouve que c est deplace* ! " 
 this exhausted her view of the matter. If one of her 
 inmates had put arsenic into the pot-aii-feu, I believe 
 Madame Beaurepas would have contented herself 
 with remarking that the proceeding was misplaced. 
 The line of misconduct to which she most objected 
 was an undue assumption of gentility ; she had no 
 patience with boarders who gave themselves airs, 
 " When people come chez moi, it is not to cut a figure 
 in the world ; I have never had that illusion," I 
 remember hearing her say ; " and when you pay seven 
 francs a day, tout compris, it comprises everything but 
 the right to look down upon the others. But there 
 are people who, the less they pay, the more they take 
 themselves au serieux. My most difficult boarders 
 have always been those who have had the little rooms." 
 
142 THE PENSION BE A U RE PAS. 
 
 Madame Beaurepas had a niece, a young woman of 
 some forty odd years ; and the two ladies, with the 
 assistance of a couple of thick-waisted, red-armed 
 peasant women, kept the house going. If on your 
 exits and entrances you peeped into the kitchen, it 
 made very little difference; for Celestine, the cook, 
 had no pretension to be an invisible functionary or 
 to deal in occult methods. She was always at your 
 service, with a grateful grin : she blacked your boots ; 
 she trudged off to fetch a cab ; she would have car 
 ried your baggage, if you had allowed her, on her 
 broad little back. She was always tramping in and 
 out, between her kitchen and the fountain in the 
 place, where it often seemed to me that a large part 
 of the preparation for our dinner went forward, the 
 wringing out of towels and table-cloths, the washing 
 of potatoes and cabbages, the scouring of saucepans 
 and cleansing of water-bottles. You enjoyed, from 
 the door-step, a perpetual back view of Celestine and 
 of her large, loose, woollen ankles, as she craned, from 
 the waist, over into the fountain, and dabbled in her 
 various utensils. This sounds as if life went on in a 
 very make-shift fashion at the Pension Beaurepas, 
 as if the tone of the establishment were sordid. But- 
 such was not at all the case. We were simply very 
 loiirgcois ; we practised the good old Genevese prin 
 ciple of not sacrificing to appearances. This is an 
 excellent principle when you have the reality. 
 We had the reality at the Pension Beaurepas : we 
 had it in the shape of soft, short beds, equipped with 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 143 
 
 Huffy duvets; of admirable coffee, served to us in the 
 morning by Celestine in person, as we lay recumbent 
 on these downy couches ; of copious, wholesome, suc 
 culent dinners, conformable to the best provincial 
 traditions. [For myself, I thought the Pension Beau- 
 repas picturesque, and this, with me, at that time 
 was a great word. I was young and ingenuous ; I 
 had just come from America.! I wished to perfect 
 myself in the French tongue, and I innocently 
 believed that French tongues might be found in Swiss 
 mouths. I used to go to lectures at the Academy, 
 and come home with a violent appetite. I always 
 enjoyed my morning walk across the long bridge 
 (there was only one, just there, in those days) which 
 spans the deep blue outgush of the lake, and up the 
 dark, steep streets of the old Calvinistic city. The 
 garden faced this way, toward the lake and the old 
 town ; and this was the pleasantest approach to the 
 house. There was a high wall, with a double gate 
 in the middle, flanked by a couple of ancient massive 
 posts; the big rusty grille contained some old-fash 
 ioned iron- work. The garden was rather mouldy and 
 weedy, tangled and untended, but it contained a little 
 thin-flowing fountain, several green benches, a rickety 
 little table of the same complexion, and three orange- 
 trees, in tubs, which were deposited as effectively as 
 possible in front of the windows of the salon. 
 
144 THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 
 
 II. 
 
 As commonly happens in boarding-houses, the 
 rustle of petticoats was, at the Pension Beaurepas, 
 the most familiar form of the human tread. There 
 was the usual allotment of economical \vidows and 
 old maids, and to maintain the balance of the sexes 
 there were only an old Frenchman and a young 
 American. It hardly made the matter easier that 
 the old Frenchman came from Lausanne. He was a 
 native of that estimable town, but he had once spent 
 six months in Paris, he had tasted of the tree of knowl 
 edge ; he had got beyond Lausanne, whose resources 
 he pronounced inadequate. Lausanne, as he said, 
 " mangniait d agrements." When obliged, for reasons 
 which he never specified, to bring his residence in 
 Paris to a close, he had fallen back on Geneva ; he 
 had broken his fall at the Pension Beaurepas. Geneva 
 was, after all, more like Paris, and at a Genevese 
 boarding-house there were sure to be plenty of Amer 
 icans with whom one could talk about the French 
 metropolis. M. Pigeonneau was a little lean man, 
 with a large, narrow nose, who sat a great deal in the 
 garden, reading with the aid of a large magnifying 
 glass a volume from the cabinet de lecture. 
 
 One day, a fortnight after my arrival at the Pension 
 Beaurepas, I came back rather earlier than usual from 
 my academic session ; it wanted half an hour of the 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 145 
 
 midday breakfast. I went into the salon with the 
 design of possessing myself of the day s Galignani 
 before one of the little English old maids should have 
 removed it to her virginal bower, a privilege to 
 which Madame Beaurepas frequently alluded as one 
 of the attractions of the establishment. In the salon 
 I found a new-comer, a tall gentleman in a high black 
 hat, whom I immediately recognized as a compatriot. 
 I had often seen him, or his equivalent, in the hotel 
 parlors of my native land. He apparently supposed 
 himself to be at the present moment in a hotel parlor ; 
 his hat was on his head, or, rather, half off it, 
 pushed back from his forehead, and rather suspended 
 than poised. He stood before a table on which old 
 newspapers were scattered, one of which he had taken 
 up and, with his eye-glass on his nose, was holding 
 out at arm s-length. It was that honorable but 
 extremely diminutive sheet, the Journal de Geneve, a 
 newspaper of about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. 
 As I drew near, looking for my Galignani, the tall 
 gentleman gave me, over the top of his eye-glass, a 
 somewhat solemn stare. Presently, however, before 
 I had time to lay my hand on the object of my search, 
 he silently offered me the Journal de Geneve. 
 
 " It appears," he said, " to be the paper of the 
 country." 
 
 " Yes," I answered, " I believe it s the best." 
 He gazed at it again, still holding it at arm s-length, 
 as if it had been a looking-glass. " Well," he said, 
 " I suppose it s natural a small country should have 
 
 7 
 
146 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 small papers. You could wrap it up, mountains and 
 all, in one of our dailies 1 " 
 
 I found my Galignani and went off with it into the 
 garden, where I seated myself on a bench in the 
 shade. Presently I saw the tall gentleman in the 
 hat appear in one of the open windows of the salon, 
 and stand there with his hands in his pockets and his 
 legs a little apart. He looked very much "bored, and 
 - I don t know why I immediately began to feel 
 sorry for him. He was not at all a picturesque per 
 sonage ; he looked like a jaded, faded man of business. 
 But after a little he came into the garden and began 
 to stroll about; and then his restless, unoccupied car 
 riage, and the vague, unacquainted manner in which 
 his eyes wandered over the place, seemed to make it 
 proper that, as an older resident, I should exercise a 
 certain hospitality. I said something to him, and he 
 came and sat down beside me on my bench, clasping 
 one of his long knees in his hands. 
 
 " When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes off ? " 
 he inquired. " That s what I call it, the little 
 breakfast and the big breakfast. I never thought I 
 should live to see the time when I should care to eat 
 two breakfasts. But a man s glad to do anything, 
 over here." 
 
 " For myself," I observed, " I find plenty to do." 
 
 He turned his head and glanced at me with a dry, 
 deliberate, kind-looking eye. " You re getting usecl 
 to the life, are you ? " 
 
 " I like the life very much," I answered, laughing. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 147 
 
 " How long have you tried it ? " 
 
 " Do you mean in this place ? " 
 
 " Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty 
 much the same all over." 
 
 " I have been in this house only a fortnight," I 
 said. 
 
 " Well, what should you say, from what you have 
 seen ? " my companion asked. 
 
 " Oh," said I, " you can see all there is immediately. 
 It s very simple." 
 
 " Sweet simplicity, eh ? I m afraid my two ladies 
 will find it too simple." 
 
 " Everything is very good," I went on. " And Mad 
 ame Beaurepas is a charming old woman. And then 
 it s very cheap." 
 
 " Cheap, is it ? " my friend repeated meditatively. 
 
 " Does n t it strike you so ? " I asked. I thought it 
 very possible he had not inquired the terms. But he 
 appeared not to have heard me ; he sat there, clasping 
 his knee and blinking, in a contemplative manner, at 
 the sunshine. 
 
 " Are you from the United States, sir ? " he pres 
 ently demanded, turning his head again. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I replied, and I mentioned the place of 
 my nativity. 
 
 " I presumed," he said, " that you were American, 
 or English. I rn from the United States myself ; 
 from New York City. Many of our people here ? " 
 
 "Not so many as, I believe, there have sometimes 
 been. There are two or three ladies." 
 
148 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Well," my interlocutor declared, " I am very fond 
 of ladies society. I think when it s nice there s 
 nothing comes up to it. I ve got two ladies here 
 myself ; I must make you acquainted with them." 
 
 I rejoined that I should be delighted, and I in 
 quired of my friend whether he had been long in 
 Europe. 
 
 " Well, it seems precious long," he said, " but my 
 time s not up yet. We have been here fourteen 
 weeks and a half." 
 
 " Are you travelling for pleasure ? " I asked. 
 
 My companion turned his head again and looked 
 at me, looked at me so long in silence that I at last 
 also turned and met his eyes. 
 
 " No, sir," he said, presently. " No, sir," he re 
 peated, after a considerable interval. 
 
 " Excuse me," said I, for there was something so 
 solemn in his tone that I feared I had been indis 
 creet. 
 
 He took no notice of my ejaculation ; he simply 
 continued to look at me. " I m travelling," he said, 
 at last, " to please the doctors. They seemed to think 
 they would like it." 
 
 " Ah, they sent you abroad for your health/ 7 
 
 " They sent me abroad because they were so con 
 foundedly puzzled they didn t know what else to 
 do." 
 
 " That s often the best thing," I ventured to re 
 mark. 
 
 " It was a confession of weakness ; they wanted me 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 149 
 
 to stop plaguing them. They did n t know enough to 
 cure me, and that s the way they thought they would 
 get out of it. I wanted to be cured, I did n t 
 want to be transported. I had n t done any harm." 
 
 I assented to the general proposition of the ineffi 
 ciency of doctors, and asked my companion if he had 
 been seriously ill. 
 
 " I did n t sleep," he said, after some delay. 
 
 " Ah, that s very annoying. I suppose you were 
 overworked." 
 
 " I did n t eat ; I took no interest in my food." 
 
 "Well, I hope you both eat and sleep now/ I 
 said. 
 
 " I could n t hold a pen," my neighbor went on. "I 
 could n t sit still. I could n t walk from my house to 
 the cars, and it s only a little way. I lost my 
 interest in business." 
 
 " You needed a holiday," I observed. 
 
 " That s what the doctors said. It was n t so very 
 smart of them. I had been paying strict attention to 
 business for twenty-three years." 
 
 " In all that time you have never had a holiday ? " 
 I exclaimed, with horror. 
 
 My companion waited a little. " Sundays," he 
 said at last. 
 
 " No wonder, then, you were out of sorts." 
 
 " Well, sir," said my friend, " I should n t have been 
 where I was three years ago if I had spent my time 
 travelling round Europe. I was in a very advan 
 tageous position. I did a very large business. I was 
 
150 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 considerably interested in lumber." He paused, 
 turned his head, and looked at me a moment. " Have 
 you any business interests yourself ? " I answered 
 that I had none, and he went on again, slowly, softly, 
 deliberately. " Well, sir, perhaps you are not aware 
 that business in the United States is not what it was 
 a short time since. Business interests are very inse 
 cure. There seems to be a general falling-off. Dif 
 ferent parties offer different explanations of the fact, 
 but so far as I am aware none of their observations 
 have set things going again." I ingeniously intimated 
 that if business was dull it was a good time for corn 
 ing away ; whereupon my neighbor threw back his 
 head and stretched his legs a while. " Well, sir, 
 that s one view of the matter, certainly. There s 
 something to be said for that. These tilings should 
 be looked at all round. That s the ground my wife 
 took. That s the ground," he added in a moment, 
 " that a lady would naturally take," and he gave a 
 little dry laugh. 
 
 " You think it s slightly illogical," I remarked. 
 
 " Well, sir, the ground I took was that the worse a 
 man s business is, the more it requires looking after. 
 I should n t want to go out to take a walk not even 
 to go to church if my house was on fire. My firm 
 is not doing the business it was ; it s like a sick 
 child ; it wants nursing. What I wanted the doc 
 tors to do was to fix me up, so that I could go on at 
 home. I d have taken anything they d have given 
 me, and as many times a day. I wanted to be right 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 151 
 
 there ; I had my reasons ; I have them still. But I 
 came off, all the same," said my friend, with a melan 
 choly smile. 
 
 I was a great deal younger than he, but there was 
 something so simple and communicative in his tone, 
 so expressive of a desire to fraternize, and so exempt 
 from any theory of human differences, that I quite 
 forgot his seniority, and found myself offering him 
 paternal advice. " Don t think about all that," said 
 I. " Simply enjoy yourself, amuse yourself, get well. 
 Travel about and see Europe. At the end of a year, 
 by the time you are ready to go home, things will 
 have improved over there, and you will be quite well 
 and happy." 
 
 My friend laid his hand on my knee ; he looked at 
 me for some moments, and I thought he was going to 
 say, " You are very young ! " But he said pres 
 ently, " You have got used to Europe, any way ! " 
 
 III. 
 
 AT breakfast I encountered his ladies, his wife 
 and daughter. They were placed, however, at a dis 
 tance from me, and it was not until the pensionnaircs 
 had dispersed, and some of them, according to cus 
 tom, had come out into the garden, that he had an 
 opportunity of making me acquainted with them. 
 
 " Will you allow me to introduce you to my daugh 
 ter ? " lie said, moved apparently by a paternal incli- 
 
152 THE PENSION BE A UREPAS. 
 
 nation to provide this young lady with social diversion. 
 She was standing, with her mother, in one of the 
 paths, looking about, with no great complacency, as 
 I imagined, at the homely characteristics of the place, 
 and old M. Pigeonneau was hovering near, hesitating 
 apparently between the desire to be urbane and the 
 absence of a pretext. " Mrs. Ruck, Miss Sophy 
 Ruck," said my friend, leading me up. 
 
 Mrs. Euck was a large, plump, light-colored per 
 son, with a smooth, fair face, a somnolent eye, and 
 an elaborate coiffure. Miss Sophy was a girl of one 
 and twenty, very small and very pretty, what I 
 suppose would have been called a lively brunette. 
 Both of these ladies were attired in black silk dresses, 
 very much trimmed ; they had an air of the highest 
 elegance. 
 
 " Do you think highly of this pension ? " inquired 
 Mrs. Ruck, after a few preliminaries. 
 
 " It s a little rough, but it seems to me comfort 
 able," I answered. 
 
 " Does it take a high rank in Geneva ? " Mrs. Ruck 
 pursued. 
 
 " I imagine it enjoys a very fair fame," I said, 
 smiling. 
 
 " I should never dream of comparing it to a New 
 York boarding-house," said Mrs. Ruck. 
 
 " It s quite a different style," her daughter observed. 
 Miss Ruck had folded her arms ; she was holding her 
 
 o 
 
 elbows with a pair of white little hands, and she was 
 tapping the ground with a pretty little foot. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 153 
 
 " We hardly expected to come to a pension," said 
 Mrs. Buck. " But we thought we would try ; we 
 had heard so much about Swiss pensions. I was 
 saying to Mr. Ruck that I wondered whether this 
 was a favorable specimen. I was afraid we might 
 have made a mistake." 
 
 " We knew some people who had been here ; they 
 thought everything of Madame Beaurepas," said Miss 
 Sophy. " They said she was a real friend." 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Parker, perhaps you have heard 
 her speak of them," Mrs. Buck pursued. 
 
 " Madame Beaurepas has had a great many Ameri 
 cans ; she is very fond of Americans," I replied. 
 
 " Well, I must say I should think she would be, 
 if she compares them with some others." 
 I " Mother is always comparing," observed Miss 
 Ruck. 
 
 " Of course I am always comparing," rejoined the 
 elder lady. " I never had a chance till now ; I never 
 knew my privileges.J Give me an American ! " And 
 Mrs. Ruck indulged in a little laugh. 
 
 " Well, I must say there are some things I like 
 over here," said Miss Sophy, with courage. And 
 indeed I could see that she was a young woman of 
 great decision. 
 
 " You like the shops, that s what you like," her 
 father affirmed. 
 
 The young lady addressed herself to me, without 
 heeding this remark : " I suppose you feel quite at 
 home here." 
 
 7* 
 
1 54 THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 
 
 11 Oh, he likes it ; he has got used to the life ! " 
 exclaimed Mr. Ruck. 
 
 " I wish you d teach Mr. Buck," said his wife. 
 " It seems as if he could n t get used to anything." 
 
 " I m used to you, my dear," the husband retorted, 
 giving me a humorous look. 
 
 " He s intensely restless," continued Mrs. Buck. 
 " That s what made me want to come to a pension. 
 I thought he would settle down more." 
 
 " I don t think I am used to you, after all," said 
 her husband. 
 
 In view of a possible exchange of conjugal repartee 
 I took refuge in conversation with Miss Buck, who 
 seemed perfectly able to play her part in any collo 
 quy. I learned from this young lady that, with her 
 parents, after visiting the British islands, she had 
 been spending a month in Paris, and that she thought 
 she should have died when she left that city. " I 
 hung out of the carriage, when we left the hotel," 
 said Miss Buck ; " I assure you I did. And mother 
 did, too." 
 
 " Out of the other window, I hope," said I. 
 
 "Yes, one out of each window," she replied, promptly. 
 " Father had hard work, I can tell you. We had n t 
 half finished ; there were ever so many places we 
 wanted to go to." 
 
 " Your father insisted on coming away ? " 
 
 " Yes ; after we had been there about a month he 
 said he had enough. He s fearfully restless ; he s very 
 much out of health. Mother and I said to him that 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 155 
 
 if he was restless in Paris he need n t hope for peace 
 anywhere. We don t mean to leave him alone till he 
 takes us back." There was an air of keen resolution 
 in Miss Euck s pretty face, of lucid apprehension of 
 desirable ends, which made me, as she pronounced 
 these words, direct a glance of covert compassion 
 toward her poor recalcitrant father. He had walked 
 away a little with his wife, and I saw only his back 
 and his stooping, patient-looking shoulders, whose 
 air of acute resignation was thrown into relief by the 
 voluminous tranquillity of Mrs. Kuck. " He will have 
 to take us back in September, any way," the young 
 girl pursued ; " he will have to take us back to get 
 some things we have ordered." 
 
 " Have you ordered a great many things ? " I asked, 
 jocosely. 
 
 " Well, I guess we have ordered some. Of course 
 we wanted to take advantage of being in Paris, 
 ladies always do. We have left the principal things 
 till we go back. Of course that is the principal 
 interest for ladies. Mother said she should feel so 
 shabby, if she just passed through. We have prom 
 ised all the people to be back in September, and I 
 never broke a promise yet. So Mr. Euck has got to 
 make his plans accordingly." 
 
 " And what are his plans ? " 
 
 " I don t know ; he does n t seem able to make any. 
 His great idea was to get to Geneva ; but now that 
 he has got here he doesn t seem to care. It s the 
 effect of ill health. He used to be so bright; but 
 
156 THE PENSION BE A UR EPA S. 
 
 now he is quite subdued. It s about time he should 
 improve, anyway. We went out last night to look at 
 the jewellers windows, in that street behind the 
 hotel. I had always heard of those jewellers windows. 
 We saw some lovely things, but it didn t seem to 
 rouse father. He 11 get tired of Geneva sooner than 
 he did of Paris." 
 
 "Ah," said I, "there are finer things here than the 
 jewellers windows. We are very near some f the 
 most beautiful scenery in Europe." 
 
 " I suppose you mean the mountains. Well, we 
 have seen plenty of mountains at home. We used 
 to go to the mountains every summer. We are 
 familiar enough with the mountains. Are n t we, 
 mother ? " the young lady demanded, appealing to 
 Mrs. Buck, who, with her husband, had drawn near 
 again. / 
 
 " Are n t we what ? " inquired the elder lady. 
 
 " Are n t we familiar with the mountains ? " 
 
 " Well, I hope so," said Mrs. Euck. 
 
 Mr. Euck, with his hands in his pockets, gave me 
 a sociable wink. " There s nothing much you can 
 tell them ! " he said. 
 
 The two ladies stood face to face a few moments, 
 surveying each other s garments. " Don t you want 
 to go out ? " the young girl at last inquired of her 
 mother. 
 
 " Well, I think we had better ; we have got to go 
 up to that place." 
 
 " To what place ? " asked Mr. Euck, 
 
THE PENSION BE A UR EPA S. 157 
 
 " To that jeweller s, to that big one." 
 
 "They all seemed big enough; they were too big!" 
 And Mr. Buck gave me another wink. 
 
 " That one where we saw the blue cross/ said his 
 daughter. 
 
 " Oh, come, what do you want of that blue cross ? " 
 poor Mr. Euck demanded. 
 
 " She wants to hang it on a black velvet ribbon 
 and tie it round her neck," said his wife. 
 
 " A black velvet ribbon ? No, I thank you ! " cried 
 the young lady. "Do you suppose I would wear that 
 cross on a black velvet ribbon ? On a nice little gold 
 chain, if you please, a little narrow gold chain, like 
 an old-fashioned watch-chain. That s the proper 
 thing for that blue cross. I know the sort of chain I 
 mean; I m going to look for one. When I want a 
 thing," said Miss Euck, with decision, "I can gen 
 erally find it." 
 
 " Look here, Sophy," her father urged, " you don t 
 want that blue cross." 
 
 " I do want it, I happen to want it." And Sophy 
 glanced at me with a little laugh. 
 
 Her laugh, which in itself was pretty, suggested 
 that there were various relations in which one might 
 stand to Miss Euck ; but I think I was conscious of 
 a certain satisfaction in not occupying the paternal 
 one. " Don t worry the poor child," said her mother. 
 
 " Come on, mother," said Miss Euck. 
 
 " We are going to look about a little," explained 
 the elder lady to me, by way of taking leave. 
 
158 THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 
 
 " I know what that means/ remarked Mr. Buck, 
 as his companions moved away. He stood looking 
 at them a moment, while he raised his hand to his 
 head, behind, and stood rubbing it a little, with a 
 movement that displaced his hat. (I may remark in 
 parenthesis that I never saw a hat more easily dis 
 placed than Mr. Euck s.) I supposed he was going 
 to say something querulous, but I was mistaken. 
 Mr. Ruck was unhappy, but lie was very good-natured. 
 "Well, they want to pick up something," he said. 
 " That s the principal interest, for ladies." 
 
 IV. 
 
 MR. RUCK distinguished me, as the French say. 
 He honored me with his esteem, and, as the days 
 elapsed, with a large portion of his confidence. 
 Sometimes he bored me a little, for the tone of his 
 conversation was not cheerful, tending as it did almost 
 exclusively to a melancholy dirge over the financial 
 prostration of our common country. " No, sir, busi 
 ness in the United States is not what it once was," 
 he found occasion to remark several times a day. 
 " There s not the same spring, there s not the same 
 hopeful feeling. You can see it in all departments." 
 He used to sit by the hour in the little garden of the 
 pension, with a roll of American newspapers in his 
 lap and his high hat pushed back, swinging one of 
 his long legs and reading the Xew York Herald. IIo 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 159 
 
 paid a daily visit to the American banker s, on the 
 other side of the Rhone, and remained there a long 
 time, turning over the old papers on the green velvet 
 table in the middle of the Salon des Strangers and 
 fraternizing with chance compatriots. But in spite 
 of these diversions his time hung heavily upon his 
 hands. I used sometimes to propose to him to take 
 a walk ; but he had a mortal horror of pedestrianism, 
 and regarded my own taste for it as a morbid form of 
 activity. "You ll kill yourself, if you don t look 
 out," he said, " walking all over the country. I don t 
 want to walk round that way ; I ain t a postman ! " 
 Briefly speaking, Mr. Ruck had few resources. His 
 wife and daughter, on the other hand, it was to be 
 supposed, were possessed of a good many that could 
 not be apparent to an unobtrusive young man. They 
 also sat a great deal in the garden or in the salon, side 
 by side, with folded hands, contemplating material 
 objects, and were remarkably independent of most of 
 the usual feminine aids to idleness, light literature, 
 tapestry, the use of the piano. They were, however, 
 much fonder of locomotion than their companion, and 
 I often met them in the Rue du Rhone and on the 
 quays, loitering in front of the jewellers windows. 
 They might have had a cavalier in the person of old 
 M. Pigeonneau, who professed a high appreciation of 
 their charms, but who, owing to the absence of a 
 common idiom, was deprived of the pleasures of inti 
 macy. He knew~ no English, and Mrs. Ruck and her 
 daughter had, as it seemed, an incurable mistrust of 
 
160 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 the beautiful tongue which, as the old man endeavored 
 to impress upon them, was pre-eminently the language 
 of conversation. 
 
 " They have a tournure de princesse, a distinction 
 supreme" he said to me. " One is surprised to find 
 them in a little pension, at seven francs a day." 
 
 " Oh, they don t come for economy," I answered. 
 " They must be rich." 
 
 " They don t come for my beaux yeux, for mine," 
 said M. Pigeonneau, sadly. " Perhaps it s for yours, 
 young man. Je vous recommande la mere." 
 
 I reflected a moment. " They came on account of 
 Mr. Buck, because at hotels he s so restless." 
 
 M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. "Of 
 course he is, with such a wife as that ! a femme 
 superbc. Madame Ruck is preserved in perfection, 
 a miraculous fraiclieur. I like those large, fair, quiet 
 women ; they are often, dans I intimite, the most 
 agreeable. I 11 warrant you that at heart Madame 
 Ruck is a finished coquette." 
 
 " I rather doubt it," I said. 
 
 " You suppose her cold ? Ne vous y fiez pas ! " 
 
 " It is a matter in which I have nothing at stake." 
 
 " You young Americans are droll," said M. Pigeon 
 neau ; " you never have anything at stake ! But the 
 little one, for example ; I 11 warrant you she s not 
 cold. She is admirably made." 
 
 " She is very pretty." 
 
 " She is very pretty ! Vous dites cela d un ton ! 
 When you pay compliments to Mademoiselle Ruck, 
 I hope that s not the way you do it." 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPAS. 161 
 
 " I don t pay compliments to Mademoiselle Buck." 
 " Ah, decidedly," said M. Pigeonneau, " you young 
 Americans are droll ! " 
 
 I should have suspected that these two ladies would 
 not especially commend themselves to Madame Beau- 
 repas ; that as a maitresse de salon, which she in some 
 degree aspired to be, she would have found them 
 wanting in a certain flexibility of deportment. But 
 I should have gone quite wrong ; Madame Beaurepas 
 had no fault at all to find with her new pensionnaires. 
 "I have no observation whatever to make about 
 them," she said to me one evening. " I see nothing 
 
 O O 
 
 in those ladies which is at all deplace. They don t 
 complain of anything ; they don t meddle ; they take 
 what s given them ; they leave me tranquil. The 
 Americans are often like that. Often, but not 
 always," Madame Beaurepas pursued. "We are to 
 have a specimen to-morrow of a very different sort." 
 
 " An American ? " I inquired. 
 
 "Two Americaines, a mother and a daughter. 
 There are Americans and Americans : when you are 
 difficiles, you are more so than any one, and when you 
 have pretensions ah, par exemple, it s serious. I 
 foresee that with this little lady everything will be 
 serious, beginning with her cafe au lait. She has 
 been staying at the Pension Bonrepos, my concur 
 rent, you know, further up the street; but she is 
 coming away because the coffee is bad. She holds to 
 her coffee, it appears. I don t know what liquid 
 Madame Bonrepos may have invented, but we will 
 
162 THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 
 
 do the best we can for her. Only, I know she will 
 make me des Jiistoires about something else. She 
 will demand a new lamp for the salon ; vous allez voir 
 cela. She wishes to pay but eleven francs a day for 
 herself and her daughter, tout compris ; and for their 
 eleven francs they expect to be lodged like princesses. 
 But she is very lady-like/ is n t that what you call 
 it in English ? Oh, pour cela, she is lady-like ! " 
 
 I caught a glimpse on the morrow of this lady-like 
 person, who was arriving at her new residence as I 
 came in from a walk. She had come in a cab, with 
 her daughter and her luggage ; and, with an air of 
 perfect softness and serenity, she was disputing the 
 fare as she stood among her boxes, on the steps. 
 She addressed her cabman in a very English accent, 
 but with extreme precision and correctness : " I wish 
 to be perfectly reasonable, but I don t wish to en 
 courage you in exorbitant demands. With a franc 
 and a half you are sufficiently paid. It is not the 
 custom at Geneva to give a pour-boire for so short a 
 drive. I have made inquiries, and I find it is not the 
 custom, even in the best families. I am a stranger, 
 yes, but I always adopt the custom of the native 
 families. I think it my duty toward the natives." 
 
 " But I am a native, too, moi ! " said the cabman, 
 with an angry laugh. 
 
 " You seem to me to speak with a German accent," 
 continued the lady. " You are probably from Basel. 
 A franc and a half is sufficient. I see you have left 
 behind the little red bag which I asked you to hold 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 163 
 
 between your knees ; you will please to go back to 
 the other house and get it. Very well, if you are 
 impolite I will make a complaint of you to-morrow 
 at the administration. Aurora, you will find a pencil 
 in the outer pocket of my embroidered satchel; 
 please to write down his number, 87 ; do you see it 
 -distinctly ? in case we ,should forget it." 
 
 The young lady addressed as " Aurora " a slight, 
 fair girl, holding a large parcel of umbrellas stood 
 at hand while this allocution went forward, but she 
 apparently gave no heed to it. She stood looking 
 about her, in a listless manner, at the front of the 
 house, at the corridor, at Celestine tucking up her 
 apron in the door-way, at me as I passed in amid the 
 disseminated luggage; her mother s parsimonious 
 attitude seeming to produce in Miss Aurora neither 
 sympathy nor embarrassment. At dinner the two 
 ladies were placed on the same side of the table as 
 myself, below Mrs. Euck and her daughter, my own 
 position being on the right of Mr. Euck. I had 
 therefore little observation of Mrs. Church, such I 
 learned to be her name, but I occasionally heard 
 her soft, distinct voice. 
 
 " White wine, if you please ; we prefer white wine. 
 There is none on the table ? Then you will please to 
 get some, and to remember to place a bottle of it 
 always here, between my daughter and myself." 
 
 " That lady seems to know what she wants," said 
 Mr. Euck, " and she speaks so I can understand her. 
 I can t understand every one, over here. I should 
 
1 64 THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 
 
 like to make that lady s acquaintance. Perhaps she 
 knows what / want, too ; it seems hard to find out. 
 But I don t want any of their sour white wine ; that s 
 one of the things I don t want. I expect she 11 be 
 an addition to the pension." 
 
 Mr. Euck made the acquaintance of Mrs. Church 
 that evening in the parlor, being presented to her by 
 his wife, who presumed on the rights conferred upon 
 herself by the mutual proximity, at table, of the two 
 ladies. I suspected that in Mrs. Church s view Mrs. 
 Euck presumed too far. The fugitive from the Pen 
 sion Bonrepos, as M. Pigeonneau called her, was a 
 little fresh, plump, comely woman, looking less than 
 her age, with a round, bright, serious face. She was 
 very simply and frugally dressed, not at all in the 
 manner of Mr. Euck s companions, and she had an 
 air of quiet distinction which was an excellent de 
 fensive weapon. She exhibited a polite disposition 
 to listen to what Mr. Euck might have to say, but 
 her manner was equivalent to an intimation that 
 what she valued least in boarding-house life was its 
 social opportunities. She had placed herself near a 
 lamp, after carefully screwing it and turning it up, 
 and she had opened in her lap, with the assistance 
 of a large embroidered marker, an octavo volume 
 which I perceived to be in German. To Mrs. Euck 
 and her daughter she was evidently a puzzle, with 
 her economical attire and her expensive culture. 
 The two younger ladies, however, had begun to fra 
 ternize very freely, and Miss Euck presently went 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 165 
 
 wandering out of the room with her arm round the 
 waist of Miss Church. It was a very warm evening ; 
 the long windows of the salon stood wide open into 
 the garden, and inspired by the balmy darkness, 
 M. Pigeonneau and Mademoiselle Beaurepas, a most 
 obliging little woman, who lisped and always wore 
 a huge cravat, declared they would organize a fete. 
 They engaged in this undertaking, and the fete de 
 veloped itself, consisting of half a dozen red paper 
 lanterns, hung about on the trees, and of several 
 glasses of sirop^ carried on a tray by the stout-armed 
 Celestine. As the festival deepened to its climax I 
 went out into the garden, where M. Pigeonneau was 
 master of ceremonies. 
 
 11 But where are those charming young ladies/ he 
 cried, " Miss Buck and the new-comer, I aimable 
 transfuge? Their absence has been remarked, and 
 they are wanting to the brilliancy of the occasion. 
 Voyez, I have selected a glass of syrup a generous 
 glass for Mademoiselle Buck, and I advise you, 
 my young friend, if you wish to make a good 
 impression, to put aside one which you may offer 
 to the other young lady. What is her name ? Miss 
 Church. I see ; it s a singular name. There is a 
 church in which I would willingly worship !" 
 
 Mr. Buck presently came out of the salon, having 
 concluded his interview with Mrs. Church. Through 
 the open window I saw the latter lady sitting under 
 the lamp with her German octavo, while Mrs. Buck, 
 established, empty-handed, in an arm-chair near her, 
 gazed at her with an air of fascination. 
 
166 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Well, I told you she would know what I want," 
 said Mr. Euck. " She says I want to go up to Appen- 
 zell, wherever that is ; that I want to drink whey and 
 live in a high latitude what did she call it ? a 
 high altitude. She seemed to think we ought to 
 leave for Appenzell to-morrow ; she d got it all fixed. 
 She says this ain t a high enough lat a high enough 
 altitude. And she says I must n t go too high, either ; 
 that would be just as bad ; she seems to know just 
 the right figure. She says she 11 give me a list of the 
 hotels where we must stop, on the way to AppenzelL 
 I asked her if she did n t want to go with us, but she 
 says she d rather sit still and read. I expect she s 
 a big reader." 
 
 The daughter of this accomplished woman now 
 reappeared, in company with Miss Euck, with whom 
 she had been strolling through the outlying parts of 
 the garden. 
 
 " Well," said Miss Euck, glancing at the red paper 
 lanterns, " are they trying to stick the flower-pots 
 into the trees ? " 
 
 " It s an illumination in honor of our arrival," the 
 other young girl rejoined. " It s a triumph over 
 Madame Bonrepos." 
 
 " Meanwhile, at the Pension Bonrepos," I ventured 
 to suggest, " they have put out their lights ; they are 
 sitting in darkness, lamenting your departure." 
 
 She looked at me, smiling ; she was standing in 
 the light that came from the house. M. Pigeonnean, 
 meanwhile, who had been awaiting his chance, 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 167 
 
 advanced to Miss Buck with his glass of syrup. 
 " I have kept it for you, mademoiselle," he said ; 
 " I have jealously guarded it. It is very delicious ! " 
 
 Miss Euck looked at him and his syrup, without 
 making any motion to take the glass. " Well, I 
 guess it s sour," she said in a moment, and she 
 gave a little shake of her head. 
 
 M. Pigeonneau stood staring, with his syrup in his 
 hand ; then he slowly turned away. He looked about 
 at the rest of us, as if to appeal from Miss Euck s 
 insensibility, and went to deposit his rejected tribute 
 on a bench. 
 
 " Won t you give it to me ? " asked Miss Church, 
 in faultless French. " J adore le sirop, moi." 
 
 M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity, and pre 
 sented the glass with a very low bow. "I adore 
 good manners," murmured the old man. 
 /^This incident caused me to look at Miss Church 
 with quickened interest. She was not strikingly 
 pretty, but in her charming, irregular face there was 
 something brilliant and ardent. Like her mother, 
 she was very simply dressed. 
 
 " She wants to go to America, and her mother 
 won t let her," said Miss Sophy to me, explaining 
 her companion s situation. 
 
 " I am very sorry for America," I answered, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Well, I don t want to say anything against your 
 mother, but I think it s shameful/ Miss Euck pur 
 sued. 
 
168 THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 
 
 " Mamma has very good reasons ; she will tell you 
 them all." 
 
 " Well, I m sure I don t want to hear them," said 
 Miss Buck. You have got a right to go to your 
 own country ; every one has a right to go to their 
 own country." 
 
 " Mamma is not very patriotic," said Aurora Church, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Well, I call that dreadful," her companion de 
 clared. " I have heard that there are some Ameri 
 cans like that, but I never believed it." 
 
 " There are all sorts of Americans," I said, laughing. 
 
 "Aurora s one of the right sort," rejoined Miss 
 Euck, who had apparently become very intimate 
 with her new friend. 
 
 " Are you very patriotic ? " I asked of the young 
 girl. 
 
 " She s right down homesick," said Miss Sophy ; 
 " she s dying to go. If I were you my mother would 
 have to take me." 
 
 " Mamma is going to take me to Dresden." 
 
 " Well, I declare I never heard of anything so 
 dreadful ! " cried Miss Euck. " It s like something 
 in a story." 
 
 " I never heard there was anything very dreadful 
 in Dresden," I interposed. 
 
 Miss Euck looked at me a moment. "Well, I 
 don t believe you are a good American," she replied, 
 " and I never supposed you were. You had better 
 go in there and talk to Mrs. Church." 
 
THE PENSION BEAU REP AS. 169 
 
 " Dresden is really very nice, is n t it ? " I asked 
 of her companion. 
 
 " It is n t nice if you happen to prefer New York," 
 said Miss Sophy. " Miss Church prefers New York. 
 Tell him you are dying to see New York; it will 
 make him angry," she went on. 
 
 " I have no desire to make him angry," said 
 Aurora, smiling, 
 
 " It is only Miss Euck who can do that," I rejoined. 
 " Have you been a long time in Europe ? " 
 
 " Always." 
 
 " I call that wicked ! " Miss Sophy declared. 
 
 " You might be in a worse place," I continued. 
 " I find Europe very interesting." 
 
 Miss Buck gave a little laugh. "I was saying 
 that you wanted to pass for a European." 
 
 " Yes, I want to pass for a Dalmatian." 
 
 Miss Buck looked at me a moment. " Well, you 
 had better not come home," she said. " No one will 
 speak to you." 
 
 " Were you born in these countries ? " I asked of 
 her companion. 
 
 " Oh, no ; I came to Europe when I was a small 
 child. But I remember America a little, and it seems 
 delightful." 
 
 " Wait till you see it again. It s just too lovely," 
 said Miss Sophy. 
 
 " It s the grandest country in the world," I added. 
 
 Miss Buck began to toss her head. " Come away, 
 my dear," she said. " If there s a creature I despise 
 
 8 
 
170 THE PENSION BEA UREPAS. 
 
 it s a man that tries to say funny things about his 
 own country." 
 
 " Don t you think one can be tired of Europe ? " 
 Aurora asked, lingering. 
 
 " Possibly, after many years." 
 
 "Father was tired of it after three weeks," said 
 Miss Euck. 
 
 " I have been here sixteen years," her friend went 
 on, looking at me with a charming intentness, as if 
 she had a purpose in speaking. " It used to be for 
 my education. I don t know what it s for now." 
 
 " She s beautifully educated," said Miss Euck. 
 "She knows four languages." 
 
 " I am not very sure that I know English." 
 
 " You should go to Boston ! " cried Miss Sophy. 
 " They speak splendidly in Boston." 
 
 " C est mon reve," said Aurora, still looking at me. 
 
 " Have you been all over Europe," I asked, " in 
 all the different countries ? " 
 
 She hesitated a moment. "Everywhere that there s 
 a pension. Mamma is devoted to pensions. We 
 have lived, at one time or another, in every pension 
 in Europe." 
 
 " Well, I should think you had seen about enough," 
 said Miss Euck. 
 
 " It s a delightful way of seeing Europe," Aurora 
 rejoined, with her brilliant smile. "You may inir 
 agine how it has attached me to the different coun 
 tries. I have such charming souvenirs ! There is a 
 pension awaiting us now at Dresden, eight francs 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 171 
 
 a day, without wine. That s rather dear. Mamma 
 means to make them give us wine. Mamma is a 
 great authority on pensions ; she is known, that way, 
 all over Europe. Last winter we were in Italy, and 
 she discovered one at Piacenza, four francs a day. 
 We made economies." 
 
 "Your mother does n t seem to mingle much," 
 observed Miss Euck, glancing through the window 
 at the scholastic attitude of Mrs. Church. 
 
 " No, she does n t mingle, except in the native 
 society. Though she lives in pensions, she detests 
 them." 
 
 " Why does she live in them, then ? " asked Miss 
 Sophy, rather resentfully. 
 
 " Oh, because we are so poor ; it s the cheapest 
 way to live. We have tried having a cook, but the 
 cook always steals. Mamma used to set me to watch 
 her ; that s the way I passed my jeunesse, my belle 
 jeunesse. We are frightfully poor," the young girl 
 went on, with the same strange frankness, a curi 
 ous mixture of girlish grace and conscious cynicism. 
 " Nous n avons pas le sou. That s one of the reasons 
 we don t go back to America ; mamma says we can t 
 afford to live there." 
 
 " Well, any one can see that you re an American 
 girl," Miss Euck remarked, in a consolatory manner. 
 " I can tell an American girl a mile off. You Ve got 
 the American style." 
 
 " I m afraid I have n t the American toilette" said 
 Aurora, looking at the other s superior splendor. 
 
172 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Well, your dress was cut in France ; any one can 
 see that." 
 
 " Yes," said Aurora, with a laugh, " my dress was 
 cut in France, at Avranches." 
 
 " Well, you Ve got a lovely figure, any way," pur 
 sued her companion. 
 
 " Ah," said the young girl, " at Avranches, too, my 
 figure was admired." And she looked at me askance, 
 with a certain coquetry. But I was an innocent 
 youth, and I only looked back at her, wondering. 
 She was a great deal nicer than Miss Euck, and yet 
 Miss Euck would not have said that. " I try to he 
 like an American girl," she continued; "I do my 
 best, though mamma does n t at all encourage it. I 
 am very patriotic. I try to copy them, though 
 mamma has brought me up a la frangaisc ; that is, 
 as much as one can in pensions. For instance, I 
 have never been out of the house without mamma ; 
 oh, never, never. But sometimes I despair ; Ameri 
 can girls are so wonderfully frank. I can t be frank, 
 like that. I am always afraid. But I do what I 
 can, as you see. Excusez du peu ! " 
 
 I thought this young lady at least as outspoken as 
 most of her unexpatriated sisters ; there was some 
 thing almost comical in her despondency. But she 
 had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, the 
 American tone. Whatever her tone was, however, 
 it had a fascination ; it was a singular mixture of 
 refinement and audacity. 
 
 The young ladies began to stroll about the garden 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 173 
 
 again, and I enjoyed their society until M. Pigeon- 
 neau s festival came to an end. 
 
 V. 
 
 ME. EUCK did not take his departure for Appenzell 
 on the morrow, in spite of the eagerness to witness 
 such an event which he had attributed to Mrs. Church. 
 He continued, on the contrary, for many days after, 
 to hang about the garden, to wander up to the banker s 
 and back again, to engage in desultory conversation 
 with his fellow-boarders, and to endeavor to assuage 
 his constitutional restlessness by perusal of the 
 American journals. But on the morrow I had the 
 honor of making Mrs. Church s acquaintance. She 
 came into the salon, after the midday breakfast, with 
 her German octavo under her arm, and she appealed 
 to me for assistance in selecting a quiet corner. 
 
 " Would you very kindly," she said, " move that 
 large fauteuil a little more this way ? Not the 
 largest ; the one with the little cushion. The fau- 
 teuils here are very insufficient ; I must ask Madame 
 Beaurepas for another. Thank you ; a little more to 
 the left, please ; that will do. Are you particularly 
 engaged ? " she inquired, after she had seated herself. 
 " If not, I should like to have some conversation with 
 you. It is some time since I have met a young 
 American of your what shall I call it ? your 
 affiliations. I have learned your name from Madame 
 Beaurepas ; I think I used to know some of. your 
 
174 THE PENSION BE A U RE PAS. 
 
 people. I don t know what lias become of all my 
 friends. I used to have a charming little circle at 
 home, but now I meet no one I know. Don t you 
 think there is a great difference between the people 
 one meets and the people one would like to meet ? 
 Fortunately, sometimes," added my interlocutress 
 graciously, " it s quite the same. I suppose you are 
 a specimen, a favorable specimen," she went on, " of 
 young America. Tell me, now, what is young Amer 
 ica thinking of in these days of ours ? What are its 
 feelings, its opinions, its aspirations ? What is its 
 ideal ? " I had seated myself near Mrs. Church and 
 she had pointed this interrogation with the gaze of 
 her bright little eyes. I felt it embarrassing to be 
 treated as a favorable specimen of young America, 
 and to be summoned to enunciate the mysterious 
 formulas to which she alluded. Observing my hesi 
 tation, Mrs. Church clasped her hands on the open 
 page of her book and gave an intense, melancholy 
 smile. "Has it an ideal ? " she softly asked. " Well, 
 we must talk of this," she went on, without insisting. 
 " Speak, for the present, for yourself simply. Have 
 you come to Europe with any special design ? " 
 
 " Nothing to boast of," I said. " I am studying a 
 little." 
 
 " Ah, I am glad to hear that. You are gathering 
 up a little European culture ; that s what we lack, 
 you know, at home. No individual can do much, of 
 course. But you must not be discouraged ; every 
 little counts." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 175 
 
 "I see that you, at least, are doing your part," I 
 rejoined gallantly, dropping my eyes on my com 
 panion s learned volume. 
 
 "Yes, I frankly admit that I am fond of study. 
 There is no one, after all, like the Germans. That 
 is, for facts. For opinions I by no means always 
 go with them. I form my opinions myself. I am 
 sorry to say, however," Mrs. Church continued, " that 
 I can hardly pretend to diffuse my acquisitions. I 
 am afraid I am sadly selfish ; I do little to irrigate 
 the soil. I belong I frankly confess it to the 
 class of absentees." 
 
 "I had the pleasure, last evening," I said, "of 
 making the acquaintance of your daughter. She told 
 me you had been a long time in Europe." 
 
 Mrs. Church smiled benignantly. "Can one ever 
 be too long ? We shall never leave it." 
 
 " Your daughter won t like that," I said, smiling 
 too. 
 
 " Has she been taking you into her confidence ? 
 She is a more sensible young lady than she some 
 times appears. I have taken great pains with her ; 
 she is really I may be permitted to say it 
 superbly educated." 
 
 "She seemed to me a very charming girl," I 
 rejoined. "And I learned that she speaks four 
 languages." 
 
 " It is not only that," said Mrs. Church, in a tone 
 which suggested that this might be a very superficial 
 species of culture. " She has made what we call de 
 
176 THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 
 
 fortes dudes, such as I suppose you are making 
 now. She is familiar with the results of modern 
 science ; she keeps pace with the new historical 
 school." 
 
 " Ah," said I, " she has gone much further 
 than I!" 
 
 " You doubtless think I exaggerate, and you force 
 me, therefore, to mention the fact that I am able to 
 speak of such matters with a certain intelligence." 
 
 " That is very evident," I said. " But your daugh 
 ter thinks you ought to take her home." I began 
 to fear, as soon as I had uttered these words, that 
 they savored of treachery to the young lady, but I 
 was reassured by seeing that they produced on her 
 mother s placid countenance no symptom whatever 
 of irritation. 
 
 " My daughter has her little theories," Mrs. Church 
 observed ; " she has, I may say, her illusions. And 
 what wonder ! What would youth be without its 
 illusions ? Aurora has a theory that she would be 
 happier in New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, 
 than in one of the charming old cities in which our 
 lot is cast. But she is mistaken, that s all. We 
 must allow our children their illusions, must we not ? 
 But we must watch over them." 
 
 Although she herself seemed proof against discom 
 posure, I found something vaguely irritating in her 
 soft, sweet positiveness. 
 
 " American cities," I said, " are the paradise of 
 young girls." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 177 
 
 " Do you mean/ asked Mrs. Church, " that the 
 young girls who come from those places are angels?" 
 
 " Yes," I said, resolutely. 
 
 " This young lady what is her odd name ? 
 with whom my daughter has formed a somewhat 
 precipitate acquaintance : is Miss Euck an angel ? 
 But I won t force you to say anything uncivil. It 
 would be too cruel to make a single exception." 
 
 " Well," said I, " at any rate, in America young 
 girls have an easier lot. They have much more 
 liberty." 
 
 My companion laid her hand for an instant on 
 my arm. " My dear young friend, I know America, I 
 know the conditions of life there, so well. There is 
 perhaps no subject on which I have reflected more 
 than on our national idiosyncrasies." 
 
 " I am afraid you don t approve of them," said I, 
 a little brutally. 
 
 Brutal indeed my proposition was, for Mrs. Church 
 was not prepared to assent to it in this rough shape. 
 She dropped her eyes on her book, with an air of 
 acute meditation. Then, raising them, " We are very 
 crude," she softly observed, " we are very crude." 
 Lest even this delicately uttered statement should 
 seem to savor of the vice that she deprecated, she 
 went on to explain : " There are two classes of minds, 
 you know, those that hold back, and those that 
 push forward. My daughter and I are not pushers ; 
 we move with little steps. We like the old, trodden 
 paths ; we like the old, old world." 
 
178 THE PEN SI ON BE A UREPA S. 
 
 " All," said I, " you know what you like ; there is 
 a great virtue in that." 
 
 " Yes, we like Europe ; we prefer it. We like the 
 opportunities of Europe ; we like the rest. There is 
 so much in that, you know. The world seems to me 
 to be hurrying, pressing forward so fiercely, without 
 knowing where it is going. Whither ? I often ask, 
 in my little quiet way. But I have yet to learn that 
 any one can tell me." 
 
 " You re a great conservative," I observed, while 
 I wondered whether I myself could answer this 
 inquiry. 
 
 Mrs. Church gave me a smile which was equivalent 
 to a confession. "I wish to retain a little, just a 
 little. Surely, we have done so much, we might rest 
 awhile ; we might pause. That is all my feeling, 
 just to stop a little, to wait! I have seen so many 
 changes. I wish to draw in, to draw in, to hold 
 back, to hold back." 
 
 " You should n t hold your daughter back ! " I 
 answered, laughing and getting up. I got up, not 
 by way of terminating our colloquy, for I perceived 
 Mrs. Church s exposition of her views to be by no 
 means complete, but in order to offer a chair to Miss 
 Aurora, who at this moment drew near. She thanked 
 me and remained standing, but without at first, as I 
 i Jloticed, meeting her mother s eye. 
 
 " You have been engaged with your new acquaint 
 ance, my dear ? " this lady inquired. 
 
 " Yes, mamma dear," said the young girl gently. 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 179 
 
 " Do you find her very edifying ? " 
 
 Aurora was silent a moment ; then she looked at 
 her mother. "I don t know, rnanima; she is very 
 fresh." 
 
 I ventured to indulge in a respectful laugh. " Your 
 mother has another word for that. But I must not," 
 I added, " be crude." 
 
 " Ah, vous m en voulez ? " inquired Mrs. Church. 
 " And yet I can t pretend I said it in jest. I feel it 
 too much. We have been having a little social dis 
 cussion," she said to her daughter. " There is still 
 so much to be said! And I wish," she continued, 
 turning to me, " that I could give you our point of 
 view ! Don t you wish, Aurora, that we could give 
 him our point of view ? " 
 
 " Yes, mamma," said Aurora. 
 
 " We consider ourselves very fortunate in our point 
 of view, don t we, dearest ? " mamma demanded. 
 
 " Very fortunate indeed, mamma." 
 
 " You see we have acquired an insight into Euro 
 pean life," the elder lady pursued. " We have our 
 place at many a European fireside. We find so 
 much to esteem, so much to enjoy. Do we not, 
 my daughter ? " 
 
 " So very much, mamma," the young girl went on, 
 with a sort of inscrutable submissiveness. I won 
 dered at it, it offered so strange a contrast to the 
 mocking freedom of her tone the night before; but 
 while I wondered, I was careful not to let my per 
 plexity take precedence of my good manners. 
 
180 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " I don t know what you ladies may have found at 
 European firesides," I said, " but there can be very 
 little doubt what you have left there." 
 
 Mrs. Church got up to acknowledge my compli 
 ment. " We have spent some charming hours. And 
 that reminds me that we have just now such an 
 occasion in prospect. We are to call upon some 
 Genevese friends, the family of the Pasteur Galo- 
 pin. They are to go with us to the old library 
 at the Hotel de Ville, where there are some very 
 interesting documents of the period of the Refor 
 mation ; we are promised a glimpse of some manu 
 scripts of poor Servetus, the antagonist and victim, 
 you know, of Calvin. Here, of course, one can only 
 speak of Calvin under one s breath, but some day, 
 when we are more private," and Mrs. Church looked 
 round the room, " I will give you my view of him. 
 I think it has a touch of originality. Aurora is 
 familiar with, are you not, my daughter, familiar 
 with my view of Calvin ? " 
 
 "Yes, mamma," said Aurora, with docility, while 
 the two ladies went to prepare for their visit to the 
 Pasteur Galopin. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " SHE has demanded a new lamp ; I told you she 
 would ! " This communication was made me by 
 Madame Beaiirepas a couple of days later. " And 
 she has asked for a new tapis de lit, and she has 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 181 
 
 requested me to provide Celestine with a pair of 
 light shoes. I told her that, as a general thing, cooks 
 are not shod with satin. That poor Celestine ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Church may be exacting," I said, " but she 
 is a clever little woman." 
 
 " A lady who pays but five francs and a half 
 shouldn t be too clever. C est deplace. I don t 
 like the type." 
 
 " What type do you call Mrs. Church s ? " 
 
 " Mon Dieu," said Madame Beaurepas, " c est une 
 de ces mamans comme vous en avez, qui promenent 
 leurfille." 
 
 " She is trying to marry her daughter ? I don t 
 think she s of that sort." 
 
 But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her idea. 
 " She is trying it in her own way ; she does it very 
 quietly. She does n t want an American ; she wants 
 a foreigner. And she wants a mari stfrieux. But she 
 is travelling over Europe in search of one. She would 
 like a magistrate." 
 
 " A magistrate ?" 
 
 " A gros bonnet of some kind ; a professor or a 
 deputy." 
 
 " I am very sorry for the poor girl," I said, 
 laughing. 
 
 " You need n t pity her too much ; she s a sly 
 thing." 
 
 " Ah, for that, no ! " I exclaimed. " She s a 
 charming girl." 
 
 Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin. " She 
 
182 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 has hooked you, eh ? But the mother won t have 
 you." 
 
 I developed my idea, without heeding this insinua 
 tion. " She s a charming girl, but she is a little odd. 
 It s a necessity of her position. She is less submis 
 sive to her mother than she has to pretend to be. 
 That s in self-defence ; it s to make her life possible." 
 
 " She wishes to get away from her mother," 
 continued Madame Beaurepas. " She wishes to 
 courir les champs" 
 
 " She wishes to go to America, her native country." 
 
 " Precisely. And she will certainly go." 
 
 " I hope so ! " I rejoined. 
 
 " Some fine morning or evening she will go off 
 with a young man ; probably with a young Ameri 
 can." 
 
 " Aliens done ! " said I, with disgust. 
 
 " That will be quite America enough," pursued my 
 cynical hostess. " I have kept a boarding-house for 
 forty years. I have seen that type." 
 
 " Have such things as that happened chcz vous ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " Everything has happened cliez moi. But nothing 
 has happened more than once. Therefore this won t 
 happen here. It will be at the next place they go to, 
 or the next. Besides, here there is no young Ameri 
 can pour la partie, none except you, monsieur. 
 You are susceptible, but you are too reasonable." 
 
 " It s lucky for you I am reasonable," I answered. 
 " It s thanks to that fact that you escape a scolding." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 183 
 
 One morning, about this time, instead of coming 
 back to breakfast at the pension, after my lectures at 
 the Academy, I went to partake of this meal with 
 a fellow-student, at an ancient eating-house in the 
 collegiate quarter, j On separating from my friend, I 
 took my way along that charming public walk known 
 in Geneva as the Treille, a shady terrace, of immense 
 elevation, overhanging a portion of the lower town. 
 There are spreading trees and well-worn benches, and 
 over the tiles and chimneys of the mile basse there is 
 a view of the snow-crested Alps. On the other side, 
 as you turn your back to the view, the promenade is 
 overlooked by a row of tall, sober-faced Jidtels, the 
 dwellings of the local aristocracy. I was very fond 
 of the place, and often resorted to it to stimulate my 
 sense of the picturesque. Presently, as I lingered 
 there on this occasion, I became aware that a gentle 
 man was seated not far from where I stood, with his 
 back to the Alpine chain, which this morning was 
 brilliant and distinct, and a newspaper, unfolded, in 
 his lap. He was not reading, however ; he was 
 staring before him in gloomy contemplation. I don t 
 know whether I recognized first the newspaper or 
 its proprietor ; one, in either case, would have helped 
 me to identify the other. One was the New York 
 Herald; the other, of course, was Mr. Euck. As 
 I drew nearer, he transferred his eyes from the 
 stony, high-featured masks of the gray old houses on 
 the other side of the terrace, and I knew by the 
 expression of his face just how he had been feeling 
 
184 THE PENSION BE A UREPAS. 
 
 about these distinguished abodes. He had made up 
 his mind that their proprietors were a dusky, narrow- 
 minded, unsociable company, plunging their roots into 
 a superfluous past. I endeavored, therefore, as I sat 
 down beside him, to suggest something more delect 
 able. 
 
 " That s a beautiful view of the Alps," I observed. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Buck, without moving, " I Ve 
 examined it. Fine thing, in its way, fine thing. 
 Beauties of nature, that sort of thing. We came 
 up on purpose to look at it." 
 
 " Your ladies, then, have been with you ?" 
 
 " Yes ; they re just walking round. They re 
 awfully restless. They keep saying I m restless, 
 but I m as quiet as a sleeping child to them. It 
 takes," he added in a moment, dryly, " the form of 
 shopping." 
 
 " Are they shopping now ? " 
 
 " Well, if they ain t, they re trying to. They told 
 me to sit here awhile, and they d just walk round. 
 I generally know what that means. But that s the 
 principal interest for ladies," he added, retracting his 
 irony. " We thought we d come up here and see the 
 cathedral ; Mrs. Church seemed to think it a dead loss 
 that we should n t see the cathedral, especially as we 
 had n t seen many yet. And I had to corne up to the 
 banker s any way. Well, we certainly saw the cathe 
 dral. I don t know as we are any the better for it, 
 and I don t know as I should know it again. But we 
 saw it, any way. I don t know as I should want to 
 
THE PENSION B EA UR EPA S. 185 
 
 go there regularly ; but I suppose it will give us, in 
 conversation, a kind of hold on Mrs. Church, eh ? I 
 guess we want something of that kind. Well," Mr. 
 Ruck continued, " I stopped in at the banker s to see 
 if there was n t something, and they handed me out 
 a Herald." 
 
 " I hope the Herald is full of good news," I said. 
 
 " Can t say it is. D d bad news." 
 
 " Political," I inquired, " or commercial ? " 
 
 " Oh, hang politics ! It s business, sir. There ain t 
 any business. It s all gone to" and Mr. Ruck 
 became profane. " Nine failures in one day. What 
 do you say to that ? " 
 
 " I hope they have n t injured you," I said. 
 
 " Well, they have n t helped me much. So many 
 houses on fire, that s all. If they happen to take 
 place in your own street, they don t increase the value 
 of your property. When mine catches, I suppose 
 they 11 write and tell me, one of these days, when 
 they ve got nothing else to do. I didn t get a 
 blessed letter this morning ; I suppose they think I in 
 having such a good time over here it s a pity to 
 disturb me. If I could attend to business for about 
 half an hour, I d find out something. But I can t, 
 and it s no use talking. The state of my health was 
 never so unsatisfactory as it was about five o clock 
 this morning." 
 
 " I am very sorry to hear that," I said, " and I 
 recommend you strongly not to think of business." 
 
 " I don t," Mr. Ruck replied. " I m thinking of 
 
186 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 cathedrals ; I m thinking of the beauties of nature. 
 Come," he went on, turning round on the bench and 
 leaning his elbow on the parapet, " I 11 think of those 
 mountains over there ; they arc pretty, certainly. 
 Can t you get over there ? " 
 
 " Over where ? " 
 
 " Over to those hills. Don t they run a train right 
 up ? " 
 
 " You can go to Chamouni," I said. " You can go 
 to Grindelwald and Zermatt and fifty other places. 
 You can t go by rail, but you can drive." 
 
 " All right, we 11 drive, and not in a one-horse 
 concern, either. Yes, Chamouni is one of the places 
 we put down. I hope there are a few nice shops in 
 Chamouni." Mr. Euck spoke with a certain quick 
 ened emphasis, and in a tone more explicitly humorous 
 than he commonly employed. I thought he was 
 excited, and yet he had not the appearance of excite 
 ment. He looked like a man who has simply taken, 
 in the face of disaster, a sudden, somewhat imagi 
 native, resolution not to " worry." He presently 
 twisted himself about on his bench again and began 
 to watch for his companions. " Well, they are walk 
 ing round," he resumed ; " I guess they Ve hit on 
 something, somewhere. And they Ve got a carriage 
 waiting outside of that archway, too. They seem to 
 do a big business in archways here, don t they ? 
 They like to have a carriage, to carry home the things, 
 those ladies of mine. Then they re sure they Ve 
 got them." The ladies, after this, to do them justice, 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 187 
 
 were not very long in appearing. They came toward 
 us, from under the archway to which Mr. Euck had 
 somewhat invidiously alluded, slowly and with a 
 rather exhausted step and expression. My com 
 panion looked at them a moment, as they advanced. 
 "They re tired," he said, softly. "When they re 
 tired, like that, it s very expensive." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Euck, " I m glad you ve had 
 some company." Her husband looked at her, in 
 silence, through narrowed eyelids, and I suspected 
 that this gracious observation on the lady s part was 
 prompted by a restless conscience. 
 
 Miss Sophy glanced at me with her little straight 
 forward air of defiance. " It would have been more 
 proper if we had had the company. Why did n t you 
 come after us, instead of sitting there ? " she asked of 
 Mr. Euck s companion. 
 
 " I was told by your father," I explained, " that 
 you were engaged in sacred rites." Miss Euck was 
 not gracious, though I doubt whether it was because 
 her conscience was better than her mother s. 
 
 " Well, for a gentleman there is nothing so sacred 
 as ladies society," replied Miss Euck, in the manner 
 of a person accustomed to giving neat retorts. 
 
 " I suppose you refer to the cathedral," said her 
 mother. " Well, I must say, we did n t go back there. 
 I don t know what it may be of a Sunday, but it gave 
 me a chill." 
 
 " We discovered the loveliest little lace-shop," 
 observed the young girl, with a serenity that was 
 superior to bravado. 
 
188 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 Her father looked at her awhile ; then turned 
 about again, leaning on the parapet, and gazed away 
 at the " hills." " Well, it was certainly cheap," said 
 Mrs. Euck, also contemplating the Alps. 
 
 " We are going to Chamouni," said her husband. 
 " You have n t any occasion for lace at Chamouni." 
 
 " Well, I m glad to hear you have decided to go 
 somewhere," rejoined his wife. " I don t want to be 
 a fixture at a boarding-house." 
 
 " You can wear lace anywhere," said Miss Euck, 
 " if you put it on right. That s the great thing, with 
 lace. I don t think they know how to wear lace in 
 Europe. I know how I mean to wear mine ; but I 
 mean to keep it till I get home." 
 
 Her father transferred his melancholy gaze to her 
 elaborately appointed little person ; there was a great 
 deal of very new-looking detail in Miss Euck s 
 appearance. Then, in a tone of voice quite out of 
 consonance with his facial despondency, " Have you 
 purchased a great deal ? " he inquired. 
 
 " I have purchased enough for you to make a fuss 
 about." 
 
 " He can t make a fuss about that," said Mrs. Euck. 
 
 " Well, you 11 see ! " declared the young girl, with 
 a little sharp laugh. 
 
 But her father went on, in the same tone : " Have 
 you got it in your pocket ? Why don t you put it 
 on, why don t you hang it round you ? " 
 
 " I 11 hang it round you, if you don t look out ! " 
 cried Miss Sophy. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 189 
 
 w Don t you want to show it to this gentleman ? " 
 Mr. Euck continued. 
 
 " Mercy, how you do talk about that lace ! " said 
 his wife. 
 
 " Well, I want to be lively. There s every reason 
 for it ; we re going to Chamouni." 
 
 " You re restless ; that s what s the matter with 
 you." And Mrs. Euck got up. 
 
 " No, I ain t," said her husband. " I never felt so 
 quiet ; I feel as peaceful as a little child." 
 
 Mrs. Ruck, who had no sense whatever of humor, 
 looked at her daughter and at me. "Well, I hope 
 you 11 improve," she said. 
 
 " Send in the bills," Mr. Euck went on, rising to 
 his feet. " Don t hesitate, Sophy. I don t care what 
 you do now. In for a penny, in for a pound." 
 
 Miss Euck joined her mother, with a little toss of 
 her head, and we followed the ladies to the carriage. 
 " In your place," said Miss Sophy to her father, " I 
 wouldn t talk so much about pennies and pounds 
 before strangers." 
 
 Poor Mr. Euck appeared to feel the force of this 
 observation, which, in the consciousness of a man 
 who had never been "mean," could hardly fail to 
 strike a responsive chord. He colored a little, and 
 he was silent ; his companions got into their vehicle, 
 the front seat of which was adorned with a large 
 parcel. Mr. Euck gave the parcel a little poke with 
 his umbrella, and then, turning to me with a rather 
 grimly penitential smile, " After all," he said, " for 
 the ladies that s the principal interest." 
 
190 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 VII. 
 
 OLD M. Pigeonneau had more than once proposed 
 to me to take a walk, but I had hitherto been 
 unable to respond to so alluring an invitation. It 
 befell, however, one afternoon, that I perceived him 
 going forth upon a desultory stroll, with a certain 
 lonesomeness of demeanor that attracted my sympa 
 thy. I hastily overtook him, and passed my hand 
 into his venerable arm, a proceeding which produced 
 in the good old man so jovial a sense of comrade 
 ship that he ardently proposed we should bend our 
 steps to the English Garden; no locality less fes 
 tive was worthy of the occasion. To the English 
 Garden, accordingly, we went; it lay beyond the 
 bridge, beside the lake. It was very pretty and very 
 animated ; there was a band playing in the middle, 
 and a considerable number of persons sitting under 
 the small trees, on benches and little chairs, or stroll 
 ing beside the blue water. We joined the strollers, 
 we observed our companions, and conversed on 
 obvious topics. Some of these last, of course, were 
 the pretty women who embellished the scene, and 
 who, in the light of M. Pigeonneau s comprehensive 
 criticism, appeared surprisingly numerous. He 
 seemed bent upon our making up our minds which 
 was the prettiest, and as this was an innocent game I 
 consented to play at it. 
 
 Suddenly M. Pigeonneau stopped, pressing my arm 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 191 
 
 with the liveliest emotion. " La voila, la voila, the 
 prettiest ! " he quickly murmured, " coming toward 
 us, in a blue dress, with the other." It was at the 
 other I was looking, for the other, to my surprise, was 
 our interesting fellow-pensioner, the daughter of a 
 vigilant mother. M. Pigeonneau, meanwhile, had 
 redoubled his exclamations ; he had recognized Miss 
 Sophy Euck. " Oh, la belle rencontre, nos aimables 
 convives ; the prettiest girl in the world, in effect ! " 
 
 We immediately greeted and joined the young 
 ladies, who, like ourselves, were walking arm in arm 
 and enjoying the scene. 
 
 " I was citing you with admiration to my friend, 
 even before I had recognized you," said M. Pigeon 
 neau to Miss Ruck. 
 
 " I don t believe in French compliments," remarked 
 this young lady, presenting her back to the smiling 
 old man. 
 
 " Are you and Miss Euck walking alone ? " I 
 asked of her companion. " You had better accept of 
 M. Pigeonneau s gallant protection, and of mine. " 
 
 Aurora Church had taken her hand out of Miss 
 Ruck s arm ; she looked at me, smiling, with her 
 head a little inclined, while, upon her shoulder, she 
 made her open parasol revolve. "Which is most 
 improper, to walk alone or to walk with gentlemen ? 
 I wish to do what is most improper." 
 
 " What mysterious logic governs your conduct ? " I 
 inquired. 
 
 "He thinks you can t understand him when he 
 
192 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 talks like that," said Miss Buck. " But I do under 
 stand you, always ! " 
 
 " So I have always ventured to hope, my dear Miss 
 Buck." 
 
 "Well, if I didn t, it wouldn t be much loss," 
 rejoined this young lady. 
 
 "Aliens, en marclie 1 " cried M. Pigeonneau, smiling 
 still, and undiscouraged by her inhumanity. " Let us 
 make together the tour of the garden." And he 
 imposed his society upon Miss Euck with a respectful, 
 elderly grace, which was evidently unable to see 
 anything in reluctance but modesty, and was sub 
 limely conscious of a mission to place modesty at its 
 ease. This ill-assorted couple walked in front, while 
 Aurora Church and I strolled along together. 
 
 " I am sure this is more improper," said my com 
 panion ; " this is delightfully improper. I don t say 
 that as a compliment to you," she added. " I would 
 say it to any man, no matter how stupid." 
 
 " Oh, I am very stupid," I answered, " but this 
 does n t seem to me wrong." 
 
 " Not for you, no ; only for me. There is nothing 
 that a man can do that is wrong, is there ? En morale, 
 you know, I mean. Ah, yes, he can steal ; but I think 
 there is nothing else, is there ? " 
 
 " I don t know. One does n t know those things 
 until after one has done them. Then one is en 
 lightened." 
 
 " And you mean that you have never been enlight 
 ened ? You make yourself out very good." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 193 
 
 " That is better than making one s self out bad, as 
 you do." 
 
 The young girl glanced at me a moment, and then, 
 with her charming smile, " That s one of the conse 
 quences of a false position." 
 
 " Is your position false ? " I inquired, smiling too 
 at this large formula. 
 
 "Actually so." 
 
 " In what way ? " 
 
 " Oh, in every way. For instance, I have to pretend 
 to be & jeune fille. I am not a jeune fille ; no Ameri 
 can girl is a jeune lille ; an American girl is an 
 intelligent, responsible creature. I have to pretend 
 to be very innocent, but I am not very innocent." 
 
 " You don t pretend to be very innocent ; you pre 
 tend to be what shall I call it ? very wise." 
 
 " That s no pretence. I am wise." 
 
 "You are not an American girl," I ventured to 
 observe. 
 
 My companion almost stopped, looking at me ; 
 there was a little flush in her cheek. " Voila ! " she 
 said. " There s my false position. I want to be an 
 American girl, and I m not." 
 
 " Do you want me to tell you?" I went on. "An 
 American girl would n t talk as you are talking 
 now." 
 
 "Please tell me," said Aurora Church, with expres 
 sive eagerness. " How would she talk ? " 
 
 " I can t tell you all the things an American girl 
 would say, but I think I can tell you the things she 
 
 9 
 
194 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 wouldn t say. She wouldn t reason out her conduct, 
 as you seem to me to do." 
 
 Aurora gave me tin; most flattering attention. " 1 
 see. She would be simpler. To do very simply 
 tilings that are not at all simple, that is the Amer 
 ican girl ! " 
 
 I permitted myself a small explosion of hilarity. 
 " I don t know whether you are a French girl, or what 
 you sire," I said, " hut you are very witty." 
 
 "Ah, you mean that I strike false notes!" cried 
 Aurora Church, sadly. " That s just what I want to 
 avoid. I wish you would always tell me." 
 
 The conversational union between Miss I luck and 
 her neighbor, in front of us, had evidently not become 
 a close; one. The young lady suddenly turned round 
 to us with a question: "Don t you want some ice 
 cream ? " 
 
 " >S //y; does n t strike false notes," I murmured. 
 
 There was a kind of pavilion or kiosk, which 
 served as a cafd, and at which the delicacies procurable 
 at such an establishment were dispensed. Miss lluck 
 pointed to the little green tables and chairs which 
 were set out on the gravel ; M. I igeonneau, fluttering 
 with a sense of dissipation, seconded the proposal, 
 and we presently sat down and gave our order to a 
 nimble; attendant. 1 managed again to place myself 
 next to Aurora Church ; our companions were on the 
 other side of the table. 
 
 My neighbor was delighted with our situation. 
 " This is best of all," she said, " I never believed I 
 
THE PENSION UKAUlilWAS. 195 
 
 should come to a cafe vvitli two strange men ! Now, 
 you can t persuade me this is n t wrong. " 
 
 "To make it wrong we ought to see your mother 
 coming down that path." 
 
 "All, my mother makes everything wrong," said 
 the young girl, attacking with a little spoon in the 
 shape of a spade the apex of a pink ice. And then 
 she returned to her idea of a moment before : " You 
 must promise to tell me to warn me in some way 
 whenever I strike a false note. You must give a little 
 cough, like that, ahem ! " 
 
 " You will keep me very busy, and people will 
 think I am in a consumption." 
 
 " Voyons" she continued, " why have you never 
 talked to me more ? Is that a false note ? Why 
 have n t you been attentive ? That s what Ameri 
 can girls call it ; that s what Miss Ruck calls it." 
 
 I assured myself that our companions were out of 
 ear-shot, and that Miss Ruck was much occupied 
 with a large vanilla cream. " Because you are always 
 entwined with that young lady. There is no getting 
 near you." 
 
 Aurora looked at her friend while the latter devoted 
 herself to her ice. "You wonder why I like her so 
 much, I suppose. So does mamma ; elle s y perd. I 
 don t like her, particularly; je n en suis pas folle. 
 But she gives me information; she tells me about 
 America. Mamma has always tried to prevent rny 
 knowing anything about it, and I am all the more 
 curious. And then Miss Ruck is very fresh/ 
 
196 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " I may not be so fresh as Miss Ruck," I said, " but 
 in future, when you want information, I recommend 
 you to come to me for it." 
 
 "Our friend offers to take me to America; she in 
 vites me to go back with her, to stay with her. You 
 could n t do that, could you ? " And the young girl 
 looked at me a moment. " " Bon, a false note ! I can 
 see it by your face; you remind me of a maitre dc 
 piano! 
 
 " You overdo the character, the poor American 
 girl," I said. "Are you going to stay with that 
 delightful family ? " 
 
 " I will go and stay with any one that will take me 
 or ask me. It s a real nostalgic. She says that in 
 New York in Thirty-Seventh Street I should 
 have the most lovely time." 
 
 " I have no doubt you would enjoy it." 
 
 " Absolute liberty, to begin with." 
 
 " It seems to me you have a certain liberty here," 
 I rejoined. 
 
 " Ah, this ? Oh, I shall pay for this. I shall be 
 punished by mamma, and I shall be lectured by 
 Madame Galopin." 
 
 " The wife of the pasteur ? " 
 
 " His digue Spouse. Madame Galopin, for mamma, 
 is the incarnation of European opinion. That s what 
 vexes me with mamma, her thinking so much of 
 people like Madame Galopin. Going to see Madame 
 Galopin, mamma calls that being in European 
 society. European society ! I m so sick of that ex- 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPAS. 197 
 
 pression ; I have heard it since I was six years old. 
 Who is Madame Galopin, who thinks anything of 
 her here ? She is nobody ; she is perfectly third-rate. 
 If I like America better than mamma, I also know 
 Europe better." 
 
 "But your mother, certainly," I objected, a trifle 
 timidly, for my young lady was excited, and had a 
 charming little passion in her eye, " your mother 
 has a great many social relations all over the conti 
 nent." 
 
 " She thinks so, but half the people don t care for 
 us. They are not so good as we, and they know it, 
 I 11 do them that justice, and they wonder why we 
 should care for them. When we are polite to them, 
 they think the less of us ; there are plenty of people 
 like that. Mamma thinks so much of them simply 
 because they are foreigners. If I could tell you all 
 the dull, stupid, second-rate people I have had to talk 
 to, for no better reason than that they were de leur 
 pays! Germans, French, Italians, Turks, everything. 
 When I complain, mamma always says that at any 
 rate it s practice in the language. And she makes 
 so much of the English, too; I don t know what 
 that s practice in." 
 
 Before I had time to suggest a hypothesis, as 
 regards this latter point, I saw something that made 
 me rise, with a certain solemnity, from my chair. 
 This was nothing less than the neat little figure of 
 Mrs. Church a perfect model of the femme comme 
 il faut approaching our table with an impatient 
 
198 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 step, and followed most unexpectedly in her advance 
 "by the pre-eminent form of Mr. Euck. She had evi 
 dently come in quest of her daughter, and if she had 
 commanded this gentleman s attendance it had been 
 on no softer ground than that of his unenvied pater 
 nity to her guilty child s accomplice. My movement 
 had given the alarm, and Aurora Church and M. 
 Pigeonneau got up ; Miss Euck alone did not, in the 
 local phrase, derange herself. Mrs. Church, "beneath 
 her modest little bonnet, looked very serious, but not 
 at all fluttered ; she came straight to her daughter, 
 who received her with a smile, and then she looked 
 all round at the rest of us, very fixedly and tranquilly, 
 without bowing. I must do both these ladies the 
 justice to mention that neither of them made the 
 least little " scene." 
 
 " I have come for you, dearest," said the mother. 
 
 " Yes, dear mamma." 
 
 "Come for you come for you," Mrs. Church 
 repeated, looking down at the relics of our little 
 feast. "I was obliged to ask Mr. Ruck s assistance. 
 I was puzzled ; I thought a long time." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Church, I was glad to see you puzzled 
 once in your life ! " said Mr. Euck, with friendly 
 jocosity. " But you came pretty straight, for all that. 
 I had hard work to keep up with you." 
 
 " We will take a cab, Aurora," Mrs. Church went 
 on, without heeding this pleasantry, "a closed one. 
 Come, my daughter." 
 
 " Yes, dear mamma." The young girl was blush- 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 199 
 
 ing, yet she was still smiling ; she looked round at 
 us all, and, as her eyes met mine, I thought she was 
 beautiful. " Good-by," she said to us. " I have had 
 a lovely time" 
 
 " We must not linger," said her mother ; " it is five 
 o clock. We are to dine, you know, with Madame 
 Galopin." 
 
 " I had quite forgotten," Aurora declared. " That 
 will be charming." 
 
 " Do you want me to assist you to carry her back, 
 ma am ? " asked Mr. Kuck. 
 
 Mrs. Church hesitated a moment, with her serene 
 little gaze. "Do you prefer, then, to leave your 
 daughter to finish the evening with these gentle 
 men ? " 
 
 Mr. Ruck pushed back his hat and scratched the 
 top of his head. " Well, I don t know. How would 
 you like that, Sophy ? " 
 
 " Well, I never ! " exclaimed Sophy, as Mrs. Church 
 marched off with her daughter. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 I HAD half expected that Mrs. Church would make 
 me feel the weight of her disapproval of my own 
 share in that little act of revelry in the English 
 Garden. But she maintained her claim to being a 
 highly reasonable Woman ; I could not but admire 
 the justice of this pretension by recognizing my irre- 
 
200 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 sponsibility. I had taken her daughter as I found 
 her, which was, according to Mrs. Church s view, in 
 a very equivocal position. The natural instinct of 
 a young man, in such a situation, is not to protest, 
 but to profit ; and it was clear to Mrs. Church that 
 I had had nothing to do with Miss Aurora s appear 
 ing in public under the insufficient chaperonage of 
 Miss Euck. Besides, she liked to converse, and she 
 apparently did me the honor to believe that of all 
 the members of the Pension Beaurepas I had the 
 most cultivated understanding. I found her in the 
 salon a couple of evenings after the incident I have 
 just narrated, and I approached her with a view of 
 making my peace with her, if this should prove 
 necessary. But Mrs. Church was as gracious as I 
 could have desired ; she put her marker into her 
 book, and folded her plump little hands on the 
 cover. She made no specific allusion to the English 
 Garden ; she embarked, rather, upon those general 
 considerations in which her refined intellect was so 
 much at home. 
 
 " Always at your studies, Mrs. Church," I ventured 
 to observe. 
 
 " Que voulez-vous ? To say studies is to say too 
 much ; one does n t study in the parlors of a board 
 ing-house. But I do what I can ; I have always done 
 what I can. That is all I have ever claimed." 
 
 " No one can do more, and you seem to have done 
 a great deal." 
 
 " Do you know my secret ? " she asked, with an air 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 201 
 
 of brightening confidence. And she paused a moment 
 before she imparted her secret : " To care only for the 
 best ! To do the best, to know the best, to have, 
 to desire, to recognize, only the best. That s what I 
 have always done, in rny quiet little way. I have 
 gone through Europe on my devoted little errand, 
 seeking, seeing, heeding, only the best. And it has 
 not been for myself alone ; it has been for my daugh 
 ter. My daughter has had the best. We are not 
 rich, but I can say that." 
 _^ She has had you, madam," I rejoined finely. 
 ^ " Certainly ; such as I am, I have been devoted. 
 We have, got something everywhere ; a little here, 
 a little there. That s the real secret, to get some 
 thing everywhere ; you always can if you are devoted. 
 Sometimes it has been a little music, sometimes a 
 little deeper insight into the history of art ; every 
 little counts, you know. Sometimes it has been just 
 a glimpse, a view, a lovely landscape, an impression. 
 We have always been on the lookout. Sometimes it 
 has been a valued friendship, a delightful social tie/^ 
 
 " Here comes the European society/ the poor 
 daughter s bugbear," I said to myself. " Certainly," 
 I remarked aloud, T admit, rather perversely, 
 "if you have lived a great deal in pensions, you 
 must have got acquainted with lots of people." 
 
 Mrs. Church dropped her eyes a moment, and then, 
 with considerable gravity, " I think the European 
 pension system in many respects remarkable, and in 
 some satisfactory. But of the friendships that we 
 
 9* 
 
202 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 have formed, few have been contracted in establish 
 ments of this kind." 
 
 " I am sorry to hear that ! " I said, laughing. 
 
 " I don t say it for you, though I might say it for 
 some others. We have been interested in European 
 homes" 
 
 " Oh, I see." 
 
 " We have the entree of the old Genevese society. 
 I like its tone. I prefer it to that of Mr. Buck," 
 added Mrs. Church, calmly ; " to that of Mrs. Euck 
 and Miss Euck, of Miss Euck, especially." 
 
 " Ah, the poor Eucks have n t any tone at all," I 
 said. "Don t take them more seriously than they 
 take themselves." 
 
 "Tell me this," my companion rejoined : "are they 
 fair examples ? " 
 
 " Examples of what ? 5) 
 
 " Of our American tendencies." 
 
 " Tendencies is a big word, dear lady ; tendencies 
 are difficult to calculate. And you should n t abuse 
 those good Eucks, who have been very kind to your 
 daughter. They have invited her to go and stay with 
 them in Thirty-Seventh Street." 
 
 " Aurora has told me. It might be very serious." 
 
 " It might be very droll," I said. 
 
 "To me," declared Mrs. Church, "it is simply ter 
 rible. I think we shall have to leave the Pension 
 Beaurepas. I shall go back to Madame Bonrepos." 
 
 " On account of the Eucks ? " I asked. 
 
 "Pray, why don t they go themselves? I have 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 203 
 
 given them some excellent addresses, written down 
 the very hours of the trains. They were going to 
 Appenzell : I thought it was arranged." 
 
 "They talk of Chamouni now," I said; " but they 
 are very helpless and undecided." 
 
 " I will give them some Chamouni addresses. Mrs. 
 Buck will need a chaise a porteurs ; I will give her 
 the name of a man who lets them lower than you get 
 them at the hotels. After that they must go." 
 
 " Well, I doubt," I observed, " whether Mr. Euck 
 will ever really be seen on the Mer de Glace, in a 
 high hat. He s not like you ; he does n t value his 
 European privileges. He takes no interest. He regrets 
 Wall Street, acutely. As his wife says, he is very 
 restless, but he has no curiosity about Chamouni. So 
 you must not depend too much on the effect of your 
 addresses." 
 
 " Is it a frequent type ? " asked Mrs. Church, with 
 an air of self-control. 
 
 " I am afraid so. Mr. Ruck is a broken-down man 
 of business. He is broken down in health, and I 
 suspect he is broken down in fortune. He has spent 
 his whole life in buying and selling ; he knows how 
 to do nothing else. His wife and daughter have 
 spent their lives, not in selling, but in buying ; and 
 they, on their side, know how to do nothing else. To 
 get something in a shop that they can put on their 
 backs, that is their one idea; they have n t another 
 in their heads. Of course they spend no end of 
 money, and they do it with an implacable persist- 
 
204 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 en.ce, with a mixture of audacity and of cunning. 
 They do it in his teeth and they do it behind his 
 back; the mother protects the daughter, and the 
 daughter eggs on the mother. Between them, they 
 are bleeding him to death." 
 
 " Ah, what a picture ! " murmured Mrs. Church. 
 " I arn afraid they are very uncultivated." 
 
 " I share your fears. They are perfectly ignorant ; 
 they have no resources. The vision of fine clothes 
 occupies their whole imagination. They have not an 
 idea even a worse one to compete with it. Poor 
 Mr. Buck, who is extremely good-natured and soft, 
 seems to me a really tragic figure. He is getting bad 
 news every day from home ; his business is going to 
 the dogs. He is unable to stop it ; he has to stand 
 and watch his fortunes ebb. He has been used to 
 doing things in a big way, and he feels mean if he 
 makes a fuss about bills. So the ladies keep sending 
 them in." 
 
 " But have n t they common sense ? Don t they 
 know they are ruining themselves ? " 
 
 " They don t believe it. The duty of an American 
 husband and father is to keep them going. If he 
 asks them how, that s his own affair. So, by way of 
 not being mean, of being a good American husband 
 and father, poor Ruck stands staring at bankruptcy." 
 
 Mrs. Church looked at me a moment, in quickened 
 meditation. "Why, if Aurora were to go to stay 
 with them, she might not even be properly fed ! " 
 
 " I don t, on the whole, recommend," I said, laugh- 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 205 
 
 ing, " that your daughter should pay a visit to Thirty- 
 Seventh Street." 
 
 " Why should I be subjected to such trials, so 
 sadly dprouvee ? Why should a daughter of mine 
 like that dreadful girl ? " 
 
 " Docs she like her ? " 
 
 " Pray, do you mean," asked my companion, softly, 
 " that Aurora is a hypocrite ? " 
 
 I hesitated a moment. " A little, since you ask 
 me. I think you have forced her to be." 
 
 Mrs. Church answered this possibly presumptuous 
 charge with a tranquil, candid exultation : " I never 
 force my daughter ! " 
 
 "She is nevertheless in a false position," I rejoined. 
 " She hungers and thirsts to go back to her own coun 
 try ; she wants to come out in New York, which is 
 certainly, sociably speaking, the El Dorado of young 
 ladies. She likes any one, for the moment, who will 
 talk to her of that, and serve as a connecting link 
 with her native shores. Miss Ruck performs this 
 agreeable office." 
 
 " Your idea is, then, that if she were to go with 
 Miss Euck to America she would drop her after 
 wards." 
 
 I complimented Mrs. Church upon her logical mind, 
 but I repudiated this cynical supposition. " I can t 
 imagine her when it should come to the point 
 embarking with the famille Euck. But I wish she 
 might go, nevertheless." 
 
 Mrs. Church shook her head serenely, and smiled 
 
206 THE PENSION BE A UREPAS. 
 
 at my inappropriate zeal. "I trust my poor child 
 may never be guilty of so fatal a mistake. She is 
 completely in error ; she is wholly unadapted to the 
 peculiar conditions of American life. It would not 
 please her. She would not sympathize. My daugh 
 ter s ideal is not the ideal of the class of young 
 women to which Miss Euck belongs. I fear they 
 are very numerous ; they give the tone, they give 
 the tone." 
 
 " It is you that are mistaken/ I said ; " go home 
 for six months and see." 
 
 "I have not, unfortunately, the means to make 
 costly experiments. My daughter has had great 
 advantages, rare advantages, and I should be 
 very sorry to believe that au fond she does not 
 appreciate them. One thing is certain : I must 
 remove her from this pernicious influence. We must 
 part company with this deplorable family. If Mr. 
 Ruck and his ladies cannot be induced to go to Cha- 
 mouni, a journey that no traveller with the small 
 est self-respect would omit, my daughter and I 
 shall be obliged to retire. We shall go to Dresden." 
 
 "To Dresden?" 
 
 " The capital of Saxony. I had arranged to go 
 there for the autumn, but it will be simpler to go 
 immediately. There are several works in the gallery 
 with which my daughter has not, I think, sufficiently 
 familiarized herself; it is especially strong in the 
 seventeenth-century schools." 
 
 As my companion offered me this information I 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 207 
 
 perceived Mr. Ruck come lounging in, with his hands 
 in his pockets and his elbows making acute angles. 
 He had his usual anomalous appearance of both seek 
 ing and avoiding society, and he wandered obliquely 
 toward Mrs. Church, whose last words he had over 
 heard. " The seventeenth-century schools," he said, 
 slowly, as if he were weighing some very small object 
 in a very large pair of scales. " Now, do you suppose 
 they had schools at that period ? " 
 
 Mrs. Church rose with a good deal of precision, 
 making no answer to this incongruous jest. She 
 clasped her large volume to her neat little bosom, 
 and she fixed a gentle, serious eye upon Mr. Euck. 
 
 " I had a letter this morning from Chamouni," she 
 said. 
 
 " Well," replied Mr. Euck, " I suppose you Ve got 
 friends all over." 
 
 " I have friends at Chamouni, but they are leaving. 
 To their great regret." I had got up, too ; I listened 
 to this statement, and I wondered. I am almost 
 ashamed to mention the subject of my agitation. I 
 asked myself whether this was a sudden improvisation 
 consecrated by maternal devotion ; but this point has 
 never been elucidated. "They are giving up some 
 charming rooms ; perhaps you would like them. I 
 should suggest your telegraphing. The weather is 
 glorious," continued Mrs. Church, " and the highest 
 peaks are now perceived with extraordinary dis 
 tinctness." 
 
 Mr. Euck listened, as he always listened, respect- 
 
208 THE PENSION BE A UREPAS. 
 
 fully. " "Well," he said, " I don t know as I want to 
 go up Mount Blank. That s the principal attraction, 
 is n t it ? " 
 
 " There are many others. I thought I would offer 
 you an an exceptional opportunity." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Buck, " you re right down friendly. 
 But I seem to have more opportunities than I know 
 what to do with. I don t seem able to take hold." 
 
 " It only needs a little decision," remarked Mrs. 
 Church, with an air which was an admirable example 
 of this virtue. " I wish you good-night, sir." And 
 she moved noiselessly away. 
 
 Mr. Buck, with his long legs apart, stood staring 
 after her; then he transferred his perfectly quiet 
 eyes to me. " Does she own a hotel over there ? " he 
 asked. " Has she got any stock in Mount Blank ? " 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE next day Madame Beaurepas handed me, with 
 her own elderly fingers, a missive which proved to be 
 a telegram. After glancing at it, I informed her that 
 it was apparently a signal for my departure ; my 
 brother had arrived in England, and proposed to me 
 to meet him there ; lie had come on business and was 
 to spend but three weeks in Europe. " But my house 
 empties itself!" cried the old woman. "The famille 
 Buck talks of leaving me, und Madame Church nous 
 fait la reverence" 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 209 
 
 " Mrs. Cliurch is going away ? " 
 
 " She is packing her trunk ; she is a very extraor 
 dinary person. Do you know what she asked me this 
 morning ? To invent some combination by which 
 the famille Euck should move away. I informed 
 her that I was not an inventor. That poor famille 
 Euck ! Oblige me by getting rid of them/ said 
 Madame Church, as she would have asked Celestine 
 to remove a dish of cabbage. She speaks as if the 
 world were made for Madame Church. I intimated 
 to her that if she objected to the company there 
 was a very simple remedy : and at present die fait ses 
 paquets" 
 
 " She really asked you," I said, " to get the Eucks 
 out of the house ? " 
 
 " She asked me to tell them that their rooms had 
 been let, three months ago, to another family. She 
 has an aplomb ! " 
 
 Mrs. Church s aplomb caused me considerable 
 diversion ; I am not sure that it was not, in some 
 degr/se, to laugh over it at my leisure that I went out 
 into the garden that evening to smoke a cigar. The 
 night was dark and not particularly balmy, and most 
 of my fellow-pensioners, after dinner, had remained 
 in-doors. A long straight walk conducted from the 
 door of the house to the ancient grille that I have 
 described, and I stood here for some time, looking 
 through the iron bars at the silent, empty streets. 
 The prospect was not entertaining, and I presently 
 turned away. At this moment I saw, in the distance, 
 
210 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 the door of the house open and throw a shaft of lamp 
 light into the darkness. Into the lamp-light there 
 stepped a female figure, who presently closed the 
 door behind her. She disappeared in the dusk of the 
 garden and I had seen her but for an instant, but I 
 remained under the impression that Aurora Church, 
 on the eve of her departure, had come out for a medi 
 tative stroll. 
 
 I lingered near the gate, keeping the red tip of my 
 cigar turned toward the house, and before long a 
 young lady emerged from among the shadows of the 
 trees and encountered the light of a lamp that stood 
 just outside the gate. It was in fact Aurora Church, 
 but she seemed more bent upon conversation than 
 upon meditation. She stood a moment looking at me, 
 and then she said, 
 
 " Ought I to retire, to return to the house ? " 
 
 " If you ought, I should be very sorry to tell you 
 so," I answered. 
 
 " But we are all alone ; there is no one else in the 
 garden." 
 
 " It is not the first time that I have been alone 
 with a young lady. I am not at all terrified." 
 
 " Ah, but I ? " said the young girl. " I have never 
 been alone " Then, quickly, she interrupted her 
 self : " Good, there s another false note !" 
 
 " Yes, I am obliged to admit that one is very 
 false." 
 
 She stood looking at me. " I am going away to 
 morrow ; after that there will be no one to tell me." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 211 
 
 " That will matter little," I presently replied. " Tell 
 ing you will do no good." 
 
 " Ah, why do you say that ? " murmured Aurora 
 Church. 
 
 I said it partly because it was true ; but I said it 
 for other reasons, as well, which it was hard to 
 define. Standing there bare-headed, in the night air, 
 in the vague light, this young lady looked extremely 
 interesting ; and the interest of her appearance was 
 not diminished by a suspicion on my own part that 
 she had come into the garden knowing me to be 
 there. I thought her a charming girl, and I felt very 
 sorry for her; bat, as I looked at her, those reflections 
 made to me by Madame Beaurepas on her disposi 
 tion recurred to me with a certain force. I had pro 
 fessed a contempt for them at the time, but it now 
 came into my head that perhaps this unfortunately 
 situated, this insidiously mutinous, young creature 
 was looking out for a preserver. She was certainly 
 not a girl to throw herself at a man s head, but it was 
 possible that in her intense her almost morbid 
 desire to put into effect an ideal which was perhaps 
 after all charged with as many fallacies as her 
 mother affirmed, she might do something reckless and 
 irregular, something in which a sympathetic com 
 patriot, as yet unknown, might find his profit. The 
 image, unshaped though it was, of this sympathetic 
 compatriot filled me with a sort of envy. For some 
 moments I was silent, conscious of these things, and 
 then I answered her question : " Because some things 
 
212 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 some differences are felt, not learned. To you 
 liberty is not natural ; you are like a person who has 
 bought a repeater, and, in his satisfaction, is con 
 stantly making it sound. To a real American girl 
 her liberty is a very vulgarly ticking old clock." 
 
 " Ah, you mean, then," said the poor girl, " that my 
 mother has ruined me ? " 
 
 " Euined you ? " 
 
 " She has so perverted my mind that when I try to 
 be natural I am necessarily immodest." 
 
 " That again is a false note," I said, laughing. 
 
 She turned away. " I think you are cruel." 
 
 " By no means," I declared ; " because, for my own 
 taste, I prefer you as as " - 
 
 I hesitated, and she turned back. " As what ? " 
 
 " As you are." 
 
 She looked at me awhile again, and then she said, 
 in a little reasoning voice that reminded me of her 
 mother s, only that it was conscious and studied, " I 
 was not aware that I am under any particular obliga 
 tion to please you ! " And then she gave a little 
 laugh, quite at variance with her voice. 
 
 " Oh, there is no obligation," I said, " but one 
 has preferences. I am very sorry you are going 
 away." 
 
 " What does it matter to you ? You are going 
 yourself." 
 
 " As I am going in a different direction, that makes 
 all the greater separation." 
 
 She answered nothing ; she stood looking through 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 213 
 
 the bars of the tall gate at the empty, dusky street. 
 " This grille is like a cage/ she said at last. 
 
 " Fortunately, it is a cage that will open." And 
 I laid my hand on the lock. 
 
 " Don t open it," and she pressed the gate back. 
 " If you should open it I would go out and never 
 return." 
 
 " Where should you go ? " 
 
 " To America." 
 
 " Straight away ? " 
 
 " Somehow or other. I would go to the American 
 consul. I would beg him to give me money, to 
 help me." 
 
 I received this assertion without a smile ; I was 
 not in a smiling humor. On the contrary, I felt 
 singularly excited, and I kept my hand on the lock 
 of the gate. I believed (or I thought I believed) what 
 my companion said, and I had absurd as it may 
 appear an irritated vision of her throwing herself 
 upon consular sympathy. It seemed to me, for a 
 moment, that to pass out of that gate with this 
 yearning, straining young creature would be to pass 
 into some mysterious felicity. If I were only a hero 
 of romance, I would offer, myself, to take her to 
 America. 
 
 In a moment more, perhaps, I should have per 
 suaded myself that I was one, but at this juncture I 
 heard a sound that was not romantic. It proved to 
 be the very realistic tread of Celestine, the cook, who 
 stood grinning at us as we turned about from our 
 colloquy. 
 
214 THE PENSION BE A UREPAS. 
 
 " I ask Uen pardon," said Celestine. " The mother 
 of mademoiselle desires that mademoiselle should 
 come in immediately. M. le Pasteur Galopin has 
 come to make his adieux to ces dames" 
 
 Aurora gave me only one glance, but it was a touch 
 ing one. Then she slowly departed with Cdlestine. 
 
 The next morning, on coming into the garden, I 
 found that Mrs. Church and her daughter had 
 departed. I was informed of this fact by old M. 
 Pigeonneau, who sat there under a tree, having his 
 coffee at a little green table. 
 
 " I have nothing to envy you," he said ; " I had the 
 last glimpse of that charming Miss Aurora." 
 
 " I had a very late glimpse," I answered, " and it 
 was all I could possibly desire." 
 
 " I have always noticed/ rejoined M. Pigeonneau, 
 "that your desires are more moderate than mine. 
 Que voulez-vous ? I am of the old school. Je crois 
 que la race se perd. I regret the departure of that 
 young girl : she had an enchanting smile. Ce sera 
 une femme d esprit. For the mother, I can console 
 myself. I am not sure that she was a femme d esprit, 
 though she wished to pass for one. Eound, rosy, 
 potelee, she yet had not the temperament of her 
 appearance ; she was a femme austere. I have often 
 noticed that contradiction in American ladies. You 
 see a plump little woman, with a speaking eye and 
 the contour and complexion of a ripe peach, and if 
 you venture to conduct yourself in the smallest 
 legree in accordance with these indices, you discover 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPAS. 215 
 
 a species of Methodist, of what do you call it ? 
 of Quakeress. On the other hand, you encounter 
 a tall, lean, angular person, without color, without 
 grace, all elbows and knees, and you find it s a 
 nature of the tropics ! The women of duty look like 
 coquettes, and the others look like alpenstocks ! 
 However, we have still the handsome Madame Ruck, 
 a real femme de Rubens, celle-ld. It is very true 
 that to talk to her one must know the Flemish 
 tongue ! " 
 
 I had determined, in accordance with my brother s 
 telegram, to go away in the afternoon ; so that, hav 
 ing various duties to perform, I left M. Pigeonneau 
 to his international comparisons. Among other things, 
 I went in the course of the morning to the banker s, 
 to draw money for my journey, and there I found 
 Mr. Ruck, with a pile of crumpled letters in his lap, 
 his chair tipped back and his eyes gloomily fixed on 
 the fringe of the green plush table-cloth. I timidly 
 expressed the hope that he had got better news from 
 home, whereupon he gave me a look in which, con 
 sidering his provocation, the absence of irritation 
 was conspicuous. 
 
 He took up his letters in his large hand, and 
 crushing them together held it out to me. "That 
 epistolary matter," he said, " is worth about five cents. 
 But I guess," he added, rising, " I have taken it in 
 by this time." When I had drawn my money, I 
 asked him to come and breakfast with me at the 
 little brasserie, much favored by students, to which I 
 
216 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 used to resort in the old town. " I could n t eat, sir," 
 he said, " I could n t eat. Bad news takes away the 
 appetite. But I guess I ll go with you, so that I 
 need n t go to table down there at the pension. The 
 old woman down there is always accusing me of 
 turning up my nose at her food. Well, I guess I 
 sha n t turn up my nose at anything now." 
 
 We went to the little brasserie, where poor Mr. 
 Euck made the lightest possible breakfast. But if 
 he ate very little, he talked a great deal ; he talked 
 about business, going into a hundred details in 
 which I was quite unable to follow him. His talk 
 was not angry or bitter ; it was a long, meditative, 
 melancholy monologue ; if it had been a trifle less 
 incoherent, I should almost have called it philo 
 sophic. I was very sorry for him ; I wanted to do 
 something for him, but the only thing I could do was, 
 when we had breakfasted, to see him safely back to 
 the Pension Beaurepas. We went across the Treille 
 and down the Corraterie, out of which we turned into 
 the Eue du Ehune. In this latter street, as all the 
 world knows, are many of those brilliant jewellers 
 shops for which Geneva is famous. I alwa} 7 s admired 
 their glittering windows, and never passed them 
 without a lingering glance. Even on this occasion, 
 preoccupied as I was with my impending departure 
 and with my companion s troubles, I suffered my 
 eyes to wander along the precious tiers that flashed 
 and twinkled behind the huge, clear plates of glass. 
 Thanks to this inveterate habit, I made a discovery. 
 
THE PENSION BE A UREPA S. 217 
 
 In the largest and most brilliant of these establish 
 ments I perceived two ladies, seated before the coun 
 ter with an air of absorption which sufficiently 
 proclaimed their identity. I hoped my companion 
 would not see them, but as we came abreast of the 
 door, a little beyond, we found it open to the warm 
 summer air. Mr. Euck happened to glance in, and 
 he immediately recognized his wife and daughter. 
 He slowly stopped, looking at them; I wondered 
 what he would do. The salesman was holding up 
 a bracelet before them, on its velvet cushion, and 
 flashing it about in an irresistible manner. 
 
 Mr. Euck said nothing, but he presently went in, 
 and I did the same. 
 
 " It will be an opportunity," I remarked, as cheer 
 fully as possible, " for me to bid good-by to the 
 ladies." 
 
 They turned round when Mr. Euck came in, and 
 looked at him without confusion. " Well, you had 
 better go home to breakfast," remarked his wife. 
 Miss Sophy made no remark, but she took the brace 
 let from the attendant and gazed at it very fixedly. 
 Mr. Euck seated himself on an empty stool and 
 looked round the shop. 
 
 " Well, you have been here before," said his wife ; 
 " you were here the first day we came." 
 
 Miss Euck extended the precious object in her 
 hands toward me. " Don t you think that s sweet ? " 
 she inquired. 
 
 I looked at it a moment. " No, I think it s ugly." 
 10 
 
218 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 She glanced at me a moment, incredulous. "Well, 
 I don t believe you have any taste." 
 
 " Why, sir, it s just lovely," said Mrs. Euck. 
 
 "You ll see it some day on me, any way," her 
 daughter declared. 
 
 " No, he won t," said Mr. Ruck quietly. 
 
 " It will be his own fault, then," Miss Sophy 
 observed. 
 
 " Well, if we are going to Chamouni we want to 
 get something here," said Mrs. Euck. " We may 
 not have another chance." 
 
 Mr: Euck was still looking round the shop, 
 whistling in a very low tone. "We ain t going to 
 Chamouni. We are going to New York City, 
 straight." 
 
 " Well, I m glad to hear that," said Mrs. Euck. 
 " Don t you suppose we want to take something 
 home ? " 
 
 " If we are going straight back I must have that 
 bracelet," her daughter declared. " Only I don t 
 want a velvet case ; I want a satin case." 
 
 " I must bid you good-by," I said to the ladies. 
 " I am leaving Geneva in an hour or two." 
 
 Take a good look at that bracelet, so you ll know 
 it when you see it," said Miss Sophy. 
 
 " She s bound to have something," remarked her 
 mother, almost proudly. 
 
 Mr. Euck was still looking round the shop ; he 
 was still whistling a little. " I am afraid he is not 
 at all well," I said, softly, to his wife. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 219 
 
 She twisted her head a little, and glanced at him. 
 
 " Well, I wish he d improve ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " A satin case, and a nice one ! " said Miss Buck to 
 the shopman. 
 
 I bade Mr. Euck good-by. " Don t wait for me," 
 he said, sitting there on his stool, and not meeting 
 my eye. " I ve got to see this thing through." 
 
 I went back to the Pension Beaurepas, and when, 
 an hour later, I left it with my luggage, the family 
 had not returned. 
 
THE POINT OF YIEW. 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 FROM MISS AUROKA CHURCH, AT SEA, TO MISS WHITE- 
 SIDE, IN PARIS. 
 
 . . . MY dear child, the bromide of sodium (if 
 that s what you call it) proved perfectly useless. I 
 don t mean that it did me no good, but that I never 
 had occasion to take the bottle out of my bag. It 
 might have done wonders for me if I had needed it ; 
 but I did n t, simply because I have been a wonder 
 myself. Will you believe that I have spent the 
 whole voyage on deck, in the most animated conver 
 sation and exercise ? Twelve times round the deck 
 makes a mile, I believe ; and by this measurement 
 I have been walking twenty miles a day. And down 
 to every meal, if you please, where I have displayed 
 the appetite of a fish-wife. Of course the weather 
 lias been lovely ; so there s no great merit. The 
 wicked old Atlantic has been as blue as the sapphire 
 in my only ring (a rather good one), and as smooth 
 as the slippery floor of Madame Galopin s dining- 
 room. We have been for the last three hours in 
 sight of land, and we are soon to enter the Bay of 
 
 Copyright, 1882, by The Century Company. 
 
224 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 New York, which is said to be exquisitely beautiful. 
 But of course you recall it, though they say that 
 everything changes so fast over here. I find I don t 
 remember anything, for my recollections of our voy 
 age to Europe, so many years ago, are exceedingly 
 dim ; I only have a painful impression that mamma 
 shut me up for an hour every day in the state-room, 
 and made me learn by heart some religious poem. 
 I was only five years old, and I believe that as a 
 child I was extremely timid ; on the other hand, 
 mamma, as you know, was dreadfully severe. She 
 is severe to this day ; only I have become indifferent ; 
 I have been so pinched and pushed morally speak 
 ing, bicn entendu. It is true, however, that there are 
 children of five on the vessel to-day who have been 
 extremely conspicuous, ranging all over the ship, 
 and always under one s feet. Of course they are 
 little compatriots, which means that they are little 
 barbarians. I don t mean that all our compatriots 
 are barbarous ; they seem to improve, somehow, after 
 their first communion. I don t know whether it s 
 that ceremony that improves them, especially as 
 so few of them go in for it ; but the women are 
 certainly nicer than the little girls ; I mean, of course, 
 in proportion, you know. You warned me not to 
 generalize, and you see I have already begun, before 
 we have arrived. But I suppose there is no harm 
 in it so long as it is favorable. Isn t it favorable 
 when I say that I have had the most lovely time ? 
 I have never had so much liberty in my life, and I 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 225 
 
 have been out alone, as you may say, every day of 
 the voyage. If it is a foretaste of what is to come, 
 I shall take to that very kindly. When I say that 
 I have been out alone, I mean that we have always 
 been two. But we two were alone, so to speak, and 
 it was not like always having mamma, or Madame 
 Galopin, or some lady in kliG pension, QT the temporary 
 cook. Mamma has been very poorly ; she is so very 
 well on land, it s a wonder to see her at all taken 
 down. She says, however, that it is n t the being at 
 sea ; it s, on the contrary, approaching the land. She 
 is not in a hurry to arrive ; she says that great dis 
 illusions await us. I did n t know that she had any 
 illusions she s so stern, so philosophic. She is 
 very serious ; she sits for hours in perfect silence, 
 with her eyes fixed on the horizon. I heard her say 
 yesterday to an English gentleman a very odd 
 Mr. Antrobus, the only person with whom she con 
 verses that she was afraid she should n t like her 
 native land, and that she should n t like not liking 
 it. But this is a mistake she will like that 
 immensely (I mean not liking it). If it should prove 
 at all agreeable, mamma will be furious, for that 
 will go against her system. You know all about 
 mamma s system ; I have explained that so often. 
 It goes against her system that we should come back 
 at all ; that was my system I have had at last to 
 invent one ! She consented to come only because 
 she saw that, having no dot, I should never marry 
 in Europe ; and I pretended to be immensely pre- 
 10* 
 
226 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 occupied with this idea, in order to make her start. 
 In reality cela m est parfaitement eyed. I am only 
 afraid I shall like it too much (I don t mean mar 
 riage, of course, but one s native land). Say what 
 you will, it s a charming tiling to go out alone, and 
 I have given notice to mamma that I mean to be 
 always en course. When I tell her that, she looks 
 at me in the same silence.; her eye dilates, and then 
 she slowly closes it. It s as if the sea were affecting 
 her a little, though it s so beautifully calm. I ask 
 her if she will try my bromide, which is there in my 
 bag ; but she motions me off, and I begin to walk 
 again, tapping my little boot-soles upon the smooth, 
 clean deck. This allusion to my boot-soles, by the 
 way, is not prompted by vanity ; but it s a fact that 
 at sea one s feet and one s shoes assume the most 
 extraordinary importance, so that we should take the 
 precaution to have nice ones. They are all you seem 
 to see, as the people walk about the deck ; you get 
 to know them intimately and to dislike some of them 
 so much. I am afraid you will think that I have 
 already broken loose ; and for aught I know, I am 
 writing as a demoiselle bien-eleve e should not write. 
 I don t know whether it s the American air ; if it is, 
 all I can say is that the American air is very charm 
 ing. It makes me impatient and restless, and I sit 
 scribbling here because I am so eager to arrive, and 
 the time passes better if I occupy myself. I am in 
 the saloon, where we have our meals, and opposite 
 to me is a big round port-hole, wide open, to let in 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 227 
 
 the smell of the land. Every now and then I rise 
 a little and look through it, to see whether we are 
 arriving. I mean in the Bay, you know, for we shall 
 not come up to the city till dark. I don t want to 
 lose the Bay ; it appears that it s so wonderful. I 
 don t exactly understand what it contains, except 
 some beautiful islands ; but I suppose you will know 
 all about that. It is easy to see that these are the 
 last hours, for all the people about me are writing 
 letters to put into the post as soon as we come up 
 to the dock. I believe they are dreadful at the 
 custom-house, and you will remember how many 
 new things you persuaded mamma that (with my 
 preoccupation of marriage) I should take to this 
 country, where even the prettiest girls are expected 
 not to go unadorned. We ruined ourselves in Paris 
 (that is part of mamma s solemnity) ; mais au moins 
 je serai belle! Moreover, I believe that mamma is 
 prepared to say or to do anything that may be neces 
 sary for escaping from their odious duties ; as she 
 very justly remarks, she can t afford to be ruined 
 twice. I don t know how one approaches these ter 
 rible douaniers, but I mean to invent something very 
 charming. I mean to say, " Voijons, Messieurs, a 
 young girl like me, brought up in the strictest foreign 
 traditions, kept always in the background by a very 
 superior mother la voila ; you can see for your 
 self! what is it possible that she should attempt 
 to smuggle in ? Nothing but a few simple relics of 
 her convent ! " I won t tell them that my convent 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 was called the Mayasin du Bon MarcUe. Mamma 
 began to scold me three days ago for insisting on so 
 many trunks, and the truth is that, between us, we 
 have not fewer than seven. For relics, that s a good 
 many! We are all writing very long letters or 
 at least we are writing a great number. There is 
 no news of the Bay as yet. Mr. Antrobus, mamma s 
 friend, opposite to me, is beginning on his ninth. 
 He is an Honorable, and a Member of Parliament ; 
 he has written, during the voyage, about a hundred 
 letters, and he seems greatly alarmed at the number 
 of stamps he will have to buy when he arrives. He 
 is full of information ; but he has not enough, for he 
 asks as many questions as mamma when she goes 
 to hire apartments. He is going to " look into " 
 various things ; he speaks as- if they had a little 
 hole for the purpose. He walks almost as much as 
 I, and he has very big shoes. He asks questions 
 even of me, and I tell him again and again that I 
 know nothing about America. But it makes no 
 difference ; he always begins again, and, indeed, it is 
 not strange that he should find my ignorance incredi 
 ble. " Now, how would it be in one of your South 
 western States ? " that s his favorite way of opening 
 conversation. Fancy me giving an account of the 
 Southwestern States ! I tell him lie had better ask 
 mamma a little to tease that lady, who knows 
 no more about such places than I. Mr. Antrobus 
 is very big and black; he speaks with a sort of 
 brogue ; he has a wife and ten children ; he is not 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 229 
 
 very romantic. But he has lots of letters to people 
 Id-las (I forget that we are just arriving), and 
 mamma, who takes an interest in him in spite of 
 his views (which are dreadfully advanced, and not 
 at all like mamma s own), has promised to give him 
 the entree to the best society. I don t know what 
 she knows about the best society over here to-day, 
 for we have not kept up our connections at all, and 
 no one will know (or, I am afraid, care) anything 
 about us. She has an idea that we shall be immensely 
 recognized ; but really, except the poor little Rucks, 
 who are bankrupt, and, I am told, in no society at 
 all, I don t know on whom we can count. C est 
 fyal Mamma has an idea that, whether or not we 
 appreciate America ourselves, we shall at least be 
 universally appreciated. It s true that we have 
 begun to be, a little ; you would see that by the way 
 that Mr. Cockerel and Mr. Louis Leverett are always 
 inviting me to walk. Both of these gentlemen, who 
 are Americans, have asked leave to call upon me in 
 New York, and I have said, Mon Dieu, oui, if it s 
 the custom of the country. Of course I have not 
 dared to tell this to mamma, who flatters herself that 
 we have brought with us in our trunks a complete 
 set of customs of our own, and that we shall only 
 have to shake them out a little and put them on 
 when we arrive. If only the two gentlemen I just 
 spoke of don t call at the same time, I don t think 
 I shall be too much frightened. If they do, on the 
 other hand, I won t answer for it. They have a par- 
 
230 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 ticular aversion to each other, and they are ready 
 to fight about poor little me. I am only the pretext, 
 however ; for, as Mr. Leverett says, it s really the 
 opposition of temperaments. I hope they won t cut 
 each other s throats, for I am not crazy about either 
 of them. They are very well for the deck of a ship, 
 but I should n t care about them in a salon ; they 
 are not at all distinguished. They think they are, 
 but they are not; at least, Mr. Louis Leverett does; 
 Mr. Cockerel does n t appear to care so much. They 
 are extremely different (with their opposed tempera 
 ments), and each very amusing for a while ; but I 
 should get dreadfully tired of passing my life with 
 either. Neither has proposed that, as yet ; but it is 
 evidently what they are coming to. It will be in 
 a great measure to spite each other, for I think that 
 cm fond they don t quite believe in me. If they 
 don t, it s the only point on which they agree. They 
 hate each other awfully ; they take such different 
 views. That is, Mr. Cockerel hates Mr. Leverett 
 he calls him a sickly little ass; he says that his 
 opinions are half affectation, and the other half dys 
 pepsia. Mr. Leverett speaks of Mr. Cockerel as a 
 "strident savage," but he declares he finds him most 
 diverting. He says there is nothing in which we 
 can t find a certain entertainment, if we only look 
 at it in the right way, and that we have no business 
 with either hating or loving ; we ought only to strive 
 to understand. To understand is to forgive, he says. 
 That is very pretty, but I don t like the suppression 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 231 
 
 of our affections, though I have no desire to fix mine 
 upon Mr. Leverett. He is very artistic, and talks 
 like an article in some review. He has lived a great 
 deal in Paris, and Mr. Cockerel says that is what has 
 made him such an idiot. That is not complimentary 
 to you, dear Louisa, and still less to your brilliant 
 brother ; for Mr. Cockerel explains that he means 
 it (the bad effect of Paris) chiefly of the men. In 
 fact, he means the bad effect of Europe altogether. 
 This, however, is compromising to mamma ; and 
 I am afraid there is no doubt that (from what I have 
 told him) he thinks mamma also an idiot. (I am 
 riot responsible, you know, I have always wanted 
 to go home.) If mamma knew him, which she 
 does n t, for she always closes her eyes when I pass 
 on his arm, she would think him disgusting. Mr. 
 Leverett, however, tells me he is nothing to what 
 we shall see yet. He is from Philadelphia (Mr. 
 Cockerel) ; he insists that we shall go and see Phila 
 delphia, but mamma says she saw it in 1855, and it 
 was then affreux. Mr. Cockerel says that mamma 
 is evidently not familiar with the march of improve 
 ment in this country ; he speaks of 1855 as if it were 
 a hundred years ago. Mamma says she knows it 
 goes only too fast it goes so fast that it has time to 
 do nothing well ; and then Mr. Cockerel, who, to do 
 him justice, is perfectly good-natured, remarks that 
 she had better wait till she has been ashore and seen 
 the improvements. Mamma rejoins that she sees 
 them from here, the improvements, and that they 
 
232 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 give her a sinking of the heart. (This little exchange 
 of ideas is carried on through me; they have never 
 spoken to each other.) Mr. Cockerel, as I say, is 
 extremely good-natured, and he carries out what I 
 have heard said about the men in America being 
 very considerate of the women. They evidently 
 listen to them a great deal ; they don t contradict 
 them, but it seems to me that this is rather negative. 
 There is very little gallantry in not contradicting 
 one ; and it strikes me that there are some things 
 the men don t express. There are others on the ship 
 whom I ve noticed. It s as if they were all one s 
 brothers or one s cousins. But I promised you not 
 to generalize, and perhaps there will be more expres 
 sion when we arrive. Mr. Cockerel returns to Amer 
 ica, after a general tour, with a renewed conviction 
 that this is the only country. I left him on deck an 
 hour ago, looking at the coast-line with an opera- 
 glass, and saying it \vas the prettiest thing he had 
 seen in all his tour. When I remarked that the 
 coast seemed rather low, he said it would be all the 
 easier to get ashore. Mr. Leverett does n t seem in 
 a hurry to get ashore ; he is sitting within sight of 
 me in a corner of the saloon writing letters, I sup 
 pose, but looking, from the way he bites his pen and 
 rolls his eyes about, as if he were composing a sonnet 
 and waiting for a rhyme. Perhaps the sonnet is 
 addressed to me ; but I forget that he suppresses the 
 affections ! The only person in whom mamma takes 
 much interest is the great French critic, M. Lejaune, 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 233 
 
 whom we have the honor to carry with us. We 
 have read a few of his works, though mamma dis 
 approves of his tendencies and thinks him a dreadful 
 materialist. We have read them for the style ; you 
 know he is one of the new Academicians. He is a 
 Frenchman like any other, except that he is rather 
 more quiet ; and he has a gray mustache and the 
 ribbon of the Legion of Honor. He is the first 
 French writer of distinction who has been to America 
 since De Tocqueville ; the French, in such matters, 
 are not very enterprising. Also, he has the air of 
 wondering what he is doing dans cette galere. He 
 has come with his Ican-frere, who is an engineer, 
 and is looking after some mines, and he talks with 
 scarcely any one else, as he speaks no English and 
 appears to take for granted that no one speaks French. 
 Mamma would be delighted to assure him of the 
 contrary ; she has never conversed with an Academi 
 cian. She always makes a little vague inclination, 
 with a smile, when he passes her, and he answers 
 with a most respectful bow ; but it goes no further, 
 to mamma s disappointment. He is always with 
 the beau-frere, a rather untidy, fat, bearded man, 
 decorated, too, always smoking and looking at the 
 feet of the ladies, whom mamma (though she has 
 very good feet) has not the courage to ciborder. I 
 believe M. Lejaune is going to write a book about 
 America, and Mr. Leverett says it will be terrible. 
 Mr. Leverett has made his acquaintance, and says 
 M. Lejaune will put him into his book ; he says the 
 
234 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 movement of the French intellect is superb. As a 
 general thing he does n t care for Academicians, but 
 he thinks M. Lejaune is an exception, he is so living, 
 so personal. I asked Mr. Cockerel what he thought of 
 M. Lejaune s plan of writing a book, and he answered 
 that he did n t see what it mattered to him that a 
 Frenchman the more should make a monkey of him 
 self. I asked him why he hadn t written a book about 
 Europe, and he said that, in the first place, Europe 
 is n t worth writing about, and, in the second, if he 
 said what he thought, people would think it was a 
 joke. He said they are very superstitious about Europe 
 over here ; he wants people in America to behave 
 as if Europe did n t exist. I told this to Mr. 
 Leverett, and he answered that if Europe did n t 
 exist America would n t, for Europe keeps us alive 
 by buying our corn. He said, also, that the trouble 
 with America in the future will be that she will 
 produce things in such enormous quantities that 
 there won t be enough people in the rest of the world 
 to buy them, and that we shall be left with our pro 
 ductions most of them very hideous on our 
 hands. I asked him if he thought corn a hideous 
 production, and he replied that there is nothing more 
 unbeautiful than too much food. I think that to 
 feed the world too well, however, that will be, after 
 all, a beau role. Of course I don t understand these 
 things, and I don t believe Mr. Leverett does ; but 
 Mr. Cockerel seems to know what he is talking 
 
 e 
 
 about, and he says that America is complete in her- 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 235 
 
 self. I don t know exactly what he means, but lie 
 speaks as if human affairs had somehow moved over 
 to this side of the world. It may be a very good 
 place for them, and Heaven knows I am extremely 
 tired of Europe, which mamma has always insisted 
 so on my appreciating ; but I don t think I like the 
 idea of our being so completely cut off. Mr. Cockerel 
 says it is not we that are cut off, but Europe, and he 
 seems to think that Europe has deserved it somehow. 
 That may be ; our life over there was sometimes 
 extremely tiresome, though mamma says it is now 
 that our real fatigues will begin. I like to abuse 
 those dreadful old countries myself, but I am not 
 sure that I am pleased when others do the same. 
 We had some rather pretty moments there, after all ; 
 and at Piacenza we certainly lived on four francs a 
 day. Mamma is already in a terrible state of mind 
 about the expenses here ; she is frightened by what 
 people on the ship (the few that she has spoken to) 
 have told her. There is one comfort, at any rate 
 we have spent so much money in coming here that we 
 shall have none left to get away. I am scribbling 
 along, as you see, to occupy me till we get news 
 of the islands. Here comes Mr. Cockerel to bring 
 it. Yes, they are in sight ; he tells me that they are 
 lovelier than ever, and that I must come right up 
 right away. I suppose you will think that I am 
 already beginning to use the language of the coun 
 try. It is certain that at the end of a month I shall 
 speak nothing else. I have picked up every dialect, 
 
236 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 wherever we have travelled ; you have heard my 
 Platt-Deutsch and my Neapolitan. But, voyons un 
 pcu the Bay ! I have just called to Mr. Leverett 
 to remind him of the islands. " The islands the 
 islands ? Ah, my clear young lady, I have seen 
 Capri, I have seen Ischia ! " Well, so have I, but 
 that does n t prevent . . . (A little later.) I have 
 seen the islands ; they are rather queer. 
 
 II. 
 
 MRS. CHURCH, IN NEW YORK, TO MADAME GALOPIN, 
 AT GENEVA. 
 
 October 17, 1880. 
 
 IF I felt far away from you in the middle of that 
 deplorable Atlantic, clierc Madame, how do I feel now, 
 in the heart of this extraordinary city ? We have 
 arrived, we have arrived, dear friend ; but I don t 
 know whether to tell you that I consider that an advan 
 tage. If we had been given our choice of coming safely 
 to land or going down to the bottom of the sea, I should 
 doubtless have chosen the former course ; for I hold, 
 with your noble husband, and in opposition to the 
 general tendency of modern thought, that our lives are 
 not our own to dispose of, but a sacred trust from a 
 higher power, by whom we shall be held responsible. 
 Nevertheless, if I had foreseen more vividly some of 
 the impressions that awaited rue here, I am not sure 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 237 
 
 that, for my daughter at least, I should rx>t have 
 preferred on the spot to hand in our account. Should 
 I not have been less (rather than more) guilty in 
 presuming to dispose of her destiny, than of my own ? 
 There is a nice point for dear M. Galopin to settle 
 one of those points which I have heard him discuss 
 in the pulpit with such elevation. We are safe, how 
 ever, as I say ; by which I mean that we are physi 
 cally safe. We have taken up the thread of our 
 familiar pension-life, but under strikingly different 
 conditions. We have found a refuge in a boarding- 
 house which has been highly recommended to me, 
 and where the arrangements partake of that barbarous 
 magnificence which in this country is the only alter 
 native from primitive rudeness. The terms, per 
 week, are as magnificent as all the rest. The land 
 lady wears diamond ear-rings ; and the drawing-rooms 
 are decorated with marble statues. I should indeed 
 be sorry to let you know how I have allowed myself 
 to be rangonntfe ; and I should be still more sorry that 
 it should come to the ears of any of my good friends in 
 Geneva, who know me less well than you and might 
 judge me more harshly. There is no wine given for 
 dinner, and I have vainly requested the person who 
 conducts the establishment to garnish her table more 
 liberally. She says I may have all the wine I want 
 if I will order it at the merchant s, and settle the 
 matter with him. But I have never, as you know, 
 consented to regard our modest allowance of eau 
 rougic, as an extra ; indeed, I remember that it is 
 
238 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 largely to yonr excellent advice that I have owed 
 my habit of being firm on this point. There are, 
 however, greater difficulties than the question of what 
 we shall drink for dinner, chere Madame. Still, I 
 have never lost courage, and I shall not lose courage 
 now. At the worst, we can re-embark again, and 
 seek repose and refreshment on the shores of your 
 beautiful lake. (There is absolutely no scenery 
 here !) We shall not, perhaps, in that case have 
 achieved what we desired, but we shall at least have 
 made an honorable retreat. What we desire I 
 know it is just this that puzzles you, dear friend; 
 I don t think you ever really comprehended my 
 motives in taking this formidable step, though you 
 were good enough, and your magnanimous husband 
 was good enough, to press my hand at parting in a 
 way that seemed to say that you would still be with 
 me, even if I was wrong. To be very brief, I wished 
 to put an end to the reclamations of my daughter. 
 Many Americans had assured her that she was 
 wasting her youth in those historic lands, which it 
 was her privilege to see so intimately, and this unfor 
 tunate conviction had taken possession of her. " Let 
 me at least see for myself," she used to say ; " if I 
 should dislike it over there as much as you promise 
 me, so much the letter for you. In that case we 
 will come back and make a new arrangement at 
 Stuttgart." The experiment is a terribly expensive 
 one ; but you know that my devotion never has 
 shrunk from an ordeal. There is another point, 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 239 
 
 moreover, which, from a mother to a mother, it would 
 be affectation not to touch upon. I remember the 
 just satisfaction with which you announced to me the 
 betrothal of your charming Cecile. You know with- 
 what earnest care my Aurora has been educated, 
 how thoroughly she is acquainted with the principal 
 results of modern rtsearch. We have always studied 
 together ; we have always enjoyed together. It will 
 perhaps surprise you to hear that she makes these 
 very advantages a reproach to me, represents them 
 as an injury to herself. " In this country," she says, 
 " the gentlemen have not those accomplishments ; 
 they care nothing for the results of modern research ; 
 and it will not help a young person to be sought in 
 marriage that she can give an account of the last 
 German theory of Pessimism." That is possible ; 
 and I have never concealed from her that it was not 
 for this country that I had educated her. If she 
 marries in the United States, it is, of course, my 
 intention that my son-in-law shall accompany us to 
 Europe. But, when she calls my attention more and 
 more to these facts, I feel that we are moving in a 
 different world. This is more and more the country 
 of the many ; the few. find less and less place for 
 them ; and the individual well, the individual has 
 quite ceased to be recognized. He is recognized as a 
 voter, but he is not recognized as a gentleman still 
 less as a lady. My daughter and I, of course, can 
 only pretend to constitute a few ! You know that I 
 have never for a moment remitted my pretensions as 
 
240 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 an individual, though, among the agitations of pension- 
 life, I have sometimes needed all my energy to uphold 
 them. " Oh, yes, I may be poor/ I have had occasion 
 to say, " I may be unprotected, I may be reserved, I 
 may occupy a small apartment in the quatrieme, and 
 be unable to scatter unscrupulous bribes among the 
 domestics ; but at least I am a person, with personal 
 rights." In this country the people have rights, but 
 the person has none. You would have perceived that 
 if you had come with me to make arrangements at this 
 establishment. The very fine lady who condescends 
 to preside over it kept me waiting twenty minutes, 
 and then came sailing in without a word of apology. 
 I had sat very silent, with my eyes on the clock ; 
 Aurora amused herself with a false admiration of the 
 room, a wonderful drawing-room, with magenta 
 curtains, frescoed walls, and photographs of the land 
 lady s friends as if one cared anything about her 
 friends ! When this exalted personage came in, she 
 simply remarked that she had just been trying on a 
 dress that it took so long to get a skirt to hang. 
 " It seems to take very long, indeed ! " I answered. 
 " But I hope the skirt is right at last. You might 
 have sent for us to come up and look at it ! " She 
 evidently did n t understand, and when I asked her 
 to show us her rooms, she handed us over to a negro 
 as deyinyande as herself. While we looked at them, 
 I heard her sit down to the piano in the drawing- 
 room ; she began to sing an air from a comic opera. 
 I began to fear we had gone quite astray ; I did n t 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 241 
 
 know in what house we could be, and was only 
 reassured by seeing a Bible in every room. When 
 we carne down our musical hostess expressed no hope 
 that the rooms had pleased us, and seemed quite 
 indifferent to our taking them. She would not con 
 sent, moreover, to the least diminution, and was 
 inflexible, as I told you, on the subject of wine. 
 When I pushed this point, she was so good as to 
 observe that she did n t keep a cabaret. One is not 
 in the least considered ; there is no respect for one s 
 privacy, for one s preferences, for one s reserves. 
 The familiarity is without limits, and I have already 
 made a dozen acquaintances, of whom I know, and 
 wish to know, nothing. Aurora tells me that she is 
 the " belle of the boarding-house." It appears that 
 this is a great distinction. It brings me back to my 
 poor child and her prospects. She takes a very critical 
 view of them herself; she tells me that I have given 
 her a false education, and that no one will marry 
 her to-day. No American will marry her, because 
 she is too much of a foreigner, and no foreigner will 
 marry her, because she is too much of an American. I 
 remind her that scarcely a day passes that a foreigner, 
 usually of distinction, does n t select an American 
 bride, and she answers me that in these cases the 
 young lady is not married for her fine eyes. Not 
 always, I reply ; and then she declares that she would 
 marry no foreigner who should not be one of the first 
 of the first. You will say, doubtless, that she should 
 content herself with advantages that have not been 
 
 11 
 
242 THE POINT OF VIE W, 
 
 deemed insufficient for Cecile ; but I will not repeat 
 to you the remark she made when 1 once made use 
 of this argument. You will doubtless be surprised to 
 hear that I have ceased to argue ; but it is time I 
 should tell you that I have at last agreed to let her act 
 for herself. She is to live for three months a VAmtri- 
 caine, and I am to be a mere spectator. You will 
 feel witli me that this is a cruel position for a cceur 
 de mere. I count the days till our three months are 
 over, and I know that you will join with me in my 
 prayers. Aurora walks the streets alone. She goes 
 out in the tramway ; a voiture de place costs five 
 francs for the least little course. (I beseech you not 
 to let it be known that I have sometimes had the 
 weakness . . .) My daughter is sometimes accom 
 panied by a gentleman by a dozen gentlemen ; she 
 remains out for hours, and her conduct excites no 
 surprise in this establishment. I know but too well 
 the emotions it will excite in your quiet home. If 
 you betray us, cliere Madame, we are lost ; and why, 
 after all, should any one know of these things in 
 Geneva? Aurora pretends that she has been able 
 to persuade herself that she does n t care who knows 
 them ; but there is a strange expression in her face, 
 which proves that her conscience is not at rest. I 
 watch her, I let her go, but I sit with my hands 
 clasped. There is a peculiar custom in this country 
 - 1 should n t know how to express it in Genevese 
 it is called " being attentive," and young girls are 
 the object of the attention. It has not necessa- 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 243 
 
 rily anything to do with projects of marriage, 
 though it is the privilege only of the unmarried, and 
 though, at the same time (fortunately, and this may 
 surprise you), it has no relation to other projects. It 
 is simply an invention by which young persons of 
 the two sexes pass their time together. How shall I 
 muster courage to tell you that Aurora is now 
 engaged in this delassement, in company with several 
 gentlemen ? Though it has no relation to marriage, 
 it happily does not exclude it, and marriages have 
 been known to take place in consequence (or in spite) 
 of it. It is true that even in this country a young 
 lady may marry but one husband at a time, whereas 
 she may receive at once the attentions of several 
 gentlemen, who are equally entitled " admirers." 
 My daughter, then, has admirers to an indefinite 
 number. You will think I am joking, perhaps, when 
 I tell you that I am unable to be exact I who was 
 formerly I exactitude meme. Two of these gentlemen 
 are, to a certain extent, old friends, having been pas 
 sengers on the steamer which carried us so far from 
 you. One of them, still young, is typical of the 
 American character, but a respectable person, and a 
 lawyer in considerable practice. Every one in this 
 country follows a profession ; but it must be admitted 
 that the professions are more highly remunerated 
 than chez vous. Mr. Cockerel, even while I write 
 you, is in complete possession of my daughter. He 
 called for her an hour ago in a " boghey," a 
 strange, unsafe, rickety vehicle, mounted on enormous 
 
244 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 wheels, which holds two persons very near together ; 
 and I watched her from the window take her place 
 at his side. Then he whirled her away, behind two 
 little horses with terribly thin legs ; the whole equi 
 page and most of all her being in it was in the 
 most questionable taste. But she will return, and 
 she will return very much as she went. It is the 
 same when she goes down to Mr. Louis Leverett, who 
 has no vehicle, and who merely comes and sits with 
 her in the front salon. He has lived a great deal in 
 Europe, and is very fond of the arts, and though I 
 am not sure I agree with him in his views of the 
 relation of art to life and life to art, and in his inter 
 pretation of some of the great works that Aurora and 
 I have studied together, he seems to me a sufficiently 
 serious and intelligent young man. I do not regard 
 him as intrinsically dangerous ; but, on the other 
 hand, he offers absolutely no guarantees. I have no 
 means whatever of ascertaining his pecuniary situa 
 tion. There is a vagueness on these points which is 
 extremely embarrassing, and it never occurs to young 
 men to offer you a reference. In Geneva I should 
 not be at a loss ; I should come to you, ckere Madame, 
 with my little inquiry, and what you should not be 
 able to tell me would not be worth knowing. But 
 no one in New York can give me the smallest infor 
 mation about the &at de fortune of Mr. Louis Leverett. 
 It is true that he is a native of Boston, where most 
 of his friends reside ; I cannot, however, go to the 
 expense of a journey to Boston simply to learn, 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 245 
 
 perhaps, that Mr. Leverett (the young Louis) has an 
 income of five thousand francs. As I say, however, 
 he does not strike me as dangerous. When Aurora 
 comes back to me, after having passed an hour with 
 the young Louis, she says that he has described to 
 her his emotions on visiting the home of Shelley, or 
 discussed some of the differences between the Boston 
 Temperament and that of the Italians of the Eenais- 
 sance. You will not enter into these rapprochements, 
 and I can t blame you. But you won t betray me, 
 chere Madame ? 
 
 III. 
 
 FROM MISS STURDY, AT NEWPORT, TO MRS. DRAPER, 
 IN FLORENCE. 
 
 September 30. 
 
 I PROMISED to tell you how I like it, but the truth 
 is, I have gone to and fro so often that I have ceased 
 to like and dislike. Nothing strikes me as unex 
 pected ; I expect everything in its order. Then, too, 
 you know, I am not a critic ; I have no talent for 
 keen analysis, as the magazines say ; I don t go into 
 the reasons of things. It is true I have been for a 
 longer time than usual on the wrong side of the water, 
 and I admit that I feel a little out of training for 
 American life. They are breaking me in ver} f fast, 
 however. I don t mean that they bully me ; I abso 
 lutely decline to be bullied. I say what I think, 
 because I believe that I have, on the whole, the 
 
246 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 advantage of knowing what I think when I think 
 anything which is half the battle. Sometimes, 
 indeed, I think nothing at all. They don t like that 
 over here ; they like you to have impressions. That 
 they like these impressions to be favorable appears to 
 me perfectly natural ; I don t make a crime to them 
 of that ; it seems to me, on the contrary, a very amia 
 ble quality. When individuals have it, we call them 
 sympathetic ; I don t see why we should n t give 
 nations the same benefit. But there are things I 
 have n t the least desire to have an opinion about. 
 The privilege of indifference is the dearest one we 
 possess, and I hold that intelligent people are known 
 by the way they exercise it. Life is full of rubbish, 
 and we have at least our share of it over here. When 
 you wake up in the morning you find that during the 
 night a cartload has been deposited in your front 
 garden. I decline, however, to have any of it in my 
 premises ; there are thousands of things I want to 
 know nothing about. I have outlived the necessity 
 of being hypocritical; I have nothing to gain and 
 everything to lose. When one is fifty years old - 
 single, stout, and red in the face one has outlived 
 a good many necessities. They tell me over here 
 that my increase of weight is extremely marked, 
 and though they don t tell me that I am coarse, 
 I am sure they think me so. There is very little 
 coarseness here not quite enough, I think though 
 there is plenty of vulgarity, which is a very different 
 thing. On the whole, the country is becoming much 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 247 
 
 more agreeable. It is n t that the people are charm 
 ing, for that they always were (the best of them, I 
 mean, for it is n t true of the others), but that places 
 and things as well have acquired the art of pleasing. 
 The houses are extremely good, and they look so 
 extraordinarily fresh and clean. European interiors, in 
 comparison, seem musty and gritty. We have a great 
 deal of taste ; I should n t wonder if we should end 
 by inventing something pretty ; we only need a little 
 time. Of course, as yet, it s all imitation, except, by 
 the way, these piazzas. I am sitting on one now ; I 
 am writing to you with my portfolio on my knees. 
 This broad, light loggia surrounds the house with a 
 movement as free as the expanded wings of a bird, 
 and the wandering airs come up from the deep sea, 
 which murmurs on the rocks at the end of the lawn. 
 Newport is more charming even than you remember 
 it; like everything else over here, it has improved. 
 It is very exquisite to-day ; it is, indeed, I think, in 
 all the world, the only exquisite watering-place, for I 
 detest the whole genus. The crowd has left it now, 
 which makes it all the better, though plenty of talkers 
 remain in these large, light, luxurious houses, which 
 are planted with a kind of Dutch definiteness all over 
 the green carpet of the cliff. This carpet is very neatly 
 laid and wonderfully well swept, and the sea, just at 
 hand, is capable of prodigies of blue. Here and there 
 a pretty woman strolls over one of the lawns, which 
 all touch each other, you know, without hedges or 
 fences ; the light looks intense as it plays upon her 
 
248 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 brilliant dress ; her large parasol shines like a silver 
 dome. The long lines of the far shores are soft and 
 pure, though they are places that one has n t the least 
 desire to visit. Altogether the effect is very delicate, 
 and anything that is delicate counts immensely over 
 here ; for delicacy, I think, is as rare as coarseness. 
 I am talking to you of the sea, however, without 
 having told you a word of my voyage. It was very 
 comfortable and amusing ; I should like to take 
 another next month. You know I am almost offen 
 sively well at sea, that I breast the weather and 
 brave the storm. We had no storm fortunately, and 
 I had brought with me a supply of light literature ; 
 so I passed nine days on deck in my sea-chair, with 
 my heels up, reading Tauchnitz novels. There was 
 a great lot of people, but no one in particular, save 
 some fifty American girls. You know all about the 
 American girl, however, having been one yourself. 
 They are, on the whole, very nice, but fifty is too 
 many; there are always too many. There was an 
 inquiring Briton, a radical M.P., by name Mr. Antro 
 bus, who entertained me as much as any one else. 
 He is an excellent man ; I even asked him to come 
 down here and spend a couple of days. He looked 
 rather frightened, till I told him he should n t be 
 alone with me, that the house was my brother s, and 
 that I gave the invitation in his name. He came a 
 week ago ; he goes everywhere ; we have heard of 
 him in a dozen places. The English are very sim 
 ple, or at least they seem so over here. Their old 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 249 
 
 measurements and comparisons desert them; they 
 don t know whether it s all a joke, or whether it s 
 too serious by half. We are quicker than they, 
 though we talk so much more slowly. We think 
 fast, and yet we talk as deliberately as if we were 
 speaking a foreign language. They toss off their 
 sentences with an air of easy familiarity with the 
 tongue, and yet they misunderstand two thirds of 
 what people say to them. Perhaps, after all, it is 
 only our thoughts they think slowly; they think 
 their own often to a lively tune enough. Mr. Antro- 
 bus arrived here at eight o clock in the morning ; I 
 don t know how he managed it ; it appears to be his 
 favorite hour; wherever we have heard of him he 
 has come in with the dawn. In England, he would 
 arrive at 5.30 P.M. He asks innumerable questions, 
 but they are easy to answer, for he has a sweet cre 
 dulity. He made me rather ashamed ; he is a better 
 American than so many of us ; he takes us more seri 
 ously than we take ourselves. He seems to think 
 that an oligarchy of wealth is growing up here, and 
 he advised me to be on my guard against it. I don t 
 know exactly what I can do, but I promised him to 
 look out. He is fearfully energetic ; the energy of the 
 people here is nothing to that of the inquiring Briton. 
 If we should devote half the energy to building up 
 our institutions that they devote to obtaining infor 
 mation about them, we should have a very satisfac 
 tory country. Mr. Antrobus seemed to think very 
 well of us, which surprised me, on the whole, because, 
 11* 
 
250 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 say what one will, it s not so agreeable as England. 
 It s very horrid that this should be ; and it s delight 
 ful, when one thinks of it, that some things in Eng 
 land are, after all, so disagreeable. At the same time, 
 Mr. Autrobus appeared to be a good deal preoccupied 
 with our dangers. I don t understand, quite, what 
 they are ; they seem to me so few, on a Newport 
 piazza, on this bright, still day. But, after all, what 
 one sees on a Newport piazza is not America ; it s 
 the back of Europe ! I don t mean to say that I 
 have n t noticed any dangers since my return ; there 
 are two or three that seem to me very serious, but 
 they are not those that Mr. Antrobus means. One, 
 for instance, is that we shall cease to speak the Eng 
 lish language, which I prefer so much to any other. 
 It s less and less spoken ; American is crowding it 
 out. All the children speak American, and as a 
 child s language it s dreadfully rough. It s exclu 
 sively in use in the schools ; all the magazines and 
 newspapers are in American. Of course, a people of 
 fifty millions, who have invented a new civilization, 
 have a right to a language of their own ; that s what 
 they tell me, and I can t quarrel with it. But I wisli 
 they had made it as pretty as the mother-tongue, from 
 which, after all, it is more or less derived. We ought 
 to have invented something as noble as our country. 
 They tell me it s more expressive, and yet some 
 admirable things have been said in the Queen s Eng 
 lish. There can be no question of the Queen over 
 here, of course, and American no doubt is the music 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 251 
 
 of the future. Poor dear future, how " expressive " 
 you 11 be ! For women and children, as I say, it 
 strikes one as very rough ; and moreover they don t 
 speak it well, their own though it be. My little 
 nephews, when I first came home, had not gone back 
 to school, and it distressed me to see that, though 
 they are charming children, they had the vocal inflec 
 tions of little newsboys. My niece is sixteen years old ; 
 she has the sweetest nature possible ; she is extremely 
 well-bred, and is dressed to perfection. She chatters 
 from morning till night ; but it is n t a pleasant 
 sound ! These little persons are in the opposite 
 case from so many English girls, who know how to 
 speak, but don t know how to talk. My niece knows 
 how to talk, but does n t know how to speak. A 
 propos of the young people, that is our other danger ; 
 the young people are eating us up, there is nothing 
 in America but the young people. The country is 
 made for the rising generation; life is arranged for 
 them ; they are the destruction of society. People 
 talk of them, consider them, defer to them, bow down 
 to them. They are always present, and whenever 
 they are present there is an end to everything else. 
 They are often very pretty ; and physically, they are 
 wonderfully looked after ; they are scoured and 
 brushed, they wear hygienic clothes, they go every 
 week to the dentist s. But the little boys kick your 
 shins, and the little girls offer to slap your face ! 
 There is an immense literature entirely addressed to 
 them, in which the kicking of shins and the slapping 
 
252 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 of faces is much recommended. As a woman of fifty, 
 I protest. I insist on being judged by my peers. 
 It s too late, however, for several millions of little 
 feet are actively engaged in stamping out conversa 
 tion, and I don t see how they can long fail to keep 
 it under. The future is theirs; maturity will evi 
 dently be at an increasing discount. Longfellow 
 wrote a charming little poem, called " The Children s 
 Hour," but he ought to have called it " The Children s 
 Century." And by children, of course, I don t mean 
 simple infants ; I mean everything of less than twenty. 
 The social importance of the young American increases 
 steadily up to that age, and then it suddenly stops. 
 The young girls, of course, are more important than 
 the lads ; but the lads are very important too. I am 
 struck with the way they are known and talked 
 about; they are little celebrities ; they have reputa 
 tions and pretensions; they are taken very seriously. 
 As for the young girls, as I said just now, there are 
 too many. You will say, perhaps, that I am jealous 
 of them, with my fifty years and my red face. I don t 
 think so, because I don t suffer ; my red face does n t 
 frighten people away, and I always find plenty of 
 talkers. The young girls themselves, I believe, like 
 me very much ; and as for me, I delight in the young 
 girls. They are often very pretty; not so pretty as 
 people say in the magazines, but pretty enough. The 
 magazines rather overdo that; they make a mistake. 
 I have seen no great beauties, but the level of pret- 
 tiness is high, and occasionally one sees a woman 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 253 
 
 completely handsome. (As a general thing, a pretty 
 person here means a person with a pretty face. The 
 iigure is rarely mentioned, though there are several 
 good ones.) The level of prettiness is high, but the 
 level of conversation is low ; that s one of the signs 
 of its being a young ladies country. There are a 
 good many things young ladies can t talk about; but 
 think of all the things they can, when they are as 
 clever as most of these. Perhaps one ought to con 
 tent one s self with that measure, but it s difficult if 
 one has lived for a while by a larger one. This one 
 is decidedly narrow ; I stretch it sometimes till it 
 cracks. Then it is that they call me coarse, which I 
 undoubtedly am, thank Heaven ! People s talk is of 
 course much more chdtitfe over here than in Europe ; 
 I am struck with that wherever I go. There are cer 
 tain things that are never said at all, certain allusions 
 that are never made. There are no light stories, no 
 propos risques. I don t know exactly what people 
 talk about, for the supply of scandal is small, and 
 it s poor in quality. They don t seem, however, to 
 lack topics. The young girls are always there ; they 
 keep the gates of conversation ; very little passes that 
 is not innocent. I find \ve do very well without 
 wickedness ; and, for myself, as I take rny ease, I 
 don t miss my liberties. You remember what I 
 thought of the tone of your table in Florence, and 
 how surprised you were when I asked you why you 
 allowed such things. You said they were like the 
 courses of the seasons ; one could n t prevent them ; 
 
254 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 also that to change the tone of your table you would 
 have to change so many other things. Of course, in 
 your house one never saw a young girl ; I was the 
 only spinster, and no one was afraid of me ! Of 
 course, too, if talk is more innocent in this country, 
 manners are so, to begin with. The liberty of the 
 young people is the strongest proof of it. The young 
 girls are let loose in the world, and the world gets 
 more good of it than ces demoiselles get harm. In 
 your world excuse me, but you know what I 
 mean this would n t do at all. Your world is a 
 sad affair, and the young ladies would encounter all 
 sorts of horrors. Over here, considering the way 
 they knock about, they remain wonderfully simple, 
 and the reason is that society protects them instead 
 of setting them traps. There is almost no gallantry, 
 as you understand it ; the flirtations are child s play. 
 People have no time for making love ; the men, in 
 particular, are extremely busy. I am told that sort 
 of thing consumes hours ; I have never had any time 
 for it myself. If the leisure class should increase 
 here considerably, there may possibly be a change ; 
 but I doubt it, for the women seem to me in all 
 essentials exceedingly reserved. Great superficial 
 frankness, but an extreme dread of complications. 
 The men strike me as very good fellows. I think 
 that at bottom they are better than the women, who 
 are very subtle, but rather hard. They are not so 
 nice to the men as the men are to them; I mean, 
 of course, in proportion, you know. But women are 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 255 
 
 not so nice as men, " anyhow," as they say here. The 
 men, of course, are professional, commercial ; there 
 are very few gentlemen pure and simple. This per 
 sonage needs to be very well done, however, to be of 
 great utility ; and I suppose you won t pretend that 
 he is always well done in your countries. When he s 
 riot, the less of him the better. It s very much the 
 same, however, with the system on which the young 
 girls in this country are brought up. (You see, I 
 have to come back to the young girls.) When it 
 succeeds, they are the most charming possible ; when 
 it does n t, the failure is disastrous. If a girl is a 
 very nice girl, the American method brings her to 
 great completeness, makes all her graces flower; 
 but if she is n t nice, it makes her exceedingly dis 
 agreeable, elaborately and fatally perverts her. In 
 a word, the American girl is rarely negative, and 
 when she is n t a great success she is a great warn 
 ing. In nineteen cases out of twenty, among the 
 people who know how to live I won t say what 
 their proportion is the results are highly satisfac 
 tory. The girls are not shy, but I don t know why 
 they should be, for there is really nothing here to be 
 afraid of. Manners are very gentle, very humane; 
 the democratic system deprives people of weapons 
 that every one does n t equally possess. No one is 
 formidable ; no one is on stilts ; no one has great 
 pretensions or any recognized right to be arrogant. 
 I think there is not much wickedness, and there is 
 certainly less cruelty than with you. Every one 
 
256 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 can sit ; no one is kept standing. One is mticli less 
 liable to be snubbed, which you will say is a pity. 
 I think it is, to a certain extent ; but, on the other 
 hand, folly is less fatuous, in form, than in your coun 
 tries ; and as people generally have fewer revenges to 
 take, there is less need of their being stamped on in 
 advance. The general good nature, the social equality, 
 deprive them of triumphs on the one hand, and of 
 grievances on the other. There is extremely little 
 impertinence ; there is almost none. You will say 
 I am describing a terrible society, a society without 
 great figures or great social prizes. You have hit it, 
 my dear ; there are no great figures. (The great prize, 
 of course, in Europe, is the opportunity to be a great 
 figure.) You would miss these things a good deal, 
 you who delight to contemplate greatness; and 
 my advice to you, of course, is never to come back. 
 You would miss the small people even more than 
 the great ; every one is middle-sized, and you can 
 never have that momentary sense of tallness which 
 is so agreeable in Europe. There are no brilliant 
 types ; the most important people seem to lack dig 
 nity. They are very bourgeois ; they make little 
 jokes ; on occasion they make puns ; they have no 
 form ; they are too good-natured. The men have 
 no style ; the women, who are fidgety and talk too 
 much, have it only in their coiffure, where they have 
 it superabundantly. But I console myself with the 
 greater bonhomie. Have you ever arrived at an Eng 
 lish country-house in the dusk of a winter s day ? 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 257 
 
 Have you ever made a call in London, when you 
 knew nobody but the hostess ? People here are more 
 expressive, more demonstrative; and it is a pleasure, 
 when one comes back (if one happens, like me, to be 
 no one in particular), to feel one s social value rise. 
 They attend to you more ; they have you on their 
 mind ; they talk to you ; they listen to you. That 
 is, the men do ; the women listen very little not 
 enough. They interrupt ; they talk too much ; one 
 feels their presence too much as a sound. I imagine 
 it is partly because their wits are quick, and they 
 think of a good many things to say ; not that they 
 always say such wonders. Perfect repose, after all, 
 is not all self-control ; it is also partly stupidity. 
 American women, however, make too many vague 
 exclamations, say too many indefinite things. In 
 short, they have a great deal of nature. On the 
 whole, I find very little affectation, though we shall 
 probably have more as we improve. As yet, people 
 have n t the assurance that carries those things off ; 
 they know too much about each other. The trouble 
 is that over here we have all been brought up to 
 gether. You will think this a picture of a dreadfully 
 insipid society ; but I hasten to add that it s not all 
 so tarne as that. I have been speaking of the people 
 that one meets socially ; and these are the smallest 
 part of American life. The others those one meets 
 on a basis of mere convenience are much more 
 exciting ; they keep one s temper in healthy exercise. 
 I mean the people in the shops, and on the railroads ; 
 
258 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 the servants, the hackmen, the laborers, every one of 
 whom you buy anything or have occasion to make 
 an inquiry. With them you need all your best man 
 ners, for you must always have enough for two. If 
 you think we are too democratic, taste a little of 
 American life in these walks, and you will be reas 
 sured. This is the region of inequality, and you will 
 find plenty of people to make your courtesy to. You 
 see it from below the weight of inequality is on 
 your own back. You asked me to tell you about 
 prices ; they are simply dreadful. 
 
 IV. 
 
 FROM THE HONORABLE EDWARD ANTROBUS, M.P., IN 
 BOSTON, TO THE HONORABLE MRS. ANTROBUS. 
 
 October 17. 
 
 MY DEAR SUSAN, I sent you a post-card on the 
 13th and a native newspaper yesterday ; I really have 
 had no time to write. I sent you the newspaper 
 partly because it contained a report extremely 
 incorrect of some remarks I made at the meeting 
 of the Association of the Teachers of New England ; 
 partly because it is so curious that I thought it would 
 interest you and the children. I cut out some por 
 tions which I did n t think it would be well for the 
 children to see ; the parts remaining contain the most 
 striking features. Please point out to the children 
 the peculiar orthography, which probably will be 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 259 
 
 adopted in England by the time they are grown up ; 
 the amusing oddities of expression, &c. Some of 
 them are intentional; you will have heard of the 
 celebrated American humor, &c. (remind me, by the 
 way, on my return to Thistleton, to give you a few 
 examples of it) ; others are unconscious, and are per 
 haps on that account the more diverting. Point 
 out to the children the difference (in so far as you 
 are sure that you yourself perceive it). You must 
 excuse me if these lines are not very legible ; I am. 
 writing them by the light of a railway-lamp, which 
 rattles above my left ear; it being only at odd 
 moments that I can find time to look into everything 
 that I wish to. You will say that this is a very odd 
 moment, indeed, when I tell you that I am in bed in 
 a sleeping-car. I occupy the upper berth (I will 
 explain to you the arrangement when I return), while 
 the lower forms the couch the jolts are fearful of 
 an unknown female. You will be very anxious for 
 my explanation ; but I assure you that it is the cus 
 tom of the country. I myself am assured that a lady 
 may travel in this manner all over the Union (the 
 Union of States) without a loss of consideration. In 
 case of her occupying the upper berth I presume it 
 would be different ; but I must make inquiries on this 
 point. Whether it be the fact that a mysterious being 
 of another sex has retired to rest behind the same 
 curtains, or whether it be the swing of the train, 
 which rushes through the air with very much the 
 same movement as the tail of a kite, the situation is, 
 
260 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 at any rate, so anomalous that I am unable to sleep. 
 A ventilator is open just over my head, and a lively 
 draught, mingled with a drizzle of cinders, pours in 
 through this ingenious orifice. (I will describe to you 
 its form on my return.) If I had occupied the lower 
 berth I should have had a whole window to myself, 
 and by drawing back the blind (a safe proceeding at 
 the dead of night), I should have been able, by the 
 light of an extraordinarily brilliant moon, to see a 
 little better what I write. The question occurs to me, 
 however, Would the lady below me in that case 
 have ascended to the upper berth ? (You know my 
 old taste for contingent inquiries.) I incline to think 
 (from what I have seen) that she would simply have 
 requested me to evacuate my own couch. (The 
 ladies in this country ask for anything they want.) 
 In this case I suppose I should have had an extensive 
 view of the country, which, from what I saw of it 
 before I turned in (while the lady beneath me was 
 going to bed), offered a rather ragged expanse, dotted 
 with little white wooden houses, which looked in the 
 moonshine like pasteboard boxes. I have been unable 
 to ascertain as precisely as I should wish by whom 
 these modest residences are occupied ; for they are too 
 small to be the homes of country gentlemen, there is 
 no peasantry here, and (in New England, for all the 
 corn comes from the far West) there are no yeomen 
 nor farmers. The information that one receives in 
 this country is apt to be rather conflicting, but I am 
 determined to sift the mystery to the bottom. I have 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 261 
 
 already noted down a multitude of facts bearing upon 
 the points that interest me most, the operation of 
 the school-boards, the co-education of the sexes, the 
 elevation of the tone of the lower classes, the partici 
 pation of the latter in political life. Political life, 
 indeed, is almost wholly confined to the lower-middle 
 class, and the upper section of the lower class. In 
 some of the large towns, indeed, the lowest order 
 of all participates considerably, a very interesting 
 phase, to which I shall give more attention. It is 
 very gratifying to see the taste for public affairs per 
 vading so many social strata ; but the indifference of 
 the gentry is a fact not to be lightly considered. It 
 may be objected, indeed, that there are no gentry ; 
 and it is very true that I have not yet encountered a 
 character of the type of Lord Bottomley, a type 
 which I am free to confess I should be sorry to see 
 disappear from our English system, if system it may 
 be called, where so much is the growth of blind and 
 incoherent forces. It is nevertheless obvious that an 
 idle and luxurious class exists in this country, and 
 that it is less exempt than in our own from the re 
 proach of preferring inglorious ease to the furtherance 
 of liberal ideas. It is rapidly increasing, and I am 
 not sure that the indefinite growth of the dilettante 
 spirit, in connection with large and lavishly expended 
 wealth, is an unmixed good, even in a society in which 
 freedom of development has obtained so many inter 
 esting triumphs. The fact that this body is not 
 represented in the governing class, is perhaps as 
 
262 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 much the result of the jealousy with which it is 
 viewed by the more earnest workers as of its own I 
 dare not, perhaps, apply a harsher term than levity. 
 Such, at least, is the impression I have gathered in 
 the Middle States and in New England ; in the South 
 west, the Northwest, and the far West, it will 
 doubtless be liable to correction. These divisions are 
 probably new to you; but they are the general 
 denomination of large and flourishing communities, 
 with which I hope to make myself at least super 
 ficially acquainted. The fatigue of traversing, as I 
 habitually do, three or four hundred miles at a bound, 
 is, of course, considerable ; but there is usually much 
 to inquire into by the way. The conductors of the 
 trains, with whom I freely converse, are often men of 
 vigorous and original minds, and even of some social 
 eminence. One of them, a few days ago, gave me a 
 letter of introduction to his brother-in-law, who is 
 president of a Western university. Don t have any 
 fear, therefore, that I am not in the best society ! 
 The arrangements for travelling are, as a general thing, 
 extremely ingenious, as you will probably have inferred 
 from what I told you above ; but it must at the same 
 time be conceded that some of them are more 
 ingenious than happy. Some of the facilities, with 
 regard to luggage, the transmission of parcels, &c., 
 are doubtless very useful when explained, but I have 
 not yet succeeded in mastering the intricacies. There 
 are, on the other hand, no cabs and no porters, and I 
 have calculated that I have myself carried my impcdi- 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 263 
 
 menta which, you know, are somewhat numerous, 
 and from which I cannot bear to be separated some 
 seventy or eighty miles. I have sometimes thought 
 it was a great mistake not to bring Plummeridge ; he 
 would have been useful on such occasions. On the 
 other hand, the startling question would have pre 
 sented itself Who would have carried Plummeridge s 
 portmanteau ? He would have been useful, indeed, 
 for brushing and packing my clothes, and getting me 
 my tub; I travel with a large tin one, there are 
 none to be obtained at the inns, and the transport 
 of this receptacle often presents the most insoluble 
 difficulties. It is often, too, an object of considerable 
 embarrassment in arriving at private houses, where 
 the servants have less reserve of manner than in 
 England ; and, to tell you the truth, I am by no 
 means certain at the present moment that the tub has 
 been placed in the train with me. " On board " the 
 train is the consecrated phrase here ; it is an allusion 
 to the tossing and pitching of the concatenation of 
 cars, so similar to that of a vessel in a storm. As I 
 was about to inquire, however, Who would get Plum 
 meridge his tub, and attend to his little comforts ? 
 We could not very well make our appearance, on 
 coming to stay with people, with two of the utensils 
 I have named ; though, as regards a single one, I have 
 had the courage, as I may say, of a life-long habit. 
 It would hardly be expected that we should both use 
 the same ; though there have been occasions in my 
 travels as to which I see no way of blinking the fact 
 
264 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 that Plummeridge would have had to sit down to 
 dinner with me. Such a contingency would com 
 pletely have unnerved him; and, on the whole, it 
 was doubtless the wiser part to leave him respectfully 
 touching his hat on the tender in the Mersey. No 
 one touches his hat over here, and though it is doubt 
 less the sign of a more advanced social order, I confess 
 that when I see poor Plummeridge again, this familiar 
 little gesture familiar, I mean, only in the sense 
 of being often seen will give me a measurable 
 satisfaction. You will see from what I tell you that 
 democracy is not a mere word in this country, and I 
 could give you many more instances of its universal 
 reign. This, however, is what we come here to look 
 at, and, in so far as there seems to be proper occasion, 
 to admire ; though I am by no means sure that we 
 can hope to establish within an appreciable time a 
 corresponding change in the somewhat rigid fabric of 
 English manners. I am not even prepared to affirm 
 that such a change is desirable ; you know this is one 
 of the points on which I do not as yet see my way 
 
 to going as far as Lord B . I have always held 
 
 that there is a certain social ideal of inequality as 
 well as of equality, and if I have found the people 
 of this country, as a general thing, quite equal to each 
 other, I am not sure that I am prepared to go so far 
 as to say that, as a whole, they are equal to excuse 
 that dreadful blot ! The movement of the train and 
 the precarious nature of the light it is close to my 
 nose, and most offensive would, I flatter myself, 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 265 
 
 long since have got the better of a less resolute 
 diarist ! What I was not prepared for was the very 
 considerable body of aristocratic feeling that lurks 
 beneath this republican simplicity. I have on several 
 occasions been made the confidant of these romantic 
 but delusive vagaries, of which the stronghold appears 
 to be the Empire City, a slang name for New York. 
 I was assured in many quarters that that locality, ab 
 least, is ripe for a monarchy, and if one of the Queen s 
 sous would come and talk it over, he would meet with 
 the highest encouragement. This information was 
 given me in strict confidence, with closed doors, as it 
 were ; it reminded me a good deal of the dreams of 
 the old Jacobites, when they whispered their messages 
 to the king across the water. I doubt, however, 
 whether these less excusable visionaries will be able 
 to secure the services of a Pretender, for I fear that 
 in such a case he would encounter a still more . fatal 
 Culloden. I have given a good deal of time, as I 
 told you, to the educational system, and have visited 
 no fewer than one hundred and forty-three schools 
 and colleges. It is extraordinary, the number of 
 persons who are being educated in this country ; and 
 yet, at the same time, the tone of the people is less 
 scholarly than one might expect. A lady, a few days 
 since, described to me her daughter as being always 
 " on the go," which I take to be a jocular way of 
 saying that the young lady was very fond of paying 
 visits. Another person, the wife of a United States 
 senator, informed me that if I should go to Washing- 
 
 12 
 
266 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 ton in January, I should be quite " in the swim." I 
 inquired the meaning of the phrase, but her explana 
 tion made it rather more than less ambiguous. To 
 say that I am on the go describes very accurately my 
 own situation. I went yesterday to the Pognanuc 
 High School, to hear fifty-seven boys and girls recite 
 in unison a most remarkable ode to the American 
 Flag, and shortly afterward attended a ladies lunch, 
 at which some eighty or ninety of the sex were 
 present. There was only one individual in trousers 
 his trousers by the way, though he brought a 
 dozen pair, are getting rather seedy. The men in 
 America do not partake of this meal, at which ladies 
 assemble in large numbers to discuss religious, politi 
 cal, and social topics. These immense female sym 
 posia (at which every delicacy is provided) are one of 
 the most striking features of American life, and 
 would seem to prove that men are not so indispensa 
 ble in the scheme of creation as they sometimes 
 suppose. I have been admitted on the footing of an 
 Englishman "just to show you some of our bright 
 women," the hostess yesterday remarked. (" Bright " 
 here has the meaning of intellectual^ I perceived, 
 indeed, a great many intellectual foreheads. These 
 curious collations are organized according to age. I 
 have also been present as an inquiring stranger at 
 several "girls lunches," from which married ladies 
 are rigidly excluded, but where the fair revellers are 
 equally numerous and equally bright. There is a 
 good deal I should like to tell you about my study of 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 267 
 
 the educational question, but my position is somewhat 
 cramped, and I must dismiss it briefly. My leading 
 impression is that the children in this country are 
 better educated than the adults. The position of a 
 child is, on the whole, one of great distinction. There 
 is a popular ballad of which the refrain, if I am 
 not mistaken, is " Make me a child again, just for 
 to-night ! " and which seems to express the sentiment 
 of regret for lost privileges. At all events they are 
 a powerful and independent class, and have organs, 
 of immense circulation, in the press. They are often 
 extremely " bright." I have talked with a great many 
 teachers, most of them lady-teachers, as they are 
 called in this country. The phrase does not mean 
 teachers of ladies, as you might suppose, but applies 
 to the sex of the instructress, who often has large 
 classes of young men under her control. I was lately 
 introduced to a young woman of twenty-three, who 
 occupies the chair of Moral Philosophy and Belles- 
 Lettres in a Western college, and who told me with 
 the utmost frankness that she was adored by the 
 undergraduates. This young woman was the daugh 
 ter of a petty trader in one of the Southwestern 
 States, and had studied at Amanda College, in Mis- 
 sourah, an institution at which young people of the 
 two sexes pursue their education together. She was 
 very pretty and modest, and expressed a great desire 
 to see something of English country-life, in conse 
 quence of which I made her promise to come down 
 to Thistleton in the event of her crossing the Atlantic. 
 
268 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 She is not the least like Gwendolen or Charlotte, and 
 I am not prepared to say how they would get on with 
 her; the boys would probably do better. Still, I think 
 her acquaintance would be of value to Miss Bumpus, 
 and the two might pass their time very pleasantly in 
 the school-room. I grant you freely that those I have 
 seen here are much less comfortable than the school 
 room at Thistleton. Has Charlotte, by the way, 
 designed any more texts for the walls ? I have been 
 extremely interested in my visit to Philadelphia, 
 where I saw several thousand little red houses with 
 white steps, occupied by intelligent artisans, and 
 arranged (in streets) on the rectangular system. Im 
 proved cooking-stoves, rosewood pianos, gas and hot 
 water, aesthetic furniture, and complete sets of the 
 British Essayists. A tramway through every street ; 
 every block of equal length ; blocks and houses scien 
 tifically lettered and numbered. There is absolutely 
 no loss of time, and no need of looking for anything, 
 or, indeed, at anything. The mind always on one s 
 object ; it is very delightful. 
 
 V. 
 
 FROM LOUIS LEVERETT, IN BOSTON, TO HARVARD TRE- 
 MONT, IN PARIS. 
 
 November. 
 
 THE scales have turned, my sympathetic Harvard, 
 and the beam that has lifted you up has dropped me 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 269 
 
 again on this terribly hard spot. I am extremely 
 sorry to have missed you in London, but I received 
 your little note, and took due heed of your injunction 
 to let you know how I got on. I don t get on at all, 
 my dear Harvard I am consumed with the love of 
 the farther shore. I have been so long away that I 
 have dropped out of my place in this little Boston 
 world, and the shallow tides of New England life 
 have closed over it. I am a stranger here, and I find 
 it hard to believe that I ever was a native. It is very 
 hard, very cold, very vacant. I think of your warm, 
 rich Paris ; I think of the Boulevard St. Michel on 
 the mild spring evenings. I see the little corner by 
 the window (of the Cafe de la Jeunesse) where I 
 used to sit ; the doors are open, the soft, deep breath 
 of the great city comes in. It is brilliant, yet there is 
 a kind of tone, of body, in the brightness ; the mighty 
 murmur of the ripest civilization in the world 
 comes in ; the dear old peuple de Paris, the most 
 interesting people in the world, pass by. I have a 
 little book in my pocket; it is exquisitely printed, 
 a modern Elzevir. It is a lyric cry from the heart of 
 young France, and is full of the sentiment of form. 
 There is no form here, dear Harvard ; I had no idea 
 how little form there was. I don t know what I 
 shall do ; I feel so undraped, so uncurtained, so 
 uncushioned ; I feel as if I were sitting in the centre of 
 a mighty " reflector." A terrible crude glare is over 
 everything ; the earth looks peeled and excoriated ; 
 the raw heavens seem to bleed with the quick, hard 
 
270 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 light. I have not got back my rooms in West Cedar 
 street ; they are occupied by a mesmeric healer. I 
 am staying at an hotel, and it is very dreadful. 
 Nothing for one s self; nothing for one s preferences 
 and habits. No one to receive you when you arrive ; 
 you push in through a crowd, you edge up to a 
 counter; you write your name in a horrible book, 
 where every one may come and stare at it and finger 
 it. A man behind the counter stares at you in 
 silence ; his stare seems to say to you, " What the 
 devil do you want ? " But after this stare he never 
 looks at you again. He tosses down a key at you ; 
 he presses a bell ; a savage Irishman arrives. " Take 
 him away," he seems to say to the Irishman ; but it 
 is all done in silence ; there is no answer to your own 
 speech, "What is to be done with me, please?" 
 " Wait and you will see," the awful silence seems to 
 say. There is a great crowd around you, but there is 
 also a great stillness ; every now and then you hear 
 some one expectorate. There are a thousand people 
 in tliis huge and hideous structure ; they feed to 
 gether in a big white-walled room. It is lighted by 
 a thousand gas-jets, and heated by cast-iron screens, 
 which vomit forth torrents of scorching air. The 
 temperature is terrible ; the atmosphere is more so ; 
 the furious light and heat seem to intensify the 
 dreadful defmiteness. AVI i en things are so ugly, 
 they should not be so definite ; and they are terribly 
 ugly here. There is no mystery in the corners ; 
 there is no light and shade in the types. The people 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 271 
 
 are haggard and joyless ; they look as if they had no 
 passions, no tastes, no senses. They sit feeding in 
 silence, in the dry, hard light ; occasionally I hear 
 the high, firm note of a child. The servants are black 
 and familiar ; their faces shine as they shuffle about ; 
 there are blue tones in their dark masks. They have 
 no manners ; they address you, but they don t answer 
 you ; they plant themselves at your elbow (it rubs 
 their clothes as you eat), and watch you as if your 
 proceedings were strange. They deluge you with 
 iced water ; it s the only thing they will bring you ; 
 if you look round to summon them, they have gone 
 for more. If you read the newspaper, which I don t, 
 gracious Heaven ! I can t, they hang over your 
 shoulder and peruse it also. I always fold it up and 
 present it to them ; the newspapers here are indeed 
 for an African taste. There are long corridors 
 defended by gusts of hot air ; down the middle swoops 
 a pale little girl on parlor-skates. " Get out of my 
 way ! " she shrieks as she passes ; she has ribbons in 
 her hair and frills on her dress ; she makes the tour 
 of the immense hotel. I think of Puck, who put a 
 girdle round the earth in forty minutes, and wonder 
 what he said as he flitted by. A black waiter 
 inarches past me, bearing a tray, which he thrusts 
 into ray spine as he goes. It is laden with large 
 white jugs ; they tinkle as he moves, and I recognize 
 the unconsoling fluid. We are dying of iced water, 
 of hot air, of gas. I sit in my room thinking of these 
 things this room of mine which is a chamber of 
 
272 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 pain. The walls are white and bare, they shine in 
 the rays of a horrible chandelier of imitation bronze, 
 which depends from the middle of the ceiling. It 
 flings a patc*h of shadow on a small table covered with 
 white marble, of which the genial surface supports at 
 the present moment the sheet of paper on which I 
 address you ; and when I go to bed (I like to read in 
 bed, Harvard) it becomes an object of mockery and 
 torment. It dangles at inaccessible heights ; it stares 
 me in the face ; it flings the light upon the covers of 
 my book, but not upon the page the little French 
 Elzevir that I love so well. I rise and put out the 
 gas, and then my room becomes even lighter than 
 before. Then a crude illumination from the hall, 
 from the neighboring room, pours through the glass 
 openings that surmount the two doors of my apart 
 ment. It covers my bed, where I toss and groan ; it 
 beats in through my closed lids ; it is accompanied 
 by the most vulgar, though the most human, sounds. 
 I spring up to call for some help, some remedy ; but 
 there is no bell, and I feel desolate and weak. There 
 is only a strange orifice in the wall, through which 
 the traveller in distress may transmit his appeal. I 
 fill it with incoherent sounds, and sounds more inco 
 herent yet come back to me. I gather at last their 
 meaning ; they appear to constitute a somewhat 
 stern inquiry. A hollow, impersonal voice wishes to 
 know what I want, and the very question paralyzes 
 me. I want everything yet I want nothing, 
 nothing this hard impersonality can give ! I want 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 273 
 
 my little corner of Paris ; I want the rich, the deep, 
 the dark Old World ; I want to be out of this horri 
 ble place. Yet I can t confide all this to that mechani 
 cal tube ; it would be of no use ; a mocking- laugh 
 would come up from the office. Fancy appealing in 
 these sacred, these intimate moments, to an " office " ; 
 fancy calling out into indifferent space for a candle, 
 for a curtain ! I pay incalculable sums in this dread 
 ful house, and yet I have n t a servant to wait upon 
 me. I fling myself back on my couch, arid for a long 
 time afterward the orifice in the wall emits strange 
 murmurs and rumblings. It seems unsatisfied, indig 
 nant ; it is evidently scolding me for my vagueness. 
 My vagueness, indeed, dear Harvard ! I loathe their 
 horrible arrangements ; is n t that definite enough ? 
 You asked me to tell you whom I see, and what I 
 think of my friends. I have n t very many ; I don t 
 feel at all en rapport. The people are very good, very 
 serious, very devoted to their work ; but there is a 
 terrible absence of variety of type. Every one is Mr. 
 Jones, Mr. Brown ; and every one looks like Mr. 
 Jones and Mr. Brown. They are thin ; they are 
 diluted in the great tepid bath of Democracy ! They 
 lack completeness of identity ; they are quite with 
 out modelling. No, they are not beautiful, my poor 
 Harvard ; it must be whispered that they are not 
 beautiful. You may say that they are as beautiful 
 as the French, as the Germans ; but I can t agree 
 with you there. The French, the Germans, have the 
 greatest beauty of all, the beauty of their ugliness, 
 
 12* 
 
274 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 the beauty of the strange, the grotesque. These 
 people are not even ugly ; they are only plain. Many 
 of the girls are pretty ; but to be only pretty is (to 
 my sense) to be plain. Yet I have had some talk. 
 I have seen a woman. She was on the steamer, and I 
 afterward saw her in New York, a peculiar type, a 
 real personality ; a great deal of modelling, a great 
 deal of color, and yet a great deal of mystery. She 
 was not, however, of this country ; she was a com 
 pound of far-off things. But she was looking for 
 something here like me. We found each other, and 
 for a moment that was enough. I have lost her now ; 
 I am sorry, because she liked to listen to me. She has 
 passed away ; I shall not see her again. She liked 
 to listen to me ; she almost understood ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 FROM M. GUSTAVE LEJAUNE, OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY, 
 TO M. ADOLPHE BOUCHE, IN PARIS. 
 
 WASHINGTON, October 5. 
 
 I GIVE you my little notes ; you must make allow 
 ances for haste, for bad inns, for the perpetual scram 
 ble, for ill-hurnor. Everywhere the same impression, 
 the platitude of unbalanced democracy intensified 
 by the platitude of the spirit of commerce. Every 
 thing on an immense scale everything illustrated 
 by millions of examples. My brother-in-law is 
 always busy ; he has appointments, inspections, 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 275 
 
 interviews, disputes. The people, it appears, are 
 incredibly sharp in conversation, in argument ; they 
 wait for you in silence at the corner of the road, and 
 then they suddenly discharge their revolver. If you 
 fall, they empty your pockets ; the only chance is to 
 shoot them first. With that, no amenities, no pre 
 liminaries, no manners, no care for the appearance. 
 I wander about while my brother is occupied ; I 
 lounge along the streets ; I stop at the corners ; 
 I look into the shops ; jc regarde passzr les femmes. 
 It s an easy country to see ; one sees everything there 
 is ; the civilization is skin deep ; you don t have to 
 dig. This positive, practical, pushing bourgeoisie is 
 always about its business ; it lives in the street, in 
 the hotel, in the train ; one is always in a crowd 
 there are seventy-five people in the tramway. They 
 sit in your lap ; they stand on your toes ; when they 
 wish to pass, they simply push you. Everything in 
 silence ; they know that silence is golden, and they 
 have the worship of gold. When the conductor wishes 
 your fare, he gives you a poke, very serious, without 
 a word. As for the types but there is only one 
 they are all variations of the same the commis- 
 voyageur minus the gayety. The women are often 
 pretty; you meet the young ones in the streets, in 
 the trains, in search of a husband. They look at you 
 frankly, coldly, judicially, to see if you will serve ; but 
 they don t want what you might think (du moins on 
 me r assure); they only want the husband. A French 
 man may mistake ; he needs to be sure he is right, 
 
276 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 and I always make sure. They begin at fifteen ; the 
 mother sends them out; it lasts all clay (with an 
 interval for dinner at a pastry-cook s) ; sometimes it 
 goes on for ten years. . If they have n t found the 
 husband then, they give it up ; they make place for 
 the cadettes, as the number of women is enormous. 
 No salons, no society, no conversation ; people don t 
 receive at home ; the young girls have to look for the 
 husband where they can. It is no disgrace not to 
 find him several have never done so. They con 
 tinue to go about unmarried from the force of 
 habit, from the love of movement, without hopes, 
 without regrets no imagination, no sensibility, no 
 desire for the convent. We have made several journeys, 
 few of less than three hundred miles. Enormous 
 trains, enormous ivagons, with beds and lavatories, 
 and negroes who brush you with a big broom, as 
 if they were grooming a horse. A bounding move 
 ment, a roaring noise, a crowd of people AV!IO look 
 horribly tired, a boy who passes up and down throw 
 ing pamphlets and sweetmeats into your lap that 
 is an American journey. There are windows in the 
 wagons enormous, like everything else ; but there 
 is nothing to see. The country is a void no feat 
 ures, no objects, no details, nothing to show you that 
 you are in one place more than another. Aussi, you 
 are not in one place ; you are everywhere, anywhere ; 
 the train goes a hundred miles an hour. The cities 
 are all the same ; little houses ten feet high, or else 
 big ones two hundred; tramways, telegraph-poles, 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 277 
 
 enormous signs, holes in the pavement, oceans of 
 mud, commis-voyageurs, young ladies looking for the 
 husband. On the other hand, no beggars and no 
 cocottcs none, at least, that you see. A colossal 
 mediocrity, except (my brother-in-law tells me) in 
 the machinery, which is magnificent. Naturally, no 
 architecture (they make houses of wood and of iron), 
 no art, no literature, no theatre. I have opened some 
 of the books ; mais Us ne se laissent pas lire. No 
 form, no matter, no style, no general ideas; they 
 seem to be written for children and young ladies. 
 The most successful (those that they praise most) are 
 the facetious ; they sell in thousands of editions. I 
 have looked into some of the most vantes; but you 
 need to be forewarned, to know that they are amus 
 ing ; cles plaisanteries de croquemort. They have a 
 novelist with pretensions to literature, who writes 
 about the chase for the husband and the adventures 
 of the rich Americans in our corrupt old Europe, 
 where their primeval candor puts the Europeans to 
 shame. C est procurement 6crit ; but it s terribly pale. 
 What is n t pale is the newspapers enormous, like 
 everything else (fifty columns of advertisements), and 
 full of the commerages of a continent. And such a 
 tone, grand Dieu ! The amenities, the personalities, 
 the recriminations, are like so many coups de revolver. 
 Headings six inches tall; correspondences from places 
 One never heard of; telegrams from Europe about 
 ;Sarah Bernhardt ; little paragraphs about nothing at 
 all; the menu of the neighbor s dinner; articles on 
 
278 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 the European situation cl pouffer de rire ; all the 
 tripotage of local politics. The reportage is incredi 
 ble ; I am chased up and down by the interviewers. 
 The matrimonial infelicities of M. and Madame X. 
 (they give the name), tout cm long, with every detail 
 not in six lines, discreetly veiled, with an art of 
 insinuation, as with us ; but with all the facts (or the 
 fictions), the letters, the dates, the places, the hours. 
 I open a paper at hazard, and I find cm beau milieu, 
 a propos of nothing, the announcement " Miss 
 Susan Green has the longest nose in Western New 
 York." Miss Susan Green (Je me rcnseigne) is a 
 celebrated authoress ; and the Americans have the 
 reputation of spoiling their women. They spoil them 
 a coups de poing. We have seen few interiors (no one 
 speaks French) ; but if the newspapers give an idea 
 of the domestic mceurs, the mceurs must be curious. 
 The passport is abolished, but they have printed my 
 signalement in these sheets, perhaps for the young 
 ladies who look for the husband. We went one night 
 to the theatre ; the piece was French (they are the 
 only ones), but the acting was American too 
 American ; we came out in the middle. The want 
 of taste is incredible. An Englishman whom I met 
 tells me that even the language corrupts itself from 
 day to day; an Englishman ceases to understand. 
 It encourages me to find that I am not the only one. 
 There are things every day that one can t describe. 
 Such is Washington, where we arrived this morning, 
 coming from Philadelphia. My brother-in-law wishes 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 279 
 
 to see the Bureau of Patents, and on our arrival he 
 went to look at his machines, while I walked about 
 the streets and visited the Capitol! The human 
 machine is what interests me most. I don t even 
 care for the political for that s what they call their 
 government here " the machine." It operates very 
 roughly, and some day, evidently, it will explode. 
 It is true that you would never suspect that they 
 have a government ; this is the principal seat, but, 
 save for three or four big buildings, most of them 
 affreux, it looks like a settlement of negroes. No 
 movement, no officials, no authority, no embodiment 
 of the State. Enormous streets, comme toujours, lined 
 with little red houses where nothing ever passes but 
 the tramway. The Capitol a vast structure, false 
 classic, white marble, iron and stucco, which has 
 assez grand air must be seen to be appreciated. 
 The goddess of liberty on the top, dressed in a bear s 
 skin; their liberty over here is the liberty of bears. 
 You go into the Capitol as you would into a railway 
 station ; you walk about as you would in the Palais 
 Eoyal. No functionaries, no door-keepers, no officers, 
 no uniforms, no badges, no restrictions, no authority 
 nothing but a crowd of shabby people . circulating 
 in a labyrinth of spittoons. We are too much gov 
 erned perhaps in France ; but at least we have a 
 certain incarnation of the national conscience, of the 
 national dignity. The dignity is absent here, and I 
 am told that the conscience is an abyss. " L &at c est 
 moi" even I like that better than the spittoons. 
 
280 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 These implements are architectural, monumental ; 
 they are the only monuments. En somme, the country 
 is interesting, now that we too have the Bepublic ; it 
 is the biggest illustration, the biggest warning. It is 
 the last word of democracy, and that word is flat 
 ness. It is very big, very rich, and perfectly ugly. 
 A Frenchman could n t live here ; for life with us, 
 after all, at the worst is a sort of appreciation. Here, 
 there is nothing to appreciate. As for the people, 
 they are the English minus the conventions. You 
 can fancy what remains. The women, poiirtant, are 
 sometimes rather well turned. There was one at 
 Philadelphia I made her acquaintance by accident 
 whom it is probable I shall see again. She is not 
 looking for the husband; she has already got one. 
 It was at the hotel ; I think the husband does n t 
 matter. A Frenchman, as I have said, may mistake, 
 and lie needs to be sure he is right. Aussi, I always 
 make sure ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 FROM MARCELLUS COCKEREL, IN WASHINGTON, TO MRS. 
 COOLER, NE E COCKEREL, AT OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. 
 
 October 25. 
 
 I OUGHT to have written to you long before this, 
 for I have had your last excellent letter for four 
 months in my hands. The first half of that time I 
 was still in Europe ; the last I have spent on my 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 281 
 
 native soil. I think, therefore, my silence is owing 
 to the fact that over there I was too miserable to 
 write, and that here I have been too happy. I got 
 back the 1st of September you will have seen it 
 in the papers. Delightful country, where one sees 
 everything in the papers the big, familiar, vulgar, 
 good-natured, delightful papers, none of which has 
 any reputation to keep up for anything but getting 
 the news ! I really think that has had as much to do 
 as anything else with my satisfaction at getting home 
 the difference in what they call the " tone of the 
 press." In Europe it s too dreary the sapience, 
 the solemnity, the false respectability, the verbosity, 
 the long disquisitions on superannuated subjects. 
 Here the newspapers are like the railroad trains, 
 which carry everything that comes to the station, 
 and have only the religion of punctuality. As a 
 woman, however, you probably detest them ; you 
 think they are (the great word) vulgar. I admitted 
 it just now, and I am very happy to have an early 
 opportunity to announce to you that that idea has 
 quite ceased to have any terrors for me. There are 
 some conceptions to which the female mind can never 
 rise. Vulgarity is a stupid, superficial, question- 
 begging accusation, which has become to-day the 
 easiest refuge of mediocrity. Better than anything 
 else, it saves people the trouble of thinking, and any 
 thing which does that succeeds. You must know 
 that in these last three years in Europe I have become 
 terribly vulgar myself ; that s one service my travels 
 
282 THE POINT OF VIE W. 
 
 have rendered me. By three years in Europe I mean 
 three years in foreign parts altogether, for I spent 
 several months of that time in Japan, India, and the 
 rest of the East. Do you remember when you bade 
 me good-by in San Erancisco, the night before I 
 embarked for Yokohama ? You foretold that I should 
 take such a fancy to foreign life that America would 
 never see me more, and that if you should wish to see 
 me (an event you were good enough to regard as pos 
 sible), you would have to make a rendezvous in Paris 
 or in Eome. I think we made one (which you never 
 kept), but I shall never make another for those cities. 
 It was in Paris, however, that I got your letter; I 
 remember the moment as well as if it were (to my 
 honor) much more recent. You must know that, 
 among many places I dislike, Paris carries the palm. 
 I am bored to death there ; it s the home of every 
 humbug. The life is full of that false comfort which 
 is worse than discomfort, and the small, fat, irritable 
 people give me the shivers. I had been making these 
 reflections even more devoutly than usual one very 
 tiresome evening toward the beginning of last summer, 
 when, as I re-entered my hotel at ten o clock, the little 
 reptile of a portress handed me your gracious lines. 
 I was in a villanous humor. I had been bavin** an 
 
 O 
 
 over-dressed dinner in a stuffy restaurant, and had 
 gone from there to a suffocating theatre, where, by 
 way of amusement, I saw a play in which blood and 
 lies were the least of the horrors. The theatres over 
 there are insupportable ; the atmosphere is pestilen- 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 283 
 
 tial. People sit with their elbows in your sides; 
 they squeeze past you every half-hour. It was one 
 of my bad moments ; I have a great many in Europe. 
 The conventional, perfunctory play, all in falsetto, 
 which I seemed to have seen a thousand times ; the 
 horrible faces of the people ; the pushing, bullying 
 ouvreuse, with her false politeness and her real 
 rapacity, drove me out of the place at the end of 
 an hour ; and, as it was too early to go home, I sat 
 down before a cafe on the Boulevard, where they 
 served me a glass of sour, watery beer. There on the 
 Boulevard, in the summer night, life itself was even 
 uglier than the play, and it wouldn t do for me to 
 tell you what I saw. Besides, I was sick of the 
 Boulevard, with its eternal grimace and the deadly 
 sameness of the article de Paris, which pretends to 
 be so various the shop- windows a wilderness of 
 rubbish and the passers-by a procession of manikins. 
 Suddenly it came over me that I was supposed to be 
 amusing myself my face was a yard long and 
 that you probably at that moment were saying to 
 your husband : " He stays away so long ! What a 
 good time he must be having ! " The idea was the 
 first thing that had made me smile for a month ; I 
 got up and walked home, reflecting, as I went, that 
 I was " seeing Europe," and that, after all, one must 
 see Europe. It was because I had been convinced of 
 this that I came out, and it is because the operation 
 has been brought to a close that I have been so 
 happy for the last eight weeks. I was very consci- 
 
284 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 entious about it, and, though your letter that night 
 made me abominably homesick, I held out to the 
 end, knowing it to be once for all. I sha n t trouble 
 Europe again ; I shall see America for the rest of my 
 days. My long delay has had the advantage that 
 now, at least, 1 can give you my impressions I 
 don t mean of Europe; impressions of Europe are 
 easy to get but of this country, as it strikes the 
 re-instated exile. Very likely you 11 think them 
 queer ; but keep my letter, and. twenty years hence 
 they will be quite commonplace. They won t even 
 be vulgar. It was very deliberate, my going round 
 the world. I knew that one ought to see for one s 
 self, and that I should have eternity, so to speak, to 
 rest. I travelled energetically ; I went everywhere 
 and saw everything; took as many letters as possible, 
 and made as many acquaintances. In short, I held 
 my nose to the grindstone. The upshot of it all is 
 that I have got rid of a superstition. We have so 
 many, that one the less perhaps the biggest of all 
 makes a real difference in one s comfort. The 
 superstition in question of course you have it is 
 that there is no salvation but through Europe. Our 
 salvation is here, if we have eyes to see it, and the 
 salvation of Europe into the bargain ; that is, if 
 Europe is to be saved, which I rather doubt. Of 
 course, you 11 call me a bird o freedom, a braggart, 
 a waver of the stars and stripes ; but I m in the 
 delightful position of not minding in the least what 
 any one calls me. I have n t a mission ; I don t want 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 285 
 
 to preach ; I have simply arrived at a state of mind ; 
 I have got Europe off my back. You have no idea 
 how it simplifies things, and how jolly it makes me 
 feel. Now I can live ; now I can talk. If we wretched 
 Americans could only say once for all, " Oh, Europe 
 be hanged ! " we should attend much better to our 
 proper business. We have simply to live our life, and 
 the rest will look after itself. You will probably in 
 quire what it is that I like better over here, and I will 
 answer that it s simply life. Disagreeables for dis 
 agreeables, I prefer our own. The way I have been 
 bored and bullied in foreign parts, and the way I have 
 had to say I found it pleasant ! For a good while this 
 appeared to be a sort of congenital obligation, but one 
 fine day it occurred to me that there was no obliga 
 tion at all, and that it would ease me immensely to 
 admit to myself that (for me, at least) all those things 
 had no importance. I mean the things they rub into 
 you in Europe ; the tiresome international topics, the 
 petty politics, the stupid social customs, the baby- 
 house scenery. The vastness and freshness of this 
 American world, the great scale and great pace of 
 our development, the good sense and good nature of 
 the people, console me for there being no cathedrals 
 and no Titians. I hear nothing about Prince Bis 
 marck and Gambetta, about the Emperor William 
 and the Czar of Eussia, about Lord Beaconsfield and 
 the Prince of Wales. I used to get so tired of their 
 Mumbo-Jumbo of a Bismarck, of his secrets and sur 
 prises, his mysterious intentions and oracular words. 
 
286 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 They revile us for our party politics ; but what are 
 all the European jealousies and rivalries, their arma 
 ments and their wars, their rapacities and their mutual 
 lies, but the intensity of the spirit of party ? what 
 question, what interest, what idea, what need of man 
 kind, is involved in any of these things ? Their big, 
 pompous armies, drawn up in great silly rows, their 
 gold lace, their salaams, their hierarchies, seem a 
 pastime for children ; there s a sense of humor and 
 of reality over here that laughs at all that. Yes, we 
 are nearer the reality we are nearer what they will 
 all have to come to. The questions of the future are 
 social questions, which the Bismarcks and Beacons- 
 fields are very much afraid to see settled ; and the 
 sight of a row of supercilious potentates holding their 
 peoples like their personal property, and bristling all 
 over, to make a mutual impression, with feathers and 
 sabres, strikes us as a mixture of the grotesque and 
 the abominable. What do we care for the mutual 
 impressions of potentates who amuse themselves 
 with sitting on people ? Those things are their own 
 affair, and they ought to be shut up in a dark room 
 to have it out together. Once one feels, over here, 
 that the great questions of the future are social ques 
 tions, that a mighty tide is sweeping the world to 
 democracy, and that this country is the biggest stage 
 on which the drama can be enacted, the fashionable 
 European topics seem petty and parochial. They 
 talk about things that we have settled ages ago, and 
 the solemnity with which they propound to you their 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 287 
 
 little domestic embarrassments makes a heavy draft 
 on one s good nature. In England they were talking 
 about the Hares and Eabbits Bill, about the exten 
 sion of the County Franchise, about the Dissenters 
 Burials, about the Deceased Wife s Sister, about the 
 abolition of the House of Lords, about heaven knows 
 what ridiculous little measure for the propping-up 
 of their ridiculous little country. And they call us 
 provincial ! It is hard to sit and look respectable 
 while people discuss the utility of the House of Lords 
 and the beauty of a State Church, and it s only in a 
 dowdy, musty civilization that you 11 find them doing 
 such things. The lightness and clearness of the 
 social air, that s the great relief in these parts. 
 The gentility of bishops, the propriety of parsons, 
 even the impressiveness of a restored cathedral, give 
 less of a charm to life than that. I used to be furi 
 ous with the bishops and parsons, with the hum- 
 buggery of the whole affair, which every one was 
 conscious of, but which people agreed not to expose, 
 oecause they would be compromised all round. The 
 convenience of life over here, the quick and simple 
 arrangements, the absence of the spirit of routine, are 
 a blessed change from the stupid stiffness with which 
 I struggled for two long years. There were people 
 with swords and cockades who used to order me 
 about; for the simplest operation of life I had to 
 kootoo to some bloated official. When it was a ques 
 tion of my doing a little differently from others, the 
 bloated official gasped as if I had given him a blow 
 
288 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 on the stomach ; he needed to take a week to think 
 of it. On the other hand, it s impossible to take an 
 American by surprise ; he is ashamed to confess that 
 he has not the wit to do a thing that another man 
 has had the wit to think of. Besides being as good 
 as his neighbor, he must therefore be as clever, 
 which is an affliction only to people who are afraid 
 he may be cleverer. If this general efficiency and 
 spontaneity of the people the union of the sense 
 of freedom with the love of knowledge isn t the 
 very essence of a high civilization, I don t know what 
 a high civilization is. I felt this greater ease on my 
 first railroad journey, felt the blessing of sitting in 
 a train where I could move about, where I could 
 stretch my legs and come and go, where I had a seat 
 and a window to myself, where there were chairs and 
 tables and food and drink. The villanous little 
 boxes on the European trains, in which you are 
 stuck down in a corner, with doubled-up knees, oppo 
 site to a row of people often most offensive types 
 who stare at you for ten hours on end these 
 were part of my two years ordeal The large, free 
 way of doing things here is everywhere a pleasure. 
 In London, at my hotel, they used to come to me on 
 Saturday to make me order my Sunday s dinner, and 
 when I asked for a sheet of paper, they put it into 
 the bill. The meagreness, the stinginess, the per 
 petual expectation of a sixpence, used to exasperate 
 me. Of course, I saw a great many people who were 
 pleasant ; but as I am writing to you, and not to one 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 289 
 
 of them, I may say that they were dreadfully apt to 
 be dull. The imagination among the people I see 
 here is more flexible ; and then they have the advan 
 tage of a larger horizon. It s not bounded on the 
 north by the British aristocracy, and on the south by 
 the scrutin de liste. (I mix up the countries a little, 
 but they are not worth the keeping apart.) The 
 absence of little conventional measurements, of little 
 cut-and-dried judgments, is an immense refreshment. 
 We are more analytic, more discriminating, more 
 familiar with realities. As for manners, there are 
 bad manners everywhere, but an aristocracy is bad 
 manners organized. (I don t mean that they may 
 not be polite among themselves, but they are rude to 
 every one else.) The sight of all these growing 
 millions simply minding their business, is impres 
 sive to me, more so than all the gilt buttons and 
 padded chests of the Old World ; and there is a cer 
 tain powerful type of " practical " American (you 11 
 find him chiefly in the West), who does n t brag as I 
 do (I m not practical), but who quietly feels that he 
 has the Future in his vitals, a type that strikes me 
 more than any I met in your favorite countries. Of 
 course you 11 come back to the cathedrals and Titians, 
 but there s a thought that helps one to do without 
 them, the thought that though there s an immense 
 deal of plainness, there s little misery, little squalor, 
 little degradation. There is no regular wife-beating 
 class, and there are none of the stultified peasants of 
 whom it takes so many to make a European noble. 
 
 13 
 
290 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 The people here are more conscious of things ; they 
 invent, they act, they answer for themselves ; they are 
 not (I speak of social matters) tied up by authority 
 and precedent. We shall have all the Titians by 
 and by, and we shall move over a few cathedrals. 
 You had better stay here if you want to have the 
 best. Of course, I am a roaring Yankee ; but you 11 
 call me that if I say the least, so I may as well take 
 my ease and say the most. Washington s a most 
 entertaining place ; and here at least, at the seat of 
 government, one is n t overgoverned. In fact, there s 
 no government at all to speak of; it seems too good 
 to be true. The first day I was here I went to the 
 Capitol, and it took me ever so long to figure to 
 myself that I had as good a right there as any one 
 else, that the whole magnificent pile (it is magnifi 
 cent by the way) was in fact my own. In Europe 
 one does n t rise to such conceptions, and my spirit 
 had been broken in Europe. The doors were gaping 
 wide I walked all about ; there were no door-keep 
 ers, no officers, nor flunkeys, not even a policeman 
 to be seen. It seemed strange not to see a uniform, 
 if only as a patch of color. But this is n t government 
 by livery. The absence of these things is odd at 
 first ; you seem to miss something, to fancy the 
 machine has stopped. It has n t, though ; it only 
 works without fire and smoke. At the end of three 
 days, this simple negative impression the fact is 
 that there are no soldiers nor spies, nothing but 
 plain black coats begins to affect the imagination, 
 
THE POINT OF VIEW. 291 
 
 becomes vivid, majestic, symbolic. It ends by being 
 more impressive than the biggest review I saw in 
 Germany. Of course, I in a roaring Yankee ; but 
 one has to take a big brush to copy a big model. 
 The future is here, of course ; but it is n t only that 
 the present is here as well. You will complain 
 that I don t give you any personal news ; but I am 
 more modest for myself than for my country. I 
 spent a month in New York, and while I was there 
 I saw a good deal of a rather interesting girl who 
 came over with me in the steamer, and whom for a 
 day or two I thought I should like to marry. But I 
 should n t. She has been spoiled by Europe ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 FKOM MISS AURORA CHURCH, IN NEW YORK, TO MISS 
 WHITESIDE, IN PARIS. 
 
 January 9. 
 
 I TOLD you (after we landed) about my agreement 
 with mamma that I was to have my liberty for three 
 months, and if at the end of this time I should n t 
 have made a good use of it, I was to give it back to 
 her. Well, the time is up to-day, and I am very 
 much afraid I haven t made a good use of it. In 
 fact, I have n t made any use of it at all I have n t 
 got married, for that is what mamma meant by our 
 little bargain. She has been trying to marry me in 
 Europe, for years, without a dot, and as she has never 
 
292 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 (to the best of my knowledge) even come near it, she 
 thought at last that, if she were to leave it to me, 
 I might do better. I couldn t certainly do worse. 
 Well, my dear, I have done very badly that is, I 
 have n t done at all. I have n t even tried. I had an 
 idea that this affair came of itself over here ; but it 
 has n t come to me. I won t say I am disappointed, 
 for I have n t, on the whole, seen any one I should like 
 to marry. When you marry people over here, they 
 expect you to love them, and I have n t seen any one 
 I should like to love. I don t know what the reason 
 is, but they are none of them what I have thought 
 of. It may be that I have thought of the impossible ; 
 and yet I have seen people in Europe whom I should 
 have liked to marry. It is true, they were almost 
 always married to some one else. What I am disap 
 pointed in is simply having to give back my liberty. 
 I don t wish particularly to be married ; and I do wish 
 to do as I like as I have been doing for the last 
 month. All the same, I am sorry for poor mamma, 
 as nothing has happened that she wished to happen. 
 To begin with, we are not appreciated, not even by 
 the Eucks, who have disappeared, in the strange way 
 in which people over here seem to vanish from the 
 world. We have made no sensation ; my new dresses 
 count for nothing (they all have better ones) ; our 
 philological and historical studies don t show. We 
 have been told we might do better in Boston ; but, on 
 the other hand, mamma hears that in Boston the 
 people only marry their cousins. Then mamma is 
 
THE POltfT OF VIEW. 293 
 
 out of sorts because the country is exceedingly dear 
 and we have spent all our money. Moreover, I have 
 neither eloped, nor been insulted, nor been talked 
 about, nor so far as I know deteriorated in 
 manners or character; so that mamma is wrong in all 
 her previsions. I think she would have rather liked 
 me to be insulted. But I have been insulted as little 
 as I have been adored. They don t adore you over 
 here ; they only make you think they are going to. 
 Do you remember the two gentlemen who were on 
 the ship, and who, after we arrived here, came to see 
 me a tour de rdle? At first I never dreamed they 
 were making love to me, though mamma was sure it 
 must be that; then, as it went on a good while, I 
 thought perhaps it was that ; and I ended by seeing 
 that it wasn t anything ! It was simply conversa 
 tion; they are very fond of conversation over here. 
 Mr. Leverett and Mr. Cockerel disappeared one fine 
 day, without the smallest pretension to having broken 
 my heart, I am sure, though it only depended on me 
 to think they had ! All the gentlemen are like that ; 
 you can t tell what they mean; everything is very 
 confused ; society appears to consist of a sort of 
 innocent jilting. I think, on the whole, I am a little 
 disappointed I don t mean about one s not marry 
 ing; I mean about the life generally. It seems so 
 different at first, that you expect it will be very excit 
 ing ; and then you find that, after all, when you have 
 walked out for a week or two by yourself and driven 
 out with a gentleman in a buggy, that s about all 
 
294 THE POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 there is of it, as they say here. Mamma is very angry 
 at not finding more to dislike ; she admitted yesterday 
 that, once one has got a little settled, the country 
 has not even the merit of being hateful. This has 
 evidently something to do with her suddenly propos 
 ing three days ago that we should go to the West. 
 Imagine my surprise at such an idea coming from 
 mamma ! The people in the pension who, as usual, 
 wish immensely to get rid of her have talked to 
 her about the West, and she has taken it up with a 
 kind of desperation. You see, we must do something ; 
 we can t simply remain here. We are rapidly being 
 ruined, and we are not so to speak getting 
 married. Perhaps it will be easier in the West; at 
 any rate, it will be cheaper, and the country will have 
 the advantage of being more hateful. It is a question 
 between that and returning to Europe, and for the 
 moment mamma is balancing. I say nothing : I am 
 really indifferent ; perhaps I shall marry a pioneer. 
 I am just thinking how I shall give back my liberty. 
 It really won t be possible; I haven t got it any 
 more; I have given it away to others. Mamma 
 may recover it, if she can, from them ! She comes in 
 at this moment to say that we must push farther- 
 she has decided for the West. Wonderful mamma! 
 It appears that my real chance is for a pioneer 
 they have sometimes millions. B^J^v^toF^s^ in 
 the West ! ff > or THT 
 
 THE END. I UNIVERSITY 
 
 or 
 
AN INITIAL PINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY