THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 THE AMBER GODS, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth, bevelled boards and gilt top. 
 Price, $1.50. 
 
 TICKNOK AND FIELDS, Publishers.
 
 A Z A R I A N 
 
 AN EPISODE. 
 
 HARRIET ELIZABETH PRESCOTT, 
 
 - 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE AMBER GODS," ETC 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 
 1864.
 
 ' Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
 
 HARRIET ELIZABETH PRESCOTT, 
 In tho Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,
 
 7? 
 A ZAR IAN 
 
 I. 
 
 LIFE, which slips us along like beads on a 
 leash, strung summer after summer on Ruth 
 Yetton's thread, yet none so bright as that 
 one where the Azarian had pictured his sun- 
 ny face and all his infinite variety of prank- 
 some ways. Ruth's mother had thrown her 
 up in despair, as good for nothing under the 
 sun, but her father always took her on his 
 knee at twilight, listened to her little idealities, 
 and dreamed the hour away with her. Yet 
 without the mother's constructive strength, 
 all Ruth's inherited visioning would have 
 availed her ill. 
 
 Perhaps it was owing to this scheming, but 
 reverizing brain of his, that one day her father 
 
 485603 
 
 ENGLISH
 
 6 AZARIAN. 
 
 sold his farm and moved with wife and child to 
 the city. And when, after a while, all things 
 went the reversed way with him there, the 
 schemes suddenly ran riot in fever, and he be- 
 came an old man in his prime. The mother, 
 with all the quiet current of years disturbed, 
 died then, of vexation perhaps. And Ruth 
 Yetton was left more than alone, with a dear 
 burden on her slender shoulders, and with no 
 other relative whose great lodestone of race 
 might draw her little magnet. 
 
 When the first bursts of grief had gathered 
 themselves darkly inward, to suffuse all the 
 days to come with silent rushes of gloom and 
 ^prrow, Ruth assumed her duties. In the first 
 place, she counted their money; then, select- 
 ing sufficient furniture for some tiny kitchen 
 or other, should she ever be able to hire two 
 rooms, and a few articles of a different class, 
 she hastened to dispose of the remainder, 
 quickly, lest, delaying, she would never have
 
 AZARIAN. 7 
 
 the heart to sell them at all, these things 
 round which such memories clung. A lofty 
 chest of drawers with burnished brasses, the 
 old clock whose ponderous stroke had marked 
 off all those dead and gone days, her father's 
 chair, and one or two books of rare prints, 
 were not to be parted with. All done, the 
 accumulation in her purse seemed a great deal 
 to little Ruth ; yet she knew it could not last 
 forever, and she daily sought work. Gradu- 
 ally, as she paid- the weekly board or bought 
 some little pleasure for the sad and sweet 
 old face in the corner, the purse began to 
 drop an ever lighter weight in her pocket. 
 One day, at last, she took the two books and 
 went to a place at whose windows she had 
 often stood to watch the storied wealth. 
 
 "No," said the perspn she addressed. "You 
 will probably receive a good price for this on 
 Cornhill. "We do not deal in such articles." 
 But as he idly turned it over, two little papers
 
 8 AZARIAN. 
 
 slipped from between the leaves and fluttered 
 to the floor. He gathered them. They were 
 the old amusements of Euth's careless leisure. 
 One, the likeness of a bunch of gentians just 
 plucked from the swampy mould, blue as 
 heaven, their vapory tissue as if a breath 
 dissolved it so tenderly curled and fringed 
 like some radiate cloud, fragile, fresh, a crea- 
 tion of the earth's fairest finest effluence, 
 dreams of innocence and morning still half 
 veiled in their ineffable azure. The other, 
 only a single piece of the wandering dog-tooth, 
 with its sudden flamy blossom starting up 
 from the languid stem like a serpent's head, 
 full of fanged expression, and with its mot- 
 tled leaf, so dewy, so dark, so cool, that it 
 seemed to hold in itself the reflection of 
 green-gloomed transparent streams running 
 over pebbly bottoms. 
 
 The interlocutor examined them for a few 
 moments steadily. " Your name, may I ask ? "
 
 AZARIAN. 9 
 
 " Ruth Yetton." 
 
 " Has it ever occurred to you, Miss Yetton, 
 to offer these sketches for sale ? " 
 
 " Those ! " 
 
 " I see not." 
 
 " Are they worth anything, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes, decidedly. What price will you put 
 upon them ? " 
 
 "Is a dollar half a dollar too much?" 
 
 "I will mark them three. They might 
 bring five. You can call again in a few days, 
 Miss Yetton, and if they are gone we will 
 hand you the proceeds, deducting a small 
 commission. You would find ready sale, I 
 believe, for as many as you could furnish." 
 
 What visions danced over Miss Yetton's 
 pale little face as she remembered the over- 
 flowing desk in her .trunk. Hunger and want 
 and fear annihilated. Soup and sirloin every 
 day for the uncomplaining old man at home, 
 new clothes for him, fragrantest tobacco, 
 i*
 
 10 AZARIAN. 
 
 trivial luxuries, now and then a ride outside 
 the suburbs, now and then an evening at the 
 play, comfort and rest and safety and pleasure 
 all the days and nights of his mortal life. 
 That moment paid for so much. Wealth rose 
 round her like an exhalation ; another possi- 
 bility flashed upon her and faded, she was 
 half-way to Italy, tossing on the blue sea, 
 hastening to pictures and shrines and eternal 
 summer. 
 
 The lounger over Kosa Bonheur's portfolio 
 turned and fastened his glance upon her ; she 
 seemed to feel it, though she was not looking, 
 for it entered her as a sunbeam parts the 
 petals of a flower. 
 
 The shopman smiled at her roseate counte- 
 nance. 
 
 " Very well," said he. " I see that we have 
 struck a vein ! " and she tripped away. 
 
 So three months' time saw many things 
 altered. Little gold-pieces clinked, and pre-
 
 AZARIAN. 11 
 
 cious paper rustled, in Miss Yetton's wallet, 
 and she had left the new devotion of land- 
 lady and fellow-lodgers running to waste, hav- 
 ing found two rooms, in an airier place, that 
 pleased her fancy. They were part of a house 
 that stood on the corner of a large, empty 
 square, seldom reached by the hum of busi- 
 ness ; and as the house was old, and had none 
 of the modern alleviations of life, they were 
 obtained very reasonably. On the second 
 floor, with one large window for the sunshine 
 and one for the square, with a little carpet 
 pieced out by the cheap Arab mat whose 
 vivid elm-leaf hue seemed like perpetual fair 
 weather in the room, with the great chest of 
 drawers reaching in ancestral splendor almost 
 to the ceiling, with the home sound of the 
 clock, sentinel in the recess, the little work- 
 table, one window full of flowers in pots and 
 boxes and baskets, a portrait of some sad- 
 eyed lady which she had found exposed -in an
 
 12 AZARIAN. 
 
 auction-room, and about which she loved to 
 weave pathetic romances, two yellow old en- 
 gravings from Angelica Kaufmann, where fig- 
 ured Fancy with the wings springing from her 
 filleted temples ; a lounge of her own fashion- 
 ing, piled with purple cushions, and which 
 became a very comfortable bed at night ; with 
 a glowing fire in the grate, and a little cat 
 purring before it, Miss Yetton could hardly 
 devise the imagination of further comfort. 
 Their dinners they found in any restaurant, 
 their breakfasts were a pleasure to contrive. 
 They took long trips on the horse-cars, which 
 were the old father's delight ; long rides then 
 into the wintry country, got out at any pros- 
 pect of field or wood, and returned laden with 
 trailers of gray moss, with clusters of scarlet 
 hips, with withered ferns, blue juniper-ber- 
 ries, dried cones, bunches of beautiful brown- 
 bearded grasses, which, disposed here and 
 there, tasselled over the dark wood of the
 
 AZARIAN. 13 
 
 picture-frames, or, set in tapering glasses, kept 
 her sitting-room always sweetly ornamented, 
 till in summer she could make it a very bower 
 with all manner of flaunting herb or shrink- 
 ing bud, with great boughs of the snowy 
 medlar, and with long wreaths of the spiced 
 sweet-brier. Whenever, too, Miss Yetton had 
 a cent that she could religiously spare, * 
 for besides her little savings she had her little 
 charities, she stole with it between the lofty 
 ranks of some greenhouse and won the gar- 
 dener's heart, and brought back threefold its 
 worth to lay massed in gorgeous bloom about 
 the room; while her ever passive companion 
 sat, lost in a bewildered enchantment, among 
 all the glowing greenery, the springing stems 
 and bending buds whose life leaped up so 
 riotously to break in blossom, sat abandoned 
 to the soft damp warmth of atmosphere that 
 was like some other planet's, sat there in 
 the emeraldine lustre that, filtering through
 
 H AZARIAN. 
 
 the vine-leaved roof, seemed to have dripped 
 a shining sediment in great bunches of trans- 
 lucent grapes, thrilled through all his sense, 
 and growing ever rapt and paler, till the child 
 hurried him away lest his soul should exhale 
 entirely in the strange region of heavily- 
 freighted air, and be lost among all its other 
 ecstatic odors. Sometimes moreover, of an 
 afternoon, she slipped with the quiet old man 
 into an orchestra-concert ; and afterwards the 
 dim dreamwork and sweet thoughts that had 
 been invoked by the murmuring music shaped 
 themselves to tint and color and design as 
 she walked round the Common in the sunset, 
 or went out and leaned a moment over the 
 arches of the bridges, and marked how the 
 green light fell like damp sunshine among 
 their shadows. Few of all those who an their 
 rambles were wont with interest t<5 encounter 
 this little woman supporting the spiritual, frail 
 form beside her, associated the two in any
 
 AZARIAN. 15 
 
 measure with the beautiful creations of pencil 
 and paper that at that very moment perhaps 
 they treasured in their hand. It is true that 
 often in the after-dark hours she ached to 
 have her father's old intelligence back among 
 these pleasures, to feel once more the old 
 reliance on his omnipotence,- to have her moth- 
 er sharing these long-desired comforts ; but 
 when the feverish pain was by, with her con- 
 stant work, with her pleasant fancies, with 
 her brightening hopes and joyful attainment, 
 Miss Y.etton was as happy a little maid as a 
 city roof can cover. 
 
 Without premeditation or affectation or 
 search, Miss Yetton had found an art. An 
 art in which she stood almost alone. As she 
 began to give herself rules, one that she found 
 absolute was to work from nothing but the 
 life. During the winter, and while yet her 
 means were very small, the opposite course 
 had been needful ; but even then some little
 
 16 AZARIAN. 
 
 card where a handful of brown stems and 
 ruddy berries from the snowy roadside seemed 
 to have been thrown, or where she had caught 
 just the topmost tips of the bare tree in the 
 square, lined like any evanescent sea-moss, 
 delicate as the threads of smoke that wander 
 upward, faintly tinged in rosy purple and 
 etched upon a calm deep sky with most ex- 
 quisite and intricate entanglement of swinging 
 spray and swelling bud, even then things like 
 these commanded^ twice the price of any copy 
 of her past sketches. Something of this was 
 due to growth perhaps. Already she felt that 
 she handled her pencil with a swifter decision, 
 and there was courage in her color. But 
 when spring came she revelled. She took 
 jaunts deeper and deeper among the outlying 
 regions. One day, luncheon in pocket, she 
 went pulling apart old fallen twigs and bits 
 of stone on the edge of a chasm where dark 
 and slumbrous * waters forever mantled, and
 
 AZARIAN. 17 
 
 returning the forty miles in the afternoon train 
 brought home with her bountiful bunches, root 
 and blood-red leaf, downy bud and flaky flower 
 of the purple hepatica, the hepatica, whose 
 pristine element, floating out of heaven and 
 sinking into the sod with every star-sown fall 
 of snow, answers the first touch of wooing 
 sunshine, assoiled of dazzle, enriched with 
 some tincture of the mould's own strain, and 
 borrowing from the crumbling granites that 
 companion it all winter an atom of fibre, a 
 moment of permanence : breezy bits of gold 
 and purple at last, cuddled in among old 
 gnarls and roots, and calling the wild March 
 sponsor. These before her, she wrought pa- 
 tiently on ivory with all delicate veinery and 
 tender tint, painting in a glossy jet of back- 
 ground, till, rivalling the Florentine, the dainty 
 mosaic was ready for the cunning goldsmith 
 who should shape it to the pin that gathers 
 the laces deep in any lady's bosom. Then,
 
 18 AZARIAN. 
 
 when the brush had extracted their last es- 
 sence, some messenger of the year, some little 
 stir in her pulse, warned her of hurrying 
 May-flowers, and she sped down to the Plym- 
 outh woods, within sound of their rustling 
 sea-shore, to pull up clustered wet trailing 
 masses, flushed in warmest wealthiest pink 
 with the heartsomest flower that blows. And 
 there, in the milder weather, she took her 
 only familiar, that he might plunge his trem- 
 bling hands deep down among the flowers, or, 
 sitting on a mossy knoll, listen to the wild 
 song of the pines above. Sometimes too she 
 stood with him through long reveries in the 
 wide rhodora marshes, where some fleece of 
 burning mist seemed to be fallen and caught 
 and tangled in countless filaments upon the 
 bare twigs and sprays that lovingly detained 
 it. At other times she lingered over the 
 blushing wild-honeysuckle, and every tube 
 of fragrance poured strength and light into
 
 AZARIAN. 19 
 
 her spirit. Always in gathering her trophies 
 from among their natural surroundings she 
 felt half her picture painted. Near the city 
 there were fair gardens which she knew, and 
 which in return for her homage gave her the 
 sweet-pea, fluttering, balancing, tiptoe-fine, 
 and pansies for remembrance; while in the 
 farmers' orchards great broken boughs were 
 put at the service of the young girl with the 
 happy old man upon her arm. Then came a 
 book of tree-blossoms, those glad things that 
 are in such haste to crowd into light and air 
 before the leaves can get chance to burst their 
 shining scales, where the faint green vapor 
 of the elm, the callow cloud that floats 
 about the oak, the red flame of the maple, 
 the golden, dusty tassels of the willow, 
 brimmed with being, whose very perfume 
 seemed shaken about themselves on the paper, 
 hedged in with their wildness those caught 
 and captived beauties but half tamed with
 
 20 AZARIAN. 
 
 all the years, the fair fruit-flowers, ever a 
 sweeter surprise that their frail petals wreathe 
 such rugged boughs, the pear rivalling the 
 cornel, the cherry like a suspended snowstorm 
 that has caught life among the branches, the 
 apple veined finely as the blush on any cheek, 
 with its twisted stem where the aged lichens 
 have laid their shield, the peach, like some 
 splendid orchid, in its fantastic shape, with 
 lifted wings, yet clinging to the bough, and 
 full of a deep rich rosiness that already holds 
 the luscious juices and voluptuous savor of 
 the perfected growth, not without a hint of 
 the subtly sweet poison in its heart. Then 
 Miss Yetton busied herself over a set of book- 
 marks with a wild-flower for every day of the 
 year, half of April fille'd with violets, white 
 and blue, the Alpine pedate, and the bright 
 roadside freak of the golden-yellow, while for 
 love she slipped among them that other, an 
 atom of summer midnight, double, says some
 
 AZARIAN. 21 
 
 one, as a little rose, the only blue rose we 
 shall ever have; and for the days whereon 
 no blossom burst, she had a tip of tiny hem- 
 lock cones, the moss from an old stone, a 
 bunch of berries forsaken by the birds, some 
 silky seedling unstripped of the rude breezes. 
 In all these treasures there was no flaw; the 
 harebell shaking in the wind and tangled 
 among its grasses, the wild rose whose root 
 so few rains had washed that there had settled 
 a deep color in its cup, the cardinal with the 
 very glitter of the stream it loves meshed 
 like a silver mist behind its scarlet sheen, 
 those slipshod little anemones that cannot stop 
 to count their petals, but take one from their 
 neighbor or leave another behind them, all 
 the tiny stellate things wherein the constant 
 crystallic force of the ancient earth steals 
 into light, the radiant water-lily, these held 
 no dead pressed beauty, but the very spirit 
 and springing life of the flower. Upon them,
 
 22 AZARIAN. 
 
 too, she lavished fancy; among the sprays 
 little hands appeared to help the climbing 
 vine, here a humming-bird and a scarlet rock- 
 columbine seemed taking flight together, there 
 a wasp with the purple enamel of armor on 
 his wing tilted against some burly husband- 
 inan of a bee to seek the good graces of the 
 hooded nymph in an arethusa ; they were 
 little gems, and brought the price of gems. 
 At length, when summer ended, and her 
 tramps among pastures on fire with their burn- 
 ing huckleberry-bushes just begun there 
 came an order from across the seas for a book 
 of autumn leaves, accompanied by a check 
 for two hundred dollars, Miss Yetton thought 
 her fortune made. 
 
 She was sitting at work on this order, one 
 afternoon while her father slept, and with a 
 new friend beside her. This friend had not 
 long since made her acquaintance, and there 
 had sprung up between them one of those
 
 AZARIAN. 23 
 
 sudden intimacies which may happen to peo- 
 ple who have long desired and needed them, 
 and who are complementary each to the other. 
 
 " I am a poor little actress," said Charmian ; 
 " poor, I suppose, as you can be. I do not 
 have a great deal of money, but I do not 
 spend all I have. I lay up a trifle for the 
 rainy days, and I have squandered some on 
 certain water-colors. I do not mean to squan- 
 der any more, because now I shall have you, 
 water-colors and all, and if ever you find 
 yourself quite alone in the breathing world 
 you are to come and paint in my sitting-room, 
 or else I shall move, bag and baggage, and 
 con my parts in yours." 
 
 So it was arranged. Charmian was exactly 
 what she said, a poor little actress, yet a 
 very good one ; no star, but one who played 
 either Juliet or Lady Macbeth on occasion, 
 by the best light that was in her; at some 
 day, perhaps, a sudden inflorescence of charac-
 
 24 AZARIAN. 
 
 ter might take place, and she would dazzle 
 the world of footlights pale. Sho felt the pos- 
 sibility ever stirring within her, it made her 
 restive and bold ; but to-day she was a poor 
 little actress with a steady engagement. 
 
 Miss Yetton sat working in the black, lus- 
 trous berries, among the carbuncle splendors 
 of the tupelo branch. Charmian was furbish- 
 ing Kate Percy's bodice that it might do no 
 dishonor to Ophelia's petticoat, and as they 
 wrought, their tongues ran merrily. At length 
 Charmian folded her work and rose, and, 
 going, uttered the sentence that sealed little 
 Ruth Yetton's fate. 
 
 " I 'm not in the afterpiece to-night," said 
 she, "so I shall be out at nine, and I'm 
 going to bring Constant Azarian to see you." 
 
 " Constant Azarian ? " 
 
 " Yes. He says he used to know you, and 
 now your things are quite the rage, you see, 
 he 'd like to know you again. Patronage is
 
 A Z ART AN. 25 
 
 his cue. He made much of me at my d^but, 
 thinking I would shortly extinguish Rachel. 
 Rachel yet burns, and like a chiselled 
 flame ! I hardly met his expectations, but 
 we 've always been on good terms." 
 
 " Constant Azarian ! " 
 
 "Oh, so you remember him? That's bad, 
 or good, tell me which ! Really I don't 
 know whether to bring him here or not. He 
 is such an impostor, so perfectly charming 
 outside and inside, but there is no in- 
 side ; he is as shining and as hollow as a glass 
 bubble." 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 " I must n't bring him." 
 
 " Yes, do. I thought he could not be here 
 or he would have found us out. I used to 
 be fond of him one summer when we were 
 children. I should like to see him." 
 
 " What if he should ever lay hands on our 
 friendship, Ruth?"
 
 26 AZARIAN. 
 
 " He ? " said Ruth looking up with wonder- 
 ing eyes, " why, it is no affair of his." 
 
 "Aha! well I don't know. However, ex- 
 pect us at nine, and I should so like a cup 
 of hot tea at that innocent hour. Stop, I 
 must talk to you a bit. All the girls in town, 
 I hear, rave over Azarian, though he 's no 
 match, for his father died not long ago and 
 left him poor. It was a great flash-in-the-pan. 
 Azarian had been lapped in luxury, and ex- 
 pected an inheritance. However, he behaved 
 very well. He has some talent, he'd have 
 gone on the stage, his name alone would draw 
 good houses for a fortnight and have given 
 him a pretty pocket-piece, but of course he 
 couldn't rival Booth, and anything less is 
 plebeian ; he has written a farce or two, and 
 there are dark hints of a tragedy. Then he 
 has sculptured a little ; he had patience to get 
 through the clay, and money to get through 
 the plaster, but not genius enough to get
 
 AZARIAN. 27 
 
 through the marble ; there 's his great head 
 still half in the block. Then he has painted 
 a little, portraits ; but they are horrible ; a 
 brush like a scalpel, it lays people bare to the 
 core ; to look at one of his canvases is like 
 standing in a dissecting-chamber, where the 
 knife has gored a gash down some face and 
 laid open all the nerves and muscles ; every 
 one's hidden sin suddenly flares up and 'glares 
 at him. Nobody likes to be excoriated in that 
 style ; so Azarian's portraits don't pay. Mean- 
 time, he was all along a student of medicine, 
 and is now established in a city practice. So. 
 There you have him. Sooner lose your heart 
 to Fra Diavolo. Be warned. Be armed. 
 Good by." 
 
 Little Miss Yetton laughed to herself as 
 Charmian closed the door behind her; she 
 remembered the boy so well, or her ideal of 
 the boy, who had come in his black clothes 
 to spend a summer on the farm and to lose
 
 28 AZARIAN. 
 
 his cough. She staid so long with suspended 
 pencil, dreaming over that season, that the 
 dark had fallen and the branch before her 
 begun to fade ere she bethought herself of 
 work. But her father, busying himself at the 
 grate, startled her with a clatter of coal-scuttle 
 and tongs, and she rose and swept her pretty 
 litter aside. 
 
 As the great clock struck nine in the dis- 
 tance that evening, the long procession of its 
 sounds issuing on the air with a measured 
 tread, Miss Yetton piled the coke on her coals 
 for a dancing cheer of the blaze of molten 
 sapphire and opal, her little tea-table glittered 
 in a corner, and as she glanced now and then 
 toward the door there was an unwonted spar- 
 kle in her eye and a restless red on the pale 
 cheek. 
 
 They came in laughing. Miss Yettou did not 
 see Charmian, for the other stepped directly 
 toward her, and, bowing, uttered his name.
 
 AZARIAN. 29 
 
 " Constantine Azarian." 
 
 Her hand just brushed across his palm. 
 He tossed his head with a motion that threw 
 back the golden curls. "You don't meet 
 me now as then," he said. 
 
 " Come," said Charmian, who had doffed 
 her things ; " none of your old times ! To 
 business. To my cup of tea, and then to 
 your health." 
 
 "It is Constantine, father," said Miss Yet- 
 ton to the old gentleman, who did not at 
 all comprehend the unusual proceedings, and 
 forced to a familiarity which she would not 
 have chosen ; " you remember Constant ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes," replied her father uneasily. 
 " Why, you're quite a man, sir ! " 
 
 The guest laughed, exchanged with him a 
 sentence or two, then slipped over to the others. 
 
 " So, Ruth, I have found you at last. Where 
 have you been hiding ? " he demanded, seating 
 himself, and perfectly at home in the minute.
 
 30 AZARIAN. 
 
 "We have been here a long while. Up 
 and down. A year in this house," she an- 
 swered quietly. 
 
 Her tone nettled him, he raised his eye- 
 brows. " Come, you want your tea," he said, 
 fixing his glance coolly on Charmian. 
 
 "Yes, I want my tea, it prevents reaction 
 after action. But that needn't hinder your 
 conversation. Did you say your search for 
 Ruth was severe ? ". she asked in mischievous 
 demi-voice. 
 
 " No. Why should it have been ? " 
 
 "Why, indeed?" said she, provoked with 
 herself, while the red burned . into Ruth's 
 cheek. 
 
 " Ruth and I are such dear old friends that 
 she should have written to me long ago. Why 
 did n't you, Ruth ? " 
 
 Blushing and smiling, appeased and pleased, 
 Ruth passed him his cup without reply. It 
 was a quaint little cup, a bit of translucent
 
 AZARIAN. 31 
 
 gorgeousness that she had reproduced from 
 the depths of her trunk and nicely washed 
 that very evening. 
 
 Charmian arrested her arm. " Allow me 
 to ask, Ruth Yetton," said she, " where you 
 came across that hideous little splendor, 
 old china worth its weight in gold. Perhaps 
 you painted it yourself. You haven't been 
 expending your treasure to delectate Aza- 
 rian's lips in that style ? " 
 
 "Pardon, bella douna," said Azarian, secur- 
 ing the disputed object, "it is mine of old, the 
 viaduct of youthful draughts. I drank from 
 it every day of one summer. And you have 
 kept it all this time, Ruth ? " 
 
 Ruth's little heart leaped that he should 
 have remembered it, she could not have an- 
 swered why ; she carried her father his tray 
 and came back with rosy cheek and dewy 
 eyes. 
 
 "Your tea is mercy itself, Ruth. It puts 
 the spirit into one."
 
 32 AZARIAN. 
 
 "A work of supererogation, madonna." 
 
 " It is very nice tea, it was given to me, 
 because one cannot buy it ; you would hardly 
 suppose that it was made from flowers," said 
 Euth. 
 
 " It looks as though it were strained through 
 sunshine," replied Azarian. 
 
 " The quality of mercy is not strained," 
 interpolated Charmian. 
 
 " Shop ! " said Azarian. 
 
 " yes, shop, I dare say. What of that ? 
 Now, Azarian, tell the truth and shame the 
 
 ; confess that you think it would be 
 
 splendid to be famous, while Ruth there 
 thinks it horrible to be infamous: but as 
 for me " 
 
 " Give you liberty or give you death." 
 
 " As for me, it's very nice to be just un- 
 famous ; and I hope the time will never come 
 when I shall be too great and dignified, and 
 too full of sacred genius, to make little jokes
 
 AZARIAN. 33 
 
 about the play, or to pass the butter in a 
 tragic way. So much for shop ! " 
 
 " No danger," said Azarian, with mourn- 
 fully exaggerated eyebrows. " You are my 
 great disappointment." 
 
 " Go along with you ! What a plague you 
 are ! Here 's to your confusion. Ach, ach ! " 
 ejaculated Charmian, drinking fast, as if she 
 would rinse her mouth, " how sick I am of 
 Portia with her ridiculously unjust justice, 
 the impostress ! Ach ! " 
 
 "I don't think you'll be cast for Juliet 
 again immediately. You made that botch of 
 it purposely, last evening ? " 
 
 " And to-morrow night I 'm tamed for the 
 shrew." 
 
 " I know no better subject." 
 
 " It 's another abominable piece of business ! 
 Just a burlesque of the truth, though, the 
 very truth. It's the way of the world, the. 
 way of a man with a maid. What are we
 
 84 AZARIAN. 
 
 better than any other clay, only to tread 
 on, trample away then! " 
 
 " All in character. It is the role of Miss 
 Ann Thrope. This tea, that is made of 
 flowers, inverses Cowper, inebriates, but not 
 cheers, I fancy." 
 
 "Azarian, unless you conduct with more 
 propriety, you shall go home directly, and 
 I will never bring you again ! " 
 
 "I can come next time alone," he said, 
 getting up to saunter about the room and 
 examine the pictures ; till, possessing himself 
 finally of Ruth's portfolios, and taking a seat 
 by her father, he went over them all, listening 
 to the story of each sheet from the old lips 
 delighted to part in recital. 
 
 "He will have more deference to Charmi- 
 an's opinions when she returns from her south- 
 ern tour; for I am going away, Ruth." 
 
 " You are going away ? " 
 
 " Yes : the contract, as tragical factotum
 
 AZARIAN. 35 
 
 and general maid of all work, was signed, 
 sealed, and delivered to-day, since I left you." 
 
 " 0, Charmian, what shall I do ? " 
 
 " Do without me. If you won't come with 
 me. What say, Ruth? I should so like to 
 make you and Mr. Yetton my guests on the 
 journey ! " 
 
 "0, it is impossible!" 
 
 " I don't see why." 
 
 "But it is so, all the same." 
 
 " Euth, dear, reconsider it. You renounce 
 pride, or I content ? I shall never, never 
 desire more happiness than to do finely in 
 my art and have you with me wherever I go." 
 
 "Nor I; but it can't be now, you know. 
 Will this last long?" 
 
 " No, only a month or two. It is literally 
 a golden opportunity. But in those regal 
 Southern cities they love the drama! Dear 
 rabble ! How can any latent genius develop 
 in such a searching wind of criticism as
 
 36 AZARIAN. 
 
 as he breathes, for instance ? There, in the 
 warm welcoming weather, the coaxing encour- 
 aging air, the generous permeating sunshine, 
 the fiery favor and love, one's very soul blos- 
 soms. I feel it in me, Ruth, those tropical 
 nights, those passionate plaudits, will make a 
 great actress of me." 
 
 " I have no doubt they will. I can spare 
 you for that." 
 
 " It would please you, Ruth ? " 
 
 "More than you." 
 
 "I don't know. I'm not so unselfish, 
 fame is the flower and fruit of that divine 
 inner impulsion at whose first stir one de- 
 sires it. Yet I like, too, to do honor to our 
 friendship, Ruth." 
 
 " Ruth," interrupted Azarian, pausing here 
 over one of her arabesques, " where did you 
 get these little winged faces?" 
 
 " 0, detached studies of Reynolds's cherubs, 
 you remember, except one or two."
 
 AZARIAN. 37 
 
 "And those?" 
 
 "My little cat sat for." 
 
 " Naughty girl ! You have never seen any 
 Angelicos ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I will take you to-morrow to some glo- 
 rious things, copies, yet delights." 
 
 " You need n't be taken unless you wish," 
 whispered Charmian. 
 
 "Ah, but I do! Nothing could give me 
 such pleasure. I have even dreamed about 
 them. And once when I was in great 
 perplexity, you know I dreamed I was la- 
 boring through an interminable field of stub- 
 ble, and two Angels came, with great rosy 
 half-mooned wings, and lifted me by the shoul- 
 ders and bore me swiftly over it all. And 
 they must have looked precisely like Fra 
 Angelicos," said Ruth, her face all lighted. 
 
 " You can certify them to-morrow," he re- 
 plied, gazing at her admiringly.
 
 38 AZARIAN. 
 
 " Azarian ! Won't you take me too ? " 
 
 " Well, you can come," he answered, 
 laughing. " Shall you be free at eleven, 
 Ruth ? " 
 
 "No, she won't. That is during my re- 
 hearsal-hour." 
 
 " Charmian will be through by twelve, 
 though," said Ruth timidly. 
 
 "Very well, I will call for you then." 
 Which accordingly he did. 
 
 Charmian went too, as she had threatened, 
 not for her own enjoyment primarily, but she 
 had some dim idea of playing dragon. More- 
 over, she was accustomed, by a sort of satire, 
 to keep Ruth's enthusiasms an atom in check. 
 
 " They look like so many wooden dolls," 
 said she, when Ruth stood rapt. " See their 
 round polls, the beady eyes of them ! 
 their pink cheeks ; just a huddle of dolls." 
 
 "Is that St. John up there? the beautiful 
 angel in the red gown, with that bright warm
 
 AZARIAN. 39 
 
 hair curling over his shoulders, and his head 
 bent so lovingly down on the little violin ? 
 I can hear the music ! And see that St. 
 Cecilia, a blaze of blue in the midst of a 
 blaze of gold. It is the very ecstasy of wor- 
 ship." 
 
 As Ruth spoke, low-voiced, Azarian, direct- 
 ly before her, was looking in her face; sud- 
 denly her eye caught his and fell ; it was a 
 moment of double consciousness. Azarian 
 felt as if he had spoken his thoughts. He 
 had only wondered why he had not known 
 it was she when he saw her that first day 
 in the print-shop as he lounged over Rosa 
 Bonheur's lithographs, why he had not spok- 
 en to her then, why he had not thought 
 her pretty then : she had a certain odd and 
 dainty beauty of her own, those delicate fea- 
 tures, dark eyes, and the one great wave in 
 her less dark hair ; she was quite petite and 
 perfect ; when there was any red in her cheek
 
 40 AZARIAN. 
 
 it was not the blush of the rose, but the 
 purple pink of the rhodora. And with her 
 talent, too. He had met no one like her. 
 What gave her glance that flashing fall just 
 then ? Was she going to care for him, too ? 
 That mustn't be. Azarian, somewhat silent 
 and distraught, went home that day in an 
 uneasy frame. 
 
 As for little Ruth, she feared she had of- 
 fended him. She conjectured concerning it 
 too much for her comfort, and her heart gave 
 a bound the next day when he tapped and 
 immediately entered, for Azarian's impetu- 
 osity, when he allowed it any play, enforced 
 an entire want of ceremony, and just for the 
 nonce he was so innocent of self-scrutiny as 
 to forget consideration of why it was that he 
 came at all, for sometimes destin^ takes 
 even our predetermination out of our hand 
 and weaves another figure, the fact being 
 only that he had felt as if he should like to 
 see her.
 
 AZARIAN. 41 
 
 " Good morning, little Elderberry," said he. 
 
 " Good morning," said she, rising and tak- 
 ing his hand. "Come and sit down here 
 and see if my work is good. Father will be 
 in directly ; he is only walking round the 
 square." And she resumed her occupation. 
 "Why do you call me an elderberry?" she 
 said at last, as he watched her. 
 
 " Why ? only that you remind me of one ; 
 of a whole panicle of them rather. They 
 are so tiny, so shining, so polished and perfect. 
 The tint is so unique, your dress suggests 
 it to-day, black, and deep rich amaranth, 
 there is a spark of something like it in your 
 eyes, and you have the stain of such juice 
 just now on your cheek ; then your lips 
 are perhaps darker than other lips, like a 
 black-heart cherry, which has the bitter-sweet 
 elderberry flavor, too, if one tastes it, and 
 those little pearls when you laugh, as at this 
 moment, give them yet a wealthier hue. Yes,
 
 42 AZARIAN. 
 
 you are one of the last drops of the earth's 
 color and pungency distilled back again to 
 the sunshine, and I 've no doubt that at some 
 time a bitter-sweet wine, hardly to be told 
 from old red ripened port, will be expressed 
 frofn your nature, strong enough to turn a 
 man's head." 
 
 " that will do," said Miss Yetton, laugh- 
 ing, and too utterly unaccustomed to the so- 
 ciety of gentlemen to know whether to repulse 
 this familiarity or not. 
 
 " Don't be offended. Remember that I am 
 a portrait-painter," 
 
 " Certainly. So I see a thousand reasons 
 why this picture is my likeness, though you 
 did n't paint it," and she brought up from 
 among her scraps a drawing of the plant in 
 question. 
 
 "There are a thousand more reasons why 
 this is," said Azarian, unwrapping a parcel 
 in his hand, and he laid before her one of
 
 AZARIAN. 43 
 
 those exquisite little tablets where on a cloud 
 an Angel strays singing from the Divine pres- 
 ence. 
 
 "I have had it a long while. It is like 
 those you saw yesterday, a copy from Fra 
 Angelico. See that robe, how it just seems 
 to be curdled together out of the soft purple 
 air. What a song the beautiful face is. It 
 is yours." 
 
 " Mine ! " Ruth hesitated, not because she 
 dreamed of any impropriety in accepting it, 
 she had retaken her old childish feeling about 
 him, but it seemed to her too valuable. 
 " No, no," said she, " it is not mine, but if 
 you had really as lief, I would like to hang 
 it on the wall and have it a little while to 
 look at." 
 
 " Forever. I shall never reclaim it. But 
 I should prefer you to accept it from me, 
 Ruth, and to thank me." 
 
 "I do thank you."
 
 44 AZARIAN. 
 
 " Truly ? " with his head resting on his 
 hand and his arm along the table for a while. 
 "How came you to know Charmian?" 
 
 " 0, she ran up behind me, one day, on the 
 Common, and she has been very kind to me 
 ever since. She is the only friend I have, 
 except yourself. I like her very much, 
 don't you?" 
 
 "So, so. She is I beg your pardon 
 just a mite vulgar." 
 
 Poor little Ruth ! she had seen so few peo- 
 ple that she did not know how that terrible 
 word applied itself. Her friend's peculiari- 
 ties she had taken to be points of character, 
 and had never suffered them to offend her. 
 
 " Moreover, she is a charmer," quoted Aza- 
 rian, half to himself, " and can almost read 
 the thoughts of people." 
 
 "I like her, I love her!" was all Ruth 
 ventured to say. 
 
 "The more 's the pity," replied the other,
 
 A Z ART AN. 45 
 
 for there lingered, with all his froth of friend- 
 liness, a certain rancor in his soul because 
 this same Charmian had at an earlier date 
 seen fit to afford him very decided discour- 
 agement, and as a soothing lotion to his self- 
 regard he had been obliged to conjure about 
 her this phantasm of vulgarity, a woman 
 of refinement could not have resisted his 
 power. In very truth, the two were antipa- 
 thetical, though he had failed to perceive it 
 at first ; but her coldness had affected merely 
 his fancy, and to-day Azarian's dislike was 
 as sincere an emotion as he was capable of 
 feeling. 
 
 " Well, well," said he, shaking off his cloud, 
 "have you ever seen her play? I should 
 think that might cure you. Once or twice ? 
 We '11 make it thrice, and go to-night then." 
 
 " I am much obliged to you. I should have 
 gone oftener, but you know I do not like to 
 leave my father."
 
 46 AZARIAN. 
 
 "Ah, little beggar," said Azarian gayly, 
 catching her hands and laughing, " we '11 take 
 the father too ! " 
 
 The rose burned in Ruth's cheek, and her 
 eyes lighted him along his way with joyful 
 thanks. 
 
 Azarian, being well pleased with himself, 
 repeated the experiment of the play. Too 
 prominent a personage in his own circle to 
 enter a local theatre without notice, more 
 glances than one had been directed at his 
 companions, at the frail loveliness of the old 
 man's face, the silver locks floating round it 
 from under the little black velvet cap, at 
 the quaint picturesqueness of the girl, with a 
 something alien, a strange element that, just 
 as you found her beautiful, presented itself 
 and absorbed the possibility, and, trying to 
 seize its volatile mystery, escaped beneath your 
 gaze, the subtle writing, the braided har-
 
 AZA RIA N. 47 
 
 mony of feature, the self-involution of genius. 
 One or two of the players, with all of whom 
 he was on terms of good-fellowship, came 
 glancing through the side-scenes, on the first 
 night, and wondered what little piece Azarian 
 had picked up now. Opera-glasses were lev- 
 elled, bows were interchanged, fair fingers and 
 glancing fans vainly beckoned, on the next. 
 Half a dozen of his acquaintance found impor- 
 tant reasons for joining him a moment in the 
 interludes, to retire and pronounce his friends 
 to be foreigners, as no introductions had 
 followed. And when, at the play's conclusion, 
 they resorted to Yergne's and waited for their 
 escaloped oysters, the place became thronged 
 in such a manner as to cause the poor young 
 maiden at the desk to lose her reckoning 
 and her wits altogether. This was by no 
 means offensive to Azarian ; he was well ac- 
 customed to pursuit, and to that rather frank 
 love-making in which the younger damsels of
 
 48 AZARIAN. 
 
 America excel ; he had been the recipient of 
 tri-cornered notes by the mail-ful, of bouquets 
 with a well-known ring among the flowers, 
 and had even been waylaid in the halls of 
 his hotel for a lock of hair, all which was 
 beneath contempt; moreover, ladies of grace 
 and wit and courtesy and piquant reserves 
 had unbent to him as to no other ; he knew 
 well now that not one of them would leave 
 their luxurious homes to share his life of pos- 
 sible struggle, had he ever intended to ask 
 them, and he took a somewhat malicious 
 pleasure in exciting their interest anew, and 
 in baffling the other sex as well with his little 
 incognita. The delicate titillation applied to 
 his hidden vanity made him superb. Char- 
 mian, at another table, sat back in her chair 
 with grim irony, -but Azarian shone. He 
 was sure of dozens of dancing eyes, from the 
 other seats, from the gallery ; he slipped to 
 Charmian's side and asked her audibly would
 
 . AZARIAN. 49 
 
 she not come and see his friends, which she 
 declined for that time ; he had a gay sente'nce 
 for every one that passed him, he expended his 
 skill and tact in keeping them all in the dark. 
 And meanwhile the old father looked eager- 
 ly on what seemed to him so bright a scene, 
 musing with dreamy pleasure over the gay 
 and brilliant world. And in the intoxicating 
 light, the perfumes of dying flowers, the 
 plash of the little fountain, drawn to depend 
 on him through her timidity, Ruth sat un- 
 conscious of the coil, sat under the influence 
 of Azarian's sweet and subtle smiles, the 
 object of all his careless grace, beaming back 
 upon him out of beautiful happy eyes. 
 
 Azarian was capable of that air which puts 
 all questioning to the right-about ; he enjoyed 
 the little mystery among his acquaintance, he 
 said so to himself, and doubtless thought, in- 
 deed, that was his only reason for meeting 
 Ruth upon her walks and turning them into
 
 50 AZARIAN. . 
 
 longer and more public strolls, where he bent 
 to lier voice devotedly, met her serious upcast 
 eyes with steady gaze, and inspired in her a 
 confidence, a reliance, and an association of 
 himself with purity, integrity, philosophy, and 
 strength. Not that he had the first intention 
 of inspiring any such confidence, any such 
 association ; he would have laughed at the 
 idea, for he knew himself much better than 
 Ruth did, after all, and often made a note of 
 his various weaknesses, indeed, making such 
 note was one of his strong points. But Miss 
 Yetton, like many another woman, saw in this 
 man not what he had, but what she needed, 
 and as for him, clear as his sight was, and 
 shallow as his nature, the one failed to pene- 
 trate the other, for he thought he amused 
 himself. 
 
 Ruth was still working on the order for 
 the autumn leaves. Almost every other day 
 she had gone out into the country, and almost
 
 AZARIAN. 51 
 
 every other day Azarian had gone with her, 
 now together in the cars, now, since superi- 
 ority of strength is one of the surest attrac- 
 tions, driving her behind a high-stepping 
 horse that brought his physical powers well 
 into play, for her father of late was less 
 and less inclined to go, and Azarian always 
 followed up his fancies closely. Sometimes, 
 indeed, as they went across the Common, a 
 leaf fluttered into her hand, whose peer no 
 forest could produce, and towards whose cu- 
 riously flecked and painted beauty the whole 
 ripening year seemed to -have converged; but 
 oftener they went into a maze of woodland, 
 where the dew-drops still glittered on all the 
 splendid points of color, where the hills 
 wrapped themselves far off in bhie mist, and 
 only some giant rose seemed to blossom at 
 their skirts and seal them from entirely fad- 
 ing and dissolving into dreams. Together 
 the two wandered down lanes all aglow with.
 
 52 AZARIAN. 
 
 the pendent jewels of the barberry-bushes, as 
 it were a very Aladdin's garden ; they rested 
 with the light flickering over them through 
 ruby domes of oak, they stood to watch some 
 golden beech intensify the sunshine, they 
 broke down maple-branches with every leaf 
 dancing on its separate stem like a tongue 
 of fluttering fire and casting off a flock of 
 scarlet shadows, they pictured the desert-edge 
 beneath some beam of sunset when the wild 
 sumachs tossed their crimson boughs like 
 palms, they sat down at length under majestic 
 hemlocks where a wild vine twisted itself 
 among the knolls as a gorgeously freaked 
 and freckled snake might do. All the ripe 
 earth beneath the last touch of the burnish- 
 ing sunshine, all the sweet rich air, full of its 
 mild decay, all the fulfilled expression of 
 the year, the peace, the pause, breathed only 
 hope about the one and a soft regret about 
 the other.
 
 AZARIAN. 53 
 
 " These hemlocks always put me in mind 
 of some long-forgotten time of innocence and 
 freshness," said Azarian. " Perhaps of that 
 when I first met you, Ruth." 
 
 "Do you remember that time?" asked 
 Ruth, swinging her leaves, and looking off 
 into the horizon. 
 
 " I have one of those accursed memories that 
 never lose anything. Probably I can recall a 
 hundred incidents that you lost the next day." 
 
 Ruth laughed incredulousness. 
 
 " How pretty somebody is when she laughs ! 
 Are you happy, Ruth?" 
 
 Ruth nodded. 
 
 "Let me see. What a little monster I 
 was then, but you believed in me, you 
 thought I was Grand Chevalier of the White 
 and Black Eagle. Let me see. Somebody 
 was calling Ruth, were n't they ? I can read 
 that morning off as if it were a page. Don't 
 you want to hear it ? "
 
 54 AZARIAN. 
 
 Ruth nodded again. 
 
 "I was a bright-faced boy then, an hour 
 ago arrived. Somebody told me to keep the 
 sun in my eyes and I 'd find you. So the 
 boy started at a run ; but the fields were 
 empty of all save the summer hum of full 
 July, and by and by his pace slackened, till 
 at length he stood silently gazing up into the 
 brilliant sky and unconsciously allowing all 
 the blithe fresh forenoon influences to touch 
 him. Suddenly two wide wings, two quiver- 
 ing lines of shadow, trembled across his vision. 
 Up went hat and heels in hot pursuit. A 
 strange thing, with vivid life flashing through 
 its shining dyes, all barred and mottled in 
 garnet lights and diamond dust, blown to 
 that pasture-land on the wind sweeping up 
 from richer zones, a bubble of rays and 
 prisms, frail as resplendent. Odd that I 
 should treasure that butterfly, when men and 
 women have died and left no sign on my
 
 AZARIAN. 55 
 
 experience! Dancing just beyond, the but- 
 terfly led me to you. But that was the last 
 thing I thought of. The boy, always remem- 
 bering that the boy means me, made himself 
 at length, like the small savage he was, a 
 shoulder-knot of the psyche, the royal colors 
 yet palpitating through it, but life and radi- 
 ance gone. Then, keeping the sun in his face, 
 he went along towards the brook, negligently 
 fanning himself with his hat. The path led 
 him into a grove of rustling young birches, 
 whose exuberant glee was kept within bounds 
 by the presence of a commanding hemlock or 
 two, and here and there overawed by some 
 martinet of a maple. The sward was still 
 tenderly damp and starred with faintly-scent- 
 ed wild-flowers, and suddenly descending, it 
 opened on the stream that, brawling over 
 eddies and rocks above, here floated itself 
 on in tranquil shadow, to brawl again in foam 
 over eddies and rocks below."
 
 56 AZARIAN. 
 
 " Yes, I remember." 
 
 "The dew yet drenched the heavy over- 
 hanging branches, the laurel-wreaths lay pale 
 upon the other bank, the wild-rose breathed 
 its fragrance through the air ; coming from 
 the interspersed sunshine of the wood, there 
 was a sweet and serious spell about the cool 
 noon-darkness here." 
 
 "Ah, yes, I seem to feel it now." 
 
 " Sitting on a fallen trunk that bridged the 
 brook, a little girl appeared, her apron full 
 of all manner of blooms, dipping her tare feet 
 in and out of the sparkling water, and in a 
 rapture of silence as some bird in the bougli 
 poured forth his jubilant song. In a min- 
 ute" 
 
 Ruth turned upon him a smiling rosy 
 face. " In a minute," said she, " another 
 bird seemed to burlesque the same song, the 
 branches parted and tossed in a shower of 
 sunshine, and the boy swung himself down to
 
 AZARIAN. 57 
 
 my side. Then lie bent low, hat in hand, 
 and uttered his name : Constant Azarian." 
 
 " Yes, and do you know what you did ? 
 Stay, I'm telling a story, why do you keep 
 interrupting ? The girl, a quiet unsmiling 
 child, very, very small, having almost an un- 
 canny look about her countenance, with its 
 great preponderating eyes, set in a floating 
 frame, a nimbus, of bright hair, it was 
 bright then, Ruth, it answered brightly when 
 the sun stroked it, black it lay in the shade, 
 the girl, I say, surveyed the apparition a mo- 
 ment ; her clear glance seemed to penetrate 
 depths in him who depths had none, but 
 opposed a shallow reflection. That 's the case, 
 you need n't shake your head, I know it as 
 well as another." 
 
 " No, no," said Ruth quickly, " you are 
 mistaken, if you think so. There are deep 
 waters in every one's nature. If they are 
 sealed in the rock and slumber so darkly and 
 
 3*
 
 58 AZARIAN. 
 
 stilly that you do not feel them yourself, or 
 only in indistinct yearning and groping, per- 
 haps some day the great fact will come that 
 shall smite the rock and set them flowing." 
 
 "Just as kind a little fancy as if it were 
 the truth. Ah, I see, tiny artificer, you don't 
 want to hear what you did. Did you remem- 
 ber it when we met again not long since, 
 Ruth?" 
 
 Kuth nodded. 
 
 " Well, you may apply those pink fingers 
 to your ears, while I return to our small 
 people. He seemed at first to be only one 
 of her dreams, then smiles broke about her 
 face ; here was what the sad little thing had 
 waited for ; she rose quickly and met him 
 with a loud, warm, childish kiss on either 
 cheek. The boy laughed. The tears swept 
 over the girl's eyes. ' Come,' said he, in i 
 sweet coaxing voice that took the edge off 
 his words, it's sweet now, isn't it, Ruth?
 
 AZ ASIAN. 59 
 
 ' don't you go to crying. Your mother '11 
 scold me if she finds it out. I came from 
 the city, where girls don't do so, you know. 
 But I like to have you kiss me, first rate.' 
 Ruth ? Well, no matter. That frosted 
 you. It took me some time to melt the icing. 
 I remember how I bound your wreath, how I 
 made the yellow loosestrife burn in your hair, 
 and crowned your forehead with a wild lily, 
 and said I should be sure to remember the 
 azalia because it was like my own name, and 
 you said it was delicious, and, more timidly, 
 that my name was too ; and when I had 
 praised you and said that flowers always made 
 girls pretty, and how I remembered the ladies 
 at mamma's, shining in their silver wheat 
 and great moss-roses, you begged to take the 
 wreath on your arm, where you could look 
 at it too. You 'd do the same to-day. Upon 
 which I played the petty tyrant. 0, don't dep- 
 recate ; it 's all fair enough ; I like to tyran-
 
 60 AZARIAN. 
 
 nize, you like to be tyrannized. I called you 
 my queen, my fairy-queen, and then cate- 
 chised you. 'What makes me a queen?' 
 said you. ' 0, because you choose me.' 
 
 " ' No indeed,' said I, it 's just the crown. 
 I Ve heard my father say my father 's a 
 Greek, did you know it ? ' 
 
 "'What is it to be a Greek?' 
 
 " What is it to be a Greek ! Why, it 's to 
 be a great poet and a great orator and a 
 great actor, and to have chariots and horses 
 and games and beautiful temples and gardens 
 and statues 0, I forgot to tell you, your 
 mother wants you to help in the kitchen. 
 Are n't you hungry ? I 've got a hard-bread 
 in my pocket, girls don't like hard-bread. 
 Come, let's go along.' Ruth, that was I in 
 epitome, a diamond edition! 
 
 " ' Should n't you like some honey with your 
 hard-bread ? ' asked the little girl. And with- 
 out more words she led the way to a hollow
 
 AZARIAN. 61 
 
 tree and showed, through a crevice, deep 
 down in its heart great cake's of that brown 
 and golden encrustation of sunshine and per- 
 fume and dew. 
 
 " ' It 's good for my cough,' said I. 
 
 " ' I like honey to eat,' said she. * I guess 
 the angels had it when they went to see Eve 
 in Eden.' 
 
 "'Very likely.' 
 
 " < It 's real heavenly . food. 'T was St. 
 John's while he wrote the Revelation. It 's 
 made out of flowers ; it 's the sweet juice of 
 roses, and of azalias too. Warm rain-storms 
 and the south winds and all the sunshine 
 helped to make it, you know.' 
 
 " ' Yes, but how are you going to get at 
 it?' 
 
 " ' Why, I never do. It 's too precious,' said 
 she, confessing to a kind of sacrament of 
 summer. 'I just put my finger in there 
 sometimes. There 's so much, 'I don't think 
 the bees mind.'
 
 62 AZARIAN. 
 
 " ' Great I care whether they do or not ! 
 Here goes ! ' and the bark was being pounded 
 in with a stone, and a swarm of darkness, 
 of angry seething turbulence, was raging all 
 about us. Remember? Ah, I see, your 
 little lips are burning now." 
 
 " I feel as if I were living those happy days 
 over again." 
 
 " If you call it happiness to be stung to 
 death by the bees, I take issue." 
 
 " Thanks to your master in Virgil, we es- 
 caped." 
 
 "Finish the story for me, Ruth. Finish 
 it as you did then." 
 
 " I am afraid my invention is not equal 
 to yours." 
 
 " Little witch ! You accused me of having 
 saved your life." 
 
 " And so you did." 
 
 . "Well, yes, I suppose I did, as I said 
 at the time, in a mjmic and lordly complai-
 
 A Z ARI AN. 63 
 
 sance. * But what ever made you mention 
 the honey, I should like to know,' was what 
 I added then. 'You shouldn't have taken 
 me right to that tree, you should have known 
 better,' growing severe as the remembrance 
 nettled. * One of them 's stung my hand. 
 Pshaw ! I could save a dozen girls' lives ! ' 
 replied your hero. But you were not waiting 
 for his reply. So entirely had you already 
 invested him with ideal attributes, that, know- 
 ing he would always say the perfect thing, 
 your complete attention to his real utterance 
 was unnecessary. You have n't changed a 
 whit. ' 0, you saved my life, Constant ! ' 
 you cried. ' I always shall love you ! ' " 
 
 Suddenly Euth started to find that her 
 hand had been in his, how long she did not 
 know. And suddenly, somehow, she never 
 could tell how and Azarian never could tell 
 why, she found herself drawn and wrapped 
 in a clasp that checked her pulses, and his
 
 64 AZARIAN. 
 
 voice was murmuring, "Euth, sweet Ruth, 
 you told the truth ! My own, you do love 
 me ! " And then his kisses closed her lips 
 in burning silence. 
 
 Happy little Ruth, she could scarcely be- 
 lieve her senses; she felt discovered, and in 
 her pretty shame was lovelier than ever, and 
 during those early days had only to spring 
 and hide her laughing blushes in his arms. 
 She went home on air, it was not the familiar 
 earth which they trod, the atmosphere was 
 some rosy cloud of sunset enfolding them 
 with radiance, informing them with warmth, 
 youth and strength and immortality pulsed 
 along their veins with every throb ; it was 
 the life of another sphere. She sat, that 
 evening, in the enchanted circle of his breath, 
 incapable of thought, she lay the innocent 
 night in a dazzled dream of delight. The 
 days floated along and bore her with them 
 upbuoyed on their blissful tide. .Ruth won-
 
 AZARIAN. 65 
 
 dered at herself, looked curiously at her hand 
 to think that his kiss had fallen upon it, 
 glanced of a morning in the little dressing- 
 mirror with half a reverence for the form he 
 loved. She asked if it could be true that 
 this transcendent fate was hers ; she had seen 
 so much sorrow that she fancied such joy was 
 almost heaven-defying, and, fearing the crash 
 of some thunderbolt, opposed nothing but hu- 
 mility ; she understood now why certain an- 
 cients poured libations and deprecated the 
 offices of evil deities and untoward chances. 
 She had sometimes thought of love, as all 
 girls will, perhaps had longed for it, perhaps 
 had sighed to see the bloom of youth depart- 
 ing and leaving her without it ; and suddenly 
 the mighty gates had swung aside, and a great ' 
 destiny had taken her by the hand and led 
 her to the edge of heaven. She wondered, 
 too, what the matchless Azarian had found 
 in her; she trembled lest there might have
 
 66 AZARIAN. 
 
 been a glamour on his eyes that should dissolve 
 and let him see only the little threadbare soul 
 of Ruth Yetton. She desired to enter his 
 inmost being, and in praying that he might 
 become one with her she strove to make her 
 nature ever lovelier that he might suffer no 
 degradation. She confided to Azarian all these 
 fears and fancies, he received them as a ro- 
 mance of which he unexpectedly found him- 
 self the hero, and heard their novel burden 
 with pure pleasure. He was abandoned to 
 this happy flight of time, this forgetf illness 
 of the outer world, not by any choice, but 
 as it were in spite of himself. He sat just 
 now like some one dazed by the lights at a 
 banquet where the future was perpetually 
 pledged ; the cup was in his hand, and all 
 the years to come will present Azarian noth- 
 ing of more virtue than this elixir at which 
 he only wet his lips.
 
 II. 
 
 Bur as Euth loved, she labored. Here this 
 strong efflux of her heart swept her out on 
 i'ts current to a fuller and richer performance ; 
 those autumn-leaves illumined the place; no- 
 body but Nature and Miss Yetton dared to 
 use such shades, some one had said. 
 
 There they lay, as if the very earth had 
 dashed her heart's-blood through them, the 
 stains of rust and gold, the streaks of sun, 
 the sign of jostling coteries, the sinuous trail 
 of the tiny worm traced in tawny tints amidst 
 the sumptuous dyes, dun here as if wine had 
 been poured upon them, blazing there in 
 vermeil ardency, one opaque with a late 
 greenness full of succulence and studded 
 with starry sprinkle and spatter of splendor,
 
 68 AZARIAN. 
 
 another dancing on its airy stem a golden 
 flame transparent as a film of sunshine, the 
 tender purple of the pensive ash, the gilded 
 bronze of beeches, the fine scarlet of the 
 blackberry-vine, these separate and delicate- 
 ly wrought and grained with rare blending of 
 umber and carmine, damasked with deepening 
 layer and spilth of color, brinded and barred 
 and blotted beneath the dripping fingers of 
 October, nipped by nest-lining bees, suffused 
 through all their veins with the shining soul 
 of the mild and mellow season, those height- 
 ened by swarming shadows of blue and gray 
 and cast upon the page in a broad ripe flush 
 and glow as if fresh-bathed in wells of crimson 
 fire. To slender petiole and node and bud, 
 they lay there finished and perfect. 
 
 "Pretty Patience!" said Azarian, spread- 
 ing them about him. "How you sting me! 
 / complete nothing. But these do they 
 not really put a polish on Nature ? "
 
 AZARIAN. 69 
 
 " Not unless you pnt the polish first in 
 plucking them for me." 
 
 "Made for a courtier. Well, when the 
 republic is in ruins and I am county of 
 clouds, one room in our palace shall have 
 panels of these in great boughs, so that 
 we may fancy ourselves in sunset at com- 
 mand." 
 
 " ' When the republic is in ruins ' our dust 
 will be forgotten, so you shall have them 
 now ! " 
 
 " Not so fast. I for one expect a driver. 
 I 'm tired of this omnibus where every fool 
 is pulling the check. There 's a hickory 
 for you ! Little woman, you have a pact and 
 league with certain tipsy dryads, I 'm sure ; 
 they had such a head of color on when they 
 told you their secrets that they reeled. Su- 
 perb. 
 
 ' That crimson the creeper's leaf across, 
 Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt, 
 On a shield, else gold from rim to boss.'
 
 70 AZARIAN. 
 
 You 're a witch with a charm at your fingers' 
 ends." 
 
 " Why have you never completed anything, 
 Constant ? " 
 
 " ' Still harping on my daughter ? ' You 
 want to read me a lecture, do you ? Neither 
 variableness nor shadow of turning. So to 
 speak, I never did complete anything. The 
 portraits are nothing. Then there 's my an- 
 tique, it's a fact in physics, that where the 
 head can go the rest can follow ; so having 
 cleared the way, I relied on that fact and left 
 the fellow to shift for himself, if he wants 
 to come he can. It 's true in other things 
 as well ; had I never admired your works 
 with my head, I had never admired you with 
 my heart, always allowing that I have one : 
 where my head went, my heart followed." 
 
 "Yes, dear, but" 
 
 "Well, then, there is one affair finished; 
 but you 'd laugh at it." 
 
 " I? "
 
 AZARIAN. 71 
 
 " Truly ? I will subject it to your sublime 
 consideration this evening." 
 
 When Azarian had gone, Miss Yetton saw 
 that her father was busy at his work, a 
 series of her painted cards whereof he meant 
 to make a Jacob's Ladder of flowers and 
 angels, with which to surprise some one of 
 the little children whom he met upon his 
 strolls, but which made progress backward, be- 
 cause, as Azarian said, when it should be done 
 he would have to part with it, and the old 
 gentleman was loath to make renunciation. 
 Leaving him happily humming over them all, 
 she went out in search of Charmian. 
 
 For many weeks Charmian had been away 
 with the company that she had mentioned ; she 
 had written to Ruth of her approach, and Ruth 
 had seen by Azarian's paper that she was at 
 last announced for that evening. Knowing 
 that it would be vain to seek her elsewhere, she 
 bent her way to the theatre, and slipping in
 
 72 AZARIAN. 
 
 past green-room and dressing-rooms, through 
 all the labyrinthine ways, under the lofty flies, 
 astride which Azarian had told her he once 
 was fond of sitting, so that the opera-strains 
 rose blended in a perfect strand of unison, 
 slipping by juts of scenery where trees grew 
 out of fireplaces, and among great coils of 
 ropes and pulleys, cables reaching this way 
 and that, up and down, all in a kind of yellow 
 twilight, a hollow sunshine, far aloft, swim- 
 ming full of dusty motes, till, stealing over 
 one end of the bare stage, she took an empty 
 chair and watched her chances. Before her 
 lay the great, silent, black and empty theatre, 
 beside her moved a throng of tiny people 
 chattering in an inane and indifferent way 
 some to the rafters and some to their gloves, 
 with much flirting and grimacing in the side- 
 scenes now and then stridently hissed by the 
 prompter. As Miss Yetton gazed out into 
 the vast building, along the vacant pit, up
 
 A Z AR1 AN. 73 
 
 the galleries, whose crimson luxury and gilt 
 and frescoed fronts were all hidden in sombre- 
 stretching draperies, some sense of the drama 
 of the world suddenly struck her, its tragedy, 
 its wild comedy like ocean-spray tossing at 
 the moon, its unities and antitheses, its Fates, 
 and, being ever a less reflective than sentient 
 nature, it was more by hit than any good 
 wit that, as a vague premonition of her own' 
 part therein floated athwart her perception, 
 she did not rise and rehearse with wringing 
 hands. But perhaps a little breath saved 
 her, for between life and emptiness there is 
 alway set a certain gulf, which, however 
 feasible it seems, it is from either side im- 
 possible to cross and to return again, and 
 here the gulf was music,* from which an 
 
 * " A little gulf of music intervenes, 
 
 A bridge of sighs, 
 Where still the cunning of the curtain screens 
 
 Art's paradise." 
 
 MRS. HOWE.
 
 74 AZARIAN. 
 
 idle air blew up and scattered her dream, 
 for from two or three instruments down there 
 on the edge of the void there gushed under 
 its breath a lilting sparkling stream, an airy 
 capriccio, a wild witch-music, the flutes, with 
 the deeper wood winding in, the violins dan- 
 cing pizzicato, and the three braiding into 
 harmony at the close, and, under the magic 
 wand of the conductor, the wide amphithea- 
 tre seemed slowly to assume the guise of the 
 glittering night, blossoming out with head 
 after head beyond, jewels and shining silks 
 and snowy furs, , with creamy shoulders and 
 beautiful faces lingeringly unfolding like the 
 petals of a rose, with the great basket of light 
 up there in the dome pouring down on all 
 its brimming burden of lustre. Suddenly, 
 a voice crying, " A pound and a half more 
 to your thunder ! " startled her, the light and 
 color flashed off and faded, the place was bare 
 again, the rehearsal was over, and Charmian 
 was approaching.
 
 AZARIAN. 75 
 
 Charmian looked very stately and pale in 
 her black silk, with a hood half thrown 
 back, but her face was beaming as she took 
 Ruth's chin and tilted her head that she might 
 look into the eyes, eyes for a moment timid, 
 then frank and resolute. 
 
 " So, you fancied you had a secret for me," 
 said Charmian. "Ah, tell-tale face to betray 
 the shrinking heart ! I should have known 
 it if I had not met Azarian and walked here 
 with him an hour ago, And angered him 
 withal. Are you happy, Ruth? Tell me, 
 does your heart seem all shivered and dis- 
 solved and floating like motes in a great 
 beam of joy ? Are you truly happy ? Well, 
 then, I am. Kiss and be friends. Dear little 
 child, you love me yet ? " 
 
 But Ruth had her arms already about 
 Charmian's neck, for they were alone, and 
 was kissing the white throat in a half-hysteric 
 of confession and assurance.
 
 76 AZARIAN. 
 
 "What an impulsive passionate child it 
 is!" said the other. "Here is a posy for her," 
 giving her the single blossom which she had 
 been twirling in her hand. " I kept it fresh 
 all the way. It came from the great govern- 
 ment greenhouses. Look at it, Ruth, so reg- 
 nant on its stem. The lady of a Venetian 
 Magnifico assumed such shape in order to live 
 on a little longer among her old colors and 
 splendors, but it took the torrid belt of this 
 
 New World to give it to her." 
 
 " Yes, yes, it is But I want " 
 " No you don't, my dear. I am not going 
 to hear a word till I can have it all in a nice 
 cose inside your own room. And then there 
 is not time ; I make a luxury of my enjoy- 
 ments, and I am not going to take your story 
 by bits. Dear Ruth, you think I don't want 
 to hear? But I am stunned and dazzled, 
 why did n't you write ? though I ought to 
 have expected. I am heartily glad, child, to
 
 AZARIAN. 77 
 
 have you in love, do you know. You won't 
 think it intrusive? But I wouldn't give a 
 groat for those who have not been once 
 thoroughly steeped in a sincere passion. They 
 stand on the outside, life has never been 
 deepened for them, they know nothing of its 
 arcana,. they are cold, they are dull, passing 
 shadows, unquickened sods. The world has 
 no meaning for them, they are not beating 
 humanity, but stocks and stones, their blood 
 has not been set in tune with all the genera- 
 tions. Ah, well, I 'have a history, too. One 
 day you shall hear it. A great shadow dark- 
 ened my way, till it was transfigured. I 
 shall always be simply Charmian. Ah, well. 
 Why don't you ask your flower's name, 
 Ruth ? " 
 
 " Yes, Charmian dear ? " 
 
 " It is the Queen of August. If you could 
 see it throned, and all quivering and sparkling 
 with its court ! It would be your first actual
 
 78 AZARIAN. 
 
 sight of one of those plants that the exploring 
 expedition described as appearing to live with 
 more than mere vegetable life, to soar to, and 
 gain, the higher delight of the animal; the 
 petals richest, most glowing orange spring 
 up erect with such a living joy, Ruth, and in 
 those wings, and in its bright blue dart, the 
 whole flower is like a hovering brilliant bird, a 
 humming-bird perhaps. Is it not ? Don't 
 you feel forcibly and irresistibly its claim to 
 a rank with those creatures that appreciate 
 life, even if it be only 
 
 < The wild joys of life, the mere living ? ' 
 
 But that's not the power of the thing, after 
 all. It is this. Think of your country, Ruth, 
 all your great, beautiful, beloved country, its 
 wide savannas, its rushing rivers, its pastures 
 and prairies, its mighty mountains, from tropi- 
 cal water to ice-bound coast peopled and peace- 
 ful and proud, and then think that the whole
 
 AZARIAN. 79 
 
 of its crowded wealth freely blossoms in this 
 single flower. Keep it forever, Ruth, it is your 
 country's gift to you ! There 's the janitor 
 nodding us out," and they went down the 
 ways, still talking, and when they parted it 
 was because Charmian was going to dine that 
 day with some grand people. But she could 
 come to-morrow noon, and Ruth was to tell 
 her all about it. 
 
 Ruth was so glad* to have met her friend, 
 she had so much to say, so much to ask, such 
 advice to seek ; and the sweet confidence and 
 counsel of a woman are not to be spared even 
 when a lover is dearest and tenderest, and a 
 dim vague feeling, a phantom of pain, already 
 followed Ruth, a haunting glimmer of thought 
 that perhaps Azarian was not a very tender 
 lover, perhaps it was not in his nature. For 
 love, this great flood, had deepened all the 
 channels of her being and made her wants 
 wider. Still he had chosen her, and his way
 
 80 AZARIAN. 
 
 of manifestation ought to be inconsequential, 
 she half said in her thoughts ; so, dismissing 
 her sole shadow, she tripped lightly along, an- 
 ticipating the pleasure of her talk with Char- 
 mian, of pouring on a waiting heart all the 
 recital of her happiness, anticipating that sym- 
 pathy which is balm to the soul excited either 
 with joy or sorrow, anticipating that to which 
 she was herself to listen, with a tremor, since 
 she could not associate Charmian with suffer- 
 ing, and since she had always seemed to be 
 one of those people of large intuitions who are 
 acquainted with every phase of a passion with- 
 out its experience, a thousand at once happy 
 and sorry ideas occurring which must be re- 
 peated, she had such a warm little heart, 
 and was so grateful for this friendship. So 
 she reached home and went out with her 
 father in high spirits to their dinner, never 
 dreaming how high spirits presage misfortune. 
 It was in the evening that Azarian came,
 
 AZARIAN. 81 
 
 and, in his lordly style, with a servant follow- 
 ing to deposit a casket and a violin-case by the 
 door. Azarian was brilliantly handsome that 
 night, his face overspread with a shining pallor, 
 his features, cut like those on some old me- 
 dallion coin, keener in outline than ever, the 
 thin lips curved .in crimson .and showering 
 mocking smiles, the eyes blue steel-clad 
 eyes sparkling at all they touched, and 
 along his low straight brow the hair lay in 
 great flaccid waves of gold drenched with 
 some penetrating perfume, an Oriental water 
 that stung the brain to vigor. Never was he 
 so radiant as on this evening, so various, so 
 charming, never was there such a seducing 
 sweetness about his every motion to wile her 
 ' soul away, and all the time some reserve 
 under a control that, though imperial, was 
 too graceful to be more than half suspected. 
 Poor little Ruth, it was something to see 
 such a being bending all his powers to please
 
 82 AZARIAN. 
 
 her, the love kept bubbling up in her heart 
 and suffusing soul and body, she was afraid 
 her face would harden in its breathing bloom- 
 ing smile. At last Mr. Yetton executed a 
 long-cherished intention and went to bed, 
 and when Ruth returned from her good-night 
 kiss she found Azarian sitting before the fire 
 and leaning to -warm a hand at the blaze, 
 the violin lying beside him, and the bow trail- 
 ing from his other hand. She went and sat 
 down on the mat at his feet, and was silent 
 awhile, because too full of quiet happiness. 
 At length Azarian spoke. 
 
 "I saw her, Charmian, to-day!" said he, 
 with an abrupt anger. 
 
 A thousand quick thoughts lanced them- 
 selves through Ruth's brain. 
 
 "Well, dear," said she. 
 
 " Being an excellent mouser, she had 
 guessed our engagement on sight. 'Some 
 deity appears to have given her your happi-
 
 A Z ART AN. 83 
 
 
 
 ness in charge. She certainly claims a free- 
 hold in you. Perhaps I was never more in- 
 sulted than by her daring candor. We had 
 one sharp thrust of words, we shall have no 
 more. Do you hear, Ruth ? " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean ! " 
 
 " This. If that woman darkens your door 
 again, I never shall ! " 
 
 " Darling ! " 
 
 " I am quite in earnest, dear child " 
 
 " You can't be. Renounce Charmian ? " 
 
 " Renounce the subject is not strong 
 enough to bear such a heavy word." 
 
 " There, I knew you were in jest all the 
 time. What do you tease your dear child 
 for? Why, I love Charmian!'-' 
 
 "And you say you love me." 
 
 " I say so ! " 
 
 " The strongest love must conquer. Mine 
 or hers. Take your choice, Ruth." 
 
 Ruth could not believe him, it seemed as
 
 84 AZARIAN. 
 
 if her happiness were a fairy thing of ice dis- 
 solving away in tears. 
 
 " Azarian ! " she cried, " I cannot do 
 without her; she is all the friend I have; I 
 love her ! " 
 
 " All the friend you have," he repeated, in 
 a grieved and quiet voice. "Well, then 
 good by." 
 
 He could leave her so ! If Ruth had had 
 the spirit of a mouse! As it was, she just 
 clung to his hand. Then of a sudden he grew 
 very kind, he bent, whispering endearments 
 in her ear, smoothing down her fine disor- 
 dered hair, letting cool kisses fall on her 
 heated forehead, overcoming her with a calm 
 dignity till she felt like a naughty wilful child. 
 All at once Ruth stilled her sobbing, the 
 troubled waters in her heart swelled and 
 sighed into peace; Azarian was playing on 
 his violin. A Guarnerius, one of the crea- 
 tions of that fantastic genius the Giuseppe
 
 AZARIAN. 85 
 
 del Jesu, whose suave rich tone, and delicate 
 yet penetrating sonority, bend and rebound 
 beneath the tune; a treasure among those 
 brought by his father in that early time when 
 the man had felt that the independence of his 
 native land was a thing not worth struggling 
 for, and, having culled the honey of Europe, 
 came to these "Western shores to pass his 
 prime. What was there of which Azarian was 
 not master? Ruth's admiration of his pow- 
 ers almost equalled her love of himself, but 
 just now she thought clearly of nothing of the 
 kind, only sat wrapped in the mist of music, 
 for he improvised a singing pastoral of night- 
 fall when the kye come home. At length the 
 sound ceased. Ruth did not speak or breathe, 
 hoping he would retake the burden, and kept 
 quietly gazing into the fire for the space of 
 half an hour. Then she turned, and saw 
 Azarian with his head fallen forward on his 
 arms, as they lay upon the table, for some
 
 86 AZARIAN. 
 
 reason very tired, and quite asleep. She came 
 and sat opposite, watching him, watching the 
 relief of the perfect profile, the lips half-parted 
 in gentle respiration, watched the drooping 
 lash, the fine thread of pulse that fluttered 
 through those purple veins on the beautiful 
 temple, watched the constraint of the position, 
 yet the abandon of the sleep in it. A man, the 
 ruler of the earth, with power to wrest their se- 
 crets from the stars and rend the lightning out 
 of heaven, is yet so touching when he sleeps, 
 because so helpless then, utterly defenceless 
 he reposes in such confidence upon the uni- 
 verse, the dew on his forehead for sole chrism, 
 the seal of holy sleep. The very act declares 
 weakness, so that one would fancy a bad man, 
 or a proud, ashamed to close his eyes, afraid 
 moreover of all the demonic phantasms of 
 that wild moment when the brain hangs be- 
 tween two worlds, and on the edge of either. 
 Slumber is such confession ; volition has
 
 AZARIAN. '87 
 
 ceased to crowd her secrets down, and the 
 fixed cold features slowly upheave to the sur- 
 face, and float on the tide of the hour ! Per- 
 haps Azarian's dream was not deep enough 
 for any such surrender of his nature ; if it 
 had been, perhaps Ruth could not have read 
 it; had she read it, she would still have 
 loved him, for once love, and you tear your 
 flesh and blood away in wringing apart. As 
 it was, she only guarded a tenderer silence, 
 and bent yearningly over him, as a mother 
 yearns in some passionate instant above the 
 child on her knee. She thought whether or 
 not it were possible to make this sacrifice 
 that he demanded, and she saw that in 
 the extremity of her affection she should 
 esteem it lightness to lay her very life be- 
 neath his trampling heel. Still some por- 
 tion of the sacrifice was Charmian's ; and 
 on Azarian's departure that night, Ruth re- 
 fused the promise he would have exacted,
 
 88 AZARIAN. 
 
 telling him laughingly that in the morning he 
 would blush at himself, and forgive her. But 
 Azarian shook his head, and, going, paused to 
 call back from the foot of the black staircase, 
 above which she held the candle and hung 
 her pretty face, "Ruth, dear child, I am 
 perfectly in earnest." 
 
 It was high noon of the next day when a 
 something queenly tread came up the stair- 
 way. Miss Yetton's door was closed; the 
 bare hand knocked. There was a hurried 
 sound within, and then stillness. Charmian 
 tapped again, turned the lock, and partly 
 entered. Ruth stood in the middle of the 
 floor, just as she had paused, petrified, in 
 hastening to the door, her face not less white 
 than the paper in her hand. Charmian's 
 glance coursed through the room, rested at 
 Azarian's violin, and at his casket yet un- 
 opened, was caught a moment by a white 
 gauntlet of his, flung, perhaps by no accident
 
 AZARIAN. 89 
 
 on his part, like a gage on the table there 
 before her, then came back to Ruth and 
 saw the whole. 
 
 
 
 " Come here, Ruth," said she cheerily. 
 
 Ruth came. 
 
 "Things will be straight," said Charmian 
 then, "if not in this world, why then in 
 another ! Thank God for that ! If ever you 
 find Azarian's love less worth than mine, come 
 to me again ! For mine will be always wait- 
 ing for you." 
 
 She remained so an instant, and Ruth, 
 trembling, swaying, sank at her feet. Then 
 she bent, and left in pledge upon Ruth's 
 shaking hand her ring, whose chrysolite was 
 flashing like the morning-star. 
 
 Concerning that passage Azarian never 
 asked, its slender pain should have pricked 
 his selfishness. Had the foe been an actress 
 of celebrity, he might have swallowed her 
 affronts, real and fancied ; as it was, he had
 
 90 'AZARIAN. 
 
 already confessed to himself that his final 
 captivation was a foolish affair, and, having 
 philosophically resolved to make the best of 
 it, he began by ordaining for his little Ruth 
 other intimacies. Rank, Azarian assumed to 
 be his own ; impecunious as he might be to- 
 day, he meant in the golden future to make 
 wealth his own also ; fame belonged to him, 
 too, in that vista, by the inherent virtue of 
 his easy powers ; and having thus retarded 
 himself through the results of an impetu- 
 ous moment, Azarian boldly asserted that he 
 had the right to require assistance from his 
 wife, that she must put her hand to the 
 social wheel and mount with him. But life 
 has its apsides ; it is some little hidden stroke 
 of nature, some sunbeam, some rain-drop, 
 some frost, that rounds the ripeness; it is, 
 perhaps, some stir, some jostle, that completes 
 the lingering crystallization. A trait of the 
 kaleidoscope belongs to us all, a week's ab-
 
 AZARIAN. 91 
 
 sence from familiar scenes will return one 
 with the world on another centre, and since 
 Charmian's journey and engagement abroad, 
 Azarian had not seen her play ! 
 
 That very afternoon Azarian came, and 
 with him two fine ladies of his acijuamtance, 
 to call upon his little fiancee, he had wearied 
 of the incognita ere that time. But under 
 all their soft voices, their silks and sables, 
 Ruth missed the great bounding heart of her 
 friend. After they went, he stayed, on the 
 edge of dusk, for a tea made gay with all 
 his endeavor, and then nothing would do but 
 the three together must sally forth and assist 
 at a famous farce with Laughter holding both 
 his sides, to make the fourth. He meant 
 that Ruth should forget herself in jollity a 
 moment, whether she would or no. On the 
 next morning a soft snow-storm fell, and, well 
 guarded among all its frolicsome myriads of 
 plumy flakes, Azarian swept her out into the
 
 92 AZARIAN. 
 
 country to catch the daring sprite in the 
 very act of his wizardry, to see the airy 
 feathering of spray and tree, the pearly 
 pencilling of the vine-stem, the waterfall burst- 
 ing its way through caves of soft-tufted pow- 
 dery crystal, the elms like foamy fountain- 
 sheaves, the dizzy emptying of the sky, and 
 all the wild delights of the magic hour, 
 till the arch broke up in sunset, .and, return- 
 ing home past long downy-drifting fields, they 
 beheld the great flush overlay the dazzling 
 smoothness with warmth, and beneath the 
 hillsides of country churchyards looked to 
 see how Nature seemed to have tucked in 
 all the graves with this kind coverlid of the 
 snow ! A week of constant devotion, to 
 give him all possible credit, Azarian had re- 
 solved that Ruth should not feel the want 
 of a friend, at the end of it, he fancied 
 she could no longer miss the other, his pro- 
 fession demanded him, and he was tired. He
 
 AZARIAN. 93 
 
 had been very tender, and Ruth had been 
 very happy; she had shut one gate of her 
 heart and let the waters there flow back 
 upon themselves, and because the sacrifice 
 had been great indeed to her, she was the 
 more rejoiced, since it had been made for 
 him. Now, as he turned himself with vigor 
 to his daily work, she took up hers again, 
 and was content to miss him in the daytime, 
 his coming gave such cheeriness to night. 
 
 One evening, at last, Azarian brought the 
 still unopened casket from its corner, before 
 taking it home with him. 
 
 " Well, Eve, my Fatima, have you learned 
 the contents of this treasury yet ? " said he. 
 
 " How could I, thou Bluebeard ! " 
 
 " Yet it retains the relics of a passion. 
 How indeed? Never trust a woman where 
 you can trust a key, is an excellent motto." 
 And he drew the article in question from 
 his pocket, threw back the lid, and emptied 
 the shrine.
 
 94 AZARIAN. 
 
 "My talent in its napkin," he said as he 
 held the thing for her inspection. 
 
 Carved in ivory with rarest skill, and fin- 
 ished to the last point of perfection, it was 
 a vase on whose processional curve forever 
 circled the line of sanguine beasts, the camelo- 
 pard and the lioness, the serpent in his own 
 volumes intervolved, with old Silenus shaking 
 his stick of lilies, and the wood-gods in a 
 crew, with ocean nymphs and hamadryades, 
 and the rude kings of pastoral Garamant, 
 bearing honor to that 
 
 " Lovely Lady garmented in light," 
 
 who, sealed amidst a snowy chaos of broidered 
 flower and vine, lay ever keeping 
 
 " The tenor of her contemplations calm, 
 With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm." 
 
 Azarian looked at it lovingly as Ruth did. 
 Often languid on other subjects, he was 
 always enthusiastic upon himself, and as that
 
 AZARIAN. 95 
 
 was the subject Ruth liked best, she was apt 
 to find him genial. " I shall just set it, with 
 all its blanched beauty, on the ground out- 
 side the walls of heaven, when I go in ! " 
 said he. "And never till then shall I part 
 with it, never! I suppose you think, if I 
 were the lover I should be, it would be a 
 wedding-present for you then, the white 
 witch vase ! " he added laughing. " Now sit 
 down, Ruth, and read the poem to yourself. 
 It is the Witch of Atlas, you know, that 
 topmost, piece of pure fancy. I wonder no 
 painter ever got tangled in its themes, it 
 needs the color, there is flame in it, too, 
 to paint, such blazo of precious gums and 
 spices as pigment and pencil have never 
 made ! Yet what might not the bare burin 
 alone do for those 
 
 ' Panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast 
 Darkness and odors and a pleasure hid 
 In melancholy gloom ! '
 
 96 AZARIAN. 
 
 And Turner himself need not have disdained 
 some flashes of the boat's -flight, when 
 
 ' The circling sun-bows did upbear 
 Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray, 
 Lighting it far upon its lampless way,' 
 
 or where, with richer contrast of shadows, the 
 billows 
 
 'roared to feel 
 The swift and steady motion of the keel.' 
 
 After all, it 's best as it is, with no other illus- 
 tration than its own. I 've half the mind 
 to break my vase! When I first read the 
 thing, it was like, in its turbulence of fantas- 
 ticism, some shattered frieze of the ages, with 
 half the fragments lost ; something of the 
 antique rose before me, uriis and sarcophagi, 
 and Achilles casting his yellow locks on the 
 tomb of Patroclus, when the sweet Witch 
 shook 
 
 'The light out of the funeral lamps.' 
 
 Egypt came with all her grotesque awfulness
 
 AZARIAN. 97 
 
 of Imagery behind those naked boys chariot- 
 eering ghastly alligators, 
 
 ' By Mceris and the Mareotid lakes.' 
 
 And it was one of the Wild Ladies of medi- 
 aeval legends themselves, when, chasing the 
 lightning, 
 
 ' She ran upon the platforms of the wind, 
 And laughed to hear the fire-balls roar behind.' 
 
 [ like it because it has scarcely a human 
 sympathy, because its region is so remote, the 
 very shoreless air 
 
 ' Of those mysterious stars 
 Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.' 
 
 There 's the place ! " 
 
 And while Ruth read, Azarian played, 
 played in murmuring minor with his bow 
 lightly hovering over the strings, and sup- 
 plied the verses' only want, in a vague sweet 
 melancholy. 
 
 So the evenings went, music and books and 
 talk, so blithe and swift that times when the 
 5 G
 
 98 AZARIAN. 
 
 lover failed to appear became a blank of lone- 
 some longing. Ruth used to reflect in amaze- 
 ment that she had ever been happy without 
 Azarian, and in her lowliness as yet exacting 
 nothing and accepting his least glance as free 
 and generous largess, she never thought of 
 reproach, it was wonderful that he should 
 come at all, the times were all the happier 
 when after any absence he came at last. Not 
 so with Mr. Yetton. He fretted and wondered 
 and watched, laid up a shower of sentences, 
 none of which had he ever the heart to ex- 
 pend, and could not be induced to forsake his 
 post till Ruth would lay her weary little head 
 upon his knee, and let him fold his slender 
 hands around her with a shadowy feeling that 
 he somehow stood between her and sorrow. 
 
 The Spring was drawing near again. Aza- 
 rian was very busy, and had already acquired 
 no inconsiderable renown by the success of 
 an operation from which few patients had
 
 AZARIAN. 99 
 
 ever arisen with life.' But his hand was tre- 
 morless, his eye was pitiless ; he had a keen 
 delight, as it were, in surprising the Maker at 
 his secrets ; his searching knife was the instru- 
 ment of a defiant curiosity ; he dared beyond 
 his duty, and he commanded success. To 
 those who palpitated beneath the steel, his 
 very courage was tenderness. There were 
 some that he had upraised who worshipped 
 him passing upon his way, as if he had the 
 strength of a young god, and held the gift 
 of immortality in his hand. More or less, 
 murmur of this of course reached Ruth. She 
 knew that his fortunes prospered, perhaps 
 she was ever so little touched that he made 
 no mention of marriage. But Azarian had 
 not the intention of marrying till his menage 
 could equal his ideas. Yet, whether or no, 
 Ruth grew glad in the gladdening season, 
 because Spring ever sends fresh sap along the 
 veins of young and healthy natures, and for
 
 100 AZARTAN. 
 
 the first gift of the opening year she painted 
 the leafing of the lime as we find it on one 
 of those unexpected mornings when the great 
 sweet silent power has wrought outward in 
 the night ; the bare bough where the shining 
 ruby sheaths dispart, that the tiny emeralds 
 heaped within may tumble out together. She 
 did not work now so assiduously as she had 
 been used, for, besides the dissipation of her 
 thoughts, her father was unable to go on 
 their country rambles, and she seldom liked 
 to leave him. Now and then Azarian brought 
 in a fragrant bunch from the river-side, or left 
 on his way home an armful of blue lupines, 
 or else some sabbatia sprays, those rosy 
 ghosts that haunt the Plymouth ponds, and, 
 risen from the edge of deep water among 
 wading reeds and sedges, seem to belong only 
 to that one incanting moment of waning after- 
 noon sunshine, now and then, but not often, 
 and she contented herself with weaving her
 
 AZARIAN. 101 
 
 old ideas into arabesque, initial-letter, and 
 frontispiece, and harvested the sunshine of 
 the long bright days for her old father's 
 pleasure, there grew, as June advanced, to 
 be a something desert in the sense of them 
 to Ruth. 
 
 Azarian had by this time a new fancy, on 
 which he spent all his leisure, a slender 
 blade-like boat, that ripped up the river with 
 a gash. In it, or in his wherry, he lay in wait 
 for morn rising rosy out of the wave, chased 
 the sunset along the streams at dewfall, and, 
 shooting down again, lingered far out on the 
 mysterious margin of midnight to surprise the 
 solemn rites of the turning tide. After all, 
 that was the sacred hour ; it seemed to him 
 that such absence and negation were required 
 for the complete self-assertion of the deep. 
 He leaned over his boatside, miles away from 
 any shore, a star looked down from far above, 
 a star looked up from far below, the glint
 
 102 AZARIAN. 
 
 passed as instantly and left him the sole spirit 
 between immense concaves of void and ful- 
 ness, shut in like the flaw in a diamond. The 
 sole spirit ? What was this vast vague essence 
 then, overpowering his tiny limitation, and 
 falling and heaving with long slow surge 
 about him? By and by, perhaps, the broken 
 blood-red fragment of a waning moon leaned 
 up the horizon, and tipped her horns to fill 
 the giant cup hungrily hollowed to hold the 
 ruby flood. But now it was all dim and 
 dusk and dreamy. Above, a wide want, a 
 hush, an emptiness; beneath, a mystery that 
 allured and fascinated and terrified, and all 
 around and up from every side, the great tone, 
 the muffled murmur, the everlasting fugue 
 sung by the Sea. An unconscious happy 
 strain was it, or a choral of rapt worship, 
 or could a finer sympathy detect a restless 
 sadness there, 
 
 " Infinite passion and the pain 
 Of finite hearts that yearn " ?
 
 AZARIAN. 103 
 
 Was he weak ? he silently lifted his oars and 
 stole away : Actaeon was no myth to him. 
 Was he inspired ? a sail ran up and length- 
 ened on the wandering wind ; so much was 
 the talisman for more. With senses known 
 and named the poets deal, but there are others 
 too subtile for any statistician to seize, whose 
 rare quality should be like that of those 
 volatile liquors which evaporate on contact 
 with the air; these a floating flower-scent 
 wakens, a morning breeze just dashed with 
 dew, the stray sunlight of an autumn after- 
 noon, a breath of melancholy tune, and these 
 absorb the sounds of sea at midnight. Aza- 
 rian was alone, and brought no simply human 
 joy or sorrow with him ; he made himself akin 
 to the wild Thing about him ; it lay open to 
 take him, it wrapped him in the silence of 
 its song, ravelled the earth's webs from his 
 soul, woke him only with a lull. He had 
 been in other spheres, he had learned that
 
 104 AZARIAN. 
 
 for which there was neither speech nor lan- 
 guage. But though the deep-bosomed ex- 
 panses never meant to reveal to him their 
 inmost spells, and might spurn him from 
 aught but their fringes, and though what the 
 hour showed had not the power of what it 
 hid, the imagination of this bold seeker defied 
 them all, and filled every gulf and hollow with 
 its light ; his fancy flew like a bird and hovered 
 over secret solitudes, and though he found in 
 fact only what he brought, yet it was alche- 
 mized by all these unformulated agents. For 
 Azarian was like a prophet who believes in 
 himself, and has at least one worshipper ; ho 
 fortified his faith and fertilized his possible 
 genius with the tilth of these hours, and ac- 
 cepted his own service as necessary duty. 
 Such experiences gave him material, since he 
 argued that mere emotion is the crude mass, 
 but, vivified to the intellectual point, it be- 
 comes art, and he that knows the cipher reads 
 the revelation.
 
 AZARIAN. 105 
 
 " Las flores del romero, 
 
 Nina Isabel, 
 Hoy son flores azules, 
 Y manana seran miel," 
 
 he hummed, as he sprang up from the dark 
 wharves and threaded the lonely echoing 
 streets without a thought of any soft sadden- 
 ing eyes that might have watched for him 
 so long. Yet they who gather their honey 
 from laurels will eat poison. Azarian was 
 only sowing the seed of his rosemary. 
 
 Perhaps Azarian took no account of the 
 purely physical pleasure his boat gave him, 
 though in reality he was elated by the seques- 
 tration in the midst of garish daylight which 
 it afforded, the speed and prowess were keen 
 exhilaration ; and while nothing on the river 
 competed with his swift supremacy, neither 
 college-craft nor water-barge, and if any dared 
 the race, he heedlessly skimmed along, paus- 
 ing perhaps to feather an oar in solitary dis-
 
 106 AZARIAN. 
 
 dain, and darting off again in matchless flight, 
 there was, withal, the least effervescence of 
 pride that added a tang to its relish. 
 
 In clear noon-snatches when he took him- 
 self to his boat, Azarian loved to peer down 
 through the yellow limpid harbor-waters and 
 watch the great anchors lying there blackly 
 or throwing off a sidelong gleam to flicker 
 idly upwards ; sometimes he stole an hour to 
 go out and rock on the swell that the vast 
 steamers left behind them ; once his oar tan- 
 gled in the tresses of some drowned girl, 
 he thought, but it proved to be only the 
 gorgonia, a splendid -sea-weed all pulsating 
 with glow of lakes and madders, which, when 
 he had carried his boat between the bridge- 
 piers and away beyond to her moorings, he 
 took fresh-dripping to Ruth, although, so soon 
 as it was dried in a pale purple plume, he 
 reclaimed and donated it to the Natural His- 
 tory rooms. There was a charm to him, as
 
 AZARIAN. 107 
 
 well, in the flavor of human life that bordered 
 all the region of tar and cordage, of aerial 
 spire and dark and crowded hulk, the life 
 that waited on the whistling winds, the 
 ships winging in from foreign lauds brought 
 a passenger they never felt, the bales of mer- 
 chandise swinging up from the holds were 
 rich with a dust of fancy that did not weigh 
 in the balance. Thus every moment became 
 a lure, and gradually all Ruth saw of him 
 was in these broken bits of time, a chance 
 half-hour at night, a little stroll that ended 
 for her at the hospital-gate in the morning, 
 or now and then when he came and went 
 out with them to dinner. And' of late Ruth 
 used to turn and look after him with a quick 
 sparkle in her eye, these long longing days 
 were not making a saint of her, and then 
 go home and cry over her viewless work to 
 think that she could have been angry an in- 
 stant with her dear heart's-delight. When,
 
 108 AZARIAN. 
 
 at last, Azarian ran in one morning, in inso- 
 lent spirits, and singing gayly, 
 
 " If you want to go a-fishing, 
 Do your duty like a man, 
 Tar the rope and tar the rigging, 
 Ship ! on board the Mary Ann ! " 
 
 and with a hurried kiss and word was off in 
 a vacation for a trip to Labrador, Ruth took 
 a valiant heart, plucked up a little pride, 
 wished him bon voyage, and tried not to throw 
 a glance after him.- But treading lightly back 
 upon his steps, he flung open^ the door and 
 caught her after all peering through her ivy- 
 vines ; her pretty play of "piquant anger 
 lent her some momentary importance, and he 
 dallied with a lingering adieu that made her 
 sad and glad at once. 
 
 But now Ruth resumed her old toil with a 
 will. Previously she had felt little of that* 
 independence which many maidens cherish ; 
 she had indeed laid by and invested a few
 
 AZARIAN. 109 
 
 hundred dollars, and had meant to add to it, 
 that one day her father might have his long 
 desire and return to some little house among 
 fields and hills again ; but since her engage- 
 ment, this had been a secondary thing ; her 
 father she knew could never leave her, she 
 earned enough for each day's wants, and, 
 far from wishing to make provision for the 
 future, she had preferred reliance on Azarian, 
 she was glad that he should give her all, 
 she had desired to owe everything to him, 
 but now things were changed. So she worked. 
 The time had come to her at last, as it comes 
 to every woman, when she felt herself to be an 
 integer, and could not brook the treatment 
 of a cipher. Suddenly one morning she 
 flung down her pencil; some secret spring, 
 she felt, was undermining all the fair foun- 
 dations of her love ; she made a little bonfire 
 of the things she had done during those 
 feverish days. Then she turned to her father,
 
 110 AZARIAN. 
 
 and her heart smote her to see how pale and 
 patient he sat there while she had been ab- 
 sorbed in her own angry fancy. 
 
 A pathetic pain cut her to the quick, as 
 she contrasted this forlorn wan shadow with 
 that manly youth of his still within her - 
 recollection. And after that was gone, fond 
 old memories began to stir in their sleep, 
 while she gazed on him, memories sad only 
 with that pensiveness which clothes the past. 
 Little home-scenes in the old country-life, 
 bringing the smile with the sigh : the massa- 
 cre of her innocents, fifty babies organized 
 from transverse rolls of rags and concealed, 
 under a loose board in the garret floor, from 
 the invasions of the boy Azarian lately ar- 
 rived,. on seeking which hoard one morning, 
 shrill whoops beneath the window filled her 
 soul with dismay, and she looked down on 
 the boy, hatchet in hand, executing a war- 
 dance before a log where lay the fifty, with >
 
 AZARIAN. Ill 
 
 their little heads completely severed from their 
 bodies, and Ruth had wept for her children 
 and would not be comforted. Then her fa- 
 ther had showed her the securer nest of a 
 flat rock in the middle of the wheat-field, 
 and, with her two hands before her, parting, 
 like a swimmer, the tall waving growth that 
 arched overhead with a thousand trembles and 
 curves, and feeling it close up behind her 
 and leave a trackless path, she went every 
 summer's day to her retreat, always letting 
 the walk be slow and stately, with some dim 
 Biblical association of grandeur, half dream- 
 ing herself to be a Hebrew child in the great 
 path of the Red Sea or stepping across the 
 Jordan, behind the shrilling trumpet-strains 
 and between lofty ramparts of scattering 
 chrysophrase momently battlemented in daz- 
 zling cresting foam, till, reaching the flat 
 white rock, hidden from all but the ardent 
 sky, she became absorbed in fresh family cares
 
 112 AZARIAN. 
 
 with dolls made from clustering grass-spiies 
 uprooted and inverted, the locks combed out 
 upon their heads, and their lengths dressed 
 in store of leaves which she had brought 
 along, among which if by chance some early- 
 ripened spray were found with all its colors 
 kindled by August suns, her little people 
 rustled about as gorgeously as dames in 
 Indian cashmeres and silks of Smyrna. But 
 here, too, Azarian had surprised her. She 
 remembered placid Sundays, then, when her 
 father used to take his book, and go out with 
 her into the woods, and, after he had sung 
 his hymns, lie back in the grass and let her 
 play with his eyes, poke about the lids with 
 her rosy finger-tips, lift the fringes, stare 
 down into their black wells that always gave 
 back her tiny reflection, close them and drop 
 her little kisses there. And with that, she 
 bethought herself of the real well, balancing 
 on whose curb one morning and admiring
 
 AZARIAN. 113 
 
 the bright-eyed laughing little girl down there 
 with the red cheeks and the mouthful of 
 pearls, she had fallen in herself, carrying in 
 h'er plunge the bucket and its chain that 
 rattled in her ears like thunder; and just 
 as, faint with horror and cold, her cries had 
 ceased, and over her the sky had seemed to 
 darken and send out its stars, a great bright 
 face, an Angel's face, interposed between her 
 and the deepening heaven, and with his feet 
 striking from stone to stone of the greenly- 
 streaked and slippery shaft, and steadied by 
 his hand along the chain, her father had 
 dashed down and swept her up, as it seemed, 
 in a breath, and tumbled her out into the 
 warm noon light and upon the fresh and 
 fragrant heaps of hay. And then, with re- 
 currence of the chill, she thought of the 
 broad hearth at home, the blaze in the vast 
 chimney, that, summer or winter, never died, 
 but sent the light of its flashes to dance over
 
 114 AZARIAN. 
 
 dresser and wall, painting a hundred ruddy 
 pictures in the bright pewter hanging there, 
 and she remembered how her father had told 
 her the tradition that from a fire never once 
 going out in seven years the little salamander 
 sprang, and sitting before it there with him 
 night after night, in every puff of smoke 
 that rolled upward faintly blue, in every fall 
 of embers that trembled apart into white ash 
 and glowing coal, in every ooze and simmer 
 of the singing log, in every snapping knot, 
 she had looked for the ruby outline, had 
 feared the sparkling eyes, had listened for 
 the voice of the mysterious being born of 
 fire and dwelling in its hot and terribly 
 beautiful recesses. At such times, too, her 
 father had sung her strange ballads, barbarous 
 thing?, but with a sweetness like that of wild- 
 honey in their tunes, Fair Rosamond, 
 the lay of where the ships go sailing, a Rev- 
 olutionary air whose quaint melody charmed
 
 AZARIAN. 115 
 
 her not half so much as the dramatic justice 
 subsisting between^two of its stanzas, running 
 in this wise : 
 
 " Next morn, at broad daylight, 
 
 The Constitution hove in sight ; 
 Dacres ordered all his men a glass of brandy ! 
 
 Saying, do boys as you will, 
 
 Here our wishes we fulfil, 
 There 's a Yankee frigate bearing down quite handy ! 
 
 " When Dacres came on board 
 
 To deliver up his sword, 
 He was loath to leave it, 'cause it looked so handy ! 
 
 You may keep it, says brave Hull ; 
 
 What makes you look so dull ? 
 Come, step below and take a glass of brandy ! " 
 
 Ruth reflected, too, with what a keen ad- 
 venturous relish he had used to peal forth 
 old hunting-refrains, or the burden of some 
 wild sea-song. 
 
 " The stars shine bright, and the moon gives light, 
 And my mother '11 be looking for me.
 
 116 AZARIAN. 
 
 She may look, she may cry, with a watery eye, 
 
 She must look to the bottom of the sea, 
 
 
 The sea ! The sea ! 
 
 She must look to the bottom of the sea. 
 
 And the raging seas did roar, 
 And the stormy winds did blow, 
 
 While we poor sailors climbing up atop, 
 And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below, 
 
 And the land-lubbers lying down below ! " 
 
 And then she had crept into his waiting arms 
 and been lulled to sleep by the sad strain of 
 
 " Weep no more, lady, 
 
 Thy sorrows are in vain ; 
 For violets plucked, the sweetest showers 
 Will ne'er make grow again," 
 
 all in those dear dead days when her father 
 had completed her whole horizon. But ah! 
 how different now, how her reliance had 
 turned into support, and how poorly indeed 
 she was giving back to-day the wealth of com- 
 fort and delight with which he once enriched
 
 AZARIAN. 117 
 
 her, when he had it to bestow ! He sat there 
 so old and melancholy and feeble, she recalled 
 him so hale and buoyant and young, the 
 tears fell down her face. 
 
 There was a bright glance in Mr. Yetton's 
 eye just then, to which it had long been un- 
 accustomed ; he was bending forward, and 
 gazing about him with a bewildered air. Ruth 
 went and slowly brushed her cheek across his 
 brow. 
 
 "Dear," said he quickly, with almost a 
 vigor in his tone, drawing her away and hold- 
 ing her to look at, while his mind travelled 
 back one phase, " things are very strange. 
 Where is Charmian?" 
 
 Ruth burst into tears outright. 
 
 " Don't, my dear," said her father regret- 
 fully, forgetting his question, and still travel- 
 ling back. " I seem," said he, pressing his 
 hand against his eyes, "to have been in a 
 dream. Things are very strange. Ruth, my
 
 118 AZARIAN. 
 
 love, tell me all about it, all that has happened 
 since, since we came here, for instance." 
 
 Was it possible that that old intelligence 
 was returning ? thai the passivity, the trance, 
 would pass, and her father be again the strong, 
 bright man of plans and hopes, such as once 
 he was when with stalwart form and nervous 
 limb he carried his child along the fields, 
 leaping the brooks, and snapping off broad 
 branches for her parasol, so much do we 
 connect mental with bodily vigor ! Ruth's 
 trembling hope burned in her cheeks and 
 dried her tears like fire. She sat on the arm 
 of his chair, and repeated the little story with 
 a caress for every period. She told him of 
 her work, of her happiness, of her love, even 
 of that day when first Azarian had claimed 
 her favor ; but she breathed nothing of neglect, 
 of selfish pleasure, of tears, or of repining. 
 For though Ruth might feel, she would not 
 as yet reflect. Yet perhaps that which she
 
 AZARIAN. 119 
 
 did not say her father's awakening power 
 divined. 
 
 " But you have spoken no word of Cliar- 
 mian," said he, his own remembrance all alit. 
 
 " Charmian does not. come here any more." 
 
 " Ah, child ! I see it all, I see it all. 
 
 And yet her love was best ! " 
 
 Ruth shivered at the thought. Had her 
 father woke simply to tell her this ? She 
 could not believe it, though one came back 
 from the dead. 
 
 " And where did you say Azarian was ? I 
 must see him first, I must tell him to be 
 tender of my child before I go." 
 
 "Go where, dear father?" asked Ruth, 
 with -a hasty pang, bringing in her glance 
 from the evening-star that glimmered through 
 a long wreath of roseate vapor. " You are 
 not going anywhere ? You will not leave 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes, dear, for a little while. Only a little
 
 120 AZARIAN. 
 
 while. You spoke of the money saved, 
 
 and said it was for me, my love, you don't 
 regret ? " 
 
 Ruth laughed, though something made 
 it hurt her, all that was so entirely his. 
 
 " Not but that I shall repay the sum, a 
 thousand fold, a thousand fold, my dear ! 
 You shall ride in your carriage, your path 
 to it shall be carpeted with cloth of gold. 
 Nobody's affection will toss you off when you 
 have the soft lap of wealth to fall into. Money 
 is the measure of the world, to it wit, genius, 
 power, fame, all are transferable; a man's 
 possession of it is the gauge of his real worth. 
 Yes, yes, Ruth, your name shall yet weigh 
 down a million ! " 
 
 " Dear, dear father, we are so much happier 
 as we are ! Be still, dear ; put your head on 
 my shoulder and let me sing to you your old 
 tunes." 
 
 "Yes, Ruth. I am going away for a little
 
 A Z ART AN. 121 
 
 while, to that bright country 'men talked 
 of when I fell ill, where, as they say, the 
 streets are paved with, gold and precious- 
 stones." But there a news-boy cried in the 
 square, seldom thing, and he sent her for 
 a paper. 
 
 Ruth obeyed, only that she dared not 
 thwart him ; and, re-entering, unfolded the 
 sheet, seeking for the place he wished. As 
 she did so, holding the paper to the late light, 
 an announcement caught her eye and sent the 
 color up and down her face, an announcement 
 concerning the stock in which, by Azarian's 
 advice, all her little investment had been 
 made. 
 
 " Dear father," said she, " it is getting 
 so dark" 
 
 "What time do they sail, Ruth? Here, 
 give me the paper ! " 
 
 " The first and twentieth, I " 
 
 " And what day is this ? " 
 
 6
 
 122 AZARIAN. 
 
 The thirty-first, but " 
 
 " To-morrow ! I shall no more than reach 
 the boat if I take the night train. You must 
 draw the money at once, Ruth ! " 
 
 " It is," said she, with hesitation, " after 
 business-hours." 
 
 "Never mind, I can easily negotiate your 
 certificates ; give them to me now, my love, 
 and throw some things together in my port- 
 manteau. Call a coach. It is all for you, 
 sweet, all for you. Little one, my pretty one, 
 when I come home I will hang a diamond 
 on your forehead that shall blaze like that 
 star up there in Heaven ! " 
 
 He lifted his tall and slender frame, quiver- 
 ing in excitement, looking forward, and reck- 
 oning rapidly his dazzling dreams. What 
 should she do? 
 
 "Dear father," she said, reaching up to 
 wind her arms about his shoulder, " remember 
 how happy we have been. We do not need
 
 AZARIAN. 123 
 
 anything more. If we did, Azarian would 
 give it to us. Remember when I tell you 
 something that we have peace and praise 
 and- plenty." 
 
 " When you tell me what ? " turning his 
 face sharply upon her. 
 
 " Something I saw just now in the paper, 
 about where our money was. The place has 
 failed. There is n't any money there. But 
 we shall never " 
 
 There was 110 need to continue ; the weight 
 upon her arm was growing heavier, the tall 
 and slender frame sank back into the chair, 
 Mr. Yetton's heart was broken. He spoke 
 no more, but kissed his child with a gasping 
 sob, and, drifting through the night, was lost, 
 when morning came, in eternity. Still there, 
 but beyond her sight. 
 
 Poor little Ruth did not know how to be 
 calm ; long trial had abused her strength, all
 
 124 AZARIAN. 
 
 her power of repression was gone, all her 
 sorrow fell upon her at once. She lay with 
 her face where his heart had been wont to 
 beat, as if she would warm it into life again 
 with her kisses and her wild bursts of weep- 
 ing. She called to him, as if she "could not 
 speak and he refuse to hear, and, every time, 
 the white mute awfulncss struck like cold 
 steel to her soul. He must stir, must smile ; 
 it was impossible, she cried out, that he would 
 not turn and look in her eyes ; when a little 
 breeze blew in and lifted the fine gray hair 
 from his brow, she thought to feel his breath 
 upon her cheek, but there was only the 
 marble silence, the impassible repose. To 
 her hand, there was nothing but chill ; to 
 her entreaties, the flinty outline sealed in frost, 
 the impress of unchangeable Fate. A wail of 
 despair left her lips as she shuddered down 
 beside him again. It seemed to her that this 
 was all she had, and this was gone. Three
 
 j 
 I 
 
 AZARIAN. 125 
 
 noons, three nights, then the green sods cov- 
 ered him and she was alone at last. 
 
 They were dark days that followed, life 
 seemed too heavy to bear. She remembered 
 how she had driven with Azarian in the wintry 
 sunset and seen the snow upon the graves, 
 she thought with an agony of pity of Jho 
 bleak lonely winds blowing over them, of 
 the cruel sleet that would so soon beat above 
 the dear old form. She would cheat herself 
 into believing him in his chair, and, turning, 
 find it vacant, and bury her face there as if 
 it were his loving breast again. She would 
 never feel those slender hands about her neck 
 any more, she would never hear that voice, 
 never look in that pathetic face ; she had not 
 made his life so happy as she might, and 
 now she could never do another thing for 
 him, never, and with the terrible word 
 her soul dashed up against the immutable 
 boundaries. She was so cold, so bruised,
 
 ^ 
 
 \ 
 
 126 AZARIAN.. 
 
 so lonely, some human help and love she 
 wanted, some touch, where were Azarian's 
 arms ? If he could only feel her sorrow, he 
 might care for her as once, hold her in the 
 old way, comfort her. A bitter instinct told 
 her that, with all his skill, he should have 
 known this might come at any time, and not 
 have left her to meet its force alone, to strug- 
 gle with its succeeding horror, to Jet Death 
 drop the folds of his mighty pall upon her 
 and shut out the light of the world. She 
 remembered those recent vigils, remembered 
 them in the midst of her grief, with a terror 
 that she had not felt in enduring them, 
 that icy sculptured fixity beneath all the gusty 
 sway of snowy drapery in the wind from the 
 open casement. Lying there alone, utterly 
 weak and unnerved in the long blackness of 
 the moonless nights, she felt as if the fearful 
 work, when the face indurates beneath the 
 stony palm while the soul is drawn away>
 
 AZARIAN. ' 127 
 
 were being done on her; all manner of ghastly 
 fancies oppressed her brain, .a weight like 
 cold lead within beat out her pulse slowly, 
 the tears brimmed and overflowed, a ceaseless 
 sourceless rain ; to her ken there was no life, 
 no immortality, no power in the wide uni- 
 verse but death, and death was immitigable 
 horror. There had always been for Ruth a 
 degree of uncertain awe about the dark, as 
 of something unknown, unformed, incompre- 
 hensible, incommensurate. She had never felt 
 its spiritual analogy till now, now when it 
 brought with it the bitter need of some -al- 
 mighty stay, and just as reason might have 
 yielded to the shadows encompassing both 
 soul and body, out of their heart came help, 
 and she found this darkness of the grave 
 brooding thick with mercies. The little bird 
 that fluttered from the night-storm through 
 the Northumbrian king's banqueting-hall, 
 while the firelight bickered in the purple
 
 128 ' AZARIAN. 
 
 bowls of wine and flung his shadow at the 
 shields upon the wall, flew from the warmth 
 and light and cheer out at the other door, 
 
 " Into the darkness awful and divine." 
 
 Divine, instinct with possible deity, for it is 
 written He made darkness his secret place. 
 And so when the terrors of hell had got hold 
 
 upon her, Ruth turned and prayed, and at her 
 
 
 prayer a white calm peace gathered and rose 
 
 from the shadows, and fell upon her heart and 
 her eyes like dew. 
 
 Sometimes now she stole abroad, when the 
 evening came, and into a church at hand, 
 where she heard the organ pealing, a silent 
 worshipper came in, a silent one went out, 
 a penitent knelt motionless at the altar, an- 
 other at the confessional ; one burner shed 
 a peaceful twilight over lofty arch and clus- 
 tered column, dying dimly down the aisles 
 and in the recesses of the chancel ; a solemn
 
 AZARIAN. 129 
 
 quiet reigned below, and above, the voices 
 of the practising choir soared in ecstatic music 
 along the organ's golden blare. And Ruth 
 stood there in the obscurity with folded hands 
 and pale face, looking up the dark vaulted 
 roof, and tried to raise her soul into sympa- 
 thy with the place, to make it fit for heavenly 
 love, tried to find God in his world, the 
 God who had given her peace. She knew 
 in herself that the vast Spirit which feeds the 
 universe is beneficent as powerful; she dared 
 to trust in the force that wound the stars 
 upon their courses and shaped the petals of 
 the flower; the care that surrounded insect 
 and root would not be less kind to her. All 
 things were best, she said, whether she ceased 
 upon the idle air and was not, or whether 
 she drew nearer the infinite depths of love, 
 a pure existence mounting on endless seons. 
 She felt how one had drawn her out of deep 
 waters; thankfully she loved him, desired to 
 
 6* . I
 
 130 AZARIAN. 
 
 find him, to worship him, and lay her tribute 
 
 
 
 at his feet. Her fears had fled away, and 
 though the sight of some worn garment 
 would bring the hungry heart to her lips, 
 and some memory cause the trembling tears 
 to fall, her very grief was purified. It had 
 brought her towards a world she had never 
 known, already, to her hopes, the heavenly 
 door flew open at a touch, and angels drew 
 her in. 
 
 As the days crept by now, Ruth began to 
 long for Azarian's return, with fresh eager- 
 ness ; she needed his presence so much, his 
 sympathy, his solace ; she wished to impart to 
 him this new experience, this glorious antici- 
 pation and confidence, to learn if any other 
 human being had ever felt the same. How- 
 ever, he^ was not to come till September, so 
 she schooled her heart to patience. But one 
 morning that heart kept stirring with such a
 
 AZARIAN. 131 
 
 wild insistance, that she felt as if he must be 
 near, yet could not believe it to be anything 
 but a dream, when the door opened and a 
 face laughed in upon her, Azarian's face, 
 though somewhat browned, a trifle ruddy, the 
 thoroughly healthy work of sun and wind. 
 So she sat there a moment, changed and pale 
 in her little black gown, and gazing up at 
 him with her always darkly mournful eyes, 
 eyes as full of pathos as those of some dumb 
 thing, which seem to express the sorrow of a 
 silent soul, then she sprang and cried upon 
 his arm. 
 
 The reception hardly accorded with Aza- 
 rian's desires, especially as behind him there 
 brushed a rustle of silk. He saw at once 
 that it had been an error not to come first 
 alone ; but he made the best of it, brought 
 Ruth to herself with a word, and presented 
 her to Madame Saratov, a Russian lady who 
 had known his father, and whom he had acci-
 
 132 AZARIAN. 
 
 dentally found upon the Arabia when, heartily 
 tired of the fishing-smack and its discomforts, 
 he had made his way to Halifax and caught 
 the steamer. 
 
 Madame Saratov was perhaps Azarian's age 
 once and a half again; but in her fair hair 
 that betrayed no change, her complexion like 
 snow over which a rosy vapor drifts, and all 
 her patrician preservation, she gave no sign of 
 years. For the rest, she was beautiful, 
 beautiful to Ruth as a mother might have 
 been, with a bland beatific countenance, 
 beautiful to Azarian as, if he had not been 
 overcome against his will by another, he would 
 have chosen a lady-love to be, with a capti- 
 vating charm of manner, with a voice that 
 played freely in a range of dulcet tones and 
 discords, with a sparkle of wicked wit and 
 mischievous meanings here, with a strain of 
 mystical piety there, with a character whose 
 solution presented to him analytic pleasure.
 
 AZARIAN. 133 
 
 Madame Saratov was a woman, in fact, like 
 a faceted jewel ; and if she was not all things 
 to all men, she was certainly capable of being 
 a great many things to one man. Having 
 accompanied her husband in exile until his 
 death, her present purpose was to give lessons 
 in French, in music, in her own language, 
 in anything, and her ultimate object the edu- 
 cation of her two boys, whom she had dis- 
 missed to school, having brought them to 
 America for a career. Nothing was more 
 pleasing to Azarian than, for the while, to 
 consider Madame Saratov as his prot<?ge, to 
 put high price on her services and barriers 
 about her acquaintance, to make her the 
 fashion, and, in his own way, to take advan- 
 tage of his position. Miss Yetton of course 
 was to be a pupil, poor Ruth, who was an 
 ignorant little body and had small knowledge 
 or expression beyond her pretty art, and 
 therefore he had gayly brought them together
 
 134 AZARIAN. 
 
 without ceremony. Madame Saratov's tact 
 was, however, superior to the situation, and 
 in a few minutes she made her appointment, 
 and, going, gave the thin hand so warm and 
 full a pressure that Ruth felt with a thrill 
 how precious some womanly companionship 
 might be if Azarian would allow it. 
 
 Azarian returned in the evening, and was 
 so genial and tender as to make Ruth abso- 
 lutely cheerful. He expressed much concern 
 about her loss, though none that he had been 
 absent, uttering now and then some dark diag- 
 nostic word ; and when his manner of listening 
 became slightly, ever so slightly, indifferent, 
 she fancied he thought.it injurious for her 
 to brood over the subject, and hastened to 
 reassure him, and tell her inner half-confirmed 
 joy, and all its source. But at the onset 
 Azarian gave a great shrug, got up and walked 
 across the room, and, taking his violin, began 
 to tune it.
 
 AZARIAN. 135 
 
 " Pur ! " he exclaimed, " the cat is gray ! " 
 
 However, in a minute he laid down the 
 instrument without playing, and was by her 
 side again. But this was all the life Ruth 
 had lived of late, and she had nothing else 
 to tell. 
 
 " Oh, I wish you understood it," said she 
 in her disappointment. " I wish I knew how 
 to talk and make it seem real to you ! " 
 
 "Little Whimsy, it is just as real to me 
 now as ever I want it to be. If you 're go- 
 ing to be a nun, why you may take the veil. 
 Oh the cold shoulder!" 
 
 But, with a pretty light in her eye, Ruth 
 had to laugh back at him across the offending 
 member, he had resigned himself to it so 
 composedly among the cushions. 
 
 "No," said she, " only if you would care 
 a little, the least little, about such things." 
 
 "What! The new love is the cuckoo to 
 turn the old out of the nest ? "
 
 136 AZARIAN. 
 
 "0 Azarian!" 
 
 "Now, Ruth, don't try that fashion. Try 
 forever and you can't make yourself more 
 charming to me than you were when I first 
 knew you." 
 
 " Than I was ? " with a shy archness. 
 
 "There! Than you are! So don't affect 
 airs nor put on this little mask for the sake of 
 being interesting. You were n't brought up 
 in it, you have n't a moonstone rosary blessed 
 by the Pope or the Patriarch, as Madame Sara- 
 tov has, you have n't an ivory and ebony 
 crucifix mounted on jewels ; and I advise 
 you, if you want to preserve my affection, to 
 remain rational, for, frankly, you couldn't 
 bore me more than by playing the Guyon, 
 for which Nature never intended you ! " 
 
 Years afterward, Azarian used to see the 
 mournful glance of those dark eyes rising 
 like a spectre in his wine-glass in the ashes, 
 behind the empty window-pane when the night
 
 AZARIAN. 137 
 
 had fallen.* Here it only impressed him as 
 something quite exquisite, and he reached his 
 hand for hers. Ruth gave him her hand, and 
 in a minute she replied. 
 
 " I am sorry that you misunderstand me 
 so, because I am afraid that you will not love 
 me long if you think I could counterfeit such 
 a solemn thing even in order to interest you." 
 
 " I don't think you could counterfeit any- 
 thing. Now come kiss me, and let it all 
 
 "But, Azarian dear, I should think you 
 would like to have my confidence." 
 
 " Not when it 's silly. I don't want to be 
 made a fool of. Give me my violin, Ruth, 
 an' thou lovest me. Now the Tourterelle. 
 And you shall have a Fantasie Glaciale ! " 
 And under his strains, that shaped themselves 
 with a kind of weird crispness, Ruth's fancy 
 suffered her to see the icebergs building their 
 glittering architecture of frosty peaks and
 
 138 AZARIAN. 
 
 pinnacles up the blue vault, till suddenly all 
 was grotesquely ended by the interpolation of 
 a little phrase in another measure, a pair of 
 chasing scales, that brought everything up 
 standing with a twang. Azarian laughed with 
 his white teeth. 
 
 " That was two little cubs tumbling down 
 after the mother," said he, " who snapped her" 
 jaws at me. Strictly pictorial music, good 
 for the critics. Now, to farewells."
 
 III. 
 
 SINCE Azarian was at home again, Ruth 
 forgot all the weary watching of June and 
 prepared herself to be happy. Certain hours 
 of the day she worked with her paints, and 
 worked for money too, as -all she had was 
 gone ; later, she fagged over her books, for she 
 feared, of all things, by her stupidity to do 
 discredit to Azarian's choice before the Rus- 
 sian lady. Then in the long summer evenings 
 she sat with happy fancies, if she had them, 
 alone, if she had them not, for, to spare both 
 her eyes and her candles, she lit no light un- 
 less thought and solitude became insupport- 
 able ; and she had said to herself that she had 
 been very selfish, and that with all his social 
 claims she had no right to expect Azarian on
 
 140 AZARIAN. 
 
 more than two evenings in the week, and had 
 told him so. However, Azarian ran in when 
 he pleased, reported any piece of news, ad- 
 mired her work, said she was getting a color, 
 played some air on his violin, said he kissed 
 her hands. Or, on the contrary, if she 
 were not there, he left some little imp sitting 
 astride her delicately-drawn grass-spires, or 
 ringing the chime out of the fairy bells of her 
 Linna3a, or he turned her painted snowdrop 
 into a plump wasp bleached for bridal, as a 
 card ; after which, of course, such things 
 when found with a little pang of regret at her 
 absence, and well paid for by the loss of the 
 next day's airing were too precious to part 
 with, if they had not, moreover, been spoiled. 
 That made small odds though, for, famous as 
 they had become, Ruth could not dispose of 
 half she did ; the year had been a disastrous 
 one, the summer was very slow, a financial 
 flurry was impending, and nobody had the 
 price to waste on kickshaws.
 
 A Z All I AN. 141 
 
 But it somehow happened that Azarian did 
 not always come on those two evenings ap- 
 pointed ; either Madame Saratov had some 
 fine circle, or it was the club, or the old se- 
 ductions of the boat were uppermost again. 
 Ruth, who had grown to count upon them at 
 least, and who sometimes felt as if she required 
 his presence so much that she must go out 
 and seek him, waited till the clock struck 
 midnight, in hopes of just a brief moment as 
 he passed, yet waited in vain. Strange appre- 
 hensions beset her too, as she fancied him on 
 the water at such times, fancied the keel of 
 some plunging ship crushing down his little 
 cockleshell of a boat in the dark, or when the 
 thunder-storms had been rolling and rattling 
 over the city, or when sudden flaws of wind 
 came down and wildly rustled all the trees 
 upon the square and sent the dust to heaven. 
 Once, indeed, having some special promise that 
 she could not dream of his breaking, and her
 
 142 A Z ASIAN. 
 
 imagination all athrob and fevered with fear, 
 she caught a scarf or shawl and ran out into 
 the black hot night, meaning to make the 
 water's edge ; when suddenly, under the shine 
 of a street-lamp, she fell upon him sauntering 
 along. And then, to prevent any such second 
 interference, Azarian punishingly declined to 
 enter, and left her at the door. But here this 
 state of feeling wrought an unconscious at- 
 traction ; her sadness was so great at his volun- 
 tary delays over greater pleasure found with 
 others, her expectation so strained and eager, 
 that, when he did come, her spirits mounted to 
 such a pitch of airy volatile gayety, forever 
 rounded by the least shadowy refrain of the 
 preceding hour, that her. presence became an 
 enchantment ; he watched their wavering as 
 one watches a flame flickering in the wind, 
 and not till he had discovered their secret was 
 the fascination lost. 
 
 Ruth's lessons at this time were a great
 
 AZARIAN. 143 
 
 blessing ; she left thought in them, and was 
 hindered from reflecting upon how slight and 
 loose a thing this love of Azariaii's was. As 
 he had foreseen, the Baroness Saratov became 
 an object of far more interest than her posi- 
 tion warranted, through the well-known weak- 
 ness of many people ; a teacher, every one 
 desired to avail themselves of her services ; a 
 lady, every one aspired to her intimacy. She 
 rented one floor of a small house. Her rooms 
 were as cosey as any nest, and yet made ele- 
 gant with countless trifles which had cost her 
 less than nothing. To-day under her spell, 
 a painting, with its palm-tree and pool and 
 gorgeous sky, was hung there by a young 
 artist who just began to dip his brush in 
 wells of tropic color ; to-morrow a pupil who 
 wished to do her pleasure begged acceptance 
 of an album of the photographs of precious 
 places in Europe ; yesterday a publisher had 
 presented her with his choicest volumes ; she
 
 144 AZARIAN. 
 
 had nothing to do but dispose them. That 
 little gem, where one long ripple of green 
 water broke on a curving beach, Marine had 
 sent her, when after her extravagant admira- 
 tion it yet found no purchaser; that bust 
 Carrara had given in Rome, fresh from his 
 chisel, she had procured him a commission. 
 An open pianoforte here, a half-veiled easel 
 there, the single blossom of some rare exotic 
 daily renewed in a snowy vase-stem, all con- 
 spired to produce dainty effect ; and through- 
 out, there was a stroke, an art, a sense of 
 something foreign, that completed the charm, 
 whether it were in the flask of delicate per- 
 fume forever exhaling to the air; the quaint 
 ornaments, a demo\selle-fly in such bril- 
 liantly enamelled metal that the sardonyx, the 
 smaragdite, the sapphire, seemed to sheathe 
 its mail, its wings so fine and airy ever hover- 
 ing on the point of flight, yet with gravity 
 sufficient for a paper-weight ; a little basket
 
 AZARIAN. 145 
 
 of snowy lightness cut from the fig-pith and 
 filled with grasses, wheat-ears, thorns, and 
 leaves, of the same dazzlingly delicate fibre, 
 and looking all like one exquisite petrifaction, 
 for allumettes ; for timepiece a tiny clepsy- 
 dra, dug from an ancient ruin, thousands of 
 years ago measuring the inspirations of the 
 oracle, the winning moment of the lampad, 
 the passionate greeting and parting of lovers 
 long since dust, the smile of Rhodope per- 
 haps, perhaps the vagrant song of Homer ; 
 the folding-screen of rosy damask ; or the occu- 
 pancy. Madame Saratov was the creature of 
 luxury, she demanded, and therefore had, the 
 best of everything. A faithful maid haunted 
 her steps ; her chosen raiment was silks and 
 velvets ; she suffered from unpleasant dreams 
 if the coverlet were less than satin ; she was 
 always soft and white and cool ; her hands 
 were still as beautiful as that model of them 
 that peered from behind the droop of the cur-
 
 146 A Z AUI AN. 
 
 tain ; she had kept her jewels through every 
 reverse, and the very thimble with which she 
 stitched the vine upon her cambric was thick 
 crusted at the base with pearls. She had not 
 been in town two months before she was on 
 more familiar terms with every notable person 
 than were those who had known them all 
 their days ; the politician came to her with 
 his schemes and benefited by her tact ; the 
 star requested her reading of some passage, 
 her tradition of some gesture, her idea of 
 some point ; the preacher talked with her, 
 and in her vein of rapt pietic ecstasy almost 
 expected to see her translated before his eyes, 
 and dropped his blessing on her bended head ; 
 and in the warm shadows of her room, breath- 
 ing the subtile odors, and sipping perhaps, 
 between whiles, draughts of some richly-rosy 
 perfumed cordial, the poet read his verses, 
 and went away intoxicated with them, with 
 her, and with himself. It was especially
 
 AZARIAN. 147 
 
 pleasant to Azarian to come and go, among all 
 these more deferential, as autocratically as he 
 pleased. She had a trick, too, of surprising 
 her late-lingering company with little suppers, 
 ravishing revels, when from tiny engraven 
 bubbles of glass she drank to the health of 
 her charming guests, in maraschino ; there 
 was a flavor in the unknown dishes that made 
 it possible to believe one ate the famous tart 
 of pomegranates ; and if the feast consisted 
 of nothing but sliced oranges, they lay under 
 their crystals of sugar in plates whose ruby 
 whorls or azure banqueted the eye. There 
 was a silent kinship of race between Azarian 
 and Madame Saratov ; in her he found that 
 certain genial dash of foreign things which 
 inheritance made delicious to his nature. In 
 all her style, too, there was a saucy disregard 
 of any future day of reckoning, a thing that 
 suited him as well. These little suppers 
 absorbed many an evening that by rfght 

 
 148 AZARIAN. 
 
 belonged to Ruth. It amused him, then, 
 sometimes to accompany Ruth at her recita- 
 tions, to contrast the two, to play them off, 
 Madame Saratov humoring him, the other 
 shrinking into herself; and if he chose to 
 stay the hour, of course poor little Ruth, un- 
 der his presence, made a very dunce of her- 
 self, though preferring even such display and 
 pain, so seldom of late did she see him at 
 all. Spiritless girl, not to throw him off, and 
 when the pique was past weep lifelong soli- 
 tary tears or else harden her heart to stone ! 
 But Ruth had not thought of that yet, so she 
 endured his demure scoffs and laughed up at 
 him beseechingly when the failure was egre- 
 gious. Stepping into Madame Saratov's salon 
 was, to Ruth, like an emigration to a distant 
 country ; she could scarcely blame her lover 
 for delaying where it was in fact so delightful 
 to herself ; she coveted a fragment only of the 
 other's versatility, but she saw plainly that
 
 AZARIAN. 149 
 
 the foreign lady was not the friend her sore 
 heart needed. Yet Madame Saratov liked 
 Ruth, she was so fresh and simple ; it was 
 holding a wild-flower in her hand ; she took 
 pains to draw her out of herself, she refused 
 others that Ruth might dally with her awhile, 
 she helped her by severe criticism and glad 
 praise, and she began to puzzle herself in 
 wonderment over her engagement to so self- 
 ish and graceless a scamp as Azarian. She 
 had serious thoughts of sprinkling a shower 
 of water-drops in her face, so if possible to 
 break the bewitchment. Azarian did well 
 enough as her own courtier ; she allowed him 
 certain freedom there because he was so ad- 
 mirable; but she told him one day, with a 
 laugh, that he reminded her of those vam- 
 pires who grew fat sucking the heart's-juices 
 of young maidens. Azarian drew the black 
 brows together in a line over the icy pale- 
 blue brilliancy of his lustrous eyes, lightened
 
 150 AZARIAN. 
 
 once, and said no more. Neither did Madame 
 Saratov. 
 
 Ruth used sometimes to wonder now in the 
 October mornings, as she faced the glass, if 
 Azarian cared less for her because she was 
 not so pretty as once, for Ruth had always 
 liked her looks, in her own way, she was 
 so very thin and pale, and had such shadows 
 under her lashes, and her cheeks beginning 
 to seem as though she were no longer young. 
 Azarian did not know what companion came 
 and sat daily at her elbow in his absences, 
 making her brain clearer, her ideas purer, 
 her tints more vivid, but taking slowly in re- 
 turn the tone from life, 
 
 "Spare Fast that oft with Gods doth diet," 
 
 and some little leaven of pride had, after all, 
 remained, for Ruth never told him. Watch- 
 ing deep into night for one who did not come, 
 the late hours, the excitement, the anxieties,
 
 AZARIAN. 151 
 
 the grief, the determination against murmur- 
 ing, even to herself, so inward as to be un- 
 known, all had their effect on health, and 
 depression was settling upon her anew, that 
 it needed but- a touch to fix. She feared she 
 was going to die and leave him ; and be- 
 cause, when truth is plainest and denies, 
 hope often is most buoyant and, knocking at 
 heaven's gate, demands, she still trusted that 
 a day would come when all his old desire 
 of her would renew itself, and by unspoken 
 intuitions she recognized his need of her sav- 
 ing grace at last, and felt her capability of be- 
 stowing it. Nobody else will ever love him as 
 I do, Ruth thought ; I was put here to serve 
 him; if I should leave him, there would be 
 no other one ; when he comes to die, he will 
 want so longingly! a breast to lean 
 upon. Perhaps behind that there was the 
 glimmering thought that a home and its dear 
 ties and sacrifices would yet soften him, and
 
 152 AZARIAN. 
 
 give him all that he had not ; though, con- 
 sciously, she would not acknowledge in her 
 most secret soul that he was- not already 
 perfection. But the very fear, the dread of 
 forsaking him so, leaving him loveless in the 
 world, forbade her indignation to usurp her 
 passion, and only made her tenderer. 
 
 But here, one day, Azarian commented on 
 her looks, and told her she must cease her 
 lessons. Then he took up his Guarnerius, 
 and scraped a great yawn across the strings. 
 
 " What a sleepy ! " said Ruth, lightly. 
 *' One would think you sat up last night till 
 the clock struck eleven, for somebody." 
 
 " Nobody's fault but her own. If some- 
 body 's not here by nine, he's not coming 
 at all," and he caressed the instrument be- 
 neath his chin ; for he loved its beauty of 
 outline, its supple sides, its royal varnish, 
 and its sounding soul. " Ruth, have you 
 been playing on my fiddle ? "
 
 AZARIAN. 153 
 
 " No, indeed ; you play enough for me. I 
 wish " 
 
 "Well, little but you're not like an 
 elder now, you're more like a snowberry, 
 what do you wish ? " 
 
 "I wish you wouldn't play all the time 
 when you come to see me," she replied, with 
 a courageous coaxingness. 
 
 " So you don't like my music?" 
 
 " Yes, I do. very much. But I like 
 you better." 
 
 " Quite adroit. But then, seems to me, 
 you 'd like me to take my pleasure. Oh, 
 it 's because I don't play classical music." 
 
 "I did n't know that." 
 
 " But, only fancy, every note I utter goes 
 forth and becomes a portion of the music 
 of the spheres ; and when the great com- 
 posers in their trances reach up among the 
 stars, they gather these very strains floating 
 there or caught in the glittering web-work 
 
 7*
 
 154 AZARIAN. 
 
 of the orbits, and so my little tunes become 
 parts of the great orchestral harmonies that 
 they strike out deathlessly. Don't you see ? " 
 
 " yes ; but " 
 
 But Azarian silenced her with a kiss, and 
 then another ; for he really cared as much 
 for her as it was in his nature to care for 
 anybody except himself, and went off with 
 his fiddle tucked under his arm. 
 
 One chilly twilight, just when impatient 
 feet are hurrying home to lights and laugh- 
 ter and cheerful glow of fires, Ruth, alone, 
 wrapped in her shawl, was startled by a voice 
 beneath her window, for minstrels were in- 
 frequent in the square, a loud clear sweet 
 soprano voice, that absolutely seemed to sparkle 
 in its contact with the frosty air. She looked 
 down, and by the aid of the lingering ruddy 
 orange discerned a group beneath, a woman, 
 hooded in a black kerchief, and clad in some 
 fantastic disarray of garment that displayed
 
 AZARIAN. 155 
 
 an ankle shapely under all its slouching ap- 
 parel of slipshod foot-gear. She tossed a tam- 
 bourine, and sung wild songs in an unknown 
 tongue full of soft guttural breathings. At 
 her left, in round jacket and red-tasselled cap 
 drooping aside, her companion surrounded her 
 lay with flourishes of tune from his violin. 
 Behind them, two young tatterdemalions jan- 
 gled strings of silver bells in what unison they 
 could. Ruth opened her window, the better 
 to hear and see, and leaned forth. The strong 
 full voice poured in richly, and the player, 
 bending to his task, sent up honeyed strains 
 of accord, the jets leaping and spurting from 
 the strings beneath his powerful stroke. In 
 the first break, Ruth ventured to laugh and 
 gently applaud ; then Azarian, who had con- 
 cealed his face, looked up, with a flash of 
 his teeth in response, and Madame Saratov 
 opened a pouch and displayed a glitter of 
 coin.
 
 156 AZARIAN. 
 
 " A penny for your thoughts ? " begged she, 
 in her alluring accent. " It is a charity : add 
 your mite, pour les orphelins. Then come 
 home with us and count it." 
 
 Azarian was looking. Ruth tossed down 
 her silver, though it was the very last she 
 
 had. To-morrow well, to-morrow must 
 
 take care of itself. Providence provides 
 for artists and authors as it does for the 
 birds of the air. Then she closed the win- 
 dow, caught up her bonnet and gloves and 
 ran down to join them, and went along posi- 
 tively gay with the adventure and with the 
 prospect of Azarian all the evening and per- 
 haps home again with her. Fast at their heels 
 the young vagabonds followed, jangling their 
 
 Entered, and under the glare of gas and 
 mirrors, the elder twain burst into laughing 
 at their odd figure, and the younger per- 
 formed an antic dance round the apartment,
 
 AZARIAN. 157 
 
 with all kinds of quaint and graceful gesture 
 moving to the wonderful music of their bells ; 
 after which Madame Saratov insisted on bivou- 
 acking like Gypsies on the carpet and telling 
 their gains ; and then, dismissing Isa, would 
 wait on table herself, though there was noth- 
 ing but a cup of tea and some cracknels, 
 at which, to Ruth's perplexity, they were 
 joined by the urchins in their rags, who were 
 no other than Messieurs the Barons Saratov, 
 she discovered, as with malicious enjoyment 
 of her silent surprise Azarian presented them 
 to her, Azarian full of his freaks, and keep- 
 ing up his character by snatches of music be- 
 tween the sips, now and then telegraphing 
 a caress to Ruth through the farther end of 
 his bow, for no object but her embarrass- 
 ment. When, however, the hostess and her 
 young train withdrew, she half hoped he would 
 signify some real, if faint, pleasure at her so- 
 ciety ; Azarian did, indeed, enjoy it, but never
 
 158 AZARIAN. 
 
 thought of telling her so. On the contrary, 
 Madame Saratov found him, as she had left 
 him, industriously sawing away, and weaving 
 her Northern melodies into some Scandina- 
 vian revery of Freya of the golden tears seek- 
 ing Oder and beguiling all her way with 
 airs of heaven. Azarian looked forward to a 
 whole lifetime with Ruth, and did not dream 
 of economizing the present. Meanwhile the 
 young gentlemen, in altered guise and rai- 
 ment, fresh from bath and toilet, had already 
 stolen back ; and, looking at their open hand- 
 some faces where the noblest marks of their 
 vigorous race were strongly written, Ruth's 
 fancy warmed toward them, and then, after 
 an initial period, she found herself in a low 
 -voice with the exaggerating aids of free-play- 
 ing eyebrow, contrasting attitudes and tones, 
 recounting to them a laughable legend of their 
 own trolls, which it was no wonder they had 
 never heard, as it was purely an invention
 
 AZARIAN. 159 
 
 of Azarian's, illustrating it, as she went 
 along, with grotesque hand-shadows on the 
 wall, and with a mimicry of expression that 
 made her, in speaking, every character at once. 
 It was Azarian's turn now. He watched her 
 in surprise. If he did not frighten her out 
 of all confidence, what a treasure was this 
 for a rainy night ! The boys, who were at 
 that age when the stature seems to pause to 
 gather strength for its sudden leaps into final 
 maturity of size, hung on her words at first 
 with parted lips, remaining motionless through 
 the instinct of their somewhat courtly man- 
 ners, and then at last, the barriers of a flood 
 of merriment giving way, rolled over each 
 other on the floor, picking themselves up, 
 with profuse apology, as their mother's hand 
 was heard upon the door. 
 
 " Well," said Azarian, on the first lady's 
 return, " what is the order of the evening ? " 
 
 " Miss Yetton and I do attend the theatre, 
 alone, unless ? "
 
 160 AZAPJAN. 
 
 " What is there there ? " 
 
 " The new play goes to present itself, and 
 La Charmian." 
 
 " Charmian ? Pshaw ! " 
 
 " Let me tell you that your * Pshaw ! ' is 
 an actress very remarkable." 
 
 "Remarkably bad, yes." 
 
 " oui ! Mais vraiment oui ! Qu'il parle ! 
 She who becomes a woman of the most fa- 
 mous ! I go many of nights to see her ! I 
 count of my enthusiasms the Charmian ! " 
 
 " Tant pis ! " 
 
 " So you will not go ? You shall have but 
 few of chances more. She has success ; she 
 goes to make to commence an engagement 
 in England for some years " 
 
 " Glory go with her ! " 
 
 "That it will, in three weeks. And you 
 will not applaud ? " 
 
 " In this costume ? Pardon. I -will be 
 there to wait upon you, with permission."
 
 AZARIAN. 161 
 
 " Thank you for nothing," she laughed. 
 " Les voila, a bodyguard to make you yawn 1 " 
 
 "As Madame pleases," he replied, bending 
 his ear to catch a vanishing semitone. "Do 
 you want to go, Ruth ? " 
 
 Madame Saratov, instantly outraged, was 
 instantly appeased by the novel appearance 
 of consideration. But Madame Saratov was 
 not behind the scenes. Ruth had hesitated 
 at the proposal ; little heart had she for such 
 
 gay places ; but then to see . She nodded 
 
 with shining eyes. So they started down the 
 bright streets on their long wide windy way, 
 Ruth's hand grasped by the boy Ivan, of 
 whom, on letting them out, Isa, indignant at 
 some jest, had declared : " Such a child was 
 not before born into the world. His tutor, 
 in vex, do report that he laugh all the time, 
 and when he don't laugh, he gap ! " Azarian 
 strode silently beside them, seated them com- 
 fortably at last, and betook himself off.
 
 162 AZARIAN. 
 
 Madame Saratov finds oat who is there, 
 at a glance, collects her hovering chevaliers, 
 and lets Ruth abandon herself to her dream- 
 ing. It is the same intoxication to Ruth as 
 ever : the lights, the hues, the stir ; she hardly 
 sees the curtain rise, but suddenly finds her- 
 self living the life the scenes present. 
 
 The play opens in the palace, at the table, 
 with music, and slaves bearing golden dishes. 
 There are present the old Emperor, courtiers, 
 among them the impetuous Lucinius. When 
 one mentions the late victories in the East, 
 the Emperor bends, and, with bland smiling 
 mouth, but eyes whose fires beneath gray 
 brows might wither him to ashes, asks Lu- 
 cinius concerning the victor, and straightway 
 Lucinius launches into panegyric till silenced 
 by the angry monarch who breaks up the 
 brilliant feast in dismay. Then the scene 
 changes to a moonlit garden, with soldiers 
 in glittering armor and upright battle-axes
 
 AZARIAN. 163 
 
 keeping the imperial gate. Grouped in a 
 knot they converse, low-voiced, of the young 
 general now on his return from conquest ; 
 they rehearse his spoils, remind each other 
 of the wonders of his celerity and his combi- 
 nations, tell of his gallantry, his generosity, 
 his genius, and of the jealous power upon 
 the throne at home continually thwarting 
 him and to-day refusing a triumph. As they 
 speak, a slender girl comes floating down 
 the long garden-aisles where all is dusky peace 
 and serenity, her white robes fluttering about 
 her, her black hair loose beneath the thread 
 that binds a trembling silver star upon her 
 forehead. Their words arrest her ; she draws 
 near, and stands in the semi-shadow with 
 folded hands and bending brow, and the sil- 
 ver star flickering and darting its rays as her 
 pulses stir. The only word that escapes her 
 is his name, Aurelius. The guard perceive 
 her. It is Virgilia, they exclaim, and with-
 
 164 AZARIAN. 
 
 draw each upon his separate beat. She ad- 
 vances then a step, but still remains rapt in 
 the heroic fancies his name evoked, now and 
 then repeating it beneath her breath. As she 
 yet stands, enter two courtiers, one talking 
 cautiously, the other Lucinius. They re- 
 turn from the banquet, and speak concerning 
 it ; for there is small doubt but that Lucini- 
 us has given the hoary tyrant deadly offence 
 by his daring praise of Aurelius. But for 
 one day of Aurelius ! Lucinius cries. The 
 army all his own, would but some hand blest 
 by the gods do to death our tyrant, he has 
 one heir alone, who does not know her right, 
 and, believing herself to be kinswoman of 
 the dead Empress, never needs to know it, 
 and with Aurelius on the throne such glories 
 should arise on Rome as might make wan the 
 lustre of her past. Ah, what heart is hot 
 enough, what hand so holy ! Here, at these 
 words, as she leans forward, with half-raised
 
 AZARIAN. 165 
 
 palm and flashing eye, the startled knights 
 salute the Lady Virgilia, and pass on silently ; 
 but before they reach the gate hidden emissa- 
 ries spring forth, and, leaving the other, hale 
 Luciuius to a dungeon. Virgilia has seen it ; 
 it adds only one more to the long list of tyran- 
 nies that she has known. Alone, her thoughts 
 declare themselves, this hero, dwarfed from 
 his possibilities, becomes in her eyes a god ; 
 how great must be the stroke when the vibra- 
 tion rings in all men's ears ! To aid his wide 
 renown, to serve him even so much as by 
 being the dust he walks on, to cease the base 
 servitude under which her country totters, to 
 drown the groans in shouts, to open dungeon- 
 doors, to make way for sirch glorious reign, 
 her stature rises, the star shines on her up- 
 lifted brow, her face glows with devoted pur- 
 pose. But the way, the way! A trembling 
 seizes her, there is but one! Then she 
 goes. She who came a pure and happy
 
 166 AZARIAN. 
 
 maiden departs already sin -stained in her 
 dreams, a bold and terrible contrast. There 
 follows a quick pageant of other scenes, where 
 Virgilia, still nursing her idea of crime, dis- 
 pels all circles by her mere approach. In the 
 wide hall some game goes on ; Yirgilia, with 
 the star trembling on her brow, steals silently 
 upon the scene ; the groups melt singly one 
 by one before her ; in mild abstraction mov- 
 ing on, the music falls to melancholy tune, 
 the dances languish, the dancers droop and 
 draw away ; she joins the new ring, only to 
 find herself freshly forsaken and apart ; she 
 follows the clusters round the hall ; each time 
 they separate and disappear, and leave her 
 there alone. She goes out. Again, the star 
 on her forehead bickering back the ray of 
 the taper she bears, she traverses at night the 
 long dungeon-corridors : conspirators whisper 
 there ; but as she passes, they lose their cour- 
 age and their will, and creep away as if awed,
 
 AZARIAN. 167 
 
 and conscious of the approach of a greater 
 crime than theirs ; she emerges into a wider 
 way, and sets down the light, all this black- 
 ness, these moans, these clanking chains, 
 evoked by a power as easily quenched as this 
 tiny flame, she extinguishes the taper. And 
 then she sacrifices at the altar, and the fire 
 goes out. Here Yirgilia wavers, and here 
 Aurelius comes. She is present when he is 
 received at court with haughty disfavor and 
 disdain. They meet as the monarch with- 
 draws, and he bends before her, overcome with 
 sudden delight ; for hitherto his heart has 
 burned with no fire but that of pure patriot- 
 ism. It is in the moonlit garden again that 
 Aurelius talks with his friend ; of too facile na- 
 ture to breast the hour's displeasure, he finds 
 other satisfactions ; he has no fancy for imperial 
 favors, nor for the luxuries of courts ; never 
 will he promote discord through ambition ; 
 these dark hints, wherein so much is offered,
 
 168 AZARIAN. 
 
 loyal to the heart's core, he spurns, glory 
 forever plays along his sword-blade ; he will 
 away to 'the frontier and serve his country as 
 he may by tossing back the wild waves of the 
 barbarian hordes. Lofty as valiant he builds 
 up his dream, and here, far down across the 
 bottom of the garden, Virgilia is seen to flit, 
 turning, upon the two, eyes of glad vengeful 
 triumph, and, still clutched with the nervous 
 intensity of the deed, distinct against her 
 white raiment is the reddened dagger. There 
 follow stormy scenes of alarum, of confusion, 
 of coronation. By night again, Virgilia in 
 her wild unrest paces the garden-walks, the 
 silver star no longer shining on her forehead, 
 but all her dark unfilleted hair streaming 
 loose over the white shawl that wraps her 
 white array. To her enters Aurelius crowned. 
 Art does her most to beautify the scene, with 
 late moonrise, urns of flowers, plash of foun- 
 tains, and far-away slow rise and fall of music.
 
 AZARIAN. 169 
 
 The sense of night is perfect, and so the sense 
 of love in the two figures that draw near each 
 other, for Virgilia meets him as if the god had 
 come to demand her worship. He holds her 
 hands, in brief terms speaks, asks her to 
 strengthen his throne, lifts the crown from his 
 head, and suffers it to fall on hers. Was it 
 for this ! For power, for empery, for her- 
 self, had she done that deed ? The thought 
 of her possible share in its gain had never 
 before occurred ; she wrings the detestable 
 hand as if to tear its act away with it, her 
 blood boils in her veins, she dashes down the 
 crown, and the splendid bawble spins along 
 the ground. But he loves, Aurelius loves 
 her ! And what vile thing is this which 
 she has made herself, which she has made 
 the soul his love embraces ! Beneath her 
 raiment still lurks the knife. Let her die 
 here and now, on his heart ! Just then a 
 little page trips through the gardens, tin-
 
 170 AZARIAN. 
 
 kling his lute, and singing cheerily some 
 verse whose refrain flows, 
 
 When sonls are glad, 
 
 Then love is blest, 
 When souls are sad, 
 
 Then love is best. 
 For in the grave love lives not, 
 Death takes, but gives not. 
 
 Aurelius breathes some ardent word, his vows 
 
 
 
 protest, his arms await. Then love is best, 
 she says. She turns upon him, and looks him 
 through and through; she raises the crown 
 and invests him with it anew. Her work, he 
 is, her triumph, joy surges up to her lips 
 in proud glad words, his love completes it in 
 delicate and tender passion ; they go in, and 
 the place opens out to a hall of revelry. 
 When -next Virgilia comes upon the scene, 
 she trails imperial purple, and a band of 
 cameos binds the blackness of her hair; she 
 is flushed with regnant pride and the sweet
 
 AZARIAN. 171 
 
 taste of authority, but ever and anon throws 
 anxious glances after her lord as he moves 
 among their guests ; for the retributive Fates 
 tread swift behind. At length seating her- 
 self, she beckons him to her side. But look- 
 ing down when nigh, he murmurs, with a 
 start, that there is blood upon his throne. 
 She retorts in the same key, by asking if one 
 who wades ankle-deep in battle-fields need 
 shiver at a drop dried on his chair. He 
 would seat himself, but is hindered by that 
 which glides in and occupies it first, the 
 phantom of the murdered Emperor. She 
 offers him her hand for aid, he shrinks as if 
 he saw a stain upon it. For all these things, 
 happening to him instead of her, are but the 
 bodily projection of his wife's guilt slowly 
 making itself visible. Yet he does not so 
 reason, but, weakened by the recurring sur- 
 prises, he begins to question if he himself be 
 not the culprit ; he doubts if it was vehement-
 
 172 AZARIAN. 
 
 ly that lie repulsed those first dark overtures ; 
 his eye is ever distraught, his attention forced, 
 his breath a weary sigh ; his government goes 
 wrong, confusion reigns in his provinces, a 
 power built upon tyrannicide itself wields an 
 insupportable sceptre, couriers enter his pres- 
 ence only to announce misfortune, his health 
 gives way, his brain reels, and Virgilia fol- 
 lows him like a shadow. At length, in the 
 same garden that saw her first conception of 
 crime, that she crossed upon its execution, in 
 which she took up her destiny, Aurelius 
 comes, while distant thunders roll and blue 
 lightnings flash their blades down the dark- 
 ness of the trees, he comes and asks if it 
 can be possible that in some mad and forgot- 
 ten moment, some lapse of the intellect, some 
 delirium, if in his sleep, it can be possible he 
 took his sovereign's life, for loyalty was the 
 breath of the being of Aurelius. And he cries 
 out that he loathes himself, loathes the flesh
 
 AZARIAN. 173 
 
 that so has sinned. The bolt has fallen. 
 Fate has overcome Virgilia ; her work follows 
 her. He maddens with this belief, and to 
 undeceive him is to die. Hating himself, 
 how would he abhor her ! Could she bear 
 it ? His love, can she lose it ? His love ! 
 she has lost it already ; it is not she that pos- 
 sesses it, but the false, false image of her in his 
 heart. Her mind wanders back and lingers 
 on the dreadful deed, her hands upon her 
 temples, her wild eyes full of terror, " His old 
 white hair," she mutters. But here a band 
 of gay maskers with torches and lutes troop 
 through the distance, evading the advancing 
 storm, their gayety throwing out the tragedy 
 of these two figures. Virgilia glances at her 
 Emperor where he has sunk upon one knee 
 with the groan escaping him, takes her re- 
 solve, and gives him one last look, tender, 
 pitying, passionate, a look as if it were a 
 wife's embrace. Then going to him, she asks,
 
 174 AZARIAN. 
 
 with one hand upon his shoulder, what is his 
 idle fancy. He only murmurs the old Em- 
 peror's name. She- recoils a moment from 
 the ghastly fire that seems for one breath to 
 wrap the world, and then replies. 
 
 " The Emperor ? Hark, I slew him." 
 
 " Virgilia ! thou ? " 
 
 " I. And I keep the dagger for myself ! " 
 drawing it from benewth her robes. " A good 
 deed ! Rome's salvation ! " 
 
 Wretch ! Thy father ! " 
 
 "Nay I slew him." 
 
 " Virgilia thou " he reiterates, and it 
 is all he says. But reason has returned and 
 thrown her light upon the past; he does not 
 doubt. He trembles away from her touch ; 
 his eyes meet hers, as if their horror and dis- 
 gust were death-strokes. Remorse, despair, 
 agonize her frame. She shudders to his feet, 
 the dagger in her heart, wreathing one arm 
 about his knee, and sighing, "I for I loved
 
 AZARIAN. 175 
 
 thee." A hollow roar of thunder tears the 
 air, sudden blackness sheets the place, and far 
 away the mailed sentinel at the gate catches 
 the distant watch-word, and, repeating, cries, 
 " All 's well." 
 
 There was incident, side-plot, by-play, in 
 the thing, there were points and room for 
 power ; but to Ruth it consisted only of a 
 succession of startling and perfect figures, 
 each one in geste and deed, in fold and curve, 
 a statuesque study infiltrated and permeated 
 with a glow of passion and abandon, and all 
 of them Charmian. 
 
 Ruth returned with Madame Saratov and 
 her court, dissolved in dreaming. They were 
 all in a state of dilettante rapture, which 
 must have mightily pleased Azarian. Madame 
 Saratov was kindly eager that Ruth should 
 stay and sup; the boys, clinging .round her, 
 could take no denial ; but Azarian, with a 
 novel regard for her health, would not hear
 
 176 AZARIAN. 
 
 of it ; and though they were bringing in the 
 dishes that sent their appetizing smoke before 
 them, and though to fasting Ruth, if one will 
 pardon her, the crisp turn of the broiled teal, 
 Azarian's shooting, the faint yauilla odors 
 and cinnamon flavors, the strengthening aroma 
 of the coffee, were tempting enough, she op- 
 posed no objection, and was hurried off, for 
 her lover was to return, after his farewell and 
 imperative injunction that she should immedi- 
 ately seek her pillow. 
 
 But no pillow did Ruth visit that night. 
 She was fired with joyous excitement. And 
 the dawn-light saw her still bending over her 
 scattered sheets and pencils. Then at last she 
 slept, one of those sweet sleeps that follow 
 accomplishment, haunted by noiseless dreams, 
 outlines of glorious and unattainable beauty 
 ever rhythmically sequent, and filled, by the 
 keen sunshine sifting through her lids, with 
 colors of flame and light, sleep deep, bliss-
 
 AZARIAN. 177 
 
 ful, and oblivious. Such sweet and fiery fer- 
 vor of work and such intoxicating reaction 
 dulled half the edge of Azarian's treatment, 
 when they could be had. He would have 
 reprobated them much, but in fact to them he 
 owed it that his doom did not envelop him 
 sooner. Later that day a publisher for these 
 drawings was obtained, and the next week 
 found wonderful etchings in all the windows, 
 mere contours with scarcely a hint of shad- 
 ow, but beautiful as the dreams themselves. 
 Whether when wandering with the virgin star 
 of her innocence trembling on her forehead ; 
 when flashing across the garden's foot, the 
 weapon in her hand ; when flushed with im- 
 perial sway, moving among -her maidens, the 
 white throat swelling proudly outward like a 
 swan's ; when followed by the vague train of 
 the retributive Fates ; when vainly essaying to 
 lift a heavy heart in prayer ; when rising from 
 despair into a radiant sudden swift-flying hap-
 
 178 AZARIAN. 
 
 piness that transformed her face into miracles 
 of splendor ; in that wild moment of woe 
 when she sees the impress of her crime on him 
 she loves ; in that awful one when she looks 
 face to face with the Nemesis ; or when at 
 last fallen at her husband's feet, shrouded in 
 the heavy masses of drapery that swirl and 
 slowly settle round her, the white uplifted 
 arm alone left clinging to life, all lovely as 
 sculpture, all perfect as pure form could be, 
 all full of the vivid fire of art that moulds 
 clay and makes it something imperishable, all 
 as if the lost Pleiad were picturing her path, 
 and all drawn with a clarity of line, with a 
 nerve and vigor, as if a diamond had etched 
 them upon crystal. If Charmian's fame had 
 last week been insecure, to-day it was fixed as . 
 the stars. 
 
 Azarian was in a rare rage when he came 
 in one morning with a handful of them, and 
 the only reason that the plate was not de-
 
 AZARIAN. 179 
 
 stroyed was because it had passed beyond her 
 power. He insisted that she should go out 
 with him and ascertain if that were really so ; 
 and when they returned, they found the room 
 steeped in fragrance and fairly sown with 
 flowers, chairs, tables, vases, books, and 
 carpet, all astrew, great wide-blown exotics 
 in deep shades and' powerful contrasts, and 
 the soul dying out of them in strong sweet 
 odors that took the delighted breath away. 
 Ruth kissed the broad petals as she caught 
 them up in her hand, she knew well where 
 they came from. Had Azarian known, the 
 window would have found their passage to the 
 street. 'As it was, he watched her put the 
 thirsty stems to drink, all but those white 
 ones hanging about her father's chair, those 
 staid as Charmian placed them ; if he caught 
 her lip quivering, in this ruffled state of his 
 feathers it was pleasant as an evidence of his 
 power, compassion was foreign to the soul
 
 180 AZARIAN. 
 
 of Azarian. Then be anathematized Ruth, 
 time, and his patients, and was off; nor did 
 he condescend to present himself again for 
 a dozen days, partly from convenience, partly 
 on account of other pleasures, partly in chas- 
 tisement for her great misdemeanor. Mean- 
 time, of course, Ruth worked, and meantime 
 worked in vain ; for though, in its first flush, 
 Love had enriched her as a June sun enriches 
 the blossoming mould, of late it had abstracted 
 life and strength ; the other's faithlessness pre- 
 vented its being the ambient atmosphere in 
 which she moved ; it had come to be but a 
 mere outgrowth of her own soul, fed from a 
 chilled and half-exhausted soil, like those lin- 
 gering things, the flaunting flowers that suck 
 the rich earth dead. Azarian had so wholly 
 her thoughts, her dreams, and her desires, that 
 art refused to receive the poor remainder; 
 there was no fertility in her fancy, no color 
 in her pencil. The only thing she did that
 
 AZARIAN. 181 
 
 had a ray of the old sparkle was a stem of 
 berries, whose scarlet juicy lights were veiled 
 in meshes of the witch-hazel's yellow tangles ; 
 and just as she contemplated it, on her sad 
 face a faint smile like a moonbeam parting 
 a vapory heaven, some one's foot bounded 
 up the staircase, and Azarian came in. 
 
 Ruth had been trying, for discipline, to 
 capture and tame a belief that necessity oc- 
 casioned these indifferences and absences of 
 her lover's, and, nowise self-analyzing, did not 
 know, indeed, that she was but suffering her- 
 self to drift along this current of her hopes 
 and fears till some certain boundary were 
 reached, only half felt the volcanic forces 
 now stifled within, one day to make upheaval. 
 As to excuses, Azarian never availed himself 
 of them. If Ruth found fault, she was wel- 
 come to keep it ; and to some natures such 
 lordly behavior is the pressure that still draws 
 the streams from the deep wells in the heart.
 
 182 AZARIAN. 
 
 When he entered the room, humming, as was 
 his wont, some one of the Miltonic quatrains, 
 
 " There eternal summer dwells, 
 
 And west winds with musky wing 
 Round the cedarn' alleys fling 
 Nard and cassia's balmy smells," 
 
 or, after a fioriture of whistling, breaking into 
 another, 
 
 " Oft listening how the hounds and horn 
 Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn, 
 From the side of some hoar hill 
 Through Jhe high wood echoing shrill," 
 
 how was it possible to be angry, or to do any- 
 thing but couple him with their beauty and 
 melody? When, at length, he was ready to 
 kiss her, and then went rattling on a gay ex- 
 travagance of laughable nonsense, how could 
 she be chiding? In fact, all Ruth had ever 
 pretended to do was to forget the past, and' 
 let the spirit of the hour rule. But to-day
 
 AZARIAN. 183 
 
 that unsuspected little leaveu was sending its 
 fermenting bubbles upwards ; there had been 
 a touch of indignation that she should so pour 
 out her whole life at his feet, and he not even 
 stoop to pick it up ; and though it vanished 
 at sight of his face, and sound of his voice, 
 all things leave their trace behind them. 
 
 "Very pretty," remarked Azarian, care- 
 lessly, looking over her shoulder at the recent 
 work. 
 
 " I have lost all my power," she said. 
 
 " As if you ever had any ! I suppose I 
 have absorbed it. Well, I 'm willing ; are n't 
 you ? " * 
 
 Yes, if I could afford it." 
 
 "Afford? Do you mean to paint after 
 after you 're married ? " Even Azarian's cour- 
 age was a little staggered by his impudence. 
 
 The color flew over Ruth's face, till it 
 pained her. Almost a year was it since, in 
 his first raptures, he had alluded to such a 
 possibility.
 
 184 AZARIAN. 
 
 "Well, then, you won't need the power, 
 and I shall; because I expect to do greatly 
 when I reach my meridian." 
 
 " Not before ? " Ruth asked, archly. 
 
 " No, I despise prematurities, prodigies, ex- 
 crescences of the brain, two-headed eagles " 
 
 " Mozart, for instance." 
 
 " Exceptions prove the rule. He was n't 
 a human being ; he was a musician. Where 's 
 my violin ? Why have n't I another here ? I 
 wonder who has Paganini's Tartini ? " 
 
 " I guess you have." 
 
 " Mine 's a Guarnerius." 
 
 " He had a living soul imprisoned in his, 
 you know." 
 
 " Pooh ! Well, you have n't such a thing as 
 a bird-call, or a comb and a piece of paper ? " 
 
 " No, you silly boy." 
 
 " Silly, eh ? Allow me to observe that it 
 is the same great principle of vibration that 
 settled the structure of the violin. Yes, ex-
 
 AZARIAN. 185 
 
 ceptions prove the rule," said Azarian, walk- 
 ing about with his hands in his pockets, as 
 there was nothing else to do with them. " The 
 mould that shaped a Penseroso, at twenty, 
 would have cracked and split to atoms with 
 the gigantic germ, of a Satan. I have a little 
 theory to the purpose. Do you know that in 
 August we stand in exactly the same relative 
 position towards the sun that we do in April ? 
 But the one brings only cold showers and 
 drifting snows, patches of "blue sky and blithe 
 promise, and it is not till the summer solstice 
 has accumulated all the sunshine, and the 
 earth is soaked in hoarded warmth and light, 
 that the other gives back the fervid wealth, 
 gilds her billowy fields of grain, and greets 
 retiring day with ripe rich orchard-sides. So 
 let no man audit his own accounts till he 
 is fifty. Tarde magna proveniunt. As for 
 women, let them do what they 're able when- 
 ever they can," said Azarian, with a hearty
 
 186 AZAKIAN. 
 
 contempt. " What do you think of that, little 
 woman ? " 
 
 "0, it's very consolatory, especially the 
 last. There you touch the root of all the 
 evils. If I had been Alphonso of Castile ! " 
 
 " You would have suggested ? " 
 
 " Something more radical than he dreamed 
 of." 
 
 " A surd quantity. What might it be ? " 
 
 " There never should have been a woman 
 made ! " 
 
 " Oh indeed ! Wormwood and thoroughwort 
 tea, extract of Miss Yetton's bitterness, 
 which means that a man has no business to 
 talk anything but whipt-syllabub and kisses 
 to his little sweetheart." 
 
 " An untried experiment." 
 
 " Satirical too, by Jove ! " 
 
 "Am I your little sweetheart? Do you 
 care anything about me ? " asked Ruth, under 
 her breath, in a sweet,' coaxing tone.
 
 A PARIAN. , 187 
 
 " I don't know. You ought to," lie replied, 
 with a blackbird's whistle, and then beginning 
 to sing, 
 
 " But that wild music burthens every bough, 
 And sweets grown common lose their dear delight." 
 
 " Azarian," said Ruth, timidly, again after 
 a moment's silence, " are you quite sure that 
 you love me well enough to marry me?" 
 
 " If a breeze never blew, stagnation would 
 ensue, which is the reason, I suppose, that 
 the best of women sometimes insist upon a 
 fuss," he replied, wheeling round upon her. 
 "You want we should arrive at an under- 
 standing, do you ? Here we are, then. Childe 
 Roland to the Dark Tower came. You 've 
 been imposed upon, neglected, and abused. 
 If you please," with a wave of the hand. 
 " You 've been sacrificed to selfish pleasures. 
 You 've been left to pine alone. I received 
 your happiness in charge, and take no care 
 of it whatever. You weary of your one-sided
 
 188 AZARIAN. 
 
 affair, in which you give all, and my commodi- 
 ties do not meet your wants. Yet you started 
 with your eyes open. I never condescended 
 to a concealment. If you were but once well 
 out of the scrape ! " 
 
 "0 no, no, Azarian," sobbed little Ruth, 
 her head on the table. 
 
 " No ? Then come kiss your heartless 
 wretch, and be still. What, turned over a 
 new leaf and blotting it already ? We may 
 as well- have it out," said Azarian, with a fresh, 
 inflection for every sentence. He took her 
 hand, but apparently in a purely medical ca- 
 pacity, as the surgeon keeps his finger on 
 the vein, in the hall of torture, and, hold- 
 ing it, continued. " Every man has a wife, 
 therefore 1. Black moments visit all, then 
 all need a fireside ; better at such times the 
 corner of a workhouse chimney, where faces 
 are, than a lonely den, albeit luxurious, where 
 they are not. You bewitched me once ; and
 
 AZARIAN. 189 
 
 when the thrall loosened, I saw this. You 
 remember they say those old statues, those 
 faultless forms, those Grecian women of ideal- 
 ized bodies, can have no soul, the physical 
 perfected at expense of the intellect. Look 
 at an outline here, Ruth," and his face made 
 a silhouette against the deep noon light. 
 " Pure Greek. Can the Apollo have a heart ? 
 You will make the wife I wish, quiet, do- 
 cile, submissive, power enough to aid, grace 
 enough for a companion, tact enough to let 
 alone and wait when unrequired, qualities 
 I might seek far, and not find in another. To 
 pretend myself to be madly in love would be 
 ridiculous ; but to separate from you would 
 occasion me more inquietude than I care to 
 encounter." 
 
 A slow indignation and amazement were 
 burning Ruth up. " You have said it all, 
 sir ! " said she, half rising, and trying to tear 
 away her hand. " Everything is over between
 
 190 AZARIAN. 
 
 us. I never, never will be that wife, so help 
 me" 
 
 " Take care, little one. You will only eat 
 your words. You will be my wife, and you 
 know it. We are bound, God sees why, by 
 indissoluble ties, and you feel them. In real- 
 ity, we are almost one now, or I could not 
 treat you so, as if you were a part of me to agi- 
 tate as I pleased. You are promised me ; you 
 are mine ; I never, never will give you back 
 that promise, so help me what did n't help 
 you. Rock your heart to rest, 't is a trouble- 
 some little atom, and don't interrupt the 
 oracle. Sit down, Ruth. Indeed,'! could n't 
 let you go. If no other lover ever addressed 
 a woman so, it is because no other lover ever 
 relied on the woman's intelligence so en- 
 tirely as I do. The wives of men of genius 
 must not expect the tranquil existence of those 
 who marry poodles. The husband always 
 waxes the friend; yours has done so a trifle
 
 AZARIAN. 191 
 
 sooner than ordinary. Take the goods the 
 gods provide. Be content with being allowed 
 so to lavish yourself on me, Ruth ; some 
 day, perhaps, on my death-bed, I shall 
 look up and understand it all and return it. 
 Fluttering little pulse, be still, be still. When 
 we are married next June, remember these 
 things, and don't exact too much of me, 
 and you can make yourself quite comfort- 
 able." 
 
 Ruth essayed to subdue the riot within her ; 
 but when they had been quiet for a time, it 
 all bubbled up anew at his calm tones. 
 
 " It 's a fallacy that women are lovely in 
 tears " 
 
 " I 'm not crying," murmured Ruth, stoutly, 
 in the very face of a plunging shower. 
 ' "Who said you were?" laughed Azarian. 
 " I merely advanced a general apothegm. You 
 are the girl in the fairy-tale whose mouth 
 dropped roses, and whose eyes dropped I
 
 192 AZARIAN. 
 
 suppose you call this' a brilliant," looking at 
 something fallen brightly on his cuff. " In 
 that case, how royally besprent shall I be ! 
 But in the other, if I put up an umbrella, 
 ah ! here comes the sun ! " For Ruth's laugh 
 set her eyelashes a-glitter. 
 
 " It could n't be," said she, " that one was 
 the least 'bit dearer than you knew " 
 
 " Why could n't it be ? Let us cherish the 
 kind illusion. My little girl, perhaps, after 
 all, there is a seedling of love deep down un- 
 der my rubbish, which, in a desire to be plain, 
 I have not given credit for. Ruth, accept 
 your fate." 
 
 " Dear Azarian," said she, trying hard to 
 keep her voice steady, " I am sorry I spoke so 
 then " 
 
 " Nonsense ! I like one best with a trifle 
 of spirit." 
 
 "I I want to do what is best for you. 
 If you should really meet the woman who was
 
 AZARIAN. 193 
 
 all to you that you are to me, by and by, when 
 too late " 
 
 " It would never be too late for me." 
 
 " But it would be for me ! " said Ruth, dis- 
 mayed. 
 
 " 0, 1 thought you were regarding another. 
 For you, nobody can decide so well as your- 
 self. Now go bathe your eyes in rose-water." 
 
 " I have n't any." 
 
 " Then I must kiss them dry. How do 
 tears taste, Ruth?" 
 
 Salt ! " 
 
 " Salt, bitter salt, as who should know bet- 
 ter. Lucky leech that I am ! There, dis- 
 solve that powder in something, and wet 
 your angry lids. That soothes, and prevents 
 my delay. Kissing is not the end of life, 
 Ruth." 
 
 What is ? " ' 
 
 " Now you 're to go with me, and dine at 
 Madame Saratov's."
 
 194 AZARIAN. 
 
 And free confession being good for the soul, 
 Azarian, in his blithest inood that night, looked 
 many a time at Ruth, who, stung to brilliancy, 
 so sparkled that he congratulated himself on 
 his day's work. 
 
 Madame Saratov kept Ruth that evening 
 after they were all gone, spread a little cot 
 for her in a closet adjoining her own room, 
 had Isa to comb out her braids, and when they 
 were both whitely arrayed for the night, sit- 
 ting before the fire in embowering arm-chairs, 
 their feet lost in the pile of crimson cushions, 
 idly tasting their spicy sangarees, all in a state 
 of more luxury than Ruth could have con- 
 trived with the money, and that the other con- 
 trived without, just on the indolent somno- 
 lent dreamy verge, in that deep rich light and 
 warmth, with the late hour tolled out by silver 
 stroke of distant bells, Madame Saratov read 
 her the second lesson of the day. 
 
 " My dear," said she, " you wear a ring on
 
 AZARIAN. 195 
 
 your first finger, which, en passant, nobody 
 but shoemakers' brides do in Europe." 
 
 " But everybody does in America. Azarian 
 says it is a national custom here, and so he' 
 likes it. You don't want to wear the ring on 
 your heart-finger till it is put on never to come 
 off, you know." 
 
 " You are one sentimental elf. And, more- 
 over, if you understood yourself, would not 
 so feel. Love is terribly serious, whereas you 
 talk as if it were play." 
 
 " Terribly serious," said Ruth, with a sigh. 
 
 " Yes, a tragedy most often. De vous a 
 moi, women must have excitement, so they 
 find their pleasure in it. They act, these good 
 women who won't go to the play ! It imports 
 nothing, a ce ct)mpte-la, on which finger the 
 ring is worn, 1'index ou 1'annulaire." 
 
 " I will tell you a little secret. This is 
 not my engagement-ring ; Azarian never gave 
 me one. It is Charmian's. She could n't
 
 196 AZARIAN. 
 
 see which finger it slipt over ; so I let it 
 stay." 
 
 " The Charmian ! You knew her, then, 
 before those pictures, you demure frileuse ? " 
 
 " Azarian does not like her." 
 
 " Hm ! C'est cela, I see." And Madame 
 Saratov did not suspect that her clear sight 
 was sharpened by a certain portrait of herself 
 which Azarian had lately sketched and suf- 
 fered her to behold half done, without its final 
 touches of tint and tone, its masque of shapely 
 smiles and curves and rounded color, and 
 where, though her acquaintance might not ac- 
 knowledge it, she found fearful resemblance. 
 "But rings are neither here nor there. I in- 
 timate the fact behind, the betrothal. Now 
 will you tell me as your friend, as one who 
 has had of experience, who sees that you do 
 need help, it pains me the heart, as to 
 a kind woman, why you marry ? Is it that 
 you tire of work, that you want a what is
 
 AZARIAN. 197 
 
 this you call it home, that the families ar- 
 ranged it, that you find yourself entrapped, 
 that, as your poet says, returning were as te- 
 dious as laisser aller, because you are am- 
 bitious, because " 
 
 "0 Madame Saratov, because, because I 
 love him ! " 
 
 " Pauvre petite ! " 
 
 There was a world of meaning in the intona- 
 tion and the silence. It was beneath Ruth's 
 dignity to answer its aspersion. She clad 
 her lip with a smile's disguise. 
 
 " You marry him, then, because you love 
 him. Les roses tombent, les Opines restent," 
 she hummed. " And he, does he love 
 you ? " 
 
 If Ruth had risen in her little white wrath, 
 she would have cut a very ridiculous figure. 
 It was, besides, too late an hour for her to 
 leave shelter. 
 
 " Pardon, mille fois," said Madame Sara-
 
 198 AZARIAN. 
 
 tov, reaching across and putting her warm 
 hand on the cold and slender arm. " I wish 
 to make you a difficult service. You will 
 hate me, detest me, yet you will have me to 
 thank." 
 
 " I appreciate the wish ; but I do not need 
 the service," replied Ruth, proudly. "No- 
 body can help me," was what she sighed to 
 herself. 
 
 " Qu'il est difficile to accept ! Well, let us 
 frirget," said Madame Saratov, tossing her wine 
 into the grate, where it flashed up the chim- 
 ney in a blue fury of fire. " The fact is," 
 said she, leaning back once more, and fixing 
 her eyes on the pale gold of the faded ferns 
 that crowned the turquoise vase aloft on the 
 bracket, " I remember me, in my life, of some 
 men, the very imps and sprites of self, whose 
 ruin marriage would complete ; they were as- 
 sez inte'resse's, assez despotiques, les tyran- 
 neaux, before ; from the moment the wife
 
 AZARIAN. 199 
 
 devoted becomes their slave, their doom is 
 upon them. I would never adjure a woman 
 to reject them by her own hope of any happi- 
 ness, but by her desire for their salvation. 
 True marriage, my dear girl," said she, turn- 
 ing towards Ruth her blue eyes -that glowed 
 at will, " ennobles, purifies, elevates ; but how 
 can a marriage be true that is all on one side, 
 where one loves and the other, tout agre*- 
 ablement, endures ? " 
 
 " Madame Saratov, I see what you mean ; 
 yet marriage is the natural condition of ma- 
 turity ; even a bad and selfish man must there- 
 fore be a better one if he has a wife. If it 
 were question with me," said Ruth, with burn- 
 ing cheeks, " of marrying such a man as those 
 you knew, I should feel, when the dazzle of 
 his days was off, how dull and dreary would 
 they wear away. I would bide my time, I 
 would marry him, serve him, cheer him, be 
 his slave ! "
 
 200 AZARIAN. 
 
 "Doubtless you would be happy in some 
 sort. Women reap the glorious joy of mar- 
 tyrs. Mais lui?" 
 
 " That is beyond my province." 
 
 " Certes ! In crossing this slack-rope of 
 life, you would declare, it suffices to attend 
 one's own steps." 
 
 " No," said Ruth, falteringly. " I say that 
 birth and death and marriage are three great 
 sacraments, and, partaking them, in neither 
 has any one the power to interfere or oppose 
 a will." 
 
 " Fataliste ! " exclaimed Madame Saratov, 
 with a laugh. " Years of discretion, adieu ! 
 What boon to distressed suitors ! Love tilts 
 a entrance, and borrows the weapons of rea- 
 son ! But to what end ? C'est un cercle 
 vicieux," said she, rising, and standing with 
 her beautiful arm along the black marble of 
 the mantel. " One is married and done with ; 
 when life shall go to close, the sacrifice it has
 
 AZARIAN. 201 
 
 demanded may have stripped off all grossness, 
 and one soars. But he ? " said Madame Sara- 
 tov, her head upon her hand, and her voice 
 taking a dreamy tone as she fell into revery. 
 " One has so served him that he failed to serve 
 himself ; he has attained no height in this life, 
 and, shuddering out into the blackness, a poor, 
 pitiful, naked thing at last, what can his pam- 
 pered, stifled, degraded soul do but stagger 
 down, down " 
 
 Ruth rose, too, and her little foot scattered 
 the crimson cushions with vehemence. 
 
 " Madame Saratov, if you play with fire, you. 
 will be burned ! " said she. 
 
 The lady started. " Qu'as-tu ? What have 
 I done ? " she cried. " Trespassed on forbid- 
 den borders ? Do you know," she asked, rais- 
 ing her eyebrows with sudden thought-dissi- 
 pating effect, " how they used to fix the land- 
 marks in Germany ? Take the children to 
 the spot and box their ears there. You are
 
 202 AZARIAN. 
 
 not so cruel, 'ma petite de"daigneuse ? Nay, 
 but I pray tliee of thy clemency ! that she 
 would go but to smile, and soniier I'ange'lus ! 
 Forgiven, then, at last ? Let us see how the 
 night goes a la belle e*toile," said she, draw- 
 "iug the unwilling Ruth with her to the win- 
 dow, "Ah! what a mite you are!" and 
 pulling aside the curtain. " How white the 
 moonlight wraps the town ! It is like an ema- 
 nation from all the sleep. How sublime is 
 this sleep ! the way in which man trusts the 
 forces to do without him, the careless reli- 
 ance that by daybreak the world will have 
 rolled round to morning. Striking one. It 
 seems to me at night as if the stars struck 
 the hours.' How that spire points upward, 
 and leads the prayer ! 
 
 'Vous qui pleurez, venez a ce Dieu, car il pleure. 
 Vous qui souffrez, venez a lui, car il gue'rit. 
 Vous qui tremblez, venez a lui, car il sourit. 
 Vous qui passez, venez a lui, car il demeure.' "
 
 AZARIAN. 203 
 
 And Madame Saratov gave Ruth one of those 
 lingering kisses which some women have the 
 assurance to impress, and betook herself to 
 her prie-dieu, at which, as Ruth watched 
 her from a dreamless pillow, in her own 
 way, she seemed to find satisfaction. 
 
 Night is long at that season, and Ruth did 
 not slumber ; yet as the white light stole into 
 her closet, she had no desire to rise ; she 
 would have liked to lie forever there in the 
 soft scented sheets, on the richly-laced pillow ; 
 she folded her feet and her hands, she fan- 
 cied herself to be dead. But when, at a much 
 later hour, Madame Saratov looked in with 
 a laugh, she lay there at length wrapped in 
 sleep, white, motionless, and perfect, like the 
 pallid sculpture on a tomb. It was after a 
 long dream that she stirred, and Isa stood 
 beside her with a cup dispersing cordial odors. 
 " Madame make it for Mamselle," the maiden 
 declared, "and she smile to herself all the
 
 204 AZARIAN. 
 
 time she vas do it." And with a fresh vigor 
 coursing through every limb, Ruth performed 
 her toilette; felt what a different being such 
 daily trifling care would make her ; descend- 
 ing, found that Madame Saratov, in a fit of 
 compunction, had sent round for Azarian ; and 
 made her breakfast with them as lightly as if 
 no cruel purpose had essayed to set its crystal 
 in the night-time. Then she hastened to give 
 her hostess a little lesson, a lesson never 
 finished, because Azarian had brought to them 
 a book of his, and from it read aloud, Maud, 
 that fire -opal distilled to melody. After 
 which he departed upon his engagements, and 
 she, with the sweet sounds still singing in her 
 head, hastened home fearful that she had 
 been wanting on the night before to choose 
 for Madame Saratov her finest boards, her 
 purest tints, and in a book containing every 
 charm to illustrate the Garden-Song.
 
 IV. 
 
 BUT as soon as she had fairly caught her 
 fancies, Ruth became absorbed in them so 
 earnestly as half to dwarf both consciousness 
 and reflection ; she expended herself in let- 
 tering the text, with twisting vines, wings, 
 petals, and floral charactery of form and hue 
 exquisite as the work of some old monk in his 
 cell, in pages full of all the rich confusion of 
 fragrance and bloom sealed in the verse, 
 one leaf a single listening lily, another, the 
 little foot-print that the March wind had set 
 in tufts of bluest violets, a third, a mass and 
 strew and tangle of flowers, as if thrown down 
 from a tired hand with the dew yet trembling 
 on their sprays, here and there dainty vig- 
 nettes, just a bough with its waking bird
 
 206 AZARIAN. 
 
 and setting moon, entwined by rose and jas- 
 mine, and signed at foot with graceful inter- 
 mixture of the curves of violin and bassoon, 
 the simple gateway wound in woodbine, and 
 far off, a mere outline among the curling 
 clouds, the black bat hastening away, the 
 planet fainting on its daffodil sky, the old 
 grave thrilled and blossoming out in purple 
 and red, the two lovers met at last in each 
 other's arms. When it was over, and the fe- 
 ver of design had faded, " Ah, well," sighed 
 Ruth to herself, " what have artists to do with 
 love ? I was happy while I did that." But 
 happy or not, its fire had burned out her 
 strength ; she could do no more. " I wish, 
 I wish," said little Euth, " that I had some- 
 body to take care of me ! " 
 
 Azarian had dropped in once or twice since 
 she began the opuscule ; no doubt he had 
 intended to come oftener, had not some new 
 thing interfered, it took only trifles to de-
 
 AZARIAN. 207 
 
 tacli the last impression from Azariaii ; and 
 Ruth, having put other things' out of mind 
 with all her might, had nothing but her work 
 to talk about, and with that she had wished 
 to surprise him l and therefore afforded small 
 entertainment. Still, what lover needs that 
 his mistress should speak in order to please ? 
 
 Ruth, through her work, had been inno- 
 cently dallying with fate ; she had given her- 
 self brief reprieve, in vague hope of full remis- 
 sion. " In this fortnight," she had thought, 
 " he may find that he needs me." 
 
 But it was not in that fortnight that Aza- 
 rian found it. 
 
 The lonely child waited a day or two ^in 
 order to please this lover with her book ; but 
 he did not come ; and knowing that it would 
 please him equally well at Madame Saratov's, 
 and probably much sooner, she sallied forth 
 with it, first looking in at the print-shop to 
 find her things undisturbed in their portfolio,
 
 208 AZARIAN. 
 
 and no balance in her favor. The salesman 
 assured her they would disappear in time ; but 
 time meant existence itself to Ruth, who had 
 not breakfasted that morning. 
 
 It was by some oversight that Isa suffered 
 Ruth to enter without announcing her. 
 
 Madame Saratov, clad in her gown of green 
 Genoa velvet, and the golden coil of her hair 
 behind wreathed round with slender peacock 
 feathers of gorgeous green and gojd, stood and 
 held aloft in her hand a vase, the white Witch 
 vase. " It should have a jewelled tripod ! " 
 she was exclaiming. 
 
 " It has it now," said Azariau, who had been 
 sitting on a cushion near her feet, and still 
 retained his position. " Always hold it, Bac- 
 chante ! it is for you ! " fascinated in her 
 not at all just then as a woman, but suddenly 
 seized with the sense of her artistic faultless- 
 ness. " As near Heaven as I shall ever reach, 
 on the whole."
 
 AZARIAN. 209 
 
 " You make me of compliments all the 
 days ! For me ? " And Madame Saratov 
 slowly turned and laid her eyes upon him. 
 " This one ouvrage, this finiment of your life ? 
 Is it that a lover does not lay such result at his 
 lady's feet ? For me ? Pourquoi pas pour 
 elle ? No, no," she added, instantly and dep- 
 recatingly, with a wave of the other hand. 
 " It is as if a moonbeam had carved it on 
 snow. I shall keep it forever as the treasure 
 of my house. C'est divin, mais " 
 
 " Was Madame exiled," said Azarian, cool- 
 ly, " for an insane interest in other people's 
 affairs ? " 
 
 Madame Saratov laughed, and took a step 
 towards him. " Bien ! " said she. " I con- 
 fess the impeachment. It affords me opportu- 
 nity, de plus. Do you know that somebody's 
 body is wearing so thin that the soul' arrives 
 to look through ? I spoke with her not long 
 ago, I, your poor slave, sir ! " beating her foot
 
 210 AZARIAN. 
 
 on the carpet. " She was impenetrable as a 
 little gem. Monsieur, my good friend Aza- 
 rian, if you love the child, why do you neglect 
 her so ? If you have need of her, why do you 
 break her heart ? " 
 
 If Madame Saratov had looked in Azarian's 
 face as he lifted his length, she might not have 
 dared to continue. It was quite as well, 
 though, for the anger passed like all his other 
 flashes ; and when she raised her glance, he 
 wore the old mocking smile and witty bra- 
 vado. 
 
 " I don't know that I do' need her ! " said 
 he. 
 
 Just then a hand was laid upon his arm. 
 The vase dropped from Madame Saratov's 
 grasp, and fell in twenty pieces on the floor. 
 .Ruth, in hesitation, had come gliding across 
 the room, and round the open screen of rosy 
 damask, in time to hear this last. With a 
 little cry, she stooped to gather the fragments.
 
 AZARIAN. 211 
 
 Madame Saratov was in despair. A thunder- 
 cloud charged with lightning swept across 
 Azarian's brow and was gone ; he dropped the 
 black fringes over his luminous eyes, and then 
 laughed. " So much for lying. Ci-git," sajd 
 he. " Isa, here are some crumbs of the bread 
 of life for you to sweep up. How is my little 
 maid this morning ? " 
 
 " I am so sorry, Azarian. It was quite my 
 fault. I could n't find my voice " 
 
 " Not at all. She was getting up a scene," 
 he said, in a stage-whisper, indicating the 
 other lady. 
 
 " How can he forgive me ! " exclaimed Mad- 
 ame Saratov ; in her guilt, her hands upon her 
 face. 
 
 " By commencing another straightway. We 
 won't make it wearisome. Ruth, what affair 
 is that ? " 
 
 Ruth laid her gift upon a table, it was 
 too insignificant to repair such disaster, then
 
 212 AZARIAK. 
 
 came to him and murmured, " I should like 
 to see you, if you please, this evening." 
 
 He looked down on her white face, her dark 
 beseeching eyes, he did not wish to be re- 
 proached, they steeled him. Moreover, had 
 not the accident come through her means ? 
 
 " Very well, perhaps so," said he. 
 
 " No, but certainly, dear. It is as much as 
 life or death," she urged, almost inaudibly. 
 
 "Send for the doctor, quick, a pill, 
 we '11 have a dose of calomel ? " 
 
 " Azarian " 
 
 "Well, I'll see. Perhaps so," possessing 
 himself of the little book. " Ah ! what have 
 we here? 'Apples of Syria and Turkish 
 quinces, and mountain peaches, and jasmine, 
 and Syrian lotus-roots, and myrobalans of 
 Uklamon, and hill citrons, and Sooltan oran- 
 ges, and sweet-scented myrtle, and camomile, 
 and anemonies, and violets, and pomegranate- 
 flowers, and narcissus-blossoms, and put the
 
 AZARIAN. 213 
 
 whole down into the porter's hamper,' " quoted 
 the Panjandrum. " By Jove, that is delicious ! 
 Wipe your weeping eyes, my friend, and be 
 charmed." 
 
 " There are three minutes that I have de- 
 stroyed the most perfect, the most priceless 
 and he asks me to amuse myself! " cried 
 Madame Saratov. 
 
 " Mad-ame must not concern herself," ex- 
 claimed Azarian. " She ought to know me 
 well enough by this time never to afford cre- 
 dence to a word I say. I have at home, believe 
 me, at least a dozen, equally priceless, more 
 perfect." 
 
 "Ah, yes, I believe you, in splinters!" 
 - " Come. I fancy you have done me im- 
 mense service. I gloated over the thing. 
 Now, if the fates conspire, I may produce in- 
 deed. You establish an era." 
 
 " You are very philosophic. But all calm 
 as you are "
 
 214 AZARIAN. 
 
 "It seems to me, if I had received such 
 illustrations to the Garden -Song as these, I 
 should not sit with my face in my hands." 
 
 " Azarian, dear ! " 
 
 " My little Ruth, ma douce consolatrice ! " 
 
 " There 's jasmine for you ! Ah ! that acacia 
 stifles one, it is so sweet. What a passion- 
 flower ! it is full of torrid life, with its spikes 
 and anthers ; it is the soul of the glowing East ; 
 I seem to see it sprawling over the swart 
 sands ! When the new earth is made, Ruth, 
 you will have to be taken into the councils. 
 But that is a pretty notion, the light falling 
 from above on the little head with its gloss 
 of curls, and just the outline of the brow be- 
 gun. You are a genius, Ruth ! The power Js 
 not all lost, is it ? I have n't absorbed it all, 
 eh, Ruth ? " and he looked down askance 
 where she sat behind him on the hassock, the 
 sudden pleased red on her forgetful cheek, 
 her eyes and her instant smile full of the sun-
 
 AZARIAN. 215 
 
 light that, stealing in through the crevice of 
 a parting curtain, gilded the stray locks about 
 her face, heightened her color, and overlaid 
 her. . He reached back his hand and placed 
 it on her hair a moment, then returned to the 
 pictures. The sunbeam went, the smile went 
 too. Ruth rose, saying drearily to herself that 
 it was going to rain, as outward things affect 
 one mechanically after any blow. She hung 
 a second on Azarian's arm. The pretty work, 
 the pretty smile, had melted his rigor. " You 
 are going ? " said he. " Well, then, expect 
 me for sentence this evening." 
 
 " Surely, Azarian ? " 
 
 " So sure as twilight. Nay, shall I swear 
 it, -doubter ? The angel records an oath in 
 Heaven's chancery, and blots it out with 
 his tears, very like," lie added, lightly, in un- 
 dertone. " Till then ! " 
 
 "Ah, mignonne, must you go? Do not 
 bring such mischief when you come again. I
 
 216 AZAEIAN. 
 
 am inconsolable ! I shall not go out to dine 
 to-day ! " 
 
 " Yes, you will," said Azarian. " For here 
 is the carriage at the door, and you may drop 
 my little Ruth at hers." So he closed the 
 panel upon them, and was away to his pa- 
 tients, of whom, on his rounds that day, he 
 had made Madame Saratov one. 
 
 Ruth sat quietly opposite Madame Saratov, 
 who had partially forgotten her recent par- 
 oxysms, and made only comical little allusions 
 to them, smiled at her gay words, which 
 seemed to strike somewhere a great way out- 
 side of her, kept herself down as if compressed 
 by iron bonds till the carriage stopped. Then 
 she ran breathlessly up-stairs, shut her door 
 swiftly, and locked it, and, bursting through 
 all her bonds, cried out in a loud voice, "I 
 don't know that I do need her ! " She fell 
 upon the floor, hiding her face, the blank side 
 of the universe turned upon her, utter nega-
 
 AZARIAN. 217 
 
 tion, a kind of stupor. The pain passed at 
 length, for her memory only repeated the 
 words and drew no meaning from them. 
 Gradually she began to feel there was some- 
 thing wrong; she strove to gather calm, to 
 
 
 obtain the upper hand of herself once more, 
 and, when that was done, she crowded all her 
 thoughts down, till the evening should let 
 them rise and shake their dismal vans be- 
 fore Azarian's eyes. 
 
 Meanwhile Ruth turned to the wants of the 
 day. She was faint, and needed strength. 
 There was little left in her rooms for the 
 pawnbroker ; she hated to denude this one 
 further till Azarian should have come and 
 gone ; she took some trifle, and, going out in 
 the soft showers, disposed of it for a where- 
 withal to dine upon, forcing herself to eat ; 
 but she had no longer the spur that once she 
 had in the first blast of poverty ; each time 
 the process grew more insupportable ; and,
 
 218 AZARIAN. 
 
 so humble to Azarian that, in order to keep 
 upright, she must needs be proud to all the 
 world beside, she thought she would sooner 
 starve than resort to such method again. 
 Later in the day, she busied herself putting 
 the place into the most exquisite order; a 
 little basket of grapes that some unknown one 
 had sent her she would not touch, grapes 
 will not keep one alive, saving them for the 
 evening; but, directly, she saw in that very 
 act a hope, and impetuously dashed them out 
 of the window, where a parcel of young rag- 
 amuffins seized upon them as the generous 
 bounty of the skies. 
 
 Ever since that night with Madame Saratov, 
 ever since that noon with Azarian, Ruth had 
 indistinctly meant to assert herself, yet had 
 postponed the evil day. She had scarcely 
 dared to do more than dream of parting, 
 that so sucks the strength out of the future, 
 and suffocates the soul beneath the accumu-
 
 AZARIAN. 219 
 
 lation of the past. She still held faint pallid 
 pictures of the long life with him, even if it 
 were sacrificed to him ; she had thought of a 
 hearth almost happy; she had suffered some- 
 where in the inmost recesses a thrilling hope, 
 unwhispered, unheard, of the ruddy firelight 
 playing on little heads, each one of which 
 should wear his brow, his eyes, should make 
 her dearer, should win him nearer ; she had 
 an insight of that advancing hour that none 
 but she could soothe ; she sought with all the 
 wild rushing of her love to be the one to lead 
 him upward, to do him loyal service ; she 
 abased herself in her thought and put her 
 heart beneath his feet, her whole nature sud- 
 denly went out to him in clamorous longing. 
 And then again those words of the morning 
 fell on her like ice-drops ; she bent her head 
 in a, storm of tears, and when they cleared, 
 though she had never written him word or 
 message before, she found herself pencilling 

 
 220 AZARIAN. 
 
 along her drawing-paper, " Till you need me, 
 Azarian, till you need me." She wanted 
 to be the whole world to him. She found 
 herself almost nothing. Something must be 
 done that evening; it was right for no love 
 to continue on such ignoble terms ! 
 
 Poor little Euth thought then all had 
 reached an end. She did not know how 
 deeply she was cherishing yet one last hope, 
 until the twilight passed and he had not come. 
 She sat at the window after the dark had 
 fallen, straining her gaze as she searched the 
 long, wide, lonely square, where the gas-light 
 flickered in the wind and laid- its fickle lustre 
 in the black and shallow pools. The rain 
 lashed along the' pane, the gale sighed and 
 sobbed about the house or mounted and shook 
 the casement and lulled away again, the 
 great shadow stretched along the earth and 
 grew deeper and immense, no one came. 
 A wild wet night, few braved it, few trav-
 
 AZARIAN. 221 
 
 ersed the spot ; all were housed with their 
 homes, their friends, their fires. A stir with- 
 out in the solitary space. Was it a footfall ? 
 the spark of a cigar ? the long lessening 
 shadow, that was he ! She ran to light her 
 candle, to compose her dress ; she waited with 
 her breath between her teelh for the hall-door 
 to slain. All was silent ; there came no sound, 
 no turning lock, no step on the stair, no shak- 
 ing off of the rain, her heart sank down a 
 sickening gulf; she blew out the light again. 
 A long hour full of keen quick pangs, 
 ah! who has not known them, the heat tear- 
 ing up and down the veins, the quenching 
 hopes, the wild despair ? The clock struck, 
 tolled out remorselessly its nine iron strokes ; 
 it would soon be too late to expect him ; 
 eagerness, impatience, fear, all fevered her, 
 her pulses began to throb with liquid fire. 
 She had so determined that he would come, 
 so set her heart upon it, if he loved her in the
 
 222 AZARIAN. 
 
 least it would be impossible be should fail. 
 Ah ! how dismal it looks ! she thought, com- 
 ing from delightsome places, no wonder he 
 will not want to stay. There was yet some 
 coal in her grate, laid in the spring and im- 
 kindled during all the summer ; she touched 
 a match to the wi'sp of paper beneath, and 
 sent its crackle and sparkle up the chimney 
 till they fell to a soft deep blaze, where the 
 colored exhalations of liquescent jewels seemed 
 to stir and hover. How warm the room was 
 then ! She threw up the window, and leaned 
 out into the southerly gale ; the rain beat upon 
 her temples and cooled them ; she seemed to 
 see forms flitting far down the distance ; could 
 that be was ah, no ! only the gas-light 
 flaring in the wind and tossing its shadows 
 about the long, wide, lonely square. "0 
 Azariau, how can you treat me so ! " she cried 
 aloud. 
 
 One, two, three, the clock was peal-
 
 AZARIAN. 223 
 
 ing ten. She went for her dressing-case ; she 
 let down her hair warm and loose in the back 
 of her neck ; she brushed it till it tingled all 
 through its length with fires and darks, till 
 her head burned and her brain -grew clear. 
 He would come yet, she insisted, she was posi- 
 tive of it. 
 
 There rose the noise of wheels, ah ! to be 
 sure, he had been detained, and would not 
 walk in all the storm. She twisted the tresses 
 into a knot, her heart shook the chair that 
 held her ; she forgot reproach, separation ; she 
 sprang to meet him with passionate welcome, 
 swiftly and indifferently the coach rolled by. 
 Others followed ; they returned from the thea- 
 tres ; none of them knew of the tragedy in the 
 life of the little girl up there in the blazing 
 window. She had been so confident, that the 
 reverse shocked her stiff; she leaned there, 
 and in the last fierce shower of the breaking 
 tempest let the rain-torrents dash about her.
 
 224 AZARIAN. 
 
 Perhaps he would not come at all ; the doubt 
 was so like certainty that it swallowed breath 
 and palpitation. 
 
 There he was at last ! Why had she lost 
 the step ? Life and strength and joy surged 
 up again at the sound. The key rattled in 
 the door. He would be here after an instant. 
 How he would come in, in his gay way, saying 
 not a word, cheeks flushed with the weather, 
 eyes shining beneath the brim slouched like 
 a brigand's, open his arms, his great shaggy 
 coat, shut her in under all the rain-drops, feel 
 her heart beating, kiss her first on the fore- 
 head, her face was aglow with smiles, 
 and all the night's tumult for nothing . 
 
 And then the heavy step of a lodger passed 
 her door and went higher. 
 
 She flashed the window down, she walked 
 the room like one caged, she held her hands 
 tightly griped that she might not wring them. 
 
 How the minutes dragged and dragged and
 
 AZARIAN. 225 
 
 dragged. Eleven o'clock. She would not 
 look for him again ; it would be of no use 
 if he did come ; it would be only to say good 
 night ; but oh what cheer in the sound of that 
 single word ! She would go to bed, but she 
 could not sleep. The next step found her at 
 the window, peering through the pane, out 
 where the desolate lamp flung about its wild 
 shadows on the glowering darkness, where the 
 drops yet pattered from the boughs, dripped 
 from the eaves, and the tossing flashes lit up 
 the emptiness of the great lonely square. 
 
 There was no more rain ; the warm wind 
 had risen and sent the scudding clouds to sea 
 in tattered shreds ; here and there a star ap- 
 peared, mild and hazy, like soft summer stars ; 
 it was the dawn of the Indian summer of the 
 year. But Ruth felt as though never again 
 for her would there be any summer in the 
 soul. All the sudden swift anticipations that 
 
 had met her with shining faces, like glorious 
 10* o
 
 226 AZARIAN. 
 
 ghosts, had turned their backs upon her in 
 flying, black disappointments. They were 
 but trifles, yet what sorrow they drew in 
 their train,* what mood of anguish they super- 
 induced ! Hot, parched, weary work, over at 
 length ; the eyes ached, the cheeks had left 
 burning, the hands were cold and wet, the 
 nerves were all aslack. Her heart felt too 
 heavy to flutter any more. 
 
 Twelve o'clock of a starlight night. She 
 had ceased to expect him now ; but it had all 
 passed beyond her control, and still she sat 
 there. They that have looked for one who 
 came not, and on whom their very life hung, 
 know what a vigil was that. 
 
 Ruth may have slept in her chair at last, 
 for when she looked up again, the day was 
 breaking, breaking over the house-tops in its 
 deep tender prime. Whoever has known that 
 perfect hour in the country can still feel its
 
 AZARIAN. 227 
 
 spell in the city, when far and near the wide 
 firmament broods over its soft dream of 
 light. But Ruth felt nothing, remembered 
 nothing, just now ; she only saw down the 
 gap of a street the morning star sinking 
 back like a great watery chrysolite and melt- 
 ing in depths of golden vapor ; she had a vague 
 feeling that it was her own being dissolving 
 there in the red fumes of the sun, till sud- 
 denly she recalled the chrysolite upon her 
 finger, and all the turmoil and passion of 
 the night rose with it. But she was too weary 
 for any thought; things passed before her 
 eyes, and made their own impression ; she had 
 not even the volition to receive them. She 
 saw all the roofs lie dark and glittering in 
 the gray with their wet slopes, then steam in 
 censers of curling filmy threads ; one spire 
 studded its base with rubies, just above great 
 pearly clouds flocked and floated on, then 
 high and clear bloomed out the faint fresh
 
 228 AZARIAN. 
 
 azure ; borne on cool morning winds a rack 
 of rosy mist soared up and sailed away, and 
 slantwise round the corner of the eaves a sun- 
 beam touched her face. Slowly the city be- 
 gan to plume itself in smoke ; Ruth watched 
 the slender stream that left one chimney, and 
 dissipated itself up high in the airy sparkling 
 heaven, idly fancied the hearth far below from 
 which it rose, the bright breakfast-table, with 
 its cheery faces, saw by and by the children 
 trooping forth to school, then turned her eyes 
 inward. It was noon before she moved. She 
 was unconscious of time, felt no hunger, for- 
 got her toilet. All her sensations clustered 
 at one point, she was waiting for Azarian. 
 The shriek of the trains swooping down upon 
 the city had not roused her ; but here the ful- 
 gurant clangor of the great steel bells startled 
 the air, and their reverberation seemed to shat- 
 ter itself in her frame. Ruth always loved 
 bells, used to shiver with their slow toll,
 
 AZARIAN. 229 
 
 to let the blood in her heart leap exultantly 
 with their showering peals, felt always all at- 
 tuned to the great tone that pulsed from par- 
 ticle to particle throughout their sonorous ex- 
 panses, so musical, so ravishing, she had 
 wondered they should have to do with hands, 
 would have had them swinging, ringing, in 
 the blue dome by unseen agencies. Now she 
 rose, caught sight of her face in the glass, 
 went and bathed and indued fresh raiment, 
 lay down on her lounge and tried to sleep. 
 Vain effort : all her love for Azarian was beat- 
 ing its life out wildly in her bounding heart ; 
 all her wrongs from him rushed up in wave 
 on wave to drown the struggling passion. The 
 greatest wrong of all made the very heart 
 stand still ; but for him she could have prayed. 
 In this her need she could have found help. 
 "When she came to him with all her nascent 
 faith, her holy hopes, he had laughed at them, 
 silenced her words, stifled her thoughts. For,
 
 230 AZARIAN. 
 
 whatever should be grafted on hereafter, Aza- 
 rian had to-day no religious element in his 
 nature ; his cold intellect might stand bare- 
 headed without, and watch the sun strike up 
 the painted windows, he had never entered 
 and become transmuted in the rosy warmth 
 and amethystine glow of prayer. He had made 
 himself the absorbent of all Ruth's power and 
 aspiration, and in his exhausting atmosphere, 
 if her devotion were not dead, it was at least 
 in syncope. She could not pray ; she had 
 lost the language ; she had made herself so 
 remote ; she felt that there was nothing to 
 hear her should she call. Yet had he been 
 but constant ! Her friend, her religion, her 
 love, he had taken them all, prevented her 
 power, drained her strength, and in return he 
 had given her nothing, nothing ; he did not 
 care for her, he had no need of her, so little 
 would have contented her, such a breath 
 of tenderness would have kept her warm,
 
 AZARIAN. 231 
 
 and thinking of these things, Ruth cried out 
 that she was forsaken, that she was alone, that 
 she was all alone in the world. Why did not 
 Azarian come ? There were double reasons 
 that he should, and those words to explain ! 
 Was it possible, was it possible that he never 
 meant to come again ? She tried to say that 
 she wanted no return for all she gave. She 
 tried to persuade herself that she was wrong, 
 that he had delayed a hundred times before, 
 why should this once be life or death ? Oh, 
 she had made it so ! It is from the spark 
 that the forest flames. She had wrought her- 
 self to that frantic pitch that listens to noth- 
 ing, to that intense state wherein one perhaps 
 sees the truer relations of magnitudes, where 
 nothing is small,- all great. She was prostrate, 
 and the chances swept on above, as remote 
 from her reach as any mighty wind that roars 
 through a black and hollow sky. All crea- 
 tion hung on the yea or nay of his coming.
 
 232 AZARIAN. 
 
 She lay there with such a hearkening ear now 
 as the hours wore on, flushing and paling, 
 shaking with such great tremors, her breath 
 like little gusts of flame, half beside herself 
 through suffering, excitement, inanition, ex- 
 haustion, that life seemed of no worth but to 
 keep her keenly attempered to pain. And of 
 what worth was it ? "Who valued it ? No- 
 body. Nobody in the wide world. "Why should 
 she keep it ? And she turned her face to the 
 wall. Gently the day withdrew, strained all 
 the golden light from its rich lees in sunset, 
 and soft purple glooms wrapped the earth and 
 brought the stars down nearer as one by one 
 they trembled into life. Ruth sat up and 
 pushed back her hair, went to the window and 
 looked out. The perfumes of all her untended 
 flowers floated themselves across to soothe her, 
 but she did not regard them. A little fitful 
 breeze tapped the bare vine-stem against the 
 pane, but she did not let it in. Some prayer-
 
 AZAEIAN. 233 
 
 meeting bell was tolling seven, she covered 
 her ears with her hands. It was utterly im- 
 possible that she should re-enact last night ; 
 she had neither the vigor nor the spirit for it ; 
 she shuddered at the thought, the fear, all 
 her nerves were torn to pieces. What should 
 she do ? Go out ? And perhaps miss seeing 
 him ! Remain ? And endure the torture. 
 She remained. Still waiting, all alert, there 
 came across her wildness brief lulls, moments 
 of reflection. The words of Madame Saratov 
 rung in her remembrance : she thought if, by 
 her untiring service, she were only to weaken 
 and degrade his soul, would it not be best to 
 let him leave her. " How can I let him leave 
 me," she said, " when the very fear of it gives 
 me this agony ? I have not the strength to 
 let him leave me, and live. And live? 
 Where is the need ? Well, then, why not 
 die ? Leave ? He has already left ! I am 
 so tired, .0 God, why don't you take me ? "
 
 234 AZAR1AN. 
 
 Suddenly Ruth sprang to her feet. Take her ? 
 why not go ? 
 
 Yet she trembled. And if he came . 
 
 She stood waiting, with her hands clasped on 
 the table before her. When the clock should 
 
 strike eight . What an eternity that was ! 
 
 Sparkling on the fixed strain of the moment 
 a thousand happy vanities started up and made 
 darker the gloom that swallowed them. She 
 laughed grimly at herself, and asked if every 
 girl who lost a lover were mad as she. The 
 question was another goad. Let her hurry 
 to escape her humiliation ! Let her bury her 
 sorrow and her shame out of the light J Let 
 her perish with it ! And then the awfulness 
 of death smote her in the face. Here now, 
 burning, breathing, beating, and then ? 
 terrible unknown ! and then ? Coming with 
 all her vivid life, what dreadful power was that 
 which could give it so sudden extinction ? The 
 white cold horror whelmed her ; yet better
 
 AZARIAN. 235 
 
 that than this, at least it would be rest. It 
 would be brief, and then it would be over. 
 Her forehead was wet, her heart struck her 
 side with blows that one could hear ; still she 
 was waiting, waiting, and all became lost in 
 the rigidity of her purpose. 
 
 Slowly, sweetly, unconsciously, the peal 
 parted the air, and fell, fell softly down 
 through the listening night, lingering and 
 loitering, and quivered into silence! Its tone 
 still swam upon the ear when Ruth was on 
 the pavement, flying with fleet feet to find 
 her fate. Step after step, in some swift mech- 
 anism of violent will, on, on, rapid and sure. 
 This was the place. 
 
 Ruth leaned a moment over the parapet ; 
 she stood and looked down into the deep dark 
 water that lapsed along below ; she seemed to 
 see herself lying there forever sheathed in the 
 crystal flow, looking up at soft starry heavens, 
 all trouble dead and done with. Not far away
 
 236 AZARIAN. 
 
 a boat rose and dipped, peopled with ringing 
 voices, while its helmsman bore a torch. In 
 travesty of all their mirth, some woman sang ; 
 the song floated over the bay and reached her 
 ears. 
 
 Lips that were made to sigh, 
 
 Your bloom was bliss. 
 The rose fades from the sky, 
 
 From you the kiss. 
 
 Eyes that were made to weep, 
 
 At length how blest 
 Soul-satisfying sleep 
 
 And dreamless rest ! 
 
 Heart that was made to break, 
 
 One pang, one breath, 
 Your fluttering thrill and ache 
 Drop into death ! 
 
 And the helmsman quenched his torch. Then, 
 like a strain of the wide world's indifference, 
 from another skiff that drifted down the ob- 
 scure far on the hither side of the bay, an-
 
 AZARIAN. 237 
 
 other voice echoed in antiphon, some noc- 
 turn's careless lazy tune, much like the mo- 
 tion of the current that buoyed the singer so 
 languidly, so graciously along. 
 
 Float, little boat, the way is dark and wide, 
 
 Float, little boat, along the sleepy tide; 
 
 Vaguely we note, we hear the distant rote 
 
 Where the great waters and the steep shores chide, 
 
 Slowly we slide, it lulls us as we glide, 
 
 Float, little boat. 
 
 Neither could hear the other, Ruth heard 
 both. There was a subtle mockery in the 
 contrasting song. She delayed till they should 
 drop below the piers. And she looked stead- 
 ily ahead far away into the low horizon that 
 drew over the sphere's side all its heaven of 
 dark transparence, so remote and deep, with 
 such a lofty lucid dark that it seemed full of 
 slumbering light. Even then, through all the 
 madness that whirled about the fixed point of 
 her purpose, some sense of the hoTir's beauty
 
 238 AZ ASIAN. 
 
 crept into her heart, and I think that for an 
 instant her personal misery lifted over a quick 
 flash of gratitude for the perfect loveliness of 
 the world. How beautiful must be the hand 
 that made its work so fair ! It was but an 
 instant, then the pain shut down again. 
 Ah, how regardlessly the earth pursued its 
 way, the river went to meet the sea, the boats 
 slipped downward, gently drawn and loitering 
 along the lure ! Sweet eyes that through the 
 western windows see every night over the 
 broad shadowy stream the lamps build up 
 their aerial bridge of light, could not detect 
 this little spirit hovering to be gone, hidden 
 among all the clustering glooms and summon- 
 ing the powers of vasty death to do her will. 
 She was all alone in the world ; God had for- 
 gotten her, that was what Ruth kept saying 
 to herself ; a moment, and then sleep. As 
 she said it, suddenly she seemed to feel a hand 
 upon her shoulder. She turned hastily and
 
 AZARIAN. 239 
 
 looked up ; there was nothing but the velvet 
 violet heaven full of scattered starlight, the 
 great immensity of clear and bending space. 
 What wrung the scalding drops from her brain 
 
 and dashed them impetuously down her cheek, 
 
 j 
 gazing still with brimmed and blurring eyes ? 
 
 How beautiful the hand? Tender as beauti- 
 ful ! God had never forgotten her ! He re- 
 membered her, he lifted her, he upheld her ; 
 she was his little child, he loved her ! He 
 had set her feet in that path, let her cling 
 to the hand and walk therein ! This pain 
 was in the destiny of her nature belike, evaded 
 here only to endure hereafter, in other worlds, 
 sadder lives, till accomplished. Evade it, 
 escape his will, escape fate, she would not, 
 if it were possible ; the old adoring worship 
 overflowed her soul ; there might come barren 
 sighs of ineffable human longing, but through 
 all the years that should engulf those dreary 
 instants henceforth the wide universe sufficed
 
 240 AZARIAN. 
 
 her. Let her accept all suffering of his be- 
 hest, all result of his laws, precious because 
 his choice, welcome since sent by him. Let 
 her live his life, her face upturned to catch 
 his light, and dying leave some handful of 
 his earth transmuted to heroic dust. It was 
 all she could do for her Lord. And if he did 
 more for her, if he drew her up higher and 
 higher and into his heart through soaring 
 eternities, let her wait, and, doing the Divine 
 will, become fit for the Divine rest. It was 
 all in a breath, one of those swift miracles 
 that happen every day, that sooner or later 
 come to us all, and weld our wish with the 
 Eternal Will. But as Ruth restored her gaze 
 to the low dark horizon, how all Nature opened 
 its depths to meet her ! what sweetness lurked 
 in the shadows ! what brightness in the rays ! 
 She forgot sorrow, and it seemed as if the very 
 heart were smiling within her. Her passion, 
 her selfish ecstasy of pain, had passed; rest
 
 AZARIAN. 241 
 
 took possession of her, and the warm still In- 
 dian summer night breathed its balm about 
 her. A little wind blew up and ruffled all the 
 idle bay as the two boats stole nearer ; it re- 
 
 
 
 freshed Ruth with great wafts, and soothed 
 her brow ; it caught the dust of the thorough- 
 fare, and whirled it in great clouds together. 
 Suddenly the torch in the gay barge beyond, 
 peopled with its invisible voices, flared into 
 being again, and flung its restless light about, 
 tossed up to the forgetful glance a sidelong 
 dart from the chrysolite shining on her finger, 
 lingered a moment on all the cool dew that 
 lay beaded along the parapet flashing \>ack 
 innumerable twinkles and shattered sparks of 
 color, then swept its gleam higher, and trem- 
 bled over Ruth herself and on the great cloud 
 impending there behind her, and, suddenly, 
 the slender boat on the hither side, drifting 
 from its shadow, was caught back on a delay- 
 ing oar while its master hung upon the rapt 
 11 p
 
 242 AZARIAN. 
 
 bright gaze of that face above him. He re- 
 membered with the same heart-beat that old 
 dream of which she had once told him, and 
 it seemed to his transfixed fancy that the two 
 upbearing angels stood behind her with their 
 great arching pointed wings and glorious 
 faces. To shoot down, secure his boat, climb 
 and s*eek the spot, was but brief work, yet 
 vain. The place was vacant ; he found noth- 
 ing but the empty starlight and kind shelter- 
 ing clouds of dust that perhaps hid the little 
 phantom as it flitted on and away. 
 
 Tfie day had been one of the fond mistakes 
 of the year, those dear surprises wheh all 
 June seems filtering through November, when 
 the landscape lies lapped in blue and mellow 
 haze, and resin-breaths sweeter than sighs 
 from Sorrento's orange-groves come float- 
 ing everywhere tangled in the blissful air. 
 Azarian had certainly intended to keep his
 
 A Z ART AN. 243 
 
 tardy promise to Ruth that noon, and then 
 he bethought himself that no such delicious 
 day for boating would the fall again afford, 
 so he went lightly simmering up the stream 
 with the tide, found some woods in which to 
 belate himself, gathered a rare medicinal root, 
 watched a little sleepy fly, that all the season 
 had not coaxed from its cell, just break the 
 chrysalis, fall on his sleeve to spread and dry 
 its gauzy wings and flutter along upon his 
 way, pleased to see what kind of time the tiny 
 prodigal was having on his first launch in life ; 
 and when sunset burned among the tree-boles, 
 found the dim bank and drifted down again. 
 Now, as he rapidly left the bridge, and sought 
 the old region, the solitary square, with its 
 wildly flickering lamp, I cannot say what 
 quick spasms of vague apprehension were 
 these that stung him on. He reached Ruth's 
 door, it was open ; the place was dark. He 
 entered, called her, waited, groped round and
 
 244 AZARIAN. 
 
 found a candle. All was as she left it, the 
 very impression of her head upon the cushion, 
 the spot where her breath had soiled the pane, 
 the fire's dead remnants in the grate, his little 
 Angelico hanging before her painting-desk, on 
 her painting-desk the amaranth half sketched, 
 and then those idle words. He bent and read 
 them : " Till you need me, Azarian, till you 
 need me." Azarian gave one long look about 
 the room, and set down the candle, stood be- 
 fore it till, burning to the socket, it dipped 
 and gasped for life and fell and left the place 
 iii blackness. Then he strode out, and locked 
 the door behind him. 
 
 Meanwhile, if auy watched the little vagrant 
 woman wending under the shadow down the 
 lonely windy way, none molested her. The 
 slight form slid along the streets like a shadow 
 itself. Weary, it waited a moment, leaning 
 upon the stone pillar of a church. Down
 
 AZARIAN. 245 
 
 through the portals came the heavenly song 
 from the choir, that terzetto where the first 
 voice floats forward on the great stream of 
 the second, and underneath all the third tolls 
 like a bell across a tranquil water, full of Sab- 
 bath rest, Lift thine eyes. Then, when the 
 beautiful silence had closed over it, she went 
 on. Up and down long windy ways, looking 
 only at her two clasped hands and on the sin- 
 gle jewel there into which the light of all the 
 lamps seemed to stoop and sparkle as she 
 went. 
 
 At length she paused beside another door 
 than that through which the radiant crowd 
 were pouring, and waited till one should issue 
 alone. The boy came tumbling down with 
 his basket, then a different form appeared, 
 a firm foot stepped out, a white bare hand 
 wrapped the cloak together and let it fall 
 again in a moment's pause, the soft breeze 
 soothed so after all that reeking air, the stars
 
 246 AZARIAN. 
 
 were so brilliant with heaven's own lustre 
 after the glaring footlights, the great vault was 
 so clear, so pure the cool night-fragrance, so 
 grateful the silence. The lofty glance fell 
 downward then, what little beggar was this 
 slipping a hand in hers ? Ruth did not look 
 up. 
 
 " Charrnian," she faltered, " I have come " 
 
 The warm hand closed over the slender 
 
 thing within it as if they were cut from one 
 
 marble, and, still fast held, without a word, 
 
 the two went on together. 
 
 Is it, when all is said, the lover or the love 
 that one requires ? Think of Goethe, and say 
 the love. Think of any woman, and answer 
 that it is the pulsating personality of the lov- 
 er. But falling torn and bleeding, the arms 
 of a true and strong affection, be it whose it
 
 AZARIAX. 247 
 
 may, can support one till health of the heart 
 returns. It is said, L'amour est & la por- 
 
 *> 
 
 te*e de tout le monde : la seule preuve d'un 
 co3ur d'dlite est 1'amitie. 
 
 Perhaps it did not take the whole of those 
 three foreign years for Charmian's embracing 
 spirit to give tone and vigor to Ruth once 
 more, to place her upon a fresh centre whence 
 she could look with clearer eyes, to let her 
 find herself full of such purified strength as 
 that with which, after its igneous struggle, the 
 diamond drops away from its char. Before 
 the second year had expired, the sudden death 
 of Madame Saratov left two orphans upon 
 the world. Ruth saw a path before her with 
 tears of thankfulness ; she made a swallow's 
 flight across the Atlantic, and brought them 
 both back to Charmian's hearth and hers, and 
 took them into a heart wide enough to be a 
 mother's. The boys stood a shield between 
 her and the past ; gentle maternal duties ab-
 
 248 AZARIAN. 
 
 sorbed her thought and her love ; it needed 
 constant care to overcome the vagrant life 
 they lived and give it the wholesomeness of 
 home ; they began to interknit with closest 
 fibres; she poured all the beautiful accumu- 
 lations of her being into the young mould 
 of theirs, and spared them none of the al- 
 chemized treasure of her experience. The 
 brothers held Charmian in a sacred awe, and 
 addressed her by the reverential surname ; 
 but the other one they worshipped and ca- 
 ressed, and called her always Ruth. Then 
 all returned once more to the shores where 
 first they had met one another, and, heart free 
 and hand free in the service of unselfish love, 
 Ruth soared on her art with wings she had 
 not found before. She lived the life she cov- 
 eted, she had her work, she had her bliss, 
 these were her children. 
 
 Did one who, with a start, paused outside 
 as he went down the hill in the wintry, twi-
 
 AZARIAN. 249 
 
 light, first glancing, then gazing, into the 
 opposite windows of a drawing-room on the 
 ground-floor, where the lights were lit and 
 shutters still thoughtlessly unclosed, divine 
 anything of this ? Was that she, sitting in 
 the ruby glow of the fire, his Ruth, Ruth, 
 who three years ago had gone forth into the 
 night and left him ? Ruth with such sunny 
 light in her brown eyes, such soft rose-bloom 
 on her cheek, such happy clinging smiles 
 about the mouth he used to kiss ? Ruth ! 
 Was it Paul Saratov too, the youth that stood 
 with the mien of a young Norse hero, leaning 
 on the back of her tall 'chair, and looking 
 down with her at what the dark-eyed Ivan, 
 seated at her feet on the other side, held up 
 for her to see ? These boys had she set 
 them in his empty shrine ? Ah no, that 
 chamber was sealed, and she was at peace. 
 Was it Ruth with a mother's joys grafted 
 upon her life ? Well, grafted ? false then.
 
 250 AZARIAN. 
 
 No, not so ; doubtless the stem loved best 
 the fostering of the sunlight deep in its own 
 heart, rejoiced most in the blossom of its own 
 veins, but yet with the borrowed bud it bore 
 good fruit. There was a deep and perfect 
 serenity of gladness in that meeting of the 
 three warm trusting glances before him there 
 in the pleasant room, glances from faces full 
 of love and peace. 
 
 As he gazed his bitter gaze, a stir of 
 figures disturbed the air ; those happy sun- 
 shiny brown eyes were lifted and looking 
 quietly at him. The night without, the light 
 within, the pane between, made him viewless. 
 She looked at him, and he was of less sub- 
 stance than any flitting film of the dark- 
 ness. Then her fingers were stroking back 
 Ivan's hair, and she was smiling up at Paul. 
 Guests took their departure, a queenly woman 
 with her purples gleaming beneath the golden 
 drip of the chandeliers swept forward into his
 
 AZARIAN. 251 
 
 range, put up a jewelled hand and dropped 
 the shade. 
 
 " The curtain falls," said Azarian, striding 
 gloomily on his way alone, " the play is played* 
 out." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 Ticknor and Fields. 13 
 
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 Ticknor and Fields. 15 
 
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 Ticknor and Fields. 17 
 
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