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THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE 
 
 AND OTHER TALES. 
 
THE 
 
 MADONNA OF THE FUTURE 
 
 AND OTHER TALES. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES, JR. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1879. 
 
 The Right of Translation is Reserved. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 K. CLAV, SONS, AND TAYLOR, 
 BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 THREE of the accompanying Tales the first, third, 
 and fourth in order were included in a collection 
 of short stories published in Boston some years 
 since. Two of the others the second and the last 
 are now reprinted for the first time from American 
 periodicals. All these things have been revised 
 and retouched. " The Diary of a Man of Fifty" 
 originally appeared in Macmillaris Magazine. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE -MADONNA OF THE FUTURE . . I 
 
 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE 74 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES MS 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE, 
 
 AND OTHER TALES. 
 
 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 WE had been talking about the masters who had 
 achieved but a single masterpiece the artists and 
 poets who but once in their lives had known the 
 divine afflatus and touched the high level of per- 
 fection. Our host had been showing us a charming 
 little cabinet picture by a painter whose name we had 
 never heard, and who, after this single spasmodic 
 bid for fame, had apparently relapsed into obscurity 
 and mediocrity. There was some discussion as to 
 the frequency of this phenomenon ; during which, I 
 observed, H sat silent, finishing his cigar with a 
 
 VOL. I. ^ B 
 
2 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 meditative air, and looking at the picture, which was 
 being handed round the table. "I don't know how 
 common a case it is," he said at last, " but I have 
 Seen it. I have known a poor fellow who painted his 
 one masterpiece, and " he added with a smile " he 
 didn't even paint that. He made his bid for fame 
 
 and missed it." We all knew H for a clever man 
 
 who had seen much of men and manners, and had a 
 great stock of reminiscences. Some one immediately 
 questioned him further, and while I was engrossed 
 with the raptures of my neighbour over the little 
 picture, he was induced to tell his tale. If I were to 
 doubt whether it would bear repeating, I should only 
 have to remember how that charming woman, our 
 hostess, who had left the table, ventured back in rust- 
 ling rose-colour, to pronounce our lingering a want of 
 gallantry, and, finding us a listening circle, sank into 
 her chair in spite of our cigars, and heard the story 
 out so graciously that when the catastrophe was 
 reached she glanced across at me and showed me a 
 tear in each of her beautiful eyes. 
 
 It relates to my youth, and to Italy : two fine 
 things ! (H began.) I had arrived late in the 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 3 
 
 evening at Florence, and while I finished my bottle 
 of wine at supper, had fancied that, tired traveller 
 though I was, I might pay the city a finer compliment 
 than by going vulgarly to bed. A narrow passage 
 wandered darkly away out of the little square before 
 my hotel, and looked as if it bored into the heart 
 of Florence. I followed it, and at the end of ten 
 minutes emerged upon a great piazza, filled only 
 with the mild autumn moonlight. Opposite rose the 
 Palazzo Vecchio, like some huge civic fortress, with 
 the great bell-tower springing from its embattled 
 verge as a mountain-pine from the edge of a cliff. 
 At its base, in its projected shadow, gleamed certain 
 dim sculptures which I wonderingly approached. 
 One of the images, on the left of the palace door, 
 was a magnificent colossus, shining through the 
 dusky air like a sentinel who has taken the alarm. 
 In a moment I recognised him as Michael Angelo's 
 David. I turned with a certain relief from his sinister 
 strength to a slender figure in bronze, stationed 
 beneath the high, light loggia which opposes the free 
 and elegant span of its arches to the dead masonry of 
 the palace ; a figure supremely shapely and graceful ; 
 gentle, almost, in spite of his holding out with his 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 light, nervous arm the snaky head of the slaughtered 
 Gorgon. His name is Perseus, and you may read his 
 story, not in the Greek mythology, but in the memoirs 
 of Benvenuto Cellini. Glancing from one of these 
 fine fellows to the other, I probably uttered some 
 irrepressible commonplace of praise, for, as if pro- 
 voked by my voice, a man rose from the steps of 
 the loggia, where he had been sitting in the shadow, 
 and addressed me in good English a small, slim 
 personage, clad in a sort of black velvet tunic (as 
 it seemed), and with a mass of auburn hair, which 
 gleamed in the moonlight, escaping from a little 
 mediaeval birretta. In a tone of the most insinuating 
 deference, he asked me for my " impressions." He 
 seemed picturesque, fantastic, slightly unreal. Hover- 
 ing there in this consecrated neighbourhood, he might 
 have passed for the genius of aesthetic hospitality 
 if the genius of aesthetic hospitality were not 
 commonly some shabby little custode, flourishing a 
 calico pocket-handkerchief and openly resentful of 
 the divided franc. This analogy was made none the 
 less complete by the brilliant tirade with which he 
 greeted my embarrassed silence. 
 
 " I have known Florence long, sir, but I have never 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 5 
 
 known her so lovely as to-night. It's as if the ghosts 
 of her past were abroad in the empty streets. The 
 present is sleeping ; the past hovers about us like a 
 dream made visible. Fancy the old Florentines stroll- 
 ing up in couples to pass judgment on the last per- 
 formance of Michael, of Benvenuto ! We should 
 come in for a precious lesson if we might overhear 
 what they say. The plainest burgher of them, in his 
 cap and gown, had a taste in the matter ! That was 
 the prime of art, sir. The sun stood high in heaven, 
 .and his broad and equal blaze made the darkest 
 places bright and the dullest eyes clear. We live 
 in the evening of time ! We grope in the gray dusk, 
 carrying each our poor little taper of selfish and 
 painful wisdom, holding it up to the great models 
 and to the dim idea, and seeing nothing but over- 
 whelming greatness and dimness. The days of illu- 
 mination are gone ! But do you know I fancy I 
 fancy " and he grew suddenly almost familiar in 
 this visionary fervour " I fancy the light of that time 
 rests upon us here for an hour! I have never seen 
 the David so grand, the Perseus so fair ! Even the 
 inferior productions of John of Bologna and of Baccio 
 Bandinelli seem to realise the artist's dream. I feel 
 
6 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 as if the moonlit air were charged with the secrets of 
 the masters, and as if, standing here in religious 
 attention, we might we might witness a revelation !" 
 Perceiving at this moment, I suppose, my halting 
 comprehension reflected in my puzzled face, this in- 
 teresting rhapsodist paused and blushed. Then with 
 a melancholy smile, " You think me a moonstruck 
 charlatan, I suppose. It's not my habit to hang 
 about the piazza and pounce upon innocent tourists. 
 But to-night, I confess, I am under the charm. 
 And then, somehow, I fancied you too were an 
 artist!" 
 
 " I am not an artist, I am sorry to say, as you 
 must understand the term. But pray make no apo- 
 logies. I am also under the charm ; your eloquent 
 remarks have only deepened it." 
 
 " If you are not an artist you are worthy to be 
 one ! " he rejoined, with an expressive smile. "A 
 young man who arrives at Florence late in the evening, 
 and, instead of going prosaically to bed, or hanging 
 over the travellers' book at his hotel, walks forth 
 without loss of time to pay his devoirs to the beau- 
 tiful, is a young man after my own heart ! " 
 
 The mystery was suddenly solved ; my friend was 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 7 
 
 an American ! He must have been, to take the pic- 
 turesque so prodigiously to heart. " None the less 
 so, I trust," I answered, " if the young man is a 
 sordid New-Yorker." 
 
 " New-Yorkers have been munificent patrons of 
 art ! " he answered, urbanely. 
 
 For a moment I was alarmed. Was this midnight 
 reverie mere Yankee enterprise, and was he simply a 
 desperate brother of the brush who had posted him- 
 self here to extort an " order " from a sauntering 
 .tourist? But I was not called to defend myself. A 
 great brazen note broke suddenly from the far-off 
 summit of the bell-tower above us, and sounded the 
 first stroke of midnight. My companion started, 
 apologised for detaining me, and prepared to retire. 
 But he seemed to offer so lively a promise of further 
 entertainment, that I was indisposed to part with 
 him, and suggested that we should stroll homeward 
 together. He cordially assented ; so we turned out of 
 the Piazza, passed down before the statued arcade of 
 the Uffizi, and came out upon the Arno. What course 
 we took I hardly remember, but we roamed slowly 
 about for an hour, my companion delivering by 
 snatches a sort of moon-touched aesthetic lecture. I 
 
8 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 listened in puzzled fascination, and wondered who 
 the deuce he was. He confessed with a melancholy 
 but all-respectful head-shake to his American origin. 
 
 " We are the disinherited of Art ! " he cried. " We 
 are condemned to be superficial ! We are excluded 
 from the magic circle. The soil of American per- 
 ception is a poor little barren, artificial deposit. Yes ! 
 we are wedded to imperfection. An American, to 
 excel, has just ten times as much to learn as a 
 European. We lack the deeper sense. We have 
 neither taste, nor tact, nor power. How should we 
 have them ? Our crude and garish climate, our silent 
 past, our deafening present, the constant pressure 
 about us of unlovely circumstance, are as void of all 
 that nourishes and prompts and inspires the artist, as 
 my sad heart is void of bitterness in saying so ! We 
 poor aspirants must live in perpetual exile." 
 
 " You seem fairly at home in exile," I answered, 
 " and Florence seems to me a very pretty Siberia. 
 But do you know my own thought ? Nothing is so 
 idle as to talk about our want of a nutritive soil, of 
 opportunity, of inspiration, and all the rest of it. 
 The worthy part is to do something fine ! There is 
 no law in our glorious Constitution against that. 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 9 
 
 Invent, create, achieve ! No matter if you have to 
 study fifty times as much as one of these ! What 
 else are you an artist for? Be you our Moses," I 
 added, laughing, and laying my hand on his shoulder, 
 " and lead us out of the house of bondage ! " 
 
 " Golden words golden words, young man ! " he 
 cried, with a tender smile. " ' Invent, create, achieve ! ' 
 Yes, that's our business ; I know it well. Don't take 
 me, in Heaven's name, for one of your barren com- 
 plainers impotent cynics who have neither talent 
 nor faith ! I am at work ! " and he glanced about 
 him and lowered his voice as if this were a quite 
 peculiar secret " I'm at work night and day. I 
 have undertaken a creation ! I am no Moses ; I am 
 only a poor patient artist; but it would be a fine 
 thing if I were to cause some slender stream of 
 beauty to flow in our thirsty land ! Don't think me 
 a monster of conceit," he went on, as he saw me 
 smile at the avidity with which he adopted my illus- 
 tration ; " I confess that I am in one of those moods 
 when great things seem possible ! This is one of 
 my nervous nights I dream waking ! When the 
 south-wind blows over Florence at midnight, it 
 seems to coax the soul from all the fair things 
 
io THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 locked away in her churches and galleries ; it comes 
 into my own little studio with the moonlight, and 
 sets my heart beating too deeply for rest. You see 
 I am always adding a thought to my conception! 
 This evening I felt that I couldn't sleep unless I 
 had communed with the genius of Buonarotti ! " 
 
 He seemed deeply versed in local history and tra- 
 dition, and he expatiated con amore on the charms of 
 Florence. I gathered that he was an old resident, 
 and that he had taken the lovely city into his heart. 
 " I owe her everything," he declared. " It's only 
 since I came here that I have really lived, intellec- 
 tually. One by one, all profane desires, all mere 
 worldly aims, have dropped away from me, and left 
 me nothing but my pencil, my little note-book " (and 
 he tapped his breast-pocket), "and the worship of 
 the pure masters those who were pure because 
 they were innocent, and those who were pure because 
 they were strong ! " 
 
 "And have you been very productive all this 
 time ? " I asked sympathetically. 
 
 He was silent a while before replying. " Not in 
 the vulgar sense ! " he said at last. " I have chosen 
 never to manifest myself by imperfection. The good 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 11 
 
 in every performance I have re-absorbed into the 
 generative force of new creations ; the bad there is 
 always plenty of that I have religiously destroyed. 
 I may say, with some satisfaction, that I have not 
 added a mite to the rubbish of the world. As a proof 
 of my conscientiousness" and he stopped short, 
 and eyed me with extraordinary candour, as if the 
 proof were to be overwhelming " I have never 
 sold a picture! 'At least no merchant traffics in 
 my heart ! ' Do you remember that divine line in 
 Browning ? My little studio has never been pro- 
 faned by superficial, feverish, mercenary work. It's 
 a temple of labour, but of leisure ! Art is long. If 
 we work for ourselves, of course we must hurry. If 
 we work for her, we must often pause. She can 
 wait ! " 
 
 This had brought us to my hotel door, somewhat 
 to my relief, I confess, for I had begun to feel 
 unequal to the society of a genius of this heroic 
 strain. I left him, however, not without expressing 
 a friendly hope that we should meet again. The 
 next morning my curiosity had not abated ; I was 
 anxious to see him by common daylight. I counted 
 
 upon meeting him in one of the many pictorial 
 
 OF CAL1I OKNIA LIBRARY 
 
12 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 haunts of Florence, and I was gratified without 
 delay. I found him in the course of the morning 
 in the Tribune of the Uffizi that little treasure- 
 chamber of world-famous things. He had turned 
 his back on the Venus de' Medici, and with his arms 
 resting on the railing which protects the pictures, and 
 his head buried in his hands, he was lost in the 
 contemplation of that superb triptych of Andrea 
 Mantegna a work which has neither the material 
 splendour nor the commanding force of some of its 
 neighbours, but which, glowing there with the loveli- 
 ness of patient labour, suits possibly a more constant 
 need of the soul. I looked at the picture for some 
 time over his shoulder ; at last, with a heavy sigh, he 
 turned away and our eyes met. As he recognised me a 
 deep blush rose to his face ; he fancied, perhaps, that 
 he had made a fool of himself overnight. But I offered 
 him my hand with a friendliness which assured him 
 I was not a scoffer. I knew him by his ardent 
 chevelure; otherwise he was much altered. His mid- 
 night mood was over, and he looked as haggard as 
 an actor by daylight. He was far older than I had 
 supposed, and he had less bravery of costume and 
 gesture. He seemed the quite poor, patient artist he 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 13 
 
 had proclaimed himself, and the fact that he had 
 never sold a picture was more obvious than glorious. 
 His velvet coat was threadbare, and his short 
 slouched hat, of an antique pattern, revealed a rusti- 
 ness which marked it an " original/' and not one of 
 the picturesque reproductions which brethren of his 
 craft affect. His eye was mild and heavy, and his 
 expression singularly gentle and acquiescent ; the 
 more so for a certain pallid leanness of visage, which 
 I hardly' knew whether to refer to the consuming fire 
 of genius or to a meagre diet. A very little talk, 
 however, cleared his brow and brought back his 
 eloquence. 
 
 "And this is your first visit to these enchanted 
 halls ? " he cried. " Happy, thrice happy youth ! '' 
 And taking me by the arm, he prepared to lead me 
 to each of the pre-eminent works in turn and show 
 me the cream of the gallery. But before we left the 
 Mantegna, he pressed my arm and gave it a loving 
 look. "He was not in a hurry," he murmured. " He 
 knew nothing of ' raw Haste, half-sister to Delay ! ' ' 
 How sound a critic my friend was I am unable to say, 
 but he was an extremely amusing one ; overflowing 
 with opinions, theories, and sympathies, with disqui- 
 
14 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 sition and gossip and anecdote. He was a shade too 
 sentimental for my own sympathies, and I fancied he 
 was rather too fond of superfine discriminations and 
 of discovering subtle intentions in shallow places. 
 At moments, too, he plunged into the sea of meta- 
 physics and floundered a while in waters too deep 
 for intellectual security. But his abounding know- 
 ledge and happy judgment told a touching story of 
 long, attentive hours in this worshipful company ; 
 there was a reproach to my wasteful saunterings in 
 so devoted a culture of opportunity. " There are 
 two moods," I remember his saying, " in which we 
 may walk through galleries the critical and the 
 ideal. They seize us at their pleasure, and we can 
 never tell which is to take its turn. The critical 
 mood, oddly, is the genial one, the friendly, the con- 
 descending. It relishes the pretty trivialities of art, 
 its vulgar cleverness, its conscious graces. It has a 
 kindly greeting for anything which looks as if, accord- 
 ing to his light, the painter had enjoyed doing it for 
 the little Dutch cabbages and kettles, for the taper 
 fingers and breezy mantles of late-coming Madonnas, 
 for the little blue-hilled, pastoral, sceptical Italian 
 landscapes. Then there are the days of fierce, fasti- 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 15 
 
 dious longing solemn church-feasts of the intellect 
 when all vulgar effort and all petty success is 
 a weariness, and everything but the best the best 
 of the best disgusts. In these hours we are relent- 
 less aristocrats of taste. We will not take Michael 
 Angelo for granted, we will not swallow Raphael 
 whole ! " 
 
 The gallery of the Uffizi is not only rich in its 
 possessions, but peculiarly fortunate in that fine 
 architectural accident, as one may call it, which unites 
 it with the breadth of river and city between them 
 to those princely chambers of the Pitti Palace. 
 The Louvre and the Vatican hardly give you such a 
 sense of sustained inclosure as those long passages 
 projected over street and stream to establish a sort 
 of inviolate transition between the two palaces of 
 art. We passed along the gallery in which those 
 precious drawings by eminent hands hang chaste and 
 gray above the swirl and murmur of the yellow Arno, 
 and reached the ducal saloons of the Pitti. Ducal as 
 they are, it must be confessed that they are imperfect 
 as show-rooms, and that, with their deep-set windows 
 and their massive mouldings, it is rather a broken 
 light that reaches the pictured walls. But here the 
 
16 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 masterpieces hang thick, and you seem to see them 
 in a luminous atmosphere of their own. And the 
 great saloons, with their superb dim ceilings, their 
 outer wall in splendid shadow, and the sombre oppo- 
 site glow of mellow canvas and dusky gilding, make, 
 themselves, almost as fine a picture as the Titians 
 and Raphaels they imperfectly reveal. We lingered 
 briefly before many a Raphael and Titian ; but I saw 
 my friend was impatient, and I suffered him at last 
 to lead me directly to the goal of our journey the 
 most tenderly fair of Raphael's virgins, the Madonna 
 in the Chair. Of all the fine pictures of the world, it 
 seemed to me this is the one with which criticism has 
 least to do. None betrays less effort, less of the 
 mechanism of success and of the irrepressible discord 
 between conception and result which shows dimly 
 in so many consummate works. Graceful, human, 
 near to our sympathies as it is, it has nothing of 
 manner, of method, nothing, almost, of style ; it 
 blooms there in rounded softness, as instinct with 
 harmony as if it were an immediate exhalation of 
 genius. The figure melts away the spectator's mind 
 into a sort of passionate tenderness which he knows 
 not whether he has given to heavenly purity or to 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 17 
 
 earthly charm. He is intoxicated with the fragrance 
 of the tenderest blossom of maternity that ever 
 bloomed on earth. 
 
 " That's what I call a fine picture," said my com- 
 panion, after we had gazed awhile in silence. "I 1 
 have a right to say so, for I have copied it so often 
 and so carefully that I could repeat it now with my 
 eyes shut. Other works are of Raphael : this is 
 Raphael himself. Others you can praise, you can 
 qualify, you can measure, explain, account for : this 
 you can only love and admire. I don't know in what 
 seeming he walked among men, while this divine 
 mood was upon him ; but after it, surely, he could do 
 nothing but die ; this world had nothing more to 
 teach him. Think of it a while, my friend, and you 
 will admit that I am not raving. Think of his 
 seeing that spotless image, not for a moment, for a 
 day, in a happy dream, or a restless fever-fit ; not as 
 a poet in a five minutes' frenzy time to snatch his 
 phrase and scribble his immortal stanza ; but for days 
 together, while the slow labour of the brush went on, 
 while the foul vapours of life interposed, and the 
 fancy ached with, tension, fixed, radiant, distinct, as 
 
 VOL. I. C 
 
i8 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 we see it now ! What a master, certainly ! But ah ! 
 what a seer ! " 
 
 " Don't you imagine/' I answered, " that he had a 
 model, and that some pretty young woman " 
 
 " As pretty a young woman as you please ! It 
 doesn't diminish the miracle ! He took his hint, of 
 course, and the young woman, possibly, sat smiling 
 before his canvas. But, meanwhile, the painter's idea 
 had taken wings. No lovely human outline could 
 charm it to vulgar fact. He saw the fair form made 
 perfect ; he rose to the vision without tremor, with- 
 out effort of wing ; he communed with it face to 
 face, and resolved into finer and lovelier truth the 
 purity which completes it as the fragrance completes 
 the rose. That's what they call idealism ; the word's 
 vastly abused, but the thing is good. It's my own 
 creed, at any rate. Lovely Madonna, model at once 
 and muse, I call you to witness that I too am an 
 idealist ! " 
 
 "An idealist, then," I said, half jocosely, wishing 
 to provoke him to further utterance, " is a gentleman 
 who says to Nature in the person of a beautiful girl, 
 ' Go to, you are all wrong ! Your fine is coarse, your 
 bright is dim, your grace is gaucherie. This is the 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 19 
 
 way you should have done it ! ' Is not the chance 
 against him ? " 
 
 He turned upon me almost angrily, but perceiving 
 the genial savour of my sarcasm, he smiled gravely. 
 " Look at that picture," he said, " and cease your irre- 
 verent mockery! Idealism is that! There's no 
 explaining it ; one must feel the flame ! It says 
 nothing to Nature, or to any beautiful girl, that 
 they will not both forgive ! It says to the fair 
 woman, ' Accept me as your artist-friend, lend me 
 your beautiful face, trust me, help me, and your 
 eyes shall be half my masterpiece ! ' No one so 
 loves and respects the rich realities of nature as the 
 artist whose imagination caresses and flatters them. 
 He knows what a fact may hold (whether Raphael 
 knew, you may judge by his portrait, behind us there, 
 of Tommaso Inghirami) ; but his fancy hovers above 
 it, as Ariel hovered above the sleeping prince. There 
 is only one Raphael, but an artist may still be an 
 artist. As I said last night, the days of illumination 
 are gone ; visions are rare ; we have to look long to 
 see them. But in meditation we may still cultivate 
 the ideal ; round it, smooth it, perfect it. The result 
 the result," (here his voice faltered suddenly, and 
 
 C 2 
 
20 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 he fixed his eyes for a moment on the picture ; when 
 they met my own again they were full of tears " the 
 result may be less than this ; but still it may be good, 
 it may be great!" he cried with vehemence. "It 
 may hang somewhere, in after years, in goodly 
 company, and keep the artist's memory warm. 
 Think of being known to mankind after some such 
 fashion as this ! of hanging here through the slow 
 centuries in the gaze of an altered world ; living on 
 and on in the cunning of an eye and hand that are 
 part of the dust of ages, a delight and a law to 
 remote generations ; making beauty a force and 
 purity an example!" 
 
 " Heaven forbid," I said, smiling, " that I should 
 take the wind out of your sails ! But doesn't it occur 
 to you that besides being strong in his genius 
 Raphael was happy in a certain good faith of which 
 we have lost the trick ? There are people, I know,, 
 who deny that his spotless Madonnas are anything 
 more than pretty blondes of that period, enhanced 
 by the Raphaelesque touch, which they declare is a 
 profane touch. Be that as it may, people's religious 
 and aesthetic needs went arm in arm, and there was, 
 as I may say, a demand for the Blessed Virgin, 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 21 
 
 visible and adorable, which must have given firmness 
 to the artist's hand. I am afraid there is no demand 
 now." 
 
 My companion seemed painfully puzzled ; he 
 shivered, as it were, in this chilling blast of scepti- 
 cism. Then shaking his head with sublime con- 
 fidence " There is always a demand ! " he cried ; 
 "that ineffable type is one of the eternal needs of 
 man's heart ; but pious souls long for it in silence, 
 almost in shame. Let it appear, and their faith 
 grows brave. How should it appear in this corrupt 
 generation ? It cannot be made to order. It could, 
 indeed, when the order came, trumpet-toned, from 
 the lips of the Church herself, and was addressed to 
 genius panting with inspiration. But it can spring 
 now only from the soil of passionate labour and 
 culture. Do you really fancy that while, from time 
 to time, a man of complete artistic vision is born into 
 the world, that image can perish ? The man who 
 paints it has painted everything. The subject admits 
 of every perfection form, colour, expression, com- 
 position. It can be as simple as you please, and yet 
 as rich ; as broad and pure, and yet as full of delicate 
 detail. Think of the chance for flesh in the little 
 
22 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 naked, nestling child, irradiating divinity ; of the 
 chance for drapery in the chaste and ample garment 
 of the mother ! think of the great story you compress 
 into that simple theme ! Think, above all, of the 
 mother's face and its ineffable suggestiveness, of the 
 mingled burden of joy and trouble, the tenderness 
 turned to worship, and the worship turned to far- 
 seeing pity ! Then look at it all in perfect line and 
 lovely colour, breathing truth and beauty and 
 mastery ! " 
 
 " Anch' io son pittore ! " I cried. " Unless I am 
 mistaken, you have a masterpiece on the stocks. If 
 you put all that in, you will do more than Raphael 
 himself did. Let me know when your picture is 
 finished, and wherever in the wide world I may be, I 
 will post back to Florence and pay my respects to 
 the Madonna of the future /" 
 
 He blushed vividly and gave a heavy sigh, half of 
 protest, half of resignation. " I don't often mention 
 my picture by name. I detest this modern custom 
 of premature publicity. A great work needs silence, 
 privacy, mystery even. And then, do you know, 
 people are so cruel, so frivolous, so unable to imagine 
 a man's wishing to paint a Madonna at this time of 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 23 
 
 day, that I have been laughed at laughed at, sir ! " 
 and his blush deepened to crimson. " I don't know 
 what has prompted me to be so frank and trustful 
 with you. You look as if you wouldn't laugh at me. 
 My dear young man " and he laid his hand on my 
 arm "I am worthy of respect. Whatever my 
 talents may be, I am honest. There is nothing 
 grotesque in a pure ambition, or in a life devoted 
 to it." 
 
 There was something so sternly sincere in his look 
 and tone, that further questions seemed impertinent. 
 I had repeated opportunity to ask them, however ; 
 for after this we spent much time together. Daily, 
 for a fortnight, we met by appointment, to see the 
 sights. He knew the city so well, he had strolled 
 and lounged so often through its streets and churches 
 and galleries, he was so deeply versed in its greater 
 and lesser memories, so imbued with the local genius, 
 that he was an altogether ideal valet de place, and I 
 was glad enough to leave my Murray at home, and 
 gather facts and opinions alike from his gossiping 
 commentary. He talked of Florence like a lover 
 and admitted that it was a very old affair ; he had 
 lost his heart to her at first sight. " It's the fashion to 
 
24 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 talk of all cities as feminine/' he said, " but, as a rule, 
 it's a monstrous mistake. Is Florence of the same 
 sex as New York, as Chicago? She is the sole 
 perfect lady of them all ; one feels towards her as 
 a lad in his teens feels to some beautiful older woman 
 with a ' history.' She fills you with a sort of aspiring 
 gallantry." This disinterested passion seemed to 
 stand my friend in stead of the common social ties ; 
 he led a lonely life, and cared for nothing but his 
 work. I was duly flattered by his having taken my 
 frivolous self into his favour, and by his generous 
 sacrifice of precious hours to my society. We spent 
 many of these hours among those early paintings in 
 which Florence is so rich, returning ever and anon, 
 with restless sympathies, to wonder whether these 
 tender blossoms of art had not a vital fragrance and 
 savour more precious than the full-fruited knowledge 
 of the later works. We lingered often in the sepul- 
 chral chapel of San Lorenzo, and watched Michael 
 Angelo's dim-visaged warrior sitting there like some 
 awful Genius of Doubt and brooding behind his 
 eternal mask upon the mysteries of life. We stood 
 more than once in the little convent chambers where 
 Fra Angelico wrought as if an angel indeed had held 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 25 
 
 his hand, and gathered that sense of scattered dews 
 and early bird-notes which makes an hour among his 
 relics seem like a morning stroll in some monkish 
 garden. We did all this and much more wandered 
 into dark chapels, damp courts, and dusty palace- 
 rooms, in quest of lingering hints of fresco and lurking 
 treasures of carving. 
 
 I was more and more impressed with my com- 
 panion's remarkable singleness of purpose. Every- 
 thing was a pretext for some wildly idealistic rhap- 
 sody or reverie. Nothing could be seen or said that 
 did not lead him sooner or later to a glowing dis- 
 course on the true, the beautiful, and the good. If 
 my friend was not a genius, he was certainly a mono- 
 maniac ; and I found as great a fascination in watch- 
 ing the odd lights and shades of his character as if 
 he had been a creature from another planet. He 
 seemed, indeed, to know very little of this one, 
 and lived and moved altogether in his own little 
 province of art. A creature more unsullied by the 
 world it is impossible to conceive, and I often thought 
 it a flaw in his artistic character that he had not a 
 harmless vice or two. It amused me greatly at times 
 to think that he was of our shrewd Yankee race ; 
 
26 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 but, after all, there could be no better token of his 
 American origin than this high aesthetic fever. The 
 very heat of his devotion was a sign of conversion ; 
 those born to European opportunity manage better 
 to reconcile enthusiasm with comfort. He had, 
 moreover, all our native mistrust for intellectual dis- 
 cretion and our native relish for sonorous superlatives. 
 As a critic he was very much more generous than 
 just, and his mildest terms of approbation were 
 " stupendous," " transcendent," and " incomparable. " 
 The small change of admiration seemed to him no 
 coin for a gentleman to handle ; and yet, frank as 
 he was intellectually, he was personally altogether a 
 mystery. His professions, somehow, were all half- 
 professions, and his allusions to his work and circum- 
 stances left something dimly ambiguous in the 
 background. He was modest and proud, and never 
 spoke of his domestic matters. He was evidently 
 poor ; yet he must have had some slender indepen- 
 dence, since he could afford to make so merry over 
 the fact that his culture of ideal beauty had never 
 brought him a penny. His poverty, I supposed, was 
 his motive for neither inviting me to his lodging nor 
 mentioning its whereabouts. We met either in some 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 27 
 
 public place or at my hotel, where I entertained him 
 as freely as I might without appearing to be prompted 
 by charity. He seemed always hungry, and this 
 was his nearest approach to human grossness. 
 I made a point of asking no impertinent questions, 
 but, each time we met, I ventured to make some 
 respectful allusion to the magnum opus, to inquire, as 
 it were, as to its health and progress. " We are 
 getting on, with the Lord's help," he would say, with 
 a grave' smile. "We are doing well. You see I 
 have the grand advantage that I lose no time. These 
 hours I spend with you are pure profit. They are 
 suggestive ! Just as the truly religious soul is always 
 at worship, the genuine artist is always in labour. 
 He takes his property wherever he finds it, and 
 learns some precious secret from every object 
 that stands up in the light. If you but knew the 
 rapture of observation ! I gather with every glance 
 some hint for light, for colour or relief! When I get 
 home, I pour out my treasures into the lap of my 
 Madonna. Oh, I am not idle ! Nulla dies sine tinea" 
 I was introduced in Florence to an American lady 
 whose drawing-room had long formed an attractive 
 place of reunion for the foreign residents. She lived 
 
28 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 on a fourth floor, and she was not rich ; but she 
 offered her visitors very good tea, little cakes at 
 option, and conversation not quite to match. Her 
 conversation had mainly an aesthetic flavour, for 
 Mrs. Coventry was famously "artistic." Her apart- 
 ment was a sort of Pitti Palace an petit pied. She 
 possessed " early masters " by the dozen a cluster of 
 Peruginos in her dining-room, a Giotto in her boudoir, 
 an Andrea del Sarto over her drawing-room chimney- 
 piece. Surrounded by these treasures, and by innu- 
 merable bronzes, mosaics, majolica dishes, and little 
 worm-eaten diptychs covered with angular saints oif' 
 gilded backgrounds, our hostess enjoyed the dignity 
 of a sort of high-priestess of the arts. She always 
 wore on her bosom a huge miniature copy of the 
 Madonna della Seggiola. Gaining her ear quietly 
 one evening, I asked her whether she knew that 
 remarkable man, Mr. Theobald. 
 
 " Know him!" she exclaimed ; "know poor Theo- 
 bald ! All Florence knows him, his flame-coloured 
 locks, his black velvet coat, his interminable harangues 
 on the beautiful, and his wondrous Madonna that 
 mortal eye has never seen, and that mortal patience 
 has quite given up expecting." 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 29 
 
 " Really," I cried, " you don't believe in his 
 Madonna ? " 
 
 " My dear ingenuous youth," rejoined my shrewd 
 friend, " has he made a convert of you ? Well, we all 
 believed in him once ; he came down upon Florence 
 and took the town by storm. Another Raphael, at 
 the very least, had been born among men, and the 
 poor dear United States were to have the credit of 
 him. Hadn't he the very hair of Raphael flowing 
 down on his shoulders ? The hair, alas, but not the 
 head ! We swallowed him whole, however ; we hung 
 upon his lips and proclaimed his genius on the house- 
 tops. The women were all dying to sit to him for 
 their portraits and be made immortal, like Leonardo's 
 Joconde. We decided that his manner was a good deal 
 like Leonardo's mysterious, and inscrutable, and 
 fascinating. Mysterious it certainly was ; mystery was 
 the beginning and the end of it. The months passed 
 by, and the miracle hung fire ; our master never 
 produced his masterpiece. He passed hours in 
 the galleries and churches, posturing, musing, and 
 gazing ; he talked more than ever about the beau- 
 tiful, but he never put brush to canvas. We had all 
 subscribed, as it were, to the great performance ; but 
 
30 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 as it never came off, people began to ask for their 
 money again. I was one of the last of the faithful ; 
 I carried devotion so far as to sit to him for my head. 
 If you could have seen the horrible creature he made 
 of me, you would admit that even a woman with no 
 more vanity than will tie her bonnet straight must 
 have cooled off then. The man didn't know the very 
 alphabet of drawing ! His strong point, he intimated, 
 was his sentiment ; but is it a consolation, when one 
 has been painted a fright, to know it has been done 
 with peculiar gusto ? One by one, I confess, we fell 
 away from the faith, and Mr. Theobald didn't lift his 
 little finger to preserve us. At the first hint that 
 we were tired of waiting, and that we should like 
 the show to begin, he was off in a huff. ' Great 
 work requires time, contemplation, privacy, mystery ! 
 O ye of little faith ! ' We answered that we didn't 
 insist on a great work ; that the five-act tragedy 
 might come at his convenience ; that we merely 
 asked for something to keep us from yawning, some 
 inexpensive little lever de rideau. Hereupon the poor 
 man took his stand as a genius misconceived and 
 persecuted, an dme meconnue, and washed his hands 
 of us from that hour ! No, I believe he does me the 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 31 
 
 honour to consider me the head and front of the con- 
 spiracy formed to nip his glory in the bud a bud that 
 has taken twenty years to blossom. Ask him if he 
 knows me, and he will tell you I am a horribly ugly 
 old woman who has vowed his destruction because 
 he won't paint her portrait as a pendant to Titian's 
 Flora. I fancy that since then he has had none 
 but chance followers, innocent strangers like your- 
 self, who have taken him at his word. The 
 mountain is still in labour ; I have not heard that the 
 mouse has been born. I pass him once in a while in 
 the galleries, and he fixes his great dark eyes on me 
 with a sublimity of indifference, as if I were a bad 
 copy of a Sassoferrato ! It is a long time ago now 
 that I heard that he was making studies for a Ma- 
 donna who was to be a resume of all the other 
 Madonnas of the Italian school like that antique 
 Venus who borrowed a nose from one great image 
 and an ankle from another. It's certainly a masterly 
 idea. The parts may be fine, but when I think of 
 my unhappy portrait I tremble for the whole. He 
 has communicated this striking idea under the pledge 
 of solemn secrecy to fifty chosen spirits, to every one 
 he has ever been able to button-hole for five minutes. 
 
32 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 I suppose he wants to get an order for it, and he is 
 not to blame ; for Heaven knows how he lives. I see 
 by your blush," my hostess frankly continued, " that 
 you have been honoured with his confidence. You 
 needn't be ashamed, my dear young man ; a man of 
 your age is none the worse for a certain generous 
 credulity. Only allow me to give you a word of 
 advice : keep your credulity out of your pockets ! 
 Don't pay for the picture till it's delivered. You 
 have not been treated to a peep at it, I imagine ? No 
 more have your fifty predecessors in the faith. There 
 are people who doubt whether there is any picture to 
 be seen. I fancy, myself, that if one were to get into 
 his studio, one would find something very like the 
 picture in that tale of Balzac's a mere mass of 
 incoherent scratches and daubs, a jumble of dead 
 paint!" 
 
 I listened to this pungent recital in silent wonder. 
 It had a painfully plausible sound, and was not 
 inconsistent with certain shy suspicions of my own. 
 My hostess was not only a clever woman, but pre- 
 sumably a generous one. I determined to let my 
 judgment wait upon events. Possibly she was right ; 
 but if she was wrong, she was cruelly wrong ! Her 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 33 
 
 version of my friend's eccentricities made me impa- 
 tient to see him again and examine him in the light 
 of public opinion. On our next meeting I imme- 
 diately asked him if he knew Mrs. Coventry. He 
 laid his hand on my arm and gave me a sad smile. 
 " Has she taxed your gallantry at last ? " he asked. 
 " She's a foolish woman. She's frivolous and heart- 
 less, and she pretends to be serious and kind. She 
 prattles about Giotto's second manner and Vit- 
 toria Colonna's liaison with ' Michael ' one would 
 think that Michael lived across the way and was 
 expected in to take a hand at whist but she knows 
 as little about art, and about the conditions of pro- 
 duction, as I know about Buddhism. She profanes 
 sacred words," he added more vehemently, after a 
 pause. " She cares for you only as some one to 
 hand teacups in that horrible mendacious little par- 
 lour of hers, with its trumpery Peruginos ! If you 
 can't dash off a new picture every three days, and let 
 her hand it round among her guests, she tells them in 
 plain English that you are an impostor ! " 
 
 This attempt of mine to test Mrs. Coventry's ac- 
 curacy was made in the course of a late afternoon 
 walk to the quiet old church of San Miniato, on 
 
 VOL. I. D 
 
34 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 one of the hill-tops which directly overlook the city, 
 from whose gates you are guided to it by a stony 
 and cypress-bordered walk, which seems a very 
 fitting avenue to a shrine. No spot is more propi- 
 tious to lingering repose x than the broad terrace in 
 front of the church, where, lounging against the 
 parapet, you may glance in slow alternation from 
 the black and yellow marbles of the church-fagade, 
 seamed and cracked with time and wind-sown with 
 a tender flora of its own, down to the full domes 
 and slender towers of Florence and over to the blue 
 sweep of the wide-mouthed cup of mountains into 
 whose hollow the little treasure-city has been 
 dropped. I had proposed, as a diversion from the 
 painful memories evoked by Mrs. Coventry's namej 
 that Theobald should go with me the next evening 
 to the opera, where some rarely played work wa<= 
 to be given. He declined, as I half expected, for ] 
 had observed that he regularly kept his evenings ir 
 reserve, and never alluded to his manner of passing 
 them, "You have reminded me before," I said 
 smiling, '* of that charming speech of. the Florentine 
 painter in Alfred de Musset's * Lorenzaccio * : '/< 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 35 
 
 no harm to any one. I pass my days in my studio. 
 On Sunday I go to the Annunziata or to Santa Maria ; 
 the monks think I have a voice ; they dress me in a 
 white gown and a red cap, and I take a share in the 
 choruses ; sometimes I do a little solo : these are the 
 only times I go into public. In the evening, I visit 
 my siveetheart ; when the night is fine, we pass it on 
 Jter balcony' I don't know whether you have a sweet- 
 heart, or whether she has a balcony. But if you are 
 so happy, it's certainly better than trying to find a 
 charm in a third-rate prima donna." 
 
 He made no immediate response, but at last he 
 turned to me solemnly. " Can you look upon a 
 beautiful woman with reverent eyes ? " 
 
 " Really," I said, " I don't pretend to be sheepish, 
 but I should be sorry to think I was impudent." 
 And I asked him what in the world he meant. When 
 at last I had assured him that I could undertake to 
 temper admiration with respect, he informed me, 
 with an air of religious mystery, that it was in his 
 power to introduce me to the most beautiful woman 
 in Italy "A beauty with a soul!" 
 
 " Upon my word/' I cried, " you are extremely 
 fortunate, and that is a most attractive description." 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 " This woman's beauty," he went on, " is a lesson, 
 a morality, a poem ! It's my daily study." 
 
 Of course, after this, I lost no time in reminding 
 him of what, before we parted, had taken the shape 
 of a promise. " I feel somehow," he had said, " as if 
 it were a sort of violation of that privacy in which 
 I have always contemplated her beauty. This is 
 friendship, my friend. No hint of her existence has 
 ever fallen from my lips. But with too great a 
 familiarity we are apt to lose a sense of the real 
 value of things, and you perhaps will throw some new 
 light upon it and offer a fresher interpretation. " 
 
 We went accordingly by appointment to a certain 
 ancient house in the heart of Florence the precinct 
 of the Mercato Vecchio and climbed a dark, steep 
 staircase, to the very summit of the edifice. Theo- 
 bald's beauty seemed as loftily exalted above the 
 line of common vision as his artistic ideal was lifted 
 above the usual practice of men. He passed without 
 knocking into the dark vestibule of a small apart- 
 ment, and, flinging open an inner door, ushered me 
 into a small saloon. The room seemed mean and 
 sombre, though I caught a glimpse of white curtains 
 swaying gently at an open window. At a table, near 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 37 
 
 a lamp, sat a woman dressed in black, working at a 
 piece of embroidery. As Theobald entered, she 
 looked up calmly, with a smile ; but seeing me, she 
 made a movement of surprise, and rose with a kind 
 of stately grace. Theobald stepped forward, took 
 her hand and kissed it, with an indescribable air 
 of immemorial usage. As he bent his head, she 
 looked at me askance, and I thought she blushed. 
 
 " Behold the Serafina!" said Theobald, frankly, 
 waving me forward. " This is a friend, and a lover 
 of the arts," he added, introducing me. I received 
 a smile, a curtsey, and a request to be seated. 
 
 The most beautiful woman in Italy was a person of 
 a generous Italian type and of a great simplicity of 
 demeanour. Seated again at her lamp, with her em- 
 broidery, she seemed to have nothing whatever to 
 say. Theobald, bending towards her in a sort of 
 Platonic ecstasy, asked her a dozen paternally tender 
 questions as to her health, her state of mind, her 
 occupations, and the progress of her embroidery, 
 which he examined minutely and summoned me to 
 admire. It was some portion of an ecclesiastical 
 vestment yellow satin wrought with an elaborate 
 design of silver and gold. She made answer in a 
 
3 8 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 full, rich voice, but with a brevity which I hesitated 
 whether to attribute to native reserve or to the pro- 
 fane constraint of my presence. She had been that 
 morning to confession ; she had also been to market, 
 and had bought a chicken for dinner. She felt very 
 happy ; she had nothing to complain of, except that 
 the people for whom she was making her vestment, 
 and who furnished her materials, should be willing 
 to put such rotten silver thread into the garment, as 
 one might say, of the Lord. From time to time, as 
 she took her slow stitches, she raised her eyes and 
 covered me with a glance which seemed at first to 
 denote a placid curiosity, but in which, as I saw it 
 repeated, I thought I perceived the dim glimmer of 
 an attempt to establish an understanding with me at 
 the expense of our companion. Meanwhile, as mind- 
 ful as possible of Theobald's injunction of reverence, 
 I considered the lady's personal claims to the fine 
 compliment he had paid her. 
 
 That she was indeed a beautiful woman I perceived, 
 after recovering from the surprise of finding her with- 
 out the freshness of youth. Her beauty was of a sort 
 which, in losing youth, loses little of its essential 
 charm, expressed for the most part as it was in form 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 39 
 
 and Structure, and, as Theobald would have said, in 
 " composition." She was broad and ample, low- 
 browed and large-eyed, dark and pale. Her thick 
 brown hair hung low beside her cheek and ear, and 
 seemed to drape her head with a covering as chaste 
 and formal as the veil of a nun. The poise and car- 
 riage of her head were admirably free and noble, and 
 they were the more effective that their freedom was 
 at moments discreetly corrected by a little sancti- 
 monious droop, which harmonised admirably with 
 the level gaze of her dark and quiet eye. A strong, 
 serene, physical nature, and the placid temper which 
 comes of no nerves and no troubles, seemed this 
 lady's comfortable portion. She was dressed in plain 
 dull black, save for a sort of dark blue kerchief which 
 was folded across her bosom and exposed a glimpse" 
 of her massive throat. Over this kerchief was sus- 
 pended a little silver cross. I admired her greatly, 
 and yet with a large reserve. A certain mild intel- 
 lectual apathy belonged properly to her type of 
 beauty, and had always seemed to round and enrich 
 it ; but this bourgeoise Egeria, if I viewed her right, 
 betrayed a rather vulgar stagnation of mind. There 
 might have been once a dim spiritual light in her 
 
40 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 face; but it had long since begun to wane. And 
 furthermore, in plain prose, she was growing stout. 
 My disappointment amounted very nearly to com- 
 plete disenchantment when Theobald, as if to facili- 
 tate my covert inspection, declaring that the lamp 
 was very dim and that she would ruin her eyes with- 
 out more light, rose and fetched a couple of candles 
 from the mantelpiece, which he placed lighted on 
 the table. In this brighter illumination I perceived 
 that our hostess was decidedly an elderly woman. 
 She was neither haggard nor worn nor grey ; she 
 was simply coarse. The " soul " which Theobald 
 had promised seemed scarcely worth making such a 
 point of; it was no deeper mystery than a sort of 
 matronly mildness of lip and brow. I should have 
 been ready even to declare that that sanctified bend 
 of the head was nothing more than the trick of a 
 person constantly working at embroidery. It oc- 
 curred to me even that it was a trick of a less inno- 
 cent sort ; for, in spite of the mellow quietude of her 
 wits, this stately needlewoman dropped a hint that 
 she took the situation rather less seriously than her 
 friend. When he rose to light the candles, she looked 
 across at me with a quick, intelligent smile, and 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 41 
 
 tapped her forehead with her forefinger ; then, as 
 from a sudden feeling of compassionate loyalty to 
 poor Theobald, I preserved a blank face, she gave a 
 little shrug and resumed her work. 
 
 What was the relation of this singular couple? 
 Was he the most ardent of friends or the most 
 reverent of lovers ? Did she regard him as an eccen- 
 tric swain whose benevolent admiration of her beauty 
 she was not ill-pleased to humour at this small cost 
 of having him climb into her little parlour and 
 gossip of summer nights ? With her decent and 
 'sombre dress, her simple gravity, and that fine 
 piece of priestly needlework, she looked like some 
 pious lay-member of a sisterhood, living by special 
 permission outside her convent walls. Or was she 
 maintained here aloft by her friend in comfortable 
 leisure, so that he might have before him the per- 
 fect, eternal type, uncorrupted and untarnished by 
 the struggle for existence ? Her shapely hands, I 
 observed, were very fair and white ; they lacked 
 the traces of what is called honest toil. 
 
 " And the pictures, how do they come on ? '* 
 she asked of Theobald, after a long pause. 
 
 " Finely, finely ! I have here a friend whose 
 
42 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 sympathy and encouragement give me new faith 
 and ardour." 
 
 Our hostess turned to me, gazed at me a moment 
 rather inscrutably, and then tapping her forehead 
 with the gesture she had used a minute before, 
 " He has a magnificent genius ! " she said, with 
 perfect gravity. 
 
 " I am inclined to think so," I answered, with 
 a smile. 
 
 " Eh, why do you smile ? " she cried. " If you 
 doubt it, you must see the bambino ! " And she 
 took the lamp and conducted me to the other side 
 of the room, where on the wall, in a plain black 
 frame, hung a large drawing in red chalk. Beneath 
 it was fastened a little bowl for holy-water. The 
 drawing represented a very young child, entirely 
 naked, half nestling back against his mother's gown, 
 but with his two little arms outstretched, as if in 
 the act of benediction. It was executed with 
 singular freedom and power, and yet seemed vivid 
 with the sacred bloom of infancy. A sort of 
 dimpled elegance and grace, mingled with its bold- 
 -ness, recalled the touch of Correggio. " That's 
 what he can do ! " said my hostess. " It 's the 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 43 
 
 blessed little boy whom I lost. It's his very image, 
 and the Signer Teobaldo gave it me as a gift. 
 He has given me many things besides ! " 
 
 I looked at the picture for some time and admired 
 it immensely. Turning back to Theobald, I as- 
 sured him that if it were hung among the draw- 
 ings in the Uffizi and labelled with a glorious name, 
 it would hold its own. My praise seemed to give 
 him extreme pleasure; he pressed my hands, and 
 his eyes filled with tears. It moved him apparently 
 with the desire to expatiate on the history of the 
 drawing, for he rose and made his adieux to our 
 companion, kissing her hand with the same mild 
 ardour as before. It occurred to me that the offer 
 of a similar piece of gallantry on my own part 
 might help me to know what manner of woman 
 she was. When she perceived my intention, she 
 withdrew her hand, dropped her eyes solemnly, and 
 made me a severe curtsey. Theobald took my 
 arm and led me rapidly into the street. 
 
 " And what do you think of the divine Serafma ? " 
 he cried with fervour. 
 
 t( It is certainly an excellent style of good looks ! " 
 I answered. 
 
44 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 He eyed me an instant askance, and then seemed 
 hurried along by the current of remembrance. 
 "You should have seen the mother and the child 
 together, seen them as I first saw them the mother 
 with her head draped in a shawl, a divine trouble 
 in her face, and the bambino pressed to her bosom. 
 You would have said, I think, that Raphael had 
 found his match in common chance. I was coming 
 in, one summer night, from a long walk in the 
 country, when I met this apparition at the city 
 gate. The woman held out her hand. I hardly 
 knew whether to say, ' What do you want ? ' or 
 to fall down and worship. She asked for a little 
 money. I saw that she was beautiful and pale ; 
 she might liave stepped out of the stable of Bethle- 
 hem ! I gave her money and helped her on her 
 way into the town. I had guessed her story. 
 She, too, was a maiden mother, and she had been 
 turned out into the world in her shame. I felt 
 in all my pulses that here was my subject marvel- 
 lously realised. I felt like one of the old monkish 
 artists who had had a vision. I rescued the poor 
 creatures, cherished them, watched them as I would 
 have done some precious work of art, some lovely 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 45 
 
 fragment of fresco discovered in a mouldering 
 cloister. In a month as if to deepen and sanctify 
 the sadness and sweetness of it all the poor little 
 child died. When she felt that he was going, 
 she held him up to me for ten minutes, and I 
 made that sketch. You saw a feverish haste in 
 it, I suppose ; I wanted to spare the poor little 
 mortal the pain of his position. After that, I 
 doubly valued the mother. She is the simplest, 
 sweetest, most natural creature that ever bloomed 
 in this brave old land of Italy. She lives in the 
 memory of her child, in her gratitude for the scanty 
 kindness I have been able to show her, and in. 
 her simple ^religion ! She is not even conscious of 
 her beauty ; my admiration has never made her 
 vain. Heaven knows that I have made no secret 
 of it. You must have observed the singular trans- 
 parency of her expression, the lovely modesty of 
 her glance. And was there ever such a truly virginal 
 brow, such a natural classic elegance in the wave 
 of the hair and the arch of the forehead ? I have 
 studied her ; I may say I know her. I have 
 absorbed her little by little ; my mind is stamped 
 and imbued, and I have determined now to clinch 
 
46 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 the impression ; I shall at last invite her to sit 
 for me!" 
 
 " ' At last at last ' ? " I repeated, in much amaze- 
 ment. "Do you mean that she has never done 
 so yet ? " 
 
 " I have not really had a a sitting," said Theo- 
 bald, speaking very slowly. " I have taken notes, 
 you know ; I have got my grand fundamental 
 impression. That's the great thing! But I have 
 not actually had her as a model, posed and draped 
 and lighted, before my easel." 
 
 What had become for the moment of my per- 
 ception and my tact I am at a loss to say ; in their 
 absence, I was unable to repress a headlong ex- 
 clamation. I was destined to regret it. We had 
 stopped at a turning, beneath a lamp. " My poor 
 friend," I exclaimed, laying my hand on his shoulder, 
 "you have dawdled! She's an old, old woman for a 
 Madonna !" 
 
 It was as if I had brutally struck him ; I shall 
 never forget the long, slow, almost ghastly look 
 of pain with which he answered me. 
 
 " Dawdled ? old, old ? " he stammered. " Are you 
 joking ? " 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 47 
 
 '"Why, my dear fellow, I suppose you don't take 
 her for a woman of twenty ? " 
 
 He drew a long breath and leaned against a house, 
 looking at me with questioning, protesting, reproachful 
 eyes. At last, starting forward, and grasping my arm 
 " Answer me solemnly : does she seem to you truly 
 old ? Is she wrinkled, is she faded, am I blind ? " 
 
 Then at last I understood the immensity of his 
 illusion ; how, one by one, the noiseless years had 
 ebbed away and left him brooding in charmed in- 
 action, for ever preparing for a work for ever deferred. 
 It seemed to me almost a kindness now to tell 
 him the plain truth. " I should be sorry to say 
 you are blind," I answered, " but I think you are 
 deceived. You have lost time in effortless con- 
 templation. Your friend was once young and fresh 
 and virginal ; but, I protest, that was some years 
 ago. Still, she has de beaux restes. By all means 
 make her sit for you ! " I broke down ; his face 
 was too horribly reproachful. 
 
 He took off his hat and stood passing his hand- 
 kerchief mechanically over his forehead. " De beaux 
 restes? I thank you for sparing me the plain 
 English. I must make up my Madonna out of de 
 
48 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 beaux restes ! What a masterpiece she will be ! Old 
 old ! Old old ! " he murmured. 
 
 " Never mind her age," I cried, revolted at what I 
 had done, " never mind my impression of her ! You' 
 have your memory, your notes, your genius. Finish 
 your picture in a month. I pronounce it beforehand 
 a masterpiece, and I hereby offer you for it any sum 
 you may choose to ask." 
 
 He stared, but he seemed scarcely to understand 
 me. " Old old ! " he kept stupidly repeating. " If 
 she is old, what am I ? If her beauty has faded, 
 where where is my strength ? Has life been a 
 dream ? Have I worshipped too long have I loved 
 too well ? " The charm, in truth, was broken. That 
 the chord of illusion should have snapped at my light 
 accidental touch showed how it had been weakened 
 by excessive tension. The poor fellow's sense of 
 wasted time, of vanished opportunity, seemed to roll 
 in upon his soul in waves of darkness. He suddenly 
 dropped his head and burst into tears. 
 
 I led him homeward with all possible tenderness, 
 but I attempted neither to check his grief, to restore 
 his equanimity, nor to unsay the hard truth. When 
 we reached my hotel I tried to induce him to come 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 49 
 
 in. " We will drink a glass of wine," I said, smiling, 
 " to the completion of the Madonna." 
 
 With a violent effort he held up his 1tea&f mused 
 for a moment with a formidably sombre frown, 
 and then giving me his hand, " I will finish it," he 
 cried, " in a month ! No, in a fortnight ! After all, 
 I have it here ! " And he tapped his forehead. "Of 
 course she's old ! She can afford to have it said 
 of her a woman who has made twenty years pass 
 like a twelvemonth ! Old old ! Why, sir, she 
 shall be eternal ! " 
 
 I wished to see him safely to his own door, but 
 he waved me back and walked away with an air 
 of resolution, whistling and swinging his cane. I 
 waited a moment, and then followed him at a 
 distance, and saw him proceed to cross the Santa 
 Trinita Bridge. When he reached the middle, he 
 suddenly paused, as if his strength had deserted him, 
 , and leaned upon the parapet gazing over into the 
 river. I was careful to keep him in sight ; I confess 
 that I passed ten very nervous minutes. He recovered 
 himself at last, and went his way, slowly and with 
 hanging head. 
 
 That I had really startled poor Theobald into 
 VOL. I. E 
 
50 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 a bolder use of his long-garnered stores of knowledge 
 and taste, into the vulgar effort and hazard of pro- 
 duction, seemed at first reason enough for his 
 continued silence, and absence; but as day followed 
 day without his either calling or sending me a line, 
 and without my meeting him in his customary haunts, 
 in the galleries, in the chapel at San Lorenzo, or 
 strolling between the Arno-side and the great hedge- 
 screen of verdure which, along the drive of the 
 Cascine, throws the fair occupants of barouche and 
 phaeton into such becoming relief as for more than 
 a week I got neither tidings nor sight of him, I began 
 to fear that I had fatally offended him, and that, 
 instead of giving a wholesome impetus to his talent, I 
 had brutally paralysed it. I had a wretched suspicion 
 that I had made him ill. My stay at Florence was 
 drawing to a close, and it was important that, before 
 resuming .my journey, I should assure myself ol 
 the truth. Theobald, to the last, had kept his lodging 
 a mystery, and I was altogether at a loss where 
 to look for him. The simplest course was to make 
 inquiry of the beauty of the Mercato Vecchio, and I 
 confess that unsatisfied curiosity as to the lady herself 
 counselled it as well. Perhaps I had done her injustice, 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 51 
 
 and she was as immortally fresh and fair as he 
 conceived her. I was, at any rate, anxious to behold 
 once more the ripe enchantress who had made twenty 
 years pass as a twelvemonth. I repaired accordingly, 
 one morning, to her abode, climbed the interminable 
 staircase, and reached her door. It stood ajar, and 
 as I hesitated whether to enter, a little serving-maid 
 came clattering out with an empty kettle, as if she 
 had just performed some savoury errand. The inner 
 door, too, was open ; so I crossed the little vestibule 
 and entered the room in which I had formerly been 
 received. It had not its evening aspect. The table, 
 or one end of it, was spread for a late breakfast, 
 and before it sat a gentleman an individual, at least, 
 of the male sex doing execution upon a beefsteak 
 and onions, and a bottle of wine. At his elbow, 
 in friendly proximity, was placed the lady of the 
 house. Her attitude, as I entered, was not that of an 
 enchantress. With one hand she held in her lap 
 a plate of smoking maccaroni ; with the other she had 
 lifted high in air one of the pendulous filaments of this 
 succulent compound, and was in the act of slipping it 
 gently down her throat. On the uncovered end 
 of the table, facing her companion, were ranged half 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 a dozen small statuettes, of some snuff-coloured sub- 
 stance resembling terra-cotta. He, brandishing his 
 knife with ardour, was apparently descanting on their 
 merits. 
 
 Evidently I darkened the door. My hostess 
 dropped her maccaroni into her mouth, and rose 
 hastily with a harsh exclamation and a flushed face. 
 I immediately perceived that the Signora Serafina's 
 secret was even better worth knowing than I had 
 supposed, and that the way to learn it was to take it 
 for granted. I summoned my best Italian, I smiled 
 and bowed and apologised for my intrusion ; and in a 
 moment, whether or no I had dispelled the lady's 
 irritation, I had at least stimulated her prudence. I 
 was welcome, she said ; I must take a seat. This was 
 another friend of hers also an artist, she declared 
 with a smile which was almost amiable. Her 
 companion wiped his moustache and bowed with 
 great civility. I saw at a glance that he was equal to 
 the situation. He was presumably the author of the 
 statuettes on the table, and he knew a money-spend- 
 ing /^m^/m? when he saw one. He was a small, wiry 
 man, with a clever, impudent, tossed-up nose, a sharp 
 little black eye, and waxed ends to his moustache. 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 53 
 
 On the side of his head he wore jauntily a little 
 crimson velvet smoking-cap, and I observed that his 
 feet were encased in brilliant slippers. On Serafina's 
 remarking with dignity that I was the friend of 
 Mr. Theobald, he broke out into that fantastic French 
 of which certain Italians are so insistently lavish, and 
 declared with fervour that Mr. Theobald was a 
 magnificent genius. 
 
 " I am sure I don't know/' I answered with a shrug. 
 "If you are in a position to affirm it, you have the 
 advantage of me. I have seen nothing from his hand 
 but the bambino yonder, which certainly is fine." 
 
 He declared that the bambino was a masterpiece, 
 a pure Correggio. It was only a pity, he added 
 with a knowing laugh, that the sketch had not been 
 made' on some good bit of honeycombed old panel. 
 The stately Serafina hereupon protested that Mr. 
 Theobald was the soul of honour, and that he would 
 never lend himself to a deceit. " I am not a judge 
 of genius," she said, "and I know nothing of pictures. 
 I am but a poor simple widow ; but I know that 
 the Signer Teobaldo has the heart of an angel 
 and the virtue of a saint. He is my benefactor," she 
 added sententiously. The after-glow of the some- 
 
54 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 what sinister flush with which she had greeted 
 me still lingered in her cheek, and perhaps did not 
 favour her beauty ; I could not but fancy it a wise 
 custom of Theobald's to visit her only by candle- 
 light. She was coarse, and her poor adorer was 
 a poet. 
 
 " I have the greatest esteem for him," I said ; 
 "it is for this reason that I have been uneasy at 
 not seeing him for ten days. Have you seen him ? 
 Is he perhaps ill ?" 
 
 " 111 ! Heaven forbid ! " cried Serafina, with genu- 
 ine vehemence. 
 
 Her companion uttered a rapid expletive, and 
 reproached her with not having been to see him. She 
 hesitated a moment ; then she simpered the least 
 bit and bridled. " He comes to see me without 
 reproach ! But it would not be the same for me to 
 go to him, though, indeed, you may almost call him 
 a man of holy life." 
 
 " He has the greatest admiration for you," I said. 
 " He would have been honoured by your visit." 
 
 She looked at me a moment sharply. " More 
 admiration than you. Admit that ! " Of course I pro- 
 tested with all the eloquence at my command, and 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 55 
 
 my mysterious hostess then confessed that she had 
 taken no fancy to me on my former visit, and that r 
 Theobald not having returned, she believed I had 
 poisoned his mind against her. " It would be no 
 kindness to the poor gentleman, I can tell you that," 
 she said. " He has come to see me every evening for 
 years. It's a long friendship ! No one knows him as 
 well as I." 
 
 " I don't pretend to know him, or to understand 
 him," I said. " He's a mystery ! Nevertheless, he 
 seems to me a little " And I touched my forehead 
 and waved my hand in the air. 
 
 Serafina glanced at her companion a moment, as if 
 for inspiration. He contented himself with shrugging 
 his shoulders, as he filled his glass again. The 
 padrona hereupon gave me a more softly insinuating 
 smile than would have seemed likely to bloom on so 
 candid a brow. " It's for that that I love him ! " she 
 said. " The world has so little kindness for such 
 persons. It laughs at them, and despises them, and 
 cheats them. He is too good for this wicked life ! 
 It's his fancy that he finds a little Paradise up here in 
 my poor apartment. If he thinks so, how can I help 
 it? He has a strange belief really, I ought to be . 
 
56 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 ashamed to tell you that I resemble the Blessed 
 Virgin : Heaven forgive me ! I let him think what he 
 pleases, so long as it makes him happy. He was very 
 kind to me once, and I am not one that forgets 
 a favour. So I receive him every evening civilly, and 
 ask after his health, and let him look at me on 
 this side and that ! For that matter, I may say it 
 without vanity, I was worth looking at once ! And 
 he's not always amusing, poor man ! He sits some- 
 times for an hour without speaking a word, or else he 
 talks away, without stopping, on art and nature, and 
 beauty and duty, and fifty fine things that are all so 
 much Latin to me. I beg you to understand that he 
 has never said a word to me that I mightn't decently 
 listen to. He may be a little cracked, but he's 
 one of the blessed saints." 
 
 " Eh !" cried the man, "the blessed saints were all 
 a little cracked ! " 
 
 Serafina, I fancied, left part of her story untold ; 
 but she told enough of it to make poor Theobald's 
 own statement seem intensely pathetic in its exalted 
 simplicity. " It's a strange fortune, certainly," she 
 went on, " to have such a friend as this dear man 
 a friend who is less than a lover and more than a 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 57 
 
 friend." I glanced at her companion, who preserved 
 an impenetrable smile, twisted the end of his mous- 
 tache, and disposed of a copious mouthful. Was tie 
 less than a lover ? " But what will you have ? " 
 Serafina pursued. " In this hard world one must not 
 ask too many questions ; one must take what comes 
 and keep what one gets. I have kept my good friend 
 for twenty years, and I do hope that, at this time 
 of day, signore, you have not come to turn him 
 against me !" 
 
 I assured her that I had no such design, and that I 
 should vastly regret disturbing Mr. Theobald's habits 
 or convictions. On the contrary, I was alarmed about 
 him, and I should immediately go in search of him. 
 She gave me his address and a florid account of her 
 sufferings at his non-appearance. She had not been 
 to him, for various reasons ; chiefly because she was 
 afraid of displeasing him, as he had always made 
 such a mystery of his home. " You might have sent 
 this gentleman ! " I ventured to suggest. 
 
 " Ah," cried the gentleman, " he admires the Sig- 
 nora Serafina, but he wouldn't admire me." And 
 then, confidentially, with his finger on his nose, "He's 
 a purist ! " 
 
58 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 I was about to withdraw, after having promised that 
 I would inform the Signora Serafina of my friend's 
 condition, when her companion, who had risen from 
 table and girded his loins apparently for the onset, 
 grasped me gently by the arm, and led me before 
 the row of statuettes. " I perceive by your conver- 
 sation, signore, that you are a patron of the arts. 
 Allow me to request your honourable attention for 
 these modest products of my own ingenuity. They 
 are brand-new, fresh from my atelier, and have never 
 been exhibited in public. I have brought them here 
 to receive the verdict of this dear lady, who is a good 
 critic, for all she may pretend to the contrary. I am 
 the inventor of this peculiar style of statuette of 
 subject, manner, material, everything. Touch them, 
 I pray you ; handle them freely you needn't fear. 
 Delicate as they look, it is impossible they should 
 break ! My various creations have met with great 
 success. They are especially admired by Americans. 
 I have sent them all over Europe to London, Paris, 
 Vienna ! You may have observed some little speci- 
 mens in Paris, on the Boulevard, in a shop of which 
 they constitute the specialty. There is always 
 a crowd about the window. They form a very 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 59 
 
 pleasing ornament for the mantelshelf of a gay 
 young bachelor, for the boudoir of a pretty woman. 
 You couldn't make a prettier present to a person 
 with whom you wished to exchange a harmless joke. 
 It is not classic art, signore, of course ; but, between 
 ourselves, isn't classic art sometimes rather a bore ? 
 Caricature, burlesque, la charge, as the French say, 
 has hitherto been confined to paper, to the pen and 
 pencil. Now, it has been my inspiration to introduce 
 it into statuary. For this purpose I have invented a 
 peculiar plastic compound which you will permit me 
 not to divulge. That's my secret, signore ! It's as 
 light, you perceive, as cork, and yet as firm as ala- 
 baster I I frankly confess that I really pride myself 
 as much on this little stroke of chemical ingenuity as 
 upon the other element of novelty in my creations 
 my types. What do you say to my types, signore ? 
 The idea is bold ; does it strike you as happy ? Cats 
 and monkeys monkeys and cats all human life 
 is there ! Human life, of course, I mean, viewed with 
 the eye of the satirist ! To combine sculpture and 
 satire, signore, has been my unprecedented ambition. 
 I flatter myself that I have not egregiously failed." 
 As this jaunty Juvenal of the chimney-piece 
 
60 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 delivered himself of his persuasive allocution, he took 
 up his little groups successively from the table, held 
 them aloft, turned them about, rapped them with 
 his knuckles, and gazed at them lovingly, with his 
 head on one side. They consisted each of a cat and 
 a monkey, fantastically draped, in some preposter- 
 ously sentimental conjunction. They exhibited a 
 certain sameness of motive, and illustrated chiefly 
 the different phases of what, in delicate terms, may 
 be called gallantry and coquetry ; but they were 
 strikingly clever and expressive, and were at once 
 very perfect cats and monkeys and very natural men 
 and women. I confess, however, that they failed to 
 amuse me. I was doubtless not in a mood to enjoy 
 them, for they seemed to me peculiarly cynical and 
 vulgar. Their imitative felicity was revolting. As I 
 looked askance at the complacent little artist, brand- 
 ishing them between finger and thumb and caressing 
 them with an amorous eye, he seemed to me himself 
 little more than an exceptionally intelligent ape. I 
 mustered an admiring grin, however, and he blew 
 another blast. " My figures are studied from life ! 
 I have a little menagerie of monkeys whose frolics 
 I contemplate by the hour. As for the cats, one has 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 61 
 
 only to look out of one's back window ! Since I 
 have begun to examine these expressive little brutes, 
 I have made many profound observations. Speaking, 
 signore, to a man of imagination, I may say that my 
 little designs are not without a philosophy of their 
 own. Truly, I don't know whether the cats and 
 monkeys imitate us, or whether it's we who imitate 
 them." I congratulated him on his philosophy, and 
 he resumed : "You will do me the honour to admit 
 that I have handled my subjects with delicacy. Eh, 
 it was needed, signore ! I have been free, but not 
 too free eh ? Just a hint, you know ! You may 
 see as much or as little as you please. These little 
 groups, however, are no measure of my invention. 
 If you will favour me with a call at my studio, I 
 think that you will admit that my combinations are 
 really infinite. I likewise execute figures to com- 
 mand. You have perhaps some little motive the 
 fruit of your philosophy of life, signore which you 
 would like to have interpreted. I can promise to 
 work it up to your satisfaction ; it shall be as mali- 
 cious as you please ! Allow me to present you with 
 my card, and to remind you that my prices are 
 moderate. Only sixty francs for a little group like 
 
62 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. ' 
 
 that. My statuettes are as durable as bronze are 
 perennius, signore and, between ourselves, I think 
 they are more amusing ! " 
 
 As I pocketed his card, I glanced at Madonna 
 Serafina, wondering whether she had an eye for con- 
 trasts. She had picked up one of the little couples 
 and was tenderly dusting it with a feather broom. 
 
 What I had just seen and heard had so deepened 
 my compassionate interest in my deluded friend that 
 I took a summary leave, making my way directly to 
 the house designated by this remarkable woman. It 
 was in an obscure corner of the opposite side of the 
 town, and presented a sombre and squalid appear- 
 ance. An old woman in the doorway, on my inquir- 
 ing (or Theobald, ushered me in with a mumbled 
 blessing and an expression of relief at the poor 
 gentleman having a friend. His lodging seemed to 
 consist of a single room at the top of the house. 
 On getting no answer to my knock, I opened the 
 door, supposing that he was absent ; so that it gave 
 me a certain shock to find him sitting there helpless 
 and dumb. He was seated near the single window, 
 facing an easel which supported a large canvas. On 
 my entering, he looked up at me blankly, without 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 63 
 
 changing his position, which was that of absolute 
 lassitude and dejection, his arms loosely folded, his 
 legs stretched before him, his head hanging on his 
 breast. Advancing into the room, I perceived that 
 his face vividly corresponded with his attitude. He 
 was pale, haggard, and unshaven, and his dull and 
 sunken eye gazed at me without a spark of recogni- 
 tion. I had been afraid that he would greet me with 
 fierce reproaches, as the cruelly officious patron who 
 had turned his contentment to bitterness, and I was 
 relieved to find that my appearance awakened no 
 visible resentment. " Don't you know me ? " I asked, 
 as I put out my hand. " Have you already forgotten 
 me?" 
 
 He made no response, kept his position stupidly, 
 and left me staring about the room. It spoke most 
 plaintively for itself. Shabby, sordid, naked, it con- 
 tained, beyond the wretched bed, but the scantiest 
 provision for personal comfort. It was bedroom at 
 once and studio a grim ghost of a studio. A few 
 dusty casts and prints on the walls, three or four 
 old canvases turned face inward, and a rusty-looking 
 colour-box formed, with the easel at the window, 
 the sum of its appurtenances. The place savoured 
 
64 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 horribly of poverty. Its only wealth was the picture on 
 the easel, presumably the famous Madonna. Averted 
 as this was from the door, I was unable to see its 
 face ; but at last, sickened by the vacant misery of 
 the spot, I passed behind Theobald, eagerly and 
 tenderly. I can hardly say that I was surprised at 
 what I found a canvas that was a mere dead blank, 
 cracked and discoloured by time. This was his im- 
 mortal work ! Though not surprised, I confess I 
 was powerfully moved, and I think that for five 
 minutes I could not have trusted myself to speak. 
 At last, my silent nearness affected him ; he stirred 
 and turned, and then rose and looked at me with a 
 slowly kindling eye. I murmured some kind, in- 
 effective nothings about his being ill and needing 
 advice and care, but he seemed absorbed in the 
 effort to recall distinctly what had last passed be- 
 tween us. " You were right," he said with a pitiful 
 smile, " I am a dawdler ! I am a failure ! I shall 
 do nothing more in this world. You opened my 
 eyes ; and, though the truth is bitter, I bear you no 
 grudge. Amen ! I have been sitting here for a 
 week, face to face with the truth, with the past, 
 with my weakness and poverty and nullity. I shall 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 65 
 
 never touch a brush ! I believe I have neither 
 eaten nor slept. Look at that canvas ! " he went 
 on, as I relieved my emotion in an urgent request 
 that he would come home with me and dine. " That 
 was to have contained my masterpiece ! Isn't it a 
 promising foundation ? The elements of it are all 
 here." And he tapped his forehead with that mystic 
 confidence which had marked the gesture before. 
 " If I could only transpose them into some brain 
 that has the hand, the will! Since I have been 
 sitting here taking stock of my intellects, I have 
 come to believe that I have the material for a 
 hundred masterpieces. But my hand is paralysed 
 now, and they will never be painted. I never be- 
 gan ! I waited and waited to be worthier to begin s 
 and wasted my life in preparation. While I fancied 
 my creation was growing, it was dying. I have 
 taken it all too hard ! Michael Angelo didn't, when 
 he went at the Lorenzo ! He did his best at a 
 venture, and his venture is immortal. That's mine ! " 
 And he pointed with a gesture I shall never forget 
 at the empty canvas. " I suppose we are a genus 
 by ourselves in the providential scheme we talents 
 that can't act, that can't do nor dare ! We take it 
 VOL. 1. F 
 
66 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 out in talk, in plans and promises, in study, in 
 visions ! But our visions, let me tell you," he cried, 
 with a toss of his head, " have a way of being 
 brilliant, and a man has not lived in vain who has 
 seen the things I have seen ! Of course you will 
 not believe in them when that bit of worm-eaten 
 cloth is all I have to show for them ; but to con- 
 vince you, to enchant and astound the world, I need 
 only the hand of Raphael. His brain I already 
 have. A pity, you will say, that I haven't his 
 modesty ! Ah, let me boast and babble now ; it's 
 all I have left ! I am the half of a genius ! Where 
 in the wide world is my other half? Lodged per- 
 haps in the vulgar soul, the cunning, ready fingers 
 of some dull copyist or some trivial artisan who 
 turns out by the dozen his easy prodigies of touch ! 
 But it's not for me to sneer at him ; he at least 
 does something. He's not a dawdler ! Well for 
 me if I had been vulgar and clever and reck- 
 less, if I could have shut my eyes and taken my 
 leap." 
 
 What to say to the poor fellow, what to do for him, 
 seemed hard to determine ; I chiefly felt that I must 
 break the spell of his present inaction, and remove 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 67 
 
 him from the haunted atmosphere of the little room 
 it was such a cruel irony to call a studio. I cannot 
 say I persuaded him to come out with me ; he simply 
 suffered himself to be led, and when we began to 
 walk in the open air I was able to appreciate his 
 pitifully weakened condition. Nevertheless, he seemed 
 in a certain way to revive, and murmured at last 
 that he should like to go to the Pitti Gallery. I 
 shall never forget our melancholy stroll through 
 those gorgeous halls, every picture on whose walls 
 seemed, even to my own sympathetic vision, to glow 
 with a sort of insolent renewal of strength and lustre. 
 The eyes and lips of the great portraits appeared to 
 smile in ineffable scorn of the dejected pretender 
 who had dreamed of competing with their triumph- 
 ant authors; the celestial candour, even, of the 
 Madonna of the Chair, as we paused in perfect 
 silence before her, was tinged with the sinister irony 
 of the women of Leonardo. Perfect silence indeed 
 marked our whole progress the silence of a deep 
 farewell ; for I felt in all my pulses, as Theobald, 
 leaning on my arm, dragged one heavy foot after 
 the other, that he was looking his last. When we 
 came out, he was so exhausted that instead of 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 taking him to my hotel to dine, I called a carriage 
 and drove him straight to his own poor lodging. 
 He had sunk into an extraordinary lethargy ; he 
 lay back in the carriage, with his eyes closed, as 
 pale as death, his faint breathing interrupted at 
 intervals by a sudden gasp, like a smothered sob 
 or a vain attempt to speak. With the help of the 
 old woman who had admitted me before, and who 
 emerged from a dark back court, I contrived to 
 lead him up the long steep staircase and lay him 
 on his wretched bed. To her I gave him in charge, 
 while I prepared in all haste to seek a physician. 
 But she followed me out of the room with a pitiful 
 clasping of her hands. 
 
 " Poor, dear, blessed gentleman," she murmured ; 
 " is he dying ? " 
 
 " Possibly. How long has he been thus ? " 
 " Since a certain night he passed ten days ago. I 
 came up in the morning to make his poor bed, and 
 found him sitting up in his clothes before that great 
 canvas he keeps there. Poor, dear, strange man, he 
 says his prayers to it! He had not been to bed, 
 nor since then, properly! What has happened to 
 him ? Has he found out about the Serafina ? " she 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 69 
 
 whispered with a glittering eye and a toothless 
 grin. 
 
 " Prove at least that one old woman can be faith- 
 ful," I said, " and watch him well till I come back." 
 My return was delayed, through the absence of the 
 English physician, who was away on a round of 
 visits and whom I vainly pursued from house to 
 house before I overtook him. I brought him to 
 Theobald's bedside none too soon. A violent fever 
 had seized our patient, and the case was evidently 
 grave. A couple of hours later I knew that he had 
 brain-fever. From this moment I was with him 
 constantly ; but I am far from wishing to describe 
 his illness. Excessively painful to witness, it was 
 happily brief. Life burned out in delirium. One 
 night in particular that I passed at his pillow, 
 listening to his wild snatches of regret, of aspiration, 
 of rapture and awe at the phantasmal pictures with 
 which his brain seemed to swarm, comes back to 
 my memory now like some stray page from a lost 
 masterpiece of tragedy. Before a week was over 
 we had buried him in the little Protestant cemetery 
 on the way to Fiesole. The Signora Serafma, whom 
 I had caused to be informed of his illness, had 
 
yo THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 come in person, I was told, to inquire about its 
 progress ; but she was absent from his funeral, 
 which was attended by but a scanty concourse of 
 mourners. Half a dozen old Florentine sojourners, 
 in spite of the prolonged estrangement which had 
 preceded his death, had felt the kindly impulse to 
 honour his grave. Among them was my friend Mrs. 
 Coventry, whom I found, on my departure, waiting 
 in her carriage at the gate of the cemetery. 
 
 "Well," she said, relieving at last with a signi- 
 ficant smile the solemnity of our immediate greeting, 
 " and the great Madonna ? Have you seen her, after 
 all?" 
 
 " I have seen her," I said ; " she is mine by be- 
 quest. But I shall never show her to you." 
 
 " And why not, pray ? " 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Coventry, you would not under- 
 stand her!" 
 
 " Upon my word, you are polite." 
 
 "Excuse me; I am sad and vexed and bitter." 
 And with reprehensible rudeness, I marched away. 
 I was excessively impatient to leave Florence ; my 
 friend's dark spirit seemed diffused through all 
 things. I had packed my trunk to start for Rome 
 
THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 71 
 
 that night, and meanwhile, to beguile my unrest, 
 I aimlessly paced the streets. Chance led me at 
 last to the church of San Lorenzo. Remembering 
 poor Theobald's phrase about Michael Angelo " He 
 did his best at a venture " I went in and turned 
 my steps to the chapel of the tombs. Viewing 
 in sadness the sadness of its immortal treasures, 
 I fancied, while I stood there, that they needed 
 no ampler commentary than these simple words. 
 As I passed through the church again to leave it, 
 a woman, turning away from one of the side-altars, 
 met me face to face. The black shawl depending 
 from her head draped picturesquely the handsome 
 visage of Madonna Serafina. She stopped as she 
 recognised me, and I saw that she wished to speak 
 Her eye was bright, and her ample bosom heaved 
 in a way that seemed to portend a certain sharpness 
 of reproach. But the expression of my own face, 
 apparently, drew the sting from her resentment, 
 and she addressed me in a tone in which bitter- 
 ness was tempered by a sort of dogged resignation. 
 " I know it was you, now, that separated us," she 
 said. "It was a pity he ever brought you to see 
 me ! Of course, you couldn't think of me as he 
 
72 THE MADONNA OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 did. Well, the Lord gave him, the Lord has taken 
 him. I have just paid for a nine days' mass for his 
 soul. And I can tell you this, signore I never 
 deceived him. Who put it into his head that I 
 was made to live on holy thoughts and fine phrases ? 
 It was his own fancy, and it pleased him to think 
 so. Did he suffer much ? " she added more softly, 
 after a pause. 
 . " His sufferings were great, but they were short." 
 
 "And did he speak of me?" She had hesitated 
 and dropped her eyes ; she raised them with her 
 question, and revealed in their sombre stillness a 
 gleam of feminine confidence which, for the moment, 
 revived and illumined her beauty. Poor Theobald ! 
 Whatever name he had given his passion, it was still 
 her fine eyes that had charmed him. 
 
 " Be contented, madam," I answered, gravely. 
 
 She dropped her eyes again and was silent. Then 
 exhaling a full, rich sigh, as she gathered her shawl 
 together " He was a magnificent genius ! " 
 
 I bowed, and we separated. 
 
 Passing through a narrow side-street on my way 
 back to my hotel, I perceived above a doorway a 
 sign which it seemed to me I had read' before. I 
 
THE MADONNA OF T^HE FUTURE. 73 
 
 suddenly remembered that it was identical with the 
 superscription of a card that I had carried for an 
 hour in my waistcoat-pocket. On the threshold 
 stood the ingenious artist whose claims to public 
 favour were thus distinctly signalised, smoking a pipe 
 in the evening air, and giving the finishing polish 
 with a bit of rag to one of his inimitable " combina- 
 tions." I caught the expressive curl of a couple of 
 tails. He recognised me, removed his little red cap 
 with a most obsequious bow, and motioned me to 
 enter his studio. I returned his salute and passed 
 on, vexed with the apparition. For a week after- 
 wards, whenever I was seized among the ruins of 
 triumphant Rome with some peculiarly poignant 
 memory of Theobald's transcendent illusions and 
 deplorable failure, I seemed to hear a fantastic, 
 impertinent murmur, " Cats and monkeys, monkeys 
 and cats ; all human life is there ! " 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 FORTY years ago that traditional and anecdotical 
 liberty of young American women which is noto- 
 riously the envy and despair of their foreign sisters, 
 was not so firmly established as at the present hour ; 
 yet it was sufficiently recognised to make it no 
 scandal that so pretty a girl as Diana Belfield should 
 start for the grand tour of Europe under no more 
 imposing protection than that of her cousin and in- 
 timate friend, Miss Agatha Josling. She had, from 
 the European point of view, beauty enough to make 
 her enterprise perilous the beauty foreshadowed in 
 her name, which might have been given in previ- 
 sion of her tall, light figure, her nobly poised head 
 weighted with a coronal of auburn braids, her frank 
 quick glance, and her rapid gliding step. She used 
 often to walk about with a big dog, who had the 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 75 
 
 habit of bounding at her side and tossing his head 
 against her outstretched hand ; and she had, more- 
 over, a trick of carrying her long parasol, always 
 folded, for she was not afraid of the sunshine, across 
 her shoulder, in the fashion of a soldier's musket on 
 a march. Thus equipped, she looked wonderfully 
 like that charming antique statue of the goddess of 
 the chase which we encounter in various replicas in 
 half the museums of the world. You half expected 
 to see a sandal-shod foot peep out beneath her flut- 
 tering robe. It was with this tread of the wakeful 
 huntress that she stepped upon the old sailing-vessel 
 which was to bear her to foreign lands. Behind her, 
 with a great many shawls and satchels, came her little 
 kinswoman, with quite another demarche. Agatha 
 Josling was not a beauty, but she was the most 
 judicious and most devoted of companions. These 
 two persons had been united by the death of Diana's 
 mother, when the latter young lady took possession 
 of her patrimony. The first use she made of her 
 inheritance was to divide it with Agatha, who had 
 not a penny of her own ; the next was to purchase 
 a letter of credit upon a European banker. The 
 cousins had contracted a classical friendship they 
 
76 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 had determined to be all in all to each other, like 
 the Ladies of Llangollen. Only, though their friend- 
 ship was exclusive, their Llangollen was to be com- 
 prehensive. They would tread the pavements of 
 historic cities and wander through the aisles of Gothic 
 cathedrals, wind on tinkling mules through mountain 
 gorges and sit among dark-eyed peasants on the 
 shores of blue lakes. It may seem singular that a 
 beautiful girl with a pretty fortune should have been 
 left to seek the supreme satisfaction of life in friend- 
 ship tempered by sight-seeing ; but Diana herself con- 
 sidered this pastime no beggarly alternative. Though 
 she never told it herself, her biographer may do so ; 
 she had had, in vulgar parlance, a hundred offers. To 
 say that she had declined them is to say too little ; 
 they had filled her with contempt. They had come 
 from honourable and amiable men, and it was not 
 her suitors in themselves that she contemned ; it was 
 simply the idea of marrying. She found it insup- 
 portable ; a fact which completes her analogy with 
 the mythic divinity to whom I have likened her. 
 She was passionately single, fiercely virginal ; and ia 
 the straight-glancing grey eye which provoked men 
 to admire, there was a certain silvery ray which 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 77 
 
 forbade them to hope. The fabled Diana took a 
 fancy to a beautiful shepherd, but the real one had 
 not yet found, sleeping or waking, her Endymion. 
 
 Thanks to this defensive eyebeam, the dangerous 
 side of our heroine's enterprise was slow to define 
 itself; thanks, too, to the exquisite propriety of her 
 companion. Agatha Josling had an almost Quaker- 
 ish purity and dignity ; a bristling dragon could not 
 have been a better safeguard than this glossy, grey- 
 breasted dove. Money, too, is a protection, and 
 Diana had money enough to purchase privacy. She 
 travelled largely, and saw all the churches and pic- 
 tures, the castles and cottages, included in the list 
 which had been drawn up by the two friends in 
 evening talks, at home, between two wax candles. 
 In the evening they used to read aloud to each other 
 from Corinne and Childe Harold, and they kept a 
 diary in common, at which they " collaborated," like 
 French playwrights, and which was studded with 
 quotations from the authors I have mentioned. This 
 lasted a year, at the end of which they found them- 
 selves a trifle weary. A snug posting-carriage was 
 a delightful habitation, but looking at miles of 
 pictures was very fatiguing to the back. Buying 
 
78 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 souvenirs and trinkets under foreign arcades was a 
 most absorbing occupation ; but inns were dreadfully 
 apt to be draughty, and bottles of hot water, for 
 aplication to the feet, had a disagreeable way of 
 growing lukewarm. For these and other reasons our 
 heroines determined to take a winter's rest, and for 
 this purpose they betook themselves to the charming^ 
 town of Nice, which was then but in the infancy of 
 its fame. It was simply one of the hundred hamlets 
 of the Riviera a place where the blue waves broke 
 on an almost empty strand and the olive-trees 
 sprouted at the doors of the inns. In those days 
 Nice was Italian, and the " Promenade des Anglais " 
 existed only in an embryonic form. Exist, however, 
 it did, practically, and British invalids, in moderate 
 numbers, might have been seen taking the January 
 sunshine beneath London umbrellas before the many- 
 twinkling sea. Our young Americans quietly took 
 their place in this harmless society. They drove 
 along the coast, through the strange, dark, huddled 
 fishing-villages, and they rode on donkeys among 
 the bosky hills. They painted in water-colours and 
 hired a piano ; they subscribed to the circulating 
 library, and took lessons in the language of Silvio 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 79 
 
 Pellico from an old lady with very fine eyes, who wore 
 an enormous brooch of cracked malachite, and gave 
 herself out as the widow of a Roman exile. 
 
 They used to go and sit by the sea, each provided 
 with a volume from the circulating library ; but they 
 never did much with their books. The sunshine 
 made the page -too dazzling, and the people who 
 strolled up and down before them were more enter- 
 taining than the ladies and gentlemen in the novels. 
 They looked at them constantly from under their 
 umbrellas ; they learned to know them all by sight. 
 'Many of their fellow-visitors were invalids mild, 
 slow-moving consumptives. But for the fact that 
 women enjoy the exercise of pity, I should have 
 said that these pale promenaders were a saddening 
 spectacle. In several of them, however, our friends 
 took a personal interest ; they watched them from 
 day to day ; they noticed their changing colour ; they 
 had their ideas about who was getting better and 
 who was getting worse. They did little, however, in 
 the way of making acquaintances partly because 
 pulmonary sufferers are no great talkers, and partly 
 because this was also Diana's disposition. She said 
 to her friend that they had not come to Eurppe to 
 
8o LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 pay morning-calls ; they had left their best bonnets 
 and card-cases behind them. At the bottom of her 
 reserve was the apprehension that she should be 
 " admired ; " which was not fatuity, but simply an 
 induction from an embarrassing experience. She 
 had seen in Europe, for the first time, certain horrid 
 men polished adventurers with offensive looks and 
 mercenary thoughts ; and she had a wholesome fear 
 that one of these gentlemen might approach her 
 through some accidental breach in her reserve. 
 Agatha Josling, who had neither in reminiscence nor 
 in prospect the same reasons for turning her grace- 
 ful back, would have been glad to extend the circle 
 of their acquaintance, and would even have con- 
 sented to put on her best bonnet for the purpose. 
 But she had to content herself with an occasional 
 murmur of small-talk, on a bench before the sea, ' 
 with two or three English ladies of the botanising 
 class ; jovial little spinsters who wore stout boots, 
 gauntlets, and "uglies," and in pursuit of wayside 
 flowers scrambled into places where the first-men- 
 tioned articles were uncompromisingly visible. For 
 the rest, Agatha contented herself with spinning 
 suppositions about the people she never spoke to. 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 81 
 
 She framed a great deal of hypothetic gossip, in- 
 vented theories and explanations generally of the 
 most charitable quality. Her companion took no 
 part in these harmless devisings, except to listen to 
 them with an indolent smile. She seldom honoured 
 her fellow-mortals with finding apologies for them, 
 and if they wished her to read their history they 
 must write it out in the largest letters. 
 
 There was one person at Nice upon whose bio- 
 graphy, if it had been laid before her in this fashion, 
 she probably would have bestowed a certain amount 
 of attention. Agatha had noticed the gentleman 
 first ; or Agatha, at least, had first spoken of him. 
 He was young and he looked interesting; Agatha 
 had indulged in a good deal of wondering as to 
 whether r no he belonged to the invalid category. 
 She preferred to believe that one of his lungs was 
 " affected;" it certainly made him more interesting. 
 He used to stroll about by himself and sit for a long 
 time in the sun, with a book peeping out of his 
 pocket. This book he never opened ; he was always 
 staring at the sea. I say always, but my phrase 
 demands an immediate modification ; he looked 
 at the sea whenever he was not looking at Diana 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
82 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 Belfield. He was tall and fair, slight, and, as Agatha 
 Josling said, aristocratic-looking. He dressed with 
 a certain careless elegance which Agatha deemed 
 picturesque ; she declared one day that he reminded 
 her of a love-sick prince. She learned eventually 
 from one of the botanising spinsters that he was not 
 a prince, that he was simply an English gentleman, 
 Mr. Reginald Longstaff. There remained the possi- 
 bility that he was love-sick ; but this point could not 
 be so easily settled. Agatha's informant had as- 
 sured her, however, that if they were not princes, 
 the Longstaffs, who came from a part of the country 
 in which she had visited, and owned great estates 
 there, had a pedigree which many princes might envy. 
 It was one of the oldest and the best of English 
 names; they were one of the innumerable untitled 
 country families who held their heads as high as the 
 highest. This poor Mr. Longstaff was a beautiful 
 specimen of a young English gentleman ; he looked 
 so gentle, yet so brave ; so modest, yet so cultivated ! 
 The ladies spoke of him habitually as "poor" Mr. 
 Longstaff, for they now took for granted that there 
 was something the matter with him. At last Agatha 
 Josling discovered what it was and made a solemn 
 
 

 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 83 
 
 proclamation of the same. The matter with poor 
 Mr. Longstaff was simply that he was in love with 
 Diana ! It was certainly natural to suppose he was 
 in love with some one, and, as Agatha said, it could 
 not possibly be with herself. Mr. Longstaff was 
 pale and slightly dishevelled ; he never spoke to any 
 one; he was evidently pre-occupied, and his mild, 
 candid face was a sufficient proof that the weight on 
 his heart was not a bad conscience. What could it 
 be, then, but an unrequited passion ? It was, how- 
 ever, equally pertinent to inquire why Mr. Longstaff 
 took no steps to bring about a requital. 
 
 " Why in the world does he not ask to be intro- 
 duced to you ? " Agatha Josling demanded of her 
 companion. 
 
 Diana replied, quite without eagerness, that it was 
 plainly because he had nothing to say to her ; and 
 she declared with a trifle more emphasis, that she was 
 incapable of proposing to him a topic of conversa- 
 tion. She added that she thought they had gossipped 
 enough about the poor man, and that if by any chance 
 he should have the bad taste to speak to them, she 
 would certainly go away and leave him alone 
 with Miss Josling. It is true, however, that at an 
 
 G 2 
 
84 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 earlier period, she had let fall the remark that he 
 was quite the most " distinguished " person at Nice ; 
 and afterwards, though she was never the first to 
 allude to him, she had more than once let her com- 
 panion pursue the theme for some time without re- 
 minding her of its futility. The one person to whom 
 Mr. LongstafF was observed to speak was an elderly 
 man of foreign aspect who approached him occa- 
 sionally in the most deferential manner, and whom 
 Agatha Josling supposed to be his servant. This in- 
 dividual was apparently an Italian ; he had an obse- 
 quious attitude, a pair of grizzled whiskers, an insinu- 
 ating smile. He seemed to come to Mr. LongstafF 
 for orders ; presently he went away to execute them, 
 and Agatha noticed that on retiring he always 
 managed to pass in front of her companion, on whom 
 he fixed his respectful but penetrating gaze. " He 
 knows the secret," she always said, with gentle 
 jocoseness; "he knows what is the matter with his 
 master and he wants to see whether he approves of 
 you. Old servants never want their masters to 
 marry, and I think this worthy man is rather afraid 
 of you. At any rate, the way he stares at you tells 
 the whole story." 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 85 
 
 "Every one stares at me!" said Diana, wearily. 
 " A cat may look at a king." 
 
 As the weeks went by, Agatha Josling quite made 
 up her mind that Mr. Longstaff's complaint was pul- 
 monary. The poor young man's invalid character 
 was now quite apparent ; he could hardly hold up his 
 head or drag one foot after the other ; his servant 
 was always near him to give him an arm or to hand 
 him an extra overcoat. No one indeed knew with cer- 
 tainty that he was consumptive ; but Agatha agreed 
 with the lady who had given the information about his 
 pedigree, that this fact was in itself extremely sus- 
 picious ; for, as the little Englishwoman forcibly re- 
 marked, unless he were ill, why should he make such 
 a mystery of it ? Consumption declaring itself in a 
 young man of family and fortune was particularly 
 sad ; such people often had diplomatic reasons for 
 pretending to enjoy excellent health. It kept the 
 legacy-hunters, and the hungry next-of-kin from 
 worrying them to death. Agatha observed that this 
 poor gentleman's last hours seemed likely to be only 
 too lonely. She felt very much like offering to nurse 
 him ; for, being no relation, he could not accuse her 
 of mercenary motives. From time to time he got 
 
86 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 up from the bench where he habitually sat, and 
 strolled slowly past the two friends. Every time 
 that he came near them Agatha had a singular feel- 
 ing a conviction that now he was really going to 
 speak to them. He would speak with the gravest 
 courtesy she could not fancy him speaking other- 
 wise. He began, at a distance, by fixing his grave, 
 soft eyes on Diana, and as he advanced you would 
 have said that he was coming straight up to her 
 with some tremulous compliment. But as he drew 
 nearer, his intentness seemed to falter; he strolled 
 more slowly, he looked away at the sea, and he 
 passed in front of her without having the courage to 
 let his eyes rest upon her. Then he passed back 
 again in the same fashion, sank down upon his 
 bench, fatigued apparently by his aimless stroll, and 
 fell into a melancholy reverie. To enumerate these 
 accidents is to attribute to his behaviour a certain 
 aggressiveness which it was far from possessing ; 
 there was something scrupulous and subdued in his 
 manner which made it perfectly discreet, and it may 
 be affirmed that not a single idler on the sunny shore 
 suspected his speechless " attentions/' 
 
 " I wonder why it doesn't annoy us more that he 
 
LONGSTAFF' S MARRIAGE. 87 
 
 should look at us so much," said Agatha Josling, one 
 day. 
 
 " That who should look at us ? " asked Diana, not 
 at all affectedly. 
 
 Agatha fixed her eyes for a moment on her friend, 
 and then said gently 
 
 " Mr. Longstaff. Now, don't say, ' Who is Mr. 
 Longstaff? '"she added. 
 
 " I have yet to learn, really," said Diana, " that 
 the person you appear to mean does look at us. I 
 have never caught him in the act." 
 ' "That is because whenever you turn your eyes 
 towards him he looks away. He is afraid to meet 
 them. But I see him." 
 
 These words were exchanged one day as the two 
 friends sat as usual before the twinkling sea ; and, 
 beyond them, as usual, lounged Reginald Longstaff. 
 Diana bent her head faintly forward and glanced 
 towards him. He was looking full at her and their 
 eyes met, apparently for the first time. Diana 
 dropped her own upon her book again, and then, 
 after a silence of some moments, "It does annoy 
 me/' she said. Presently she added that sher would 
 go home and write a letter, and, though she had 
 
88 LONGSTAFF 'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 never taken a step in Europe without having Agatha 
 by her side, Miss Josling now allowed her to depart 
 unattended. " You won't mind going alone ? " Agatha 
 had asked. " It is but three minutes, you know." 
 
 Diana replied that she preferred to go alone, and 
 she moved away, with her parasol over her shoulder. . 
 Agatha Josling had a particular reason for this 
 variation from their maidenly custom. She felt a 
 sudden conviction that if she were left alone, Mr. 
 Longstaff would come and speak to her and say 
 something very important, and she accommodated 
 herself to this conviction without the sense of doing 
 anything immodest. There was something solemn 
 about it ; it was a sort of presentiment ; but it did 
 not frighten her ; it only made her feel very kind and 
 appreciative. It is true that when at the end of ten 
 minutes (they had seemed rather long), she saw the 
 young man rise from his seat and slowly come 
 towards her, she was conscious of a certain trepida- 
 tion. Mr. Longstaff drew near ; at last, he was close 
 to her ; he stopped and stood looking at her. She 
 had averted her head, so as not to appear to expect 
 him ; but now she looked round again, and he very 
 gravely lifted his hat. 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 89 
 
 " May I take the liberty of sitting down ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Agatha bowed in silence, and, to make room for 
 him, moved a certain blue shawl of Diana's, which 
 was lying on the bench. He slowly sank into the 
 place and then said very gently 
 
 " I have ventured to speak to you, because I have 
 something particular to say." His voice trembled 
 and he was extremely pale. His eyes, which Agatha 
 thought very handsome, had a remarkable expres- 
 sion. 
 
 " I am afraid you are ill/' she said, with great 
 kindness. "I have often noticed you and pitied 
 you." 
 
 " I thought you did, a little," the young man an- 
 swered. " That is why I made up my mind to speak 
 to you." 
 
 " You are getting worse," said Agatha, softly. 
 
 " Yes, I am getting worse ; I am dying. I am 
 perfectly conscious of it ; I have no illusions. I am 
 weaker every day; I shall last but a few weeks." 
 This was said very simply ; sadly, but not lugubri- 
 ously. 
 
 But Agatha felt almost awe-stricken ; there stirred 
 
90 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 in her heart a delicate sense of sisterhood with this 
 beautiful young man who sat there and talked so 
 submissively of death. 
 
 " Can nothing be done ? " she said. 
 
 He shook his head and smiled a little. " Nothing 
 but to try and get what pleasure I can from this little 
 remnant of life." 
 
 Though he smiled she felt that he was very serious ; 
 that he was, indeed, deeply agitated, and trying to 
 master his emotion. 
 
 " I am afraid you get very little pleasure," Agatha 
 rejoined. " You seem entirely alone." 
 
 " I am entirely alone. I have no family no near 
 relations. I am absolutely alone." 
 
 Agatha rested her eyes on him compassionately, 
 and then 
 
 " You ought to have spoken to us," she said. 
 
 He sat looking at her ; he had taken off his hat ; 
 he was slowly passing his hand over his forehead. 
 "You see I do at last!" 
 
 " You wanted to before ? " 
 
 " Very often." 
 
 "I thought so!" said Agatha, with a candour 
 which was in itself a dignity. 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 91 
 
 " But I couldn't/' said Mr. Longstaff. " I never 
 saw you alone." 
 
 Before she knew it Agatha was blushing a little ; 
 for, to the ear, simply, his words implied that it was 
 to her only he would have addressed himself for the 
 pleasure he had coveted. But the next instant she 
 had become conscious that what he meant was 
 simply that he admired her companion so much that 
 he was afraid of her, and that, daring to speak to 
 herself, he thought her a much less formidable and 
 less interesting personage. Her blush immediately 
 faded ; for there was no resentment to keep the 
 colour in her cheek ; and there was no resentment 
 still when she perceived that, though her neigh- 
 bour was looking straight at her, with his inspired, 
 expanded eyes, he was thinking too much of Diana 
 to have noticed this little play of confusion. 
 
 " Yes, it's very true," she said. " It is the first time 
 my friend has left me." 
 
 " She is very beautiful," said Mr. Longstaff. 
 
 " Very beautiful - and as good as she is 
 beautiful." 
 
 " Yes, yes," he rejoined, solemnly., "I am sure of 
 that. I know it ! " 
 
92 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 " I know it even better than you," said Agatha, 
 smiling a little. 
 
 " Then you will have all the more patience with 
 what I want to say to you. It is very strange ; it 
 will make you think, at first, that I am perhaps out 
 of my mind. But I am not ; I am thoroughly 
 reasonable. You will see." Then he paused a 
 moment ; his voice had begun to tremble again. 
 
 " I know what you are going to say," said Agatha, 
 very gently. " You are in love with my friend." 
 
 Mr. Longstaff gave her a look of devoted grati- 
 tude ; he lifted up the edge of the blue shawl, which 
 he had often seen Diana wear, and pressed it to his 
 lips. 
 
 " I am extremely grateful ! " he exclaimed. " You 
 don't think me crazy, then ? " 
 
 " If you are crazy, there have been a great many 
 madmen ! " said Agatha. 
 
 "Of course there have been a great many. I have 
 said that to myself, and it has helped me. They 
 have gained nothing but the pleasure of their love, 
 and I therefore, in gaining nothing and having 
 nothing, am not worse off than the rest. But they 
 had more than I, didn't they ? You see I have had 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 93 
 
 absolutely nothing not even a glance," he went on. 
 " I have never even seen her look at me. I have 
 not only never spoken to her, but I have never been 
 near enough to speak to her. This is all I have ever 
 had to lay my hand on something she has worn ; 
 and yet for the past month I have thought of her 
 night and day. Sitting over there, a hundred rods 
 away, simply because she was sitting in this place, in 
 the same sunshine, looking out on the same sea : that 
 was happiness enough for me. I am dying, but for 
 the last five weeks that has kept me alive. It was for 
 that I got up every day and came out here ; but for 
 that, I should have stayed at home and never have got 
 up again. I have never sought to be presented to 
 her, because I didn't wish to trouble her for nothing. 
 It seemed to me it would be an impertinence to tell 
 her of my admiration. I have nothing to offer her 
 I am but the shadow of a living man, and if I were 
 to say to her, ' Madam, I love you,' she could only 
 answer, ' Well, sir, what then ? ' Nothing nothing ! 
 To speak to her of what I felt seemed only to open 
 the lid of a grave in her face. It was more delicate 
 not to do that ; so I kept my distance and said 
 nothing. Even this, as I say, has been a happiness, 
 
94 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 but is has been a happinesss that has tired me out 
 This is the last of it. I must give up and make 
 an end 1 " And he stopped, panting a little, and 
 apparently exhausted with his eloquence. 
 
 Agatha had always heard of love at first sight ; 
 she had read of it in poems and romances, but she 
 had never been so near to it as this. It seemed to 
 her wonderfully beautiful, and she believed in it 
 devoutly. It made Mr. Longstaff brilliantly inter- 
 esting ; it cast a glory over the details of his face 
 and person and the pleading inflections of his voice. 
 The little English ladies had been right ; he was 
 certainly a perfect gentleman. She could trust him. 
 
 " Perhaps if you stay at home a while you will get 
 better," she said, soothingly. 
 
 Her tone seemed to him such an indication that 
 she accepted the propriety and naturalness of his 
 passion that he put out his hand, and for an instant 
 laid it on her own. 
 
 " I knew you were reasonable I knew I could talk 
 to you. But I shall not get well. All the great 
 doctors say so, and I believe them. If the passionate 
 desire to get well for a particular purpose could work 
 a miracle and cure a mortal disease, I should have 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 95 
 
 seen the miracle two months ago. To get well and 
 have a right to speak to your friend that was my 
 passionate desire. But I am worse than ever ; I am 
 very weak, and I shall not be able to come out any 
 more. It seemed to me to-day that I should never 
 see you again, and yet I wanted so much to be able 
 to tell you this ! It made me very unhappy. What 
 a wonderful chance it is that she went away ! I must 
 be grateful ; if Heaven doesn't grant my great prayers 
 it grants my small ones. I beg you to render me 
 this service. Tell her what I have told you. Not 
 how not till I am gone. Don't trouble her with it 
 while I am in life. Please promise me that. But 
 when I am dead it will seem less importunate, because 
 then you can speak of me in the past. It will be 
 like a story. My servant will come and tell you. 
 Then please say to her ' You were his last thought, 
 and it was his last wish that you should know it. ' ' 
 He slowly got up and put out his hand ; his servant, 
 who had been standing at a distance, came forward 
 with obsequious solemnity, as if it were part of his 
 duty to adapt his deportment to the tone of his 
 master's conversation. Agatha Josling took the 
 young man's hand, and he stood and looked at her a 
 
96 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 moment longer. She too had risen to her feet ; she 
 was much impressed. 
 
 " You won't tell her until after ? " he said 
 
 pleadingly. She shook her head. " And then you 
 will tell her, faithfully ? " She nodded, he pressed 
 her hand, and then, having raised his hat, he took his 
 servant's arm, and slowly moved away. 
 
 Agatha kept her word ; she said nothing to 
 Diana about her interview. The young Americans 
 came out and sat upon the shore the next day, and 
 the next, and the next, and Agatha watched intently 
 for Mr. LongstafFs re-appearance. But she watched 
 in vain ; day after day he was absent, and his absence 
 confirmed his sad prediction. She thought all this a 
 wonderful thing to happen to a woman, and as she 
 glanced askance at her beautiful companion, she was 
 almost irritated at seeing her sit there so careless 
 and serene, while a poor young man was dying, as 
 one might say, of love for her. At moments she 
 wondered whether, in spite of her promise, it were not 
 her Christian duty to tell Diana his story, and give 
 her the chance to go to him. But it occurred to 
 Agatha, who knew very well that her companion had 
 a certain stately pride in which she herself was 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 97 
 
 deficient, that even if she were told of his condi- 
 tion Diana might decline to do anything ; and this she 
 felt to be a very painful thing to see. Besides, she 
 had promised, and she always kept her promises. 
 But her thoughts were constantly with Mr. Longstaff 
 and the romance of the affair. This made her 
 melancholy, and she talked much less than usual. 
 Suddenly she was aroused from a reverie by hearing 
 Diana express a careless curiosity as to what had 
 become of the solitary young man who used to sit 
 on the neighbouring bench and do them the honour 
 to stare at them. 
 
 For almost the first time in her life, Agatha Josling 
 deliberately dissembled. 
 
 " He has either gone away, or he has taken to his 
 bed. I am sure he is dying, alone, in some wretched 
 mercenary lodging." 
 
 " I prefer to believe something more cheerful," said 
 Diana. " I believe he is gone to Paris and is eating 
 a beautiful dinner at a great restaurant. 
 
 Agatha for a moment said nothing ; and then 
 
 " I don't think you care what becomes of him," she 
 ventured to observe. 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
98 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 " My dear child, why should I care ? " Diana 
 demanded. 
 
 And Agatha Josling was forced to admit that there 
 really was no particular reason. But the event con- 
 tradicted her. Three days afterwards she took a long 
 drive with her friend, from which they returned only 
 as dusk was closing in. As they descended from the 
 carriage at the door of their lodging she observed a 
 figure standing in the street, slightly apart, which 
 even in the early darkness had an air of familiarity. 
 A second glance assured her that Mr. LongstafFs 
 servant was hovering there in the hope of catching 
 her attention. She immediately determined to give 
 him a liberal measure of it. Diana left the vehicle 
 and passed into the house, while the coachman 
 fortunately asked for orders for the morrow. Agatha 
 briefly gave such as were necessary, and then, before 
 going in, turned to the hovering figure. It approached 
 on tiptoe, hat in hand, and shaking its head very 
 sadly. The old man wore an air of animated afflic- 
 tion which indicated that Mr. Longstaff was a 
 generous master, and he proceeded to address Miss 
 Josling in that macaronic French which is usually at 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 99 
 
 the command of Italian domestics who have seen the 
 world. 
 
 " I stole away from my dear gentleman's bedside 
 on purpose to have ten words with you. The old 
 woman at the fruit-stall opposite told me that you 
 had gone to drive, so I waited ; but it seemed to me 
 a thousand years till you returned ! " 
 
 " But you have not left your master alone ? " said 
 Agatha. 
 
 " He has two Sisters of Charity heaven reward 
 them ! They watch with him night and day. He 
 is very low, pativre cher homme ! " And the old 
 man looked at the little lady with that clear, human, 
 sympathetic glance with which Italians of all classes 
 bridge over the social gulf. Agatha felt that he 
 knew his master's secret, and that she might discuss 
 it with him freely. 
 
 " Is he dying ? " she asked. 
 
 " That's the question, dear lady ! He is very low. 
 The doctors have given him up ; but the doctors 
 don't know his malady. They have felt his dear 
 body all over, they have sounded his lungs, and 
 looked at his tongue and counted his pulse ; they 
 know what he eats and drinks it's soon told ! But 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 they haven't seen his mind, dear lady. I have ; and 
 so far I am a better doctor than they. I know his 
 secret I know that he loves the beautiful girl 
 above ! " and the old man pointed to the upper 
 windows of the house. 
 
 " Has your master taken you into his confidence ? " 
 Agatha demanded. 
 
 He hesitated a moment ; then shaking his head, 
 a little and laying his hand on his heart 
 
 " Ah, dear lady/ 5 he said, " the point is whether I 
 have taken him into mine. I have not, I confess ; he 
 is too far gone. But I have determined to be his 
 doctor and to try a remedy the others have never 
 thought of. Will you help me ? " 
 
 "If I can," said Agatha. " What is your 
 remedy ? " 
 
 The old man pointed to the upper windows of the 
 house again. 
 
 " Your lovely friend ! Bring her to his bedside." 
 
 " If he is dying," said Agatha, " how would that 
 help him?" 
 
 <c He is dying for want of it. That's my idea at 
 least, and I think it's worth trying. If a young man 
 loves a beautiful woman, and, having never so much 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 101 
 
 as touched the tip of her glove, falls into a mortal 
 illness and wastes away, it requires no great wit to 
 see that his illness doesn't come from his having 
 indulged himself too grossly. It comes rather from 
 the opposite cause ! If he sinks when she's away, 
 perhaps he will come up when she's there. At any 
 rate, that's my theory ; and any theory is good that 
 will save a dying man. Let the young lady come 
 and stand a moment by his bed, and lay her hand 
 upon his. We shall see what happens. If he gets 
 well, it's worth while ; if he doesn't, there is no harm 
 done. A young lady risks nothing in going to see- 
 a poor gentleman who lies in a stupor between two 
 holy women." 
 
 Agatha was much impressed with this picturesque 
 reasoning, but she answered that it was quite impos- 
 sible that her beautiful friend should go upon this 
 pious errand without a special invitation from Mr. 
 Longstaff. Even should he beg Diana to come to 
 him, Agatha was by no means sure her companion 
 would go ; but it was very certain she would not take 
 such an extraordinary step at the mere suggestion of 
 a servant. 
 
 "But you, dear lady, have the happiness not to 
 
102 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 be a servant," the old man rejoined. " Let the 
 suggestion be yours/' 
 
 " From me it could come with no force, for what 
 am I supposed to know about your poor master ? " 
 
 "You have not told your friend what my dear 
 master told you the other day ? " 
 
 Agatha answered this question by another question. 
 
 " Did he tell you what he had told me ? " 
 
 The old man tapped his forehead an instant and 
 smiled. 
 
 "A good servant, you know, dear lady, needs 
 never to be told things ! If you have not repeated 
 my master's words to the signorina, I beg you very 
 earnestly to do so. I am afraid she is rather cold." 
 
 Agatha glanced a moment at the upper windows, 
 and then she gave a silent nod. She wondered 
 greatly to find herself discussing Diana's character 
 with this aged menial ; but the situation was so 
 strange and romantic that one's old landmarks of 
 propriety were quite obliterated, and it seemed 
 natural that an Italian valet de chambre should be 
 as frank and familiar as a servant in an old-fashioned 
 comedy. 
 
 " If it is necessary that my dear master shall send 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 103 
 
 for the young lady," Mr. Longstaff's domestic re- 
 sumed, " I think I can promise you that he will. Let 
 me urge you, meanwhile, to talk to her. If she is 
 cold, warm her up ! Prepare her to find him very 
 interesting. If you could see him, poor gentleman, 
 lying there as still and handsome as if he were his 
 own monument in a campo santo, I think he would 
 interest you." 
 
 This seemed to Agatha a very touching image, but 
 it occurred to her that her interview with Mr. Long- 
 staffs representative, now unduly prolonged, was 
 assuming a nocturnal character. She abruptly 
 brought it to a close, after having assured her in- 
 terlocutor that she would reflect upon what he had 
 told her ; and she rejoined her companion in the 
 deepest agitation. Late that evening her agitation 
 broke out. She went into Diana's room, where she 
 found this young lady standing white-robed before 
 her mirror, with her auburn tresses rippling down to 
 her knees ; and then, taking her two hands, she told 
 the story of the young Englishman's passion, told 
 of his coming to talk to her that day that Diana had 
 left her alone on the bench by the sea, and of his 
 venerable valet having, a couple of hours before, 
 
104 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 sought speech of her on the same subject. Diana 
 listened, at first with a rosy flush, and then with 
 a cold, an almost cruel, frown. 
 
 "Take pity upon him," said Agatha Josling 
 " take pity upon him and go and see him." 
 
 " I don't understand," said her companion, " and 
 it seems to me very disagreeable. What is Mr. 
 Longstaff to me ? " But before they separated, 
 Agatha had persuaded her to say that if a message 
 really should come from the young man's death-bed, 
 she would not refuse him the light of her presence. 
 
 The message really came, brought of course by the 
 invalid's zealous chamberlain. He re-appeared on 
 the morrow, announcing that his master humbly 
 begged for the honour of ten minutes' conversation 
 with the two ladies. They consented to follow him, 
 and he led the way to Mr. Longstaffs apartments. 
 Diana still wore her irritated brow, but it made her 
 look more than ever like the easily-startled goddess 
 of the chase. Under the old man's guidance they 
 passed through a low green door in a yellow wall, 
 across a tangled garden full of orange-trees and 
 winter roses, and into a white-wainscoted saloon, 
 where they were presently left alone before a great 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 105 
 
 classic Empire clock, perched upon a frigid southern 
 chimney-place. They waited, however, but a few 
 moments ; the door of an adjoining room opened, and 
 the Sisters of Charity, in white-winged hoods and 
 with their hands thrust into the loose sleeves of the 
 opposite arm, came forth and stood with downcast 
 eyes on either side of the threshold. Then the old 
 servant appeared between them, and beckoned to the 
 two young girls to advance. The latter complied 
 with a certain hesitation, and he led them into the 
 chamber" of the dying man. Here, pointing to the 
 bed, he silently left them and withdrew ; not closing, 
 however, the door of communication of the saloon, 
 where he took up his station with the Sisters of 
 Charity. 
 
 Diana and her companion stood together in the 
 middle of the darker room, waiting for an invitation 
 to approach their summoner. He lay in his bed, 
 propped up on pillows, with his arms outside the 
 counterpane. For a moment he simply gazed at 
 them ; he was as white as the sheet that covered 
 him, and he 'certainly looked like a dying man. But 
 he had the strength to bend forward and to speak in 
 a soft, distinct voice. 
 
io6 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 " Would you be so kind as to come nearer ? " said 
 Mr. Longstaff. 
 
 Agatha Josling gently pushed her friend forward, 
 but she followed her to the bedside. Diana stood 
 there, her frown had melted away ; and the young 
 man sank back upon his pillows and looked at her. 
 A faint colour came into his face, and he clasped 
 his two hands together on his breast. For some 
 moments he simply gazed at the beautiful girl 
 before him. It was an awkward situation for her, 
 and Agatha expected her at any moment to turn 
 away in disgust. But, slowly, her look of proud 
 compulsion, of mechanical compliance, was ex- 
 changed for something more patient and pitying. 
 The young Englishman's face expressed a kind of 
 spiritual ecstasy which, it was impossible not to feel, 
 gave a peculiar sanctity to the occasion. 
 
 " It was very generous of you to come," he said 
 at last. " I hardly ventured to hope you would. I 
 suppose you know I suppose your friend, who 
 listened to me so kindly, has told you ? " 
 
 "Yes, she knows," murmured Agatha " she 
 knows." 
 
 "I did not intend you should know until after my 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 107 
 
 death," he went on ; " but " and he paused a mo- 
 ment and shook his clasped hands together " I 
 couldn't wait! And when I felt that I couldn't 
 wait, a new idea, a new desire, came into my mind." 
 He was silent again for an instant, still looking with 
 worshipful entreaty at Diana. The colour in his face 
 deepened. " It is something that you may do for 
 me. You will think it a most extraordinary request ; 
 but, in my position, a man grows bold. Dear lady, 
 will you marry me ?" 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " cried Agatha Josling, just audibly. 
 Her companion said nothing her attitude seemed 
 to say that in this remarkable situation one thing 
 was no more surprising than another. But she paid 
 Mr. LongstafFs proposal the respect of slowly seating 
 herself in a chair which had been placed near his 
 bed ; here she rested in maidenly majesty, with her 
 eyes fixed on the ground. 
 
 " It will help me to die happy, since die I must ! " 
 the young man continued. " It will enable me to 
 do something for you the only thing I can do. 
 I have property lands, houses, a great many 
 beautiful things things I have loved and am very 
 sorry to be leaving behind me. Lying here help- 
 
io8 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 less and hopeless through so many days, the thought 
 has come to me of what a bliss it would be to 
 know that they should rest in your hands. If you 
 were my wife, they would rest there safely. You 
 might be spared much annoyance ; and it is not 
 only that. It is a fancy I have beyond that. It 
 would be the feeling of it ! I am fond of life. 
 I don't want to die ; but since I must die, it would 
 be a happiness to have got just this out of life 
 this joining of our hands before a priest. You could 
 go away then. For you it would make no change 
 it would be no burden. But I should have a 
 few hours in which to lie and think of my 
 happiness." 
 
 There was something in the young man's tone 
 so simple and sincere, so tender and urgent, that 
 Agatha Josling was touched to tears. She turned 
 away to hide them, and went on tiptoe to the 
 window, where she silently let them flow. Diana 
 apparently was not unmoved. She raised her eyes 
 and let them rest kindly on those of Mr. Long- 
 staff, who continued softly to urge his proposal. 
 " It would be a great charity," he said, " a great 
 condescension ; and it can produce no consequence 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 109 
 
 to you that you could regret. It can only give 
 you a larger liberty. You know very little about 
 me, but I have a feeling that, so far as belief goes, 
 you can believe me, and that is all I ask of you. 
 I don't ask you to love me that takes time. It 
 is something I can't pretend to. It is only to consent 
 to the form, the ceremony. I have seen the English 
 clergyman ; he says he will perform it. He will 
 tell you, besides, all about me that I am an English 
 gentleman, and that the name I offer you is one 
 of the best in the world." 
 
 It was strange to hear a dying man lie there 
 and argue his point so reasonably and consistently ; 
 but now, apparently, his argument was finished. There 
 was a deep silence, and Agatha thought it would 
 be discreet on her own part to retire. She moved 
 quietly into the adjoining room, where the two 
 Sisters of Charity still stood with their hands in 
 their sleeves, and the old Italian valet was taking 
 snuff with a melancholy gesture, like a baffled 
 diplomatist. Agatha turned her back to these 
 people, and, approaching a window again, stood 
 looking out into the garden upon the orange-trees 
 
no LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 and the winter roses. It seemed to her that she had 
 been listening to the most beautiful, most romantic, 
 and most eloquent of declarations. How could 
 Diana be insensible to it?. She earnestly hoped 
 her companion would consent to the solemn and 
 interesting ceremony proposed by Mr. Longstaff, 
 and though her delicacy had prompted her to with- 
 draw, it permitted her to listen eagerly to what 
 Diana should say. Then (as she heard nothing) it 
 was eclipsed by the desire to go back and whisper, 
 with a sympathetic kiss, a word of counsel. She 
 glanced round again at the Sisters of Charity, who 
 appeared to have perceived that the moment was 
 a critical one. One of them detached herself, and, 
 as Agatha returned, followed her a few steps into 
 the room. Diana had got up from her chair. She 
 was looking about her uneasily she grasped at 
 Agatha's hand. Reginald Longstaff lay there with 
 his wasted face and his brilliant eyes, looking at 
 them both. Agatha took her friend's two hands in 
 both her own. 
 
 " It is very little to do, dearest," she murmured, 
 "and it will make him very happy." 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. in 
 
 The young man appeared to have heard her, 
 and he repeated her words in a tone of intense 
 entreaty. 
 
 " It is very little to do, dearest ! " 
 
 Diana looked round at him an instant. Then, for 
 an instant, she covered her face with her two hands. 
 Removing them, but holding them still against her 
 cheeks, she looked at her companion with eyes that 
 Agatha always remembered eyes through which a 
 thin gleam of mockery flashed from the seriousness 
 of her face. 
 
 . " Suppose, after all, he should not die ? " she 
 murmured. 
 
 Longstaff heard it ; he gave a long, soft moan, 
 and turned away. The Sister immediately ap- 
 proached his bed, on the other side, dropped on her 
 knees and bent over him, while he leaned his head 
 against the great white cape upon which her crucifix 
 was displayed. Diana stood a moment longer, look- 
 ing at him ; then, gathering her shawl together with 
 a great dignity, she slowly walked out of the room. 
 Agatha could do nothing but follow her. The old 
 Italian, holding the door open for them to pass out, 
 made them an exaggerated obeisance. 
 
H2 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 In the garden Diana paused, with a flush in her 
 cheek, and said 
 
 "If he could die with it, he could die without 
 it ! " But beyond the garden gate, in the empty 
 sunny street, she suddenly burst into tears. 
 
 Agatha made no reproaches, no comments ; but 
 her companion, during the rest of the day, spoke of 
 Mr. Longstaff several times with an almost passionate 
 indignation. She pronounced his conduct indelicate, 
 egotistic, impertinent ; she declared that the scene 
 had been revolting. Agatha, for the moment, re- 
 mained silent, but the next day . she attempted to 
 make some vague apology for the poor young man. 
 Then Diana, with passionate emphasis, begged her 
 to be so good as never to mention his name again ; 
 and she added that this disgusting incident had 
 put her completely out of humour with Nice, from 
 which place they would immediately take their 
 departure. This they did without delay ; they began 
 to travel again. Agatha heard no more of Reginald 
 Longstaff; the English ladies who had been her 
 original source of information with regard to him 
 had now left Nice ; otherwise she would have written 
 to them for news. That is, she would have thought 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 113 
 
 of writing to them ; I suspect that, on the whole, 
 she would have denied herself this satisfaction, on 
 the ground of loyalty to her friend. Agatha, at any 
 rate, could only drop a tear, at solitary hours, upon 
 the young man's unanswered prayer and early death. 
 It must be confessed, however, that sometimes, as 
 the weeks elapsed, a certain faint displeasure mingled 
 itself with her sympathy a wish that, roughly 
 speaking, poor Mr. Longstaff had left them alone. 
 Since that strange interview at his bedside things 
 l\ad not ' gone well ; the charm of their earlier 
 wanderings seemed broken. Agatha said to her- 
 self that, really, if she were superstitious, she might 
 fancy that Diana's conduct on this occasion had 
 brought them under an evil spell. It was no super- 
 stition, certainly, to think that this young lady had 
 lost a certain generous mildness of temper. She 
 was impatient, absent-minded, indifferent, capricious. 
 She expressed unaccountable opinions and proposed 
 unnatural plans. It is true that disagreeable things 
 were constantly happening to them things which 
 would have taxed the most unruffled spirit. Their 
 post-horses broke down, their postilions were im- 
 pertinent, their luggage went astray, their servants 
 VOL. I. I 
 
114 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 betrayed them. The heavens themselves seemed 
 to join in the conspiracy, and for days together were 
 dark and ungenerous, treating them only to wailing 
 winds and watery clouds. It was, in a large mea- 
 sure, in the light of after years that Agatha judged 
 this period ; but even at the time she felt it to be 
 depressing, uncomfortable, unnatural. Diana ap- 
 parently shared her opinion of it, though she never 
 openly avowed it. She took refuge in a kind of 
 haughty silence, and whenever a new disaster came 
 to her knowledge, she simply greeted it with a 
 bitter smile a smile which Agatha always inter- 
 preted as an ironical reflection on poor fantastic, 
 obtrusive Mr. LongstafF, who, through some mys- 
 terious action upon the machinery of nature, had 
 turned the tide of their fortunes. At the end of 
 the summer, suddenly, Diana proposed they should 
 go home, speaking of it in the tone of a person 
 who gives up a hopeless struggle. Agatha assented, 
 and the two ladies returned to America, much to 
 the relief of Miss Josling, who had an uncomfort- 
 able sense that there was something unexpressed 
 and unregulated between them, which gave their 
 intercourse a resemblance to a sultry morning. But 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 115 
 
 at home they separated very tenderly, for Agatha 
 had to go into the country and devote herself to her 
 nearer kinsfolk. These good people, after her long 
 absence, were exacting, so that for two years she saw 
 nothing of her late companion. 
 
 She often, however, heard from her, and Diana 
 figured in the town-talk that was occasionally wafted 
 to her rural home. She sometimes figured strangely 
 as a rattling coquette who carried on flirtations 
 by the hundred and broke hearts by the dozen. 
 This had not been Diana's former character, and 
 Agatha found matter for meditation in the change. 
 But the young lady's own letters said little of her 
 admirers and displayed no trophies. They came 
 very fitfully sometimes at the rate of a dozen a 
 month and sometimes not at all ; but they were 
 usually of a serious and abstract cast and contained 
 the author's opinions upon life, death, religion, im- 
 mortality. Mistress of her actions and of a pretty 
 fortune, it might have been expected that news 
 would come in trustworthy form of Diana's having 
 at last accepted one of her rumoured lovers. Such 
 news in fact came, and it was apparently trust- 
 worthy, inasmuch as it proceeded from the young 
 
 I 2 
 
n6 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 lady herself. She wrote to Agatha that she was 
 to be married, and Agatha immediately congratu- 
 lated her upon her happiness. Then Diana wrote 
 back that though she was to be married she was 
 not at all happy ; and she shortly afterwards added 
 that she was neither happy nor to be married. She 
 had broken off her projected union and her felicity 
 was smaller than ever. Poor Agatha was sorely 
 perplexed, and she found it a comfort that a month 
 after this her friend should have sent her a per- 
 emptory summons to come to her. She immediately 
 obeyed. 
 
 Arriving, after a long journey, at the dwelling 
 of her young hostess, she saw Diana at the 
 further end of the drawing-room, with her back 
 turned, looking out of the window. She was 
 evidently watching for Agatha, but Miss Josling had 
 come in, by accident, through a private entrance 
 which was not visible from the window. She 
 gently approached her friend and then Diana turned. 
 She had her two hands laid upon her cheeks, and 
 her eyes were sad ; her face and attitude suggested 
 something that Agatha had seen before and kept 
 the .memory of. While she kissed her Agatha 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 117 
 
 remembered that it was just so she had stood for 
 that last moment before poor Mr. Longstaff. 
 
 " Will you come abroad with me again ? " Diana 
 asked. " I am very ill." 
 
 " Dearest, what is the matter ? " said Agatha. 
 
 " I don't know ; I believe I am dying. They tell 
 me this place is bad for me ; that I must have another 
 climate ; that I must move about. Will you take 
 care of me ? I shall be very easy to take care of 
 now." 
 
 Agatha, for all answer, embraced her afresh, and 
 as soon after this as possible the two friends embarked 
 again for Europe. Miss Josling had thrown herself 
 the more freely into this scheme, as her companion's 
 appearance seemed a striking confirmation of her 
 words. Not, indeed, that she looked as if she were 
 dying ; but in the two years that had elapsed since 
 their separation she had wasted and faded. She 
 looked more than two years older, and the brilliancy of 
 her beauty was dimmed. She was pale and languid, 
 and she moved more slowly than when she seemed a 
 goddess treading the forest leaves. The beautiful 
 statue had grown human and taken on some of the 
 imperfections of humanity. And yet the doctors 
 
iiS LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 by no means affirmed that she had a mortal malady, 
 and when one of them was asked by an inquisitive 
 matron why he had recommended this young lady to 
 cross the seas, he replied with a smile that it was a 
 principle in his system to prescribe the remedies that 
 his patients greatly desired. 
 
 At present the fair travellers had no misadventures. 
 The broken charm had renewed itself ; the heavens 
 smiled upon them, and their postilions treated them 
 like princesses. Diana, too, had completely recovered 
 her native serenity ; she was the gentlest, the most 
 docile, the most reasonable of women. She was 
 silent and subdued, as was natural in an invalid ; 
 though in one important particular her demeanour 
 was certainly at variance with the idea of debility. 
 She had much more taste for motion than for rest, 
 and constant change of place became the law of her 
 days. She wished to see all the places that she had 
 not seen before, and all the old ones over again. 
 
 " If I am really dying," she said, smiling softly, " I 
 must leave my farewell cards everywhere." So she 
 passed her days in a great open carriage, leaning back 
 in it and looking, right and left, at everything she 
 passed. On her former journey to Europe she had 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 119 
 
 seen but little of England, and now she determined 
 to visit the whole of this famous island. She rolled 
 for weeks through the beautiful English landscape, 
 past meadows and hedgerows, over the avenues of 
 great estates and under the walls of castles and 
 abbeys. For the English parks and manors, the 
 " Halls "and " Courts," she had an especial admiration, 
 and into the grounds of such as were open to appreci- 
 ative tourists she made a point of penetrating. Here 
 she stayed her carriage beneath the oaks and beeches, 
 and sat" for an hour at a time listening to nightingales 
 and watching browsing deer. She never failed to 
 visit a residence that lay on her road, and as soon as 
 she arrived at a town she inquired punctiliously 
 whether there were any fine country-seats in the 
 neighbourhood. In this delightful fashion she spent 
 a whole summer. Through the autumn she continued 
 to wander restlessly ; she visited, on the Continent, a 
 hundred watering-places, and travellers' resorts. The 
 beginning of the winter found her in Rome, where she 
 confessed to being very tired and prepared to seek 
 repose. 
 
 " I am weary, weary," she said to her companion. 
 " I didn't know how weary I was. I feel like 
 
120 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 sinking down in this City of Rest, and resting here 
 for ever." 
 
 She took a lodging in an old palace, where her 
 chamber was hung with ancient tapestries, and her 
 drawing-room decorated with the arms of a pope. 
 Here, giving way to her fatigue, she ceased to wander. 
 The only thing she did was to go every day to St. 
 Peter's. She went nowhere else. She sat at her 
 window all day with a big book in her lap, which 
 she never read, looking out into a Roman garden at a 
 fountain plashing into a weedy alcove, and half a dozen 
 nymphs in mottled marble. Sometimes she told her 
 companion that she was happier this way than she had 
 ever been in this way, and in going to St. Peter's. 
 In the great church she often spent the whole after- 
 noon. She had a servant behind her, carrying a stool ; 
 he placed her stool against a marble pilaster, and she 
 sat there for a long time, looking up into the airy 
 hollow of the dome and over the vast, peopled pave- 
 ment. She noticed every one who passed her ; but 
 Agatha, lingering beside her, felt less at liberty, she 
 hardly knew why, to make remarks about the people 
 around them than she had felt when they sat upon 
 the shore at Nice. 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 121 
 
 One day Agatha left her and strolled about the 
 church by herself. The ecclesiastical life of Rome 
 had not shrunken to its present smallness, and in 
 one corner or another of St. Peter's there was always 
 some occasion of worship. Agatha found plenty of 
 entertainment, and was absent for half an hour. 
 When she came back she found her companion's 
 place deserted, and she sat down on the empty stool 
 to await her re-appearance. Some time elapsed, and 
 then she wandered away in quest of her. She found 
 her at last, near one of the side-altars ; but she was 
 not alone. A gentleman stood before her whom she 
 appeared just to have encountered. Her face was 
 very pale, and its expression led Agatha to look 
 straightway at the stranger. Then she saw he was 
 no stranger; he was Reginald Longstaff! He, too, 
 evidently had been much startled, but he was already 
 recovering himself. He stood very gravely an instant 
 longer ; then he silently bowed to the two ladies and 
 turned away. 
 
 Agatha felt at first as if she had seen a ghost ; but 
 the impression was immediately corrected by the 
 fact that Mr. LongstafFs aspect was veiy much less 
 ghostly than it had been in life. He looked like a 
 
122 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 strong man ; he held himself upright, and had a hand- 
 some colour. What Agatha saw in Diana's face was 
 not surprise ; it was a pale radiance which she waited 
 a moment to give a name to. Diana put out her hand 
 and laid it in her arm, and her touch helped Agatha to 
 know what it was that her face expressed. Then she 
 felt too that this knowledge itself was not a surprise ; 
 she seemed to have been waiting for it. She looked 
 at her friend again, and Diana was beautiful. Diana 
 blushed and became more beautiful yet. Agatha led 
 her back to her seat near the marble pilaster. 
 
 " So you were right," Agatha said presently. " He 
 would, after all, have got well ! " 
 
 Diana would not sit down ; she motioned to her 
 servant to bring away the stool, and continued to 
 move towards the door. She said nothing until she 
 stood without, in the great square, between the colon- 
 nades and fountains. Then she spoke. 
 
 " I am right now, but I was wrong then. He got 
 well because I refused him. I gave him a hurt that 
 cured him." 
 
 That evening, beneath the Roman lamps in the 
 great drawing-room of the arms of the pope, a re- 
 markable conversation took place between the two 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 123 
 
 friends. Diana wept and hid her face ; but her tears 
 and her shame were gratuitous. Agatha felt, as I have 
 said, that she had already guessed all the unexplained, 
 and it was needless for her companion to tell her that 
 three weeks after she had refused Reginald LongstafT 
 she insanely loved him. It was needless that Diana 
 should confess that his image had never been out of 
 her mind, that she believed he was still among the 
 living, and that she had come back to Europe with a 
 desperate hope of meeting him. It was in this hope 
 that she had wandered from town to town and looked 
 at every one who passed her ; and it was in this hope 
 that she had lingered in so many English parks. She 
 knew her love was very strange ; she could only say 
 it had consumed her. It had all come upon her 
 afterwards in retrospect, in meditation. Or rather, 
 she supposed, it had been there always, since she first 
 saw him, and the revulsion from displeasure to pity, 
 after she left his bedside, had brought it out. And 
 with it came the faith that he had indeed got well, 
 both of his malady and of his own passion. This 
 was her punishment ! And then she spoke with a 
 divine simplicity which Agatha, weeping a little too, 
 wished that, if this belief of Diana's were true, the 
 
124 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 young man might have heard. "I am so glad he is 
 well and strong. And that he looks so handsome 
 and so good ! " And she presently added, " Of course 
 he has got well only to hate me. He wishes never to 
 see me again. Very good. I have had my wish ; I 
 have seen him once more. That was what I wanted, 
 and I can die content." 
 
 It seemed in fact as if she were going to die. She 
 went no more to St. Peter's, and exposed herself to 
 no more encounters with Mr. LongstafT. She sat at 
 her window and looked out at the freckled dryads 
 and the cypresses, or wandered about her quarter 
 of the palace with a vaguely smiling resignation, 
 Agatha watched her with a sadness that was less 
 submissive. This too was something that she had 
 heard of, that she had read of in poetry and fable, 
 but that she had never supposed she should see 
 her companion was dying of love ! Agatha thought 
 of many things and made up her mind upon several. 
 The first of these latter was to send for the doctor. 
 This personage came, and Diana let him look at her 
 through his spectacles and hold her white wrist. He 
 announced that she was ill, and she smiled and said 
 she knew it ; and then he gave her a little phial of 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 125 
 
 gold-coloured fluid, which he bade her to drink. He 
 recommended her to remain in Rome, as the climate 
 exactly suited her complaint. Agatha's second desire 
 was to see Mr. Longstaff, who had appealed to her, 
 she reflected, in the day of his own tribulation, and 
 whom she therefore had a right to approach at present. 
 She found it impossible to believe, too, that the 
 passion which led him to take that extraordinary 
 step at Nice, was extinct ; such passions as that 
 never died. If he had made no further attempt to 
 see Diana, it was because he believed that she was 
 still as cold as when she turned away from his 
 death-bed. It must be added, moreover, that 
 Agatha felt a lawful curiosity to learn how from 
 that death-bed he had risen again into blooming 
 manhood. This last point there was no theory to 
 explain. 
 
 Agatha went to St. Peter's, feeling sure that sooner 
 or later she should encounter him there. At the end 
 of a week she perceived him, and seeing her, he 
 immediately came and spoke to her. As Diana 
 had said, he was now extremely handsome, and he 
 looked particularly good. He was a quiet, blooming, 
 gallant young English gentleman. He seemed much 
 
126 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 embarrassed, but his manner to Agatha expressed 
 the highest consideration. 
 
 " You must think me a dreadful impostor," he said, 
 
 very gravely. " But I was dying or I believed I was." 
 
 " And by what miracle did you recover ? " 
 
 He was silent a moment, and then he said 
 
 " I suppose it was by the miracle of wounded 
 
 pride ! " She noticed that he asked nothing about 
 
 Diana ; and presently she felt that he knew she 
 
 was thinking of this. " The strangest part of it," 
 
 he added, " was, that when my strength came back to 
 
 me, what had gone before had become as a simple 
 
 dream. And what happened to me here the other 
 
 day," he went on, " failed to make it a reality again ! " 
 
 Agatha looked at him a moment in silence, and 
 saw again that he was handsome and kind ; and 
 then dropping a sigh over the wonderful mystery of 
 things, she turned sadly away. That evening, Diana 
 said to her 
 
 " I know that; you have seen him ! " 
 
 Agatha came to her and kissed her. 
 
 "And I am nothing to him now?" 
 
 "My own dearest " murmured Agatha. 
 
 Diana had drunk the little phial of gold-coloured 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 127 
 
 liquid ; but after this, she ceased to wander about 
 the palace ; she never left her room. The old doctor 
 was with her constantly now, and he continued to 
 say that the air of Rome was very good for her 
 complaint, Agatha watched her in helpless sadness ; 
 she saw her fading and sinking, and yet she was 
 unable to comfort her. She tried once to comfort 
 her by saying hard things about Mr. Longstaff, by 
 pointing out that he had not been honourable ; rising 
 herein to a sublime hypocrisy, for on that last 
 occasion -at St. Peter's the poor girl had felt that 
 she herself admired him as much as ever that the 
 timid little flame which was kindled at Nice was 
 beginning to shoot up again. Agatha saw nothing 
 but his good looks and his kind manner. 
 
 " What did he want what did he mean, after 
 all ? " she pretended to murmur, leaning over Diana's 
 sofa. " Why should he have been wounded at what 
 you said ? It would have been part of the bargain 
 that he should not get well. Did he mean to take 
 an unfair advantage to make you his wife under 
 false pretences ? When you put your finger on the 
 weak spot, why should he resent it ? No, it was not 
 honourable." 
 
128 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 Diana smiled sadly ; she had no false shame now, 
 and she spoke of this thing as if it concerned 
 another person. 
 
 " He would have counted on my forgiving him ! " 
 she said. A little while after this, she began to sink 
 more rapidly. Then she called her friend to her, 
 and said simply, " Send for him ! " And as Agatha 
 looked perplexed and distressed, she added, " I know 
 he is still in Rome." 
 
 Agatha at first was at a loss where to find him, 
 but among the benefits of the papal dispensation 
 was the fact that the pontifical police could instantly 
 help you to lay your hand upon any sojourner in 
 the Eternal City. Mr. Longstaff had a passport in 
 detention by the government, and this document 
 formed a basis of instruction to the servant whom 
 Agatha sent to interrogate the authorities. The 
 servant came back with the news that he had seen 
 the distinguished stranger, who would wait upon the 
 ladies at the hour they proposed. When this hour 
 came and Mr. Longstaff was announced, Diana said 
 to her companion that she must remain with her. 
 It was an afternoon in spring ; the high windows 
 into the ancient garden were open, and the room was 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 129 
 
 adorned with great sheaves and stacks of the 
 abundant Roman flowers. Diana sat in a deep 
 arm-chair. " 
 
 It was certainly a difficult position for Reginald 
 Longstaff. He stopped on the threshold and looked 
 a while at the woman to whom he had made his ex- 
 traordinary offer ; then, pale and agitated, he advanced 
 rapidly towards her. He was evidently shocked at 
 the state in which he found her ; he took her 
 hand, and, bending over it, raised it to his lips. 
 She fixed her eyes on him a little, and she smiled 
 a little. 
 
 " It is I who am dying, now," she said. " And 
 now I want to ask something of you to ask what 
 you asked of me." 
 
 He stared, and a deep flush of colour came into 
 his face ; he hesitated for an appreciable moment. 
 Then lowering his head with a movement of assent 
 he kissed her hand again. 
 
 " Come back to-morrow," she said ; " that is all I 
 ask of you." 
 
 He looked at her again for a while in silence ; then 
 he abruptly turned and left her. She sent for the 
 English clergyman and told him that she was a 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
I 3 o LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 dying woman, and that she wished the marriage 
 service to be read beside her couch. The clergy- 
 man, too, looked at her in much surprise ; but he 
 consented to humour so tenderly romantic a whim 
 and made an appointment for the afternoon of the 
 morrow. Diana was very tranquil. She sat motion- 
 less, with her hands clasped and her eyes closed. 
 Agatha wandered about, arranging and re-arranging 
 the flowers. On the morrow she encountered Mr. 
 Longstaff in one of the outer rooms : he had come 
 before his time. She made this objection to his 
 being admitted ; but he answered that he knew he 
 was early and had come with intention ; he wished 
 to spend the intervening hour with his prospective 
 bride. So he went in and sat down by her couch 
 again, and Agatha, leaving them alone, never knew 
 what passed between them. At the end of the hour 
 the clergyman arrived, and read the marriage service 
 to them, pronouncing the nuptial blessing, while 
 Agatha stood by as witness. Mr. Longstaff went 
 through all this with a solemn, inscrutable face, and 
 Agatha, observing him, said to herself that one must 
 at least do him the justice to admit that he was 
 performing punctiliously what honour demanded. 
 
LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 131 
 
 When the clergyman had gone he asked Diana 
 when he might see her again. 
 
 " Never ! " she said, with her strange smile. And 
 she added " I shall not live long now." 
 
 He kissed her face, but he was obliged to leave 
 her. He gave Agatha an anxious look as if he 
 wished to say something to her, but she preferred 
 not to listen to him. After this Diana sank rapidly. 
 The next day Reginald Longstaff came back and 
 insisted upon seeing Agatha. 
 
 " Why should she die ? " he asked. " I want her 
 to live." 
 
 " Have you forgiven her ? " said Agatha. 
 
 " She saved me ! " he cried. 
 
 Diana consented to see him once more ; there 
 were two doctors in attendance now, and they also 
 had consented. He knelt down beside her bed 
 and asked her to live. But she feebly shook her 
 head. 
 
 " It would be wrong of me," she said. 
 
 Later, when he came back once more, Agatha 
 told him she was gone. He stood wondering, with 
 tears in his eyes. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 LONGSTAFF'S MARRIAGE. 
 
 "I don't understand," he said. "Did she love 
 me or not ? " 
 
 "She loved you," said Agatha, "more than she 
 believed you could now love her; and it seemed 
 to her that, when she had had her moment of 
 happiness, to leave you at liberty was the tenderest 
 way she could show it ! " 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE view from the terrace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye 
 is immense and famous. Paris lies spread before 
 you in dusky vastness, domed and fortified, glittering 
 here and there through her light vapours, and girdled 
 with her silver Seine. Behind you is a park of stately 
 symmetry, and behind that a forest, where you may 
 lounge through turfy avenues and light-checkered 
 glades, and quite forget that you are within half an 
 hour of the boulevards. One afternoon, however, in 
 mid-spring, some five years ago, a young man seated 
 on the terrace had chosen not to forget this. His 
 eyes were fixed in idle wistfulness on the mighty 
 human hive before him. He was fond of rural 
 things, and he had come to Saint-Germain a week 
 
134 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 before to meet the spring half-way; but though he 
 could boast of a six months' acquaintance with the 
 great city, he never looked at it from his present 
 standpoint without a feeling of painfully unsatisfied 
 curiosity. There were moments when it seemed to 
 him that not to be there just then was to miss some 
 thrilling chapter of experience. And yet his winter's 
 experience had been rather fruitless, and he had 
 closed the book almost with a yawn. Though not 
 in the least a cynic, he was what one may call a 
 disappointed observer ; and he never chose the right- 
 hand road without beginning to suspect after an 
 hour's wayfaring that the left would have been the 
 interesting one. He now had a dozen minds to go 
 to Paris for the evening, to dine at the Cafe* Brabant 
 and to repair afterwards to the Gymnase and listen 
 to the latest exposition of the duties of the injured 
 husband. He would probably have risen to execute 
 this project, if he had not observed a little girl who, 
 wandering along the terrace, had suddenly stopped 
 short and begun to gaze at him with round-eyed 
 frankness. For a moment he was simply amused, 
 for the child's face denoted helpless wonderment ; the 
 next he was agreeably surprised. " Why, this is my 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 135 
 
 friend Maggie," he said ; " I see you have not for- 
 gotten me." 
 
 Maggie, after a short parley, was induced to seal 
 her remembrance with a kiss. Invited then to ex- 
 plain her appearance at Saint-Germain, she embarked 
 on a recital in which the general, according to the 
 infantine method, was so fatally sacrificed to the 
 particular, that Longmore looked about him for a 
 superior source of information. He found it in 
 Maggie's mamma, who was seated with another lady 
 at the opposite end of the terrace ; so, taking the 
 .child by the hand, he led her back to her com- 
 panions. 
 
 Maggie's mamma was a young American lady, as 
 you would immediately have perceived, with a pretty 
 and friendly face and an expensive spring toilet. 
 She greeted Longmore with surprised cordiality, 
 mentioned his name to her friend, and bade him 
 bring a chair and sit with them. The other lady, 
 who, though equally young and perhaps even prettier, 
 was dressed more soberly, remained silent, stroking 
 the hair of the little girl, whom she had drawn 
 against her knee. She had never heard of Long- 
 more, but she now perceived that her companion 
 
136 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 had crossed the ocean with him, had met him after- 
 wards in travelling, and (having left her husband in 
 Wall Street) was indebted to him for various small 
 services. 
 
 Maggie's mamma turned from time to time and 
 smiled at her friend with an air of invitation ; the 
 latter smiled back, and continued gracefully to say 
 nothing. 
 
 For ten minutes Longmore felt a revival of interest 
 in his interlocutress ; then (as riddles are more amus- 
 ing than commonplaces) it gave way to curiosity 
 about her friend. His eyes wandered ; her volubility 
 was less suggestive than the latter's silence. 
 
 The stranger was perhaps not obviously a beauty 
 nor obviously an American ; but she was essentially 
 both, on a closer scrutiny. She was slight and fair, 
 and, though naturally pale, she was delicately flushed, 
 apparently with recent excitement. What chiefly 
 struck Longmore in her face was the union of a pair 
 of beautifully gentle, almost languid grey eyes, with 
 a mouth peculiarly expressive and firm. Her fore- 
 head was a trifle more expansive than belongs to 
 classic types, and her thick brown hair was dressed 
 out of the fashion, which was just then very ugly. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 137 
 
 Her throat and bust were slender, but all the more 
 in harmony with certain rapid, charming movements 
 of the head, which she had a way of throwing back 
 every now and then, with an air of attention and a 
 sidelong glance from her dove-like eyes. She seemed 
 at once alert and indifferent, contemplative and rest- 
 less ; and Longmore very soon discovered that if she 
 was not a brilliant beauty, she was at least an ex- 
 tremely interesting one. This very impression made 
 him magnanimous. He perceived that he had in- 
 terrupted a confidential conversation, and he judged 
 it discreet to withdraw, having first learned from 
 Maggie's mamma Mrs. Draper that she was to 
 take the six-o'clock train back to Paris. He pro- 
 mised to meet her at the station. 
 
 He kept his appointment, and Mrs. Draper arrived 
 betimes, accompanied by her friend. The latter, 
 however, made her farewells at the door and drove 
 away again, giving Longmore time only to raise his 
 hat. " Who is she ? " he asked with visible ardour, as 
 he brought Mrs. Draper her tickets. 
 
 " Come and see me to-morrow at the H6tel de 
 I'Empire," she answered, " and I will tell you all about 
 her. " The force of this offer in making him punctual 
 
138 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 at the Hotel de 1' Empire Longmore doubtless never 
 exactly measured ; and it was perhaps well that he 
 did not, for he found his friend, who was on the point 
 of leaving Paris, so distracted by procrastinating 
 milliners and perjured lingeres that she had no wits 
 left for disinterested narrative. " You must find 
 Saint-Germain dreadfully dull/' she said, as he was 
 going. " Why won't you come with me to London ? " 
 
 " Introduce me to Madame de Mauves," he an- 
 swered, " and Saint-Germain will satisfy me." All 
 he had learned was the lady's name and residence. 
 
 " Ah ! she, poor woman, will not make Saint-Ger- 
 main cheerful for you. She's very unhappy." 
 
 Longmore's further inquiries were arrested by the 
 arrival of a young lady with a bandbox ; but he went 
 away with the promise of a note of introduction, 
 to be immediately despatched to him at Saint- 
 Germain. 
 
 He waited a week, but the note never came ; and he 
 declared that it was not for Mrs. Draper to complain 
 of her milliner's treachery. He lounged on the terrace 
 and walked in the forest, studied suburban street life, 
 and made a languid attempt to investigate the records 
 of the court of the exiled Stuarts ; but he spent most 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 139 
 
 of his time in wondering where Madame de Mauves 
 lived, and whether she ever] walked on the terrace. 
 Sometimes, he finally discovered ; for one afternoon 
 towards dusk he perceived her leaning against the 
 parapet, alone. In his momentary hesitation to ap- 
 proach her, it seemed to him that there was almost 
 a shade of trepidation ; but his curiosity was not 
 diminished by the consciousness of this result of a 
 quarter of an hour's acquaintance. She immediately 
 recognised him, on his drawing near, with the manner 
 of a person unaccustomed to encounter an embar- 
 rassing variety of faces. Her dress, her expression, 
 were the same as before ; her charm was there, like 
 that of sweet music on a second hearing. She soon 
 made conversation easy by asking him for news of 
 Mrs. Draper. Longmore told her that he was daily 
 expecting news, and, after a pause, mentioned the 
 promised note of introduction. 
 
 "It seems less necessary now," he said "forme, 
 at least. But for you I should have liked you to 
 know the flattering things Mrs. Draper would pro- 
 bably have said about me. " 
 
 " If it arrives at last," she answered, " you must 
 
140 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 come and see me and bring it. If it doesn't, you 
 must come without it." 
 
 Then, as she continued to linger in spite of the 
 thickening twilight, she explained that she was wait- 
 ing for her husband, who was to arrive in the train 
 from Paris, and who often passed along the terrace 
 on his way home. Longmore well remembered that 
 Mrs. Draper had pronounced her unhappy, and he 
 found it convenient to suppose that this same hus- 
 band made her so. Edified by his six months in 
 Paris "What else is possible," he asked himself, 
 " for a sweet American girl who marries an unclean 
 Frenchman ? " 
 
 But this tender expectancy of her lord's return 
 undermined his hypothesis, and it received a further 
 check from the gentle eagerness with which she 
 turned and greeted an approaching figure. Long- 
 more beheld in the fading light a stoutish gentleman, 
 on the fair side of forty, in a high light hat, whose 
 countenance, indistinct against the sky, was adorned 
 by a fantastically pointed moustache. M. de Mauves 
 saluted his wife with punctilious gallantry, and having 
 bowed to Longmore, asked her several questions 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 141 
 
 in French. Before taking his proffered arm to walk to 
 their carriage, which was in waiting at the gate of the 
 terrace, she introduced our hero as a friend of Mrs. 
 Draper, and a fellow-countryman, whom she hoped 
 to see at home. M. de Mauves responded briefly, 
 but civilly, in very fair English, and led his wife 
 away. 
 
 Longmore watched him as he went, twisting his 
 picturesque moustache, with a feeling of irritation 
 which he certainly would have been at a loss to 
 account for. The only conceivable cause was the 
 light which M. de Mauves's good English cast upon 
 his own bad French. For reasons involved apparently 
 in the very structure of his being, Longmore found 
 himself unable to speak the language tolerably. He 
 admired and enjoyed it, but the very genius of 
 awkwardness controlled his phraseology. But he 
 reflected with satisfaction that Madame de Mauves 
 and he had a common idiom, and his vexation 
 was effectually dispelled by his finding on his table 
 that evening a letter from Mrs. Draper. It enclosed 
 a short, formal missive to Madame de Mauves, but 
 the epistle itself was copious and confidential. She 
 
142 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 had deferred writing till she reached London, where 
 for a week, of course, she had found other amuse- 
 ments. 
 
 " I think it is the sight of so many women here who 
 don't look at all like her, that has reminded me 
 by the law of contraries of my charming friend at 
 Saint-Germain and my promise to introduce you 
 to her," she wrote. " I believe I told you that she 
 was unhappy, and I wondered afterwards whether I 
 had not been guilty of a breach of confidence. But 
 you would have found it out for yourself, and besides, 
 she told me no secrets. She declared she was the 
 happiest creature in the world, and then, poor thing, 
 she burst into tears, and I prayed to be delivered from 
 such happiness. It's the miserable story of an 
 American girl, born to be neither a slave nor a 
 toy, marrying a profligate Frenchman, who believes 
 that a woman must be one or the other. The silliest 
 American woman is too good for the best foreigner, 
 and the poorest of us have moral needs that the 
 cleverest Frenchman is quite unable to appreciate. 
 She was romantic and perverse she thought Ameri- 
 cans were vulgar. Matrimonial felicity perhaps is 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 143 
 
 vulgar ; but I think nowadays she wishes she were a 
 little less elegant. M. de Mauves cared, of course, for 
 nothing but her money, which he is spending royally 
 on his menus plaisirs. I hope you appreciate the 
 compliment I pay you when I recommend you to go 
 and console an unhappy wife. I have never given 
 a man such a proof of esteem, and if you were to 
 disappoint me I should renounce the world. Prove to 
 Madame de Mauves that an American friend may 
 mingle admiration and respect better than a French 
 husband. She avoids society and lives quite alone, 
 seeing no one but a horrible French sister-in-law. Do 
 let me hear that you have drawn some of the sadness 
 from that desperate smile of hers. Make her smile 
 with a good conscience." 
 
 These zealous admonitions left Longmore slightly 
 disturbed. He found himself on the edge of a domes- 
 tic tragedy from which he instinctively recoiled. To call 
 upon Madame de Mauves with his present knowledge 
 seemed a sort of fishing in troubled waters. He was 
 a modest man, and yet he asked himself whether 
 the effect of his attentions might not be to add to her 
 discomfort. A flattering sense of unwonted -opportu- 
 
I 4 4 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 nity, however, made him, with the lapse of time, more 
 confident possibly more reckless. It seemed a very 
 inspiring idea to draw the sadness from his fair coun- 
 trywoman's smile, and at least he hoped to persuade 
 her that there was such a thing as an agreeable 
 American. He immediately called upon her. 
 
II. 
 
 SHE had been placed for her education, fourteen 
 years before, in a Parisian convent, by a widowed 
 mamma who was fonder of Homburg and Nice than 
 of letting out tucks in the frocks of a vigorously 
 growing daughter. Here, besides various elegant 
 accomplishments the art of wearing a train, of com- 
 posing a bouquet, of presenting a cup of tea she ac- 
 quired a certain turn of the imagination which might 
 have passed for a sign of precocious worldliness. 
 She dreamed of marrying a title not for the pleasure 
 of hearing herself called Madame la Vicomtesse (for 
 which it seemed to her that she should never greatly 
 care), but because she had a romantic belief that 
 the best birth is the guarantee of an ideal delicacy of 
 feeling. Romances are rarely constructed in such 
 perfect good faith, and Euphemia's excuse was the 
 primitive purity of her imagination. She was 
 VOL. I. L 
 
146 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 essentially incorruptible, and she cherished this per- 
 nicious conceit as if it had been a dogma revealed 
 by a white-winged angel. Even after experience had 
 given her a hundred rude hints, she found it easier to 
 believe in fables, when they had a certain nobleness 
 of meaning, than in well-attested but sordid facts. 
 She believed that a gentleman with a long pedigree 
 must be of necessity a very fine fellow, and that 
 the consciousness of a picturesque family tradition 
 imparts an exquisite tone to the character. Noblesse 
 oblige, she thought, as regards yourself, and insures, 
 as regards your wife. She had never spoken to a 
 nobleman in her life, and these convictions were but a 
 matter of transcendent theory. They were the fruit, 
 in part, of the perusal of various Ultramontane works 
 of fiction the only ones admitted to the convent 
 library in which the hero was always a Legitimist 
 vicomte who fought duels by the dozen, but went 
 twice a month to confession ; and in part of the per- 
 fumed gossip of her companions, many of them filles 
 de haut lieu, who in the convent garden, after Sundays 
 at home, depicted their brothers and cousins as Prince 
 Charmings and young Paladins. Euphemia listened 
 and said nothing ; she shrouded her visions of matri- 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 147 
 
 mony under a coronet in religious mystery. She was 
 not of that type of young lady who is easily induced 
 to declare that her husband must be six feet high and 
 a little near-sighted, part his hair in the middle, and 
 have amber lights in his beard. To her companions 
 she seemed to have a very pallid fancy ; and even the 
 fact that she was a sprig of the transatlantic democ- 
 racy never sufficiently explained her apathy on social 
 questions. She had a mental image of that son of 
 the Crusaders who was to suffer her to adore him, but 
 like many an artist who has produced a masterpiece 
 of idealisation, she shrank from exposing it to public 
 criticism. It was the portrait of a gentleman rather 
 ugly than handsome, and rather poor than rich. But 
 his ugliness was to be nobly expressive, and his 
 poverty delicately proud. 
 
 Euphemia had a fortune of her own, which, at 
 the proper time, after fixing on her in eloquent 
 silence those fine eyes which were to soften the 
 feudal severity of his visage, he was to accept 
 with a world of stifled protestations. One condition 
 alone she was to make that his blood should be 
 of the very finest strain. On this she would stake 
 her happiness. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 It so chanced that circumstances were to give 
 convincing colour to this primitive logic. 
 
 Though little of a talker, Euphemia was an ardent 
 listener, and there were moments when she fairly 
 hung upon the lips of Mademoiselle Marie de-Mauves. 
 Her intimacy with this chosen schoolmate was, like 
 most intimacies, based on their points of difference. 
 Mademoiselle de Mauves was very positive, very 
 shrewd, very ironical, very French everything that 
 Euphemia felt herself unpardonable in not being. 
 During her Sundays en ville she had examined the 
 world and judged it, and she imparted her impres- 
 sions to our attentive heroine with an agreeable 
 mixture of enthusiasm and scepticism. She was 
 moreover a handsome and well-grown person, on 
 whom Euphemia's ribbons and trinkets had a trick 
 -of looking better than on their slender proprietress. 
 She had, finally, the supreme merit of being a 
 rigorous example of the virtue of exalted birth, 
 having, as she did, ancestors honourably mentioned 
 by Joinville and Commines, and a stately grand- 
 mother with a hooked nose, who came up with her 
 after the holidays from a veritable castel in Auvergne. 
 It seemed to Euphemia that these attributes made 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 149 
 
 her friend more at home in the world than if she 
 had been the daughter of even the most prosperous 
 grocer. A certain aristocratic impudence Made- 
 moiselle de Mauves abundantly possessed, and her 
 raids among her friend's finery were quite in the 
 spirit of her baronial ancestors in the twelfth cen- 
 tury a spirit which Euphemia considered but a 
 large way of understanding friendship a freedom 
 from small deference to the world's opinions which 
 would sooner or later justify itself in acts of sur- 
 prising- magnanimity. Mademoiselle de Mauves her- 
 self perhaps was but partially conscious of that sweet 
 security which Euphemia envied her. She proved 
 herself later in life such an accomplished schemer 
 that her sense of having further heights to scale 
 must have awakened early. Our heroine's ribbons 
 and trinkets had much to do with the other's sisterly 
 patronage, and her appealing pliancy of character 
 even more ; but the concluding motive of Marie's 
 writing to her grandmamma to invite Euphemia for 
 a three weeks' holiday to the castel in Auvergne 
 involved altogether superior considerations. Made- 
 moiselle de Mauves was indeed at this time seven- 
 teen years of age, and presumably capable of general 
 
ISO MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 views; and Euphemia, who was hardly less, was a 
 very well-grown subject for experiment, besides being 
 pretty enough almost to pre-assure success. It is a 
 proof of the sincerity of Euphemia's aspirations that 
 the castel was not a shock to her faith. It was 
 neither a cheerful nor a luxurious abode, but the 
 young girl found it as delightful as a play. It had 
 battered towers and an empty moat, a rusty draw- 
 bridge and a court paved with crooked, grass-grown 
 slabs, over which the antique coach-wheels of the 
 old lady with the hooked nose seemed to awaken the 
 echoes of the seventeenth century. Euphemia was 
 not frightened out of her dream ; she had the plea- 
 sure of seeing it assume the consistency of a flattering 
 presentiment. She had a taste for old servants, old 
 anecdotes, old furniture, faded household colours, and 
 sweetly stale odours musty treasures in which the 
 Chateau de Mauves abounded. She made a dozen 
 sketches in water-colours, after her conventual pat- 
 tern ; but sentimentally, as one may say, she was 
 for ever sketching with a freer hand. 
 
 Old Madame de Mauves had nothing severe but 
 her nose, and she seemed to Euphemia, as indeed 
 she was, a graciously venerable relic of an historic 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 151 
 
 order of things. She took a great fancy to the young 
 American, who was ready to sit all day at her feet 
 and listen to anecdotes of the bon temps and quo- 
 tations from the family chronicles. Madame de 
 Mauves was a very honest old woman, and uttered 
 her thoughts with antique plainness. One day, after 
 pushing back Euphemia's shining locks and blinking 
 at her with some tenderness from under her spec- 
 tacles, she declared with an energetic shake of the 
 head that she didn't know what to make of her. 
 And in answer to the young girl's startled blush 
 ." I should like to advise you," she said, " but you 
 seem to me so all of a piece that I am afraid that if 
 I advise you, I shall spoil you. It's easy to see that 
 you are not one of us. I don't know whether you 
 are better, but you seem to me to listen to the 
 murmur of your own young spirit, rather than to 
 the voice from behind the confessional or to the 
 whisper of opportunity. Young girls, in my day, 
 when they were stupid, were very docile, but when 
 they were clever, were very sly. You are clever 
 enough, I imagine, and yet if I guessed all your 
 secrets at this moment, is there one I should have 
 to frown at ? I can tell you a wickeder one than 
 
152 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 any you have discovered for yourself. If you expect 
 to live in France, and you wish to be happy, don't 
 listen too hard to that little voice I just spoke, of 
 the voice that is neither the curd's nor the world's. 
 You will fancy it saying things that it won't help 
 your case to hear. They will make you sad, and 
 when you are sad you will grow plain, and when 
 you are plain you will grow bitter, and when you 
 are bitter you will be very disagreeable. I was 
 brought up to think that a woman's first duty is 
 to please, and the happiest v/omen I have known 
 have been the ones who performed this duty faith- 
 fully. As you are not a Catholic, I suppose you 
 can't be a devote ; and if you don't take life as a 
 fifty years' mass, the only way to take it is as a game 
 of skill. Listen to this. Not to lose at the game 
 of life, you must I don't say cheat, but not be 
 rtoo sure your neighbour won't, and not be shocked 
 out of your self-possession if he does. Don't lose, 
 my dear ; I beseech you, don't lose. Be neither 
 'suspicious nor credulous, and if you find your 
 neighbour peeping, don't cry out, but very politely 
 wait your own chance. I have had my revanche more 
 than once in my day, but I really think that the 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 153 
 
 sweetest I could take against life as a whole would 
 be to have your blessed innocence profit by my 
 experience." 
 
 This was rather bewildering advice, but Euphemia 
 understood it too little to be either edified or 
 frightened. She sat listening to it very much as she 
 would have listened to the speeches of an old lady 
 in a comedy, whose diction should picturesquely 
 correspond to the pattern of her mantilla and the 
 fashion of her head-dress. Her indifference was 
 doubly dangerous, for Madame de Mauves spoke 
 at the prompting of coming events, and her words 
 were the result of a somewhat troubled conscience 
 a conscience which told her at once that Euphemia 
 was too tender a victim to be sacrificed to an am- 
 bition, and that the prosperity of her house was too 
 precious a heritage to be sacrificed to a scruple. 
 The prosperity in question had suffered repeated 
 and grievous breaches, and the house of De Mauves 
 had been pervaded by the cold comfort of an estab- 
 lishment in which people were obliged to balance 
 dinner-table allusions to feudal ancestors against the 
 absence of side-dishes ; a state of things the more 
 regrettable as the family was now mainly represented 
 
154 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 by a gentleman whose appetite was large and who 
 justly maintained that its historic glories had not 
 been established by underfed heroes. 
 
 Three days after Euphemia's arrival, Richard de 
 Mauves came down from Paris to pay his respects 
 to his grandmother, and treated our heroine to her 
 first encounter with a gentilhomme in the flesh. On 
 coming in he kissed his grandmother's hand, with a 
 smile which caused her to draw it away with dignity, 
 and set Euphemia, who was standing by, wondering 
 what had happened between them. Her unanswered 
 wonder was but the beginning of a life of bitter per- 
 plexity, but the reader is free to know that the smile 
 of M. de Mauves was a reply to a certain postscript 
 affixed by the old lady to a letter promptly addressed 
 to him by her granddaughter, after Euphemia had 
 been admitted to justify the latter's promises. Made- 
 moiselle de Mauves brought her letter to her grand- 
 mother for approval, but obtained no more than was 
 expressed in a frigid nod. The old lady watched 
 her with a sombre glance as she proceeded to seal 
 the letter, and suddenly bade her open it again and 
 bring her a pen. 
 
 "Your sister's flatteries are all nonsense," she 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 155 
 
 wrote ; " the young lady is far too good for you, 
 mauvais snjet. If you have a particle of conscience 
 you will not come and disturb the repose of an angel 
 of innocence." 
 
 The young girl, who had read these lines, made 
 up a little face as she re-directed the letter ; but she 
 laid down her pen with a confident nod which might 
 have seemed to mean that, to the best of her belief, 
 her brother had not a conscience. 
 
 " If your meant what you said," the young man 
 whispered to his grandmother on the first oppor- 
 tunity, "it would have been simpler not to let her 
 send the letter ! " 
 
 It was perhaps because she was wounded by this 
 cynical insinuation that Madame de Mauves re- 
 mained in her own apartment during a greater part 
 of Euphemia's stay, so that the latter's angelic inno- 
 cence was left entirely to the Baron's mercy. It 
 suffered no worse mischance, however, than to be 
 prompted to intenser communion with itself. M. de 
 Mauves was the hero of the young girl's romance 
 made real, and so completely accordant with this 
 creature of her imagination, that she felt afraid 
 of him, very much as she would have been of a 
 
156 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 supernatural apparition. He was now thirty-five 
 young enough to suggest possibilities of ardent activity, 
 and old enough to have formed opinions which a 
 simple woman might deem it an intellectual privilege 
 to listen to. He was perhaps a trifle handsomer than 
 Euphemia's rather grim, Quixotic ideal, but a very 
 few days leconciled her to his good looks, as effect- 
 ually they would have reconciled her to his ugliness. 
 He was quiet, grave, eminently distinguished. He 
 spoke little, but his speeches, without being senten- 
 tious, had a certain nobleness of tone which caused 
 i them to re-echo in the young girl's ears at the end 
 of the day. He paid her very little direct attention, 
 but his chance words if he only asked her if she 
 objected to his cigarette -were accompanied by a 
 smile of extraordinary kindness. 
 
 It happened that shortly after his arrival, riding an 
 unruly horse which Euphemia with shy admiration 
 had watched him mount in the castle yard, he was 
 thrown with a violence which, without disparaging his 
 skill, made him for a fortnight an interesting invalid, 
 lounging in the library with a bandaged knee. To 
 beguile his confinement, Euphemia was repeatedly 
 induced to sing to him, which she did with a little 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 157 
 
 natural tremor in her voice which might have passed 
 for an exquisite refinement of art. He never over- 
 whelmed her with compliments, but he listened with 
 unwandering attention, remembered all her melodies, 
 and sat humming them to himself. While his im- 
 prisonment lasted, indeed, he passed hours in her 
 company, and made her feel not unlike some un- 
 friended artist who has suddenly gained the oppor- 
 tunity to devote a fortnight to the study of a great 
 model. Euphemia studied with noiseless diligence 
 what she supposed to be the " character " of M. de 
 Mauves, and the more, she looked, the more fine 
 lights and shades she seemed to behold in this 
 masterpiece of nature. M. de Mauves's character, 
 indeed, whether from a sense of being generously 
 scrutinised, or for reasons which bid graceful de- 
 fiance to analysis, had never been so amiable ; it 
 seemed really to reflect the purity of Euphemia's 
 interpretation of it. There had been nothing espe- 
 cially to admire in the state of mind in which he 
 left Paris a hard determination to marry a young 
 girl whose charms might or might not justify his 
 sister's account of them, but who was mistress, at the 
 worst, of a couple of hundred thousand francs a year. 
 
158 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 He had not counted out sentiment ; if she pleased 
 him, so much the better ; but he had left a meagre 
 margin for it, and he would hardly have admitted 
 that so excellent a match could be improved by it. 
 He was a placid sceptic, and it was a singular fate 
 for a man who believed in nothing to be so tenderly 
 believed in. What his original faith had been he 
 could hardly have told you ; for as he came back 
 to his childhood's home to mend his fortunes by 
 pretending to fall in love, he was a thoroughly per- 
 verted creature, and overlaid with more corruptions 
 than a summer day's questioning of his conscience 
 would have put to flight. Ten years' pursuit of 
 pleasure, which a bureau full of unpaid bills was 
 all he had to show for, had pretty well stifled the 
 natural lad whose violent will and generous temper 
 might have been shaped by other circumstances to 
 a result which a romantic imagination might fairly 
 accept as a late-blooming flower of hereditary honour. 
 The Baron's violence had been subdued, and he had 
 learned to be irreproachably polite ; but he had lost 
 the fineness of his generosity, and his politeness, 
 which in the long run society paid for, was hardly 
 more than a form of luxurious egotism, like his fond- 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 159 
 
 ness for cambric handkerchiefs, lavender gloves, and 
 other fopperies by which shopkeepers remained out 
 of pocket. In after years he was terribly polite to his 
 wife. He had formed himself, as the phrase was, 
 and the form prescribed to him by the society into 
 which his birth and his tastes introduced him was 
 marked by some peculiar features. That which 
 mainly concerns us is its classification of the fairer 
 half of humanity as objects not essentially different 
 say from the light gloves one soils in an evening 
 and throws away. To do M. de Mauves justice, he 
 had in the course of time encountered such plentiful 
 evidence of this pliant, glove-like quality in the 
 feminine character, that idealism naturally seemed 
 to him a losing game. 
 
 Euphemia, as he lay on his sofa, seemed by no 
 means a refutation ; she simply reminded him that 
 very young women are generally innocent, and that 
 this, on the whole, is the most charming stage of 
 their development. Her innocence inspired him 
 with profound respect, and it seemed to him that 
 if he shortly became her husband it would be ex- 
 posed to a danger the less. Old Madame de Mauves, 
 who flattered herself that in this whole matter she 
 
160 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 was very laudably rigid, might have learned a 
 lesson from his gallant consideration. For a fort- 
 night the Baron was almost a blushing boy again. 
 He watched from behind the Figaro, and admired, 
 and held his tongue. He was not in the least dis- 
 posed towards a flirtation ; he had no desire to 
 trouble the waters he proposed to transfuse into 
 the golden cup of matrimony. Sometimes a word, 
 a look, a movement of Euphemia's, gave him the 
 oddest sense of being, or of seeming at least, almost 
 bashful ; for she had a way of not dropping her 
 eyes, according to the mysterious virginal mechan- 
 ism of not fluttering out of the room when she 
 found him there alone, of treating him rather as 
 a benignant than as a pernicious influence a radiant 
 frankness of demeanour, in fine, in spite of an evident 
 natural reserve, which it seemed equally graceless 
 not to make the subject of a compliment and in- 
 delicate not to take for granted. In this way there 
 was wrought in the Baron's mind a vague, unwonted 
 resonance of soft impressions, as we may call it, 
 which indicated the transmutation of " sentiment " 
 from a contingency into a fact. His imagination 
 enjoyed it ; he was very fond of music, and this 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 161 
 
 reminded him of some of the best he had ever 
 heard. In spite of the bore of being laid up with a 
 lame knee, he was in a better humour than he had 
 known for months ; he lay smoking cigarettes and 
 listening to the nightingales, with the comfortable 
 smile of one of his country neighbours whose big 
 ox should have taken the prize at a fair. Every now 
 and then, with an impatient suspicion of the resem- 
 blance, he declared that he was pitifully bete ; but 
 he was under a charm which braved even the 
 supreme penalty of seeming ridiculous. One morn- 
 rng he had half an hour's tete-a-tete with his grand- 
 mother's confessor, a soft-voiced old Abbe, whom, 
 for reasons of her own, Madame de Mauves had 
 suddenly summoned, and had left waiting in the 
 drawing-room while she rearranged her curls. His 
 reverence, going up to the old lady, assured her 
 that M. le Baron was in a most edifying state of 
 mind, and a promising subject for the operation 
 of grace. This was a theological interpretation of 
 the Baron's momentary good-humour. He had 
 always lazily wondered what priests were good for, 
 and he now remembered, with a sense of especial 
 VOL. I. M 
 
162 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 obligation to the Abb6, that they were excellent 
 for marrying people. 
 
 A day or two after this he left off his bandages, 
 and tried to walk. He made his way into the 
 garden and hobbled successfully along one of the 
 alleys ; but in the midst of his progress he was 
 seized with a spasm of pain which forced him to 
 stop and call for help. In an instant Euphemia 
 came tripping along the path and offered him her 
 arm with the frankest solicitude. 
 
 " Not to the house," he said, taking it ; " further 
 on, to the bosquet." This choice was prompted by 
 her having immediately confessed that she had seen 
 him leave the house, had feared an accident, and 
 had followed him on tiptoe. 
 
 " Why didn't you join me ? " he had asked, giving 
 her a look in which admiration was no longer dis- 
 guised, and yet felt itself half at the mercy of her 
 replying that a jeune fille should not be seen follow- 
 ing a gentleman. But it drew a breath which filled 
 its lungs for a long time afterwards, when she replied 
 simply that if she had overtaken him he might 
 have accepted her arm out of politeness, whereas 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 163 
 
 she wished to have the pleasure of seeing him walk 
 alone. 
 
 The bosquet was covered with an odorous tangle 
 of blossoming creepers, and a nightingale overhead 
 was shaking out love-notes with a profuseness which 
 made the Baron consider his own conduct the per- 
 fection of propriety. 
 
 " In America," he said, " I have always heard that 
 when a man wishes to marry a young girl, he offers 
 himself simply, face to face, without any ceremony 
 without parents, and uncles, and cousins sitting 
 round in a circle." 
 
 " Why, I believe so," said Euphemia, staring, and 
 too surprised to be alarmed. 
 
 "Very well, then," said the Baron, "suppose our 
 bosquet here to be America. I offer you my hand, 
 a I'Americaine. It will make me intensely happy 
 to see you accept it." 
 
 Whether Euphemia's acceptance was in the 
 American manner is more than I can say ; I incline 
 to think that for fluttering, grateful, trustful, softly- 
 amazed young hearts, there is only one manner all 
 over the world. 
 
 That evening, in the little turret chamber which it 
 
 M 2 
 
164 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 was her happiness to inhabit, she wrote a dutiful 
 letter to her mamma, and had just sealed it when 
 she was sent for by Madame de Mauves. She found 
 this ancient lady seated in her boudoir, in a lavender 
 satin gown, with all her candles lighted, as if to cele^- 
 brate her grandson's betrothal. " Are you very 
 happy ? " Madame de Mauves demanded, making 
 Euphemia sit down before her. 
 
 " I am almost afraid to say so," said the young 
 girl, " lest I should wake myself up." 
 
 "May you never wake up, belle enfant" said the 
 old lady, solemnly. " This is the first marriage ever 
 made in our family in this way by a Baron de 
 Mauves proposing to a young girl in an arbour, like 
 Jeannot and Jeannette. It has not been our way of 
 doing things, and people may say it wants frankness. 
 My grandson tells me he considers it the perfection 
 of frankness. Very good. I am a very old woman, 
 and if your differences should ever be as marked as 
 your agreement, I should not like to see them. But 
 I should be sorry to die and think you were going to 
 be unhappy. You can't be, beyond a certain point ; 
 because, though in this world the Lord sometimes 
 makes light of our expectations, He never altogether 
 
MADAME D.E MAUVES. 165 
 
 ignores our deserts. But you are very young and 
 innocent, and easy to deceive. There never was a 
 man in the world among the saints themselves as 
 good as you believe the Baron. But he's a galant 
 homme and a gentleman, and I have been talking 
 to him to-night. To you I want to say this 
 that you're to forget the worldly rubbish I talked 
 the other day about frivolous women being 
 happy. It's not the kind of happiness that would 
 suit you. Whatever befalls you, promise me this : 
 to be yourself. The Baronne de Mauves will 
 be none the worse for it. Yourself, understand, 
 in spite of everything bad precepts and bad 
 examples, bad usage, even. Be persistently and 
 patiently yourself, and a De Mauves will do you 
 justice!" 
 
 Euphemia remembered this speech in after years, 
 and more than once, wearily closing her eyes, she 
 seemed to see the old woman sitting upright in her 
 faded finery and smiling grimly, like one of the Fates 
 who sees the wheel of fortune turning up her favourite 
 event. But at the moment it seemed to her simply 
 to have the proper gravity of the occasion ; this was 
 the way, she supposed, in which lucky young girls 
 
i66 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 were addressed on their engagement by wise old 
 women of quality. 
 
 At her convent, to which she immediately returned, 
 she found a letter from her mother, which shocked 
 her far more than the remarks of Madame de Mauves. 
 Who were these people, Mrs. Cleve demanded, who 
 had presumed to talk to her daughter of marriage 
 without asking her leave ? Questionable gentlefolk, 
 plainly ; the best French people never did such 
 things. Euphemia would return straightway to her 
 convent, shut herself up, and await her own arrival. 
 
 It took Mrs. Cleve three weeks to travel from Nice 
 to Paris, and during this time the young girl had no 
 communication with her lover beyond accepting a 
 bouquet of violets, marked with his initials and left 
 by a female friend. " I have not brought you up with 
 such devoted care," she declared to her daughter at 
 their first interview, " to marry a penniless French- 
 man. I will take you straight home, and you will 
 please to forget M. de Mauves." 
 
 Mrs. Cleve received that evening at her hotel a visit 
 from the Baron which mitigated her wrath, but failed 
 to modify her decision. He had very good manners, 
 but she was sure he had horrible morals ; and Mrs. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 167 
 
 Cleve, who had been a very good-natured censor on 
 her own account, felt a genuine spiritual need to 
 sacrifice her daughter to propriety. She belonged 
 to that large class of Americans who make light of 
 their native land in familiar discourse, but are startled 
 back into a sense of moral responsibility when they 
 find Europeans taking them at their word. " I know 
 the type, my dear," she said to her daughter with a 
 sagacious nod. " He will not beat you ; sometimes 
 you will wish Ire would." 
 
 Euphemia remained solemnly silent ; for the only 
 'answer she felt capable of making her mother was that 
 her mind was too small a measure of things, and 
 that the Baron's type was one which it took some 
 mystical illumination to appreciate. A person who 
 confounded him with the common throng of her 
 watering-place acquaintance was not a person to 
 argue with. It seemed to Euphemia that she had no 
 cause to plead ; her cause was in the Lord's hands 
 and her lover's. 
 
 M. de Mauves had been irritated and mortified 
 by Mrs. Cleve's opposition, and hardly knew how to 
 handle an adversary who failed to perceive that a De 
 Mauves of necessity gave more than he received. But 
 
168 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 he had obtained information on his return to Paris 
 which exalted the uses of humility. Euphemia's 
 fortune, wonderful to say, was greater than its fame, 
 and in view of such a prize, even a De Mauves could 
 afford to take a snubbing. 
 
 The young man's tact, his deference, his urbane 
 insistence, won a concession from Mrs. Cleve. The en- 
 gagement was to be put off and her daughter was to 
 return home, be brought out and receive the homage 
 she was entitled to, and which would but too surely 
 take a form dangerous to the Baron's suit. They were 
 to exchange neither letters, nor mementos, nor mes- 
 sages ; but if at the end of two years Euphemia had 
 refused offers enough to attest the permanence of her 
 attachment, he should receive an invitation to address 
 her again. 
 
 This decision was promulgated in the presence 
 of the parties interested. The Baron bore himself 
 gallantly, and looked at the young girl, expecting 
 some tender protestation. But she only looked at 
 him silently in return, neither weeping, nor smiling, 
 nor putting out her hand. On this they separated ; 
 but as the Baron walked away, he declared to himself 
 that, in spite of the confounded two years, he was a 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 169 
 
 very happy fellow to have a fiancee who, to several 
 millions of francs, added such strangely beautiful 
 eyes. 
 
 How many offers Euphemia refused but scantily 
 concerns us and how the Baron wore his two years 
 away. He found that he needed pastimes, and, as 
 pastimes were expensive, he added heavily to the 
 list of debts to be cancelled by Euphemia's millions. 
 Sometimes, in the thick of what he had once called 
 pleasure with a keener conviction than now, he put 
 to himself the case of their failing him after all ; and 
 then he remembered that last mute assurance of her 
 eyes, and drew a long breath of such confidence as 
 he felt in nothing else in the world save his own 
 punctuality in an affair of honour. 
 
 At last, one morning, he took the express to Havre 
 with a letter of Mrs. Cleve's in his pocket, and ten 
 days later made his bow to mother and daughter in 
 New York. His stay was brief, and he was appa- 
 rently unable to bring himself to view what Euphe- 
 mia's uncle, Mr. Butterworth, who gave her away at 
 the altar, called our great experiment in democratic 
 self-government, in a serious light. He smiled at 
 
i;o MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 everything, and seemed to regard the New World 
 as a colossal plaisanterie. It is true that a per- 
 petual smile was the most natural expression of 
 countenance for a man about to marry Euphemia 
 Cleve. 
 
III. 
 
 LONGMORE'S first visit seemed to open to him so 
 large an opportunity for tranquil enjoyment that he 
 very soon paid a second, and, at the end of a fort- 
 night, had spent a great many hours in the little 
 drawing-room which Madame de Mauves rarely 
 quitted except to drive or walk in the forest. She 
 lived in an old-fashioned pavilion, between a high- 
 walled court and an excessively artificial garden, 
 beyond whose enclosure you saw a long line of tree- 
 tops. Longmore liked the garden, and in the mild 
 afternoons used to move his chair through the open 
 window to the little terrace which overlooked it, 
 while his hostess sat just within. After a while she 
 came out and wandered through the narrow alleys 
 and beside the thin-spouting fountain, and at last 
 introduced him to a little gate in the garden-wall, 
 
172 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 opening upon a lane which led to the forest. Hither- 
 ward, more than once, she wandered with him, bare- 
 headed and meaning to go but twenty rods, but 
 always strolling good-naturedly further, and often 
 taking a generous walk. They discovered many 
 things to talk about, and to the pleasure of rinding 
 the hours tread inaudibly away, Longmore was able 
 to add the satisfaction of suspecting that he was a 
 "resource" for Madame de Mauves. He had made 
 her acquaintance with the sense, not altogether com- 
 fortable, that she was a woman with a painful secret, 
 and that seeking her acquaintance would be like visit- 
 ing at a house where there was an invalid who could 
 bear no noise. But he very soon perceived that her 
 sorrow, since sorrow it was, was not an aggressive 
 one ; that it was not fond of attitudes and ceremonies, 
 and that her earnest wish was to forget it. He felt 
 that even if Mrs. Draper had not told him she was 
 unhappy, he would have guessed it ; and yet he could 
 hardly have pointed to his evidence. It was chiefly 
 negative she never alluded to her husband. Beyond 
 this it seemed to him simply that her whole being 
 was pitched on a lower key than harmonious Nature 
 meant ; she was like a powerful singer who had lost 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 173 
 
 her high notes. She never drooped nor sighed nor 
 looked unutterable things ; she indulged in no dusky 
 sarcasms against fate ; she had, in short, none of the 
 coquetry of unhappiness. But Longmore was sure that 
 her gentle gaiety was the result of strenuous effort, and 
 that she was t ying to interest herself in his thoughts 
 to escape from her own. If she had wished to irritate 
 his curiosity and lead him to take her confidence by 
 storm, nothing could have served her purpose better 
 than this ingenuous reserve. He declared to himself 
 that there was a rare magnanimity in such ardent 
 self-effacement, and that but one woman in ten 
 thousand was capable of merging an intensely per- 
 sonal grief in thankless outward contemplation. 
 Madame de Mauves, he instinctively felt, was not 
 sweeping the horizon for a compensation or a con- 
 soler ; she had suffered a personal deception which 
 had disgusted her with persons. She was not striving 
 to balance her sorrow with some strongly seasoned 
 joy ; for the present, she was trying to live with it, 
 peaceably, reputably, and without scandal turning 
 the key on it occasionally, as you would on a com- 
 panion liable to attacks of insanity. Longmore was 
 a man of fine senses and of an active imagination, 
 
174 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 whose leading-strings had never been slipped. He 
 began to regard his hostess as a figure haunted by 
 a shadow which was somehow her intenser, more 
 authentic self. This hovering mystery came to have 
 for him an extraordinary charm. Her delicate beauty 
 acquired to his eye the serious cast of certain blank- 
 browed Greek statues; and sometimes, when his 
 imagination, more than his ear, detected a vague 
 tremor in the tone in which she attempted to make 
 a friendly question seemed to have behind it none 
 of the hollow resonance of absent-mindedness, his 
 marvelling eyes gave her an answer more eloquent, 
 though much less to the point, than the one she 
 demanded. 
 
 She gave him indeed much to wonder about, and, 
 in his ignorance he formed a dozen experimental 
 theories on the subject of her marriage. She had 
 married for love and staked her whole soul on it ; 
 of that he was convinced. She had not married a 
 Frenchman to be near Paris and her base of supplies 
 of millinery ; he was sure she had seen conjugal hap- 
 piness in a light of which her present life, with its 
 conveniences for shopping and its moral aridity, was 
 the absolute negation. But by what extraordinary 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 175 
 
 process of the heart through what mysterious inter- 
 mission of that moral instinct which may keep pace 
 with the heart, even when this organ is making un- 
 precedented time -had she fixed her affections on 
 an arrogantly frivolous Frenchman ? Longmore 
 needed no telling; he knew M. de Mauves was 
 frivolous ; it was stamped on his eyes, his nose, his 
 mouth, his carriage. For Frenchwomen Longmore 
 had but a scanty kindness, or at least (what with him 
 was very much the same thing) but a scanty gallantry ; 
 they all seemed to belong to the type of a certain 
 fine lady to whom he had ventured to present a letter 
 of introduction, and whom, directly after his first 
 visit to her, he had set down -in his note-book as 
 " metallic." ' Why should Madame de Mauves have 
 chosen a Frenchwoman's lot she whose character 
 had a perfume which is absent from even the brightest 
 metals ? He asked her one day frankly if it had 
 cost her nothing to transplant herself if she were 
 not oppressed with a sense of irreconcilable difference 
 from " all these people." She was silent a while, and 
 he fancied that she was hesitating as to whether she 
 should resent so unceremonious an allusion to her 
 husband. He almost wished she would ; it would 
 
176 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 seem a proof that her deep reserve of sorrow had 
 a limit. 
 
 " I almost grew up here/' she said at last, " and it 
 was here for me that those dreams of the future took 
 shape that we all have when we cease to be very 
 young. As matters stand, one may be very American 
 and yet arrange it with one's conscience to live in 
 Europe. My imagination perhaps I had a little 
 when I was younger helped me to think I should 
 find happiness here. And after all, for a woman, 
 what does it signify ? This is not America, perhaps, 
 about me, but it's quite as little. France. France 
 is out there, beyond the garden, in the town, in the 
 forest ; but here, close about me, in my room and " 
 she paused a moment " in my mind, it's a nameless 
 country of my own. It's not her country," she 
 added, " that makes a woman happy or unhappy." 
 
 Madame Clairin, Euphemia's sister-in-law, might 
 have been supposed to have undertaken the graceful 
 task of making Longmore ashamed of his uncivil 
 jottings about her sex and nation. Mademoiselle de 
 Mauves, bringing example to the confirmation of pre- 
 cept, had made a remunerative match and sacrificed 
 her name to the millions of a prosperous and aspiring 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 177 
 
 wholesale druggist a gentleman liberal enough to con- 
 sider his fortune a moderate price for being towed 
 into circles unpervaded by pharmaceutic odours. 
 His system, possibly, was sound, but his own appli- 
 cation of it was unfortunate. M. Clairin's head was 
 turned by his good luck. Having secured an aristo- 
 cratic wife, he adopted an aristocratic vice and began 
 to gamble at the Bourse. In an evil hour he lost 
 heavily, and then staked heavily to recover himself. 
 But he overtook his loss only by a greater one. Then 
 he let everything go his wits, his courage, his 
 probity everything that had made him what his 
 ridiculous marriage had so promptly unmade. He 
 walked up the Rue Vivienne one day with his hands 
 in his empty pockets, and stood for half an hour 
 staring confusedly up and down the glittering Boule- 
 vard. People brushed against him, and half a dozen 
 carriages almost ran over him, until at last a police- 
 man, who had been watching him for some time, took 
 him by the arm and led him gently away. He looked 
 at the man's cocked hat and sword with tears in his 
 eyes ; he hoped he was going to interpret to him the 
 wrath of Heaven to execute the penalty of his dead- 
 weight of self-abhorrence. But the sergent de ville 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 only stationed him in the embrasure of a door, out of 
 harm's way, and walked away to supervise a financial 
 contest between an old lady and a cabman. Poor 
 M. Clairin had only been married a year, but he had 
 had time to measure the lofty spirit of a De Mauves. 
 When night had fallen, he repaired to the house of a 
 friend and asked for a night's lodging; and as his friend, 
 who was simply his old head book-keeper, and lived 
 in a small way, was put to some trouble to accommo- 
 date him " You must excuse me," Clairin said, " but 
 I can't go home. I am afraid of my wife ! " Towards 
 morning he blew his brains out. His widow turned 
 the remnants of his property to better account than 
 could have been expected, and wore the very hand- 
 somest mourning. It was for this latter reason, 
 perhaps, that she was obliged to retrench at other 
 points, and accept a temporary home under her 
 brother's roof. 
 
 fortune had played Madame Clairin a terrible 
 trick, but had found an adversary and not a victim. 
 Though quite without beauty, she had always had 
 what i's called the grand air, and her air from this time 
 forward was grander than ever. As she trailed about 
 in her sable furbelows, tossing back her well-dressed 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 179 
 
 head, and holding up her vigilant eye-glass, she 
 seemed to be sweeping the whole field of society and 
 asking herself where she should pluck her revenge. 
 Suddenly she espied it, ready made to her hand, in 
 poor Longmore's wealth and amiability, American 
 dollars and American complaisance had made her 
 brother's fortune ; why should they not make hers ? 
 She over-estimated Longmore's wealth and misinter- 
 preted his amiability ; for she was sure that a man 
 could not be so contented without being rich, nor so 
 unassuming without being weak. He encountered 
 her advances with a formal politeness which covered 
 a great deal of unflattering discomposure. She made 
 him feel acutely uncomfortable ; and though he was 
 at a loss to conceive how he could be an object of 
 interest to a shrewd Parisienne, he had an indefinable 
 sense of being enclosed in a magnetic circle, like the 
 victim of an incantation. If Madame Clairin could 
 have fathomed his Puritanic soul, she would have 
 laid by her wand and her book and admitted that he 
 was an impossible subject. She gave him a kind of 
 moral chill, and he never mentally alluded to her 
 save as that dreadful woman that terrible woman. 
 He did justice to her grand air, but for his pleasure 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 he preferred the small air of Madame de Mauves ; 
 and he never made her his bow, after standing frigidly 
 passive for five minutes to one of her gracious over- 
 tures to intimacy, without feeling a peculiar desire to 
 ramble away into the forest, fling himself down on 
 the warm grass, and, staring up at the blue sky, for- 
 get that there were any women in nature who didn't 
 please like the swaying tree-tops. One day, on his 
 arrival, she met him in the court and told him that 
 her sister-in-law was shut up with a headache, and 
 that his visit must be for her. He followed her into 
 the drawing-room with the best grace at his com- 
 mand, and sat twirling his hat for half an hour. 
 Suddenly he understood her; the caressing cadence 
 of her voice was a distinct invitation to solicit the 
 incomparable honour of her hand. He blushed to 
 the roots of his hair and jumped up with uncontrol- 
 lable alacrity ; then, dropping a glance at Madame 
 Clairin, who sat watching him with hard eyes over 
 the edge of her smile, as it were, perceived on her 
 brow a flash of unforgiving wrath. It was not becom- 
 ing, but his eyes lingered a moment, for it seemed to 
 illuminate her character. What he saw there fright- 
 ened him and he felt himself murmuring, "Poor 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 181 
 
 Madame de Mauves!" His departure was abrupt, 
 and this time he really went into the forest and lay 
 down on the grass. 
 
 After this he admired Madame de Mauves more 
 than ever ; she seemed a brighter figure, with a 
 darker shadow appended to it. At the end of a 
 month he received a letter from a friend with whom 
 he had arranged a tour through the Low Countries, 
 reminding him of his promise to meet him promptly 
 at Brussels. It was only after his answer was posted 
 that he fully measured the zeal with which he had 
 declared that the journey must either be deferred or 
 abandoned that he could not possibly leave Saint- 
 Germain. He took a walk in the forest, and asked 
 himself if this were irrevocably true. If it were, 
 surely his duty was to march straight home and pack 
 his trunk. Poor Webster, who, he knew, had counted 
 ardently on this excursion, was an excellent fellow ; 
 six weeks ago he would have gone through fire and 
 water to join Webster. It had never been in his 
 books to throw overboard a friend whom he had 
 loved for ten years for a married woman whom for 
 six weeks he had admired. It was certainly beyond 
 question that he was lingering at Saint-Germain 
 
182 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 because this admirable married woman was there ; 
 but in the midst of all this admiration, what had 
 become of prudence ? This was the conduct of a 
 man drifting rapidly into passion. If she were as 
 unhappy as he believed, the passion of such a man 
 would help her very little more than his indifference ; 
 if she were less so, she needed no help, and could 
 dispense with his friendly offices. He was sure, 
 moreover, that if she knew he was staying on her 
 account she would be extremely annoyed. But this 
 very feeling had much to do with making it hard to 
 go ; her displeasure would only enhance the gentle 
 stoicism which touched him to the heart. At mo- 
 ments, indeed, he assured himself that to linger was 
 simply impertinent ; it was indelicate to make a daily 
 study of such a shrinking grief. But inclination an- 
 swered that some day her self-support would fail, and 
 he had a vision of this admirable creature calling 
 vainly for help. He would be her friend, to any 
 length; it was unworthy to both of them to think 
 about consequences. But he was a friend who car- 
 ried about with him a muttering resentment that he 
 had not known her five years earlier, and a brooding 
 hostility to those who had anticipated him. It seemed 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 183 
 
 one of fortune's most mocking strokes, that she should 
 be surrounded by persons whose only merit was that 
 they threw the charm of her character into radiant 
 relief. 
 
 Longmore's growing irritation made it more and 
 more difficult for him to see any other merit than 
 this in the Baron de Mauves. And yet, disinter- 
 estedly, it would have been hard to give a name to 
 the portentous vices which such an estimate implied, 
 and there were times when our hero was almost per- 
 suaded against his finer judgment that he was really 
 the most considerate of husbands, and that his wife 
 liked melancholy for melancholy's sake. His man- 
 ners were perfect, his urbanity was unbounded, and 
 he seemed never to address her but, sentimentally 
 speaking, hat in hand. His tone to Longmore (as 
 the latter was perfectly aware) was that of a man of 
 the world to a man not quite of the world ; but what 
 it lacked in deference it made up in easy friendliness. 
 " I can't thank you enough for having overcome my 
 wife's shyness," he more than once declared. " If we 
 left her to do as she pleased, she would bury herself 
 alive. Come often, and bring some one else. She 
 
1 84 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 will have nothing to do with my friends, but perhaps 
 she will look at yours." 
 
 The Baron made these speeches with a remorseless 
 placidity very amazing to our hero, who had an inno- 
 cent belief that a man's head may point out to him 
 the shortcomings of his heart, and make him ashamed 
 of them. He could not fancy him capable both of 
 neglecting his wife and taking an almost humorous 
 view of her suffering. Longmore had, at any rate, an 
 exasperating sense that the Baron thought rather the 
 less of his wife on account of that very same fine 
 difference of nature which so deeply stirred his own 
 sympathies. He was rarely present during Long- 
 more's visits, and he made a daily journey to Paris, 
 where he had " business," as he once mentioned 
 not in the least with a tone of apology. When he 
 appeared, it was late in the evening, and with an im- 
 perturbable air of being on the best of terms with 
 every one and every thing, which was peculiarly - 
 annoying if you happened to have a tacit quarrel 
 with him. If he was a good fellow, he was surely a 
 good fellow spoiled. Something he had, however, 
 which Longmore vaguely envied a kind of superb 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 185 
 
 positiveness a manner rounded and polished by the 
 traditions of centuries an urbanity exercised for his 
 own sake and not his neighbours' which seemed the 
 result of something better than a good conscience 
 of a vigorous and unscrupulous temperament. The 
 Baron was plainly not a moral man, and poor Long- 
 more, who was, would have been glad to learn the 
 secret of his luxurious serenity. What was it that 
 enabled him, without being a monster with visibly 
 cloven feet, exhaling brimstone, to misprize so cruelly 
 a lovely wife, and to walk about the world with a 
 candid smile under his moustache ? It was the 
 essential grossness of his imagination, which had 
 nevertheless helped him to turn so many neat com- 
 pliments. He could be very polite, and he could 
 doubtless be supremely impertinent ; but he was as 
 unable to draw a moral inference of the finer strain 
 as a school-boy who has been playing truant for a 
 week to solve a problem in algebra. It was ten to 
 one he did not know his wife was unhappy ; he and 
 his brilliant sister had doubtless agreed to consider 
 their companion a Puritanical little person, of meagre 
 aspirations and slender accomplishments, contented 
 
1 86 MADAME DE MAUVES, 
 
 with looking at Paris from the terrace, and, as an 
 especial treat, having a countryman very much like 
 herself to supply her with homely transatlantic gossip. 
 M. de Mauves was tired of his companion ; he relished 
 a higher flavour in female society. She was too 
 modest, too simple, too delicate ; she had too few 
 arts, too little coquetry, too much charity. M. de 
 Mauves, some day, lighting a cigar, had probably 
 decided she was stupid. It was the same sort of 
 taste, Longmore moralised, as the taste for Gerome 
 in painting, and for M. Charles Baudelaire in litera- 
 ture. The Baron was a pagan and his wife was a 
 Christian, and between them, accordingly, was a gulf. 
 He was by race and instinct a grand seigneur. Long- 
 more had often heard of this distinguished social 
 type, and was properly grateful for an opportunity 
 to examine it closely. It had certainly a picturesque 
 boldness of outline, but it was fed from spiritual 
 sources so remote from those of which he felt the 
 living gush of his own soul, that he found himself 
 gazing at it, in irreconcilable antipathy, across a dim 
 historic mist. " I am a modern bourgeois" he said, 
 "and not perhaps so good a judge of how far a pretty 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 187 
 
 woman's tongue may go at supper without prejudice 
 to her reputation. But I have not met one of the 
 sweetest of women without recognising her, and dis- 
 covering that a certain sort of character offers better 
 entertainment than Theresa's songs, sung by a dissi- 
 pated duchess. Wit for wit, I think mine carries me 
 further." It was easy indeed to perceive that, as 
 became a grand seigneur, M. de Mauves had a stock 
 of social principles. He would not especially have 
 desired, perhaps, that his wife should compete in 
 amateur operettas with the duchesses in question, 
 chiefly of recent origin ; but he held that a gentleman 
 may take his amusement where he finds it, that 
 he is quite at liberty not to find it at home, and that 
 the wife of a De Mauves who should hang her head 
 and have red eyes, and allow herself to make any 
 other response to officious condolence than that her 
 husband's amusements were his own affair, would 
 have forfeited every claim to having her finger-tips 
 bowed over and kissed. And yet in spite of this 
 definite faith, Longmore fancied that the Baron 
 was more irritated than gratified by his wife's irre- 
 proachable reserve. Did it dimly occur to him that 
 
i88 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 it was self-control and not self-effacement ? She was 
 a model to all the inferior matrons of his line, past 
 and to come, and an occasional " scene " from her at 
 a convenient moment would have something re- 
 assuring would attest her stupidity a trifle more 
 forcibly than her inscrutable tranquillity. 
 
 Longmore would have given much to know the 
 principle of her submissiveness, and he tried more 
 than once, but with rather awkward timidity, to 
 sound the mystery. She seemed to him to have 
 been long resisting the force of cruel evidence, and, 
 though she had succumbed to it .at last, to have 
 denied herself the right to complain, because if faith 
 was gone, her heroic generosity remained. He be- 
 lieved even that she was capable of reproaching her- 
 self with having expected too much, and of trying to 
 persuade herself out of her bitterness by saying that 
 her hopes had been illusions and that this was simply 
 life. " I hate tragedy," she once said to him ; " I 
 have a really pusillanimous dread of moral suffering. 
 I believe that without base concessions there is 
 always some way of escaping from it. I would 
 almost rather never smile all my life than have a 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 189 
 
 single violent explosion of grief." She lived evidently 
 in nervous apprehension of being fatally convinced 
 of seeing to the end of her deception. Longmore, 
 when he thought of this, felt an immense longing to 
 offer her something of which she could be as sure as 
 of the sun in heaven. 
 
IV. 
 
 His friend Webster lost no time in accusing him of 
 the basest infidelity, and asking him what he found 
 at Saint-Germain to prefer to Van Eyck and Mem- 
 ling, Rubens and Rembrandt. A. day or two after 
 the receipt of Webster's letter, he took a walk with 
 Madame de Mauves in the forest. They sat down 
 on a fallen log, and she began to arrange into a 
 bouquet the anemones and violets she had gathered. 
 " I have a letter," he said at last, " from a friend 
 whom I some time ago promised to join at Brussels. 
 The time has come it has passed. It finds me 
 terribly unwilling to leave Saint-Germain." 
 
 She looked up with the candid interest which she 
 always displayed in his affairs, but with no disposi- 
 tion, apparently, to make a personal application of 
 his words. " Saint-Germain is pleasant enough," she 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 191 
 
 said ; " but are you doing yourself justice ? Shall you 
 not regret in future days that instead of travelling 
 and seeing cities and monuments and museums and 
 improving your mind, you sat here for instance 
 on a log, pulling my flowers to pieces ? " 
 
 " What I shall regret in future days," he answered 
 after some hesitation, " is that I should have sat here 
 and not spoken the truth on the matter. I am fond of 
 museums and monuments and of improving my mind, 
 and I am particularly fond of my friend Webster. 
 But I can't bring myself to leave Saint-Germain with- 
 out asking you a question. You must forgive me if 
 it's indiscreet, and be assured that curiosity was never 
 more respectful. Are you really as unhappy as I 
 imagine you to be ? " 
 
 She had evidently not expected his question, and 
 she greeted it with a startled blush. " If I strike 
 you as unhappy," she said, " I have been a poorer 
 friend to you than I wished to be." 
 
 " I, perhaps, have been a better friend of yours 
 than you have supposed. I have admired your re- 
 serve, your courage, your studied gaiety. But I 
 have felt the existence of something beneath them 
 that was more you more you as I wished to know 
 
192 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 you than they were ; something that I have be- 
 lieved to be a constant sorrow." 
 
 She listened with great gravity, but without an air 
 of offence, and he felt that while he had been timor- 
 ously calculating the last consequences of friendship, 
 she had serenely accepted them. " You surprise me," 
 she said slowly, and her blush still lingered. "But 
 to refuse to answer you would confirm an impression 
 on your part which is evidently already too strong. 
 An unhappiness that one can sit comfortably talking 
 about, is an unhappiness with distinct limitations. 
 If I were examined before a board of commissioners 
 for investigating the felicity of mankind, I am sure 
 I should be pronounced a very fortunate woman." 
 There was something delightfully gentle to him in 
 her tone, and its softness seemed to deepen as she 
 continued. " But let me add, with all gratitude for 
 your sympathy, that it's my own affair altogether. It 
 need not disturb you, Mr. Longmore, for I have often 
 found myself in your company a very contented 
 person." 
 
 "You are a wonderful woman/' he said, "and I 
 admire you as I never have admired any one. You 
 are wiser than anything I, for one, can say to you ; 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 193 
 
 and what I ask of you is not to let me advise or 
 console you, but simply thank you for letting me 
 know you." He had intended no such outburst as 
 this, but his voice rang loud, and he felt a kind of 
 'unfamiliar joy as he uttered it. 
 
 She shook her head with some impatience. " Let 
 us be friends as I supposed we were going to be 
 without protestations and fine words. To have you 
 paying compliments to my wisdom that would be 
 real wretchedness. I can dispense with your admi- 
 ration better than the Flemish painters can better 
 than Van Eyck and Rubens, in spite of all their wor- 
 shippers. Go join your friend see everything, enjoy 
 everything, learn everything, and write me an excel- 
 lent letter, brimming over with your impressions. I 
 am extremely fond of the Dutch painters," she added, 
 with a slight faltering of the voice, which Longmore 
 had noticed once before, and which he had inter- 
 preted as the sudden weariness of a spirit self-con- 
 demned to play a part. 
 
 " I don't believe you care a button about the 
 Dutch painters," he said, with an unhesitating laugh. 
 " But I shall certainly write you a letter." 
 
 She rose and turned homeward, thoughtfully 
 
 VOL. I. O 
 
194 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 re-arranging her flowers as she walked. Little was 
 said ; Longmore was asking himself, with a tremor 
 in the unspoken words, whether all this meant 
 simply that he was in love. He looked at the 
 rooks wheeling against the golden-hued sky, be- 
 tween the tree-tops, but not at his companion, 
 whose personal presence seemed lost in the felicity 
 she had created. Madame de Mauves was silent 
 and grave, because she was painfully disappointed. 
 A sentimental friendship she had not desired ; her 
 scheme had been to pass with Longmore as a placid 
 creature with a good deal of leisure, which she was 
 disposed to devote to profitable conversation of an 
 impersonal sort. She liked him extremely, and felt 
 that there was something in him to which, when she 
 made up her girlish mind that a needy French baron 
 was the ripest fruit of time, she had done very scanty 
 justice. They went through the little gate in the 
 garden wall and approached the house. On the 
 terrace Madame Clairin was entertaining a friend 
 a little elderly gentleman with a white moustache, 
 and an order in his button-hole. Madame de Mauves 
 chose to pass round the house into the court ; where- 
 upon her sister-in-law, greeting Longmore with a 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 195 
 
 commanding nod, lifted her eye-glass and stared at 
 them as they went by. Longmore heard the little 
 old gentleman uttering some old-fashioned epigram 
 about " la vieille galanterie Franchise," and then, by 
 a sudden impulse, he looked at Madame de Mauves 
 and wondered what she was doing in such a world. 
 She stopped before the house, without asking him to 
 come in. " I hope you will act upon my advice," she 
 said, " and waste no more time at Saint-Germain." 
 
 For an instant there rose to his lips some faded 
 compliment about his time not being wasted, but 
 if expired before the simple sincerity of her look- 
 She stood there as gently serious as the angel of 
 disinterestedness, and Longmore felt as. if he should 
 insult her by treating her words as a bait for flattery. 
 " I shall start in a day or two," he answered, " but 
 I will not promise you not to come back." 
 
 " I hope not," she said, simply. " I expect to be 
 here a long time." 
 
 " I shall come and say good-bye," he rejoined ; on 
 which she nodded with a smile, and went in. 
 
 He turned away, and walked slowly homeward by 
 the terrace. It seemed to him that to leave her thus, 
 for a gain on which she herself insisted, was to know 
 
 O 2 
 
196 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 her better and admire her more. But he was in a 
 vague ferment of feeling which her evasion of his 
 Question half an hour before had done more to 
 deepen than to allay. Suddenly, on the terrace, he 
 encountered M. de Mauves, who was leaning against 
 the parapet, finishing a cigar. The Baron, who, he 
 fancied, had an air of peculiar affability, offered him 
 his white plump hand. Longmore stopped ; he felt 
 a sudden angry desire to cry out to him that he had 
 the loveliest wife in the world ; that he ought to be 
 ashamed of himself not to know it ; and that for all 
 his shrewdness he had never looked into the depths 
 of her eyes. The Baron, we know, considered that 
 he had ; but there was something in Euphemia's 
 eyes now that was not there five years before. They 
 talked for a while about various things, and M. de 
 Mauves gave a humorous account of his visit to 
 America. His tone was not soothing to Longmore's 
 excited sensibilities. He seemed to consider the 
 country a gigantic joke, and his urbanity only went 
 so far as to admit that it was not a bad one. Long- 
 more was not, by habit, an aggressive apologist for 
 his native institutions ; but the Baron's narrative con- 
 firmed his worst impressions of French superficiality. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 197 
 
 He had understood nothing, he had felt nothing, he 
 had learned nothing ; and our hero, glancing askance 
 at his aristocratic profile, declared that if the chief 
 merit of a long pedigree was to leave one so fatu- 
 ously stupid, he thanked his stars that the Long- 
 mores had emerged from obscurity in the present 
 century, in the person of an enterprising timber- 
 merchant. M. de Mauves dwelt of course on that 
 prime oddity of ours the liberty allowed to young 
 girls ; and related the history of his researches into 
 the " opportunities " it presented to French noble- 
 men researches in which, during a fortnight's stay, 
 he seemed to have spent many agreeable hours. " I 
 am bound to admit," he said, " that in every case 
 I was disarmed by the extreme candour of the 
 young lady, and that they took care of themselves 
 to better purpose than I have seen some mammas 
 in France take care of them." Longmore greeted 
 this handsome concession with the grimmest of 
 smiles, and damned his impertinent patronage. 
 
 Mentioning at last that he was about to leave 
 Saint-Germain, he was surprised, without exactly 
 being flattered, by the Baron's quickened attention. 
 "I am so very sorry!" the latter cried. "I hoped 
 
198 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 we had you for the whole summer." Longmore mur- 
 mured something civil, and wondered why M. de 
 Mauves should care whether he stayed or went. 
 " You were a distraction to Madame de Mauves," the 
 Baron added ; " I assure you I mentally blessed 
 your visits." 
 
 " They were a great pleasure to me/' Longmore 
 said, gravely. " Some day I expect to come back." 
 
 " Pray do ; " and the Baron laid his hand urgently 
 on his arm. "You see I have confidence in you." 
 Longmore was silent for a moment, and the Baron 
 puffed his cigar reflectively and watched the smoke. 
 " Madame de Mauves," he said at last, " is a rather 
 singular person." 
 
 Longmore shifted his position, and wondered 
 whether he were going to " explain " Madame de 
 Mauves. 
 
 "Being, as you are, her fellow-countryman," the 
 Baron went on, " I don't mind speaking frankly. 
 She's just a little morbid the most charming woman 
 in the world, as you see, but a little fanciful a little 
 entetfo. Now you see she has taken this extraordi- 
 nary fancy for solitude. I can't get her to go any- 
 where to see any one. When my friends present 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES 199 
 
 themselves she is perfectly polite, but she is simply 
 freezing. She doesn't dp herself justice, and I 
 expect every day to hear two or three of them say 
 to me, ' Your wife is jolie a croquer : what a pity she 
 hasn't a little esprit' You must have found out that 
 she has really a great deal. But to tell the whole 
 truth, what she needs is to forget herself. She sits 
 alone for hours poring over her English books and 
 looking at life through that terrible brown fog which 
 they always seem to me to fling over the world. I 
 doubt if your English authors," the Baron continued, 
 with a serenity which Longmore afterwards charac- 
 terised as sublime, " are very sound reading for young 
 married women. I don't pretend to know much 
 about them ; but I remember that, not long after our 
 marriage, Madame de Mauves undertook to read 
 me one day a certain Wordsworth a poet highly 
 esteemed, it appears, chez vous. It seemed to me 
 that she took me by the nape of the neck and held 
 my head for half an hour over a basin of soupe aux 
 choux, and that one ought to ventilate the drawing- 
 room before any one called. But I suppose you 
 know him ce genie-la. I think my wife never for- 
 gave me, and that it was a real shock to her to find 
 
200 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 she had married a man who had very much the same 
 taste in literature as in cookery. But you are a man 
 of general culture a man of the world," said the 
 Baron, turning to Longmore and fixing his eyes on 
 the seal of his watchguard. " You can talk about 
 everything, and I am sure you like Alfred de Musset 
 as well as Monsieur Wordsworth. Talk to her about 
 everything, Alfred de Musset included. Bah ! I 
 forgot that you are going. Come back then as soon 
 as possible and talk about your travels. If Madame 
 de Mauves too would make a little voyage, it would 
 do her good. It would enlarge her horizon " and M. 
 de Mauves made a series of short nervous jerks with 
 his stick in the air " it would wake up her imagina- 
 tion. She's too rigid, you know it would show her 
 that one may bend a trifle without breaking." He 
 paused a moment and gave two or three vigorous 
 puffs. Then, turning to his companion again, with a 
 little nod and a confidential smile "I hope you 
 admire my candour. I wouldn't say all this to one 
 of us ! " 
 
 Evening was coming on, and the lingering light 
 seemed to float in the air in faintly golden motes. 
 Longmore stood gazing at these luminous particles ; 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 201 
 
 he could almost have fancied them a swarm of hum- 
 ming insects, murmuring as a refrain, " She has a great 
 deal of esprit she has a great deal of esprit. " " Yes, 
 she has a great deal," he said, mechanically, turning to 
 the Baron. M. de Mauves glanced at him sharply, as 
 if to ask what the deuce he was talking about. " She 
 has a great deal of intelligence," said Longmore, 
 deliberately, " a great deal of beauty, a great many 
 virtues." 
 
 M. de Mauves busied himself for a moment in 
 lighting 'another cigar, and when he had finished, 
 with a return of his confidential smile, " I suspect 
 you of thinking that I don't do my wife justice/' he 
 said. " Take care take care, young man ; that's a 
 dangerous assumption. In general a man always 
 does his wife justice. More than justice," cried the 
 Baron with a laugh " that we keep for the wives of 
 other men ! " 
 
 Longmore afterwards remembered it in favour of 
 the Baron's fine manner that he had not measured at 
 this moment the dusky abyss over which it hovered. 
 But a sort of deepening subterranean echo lingered 
 on his spiritual ear. For the present his keenest 
 sensation was a desire to get away and cry aloud that 
 
202 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 M. de Mauves was an arrogant fool. He bade him 
 an abrupt good-night, which was to serve also, he 
 said, as good-bye. 
 
 " Decidedly, then, you go ? " said M. de Mauves, 
 almost peremptorily. 
 
 " Decidedly." 
 
 " Of course you will come and say good-bye to 
 Madame de Mauves ? " His tone implied that the 
 omission would be very uncivil ; but there seemed to 
 Longmore something so ludicrous in his taking a 
 lesson in ^consideration from M. de Mauves, that he 
 burst into a laugh. The Baron frowned, like a man 
 for whom it was a new and most unpleasant sensa- 
 tion to be perplexed. "You are a queer fellow," he 
 murmured, as Longmore turned away, not foreseeing 
 that he should think him a very queer fellow indeed 
 before he had done with him. 
 
 Longmore sat down to dinner at his hotel with his 
 usual good intentions ; but as he was lifting his first 
 glass of wine to his lips, he suddenly fell to musing 
 and set down his wine untasted. His reverie lasted 
 long, and when he emerged from it, his fish was 
 cold ; but this mattered little, for his appetite was 
 gone. That evening he packed his trunk with a 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 203 
 
 kind of indignant energy. This was so effective that 
 the operation was accomplished before bedtime, and 
 as he was not in the least sleepy, he devoted the 
 interval to writing two letters ; one was a short note 
 to Madame de Mauves, which he intrusted to a 
 servant, to be delivered the next morning. He had 
 found it best, he said, to leave Saint-Germain imme- 
 diately, but he expected to be back in Paris in the 
 early autumn. The other letter was the result of his 
 having remembered a day or two before that he had 
 not yet complied with Mrs. Draper's injunction to 
 give her an account of his impressions of her friend. 
 The present occasion seemed propitious, and he wrote 
 half a dozen pages. His tone, however, w r as grave, 
 and Mrs. Draper, on receiving them, was slightly 
 disappointed she would have preferred a stronger 
 flavour of rhapsody. But what chiefly concerns us 
 is the concluding sentences. 
 
 " The only time she ever spoke to me of her 
 marriage," he wrote, " she intimated that it had been 
 a perfect love-match. With all abatements, I sup- 
 pose most marriages are ; but in her case, I think, 
 this would mean more than in that of most women ; 
 for her love was an absolute idealisation. She 
 
204 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 believed her husband was a hero of rose-coloured 
 romance, and he turns out to be not even a hero of 
 very sad-coloured reality. For some time now she 
 has been sounding her mistake, but I don't believe 
 she has touched the bottom of it yet. She strikes 
 me as a person who is begging off from full know- 
 ledge who has struck a truce with painful truth, and 
 is trying a while the experiment of living with closed 
 eyes. In the dark she tries to see again the gilding 
 on her idol. Illusion of course is illusion, and one 
 must always pay for it ; but there is something truly 
 tragical in seeing an earthly penalty levied on such 
 divine folly as this. As for M. de Mauves, he's a 
 Frenchman to his fingers' ends ; and I confess I 
 should dislike him for this if he were a much better 
 man. He can't forgive his wife for having married 
 him too sentimentally and loved him too well ; for 
 in some uncorrupted corner of his being he feels, I 
 suppose, that as she saw him, so he ought to have 
 been. It is a perpetual vexation to him that a little 
 American bourgeoise should have fancied him a finer 
 fellow than he is, or than he at all wants to be. He 
 has not a glimmering of real acquaintance with his 
 wife ; he can't understand the stream of passion 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 205 
 
 flowing so clear and still. To tell the truth, I hardly 
 can understand it myself; but when I see the spec- 
 tacle I can admire it furiously. M. de Mauves, at any 
 rate, would like to have the comfort of feeling that 
 his wife is as corruptible as himself; and you will 
 hardly believe me when I tell you that he goes 
 about intimating to gentlemen whom he deems 
 worthy of the knowledge, that it would be a con- 
 venience to him that they should make love to 
 her." 
 
V. 
 
 ON reaching Paris, Longmore straightway pur- 
 chased a Murray's Belgium, to help himself to believe 
 that he would start on the morrow for Brussels ; 
 but when the morrow came, it occurred to him that, 
 by way of preparation, he ought to acquaint himself 
 more intimately with the Flemish painters in the 
 Louvre. This took a whole morning, but it did 
 little to hasten his departure. He had abruptly left 
 Saint-Germain, because it seemed to him that respect 
 for Madame de Mauves demanded that he should 
 allow her husband no reason to suppose that he had 
 understood him ; but now that he had satisfied the 
 behest of delicacy, he found himself thinking more 
 and more ardently of Euphemia. It was a poor 
 expression of ardour to be lingering irresolutely on 
 the deserted Boulevards, but he detested the idea 
 of leaving Saint-Germain five hundred miles behind 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 207 
 
 him. He felt very foolish, nevertheless, and wandered 
 about nervously, promising himself to, take the next 
 train ; but a dozen trains started, and Longmore 
 was still in Paris. This sentimental tumult was 
 more than he had bargained for, and, as he looked 
 at the shop windows, he wondered whether it was 
 a " passion." He had never been fond of the word, 
 and had grown up with a kind of horror of what 
 it represented. He had hoped that when he should 
 fall in love, he should do it with an excellent con- 
 science, with no greater agitation than a mild suf- 
 fusion of cheerfulness. But here was a sentiment 
 concocted of pity and anger, as well as of admiration, 
 and bristling with scruples and doubts. He had 
 come abroad to enjoy the Flemish painters and all 
 others ; but what fair-tressed saint of Van Eyck or 
 Memling was so interesting a figure as Madame 
 de Mauves ? His restless steps carried him at last 
 out of the long villa-bordered avenue which leads to 
 the Bois de Boulogne. 
 
 Summer had fairly begun, and the drive beside 
 the lake was empty, but there were various loungers 
 on the benches and chairs, and the great cafe had 
 an air of animation. Longmore's walk had given 
 
2o8 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 him an appetite, and he went into the establish- 
 ment and demanded a dinner, remarking for the 
 hundredth time, as he observed the smart little tables 
 disposed in the open air, how much better they 
 ordered this matter in France. 
 
 "Will monsieur dine in the garden, or in the 
 saloon ? " asked the waiter. Longmore chose the 
 garden ; and observing that a great cluster of June 
 roses was trained over the wall of the house, placed 
 himself at a table near by, where the best of dinners 
 was served ! him on the whitest of linen, in the most 
 shining of porcelain. It so happened that his table 
 was near a window, and that as he sat he could 
 look into a corner of the saloon. So it was that 
 his attention rested on a lady seated just within the 
 window, which was open, face to face apparently with 
 a companion who was concealed by the curtain. 
 She was a very pretty woman, and Longmore 
 looked at her as often as was consistent with good 
 manners. After a while he even began to wonder 
 who she was, and to suspect that she was one of 
 those ladies whom it is no breach of good manners 
 to look at as often as you like. Longmore, too, if 
 he had been so disposed, would have been the more 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 209 
 
 free to give her all his attention, that her own was 
 fixed upon the person opposite to her. She was 
 what the French call a belle brune, and though 
 our hero, who had rather a conservative taste in such 
 matters, had no great relish for her bold outlines 
 and even bolder colouring, he could not help admiring 
 her expression of basking contentment. 
 
 She was evidently very happy, and her happiness 
 gave her an air of innocence. The talk of her 
 friend, whoever he was, abundantly suited her 
 humour, for she sat listening to him with a broad, 
 lazy smile, and interrupted him occasionally, while 
 she crunched her bon-bons, with a murmured response, 
 presumably as broad, which seemed to deepen his 
 eloquence. She drank a great deal of champagne 
 and ate an immense number of strawberries, and 
 was plainly altogether a person with an impartial 
 relish for strawberries, champagne, and what she 
 would have called betises. 
 
 They had half finished dinner when Longmore 
 sat down, and he was still in his place when they 
 rose. She had hung her bonnet on a nail above 
 her chair, and her companion passed round the 
 table to take it down for her. As he did so, she 
 VOL. I. P 
 
210 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 bent her head to look at a wine-stain on her dress, 
 and in the movement exposed the greater part of 
 the back of a very handsome neck. The gentle- 
 man observed it, and observed also, apparently, that 
 the room beyond them was empty ; that he stood 
 within eyeshot of Longmore, he failed to observe. 
 He stooped suddenly and imprinted a gallant kiss 
 on the fair expanse. Longmore then recognised 
 M. de Mauves. The recipient of this vigorous 
 tribute put on her bonnet, using his flushed smile 
 as a mirror, and in a moment they passed through 
 the garden, on their way to their carriage. 
 
 Then, for the first time, M. de Mauves perceived 
 Longmore. He measured with a rapid glance the 
 young man's relation to the open window, and 
 checked himself in the impulse to stop and speak 
 to him. He contented himself with bowing with 
 great gravity as he opened the gate for his 
 companion. 
 
 That evening Longmore made a railway journey, 
 but not to Brussels. He had effectually ceased to 
 care about Brussels ; the only thing he now cared 
 about was Madame de Mauves. The atmosphere 
 of his mind had had a sudden clearing up ; pity 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 211 
 
 and anger were still throbbing there, but they had 
 space to rage at their pleasure, for doubts and 
 scruples had abruptly departed. It was little, he 
 felt, that he could interpose between her resignation 
 and the indignity of her position ; but that little, if 
 it involved the sacrifice of everything that bound 
 him to the tranquil past, he could offer her with 
 a rapture which at last made reflection appear a 
 wofully halting substitute for faith. Nothing in 
 his tranquil past had given such a zest to conscious- 
 ness as this happy sense of choosing to go straight 
 back to Saint-Germain. How to justify his return, 
 how to explain his ardour, troubled him little. He 
 was not sure, even, that he wished to be understood ; 
 he wished only to feel that it was by no fault of 
 his that Madame de Mauves was alone with the 
 ugliness of fate. He was conscious of no distinct 
 desire to " make love " to her ; if he could have 
 uttered the essence of his longing, he would have 
 said that he wished her to remember that in a 
 world coloured gray to her vision by disappointment, 
 there was one vividly honest man. She might 
 certainly have remembered it, however, without his 
 coming back to remind her ; and it is not to be 
 
 p 2 
 
212 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 denied that, as he waited for the morrow he wished 
 immensely to hear the sound of her voice. 
 
 He waited the next day till his usual hour of 
 calling the late afternoon ; but he learned at the 
 door that Madame de Mauves was not at home. 
 The servant offered the information that she was 
 walking in the forest. Longmore went through the 
 garden and out of the little door into the lane, 
 and, after half an hour's vain exploration, saw her 
 coming toward him at the end of a green by-path. 
 As he appeared, she stopped for a moment, as if 
 to turn aside ; then recognising him, she slowly 
 advanced, and he was soon shaking hands with 
 her. 
 
 " Nothing has happened," she said, looking at him 
 fixedly. "You are not ill?" 
 
 " Nothing, except that when I got to Paris I found 
 how fond I had grown of Saint-Germain." 
 
 She neither smiled nor looked flattered ; it seemed 
 indeed to Longmore that she was annoyed. But 
 he was uncertain, for he immediately perceived 
 that in his absence the whole character of her face 
 had altered. It told him that something momentous 
 had happened. It was no longer self-contained 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 213 
 
 melancholy that he read in her eyes, but grief and 
 agitation which had lately struggled with that pas- 
 sionate love of peace of which she had spoken to 
 him, and forced him to know that deep experience is 
 never peaceful. She was pale, and she had evidently 
 been shedding tears. He felt his heart beating 
 hard ; he seemed now to know her secrets. She 
 continued to look at him with a contracted brow, 
 as if his return had given her a sense of responsi- 
 bility too great to be disguised by a commonplace 
 welcome. For some moments, as he turned and 
 walked beside her, neither spoke ; then abruptly 
 " Tell me truly, Mr. Longmore," she said, " why you 
 have come back." 
 
 He turned and looked at her with an air which 
 startled her into a certainty of what she had feared. 
 "Because I have learned the real answer to the 
 question I asked you the other day. You are not 
 happy you are too good to be happy on the 
 terms offered you. Madame de Mauves," he went 
 on with a gesture which protested against a gesture 
 of her own, " I can't be happy if you are not ! I 
 don't care for anything so long as I see such an 
 unfathomable sadness in your eyes. I found during 
 
214 MADAME DE MAUVES. . 
 
 three dreary days in Paris that the thing in the 
 world I most care for is this daily privilege of 
 seeing you. I know it's very brutal to tell you I 
 admire you ; it's an insult to you to treat you as 
 if you had complained to me or appealed to me. 
 But such a friendship as I waked up to there " 
 and he tossed his head toward the distant city 
 " is a potent force, I assure you ; and when forces 
 are compressed they explode. But if you had told 
 me every trouble in your heart, it would have 
 mattered little ; I couldn't say more than I must 
 say now that if that in life from which you have 
 hoped most has given you least, this devoted respect 
 of mine will refuse no service and betray no trust." 
 
 She had begun to make marks in the earth with 
 the point of her parasol ; but she stopped and 
 listened to him in perfect immobility. Rather, her 
 immobility was not perfect ; for when he stopped 
 speaking a faint flush had stolen into her cheek. 
 It told Longmore that she was moved, and his 
 first perceiving it was the happiest instant of his 
 life. She raised her eyes at last, and looked at 
 him with what at first seemed a pleading dread of 
 excessive emotion. 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 215 
 
 " Thank you thank you ! " she said, calmly 
 enough ; but the next moment her own emotion 
 overcame her calmness, and she burst into tears. 
 Her tears vanished as quickly as they came, but 
 they did Longmore a world of good. He had 
 always felt indefinably afraid of her ; her being 
 had somehow seemed fed by a deeper faith and 
 a stronger will than his own ; but her half-dozen 
 smothered sobs showed him the bottom of her 
 heart, and assured him that she was weak enough 
 to be grateful. 
 
 " Excuse me," she said ; "I am too nervous to 
 listen to you. I believe I could have encountered an 
 enemy to-day, but I can't endure a friend." 
 
 "You are killing yourself with stoicism that is 
 what is the matter with you ! " he cried. " Listen to a 
 friend for his own sake, if not for yours. I have 
 never ventured to offer you an atom of compassion, 
 and you can't accuse yourself of an abuse of charity." 
 
 She looked about her with a kind of weary con- 
 fusion which promised a reluctant attention. But 
 suddenly perceiving by the wayside the fallen log on 
 which they had rested a few evenings before, she went 
 and sat down on it in impatient resignation, and 
 
2i6 MADAME DE MAUVE S. 
 
 looked at Longmore, as he stood silent, watching her, 
 with a glance which seemed to urge that, if she 
 was charitable now, he must be very wise. 
 
 " Something came to my knowledge yesterday," he 
 said as he sat down beside her, " which gave me an 
 intense impression of your loneliness. You are truth 
 itself, and there is no truth about you. You believe 
 in purity and duty and dignity, and you live in 
 a world in which they are daily belied. I sometimes 
 ask myself with a kind of rage how you ever came 
 into such a world and why the perversity of fate 
 never let me know you before." 
 
 " I like my ' world ' no better than you do, and 
 it was not for its own sake I came into it. But what 
 particular group of people is worth pinning one's faith 
 upon ? I confess it sometimes seems to me that men 
 and women are very poor creatures. I suppose I am 
 romantic. I have an unfortunate taste for poetic 
 fitness. Life is hard prose, and one must learn to 
 read prose contentedly. I believe I once thought that 
 all the prose was in America, which was very foolish. 
 What I thought, what I believed, what I expected, 
 when I was an ignorant girl, fatally addicted to falling 
 in love with my own theories, is more than I can begin 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 217 
 
 to tell you now. Sometimes, when I remember certain 
 impulses, certain illusions of those days, they take 
 away my breath, and I wonder that my false point of 
 view has not led me into troubles greater than any I 
 have now to lament. I had a conviction which you 
 would probably smile at if I were to attempt to 
 express it to you. It was a singular form for 
 passionate faith to take, but it had all of the sweetness 
 and the ardour of passionate faith. It led me to take a 
 great step, and it lies behind me now in the distance, 
 like a 'shadow melting slowly in the light of ex- 
 perience. It has faded, but it has not vanished. Some 
 feelings, I am sure, die only with ourselves ; some 
 illusions are as much the condition of our life as our 
 heart-beats. They say that life itself is an illusion 
 that this world is a shadow of which the reality is yet 
 to come. Life is all of a piece, then, and there is no 
 shame in being miserably human. As for my loneli- 
 ness, it doesn't greatly matter ; it is the fault, in part, 
 of my obstinacy. There have been times when I have 
 been frantically distressed, and, to tell you the truth, 
 wretchedly homesick, because my maid a jewel of a 
 maid lied to me with every second breath. There 
 have been moments when I have wished I was the 
 
2i8 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 daughter of a poor New England minister, living in a 
 little white house under a couple of elms, and doing 
 all the housework/' 
 
 She had begun to speak slowly, with an air of 
 effort ; but she went on quickly as if talking were 
 a relief. " My marriage introduced me to people and 
 things which seemed to me at first very strange and 
 then very horrible, and then, to tell ' the truth, very 
 contemptible. At first I expended a great deal of 
 sorrow and dismay and pity on it all ; but there soon 
 came a time when I began to wonder whether it were 
 worth one's tears. If I could tell you the eternal 
 friendships I have seen broken, the inconsolable woes 
 consoled, the jealousies and vanities scrambling for 
 precedence, you would agree with me that tempers 
 like yours and mine can understand neither such 
 troubles nor such compensations. A year ago, while 
 I was in the country, a friend of mine was in despair 
 at the infidelity of her husband ; she wrote me a 
 most dolorous letter, and on my return to Paris I went 
 immediately to see her. A week had elapsed, and, 
 as I had seen stranger things, I thought she might 
 have recovered her spirits. Not at all ; she was still 
 in despair but at what ? At the conduct, the 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 219 
 
 abandoned, shameless conduct of Madame de T. 
 You'll imagine, of course, that Madame de T. was the 
 lady whom my friend's husband preferred to his wife. 
 Far from it ; he had never seen her. Who, then, was 
 Madame de T. ? Madame de T. was cruelly devoted 
 to M. de V. And who was M. de V. ? M. de V. 
 in two words, my friend was cultivating two 
 jealousies at once. I hardly know what I said to 
 her ; something, at any rate, that she found un- 
 pardonable, for she quite gave me up. Shortly 
 afterward my husband proposed we should cease to 
 live in Paris, and I gladly assented, for I believe 
 I was falling into a state of mind that made me 
 a detestable companion. I should have preferred to 
 go quite into the country, into Auvergne, where 
 ,my husband has a house. But to him, Paris, in 
 some degree, is necessary, and Saint-Germain has 
 been a sort of compromise." 
 
 " A sort of compromise ! " Longmore repeated. 
 " That's your whole life." 
 
 "It's the life of many people, of most people of 
 quiet tastes, and it is certainly better than acute dis- 
 tress. One is at a loss theoretically to defend a 
 compromise ; but if I found a poor creature who had 
 
220 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 managed to invent one, I should think it questionable 
 friendship to expose its Veak side." Madame de 
 Mauves had no sooner uttered these words than 
 she smiled faintly, as if to mitigate their personal 
 application. 
 
 " Heaven forbid that one should do that unless 
 one has something better to offer," said Longmore. 
 " And yet I am haunted by a vision of a life in which 
 you should have found no compromises, for they are 
 a perversion of natures that tend only to goodness 
 and rectitude. As I see it, you should have found 
 happiness serene, profound, complete ; a femme de 
 chambre not a jewel perhaps, but warranted to tell but 
 one fib a day ; a society possibly rather provincial, 
 but (in spite of your poor opinion of mankind) a good 
 deal of solid virtue ; jealousies and vanities very tame, 
 and no particular iniquities and adulteries. A 
 husband," he added after a moment " a husband of 
 your own faith and race and spiritual substance, who 
 would have loved you well." 
 
 She rose to her feet, shaking her head. " You are 
 very kind to go to the expense of visions for me. 
 Visions are vain things ; we must make the best of 
 the reality." 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 221 
 
 "And yet," said Longmore, provoked by what 
 seemed the very wantonness of her patience, " the 
 reality, if I am not mistaken, has very recently taken 
 a shape that keenly tests your philosophy/' 
 
 She seemed on the point of replying that his sym- 
 pathy was too zealous ; but a couple of impatient 
 tears in his eyes proved that it was founded on 
 a devotion of which it was impossible to make light. 
 " Philosophy ? " she said. " I have none. Thank 
 Heaven ! " she cried, with vehemence, " I have none. 
 I believe, Mr. Longmore," she added in a moment, 
 " that I have nothing on earth but a conscience it's 
 a good time to tell you so nothing but a dogged, 
 obstinate, clinging conscience. Does that prove me 
 to be indeed of your faith and race, and have you 
 one for which you can say as much ? I don't say 
 it in vanity, for I believe that if my conscience will 
 prevent me from doing anything very base, it will 
 effectually prevent me from doing anything very 
 fine." 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it," cried Longmore. 
 " We are made for each other. It's very certain I too 
 shall never do anything fine. And yet I have fancied 
 that in my case this unaccommodating organ might 
 
222 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 be blinded and gagged a while, in a fine cause, if 
 not turned out of doors. In yours," he went on with 
 the same appealing irony, " is it absolutely in- 
 expugnable ? " 
 
 But she made no concession to his sarcasm. 
 " Don't laugh at your conscience," she answered 
 gravely ; " that's the only blasphemy I know." 
 
 She had hardly spoken when she turned suddenly 
 at an unexpected sound, and at the same moment 
 Longmore heard a footstep in an adjacent by-path 
 which crossed their own at a short distance from 
 where they stood. 
 
 " It's M. de Mauves," said Euphemia directly, and 
 moved slowly forward. Longmore, wondering how 
 she knew it, had overtaken her by the time her 
 husband advanced into sight. A solitary walk in the 
 forest was a pastime to which M. de Mauves was 
 not addicted, but he seemed on this occasion to have 
 resorted to it with some equanimity. He was smoking 
 a fragrant cigar, and his thumb was thrust Into 
 the armhole of his waistcoat, with an air of con- 
 templative serenity. He stopped short with surprise 
 on seeing his wife and her companion, and to 
 Longmore his surprise seemed impertinent. He 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 223 
 
 glanced rapidly from one to the other, fixed Long- 
 more's eye sharply for a single instant, and then lifted 
 his hat with formal politeness. 
 
 " I was not aware," he said, turning to Madame de 
 Mauves, " that I might congratulate you on the 
 return of monsieur." 
 
 " You should have known it," she answered 
 gravely, "if I had expected Mr. Longmore's return." 
 
 She had become very pale, and Longmore felt that 
 this was a first meeting after a stormy parting. " My 
 return was unexpected to myself," he said. " I came 
 last evening." 
 
 M. de Mauves smiled with extreme urbanity. " It 
 is needless for me to welcome you. Madame de 
 Mauves knows the duties of hospitality." And with 
 another bow he continued his walk. 
 
 Madame de Mauves and her companion returned 
 slowly home, with few words, but, on Longmore's part 
 at least, many thoughts. The Baron's appearance had 
 given him an angry chill ; it was a dusky cloud 
 reabsorbing the light which had begun to shine 
 between himself and his companion. 
 
 He watched Euphemia narrowly as they went, and 
 wondered what she had last had to suffer. Her 
 
224 MADAME DE. MAUVES. 
 
 husband's presence had checked her disposition to 
 talk, but nothing indicated that she had acknow- 
 ledged the insulting meaning of his words. Matters 
 were evidently at a crisis between them, and 
 Longmore wondered vainly what it was on Euphe- 
 mia's part that prevented an absolute rupture. What 
 did she suspect ? how much did she know ? To 
 what was she resigned ? how much had she forgiven ? 
 How, above all, did she reconcile with knowledge, or 
 with suspicion, that ineradicable tenderness of which 
 she had just now all but assured him ? " She has 
 loved him once," Longmore said with a sinking of 
 the heart, "and with her to love once is to com- 
 mit one's self for ever. Her husband thinks her too 
 stiff! What would a poet call it ?" 
 
 He relapsed with a kind of aching impotence 
 into the sense of her being somehow beyond him, 
 unattainable, immeasurable by his own fretful logic. 
 Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air 
 with his cane, which made Madame de Mauves look 
 round. She could hardly have guessed that they 
 meant that where ambition was so vain, it was an 
 innocent compensation to plunge into worship. 
 
 Madame de Mauves found in her drawing-room 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 225 
 
 the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, 
 whom Longmore had observed a few days before 
 on the terrace. On this occasbn, too, Madame 
 Clairin was entertaining him, but as his sister-in-law 
 came in she surrendered her post and addressed 
 herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still 
 an ingenuous youth, and there was something in 
 this lady's large coquetry which had the power of 
 making him blush. He was surprised at finding he 
 had not absolutely forfeited her favour by his deport- 
 ment at their last interview, and a suspicion of her 
 being prepared to approach him on another line 
 completed his uneasiness. 
 
 " So you have returned from Brussels by way of 
 the forest?" she said. 
 
 " I have not been to Brussels. I returned yester- 
 day from Paris by the only way by the train." 
 
 Madame Clairin stared and laughed. " I have 
 never known a young man to be so fond of Saint- 
 Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull." 
 " That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, 
 who was vexed at his blushes, and determined not 
 to be abashed. 
 
 "Ah, what am I?" demanded Madame Clairin, 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 swinging open her fan. " I am the dullest thing 
 here. They have not had your success with my 
 sister-in-law." 
 
 " It would have been very easy to have it. Ma- 
 dame de Mauves is kindness itself." 
 
 " To her own countrymen ! " 
 
 Longmore remained silent ; he hated the tone of 
 this conversation. Madame Clairin looked at him 
 a moment, and then turned her head and surveyed 
 Euphemia, to whom M. de Chalumeau was serving 
 up another epigram, which she was receiving with 
 a slight droop of the head and. her eyes absently 
 wandering through the window. " Don't pretend to 
 tell me," she murmured suddenly, " that you are not 
 in love with that pretty woman." 
 
 "Allans done!" cried Longmore, in the best 
 French he had ever uttered. He rose the next 
 minute, and took a hasty farewell. 
 
VI. 
 
 HE allowed several days to pass without going 
 back ; it seemed delicate to appear not to regard 
 Madame de Mauves' frankness during their last 
 interview as a general invitation. This cost him a 
 'great effort, for hopeless passions are not the most 
 deferential ; and he had, moreover, a constant fear 
 that if, as he believed, the hour of supreme explana- 
 tions had come, the magic of her magnanimity might 
 convert M. de Mauves. Vicious men, it was abun- 
 dantly recorded, had been so converted as to be 
 acceptable to God, and the something divine in 
 Euphemia's temper would sanctify any means she 
 should choose to employ. Her means, he kept 
 repeating, were no business of his, and the essence 
 of his admiration ought to be to allow her to do as she 
 liked ; but he felt as if he should turn away into a 
 world out of which most of the joy had departed, 
 
 Q 2 
 
,228 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 if she should like, after all, to see nothing more in 
 his interest in her than might be repaid by a mur- 
 mured "Thank you." 
 
 When he called again he found to his vexation 
 that he was to run the gauntlet of Madame Clairin's 
 officious hospitality. It was one of the first morn- 
 ings of perfect summer, and the drawing-room, 
 through the open windows, was flooded with a 
 sweet confusion of odours and bird-notes which filled 
 him with the hope that Madame de Mauves would 
 come out and spend half the day in the forest. 
 But Madame Clairin, with her hair not yet dressed, 
 emerged like a brassy discord in a maze of melody. 
 
 At the same moment the servant returned with 
 Euphemia's regrets ; she was " indisposed," and was 
 unable to see Mr. Longmore. The young man knew 
 that he looked disappointed and that Madame 
 Clairin was observing him, and this consciousness 
 impelled him to give her a glance of almost ag- 
 gressive frigidity. This was apparently what she 
 desired. She wished to throw him off his balance, 
 and, if she was not mistaken, she had the means. 
 
 " Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore," she said, 
 " and be polite for once. You were not at all polite 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 229 
 
 the other day when I asked you that friendly ques- 
 tion about the state of your heart." 
 
 " I have no heart to talk about," said Longmore, 
 uncompromisingly. 
 
 " As well say you have none at all. I advise you 
 to cultivate a little eloquence ; you may have use for 
 it. That was not an idle question of mine ; I don't 
 ask idle questions. For a couple of months now 
 that you have been coming and going among us, it 
 seems to me that you have had very few to answer ot 
 any sort." 
 
 " I have certainly been very well treated," said 
 Longmore. 
 
 Madame Clairin was silent a moment, and then 
 
 " Have you never felt disposed to ask any? "she 
 demanded. 
 
 Her look, her tone, were so charged with round- 
 about meanings that it seemed to Longmore as if 
 even to understand her would savour of dishonest 
 complicity. " What is it you have to tell me ? " he 
 asked, frowning and blushing. 
 
 Madame Clairin flushed. It is rather hard, when 
 you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl 
 when she came to the Roman king, to be treated 
 
230 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 as something worse than a vulgar gossip. " I might 
 tell you, Mr. Longmore," she said, "that you have 
 as bad a ton as any young man I ever met. Where 
 have you lived what are your ideas ? I wish to 
 call your attention to a fact which it takes some 
 delicacy to touch upon. You have noticed, I sup- 
 pose, that my sister-in-law is not the happiest 
 woman in the world." 
 
 Longmore assented with a gesture. 
 
 Madame Clairin looked slightly disappointed at 
 his want of enthusiasm. Nevertheless "You have 
 formed, I suppose," she continued, " your conjectures 
 on the causes of her dissatisfaction." 
 
 " Conjecture has been superfluous. I have seen 
 the causes or at least a specimen of them with 
 my own eyes." 
 
 " I know perfectly what you mean. My brother, 
 in a single word, is in love with another woman. I 
 don't judge him ; I don't judge my sister-in-law. I 
 permit myself to say that in her position I would 
 have managed otherwise. I would either have kept 
 my husband's affection, or I would have frankly done 
 without it. But my sister is an odd compound ; I 
 don't profess to understand her. Therefore it is, in 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 231 
 
 a measure, that I appeal to you, her fellow-country- 
 man. Of course you will be surprised at my way 
 of looking at the matter, and I admit that it's a 
 way in use only among people whose family tradi- 
 tions compel them to take a superior view of things." 
 Madame Clairin paused, and Longmore wondered 
 where her family traditions were going to lead 
 her. 
 
 " Listen," she went on. " There has never been 
 a De Mauves who has not given his wife the right to 
 be jealous. We know our history for ages back, and 
 the fact is established. It's a shame if you like, but 
 it's something to have a shame with such a pedigree. 
 Our men have been real Frenchmen, and their wives 
 I may say it have been worthy of them. You 
 may see all their portraits at our house in Auvergne ; 
 everyone of them an 'injured' beauty, but not one 
 of them hanging her head. Not one of them had 
 the bad taste to be jealous, and yet not one in a 
 dozen was guilty of an escapade not one of them 
 was talked about. There's good sense for you ! 
 How they managed go and look at the dusky, 
 faded canvases and pastels, and ask. They were 
 femmes d'esprit ! When they had a headache, they 
 
23 2 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 put on a little rouge and came to supper as usual ; 
 and when they had a heart-ache, they put a little 
 rouge on their hearts. These are great traditions, 
 and it doesn't seem to me fair that a little Ameri- 
 can bourgeoise should come in and pretend to alter 
 them, and should hang her photograph, with her 
 obstinate little air penche, in the gallery of our shrewd 
 fine ladies. A De Mauves must be of the old race. 
 When she married my brother, I don't suppose she 
 took him for a member of a socitte de bonnes ceuvres. 
 I don't say we are right ; who is right ? But we are 
 as history has made us, and if any one is to change, 
 it had better be my sister-in-law herself." Again 
 Madame Clairin paused, and opened and closed her 
 fan. " Let her conform!" she said, with amazing 
 audacity. 
 
 Longmore's reply was ambiguous ; he simply said, 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Madame Clairin's historical retrospect had appa- 
 rently imparted an honest zeal to her indignation. 
 "For a long time," she continued, "my sister has 
 been taking the attitude of an injured woman, affect- 
 ing a disgust with the world, and shutting herself up 
 to read free-thinking books. I have never permitted 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 233 
 
 myself any observation on her conduct, but I have 
 quite lost patience with it. When a woman with 
 her prettiness lets her husband stray away, she de- 
 serves her fate. I don't wish you to agree with me 
 on the contrary ; but I call such a woman a goose. 
 She must have bored him to death. What has 
 passed between them for many months needn't con- 
 cern us ; what provocation my sister has had 
 monstrous, if you wish what ennui my brother 
 has suffered. It's enough that a week ago, just 
 after you had ostensibly gone to Brussels, something 
 happened to produce an explosion. She found a 
 letter in his pocket a photograph a trinket que 
 sais-je? At any rate, the scene was terrible. I 
 didn't listen at the keyhole, and I don't know what 
 was said ; but I have reason to believe that my 
 brother was called to account as I fancy none of 
 his ancestors have ever been even by injured 
 mistresses ! " 
 
 Longmore had leaned forward in silent attention 
 with his elbows on his knees ; and now instinctively 
 he dropped his face into his hands. "Ah, poor 
 woman ! " he groaned. 
 
 " Voila ! " said Madame Clairin. " You pity her." 
 
234 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 " Pity her ? " cried Longmore, looking up with 
 ardent eyes and forgetting the spirit of Madame 
 Clairin's narrative in the miserable facts. " Don't 
 you ? " 
 
 " A little. But I am not acting sentimentally ; I 
 am acting politically. We have always been a politi- 
 cal family. I wish to arrange things to see my 
 brother free to do as he chooses to see Euphemia 
 contented. Do you understand me ? " 
 
 "Very well, I think. You are the most immoral 
 person I have lately had the privilege of conversing 
 with." 
 
 Madame Clairin shrugged her shoulders. " Pos- 
 sibly. When was there a great politician who was 
 not immoral ? " 
 
 " Ah no," said Longmore in the same tone. "You 
 are too superficial to be a great politician. You 
 don't begin to know anything about Madame de 
 Mauves." 
 
 Madame Clairin inclined her head to one side, 
 eyed Longmore sharply, mused a moment, and then 
 smiled with an excellent imitation of intelligent 
 compassion. " It's not in my interest to contradict 
 you." 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 235 
 
 " It would be in your interest to learn, Madame 
 Clairin," the young man went on with unceremo- 
 nious candour, " what honest men most admire in 
 a woman and to recognise it when you see it." 
 
 Longmore certainly did injustice to her talents 
 for diplomacy, for she covered her natural annoy- 
 ance at this sally with a pretty piece of irony. " So 
 you are in love ! " she quietly exclaimed. 
 
 Longmore was silent a while. " I wonder if you 
 would understand me," he said at last, "if I were 
 to tell you that I have for Madame de Mauves the 
 most devoted friendship?" 
 
 " You underrate my intelligence. But in that case 
 you ought to exert your influence to put an end to 
 these painful domestic scenes." 
 
 " Do you suppose that she talks to me about her 
 domestic scenes ?" cried Longmore. 
 
 Madame Clairin stared. " Then your friendship 
 isn't returned ? " And as Longmore turned away, 
 shaking his head*' Now, at least," she added, " she 
 will have something to tell you. I happen to know 
 the upshot of my brother's last interview with his 
 wife." Longmore rose to his feet as a sort of pro- 
 test against the indelicacy of the position in which 
 
236 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 he found himself ; but all that made him tender 
 made him curious, and she caught in his averted 
 eyes an expression which prompted her to strike 
 her blow. " My brother is monstrously in love with 
 a certain person in Paris ; of course he ought not 
 to be ; but he wouldn't be my brother if he were 
 not. It was this irregular passion that dictated his 
 words. * Listen to me, madam,' he cried at last ; 
 Met us live like people who understand life! It 
 is unpleasant to be forced to say such things out- 
 right, but you have a way of bringing one down 
 to the rudiments. I am faithless, I am heartless, I 
 am brutal, I am everything horrible it's understood. 
 Take your revenge, console yourself; you are too 
 pretty a woman to have anything to complain of. 
 Here is a handsome young man sighing himself into 
 a consumption for you. Listen to the poor fellow, 
 and you will find that virtue is none the less be- 
 coming for being good-natured. You will see that 
 it's not after all such a doleful world, and that 
 there is even an advantage in having the most im- 
 pudent of husbands.'" Madame Clairin paused ; 
 Longmore had turned very pale. " You may believe 
 it," she said ; " the speech took place in my presence ; 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 237 
 
 things were done in order. And now, Mr. Long- 
 more " this with a smile which he was too troubled 
 at the moment to appreciate, but which he remem- 
 bered later with a kind of awe "we count upon 
 you ! " 
 
 " He said this to her, face to face, as you say 
 it to me now ? " Longmore asked slowly, after a 
 silence. 
 
 " Word for word, and with the greatest politeness." 
 " And Madame de Mauves what did she say ? " 
 Madame Clairin smiled again. " To such a speech 
 as' that a woman says nothing. She had been sit- 
 ting with a piece of needlework, and I think she had 
 not seen her husband since their quarrel the day 
 before. He came in with the gravity of an ambas- 
 sador, and I am sure that when he made his demands 
 en mariage his manner was not more respectful. 
 He only wanted white gloves !" said Madame Clairin. 
 " Euphemia sat silent a few moments, drawing her 
 stitches, and then without a word, without a glance, 
 she walked out of the room. It was just what she 
 should have done ! " 
 
 "Yes," Longmore repeated, "it was just what she 
 should have done." 
 
238 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 " And I, left alone with my brother, do you know 
 what I said ? " 
 
 Longmore shook his head. " Manvais sujet ! " he 
 suggested. 
 
 " ' You have done me the honour,' I said, ' to take 
 this step in my presence. I don't pretend to qualify 
 it. You know what you are about, and it's your own 
 affair. But you may confide in my discretion.' Do 
 you think he has had reason to complain of it ? " 
 She received no answer ; Longmore was slowly turn- 
 ing away and passing his gloves mechanically round 
 the band of his hat. " I hope," she cried, " you are 
 not going to start for Brussels ! " 
 
 Plainly, Longmore was deeply disturbed, and Ma- 
 dame Clairin might congratulate herself on the suc- 
 cess of her plea for old-fashioned manners. And yet 
 there was something that left her more puzzled than 
 satisfied in the reflective tone with which he answered, 
 " No, I shall remain here for the present." The pro- 
 cesses of his mind seemed provokingly subterranean, 
 and she could have fancied for a moment that he 
 was linked with her sister in some monstrous con- 
 spiracy of asceticism. 
 
 " Come this evening," she boldly resumed. " The 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 239 
 
 rest will take care of itself. Meanwhile I shall take 
 the liberty of telling my sister-in-law that I have 
 repeated in short, that I have put you aufait" 
 
 Longmore started and coloured, and she hardly 
 knew whether he were going to assent or to demur. 
 "Tell her what you please. Nothing you can tell 
 her will affect her conduct." 
 
 " Voyons ! Do you mean to tell me that a woman 
 
 > 
 young, pretty, sentimental, neglected insulted, if 
 
 you will ? I see you don't believe it. Believe 
 simply in your own opportunity ! But for Heaven's 
 sake, if it is to lead anywhere, don't come back with 
 that visage de croquemort. You look as if you were 
 going to bury your heart not to offer it to a pretty 
 woman. You are much better when you smile 
 you are very nice then. Corne, do yourself justice." 
 
 " Yes/' he said, " I must do myself justice." And 
 abruptly, with a bow, he took his departure. 
 
VII. 
 
 HE felt, when he found himself unobserved, in the 
 open air, that he must plunge into violent action, 
 walk fast and far, and defer the opportunity for 
 thought. He strode away into the forest, swinging 
 his cane, throwing back his head, gazing away into 
 the verdurous vistas, and following the road without 
 a purpose. He felt immensely excited, but he could 
 hardly have said whether his emotion was a pain or 
 a joy. It was joyous as all increase of freedom is 
 joyous ; something seemed to have been cleared out 
 of his path ; his destiny appeared to have rounded 
 a cape and brought him into sight of an open sea. 
 But his freedom resolved itself somehow into the need 
 of despising all mankind, with a single exception ; 
 and the fact of Madame de Mauves inhabiting a 
 planet contaminated by the presence of this baser 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 241 
 
 multitude kept his elation from seeming a pledge 
 of ideal bliss. 
 
 But she was there, and circumstances now forced 
 them to be intimate. She had ceased to have what 
 men call a secret for him, and this fact itself brought 
 with it a sort of rapture. He had no prevision that 
 he should " profit," in the vulgar sense, by the extra- 
 ordinary position into which they had been thrown ; 
 it might be but a cruel trick of destiny to make hope 
 a harsher mockery and renunciation a keener suffer- 
 ing. But above all this rose the conviction that 
 she could do nothing that would not deepen his 
 admiration. 
 
 It was this feeling that circumstance odious as it 
 was in itself was to force the beauty of her charac- 
 ter into more perfect relief, that made him stride 
 along as if he were celebrating a kind of spiritual 
 festival. He rambled at random for a couple of 
 hours, and found at last that he had left the forest 
 behind him and had wandered into an unfamiliar 
 region. It was a perfectly rural scene, and the still 
 summer day gave it a charm for which its meagre 
 elements but half accounted. 
 
 Longmore thought he had never seen anything so 
 
 VOL. I. R 
 
242 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 characteristically French ; all the French novels 
 seemed to have described it, all the French land- 
 scapists to have painted it. The fields and trees 
 were of a cool metallic green ; the grass looked as if 
 it might stain your trousers, and the foliage your 
 hands. The clear light had a sort of mild greyness ; 
 the sunbeams were of silver rather than gold. A 
 great red-roofed, high-stacked farmhouse, with white- 
 washed walls and a straggling yard, surveyed the 
 high road, on one side, from behind a transparent 
 curtain of poplars. A narrow stream, half choked 
 with emerald rushes and edged with grey aspens, 
 occupied the opposite quarter. The meadows rolled 
 and sloped away gently to the low horizon, which 
 was barely concealed by the continuous line of 
 clipped and marshalled trees. The prospect was 
 not rich, but it had a frank homeliness which touched 
 the young man's fancy. It was full of light atmos- 
 phere and diffused sunshine, and if it was prosaic, 
 it was soothing. 
 
 Longmore was disposed to walk further, and he 
 advanced along the road beneath the poplars. In 
 twenty minutes he came to a village which straggled 
 away to the right, among orchards and potagers. On 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 243 
 
 the left, at a stone's throw from the road, stood a 
 little pink-faced inn, which reminded him that he 
 had not breakfasted, having left home with a previ- 
 sion of hospitality from Madame de Mauves. In the 
 inn he found a brick-tiled parlour and a hostess in 
 sabots and a white cap, whom, over the omelette she 
 speedily served him borrowing licence from the 
 bottle of sound red wine which accompanied it 
 he assured that she was a true artist. To reward his 
 compliment, she invited him to smoke his cigar in 
 her little garden behind the house. 
 
 Here he found a tonnelle and a view of ripening 
 crops, stretching down to the stream. The tonnelle 
 was rather close, and he preferred to lounge on a 
 bench against the pink wall, in the sun, which was 
 not too hot. Here, as he rested and gazed and 
 mused, he fell into a train of thought which, in an 
 indefinable fashion, was a soft influence from the 
 scene about him. His heart, which had been beat- 
 ing fast for the past three hours, gradually checked 
 its pulses and left him looking at life with a rather 
 more level gaze. The homely tavern sounds coming 
 out through the open windows, the sunny stillness 
 of the fields and -crops, which covered so much 
 
 R 2 
 
244 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 vigorous natural life, suggested very little that was 
 transcendental, had very little to say about renuncia- 
 tion nothing at all about spiritual zeal. They 
 seemed to utter a message from plain ripe nature, to 
 express the unperverted reality of things, to say that 
 the common lot is not brilliantly amusing, and that 
 the part of wisdom is to grasp frankly at experience, 
 lest you miss it altogether. What reason there was 
 for his falling a-wondering after this whether a deeply 
 wounded heart might be soothed and healed by such 
 a scene, it would be difficult to explain ; certain it 
 is that, as he sat there, he had a waking dream of 
 an unhappy woman strolling by the slow-flowing 
 stream before him, and pulling down the fruit- laden 
 boughs in the orchards. He mused and mused, and 
 at last found himself feeling angry that he could not 
 somehow think worse of Madame de Mauves or at 
 any rate think otherwise. He could fairly claim that 
 in a sentimental way he asked very little of life 
 he made modest demands on passion ; why then 
 should his only passion be born to ill-fortune ? why 
 should his first his last glimpse of positive happi- 
 ness be so indissolubly linked with renunciation ? 
 It is perhaps because, like many spirits of the 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 245 
 
 same stock, he had in his composition a lurking 
 principle of asceticism to whose authority he had 
 ever paid an unquestioning respect, that he now felt 
 all the vehemence of rebellion. To renounce to 
 renounce again to renounce for ever was this all 
 that youth and longing and resolve were meant for ? 
 Was experience to be muffled and mutilated, like an 
 indecent picture ? Was a man to sit and deliberately 
 condemn his future to be the blank memory of a 
 regret, rather than the long reverberation of a joy ? 
 Sacrifice ? The word was a trap for minds muddled 
 by fear, an ignoble refuge of weakness. To insist 
 now seemed not to dare, but simply to be, to live 
 on possible terms. 
 
 His hostess came out to hang a cloth to dry on the 
 hedge, and, though her guest was sitting quietly 
 enough, she seemed to see in his kindled eyes a flat- 
 tering testimony to the quality of her wine. 
 
 As she turned back into the house, she was met 
 by a young man whom Longmore observed in spite 
 of his pre-occupation. He was evidently a member 
 of that jovial fraternity of artists whose very shabbi- 
 ness has an affinity with the element of picturesque- 
 ness and unexpectedness in life that element which 
 
246 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 provokes so much unformulated envy among people 
 foredoomed to be respectable. 
 
 Longmore was struck first with his looking like a 
 very clever man, and then with his looking like a very 
 happy one. The combination, as it was expressed in 
 his face, might have arrested the attention of even a 
 less cynical philosopher. He had a slouched hat and 
 a blond beard, a light easel under one arm, and an 
 unfinished sketch in oils under the other. 
 
 He stopped and stood talking for some moments 
 to the landlady, with a peculiarly good-humoured 
 smile. They were discussing the .possibilities of 
 dinner ; the hostess enumerated some very savoury 
 ones, and he nodded briskly, assenting to everything. 
 It couldn't be, Longmore thought, that he found such 
 soft contentment in the prospect of lamb-chops and 
 spinach and a croute aux fruits. When the dinner 
 had been ordered, he turned up his sketch, and the 
 good woman fell a-wondering and looking away at 
 the spot by the stream-side where he had made it. 
 
 Was it his work, Longmore wondered, that made 
 him so happy ? Was a strong talent the best thing 
 in the world ? The landlady went back to her 
 kitchen, and the young painter stood, as if he were 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 247 
 
 waiting for something, beside the gate which opened 
 upon the path across the fields. Longmore sat 
 brooding and asking himself whether it was better to 
 cultivate one of the arts than to cultivate one of the 
 passions. Before he had answered the question the 
 painter had grown tired of waiting. He picked up 
 a pebble, tossed it lightly into an upper window, 
 and called, " Claudine ! " 
 
 Claudine appeared ; Longmore heard her at the 
 window, bidding the young man to have patience. 
 " But I am losing my light," he said ; " I must have 
 'my shadows in the same place as yesterday." 
 
 " Go without me, then," Claudine answered ; " I 
 will join you in ten minutes." Her voice was fresh 
 and young ; it seemed to say to Longmore that she 
 was as happy as her companion. 
 
 " Don't forget the Chenier," cried the young man ; 
 and turning away, he passed out of the gate and 
 followed the path across the fields until he dis- 
 appeared among the trees by the side of the stream. 
 Who was Claudine ? Longmore vaguely wondered ; 
 and was she as pretty as her voice ? Before long he 
 had a chance to satisfy himself; she came out of 
 the house with her hat and parasol, prepared to 
 
248 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 follow her companion. She had on a pink muslin 
 dress and a little white hat, and she was as pretty 
 as a Frenchwoman needs to be to be pleasing. She 
 had a clear brown skin and a bright dark eye, and 
 a step which seemed to keep time to some slow 
 music, heard only by herself. Her hands were en- 
 cumbered with various articles which she seemed 
 to intend to carry with her. In one arm she held 
 her parasol and a large roll of needlework, and in 
 the other a shawl and a heavy white umbrella, such 
 as painters use for sketching. Meanwhile she was 
 trying to thrust into her pocket a paper-covered 
 volume which Longmore saw to be the Poems of 
 Andre Chenier ; but in the effort she dropped 
 the large umbrella, and uttered a half-smiling 
 exclamation of disgust. Longmore stepped for- 
 ward and picked up the umbrella, and as she, 
 protesting her gratitude, put out her hand to take 
 it, it seemed to him that she was unbecomingly 
 overburdened. 
 
 " You have too much to carry," he said ; " you 
 must let me help you." 
 
 "You are very good, monsieur," she answered. 
 'My husband always forgets something. He can 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 249 
 
 do nothing without his umbrella. He is d'une 
 etourderie " 
 
 " You must allow me to carry the umbrella," 
 Longmore said ; "it's too heavy for a lady." 
 
 She assented, after many compliments to his 
 politeness; and he walked by her side into the 
 meadow. She went lightly and rapidly, picking her 
 steps and glancing forward to catch a glimpse of 
 her husband. She was graceful, she was charming, 
 she had an air of decision and yet of sweetness, and 
 it seemed to Longmore that a young artist would 
 work none the worse for having her seated at his 
 side reading Chenier's iambics. They were newly 
 married, he supposed, and evidently their path of 
 life had none of the mocking crookedness of some 
 others. They asked little ; but what need one ask 
 more than such quiet summer days, with the creature 
 one loves, by a shady stream, with art and books 
 and a wide, unshadowed horizon ? To spend such 
 a morning, to stroll back to dinner in the red-tiled 
 parlour of the inn, to ramble away again as the 
 sun got low all this was a vision of bliss which 
 floated before him only to torture him with a 
 sense of the impossible. All Frenchwomen are not 
 
250 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 coquettes, he remarked, as he kept pace with his 
 companion. She uttered a word now and then, for 
 politeness' sake, but she never looked at him, and 
 seemed not in the least to care that he was a well- 
 favoured young man. She cared for nothing but 
 the young artist in the shabby coat and the 
 slouched hat, and for discovering where he had set 
 up his easel. 
 
 This was soon done. He was encamped under 
 the trees, close to the stream, and, in the diffused 
 green shade of the little wood, seemed to be in no 
 immediate need of his umbrella. He received a 
 vivacious rebuke, however, for forgetting it, and 
 was informed of what he owed to Longmore's com- 
 plaisance. He was duly grateful ; he thanked our 
 hero warmly, and offered him a seat on the grass. 
 But Longmore felt like a marplot, and lingered only 
 long enough to glance at the young man's sketch, 
 and to see it was a very clever rendering of the 
 silvery stream and the vivid green rushes. The 
 young wife had spread her shawl on the grass at 
 the base of a tree, and meant to seat herself when 
 Longmore had gone, and murmur Chenier's verses 
 to the music of the gurgling river. Longmore looked 
 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 251 
 
 a while from one to the other,' barely stifled a sigh, 
 bade them good morning, and took his departure. 
 
 He knew neither where to go nor what to do ; 
 he seemed afloat on the sea of ineffectual longing. 
 He strolled slowly back to the inn, and in the 
 doorway met the landlady coming back from the 
 butcher's with the lamb-chops for the dinner of her 
 lodgers. 
 
 "Monsieur has made the acquaintance of the 
 dame of our young painter," she said with a broad 
 smile a smile too broad for malicious meanings. 
 "' Monsieur has perhaps seen the young man's 
 picture. It appears that he has a great deal of 
 talent." 
 
 " His picture was very pretty," said Longmore, 
 " but his dame was prettier still." 
 
 " She's a very nice little woman ; but I pity her 
 all the more." 
 
 " I don't see why she's to be pitied," said Long- 
 more ; " they seem a very happy couple." 
 
 The landlady gave a knowing nod. 
 
 " Don't trust to it, monsieur! Those artists 
 $a ria pas de principes ! From one day to another 
 he can plant her there ! I know them, allez. I 
 
252 
 
 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 have had them here very often ; one year with one, 
 another year with another." 
 
 Longmore was puzzled for a moment. Then, " You 
 mean she is not his wife ? " he asked. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. "What shall I tell 
 you ? They are not des hommes serieux, those gentle- 
 men ! They don't engage themselves for an eternity. 
 .It's none of my business, and I have no wish to 
 speak ill of madame. She's a very nice little woman, 
 and she loves \\zrjeune homme to distraction." 
 
 "Who is she?" asked Longmore. " What do 
 you know about her ? " 
 
 "Nothing for certain; but it's my belief that 
 she's better than he. I have even gone so far as to 
 believe that she's a lady a true lady and that she 
 has given up a great many things for him. I do the 
 best I can for them, but I don't believe she has been 
 obliged all her life to content herself with a dinner 
 of two courses." And she turned over her lamb- 
 chops tenderly, as if to say that though a good 
 cook could imagine better things, yet if you could 
 have but one course, lamb-chops had much in their 
 favour. " I shall cook them with bread-crumbs. 
 Voila les femmes, monsieur ! " 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 253 
 
 Longmore turned away with the feeling that women 
 were indeed a measureless mystery, and that it was 
 hard to say whether there was greater beauty in their 
 strength or in their weakness. He walked back to 
 Saint-Germain, more slowly than he had come, with 
 less philosophic resignation to any event, and more of 
 the urgent egotism of the passion which philosophers 
 call the supremely selfish one. Every now and then 
 the episode of the happy young painter and the 
 charming woman who had given up a great many 
 things for him rose vividly in his mind, and seemed 
 to mock his moral unrest like some obtrusive vision 
 of unattainable bliss. 
 
 The landlady's gossip had cast no shadow on its 
 brightness ; her voice seemed that of the vulgar 
 chorus of the uninitiated, which stands always ready 
 with its gross prose rendering of the inspired passages 
 of human action. Was it possible a man could take 
 that from a woman take all that lent lightness to 
 that other woman's footstep and intensity to her 
 glance and not give her the absolute certainty of a 
 devotion as unalterable as the process of the sun ? 
 Was it possible that such a rapturous union had the 
 seeds of trouble that the charm of such a perfect 
 
254 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 accord could be broken by anything but death ? 
 Longmore felt an immense desire to cry out a thou- 
 sand times " No !'" for it seemed to him at last that 
 he was somehow spiritually the same as the young 
 painter, and that the latter' s companion had the soul 
 of Euphemia. 
 
 The heat of the sun, as he walked along, became 
 oppressive, and when he re-entered the forest he 
 turned aside into the deepest shade he could find, 
 and stretched himself on the mossy ground at the 
 foot of a great beech. He lay for a while staring up 
 into the verdurous dusk overhead, and trying to con- 
 ceive Madame de Mauves hastening towards some 
 quiet stream-side where he waited, as he had seen 
 that trusting creature do an hour before. It would 
 be hard to say how well he succeeded ; but the effort 
 soothed him rather than excited him, and as he had 
 had a good deal both of moral and physical fatigue, 
 he sank at last into a quiet sleep. 
 
 While he slept he had a strange, vivid dream. He 
 seemed to be in a wood, very much like the one on 
 which his eyes had lately closed ; but the wood was 
 divided by the murmuring stream he had left an hour 
 before. He was walking up and down, he thought, 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 255 
 
 restlessly and in intense expectation of some mo- 
 mentous event. Suddenly, at a distance, through the 
 trees, he saw the gleam of a woman's dress, and 
 hurried forward to meet her. As he advanced he 
 recognised her, but he saw at the same time that she 
 was on the opposite bank of the river. She seemed 
 at first not to notice him, but when they were opposite 
 each other she stopped and looked at him very gravely 
 and pityingly. She made him no motion that he 
 should cross the stream, but he wished greatly to stand 
 by her side. He knew the water was deep, and it 
 se'emed to him that he knew that he should have to 
 plunge, and that he feared that when he rose to the 
 surface she would have disappeared. Nevertheless, 
 he was going to plunge, when a boat turned into the 
 current from above and came swiftly towards them, 
 guided by an oarsman who was sitting so that they 
 could not see his face. He brought the boat to the 
 bank where Longmore stood ; the latter stepped in, 
 and with a few strokes they touched the opposite 
 shore. Longmore got out, and, though he was sure 
 he had crossed the stream, Madame de Mauves was 
 not there. He turned with a kind of agony and saw 
 that now she was on the other bank the one he had 
 
256 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 left. She gave him a grave, silent glance, and walked 
 away up the stream. The boat and the boatman 
 resumed their course, but after going a short distance 
 they stopped, and the boatman turned back and 
 looked at the still divided couple. Then Long- 
 more recognised him just as he had recognised 
 him a few days before at the restaurant in the 
 Bois de Boulogne. 
 
VIII. 
 
 HE must have 'slept some time after he ceased 
 dreaming, for he had no immediate memory of his 
 dream. It came back to him later, after he had 
 roused himself and had walked nearly home. No 
 great ingenuity was needed to make it seem a rather 
 striking allegory, and it haunted and oppressed him 
 for the rest of the day. He took refuge, however, in 
 his quickened conviction that the only sound policy 
 in life is to grasp unsparingly at happiness ; and it 
 seemed no more than one of the vigorous measures 
 dictated by such a policy, to return that evening to 
 Madame de Mauves. And yet when he had decided 
 to do so, and had carefully dressed himself, he felt an 
 irresistible nervous tremor which made it easier to 
 linger at his open window, wondering, with a strange 
 mixture of dread and desire, whether Madame Clairin 
 had told her sister-in-law what she had told him. His 
 VOL. L 
 
258 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 presence now might be simply a gratuitous annoy- 
 ance ; and yet his absence might seem to imply that 
 it was in the power of circumstances to make them 
 ashamed to meet each other's eyes. He sat a long 
 time with his head in his hands, lost in a painful 
 confusion of hopes and questionings. He felt at 
 moments as if he could throttle Madame Clairin, and 
 yet he could not help asking himself whether it were 
 not possible that she had done him a service. It was 
 late when he left the hotel, and as he entered the 
 gate of the other house his heart was beating so fast 
 that he was sure his voice would show it. 
 
 The servant ushered him into the drawing-room, 
 which was empty, with the lamp burning low. But 
 the long windows were open, and their light curtains 
 swaying in a soft, warm wind, so that Longmore im- 
 mediately stepped out upon the terrace. There he 
 found Madame de Mauves alone, slowly pacing up 
 and down. She was dressed in white, very simply, 
 and her hair was arranged, not as she usually wore it, 
 but in a single loose coil, like that of a person unpre- 
 pared for company. 
 
 She stopped when she saw Longmore, seemed 
 slightly startled, uttered an exclamation, and stood 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 259 
 
 waiting for him to speak. He looked at her, tried to 
 say something, but found no words. He knew it was 
 awkward, it was offensive, to stand gazing at her ; 
 but he could not say what was suitable, and he dared 
 not say what he wished. 
 
 Her face was indistinct in the dim light, but he 
 could see that her eyes were fixed on him, and he 
 wondered what they expressed. Did they warn him, 
 did they plead, or did they confess to a sense of 
 provocation ? For an instant his head swam ; he felt 
 as if it would make all things clear to stride forward 
 and fold her in his arms. But a moment later he was 
 still standing looking at her ; he had not moved ; he 
 knew that she had spoken, but he had not under- 
 stood her. 
 
 " You were here this morning," she continued ; 
 and now, slowly, the meaning of her words came to 
 him. " I had a bad headache and had to shut myself 
 up." She spoke in her usual voice. 
 
 Longmore mastered his agitation and answered 
 her without betraying himself. "I hope you are 
 better now." 
 
 " Yes, thank you, I am better much better." 
 
 He was silent a moment, and she moved away to 
 
 S 2 
 
260 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 a chair and seated herself. After a pause he followed 
 her and stood before her, leaning against the balus- 
 trade of the terrace. " I hoped you might have been 
 able to come out for the morning into the forest. I 
 went alone ; it was a lovely day, and I took a long 
 walk." 
 
 " It was a lovely day," she said, absently, and sat 
 with her eyes lowered, slowly opening and closing her 
 fan. Longmore, as he watched her, felt more and 
 more sure that her sister-in-law had seen her since 
 her interview with him ; that her attitude towards him 
 was changed. It was this same something that 
 chilled the ardour with which he had come, or at 
 least converted the dozen passionate speeches that 
 kept rising to his lips into a kind of reverential 
 silence. No, certainly, he could not clasp her to his 
 arms how, any more than some antique worshipper 
 could have clasped the marble statue in his temple. 
 But Longmore's statue spoke at last, with a full 
 human voice, and even with a shade of human hesi- 
 tation. She looked up, and it seemed to him that 
 her eyes shone through the dusk. 
 
 "I am very glad you came this evening," she said. 
 " I have a particular reason for being glad. I half 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES: 261 
 
 expected you, and yet I thought it possible you 
 might not come." 
 
 " As I have been feeling all day," Longmore an- 
 swered, "it was impossible I should not come. I 
 have spent the day in thinking of you." 
 
 She made no immediate reply, but continued to 
 open and close her fan thoughtfully. At last " I 
 have something to say to you," she said abruptly. 
 " I want you to know to a certainty that I have a 
 very high opinion of you." Longmore started and 
 shifted his position. To what was she coming ? But 
 he said nothing, and she went on 
 
 " I take a great interest in you ; there is no reason 
 why I should not say it I have a great friendship 
 for you." 
 
 He began to laugh ; he hardly knew why, unless 
 that this seemed the very mockery of coldness. But 
 she continued without heeding him 
 
 "You know, I suppose, that a great disappoint- 
 ment always implies a great confidence a great 
 hope ? " 
 
 "I have hoped," he said, "hoped strongly; but 
 doubtless never rationally enough to have a right to 
 bemoan my disappointment." 
 
262 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 " You do yourself injustice. I have such confi- 
 dence in your reason that I should be greatly dis- 
 appointed if I were to find it wanting." 
 
 " I really almost believe that you are amusing 
 yourself at my expense/' cried Longmore. " My 
 reason ? Reason is a mere word ! The only reality 
 in the world is the thing onefee/s J" 
 
 She rose to her feet and looked at him gravely. 
 His eyes by this time were accustomed to the im- 
 perfect light, and he could see that her look was 
 reproachful, and yet that it was beseechingly kind. 
 She shook her head impatiently, and laid her fan 
 upon his arm with a strong pressure. 
 
 "If that were so, it would be a weary world. I 
 know what you feel, however, nearly enough. You 
 needn't try to express it. It's enough that it gives 
 me the right to ask a favour of you to make an 
 urgent, a solemn request." 
 
 " Make it ; I listen." 
 
 " Don't disappoint me. If you don't understand 
 me now, you will to-morrow, or very soon. When 
 I said just now that I had a very high opinion of 
 you, I meant it very seriously. It was not a vain 
 compliment. I believe that there is no appeal one 
 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 263 
 
 may make to your generosity which can remain long 
 unanswered. If this were to happen, if I were to 
 find you selfish where I thought you generous, 
 narrow where I thought you large " and she spoke 
 slowly, with her voice lingering with emphasis on 
 each of these words " vulgar where I thought you 
 rare I should think worse of human nature. I 
 should suffer I should suffer keenly. I should say 
 to myself in the dull days of the future, ' There was 
 one man who might have done so and so ; and he, 
 too, failed.' But this shall not be. You have made 
 .too good an impression on me not to make the very 
 best. If you wish to please me for ever, there is 
 a way." 
 
 She was standing close to him, with her dress 
 touching him, her eyes fixed on his. As she went 
 on her manner grew strangely intense, and she had 
 the singular appearance of a woman preaching 
 reason with a kind of passion. Longmore was con- 
 fused, dazzled, almost bewildered. The intention of 
 her words was all remonstrance, refusal, dismissal ; 
 but her presence there, so close, so urgent, so per- 
 sonal, seemed a distracting contradiction of it. She 
 had never been so lovely. In her white dress, with 
 
264 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 her pale face and deeply lighted eyes, she seemed 
 the very spirit of the summer night. When she had 
 ceased speaking she drew a long breath ; Longmore 
 felt it on his cheek, and it stirred in his whole being 
 a sudden rapturous conjecture. Were her words in 
 their soft severity a mere delusive spell, meant to 
 throw into relief her almost ghostly beauty, and was 
 this the only truth, the only reality, the only law ? 
 
 He closed his eyes and felt that she was watching 
 him, not without pain and perplexity herself. He 
 looked at her again, met her own eyes, and saw a 
 tear in each of them. Then this last suggestion of 
 his desire seemed to die away with a stifled murmur, 
 and her beauty, more and more radiant in the dark- 
 ness, rose before him as a symbol of something vague 
 which was yet more beautiful than itself. 
 
 "I may understand you to-morrow," he said, "but 
 I don't understand you now." 
 
 " And yet I took counsel with myself to-day and 
 asked myself how I had best speak to you. On one 
 side I might have refused to see you at all." Long- 
 more made a violent movement, and she added 
 " In that case I should have written to you. I might 
 see you, I thought, and simply say to you that there 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 265 
 
 were excellent reasons why we should part, and that 
 I begged this visit should be your last. This I 
 inclined to do ; what made me decide otherwise was 
 simply friendship ! I said to myself that I should 
 be glad to remember in future days, not that I had 
 dismissed you, but that you had gone away out of 
 the fulness of your own wisdom." 
 
 " The fulness the fulness ! " cried Longmore. 
 
 "I am prepared, if necessary," Madame de Mauves 
 continued after a pause, " to fall back upon my strict 
 right. But, as I said before, I shall be greatly dis- 
 appointed if I am obliged to do that." 
 
 " When I hear you say that," Longmore answered, 
 " I feel so angry, so horribly irritated, that I wonder 
 I don't leave you without more words." 
 
 " If you should go away in anger, this idea of mine 
 about our parting would be but half realised. No, I 
 don't want to think of you as angry ; I don't want 
 even to think of you as making a serious sacrifice. 
 I want to think of you as " 
 
 " As a creature who never has existed who never 
 can exist ! A creature who knew you without loving 
 you w ho left you without regretting you ! " 
 
 She turned impatiently away and walked to the 
 
266 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 other end of the terrace. When she came back, he 
 saw that her impatience had become a cold stern- 
 ness. She stood before him again, looking at him 
 from head to foot, in deep reproachfulness, almost in 
 scorn. Beneath her glance he felt a kind of shame. 
 He coloured ; she observed it and withheld some- 
 thing she was about to say. She turned away again, 
 walked to the other end of the terrace, and stood 
 there looking away into the garden. It seemed 
 to him that she had guessed he understood her, 
 and slowly slowly half as the fruit of his vague 
 self-reproach he did understand her. She was 
 giving him a chance to do gallantly what it 
 seemed unworthy of both of them he should do 
 meanly. 
 
 She liked him, she must have liked him greatly, to 
 wish so to spare him, to go to the trouble of con- 
 ceiving an ideal of conduct for him. With this sense 
 of her friendship her strong friendship she had just 
 called it Longmore's soul rose with a new flight, 
 and suddenly felt itself breathing a clearer air. The 
 words ceased to seem a mere bribe to his ardour ; 
 they were charged with ardour themselves ; they 
 were a present happiness. He moved rapidly towards 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 267 
 
 her with a feeling that this was something he might 
 immediately enjoy. 
 
 They were separated by two-thirds of the length 
 of the terrace, and he had to pass the drawing-room 
 window. As he did so he started with an exclama- 
 tion. Madame Clairin stood posted there, watching 
 him. Conscious, apparently, that she might be sus- 
 pected of eavesdropping, she stepped forward with 
 a smile and looked from Longmore to his hostess. 
 
 " Such a tete-a-tete as that," she said, " one owes no 
 apology for interrupting. One ought to come in for 
 good manners." 
 
 Madame de Mauves turned round, but she answered 
 nothing. She looked straight at Longmore, and her 
 eyes had extraordinary eloquence. He was not ex- 
 actly sure, indeed, what she meant them to say ; but 
 they seemed to say plainly something of this kind : 
 " Call it what you will, what you have to urge upon 
 me is the thing which this woman can best conceive. 
 What I ask of you is something she cannot ! " They 
 seemed, somehow, to beg him to suffer her to be 
 herself, and to intimate that that self was as little 
 as possible like Madame Clairin. He felt an im- 
 mense answering desire not to do anything which 
 
268 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 would seem natural to this lady. He had laid his 
 hat and stick on the parapet of the terrace. He 
 took them up, offered his hand to Madame de Mauves 
 with a simple good-night, bowed silently to Madame 
 Clairin, and departed. 
 
 
IX. 
 
 HE went home, and without lighting his candle flung 
 himself on his bed. But he got no sleep till morning ; 
 he lay hour after hour tossing, thinking, wondering ; 
 his mind had never been so active. It seemed to 
 him that Euphemia had given him in those last 
 moments an inspiring commission, and that she had 
 expressed herself almost as largely as if she had 
 listened assentingly to an assurance of his love. It 
 was neither easy nor delightful thoroughly to under- 
 stand her ; but little by little her perfect meaning 
 sank into his mind and soothed it with a sense of 
 opportunity which somehow stifled his sense of loss. 
 For, to begin with, she meant that she could love him 
 in no degree or contingency, in no imaginable future. 
 This was absolute ; he felt that he could alter it no 
 more than he could pull down the constellations he 
 lay gazing at through his open window. He wondered 
 
270 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 what it was, in the background of her life, that she 
 had so attached herself to. A sense of duty un- 
 quenchable to the end ? A love that no outrage 
 could stifle ? " Good heavens ! " he thought, " is the 
 world so rich in the purest pearls of passion, that 
 such tenderness as that can be wasted for ever 
 poured away without a sigh into bottomless dark- 
 ness ? " Had she, in spite of the detestable present, 
 some precious memory which contained the germ of 
 a shrinking hope ? Was she prepared to submit to 
 everything and yet to believe ? Was it strength, was 
 it weakness, was it a vulgar fear, was it conviction, 
 conscience, constancy ? 
 
 Longmore sank back with a sigh and an oppres- 
 sive feeling that it was vain to guess at such a 
 woman's motives. He only felt that those of 
 Madame de Mauves were buried deep in her soul, 
 and that they must be of the noblest, and contain 
 nothing base. He had a dim, overwhelming sense 
 of a sort of invulnerable constancy being the supreme 
 law of her character a constancy which still found 
 a foothold among crumbling ruins. " She has loved 
 once," he said to himself as he rose and wandered 
 to his window ; " that is for ever. Yes, yes if she 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 271 
 
 loved again she would be common." He stood for 
 a long time looking out into the starlit silence of the 
 town and forest, and thinking of what life would 
 have been if his constancy had met hers before this 
 had happened. But life was this, now, and he must 
 live. It was living keenly to stand there with such 
 a request from such a woman still ringing in one's 
 ears. He was, not to disappoint her, he was to 
 justify a conception which it had beguiled her weari- 
 ness to shape. Longmore's imagination expanded ; 
 he threw back his head and seemed to be looking for 
 Madame de Mauves' conception among the blinking, 
 mocking stars. But it came to him rather on the 
 mild night-wind, wandering in over the house-tops 
 which covered the rest of so many heavy human 
 hearts. What she asked, he felt that she was asking 
 not for her own sake (she feared nothing, she needed 
 nothing), but for that of his own happiness and his 
 own character. He must assent to destiny. Why 
 else was he young and strong, intelligent and reso- 
 lute ? He must not give it to her to reproach him 
 with thinking that she had a moment's attention 
 for his love to plead, to argue, to break off in 
 bitterness ; he must see everything from above, her 
 
272 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 indifference and his own ardour ; he must prove his 
 strength, he must do the handsome thing ; he must 
 decide that the handsome thing was to submit to the 
 inevitable, to be supremely delicate, to spare her all 
 pain, to stifle his passion, to ask no compensation, to 
 depart without delay and try to believe that wisdom 
 is its own reward. All this, neither more nor less, it 
 was a matter of friendship with Madame de Mauves 
 to expect of him. And what should he gain by it ? 
 He should have pleased her ! . . . . He flung himself 
 on his bed again, fell asleep at last, and slept till 
 morning. 
 
 Before noon the next day he had made up his 
 mind that he would leave Saint-Germain at once. It 
 seemed easier to leave without seeing her, and yet- 
 if he might ask a grain of " compensation," it would 
 be five minutes face to face with her. He passed a 
 restless day. Wherever he went he seemed to see 
 her standing before him in the dusky halo of evening, 
 and looking at him with an air of still negation more 
 intoxicating than the most passionate self-surrender. 
 He must certainly go, and yet it was hideously hard. 
 He compromised and went to Paris to 3pend the rest 
 of the day. He strolled along the Boulevards and 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 273 
 
 looked at the shops, sat a while in the Tuileries 
 gardens and looked at the shabby unfortunates for 
 whom this only was nature and summer ; but simply 
 felt, as a result of it all, that it was a very dusty, 
 dreary, lonely world into which Madame de Mauves 
 was turning him away. 
 
 In a sombre mood he made his way back to the 
 Boulevards and sat down at a table on the great 
 plain of hot asphalt, before a cafe. Night came on, 
 the lamps were lighted, the tables near him found 
 occupants, and Paris began to wear that peculiar 
 ' evening look of hers which seems to say, in the flare 
 of windows and theatre-doors, and the muffled rumble 
 of swift-rolling carriages, that this is no world for 
 , you unless you have your pockets lined and your 
 scruples drugged. Longmore, however, had neither 
 scruples nor desires ; he looked at the swarming city 
 for the first time with an easy sense of repaying its 
 indifference. Before long a carnage drove up to the 
 pavement directly in front of him, and remained 
 standing for several minutes without its occupant 
 descending. It was one of those neat, plain coupes, 
 drawn by a single powerful horse, in which one is apt 
 to imagine a pale, handsome woman, buried among 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 silk cushions, and yawning as she sees the gas-lamps 
 glittering in the gutters. At last the door opened 
 and out stepped M. de Mauves. He stopped and 
 leaned on the window for some time, talking in an 
 excited manner to a person within. At last he gave 
 a nod and the carriage rolled away. He stood 
 swinging his cane and looking up and down the 
 Boulevard, with the air of a man fumbling, as one 
 may say, with the loose change of time. He turned 
 towards the cafe and was apparently, for want of any- 
 thing better worth his attention, about to seat himself 
 at one of the tables, when he perceived Longmore. 
 He wavered an instant, and then, without a change 
 in his nonchalant gait, strolled towards him with a 
 bow and a vague smile. 
 
 It was the' first time they had met since their en- 
 counter in the forest after Longmore's false start for 
 Brussels. Madame Clairin's revelations, as we may 
 call them, had not made the Baron especially present 
 to his mind ; he had another office for his emotions 
 than disgust. But as M. de Mauves came towards 
 him he felt deep in his heart that he abhorred him. 
 He noticed, however, for the first time, a shadow 
 upon the Baron's cool placidity, and his delight at 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES, 
 
 275 
 
 finding that somewhere at last the shoe pinched him, 
 mingled with his impulse to be as exasperatingly 
 impenetrable as possible, enabled him to return the 
 other's greeting with all his own self-possession. 
 
 M. de Mauves sat down, and the two men looked 
 at each other across the table, exchanging formal 
 greetings which did little to make their mutual 
 scrutiny seem gracious. Longmore had no reason 
 to suppose that the Baron knew of his sister's intima- 
 tions. He was sure that M. de Mauves cared very 
 little about his opinions, and yet he had a sense 
 that there was that in his eyes which would have 
 made the Baron change colour if keener suspicion 
 had helped him to read it. M. de Mauves did not 
 change colour, but he looked at Longmore with a 
 half-defiant intentness which betrayed at once an 
 irritating memory of the episode in the Bois de 
 Boulogne, and such vigilant curiosity as was natural 
 to a gentleman who had intrusted his "honour" to 
 another gentleman's magnanimity or to his artless- 
 ness. 
 
 It would appear that Longmore seemed to the 
 Baron to possess these virtues in rather scantier 
 measure than a few days before ; for the cloud 
 
 T 2 
 
276 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 deepened on his face, and he turned away and 
 frowned as he lighted a cigar. 
 
 The person in the coupe, Longmore thought, 
 whether or no the same person as the heroine of 
 the episode of the Bois de Boulogne, was not a 
 source of unalloyed delight. Longmore had dark 
 blue eyes, of admirable lucidity truth-telling eyes 
 which had in his childhood always made his harshest 
 taskmasters smile at his primitive fibs. An observer 
 watching the two men, and knowing something of 
 their relations, would certainly have said that what 
 he saw in those eyes must not a little have puzzled 
 and tormented M. de Mauves. They judged him, 
 they mocked him, they eluded him, they threatened 
 him, they triumphed over him, they treated him as 
 no pair of eyes had ever treated him. The Baron's 
 scheme had been to make no one happy but himself, 
 and here was Longmore already, if looks were to be 
 trusted, primed for an enterprise more inspiring than 
 the finest of his own achievements. Was this candid 
 young barbarian but &faux bonkomme after all ? He 
 had puzzled the Baron before, and this was once 
 too often. 
 
 M. de Mauves hated to seem preoccupied, and he 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 277 
 
 took up the evening paper to help himself to look 
 indifferent. As he glanced over it he uttered some 
 cold common-place on the political situation, which 
 gave Longmore a fair opportunity of replying by 
 an ironical sally which made him seem for the 
 moment aggressively at his ease. And yet our 
 hero was far from being master of the situation. 
 The Baron's ill-humour did him good, so far as it 
 pointed to a want of harmony with the lady in the 
 coupe ; but it disturbed him sorely as he began to 
 suspect that it possibly meant jealousy of himself. 
 It passed through his mind that jealousy is a passion 
 with a double face, and that in some of its moods 
 it bears a plausible likeness to affection. It re- 
 curred to him painfully that the Baron might grow 
 ashamed of his political compact with his wife, and 
 he felt that it would be far more tolerable in the 
 future to think of his continued turpitude than of 
 his repentance. The two men sat for half an hour 
 exchanging stinted small-talk, the Baron feeling a 
 nervous need of playing the spy, and Longmore 
 indulging a ferocious relish of his discomfort These 
 thin amenities were interrupted however by the 
 arrival of a friend of M. de Mauves a tall, pale 
 
278 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 consumptive-looking dandy, who filled the air with 
 the odour of heliotrope. He looked up and down 
 the Boulevard wearily, examined the Baron's toilet 
 from head to foot, then surveyed his own in the 
 same fashion, and at last announced languidly that 
 the Duchess was in town ! M. de Mauves must 
 come with him to call ; she had abused him dread- 
 fully a couple of evenings before a sure sign she 
 wanted to see him. 
 
 " I depend upon you," said M. de Mauves' friend 
 with an infantine drawl, " to put her en train" 
 
 M. de Mauves resisted, and protested that he was 
 (Tune humeur massacrante ; but at last he allowed 
 himself to be drawn to his feet, and stood looking 
 awkwardly awkwardly for M. de Mauves at Long- 
 more. " You will excuse me," he said dryly ; "you, 
 too, probably have occupation for the evening ? " 
 
 " None but to catch my train," Longmore answered, 
 looking at his watch. 
 
 " Ah, you go back to Saint-Germain ? " 
 
 " In half an hour." 
 
 M. de Mauves seemed on the point of disen- 
 gaging himself from his companion's arm, which 
 was locked in his own ; but on the latter uttering 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 279 
 
 some persuasive murmur, he lifted his hat stiffly and 
 turned away. 
 
 Longmore the next day wandered off to the terrace, 
 to try and beguile the restlessness with which he 
 waited for evening ; for he wished to see Madame 
 de Mauves for the last time at the hour of lone 
 shadows and pale, pink, reflected lights, as he 
 had almost always seen her. Destiny, however, took 
 no account of this humble plea for poetic justice ; it 
 was his fortune to meet her on the terrace sitting 
 under a tree, alone. It was an hour when the place 
 was almost empty ; the day was warm, but as he took 
 his place beside her a light breeze stirred the leafy 
 edges of the broad circle of shadow in which she 
 sat. She looked at him with candid anxiety, and 
 he immediately told her that he should leave Saint- 
 Germain that evening that he must bid her fare- 
 well. Her eye expanded and brightened for a 
 moment as he spoke; but she said nothing and 
 turned her glance away towards distant Paris, as it lay 
 twinkling and flashing through its hot exhalations. 
 " I have a request to make of you," he added ; 
 "that you think of me as a man who has felt 
 much and claimed little." 
 
280 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 She drew a long breath which almost suggested 
 pain. " I can't think of you as unhappy. That is 
 impossible. You have a life to lead, you have duties, 
 talents, and interests. I shall hear of your career. 
 And then," she continued after a pause and with the 
 deepest seriousness, " one can't be unhappy through 
 having a better opinion of a friend, instead of a 
 worse." 
 
 For a moment he failed to understand her. " Do 
 you mean that there can be varying degrees in my 
 opinion of you ? " 
 
 She rose and pushed away her chair. " I mean," 
 she said quickly, "that it's better to have done 
 nothing in bitterness nothing in passion." ' And 
 she began to walk. 
 
 Longmore followed her, without answering. But he 
 look off his hat and with his pocket-handkerchief 
 wiped his forehead. " Where shall you go ? what 
 shall you do ? " he asked at last, abruptly. 
 
 " Do ? I shall do as I have always done except 
 perhaps that I shall go for a while to Auvergne." 
 
 " I shall go to America. I have done with Europe 
 for the present." 
 
 She glanced at him as he walked beside her after 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 281 
 
 he had spoken these words, and then bent her eyes 
 for a long time on the ground. At last, seeing that 
 she was going far, she stopped and put out her hand. 
 " Good-by," she said ; " may you have all the happi- 
 ness you deserve ! " 
 
 He took her hand and looked at her, but something 
 was passing in him that made it impossible to return 
 her hand's light pressure. Something of infinite value 
 was floating past him, and he had taken an oath not 
 to raise a finger to stop it. It was borne by the 
 strong current of the world's great life and not of 
 his own small one. Madame de Mauves disengaged 
 her hand, gathered her shawl, and smiled at him 
 almost as you would do at a child you should 
 wish to encourage. Several moments later he was 
 still standing watching her receding figure. When 
 it had disappeared, he shook himself, walked rapidly 
 back to his hotel, and without waiting for the evening 
 train paid his bill and departed. 
 
 Later in the day M. de Mauves came into his wife's 
 drawing-room, where she sat waiting to be summoned 
 to dinner. He was dressed with a scrupulous fresh- 
 ness which seemed to indicate an intention of dining 
 out. He walked up and down for some moments in 
 
282 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 silence, then rang the bell for a servant, and went out 
 into the hall to meet him. He ordered the carriage 
 to take him to the station, paused a moment with his 
 hand on the knob of the door, dismissed the servant 
 angrily as the latter lingered observing him, re-entered 
 the drawing-room, resumed his restless walk, and at 
 last stopped abruptly before his wife, who had taken 
 up a book. " May I ask the favour," he said with 
 evident effort, in spite of a forced smile of easy 
 courtesy, " of having a question answered ? " 
 
 " It's a favour I never refused," Madame de Mauves 
 replied. 
 
 "Very true. Do you expect this evening a visit 
 from Mr. Longmore ? " 
 
 " Mr. Longmore," said his wife, " has left Saint- 
 Germain." M. de Mauves started and his smile 
 expired. " Mr. Longmore," his wife continued, " has 
 gone to America." 
 
 M. de Mauves stared a moment, flushed deeply, 
 and turned away. Then recovering himself " Had 
 anything happened ? " he asked. " Had he a sudden 
 call ? " 
 
 But his question received no answer. At the 
 same moment the servant threw open the door and 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 283 
 
 announced dinner ; Madame Clairin rustled in, rub- 
 bing her white hands, Madame de Mauves passed 
 silently into the dining-room, and he stood frowning 
 and wondering. Before long he went out upon the 
 terrace and continued his uneasy walk. At the end 
 of a quarter of an hour the servant came to inform 
 him that the carriage was at the door. " Send it 
 away," he said curtly. " I shall not use it." When 
 the ladies had half finished dinner he went in and 
 joined them, with a formal apology to his wife for 
 his tardiness. 
 
 The dishes were brought back, but he hardly tasted 
 them ; on the other hand, he drank a great deal of 
 wine. There was little talk ; what there was, was 
 supplied by Madame Clairin. Twice she saw her 
 brother's eyes fixed on her own, over his wineglass, 
 with a piercing, questioning glance. She replied by 
 an elevation of the eyebrows which did the office of a 
 shrug of the shoulders. M. de Mauves was left alone 
 to finish his wine ; he sat over it for more than an 
 hour, and let the darkness gather about him. At last 
 the servant came in with a letter and lighted a candle. 
 The letter was a telegram, which M. de Mauves, 
 when he had read it, burnt at the candle. After five 
 
284 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 minutes' meditation, he wrote a message on the back 
 of a visiting-card and gave it to the servant to carry 
 to the office. The man knew quite as much as his 
 master suspected about the lady to whom the tele- 
 gram was addressed ; but its contents puzzled him ; 
 they consisted of the single word, "Impossible" As 
 the evening passed without her brother reappearing 
 in the drawing-room, Madame Clairin came to him 
 where he sat by his solitary candle. He took no 
 notice of her presence for some time ; but he was the 
 one person to whom she allowed this licence. At last, 
 speaking in a peremptory tone, " The American has 
 gone home at an hour's notice," he said. " What does 
 it mean ? " 
 
 Madame Clairin now gave free play to the shrug 
 she had been obliged to suppress at the table. "It 
 means that I have a sister-in-law whom I have not 
 the honour to understand." 
 
 He said nothing more, and silently allowed her to 
 depart, as if it had been her duty to provide him 
 with an explanation, and he was disgusted with her 
 levity. When she had gone, he went into the garden 
 and walked up and down, smoking. He saw his 
 wife sitting alone on the terrace, but remained below 
 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 285 
 
 strolling along the narrow paths. He remained a 
 long time. It became late, and Madame de Mauves 
 disappeared. Towards midnight he dropped upon a 
 bench, tired, with a kind of angry sigh. It was sink- 
 ing into his mind that he, too, did not understand 
 Madame Clairin's sister-in-law. 
 
 Longmore was obliged to wait a week in London 
 for a ship. It was very hot, and he went out one day 
 to Richmond. In the garden of the hotel at which 
 he dined he met his friend Mrs. Draper, who was 
 staying there. She made eager inquiry about Ma- 
 dame de Mauves ; but Longmore at first, as they sat 
 looking out at the famous view of the Thames, par- 
 ried her questions and confined himself to small-talk. 
 At last she said she was afraid he had something to 
 conceal ; whereupon, after a pause, he asked her if 
 she remembered recommending him, in the letter she 
 sent to him at Saint-Germain, to draw the sadness 
 from her friend's smile. " The last I saw of her was 
 her smile," said he " when I bade her good-by." 
 
 " I remember urging you to ' console ' her," Mrs. 
 Draper answered, " and I wondered afterwards 
 whether a model of discretion as you are I had 
 not given you rather foolish advice." 
 
286 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 " She has her consolation in herself," he said ; 
 " she needs none that any one else can offer her. 
 That's for troubles for which be it more, be it less 
 our own folly has to answer. Madame de Mauves 
 has not a grain of folly left." 
 
 " Ah, don't say that ! " murmured Mrs. Draper. 
 "Just a little folly is very graceful." 
 
 Longmore rose to go, with a quick, nervous move- 
 ment. " Don't talk of grace," he said, " till you have 
 measured her reason ! " 
 
 For two years after his return to America he heard 
 nothing of Madame de Mauves. That he thought 
 of her intently, constantly, I need hardly say ; most 
 people wondered why such a clever young man 
 should not " devote " himself to something ; but to 
 himself he seemed absorbingly occupied. He never 
 wrote to her ; he believed that she preferred it. At 
 last he heard that Mrs. Draper had come home, and 
 he immediately called on her. " Of course," she said 
 after the first greetings, " you are dying for news ot 
 Madame de Mauves. Prepare yourself for something 
 strange. I heard from her two or three times during 
 the year after your return. She left Saint-Germain 
 and went to live in the country, on some old 
 
MADAME DE MAUVES. 287 
 
 property of her husband's. She wrote me very kind 
 little notes, but I felt somehow that in spite of what 
 you said about ' consolation ' they were the notes of 
 a very sad woman. The only advice I could have 
 given her was to leave her wretch of a husband and 
 come back to her own land and her own people. 
 But this I didn't feel free to do, and yet it made me 
 so miserable not to be able to help her that I pre- 
 ferred to let our correspondence die a natural death. 
 I had no news of her for a year. Last summer, how- 
 ever, I met at Vichy a clever young Frenchman 
 whom I accidentally learned to be a friend ot 
 Euphemia's charming sister-in-law, Madame Clairin. 
 I lost no time in asking him what he knew about 
 Madame de Mauves a countrywoman ol mine and 
 an old friend. ' I congratulate you on possessing 
 her friendship,' he answered. ' That's the charming 
 little woman who killed her husband.' You may 
 imagine that I promptly asked for an explanation, 
 and he proceeded to relate to me what he called the 
 whole story. M. de Mauves had fait quelques folies* 
 which his wife had taken absurdly to heart. He had 
 repented and asked her forgiveness, which she had in- 
 exorably refused. She was very pretty, and seventy, 
 
288 MADAME DE MAUVES. 
 
 apparently, suited her style; for whether or no her 
 husband had been in love with her before, he fell 
 madly in love with her now. He was the proudest 
 man in France, but he had begged her on his knees 
 to be re-admitted to favour. All in vain ! She was 
 stone, she was ice, she was outraged virtue. People 
 noticed a great change in him ; he gave up society, 
 ceased to care for anything, looked shockingly. One 
 fine day they learned that he had blown out his 
 brains. My friend had the story, of course, from 
 Madame Clairin." 
 
 Longmore was strongly moved, and his first im- 
 pulse after he had recovered his composure was to 
 return immediately to Europe. But several years 
 have passed, and he still lingers at home. The 
 truth is, that in the midst of all the ardent tender- 
 ness of his memory of Madame de Mauves, he has 
 become conscious of a singular feeling a feeling for 
 which awe would be hardly too strong a name. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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