1 i 
 
^ii I 
 
 
 
DOROTHEA! 
 
 A STORY OF THE PURE IN HEART. 
 
THE 
 
 WESTMINSTER LIBRARY 
 
 OF FICTION. 
 
DOROTHEA: 
 
 A STORY OF THE PURE IN HEART. 
 
 BY 
 
 MAARTEN MAARTENS. j;^. 
 
 4aTHOK OF "MT POOR RELATIONS," " OOO'S FOOL," BTC. 
 
 "T nrv\. U3. ^ 
 
 *=-jirv>-*jr-«xj*-X/yf 
 
 LONDON 
 
 CONSTABLE & COMPANY Ltd. 
 1913 
 
Hirijq mv\ -iO Y> 
 
 THIRD IMPRESSION 
 
 i 
 
 THAT. 
 

 TO THEE, 
 
 WHO DWELLEST SO NEAR THE HEART OF GOD, 
 
 THAT I, BEING SO NEAR TO THEE, 
 
 CANNOT BE SO FAR FROM HIM AS I OFTEN FEAR, 
 
 TO THEE I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. 
 
 42655; 
 
,nmir or 
 
 r M V. , , • , iKf 
 
 
DOROTHEA: 
 
 A STORY OF THE PURE IN HEART. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Slowly the winter morning awoke. 
 
 Slowly beyond the far, fathomless darkness the first lines 
 of faint colour crept, trembling, along the horizon. In the 
 dull, grey silence the sleepy earth hung, still. Shade after 
 shade of pallid coldness lengthened, in sluggish certainty 
 of increase, across the slaty sky. And the laggard hours, 
 with ashen cheeks, gazed backwards, upon the sunless 
 depths that yawned below. 
 
 Suddenly, from out the amber vastness of the empty cast, 
 two white rays flung themselves forwards, as if a woman, 
 uprising from slumber, should flash across the sable cover- 
 let the pearly radiance of her arms. Yet nothing stirred. 
 The million lives that start awake to greet a summer sun- 
 rise were dead, or sick, or numbed to rest in wretchedness 
 and want. Upon the grim December daybreak weighed 
 the loneliness of death. One by one, as shrouded lamps are 
 lighted in some funeral chamber, vague wisps of whiteness 
 broke the vacant dome of heaven. 
 
 The pinewoods, that stretch densely north in serried 
 undulations, still banked the mighty blackness with their 
 motionless immensities of gloom, but high above them, far 
 before them, the victorious dayspring, like a rising river, 
 irresistible, spread across the fading firmament its promise 
 of the morn. 
 
 Beneath these frigid glories of the twilight the noiseless 
 shadows seemed to sink unseen into the soil. Then, all at 
 once, the brightness from on high fell, like a loosened robe, 
 along the blackness down below. For the climbing beams 
 
2 DOROTHEA. I 
 
 t(?Ld. fetched arid; strnqk tht; snow-lit stretch of valley: it 
 iay revealed befoi-g the 'an'tender day, with sudden quivers 
 swiftly passing over it, as of regretful longing for the 
 comfortable dark. Upon the lowest rim of heaven the 
 sullen sun stood watching. 
 
 Dorothea opened her eyes. In the clearness that spread 
 cold about her muslin-curtained window, the first weak 
 rays hung, like a lover's glances, caught. Half asleep, she 
 lay back, awaiting the uncertain moment when those timid 
 messengers that fumbled at her casement would break 
 through every obstacle and, clinging to vague outlines in 
 the greyness, fill all their broadening pathway with a silver 
 mist. In that unequal contest the mild sympathies of 
 healthful laziness are all enlisted on the losing side. For, 
 when first the voiceless morning enters, night and sleep 
 combine their dense resistance, pressing forward to out- 
 cloud him, sinking back, with dogged silence, into all the 
 yet uncapturcd corners of the room. But behold, the dimness 
 t^kes familiar shape and colour : the relentless conqueror, 
 gliding towards the helpful radiance of the sheeny bed and 
 pillows, drives before him, as a breath of wind might chase 
 the summer cloudlets, all the failing forces of the long-lived, 
 frost-bound gloom. In heavy folds of snow-hushed sloth 
 man and nature seem entangled, lying prone. Outside, 
 the drowsing earth, with half-closed eyelids, shivers in 
 mighty stretchings of brown flanks beneath an insufficient 
 covering. Inside, a hundred friendly objects step forth 
 from ancient hiding-places, as men that were in ambush, 
 and wait. 
 
 Dorothea sat up in bed, and a sigh of fellow-feeling 
 with all the unwilling universe ran slowly along her lissom 
 limbs. 
 
 " After all, this is my day," said Dorothea. *' Everybody 
 can't be bom in June." 
 
 She lingered for a moment, tenderly thoughtful, on the 
 bedside, her fair hair in a flood about her shoulders, her 
 night-robe sinking to the floor. Her eyes were fixed upon 
 a woman's faded portrait that mifdly gazed towards 
 her from the wall. ''Yours and mine," she added in a 
 whisper. She might have cried the words aloud, for there 
 is no response. 
 
 She went forward to the window and stood looking out. 
 One bare arm, down which the sleeve had fallen to the 
 elbow, held up the flimsy curtain, while her awakening 
 
DOROTHEA. 3 
 
 gaze embraced the raw, unready day, She turned away, 
 with an impatient jerk, for youth still ever deems it has a 
 right, even in frost and snow, to floods of sunshine : she 
 turned away and faced her own tall figure, rising, gold- 
 encircled, like a mermaid, from the glass. She shook back 
 the shining torrent from her temples, making a sudden 
 radiance in the half- dark of the room. 
 
 " Dorothea, don't be stupid ! " she said aloud. " Why, 
 last birthday it rained ! " She had acquired this foolish 
 habit of communing with herself aloud, for her simple 
 youth had passed enclosed in a group of grown-up people, 
 and a child, amongst grown-up people, lives alone. 
 
 She dressed herself now with careful haste. The fresh 
 water rippled and broke all about her, as she poised, a 
 roseleaf Naiad ! on the azure surface of her saucer-bath : 
 the next moment, see, it was Venus, the Anadyomene, 
 who, deserting the blue depths that twinkled beneath her, 
 ascended, enfolded in shaggy white foam like a cloud ! 
 The curtain falls rapidly over the scene, lest Peeping Tom 
 should laugh ! 
 
 Dorothea Sandring was not by nature sentimental, yet 
 on this birthday morning her grey eyes strayed repeatedly 
 to the pale water-colour against the wall, the while she 
 threaded her reflective way through that small maze 
 of daily intricacies which must combine to form the 
 simplest woman's toilet. They strayed, those solemn eyes 
 of hers, untouched, from the bright mirror, so pleasingly 
 responsive, before which she stood coiling her golden 
 wealth of hair. She was twenty-one to-day. At that age 
 a good woman glances at the glass. She does not begin 
 to gaze till the wrinkles begin to show. 
 
 Dorothea was not by nature sentimental, but her gentle 
 youth had early been tuned to serious thoughts upon this 
 birthday morning. For the dawn that had conferred upon 
 her the fair gift of existence, had withdrawn it from 
 another : she had met, and passed, her mother's soul at 
 the threshold of the world. Years ago, when still a lisping 
 infant, she had asked the aunts whose brightness lapped 
 her childhood in all the loves and fancies that flower about 
 pure women — stopping abruptly in her play with the shiny 
 new toys, a white muslin, blue-ribboned, yellow-curled dot 
 on the carpet, she had lifted aloft a fierce picture-book, 
 full of multi-colour angels, and had asked the smiling 
 aunts : 
 
 B ^ 
 
4 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " My blrfday's the day I came here ? '* 
 
 "Yes, darling, yes — four years ago," said the aunts, 
 beaming, stiff and straight, from both sides of the fireplace. 
 
 " Then, auntie Mary, to-day must be mother's birfday 
 in heaven? " 
 
 "Yes, darling," answered aunt Mary, softly, for she it 
 was spoke of mother to Dorothea. 
 
 " And do the sing-sing angels bring her toys ? ** 
 
 " Grown-up people don't have toys, Dorothea." 
 
 Aunt Mary went across and kissed her curly baby. 
 "They have living toys," she said, and nodded to aunt 
 Emma. 
 
 Sad as must seem the conception of a toyless festival — 
 but then, countless are the woes of the children's heaven — 
 the idea of this double celebration puzzled itself deep into 
 little Dorothea's brain. The day became, in its exact 
 recurrence, the steadfast link between the child and her 
 dead. For it was the one slight scrap of time they owned 
 in common, the one brief point in which their estranged 
 lives met and touched. 
 
 " Auntie Mary, tell me, have I never seen mother since 
 then ? " Dorothea was a few years older and had begun 
 those mental wrigglings which men have graced with the 
 name of reason. 
 
 " Except when, dear child ? You know, you have 
 never " 
 
 " Except when I was born ? " 
 
 " God bless the poor darling ! — yes. No, I mean — that is 
 
 to say, I " But Dorothea was no longer listening, and 
 
 aunt Mary wisely stopped. 
 
 At last the small creature heaved a long sigh. " Oh, 
 such a pity ! " she said, *' I can't remember." 
 
 Then aunt Mary unconsciously leaped a great leap. For 
 she knew many things that wise people do not. " Mother 
 can," she said. 
 
 Dorothea, implicitly believing these words, understood 
 that her childish soul and the soul whose life was nearest 
 her own had in one most unutterably solemn moment faced 
 each other, corporeally, eye to eye. Then that other soul, 
 of which aunt Mary so often spoke in a Sunday hush, had 
 passed into some other world, for ever, and Dorothea's 
 gaze struck cold against the portrait on the wall. 
 
 " It's our birfday," she had said stoutly, in short 
 frocks. And her aunts had let her say : th***^ were the 
 
DOROTHEA. 5 
 
 last to dull the little sparkles that light up the earthly 
 road. But they had laughed at the child for asking if any 
 one else had ever been born on the thirteenth of December ? 
 That joke had stood against her in the cheerful household, 
 where the smallest jokes throve best. 
 
 " This, as you know, is Dorothea's especial birthday," 
 said aunt Emma, archly. " Nobody would ever have 
 ventured to be born on the same day as she." 
 
 " Don't, aunt Emma ; you know 1 can't bear being 
 teased." 
 
 '* Alas, poor dear ! " exclaimed aunt Emma in her 
 favourite philosophic attitude. " Alas, poor dear ! then 
 you ought to have been born a man ! " 
 
 " Please, what do you mean, aunt Emma ? " 
 
 Dorothea seldom understood her younger aunt, when that 
 aunt was serious. Aunt Emma was the humorous and 
 playful element in her existence, a creature to romp and 
 laugh with in the childish days when both were young. 
 
 "Aunt Emma means a '6oy,' dear," said aunt Mary. 
 " Little boys tease little girls." 
 
 "And big boys, big girls!" cried Emma rebelliously. For 
 Emma's heart, as all about her knew, had suffered much. 
 
 " Ma ch^re ! " protested Mary. Dorothea's tiny ears had 
 long ago caught the meaning of " Ma chere." It was aunt 
 Mary scolding aunt Emma. She wished her own rebukings 
 would take so concise a form. 
 
 " Yes, it is our own day, all to ourselves, our very own ! " 
 said Dorothea. " What do I care, if other people have it 
 also, people I have never heard of — they don't share it with 
 me? You and I, we share it, mother. We will keep it 
 together in the early morning, before any one is stirring, to 
 spy on us and interfere. Mother, you who see me up 
 yonder, what would you say, could your daughter forget ? " 
 Ah, the terrible question ! What do they say, when their 
 children forget ? 
 
 But Dorothea Sandring remembered. Every thirteenth of 
 December, in that grim and grisly daybreak, which once 
 had mingled a first breath with a final, before the noise of 
 festivity and congratulation broke in upon her reveries, she 
 had, in all simplicity, performed the self-appointed service 
 of affection which now once more awaited her to-day. 
 
 She hurried down the creaking stairs, into the deserted 
 hall. Countless inanimate objects watched her passage 
 across the heavy winter light. On the hall-table lay the 
 
6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 gardener's yearly wreath of creamy lilacs and purple 
 orchids, as if placed in readiness by unseen hands. Not a 
 soul was in sight. So she had asked to have it, a happy 
 child of twelve. She took the flowers and opened the great 
 hall-door. 
 
 The rawness of the Dutch December morning struck her 
 full in the face. She shuddered, and then, as quickly, 
 smiled. Before her stretched the wide expanse of park, 
 black, with a scattered lace-work of snow all over it, like 
 a great, untidy quilt. In the distance shreds of crimson 
 still hung here and there against a gleaming sky. She set 
 off, walking briskly, down unequal by-paths, towards the 
 low-sunk spire that trembled in the haze. 
 
 As the rusty gate swung back upon its hinges, she put 
 out a hasty hand, lest the shriek which she knew so well 
 should strike on the silence around. In the village church- 
 yard, where the dead heed change nor season, that morn- 
 ing's sluggish awakening had awakened nothing at all. 
 Nature, who often seems so painfully alive in graveyards, 
 was fast asleep. And the snow lay thicker here, unmoved 
 and soundless, about the staring headstones. Stay, if you 
 looked, the headstones were awake. They never close an 
 eye, from morn till eve, nor through all the lonely moon- 
 light ; telling their unending story, that means nothing or 
 means everything, over and over again, then bidding you 
 pass and forget. In Memory. Bidding you pass and forget. 
 
 Dorothea remembered. She stood before the single 
 marble cross that rises among humbler tokens — a pure 
 white marble cross, but slightly tinged by time : 
 
 fisre ftcposetlr 
 In Hope of the Blessed Resurrection 
 
 DOROTHEA, BARONESS VAN BRODRYCK 
 
 Dearly Beloved Wife of Captain Lewis Foye Sandring, 
 
 Who died at Brodryck, Dec. 13th, 18 — , 
 
 Aged 22 yrs. and 4 mths. 
 
 " Blessed are the Pure in Heart, for they shall see God" 
 
 Dorothea bent to lay her flowers upon the stone and 
 lightly brushed aside a few damp flakes of snow. 
 A crow, who had no particular connection with the 
 
DOROTHEA. 7 
 
 churchyard, but probably liked its listening depths of still- 
 ness, broke, from his gaunt black branch of beech, into a 
 hideous caw. Dorothea started, looked up, and nodded to 
 the crow. 
 
 Her eyes had already twice sought the little wicket that 
 leads into the parsonage garden. Now, lingering, step by 
 step, she began to retrace her path. For she vainly awaited 
 the old parson's coming, whose annual privilege it had 
 been, this many a year, to meet her as she wended on her 
 homeward way, and bring her his good wishes, that were 
 a benediction, before she faced her own adoring world. 
 The minister's brow was young, beneath its crown of 
 glory: the minister's heart was soft, beneath its Geneva 
 bands. 
 
 So she had forgiven him his first intrusion, which had 
 come unsought by either. Long before any one had ever 
 dreamed of little Dorothy Sandring, the village pastor had 
 daily sought the early repose of the village graveyard, close 
 beside his parsonage : was it, then, his fault, if he happed, 
 one midwinter morning, on a little girl who desired to be 
 alone? In dismay he crept aside, whereon she, with a 
 burst of gratitude, ran after him, crying out that this day 
 was her birthday, and bidding him wish her many happy 
 returns ! He stood for a moment, looking straight into her 
 eyes. " God bless you," he said, and walked away, feeling 
 that the situation called for no further comment or con- 
 verse. Did she feel it too ? She was a small child. From 
 that day she and the grave minister were intimate friends. 
 Year after year he had waited by the wicket to greet 
 her as she came away. There was no one thus waiting 
 there now. 
 
 But a few yards within the lane, among the snow- 
 splashed laurels, Mark Lester met her, the minister's 
 student son. She started back, resenting his unseemly 
 presence there. 
 
 " Father sent me," said Mark Lester quickly. " His chest 
 is so bad, he dared not come out himself. He was afraid 
 you might wait for him. He's written you his birthday 
 wish." 
 
 "Thank you," said Dorothea, taking the proffered 
 envelope. " I'm sorry you had to trouble, Mark." 
 
 " Father bade me," answered the young man simply. 
 Dorothea felt that her tone had not been as kind as her 
 intention. 
 
8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " It was very good of you to come," she added. A smile 
 came over his thin and proudly featured face, the face of 
 such as greatly suffer — and enjoy. 
 
 " If I also congratulate you," he said, " please do not 
 trouble to say * thank you ' again. It is hardly necessary." 
 
 " I won't. What made you come over from Leyden last 
 night, Mark ? You weren't expected. It wasn't to wish me 
 many happy returns ? " She laughed. 
 
 " No," replied the student brusquely, " I wanted a talk 
 with my father : well, I've had it." He kicked, with his 
 nervous foot, at a clumsy lump of snow. It crumbled a 
 little, unmoved, and he fiercely, and vainly, kicked harder. 
 
 Dorothea was silent : the ripple of banter had all died 
 away from her face. 
 
 " I am going back to college at once," said Mark. 
 " Father desires it. Of course I shall come over at Christmas 
 and help you, as usual, with your tree." 
 
 " Of course you will. I have some new ideas — good, I 
 think — for the tree. Mark, I hope you like college better 
 than you did at first." 
 
 The lad, who had turned beside her, pacing up the 
 churchyard path again, took a few great strides without 
 replying. Then he answered, in the voice that comes 
 to men when they utter words they are longing not to 
 speak. 
 
 " I loathe it." 
 
 The stupid crow, on his seat of desolation, laughed. 
 
 " Look here, Dorothea ! you're a girl, and a good girl — 
 Oh, you know I can't pay compliments ! — what's the use 
 of talking to you about young men's lives ? You need hear 
 nothing about them, God be thanked ! I'm not better than 
 others, God knows, only — only — I suppose I'm different. I 
 loathe the whole stupid life at the University. And I'm 
 going back : that's enough." He threw up his head and 
 bit his lips : his keen profile — something like Schiller's — 
 stood out against the sallow air. 
 
 For full ten seconds she walked beside him. Then she 
 said softly : " Can*t I help you — somehow — Mark, without 
 your telling ? We've known each other all our lives, and 
 I've pulled out a lot of thorns for you, and splinters, 
 formerly." 
 
 He threw up his head no more, but still he bit his 
 lips. 
 
 *^You always said that none of your sisters could pull 
 
DOROTHEA. 9 
 
 out a thorn like I did. And you know you were that sort 
 of boy, Mark : you were always getting thorns into you 
 somewhere." 
 
 " Some people do," said Mark, laughing. " They're 
 made that way." 
 
 " It's the people who want to pick roses," replied Dorothea 
 quickly. " Many are quite content to leave roses, and thorns, 
 alone." 
 
 " I fear I got my thorns breaking through hedges." 
 
 " Well, I suppose that is some people's mission, to break 
 through hedges and get hurt." 
 
 " Stealing apples ? " 
 
 "Mark, please, I have quite come to the end of my 
 metaphor. But I don't believe you ever stole an apple. 
 However, being always happy myself, I should like to see 
 you happy. And I have my doubts." 
 
 " I wanted to be off to the Colonies," he began suddenly. 
 " I fancy I should have made my way. Oh, in anything — 
 not business — teaching, for instance — travelling. I can live 
 on sixpence a day. But it's not to be. I'm to stay at 
 home and become a parson, here at Brodryck, some day, 
 like father. Poor old father cried. Don't look at me like 
 that, Dorothea. I couldn't help it. You see that you 
 wouldn't understand." 
 
 " Oh, Mark, I'm sure I'm not looking ' like that.' " 
 
 " ' If only I live long enough to see that day ! * says 
 father, ' Lord, then lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
 peace ! ' " He stopped in the middle of the path. " Well, 
 what could I do ? " he said. " Of course the servant has got 
 to depart in peace." 
 
 " Oh, Mark ! " 
 
 The tears stood in his eyes. " If I didn't love the dear 
 old dad with all my heart and soul," he said, " do you 
 think I would sacrifice my life like this ? It's worse, ten 
 times worse, than dying, to consent to live a lie. I shouldn't 
 have come out to you : I'm not fit. I haven't slept for two 
 nights. If only he'd let me go as a missionary I don't 
 think I should mind so much. Of course the lie'd be the 
 same, but I should think it sounds different out there. To 
 stop here, to go on, all your easy life, preaching to baptised 
 Christians a religion of which they never, in practice, make 
 true a single word ! Lightly preaching condemnation upon 
 yourself and upon them ! " 
 
 " But, Mark, if we seek to believe ? " 
 
lo DOROTHEA. 
 
 " In what ? In the Christianity of a Christian University, 
 of Christian Undergraduates, Christian Professors ? In the 
 Christianity of a Christian Church, Christian clergy and 
 communicants : a Christian Society, a Christian State ? 
 Oh, Dorothea ! there is no escape from the dilemma : either 
 Christendom is a lie, or Christ! " For a moment his slender 
 figure trembled. " You must forgive me," he added more 
 calmly. " Indeed, I should not have come out. In a 
 couple of hours I am going back to Leyden — to continue 
 the study of divinity. There it stands, all the world over, 
 the Christian college, with its smug profesrors, its dirty 
 disciples. I am going back : that is enough. Good-bye." 
 He held her hand in his, as they stood, the young pair of 
 them, beside the marble cross. 
 
 " The pure in heart ! " he murmured, and his eyes 
 rested gently upon his companion's troubled face. " Why, 
 Dorothea," he added brightly, " there's not a year's difference 
 between you and me." And he dropped the hand. 
 
 " No," replied Dorothea. *' Do you not think, dear Mark, 
 that both you and I might wait a bit before definitely 
 making up our minds about this wicked world ? " 
 
 " Oh, a woman ! " he answered impatiently. " Her life 
 just comes to her! She needn't make up her mind at all ! " 
 
 " By the tone of your voice one would almost conclude 
 that you think she has none to make up ? " 
 
 " You know better, Dorothea. But look at your own case. 
 Your life all comes to you naturally, as it should. You'll 
 stop in this place until — perhaps you'll always stop here. 
 While I — I have to decide my whole future to-day." 
 
 She gazed across the dear, bleak landscape, the brown 
 old village church, the fields, the leafless beeches. "That 
 is true," she said; "our lives are simpler. Sometimes I 
 think mine is shockingly simple and happy. I am almost 
 ashamed. Still, I am not a sort of inverted Job, Mark, 
 from whom God has told the Devil to keep always away." 
 She followed the downcast gaze of his eyes, and, fancying 
 she read his thoughts : " It does seem a pity," she said, " to 
 bring such fragile blossoms here to die. I have often told 
 the gardener to give me others, but he always selects his 
 best." 
 
 " The strongest would last an hour longer," he answered. 
 "If these felt anything, they would rejoice in such special 
 service and speedy death. Surely it is better than any 
 hot-house existence to do something quickly and die 1 ** 
 
DOROTHEA. ii 
 
 " Mark," she said, " you have left me behind you — in 
 the hot-house. You are twice as old as you were six 
 months ago." 
 
 " Just now you informed me I was too young, Dorothea. 
 Like a woman, you are inconsistent, and right. I'm too 
 young at this moment, and too old. But, oh, Dorothea, 
 when a man is just fresh from my yesterday's experience, 
 when he's been taking up his whole little life — all he's got 
 — into his hands, and looking at it — dreaming of what he 
 might do with it — wings, far-away flights, and balloons ! — 
 and when he has just put it down again into the heavy cart 
 between the clogging ruts, all splashing and straining — gee 
 up ! — Oh, Dorothea, if he happens on his best friend at that 
 moment — and she a woman ! — he may be forgiven if he 
 turn a bit melodramatic, for a change." 
 
 " I do not think you are melodramatic, Mark." 
 
 " Well, I'm good again now, please. Quite good. Melo- 
 drama would ill suit the future dominie of Brodryck." 
 
 " Once you seemed to like the idea of your life-task." 
 
 " I don't think so. I endured it. My year in the big 
 world has changed me. If ever you get outside " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " You never will. Here we are at the gate again. What 
 an aimless walk we have had — to and fro. You might 
 have been home by this time. Good-bye till Christmas. 
 Good-bye." He turned, on the other side of the little 
 wicket. " If this frost holds," he added, " we shall get 
 some splendid skating ! " His eyes kindled suddenly 
 with coming delights. It was thus she remembered him 
 afterwards ; and she remembered her reply : 
 
 " If the frost holds, Mark, we must take that long-planned 
 trip along the Rhine." 
 
 As he strode down the laurel-walk, he meditatively 
 pulled at the bushes. " Thank God she doesn't care for 
 me," he said to himself, but his tone was far from grateful. 
 
 Dorothea, meanwhile, hurried home through the park, 
 back to her own small garden entrance. Even now the 
 hour was still very early, barely half-past eight. The sun 
 had turned to a flaming golden red, upon a pearly pedestal. 
 Trillions of tiny diamonds sparkled on every inch of ground, 
 on every twig and every breath of air. The glittering snow 
 about her feet broke in prismatic glories, a very path of 
 diamonds. A flight of pigeons — her own — wheeled, 
 whirring, down across a glaucous break of moss. 
 
12 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The flaxen children at the cottage stood in a bobbing 
 row. " We felicitate the noble young lady ! " they said, or 
 that, at least, should have been the burden of their tuneless 
 murmur. She nodded to each one of them. "Are you 
 coming up to say your verses ? " she asked. Each was a 
 special friend of hers, even the one with the unwiped 
 nose. Every face, every bush, every curve of the path 
 was familiar. That gaitered old gentleman plodding up 
 the avenue, with the two brown setters behind him, was 
 uncle Tony. 
 
 He heard the brisk crunch of her footsteps and turned 
 to wait. A hale old gentleman, white-haired and clean 
 shaven, with the flesh-tints of a farmer and the features of 
 a Bourbon. Not really an uncle of Dorothea's, her mother's 
 cousin, but too near a friend and neighbour not long ago 
 to have merited the dearer appellation. Uncle Tony was 
 supposed to have broken his healthy heart, years ago, for 
 aunt Emma, who had suffered so much herself, as all knew, 
 from the fickleness of Man. The fable, and joke, of his 
 constancy had grown with the whitening of his hairs. 
 He now frequently proposed to her in public, and neither 
 the lady nor her suitor had ever been quite certain in 
 how far he once may have meant what he said. He 
 always declared, as in chivalry bound, that he had found 
 her adamant. "And if I've gone to the dogs," he would 
 add, " it's Emma alone that's to blame." The dogs 
 in question were " Em " and " Doll," the two setters, sole 
 ornaments, he averred, of his heart and his home. He 
 solemnly made these statements in the very loud voice 
 which was part of his character, but which affords no proof 
 of his sincerity. Then he would potter across to the couple 
 of expectant quadrupeds and gently stroke them down the 
 nose. " Two old Irish setters," he would say, his pro- 
 tuberant eyes fixed full on their responsive ones, and 
 perhaps the dogs would slowly move their beautiful auburn 
 tails. " Old they may be," shouted uncle Tony, " I'm not 
 denying it : they'll be thirteen, the pair of them, come 
 next Michaelmas — God willing ! " he interjected, with a 
 sudden hush of reverence — " but there's not a better brute 
 than Em or Doll, for their sort of work, in all the province 
 — in all the blessed kingdom ! " The chandelier rang. 
 
 "You shouldn't swear," said aunt Mary softly. 
 
 " H'm, h'm, you are right, my dear. A man should be a 
 saint to live with so good a woman as you, Mary. And, 
 
DOROTHEA. 13 
 
 oh dear me ! " Uncle Tony sat down, slapped his thigh, 
 and expressively shook his head. 
 
 " Em " crept forward, and pushed her sympathetic nose 
 into her master's palm. The firelight filled with radiance 
 the russet splendours of her coat. 
 
 " She's a handsomer ornament to your hearth, Antony, 
 than ever I could have been," remarked Emma, who always 
 made a point of giving her cousin his full baptismal name. 
 And she sighed for thought of that other man who had 
 brought her occasional flowers, and married (she declared) 
 her ugliest friend. 
 
 "Well — you'd have been more talkative, Emma. Not 
 but that the dogs have plenty to tell me, God knows.** 
 
 " Again ! " remonstrated aunt Mary, and held up a finger 
 in smiling reproof. 
 
 " My dear, you are right," said the old gentleman affably. 
 " But when a man has a poor conception of his own judg- 
 ment, it comes so handy to appeal to a higher ! " His 
 auditors could not help smiling. Uncle Tony was a 
 self- developed philosopher, an authority on all matters 
 agricultural, products and prices, and an indefatigable 
 Nimrod. He had named the two promising pups after two 
 of the creatures he most heartily admired in a world that 
 was full of disappointments and petty impurities : poaching, 
 adulterated butter, tinned pork, American grain. 
 
 " I am sorry there isn't one left for you, Mary," he had 
 said, as he stood peering at the litter, his elder cousin by 
 his side. 
 
 " Thank you, Tony." 
 
 " I had made up my mind to have you all." 
 
 " It can't be helped," said Mary. 
 
 " You see, the third has got the distemper. You wouldn't 
 like to have a dog called after you that had got the 
 distemper, Mary ? " 
 
 " I don't know," answered Mary dubiously, for her heart 
 went out with ready sympathy to the poor little invalid, 
 blind and half sick, in his straw at the lodge. 
 
 Uncle Tony stared at her till his surprise found vent in 
 a whistle. " Well ! " he said, " there's no accounting for 
 tastes. Besides, Mary, I — somehow, I think, you're too 
 good to have a dog called after you." And he walked 
 away, coughing very loud. 
 
 It was this good-natured and testy, this philosophic and 
 irrational, old gentleman who greeted Dorothea. 
 
14 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Up so early ? Is this in my honour, uncle Tony ? " 
 
 "My dear, the honour is mine." He swept his brown 
 velveteen cap to the ground. Uncle Tony's etiquette was 
 that of the monarchs he facially resembled. " It had to be 
 early or not at all. Business of yours, Dorothea, as usual. 
 A sale of timber. In the Holtham woods. It will keep 
 me occupied all day." He sighed, with visible satisfaction. 
 
 " Have I so much business, uncle Tony ? All your life 
 seems to go, poor dear, in this endless business of mine." 
 
 " It can't be helped, my child : there's nobody else to 
 take the weight off my shoulders." Uncle Tony fairly 
 laughed with delight. "You can't keep from taking up 
 what comes to your hand, you know, as Tim the Poacher 
 answered when I found him making off with my pheasant, 
 that had fallen on his side of the hedge." 
 
 " And to think that I should be so ungrateful ! When I 
 saw you up already, I said to myself : Uncle Tony would 
 never get up so early, unless to go shooting hares ! " 
 
 " Do people shoot hares in the snow ? Dorothea, you 
 have no sporting instincts ! I have always deemed that a 
 calamity in one who " — uncle Tony's voice grew impres- 
 sive — " will one day own, God willing, the finest snipe- 
 shooting in this province." He paused and gazed sadly 
 at his ward. The dogs gazed too : their faces were the 
 more reproachful. 
 
 " When I am mistress of Brodryck," replied Dorothea 
 with great decision, " not a shot shall fall on the estate." 
 
 Uncle Tony's sad expression broke into a rude grin. 
 " And your husband, my dear ? " he said. " How about the 
 corn-fields? And the orchards? Come, take my arm, O 
 patroness of poachers ! I hope to be invited, Dorothea, 
 many a time, by — him." 
 
 " Uncle Tony, you are very wicked." 
 
 " Comparatively — ^yes," replied the old gentleman com- 
 placently. 
 
 " And because you are wicked, there is something I want 
 to ask you. Now, please, uncle Tony, be very serious. 
 You have seen the world — is it very bad ? " 
 
 " Most certainly not," replied Tony with vehemence. 
 " Are your aunts bad ? Am I ? — whew ! I forgot ! " 
 
 "Please, uncle Tony, I want you to be serious. You 
 know the world ; I don't." The old man smiled. " When 
 you were at Leyden in your youth, was life there very 
 horrid?" 
 
DOROTHEA. 15 
 
 " Horrid ? " The old man's voice rang out across the 
 summits of the trees. Then it grew suddenly gentle. " Oh, 
 Dorothea ! " he said, " none of us can be young more than 
 once." He walked on, gazing in front of him. 
 
 "But afterwards, then," she persisted. "The big world, 
 the — ^you know very well what I mean," she impatiently 
 slapped his arm, " is it the sort of thing one — loathes ? " He 
 bent to catch the whispered word. 
 
 "Now this is parsons' stufF," said uncle Tony. "You're 
 fresh from parson, child. The whole world lieth in 
 wickedness. Rubbish ! " 
 
 " Oh, uncle, that's a Bible text ! " 
 
 Uncle Tony stared, aghast. " Well, they must have got 
 the translation wrong," he said at last, " or we've greatly 
 improved since Bible times. That's it, of course," he 
 added, greatly relieved. " And no wonder, after eighteen 
 centuries of the true religion. Depend on it, child, the 
 world's all right to-day." 
 
 " Uncle Tony, I don't believe you know." 
 
 The old gentleman bridled. "I know plenty" he said, 
 " a great deal more than you ever will. I'm not denying 
 there's a certain amount of evil. All I say is, there's far 
 more good. It just depends which side one looks. A man 
 naturally turns both ways, but the woman who discovers 
 the world is bad must have found it out for herself, dear." 
 
 " And if a man opens the shutters for her on the bad side, 
 uncle ? " 
 
 " God forgive him and have mercy on her," said uncle 
 Tony. After that they walked on to the house in silence. 
 " Farewell, my de?.r," said uncle Tony, " I've no time to go 
 in. Enjoy your birthday. / must drive seven miles in the 
 cold." 
 
 He turned back, abusing the ill-luck which had altered 
 the day of the sale. Everything in his life, he knew, 
 invariably fell awry. He had started upside-down, he said, 
 for his romantic mother, fresh from that endless old novel 
 " Cleopatre," had wished to call her son " Mark Antony," 
 and his practical father, mindful of rich uncle Anthony in 
 Amsterdam, had accepted the two names, only, as they now 
 stood, absurdly inverted. The Amsterdam uncle, dying, 
 had left Antony Mark a bundle of American confederate 
 securities : that, also, surely was a big upset. And all his 
 love affairs with cousin Emma, of which neither could ever 
 unravel the meaning : these also were only a tangled skein. 
 
1 6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The whole of his life fell topsy-turvy. In spite of the 
 numerous misfortunes to which he enjoyed frequent and 
 pathetic allusion, his health remained excellent ; he 
 thoroughly delighted in his dinner and his shooting ; he 
 endured a rather terrible maid, of whom later, with 
 equanimity — in fact, he was far happier than he felt that he 
 need have been. His philosophy also, whenever he con- 
 sidered it his duty to decry things, had an unreasonable 
 habit, perhaps not unusual, of twisting right side up ! 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Dorothea entered the house. Ever since her birth, her 
 mother's death, her father's departure, she had lived, as an 
 orphan, with the aunts, who were her dead mother's step- 
 sisters, in the roomy, green- trellised, whitewashed dwelling 
 that her grandfather had built for his step-daughters. 
 This sunshiny residence stood on the confines of the park, 
 whose statelier mansion would one day open lofty doors 
 to welcome the youthful heiress. Dorothea knew the big, 
 desolate house was hers, but of wealth, and its meaning, 
 she knew nothing. 
 
 She passed now into the hall of " Rose Villa " and 
 immediately paused, in dismay. For the first time in 
 nearly a dozen years the two aunts had not run out 
 to greet her. One of them must surely be ill ? — yet 
 neither had ever been known to keep her room before, 
 though aunt Emma, if you believed her, endured frequent 
 smiling martyrdoms with a fortitude only equalled by the 
 Spartan hero of the fox. " Bonjour ! " shrieked aunt 
 Emma's parrot in the unaccustomed silence, and, getting 
 no answer, he yelled the one word without ceasing, 
 according to his parroty wont. " Bonjour, Bonjour, Bob," 
 replied Dorothea, ** I am just a spoilt child, like you." But 
 his cries sounded horribly shrill in this inexplicable 
 birthday silence, and she hastily opened the dining-room 
 door. 
 
 The light, many-windowed apartment wore its expected 
 air of festivity, gay with flowers and greenery about 
 Dorothea's familiar seat. And both aunts were there also, 
 God bless them ! — they sat, each on her side of the fireplace, 
 immovable in her especial uneasy easy-chair. They sat,, 
 watching Dorothea enter, silent, their flushed faces marked 
 with deepest dejection. Presently they both smiled, but 
 that was useless. Cats lay about everywhere, as usual : a 
 bulging black one dozed in aunt Emma's lap, and, whenever 
 the lady's feelings got too much for her, she rumpled its 
 
i8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 fur, and its purring stopped. Aunt Mary had a book of 
 family devotions on her knees, and a Bible : with a hand 
 that grasped firmly an open letter, she rustled the pages of 
 these books to and fro, pretending to look out the portions 
 for the day. 
 
 " Mary ! " said aunt Emma in shrill accents, very unlike 
 her habitual murmur of chastened regret. 
 
 "Yes, Emma dear," replied aunt Mary more calmly, 
 suddenly engrossed in the finding, for the third time, of the 
 seventh of St. John. 
 
 " Dorothea has come in ! " 
 
 "Yes, I see her." Aunt Mary's eyes rose over their 
 spectacles. " My dear child, we have something we wish 
 to tell you. Your aunt Emma feels " 
 
 " I ! " exclaimed Emma, indignantly rising, and dropping 
 her cat. " Feels ! " she sniffed scornfully, and sat down 
 again on the quadruped, who had slipped up, behind, on 
 her chair. 
 
 " I was going to say you preferred me to speak," con- 
 tinued aunt Mary mildly. " Dear Dorothea, we know it is 
 our duty " 
 
 " To congratulate you heartily on your birthday," inter- 
 rupted aunt Emma, resuming her tabby, " and to wish 
 you many happy — oh, far happier ! — returns of the day." 
 She began stroking vigorously. 
 
 "To congratulate you, oh, most certainly," continued 
 aunt Mary, in a curious voice, " but I think we had better 
 tell you " 
 
 " Oh, Mary, one day more ! " pleaded Emma. 
 
 Dorothea had drawn near ; aunt Mary's books slipped 
 down from her trembling hold and fell with a thud on 
 the floor. " Oh dear, oh dear ! " lamented aunt Mary, " to 
 think that I've dropped the blessed Bible ! " Dorothea 
 hastily helped her to pick up the volume. 
 
 " Please, might I know at once what is wrong ? " said 
 the girl. 
 
 " Wrong, my child ? " exclaimed Emma. " Why, it's 
 your birthday ! We're all very happy ! " She burst into 
 tears. 
 
 " Emma," said aunt Mary reproachfully. " What did we 
 promise each other just now, when we left off? " 
 
 " If you cared as much as I do, you couldn't have left 
 off," sobbed Emma. " There, my dear, there ; I know 
 it's not true. Dorothea, always remember, when you've 
 
DOROTHEA. 19 
 
 forgotten us, that aunt Mary was an angel bom, and I but 
 a poor, weak human, that needed a lot of love." 
 
 "Aunt Mary, tell me quick," said Dorothea, in white 
 dismay. 
 
 Aunt Mary rose up, very hard and stiff. " My dear, you 
 are right," she said, " our behaviour is cruel, and foolish. 
 Forgive us. The first post has brought us a letter from 
 your father. He has timed it wonderfully well." 
 
 " He was always so clever about that," answered 
 Dorothea nervously, "even about sending his presents 
 from Africa " 
 
 " His present this year " began Emma bitterly. 
 
 " Oh, Dorothea," cried Mary, " he wants you back." 
 
 " Back ! " repeated Dorothea. Her eyes sank swiftly to 
 the carpet. " I do not even know him," she said. 
 
 "But you know a great deal about him. We have 
 always been careful about that. It will not be like going 
 to a stranger. You love him ! " insisted aunt Mary 
 rapidly. 
 
 The girl did not lift her eyes. " You have told me what 
 little you could, I suppose," she said. " Why, you hardly 
 know him yourselves." 
 
 They were all silent for a moment. Tib, the white 
 kitten, in aunt Mary's chair, made a great noise licking 
 herself. 
 
 Then Dorothea looked up. "Yes, you have taught me 
 to love him," she said, with slow conscientiousness. " Of 
 course I shall be glad to make my father's acquaintance. 
 And then I shall come back here." 
 
 " No, he will never let you come back," sobbed Emma. 
 
 Aunt Mary took her niece's hand. " Who knows ? " said 
 aunt Mary wistfully. 
 
 " It would never be the same," replied Emma. "Oh, far 
 better not to come back ! " She put up her pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 Aunt Mary pressed the hand she held. "When your 
 mother died," she said, "just twenty-one years ago this 
 very morning, your English father was broken-hearted." 
 She turned almost angrily on Emma. " Was broken- 
 hearted ! " she repeated, raising her voice. 
 
 " I never denied it," said Emma. 
 
 " He had loved our sister dearly," continued Mary, staring 
 very hard at Emma's face. 
 
 " Oh, certainly," assented Emma. " Oh, of course." She 
 
 c 3 
 
20 DOROTHEA. 
 
 sat noisily smoothing her gown. The aunts always came 
 down to breakfast on Dorothea's birthday in their second- 
 best Sunday silks. 
 
 " Intensely," insisted Mary. 
 
 " As men go," said Emma. 
 
 " Passionately ! " cried Mary. 
 
 " Indeed ? I have no experience of such matters," 
 retorted Emma. " Have you ? " 
 
 Gentle aunt Mary coloured. ''He volunteered immediately 
 for active service in India. Afterwards he went to Africa. 
 He has fought in many battles, under various flags. Mean- 
 while he left you with us. Naturally. His was a soldier's 
 existence. He is very brave." 
 
 " With masculine bravery ! " cried Emma. 
 
 " He is now, as you know, a colonel. His breast is 
 covered with medals. Once or twice he has paid flying 
 visits to London or Paris in the course of his " 
 
 " Adventurous," suggested Emma. 
 
 " Career," cried aunt Mary. " On these occasions it was 
 
 deemed most expedient by all of us " She looked 
 
 across at her sister. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't appeal to me," exclaimed Emma, 
 ruffled. " I agree beforehand with each word you may 
 say." 
 
 " That the tranquillity of your life here should not be 
 disturbed by a meeting which could only have lasted an 
 hour or two at most, and might easily have left but 
 erroneous impressions. Still, it was always understood 
 that, as soon as your father should settle in Europe " 
 
 *' Just so — settle — settle," cried aunt Emma, fanning her- 
 self with Tab's tail. 
 
 " You would go to him. You have always known that, 
 Dorothea. I suppose we have known it. He says we had 
 fixed the age of twenty-one. I cannot remember that. 
 Why twenty- one ? I fear we had built almost sinful 
 hopes on his never settling down." 
 
 " Nor has he settled down ! " declared Emma with vehe- 
 mence. " Dorothea, instantly say that you have been happy 
 with us." 
 
 Dorothea gazed from one dear creature to the other, and 
 back again. 
 
 " But you love your father," insisted aunt Mary. " See 
 how kindly he writes." She held out the letter, taking it 
 from where it lay crunched by her little black bag. 
 
DOROTHEA. ai 
 
 " * My dear Mademoiselle de Torby.* ** 
 " Cold," said aunt Emma. 
 
 " Correct," said aunt Mary. " Why, we barely know 
 him, sister." 
 
 " Enough to praise him, it appears ! ** viciously responded 
 Emma. 
 
 Mary went and put her arm around her sister's neck. 
 " Do not let us destroy in a moment the work of a life- 
 time," she whispered. 
 
 Meanwhile Dorothea read the Colonel's letter aloud : 
 " * On the thirteenth of December next Dorothea will attain 
 the age of twenty-one. I think you will bear me out that, 
 according to our original arrangement, the time has now 
 come for her to join her father. I am growing old, and my 
 travelling days are well-nigh over ' " 
 
 " That's America, he means, not Heaven ! " interrupted 
 Aunt Emma, wildly. 
 
 " * I am greatly pleased at the thought of my daughter's 
 companionship, and have been waiting impatiently for this 
 all-important day to arrive. Never shall I be able to thank 
 you and your sister sufficiently for all you have been to my 
 motherless baim ' " 
 
 " We must look up that word in the dictionary," interpo- 
 lated Emma. 
 
 " Ah me, it explains itself," sighed Mary. 
 
 " * I am going to spend a few months on the Riviera. 
 There could be no better place, as it seems to me, for an 
 experiment which, if successful (and doubtless it will be), 
 must develop into a permanent re-union.* " 
 
 " He calls it a re-union," said Emma. 
 
 " * I have been putting off writing day by day, in hopes 
 that you would broach the difficult subject ; yet, on the 
 other hand, I can well understand your preferring me to 
 begin, lest it should look as if you wanted to get rid of 
 my girl.' " 
 
 " Yes, he says that," gasped aunt Mary. 
 
 " * But, in any case, I have now delayed too long. I shall 
 put off my departure, at considerable inconvenience, as I 
 presume you may desire Dorothea to spend this last birth- 
 day at Brodryck. Would it suit you, if she joined me in 
 Paris two days later ? I shall write further as soon as I have 
 
 heard from you ' " Dorothea paused and took up the 
 
 envelope from the floor. 
 
 "This was written very nearly a month ago," she 
 
22 DOROTHEA. 
 
 said. " It has been to a Utrecht in New England — 
 look ! " 
 
 " It ought to have stayed there," cried Emma. 
 
 " Now that explains everything," said Mary, wiping her 
 misty spectacles. " Your father forgot to put ' Holland.' " 
 And Mary contentedly shook her head. She did not much 
 mind the discovery that people had been careless, or stupid, 
 or even inconsiderate. These things were natural. What 
 she disliked was to learn that any one on earth could be 
 cruel, or wicked, or unkind. 
 
 " It explains nothing at all," said aunt Emma. " Explain 
 it away ! Explain it away to America ! Make that thing 
 yonder " — she pointed to the paper in Dorothea's hand — 
 " vanish, disappear, get itself read by some person it belongs 
 to in New England ! Pish ! Send it back to New York ! " 
 
 The clock struck nine. At the first stroke aunt Mary 
 started. " The servants will be waiting for prayers," she said. 
 
 " Prayers ? Is this a time for prayers ? " cried Emma. 
 
 " Indeed it is," answered aunt Mary gravely. She walked 
 to the window and stood looking out. When she turned, her 
 face was very serene. " Call them in, Dorothea, please," she 
 said ; and she read the simple service through, with only a 
 falter here and there. 
 
 " In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our joy, do 
 Thou remember us, Lord ! " 
 
 After the auditory had filed from the room again, the 
 sacred words still seemed to linger on the air. They brought 
 a troubled calm with them, as of waves that are sinking 
 to rest. 
 
 " Dorothea, dear, look at your presents," suggested aunt 
 Mary. But Dorothea, sinking her face on the hand which 
 still held the letter, gave way to a fit of weeping that 
 shook her from head to foot. She crept away to her own 
 chamber. " Bonjour ! Bonjour ! " called the parrot along 
 the passage. The words followed her like a farewell. 
 
 Aunt Emma flung herself straight into aunt Mary's 
 arms. ^ " Oh, Mary, you love her as much as I do ! More, 
 if possible, but it isn't possible ! We can't live without 
 her. Our lives '11 be as empty as that envelope she's 
 dropped on the floor ! " 
 
 " Cheer up, Emma," expostulated Mary firmly, " there'll 
 always be the missionaries in New Guinea ! And I do 
 hope they'll make a great many converts. Then, perhaps, 
 we sha'n't mind so much I " 
 
DOROTHEA. 23 
 
 " Missionaries ! " cried Emma, " what are missionaries ? 
 — great hulking, lazy fellows that do nothing at all ! 
 How many missionaries aren't there in South Africa, and 
 not one of them's ever converted the Colonel ! " 
 
 Caspar now considered it his duty to cough a second 
 time. Perhaps the cough was partially needed to cover a 
 squeak of surprise. For Caspar had learned much from 
 his mistresses' lips without their knowing it, but his 
 secret, and doubtless erroneous, opinion of parasite 
 preachers, he had always believed to be entirely his own 
 discovery. Personally, he did not object to callers in tall 
 hats and chokers. Being a clever young man, he had 
 organised a snug little commission agency in connection 
 with these charity-mongers. First, there was an entrance 
 fee (with a converse " Not at home "), and further you paid 
 a percentage on subscriptions, progressive according to 
 Caspar's discreet advocacy of your cause. 
 
 His father, after forty years of service, had retired on a 
 pension, rum, and stories of the dead. To all the paternal 
 privileges and dodges the son had succeeded, with power 
 to add to their number, and he thus occupied, in his cheer- 
 ful youth, the situation of an old retainer, which is well 
 known to be as weighty for the possessor as it is burden- 
 some to the — possessed. Nature and a closely cropped head 
 of black hair had conferred on this healthy young man the 
 boon of a delicate appearance, and the village doctor had 
 done him the kindness of ascribing his baby sister's death 
 to consumption, instead of measles. It is not in human 
 nature to suppress an occasional tickle in your throat, 
 when the tickle calls for doses — alas, homoeopathic, bat 
 persistent as the tickle — of port wine. 
 
 " Caspar, do not stand in the draught ! ** said aunt 
 Mary. 
 
 " How often have we told you not to wait by the door ! " 
 added Emma, her tartness not entirely ascribable to care 
 of the cough. " 1 shall make you some more of your medicine 
 at once." And she moved to the old-fashioned cabinet, in 
 which she kept her new-fangled pills. 
 
 " It was Miss Mary's herb-tea cured me,** replied the 
 servant, with ready spite. The herb-tea needed a touch of 
 brandy in it. 
 
 " You shall have a big bowl to-night," declared Miss 
 Mary beaming, for Miss Emma's minuscule, three-syllable 
 grains, and Miss Mary's Kneipp concoctions did battle over 
 
24 DOROTHEA. 
 
 the bodies of their various dependents, just as Miss Mary's 
 tracts and Miss Emma's story-books contended for their 
 souls. On these points, their sole possible danger of dis- 
 agreement, so acute a rivalry existed between the sisters 
 that many a villager, only too eager to get profitably 
 converted, found himself in a quandary, how to satisfy both. 
 
 "The people are waiting downstairs," said Caspar, his 
 eyes at rest. It was annoying, of course, not to know 
 everything at once, but some secrets required time. 
 
 " We will come in five minutes," replied Dorothea's 
 voice, and she closed the door upon his retreating figure. 
 
 " Don't, aunt Emma, please ; I don't want to cry any 
 more," she said. " If I am to go to Paris it is much better 
 I should have to leave at once." 
 
 "Take a cup of tea," said aunt Mary, pouring it out. 
 " We must send for uncle Tony." 
 
 " Uncle Tony is away for the day ! " exclaimed Doro- 
 thea, whereupon aunt Emma pointed out that the worst 
 misfortunes always befall us last. " Antony would have 
 put everything right," she said, " for Antony is the wisest 
 of men." 
 
 "Thomas must ride after him,'* suggested aunt Mary. 
 "None of them will want to miss Dorothea's reception, 
 but Thomas is the youngest : he has been with us only 
 seven years." 
 
 " What can uncle Tony do ? " asked Dorothea help- 
 lessly : and they went down to meet the little concourse of 
 retainers who stood waiting, as usual, anxious to be 
 received, and to receive. 
 
 The picturesque group of the peasants, in the quaintest 
 of dresses, much black and much muslin, with a little dull 
 gold here and there, some bright coral, a flaring silk 
 neckerchief ; the whole crowd smart, stiff, red and pink, 
 scrubbed and shiny ; the children, tight-fitted manikins in 
 miniature, with great wooden shoes, crimson cheeks and 
 blue eyes, like Delft saucers ; the big mothers redolent of 
 cleanliness, living symbols of soap : the fathers stolid, awk- 
 ward, self-conscious — the crisp sunshine played pleasantly 
 about all these, as they stood in the cheerful snow. Yet 
 all the variegated colours of these fifty chequered friend- 
 ships seemed suddenly in Dorothea's eyes to have been 
 wiped away by a storm-cloud of uniform grey, and the 
 sympathy she felt for their humble joys and sorrows was 
 already an unreal sentiment that belonged to somebody 
 
DOROTHEA. 25 
 
 else. What did it matter to her that Joopie, the milk- 
 maid's brother, had got that job in the garden at last? 
 " He's to come on New Year's day," said Betsy, pouring 
 forth pailfuls of gratitude, "and whenever you'll eat the 
 new taters, Freule, they'll taste of our grateful hearts." 
 What did it matter to her that the stableman's naughty 
 Moppie was coming to Sunday School ? " She's promised 
 to be good," said Moppie's eager parent, pushing her 
 daughter forward, "and her father has promised to beat 
 her each time she don't learn her text. It took me a 
 long time to make him promise, but at last he said he'd do 
 it for love of you. Men have no religion, Freule." Doro- 
 thea looked from one smiling face to another. " You tell 
 them, aunt Emma, I can't," she said, and ran half-way up 
 the stairs. Then she peered over the banisters and saw 
 them standing there, by the open door, the poor gentle, 
 timid ladies with their kindly faces and kindly curls — aunt 
 Emma rosy and coffee-coloured, aunt Mary sallow and grey 
 — standing there half-distraught, always a little afraid of 
 the people they ruled, and were ruled by — and with resolute 
 step she came down again into the basement-hall. 
 
 " Friends, I am going away," she said, " for a long time, 
 probably. I am going to my father." 
 
 The most satisfactory Sunday School child, the head of 
 her class, lame Jenny, whom sickness had rendered reflective, 
 immediately understood these last words to indicate the 
 Freule's approaching dissolution, and broke into a heart- 
 rending howl. 
 
 " I shall spend Christmas," continued Dorothea hastily, 
 " with my father, Colonel Sandring." 
 
 A lubberly boy, contemplatively sucking an orange, 
 surprised his surroundings by dropping the fruit and 
 howling still louder than Jenny. 
 
 " Poor child, he does love the Freule so ! " explained his 
 buxom mother. Murmurs arose on every side, for all present 
 loved the Freule. The house servants held aloof, aggrieved 
 at not having been told before the labourers were. " / knew 
 last week," declared Caspar. 
 
 " Tommie's crying 'cos he thinks he won't get his 
 Christmas toys," piped a shrill child's voice, and Tommie's 
 little sister edged herself forwards. Her mother slapped 
 her hastily aside. 
 
 " Boo-hoo-hoo, Christmas toys," repeated Tommie, and 
 Tottie grinned amidst her teats. 
 
26 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " You will get your presents all the same," said Dorothea ; 
 but, to do them justice, they found little comfort in that 
 fact. Consternation had fallen upon all. As they strag- 
 gled away, in groups, they discoursed of this Colonel 
 Sandring, a myth to the few that had heard of him, now 
 suddenly grown a personal enemy of all. 
 
 Meanwhile, aunt Emma enthusiastically welcomed uncle 
 Tony — " although, of course, you can do no good," she 
 said. 
 
 Uncle Tony marched straight to the hearthrug, his two 
 dogs trailing after him. 
 
 " So your father wants you back," said uncle Tony. " You 
 are twenty-one to-day, my dear, and your father wants you 
 back." He smiled, blew his nose with a great crimson 
 handkerchief, and nodded to "Em." "Doll," seeing this, 
 scratched his calf with a jealous paw. 
 
 " But why twenty-one ? " cried the aunts together. 
 
 " Why, indeed ? " asked uncle Tony. " What'll you bet 
 me, my dears, that we'll have her back before she is 
 twenty-two ? " 
 
 " The Lord is mighty ! " said Mary, and " A box of 
 cigars," said Emma. 
 
 " Make it a wedding ring," suggested Tony. 
 
 " We have telegraphed, asking for delay," put in 
 Dorothea. 
 
 "Well, you needn't have sent for me, then. This little 
 disturbance means a loss of several hundreds to the pro- 
 perty, but women never have any idea of business." Uncle 
 Tony walked to the window and looked out, caged. " There 
 is the telegraph boy," he said. Dorothea slipped away. 
 
 " Tony, you love money," said aunt Mary. 
 
 " I deny it. He loves business," cried Emma. 
 
 " I love money," answered Tony calmly, " for other 
 people's sake. Dorothea's, for instance. Certainly not 
 for Colonel Lewis Foye Sandring, Chevalier of twenty 
 orders, that of industry, ever accorded the idle, among 
 the rest." 
 
 " You do him flagrant injustice ! " cried Mary, " a dozen 
 scars " 
 
 " And a hundred stains," said uncle Tony, shrugging his 
 shoulders. " Here is the telegram. Well, Dorothea, what 
 does your father say ? " 
 
 " ' Regret further delay quite impossible,* " read Dorothea. 
 "'Had written twice. Sleeper paid for. Can still get 
 
DOROTHEA. 27 
 
 Dorothea one. Wire immediately, Grand Hotel, Paris. 
 Else could easily follow with maid to Nice. But why not 
 come directly ? Clothes Nice. Loving father.* " 
 
 " I could put that in fewer words, I am sure," said 
 aunt Emma. 
 
 " Even ' loving father ' ? " asked Tony. But Emma did 
 not answer, busy with her pencil on the telegram, for 
 economy in others was a favourite subject with Emma. 
 
 " Tony dear, you will have to take her south ? " suggested 
 aunt Mary faintly. 
 
 The old gentleman gave such a bound that he nearly 
 
 upset into the fire. "I've never left the country in my 
 
 life," he cried, " I've never even ventured to Carlsbad, though 
 
 > the doctor declares I shall die unless I go ! Business is 
 
 business, Mary. I can't desert the property ! " 
 
 " I had better start to-morrow," interposed Dorothea. 
 
 " Brave girl ! Look here, I'll give you Rebecca." 
 
 " Your treasure ! " exclaimed Emma. " Antony, if you 
 send away Rebecca, I shall have to come and keep house 
 for you myself." 
 
 " Done ! " replied uncle Tony laughing. 
 
 Aunt Mary sat in contemplation of masculine goodness. 
 " Rebecca ! " she repeated. 
 
 " I also can rise to heights of sacrifice," added aunt Emma, 
 but her suitor pretended not to hear. 
 
 ''The trip will do the child a heap of good," he con- 
 tinued. " And, mark my words, we shall have her back 
 with the birds in spring." 
 
 " I'll marry you on the day of her return," said Emma. 
 
 " You will make me the happiest of mortals, my dear ; 
 but allow me to point out that Rebecca will then also be 
 home again." 
 
 All the way back to his house, on the solitary high road, 
 uncle Tony walked doing interminable sums in his head. 
 Big bursts of money rang, like gunshots, across the wintry 
 air. " Twenty-five thousand ! " he shouted, as he opened 
 his gate. " Twenty ! " he added, with conviction, as he 
 fumbled with his latchkey at the door. In the hall, how- 
 ever, hearing Rebecca's familiar bark, he burst out laughing. 
 Rebecca's cough was purely a bad habit, though she knew 
 better : it was lungs. Uncle Tony yet chuckled in his arm- 
 chair when the handmaid brought him his slippers, and 
 something warmer still. 
 
 " Cough bad to-day ? " asked the wily master. 
 
28 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " God made the weather," replied the guileless maid. 
 Her tone certainly indicated disapproval of some one. She 
 was a harsh-featm-ed, fresh-coloured Dissenter, of plenteous 
 utterance anent religion, especially the want of it in others. 
 Her elder sister Sarah, who never coughed, had accom- 
 panied a sick mistress two winters ago, to the land of 
 oranges and lemons, and since then Rebecca had lost no 
 opportunity of lamenting, to her master, her ov^m invalid lot. 
 
 " Undoubtedly He did," replied Tony with easy alacrity. 
 " Still, you know, there are climates and climates. This 
 climate is horrible ! " Uncle Tony shuddered, and warmed 
 his flower-embroidered feet. 
 
 " The healthy needn't mind it," retorted Rebecca, barking 
 her loudest. 
 
 " It would do that cough of yours a lot of good, Rebecca, if 
 you could get such a change of air as your sister Sarah had ! " 
 
 Rebecca sheerly snorted in her scorn. " Some people get 
 
 all the blessings ! " she cried, " and some people ! " 
 
 Snort. 
 
 "Deserve them. Just so. Well, you are one of those 
 who get them. You are going to start to-morrow with 
 the Freule Dorothea, to spend a few weeks in the South." 
 
 " I will never desert my dear master," said Rebecca, as 
 soon as she could speak. 
 
 " Nonsense ; Rachel can look after me." 
 
 " Rachel ! She couldn't even look after a baby, let alone 
 a " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I can never desert my dear fatherland — I mean my dear 
 master ! " cried Rebecca, knotting and unknotting her 
 nervous hands. " I can't go out alone, two defenceless 
 females, into a country where Satan reigns supreme ! Sarah 
 says that in foreign parts the men as soon kiss you as look 
 at you " 
 
 "Sooner, I should think," said uncle Tony, meditatively 
 stirring his glass. 
 
 " Huh ? " 
 
 " Look here, Til double your wages," said uncle Tony. 
 
 Rebecca's eyes glistened. " I won't go," she said. 
 
 " Well, of course, if you won't, you won't." 
 
 " How long shall we stay away ? " 
 
 " You had better allow me six weeks." 
 
 " I'll do it," said Rebecca, " but not for the wages.** 
 
 " Of course not. Do it for your health." 
 
DOROTHEA. ag 
 
 "I do it for the sake of that orphan," Rebecca barked, 
 " and after six weeks I can do as I like ? " 
 
 " You can ! " shouted Tony in sudden anger. He im- 
 petuously spilt a splash of his grog. " You can stop there, 
 if you like, with the ' orphan,' or — or go to the devil ! " 
 
 " Thank you, sir ; in that case I shall return to you," 
 replied Rebecca calmly. 
 
 Aunt Mary rose from the painfully festive dinner. 
 " Dorothea," she said, " it is time for our evening walk." 
 Aunt Mary believed in constitutionals, while lively aunt 
 Emma struggled fiercely with unwilling naps. Aunt Emma 
 had read in some medical manual that sleep after dinner 
 was conducive to long life. The writer's pen had slipped : 
 he intended to say " before." Ten years later, aunt Emma, 
 renewing her copy, found the error revised. 
 
 Dorothea went out with aunt Mary into the soft frost 
 and gentle moonlight, softly treading the silvered snow 
 between the starlit plains of earth and heaven. Neither 
 uttered a word, or gave direction to the feet which led 
 them towards the Manor House. 
 
 The deserted House of Brodryck lay, amongst its 
 untrimmed gardens, about a mile from the ladies' humbler 
 corner of the park. Dorothea's mother had dwelt three 
 months in it. Since then it had lain deserted, mysterious 
 with protracted solitude. Yet Dorothea knew its every 
 comer, its every legend. She had quaked in its closets 
 and shouted from its turrets, playing with the Lesters. 
 She had stood, awe-struck, before a couple of hideous 
 oil portraits and one lovely child-face. She had shaken 
 frightened moths out of costly hangings, instantly bringing 
 aunt Mary on the scene with charwomen and disinfectants. 
 And on rare Sunday afternoons, wandering hither with 
 auntie Mary, she had learnt, in the solemn room upstairs, 
 the great lessons of her girlish life. 
 
 " Yes, let us go in ! " said Dorothea softly. How still 
 the night was in the calmly brilliant park ! The house 
 lay before them, looming grey. 
 
 The moonlight shone full into the upstairs room, a long,' 
 low bedroom, dark and old-fashioned, with panelling abou^ 
 a partially curtained bed. « 
 
 " Come and sit beside me, on the window-seat, here in 
 our comer," said aunt Mary. " Here Caspar cannot disturb 
 us with • the Widow So-and-So.' " 
 
30 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Dorothea nestled down. " Ah, that sounds like old times," 
 she murmured, " and now I must answer : * I've been 
 naughty, auntie May, but I want to be good." 
 
 " You are never naughty now," said aunt Mary, with a 
 lingering regret in her voice. " Oh, Dorothea, the world 
 you are going into ! I know there is wickedness enough in 
 Brodryck — still ! You are so ignorant, so innocent ! I 
 fear our education has been all wrong, but how could we 
 have made it different ? My heart is very heavy to-night." 
 
 " You have done everything for me, and I love you 
 dearly," said Dorothea in a low voice. The light of the 
 single lantern played about them as they clung together 
 in the window-seat. 
 
 " Child, child, perhaps we have not done our duty. 
 There is a confession I would like to make — must make, 
 I hardly know how. Your father " Her voice broke, 
 
 " Don't, aunt Mary," whispered Dorothea, squeezing the 
 poor soul's hand till the fingers ached. " I fancied from 
 
 something aunt Emma said this morning " She fell back, 
 
 with both arms outstretched as if to warn off an impending 
 evil. " You have always taught me to honour and love 
 him ! Oh, please don't say anything now ! " 
 
 Aunt Mary sat reflecting. Dorothea's breath came fast. 
 " You must not mistake me," said aunt Mary at last. 
 " Your father and I belong to different worlds, but I have 
 never thought otherwise of him than in kindness. In this 
 room, of all places, I would do him no wrong." 
 
 Dorothea sprang to her feet. " In this room in which 
 my mother died," she cried, " tell me this : My father, as 
 you have always told me, is a gentleman ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " A brave soldier ? " 
 
 " Yes, oh yes." 
 
 " Kindly — manly — generous ? ** 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " He loved my mother ? " Suddenly the girl stood still, 
 full in the moonlight, in front of her aunt. 
 
 " Oh, Dorothea, what a question to put to me ! I have 
 always told you he was broken-hearted, when she died." 
 
 "I know nothing of these matters," said Dorothea slowly, 
 " but it seems to me a man might not really love his wife, 
 and yet be broken-hearted when she died." She flung 
 herself into aunt Mary's arms. " Oh, forgive me," she said, 
 " see, I am naughty already I " 
 
DOROTHEA. 31 
 
 " Dorothea, the world is very evil. You are going into 
 much temptation " 
 
 Dorothea looked up quickly. ** You must say good-bye 
 for me to Mark Lester," she said. 
 
 " I believe, dear, you are rich. Uncle Tony says not, but 
 I fancy he must be mistaken. True, I know nothing of 
 money matters. You are going amongst strangers. Dorothea, 
 I fancy your father will want you to marry early. That 
 was always a favourite idea of his. How shall I say it ? 
 Do not make an irretrievable mistake. We can make so few 
 of those, and they last so long." 
 
 Dorothea lay back, wondering. 
 
 "You will laugh at me for speaking of marriage, 
 but every woman's life has some sort of love-story in it. 
 No greater misfortune can befall a woman than to marry a 
 man who does not love her. For a woman's whole life is 
 love" — aunt Mary's fingers trembled — "nothing else 
 matters. You are rich, I believe ; I know you look sweet. 
 A woman can only marry once. Never forget that. She 
 may have several husbands : she can only marry once." 
 
 *' But, auntie- 
 
 " Your father will want you to marry. Young girls say 
 ' yes ' so lightly. It is easy to say * yes ' : it is easy to say 
 ' no.' On those little words hangs a woman's whole life. 
 And we have but one life, Dorothea ! " 
 
 There was a note of anguish in aunt Mary's voice which 
 Dorothea had never heard there before. The girl lay 
 gazing at the darkness, and her mother's portrait seemed to 
 take slow shape against the empty wall. "You mean," 
 said Dorothea, " that mamma should have said ' no.' " 
 
 One fatal moment's hesitation answered her. Then she 
 broke into passionate, tumultuous weeping, very unlike the 
 tranquil tears of all that sorrowful day. " Oh, you are 
 unkind ! " she sobbed. " I love you ! Oh, you are unkind ! " 
 
 " Dearest and dearest," entreated aunt Mary, sick with 
 desperation, " who knows what may happen before we can 
 speak to each other again ? All I would say is : Decide for 
 yourself — not too hastily. Judge for yourself. Let no one 
 deceive you. Ask God to help you. I know I am saying 
 it wrong. But, oh, my dear love, your life's happiness ! " 
 
 She bent down, and speaking very swiftly and softly: 
 
 " Thirty years ago," she said, " Domine Lester asked me 
 to be his wife. Nobody, I don't mind telling you now, had 
 ever asked me before : nobody has asked me since. The match 
 
32 DOROTHEA. 
 
 was disapproved of : I said no. His present wife is an excellent 
 woman. Yes, after six years, he married his present wife." 
 
 Aunt Mary sat gazing at the gaunt trees outside ; with 
 one hand she stroked Dorothea's hair. 
 
 " I often wonder whether any one profited by my — decision. 
 I hope so. Emma and I have been happy together." 
 
 " I have," said Dorothea : she raised herself slowly and 
 kissed her aunt on the lips. " I understand," she continued. 
 " My grandfather Brodryck, your stepfather, did this thing. 
 He made my mother's marriage and prevented yours." 
 
 " Let the dead rest," said aunt Mary faintly. 
 
 " I have always known he was a wicked old man." 
 
 " Hush, dear, none of us has told you." 
 
 " Others have told me." 
 
 " Dorothea, love your father — you will find him very 
 lovable — obey him, but, dear motherless one, promise me 
 here, where we have so often talked over all our hearts' 
 secrets together, that you will never marry because he bids 
 you — never for that reason alone." 
 
 " I promise," replied Dorothea, with vague conceptions 
 of possible meanings in the words. And then the two 
 women kneeled down together, in the moonlight that 
 streamed on the empty bed. 
 
 " Yes, Sandring has sent for her to get her married," said 
 aunt Emma, tugging at her curls. " He told us as much 
 when we last saw him. Marriage is his ideal for a woman. 
 Faugh ! " 
 
 " I tried to warn her. I did it all wrong. You would 
 have done it better," said Mary. 
 
 " Possibly. But be sure you did it more nicely. A man's 
 ideal ! Pooh ! " 
 
 " I — I suppose so," said Mary. 
 
 " And to think what sort of a creature will be Sandring's 
 ideal of a son-in-law ! " 
 
 " I sometimes fancy we wrong him." 
 
 "Yes, dear. You never saw evil in any one without 
 fancying that." 
 
 "Oh, Emma — Emma! what will the house be without 
 her ? Her laugh in the garden ! Her step on the stairs ! " 
 
 Emma suddenly abandoned her curls. 
 
 " God will bring her back to us," said Mary. 
 
 " Antony has promised to do it," said Emma. 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Paris is surely, of all cities that have bared their fading 
 splendours to the changeless sun, most sure of easy triumph 
 o'er the commonplace mind of man. The barbaric extrava- 
 gances of Babylon, the exquisite harmonies of Athens, the 
 crimson pageant of Rome, these belong to various stages 
 of mental development in races that loved beauty for its 
 own sake. And the subtler delicacies of Eastern ingenuity 
 even to this day, the lace-work of Delhi, the flower- work 
 of Pekin, the bead-work of Granada, these appeal to souls 
 that feel loveliness, when they see it, without knowing 
 why. For few men can stop to study, in the toil and moil 
 of their daily existence, the sensuous gratifications that 
 unconsciously surround them ; and the charm of a city, 
 unlike a picture's or a statue's, is pre-eminently for the 
 many, not for the few. In our days, then, when artistic 
 sensation has broadened and grown shoddy, like the art 
 it endeavours to feed on, when beautifulness has got to 
 spread itself everywhere and sparkle cheaply, an imitation 
 diamond — in these days artistic enjoyment must be very 
 loud and plain. Things must be big and bright, and 
 costly ; they must clearly inform us that they are fine. 
 Their price, above all, must be manifest : how else should 
 we know they were admirable ? The sum expended upon 
 their construction should be carved on the front of our new 
 public buildings. In the monotony of their ugliness there 
 would then at least be something that a man of education 
 could call great. 
 
 To Paris, however, as to no nineteenth century city — 
 excepting, perhaps, Buda-Pesth — belongs the secret of 
 spending immense amounts of money with fairly satis- 
 factory results. Unnoticed glories are, of course, not for 
 these days of ours. King Mob must have his money's 
 worth — an idea, be it said in passing, that never yet entered 
 the brain of a gentleman. But the gigantic things that 
 Paris has to do, it can at least do decorously. More than 
 
34 DOROTHEA. 
 
 that, it can do them delicately, with gracious and graceful 
 care. It can erect public buildings that do not swell like 
 warts and bunions on the fair face of the city : it can lay 
 down railways that do not cut across it like the slashes 
 of some hideous sore. And yet more, it can spread a smile, 
 from out the inner gladness of its people, over all its wide 
 circumference of streets. Sunshine lies upon the faces of 
 the passers-by ; sunshine ripples in the words they speak, 
 the flowers and ribands that they wear ; sunshine flashes 
 even in their brightly-toned advertisements, their happy 
 tricolor, their cheerful awnings and the tempered gilt of 
 their facades. If the mission of our modern art be, as all 
 say, to divert the multitude, surely it remains a cordial 
 thing, that a means be found to gratify the vulgar, in which 
 even the non-vulgar may be glad. 
 
 Dirt cannot lie on the countenance of Paris. Like the 
 beautiful woman she is, she cares for her daily appearance 
 with scrupulous vigilance ; but, nothing can remedy an 
 impure complexion, as beautiful women know well. The 
 cure must come from the inside, from the blood. Smoke, 
 steam, paraffin, smuts, all the vile smithy-curse of our 
 civilisation, these blotches men tell us must fester — Paris' 
 puffs them away. The gaiety, the gracefulness, the charm 
 of her inhabitants rise like a flood over all that is horrible ; 
 fall, with the sparkle of fountains, on dust. Vice may 
 abound in the purlieus of the city. Where it shows itself 
 it is neither outrageous nor grotesque. Shameless it may 
 be ; but at least it is not disgusting, and even when most 
 aggressive, it has the decency not to flare. And if this be 
 the new Babylon (as aunt Mary believes it is, when not 
 mindful of the Papacy), then, at least, genius flings open 
 the flower-filled temples of Ashtaroth, and that sight is 
 surely more delectable than the gratings of the grimy 
 sanctuary where Mammon sits enthroned on gold. 
 
 It may rain, but it is never dark in Paris. The city may 
 be sad, it can never be dull. Misery smiles there, with 
 tears in its eyes. Sickness jokes the physicians that are 
 probing its wounds. And when the bright city goes mad 
 with fierce dreams of its own proud divinity, and the blood 
 of its children is poured in broad streams down its beautiful 
 boulevards, then its pulses beat quicker, its shoutings rise 
 higher, the red blood flows redder — than where helots still 
 bow their drink-soddened brows 'neath the grinding boots 
 of their "betters," and the music to which brave souls 
 
DOROTHEA. 35 
 
 die willingly is the sweetest illusion of the high glories 
 of man! 
 
 Dorothea, as her glances leaped right and left through the 
 windows of her railway omnibus, felt all the delight of one 
 who, turning a long wall of granite, suddenly beholds an 
 immense tract of landscape : valleys, lakes, cities, the sea. 
 It is queer, in these travelled days, to realise that a normal 
 trip to Paris can convey new impressions to any one : let 
 us be grateful, you and I, that, however jaded we may be, 
 the world is always fresh to somebodv Dorothea had not 
 travelled, except along the Rhine : the aunts disapproved 
 of France, which was atheistical and papistical, and had 
 killed its king. She had been carefully brought up by a 
 Swiss governess at home. " Her education," said uncle 
 I Tony, "has been admirably in accordance with all 
 recognised requirements. She knows nothi.ig that she ought 
 to know, and nothing that she oughtn't." 
 
 Everything had charmed her on the journey, as soon as 
 she cheered up. She had not disapproved vehemently, like 
 Rebecca, of the coffee at Brussels. 
 
 " Freule," barked the disgusted waiting- woman, " re- 
 member we can still go back." 
 
 "Back?" 
 
 " Yes — back. The ladies would be very glad to see you." 
 
 " Why, I don't know when I shall go back ? " 
 
 " I do," replied Rebecca. 
 
 But Dorothea had become interested in a very stout and 
 shiny Frenchman who entered her compartment, struggling 
 under an over-abundance of badly packed parcels, containing 
 toys. " Containing " is, perhaps, hardly the word : Doro- 
 thea helped to pick up a good many odds and ends. She 
 remained grave when he tried a tin trumpet, explaining 
 that it was for Jean, " mon soldat," but she laughed with 
 him when he pulled out a drawer from a grocer's shop and 
 scattered a quantity of rice over them both. Rebecca sat, 
 drawn up in a furthermost corner, her fancy at work on 
 impossible crimes. " Ah, mademoiselle," said the French- 
 man, pausing in a long account of his grandchildren, " to 
 be interested in playthings, one must be very young, as 
 you are, or very old, as I." He saw the lights of the city 
 before she did. " Accept," he said, " my felicitations ! 
 Nothing equals a first view of Paris, unless it be seeing 
 it again." 
 
 Dorothea was reflecting, at that moment, that nothing 
 
 D a 
 
36 DOROTHEA. 
 
 can equal the awkwardness of meeting a father you don't 
 know. Colonel Sandring, however, fully shared this 
 opinion, and as awkward situations were the one thing 
 he most anxiously avoided, the aunts had sat helplessly 
 staring since noon at a telegram requesting Dorothea to 
 come on at once to the hotel. " Well, I'm glad," she said, 
 as soon as the commissionaire had found her, " that I didn't 
 address the wrong person as ' Papa.' You needn't look 
 glum, Rebecca ; you didn't expect a father." 
 
 " I expected yours," retorted Rebecca ; " he'd have led us 
 out of this Babylonian confusion. Jabbering worse than a 
 mad-house. And all gibberish from first to last." 
 
 " Also, I warn you, I shall laugh whenever you say 
 ' Babylonian.' " 
 
 "The wick — some people mock me without a cause," 
 quoted the handmaid. " The ladies " 
 
 " The ladies may use the word, for at least they know 
 what it means. I don't believe there were railway stations 
 in Babylonia. Now, please don't be cross. You'll enjoy 
 your supper." 
 
 " Unless it's frogs," replied Rebecca. i 
 
 To her mind the view from the omnibus windows pre- 
 sented no other impression than bewilderment. And yet 
 there is surely no more healthfully intoxicating, no more 
 pleasurably bracing spot upon the earth than a bit of Paris 
 boulevard on a fine winter evening. The bright light, full, 
 yet never flaring, the soft air, fresh, but never raw, the quick 
 movements, never ungraceful, the vivacity that stops short 
 of roughness, the alertness that avoids all unpleasantness 
 everywhere, the simplicity that cannot look sordid, the 
 luxury that cannot look vulgar, the rhythmical harmonies 
 of motion and appearance and utterance in thousands of 
 mortals who, whatever they may happen to be doing, are 
 sure to be doing it pleasantly — all these combine to give 
 the foreigner an impression of gladness unsurpassed by 
 anything except the song of thrushes in a copse. And no 
 wonder, for in the heart of every Frenchman a bird carols 
 ceaselessly, often clamorous, sometimes gentle, never still. 
 
 The little hatless woman who tripped aside before their 
 vehicle, holding up her tight-fitting black cloth skirt, had 
 not perhaps our northern regularity of feature — though who 
 could find time to observe this beside the brightness of her 
 eyes ? — but Dorothea noticed a dainty step that is shared 
 by no other nymphs in Christendom, and a fit of gown and 
 
DOROTHEA. 37 
 
 boot such as gold cannot buy in Philistia. And the red- 
 faced cabby, whose reckless driving had distracted her 
 own (bad) coachman, might use reprehensible language, but 
 never silk hat in park or square was worn as that cabby 
 wore his glazed one. Why, even the names on the shop- 
 fronts had their own inherent grace of curve and accent ! 
 Look at " Saucisson," with the pretty half-moon in the 
 middle. Put it beside " Sausage " or " Wurst " ! 
 
 Even the long Rue La Fayette, so hideous on departure, 
 seems happy and bright when you arrive : you can almost 
 forgive it for proving interminable. But what when it 
 comes to an end, as all things interminable do, and you 
 suddenly glide, O Dorothea, into the musical maelstrom of 
 the Opera ? 
 
 The turmoil of the Grand Hotel courtyard brought with 
 it that inevitable amount of ill-treatment which always 
 befalls a shy person from hard-pressed officials : in imme- 
 diate contrast to all this strange clatter and crush Dorothea 
 found herself ushered into a silent and softly-lighted sitting- 
 room, which a tall man of military appearance simulta- 
 neously entered from the farther end. 
 
 " My dear girl ! " said Colonel Sandring, his whole face, 
 form, and accent one eager advance. He stopped dead. 
 " Is that — a — person your maid. Would you tell her to 
 wait outside ? " Dorothea found him just the handsome, 
 sunburnt man she had expected. Only a good deal more 
 wrinkled about the eyes. 
 
 He kissed her affectionately on both cheeks, led her 
 forward, and took away her umbrella. " An absurd position, 
 is it not ? " he said. " Let us try to ignore it. You are 
 handsomer, my dear, than your photos. I always imagined 
 you were dark, like your mother. Well, many men prefer 
 fair women. Of course I should have loved you " — he 
 laughed — " even had you been positively plain. But, my 
 dear, you are the very reverse — I assure you, the very 
 reverse." He kissed her again and brought her a footstool 
 and turned up the lamp-shade. 
 
 " Of course you got my telegram ? For your sake I felt 
 
 that a platform was not the place to no, let us do the 
 
 thing in private. It is absurd, I grant you, but also it is a 
 little — touching. And your aunts never received my three- 
 weeks-old letter till yesterday. Surely, forgive me, the 
 postal arrangements of Holland are — are a little behind- 
 hand .? " 
 
38 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " I — I believe they are considered good," said Dorothea 
 lamely. She always remembered afterwards that this 
 stupid bit of information was the first thing she said 
 to her father. "But your letter went to Utrecht in 
 America.^' 
 
 " Ah ? — that is the bigger city, of course : everything is 
 bigger in America. Please, do not think I wished to dis- 
 parage your native country. It is your native country, 
 isn't it ? That, too, seems funny ! I like defective postal 
 arrangements : they save one such a lot of unpleasant corre- 
 spondence. Now, do you know, once in South Africa, the 
 post kept back a lot of letters of mine because they thought 
 they contained money, while, as a matter of fact, they had 
 been sent me by my duns. You know what duns are ? " 
 
 " Cows ? " ventured Dorothea, with much hesitation. 
 
 " Well, no, not exactly, but your English is wonderful for 
 a foreigner ! Why, Dolly, I feel a rich man to-night. You 
 won't mind my calling you ' Dolly ' ? The other seems 
 rather a mouthful." 
 
 Before Dorothea's vision rose up wild scenes of tears and 
 foot-stampings with the Lesters over that dollish nick- 
 name of " Dolly," but her eyes looked into her father's face 
 with a question she could not induce her lips to frame. 
 
 " It was my pet name for your mother," he said softly. 
 " My dear Dolly, I feel I am ridiculous : it cannot be helped. 
 Women always behave so much better in matters of senti- 
 ment. Our costume hampers us. Now, in a toga, I should 
 know exactly what to do, and look better doing it." 
 
 Dorothea tried to fancy her admirably-coated sire in a 
 toga. 
 
 " Everything has turned out ridiculous : of course I 
 expected we should have plenty of time to write and 
 arrange things. I — I had always expected your aunts to 
 broach the subject. I am sure you understand my feeling ? " 
 He bent forward a little anxiously. 
 
 " They would never have done that," answered Dorothea 
 quickly. 
 
 " Pray do not think I intend to convey a suggestion of 
 blame. On principle, I never blame any one, excepting 
 servants and tradespeople. But really, I assure you, it has 
 always been settled that you would return to me as soon 
 as you came of age." 
 
 " I'm not of age ! " exclaimed Dorothea. 
 
 "My dear, you surely were twenty-one yesterday? I 
 
DOROTHEA. 39 
 
 have always understood that things moved slowly in 
 Holland, but surely a birthday doesn't take more than a 
 year to come round ? " 
 
 " No— but " 
 
 " A good thing if it did ! " 
 
 " In Holland, at any rate, father, people come of age at 
 twenty- three." 
 
 There was a moment's embarrassed silence : then Colonel 
 Sandring burst into peals of laughter. " I might have 
 known ! I might have known ! " he cried. " Of course 
 it'd take a Dutchman longer to come of age than any other 
 man ! What did your aunts think I wanted you all of a 
 sudden for ? " 
 
 Dorothea blushed, unable to give aunt Mary's explana- 
 tion, even assuming it to be incontestably the correct one. 
 " I suppose, because you — wanted me," she said. 
 
 She looked so charming over the shyly spoken words 
 that Colonel Sandring exclaimed with fervour : " Well, I'm 
 awfully glad you are come, my dear. What a mercy that 
 no one had time to explain. I detest explanations. They 
 always complicate matters so. Your mother, | remember, 
 came of age through her marriage. People do, it appears, 
 in your country. As if a man under age who goes and 
 marries shouldn't rather have a second guardian given him, 
 like an imbecile ! " 
 
 " How young were you when you married ? " cried Doro- 
 thea, catching her father's laugh. 
 
 " My dear, have I said I was not an imbecile ? All the 
 happiness of my life I have owed to my follies. We were 
 fools in a fools' paradise, your mother and I. We were 
 very happy, Dorothea." His voice sank : he sat resting his 
 great moustache on his hand. Dorothea listened, uncer- 
 tain, pleased. 
 
 A terrific bang at the door sent the Colonel flying from 
 his chair. Dorothea stared, astonished, to see a brave man 
 go so suddenly white ! Who's that ? Stop where you are ! 
 D it, didn't I tell you I couldn't receive you ! " Sand- 
 ring rushed hastily forward : his daughter listened, shocked 
 beyond measure by the first oath she had ever heard uttered. 
 " I fear it is my maid," she faltered. The door fell open 
 wide : Rebecca filled the doorway. 
 
 *' Sarah was right, though I wouldn't believe it," shouted 
 Rebecca, " when she said the waiters kissed you in the 
 passage. I won't stay there another minute, not I ! " 
 
40 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " She says the servants try to kiss her ! " explained Doro- 
 thea in distress. 
 
 Colonel Sandring slowly studied the broad-beamed and 
 hard-featured female. " Dear me ! " he replied. 
 
 " I am sorry they insulted you," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Me ? No, indeed. I should like to see them try to. 
 It was another girl, white and pink, with ringlets. But I 
 will not connive by my presence, at the doing of deadly 
 sin ! " 
 
 " Oh — she saw them try to kiss some one else," explained 
 Dorothea, much relieved. 
 
 The Colonel turned on his heel. "Quite so," he said. 
 "I can understand her finding that disagreeable. Doro- 
 thea, are you tired? I suppose you will dine in your 
 room ? " 
 
 " Have you had dinner ? " asked Dorothea. 
 
 Now Colonel Sandring, though he could act the biggest 
 prevarications, was incapable of telling the smallest lie. 
 " Not yet," he said, a little ruefully. " I will order some- 
 thing nice for us both in the restaurant. Is there any wine 
 you especially care for ? Champagne, I suppose ? " 
 
 " I am a total abstainer." 
 
 "Phew! My dear child, not — not, I hope, a Blue 
 Ribbonite ? " 
 
 " No, not a Blue Ribbonite." 
 
 " You relieve me. The shade they have selected is so 
 unnecessarily hideous. How that blue blot on her bosom 
 must limit a woman in the choice of her clothes ! " 
 
 " Please, father, don't go thinking I'm a faddist. I hate 
 faddists. But one of our gardeners that aunt Emma wanted 
 to turn away promised me to stop drinking brandy if I took 
 the pledge not to touch wine." 
 
 "The connection is evident," said the Colonel, smiling 
 unsweetly. 
 
 ," My wine to his brandy, you see." 
 
 " I see. I presume this toper derives satisfaction from 
 the thought that he has at least made one person teetotal." 
 
 " Oh, father, I'm sure he keeps his word." 
 
 " Naturally you are. I shall telegraph to this fellow to 
 get publicly drunk at my expense." Then he came back 
 to her. " I'm so glad," he said, " you have generous im- 
 pulses. I believe I had generous impulses at twenty-one. 
 I know your mother had. You are very like your mother. 
 Even more than I thought at first. You have that same 
 
DOROTHEA. 41 
 
 lofty look about the eyebrows. I am sure you are very 
 good." And he took her hand, and touched it with his lips. 
 " That is right. One likes a young girl to be good." 
 
 " And an old woman ? " queried Dorothea, feeling 
 suddenly brighter. 
 
 "An old woman undoubtedly." Colonel Sandring 
 walked thoughtfully downstairs. 
 
 In the brilliant vestibule, all glitter and mirrors, full of 
 the odours and sounds of the huge table dliote close at hand, 
 a woman, gorgeously clothed in a long evening cloak of 
 gold brocade, lounged on a crimson settee, watching the 
 people who passed her. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said. " Enfin ! Have you quarrelled already, 
 that the first encounter should have lasted so long ? " 
 
 " She is exquisite," replied the Colonel, reddening. 
 "Simple, and sensible, and sweet. And forgive me, dear 
 Blanche, if 1 say, she is not of the women who quarrel ! " 
 
 " Well, am I to wait here much longer ? What is the 
 decision ? " 
 
 " The decision is that she dines with me downstairs. I 
 will tell, therefore, this boy to call a cab. You will drive 
 to — let me see — Vefour will be handiest — you will have a 
 quiet little repast there, with a glass of your favourite 
 Sauterne, and then you will just step across to the Palais 
 Royal — see, here are the two tickets — where, in any case, 
 I shall fetch you for supper." 
 
 The woman frowned. " Our last night in Paris ! " she 
 exclaimed. " And I hate seeing farces alone. Nor shall I 
 
 dine by myself in this costume at a cafe, as if I were a 
 
 No, keep your tickets. Take your daughter to see ' Les 
 trois femmes a Papa ' ! 1 shall have a snack of something 
 here in the restaurant, and then I shall go off to bed." 
 
 " Here in the restaurant ? Are you mad ? " 
 
 " By no means. That sort of thing will be constantly 
 occurring. Better get it over at once." 
 
 " It will not occur to-night," said the Colonel. " I intend 
 to enjoy my daughter tranquilly to-night. You will oblige 
 me by dropping the subject. You know how I abhor any 
 sort of altercation." 
 
 She gazed into his eyes. "Very well," she said. "Mind 
 you come for me at the Palais Royal." 
 
 The Colonel, slightly shrugging his shoulders, went up 
 to fetch his daughter, whom he found waiting in her grey 
 travelling dress with a big hat and boa. 
 
42 DOROTHEA. 
 
 *' You are very tall," said the Colonel, satisfied, " and you 
 walk well. I like your walk." He followed her, watching 
 every movement. At the bottom of the stairs she stopped. 
 " Oh, what a beautiful cloak ! " she said. 
 
 She walked slowly across the hall, her eyes immovably 
 fixed on the garment and its wearer. The lady of the 
 cloak, but slightly modifying her recumbent attitude, bent 
 forward, a loose fan between her careless fingers, staring 
 back. 
 
 " My dear child, this way " said the Colonel. 
 
 Dorothea moved slowly to the left, as he directed her. 
 " Do you know," she began, whilst they took their places 
 at a little table, " I never saw so splendid a garment before ! 
 That comes of being in Paris. I fear you will find me very 
 uncivilised, father ! " 
 
 " Women of your class, Dolly, don't, as a rule, notice 
 women of that." 
 
 She glanced across at him ; he had turned to a waiter. 
 The next moment she had understood, and she flushed to 
 the roots of her hair. Of course she knew, yet never had 
 she come in contact with any form of the reality ; nay, nor 
 with any presentation of the subject, outside the hallowed 
 pages of the Bible, in which all things look pure beneath 
 the pure light from on high. She trusted that her father 
 would not understand her blushes, and the thought made 
 her blush all the deeper, in ripples of carmine that spread 
 down her neck. 
 
 Her father sat watching her. 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Colonel Sandring's character must speak for itself in 
 the course of this veracious narrative. Not that it needs 
 vindication, for the Colonel was one of those fortunate 
 good fellows who have hundreds of pleasant acquaintances 
 all over the world. These united in praising his courage 
 and generosity and good-nature. True, the people who dis- 
 liked him, disliked him thoroughly, but these were men and 
 women, chiefly women, whom he hardly knew. Other 
 women loved him : he had always been an easy favourite 
 where he sought for favours, and what does a wise man 
 care for the scorn he passes by? In one of his Mexican 
 campaigns a young half-caste had killed herself for him, 
 purposely getting shot by a rival in his stead. No blame 
 attached to him — at least, as regards the shooting ; next 
 morning he had enriched the mother with all the spoils of 
 his year's hard work. 
 
 Of the bravery which had gained him so many medals 
 he was hardly conscious, but he painfully realised the good- 
 nature which had lost him so many gold pieces. " I can't 
 say No ! " was his frequent lamentation. Had you woke 
 him in the middle of the night to inquire for the name of 
 his worst enemy, he would probably first have told you to 
 
 go to (that enemy), but afterwards he would certainly 
 
 have informed you that the enemy's name was " I can't 
 say No." For, on his side, he had no strong passions of 
 antipathy. He disliked ugly women, very good women, 
 and cowardly men. 
 
 He rose at about noon on the day after Dorothea's 
 arrival — " Mid-day to three in the morning is long enough 
 for me," says the Colonel — and dressed with his usual con- 
 sideration of detail. He felt pleasantly tickled in his very 
 soft heart, and slightly oppressed in his rather light con- 
 science, by the thought of possessing a daughter. A charming 
 possession, clear, beautiful, transparent, but as difficult to 
 carry about the world as a jelly. He must walk circum- 
 
44 DOROTHEA. 
 
 spectly. " I shall show her a bit of Paris," he said to him- 
 self, as he leisurely descended the staircase. " I must be 
 careful to let her see the world generally right side up." 
 He found Dorothea eagerly waiting for him (since nine 
 o'clock). " We will lunch at Ledoyen's," he said, " and go 
 for a drive. The day is fine, but I hope you don't mind 
 about weather. Your health is all right ? " 
 
 " I never was ill in my life." 
 
 "That is right. Little ailments are a daily nuisance. 
 One hates a woman with megrims." 
 
 Much as she inevitably enjoyed the sight-seeing, that day 
 does not survive in Dorothea's memory as a vision of un- 
 mixed delights. Her father drove her at a slashing pace, 
 in a victoria, along the boulevards and up into the Bois de 
 Boulogne. In her ignorance her desire to " visit the curiosi- 
 ties " would have taken a more antiquarian turn, but her 
 father was too experienced a traveller not to know what 
 could be done in half a day, and knowingly do less. 
 Besides, the Colonel had a healthy dread of churches and 
 museums. Classic art was a closed book to him, and, 
 unlike nine educated people out of ten, he did not make 
 grotesque attempts to turn the pages of a volume he was 
 holding upside down. The patter of the boulevards he 
 had at his fingers' ends : he knew about the people of the 
 moment, the people who are making money or a noise. 
 He recognised the prints of popular pictures, had an opinion 
 on the successful novels of the last two years (earlier ones 
 he had forgotten), and could hum snatches from dozens of 
 operas, or, still more generally, operettas. His talk to his 
 daughter, as they drove through the bewildering city, 
 eddied like a whirlpool, in which she sank, hopelessly 
 a fool. Had they betaken themselves to the Louvre, she 
 would have recognised the names, at least, of Rembrandt 
 or Rubens, or even Jean Goujon, but the Colonel tattled of 
 Forain, of Cheret, of Peladan and Caran d'Ache. Never 
 consciously unreasonable, he would lightly have accepted 
 her ignorance of many subjects, but he thought she might 
 have heard of Baron Haussmann or of M. Charles Gamier. 
 She need not have been aware, perhaps, that the Jockey 
 Club is hardly an institution for the moral benefit (un- 
 doubtedly desirable) of horse- jockeys, but she might have 
 heard somewhere, the Colonel thought, that the Bois de 
 Boulogne does not run along the Channel coast ! 
 
 " Jean de Reszk6 is a famous opera singer," said the 
 
DOROTHEA. 45 
 
 Colonel mildly. " My dear — after all — you are twenty- one 
 — have you never been to an opera ? " 
 
 " Aunt Mary thought operas wicked," replied Dorothea. 
 
 "Operas? Music? The gift of God? Why, look at 
 the birds, child ! God has an opera performance at sunrise 
 every day ! " 
 
 " Don't you think that's an oratorio ? " replied Dorothea 
 quietly. 
 
 Her father glanced at her tranquil face, delighted to get so 
 good a reply. " Of course I knew there were such people," he 
 said presently. " ' Exeter Hall ' we call them, ' Little Bethel.' 
 It's my fault, though I don't see how I could have helped 
 it. Never mind, Dolly ; but had it been the theatre, I think 
 I might at least have attempted to understand." 
 
 "Aunt Emma disapproved of the theatre," replied 
 Dorothea. " She thought an opera performance might 
 elevate the soul." 
 
 " Ah ! Now, I dare say your aunt Emma and I would 
 have understood each other ! " 
 
 " Ye — es," answered Dorothea doubtfully. " Aunt Mary 
 is a sweet creature, father, please. I love her dearly." 
 
 " Quite right, Dolly. I also am deeply grateful to her. 
 Your aunts are most estimable. Look at that woman 
 yonder, driving those showy bays ! That is the Princesse 
 de Gardagne, who has just succeeded in getting her husband 
 locked up in a private asylum, though he's no more insane 
 than L" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " My dear, I cannot tell you," was the Colonel's diplo- 
 matically truthful reply. 
 
 " But how ? " gasped the girl. 
 
 " Oh, of course it cost her a lot. But she was a wise 
 woman, and had her money tied up for herself when she 
 married. We shall do the same thing some day for you." 
 
 " Is such wickedness possible ? " stammered Dorothea, 
 suddenly trembling from head to foot. 
 
 The Colonel could not forbear smiling. " My dear, you 
 have read of worse, I presume, in history," he answered. 
 "There was Messalina and Lucretia Borgia, and — I don't think 
 I can remember any other very bad women out of history 
 — out of other people's histories. You will have to look 
 out for bad people, child — bad men especially. However, you 
 women have your instincts, thank God. Men are as naturally 
 attracted by wickedness as women are repelled by it," 
 
46 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " But, father, that's an easy apology for men ! " 
 
 " Is it ? Most men, I fancy, do not ask for an apology. 
 For heaven's sake, don't let us get lugubrious. Isn't that 
 exquisite, the long lines of carriages right up to the 
 Etoile ? " 
 
 " Exquisite," responded Dorothea, who was gazing at 
 the primrose sunset beyond the majestic arch. A long 
 silence would have settled between them but that the 
 Colonel detested silences even more than unsympathetic 
 discourse. 
 
 " Redfern," he read aloud in the Rue de Rivoli. And 
 behold, there was no response ! Now, a girl need know 
 little of the many things that occupy her father, but surely 
 she should seek to share, even from a distance, the few 
 paltry interests of her sex ! " Of course you weren't able 
 to get things before leaving," he said. " These people 
 have a place at Nice. * In season and out of season ' they'll 
 be able to provide you w^ith everything you want." The 
 quotation struck him as particularly neat. " Like a gown 
 from Redfern's," he thought, " it fits." 
 
 " And Dorothea's does not." Then, suddenly a fresh fancy 
 seemed to fill him with pleasure. He told the coachman 
 to drive to the Rue de la Paix, and entered a jeweller's 
 shop. 
 
 " Choose something ! " he said, as Dorothea stood, 
 amazed, amid the scintillating treasures. " I am disgusted 
 at having to add, * Not too magnificent, please.' Forgive 
 me. Still we can get some trifling memento of this wonderful 
 first day together." He picked up a diamond star. " Now, 
 this is pretty, and probably not too expensive. I am dis- 
 gusted : I should have liked to have given you the finest 
 necklace in the shop." 
 
 " I never had anything half so splendid in my life," cried 
 Dorothea. 
 
 " Then, it's high time you began. But your aunts are 
 quite right ; young girls shouldn't wear jewels. This little 
 trifle'll just do. It's your birthday present. My dear 
 child, don't look so frightened, or you'll drive me to tell 
 you the pitiful price. Hurry up." He held open the shop 
 door. " We shall just be in time to get some dinner before 
 the train starts." 
 
 The train started at about eight that evening, a Riviera 
 train de luxe. Sleeping-cars and restaurant-cars were 
 newer in those days than now ; Dorothea had never 
 
DOROTHEA. 47 
 
 seen them, nor had she come in contact with the class 
 of people who patronised that superlatively expensive and 
 uncomfortable modern mode of travelling. A babel of 
 nationalities filled the wide platform, yet none of these 
 presented any pleasing originality ; rather they all appeared 
 parodies of one another. All of them were self-conscious, 
 and scornful (with reason) of their neighbours ; all of them 
 gave themselves airs, probably because they had lost the 
 air of their ancestors ; many were titled (with coronets on 
 their boxes) and most were too rich. Loud men and louder 
 women, carefully, and manifestly, made up to look younger 
 than they were, clothed in the eccentricities of checks, 
 capes, caps, covert-coats, etc., the whole extravaganza of 
 horsiness dear to the sporting taste of the day, which 
 revels in a general aspect and odour of leather and stable- 
 cloths. Pyramids of trunks were being carted right and 
 left round Dorothea, but what astonished her most were 
 the torrents of superfine hand-baggage, dressing bags, 
 despatch-boxes, bouquets, lap-dogs, canaries, rugs, overalls, 
 furs, air-cushions, tennis-rackets, hot-water bottles, pouring 
 down on all available spaces in what seemed a hopeless 
 pell-mell. Without these things you and I know our 
 daughters cannot travel ; let us be thankful that there 
 still exist backwoods even in Europe, where a girl may 
 grow up quite simple, yet refined. 
 
 " Now, here's your sleeper," said Colonel Sandring, 
 turning up, perfectly cool, in the hubbub, his interminable 
 cigarette between his lips. " There's an awful crush, at 
 this season. I was very lucky in being able to effect an 
 exchange." 
 
 " And yourself ? " asked Dorothea. 
 
 " Oh, I'm an old stager. I shall go on, by another train, 
 with your maid. There's no danger, Dolly." He laughed 
 to her, but she hadn't understood. 
 
 " Here's a couple of napoleons for the journey. Don't 
 speak to any one, especially not your companion in this 
 hole for the night. Drive straight to the Grand Hotel 
 at Nice on arriving. My train comes in an hour or two 
 later. It couldn't be helped. I tried hard enough to get a 
 third — a second berth yesterday." 
 
 " It's your discomfort I was thinking of," replied 
 Dorothea. " Please father, I must just speak to my 
 maid." 
 
 " / don't mind," replied Rebecca tartly. " It's you, Freule, 
 
48 DOROTHEA. 
 
 that's going to be killed in that little box. Good-night." 
 She went and established herself on a truckful of luggage, 
 from which she had first carefully removed a black poodle, 
 right under the gold glasses and Wellington nose of its 
 painted and powdered proprietress. 
 
 " Marquise, it is a peasant ! " explained a sickly little 
 male creature in a pink and white collar. " I can see that, 
 mon cher," retorted the harridan, " but my father would 
 have shot the impudent dead ! " The unconscious Rebecca 
 sat grimly confronting the poodle, which was a marvellous 
 " First Prize," curled, tasselled and trimmed. 
 
 " Satan ! " she exploded, like a thunderbolt. The poodle 
 showed his teeth, not because she likened him to an angel, 
 but because she had thrust him from his high estate. 
 3 Rebecca smiled fearlessly back, and, as she gazed across 
 her surroundings, the rugged smile broadened. She approved 
 of the Devil, and his doings. He fitted into her system. A 
 sort of moral shower-bath to the righteous. Bracing. 
 
 In front of Dorothea's cabin a female voice, that was 
 authoritatively summoning the conductor, stopped, in a 
 loud rustle of silk underskirts. A strong smell of violets 
 filled the little chamber. A big, florid lady, in black 
 feathers and the fashionable hair- dye, obstructed the door. 
 
 "Ah, c'est ici," she said. " Bien ! Bonjour, madame." 
 
 Dorothea started to her feet, her heart full of a nameless 
 terror which she was doing her best to keep back from her 
 eyes. Stammering some incoherent apology, she pushed 
 past the newcomer, who was leisurely examining her quarters, 
 and, breathless, caught the Colonel by the arm, where he 
 calmly stood buying a Figaro. 
 
 " Father ! " she stuttered, " I can't travel in that com- 
 partment. There's a person come in that — the woman 
 with the cloak ! " 
 
 " Calm yourself, for goodness sake — people are looking," 
 said the Colonel angrily. " Good gracious, how pale you 
 are ! " — all the anger had died out of his voice. " Don't 
 be a fool, Dolly. Of course there's another passenger. She 
 won't speak to you. And if she does, just reply, yes or no." 
 Thus far the Colonel, who considered he had admirably 
 solved a rather awkward dilemma at no slight incon- 
 venience to himself. He had been very anxious that 
 Dorothea should come away to him at once, for fear of 
 never getting her at all. 
 
 " But you don't understand," she cried in anguish. " It's 
 
DOROTHEA. 49 
 
 the woman we saw at the hotel. I can't spend a night 
 with that woman ! " 
 
 " Well, she was at the hotel last night, and she's going 
 on, probably, to Nice. What more natural ? Are you 
 afraid ? " 
 
 Dorothea drew back a step. " Afraid ? " she said. " Of 
 her hitting me ? No." 
 
 " Of her hurting you ? ** He smiled. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " En voiture, s'il vous plait ! " said a passing conductor. 
 
 " Come, Dorothy, you're behaving like a baby. Look 
 here, I got this for you ! " He ran after her, as she 
 turned feeling the hopelessness of all argument, and pushed 
 into her hand a dainty parcel of chocolates, " Sleep well ! 
 Bon voyage ! Meet me at Nice with a smile ! " 
 I Long after the train had started, Dorothea sat, squeezed 
 as tight as she could squeeze into the far corner by the 
 window, quite still, shrinking away. She looked out a 
 good deal into the night, but you soon get tired of that. 
 The cabin was full of the heavy odour of violets ; the 
 neighbour, less immovable, rustled all the time. Once, in 
 turning to get something out of her bag, which she was 
 constantly opening and shutting, she put down her white- 
 gloved hand on a fold of Dorothy's skirt. The girl's heart 
 gave a horrible leap, and went on bumping. As her 
 thoughts grew a little calmer, she felt ashamed of herself, 
 yet she knew there was no other impulse at work in her 
 bosom than grief and compassion, grief above all. Through 
 the long, long hours, when the light had been veiled and 
 the train went crashing through the darkness, Dorothea lay 
 on her narrow top-shelf, not undressed — she could not have 
 undressed — lay with troubled eyes she hardly dared to 
 close. Yet, from time to time she closed them, for long 
 periods, praying with all her innocent heart and soul, in 
 passionate strainings of the lips, for the woman tranquilly 
 snoring beneath her. 
 
 And for herself she prayed, in deep humility, with tender 
 liftings of the heart to God, who had kept her from great 
 temptation. She hid away her watch under her pillow, 
 and also the diamond star. Not that she distinctly doubted 
 the person's honesty, but she vaguely knew, from the Book 
 of Proverbs, that such women lived by plunder. She knew 
 nothing, except that all we like sheep have gone astray, 
 yet that between this sort of sinners and all others a great 
 
50 DOROTHEA. 
 
 gulf lay fixed, into which her flock could never wander, but 
 from which, in all their strayings, they shudderingly turned 
 away. Sleep would have been impossible in any case. 
 The train banged and rattled on with frequent stops, loud 
 bumpings, a blowing of horns that might wake the dead : 
 the air in the tiny compartment was stifling, the cramping 
 boards caused every limb to ache. And she lay, through 
 the lengthening hours of persistent creaking and heaving, 
 lay praying, praying, praying for the woman who snored 
 below. 
 
 She climbed down from her perch in the morning, stiff 
 and soiled, feeling as if she would never be clean again. 
 Early light did not suit the French lady's complexion, but, 
 being an experienced traveller, she got herself far more 
 easily into some sort of trim. She seemed to ignore the 
 presence of anyone else in the crowded car : she said 
 "Pardon, madame," a good many times, but otherwise 
 acted exactly as she liked. 
 
 She rushed away for lengthy meals, and ate fruit and 
 sweetmeats and other things promiscuously in between. 
 She also drank something out of a bottle. In the early 
 morning Dorothea profited by a moment of solitude to read 
 her usual chapter in the Bible, and, having finished it, 
 turned with pardonable curiosity to that same Book of 
 Proverbs, which gives so graphic a description both of the 
 wisest woman and also of the wickedest that philosopher 
 can realise, experience, or invent. She looked up presently 
 from the volume on her knees, to meet the Frenchwoman's 
 gaze fixed coolly upon her, and she gave a sharp start 
 of surprise, for it seemed to her, in her first alarm and 
 embarrassment, as if her companion must have been perusing 
 the sacred passage upside down, or even now could read its 
 meaning in her face. As if Madame Blanche would have 
 understood a single word of it, even had it not been in 
 Dutch ! 
 
 " Pardon, madame," said the Frenchwoman. Dorothea's 
 tell-tale eyes glanced hastily away to the strange clear 
 southern landscape that had gradually revealed itself in 
 the growing morning light, the landscape of silver-grey 
 olives and aloes, the long grey stretches of rock and of 
 clouded Mediterranean, the whiteness and brightness of the 
 houses under the strong grey sky. She hid away her shabby 
 little book and took out a Tauchnitz volume. In those 
 days the train de luxe — was there ever name invented more 
 
DOROTHEA. 51 
 
 appropriately vulgar ? — did not reach Nice till after noon ; 
 Dorothea, going to lunch, found herself seated opposite a 
 table at which two men were laughing loudly. Near her 
 sat Madame, serenely pensive, behind a cup of coffee and a 
 glass of Chartreuse. Dorothea ate hastily off the dim-blue 
 plates : it was not till she rose to attract the waiter's 
 attention that she found her purse was gone ! 
 
 " Oui, madame," said the waiter, standing expectant. 
 " Trois francs cinquante et un seltz, 9a fait quatre francs 
 vingt-cinq." 
 
 " I have lost my purse ! " gasped Dorothea. She re- 
 membered having put it in her pocket as she passed up 
 the corridor. The men stopped talking. Madame did not 
 turn her head. 
 
 The waiter looked intelligent interest, without any 
 personal bias. " Perhaps Madame had dropped it ? " he 
 pretended to look under the table. " Perhaps she was 
 sitting on it ? No ? " 
 
 " Well, there were always pickpockets at Marseilles. It 
 was written up everywhere. ' Beware ' " 
 
 " I haven't left the train since Paris ! " exclaimed 
 Dorothea. And then, to her amazement, the man turned 
 nasty, with the swift insolence of all these employes when 
 once they see their chance. " Do you think that the com- 
 pany's servants have taken it ? Or one of the passengers, 
 the aristocracy of Europe ? If you haven't the money to 
 pay " 
 
 " Can I be of service ? " asked one of the men from the 
 side-table, bending forward — oh, he was manifestly a 
 gentleman, and plainly " no better than he should be " — a 
 curious phrase, by the bye, which shows with how exceed- 
 ingly little the world is agreed to be content. "Don't, 
 pray, look so distressed, although it suits you admirably. 
 Pray let me pay this man : it will be too cheap a 
 pleasure " 
 
 " Take your money and be gone," said the Frenchwoman, 
 turning suddenly with a five-franc piece to the waiter. 
 " This young lady travels in my compartment : we shall 
 doubtless find the purse there. Shall we go and look for 
 it ? " And she led the way. Dorothea followed dumbly. 
 Terrible visions had risen up before her of magistrates and 
 policemen. What fearful fate was reserved for strangers 
 who made debts of four francs twenty- five and had no 
 money to pay ? 
 
 E a 
 
5a DOROTHEA. 
 
 ** It is no use looking : it is stolen," she cried as she sank 
 back on the seat, her hands before her eyes. "Oh, how 
 shall I ever thank you for your kindness, your very great 
 kindness ? " She was humbled to the dust. 
 
 " Pooh, it is nothing ! You will want a few francs on 
 arriving : shall I put them down here, in your lap. Will 
 you smell these salts ? I am going on to Monte Carlo. No 
 doubt your pocket was picked by one of these fine gentle- 
 men in the corridor. You must realise, mademoiselle, that 
 you are now on the coast where the cream and the scum 
 of the world float uppermost. You will find the worst 
 editions of humanity here — hi ! hi ! — black letter inside, 
 bound in gold." 
 
 " I can never repay you," said Dorothea, struggling with 
 her repugnance, " but still, you must give me an address to 
 which I can send these few francs." 
 
 And now it was the other lady's turn to look embarrassed, 
 under her powder. " For ten francs ! " she said. " Pooh ; 
 it is not worth while. You will give them to the poor ! " 
 
 Dorothea drew herself up. " I cannot remain indebted to 
 you for more than your kindness," she said. 
 
 The Frenchwoman paused, then, with an extra rustle, 
 she wrote down a few words on a scrap of her " Gil Bias " 
 and handed them to Dorothea, who read : 
 
 "Madame de Barvielle, 
 " Poste Restante, 
 
 " Monaco." 
 
 " I have not yet decided on my hotel," said Madame de 
 Barvielle. " This is Cannes. I will say goodbye. I am 
 terribly thirsty, and am going to the restaurant to get 
 something to drink." 
 
 Dorothea bowed, and they parted. The villas and hotels 
 of Cannes crept nearer by on every side : the train stopped 
 in an atmosphere of warmth and sunlight, an odour of 
 eucalyptus and mimosa : the air was filled with English 
 voices and clouds of dust. Dorothea sat through the end- 
 less waits and shuntings and final start, with troubled eyes 
 that saw but little : she had no more thoughts for the wide 
 display of nature's wealth, or of man's. The train stole 
 softly along the shore towards Nice. The girl's breath 
 came fast with nervousness. Presently she drew from her 
 pocket a little book of devotional thoughts that aunt Mary 
 
DOROTHEA. 53 
 
 had given her on parting, and pushed it, trembling, into 
 the side- pocket of the Frenchwoman's bag. Then, a 
 moment later, she pulled it out again, and went in search 
 of Madame de Barvielle, who sat in the restaurant-car 
 behind a soda and something. 
 
 "Madame," said Dorothea unhesitatingly, "will you 
 accept this trifle from me in memory of your kindness ? " 
 
 The Frenchwoman smiled sweetly, took the book, and 
 frowned. Then she looked up into the girl's simple face, 
 and the scornful thanks died away from her lips. 
 
 " Gladly," she said : that was all, and Dorothea hastily 
 climbed down to the platform. 
 
 A couple of hours later she was telling her father the 
 whole of her adventures, all but the last little bit about 
 the book. The Colonel, as we know, was a brave man. 
 He bore the story well. 
 
 " Perhaps that will teach you to be less censorious," he 
 said. " It's all right, of course, but you good women can be 
 so devilish hard." 
 
 " I have no desire to be hard," replied Dorothea. 
 
 "You will have to be careful here. You see, you are 
 now on the coast where the cream and the scum of the 
 world float uppermost. You will find the worst editions 
 of humanity here, black letter inside, bound in gold." 
 
 Dorothea stared at her father in blank amazement. 
 
 '* You needn't stare so ; it's true," he laughed. 
 
 But she stared all tlie harder. 
 
( 54 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes," 
 said the Baroness, gazing down upon her shapely feet. These 
 were cased in new-fashioned, ridiculous grass- green leather. 
 
 " The whole business has been d d unlucky," replied 
 
 the Colonel. The pair were sitting side by side on a 
 bench of the terrace at Monte Carlo, watching the pigeon- 
 shooting, he with appreciation, and she with relish. About 
 them was all the enchantment of a perfect Riviera day. 
 
 " No harm has been done," said the Frenchwoman. " She 
 knows me only as Madame de Barvielle." 
 
 " Which is not your name," said the Colonel, lighting a 
 cigarette. 
 
 "And society knows me as the Baroness Blanche de 
 Fleuryse." 
 
 " Which is," said the Colonel, blowing out the match. 
 She Jooked at him askance, and tambourined her cream- 
 gloved fingers against her crimson fan. 
 
 " The whole business has been d d unlucky," repeated 
 
 the Colonel. 
 
 " I cannot see it in that light. No correspondence ! No 
 recriminations ! No objections ! And just when you have 
 made up your mind to abandon the idea, the young lady 
 jumps into your arms." 
 
 The Colonel rose, flicked the ashes from his coat and 
 leant with his back against the parapet. 
 
 " The young lady is here, and the money is in Holland," 
 he said. 
 
 She turned suddenly from her abstracted watching of the 
 wounded pigeons. " What do you mean ? " she asked. 
 
 He answered her with a yawn. " I don't want to talk 
 about money," he objected. "You know I hate talking 
 about money." 
 
 " I like it," she answered. " What I detest talking about 
 is bills. Lewis, I wish you would tell me exactly how 
 matters stand." 
 
 i 
 
DOROTHEA. 55 
 
 " Exactly ? — dear soul, what an awful word ! This 
 bright sunshine and cold wind are treacherous. There isn't 
 really anything worth telling. Come, let us go into the 
 Rooms." 
 
 She caught hold of him, unceremoniously, by the coat- 
 tail. " Do not be disagreeable," she said. " Sit down and 
 explain." 
 
 The Colonel sank back obediently. " Once — it was 
 twenty years ago," he remarked, " I remember a woman 
 said to me that I could not be disagreeable — to her." 
 
 " What sort of a woman ? Was she fair or dark ? Was 
 she like me ? " questioned Blanche with much interest. 
 
 " My dear, I — forget." 
 
 " Ah, how like a man ! " She struck her fan across her 
 fingers. 
 
 " No, I will be frank with you ; I remember — too well. 
 Let me see : what can you possibly want explained ? 
 When my poor wife died — dear me, that is even more than 
 twenty years ago ! — she left property worth five thousand 
 a year to our daughter, of which one-fifth was settled in 
 lifelong usufruct on myself. Have you any idea what is 
 meant by usufruct ? " 
 
 " Of course : you've got no capital, but a thousand a 
 year till you die." 
 
 The Colonel sighed. " I suppose that is legally correct," 
 he said, " yet I think you might have put it more prettily." 
 His eyes wandered up to the cloudless heavens. " And there 
 are people who say that women have no aptitude for 
 affairs ! Well, according to Dutch law, I enjoyed my 
 daughter's whole income until she was twenty." 
 
 " Why twenty ? " asked Madame. 
 
 " Do not ask me. The absurdest things always happen 
 to you as soon as you come into contact with legislation. 
 There is no giddier distraction than the chase after sense 
 in the head of a lawyer. But it is exhausting. I have 
 never seriously tried it. A person at Brodryck whom Dolly 
 calls * uncle Tony,' sends me occasional parcels of lawyers' 
 stuff." 
 
 " Which you read ? " cried the Baroness. 
 
 " How should I ? They're all in Double Dutch." He 
 yawned. " But of course, as soon as Dolly comes of age, 
 her fortune is entirely her own. Do you happen to have 
 some cigarettes about you ? " 
 
 She gave hirn her little gold case^ 
 
56 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " What did you do with all that money all those years ? ** 
 she asked suddenly. 
 
 He stopped, in the very act of extracting a cigarette. 
 " My dear Blanche," he said, " surely you realise that the 
 whole of this absurd conversation is in the worst possible 
 taste ? " 
 
 " Well, you spent it ! It is gone. For one year you 
 have had to do without it. Never mind. She has now 
 come of age ; she has come to you, and you have got it 
 all back again." 
 
 " How clearly you put things ! " said the Colonel, gazing 
 away at azure immensities of sea. 
 
 " Mind you keep it. She'll marry, and you*ll lose it 
 again." 
 
 •' Even unpleasant things," added the Colonel sweetly. 
 
 " Any man less a sloven than you," continued Madame 
 with swift vehemence, " would have claimed from the first 
 the care of his own daughter's fortune ! " 
 
 " And of his daughter ? " inquired the Colonel, turning 
 curiously, "or of the fortune only? Dear me, it hardly 
 matters. These things, you see, are done with." 
 
 " But you preferred to rove about savage continents, 
 getting yourself wounded in search of stupid medals " 
 
 " Do not trouble to allude to my medals," interrupted 
 Sandring, with a marked change of tone. 
 
 " Wasting diamond bangles on nigger '* 
 
 " What a bad shot ! " cried Sandring, as a pigeon flew 
 away. " Some people are so clumsy about bringing doWn 
 their birds ! " 
 
 He sat gazing mildly in front of him, then, all of a 
 sudden, he looked round at her, with laughter that rippled 
 and rang. 
 
 *^ Sold ! " he cried. 
 
 " What on earth do you mean ? ** demanded the Baroness, 
 bridling. 
 
 "Dolly isn't of age. They take two years more to 
 arrive at maturity in Holland." 
 
 " Diable ! " said the Baroness, and added, after some 
 seconds : " There is use, then, nevertheless, in looking at 
 lawyers' papers." 
 
 " On the contrary, I am glad of my ignorance. Had I 
 known, I should have hesitated about asking my charming 
 daughter to share my poverty, and should have missed the 
 most delightful acquaintance I ever made in my life," 
 
DOROTHEA. 57 
 
 ** At least, you will now look at the man's accounts ? 
 Perhaps he is robbing you ! " 
 
 " Nonsense. People don't steal money. They cheat and 
 they pilfer, but nobody hardly takes cash. Did you ever 
 meet with any one who had taken cash ? " 
 
 " I don't remember," said the Baroness uncomfortably. 
 " I never did ; but then, I have no friends on the Stock 
 Exchange. Burglary and picking pockets are just various 
 forms of sport." 
 
 " Well, but v/hat do you intend to live on ? " she 
 demanded. 
 
 "More debts. There is nothing easier, once you get 
 started. Seriously, however, I dare say we shall rub on all 
 right." 
 
 Madame looked at him for a moment with very kindly 
 scorn. 
 
 " They can't let her starve, you know," continued the 
 Colonel. " Uncle Tony must send me at least a thousand 
 for her keep. That's what I let them have, all the years 
 she was at Brodryck. Why, she'll want that in dresses ! 
 You'd say so, if you saw what she's got on. But, I beg of 
 you, do not let us make my daughter a subject for any more 
 financial — conversations. Her money is her own. I refuse 
 to bother about it in any way. I sha'n't even ask for an 
 allowance. I detest asking." He pushed his cane into the 
 gravel, and dug it to and fro. 
 
 " You can't manage," said Madame. 
 
 " Pooh, an old soldier ! " 
 
 " Who has always lived on his pay ! " she cried, laughing. 
 
 "Besides, I need less money nowadays, I am growing 
 old." 
 
 "You are five and forty." 
 
 " Do you speak in cruelty or in kindness ? ** 
 
 " I speak in resignation and in hope. But there is one 
 thing you forget. Ready money is required at the tables. 
 And what is a thousand pounds to a man so unlucky as 
 you?" 
 
 "Just now you were calling me lucky," protested the 
 Colonel. 
 
 " It was when I believed you the fortunate possessor of 
 five thousand a year." 
 
 "And a daughter." 
 
 " True, I had forgotten the daughter." 
 
 Colonel Sandring smiled. The lady began to pace to 
 
58 DOROTHEA. 
 
 and fro along the balustrade. Then, stopping in front 
 of him — 
 
 "It is the psychological moment," she said, "for the 
 apparition of Pini." 
 
 The Colonel waited, disliking riddles. Besides, he 
 says, if a woman is fond of asking them, she never can 
 keep back the answer. 
 
 " You remember Pini, my Italian, who runs all my 
 errands? I have had him for twenty years — ahem, ten. 
 The brave Garibaldian — you remember him now ? He 
 adores me ! " 
 
 "You have many adorers," replied the Colonel. "Still, 
 I think I can recall a rather deprecatory gentleman of 
 shabby-distinguished appearance — at Spa. Had he waxed 
 moustaches ? " 
 
 " He had." i 
 
 "Then I remember him," said the Colonel decidedly,* 
 "for they were the waxedest I ever saw. What of him? " 
 
 " He is here, giving lessons which nobody takes. He has 
 a system." 
 
 " For teaching Italian ? " 
 
 " For winning at the tables.** 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said the Colonel. 
 
 " No, it appears that it succeeds." 
 
 " Did he tell you that ? Oh, fie, for shame ! ** said the 
 Colonel. 
 
 " It is based on a sort of inverted martingale." She 
 spoke with much conviction, and the smiling Colonel 
 listened, as any gambler would. " Never double your 
 losses : always double your gains. He must explain it to 
 you himself. All he wants is capital." 
 
 " Ah, yes," said the Colonel gently. Both of them 
 allowed their eyes to wander away to the incessantly 
 falling pigeons, the monotonously monstrous Bang ! But 
 neither noticed the shots and the flutterings : you do not 
 at Monte Carlo, unless you wish to : besides, these were 
 thinking of yet larger slaughterings, more shameless and 
 silly destruction still. 
 
 "A system," said the Colonel, "is a mathematical im- 
 possibility. Yet, whenever one is invented, you are asked 
 to believe — in proof of its efficacy — that its possessor needs 
 capital." 
 
 She flung open her fan. " Do not speak to me of mathe- 
 matical impossibilities," she cried, "You have often told. 
 
DOROTHEA. 59 
 
 me you were never able to do a sum in your life. Besides, 
 it is always the impossible that happens. You must see 
 Pini. We cannot be paupers, you and I." 
 
 The Colonel's big yawn had a touch of affectation in it. 
 " We cannot be thirsty, you and I : let us go and have 
 some tea. Signer Pini's system will wait. I promised my 
 daughter to be back to dinner at Nice." 
 
 " Does she never want to come here ? '* 
 
 " Never. She believes the place is some unmentionable 
 palace of wickedness, a gambling hell, or worse. Some- 
 body has told her : not I. She thinks I go to Monaco, for 
 sport." 
 
 Madame de Fleuryse laughed shrilly, looking still towards 
 the smiling seascape. Then she said, in low, ringing 
 accents : " She is right. This girl of yours is a good girl, 
 do you know? She is better than you or I. As for us, 
 nous nous valons." 
 
 " You flatter me," replied the Colonel, a little uneasily. 
 
 " And therefore the sooner she gets rid of us the better. 
 For her sake and our own. Lewis, as for once in your life 
 you have consented to talk business, how about your 
 promise to me ? " 
 
 " My dear Blanche, I never make promises. One some- 
 times has to keep them." 
 
 " Promise or not, you know very well what I mean." 
 
 " Wait till your Italian has brought you a fortune — ^you 
 will not remind a poor beggar like me of any promises 
 then." 
 
 He had risen: she would not look at his face, playing 
 quickly with her fan. 
 
 " Above all, I beseech of you, do not let us worry each 
 other. As long as my daughter remains unmarried, there 
 can be no question of such a step on my part." 
 
 " Ah ! " she said. 
 
 " Surely you would not expect me to do the child such 
 wrong ? " 
 
 " It is unnecessary to — emphasise." She turned to look at 
 him then. " You mean this — positively ? " 
 
 " It is difficult to know if one ever ' means ' anything, but, 
 yes, certainly, I think I may say I mean this." 
 
 " I thank you for telling me plainly. Your daughter, 
 then, henceforth, becomes a charming — bore ! " The 
 Baroness de Fleuryse sailed up the great, wide esplanade, in 
 all the brightness of sunshine, and flowers and brilliant 
 
6o DOROTHEA. 
 
 dresses : she held her head high : determination sat on her 
 bold, false front and ruffled brow. 
 
 She had not gone many steps before she met someone 
 she recognised. It would be difificult to do otherwise on the 
 terrace at Monte Carlo. 
 
 " Lord Archibald Foye ! ** she exclaimed, and held out her 
 hand. 
 
 The young man thus addressed, who was dawdling by 
 the newspaper kiosque, unwillingly removed his eyes from 
 a flaring drawing (and joke) in Le Rive. He was small, 
 fair and freckled, smart-looking, one of those modern young 
 men that are made by the dozen, well-bom, well-dressed, 
 well — nothing else. 
 
 "So I have always been told," he answered demurely. 
 He put on a comic little quiver of his sandy eyelashes 
 which made him look funny, even when saying the stupidest 
 things. " I am awfully glad to see you," he added as an 
 afterthought. 
 
 " You have not the faintest conception who I am." 
 
 " Well, when I know, I shall be all the gladder." 
 
 She laughed. "The Baroness Blanche de Fleuryse. I 
 met you, a couple of years ago, in Paris with Colonel 
 Sandring. 
 
 " Ah yes, just so — Sandring. How is Sandring ? I haven't 
 heard of him for years. Not dead, I hope ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," replied the Baroness shuddering. " Why, 
 pray, should he be dead ? " 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. But I like to think people aren't 
 dead. I remember now perfectly meeting you — Baroness." 
 
 She noticed his slight stumble over the title and rapidly 
 answered : " It was at the house of my cousin, the Count 
 di Casa Profonda." 
 
 " Exactly," said Archibald, repressing a grin. " Sand- 
 ring hasn't shown in England for years. He's been all 
 sorts of queer things in all sorts of places. I believe he is 
 some kind of connection of ours." 
 
 " Colonel Sandring never speaks of his relations," replied 
 the lady, " which is unusual, considering he is English, and 
 they are — noble." 
 
 The young man flushed. At his birth the benevolent 
 fairy had conferred on him an ample supply of good nature, 
 but the wicked fairy, by her bestowal of tactlessness, had 
 almost annulled the value of the gift. " That's a nasty 
 one," he said, " but I forgive you. Look at this," he con- 
 
DOROTHEA. 6i 
 
 tinued, pointing to the caricature, " isn't it good ? " He 
 shouted with fresh laughter over the customary husband 
 and ballet-girl, then he went round to the pigeon-hole and 
 put down a penny before the astonished old woman inside. 
 " It's mean, I think, laughing at her papers and not paying 
 her," he said. "And it's no use my buying their old 
 Punches : I get a headache trying to worry out the jokes." 
 
 " If you like, I will translate them to you," suggested the 
 kind-hearted Baroness. 
 
 "Now, that's awfully good of you," replied the young 
 man warmly. " Do you know, I think — by Jove, that's an 
 idea ! I shall be grateful to you all my life for having 
 suggested it. It's the egg of Columbus, by Jove ! " He sat 
 down on the nearest seat under pressure of his emotions. 
 " You know the egg of Columbus ? " he said. 
 
 " I do," replied the Baroness. " It is stale." 
 
 " That's the nuisance ! " remarked Archibald, shaking his 
 head. "You never can be sure, when you start telling a 
 story, whether the person you're telling it to has heard it 
 before. And yet all the difference between a bad story and 
 a good one lies in the fact of the person's having heard it 
 before. Not that I go in for stories. My — what d'ye call 
 it ? — speciality 's jokes. Look here, shall I tell you about my 
 collection ? I haven't been able to tell anyone for a week. 
 Roden — that's a fellow up at the* Parry* — says he hates puns." 
 
 " I love them," said the Baroness, sitting down also. 
 After all, a lord is a lord, especially at Monte Carlo. There 
 were a good many people on the terrace. 
 
 " You're not afraid of a man with a hobby ? " continued 
 the engaging youth. 
 
 " On the contrary, I think he is positively refreshing. In 
 these days everybody has only fads." 
 
 " Oh ! " replied Archie suspiciously. " I suppose that's 
 clever ! Well, never mind. But, do you know, I've the 
 finest collection of jest books and comic annuals and funny 
 books of all kinds in England. I began it at Oxford. I've 
 got more than four thousand numbers in my catalogue — 
 four thousand three hundred and seventy- three, up to yester- 
 day. It's largely modern : I don't go in for history much : 
 their pictures are so poor, and our ancestors didn't seem to 
 have much idea what a real good joke was. My tutor at 
 Oxford tried to get me to look at an old Latin chap called 
 Microbius — all the puns of the ancient Romans in a bushel — 
 but, dear me, it was awfully slow ! Do you like Joe Millers ? " 
 
62 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " I have never met him," answered the Baroness, whose 
 eyes were wandering. 
 
 Young Lord Archibald screamed with laughter. " Oh, I 
 say," he cried, " that's better than Columbus ! Well, talking 
 of my collection, the pity is, one can't carry it about with 
 one. When a fellow's in the dumps, you couldn't imagine 
 the comfort it is to go in and have a look at the lot — why, 
 just reading the titles is better than a brandy and soda ! " 
 His voice sank to a note of true feeling. He sighed. 
 
 " It can't be helped," he said. " I haven't got money 
 enough to live in England." 
 
 " What you want is a rich wife ! " said the Baroness briskly. 
 
 A swift twinkle sprang into Lord Archie's small eyes. 
 " Yes, indeed ! " he said. 
 
 " I know just the wife to suit you," continued the French- 
 woman. Love and money-making forming the entire 
 complexus of her being, she imagined them to be every- 
 body's ever-present occupation. Dorothea, having brought 
 no fortune with her, must be got rid of at once, for the 
 Baroness, who had reckoned on obtaining an immediate 
 slice of the Brodryck property, as a sort of composition, was 
 bent on marrying the Colonel, rich or poor, and dreaded 
 every hour of delay. 
 
 " Do tell me about her," said Archie, twinkling more 
 and more. 
 
 "She is young, handsome, charming, rich. And she is, 
 what you young men like in marriage, very good. Your 
 cousin. Miss Sandring." 
 
 " Sunday School," replied Archie. " I'm afraid she 
 wouldn't do for a reprobate like me." 
 
 Madame bit her stupid lips. " That is so like you 
 English," she cried. " You cannot imagine a woman being 
 good, but at once you must make her devote. A French- 
 woman can go in the morning to mass, and spend her 
 evening happily at the Folies Bergere." 
 
 " Does Miss Sandring spend her evenings at the Folies 
 Bergere ? " inquired Archie. " Well, you've given me her 
 good points. What are her faults ? " 
 
 " You speak of the young lady as if you were buying a 
 horse, my lord." 
 
 Archie, like all practical jokers, detested being snubbed. 
 He got up. " That's Sandring at the other end," he said, 
 " is it not ? The jolly-looking chap in the tweeds. Let's 
 go and ask him to give me his daughter." 
 
DOROTHEA. 63 
 
 Colonel Sandring expressed no satisfaction at sight of 
 his young relative, but he offered him a cigarette. He could 
 not do less for any man. 
 
 " You must present me to your daughter," said Lord Archi- 
 bald presently. " The Baroness tells me she is charming." 
 
 Colonel Sandring lazily drooped his eyelashes towards 
 Madame Blanche de Fleuryse. 
 
 " The Baroness was even so flattering to me as to suggest 
 that I might aspire to the honour of Miss Sandring's hand." 
 Archie's face was preternaturally solemn. " How clumsy he , 
 is ! " thought the Baroness. The Colonel's eyelids closed 
 still more. 
 
 " On my side there could only be one difficulty, but . 
 it's rather an awkward one, isn't it, Sandring ? You see, 
 madame, I've been married for a couple of years ! " 
 
 " Idiot ! " said Madame's large, expressive eyes, but her 
 lips spake gently : " Well, mine was, in itself, a most excel- 
 lent combination, for what, after all, do you English seek 
 in marriage but to buy money and sell rank ? " Thereupon 
 she marched away, with the honours of war. 
 
 Archie ran after her. " I say, Baroness," he cried, " you 
 don't mind my using your two jokes in my collection ? " 
 
 " What jokes ? " demanded Blanche, flaring round. 
 
 "The stale ^^^% and Joe Millers," replied my lord, un- 
 abashed. " I'm making an absolutely original book for 
 publication. No joke goes in that's been published before. 
 You can't think what a lot it takes of — what d'ye call it ? — 
 collating." 
 
 "You are welcome to my poor contribution," said the 
 Baroness with magnificent disdain. 
 
 " You — ^you're quite sure they're your own ? " 
 
 The Baroness vouchsafed no reply, but sailed off. 
 
 " Yes, women are devilish ticklish to handle," said the 
 Colonel, as Archie came back to him. 
 
 " Do you think so ? I have always found them quite 
 easy," replied the young man. 
 
 " No, I didn't laugh," answered Sandring. Archibald 
 stared at him. 
 
 " Is Lady Archibald with you ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, we've never been separated a day since our 
 marriage. We simply adore one another." 
 
 The adverb greatly pleased the Colonel, but he said 
 nothing at all. 
 
 " We're staying at the * Parry.' There are some awfully 
 
64 DOROTHEA. 
 
 jolly people at the * Parry ' — two Germans, for instance, 
 an uncle and nephew called Roden. Why don't you come 
 and stay at the ' Parry ? * " 
 
 " My daughter prefers Nice. I remember meeting a 
 General von Roden at the autumn manoeuvres." 
 
 " Why, that must be young Roden's father — he's up at 
 Cimiez with his womenkind, ill. Fancy your knowing 
 them ! I wasn't aware you were an English colonel, 
 Sandring." 
 
 " Nor am I," replied Sandring shortly. " I sold out as 
 captain, and went where a man is a man and not some- 
 body's nephew. The Roden I speak of was brother to 
 Count Roden-Rheyna.'* 
 
 " That's the fellow, the uncle — Egon calls him * the Head.* 
 They're heavy swells, I believe, in their part of the world." 
 
 " There spoke the son of the English marquis, both in the 
 admission and in the limitation. They are swells, my 
 dear child, all the world over. Does that matter much ? " 
 
 " You needn't chaff me," said Archie. 
 
 " On the contrary. Your view is my own. An English 
 aristocrat is the noblest work of God. Second-best, though 
 a long way behind, comes a foreign ditto. By the way, 
 did you ever see an Eastern beggar ? " 
 
 " I say, it's a beastly shame your going on calling me a 
 snob like this ! " cried Archie with burning cheeks, "when 
 you're aware that I married a foreigner, and she not a swell. 
 Heaven knows ! " 
 
 The Colonel's brown face grew darker also. " Do you 
 know," he said frankly, " you are right : I am wrong. Some- 
 thing you said just now vexed me ; and I stupidly hit back." 
 All my stock of wisdom consists of half a dozen maxims that 
 I haven't even the wit to remember when I need them." 
 
 " Well, you see," replied Archibald, immediately mollified, 
 " I'm a lot of things I ought not to be, but I really am not 
 a snob. And the Baroness has been riling me too." 
 
 " Live outside a society you used to belong to, and 
 you're bound to abuse it," said the Colonel, still with the 
 same calm frankness. " But I shall have to alter my ways 
 just a little now, for my daughter's sake, if I can. I think 
 I might call on the General." 
 
 " That is young Roden over there with my wife ; let us 
 go and speak to them," suggested Archie charitably. 
 
 The Colonel, as they strolled across, looked down on his 
 innocent companion with a shade of self-reproach. For, 
 
DOROTHEA. 65 
 
 indeed, every one (inside England) knows what Lord Archi- 
 bald had been and gone and done a couple of years ago at 
 Kissingen. How he had pleasantly diversified the monotony 
 of his mother's gout-cure there, by running away on his 
 twenty-first birthday with a little German waitress whose 
 position he immediately legalised in the teeth of — every- 
 body. Archibald had always been a good boy ; his mother 
 had loved him ; his governess had kissed him ; his friends 
 at Oxford had called him " The Vestal." He had early 
 shown a weakness for apple-pie beds and booby traps and 
 cobblers' wax, but nobody had ever expected such a 
 practical joke as this ! Every one (in England) knows what 
 sort of a liver Lord Brassingham was. We can understand 
 his fury : he allows his fourth son a few hundreds a year, 
 which the latter spends abroad. 
 
 The Colonel enveloped Lady Archibald in one of those 
 rapid long glances of his which seemed to have looked you 
 all over before you could say he had stared at you. Her 
 pearly pinkness was just of the kind which, especially in 
 a waitress, would naturally suggest Hebe to young twenty- 
 one. She was golden-haired, plump, fluffy, dimpled, and 
 she had a loud, jolly laugh. The Colonel immediately saw 
 her at forty, and he felt a humane satisfaction that his 
 youthful connection would never be found among the 
 prophets, in fact could by no means be got to see farther 
 than the length of his very short nose. 
 
 " This," said Archie, " is Herr von Roden." 
 
 " You are very like your father," said the Colonel. " In 
 the army, I suppose, like him ? " — for the young German's 
 military shoulders seemed naturally to suggest the remark. 
 
 " No, I am not in the army ; I am glad you think me 
 like my father," replied the German in a foreigner's careful 
 English. The Colonel perceived on the Foyes' good-natured 
 faces that somehow he must have committed some very 
 dreadful blunder. He smiled to himself ; he was hardened 
 against social blunders, but the next moment, as they all 
 moved towards the restaurant, the smile gave way to a 
 ^stab of pain, for he saw that the stalwart German limped. 
 
 " I am quite sure the Lord General also — he must 
 be charming," declared the high-pitched voice of Lady 
 Archibald. "Archie said, only this morning, this young 
 Herr von Roden is a tile ! " 
 
 Von Roden, on in front with the husband, did not turn, 
 but Archibald stopped and roared. " She means * brick ' ! " 
 
 D. F 
 
66 DOROTHEA. 
 
 cried Archibald. " Oh, Dickie, you idiot, don*t you 
 remember when the old Count's hat blew off the other 
 day, I told you he had a tile loose, and you went and 
 told him ! " 
 
 " Archibald, you do this thing of purpose ; of purpose 
 you hold me for a fool," cried his noble consort wrathf uUy. 
 Her accent was atrocious. The Colonel saw at once that, 
 lost in the mysteries of German etiquette, not knowing how 
 to behave, the young waitress had wisely resolved not to 
 behave at all. Also he soon remarked that her admiration 
 for her compatriot was not merely a tribute of the lips ; 
 and he wondered if this young Teuton was the sort of 
 man who likes a woman to say he is charming. Few of 
 us do, though all of us like her to be charmed. 
 
 " If you do this thing again," continued Lady Archibald, 
 " I will not translate to you the FUegende Blaetter when 
 they come." 
 
 " Don't be nasty," replied her spouse — ^his formula for 
 settling all conjugal disputes. They sat down to tea at 
 one of the little tables on the square, and presently the 
 Colonel rose to depart, Archie offering to see him to the 
 station. 
 
 " Go see the Lord General ! " my lady cried after 
 Sandring. " Tell him we retain here his son as our 
 prisoner of war ! " 
 
 " Don't you tell her, for Heaven's sake," gasped Archie, 
 " about the Lord General ! You can't think what an 
 hourly delight he is to me. Pm teaching her English — 
 by Jove, you would laugh — but she's found out the Lord 
 General all for herself." 
 
 "I should be loth," replied the Colonel gravely, "to 
 deprive any living creature of the faintest amusement. 
 Still, I shouldn't make too much fun, if I were you, of that 
 young German's relations. He doesn't look as if he'd take 
 it kindly. Germans have such odd ways of receiving an 
 insult — at the sword's point." 
 
 " Oh, Egon's a tile," replied Archie, 
 
 " Yes, you are our prisoner of war," said Lady Archibald, 
 lapsing at once into her own vernacular and turning on 
 von Roden the full battery of her forget-me-not eyes. 
 
 Von Roden smiled. " A willing prisoner," he answered, 
 " unarmed and harmless. The position is inglorious and 
 secure." 
 
 Lady Archibald frowned. " Ah, you have not forgotten 
 
I 
 
 DOROTHEA. 67 
 
 our conversation of last night," she said. " I told you last 
 night that my ideal hero was a conqueror who had never 
 known defeat." 
 
 " I admire your ideals from a distance, Meine Gnaedigste. 
 I am not a soldier, as the English Colonel has just inadver- 
 tently reminded us. I have never known attack, and have 
 therefore never known defeat." 
 
 She rose at once, with a great clanging of cups on the 
 table. " How chilly it is ! " she said. " See me across to 
 the hotel." As they threaded their way amongst the crowd, 
 Lord Archibald's loud little figure came in sight, twisting 
 down through the gardens with the Colonel. 
 
 " Poor Archie ! " said my lady. 
 
 " Surely you are mistaken ; he is the happiest of men." 
 
 " Is he ? I hope so. But happiness is very monotonous. 
 I ? — I have boundless capacities for enjoyment. Life is so 
 short ; to me it seems criminal to let one chance of pleasure 
 escape." 
 
 " You cannot possibly be unhappy," he answered, 
 
 " Unhappy ? No — you talk as if I were an applicant for 
 poor relief. But I might have a great deal more enjoyment. 
 So might all of us, if men were not such fools." 
 
 " They are fools ; there is no more to be said." 
 
 She stood still, by the wide hotel steps. " When I was a 
 little girl at our village school," she said, " we learnt a 
 little poem — I believe all children learn it — about a forget- 
 me-not on the top of a wall and a violet at the bottom, 
 that cried because they couldn't meet. Do you remember ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "A boy came along and picked them both and bound 
 them to a posy. One of those boys they call Cupids, I 
 suppose. It was a stupid little poem." She looked up at 
 him, with her saucy light eyes, her golden head haloed in 
 her white parasol. 
 
 " The forget-me-not is a beautiful flower," he said, gazing 
 straight into her own pallid depths of blue, "but it never 
 would match with the violet." 
 
 "As a matter of fact, I detest violets," answered Lady 
 Archibald quickly. 
 
 " They are a feminine bloom," he answered boldly, and 
 made her a stiff German salute, and ran, limping, away. He 
 amazed Archie by going up to him in the gardens an(^ 
 absurdly gripping his hand. 
 
 " What have you done with my wife ? " demanded Archie. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Left her," replied Egon, " at the hotel." 
 
 " I say, doesn't she look awfully fetching in that pale 
 blue gown ? " 
 
 "What is 'fetching'?" 
 
 Archie stared at his companion. " You wait till you're 
 fetched," he said. 
 
 Colonel Sandring, eager to tell Dorothea of these new 
 acquaintances, found her busy over home letters and letters 
 home. 
 
 "I have been telling them how good you are to me," 
 she said, " how happy I am ! They need not be afraid 
 I shall want for kindness and care." 
 
 " Tut, tut," said the Colonel. " Give them my love, and 
 Em and Doll. I should like to see those cats." 
 
 " Em and Doll are uncle Tony's dogs," she answered, 
 laughing. " I've been writing to Mark Lester about my 
 Christmas tree." 
 
 " Oh," he said. " Well, this young Roden I was telling 
 you about seems a very nice young chap. I remember 
 greatly liking the father, an excellent type of high-class 
 German. And just the sort of man to have a charming 
 wife. This son looks very much like him." 
 
 " What sort of man has a charming wife, father ? " 
 
 " A very nice fellow, or a brute. Not that I ever knew 
 a man fully good enough to merit a good wife, or one bad 
 enough to quite deserve a bad one." 
 
 Dorothea laughed again, but when, many years after, 
 she first recalled her father's words, and first understood 
 them, it was through the same man in connection with 
 whom she had heard them originally uttered — Egon 
 Treuhart von Roden, 
 
( 69 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Henceforth the story of Egon Roden blends with the 
 story of Dorothea Sandring. 
 
 Thus, suddenly, in the boundless, cloud-filled heavens, 
 two small specks, sailing none knew whither, meet, inter- 
 mingle, and can never separate again. 
 
 Every one who has been to Nice knows, by sight at least, 
 the Villa Buonarotti, that used to be, and perhaps still is, 
 the property of the Prussian Count Riesenthal. It stands 
 half-way up the Cimiez hill, on a terrace, in a great wide 
 spread of luxuriant olives, half-hidden at equal distance 
 from the old road and the new. A long pink house with 
 flat roofs and fancy parapets, and innumerable green 
 shutters, big or little — one of those up and down Italian 
 villas, whose gaudy porticoes and loggias suit the golden 
 southern landscape as no modern brick or stucco palaces 
 can ever aspire to do. There was a time, not a dozen 
 brief years ago, when the leafy solitudes of the lovely hill 
 of Cimiez afforded shelter to many thousand singing birds, 
 and also to a few score favoured strangers who had 
 perched secluded nests between the olives, where they too 
 could dwell in quietness among God's beasts and flowers. 
 Occasionally, perhaps, as you wandered along the rippling 
 rivulets that babbled to themselves in idly listening 
 glades, or turned swiftly up crooked paths that drew you 
 unconsciously higher, you would hear the tinkle of descend- 
 ing bells and come upon a swarthy countryman, thought- 
 fully wending downwards beside his laden ass. In those 
 times they still gave you good-day, as they passed on their 
 way among the oil trees. And even if they who disturbed 
 your solitary musings were tourists that had ridden up to 
 see the lofty convent, or picnic in the Roman ruins — if 
 these passed you on their solemn donkeys, with discordant 
 screams and laughter — well, it was only a moment's sight 
 of pretty English faces and a ring of happy voices — the 
 
70 DOROTHEA. " 
 
 solitude seemed all the sweeter when that vision of Nice 
 hotels had died away into the depths. To-day all these 
 things are abundantly changed. The trees have been cut 
 down : the sensible birds are fled. Up the naked hill-side 
 stretches, wide and white and bare, in a glitter of scorching 
 sun and a whirl of unresting dust, the great, the magnificent 
 boulevard, flanked by modern building-monstrosities of 
 every inventable northern unsuitability, loud with electrical 
 trams and tooting imitation coaches, and hideous with the 
 clang of whips. Up it goes, straight to the six-floor hotel 
 at the top, the splendid Regina Palace. In our days of 
 middle-class supremacy, we dub our new lodging-houses 
 " Palaces," that King Snob, for a guinea a day, may 
 fancy himself to possess some few gilded inches of royalty. 
 And, indeed, 'tis an excellent plan, affording much innocent 
 gratification ; so we stamp the hotel sheets and candlesticks 
 with the same royal cipher and coronet, that King Snob, as 
 he sinks to his slumbers, may dream that he snores (like his 
 constitutional compeers) on a throne. 
 
 Prince *Arry and Princess 'Arriet, had they accidentally 
 strolled in those far-away days to the gates of the Villa 
 Buonarotti, would certainly have turned back in contempt. 
 The widely straggling garden, grey untidiness, flower- 
 bespangled under dark green cypress and palm trees, 
 bespoke not the plentiful wage of the artificer, nor the 
 medals of the show-loving tradesman, retired. Its beauties 
 had been largely left to Nature, in a country where Nature 
 has not lost her free hand. Great blossoms of scarlet 
 geranium, against leaves every shade of green, russet 
 and golden, spread, heavily massed, down the dusty stone 
 walls. The banksia and the wisteria, interwoven, covered 
 one whole south front of the stables, hanging like a 
 wonderful Eastern embroidery of lilac and yellow. A little 
 beyond. Crimson Rambler and Eglantine roses flung their 
 clear stains of colour against the dark pall of the ivy : in 
 the garden itself, starred narcissus and shiny jonquils, soft 
 iris and blazing anemone, bloomed, self-sown, anyhow, in 
 patches, under the benevolence of God. At the back, 
 almost hidden from the road, lay the house, with the steep 
 olive orchards rising behind it. 
 
 When Count Riesenthal lent this villa to his old friend 
 and comrade. General von Roden, suddenly invalided, he 
 could not have chosen a fitter tenant for the place. " It is 
 absolutely perfect," cried the whole family on arriving, a 
 
DOROTHEA. ~ 71 
 
 verdict they would scarcely have hit upon, had the owner 
 repainted the walls to receive them. 
 
 And the Rodens were judges of beauty. All their lives 
 long they had submitted to its influence, developed in its 
 atmosphere. Justus von Roden, the father, the General, 
 was a practical philosopher, a disciple of Goethe : with 
 open eyes and calm resolve, his own lofty soul had accepted 
 in his youth the theory of the unity on earth of the good, 
 the true and the beautiful in perfect harmony of matter 
 and mind. If goodness, then, was a source, inevitable, of 
 beauty: beauty as certainly brought forth good. It is 
 told of Goethe that, as a little child, he was once found 
 weeping bitterly, and could give no other explanation of his 
 grief than the ugliness of the little girl he had been desired 
 to play with. Such almost physical suffering from deformity, 
 such passionate need of symmetric development, have 
 nothing in common with art twaddle and gesthetic pose, 
 of both which, in fact, they soon become the natural 
 negation. The classic up-building of the outer and inner 
 temple mercilessly demands the excision of many excres- 
 cences dear to the heart of the amateur self- decorator. 
 Goethe has been called the great modern pagan. Every 
 such effacement of history is of course a psychologic 
 absurdity, which contains an indication of sense. The 
 student gazed from afar at the greatness of the master, and 
 struggled to absorb a reflected portion of it into his blood. 
 As far as is possible in an up-to-date cavalry officer, the 
 soul of Justus von Roden was the soul of an ancient Greek. 
 
 He had entered the army as a matter of course, and had 
 given himself, body and soul, to the love of his profession. 
 He had suffered, unconsciously, for his unspoken creed. 
 His brother had got him the post of adjutant to a black- 
 guard royal highness, and Justus had declined the honour. 
 Count Roden-Rheyna protested. " Why, his whole life is 
 filled up with courtesans ! " cried Justus. " I couldn't live 
 in an atmosphere as disgusting as that ! '* The elder 
 brother smiled ; " Justus, you are a wise fool," he said, and 
 left him. 
 
 But the courtier let fall the adjective when Justus refused 
 to be wed to a wealthy cousin, simply because she was 
 plain, and married a beautiful little woman whom he 
 loved to distraction. It took some time before the Count, 
 a cheerful cynic, compelled by what he saw of his sister- 
 in-law's household, once more picked up the qualification 
 
^2 DOROTHEA. 
 
 and affixed it to his estimate of her husband's visible folly. 
 Wise fool or not, Justus undoubtedly succeeded, both 
 objectively and subjectively, in life, and the titles of " Don 
 Quixote," which his brother cadets, and " Bayard," which 
 his brother subalterns had bestowed on him, began to look 
 out of place in the sedate prosperity of his later career. 
 Chivalry and courage are not things a man's character 
 ever loses, but they sink back with time, like a melting 
 boss of metal, and silently cover the whole. He became 
 commanding officer of a crack regiment, one of the best. 
 His superiors knew him to be an excellent soldier ; their 
 only objection to him, in his lofty position, was that 
 he might have been a little better acquainted with the 
 young life of garrison towns. His officers said he was 
 a firm disciplinarian, but a man who could always be 
 taken in once by whoever chose to tell him a lie. A 
 certain number of adversaries he had : they were the people 
 who had speculated on his simplicity or on his kindness, 
 and whom he had found out. 
 
 " Life is beautiful : God is good," said the Frau Generalin. 
 That was all her philosophy, and it sounds exceedingly 
 simple until you try it. True, she had not many clogs on 
 her heavenward course. But sooner or later, the sudden 
 upset comes to even the brightest admirers of the journey. 
 It is picking-up time that we have to judge our soul's 
 health by. 
 
 Her children were strong, happy, and handsomer than 
 most. They adored her as the light of their home. All 
 her friends contradicted her contention that she was not 
 made to shine in society. She avoided it for the not 
 unusual reason that it clamoured to possess her. She was 
 a pretty, pleasant woman, whose touch -left a lingering 
 brightness on everything she passed. A superb musician 
 also : perhaps it was on that account that, in all her quiet 
 daily doings, she never seemed to strike a discord. And 
 her eyes had in them that silent helpfulness which causes a 
 little child to nestle close. 
 
 Ah, what a home ! Nothing of it is left now, so much 
 the better ! The house has been turned into a local museum : 
 the rooms in which the Roden children laughed and played 
 are bare and boring, with their whitewashed walls and 
 hollow cases, containing skeletons and empty Roman 
 wine-jars and eyeless skulls. Nobody ever goes to look 
 at them. 
 
DOROTHEA. 73 
 
 From the pleasant, old-fashioned town of Bonn the 
 broad, bright high- road to Coblence sweeps away, beside 
 the most majestic river, to the distant hill which lifts 
 aloft the ruined tower of Godesberg. On that stately- 
 high-road, in the line of rich men's mansions, a big, old- 
 fashioned dwelling-house falls back behind a field of 
 straggling fruit-trees — apricots and cherries — ^half-hidden 
 in untidy foliage, midway towards the grey stretch of 
 solemn water, with the haze of the Seven Mountains and 
 Drachenfels beyond. All the poetry of the serious North, 
 darker, browner, stronger, as the face of a man. The 
 music, not of sun- lit cymbals or the singing love- guitar, 
 but the tone of a church-built organ, slowly praising 
 God. 
 
 In this braver Arcady the Roden children grew up to a 
 love of all things lightly beautiful. Throughout the 
 Rhineland summer a peaceful Nature lapped them in 
 loose content. Their garden, cool with radiant Northern 
 verdure, sloped down to the sleepy river which curves here, 
 in wide embrasure, like a lake. The farther shore called 
 vaguely from the sun-mist ; beyond, reposeful, filling the 
 horizon, arose the gentle outlines of the hills. At any 
 moment, when the glare of noon lay on the water, or when 
 the purple shadows fell at sunset, the dabbling boat, 
 awakened on the beach, might lure you down the garden- 
 steps into an instant fairy-land. For there, immediate, 
 within ten strokes of the eager oar, ten laughs of the 
 rippling sail, hung around you, far and near, the never- 
 dying romance of the German river ; from the slopes and 
 valleys, clothed with vine, the songs of a songful people 
 echoed across the water ; from rocks above and caves 
 beneath came the answering music of the maidens whom all 
 may hear, but none, would they live, must hope to see. At 
 evening, in the solemn, star-lit silence, you could catch the 
 glimmer of their locks, a distant dream, deep down in awe- 
 struck haunts of stillness where the gleaming treasures lie, 
 or far above on the watchful peaks where the old-time 
 dragons lived and died. And you sing, in your gay young 
 heart, of minstrels and knights, brave, simple and loving, 
 such as the shabby world will never behold again (yet, 
 after all, father is very like them) ; you sing, in your golden 
 glamour, you sing — till a throbbing steamboat rustles 
 down the middle, laden with laughter, and brass-band 
 blare, and shouting, that break the old-world spell. 
 
74 DOROTHEA. 
 
 There were four Roden children. Egon, Gertrude, 
 Konrad, and Karl. Of these Egon, the eldest, was most 
 open to the impressions of Rhineland scenery and legend, 
 healthy dreams and romance. Gertrude delighted her 
 father by following him into the realms of exact science 
 and investigation of Nature ; chemistry, mathematical 
 computations, the microscope. Konrad looked after him- 
 self, and Karl after numberless rabbits, pigeons, guinea- 
 pigs, a menagerie of pets. 
 
 In the winter, art gave more than Nature could withhold. 
 The city whose chief glory is Beethoven has never neglected 
 fittest homage to his name. At all its street corners flowed 
 streams of purest melody : any that listed could gather to 
 drink. To the open temple, of gloomy winter evenings, 
 trudged the weary housewife, her needlework still in her 
 hands. She settled herself in a quiet corner, and, while she 
 worked, harmonious thoughts swelled through her soul, as 
 in a house of prayer. She sat through a symphony as 
 through a sermon : only, she listened. And if lessons were 
 done, the children went with her, paying a few pence for 
 the lot. On rainy Sunday afternoons the statues, white 
 against museum windows, seemed to beckon towards the 
 gaping portals and tempt you to loiter between the gods 
 and goddesses that are not dead, as the ignorant deem, but 
 alive. Beauty was everywhere, not the least at home, in 
 the home-loving music circle, beside father's two exquisite 
 Correggios and the soft Claude Lorraine. Ah, the exquisite 
 three pictures in the sitting-room, the daily delight ! 
 Ugliness also, of course, we well know to be co-existent, 
 a lessening shadow — not, though some erroneously thus 
 would conceive it, a growing eclipse of the sun ! 
 
 "-It's all just an effect of light and shade," declared 
 Roden ; " Adam and Eve in Paradise must have felt rather 
 stupidly happy without properly knowing why." 
 
 " Go away, Justus ! " replied his wife, looking up from 
 her busy preserve -making amongst her pink-armed hand- 
 maidens. " All the trouble came of Eve's having nothing 
 to do of mornings. Had she had Cain and Abel to wash 
 and dress, inside Paradise, the whole family would never 
 have found themselves outside. It's a mortal pity that the 
 working in the sweat of the brow didn't come as a blessing ; 
 it would have kept off the curse." 
 
 The big officer laughed, and stood gazing tenderly at a 
 flushed little tyrant, in frills. " All I can say is, I am glad 
 
DOROTHEA. 75 
 
 we were turned out," he replied ; " we want Paradise at 
 the other end of life's journey." 
 
 " Had Eve been a mother," persisted the little lady, 
 "she would never have forgotten she was setting an 
 example ! " 
 
 The two maids had gone to fetch more baskets of 
 bilberries, so he kissed her on the neck, just over the huge 
 muslin bow of her apron. "You grow monotonous," he 
 said, "with your all-pervading 'example.' She set it, 
 afterwards, to Cain, as well as to Abel ! 
 
 • You can glad your child, or grieve it I 
 You can help it or deceive it ; 
 When all's done 
 Beneath God's sun, 
 You can only love and leave it.' " 
 
 "For a man who knows more poetry than any other 
 officer in the King's army, Justus, you might vary your 
 quotations more ! " 
 
 " Pooh ! " replied Justus, " I have only one other : 
 
 •• Mit Gott fur Konig und Vaterland." 
 
 Amongst these surroundings and teachings young Egon 
 grew up. He went to the big Royal Grammar School 
 with five hundred other boys, and learnt much Latin and 
 Greek and still more Universal History. Also he skated 
 and canoed and rode and did constant military gymnastics. 
 Moreover, he spent most of his free time in sword exercise 
 and reading poetry. In one word, his was the complete 
 education — and very perfect it is — of the well-born German 
 " Gymnasiast." 
 
 Nature had graced him with a simple heart, but of 
 course he could not remain ignorant of the fact that he 
 belonged to the proudest of Protestant aristocracies. 
 " Never refer to it : never forget it," said Justus to his 
 sons. He taught them many things. That every woman, 
 for instance, was pure and good, unless in some rare 
 instance a man had made her otherwise. Count Roden- 
 Rheyna said that, really, Justus was not fit to have young 
 men under him. 
 
 You cannot forget the pride of birth amongst the King's 
 Hussars. Nor can you believe yourself an ordinary mortal, 
 if you go to spend an annual month with your uncle Charles 
 at Rheyna. At that ancestral castle, a great, flat house, 
 
76 DOROTHEA. 
 
 among great, fiat fields, Count Roden passed his bachelor 
 existence — or at least seven annual months of it — amongst 
 the semi-feudal pomp to which he had been bom. The 
 cheerful children, coming from the vine-clad Rhineland, 
 saw the solemn Mark like a dream of Iron Fritz. Here 
 was no Lorelei music, no bottled sunlight, no mountain 
 background : here was stately Prussian strength, cold lofti- 
 ness, wide space. The vast-fronted house, with its pillared 
 entrance, was rococo, in clumsy curves and gables, lacking 
 the easeful grace of the same French style : the furniture, 
 full of large silk flowers, was rococo : the gardens were 
 rococo, of the period when nymphs and naiads wore powder, 
 well-bom, not divine. The fountains and statues, greatly 
 the worse for wear in that inclement climate, looked obtru- 
 sively unclothed beneath the grimy sky : the woods hung 
 heavy : the fields sank dark. The country people, stumbling 
 to their gaunt white churches, seemed carved out of ancient 
 oak. Hearts and backs of oak, indeed : and hands that 
 struck hard, but fair. An honest, straight-faced peasantry, 
 with little thought for what is light or lovely. " They are 
 fifty years behind ! ** declared Justus. " Thank Heaven ! " 
 responded his brother, the courtier, who was very much 
 up-to-date. 
 
 Here then, in this large domain of heath and farms and 
 villages, the Roden children ruled, submissive only to their 
 feudal lord and uncle, from under whose dread eyes you 
 early slipped away. The villagers, the labourers, the 
 school-lads, bent their sturdy necks, with steadfast front. 
 In all things they obeyed their natural lords, except in 
 things unnatural. 
 
 It was Hans, the huntsman's son, who taught Egon that 
 life-long lesson. Hans, the Junker's trusty henchman, 
 comrade and familiar friend. Hans, who crept through all 
 the weary winter months with vision fixed on that bright 
 break in August. Hans, the sturdy, yellow-haired, red- 
 cheeked peasant boy, who was all respectful attention 
 before the master's front and all reckless adventure behind 
 it. Hans, who was never known to hang back from a 
 jump, or a climb, or any sort of danger ; who never said 
 *'he'd rather not," like Egon's brother, Konrad. Countless 
 were the scrapes and sports and good services of Hans. 
 He knew everything that any sensible creature would care 
 to know. He was strong as a lion, and faithful as a sheep- 
 dog, and no boy in all the universe could do with his hands 
 
DOROTHEA. 77 
 
 what Hans did (with or without the aid of his old clasp- 
 knife). On the evening when that long-suifering blade 
 snapped across, Egon walked home in sadness : desolation 
 lay over the trees and the hedges : he felt that a power had 
 gone out of the world. 
 
 But the resources of Hans were endless, and Egon put 
 faith in them. Even knifeless, Hans was stronger, braver, 
 ay, and wiser, than all the knived knaves of Christendom — 
 once you believed in him fully, he was bound to prove, 
 however things might seem to turn against him, right in 
 his opinion, straight in his conclusions, true in his advice. 
 At the age of twelve he had flung himself into the mere 
 one day and extracted the helpless Egon (aged ten). A 
 year before that he had taken, unasked, a thrashing for the 
 murder of chickens whom Egon's pop-gun had slain. He 
 had presented his tame raven to Egon, on the day of the 
 latter's departure, and Egon had forgotten to give the bird 
 water, and it died. Egon had written an unvarnished con- 
 fession, and Hans had forgiven. There were many brave 
 heroes in history and legend to whom Egon's warm impulses 
 vowed changeful admiration, but steadfast was the glory 
 of Hans. For who could do justice to his infinite variety ? 
 Unconsciously the soul of the public-schoolboy knit itself 
 into that of the keeper's son. 
 
 Was it, then, not a "shrieking shame," as the Roden 
 children would have called it, suddenly to find things 
 altered one summer, and Hans at work in the stables? 
 Had Egon not written twice in the spring about his fishing- 
 tackle, and the new rod, and what bait he had better order 
 from London ? And here was a youth of fifteen, with an 
 air of insufferable importance, red and perspiring, day after 
 day, over bits of bright metal and harness ! 
 
 In that long, lovely August there came a loveliest morn- 
 ing, when the thing could no longer be endured. Across 
 the big grey courtyard, with its slants of splendid sunlight, 
 a few pigeons strutted, lazily pecking ; the white peacocks, 
 great fountains of silver, preened their feathers on the 
 terrace. The call of birds was everywhere : the leaves of 
 the mighty chestnuts thrilled with warmth and happiness. 
 All Nature was an immense invitation to come forth. 
 
 Hans stood at work in the coach-house door ; you could 
 hear his bright whistle across the yard. Egon, who had 
 been dawdling about, and pulling the dogs' tails, suddenly 
 marched up to him. 
 
78 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Look here, Hans, you promised," he said in accents full 
 of business. 
 
 " Yes, Junker ? " There was a slight touch of interro- 
 gation in the voice, a faint asking for further information, 
 which sounded maddening. 
 
 " You did : it's a beastly shame. I shouldn't have 
 bought this tackle if I'd known." And he held out his 
 fishing things : the delightful contemplation of many slow 
 hours at school. 
 
 "Yes, but you see, I've been put into the stables, 
 
 and " 
 
 Hang it all, I know that, but still- 
 
 " And coachman says, please, Junker, the last boy (that's 
 Friedrich Putz) was turned away for playing truant." 
 
 " Are you coming, or are you not ? " How temptingly 
 the white sun laughed down across the castle courtyard ! 
 How cool it would be in the Nether Wood, beneath the 
 weeping willows, where the perch sank under the weeds ! 
 
 Hans lovingly hung up a glowing strap and stood watch- 
 ing its light and shade. " Don't you see I can't ? " he said. 
 
 " You might give a fellow an answer ? " 
 
 Hans turned to his young master with amazement. " Why, 
 I have answered ! No." 
 
 The fishing-rod leaped up in Egon's hand and struck the 
 other full across the face. Presently he was lying on his 
 back in the woods, gasping for breath and abusing Hans. 
 He lay there for a long time, and first called Hans many 
 ugly names, and latterly himself. It was nearly midday 
 before he once more stole into the stable-yard. Not a human 
 soul was in sight, but all the pigeons were there. The 
 pigeons looked at him curiously, and one of the peacocks 
 got up. 
 
 Hans still stood hard at work, in silence, an ugly purple 
 mark across his bright red cheeks. 
 
 " Hans, I'm a cad," said Egon. 
 
 Hans showed no immediate eagerness to dispute the 
 proposition. 
 
 " A low cad," said Egon, flushing, 
 
 "Very well. Junker, we'll say no more about it. Of 
 course I forgive you, but you shouldn't hit people that 
 can't hit you back." 
 
 " Hit me back," replied Egon quickly. " By Jove, I wish 
 you would ! " 
 
 Did he expect the thing to happen ? He doesn't know. 
 
DOROTHEA. 79 
 
 Certain it is that the stable-boy flashed down upon him 
 and struck him, with his own weapon, a couple of blows 
 across the shoulders. Breathless the boys faced each 
 other. That remains the only beating Egon Roden ever 
 received. 
 
 " You're bigger'n me," rose to Egon*s lips, but he bit back 
 the words, steadfastly staring at his hero. 
 
 Then, slowly, Hans Stormer stood to attention, like a 
 soldier, both hands falling stiff against his thighs. " Now, 
 Junker, you must tell my Lord Count," he said, " and they'll 
 shoot me." 
 
 " Like they shot the wicked seneschal," he continued, 
 with feudal reminiscence. " I thought of that," he added, 
 and a touch of pride broke across his respectful tone, " but 
 I'd rather be shot, Junker Egon, than never like you again." 
 
 " Shake hands," said Egon, saving the situation. " I say, 
 Hans, you needn't have hit so hard." 
 
 " Hard ? " The grin on Hans's features spread so broad 
 that it broke on Egon's. " You just try father," said Hans. 
 
 "Thanks. And I say, Hans, you needn't tell any one 
 youVe licked me." 
 
 The stable-boy's brow clouded over. ** I do believe you 
 think I'm a brute beast of a blackguard," he said energeti- 
 cally. " Besides, now if you like you can thrash me dead." 
 
 But Hans lived on, and Egon sought such poor consola- 
 tion as Nature could afford him in the companionship of 
 his sister Gertrude and his brothers Konrad and Karl. Egon 
 had early declared that he thought Konrad a muff and a 
 sneak : to this judgment Hans had only proffered perfunc- 
 tory objections, and it soon became an appreciation, which 
 need not be repeated, but must still remain regretfully 
 understood. Konrad was a healthy, happy youth, who took 
 things coolly. He even coolly took things that belonged 
 to Egon, and the other scornfully let him. It was no use 
 telling him that the Good, the True, and the Beautiful 
 were one, for he only answered : " S'ist mir Alles eins." 
 When the Generalin sighed, her husband's thoughts reverted 
 to Cain and Abel. But Konrad had his advantages : he 
 played the violin almost as well as Egon sang, so that he 
 was not out of place in the Roden family. Though not 
 so good a horseman, he was a better shot. None of his 
 relations ever got to know that he pulled out the wings of 
 flies. He used to lock his bedroom door when he did it, and 
 once, upon his father happening to call to him, he declared 
 
8o DOROTHEA. 
 
 that he was saying his prayers. Well, there are various 
 kinds of offering worship to various deities. " Say your 
 prayers in the morning," said the General curtly. One 
 wonders what would have happened if the others had 
 known ! But Konrad peered at petals and things under 
 the microscope with the rest. "Yes, father," he said 
 obediently, " the colouring is beautiful. Oh, how beautiful 
 the colouring is ! " Once the General offered a penny to 
 whoever should first bring him the wing of a dragon-fly. 
 All the children sought long in vain, and Konrad bided his 
 time. But, when Egon came home from school and said 
 that a fellow had given him one, Konrad immediately 
 rushed to the General's room and laid his wing on the 
 writing-table. " I found it dead, behind the hot-house," 
 gasped Konrad, clutching his penny. Egon looked at him, 
 but Egon, even at that age — nine — had learnt from his 
 father to want double proof of guilt. 
 
 Still, " He's a sneak," said Egon, for, like most of the 
 boys at the Grammar School, Egon saw black and white. 
 Konrad could distinguish a variety of twilights, careful 
 to keep out of the shade. The younger brother disliked 
 his elder, because the elder laughed when Konrad fell off 
 the pony. At least, that was the reason to which he owned. 
 The brown pony with the switchy tail, the irritable cob 
 with the mottled patch — of supreme interest were these in 
 the young people's daily lives. You tumbled about amongst 
 horses all day if you lived with King's Hussars. And if 
 you are brought up to appreciate the beauties of creation, 
 surely you may naturally concentrate your interest on the 
 beautifullest beauty of them all ! 
 
 Nor can you grow to young manhood amongst the 
 laughing Rhinelanders and not feel an awakening sympathy 
 for the second fairest thing in creation, the sisters of the 
 other boys. Not with impunity do you read the language 
 of Schiller, in class, and of Heine, in your lazy, half-hidden 
 canoe, on the rippling summer water. Officially a certain 
 amount of " Schwarmerei " is prescribed in your military 
 education ; you cannot avoid it, if you would. Its exuber- 
 ance will die down as you escape from your teens, but it 
 will leave a soft point at your heart, to which rougher 
 nations remain willing strangers. 
 
 " Like rheumatic fever," says the scoffer. 
 
 When Egon von Roden spoke of himself as unwounded, 
 he certainly did not mean to disclaim calf-like stirrings 
 
DOROTHEA. 8i 
 
 towards the tresses of Gretchen or the tilted nose of Marie. 
 Like all his fellows, he had stood waiting, in a downpour, 
 to see one of these young ladies come out of school. He 
 had treated Mariechen to innumerable strawberry ices — 
 her " ideal " ; half-a-dozen on a heavenly half-holiday, with 
 a terrible morrow of parental inquiry ! she very nearly died 
 of his love. What paleozoic fossils of folly are these ? He 
 was not yet out of his teens when a graver experience 
 befell him, that suffused his whole future career. He had 
 gone to Rheyna, on leaving the " Gymnasium," to prepare 
 for his one possible profession, the army, and Hans had 
 been especially attached to his service. The two young 
 men were faster friends than ever, but with the nascent 
 reserve of grown-ups. Hans, nearly twenty, had long 
 learnt that patient responsibility towards life which awakes 
 so much earlier in the graver children of the people. 
 
 One evening they were riding, for the hundredth time, 
 together up the pine-glade that winds along the babbling 
 torrent from Rheyna village to Rheyna castle — the Side- 
 way, men call it : ah, thou knowest it, heart of my heart ! 
 'Twas a still summer evening, rich with contentment, and 
 the sense of much labour accomplished and balmy slumbers 
 approaching in meadow and field. 
 
 " Hans, what a beauty my horse is ! " said Egon. Indeed, 
 he had reason to say so ; he rode the bay mare which his 
 uncle had recently given him — a fortnight ago — because he 
 had accepted the foolhardy challenge of an officer in 
 the neighbouring garrison town, and leaped the mess-table. 
 " A young idiot," said Count Rheyna, but he gave him the 
 mare. Egon rode her exactly a dozen times, no more. 
 
 "A beauty she is," assented Hans. Firefly, perfectly 
 conscious of commendation, tossed her mane, looking back 
 with both eyes as she foamed over her snaflBe and bespattered 
 her lord. 
 
 " Hans, there is something I want to say to you. I've 
 been wanting to say it for ever so long." 
 
 The servant drew a foot or two forwards, all respectful 
 attention. The horses, in the golden gloaming, played 
 with their ears. 
 
 " Come closer ! Have you ever noticed, Hans, how 
 pretty Trudchen Schudde is ? Goodness, what makes Thora 
 plunge like that ? " 
 
 " Whoa, my pretty, whoa ! " said Hans. 
 
 " Why don't you answer ? " demanded Egon. 
 
82 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Please, I'd rather wait," said Hans, still uncertain. He 
 felt apologetic to his mare for that sudden grip of his lusty 
 young legs which had caused her to leap aside, but he had 
 always thought his secret to be his own. 
 
 " She's the prettiest girl I've ever seen," continued the 
 artless Egon, " and I'll tell you what I'm going to do, 
 Hans. I'm going to get up a flirtation with Trudchen 
 Schudde. Oh, honour bright ! " 
 
 Hans did not answer ; he rode, carelessly stroking his 
 horse's neck. 
 
 " I saw her this morning in the hay- field ; do you know, 
 I rather think she likes me ? " persisted the ingenuous 
 youth, " And I told her I'd come to her window to-night 
 for a chat in the moonshine." 
 
 "There's no moon," answered Hans, with a touch of 
 spite. 
 
 " Oh ! — well, we can have the chat all the same, and her 
 father won't see us. It'll be an awful lark, Hans. I never 
 had an adventure of the kind before ; and you see, I'm 
 nearly nineteen." 
 
 " Eighteen and four months," said Hans. " Junker, if I 
 was you, I shouldn't." 
 
 " "Why not ? It's only a lark ; she knows that as well 
 as I." 
 
 Hans, suddenly convicted of selfishness, remained silent. 
 They rode on through the lovely twilight, that played in 
 warm waves around them, too tender not to rouse thoughts 
 of love in hearts that were budding with life's spring. 
 
 " You can't get up to her window," said Hans, who had 
 often stood under it. 
 
 " Can't I ? — by Jove, are you sure ? " — a long pause — 
 " Look here, be a good chap, Hans ; you'll have to come 
 with me and give me a leg up." 
 
 " Zu Befehl," said the servant, who had never avoidably 
 disobeyed. 
 
 "It's an awful nuisance having you there. You won't 
 listen ? You don't mind coming, Hans ? " 
 
 " I shall try not to listen," replied the henchman. 
 
 " Hans, you're a dear good fellow. Hans, you're an ass.'* 
 
 They rode on through the smell of the pine-trees, up the 
 golden-shadowed glade. 
 
 " What a beauty she is ! " said Egon, and now he meant 
 his mare. 
 
 " Yes, Junker ; I shouldn't jump her over no mess-tables. 
 
DOROTHEA. 83 
 
 Don't you think — ^mit Verlaub — ^you sometimes do things 
 that are a bit — over-courageous ? " 
 
 " I didn't really want to jump the mess-table a bit,'* 
 answered Egon frankly, " but what was I to do ? There 
 was that idiotic von Rosswitz egging me on and saying 
 that Konrad had said I had said I could do it, and there 
 they were all looking and laughing, and half of them tipsy 
 — well, what could I do ? So 1 jumped." 
 
 " But you never had said you could do it ? *' 
 
 " No ; does that make any difference ? I couldn't call 
 Konrad a liar. They'd given him too much champagne. 
 I hate a man that gets drunk." 
 
 " Well, then, now — there is Trudchen ? ** 
 
 Firefly gave a proud leap of disgust. 
 
 " Do you call that over-courageous ? Whom am I to 
 be afraid of ? Trudchen's father ? Or rivals ? " 
 
 " No rivals. It's all fair and above board ? — you won't 
 kiss her ? " 
 
 Egon pressed his fretting horse into a gallop. " I shall 
 kiss her, if she lets me. But I'll stop on this side of the 
 window. I won't have her reputation imperilled ! Nine 
 o'clock, mind ! At the kitchen garden gate ! " He dashed 
 up the avenue and into the courtyard ; the unclothed statues 
 seemed to totter on the bridge. 
 
 At the little kitchen garden gate, the squeaky gate 
 beneath the elms, by the tool-house, Hans awaited his 
 young master in the softly scented night. Velvet darkness 
 hung around him, brightly blue and star-bespangled ; the 
 swans that sleep there stirred their wings beneath the placid 
 lines of foliage, and in the lofty masses of the trees a bird 
 chirped here and there. 
 
 Hans, aged twenty, felt greatly Egon's senior. He was 
 a man ; five long years he had worked for his bread. And 
 his love was a serious matter, a matter of life and death. 
 He felt miserable, but he knew that to treat the whole 
 thing as more than a schoolboy's frolic would have made him 
 immeasurably more miserable still. So he laughed response 
 to young Egon's high spirits. Love-making, after all, is 
 not love. 
 
 A ten minutes trudge brought the pair to the clearing 
 in the pine-woods, where lay the forester's cottage, asleep. 
 
 " That's her window — ^with the honeysuckle round it," 
 said Egon in an awestruck whisper. " I say, help me up ! 
 I shall have to stand on your shoulders, Hans." 
 
 G 2 
 
84 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Am I to wait like this, all the time ? " suddenly 
 expostulated Jonathan. 
 
 " Why, yes ; what do you care ? Haven't you done it 
 again and again, when we went to get apples? I wish 
 she'd show a light." 
 
 " I dare say she's asleep," said Hans. 
 
 Egon's feelings permitted no reply to this bit of 
 impertinence. *' Here goes ; I sha'n't hurt you," he said. 
 
 " Oh, no, you — won't — hurt — me," answered Hans, with 
 his back firm-set against the wall. Egon climbed up on to 
 the stalwart shoulders, and the little window opened slowly 
 to his tap. 
 
 For ten long minutes Hans held out, vaguely fascinated 
 by the continuous coo above him. Absolute silence reigned 
 around ; the whole vast pine forest stood and listened. 
 Not a sound touched its endless profundities ; not a ripple 
 of laughter awoke between its solemn stems. Only the 
 young laugh at sweethearts, however silly. The grey old 
 forest, whose heart is unchangeably green, and whose life, 
 in a thousand forms, is a flow of eternal dalliance, oped its 
 eyes and held its breath. Once or twice the expectant Hans 
 shifted his cramped position. "Oh, I say; hold hard," 
 hissed Egon. The boy was amusing himself thoroughly, 
 murmuring a lot of sugary nothings to one who well knew 
 they were sweetly naught. 
 
 " Go away now," whispered Trudchen. " Don't be silly, 
 Junker, please ! " 
 
 But the Junker preferred to be silly, just for once, in 
 parting — and the music of four lips meeting in highest 
 heaven thrilled gently adown the summer darkness and 
 stole away into farthest abysms of hidden vendure that 
 rippled it on, a long message of delight. 
 
 It fell, like a final discord, on the ears of the swain down 
 below. Under its weight — was there grief, indignation, 
 spite, a bit of all three? — Hans lurched forward, lost his 
 balance — Egon swung away from the house- wall ; down he 
 came with a crash, with a twist, a sharp snap of something 
 violently breaking ; the lover lay prone. In a moment the 
 comedy was tragedy. The window closed hastily ; Egon 
 hung on his elbow, gasping, unable to rise. The terrified 
 liegeman dragged his master away under the shadow of 
 the trees. 
 
 Presumably Hans knows how he got his burden home, 
 but he has never been able to give a coherent account of 
 
DOROTHEA. 85 
 
 the journey. He knows that they hurriedly brought him a 
 dram in the Castle kitchen, and that he asked for a second, 
 before he could rise to his feet. 
 
 It was many weeks before Egon could rise to his feet. 
 " Only a little wrench in the ankle," said the village doctor, 
 " of no importance at all." It was nothing, he said, and 
 perhaps that prevented his seeing it. But there came a 
 professor from Halle, who hurt the patient more than the 
 little country practitioner had done. The parents, sum- 
 moned from Bonn, stood, grief-stricken, by the bedside — 
 then they too said it was nothing, a matter of weeks. 
 They had never known illness that seriously troubled them ; 
 once the children had all had the measles and got well. 
 Fresh doctors, big doctors, at Bonn University declared the 
 foot would be right in no time, and, alas, in no time was 
 it right. After that, every fresh celebrity, considering his 
 predecessor had done something, could say that the case 
 had been bungled. Egon lay tortured by treatments, month 
 after month. 
 
 On the day when he left Rheyna he asked Hans to 
 wheel him into the stable and leave him there alone with 
 his horse. The mare turned her big eyes to him, in her 
 sweet-smelling box, astonished at his previous absence, 
 alarmed by his lameness, so terrible to a horse. She 
 distended her nostrils ; her eyes were full of pain. 
 
 He put his arm round her neck and laid his cheek against 
 the satin of its curve. " My beauty," he whispered, " I 
 shall come back to ride you in the summer ; till then you 
 must let Hans do it for me ; you must be very good to 
 Hans." And he limped out to his little cart by the stable 
 door, and presently called for Hans with cheerful voice. 
 
 " Hans," he said, " don't be a fool. It's no more your 
 fault than Firefly's. " 
 
 " Indeed it is," answered Hans. 
 
 " I tell you 'tis my fault for playing the fool, and nobody 
 else's. Give us your paw ! " 
 
 Hans muttered something unintelligible. The wind 
 howled round the stable-buildings, for the weather had 
 changed with the season ; all vestige of summer had died 
 from the rapidly blackening earth. 
 
 " Give us your paw at once ! And, look here, I've 
 spoken to my uncle. You can get betrothed to Tnidchen 
 Schudde, when you like." 
 
 " I hate her," was Hans* unexpected reply. 
 
86 DOROTHEA. 
 
 ** What in the name of goodness ? ** 
 
 " I hate her ; I hate all women. All the mischief in the 
 world comes from them." 
 
 " All the same, you must marry her some day." 
 
 " Begging your pardon, Junker, I shall always do what- 
 ever you tell me — if it was to throw myself into the 
 Hinterbrook, and gladly ! " said poor Hans, looking 
 glummer than ever ; " but I'm going to be your servant 
 and wait on you, and I can't be bothered with girls." 
 
 " Well, you're in no hurry. You'll have to serve 
 your time first in the army " — both lads winced — " and 
 then " 
 
 "And then I shall be your servant, all my life long. 
 *Twas my foolish old mother told Trudchen I was sweet on 
 her, or nobody 'd ever have known." 
 
 " Why, you talk as if I was always to be like this ? 
 What nonsense ! I shall be all right in a month or two. 
 You'll be my orderly before the next year's out ! " 
 
 After a month or two of inflicted pain and fostered 
 suspense at home. Count Roden insisted on his brother 
 taking Egon to Paris. Father and son saw the city and 
 returned. " Well, now at least you know the case is 
 hopeless," said Count Roden, who had his fixed ideas and 
 lived up to them. At last Egon understood. Some little 
 strings were torn and no surgeon's skill could heal them. 
 His foot would always remain painful : he must limp. 
 
 He rose to that consciousness, the whole splendidly built 
 eighteen years of him, swaying right and left to his father's 
 firm hold of God's wisdom, to his mother's sweet faith in 
 God's love. Nor did they fail him in the supreme moment 
 of agony, these gentle and highly-cultured parents whose 
 dream of life had been a dream of beauty. True, in the 
 first moment, Justus hung back. " I cannot," he said. 
 But the little Generalin put him gently aside and passed 
 into the darkness of Egon's chamber, which the doctor 
 had quitted a couple of hours ago. She felt her way towards 
 the bed on which her eldest son had thrown himself. 
 " My boy," she said gently in that sweet voice of hers, 
 which had never trembled so softly, "I am so sorry, so 
 sorry ! Oh, Egon, what else shall I say ? So sorry, so sorry." 
 
 She knelt beside the bed. " Yes, there is something else 
 I would say," she stammered. " You must not be angry 
 with me, dearest. I want to say this. It sounds utterly 
 idiotic, and yet it is Gospel truth. Some day, in some 
 
DOROTHEA. 87 
 
 distant, certain future, perhaps not even here on earth, but 
 in a certain, certain future, you will actually be glad. 
 You will say : God, I thank thee ! Does it not sound 
 absurd ? " 
 
 There was no rejoinder from the bed. 
 
 " I can't preach or philosophise," continued the poor 
 
 mother, " I just want you to try and tell yourself " She 
 
 broke down in the darkness, and seized an irresponsive 
 hand. She felt a tall figure beside her, and knew that her 
 husband had found his way to them both. 
 
 Egon started up. " Father, I must go into the army ! " 
 he cried. " I must ! I must ! " 
 
 It was the General's turn to keep back all vain reply. 
 
 " You have always told us that every Prussian must serve 
 his King." , 
 
 " My boy — my poor boy ! " stammered Justus. But the 
 little Generalin had risen : her arms were round husband 
 and son, and her voice was like liquid melody : 
 
 " Fiir Gott mit Konig und Vaterland ! " she said. " Egon 
 — my boy ! — you can serve your King." 
 
 But Egon von Roden, though he learnt to face down his 
 trouble, by no means always bore it in angelic mood. He 
 flew at Konrad, who had muttered an allusion to " le diable 
 boiteux," and licked him in their father's presence, and the 
 General only said : " Stop now.'* 
 
 Next summer he settled down as a law-student and went 
 in for " Jura und Kameralwissenschaften " at Bonn first and 
 then at Heidelberg. He wore the white and black cap of 
 the aristocratic " Borussia," and lived up to the stem, if 
 strange, code of his set. He even came in for one serious 
 pistol encounter, the result of an affront by an officer at the 
 theatre to a lady whom neither antagonist knew. His life 
 was the life of his friends. In all things immaterial he 
 frolicked : in most things material went straight : he was 
 never known to do a low thing, or an unkind thing, and 
 his purse he held open to his numerous friends. He was 
 generally voted a good fellow : his beautiful voice was in 
 great request. He had given "Firefly" to Konrad one 
 evening on coming out of the " Schlosskirche " with his 
 mother : Count Roden, for reasons locked up in a cynical 
 bosom, sent this maimed nephew a yearly present of 
 money, which the latter expended on works of art. He 
 was known to study art far more willingly than law-books. 
 Still, he passed his big final examination at Berlin, to his 
 
88 DOROTHEA. 
 
 own pleased surprise. He was intended for some great 
 administration, possibly diplomacy, later on. 
 
 " I really did almost decently at my vivd voce,'" he said 
 to his father ; " you cannot imagine what rot it all is ! " 
 
 The quick leap of satisfaction died out of the General's 
 eyes. " It can't be helped," he said sadly, " I suppose there 
 must be some decent law- people ! Moses was a lawgiver. 
 Any fool can make a soldier. And Bismarck is a civilian : 
 let us cling to that ! " 
 
 But some few weeks later the whole household was 
 thrown into direst dismay. For without any warning oi 
 preparation the General was suddenly seized with hemor- 
 rhage from the lungs, and the professional authorities, with 
 long-drawn faces, immediately ordered him south. All 
 doctors have long been agreed that the icy, dust-laden 
 winds of the Riviera present the best remedy for labouring 
 lungs : nowhere else are obtainable such swift changes of 
 temperature, such curious comminglings of chill and white 
 heat. It was accordingly explained to General von Roden 
 that he must go to the Riviera or else he would die. 
 Most opportunely Count Riesenthal offered the Villa 
 Buonarotti, and thither father, mother and daughter betook 
 themselves, with hearts full of gratitude and hope. Soon 
 after, Egon arrived at Monte Carlo, in attendance on his 
 uncle, the Count. Konrad was " Porte-Epde-Fahnrich " in 
 a crack regiment at Darmstadt. Karl was at Lichterfelde, 
 where he had recently been appointed to the post of a 
 Royal Page. 
 
( Sg ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 "This afternoon, then, Madame de Roden expects us," 
 said Colonel Sandring at breakfast, a few days after his 
 first meeting with Egon. " Don't forget, Dolly ! " 
 
 It was not likely that Dorothea would forget : her 
 countrified self- distrust caused her too much apprehension 
 for that. " I am going up to Cimiez this morning to 
 paint," she said, her thoughts in swift search of a diversion. 
 
 " All right, I shall be here at four," said the Colonel. He 
 had often doubted the advisability of breakfasting with his 
 daughter — with any one. After forty we of course look 
 our worst until midday, and Sandring did not like to get 
 up before then. It cost him immense consideration to make 
 this sacrifice to his daughter's companionship, but the 
 arrangement left him free for lunch. " I can afford it," he 
 said to himself, turning from a close contemplation of his 
 wrinkles in the glass. " For the next half a dozen years I 
 can afford it." 
 
 Dorothea had recently revived the long-discarded drawing 
 in water-colours which her mild Swiss governess had early 
 communicated to her. The aunts greatly admired it : 
 their niece's fancy landscapes hung all about the house. 
 Her father encouraged her. " Reproduce the beauties of the 
 Riviera, my dear," he said. " Send them to the old ladies 
 at Brodryck." So she used to hire a little white donkey to 
 carry her stool and sketching-things, and trot him about 
 the suburbs, perpetrating pictures. 
 
 The donkey, whom a previous lady tourist had christened 
 " Gem," and who therefore answered to the appellations Jem, 
 James (" Shems "), Shem, etc., promiscuously, possessed all 
 the numerous good qualities which dwell in the souls and 
 which speak from the eyes of his kind. The malicious 
 stupidity of man is surely shown in nothing more clearly 
 than in the fact that he has been able to live for countless 
 centuries beside the donkey without learning either sagacity 
 or virtue from the example of that brave little beast. In 
 
go DOROTHEA. 
 
 untold arrogance man sometimes writes some feebler kins- 
 man down — an ass. At least, then, the poor sharer of our 
 common curse shows himself patient with the brethren, 
 patient in tribulation, patiently running a race that is not 
 to the strong. Oh, the long agony, age after age in the 
 East ! Lord, canst Thou endure in Thy heaven the burden 
 of the ass ? 
 
 The chequered existence of " Shems " (" called after the 
 Prince of England," says his master) recognised too brief 
 periods of iminterrupted sunshine in the hours which he 
 spent with Dorothea. He carried a light weight, for she 
 much preferred walking, and she never pressed him, as 
 they loitered together through miles of leafiness. The 
 former lady, a Miss Smythe-Rodgers (of the Shropshire 
 Smythe-Rodgerses, Parklands, Ealing), had loved the dear 
 little donkey's little shiny round paunch (whence " Gem "), 
 and had given him lumps of sugar, and his master leaflets 
 of the "Sosee-etay days Annie-mow," and had weighed 
 fourteen stone and had ridden him up everything, including 
 the "root de Saint An dry," and had prodded him all the 
 time with the point of her open, inverted parasol. The 
 Gem therefore shivered down to his hoofs whenever he 
 saw a scarlet sunshade. You could hardly coax him 
 past one. 
 
 There were no parasols of any kind at that early hour, in 
 the solitudes of Cimiez. The donkey wandered up, with 
 little trots of contentment : the young girl behind him 
 thought only of happiness. All the world around her was 
 lovely : she had never seen such luscious, odorous, entrancing 
 vitality as this. 
 
 At a spot near the ruins, half hidden in verdure, she 
 stopped, and began to get ready her painting-things. 
 Turning her back on the amphitheatre, she settled down to 
 an exquisite view, through an archway, of hill-side and deep 
 blue sea. It was an ambitious subject, but that did not 
 make much difference to her limited powers. The donkey's 
 bridle trailed lightly over an olive-branch as he nibbled at 
 the grass. The minutes passed rapidly ; the sketch pro- 
 gressed favourably : Dorothea, hard at work, heard nothing 
 but the twitter of the birds. A finch, overhead, almost burst 
 with approval — of the sunshine, not of the sketch. 
 
 Suddenly a voice, far louder even than the finch's, broke 
 in upon the universal repose. Dorothea started so violently 
 that she dropped a little paint-glass she was cleaning, 
 
DOROTHEA. 91 
 
 and it fell in a splash of brown dirt along her dress. For 
 the voice was a man's voice, close to her, singing. 
 
 She peeped between the thick bushes behind her : a few 
 yards off, against the wall of the amphitheatre, a young 
 man stood erect, a couple of ladies beside him. They were 
 gazing with their backs to her, admiring the great circle of 
 the ruins, probably reconstructing from the paltry debris 
 thus lost amid foliage on the hi 11- top that great arena of 
 ancient battle, on whose shoutings and passions the same 
 heavens had smiled long ago. Unexpectedly, to himself 
 as to the others, the young man had broken into song : 
 
 " Ave, Caesar, te salutant morituri ! " 
 
 It was the grand chorus from the first part of Pulcini's 
 " Martiri." Dorothea knew nothing of this, but she stood 
 listening, spellbound, to finer music than she had ever 
 heard before. The words rose, with all their impressive 
 threatening, and rolled away into the genial sunshine and 
 the sparkling tree-tops overhead. 
 
 "Yes, that is splendid," said the younger of the ladies in 
 the awe-filled silence, "but it is overwhelming. Sing us 
 something else, something brighter, Egon ! " 
 
 The young man turned to his sister, laughing. " Donna 
 h Mobile ! " he sang, accompanying the hackneyed words 
 with mimicry worthy of Rigoletto. She flashed up her red 
 sunshade between them, to ward off the persiflage in his 
 movements and face. 
 
 Shems, who had stood silently contemplative, rubbing 
 his nose against Dorothea's fingers, shot back at this sudden 
 apparition of his foe. In the abruptness of his retreat he 
 almost sat down on an aloe shaft, which caused him to 
 leap still more rapidly forward, knocking aside Dorothea 
 and dashing round a corner, right away into the middle of 
 the ruins. Dorothea, with great presence of mind, hurried 
 after him to arrest his descent down the high road which 
 runs through the circle. But Shems had no intention of 
 hastening home. He stood still in a wide field of sunlight, 
 opposite the Germans, first kicked out with his hind feet 
 and then lifted up his voice, in wild chorus to the song. 
 
 The man'3 notes stopped immediately : the donkey's went 
 on for some time. On one side of the amphitheatre stood 
 the Germans, laughing outrageously ; the donkey was in 
 the middle ; in the opening of the high road stared 
 Dorothea, distressed. Presently Shems arrested his ances- 
 tral cry of protest, waiting, perhaps for applause. It came, 
 
92 DOROTHEA. 
 
 in the shape of fresh, immoderate laughter, in which 
 Dorothea presently joined. 
 
 " But what, then, is this ? ** asked the elder lady. 
 
 Dorothea, recalling descriptions, felt almost certain she 
 knew who these terrible laughers must be. "I — I am 
 afraid that is my donkey," said Dorothea. 
 
 The girl of the red parasol turned towards her with ready 
 decision. " Then I must help you to catch him," she said. 
 On the brother's brow settled a quick frown of annoyance. 
 " Not you," whispered Gertrude. 
 
 " Yes, of course ; can I help it ? " he answered. He 
 started at a quick limp in the opposite direction to Doro- 
 thea, and, had she still felt doubt, it would have vanished at 
 the sight. But Shems, in spite of his good nature, refused 
 to be caught by a man with a limp or a girl with a red 
 parasol. 
 
 " I — I'm afraid you will have to shut up that sunshade," 
 gasped Dorothea. " I think I could manage — thanks — if 
 you would kindly go away ! " Whereon Egon and she 
 caught the donkey together: in fact, it immediately ran 
 into her arms. " Oh, thank you ! " she stammered, her 
 hand on the poor creature's neck. His eyes were looking 
 at her, close, over the donkey's head. She wondered what 
 their expression really was at that moment, how they came 
 to twinkle, keeping so grave. 
 
 " I am so sorry ! " she began hurriedly, stumbling, red 
 and terrified, in her German, to the Generalin. "I owe 
 you a thousand apologies. I interrupted your singing, and 
 this gentleman sang so beautifully. I mean the donkey 
 did — interrupted, I mean. My name is Miss Sandring ; I 
 may as well introduce myself at once, for I believe I am 
 to have the pleasure of calling on you this afternoon with 
 my father. He is so stupid. He is dreadfully afraid of 
 red umbrellas. An old English lady used to prod him 
 with one." 
 
 " Indeed ? " said the Frau Generalin. " Yes, I am the 
 Frau von Roden, and these are my daughter and son." 
 
 " The latter, like your donkey, is afraid of red umbrellas," 
 remarked Gertrude, shaking her own at her brother. " He 
 will not soon mock at womankind again." 
 
 *' I never did : I never do," protested Egon with vehe- 
 mence. " Mobility in everyone is an excellent thing." 
 
 " Except in an uncaught donkey," said Gertrude. 
 
 " He is very good," declared Dorothea, fondling her 
 
DOROTHEA. 
 
 93 
 
 beast, "very good and patient. Look, how I can tease 
 him ! " She pulled at Shems* ears. 
 
 " The comparison still holds good," began Gertrude 
 Roden slily, but her brother interrupted her, and Dorothea, 
 at this moment catching sight of the mess on her skirt, 
 rather hurriedly departed, with Shems tucked under her 
 arm. 
 
 " It's a pity you are going back to lunch at Monte Carlo," 
 said Gertrude, watching the retreating figure. " She seems 
 rather a nice girl." 
 
 " No, I shall stay till dinner-time," answered Egon. So 
 he was present at the visit which, now the ice was so 
 thoroughly broken, proved rather a success. 
 
 When her guests were gone, the Generalin emitted an 
 opinion : " The daughter is good. I shall befriend her. 
 She as good as asked me to do so." 
 
 " I am sorry you did not care for the man," replied her 
 husband. " I believe he is very brave. I cannot believe 
 that a brave man could be a bad one." 
 
 " My dear Justus, not a word have I uttered " 
 
 " Just so, Kate ; your reticences are your condemnations. 
 For you always turn up to the sunlight every mortal bit of 
 sparkle you perceive in a human heart ! " 
 
 She got up from her tea-table and walked straight across 
 to him. " Justus, say you are feeling better ! " she said. 
 
 " A great deal better," he answered, and held her away 
 from him. 
 
 " But, if you were better each time that you said it, 
 you'd have been well long ago.** 
 
 " My dear, I don't think that is grammar," he laughed. 
 
 " If only you feel better ! — are better ! " She put up her 
 lips to kiss him. 
 
 " Don't kiss me," he said hastily. " Not on the mouth ! " 
 He held her at arm's length. 
 
 She sank down with a low moan, bending like a flower 
 that breaks on the stalk ; then suddenly, she straightened 
 herself, and threw her arms round his neck and dragged 
 him down. " And if it were the kiss of death ! " she gasped. 
 
 " Hush, think of the children ! the children ! " 
 
 She stopped, hanging still closer. They stood together, 
 alone, by the great drawing-room window, that opens like 
 a stage-front on the wide panorama beneath them, over 
 slopes ever rippling with laughter, the far city, in white 
 splendour, reposeful, by the sweep of the glittering sea. 
 
94 DOROTHEA. 
 
 All seemed right in God's world. The little Generalin 
 pressed closer yet. 
 
 "When my brother dies," said Justus, "think of the 
 complications ! You must be there then, to help them all." 
 
 " Poor Egon ! " she murmured. " It does not seem fair 
 that the eldest should not be the inevitable heir." She felt 
 him shrink ever so little away. 
 
 " I do not agree with you at all," he said hurriedly, " It 
 has always been like that ; it is the * house-order.' We 
 have never known any other. It was settled for Egon long 
 before his birth. We have never spoken of it before. I 
 had no idea you thought of it like that, Kate ! " His tone 
 showed her how much she had distressed him. 
 
 " Hush," she said soothingly. " What does it matter ? 
 Your brother is not dead yet ; nor are you, thank God ! " 
 And then, before he could stop her, she kissed him twice 
 on the lips. " Love laughs at the doctors," she said. " Dear, 
 surely you do not believe all this rubbish about microbes ? " 
 
 " The doctors " he began. 
 
 " See more, and less clearly, than they saw in the days of 
 Moliere. A hundred times you have said so yourself." 
 
 " Ah, that was in the days of my health ! " 
 
 " They know nothing," she said passionately, crying down 
 her own heart. " Nothing ! nothing ! nothing do they know ! 
 When I was seven years old, the doctors declared I could not 
 live through the winter. I have lived through many winters, 
 and through more summers, somehow ! " She laughed a 
 sad little laugh, full of tenderness. " So will you ! " 
 
 " Well — " he said, " we will read a scene or two from 
 * Le Malade Imaginaire ' to-night. It will do us good. Do 
 not let us get lugubrious, whatever we do. Lugubriousness 
 is the only evil that precludes its own cure." 
 
 " Justus, that is your new prose quotation," she sighed. 
 " How well I remember your first prose quotation ! It 
 came unexpectedly, like your first grey hair." 
 
 " Well, it was you that extracted them both ! " he made 
 answer. And they both laughed so heartily you might 
 easily have thought all was right in God's world. And so, 
 presumably, it is. In the whole seething, stinking foundry 
 the bell is somehow being cast which will one day ring His 
 praise alone. 
 
 Dorothea sat in one of the many cane chairs scattered 
 over the big hotel-vestibule, reviewing the events of her 
 
DOROTHEA. 95 
 
 day. A Tauchnitz lay on her lap, for most people who 
 enjoy doing nothing require a pretence that they don't. In 
 the course of her tea-drinking at the Villa Buonarotti, 
 Egon Roden had dumbfounded her by asking why she 
 never came to Monte Carlo. From this shock she had 
 not yet recovered ; the mere recollection brought the blood 
 to her cheeks. Her father went frequently to Monaco, 
 possessed by a regrettable, but alas not unnatural passion 
 for pigeon-shooting ; Monte Carlo, she had understood, was 
 a gambling hell which no decent person ever went near. 
 What a strange world was this into which the last fortnight 
 had ushered her ! Young men of irreproachable manner 
 insulted you with a smile ! A strange world, indeed, in 
 which most of the women were painted, and most of the 
 men were — tarred. 
 
 Once, during a fortnight's stay at the Hague, she had 
 been taken to the opera, and had seen " La Muette de 
 Portici." She felt now all along as if she were present at 
 a performance, amongst the brilliantly coloured Italian 
 scenery and surroundings, but the performers were all men 
 and women out of novels she had never read. 
 
 Her father was full of affectionate consideration, and she 
 must not forget that uncle Tony, kindest of irascible 
 mortals, went mad about sport. A soldier would naturally 
 be more inured than his daughter to the shedding of 
 innocent blood. So the Colonel spent his afternoons, 
 frequently, at Monaco, and in the evenings, he liked to 
 go out. She had accompanied him several times to theatre 
 and opera, but had noticed to her disappointment that the 
 only thing he really cared for was the ballet. Once they 
 went to a classic tragedy together, but he laughed so they 
 had to come away. He, on the other hand, was distinctly 
 put out by her puritan attitude towards the ballet. 
 
 " Father, would you like to think of me as a ballet-girl ? " 
 
 *' No, Dolly, nor as a cook." 
 
 " But would you be ashamed of me as a cook ? ** 
 
 " Undoubtedly." 
 
 Alas, he was sometimes decidedly disappointing, this 
 comely, courteous, kindly father. He, that was so brave ! 
 She had never reflected on the various forms of cowardice. 
 
 So the Colonel went out a good deal alone — well, hardly i 
 alone. Dorothea said she liked quiet evenings. She con- 
 fectioned a lot of Christmas presents for Brodryck, and, 
 anxious to improve her English, amused the Colonel by 
 
96 DOROTHEA. 
 
 asking for classical authors in the bookshops of the Quai 
 Massena. 
 
 " Milton ? " said the dapper English shop-assistant, 
 dubiously. " You — you mean the poet — not the prophet ? " 
 
 " The prophet ? " 
 
 " Yes ; Robert Milton, the sporting prop^het of the Figaro. 
 We have his book on the turf here ; it is selling largely. 
 But of course we can get you out the other man from 
 England." The Colonel laughed all the way home. 
 
 Yes, it was a queer world, hard to make sense of. 
 Amongst the rainbow-hued peacocks that strutted — nay, 
 why insult peacocks and rainbows ? — amongst the blue 
 and yellow, pink and green creatures that spread, frizzed, 
 furbelowed and farded, all over the Promenade des Anglais, 
 there trotted and stared, in large numbers, the Cook's 
 trippers, with their yellow straw hats and cheap boas, 
 looking really quite refreshingly goody, like shabby little 
 brown-leather hymn-books among a ruck of two-shilling 
 novels that are all gaudy frontispiece and flare. 
 
 It was a queer world, intensely delectable. Who could 
 have guessed a few weeks ago at Brodryck that life could 
 be diversified like this ? Dorothea, in perfect health of 
 soul and body, wrote delighted epistles to Holland from 
 this enchanted shore. The aunts shook their heads and 
 hoped dear Dorothea was not growing worldly. Uncle 
 Tony wondered that she did not come back. 
 
 " I am given to understand," said a lisping voice at 
 Dorothea's elbow, " that I have the honour of addressing 
 Miss Sandring ? " She lifted her eyes from the Tauchnitz 
 on which they had rested ; a smile over some bit of the 
 " Tramp Abroad " had not time to die away from her face. 
 
 *' Young, beautiful and happy — ah ! " said the bowing 
 Italian, a tall, thin man with cameo-clear features and a 
 tight-waxed moustache. He put his hand to his breast 
 and again bowed, quite prettily. His manner was graceful, 
 his slightly shabby clothing "soignee." Dorothea, who 
 had never before beheld elegance in a man, felt vaguely 
 impressed. 
 
 " Monsieur Pini," said the Italian, " II Signor Pini. 
 Bartolommeo Pini-Pizzatelli." And he preferred a card. 
 " Professor of Italian, etcetera," read Dorothea. " No, 
 thank you, Monsieur ; I can take no lessons." The 
 " etcetera " was redolent of Nice. 
 
 " Ah, but we can all take lessons ! In everything ! " 
 
DOROTHEA. 97 
 
 replied Monsieur Pini. " And when we are young, they 
 are pleasant, ahim6 ! Yet I aspire not to teaching Miss 
 Sandring the language of Dante ! I but came to seek the 
 Colonel. You will permit me to resume my hat ? " 
 
 " Oh, do please ! " 
 
 " Mademoiselle, you are too good. The Colonel had 
 made me an appointment. I presume that he has forgotten it. 
 Alas, that is not unnatural ! " The pathetic Italian sighed. 
 
 "Oh, I am so sorry; pray sit down and wait! " cried 
 Dorothea in swift distress, for the coat of the visitor 
 seemed to have grown suddenly more threadbare. " I 
 will send for some tea " 
 
 " Nay, I beseech of you, no tea ! " Signor Pini stayed her 
 hand with a deprecatory gesture, and carefully seated him- 
 self in an attitude of distinguished deference. Everything 
 about him drooped gracefully : eyelids, features, shoulders, 
 coat-tails — especially knees. Only his waxed moustaches 
 rose peaked, like two needles, erect. " A glass of Vermuth," 
 he said mildly, " if it must be. You do not appreciate the 
 Vermuth di Torino. Try it. It is not as good in this 
 country as in mine. But then nothing is that ! " He 
 nodded his head sadly, and his eyelids sank over splendours 
 of memory such as only an exile can see. 
 
 " Perhaps I could give my father a message ? '* suggested 
 Dorothea, watching the Vermuth disappear. 
 
 " Ah, signorina, you are in a hurry. All young people 
 are, yet they only have time. Not that I am old" — his 
 sharp glance sought a mirror — " sorrow oldens ; I was old 
 at eighteen ! " 
 
 Dorothea sat gazing at him, deeply touched. 
 
 " If there is anything I could do for you," she began with 
 extreme timidity, " I am sure that my father would permit 
 me. He is generosity itself." Her own ideas of charity 
 were aunt Mary's, in merciful contradiction with every 
 sane rule on the subject. 
 
 The Italian's steel eyes flashed. "Ah ch6 bel cuore di 
 donna ! " he exclaimed. "Ah ch6 generosa gioventu ! Ah, 
 signorina, when you are wise as your elders, you will not 
 offer thus rashly assistance to those who need it ! " 
 
 " Do not, pray, speak too well of me ! I but do what I 
 can ! " She thought with disgust of the luxury she lived 
 in — of the daily hotel menu, of her lovely new clothes. 
 She had never before met with educated indigence. The 
 beggars of Brodryck were pauper-born. 
 
 D. H 
 
98 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " The Blessed Virgin herself could do no more," replied 
 Signor Pini. " I would doubt even if she has always done 
 as much, alas I — for this humblest among her adorers ! 
 Hush ! " — he cast a glance over one shoulder with comic 
 apprehension. " The Virgin, I forgot, is a woman ; she 
 is jealous. You, you have nothing to do with her ! Ah, 
 Santa Madre, I doubt not thou hast done thy best for thy 
 servant ! Most certainly the fault must have been mine ! " 
 He smiled humbly to Dorothea, whose thoughts at this 
 moment unexpectedly reverted to aunt Mary. 
 
 " Still, I have always shown devotion to the Virgin ! '* 
 argued the Italian. " The Vermuth is fairly good — and 
 yet my life has been ! — my life has been ! " Signor Pini 
 flung up both carefully gloved hands to heaven ! Nowadays 
 only poor men wear gloves. "Ah, shall I tell you? It 
 will help fill the time till M. le Colonel returns. When I 
 was your age, I too was happy, rich, fortunate, surrounded 
 by admiring relations, bel giovane ! — two years later I was 
 beggared, old, broken, alone ! " 
 
 "Is it possible!" cried the girl, her face a study in 
 emotions. 
 
 "You — you have never heard of Bomba, thank God ! I 
 am of Naples. I was a student. I belonged to the famous 
 association, formed by our professors, for the freeing of 
 Italy ! I was the life of it. We were discovered, arrested, 
 most of us tortured to death. 1 fled with others to Malta. 
 All the vast possessions of my father were sequestrated, 
 because he would not bid me return." 
 
 " Garibaldi ! " cried Dorothea, her eyes kindling. 
 
 The Italian started to his feet and bared his head. 
 " Garibaldi," he said solemnly, " was God's reply." 
 
 At that moment Dorothea deemed him splendid. 
 
 Then he sank down on his chair : his eyes glazed over, 
 and he mechanically poured himself out another glass 
 of Vermuth. 
 
 "Like all Italians, I am temperate," he said. "We 
 require no stimulants to warm our blood. Since that day 
 I have been a beggar — a beggar that earns his bread. And 
 the Holy Virgin has helped me — somewhat. I fear she has 
 little power over the cards, unless one marks them. And, 
 then, you see, she also has to assist the Bourbons. They 
 are very pious : they pay the Jesuits. She cannot excuse 
 herself. Well, my money has gone to build Bourbon 
 palaces at Caimes." 
 
DOROTHEA. 
 
 99 
 
 "The Lord Jesus " began Dorothea very softly. 
 
 " Ah yes," sighed Monsieur Pini. 
 
 " Has taught us to rejoice in our afflictions.** 
 
 " Ahime, my dear young lady, that is Protestant religion." 
 Signor Pini sat up briskly. " It is exceedingly beautiful, 
 but almost would I ask, have you ever had afflictions to 
 rejoice in ? Sincerely do I hope not. Rejoice, dear young 
 lady, rejoice ! The Vermuth is finished. The Colonel 
 comes not.*' 
 
 " I much regret it " — Dorothea rose — " but I am grateful 
 to any opportunity which has procured me the great 
 honour of your acquaintance." Again her calm eyes 
 kindled. " I have never before met with a man who had 
 sacrificed his life for his country. Be sure that my father 
 will help you if he can. It is a great honour for me, sir, 
 who have never done anything, to shake the hand of a 
 soldier of Garibaldi ! " 
 
 A swift flush spread over Signor Pini's sallow cheeks. 
 " O che gran cuor di donna ! " he said softly. " O che 
 nobile gioventu ! No, mademoiselle, it is not money I 
 desire from you : it is fortune, wealth enormous, that I 
 bring to monsieur your father. Already I had resolved, 
 but a moment ago, to withdraw from him the chance he 
 despises, and to confer it on another, the young lord. But 
 your beauty of face and of soul — oh, bell' anima in bel 
 corpo ! oh diamante incastonato — d'oro ! — see, these have 
 touched me : the wealth of Golconda shall be yours ! " 
 
 Dorothea drew back slightly. "Then why doesn't he 
 buy a pair of new gloves ? '* she thought. 
 
 " You are most generous," she began, with an uncomfort- 
 able smile, " you, who said you were not. Both in your 
 youth and in your age " 
 
 " Age ! " — the Italian winced. " Ah, mademoiselle, you 
 are cruel. Believe me, sorrow has caused me to look older 
 than my years. Tell your father from me, that he shall 
 have till to-morrow at midday the refusal of my offer — for 
 his lovely daughter's sake." He waved his hat to the 
 ground, in the most ceremonious of salutes. "And 
 remember me in your dove-like prayers," he said. 
 
 " I will," answered Dorothea gently. 
 
 " For in that case the system is bound to succeed.** 
 
 "The system? " repeated Dorothea, much mystified. 
 
 " Even though, really — God forgive me — it would succeed 
 without. Even the Almighty cannot resist mathematics." 
 
 U 2 
 
icx) DOROTHEA. 
 
 " I don't think I quite understand," said Dorothea. 
 " However, it does not much matter. Good-bye." 
 
 The Italian, who had already retreated, amid more bows, 
 turned back, in a sudden inspiration. " Ah ! " he exclaimed, 
 " it is you shall be the Patron Saint of the system ! The 
 Blessed Virgin — but no, you are no business of hers ! 
 You will play the numbers, without her ! Your white hand 
 at the tables will assure us success ! " 
 
 " You mean at Monte Carlo ? " said Dorothea, feeling 
 her way. " But, signore, that is very wicked. I am 
 certain my father would never countenance anything in 
 connection with that iniquitous place ! " 
 
 " Youth is positive," replied the Italian drily. 
 
 *' You do not mean to say that you go there ? Oh, signore, 
 I beg of you, abandon your system." Her cheeks flushed 
 with fervour — " I know I have no right to say this, but I 
 have heard so much about it *' 
 
 " About what ? " almost shrieked the Italian — " about 
 my system ? How much has your father told you ? He 
 could tell nothing. He tells lies." 
 
 ".I mean about Monte Carlo, and its crimes, and its 
 suicides. People constantly speak of it. And they say 
 that systems are the worst of all." 
 
 "True, true," answered Pini, hugging his thoughts. 
 " Give my message to the Colonel or not, as you will. 
 You are happy, signorina. Life seems simple to the happy. 
 Farewell," and he slid away softly to the door. 
 
 When the Colonel came in to dinner, Dorothea had a 
 strange experience to recount. 
 
 " Pini ? " said the Colonel. " Oh yes, Pini ! These hotel 
 soups are really beastly. Did he tell you about Italia fara 
 das^?" 
 
 " You know him then, father ? " 
 
 " I have met him. And I know that he talks of two 
 subjects, the sorrows of his youth and the sadness of 
 his age." 
 
 " And his system." 
 
 " He has never spoken to me of that," replied the diplo- 
 matic Colonel. " Did he explain it to you ? " 
 
 " No, I told him you thought gambling was very wicked." 
 
 " Really ? " 
 
 " As of course you do. There can be no two opinions 
 9.bout gambling, father." 
 
 " Yery good people, Dolly, never think there can be two 
 
DOROTHEA. ioi 
 
 opinions about anything. I suppose gambling is wicked. 
 Who was it said that all pleasant things are ? " 
 
 "A person, father, who was in the habit of telling 
 untruths." 
 
 " I am not sure of that. However, you will now be able 
 to judge for yourself about the wickedness of Monte Carlo. 
 I have an invitation for you, the immediate result of this 
 afternoon's visit. I met Egon von Roden at Monaco. He 
 told me he had made your acquaintance. Did you like 
 him ? " 
 
 " I think not. He was rude." 
 
 " Rude ? You must have misimderstood him. That is 
 the last thing likely in a German of Roden's position. His 
 mother and sister are going across there to lunch with his 
 uncle, and he asked me to bring you too." 
 
 " To Monaco, father ? " 
 
 " To Monaco, or Monte Carlo ; it's all the same," said 
 the Colonel, suddenly sick of a farce he could no longer 
 keep up. " Unless by ' Monte Carlo ' you choose to mean 
 only the gaming-rooms. Of course you needn't go near 
 them." 
 
 Dorothea bent over her plate. " Perhaps / was rude," 
 she said, almost to herself. 
 
 " Judging without knowledge of the facts, I should be 
 inclined to accept the latter alternative," said the Colonel, 
 with what was an irritable note in the voice of so good- 
 natured a man. 
 
 " But I'd rather not go to Monte Carlo, father." 
 
 " As you like. Only allow me to remind you that you 
 did not want to call to-day, yet greatly liked the people, 
 all the same, when you met them. Everybody, in my 
 company, can do exactly as he pleases, but it does seem 
 a pity, Dolly, that the pleasure of one person should so 
 often consist in the not pleasing others." 
 
 After that they finished their dinner in comparative 
 silence, and the Colonel departed by the 8.30 train, to 
 accompany Madame de Fleuryse to " Popotte." 
 
 Dorothea, glad of a quiet evening, after many days of 
 gaiety, went up to her room, and sorted her letters. She 
 did not like the sound of the first harsh words her father 
 had ever spoken to her, and, with a sensitive spirit's eager- 
 ness for self-reproach, she considered herself entirely to 
 blame for them. She was selfish and inexperienced. Full 
 
1Q2 ; PDROTHEA. 
 
 of her new bright pleasures only, she had not properly con- 
 sidered what amusements of hers must be a nuisance to 
 him. He always showed such a cheerful front, she had 
 never paused to ask whether boredom might not hide 
 behind a beaming face. He was so good, so noble-hearted : 
 whatever he approved of could not honestly be wrong. In 
 a sudden revulsion of feeling she saw all the littleness of 
 her Puritan precisionism showing ugly next to his tolerant 
 knowledge of the world. She had been quick to think 
 unreasonable evil of Egon von Roden ; she had expressed 
 censure of Pini, a hero and a martyr ! She felt humbled 
 j to the dust, and sought mild consolation in her letters. 
 
 " Christmas has come and gone," wrote aunt Mary. " I 
 could not but be glad to see so many people happy. Mark 
 Lester helped in everything and produced a most beautiful 
 Christmas tree, though not, of course, as beautiful as 
 yours." " What a Christmas ! " wrote aunt Emma. " Your 
 aunt Mary praised the tree to the Lesters ; I was delighted 
 to hear her ! But all's for the best, we are told, here below, 
 and must try to believe it. Uncle Antony is growing old." 
 
 Dorothea, laying down the sheets, reflected on Christmas at 
 Brodryck. At the hotel here they had had a plum-pudding, 
 and her father had given her a locket. On New Year's Eve 
 they had had Italian singers at the hotel, and Santa Lucia, 
 and her father had given her a pin. 
 
 " I wish you a happy New Year," wrote uncle Tony, " and 
 a speedy return to Brodryck. I don't understand about 
 your father at all. I imagine some people in this world 
 are very different from what others think them." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," sighed Dorothea, though she had not the 
 faintest idea to what uncle Tony alluded. 
 
 Last of all, she took up Mark Lester's letter and re-read 
 
 it. It spoke of his father's fading health : Dorothea would 
 
 not see this friend of her youth again. " I am constantly 
 
 with him now," wrote Mark, " and his one delight is to 
 
 speak of my future here. What can I do but rejoice with 
 
 him at the picture of myself as pastor? Oh, Dorothea, 
 
 what fools of duty we Christians are ! You, too — do not 
 
 tell me you are happy away from Brodryck, for I will not 
 
 . believe it. Whatever befalls us, let us always remember 
 
 • that ours was a happy childhood. That is much ; it is 
 
 I the most any mortal has a right to ask, and more than 
 
 many get." 
 
 Dorothea took up her pen and replied : 
 
DOROTHEA. 103 
 
 " Don't be so glum, Mark." She tore up the sheet : you 
 could not write that to a man whose father was dying. 
 " I am happy, very happy," she wrote. " I fear I have 
 always been happy — it sounds so selfish — but I never have 
 had a chance of feeling otherwise. God has always been 
 good to me : He will be good in the future. And to you 
 also He will be good, Mark, for you serve Him more 
 faithfully, if more unwillingly, than I." It was poor theo- 
 logy, perhaps, and worse philosophy, but the words sank 
 like balm of Gilead on Mark Lester's frozen and burning 
 heart. 
 
( 104 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " Let us, then, have a big explanation ! " said the 
 Baroness Blanche de Fleuryse. She flung open wide, with 
 a rush, the French window of her room on the second floor 
 of the Hotel Cosmopolitain at Monte Carlo. The sunshine 
 poured in, warm, like a noiseless torrent of liquid gold. 
 Far out shimmered, with incessant quivering of diamonds, 
 the Mediterranean Sea. 
 
 " I love explanations," said the Baroness, steadying with 
 shapely hand the auriferous (but unrooted) mountains that 
 glorified her Juno- like head. The laces of her sky-blue 
 morning robe fell loose about her ample bosom. Her face 
 wore its usual look of contentment with herself and the 
 world, pleasantly diversified, for the nonce, by amused 
 disapproval of Sandring. 
 
 " I love explanations," said the Baroness Blanche, sinking 
 down on her couch in a fragrance of violets. " Like 
 thunderstorms, they clear the air ! " 
 
 The Colonel sighed good-humouredly. " And I, as you 
 well know, abhor them," he answered. "They are not 
 a bit like thunderstorms. More like a dust-cloud. When 
 the whole thing is over, you are left in a fog. You abuse 
 your acquaintance with my antipathies, dear Blanche." 
 
 " Tcheep ! Tcheep ! " said the Baroness — to her canary. 
 This bird had been purchased a week or two ago by the 
 Colonel, at her eager insistence, from a hawker, whose 
 cages were scarce bigger than his wares. The canary now 
 inhabited a roomy, gilded residence, but the Baroness 
 considered him a nuisance, and her maid did not always 
 give him food. He eyed his owner doubtfully, edging 
 away. 
 
 " He don't respond," said the Colonel, with savage 
 satisfaction. " The beast can already distinguish the tones 
 of your voice, my dear Blanche." 
 
 She mastered her palpable vexation, and smiled at him. 
 " The long and the short of it is this," she said coolly : 
 
DOROTHEA. 105 
 
 "your charming daughter bores you. Don't ! " She lifted 
 her loosely-sleeved arm as if to ward oflF his protests. " I 
 know what you are going to say : you think her exceedingly 
 sweet. Oh, you fully appreciate her admirable qualities : 
 you — you are benefited by her artless companionship : it 
 does you good : it does you quantities of good, and then you 
 come here and vent on me the ill-humour her virtues have 
 engendered in a singularly amiable man. You play, with 
 distinction, the role of pere noble, but, believe me, you are 
 not equal to the strain." She blew a whiff of cigarette- 
 smoke into the sparkle of the sunshine. 
 
 " I thought I was," replied the Colonel ruefully. He 
 sank for a moment in reflective contemplation of his 
 polished finger-nails. Then he remarked, with vigour : 
 " Look here : she's charming. We get on admirably. 
 There's not a word of truth in what you say." 
 
 " As for the money," continued Madame, angrily rapping 
 the cage, for the bird had found sudden voice and now 
 hindered her, "that, I understand, is definitely settled on 
 her. To the money you must bid farewell." 
 
 " I don't care a d about the money ! " cried Sandring, 
 
 glad of an excuse for a shout of irritation. " I must have 
 told you so fifty times, at least. It's you that's always 
 harping on the money. I expected her to have it, and she 
 hasn't, and there an end of the whole vulgar affair." 
 
 " That is admirable : it is very like you, Lewis," said 
 
 Madame in a little voice. "And perhaps you are right. 
 
 If you so greatly enjoy your daughter's company, if you 
 
 enjoy (I suppose it is the only word?) this continuous 
 
 duplicity, secrecy, running to and fro, and hiding for fear 
 
 of discovery — well, of course, if you really like this sort of 
 
 thing, then, from your point of view there is no more to be 
 
 said." 
 
 ] " And from yours ? " inquired the Colonel, not unanxiously. 
 
 " My dear Colonel, do you really desire to know ? " 
 
 He began some eager protestations, but she stopped him. 
 
 " From mine ? " She rose suddenly, big and splendid. 
 
 " From mine there is simply this, that I refuse to accept it. 
 
 I have other conceptions of enjoyment, I ! I refuse to 
 
 endure any longer the shadow of a schoolmiss black across 
 
 my path ! Can I do this ? No. May I go there ? No. 
 
 Mind what you say to that idiot. Lord Archie ! Wear not 
 
 that hat ! Dorothea has one like it. Remember, we are 
 
 going to the opera to-morrow " 
 
io6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " See how you exaggerate ! You do not want to go to 
 the opera at Nice " 
 
 " I did, to hear Patti." 
 
 " Patti has no longer any voice to speak of. Besides, 
 Dorothea is not going again. She does not approve, I 
 believe, of the ballet." 
 
 " She is quite right. I have always thought the rows of 
 bald-heads in their stalls at the Paris opera an unedifying 
 sight. Well, she will go no more to the opera ? Instead 
 of that, she comes here ! " 
 
 " Behold the explanation ! " exclaimed the Colonel 
 triumphantly. " Because, once in a way, after four weeks 
 at Nice, Dorothea comes to see Monte Carlo with the 
 Rodens, you get up all this scene. You misjudge my 
 patience, Blanche." 
 
 She watched him for half a minute, quietly. Then she 
 said : " These continued unpleasantnesses are beyond me. 
 We had better part." 
 
 The Colonel also waited a few seconds before replying. 
 Madame's heart went mildly pit-a-pat : she half-closed her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said the Colonel, and at the first sound of 
 his voice she opened her eyes again and smiled. " Don*t 
 be a fool, Blanche. What do you want me to do ? " 
 
 " Lewis, we must get rid of your daughter. Send her 
 back to her aunts." 
 
 " No, by thunder ! " thundered the Colonel, sitting up 
 from his dawdle on the sofa. " Have her out for the money 
 and send her back, when she hasn't got it ? Make a howling 
 cad of myself — and before those two psalm-singing aunts 
 of hers? No!" 
 
 " You needn't scream," replied the lady. " Your animus 
 shows how regretfully you have abandoned the idea. Well, 
 I admit there are difficulties. The other alternative remains." 
 
 " What other alternative ? " 
 
 " Marry her to somebody. The sooner the better." 
 
 " You speak as if husbands were to be got at the street- 
 comers." 
 
 " Well, so they are by girls who, like your daughter, can 
 put four thousand a year into the slot. But, of course, 
 we are desirous to get a good one. Even that is quit© 
 possible." 
 
 "You talk. You talk." 
 
 " I know of one, for instance.** 
 
DOROTHEA. 107 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Pini." 
 
 " The joke is a bad one," said the Colonel. 
 
 "And why, pray, should Signor Pini not be a suitable 
 husband for your daughter? You tell me yourself that 
 she greatly admires him. He will soon be exceedingly, 
 wealthy " 
 
 " He is older than I am ! ** 
 
 " Hardly. Nor are you so very old. As for that, when 
 a young girl admires a man with admiration, the older he 
 is the more she feels she may admire him." 
 
 " Pini ! You are insulting, Blanche." 
 
 " Insulting ? He is a Count." 
 
 " So are we all, Baroness ! " , 
 
 « N — no. His is a bond fide title, which he had the good 
 taste to drop — or, rather, it was taken from him ; but the 
 new Italian Government would of course restore it at once. 
 Count Pini Pizzatelli is worthy of any alliance in Europe." 
 
 "Well, if the title be genuine, the wealth is at least 
 problematical. I admit the accuracy of Pini's little * system,' 
 but it doesn't go far. It means, at the outside, a couple of 
 napoleons a day." 
 
 The Baroness Blanche drew a chair beside the Colonel's 
 sofa. " Ah, that is the inverted martingale," she said ; "but 
 the time has come to tell you the truth. This is child's 
 play. We only showed it you to give you confidence. 
 Pini has two systems : the other is the real one. It requires 
 a large capital. Big risks, big returns. He has told me 
 nothing about it, excepting that it covers all the numbers 
 each time." 
 
 " Including the zero ? " smiled the Colonel. 
 
 « Evidently." 
 
 " But that is mathematically impossible ! " 
 
 " Nothing is impossible." 
 
 " Not even in mathematics ? " 
 
 " Heavens, do you take me for a school-teacher ? In 
 England, perhaps. Yours is a nation of accountants, but in 
 France it is always the impossible that happens." 
 
 " Monte Carlo is not even in France." 
 
 " Mathematically — to use your expression — it is. Besides, 
 where a Frenchwoman is, there France is. When a man 
 talks what he calls common-sense to a woman, he is always 
 insupportable. Pini is sure of his secret. He is ready to 
 give any man practical proof." 
 
io8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 "Any man?" 
 
 " I should have said no man but one — the man who can 
 provide him with the necessary capital. Even to him he 
 will not confide his secret. He will only pay him a 
 hundred per cent. ! " She began to pace up and down the 
 room. " Pooh ! " she said, " in six months' time he can 
 marry a princess ! " 
 
 "My daughter'd never as much as look at a Roman 
 Catholic ! " 
 
 " Oh yes, she would, if she liked him. I have seen many 
 things in my life ; I have never yet seen a suitable marriage 
 abandoned by a Protestant on account of religious diver- 
 gence. The Jesuits know that ! Oh, they know it ! Look 
 at their work in the Almanach de Gotha ! " 
 
 " I have never made a study of the Almanach de Gotha. 
 I believe you have learnt it by heart." 
 
 She laughed. " Well, you see, I am a Baroness and you 
 are a commoner," she answered, " It is immensely interest- 
 ing, the Almanach de Gotha ; you can read the most 
 wonderful romances between the lines. But to return to 
 the romance we are constructing. You marry this Dolly 
 of yours, who loves patriots and martyrs, and even, prob- 
 ably, counts, to her most romantic Italian. He takes you 
 into partnership, and, see, in one month we are bathing in 
 money and — frankly — rid of the girl ! " 
 
 " Modify your expressions," retorted the Colonel angrily. 
 But he was more than half fascinated by the prospect held 
 out to him. After all, the impossible " system " remains 
 an ever possible dream. 
 
 " Well, I have frankly said my say about your daughter. 
 I love frankness. Nor, to-day, do not think I shall stay 
 away from the rooms." 
 
 " Blanche, I must insist — Dorothea will never come a 
 second time " 
 
 "Rubbish. Of course you have amiably told her to 
 ignore me should we meet — just as you have a dozen times, 
 very superfluously, requested me to avoid her." 
 
 " I have never mentioned the subject," said the Colonel 
 uncomfortably. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " I don't know. False shame, I suppose." 
 
 Her face grew purple. She walked hastily to the window. 
 " Go," she said in a smothered voice. " Go to this luncheon 
 of Count Roden's ; it is time." 
 
DOROTHEA. 109 
 
 Why, no, I've still got half an hour- 
 
 She stamped her foot. " It is time you went,** she said. 
 « Go ! ** 
 
 The Colonel, with a hot smile on his face, did as he 
 was bid. How right he had been about the effect of 
 explanations. 
 
 *' Tcheep ! Tcheep ! ** said the lady to the rapidly re- 
 treating canary. She tore her small handkerchief across 
 in the clenching of her nervous hands. 
 
 Meanwhile, the innocent subject of all this discussion was 
 seated on the terrace of the " Continental," enjoying the 
 loveliest sight she had ever beheld in her life. She had 
 thought until now that nothing could be more beautiful, 
 or, at least, more enchanting, than the Bale des Anges, but 
 she found she was mistaken. The panorama before and 
 around her seemed a vision of a pagan Paradise. 
 
 Her rapt admiration began to lie heavy on Lord Archie. 
 "You ought to come and see it at night,** he remarked. 
 " Some Carnival night, say, next month." 
 
 "I suppose it is beautifully illuminated,** she answered 
 with perfunctory interest. 
 
 Lord Archibald stared ; a grin broke and died on his 
 face. " Well, perhaps you're as well away," he said, " it's 
 apt to get common of nights.*' 
 
 Dorothea glanced round at the little company. Lady 
 Archibald was certainly " common ; ** everybody else was 
 the other extreme. 
 
 Old Count Roden had insisted on inviting his well- 
 married compatriot. " You will put her close to me, Egon," 
 he said. " She has neither humour nor wit, nor much sense, 
 but to me she is immensely diverting. It is the novelty. 
 I am an old man in search of new sensations. Nothing 
 new under the sun ? How can stupid people say so ? Now, 
 this sort of social development is as absolutely new as a — 
 as a motor car. It will be amusing to watch her with 
 your admirable mother. Had she married a German, one 
 would of course have avoided her as the pestilence, but 
 now she is quite sans consequence." 
 
 "As you wish, uncle Karl.'* 
 
 The old gentleman went off into a succession of chuckles. 
 He was a jolly old gentleman, important and respected. 
 His whole life had been a continuous naughtiness, of the 
 sort which the world approves, "I shall also ask the 
 
no DOROTHEA. 
 
 Countesses Kauenfels. I forbid you to enlighten them. ' My 
 dear Countess Bathildis, this is Lady Archibald Foye — the 
 Foyes, you know, the Marquis of Brassingham ' — then I 
 shall leave them to discover her. It will take a little time. 
 Finally she will speak to them in the South German dialect 
 and tell them — she always does — that she was a Biermadel. 
 I hope to be present." He gravely drew his long white 
 fingers down his whiter moustache. Taller by a couple of 
 inches than any of the other Rodens (whose lowest mark 
 was five feet eleven), his slender figure encased in clothes 
 that might be a young man's marvel, he knew himself to 
 stand out, with his healthy cheeks and silvery hair, a 
 superb example of his kind. During all his life he had 
 cared for himself with constant and tender care. That life 
 had been largely spent in courts, and his outer graces were 
 those of the courtly Emperor's time. The Rodens knew 
 that he could at times be both coarsely insulting and 
 cheaply kind. 
 
 He stopped chuckling. " Why don't Konrad go back to 
 his regiment ? " he demanded sharply. " When is his leave 
 up ? Your family's too numerous, Egon. We're too large 
 a party for a lunch." He did not wait for an answer. In 
 grey checks, a white waistcoat and a dark red buttonhole, 
 he sat in the hotel verandah. His nephew stood before 
 him, almost in the attitude of an orderly. 
 
 " Well, it can't be helped," continued the Count. " No- 
 body could sit down to a meal alone with half-a-dozen 
 relations. Why don't your father come ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid he is not well enough," said Egon. 
 
 " Well, that's one less. But I'm sorry for Justus. Look 
 here, Egon, I suppose that Konrad plays. I won't have 
 any playing, do you hear ? " 
 
 " I don't think he plays," replied Egon. " He amuses 
 himself up to a small limit. When he has lost that, he 
 tells me he'll stop." 
 
 " Well, that is really the only reasonable * system ' ; it's 
 my own. I presume with a wider limit ; nobody could call it 
 play. That's what I like in Konrad. There's a certain 
 sneaking, cautious, count-the-cost sort of way about his 
 amusements, every bit like what I was at his age. Now 
 you, Egon " — he turned triumphantly to this elder nephew 
 — " if you weren't so good, what a fool you'd be ! Once 
 you began to plunge, you'd go over, like a horse on a cliff ; 
 you'd not have the wit to stop yourself. You're like your 
 
DOROTHEA. iii 
 
 father, who always expended a shilling's worth of energy 
 on a pennyworth of fun. Not that your father ever 
 plunged. And now look at your father — he's done for. 
 While I ! " He struck his manly chest. 
 
 Egon turned red. " My father is feeling much better," 
 he said. 
 
 " Of course. They always do. Poor Justus, does he still 
 repeat : Life is glorious ? Pooh, you can know the whole 
 man by that one stock sentence. Life isn't glorious a bit, 
 but it is profoundly interesting. Don't you throw away 
 your chances, Egon, as your father did." 
 
 " You have said that to me before, uncle. I — I wish you 
 wouldn't put it like that. But, as to my chances, I don't 
 see that I have any." His glance sank to his maimed foot. 
 
 " That is an extra attraction," said the old man, whose 
 quick eyes nothing escaped. " Most especially in a young 
 Apollo like you. Remember Byron. The woman are so 
 made, poor things. Unlike us, they are wholly selfish or 
 wholly devoted. Yes, Egon, you must marry money, and 
 your limp will be a help. It will keep off the bad ones." 
 He took his nephew's arm. " Come, let us walk down to 
 the station to meet these people," he said. " Why — do you 
 know — even I have a weakness for you, on account of your 
 infirmity. I wish I could be certain that the property 
 would ultimately come to you when I'm gone." 
 
 " Why, uncle, you always tell me you like Konrad 
 better ! " 
 
 " So I do ; he is more my sort. All the same, I have a 
 weakness for you. How about this English girl your 
 mother was so anxious to bring with her. Is she pretty ? " 
 
 " I believe so," replied Egon. 
 
 " Believe ? But you've seen her." 
 
 "Yes, I've seen her. However, tastes differ, dear imcle, 
 and you are such a connoisseur." 
 
 " Egon, you have some of your father's most exasperating 
 tricks. Now, Konrad would have given me a racy little 
 picture of the ' Englanderin,' dishing her up like a menu." 
 
 " She is Dutch, uncle. I must say I hate the way Konrad 
 can describe a woman's composition, as if she were a bowl 
 of punch ! " 
 
 The luncheon was shrill with laughter, and therefore 
 
 Presumably gay. A good deal of noise always rose around 
 ,ord and Lady Archie. Their whole life was a loud laugh, 
 with little behind it. For the last few weeks Archibald, 
 
113 DOROTHEA. 
 
 industriously working a new vein of mercury (but some 
 called it lead), had devoted his talents to teaching his 
 consort a tangle of topsy-turvy slang. Lady Archibald 
 clearly appreciated the connection — in manners and 
 language — between idioms and ease, and she liked to 
 show, by her lightness and brightness, that she wasn't 
 afraid of old frumps. 
 
 "Your trotters can take you to Beaulieu in an hour," 
 she had said to the Duchess of Birmingham, who was 
 gouty, and half lame and deaf. Lady Archibald had to 
 yell the words twice in the presence of half-a-dozen tea- 
 drinkers. " It's your own fault," protested Archie, when 
 he'd got her outside. " I told you that horses were * gees.' " 
 " She's ? " exclaimed the German indignantly. " Told me 
 have you not, and, if so, it were nothing to the matter. 
 Also I am not such a stupid as not to know that horses 
 have two sexes. It is donkeys that are masculines alone." 
 In the midst of this quarrel it transpired that she had told 
 old Sir Jeremy Bumblethorpe to varnish his trotter-cases 
 once every season, if he wanted them to look smart. Elated 
 by such unexpected success, her artless and artful husband 
 began to lay elaborate plots. He informed her that 
 " haricots verts " were the favourite dish of the Bishop 
 of Boring, and then, in her presence, invited that prelate 
 to lunch. " Oh, do come, and I will give you beans," said 
 the charming Lady Archie, and Archibald was happy for a 
 week. Does any one want to hear any more of Archie's 
 exploits ? How he succeeded in causing " the Biermadel " 
 to call Captain Vane, U.S.N., in his own boat, before his 
 own men, at the top of her voice, a " cocky swain " ; how 
 he got her to ask the famous flower-grower, Prescott, 
 whether it was true that his newly produced specimen of 
 Arbutilon was " all rot " ; how — stop ; they who do not 
 already love Archie will never learn to love him. Besides, 
 are his deeds not inscribed in his book, still unpublished, 
 of original humour? His greatest accomplishment was 
 making a sudden screech with his lips, exactly like the 
 tearing of a skirt. He tried this with eminent success on 
 the Countess Bathildis, poor half-blind old body, who 
 fumbled about, all the long afternoon, to find out the rent. 
 
 " I say," whispered Archie to Egon, as the guests took 
 their places. " She's just said ' go along ! * to that old 
 Mother Hubbard with the toothache. She believes that 
 it's Englisfi for ' after you ! ' '' The " toothache " was a 
 
DOROTHEA. 113 
 
 more or less appropriate allusion to the broad bands of the 
 old Countess's black straw hat. Yet Archibald, though he 
 laughed at everybody, including himself, was fond of old 
 ■women. His care for his mother had been proverbial in 
 the family. The poor Marchioness wept many bitter tears 
 at the loss of this son who, as a small boy, had put cobbler's 
 wax on her chair, and then plumped down on his knees, 
 with streaming cheeks, when she could not rise from it. 
 
 " Oh, Lord, help mother to get up again ! " he had roared. 
 " Oh, Lord, help mother to get up again ! " That the wax 
 did not melt immediately had been a great shock, all 
 through life, to Lord Archibald. 
 
 The two old Countesses von Kauenfels were queer, good- 
 natured, dumpy old creatures in grey alpaca. There was a 
 softness about their features which bespoke long ages of 
 inherited refinement, and the shape of their hands alone 
 was a brevet of pre-revolution nobility. The people whose 
 ancestors came into existence after '89 must always remain 
 distinguishable from the people whose ancestors died 
 before. 
 
 The two Countesses behaved charmingly to " the young 
 English Miladi," in their pretty old-fashioned shyness. 
 Doubtless they had many friends in common ? After these 
 they began amiably to inquire. Lady Archibald, who, of 
 course, had never heard of the people, answered demurely, 
 with a great affectation of propriety, and assured them 
 that every one was in excellent health. Suddenly, how- 
 ever, tiring of her role, she declared that Lady Butterton 
 was dead. 
 
 " Dead ! " exclaimed Bathildis in grief and amazement. 
 " Frederica, listen ; can it be possible ? Maria Butterton 
 dead ! And we heard from her only last month ! " 
 
 " Oh, well, if it isn't Maria, it's somebody else," said 
 Lady Archibald, and she turned round to Konrad, with 
 whom she took up a long-standing flirtation in her own 
 broad South German patois. " What — what — what is 
 this ? " gasped the Countess Bathildis to her host. 
 
 "Did you not know," asked the latter with a smile, 
 " that Lord Archibald had married a German ? " 
 
 The Countess Bathildis looked from the wife to the 
 husband and back again twice — three glances in all, 
 containing a three-volume novel. Then she resolutely 
 faced Colonel Sandring, who began to talk at once of 
 the tables. 
 
 ». 1 
 
114 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " I never go near them," said Bathildis. " We have a 
 house here. The only possible way to live at Monte Carlo 
 is not to know that the tables exist." She took no further 
 notice of " that terrible person," who greatly enjoyed an 
 impression thus easily made. 
 
 " Is that your daughter ? " inquired the old lady of 
 Colonel Sandring, as Dorothea's laugh rose up clear at 
 some silly sally of Archie's. She smiled towards the other 
 end of the table and nodded benevolently. " I like to hear 
 young people laugh," she said. " Have you ever noticed, 
 there is nothing in all the word you can so unerringly 
 judge refinement by as a laugh?" Lady Archibald sat 
 shrieking with Konrad. 
 
 " Diese entsetzliche Person ! " muttered the Countess 
 Bathildis repeatedly to herself as the company rose from 
 table, and she twisted about in search of the tear in 
 her gown and her tortoise-shell glasses. The latter Lady 
 Archibald found for her and presented with an adorably 
 impertinent little curtsey. 
 
 *' Ah, you did not know we were compatriots ? " said the 
 '* person." "But yes, before I married my Archie I was 
 * Biermadel ' at the ' Grosser Kurfiirst ' in Kissingen ! I 
 have often seen your brother there, ' das Franzchen ' ; he 
 squints. Often have I said to him : ' Why do you come 
 here ? You will never get better by the water as long as 
 you drink so much beer ! ' " 
 
 The old Countess glared. 
 
 " Tell him so from me, once again, when you write ! " 
 cried the blue -eyed tormentress, and ran away laughing 
 after Konrad. 
 
 Bathildis turned, breathless, to right and left. She 
 struck her black cane on the floor and said audibly: 
 " Ich bitte — a gentleman ! " She held out her hand to 
 Egon. " Conduct me to my carriage ! " she said. 
 
 But he mildly led her across to the verandah, to have 
 some coffee. " What, Bathildis ? Not running away ? " 
 cried the Count. 
 
 The challenge, intentional or not, roused the tiger that 
 sleeps in every blue-blooded old woman. " Indeed, I am 
 not running away," she retorted. "Come, Egon, sit beside 
 me, a little away from the noise. I am old. What does 
 your mother make of this * person * ? " 
 
 *' Oh, well — I heard mother saying how pretty she was." 
 
 *' Oh ! That, we know, with your family, excuses every- 
 
DOROTHEA. 115 
 
 thing. Of course she is pretty, in her way. All the 
 peasants about Kauenfels are pretty like that." 
 
 Egon thought that the lonely old castle in Wiirtemberg 
 must be quite a desirable place of abode. 
 
 " I might have seen what sort of a creature she was by 
 just her sort of prettiness. We weren't pretty. My father 
 used often to tell us that we were the only plain girls about 
 the place. * You aren't like the peasants,' my dear father 
 used to say." 
 
 "But, Comtesse " protested the unfortunateyoungman. 
 
 " What ? " She twinkled her blind old eyes at him. 
 " Well, what are you trying to say ? Do not make yourself 
 foolish, my child. Do you think an old woman like me 
 seeks for compliments? I remember hearing your father 
 say once, when your age, that all ugly women ought to be 
 drowned. That is what you Rodens think. It served me 
 right. I was listening behind the door." 
 
 With a shock Egon Roden realised that this must be the 
 wealthy cousin his father had refused to marry. His eyes 
 strayed to his mother's delicate face, like a porcelain flower, 
 and back to the rugged old lady. Here was a woman's 
 whole tragedy in a word. 
 
 *' I have never listened behind doors again," said Bathildis 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " My father has always enjoyed saying sharp things and 
 thinking soft ones," stammered Egon, hot and flurried. 
 "You know very well that he didn't mean you." 
 
 " You think not ? Now, how kind of you to say so ! 
 And for thirty years I have fancied he did ! " She laughed 
 heartily, with her hand on his forearm. " Put my coffee 
 on the table," she added. " The other side, opposite Lady 
 Archibald ! Thanks." 
 
 She sat down at the table and leisurely stirred the 
 liquid, until there befell a moment of universal silence, and 
 then — 
 
 "Yes, my dear Lady Archibald Foye," she said in 
 pellucid accents — and speaking the husband's language. 
 " I shall certainly give my brother your very kind message. 
 You must not feel hurt if he does not remember you. It is 
 of course much more natural that you should remember 
 him." 
 
 Lady Archibald reddened slightly. " He need not 
 remember of me," she said. " What he must do to 
 remember is to drink less beer." 
 
ii6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 "Doubtless he does drink less, since you are no 
 longer there to tempt him. Yes, certainly, he has little 
 foibles, my brother : I do not deny it." She sighed and 
 assumed that little air of confusion with which righteous 
 females salute, in conversation, the approach of the unap- 
 proachable. " And bigger ones, too, alas ! Lord Archi- 
 bald, your charming lady informs me that she knows my 
 brother well. She knew him, it appears, before you were 
 engaged to her, when she was — otherwise engaged." 
 
 She turned to Count von Roden and, still persistently 
 speaking English, "Yes, my brother is still unmarried," 
 she said. " I fear he is not of the sort of men that marry. 
 He likes to enjoy himself, poor Franz ! " Then for ten 
 minutes longer she talked in her native language to 
 Madame de Roden of the decadence of society and the 
 breaking- down of barriers, after which she departed, carrying 
 with her her ever acquiescent sister. "Farewell," she said, 
 " my good Lady Archibald ; I shall certainly give my 
 brother your message. How strange that you should have 
 known him so well 1 ** 
 
( "7 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Dorothea paused on the steps of the Casino. " It looks 
 even more beautiful, if possible," she said, " than it did 
 an hour ago." 
 
 "That's the luncheon," replied Archie morosely, "a good 
 luncheon always makes me feel like that. Yes, it was a 
 beautiful luncheon." 
 
 "Come into the rooms," interjected Egon. "The sight 
 will amuse you for half an hour." 
 
 Play was of course in progress at all the tables over all 
 the crowded place. The vista of halls hung heavy with 
 gilding, and clouded light, and stuffy air. Heaviness, that 
 was the all-pervading atmosphere, and under it a breathless 
 concentration of intensest human thought. The far aisle, 
 pillared and painted in gorgeous ornamentation, recalled 
 some dim Southern basilica — such, for instance, as Santa 
 Maria Maggiore — a desecrated temple, and yet not dese- 
 crated truly, a palace of most certain devotion, religiously 
 up-builded by earnest-hearted votaries, spontaneously made 
 brilliant with the symbolism and carefully adapted to the 
 service of the God. The Exchange and the Bourse are 
 too noisy. They present an insidious pretension of work. 
 There hangs about them a false glamour of honest earnings. 
 Monte Carlo is very different from these. Here is held the 
 high service of Mammon in its purely religious aspect, 
 untrammelled by all considerations of labour, a sort of 
 inverted Litany, a Messe Noire, the adoration, the suppli- 
 cation of the deity — We beseech thee to hear us, our God ! 
 About all forms of sincere devotion, however fantastic, a 
 certain impressiveness slowly fastens, and to the sympathetic 
 student of his kind there is something grotesquely sacred in 
 the scene at the gambling rooms. For here, in its hideous 
 enticing nakedness, stands revealed to the eyes of the 
 scorner, the weeper and the slave, that cult which is stronger 
 than all other mortal religions, philosophies, fine aspira- 
 tions, stronger than honour and fear and all passing 
 
u8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 affections — ay, seemingly stronger than God in His empty 
 cathedrals — the abandonment, body and soul, to the Lord 
 of the Ages, the thirst of the whole human heart towards 
 gold. To describe that still fervour of worship were idle : 
 he who has once observed it can never forget. 
 
 A glance round the gaudy and sordid assembly swept 
 clouds of uncertainty from Dorothea's inexperienced brain. 
 All the queer people of Nice were here. These, then, were the 
 gamblers. Suddenly it seemed to her as if she had always 
 understood. The class that cannot earn money, but can only 
 inherit or steal it : the up-to-date " upper class " of Europe, 
 its promiscuous " society," the scum at the top. 
 
 Le demi-monde, on the lips of Dumas, meant the fringe 
 of the great one. Conditions have changed, and, with the 
 disappearance of the contrast, we no longer understand, but 
 can only misapply, the term. There is no great world now. 
 There is only, above the quiet, constant aristocracies of 
 hearth and home and mart and village, the noisy crowd of 
 blackguards that are rich. 
 
 Dorothea, with Egon behind her, stopped near a crowded 
 table, full of the usual murmur, jingle and stress. People 
 were putting down their money : the twang of the croupiers 
 broke through the general buzz. 
 
 " That woman opposite," whispered the young man at 
 the novice's shoulder, " they call * Baroness,' but she isn't. 
 The one seated in front of her they call ' Your Royal 
 Highness,' and she is ! " 
 
 Dorothea's glance followed his guidance. A suppressed 
 cry of surprise touched her lips. 
 
 " Somebody you know ? " 
 
 " Oh, she's playing ! " said Dorothea. " No, nobody I 
 know — exactly." She could not but remember Madame de 
 Barvielle in kindness. Dorothea was not of those who 
 forget small services. She wondered what had become of 
 the little text-book. For a moment she stood watching 
 the lady, who was busy pricking her card. 
 
 " Faites votre jeu, messieurs ! faites votre jeu ! " 
 
 The Colonel crept up behind her, apparently cool. 
 "There's an old Russian princess winning heaps in the 
 other room,'* he suggested ; " come and look." 
 
 She flashed her bright eyes around immediately. " Yes, 
 I'm coming," she said. "Look, father, there's the lady who 
 lent me the money in the train : I should just like to ask 
 if the post-olTice order ever reached her " 
 
DOROTHEA. 119 
 
 " D ! *' answered the Colonel, full into her eyes. She 
 
 fell back, as if he had flung out his fist. He was a man of 
 few oaths : he had muttered an occasional mild imprecation 
 in her presence : he had never thus fiercely cast an oath 
 into her face. In a second he had entirely recovered him- 
 self. " Nobody can speak in this place to people they 
 don't know/' he said curtly. "Dear girl, do let well 
 alone." 
 
 His daughter shrank away out of sight, behind a burly 
 Frenchman : in doing so she saw the lady opposite look 
 up from her card towards the Colonel, saw a swift flash of 
 recognition lighten across from one to the other, under- 
 stood, in that tenth of a second, that a certain degree of 
 intimacy existed between her father and this Baroness 
 of the roulette, her companion of the train. A dozen 
 arranged meetings in public would not have argued, to a 
 woman, such a close degree of intercourse as lay in that 
 one leap of the eye. 
 
 She stepped hastily forward, seeking to escape from the 
 crush : her vexed glances flew rapidly to and fro. Some- 
 body moved aside with a rustle, thinking she wanted to 
 stake. For one instant she stood fully revealed before a 
 dingy background of broadcloth, in her tailor-made shaggy- 
 white costume : Madame, raking gold to a number, half- 
 turned in the direction of the sudden bright spot. Their 
 eyes met. Madame's look was quite stony. 
 
 " Rien ne va plus ! " The little ball clashed into its hole. 
 " Please, please — let us go away ! " the girl said softly 
 to Egon. " Yes, come : I will show you the Trente et 
 Quarante." 
 
 Colonel Sandring stood watching his daughter's depart- 
 ing figure. How well she looked in that frock, like a calla 
 lily ! What unnecessary complications women made ! 
 
 With a rather heightened colour he sauntered across the 
 middle room, vaguely pondering on possible solutions. 
 And there — really, it seemed almost an indication from 
 Providence — stood Pini. 
 
 He pulled the Italian by the sleeve. " I say, come and 
 have tea with us outside," he said. 
 
 " Go to the devil ! " replied Pini, without turning. 
 
 " By Jove, have you gone mad ? " cried the exasperated 
 Colonel. 
 
 " There ! You've broken my run of luck ! " Signor Pipi 
 flew round. 
 
I20 DOROTHEA. 
 
 '* I am truly sorry,'* said Sandring, with a colleague's — 
 and now even a collaborator's — intelligent sympathy. 
 "Only, I wanted to make you better acquainted with 
 my daughter. The story of your sufferings has greatly 
 impressed her." 
 
 " I have not troubled the young lady with the story of 
 my sufferings," replied Pini proudly, " but she has an angel's 
 swiftness towards all that is good." 
 
 "She's romantic, you know, like what nice girls are. 
 She doesn't seem favourably impressed by this place. You 
 will make a delightful diversion with ' Italia far4 da se.* 
 Begad, she believes you're a hero.** 
 
 " So I was, once," replied the Italian, in a voice from the 
 tomb. "It does not become a brave man to mock at 
 bravery." 
 
 They were out in the light and spacious entrance-hall, 
 with its ceaseless to and fro. In the middle of all the 
 hurry the Colonel held out his hand. 
 
 " You are right," he said. 
 
 "I bravi s'abbracciano," responded the Italian. For one 
 awful instant Sandring thought this was going to happen. 
 He shook in his shoes. 
 
 Meanwhile Egon and Dorothea had passed into the 
 innermost room. At the selectest of the Trente et Quarante 
 tables they found Lady Archibald, with Konrad very docile 
 beside her, dropping tiny napoleons on to the vast green 
 cloth. " I am doing a piety," said the lady, " pray have 
 the goodness not to look disapproval." Dorothea endea- 
 voured to regard her with admiration, but only succeeded 
 in marking surprise. 
 
 " It is — a — what do you call it ? — some sort of animal ! ** 
 yawned Lady Archie, " but, you see, I am doing of my 
 duty, so Herr Konrad says I ought to feel glad." 
 
 " Are you punting for Archie ? " inquired Egon. 
 
 " Ah no ! but I promised Archie's bishop to play a whole 
 hour for his * Rookeries.* I know not what are Rookeries, 
 do you ? It is something of religion. Archie says it has to 
 do with the birds — jailbirds — and beaks, but that of course 
 is his nonsense. I never believe Archie no more.'* 
 
 " Well, I hope you are winning ? " said Dorothea, much 
 amused. 
 
 " Indeed, yes. Put another louis on couleur, Herr Konrad. 
 But it would not be a grief, if I lost, for the louis are 
 Herr Konrad's.** 
 
DOROTHEA. lai 
 
 "Please, let us go out! " said Dorothea, and once more 
 her obedient companion willingly followed her. She 
 naturally avoided, on her way to the entrance, the corner 
 in which she had encountered Madame de Barvielle. She 
 was quite close to the table on the further side before she 
 noticed that the lady had moved to it. She halted, just a 
 hitch, and was passing on 
 
 " Come round here — there is less of a crush ! " said Egon 
 quickly but awkwardly. He flung himself between her and 
 the touch of the other's skirt. 
 
 She walked on without a word, ahead of him. Out of 
 the stifle and rattle of the rooms, out of the whirl and the 
 patter of the vestibule, round to the great deserted terrace, 
 to the silence of sun-lit immensity, the splendour, the glitter 
 and greenery : radiant heaven high above, radiant sea deep 
 below, radiant flowers all round. 
 
 She advanced to the balustrade and stood looking out 
 on the water. She drew a long breath and tried not to 
 think of that woman, her father's acquaintance, whom von 
 Roden had not wanted her to touch. But the recollection 
 rolled down heavy on her heart of the night in the train, 
 of the evening in Paris, the meeting at the Grand Hotel. 
 
 A shot rang out exactly under her feet. Dorothea saw 
 the bird flutter struggling across the greensward, saw the 
 dog run out and seize it in his mouth, saw the trap door 
 shut down. 
 
 " Oh, the pigeon-shooting ! '* she said. " What brutes 
 men are ! " 
 
 Egon Roden pulled at his moustache. "Well, I grant 
 you it's an ugly sight, though scores of women like it. 
 Sport, you know ! " 
 
 " Sport ? " she turned. " Call it poulterer's work." 
 
 " Oh, now you're too hard. However, I admit it : we 
 are cruel." 
 
 " Yes," she said musingly. " Still, I have heard that the 
 poor are cruel from indifference or ignorance, rarely for 
 fun." The shot rang out again : she fairly fled up the 
 terrace. 
 
 Egon von Roden came limping after her. She was 
 standing by a mass of Japanese medlars, in a great cloud 
 of perfume. Her cheeks were aglow. " Please do not 
 laugh at me ! " she pleaded. " You see, I have never before 
 been away from my village, except for a trip up the Rhine 
 or to Switzerland, where the people seemed good as at 
 
i2i DOROTHEA. 
 
 home. I have never been in places like this. The dark 
 places of the earth are full of wickedness, says the Bible, 
 and of course one knows it must be so ; but here all the 
 wickedness is out in the sunlight, for every one to see and 
 admire ! You must think me half crazy " — the tears were 
 in her eyes — " you that have been everywhere and seen 
 everything, but I don't care ; I can't help it. Oh, take me 
 away from this horrible place ! " 
 
 " Let us walk round to the restaurants," he said gently ; 
 " your father will be expecting us. I haven't been every- 
 where and seen everything — by no means. We are quite 
 simple folk. Please feel at home with all of us." 
 
 She made a violent effort to calm herself. " I do," she 
 said with great simplicity. " You are like my own people — 
 at Brodryck." 
 
 " We have always lived together quite quietly at home, 
 with my father and mother to look after us," he continued, 
 smiling. " You cannot think what a splendid thing it is 
 to have had such a father as mine ! " 
 
 " I think I can," she answered, with slow weighing of 
 the words. The Colonel and Signer Pini were signalling 
 to them from a little table. The Colonel was always 
 punctual, but never impatient, he said. 
 
 " Herr von Roden," said the Colonel, " let me make you 
 acquainted with Count Pini Pizzatelli. Dorothea, you 
 have met the signore." 
 
 The Italian stood bowing to the dust : " Mademoiselle," 
 he said, " your gallant father was telling me you deign to 
 love us a little, us Italians." 
 
 *'0h, yes!" replied Dorothea, "but I never met an 
 Italian before." She did not see why her father need laugh 
 so immoderately. " Italy is an idea," she continued con- 
 fusedly, " it means everything to all of us ! All civilised 
 nations love Italy ! " 
 
 " Bravo, you are improving. You got out of that rather 
 neatly ! " cried the Colonel. Egon scowled at Colonel 
 Sandring. 
 
 " Ah, you were not a stranger in my country ! " declared 
 the Italian. "All things beautiful — true — are at home on 
 that soil." Egon scowled at Count Pini. 
 
 " Doubtless, some day you will behold it. In a month I 
 shall be in a condition to return — ah, and how ! — to my 
 fatherland. Then you and your father will visit me at 
 Naples. Naples ! Hush : listen ! To drive you, with our 
 
DOROTHEA. 123 
 
 swift little horses, along Posilippo to Baiae ; suddenly we 
 turn the corner where Nicida sleeps, far out in its bay! 
 Then, slow, slow, along the water, seeing Paradise reflected 
 in the rapture of two beautiful eyes ! " In his own gaze 
 lay, awakened, the dreams of his boyhood. Dully they 
 sank back into their grave. "And the fools who have 
 never seen Naples," he murmured, " tell us that Paradise 
 is lost." 
 
 " Surely it cannot be finer than this ? " remarked Egon, 
 offering Dorothea biscuits, sugar, whatever stood near him. 
 
 But Pini took no notice of the German ; his eyes were fixed 
 on Miss Sandring. " My dear young lady," he said, " perhaps 
 I have forgotten. Or perhaps I remember too well." 
 
 " Oh, what must it have cost you to leave it ! " 
 
 " My life," replied the Italian. " The life I have lived. 
 Death, the life one lays down — ah, that is a little sacrifice." 
 
 Egon shoved the biscuits across to him. "Did you ever 
 meet Garibaldi ? " asked Egon. 
 
 Signor Pini lifted his wide-awake. " In the moment of 
 victory," he said, " I have kissed Garibaldi." 
 
 The Colonel shivered in the warm air. " Why, I never 
 knew you had actually borne arms ! " he cried in a burst 
 of genuine cordiality. " Bravo, you are one of Garibaldi's 
 veterans ! We were comrades, then, before I knew of it, 
 soldiers of fortune, you and I ! " 
 
 " Let me finish," concluded Pini, " I have kissed Garibaldi, 
 in effigy, every time that I heard of some new feat of arms. 
 I, in my garret at Paris, where his picture graced the 
 unpapered wall. But I never was privileged to look on his 
 face. What will you have ? I was ever of the luckless. 
 But the wheel turns at last.** 
 
 " That's right," said Egon heartily. 
 
 " In my country, for instance," continued Pini, " all learn 
 all the languages. See here : nobody wants to learn 
 Italian ! " The Colonel tried to wink at somebody, but 
 Dorothea was gazing at Pini, and Egon was gazing at 
 Dorothea. 
 
 " Behold now, this miserable Riviera, a hotbed of crime ! 
 At Ospidaletti, just over yonder, a company would build a 
 casino : what said Italy ? It means millions. It means 
 dishonour. I am poor. I am honourable. No ! " 
 
 " Well, that's true," admitted the Colonel, His daughter's 
 lips parted in astonishment over the happy inventor of tlie 
 system. 
 
134 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Behold, then, the absurd administration ! " continued 
 the enthusiastic exile. " The port ! The railways ! The 
 police ! The army ! Here, what corruption, what in- 
 capacity ! In Italy, what excellence, in all ! " 
 
 The Colonel, unable to contain himself, winked at a small 
 dog, come for a biscuit. The dog at least winked back. 
 
 " In Sicily — ah, povera Sicilia ! — bull-fights were to be 
 organised for visitors, a whole industry, a new source 
 of prosperity. What answered Umberto?'* He rose and 
 rolled forth the words : " Piuttosto perdere il trono che di 
 vedere un tale barbarismo sul suolo italiano ! " 
 
 The Colonel rose also, not uncontent with his daughter's 
 flushed delight. "Praise Umberto as much as you like,'* 
 he said, " few people will disagree with you there. But, 
 dear me, Italian is terribly sonorous in the open air ! Come, 
 Dolly, we must be off to the station." 
 
 Signer Pini accompanied them down the descent. " But 
 France ? " he said, " she is the cocotte among the nations. 
 She has all the vices and the virtues of the cocotte." 
 
 " What is a cocotte ? " queried Dorothea. 
 
 " A woman who is both lovely and not too good," inter- 
 posed the Colonel hastily. " Well, Pini, that is a delightful 
 combination. Come to lunch some day. Good-bye." 
 
 " Could anything be more pleasing," said the bending 
 Italian, " than to escape for an hour from this palace of the 
 devil and repose, learning virtue, at the feet of an angel ? " 
 Both the Colonel and Dorothea felt unable to master this 
 conundrum, but Egon responded, rather fervently, that, no 
 indeed, nothing could. 
 
 Dorothea was loud in her praises of Pini's idealism, 
 enthusiasm, self-sacrifice. Her two companions listened, 
 amused. Decidedly, thought the Colonel, Blanche was 
 even cleverer than he knew — her very imbecilities, he said, 
 are cleverness disguised. 
 
 In the crush of the corridor train Dorothea was carried 
 away from the rest of the party. Unable to find a seat, 
 she was pushing leisurely up the gangway, when Lord 
 Archibald's shrill accents arrested her. Lord Archibald, 
 thanks to the old Countess Bathildis, had gone on the 
 fret. Post-marital flirtations, he always averred, left him 
 " unaffectedly unaffected," but thoughts of the Biermadel's 
 possible antecedents gave him the shivers down the small 
 of his back. To punish her, he had first invited Konrad to 
 dinner and then carried him off alone to the " London 
 
DOROTHEA. 125 
 
 House " at Nice. It was Archie's voice that now escaped 
 from a smoking compartment. 
 
 " That's a nice girl — a very decent girl indeed. But the 
 Colonel should take her to Cannes. Cannes is the place 
 for her sort. Especially with that woman about." 
 
 *' What woman ? " queried Konrad, and Dorothea's heart 
 stood still for an answer. 
 
 " Why ! Blanche de Fleuryse." 
 
 Dorothea's heart gave a leap of relief. But the next 
 moment she wondered why it had done so. She was certain 
 of nothing, excepting an atmosphere of allusion and her 
 own vague discontent. 
 
 She opened the door of her bedroom at last with a sense 
 of exhaustion, but lo and behold, in the middle of the floor 
 stood, ready for battle, Rebecca. 
 
 " Freule," said Rebecca, " I want to go home to Holland 
 to-night." 
 
 "That," replied Dorothea, "I regret to say, is beyond 
 mortal power. But of course you could start." 
 
 " The vessels of the abomination of Babylon are full," 
 said the handmaid, sternly rubbing her nose. 
 
 Dorothea paused in the action of drawing the pin from 
 her hat. " Somehow your texts sound so curiously uncon- 
 vincing," she made answer. " Could you give me chapter 
 and verse for that one ? " 
 
 "The letter killeth," retorted Rebecca promptly, "but 
 the spirit — spirit " 
 
 " Well ? " said Dorothea provokingly. 
 
 " Doesn't," concluded the spinster, undeniably put out. 
 
 Dorothea laughed ; then her eyes filled with sudden 
 gravity, as she fixed them on the maid. "The spirit 
 maketh alive," she said thoughtfully, " maketh alive." 
 
 " Well, at any rate, I'm going home," barked Rebecca. 
 
 " You leave me alone then — in Babylon ? " suggested 
 Dorothea, continuing her toilet. 
 
 Rebecca stood by the door and crooked her long forefinger. 
 " Come out of her ! " she said. 
 
 "There's nothing behind you but the passage," replied 
 Dorothea impatiently. "Do help me dress. Or no, go 
 away, please, and worry some one else that's not worried 
 already. Of course I will send you back if you wish it. 
 You're the only person I can talk to of the aunts, and the 
 village, and the dogs, and everything, but that's neither 
 here nor there. / must stay with my father. 
 
126 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The Dutchwoman folded her arms across her breast : for 
 the first time a look of sympathy came into her colour- 
 less eyes. "Must you?" she said, with that horrible rasp 
 of hers. " Poor lamb ! no, you mustn't. Come home." 
 
 " Give me the foulard with the flowers," answered 
 Dorothea. 
 
 With a grumph Rebecca produced from a wardrobe a 
 flimsy white dinner-gown covered with irises. She held it 
 out scornfully at arm's length. 
 
 "It's a mercy Miss Mary can't see you in that frock!" 
 said Rebecca, " it*d break her gentle heart. I thought, for 
 the abomination of wickedness, Brodryck'd have satisfied 
 the devil ; but la ! I know now where Satan's seat is. Well, 
 you've sat down in it ; some day you'll find it hot." 
 
 " Not till May," replied Dorothea, " I shall be gone before 
 then. But you'd better depart if you're quite sure you mean 
 it this time." 
 
 " Your rank may be some sort of protection," was the 
 handmaid's rejoinder, "though I don't see how it should be, 
 for God's no respecter of persons ; but I can't stay in this 
 hotel any longer. It isn't a fit place for a maiden like me." 
 
 " Who has been making love to you now ? " asked 
 Dorothea, fastening on her father's bracelet. 
 
 "The way that that under-cook behaves is such as no 
 self-respecting maiden could endure ! " 
 
 " So you fly before the enemy ? " 
 
 Rebecca grinned. "But not before I've beat him," she 
 cried. " I threw his pink cream in his face. I'll teach him 
 to foist his French slops on me. ' It's not even riz,' I said, 
 and ' Creams don't riz,' says he (I suppose), but I " 
 
 " La Poste," spake a voice at the door, and the concierge 
 handed in a black-edged letter, and also a note from the 
 Colonel: "A. Foye has asked me to join them at the 
 ' London House.* Sleep well." She dismissed Rebecca imme- 
 diately, and as she turned, with the black-edged letter in 
 her hand, she caught a long glimpse of her figure in the 
 modest demie-toilette that the uncouth maid had condemned. 
 Decidedly the Colonel dressed her admirably, with simplicity, 
 distinction, and expense. 
 
 She sat down to her black-edged letter, but already she 
 knew, from the writing, its contents. The old pastor of 
 Brodryck was dead. He had sent his love to Dorothea. 
 
 She recalled Rebecca. " Tell them I shall not come down 
 to dinner," she said. " When you have definitely made up 
 
DOROTHEA. 127 
 
 your mind about going, we can discuss the when and the 
 how. You have threatened and refused so often. But of 
 course you must do as you like." 
 
 Rebecca lifted up both lank hands to the ceiling. " Do 
 as I like? " she cried. "Thank Heaven, I have never done 
 as I liked ! They only can do as they like who like to do 
 wickedness ! And you declining the food God sends you, 
 and it has to be paid for just the same ! " She shuffled out 
 of the room. 
 
 Dorothea returned, with a sigh of relief, to the troublous 
 repose of her thoughts. All her old life came back to her 
 in the minister's loss. She sat by the smouldering wood- 
 fire, and saw in its fading glow the winter village out 
 yonder enshrouded by mists ; saw the aunts at their desolate 
 tea-table, uncle Tony hallooing in the woods. 
 
 Presently she unlocked her little travelling- desk and 
 found a bit of paper in it. The hurry of leaving home had 
 caused her somewhat to overlook at the time the old pastor's 
 birthday message, but the words of those who have passed 
 into the eternal silence suddenly start from the changeless 
 page into almost painful activity. The text the good man 
 had sent her did not convey much immediate meaning to 
 such sheltered lives as hers : " And to keep yourselves 
 unspotted from the world ! " 
 
 "And to keep yourselves unspotted from the world." 
 Mechanically she sat stroking the back of one hand with 
 the other, as if to wipe off the dim stains of the day. What 
 had happened to her to make her feel soiled as well as 
 saddened ? She seemed to see herself in a far, far distance, 
 dressing in this room this morning, to go with the Rodens 
 to Monte Carlo. And now she sat in this room again and 
 had come back, and a dozen dead words were burning down 
 into her bosom, alive with a red-hot glow like the depths 
 of awakened embers. 
 
 She went and drew aside the window-curtains, to let some 
 coolness in upon her heat. All the wide host of heaven 
 poured down their radiance upon her. She stood for a 
 moment, distressed. These were the same stars that smiled 
 on aunt Mary's lonely walks at even, the same that pierced 
 through the unshrouded casements into the deserted chamber 
 at Brodryck House. She wondered if her father ever re- 
 called that room, with its empty bedstead ? Yes, the stars 
 were the same. It was a stale thought, like all great 
 thoughts : thousands of desolate sorrowers had found in it 
 
laS DOROTHEA. 
 
 slow consolation. Her head sank on the window-ledge. She 
 had not wept since she kissed the aunts good-bye. Like 
 all the few women who seldom cry, she detested tears. 
 But to-night she shed them freely on the freshly-fallen blots 
 that no tears could weep away. 
 
 She kept on her dinner-dress, to avoid all questions, and 
 sat up late, waiting for the Colonel to return. It was past 
 one ere she heard him and could go across to his door. 
 He turned, irritably. " What on earth ? — Why, Dorothea ? 
 , — anything the matter ? " He threw his silk neckerchief 
 over a couple of photographs, loose on the table, but 
 already Dorothea had perceived that they represented a very 
 decolletee " Madame de Barvielle." An odour of spirits 
 pervaded the room : the Colonel looked flushed. 
 
 " Father," she said, standing, very white, by the door, 
 " I wanted to ask you, do you care about stopping at Nice ? 
 Would you take me somewhere else for a little ? " 
 
 Colonel Sandring stared, open-mouthed, and his daughter 
 could not help wishing he would pull his face together. 
 " Leave Nice ! " he exclaimed at last. " What ! the week 
 before the Carnival ? Why, people are glad to get a bed 
 on a billiard-table ! All the festivities are coming on ! 
 Really, Dorothea, you are hard to please. Pray, where do 
 you want to go to ? " 
 
 " I thought, perhaps, Italy — Florence ** 
 
 Her father burst into almost ribald laughter. " I 
 certainly hadn't credited Count Pini's eloquence with such 
 immediate effect ! " he cried. " He is coming to lunch on 
 Sunday : you must ask him to show you his place himself. 
 Really, Dolly, I cannot start off with you, romance-hunting 
 in Italy. Besides, where is the money to come from ? Your 
 uncle Tony has just written that he won't even send enough 
 to buy you clothes." 
 
 He held open the door for his daughter to pass out, and 
 kissed her on the forehead, with breath that was full of 
 wine. 
 
( 139 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X, 
 
 Carnival week is of course the culminating point of the 
 Riviera season. All the light world of Paris, deserting for 
 a few nights the disconsolate boulevards, pours down to 
 the Mediterranean in whirlpools of gaiety and fills with a 
 sudden wide scintillation of extravagance the palm-groves 
 and palaces of the South. The fairest pearls that glitter in 
 the locks of sea-born Venus she now shakes in sad profusion 
 along this favoured coast. You can have the facile jewels 
 for the lifting : but they cost you all a man is worth. You 
 can stand aside and stare : so do, in vast-mouthed admira- 
 tion, the great hordes of eager trippers, now more numerous 
 than ever, brought across, in teeming shiploads, in the 
 gross (gross, and by the gross) at fifteen guineas, there and 
 back. Back — it is an excellent arrangement, but what avails 
 it us, O blind leaders of the blind — as long as you send 
 fresh ones out ? 
 
 After one long night of vain self-torment and two short 
 nights of youthful slumber, Dorothea enjoyed the Carnival. 
 A daughter's sight must be very clear not to ignore her 
 father's faults. She went through all the festivities with 
 the Rodens, her friends and protectors — yes, undoubtedly 
 Egon von Roden protected her a very great deal. Konrad 
 once suggested that she might deem Egon officious, but, 
 then, Konrad says disagreeable things. Dorothea does not : 
 in the gladness of her heart she rejoiced to tell her father, 
 how much she was pleased with the costumes, the fun and 
 the flowers. Sandring did not answer : " You see ! " but 
 only : " My dear, I'm so glad." Every one who first beholds 
 a battle of flowers is charmed with it : rumour says there 
 are people who can even take part in two. Why Archie 
 and " Dickie " have been to a dozen : the Countesses 
 Kauenfels, old-time residents, to none. 
 
 " It's the best joke going," says Archie ; " I wouldn't miss 
 one for the world ! " And indeed, in these days of rowdyism 
 and shying the practical humour of the Northerner has a 
 
I30 DOROTHEA. 
 
 splendid time. The native, whose idea was gallantry, 
 coquetry, light flinging of bouquets, stops away from a free 
 fight with bunches of stock. 
 
 Along the imending esplanade that skirts with its border of 
 white hotels the proud sweep of the Baie des Anges, between 
 bright clouds thronging the stands full of banners and 
 music, crawled in ascending and descending lines the 
 decorated vehicles, come to do battle. The sunshine 
 streamed down on them, glorifying everything : the whole 
 scene was beautiful with brilliant light. On they moved, 
 amid very little laughter or pleasantry, comically solemn, 
 masses of mimosa, under the silent shower of the nosegays 
 that fell from the stands to the carriages, from the carriages 
 to each other and again to the stands. Some of the bunches 
 were very dirty, and had been picked up a good many 
 times out of the road before they were aimed at your face. 
 Every now and then a really beautiful carriage came by, 
 containing a star, at her zenith in Paris, or else probably a 
 Russian prince ; these were accompanied on their passage 
 by the running applause of the crowd. The Rodens 
 arrived in a four-horse brake, a big cloud of anemones 
 and carnations, with the occupants also all white and 
 red. The young people were in very high spirits, inclined 
 to mock at the General's protestations of aesthetic incon- 
 gruity. The mother spoke of pitying the poor down- 
 trodden blossoms in the roadway. The children laughed 
 and threw flowers. 
 
 " Nobody looks rational but the horses," said the General, 
 "for the horses are consciously absurd. See that poor 
 thing over yonder trying to whisk away from its harness 
 what it knows has no right to be there ! " 
 
 "It ought to be proud of such violets," began Egon. 
 " That's one of the best — oh, I say ! " 
 
 The Baroness Blanche de Fleuryse, who had just risen in 
 her bower of white lilacs and violets, ready to inundate 
 the approaching brake, suddenly offered only a sight of 
 her white and lilac back, while she scattered the odorous 
 contents of her hands to a group of delighted roughs 
 behind the palings. But the reckless Pini, leaping from 
 beside her, presented to Dorothea Sandring an enormous 
 bouquet of camellias, with a blue forget-me-not " D " in 
 the middle and the tricolor of Italy pendent from the 
 stem. The two carriages rolled on. Signer Pini stood 
 kissing his finger-tips to the company, in white pique 
 
DOROTHEA. 131 
 
 and violet hat-band, very smart, down the middle of the 
 road. 
 
 " Why, that is the man they told me was winning such 
 sums at Monte Carlo ! " cried General von Roden. " Is he 
 a friend of yours, Colonel ? You might get him to give you 
 a tip." 
 
 But the furious Fleuryse received Pini very badly. 
 " Choose, then, some other occasion," she said, " for paying 
 your court to Dorothee ! " 
 
 " But why ? We shall soon be, all four, a united family ! 
 For my secret the Colonel would sell me his soul." 
 
 " You are mistaken. Colonel Sandring cares nothing for 
 acquiring money : he spends it just the same." 
 
 " Possibly ! But in him is aroused the gambler's 
 curiosity. He must know. There is only one way : he 
 will take it." 
 
 " Ciel, yonder is the Biermadel with the old Count von 
 Roden ! Everything is achievable nowadays for all of us ! " 
 
 Pini smiled meaningly. " When I have conquered my 
 angel and my millions," he said to himself, " dear mother- 
 in-law, farewell ! " 
 
 A few moments later Egon received a blow in the face, 
 which knocked off his hat, and glanced up to see Lady 
 Archibald grinning at Konrad. 
 
 "You look as if you had been beaten in battle," said 
 the General. 
 
 Egon smiled. "You have not seen, sir," he answered, 
 " the wounds of my foe." 
 
 " Father," began Dorothea that evening, " this is the 
 second time Signer Pini has given me a bouquet. The last 
 was given in private, when he lunched here. I suppose 
 there is no harm in his bringing me flowers. He is old 
 enough to be my grandfather." 
 
 " Thank you," answered the Colonel, piqued. " He is 
 about my age, as a fact. And some people think he looks 
 younger. He is wonderfully well preserved." 
 
 "Only — I — thought — " continued Dorothea, not under- 
 standing one word of the Colonel's reply, " that, seeing he 
 is so poor " 
 
 " He isn't poor a bit. Not really poor. He — he pretends 
 to be." 
 
 " But he gives lessons ** 
 
 "Well, yes, they — they amuse him. He has a most 
 generous heart, and his one idea is to diffuse the finest 
 
 K 2 
 
132 DOROTHEA. 
 
 language in the world. " He gives lessons from patriotism ! '* 
 added the Colonel, carried away by his own ingenuity. 
 
 " Dear me," said Dorothea, distress in her grave eyes, 
 " and I offered him money." 
 
 " You should not have done that, Dorothea. Never offer 
 anybody money. If they need it, the offer is injudicious ; 
 if they don't, it is absurd. You are very young, Dorothea ; 
 you have still a great deal to learn, my dear." 
 
 " Yes," answered Dorothea. *' It is good of you to teach 
 me, father. You are patient with me." 
 
 "Signor Pini loves to do good, like your aunts. He 
 reminds me, in many ways, of your aunts." 
 
 " I — I see," replied Dorothea. 
 
 "And you will have to accept another bouquet from 
 him, I fear, for he has offered to conduct you on Sunday 
 night to the big redoute at the Casino." 
 
 "No — ^no, father, not that," said the girl, suddenly 
 agitated. "Not to that rowdy Sunday thing — I can't 
 go to that place." 
 
 The Colonel threw up his head, a way he had got into 
 with his daughter, which was not conducive to her peace. 
 " Why, everybody goes," he said. " You can leave before 
 midnight. Really, Dorothea, it's almost impossible to find 
 out beforehand what you want to do, or won't do.'* 
 
 " Madame de Roden said we must not go there," answered 
 Dorothea, almost rebelliously. "She is going to take us 
 on Tuesday to the Veglione at the opera." 
 
 The Colonel reddened furiously, in a way Dorothea had 
 never seen before. " Oh, well, of course," he said, " Madame 
 de Roden knows," and he flung out of the room. 
 
 A moment later, however, he came back smiling. " Do 
 just as you like, dear, in everything," he said. " No two 
 women I ever met had the same ideas as to what is 
 improper. By the bye, I forgot to say, I happened to 
 hear of a maid for you, and I told them to send her 
 to-morrow. I suppose your wooden-faced respectability 
 remains firm in her resolve to desert you, as soon as 
 the Carnival's over ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, she's dreadfully homesick, poor thing ! " said 
 Dorothea. 
 
 " All the same, she can wait until after the Carnival." 
 
 Dorothea laughed. "She says she remains in her room 
 all day. She hasn't left the hotel, she says, although her 
 cook entreats her to join him," 
 
DOROTHEA. 133 
 
 " You take my word," replied the Colonel, " there is no 
 cook. If there were, she'd go with him to the Casino redoute." 
 
 Dorothea laughed louder. " Oh, father, how harshly you 
 judge of women ! " she said. " And yet you couldn't do an 
 unkind thing to one of us. You'd take Rebecca to a party, 
 if she asked you." 
 
 " No, no ; against ugly women I am adamant," replied 
 the gallant Colonel. 
 
 Still Dorothea only laughed. She went up and patted 
 her father's cheek. " You couldn't refuse a service to the 
 ugliest," she said. 
 
 "Well, don't you get homesick," replied her father. 
 " That would be too great a trial to my vanity. I'll do 
 anything you wish, if you'll only like me, Dolly." 
 
 Next morning Rebecca popped her head through her 
 young mistress's door. 
 
 " There's a Jezebel asking to see you ? " she said. 
 
 " Bring her in. Why a Jezebel, Rebecca ? " 
 
 The handmaid again popped her head through the door. 
 " Because I should like to cast her body to the dogs," she 
 barked, and retreated. 
 
 The new-comer, a mild little person in black, gazed after 
 her with expressionless eyes. 
 
 " Have you — certificates ? " asked Dorothea, who supposed 
 this was the first thing one said. 
 
 " From all the best families in Europe," came the instant 
 reply. 
 
 " Surely you — exaggerate ? " suggested Dorothea faintly. 
 
 " Perhaps, then, I should have answered, in France. But 
 the result is the same. Are not the best families in France 
 the best families in Europe, mademoiselle ? No, I do not 
 exaggerate. I have served in these." 
 
 " But — presuming your age to be about forty-five — have 
 you, then, not changed rather often? At my home no 
 servant was ever sent away." 
 
 "My age is thirty-nine. Mademoiselle. I admit that I 
 have not stayed long in one family. A very superior maid 
 seldom does. And the reason of my departure has always 
 been the same." 
 
 Dorothea looked interrogation. The Frenchwoman sunk 
 her eyes to the ground. " Yes, the reason has always been 
 jealousy," she said. " I have been a maid for more than 
 twenty years. In the first ten it was always madame who was 
 
134 DOROTHEA. 
 
 jealous ; in the last ten it was always monsieur. Can I help 
 it, if employers appreciate my services ? But, behold, I have 
 enough of ' menages.* When I heard that mademoiselle is 
 unmarried, I applied. Mademoiselle is not desirous to 
 marry ? " 
 
 "No, indeed." 
 
 " Just so. And the certificate from my last situation, 
 see, it would enable me to obtain any other. I could hire 
 myself, if I chose, to a queen ! ** 
 
 Dorothea took the proffered paper. 
 
 I " I certify that Mademoiselle Aurelie Bombard has been 
 maid to my recent wife during eighteen months, and that 
 during all this period she succeeded, by her skill alone, in 
 making her mistress look ten years younger and ten times 
 prettier than she actually was. 
 
 "ViCOMTE DE MONTESPINE." 
 
 "The lady died?" said Dorothea softly. 
 
 " The lady ran away with an officer of twenty-three. 
 She was more than forty. Often have I heard the young 
 officer say to her : ' Cecile, do not deceive me ; thou wilt 
 never see thirty again ! ' And she would truthfully answer : 
 'Mon ami, I will not deceive thee; I never shall. 1 am 
 fully thirty. I am the " femme de trente ans," first invented 
 by Balzac* " 
 
 All this was more or less Greek to Dorothea. She sat 
 gazing at the certificate and trying to realise, among her not 
 numerous acquaintances, a Dutch Vicomte de Montespine. 
 
 " In the case of mademoiselle, I should have no scope for 
 the special talents which endeared me to the Vicomtesse. 
 But I have others. I can teach many things of which 
 mademoiselle is certainly ignorant. Also I can foretell the 
 future from the cards. My mistresses have guided their 
 lives by my science and their happiness was assured." 
 
 " Did you foretell," asked Dorothea, smiling, " that the 
 Vicomtesse would run away ? " 
 
 "No science was required for that," replied the French 
 maid demurely. "But I foretold that the officer would 
 run after her." 
 
 " I am sorry, but I hardly think " 
 
 " And that — which is, to the last moment uncertain — the 
 husband would not." 
 
 "I do not think this situation will suit you," said 
 Dorothea with great decision. 
 
DOROTHEA. 135 
 
 "Excuse me, mademoiselle, but I think it will suit me 
 very well ; that is what I said to monsieur, your father, 
 when he engaged me. * Ah, je ne veux plus des manages, 
 Monsieur le Colonel : c'est trop agitant et c'est trop 
 monotone. Une jeune fiUe, voila mon affaire ! * " 
 
 "My father has engaged you ! " cried Dorothea. 
 
 "But, certainly, he has engaged me and paid me my 
 first term. I had three offers already. I am not the first 
 comer ; I have nothing in common, for instance, with the 
 person who has just quitted the room." 
 
 As soon as she could find her father, Dorothea protested 
 against his choice of a maid. 
 
 He listened gently. " My dear," he said at last, " what 
 a terrible habit you have of disapproving. It makes life so 
 laborious. This person is an absolute treasure, a pearl. 
 You are charming, child, you know I think you charming, 
 but there are a hundred little things — enfin ! This woman 
 is precisely what you need. I consider her a God-send — 
 yes, actually a God-send. She will teach you exactly what 
 men like and what they don't." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " There, that is the word which spoils all our conversa- 
 tions ! It is the ugliest word upon pretty lips. You are 
 suddenly left unprovided — I procure you a marvel, and 
 
 what do you answer me ? ' But ' " He shook his finger 
 
 at her ; his eyes were full of fond reproach. Thus it came 
 about that Dorothea Sandring got Mademoiselle Aur^lie 
 Bombard for a daily companion and adviser. 
 
 "I have written to Miss Mary," announced Rebecca, as 
 she harshly brushed her young mistress's hair. 
 
 " Why ? You will see her in three days' time." 
 
 " God willing ! " corrected Rebecca. " Well, I have written 
 to say that I left you in the devil's hands." 
 
 " How dare you so frighten her ? " exclaimed Dorothea. 
 " She will think I have quitted my father.'* 
 
 " I said you were in the devil's hands," retorted Rebecca 
 with grim content, " and that you refused to budge. Fve 
 done my duty." 
 
 Dorothea made no reply, distressfully musing on aunt 
 Mary's probable distress. 
 
 "As for that person downstairs," continued Rebecca, 
 pulling hard at the hair, " as for that — that " 
 
 " I know whom you mean : you've left off abusing the 
 cook. Well?" 
 
136 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " She'll look after you. Do you know how she calls you 
 downstairs, Freule ? * The lamb ! * " 
 
 " There's no harm in that, is there ? I suppose she feels 
 like my shepherdess, now." 
 
 Rebecca sniffed, in deepest revolt and scorn. " When a 
 servant calls a mistress her lamb, it means that the servant's 
 the wolf," she said. " And that the servant knows it." 
 
 "Come with me to the German church," answered 
 Dorothea. But Rebecca said she had no time for churches 
 that wasn't churches. She must pack ; she was leaving on 
 the morrow. 
 
 On that Monday morning of her intended departure she 
 appeared at Dorothea's bedside with a countenance all 
 wreathed in grins. 
 
 "Freule, I've been thinking. I'm not going home," 
 she said. 
 
 Dorothea opened her sleepy eyes. "Why, the other 
 maid's engaged," she said. 
 
 "Oh, / know the other maid*s engaged. I wouldn't 
 trouble you, Freule. I am glad to think you've got a maid 
 as'll suit you, at last ! " 
 
 Dorothea lay back, helpless. 
 
 " But Pm engaged too," cried Rebecca, bolt upright and 
 crimson. " I'm going to marry that cook ! " 
 
 " What ? " screamed Dorothea. 
 
 " I'm going to — marry — that cook. Of course as soon as 
 he means matrimony, in church, it's very different. He's 
 going to set up an eating-house, and he won't find a clean 
 Dutchwoman to manage it every day. And yesterday 
 afternoon, when he heard I was going, he asked me, in the 
 midst of all that foolish dirt-flinging — and the foolishness 
 and dirtiness of the people in these parts nobody at Brodryck 
 would believe, not if they saw them doing it. No wonder 
 he wants a change." 
 
 " I do believe you went to the * Confetti ! ' " cried Dorothea. 
 
 " I went to see the depths of abomination ! I thought it 
 was the times before the deluge ! And my soul cried aloud 
 for an ark ! " 
 
 "Well, you've found your Noah. Can he understand 
 you ? Was Noah before Babel or after ? — I forget." 
 
 " There's a German cook-boy in the kitchens translates for 
 us. But ril learn him Dutch, in six months — don't you fear." 
 
 Dorothea sat up in bed. " And, oh Rebecca ! he can*t 
 be a Catholic ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 137 
 
 " Catholics don't count with me," replied Rebecca coolly. 
 " Catholics is no religion at all, nothing but flummery 
 and dolls. He has not too much religion, Freule — but no 
 religion's a great deal better than a lot of make-believe, 
 like some people's — (Dorothea looked suddenly away) ; and 
 /'// turn him into a God-fearing Christian in six months* 
 time : you may make your mind easy about that." 
 " Rebecca, you must be joking ! " 
 
 The woman bridled. " And why shouldn't I marry, 
 pray? — when I'm asked? There's older than I, of both 
 sexes, anxious to make matches, if all that I'm told is 
 true." 
 
 The Colonel, when he heard the news, laughed till he 
 could laugh no more. He peremptorily rejected all idea 
 of interference. 
 
 "My dear," he said, "she hath her age: let her speak. 
 Keep her apart from your new maid : thank your stars, and 
 telegraph to your aunts." 
 
 But Rebecca's sweetheart had already done this. The 
 old ladies received the following despatch : 
 " Retour remis. Mademoiselle se marie." 
 " Dorothea ! " cried aunt Emma. The paper dropped 
 from her trembling fingers. 
 
 Aunt Mary stooped and — with trembling fingers — picked 
 it up. " I — I had expected this," said aunt Mary timidly. 
 " In the last letters it seemed to me that she — she spoke of 
 the young German in a manner — oh, most modestly — still, 
 
 between the lines I fancied one might read that " 
 
 " What ? " demanded Emma, as Mary stuck. 
 " He — he was not indifferent to her." 
 " Pooh, what do you know of love ? " said Emma, sitting 
 down angrily. " I have noticed nothing of the kind. Love 
 wants experience, Mary." 
 
 " True," admitted Mary timidly. 
 
 At this stage each lady remarked that the other was 
 crying, so they immediately sent for uncle Tony. The 
 latter replied that he was busy, having arranged to take a 
 couple of the orphan Lesters rabbit-shooting. Aunt Mary 
 looked at the clock. " He will be here in ten minutes," 
 she said. Uncle Tony, having no fixed occupationSj was 
 always excessively busy. 
 
 As soon as he arrived, with his two dogs at his heels, in 
 his usual brown shooting things, the ladies informed him 
 of Dorothea's intended marriage. Uncle Tony placed 
 
138 DOROTHEA. 
 
 himself in front of the fire, a dog seated on either side ; 
 the dog rubbed a big mild head against uncle Tony's thighs. 
 " Of course," said uncle Tony. 
 
 " Pooh ! " cried Emma, " you think every woman wants 
 to marry ! " 
 
 " Alas, no ! " sighed the old gentleman, with a comical 
 grin. Then his jolly face grew solemn. " I hope Dorothea 
 wants to," he said. 
 
 Aunt Mary rose and went up to him. " For God's sake, 
 tell me what you mean ! " she gasped. Her whole face was 
 working with emotion. 
 
 " Why, calm yourself, my dear," laughed Emma nervously. 
 " Marriage is — a — pleasurable experience, I believe. True, 
 I never desired it for myself, but Dorothea " 
 
 Uncle Tony took aunt Mary's hand and gently forced her 
 to sit down. " When Dorothea went away," he said, " I 
 told you I expected her back in a fortnight " — " with your 
 usual acumen," interposed aunt Emma. "To my astonish- 
 ment her father kept her, but now I understand it all." 
 He paused for a moment, gaping at the poor old creatures, 
 then he burst out : 
 
 " He's found that he can't work his gold mine, and so 
 he has sold her ! " 
 
 '* How coarse you are ! " said Emma, fanning herself 
 with a religious newspaper. 
 
 *' You see, being English, he thought she was of age, but 
 she isn't, and he can't touch her money. By marriage she 
 comes of age at once, and he's sold her ! " 
 
 Aunt Mary nodded her sad face to the wood fire. " Yes, 
 women are bought and sold," she said softly, as if to herself. 
 
 " But if you'd foreseen all this, you might have avoided 
 it," remarked Emma tartly. 
 
 " I didn't foresee Dorothea's going off and getting married. 
 I thought she had too much character for that," replied 
 Tony ruefully. "And I thought the little trip to the 
 Riviera would do the child lots of good. 'Tisn't natural 
 she should spend all her life with three old fogies like us." 
 
 " True, that is what I thought," murmured Mary. 
 
 " Antony," cried Emma, " I always said you were a " 
 
 She stopped. 
 
 " I don't- know what you said, but it's true," answered 
 Tony. 
 
 Mary turned. " Listen," she said. " I had presentiments 
 enough, but I chose to consider tliem selfishness. Perhaps 
 
DOROTHEA. 139 
 
 that was selfishness. It was so easy to keep her and be 
 happy, so easy to let her go and be sad. So difficult, so 
 difficult, to know what is best for her. And yet that is all 
 that matters, isn't it ? " She got up. " I am going to my 
 child ! " she said. 
 
 They stared at her in amazement. The very dogs stopped 
 rubbing and stared. Only the stupid cats purred on. 
 
 "Yes, I am going," she said. "It would have been 
 absurd to go at once, and selfish ; we should have been 
 unwelcome. But this is too important a crisis. I must go." 
 
 "But, my dear creature " 
 
 She went close to Tony and put her hand on his shoulder. 
 " Oh, Tony," she said, " marriage is a very terrible thing." 
 
 " Gracious, how tragical you are ! " cried Eiama. " You've 
 never travelled, to speak of. You can't start, in mid- winter, 
 at your age ! " 
 
 " God will help me," said aunt Mary. " I believe travel 
 in foreign countries is not — not so arduous as it used to be." 
 
 " If you go, I must take you," said Tony. 
 
 " We must all go together, then," cried Emma. " There 
 is only one thing I regret." 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Tony. 
 
 " That the Carnival will be over," replied Emma lightly. 
 " I should like to have seen a battle of flowers." 
 
 But a moment later she sighed. As she had recently 
 pointed out to uncle Tony, Mary, in these latter days, 
 needed a great deal of cheering up. 
 
( HO ) 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 On the evening of Shrove Tuesday Dorothea dined 
 quietly with her father before going to the great final 
 Veglione at the opera. The vvronderful spectacle of the 
 afternoon still hung cinematographed in her eyes. She had 
 seen — unforgettable sight ! — the second day of the " Con- 
 fetti " in its glory. From a v/indow under the long Sea 
 Terrace, like a theatre-box, her eager glances had swept, 
 behind their mask, the vast square of the Prefecture, framed 
 in tall stands of gay crimson and banners, stands that 
 groaned under thousands of costumed spectators, while 
 down below, far as farthest eyesight could penetrate, 
 whirled, whistled, shouted and sang, with endless capering, 
 and screechings, tens of thousands more mountebanks, as 
 brilliantly costumed, in all colours of the rainbow and 
 fancies of fairyland, a mad, merry medley of noise and of 
 music, round the long, slow procession of the cars. Up 
 they came, with perpetual twistings through the dense 
 mass of frantic human movement, the cavalcades, anal- 
 cades, chariots, troops and groups of young maskers, in 
 every extravagance and beautiful combination of gaudiness, 
 under the steady downpour of the confetti. High up, from 
 an azure dome, the golden sunshine streamed over all the 
 white buildings, over the whirlpools of dancers that eddied, 
 a carpet of colours, an unresting kaleidoscope, on all hands, 
 out of reach. Down came the clouds of confetti from the 
 blaze of blue, yellow and crimson on the stands ; up went, 
 without interruption, the clouds of confetti from the multi- 
 tudes screaming below. Meanwhile the procession struggled 
 forward, turning as well as it could, before the tribunes, 
 anxious to show off and gain prizes : gorgeous riders in 
 the exquisite costumes which civilisation has banished 
 to carnivals, caricatures, travesties, living puns, walking 
 satires, plays upon events of the day and on politics, 
 jokes and take-offs innumerable, amusing or otherwise, 
 and, between all this, the great cars, moving platforms on 
 
DOROTHEA. 141 
 
 wheels, built up with amazing expenditure of taste, money 
 and care. Here passes, amid loud outcries from a band of 
 comic monkeys, a huge machine, high as the houses, which 
 alternately cranes aloft the pink sucking-pigs and the babies 
 that dance around its base, holds them up in mid-air for a 
 moment, engulfs them, and produces strings of sausages 
 down below ; there approaches, enormous, all sails set, 
 yet nine white oxen draw it, the Galleon of Flora, white 
 silk and golden, resplendent with garlands, while the fifty 
 attendants of the goddess, robed as different virgin flowers, 
 shed each her particular blooms, to the music of symbols 
 and clarions, on the restless crowd beneath. Yonder draws 
 near — behind that gang of howling dervishes — the Stithy 
 of Vulcan, a lurid glory of crimson — you can see its red 
 glow already, with the red devils dancing — already you can 
 hear the click-click of its hammer, but the skipping, yellow 
 mass before it stops its progress, while two other cars are 
 turning in the sunlight and the rain of chalk and plaster — 
 on they come, the dancers and the prancers, horse and foot 
 and chariots intermingled, curvetting and singing in the 
 constant blare of music, a phantasmagoria of brightness, 
 wildness and jollity, a Christmas dream of wonderland 
 gone mad. 
 
 Dorothea lay back after dinner, exhausted, her eyes 
 closed, re-seeing it all. The Colonel hemmed and hawed 
 over his coffee, and got up and sat down, not himself. 
 
 Dorothea opened her eyes on him with great solicitude. 
 " I hope you haven't caught cold again at that window," 
 she said. " You are so susceptible, dear father, to colds." 
 
 " It's that abominable chalk they throw about," replied 
 the Colonel. " Dolly, I should like to speak to you for a 
 moment. H'm ! There's plenty of time before you dress." 
 
 Dorothea sat up at once with that dreadful practical air 
 he disliked so in a woman. She even moved off her very 
 lazy lounge to a chair by the lamp, which was absurd. 
 
 " You needn't look so expectant," he said, rolling a 
 reflective cigarette. " It's an awful nuisance to have to 
 speak about money ; I never do. But I am compelled to 
 inform you that this imcle Tony, as you call him, has 
 behaved in a most unconscionable manner." 
 
 " Oh, father, he's a dear man," cried Dorothea. 
 
 " So I find him," replied the Colonel drily. *' Well, he 
 refuses to allow more than five hundred pounds for your 
 keep." 
 
143 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " But to him that seems a large sum ; he has no idea of 
 expenses like ours. Is five hundred pounds too little ? It 
 must be because we buy such expensive clothes. I suppose 
 there is no more." 
 
 " Is no more ? ** exclaimed Sandring, dropping the 
 cigarette. " Do you mean to say that you have absolutely 
 no conception of your possessions ? You will have four 
 thousand a year on the day you come of age or marry ; 
 five thousand when I die." 
 
 " Don't, father ! That seems a great deal of money. I 
 don't think the aunts can know," said Dorothea gravely. 
 
 " Oh yes, they do. I wonder what reason all these people 
 have had for keeping you in the dark " — a shade of suspicion 
 passed over the Colonel's frank countenance. " Well, of 
 course, the subject is at all times a disgusting one ; you 
 see how long I have avoided it. Still, it is simply ridiculous, 
 Dorothea, that yonder person should go on piling up all 
 this money while you and I are distracted with efforts to 
 make both ends meet." 
 
 " Are we ? I am sorry," said Dorothea, vexed and 
 puzzled. 
 
 " My dear, I have spared you as long as I could." The 
 Colonel rose and slowly struck a match. " Do you know, 
 I believe, as your father, I could take all your money away 
 from uncle Tony ? " 
 
 " Oh, donH ; it would hurt him dreadfully ! ** 
 
 " Well, I won't. Besides, there would be a lot of 
 unpleasantness, and these very pious people would say 
 things I would rather not hear said. I don't pretend 
 that I have ever been able to look after property. Well, 
 child, only one thing remains for us ; we must spend the 
 money just the same, while he's hoarding it over there." 
 
 " I don't understand," said Dorothea. 
 
 The Colonel sighed. " It is very simple. We can easily 
 get a man to lend us whatever we want if we promise to 
 repay him afterwards." 
 
 " Oh, then, do, father," replied Dorothea brightly. But 
 her voice changed as she added, " Can that really be done 
 satisfactorily ? " 
 
 Sandring had taken a paper from his despatch-box. " Of 
 course it can," he said. " You have only to sign this ; that 
 is all." 
 
 Dorothea took the bond and looked at it. " Sign ? " was 
 all she said. 
 
DOROTHEA. 143 
 
 " Yes, I suppose you have signed documents before ? " 
 remarked her father testily. He was annoyed at her trying 
 to master the meaning of the deed, a thing he would 
 certainly not have done at her age. 
 
 " Yes ; soup-tickets," answered Dorothea. The Colonel 
 bit his lips under the seeming insult of the innocent reply. 
 
 " We cannot live on two thousand," he said, with an 
 under-note of irritation. " This is merely a loan of another 
 thousand to be repaid when you come of age." 
 
 " And if I were to die before then ? " 
 
 " Well, I suppose I should be your natural heir. But 
 )^ou are not going to die." The Colonel watched the firm 
 letters forming on the paper. He laughed. "It is a sort 
 of inverted post-obit," he said, " drawn by a father on his 
 child. We might as well have made it two thousand. 
 Well, I hardly know. These scoundrelly money-lenders 
 
 charge such a . In a week or two, I trust, we shall 
 
 neither of us need money. We shall have heaps of it and 
 to spare ! " He rubbed his hands softly ; his eyes shone. 
 
 " How will that come about ? " said Dorothea. 
 
 " I have my idea. Dear child, do not look so solemn ; 
 you are going to a Carnival ball. There is another subject 
 of far greater importance than this paltry bit of inevitable 
 business, about which I must say half a word." 
 
 " Well, father ! " She knew him so well by this time, she 
 thought he was going to give some advice about her 
 dress. 
 
 " You must have remarked for some time Count Pini's 
 evident attentions. Do not be surprised if he take advantage 
 of his mask to put you this evening a very important 
 question — the sweetest a woman can ever hear." 
 
 " Father ! " Dorothea started, kindling, to her feet. 
 
 " Do not be so frightened, child. He has confessed to 
 me, what every one can see, that he is deeply in love with 
 you. He is of high birth ; he has recently come into a 
 very great fortune. You have made no secret of your 
 enthusiasm for his splendid career. Oh, my dear, you 
 have behaved with perfect propriety! But of course he 
 has perceived that you admired him." 
 
 " Father ! " said Dorothea again. 
 
 " He is not young, but neither is he old. He is just the 
 right age for a husband to so inexperienced a girl. I think 
 you are acting very wisely, Dolly. You have my heartiest 
 congratulations." He held out both hands. 
 
144 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " But, father, I can*t marry him ; I don't love him," said 
 Dorothea piteously. 
 
 " Of course you do not. I should be very sorry if a 
 daughter of mine * loved ' any man before he proposed to 
 her. My dear girl, I leave you absolutely free ; that goes 
 v^^ithout saying. But I think you are making an admirable 
 use of your liberty. I am delighted with this match. I 
 should feel broken-hearted if anything came between." 
 
 He made good his escape. He felt that he had managed 
 the business exceedingly well. Blanche was so clever. And 
 he honestly felt also that he was doing his very best for 
 Dorothea, who would marry a man she admired and make 
 a magnificent match. Pini had stuck immovably to his 
 conditions ; the fortune of the " divine " Dorothea, to whom 
 the Italian had devoted his susceptible heart, would, as 
 basis of the wonderful system, render both father and 
 husband millionaires. 
 
 Dorothea was still standing in the middle of the room 
 when, ten minutes later, the two ladies Roden and Konrad 
 suddenly filled it with the ring of their laughter and the 
 rustle of their silks. 
 
 " Is your father ready ? My dear Dorothea, we must help 
 you to dress ! Egon could not be persuaded to come." 
 
 "Ah!" said Dorothea. 
 
 " He is staying with father. Egon, you know, is the 
 member of the family whom the others always select for 
 self-sacrifice. I offer for conscience sake, but I quite expect 
 Egon to do what I don't want to. Some people are made 
 that way, don't you think ? ** These last words came from 
 Gertrude, the daughter. 
 
 " Gertrude is always so precise in her facts," said Madame 
 von Roden, smiling. " That comes from her taste for exact 
 science, you know. You cannot imagine what trouble we 
 had to get her to come away." 
 
 They rather dreaded informing the Colonel that they 
 lacked a cavalier. But he took the matter very coolly. 
 Perhaps they would find one in the ball-room, he said. 
 
 And, indeed, scarcely had they entered the brilliant 
 opera-building, when a masked figure stepped forth from 
 the flood of gay costumes and bowed low under the blaze 
 of chandeliers. By the bow alone Dorothea would have 
 recognised Pini. He was beautifully attired in the dress of 
 an Italian grandee before the Great Revolution, with 
 abundance of wine-coloured velvet, white satin, gilt, 
 
DOROTHEA. 145 
 
 powder and lace. Dorothea observed the long-drawn 
 distinction of his bearing, as he rested one hand on his 
 sword-hilt and the other on the star at his breast. 
 
 "Beautiful masque," he began in his sonorous French, 
 " will you do me the honour of taking a few steps by my 
 side ? " — and he led her through the crush of the maskers, 
 amid the buffoonery, the pirouettes and the cat-calls, that 
 almost drowned the music of the waltz. " How stupid it 
 all is ! " he said suddenly, as a masculine ballet-girl 
 touched with his fan the maskless portion of Dorothea's 
 cheek. " Let us go up to my box ; you will see better 
 there." 
 
 He led her into the box : he got her an ice which she 
 did not want. She was very troubled. Stretching over the 
 front she gazed down on the seething masses of colour and 
 noise beneath. Somehow, in this clouded, perfumed, close- 
 smelling enclosure at this late hour of the night, the 
 Carnival, which had seemed rather harmlessly mad in the 
 sunshine, looked evil, a thing to avoid. 
 
 " I think we ought to be going home," she said, rising. 
 " Madame de Roden did not intend to stop long." 
 
 He laid three delicate fingers on the pink folds of her 
 domino. " Do not go yet," he entreated, " I have some- 
 thing to say — I shall say it very simply. I shall pay you 
 no compliments. Bellissima, carissima, will you make me 
 the happiest of mortals ? " He took off his mask as he 
 spoke, and, bending one knee to the ground, leant forward 
 from his armchair, middle-aged, a little faded, but 
 supremely elegant, in the beautiful, courtly dress. 
 
 She would have spoken, trembling with agitation, but 
 he stopped her. 
 
 " I know that I have nothing to offer," he said. " You 
 have everything. Well, I am willing to accept. The more 
 honour you do me, the prouder I shall be." 
 
 The music was very noisy ; the dances were whirling 
 wildly. Great clouds of perfumed heat rose, spreading, 
 from below. 
 
 " I cannot marry you, Signore," said Dorothea softly. 
 
 Signor Pini bent to catch the repeated words. 
 
 " I cannot marry you," said Dorothea firmly. 
 
 He cast a sharp glance at her, and the expression of his 
 features changed, as did also the tone of his voice. 
 
 " You do not mean what you are saying," he answered. 
 Then, as she only plucked at her frills — 
 
146 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " I am not young," he said with strident conviction, 
 " but neither am I finished, and I have seen more and done 
 more than younger men. I am a Count of the Holy 
 Roman Empire, or can be, whenever I choose. I am on 
 the point of acquiring a very large fortune — well ? " He 
 spoke like a man of business ; with his prosperity all the 
 romance seemed to have dropped out of his voice. " After 
 all, I am not such a contemptible parti ? " 
 
 " I never thought that, but I — I do not love you." 
 
 She spoke so low, in all the noise, behind her fan, but 
 he heard her. He rose to his feet, and his sword clanged 
 between them. " That is English," he said in icy tones ; 
 " I did not know you were so English. You expect, then, 
 to love various men, mademoiselle, on the chance that one 
 of these may propose to you ? It is not the way of the 
 ladies of my nation, among people of my rank." 
 
 She stared at him, in astonishment that financial success 
 should so have altered the man. 
 
 "Your feeling towards me suffices me," he continued 
 mildly. " You have shown me more — appreciation than I 
 had any right to expect. You mistake your own pure 
 heart — ah, purissima ! — ^your father understands it better 
 than yourself." 
 
 " I am afraid my father does not understand me at all," 
 she answered forlornly. 
 
 Count Pini drew a paper out of his white satin waist- 
 coat and held it out to her. She took it and read : 
 
 " My dear friend. — You have my full consent, and, if I 
 know women at all, you also have my daughter's. Do you 
 not think the poor innocent child has sufficiently betrayed 
 herself to render your hesitations superfluous ? But they 
 do honour to your delicacy of feeling, and on no account 
 would I expose you to mortification, if I thought there was 
 any fear of a rebuff. 
 
 ** Lewis Sandring." 
 
 The letter dropped to Dorothea's feet. She stooped, 
 picked it up, and gave it back to him. 
 
 "Thus also," he said quickly, "will you stoop, pick me 
 up and return me to myself." 
 
 Then she took off her mask and looked straight into his 
 eyes. " My father," she said falteringly, " is mistaken. I 
 am very sorry." She gazed away across the loud horde 
 of daiicers : suddenly it was to her as if she saw rise up, 
 
DOROTHEA. 147 
 
 in the mist of ball-room atmosphere, little quiet old aunt 
 Mary, with her close-fitting black gown, by the light of 
 the single lantern in the dark and desolate death-room. 
 
 " Not even to please my father," she said, " would I 
 marry a man I do not care for." 
 
 " My rank and present fortune " he began angrily. 
 
 " And whose fortune is gained by crime." 
 
 He drew back without another word, but she turned, as 
 he was leaving the box. " I am young ! " she cried 
 passionately. " I am stupid ! I am very ignorant ! My 
 father says I have given you — encouragement " — her whole 
 neck flamed at the word — "if it is so, and I suppose it 
 must be — I don't quite understand — but oh, I abjectly beg 
 your pardon ! " 
 
 He only bowed again and left her. She drew the folds 
 of her domino about her throat, and sat back, in the 
 shadow, both hands before her face, deeply humiliated, 
 distraught. Of herself she was not ashamed, for she could 
 realise no actual wrong- doing, but she was sick of her 
 surroundings, soiled to the heart. Only, she clung to her 
 father's affection through all her disillusionment : he meant 
 everything for the best ; he was kind-hearted : her happiness 
 was his one desire. 
 
 Signor Pini, threading his way through the multitude, 
 sought out a splendid white figure, chiefly in sparkle and 
 feathers, a peacock, and took her from Lord Archibald 
 Foye, who had come as a clown. 
 
 " I have business of importance with Madame," said 
 Pini. He led her away to a little palm-filled corner beyond 
 the refreshment-room. " She has refused me," he said. 
 
 " Impossible ! " exclaimed Blanche. " You cannot have 
 managed things well." 
 
 " I did my best. I have not, perhaps, your experience of 
 love affairs." 
 
 " I mean — you cannot have made full use of her father ! " 
 
 " It is not pleasant, in such matters, to make full use of 
 the father. But I believe I have done so. Ah, Santa 
 Madre ! " he ground his teeth, with the resolute suppression 
 of his fury. " It is enough. She has refused me. She said 
 she could not live on money gained by gambling. That 
 was what she meant. She loves me — I do not doubt it — 
 she refused me because I am a gambler. She said money 
 thus gained was gained by crime ! " His glance rested on 
 tlie lace of his coat sleeve, and he smiled. 
 
 L 2 
 
148 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " By God ! she is right ! *' cried the Baroness, fierce as a 
 panther. " She is right, and that is why I detest her and 
 crush her — the pretty-hearted, pure-hearted child ! What 
 business has this little Miss Mealyface to come between me 
 and my happiness ? Sandring is a fool ! You, too, are a fool, 
 Pini ! I am a woman. Here, let me go to her ! Leave 
 me alone with her ! I will strike her out of my path as I 
 dash aside this glass ! " She brushed away a liqueur glass 
 from a table, in shrill clatter on the pavement, and swept 
 up the great staircase with a far-spreading glitter of her 
 white peacock-train. 
 
 " C'est un franc, monsieur," said the waiter to Pini. 
 
 Madame de Fleuryse pushed open the door of the box 
 and, assuming the squeaky masquerade voice. " Bonsoir, 
 mademoiselle," she said. " May a friend have a few 
 moments' conversation ? " Dorothea looked up at the 
 splendid peacock figure, all silver eyes : an idea took her 
 that this must be Lady Archibald. 
 
 " A beautiful sight," squeaked the visitor, waving her 
 hand. " Fascinating ! Strange ! A little wild, perhaps ? 
 Not at all like Brodryck." 
 
 " Who are you ? " asked Dorothea. 
 
 " A friend. One who is sorry to see you in uncongenial 
 surroundings." 
 
 " Yes, I will go home," said Dorothea rising. 
 
 "Ah, I forgot. I have a message for you from the 
 Colonel. He has gone with the other ladies to Vitellini's, 
 to show them the supper-rooms. He hoped that your 
 cavalier would see you home." 
 
 " You are not Lady Archibald," said Dorothea, and sat 
 down again in despair. 
 
 " One like you will find no happiness here. The Colonel 
 even — best of men ! — is not the companion you should have. 
 You do not appreciate his virtues." 
 
 " True," said Dorothea, and her eyes looked away, across 
 the theatre. After a silence, she added, speaking more to 
 herself than to the intruder. " I shall find no happiness 
 here. I had better go home." Before this woman she 
 meant the hotel, but the woman understood that her 
 thoughts had strayed further — to Brodryck. 
 
 This, however, by no means agreed with the Baroness's 
 plans, for Sandring had told her too clearly that his 
 daughter's marriage must precede his own. 
 
 " My dear," she squeaked, " you are very silly. You do 
 
DOROTHEA. 149 
 
 not understand your own welfare. As for your scruples, 
 they are not even honest. For you know perfectly well, 
 that your father gambles all day long, that you live on the 
 proceeds of his gambling, and supply him with funds to 
 continue, when he's down on his luck." 
 
 Dorothea caught her breath. The whole whirlpool of 
 dancers seemed to sail high up into the air and swing 
 down sideways. She had the strength to put up her little 
 mask again, covering half her face. 
 
 "Yes, I know," she said. 
 
 The woman beside her laughed. 
 
 " You are keeping him out of his happiness. Worse than 
 that, you are causing him to continue in — what do you call 
 it ? — sin ! Yes, sin. A pretty preacher ! For it is you 
 who, by refusing to marry, render impossible his marriage." 
 
 Dorothea gripped the other's substantial arm. "I do 
 not understand," she said : " speak plainly." 
 
 " My dear, you are too simple for anything. Marry Pini. 
 When you are married, and out of the way, the Colonel 
 will bestow his name on a lady he has counted among his 
 intimate friends for some time." 
 
 She had bent forward, hissing the words. Dorothea 
 started to her feet, with a flash that flung the woman 
 from her. 
 ^ " Madame de Barvielle ! " she cried. 
 ^ The next moment she was out in the street. She 
 understood everything, everything, all her father's life. 
 
( 150 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 She ran along the road, in her domino. Everywhere 
 was the sound of much laughter and dancing. Everywhere 
 was abundance of light. The whole city roared to the 
 skies in its revelry. The broad river twinkled along all 
 its bridges, under myriads of coloured lanterns and gas- 
 jets ; the Casino flared, one vast illumination across the 
 immense Place Massena, on which thousands of yelling 
 enthusiasts, half-mad with debauchery, were performing 
 every possible orgy, in great circles of drunken delight. 
 Dorothea shrank back in dumb terror, her hand on the 
 parapet by the riverside. 
 
 She stood there a long time, not knowing where she 
 stood. The night was beautifully mild, but she would not 
 have noticed any change in its temperature. Even here 
 there was no fresh air, by the river. The smoke of the 
 great coloured fires went up from elevated platters. She 
 closed her eyes to the lurid licence of the scene. 
 
 She could not go back to the hotel — that was all she 
 felt — ^not go back and meet her father. It was not yet a 
 couple of months since she first had seen him : she must 
 never see him again. She thought of the journey down 
 from Paris, of her visit to Monte Carlo, of that night when 
 
 she had found him the worse for ^no ! only a couple of 
 
 hours ago she had signed away a thousand pounds to be 
 spent in gambling. What mattered the paltry thousand 
 pounds ? — but the gambling ! to live on the produce of the 
 tables — and the other, the unspeakable thing — the — the 
 
 No, she could never touch his lips again. 
 
 She hailed a passing vetturino, in a sudden impulse of 
 escape. The man looked at her, laughing. She fancied he 
 was drunk. There was no other in sight. Perhaps he 
 would upset and kill her ? Would it matter much, if he 
 did? 
 
 " Whither, beau masque ? " said the cabman. 
 
 " To the Villa Buonarotti. Drive fast." She would ask 
 
DOROTHEA. 151 
 
 Madame de Roden, who must be back long ago by this. 
 She must tell Madame de Roden, confiding in another 
 woman's righteous heart. 
 
 She sank her head upon her breast, in the victoria, as it 
 fought its way across the blatant inferno of the square. 
 " Oh Jesu, have mercy on these people ! Oh Jesu, have 
 mercy on me ! " she prayed, over and over again. It 
 seemed to her as if the placid heavens must rend asunder, 
 and, mid the radiance of His million angels, the Son of 
 God descend to judgment and to war. 
 
 In the short avenue of the Villa, under the cypresses, a 
 man's figure came forward and stopped the driver. 
 
 " Is that you, Konrad ? Where are the others ? '* asked 
 Egon's voice. 
 
 Dorothea mastered herself by an effort such as seemed 
 very strange to what her simple life had been until now. 
 
 " It is I," she said, " Dorothea Sandring. My party 
 deserted me. I came here to find them." 
 
 " They have not come home yet. I was expecting them. 
 My father has gone to bed." 
 
 There followed an awkward pause. " May I see you 
 back to the hotel ? " began Egon. 
 
 " Oh, no — no ! I will wait till they come home." 
 
 " Will you come into the house ? " He threw away his 
 cigar. 
 
 " Oh, no — no ! I will stop here. They will come soon." 
 She could not ask him to leave her sitting thus by herself 
 in the cab, as she longed to do. Her one desire was not 
 to betray her father to him, by word or manner. The 
 cabman grunted. His drunken presence, leering at them, 
 became more than she could endure. 
 
 " I have no money," she said, realising the fact for the 
 first time. " Would you pay this man and let him go ? " 
 
 He obeyed, wondering, and assisted her to alight. He 
 felt the tremor that ran along her frame, as she stood 
 quivering by his side. 
 
 " Let us go in," he said ; " you are cold." 
 
 " Oh, no — no ! " she answered. " How could any one be 
 cold? The night is beautiful." She walked quickly out 
 of the shadow of the trees and down the shining terrace, 
 that opened out before the house. Her heart was burning. 
 
 He came and stood beside her, against the balustrade. 
 The air was heavy with Riviera fragrance. From below, 
 across a mile of sleeping garden -slopes, ascended, dulled by 
 
153 DOROTHEA. 
 
 distance, the clamour of the Saturnalian city, a crimson 
 blotch amongst ten thousand fire-sparks, against the deep- 
 blue sky. And beyond, unseen, spread endless, the solemn 
 sighing of the sea. 
 
 " Surely it is like the world before the deluge," said 
 Dorothea. His answer came unexpected : 
 
 " You are disturbed. You have been insulted by some- 
 body. By Heaven, I believe you have been insulted by 
 Pini ? " 
 
 He saw only the back of the pink domino. "Is it so 
 evident," she said bitterly, " that Pini would be the person 
 to insult me ? Undoubtedly then, I am to blame for this 
 easy coupling of our names." 
 
 " You ? — he is right, when he calls you an angel. That 
 truth, from his lips, may atone for a quantity of lies ! He 
 has insulted you, the scoundrel ! He will find that you 
 have friends who can call him to account." 
 
 " No, no ! " she turned, her white hand on the parapet. 
 " You are mistaken, Herr von Roden. Signer Pini has not 
 exactly insulted me ! You will keep silence ! You would 
 not make me unhappier than I am ? " 
 
 " I would give my life to spare you a moment's unhappi- 
 ness ! " he burst out. "There, I have said it. It is idiotic, 
 unless I say more. I had no business to say anything at 
 all — but, but — Dorothea, will you give me the right to 
 defend you against your surroundings ? To save you from 
 them ? I am longing to do it, at once. Will you be my 
 wife ? " 
 
 " Against your surroundings." She asked for no explana- 
 tion ; she stood, unable to speak. A moment later she 
 found herself seated on a bench beside the teeming orange- 
 trees. She did not know whether he had led her there, or 
 whether she had walked alone. 
 
 " It is not fair, perhaps, to take you by surprise at this 
 moment," he continued, speaking fast and earnestly ; " but 
 I cannot restrain myself, when I see — what I see." He 
 gasped for breath. "I do not ask you to give me an 
 immediate answer. Only let me entreat of you, do nothing 
 you — you don't want to do. You are so good, so good, so 
 much better than any of us — be sure what you don't want 
 to do is better left undone. And please remember that, at 
 any moment, I am eager to lay my whole existence, such as 
 it is, at your feet." 
 
 He waited for a moment, and as yet she did not answer — 
 
DOROTHEA. 153 
 
 " I am a poor lame beggar," he said ; " it's beastly cheeky 
 of me, asking you to marry me. But I love you so I can't 
 help it. You're so good, you never ought to marry any 
 ordinary man, but — 'but sometimes I think : If she takes 
 some other idiot, she might just as well take me. You're 
 like my mother, but the only man that'd make you a decent 
 husband is the one that married her. Look here, I always 
 thought, when the time came, I should say a lot of things 
 I want to say. All I can think of now is that 1 want you* 
 to marry me, be — because I want you to." 
 
 Suddenly she drooped her head upon her breast, and that 
 was all. 
 
 " Dorothea ! " he cried : the tumult of passion surging 
 across his voice was such that she sank against his extended 
 arm, as a lily might bend under the storm. 
 
 When he spoke again a few minutes later, it was to 
 say : " I remember now one of the things I ought to tell 
 you, and forgot. But you know already, Dorothea, — do 
 you not? — that either of my brothers may succeed my 
 uncle as well as I ! " 
 
 " What has that to do with — with anything ? " replied 
 Dorothea. 
 
 Then he kissed her, the second time. " Nothing, dearest, 
 except that I am poor." 
 
 " What does that matter ? " answered Dorothea, wearily, 
 amidst her happiness. " Since I came here, money seems to 
 me to be all wickedness. At Brodryck it looked pleasant 
 to be rich." 
 
 The turmoil of the city mounted, changeless and mono- 
 tonous, but they no longer heard it. All the liquid 
 sweetness of the orange-blossom played about them : all 
 the little chirps and rustlings of the gentle night arose and 
 lulled them : all the velvet softness of the wakeful foliage 
 sank around them — and the silver stars shone steadfast 
 with the mysteries of God. 
 
 " My mother has come home," said Egon, " let us go to her." 
 
 Then Dorothea seemed to remember what she knew she 
 had not for one moment forgotten, the great sorrow that 
 had driven her here. 
 
 " We will go to her together," she answered, "and then, 
 Egon, you must leave us alone." 
 
 They found Madame von Roden standing in the drawing- 
 room. Gertrude, exhausted, had gone at once to her room. 
 
 "Well, Egon, it is a sight to be seen once," said the 
 
154 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Generalin, " but '* She turned. " This also," she cried, 
 
 laughing a little hysterically, "is a sight to be seen, and 
 without a ' but ' ! " She came forward and drew both her 
 children towards her, kissing them both. 
 
 " You knew nothing," said the son. 
 
 " Nothing," she answered, " You praise my cleverness so 
 often, Egon, but it is only in the abstract. As every 
 occasion offers, you expect me to prove a fool." 
 
 " Mother ! But I thought " 
 
 " Quite so. Only a mother thinks more. My dear 
 Dorothea, it is half-past one : your father will be anxious 
 about you. Now, how shall we get you home ? " 
 
 To the horror of mother and son, Dorothea's reply was a 
 burst of weeping. Until that moment, she had not, through 
 all the troublous evening, felt a moment's call for tears. 
 Now she clung, sobbing, to Madame de Roden's side. 
 
 " Leave us together," said the Generalin, her own eyes 
 moistening. And scarcely had the door closed on Egon, 
 when Dorothea whispered : 
 
 " I cannot go home." 
 
 The Generalin only drew her closer and waited. For 
 Madame de Roden was afraid to show, by speech, that she 
 understood, and knew, even more than Dorothea. 
 
 " I cannot go back to the hotel. You must keep me 
 here," murmured the latter. " Do not, please, ask me any 
 questions ! I cannot go back." 
 
 " Are you sure of that ? " asked Madame de Roden. 
 
 Dorothea loosened her hold and sank back upon a 
 sofa. " Quite sure," she gasped. 
 
 " My dear, I will ask no questions. And, having asked 
 none, I venture to think — you see, I am an old woman — 
 to think that you can go back." 
 
 " I cannot — you do not know ! " 
 
 " I do not know. But of one thing I am certain, that, if 
 you stay away like this, you will bring disgrace upon your 
 father's name. And a daughter can do anything but that." 
 
 Dorothea shivered on her sofa. 
 
 " You are young : you have lived — God be praised — an 
 exceptionally sheltered life. You know nothing of the 
 world and its evils. You know nothing of men's tempta- 
 tions. I believe, before God, that the husband you have 
 chosen to-night is honest and pure, as his own father, but — 
 I could not say the same, not even of all my own nearest 
 and dearest." She stopped, faltering. Dorothea looked up 
 
DOROTHEA. 155, 
 
 into her face. The Generalin seated herself beside the 
 girl on the sofa and took her hand. 
 
 " If I say this to you — so much ! — it is because — oh, 
 Dorothea, you can go back. Men's ideas of right and 
 wrong are not like women's, dearest. Kiss me, child. The 
 daughter of so brave a soldier is not less brave than he ! " 
 
 They sat in silence. "To-morrow I will ask Colonel 
 Sandring to let you come and stay a while with us," said 
 the Generalin. " Konrad will be returning presently. He 
 had — had some reason for staying in the town. Egon will 
 see you home in Konrad's cab." 
 
 " 1 will go back," said Dorothea. 
 
 Meanwhile Egon, pacing the passage with that peculiar 
 halt of his, roused the General, who slept on the long 
 ground-floor. 
 
 " What, father, not asleep ? " said the son in the doorway, 
 " why, it's past one o'clock." 
 
 " "Tis then, it seems, the very witching hour of night, 
 when ghosts do walk," replied the General, laughing gently. 
 " I heard the carriage, Egon ; why doesn't everybody go to 
 bed ? " 
 
 " Miss Sandring is here,** answered Egon, uneasily, ** she 
 will be leaving in a few minutes." And he retreated into 
 the hall. 
 
 Justus lifted himself on his pillows. " Miss Sandring in 
 the drawing-room, and you in the passage ! " said the 
 father. " What nonsense is this, Egon ? — come in at once 
 and tell me what you've been and gone and done." 
 
 The son closed the door behind him and, standing in the 
 dark, " Father," he said, " you must go to sleep : we can 
 talk about things to-morrow." 
 
 But the provoking invalid struck a match and held it 
 aloft, for a moment, until it burnt his fingers. 
 
 "Never mind," he said, dropping back into darkness. 
 " Come here, Egon, let me grasp your hand. God bless 
 you, my boy. Ajid her. Poor thing ! Poor thing !" 
 
 Egon broke the silence. " Yes," he said, " I must save 
 her. The sooner the better. Father, we must get her 
 away from— all that.** 
 
 Justus held tighter the hand within his. " You must love 
 her," he said, "that is all. Love her: be happy in her 
 happiness, happy in making her happy, happy in being 
 made happy by her. All successful wedlock is that, boy. 
 The quest of our happiness in each other's. God grant it 
 
156 DOROTHEA. 
 
 to you : and yet you must seek it. I hear the drawing- 
 room door. Go to her. Send me your mother. Good- 
 night." 
 
 Egon stood still by the door. ** I don't know what we 
 shall live on," he said. 
 
 His father laughed. " Just what I said twenty-five years 
 ago. But one does live, somehow. Of course, it is very 
 reprehensible to start like that. What will your uncle 
 say?" 
 
 " * Egon, you're a fool.* " 
 
 " A wise fool," added Justus, and lay meditating on his 
 own half-century of sunny life. 
 
 " At any rate, she won't live on gambling gains," said 
 Egon to himself. 
 
 An hour later Dorothea stood in her bedroom at the 
 hotel, gazing down on a telegram she had just torn open. 
 
 " We are coming. Telegraph his name to Hotel Victoria, 
 Paris. 
 
 "Uncle Tony and Aunts.'* 
 
 " Whose name ? " exclaimed Dorothea. 
 
 Rebecca, kept awake by curiosity alone, peered over her 
 mistress's shoulder. 
 
 "Dutch people should telegraph in the language they 
 was born to," remarked Rebecca. "There's Jezebel out- 
 side says she wants to come in." Indeed, a tap at the 
 door was immediately followed by audible twists of the 
 door-handle. Rebecca stood coughing her loudest, with 
 " Jezebel ! Jezebel ! Jezebel ! " between every gurgle and 
 choke. 
 
 " Unlock the door at once. How dare you turn the 
 key ? " said Dorothea. 
 
 " Not I ! " replied the handmaid undaunted. " I won't 
 let in the wolf upon the lambkin. I'm not a hireling, 
 thank God ! " 
 
 Dorothea swept to her feet, the pink domino still hanging 
 about her. " Open the door this very moment," she said, 
 her quiet eyes blazing. "Do you expect me to do it for 
 you ? Or to fight with you about getting it done ? '* 
 
 The terrible Rebecca, with skance glances, went and 
 sullenly unfastened the door. Mademoiselle Aurelie Bom- 
 pard entered smiling, seemingly unconscious, and began 
 immediately to move familiar articles about on the toilet- 
 table. Rebecca, retreating, watched her with a groan that 
 
DOROTHEA. 157 
 
 went straight to Dorothea's heart. " Sleep well. Pleasant 
 dreams," called Dorothea. 
 
 " Ah, Freule," replied Rebecca, disappearing, " it is not 
 the dreams I desire for you, but an awakening ! " 
 
 " Mademoiselle has a headache," said the Frenchwoman, 
 casting one of her sharp, modest little glances at her new 
 mistress. 
 
 " It is true," answered Dorothea, surprised, for Rebecca 
 believed in no ailments but her own. 
 
 " I can see that. No, yon eau de cologne is quite use- 
 less : I have a spirit here — a few drops on a handkerchief, 
 see ! — I thought Mademoiselle would have a headache 
 after the Veglione." She busied herself with deft hands and 
 noiseless movements about her mistress's toilet. " Only the 
 strictly necessary ! " she said. " Mademoiselle is exhausted. 
 The drops have done good, have they not? Ah, I told 
 Mademoiselle I could do many things. I wish Made- 
 moiselle a good rest, and pleasantest dreams of the ball. 
 De tous ces charmants messieurs et du bal." 
 
 Outside, the noise of the Carnival night continued. The 
 shrieks and laughter and music came, muffled, to her ears. 
 Ash- Wednesday was drawing near. Unable to go to sleep, 
 she got up and drew aside the curtains. In the distance 
 the lights flared, constant : the turmoil of sounds rang 
 clearer against her window-glass. She knelt down and 
 murmured reiterated prayers, in which Egon's name now 
 strangely and sweetly mingled, burning prayers for her 
 father, sad prayers for a world that lieth in wickedness — 
 suddenly her breath caught : she could not now, as in that 
 night of the railway journey, pronounce in the presence 
 of Almighty God the name of Madame de Barvielle. 
 " Perhaps God will forgive her," she thought, as she lay 
 down again, sleepless. The extremes of grief and joy she had 
 endured combined in her exhausted brain to a tumult of 
 torment. All the sights and sounds of the day seemed 
 to whirl behind her eyes. She lay shivering. She had 
 never been seriously ill, and she wondered if this was fever. 
 Before that question had been answered in her brain, she 
 fell into a troubled slumber. 
 
 From this she was suddenly awakened. The rushing of 
 a mighty wind filled her ears with a roar such as she had 
 never heard before and will never hear again. She started 
 slightly from her pillow, to fall back immediately, rolling 
 hither and thither, as a drop of mercury in a saucer, sick, 
 
158 DOROTHEA. 
 
 dead sick, at heart and brain. The whole room rose 
 around her, uplifted, heaving sideways, tossed iDackwards, 
 at all angles, like a vessel in a swifter than earthly storm. 
 With her wide-open, giddy eyes she saw one thing happen : 
 in the universal awryness, a creature in a pink domino came 
 dancing, zig-zag, across the floor. She thought she screamed 
 at that, but it was only a gurgle in her throat. The next 
 moment she beheld the crazy dancer's countenance and 
 recognised her own wicker dress-frame careering in the still, 
 cold light. Then followed immediately a great crash of 
 glass and china, as all the things from washstand and toilet- 
 table rushed heavily to the ground, and the sound echoed 
 on, in new volleys of crashing and creaking through all the 
 vast building, with the dull, intense rumble passing slowly 
 away. 
 
 Dorothea sat up, clutching at the bed-side : she believed 
 that the corners had righted themselves, but the whole 
 room seemed to be turning still. 
 
 " It is an earthquake," she whispered to herself, shud- 
 dering from head to foot, " it is God's judgment." And 
 her soul grew suddenly calm. 
 
 She got up, steadying herself by the bed-posts, confusedly 
 tottering across the room. Dragging her heavy feet to the 
 window, she fell against its frame, and tore aside the 
 curtain. One instant of deathly silence had hung on the 
 train of the thunder — now shrieks and cries of every descrip- 
 tion went up on every hand in the pandemonium of a 
 whole city's consternation, the yelling of a hundred thou- 
 sand voices mad with fear. 
 
 Dorothea, at the window, stared, shuddered back, and 
 stared again. In every direction, far as the eye could 
 reach, poured streams of human creatures, many in night- 
 clothes, many in carnival dresses, leaping, running, falling, 
 screaming all. Bells were swinging, inaudible, on the other 
 side of the river. Just in front of the hotel, on the square, 
 lay a little group of maskers, prostrate or upon their knees. 
 Hideous rents were visible in the walls of all the houses 
 around, and the broad public garden was littered with 
 pieces of chimneys, plaster ornaments and tiles. Dorothea 
 lay staring in the clear cold, daybreak. She saw the church 
 doors opposite burst open and a flood of morning penitents 
 — the cross of ashes doubtless still upon their foreheads — 
 pour out into a dancing troop of maniac harlequins, with 
 whom they mingled, trampling each other underfoot. 
 
DOROTHEA. 159 
 
 Then happened the most awful thing of all, for the second 
 shock broke suddenly across the expectant city. Mad 
 already, men had hoped the worst was over, and lo, it 
 came ! 
 
 Dorothea found herself lying on the floor, with her head 
 against the table ; the table itself hung jammed in a 
 corner, whither all the furniture of the room had swept 
 before it sank away again, in broken bits. Her wardrobe 
 had fallen forwards, with a thud that sent her heart into 
 her mouth. It lay not far from her : she realised that she 
 had escaped : she was alive. 
 
 The consciousness of this individual escape restored her 
 nerves to some sort of balance. She had trusted God, a 
 moment before, to do whatsoever He would with her : she 
 now trusted Him to help her through. 
 
 She tore open her door with some difficulty and crossed 
 the narrow passage to Rebecca's room. Here also the 
 furniture had been upset : the bedstead stood near the 
 middle of the floor, and a hump in the bedclothes pro- 
 claimed that it was still occupied. Dorothea went up 
 and touched the hump. A wriggle was the only reply. 
 " Rebecca ! " she cried. The wriggle became a succession 
 of violent contortions, in the course of which the whole 
 bundle rolled away to the ground, where it found voice, 
 lying screaming. Dorothea resolutely went round and 
 tore aside the blankets, revealing Rebecca's congested face, 
 of which the eyes remained tightly closed. 
 
 " Go away, devil ! Go away, devil ! " screamed Rebecca, 
 at least a dozen times. 
 
 " Silence ! Open your eyes. It is I," said Dorothea 
 sternly. 
 
 Rebecca, when she had heard these words, obeyed. She 
 
 tried to steady herself, a dishevelled figure, in the bundle of 
 
 bedclothes. Staring, as one distraught, she evidently did 
 
 not even as much as see her mistress, but continued to pour 
 
 out alternate objurgation and defiance to the fiend who she 
 
 thought had come to fetch her, in this final collapse of all 
 
 things. " Lord, take away the devil ! " she shrieked, and 
 
 flung up her naked arms. " I'm a good woman ; I've 
 
 always been regular at church o* Sundays ! No, no, it's a 
 
 ; lie ; I'm a bad woman, a bad woman, a sinner, but I'm 
 
 ; saved ! I'm saved ! You can't give me up to the devil, 
 
 ; Lord, for I'm written in the Book of Life, Lord : the 
 
 fortune-teller said I was 1 " She began to sing and cry 
 
i6o DOROTHEA. 
 
 together. From the street rose the rush of multitudes, and 
 the long wail of sorrow and fear. 
 
 " Come with me at once, before another shock occurs," 
 said Dorothea. 
 
 The maid's reply was a shriek — then suddenly, clinging 
 to her mistress : " Is it you ? " she said. " I thought the foul 
 fiend was upon me. They're coming ! They're coming ! 
 Don't you hear them ? I'm a wicked creature, Freule — 
 hear me say it, if I die this moment — I'm a mountain of 
 iniquity, a leaven of unrighteousness, a beast accursed, 
 and a stench in the nostrils of God Almighty. I'm a " 
 
 " Put on your clothes at once ; I shall wait no longer," 
 said Dorothea ; and she gently got together a few garments 
 and wrapped them round the poor, shivering thing. The 
 whole scene had only taken a minute. 
 
 Colonel Sandring stood in the doorway, completely 
 dressed, looking very much as usual. " Dorothea," he said, 
 in a solemnised voice, " this is, of course, an earthquake. 
 The shocks have not been severe enough, in this part at 
 least, to cause serious disasters. From former experiences 
 in other climes I imagine the worst is over. But you must 
 come down into the open at once." 
 
 " Yes, father ; let me help this poor soul," replied 
 Dorothea. 
 
 The Colonel slightly shrugged his shoulders. "By all 
 means ; only help her quick ! " he said. " Fetch your warmest 
 cloak from your room. Let us go ! " 
 
 The half-unhinged door of the bed-chamber opposite hung 
 open, with a crack down the middle. Mademoiselle Aurelie 
 Bompard was running to and fro through her mistress's 
 apartment, crying : " Where are the jewels ? " as loud as 
 she could cry, but her voice sounded dull in the hubbub all 
 round. She laughed heartily, as Dorothea entered with 
 the Colonel. " Ah, you are safe : that is right," said 
 Aurelie. " I have this bag " — she held it out — " is there 
 anything else worth saving ? " Pink spots stood out on 
 her yellow cheeks, and her arms and legs swung nervously, 
 like a puppet's. 
 
 " What is this ? " asked the Colonel, pointing to a man's 
 figure prostrate on the floor. 
 
 *' Some hotel servant ! " Aurelie still laughed shrilly ; " I 
 found him here busy with the boxes. I had to break that 
 jug on his head unawares. 'Tis of little account. There 
 is crockery broken in plenty to-day — and possibly heads. 
 
DOROTHEA. i6i 
 
 Monsieur le Colonel, if there is nothing more worth saving, 
 would you permit me to — go downstairs ? " 
 
 She curtseyed, with a little inconsequent run, as her 
 muscles betrayed her, and ran, laughing, with the bag, to 
 the door. 
 
 The Colonel followed, carefully piloting his daughter 
 among the horde of distracted, half-dressed hotel guests, 
 and deposited her, with both maids, on one of the few still 
 unoccupied seats in the public garden. " Stay here. Keep 
 cool. There is very little danger," said the Colonel. 
 
 Rebecca settled herself on the bench, in the clear sun- 
 shine, smoothed out her gown, gazed right and left on the 
 scene of desolation and despair, and sniffed. "Well, it's 
 the judgment of the Lord," she said comfortably, " and no 
 wonder ! The lion hath roared (bark) : who shall not 
 tremble ? The Lord hath spoken : who shall not — not " 
 
 " Prophesy," said Dorothea. 
 
 "Prophesy. For my part, if I was well out of this 
 heathen country, the sooner it was swallowed up in abysses, 
 the better. The devil's been let loose here too long, and 
 God is beginning to talk to him. Heavens, you didn't feel 
 another shake ? " 
 
 '*No," answered Dorothea, "I — I don't think. so. Of 
 course, one feels giddy. But there is no rumbling. The 
 heaving must be in our eyes, Rebecca. Sit still." 
 
 Aurelie, a prey to continued nausea, had crept out of 
 sight, behind some shrubs. She lay there, still clutching 
 her mistress's bag. 
 
 " It's like Jezebel to think of trinkets in the moment of 
 judgment," snorted Rebecca, tottering to her feet, " but as 
 she has saved them, we may as well see she don't carry 
 them off." 
 
 A moment afterwards fierce altercation, soon followed 
 by a scream, resounded from the midst of the shrubbery. 
 Dorothea found the two women scuffling over her bag. 
 At least, the short struggle was just over. The French- 
 woman had quietly drawn a hat-pin and stuck it through 
 her aggressor's hand. " I am sorry," said Aurelie gently. 
 " When I am compelled to stick, I sometimes stick too 
 far ! " Rebecca returned, weeping, to the bench, and 
 Dorothea had to stanch the blood. 
 
 A little company of nuns came down the garden- walk 
 between the groups of fugitives which lay piled up with a 
 strange medley of belongings on every side. The nuns 
 
 D. M 
 
i62 DOROTHEA. 
 
 were singing a " Miserere " : it pealed in gentle melody 
 amidst the groans and prayers. 
 
 " Jezebels like yon," said Rebecca, with a wave of her 
 unwounded hand at the nuns, " and Beelzebubs like these ! " 
 She pointed to a gaudy Jester, with cap and bells, lying, 
 manifestly drunk, in the roadway. 
 
 The Colonel came back to them. " Quick ! " he said. 
 He led them to an open fiacre standing by the kerbstone. 
 In the fiacre was a very fat Jew gentleman, with many 
 rings and a cadaverous countenance. " Monsieur, I must 
 have the temporary use of this cab," said the Colonel. 
 " You can remain in it, if you choose. It will take these 
 ladies up to Cimiez." 
 
 " Ze cap is mine ! " squeaked its occupant. " I haf pait 
 twenty louis to sit in it. I fill not moof." 
 
 " It is the only one, and I must use it," replied Sandring. 
 " If you like a tight fit, then you need not ' moof.' Get 
 in, Dorothea." She hesitated, looked at him, and obeyed. 
 
 The fat man half rose, screaming. " Help ! " he cried. 
 " Murter ! Sieves ! Monsieur, I am ze Paron " 
 
 " I know who you are," answered Sandring. " Sit still, 
 you blackguard Jew, or I'll shoot you like the dog you 
 are." The sight of a small revolver decided the uncertain 
 coachee, even more than the offer of a couple of extra 
 napoleons, and the whole party drove off towards the Villa 
 Buonarotti, with the Colonel on the box. 
 
 " Give me those reins," said the Colonel presently. " Why, 
 I do believe you're afraid, you fool." 
 
 And, indeed, the scenes through which they were slowly 
 struggling, might have caused a stouter heart than the 
 purple Jehu's to quail. The Jew banker had closed his 
 eyes and lay back, livid. Rebecca, squeezed on to the 
 little front seat with her would-be "murderess," sat loudly 
 singing, over and over again, the first verse of the hundred 
 and twenty-fifth psalm : 
 
 " Who in the Lord doth put his trust, 
 As Zion's mount shall stay, 
 That cannot shaken be or moved. 
 But doth abide for aye ! " 
 
 Her shrill accents died away, however, in the clamour 
 around them. The long Station Avenue, its tall eucalyp- 
 tuses still hung with tawdry Carnival decorations, had 
 vomited the sleepers from a hundred purlieus, half-naked, 
 
DOROTHEA. 163 
 
 amongst bedding, furniture and baggage in hasty encamp- 
 ments along the street. Scenes of hysteria and inebriety 
 were everywhere, and worst of all was the constant rushing 
 and calling of mothers for children, of children for mothers 
 — the ringing of the same pet name in reiterated cries of 
 increasing agony — Fifi ! Fifi ! — Jeannot ! — Suzotte ! 
 Suzotte ! Su— zotte ! 
 
 The huge houses showed cracks in many places, some 
 from top to bottom. Every now and then a tottering 
 chimney or piece of cornice fell, amid shrieks and clouds 
 of dust. A crimson devil, a reminiscence of Vulcan's stithy, 
 careered round the carriage for a long time, with obscene 
 language, his brain apparently gone, and offered to kiss 
 the loud-singing Rebecca. At last the Colonel cut him 
 with the whip, and he fell back, cursing. 
 
 Out in the Cimiez greenness was smiling Nature, cloud- 
 less sky and splendour of sunshine. Only, the birds were 
 silent : over all things hung a stillness so painful, it seemed 
 a threat. 
 
 " Let us get out here," said Colonel Sandring at the gate 
 of the Villa. He flung his card into the victoria. "Ask 
 for any reparation you choose," he said to the almost 
 inanimate banker. "Yours, I suppose, takes the form of 
 the police-court. All right." 
 
 The Rodens had felt the shocks less severely on their 
 rock : they had not experienced the upheaval of the terrified 
 city ; their perturbation was that of people whose refinement 
 has trained them to reserve. They made Dorothea welcome 
 on the terrace, where all sat encamped with their luggage. 
 After a few hasty words the Colonel had disappeared. As 
 soon as he was gone, Dorothea remembered that she had 
 not yet told him, in this hurried half-hour, of Egon Roden's 
 proposal. Curiously enough, she had not even recalled it, 
 herself. But she had given him the aunts' telegram from a 
 pocket of her dressing-gown. " We must stop them," he 
 had said : nothing more. 
 
 But within an hour he was back again : he called 
 Dorothea into a separate corner of the garden. He was 
 hot, and excited, but his voice was calm. " I have got a 
 whole compartment for you in a train that leaves this after- 
 noon," he said. " I had to buy it at auction from a :man 
 who happened to have engaged it. Never mind what I paid. 
 The station is a fearful sight, but they have sent for the 
 troops. We shall be able to fight our way through by three." 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " You are coming too ! " cried Dorothea. 
 
 " No, my dear. There is not much danger : why should 
 there come another shock ? I cannot run away to-day. 
 You will be safe with your aunts. And, by the bye, of 
 course I had to buy the whole compartment. You can 
 take as many of the Rodens as you like." 
 
 " Father," said Dorothea, " Egon Roden asked me last 
 night to be his wife." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I should like to, father, if you don't mind." 
 
 The Colonel laughed. " Why should I mind," he said. 
 "To-morrow, please God, you will be safe in Paris, with 
 your aunts, and the prettiest romance in my life — but one 
 — will have come to an end. Like all the best romances — 
 at least, the live ones — it has been brief. Why should I 
 mind, if you like to marry a good-looking and pleasant 
 young German, very well born, with a limp, and exceed- 
 ingly uncertain expectations, for I presume you are aware 
 of the peculiar conditions of the Rheyna entail? The 
 match may prove a better one than Pini : in any case, I 
 can understand, with a young girl like you, youth and 
 beauty outweighing a million more or less." 
 
 " Don't, father," said Dorothea. " And don't talk like that 
 about a romance being ended." 
 
 He came to her and took her face between his hands. 
 
 " It has been very pleasant," he said. " But I am an old 
 campaigner : my life has been a rough one, since your 
 mother's death. I am not good enough for you, Dolly. 
 Be honest : your chief idea of me is : Don't." 
 
 She threw her arms round him : she hid her face against 
 his neck, the tears were coursing down her cheeks. 
 
 " Father," she whispered deep down into his collar, 
 " when I marry, will you — will you — oh, father, will you 
 marry too ? " 
 
 He remained silent, but she felt his strong frame tremble 
 under her : it was only by clinging to his neck that she 
 herself remained erect. 
 
 " I do not understand what you mean," he said at last, 
 in a dull voice. 
 
 She slid down on her knees, but her arms closed tight 
 around him. 
 
 " I don't know what I'm saying," she whispered hurriedly ; 
 " I don't know how to say it. Oh, father, dear, darling 
 father, the sin ! — the sin ! Oh, father, God is merciful — 
 
DOROTHEA. 165 
 
 isn't He good to us ? He has saved us this morning from 
 a terrible death ! Perhaps this is the last hour we have to 
 live. Father dear, you are a brave man and I am a 
 coward. But oh, father, darling father ! He is willing to 
 be merciful to all of us and help us to do right." 
 
 He tore her up towards him, to his breast. " God bless 
 you and bless you ! " he said and held her tight. 
 
 On the following day, late at night, after a journey of 
 many delays, Dorothea entered the little sitting-room at 
 the Hotel Victoria in Paris. The two aunts came forward 
 to meet her. Uncle Tony hung back. 
 
 " Come to the tea-table," said aunt Mary, when all had 
 calmed down. The hotel cat lay purring by the wood-fire. 
 " He is better than nothing," said aunt Mary, " but it is 
 difficult to attach any personal interest to a hotel cat." 
 Yet she took the beast up and hid her face in its fur. 
 
 " By the time we return," remarked Emma with a tragic^ 
 air, " our own will most probably all be dead of neglect." 
 
 " What, all eleven ? " cried Tony, slapping his knee. 
 
 Aunt Mary produced her small face from behind the 
 hotel-cat and smiled. *' I bribed — I can trust Caspar," she 
 said, " to look after them better than we — than I should. 
 Suzie has had seven kittens, Dorothea, since you left." 
 
 " And what do you think the old creatures have done ? " 
 shouted Tony. " They've had little apertures made in the 
 sitting-room doors, just the size for the cats to crawl in and 
 out, with little green curtains to keep off the draught. Pish ! " 
 
 " But, Tony " 
 
 " Bosh ! " snorted Tony. 
 
 " No, really, I should have done it before," expostulated 
 Mary humbly, " only I feared Dorothea would think that 
 she hadn't been kind about opening the doors. My 
 rheumatics are making me so lazy : I dread having to 
 get up from my chair." 
 
 " Rheumatism — rubbish," interrupted Emma. " You 
 needn't have rheumatism, if only you'd take Pipperdonia. 
 And now, Dorothea, pray tell us his name ! " 
 
 " Whose name ? Whose ? " Dorothea looked from one 
 to the other. 
 
 "Don't be silly. You telegraphed you were going to 
 marry. It's absurd : you're too young, but who is it ? " 
 
 " Why, that was Rebecca ! " cried Dorothea, laughing 
 and blushing. 
 
i66 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Bless my soul, how very dreadful ! " exclaimed uncle 
 Tony, spilling a great splash of hot tea on aunt Mary's 
 dress. 
 
 "But it's broken off. Nothing could persuade her to 
 stay after the earthquake. Not even her cook ! ** 
 
 " Well, I'm glad to have her back," gasped uncle Tony, 
 " and the man, whoever he is, may thank Providence for 
 having got up that earthquake ! " 
 
 Dorothea looked from one to the other. "But I — I'm 
 afraid I am going to marry, dears," she stammered, blush- 
 ing. " At least, I have been asked to do so, and " 
 
 " More have been asked than have accepted," cut in aunt 
 Mary, like a knife. " Every woman has always a right to 
 say ' no ' — Heaven be praised ! " 
 
 " ' Heaven be praised,' indeed ! " retorted uncle Tony. 
 
 " Hush ! Hush ! " interposed the gentle voice of aunt 
 Mary. " Dorothea — tell us, darling — is it Egon von Roden ? " 
 
 " Why, aunt Mary, how did you guess ? " 
 
 " Guess, indeed : it's a shot ! "• cried Emma. " She's no 
 earthly reason for saying it." 
 
 Dorothea took aunt Mary's fragile fingers in her own and 
 kissed them. 
 
 " I only hope he is worthy of you," said aunt Mary. 
 
 " He would find it a difhcult task to be that," cried Tony, 
 very hot and flurried. 
 
 "But all women cannot remain old maids on that 
 account," said Emma, complacently nodding her head ; " in 
 fact, but few women deserve to be old maids." 
 
 " An ambiguous sentence," remarked Tony, grinning in 
 her face. 
 
 " Not to persons of sense, dear Antony. Now, Dorothea, 
 tell us frankly : do you really want to marry this lad ?" 
 
 " I believe he is good and honest, and I — I think he is 
 very nice indeed," whispered Dorothea. 
 
 " God grant that he make you happy, my dearest ! " 
 sighed Mary, and her far-away look settled wistfully on the 
 indifferent hotel cat, who lay purring by the hearth. 
 
 Uncle Tony struck his fist on the tea-table, causing the 
 cups to jump up with a great rattle of spoons. He was 
 discovered to be in a state of suppressed indignation : he 
 looked more than ever like a distant cousin of Louis XVI. 
 
 " A German ! " he gasped, in the clash of the tea-things. 
 
 " What did you say ? " queried Mary. 
 
 " I — I asked for another cup of tea," answered uncle 
 
DOROTHEA. 167 
 
 Tony quickly. " Oh, he'll make Dorothea happy," he 
 added with freshly rising wrath. " Any fool can take in 
 any woman, never fear ! " 
 
 " Indeed, is that your opinion ? ** cried Emma, catching 
 fire. " I should have said : Can a man make a woman 
 happy? He is only a man, only a poor, weak, human 
 man." 
 
 Dorothea laughed. " Rira bien qui rira le dernier," 
 retorted her aunt Emma. A heavier shadow than anyone 
 there had dreamed of sank black behind the lightly spoken 
 words, and spread across the sudden silence of the hearth. 
 Only the hotel cat purred on steadily, for the still, dull 
 glow of the ashes was pleasant, and the wanderers of life's 
 grim comedy are but passing shades to a hotel cat. Nor 
 has she ever been told — God bless her easy purring! — that 
 there's nowhere a flame soars brightly, but somebody pays 
 the bill. 
 
 ]KND OF PART I. 
 
( x68 ) 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Dorothea had come alone to Paris with her two atten- 
 dant maids. No doctor would undertake the responsibility 
 of moving General von Roden so far north at this early 
 season of the year. Ultimately, therefore, Lugano was 
 selected as the most advisable intermediate station, and 
 thither the whole family departed as soon as it became 
 feasible to push along the railroad to Genoa. 
 
 A couple of days must however elapse, before the journey 
 seemed practicable. During that period the city, in its 
 hideous confusion, remained a place to avoid. The popula- 
 tion camped out in the streets, amidst all signs of wide- 
 spread distress : the wealthier lived in tents, under awnings, 
 in landaus, scattered across the public gardens, along the 
 esplanade. The poor bundled together anyhow, with their 
 bedding and numerous progeny. The children played. 
 And terrible human creatures that had suddenly arisen 
 into the sunlight, none knew whence, prowled amongst the 
 more isolated ruins, snarling for prey. 
 
 On the night after that of Dorothea's departure the 
 rather disconcerted Colonel invited Egon von Roden to 
 dine with him at a restaurant. " I dare say they can give 
 us some sort of a dinner," he said. 
 
 " I don't care what I eat," answered Egon. 
 
 Colonel Sandring glanced at his companion and smiled. 
 " To me," he said, " that looks the extreme of greediness. 
 Only youth can be as greedy as that. Shall we turn down 
 the Rue Maccarani ? " His smile softened down into a 
 sigh. " I remember," he continued, " when I was quite a 
 little boy, I used to kiss my nurse-maid, oh, devotedly ! I 
 feel sure that she was very plain. Ah well ! I used to 
 
DOROTHEA. 169 
 
 eat large quantities of a beastly stuff called toffy. Are you 
 acquainted with toffy, von Roden ? " 
 
 ^' No." 
 
 " Tis a pity," said the Colonel, with the faintest touch 
 of persiflage ; " you are so young, you might still like it. 
 Nothing on earth tastes so delicious as the sweet another 
 man has just told you he can no longer digest." 
 
 Egon dimly realised that Colonel Sandring was drawing 
 comparisons between their love-affairs, with inward laughter, 
 and perhaps some faint regret. So he hastily changed the 
 subject, back to the inevitable earthquake. " He lacks 
 originality," thought the Colonel ; but aloud that careless 
 observer of his brethren only said : " I shall stay ; we are 
 all staying on at Monte Carlo. The rooms were never so 
 cool, nor the tables so pleasantly empty. And lately I 
 have won a — " he checked himself — " a pot of money." 
 
 " So much the better," answered Egon heartily ; " winning 
 must be so much pleasanter than losing. And, besides, one 
 rejoices to hear of every louis that is snatched from the 
 princely blackguards who own the place ! " 
 
 " How very young these young Germans are ! ** thought 
 the Colonel, mildly interested in this new amusement of 
 studying your son-in-law. " I once knew an old lady," he 
 remarked, " who possessed half a dozen shares in the Bank 
 at Monte Carlo: she never staked more than her surplus 
 dividends. She said it felt like losing to yourself and 
 winning from your neighbours." 
 
 " Were you ever in an earthquake before ? " answered 
 Egon. 
 
 The Colonel sighed more heavily, but, " executing " him- 
 self with the easy good grace which was his by nature, he 
 consented to discourse of earthquakes only, of variously 
 experienced upheavals in the shakiest comers of the globe. 
 
 " Don't you care what sort of liquor you drink either ? " 
 he mildly inquired, as they took their places at a little 
 table. 
 
 " Yes, I like my wine to be good." 
 
 " Bravo. I suppose you are aware that poor dear 
 Dorothea is a teetotaller ? " 
 
 Egon frowned. " I was not," he answered shortly. Sand- 
 ring adjusted his eye-glass with a slight assumption of 
 inspecting his fresh-faced young vis-d-vis. " Well, of course, 
 you hardly know her," he declared. " That's right. No- 
 thing astonishes me so much as the manifest rule of Nature, 
 
I70 DOROTHEA. 
 
 that the happiest marriages are made from couples who 
 knew each other least before they joined. Try this ketchup. 
 Adam and Eve are a case in point." 
 
 " Were they specially happy ? " 
 
 "So devoted that Adam ruined himself, rather than 
 decline the dessert Eve had got for him. Adam detested 
 apples." 
 
 " How do you infer that ? " inquired Egon with sudden 
 interest. 
 
 " Every grown-up man does. The few exceptions are 
 influenced by boyish recollections of orchards and escapades. 
 Adam could not have had those." 
 
 " So you think he ruined himself, rather than be rude to 
 his wife ? " 
 
 "Pardon me, rather than be rude to a woman, to the 
 woman he loved — well, we have gone on doing that ever 
 since. Has it occurred to you, Roden, that the first husband 
 on this earth assumed a virtue, though he had it not — 
 couldn't have it — I allude to conjugal fidelity? It would 
 have been of absorbing interest to know what the first couple 
 of us all would have done — but that chance is lost for 
 ever." 
 
 Egon laughed, yet with annoyance. "I hear subscrip- 
 tions are coming in very freely," he said. " Baron Maurice 
 Rialto " 
 
 " Let us talk of gentlemen," interrupted the Colonel 
 quickly ; " the mention of a Rialto at dinner sours the 
 wine. Surely, as a German noble you agree with me 
 there ? You Germans have not yet learnt to eat gold-dirt, 
 and call it " — he put on a Jewish accent — " manna." 
 
 " Oh, of course I loathe money," answered Egon lightly. 
 The Colonel's smile now became a grin ; he consented to 
 talk of the earthquake till the two men had settled down 
 over their coffee, on a balcony, by the crash, in the dark, 
 across shingle, of the ever-sounding sea. 
 
 " You ought to be very grateful to me, you lucky young 
 dog," said the Colonel. "That is good cognac, but it 
 isn't — as the label says — '65." 
 
 The young man sat watching the glow of his big cigar 
 and reflecting upon his happiness. 
 
 " After all, it is to me you owe the pleasure of Dorothea's 
 acquaintance. I should never have introduced her to you, 
 had I had an idea you were going to take her away from 
 me." Sandring paused, reflecting on possibilities. 
 
DOROTHEA. 171 
 
 " She is a dear girl," he said heartily. " By George, you 
 are a lucky dog." 
 
 " I am glad she is out of all danger," answered Egon. 
 " The earthquake " 
 
 " And, however a man may loathe money, it remains a 
 desirable thing." 
 
 " When I said that I loathed money," began Egan uncom- 
 fortably, " I didn't mean the possession of it as such — 
 please don't think me a fool. I meant what you had just 
 been alluding to — money as a social status, as a caste, the 
 all- pardonable crime — la haute finance, the Rialtos, South 
 Africa ! The Commerzienrath ! You English are directer 
 — you have not got the Commerzienrath — as soon as a 
 man has made a couple of millions, you recognise in him 
 your master, and immediately you call him * my lord.* " 
 
 " You are quite right, my dear Roden : still, I congratulate 
 you on a future both well-born and wealthy," said the 
 Colonel coolly, for he deemed the young man's remarks in 
 bad taste. 
 
 Egon dropped the cigar from his lips and caught it with 
 an exclamation of distress. " I'm so sorry," he cried ; " I 
 thought you knew. I'm a poor man. We shall hardly be 
 able to marry just yet." 
 
 Colonel Sandring was no longer of the age that is 
 astonished. He was only of the age that is annoyed. 
 " Do you mean to say," he asked in a queer voice, " that 
 you are unaware of my daughter's fortune ? " 
 
 ** I know — little of your private affairs," replied Egon, 
 who did not believe in " the system." 
 
 " My private affairs are uninteresting, even to me. But 
 my daughter's concern her future husband even more " — a 
 faint sigh — " than her father." 
 
 *' Of hers I know nothing at all." 
 
 " Do you mean to say " — the Colonel turned full on his 
 son-in-law in spe — " that I am the first to inform you of 
 Dorothea's position as an heiress with a great landed property 
 in Holland and five thousand a year of her own ? " 
 
 Egon von Roden sat quite still, staring into the blackness 
 of the slow-thundering sea. 
 
 " In Holland ? " he said at last. 
 
 "Yes : her mother was a Dutchwoman. Really, nothing 
 seems more amazing to the philosopher than the way in 
 which we all, men and women, marry we don't know 
 whom and we don't know what. I suppose love is a 
 
172 DOROTHEA. 
 
 providential dispensation. We are all more or less in the 
 position of the bridegroom who had to be brought to the 
 altar drunk. We shouldn't venture sober, certainly the 
 v^^omen wouldn't, poor things ! My wife was a Baroness 
 van Brodryck: Dorothea is a lady of the manor in her 
 mother's right." 
 
 " A Baroness van Brodryck," echoed Egon ; " I believe I 
 have heard the name." There rang in his voice such 
 unmistakable satisfaction, that Sandring burst out laughing. 
 
 " You care more about that than about the fortune," he 
 said. " How German you are, Roden ! Thank your stars 
 that I'm not a pig-headed insular Colonel Smjrthel 
 Look here, I like you, somehow, for not knowing about 
 the money. So you thought you were marrying the child 
 of a poor adventurer, who gambles at Monte Carlo ? 
 D ! so you are." 
 
 "A man always likes to think his wife's mother was 
 a gentlewoman," answered Egon stiffly. " Dorothea does 
 not care to speak of her dead parent. Well, it is time I 
 was going back to the Villa ; my uncle has exchanged 
 Monte Carlo for Cimiez." 
 
 " Stay a minute ! " Sandring laid his hand on the other's 
 sleeve. " There is something I especially wished to speak 
 about. You are going off to Lugano — Dorothea had made 
 an arrangement with me — she is a — how shall I say? — 
 pecuniary partner in the great undertaking which absorbs 
 all my energies at this moment — perhaps you might write 
 to her, now that you know" of all this money — I do not 
 wish to press any obligations you may have incurred 
 towards me — but, really — well, this is a most important 
 turning-point in my career — Dorothea must lend me 
 another thousand pounds, and I shall never be in need of 
 money again." The Colonel gasped. 
 
 "I can't write to Dorothea about money," answered 
 Egon, in the shadow of a pillar, against the wall. 
 
 " Well, no, hardly, unless it were to commend to her a 
 share in my success. But — I don't like to use the word 
 * obligation ' : let us say service — if you owe me any service, 
 after all, as Dorothea's accepted husband, you can do these 
 things for her. Your credit is nearly as good as hers : 
 Levysohn will see that. I wish you would do me the 
 slight favour of putting your name to a bill — a loan, of 
 course — to-morrow morning, and then there need be no 
 more talk of any debt from you to me." He tried to look 
 
DOROTHEA. 
 
 ?73 
 
 into the German's face, a little anxiously, for he was 
 beginning to fight shy, in his good nature, of this young 
 man's considerate silences. He could appreciate — he knew 
 the feeling — all dislike of causing pain. 
 
 " You put me in a terrible position," said Egon at last. " I 
 should be only too pleased to do anything you might wish — " 
 
 " That's right." 
 
 " But — don't you see ? — the money I should eventually 
 have to meet such a bill with, would be Dorothea's." 
 
 " There is no danger of that," replied the Colonel coolly, 
 flinging a match over the balustrade ; " I shall make a 
 fortune, I tell you, in a week or two.** 
 
 Egon did not answer. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 *' I'm so sorry ! " burst out the young man. " I wish you 
 would have let me go in silence ! I — you compel me to 
 speak. Colonel Sandring. I do not believe in success at 
 the tables, and I think such success were a crime." 
 
 Colonel Sandring rose at once. "You take a load off 
 my heart," he said. " I had grave doubts whether any man 
 could be good enough for Dorothea. You have reassured 
 me. You are good enough — quite good enough — even for 
 her." He walked to the other end of the balcony, and 
 called for a waiter. " The bill ! " he said. Then he came 
 back and held out his hand. " Good-night and good-bye, 
 I hope Lugano will suit the General. The funicular 
 railway will amuse you. And there will always be the 
 earthquake for you to talk about. It is an interesting 
 experience, an earthquake, like marriage. Nothing upsets 
 one's preconceived ideas of stability so much. But you are 
 a good young man ; your head is screwed straight on your 
 shoulders. I am heartily glad you are going to marry 
 Dorothea. Good-bye ! " 
 
 " Colonel Sandring, I have offended you ; you are laugh- 
 ing at me," answered Egon. " I wish you could see how 
 much, in my heart — if you will permit me to say so — I like 
 you, how anxious I am to gain your good will. I am a 
 young fellow, and I don't pretend to be particularly clever, 
 but I love Dorothea. I'm not worthy of her ; you must 
 help me to — to make her as happy as we can." 
 
 Sandring squeezed the hand of his future son-in-law. 
 Tears stood in the gallant Colonel's eyes. Presently he 
 turned to the approaching waiter. " You should give 
 better cognac than that at the price," he said. 
 
( 174 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A COUPLE of days after the Rodens, Dorothea arrived at 
 Lugano with her two aunts and uncle Tony. Mademoiselle 
 Aurelie was in attendance, Rebecca having resolutely re- 
 fused to take another step southwards — "to the earth- 
 quake," she called it. The aunts had advocated the 
 immediate dismissal of Mademoiselle Bompard, but uncle 
 Tony had deprecated this step : he felt as if the careful, 
 smart little maid might form a protection for Dorothea in 
 the great world to which her fate now tended. And the 
 girl herself bowed unwilling obedience to her father's 
 parting warning : '' Keep that maid ; you will find that you 
 need her." " Dorothea," the Colonel had recently written 
 — she found his letter at the Poste Restante of Lugano — 
 " I believe you are going to marry a very good man. But, 
 my dear, trust an old philosopher, who has seen men and 
 cities : do not love him for his goodness, as I dare say you 
 are apt to do. It doesn't answer : no human man's 
 character can bear the strain. Love him for himself, as 
 he is, with his faults. And find them out, the sooner the 
 better. Before marriage, if possible. Every other love 
 comes a crash." 
 
 " No, I love him for his goodness," said Dorothea, looking 
 out upon the solemn sweetness of the Swiss-Italian lake. 
 She was sitting on a little height in the climbing hotel 
 garden, under a particoloured glory of Washington camel- 
 lias in full bloom. All around her spread, as a blood- 
 marble pavement, the white and crimson ruins of equal 
 splendours overhead. In the calm evening sunshine she sat 
 thoughtful, watching the great shadows sloping across the 
 granite of the farther shore. Peace lay about her, after the 
 storm of the preceding weeks — the peace of the old sur- 
 roundings in heart and tranquil life-scene. Very different 
 from the drunken blaze of the Riviera. 
 
 Upon her pure face sank reflected the simple calm of 
 lake and sky. At least, to it seemed to Egon Roden, 
 coming up the path with uncertain step. 
 
DOROTHEA. 175 
 
 " You ought not to tire your foot," she said anxiously. 
 
 He bit his lips, that she should recall his infirmity. He 
 hated it ; spite of all his bravery, he hated it, since his 
 engagement, with quite a new hate. 
 
 " I had no right to ask you to marry me," he said 
 abruptly, standing beside her. 
 
 " You have no right to say that," she answered quickly, 
 "having asked me. Never any right to say that." Her 
 cheek flushed. A great crimson blossom, white-seamed, 
 fell heavily, from above, upon her knees. She held it out 
 to him, laughing. " Thus," she said, " am I fallen, a dead 
 weight, into your lap." 
 
 He took the flower and kissed it, kissed the finger-tips 
 which held it, imprisoning them in his own. " Dorothea," 
 he said very earnestly, " I want you to believe that I had 
 not the slightest idea you were rich." 
 
 " Does it matter ? " she answered, with a touch of scorn. 
 
 " I think it does. I have troubled about it, very greatly." 
 
 She looked up at him with eyes whose expression he 
 could not fathom, half laughing, half sad. " I find it so 
 difiicult to understand all this talk about money. Of 
 course I know it is very important. But at Brodryck there 
 was always enough and never too much. It was not — how 
 shall I shall say ? — a subject of conversation. Uncle Tony 
 use to tease me about ' business,' but that was different. 
 Egon, I hope you like dear old uncle Tony." 
 
 " Very much indeed," said Egon, who had barely seen 
 the old gentleman as yet. 
 
 " And aunt Emma — you will like aunt Emma. She is a 
 pearl set in a — set in a " 
 
 " Closed oyster," continued Egon readily, for aunt Emma 
 had received him with a snap. "Yes, I feel sure I shall 
 like aunt Emma." 
 
 "I do not ask you to like aunt Mary : you could not 
 help yourself." She rose. "I promised to go up the 
 Salvatore with uncle Tony. He said he wanted a talk 
 with me." She faintly shrugged her shoulders. " Business, 
 1 suppose." His face clouded over at the words. " My 
 father may possibly be mistaken," she said soothingly ; " I 
 don't think anyone except uncle Tony really knows anything 
 about my affairs." 
 
 " The whole thing is idiotic," he replied bitterly, kicking 
 a dead camellia across the path. " People would laugh at 
 me if I said I wanted you to be poor. I laugh at myself. 
 
176 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Yet, I know how it will be. These relations of yours will 
 say I have asked you for your money — I have practised 
 on your innocence, your inexperience. I know the preju- 
 dice there is, besides, about poor Germans proposing to 
 Dutch heiresses. I could have faced these simple aunts 
 ajid that canny old gentleman much more happily a day 
 or two ago, Dorothea. Do you know what Miss Emma 
 said to me at the station? — 'You have possessed yourself 
 of a treasure, monsieur,' she said, * a treasure in every 
 sense.' " 
 
 Dorothea bit her tongue, perhaps wishing it was aunt 
 Emma's. " Well ? " she said, bravely seeking his gaze. 
 " Well ? You are not flattering to me, mein Herr Egon ? " 
 
 " So be it. If she, and your father, and everybody, see in 
 you only the treasure that I seized at on the night of the 
 earthquake, I shall be well content. But the world is too 
 coarse for that. I have seen a man buy a Bible for sixpence, 
 and say it was too much." 
 
 She stood still by the hotel door. " I love you for your 
 goodness," she said, with words that sounded to her like 
 an echo, " for your goodness. Uncle Tony is waiting in 
 the hall." 
 
 " It is not that," he cried passionately. " Only, Dorothea, 
 Dorothea : we know each other so little : we met in yonder 
 disgusting atmosphere of Monte Carlo ! I want you to 
 believe always, once for all, that I loved you, whatever 
 other people may tell you, for yourself, for yourself alone ! " 
 
 " I am vain enough to believe it," she answered gravely. 
 
 "Thank you. I shall never, now, do you the insult of 
 alluding to the subject again." He stood looking at her 
 for a moment, calmly, but a great tenderness swelled across 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Uncle Tony, I am sure I am in time," said Dorothea. 
 
 " My dear, it is quite possible. You are bound to be in 
 some time, Swiss, French, or Italian. There isn't any 
 particular time to be in, in this part of the world. I prefer 
 the church clock at Brodryck." 
 
 " Which is always wrong." 
 
 "Well, yes, but there is method in its wrongness, the 
 wrongness of all village clocks. Ten minutes too fast on 
 Sundays, and ten minutes too slow all the rest of the week. 
 There, at least, I know what to go by. Well, Dorothea, I 
 hope you continue to like your German, Sprechen Sie 
 Deutsch ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 177 
 
 "You are all against him," said Dorothea piteously. 
 They were hurrying along the quay : tlie steel-blue water 
 quivered beside them. The truth of the remark struck 
 unwilling uncle Tony so forcibly, that he protested with 
 all the vehemence at his command. All nationalities on 
 earth, of course, without a single exception, cordially detest 
 one another. Only the travelled classes — the travelled of 
 the mind — ^can endure each other's virtues and faults. 
 Uncle Tony had never travelled beyond himself. He dis- 
 liked Germans, whose language he could not speak, and 
 whom he conceived to be fortune-hunters all. He was 
 furious with] the result of his poor little plan for showing 
 Dorothea a bit of the world outside Brodryck : he was 
 disgusted at the girl, for thus abjectly tumbling into the 
 very first trap that had been cast across her path. " Doro- 
 thea must please herself," said aunt Mary a little sadly. 
 Her niece had told her all the tale of Pini, all except the 
 Colonel's gambling habits and his shame. " I have con- 
 stantly had your last words in my thoughts," said Dorothea, 
 " the words you spoke to me in the upper room at Brodryck, 
 aunt Mary. God put them on your lips before I left." The 
 old lady lifted her hands to heaven. "Ah, my dear, we 
 never make other people's mistakes," she sighed ; " we 
 only make our own." " Quos perjury vult Deus, previous 
 dementicat ! " declared aunt Emma. That was all the 
 Latin she could speak, but she could frequently speak it. 
 Such is the world that the quotation often comes pat : it 
 has the advantage of rendering the Almighty Love respon- 
 sible for all our folly and all our misfortunes. Aunt Emma 
 had been watching the lovers under a palm-tree : she 
 closed the window with a bang. 
 
 When Dorothea had been up the funicular railway 
 with uncle Tony and admired the view from Monte Salva- 
 tore, and criticised the approaching sunset and the weather 
 chances for the morrow, and had furthermore endured, 
 though she did not share it, the home-staying old gentle- 
 man's extreme nervousness about the descent in the cars, , 
 she could stand the strain no longer. As they were rapidly 
 slipping downwards and uncle Tony's red face hung 
 craning over the clear abyss below, she suddenly burst out : 
 "You all do him the greatest injustice! If I am rich, he 
 is sorry enough for it. Only the other moment he was 
 telling me, how he wished that I was poor ! " 
 
 Uncle Tony extracted an agitated countenance from the 
 
lyS DOROTHEA. 
 
 iron network through which he had been unnecessarily 
 squeezing it. " Really, only fools want to travel and see 
 things," he answered. " Ah, my dear, did your German 
 actually say that ? " 
 
 " I wish you would not call him my German," objected 
 Dorothea pettishly. 
 
 " My dear, I heartily wish he was somebody else's. Well, 
 well, we must make the best of a bad business. And to 
 think that there are so many young men in Holland ! " 
 Uncle Tony again strove to gaze right away down into 
 horrible depths. He chuckled to himself, however, as he 
 sat blinking distractedly. " Well, well," he mumbled ; 
 " well, well, so he actually told her that he wished she was 
 poor." He was very excitable all through dinner : the 
 aunts stared at each other, in dismay. The ascent, he 
 declared, had upset his equilibrium. People oughtn't to 
 travel. Old people, especially, were better at home. 
 
 " If you mean that for me," remarked Emma, " I may 
 tell you that I am thoroughly enjoying my trip. I like 
 this hotel. It is full of newly-married couples. I watch 
 them. 1 have observed two tiffs already, and one make-up." 
 
 " I am going for a smoke with von Roden," replied Tony. 
 " Dorothea looks tired. Dorothea, you had better get to 
 bed." He carried Egon off with him to a restaurant by the 
 water-side, where a second-rate music-hall performance was 
 frequently given of nights. 
 
 " I appreciate this sort of thing ! " confessed the old 
 gentleman, when he had listened to, and heartily applauded, 
 a couple of ultra-sentimental ditties. " I am not blase, you 
 see, like you young men that have been everywhere. I 
 don't get this sort of entertainment at Brodryck, and I 
 haven't been abroad since I was forty ! " He laughed 
 heartily, the next moment, over a comic performer, whose 
 humour consisted in blowing a baby's nose. He was redder 
 in the face than ever, purple, as he stamped his feet and 
 choked ; and, the liqueurs being finished, he demanded beer. 
 Egon von Roden, who was quite happy over the music-hall 
 • programme and the old gentleman's delight in it, began to 
 feel vaguely alarmed. Was uncle Tony always so nervous, 
 so exceedingly excited ? Did he always knock his stick on 
 the table and applaud with such excessive intensity? — 
 above all, was it a habit of his to sit chuckling, and staring 
 at his companion and drinking beer ? "I am enjoying 
 myself, I am thoroughly enjoying myself," said uncle Tony, 
 
DOROTHEA. 179 
 
 very loud. A couple of girls at a neighbouring table looked 
 round and giggled. " I feel quite young again to-night," 
 cried Tony ; *' my dear von Roden, have another glass of 
 beer ! When I was at the university, young men weren't 
 afraid of a bottle or two — of anything. This beer is a 
 great deal stronger than what I drink at home." He 
 got even more excited as the entertainment progressed. 
 " Bravo ! " he cried, as he watched some athletes, balancing 
 hundredweights. " Now comes the tug of war ! " And he 
 blinked, with that curious stare of his, at Egon. 
 
 " Is the light trying to your eyes ? Shall we sit farther 
 back, in the shade, on the terrace ? " suggested Egon, pleased 
 with his own diplomacy. 
 
 " The very thing I was going to propose ! " exclaimed 
 the exuberant old gentleman. They moved to a seat, out- 
 side the half-open glass screen, against some big plants, in 
 the dark. On their way thither uncle Tony told a waiter 
 to bring champagne. " Don't be alarmed," he said, as they 
 settled down in their secluded comer ; " nobody will note 
 us here, and after that heavy beer, a glass of something 
 lighter will do us all the good in the world before we turn 
 in for the night." Egon could not object ; he felt sure of 
 his own unwilling powers, but he doubted the old man's. 
 
 "You are a very lucky fellow!" said uncle Tony 
 abruptly. Egon Roden frowned : of course he was a lucky 
 fellow. He wondered whether he was going to be con- 
 gratulated again, as by Colonel Sandring, upon Dorothea's 
 wealth. 
 
 The words of an English song came shrilling out to 
 them : 
 
 "And this is what I s-y-y, 
 I know the time of d-y-y. 
 You needn't come a-courtin' me, 
 Unless you're goin' to p-y-yl" 
 
 " A lucky fellow, indeed ! " cried uncle Tony, his whole 
 face twitching, his knees trembling, his manner stranger 
 than ever. " Dorothea's the most charming creature that 
 ever walked God's earth ! " 
 
 Suddenly Egon felt as if he could have embraced uncle 
 Tony." 
 
 " You think so, surely ! " persisted Tony testily. 
 
 *' Why, of course — don't I love her ? " answered Egon, 
 surprised. 
 
 "You'd think so under all circumstances!" continued 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o DOROTHEA. 
 
 Tony, wagging his head, and pouring out the champagne. 
 He drank off quite a bumper at a gulp. 
 
 "There's only one pity," he said very loud: then his 
 voice died away to a squeaky whisper : " She hasn't got as 
 much money as people think — as people think." 
 
 " So you needn't come a-courtin' me, unless you're goin* 
 to p — ^y — ^y ! " Torrents of applause, in which uncle Tony 
 joined. 
 
 " In fact " Uncle Tony clutched at Egon's arm and 
 
 poured the words into his ear : " Losses — you understand — 
 mortgages — ^bad debts — agricultural depression — unfortunate 
 investments ! What are we ? " Uncle Tony put both hands 
 on the German's shoulders and gazed into his eyes. "I 
 mean financially speaking ! Here to-day : gone to-morrow 
 — phew ! " Uncle Tony blew a breath into emptiness, and 
 refilled Egon's glass. 
 
 " So she is quite poor," said Egon. 
 
 " She is certainly what a man like you would call * poor.* 
 Never mind, love is a lovely thing, young sir. If I had 
 ever loved, which I haven't, I shouldn't have minded if my 
 love had money or hadn't, I should not have reverted to 
 the subject at all ! It would not have occurred to me ! " 
 cried uncle Tony. 
 
 Egon von Roden sat very still. Like most truly proud 
 men — but pride is so rare a quality ! — he was shy, and could 
 not now say what he wanted to. 
 
 " It is chilly here," exclaimed uncle Tony with all the 
 briskness of sudden discovery. Having uttered his message, 
 delivered himself of the load on his heart, he took no 
 further note of the champagne-bottle, but rose to his feet 
 with a gentle obliquity of motion, and declared his intention 
 to return. 
 
 " Stay and enjoy yourself," he said. " The singing is 
 excellent. How funny that fellow is with his flapping 
 hands ? Good-night." 
 
 " Let me walk to the hotel with you ! I don't care for 
 the singing." 
 
 " No thank you," replied uncle Tony stiffly, and marched 
 off to his bed and chortled himself asleep. 
 
 When he woke up in the morning, after heavy dreams, he 
 sat up and smiled to his Bourbon face in the glass. The 
 face was not as bright as usual, a little yellow about the 
 eyes. He reflected that he had managed a ticklish business 
 most excellently well : he put out his tongue and shook his 
 
DOROTHEA. i8i 
 
 head. "I had to work up my courage," he said to his 
 reproachful image. " In fact, I was in the very devil of a 
 funk." Then he lay back, dizzy, on his pillows and dozed 
 till a knock at the door introduced, not the waiter with 
 breakfast, but Egon von Roden. 
 
 " They said you were not well, so I came up to inquire," 
 remarked Egon. 
 
 "Pooh, I'm well enough," was the not very gracious 
 reply. "This foreign cuisine disagrees with me." 
 
 "Dorothea and I are going out, this afternoon, on the 
 lake." 
 
 " Humph ! Well, Herr von Roden ? " 
 " Is there anything I can do for you ? ** 
 " As fond of Dorothea as ever ? " 
 " Fonder." 
 
 Uncle Tony sat up. " Do you mean to say you are glad 
 she is poor ? " 
 
 " If you put it like that, no. I'm not glad she is poor, 
 but, somehow, I was sorry she was rich." 
 
 " But that doesn't make sense ! " cried uncle Tony. 
 " I suppose not : however, that's all the sense I can make 
 out of it. And I'd much rather discuss my dear future 
 wife than her prospects — uncle Tony." 
 
 " You're not bound to marry her yet," said uncle Tony 
 sulkily. "Slip through the Gothard by the ten o'clock 
 express. I'll manage the rest." 
 
 Egon's face turned white. " What, in Heaven's name, do 
 you mean ? " he cried. " Dorothea has never told you to 
 speak those words. I am sure that she — likes me, though I 
 don't deserve it. What, in God's name, do you mean ? " 
 
 Uncle Tony sat staring intently at the young man beside 
 him. " I'm an ass," he said suddenly. " I needn't have 
 given myself a headache. I suppose people learn to blunder 
 at Brodryck. Look here, I — how shall I put it ? " — ^he 
 fumbled at the bed-clothes — " I told you last night that 
 Dorothea had lost some money. Well, so she has. She's 
 lost a couple of hundred pounds that I invested in Loui- 
 sianas ; and she's lost another hundred on the lease of one 
 of the farms. That's all I've ever lost in these twenty 
 years — not another penny. I don't mind about the lease, 
 you see ; but the thought of the Louisianas is what people 
 call a nail in my coffin. However," he added cheerily, " a 
 coffin wants a lot of nails." 
 
 " I don't understand," said Egon earnestly. " I don't want 
 
i82 DOROTHEA. 
 
 to know, uncle Tony, but I should like to understand. Why 
 do you talk of these matters to me ? You said last night 
 that Dorothea was poor ! " 
 
 " Well, so she is poor — certainly what your uncle would 
 call so. She has but a paltry five thousand a year ! " 
 Uncle Tony lay back, smiling. He abhorred the prospect 
 of Dorothea's disappearance into foreign countries, but he 
 could not, for the life of him, help liking this young man 
 he had roundly abused in his soul. In his rustic blending 
 of ingenuity and ingenuousness he thought things had 
 almost come right. 
 
 " I don't understand. I don't understand at all," said 
 Egon. 
 
 " Never mind : you needn't. I'm glad to find you don't. 
 Let us say no more about it." 
 
 Egon had turned to look out of window, on the smiling 
 landscape. He now suddenly faced round. 
 
 " You thought I had asked Dorothea, for the sake of her 
 money. You wanted to find out." 
 
 Uncle Tony lay back, laughing. " Well, my dear boy, if 
 so, the fault was yours. Why did you tell Dorothea you 
 were sorry to hear of her wealth ? " 
 
 " You thought I lied. You thought I was one of those 
 Riviera adventurers." Egon Roden came towards the bed- 
 stead, his face set, his hands tight-clenched along his hips. 
 " Great God, I should never have thought it possible that 
 
 one man could so hurt another ! I — I " He fled 
 
 from the room, and out into the open air. 
 
 Aunt Emma was sitting sunning herself near the hotel 
 entrance. " Look ! " she said. " Hist ! Do you see that 
 young couple there ? They are compatriots of yours. They 
 had made it up yesterday, but they have just quarrelled 
 dreadfully about a fresh subject — walks ! Hush ! Listen 
 for a minute : you will hear them ! " 
 
 And, indeed, the man's voice came across to them from a 
 garden-seat, in loud accents. "It is absolutely necessary 
 for my constitution. My doctor insists upon a proper 
 amount of exercise ! " 
 
 " Yours is an improper amount ! " rang the answer. " I 
 refuse to be fagged to death, on my honeymoon ! Go, then, 
 walk with the red-haired Mees you admired on the boat ! '* 
 
 " Now I," said aunt Emma, folding her hands, " when I 
 wish to repose myself, I repose myself. Antony, when he 
 desires to march after rabbits, he marches. Go away, 
 
DOROTHEA. 183 
 
 Herr von Roden ; you disturb them. They guess that you 
 understand." 
 
 Egon was most willing to comply: he wanted a talk 
 with the Generalin, and went in search of her at her 
 pension, a sheltered villa, between slopes. 
 
 The sitting-room was empty : he passed through it into 
 his mother's bed-room ; that also was deserted, but a 
 couple of letters for him, just come by post, lay on the 
 table. He broke them open : doubtless, she had laid them 
 aside, intending to take them down to him. 
 
 Meanwhile the little Generalin ushered aunt Mary into 
 the sitting-room. Aunt Mary was dressed in her very best 
 silk, and her face was paler than ever. 
 
 " Yes, I am anxious to speak with you," said aunt Mary, 
 " very, very anxious, indeed." 
 
 " Do not sit in the draught," replied the Generalin. 
 
 Aunt Mary, for answer, got up and closed the window — 
 shut out the brightness and the hundred humming noises of 
 the garden — as if inadvertently, she ilung forward the 
 curtain, and the little hotel room became very dark and 
 still. 
 
 " Dorothea has no mother," said aunt Mary. 
 
 " I trust that she will find one in me," replied Frau von 
 Roden. 
 
 Aunt Mary gulped down a swift impulse of resentment. 
 " Thank you." 
 
 The quick sympathies of the little Generalin understood. 
 "She has never, I should think, felt the loss of one," said 
 the Generalin. " I owe you and your sister the treasure you 
 are willing to share with my boy." She extended her 
 hand : aunt Mary took it, held it, dropped it. " You make 
 my task somewhat easier," said aunt Mary, shuddering. " It 
 is a very dreadful task. I do not know how to begin." 
 
 Frau von Roden waited. 
 
 "A treasure, as you say. My only earthly treasure." 
 Aunt Mary sank back, as far as she could, into the shade. 
 " Her only guardian, as you say, am I. With more than 
 a mother's responsibility. Colonel Sandring, in these 
 matters, counts for nothing. Do not let me wrong him : 
 no man would. The — the sacredness of a woman's life 
 can only be safe-guarded by women." 
 
 When the silence was becoming painful, the Generalin 
 said : " Quite true." The words seem to rouse all the 
 protest in aunt Mary. 
 
i84 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Too true ! " she cried. " And how many women — that 
 should be watchers — lie asleep at the gates of the temple ! 
 Madam, I have a right to ask you — I ! — is your son worthy 
 of this virgin heart that he has stolen ? Surely, you will 
 answer me, oh surely ! — * Do you come here to insult my 
 son ? ' Nay, God knows such thought is far from me. I 
 come with fear and trembling, and horror of myself and of 
 you ! And what, after all, avails me your answer ? " She 
 shrank away, as if she would hide in the solid wall behind 
 her. " What does a mother know of the life of her son ? *' 
 
 Egon having finished his letters, and the Bonner 
 Zeitung, and hearing voices, tried to go out by the bed- 
 room door : but the Generalin had a habit of locking 
 hotel doors. He paused, irresolute. 
 
 " Listen," continued aunt Mary quickly. " I had a friend, 
 as a girl, whom I loved very dearly. She married, young, 
 a man she by no means disliked. Her father made the 
 match : she gave her hand and her heart, as girls will, 
 pleased. I am sure the man loved her — like a man : that 
 is to say, he wanted to marry her. Within a year of their 
 marriage, complications became known to her — there was a 
 child : it has died since. The shock came to her under 
 peculiar circumstances : she was ailing : she died in giving 
 birth to her baby." 
 
 The Generalin looked up : she knew that this baby was 
 Dorothea. " Mothers," she spoke gravely, " as you say, 
 know too little of the lives of their sons. But of this my 
 eldest I know the heart. I would lay my own daughter's 
 happiness in it and be glad." 
 
 But aunt Mary hid her white face in her trembling hands. 
 " You are a mother," she stammered. " Life would be im- 
 possible to us women, if God had not blessed mothers with 
 blindness. I have seen women, many women, mothers of 
 grown sons, and their hearts were guileless as the doves — 
 nay, silly, as the chickens ! It is wrong for a woman, 
 you say, to know. Nay, madam, it is wrong for her to 
 ignore ! " 
 
 She rose, suddenly, and cast down her hands : the 
 tempered sunlight flushed her cheeks. " Think of me as 
 you will," she cried. " What care I ? My child's future is 
 at stake ! I, then, I venture to know. I venture to know, 
 and to share, vigilance work, rescue work, work against 
 infamous legislation ! It is the natural work, as it seems, 
 for us, the unloved old maids, the disappointed, with no 
 
DOROTHEA. 185 
 
 men to protect us, or impede ! It is we, then, in our loneli- 
 ness, who must help each other, wise as serpents, against 
 you, the guileless of our race ! I will know " — she stamped 
 her foot — " whether my dear child's future — ay, her bodily 
 health — is safe in the hands of this chance man she has 
 picked up in the street ! " 
 
 The Generalin, white to the lips, stood in the middle of 
 the floor. 
 
 " I would gladly give my life for the child," said aunt 
 Mary, with the calm of desperation, "and shall I not 
 sacrifice what doubtless you would call my modesty ? My 
 modesty, forsooth ! I am old : I have seen little of the 
 world, but enough. I do not demand of a young man the 
 purity of a maiden. But I demand, for my Dorothea, 
 that this man shall not hurt her, when he folds her to his 
 breast ! " 
 
 The door opened, between the two rooms, and Egon 
 stood in it. 
 
 The Generalin ran forward. " Egon ! '* she cried, 
 " Egon ! " She threw her arms round her son's neck, and 
 rested her small head against his stalwart shoulder. The 
 whole room lay quiet. " Thank God, thou canst answer," 
 she said. 
 
 The young man folded one arm around her waist, and 
 turned gently to aunt Mary. " I have only heard your last 
 words," he said. " These I can answer. For I can give you 
 even more than you demand." 
 
 Aunt Mary sank back upon a couch and began crying 
 piteously. 
 
 For a moment Egon stood gazing from one woman to 
 the other, desirous to say something, afraid lest a word 
 should give pain. Then he softly disengaged himself, as 
 aunt Mary's weak sobs rose persistent, stepped forward, 
 timidly kissed the poor hand that lay abandoned on the 
 black silk gown, and stole from the room. 
 
 The Generalin remained, as he had left her, lost in 
 silence and perplexity. Gradually she approached the 
 couch on which the old lady lay weeping, and seated her- 
 self there, and waited. But all the flush of boldness had 
 died away from aunt Mary's heart : she was deeply troubled, 
 yet whether for sadness or gladness she could not have told. 
 There was shame upon her, all a good woman's shame for 
 a world that lieth in wickedness. She dared not to uplift 
 her eyes to look upon the other's face. 
 
i86 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The Generalin, after much hesitation, bent and kissed the 
 old lady, but not as Egon had done. Kissed her gently on 
 the brow. " Blessed are the pure in heart," she said firmly, 
 "for they shall see God" — then she also stole from the 
 room. 
 
 In her own bedchamber she took up an unfinished letter 
 to her second son, Konrad. Her lips shook. She laid it 
 down again and sat looking out of the window, for a long 
 time, away into the pale blue sky. " It was Egon," she 
 murmured. " Supposing it had been Konrad ! Ah, Made- 
 moiselle Mary, a mother knows many things that no one 
 ever told her ! " 
 
 It was here that Egon still found her, after the luncheon- 
 bell had gone. 
 
 " My father is worse," he began quickly. " You have 
 noticed it : I have noticed it — why, then, should we hide it 
 from one another ? " 
 
 "I thought you had not remarked anything," answered 
 the Generalin. " Perhaps it is only the change. I do not 
 think Gertrude has perceived it." 
 
 " But, mother, you and I — we have no secrets from one 
 another." 
 
 '' Egon, then let us have none. He wants you — perhaps it is 
 only a sick man's fancy — he wants you, oh, so much ! to be 
 married before he — before he " 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, don't put it like that ! " exclaimed 
 Egon. " He's not as bad as that, mother." 
 
 " Perhaps not. But you know, Egon, it is very impor- 
 tant, under the circumstances, that you should marry 
 immediately ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know," he answered, irritably. " Perhaps it 
 is all the better. I am beginning to think that, if I stay 
 on much longer with uncle Tony, I shall never be married 
 at all." 
 
 " You do not like him ? " asked the Generalin, with her 
 hand on the door-knob. 
 
 " No, I cannot say I like him. But then, I am not going 
 to marry him. Come, mother dearest, my father will be 
 waiting lunch." 
 
 That afternoon, in the boat, Egon, resting on his oars, 
 exclaimed suddenly to Dorothea : " For one minute we 
 must talk business, please." 
 
 " You begin like uncle Tony," laughed the girl. 
 
 " But mine is, to me at least, very sweet business, very 
 
DOROTHEA. 187 
 
 sweet and very sad. Dorothea, my father is failing fast. 
 And — he is very anxious for us to marry, whilst we still 
 have him with us." 
 
 Immediately Dorothea was all sympathy. She thought 
 the nearest relations were over-anxious. The General 
 seemed so bright and cheerful — but Egon put her pretty 
 comfortings aside. 
 
 " We — we cannot be married so very soon ? ** she 
 stammered. 
 
 "I told you there was business connected with the 
 matter," continued Egon, and resumed rowing very fast. 
 " It is disgustingly stupid, and tragi-comic, like life. 
 Dorothea, you know that my uncle, the present bearer of 
 the title, and owner of all the estates, is unmarried. 
 Doubtless your father has told you all about our entail ? " 
 
 " No," replied Dorothea, " only that you had a curious 
 family agreement, that lots must be cast between sons to 
 see who should succeed." 
 
 " Yes, that is our * Hausgesetz,' as we Germans call it. Had 
 my father, the only brother, survived — but that does not look 
 likely, alas ! — he would of course have become Count 
 Roden-Rheyna. Otherwise, lots must be cast between all 
 who next follow in the same degree of relationship — my 
 two brothers, for instance, and myself." 
 
 " Yes, I understand — it is very strange," said Dorothea. 
 
 " It is not a unique case : there is a good deal to be 
 said for the idea of allowing God to choose directly 
 between all equal brothers — or cousins. That, of course, is 
 the old feudal idea, the God's Choice. But, see, there is 
 one other, not unjust, prevision. The married brothers 
 exclude the unmarried." 
 
 " I understand, then, by marrying you become the heir." 
 
 " As long as Konrad remains unmarried, yes. And, to 
 prevent unseemly machinations no candidate may marry 
 within a year after he has come into the direct degree 
 of succession. There, that's enough of business. You 
 understand ? " 
 
 " Neither you, then, nor your brother, could marry within 
 a year after your father's death ? " 
 
 "Just so." 
 
 She dabbled her hands in the water, full of solemn 
 thoughts. 
 
 " But — but if you were to marry now and — and lose him 
 — you would be the only heir ? " 
 
i88 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Yes, dearest, yes — as I said, until Konrad marries, which 
 I hope my father will live to see him do." 
 
 " I like to understand things clearly. I must tell aunt 
 Mary ! " 
 
 " By all means tell aunt Mary. And uncle Tony too ! " 
 
 " Egon, you promised me to like imcle Tony ! " 
 
 "All right, dearest darling ; * Barkis is willing.* '* 
 
 " Why Barcas ? He was the father of Hannibal : I don't 
 know the story." 
 
 " It's out of Dickens. Your education has been classical, 
 Dolly. I thought everybody everywhere had read * David 
 Copperfield.' " 
 
 " Aunt Mary didn't like me to read many novels," said 
 Dorothea humbly. 
 
 " I dare say she was right. Just look at that bit of shabby 
 brown town on the mountain, the one with the ruined 
 castle above ! Doesn't it look, now the sun has got behind 
 it, as if it were embossed, on a platter, in bronze. Like a 
 bit of Benvenuto Cellini, by Jove ! " 
 
 Dorothea, freshly cognisant of pitfalls, allowed Benvenuto 
 Cellini to sink back, untouched, into the abyss of the 
 unknown. 
 
( i89 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A FEW weeks later, as soon as the necessary formalities 
 could be complied with, Dorothea Sandring was married 
 to Egon Roden in the little German chapel at Lugano. 
 Everybody interested in the event was present. Excepting, 
 of course, the humble friends at Brodryck and at Rheyna, 
 some of whom perhaps cared more about the matter than 
 a couple of important relations who figured, gold-laced, in 
 the wedding procession. 
 
 " Nothing in this world ever happens as it ought to," 
 declared aunt Emma crossly. How often had she and her 
 sister not imagined Dorothea's marriage festivities at 
 Brodryck ! " And now,*' declared aunt Emma, " they must 
 just sit down and marry her anyv\^here, in the middle of the 
 road." " God forgive me," said aunt Emma, " but I can 
 make head nor tail of these divine confusions. I like 
 straight lines." 
 
 " God works in arabesques," replied aunt Mary. 
 
 Aunt Emma gave a little grunt. " Well, my dear, you 
 know more about Him than I," she said humbly. She 
 devoted herself, with much fussiness, to endless intricacies 
 of trousseau and toilet — for aunt Emma was great upon 
 dress. At home, in Brodryck, everybody — the parson's 
 wife, the doctor's wife — always consulted her. She studied 
 the illustrated catalogues which the big French emporia of 
 everything periodically pour across the world. But she 
 never ordered an article from these shops, because the 
 people were presumably Papists. 
 
 In the busiest days of preparation, she suddenly realised 
 the immense use, the undoubted authority, of Mademoiselle 
 Aurelie Bompard. Mademoiselle Aurelie, unasked, stepped 
 one morning into aimt Emma's chaos of fashion-books, 
 selected and arranged before aunt Emma's hot cheeks and 
 astonished eyes, threw a lot of cheap generalities into the 
 waste paper basket, soothed the old lady with bits of 
 
igo DOROTHFA. 
 
 autobiographical precedent, and finally presented a well- 
 ordered list of names and needs. 
 
 " But these addresses," said aunt Emma, with the paper 
 spread before her, " are mostly, I fear, those of Catholic 
 tradesmen. It is against our Protestant principles " 
 
 " Mademoiselle is mistaken," said Aurelie demurely. " I 
 am a Catholic, but I also have a weakness for principles ! 
 I have carefully chosen Huguenots. Not that it is difficult : 
 all the best shops in Paris are in the hands of Huguenots 
 and Jews." 
 
 " Indeed, I am heartily glad to hear it," said aunt 
 Emma. 
 
 " Mademoiselle does not object, I understand, to Jews ? " 
 demanded the maid, with a touch of satire about the eyes. 
 
 " N — n — ^no," responded aunt Emma, and began quickly 
 perusing the list. 
 
 " * Au petit St. Josephe ! ' " she read, and stopped. 
 
 " That is the old sign," declared Aurelie with volubility 
 " — it is a very ancient house — before the new religion." 
 
 " The reformation ! " corrected aunt Emma severely. 
 " ' Les Dames du St. Calvaire ' — eh ? — distressed gentle- 
 women, good." 
 
 " It is a Protestant convent," explained Aurelie, from 
 sheer ignorance. 
 
 "What? There is no such thing," cried aunt Emma 
 indignantly. 
 
 At this moment Dorothea entered the room, and Aurelie 
 very nearly gave herself up for lost. " Which address does 
 Mademoiselle point to ? " she said readily ; " Les Montagnes 
 russes? — yes, they are Protestants, or, rather, Russians — 
 the Russian religion, you know. I- once lived with a Russian 
 princess : she was not a Roman Catholic. She had gilded 
 saints in the comers of her rooms and drank vodki." 
 
 " This ! " said aunt Emma, slapping the " Dames du 
 Calvaire." *' This ! " 
 
 " Ah, yes, that is Catholic," replied Aurelie innocently. 
 " It is the only exception. For why ? You can get no 
 Protestant lace." 
 
 " True," interposed Dorothea ; " with us also the Catholic 
 provinces are those which produce it." 
 
 " It is like the Romish superstition itself, all odds and 
 ends and patchwork ! " cried aunt Emma. 
 
 "Blended in a beautiful design," exclaimed the indignant 
 Aurelie, who was devote. 
 
DOROTHEA. igi 
 
 " Peace ! if I only had time, what with all this trousseau 
 business, I should convert you ! It is a great pity you 
 don't understand Dutch, Aurelie : you could greatly have 
 benefited from intercourse with Rebecca. For a person in 
 her station of life," continued Emma to Dorothea in 
 Dutch, " Rebecca has a very satisfactory amount of 
 religion. You cannot expect such persons to rise beyond 
 the rudiments. Vinet and Monod are caviare to the crowd 
 of Rebeccas." 
 
 " I must get to comprehend their gibberish," reflected the 
 Frenchwoman. Aloud she said : " I have learnt always to 
 understand the languages I lived amongst, with the 
 exception of Russian and Chinese." 
 
 " Chinese ? " cried both ladies. 
 
 " I lived a year with the ' Marquise ' Ping, at the Embassy. 
 Poor creature, her husband detested her, because her feet 
 were a millimetre longer than those of his sister-in-law." 
 
 " In Christian countries they ought to forbid those feet ! " 
 cried aunt Emma. 
 
 *' What would you have. Mademoiselle ? They could no 
 longer order them to grow." 
 
 " Well, I suppose we must have the lace," said aunt 
 Emma quickly. " What ? you have already the patterns ? 
 
 Oh, look, Dorothea, this is truly exquisite "and soon 
 
 aunt and niece were engrossed in these flimsy delights. 
 Aurelie shrugged her shapely shoulders behind aunt Emma's 
 back. " Is Mademoiselle aware," she suggested, " that 
 Monsieur le Comte de Roden-Rheyna is arrived this 
 morning ? " The accents lingered with condescending 
 appreciation over the name of the bridegroom's uncle. 
 These countryfolks from savage lands — petite noblesse de 
 campagne — were almost beneath the maid's notice — but 
 Count Roden-Rheyna appeared a personage of sufficient 
 importance even to her supercilious approval. His mother, 
 the bridegroom's grandmother, had been a Princess 
 Stolzenau-Gutelande — Altesse S^r^nissime ! 
 
 Certainly, Dorothea was aware that " the Head " had 
 arrived an hour ago. Everybody had realised the fact. 
 The Lord of Rheyna himself seemed fully conscious of it, as 
 he lay stretched on a carmine velvet sofa, in the apart- 
 ment reserved for him at the Hotel du Pare. 
 
 " Ouf I " he said to Egon, who stood before him " on 
 duty.** "Would you mind pulling off my boot — the left — 
 unless you prefer calling my man ? Yes, it is the gout 
 
192 DOROTHEA. 
 
 again. Very annoying. My doctor says I must choose 
 between gruel and the gout. Slops every day, or the gout 
 twice a year. 'Will the gout kill me ? * 1 asked him. 
 * No,' says he. Well, the slops would." 
 
 " So you have not yet dismissed Cordillon ? " queried Egon. 
 
 " No, indeed. Cordillon is a master of little savoury 
 dishes, mint, parsley, all that sort of thing — bouquet. 
 What said Solomon ? Better a dinner of herbs than a 
 stalled ox — didn't he ? He was quite right. No one, at his 
 age or mine, could digest beef au naturel." 
 
 *' It was very good of you to come," said Egon. 
 
 "There you are right. It certainly was. But, my dear 
 boy, I have done worse things, because I had to." 
 
 The nephew grinned. 
 
 " Of course it was a great nuisance having to travel 
 back all the way from Berlin. But the journey to Berlin 
 was inevitable, practically a royal command. Hand me 
 that pocket-handkerchief ! Thank you. Did you see my 
 speech in the Herrenhaus ? " 
 
 " Most certainly : I read it aloud to my father." 
 
 Count Roden-Rheyna made a face. 
 
 " The amiability of my relatives exceeds anything I had 
 a right to expect. Well, I proved to these people that the 
 agrarian interest must be protected within limits. Within 
 limits : that was the point of my speech. It appears to 
 have been very successful. His Majesty was pleased to 
 confer upon it the highest commendation he has ever been 
 known to bestow." 
 
 " What did he say ? " demanded Egon, with a Prussian's 
 eager devotion to his king. 
 
 *' He said that he could hardly have put the matter more 
 clearly himself. Ring for something to drink, I am worn 
 out. Well, Egon, when I am gone — to Abraham's bosom, 
 I mean — ^you will have to make agrarian speeches. Mark 
 my words : times are changing : you will have to make 
 them the other way round. That'll be just as easy, and 
 quite as correct ! " He yawned. " Pull down the blind ! " 
 he said. " Thanks." 
 
 " It is by no means sure that the duty will devolve upon 
 me," replied Egon uncomfortably. He always winced at 
 his uncle's frequent allusions to the succession. 
 
 To his disconcertment, that old gentleman sat up 
 suddenly on the sofa, first stared him out of countenance, 
 and then laughed till arrested by a cough. 
 
DOROTHEA. 193 
 
 " Egon, you are a deep one," gurgled the Count. " Do you 
 know, I should never have looked for this sort of cunning 
 in you : I thought you were simple, like your father. 
 Accept my congratulations ! All the same, I am a little 
 disappointed in you. I admit that it is utterly irrational, 
 but the very sneaky sympathy that made me feel at home 
 with Konrad — I rather regret, somehow, to find it in you. 
 I appreciate intrigue, but 1 thought you were different." 
 
 " I am quite unfit for intrigue," answered Egon. " I 
 should make a mess of the simplest manoeuvre " 
 
 " You take me for a blockhead," retorted Count Roden 
 angrily. " Do you deem me to be blind ? The first duty 
 of a clever schemer, Egon, is to presume that people guess his 
 schemes. And do you really imagine that I do not under- 
 stand why, as soon as your father falls ailing, you find 
 it convenient to marry ? " He laughed again, rather 
 bitterly. 
 
 " Konrad does not understand either," he added. " Of 
 course not. Oh, no." 
 
 Egon stood staring, too astonished to speak. 
 
 "Look here," said his uncle, facing towards him. "You 
 have a perfect right to act as you are doing. It is even 
 very sensible of you to select a wife with a fortune, as you 
 are able to secure one. I had always fancied, somehow, 
 that you would behave like an idiot, and marry for love. 
 Love only, I mean. Well, you are a far discreeter young 
 man that I took you for. So much the better. Only don't 
 talk rubbish about butter not melting in your mouth. 
 You insult me by thinking me the simpleton I took you 
 for." He struck his hand impatiently on a side table, and 
 his face twitched, as he moved his foot. 
 
 " Your accident has brought you luck, as I always said it 
 would. Being a civilian, you are able to marry when you 
 like. Poor Konrad has not such licence. I must say I 
 think you have stolen a march upon him." 
 
 "You must let me say, that I imagined I was proposing 
 to a poor girl, who — whose position was unfortunate, and 
 whom I loved. That I thought of nothing else. You will 
 hardly doubt my word, uncle Karl, though you will find it 
 difficult, I fear, to remember my explanation. I cannot 
 help it. And nothing can rob me of Dorothea." Egon 
 spoke with white calmness, checking the tremble in his 
 tones. 
 
 Count Roden curiously eyed his nephew. 
 
194 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " The naivete of yesterday," he said slowly, " tastes like 
 tinned lobster. I have a choice, now, between a — will you 
 permit me to say, between an ass and a fox ? Thank 
 you. I now prefer the fox? You play your cards well, 
 Egon, but you are absurd about hiding your hand. I am 
 frank. I tell you honestly, I shall give Konrad the earliest 
 opportunity of marrying. I think that is only common 
 fairness. I have written to him, that he may count upon 
 me for the necessary funds. He must have a fair chance. 
 And I do not intend to die for a long time. Besides, 
 it is advisable that he should marry. He is too fond of 
 love-making. He is not able to distinguish between a 
 flirtation and an entanglement. That is the most fearful 
 defect I can imagine in a man ! " He looked so frightened 
 that Egon shuddered too. 
 
 " I could understand your estimate of my conduct," said 
 the young man boldly, " if the state of your health were 
 as bad as — as " 
 
 "My poor brother's? Well, it isn't. By no means. 
 There you put your finger on the weak point in your whole 
 scheme, Egon. You have thought it out well, my son. 
 But Konrad will have plenty of time to marry, before you 
 two brethren are called upon to draw lots over my grave." 
 He made a grimace. "Still, if I were to fall from my 
 horse, as my poor father did, you, Egon, within a few 
 months' time, would inevitably be Count Roden-Rheyna." 
 
 "Well, I am the eldest!" cried Egon with a flash of 
 temper. 
 
 " Since when has that mattered ? " demanded Count 
 Roden haughtily. " My father, as you know very well, 
 was the younger son. Understand me, Egon, I deem it 
 quite natural of you to leap into wedlock on the eve of 
 your father's demise — only, only, somehow, I did not think 
 that sort of computation would have entered into your head." 
 
 " It has not entered into my head," replied Egon, and he 
 departed without the customary formal dismissal. 
 
 His uncle immediately called him back. " Your vehem- 
 ence has not convinced me, my dear boy," said Count 
 Roden. " Vehemence never convinces educated men." 
 
 " I cannot hope to convince you," answered Egon in the 
 doorway. " Is there anything else I can do for you, uncle Karl ? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly. Pull up the blind, please. Thank you. 
 Remember this, Egon, for your future speeches, political 
 and otherwise. To convince one of the common people, 
 
DOROTHEA. 
 
 195 
 
 you must shout your lies at him : to convince an educated 
 man, you must smile them. As for trying to convince any- 
 one of a truth " It vi^as his turn to smile. 
 
 " Well ? " said Egon. 
 
 " I don't know. I have never heard it done.'* 
 
 " My God ! " cried Egon, and flung forward his lame 
 foot, as if he were kicking something on the carpet. 
 
 " Is that the earldom of Rheyna ? " asked his uncle, 
 gazing, much amused, at the floor, in the direction of the 
 invisible something. "You will tell me next, that you 
 would prefer to remain plain Herr von Roden." 
 
 " No, I do not say that. Surely it is a painful subject, 
 uncle Karl. I do not envy anybody. I am very happy, in 
 spite of " 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " My father's illness, and a lot of bothers," answered 
 Egon stoutly. 
 
 " I understand that you do not envy we," said Count 
 Roden, and cast a look at his own white hair in the glass. 
 
 " There is one thing of yours I shall ask for some day, 
 all the same." 
 
 " D , some day you will ask for all ! " 
 
 " I shall ask for your groom, Hans Stormer, for a servant, 
 I promised him to do so as soon as I settled down." 
 
 *'You can have him at once. You know that his wife is 
 dead?" 
 
 " Dead ! " 
 
 " Egon, what a fool you are ! No, really, I beg your 
 pardon. But your tone and your look are ridiculous ! She 
 died a week ago, suddenly, after seven months of marriage. 
 I remember your telling me he said he hated women — but, 
 by Jove, it appears he loved her." 
 
 " Poor Hans ! " said Egon. 
 
 " You can have him at once. Telegraph for him. I am 
 very sorry for him also. I am sorry for every man who 
 loves a woman more for herself than for him." 
 
 " He would hardly want to be present at a wedding ! " 
 
 " Perhaps not. He need not be present." Count Roden 
 yawned. " How changeful the sun is in these parts. ; 
 Would you very much mind once more pulling down the 
 blind ? Thanks. I shall lunch with you all. Meanwhile, ' 
 present my respects to your bride." 
 
 Egon found her amongst the laces, from which he extracted 
 her, despite aunt Emma's appeals. 
 
 03 
 
196 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Egon, what has happened ? " 
 
 " Hans's wife is dead ! " 
 
 She walked beside him in the hotel garden. " I am very 
 sorry," she said. 
 
 " How can you be sorry ? You don't know him. Oh, 
 Dorothea, his wife is dead ! " They sat down by a little 
 fountain. Presently, to divert his thoughts, she began to 
 speak of their preparations for the wedding. 
 
 But at that moment she hurt him, all unconsciously — 
 illogically, for had. he not denied her claim to share his 
 sorrow ? He answered abstractedly : his thoughts were 
 with the man yonder, in the empty cottage, broken-hearted. 
 His sullen look was fixed upon the little plashing fountain. 
 So the water goes on falling, falling ever, the monotonous 
 flow of human tears before the face of God. 
 
 " Shall we walk back ? " suggested Dorothea at length. 
 Doubtless, he had had some trouble with the terrible uncle, 
 whose advent she dreaded. She was unable to fathom his 
 affection for this servant, who had hardly been mentioned 
 between them, the friend and companion of a youth she had 
 not shared. Lovers, after all, are but yesterday acquaint- 
 ances, that have nothing in common but a future which 
 never comes true. 
 
 " I wanted to show you this," said Dorothea. She had 
 brought a small case from her room into the little salon : 
 
 " My father sent it from Milan," she added. " He writes 
 that he will come over for the day." She lifted the white 
 chamois -leather lid of the case, and a magnificent diamond 
 bracelet lay revealed in the sunlight. 
 
 They looked at each other. "It represents a small 
 fortune," said Egon. 
 
 " He writes so kindly ! He regrets that it isn't a necklace, 
 he says." 
 
 Again they looked at each other. Little as they knew of 
 their hearts — still less of their minds — they had never yet, in 
 their brief engagement, more fully understood each other's 
 thoughts. Each was considering, with vexation, that this 
 jewel had been gained at the tables. Each was yearning 
 to put it away, and never touch it again. 
 
 " It is very good of your father," said Egon at last. "You 
 must write and thank him, in my name also, for sending 
 you so splendid a present." 
 
 I A grateful flush rose slightly about her temples. She 
 closed down the lid with a snap, and stood looking out at 
 
DOROTHEA. 197 
 
 the mountains. "When you and I are married" — she 
 said. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " We shall be very happy." 
 
 He laughed. " Are you quite sure of that ? " he asked 
 tenderly. 
 
 " Quite sure. I trust in your goodness. I know that, in 
 all things, you will always be absolutely noble and upright 
 and good." 
 
 He pressed her to his side. " Dearest, you are sweet and 
 dear beyond words," he said, " but " 
 
 "What, Egon?" 
 
 "That is hardly fair." Before either could utter 
 another word, aunt Emma had entered the room, 
 
 " My young husband has not yet come in from his walk ! " 
 she cried triumphantly, " and his young wife is crying out 
 her eyes in the garden. The idiot ! " 
 
 " Poor thing ! " said Egon and Dorothea, both at once. 
 
 " Poor thing, indeed ! " mimicked aunt Emma. " Promise 
 me, Dorothea, that you will never cry over anything Egon 
 may do ! " 
 
 " Except die ! " exclaimed Egon. 
 
 Dorothea shuddered from head to foot. 
 
 "You might be original," grunted aunt Emma. "That 
 was stolen from Louis Quatorze." 
 
 " A good husband," laughed Egon. 
 
 Dorothea turned quickly. " For Heaven's sake let us talk 
 of something else," she said. 
 
 On the very morning of the wedding, as Dorothea stood 
 waiting in her bridal garments. Colonel Sandring made his 
 appearance. His frock-coat was perfect ; his gardenia with- 
 out a spot. He had not been alone with his daughter 
 since the morning of the earthquake, and reminiscences of 
 that morning arose in the minds of both. 
 
 " I arrived at six o'clock, by the night train," said the 
 Colonel calmly. "Yes, I am in admirable health, Dolly, 
 but I did not feel quite equal to sentimental Ute-a-Utes 
 with those dear ladies, your aunts. Or to a business 
 tete-d-tete with uncle Tony." 
 
 She showed him his bracelet upon her arm. 
 
 "I wish it had been a necklace," said the Colonel 
 promptly. He would have said that, if awakened out of 
 sleep. 
 
198 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " But I have another present for you," he added. 
 
 Dorothea tried not to look alarmed. 
 
 " Which perhaps you will like still better." 
 
 Dorothea tried harder. 
 
 " To-morrow I marry, at Milan, the lady you know as 
 Madame de Barvielle." 
 
 Dorothea was silent. 
 
 " The Baroness Blanche de Barvielle de Fleuryse," 
 continued the Colonel boldly. " Madame de Fleuryse." 
 
 "Well? I thought you would come and pat my head 
 and say * Good boy ! ' " cried the Colonel. Could a flutter 
 disturb the breast that had never known fear ? 
 
 " I am very glad," said Dorothea slowly. 
 
 "You hardly look it." 
 
 "Yes, I am very glad," said Dorothea, and the slow 
 words came gradually faster, as they do when we are 
 eagerly convincing ourselves while we speak. " It is 
 right. It is good. I am glad, father. I should like to 
 congratulate Madame de Fleuryse." 
 
 " Congratulate me first," laughed the Colonel. " Perhaps 
 that had better suffice. The lady will be in church, in 
 a dark comer where no one will observe her; she was 
 anxious to see you made happy for ever." The Colonel 
 sighed. 
 
 " Father," said Dorothea, blushing crimson, " we have 
 spoken of money sometimes. I come of age to-day by my 
 marriage. Perhaps we could make some arrangement, if 
 you were in need of money ? " 
 
 "You dear girl!" The Colonel ran forward with 
 out-stretched arms, but checked himself in front of this 
 cloud of gauze and lace. " I have plenty of money just 
 now," he said, " but you are the dearest girl in all the 
 world." 
 
 " I thought, perhaps, if you preferred a larger fixed 
 income " continued Dorothea timidly. " Isn't a thou- 
 sand a year very little for married people ? I am sure Egon 
 would be glad " 
 
 " Stop ! " interrupted Sandring, haughtily. " Let us 
 speak the plain truth, Dolly. I cannot accept charity, 
 though I should have once liked a loan, from your 
 husband. Besides, it would be useless. You must leave 
 me to my roving instincts, dear. I couldn't settle down in 
 a suburban villa — say Tooting or Denmark Hill ! You 
 don't understand — but I understand you perfectly. It's no 
 
DOROTHEA. 199 
 
 use, dear. I must have my changes of scene, and my 
 amusements. I must gamble " 
 
 Such a look of horror came into Dorothea's eyes ! 
 
 " gambol about the fields, like a naughty, elderly 
 
 kid," continued the Colonel adroitly. " You can't make a 
 purring, milk-and-water cat out of a frisky young goat." 
 
 The entrance of the bridegroom prevented further reply. 
 " What ! Not in uniform ? Not even your decorations ! " 
 cried the astonished German. 
 
 " Pooh ! No. I dislike all that sort of thing." ^ 
 
 " Still, with these military relations of ours, it might 
 have been advisable," said Egon reflectively. "A uniform 
 always looks well," — and his glance sank down his own 
 black sleeve. 
 
 " My luggage is at the station ; I'll bedizen myself, if 
 you like," suggested the good-natured Colonel. " I can do 
 it, I suppose, if I look sharp." 
 
 " Stay one minute ! " interposed Dorothea. " Egon, my 
 father — I am sure you will be very glad to hear it — has 
 just announced to me his marriage with Madame de 
 Barvielle de Fleuryse ! " 
 
 Egon endeavoured to look more gratification than he 
 found it quite possible to express. 
 
 " Madame is here. She will be present in church. 
 Father, I hope" — with a sudden burst of fervour — "we 
 shall hold a reception in the vestry. You must bring her 
 there to congratulate me." 
 
 " No, no, that is not necessary," began the Colonel 
 hurriedly. Egon stood aside, a slight frown between his 
 eyes. But the Colonel did not look in his direction. 
 
 " Father, I want you very especially to do it. Don't 
 you see, it will get over a lot of bother for you at once ! " 
 iDorothea eagerly pressed the point. She was not to be 
 outdone in generosity. Present for present upon these 
 wedding days ! 
 
 "She believes he is marrying chiefly for her sake," 
 reflected Egon. "And she doesn't really understand 
 anything about Blanche de Fleuryse, excepting that she 
 thinks the couple have delayed — most improperly — the 
 date of the ceremony ! " 
 
 " Nobody ever says ' no ' to a bride," persisted Dorothea. 
 
 The Colonel smiled awkwardly. 
 
 She turned to Egon. " Certainly not the bridegroom ! " 
 she exclaimed. " Come, Egon, help me to convince him ! " 
 
200 DOROTHEA. 
 
 What could the bridegroom do? "Yes, yes," he said. 
 " Do as Dorothea advises, Colonel ! ** 
 
 So it came about that this great thing happened in the 
 vestry, amongst all the flowers and the uniforms, the light 
 dresses, the laughter and the tears. Dorothea was 
 standing with her husband in the place of honour ; the 
 troubled aunts were near her ; she was speaking with 
 Egon's magnificent, stupid cousin, the Duke of Stolzenau- 
 Gutelande, who stammers, as everyone knows, and cannot 
 find his words — a brilliant assemblage was gathered 
 around them, small, of course, but just the people one 
 would expect to find here. 
 
 Then Colonel Sandring, who had disappeared for a 
 moment, came forward. He wore a handsome military 
 uniform ; his breast was constellated with orders. And 
 the Baroness Blanche de Fleuryse, in cream-coloured 
 velvet, rested her finger-tips on the curve of his sleeve. 
 
 " Ah, how do you do, Baroness ? ** exclaimed Dorothea. 
 " Duke, this is Madame de Fleuryse, who is about to marry 
 my father ? " 
 
 The words fell like a bomb in a circle of statues. 
 Nobody spoke. Yet the statues, one felt, were living 
 statues, all eyes and ears, in the sudden hush. 
 
 " Very hap — pap — pappy," said the calf-faced Duke. 
 
 Madame de Fleuryse, as usual, was mistress of the 
 situation in which she found herself. " I see your Highness 
 does not remember me," she spake ; " we have met in Paris 
 at the house of my cousin, the Count di Casa Profonda ! '* 
 
 " The Cow — cow — cut — cut — cut — ," said the Duke. 
 
 Dorothea looked around her, nervous but triumphant. 
 Her success, however painful, was pleasing. Let righteous- 
 ness flow forth as an unending stream ! 
 
 Aunt Emma was heard, at this moment, to gasp. It 
 was not a kindly gasp. 
 
 But Count Roden-Rheyna pushed forward. Whatever 
 his faults might be, he possessed to the full their com- 
 plimentary virtues. He could not endure awkwardness 
 anywhere, nor could he bear — begad ! — to see a fine 
 woman in distress. 
 
 ^ " Baroness," he said, with a big, big B, and the clang of 
 his voice rose brazen, " How is Count di Casa Profonda ? 
 I was with my cousin Stolzenau at the time." 
 
 Emma always maintains that he said " Who is," but 
 
DOROTHEA. 201 
 
 that is a little piece of feminine ill-nature, incompatible, 
 besides, with the French language. 
 
 " Quite well, I believe," answered the Baroness grate- 
 fully. " Now, Dorothea," — the bridegroom's teeth clashed 
 — " I must go. We shall not soon meet again. From the 
 bottom of my heart I wish you all happiness.'* 
 
 Dorothea bent forward her pure face, in her white, and 
 her orange blossoms, and all the sweet splendour of 
 sacrifice. " Kiss me/' she said. 
 
( 2oa ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It has been said that the love which survives a 
 honeymoon is eternal. 
 
 Like most utterances of human wisdom, this axiom can be 
 proved either true or false, according as the significance 
 varies, which we ascribe to the terms it contains. Truth, in 
 fact, like honesty and all the virtues, is a matter of defini-- 
 tions, just as philosophy is a framework of terms misplaced. 
 Anybody can pull out one of the timbers at the bottom, 
 but it crumbles to pieces as he gazes at it in his hands. 
 Anybody can maintain the exact opposite of what anybody 
 else has just contended, and probably both are right. For 
 both mean the same thing. 
 
 Thus, for instance, when Justus von Roden died at 
 Lugano — but that is not yet — the parson came and said he 
 was alive. Count Roden-Rheyna agreed with the parson, 
 nodding his head and stroking his own warm hands, as he 
 softly said, " True." And the little Generahn also agreed 
 with the parson, casting herself down, in silent agony, by 
 the earthly remains of what had made earth seem heaven. 
 
 Thus, equally, when married people begin to quarrel, 
 they call each other " My love." And thus when we 
 reiterate that love is eternal, none of us know what 
 " eternal " is, and we all mean something different by " love." 
 With most couples the silver is electro-plate, warranted 
 to wear, and when it succumbs to early rubbing, they take 
 up the dull lead and contentedly finish their repast. Very 
 few — tiresome — people complain, and then there is a 
 vulgar shindy. The cautious remember their children. 
 The sensible do not want " love." The sensitive want too 
 much. Few get what they desire, especially if they take it. 
 The happy never realise any need at all. And some few 
 favoured ones, while all the talk is going on, the running 
 to and fro, the screaming, the laughter and the tumbles — in 
 one word the Blind Man's Buff with Cupid — sit silent in 
 comers, look deep into each other's eyes, and understand. 
 
DOROTHEA. 203 
 
 But, then, with such as these the game is over. The 
 blind god has caught them, and spoken their names. 
 
 Egon and Dorothea von Roden, when first called into 
 the circle, knew nothing of the rule by which you play. 
 The rule, of course, is that there is none. You skip about, 
 and shriek, and laugh, and the blindman catches you. 
 Sometimes he only pretends, and sometimes he lets you 
 go again. Egon and Dorothea were very pleased to 
 marry. They knew little of each other's characters or 
 inclinations ; what little they knew they thought exceed- 
 ingly fine. They liked each other's faces. In fact, they 
 were *' in love." 
 
 They remained in love all through their Italian 
 honeymoon. And so, to revert to the words at the 
 opening of this chapter, there was every chance that they 
 would continue to like each other's faces, and admire each 
 other's characters, for some considerable time. 
 
 At the very first an immense disappointment had befallen 
 Egon of which Dorothea was absolutely unable to form 
 the slightest conception. In fact, the difficulty to her was 
 non-existent. She saw through a stone wall. 
 
 In the carriage which took them to the station he had 
 flung himself forward, " My beauty ! My own ! " 
 
 Dorothea shrank back. " Don't, Egon," she said, softly. 
 " You must never kiss me like that again." 
 
 "You see how mistaken you were to say that you 
 trusted my goodness ! " He spoke bitterly. She had hurt 
 him with a lasting hurt : he instinctively felt that the wound 
 would fester. It was true, as he had told aunt Mary, that 
 the page of his passions was white. Dorothea's remained 
 closed. 
 
 So a stone wall rose between them. Dorothea looked 
 through it, smiling happily. 
 
 They wandered south as far as Florence, and there they 
 lingered long. There was no reason, said the doctors, to 
 take up their residence within hail of the General. Like all 
 consumptive patients, the latter might survive for many 
 months ; also, he might bleed to death, before he could 
 summon an attendant. The aunts and uncle Tony, of 
 course, returned to Brodryck, with the swallows. Aunt 
 Emma objected to the swallows. She looked round 
 Dorothea's little upstairs boudoir. "There are no birds in 
 last year's nests," she quoted. And certainly, it cannot be 
 denied, that to those who are homeless or who feel 
 
304 DOROTHEA. 
 
 forsaken, the swallows, of all birds, seem to exaggerate the 
 publicity they give to their domestic establishment. There 
 is something feminine about the swallows' noisy home- 
 bringing of trifles. Only, of course, unlike the human 
 housekeeper, the birds look after their own bills. 
 
 To Egon von Roden the journey into Italy was in itself 
 almost as epoch-making a life-event as the entrance into the 
 wedded state. He was no art-smatterer, no attitudiniser in 
 Soul. Of modern beauty-fads, post-Raffaelite pre-Raffaelitism 
 (reverted, inverted, perverted), incoherent symbolism, 
 aestheticism, spindly furniture or " antique " design — of all 
 these forms of advertisement he had never heard. But he 
 had been brought up, as we know, on the Goethe love of 
 natural beauty in every human development, the pure milk 
 and strong meat of art. To him, then, in a small way, as 
 to the great master above him, the Italian journey came as 
 something of a pilgrimage to shrines. He talked so little 
 of these matters, so naturally of hotels, and fellow- 
 travellers and daily incidents, the simple tittle-tattle of 
 an unaffected man, that his new companion formed no 
 idea of the interests hidden deepest in his heart. With our 
 nearest and dearest we especially avoid those subjects on 
 which their sympathy is not previously assured to us. 
 When the pair had approached Florence, in the mists of 
 sunrise, Egon, looking forth upon the russet city, had 
 broken his unconscious reserve for once in a cry that, like 
 all cries of emotion, repeated, falls flat : 
 
 " The city of Dante ! " 
 
 " Yes," said Dorothea. " Have you got the tickets ? " 
 
 For she knew about Dante. 
 
 " Alighieri, Dante, dit le Dante, c^lebre poete italien, n^ 
 k Florence 12 — (forgotten), mort k Ravenna, 13 — (forgotten). 
 Dans son poeme principal, la ' Comedie Divine,' il envisagea 
 I'univers entier du point de vue, actuellement bien demode, 
 de la philosophie de son temps et fit surtout opposition a la 
 tyrannie corrompue des papes et des grands seigneurs 
 italiens contemporains." Mort. Dead. 
 
 It was in Florence, then, where they stayed on during 
 the summer, going up to Fiesole for the heat and coming 
 down again, that they first realised how it is possible 
 for lovers to misunderstand one another without knowing 
 it. Our brain-life is surely the most elusive of shows. 
 There are as many things that we realise and never know 
 as there are things that we know and never realise. 
 
DOROTHEA. 205 
 
 They misunderstood each other, then. Not in those 
 trivial fallings-out which season too much sweetness, like 
 a spoonful of brandy stirred into a cream, not in those 
 swift concussions of thought, which strike sparks of 
 electricity on dulness, or those sudden little storm-clouds 
 of sentiment which break a prismatic rainbow of endear- 
 ments over the dull grey of everyday approval — not in 
 these, but in the permanent divergence of interests, that 
 sail away serenely, like boats on the river, unsuspecting 
 what becomes of companions who may or may not have got 
 stuck in some shallows of their own. Stay, conscience 
 speaks : I must be good. You row back against the 
 current, you stop beside the dawdler, not offering to help, 
 wondering why you are there, for you know that he 
 prefers the soft mud by the river bank. All the time that 
 you are doing your duty your eyes gaze adrift, and he sees 
 it, to the widening flow of the river, your soul is away over 
 yonder, in the middle of the stream. 
 
 " The Pitti again ? More Madonnas ? " said Dorothea, 
 laughing. 
 
 Egon laughed too. ** Yes, more Madonnas. Or, rather, 
 the old ones over again." 
 
 " You must know them by heart by this time. I'm sure 
 I do." 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " And most of them are ugly, if you come to think of it. 
 They are not at all like my idea of what the Virgin must 
 have been." 
 
 " They are like the painter's," said Egon. 
 
 " Oh, Egon, how can you say that, when you know that 
 
 they are mostly the portraits of the painters' " She 
 
 stopped. 
 
 " I cannot understand, Dorothea, that you do not care 
 more about painting. Why, you draw in water-colour 
 yourself." 
 
 She turned to him. " I not care for painting ? I love it. 
 But I think one can tire of Madonnas. Toujours perdrix." 
 
 " But there are thousands of other pictures, not Madonnas. 
 When we went to see that beautiful crucifixion of Perugino's 
 last Monday you wanted to come away." 
 
 " Ah, you have not yet forgiven me that ! How can you 
 be so unforgiving, Egon ? I am sure if you did anything 
 unkind to me, I should forgive you at once. I could not go 
 to sleep with an unkind thought of you." 
 
2o6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " My darling, there is nothing to forgive. I only 
 mentioned the fact to prove that you didn't care for 
 pictures." 
 
 " And it wasn't even unkind of me, not in any way. 
 When I said, ' Shall we go ? * I thought you had had quite 
 enough of it. But it is unkind of you to say that I don't 
 like pictures, when you also say that you love them, for it 
 sounds like marking a want of sympathy between us when 
 we agree in everything, Egon." 
 
 " We do, dearest : I know we do. And in little things, 
 when we differ, you always give up your own way. Why, 
 at dinner, I daren't say I like anything, because you want 
 to order it ever after." 
 
 She glanced up at him quickly. " You are laughing at me ! 
 About the macaroni," she said. 
 
 " Laughing at you ? No, by Jove ! " She looked so 
 charming, in her partly pleased alarm, another young 
 husband would have caught his wife to his breast and 
 kissed her. Egon Roden was like other young husbands, 
 yet he refrained. 
 
 " I will go and put on my hat," she said. 
 
 He seized her hand at the door. " Better stop at home 
 this morning. It is going to pour." 
 
 " Since when was I afraid of rain ? You only said that 
 because you think I don't want to accompany you." 
 
 "Well, Dorothea, 'tis no use pretending. I think you 
 love painting, but my study of pictures bores you." 
 
 " Bores me is not the word. But many of these pictures 
 here repel me ; I cannot bear to look at them. Now, the 
 crucifixion you said was beautiful, it seemed terrible to me. 
 Think what it means : the crucifixion ! Egon, dear, as you 
 say, 'tis no use pretending — not between us, not between 
 us. The sacred pictures, the holiest subjects — they are just 
 asterisks in Baedeker, stared at, approved, disapproved of, 
 dreadful to see ! The Christ-pictures, dear, they are the 
 Son of God, the Saviour! Look at the horrible, bogey 
 Christs of Cimabue and the Byzantines, the smug, good- 
 looking Christs of Raffaelle and Sodoma — think, dear, 
 these are supposed to represent the Redeemer ! When I 
 realise that — and I cannot forget it — I want to hurry away. 
 The crucifixion — think ! — Christ dying for us ! And there it 
 is, all blue and green, with a dreadful face, pulled down, 
 like a, like a — oh, I dare not say it ! — and people staring at 
 it, everywhere, peeping through those little funnels, pointing, 
 
DOROTHEA. 207 
 
 laughing — yes, there is always some fearful person in a check- 
 suit laughing at something in the picture and pointing ! 
 And there is somebody, always, trying to kodak it — ^kodak 
 the crucifixion ! " She stopped, red-hot, gasping for breath. 
 " Oh, say you understand ! " 
 
 " I understand," he answered, wishing he did not. He 
 knew that henceforth, if he brought her an exquisite rose — 
 say an Ebenezer Gibbons — he would read in her grateful 
 eyes the unspoken suggestion : " Oh, what a ridiculous 
 name ! " 
 
 " Couldn't you forget the people around you," he said, 
 " and look at the Christ alone ! " 
 
 But that was oil upon flames. " Oh, you haven't 
 understood ! " she cried in tones of the deepest disappoint- 
 ment. " I think the Christs are the most terrible of all ! I 
 have never seen a picture of Jesus that I did not at once 
 wish to forget ! " 
 
 He hesitated. And she told herself with poignant 
 anguish that he would have felt as she did, if only he 
 had loved as she. 
 
 He sat down again. He had not the slightest desire to 
 see any pictures that morning. " I must write to uncle 
 Tony, before I go, about some business," he said, resolved 
 to spread his correspondence over the interval till luncheon. 
 
 She had put her hand fondly against his neck. " I am so 
 glad you do my business nowadays," she said. " Give 
 my love to them all at the end of your letter." 
 
 " I sometimes believe that your heart is in Brodryck, not 
 in Florence ! " he cried. 
 
 " No," she answered, " my heart is here.'' Her hand lay 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 They were very happy that evening at the theatre over 
 an Italian version of " The Merchant of Venice." Neither 
 of them knew much Italian, but that hardly matters with 
 so well-known a play. The theatre was a new and 
 increasing delight to Dorothea : tragedy, comedy, even 
 farce, she enjoyed with almost equal fervour. But Egon 
 found himself in the awkward predicament of having to 
 find out the contents of a piece before he could venture to 
 take his wife there. For had she not created a disturbance 
 by rising from her stall and quitting the theatre in the 
 midst of that roaring Palais Royal indecency, " La Femme 
 a Papa " ? 
 
 Once they were outside, and his masculine false shame 
 
2o8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 had subsided, he was proud of her for leaving, and he told 
 her so. Still, nobody else got up. Just before them a 
 grey-headed old clergyman and his wife had sat shouting 
 with laughter at jokes they could not catch. 
 
 " Of course, if I had had an idea what it was like, I 
 should never have gone," stuttered poor Egon. " Some- 
 body told me to take you there, somebody I thought I could 
 trust." 
 
 The "somebody" was uncle Karl, whose theory anent 
 young married women may be given in his own words : 
 " Scrape off all the whitewash. And then whitewash over 
 again." 
 
 " Let us go, then," said Egon, " to the little opera, where 
 they give all their own Italian music — you will see it is 
 delightful : they could dream every note, yet they sing with 
 a * brio ' ! The audience joins — admirably — in the chorus ! 
 One slur — they detect it immediately and they hiss the 
 offender off the stage. You remember that happened, 
 years ago, to the greatest of divas : she will never sing in 
 Italy again ! " 
 
 Dorothea accompanied him to these cheerful performances 
 of Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti. But they did not stir her blood. 
 A singer himself, he followed every technical detail with 
 interest, carried away by the sympathy between audience 
 and performer, so noticeable amongst the emotional and 
 musical Italians — delighted, as if he himself had achieved 
 it, with every artistic success. She did her very best to 
 share his enjoyment. But opera seemed to her, after all, a 
 conventional form of amusement, too unreal to come within 
 the bounds of legitimate fancy. Art, had said somebody, 
 was the ordered presentation of life. When the chorus, 
 wide-mouthed and immovable, had stood shouting for five 
 minutes : 
 
 " The Count is drowning : let us fly to save him ! " 
 Dorothea, lying back in her " poltrona," felt that the limits 
 of rational presentation had been passed. 
 
 " He sings beautifully," she said of the choked but still 
 vocal noble. She bent forward, trying hard not to be too 
 practical, to forget common-sense and Brodryck. " I like 
 his voice exceedingly, Egon, but it isn't half as beautiful as 
 yours." 
 
 " Why don't you sing at home," she ventured to suggest. 
 " You hardly ever sing to me now. I would just as lief — 
 far liefer — ^stay qjiietly at home and hear you sing, * Ich 
 
DOROTHEA. 209 
 
 woUt' meine Liebe ergosse sich,' or, better still, * Ich weiss, 
 dass mein Erloser lebt.' " 
 
 " A fellow can't sing in an hotel," replied Egon. 
 
 She opened her eyes wide. " Why, Egon, how absurd of 
 you ! You sing ten times better than most of these 
 professionals." 
 
 " That's your partiality," replied Egon. He was uncom- 
 fortable. " Of course I know I've a good voice," he added, 
 *'but I don't like to sing in an hotel. People listen." 
 Then she understood that he shrank from the notoriety 
 which his splendid singing brought him amongst strangers. 
 Once some neighbours had gathered in the passage. A 
 lady had accosted him and proposed that he should perform 
 in the hotel sitting-room. Dorothea did not ask him again. 
 "When we get home to our own belongings, I will sing 
 till you tell me to stop," he said. 
 
 Meanwhile they read, in their quieter evenings, books of 
 the Italian renascence, " Romola," for instance, and one or 
 two bits of Boccaccio. 
 
 Dorothea, fascinated by the story of Savonarola, felt 
 especially drawn to San Marco, where she soon succumbed 
 to the charm of the angels of Fra Angelico. 
 
 " It is the beatific vision," she thought, standing, awe- 
 struck, with Egon, before one of these vistas of carolling 
 children ; but she did not utter the words, afraid of his 
 superior knowledge, unwilling to say something wrong. 
 
 " You enjoy Fra Angelico, dearest ? " spake Egon, with 
 measured satisfaction. 
 
 "Yes, Egon." 
 
 More angels — a long corridor with more angels — a couple 
 of cells with more angels — then, a man's irresistible impulse 
 to help his wife on : 
 
 " You don't find them, with all their beauty, just a little 
 insipid sometimes ? " 
 
 " I don't know. One feels that he painted them upon his 
 knees." 
 
 Egon made no reply. He had stopped by one of the 
 numerous copyists who, all over picture galleries, teach 
 appreciation by contrast. Also, they guide the blind to 
 the pictures you have got to have seen when you come out. 
 
 " That is very well done," he said softly, in German. 
 
 The energetic middle-aged lady, who was reproducing a 
 violet seraph, presumably did not hear. 
 
 Von Roden fell back a step. "Would you like me to 
 
 D. P 
 
 i 
 
2IO DOROTHEA. 
 
 buy you that ? " he whispered. " If you admire it I should 
 very much enjoy giving it you." 
 
 " Perhaps it is dreadfully dear," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Hardly likely. Poor thing, look at her ragged skirt. 
 And she paints well, too. Poor thing ! " 
 
 The grey-haired signora, scenting a possible customer — 
 alas that so many possibles should go to the making of one 
 improbable ! — looked round, and answering in fluent French 
 the young man's courteous greeting, soon proffered her 
 dingy card. 
 
 " How long do you take over a work like this ? " 
 demanded Dorothea, after some desultory talk. 
 
 Madame perhaps a little exaggerated in her reply. 
 
 *' I wish I could paint like you," said Dorothea. 
 
 But madame gave lessons. Why not? "There are sc 
 many competitors!" sighed madame, "and, alas! nowa- 
 days, with the excellent schools, so many paint well. One 
 ought to be thankful for that, I suppose," she laughed, 
 " and true, there is always the comfort of plenty whc 
 perpetrate monstrosities. But these also must live. Manj 
 tourists prefer the monstrosities — God is merciful ! — these 
 are brighter in colour, more life-like, they call it. Ah 
 monsieur, the world would be perfect if only all of us had 
 a little more room to breathe ! If I could arrange matten 
 all the clever people should be poor, all the rich people 
 stupid — thus would there be an immense law of natural 
 balance — am I not right? The poor artist like mysel: 
 should paint well ; the rich ladies, like madame, shoulc 
 paint — poorly." 
 
 " Well, things very often are like that," comforted Egon 
 
 She looked round at him quickly, at them both. " No 
 that madame is an artist," she said. " You are." 
 
 " Why ? What on earth makes you say so ? " 
 
 " It sees itself. Ca se voit." 
 
 " But you are mistaken. I don't even draw," cried Egon 
 amused. 
 
 The nervous old lady flung an impatient dash across hei 
 palette. " I do not mean that you paint I " she exclaimed 
 but you have the artistic temperament — the artistic cu 
 and expression of face ! Yes, though you look like ^ 
 Prussian officer also, it is uimiistakable. I see it in the 
 people who pass through all day long, before they say i 
 word about the pictures. Here, into this little cell, the} 
 come streaming all day long, in and out again, the oxen 
 
DOROTHEA. 211 
 
 the asses, the sheep. They stare, they grunt, they hee-haw : 
 some of them only bleat. Now and then there comes 
 one with eyes that look and lips that say little. In the 
 entrance, already I mark him. There is nothing wonderful 
 about him. Very probably he is not cleverer or better than 
 other men. Sometimes he is very red and fat and plain. 
 Often he is shockingly clothed " — she laughed merrily — 
 "but I note him. I say, 'Thou art of those who love the 
 beautiful, and who feel it.' That is all." 
 
 " I like that," said Egon. 
 
 " Of course you do," cried Dorothea, laughing merrily in 
 her turn. 
 
 " Once there came one with the face of a tormented 
 god," continued the old paintress, and her voice fell. " He 
 came in through yonder little door, and I stood up and did 
 him obeisance. He did not observe me. Among the sheep 
 and the asses he passed as a winged Pegasus. That was 
 
 not a painter at all : it was a poet. It was No, I will 
 
 keep my secret. And I? I sit here and paint a violet 
 seraph. I paint him again and again." 
 
 She splashed a few strokes of the brush on the angel's 
 robe. 
 
 "When the good God comes for me and takes me to 
 heaven," she sighed, " I shall ask Him for this, my particular 
 angel. I shall not feel lonely then, and I have always been 
 lonely on earth. Yonder, in the blessed meadows, there is 
 no marrying or giving in marriage, but the dear God will 
 understand, I am sure, that I have made this sweet, mild- 
 faced angel more especially my own." 
 
 " I should very much like to buy this picture, if you will 
 let me," said Egon. 
 
 " Thank you," she said quietly, " I must finish it. I shall 
 do my yery best." Once more she turned and looked at 
 them, as they were moving away. " I call him Giovanni," 
 she said. Then, as if obviating a question which would 
 probably never have been put : " Not San Giovanni, the 
 Apostle, of course. But amongst the angels, surely, as on 
 earth, the great saints must have many little god-children. 
 My Giovanni has, then, as patron, the Apostle of Love." 
 
 On the way home Dorothea was silent, busy with her 
 thoughts. Egon fancied her extravagantly impressed by 
 the religious element in Fra Angelico's painting. He made 
 great fun of his own " artistic temperament " as discovered 
 by the signora — more likely a signorina ; wondered in 
 
 p 2 
 
312 DOROTHEA. 
 
 which part of him she had seen it; hoped it wasn't in his 
 clothes ; begged Dorothea to help him find out, and stopped 
 in front of a shop mirror to study his hat. 
 
 " No, no, you needn't laugh ; it is true," said Dorothea, 
 gravely. 
 
 The tone of her voice struck him. " My dear child, do 
 you mean to say you don^t know what she saw it in ? In 
 my commendation of her painting, of course ! She heard 
 what I said to you. That was sufficient." 
 
 But Dorothea seemed unconvinced. Next morning — 
 Egon having gone alone to the Accademia delle belle 
 Arte — she sallied forth with the air of an innocent offender 
 and hurried along the dark sides of the streets till she 
 reached the church of Santa Croce. There she passed 
 jerkily down the aisle and into the chapels, turning right 
 and left, twisting back again, looking for something, 
 eagerly consulting a thin little pale-paper book. At last 
 she found an imposing monument, among many, which 
 seemed to afford her satisfaction. Standing in front of it, 
 she read from the booklet, with frequent glances at the 
 drapery of the figure on the tomb. Then she abandoned 
 herself to still closer inspection of the marble laces that 
 drooped around it. Once or twice she referred to the page 
 she had been reading, and nodded with intelligent approval 
 at the tomb. Presently her search recommenced, more 
 laborious this time, more painstaking. She hunted all 
 over the worn pavement of the church. Once she sat 
 down in despair, and stared around her. She wished she 
 had brought Baedeker, which she could have done now 
 that Egon was not with her. She by no means shared 
 his scorn of the useful guide-book : on the contrary, 
 she systematically studied it. "You daren't approve of 
 anything that Baedeker hasn't asterisked," declared Egon. 
 " He builds too low who builds beneath the stars ! " She 
 could not ask one of the teasing ciceroni, for, provokingly, 
 she had come without her purse. 
 
 However, there came a moment when she seemed almost 
 assured. She sank down by a much-effaced slab in the 
 pavement, bearing some faint presentation of a human 
 figure with illegible inscriptions. She studied this dusty 
 ruin very closely, with careful allusion to her pamphlet, 
 sitting huddled beside the stone. Her air of concentration 
 deepened, as did also the puckers of perplexity all over her 
 fresh young face. 
 
DOROTHEA. 213 
 
 " Dorothea, you shouldn't sit on the stones like that I 
 Whatever are you doing ? " 
 
 She started violently : her angry eyes caught Egon*s. 
 
 " Don't I Go away. You are spying on me," she said. 
 
 "Why, I hadn't the faintest idea you were here. I 
 
 looked in to see what Muther means, when he says — never 
 
 mind, come off the stones. I'll go away fast enough, if you 
 
 like." 
 
 "No, you may stay. It*s no good," said Dorothea, 
 miserably penitent. " I didn't mean to be rude, Egon " — 
 her lips trembled. " Only — I may as well tell you, for I 
 can't bear secrets — Mr. Ruskin says, if you can see the 
 difference between the drapery on C. Marsuppini's tomb and 
 the folds on Galileo's grandfather's, then you've got the 
 artistic soul or eye, or something — and if you can't, you 
 haven't, so I thought I'd try. You see, I never had any 
 chance at Brodryck. And I've been trying my very hardest, 
 and I thought I knew what he meant about the Marsuppini 
 laces, but — but I'm afraid I can't really see anything at 
 all ! " 
 
 She had risen : her head sank on his breast, towards the 
 slab at her feet. 
 
 " Don't laugh," she said : but nothing was farther from 
 her husband's intentions. He came and stood beside her, 
 drew the little book from her grasp and scornfully thrust it 
 into his pocket. 
 
 ''This same writer declares," he said, "that, if you can't 
 see a particularly obscure little, half-faded fresco, which he 
 names, is by Giotto, you had far better take the next train 
 back to London and become a cheesemonger. Nowadays 
 people are pretty well agreed that it isn't by Giotto." 
 
 " You don't quote correctly, but it comes to that, more 
 or less," admitted Dorothea, brightening. 
 
 "Of course, if yours is a later edition, you've got a foot- 
 note saying that the text is nonsense. AH the new editions 
 have those, on every page. The text is always original: 
 only the foot-note reproduces other people's opinion." 
 Suddenly he burst out laughing. " Why, jrou havn't even 
 got the right tombstone," he said. "This isn't Galileo's 
 grandfather at all." Dorothea, in spite of herself, joined 
 him. " Not that it matters a bit," continued Egon. " Come 
 along, dear. The carving is fine, as I'll show you some 
 other day." 
 
 ** I did see about the marble lace being bad," protested 
 
214 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Dorothea, " but then everybody is bound to see that at 
 once ! ** 
 
 "Well, nothing is more facile than this system of 
 divination — all or nothing. You go and look and you say : 
 * Yes, I see,' so, of course, you understand you are one of 
 the elect. The thicker fool you, the sooner you feel it : no 
 wonder that sort of ranter has an enormous following. It 
 looks eclectic, Dorothea, and it's just popular revival 
 religion, the Salvation Army, getting converted : only say 
 that you're saved ! Mr. John Ruskin, as leader of a sect, 
 is a sort of art-General Booth ! " 
 
 " What a lot of things you know," said Dorothea humbly. 
 
 *' That's a nasty one ! " he cried cheerfully. " But of 
 course, I've heard a great deal from my father. He always 
 used to take us children for long walks on Sunday, and 
 talk to us all the while." 
 
 *'I never had any one to talk to me. I love the aunts. 
 But they didn't exactly talk.* " 
 
 " When it rained, we would go to the museum. And, you 
 see, there were always father's three glorious pictures at 
 home. I wish you could see those, Dorothea. I think we 
 all owe those pictures more happiness than we owe to 
 anything else. Yet, I don't know " — his voice lightened — 
 "one owes such an immense lot of happiness to all sorts 
 of things all day long." 
 
 " I have had happiness enough, as much, as I could bear, 
 without pictures," said Dorothea contentedly. She checked 
 all the suggestions of development that were rising in his 
 mind — methodical beginnings, study in common, perhaps 
 even the reading of Muther ! 
 
 " Just so," he said. 
 
 "Madame ne sait pas s'y prendre," says Mademoiselle 
 Aur^lie Bompard. "She is charming, she is good, she is 
 sweet, and I love her. Seldom have I thus loved my 
 mistresses, and yet I am a 'nature attachante.* But all 
 the virtues are no use with a man : he presupposes them. 
 What a man wants is being actively pleased. A woman 
 must please a man not by being herself, but by being his. 
 Bah, all men are selfish, the best most, because they do not 
 know it. Great sacrifices only are the part of a man : 
 never have I known one that was capable of small ones — 
 but of women they expect constant little abandonments 
 that they cannot understand to be a sacrifice at all ! " 
 
 " Madame, then, is selfish ? ** 
 
DOROTHEA. 215 
 
 " Selfish ? — like the blessed Madonna. She would go 
 through the fire for monsieur ! Poor dear, she will 
 probably have to ! Selfish ! Bah, it is no use talking to 
 those who are too stupid to understand ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle Aurelie returned to her brushing of dresses. 
 "Poor darling, I will do for thee what I can," she said. 
 And indeed more fully than Dorothea ever dreamed did 
 she prove herself, as the Colonel had foretold, a treasure. 
 Unconsciously, by discreet little suggestions, selections, 
 combinations, she taught the unformed country girl what 
 to wear, and how to wear it. Dorothea was always 
 admirably — and, what is far more important — harmo- 
 niously dressed, that is to say, dressed in harmony with her 
 surroundings of the moment. The Colonel's Riviera choice 
 Mademoiselle Aurelie disapproved. 
 
 " What will you ? Madame is now married ! *' she said, 
 considerately, to the daughter. 
 
 Long experience had taught her to appreciate exactly 
 the framework required by her mistress of the moment. 
 Dorothea must not be fast : she must not even be gay : her 
 requirement, at present, was to be cheerfully " distingu^e." 
 "The secret of being * distinguee,'" says Aurelie, "is not 
 to desire * que Ton vous distingue.* " She herself, in 
 complete effacement, most distinguished of maids, always 
 praised as Dorothea's the taste which was her own. And, 
 when her handiwork was completed, when Egon came in 
 and said, " Dolly, you look stunning ! " — then Mademoiselle 
 Aurelie, although feeling somewhat like a cook who has 
 successfully dished up a sweetmeat, would lift up her soul 
 to the blessed Madonna, her aider in every good work. 
 "I, in my way," she would declare to herself, " I do what 
 I can. Marriage, after all, is a pis-aller, the world's 
 greatest difficulty. I, when I escaped it, I swore I would 
 do my best to help those that have not." 
 
2l6 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In Florence they received, towards the end of summer, one 
 of those telegrams so long expected that they come as a 
 surprise. 
 
 " I want to see you both. — Father.** 
 
 This message arrived as they were rising from dinner. 
 An hour later saw them in the night express that runs to 
 Milan, and next morning, with the sun already high in the 
 cloudless September heaven, they drove swiftly through all 
 the beauties of perfect landscape and perfect weather — the 
 summer glow of Italian lake and mountain — to the Pension 
 Varoni, that stands just outside Lugano. 
 
 The General was in the garden, on a couch. Their first 
 glimpse of him, after all these months, sufficed. 
 
 He looked into their faces. "Yes, I am glad you are 
 come," he said. 
 
 He lay, propped on pillows, a white umbrella fixed so 
 as to shelter his face. All the rest was sunlight, blazing 
 Southern sunlight, brilliant on pathway and flower-bed and 
 shrub. Behind him rose the chalk glare of the villa, 
 broken by a dark green mass of orange trees that gathered 
 their foliage like a screen round the sick man's head. In 
 front spread the smiling city, the lake and the stern grey 
 mountains that enclose it, under torrents of golden pro- 
 fusion : warmth, sparkle, clear splendour of sky. 
 
 " Yes, I am glad you are come," he repeated. He bade 
 them sit down beside him, with his daughter and his wife. 
 
 " Konrad is coming, too," he added, " and the Child also 
 is coming." "The Child" was the name that had stuck 
 to the youngest son, Karl, the small cadet at Lichterfelde, 
 " the pet with the pets," as his uncle had once sneeringly 
 called him. 
 
 " I am glad. I am glad," said the General peacefully. 
 He spoke with a painful drawing-up of his breath, and his 
 eyes, above the glowing cheeks, glistened as if a drop of 
 crystal lay inside them. 
 
DOROTHEA. aiy 
 
 Egon took his hand. " Those are the three words I have 
 oftenest heard from your lips," he said. 
 
 " Well, I have been glad all my life. There have been a 
 thousand reasons ! " The General lifted himself on his 
 elbow somewhat. " My life has been beautiful beyond the 
 wildest dream." His right hand sought that of his wife, 
 and he smiled to her. " There was nothing wild about it 
 at all," he said. ''That was just the beauty. Beautiful, 
 commonplace, day by day." But even as he spoke, a slight 
 shadow of trouble sank upon his placid forehead. " I 
 might have done more," he murmured. " Hush, dearest, I 
 am regretting nothing. I have done what I could." 
 
 His eyes sought a familiar feature in the landscape — he 
 turned them to the east. 
 
 "Dorothea, will you push aside those laurels a little. 
 See, yonder, the statue of Tell on the market-place ! Well, 
 no, you cannot see it — it is over yonder. Never mind. 
 No one ever did more than he — for his age, for all time — 
 and now they say that he never existed ! " 
 
 He sank back, exhausted. " But all that doesn't matter," 
 he gasped. " The only thing that matters is to have been 
 what we were intended to be." 
 
 He lay still for a long time. They sat round him, hushed, 
 in the placid movement of the teemful morning. Life, 
 sound, happiness, were everywhere. A couple of white 
 pigeons came strutting about the path. 
 
 " My vocation," he said, with his eyes closed, " was to 
 be a King's officer, to love you, and be made happy by 
 you all. It isn't much, dears, but there are great men 
 enough in the world — there must be a few happy ones 
 as well." 
 
 " My husband," said the little Generalin, tremulously, 
 and she pushed back the hair from his forehead, "thou 
 hast been happy because thou hast done much, and done 
 well." 
 
 He shook his head faintly. " I cannot understand all 
 the happiness," he whispered. " I lie thinking of it night 
 after night. See, all my life long there has been nothing 
 but goodness. Even the little troubles have blossomed into 
 flowers. There is only Egon's hurt that is lasting" — he 
 felt in the direction of his son — " and, see, that has brought 
 him Dorothea ! Love her, Egon ! " 
 
 Father and son clasped hands in the dark of the General's 
 uplifted eyelids. 
 
2i8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Love her as I have loved thy mother. Earth can 
 bestow nothing better than that." 
 
 " Have loved ! " he repeated after a moment's silence, 
 and there was protest in his tone against himself. 
 
 But suddenly he opened his eyes, and his voice grew 
 stronger. " We know only one thing ! " he cried, " that 
 God is eternal, and is Love ! " 
 
 Immediately his voice died down again. His gaze remained 
 fixed on his wife's face. " Dearest," he said, " man can 
 lose, but He cannot take away." 
 
 His daughter got up and gave him a few drops of 
 cordial. A church clock struck in the distance. He 
 smiled. 
 
 "Mathematically accurate as usual. I am so sorry, 
 Gertrude." He tried to kiss the fingers that held the cup, 
 but his head fell back. " You deserve a better reward," 
 he said, "but children — mother, dear — you must not be 
 angry : but I don't think I'm sorry to go." 
 
 None of them dared look at him. None of them realized 
 at that moment whether they were weeping or not. 
 
 " Of course I should have liked to remain a little longer. 
 Dearest, what matter a few years, after all? I have been 
 too happy, and to think that I am passing from happiness 
 to greater happiness ! That is life for those who understand 
 it — despite all difficulties and sufferings, that is life : a 
 happy passage to a happier end." 
 
 His eyes were wide open now, looking at them all. " Is 
 it not wonderful I" he said. " And God has sent me here 
 to die, in the open air and the sunshine. Every day have 
 I lain in the sunshine all summer — such a summer ! It 
 has always been my hope not to lie in a sick room, not to 
 die in a box ! Already I am in Paradiso " (for so they call 
 this quarter of Lugano). "Yonder" — he pointed to the 
 looming summits that almost meet — a granite wall — against 
 the entrance to the farther lake — "yonder through the 
 narrow passage lies Italy ! " 
 
 He sank down again with fluttering breath. " The land 
 of beauty ! " he panted, " beyond the narrow passage. 
 Beyond." 
 
 The lunch bell came clanging out to them from the 
 villa. He motioned them all in the direction of the house. 
 One moment he drew his wife's face quite close down to 
 his own. "Leave me — now for a — little," he faltered. 
 "I shall live to see Konrad and the Child here, but, if it 
 
DOROTHEA. 219 
 
 were not so, it — it wouldn't matter. Tell them — I — shall 
 live — to " His voice died away. 
 
 " He will sleep," said the Generalin. " He has been like 
 this before. He prefers us to go, and let him rest." 
 
 They went into the house then, and made some pretence 
 of eating, for the return of the travellers had saddened the 
 long accustomed watchers by the sick bed. When they 
 hurried back to the invalid, he was lying with his head 
 uplifted, clear-cut among the pillows, in peace. The 
 pigeons had come back, and were playing in the pathway. 
 A breath of wind among the orange trees must have shifted 
 the sun-shade, and the sunlight was pouring down upon 
 the dead man's face. 
 
( aao ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "What? Heh? What did you say?" Count Roden 
 turned from his Figaro and put up his hand to his ear. He 
 was sitting in the room he had occupied six months ago at 
 the Hotel du Pare, Lugano. His nephew Konrad had that 
 moment entered it. 
 
 " Speak up ! You young fellows mumble so now a days 
 — I wonder your own men can hear you." 
 
 "Egon is busy sorting my father's papers," repeated 
 Konrad in a military voice. 
 
 " You needn't shout ; I'm not deaf. Well, let him sort, 
 and let me read my Figaro. If there's a rule in my house- 
 hold, it is this, that nobody disturbs me when I'm reading 
 my Figaro. You know that. The Figaro requires care, or 
 you're apt to miss marriages and deaths. I see they've put 
 in the paragraph about your father, and they've got the 
 name all right, which is a weight off my mind — the French 
 are so apt to be careless. Ring for my coffee, Konrad, and 
 leave me in peace ! " 
 
 " Egon asks whether he may come and show you a letter 
 he has found." 
 
 " A letter ? Certainly, in half an hour's time, before I 
 start for my walk. I can't have Egon, or anybody, disturbing 
 me for every trifle : I have important business of my own. 
 Letter? Nonsense. Your father was a very poor letter- 
 writer ; he never said, somehow, what one wanted him to 
 say. Or is it a letter that somebody had written to him ? 
 Eh ? It is ? Very well ; if its old love-letters, I don't want 
 to see 'em. Now I come to think of it, I don't want to 
 have anything to do with your father's old letters. Old 
 letters are no business of any one's but the two persons 
 concerned. The less other people know about them, the 
 better. Your father was sentimental ; he's bound to have 
 old letters. But he was very discreet about them: never 
 worried me, and I won't be worried now. Egon's a fool, 
 but he's not such a big fool that he'd show them to your 
 
DOROTHEA. aai 
 
 mother! I never knew a man die, but there were old 
 letters turned up about a child and things, and a lot of 
 expense ! And it's mostly blackmail. Tell Egon I'm busy — 
 important business, and he mustn't worry me with dead 
 men's letters." He settled himself in his chair. " And pull 
 down the blind, if you please. This room, I believe, is 
 neither north, south, east, nor west. I hate this place, and 
 the room is the worst in the whole hotel. All these health- 
 resorts are odious, excepting Monte Carlo, which is spoilt 
 by the tables. Ring the bell again, if you please. Thank 
 you. The attendance is outrageous. Now go away and 
 leave me in peace ! " 
 
 Konrad had stood watching him : one of the first rules 
 all the children had been brought up to, was that nobody 
 must ever interrupt the Head of the House. " Is it gout ? " 
 reflected Konrad, as his uncle's eloquence poured past him, 
 " or is it simply garrulity ? Old people should grow either 
 talkative or deaf ; not both." 
 
 As Count Roden, however, resuming the newspaper, turned 
 his ear to the light, Konrad resolutely bent towards it. 
 
 " It's a letter from father to Egon. I'm afraid that it 
 won't bear delay." 
 
 The Count flung round, red as a turkey-cock. " Confound 
 you ! I tell you I'm not deaf ! What do you mean by 
 yelling down my inside as if I were a speaking tube ? Well, 
 what the devil does the letter say ? " 
 
 " It's about the funeral. He hasn't told me. He wants 
 you to come and read it, yourself." 
 
 " The funeral ! The funeral ! Some stupid fancy, I bet 
 you ! " Count Roden- Rheyna shuffled to his feet. " Some 
 nuisance about not wanting flowers, I presume, and the 
 notices all sent out ! " He grumblingly departed. " Bring 
 me some coffee, and see that it's hot ! " he said to the 
 waiter whom he met in the passage. He flung open 
 the door of his sister-in-law's sitting-room with what was 
 almost a bang. " Ah ! I beg your pardon, my dear," he 
 said, bowing to Dorothea. The latter was sitting by the 
 window, in her black dress. Egon, at the table in the 
 middle of the room, had a box with documents before him, 
 ** The Child," lolling in a comer over a novel, pulled him- 
 self together as his uncle came in. 
 
 " Pray do not let me disturb you, Karl ! " said his uncle, 
 who especially disliked this god-child, simply because the 
 . boy was young and healthy and happy, and had all his life 
 
iin. DOROTHEA. 
 
 before him. " What are you reading ? Just the kind of 
 book your father would have liked, I daresay." 
 
 The cadet coloured furiously. "It's Gyp," he replied, 
 " She's no harm." 
 
 " Harm ? No, indeed. She is, beyond comparison, my 
 favourite author. But I doubt whether she was your 
 father's. Which of hers have you got ? " He drew the 
 gray paper volume from his young nephew's fingers, not 
 unwilling, perhaps, to keep Egon in suspense, as Egon had 
 prematurely disturbed him. 
 
 " * Autour du Divorce ! ' Pah ! " He threw down the 
 book in disgust. " What affectation ! You are not even 
 old enough for ' Autour du Mariage.' But it's a clever 
 book, and a great deal truer to life than what your father 
 would have chosen — say * Hermann and Dorothea ' ? " 
 
 The boy, with an impetuous movement, dashed the book 
 violently into the little wood fire that was smouldering on 
 the hearth. The crash sent a cloud of ashes and sparks 
 over the carpet. A red-hot cinder alighted on Count 
 Roden's toes, causing him to skip back with exceeding 
 alacrity. 
 
 " D ! " he shrieked. " My dear Dorothea, again I must 
 
 beg your pardon, but really, the young ruffian is mad ! " 
 He looked his excited god-son up and down. " There went 
 three francs fifty," he said. " I shall remember, Karl, that 
 you have plenty of money to waste." And he smiled. 
 
 " Uncle ! " interrupted Egon, who had sat fretting, with 
 an open document before him, " I have just found a letter 
 here from my father, in which he tells me that he wishes 
 to be buried in the place where he dies." 
 
 Count Roden sat down, put his finger-tips together, and 
 nodded his head to and fro. 
 
 Suite so," he said. " Well, it can't be helped." 
 f course it is very unfortunate that it wasn't found 
 sooner, before all the arrangements were made for the 
 journey to Rheyna. But there has been such a dreadful 
 hurry about everything. These Southern officials don't 
 leave one time." He looked harassed, thought Dorothea, 
 as she watched him from her window. 
 
 " Very regrettable," said the Count, studying his exquisite 
 finger-tips, " but, perhaps, just as well. Who's that ? " He 
 threw himself round as some one opened the door. " Oh, 
 Konrad? Sit down. No, not behind me. Over yonder. 
 Thank you." 
 
DOROTHEA. 223 
 
 " Everything must now be countermanded," said Egon. 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 " Everything must of course be immediately counter- 
 manded." 
 
 Count Roden-Rheyna drew forth a scented pocket- 
 handkerchief, and very deliberately brushed it across his 
 white moustachios. 
 
 "Your father," he said, "was a man of many passing 
 ideas. Did your mother know ? " 
 
 " Not a word : I am sure." 
 
 " Or you ? Of course not. Nor I. He cannot, therefore, 
 have meant it seriously. I do not see that there is occasion 
 for countermanding anything." 
 
 "But the letter is very peremptory. Quite brief and 
 positive. He does not desire to be moved, to be travelled 
 with ! Read it yourself ! " He held out the paper, but 
 Count Roden-Rheyna made a deprecatory movement. 
 
 " My dear boy, no, thank you ! I have no liking for dead 
 men's letters. Of course I understand it is all exactly as 
 you tell me." 
 
 " ' In that place where I die,' he says, * I wish to be confided 
 to the care of Mother Earth. If I die at Lugano, let me 
 lie at Lugano.' " 
 
 " Just so. It is like your poor father to cause these com- 
 plications. He had ideas, had Justus ! " 
 
 " But, uncle Karl — there is no time to be lost, then ! " 
 Egon got up. He staggered a little ; he had hurt his lame 
 foot the other day on alighting from the train. " I must go 
 at once to the station ! " he said. 
 
 "Stay where you are," said uncle Karl in a suddenly 
 decided voice. 
 
 " My foot is all right again ; I can take a cab. Nobody 
 else " 
 
 " Hang your foot ! Really, my dear Dorothea, I fear you 
 are almost, if such a thing were possible, a little in our 
 way ? You — eh ? " 
 
 " Of course, if you wish it, I will go," replied Dorothea, 
 " but I would much rather stay and hear the matter settled." 
 She was afraid, and anxious to remain near her husband. 
 
 Count Roden-Rheyna slightly shrugged his shoulders. 
 " As you will ! " he said, relieved of all further responsi- 
 bility. " Well, Egon, you understand, the whole thing is 
 absurd. All of us have always been buried at Rheyna, 
 and we can't make an exception for anybody, now." 
 
224 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " But my father wished to be buried here," persisted 
 Egon. 
 
 " If so, he should have told us beforehand — given proper 
 warning. Now it is too late. Everything has been 
 arranged. In a couple of hours the train starts," 
 
 Egon sat where he sat, in dogged silence. 
 
 Unexpectedly, the courtly Count Roden struck his fist on 
 the table, so that all the glass in the room rang again. 
 " Who's paid for the whole business ? " he cried. 
 
 "You have, sir, of course. Do you consider that 
 relevant ? " 
 
 " None of your fine airs to me ! Dorothea, I have told 
 you to leave the room. / have paid, and it is easy enough 
 
 for you to say d the expense, but / say : the train's 
 
 mine, and the dead man in it's mine, and the vault over 
 yonder's mine, and he shall go into it ! " 
 
 Egon bit his lips : his face was white. " You do not 
 really mean that, uncle Karl," he said, " about the 
 expense ? '* 
 
 " I am in the habit of meaning what I say." 
 
 " We are not as rich as you are, uncle Karl — my mother 
 could not, but I am sure that Dorothea will allow me to 
 refund you whatever amount has been unnecessarily spent." 
 He veered round altogether, so that he could meet his wife's 
 eyes. 
 
 Count Roden left Dorothea no time for a reply. He 
 bent forward, his face suddenly purple. "You insolent 
 young blackguard ! " he screamed. " Hold your tongue ! 
 Or I'll box your ears, like the idiot you are ! " 
 
 In the silence which followed they could hear him drawing 
 his breath. 
 
 "At four o'clock the train starts," he said, slowly and 
 calmly, " which takes on the van to Cologne. The servants 
 are already at the station. We follow in the night. From 
 Cologne the special train takes us and — it — to Rheyna. 
 Everything is ready for the official reception. The mayor 
 has learnt his stupid speech by heart. So has the steward. 
 So has the parson. The school-children are practising ' We 
 plant this seed for Paradise ! ' The yokels of the guard of 
 honour have routed out the rusty bits of crape that did 
 duty — in their fathers' time — for my father. They're all 
 
 looking forward to the — to the pleasure, d ! " He sat 
 
 back against his chair, compressed his lips, and once more 
 balanced his finger-tips : 
 
DOROTHEA. 235 
 
 "And they shan't be disappointed," he added. 
 
 " Uncle Karl, it's all as you say," answered Egon gently. 
 " Nobody is sorrier than I, but " He held out the paper. 
 
 Count Roden ignored it, resolutely looked the other way. 
 " Your father should have thought of the thing sooner," he 
 said, " or, at least — " (fortunately he was too hard of hearing 
 to catch Konrad's guffaw. Konrad sat a silent, and not un- 
 amused, spectator), " at least — you should have found this 
 document sooner. Tear it up. None of you says a word 
 to your mother ; she has trouble enough. My dear 
 Dorothea, you are the most charming woman I ever met ; 
 will you also be the first that could keep a secret ? A secret 
 not injurious to herself, I mean. The matter is at an end." 
 He rose. " Unless you have any further commands for me, 
 my dear, I shall return to the — interrupted — perusal of my 
 Figaro ? " 
 
 Egon rose also. " I cannot help it," he said. " You 
 must forgive me. I have never disobeyed you before. I am 
 going down to the station immediately, to stop that train." 
 
 Count Roden looked at him. They faced each other, 
 gazing straight into each other's eyes. " Sit down again," 
 said Count Roden quietly, " there can't be a public scandal 
 over a corpse. Let us talk it over. You have plenty of 
 time." He took out his watch as he spoke. "Three 
 o'clock," he said. " The train doesn't start till past four." 
 
 " I can wait, then," replied Egon, sinking back much 
 relieved. " Uncle Karl, if you will only look at the matter 
 from our point of view, I feel sure " 
 
 "The Child" had sprung to his feet, in his comer. 
 His chest was heaving. " Why, it's struck the half hour ! " 
 he cried hoarsely. His colour came and went. 
 
 Uncle Karl turned slowly. " My watch must be wrong, 
 then," he said. " It is not such a good one as that which I 
 
 gave you " He broke off abruptly and flung himself 
 
 against the door. Egon's lameness had lost the day. 
 
 The old man wrenched the key round deliberately. 
 " Nobody leaves this room till half-past four," he said. 
 " I do not wish to hurt anyone's feelings, but I simply am 
 unable to act otherwise. I cannot be made ridiculous — 
 profoundly ridiculous — at Rheyna, and all over the king- 
 dom. I have never yet been ridiculous in my life. I cannot 
 begin now." 
 
 He stood looking at them all, curiously. He was chiefly 
 annoyed at Dorothea's b;ing thus locked up with his family. 
 
 D. Q 
 
226 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Only Konrad had assumed an air of indifference, playing 
 with the worn-out tassel of his clumsy easy-chair. 
 
 An authoritative bang on the door broke the tension. At 
 the same moment it was flung wide open (for it had one of 
 those defective hotel locks which require two twists of the 
 key). 
 
 " Kaffee ! " said the tall waiter, filling the doorway, with 
 uplifted tray. 
 
 " Go to hell ! " shrieked the Count — all his bottled anger 
 and nervousness bursting loose. 
 
 "Your Excellency was not there," replied the waiter. 
 " Shall I take it back ? " The Child, overwrought, rippled 
 off into an unexpected little rill of merriment. Konrad 
 would have laughed also, but this time he was in his uncle's 
 line of sight. 
 
 " Put down the tray and go ! " 
 
 " Pardon ! " said the waiter, hastily backing, for the 
 little Generalin, in her widow's weeds, came past him, with 
 a sad little cheerful smile. 
 
 " All here together ? " she said. " Have you not yet 
 ordered tea ? " 
 
 Her brother-in-law uttered a groan. " Bringen Sie 
 Thee," said the Generalin to the waiter. 
 
 " No, by G ! " cried the Count, who had edged behind 
 
 her, near the door. She turned in amazement. " I — I don't 
 approve of tea for young people," said the Count. He 
 motioned out the waiter and now double-locked the door. 
 
 " Oh — I didn't know," answered the widow indifferently. 
 " I never heard you at Rheyna — never mind : it doesn't 
 matter a bit." She moved to a sofa. "Why, my dear 
 Karl, whatever makes you lock the door ? " 
 
 " As fate has decreed we should have our women mixed 
 up in the business," said Count Roden desperately, "it 
 can't be helped. Show your mother that paper, Egon, as 
 you are wanting to do — I shall never understand you — ^and 
 put up your watch. It looks absurd." 
 
 Egon silently handed the Generalin his father's letter, 
 but he left his watch where he had laid it on the table 
 before him. 
 
 " Well ? " said the Generalin, lifting her eyes from the 
 paper. " Well ? It is very simple. He was right." She 
 gazed from one to the other : a troubled look came into her 
 eyes. Suddenly she sprang forward to the table. "The 
 train starts in half-an-hour ! " she cried. 
 
DOROTHEA. 237 
 
 " Yes," said Egon, " and unless you unlock the door at 
 once, uncle, I — I shall leave this room all the same." 
 
 A thrill of horror ran through the limbs of some of his 
 listeners. Konrad lifted his pale eyes and stared strangely 
 at his brother. 
 
 " You will assault me, I presume ? " said the Count. 
 His upper lip curved : he certainly did not look frightened. 
 
 " Mother, don't be unhappy," was Egon's answer. " I've 
 done all I can, all I can. Time presses. Uncle Karl won't 
 listen to me. Tell him — tell him, please — you tell him — 
 we must do as father wished ! " 
 
 " But surely ! " replied the Generalin. " Nor can your 
 uncle mean anything else : there is some misunderstanding." 
 She trembled with the emotion of the moment. " Hasten, 
 then, Egon, or it will be too late ! " 
 
 Uncle and nephew took each other's measure. " I am 
 the Head of the House," spake the Count, " and I say : 
 No." 
 
 " I have never disobeyed you before," answered Egon, 
 and swung himself forward, seated, bare-headed, upon the 
 window-sill. 
 
 Dorothea ran to him with a cry of distress. " Not that, 
 Egon ! Remember your foot ! " She turned on the Count. 
 " Forbid him ! Prevent him ! " she cried. " His foot ! " 
 
 " I have done all I could to prevent," replied the Count 
 with an evil smile. 
 
 " I can't help myself. There's not a moment to lose ! " 
 exclaimed Egon simultaneously. 
 
 Then it was, as the eldest brother drew himself up, 
 measuring his leap, that the Child felt impelled to ruin 
 all his own prospects in a moment, from that day, 
 henceforth and for ever. He jumped off his chair, ran 
 hastily forward, and, collecting all his youthful energies 
 for one magnificent effort, kicked open the rickety door in 
 a burst. 
 
 Then he stood staring, breathless, at all who were staring 
 at him. 
 
 He [felt that the position was embarrassing. " I'll go 
 down to the station and tell them to unhook the van at 
 once," he said. Whereupon he disappeared, with alacrity. 
 His heart was light. And so, henceforth, would be his 
 pocket. 
 
 When Count Roden spoke again, it was in quite a 
 smooth voice. " Konrad, would you shut the door — as far 
 
 Q3 
 
328 DOROTHEA. 
 
 as practicable ! And, Egon, I think you had better close 
 the window. There will be a draught." 
 
 Egon did as he Was told, came back to the table, and 
 seated himself before his father's despatch box. Mechanically 
 he took up the watch and replaced it in his waistcoat 
 pocket. 
 
 His uncle had sat carefully watching his every movement : 
 the last action seemed suddenly to exasperate the quickly 
 infuriated old man. A violent oath broke from lips that 
 abhorred swearing, in the presence of women, or at other 
 men than menials. 
 
 " Defy me as much as you dare ! Crow over me as much 
 as you choose ! You can bury your dead father exactly as 
 you like ! " shouted Count Roden, choking as the words 
 pushed each other up his throat. Then his voice dropped 
 almost to a whisper : " 'Tis the worst hour's work you 
 ever did," he said. " I'm not dead yet, like Justus is. 
 Though you think you are safe, my dear Count, you're 
 not." 
 
 He took up a paper-knife and toyed with it : Konrad 
 still sat gazing at his brother's face, in his pale eyes that 
 peculiar smile. The Generalin had begun to weep softly. 
 Dorothea stood close behind Egon, white but still. 
 
 " I shall start for Berlin to-night," continued Count 
 Roden, drawing imaginary designs on the cloth with the 
 ivory paper-cutter. " I shall take in hand immediately the 
 matter of the succession. I shall not leave a stone 
 unturned — what ? — I shall move earth — and heaven ! If I 
 have any influence with the Emperor, I will get this iniquity 
 of yours, about the marriage, undone : Konrad shall marry 
 when he chooses, if he chooses — and he shall choose, the 
 sooner the better ! " At the " shall " of the last sentence, 
 the ivory blade snapped across. 
 
 " His Majesty dislikes these irregular successions ; he has 
 said to me before that he would prefer to see them gradually 
 abolished." Count Roden 's accents grew absolutely cheerful 
 again. He rose and began buttoning his coat. " We will 
 abolish this one. I shall abolish it. It has always been 
 very doubtful, if the family contract is binding in a modem 
 court of law. We will settle that question once for all : I 
 have very little doubt of the Imperial decision. Egon, you 
 have chosen, madly, to insult me, the Head of the House, 
 without any reason whatever, to wantonly defy and outrage 
 me. You have turned the brain of that poor silly boy and 
 
DOROTHEA. 229 
 
 ruined his future. And your own. And your own. Come, 
 Konrad. I shall choose my own heir." 
 
 The younger brother went forward and the old man took 
 his arm. " We must find a wife for you : who shall it be ? 
 One as charming as Dorothea ? " — he swept her a deep bow 
 — " but that would hardly be possible ! Or a quiet little 
 German ' Fraulein ' with more ancestors than cash ? " Near 
 the door he stopped, surveying its splinters. "No lame 
 lord of Rheyna for me ! " he said, and went out. 
 
 Egon remained with his womankind. And of these two, 
 Dorothea, bending over his chair, kissed him silently upon 
 the forehead. He quivered, for Dorothea's affection, as has 
 been said, seldom thus found physical utterance. 
 
 " He cannot do it," said the Generalin. 
 
 "Order the funeral against your will? No indeed, 
 mother." 
 
 " Appoint Konrad his heir, was what I meant." 
 
 Egon did not answer, for he believed in the power of the 
 Count to do anything of that kind — almost limitless is the 
 power of Power to do wrong. 
 
 On the next day they laid the dead man to rest, as he had 
 willed, in the sunny graveyard at Lugano. Konrad was 
 not present, having accompanied his uncle north. " I have 
 lost two," said the little Generalin to herself, weeping at 
 the open grave. The parson preached of life eternal, a 
 long reward for virtue here on earth. 
 
 The Child, standing very erect, felt that, whatever sins 
 he might commit hereafter, he had gained for himself 
 already a good place up above. 
 
( 330 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Egon and his wife accompanied the widowed Generalin 
 back to Bonn, and helped her over the usual dreary 
 re-establishment amongst friends who are anxious to 
 express, very quickly and kindly, sentiments they cannot 
 be expected to experience. Then, as it was still early in 
 September — the days warm and the promise of shooting 
 splendid — they made a number of people happy by 
 proceeding for a couple of weeks to Brodryck. Whether 
 Egon was one of the many remains to be seen. 
 
 He had originally imagined that he would never be able 
 to forgive uncle Tony: then, of course, he had forgiven 
 him, utterly, from the heart, as we do. Great offences, 
 especially if limited strictly to ourselves, our own hearts 
 surprise us by readily forgetting : it is trifles we separate 
 over in deadly feud. And that also, like so many other 
 contradictions, is a merciful dispensation of Providence, 
 for, if we distinguished rightly between stabs that crimson 
 the soul and pricks that puncture a hand- glove, what 
 would become of our affection for the dear ones who harm 
 us most ? As it is, all forgiveness comes easy, if only the 
 offence be grave enough, and he who offended sufficiently 
 indifferent. 
 
 The first sensation created amongst the villagers of 
 Brodryck by the accounts of the bridegroom was one of 
 disgust at his personal infirmity. Certainly, the peasantry 
 were not prepared to give him a kindly reception ; even 
 Dorothea's popularity had suffered under the fact of her 
 having married a foreigner, and, perhaps almost more, of 
 her having married abroad. When it became known that 
 the chosen suitor limped, the men of the neighbourhood, 
 especially the old ones, said she was a fool for her pains, 
 and many of the women thought so. It was therefore all 
 the better that the owners of the estate should show 
 themselves to their dependents, even though their bereave- 
 ment prevented the customary triumphal reception. The 
 
DOROTHEA. 231 
 
 actual appearance of " the lame Apollo," to borrow uncle 
 Karl's expression, caused a sudden divergence in popular 
 opinion, for the women suddenly bade the men hold their 
 tongues, and reproach bride or bridegroom no more. " The 
 brow of Apollo," says uncle Karl, " and the foot of a sylvan 
 satyr!" 
 
 Aunt Emma treated her young relations during their 
 brief stay to much ironical but well-meant advice on the 
 all-engrossing subject of wedlock, the marriage bond, the 
 nuptial tie. Under the impression that Egon and Dorothea 
 w^ere an ideally blended and welded couple, harmonised 
 and unified as water and wine (Dorothea being the wine, 
 for aunt Emma was no humbuggy teetotaler, but enjoyed 
 all good gifts of Providence), under this impression the dear 
 old spinster was constantly pointing out to them their 
 inability ever to separate again. They were not, of course, 
 desirous to do so, but it is tiresome to find yourself referred to 
 any human compulsion from which there is no other escape 
 than death. In aunt Emma's little world " decent people 
 didn't separate." " Divorce," said aunt Emma, " is a 
 cutting of the Georgian knot. But I always thought that 
 was very wrong of George!" To her maiden heart, that 
 had cherished the man who married her dearest, and 
 plainest, friend, there was something exceedingly beautiful 
 in seeing young lovers happy. " You'll be sorry one day," 
 said aunt Emma smiling. " Man loves but little here 
 below, and he loves that little wrong." 
 
 " What do you mean, aunt Emma ?" 
 
 " More than I say. Better ask your uncle Antony. 
 How do the weddings go, dear Egon ? The golden 
 wedding — that's the first. The wooden wedding. The 
 leaden wedding (that's twenty-five). The glass wedding — 
 crash !" 
 
 " You forget the composite wedding, in between," 
 suggested uncle Tony. 
 
 " Antony, hold your tongue. You are not fit company 
 for young girls like Dorothea." 
 
 At this there was a great outburst of laughter, for aunt 
 Emma was constantly forgetting that Dorothea was married, 
 and would speak of her to the servants as " the Freule." 
 
 Uncle Tony, stooping, patted the recumbent Em and Doll, 
 both heavily dormant, as usual, across his feet. 
 
 " Right, my beauties," he said, " you two are the only 
 two women in the world that understand whatever I say." 
 
232 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The dogs lifted their heads and looked at him. *' And that 
 always answer right," he added. 
 
 " They are splendid dogs," declared Egon, and uncle 
 Tony gurgled. " It is a pity you have not more sport 
 hereabouts." 
 
 " We have sport enough," said uncle Tony shortly. He 
 irritably blinked his eyes. 
 
 " More different kinds, I ought to have said." 
 
 " Kinds enough and to spare," began Dorothea, but aimt 
 Emma's outcry covered her voice. 
 
 "Antony, I must tell you it was Em killed one of our 
 last kittens, yesterday." 
 
 "No, my dear, no, it couldn't have been," interposed 
 aunt Mary, nervously, and hastened to rattle the tea-cups — 
 they still drank tea in the early evening at Brodryck, after a 
 six o'clock dinner, drank it in the earwiggy summerhouse, 
 or the glass verandah, with the windows down. 
 
 Uncle Tony sat up, very red. " It — was — not." 
 
 " It — was," replied Emma promptly. " I have proofs. 
 She bit it to death." 
 
 " And if so," continued Mary, much flurried, " it was very 
 small, just born. It can't have felt much, its body was so 
 little, and we've thirteen left, dear Emma !" 
 
 " Mary !" Emma's eyes dilated. " I believe, for the sake 
 of peace, you would hush it up if Antony had shot at the 
 Queen!" 
 
 " How dare you suggest such a thing as that ?" cried 
 Mary, almost weeping ; and " Leave sacred subjects alone, if 
 you please !" said Tony, redder still. 
 
 Aunt Emma's voice broke down. " To say that its body 
 was too small," she gasped, " and she gave it two bi — big 
 bites." 
 
 Uncle Tony rose with majestic movements, rolling the 
 cumbersome dogs off his feet. "The matter must be 
 cleared up at once," he said ; " I cannot allow these 
 innocent children to sleep under such an accusation. Wake 
 up ! Emma, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, after 
 all the tolerance they have always shown those little 
 wretches with which you choose to litter the place." 
 
 "The little wretches have a nearer claim to share my 
 hearth than you," replied Emma. 
 
 Uncle Tony vouchsafed no answer, but placed himself 
 near a comer of the conservatory, very solemn, in the full 
 light of the suspended lamp. 
 
DOROTHEA. 233 
 
 " Dorothea and Eg on shall be judges," he said. " If they 
 differ But no ; of course they always agree." 
 
 " This is foolishness," protested the irritated Emma. " I 
 know " 
 
 "Hush! It was Em, you say? Come here, Em!" 
 One of the dogs drew nearer. They both sat watching ; 
 their great eyes were full of interest, and also of 
 unutterable woe. 
 
 "Em!" said uncle Tony in accents that would have 
 touched the heart even of a human being, " you are one of 
 the two finest Irish setters in this kingdom. You know 
 what that means?" The dog, sitting on her haunches, a 
 russet and golden glory, stopped wagging her tail. Her 
 sensible nose was pointed to her master's face ; she twitched 
 the canny nostrils as if in assent. "Noblesse oblige, Em. 
 Now tell me — your right leg means yes, and your left leg 
 
 means no " Uncle Tony stopped, looked round 
 
 triumphantly at the old ladies, tried to wink at Dorothea, 
 and, suddenly, more solemn than ever : " Now tell me — 
 would you like a biscuit, Em ?" 
 
 The dog thus addressed slowly lifted one silken paw, 
 the right, and held it aloft. Her sister sat watching, 
 immovable. 
 
 " It is something," exploded aunt Emma, " to have 
 escaped the fate of marrying a man who can cover his 
 grey hairs with folly ! " 
 
 " Wait a minute before you produce your cap and bells," 
 replied the old gentleman imperturbably, and he broke a 
 bit of biscuit for the culprit. "All I have wished to do as 
 yet is to prove to the judges that the accused has the use 
 of her senses, and can honestly answer when addressed. 
 Now listen to me, Em — have you finished your biscuit ? 
 Hush, listen ! — this is much more important ! Em " — no 
 judge could have been more impressive in tone — " you see 
 that big cat on the table, and the cats in the basket over 
 yonder, and the cat on Miss Emma's lap — you know them ? 
 Cats, Em, cats ! Now tell me — I know that you always 
 speak the truth — right for yes, left for no — have you — listen 
 well ! — have you been naughty to cats, Em ? Have — ^you — 
 been — naughty to cats, Em ?" 
 
 The deep-brown eyes of the dog seemed to grow larger 
 with a liquid light of sympathy. Slowly she lifted her 
 left paw, submissive, pleading, dignified. Uncle Tony faced 
 the judges : " Is the case proved or is it not ? " he asked. 
 
236 DOROTHEA. 
 
 cried. " It all comes of your persisting with your herb- 
 concoctions ! " 
 
 " My herb-concoction is supreme for short-sightedness," 
 said aunt Mary, with touching conviction ; " but of course, 
 if it is a case of genuine ophthalmia " 
 
 " He only says that when he has broken something 
 valuable," interrupted uncle Tony, getting briskly out of 
 his low chair and general state of collapse. " It's a 
 beautiful evening. You might walk back a bit with me, 
 Roden." 
 
 Egon consented. As a matter of fact, his foot had by no 
 means recovered from the fresh wrench he had given it at 
 Lugano. Always more or less painful, walking now 
 positively hurt him. But nobody noticed a secret the 
 young husband was especially anxious to keep. 
 
 " Em," said uncle Tony, as the two dogs drooped behind 
 him, along the moonlit high road. " Em ! " He paused, 
 bending round toward them, in his queer-cut, squireen 
 clothes. *' Em ! Always speak the truth ! " Then he 
 walked on for some distance, chewing his big cigar, 
 without further reference to the matter. 
 
 "Very true, very true, what you said just now about 
 sport ! " he remarked presently. " We have too few kinds. 
 We lack variety. It's always rod and gun." 
 
 " No hunting, I suppose ? Yet it's admirable country," 
 answered Egon. 
 
 " No hunting, no coursing, no baiting of any kind. This 
 isn't a sporting nation. Stuff about cruelty ! Once a club 
 of young swells got up a stand for pigeon-shooting. The 
 police intervened at once, brought actions, as if it were a 
 bull-fight ! " 
 
 " I never saw a bull-fight," answered Egon. " My father 
 did. He said it was a beautiful spectacle, and wouldn't 
 have been really cruel, if it hadn't been for the horses. 
 Not half as bad as a stag-hunt." 
 
 " Psha ! What's ' cruel * ? A woman's cruel when she 
 won't kiss a man that loves her. All the same, 'tis women, 
 bird-bedecked women, that have these fancies about cruelty. 
 You may think yourself lucky at being allowed any shooting 
 at all. Not a year ago Dorothea told me, just before she 
 left for the Riviera, that she wouldn't allow any shooting 
 on her estate ! " He chuckled. 
 
 " No shooting ? " cried Egon, astonished. " But hares 
 and rabbits are vermin, and if one didn't " 
 
DOROTHEA. 237 
 
 "Oh, you needn't talk the A.B.C. of common-sense to 
 me," replied the old man testily, "though I had to talk it 
 to Dorothea. I shoot every day of my life that God and 
 the law will let me. Dorothea's, of course, was only a silly 
 * fancy.' She knows that as well as I." 
 
 " She has never hinted at anything of the kind to me," 
 said Egon, a little restlessly. " On the contrary, she seemed 
 to be glad to think I should get some good shooting here." 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course. Well, you owe it to me. * Do 
 you like roast partridge ? ' I said, and that finished her. 
 ' Very much, indeed,' she says, for Dorothea's terrible honest. 
 She has her faults (though you don't see *em), but she's 
 honest down to the ground. Unlike most women. Better 
 leave well alone : she might start off again. Women '11 
 take to any fad, if they think that their doing so arouses 
 your interest." 
 
 "You have great experience of women, uncle Tony," 
 said Egon, smiling in the shade. 
 
 "H'm, h'm. H'm, h'm," replied uncle Tony. He 
 slapped the big German on the forearm. " I'll always 
 befriend you with your wife, my boy." 
 
 Indeed, he had done so. " I know men," he had said to 
 Dorothea. "A woman can manage them easily, if only 
 she lets them think that they have their own way. 
 Remember the proverb, my dear : ' The husband's the head 
 of the family ; the wife's the neck.' I'm a traitor to my 
 sex, but it's all the better for Egon : no household endures 
 in peace where the husband's will is law. There never was 
 a wife yet could bear the strain " — uncle Tony grinned — 
 "you must give way in little things, my dear" — uncle 
 Tony turned in the doorway. "And, remember this, my 
 dear — ^you haven't forgotten asking me, on your birthday, 
 if I knew the world ? if the world was very wicked ? — 
 remember this : a man's wicked isn't a woman's, child." 
 
 " Oh, uncle Tony, that can't be true," cried Dorothea, 
 flashing. " But it doesn't matter, besides, for Egon has got 
 no wicked ! " 
 
 The healthy old gentleman wrinkled his rubicund cheeks. 
 " Quite so, my dear child, and yet my words are true. A 
 man's wicked is not a woman's wicked, nor is a man's good 
 a woman's good. Good-bye." 
 
 Dorothea, left alone, shook her head. " I can't imagine 
 what he means," she said. " There is only one good in the 
 world, and that's God's." She did not enquire whether 
 
238 DOROTHEA. 
 
 we all see that good from the same standpoint. And yet 
 she herself had recently modified her ideas about shooting 
 game. She had told herself that, as wild beasts big and 
 little must be shot or snared (which latter is monstrous !), 
 it was quite a natural thing that men should enjoy the 
 excitement of skilful aiming: every other view, if you 
 came to think of it, was sentimental, an affectation. Shoot- 
 ing, then, was honest sport, not brute torture, like angling. 
 For men, such straightforward work was right, for women — 
 no ! Her face cleared : she thought she saw uncle Tony's 
 meaning : other occupations, of course, were fit for women 
 or for men. 
 
 But this by the way. Which now was nearly ended, for 
 Egon stopped at a turn in the road. " You've no foxes or 
 stags," he said, "so you couldn't very well have much 
 hunting. But you've plenty of hares, and capital ground, 
 as I said." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," replied Tony, reflectively, *'I have pointed 
 that out a dozen times. But a man wants encouragement. 
 You stay over your birthday, I understand, next week ? " 
 
 " Yes, in any case." Egon offered his hand. 
 
 " I am glad you are a lover of sport. And of dogs. I like 
 you better than I thought I should, von Roden ! " He 
 slapped down his hand in the other's extended palm. 
 
 " I am glad of that," laughed Egon. 
 
 " You don't mind my saying it ? Eh ? " 
 
 " Indeed, no." 
 
 " What a fool you would be, if you did ! Come along, 
 girls ! " Whistling, uncle Tony disappeared into the night. 
 
 Dorothea stood with aunt Mary in the garden, in the 
 gentle moonlight, waiting for Egon's return. 
 
 " I am happy to think of your happiness," said aunt 
 Mary. " Child, there is nothing in the world worth living 
 for but love." 
 
 Dorothea was silent, not in full sympathy with the old 
 maid's extravagance of language. 
 
 " If you love him truly, you will love him to the end." 
 
 Dorothea smiled. " Of course, aunt Mary, I intend to." 
 
 " Well, remember the truth of it, dearest, should mis- 
 understandings arise." 
 
 " Why should they, auntie ? Egon and I imderstand 
 each other perfectly." 
 
 " Of course, dear : that was what I meant. But clouds 
 will obscure the clearest sun. And therefore, always 
 
DOROTHEA. 239 
 
 remember, that, as you love him truly, you must love him 
 to the end." 
 
 Her old voice faltered. Dorothea pressed closer against 
 her, with drooping head, for thought of the two graves 
 out yonder in the moonlit churchyard, the grave of the 
 aged pastor aunt Mary had hopelessly loved through a 
 lonely existence, and that of the young wife and mother, 
 dead on the threshold of a woman's supremest happiness. ' 
 
 "Aunt Mary," she asked tremulously, "what did — why 
 did — I mean, what was my mother's sorrow ? — I have 
 sometimes fancied of late that a great sorrow killed her, 
 — and I have thought that it might have been — but tell me, 
 aunt." 
 
 The old woman stiffened, in frame, and voice, and 
 manner, suddenly hard. "Let the dead past bury its 
 dead," she said. "Your mother loved your father, 
 Dorothea." 
 
 Were the words a refusal, an extenuation, or a reply? 
 The yoimg wife shivered, unable to question more. 
 
 " That is Egon's step," she said. " Poor fellow I Shall 
 we go and meet him ? " 
 
( HO ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 On Egon's birthday there was no shooting. A day of 
 rest — and rational rising — had been decreed by the ladies 
 after a period of successful sport with various neighbours. 
 Uncle Tony's head seemed almost turned by the congenial 
 excitement of doing honour to a brother Nimrod from 
 foreign parts amongst his own sporting chums of forty 
 seasons. He had much to say about Egon's shooting, 
 its faults and excellences, and some — chiefly local — advice 
 to offer, as becomes the old Obadiah, when out with the 
 young Obadiah for long days in field and forest. " He's a 
 good shot," said the old man to Dorothea. " He might be a 
 better, and he might be a worse." Dorothea's indifference 
 to this piece of information stung the incorrigible seeker 
 after something to slay. " I have known many better, with 
 half his opportunities," added uncle Tony rather spitefully. 
 " Thank Heaven ! " replied Dorothea. The old man 
 twinkled his little black eyes at her. " What's worth doing 
 at all is worth doing — better than other people," he 
 said. 
 
 But this close intercourse in community of interest 
 caused uncle Tony to fraternise most happily with the 
 man he had intended to dislike, and the fact was agreeable 
 to Dorothea. Also it brought the newcomer into easy 
 contact with all the somebodies and somethings of the 
 province, in circumstances favourable to superficial friend- 
 liness : the young husband, whose nationality and marriage 
 to the heiress were equally against him, made a satisfactory 
 impression at various shooting parties, and appeared to 
 enjoy himself everywhere. Dorothea, therefore, felt that 
 she had much reason to bless the pheasants and partridges, 
 whose dead bodies she was obliged to survey, in the 
 thicket, before luncheon, or at nightfall, in front of the 
 house. During brief intervals of respite, when uncle Tony 
 had " business," she delighted in showing her husband all 
 the haunts of her childhood and introducing him to the 
 
DOROTHEA. 
 
 241 
 
 country people she had known and loved all her life. 
 Here, of course, the scion of Rheyna was in his element, 
 and the husband and wife found themselves enjoying 
 a bright sympathy and eager agreement such as the sojourn 
 at Florence had never developed. Dutchmen and Germans, 
 especially if the latter speak " Platt-Deutsch," can make 
 out each other's meaning pretty well when they wish to. 
 Verbal intercourse, therefore, of a kind was possible between 
 Egon and the peasantry around him. People of education 
 all over the Continent — outside Spain — invariably under- 
 stand a couple of foreign languages sufficiently for the 
 needs of trivial conversation in either. 
 
 Together the young couple visited the manor-house and 
 arranged how they would occupy it during the next 
 summer holidays. Egon's plans for a future career, diplo- 
 matic or parliamentary, were much hampered just now 
 by the quarrel with his uncle, who certainly would not 
 help him at this moment in Berlin. He had therefore 
 abandoned his original idea of going to the capital from 
 Brodryck and seeking an appointment in the Prussian civil 
 service. To avoid all semblance of a rupture, he agreed 
 with his mother that no definite settlement should be made 
 till after Christmas. Meanwhile husband and wife could go 
 south again, " in idyllic prolongation of their honeymoon," 
 said the Child. 
 
 The only one of Dorothea's friends to whom Egon did 
 not take kindly was Mark Lester, the student, the dead 
 pastor's son. Almost every husband dislikes the young 
 men his wife knew and liked before she made his acquaint- 
 ance. The thing is foolish, for has he not more reason 
 to fear the agreeable youths she met after she had chosen 
 him? But these instincts yield to no arguments. The 
 most jealous husband is ready to accept his own pleasant 
 acquaintances and resolved to object to his wife's. 
 
 " I do not like him," said Egon. " He is lean ; he is 
 melancholy ; he looks cross." 
 
 "Then he looks what he is not," answered Dorothea 
 hotly. " But some light-hearted people can never distinguish; 
 between 'cross' and 'sad.' I admit that he has not a. 
 loud laugh for every trifle ; his life is too hard for that." 
 
 " Dear me, Dolly 1 " Egon lifted his eyebrows, ascribing 
 to personal interest what was really more general loyalty. 
 " I never knew you to fly out like that before." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by * flying out.* But 
 
242 DOROTHEA. 
 
 I cannot bear to have my friends ill spoken of simply 
 because they are my friends, and that by people who do 
 not know them." She walked to the window, with an air 
 of great vexation, and stood drumming on the pane. The 
 husband, of course, would have done wisely to let the 
 subject drop, and therefore he continued it. 
 
 " You are most unjust, dearest," he argued. At that 
 moment he felt overflowing with argument, all-convincing. 
 "As soon as you are serious, of course I have nothing 
 against Mr. Lester. I was speaking half in joke when 
 I said he looked lean and cross. I hear that aunt Emma 
 calls him ' Schiller. ' I suppose he is a poet, a thinker. 
 You wouldn't want a poet to be gay and fat ? " 
 
 " Laugh away ; he can't answer you," replied Dorothea. 
 " He is only a poor student that has to work for his bread, 
 and give lessons, not a gentleman of rank who can spend 
 his days in the open air, and laugh over humorous stories." 
 
 The " gentleman of rank in the open air " had called up 
 a grin upon Egon's face, which the " humorous stories " 
 swept away in a thunder-cloud. For here was some of 
 uncle Tony's clumsy handiwork. That terrible old man 
 had told at dinner the night before how Egon had kept 
 all the shooting- party in a roar over " lots of funny 
 stories of his student days at Heidelberg." Dorothea had 
 of course immediately asked for a repetition of the stories. 
 Uncle Tony had nodded and winked and looked wise, and 
 declared that the thing was impossible. "Not before 
 ladies, my dear ! no, no — out of the question — your husband 
 was a sad dog. Some day he must tell you himself ! " In 
 vain Egon had tried to explain that the stories were 
 harmless, as they were, tales of comic uproariousness, a 
 glass too much, a practical joke or two, not fit, perhaps, 
 for the ears of teetotalers, thought Egon. The more he 
 had protested, the more uncle Tony had chuckled and 
 made mischief. " Let us speak of something else," 
 Dorothea had said in a voice which showed how the 
 matter rankled. Heaven — or hell — only knows what she 
 imagined the stories to have been. When Egon afterwards 
 protested, the impenitent sinner had answered : " Stuff and 
 nonsense ! If she does think the stories were naughty, so 
 much the better. She believes you're a saint " (uncle Tony 
 grinned), " and if you're a wise man you'll make haste to dis- 
 illusion her. No man on earth can keep his wife up to her 
 idea of his worth when she married him. And Dorothea's 
 
DOROTHEA. 245 
 
 schoolgirl conception of masculine virtue is absurd, idiotic, 
 unreasonable ! Pooh ! It means a lot of trouble some day 
 to somebody." Uncle Tony took snuff. 
 
 " But please leave us to disentangle things for ourselves," 
 pleaded Egon. 
 
 " By all means, " said uncle Tony. " I'll tell her the stories 
 weren't naughty," which he did, confirming, by his utterance 
 of an afterthought, her uncertain but painful impression. 
 
 When, therefore, Dorothea referred to this reprobate 
 occasion of mirth, her husband's face grew dark. He 
 would gladly have asked her, in open words, v/hat she 
 feared were these tales of his youth unfit to tell her, but 
 the question seemed impossible to his proud, and yet delicate, 
 nature. He felt the hot blood rising at the thought that 
 his wife should doubt him in such a matter as this. A 
 man can speak to his wife of love and endearment and 
 honour, but of purity, if he be pure, he cannot speak. 
 
 " Mark Lester is serious by nature. He is poor. He has 
 recently lost his father. No wonder he doesn't laugh 
 much," continued Dorothea. 
 
 Egon bit his lips. " I also have recently lost my father,'* 
 he said. ''Do you mean to insinuate that, because I laugh, 
 I do not care ? " 
 
 She turned from the window, facing him, with a beautiful 
 backward movement of the head he had never seen in her 
 before. 
 
 "We have been married about six months," she said. 
 " Have you not yet learnt that I never insinuate ? " 
 
 "But, my dear Dorothea, it was certainly wrong of 
 you " 
 
 She waved his objections aside. "I daresay it was. I 
 shall probably do or say a good many things, sooner or 
 later, which you do not approve of, but be certain of one 
 thing : I shall never insinuate anything." 
 
 He looked at her. " Good heavens ! " he exclaimed 
 suddenly, " we are having our first quarrel. I don't know 
 what it is about ; it can't be about Mr. Mark Lester." 
 
 Dorothea held back. "You are provoking," she said 
 quickly. " Perhaps you do not know how aggravating 
 you can be." Their glances met, and all her annoyance 
 melted before the softness of his gaze. She laughed as he 
 drew her towards him, but the tears stood in her eyes. 
 " Be good to me, Egon," she said. 
 
 *' I thought I was perfect," he answered. 
 
 R 3 
 
344 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Well, so you are in — in " 
 
 " Theory ? " 
 
 She stopped his lips with a kiss. " If ever I am very 
 clever," she said, " I will tell you all I mean." 
 
 This was a couple of days before the birthday. On that 
 morning they did not quarrel, but came down to breakfast 
 late. 
 
 Very soon after the meal uncle Tony arrived, immensely 
 important and flurried. To aunt Emma's inquiry he 
 replied with such vehemence, " Nothing ! " that everybody 
 at once understood something out of the way to be the 
 matter. His sitting down in a litter of babies was not an 
 event to provoke comment in so feline a household, where 
 the ladies themselves must be constantly tumbling over, 
 settling down on, or otherwise getting entangled with 
 various categories of kittens and cats. These little ones, 
 however, too small to escape readily, fought for their lives 
 with a swift determination, which caused uncle Tony to 
 rise very hastily and mutter, as he rubbed the scratched 
 part, some insulting allusion to the usefulness of Em. 
 
 " Eh ? What did you say that dogs were good for ? '* 
 asked Emma, watching him closely, behind her crochet. 
 
 *' For lying ujider chairs," replied Tony. " I never allow 
 any animal on mine." 
 
 " Don't you ? But then, of course, dogs are such dirty 
 animals, not cleanly, like cats." 
 
 " Ahem ! I've got a present for Egon," answered uncle 
 Tony hastily. There was a general outcry of astonish- 
 ment, for uncle Tony, as all knew, detested presents, not, 
 certainly, from want of generosity, but rather on account 
 of the worry of selection. Even to Dorothea he had never 
 brought other gift than a gold piece on her birthday and 
 another on his, in the summer ; only to aunt Emma he 
 presented an annual unnecessary trinket, a ring or a brooch. 
 She put them all away in a cedar box, with a wisp of his 
 hair of the time when it was golden. In the same "casket" 
 were also one or two relics of the man who had married 
 her dearest, and plainest, friend. 
 
 " Yes, I have a present for Egon," repeated Tony. He 
 refused to give any further explanation ; on the contrary, 
 he openly invited Egon to share his morning walk. " You 
 can't sit spooning all day," said Tony. " Come away with 
 me now for an hour in the woods. You can spare him, 
 can't you, Dorothea ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 245 
 
 " Oh, till lunch," replied Dorothea, laughing, and Egon 
 wondered if she would ever notice the difficulty in walking 
 he would rather have died than declare. But Dorothea, 
 perfectly healthy herself, had no aptitude for discovering 
 hidden ailments, could only realize, in fact, those which 
 write themselves plain, such as colic or a broken leg. 
 
 "Yes, go away; we are busy for the children," said aunt 
 Emma. "Dorothea has chosen to treat Egon's birthday 
 exactly as if it were her own." 
 
 " Considering I shall not be here on my own," explained 
 Dorothea. 
 
 But uncle Tony, with many winks and signs, had already 
 enticed von Roden out into the fresh autumn morning. 
 " Come along with me ! Come along with me ! " repeated 
 the old gentleman excitedly. He led the way through the 
 shrubberies, skipping nimbly and mumbling to himself the 
 while in extremest glee. " Quite right," he said suddenly, 
 "you were very right. You remember saying the other 
 day that we lacked variety over here ? " 
 
 " Variety ? " answered Egon. 
 
 " Yes, in our forms of sport," explained uncle Tony, very 
 testily. 
 
 " Oh yes, quite so, in your forms of sport." 
 
 " Well, one would almost think that you didn't care." 
 Uncle Tony stopped where the shrubbery opens out into 
 the lower field. He looked aggrieved. 
 
 " Oh yes, I care, but, you see, it can*t be helped," said 
 Egon hastily. 
 
 " Can't it ? " replied uncle Tony with a ready chuckle. 
 His own keeper came forward at that moment from behind 
 a clump of trees. "Well, Jansen, have you got 'em there?" 
 asked uncle Tony. 
 ' The keeper touched his hat. 
 
 " Everything ready ? " 
 
 " Everything, sir." 
 
 The lower field is barely five minutes* walk from the 
 ladies' house, upon the Brodryck property. It stretches 
 over a couple of acres, lying encircled in brushwood, which 
 climbs across the top of a grass-grown mound, thus hiding 
 upon the other side a favourite seat of Dorothea's. At the 
 nearer end stands a group of birches, and from behind 
 their silver stems now proceeded into view a tiny boy and 
 a great big hound. The dog required a lot of dragging, to 
 which he good-naturedly submitted, while resenting it. 
 
346 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " You know what that is ! " exclaimed uncle Tony, 
 beaming, and slapped his thigh. 
 
 " A greyhound," answered Egon. " A — a — what do you 
 call it ? — a harrier." 
 
 *' A harrier ! " shouted uncle Tony. " And the best to be 
 got for the money — half a dozen prizes ! The female is 
 coming in a day or two ; I couldn't get her sooner. Well 
 breed them, my boy ! " — slap — " we'll have a regular pack ! " 
 — slap — " we'll have coursing matches ; and, by George, we'll 
 introduce coursing into this country ! " Slap ! slap ! 
 
 Egon watched the beautiful brute, and the little chap 
 slowly tugging him over the grass. 
 
 " They're my present to you, my dear fellow, the pair of 
 them. You shall have the honour of keeping and breeding 
 them," said wily uncle Tony. " You shall introduce the 
 thing amongst us, I say ! It shall be connected with your 
 name in this country. Next to the discoverer of a new food 
 comes, in his claim on human gratitude, the inventor of a 
 new game. See ? " 
 
 •' Yes, yes ; it's very good of you," said Egon. " And it's 
 first-rate sport of its kind." By this time they had met the 
 hound half-way, and Egon stooped to pat him. " Leporello 
 is his name," said uncle Tony. " I wrote for him as soon 
 as you had put the idea into my head, but he only arrived 
 last night. I was in a great flurry about him. But I think 
 he's all right. You must have a pack. Yes, you must intro- 
 duce coursing into this country ! 
 
 " You see, we can't have the great doings you told about 
 at Rheyna," he said, " no deer-shooting in forests, or things 
 of that kind, but there's no reason why we shouldn't hunt 
 hares." He fell eagerly to discussing the animal's points, 
 and Egon, who really knew more about the whole matter 
 than Tony, delighted the old man with the information 
 he gave. 
 
 " It's a pity we can't try him," said Tony. 
 
 " Well, yes, so it is ! " 
 
 Uncle Tony gave a little crow of enjoyment. "Now 
 then, Jansen ! " he said. At the same time he took the 
 leash from the boy's hand. The keeper disappeared for a 
 minute, and returned holding a bag which he had steadied 
 with some inconvenience. Something in the bag struggled 
 and fought. One look at the dog was sufficient to tell 
 what were the contents of the bag. 
 
 In a minute or two, after a certain amount of explanation 
 
DOROTHEA. 247 
 
 and loud direction and objurgation from uncle Tony, the 
 keeper, standing ahead, opened the bag across the grass. 
 Immediately the hare was out ! The straining dog had 
 dragged loose, sending uncle Tony flying behind him, legs 
 up in air. Quarry and pursuer flew away, a swift trail 
 along the smooth surface of the field. In another instant 
 the hare doubled, the dog already gaining upon him ; they 
 slewed round, with quick loops and lacings, a beautiful 
 sight undeniably, in spite of its cruelty. Uncle Tony sat 
 up, red-hot, shouting and cheering like a madman. Egon, 
 with a flow of boyish excitement, joined in. The keeper 
 and the boy stood stolid. 
 
 Of course it was very soon over. " He's got another in a 
 bag still," cried Tony, running forward. The two men, the 
 dog, the dead hare, were grouped in the middle of the field. 
 
 Dorothea stood on the mound, her lithe figure framed in 
 the hazel bushes. She had pushed some branches aside and 
 was holding them away. Both uncle Tony and Egon had 
 seen her. 
 
 She came half-way across the field, very quickly. " Now 
 this is just what I should have chosen," said uncle Tony, a 
 little nervously, " Better get it over at once, if she objects. 
 You must be very firm with her, Roden ; your whole future 
 comfort is at stake." 
 
 Egon did not answer, though he felt that what imcle 
 Tony had said was correct. 
 
 " If you are to be ruled in such common-sense matters by 
 
 the whims of your wife " But Dorothea was within 
 
 hearing ; he broke off. 
 
 She came quite close to them and stood studying for a 
 moment, as it were, the dog, the little dead beast on the 
 grass, especially the little dead beast. Then she lifted her 
 slow eyes to Egon's face. " So it is true," she said, and 
 turned, and walked back again across the smooth, green 
 grass. 
 
 The two men stared at each other. " She takes it very 
 quietly," whispered Tony. " Elle en prend son parti, the 
 best thing she could do. By Jove, we'll have otter hounds ! " 
 
 But Egon was after his wife, across the grass. 
 
 " Dorothea ! " he called. She quickened her pace. 
 
 " Dorothea ! " No answer ; she was walking too fast for 
 his lameness. Uncle Tony and the servants stood watching. 
 He realized the absurdity of his position. Resolutely he 
 came back. 
 
248 DOROTHEA. 
 
 By uncle Tony's side he waited in silence, watching her 
 as she rapidly passed up the mound, into the bushes, behind 
 the hazel leaves. She was gone. Uncle Tony drew a deep 
 breath. " We'll have out the other hare," he said. " Yes, 
 by George, we will," replied Egon. 
 
 Meanwhile Dorothea sped out of sight or hearing, and 
 then paused, with a beating heart. She looked right and 
 left, like a hunted thing, straining forward as if the dogs 
 were upon her. " It is not possible," she said, shuddering, 
 *' not possible ! " and she pressed her hands upon her eyes, 
 as if she had dreamed a dream. 
 
 She wandered away down to the village, the church, the 
 churchyard, creeping to her mother's grave, as had been 
 her childish custom when in sorrow or disgrace. The thing 
 came natural to her still. Often she had lain there sobbing 
 her griefs into the greensward. " I've been naughty again, 
 mother. Oh, I want to be good ! " She had long had an 
 idea that this dead mother could help her. Alas ! nobody 
 else could — a thought that aunt Mary had never openly 
 combated, though aunt Emma, with tears of sympathy in 
 her eyes, had declared it was papistical trash, and Dorothea 
 must conquer such fancies. The child, therefore, had wept 
 more hopelessly by the grave, from which the white cross 
 stared coldly at her. "Blessed are the pure in heart," it 
 said. Dorothea knew that was not for her. But, not being 
 sentimental, she soon dried her futile tears and, accepting 
 her corruption, made the best of a bad business. In fact, 
 could she have read her own heart, she would have found 
 it to contain a distinct impression of unfairness, that a child 
 so very faulty should receive so little benefit from a perfect 
 mother in a better world. As a wee baimie, she had long 
 prayed : " Please God, send mother back for Christ's sake " 
 — suddenly one night she had changed this to " my sake ; ** 
 then came the horrible evening, after long months, when 
 she fully admitted to herself that the petition was hopeless, 
 and dropped it. 
 
 " Please God, send mother back for my sake. Amen." She 
 now thought of that reiterated demand with a pitiful smile. 
 She remembered how she had trembled at making the 
 substitution, wondering whether it was blasphemy, too 
 honest to ask any longer for the Lord's sake what she felt 
 that she needed and desired for her own. The first time 
 she had said it, in her cot, after the light was out, she had 
 shut her eyes, half expecting to be struck by lightning— 
 
DOROTHEA. 249 
 
 then she would go to her mother (for Dorothea never, in 
 spite of aunt Emma, believed in hell) — nothing happened ; 
 even now, a grown woman, she shuddered, disappointed at 
 the thought. She stood looking at the grave, vaguely 
 wondering if the presence of a mother by her side — for 
 instance, over yonder at Nice — would have altered the 
 whole course of her life. What had she not learnt of 
 the world since she had stood here last ? She had gained 
 and lost a father. Had she gained and lost a husband ? 
 No ! no ! no ! She had gained and held them both. 
 
 " At last ! " said a voice behind her. She turned to greet 
 Mark Lester. 
 
 " I knew you would come some day," he said. " I 
 thought you would come a great deal sooner." 
 
 She could find no reply to what seemed a reproach. 
 
 " It is the first time, Dorothea, that we meet alone since — 
 your marriage." 
 
 "Yes, we have been very much occupied, my husband 
 and I." 
 
 " I know. I am preparing, as I told you, for my ordina- 
 tion. If all goes well, I shall be inducted into this place 
 next spring, unless you, who are the lady of the manor, 
 refuse your consent." 
 
 *' Perhaps I shall," she said, smiling. 
 
 " Or is it your husband nowadays who must give his? " He 
 had no idea of the bitterness that lay in his tone. He added : 
 " If so, he will probably refuse it. I ought to be sorry, and 
 I shall be glad." 
 
 " Mark ! " She turned, shocked by the wretchedness in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Don't pretend, Dorothea ; you know very well he 
 doesn't like me ! Does it matter ? I sit and work in the 
 garden yonder ; I can just see this cross through a gap in 
 the shrubbery. I knew you would come. I wanted to give 
 you here my father's last message for you." 
 
 " What was it ? " she asked softly. 
 
 ** He told me, an hour before he died, to remind you of 
 his birthday text. He did not say what it was." 
 
 " * And to keep yourselves unspotted from the world,' " said 
 Dorothea, gazing at the cross before her. " What does it 
 mean, Mark ? " 
 
 " I do not know. I have not the faintest idea. Don't 
 ask me. What is ' the world ' ? " 
 
 Dorothea was silent. 
 
250 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " But of course anyone can see what it must mean to you . 
 to remain just as you are, good, among all the bad people 
 who surround you." 
 
 " But I have no bad " She drew breath ; the scene 
 
 in the field rose before her. 
 
 "You are leaving to-morrow, are you not? Before I go 
 back to my book, tell me that you are happy. That is all 
 I want to know." 
 
 " You used to say, Mark, that no one had a right to be 
 happy." 
 
 " Tell me that you are happy," he insisted, but she saw 
 in his face that she had answered him. 
 
 " I am as happy as I deserve to be," she said. 
 
 "For a person as humble as you are to say that, you 
 must be very wretched." 
 
 " Nonsense, Mark ! " She laughed. " We are going back, 
 as you know, to Italy to-morrow. We intend to take a 
 house on one of the lakes for the autumn, and then winter in 
 Rome. Now, I want you to promise to come and see us in our 
 house — we shall have other guests ; I want you to come. 
 You can work there ; the change will do you good. You 
 are not looking well, Mark. I am sure you will like Egon 
 when you know him better; you have many things in 
 common." 
 
 Mark made as if he would speak, but checked himself. 
 He could not tell her that they had one thing in common 
 which separated them most. 
 
 "No, I cannot come," he said. *'It is very kind of you, 
 but I cannot come." 
 
 " I will write to you. I shall send for you, Mark." 
 
 " Don't, Dorothea ! " 
 
 " Yes, I shall. And you will come." 
 
 "Good-bye," he said, walking towards the little par- 
 sonage gate. But half-way he turned back. 
 
 " We are brother and sister," he said, " are we not ? We 
 have known each other all our lives. I want to ask some- 
 thing ; I daren't, but I must. Dorothea, I can stand no 
 longer the agony of doubt I have been enduring through 
 all these months. It keeps me from the thoughts I should 
 be thinking night and day. Tell me, before we part — by 
 our old friendship — you have married a man you didn't 
 know. Most women do. You love your husband ? " 
 
 No, she was not angry with him as he stood there before 
 her, worn, and gentle, and strong with some hidden fire of 
 
DOROTHEA. 251 
 
 suffering. The world had gone hard with Mark Lester. 
 All things were against him ; he was honest of lip — that 
 may often succeed — and of thought — that fails. 
 
 Full of tenderness for the old friend here before her and 
 the husband yonder in the meadow, she answered : " I love 
 him from the bottom of my soul." 
 
 " Thank God ! " replied Mark, and left her. 
 
 Egon, returning early, did not see Dorothea again till 
 just before luncheon, when she met him purposely, as he 
 presumed, in the hall. 
 
 She stopped opposite him, enduring his questioning 
 glance with hardened eyes. 
 
 *'Egon," she said, " I have no right to interfere with your 
 amusements. " There are things I suppose I could resent, 
 but this is not one of them. Let us please not refer to the 
 subject." 
 
 " Dorothea, the brute was uncle Tony's birthday present. 
 If you like, I'll " 
 
 •' Pray do not ask what I like. Besides, that is quite 
 unnecessary. Anyone who could possibly derive the faintest 
 satisfaction from so hideous an exhibition of cruelty is too 
 utterly removed from my way of thinking in such matters 
 to make any discussion or explanation advisable between 
 us." 
 
 Her figure trembled, but her face was firm. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " if you deem all explanation 
 unadvisable " 
 
 "I do. Where such difference exists as could render 
 possible your amusement of this morning, all further talk 
 would but lead to recrimination. Please let me pass." 
 
 Looking into her eyes, he saw that here was no mis- 
 understanding, no divergence of sympathy, but resolute 
 separation, momentary dislike. He rebelled against the 
 rashness of her verdict as he moved aside. She passed by 
 him. 
 
 " Egon ! " she cried, with a woman's swift revulsion of 
 tenderness. "You cannot say that you enjoyed the mon- 
 strous cruelty of that brutal sport ! " 
 
 But he was angry with her, and, above all, loyal to his 
 comrade in crime. " I do not see," he answered, " why a 
 man cannot take an interest in coursing without being 
 branded as a monster of cruelty too horrible for words." 
 
 She vouchsafed him no further reply. Aunt Mary at 
 luncheon lifted her glass — of water. "My dear nephew 
 
 k 
 
252 DOROTHEA. 
 
 and niece," she said, " to-morrow you leave us ; may the 
 good God go with you ! And all through life's journey, to 
 the end, may you always be as happy and united as you are 
 to-day ! " 
 
 In the lower field, the keeper, Jansen, stood looking down 
 at two dead hares. " Funny tastes the great people have ! ** 
 he grumbled. " A shameful thing it seems to me, boy, but 
 it comes from foreign parts. Keep back that brute ! The 
 Freule — beg pardon, the young Mevrouw — was right to go 
 back again. That my old master should be such a fool ! " 
 
( a53 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 On the blue waters of the Lago d'Orta, loveliest amongst 
 the smaller lakes of Lombardy, in the silver sunshine 
 sparkling through them, and the golden sunshine pouring 
 over them, and the grey autumnal heat mist thinly veiling 
 the calm mountains all round them, on the bright blue 
 waters of the Lago d'Orta, a gaily painted rowing boat, with 
 the German colours pendent from its stern, was lazing 
 languidly against the little waves that laughed towards it. 
 The rowers had dropped their oars and lay back amongst 
 the coloured cushions. The charm of the sleepy landscape 
 was upon them, the dolce far niente of perfect stillness and 
 blazing heat that will soon be turning into chills. It was 
 early in October ; summer was dying slowly, superbly, with 
 sudden revulsions, as a woman's beauty dies when the 
 gods, and her heart, are good. 
 
 "Egon," said Dorothea, "this place is the most 
 beautiful of all." 
 
 " I am glad you think so, dearest." He kissed her, and 
 she let him kiss. 
 
 " It has been paradise to me through these ten days. I 
 have never been so happy before." 
 
 " And what, in your paradise, am I, the old Adam or the 
 snake ? " She put her hand across his mouth. 
 
 " You said you had forgiven me," she answered. 
 
 " I never did ! " 
 
 " Egon, you remember — " 
 
 " I said I had nothing to forgive. I am glad that we 
 spent those two days at Bonn, Dorothea. My mother was 
 right in scolding me. She said I ought never to do 
 anything I knew you didn't like." 
 
 Dorothea dabbled her hand in the rippling water. " She 
 scolded me, too." 
 
 " I am sure she would never have ventured." His face 
 clouded over at the thought that his mother should know. 
 
 Dorothea looked down on her fingers, bent by the 
 
254 DOROTHEA. 
 
 current. " I will tell you exactly what she said ; why not ? 
 She spoke to me of her union with your father, her 
 happiness. * I loved him,' she said, ' neither for his faults, 
 nor in spite of them, nor for his faultlessness, but simply 
 because he was he, and I was I.* So, you see, nobody made 
 mention of you, sir." 
 
 "You are willing, then, to love me in spite of my 
 blemishes ? Before we married I told you it was not fair 
 to expect me to prove perfect. Perfect, good heavens! 
 You will have to make up your mind, Dolly, that you have 
 married a very ordinary every- day mortal, who certainly 
 can't fly." His glance stole along his recumbent frame, 
 slowly down to his foot. 
 
 " I don't want you to fly ; you might fly away ! " said 
 Dorothea, her eyes wandering over the lake. 
 
 His answer could only be a lover's answer. It was true 
 that these days on the lake had marked a period of simple 
 happiness. The two were alone, in their white Italian 
 villa, sheltered from advisers, hidden from strangers, on this 
 golden backwater of touristdom. They were alone, then, 
 with their honest desires towards each other, with nature, 
 that gave them all things to enjoy ; and their hearts 
 wanted friendship, not discontent. So they spoke not of 
 differences in the sunlight, but sank down the stream side 
 by side. 
 
 "■ Sing to me ! " said Dorothea. ''There is nobody near. 
 The bells of San Giulio have struck midday. All Italians 
 are at lunch or asleep." 
 
 " What shall I sing ? " he asked, in the drowse of the 
 boat upon the water. * Ich wollt' meine Liebe ergosse 
 sich* ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, not that ; it is Sunday." 
 
 He smiled at what seemed to him, the German, one of 
 Dorothea's queerest fancies. " Does love stop overflowing 
 on Sunday ? Do torrents, or wells ? " he said. " Mine doesn't." 
 
 ''Now you are so literal, Egon. You couldn't mean ' Ich 
 wollt' meine Liebe ergosse sich ' to me, because I'm not 
 away." 
 
 " Why, you are more literal than I am ; I should have 
 thought of you all the time. But I will sing you something 
 else." And he began the " Ave, Maris Stella ! " of Gounod. 
 The fair lake was absolutely peaceful. Far and wide it 
 shone to the shining hills around. 
 
 Presently he straightened himself out of his listless 
 
DOROTHEA. 255 
 
 attitude and bared his head, the while he continued singing, 
 his face and form unconsciously assuming an air of 
 reverential calm. Dorothea, of course, could not cast off 
 the prejudices of her sternly Calvinistic upbringing. In 
 Florence she had timidly spoken once to Egon of her panic 
 fear of his perversion. 
 
 "Leave me vv^hat little faith I can develop," he said. 
 *' I fear, as it is, it will hardly suffice to carry me through." 
 
 She listened now with tears in her eyes and a lump at 
 her throat. She could not prevent these from coming 
 whenever Egon sang. 
 
 " I will sing you a hymn," he said, and he poured forth 
 a couple of the great German chorals : " Ich bete an die 
 Macht der Liebe " and Luther's " Feste Burg." 
 
 The little boat rocked as the great notes of the latter 
 rolled forth in volumes of harmonious sound. " Why don't 
 you join in ? " he asked. 
 
 She gazed at him in adoring admiration. " That would 
 be sacrilege," she said. But he laughed so immoderately, 
 he almost hurt her. And they rowed a little, idly, making 
 slow progress towards the shore. 
 
 *'It is getting on for lunch-time," said Egon. 
 
 " Egon, I don't know why it is, but I flatter myself you 
 never sing quite so beautifully as when you sing to me 
 alone." 
 
 He smiled. "I know why it is. And so do you — 
 coquette ! " 
 
 " Don't call me that." 
 
 " Why not ? It is flattery, within limits, to a woman." 
 
 ''Surely you don't think a coquette could be a good 
 woman ? " 
 
 *'No, but I think a good woman could be a coquette." 
 
 *' You are laughing at me," she said, rowing faster. 
 
 " On the contrary, I mean what I say. A man's life is 
 all the happier for a pretty woman's whims. Don't be 
 too good to me, Dolly ; you must tease me sometimes." 
 
 " I don't think you like being teased at all," she answered, 
 with sundry memories of what, on her part, had not been 
 so much teasings as teachings. ''Who is that on the 
 terrace — a stranger?" 
 
 Egon looked. The boat was running towards their little 
 grey-stone port, from which steps went up to the flowered 
 terrace, the white villa behind it. 
 
 "It is Konrad!" exclaimed Egon. Dorothea lifted her 
 
256 DOROTHEA. 
 
 face, and the figure bared a but thinly planted head. 
 Konrad came leisurely down the steps ; he was always 
 scrupulously attired, and his wiry, nondescript hair and 
 waxed moustache stood out neatly against the blue 
 baldness of his skull and cheeks. In many ways he looked 
 and seemed older than Egon. 
 
 " Can you put me up for a day or two ?" was his 
 greeting. 
 
 Dorothea stopped with her hand in her husband's, her 
 one foot on the stone step. "Adieu, Paradise!" she said; 
 Egon pressed her fingers. She climbed towards Konrad 
 with words of welcome. 
 
 After luncheon, when the two brothers were alone 
 together, the younger condescended to offer a few words of 
 explanation. 
 
 " Uncle Karl is as furious with you as ever," he said, 
 watching an aquila pescatrice that swooped across the 
 lake. 
 
 " So I imagined," replied Egon. 
 
 " It isn't any fault of mine, I assure you." 
 
 Egon cast a swift side glance at his brother's sallow face. 
 " That remark hardly shows your usual ingenuity," he said. 
 " * Qui s'excuse ' " 
 
 " ' S'accuse,' " continued Konrad coolly, striking a match. 
 "Did you ever hear a proverb that wasn't a lie or a 
 platitude ? This is one of the lies, the bigger ones. Well, 
 uncle Karl is just simply mad. He never was crossed, it 
 appears, in all his life before. He'll never forgive you till 
 he dies." 
 
 " He will after," said Egon. Konrad stared, wondering 
 whether marriage with a saint was beginning to upset 
 Egon's always rather wobbly brain. 
 
 " If you mean the will, you are mistaken," he answered, 
 with slow consideration. " He says that he's left me every 
 penny he can." 
 
 " I am very glad for you," said Egon drily. " Besides, 
 you may need it more than I." 
 
 "Yes, we can't all of us marry heiresses. I hope your 
 good fortune is all that people said." On this subject 
 Konrad was curious beyond discretion ; moreover, he had 
 been commissioned by uncle Karl to find out more than he 
 could. 
 
 " Thank you, we have quite as much as we need. For 
 the present uncle Tony looks after the estate." 
 
DOROTHEA. 257 
 
 Konrad drew a long whistle. " You are not a man of 
 business, Egon !" 
 j " No, but I am going to be, when the honeymoon is over." 
 
 Konrad had expected a different conclusion — a reference 
 to Rheyna. "The honey-year!" he sneered. " Well, as I 
 was saying, uncle Karl is moving heaven and earth, as he 
 threatened he would, to get a free hand about the 
 succession." 
 
 "Shall we talk of something else?" suggested Egon, 
 annoyed. 
 
 " No, let me finish. There is not the remotest chance of 
 his having his own way. I thought you might like to 
 hear that. He has even tried extravagant threats of 
 disaffection, so you see he has quite come to the end of his 
 arguments. They have decreed that he must retain the 
 succession by lot for the heirs now alive, but it can be 
 abolished by a present agreement between us all, for those 
 yet unborn. In other words, uncle Karl's demise may be 
 the last occasion for casting lots ; after that, if we like, we 
 can have primogeniture." 
 
 " Well, that would only be fair to you ; but, then, 
 supposing uncle Karl were to die within this year, as you 
 may now not marry till twelve months after our father's 
 death the lost chance would be lost for you and your 
 children — at least, if I had a child. That, again, would 
 not be fair to you, Konrad." 
 
 For a moment Konrad wondered whether his brother was 
 really a better man than he. He decided that Egon's mind 
 was either deeper or softer than his own. 
 
 "True," he said. "What is there on that island? A 
 seminary ?" 
 
 "Yes, that is San Giulio. Konrad, I am quite willing 
 that primogeniture should replace this absurd lottery 
 system. Only, then, in any case, you must have your 
 chance as well as I." 
 
 " Whatever is he aiming at ?" thought Konrad. 
 
 " Of course 1 do not like what you have told me about 
 uncle Karl's will. Not so much on account of the money, 
 although that ought to go with the estate, as because of 
 the injustice and unkindness of the thing. But uncle Karl 
 is not responsible to me for his actions. You can tell him 
 that I consent to the proposed change in the entail, but 
 that he must then obtain a modification of the clause which 
 forbids you to marry till next September." 
 
 D. S 
 
258 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " You are generous, Egon." 
 
 "No; I try to be just." 
 
 " Uncle Karl will most certainly refuse. He has an idea 
 that discussing the possibility of his dying within a year is 
 equivalent to signing his death-warrant. You can't dispute 
 about matters of that kind : 'tis a question of sentiment. 
 The old boy is as superstitious as a nurse, and as nervous 
 about death as a doctor. He'd cancel his new will if I 
 were to hint at his decease to him." 
 
 " No man has a right to forbid another man to marry at 
 any time." 
 
 " Well, the other man can wait ?" 
 
 " True, but if he couldn't wait, it would be " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " A crime to make him." Both brothers were busy, for a 
 moment, with their thoughts. 
 
 Then Konrad laughed. "You should have seen his 
 rage!" he said; "it was too funny. They persisted in 
 talking to him about his probable demise within a twelve- 
 month, his age, and his gout, and the chances pro and con. 
 He used to come home and abuse me. Lord ! it's no joke, 
 I can tell you — looking after uncle Karl !" 
 
 " I found that out at Monte Carlo," answered Egon. 
 
 " But he was wildest of all when you wrote and reminded 
 him of his promise to send you Hans ! I do believe he'd 
 have semi-forgiven you, but for your cheek in doing that." 
 
 " It wasn't cheek. He had promised, and I needed Hans 
 in this house. Besides, I had heard that the poor fellow 
 was eating out his heart at home." 
 
 " * 'Tis the last thing of mine he shall have,' says uncle 
 Karl. ' Send it him, and prepay the carriage ! ' " Konrad 
 laughed again softly, rubbing his hands. " Even then, if 
 Hans had been sensible, you'd never have got him." 
 
 " How so ?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. Ask Hans. He certainly looks 
 brighter than he did up at Rheyna. Some fishermen never 
 can understand that there's more than one fish in the sea !" 
 
 " He will get over his wife's death in time. It is only 
 six months ago, and they were not married more than 
 nine." 
 
 "I suppose he will. What a strange process that 
 * getting over it ' must be. I can understand indifference 
 by experience, and despair by comparison, but how queer a 
 man must feel half-way." Konrad had caught a fly; he 
 
DOROTHEA. 259 
 
 meditatively pulled out both its wings and placed it, in the 
 sunlight, on the little table beside him. 
 
 " Konrad, I wish you would not do that." 
 
 " Why ? Do you know, I like pulling out the wings of 
 flies. I figure to myself that I am a gay lady, and that the 
 flies are men." 
 
 " But I wish you wouldn't do it here. I — I don't like it." 
 Egon crushed the little crawling thing against the table. 
 "Think what our father would have said, had he seen 
 you!" 
 
 " He would have said," remarked Konrad, looking at the 
 stain on the metal surface : " * Life is a beautiful thing under 
 all circumstances. We have no right to deny it to any 
 creature.' Is that the carriage coming round ? Dorothea 
 promised to drive me to Baveno, to see the Isola Bella." 
 
 " It is quite time you started, then. We shall have to 
 dine late." 
 
 "You don't mind?" 
 
 " Mind ? No. Dorothea knows I am absolutely 
 indifferent as to all her household arrangements." 
 
 "Excepting when you care," said Dorothea, who had 
 come out on the steps. She took the reins of her brisk 
 little ponies and drove off with her brother-in-law in the 
 jingling basket-chair. 
 
 " You drive well," said Konrad presently. " I suppose 
 you ride ?" 
 
 " Oh no," answered Dorothea. 
 
 " Not at all ?" 
 
 " I have given it up — Egon, you understand " — she 
 flicked her whip — " it would be too sad for Egon." 
 
 " You will resume it," he answered coolly. 
 
 They drove past the quarries of the Motterone, round to 
 the full wideness of the vaster lake. The Lago Maggiore 
 opened, immense, before them, with the islands dotting its 
 western bay towards Pallanza and the snow-capped Alps. 
 They drove through that land of smiling autumn — and yet 
 more radiant spring, which everyone nowadays "knows," 
 as oiily tourists know. That, by the way, is the new, 
 peculiar railway acquaintance of everyone with everything. 
 All have " seen " the face of the earth, as the crowd sees a 
 queen go by. 
 
 At Baveno they crossed with Dorothea's favourite boat- 
 man to that strange, half-finished palace of the Borromei, 
 so splendid, so squalid, like a s}Tnbol of Italy; on the 
 
 s 2 
 
26o DOROTHEA. 
 
 terraces of the Isola Bella they wandered through the 
 gardener*s weary denomination of the plants which everyone 
 who cares to recognised before he spoke. 
 
 They were standing on one of the topmost terraces, 
 among the oranges and comic statues, when voices which 
 had long been audible rang so clearly close by them that both 
 turned with astonishment and simultaneous recognition. 
 
 " Madame de Roden ! " exclaimed an Italian voice : a 
 distinguished-looking old gentleman stood bowing to the 
 ground. In a moment the whole party were around them, 
 Signer Pini, one or two others, amongst whom Lord and 
 Lady Archibald Foye. 
 
 " What a coincidence ! " cried Konrad. But he overdid 
 things. Without any cause for suspicion, Dorothea caught 
 the strange accent in his voice. 
 
 " We are fortunate, indeed," said Signer Pini. " Permit 
 me to present to Madame de Roden the Countess Pini- 
 Pizzatelli, my wife ! " 
 
 A dark Italian woman, with dazzling white complexion 
 and dreamy eyes, dressed in a lot of guipure and a bunch 
 of crimson roses, extended to Dorothea a languid but 
 beautiful hand. 
 
 " You did not, then, know I was married ? " said Pini, 
 with a long-drawn smile, " yet I sent you a ' lettre de faire 
 part.' " 
 
 " Black- edged, with * In Memoriam,' " put in Archibald, 
 with his happy knack of saying the wrong thing at the 
 right time. 
 
 " We have been travelling," said Dorothea, " and for the 
 last fortnight we have been buried out of sight in a villa 
 on the Lake of Orta." 
 
 " And we, for the last three weeks, have been on this side 
 of the mountain, in the Palazzo 'Arriet yonder, above 
 Baveno. What will you? It is a hideous name for a 
 house in Italy. The house also is hideous, Anglo- Moorish, 
 Franco- Gothic, but it was the best we could get — the 
 Palazzo 'Arriet ! " He pointed to a great big modern red- 
 brick mansion, a mess of northern money on the green 
 Italian slope. 
 
 " But now, see ! the hone3niioon is ended, and now, lest 
 my dear one bore herself — eh, Giulietta ? — our friends 
 come to keep us company. Lady Archibald is too kind." 
 
 " Don't you talk French about Lady Archibald," inter- 
 posed the latter lady in English. " Ch'ai bas gonfiance." 
 
DOROTHEA. 261 
 
 The Italian countess turned slightly towards the Kellnerin, 
 and a little wave of contempt curled the ends of her full 
 red lips. 
 
 They went down the marble steps, and seemed naturally 
 to split up into groups, Konrad and Lady Archibald 
 lagging behind. 
 
 "Your father also has promised to come, with Mrs. 
 Sandring," continued Pini ; *' of that fact you were probably 
 aware ? " 
 
 "No — I have not heard from them recently; I thought 
 they were at Monte Carlo." 
 
 "Not yet, nor we. One must not exaggerate things. 
 Your father and I are the only people, I flatter myself, who 
 have ever won money at Monte Carlo by a system " 
 
 " Oh, I say," interrupted Archie, " there was " 
 
 " My dear lord, let me finish my sentence. I was going 
 to say 'and who have known when to leave off.' My 
 system works admirably, but one must not overdo it. Of 
 course there is always one immense risk — one in a thousand 
 — sooner or later it would turn up and destroy all. One 
 must not tempt fate : I never play longer than three weeks 
 at a time." He pushed on, with Dorothea, to the shingle, 
 against which their boats lay grating. " What say you of 
 my wife ? " he asked hastily, " is she not charming ? She 
 is of my own compatriots, of Naples, a Contessina Brecci — 
 ah, much has happened since we parted : I have seen again 
 my fatherland — do you know, there were good things 
 about the old regime ! — we were married in the summer : 
 is she not lovely? There is not much difference of age 
 between us ; just enough, as it should be. Yes, she is 
 charming, you are very right ! And she adores me." 
 
 Dorothea had said nothing. He held out his hand to 
 assist her. " She is Venus," he whispered, bending over it. 
 "And you are the Madonna. Of you I was not worthy. 
 It is best as it is." He looked over his shoulder. "Giulietta, 
 it was Madame de Roden who said to me that one should 
 marry amongst one's own people, and now, see, she has 
 chosen a foreigner." 
 
 "Monsieur de Roden is a lucky man," said Giulietta 
 listlessly. But at this there was a shout of laughter, 
 for she had turned to Konrad. Archibald especially dis- 
 tinguished himself by much skipping and shrieking, as he 
 leaped, with loud bangs, from one boat to another, much 
 to the disgust of the boatmen, and was heard, between the 
 
262 DOROTHEA. 
 
 bangs, to be ejaculating shrill O Lords ! and Great 
 Scotts ! 
 
 " But who, then, is this renowned Scotchman to whom 
 Archibald ever makes allusion ? " cried his spouse, in fierce 
 question w^hich nowhere found response. "Archibald, come 
 forth at once from the funny, or Herr Konrad will give 
 you a beating." 
 
 " Hold hard," said Lord Archie, in sullen tones, silenced 
 and saddened, as he came skulking ashore. 
 
 " Who ? Herr Konrad ? He cannot. He saith he must 
 skidaddle with his sister-in-laws." 
 
 At dinner Egon inquired about the Countess Pini. 
 
 "Is she pretty?" 
 
 " No, I should not say so," replied Dorothea. 
 
 Konrad looked from one to the other. "Tastes differ,*' 
 he said, laughing, " and a woman's opinion of women is 
 never a man's." 
 
 " Why ? Is she pretty, Konrad ? " asked Dorothea. 
 
 "Egon had better find out for himself," replied the 
 gentleman addressed. 
 
 "Well, perhaps she is, in a southern way. But she 
 seemed to me to be half asleep." 
 
 " She will awaken," said Konrad, 
 
( 263 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " Lei h stance, signore ? " said a smooth voice behind 
 Egon von Roden, who was staggering along the dust- 
 laden road between Orta and Gravellona. He had heard 
 the carriage coming swiftly behind him, had turned with 
 vain hope that it might be an empty fly — the horses were 
 close upon him, two spanking bays with a jingle of 
 brilliant harness, smart liveries, a deep up-to-date victoria. 
 
 Immediately the words were repeated in French. The 
 occupant of the carriage bent forward and continued 
 swiftly : 
 
 " But see, the question needs no asking ! You are tired. 
 Come into this carriage. I am going to Orta." 
 
 "True, I am tired, madame. I am glad you asked; I 
 am very grateful," he answered simply, and got in. 
 
 As they bowled along, he sank back for a moment and 
 half-closed his eyes. Yes, he was exhausted : his attempted 
 walk had proved even a greater failure than of late he had 
 begun to fear. Ever since his mishap at Lugano the 
 difficulty and suffering had increased. He looked aside at 
 his companion, a handsome Italian, and wondered if 
 Dorothea would have noticed his fatigue. But he forgot 
 that, before this second accident, he had turned off — nay, 
 almost resented — any allusion, on her part, to his infirmity. 
 
 " If you had not taken pity on me," he said, " I think I 
 should have had to lie down by the road. Yet how few 
 would have stopped their horses for a stranger ! " 
 
 " Why ? Surely everyone ! Are you living at Orta? I 
 am going to call there on a family named Roden. Do 
 you know them ? " 
 
 " My name is Roden. May I ask " 
 
 She laughed merrily, to his surprise. It seemed as if a 
 film sank away from her face and a sudden sun looked 
 through. " I am the Countess Pini. Do you know — I will 
 be frank ! — I had my suspicions, when I stopped, that you 
 might be Monsieur de Roden." 
 
264 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Ah, yes, you recognised me ! " he said, bitterly conscious 
 of his limp. 
 
 " You are so exceedingly like your brother," she added 
 eagerly, and Egon acquiesced in her kind intent. " My 
 husband was unable to come to-day : he has gone with 
 a party to Varallo, but I would not wait another twenty- 
 four hours before calling on Madame de Roden ! I was so 
 pleased to make her acquaintance at the Isola Bella 
 yesterday." 
 
 "The pleasure was hers," replied Egon mechanically; 
 "but by a strange coincidence, she has also gone to 
 Varallo to-day, to show my brother the Sacro Monte." 
 
 ** Then nothing remains for me but to return ! " 
 
 " Impossible ! After coming all this way ! The horses 
 will have to rest, even if you should not care to do so. 
 You must allow me to show you the hospitality of my 
 house, as you have shown me that of your carriage." 
 
 "Very well," she said with indifference, and lay back 
 suddenly listless again from head to foot. He sat watching 
 her furtively, unable, at first sight, to make her out. Did 
 she care about everything or nothing ? He could not have 
 said. 
 
 " That is the Villa Belrespiro," he said, rousing himself, 
 " the white house yonder against the hill. Doesn't it look 
 like a dove on the nest ? We go up here. Oh, I see your 
 coachman knows the way." 
 
 " Yes, he is from Toce. Have you also Italian servants ? " 
 
 " A couple. How good they a're ! " 
 
 She was just alighting. Suddenly, again, the film passed 
 away from her face, and the sun shone out. 
 
 " How nice of you to say that ! It is, indeed, delightful 
 to meet with a man who says nice things, simply because 
 he means them." She walked away on to the terrace, 
 which fills the whole level in front of the house — a white 
 terrace with dark green shrubberies, and late geraniums 
 hanging in clusters over the parapet. 
 
 Gmlietta stood silent by this balustrade, looking stead- 
 fastly down upon the water, the beautifully rounded lake 
 that slept beneath, a sapphire in a silver and emerald 
 frame. Then she heaved an enormous sigh, and turned to 
 gaze at the low white house with its pillared porticoes 
 and loggias. 
 
 " Belrespiro ! " she said. " Ah, this is exquisite I This 
 is Italian I Je respire. Ouf 1 " 
 
DOROTHEA. 265 
 
 Her companion smiled. " You mock me," he said. " It 
 is very modest. Yours, I am told, is the finest villa for 
 miles around." 
 
 " The Palazzo 'Arriet ? Mock you ? Have you seen the 
 Palazzo 'Arriett ? " Her big eyes were staring at him : 
 they could laugh, right down somewhere in depths below. 
 " You could not be happy at Belrespiro, and admire the 
 Palazzo 'Arriet." 
 
 " You will have some tea ? " he proposed. 
 " Tea ! No, I am not ill. But you shall get me some 
 fruit, if you will, and some cakes or biscuits. As you say, 
 the horses must have a good rest : it is a very long drive." 
 She sat down on a marble bench, while he went to give 
 his orders. When he came back she was leaning her face 
 on one hand, staring, staring at the landscape as if she 
 would drink it in. " Do you know," she began eagerly, 
 " I have never been north before. I know nothing of my 
 own country, nothing but Naples ! Is it not a beautiful 
 country — the most beautiful country in all the world ? " 
 " I am sure it is," he answered. 
 
 She rose. "Yes, I must rest: the horses must rest. I 
 cannot help it ; you must put up with me. Show me the 
 house, inside. I should like to see it, inside." 
 
 " There is nothing much to see," he said, as he led her 
 to the drawing-room windows. " We have taken it 
 furnished, of course. It belongs to an Englishman of taste : 
 he has furnished it with very great care " Egon always 
 began by trying to ignore the existence of curios, which 
 most people, as he knew, perfunctorily declare themselves 
 anxious to examine. As a matter of fact, the villa 
 contained the careful collectings of a wealthy and leisurely 
 amateur. Egon had been enchanted with it at once, and 
 spent long hours of solitude poring over its treasures. In 
 the salon which they now entered, for instance, a bright 
 room, all white and yellow, were to be found a couple of 
 exquisite Florentine cabinets, some very good ebony fur- 
 niture with graffiti, and a small but valuable collection of 
 majolicas. Its chief beauty, however, was a Madonna and 
 Child, white and blue glazed, over the mantelpiece, to 
 which the Countess walked straight as she entered the 
 room. 
 
 " A della Robbia ! " she exclaimed. " Not genuine, 
 surely ? Why yes, it must be genuine." She turned to her 
 host. " Luca, I am sure it is Luca. Monsieur de Roden, a 
 
266 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Luca della Robbia, do you understand what that means ? 
 And you said there was nothing to see ! " 
 
 " I did not know you would care/' he answered with 
 awkward pleasure. " There are one or two more things, if 
 you like." 
 
 " Let me look at this first," she said. " Is it not 
 beautiful ! beautiful ! I hope you don't want to talk art 
 jargon about it ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " He laughed outright. 
 
 " Oh, about its being in his later manner, and all that sort 
 of thing ! I can see that for myself, thanks ! We stayed a 
 week at Florence on our way here : that was very good of 
 Signor Pini." (She had not mentioned her husband's name 
 till now, except just at first, to excuse his absence.) " I had 
 never seen a della Robbia before we went there, but some 
 of his best work, I am told, is in Apulia. Have you ever 
 travelled in those parts ? " 
 
 " No, I have never been south of Florence." 
 
 " And I have been nowhere ! But one can travel in 
 books. It is second best. I have travelled all my life 
 in books. Now show me the ' faiences.* < feThat surely isn't 
 Italian, that ware with the metallic glitter over it ? I 
 never saw anything of the kind before." 
 
 "That is Moorish — Spanish- Moorish, you know — 
 Granada," he explained, delighted. In a moment they 
 were busy over the plates and platters, thoroughly enjoy- 
 ing themselves, both. 
 
 " I like this : I am very happy," she said, naively. 
 " You must show me the remaining rooms some other 
 day. I cannot endure seeing any more beautiful things in 
 this one afternoon. Do not you dislike being rushed ? 
 What is this book on the table? May I look at your 
 book ? " She had already taken it up. " Leopardi ? You 
 read modern Italian ? Leopardi ? " But before he could 
 answer, she put down the book again. " No, do not let us 
 talk literature," she said with decision. "We do not 
 yet know each other suJBficiently. Especially not for 
 Leopardi." 
 
 " They have put out the things on the terrace," he said, 
 and so she walked out again, and sat down, and ate 
 fruit. 
 
 " You have a long drive back," he said. " Won't you be 
 bored — such a long distance alone ? " 
 
 " Je ne m'ennuie pas : on m'ennuie," she quoted, poising a 
 
DOROTHEA. 267 
 
 purple fig between finger and thumb. " I have lived^ too 
 much alone, amongst others, not to enjoy being alone, by 
 myself. You understand that? And, besides, one of my 
 greatest pleasures — my chief pleasure — is being driven 
 along, without companions, very fast. Signer Pini has been 
 good to me about that : he has given me a pair of excellent 
 * Juckers ' ; they flash, like lightning, along the roads. 
 Then, when we rush along thus, I lie back and sleep in the 
 carriage, sleep waking, with waking dreams. It is then I 
 have my best thoughts, wonderful, beautiful thoughts some- 
 times, that others would laugh at ! " Her eyes shone. 
 " They come and they go : I could not remember. So much 
 the better. Boats I detest. They creep till they give me 
 the fidgets. I long to jump out and run across the slippery 
 surface. Then I should go down, plump, and be 
 drowned." 
 
 " Yes, you would be drowned. Please do not jump out of 
 the boat, Madame." 
 
 " I shall not. Signor Pini would be too sorry. Do you 
 know, it is pleasant to think that I Now I am going 
 home. Would you send for the carriage ? " 
 
 But before it had come round, Dorothea and Konrad 
 were seen driving up the hill-side. They arrived in high 
 spirits over their excursion. The walk was beautiful, the 
 view a thing to remember, and up yonder they had met 
 the party from the Palazzo 'Arriet, a delightful surprise. 
 
 " And did Lady Archibald find the distance not more 
 than she could manage ? " queried the Countess, whose 
 eyes had again grown indolent behind their transparent 
 veil. "She was very afraid it would prove too far for 
 her." 
 
 " Well, she lagged behind a good deal on the way back," 
 answered Dorothea. " But Konrad was very good-natured, 
 and helped her along." 
 
 "Ah, indeed!" said Giulietta. "Well, I must most 
 certainly be going now. I have had a charming afternoon. 
 Monsieur de Roden : it has been so good of you ! Madame, 
 I hope we shall see each other often — I wish it were 
 nearer ! But we can always put you up for the night. It 
 is a barrack, the Palazzo. At least, there is room ! " 
 
 " Now, what do you think of her ? " demanded Dorothea, 
 as the Countess Pini was carried swiftly away. 
 
 " I think her charming," promptly responded Egon. 
 
 " Yes, but, am I right ? am I wrong ? is she pretty ? " 
 
268 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " She is like an JEoUslu harp/' 
 
 " That is poetical, but not a reply." 
 
 "As a matter of fact, I have never heard an iEolian 
 harp, Dolly, but she is like one's idea of the thing. I 
 believe they are unsatisfactory." 
 
 " Then you think her unsatisfactory ? " 
 
 " Dolly, when you choose, you are painfully persistent. 
 But of course you are interested in — how shall I call her ? — 
 the actual Mrs. Pini. Yes, I think her rather unsatisfactory." 
 
 " So do I." 
 
 "But intended, somehow and some day, to give very 
 great satisfaction." 
 
 " I don't at all know what you mean, Egon." 
 
 He laughed and kissed her. " Nor do 1," he said. " At 
 least, not distinctly. We must go and see them as soon as 
 we can. I wonder what she makes of Pini ? " 
 
 " Money," replied Dorothea. " Jewels, dresses, horses, a 
 Palazzo — that is what she makes out of Pini." 
 
 " You women are always so harsh to each other. Now 
 I — I wonder what she makes of Pini ! " 
 
( 269 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Next day Dorothea was tired, and the horses also pre- 
 ferred to stay at home. So, in the morning, Konrad dozed 
 over a novel, and in the afternoon, accompanying his 
 sister-in-law, he yawned up the hill at the back of the little 
 town, to the Franciscan church and convent. He agreed 
 that the groups in the chapels all the way up to the top 
 were " hideous," and, once on the summit, he remarked that 
 the view of the snow-clad Alps was beautiful. It was a pity 
 there hung clouds over Monte Rosa. Was that Monte Rosa ? 
 Yes, it was a pity there hung clouds over Monte Rosa. 
 
 But it was not to say non-sweet nothings like this, that 
 Konrad had obtained, through his uncle's assistance, the 
 leave from his regiment, which had been in his thoughts 
 all through the autumn manoeuvres. On the following 
 morning, as it happened, therefore, he had a note (it 
 appears) from Lady Archibald to say that the Countess 
 Pini had refused to go on an excursion, feeling certain that 
 Madame de Roden would return her call in the afternoon. 
 
 This hint being rather unwillingly taken, the trio from 
 Belrespiro turned up at the Palazzo 'Arriet — " Heriot," said 
 the gilt letters on the gates, in accordance with the name 
 of the late owner. This magnificent villa, which alas no 
 longer exists, had such peculiarities as deserve more than a 
 passing notice. Its gardens — by Gaiosi, of Milan — were 
 noted for producing a maximum of colour, in a minimum 
 of green. Seen from the water they look like an enormous 
 Niirnberger Leb-Kuchen, or as if the bottom had fallen out 
 from a baby -giant's kaleidoscope in Mars. The long, thick 
 house itself possessed, on the outside, every hue of brick 
 and marble hitherto discovered or invented, every form of 
 pillar, arch, gable, and turret that has figured in the 
 habitation of man, laboriously compiled and put together 
 by an eminent architect from London. What the inside 
 would be like, you saw as soon as you entered, for a broad 
 crimson velvet ledge, with fringes, ran down the banisters, 
 
270 DOROTHEA. 
 
 along the monumental staircase. All the apartments were 
 gilt and mosaic, with a good deal of plush, provided by- 
 Paris, and there was not a room in the mansion which did 
 not immediatel}'- suggest an upholsterer's bill. 
 
 About all this, of course, there was nothing remarkable. 
 In fact, in our days, when wealth has become a vulgarity, 
 the Palazzo 'Arriet was commonplace. 
 
 But the house had another especial claim to distinction. 
 From the beauty of its situation, and its size, it had been 
 specially selected during many years as a fitting temporary 
 residence for royalty. Emperors and queens, exotic and 
 European, had graced the great villa by their presence, and 
 embellished it with their memory. The latter lingered 
 about its name in the country side, as the odour which 
 clings to a rose when 'tis rotten. By an irony of fate, the 
 Palazzo 'Arriet was also known as the Villa Reale, thus 
 blending in mystic absorption two extremes which, indeed, 
 have now fused into one. But the glorified owner had 
 done more than this. Tablets on the outside walls, between 
 all the windows, proclaimed, lettered in gold or white 
 marble, the titles and virtues of the crowned splendours 
 who had slept and died — aye, one had even condescended 
 to die — here. Inside, all due worship continued, for this 
 house was a temple of Royalty. Every bedroom contained 
 the momentous marble inscriptions, recording what some- 
 bodies or nobodies had deigned to repose within its walls. 
 
 This Chamber was occupied from April the 27TH to the 
 2ND OF May, 1867, BY 
 
 HIS SERENE HIGHNESS 
 PRINCE AUGUSTUS OF BUNSWICK-SCHLUMPENBOTTEL, 
 
 who graciously deigned to permit that 
 it should be named, in everlasting memory of his visit, 
 
 "The Prince's Apartment." 
 
 But over this modest slab was a larger and louder 
 tablet :— 
 
 On the 13TH OF November, 1879, 
 
 HER MAJESTY THE EMPRESS OF ALL THE 
 
 KAMSCHATKAS, 
 
 being on a visit to her Imperial Cousin the Grand-Duchess 
 
 Maria Ivanovna (at that time resident here), 
 
 slept in this apartment, and graciously signified her pleasure 
 
 that it should henceforth be known as 
 
 "Her Majesty's Room." 
 
DOROTHEA. 271 
 
 Downstairs the subject was treated in a yet more 
 personally interesting manner : — 
 
 On this Sofa the Begum of Bhopal- was wont to repose after 
 Dinner and partake of a Cup of Black Coffee, which was 
 
 SERVED in the SfeVRES "TASSE" NOW SHOWN IN THE GLASS 
 CASE ABOVE, WHICH TASSE HAD ORIGINALLY BEEN GIVEN 
 
 TO THE Proprietor's Grandmother by His late 
 
 LAMENTED MAJESTY KiNG GeORGE THE ThIRD. 
 
 Such particularisation in the bedrooms might have led 
 to comic effects it was highly desirable to avoid. The 
 bedrooms, then, remained, in their tender and sacred 
 reminiscences, beautifully vague. Only, each one of them 
 still contained in a book-stand the few volumes once placed 
 there by a pious hand. In every room, as you entered, you 
 saw them : The Almanach de Gotha,two English " Peerages," 
 the splendid Libro d'Oro of Italy, the Annuaire de la 
 Noblesse, and of course, last and least, the Holy Bible, 
 which teaches us respect of persons and also, most 
 necessarily, tells us to honour the King. 
 
 It is a lamentable thought that all this grandeur has now 
 been swept away. For the creator of it all, dying a 
 widower bereft of sons, in his bitterness decreed the useless 
 destruction of the building. Only the sort of inner sanctuary 
 is left standing, which opened out of the central drawing- 
 room, the small boudoir with the cupola, that contains all 
 the busts and portraits ever made — and they were many — 
 of the proprietor, his wife and sons. The ignorant peasantry 
 believe the thing to be some kind of Protestant chapel : its 
 doors are always locked, but you can see through the 
 windows the work of " Timbs, R.A." They call it Sant 
 'Arrietta. Some day, perhaps, in the dim and cadless 
 future, the place will be discovered as the relic of a bygone 
 faith. 
 
 In this chamber, when it was yet one of many, Giulietta 
 received her visitors. >. 
 
 " How kind of you to come so soon ; I am glad that we 
 happen to be in ! " She spoke innocently. Dorothea, 
 mindful of the missive, naturally wrote her down at once 
 for a person you could not trust. 
 
 " Is not this a charming little room ? " continued the 
 Countess Pini. "You see it has six large windows all' 
 around it." She turned to Egon. "It is the only room 
 in the house, in which you can imagine yourself to be 
 outside ! " 
 
272 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The others laughed, although she was perfectly serious. 
 Archie, who had strolled in, said: "That's an original 
 joke. I must write it down." 
 
 " How far have you got with your collection ? " 
 questioned his cousin, Dorothea. 
 
 " Why, you never get far or near, that's the worst of it. 
 Of course you can go on for ever. But I've three quarto 
 volumes ready in manuscript of three hundred pages each." 
 
 " For good fortune, you write very big ! " remarked his 
 wife. " Your writing, it sprawls like a giraffe that has 
 suddenly sat down." 
 
 " What do you know ? " exclaimed Archie furiously ; 
 " you never stick your nose into any of my books ! " 
 
 " Well, that is your fault. When last I would ask you 
 how was your copy-books, you answered me : ' Fool ! ' " 
 
 " You misapprehended me," replied Archie, gravely. " I 
 said ' full.' " 
 
 She looked at him as a wife never should, before strangers. 
 " There was a time," she said, " when that was amusing. 
 It is long ago.'* 
 
 " Dickie ! " 
 
 " Also was there a time when it made me very angry " 
 
 " Lady Archibald ! " 
 
 " — but that also is long ago. Come, Herr Konrad " — in 
 German — " on the terrace, and I will show you the 
 * wunderschone ' view." 
 
 Archie watched her out of sight, and then, turning 
 suddenly to Dorothea : 
 
 " Do whatever you like in a matrimonial way," he said, 
 " only don't marry beneath you. It's the one practical joke 
 that is bound to fail." 
 
 In the awkward silence, Dorothea, to break it, answered : 
 " I haven't much chance ! " 
 
 Archibald laughed boisterously. " Nonsense, you might 
 still have a dozen chances," he said. He walked briskly 
 beside her up the long-drawn drawing-room. " When I 
 was a little boy, I used to put cobbler's wax on people's 
 chairs. Lord, I've put it on my own heart, and that 
 woman's sat down on it ! " 
 
 " I am sure she is fond of you," said Dorothea kindly. 
 
 He did not hear her. " I used to think, before I married 
 my Kellnerin, that married life'd be all beer and skittles," 
 he went on. " By George, I've found that it's all beer and 
 skittishness." 
 
DOROTHEA. 273 
 
 " Lady Archibald is very young," said Dorothea, feeling 
 old ; " but so are you. She is very bright." 
 
 He stopped, looked at her, and suddenly; speaking very 
 fast: 
 
 " You're a good woman, by Jove, something like what 
 my mother was. I don't think I've seen a good woman 
 since they turned me out at home. It was a beastly shame 
 to turn me out ; I don't want to abuse the governor, but 
 he ought to have accepted my wife. If he had, perhaps 
 
 Dickie Never mind, it's no use now. Look here, I 
 
 want to talk to you about it all ; will you let me ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Dickie doesn't behave as she ought to ; you can see 
 that ; every one can see it. We're a sort of cousins, you 
 and I. Shall we go and look at the roses ? I want you to 
 take her up, to talk with her — be kind to her, Madame de 
 Roden, make her good, like yourself. She hasn't had 
 your bringing up. She's all alone and stupid, and I'm not 
 the sort of fellow to help her " 
 
 " But I don't quite understand," said Dorothea, much 
 distressed, among the pale autumn roses. " Surely you 
 are mistaken. Lady Archibald means no harm. Your 
 influence " 
 
 " My influence ! " he burst in. " What am I but a tom- 
 fool ? When I speak seriously to her, she answers : ' Is it a 
 pun ? ' — a ' pon ' she calls it. ' Go, crack your pon,' she said 
 to me only this morning, with Konrad standing by, and I 
 know that to him she calls me ' Cracky.' He taught her 
 
 that, d him ; he taught her that ! " He hissed out the 
 
 last words with a vehemence that changed his good-natured 
 face, as a dog's kind features harden when it rises to growl 
 at a foe. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he went on. " But I wish you 
 would suggest to her somehow, as women can, to change 
 her tone with gentlemen. There, I've said it. It's not a 
 pleasant thing for a man to say. No joke, I can assure 
 you." He gave a sad little laugh. 
 
 " I will do all I can, of that I do assure you," said 
 Dorothea gravely. " And, to begin with, I want you not to 
 exaggerate anything. Remember, as you said, that your 
 wife has had little education. Remember that we all 
 marry — how says your Prayer Book ? — for better, for 
 worse." 
 
 He ground his heel into a white " The Marechal " on the 
 
 D. T 
 
274 DOROTHEA. 
 
 terrace. " It's a disgusting expression,*' he said, " I hate it. 
 As well say at once that the whole thing's a toss-up." And as 
 Pini came toward them at that moment, Lord Archibald 
 walked bravely up the terrace, humming with a very loud 
 hum: 
 
 •' Heads or tails, she's bound to win, 
 
 Tommy Dodd, Tommy Dodd ! •• 
 
 " I am hoping," said Pini, with his usual bows and 
 waves of the delicate fingers to and fro from his breast, 
 " that Madame de Roden will do us the immense honour 
 and favour of coming to dine here to-morrow, and stay 
 over-night ? Why not stay for a day or two ? The distance 
 is far too great for occasional visits. Your husband has 
 already consented, madame — all our hope is now centred 
 in you ! " 
 
 Archibald's appealing look drew the " yes " from 
 Dorothea's lips, even while she realised that here was an 
 opportunity, providentially offered, of doing the good she 
 desired. 
 
 " We will go and tell them," cried Pini, perhaps really 
 delighted. "See, they are over yonder, talking of many 
 things that, frankly, do not interest me at all. So I came 
 away to ask you. Dear Madame de Roden, I desire nothing 
 better than that you should be a friend to my wife." 
 
 On the way home Dorothea sang, as far as was reason- 
 able, the praises of Archie, recalling his good-nature, his 
 easy uprightness, his general desire to do nobody any harm. 
 
 " Oh yes, he's not half bad," said Konrad, " so, to use his 
 own manner of speaking, 'tis his better half that I prefer. 
 B ut a man whose whole life is a quibble would madden the 
 mildest of wives." 
 
 "Nonsense, every hobby has its uses," put in Egon. 
 " He told me that an eminent professor of philology had 
 written to him, entreating him to bequeath his inter- 
 national library of humour to the British Museum. He was 
 delighted at that. He almost wept at the idea of being 
 humorously useful after his death." 
 
 " He will be humorously useful before," answered Konrad 
 savagely. "He belongs to the category of husbands that 
 are 1 " 
 
( 375 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 "Put up what I want, Hans," said Egon. 
 
 "You want such a lot," replied Hans. 
 
 " Well, people do." 
 
 " They didn't when I was young," grumbled Hans, 
 
 " Rubbish ! You are not yet thirty." 
 
 " Well, all I mean to say is, that a few years ago gentle- 
 men could spend a couple of days with their friends without 
 needing mountains of luggage." 
 
 " All right. Don't forget my white ties, as you did last 
 time." 
 
 " I only forgot them once," said Hans. 
 
 " Good Lord, did you want to get into the habit ? The 
 truth is, you are a very bad valet, Hans." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said the immovable servant, folding 
 up trousers. " Would you mind telling me what you wish 
 to take ? " 
 
 "Again? Very well. This — and this " 
 
 The servant dodged. " If you'd mind, sir, not shying it 
 all over the place." 
 
 " What made you come to me as valet ? " 
 
 " What made you order me to come, sir ? " 
 
 " Well, for one thing, how ever did you get away from 
 my uncle ? Tell me, Hans, I'm curious. What did he say ? " 
 
 Hans stood to attention, with an ivory hair-brush in 
 each hand. 
 
 "Well, it was in this way," he said. "There came a 
 telegram to Rheyna one night from the Herr Graf at 
 Berlin, and I was to start for the city next morning. I was 
 a bit flurried, for I'd never been away from home before, 
 excepting for my military service in Munster, and Munster 
 isn't much of a city neither. There's too many houses in 
 Berlin : that can't be right. God can't have intended men 
 to put so many houses together, or He'd have made the 
 country smaller. I wonder they who live in the middle don't 
 choke." 
 
 T 2 
 
276 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Well, go on ; we can't alter that just now. And don't 
 leave off packing." Egon threw some more things in a heap. 
 
 "You're crumpling your shirts, sir," said Hans. "Well, 
 up I came, and found the house on the Pariser platz, and it 
 cost me a lot of trouble. I asked three different passers-by 
 to tell me, and each of them told me wrong. The Berlin 
 people may be very clever, but they don't know their right 
 hand from their left." And Hans slapped a coat with 
 much conviction. 
 
 " That has always been a weakness with the inhabitants 
 of great cities," said Egon, increasing, rather at haphazard, 
 the pile on the floor. " You remember it was said of the 
 population of Nineveh, Hans, in Jonah's time." 
 
 " Jonah was the person that came out of the whale, sir ? ** 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, no wonder that distracted the Ninevehs, sir. I 
 saw many strange things in Berlin, but nothing quite as 
 strange as that." 
 
 " You found my uncle at last : what then ? " 
 
 ''Yes, I found him, in a very big room, in a very big 
 chair, with a very big foot. He was very cross. I suppose, 
 because he had the gout." 
 
 " Or, perhaps, on account of this business of yours ? " 
 
 "Or, perhaps, on account of this business of yours," 
 replied Hans imperturbably. " He looked at me with a 
 look that sent my heart into my mouth. ' Art thou a fool 
 or art thou not ? ' he says. Now, what could I answer ? 
 Of course, I am a fool, but I wouldn't tell my lord Count 
 that." 
 
 " Hullo ! " cried Egon, turning from a cupboard, " you've 
 got that wrong. Say it as you mean it, Hans ? " 
 
 The servant grinned. " Of course I'm not a fool, but I 
 couldn't tell my lord Count that ! So ' I leave it to 
 your Excellency, Herr Graf,' I said, very respectful like. 
 
 'No, thou shalt decide once for all,' he says " But here 
 
 the man abruptly broke off, turning purple, as he bent over 
 a pile of underwear. " So the story ends, and you see, I 
 came here." 
 
 " Ends ! What do you mean ? How did you decide it ? " 
 
 " By proving myself a ' d d, idiotic, hopeless fool of a 
 
 conceited idiot.' Those were his Excellency's own words, 
 as I well remember. His Excellency spoke them very 
 clearly, and I said : ' Your Excellency, then, is content that 
 an idiot should leave your service.' And so I came away." 
 
DOROTHEA. 377 
 
 " But what was the question that *' 
 
 " If you wish me to get ready with the packing, I fear 
 you must leave me, sir." 
 
 Egon, knowing that he would get nothing more out of 
 the man, was moving towards the door, when the other 
 immediately recalled him. 
 
 "Begging your pardon, sir, but may I ask a question? 
 Is the French maid to go with us to the villa over there ? " 
 
 " Of course she accompanies her mistress." 
 
 " And is she to go back with us later to Germany ? " 
 
 " Probably." 
 
 " So, then, she's a fixture in this family ! Not a temporary 
 thing, like an hotel." 
 
 " I suppose not. We don*t usually look upon our servants 
 as temporary — till they go, Hans." 
 
 The man stood still over his open portmanteau, and 
 solemnly shook his head. 
 
 " A Frenchwoman in a German family ! — it isn't natural, 
 sir." 
 
 Egon waited, suppressing all smiles. 
 
 " You know what is best, sir, of course ! " — this was 
 spoken in a tone of perfect incredulity — " and I shouldn't 
 venture to express an opinion, but I shouldn't like it to be 
 known at Rheyna that we had a Frenchwoman living with 
 us, like this." 
 
 " How about my uncle's French cook ? " 
 
 ** A man in the kitchen isn't a maid in the parlour," 
 replied Hans. " I have heard told, though of course you 
 know these things better, that a Frenchwoman " — Hans's 
 voice dropped to a whisper — "who was with the late 
 Empress Augusta, used to tell all Bismarck's secrets to the 
 great Napoleon ! " 
 
 " Well, we haven't any secrets here." 
 
 " Noble families always have secrets. And it don't, as I 
 say, seem natural, a Frenchwoman spying about the Rodens. 
 I don't think his Majesty 'd like it, if he knew ! " 
 
 " His Majesty ! Why not say at once that God in 
 Heaven disapproves ? " 
 
 "Well, the two are near each other," answered Hans 
 sedately. " But his Majesty never made a French- 
 woman, and God did, so I think there's a difference 
 there ! '; 
 
 Leaving Hans the last word, as he had done for a dozen 
 years, Egon went in search of Konrad. It may be noted 
 
278 DOROTHEA. 
 
 here that this master of course addressed his henchman as 
 "thou," and that Hans, in his answers, would multiply 
 titles, which national characteristics, however, are better 
 ignored where they cannot be given in the original. 
 
 " Konrad, what did uncle Karl offer Hans to induce him 
 to stay at Rheyna ? " 
 
 Konrad lifted his lazy eyes off " Pot-Bouille." " Why 
 don't he tell you himself ? " said Konrad. " He is a fool, as 
 uncle told him — too great a fool to know which side his 
 bread is buttered, and even too great a fool to tell you that 
 he scraped off the butter for your sake." 
 
 " So I thought. Yes, he is a fool, as you say." 
 
 " Uncle Karl declared that his royal word was pledged, 
 but that, of course, it might happen that the man refused to 
 go. If he stayed, there also chanced to be a keeper's cottage 
 open, and any of the girls on the place whom he liked to 
 select, uncle Karl undertook should accept him. But Hans 
 said he didn't want another wife, and uncle kicked him 
 downstairs." 
 
 " And across to me," said Egon. " How the poor old 
 man must hate me." 
 
 " Well, yes, he does," answered Konrad. " Have you 
 ever read this ? It's rather good. Lady Archie lent it me. 
 She's taught herself a lot of French, she says, by working 
 right through 2ola." 
 
 On his way back into the house, Egon met Dorothea. 
 He stopped her. "You are sure you like to go to these 
 people ? " he asked. " Because you know, as I said before, 
 there's no earthly reason why you should go and stay with 
 Pini, unless you want to." 
 
 " Yes, I should like to ; I should like to," she answered 
 nervously. " I want to go very much, Egon." And she 
 passed him rather hastily, in her painful resolution of going 
 to speak with Konrad. 
 
 " Eh ? — oh, ah, yes," said Konrad, glancing up again 
 from his book. It would be wrong to say, that, in his 
 courtesy, he looked bored. 
 
 " Konrad, I want to speak to you about Lady Archibald." 
 Dorothea was absurdly agitated : her colour came and went. 
 
 A quick spasm passed through Konrad's leaden face. 
 " What of her ? " he asked coldly. 
 
 " I am sure she does not mean the slightest harm." 
 
 " Of course not. Has she done any ? " 
 
 " And, you see, she is very young.'' 
 
DOROTHEA. 279 
 
 " I suppose she is, compared to you," said Konrad, but 
 his sneer looked exactly like a smile. 
 
 "And husbands are so unreasonable," said Dorothea, 
 trying to be sprightly. 
 
 " I am sorry, but not surprised, that you should find 
 yours so.** 
 
 " And, I think, we must admit, Konrad, that she has not 
 quite our reserve, our education. She can't help it, poor 
 thing, but she is a little — how shall one say ? — outree, is she 
 not ? Don't you think, that we all ought to help her ? " 
 
 " Would you tell me quite clearly what you mean to 
 insinuate ? " There was a twang about the last word ; 
 his nerves were beginning to vibrate under the strain of 
 uncertainty, how much she knew or had guessed. 
 
 She looked at him in amazement, and he quickly caught 
 the look. She knew nothing, then : his annoyance relaxed. 
 
 " I don't want to insinuate anything," said Dorothea. 
 " All I want is to suggest quite openly, that we should all 
 help Lady Archibald to assume her new position — to find 
 her place. She must forget that she ever was a Bier- 
 madel. You men can help her much more than we." 
 
 Konrad scowled. " My dear Dorothea, how good of 
 you ! " he cried. " How kind you are ! You women 
 always see each others' shortcomings so much more 
 quickly, and it is so nice of you to try and improve your 
 acquaintances. Yes, certainly, Lady Archibald must be 
 made to accept her new position ! You are quite right ! 
 I will help you all I can." 
 
 She looked at him a little doubtfully, anxious to feel 
 grateful. 
 
 " Touche-la ! " cried Konrad, holding out his hand. 
 "You and I together, we must see what we can make 
 of Lady Archibald ! " 
 
 Then she took his hand, and said : " Thank you," and 
 went gravely indoors. 
 
 A few hours later she was sitting m a gorgeous bedroom 
 of the Palazzo 'Arriet (furnished entirely by Elderwood of 
 London) — the "Pocahontas," as people called it, for, saith 
 the inscription over the portal : 
 
 THIS TABLET PRESERVKjj THU MEMORY OF THE 
 
 Indian Princess Pocahontas, 
 WHO died here of smallpox on her twentieth birthday. 
 
 N,B. — The Apartment was thoroughly Disinfected by Messrs. ColHngs and 
 Collings, the well-known Sanitary Engineers. 
 
28o DOROTHEA. 
 
 Dorothea had chosen the room among several which 
 Pini offered her: it possessed the finest view. 
 
 " You are not, then, afraid ? " exclaimed the astonished 
 Italian, whose whole life was one mass of superstition, belief 
 in the jettatura, in omens, amulets, card-laying, all a Neapoli- 
 tan's dread of misfortune, and a gambler's chase after luck. 
 
 " Afraid ? No," replied Dorothea. " Not after CoUings and 
 CoUings ! " 
 
 Her hostess, who, till now, had appeared pretty well to 
 ignore her existence, seemed suddenly to hear what she said. 
 •' I like you," declared Giulietta. " You are not a fool." 
 
 In this haunted chamber, then, sat Dorothea, having her 
 hair dressed before dinner by Aurelie Bompard. Mademoi- 
 selle Aurelie was cheerfully impressed by once more 
 finding herself, in this servants' hall of the palazzo, 
 amongst what she considered fitting surroundings. 
 
 " The valet of Monsieur," said Aurelie, " remains ridicu- 
 lously inadequate. It is painful to find oneself thus 
 escorted amongst strangers." 
 
 " He is such a good man," said Dorothea. 
 
 "That, if Madame will pardon me, is not a desirable 
 quality in a valet. I have known many, and of the most 
 superior, but a good man among them was there none." 
 
 " And how about maids ? " asked the mistress. 
 
 " With maids it is different ; women have always 
 religion. They are not divided, like men. But a virtuous 
 valet, or a virtuous cook — no, the thing is unreasonable ! 
 Good cookery, also, and religion, they do not go together. 
 It is like a coachman ! If I were a great lady, I would not 
 desire a coachman that stole not, nor a man-cook that 
 drank not, nor a valet that did not make love." 
 
 " But this poor fellow is a broken-hearted widower ? " 
 
 Mademoiselle Aurelie shrugged her shapely shoulders. 
 " And that, is it not absurdest of all ? For what else are 
 the hearts of widowers broken but that they seek glue ? " 
 
 " Aurelie, you should not talk like that : it is sinful." 
 
 " Ah, the droll word ! " Aur61ie laughed merrily. 
 " Pardon, but when Madame says ' sinful,' I cannot but 
 laugh. With us others it is the word of the cure only, and 
 he says it, that we pay him, for penance. It is part of his 
 stock-in-trade. To me it is, on Madame's lips, as if I 
 heard her speak Latin, like in church ! " 
 
 Dorothea gave a hopeless sigh, and (as constantly with 
 Aurelie) her thoughts reverted to Rebecca. 
 
DOROTHEA. 281 
 
 " Madame is too good," continued the maid. " I love 
 Madame so much I would almost permit myself to say it is 
 a mistake to be so good, at least, in a Protestant ! In our 
 religion Madame would have gone into a cloister and been 
 happy. That is the only way to keep oneself unspotted 
 from the world." (Dorothea started involuntarily.) " But 
 now Madame will get speckled and spickled all over, and 
 be miserable. To me it is as if I saw the soul of Madame, 
 in a white satin dress and a long tail, dragging about 
 the streets of Paris all under the omnibus dirt ! " 
 
 The maid's shrill voice had taken on a tone of real 
 feeling. Almost tenderly she smoothed out the folds of 
 Dorothea's dinner gown. 
 
 " I feel a responsibility towards Madame, for Monsieur le 
 Colonel entrusted her to me," said Aurelie. " ' My daughter 
 is like an angel from Heaven,' said the Colonel, ' that fell 
 out, with the others, by mistake ! Look after her, thou 
 who knowest the ways of the children of Lucifer.' But 
 how can I ? " Mademoiselle Bompard threw out both her 
 hands to her mistress in open appeal. " Madame is to me 
 like the dove in the ark, of which she read last Sunday. 
 No wonder it returned not, poor beast, when once it 
 had escaped from that menagerie ! " 
 
 For Dorothea had undertaken laborious Sunday read- 
 ings with Mademoiselle Bompard. A half-hour of early 
 devotion was thus weekly endured, by the maid with 
 amused toleration, by the mistress with unwilling fortitude. 
 Dorothea was not of those who enjoy preaching to their 
 neighbours or doing them good against their desire. And 
 she realised to herself the unsatisfactoriness of religious 
 instruction, in which the teacher's chief hope was that the 
 pupil should not listen, or, at any rate, not speak. For 
 Mademoiselle Aurelie's shrewd suggestions were terribly 
 disconcerting and often irresistibly comic. Dorothea, it 
 must be admitted, had no active desire to convert her to 
 Protestantism. But she had been startled out of her 
 indifference as to her maid's spiritual condition by the 
 discovery of abysses of ignorance such as would have been 
 simply unthinkable at Brodryck. For, one morning, at 
 Lugano, she had casually remarked : "You are as hard 
 to convince as Sarah," and Mademoiselle Aurelie had 
 answered : " C'etait une ancienne femme-de-chambre a 
 Madame?" Next Sunday Dorothea had seated herself 
 down, with the smart, solemnised, twinkly maid in front 
 
282 DOROTHEA. 
 
 of her, and had read aloud the story of the Promise of 
 Isaac. 
 
 " That sort of thing wouldn't suit our Parisiennes a bit/* 
 said Aurelie at the close, with great emphasis. She had sat 
 listening, in an atmosphere of thoughtful silence that terri- 
 fied her mistress, through half-a-dozen faltering remarks 
 by the latter on the late reward of Abraham's faith. 
 " Heavens, they could never be sure they were safe ! Poor 
 — what was her name ? — Sarah ; it certainly was hard on 
 her. But there, men always look at these matters from 
 their selfish point of view." 
 
 Whatever Dorothea did Aur^lie's standpoint remained 
 the same : " EUe est trop bonne. Je suis inquiete." This 
 she repeated over and over again in the letters she wrote 
 herself of evenings, when waiting up. For this discreetest 
 of maids, in her need of expansion and her fixed resolve 
 not to trust any secrets to correspondence or even to 
 diaries, wrote herself nightly pages of letters about all the 
 private affairs of her families, and tore them up invariably 
 before blowing out her candle. "Ca me soulage," she said. 
 
 On this first evening of her stay at the Palazzo 'Arriet 
 she wrote, among other things : " Of one thing I am 
 secure : for the present we are safe. And, after all, I have 
 obtained my object, which was to be free in the future from 
 feminine intrigues. Ah, what have I not seen of these 
 latter ! Of them I am utterly weary. And, if Dorothea 
 live to be sixty and beautiful as Ninon, she will never 
 make love, the dear one, where priests sing not chorus : 
 Amen ! That is the essential. And I am too old (thirty) 
 for further emotions. As for Egon, he will of course do as 
 all men in time, but for that I care not, nor will she, if I 
 am there to advise her. I have never seen man that was 
 otherwise, in our world, excepting the little Duque d' 
 Ijisqua, and his marriage was declared void in the Court 
 of Rome ! 
 
 " The little Italian is not as sleepy as she looks. 
 
 ** As for Konrad and the Kellnerin, je m'en fiche." 
 
 While the maid sat thus penning ephemeral wisdom 
 upstairs, the mistress moved about the drawing-room and 
 tried to be happy. Dorothea was annoyed with herself for 
 not enjoying her surroundings, nor did she realise, as 
 Aurelie could have told, that her discomfort was caused by 
 the succession of spots which splashed from the conversation 
 around her across a soul whose home-nurtured innocence 
 
DOROTHEA. 283 
 
 only dogma disproved. Konrad and the Biermadel chose, 
 for reasons of their own, to be outrageous, in German, 
 telling stories of their common acquaintances, which 
 proved them to be common indeed. Egon could only kick 
 his brother under the table, nor could he even do that, for, 
 having mistaken his leg, he inflicted continuous punishment 
 upon Archie, who did not understand German, and lived 
 under the impression that his wife's uproarious laughter 
 was aimed at himself. At last came a specially bold 
 anecdote, a specially loud peal, and an extra hard kick ; 
 then the long-suffering Archie protested : " I say," he 
 demanded, " who's kicking me ? Shut up ! " 
 
 " I kicked," began Egon desperately ; but he stopped, for 
 the story had been Lady Archibald's. 
 
 " One at a time, please," said poor Archie, with a fierce 
 scowl at Konrad. The boy would have joked on the rack. 
 
 As for Pini, he enjoyed eating his dinner and paying 
 pretty compliments. Giulietta contemned every duty of a 
 hostess, lying about on sofas and waking to occasional 
 animated scraps of conversation about individual subjects 
 with favourites few and far between. 
 
 In the smoking-room Egon walked up to Konrad. " I wish 
 you w^ould avoid saying things you might know my wife 
 doesn't like to hear ! " 
 
 Konrad looked at him, smiling. "Very natural," he 
 answered, "and I hope that you'll always avoid doing 
 them." 
 
 " What do you mean ? Do you mean anything ? " 
 
 " No, oh no. Fine woman, Giulietta ! She seems to 
 have taken a fancy to you." 
 
 " Yes, she is handsome," said Egon. 
 
 Their host came between them. " If there is one thing I 
 regret," said Pini, " it is that I never learnt German. A 
 language abounding in good stories, it appears ! Many 
 of them, I presume, cannot bear translating ? Eh ? Like 
 Lord Archibald's ' pons ' ? " He turned inquiringly to 
 Konrad, who coloured at the lesson. 
 
 " Let us sit down," continued the courteous Italian 
 quickly. " Yes, my dear Roden, the house is good enough. 
 Giulietta dislikes it, but that is a pretty woman's whim. 
 To me it is singularly appropriate : it represents the money 
 of to-day ! " 
 
 " How do you mean ? " questioned Egon. 
 
 " Well, the Borromean islands, for instance ; they represent 
 
284 DOROTHEA. 
 
 the money of yesterday — a Paradise of art and nature, 
 erected, as you know, on bare rocks by princes whose every 
 thought was princely. Nowadays, of course, we have the 
 Palazzo 'Arriet. It is very comfortable. The drainage is 
 absolutely perfect. As for the money of to-morrow, there 
 will be nothing left to buy with it, now that beauty is 
 dead and comfort is cheapening fast. Pray God in the 
 future there may be no money ! " 
 
 " What, you say that ! " cried Archie. " You a Socialist ? 
 By gum ! " 
 
 Pini looked at him, indifferently. " We are all Socialists 
 nowadays," said the old man ; " that is to say, we all 
 want those who have more than we to have less, and those 
 who have less than we to get more, without any inconve- 
 nience to ourselves. Yes, we all feel that would be better. 
 And we all know that money is a curse. But I — I was a 
 Socialist at twenty. I have been poor all my life. I loathe 
 money." 
 
 The three young men stared at him incredulously. 
 
 " Do not stare at me like that," said Pini irritably, and 
 he poured himself out a thimbleful of green Chartreuse. 
 " It is true. I have been poor all my life, after twenty 
 early years of luxury — what care I ? Nothing. I had lost 
 money for a good cause : I was glad. I have gained it 
 now also in a good cause : it is well ! " 
 
 " A good cause ? " inquired Konrad, with his faintly 
 sneering smile. 
 
 "I will tell you, if you care," continued Pini, addressing 
 Egon. " Ah, Santa Madre ! " and suddenly he seemed to 
 drop into the tone he had used before fortune favoured 
 him. " But no, you are Protestants all ! — amazing fact : 
 my house is full of Protestants, and with you it is faith, 
 not works ! I, when I settled myself to give lessons in 
 Nice — it was Monte Carlo, Monte Carlo, with my pupils 
 from morning to night. Within me awoke, I will admit 
 it, the gambling instinct that sleeps in all our blood. But 
 it was not that only, not chiefly — the obsession came upon 
 me to discover the great secret, to conquer the place ! I 
 played not ; I but went to study. In my spare time — 
 ahime, there was enough of it! — in the night-time did I 
 ever reflect, reflect ! Daily I prayed to the Virgin, to the 
 saints ! I lit candles ! — but, no, you would not understand ! 
 The candles were small and rare, Santa Madre ! but thou 
 tookest the widow's mite I " 
 
DOROTHEA. 385 
 
 He sank his fine old face on his breast in a pose which 
 would have been purely reverent but for an admixture of 
 elegance, that yet certainly was not affectation. 
 
 " Well, after many years of hard labour and hope — faith 
 with works, as our Holy Church enjoins — I am almost 
 successful. I am returning to complete my task. There is 
 still always the small risk of the ten — it will go," he cried 
 aloud with sudden energy, " it will go ! Then, when the 
 system is complete, I shall have gained my object in view." 
 He looked from one young man to the other. Egon was 
 interested, Konrad amused, Archie asleep. 
 
 " I will make no secret. Why should I ? " He spoke in 
 a burst of after-dinner expansiveness. " I have gained, not 
 the fabulous sums that were named in the newspapers, but 
 a couple of hundred thousand francs. Well, that is enough 
 for a season, enough to spend here ! But now I am returning 
 for the final combat. If I conquer, when I have gained 
 enough for this wife of mine, enough for definite luxury — a 
 fortune for both of us, then — I make known my secret to 
 ^the world! " 
 
 He had risen, flinging his cigarette on to the wood fire. 
 The three men stared at him. Archie had woke up. 
 
 " Never ! " cried Archibald. " You'd make a company, 
 organise capital, gain millions, stop the place ! But you 
 can get millions out of 'em before they shut up shop." 
 
 " Yes, I shall stop the place ! " answered Pini, his eyes 
 fixed thoughtfully on the lamp. "When my system is 
 perfect, I give it to the world. It is thus I can pray to the 
 Virgin. She helpeth not a gambler ; niente affatto. She 
 helpeth a philanthropist. In a year, by her aid, I shall 
 have destroyed Monte Carlo. Only the ten still remains." 
 
 He held open the door, and, again addressing Egon only : 
 " Shall we join the ladies ? Meanwhile my life is a curse 
 to me. Even here they have found me — the endless besiegers, 
 reporters, fortune-hunters, beggars — never am I at rest ! 
 Yonder, at Monte Carlo, it was frightful. In self-defence I 
 shall tell them my secret, when I have it, and then there 
 will be no more roulette ! " 
 
 "Just so," said Konrad, looking up. "There will be the 
 more trente et quarante." 
 
 " I do not think so," said Pini, annoyed. 
 
 " They will lower it to five francs at once." 
 
 "They will never get the masses to play trente et 
 quarante," answered Pini, quickly disappearing towards the 
 
286 DOROTHEA. 
 
 staircase. Konrad vexed him. When a man displays an 
 honest ambition, only the cruel or the silly disturb his 
 dreams. It is in the power of none of us to do well : at 
 least let us honour the few who occasionally want to. 
 
 The ladies were scattered over the too large drawing-room 
 and the dusk-hid terrace. It is noticeable that when the 
 sexes separate after dinner, the men's tongues grow looser, 
 while the women's lag. The reason is not hard to discover. 
 For men, when not intimate, have always one subject in 
 common : women. But women, unless intimate, cannot 
 discuss men. 
 
 Giulietta, after one glance around, had curled herself up 
 on a sofa. A couple of insignificant Italian cousins, poor 
 relations, with jewellery, sat at a side-table, playing a 
 Neapolitan card-game. Lady Archibald had gone out on 
 to the terrace, and stood yawning, in the soft star-bespangled 
 night. 
 
 Then Dorothea seized hold of her beating heart in both 
 her hands, and pressed it hard. 
 
 A moment later she was out on the terrace, in the rich 
 Southern odour of roses and oranges, with the play of the 
 great cool lake, amid its thousand lights, beneath. 
 
 " Lady Archibald," she said. 
 
 " Ah ? Are you there ? Dear me, I thought it was Giulietta. 
 Come out of that big gaunt room, my dearest Madame von 
 Roden ? Is it not beautiful ? See, that is Pallanza yonder." 
 
 Dorothea stood silent, praying for wisdom. 
 
 " You do not care for Pallanza ? Well, nor do I. But 
 we must try to amuse ourselves until the men come back." 
 
 " Lady Archibald " 
 
 " Yes, that is my name, dear Madame von Roden. It used 
 to amuse me immensely at first. But I have got used to it, 
 even as to all things, even as to Archie." 
 
 **What a good fellow he is, so kind-hearted, and he 
 seems devoted to you." 
 
 " Eh ? — ^yes. You are a kind of cousin of his, are 
 you not? Then why don't you call me 'Dickie,* so I 
 could call you ' Doll ' ? " 
 
 " I will, if you like," said Dorothea, mentally shuddering. 
 
 "Oh, I don't mind. I am glad you like Archie. Poor 
 Archie ! " 
 
 " Why poor Archie ? " 
 
 " I'm sure 1 don't know, if you don't.** 
 
 "Well, I think I do know. I don't think he seems 
 
DOROTHEA. 287 
 
 happy. I am sure he loves you very much, Lady — Dickie. 
 You alone can make him happy, and you alone can make 
 him miserable." 
 
 *' Hov^ interesting," said Dickie. 
 
 " It is a terrible responsibility for us women, don't you 
 think so ? " continued Dorothea timidly. " When our 
 husbands love us, we hold the whole of their happiness in 
 the hollows of our hands ! " 
 
 *' Don't you think that is a little — outre ? " said Lady 
 Archibald meaningly, but the shaft missed fire. 
 
 "And I think it ought to make us very careful, don't 
 you ? Especially in our intercourse with other men. Often, 
 when we mean nothing, these silly, jealous husbands are 
 perfectly miserable. There was a man lived in our 
 neighbourhood whose wife used to attract all sorts of 
 attention. Too much, I admit. He never complained to 
 her, they say, and one day he shot himself." 
 
 " Don't you think that was rather — outre ? " asked Lady 
 Archibald. She stood by the balustrade, immensely interested 
 in the far lights of Pallanza. No, that cannot have been a 
 ripple in her throat. It must have been a rustle through 
 the orange trees. 
 
 Dorothea paused, vaguely disconcerted. 
 
 " You do not like flirtations, then ? " asked Dickie. 
 
 " No, they would not amuse me, if meaningless * * 
 
 *' Indeed!'' 
 
 Dorothea flushed crimson in the half-light. "And other 
 than meaningless," she added almost haughtily, " I cannot 
 imagine their occurring ! " 
 
 Lady Archibald slapped her soimdly on the nearest bare 
 shoulder. " Right you are, old girl," she said (in equivalent 
 German), " I like to see you riled. It does me good. Fire 
 away, Doll ! Teach your poor cousin what's what ! Give 
 her lessons in virtue. Tell her she must forget that she 
 ever was a Biermadel. Help her to assume her natural 
 place ! " 
 
 The references thus poured down on Dorothea's head 
 could no longer miss hitting her in the face. She understood 
 that her whole conversation with Konrad had, through 
 him, reached the woman she was burning to help. She 
 drew herself up, and it seemed to the rather frightened 
 Dickie that, as she expressed it afterwards, the creature 
 began to grow. 
 
 "Shall we go in?" said Dorothea. "That is Egon 
 
288 DOROTHEA. 
 
 singing. The men have come back." In the dark, beside 
 the blaze of the window, she stopped. " Do not mis- 
 understand me," she said earnestly. " I was thinking of 
 Archibald's happiness only, and yours." 
 
 Egon was singing " O voi, chi entrate ! " 
 
 Pini, on entering the room, had gone up to his wife and 
 entreated her to sing. Lying back, in her odalisque pose, 
 she had excused herself ; and, when he persisted : 
 
 " Mio amico," she said, " I will do what thou wilt. My 
 one pleasure is to please thee : thou art good to me. But 
 see — do not ask me to sing : there is no one that cares ! Last 
 night, when I sang, they talked on : they made noises. 
 The cousins mixed their cards, the lovers hissed on the 
 terrace, the poor husband snored ! " 
 
 He would have protested, but she stopped him. 
 
 " Thou ? Oh, I know thou art most courteous. But thou 
 hearest not false notes — I have tried ! And thou thinkest 
 of thy system — always ! " 
 
 Konrad, who had been watching them, drew near. 
 " Countess," he said, " why don't you ask my brother to 
 sing?" 
 
 " He sings, your brother ! " She opened her eyes wide, 
 and her languid limbs seemed to harden. 
 
 " You just try him." 
 
 She lifted herself, with a shake, like a dog's, and beckoned 
 to Egon. " Monsieur de Roden," she said, " you sing ? " 
 
 "Yes, I sing." 
 
 " Well ? " she asked, with a mocking look in her eyes. 
 
 " Better than anybody I ever heard," called Archie from 
 the depths of his easy chair, which was rather nice of 
 Archie, for he had been in Giulietta's memory when she 
 scornfully asked, " Well ? " Archibald sang comic songs 
 with much pantomime and little voice, and, the other night, 
 after having asked him, she had walked away on to the 
 terrace. She had the grace to give as explanation excess 
 of laughter, and he the wit not to believe her, but she 
 never asked him again. 
 
 "What will you, my love?" she said to the protesting 
 Pini. " I have nerves, I cannot help it. And, besides, to 
 me, art, of the humblest, is a sacred thing which I will not 
 profane. Not even in this house, whose sheer existence 
 profanes it daily. A house like this, on this site, it is like 
 a caricature of the Virgin, in the cathedral at Milan ! " 
 
 " Hush, hush ; she will hear thee ! " cried Pini, alarmed. 
 
DOROTHEA. 389 
 
 Giulietta shrugged her shoulders. " Nay, she hears me 
 not. As I know." 
 
 When the first notes of "Oh voi che entrate " rose in 
 the lofty drawing-room, the Countess Pini, who had sunk 
 back among her cushions, raised her little head erect. 
 In another moment she had lifted her lithe frame, 
 and hung poised. As the singing continued, she 
 rose noiselessly to her feet, bending slightly forwards, 
 breathless. 
 
 Dorothea, in the opening of the window, against the 
 shadows of the terrace and the blackness beyond, stood 
 watching her. To the singer's wife occurred the sudden 
 picture of a serpent, fascinated by music, and her heart 
 glowed with a fresh impulse of pride in the song. 
 
 When the last note died away, the Italian went swiftly 
 to the piano. 
 
 " Yes, you sing," she said, and after a moment added, " I 
 say not with Lord Archibald, for I have heard singing as 
 good, perhaps better — cleverer. But, see, you have the true 
 emotions in that beautiful voice ! " 
 
 " Will you sing us some more ? " It was palpable to all 
 present, who cared, that this passionate creature was seeking 
 to hide her agitation. He took up a pretty German thing : 
 "Voglein, wohin so schnell ? " and placed it before him, 
 but she snatched it away with a movement certainly more 
 violent than she had intended ; it escaped from her fingers 
 and flew, rustling, across the floor. 
 
 " Italian ! Italian ! " she said. He obeyed with a 
 Neapolitan country-song. "Yes," she said, when it was 
 over, " yes. But it wants a Neapolitan peasant, who doesn't 
 sing as well as you, to sing Neapolitan songs. Or a fisher- 
 man from Santa Lucia, eh, Bartolommeo ? Sing ' Oh voi 
 che entrate ! ' again ! " 
 
 And again the words rose in the listening silence of the 
 great saloon : 
 
 " Oh voi che entrate nel Paradiso d'Amore ! ** 
 
 " Now, thou also, Giulietta, thou must show what thou 
 
 canst do," said her husband. 
 
 " I ? I can do nothing. I cannot sing." 
 
 " Ta, ta, ta ! Thou canst sing well enough." 
 
 She turned on him with a scream. " I cannot sing ! La I 
 
 I cannot sing ! " And she swept up the far length of the 
 
 room. 
 
 D. TT 
 
290 DOROTHEA. 
 
 He followed her with insinuating " empressement," 
 and spoke in a voice that was almost audible to their 
 guests : 
 
 "The Countess Pini will remember the first rules of 
 Italian courtesy." 
 
 She faced round, passed him, straight to the piano, sat 
 down and began : 
 
 "A Roma s'h scoperta 'na fontana, 
 Che a dodici cannelle I'acqua vera; 
 Dice che Tammalati 11 risana . . . 
 lo I'ho bevuta, e I'ho fatta la prova, 
 Per le pene d'amor I'acqua non giova; 
 lo I'ho bevuta, e la prova I'ho fatta, 
 Per le pene d'amor non giova I'acqua.** 
 
 She rose from the instrument, speaking to Egon : 
 
 " E un canto popolare Marchigiano. Parla Italiano ? 
 Ah, perch^ non ha detto ? It is the single language which 
 speaks itself ; in all others one only can say things 1 '* 
 
 Dorothea, who had seated herself on a couch by the 
 window, watched them as they bent together over the 
 music, discussing and comparing. Presently they happed 
 on a duet well known to both, and sang it eagerly. They 
 tried something else ; they had forgotten all surrounders ; 
 Giulietta's eyes sparkled ; her cheeks were aflame. 
 
 Dorothea rose brusquely and went out again on to the 
 terrace, into the cool darkness of the stars. Quite a new 
 sensation had suddenly awakened in her heart — jealousy. 
 Not, certainly, doubt of her husband or of Giulietta — that 
 were an absolute absurdity — but pain that another woman 
 should thus interest and please him. 
 
 " Contemptible ! " she said to herself aloud, in the still- 
 ness, and she struck her own heart, as a glove is dashed in 
 the face of a craven. She went back to the music and, see ! 
 Lady Archibald barred her path, emerging abruptly from 
 among the plants. 
 
 " Forgive me ! " gasped Lord Archibald's wife. 
 " And — and pray for me ! There, don't say anything, 
 please. If you didn't hear what I said, so much the better. 
 How well your husband sings ! " 
 
 Dorothea would have put out her arm around the other's 
 neck, but Lady Archibald drew back. 
 
 " That is Pallanza over yonder ! " said Lady Archibald 
 tremulously. " Don't think of what I said. Archie, come 
 then, and sit with me on the terrace ! " 
 
DOROTHEA. agi 
 
 " It's too cold," answered Archie in sleepy tones. 
 
 Lady Archibald stamped her foot on the terrace tiles. 
 
 " How ungallant you husbands are ! " Konrad's voice 
 was heard saying. His step drew nearer. 
 
 " Fate is fate," whispered Lady Archibald as the two 
 women passed into the room together. " Archie, thou art 
 what thou dost call the others — a mitten — ^no, how say you ? 
 —a muff ! " 
 
 ** I'll come, if you like," replied her husband. 
 
 " Nay, we will stay here. We will listen to the songs." 
 
 art 
 
( 292 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "The weather is perfect. You must go," said Egon, 
 early next morning, as he drew aside the window curtains 
 of the Pocahontas chamber. 
 
 "They are all going," he added. "I should be very 
 sorry if you stopped at home for me." 
 
 Dorothea lifted her head. " And I should be so glad," she 
 said. 
 
 " Why ? Don't you want to go ? " 
 
 She hesitated a moment. "Nonsense," continued her 
 husband quickly. " The view from the Motterone must be 
 splendid. I'm sure you can manage it." He sighed. "I 
 wish I could." 
 
 " I do not want to go," said Dorothea. 
 
 He stood looking at her for a moment : then he drew up 
 her chin towards his face and kissed her. " No," he said, 
 " that would never, never do. It is bad enough, Dorothea. 
 You would make it hurt more than I could bear." And 
 he limped away into his dressing-room. 
 
 Immediately after breakfast all prepared to start. The 
 Monte Motterone rises behind the Villa 'Arriet, a long- 
 drawn but nowise arduous climb. Signor Pini had a 
 donkey ; the others walked. 
 
 Waiting out on the terrace, Konrad von Roden drew his 
 elder brother aside. " I heard from the Head last night," 
 he said. 
 
 " Indeed ? " Egon broke off a branch of myrtle. 
 
 " Well, he can't manage about the entail. I congratulate 
 you. You can imagine what a state he's in ! His whole 
 letter's one mass of swears." 
 
 " I can hardly believe that," said Egon. 
 
 " The writing is," said Konrad. " I can see it. All the 
 dashes of the t's and the dots on the i's are swears." 
 
 Egon only laughed. 
 
 "You may well laugh. He's just got the Imperial 
 consent to a single alteration, the abolition of the clause 
 
DOROTHEA. 293 
 
 about not marrying within a year. When he dies, lots must 
 be cast between the married nephews, but I may marry 
 at once, if I like." He waited, but Egon did not speak. 
 
 " Only you, as next heir, must consent to the alteration. 
 A prohibition to marry is always immoral, say the powers 
 that be, but the next heir's acquired rights cannot be 
 touched without his consent. You understand ? " 
 
 " Perfectly," replied Egon. " Were you wanting to 
 marry ? " 
 
 " Not in the least. Like most of us, I was wanting not 
 to. Still " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Sooner or later, there always comes some reason which 
 makes us want to want. Now the earldom of Rheyna " 
 
 "Konrad!" 
 
 " Is safely yours as long as I remain unmarried. And, 
 as things now stand, I can't marry within a year of our 
 father's death." 
 
 " In no case, surely, would it be decent " 
 
 Konrad swayed round, with a fierce scowl. " It was 
 decent enough just before," he said. " Had you waited a 
 couple of months, the chances would have been equal for 
 all three." 
 
 " You may marry to-morrow for all I care," answered 
 Egon hotly. " The whole thing is to me disgusting in the 
 extreme." 
 
 Komad smiled. " Perhaps you wouldn't mind writing 
 to the Emperor," he sneered, " and signifying your willing- 
 ness to cut off every form of entail ? " 
 
 " No, by George ! " exclaimed Egon. " I've as much right 
 to the thing as you. More, being the eldest. I won't stand 
 being accused of taking a mean advantage, but I'll stick to 
 my honest rights." 
 
 "Then you won't consent to abolish the marriage 
 prohibition ? " 
 
 " Konrad, you and I never seem able to understand each 
 other. I'll consent to alter everything except the casting 
 of lots." 
 
 Konrad gave an audible gasp of relief. " Write to uncle 
 Karl then, and tell him so," he said quickly. " 'Ask the — 
 h'm — him I shall not,' says uncle Karl with a big damn 
 — dash, I mean — over the t." 
 
 " I will write," answered Egon, " but I cannot, for the 
 life of me, see the great importance of the matter. Uncle 
 
294 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Karl is not ill ; you are not even engaged. In a few months 
 you will be quite free to marry — however, never mind." 
 
 " You would see the importance fast enough, if you were 
 in my place," retorted Konrad grimly. " Till you stole 
 that march on us this summer, I have always thought my 
 chance of Rheyna as good as certain. I'm much luckier 
 than you are, and the devil helps his own. Lord, if the 
 gout were to fly to uncle Karl's stomach while we're 
 talking ! There are the ladies ; let us go to them." 
 
 " I shall write this morning : you had better propose to 
 somebody by the same post," said Egon bitterly. 
 
 " I shall leave that to uncle Karl," replied Konrad. 
 " Then she may be an heiress, and she is bound to be well- 
 born." 
 
 Giulietta stood, in fawn-coloured walking costume, on 
 the broad terrace, with the morning sunlight around her, 
 meditatively gazing at the crest of Motterone. She turned 
 her eyes on the two approaching brothers, more meditatively 
 still. From under the Moorish portico the rest of the party, 
 gaily chattering, gathered around her. 
 
 "I am not going," said Giulietta. A general outcry 
 arose around the words. 
 
 " But, cava mia " 
 
 " No, I am not going. It is too hot — or too windy, up 
 yonder ! " She pointed. " I am tired already. My feet 
 are not made for a whole day's climb." She looked down 
 at her shapely brown-leather boots. " Basta ! I am not 
 going. I wish you a thousand pleasures." She walked 
 towards the house. 
 
 Ten minutes later she came into the big, calm library, 
 where Egon had settled down to write. 
 
 " Ah, letters ! " she said. " Ah, correspondence ! Shall 
 we sing ? " 
 
 " Would a little later suit you as well ? " he hesitated. 
 " I have a letter of the greatest importance to dispatch 
 before the post goes out. I have promised " 
 
 " Ah, I might have realised that you would be able to 
 amuse yourself," she flashed instant reply. 
 
 He coloured, as he understood that she had stopped at 
 home for him. 
 
 "Your wife comprehends you better," said Giulietta. 
 *' She knows that she need deny herself nothing ; you suffice 
 to yourself. Why did you marry. Monsieur de Roden ? " 
 
 " Why did I marry ? Because " 
 
DOROTHEA. 295 
 
 She flung herself on a couch. " Oh, because you were in 
 love, of course, I understand that. That would of course 
 be your only reason : you are that sort of man. But the 
 cause, the cause ! " She clashed her hands together as if 
 they had been cymbals. " I — I do not suffice to myself. 
 Nothing suffices me. I am like a bagatelle ball — have you 
 seen it ? — rolling, rolling, knocking against every obstacle, 
 twisted, turned, dropping from one hole to another, but I 
 never find the last hole, in which one rests." She dropped 
 her voice. " Bah, we all find the last hole," she added, and 
 
 then, almost inaudibly, even in the silence : " Mine is " 
 
 She turned to him with a laugh. " You think I mean the 
 grave ? " she cried. " I mean Pini. He is excellent : he is 
 a good man, a good husband. I adore him." 
 
 Egon sat twisting his pen. 
 
 " You look solemn," she went on, " like all those who 
 have never known trouble." 
 
 " Everybody has known trouble," he protested lamely. 
 
 " Not of the kind I mean. Shall I tell you my life ? No, 
 not yet ; we do not know each other enough. But we know 
 each other enough now for Leopardi. Shall we read, then ? 
 Or sing ? No, sing. Your letter can wait." She sprang to 
 her feet and began dancing down the big room : 
 
 *' Oh, conta quante stelle, quante stelle, 
 Vedi, se le da I'animo a contalle ! 
 Conta, le pene mia so' tutte quelle." 
 
 Suddenly she stopped. " That is very sad, very sad," she 
 said. " And I am not sad at all. I am gay." She stood 
 drumming her fingers against the window-pane and softly 
 humming : 
 
 "Conta, le pene mia so' tutte quelle." 
 
 Presently she glided towards the writing-table. "You 
 do not want to sing," she said ; " you shall write your letter 
 first. I will sit here meanwhile, quiet as a mouse, and I will 
 read. You think I cannot be quiet ? I can only lie indolent 
 and chatter ? You will see ; you will see." She stole on 
 tiptoe to a distant sofa, sank down upon it and hid behind 
 the " Nuova Anthologia." For half an hour nothing was 
 heard in the room but the scratching of Egon's pen, the 
 buzz of the flies against the big plate-glass windows, and 
 an occasional rustle of Giulietta's review. 
 
 " I have finished my letter," said Egon, rising. 
 
^9^ DOROTHEA. 
 
 " But not I my article," said Giulietta, without lifting 
 her eyes from the page. 
 
 Egon bit his lip. " I beg your pardon, I really could 
 not help myself, a matter of the greatest importance ! My 
 time — ^need I say it ? — is yours." 
 
 " When not wanted by yourself," replied Giulietta 
 laughing. " The article is interesting : it treats of the rdle 
 played by women in the liberation of Italy. Pini told me 
 to read it. Not that I care about political women as a rule. 
 There was another, a few months ago, by the same man, 
 on the part taken by women in the renascence. That 
 appealed to me. The part played by women in the 
 renascence. Think of it ! " She got up and came towards 
 him, her big eyes shining. " That men should say : Thou 
 art dead ; thou wert a woman. Thou hast helped to make 
 the world's life — not better, that is foolishness ; the world 
 never grows better or wiser — but more beautiful than it was 
 before ! " She went straight past him, with the full glow 
 of her gaze upon him, yet not looking into his eyes. At the 
 door she turned. " You thought I could not sit silent, while 
 you were working," she said lightly. " You know me so 
 little. It is my ideal, to be poor, decently poor, nothing 
 squalid, and to sit with my needlework in a comer, while 
 my husband earns bread for both by making some beautiful 
 thing. I, too, should work hard, in my corner. For the 
 home. Come, Signer Egon, let us go and sing duets. One 
 never attains one ideal. It is lucky. After luncheon I 
 shall take you a long, a very long, drive. Away into the 
 Domo d' Ossola country." 
 
 After luncheon, then, they started early, Egon driving a 
 light-coloured, four-wheeled country cart, with a groom 
 behind them. 
 
 " You like my husband," said Giulietta, as they dashed 
 briskly across the plain. " I am anxious you should like my 
 husband. You cannot think how good he is. He has suffered. 
 He is full of generous instincts. I adore Bartolommeo." 
 
 Egon mumbled perfunctory politeness ; not even the 
 signore's specious vindications could reconcile him to the 
 gambling business. 
 
 "You do not appreciate him," said Giulietta angrily. 
 " He is worth half a dozen cold-blooded young men of 
 to-day." Then, fearing she had spoken discourteously: 
 " How well you drive ! " she said. " Is riding quite 
 impossible ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 297 
 
 " Quite," he said shortly. " Thanks." And the thanks 
 were for the tone of her voice. 
 
 " Surely, I should think,'* she began. " I have an idea 
 
 that " She stopped dead. " No ! " she said, as if keeping 
 
 back words she was desirous but unable to utter. " As for 
 me, I have never driven or ridden. I fear horses ; they are 
 so strong, and so afraid. Strength should be calm. Your 
 wife, I suppose she does all these things well ? " 
 
 " Dorothea can ride and drive." 
 
 " And bicycle, and play tennis ? " 
 
 " Yes, she can do all these things. None of them to any 
 superlative degree of excellence." 
 
 Giulietta sighed. " Also she can paint," she said. Egon 
 was silent. "I — I can do nothing of all this. I can only sing." 
 
 *' You sing superbly." 
 
 " Well, so do you. I need only return the compliment. 
 You must think me very ignorant ? " 
 
 There was so much question in her accent that Egon 
 could not ignore it. " You walk better than any woman 
 rides," he said unwillingly, but feeling, in his naive 
 wisdom, as if he were comforting a child. " I am sure you 
 dance to perfection." 
 
 " Ah, I adore dancing ! We must get up a dance 
 to-night ; we must waltz ! " 
 
 An awkward silence sank between them. " No, we shall 
 not dance," said Giulietta, and her voice trembled. "The 
 others will be too tired." 
 
 " Look at that pretty little goatherd ! " answered Egon, 
 touching up one of the horses. 
 
 " He is like one of our Neapolitan children ; only a trifle 
 better dressed. What a quick eye you have for beauty ! 
 No wonder that you married a beautiful wife." 
 
 Did she mean her words ? Surely every one must admit 
 a considerable amount of good looks in Dorothea. 
 
 " I am glad you admire her," he said. " If you want me 
 to like your husband, well, I want you to like my wife." 
 
 " Why ? " she said quickly. 
 
 For the life of him, he could not have spoken a satis- 
 factory reply. "I want everybody to like Dorothea," he 
 said. " She has need of friends." 
 
 "Thank you." He could see she was offended. She 
 made few remarks, chiefly about the landscape, as they 
 neared their destination, the Cavalduna waterfall. 
 
 " It is a long drive. I am tired," she said, as she seated 
 
298 DOROTHEA. 
 
 herself by a shaky table outside the little osteria. " Let us 
 have a bicchiere of their country wine.'* 
 
 " By all means. Will you not sit here ? " 
 
 " I am very well as I am," she answered impatiently. 
 
 " But you are turning your back on the fountain you 
 came to see." 
 
 " I know. When I am tired, I cannot enjoy things. I 
 feel, in the whole world, like a violin in an orchestra. It 
 is no use letting yourself be played on as long as you're 
 out of tune." 
 
 " And who tunes you ? " he queried, amused. 
 
 She stared him straight in the face. " Men," she said. 
 She laughed merrily. " And women. And little digestible 
 dishes. And, above all, the sun." 
 
 The polite innkeeper brought his thin red vintage. He 
 cast appreciative glances at the smart equipage, a hundred 
 paces off, under the olive trees. 
 
 " Bring wine to the groom also," said Giulietta. 
 
 " With pleasure, Eccellenza." 
 
 " I," continued the Countess Pini, " I could live in har- 
 mony with all things, if only I might leave untouched what 
 appeals not to my heart. I have a big, big heart. Monsieur 
 de Roden." 
 
 " I know," he said shamefacedly. " You stopped at home 
 this morning for my sake, that I might not be lonely. You 
 are taking me this beautiful drive, which is too far for 
 you " 
 
 *' Nonsense. You speak foolishness." 
 
 " And I am very deeply grateful." 
 
 She paused, with the " bicchiere " half way to her lips. 
 " You are quite mistaken," she said steadily. " I dislike 
 these long mountain climbs. And the Cavalduna waterfall 
 is my favourite drive. Why, pray, should I take so much 
 trouble to please you ? You flatter yourself." 
 
 " Madame, I was only doing honour to your kmdness as 
 a hostess." Von Roden flushed. 
 
 " That is the one character in which, according to Pini, 
 I hopelessly break down. His are old-world ideas of 
 courtesy ; you have touched on the sole subject of dissen- 
 sion between us. I am incapable of receiving, says Pini, 
 for I lie on my sofa and let people amuse themselves." 
 
 " Or climb up Motterone ! " said Egon, gazing away 
 towards the round mountain that filled up his southern 
 horizon. " I hope they are finding that enjoyable." 
 
DOROTHEA. 299 
 
 " Shall we talk about them for a change. I seem to have 
 been talking about myself all the time. Have you noticed 
 that, when people know each other but little, and want to 
 know each other more, they always do that ? " 
 
 " Do what ? " 
 
 " How dull you are ! Or pretend to be. Talk each 
 about himself. Shall we talk about Lady Archie ? I do 
 not like her ; she is ' mauvais genre.' Do you know on what 
 rule I was brought up by my mother ? Never to talk about 
 people, only about things. It was an estimable rule. But 
 it made conversation very dull. My mother did not adhere 
 to it." 
 
 " My father's rule was different, yet similar. Never to 
 talk about what could benefit nobody." 
 
 " And did your father keep to his rule ? " 
 
 " Does anybody invariably do so ? " 
 
 " Did you love your father ? He is recently dead ? ** 
 
 " More than any man on earth." 
 
 " Well, shall we talk about him ? Tell me about him ! " 
 
 " Not just now," he said, more and more " gen6." 
 
 She rang her bracelets against each other, with the 
 impulsive movement of her hands. " I understand," she 
 said angrily. " You think we are not sufficiently intimate. 
 Well, whom do you like best after your father ? " 
 
 " I cannot say." 
 
 " Why not ? If you say your brother, I shall not believe 
 you." 
 
 " Why not ? " It was his turn. 
 
 " Because brothers do not love each other. Especially 
 not brothers who are utterly dissimilar. You are foolish, 
 Herr von Roden ; do you not see that I but make con- 
 versation. What do I care? I do not even know the 
 man." 
 
 " I was afraid you would laugh at me, that was all." 
 
 " All ? To a man it is everything. I suppose you would 
 say, like a man whom I asked once before : ' my dog ' ? " 
 
 " It is my servant," said Egon stiffly. He got up to walk 
 towards the waterfall. 
 
 " Your servant ? " She frowned. Then she came closer, 
 walking beside him. "That is very Italian," she said. 
 "Quite like one of us. Not at all what I should have 
 thought of one of your northern grand seigneurs. Herr von 
 Roden, I am going to pay you an immense compliment, 
 the biggest I can : when I see you, and read you — I love 
 
300 DOROTHEA. 
 
 reading people like books — almost you might be an 
 Italian, a good Italian, I mean. Not the sort you dream 
 of, from the opera, with stilettos." 
 
 " And why not stilettos ? " replied Egon. " A man is 
 none the worse for being able to use, well, not a stiletto, 
 perhaps, but a rapier. ' Do you bite your thumb at me, 
 sir ? ' You remember ? " 
 
 " Of course I remember. As a girl, years ago, I learnt 
 * Romeo and Juliet ' by heart, of evenings, in my bed. 
 I used to spend my little pocket-money on candles ; an 
 hour every night, in the Italian, I used to sit and repeat. 
 I used to fancy I was Giulietta. Well ! " 
 
 He did not speak. 
 
 " There was no Romeo. There was no garden. There 
 was only a narrow yard, with tall houses opposite, and 
 heaps of dirty clothes." 
 
 "It is pleasant to think that now you have one of 
 the most beautiful gardens in Italy," he suggested good- 
 naturedly. 
 
 "Yes, and a balcony. And a husband whose good 
 qualities I fully appreciate. The waterfall is splendid, but 
 it is noisy. Have you realised at all, that a storm is 
 creeping up ? " 
 
 " A storm ? No, indeed." Egon's alarmed glances 
 swept the firmament. 
 
 " You do not know the country as I do. Those clouds 
 over yonder b)'- the Simplon. I think we had better 
 return." 
 
 " And yet it is too late," she said, as the carriage bowled 
 swiftly along the hard, white road. She had turned once 
 or twice to watch the upward sweep of the woolly black 
 masses against the sinking sunlight. 
 
 " We shall never get back in time, Herr von Roden.** 
 
 "Then let us stop at the first albergo we reach,'* he 
 said. 
 
 " No, no ; we cannot do that." 
 
 " But why not ? " 
 
 " Please not. I would rather not. Drive faster, please. 
 Yet that would be no use, and I would not have you 
 worry the horses. You see, I am not a horsewoman, and 
 so I hate torturing horses. A woman's love of animals 
 always takes that shape. Hold them in, Herr von Roden, 
 please ; we must make up our minds to a wetting." 
 
 "But I cannot allow that. I am responsible for you 
 
DOROTHEA. 301 
 
 to Signor Pini.** He began to draw in his reins, as the 
 carriage approached a little wayside inn. 
 
 " Because you are responsible," she said quickly. 
 " Avanti ! " The horses leaped forward, past the indolent, 
 slouch-hatted, slouching figure against the broken wall. 
 The slow figure turned its head and looked after them. 
 The wind had arisen. A few heavy drops began to fall. 
 
 " You will be soaked. It is madness ! " he cried, 
 pressing the carriage rug down upon the seat. She had 
 only a white lace sunshade, a lot of white muslin and lace 
 about her shoulders. 
 
 " There are worse madnesses than a wetting," she 
 answered. " Let us get home and dry ourselves as soon as 
 we can." Already the rain was coming down in torrents. 
 
 The quiet Italian groom behind her had softly drawn off 
 his autumn livery coat and now thrust it between the two 
 figures on the front seat. " The Signora Contessa will die 
 of cold," he said to Egon. " She must wrap the rug 
 around her, and place this coat across her knees." 
 
 " Francesco, put on thy coat this instant ! " 
 
 The servant faintly smiled, and sat cross-armed, the 
 thick rain blackening his shiny shirt-sleeves. Egon 
 hurriedly flung the thick wrap about Giulietta's shoulders ; 
 the rain came streaming down, the deserted road seemed 
 endless. It was dusk by the time they drew up, dripping, 
 before the palazzo door. 
 
 Signor Pini stood in the entrance. " Come in ! Come 
 in this instant," he cried superfluously. "We got back 
 only half an hour ago. Madame de Roden is changing her 
 things." 
 
 Egon handed the reins to the groom. " God grant that 
 the Signora Contessa has taken no harm ! " said the 
 fellow. "She is too good for this world. Some day she 
 will die." 
 
 This, to Egon, was a new light on Giulietta. He 
 acquiesced in the possibility of Giulietta's demise, and went 
 up to his wife's room. 
 
 "The rain was fun," said Dorothea in response to his 
 solicitude. " You know, Egon, I do not mind rain. It 
 was splendid to see the great shadows come up across the 
 lake. Oh, of course, one would have preferred fine weather 
 all through, but we had a splendid view from the top and 
 a very amusing luncheon." 
 
 She was getting into a tea-gown, which was a favourite 
 
302 DOROTHEA. 
 
 of his, with big blue passion-flowers embroidered on blue. 
 " My selection," says Bompard. " I hope you also enjoyed 
 yourself," continued Dorothea before the glass. She had 
 not the slightest intention of laying in her voice the accent 
 which he found there. 
 
 " Oh yes. It was almost too kind of the Countess Pini 
 to stay for my sake." And his tone was unnecessarily, 
 awkward. 
 
 " For your sake ? ** She veered round. " The Countess 
 Pini is just the kind of person to hate mountaineering ! " 
 
 " Well, she is also just the kind of person to love doing 
 kindnesses." 
 
 " You think so ? She does not strike me in that light at 
 all." 
 
 " Dorothea, you are so good, you find it difficult to like 
 people." 
 
 " Ah, that is what my father says, though he says it less 
 prettily. Why don't you put it in his words ? " Dorothea 
 spoke with some bitterness. 
 
 "I am sure your father and I do not mean the same 
 thing. You are unlike other women, Dolly. I do not 
 want to mention you and them in the same breath. You 
 do not understand the good qualities of women who are 
 not so — not so good as yourself." 
 
 She checked her own hand on the door-handle. She 
 came back to him. " What was the word you wanted to 
 say, Egon, before you said ' good ? ' " 
 
 He laughed, flushed ; she saw it. 
 
 "I have a right to know," she continued gravely. "I 
 have a right that you should help me with my faults. Speak 
 out. It was * self-righteous,' was it not ? " She stood look- 
 ing at him, all the light of her innocent soul in her candid 
 eyes. 
 
 " No, by Heaven ! " he burst out, thoroughly disconcerted. 
 " If you want to know, it was * pure.' " He would have 
 caught her in his arms and covered her lifted face with 
 kisses, but he restrained himself. He saw her blush 
 crimson. 
 
 " I don't think I quite understand," she said, and she held 
 her lips up to his, like a child, and passed out. 
 
( 3P3 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 When Egon entered the drawing-room ten minutes later, 
 Signor Pini was standing in the middle of the floor. " No, 
 they have not come back yet," he was saying irritably. 
 " Can I help it ? " 
 
 " I presume not,** replied Archie, irritably too, " but the 
 arrangements seem defective." He lounged up against the 
 mantelpiece, a horrible blue and gold mosaic. " Egon," he 
 said, " your brother and my wife have not yet turned up. 
 We left them behind, rushing down in the rain." 
 
 *' Lost on the Motterone ! " cried Dorothea nervously. 
 
 " Konrad is a military man ; he would soon recover his 
 bearings," declared Egon soothingly. 
 
 " It is Konrad's fault ! " cried Archie, and " It is all that 
 ass's fault ! " exclaimed Pini simultaneously. Even in the 
 midst of his annoyance, the wretched Archie could not for- 
 bear a grin, as the possibilities of Tomfoolery dawned upon 
 him. " I will tell Konrad when he returns," said Archie. 
 
 "The donkey kept running away with me," explained 
 Pini to his wife and to Egon. 
 
 " When found, make a note of ! The joke is original," 
 said Archie, and took out his faithful memorandum book. 
 
 A servant brought in a telegram. 
 
 " From them ? Impossible ! " cried Giulietta. 
 
 Her husband opened it and handed it to Dorothea. 
 " Colonel and Mrs. Sandring arrive to-morrow after lunch," 
 he said. 
 
 " Mrs. Sandring." The words struck cold on Dorothea's 
 bosom. Of course this woman was Mrs. Sandring. Some- 
 how, on the rare occasions when she had been mentioned, 
 people — the aunts, Egon's mother — had spoken of "your 
 father's wife." Before Dorothea's vision rose up a quiet 
 northern churchyard, and a cold white cross : " Sacred to 
 the memory of Dorothea, Baroness Brodryck " — sacred to 
 the memory — the memory, bidding you pass on and forget. 
 
 " Colonel and Mrs. Sandring ! " repeated Egon, and his 
 
304 DOROTHEA. 
 
 quiet voice was aflame with resentment. His tone recalled 
 his wife to the needs of the moment. 
 
 " Yes, they happen to be in Milan. So they are coming 
 on here," replied their imperturbable host. 
 
 " Dorothea, did you know that your father was at Milan ? " 
 
 " It is some time since I have heard from him, Egon. I 
 shall be very pleased to see him again." 
 
 " Of course, I had no idea. Count, that a couple of nights 
 tmder your roof would procure us the pleasure of a meeting 
 with Colonel and Mrs. Sandring." 
 
 " What more natural ? The Colonel is an old friend of 
 mine ; I first met him years ago at the house of his present 
 wife's cousin, the Count di Casa Profonda." 
 
 " It is a put-up thing," said Egon fiercely, inaudibly, as 
 he turned away towards the window. 
 
 *' You are annoyed ; shall we change it ? I am grieved," 
 murmured Giulietta's soft accents behind him. She drew 
 him aside. "You want not the papa and the mother-in- 
 law ! " she said, " We will telegraph them off ! " 
 
 " It could not be done with decency," he answered. " We 
 are leaving to-morrow." 
 
 "Ah, no— not that!" 
 
 " It was always our plan to go back to Bel Respiro." 
 
 " A man's plans are made for a woman to break them. 
 You will stay.'* 
 
 " I fear it is impossible." 
 
 " Because I ask you." 
 
 " You are laughing at me." 
 
 " As you like, then — run away from Mrs. Sandring. Are 
 you afraid of her ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Of me, then ? " She drew herself up, and, of course, she 
 laughed. 
 
 So he wisely laughed also. " Dorothea must decide," he said. 
 
 " Whether I am a woman to be afraid of ? " 
 
 " No, how long we shall enjoy Mrs. Sandring's company.** 
 
 " I depend, then, on Madame de Roden's charity. Lordj 
 Archibald, I beg of you do not look so anxious. My; 
 husband has sent back the guides, you know. And there is 
 not a shadow of danger in connection with Motterone." 
 . " I am not anxious, Contessa ; I am angry." 
 
 " Well, that is a conjugal condition with which I feel little 
 sympathy, especially not when the object of your ire is being 
 driven home through the night very wet and tired and hungry." 
 
DOROTHEA. 305 
 
 " That word suggests dinner," said Pini. " It has been 
 too long delayed." He gave his arm to Dorothea, and led 
 her down the long saloons of the Villa 'Arriet. " Bellissima^" 
 he murmured, " was it not you that desired the inevitable ? 
 Well, it was brought about — et apres ? " 
 
 " What do you mean, Count ? " 
 
 " The lady who comes here to-morrow is Mrs. Sandring. 
 Surely you will stay to receive her ? " 
 
 " Most certainly I shall stay to receive my father's wife." 
 
 He bent over the hand upon his arm. " Purissima" he 
 said, " I kiss the hem of your garment. Nightly, I pray the 
 Virgin — she, after all, is the goddess of luck — to give you 
 half, at least, of the happiness you deserve. You are too good 
 for this world — by which I mean this society. You were 
 certainly too good for me. You are almost too good for 
 your very good husband. Will you sit here, at my right 
 hand ? But I warn you that he intends to run away from 
 Mrs. Sandring." 
 
 " Champagne ! " said Archibald to the man who brought 
 him his soup. "Take this away and get me some 
 champagne." 
 
 " Put the bottle beside Milord," said Pini, who was him- 
 self most abstemious, only desiring vermouth when he 
 could not afford to pay for it. But he knew that Lord 
 Archibald possessed not a single vice except " punistry." 
 " A Northerner, when he is vexed, he must drink," says Pini, 
 " a Southerner, he must pray." Lord Archibald, it appears, 
 was very seriously vexed ; he ate nothing — he, a hearty 
 eater — and he finished the bottle without noticing the fact. 
 He mixed his wines indiscriminately ; once or twice he put 
 his empty glass to his lips, and the servants filled it. 
 
 At long intervals, Pini asked after the weather; the 
 
 butler still answered that it was raining fast. " D the 
 
 weather ! " said Lord Archibald under his breath. " People 
 could not seriously get lost on the Motterone ; there was no 
 real danger," said Pini, half a dozen times. " Lost ! " 
 burst out Archibald at last. " Lost ! Some women could 
 get lost in a drawing-room ! " A horrible silence fell upon 
 the company : the two wives shrank, like a dog in dread of 
 a blow. The Italian cousins, whom nobody noticed, began 
 chattering to each other of acquaintances whom nobody 
 knew. 
 
 " On demande Milord au t^l^phone ! " said the solemn 
 French butler. 
 
 D. X 
 
3o6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Archibald jumped to his feet. He swayed slightly : his 
 boyish face went white and red. 
 
 " Shall I go first ? " cried von Roden. 
 
 " Why ? " demanded Archie, pausing, his napkin in his 
 hand. " Are you afraid of bad news ? What is bad news ? " 
 He followed the servant to a small room in the " offices," 
 whence the telephone bell rang out suddenly again, as he 
 approached. 
 
 " Hullo ! " called Archie. His colour went from red to 
 white. He did not fear bad news. 
 
 " Is that you, Archie ? " came back Lady Archibald's 
 shrill voice through the tube. 
 
 " Yes, it's me," was the husband's sullen reply. 
 
 *'We are up here, at the Motterone Hotel. Don't be 
 anxious about me ! I'm in no sort of danger." 
 
 " I should think not, with that fool, Konrad ! ** 
 
 " Hist, for goodness' sake. He's in the room." 
 
 " I thought he might be." 
 
 "What meanest thou, silly? The little hotel is very 
 poor and uncomfortable, but it will do for the night." 
 
 " Room for two, I suppose ? " called Archie. His voice 
 was savage. 
 
 " Shout not so. We got lost in the rain and wandered 
 back here." 
 
 " Didn't notice you were going up, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Well, hardly that, but we found we were " 
 
 " Naturally not ; you were going down all the time." 
 
 " Lord Archibald, I understand not. What meanest thou ? " 
 
 " Pons ! " shrieked the wretched young man, and laughed 
 uproariously into the telephone. 
 
 " Let off there : thou ticklest me," came the angry reply. 
 " For the night, then, I must stay here. Ask Count Pini 
 to send a carriage to meet us at the foot to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 " Better come down to-night," said Archie, and his voice 
 was not too loud this time. 
 
 " But I cannot — impossible — in the pouring wet, and the 
 darkness ! " 
 
 " Better come down to-night," hissed Archie. 
 
 " Thou art mad : it is four hours' climb down the slopes. 
 A dog would not do it." 
 
 *' Wouldn't he ? Well, let him stop up there ! " 
 
 "Till to-morrow, then. My love to Giulietta ! " 
 
 " By all means. I say, Lady Archibald — Dickie ! " 
 
DOROTHEA. 307 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Better come down to-night ! ** 
 
 " I do not understand at all. Your voice sounds so 
 queer through the telephone. Is it another pon ? I never 
 understand thy pons ! " 
 
 " It is not a pon," said Archie, and rang the little bell 
 that ends the interview. 
 
 He went back to the dinner- table. " How long you have 
 been ! " cried all. " Good news, I hope ? " said somebody. 
 
 " Oh yes, they are up at the little hotel." He turned to 
 Egon : " Your brother is safe." He poured himself out a 
 tumbler of sherry and drank it. 
 
 " Have something to eat now : you have eaten nothing," 
 said Dorothea. 
 
 He looked at her, but he pushed aside the dish a footman 
 was holding. "Good news! bad news ! " he muttered once 
 or twice to himself. His manner was certainly strange. 
 The ladies felt relieved to find themselves deprived of his 
 presence in the drawing-room. 
 
 For Signer Pini, who, as a rule, detested smoking-rooms, 
 billiard-rooms, whisky and soda smells — all the attributes 
 of modern masculinity ; Signor Pini, whose existence, 
 whether rich or poor, was of old-worldness, pretty compli- 
 ments in female society, sobriety and saintliness complete ; 
 Signor Pini, who shrank from loud oaths and loud laughter, 
 fell asleep during sporting stories and missed the point of 
 coarse ones — this Signor Pini now seemed anxious to 
 confine his young friends to the farther end of the cumber- 
 some edifice. He motioned the butler, behind Archibald's 
 back, to remove the liqueurs, thereby awakening a sudden 
 feeling of resentment in the dumb, digestive old Italian 
 cousin, who sank to repose in an enormous arm-chair. A 
 protuberant and pasty old cousin, with very short legs and 
 a very long name. 
 
 "Egon," said Archibald, standing with his legs apart, a 
 coffee-cup in his hand, " I believe you're a thorough good 
 chap." 
 
 " Thank you," replied Egon. 
 
 " But your brother's a beastly cad ! " 
 
 The words fell softly, quite unexpectedly, like a dead 
 weight at one's feet. Both Pini and von Roden started 
 back. 
 
 "Lord Archibald," said Egon, hotly, "you have not the 
 faintest idea what you are saying." 
 
 X 2 
 
3o8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Are you going to deny it ? " cried Archie, in a sudden 
 blaze of pent-up fury. 
 
 " You are going to unsay it,** replied Egon, as furiously. 
 
 Signor Pini came between. " Gentlemen," he began — and 
 in that one word from his lips lay such an oppression of 
 courtly scorn and reproval that both combatants stopped 
 dead. 
 
 " I,** said Lord Archibald presently, confusedly, " I — — 
 look here, I suppose different men have different ways of 
 behaving. I suppose the correct card 'd be not to take any 
 notice ; not to say anything, at any rate ; to go and shoot 
 somebody in silence, like in the French books, or horsewhip 
 him, like in the English, eh ? Well, I ain't the correct 
 card. I speak out, like the fool I am, like the fool I've 
 always been. There's fools and villains in this world, von 
 Roden, and the fools have a bad time." He staggered 
 forward into the glare of the lamp. " My God ! " he said, 
 " I've got a wife who's a ** 
 
 A little table at Pini's elbow went over with a crash, a 
 table full of brittle Kabyle pottery, a great noise and 
 a greater mess. The silent cousin started into life. 
 *' Diavolo ! " " Dear me," said Pini contemplatively, 
 " Abdelkader's present to Mister *Arriet. A royal relic 
 less ! " 
 
 He glided after Archie and pressed his fingers on the 
 young man's arm. "You are not well, dear Milord," 
 he. murmured, " you have been upset by this anxiety. 
 Supposing you went to your room ? " 
 
 Archie shuddered. " I don*t want to go to — my room," 
 he said piteously. " I won't trouble you long. Count Pini. 
 I want to stay here to-night. You, you can do me a 
 great kindness. I am leaving to-morrow by the earliest 
 boat." 
 
 " Milord, you are committing a great mistake." 
 
 " Count Pini ! ** 
 
 " I am an old man : I will say my say." 
 
 " All I ask is that you extend your hospitality to Lady 
 Archibald until she has heard from me." 
 
 "This is madness. Monsieur de Roden, help me to 
 persuade this infatuated boy ! " 
 
 "Archie, you must stay," said Egon firmly. "You dislike 
 Konrad: I promise to rid you of his presence to-morrow. 
 My wife and I are leaving before lunch.** 
 
 " Monsieur de Roden," put in Pini gently, " permit me 
 
DOROTHEA. 309 
 
 to say, when I think of your exquisite consort, that you are 
 committing a crime." 
 
 " Monsieur, you are my host '* 
 
 " I am an old man : for once I will say my say. Per 
 Bacco ! " his voice rang out, " because young men lose 
 their tempers, shall the whole world be upset? A smash 
 is an easy thing, the easiest thing in the world ! " He 
 pointed to the ruined table. "Any fool can make a 
 smash : only a wise man can walk, like a cat, among 
 crockery. And what are your women, pray, but pots of 
 perfume " — a glance at Archie — " or basins of holy water " 
 — a wave at Egon. " Ah, Santa Madre ! Santa Madre ! 
 these men! Not one deserves a good woman! Not one 
 deserves a bad ! " 
 
 "Your invitation to Mrs. Sandring," said Egon, white 
 with passion, "was a put-up thing. You asked us on 
 purpose." 
 
 " I could make appropriate speeches," replied the Italian. 
 " Beautiful, haughty speeches about my rights in my own 
 house. I do not do so. True, Mrs. Sandring has a claim 
 to meet her husband's daughter. The daughter's virtue 
 itself has ordained such matters beyond your petty objec- 
 tions. Colonel Sandring is yearning to press his child to 
 his heart. Well, I plead guilty. I am his accomplice. 
 Good ! " 
 
 " Oh yes, come, Egon, you must let Sandring see his 
 daughter," put in Archie. The young man spoke eagerly 
 in his own natural voice. 
 
 "What is my small row," replied Egon desperately, 
 "compared to the big one you are kicking up ? " 
 
 " You leave me alone," said Archie. " I'm going off 
 to-morrow at six o'clock. You leave me to settle my own 
 affairs. Heigho, what shall I do till to-morrow morning ? 
 I say, Egon, let's have a game of billiards." 
 
 "If you like," said Egon, glad to divert the other's 
 thoughts, and his own. They took their cues, and Archi- 
 bald made the first cannon. 
 
 Signer Pini stood watching them. "You do not play 
 for stakes ? " he said. " I could not do that. I should 
 take no interest in the game. How good are the young 
 Northerners, not pious, as we, but unwisely good, and 
 foolish ! " 
 
 The two players stopped and looked at each other. 
 
 "Now, even thus watching you, I must bet on your 
 
3IO DOROTHEA. 
 
 chances, but how ? My cousin? Ah no ! Signori, I must 
 bet against myself, I will bet for the Holy Virgin, Ten 
 louis, if you win, dear Lord Archibald, to the building 
 of the Church of the Blessed Mary in Mercato ! " 
 
 "Archie, I will play you for to-morrow," said Egon. 
 " If you lose, you stay " 
 
 *' What business " 
 
 " You forget that I am Konrad's elder brother. My name 
 is Roden." 
 
 " And if I win, you do not go," cried Archie, a malicious 
 flash in his harmless eyes. 
 
 " You cannot refuse ! " exclaimed Pini. 
 
 " Play your best then/' Egon struck fiercely, and 
 missed. 
 
 " 1 shall," said Archie. Egon was a better player than 
 he, and surely, at this moment, the German's hand must be 
 the firmer. Egon felt pretty safe. 
 
 "You play," said Pini, "for Madonna in heaven and 
 Madonna on earth, milord. You must win." And, indeed, 
 Archie's aim amazingly steadied itself. Once or twice 
 he was lucky : several times he was brilliant. He won 
 easily. 
 
 "You and I, then, we must execute ourselves with a 
 good grace, monsieur," said Pini. Egon was bitterly 
 angry ; the idea of seeing the Baroness Blanche in inter- 
 course with his wife was revolting to him. 
 
 " And Archie has the satisfaction," he said, " of making 
 " He stopped himself. 
 
 " Making what ? " demanded Archie. All his brio seemed 
 once more to have forsaken him. He stood staring discon- 
 solately at the broken pottery. 
 
 " Mountains of molehills," substituted Egon. 
 
 "Would to God they were molehills," said Archie, 
 " and I as blind as a mole." 
 
( 311 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " But yes, we are too early," said she who had once 
 been the Baroness Blanche de Fleuryse. " Why are we too 
 early, mon Colonel ? " 
 
 " Because we started too early," replied Sandring, trying 
 to look amused. "My wife, you see," — his appeal 
 embraced the whole company — " always thinks that shell i 
 miss her train, unless she can catch the preceding one." 
 The Italian cousin woke up. " I know that sort of woman," 
 he said sympathetically, from out the depths of some 
 personal experience. 
 
 " Don't run down your wife. Colonel ; it's bad form," 
 cried the Baroness tartly. Often had Sandring entreated 
 her not to address him by his title. *' It's not much, but it's 
 all you've got, and I'll let people know it," said the 
 whilom lady of rank. 
 
 They were in the entrance-hall of the Villa 'Arriet : 
 the Pinis, the native nonentities, Egon and Dorothea, had 
 come out to meet the freshly arriving guests. 
 
 " My dear Countess, I should like to sit down," said Mrs. 
 Sandring, and she led the way herself into a large con- 
 servatory that opened out of the hall. She sank down on 
 a wicker lounge under palm trees. Her marriage had 
 made her more massive, more florid, altogether more. " My 
 dear Dorothea, you are looking handsomer than ever ! " 
 
 " Will you take something after your drive ? " asked 
 Giulietta, assuming an air of interest with an effort that 
 seemed to crack her voice. 
 
 " Oh, Gravellona isn't far. But I should like a little 
 soda water, and, my dear Countess, just a touch of brandy 
 in it." 
 
 " Good heavens, Blanche, it isn't eleven o'clock ! " The 
 Colonel spoke, with irritation bursting badly mended 
 barriers. 
 
 The lady turned upon him a seemingly languid look. 
 " Is that your hour for feeling exhausted ? " she said. " Happy 
 
312 ~ DOROTHEA. 
 
 man. My dear Dorothea, your father has a constitution of 
 iron. I, alas ! — am always tired, especially of mornings." 
 
 " Nobody ought to take restoratives before lunch," said 
 the Colonel with a great air of authority. Mrs. Sandring 
 beat her foot on the floor. " Where is dear Lady Archi- 
 bald ? " she said. " I understood the dear Archibalds were 
 staying in the house ? " 
 
 Glances as of conspirators leaped around the company. 
 The languid Baroness had noted them, before Pini spoke, 
 quite unembarrassed : 
 
 " The dear Archibalds are out.*' And, indeed, they were, 
 for Archie had slipped away to the steamer before day- 
 break, and my lady had not yet come back. At any 
 moment the carriage containing her and Konrad might 
 drive up to the door. Dorothea, who perhaps cared most in 
 that company, already fancied she heard the wheels. 
 
 " Doubtless you would like to go up to your rooms ? " 
 insinuated Pini, with a captivating smile. But Mrs. 
 Sandring preferred to await her soda here. 
 
 " How matutinal ! " she ejaculated. And then she 
 added : *' But doubtless Lady Archibald is accustomed 
 to getting up early." She hated Lady Archie because the 
 latter had been a Biermadel and married above her. 
 " Into our family too," says Mrs. Sandring. 
 
 Count Pini frowned ever so slightly. If there was any- 
 thing he loathed and abhorred in this world where (to quote 
 him) all things are thinkable, it was scenes, scandals of any 
 kind, noise, quarrels, combustions, especially with women 
 concerned. *' In my country," he says, " in my time, except 
 at Santa Lucia, things were managed in silence. Every- 
 body was busy sinning in secret and trying not to notice 
 his neighbours* sins. Even the Madonna is not over- 
 observant, or how could she endure existence. What said 
 the fool to King Philip the Second ? * Thy will is law, but 
 where wouldst thou be, if none willed as thou ? ' " 
 
 Pini, then, was exceedingly anxious to get the Archibald 
 unpleasantness smoothed over. " What canst thou so much 
 care ? " Giulietta had said, when, a second time, she woke 
 and found him sleepless. " It is as if she were thy sister, 
 this woman of bad taste ! " 
 
 " Between us all, in these matters," replied Pini, with a 
 sigh, " there remains a bond of blood.'* 
 
 Now, as he stood meditating how to get the adder- 
 tongued Baroness upstairs, all hesitation was rendered 
 
DOROTHEA. 313 
 
 superfluous, for the carriage with the truants drove up to 
 the door. 
 
 They came out, looking noticeably easy and unconcerned. 
 Lady Archibald had informed Konrad a minute before, 
 that she had not the faintest intention of looking other- 
 wise, but when you have not the faintest intention to 
 appear embarrassed, you are liable to do more than you 
 intended. 
 
 " Where is Archie ? " demanded my lady, the centre of 
 attention, in the middle of the hall. 
 
 " Out," said Pini. 
 
 " Out ! Archibald ? At ten in the morning ! Impossible ! 
 In bed?" 
 
 " Out ? By himself ? " cried Mrs. Sandring. 
 
 " Out walking ! Lovely country," put in the ColoneL 
 
 Lady Archibald looked from right to left, looked at 
 everybody, excepting Konrad. Pini stepped resolutely 
 forward and offered her his arm. 
 
 " You must be half dead with fatigue," he said. " Permit 
 me to lead you upstairs." Mechanically she accepted his 
 offer and allowed herself to be led away. There was 
 thimder in the air. Every woman feels it. 
 
 "A great nuisance!" remarked Konrad, to the others. 
 "It was a wretched hotel, and of course we were very 
 uncomfortable. Lady Archibald tells me she passed a very 
 bad night " 
 
 " Miladi, your husband has gone," Pini whispered on the 
 staircase. " We know nothing but this : he has gone north- 
 ward by boat ! You must find a note in your room — urgent 
 business. He — he was annoyed last night — foolish husbands 
 — pretty wives — ah, jealousy is always a compliment. The 
 Sandrings know nothing : I should not speak of Motterone 
 — any other story will do as well — better ! " 
 
 " Archibald gone ! " said Lady Dickie. That was all she 
 said. The tears stood in her eyes, but what tears Pini, 
 with all his experience of womankind, could not have told. 
 She trembled slightly on his arm, and he wondered if per- 
 chance she knew her husband better than that husband's 
 friends had done. 
 
 He was meditating some vague warning about husbands 
 generally, but the altruistic truism remained unspoken, for 
 a great hubbub arose from the hall. They bent over the 
 upper story balustrade. 
 
 Archibald stood where his wife had stood two minutes 
 
3X4 DOROTHEA. 
 
 ago. He was hatless, and that would have been comic, but 
 for the look about his face. 
 
 " Ah, my dear fellow ! " said Sandring. " Delighted to 
 see you." 
 
 " Get along," said Archie. 
 
 Lady Archibald was already downstairs. "Why, Joe 
 Miller, how ridiculous you look ! " she said. Joe Miller was 
 their most intimate pet-name, the half-forgotten secret of 
 their happiest time. 
 
 " I don't doubt that I do," retorted Archie. " Oh, you 
 mean my hat ? Well, they can see my forehead all the 
 better." 
 
 Not even Sandring smiled. Archie stared round at the 
 others, not looking at his wife. " I had to come back," he 
 said, stupidly, " because, you see, I lost my hat." 
 
 Lady Archibald laughed noisily. " Did it blow into the 
 water ? " she said. " Well, get thee another and well go 
 for a walk." 
 
 " It blew overboard," said Archie, still to the company. 
 " And I got out at — what's the place ? — Intra — and came 
 back." 
 
 "There, then, was the tile loose," cried Dickie. But 
 Archibald did not grin. 
 
 "At Intra is an admirable old man with antiquities,'* 
 began Pini. " You should have gone and seen him. We 
 will all go and see him. Sandring, you are a great con- 
 noisseur ; you must help me to buy something genuine for 
 these ladies — a reliquary, a cross ; he has wonderful objects 
 of religion. Who will go with us? Come, Sandring — 
 come, Herr Konrad " 
 
 " Stay a minute," exclaimed Archie. " I want you all to 
 stay, who were here last night. I don't mind about you, 
 Sandring, you're a sort of cousin, and a good fellow too ! 
 I want you to hear me." 
 
 His manner was so excited that Lady Archibald timidly 
 placed her hand on his arm. " Come away with me, 
 Archie ; you aren't well," she said gently. He shrank as 
 she touched him, but he let the hand lie. 
 
 " All of you Imow," he went on, " what this woman was 
 when I married her — why I married her, how I married her, 
 what my people at home did to me — oh, I'm not saying 
 the things to shame her, you all know all about it — I'm 
 only putting things together for what I want to prove." 
 
 " Archie, dear Archie, come away ! " pleaded his wife. 
 
DOROTHEA. 315 
 
 " Last night I — I — well, I suppose I made a fool of myself. 
 Tm the sort of fellow that makes a fool of himself. All 
 his life long. I'm doing it again this morning. I went 
 away and — and you see, I've come back. I'm doing it 
 again this morning." 
 
 " Then don't you think you might leave off ? '* suggested 
 Konrad. He spoke sweetly. He was green to the lips. 
 
 " So, you see," continued Archie, looking straight at 
 Dorothea, " I think I have a right to say I love her. That 
 is all I want to prove ; I have a right to say I love her." 
 
 Lady Archibald drew her skirts about her. " Of course 
 thou lovest me, silly old cat, and I thee. But of this 
 folly we have sufficient, and I carry you upstairs, my 
 Archibald, so ! " She caught him by the wrist and would 
 have pulled him forward, but he wrenched himself away. 
 
 " I love her," he said. " I come back to her. Ah, Madame 
 de Roden, will you understand me ? Will you help us. I 
 love her, and she is a woman of the streets ! " 
 
 His wife dropped his arm and fell back a step or two, 
 and stood staring at him. 
 
 " All 1 want," Archie hurried on, " is for you all, 
 you who know what's happened, to promise me silence. 
 It's a little thing — you don't want to talk, do you ? — and 
 it makes such a lot of difference to us ; I'm an awful 
 chatterbox, but I think I could hold my tongue about 
 another fellow's affairs, if he asked me. I want you all to 
 say you will, and Egon, I want you to talk to yonder 
 brute ; I can't. I could only kill him, and what's the use ? 
 It seems such an idiotic settlement. And we'll go away 
 together." For the first time he looked at his wife. " Some 
 day, perhaps, Dickie, things '11 look different, and Madame 
 de Roden will be willing to speak to you again, and she'll 
 help us to get things straight." 
 
 " To-day — this moment ! " cried Dorothea, starting up, 
 " if there is anything I can do or say " 
 
 But Archie shook his head. " We'd better get away 
 now," he said. " After all, I daresay a lot of the fault is 
 mine. ^ I was thinking of that on the boat. Life isn't all 
 a stupid joke, and, you see, I was a Tomfool." It was 
 now his turn to hold out his hand. " I've come to fetch 
 . you," he said. " Come away ! " 
 
 She had stood staring at him, immovably. Now, as he 
 drew nearer, she fell back against a pillar — then suddenly 
 sprang forward and, before he or any one could dream of 
 
3i6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 her intention, she had struck him, with the palm of her 
 hand, on the face. 
 
 " Tomfool ! " screamed the ex-Biermadel, " Tomfool ! 
 Dost thou insult me, because I am a woman ? Here, before 
 all these goodies — ah, precious !— thou sayest vile things of 
 me, and every one grins. Ape ! There is but one answer to 
 idiots as thou ! One beats them. Would but I had the 
 fist of a man ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Sandring," said the Colonel in a very loud voice, 
 " you and I are going upstairs at once.'* 
 
 Mrs. Sandring laughed shrilly. "No, indeed," she 
 retorted, " I am vastly interested. Lord Archibald, what 
 is going to happen next ? " 
 
 " This ! " cried Dickie, turning on the lady, " that I'm 
 going to leave the house, as the Count di Pini-Pizzatelli 
 invites to us the Baroness Blanche de Fleuryse. There are 
 people I will not meet in future." She swept a deep curtsey 
 to her husband. " You are one." 
 
 "A man that can say vile things of a woman," she 
 continued, once more screaming. " A liar about his wife ! 
 A lying, lie-ful liar ! Thou wouldst be rid of me ? So be 
 it then. I am sick of thee and thy poor Tomfool. But 
 why lie with lying lies? I will never forgive thee thy 
 lies. Will some gentleman escort me to the hotel? 
 Monsieur Konrad, prove the Tomfool that he lies ! ** 
 Konrad stepped thoughtfully forward. Well, undoubtedly, 
 she was good-looking, with fleshly, lustful good looks. He 
 offered her his arm, and they went out at the hall- door 
 together. 
 
 Archibald, ever since the blow had struck him, had 
 remained staring stupidly at the woman who had dealt 
 it — and another. Signer Pini now came forward, and took 
 his hand in a very un-English manner, and led him away. 
 
 " We will go into my room for a little," said Signor Pini. 
 " My dear Milord, will you forgive my saying that you have 
 a little mismanaged this most delicate business ? But the 
 gods have been gracious to you : they have arranged it for 
 you far better than you had any right to expect." 
 
 " Don't humbug me, please, signore," said Archie. 
 
 " Nothing is farther from my intentions. I am an old 
 man. I have known much trouble and many compensa- 
 tions. I permit myself to pity you deeply, and to wish you 
 joy. May I say a thing that, I believe, should be said to- 
 day, not to-morrow ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 317 
 
 " Fire away ! *' said Archie. r 
 
 " You will not slay me ? Life is so valuable to the 
 old." 
 
 " Oh, don't fool me, Count ! Everybody seems to think 
 I'm made for foolery only." 
 
 "You are young: your life is * refeasible.* You have 
 done a foolish thing : the gods love you. I would say that 
 you are well rid of — ^her. Two practical jokers is too 
 much in one family." 
 
 "God knows I never played her a practical joke like 
 that," said poor Archie. 
 
 Signor Pini lightly balanced his appreciative finger-tips. 
 
 "Your Protestant religion," he said, "is lacking in 
 femininity." 
 
( 3i8 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 "You -will go at once," said Mrs. Sandring, "and kill 
 this woman's responsible man." 
 
 " I have no objection," replied her husband coolly, " for, 
 in fact, she insulted me quite as much as you, and before 
 my daughter ! But the difficulty will be just at present to 
 find out v/ho the personage is." 
 
 " I have always understood," said the lady, " that the 
 laws of duelling are precise on every particular point. My 
 cousin, the Count di Casa Profonda " 
 
 " Was killed in single combat, so he ought to know," 
 remarked the Colonel languidly. 
 
 " Lewis, if there is to be any mocking at relations, it 
 seems to me that some of yours " 
 
 " I make you a present of all but Dorothea. But where 
 is the mocking ? I said * skilled.' " 
 
 " Leave such poor quibbles to the weak wretch down- 
 stairs. I tell you he deserved what he got." 
 
 " Already I have heard you make the remark, and have 
 not expressed dissent. Can you let me have a cigarette ? 
 This is a first-rate balcony for smoking. Every man 
 deserves what he gets from a woman. For why ? Because, 
 after all, the bondage is self-chosen.'* 
 
 " Not always," said the Baroness. 
 
 " Not always." The Colonel sighed. 
 
 " Talking of our dear Dorothea," said the Baroness 
 (though no one had mentioned her), " does it not strike you 
 that she, dear child, has managed to create an extraordinary 
 milieu for herself in a very short time ? One would like to 
 contrast Brodryck and Baveno. How interesting to see the 
 dear ladies at Giulietta's dinner table." 
 
 The Colonel smiled his new little weary smile. " In low- 
 necks," he said. And added : " The child is not to blame." 
 
 Mrs. Sandring — the new name and the old seem to suit 
 various phases of her present development — Mrs. Sandring 
 sat up. " Not to blame," she cried, " for marrying Egon ? 
 
DOROTHEA. 319 
 
 Who is ? Oh, I know : I am. I am to blame for every- 
 thing that happens nowadays. Wet or fine ; cold or hot. 
 I am like the French government." 
 
 " But more stable," said the Colonel, " government in any 
 case : be content with that. We should be perfectly happy, 
 my dear Blanche, if only you would abandon your horrible 
 habit of catching one up. You cannot imagine what bad 
 taste it is." 
 
 Mrs. Sandring rose, very magnificent, with mountains of 
 gold on her big head. " You accuse me of nagging ? " she 
 demanded. 
 
 The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. " I never, that I 
 remember, accused any woman of anything," he said, 
 " except of not loving me enough, or some one else more. 
 What man accuses women? We love them, and leave 
 I them, and die for them, but we never take them seriously 
 enough to accuse them. Accusation presupposes criminal 
 intention — and a judge." 
 
 " Sandring, when you sit arguing like that and smoking, 
 you are odious." 
 
 " What a pity, for, excepting play, it is pretty well my only 
 remaining pleasure, since my stomach began to go. You 
 must bear with me a little. I was always mild to women, 
 and mildly treated by them. 1 am accustomed to having 
 my own way." 
 
 ** You have told me that a dozen times, and it needed no 
 telling." 
 
 " There is a fundamental difference," continued Sandring, 
 lazily reasoning to the Borromean islands. " Woman is 
 God's creation, spoilt by the Devil ; man is God's creation, 
 spoilt by woman. There is wonderful living truth in the 
 Hebrew story." 
 
 "Lewis, you are profane. I don't like the way you 
 speak about the Bible." 
 
 " I suppose it is the Bible," said Sandring thoughtfully. 
 *' Have you ever seen a Bible, Blanche ? " 
 
 " I have seen the little book your daughter gave me," 
 Mrs. Sandring replied, in a softened voice. " I am a better 
 Christian than you, Lewis. I never miss my Easter duties, 
 and I say my ' Ave Maria ' every night. What do you do ? 
 You wear an amulet for Monte Carlo." 
 
 "It is not that," replied the Colonel, also in gentler 
 accents. "Pepita gave me the little leaden Virgin when 
 she died." 
 
320 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 The Colonel nodded softly to the Borromean islands. 
 
 " Tell me all about it this instant ! You never told me 
 a word." 
 
 " There are many things I have not told thee, my dearest. 
 Some day, perhaps, when thou hast been very good to me, 
 very kind and sweet — and hast played a soft hand through 
 my curly locks — as she used to do — I will tell thee about 
 Pepita." 
 
 " Bluebeard ! " 
 
 " Ah, yes ; you would have the key ! ** 
 
 The Baroness laughed. " Well, yes," she said. "I admit 
 I do love to hear stories of that kind. I have told you more 
 about my past than you have me. Colonel." 
 
 " I could have dispensed with the pleasure," answered 
 Sandring coldly. "By-the-bye, I beg of you, be careful 
 what you say to Dorothea." 
 
 She flushed. She opened her lips for an angry retort, but 
 checked it. " Thank you," she only said, and went and sat 
 down with her back to the view, powdering round cheeks 
 that were hot with resentment. 
 
 Sandring, having finished his cigarette and cast a couple 
 of uncomfortable glances at his consort, strolled downstairs 
 in search of somebody to talk to. Attracted by the sound 
 of singing, he looked into the music-room, and approved of 
 
 •' Non, non, ce n'est pas, — ce n'est pas I'alouette." 
 
 "Very good, indeed," he said. "I heard Patti and 
 Reszke in that at the Paris Opera years ago. It is really the 
 only good thing in the whole composition. Except, perhaps, 
 
 " Votre tourterelle ! " 
 
 " You might sing that for me, Roden, while the Countess 
 is resting." He walked to the window. 
 
 •• Gardez bien la belle ! 
 Qui vivra, verra ! 
 Votre tourterelle, 
 Vous ^chappera ! ** 
 
 **Yes — well, it is a page's song — rather too heavy for 
 a man's voice like yours. You sing the big passion 
 bits better. And you don't appreciate the danger. Ah, 
 Countess, if you were to try ? " 
 
 •• Gardez bien la belle I '* 
 
DOROTHEA. 321 
 
 ** That is it — that is it. With you one feels the bird is 
 on the wing ! Ah, you understand the risk ! These 
 women ! Archie should sing it. Poor Archie. ' Qui vivra, 
 
 verra ! Votre tourterelle ' But you, Egon, are the 
 
 placid, perfect husband, content in possession. Forty years 
 hence you will sing — 
 
 • My old wife's a good old creature.' 
 
 Do you know it ? " 
 
 " No," said Egon shortly. 
 
 " It was a music-hall song of my youth. Forty years 
 hence it will have come round again." The Colonel 
 strolled out into the hall, and Egon closed the door, not 
 without alacrity, behind him. 
 
 Dorothea sat in the winter garden, hidden out of sight, 
 but her father found her. 
 
 *'My dear child, I am so delighted to — Dorothea, you 
 have been crying." 
 
 " No, father, not crying." 
 
 "I thought veracity was the chief of your numerous 
 virtues ? " 
 
 " If I had cried, I should surely have noticed it." 
 
 " Well, not necessarily. Perhaps you did not reach the 
 pocky-hanky stage. For all that, your eyes are red. What 
 have you been crying about ? " 
 
 "Nothing, I assure you," 
 
 "The usual answer where the cause is very bad. The 
 first time I encounter my daughter after her wedding-mom, 
 her eyes are red. A pleasant experience for a doting father. 
 Is this all that Egon " 
 
 " Please don't ; Egon is perfect." 
 
 " If I thought you believed that, I should tremble for your 
 future. My dear, I am fonder of you than ever. Can't you 
 tell me why your eyes are red ? " 
 
 " Father, you don't like the man ! " 
 
 " Nonsense, I like everybody. And if you mean 
 Roden " 
 
 " Of course not. There is no sort of secret about the 
 matter. I don't think I've been crying. I had a letter 
 from aunt Mary this morning, that is all. It made me feel 
 a little homesick. And she says that Mark Lester is very 
 ill. I am very sorry for them all." 
 
 " How sad ! " said the Colonel gratefully. 
 
 "You see he has just been inducted as minister of 
 
 D. Y 
 
322 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Brodryck, and he preached his first sermon last Sunday, and 
 it was very fine, they all say. Aunt Mary says it was full 
 of feeling, and uncle Tony, who is a great judge of sermons, 
 and remembers all the good ones, declared it was the most 
 eloquent discourse he ever heard." 
 
 " Has uncle Tony's account of it affected you to tears ? " 
 grinned the Colonel. " Gad, you must read me that sermon, 
 Dolly ! " 
 
 " Don't, father. Oh, father, after it was over, in the 
 vestry, he was taken ill. He spat blood. They say he 
 must not preach again for months," 
 
 " Poor chap ! " said the Colonel. 
 
 " Think of his mother and sisters dependent on him. I 
 believe they are very poor." Her voice trembled, and again 
 her eyes filled without her knowing it. 
 
 " We must get him away at once from that beastly 
 climate," said the Colonel sympathetically. " If I spent a 
 month of November in Holland or England, I should 
 certainly spit blood. Anybody would, I should think. I 
 mean, 1 suppose they all do if they've a tendency. You 
 and I must get him to some health resort first, and then ship 
 him off to the Cape. I've met dozens of old men there 
 who'd lost quarts of blood in their youth. And they earn 
 as many golden pounds there as they would get florins in 
 Holland. Cheer up. Write home about sending your Mark 
 to Davos. I'll willingly help." 
 
 " Father, how good you are ! " 
 
 " Bosh, I've got heaps of money just now. Don't frown, 
 Dolly ; you must learn to accept the inevitable. The 
 system, as far as it goes, has been wonderfully successful. 
 I am greatly obliged to Pini for taking me into partner- 
 ship. I assure you he is a man of very great there, there, 
 
 we mustn't quarrel. I hardly consider myself his personal 
 debtor ; he has an intense admiration for you." 
 
 " I am sorry," said Dorothea. 
 
 " And surely you do not object to spoiling the 
 Egyptians ? " 
 
 Dorothea knew that Mark Lester, at any rate, would 
 rather die naked in the desert. "You are so kind," she 
 said. " We must see. I have written a few words already 
 proposing that he should come here." 
 
 " Here ! " 
 
 " Pallanza and Locarno are full of lung-patients. And 
 he might begin with us at Bel Respiro. Of course Egon 
 
DOROTHEA. 323 
 
 would be quite willing to have him. He is always telling 
 me to invite my Dutch relations. I wanted to go to him 
 now, but I did not like to disturb his singing." 
 " Humph ! " 
 
 " He hates to be disturbed at his practising. He says it 
 puts him out." 
 
 " Even when he is practising alone ? " demanded the 
 Colonel viciously. 
 
 " Especially when he is practising alone." 
 " But this young man is not a relation ! " 
 " He is exactly the same thing. I have always called 
 him my brother." 
 
 " Well, I think he would be just as comfortable at the 
 hotel." 
 
 " Oh, no, no ! I could not bear to think of Mark at the 
 hotel, and all our rooms empty. It would seem absurd. 
 Besides, he would not go, father. He is rather proud. I 
 do not think he would like to take our money. And so 
 unnecessarily. I know, because uncle Tony wanted to pay 
 for his university education ; and he lived in a garret and 
 gave lessons." 
 
 " To me that sort of thing is insufferable ! " exclaimed 
 the Colonel. 
 
 " So uncle Tony said. But uncle Tony likes him very 
 much, father, and I'm sure you would. He is not at all 
 conceited — quite simple ; and when aunt Mary gave him a 
 present for a trip up the Rhine, he very gladly went." 
 
 " I am nonplussed," said the Colonel. " But, Dorothea, 
 let me speak of things I understand about. You have 
 known this young fellow all your life : you have the 
 memories of twenty years in common with him : your 
 husband you first met a twelvemonth ago. I shall not 
 insult you or Egon by suggesting that your husband could 
 ever grow jealous of any one — don't think I mean that — 
 but accept as a general truth the fact that all husbands 
 take a violent dislike to the men who knew their wives 
 intimately before they did." 
 
 Dorothea's eyes flashed. ** But, father " 
 
 " Dolly, you may reason till Doomsday : you can't 
 change human nature. Your great mistake is that you 
 assume what it ought to be and not what it is. I love 
 you. I rejoice, child, to see you accumulate heavenly 
 treasure, but I tremble to think how you mix it up with 
 the earthly and refuse to make any provision for moths." 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " What do you mean, father ? " 
 
 Colonel Sandring burst out laughing. " I am not as 
 good a preacher," he said, " as Mark Lester. I suppose I 
 get my texts wrong. Stop at Bel Respiro, Dolly, and let 
 Mr. Lester go to Davos." 
 
 Dorothea got up. At that moment her father seemed 
 to her low, corrupt : Monte Carlo, Madame de Barvielle, a 
 host of unworthy memories, painfully fresh, rose up before 
 the soul of aunt Mary's pupil. 
 
 "You wrong Egon cruelly," she said. "You misjudge 
 us altogether, father. There are things " she stopped. 
 
 " Of which I cannot judge? "continued the Colonel with 
 outward coolness. " My dear Dolly, the Devil can quote 
 scripture to his purpose. I believe it is said somewhere 
 that even God is a jealous God. Jealousy, therefore, may 
 well be a virtue. Were you really never, for one instant, 
 jealous ? " 
 
 He faced round at her. She blushed crimson. He 
 kindly looked away. 
 
 " I know a husband who isn't jealous," he said gloomily, 
 "and I rather pity him." Whereupon he took out a 
 cigarette and walked away. 
 
 Dorothea sank down to a tumult of new considerations, 
 repeatedly pierced — as swift clouds break before swifter 
 lightning — by the consciousness of that new sensation, 
 experienced with sharp shame on the night before last. 
 
 She was angry with her father. Why did he thus always 
 sully her young ignorance with world-worn words that 
 splashed, like mud ? And her soul rebelled for sake of the 
 husband she loved and admired beyond any little drawing- 
 room tattle. 
 
 Then she thought of the sick man at Brodryck, whom 
 the doctors had ordered immediately south. She weighed 
 her shrewd father's facile arguments, her own knowledge 
 of the minister's character, till she felt convinced, with 
 increasing anxiety, that Mark Lester would never consent 
 to come. 
 
 " He will die over there in the cold and the mist," she 
 said to herself bitterly. " His poor mother and sisters ! 
 He is all they have got." 
 
 She sat spinning out her gloomy thoughts till suddenly 
 there flashed across them the memory of his promise, that 
 summer, to herself. It brought her to her feet again, with 
 a shock of joyous resolve. She left the conservatory, her 
 
DOROTHEA. 325 
 
 heart full of sweet thoughts of her husband. At the music- 
 room door she paused, with her hand on the door-knob. 
 
 " Adieu — de cet adieu si douce est la tristesse ! " 
 
 " Still Romeo and Juliet," she murmured, smiling. " How 
 well their voices go together ! " 
 
 The post had gone out. She got her hat and walked 
 down to the little local telegraph station, accompanied by- 
 poor Archie's Italian greyhound, " Flirt." 
 
 " Come at once. For my sake," she telegraphed. 
 
( 3^6 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Homeward serenely she walked, with God*s benediction 
 upon her. 
 
 The weather was beautifully bright : the sky a brilliant 
 blue. The dark-green cypresses pointed heavenward : the 
 faded olives straggled along the rocky ground. Dorothea 
 nodded to the ragged little black-eyed children, and 
 thought of the lodge-gates at Brodryck. The dog ran 
 away up a mountain-climb. She went after him, through 
 a bit of wood, towards the house. 
 
 On a stone ledge, in this coppice, a disconsolate figure 
 was sitting, kicking at pebbles with aimless foot. 
 Lord Archibald's boy-face looked up, as the dog darted 
 forward. 
 
 " By George ! I thought it was she ! " 
 
 Dorothea paused beside him. 
 
 " You're so like her, you know ! I mean — I mean," he 
 stammered, " in figure, of course — so fair, too. I don't 
 mean you're like her, you imderstand." He floundered 
 hopelessly, red and wretched. 
 
 " I understand perfectly," she said, though refusing 
 mentally to admit any similarity whatever. "Lord 
 Archibald, I am so very sorry." 
 
 He sat fondling the dog. " For what ? " he asked. 
 "Because she went away or because she's not coming 
 back ? Do you know, I could hardly say. Pini tells me I 
 ought to be delighted. But that's all nonsense. Now 
 you, you're a good woman — do you think I ought to want 
 her back ? " 
 
 " N — n — no," said Dorothea. 
 
 "But you don't mind my feeling awfully sorry she's 
 gone ? " 
 
 Dorothea laid her hand next to his on the dog's 
 sympathetic forehead. 
 
 "Look here — this is what she writes to me. Shall I 
 read it ? No, take it and read it yourself." 
 
DOROTHEA. 327 
 
 Dorothea crackled the bit of paper in the silence of the 
 wood. 
 
 " Please send me Lucille " — (" That's her maid," put in 
 Archie) — " with my things. I hoap you will let me have 
 my jools, tho' after this mourning you are caddie enuf for 
 anny thing. Your money I want not. Send me not 
 preedjings from Sainte Dorrotea. Besites, there is no 
 neet : I will mary the only man that behafed like a 
 gentleman this mourning." 
 
 " By Jove, I forgot there was that bit about you ! " cried 
 Archibald. 
 
 Dorothea held out the letter. 
 
 " Marry ! " she said. " Marry Konrad ! She is mad." 
 
 " Shell marry him, if she wants to. She married me." 
 
 *' Marry him ! It is utterly impossible ! " 
 
 " And why, pray ? " demanded Archie huffily. " I should 
 have thought the solution would appeal to your religious 
 sense ! " 
 
 *' Marry Konrad ! Impossible," repeated Dorothea with- 
 out heeding him. In violent agitation she walked away 
 down the slope, towards the house. " Konrad ! " she said 
 aloud. " Marry Konrad ! That woman ! " She hurried 
 to the music-room, resolved to disturb Egon at all costs. 
 It was empty. She passed through the smoking-room, 
 coming across Pini. 
 
 " Well, madame, what say you of these complications ? " 
 
 " God help us all out of them," she answered, hastening 
 away. 
 
 Signer Pini smiled after her. "That is so like these 
 religious people," he murmured. " Always it is the Deity 
 who must wipe up the mess." 
 
 On the stairs she met Egon limping rapidly down. 
 
 " Dolly, I was looking for you everywhere," he cried in 
 excitement. " I've got something to tell you." 
 
 " I know it already," she answered. " But it is impossible I 
 It can never be." 
 
 He started back, offended: "What on earth do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " She is a wicked woman, Egon ! I do not believe a 
 word she says." 
 
 Quite a new expression of disfavour came into his eyes. 
 
 " One would almost think you did not want it to come 
 true," he said. " But I disagree with you. The Countess 
 Pini seems to me to have the kindest heart." 
 
32S DOROTHEA. 
 
 " I am talking of Lady Archibald, who is going to marry 
 Konrad ! " 
 
 " Bosh. Come up to your room and I will tell you all 
 about it.'* 
 
 " I also have things I want to tell you about. Egon, 
 something has happened " 
 
 But the agitation of his manner stopped her. 
 
 " Dolly, the Countess Pini knows of a way in which my 
 leg could be cured, she thinks ! " 
 
 Her face did not respond immediately. Her first idea 
 was of Lourdes. She knew that the Pinis patronised 
 Lourdes. 
 
 " My God, one would think you did not care ! " 
 
 " Come and sit beside me, my husband, and tell me what 
 she says." 
 
 He obeyed. " There is a man," he went on rapidly, " a 
 masseur, at Montreux, who does wonders. He cures people, 
 it appears, that no physician has been able to help. 
 Countess Pini saw a young man arrive there from Russia — 
 his father was a general — the young man had injured his 
 ankle three years ago — they had been everywhere ; he was 
 an only son, intended for a soldier. He was quite lame, 
 and this man, the masseur, said, ' the hurt is in the knee, 
 not in the ankle ' — in three weeks he could walk about, in 
 five he was cured." 
 
 " We must find out more about it,** said Dorothea. And 
 she added : " It would be splendid, but you have tried so 
 much." 
 
 " I know. But the stories she tells me of this man, 
 Barbolat, are amazing. She has seen them occur : it is no 
 hearsay evidence. She wanted to speak about it before, but 
 she didn't like to. She thought at once he could cure me." 
 
 " She might have spoken to me first." 
 
 ** Why ? " He opened his eyes. 
 
 " Has she been there herself ? Is she ill ? " 
 
 " Oh, a rich woman's ailments. She goes to him once a 
 year, for a couple of weeks. He does her nerves good. 
 And she meets half the royalties and semi-royalties of 
 Europe in his rooms." 
 
 *' That is an attraction," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Dolly, you are most unsympathetic. Why do you 
 so dislike Madame Pini ? " 
 
 " Dislike is not the word, but I admit that we do not 
 sympathise. You must bear with me a little ; everything 
 
DOROTHEA. 329 
 
 has always been so different. Think of Giulietta Pini at 
 Brodryck." Her voice was tired and miserable. 
 
 He drew her head down on his shoulder and kissed her 
 once or twice. "Think how splendid it would be if I 
 could walk like other men," he said. 
 
 She was at a loss what to answer, anxious to show 
 sympathy, afraid to encourage expectations she could not 
 share. 
 
 " We must enquire about it," she repeated. " There was 
 a lady at the Nice hotel, who used to spend all her autumns 
 at Montreux. I have her address. I could write to her." 
 
 " But the Countess knows better than any one," he cried 
 impatiently. " I tell you she goes to him every year. 
 What's the use of asking other people, who probably know 
 nothing about it ? " 
 
 " Well, we must find out from her then, all we can. 
 Everybody always knows of some infallible cure. Egon, I 
 want it as much as you. Only, I am so afraid of possible 
 disappointment. You have consulted such great people. 
 We must find out about this new man. Later on we can 
 always decide." 
 
 He started to his feet. " Later on ! " he cried. " Later 
 on ! One can see you were never in my condition. Every 
 step that I take is a sword- thrust. Madame Pini was 
 saying she saw the suffering in my face : that was what 
 gave her courage to speak." 
 
 She was cruelly hurt. " I see it also," she said. 
 
 Her tone checked him, and he added more calmly : " This 
 life is living death. I would give anything — twenty years of 
 existence — to be like other men ! " 
 
 She followed him to the window : he was looking out, 
 with hot face. " Egon," she said, " you have always 
 stopped me when I tried to speak of your trial, till I did 
 not dare to begin. And now you have spoken to her : 
 I could not know." 
 
 He turned quickly: "Are you jealous?" he said, in 
 scorn. 
 
 " No, not jealous. Why should I be jealous ? What do 
 you mean by jealous ? Only very, very sad." 
 
 " And why, dearest, should you be sad ? " 
 
 She was silent. For, not even to herself, could she have 
 put her thoughts into satisfactory words. 
 
 " We will go to Montreux," he said. " And I shall get 
 cured. And all will be well." 
 
330 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Yes, we will go to Montreux." 
 
 " She has told me marvels — of just such cases as mine. 
 Dorothea, you must not think me weak. Think what the 
 change would mean to me. I could go into the army, like 
 the young Russian, after all.** 
 
 " You would like that very much ? *' 
 
 " For us there is no other profession. It is all the differ- 
 ence between being nothing, nobody, and the possibility 
 of achieving all." 
 
 She began to realise how little she had understood him. 
 She had thought him happy in his art-studies, content with 
 the prospect of work in some Government office. 
 
 " Yes, we will go to Montreux," she said, her heart full 
 of dread. 
 
 " At once.** 
 
 She started. For she also had her tale to tell, and had 
 hitherto forgotten about it, or, rather, her thoughts had not 
 had time to revert to it. 
 
 " Egon, I had bad news from home this morning," she 
 said, uncomfortably. " Mark Lester — ^you remember ? — is 
 very ill." 
 
 " Yes, I remember. Poor chap ! ** 
 
 " It is dreadful. My foster-brother ! ** 
 
 " Oh, that is why you were sad. What makes you call 
 him your foster-brother ? ** 
 
 " The aunts used often to call him so. I have telegraphed 
 to him, Egon, asking him to come to us here." 
 
 " Whatever did you do that for ? " he cried, amazed. 
 
 " The doctors order him south at once. He has spat 
 blood. It is very dreadful. Of course they are quite poor. 
 Egon, you have constantly been telling me to ask my 
 relations out." 
 
 " Yes, yes, you are perfectly right. Only this is rather 
 awkward about Barbolat ! You see, I shall have no peace 
 until the man has said : yes or no. I had given up all idea of 
 a cure long ago, when I returned with my father from Paris. 
 Now it has suddenly all come back, all the uncertainty and 
 expectancy. I must have his answer. Giulietta Pini says 
 he always decides at once : * I can cure you * or ' I can't 
 cure you,* and he keeps you or sends you away." 
 
 " Egon, what am I do ? I can't telegraph to Mark not to 
 come ! " 
 
 " I must go alone." He was looking out of the window, 
 fixedly. 
 
DOROTHEA. 331 
 
 " I can*t let you go alone on such an errand as this." 
 He frowned. " I am not a fool or a child. A child on 
 its way to the dentist. It cannot be helped. As you have 
 asked this man, and he is ill, you must receive him. 
 To-morrow I shall run through the Gotthard, and work my 
 way round to Montreux. As soon as I know anything, I 
 shall telegraph. Then we can see." 
 
 " But what can we see ? I shall not be able to leave him 
 alone at Bel Respiro." 
 
 *' Then you must leave me alone at Montreux ! " 
 " Egon, you are unkind. Oh, what can I do ! " 
 " I am quite unable to decide," he said, and limped out 
 of the room. 
 
 " I shall stay to receive him. I must stay to receive him 
 now," she exclaimed. Her lips trembled, but her eyes 
 were set firm. She paced up and down the room. " For 
 my sake! I have telegraphed 'For my sake.' He is 
 seriously ill. How can I then now telegraph to him : 
 'Don't come?'** 
 
( 332 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 "Father, this woman Archibald says she is going to 
 marry Konrad ! " 
 
 The Colonel stopped in his languid amusement of blow- 
 ing cigarette smoke at Giulietta's cockatoo. " Well, my 
 dear, I suppose that is what you would call ' right ' ? " 
 
 " It is infamous. It is disgraceful. Let her go back to 
 her own husband." 
 
 " And not sully the name of von Roden ? Very true. 
 But do not alarm yourself. Konrad does not look to me 
 the sort of man to do anything quite as stupid as that. 
 Besides, there is plenty of time ; they are not yet 
 divorced," 
 
 " But a woman like that can make a man do anything." 
 
 The Colonel sighed. " True, a bad woman can make a 
 man commit any folly, and a good woman can — do the 
 same. That is your step-mother coming downstairs." 
 
 Mrs. Sandring drew her arm through Dorothea's and led 
 her away into palm-groves under glass. The air was hot 
 and stuffy here ; Dorothea avoided this comer of the villa 
 to which the newcomer had taken an instinctive liking. 
 
 " My dear Dorothea," said Mrs. Sandring. " I have not 
 been twelve hours in the house, and already I have a bit of 
 advice to give. Beware of Giulietta ! " 
 
 Dorothea's heart stood still — she felt it, a sensation she 
 had never felt before. Yet she could not have told why 
 she should care. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she asked, honestly. " I have 
 little in common with the Countess Pini. She is not what 
 you all here call ' my style.' " 
 
 "Your style is so very superior, my dear Dorothea. 
 Your father says with some truth that you look upon life 
 as an oratorio." 
 
 " He flatters me," said Dorothea, flushing. And she 
 turned away and began talking vapid nonsense to Giulietta's 
 black imp of a tailless " skipper " dog. 
 
DOROTHEA. 333 
 
 Mrs. Sandring lifted her many-ringed hands. 
 " Did it, then, itty-titty-pritty ! " 
 
 " Nonsense," cried Mrs. Sandring sharply. " My dear 
 Dolly, don't be a fool ! " 
 
 Her step-daughter resented the apostrophe, and above 
 all the diminutive. She dropped the small dog to the 
 floor. 
 
 "The Countess Pini probably does not like me," she 
 said, eagerly returning to a subject she would have pre- 
 ferred to avoid. " I cannot in fairness object, for I do not 
 like her." 
 
 "She does not want you to like her," replied Mrs. 
 Sandring, still in those incisive tones. " She would not 
 care tuppence about any woman's likes or dislikes. What 
 she wants is the admiration of the men." Dorothea faintly 
 shuddered. It seemed to her as if she were listening to 
 kitchen-talk at Brodryck. "Titty, itty, pritty," was all 
 she could find to say to the lapdog scratching at her knees. 
 " And she gets it," sighed the quondam Baroness. 
 " She is welcome to it," retorted Dorothea. 
 The Baroness stared at her new step- daughter for a very 
 long time. Dorothea dropped her eyelids, whereupon the 
 Baroness deliberately lifted tortoise-shell glasses and stared 
 at her all the more. 
 
 " Let us go in to lunch," said the Baroness at length. 
 The reply to Dorothea's telegram came at tea-time. 
 They were all assembled in the Countess's, far too big, 
 "boudoir," which led to her little sanctum beyond. The 
 boudoir was entirely got up in the gaudiest red, white and 
 blue from the Balkans, just as it had been prepared for an 
 illustrious visitor. It was still called the " Knasnia's 
 Chamber," Knasnia being, in Bosnian or Herzegovinian, 
 it appears, the proper word for " Queen." 
 
 Even Archie had come in to tea, to brave them, or to feel 
 less deserted. He had announced his intention of going 
 north that night. 
 
 When the servant came in with the pale scrap of paper, 
 Archie took it from the salver. " Oh, I beg your pardon ! 
 It's for Madame de Roden," he said. 
 
 All eyes turned to Dorothea. The Colonel, knowing 
 nothing of her message, jumped to the grateful conclusion 
 that Mark Lester might be dead. 
 
 She took the missive and read it. Then she went straight 
 across to Egon and held it out. 
 
334 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " He is coming," she said. 
 
 Egon looked at the words. "I am deeply grateful. I 
 start at once." 
 
 " Well," he said, a little impatiently, " he has none of 
 the scruples you so much dreaded. He accepts your bounty 
 in a proper spirit." 
 
 She spoke slowly : " I asked him to come for my sake. 
 That is what he means by being grateful." 
 
 " For your sake ? Whatever ? " He checked him- 
 self. Giulietta's eyes were on them. "You did quite 
 right," he said. 
 
 He saw Giulietta smile, and at that moment he felt that 
 he hated the woman. Everybody was looking at them, or 
 so he fancied. He hated the whole lot ; he led his wife away 
 to the farther end. 
 
 " 1 have been thinking about this morning," he said. " I 
 behaved like an idiot! We can perfectly well go to 
 Montreux in the spring. That will always be time enough 
 to hear that he can do me no good." 
 
 " No, no, we must not delay." 
 
 " Why so suddenly eager ? " 
 
 " It is a chance. I have been talking to Giulietta. Egon, 
 supposing the man were to die ! " 
 
 " Oh, rubbish ! " he said, forcibly putting her earnestness 
 away from him. 
 
 " I must think of something. I must arrange something. 
 Something is sure to turn up." 
 
 " Mrs. Micawber ! " he answered, laughing. 
 
 But she did not understand him. Mrs. Sandring spoke 
 behind them : " Lend the Colonel and me your pretty villa ; 
 I will receive your young parson there." 
 
 They both turned hurriedly, and Dorothea saw Mark 
 Lester at lunch with Mrs. Sandring ! " I must think ; I 
 must arrange," she repeated nervously. " Egon, you believe, 
 do you not, in my willingness to please you ? " 
 
 " So much so," he answered, " that I must be more careful 
 what sacrifices I demand." 
 
 " A gentleman," said the butler, just a faint touch more 
 loudly than usual, " to speak to Milord Archibald alone." 
 
 Archie rose hastily and allowed himself to be conducted 
 to the library. 
 
 He started back at the door, but the butler quickly closed 
 it behind him. 
 
 " One moment ! " said Konrad, of the sallow face. 
 
DOROTHEA. 335 
 
 " There can be no need," replied Archibald, much 
 agitated, " of any conversation between us." 
 
 " You think not ? Do not call it conversation, then. Call 
 it remarks from me to you." Konrad pulled at his long 
 moustache, smiling faintly. He was admirably frock- 
 coated ; his hair was very thin at the top. 
 
 " There can be little cause for those," said Archie, very 
 red. 
 
 " You are mistaken. It appears absolutely necessary that 
 I should come and call you a cad." 
 
 " Are you crazy ? " cried Archibald, with a nervous look 
 at the bell- pull. 
 
 " They always say that when they have rendered plain 
 speech inevitable," remarked Konrad deprecatingly, looking 
 out of the window and speaking gently as to himself. " As 
 for me, I detest these vulgar — how shall I call them ? — 
 downrightnesses, but what can I do ? All day I have 
 waited patiently at the hotel for some message, and now I 
 hear that Lord Archibald intends to leave to-night for the 
 north I " 
 
 " Good God, do you mean to say that you want to kill 
 me because you have robbed me of my wife ? " cried the 
 young Englishman. 
 
 " You have chosen to insult your wife, a woman — that is 
 your business. You seem not to have observed that the 
 insult meant nothing unless it hit me as well ? " 
 
 Archibald's face grew violet ; he advanced upon his 
 antagonist with clenched fists. " Hypocrite and liar ! " he 
 began. 
 
 " Silence ! " said the other, falling back a step, his frock- 
 coat very tight. " That is quite enough, and all the rest so 
 useless ! To whom can my brother address himself ? Shall 
 we say Signor Pini ? " 
 
 " Why not ? " said poor Archie. 
 
 " Our interview, then, is at an end. You would greatly 
 oblige me by leaving me in possession, for a few moments, 
 of this room." Archibald walked out, and Konrad 
 immediately sent the butler for Egon. 
 
 " I refuse to have anything to do with it I " declared 
 Egon. 
 
 Konrad stared at him. " Have you forgotten your 
 A. B. C. ? " demanded the younger brother. 
 
 " I don't care. This is not a decent duel. Why can't 
 you leave the young chap alone ? " 
 
336 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Of course, if you insist, I must apply to the Colonel." 
 
 " You are bent, then, on slaying him ? " 
 
 " Egon, I fear your intercourse with your very good wife 
 is spoiling you for the ordinary etiquette of society. I am 
 not ' bent upon slaying him,' as you graciously choose to 
 put it. On the contrary, I am conscious of the fact that 
 his death would be a nuisance." 
 
 " Then I understand you still less." 
 
 " But I am bent upon teaching him a lesson, the young 
 brute." 
 
 " There is no need to fight him." 
 
 " No need to fight him, when he has publicly accused me, 
 a Prussian officer, of insulting his wife ? Egon, you must 
 be out of your senses. Say at once, that you prefer to fight 
 shy of duels ! True, you are a civilian, an invalid ! I can 
 quite enter into your feeling, where your own brother is 
 concerned. You feel nervous. I will ask Colonel Sandring." 
 
 " 'Sdeath ! " said Egon between his teeth. " Tell me 
 what you want done, and how." 
 
 " You may prefer to know that he just now called me a 
 liar and a hypocrite, and attempted to strike me ? " 
 
 " That is enough. I wish he had not done that, for it 
 gives you too good a pretext. Yet I can understand him — 
 and I like him for it." 
 
 Konrad's green turned livid. " Say your say," he answered. 
 " You are my brother : you know you are safe. By-the- 
 bye, may I ask, before we separate, did you write that 
 letter to the Head ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 "Well, I thank you for that. This may be our last 
 conversation, and I thank you for that. Frankly, I should 
 not have done it for you." 
 
 " It's all right. After you have killed Archie, you may 
 marry his wife to-morrow." 
 
 Konrad swore at his brother. " Are you really too stupid 
 to understand," he said, " that I want to wound Archibald 
 Foye in the arm or the leg ? Then his wife will stop with 
 him and nurse him, I presume. Yes, I think there will be a 
 reconciliation. The worst thing that could happen to me 
 would be his death." He spoke quite coolly, reviewing his 
 little plan as he put it into words. 
 
 " I have nothing to do with your disgusting considera- 
 tions," replied Egon, much relieved, for Konrad had an 
 immense reputation as a marksman. "You ask me to be 
 
DOROTHEA. 337 
 
 your second in an encounter with a man who has called 
 you a liar, and I cannot refuse you. Whom has Archibald 
 chosen ? Pini ? I will go to him at once." 
 
 " I must tell you," said Egon to Pini, " that my sole 
 object, in becoming Konrad's second, is to do my best for 
 Archibald Foye." 
 
 " Unusual, but not unreasonable," replied Pini. " Will 
 you smoke ? " 
 
 "The only possible weapon is pistols. Archibald can 
 use no other. The range not too far." 
 
 " Ha ! " cried Pini, amazed. 
 
 " It gives the worse shot a better chance," explained 
 Egon uncomfortably. 
 
 Pini paused, in thought. "I understand perfectly," he 
 said. " I understand as if you had told me all. Your 
 brother wishes only to wing Lord Archibald, and you wish 
 to ensure this result. I am an old man — since I have 
 grown rich, I have felt much older — but I am not yet 
 senile. I understand. Surely, a brother as second is an 
 undesirable thing, against my conceptions of duelling ? " 
 
 " There is no one else. I cannot implicate my father-in- 
 law," replied Egon stifHy. 
 
 " The Colonel might not take your view. Well, accord- 
 ing to your lights, you are a good man, von Roden." The 
 old Italian smiled, a shrewd little smile. "Ah, Santa 
 Maria ! Open thine eyes on the world, young man — open 
 thine eyes on the world ! " 
 
 " To revert to the matter on hand," answered Egon more 
 stiffly still, " I should say, each of the combatants to fire 
 once." 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried Pini angrily. " Really, von Roden, 
 you know as well as I do, that a man cannot be his 
 brother's second ! Why don't you send me the Colonel ? " 
 
 " I insist, absolutely, on one shot only," replied Egon, 
 for he hoped that his brother's single bullet, aimed at the 
 arm, might pass on one side. 
 
 " Insist ! Absolutely 1 " replied Pini, and his delicate 
 nostrils swelled. 
 
 " Count Pini," exclaimed Egon, in a burst of frankness, 
 " there are points on which we disagree, but there are points 
 on which we agree. I know I ought not to be my brother's 
 second. When I tell you that I am trying to prevent a 
 murder, I am sure of your aid." 
 
 The impressionable Italian caught the young German's 
 
 D. Z 
 
338 DOROTHEA. 
 
 hand. " Per Bacco, you are right ! " he said. " The 
 heathen gods and the classic sentiments all honest men 
 have in common. There is a point where all meet and 
 understand each other. I understand thee, Egon von 
 Roden ! " 
 
 On the following morning, then, in the little wood 
 beyond Forleone — in the little primrose-dell known to all 
 who have stayed any time at Baveno — the four men met 
 and the duel was fought. Count Pini's servants remained 
 stationed a few hundred paces off, with the village apothe- 
 cary, who was garrulous and important, and immensely 
 pleased. 
 
 Lord Archibald looked outwardly calm, but very serious, 
 and rather sad. He gave two letters to Pini, one for his 
 mother, one for his wife. " I have nothing to say to any 
 one," he said, fixing his pale eyes straight on Konrad, 
 who stood sullen and correct, "excepting that I never, in 
 all my life, had the faintest intention of injuring any one." 
 
 The antagonists took their places, first fire having fallen 
 to Archibald by lot. In the expectant silence, 
 
 " Count — Pini ! " said Archibald, standing ready. A 
 smile flickered over his features ; one wonders, did he, at 
 that moment, recognise the pun ? 
 
 His bullet soared wide over his adversary's head. 
 
 " One — two — three," said Pini. 
 
 Konrad's pistol rose, with a sure rush — he fired. 
 
 At that moment Archibald swayed a couple of inches to 
 the right — they all saw him — the next instant he was down 
 on the ground, and the seconds were at his side. 
 
 " The bullet is through his breast," said Egon. " Signor 
 Pini, would you call for your doctor ? " 
 
 The apothecary came bustling up, and arranged, and 
 examined, and made a great fuss. " The lung is per- 
 forated," he said. " There must be internal hemorrhage," 
 and began giving a lot of details he could not possibly 
 know. 
 
 " He is not seriously hurt ? " questioned Egon. 
 
 " He is a dead man," replied the apothecary with infinite 
 relish, and he added, being an advanced "revolutionary," 
 " The Milord is no longer a Milord." 
 
 But Egon had rushed across to Konrad. 
 
 " He dodged, and I killed him," said Konrad, unmoved. 
 
 " You lie in the dead man's face ! " retorted Egon hotly. 
 
DOROTHEA. 339 
 
 " He swayed : it was but a natural sway of the body. If 
 you could not help it, nor could he ! Let him alone, and 
 get away, while you can." 
 
 " That is true," replied Konrad calmly. " I must get 
 through the Gotthard at once. Good-bye then, dear boy. 
 It is a most unpleasant incident. I do not doubt he will 
 recover, and his dodging causes me a lot of trouble. What 
 annoys me most is that he won the toss-up. I have always 
 been so lucky in that hitherto. Supposing my luck begins 
 to abandon me ? What a good thing for you." He had 
 spoken, while putting on his coat : he now held out his 
 hand, but Egon did not take it. 
 
 " Wh — ew ! " said Konrad, " it is war, then, between thee 
 and me ? So be it. Ta — ta ! " 
 
 Meanwhile Archibald was being moved to the little inn 
 at Forleone, but before he reached it, he had ceased to 
 breathe. 
 
 i t 
 
( 340 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " My wife ! ** said Egon. He ejaculated the two words, 
 to himself, in German, but Count Pini had a smattering of 
 many European tongues. 
 
 " Undoubtedly," replied Pini, leaning back in the 
 wagonette. 
 
 "It is always the woman who is the serious complica- 
 tion," he added. " You had better ask the Colonel to 
 make your peace." 
 
 Roden bit his lip with annoyance at having spoken. 
 " You," he said, " have another task before you. His 
 widow " 
 
 " Will be easier to deal with than your wife. Pardon 
 me, of course it is no business of mine, but I cannot help 
 taking an interest — a fatherly interest — in your ravishing 
 spouse. Ah, la bella donna ! Ah, che gran' cuore d'oro ! 
 If I were you, I would not return home without stopping 
 at yonder little chapel and offering five francs* worth of 
 candles — but there, it is no use ! And even I must admit, 
 that I have often offered and lost, as to-day, before we started, 
 for your Archie." He sighed, a little half-amused, sceptical 
 sigh. " Some day, at Monte Carlo, she will desert me — 
 hush ! — the money is very near spent. Nonsense, even 
 omnipotence cannot alter the mathematics of my system." 
 ' " Is it really a mathematical certainty ? " questioned 
 Egon, for the sake of something to say. 
 
 " There is always the ten, but I do not like even to say 
 it, for fear the dear Madonna should find out." 
 
 " The ten ? " 
 
 " Yes, if that comes out twice running, I lose more than 
 ^-but I beg you, let us not talk of it. Especially not on 
 this unlucky morning. I had promised Our Lady ten per 
 cent, of my earnings. I have punctually paid them — even 
 where there was that doubt about a bad Napoleon, I paid 
 —and, as soon as I am possessed of a competency, I deliver 
 my secret to the world and ruin the whole concern. Up 
 
DOROTHEA. 341 
 
 yonder " — he pointed skywards — " they are waiting for that 
 event to canonize me : * Santo Bartolommeo Minore ! ' And 
 perhaps, when I have been dead a hundred years, they will 
 canonize me for it here below. The Slayer of the Dragon 
 of Monte Carlo ! A true twentieth century saint ! " 
 
 "I wonder what you would call a competency," said 
 Egon. " Not, mind you, that I should ever inquire." 
 
 "Two million lire," replied Pini promptly. "Eighty 
 thousand lire per annum. Think what the various Monte 
 Carlo princes possess, and then say whether I am extreme ? 
 Drive straight up to the hotel door " — this to his coachman 
 — he alighted : " Never be extreme with the gods. The 
 Lady Archibald Foye is at home? I must see her af 
 once." ' 
 
 But Miladi Foye had already gone down to the lake, and 
 thither Signor Pini followed her. 
 
 " What I have to tell, I have to tell," he said to her. " I 
 know not whether you are aware that your husband and 
 Konrad von Roden met over yesterday morning's quarrel ? " 
 He stopped, and his keen eyes cut into hers. 
 
 " Konrad is dead ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " No, it is Archie," he answered, for her lack of decorum 
 disgusted him utterly. 
 
 She sat down on a bench by the lake-shore ; with all his 
 shrewdness he could read nothing into those empty cruel 
 eyes of hers. 
 
 " He died like the simple-hearted boy that he was," con- 
 tinued Pini, feeling that he must say something, as he could 
 not immediately slip away. "Simple-hearted and straight- 
 forward, doing what he thought was his duty." 
 
 " Thank you," she replied, " I knew him as well, I 
 imagine, as you did. I liked him. Yesterday you would 
 have called him a fool." 
 
 " Miladi " 
 
 " Never mind. He would probably have called you one. 
 Men are like that. I am not a philosopher. I speak French 
 badly. But all men, with us women, they — how do you 
 call it ? — they play into each other's hands. So Archibald 
 is dead. I liked him. It need not have been." In these last 
 five words there pierced suddenly a tone of unmistakable 
 regret. 
 
 "It had become inevitable," said Pini pitilessly, and 
 held out her husband's farewell letter to this woman who 
 sat smoothing out her dress. 
 
342 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " He might have killed Konrad," she said, as she took 
 it, and now the disappointment in every accent rang 
 out plain. 
 
 "The one could shoot and the other couldn't," replied 
 Pini. 
 
 " A man who can't shoot is a woman," replied the widow, 
 and began reading her letter. Her attitude broke down, 
 as her gaze met the dead boy's familiar sprawl. Her 
 colour came and went ; she trembled from head to foot 
 in her violent efforts to control herself. She laid the paper 
 down in her lap. There was not a word of reproach in it, 
 only lubberly, mis-spelt love and farewell. " He was 
 accounted a very good shot in the covers," she exclaimed 
 with indignant vehemence, but the tears were coursing 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 " It is not the same," replied Pini, shaking his grey old 
 head. "Well, the thing is done, Lady Archibald, and 
 nothing remains now but sackcloth and ashes." 
 
 She started to her feet : " Very different things remain 
 to me," she said. " I am a Catholic too, but I am not a 
 dotard.*' 
 
 " Ah, true," he remarked softly, " you will get the most 
 becoming mourning, better than sackcloth, and you will 
 weep in public, not ashes, but pearls." 
 
 Their masks were off now ; they were telling each other 
 truths. But finesse was beyond the Biermadel. She 
 shrugged her comely shoulders and walked away. She 
 walked straight, not hotelwards, but to the Palazzo 
 'Arriet along the lake-shore, and on the marble steps of 
 the little Palazzo port she stood still, for in one of the 
 pleasure-boats, balancing there, lay Dorothea, enjoying, 
 as often, the iDright, brisk morning air. 
 
 " Good-morning," said Dickie. 
 
 " Good-morning," replied Dorothea gravely. 
 
 " It is a beautiful morning." 
 
 "Beautiful." 
 
 " And you are enjoying it ? " 
 
 " Very much," replied Dorothea, for she was happy in a 
 reconciliation with Egon. 
 
 " You are fortunate to be able to do so." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Other people have not your advantages." 
 
 Dorothea waited, for she trusted that Dickie's unrestful 
 heart was about to unburthen itself of its sins. 
 
 J 
 
DOROTHEA. 343 
 
 " They have not your callousness." 
 
 Dorothea's eyes opened wide. 
 
 " May I ask what you think, Madame von Roden, of this 
 beautiful morning's beautiful work ? " 
 
 Suddenly Dorothea realised that her husband had been 
 preoccupied, that he had kissed her with unusual gravity, 
 on going out early " to shoot." 
 
 " Has any new misfortune befallen us ? Speak quick ! " 
 
 Lady Archibald stood back. She knew not whether to 
 be touched by the " us " or whether to resent it. 
 
 " You are not aware, then," she said, " that Lord Archibald 
 was — murdered this morning by your husband and your 
 brother-in-law." 
 
 " What ! " screamed Dorothea, and sprang, tottering, to 
 her feet in the boat, that heaved recklessly forwards. " What ? 
 What? What? " In a moment she was calm. "Tell me 
 what you mean, what has happened," she cried, and tried, 
 with trembling hands, to steady the boat towards the steps. 
 
 " I really believe you do not know," said Lady Archibald. 
 " These two men, your husband and his brother, have this 
 morning killed my husband in what they choose to call a 
 duel." 
 
 " But he isn't dead. He's wounded. Oh, my God, make 
 her speak the truth ! He isn't dead ! " cried Dorothea, as 
 she leaped on to the stairs and came running up them. 
 She approached close to Lady Archibald, almost touched 
 her, then shrank back. 
 
 The strain which had held up the other woman seemed 
 suddenly to snap. Lady Archibald broke into mingled 
 imprecations and tears — " It is you and your cursed lot 
 who have done it ! " she cried. " God curse you and them ! 
 I am a common woman among all you fine bodies — well, 
 you, then, pious, proper- tongued hypocrite — I am glad I have 
 got you — you shall hear honest language for once in your 
 life ! We were happy enough till we came amongst you 
 — oh, all pious, you, all high-born and proper ! Butter 
 wouldn't melt in your mouth, my fine lady, and your high- 
 souled husband, and the noble Pini, and the Prussian officer, 
 Konrad, and Giulietta — oh Giulietta ! And you with your 
 gambler of a father and his baroness — oh you — you go to 
 church and pray — so ! " — she folded her hands and cast 
 up her streaming eyes — " you, you are pious, you say ' Lord, 
 'a' mercy upon us ! ' the while you are turning men's heads. 
 You, I hate you most of all. He liked you. He was 
 
344 DOROTHEA. 
 
 stupid. See " — she flung her crumpled letter at Dorothea's 
 feet — " he has left you his foolish collections, to arrange 
 them — he says you have a sense of fon ! " 
 
 She stopped, trembling, and with steady eyes pouring 
 hate at Dorothea : 
 
 " * Of all women I have ever known,' he would say, 
 'Dorothea alone has a real sense of fon.' Often he has 
 said that to me as a joke. It is because you laughed at 
 his pons. It is easy to laugh once or twice in a twelve- 
 month. I laughed many times, and I could not. God in 
 Heaven, am I a bad woman, and this creature a good one, 
 because she laugheth at * pons ' ? " 
 
 Dorothea, shivering away from the other's reckless fury, 
 had fled up the marble ascent through the gardens. And 
 there, by the statue of Cupid, with the broken arrow, 
 among the laurels, she met Egon coming down, in much 
 hesitancy of soul and firmness of countenance, to seek her, 
 from the empty house in front of which was still turning 
 the wagonette that had brought him back. 
 
 " Egon, I know all. I know all," she stammered. She 
 leant back against the pedestal. 
 
 " It could not be helped," he said : tears that he did not 
 know of stood in his honest eyes. 
 
 But she put the lame words aside. " Tell me, at least, 
 that it was not you," she said. Her pride had kept back, 
 face to face with Lady Archibald, the very utterance of his 
 name. 
 
 " Me ! " he exclaimed in astonishment, and a little annoy- 
 ance, " Me ? " She was glad of the annoyance. " Dorothea, 
 how can you be so foolish ? And you say, you know all ! A 
 duel had become inevitable between Archibald and Konrad. 
 Poor Archie had called Konrad a liar and hypocrite. Well, 
 then, of course they had to fight ; you understand that ? " 
 
 But Dorothea did not answer. 
 
 " I became Konrad's second against my will, it was the 
 best thing I could do for Archie. As his second — but of 
 course that was utterly out of the question — I could have 
 done much less. I arranged that only one shot should be 
 fired — Dorothea, are you listening to me ? " 
 
 But Dorothea did not answer. 
 
 " I give you my word of honour it was all an accident. 
 Konrad had declared to me his resolve to hit Archie in the 
 arm. He wanted, I believe, to get rid of the whole busi- 
 ness. If Archibald is slightly hurt, he reasoned, his wife 
 
DOROTHEA. 345 
 
 will go back to him and nurse him : there will be a recon- 
 ciliation — meanwhile Konrad could have got away north." 
 
 Dorothea turned dumb eyes and looked at her husband. 
 
 " Then, you see," the latter went on eagerly, " Archie 
 somehow swerved to the right — Konrad could not help it — 
 he was aiming at the right arm so as to keep clear of the 
 heart " 
 
 " Oh, don't ! don't ! " shuddered Dorothea, with a cry 
 like an animal that is hurt. 
 
 " Dolly, dearest, how could any one do otherwise ? Tell 
 me, as the world is, what could I have done ? " 
 
 " He is dead," she said. 
 
 " I tell you it could not be helped. Don't you see, 
 Konrad " 
 
 She held up her hand as if to keep his words from 
 reaching her. 
 
 " He is dead," she repeated. 
 
 *' Well, then, tell me what you think I ought to have 
 done." His voice had quite changed. She looked at him 
 still, steadfastly, and into the look welled all tenderness and 
 sadness, all pleading and love. 
 
 "You must pity me, Egon, and bear with me," she said 
 gently, " and try to make allowances for me. My surround- 
 ings have been so different : a year ago, you see, I had never 
 left Brodryck. And now I am here. I cannot understand 
 what you are saying. I only know that, as I understand 
 things, as they understand things among the people I have 
 always lived with, my husband, my loved husband, has 
 helped to commit a murder. That is all I can understand, 
 you see. I do not say I am right. You must try to make 
 allowances for me." She put up her hands to her forehead, 
 speaking steadily and softly, " I cannot look at it, as yet, 
 in any other light." 
 
 " I am a murderer, then ? " questioned Egon. " That is 
 what it comes to ? " 
 
 " Egon, he is dead. Think what that means. A few 
 hours ago he was here on earth, and now " 
 
 ^' Oh, of course, if you put it like that " 
 
 She flashed round at him. " How else can I put it ? 
 Are we heathen ? Is every word that we speak of religion 
 a lie?" 
 
 " Religion has nothing to do with duelling." 
 
 Again there broke from Dorothea's lips that terrible cry 
 of pain. 
 
 k 
 
346 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Dolly — Dolly, darling, do be reasonable, I am as sorry 
 as you, but — don't you see ? — there are things that have to 
 take their course, while the world is the world. Nobody 
 can alter them. The law of duelling is one, between men 
 of honour. It is right. It is as old as creation." 
 
 " As old as Cain and Abel," said Dorothea bitterly. 
 
 "You are only making me wretched, and yourself, by 
 persisting in treating me as a murderer. Come, let us say 
 no more about the miserable business. Let us forget it. 
 Kiss me! " He held out his hand, but she shrank away 
 from it. 
 
 *'My God! " he said, and in his mind arose the remem- 
 brance of Konrad and himself thus face to face, an hour 
 ago — Is it war, then, between thee and me ? 
 
 " Do you mean to say you will not take my hand ? " he 
 said. 
 
 She burst into vehement weeping. " It isn't that," she 
 said. " Egon, I can take your hand, but what does that 
 alter ? You say : let us not speak of it : what does that 
 alter ? You say, let us forget 1 Forget what ? That, to 
 my sight, be it right or wrong, you have committed 
 murder ; that you approve it ; that the soul of Archibald 
 Foye is required by Almighty God at your hands ; that 
 you say : duelling is no part of religion, as if there were 
 any part of our lives outside religion — that you — you — 
 oh, God, help me — I love you — how can two walk together, 
 unless they be agreed ? " 
 
 " They cannot," said Egon quickly. " Agree with me, 
 then, dearest ! Try to understand." 
 
 " To understand," she repeated dully. " That is what I 
 have been saying. Egon, let us go into the house together ; 
 let us pray God in Heaven together to forgive you your 
 terrible sin." 
 
 He drew himself up. " I have acted," he said, '* like a 
 Prussian and a gentleman. Frau von Roden, some day 
 you will say that it was so." 
 
 And he left her. She did not cry the word " Never ! " 
 after him, though it sprang to her lips. She did not deny ; 
 she did not recall. She stood, rooted to the ground, 
 against the broken Cupid, watching all that was left of her 
 happiness sink away into a cloud. 
 
 "Of course," said the Baroness, to Roden, m the palm 
 corner, amongst the perfumes and the smells, "I see it all. 
 
DOROTHEA. 347 
 
 Oh, you are quite right not to utter a word against your 
 wife. But the silence of you men is usually as explanatory 
 as your speech. Only a woman can lie with her mouth shut. 
 I said at once to Sandring : there will be a terrible shindy 
 between your daughter and her husband. No shindy ? 
 Well, that is still worse. Any shindy is better than a 
 solemn estrangement. Would you mind my giving you a 
 bit of advice ? " 
 
 " No," replied Egon, for he really fancied any one's aid 
 might be of use. 
 
 " That is rather nice of you. Eh bien, go at once to 
 Montreux ; see this man. You have never been away from 
 her as yet ? So much the better. For small estrangements 
 the cure is separation ; for big it is the kill. Go. If he says 
 he cannot heal you, it will melt her heart ; if he says he 
 can, it will be the same. In any case, go ! Meanwhile, I, 
 with the Colonel, will accompany Dolly to Bel Respiro." 
 
 " And there she will have her friend to occupy her," said 
 Egon. " It is true ; I can just run there and back ; if I know 
 his opinion, I can wait till the spring." So, without much 
 leave-taking, in solemn sadness and mutual discouragement, 
 he went. 
 
 Konrad had dashed through the Gotthard to Lucerne. 
 His intention was to hasten to his mother at Wiesbaden, and 
 from there to put himself in communication with Count 
 Roden-Rheyna. As soon as it was possible, he must marry. 
 
 At Lucerne he got a telegram from Dickie, who had also 
 fled, to the Grand Hotel, Territet, from the scandals of 
 Baveno. " Come to me at once. I am wretched. I shall 
 kill myself." 
 
 At this last sentence he laughed aloud. And he paced 
 up and down his hotel-room a few minutes in silence. 
 
 " I never knew a woman with such arms," he said. And 
 he took the train across to Territet. 
 
 END OF PART II. 
 
( 348 ) 
 
 PART III. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Mark ! " 
 
 There was much more in the cry than mere recognition, or 
 than even the heartiest welcome to any individual friend. 
 I Dorothea stood on the landing-stage, amongst the usual 
 rabble of porters and hangers-on. The little steamer from 
 Luino was rounding slowly in the dark-blue Borromean 
 bay. The shadows from the snow-lit mountains lay across 
 the peaceful water. 
 
 On the deck stood Mark Lester waving his cap. And in 
 his face rose up before the Frau von Roden the whole of 
 her childhood and girlhood, a mirage of the soul. In a 
 moment it was gone ; they say that drowning men so see 
 the past. 
 
 Close by, yet far away, the snow-lit mountains flung 
 their shadows forward, across the troubled lake. 
 
 She was asking him, first in her thoughts, then with her 
 eyes, with her lips at last, of all the hundred memories a 
 woman's heart can hold. Women remember ; a man, at 
 the utmost, does not forget. 
 
 " And your husband ? ** said Mark. " He is well, I 
 hope?" 
 
 " He is not here," answered Dorothea. She caught the 
 expression he banished from his face. It was one of 
 satisfaction. She hastened on. " He has gone to consult 
 a Swiss doctor about his foot. He hopes to be back in a 
 day or two." 
 
 " Will the foot be cured in that time ? " queried Mark, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 " It is only a consultation. Perhaps we shall go there in 
 the spring for treatment. Meanwhile, you must hasten to 
 get well." 
 
DOROTHEA. 349 
 
 " Oh, I am well already ! " He threw up his head in the I 
 old way. He believed the truth of his words. 
 
 "You will find my father and — and his wife at Bel 
 Respiro. Mark, what did you think when you crossed the 
 Dutch frontier ? Has the world not grown suddenly wide ? " 
 
 "I had been as far as Heidelberg before/' he said proudly. 
 
 " True, I forgot. We have a very long drive, you know, 
 Mark. We shall have heaps of time to talk." 
 
 " So much the better. The other people at the villa will 
 hardly care for our subjects of conversation." 
 
 " Now, Mark, you are not to begin by being * gauche.' " 
 
 " Shouldn't I be that if I were to talk to your step-mother 
 of Em and Doll and the children at the lodge ? " 
 
 " My father's wife," said Dorothea, who could not bear 
 to hear him use a nearer term, " My father's wife is pre- 
 pared to make a great deal of you. She has come into 
 contact, she told me, with all sorts and conditions of men, 
 excepting a Protestant minister." 
 
 " She is a Roman Catholic ! " exclaimed Mark. 
 
 " My dear boy, what else did you expect her to be ? " 
 Suddenly Dorothea felt quite experienced and worldly-wise 
 next to this youth. And the feeling did her good. 
 
 " The wider you find the world," she said, " now you 
 have got so much farther than Heidelberg, the better it will 
 be for us all." And then they talked of Brodryck, and 
 drove in silence, because they had so much to say, and 
 talked again of Brodryck till Orta filled the view. 
 
 "That is the house," said Dorothea. "That is Bel 
 Respiro. The white dove, we call it, nestling against the 
 pines." 
 
 " Whose bit of poetry is that ? Yours, I suppose ? '* 
 
 " No, it is Egon's. I am not poetical. Dear me, I quite 
 forgot to show you the Palazzo 'Arriet ! " 
 
 " Is that anywhere near ? " 
 
 "No, it is close to the landing-place at Baveno. No, 
 indeed ; I am rather glad it isn't near.* 
 
 " Why so ? I thought you had " 
 
 "Because Giulietta Pini lives there. Mark ** She 
 
 spoke hurriedly ; she bent forward ; they were climbing up 
 the avenue to the villa. " You remember that morning in 
 the churchyard, a year ago, on the 13th of December, when 
 you told me I should always stay at Brodryck, always in 
 my little circle of Brodryck — ^you remember, Mark ? " 
 
 " I remember." 
 
350 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " You were not much of a prophet, Mark." He smiled. 
 
 " And when you told me that a woman should close her 
 heart to wickedness, should never see anything of the world 
 around, would never learn to know it " 
 
 " Dorothea, I do not think " 
 
 " You were not much of a preacher, Mark." 
 
 *' But it isn't fair to suggest " 
 
 " Is it not ? To suggest what ? That we get out ? For, 
 you see, we are at the door. Father, this is Mr. Lester." 
 
 The Colonel had turned the house-corner at the sound of 
 wheels. 
 
 " I hear you speak English ? " said the Colonel. 
 
 "A leetel," said Mark. He was afraid of the Colonel, 
 and anxious to avoid him, but he found him alone in the 
 drawing-room when he descended to dinner half an hour 
 later. 
 
 " Women are always behind time," said the Colonel, 
 " and my wife is the most unpunctual of women. She is 
 late in all things, even in growing old." He smiled to 
 himself, and then saddened at thought of having wasted so 
 neat a thing. 
 
 " I hope you smoke ? " he burst out, desperately. 
 
 " Day and night," said Mark Lester. 
 
 " Bravo. A cigar is between men what a bit of scandal 
 is between women ; it makes them friends at once." 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " replied Lester, standing before 
 the famous della Robbia. 
 
 " Never mind. Do you admire that ? " 
 
 " I suppose so. Is it very admirable ? " 
 
 " Oh, well — people think so. It is a della Robbia, you 
 know. Personally, I prefer modem art, but of course I can 
 see this is beautiful. Admire it when my son-in-law comes 
 back. I must say this of Egon : he does allow you to 
 praise fine things, even when they belong to other people. 
 Have you any special hobby ? " 
 
 " I read a great deal." 
 
 ** Oh ! Well, I suppose that is a hobby." 
 
 " And I walk a great deal." 
 
 " That I should have called a virtue. It is the one thing 
 I can't get myself to do, in spite of everybody urging 
 me. I have had a few twinges of the gout of late. You 
 will have to take me long walks in the woods." 
 
 Before Lester could express satisfaction at this prospect, 
 the door was thrown wide open and the Baroness sailed in. 
 
DOROTHEA. 351 
 
 Her hair was frizzled all about her forehead, a sunset of 
 Turner ; the snows lay low around her neck as down the 
 hills in winter ; her robe was a glamorous shimmer, like 
 stars upon the sea. 
 
 *' Bonjour, Monsieur le Pasteur ! " she said. She had 
 told Dorothea, for many days, and many times a day, with 
 much laughter, that she must practise not saying " Monsieur 
 I'Abbe." " I am sure to do it sooner or later, my dearest 
 Dorothea. I used to meet so many abbes about the house 
 of my cousin di Casa Profonda " 
 
 " After all, there is not so very much difference," she told 
 Lester, to whom she immediately confided her embarrass- 
 ment. " You parsons are but priests who can marry, just 
 as the priests are but parsons who can flirt." 
 
 " There are other points of difference," replied the young 
 minister stiffly, for he was anxious neither to protrude nor 
 to deny his religion. But at this statement the Colonel 
 guffawed, and then coughed to hide it. 
 
 Dorothea came in hastily, flurried. " I am so vexed," 
 she said. " I was looking at the home-letters Mark 
 brought. A thousand pardons ! Mark, will you take in 
 Mrs. Sandring ? " 
 
 " Why, Dolly, you look quite brilliant and bright again ! " 
 said the Colonel. "You have been so dull of late. You 
 will get over Egon's absence before we have him back ! " 
 
 Mrs. Sandring kicked her husband under the table, but 
 on this point they differed, as on many. She considered 
 that the estrangement between Egon and Dorothea should 
 be tacitly admitted, while the Colonel was of opinion that 
 it ought to be ignored. Each, in a different way, strove to 
 remove it, he by much praise of Egon, she, by still more 
 continuous condemnation of Konrad. It could not be said 
 that both failed to touch Dorothea's heart ; on the contrary 
 they never stopped banging it. 
 
 " I have n^ws for you, dear," said the Baroness now, at 
 the very dinner-table. " Other people bring news, you see, 
 as well as Monsieur le Pasteur." And she smiled archly at 
 Lester. Her husband scowled across at her. 
 
 " Marriage has developed every fault that I knew of, or 
 didn't," thought the Colonel. "By Jove, what a mercy 
 she keeps her looks ! " Aloud he said : " Dorothea doesn't 
 care for news, unless it's from Brodryck or Montreux." 
 
 "But mine is from Montreux ! " cried the Baroness, " or 
 rather from Territet, which comes to the same." 
 
352 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Barbolat " exclaimed Dorothea, turning pale. 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing to do with Egon's knee, I mean 
 ankle ! " (This constant forgetfulness was a very sore 
 point with Dorothea.) " Never mind about that, my dear ; 
 time heals every strain. No, my letter is from a very old 
 friend of mine, the Comtesse de Fanfarde, who always 
 spends her winters at the Grand Hotel, Territet." 
 
 " And what does she say about Egon ? " 
 
 " Still harping on Egon ? Not a word. She barely knows 
 of his existence. But she tells me a lady is attracting 
 universal comment at Territet, and that lady is the widow 
 of Archibald Foye ! " 
 
 " Oh, please, let us forget Lady Archibald ! '* exclaimed 
 Dorothea in some agitation. Mark Lester gazed at her. 
 " For an hour," she added, " I have been talking of decent 
 people only. It has been quite refreshing." 
 
 " My dear creature ! " protested Mrs. Sandring. Though 
 she was a baroness and had married a commoner whose 
 first wife had been a baroness also, she considered these 
 distinctions between people decent and otherwise as im- 
 satisfactory. 
 
 " I mean what I say I " persisted Dorothea, carried for- 
 ward by the novelty of her attitude. " Let the unfortunate 
 woman rest ! I regret that I ever knew her. She is surely 
 not a fit subject for discussion." 
 
 " It appears to me," replied the older lady, with notice- 
 able spirit, " that I am the best judge what subjects I deem 
 fit to discuss. However, never mind. Colonel, I do not 
 know what you consider yourself, but / should call you 
 supine." 
 
 " You would be right," said the Colonel, coolly measuring 
 drops of ketchup. " The one supreme thing I have enjoyed 
 in this earthly desert, has been fighting, between men, and 
 the one thing I have abhorred has been fighting, between 
 women. I am absolutely, hopelessly supine. But this 
 turbot is good. Dolly, how do you manage to get such 
 good sea-fish so far inland ? " 
 
 " I have a first-rate place at Zurich," replied his daughter, 
 with ready good-humour. " I am so glad you think me 
 a fair housekeeper, father." 
 
 " Well, I must say I never thought you would care about 
 cookery." 
 
 " Do you ? " put in Mark. He looked anxious ; he was 
 more and more troubled about Dorothea. 
 
DOROTHEA. 353 
 
 " As a means to an end," she replied demurely. 
 
 " To what end ? " The Colonel's voice grew aggressive. 
 
 "The masculine heart. A wise woman serves up her 
 love in sauces, Mark." 
 
 Lester laughed ; he was resolved to behave prettily. He 
 turned to the frowning Baroness, and asked, in his halting 
 English, whether she liked sauce ? 
 
 " Not from my hostess," retorted the lady. 
 
 The Colonel looked up. " It is," he said, " as if the soul 
 of the dead Archie were amongst us." 
 
 " You, then, revert to the subject ! " cried his wife, 
 watching her opportunity. " I have no desire to dwell on 
 undesirable things ! Can I help it that they occur in my 
 husband's family ? I only thought it my duty to inform 
 Dorothea that Konrad is at Territet with Lady Archibald 
 Foye ! " 
 
 " Good G ! " exclaimed the Colonel. 
 
 Dorothea winced and looked at Mark, but Mark's eyes 
 were upon his plate. 
 
 " And it appears that — really, I hardly like to say it — 
 but " 
 
 " Oh, not before the servants ! " exclaimed Dorothea in 
 an agony. 
 
 " The servants ? " repeated the Baroness in amazement 
 and scorn. Involuntarily her big eyes sought the impene- 
 trable butler's with what was almost a wink. The butler 
 belonged to the English owner of Bel Respiro : he spoke 
 French not worse and English better than Mrs. Sandring. 
 
 " The idea of mixing them up in the conversation ; I 
 never heard of such a thing," the lady continued fluently 
 in her native language. " Really, Dorothea, I must say 
 that your ideas of breeding — no. Colonel,' I am not for- 
 getting myself, but really, between Brodryck and Casa 
 Profonda — well, least said, soonest mended. But really — 
 when I think of my youth, we never had any unpleasant- 
 nesses in our family. There was an odour of peace and 
 propriety about my girlish days. No more than you, 
 Dorothea, was I accustomed to improper people. My 
 father, a gentleman of the old school, with breeches and 
 buckles " 
 
 " Lord, are you as old as that ? " exclaimed the tortured 
 Colonel. 
 
 " With her I " said Dorothea. For a moment they were 
 again alone : her suffering broke through her reserve. 
 
 D. A A 
 
354 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The Baroness smiled. " Aha ! " she said ; and, as the 
 butler re-entered, " I will tell you all about it after dinner," 
 she said, and they talked of the weather. 
 
 "What, then, do you know ? Tell me all." Dorothea closed 
 the drawing-room door upon her step-mother and herself. 
 
 "My dear, you are tragic. You speak as if I were 
 possessed of some terrible secret." 
 
 " It seems to me that you are." 
 
 "By no means. Only a bit of gossip." The Baroness 
 threw herself down in an easy chair. 
 , " It is none the less terrible for not being a secret." 
 
 " Oh ! Ah ! Yes, of course. Egon is your husband." 
 
 Dorothea spoke unwillingly, standing in the middle of 
 the room, her back turned. " What has Egon to do with 
 Lady Archibald Foye ? " 
 
 " How you jump at conclusions ! She has nothing to do 
 with Egon, except that his name is Roden — and yours." 
 
 " We cannot be responsible for the sins of all our rela- 
 tions," said Dorothea quickly. " No family would. Would 
 yours ? " She meant nothing especial, in her nervousness, 
 but the quondam Fleuryse believed in an intentional, and 
 cowardly, thrust. 
 
 "Soon perhaps you will have enough of your own," 
 she said sourly. " Meanwhile Konrad is courting the widow 
 Archie. Why not ? People will talk, laugh a bit, perhaps : 
 no one will seriously blame them. Your use of the word 
 * sin ' is absurd." 
 
 Dorothea turned and looked at her, tried to speak, 
 stopped. 
 
 " Yes, you may stare," continued the step-mother, toying 
 with her laces. " We have now been several days together, 
 and we have never had a serious talk. I like you, and you 
 are my husband's daughter. I am nearly twice your age. 
 You must let me say things, if I want to say them. I have 
 never been able to act a part. I am all simplicity and 
 truth." 
 
 Dorothea sat down on a stool, by the easy chair. "If 
 you can help me in any way, I shall be only too grateful," 
 she said heartily. "I admit it. I am completely ' depaysee.' " 
 
 "Of course you are, but has it never occurred to you, 
 
 that the fact of being ' depaysee ' does not immediately give 
 
 one the right to condemn all one's surroundings ? " 
 
 Dorothea knitted her eyebrows in thought. 
 
 " It is a common delusion," added the Baroness coolly. 
 
DOROTHEA. 355 
 
 "Aunt Mary used to tell me of my faults, "said Dorothea. 
 "I miss her very much." 
 
 "What you need far more, I should think, my dear, is 
 the pointing out of other people's virtues." 
 
 " You think I am censorious ? " 
 
 " And especially, the being warned against your own. 
 Mon Dieu, I really believe I like you. Now, what do you 
 expect, I would ask, in Heaven's name ? Do you expect 
 the people around you to be good? Were they good at 
 Brodryck ? " 
 
 " No," said Dorothea softly. " Still, they were dif- 
 ferent " 
 
 " Of course they were different. Every entourage shows 
 its vices and virtues. Probably they went to church and 
 abused their neighbours ? Are we, then, who do not abuse 
 our neighbours, to be compelled to go to church as well ? 
 What shall we do, coming out ? Believe me, the pious 
 people have faults which are born of their good qualities. 
 We, we have good qualities which are born of our faults." 
 
 "But right is right," cried the trembling Dorothea. 
 " God's will " 
 
 " Is woman's will, say the poets. It is true. No woman 
 I ever knew of willed to do anything wrong." 
 
 " Then I am the first," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Well, self-abasement is wrong. But you are sincere ; 
 you do not will it. Women do enough evil and harm in 
 the world, but they never want to." 
 
 Dorothea felt hopeless. 
 
 "In their hearts, every now and then, love takes a wrong 
 turning, but he doesn't know of it. He thinks he is going 
 right." 
 
 Dorothea began to recognise her father's voice. 
 
 "It is men who make all the misery. Look at Konrad. 
 Dorothea, you have come out of your shell, with very few 
 feathers on, and an absolute trust in the kindly intention? 
 of the sportsman, the poulterer, the cook ! Call him what 
 you will, it's all the same. He nurses your dear little 
 heart, and he fattens it, and fondles it, but all the time 
 he has only one preoccupation. He is going to eat it in 
 the end." 
 
 The Colonel's accents had dropped away from the 
 Baroness's speech. 
 
 " Mon Dieu, it is I who am tragic," she cried with a 
 laugh. "And things are bright enough for those who 
 
 A A 3 
 
356 DOROTHEA. 
 
 take them brightly. By the disposition of Providence the 
 fowler, with all his strength, is a fool. Those of us who 
 know how to fly up into the bushes and preen our plumage 
 can whistle at the fowler and, if he be very stupid, can 
 even peck his eyes. Then the other brutes cry out at our 
 cruelty. But you, you, you are a dove, you are chicken- 
 hearted, you are a parrot that has lived with a parson, a 
 stork are you, kept to get children, a goose that lays golden 
 eggs ! " The Baroness flung her fat hands about, flushed, 
 angry, resolved to be kind, and to hit back. 
 
 " It appears that I am an ornithological exhibition," 
 replied Dorothea, feeling less sweet. 
 
 " And as for sins — to revert to our starting-point — what 
 on earth do you mean ? I am nearly forty. I have never 
 in my life heard any one, except priests, speak of sins ? 
 Sins ! One would think we all lived in a reformatory. 
 To me, when I hear you talk, it is as if I heard my father 
 say * Remember the children,' when some one of his friends 
 was * inconvenant.* " 
 
 Dorothea rose. Her dress was of the simplest, costliest 
 white ; it fell about her like a (story) queen's. " I thank 
 you, I will do my best," she said with difiiculty. 
 
 "Trust me ; I mean well. A woman must choose 
 between the world and the cloister. She can choose. A 
 man need not. In the monastery as on the race-course, 
 wherever he goes, he is foul! " 
 
 The men came in. The Colonel was laughing noisily ; 
 Mark was laughing too. "Your parson is not half bad," 
 said Sandring to his daughter, as he led her aside. " He 
 enjoys a good story, and, by Jove, he can tell one too." 
 
 " Father, why don't you tell me your good stories as you 
 used to do ? " 
 
 " Because you frown, Dorothea." 
 
 Dorothea established herself on a window-seat. 
 
 " I only frowned at that one of the dancer's daughter." 
 
 " Well, but I can't tell if you're going to frown." 
 
 She took hold of a waistcoat button. " Now be honest," 
 she said, laughing up at him. " Can't you ? '* 
 
 " Yes, I can, by Jove," cried the Colonel. " Dolly, it's 
 not true, what some people say, that you're priggish, and 
 pretend to be superior. No, damme, it's not true. You 
 look priggish, perhaps, among pigs. Now, I'll bet that at 
 Brodryck no one thought you superlatively good ,? " 
 
 " No, indeed ! " cried his daughter. 
 
DOROTHEA. 357 
 
 " And you aren't, not really. Ask Lester to tell you his 
 funny stories ; they'll do. There's an excellent one about a 
 cock crowing in the middle of the sermon just when the 
 parson had said : * Could I deny my faith ? ' But I won't 
 spoil it. He's a first-rate mimic. I had no idea he would 
 prove such company. Come, Lester, tell my daughter about 
 the cock ; she loves a good story." 
 
 " Dorothea ? " cried the Baroness. 
 
 "Especially when told by a clergyman," added the 
 Colonel mischievously. " I agree with her. I like a 
 parson to be wicked, and his story to be good." 
 
 But the Baroness rose. "It is late," she said, "I am 
 very sleepy. Bonsoir, Monsieur I'A — Monsieur le Pasteur." 
 The Colonel held open the door for her. " I shall go back 
 to the smoking-room," he said to Lester. *' Join me there 
 when you have had enough of reminiscences. I will mix 
 you an American drink." 
 
 The two young people remained alone. Mark Lester 
 stood by the wood fire ; Dorothea still hung against the 
 window. For some time neither spoke. 
 
 " You are not, then, a total abstainer," said Dorothea. 
 
 *' I never was." 
 
 " Of course not. It seems so natural that you should 
 enjoy a bit of fun and an American drink, and that I 
 should be a total abstainer." 
 
 " Tell me exactly what you mean," he said. 
 
 " Of course I am not an abstainer," she went on hurriedly. 
 " I mean not a pledge-person, or teetotaler, or whatever 
 they call it ! I never touch wine because I don't like it — 
 aunt Mary never took it ; and then there was the gardener 
 — never mind — and because I'm not accustomed to it, a 
 glass of champagne goes to my head. And so I say : no, 
 and am odious, odious, in this as in everything." She sat 
 gazing dejectedly on the floor. 
 
 " Surely a woman isn't odious because she drinks 
 water ? " 
 
 She looked up at him. "No, but a woman is always 
 odious, when she is with women who do differently from 
 her." 
 
 " To the women, perhaps — — " 
 
 " And the men." 
 
 " Dorothea, I think you must be mistaken." 
 
 Her lips quivered. " I speak of what I know — now. A 
 couple of years after you had gone to Leyden, you told me 
 
358 DOROTHEA. 
 
 that you had leamt to know the world and that you 
 loathed it." 
 
 " Dorothea, why do you again revert to that unfortunate 
 conversation ? " 
 
 " Unfortunate ? It was the last we had together, we who 
 have had so many," 
 
 "Yes, but I am afraid it made an erroneous impres- 
 sion " 
 
 She got up and came close to him. " I, too, have been 
 out and seen the world," she said. " It is a year since I 
 left home for Nice — on the day after our talk. I have seen 
 
 the world, and I " She paused : they stood looking at 
 
 each other. "I loathe it. I loathe it." 
 
 " In another year's time," he said gently, " you will learn 
 to loathe it less. Let me speak. It is a mistake to bring 
 people up as we were brought up, in the inner court, so to 
 say, of the temple, a beautiful error. Nobody could help 
 it, I suppose. We lived in a walled corner ; our guardians 
 could not be expected to hoist us up the wall, because there 
 were dunghills to be seen outside. Now we are face to 
 face with facts, and must make the best of them. The 
 world is neither as good as we thought nor as bad as 
 we think " 
 
 " What is ' the world ' ? " she burst in impetuously. 
 
 He answered slowly. " In the Bible sense," he said, " it 
 is, of course, everything that is not the kingdom of Heaven. 
 But you and I mean contact with our fellow-men outside 
 our little circle. Well, Dorothea, what astonishes beginners 
 like you and me most is the goodness of bad people and 
 the badness of good. It upsets all the little rules we were 
 brought up in. And so we get mixed, and say every one's 
 bad. Now it's a mistake ; don't take all my time finding 
 it out. Realise at once that you know a lot of good 
 people, and that there's plenty to appreciate in the bad 
 people you know." 
 
 " I am a prig," said Dorothea sadly. " Mrs. Sandring is 
 right." 
 
 " Every one who conscientiously sets himself to do right 
 is a prig ; make sure of that. Conscientiousness is a 
 dictionary word ; in life it reads ' priggery.' You can 
 see all through the Bible that our holiest examples were 
 thought prigs in their day. Never mind that. Oh, Doro- 
 thea, there are such heaps of things a fellow cannot 
 help I " He kicked at a burning log. 
 
DOROTHEA. 359 
 
 " To me," he said, " the great difficulty is not the dis- 
 covery that many men were better than I thought ; 
 somehow I had been prepared for that. But it is the 
 wickedness of the good ; the archbishops, and bishops, 
 and theology professors, the preachers and prayers — Lord 
 in Heaven, when one gets to look at them, what liars 
 they are ! " 
 
 Dorothea listened, hushed. 
 
 "God was merciful to me," said Mark Lester, the terrible 
 words coming up from the depths of his soul, " and he 
 stopped my throat." 
 
 " Oh, Mark, do not speak like that ! " 
 
 "Never mind. Dorothea, somehow you are the one 
 
 person on earth who stirs me up and makes me say things 
 
 . I never dreamed of saying. No, nor of thinking. You are a 
 
 dangerous woman. You make me a selfish brute. Let us 
 
 talk about you, your happiness. Tell me you are happy." 
 
 She had stooped to pick up a rose from the carpet. It 
 came to pieces in her hand, a shower of silvery leaves. " We 
 all have our troubles and our joys," she said, 
 
 " My God, you are not happy ! " 
 
 " Since when do you swear, Mark ? " 
 
 He looked at her strangely. " Do you call that an oath ? " 
 he said. She did not answer, nor would he call it a 
 prayer. 
 
 " I am quite as happy as I deserve to be. We have had 
 this sort of conversation before. It is a silly sort. Shall 
 we go upstairs. You must be tired." 
 
 " Your husband does not make you happy ! " 
 
 She fired round at him, but his face was set the other 
 way. "Do not touch Egon," she said. " He is " 
 
 " Oh, pray, praise him ! " 
 
 " Do not trouble me, Mark. He is not perhaps as good as 
 you are, not exactly, or differently, but I love him with all 
 my heart and soul." 
 
 " That surely ought to suffice him. I will just look in 
 on your father. I should not like to disappoint him." ■ 
 
 The Baroness came out into the upper corridor, as 
 Dorothea was passing to her bedroom door. 
 
 " How long you have been, my dear," began the Baroness, 
 in a gauzy white wrapper, voluminous as a cloud. " I 
 suppose you like talking to that young man ? " 
 
 " Very much indeed," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Quite so, but I was sleepy and wanted to get to bed. 
 
36o DOROTHEA. 
 
 But I waited up, for there is a bit of information I felt I 
 ought to give you, before it reached you through Aur61ie." 
 
 " I am waiting to hear it," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Wait no longer. I have a note from Giulietta, to say 
 she is leaving to-morrow for Montreux ! " 
 
 Dorothea reeled up against the wall : she steadied herself, 
 clinging to a chair-back. 
 
 " M — Montreux," she stammered. 
 
 " She goes to — Barbolat. My dear Dorothea, whatever is 
 the matter ? 
 
 " Nothing is the matter, Mrs. Sandring. Good-night.** 
 
( 361 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Tell your mistress that I wish to see her immediately! " 
 The Countess Pini struck her hand against the side of the 
 open carriage in which she sat. 
 
 " My mistress is asleep," replied Mademoiselle Aur^lie 
 Bompard, in curl-papers, by the door. 
 
 " Awaken her. Say it is very important." 
 
 " That, madame," objected the handmaid demurely, "is as 
 much as my place is worth." 
 
 " Rubbish ! You need not deny to me, Aur^lie, that, in 
 your case, the mildest of mistresses is ruled by the most 
 impertinent of maids." 
 
 " Madame la Comtesse forgets her own Lucie and herself," 
 said the maid, her eyes softly downcast. 
 
 **I? I beat Lucie, and you know it," cried the 
 Countess. " I am of the old school, I. Had you been in 
 my service " 
 
 " I should have given notice," said Aurelie, flashing her 
 eyes up, and down again. " Madame la Comtesse has a 
 message ? How chilly it is ! " She was not afraid of 
 Giulietta, any more than of Dorothea ; she was not afraid 
 of any one. She believed in herself and in her past. 
 
 And she specially hated the Pini woman, for love of the 
 mistress she did not fear. 
 
 " My message is that you go to her immediately and say 
 that I must see her at once." 
 
 " I cannot do it ; the poor thing has had a very bad 
 night " — (the maid had stolen down to the door several 
 times in the dark) — "but now she is asleep. I cannot 
 wake her." 
 
 " Dear me, is she ill ? " demanded Giulietta with sudden 
 interest. " What is the matter with her ? Chagrins ? " 
 
 Aurelie looked up quickly, a straight aim in the other's 
 eyes. 
 
 " Pains," she said. 
 
 "Dear me, and what does she do for them ? " 
 
362 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Pills," said Aurelie. And retreated towards the door. 
 
 Whereupon Giulietta, lightly snatching a book from the 
 carriage-seat, flung it up with neat aim, crashing through 
 the window of Dorothea's bedroom on the low story above. 
 
 " del, what a woman ! " exclaimed Aurelie sotto voce, 
 and added admiringly : " I could have done that myself." 
 
 Dorothea's amazed face appeared at the broken window. 
 
 " I am coming up to see you," cried Giulietta. '■^ Parhleu, 
 one has to knock loud at your door ! " 
 
 A moment later she was in Dorothea's bedroom. " Did 
 you think, my dear, that it was a Nihilist attempt ? Well, 
 I am a Nihilist ; I believe in nothing, not even myself. 
 You must give me back my ' Annunzio.' Have you ever 
 read ' Annunzio ' ? Ah, he would not suit you at all. In 
 fact you would not understand a word of him. All his 
 sensations would be to you, as if I read Greek." 
 
 " Egon says he is futile. But what brings you " 
 
 " And yet Greek, all agree, is the most beautiful language 
 ever spoken by human lips. 'Annunzio,' to me, is the most 
 beautiful language ever spoken by human souls. Does 
 your husband call him futile ? Ah, le gredin ! " 
 
 Dorothea stood vaguely arranging her hair before the 
 glass. " Should you not get back into bed, or put on your 
 clothes ? " said Giulietta. " I will tell you frankly, at once, 
 why I am here. Pini has gone to Monte Carlo ; this 
 afternoon I start for Montreux." 
 
 " So I hear," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Well, I have come to ask you to go with me." 
 
 " I cannot." 
 
 " Rubbish. I am going to Barbolat. I was there in the 
 autumn, and he told me to come back. Our lease of the 
 Villa 'Arriet has come to an end ; it was an absurdly 
 expensive place ; I believe Pini's money is spent. Well, I 
 am going to Barbolat ; he is enormously expensive also, 
 but what will you have ? Montreux is cheap." 
 
 " I expect Egon back in a day or two. He has been 
 unfortunate. I had understood that this masseur never left 
 home for king or emperor. And now he is away." 
 
 " But to whom has he gone ? To the Pope. It is the 
 single exception, for the Pope cannot possibly come to him. 
 He is to return to-morrow ; your husband will see him." 
 
 "After having waited nearly a week." 
 
 " Well, come with me ; you will be in, as they say, for 
 the verdict." 
 
DOROTHEA. 363 
 
 " I cannot come." Dorothea's voice betrayed some 
 irritation. " I have my guests." 
 
 " They can look after each other." 
 
 "No, for my father leaves, to join your husband, 
 to-morrow. I cannot leave Mr. Lester alone with Mrs. 
 Sandring." 
 
 Giulietta pursed up her pretty lips to a whistle. " Whew ! 
 Persuade him to stay." 
 
 " You know that would be impossible." 
 
 Giulietta marched up to the bed, in which Dorothea was 
 seated. " Come with me ! " she cried. " Come with me ! 
 Come with me to Montreux." 
 
 " But why ? What do you mean ? Egon would be 
 annoyed. I am expecting him back in a day or two." 
 
 " Never mind. Come along." 
 
 " Really, my dear Countess, you must excuse me. I 
 cannot insult my husband by running after him." 
 
 Giulietta fell back a pace or two. 
 
 " The journey is nothing," she said. 
 
 Dorothea had pulled at the bell in her bed. 
 
 " The neighbourhood is charming," said Giulietta at the 
 door. 
 
 *' This way, Madame la Comtesse," spoke the soft-voiced 
 Aurelie on the landing. 
 
 "Adieu, then, perhaps for good," said Giulietta. Her 
 Voice sounded sad. 
 
 "I wonder, would Madame permit me to say some- 
 thing ? " demanded Mademoiselle Aurelie, on returning to 
 her mistress. 
 
 " Why, Aurelie, you know I allow you to say whatever 
 you like." 
 
 " Because I never say anything that needs such per- 
 mission. But now I would ask — Madame Pini has driven 
 away in a fury — this journey to Montreux, is Madame 
 quite resolved it were undesirable ? Montreux is a very 
 pretty place." 
 
 " Aurelie, you have one fault : it is listening at doors." 
 
 " Madame, is it a fault ? The faults of servants, when 
 exercised in their mistress's behalf, are virtues. When I 
 listen at doors, I think only of Madame." 
 
 " Think of me, then, and go away." 
 
 " Even at night-time," said the injured Aurelie. 
 
 With a little inward shudder, Dorothea realised that 
 even a sorrowful night was not her own. 
 
364 DOROTHEA. 
 
 "But Madame does not do me justice," continued the 
 maid in the same injured tone. " Often have I served 
 mistresses badly, and been covered with benefits." 
 
 " What, you have served any one badly ? " 
 
 "Madame, there is a French proverb, that one cannot 
 serve two masters. Still less can a maid serve both master 
 and mistress. I have always done my duty by one of the 
 two." 
 
 "Your French proverb is a word of the Lord Jesus, 
 Aur^lie ; you never read the Bible I gave you, in which aunt 
 Mary wrote those texts." 
 
 " The Bible, madame," said Aur^lie, who was preparing 
 her mistress's bath, " is a book for the leisured. We poor 
 people, when we snatch a bit of reading, we want some- 
 thing gay." 
 
 " But the Bible has a word for all requirements." 
 
 Aur^lie squeezed out a big sponge. " I have not yet 
 come," she said, " to the funny part." 
 
 Dorothea sighed. 
 
 " As for the religion of Madame, also I have not yet come 
 to the funny part. It is triste, triste. With us, first we 
 feel wicked, then comes the religion. With Madame it is 
 the other way round." 
 
 " You must not say that. You will have to order some 
 fresh soap." 
 
 " All my mistresses have had religion ; never have I had 
 the misfortune to live with an atheist like the Pini. But 
 religion, with them it was a comfort, a permission to be 
 naughty again." 
 
 " If you think that what little religion I have is not the 
 sole comfort " 
 
 " Let Madame permit me to interrupt her. The bath is 
 getting cold." 
 
 " Very well. You can go." 
 
 Aur^lie paused by the door. " Often I think I had better 
 go," she said. " My talents have no scope here. My 
 talents are for intrigue. I desired rest from it when I 
 accepted the Colonel's offer. One has too much of a thing, 
 and then one wants it again. Such is man. Here there 
 will never be intrigue. In the 'Arriet kitchen, there I was 
 in my element. It all came back to me, the old life. There 
 was the smell of Paris. Here is dulness, goodness. The 
 German lout of a valet, at least he is gone with his master. 
 But with Madame there will never be intrigue." 
 
DOROTHEA. 365 
 
 "No, indeed," said Dorothea. "I really do not think 
 you ought to stay with me." 
 
 " I shall do so all the same." 
 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " Because I love Madame." Mademoiselle Aur^lie 
 Bompard bounced out at the door. 
 
 That evening she wrote in one of her endless letters to 
 herself : " Thou art more than foolish, my Bompard ; thou 
 art growing simple. Thirteen places hast thou had in the 
 best chdteaux of thy country ; often hast thou experienced 
 some fleeting affection for a mistress ; never hast thou 
 uttered so fatal a thought : * Because I love Madame.' 
 Were she not an angel, thou couldst not stay an hour in 
 the house after such a frantic confession. She would make 
 thy life a curse and a burden. We rule our mistresses only 
 and solely by their dread of discomfort through our going 
 away." 
 
( 366 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Grand H6tel du Lac L^man lay in the frosty winter 
 sun. Its padded double windows spoke of sickness and 
 bad air. About it slept that mist of gentle boredom which 
 seems to shroud the smaller northern health resorts. There 
 was a certain amount of shrubbery around it, marking the 
 absence of flowers. Here and there a dull-robed figure 
 crept along the sloppy road. The weather was cold and 
 unpleasant, chilly with uncertain wind, of the sort that 
 would be called " invigorating " by the doctors and people 
 who run a place. The brand-new gold-lace of the hotel 
 concierge was the only bright spot in the landscape. 
 
 The inside of the hotel was still more lugubrious, sombre, 
 silent, the long yawn of patients who are waiting and of 
 servants who have little to do. Immediately on entering 
 the place, a big waiting-room received you. "Docteur 
 Barbolat ? " The smart concierge sank his eyes condescend- 
 ingly, and, often without a word, went to open the waiting- 
 room door. Docteur Barbolat, of course. For what other 
 reason did any one come to the Hotel du Leman ? 
 
 As the door swung open, a fetid odour flowed out to 
 meet you, the smell of the perfumed grease the rubber 
 employed, mixed with the various scents of his fashionable 
 clientele. The large ante-room was full of waiting 
 patients ; in the middle, on a table, lay a book in which 
 newcomers wrote down their names. There was no order 
 of any kind, no arrangement whatever. At the farther end 
 a door stood open, with a seemingly endless vista of little 
 rooms beyond. 
 
 Egon von Roden stood looking out at a window. The 
 great man had come back last night from his visit to the 
 Vatican. To-day, after nearly a week of suspense, the 
 oracle would speak. 
 
 People whispered in corners, with the usual hush of dis- 
 comfort that pervades a doctor's waiting-room. Surely, if 
 there be on earth an atmosphere that can suggest the 
 
DOROTHEA. 367 
 
 entrance-halls of Rhadamanthus, it is here. And he that 
 judges the soul will at least be wise and righteous, while 
 they that judge the body live by flukes. 
 
 It was a distinct relief when a big lady, in yellow and 
 crimson, an habituee who knew every one, entered and passed, 
 with loud interest, from group to group. The highest titles 
 flew in the air like gaudy moths. A Babel of languages 
 was around you, but the loud yellow lady spoke Teuton- 
 French. " Ponshour, Brincesse, comment fa fotre bauvre 
 sjampe ? " The "sjampe " was better, but the fat, old, orange- 
 hued princess had pain in her wrist. Egon listened with 
 inevitable attention to numerous stories of ailments. 
 Suddenly a shrill bellow broke loose from far away at the 
 back of the long line of rooms ; everybody pricked up their 
 ears. The great man had entered. He was fifty yards off, 
 yet every word was audible ; he was shrieking in broken 
 German. 
 
 " Good morning, your Majesty ! I am vexed to have 
 interrupted your treatment ! But his Holiness — your 
 Majesty will understand ! — a life so important, even to 
 
 Protestants ! I hope that your Majesty " Then his 
 
 voice sank. "Ah, that was for the gallery," thought 
 Egon. 
 
 From the entrance to the consulting rooms, a little man 
 emerged and was immediately besieged by a number of 
 patients, especially newcomers. Everybody wanted to be 
 helped out of his turn, not that anybody had a turn, but 
 for that very reason. The little old man, wee and crooked, 
 with a face like Punch, trotted desperately to and fro, 
 endeavouring to please everybody, satisfying none. The 
 yellow lady was very loud to him about having to lunch 
 with her Majesty. He promised to secure her being rubbed 
 in time. 
 
 " The doctor will see you this morning," he said, amiably, 
 to Egon. " I am glad. I feel sure he will be able to do 
 you good." He stayed with him a moment and pointed 
 out one or two people : Russian princes, a very great 
 singer, an Italian duke. " Every one has to pass through 
 this room and take their turn," he said. " Royalties only 
 go in at the other end." The voice of the rubber was 
 heard shouting conversation in the distance ; then the little 
 old assistant was yelled for, and hastily disappeared. 
 
 The yellow and crimson lady, middle-aged, attracted by 
 Egon's face and figure, came up to him straightway. 
 
368 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Barbolat will cure you," she said. " He does wonders. 
 Six weeks ago, a man came here, Fiirst Chloswitz ; he had 
 not walked for eleven years, and to-day he dances ! Tiens, 
 voila le docteur ! " 
 
 In the entry to the line of rooms, a man had appeared, 
 dressed in a smock, like a sculptor's, a Titan of a man, 
 enormous, with a great big head and yellow beard. His 
 eyes flashed round the waiting crowd. 
 
 " La Duchesse de Vareuse ! " he said, in his native 
 tongue. 
 
 A lady in deep mourning rose from a corner, where she 
 had been sitting, silent, with a boy of some fourteen years 
 beside her, and a man standing near, who was evidently a 
 servant. She swept across the wide room, a woman of 
 queenly bearing, the boy staggering after her on the 
 servant's arm, a pitiful sight to see. 
 
 A faint evidence of sympathy — not a murmur — followed 
 them. " It is the young Due de Vareuse," whispered Punch. 
 " The doctor will cure him." 
 
 The latter's voice could be heard in a room not far off. 
 
 " I will see. I must see," he was crying nervously. 
 " Undress ! Let me help you ! Help him. So ; quick ! 
 So. That is right. Turn ! Do not move till I tell you ! 
 Do I hurt you ? Hist ! " 
 
 A faint gasp shivered forth from the unknown distance. 
 The servant, one of those correct, black-whiskered servants 
 still only seen in France, was observed to gently push the 
 door. Punch had his instructions and thrust it open. 
 
 " Hist ! Do not scream ! Are you a man ? I had a girl 
 here yesterday, the Princess Clodia Romagna — turn — so — I 
 see — I see." A long moment's silence, and then : " There is 
 nothing to be done " — shouted in agitation. '* Your Paris 
 doctors have bungled the business ! Plaster where there 
 
 should have been gymnastics ! Pooh ! The legs " Again 
 
 the servant pushed the door ; Barbolat himself tore it open. 
 " The sinews are hopelessly contracted ! Whatever you do 
 will be useless. I refuse to treat you. Herr von Roden ! " 
 
 The young boy came forth, his features working to con- 
 trol his feelings : beside him walked his mother, her veil 
 up, her hand on his shoulder. 
 
 Egon von Roden paused and, rapidly: "Try some one 
 else," he said, " while there is life, there is hope." It was 
 a stupid saying, he felt : the mother looked straight at him : 
 "Thank you." 
 
DOROTHEA. 369 
 
 He followed the rubber along a line of little cabinets, 
 curtained off from a common corridor, cabinets in which 
 men or women were waiting for a turn or preparing to 
 depart, in different stages of deshabille. At the farther 
 end, in a square room, they halted. 
 
 " Sit down in that chair," said Monsieur Barbolat, " it 
 has just been vacated by the Queen of Etruria." 
 
 Von Roden sat down : his thoughts, at that moment, 
 were not of the Queen of Etruria, most beautiful of modem 
 queens. 
 
 "You are a relation, I presume, of Count Roden- 
 Rheyna?" 
 
 " I am his nephew." 
 
 " I do not know him, but I know your cousin, the Prince 
 of Stolzenau-Gutelande." 
 
 Egon had pulled off his boot ; the other was examining 
 the swollen ankle. 
 
 " I know everybody," said Barbolat, still in broken 
 German, " everybody that is anybody ; or I know about 
 them. Sooner or later all come to me. Everybody in 
 Europe, who is anybody" — meanwhile he was squeezing 
 the foot — " drinks too much champagne and eats numerous 
 ices ; sooner or later they come to me." 
 
 " Do the ices get into their limbs ? " gasped Egon. 
 
 " No, but into their insides. Sooner or later they have 
 to come to me, and I rub their royal insides. You must 
 show me the whole leg. I cannot judge. I must see. It 
 is not so bad — be assured — as the Due de Vareuse. Poor 
 fellow, poor fellow." He stood watching Egon's move- 
 ments, and repeated thoughtfully: "I rub their royal 
 insides." 
 
 " Ah ! " he said ; then he grew silent, feeling cannily up 
 the muscles. " Have you a pain here ? " he asked thought- 
 fully, touching a point near the knee. 
 
 Von Roden assented. 
 
 " And here ? " said Barbolat, with a sudden snatch at the 
 heel. " Here ! see, is this sore ? See, when I press thus, 
 does the heel-tip telegraph to the knee ? " 
 
 *' Yes," said Egon. 
 
 A light came into the great man's great eyes. He rose 
 up. "Dress!" he said, and turned to theVindow and 
 stood looking out. Presently he faced round. 
 
 " I can cure you," he said. " These professors are fools. 
 The mischief is in the knee. It will take three weeks." 
 
 D. B B 
 
370 DOROTHEA. 
 
 He was gone, and Egon could hear him shouting a few 
 doors off : " Good-morning, most great and noble lady ! 
 How goes it with the great and noble body into which you 
 put too much ? " 
 
 Egon staggered out into the waiting-room, in a tumult 
 of hope and doubt. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur de Roden, what does the great man 
 say?" 
 
 Giulietta stood before him, dusty from a long night- 
 journey, inf awn-coloured travelling-dress. 
 
 " He says he can cure me." Egon wondered whether he 
 was speaking of himself: he did not wait to express his 
 amazement at Giulietta's appearance here. 
 
 " He will do it," she said. " He never takes doubtful 
 
 cases. Let us sit down in that corner. Oh, I am so glad ! *' 
 
 They sat side by side for a few moments in silence. 
 
 Then Giulietta said : " I shall never forget that I was the 
 
 first to hear these glad tidings." 
 
 " And I," he answered, " shall never forget that it is to 
 you I owe them." 
 
 Barbolat again stood in the doorway. 
 " Ah, Madame Pini," he cried, " you need not have come 
 again ! " 
 
 " But, Docteur " 
 
 "It is your own fault : why do you eat so many sweet- 
 meats ? You know what I say " — this before the full 
 room — " you are greedy : go home and eat greens ! " 
 " I am not a cow ! " said the Countess, bridling. 
 " Would you were ! You would have three stomachs. 
 Do you know what we most resemble, great and august 
 lady, you, who are a countess, I, who am a peasant's son, 
 all these grandeurs?" — a sweep of the hand. "A pig is 
 what we most resemble, in the taste of our flesh, as all 
 missionaries attest, having eaten it, and an ape in our 
 internal structure, of course. Did you all live on nuts and 
 green things, like your ancestors, I should only earn money 
 from broken joints, and not even that, for you would be 
 able to swing yourselves through creation without twisting 
 an ankle or spraining a thumb." He turned and walked 
 out. A murmur of appreciation followed him. 
 
 " How droll he is ! " said the parchmenty old princess, | 
 
 whose every feature bore out his statement that her ancestors J 
 
 had eaten nuts. ■ 
 
 Egon went upstairs and found his man-servant. " 
 
DOROTHEA. 371 
 
 ** The doctor says he will cure me, Hans." 
 
 Hans Sturmer laid down the coat he was brushing. " If 
 he does that," said Hans, " and God Almighty, on the 
 Judgment Day, says he must go to hell, for killing other 
 people, I'll offer to go in his stead, so help me God ! " 
 said Hans« 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 B B fl 
 
C 372 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Good-morning, most high and noble lord ! ** cried Bar- 
 bolat a few days later, bursting into the little berth like a 
 bomb. He left the door to the next compartment wide 
 open. Egon sidled behind him and closed it. 
 
 " Hey ? " shouted the doctor, whisking round. 
 
 " The lady who is dressing " 
 
 " Boy, do you care ? " 
 
 *' No, but I thought she might," replied Egon. 
 
 The genius laughed, and dug his thumb into the swollen 
 foot. " I leave all these doors open," he said, " so as to 
 prevent the possibility of slander " 
 
 "Yes, and you give ^us these ridiculous titles, because 
 you don't know the proper ones," gasped Egon. 
 
 " Do not be too clever ! Was I brought up to your 
 Almanach de Gotha ? It is human suffering I studied, not 
 human betise. 1 am the son of a butcher : I learnt the 
 structure of your noble frame upon my father's pigs." 
 
 " Is it really true that of all God's creatures the pig most 
 resembles man ? " 
 
 " Consult your recollections," replied the doctor shortly. 
 " Yes, it is true." 
 
 " Well," he added, " was I not right in saying that all 
 of you come to me sooner or later. I said it of Count 
 Roden-Rheyna, and lo, he is here ! " 
 
 " My uncle ? " exclaimed Egon. 
 
 " Well, I expect him this afternoon. He comes with a 
 very old friend of mine, the Count von Kauenfels." 
 
 " Yes, yes, old Franz Kauenfels. My uncle ? Whatever 
 can he be coming for ? " 
 
 " I shall know when I see him," replied the rubber coolly. 
 " There, you are finished for to-day. Adieu ! " 
 
 He was gone. Egon inquired of the Concierge about the 
 most likely express from Germany, and went down to the 
 station on the chance of welcoming " The Head." 
 
 The first person he saw on the platform was Konrad. 
 
DOROTHEA. 373 
 
 " What ! " said Konrad, " ordered here too ? In favour 
 again ? " 
 
 " No, I came unordered. Barbolat told me.'* 
 
 " Better go away," scowled Konrad. " My uncle don't 
 want you." 
 
 " As to that, I shall please myself," retorted Egon. " I 
 should not think that uncle Karl, at this moment, is 
 particularly satisfied with you." 
 
 " Leave me alone ! Why, you cut me in the streets, you 
 brute ! " 
 
 " I avoid you. But I have never met you and Lady 
 Archibald without taking off my hat." 
 
 " How kind of you ! I hope you do not find Montreux 
 too dull." 
 
 " It is certainly not amusing. However, I expect to get 
 back to Bel Respiro next week." 
 
 " What } cured in half-a-dozen sittings ? '* 
 
 "No, but I shall tell Barbolat I must come here later 
 on with Dorothea." 
 
 " Are you better? " questioned Konrad : and such is the 
 human heart, he would have felt disappointed whatever 
 the reply. 
 
 " Not yet, but Barbolat is satisfied. Yonder is the train 
 coming in." 
 
 Count Roden-Rheyna got out of a compartment with some 
 difiiculty : he was immediately followed by a very similar 
 old gentleman. Their appearance was dignified, but their 
 progress was comic, for they each had the gout in a 
 different foot, and so fell apart and joined up again, like a 
 pair of scissors. 
 
 " H'm ! " said Count Roden, surveying his two nephews, 
 "Which of you two is the greater fool ? " 
 
 " We have not come here, sir, to be abused, but to take 
 your orders," answered Egon, flushing. 
 
 " Quite right. The one excludes the other," said the 
 lord of Rheyna coolly. " Is there a cab ? " And the two 
 old gentlemen limped away, with Egon limping after. 
 
 '' The lame and the halt," whispered Konrad. Egon turned. 
 
 " And the blind," said Egon. 
 
 " I cannot have you both," declared the Count, as 
 soon as he was established on his sofa. "Konrad, you 
 can go. I should like to know, Egon, what brings you 
 here?" 
 
 " My foot," replied Egon. 
 
374 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The old Count's irascible face turned red. "Is that a 
 sort of joke, an impertinence ? " 
 
 " No, indeed, uncle Karl ; I am here for the same reason 
 as you — Barbolat." 
 
 "Well — after your behaviour at Lugano I could expect 
 anything, even your daring to insult me by making puns 
 in my presence. I shall never forgive your disobeying me, 
 Egon, but neither need we refer to it again. You will be 
 useful to me while I am here." 
 
 " I shall be very pleased, sir." 
 
 " Don't talk like Konrad. Keep your own individuality, 
 which is your father's, and let Konrad keep his, which is 
 mine. You should have told me you were going to consult 
 Barbolat : you are aware that, as the Head of the Family, 
 I have a right to know — it is my duty — where you are." 
 
 " You had forbidden me to write to you, sir." 
 
 "Certainly. Chatter-letters, not business ones. Well, 
 here you are, and here is Konrad. I came to see Konrad. 
 There must be an end of this." 
 
 " And Barbolat ? " 
 
 "Rubbish. Barbolat is the excuse, the explanation. 
 There is nothing serious the matter with my foot. I 
 accompany Kauenfels at his sister's earnest request. 
 Bathildis went down on her knees to entreat me to go 
 with her brother." 
 
 " I hope the old ladies are well ? " 
 
 " What a humbug you are, Egon ! Keep that inquiry 
 for Franz. * Look after him,' says Bathildis. ' He is 
 dreadful, dreadful. He will do something dreadful some 
 day.' " 
 
 " What sort of something ? " 
 
 "Vv/^hat sort of something would they dread? He is 
 sixty-eight : that is a terrible age for bachelors." Count 
 Roden stretched himself on the sofa and smiled com- 
 placently. 
 
 "At that age they very possibly marry," he said. "A 
 couple of years later the sisters will be safe." 
 
 '* But Count Franz has never wanted to marry." 
 
 " That is why. Well, at present, this business of Konrad's 
 comes first. I suppose you have no influence with him ? " 
 
 " I am sorry to say not." 
 
 "You need not be sorry. No brother ever had any 
 influence with a brother that was worth his salt." 
 
 " But who, if not a brother " 
 
Dorothea: 375 
 
 Count Roden drew himself up. "/ can influence/* he 
 said. " Your father was a philosopher : he talked to me 
 once of his categorical imperative. I soon stopped that. 
 Your categorical imperative, I said, am I ! " 
 
 He fell to studying his finger nails, of which he was very 
 proud. 
 
 " Perchance, in some far year of grace, 
 Philosophy will rule the race. 
 Till then, the work is done, you'll find, 
 By hunger and by love combined. 
 
 " Do you know who said that ? ** 
 
 " No," replied Egon. 
 
 " Dear me, I should have thought it would have formed 
 part of your education. But Goethe was your father's 
 favourite. I preferred Schiller : he was full of all the fine 
 fire and fizzle that never comes true in real life, but that 
 one likes, on that account, to find in poetry. Marquis Posa 
 and Philip II., for instance, how one enjoys that ! Just 
 because you know that, in real life, as soon as there 
 is more than mere talk about liberty, sensible men 
 immediately shout for the police." 
 
 He looked up at his nephew. " You want to get away ? " 
 he said. " You don't care for this sort of talk ? " — he winced 
 as he moved his foot. "An old man must find what 
 amusement he may. What do you amuse yourself with? 
 Where's your wife ? " 
 
 " At Bel Respiro." 
 
 " Dear me ! I like that ; I should hardly have thought it 
 of you. Alone ? " 
 
 " Her father is with her. And Mrs. Sandring.*' 
 
 " Ah, the Baroness Blanche ! Bianca di Casa Profonda. 
 Your mother-in-law," he laughed cruelly. " Egon, I derive 
 daily amusement from the fact that Bianca di Casa 
 Profonda is become your mother-in-law." 
 
 " I am glad to contribute in any way to your diversion, 
 sir." 
 
 "Don't be insolent. What I like about you, Egon, is 
 that you are the only sane man who has ever cheeked me. 
 I don't count the Child, who acted, besides, under your 
 moral compulsion. Begad, this Mrs. Sandring ! And Lady 
 Archibald Foye ! It is the new generation. Fortunately 
 we have nothing of that kind in Germany as yet." 
 
 " Yet Lady Archibald is a German." 
 
 ** But she didn't find a German to marry her : he, he ! 
 
376 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Kauenfels was telling me the most astonishing stories, in 
 the train, of the Biermadel's Biermadel days. Lord, her 
 conquests ! And now this idiot of a Konrad. I can't 
 see her attractions, myself ; can you ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " That is to say, I can see her attractions, but they are 
 not of the sort that would attract me. She has physical 
 charms. Not merely good looks, but — well ! Would you 
 mind ringing the bell? And pulling down that blind? " 
 
 Egon did as he was bid. " You received my letter, uncle 
 Karl ? " 
 
 " Of course I did, as I wrote and told you that you need 
 not send me any more. Well, I have a bit of news for you : 
 the marriage restriction is cut off, *as being distinctly 
 opposed to divine law,' say the Powers that be. Konrad 
 can marry to-morrow, if he likes." 
 
 " I hope he will marry wisely," said Egon, and bit 
 his lip. 
 
 " I shall see to that. In fact I have made my arrange- 
 ments. It is the reason why I am here. Shall I tell you : 
 why not ? He is to marry Hilda von Kauenfels." 
 
 " The niece ? She is only eighteen." 
 
 " Well, did you want him to marry one of the sisters ? 
 Hilda is her uncle's heiress : he once told me so." 
 
 " She is not beautiful, nor is she as amiable as her aunts." 
 
 The old Count struck one fist upon the other. " Why do 
 you always insist upon provoking me ? Ring the bell 
 again ! She is one of the biggest heiresses in Germany." 
 
 " And Konrad agrees ? " 
 
 " I should think so : are you going to suggest that he 
 should disagree ? I forbid you — do you understand ? — I 
 forbid you to prejudice Konrad against her." 
 
 " Of course, sir, 1 have not the slightest intention of doing 
 so. Konrad can look after himself." 
 
 " / look after him. It is you who have chosen to look 
 after yourself. And your father before you. But I am the 
 Head of the Family, as Konrad understands, and he shall 
 marry Hilda von Kauenfels." 
 
 " One of the biggest heiresses in Germany." 
 
 "And I hope that he will succeed to the earldom of 
 Rheyna. He says he is almost invariably lucky at play. 
 But my health is very good : it is admirable : it never was 
 better, Egon." 
 
 " I am very glad to hear it, sir." 
 
DOROTHEA. 377 
 
 " Do you know, I believe you are, you young ass. But 
 it is only because you grudge Konrad his better chance of 
 succeeding me. If you had thought there was the faintest 
 possibility of my dying within the year, you would never 
 have written that letter from Orta ! " 
 
 " Indeed, uncle Karl " 
 
 " Nonsense. I was delighted with that letter : it showed 
 me that at least one of my relations believed me to be still 
 far from my end." 
 
 " It is no use my repeating " 
 
 " None at all. I beg of you, go and find a waiter and 
 make him bring me something to drink." 
 
 Egon did as he was ordered : on the staircase he met 
 Count Kauenfels. 
 
 " My dear boy," said that old gentleman, " I am monstrous 
 glad to see you." But Count Kauenfels was known to 
 make this remark to everybody : he would have used it on 
 meeting his worst foe, had he possessed one. 
 
 " I hope your health is good, Herr Graf?" said Egon. 
 
 " Wonderful ! " That was the old man's other favourite : 
 it fell from his lips with a bang. 
 
 " Come with me into my room," he added. " Come 
 with me. I have something of the extremest importance 
 to communicate." He looked big with the fate of empires, 
 but then, that was his habitual appearance : in his youth 
 he had been secretary of legation, for a couple of years, in 
 Paraguay. " We diplomatists," he always declared, " we 
 say what we mean but we do not mean what we say." 
 The cryptic sense of this dictum he fortunately never was 
 called upon to explain. His entire attitude of soul was 
 importance, singularly single duplicity, transparent intrigue. 
 And all his ambition was that people should know him to 
 be Count Kauenfels and believe him still moderately young. 
 He sat down in a big easy chair and puffed slightly. He 
 was a fat man, and pasty by nature, but his valet did up his 
 neck with some scarlet concoction that gave it a healthy 
 brickdust look. He wore a large seal-ring on a very large 
 little finger, and there was a general impression about him, 
 somehow, of coronets. When he blew his nose, with a 
 white silk towel, old maids who had never heard him 
 before started and said " Ha ! " When he swore at his 
 servants they smiled, behind his fierce goggle-eyes. He 
 had been known once to give a little street-girl a penny : 
 she was pretty. His sisters he invariably spoke of as " The 
 
378 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Countesses, my sisters," to his equals; "The Countesses 
 Kauenfels " to his inferiors : he was usually rude to them. 
 But he allowed them to live in his castles and to manage 
 his household. Except for the shooting he never went 
 home, and then he lorded it over the whole neighbourhood 
 during a couple of weeks. At other times he amused 
 himself in the stalest little round of vices. He had 
 never checked an evil impulse, and he had had plenty 
 to start with. In fact he was a sort of caricature of Count 
 Roden, who always remained a gentleman, a philosopher, 
 and a man of sense. Count Kauenfels was one of the 
 people you do not remember having met ; you have met 
 so many like them. 
 
 "My dear boy," said Kauenfels, "as I have already 
 remarked, I am monstrous glad to have met you. We are 
 old friends, your family and I. You know who I am ! 
 Kauenfels ! " — the accent of this word is irreproducible — 
 " and as Kauenfels I venture to ask you : is it really true, 
 as your uncle tells me, that you have consented to drop the 
 marriage-clause in the Roden ' Hausgesetz.*" 
 
 A cloud passed over Egon's face, but the old man would 
 have noticed nothing under a thunderbolt. 
 
 " Certainly it is true." 
 
 "Then, my dear boy, you have probably thrown away 
 the earldom of Rheyna. Tell me, how do you find your 
 uncle looking ? " 
 
 " Much as usual.'* 
 
 " Ah, that's what relations always say. The Countesses^ 
 my sisters, always say I look as usual." 
 
 "Well, so you do." 
 
 " Wonderful ! But you are mistaken. I look much 
 better than I did a couple of years ago. I grow younger " 
 — he furtively stole a glance at his tongue in the glass — 
 Barbolat does wonders forme. But your poor uncle ! " He 
 turned up the whites of his injected eyes and sighed. 
 
 "There was a matter of importance " began Egon. 
 
 " I am coming to it. You young folks are always in such 
 a hurry. An old diplomatist like myself takes time to 
 say his say. But, in fact, we have come to it already. 
 Schlumpgen of Berlin told me, before we left, that your 
 uncle could not live a year." 
 
 " My God ! " cried Egon. 
 
 " Aha, you are sorry now." The old man took out the 
 white silk towel. " What did I say ? You young folks are 
 
DOROTHEA. 379 
 
 always in such a hurry. Wonderful! You should have 
 waited a month before you wrote that letter ! " 
 
 " But doctors are constantly mistaken ! What does he 
 say is wrong with uncle Karl ? " 
 
 " Heart-disease," said the old Count, with infinite relish. 
 
 " But people with that live to be a hundred." 
 
 " Not with gouty degeneration of the heart's action, not 
 with arterio-sclerosis of the stomach and kidneys, nor with 
 valvular misconstruction of the extra-peptic conduits." 
 
 " Good heavens, has poor uncle got all that ? " 
 
 " So Schlumpgen says, and Schlumpgen is never wrong 
 with persons of our quality. I made him write it down for 
 me so that I could tell the family. Personally, he told 
 your uncle that change of air 'd be the end of all his 
 ailments. Lord, Lord, how shrewd these doctors are. 
 Change of air. Within a twelvemonth. Change of air." 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it," exclaimed Egon 
 desperately. " What says Barbolat ? " 
 
 " Why, he hasn't seen him yet ; but I know what Barbolat 
 will say. He will say that your uncle drinks far too much 
 champagne. Barbolat is a genius. Wonderful ! " 
 
 "Barbolat will cure him," said Egon. "He is curing 
 me. 
 
 " Do you think so ? Well, he certainly does me a lot of 
 good. How do you think I am looking ? Well, that was 
 what I had to tell you, Egon. I am monstrous glad I met 
 you on the stairs." 
 
( 38o ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Next day the two old gentlemen had lunch together. 
 They were in high spirits, for Barbolat had promised to 
 cure them both. 
 
 On the strength of this promise Count Kauenfels took a 
 glass of green Chartreuse. 
 
 " I wish you would let me manage the business," he 
 said. 
 
 " H*m, h*m," responded Count Karl. 
 
 "After all, my interest in Konrad is almost as great as 
 yours. He is your nephew and he is going to be mine.'* 
 
 "Still, at present, all authority and influence rest 
 with me. As Head of the Family, I can put down my 
 foot." 
 
 Count Kauenfels was quite incapable of smiling at the 
 strangeness of this simile. In fact, he had probably never 
 smiled in his life : he could grin at a woman, and roar in 
 the company of men : of humour he had not the dimmest 
 conception. 
 
 " Your strength is your weakness," he said, looking very 
 knowing — putting on his full Paraguay secretary air. 
 " The sense of power makes a man incapable of negotia- 
 tions. In Konrad's case, you can command, and so of 
 course you immediately get angry. Now what can I do? 
 Only wheedle and be polite." 
 
 " H'm," answered Count Karl. 
 
 " Compare your own position as regards Hilda. You 
 can only bow and say * Gnadiges Fraulein.' But I ? — I 
 
 can say : ' Marry Konrad to-morrow or else ! ' " He 
 
 set down his glass with a flourish that spilt what was left 
 of the Chartreuse. 
 
 " Surely the latter is the more efficacious." 
 
 " With women, undoubtedly. But you put a man's back 
 up. It is better not to bully a man in affairs of the heart. 
 I can order Hilda to marry whomever I choose, but you 
 cannot force Konrad to abandon Lady Archibald." 
 
DOROTHEA. 381 
 
 Count Roden stared, growing red in the face. " I — 
 cannot — compel Konrad ? " 
 
 *'Well, well, you can, you can. But compulsioti is 
 always the last means we resort to. Let us first try a little 
 diplomacy. Let an old diplomatist try a little diplomacy. 
 The result is often wonderful." He threw himself back in 
 his chair and thrust out his shirt-front. " Wonderful," he 
 said. 
 
 " What will you do ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I must trust to circumstances, and to 
 inspiration. One always does. You remember Bismarck 
 at Frankfort. And I myself, when my chief was suddenly 
 taken ill at Asuncion, you remember " 
 
 " I remember," interrupted Roden with much vigour. 
 
 " Esparteros was a wonderful president," continued the 
 other old gentleman placidly, " the best president they ever 
 had : they kept him six months and then only shot him 
 because they wanted new postage stamps. * We greatly 
 regret it,' said the Minister of Finance, * we value his 
 Excellency highly, but the state of the exchequer demands 
 a fresh issue of postage stamps.' Their chief source of 
 revenue, you know, is postage stamps — .for collections — ^but 
 the constitution forbids a new issue as long as they've got 
 the same president's head." 
 
 " I know — I know," said Count Roden impatiently. 
 
 *' So next day Esparteros was shot," said Kauenfels with 
 thoughtful regret. " He was one of the cleverest men I ever 
 met, but I outwitted him. In that apple jelly business." 
 
 Count Roden struck a match. " Well, go and talk to 
 Konrad," he said, "and bring him back to me. I admit 
 that I rather mismanaged the thing. Konrad is usually so 
 obedient, that, really, when he told me to-day that he felt 
 attached to Lady Archibald, I — I fear I was rather violent." 
 
 Count Kauenfels broke into his roar. 
 
 " Pray, what are you laughing at ? " demanded Roden, 
 vexed. 
 
 " I was thinking of a keeper of mine who came to me 
 one day and told me his wife had smoked his porridge. 
 'But I showed her I was very much annoyed,' he said. 
 He had kicked her to death." 
 
 Count Roden bridled and rose from table. He disap- 
 proved of Kauenfels and despised him, but that was Count 
 Roden's attitude towards most men. Nevertheless, he was 
 too sensible to show his dislike to associates and equals, 
 
382 DOROTHEA. 
 
 who form, as he felt, an integral though independent part 
 of one's existence. He was never unpleasant to any one but 
 his servants and his kin. 
 
 Old Count Kauenfels proceeded to Territet, walking 
 solemnly immersed in his own importance. If a pretty 
 face passed, he saw it. 
 
 He was told at the Grand Hotel that Herr von Roden 
 was asleep. " A bad habit," said Kauenfels, who was a 
 babbler, and talked to every one. " To sleep after meals 
 keeps a woman young, but it ages a man," continued 
 Kauenfels, as he pushed past the red-haired head-waiter 
 and entered the winter- garden. 
 
 The head-waiter smiled enigmatically and muttered 
 something about " difficult to combine." 
 
 " You remind me of the Queen of Galicia," said Kauen- 
 fels, standing still in the middle of the floor. " Her doctors 
 ordered her south for her asthma, and north for her nerves, 
 so she said she would stay where she was." 
 
 The head- waiter placed a chair for his Excellency. " And 
 she died ? " he suggested with deference. 
 
 " Dear me, no ; she is alive to this day. It was her sister, 
 who followed the doctors' advice, that died. You a head- 
 waiter, and not to know that ! Bring me some coffee. I 
 shall wait here for thirty minutes " — he took out his watch 
 — " bring me some coffee and one of the three politically 
 important journals in Europe." 
 
 The head-waiter bent his bald scarlet-fringed brow, 
 expectant of further information. 
 
 " Dear me, you a head- waiter and not to know that ! 
 Wonderful ! Then bring me all three." 
 
 Exactly half an hour later he rang a handbell and sent 
 up a message to Konrad. 
 
 " An awakened negotiator may be too cross to listen, but 
 a negotiator who has waited longer than half an hour 
 would be too cross to speak," reflected the ex-diplomat, 
 as he buttoned his coat across. A civil answer came down 
 from Konrad, who modelled his courtesy on his uncle's 
 rule. 
 
 The old man puffed upstairs. "You do me too much 
 honour, Herr Graf! " cried Konrad, across the banisters. 
 His appearance conveyed an impression of hasty deshabille : 
 he was not as scrupulously oiled as usual. But he led the 
 way into his room with his well-known air of conscious 
 self-mastery. 
 
DOROTHEA. 383 
 
 " I am monstrous glad to see you," said Kauenfels, 
 sinking down into a great red velvet chair. 
 
 " How good of you, Herr Graf," murmured Konrad, 
 manifestly waiting for more. 
 
 " I often take coffee here after lunch," continued the 
 quondam secretary. " They have excellent coffee. And it 
 occurred to me that you will very soon be bidding us fare-- 
 well. Eh, Konrad, when does your leave expire ? " 
 " Last night," replied Konrad, smiling. 
 Count Kauenfels sat back in his enormous seat and stared 
 at Konrad. " Wonderful ! " he gasped at last. 
 
 " Oh, I'm sick of buckram," spoke the young officer 
 nonchalantly. "So I've written to tell them so. They 
 won't mind. Lord bless you. More young men than they 
 know what to do with. They'll let me keep myuniform,lwhich 
 is all the women care about. Put me into the reserves." 
 " But — ^your uncle ! " 
 
 " He will hear to-night. How kind of you to care ! To 
 tell the truth — you are so old a friend of the family — he 
 sometimes exaggerates his claim on one's patience." 
 
 "But what, in Heaven's name, do you now intend to 
 do ? " cried Kauenfels, still round-eyed and red. 
 
 " How amiable of you to inquire ? " repeated Konrad, 
 with exasperating sweetness of provocation. "Well — the 
 only thing I care about is horses : I shall make money by 
 horses, somehow. 
 
 " The only thing ? " asked the diplomat slily. 
 " Well, there is one other thing. On it I can spend the 
 money I make by the horses." 
 
 Facing Count Kauenfels stood a big hotel wardrobe ; its 
 wood cracked so loud, it gave him quite a start. But, 
 really, Konrad's smooth outrageousness was rendering him 
 nervous. He had no idea that he could be nervous. He 
 felt that somebody was hitting him, though he could not 
 have told you where. 
 
 " You can now marry when you like : you will have to 
 marry money," he said, vaguely snatching at something to 
 hit back. 
 
 " Indeed ? " said Konrad. 
 
 " Forgive me, my dear boy : our two families are as one. 
 You know who / am — Kauenfels ! " He threw out his 
 chest. " Do you happen to have a cigar ? " 
 
 "N — n — ^no," stammered Konrad, slightly losing his 
 hitherto imperturbable countenance. 
 
384 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Old Kauenfels laughed aloud. "Since when do you 
 object to smoking in your room ? " 
 
 "Since ages," replied Konrad, with recovered aplomb. 
 "As to my marrying money, I am not so sure it will be 
 absolutely necessary. I have never wanted for money. 
 You see, I am always so lucky, at cards, on the turf, or 
 whenever I have sold a horse. I am bound to win in a toss- 
 up with Egon. Already I look upon myself as the future 
 Count Roden-Rheyna." 
 
 " Your uncle's health is excellent," said the visitor, 
 annoyed. 
 
 " Is it really ? Well, then, I need not be in such a hurry 
 to marry." 
 
 Count Kauenfels bit his stupid lips. " Of course, there is 
 no saying — at his age, and with his gout " 
 
 " Oh, he will live to see my marriage. Remember, Egon 
 has always been unlucky. Look at his leg ! Of course he 
 has made an advantageous settlement, but any man can 
 marry money, if he don't care how. Now, I should draw 
 the line at — oh, well, in any case, I should draw the line." 
 Konrad finished off awkwardly. He was going to say 
 " hunchbacks," but remembered his rule. 
 
 The cupboard again cracked. 
 
 " You are looking very well, Herr Graf. But then, you 
 are younger than my uncle." 
 
 " Look here, Konrad ; you have always been a sensible 
 fellow. I do not know the lady, but I have no doubt she 
 is charming. Still, you cannot deny that this particular 
 episode in your existence, in any man's existence, has lasted 
 a very sufficient time." 
 
 The cupboard banged. 
 
 " I do not understand you, Herr Graf." 
 
 " You do not understand me ? Most wonderful ! L^chez 
 une femme, my dear Konrad. Avant qu'elle ne vous lache 1 " 
 
 " Laclie," echoed the cupboard. 
 
 "You are quite right. I understand you," murmured 
 Konrad gently. " Well, then, let me do as you desire : I 
 have no intention, dear Count Kauenfels, of pretending to 
 the honour of marriage with the Comtesse Hilda, your 
 niece." 
 
 "She is on the wrong side of the line," said the cup- 
 board. The glass door opened, and Dickie stepped out. 
 
 " How do, Franzl ? " said Dickie, extending a shapely 
 hand. 
 
DOROTHEA. 385 
 
 " Oh, I say, how unfair ! " exclaimed Konrad. 
 
 " I— I— 1 " stuttered Kauenfels. 
 
 " Am monstrous glad to see you," continued Dickie, and 
 walked across the room and sat down by the fire. 
 
 A moment of embarrassed silence supervened. 
 
 " * I do not know the lady,' " quoted Dickie. " Not 
 remember Schone Liesl ? — oh, fie ! * But I have no doubt 
 she is charming * — oh, you shocking old man ! " 
 
 " She is charming," said the old Count, stoutly. " I am 
 willing to admit she is handsomer than most." 
 
 " Most what ? Most of your souvenirs ? Go away, 
 Franzl, and preach to the Head." 
 
 Count Kauenfels rose from his red velvet seat. The 
 cushions paled beside his countenance. " My dear Konrad, 
 perhaps you will excuse my pointing out that I had asked 
 for a private interview? I had wished to give serious 
 attention to matters of serious importance. I understand 
 that just now you thought fit to be humorous, with this 
 lady — so near. But it seems to me there is no harm in her 
 hearing me say that I refuse my consent to the marriage 
 which is being arranged between you and my niece, unless 
 you return to Darmstadt at once." He struck his stout 
 stick on the floor. 
 
 " I am sorry you misunderstood me," answered Konrad, 
 showing all his yellow teeth. "The Comtesse Hilda 
 will confer on some other admirer the honour of her 
 hand." 
 
 " She is one of the biggest heiresses in Germany, you 
 idiot ! " cried the old Count, his crimson turning blue. 
 
 " Her back is bent by the load of her money ! " squeaked 
 Dickie. 
 
 " Hush ! " 
 
 " Oh, pray do not hush her ! But hearken to me. Are 
 you aware, Mister Konrad von Roden, that the Comtesse 
 Hilda von Kauenfels possesses sixty-four quarterings ? 
 Sixty -four quarterings ! How many princesses in Europe 
 can say that ? Her estates are the largest in North- Western 
 Prussia — her — her name is Kauenfels ! " He fell back a 
 step and gazed at the immovable young man with the 
 smooth yellow cheeks. " You lucky! " he said, with what 
 he felt to be scathing scorn. " You lucky ! Wonderful ! 
 Refuse Hilda von Kauenfels ! Pooh ! " He stamped his 
 way to the door. He had to pass Dickie, and she stopped 
 him with the most enticing move. " Kiss and be friends," 
 
 D. CO 
 
386 DOROTHEA. 
 
 she said, her big eyes dancing. He grinned, chucked her 
 under her dimpling chin, and walked out. 
 
 When Count Roden had heard the whole story, he smiled 
 a soft little smile, wonderfully like his nephew Konrad's. 
 " You have hardly been so successful as you hoped," he 
 said. 
 
 " I admit it. All diplomacy is based on an assumption 
 of average sense in your antagonist. And Konrad has 
 proved himself a hopeless idiot, an incredible, unspeakable, 
 unimaginable fool. What are you grinning at ? " 
 
 " I was thinking of your gamekeeper." 
 
 " My gamekeeper ! What gamekeeper ? What the devil 
 has any gamekeeper of mine got to do with Konrad ? But 
 you do not imagine we have got beyond the first phase of 
 the struggle ? " The old gentleman sat forward, pugnacious, 
 aggressive, with protruding eyes. 
 
 " What more can I do ? " 
 
 " I — I — Kauenfels ! " — he tapped his knuckles on the 
 table. " I never was conquered in my life. I have had my 
 own way, all my life, about everything. I shall have my 
 own way to the end." 
 
 "But not about the end," said Count Roden. 
 
( 3S7 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Of course I shall get my own way,'* said Count 
 Kauenfels. He cast his important goggle gaze around 
 Barbolat's waiting-room, which contained its usual crowd 
 of various nationalities and varied complaints. All these 
 people looked distinguished ; you could never have con- 
 founded one of them with the class which earned its living 
 by honest work. Prominent on a settee in the middle, the 
 red and white cockatoo lady was giving a deaf English 
 dowager minute information with regard to the birth of 
 the present Queen of Denmark's first baby ; in a comer the 
 Chancellor of one of the greatest European empires, nearly 
 blind, nearly deaf, nearly disabled by chalk gout, was 
 laboriously laying out " Metternich " Patience ; in another 
 Giulietta sat, picking yellow roses to pieces, while Egon 
 read her out scraps from a letter, Dorothea's account of 
 daily emptiness at Bel Respiro. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Count Kauenfels, " I shall certainly " 
 
 Count Roden interrupted him. " Have you been repeating 
 that to yourself all night ? " 
 
 The other winked. He was the only man in the world 
 to wink at Count Roden- Rheyna, who would have hated 
 his dear friend on that account alone. " You are annoyed, 
 my dear Karl, because I refuse to fail where you see no 
 chance of succeeding ? Leave matters to me." 
 
 Count Roden- Rheyna stood gazing at Egon. " Look at 
 that boy," he said thoughtfully, " he is, on the whole, the 
 better boy of the two." 
 
 " Is he ? They seem to me much of a muchness. Egon 
 is the better looking." 
 
 "And yet I should prefer Konrad to succeed me. 
 Do you know why? Because he reproduces my 
 vices." 
 
 " I do not understand you, Karl." 
 
 " Of course you don't. You have no vices, Franzl, only 
 habits." ^ 
 
 C C 2 
 
388 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " True, and one of these is self-will. I am most remark- 
 ably obstinate." 
 
 " All sensible men are, for they know they are right." 
 
 " True again. You are the philosopher, Karl, but I am 
 the practical diplomatist. Now, remember, if Konrad 
 returns to his regiment to-morrow, you will manage to get 
 him forgiven ? " 
 
 "Yes, but every hour renders matters more difficult. 
 And you will never " 
 
 " He shall start to-night," replied Franzl, with comic 
 decision. His hand was under his buttoned coat : he 
 assumed the attitude of a prime minister, posing. 
 
 As he walked down the hotel steps and out into the 
 street, he threw up his head. He heard a whisper behind 
 him : " That is the Chancellor." He turned : " You are 
 mistaken," he answered two men who looked like school- 
 masters. " I am Count — von — Kauenfels." He walked 
 away in the direction of the Casino gardens. " I told her 
 to meet me at three," he said. 
 
 Dickie meanwhile sat looking at a card which lay upon 
 her lap, between her pretty, turned- up fingers : " The 
 Reichsgraf Von Kauenfels- Courmayeur requests the honour 
 of an interview with Lady Archibald Foye, at three this 
 afternoon in the gardens of the Kursaal. No answer is 
 required." 
 
 " Cool," she said, for the dozenth time. " I shall show 
 it to Konrad. Always avoid complications." She went 
 out on to the balcony of her flaring little sitting-room — 
 there was always a good deal of scarlet about Dickie, 
 widow or not — and called down to Konrad smoking on 
 the terrace. 
 
 " She has one external fault, her voice," mused Konrad, 
 as he mounted the stairs, "otherwise she is all attrac- 
 tions, all the vices that are virtues in women of her 
 sort." 
 
 " Look here ! " said Dickie, flinging open her door. 
 
 " Yes. Well ? Have you answered ? " 
 
 " I have." 
 
 " Of course." Konrad took a cigarette from a tray on 
 the table. 
 
 " Why * of course ? ' " 
 
 " Women always do. I do not believe there ever was a 
 woman yet could leave a letter unanswered. What did 
 you say ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 389 
 
 "I sent him an open envelope with 'Dickie ain't 
 a-coming.' " 
 
 Konrad laughed. " All right." 
 
 " But of course I am a-going, all the same." : 
 
 " What ? " Konrad dropped his match. 
 
 " Oh, you think you know a lot about women. All men 
 do." She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " But you will make yourself ridiculous : he will not be 
 there." 
 
 "Won't he? That will prove him to know as little 
 about women as you do. And if he is, it will prove him 
 to know more." 
 
 "I do not pretend to know about women. They are 
 numerous, and no two are alike." 
 
 "Good gracious, I should think not." Dickie cast a 
 hurried side glance to the glass. "What is the difference, 
 Konrad, between a Reichsgraf and a Graf? " 
 
 Konrad laughed aloud. 
 
 " Well, tell me ! Is a Reichsgraf a Graf who is very 
 rich?" 
 
 " Yes, that is it," laughed Konrad. 
 
 " I thought so," said Dickie complacently. " How rich 
 must you be to be a Reichsgraf? A hundred thousand 
 thalers ? " 
 
 " Oh, a great deal more than that — a million ! " 
 
 " I wish I was a Reichsgrafin ! " sighed the Lady 
 Archibald. "You must give me some more money, Konrad ; 
 mine has all come to an end." 
 
 " So has mine, pretty nearly," said Konrad embarrassed. 
 Had the Biermadel possessed more discernment, she would 
 have seen Konrad look uncomfortable for the first time in 
 her life. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense : I want heaps of things. Mourning is so 
 expensive." 
 
 He went to the window and looked out. " I wish you 
 would not speak of it," he said. 
 
 " Of money ? True, it is a tiresome subject." 
 
 " Of your mourning, I mean. Why don't you get out 
 of it?" 
 
 She flared up. " A pretty question from you to me ! 
 Who is to blame, if I am put to the expense of wearing 
 mourning ? " 
 
 He shuddered. " My God, what a thing to say ! '* 
 
 She tried to get a look of his face : it was resolutely 
 
390 DOROTHEA. 
 
 turned to the window. At last she burst into a ringing 
 laugh. " Great silly ! Come, it is a quarter past three. 
 I must be getting down to the Kursaal." 
 
 " Do you expect him to have waited for you ? " 
 
 " If he has not waited for me, he has not come," replied 
 Dickie enigmatically, and went to get her hat. 
 
 She found Franzl sitting on a bench in the gardens, from 
 whence you commanded a fine view of the lake. But 
 Franzl was not looking at the water or the mountains : he 
 was chatting with a flourishing young Swiss " Nounou," all 
 red arms and parti -coloured ribbons. On the approach of 
 the fair lady in mourning, the nurse gathered up her charge 
 and walked away. 
 
 " Nobody ever contradicts me," reflected Franzl. He had 
 asked the young girl to stay, and she had stayed : he had 
 told her to go, and she had gone. Aloud he remarked : 
 ** What a lot of crape ? I don't like you in mourning." 
 
 " It is a protection against slander," replied Dickie 
 adroitly. 
 
 "You are not looking yourself, my dear. I don't think 
 this climate suits you." 
 
 "I am Lady Archibald Foye," replied the Biermadel, 
 " and this climate suits me remarkably well. But it is bad 
 for old gentlemen : it gives them the apoplexies." 
 
 " Well, then, my dear Lady Archibald, I see it is no use 
 attempting to get round you. I have always had the 
 greatest admiration for your head, inside and out. I am 
 monstrous glad to meet you here." 
 
 " Say something more original than that." Lady Archi- 
 bald played with her en-tout-cas, and wrote " Reichsgraf " 
 in the gravel. 
 
 *'You must let our good Konrad go back to his regi- 
 ment." 
 
 *' Is that original ? By no means. My conscience has 
 told me nine times in these last forty-eight hours. Yes, I 
 counted the times. It is a hateful thing, having a con- 
 science : it is like having drunk too much beer. I never 
 had one before " 
 
 " Before when ? " 
 
 " Never you mind. Before quite recently. Pooh, why 
 shouldn't I tell you, Franzl ? Before poor Archie was — 
 died." 
 
 " Wonderful ! " said Franzl, and felt if his cravat hung 
 straight. 
 
DOROTHEA. 391 
 
 "But I had nothing to do with that, mind. It was in 
 no way any fault of mine. Nobody could blame me in 
 any way. No, nor Herr von Roden. It was all poor 
 Archie's own foolish fault. He hit Konrad, you know, 
 without any reason ! Imagine that. And when a German 
 officer is hit, what can he do ? Konrad was very sorry : 
 he told me once " — her voice dropped — " how sorry he 
 was." 
 
 " That was ungallant of him," said old Kauenfels. 
 
 She cast him an angry look out of her innocent blue 
 eyes. " I too was sorry," she said, " and I have developed 
 uncomfortable feelings, in my inside, especially of nights, 
 I don't quite know what, or why. Poor Archie, I was very 
 tired of him. We should never have married. That, too, 
 was his mistake." 
 
 *' Humph ! " said Franzl. 
 
 " Do you think it was mine ? " she cried angrily. ** Do 
 you really imagine I wanted to tie myself down to him ? 
 Poor lad, he had ridiculous ideas on some subjects. They 
 ruined him first : then they killed him. That is what 
 comes of virtue. At college, you know, he was nicknamed 
 * the Vestal.' When I look back at his life now, it seems 
 to me like one of his own poor flat, exploded puns." 
 
 *' Quite so, but let us revert to our subject. The air is 
 getting chilly. You must send von Roden back to his 
 regiment." 
 
 " Impossible ; he has thrown up his commission ! " 
 
 " Nothing is impossible to Count Roden-Rheyna. That 
 is to say : Konrad must go back to-night. To-night." His 
 manner was very impressive. 
 
 " Who are those people out there in the sailing-boat ? " 
 answered Dickie. 
 
 " I have not the faintest idea, nor do I care." 
 
 " My eyes are better than yours, Herr Graf. They are 
 better than most people's. Do you think Giulietta and 
 Egon ought to be out in a boat by themselves ? " 
 
 " Why not ? Two married people ! " 
 
 " Just so. Well, what were we saying ? To-night ? 
 That is very sudden. I do not think I could possibly 
 get all my things packed for Darmstadt by to-night." 
 
 A cold little sunset wind came creeping over the water. 
 Count Kauenfels turned up the collar of his coat. *' How 
 very unbecoming," said Dickie, and he quickly turned it down 
 again. " You are laughing at me," he said energetically. 
 
392 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " No ? So much the worse for me. Let us get to business. 
 You used to know what business was." 
 
 " Oh, business," said Dickie demurely, and began 
 buttoning her already buttoned gloves. 
 
 " I offer you fifteen thousand francs if you leave for — 
 anywhere but Darmstadt to-night." 
 
 " Who provides them ? " asked Dickie. 
 
 "Never mind who provides them. I guarantee their 
 payment, I, Kauenfels ! " 
 
 " I think Kauenfels is a very ugly name," replied Dickie, 
 "but I like Courmayeur." 
 
 The Count had got up from the seat. She, too, rose, and 
 together they walked towards the gates. 
 
 " Well ? " he insisted impatiently. " Well ? " 
 
 " Call a cab," answered Dickie. A close one came up ; 
 she held the door open. He stood ogling her all over, sure 
 of his success, satisfied, as usual, with himself, and also 
 with her, thinking how well she looked, how clever he had 
 been to alarm her. By George, he had deemed her very 
 handsome at Kissingen — the Biermadel I By George, Lady 
 Archibald ! 
 
 " I refuse," she said. " I refuse. I refuse." She said it 
 half a dozen times, with such vehemence that the pre- 
 ponderous old personage staggered back. 
 
 " Wonderful ! " he murmured. " You refuse." 
 
 " Of course, you old duffer," said Dickie. Her neatly- 
 gloved hand played with the cab door : a lot of yellow 
 ringlets fluttered about the crape diadem of her bonnet. 
 
 " Dear creature, you don't expect me to go back to 
 Count Roden and tell him I have " 
 
 " Failed," said Dickie, and got into the cab. 
 
 " Impossible," said Kauenfels, and got in after her. 
 
 She put out her head on the other side, telling the driver 
 to proceed slowly in the direction of her hotel. 
 
 " You are greedy," began Kauenfels, settling himself in 
 the growing dusk of his corner. " I understand now. You 
 were always greedy. Well, you can have a little more 
 money, only a little. Do you remember, at Kissingen, 
 when you bought six tarts and ate them ? " 
 
 " I could do that now," said Dickie. "Let us go to 
 Mosergeil's and get them." So they drove to the pastry- 
 cook's and she chose the stickiest messes on the counter. 
 
 " Sweets to the sweet," said the old beau, when they 
 were back in their vehicle. 
 
DOROTHEA. 393 
 
 " I have heard that before," answered Dickie, her mouth 
 full of cream. " How much will you give me — fifty 
 thousand ? " 
 
 Kauenfels threw up his hands in the dark. 
 
 " You see, I am as young as ever," continued Lady 
 Archibald. "It is you who have aged, old boy. Have 
 you got a new valet? He doesn't smooth away the 
 creases as Johann did. What, it is Johann ? Dear, dear, 
 how sad. You want a woman to look after you." 
 
 " I feel better than ever I did," replied Kauenfels 
 energetically. "And I look better. I am twenty years 
 younger than Roden." 
 
 Lady Archibald removed the tart from her lips and gave 
 a low whistle. 
 
 " All women tell me so," he added with desperation. 
 
 "The flatterers ! Well, is it to be fifty thousand? " 
 
 " Quite out of the question. Who is to pay them ? " 
 
 " You. You want Konrad to marry your hump-backed 
 niece, but you are mistaken, / am going to marry Konrad." 
 
 " Marry ! " shrieked the old Count, so loud that the cab- 
 driver jerked up his horse, ere he jogged on. 
 
 Lady Archibald's voice changed to deep-set indignation. 
 " What else did you think, pray, Herr Graf ? " 
 
 " Why, you said just now you didn't care about marriage 
 —Archie " 
 
 " Times have changed. You must be mad ; you forget 
 that you are speaking to Lady Archibald Foye ! " 
 
 He tried to take hold of her hand in the dark, but she 
 drew it away. 
 
 " They have put me in a big red book," she continued, 
 her accents gone quite childish again. " I am somebody. 
 Archibald told me. A hundred million English-speaking 
 people, he said to me, would give the right hands off their 
 bodies to be in that book. There is a motto on it. * Virtus 
 sola nobilitas.' Archie often talked of it. Rank is our 
 only virtue, he told me, it meant." She put a tiny 
 handkerchief to her face, and wiped away a lot of crumbs, 
 and a tear. 
 
 " Pooh ! every tradesman possessed of a million pounds 
 sterling can get into that book," replied the Reichsgraf. 
 " Don't talk to me of that book. I am Kauenfels, I ! " 
 
 "I don't like Kauenfels," replied Dickie, "but I like 
 Courmayeur." 
 
 " Like me under any name, as long as you like me," said 
 
394 DOROTHEA. 
 
 the Count ; he got hold of her hand now, and she let him 
 retain it. *' Dickie, I always thought you charming," he 
 said. 
 
 " And how is Bathildis ? " answered Dickie. 
 
 " The Countesses Kauenfels are well," he spoke stifHy, 
 but he turned up the edge of her glove and stroked her 
 wrist. 
 
 " The dear bores ! How they must brighten up your 
 dreary old castles ! Well, that is settled. You were crazy, 
 Franzl, to think you could offer me money — any sum, big 
 or little — to perform your good pleasure. Let go my hand. 
 I want money badly ; that is true. I shall have it when I 
 am Countess Roden-Rheyna." 
 
 " Never ! " shouted Franzl, retaining the hand. 
 
 She smiled, but he could not see that. *' Go and tell 
 the uncle," she said. " There is nothing to stop me in the 
 * Hausgesetz,' * Herr Konrad von Roden to Lady Archibald 
 Foye.' " 
 
 " He shot your first husband ! " cried the infuriated 
 Franzl. She struck at him ; he caught her hand and 
 covered it with kisses. They fought in the cab with 
 pretty fightings, and when, at last, they desisted, breathless : 
 
 " I am monstrous glad," gasped Kauenfels, " to have met 
 you again. You were always a most delightful creature. 
 You are right, I am middle-aged and lonely. My sisters 
 bore me. You shall have a hundred thousand, Dickie, and 
 Konrad shall go back to Darmstadt to-night." 
 
 " So be it," said Lady Archibald solemnly. He waxed 
 quite enthusiastic in the moment of his triumph and hers. 
 They were climbing up the narrow Rue de la Gare : it was 
 full of people. Suddenly the cab-driver turned on a little 
 electric lamp that lit up the whole vehicle, inside and out. 
 
 Dickie sat up straight with both hands to her veil. 
 " After all, what does it matter ? " she said. " Everybody 
 will know of our engagement to-morrow." 
 
 Her companion gave a little jump, but otherwise he sat 
 silent. 
 
 "You can now go to my lord of Rheyna and explain," 
 continued Dickie. " Was it a wager, did you say ? You 
 have won it." 
 
 Still the old gentleman did not answer. He was looking 
 at his reflection in the window-glass opposite, and pondering 
 many things. I am old and ill, he was thinking, and very 
 lonely and uncomfortable, and if she absolutely refuses any 
 
DOROTHEA. 395 
 
 other arrangement — well, absolutely refuses ! She is even 
 more adorable than at Kissingen, and the daughter-in-law 
 of an English Marquess. And Bathildis 
 
 " Dear Dickie," he said aloud. 
 
 " Lady Archibald, please." 
 
 The cab stopped before the blaze of the hotel doorway. 
 
 " Everything or nothing," said the widow on the step. 
 She looked back through the window. 
 
 *' I say, Franzl, swear to me you never made a pun in 
 your life ? But I know you didn't. We shall be very 
 happy. Good-night." 
 
 She went upstairs and found Konrad. " Come into my 
 sitting-room," she said, "I have something to tell you." 
 And there, as they stood by the flicker of two hastily lighted 
 candles, " Konrad, I must have gloves." 
 
 " How many dozen pairs a week ? " he answered moodily. 
 
 " And ices, and a toy-terrier like the Princess Pulmarinski's, 
 that cost two thousand francs " 
 
 " A better one would cost more," interrupted Konrad, 
 with fierce -set eyes. 
 
 " And lots more things," she concluded gently. 
 
 " Well, see that you get them." 
 
 She swept him a curtsey. " I shall," she said. " Allow 
 me to present to you the Reichsgrafin von Kauenfels- 
 Courmayeur." 
 
 He stared at her. " What a title ! " she said, busy 
 arranging a bunch of red roses in the black about her 
 breast. " Cour — mayeur ! Nothing can go beyond that. 
 Poor Archie would have delighted in it." 
 
 " You are quite serious ? " he said. 
 
 " Quite serious," she answered, " and, what is more 
 important, so is he." 
 
 Konrad walked out of the room and across to the 
 Grand Hotel du Lac L^man. None of the nephews would 
 ever have ventured into the uncle's presence unannounced ; 
 he therefore waited ; Count Kauenfels came out, and down 
 the stairs. Count Kauenfels was beaming like a bride- 
 groom, full of Lady Archibald's beauty, amused, extra well 
 satisfied with himself. " Well, my dear boy," he said, 
 "Well, my dear boy! Off! Ah! Going to leave us? 
 Ay!" 
 
 "Yes, Herr Graf." 
 
 " It couldn't be helped. A man like me has to have his 
 way — or he'd burst ! " 
 
396 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Dickie's way," said Konrad. He left Kauenfels uttering 
 amazement on the landing. Count Roden lay on a 
 lounge, with that air of arrogant approval on his face 
 which his nephews knew well and hated. 
 
 " I understand perfectly," said the Count at once, " the 
 same thing has happened to me in my day. You want 
 a little money. Here it is. I have written to your Colonel. 
 You can take the ten o'clock train." 
 
 " He would rather marry her than admit that his stupid 
 diplomacy had failed," said Konrad. 
 
 " No, no ; things are never quite as simple as that. 
 There are half a dozen complications. He is a great deal 
 more broken than I am. And yet he is the younger man." 
 
 " Well, I am glad it is over," said Konrad. 
 
 " My dear boy, bear up." 
 
 Konrad looked full at his uncle. " I am delighted to be 
 rid of her, sir." 
 
 " What ? Do you mean to tell me you wanted to break 
 with a woman and didn't know how ? And you threw up 
 your commission ? Konrad, I could have believed such a 
 thing possible in Egon, with his virtuous qualms and 
 rubbish ! But you ? You have solved my life-long problem, 
 which of you, the humbug or the rogue, is the greater 
 fool?" 
 
 " I wanted to break with her,** said Konrad, his face 
 gone to patches, " but I was madly in love with her all the 
 same." 
 
 Count Roden-Rheyna rang the bell for his tea. " Really, 
 you must excuse me," he said. " You had better talk of 
 these things with Kauenfels." 
 
( 397 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The same days which saw the deliverance of Konrad— 
 for the time being, at any rate — witnessed also the tem- 
 porary enchainment of Egon. The fates are willingly cruel, 
 and, when God permits tnem, tney do a deal of harm. 
 
 Egon von Roden's first week at Montreux constituted one 
 of those lumps in his life which you see to the end, as you 
 look down the journey. One of the knots in the halter 
 Death twists round our necks. Nothing wears a man out 
 like objective boredom or subjective anxiety, a match 
 burning in stillness, without a breath of wind to blow it 
 out. 
 
 He had rushed across from Bel Respiro on Giulietta's 
 assurance that the great Barbolat never stirred away from 
 home. . Had not this masseur, as all the little inner circle 
 of Europe knows, allowed an Empress to die of mortifica- 
 tion, rather than leave his home patients in the lurch ? 
 "There are professors enough," he had said bitterly, "in 
 every capital of Europe to ensure that an Empress should 
 die before her time." Yet Barbolat was a royalist, none 
 more so. His ten children were named after ten sovereigns 
 he had healed. When he had healed the eleventh — but that 
 is a story better verbally told. 
 
 When Egon, then, disgusted at his flight from Bel 
 Respiro, disgusted at his difference with Dorothea, dis- 
 gusted at his eagerness, knocked at the big man's door, 
 the last thing he had deemed possible was to find it closed. 
 He had reckoned on returning to the Villa within eight and 
 forty hours. " Gone ! " said the supercilious porter, all 
 gold lace and mental superiority. " Gone for the first, and 
 probably the last time in his life. Suddenly called to see 
 his Holiness the Pope." 
 
 "The Pope!" 
 
 " * He can't come to me,' says Barbolat. * Besides, he and 
 I, we should sympathise. We two are the only equals, the 
 superiors of these tiny, big greatnesses. He holds their 
 
398 DOROTHEA. 
 
 souls, as I hold their bodies, in the hollow of his hand.' 
 And he is gone." 
 
 So Egon hung on for a few days. To go back seemed 
 as foolish as not to remain. He bored himself hugely, and 
 yet he gnawed his heart with sharp teeth of yearning and 
 fear. There was little hope in his breast ; still, all the 
 long-dead possibilities were suddenly alive again and 
 aflame. 
 
 Then came the decisive interview, the few quick words 
 of assurance — the immediate — temporary — conviction, that 
 here was truth, probable certainty, strength. The Titan 
 voice of the great healer seemed to Egon as the voice of a 
 god. 
 
 He went out from the presence-chamber, and found 
 himself face to face with Giulietta. During all the wondrous 
 week of increasing faith, of triumphant sight, that followed, 
 he found himself face to face with Giulietta. 
 
 " I asked your wife to come with me, but she refused," 
 said the Countess Pini. 
 
 " She could not leave her guests," replied Egon firmly. 
 
 " Very true. Why don't you sometimes go and call on 
 Lady Archibald? Your brother is often there." 
 
 " Lady Archibald has few attractions for me. Do you 
 find I bore you ? " 
 
 "Have I attractions?" 
 
 From the first she set herself to captivate him. Not for 
 any definite reason, but simply because such was her way. 
 Giulietta Pini was one of those exquisitely amiable, by no 
 means intentionally hurtful natures, that can no more live 
 outside admiration than a fish would leap to land. Every- 
 one knows shoals of them. Yet with her there was this 
 distinction to be made, that her conquests were not so 
 much the result of design on her part as the inevitable 
 outcome of a charming woman's persistent eagerness to 
 charm. She was a year or two older than Egon ; for a 
 dozen years, therefore, already, she had been an enticing 
 beauty in her Neapolitan home, where all youth is beauti- 
 ful, and most middle age plain. Not yet thirty, she was 
 painfully afraid of an early sunset. Old Pini was her 
 second husband. She had never known love, nor vice. 
 
 "Yes, I asked Dorothea to come, but in vain," she 
 repeated. " I am sorry.'* 
 
 " You think she would have taken me off your hands ? " 
 
 " Do not be so deprecatory. Or are you really diffident ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 399 
 
 " I don't know about being diffident. That don't seem 
 a decent sort of thing for a man to be. But I certainly 
 never flattered myself I was a lady's man." 
 
 " I should think not ! Was there ever anything more 
 detestable ? We have a few of them still left in Italy. * Ah 
 bellissima ! Graziosissima ! ' " She stopped herself, looked 
 uncomfortable, reminiscent of Pini. 
 
 " No, my husband is not a lady's man," she said aloud. 
 
 " I never said he was." 
 
 " But I very nearly did. One thing you must not mind, 
 in me ; I love to think aloud." 
 
 " Count Pini is what you yourselves call a ' galant 'uomo,' 
 a very different thing." 
 
 "You like him? Do you know, I am very glad you 
 like him. Let us go and sit over yonder, in that little 
 summer-house, away from this noise and dust." 
 
 They were in the Casino gardens ; a concert was going 
 on. 
 
 " I like him also," she said, " I daresay, if we compared 
 notes, we should find I liked him very much as you do." 
 
 He was silent, not knowing what to say. 
 
 " But don't let us compare notes," she continued with 
 quick change of voice. " Do you know your wife is very 
 sensible, to remain where she is, and not to come running 
 after you ? " 
 
 She repeated the words, sitting in the summer-house 
 looking away towards the lake : " Yes, your wife is very 
 sensible, not to come running after you." Still her gaze 
 was fixed upon the lake. ' " Absence makes the heart grow 
 fonder.' That is very true, especially when it starts with 
 being fond." She turned, with all her graceful vivacity of 
 movement : " Why don't you go away ? I don't believe 
 you really like me at all ! " 
 
 She had expected him to answer, in her own line of 
 trifling, that, because he liked her, it were dangerous for 
 him to go away, but she was doomed to disappointment. 
 Egon never paid compliments — they had formed no part of 
 his straightforward upbringing — ^nor could he utter sweet 
 nothings which, to the Italian, would have seemed less 
 than nothing, and not even sweet. He therefore gnawed 
 his big moustache, and said that he intended to remain. 
 
 " Her step-mamma will exasperate her, and her parson 
 brother will bore her," continued Giulietta provokingly. 
 " There is nothing more wearisome than the companion of 
 
400 DOROTHEA. 
 
 a youth one has outgrown. Your wife, when you first met 
 her, she was doubtless very sweet and good. Was she 
 shy ? " 
 
 " No," said Egon shortly. 
 
 " She is still sweet and good. I like her. But she has 
 a ' grand air,' a shrinking little friendly air, as if she would 
 say : ' Let us sit outside our hearts and be kind.' " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " said Egon. 
 
 " A great deal. Let us talk of something else. The 
 weather is very fine." 
 
 " Yes, and so mild for the season," said Egon, relieved. 
 " As I came along, I actually saw violets in bloom ; I could 
 not help picking some." 
 
 " Where are they ? " demanded Giulietta, with vehemence, 
 and held out her hand. 
 
 " I gave them to a florist to send to my wife. I don't 
 know whether you have noticed that the vegetation " 
 
 She was not listening. ''My God, to have been shy!" 
 she said. "Shall I tell you about my youth? No, some 
 other day. I beg your pardon ; what were you saying ? 
 Something about the vegetation. I do not care a sou about 
 the vegetation. What I like is flowers, and fruits, and 
 trees." 
 
 He laughed. " A rose by any other name would smell as 
 sweet," he said. " How untrue that is ! Smell an ' Ebenezer 
 Parkins', and try ! " 
 
 " And mountains," she added. " What are mountains ? 
 Conformation, aren't they ? " She rose to her feet. " Oh, 
 see — see," she said, " the glory of the sunlight yonder across 
 the snow on the Salentin ! " Her eyes sparkled ; her cheeks 
 flushed. She sank back on the seat and lay drinking in the 
 whole magnificent panorama before her : the cathedral -like 
 Dent du Midi, vaguely distant, white, lofty and holy, the 
 vast crags of snow in the background, the nearer wall of 
 grey granite, enclosing the wonderful lake. 
 
 " How beautiful it is ! " he said. 
 
 She started, as if some one had touched her in sleep. " Don*t 
 laugh at me, "she said piteously. "I — I think it is getting cold." 
 
 "Not yet," he replied, for he wanted to remain. 
 
 "Do you know, sometimes, in a scene like this, when 
 some one I like speaks to me suddenly, I seem to have got 
 far away, and he seems to have joined me where no one 
 else can come to us, and I am frightened. Let us go down 
 to the band." 
 
DOROTHEA. 401 
 
 Then he obeyed immediately, and gathered up all the 
 numerous fragments of her personality that were always 
 scattered around her, and they came away. 
 
 In the mornings, endlessly waiting for their turn with 
 Barbolat, they naturally talked and yawned about the big 
 saloon. They were not long allowed to remain inactive. 
 And, unexpectedly, they found their names coupled together 
 in a manner which Egon, at any rate, would have given 
 worlds to avoid. 
 
 One dark and rainy morning, Barbolat burst into his 
 waiting-room. Some two dozen unfortunates were lolling 
 on couches and in arm-chairs ; in his corner sat the Imperial 
 Chancellor, playing at " Metternich." 
 
 " Well, mon Prince, does it succeed ? " asked the rubber, 
 with a scornful glance at the long array of cards. 
 
 " It never succeeds," replied the Chancellor, in sepulchral 
 tones. 
 
 Barbolat cast his eyes round the company. "Where is 
 my Princess, the pianist ? " he shouted. " Hey, Punch ! " 
 (to the assistant). " Ah, true, she left yesterday to give her 
 charity concert at Vienna. She is cured for the present 
 until she again drinks champagne at her charity suppers. 
 Then she will once more have the gout in her wrist." He 
 yawned, with a roar like a lion's. " It is dull. Is there no 
 one can make a little music ? No one who can play or can 
 sing?" 
 
 " I could sing a little, if you liked," suggested Egon, and 
 the booby blushed. It has been said that he hated per- 
 forming in hotel drawing-rooms, but he could not have 
 withheld anything in his possession from the man who was 
 healing his foot. 
 
 " Can you sing, mein Herr Apollo ? Beware what you 
 begin ! I cannot stand bad music. Many are heard here 
 once, few twice." 
 
 " Lucky tyrant," said Egon. 
 
 " Doctor, you are a true connoisseur; you shall hear him," 
 interposed the Countess Pini, quietly opening the piano. 
 
 " It is my single distraction ; that and making mud 
 pies," replied Barbolat, who modelled very cleverly in clay. 
 Two minutes later he was back in the reception-room, his 
 shirt-sleeves stripped up as usual, his fingers all shiny with 
 grease. "Yes, that is singing! " he shouted. "You have 
 the tears in your voice ; it is that ! Ah, beauty ! Wait a 
 moment, my Princess, while I compliment him. But you, 
 
 D. D D 
 
402 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Madame Pini ; your voices must go divinely together. Sing 
 a duet. Sing opera-music. That ' Schlummerlied ' of his 
 is too sad." 
 
 He turned to the Excellency in the comer. "And you, 
 Prince, what say you ? " 
 
 *' I dislike music ; it disturbs me," replied the Chancellor, 
 poising a card between chalky finger and thumb. 
 
 " Come, come ; your game is going wrong." 
 
 " I was just about to win," said the Chancellor, eagerly 
 — his ashen countenance almost came to life. " And look 
 here — this king has turned up in the wrong place. They 
 always do." He smiled at his own bon mot. " They 
 always do," he repeated to Egon. 
 
 " Fie, you talk like a Socialist," cried Barbolat. " That 
 is the one point which Socialists and chancellors have in 
 common — their utter contempt for kings." 
 
 " Que dites-vous, docteur ? — m^chant ! " said a gentle 
 voice beside him, and, without further parley, the Imperial 
 Princess, who had got tired of her half a minute's wait, 
 swept past him out of the room. 
 
 For a moment Barbolat almost lost his aplomb. 
 " Foolishness ! " he said. " What does it matter ? The 
 Pope and I : we shepherd the lot. Come, Chancellor ! " 
 
 His Excellency rose. " It had very nearly succeeded ! " 
 he said to Egon. " Like all politics. By Jove, and all 
 love intrigues." And he shuffled out, chuckling, fornothing 
 spoils the temper like gout. 
 
 So it came to pass, in the inevitable sequence of devilries 
 by which men's lives are devastated, that Egon and 
 Giulietta were called to do the one thing they had tacitly 
 resolved to avoid. They sang together daily, before such 
 illustrious audiences that refusal was impossible, and pre- 
 paration became a necessity. Egon found himself alone 
 with Giulietta in her sitting-room of evenings, practising 
 lengthily, before the piano, the successes of the following 
 morning. 
 
 " You do not care for Gounod ? " said Barbolat, as he 
 pushed his thumb into Egon's knee-joint. " He may not be 
 first-rate, but I love him. You must sing us the big duets 
 from ' Romeo and Juliet.' " 
 
 " Choose something else," answered Egon, wincing with 
 the pain at his knee. 
 
 " But no : I choose this. I shall ask the Countess 
 to-morrow." 
 
DOROTHEA. 403 
 
 " Choose something else, doctor. There's such heaps of 
 songs." 
 
 "But why?" Barbolat stopped work, and looked up 
 with one of those wonderful glances that could see through 
 bones, and therefore certainly through eyes like Egon's. 
 However, there was no why. Or, if there was, the young 
 man himself had not discovered it. Disgusted, he said to 
 Giulietta that night : " Let us try this again," and, looking 
 away, he placed the music before her. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said. There was a great deal in the single 
 word, but he understood it all ; the long expectation, the 
 stubborn refusal to start the subject, the ultimate satisfac- 
 tion of success. 
 
 And they sang, for the first time here, by themselves, the 
 words they had sung in the drawing-room at Orta. All 
 the surroundings of Bel Respiro seemed to re-live around 
 them ; all Egon's thoughts he forcibly turned to Dorothea. 
 
 *• Adieu ! — de cet adieu si douce est la tristesse I " 
 
 " A — i ! " cried Giulietta, for Egon had sung false. 
 "That is quite a new experience," said the Italian, and 
 closed the piano with a bang. 
 
 " My dear Countess, a thousand pardons — let us try 
 again ! " 
 
 " No thank you ; I could not sing another note." She 
 went across to the hearth and began pushing the logs with 
 her red-satin toe. " Does your wife like the opera ? " she said. 
 
 " I took her once," replied Egon. " The chorus of fisher- 
 men sang ' Come, let us save the drowning Count ! ' during 
 fifteen minutes, and Dorothea laughed so outrageously I had 
 to bring her away." 
 
 " She is right after all," said the Countess. 
 
 " Right in what ? " he asked, curious to gather her meaning. 
 
 " I don't know." She turned full on him. " Life is not 
 a bit like an opera. Passion should be lived, not sung." 
 
 " My wife loves good music," he continued uncomfort- 
 ably. " Please don't misunderstand her. We were passing 
 through Munich last August and we went to the Schloss 
 Kapelle on that great feast-day — you know — in the middle 
 of the month " 
 
 She smiled. " You are a heathen," she said angrily. 
 
 "No, only a heretic. The music there is glorious, not 
 theatrical like St. Peter's. Dorothea was quite overcome." 
 
 " She must be a very uncomfortable sort of person to 
 
 D D 2 
 
404 DOROTHEA. 
 
 accompany to public performances," said Giulietta. She 
 slapped him on the heart, as it were, and he fell back furious 
 with himself for having so foolishly laid it bare. 
 
 " I shall go and see how my uncle is," he said, and 
 moved to get his hat. 
 
 She stopped him with a gesture. " Your uncle does not 
 want you," she said. *' You do not believe me ? Let us send 
 up a message to see." She rang for her maid. A moment 
 later Hans came down with the reply. His manner w^as 
 embarrassed. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " His Excellency says that — that " 
 
 " Speak out ! " cried Giulietta. 
 
 " He told me to " answered stolid Hans. " His Excel- 
 lency was playing backgammon with Count von Kauenfels. 
 ' Tell your master that he needn't disturb my game,' he said." 
 
 Giulietta took two steps forward, looking the valet hard 
 in the face. " And what more did he say ? " 
 
 " Nothing more, Frau Grafin." 
 
 " You lie, false dog ! " Egon started. 
 
 Hans — Hans Sturmer — grew brick-brown in the face. 
 
 " And I won't disturb his," answered Hans. 
 
 She broke into a shrill laugh. "Qu'il est drole ! " she said. 
 
 Hans, outside, in his native vernacular, used a similar, 
 but stronger, expression of her. 
 
 She threw herself back on an enormous divan, one of 
 those things no woman can sit on quite properly. She 
 lounged somewhat, and her arms were very bare, as she 
 played with the pearl pins about her head-dress. 
 
 " Have you not yet thought of another excuse ? " she 
 said, breaking a most awkward silence. " Pray do not 
 trouble." She waved her hand towards the door. 
 
 " I seek no excuse," answered Egon — what else was 
 possible ? — and sat down. 
 
 She looked up at him with grateful effusion, and certainly, 
 for the first time in her life, whether consciously or not, she 
 made eyes at him — great liquid black eyes they were. 
 " How good of you ! The evenings are terribly dull. 
 Were, I should say. What shall we do? Tell me — this 
 Giulietta, have you ever read her? — not the absurd opera, 
 I mean — the real thing ? Of course you have. I not." 
 
 " What ? Never read Shakespeare ? You of all people I 
 ever met. You, with your " 
 
 " What ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 405 
 
 But before he could find fit expression, " There never was 
 a poorer payer of compliments," she exclaimed, and she 
 went across to a side-table and found a little red morocco 
 book and brought it him. *' Read me this," she said. " I 
 got it to try it, but ahime, 'tis dull work making love to 
 oneself." 
 
 The book was Hugo's translation. Once more she lay 
 back on her sofa. " Let us read it right through," she said. 
 " Let us try to realise the parts." 
 
 " I'm an awful bad hand at reading aloud," he protested. 
 
 " What does that matter ? I never but once heard any 
 creature read well." 
 
 With this he had to be content. Nor did she, when the 
 first act was finished, express any particular admiration or 
 gratitude. Gravely she wished him good-night, and he 
 went upstairs and wrote a long letter to Dorothea, 
 
( 406 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Next morning Barbolat called him " Romeo." 
 
 Nor, for such was the rubber's invariable manner, did he 
 ever again call him anything else. 
 
 The days crept slowly by: there were really not more 
 than half a dozen, but they seemed to lag beneath their 
 weight of life. 
 
 The quarter of an hour — morning and afternoon — of 
 treatment was torture, absolute physical agony, such as it 
 requires all a man's strength of body and soul to endure. 
 All the rest of the day the knee was painful. So it should 
 be, said Barbolat. 
 
 Uncle Karl demanded a certain amount of attention, and 
 his temper was vile. Under no circumstances would Egon 
 have rebelled against endurable tyranny, but now the 
 verdict of the omniscient Schlumpgen, though he never 
 quite believed in it, made him specially gentle to the 
 suffering " Head." In truth. Uncle Karl was weighed down 
 by a number of miseries, which he bore with magnificent 
 fortitude, and vented on his nephews and his man. 
 " Kauenfels is quite well," said Count Roden. " What 
 does he come here for ? He says he has a pain in his great 
 toe." He hated Kauenfels. 
 
 Konrad had of course immediately returned to his 
 regiment. The little matter of his resignation had been 
 cheerfully hushed up. The high-bom, if hunchbacked, 
 Hilda had been told that, a few months hence, she might 
 order a wedding-gown. In any case, she would always be 
 wealthy, though Dickie had written prettily to Bathildis 
 and promised her an heir ! No answer had been 
 received. 
 
 During the few long days of waiting for Barbolat's 
 return, the differences with Dorothea, the little incon- 
 gruities and inequalities, had eaten deep into Egon's heart. 
 It is not good for a husband to dwell on such things — they 
 hardly hurt the nobler wife — and he had had too much 
 
DOROTHEA. 407 
 
 time to distress himself over them. Had he found the 
 rubber at once and heard his opinion, things would have 
 looked very much less glaring ; now everything seemed to 
 stand out. She should have come with him, surely. She 
 should have come to him. He had told her not to ! It 
 was not worth while. It would not have been, had 
 Barbolat at once received him and sent him back again. 
 How could Dorothea know, waiting on, from day to day, 
 in uncertainty? He did not want her to know, did not 
 want her to come. Yet it made him wretched to think of 
 their frequent loss of sympathy. He was not angry with 
 any one, only wretched. He kicked impatiently at pebbles, 
 with the foot that hurt. 
 
 After the doctor had spoken, came the great revulsion 
 of fear and hope. A few days of trial ! said Barbolat. He 
 could promise nothing as to the duration of the treatment : 
 he must see what turn things would take. Perhaps he would 
 send the patient away to-morrow, bidding him return for a 
 lengthier stay, in the spring-time : perhaps he might cure 
 him in a couple of weeks. Under such circumstances what 
 else could Egon do than linger on alone ? — and the days 
 passed, slow with fulness, as those preceding had hung 
 still in suspense. 
 
 Count Kauenfels* sudden engagement threw Egon into 
 frequent attendance on " The Head." The lord of Rheyna 
 awaited the young man's exit from the torture-chamber. 
 
 " Come and walk with me, Egon ! " 
 
 "Very well, sir." 
 
 " How absurdly white you look ? What is the matter 
 with you ? Have you seen a ghost ? " 
 
 " No, but the treatment is hardly pleasant." 
 
 " The treatment ? For shame. The treatment is alike 
 for us all. Look at me. True, there is nothing much the 
 matter with me. I have always thought you made a great 
 deal of your little ailment, Egon. Whatever you may have 
 wished, you would never have done for a soldier." Count 
 Roden repeated this opinion to Barbolat, who, for imme- 
 diate answer, dug his thumb a trifle deeper. Count Roden 
 squeaked. 
 
 "That is about a tenth part of what I have to do to 
 your nephew," remarked the rubber. 
 
 The Count did not ask whether Egon cried out, but that 
 evening he said to his nephew : " Begad, I wish I could 
 like you as well as I ought to do." 
 
4o8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 "Like me as much as you can, sir," answered Egon, 
 arranging the chess-pawns. 
 
 " God in Heaven ! Egon, I should have liked your father 
 better, if I myself had been a better man ! " 
 
 Egon sat motionless, with downcast eyes. A solemn 
 moment passed between them. For an instant, in the 
 great man's heart, a window fell open wide. 
 
 " Oblige me by ringing the bell," said Count Roden- 
 Rheyna. " Why the devil don't they bring my tea ? " 
 
 Like most men of sense, von Roden detested letter- 
 writing, but, of course, like most men of sense, he did 
 many things he detested. In one of his inevitable snaps 
 to his wife he mentioned the reading of "Romeo and 
 Juliet," and dwelt slightly on the charm of introducing 
 to the study of Shakespeare a creature of such artistic 
 sensibility as Giulietta. Dorothea's chatty response con- 
 tained a little say which left him breathless. "How 
 strange that the Countess Pini should declare she had never 
 read * Juliet ' before, when she told you at Cavalduna 
 that, as a girl, she had learnt it almost entirely by 
 heart ! " 
 
 " By Jove, that is true ! " he gasped ; he went upstairs 
 and told Giulietta. 
 
 For he took the volume up, and began where they had 
 last left off— 
 
 " Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds ! '* 
 
 Giulietta bent forward, as the passionate verses swept 
 down on her. Her eyes dilated : a sob of sympathy broke 
 across her lips. 
 
 He stopped short. In the soft lamplight he stood silent, 
 watching her. And she, all her soul in her beautiful face, 
 gazed at him. 
 
 " E troppo bello : mi fa paura ! " she breathed. The 
 Italian is ambiguous. 
 
 " I say, could you repeat what you told me at Cavalduna ? " 
 He was laughing at her : she started awake. 
 
 " No, nor what you replied," she said tartly. " Do you 
 take me for a phonograph ? " 
 
 ''Well, you told me that you had read this a dozen 
 times, that you knew it by heart ? " 
 
 " Is it any the less beautiful for that ? ** She looked up 
 at him with superb disgust : then, rising, splendidly poised 
 
DOROTHEA. 409 
 
 in the middle of the room, a crimson silk figure, dazzling 
 white and black — 
 
 •• Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night ! 
 That run-away's eyes may wink ; and Romeo 
 Leap to these arms, untalk'd of, and unseen ! '* 
 
 The words blazed forth in the burning Italian, rushing 
 and spreading like liquid fire. 
 
 •• Oh, I have bought the mansion of a love 
 But not possess' d it ; and though I am sold, 
 Not yet enjoy'd ! " 
 
 She stopped, panting. The logs on the hearth fizzled : a 
 little flame suddenly burst out of a piece of coal and 
 began to sing. Giulietta broke into laughter. " You know 
 the next words ? " she said. " No ? ' So tedious is this 
 day ! ' " She threw herself down among the sofa cushions, 
 and yawned. When she spoke again, she said quite drily : 
 " It was your wife told you, of course," and against his mild 
 protestations : "No, you never found out : you didn't 
 remember. I wanted : I didn't care — what does it matter ? 
 Oh, how stupid you are. Go 1 " 
 
 Egon sat down deliberately. " I maybe stupid," he said, 
 " but I intend to stay." 
 
 She scrutinised his frank gaze for a moment. '* You are 
 not as stupid as I thought," she said, and then began to 
 speak very quickly : " I want to tell you about my youth. 
 You misjudge me. I have been twice married : did you 
 know that ? My parents were very poor — of the worst kind 
 of poverty, black-kid gloves, greasy, violet at the finger- 
 ends, darned. My girlhood was all uninteresting misery : 
 sordidness, cabbage-smells, other people's clothes. At 
 seventeen I married an honest common-place wine- 
 merchant, to help them. It turned out a failure, he died 
 two years later, quite poor. Then I gave singing lessons 
 to support them — my father had become paralytic : he was 
 noble, he was unhappy ; he cried a great deal. And now 
 I have married Pini — why not ? He supports them, but I 
 did not marry him for that ! " 
 
 " My dear Countess " 
 
 "Be silent. I married him for his money. I married 
 him to become one of the richest women in the world." 
 She sat forward, leaning her chin on the palm of her hand. 
 
 " There are better reasons, and worse," said Egon, 
 annoyed. 
 
4IO DOROTHEA. 
 
 She twisted her eyes towards him. " You think I want 
 all that money for myself ? " she said. " When he dies, he 
 must leave me a very great deal : that is our contract. 
 And I shall use it for my life-ideal, my religion, my hope ! " 
 
 " Your husband said something of the kind at Baveno." 
 
 "He? — his religion is not mine. Oh, I am a good 
 Catholic : I hate a free- thinking woman. But the Church 
 is rich enough — what I care about, care about — see, my 
 money shall go that great artists may do the great things 
 they were born to — how, I do not know yet : there are 
 plenty of ways. I will tell you." She drew confidentially 
 nearer. " More millions are annually wasted in the useless 
 attempt, sixty centuries old, to make the world better : is 
 that not true ? But to make it more beautiful — eh ? " 
 
 She herself gave immediate answer. " That stopped at 
 the Reformation. I have nothing against you Protestants, 
 except that you have killed all beauty of form." 
 
 He would have interrupted, said something — " Let me 
 speak ! " She stamped her foot. " The service of beauty, 
 the religion of beauty, the belief in the gladness of beauty ! 
 Have you ever read Schiller's ' Gods of Greece ' — Heine's 
 ' Gods of Greece ' — you, a German ? Of course you have. 
 The old religions had their wiser faith in happiness. God, 
 the new day is so pale ! " She sank back amongst the 
 cushions, trembling from head to foot. " God has given 
 us beauty to enjoy," she whispered. " It has taken me 
 long years of wretchedness to understand that. I am 
 going to enjoy, to enjoy." 
 
 He sprang to his feet with clenched fists. The pain of 
 his knee shot up into his brain, but he didn't feel it. 
 
 " I have been very virtuous," said Giulietta. " Always. 
 My life has been very poor and wretched, very admirable 
 and filial, and all that the stunted padre says it ought to 
 be. And when I die and rot, I may go to Paradise." She 
 looked down at her rounded arm. " Paradise is here ! " 
 she cried. She stood before him : her chest heaved. " Good- 
 night," she said, and passed out through the door into the 
 adjoining chamber, and left him alone in her sitting-room. 
 
( 411 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Next morning Giulietta did not appear: there was no 
 singing. But in the afternoon she met Egon at the door of 
 Barbolat's waiting-room and held out her hand. 
 
 "I have a letter from your wife," she said. "How 
 sweet she is ! So good ! She asks me to take care of 
 you." 
 
 " You are ill," he answered. 
 
 " I slept badly : I have a head-ache. It is nothing." 
 
 " I do not like to think of you in pain." 
 
 "And you then? You suffer. I know how much you 
 suffer in silence. I asked Barbolat. And it is my fault." 
 Her voice broke : she hastened down the corridor. Egon 
 went to take his turn with the masseur. 
 
 Barbolat, usually so talkative, was silent all through the 
 operation : he squeezed harder than ever, and once or twice 
 Egon gasped. 
 
 " V'ld ! " said the rubber, rising, red-hot, with a final 
 jerk. " Wait a moment : I have something to tell you. 
 You have been a good boy. To-day I know for certain. 
 Your leg is cured." 
 
 " Cured ! Why it hurts like mad ! " exclaimed Egon in 
 disgust. 
 
 " I know. I am glad of it. See the little tendon here — 
 can you feel it ? No, nor could your fools of professors — it 
 was torn : it was dead. It has come to life again — ale ! — it 
 hurts. Now it will grow : we will put a bandage. You 
 can go home to-morrow. In three weeks you will walk 
 like me." He cut a caper, the stout giant : his clever face 
 shone with delight. 
 
 " Come ! " he said, and dragged Egon into the crowded 
 waiting-room. 
 
 " Lords and ladies ! " he shouted. " Behold the biggest 
 of Barbolat's big successes ! Romeo is well ! " 
 
 A chorus arose of admiration and approval. Every one 
 liked the quiet German, who made no fuss about his 
 
412 DOROTHEA. 
 
 magnificent voice. Only the old Chancellor looked up 
 from his game with a grunt. 
 
 " Now, I suppose you are perfectly happy ? " he said. 
 
 " Mais oui, mon Prince." 
 
 "The gods detest that sort of thing,'* replied the 
 Chancellor. 
 
 Egon tore himself away from the buzzing interest around 
 him and hurried upstairs. His one thought was to tell 
 Giulietta, to comfort her, to check her most unmerited 
 self-reproach. Nothing she had said or done until now 
 had so touched him as those tears in her eyes, for his 
 sake. 
 
 On the staircase he scribbled a telegram to his wife and 
 flung it down to the supercilious Concierge ; then he knocked 
 at Giulietta's door, and — perhaps without awaiting an 
 answer — went in. 
 
 It was the hour of winter twilight, still early in the 
 afternoon, and already the day was dying. Grey cloud- 
 land lay against the window-panes. Masses of white 
 chrysanthemums blotted the darkness like clusters of stars. 
 The room was over-heated, full of perfumes. By the still 
 glow of the fire, on the white bear-skin a bunch of Niel 
 roses. In her comer, amid the oriental cushions Giulietta, 
 in a tea-gown of dead-gold and lace. 
 
 He stood in the doorway for a moment. He saw her 
 dash a handkerchief across her face. 
 
 " Well ? " she said, laughing. 
 
 He came quite close to her. " In three weeks," he said, 
 " I shall walk like any other man. Barbolat has just told 
 me so. Not me only. Everybody. It is time." 
 
 She looked up at him ; her lips trembled. " He tells me 
 I can leave to-morrow. The thing is over. I shall walk as 
 well as any man ; I owe it to you." 
 
 Still she looked up at him ; suddenly she burst into 
 tears. 
 
 " Oh, don't," he cried. " See, I owe it to you. All this 
 great happiness, I owe it to you." 
 
 She buried her face in her hands, sobbing. 
 
 " Oh, don't, don't." He bent over her, distressed. 
 
 She lifted her face. " To-morrow ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But you will not go ? " she whispered. 
 
 " Yes, I shall go. It is better." 
 
 "Why better?" 
 
DOROTHEA. 413 
 
 " I don*t know. Do not you also think it is better I 
 should go ? " 
 
 " Oh no, no, no ! A thousand times no." 
 
 He faltered ; he hesitated ; all her beauty was about 
 him, like the opening breast of a rose. Her arms had gone 
 out to him in entreaty and abandonment. She was close 
 to him ; she was with him. He was at her feet, he was 
 beside her, around her ; they were together ; they were 
 one. 
 
 Outside, the darkness lay black against the window- 
 panes ; inside, the starry chrysanthemums shone in great 
 patches of pallor. The room was very hot, and heavy, and 
 silent. The glow of the hushed fire throbbed wide, like the 
 eye of a watcher that sees. 
 
( 414 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The midday sun lay warm upon the Lake of Orta. On 
 the terrace of the villa walked Dorothea, watching the 
 shimmer of the laurels in the radiant winter air. 
 
 " He telegraphed that he was leaving yesterday," she 
 reflected. " To-day, then, he ought to be here ! " And her 
 heart was glad, with a plaintive gladness, in that it could 
 once more, at thought of his returning, rejoice. 
 
 " I am glad I can again be glad," she said. For many 
 thoughts, and many talks, had come to Dorothea, with 
 strange new enlightenment, during Egon's absence. She 
 could hardly realise that not even three weeks had passed 
 since he had stood on this very spot. Barely three weeks 
 ago they had separated almost in anger, in such an entangle- 
 ment of disappointments as combine to make despair. 
 
 Mark Lester had rapidly passed through two stages of 
 feeling ; he had come, angry with Egon for being Doro- 
 thea's husband, and his anger had deepened to realise that 
 the husband was unworthy of a treasure no mortal could 
 fully deserve. For a day or two he had — well, not shown, 
 but not hidden — his dislike of von Roden, and had met 
 with calm sympathy from the Colonel, but with firm 
 opposition from the Baroness Blanche. " I won't hear a 
 word against my son-in-law," said the latter. " No, Colonel, 
 there are some sorts of characters you could never under- 
 stand. A man can be brave and yet never win a medal. 
 What I value in Egon is principle. Peace has her victories 
 as well as war.'* 
 
 The Colonel yawned. " How nice ! " he said. She 
 blazed out at him. " I have known hundreds of men in 
 my day," she said. " They always did things because they 
 liked them. I have only met one, in all my forty years, 
 who did things because he believed they were right." She 
 sat down and tapped her impatient foot on the floor. " In 
 that he is singularly suited to your own Dorothea," she said, 
 "in spite of all their points of divergence. They have 
 
DOROTHEA. 415 
 
 been so differently brought up, poor fools, and we all are 
 the children of our upbringing. Monsieur I'Abb^, you at 
 least should appreciate the qualities of my son-in-law." 
 She got up and marched out of the room. 
 
 The Colonel sighed, thoughtfully sipping his whisky and 
 water. " She realises his courtesy to her," said the Colonel, 
 " No woman ever sees deeper into any man than the 
 reflection of herself in his eyes." But Mark Lester sat 
 meditating, and next morning the second phase began. 
 
 He set himself resolutely to admire Egon von Roden, and 
 he did so that Dorothea might feel he admired her husband, 
 for he knew there is no conviction in perfunctory praise. 
 He could not be blind to the fact that she greatly valued 
 his opinion, that she looked to him for sympathy, that she 
 was perishing for a drop of deep- well water upon a parched 
 soul. They had been companions in youth ; they had life 
 in common ; nothing can ever equal that bond or replace 
 it. Even the most intimate husband and wife are strangers 
 half-way. 
 
 Mark, therefore, cunningly set himself to admire Germans 
 generally, and especially such peculiarities of aristocratic 
 German thought and sentiment as he, the radical, might 
 have been rationally expected to despise. Dorothea was 
 amazed to find him upholding the value of the duel. 
 
 " Mark — you — the duel — murder ? Killing your brother 
 in cold blood ! " 
 
 " It isn't murder," persisted Mark. 
 
 *' Do not speak of it ! " Dorothea's voice trembled. " To 
 me Konrad is a murderer. And — Egon helped him." 
 
 " I do not defend your brother-in-law," cried Mark with 
 alacrity. 
 
 " No, but you defend my husband ! " 
 
 "You must allow I have small reason for doing so ; he 
 carried you away from Brodryck. But to shoot a man in 
 open duel is not murder, and a second in a duel is not a 
 murderer." 
 
 "Mark — you! A minister of the Gospel! And the 
 soul that is sent to its account ! " Dorothea's voice 
 sank low. 
 
 " How many souls are sent to their account by right 
 worshipful judges ? How many of these are innocently 
 slain ? Listen to me, Dorothea, if justice were to be had 
 on earth between man and man, then the duel were a 
 crime. But now it is often the one safeguard of the home ; 
 
4i6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 it is the single defence of the weak (who can learn fencing) 
 against the strong man who uses his fists." 
 
 " ' Vengeance is mine ; I will repay ' ! " cried Dorothea. 
 
 "So He does : often more surely by the weapon of the 
 duellist than by the legal jabber of the judge." 
 
 " You are wrong ! You are wrong ! " 
 
 Mark laughed. " Even if I were," he said, " what would 
 that prove ? Did you expect to marry a foreign noble and 
 then find that he thought on all matters like aunt Mary ? " 
 
 Dorothea started ; he followed up his advantage. " Do 
 you think that God, whose mercy, and whose sorrow, are on 
 all things, sees only the pulpit of Brodryck church ? " 
 
 " Mark ! " 
 
 " Dorothea, his ' right,' I am sure, is your ' right/ but you 
 cannot expect your ' wrong ' to be his * wrong.' " 
 
 " Say that again ! Say it again ! " 
 
 " I tell you," he repeated almost impatiently, carried on by 
 his eagerness to convince himself, " because you have married 
 a man that is upright and chivalrous hearted, you will find his 
 highest idea of right to be yours ; you are favoured among 
 women. But you cannot, except in utter unreasonableness, 
 expect that all you deem wrong should look as wrong to him." 
 
 She turned to him ; her eyes were woe-begone. " You, 
 too, then, accuse me of self-righteousness ? " 
 
 Into his thin face, transparent with suffering, came a look 
 she had never seen there before. Her eyes sank. 
 
 " I accuse you," he said very gently, " of living nearer to 
 God than either he or I." 
 
 And he went away, unconscious of his want of logic, 
 conscious only of the wound in his heart. 
 
 When she met him a couple of hours later, they talked 
 of other things, of a hundred trifling interests at Brodryck 
 — the lodge-children, old somebody's rheumatiz. The 
 Colonel yawned terribly. 
 
 " I am going away," he said to his wife. " I cannot stay 
 till after Christmas. I am dying for a sight of Monte Carlo." 
 
 " You may go ; I must stay," replied the Baroness 
 Blanche. 
 
 " What ? — this sort of thing amuses you ? Why, your 
 very back-hair looks bored." 
 
 " I know what I now owe to the duties of my position. 
 1 am Mrs. Sandring. I shall stay with your daughter." 
 
 The Colonel first broke into laughter : then he held out 
 his hand. " Y'aint half a bad sort," said the Colonel. 
 
DOROTHEA. 417 
 
 But the Baroness told him very plainly, that she hated 
 vulgarity, to which she had never been accustomed in the 
 saloons of the Casa Profondas. 
 
 Undeniably Sandring required a stock of patience at 
 Bel Respiro, where he missed most things that rendered 
 life enjoyable to him. Not all, for his son-in-law's small 
 stock of wine was excellent, and his cigars came direct 
 from a first-rate house at Havannah. But, as the Colonel 
 said himself, he must have the Boulevard or the Bush. In 
 the perfect little house with its exquisite view, its choice 
 knick-knacks, its air of white blossoms and empty arm- 
 chairs, he groaned for variety — les varietes. His only dis- 
 traction was occasional billiards — down at the albergo — 
 with Mark Lester (who might have played better, but the 
 table could not have been worse ! ), and more frequent strolls 
 in the woods with the same companion, who favoured a 
 brisk pace, while the Colonel preferred to dawdle. " But he 
 isn't what you'd thought he'd have been," said the Colonel 
 with enigmatic praise, "considering he's a sort of parson- 
 chap. For I suppose he is a sort of parson : they must 
 have some kind of ordination in those parts." The Colonel's 
 experience of matters ecclesiastical was limited. " All the 
 same," he remarked to Dorothea, " if I was going to * bless 
 the timely,' as Egon calls it, I should send for a regular 
 priest." 
 
 " Why not send for him now ? " suggested Dorothea with 
 generous Catholicism. 
 
 " Bless you, what should I have to say to him, child ? 
 No, your parson has distinct advantages : his play at 
 billiards is poor, but he enjoys an enjoyable cigar." 
 
 When Lester, however, began to praise Egon's good 
 qualities, the Colonel experienced a keen pang of dis- 
 appointment. Not so much on accoimt of the praise. 
 " They all hang together after all," said the Colonel. By 
 " all " he meant " the goodies," and by " goodies " he 
 thought he meant the people who deemed themselves 
 better than others, but in reality he meant those distinct 
 individuals whom he felt to be palpably higher principled 
 than himself. 
 
 When Egon's telegram came the Colonel only said : " We 
 can leave on Wednesday by the nine-thirty boat " — and on 
 Wednesday, by the nine- thirty boat, Dorothea had seen them 
 depart. But before they went, in the early morning, the 
 Baroness had come into her step-daughter's room. The 
 
 D. E E 
 
4i8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Baroness was not so beautiful of mornings, especially not 
 ere she had been generally trimmed. She looked rather like 
 a soiled flower-basket, before they have put in the flowers. 
 
 " My dear Dorothea, I have come to thank you," she said. 
 " I only just want heartily to thank you, and then I shall 
 go away." In fact, she already moved towards the door. 
 
 " It is / should thank you for keeping me company." 
 
 " Do not say that. I am not thanking you for having 
 us to stay with you. Please, please understand me, if I 
 say very little. I don't want to say much. I should like 
 to kiss you, once, before we go, Dorothea. Oh, not the 
 sort of pecks we women constantly exchange. Do you 
 remember Lugano and your wedding morning ? God bless 
 you and him." 
 
 Dorothea rose up and warmly embraced Mrs. Sandring. 
 
 "You remember the little book you gave me in the 
 train ? " whispered that lady in her ear. " I have always 
 kept it with me. It shall be buried with me — ugh ! " 
 
 " And you read it ? " said Dorothea eagerly. 
 
 " No, dear child : it would give me the blues. And see, 
 what would your father do, if I had the blues ? Married 
 women cannot afford to be devotes. Even you, Dorothea, 
 do not be too good for your husband. Forgive him all 
 things. Adieu ! " 
 
 " She is right," said Dorothea, left to herself. " Mark is 
 right, I will try to understand everything, to make allow- 
 ances for his views on many subjects, to sympathise in all 
 things, to be his companion and his friend. And I will 
 forgive, everything, if ever there should be need for such 
 a word." 
 
 When her father and Mrs. Sandring had left, she called to 
 Mark, by his window. Usually he responded immediately : 
 she looked, expectant, for the pleasantly familiar face 
 behind the glass. But the panes remained dull : there 
 would be no more talks along the hill-side. For only 
 response a servant brought her a note : 
 
 " I have gone away too. No facheux troisieme may 
 disturb this wonderful meeting. He comes back to you, 
 cured. I am much better : I thank you from the bottom of 
 my heart for all your kindness. God bless you, Dorothea! " 
 
 She was grieved by Mark's conduct at first, for which 
 she could find not the least explanation. Then she under- 
 stood it was delicacy on his part, the fear lest she should 
 seek to retain him or not know how to let him slip away. 
 
DOROTHEA. 419 
 
 She walked ofiE rapidly, by herself, feeling doubly alone 
 in the sudden silence of all her surroundings, yearning 
 doubly for Egon's home-coming, not sorry, after all, that 
 Mark should be gone (the fdcheux troisieme: there was 
 truth in it !), now that so soon the house would be utterly 
 filled. 
 
 The twelve o'clock train did not bring him : she lunched 
 by herself. All the afternoon she waited in solitude, alone 
 with her thoughts of him. The dinner-hour came : she sat 
 down at the head of her table : with a strange little sinking 
 she realised that she had never spent a day thus before, 
 never had a meal by herself. And the whole house seemed 
 to thrill with a passionate desire for its master — her lord. 
 
 She was sitting in the small drawing-room, after dinner, 
 a book on her lap. She looked up from its pages, and saw 
 him standing in the doorway — in the doorway that led to 
 the larger chamber, under the loop of a portiere. 
 
 " Egon ! " She leaped to her feet and came towards 
 him. She saw that he looked pale — ^no wonder — but also 
 she saw, with amazement, that he stretched out his hand 
 to ward her off. 
 
 She faltered. " Haven't you forgiven me,'* she said. 
 " Are you angry still ? Egon, I didn't write it, because I 
 would rather say it. I want to confess." 
 
 She paused for a moment. He didn't help her. 
 
 " Dear husband, I have not been a wise wife, though I've 
 always been a loving. You have a right to think differently 
 on many subjects from what I do. We will talk matters 
 over. You — you will help me. We will never quarrel 
 any more." i 
 
 A groan burst from him, painfully audible. She shrank 
 aside, as if a shot had been fired at her breast. " You are 
 ill ? " she cried. " Is there anything wrong ? " — and ran 
 forward. Again he made the quick movement which flung 
 her back. 
 
 " Listen to me first : I have something to say." He came 
 nearer, passing into the shadow. His voice sounded so 
 strange, she would not have recognised it. 
 
 " But tell me first : is it true ? Your telegram said so 
 little ! You still walk lame ! " 
 
 " In three weeks' time I shall walk like any other man. 
 But that " 
 
 " Oh, Egon, how good God is ! We shall thank Him 
 together " 
 
 £ £ 2 
 
420 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Yes. Listen to me, Dorothea — listen. I too have got 
 something to confess." 
 
 " Don't let us talk any more about it, darling. I know 
 all you would say, but it was my fault. Come, sit down : 
 take off your things. Why, Egon, your coat is quite wet — 
 is it raining ? Let me help you." 
 
 " Mine is a real confession, not nonsense like yours." 
 
 His accents stopped her : she turned pale. " What is it ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " Dorothea, most men — ay, and women — will say I am 
 a fool now as well as a blackguard. Or perhaps they will 
 say I am doubly a blackguard, a small one, to have done 
 this thing, and a big one to tell you of it." 
 
 " Oh, Egon, do not look like that ! What is this thing ? 
 Have you, too, shot a man in a duel ? " The tears rose in 
 her throat. 
 
 " Worse than that. A thousand times worse. Can't you 
 guess ? " 
 
 " No ! " Her voice was hoarse with uncertain anxiety. 
 " For the love of mercy, speak ! " The thought flashed 
 across her brain that he might have struck down Konrad 
 in a quarrel. 
 
 Then he spoke at once. " I have been faithless. It 
 would be useless for me to try and keep it secret. I cannot. 
 That is simply all my explanation : I cannot. I cannot go 
 on day by day, living a lie to you." 
 
 He stood looking at her, looking away. 
 
 " Oh, Dorothea ! Dorothea, speak to me. Perhaps you 
 don't quite understand. Oh, for God's sake, don't fall ! " 
 He sprang forward to catch at her. But she had sunk 
 back on some cushions behind her. 
 
 " Hush ! I understand," she said. 
 
 " You must let me explain. See, now I have told you, 
 rightly or wrongly, you must hear me." 
 
 " Hear you," she repeated, staring straight in front of 
 her. " Oh, no, no, no. I do not want to hear you." 
 
 " Hear me ! Hear me ! " 
 
 " Spare me," she whispered. " Surely you have told me 
 enough — surely you would not have me listen to details ? 
 Surely every further word between us on the subject were 
 — monstrous. Let us be silent, both." 
 
 " Then you forgive me ? Oh, Dorothea, you are an 
 angel ! you forgive me ? " 
 
 " You must leave me time," she answered, and her eyes, 
 
DOROTHEA. 421 
 
 as she looked at him, dilated. " I will try to forgive you. 
 I shall ask God to help me. No, I do not forgive you : it 
 is no use. Neither can / lie to you.'' 
 
 " I will do anything," he said miserably, " anything to 
 make atonement. What can I do ? " 
 
 " Nothing," she said, and began to weep. 
 
 He turned away, and flung himself against the wall. 
 
 When she spoke again, she repeated " Nothing," and 
 then she dried her eyes. " You were right to speak," she 
 said. "There was no other way. You could not have 
 lived this falsehood towards me. It is over : I was fond of 
 you, Egon, and I thought you were fond of me, with all 
 my faults.*' She rose. " It is over. You should not have 
 married me, but that was not my fault. I wish I could 
 help you, but I cannot. It is over. There is nothing more 
 to be said." 
 
 He turned his white face from the wall. " What do you 
 mean ? " he said. 
 
 " You must leave me this house to-night. I — I do not 
 think I could go away to-night." 
 
 " Dorothea ! Wife ! " 
 
 " Wife ? " she said. " No. You do not mean that, Egon. 
 You yourself tell me all that is over. You do not mean to 
 say that, now you have broken our marriage, I could stay 
 with you — as — as " She stopped. 
 
 He did not speak. 
 
 " I can go away — away," she murmured, " but you must 
 leave me this house to-night." She looked at him, dumbly, 
 with eyes full of prayer. 
 
 " If you wish it, of course," he said desperately. He 
 moved towards the door ; then, by a sudden impulse, came 
 close. " Give me one kiss," he said. 
 
 But she fell back, crying and weeping. "Don't touch 
 me ! Oh, don't touch me. I love you, Egon ! I love you ! 
 Don't touch me ! I love you, Egon ; I love you. Don't 
 touch me ! " 
 
 When she opened her eyes, he was gone. 
 
( 423 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 When she opened her eyes, she was alone. 
 
 That was the first thing she realised, and the last. She 
 was alone. She began to pace up and down the long 
 drawing-room, trying dimly to understand what had 
 happened, to gather together the fragments, the little that 
 seemed left of her young life. She looked up at the della 
 Robbia, vaguely, and noticed a stain on the carpet she 
 never had seen there before. 
 
 This sort of thing happened occasionally in classical 
 French tragedy : she had read of it there. The characters 
 made magnificent speeches ; it was very splendid and sad. 
 
 Within her own circle of acquaintance, her knowledge of 
 the world as it lives and breathes, such experiences simply 
 were not. People who cared for fictitious emotions paid 
 for them, in the theatres, at so much a night. She knew 
 few people who went to theatres : theatres were wrong. 
 ' " O Lord God, have mercy upon me ! O Lord Christ, 
 have mercy upon me ! " She said the words over and over 
 again, a dozen times, without much belief in their efficacy, 
 without understanding what they could do to relieve her. 
 She pressed her hot cheeks against the window-pane. The 
 next moment she was out in the chilly night. Cold — that 
 was what she wanted — ^bitter, burning cold. 
 
 She w^andered down to the silent water. The whole 
 landscape lay dark, a vagueness of heavy hill outline and 
 dull black expanse. The last twinkle of human habitude 
 had faded from the midnight winter desolation. Up in 
 heaven the lowering clouds left a strangely long-drawn 
 rift, in whose distance dimly flickered one solitary star. 
 
 She stood by the water, thinking of nothing : she looked 
 up at the star. 
 
 The next thing she knew was that she was walking along 
 the high road. She had reached the comer by the path to 
 Rocca del Monte, where the dilapidated chapel stands. Its 
 black bulk loomed beside her. The faded Madonna was 
 
DOROTHEA, 423 
 
 there, in the niche, unseen, with the bleeding, dead Son upon 
 her knees. She felt them close upon her, the hideous group. 
 And the words of the chapel cornice flamed out into the 
 night : 
 
 " O voi che passate per questa via, 
 Guardate ben che vi non sia 
 Maggior dolor che quell' immense dolor di Maria ! " 
 
 The first time she had read them their curious appeal had 
 sunk into Dorothea's congenial fancy. Now they seemed 
 to be eating their way into her intellect. 
 
 " Guardate ! — Guardate ! " She began to reason to her- 
 self, despairingly angry with Egon. 
 
 '* I am not to blame," she said aloud, on the high road. 
 " The sins of the fathers are visited on the children, and 
 the sins of the husbands on the wives." The fierce thought 
 carried with it unutterable comfort. She lifted her eyes 
 into far heaven. The opening had widened ; a hundred 
 lights across it shone dumbly down. 
 
 Bible texts rose within her, bubbling and bursting like 
 air-balls on the surface of her soul. " The throne of His 
 Majesty is in the heavens " — " He measureth the waters in 
 the hollow of His hands " — " Praise Him in the firmament 
 of His power " 
 
 " Oh, why dost Thou not speak to us in a language we 
 can understand ? " she cried. She had shrieked the words 
 in her anger. A figure, slouching by in the darkness, 
 stopped. 
 
 " What's the matter with you ? " said the man. 
 
 " Nothing. Good-night." 
 
 " Have you money ? Give it me." 
 
 " I have no money." 
 
 To her horror, he struck a match, revealing her, for the 
 moment, in her light evening clothes, with jewels about her 
 neck and arms. 
 
 " A madwoman," said the tramp, in a matter-of-fact 
 tone. " But that is no business of mine. Give me those 
 ornaments, quick ! " 
 
 She stripped them off eagerly — a necklace, two bracelets — 
 Egon's presents — delighted to lose them. 
 
 "Take — take," she said, thrusting the things into his 
 hands. " I am not mad — only wretched — see, the 
 
 Madonna " She stopped, too proud, even at that 
 
 moment, to speak an untruth. 
 
 k 
 
4^4 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " An Englishwoman ! " said the Italian. " How beautiful 
 these Englishwomen are ! " 
 
 She turned and ran, flying along the road, to the 
 Osteria, to the cottages. When at last she stopped for 
 breath, she began resolutely climbing homewards to the 
 villa. 
 
 " He isn't there," she reflected. " In any case he will 
 have left me the house for to-night. We must not meet. 
 We must never meet again on earth." 
 
 The stars twinkled down upon her. " The Almighty 
 shall laugh. He that sitteth in the heavens shall hold 
 them in derision." 
 
 Through the dreadful midnight stillness, that now 
 seemed heavy with menace, she hurried on. But a trifle 
 suddenly checked her, a faint whine in the middle of her 
 path. It was low, but continuous, some creature, in the 
 dark, by the roadside, in pain. 
 
 She stooped, and her fingers touched the woolly body of 
 a dog. Immediately she was down on the moss- bank 
 beside it ; she had drawn the little animal towards her ; 
 she had taken it up. The dog paused for an instant in its 
 whine, and a little warm tongue began licking her fingers. 
 Then some bond about her heart seemed to snap, like the 
 bursting of an iceberg ; the sudden tears swam heavy in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Poor little dog. Poor little creature. Poor little 
 suffering wretch. Poor little tender-hearted beastie." The 
 words came pouring forth in broken confusion of different 
 languages. In the pauses of his licking, the dog whined 
 again ; when she touched his left fore-paw, he screamed. 
 It hung limp ; it was broken. She gathered the wretched 
 little cur in her arms and carried him home. 
 
 There were lights all about the Villa Bel Respiro ; there 
 was commotion and hurrying to and fro. Methodical 
 little shrieks proceeded from the dining-room, where 
 Mademoiselle Aur^lie Bompard was enjoying a moderate 
 fit of hysterics, surrounded by maids and supported by 
 orange-water. 
 
 The front door yawned wide open, and as Dorothea, 
 with the mongrel in her arms, crossed the threshold, 
 Aur^lie, by some marvel of intuition, stood alone in the 
 middle of the entrance-hall. 
 
 " Ah, Madame ! " she cried — at the top of her so shrill 
 voice — " what a fright have you given us ! It is like you 
 
DOROTHEA. 425 
 
 to run out thus into the winter because you hear a little 
 dog howl. It is angelic, but oh, it is wicked ! FoUe, je 
 vous croyais noy^e " — these last words in an angry under- 
 tone. " Ah, the nasty little beast ! Mary ! Giacomo ! 
 Where are they ? Take the animal. Disembarrass your 
 mistress. See, she has gone right away into the darkness 
 to look for the little dog we heard howl." 
 
 " Giacomo ! " She turned with uplifted finger. " Surely 
 thou mightest have gone to look for the little dog thou 
 heardest howl." 
 
 " I heard no little dog howl," replied the grey-haired 
 Italian servant, sullenly. 
 
 " Thine ears are hardened by a long life of selfishness. 
 But Madame is an angel of pity. She would hear a little 
 dog howl, even if it were dead ! Come, then, thou poor 
 
 one " but Mademoiselle Aur^lie stretched out her arms 
 
 at a secure distance from the suffering quadruped — " Marie 
 will look after thee and nurse thee. Madame is trembling 
 with cold. Is this a time of year to run out, without a 
 mantle, after sitting up reading, far too late, in hot 
 rooms ? ** 
 
 " His leg is broken," said Dorothea. " If Giacomo could 
 get me a couple of splints, I could set it." 
 
 " Madame ? But the village doctor " 
 
 " Any one can set an animal's leg. I have seen the 
 shepherd at home do it more than once. Do as I say. I 
 am going to my room." 
 
 Aur61ie lifted up both hands behind her mistress's 
 retreating figure. " Set it ! " she said. " Set it ! Ah, set 
 what thou canst. And I who had come to thee to be free 
 from emotions ! " — " Go to, then ! " She turned sharply. 
 " Hast thou not heard, Giacomo ? Get splints — what are 
 splints? Get liniment, wadding — what do they set a 
 broken dog's legs with — a dog's broken legs, I mean — get 
 crutches ! Haste thee — go— see thy mistress's heart : it is as 
 butter in the dog-days. Learn pity, Giacomo — run out into 
 the cold night and get splints ! " 
 
 " Her eyes were swollen," said Mary's cool tones behind 
 a pillar, " and all for that brute." 
 
 Aurelie skipped round. She was going to be exceedingly 
 eloquent, but Mary's expression stopped her. 
 
 " There be brutes and brutes," said Mary. Whereupon 
 Aurelie, who was wise in her immediate generation, walked 
 away without another word. 
 
426 DOROTHEA. 
 
 She found Dorothea calmly nursing the sick animal. It 
 lay silent, with eyes languidly unclosing, in a pose of 
 resigned endurance and almost comic content. 
 
 "A nous deux," said Aurelie between her teeth. 
 " Madame is aware that Monsieur is gone to the hotel ? " 
 
 " Did you know he had come home ? " cried Dorothea, 
 and spilt a cup of hot water. 
 
 The French maid gave a discreet little smile. " His lout 
 of a German servant is snoring upstairs," she said. "All 
 the household can hear him snore." 
 
 Dorothea did not answer : she bent her head, fomenting 
 slowly. 
 
 " He said he was tired from his journey, and he went to 
 his bed," continued the handmaid with pitiless precision. 
 " All heard him. Monsieur no one has seen." 
 
 Dorothea looked up quickly : "Then how do you know 
 he has gone to the hotel ? " 
 
 Again Aurelie smiled that terrible little smile. " Where 
 else should he go to ? I know my little world. I know 
 its men. Of course he has gone to the hotel." 
 
 Dorothea did not reply. 
 
 " Monsieur goes to the hotel," persisted Aurelie, " and 
 Madame runs out into the night." 
 
 " Be silent," commanded Dorothea. 
 
 "Why should I be silent? Madame has no power to 
 silence me, because it is my affection that speaks. Madame 
 has no hold on me. Madame can dismiss me from her 
 service, but, see, it is only my love for Madame which 
 keeps me from dismissing myself. I could get as good a 
 place any day, and a better, for I cannot steal from 
 Madame. Not that I have any desire to steal — ^but yet — 
 there are emoluments which, among other surroundings — 
 well ! — when M. le Colonel engaged me, I said : * I am 
 growing old ; I would range myself ; I am weary of 
 emotions.' 'Thou wilt range thyself with my daughter/ 
 said M. le Colonel." 
 
 " Leave me ! Go ! " exclaimed Dorothea. 
 
 " Had it been summer, I should have obeyed — but see, it 
 is winter. Many husbands have I known to go to the 
 hotel : many wives to run out into the night. And decol- 
 letees! But not later than October. Now, I admit that 
 we Frenchwomen are frileuses, yet have I not been every- 
 where ? In Russia ? When the Princess Kossovsky — well, 
 well, Madame, do not look at me thus angrily. Things 
 
DOROTHEA. 427 
 
 are serious indeed, I said to myself, before — I am not 
 ashamed to own it — I burst into tears." 
 
 " My God, leave me in peace ! " cried Dorothea passion- 
 ately, coming forward. 
 
 But the maid stood her ground. "I am going," she 
 said. " I will go. Only I would pray Madame to remember 
 one thing. To-morrow all the servants will know it to be 
 an esclandre: to-night they believe it to be a tiff." She 
 retreated and threw open the door, behind which stood 
 Giacomo. 
 
 " Ah, the splits ! " she cried. " What are they called ? 
 The stilts ! Go, then, Giacomo : give them to thy mistress. 
 Go, imbecile, and listen, if thou hear a dog howling in the 
 night ! " Triumphant, she marched upstairs to the attics 
 and paused by a door, from behind which indeed proceeded 
 snoring, sonorous as the songs of the Fatherland. At this 
 door the maid distinctly hesitated, and a feeble flush played 
 across her yellow cheeks. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " she muttered, " I am forty-five. And did not 
 I nurse, all through his last sickness, Jean, the valet of the 
 old Marquise? True, Jean was as old as the Marquise 
 herself — but, no matter, — the path of duty, Aur^lie ! " She 
 threw open the door, crept in, stealthily closed it. Soft 
 calls did not waken Hans Sturmer, nor did gingerly pulls 
 at the coverlets. Nor did rough shakings, nor sudden, 
 violent removal of the pillow. A clothes-brush across his 
 honest countenance did. He sat up, rubbing his rubicund 
 cheeks. 
 
 "Your master is exceedingly ill," said Mademoiselle 
 Aurelie Bompard. 
 
 Hans Sturmer was out of bed in a flash. In a flash also 
 Mademoiselle Bompard was at the window. 
 
 " What has happened ? What is amiss ? " cried Hans 
 Sturmer. 
 
 " In your bed before I speak another word," replied 
 Bompard, who had run the wrong way in her tremor, and 
 now stood, her gaze fixed on the night. 
 
 But Hans Sturmer, for only answer, was hurrying on 
 some clothes. " I must go down to him at once. I must 
 go," stammered Hans. 
 
 " You will find him at the hotel," Mademoiselle Aurelie 
 spoke, her flat face still flattened against a window-pane. 
 
 " At the hotel ? Why, in Heaven's name ? He told me 
 to go to bed. He was all right half an hour ago." 
 
428 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Two hours ago : it is nearly one o'clock. Let an old 
 stager teach you one thing, Mr. Sturmer, when our masters 
 desire us to go to bed, there is always something on hand." 
 The German's stock of French was but limited : it may be 
 doubted if he understood. 
 
 " I am going down," he replied. 
 
 Mademoiselle Aurelie released her damaged features. 
 "You will not perhaps find him quite as ill as you ex- 
 pected," she said. " But that does not matter. You must 
 convince him he is very bad indeed." 
 
 " How ? What ? I understand not," said puzzled Hans. 
 
 The Frenchwoman stamped her foot. "Any idiot can 
 make a man believe himself in danger ! " she cried. " A 
 man, mind you. Thou goest to him, stupid, and thou 
 sayest : ' I cannot rest. Why has Monsieur gone away to 
 the hotel ? Monsieur is ill and will not admit it. Monsieur 
 looks ill, very ill, has looked so for days ' — remember thou say 
 he has looked so for days — * I am anxious about Monsieur, 
 very anxious.' If he swear at thee — not before — thou must 
 say that he looks like a man who is dying. If he force 
 thee, * For three days Monsieur has had the death-look,' 
 thou must hesitatingly say." 
 
 " Are you mad ? What is going to happen ? " exclaimed 
 poor Hans. 
 
 " Imbecile, dost thou love thy master ? " She pushed him 
 towards the door. " Absurdly thou lovest him, as I, with 
 more measure, love my mistress, God only knows why. 
 Go, do as I tell thee. If thou canst get him to believe 
 thee, the battle is won. Men are only amenable to funk, 
 as women to pity. Go, keep him in his room till I come 
 with my mistress. I refuse to explain more to thee : thou 
 art too stupid. Were we women to wait for men to 
 understand us, the world would stand still." 
 
 Thereupon she returned to Dorothea's chamber. She 
 found little changed there. The dog was lying bandaged, 
 at rest, like a child that has cried. 
 
 " Hans Sturmer has been here," said Aurelie, standing in 
 the doorway. 
 
 Her mistress looked unspoken inquiry. 
 
 " I mean, he had gone to the hotel, but he has come up 
 again," continued the unblushing maid. " It appears that 
 Monsieur is indisposed." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Dorothea, tapping the leg of the table. 
 
 " It appears he is seriously ill." 
 
DOROTHEA. 429 
 
 "So suddenly?" 
 
 " Suddenly ? Ah no, Madame. Monsieur has looked ill 
 for months. He looked ill before he went. It appears he 
 has spat blood." 
 
 Dorothea sprang to her feet. 
 
 " He is very — very nervous. These strong-looking people 
 often are. Monsieur cannot endure emotions." 
 
 " I never noticed it." 
 
 " Ah, Madame ! But Madame's health is so excellent. 
 It is difficult for the very healthy to understand invalids. 
 When Madame de Brissay — but I could relate to Madame 
 a dozen stories, from my own rich experience, of the certain 
 misery in households where the wife is very healthy and 
 the husband rather weak. Many a time have I seen in this 
 house " — Mademoiselle Aur^lie's voice grew dithyrambic : 
 her look and hands went up to the ceiling — " many a time 
 have I seen the tears gather in Monsieur's beautiful blue 
 eyes, when Madame has misunderstood him — ah, Madame, 
 be not angry — perchance the poor gentleman is bleeding 
 to death." 
 
 " Send me Sturmer at once." 
 
 " Madame, he has flown to the side of his master." 
 
 " Woman, swear to me that this story is true ! " Doro- 
 thea had advanced into the room : the dog lifted up his 
 mild head and looked after her. 
 
 " I swear by all the saints in the calendar," promptly 
 replied Aur^lie. 
 
 " I do not believe it. He is sleeping peacefully," said 
 Dorothea, yet with trembling hands she aided the maid to 
 hurry her into a travelling dress, " Give me my cloak," 
 she said. " Any hat will do. Quick : let us go." 
 
 " He went to the hotel, so as not to alarm Madame ! " 
 cried the maid. " ' Do not tell your mistress : I shall be 
 well in the morning,' he said. Who knows how much he 
 suffered before ? His foot was often exceedingly painful." 
 
 " That is true," said Dorothea. 
 
 " ' I promised — I promised not to tell,* said poor Hans. 
 Madame, we must endeavour to shield him. Monsieur 
 will pretend to you that nothing is wrong." 
 
 " How can he if he has spat blood ? " exclaimed 
 Dorothea. 
 
 " Ah, Madame, these young Prussians have such wonderful 
 recuperative power ! " 
 
 Dorothea stood still. Former stories of Mademoiselle 
 
430 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Bompard's prowess — hair-brush babblings — came back to 
 her mind. *' Swear to me by your soul's salvation," she said. 
 
 " Ah, Madame, that is not fair ! Madame has too good 
 a memory ! " squeaked the maid in a flutter. " Go, then, 
 Madame — go : we may be too late. We must meet him at 
 once : we must speak to him to-night. When people spit 
 blood, they frequently die." 
 
 " Infamous woman ! " cried Dorothea, recoiling, her big 
 eyes open wide. " To you the horrors of life are a comedy : 
 you look on and laugh and applaud ! What do you under- 
 stand of the abysses of human sorrow and sin? Let me 
 pass. I would not speak to you like this ; I would not 
 speak to you at all, if I had a human soul near me, a 
 living creature of any kind, something to hold by, some one 
 to turn to, now God has let me go. I am alone. Do not 
 touch me. Do not speak to me. Respect, if you can 
 anything on earth, my aloneness. I am alone." 
 
 Aur^lie Bompard fell on her knees and burst into tears. 
 " Ah, Madame, listen to me ! I am an old woman : I could 
 be Madame's mother. I have seen many things. Madame 
 is a saint : there is no harm in that ; but Madame is a 
 married saint, and that evil is irretrievable ! Saints should 
 not marry, for there are no men-saints ! I have seen hundreds 
 of men, in their hearts — ^not their outsides, as Madame has. 
 Believe me, there are no men-saints, whatever the Church 
 may say ! The holy Madonna was a woman : a masculine 
 Madonna the world has never seen. Men are like this, 
 Madame — they are good often, and generous, and gentle, 
 like Monsieur, but always they are gross ! Nay, listen to 
 me ! Go not, Madame ! Listen ! This night all things 
 may yet come right. The comedy, Madame says — the 
 comedy ! Ah, Madame, there is one thing worse, the 
 tragedy, the tragedy, the dead bodies, the dead lives, 
 the slain ! " 
 
 Dorothea paused. She drew herself up. " I can bear the 
 tragedy," she said slowly, aloud. "The comedy I could 
 not bear." She went back to the sofa, and took up the 
 mongrel cur in her arms, and, imperiously motioning back 
 the frightened Aur^lie, she walked down the broad staircase 
 and out of the Villa Bel Respiro. 
 
 " She has gone to him : she loves him," said Aurelie to 
 herself, as she began mechanically to fold up and tidy 
 things. But there was no conviction in her voice. She sat 
 up all the remainder of that distressful night, until daybreak, 
 
DOROTHEA. 431 
 
 writing to herself a long letter on the disadvantage, for a 
 woman, of being too good. "Thou thyself, my sweet 
 Aurelie," she wrote, " dost experience it. On six several 
 occasions, in four different ways, thou couldest have ensured 
 thyself a fortune " — and she proceeded for the fiftieth time 
 to enumerate the details in one of those refreshing epistles 
 which she afterwards tore up. " I could not sleep," she 
 would say, " without my letter. At first, as a girl, I wrote 
 them to all my acquaintances, but my blessed mother — 
 another saint ! and an excellent servant — showed me the 
 evil of this. Since then I have harmed no one, but yet a 
 domestic has her feelings. I am emotional : I must find a 
 vent. Sleep well, my good Aurelie. Were all as con- 
 scientious and painstaking as thou, the world were a 
 Paradise. But now it is more like the Eden Theatre. Is 
 that funny ? I know not. I am sleepy. Good-night." 
 
 That was Monday. On the evening of the Wednesday, 
 following the two aunts and uncle Tony sat, at Brodryck, 
 after tea, over their customary rubber of whist. It was the 
 second rubber : they never played more than two. Uncle 
 Tony was rather peevish, not because aunt Emma played 
 badly — she always did that, like aunt Mary — but because 
 he had sold ten of Dorothea's pigs that morning for a 
 farthing a pound less than a neighbouring farmer had 
 made. Aunt Emma and uncle Tony were inevitably j 
 partners : aunt Mary played dummy. Aimt Mary had an 
 unalterable conviction that whist was not quite right, 
 because cards, of course, are wrong, but she played for 
 uncle Tony's sake (to keep him away from the village 
 club !) and, as she refused to risk a halfpenny and took no 
 interest in thp game whatever and occasionally revoked, she 
 thought the evil, in her case, could be condoned. " It is 
 when these things become a passion that the wrong comes 
 in," said aunt Mary, " and I cannot imagine myself, my 
 dear, a slave to whist. Still, one must be careful. The 
 heart of man is deceitful — ay, and of woman ! And 
 desperately wicked," said aunt Mary. 
 
 Aunt Mary had just played her ace and said : " Oh, I 
 didn't know hearts were trumps," when the door was 
 thrown open and Dorothea walked into the room. 
 
 " Take back your ace, then ! " uncle Tony was saying 
 testily. Aunt Mary jumped up, scattering the cards. 
 
 " The lamp ! Mary, I do wish you would remember the 
 
432 DOROTHEA. 
 
 lamp ! " screamed Emma in shrill agitation. Dorothea 
 had put down on the well-known flowered sofa by the 
 fire, very gently, the brown dog with the bandaged paw. 
 Em and Doll, issuing forth from unknown depths beneath 
 skirts and the card-table, came leisurely forward, barked, 
 sniffed. The brown dog sat up painfully, expectant. The 
 setters wagged their tails. 
 
 " Dorothea, speak — what has happened ! What is 
 wrong ? " gasped aunt Mary. 
 
 " Nothing. I have come back to you, aunt Mary ! " 
 
 " Egon." 
 
 " Egon is gone. Gone away out of my life. Egon will 
 never trouble us any more, auntie May " — she had sunk 
 down on the edge of the sofa ; her hand played with the 
 brown dog's ear. 
 
 " " said uncle Tony. 
 
 " Oh, hush, Tony, hush ! " 
 
 " Antony, I agree with you," said Emma. 
 
 Aunt Mary was down on her knees by her child : her 
 arms were about Dorothea. " Oh, my dearest, my dearest, 
 your mother ! " she said. " It killed your mother : you will 
 not let it kill you, my dearest, my own one ? You will be 
 brave, darling, promise us — you will not let it kill you ! " 
 
 " No, I don't think it will kill me," answered Dorothea 
 wearily. " Wretchedness doesn't ever kill people, does it ? 
 What do you mean about my mother, auntie May ? " 
 
 But Emma's voice rose, vehement, to Tony. " You men 
 are all alike ! " she cried, shaking her impotent forefinger. 
 "Thank Heaven I was never married to one of you. I 
 wish I had the hanging of you all." 
 
 " Well, for once, / agree with you, Emma," replied Tony 
 mildly ; he blew his nose. " That's a very poor dog, 
 Dorothea," said Tony. 
 
 " Agree with me ! I should think so ! " cried Emma. 
 " Brutes you are, all of you — do you hear me ? — brutes, 
 beasts, pigs, monkeys, apes. If God Almighty offered to 
 change me into a man, I should decline the honour. If 
 change there must be, I should say, let it be a change for 
 the better. Rather change me, I should say, into a tailless 
 ape." Aunt Emma sat down with a snort of contentment, 
 and a slap of her blue satin skirt. 
 
 Outside, the December wind howled, disconsolate, like a 
 living beast, in the cold and the rain. 
 
 Aunt Mary held Dorothea to her bosom. Twice or 
 
DOROTHEA. 433 
 
 thrice she had vainly endeavoured to speak. She was 
 crying softly. Dorothea stroked her grey head. ''Don't 
 cry, auntie May ; there's no good in crying. If crying were 
 any use, well, then — I cried so much in the train, auntie. 
 It worried the dog, and I tried hard to stop. A year ago, 
 only a year ago, I don't think I hardly ever had cried. I 
 used to think crying was silly. But it's useless. I know it 
 is useless, now." 
 
 " God " faltered aunt Mary. 
 
 Dorothea stopped her. ** God is dead," said Dorothea. 
 
 i< F 
 
( 434 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Egon von Roden lay on his bed in the little hotel room 
 at Orta. It was a garish Italian bedroom, all crude pinks 
 and yellows, full of the cheery discomforts of a small 
 village inn. 
 
 An hour ago he had quitted Dorothea. Since then he 
 had smoked half a dozen cigars. He had also ordered up 
 strong drinks. These he had not swallowed. His cigars 
 were good. 
 
 " Of course I am a brute," he had said to himself, a good 
 many times. " Of course I am a brute." He was quite 
 willing to take things tragically, eager to blame himself 
 overmuch. On the other hand, he was also suffering from 
 a reaction ; he had braced himself up to play the great 
 part just enacted in the Villa Bel Respiro. AH the best 
 impulses of his nature had carried him irresistibly forward 
 against the rocks. But the final crash, with its merciless 
 bruising, had awakened in him an instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion. A mournfully reproachful, a piteously forgiving 
 Dorothea would have left him feeling very bad for ever 
 and ever. At this moment he was angry with himself for 
 suggestions that kept cropping up unbidden of possible 
 palliation, not to say excuse. 
 
 " She never loved you," a voice was saying, " with the 
 sort of love with which a man loves to be loved. You 
 have learnt " 
 
 " I am a brute ! " he cried vehemently. " She is an angel. 
 Of course I am a brute." 
 
 " An angel," said the voice, " that stood with a flaming 
 sword at the gate of the Paradise of the Fallen. The — 
 Paradise — of — the — Fallen." 
 
 Hans Sturmer burst into the room. He stopped short, 
 when he saw his master lying on the bed, dressed, and 
 smoking, and stood to attention. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir, I thought you were dying," stammered 
 Hans. 
 
DOROTHEA. 435 
 
 The cheap answer that he wished he was faded away 
 in a grin from Egon's healthy soul. " Dying ? Why, 
 stupid ? " said Egon. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Aurelie told me so, the false French cat ! " 
 
 " Mademoiselle Aurelie does me too much honour," 
 exclaimed Egon in a sudden burst of bitterness. He lay 
 staring moodily at a purple cherub painted on the wall. 
 Dear me, did the French maid deem the situation required 
 a dramatic suicide? He felt as if quick little Aurelie 
 Bompard had hit him in the face. 
 
 " She loves her mistress, in her own way," he reflected, 
 " better than I. She has sent Hans to lock up my pistols, 
 or to administer a pot of hot milk." " No, you needn't 
 order any milk," he said aloud. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir ? " 
 
 " I said you needn't order any milk." 
 
 " I wasn't going to, sir, but, if you feel bad, you might 
 take some brandy and water." 
 
 " Hans, there used to be a time when I thought you the 
 living embodiment of genius. I thought you knew every- 
 thing and could do everything. You were the cleverest 
 creature that ever lived." 
 
 Hans Sturmer's face lengthened. He could stand any- 
 thing from his lord and master but chaff. 
 
 " I am not laughing at you," continued Egon sadly. 
 "Well, Hans, it's small comfort to know you're not as 
 clever as I believed you to be, when we were boys together. 
 And even if you were, you couldn't minister to a mind 
 diseased." 
 
 " I thought it was your stomach," said Hans, relieved 
 and scornful. 
 
 Egon tossed round on the bed. "Have a cigar," he 
 said. " Light up ! " 
 
 " Saving your presence, no," replied Hans, putting the 
 weed in his pocket. 
 
 " Look here, I must talk to some one. Sit down." 
 
 " Saving your presence, no," said Hans. 
 
 " Then, for Heaven's sake, don't stand so straight." 
 
 Hans Sturmer began to understand that something must 
 indeed be deeply wrong with his master. 
 
 " You and I have known each other for more than twenty 
 years, Hans. There's not a man of all my friends knows 
 me half as well as you do. I'm not a hero to you, 
 Hans " 
 
 F F 2 
 
436 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " You are, by God," said Hans. 
 
 Roden stared, at the sound of the man*s voice ; at the 
 look in his eyes. " What on earth do you mean ? " he 
 stammered. 
 
 " Eight years and five months ago I ruined your life," 
 said Hans, his honest lips twitching. "You've never 
 reproached me M^ith a word from that day to this. Not 
 with a look. I could have screamed a thousand times to 
 see you wince in silence. Let me speak, Herr Egon. I 
 mayn't be as clever as you'd like me to be — let me say my 
 say for once to-night. You're cured now. Thank God, 
 you're cured. I'd have given both my legs with gladness 
 — but what's the use of saying it ? God bless that man, 
 Barbolat ! God bless that man, Barbolat ! " 
 
 " I wish that I'd never gone near him," exclaimed Egon. 
 But Hans did not understand. 
 
 " When my wife died, I was very sorry, but there's no 
 sorrow like knowing the fault is yours. I could think of 
 my wife without bitterness and wretchedness, but I couldn't 
 bear to look at your leg. Why do you make me say these 
 things, sir ? It's because I can look at your leg now." 
 " Talk of something else, Hans. But talk." 
 "I went to that man Barbolat before them all, sir; I 
 couldn't leave the hotel without going to him. I hope you 
 won't be angry, nor tell his Excellency, your uncle. I 
 know I'm only a serving-man from the country. All the 
 lords and ladies and princesses were there, sir, but you'd 
 told me to take down the luggage to the station and I 
 couldn't wait." 
 
 " Well, what did you do ? Talk ! " 
 " I walked in and I said : ' Some of us can thank the 
 Almighty direct,' I said, * and some of us has to thank them 
 as does the Almighty's work for Him,' I said. * Your face 
 is the face of Providence to me, mon-sieu.' And then I 
 went away." 
 
 " Without waiting for his answer ? " 
 *'Oh,he shouted that after me, standing in his apron, his 
 bare arms all over grease. He yelled something about 
 nobody's miracles being proved in history, nobody's except 
 his ! He may not be perfect, Barbolat — but 1 wish I was 
 a Papist all the same ! " 
 
 " You — a Brandenburger — Hans ! " 
 
 " Papists may pray to good people, mayn't they ? 
 Barbolat's my Saint. And a rum 'un. Count Kauenfels's 
 
DOROTHEA. 437 
 
 Heinz spoke disrespectful about him. He won't do that 
 again." Hans Sturmer smiled down at his heavy fists. 
 
 " Hans, do you remember — when we were boys — and you 
 hit me ? " 
 
 " Don't, Herr Egon, it isn't fair." 
 
 " Hans, I wish you could thrash me to-night within an 
 inch of my life ! You — you needn't leave me the inch, 
 Hans. But it — it wouldn't be any use." 
 
 He had started to his feet. He was pacing up and down 
 the room, tali and straight. Hans watched his walk with 
 delight. 
 
 "Perhaps it wouldn't even afford me the satisfaction I 
 expect," continued Egon. He stood still, by the window, 
 his back to the light. *' What were you saying just now, 
 Hans, about wretchedness and bitterness and thinking of 
 one's wife ? You're a better man than I, Hans." 
 
 Silence — the sudden silence of expectation, of intuition 
 — on Hans' part. The silence of utter bewilderment and 
 dismay. 
 
 " It doesn't take much to be that, God knows." 
 
 " I'd forgotten my message," said Hans in a flutter. 
 " The gracious lady is coming here." 
 
 "What?" Egon had faced round. "You fool! You 
 idiot ! Hans ! what do you mean ? What are you saying ? 
 Here ! Who's coming here ? To-night ! You don't know 
 what you're saying. Who ? What ? Who's coming here ! " 
 He had sprung forward. However he might appreciate 
 his servant, he was very near flying at his throat. 
 
 "Aurelie told me the gracious lady was coming," said 
 stolid Hans. " They believed the gracious lord to be 
 dangerously ill." 
 
 " Oh, forgiveness to the dying," laughed Egon, but his 
 tones were full of hope. 
 
 " I have nothing to do with this stupid talk of illness," 
 he added, presently. " Is it your doing ? " 
 
 "Aurelie told me," replied Hans. "I'm sure I don't 
 know how she got at the idea. You were looking ver}'- 
 white on the boat." 
 
 " Oh, indeed." 
 
 " I thought it was sickness." 
 
 " I suppose it was. And she really said my wife was 
 coming ! " 
 
 " Oh, please, Herr Egon, tell me ! We were boys 
 together, as you just now condescended to say." 
 
438 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " What ? " Egon fixed his eyes on those of his hench- 
 man, as if his gaze could lay bare the one heart he could 
 trust upon earth. 
 
 " What is it makes you so wretched ? I have never seen 
 you so wretched, not even when the professors went away. 
 / thought we were all going to be happy. And — oh, my God, 
 what has happened, master, to make you look like that ? " 
 
 " Tell me one thing first before I answer you. If all the 
 world were to say I had done an evil action, and I were to 
 tell you it wasn't true, whom would you believe ? " 
 
 " You," said Hans bluntly. 
 
 " Then I know that, whatever happens, I shall keep at 
 least one friend till the end of my life." Egon walked 
 back to the window, staring into the darkness. "Did 
 Aurelie say she was coming at once ? " 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 " They ought to have been here long ago ! Why should 
 the gracious lady come to this place at night, Hans ? Why 
 should I be here at the hotel ? " 
 
 " It is no business of mine," replied Hans. 
 
 " I order you to speak." 
 
 " I would rather not, sir." 
 
 " But I order it." 
 
 "Well, then — I presume there has been a — a difference 
 between — but the gracious lady will make amends." 
 
 "You think we have quarrelled, and my wife is in the 
 wrong ' " 
 
 " I should not have ventured- 
 
 " Did you ever quarrel with your wife, Hans ? ** 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 " Were you ever in the wrong ? " 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 Still Egon was at the window, his back to the room. 
 
 "When they tell you I have done the gracious lady a 
 wrong, a very great wrong, you will not believe them, will 
 vou, Hans ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 Again a long silence, a dull silence of ten seconds, at 
 least, by the clock. 
 
 " You may believe them, Hans." 
 
 When at last he turned, in the hideous half-light, he 
 came forward a few steps, yet stopped at a distance from 
 this friend of his boyhood, the companion and sharer of all 
 his twenty-five years of life. 
 
DOROTHEA. 439 
 
 " You needn't speak to me," he said. " I don't want 
 you to say anything. You said she was coming, did you 
 not ? " 
 
 " God curse and damn that woman ! " answered Hans. 
 
 "Put away those bottles. Here, give me a glass of 
 brandy first. I wonder, if I ran out, should I miss her in 
 the darkness? Of course I should — she can come half a 
 dozen ways. Hans, you're my servant — my servant ; do 
 you understand that ? — you know it as well as I do. You're 
 the only man in the world that cares for me — cares for me, 
 heart and soul. I mean, excepting perhaps young Karl, 
 and I've gone and deliberately thrown you away, Hans. 
 I can't help it. Leave me now : go and see if they are 
 coming : meet them if you can, Hans. No, don't say any- 
 thing more." But he called the man back. " You're sur( 
 she said they were coming ? She didn't say I was to comt 
 to the villa ? " 
 
 *' Quite sure." 
 
 " She might have been here half an hour ago." Left to 
 himself, Egon began to pace up and down the room like 
 an ice-bear in its cage. Sometimes he would stand for long 
 spells before the dark window, looking out, looking out. 
 The night was endless. Sometimes he fancied he was 
 praying, and laughed at himself for imagining that God 
 would hear such prayers as his. Was she coming ? Was 
 she coming ? What were those sounds in the dark ? Was 
 that a footfall ? Was she coming ? My God, how long it 
 was ! How late it was ! What did Hans think of him, he 
 wondered ? What did it matter ? Would she never come ? 
 
 His pride broke away from under him. He sank down 
 on his knees by the window-sill and prayed. Let her 
 come ! Let her come ! That was all. Let her come I 
 Let her come ! 
 
 He shut his hands over his ears that he might listen 
 vainly no longer. He opened them again immediately 
 for fear lest he should miss a sound. 
 
 It was not so much a sense of wickedness that over- 
 whelmed him — after all, in spite of his own pure past, he 
 knew well enough that men are men — what bore him down 
 was the consciousness of the great wrong he had brought 
 upon Dorothea, she being she when he married her, loftily, 
 placidly innocent as a dove from the nest. He knew she 
 was not as the ten thousand decent daughters of worldly 
 mothers who have, read "Autour du Mariage" and are 
 
440 DOROTHEA. 
 
 waiting to be asked. He might have proposed to any 
 number of honest women, who, now hearing his story, 
 would laugh to think there was such a fuss. He had found 
 Dorothea at Nice with her father : he had rescued her from 
 her entourage ; he had taken her to his bosom — God ! his 
 sin against her was a sin beyond redress ! 
 
 She would come to him. He would humble himself to 
 the dust. She would come. She would come. 
 
 The first streaks of dawn sent their dimness through the 
 casement. The heavy darkness lightened in desolation and 
 cold. 
 
 He got up, numbed : his face was white. Amber and 
 crimson, the far clouds seemed to mock him. The bells of 
 San Giulio rang out the empty day. 
 
 He rose to his feet. He knew now that she would not 
 come. The swift hope of his soul's awakening was ashen 
 as the cheerless morn. 
 
 He rushed from the room and ran — he could run now ! — 
 up the slopes to the Villa Bel Respiro. 
 
 On the terrace in front of the house stood Hans, blue 
 with cold. 
 
 " You need not tell me," said Egon. " She is gone. Why 
 did you not come back ? " 
 
 " She passed me in the night, just as I reached the house 
 here. She said to me, ' Stay ! ' and I stayed." 
 
 " But why ? You might have warned me ! " 
 
 " I thought all I could do for her now was to obey her 1 " 
 replied Hans simply. 
 
 " Thou art right, Hans. All we can do for her now is 
 to obey her. Come, let us go into the house." 
 
 On the stairs sat Aur61ie, in superabundant weeping. 
 But she dried her tears immediately at sight of the men. 
 
 " Madame is gone," she said. " Doubtless to the station. 
 She has taken away no luggage. Only an evil-smelling 
 dog with a broken leg." 
 
 " But she had wraps ? " exclaimed Egon. 
 
 " TienSy no need to ask if Monsieur loves her ! Ah, 
 Madame, Madame, — poor silly dovelet ! You little know 
 from what a husband you are running away ! " Aur^lie 
 stood at the head of the stairs. 
 
 " All the same. Monsieur, it is a vast mistake ! Permit 
 me to say it, I am very angry with Monsieur ! It is not an 
 ordinary mortal should have married my mistress. Madame 
 should have wedded a St. Francis. Ha, ha ! " 
 
DOROTHEA. 441 
 
 " Peace, woman ! Tell me, did she leave me a letter ? " 
 
 " No letter. Not a word. Therefore, were I Monsieur, 
 I would haste to the station. The train does not depart 
 till a quarter-past six." 
 
 Egon ran to the door. Suddenly he stopped, looked 
 away to shy Hans, half-hidden in the dusk. " True, all I 
 can do for her now is to obey her," he said. 
 
 He went into the big drawing-room. The dead- grey 
 ashes lay chill upon the hearth. A lamp — her reading- 
 lamp — guttered, yellow, by a table on which lay her work. 
 He stood by the fireplace, his hands in his pockets, his 
 drawn face miserable and wan 
 
{ 442 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " Monsieur will have some breakfast,'* said Aur^lie, in 
 decided tones. She deposited the shiny tray on the table, 
 and dexterously whisked under a sofa her late mistress's 
 fancy work and book. 
 
 " It is a fine day,*' said Aur^lie, drawing aside the 
 curtains. There was a wealth of philosophy in her tone. 
 ** Faugh ! " She carried off the lamp. " Presently there are 
 half a dozen words I should desire to speak to Monsieur." 
 
 He shook himself. " Say them now." 
 
 " Not unless Monsieur drinks his coffee. See, then, it is 
 only this. Temporarily, as I understand matters, the house- 
 hold of Bel Respiro has come to an end. Much to the regret 
 of the basement. I have known families less desirable to 
 live in." 
 
 Egon did not reply. 
 
 " For me also — alas, then ! — there is no occupation at 
 present. Madame has run away from me. I have sacrificed 
 myself anew on the altar of devotion. Like Monsieur, I 
 am too wise to run after Madame." 
 
 He would have dismissed her, but she hurried on : 
 
 " I come to Monsieur with a request. From Hans I hear 
 of the plans of the Lady Archibald. Miladi is looking for 
 a maid. I would offer myself under the protection of 
 Monsieur." 
 
 " Had you not better enter some different family ? ** 
 
 She glanced at him quickly, with her little sharp eyes. 
 " But no, Monsieur, it would seem to me I were better in 
 this." 
 
 " Well, I will see," he answered wearily, turning again 
 to the dead-grey fireplace. 
 
 " Drink, then, your coffee," she said, at the door, and was 
 gone. She spent the rest of the morning packing up her 
 late mistress's belongings. And, as she folded article after 
 article — never was a better packer ! — she mused on the 
 dead and gone beauties — dead and gone, as far as her life 
 
DOROTHEA. 443 
 
 was concerned — for whom she had done similar work. 
 "Madame de Viroflay left everything behind her," she 
 reflected. "Dora Standerton had told Pickford's man to 
 call for her boxes. / preferred Jennie Viroflay." She 
 spread out some admirable laces with a sigh. The whole 
 trousseau had been pretty well her own careful selection. 
 "Never again allow your attachment to your mistress to 
 stand in the way of your perquisites," she wrote to herself, 
 regretfully, that night. 
 
 Egon, having roused himself, with a jerk of the mind, 
 from his torpor, went out through the drawing-room 
 window into the early mom. 
 
 All nature had awakened. Beyond, on the exquisite 
 island, with the silver mirror around it, the white convent 
 buildings lay glittering in the sun. Masses of dark laurel 
 and camellia bushes shone radiant under the pale- blue sky. 
 A twitter of birds arose in the branches. Millions of God's 
 diamonds filled the white landscape. Only the devil hides 
 his diamonds away. 
 
 A flight of loud sparrows sank fluttering about the 
 terrace, her sparrows, that sought their accustomed meal. 
 He went to get some biscuits from the breakfast -tray, and 
 stood scattering crumbs in the sun. 
 
 She had gone home to the aunts, to uncle Tony. His 
 cheeks burned. The whole thing was over. He could 
 endure much — had not all the last years been years of 
 disappointment and suffering? — but he could not endure 
 the thought of Dorothea's scorn. What was he, after all, 
 to claim a woman's admiration? She had married him, 
 probably from pity, as women so easily do. Uncle Karl, 
 who knew all things unworthy of knowing, had said 
 rightly. She had married him because of his limp. And 
 all these months he had lived uselessly beside her, occupied 
 with studies she could not appreciate, or with sports she 
 condemned. No wonder she despised him. The money 
 was hers. And now even the cause of her compassion had 
 quitted him. Nothing was left in his empty existence but 
 the great wrong he had done her, a wrong that remains. 
 
 She was safe yonder at Brodryck. He would not pursue 
 her : let her rest assured. Rather would he fly from her 
 righteous reproaches to the uttermost ends of the earth. 
 He gasped. He knew that the look of her child-like eyes 
 would follow him, that the tones of her voice would ring, 
 through long nights, in his ears. " I love you. I love you. 
 
444 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Don't touch me. I love you." With firm step he paced 
 the terrace. He was well now, at last ! A career was open 
 before him. By some means, by hard work, he would 
 climb upwards. Yonder, in the far German colonies, in 
 Cameroon, where soldiers were needed, where home- 
 barriers had fallen, sword in hand, he would fight his way 
 to the front. 
 
 A great calm fell upon him. For, like all men worth 
 the name — 'tis their virtue and their crime — he could rise 
 from love to work, and be glad. He saw the future open 
 out before him in a halo of success. At last ! At last ! 
 The dream of his life was realised. He would be a soldier, 
 after all. Not a mere garrison -dawdler and dancer. 
 Beyond any dreams, a hard worker in active service. A 
 man can be born a Roden : he can marry an heiress, 
 because she compassionates his infirmity : he must gain the 
 Iron Cross for himself. 
 
 Amid the wide mirror the convent buildings lay glisten- 
 ing. Over all nature was peace. In the far distance, along 
 the horizon, rose the clear ridge of the mountains, lofty, 
 aspiring, in the pure, unclouded day. 
 
 Hans stood before his master with a telegram. The 
 master took it, avoiding the servant's gaze. 
 
 " Return at once. Your uncle has had a stroke. 
 Kauenfels." 
 
 " We start at twelve," said Egon, and handed the paper 
 to Hans 
 
 The latter, on his way upstairs, was hailed into 
 Dorothea's room by Aur^lie. " Well ? " demanded the 
 inquisitive handmaid, sitting down in a whirlwind of silks. 
 
 He told her. 
 
 " 'Tis the best thing that could possibly have happened," 
 she said, and laughed into the valet's glum face. 
 
 " What ? Back to that place ? To that woman ? " 
 
 " Even so, stupid. The worse he behaves now, the 
 sooner she will feel compelled to forgive him. As long as 
 she thinks she is doing it for her own sake, she will never 
 return to him, but she'll have him back immediately to 
 save his soul.*' 
 
 For a moment Hans Sturmer's countenance assumed a 
 look of blank amazement, at thought of the soul of a Roden 
 undergoing anything less than salvation. Then he turned 
 to his packing. " I am going straight off with you to 
 Montreux," said Aur^lie. 
 
DOROTHEA. 445 
 
 " But supposing Lady Archibald don't want you." 
 
 " Dickie's no fool. She will realise the immense value to 
 her, in her new position, of a maid like me. German 
 etiquette is no joke, and she knows it. She will have to 
 take life more seriously than with poor silly Archie. Have 
 I not been eighteen months with the Princess Fursten- 
 fried?" 
 
 "You are a wonderful woman," said Hans. "Do you 
 speak Chinese as well as Italian and German ? " 
 
 " And Russian," answered Aurelie coolly. " For me it 
 will be a lucrative place." 
 
 " I cannot understand your consenting to serve under one 
 of ourselves : I could never do that." 
 
 "Do I not tell you I shall make it a lucrative place? 
 I am thirsting to find an indifferent mistress from whom I 
 can pilfer. I shall never, not in twenty years, attach 
 myself to Dickie. Dickie ! Yes, I shall start off straight, 
 with you and poor Egon, to Montreux." 
 
 And she did. 
 
{ 446 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " He will never speak a word of sense again," said 
 Barbolat. 
 
 " You think he is dying ?" whispered Egon. 
 
 "That I did not say. On the contrary, I think he will 
 probably last a good many years longer. Schlumpke of 
 Berlin is a fool. But he will never again have the use of 
 his reason. Nor has Schlumpgen, ha, ha ! But look at his 
 eyes. See he has proper care, my dear Romeo. Be sure he 
 has proper care." 
 
 " What do you mean ?" demanded Egon, alarmed by the 
 great man's tone. 
 
 " See he has proper care, that is all. See he has proper 
 care." Barbolat was gone. 
 
 Egon Roden remained standing by the bed. His uncle 
 lay motionless, a block, unable to stir hand or foot. Only 
 the eyes retained a semblance of life, struggling to clear 
 themselves like the sun behind a thick veil of clouds. The 
 strain after some sort of expression was a horrible sight to see. 
 
 The nephew, unable to endure the spectacle any longer, 
 went and sat down by the window, looking vaguely out 
 into the park. A newspaper lay on the sill ; the Count's 
 valet, a smug Berlin youth, had been reading it. "Nobody 
 can curl my moustaches like Fritz,*' Roden-Rheyna used to 
 say. " I took him from my hairdresser's on purpose." 
 
 The paper was the Montreux and Territet Gazette. A 
 prominent paragraph caught Egon's eye : " On Tuesday 
 next will take place, at the Roman Catholic Chapel, the 
 marriage between the Reichsgraf von Kauenfels-Courmayeur 
 and the Lady Archibald Foye, of the Marquesses of 
 Brassingham." 
 
 He smiled bitterly at the foolish adroitness of the 
 wording. True, Dickie, the barmaid, was a Roman 
 Catholic. His heart bled for the poor old ladies in 
 Germany, proud of their great Protestant name. 
 
 People in the street passed to and fro. Carriages went 
 
DOROTHEA. 447 
 
 by to the Kursaal. One woman flung herself forward at 
 her brougham window, looked up, nodded, laughed. He 
 flushed scarlet, hesitated a tenth part of a second, bowed 
 back and looked away. 
 
 The old man on the bed made a gurgling noise. Egon 
 advanced to the bedside. 
 
 '* Goo — roo," murmured Count Roden-Rheyna. He 
 repeated the sound, without ceasing, in distincter agitation 
 and pain. 
 
 Egon rang for the valet. "I know what he means," 
 answered Fritz. " He's got half a dozen sounds for different 
 things. I've found out all but two." 
 
 " And how about the two ?" exclaimed Egon with a 
 shudder. 
 
 The smooth valet shrugged his shoulders. "I do my 
 best," he said discontentedly. " It's no joke." 
 
 " Goo — roo, goo — roo," insisted the invalid. 
 
 " That means he's cold," said the man-servant. " He's 
 always doing it. I'll put some more logs on the fire." 
 
 "Goo — roo — roo!*' gurgled the Count. 
 
 " Could you — eh — not get him a hot- water bottle ?" 
 suggested Egon timidly. He praised Fritz on the man's 
 return with kindly words of encouragement. Then he 
 went up to his own room, relieved. He loathed sickness, 
 especially in this form of abasement, an ugly thing. " The 
 world should be beautiful, even in evil and passion," said 
 Egon. Life was beautiful : Death should be beautiful, as 
 his father's had been. 
 
 " Nurse him gently, I will pay you well,** said Egon. 
 
 " Poor gentleman, it won't be for long." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that. Monsieur Barbolat thinks he 
 may live for many years." 
 
 The valet looked up quickly. "Monsieur Barbolat 
 knows everything," was all he replied. 
 
 Egon, left to his own thoughts, wandered away towards 
 the landing-place. The air felt cold, after Orta ; a north 
 wind was blowing. Its fierce freshness pleased him. A 
 steamer had just come alongside ; he dawdled aboard, 
 intending to cross to Bouveret and come back. 
 
 At the last moment, as the ropes were untwisting, a 
 brougham dashed up to the landing-place. "Wait one 
 second ! " called the purser to the captain. A lady sprang 
 out of the carriage and was hurried down the gangway. 
 The boat had started. Giulietta stood, panting, on deck. 
 
448 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Hast thou found me, oh my enemy ? '* she said, and 
 looked up into Egon's face and laughed. 
 
 " I saw you," she said. " What a splendid opportunity ! 
 Come, give me your arm, the boat rolls. Let us walk 
 about." 
 
 He hardly knew what to answer, awkward, anxious, 
 above all, not to give her offence. 
 
 For the women we have done wrong with are the women 
 we find it most difficult to wrong. 
 
 " Comtesse," he said, " we should never have met again." 
 
 " Do you think so, Egon ? " she answered. She passed 
 up the small deck in silence. " Well, I for one," she added, 
 " have always rejoiced to do things I should not." 
 
 " We will cross to Bouveret," she said. " Was not 
 that your intention? And to-night we will return to 
 Montreux." 
 
 " No, no," he exclaimed, " I can't go as far as that. 1 
 shall get out, in a few minutes, at Villeneuve." 
 
 She shot a keen look at him, and wrapped herself closer 
 in her furs. " If Dorothea is waiting for you," she remarked 
 coldly, " there is no more to be said." 
 
 " Dorothea has left me." 
 
 She clutched at something, anything, a bit of rigging, 
 then righted herself, angry, lest he should see. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" she questioned with steady voice. 
 
 " I told her. She has gone home." 
 
 Giulietta turned full upon him, her mantle dropped 
 open. *' Ah !" she said, " I had no idea you loved me as 
 much as that !" She fell back a step, " Or Dorothea ! " she 
 whispered. Before he could answer, she had resumed her 
 unsteady walk along the bulwark. " Come," she said, ** let 
 us go below. I cannot stand this cold. Ah, why did I 
 come ?" 
 
 The boat was almost deserted at that season, at that 
 hour. In the close-smelling, dimly-lighted cabin, a solitary 
 individual lay huddled up in a corner asleep. 
 
 " Tell him to go to the second-class smoking place," said 
 Giulietta. 
 
 "How can I?" She shook herself impatiently. "Men 
 can never manage anything. "Monsieur!" she exclaimed 
 in a very loud voice, " would you have the great kindriess 
 to leave us alone ?" She smiled sweetly. The man having 
 started awake, her accents grew seductive. "The very 
 great kindness to leave us here alone ?" 
 
DOROTHEA. 449 
 
 "This place is public property," retorted the passenger. 
 
 Giulietta's eyes flashed fire. " I cannot stand the motion, 
 that is all," she said. " I am going to be horribly ill." 
 She sank down among the cabin cushions. A moment 
 later : " Are we alone ?" she asked, and sat up. '* Admit 
 that I can act." 
 
 " I never denied that," he made answer. 
 
 " You might speak more prettily, Romeo. I do not mind 
 the motion, but the smell of the paraffin is almost more 
 than I can endure. This I bear for your sake." 
 
 "Let us go on deck again. There is a sheltered bit 
 behind the funnel." 
 
 " Close the door." 
 
 He obeyed her. 
 
 " Romeo." 
 
 What could he do ? He said, " Giulietta." 
 
 " Ah, you are not altogether a brute ! I have been 
 desolate since thou wentest away." 
 
 " Oh, hush !" he said. " Hush !" 
 
 " And why, pray, should I hush ? Is life so long, and are 
 joys so many ? Be not a fool, Egon ! Thou art as a little 
 child." 
 
 " I would to God I was," he answered fiercely. 
 
 "Ah, now you are talking religion. I love religion. 
 But it must come at its proper moment. Oh, comma il est 
 beau, le moment du repentir !" 
 
 " You are wicked," he said. 
 
 " But beautiful — admit that I am beautiful ! The two 
 go together, naturally ; in a man's pleasant thoughts of a 
 woman they join. You have never known a woman who 
 was beautiful and good." 
 
 " Yes." The stuffy little cabin was still. She burst out 
 furiously : 
 
 " Not beautiful as I mean it. You play upon words ! 
 Your della Robbia was beautiful, I suppose, the sweet, 
 simpering Madonna ! Beautiful to look at, from a distance, 
 like a lily, a church statue, cold and pretty, porcelain, white 
 and blue. Not beautiful like a warm, living woman — not 
 beautiful like me ! " She had risen ; her mantle was about 
 her feet. 
 
 He stammered a few incoherent words. 
 
 "Admit that I am beautiful. If you have a spark of 
 generous feeling left in you, at least admit that." 
 
 " God knows you are beautiful." 
 
450 DOROTHEA. 
 
 "What care I what He knows? Say you know it — 
 you ! " 
 
 " Were you not the most beautiful of women, I were not 
 the most wretched of men ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " She sank back on the red velvet cushions. She 
 closed her eyes. 
 
 " Giulietta, let us remember " 
 
 " What would you have us remember ? ** she whispered, 
 lying still. 
 
 " All that once, in an evil moment, we forgot." 
 
 " There could be no religion," she replied, " without sin.'* 
 
 " You do not understand me ! " 
 
 " I understand you too well, and I answer accordingly. 
 We will speak no more of the matter, Herr von Roden. 
 Only let me put you one question — promise to reply on your 
 honour, and I have done ! " 
 
 " Do not put it," he said. 
 
 She had sat up again ; her eyes were wide open. " I have 
 a right to my answer — ^you owe it me ! " she spoke. " It is 
 not what you think it is — ^not a silly girl's. Do you love 
 me ? Love ! love ! You might say ' yes ! * you might say 
 * no ! * and never break your oath. It is this : Do you 
 repent ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " he answered quickly. 
 
 " Too quickly. Of course you are sorry, for her sake. 
 Are you sorry for your own ? " 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 She sprang to the floor. " I am answered," she cried, and 
 her voice rang out in the musty little cabin, " Oh my love ! 
 Oh my love ! Oh my hope ! See, we will love each 
 other, and the rest is as dirt beneath our feet." 
 
 He endeavoured to steady himself. ** Have pity on me ! " 
 he said. " Have mercy. Good God ! I am human flesh and 
 blood ! Let us forget ; let us separate. Remember your 
 husband ! " 
 
 "Ay ! go back to your della Robbia ! " she said. 
 
 " I cannot go back to any one — to anything — you know 
 it. The future lies before me. I am going to the Colonies 
 as a soldier. But you — you will be very happy ; you are 
 the Countess Pini still." 
 
 She stood before him in the half-light. Very simply : 
 
 " Take me with you," she said. 
 
 "A great prospect lies before you. Soon you will be 
 one of the richest women in Europe. Remember all your 
 
DOROTHEA, 451 
 
 plans for the future. You are going to help beautify the 
 world." 
 
 " Take me with you," she said. 
 
 " We shall never meet again. 1 shall always remember 
 you with — with the strangest sweetness of feelings. You 
 
 have taught me of a terrible happiness that Farewell ! 
 
 Do not let us speak together any longer. I am going on 
 deck." 
 
 But she flew out at him like a wild beast that is wounded 
 by its mate. " See here ! " she said, and tore a paper from 
 her bosom and held it up to him. "See here ! " 
 
 He fell back a step or two. " Impossible ! " he exclaimed, 
 with his eyes upon the paper. " Giulietta, what stupid joke 
 is this ? " 
 
 " It is no joke. Perhaps you still deem it stupid ? " 
 
 "You do not intend to telegraph these words to your 
 husband? " 
 
 " The telegram went this morning ; would you like to 
 read his reply ? " 
 
 She held out a second paper ; her hand trembled, and he 
 caught at it. 
 
 " Madame, no further correspondence is necessary between 
 us. Kindly mention to my bankers the monthly sum you 
 desire. — Count Pini-Pizzatelli." 
 
 "Ah!" she said, "did you think you alone could play 
 drama ? " 
 
 " This is madness," he said. 
 
 " Why, pray ? When you started so suddenly for Orta 
 I read your still purpose like an open book. I could not 
 hasten off to Monte Carlo, but I was resolved on my part 
 also to examine how the other half takes this sort of com- 
 plication — see here ! " 
 
 Before he could answer, she continued : 
 
 "There is no further impediment to our happiness. A 
 mortal has but one life ; let us make the most of ours." 
 She held out her hand. The strange lights of the cabin 
 played about her full lips and her brow. 
 
 " Villeneuve ! " yelled a voice down the gangway. 
 
 *' Nous sortons ! " cried back Egon. He had stood 
 quivering ; he had bent over her hand 
 
 "Nous sortons ! " he cried back. The purser came lum- 
 bering down to the cabin. 
 
 *' You refuse ? " she gasped. 
 
 "Let us get out here; let us go back now. I do not 
 
 G G a 
 
452 DOROTHEA. 
 
 know what I am saying — what we are doing. What have 
 you done ? Oh, my God ! what have you done ? " 
 
 " I have acted a woman's part," she said scornfully. " Act 
 you a man's. I have ruined myself for you, desiring nothing, 
 for I thought you had returned to Dorothea." They were 
 once more on deck, in the cold and the sleet. 
 
 " I rejoiced to think it should be so ! " she said trium- 
 phantly. " To think I was destroying my future, was 
 telling him, glorying in you ! That is the woman's way ! 
 When she loves once for all and for ever. Be yours the 
 man's, Go ! be successful. Make a career." 
 
 He put her into a cab at the landing-stage, and walked 
 back himself in the wind and the rain. 
 
 That same night he telegraphed to Pini : 
 
 " I am here. I am at your disposal. — Von Roden.** 
 
 ' '[ jBiiir.tb 
 
( 453 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " Count Pini-Pizzatelli begs Herr von Roden to do him 
 the honour of meeting him at Lyons." 
 
 That was the reply. 
 
 On the day, then, of Dickie's wedding Egon drove to the 
 station. His uncle still lay semi-conscious and all but 
 inarticulate. " His Excellency is safe in my hands," said 
 Fritz. A couple of hours after Egon had started came a 
 telegram from the Generalin announcing her arrival next 
 day. 
 
 " It is rude of you not to come to my wedding ; I shall 
 never forgive you," had said Dickie. She had said it to 
 every one who had stopped away, but especially to Egon, 
 whom she had waylaid on the hotel stairs. Most people 
 came. Count Kauenfels was exceedingly wealthy, and the 
 days when anybody anywhere cared anything for questions 
 of decency are dead. 
 
 " To the Lady Archibald, of the Marquesses of Brassing- 
 ham " 
 
 "If Bathildis had come to my wedding, I should have 
 forgiven her," said Dickie to old Kauenfels. 
 
 " It would kill her to leave Monte Carlo," replied the 
 bridegroom. 
 
 Dickie laughed. " The more reason for me to forgive 
 her. But you know very well that is not why she stops 
 away." 
 
 My lady had asked her future husband what rooms at 
 the Castle of Kauenfels were in use by Bathildis. "The 
 Terrace Rooms," he had told her. " She likes to creep out 
 on the terrace and sun her old bones." " By-the-bye," 
 remarked the Lady Archibald carelessly, " I have written to 
 what's-his-name, your steward, to say that those rooms on 
 the terrace must be cleared out for me. I have told him to 
 repaper and upholster them with something bright, yellow 
 and pink." 
 
 " Jove ! " said Kauenfels, and sat up redder than ever. 
 
454 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Well ? ** said Dickie, and sat up too, slapping one knee 
 with a fair, fat hand. 
 
 "They were my mother's rooms," said Kauenfels. 
 " They've got tapestry." 
 
 " Nasty, fusty tapestry ! " said Dickie. 
 
 "Bathildis has had them ever since she was a girl of 
 eighteen — ever since her mother died." 
 
 Whereupon Dickie got up and screamed. 
 
 " Am I to be mistress of that hideous old house or am I 
 not?" 
 
 " There ! there I dear : you've not even seen it." 
 
 " Mistress of a hideous old house and a hideous old man," 
 screamed Dickie. 
 
 " Dear creature, the neighbours will hear you ! You 
 must just do whatever you like." 
 
 " I should think so," said Dickie, and subsided, smooth- 
 ing her ruffled feathers with considerable noise. 
 
 '* Now you are reasonable, I will tell you some more," 
 she said presently, when she had kissed him. " I have also 
 written to the steward, a few days later, to say that you had 
 told me the rooms in question were those of the Countess 
 Bathildis, and so I must have others, the second best." 
 
 "Why on earth did you do all that ?" he questioned, 
 amazed. 
 
 " I intend to make peace with your sisters, you stupid. 
 Of course, he had written about the rooms, and now he 
 will send them my second letter. I am going to touch 
 Bathildis' old heart." 
 
 He walked to the window. "Touch Bathildis' old 
 heart," he repeated, looking out into the rain. Then he 
 turned. " My dear, 1 will tell you a little story. I once 
 had a very pious aunt. She had two sons, both officers : 
 both ran wild, fell into debt, got cashiered. One shot him- 
 self : the other refused to do so, started a land-agency — 
 Unter den Linden — a brass plate on the door with his 
 name in big letters, von Stroesching, strove to clear 
 himself, paid off his debts. His mother told me that, night 
 and morning, she prayed to God to kill him — as she called 
 it, to take him away ! " 
 
 "Why?" asked Dickie, with mild interest, nibbling 
 bonbons. 
 
 " That the name might disappear from the street." 
 
 " It is a cruel story," said Dickie. " She was a wicked 
 woman, wickeder'n me." 
 
DOROTHEA. 455 
 
 He stood looking at her, close to the door. "Poor 
 thing ! " he said, with almost real tenderness, " to try and 
 touch the heart of the Countess Bathildis ! " And he went 
 out to the notary round the comer, who was drawing up 
 the contracts, and talked about his will. 
 
 " There is no better life insurance than making your 
 will," he had said to Egon. " Have you noticed that a 
 man's will, when not made in extremisy is always twenty 
 years old ? I fear your poor uncle is going to die, Egon. 
 Well, well, he never had much of a constitution — unlike 
 me — and, besides, I am a good deal his junior." 
 
 Egon, alone in the train, mused dully on death and life. 
 Giulietta, by her wanton self-destruction, had created a 
 terrible position for him, from whose embarrassments he 
 could see no escape. He was by no means the sort of man 
 who pretends to himself that he thinks life a nuisance and 
 death a convenience : yet, for the first time since his father 
 had taught him to love sun and shadow, he felt that there 
 are moments in a soul's tragedy when the sudden fall of 
 the curtain brings only relief. Perhaps, even at that 
 moment, the formless hand of Fate was guiding Pini's 
 fingers towards the drop. 
 
 He sighed resignedly. For he doubted whether Doro- 
 thea would greatly grieve. She was still very young. 
 She must marry an altogether different man. She would 
 marry again. 
 
 He flushed darkly. She might marry again in the 
 abstract. He would like her to do so. But not the man 
 whom he knew. 
 
 A few minutes after his arrival at the Hotel Metropole, 
 he waited upon Signer Pini, such being that gentleman's 
 courteous request. 
 
 " I could not well come much farther, could I ? " said 
 Bartolommeo Pini. He put his slender white finger-tips 
 together, and nodded his venerable white head to and fro. 
 
 " I am at your service," said Egon, standing erect. 
 
 " Quite so. But sit down. Oh, surely ! My dear boy, 
 let us get to business immediately. But there can't be any 
 reason why you shouldn't sit down." 
 
 " This is a matter of life and death," replied Egon. 
 "Tell me with whom you would have me speak, and I 
 will go." 
 
 " With whom I would have you speak ? With myself, of 
 course. Whom else should we mix up in this deplorable 
 
456 DOROTHEA. 
 
 matter ? Listen, Egon : you have done me the greatest 
 wrong one man can do another. Admit that." 
 
 " I am here to make reparation." 
 
 " I know. According to the rules of your society, the 
 reparation would consist in your shooting me through the 
 heart. Ahime, I have been too long outside society to 
 appreciate that sort of reparation. I remember poor 
 Archibald at the Villa 'Arriet. And his widow marries the 
 rich Kauenfels ! I have heard that Garibaldi was wont to 
 say : * Never fight with a lover or a priest.' " 
 
 " Then what would you have me to do ? Why did you 
 send for me ? " 
 
 " We are coming to that. But I entreat of you : quit 
 
 these tragedy airs and sit down. I cannot " He 
 
 stopped, stared the younger man hard in the face, with his 
 cruel old eyes, and smiled. " Things have come to such a 
 pass," he said. " We must grin." He got up and rang the 
 bell. " Bring champagne, good champagne, still, if pos- 
 sible, dry! And cognac, good cognac — have you got 
 Cote blanche ? — the best you have got." 
 
 As the waiter left the room, the Italian resumed : 
 
 "Yes, you have done me the greatest of injuries. My 
 home is destroyed. I am willing to make all allowances. 
 I know men do this sort of thing : they cannot help them- 
 selves. As for me, my mistress has ever been the blessed 
 Virgin. No man understands the temptations that are not 
 his." 
 
 " Discussion must be useless between us," said Egon, 
 " unless you mean to fight." 
 
 " Are we not fighting ? " replied Pini, smiling. He 
 paused, for the waiter came in with the tray. Egon, who 
 knew the Italian to be a temperate man, beheld him with 
 astonishment pour out and swallow a bumper of the two 
 drinks, mixed half and half. " Per Dio, we are fighting," 
 said Pini. "You are too anxious to murder me as your 
 brother murdered the Englishman. But Milord was a fool, 
 and I am not." 
 
 " We can shoot across a handkerchief, if you like," 
 replied Egon hotly. " And you can shoot first ! " 
 
 Pini started, endeavouring to hide the movement in vain. 
 "Per Bacco" he said, "thou art a better man than I 
 thought." But the next moment his eyes were again cold 
 as steel. " It is bravado," he said. " The old hate to die, 
 and the young love to live. If I accepted thus to shoot 
 
DOROTHEA. 457 
 
 you like a dog, Herr von Roden, you would soon enough 
 retract and refer me to a friend." 
 
 " Try me," said Egon. His eyes were so miserable, the 
 other must have noticed it. He would not confess to this 
 man, with cheap self-commiseration, that he cared not at 
 that moment, whether to live or to die. 
 
 "You are safe, for you know / am not an assassin," 
 replied Pini proudly. " And, besides, is your wife not between 
 us ? — ah, la nobile donna ! Bellissima ! Purissima ! 
 Angela di Dio ! As a shield she stands between you and 
 the man whom you have wronged." 
 
 " Do not speak of Dorothea," said Egon, his face gone 
 white as a sheet. 
 
 The Italian poured himself out a second tumbler and 
 thoughtfully emptied it, with steady gaze on his victim's 
 countenance. " Let us to business," he said abruptly. 
 " You want to fight : let us fight. But, see, I am a player : 
 I demand equality of chances. With firearms, with the 
 ordinary weapons, these are impossible. Nor can either of 
 us have the faintest desire to destroy the other's life — that 
 were foolish ! What we desire to destroy is the other's 
 happiness, eh ? " 
 
 " 1 have no wish to touch your happiness," said Egon. 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed the Italian, *' it is that you think there 
 is no happiness left to destroy." 
 
 "All this fighting to kill is idiotic," he added. "It 
 means nothing between foes that are not rivals. See here, 
 what I propose." 
 
 He got up and walked to the window : he stood looking 
 out. " This will do," he said. " May I trouble you to 
 come here ? You see that little passage yonder, under the 
 arch ? Occasionally some one passes through it — not often. 
 Wait and watch. If a woman come first, or a man, at 
 your choice, you have won : I have lost. You may bid 
 me do what you choose : I will do it. Conformably with 
 honour. You may bid me shoot myself. If the other way, 
 then the other way — ^you understand ? " 
 
 " Perfectly," replied Egon, without change in his voice. 
 But he turned a shade paler about the eyes. " The risk is 
 hardly equal," he added. " I have no desire to make you 
 do anything whatever." 
 
 " That is not civil to the Countess Pini. However, no 
 matter. I make one restriction. You also may make one. 
 Do you agree ? " 
 
458 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " What is yours ? " They spoke quite naturally, in the 
 falling dusk of the hotel-room. Egon had taken a cigar 
 from the table : Count Pini filled himself another tumbler 
 of champagne. 
 
 " If you let me live, you must let me play. Your demand 
 must have no reference to my system. Nor should I, for 
 instance, become a Protestant to please you, or a Jew ! 
 Three things remain outside the question, but two of 
 them go beyond saying : my honour, my religion and 
 the system ! " 
 
 " I should prefer an ordinary duel," said Egon, 
 
 " Of course," replied the other quickly, " for then you 
 would know all the chances were on your side." 
 
 The German trembled from head to foot. " Choose," he 
 said. " Choose ! You are the offended party. As you know, 
 the right of choice is yours. My reservation is my wife. She 
 is my religion. Would to God she was my honour too! 
 Choose. Make haste. Man or woman ? " 
 
 A glow of satisfaction settled in Pini's glaucous eyes. 
 " Yes," he said. " Of course : 1 know it. The right of 
 choice is mine. I choose — the woman ! " 
 
 They placed themselves each at a window. The hour 
 was four of the afternoon. People were moving rapidly 
 across the great grey square in the winter twilight. The 
 little entry, selected by Pini, yawned black on the farther 
 side, between tall blocks of building. 
 
 The minutes passed. A tram-car ran, jangling, along 
 the boulevard. 
 
 From under the arch a little white dog crept forth. 
 
 " She laughs at us ! " exclaimed the Italian in his native 
 tongue ; he meant the Madonna. 
 
 Then a girl, with a scarf above her shoulders, came 
 tripping out, brightly erect. A couple of other females 
 followed, a butcher's boy — what did that matter? — Pini 
 was back in the dull sitting-room, facing his foe. 
 
 " I have won," he said. " I have you in my power." 
 
 He almost whispered these words, and those that followed, 
 with low, concentrated heat and hate. His cadaverous 
 cheeks glowed in scarlet spots. " He is drunk," thought 
 Egon, and steeled himself, heart and frame, standing as 
 cast in bronze. 
 
 " What can he tell me to do ? He cannot torture me," 
 reflected Egon. He felt as if this question had been with 
 him for hours. 
 
DOROTHEA. 459. 
 
 " I hate you — my God, how I hate you ! ** continued ; 
 Pini. " I can say it at last : with what pleasure, what! 
 delight can I say it! Twice have you taken from me thei 
 woman on whom my heart was set. My heart, I say. Such 
 feelings, such impulses as yours are beneath my under- 
 standing ! From the bottom of my soul do I despise and 
 condemn such existences as yours." He lifted himself to 
 the full length of his spare and elegant frame, and with 
 eagle eyes aloft : " I have you in my power," he said. 
 
 Egoii von Roden threw back his head. "You have 
 gained the right to dispose of my life, but not to insult 
 me," he said. "Tell me what you desire of me, and let 
 me go." 
 
 " Your life," said the Italian. " Your life is very dear to 
 me : I would not hurt your life." 
 
 He paced up and down the long room twice. Was he 
 enjoying his victim's torment, or did he find it difficult to 
 speak ? It is impossible to say. 
 
 At last he stood still, on the other side of the table, and 
 spoke in somewhat clearer tones. 
 
 " It is you," he said, " and such as you, who destroy the 
 Madonna's image on earth. It is you and such as you, if I 
 understand the story, who are the serpents that crept into 
 Eve's Paradise. Men fight with men for gold, a fair con- 
 test, as dogs for a bone. They slay women for lust, as a 
 dog leaves his trail in the snow. God has not enough 
 angels of heaven to defend His poor angels of earth." He 
 laughed. " And so Bartolommeo Pini must help do the 
 angels' work. Monsieur, you have placed yourself in my 
 power : I bid you respect henceforth — absolutely — every 
 woman you meet. That is all. By a strange caprice of 
 fate you are married to the best, the noblest, the purest of 
 women. She is your wife. I doubt not we have under- 
 stood each other. You are bound by your honour. You 
 will permit me to bid you a definite farewell." With a 
 movement that was not devoid of dignity he flung open 
 the door. 
 
 " Pray do not trouble to communicate this change in 
 your circumstances to the Countess Pini-Pizzatelli," he 
 said. " I myself will inform her of what has occurred." 
 
 " I have the honour to salute you," fell from Egon's lips, 
 and he went from the room and away into the street. 
 
 The Italian, left by himself, smiled heavily. His thoughts 
 ran on a Grand Inquisitor of his race, three hundred years 
 
46o DOROTHEA. 
 
 ago, who had been famed for the invention of new tortures. 
 He drew forth the little leaden image of the Virgin which 
 he always wore round his neck, bought for seven soldi by 
 his mother, in his childhood, on the Chiaia at Naples. 
 
 " Madonna ! " he said, " have I not done thy work this 
 day ? In the cause of yon sweet living saint who is made 
 in thy image ? Forget it not, to-night, when I go to play 
 Lansquenet in the club of the Rue Pot-de-Bceuf ! " 
 
 He rang for the waiter. " Take away these bottles," he 
 said. " The cognac is good enough, but the champagne is 
 not. Where does that little archway lead to ? Do you 
 know?" 
 
 " It is the entrance, monsieur, to a Registry Office for 
 Servants.*' 
 
 ''Indeed? Not remarkably interesting. I want nothing 
 more." He remained dimly watching the gateway, now 
 only just visible in the gathering night. " That accounts 
 for the proportion of five women to one man," he reflected. 
 " I had noticed it all day. Well, look at the zero at Monte 
 Carlo. Naturally a player endeavours to get the odds in 
 his favour if he can." 
 
 .O'y^ii 
 
( 46i ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Egon, who had come unattended to Lyons, drove straight 
 to the station, entered a train he found waiting, and 
 steamed back to Montreux. 
 
 The sensation uppermost in his mind was relief. But 
 under that, and across it, played many mingled sentiments 
 of terror — ay, terror ! — annoyance and regret. The fear of 
 himself was upon him in the future, lying centred in sweet 
 recollection of the past. Yet he could not have well been 
 his own father's son and not realised the humorous side of 
 his desperate situation. Pini, of all men, intent to do him 
 injury, forcibly extracting Hercules from a not undesirable 
 hole, and planting him with his face in the right direction : 
 the elements of tragic comedy were there : it was to be 
 hoped that Giulietta would see them. Yesterday it had 
 seemed to him as if he could never unmesh himself from 
 the complications his own folly had called up around him ; 
 now, at least, the path of duty, if not of pleasure, lay plain. 
 He would see at once about getting his appointment — there 
 could not be much difficulty. His heart beat high at 
 thought of a different life, active service, hard work in 
 Cameroon. 
 
 As he drove to the hotel, he looked up at Giulietta's 
 windows. They were lighted : she was there. He was 
 glad they were lighted : he could not have told why. 
 
 He went straight to his own room : it was past midnight. 
 He saw light through the chinks as he came down the passage, 
 and supposed that Hans must be waiting up for him. But 
 a woman's figure rose beside the reading-lamp. 
 
 " Die Mutter! " 
 
 Her arms were round his neck ; she had kissed him on 
 both cheeks. " To see you come walking in like that ! " 
 she said. " If only your father could have seen it ! " She 
 was in her widow's mourning, the little Generalin, with 
 silver streaks in her flaxen hair. 
 
 " Your uncle is the same," she added. " I am glad your 
 
462 DOROTHEA. 
 
 father was never like that. And now tell me, how is 
 Dorothea ? I could not make out Hans at all : is Dorothea 
 not well ? " 
 
 She looked up at him, saw his embarrassment. 
 
 " Unless — unless I understand," she said, smiling happily. 
 " I thought it was that. Well, Egon, I wish you joy." 
 
 " Dorothea has left me ! " burst out the son. " She has 
 gone back to the aunts for good — it was right she should go." 
 
 " Right ! " repeated the Generalin. She left him and 
 went and sat down by the reading-lamp. " There must be 
 some hideous mistake." 
 
 " The mistake was that she ever married me. She was 
 far too good for me." 
 
 The Generalin smiled. " So your father used to say of 
 me. We had our little misunderstandings, but I never got 
 so frightened that I ran away ! " 
 
 Then he flung himself on the ground at her feet, hiding 
 his face against her knees. 
 
 She sat silent, trembling a little — he felt it — her lips 
 moved once or twice. 
 
 Presently she slipped down beside him, her arms all about 
 him, her hands meeting against his brow. 
 
 " Our Father ! " she stammered. " Our Father which art 
 — our Father ! " 
 
 The glare of the electric lamp lay around them : the 
 touch of her hands was on his brow. Their heads were 
 bent low together, in darkness beyond depth. 
 
 She had passed into her own room close by his : she had 
 mercilessly faced herself in the glass. Her eyes were dry, 
 her lips were firm. She had turned to the table, where 
 stood Justus's portrait, strong and hopeful, in its leather 
 travelling-case. 
 
 " I am glad thou art dead ! " she cried. 
 
 In the silence of night she rose from the bed upon which 
 she had thrown herself and wiped the tears from her cheeks, 
 and went out into the deserted, dimly- lighted corridor. 
 She stood many minutes by Egon's door : vague rumours 
 startled her : the big building moved in its sleep — she 
 stood listening. She fancied she heard his consistent 
 breathing : she was vexed with him, amid all her tender- 
 ness, for his lack of pity and of pain. 
 
 The door flung wide open, and he stood in front of her. 
 
DOROTHEA. 463 
 
 " I was going to look after my uncle," he stammered. 
 
 They went down the long corridor together. 
 
 " Egon ! " she said softly, " you are right. Go away now 
 — go far — to Cameroon. In the future, perhaps — the 
 future is God's ! But — but for the present — ^yes, go — it is 
 best." She spoke with difficulty : he felt the misery that 
 weighted every word. 
 
 He put his hand to the door-knob, but held it back at 
 the sound of a loud voice within. 
 
 " Hold, then, thy peace, old fool ! " the valet Fritz was 
 saying. " Ah ! villain ! thy day is over ! Goo-roo! goo-roo ! 
 I will teach thee to disturb me. I have given thee all thou 
 needest : let me sleep ! " 
 
 " Goo-roo ! " gurgled the invalid. A dull thud followed, 
 as if of a blow. The next moment Egon had kicked open 
 the resisting door. The next, Fritz lay sprawling on the 
 carpet with a downpour of stars all about him. 
 
 " Pick yourself up and be gone," said Egon, turning to 
 the bed, where lay stretched his Excellency Count von 
 Roden-Rheyna, Hereditary Member of the Herrenhaus and 
 Lord of the Imperial Bedchamber, with the crimsoning stain 
 of a menial's hand across his congested face. 
 
 Passion and rage and despair filled the old man's every 
 feature ; his blood-shot eyes seemed starting from their 
 sockets : the nostrils trembled : the blue- black veins stood 
 out in quivering lumps. By superhuman effort he had 
 succeeded in moving his arms a little across the counterpane, 
 the finger-ends twitched and fumbled, the whole of his 
 wretched dumb straining was a struggle of appeal to his 
 nephew for help. 
 
 " Goo-gon," he gasped, and a wave of relief broke over 
 his face as the new sound at last found utterance : " Goo- 
 gon!" 
 
 " He means me," said Egon. " Go and rest, mother, after 
 your journey. I will remain with him." 
 
 With an immense effort, agonising to see, the old Count 
 half lifted his lean head. It hung distorted, discoloured 
 with purple stains — the hot scar across it. " Always ! " he 
 said, and fell back, his eyes closing, in a faint. 
 
 Next morning, at an early hour, Egon sought Barbolat. 
 
 " My uncle has had a long sleep," he said. " He seems 
 to be somewhat recovering the use of his speech, but the 
 words come all wrong." 
 
464 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " I told you he would never talk sense again." 
 
 " And the use of his limbs ? " 
 
 " I don't think he will recover it." 
 
 " But you think he will live ? " 
 
 " As long as you let him." 
 
 Egon hesitated and looked away. " What do you mean 
 by that ? " he asked at length. 
 
 " What I say. If at any time 1 fall into your uncle's 
 condition, I hope some one who cares for me will kill me. 
 
 Did you ever hear what happened to the King of no, I 
 
 will not tell you." 
 
 "Yes, you will." 
 
 «Eh?" ! 
 
 "I said yes, you will." 
 
 " Do you know that you are speaking to Barbolat ? " 
 
 "Yes. I believe absolutely in the wisdom, and good 
 sense and good heart of Barbolat." 
 
 The great man laughed. Then he went and closed the 
 door of his cabinet. " I will not breathe his name," he 
 said, " not even to the walls. But you know there was a 
 king in Europe, not so very long ago, who went silly — a 
 ruler of millions. He was imbecile for years, and cared for 
 by devoted domestics. When he died, his body was dis- 
 covered to be a mass of blue sores." 
 
 " What ? " exclaimed Egon. 
 
 " Pinches. He used to cry a good deal, and his children, 
 who occasionally went to see him, thought him very dis- 
 contented. Pooh ! I am not going to pity him. Have you 
 ever seen a king ? " 
 
 "Certainly!" 
 
 " Yes, yes : I know. And of course your uncle is a king in 
 a small way. But I have seen all the royalties of Europe, 
 stripped body and soul. I am a pork butcher's son and a 
 millionaire. If their servants get a rare chance of pinching 
 them, it is not I will pity the kings." 
 
 " But yet " began Egon. 
 
 " You have never nursed an old creature who was imbecile, 
 cared for it, cleaned it, looked after it, day after day. Human 
 nature cannot stand its fretfulness, naughtiness, dirtiness. 
 The best becomes cruel. The kindest gives the patient a 
 final pill. But that must be a relative. The strangers 
 prefer to retain a lucrative post." 
 
 " You cannot mean what you are saying ? " 
 
 " I mean it all. Your uncle, however, was probably not 
 
DOROTHEA. 465 
 
 the best of masters, Herr von Roden. Do all you can for 
 him ; you needn't do more." 
 
 Egon went to his mother : " I am not going to the 
 Colonies after all," he said. " I am going to stay with uncle 
 Karl." 
 
 She looked at him. 
 
 " There is no one else," he said simply. " The Child must 
 go on with his work, and Konrad must stay with his 
 regiment. I am free." 
 
 " Your sister and I ? " 
 
 " I hardly fancy it will be woman's work." 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " Little mother — I may still call you that." 
 
 " Egon — son ! " 
 
 " He says it may last for years." 
 
 She rose. 
 
 "The future is God's," she said. "Egon, I will not 
 reproach you. Do you know who is most in my thoughts ?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " I see still the small room at 
 Lugano, you and her together — poor aunt Mary ! Mother, 
 I cannot help it. I can do no more than atone." 
 
 " It is all ; it is so little ! " said the Generalin sadly. 
 "It is very much ; it is nothing. Nothing. The future is 
 God's." 
 
 That same day came a letter from Giulietta, a letter of 
 scornful farewell. Barbolat, it appears, had suddenly cured 
 her. She departed to Naples, where her poor father was 
 suffering from a cold on the chest. 
 
 R n 
 
( 466 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " I WONDER what it can be," said aunt Emma. She 
 stood, staring, at the window. The long winter road, 
 beyond the carriage-sweep, was very white about the 
 ground, very black about the trees, very grey about the 
 sky. It did not look at all the sort of place for anything 
 interesting to happen in. 
 
 " What ? " questioned aunt Mary, and laid down her 
 Dorcas work. 
 
 " If I knew what, I shouldn't wonder," replied Emma. 
 She had grown a little acidulous of late ; Dorothea's 
 misfortune had soured her, like a thunderstorm turning 
 cream. She said so herself. " I don't dislike an acrid 
 touch about cream, when it's good," said uncle Tony. 
 
 Aunt Mary approached the window. 
 
 Two fair-sized carts were plodding up the high-road ; in 
 front of them crept a ricketty waggonette ; the three 
 vehicles made a little procession against the December sky. 
 
 " People moving," said Mary. 
 
 " It don't look a bit like it. The carts are full of boxes. 
 Good gracious, they're stopping at our gate ! " 
 
 " They're asking the way," said aunt Mary. 
 
 " Well, there's Antony ; I'm glad of that," exclaimed 
 Emma. " I don't like the look of the man who's got out 
 of the waggonette." Nor, indeed, did Em and Doll : their 
 shrill protests could be heard, around the strangers. 
 
 " They are coming to the house ; the carts are turning into 
 the avenue ! " shrieked Emma. " Dorothea ! Dorothea ! 
 Something is going to happen ! Oh, what fun ! " 
 
 Dorothea, who had bent over her charity flannels by the 
 fireplace, now gently pushed the dog with the bandaged 
 leg from off her skirt, and came forward. The dog whined 
 after her, with great yearning brown eyes. Dorothea's face 
 was solemn, but she smiled. All the sadness of her 
 countenance seemed lighted into sunshine when she smiled. 
 
 The conveyance had drawn aside to let the heavy-laden 
 
DOROTHEA. 467 
 
 carts come up to the front door. Uncle Tony, in his brown 
 velveteens, was expostulating vehemently with the insolent 
 driver from the town. The stranger — a neat man in black 
 clothes, clean shaven — stood looking on, impassive. 
 
 "That is an English servant, I should sa^^," remarked 
 Dorothea. The aunts both gazed at her in respectful 
 admiration. Since the child had gone out to see the world, 
 just a year ago, she had suddenly grown infinitely wiser 
 than they. 
 
 Before they could say much more, in the delicious flutter 
 of excitement which possessed them — let those who laugh 
 go and winter at Brodryck — before aunt Emma's fancy had 
 disported itself in more than a dozen wrong directions, uncle 
 Tony and the stranger were in the sitting-room. "My 
 dear Dorothea," said Tony, " this person has a message for 
 you.** 
 
 " If you please. Madam, are you Madam de Roden ? " 
 asked the person in English, " because, if so, I was to 
 deliver this letter into your own hands. I am acting by 
 the orders of my master, the Marquess of Brassingham, 
 madam, if you please." The last words were aimed at 
 uncle Tony, who appeared unconscious of anything, even of 
 the sniffing Em and Doll. Aunt Mary gently called the dogs 
 away from the Englishman's dapper, twitching little legs. 
 
 Dorothea took the letter and read its contents — German 
 sentences straggling across the paper, as if their concocter 
 could not quite direct their course. 
 
 "Dear Frau von Roden, 
 
 " My first husband, — poor fellow ! — on the night before 
 his death wrote me a letter, in which, amongst other things, 
 he asked me to send you these boxes. He was good enough 
 to say that you alone, of us all, had shown an intelligent 
 interest in the subject. He adds something ridiculous 
 about not addressing you himself, but, of course, he was 
 overwrought. His desire was that the whole collection 
 should be completed and catalogued and presented to the 
 British Museum. Certainly, I should have neither the time 
 nor the inclination to undertake such a work. Perhaps, 
 under the present circumstances, you will. 
 
 " Elizabeth, 
 " Reichsgrafin von Kauenfels-Courmayeur. 
 
 ••P.S.— Looks well, eh?" 
 
 H ■ a 
 
468 DOROTHEA. 
 
 A couple of men, under Caspar's unwilling direction, 
 were dragging a cumbrous oak chest through the hall. 
 ''There's two dozen more," protested Caspar. 
 
 " The others are packing cases, madam," said the 
 English servant. "This chest, I was to inform you, con- 
 tained my late Lord Archibald's most important papers. 
 These, madam, are the keys. There are twenty-seven 
 large packing cases, and three small ones. My lord 
 ordered everything to be packed ; my lady was most 
 particular about it. And I was to ask for a receipt from 
 you, madam, if you please." 
 
 " Count the boxes ! " commanded uncle Tony. 
 
 *' What do they contain ? Bric-d-hrac ? " cried aunt 
 Emma. " Oh, I hope it is bric-d-brac. And china." 
 
 The man-servant had opened the great oaken chest. 
 Uncle Tony, diving down amongst its papers, produced a 
 faded portfolio, a quantity of scrap books. The carter's 
 men were busy lining the hall and the passage. Huge 
 boxes were piling up all over the place. 
 
 " It is Archibald's comic collection ! " gasped Dorothea. 
 
 Uncle Tony had been busy untying the portfolio ; a flood 
 of highly coloured drawings now escaped from it, spreading 
 across the carpet a suddenly brilliant corps de ballet, in a 
 variety of poses and flesh-tints and spangles, which did 
 honour to the caricaturist's ability and justice to the morals 
 of the (second) Empire. 
 
 " How amazingly improper ! " said aunt Emma. Aunt 
 Mary said nothing. Uncle Tony roared. 
 
 " I believe, madam, the contents of this case are very 
 valuable," said the servant in decorous reproach. 
 
 He and Dorothea and Tony were down on the floor 
 together, gathering up the papers. 
 
 " Such things ought to be burned," declared aunt Emma. 
 
 Uncle Tony roared again. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, let somebody stop those boxes ! " 
 cried aunt Emma. 
 
 Dorothea went out into the entrance-hall. One box had 
 been broken open. Dozens of volumes of the Fltegende 
 Blatter were visible, packed in piles. 
 
 Standing amongst these accumulated treasures, with the 
 servants still heaping them up all around her, Dorothea 
 recalled young Lord Archibald's boyish countenance : she 
 seemed to hear again his rather foolish laugh. The man- 
 servant had come to her elbow. 
 
DOROTHEA. 469 
 
 ** If I saw you alone, madam," he began hurriedly, " I 
 was to say from my lady that my lady begged and 
 prayed you to execute Lord Archibald's last wish. My lord 
 is angry and can't bear to have him mentioned, but my 
 lady was his mother, you see. And there's the dog, 
 madam, ' Flirt,' that was sent home from Italy, it appears 
 that Lord Archibald said you was to have it, but I was to 
 ask from my lady, might she keep the dog ? and please 
 not to betray her to my lord." 
 
 " Of course — of course she must keep him. Tell her I 
 will do what I can." 
 
 " Then, madam, would you please to write a few words 
 on a bit of paper to say that you have received the collec- 
 tion, but don't wish for the dog ? " 
 
 So it came about that Dorothea had her hands full of 
 work to overflowing — all the charity sewing aunt Mary 
 couldn't manage, and now, into the bargain, the endless 
 sorting and cataloguing of this wilderness of wit. Archie 
 had done his work at haphazard. Immense quantities of 
 labour remained. With her thoroughness, having set her- 
 self to the uncongenial task, she plodded on. Puns, jokes, 
 Joe Millers, coarse pleasantries, clever drawings — funniness, 
 funniness from morning to night. Her sore heart sickened 
 in that atmosphere of laughter. She was glad to have no 
 time for thought about herself : on the other hand, she 
 certainly felt little desire to spend her days with jests and 
 jesters. For the laugh of the fool is as heaviness to the 
 soul that dwelleth in grief. 
 
 Uncle Tony thoroughly enjoyed the collection, and proved 
 a continuous help. In fact, she could not possibly have done 
 the work had he not shown her how. Aunt Emma gave 
 irregular assistance, sorting half a dozen numbers and then 
 settling down to read a seventh. Not in silence, but with 
 shrill enjoyment and shriller indignation, both of which 
 sentiments she expected her companions to share. There 
 was no " objectivising " of the materials with aunt Emma 
 in the room. Sometimes Dorothea thought the work would 
 have been endurable but for aunt Emma. 
 
 One evening, having worried herself faint over numbers 
 and dates, she went out, for a quick walk, in the park. 
 The mongrel, whose limb was mended to a limp, accom- 
 panied her. She crushed the crisp snow beneath her feet. 
 The sky was pallid and frosty. The day was dying. In 
 solemn silence the cold world was watching him die. 
 
470 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Dorothea stood by the broad piece of unfrozen water : 
 the black band in the shiny expanse. Opposite her rose 
 the dark walls of the Manor House, the dull brown pile, 
 with its tall blue roofs. Since her mother's death it had 
 stood thus deserted. Great preparations had been made 
 last summer — during their stay with the aunts — for restor- 
 ing and re-furnishing it : some plans had already been 
 executed ; in all these things she had acceded, delightedly, 
 to Egon's absolute taste. No one of her acquaintance 
 knew one tithe of what he did about all matters connected 
 with architecture, furniture, decorative art. The Manor 
 House was late Dutch Renascence. In ignorance that learned 
 gladly she had seen two rooms already grow beautiful 
 under his hand. 
 
 Since her return she had not been able to enter the house. 
 Constantly she was drawn to the other side of the water. 
 There she could linger, away from the bridge. 
 
 She now heard steps coming up behind her in the 
 twilight, brisk steps, a man's — not uncle Tony's, yet not 
 those of a man of the people. A silly apprehension seized 
 upon her, a trembling. She dared not look round. The 
 dog barked. 
 
 " My dear Dolly, so engrossed ? " said the Colonel. 
 
 She turned quickly. Her father ! 
 
 When last she had seen him, she had not known what 
 she knew now ! She had respected him up to a point — a 
 willing daughter's point — for his second marriage, condon- 
 ing a connection she could at least understand. For the 
 Bible says it is not good that a man should be alone, and 
 her father, of all men, must have found life hard as a 
 widower. 
 
 But now she knew that he had caused her mother's 
 death. 
 
 Before she realised what she was doing, her eyes had been 
 drawn up to the tall black windows, on the second floor, 
 across the water. 
 
 The whole dismal, trivial story swept across her mental 
 sight : the happy young life in its daily confidence, the 
 sudden vulgar crash in a servant girl's avowal, the untimely 
 birthday morning, the white cross by the village church. 
 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
 
 " You didn't expect me," laughed Colonel Lewis 
 Sandring. 
 
 " No, father." 
 
DOROTHEA. 471 
 
 " All the same, I hope you're glad ? " 
 
 A moment's pause, then : " You know I love you, 
 father." 
 
 He laughed again and kissed her. " You are always so 
 refreshing, Dolly : shall we walk back ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes : let us come away from here." 
 
 " It IS damp, but all Holland is damp. As I was saying : 
 you are always so refreshing, Dolly : you act upon me like 
 a shower-bath. That doesn't sound pretty, but I mean you 
 are so morally bracing, quite hydropathic. On the whole, 
 for a father and daughter who have met late in life, it 
 seems to me we get on first-rate. We understand each 
 other perfectly " — he tucked her arm under his arm — " I 
 admire you from the bottom of my soul, and you love me 
 and wish I was goodier — eh ? " He looked into her face. 
 
 " But you don't think me so very bad, after all — do 
 you ? " 
 
 The tears were in her heart. She smiled. " You know I 
 don't think you any worse than me, father, but I wish you 
 had the comfort I've got." 
 
 " Comfort ? I don't need any comfort, my dear. I'm 
 pretty comfortable on the whole, I can assure you. But 
 you — you : yes, I am very sorry. My heart bleeds for 
 you. I want to say half a dozen words to you — I may, 
 mayn't I ? " 
 
 She stopped short. " How did you know ? ** 
 
 " Aurelie wrote, your former maid. She is with the 
 Countess Kauenfels." 
 
 Dorothea blushed scarlet. 
 
 " If you would let me say just one sentence, an unkind 
 sentence, it would be : ' I told you so.' I told you so at 
 Nice, child. I told you at Lugano. You were angry with 
 me then : you will probably be angry once more. All the 
 same, I must speak. You wronged Egon from the first. 
 No man wants to be loved for his moral perfections, which 
 he knows very well don't exist. No man, not an idiot, or 
 a cad. And the love which is built on such a pin's point 
 is bound to come down with a crash." 
 
 " Oh, don't," she said, " don't." They had gone round 
 by the bridge. The great desolate Manor House seemed to 
 cry out to her. 
 
 "Yes, I will. I feel like a surgeon. A woman must 
 love a man in spite of his faults, Dolly, or she'd much 
 better not love him at all." 
 
472 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " His faults ! " She had loosened her arm. Her voice, 
 her attitude, were splendid in their sore indignation. 
 
 "You wilfully misunderstand me," replied the Colonel 
 rather testily. " The big things come later, when the little 
 things have gone wrong." 
 
 " Then, in fact, you blame me." 
 
 " I never blame any one, least of all a woman." He had 
 taken a pace ahead : he turned round and looked straight 
 at her. " Well, yes, if you like to put it so, I blame you. 
 When a man's dull, he looks for music. When a man's 
 cold, he calls for blankets. He must have his creature 
 comforts, and his soul comforts. Comfort is what a man 
 requires. Giulietta sang wonderfully, and she had artistic 
 perception. She had a lot of soul-cushions handy for Egon 
 to flop down on. Man at his best, in his virtues and his 
 failings, is very like a fine-tempered dog, and woman, at 
 her best, is first cousin to an angel. My dear, they marry, 
 and it can't be helped." 
 
 They walked on in silence. " Women like you shouldn't 
 marry," he said presently. " No, they shouldn't marry, 
 women like you — and she ! " 
 
 Dorothea heard in amazement : his voice was broken. 
 He kept his face turned away. 
 
 The great house still frowned upon them as they walked 
 along the water-side. 
 
 She could bear no longer his averted face, the thought of 
 his husky voice. She crept close to him and put her arm 
 about his neck, and drew his cheek towards her as one 
 might draw a child's. 
 
 " I was speaking of your mother," he said. 
 
 She answered : " I knew." 
 
 " You knew. Oh, Dorothea, yet you kissed me ! " 
 
 For only answer she kissed him again. 
 
 Jealous, the dog leaped up at them, barking. 
 
 " Child, I have never been back again here — never seen 
 that house — since the day when we took her to the church- 
 yard yonder. But the place has never been out of my 
 memory : I have seen it at night on African battlefields, 
 by American camp-fires. I'm not going to be sentimental, 
 
 d it. (I beg your pardon, Dorothea.) I — I can't say I'm 
 
 especially remorseful. 'Twasn't my fault : I can't make 
 myself different from what nature made me. But seeing 
 that place again all of a sudden, and you, Dorothea, and 
 to think that you — ^you're not going to die, are you ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 473 
 
 " No, father/' 
 
 " That's right. You and Egon are going to live happily 
 for years. We shp.U have plenty of time to talk about it. 
 And that brings me to another subject. Mrs. Sandring is here." 
 
 " In Holland ? " 
 
 " With your aunts. Perhaps we had better go back and 
 ask them to give us some tea." 
 
 "We had indeed." Dorothea wondered what, at that 
 moment, the Baroness was saying to her hostesses. 
 
 "Yes, we are both here. And, in fact, we have got a 
 little plan. We want to keep you company, Dolly, till this 
 little storm has blown over." 
 
 " But the house is too small ! " exclaimed Dolly. 
 
 " That great place ? I suppose it is nearly ready by now. 
 And Blanche will immensely enjoy helping you with what 
 remains to be done. She has excellent taste of a kind, 
 very modem. She will help you to delectable bedrooms, 
 now that Egon has got you the Louis Something saloons.*' 
 
 Twice already her father had lightly mentioned his name, 
 the name which her little household avoided, as we pass, on 
 tiptoe, a chamber of pain. 
 
 " She will do you a lot of good," he went on. " You 
 can't think how comfortable she makes me. Your aunts 
 are most estimable ladies, Dolly : I admire them. But I 
 don't think they're the sort of society you stand in need of 
 just now." 
 
 " I don't know," said Dorothea, distraught, " but the 
 house isn't ready, the " 
 
 "Oh, you can have in half a dozen servants from any 
 registry office for six months. Brussels would be best, 
 perhaps. People speaking French and Flemish, as Blanche 
 suggests. She can manage all that for you, and willing. 
 Then, when we've started you thoroughly, in first-rate 
 style, we'll have Egon back and make him cry ' Peccavi.' " 
 
 Dorothea was trying to collect her scattered thoughts. 
 
 " It seems impossible," she said faintly. " Impossible ! '* 
 
 " Dear darling, how little you know of the world ! As 
 soon as he realises that you are established here at the 
 Manor House, Lady of Brodryck, with carriages and horses 
 and the Louis — Ouatorze, isn't it ? — saloons, and a good 
 cook, a first-rate cook (Blanche is right about that) — oh, 
 Lord ! It was a great mistake bringing him here to the 
 aunts' little pottering villa. You've made a lot of mistakes, 
 Dolly. Blanche '11 tell you about them." 
 
474 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Impossible," murmured Dorothea. 
 
 " And you'll do her good. You remember the little book 
 you gave her ? A pious little book : she thinks a great deal 
 of it. She always has it lying on her bed-table. Even in 
 the hotels. She has, by Jove. She says she couldn't sleep 
 without it." 
 
 Dorothea did not answer. 
 
 " She's getting much more serious-minded : it*s her time 
 of life. Only the other day she said to me : * I want to have 
 a good talk about religion with Dorothea.' And I don't 
 deny, besides, that you will do a good action, at this 
 moment, by taking us in. You know how I loathe any 
 allusion to money. But you did me a bad turn by 
 refusing Pini, Dolly. He's never told me the whole truth 
 about his system. I've had a run of ill-luck at Monte 
 Carlo. And — and — it's utterly ridiculous to think that the 
 Baroness and I can live on a thousand a year.'* 
 
 So he rattled on till they reached the little gate that 
 leads from the park into the old ladies' garden. There she 
 said : " Father, I'll do for you whatever I can." 
 
 " And we for you, child. That's right. If relatives only 
 stick together, they always pull each other through." 
 
 The quondam Baroness de Fleuryse was seated on the 
 old red sofa in the middle of the drawing-room. There 
 seemed to be a great deal of her in her loosened putty- 
 coloured travelling-cloak, lined and trimmed and over- 
 flowing with a lot of still lighter, fluffy fur. Her fair 
 hair, elaborately fringed, formed a sort of tiara above 
 her pink-and-white cheeks, and over the hair rose a 
 mountain of feathers. Dorothea fancied the sofa looked 
 redder than usual beneath its burden. She reddened for it. 
 And she thought of that other crimson settee, on which she 
 first had seen the Baroness seated in the hall of the Grand 
 H6tel. 
 
 Opposite her, far distant, sat the aunts, in distracted 
 contemplation. Uncle Tony lolled up against the fire- 
 place, with the air of a man of the world. Em and Doll 
 sat well forward, on the carpet, in front of the newcomer, 
 expectant. " Quiet ! " exclaimed uncle Tony with vehem- 
 ence, for Em had snarled. 
 
 " So he never tried to cheat his wife again ! " Mrs. 
 Sandring was saying ; her voice rose in merriment — she had 
 a musical laugh — and Tony's " Ho ! ho ! " blended with it. 
 Dorothea wondered how many stories the aunts had already 
 
DOROTHEA. 475 
 
 enjoyed. Aunt Mary's countenance expressed restrained 
 disapproval, aunt Emma's rampant contempt. 
 
 The French lady had set herself at once — as was her 
 nature — to captivate simple, goggle-eyed uncle Tony, "a 
 dear old purple ' hobereau ' with a dear old knitted vest." 
 Also, she was not such a fool as not to realise exactly 
 what would horrify the aunts and what would win their 
 approval. " Lewis, I intend to shock them," she had said. 
 " I will do whatever you like for Dorothea. But you must 
 let me breathe freely before those aunts, or I shall suffocate." 
 
 Therefore, immediately, she started fair. That evening — 
 the tea-table, dinner with Caspar in attendance, the long 
 wait for the final bed-candles — that endless evening lives 
 in Dorothea's memory. 
 
 The Baroness came down in an absurdly inappropriate 
 dinner-gown, pink silk embroidered all over with pale 
 green chrysanthemums. Uncle Tony, who had hurried 
 home, turned up in his wonderful swallow-tail coat, with 
 two yards of black satin supporting, like a wall, the broad 
 basin of his gleaming collar, whereupon his red head 
 reposed, as if severed from the body. He had shaved 
 himself a second time, hurriedly, as was proved by a 
 scratch or two, a bit of black plaister, and a general 
 appearance of rash. The Baroness was very charming to 
 him. He reminded her, as she told the Colonel, of the 
 men she used to meet at her father's, when a girl. " Les 
 gentilhommes qui ne sont plus," she said. The Colonel 
 bowed. 
 
 So the second Mrs. Sandring made her entrance at 
 Brodryck. Her good-nature and appreciation of the dignity 
 of charitableness caused her to sympathise, in a limited 
 way, with aunt Mary. She did a certain amount of 
 charity-sewing (so uneven, it all had to be taken out 
 again) : and she patted the heads of the school-children 
 and smiled to the peasants, who resented such grins as an 
 insult. With aunt Emma she lived in open war. Emma 
 said Antony's conduct was " disgusting." And gradually 
 the French lady got her own way in all things unessential 
 about the Manor House. She told Dorothea she was weary 
 of the wicked world. Up to a point this was true. She 
 did not tell that her hair was so rapidly changing colour 
 she had made up her mind at last to change its hue to a 
 reddish auburn, the only dye that grey hair will successfully 
 take. Nor did she dwell on the other, pecuniary, reasons 
 
476 DOROTHEA. 
 
 for her villegiatura. She was full of good, sensible 
 advice about " that naughty boy : I should like to slap 
 him." And often she was really mournful, despondent 
 about a youth that would certainly never return, and 
 desirous of " the consolations of religion." After much 
 discussion with the aunts, and varied protests from either 
 lady, Dorothea suddenly gave way to her father's non- 
 repeated wishes. She felt that, at any price, the Baroness 
 must be removed from the villa. Servants were got together 
 — half the aunts' selection, half the Baroness's, black and 
 white, like a chess-board. The old house was put to rights. 
 And thus, between her father and his second wife, Dorothea 
 took lonely possession of her mother's ancestral home. 
 
 " It may be the saving of Mrs. Sandring's soul," said aunt 
 Mary. Aunt Emma scowled at uncle Tony. 
 
 " Or the loss of some other people's," said aunt Emma. 
 
 The Colonel appeared contented, avoiding one corner of 
 the mansion, but not objecting to the memories evoked by 
 the rest. " Death is an ugly fact," said the Colonel. Mrs. 
 Sandring clutched at the little book and deposited it 
 where she could see it if she happened to wake up in the 
 middle of the night. 
 
 Dorothea instituted daily prayers. The Colonel could 
 not possibly manage to be down at half-past eight. Mrs. 
 Sandring heroically did manage, somehow. She entreated 
 the Roman Catholic servants to come too : she almost 
 went down on her knees to her excellent French cook. 
 But he wouldn't, and left. That was the only occasion of 
 any real quarrel between Dorothea and her father. 
 
( 477 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 On a beautiful February morning, all sunlight and shim- 
 mery orange-trees, the Countesses Bathildis and Frederica 
 von Kauenfels sat side by side in their big wicker chairs, 
 their bigger black shawls, and their biggest straw hats, 
 under the trellised verandah of their house at Monte Carlo, 
 the Villa St. Etienne. 
 
 The two aged Countesses Kauenfels were not people of 
 importance in the life of Monte Carlo. Such a fact, 
 however, they were by nature incapable of feeling. Not 
 personally — they were humble enough in their way — but 
 representatively, they would have considered themselves 
 pre-eminent anywhere. At Monte Carlo, where you could 
 as soon appear sans titre as sans culotte, nobody 
 respects you for anything except for not being respectable. 
 And the Countesses Kauenfels were eminently respectable. 
 They were not good like aunt Mary and aunt Emma, but 
 they were created to inspire awe. They were therefore 
 quite out of place on the Riviera, whither asthma or 
 bronchitis had condemned them, and where your only 
 chance of success, if you cannot be disreputable, is in a much 
 smaller, insignificant set, with prayer-meetings and tea. 
 
 Of the two sisters Frederica was the paler individuality. 
 The more interesting, perhaps. Frederica lived in bygone 
 times, when knights were knights, and died for love. The 
 tournament and the joust were her ideals of amusement : 
 she looked at the world of to-day through a Gothic castle 
 window. Her own long existence had glided away in the 
 slow completion of the hand-made Kauenfels tapestry, one 
 compartment of which, in Bathildis' rooms, had been left 
 unfinished from 1535 to the days of Frederica's youth. It 
 was her glory that now, in her grey old age, she had nearly 
 ended the beautiful, monstrous work. She was quiet, 
 dignified, contemplative of days and things that are long 
 since hopelessly dead and embalmed. Her real antiquarian 
 knowledge, her mental calibre generally, may be gauged 
 
^78 DOROTHEA. 
 
 by the sentence which willingly rose to her lips : " I adore 
 the Middle Ages." 
 
 The ladies were not generous : they therefore suggested 
 no object of interest on that side. They were credited with 
 the poverty which goes so well with foreign rank. " All 
 German Countesses are beggars, I believe," said the chaplain's 
 bustling wife, Mrs. Sidebotham, who was a beggar herself, 
 from morning to night, for all sorts of charitable institu- 
 tions. Bathildis was not shadowy and mediaeval, but 
 double-chinned, managing, full of to-day. Herself, her 
 close crowd of relations, her wide circle of co-equals : the 
 daily existence of some seven hundred German importances 
 exactly as important as she (fathers, mothers, babies, from 
 the cradle to the grave), these formed her entire occupation, 
 over which she had been perfectly happy for years sixty and 
 five. The evil-doings of Franzl had not greatly disturbed 
 her. Such things were inevitable, were part of a family. 
 The Kauenfels of Regency times (Franz Friedrich) and his 
 grandson, the Pompadour Kauenfels, had seen very different 
 goings-on in their, now demolished, garden-house of Sans 
 Soucis. Bathildis did not believe in her sister's white 
 knights who swore fealty to a vision for ever. She had 
 done all she could in the way of proposing uncongenial 
 brides to her brother: she had wept bitterly over the 
 approaching extinction of the family, the only real trouble 
 of her easy life's journey. Her own little romance with 
 Egon's father has already been referred to. Interested in 
 her good-looking connection, if not actually in love with 
 him, she had heard him say, behind a door, that all plain 
 women ought to be drowned. She had fancied the words 
 referred to her, as perhaps they did, for she knew that a 
 match had been proposed between her and Justus Roden. 
 She had good-naturedly made up her mind to forgive him, 
 but she rarely looked in her glass without recalling his 
 phrase. 
 
 Now old, half blind, asthmatic, interested in births, 
 marriages, and deaths as ever, she had been brought face 
 to face with her brother's " disaster." She was not eloquent 
 in abuse : she spoke, irremediably, of " The Disaster." If 
 one of her intimates, you might hear her speak of it. And 
 your face would assume the expression it takes in the 
 presence of bereavement. 
 
 " Diese entsetzliche Person " was the reigning Countess 
 of Kauenfels. Bathildis recalled every incident of Karl 
 
DOROTHEA. 479 
 
 von Roden-Rheyna's lunch party last year. She was 
 always reminding Frederica of those incidents. "You 
 remember, my dear, how she said : ' Give my compliments 
 to Franzl, and tell him not to drink too much beer.* And 
 now has come the disaster." The silent tears coursed down 
 Frederica's pale cheeks. 
 
 " Frederica," had said Bathildis, " it is impossible to 
 predict what may happen, but one thing, at least, I shall 
 prevent. That innocent girl, Hilda, shall not come into 
 contact with the Biermadel. I have written for her to be 
 sent here at once by Fraulein Schmitz. I hope you 
 approve ! " Bathildis always managed everything in the 
 household, but she always said " I hope you approve ! " 
 
 So Hilda, who was not yet twenty, arrived at Monte 
 Carlo. She thought the place was lovely, and enjoyed it in 
 a quiet way from morning to night. "When the weather 
 was fine, the old^Countesses sat out in the verandah : when 
 it was not, they remained in their small drawing-room. 
 They never went near the Casino, and but seldom to the 
 German Church. They always returned a call within forty- 
 eight hours, and left cards upon all the German Highnesses 
 that came to the hotels. They knew exactly what every- 
 body ought to do under every circumstance, and, for their 
 part, they did it. A chief subject of conversation between 
 them was that others did not. 
 
 One day, shortly before the Carnival, Konrad turned up. 
 Konrad von Roden, the officer. And thereby hang a few 
 words of explanation, for the people who know about such 
 matters will laugh at the idea of his having got a furlough 
 again. 
 
 Konrad was at Darmstadt, cursing his hard fate and 
 getting into fresh entanglements, but not of the sort that 
 really entangle a man like Konrad. Love is a net whose 
 meshes are ever too large or too small. Meanwhile there 
 came letters from Dickie full of comic descriptions of 
 Kauenfels : Konrad roared as he read. 
 
 But there also came a letter from Egon, which told of 
 uncle Karl's serious illness, and the sick man's departure, 
 with his caretakers, from Montreux to the Castle of 
 Rheyna. 
 
 Konrad got this letter in bed : his military servant 
 brought it up with his breakfast. He yawned when he 
 saw the superscription, presuming the contents to be some 
 tiresome message from his uncle about his allowance. But 
 
480 DOROTHEA. 
 
 when he had gathered what his elder brother really had to 
 tell, he sat up with a jump. 
 
 " By — Jove ! " he cried. " What are you staring at, you 
 fool ? " 
 
 The servant disappeared with alacrity. The master retained 
 his horror-struck attitude. " By Jove ! " he repeated softly, 
 aloud, " Egon's alone with the old man at Rheyna. If he 
 squeezes his weasand half a minute, the hypocrite's lord 
 of Rheyna for ever and aye ! " The suggestion seemed to 
 shoot him aloft with impatience : he leaped out of bed. 
 " Idiot ! Idiot ! " he said at himself in the glass. He began 
 hurrying on his clothes, as if that could be any use. " Good 
 Lord ! " he muttered a dozen times while dressing. It was 
 absurd of him, with his views on all subjects, to say the 
 words once, and that is why he said them a dozen times. 
 
 He hadn't had time to marry. No, by George ! he hadn't 
 had time to marry. The whole thing had only taken a 
 couple of weeks. Who could have thought that uncle 
 Karl would go to pieces like this without any warning ? 
 The alteration to which the Emperor had consented per- 
 mitted his marriage within a year of the death of the 
 former heir — his father — but it still confined the casting of 
 lots, if such casting there was to be, to married candidates 
 only. Therefore, if uncle Karl were dying at this moment, 
 everything was Egon's. 
 
 He got into his uniform and, a little less carefully groomed, 
 a little less sallow complexioned than usual, he dashed 
 down into the street and into a cab. " To Privy Councillor 
 Poffendorf ! " he shouted — mentioning the name of the first 
 physician in the town. He begged to be admitted instantly. 
 There were half a dozen others before him. He could pass 
 before the poorer people, being an officer, but he had to 
 wait ten endless minutes while a rich Jew banker was dis- 
 coursing about his liver. The minutes were the longest 
 period of his life : unaccustomed to delay, he tramped 
 about the waiting room. At last the doctor's bell rang, 
 he was admitted. 
 
 " My uncle has had a fit : do people die of a fit ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " It depends on the fit," replied the doctor. 
 
 " It's the sort of fit that you tumble down in, and you 
 can't speak, or, at least, you only gurgle, and you can't 
 move hand or foot." 
 
 *' My dear Herr von Roden, it is quite impossible for me 
 
DOROTHEA. 481 
 
 to answer your question. A man can fall dead of an 
 apoplexy and he can take several days dying, and he can 
 recover partially or altogether — till next time." The old 
 Privy Councillor looked shrewdly at his questioner from 
 under bushy eyebrows, and wondered where the young 
 man's interest came in. 
 
 " My poor uncle ! " cried Konrad, distressed ; he bit 
 furiously at his silken moustache. 
 
 " He is an old man," said Poffendorf cautiously. 
 
 " But a tough one ! I mean his health has always been 
 exceedingly good." 
 
 " Then he may recover," opined the doctor rather spite- 
 fully, for he imagined that Konrad wanted the poor 
 gentleman to die. And his sympathy, he being old, was 
 with the uncle. " However, I can affirm nothing, absolutely 
 nothing," he added. Konrad laid down his fee and came 
 away in a fume. Driving across the Luisenplatz, he met 
 the regimental surgeon : in a minute he was out of his 
 droschke. 
 
 " I say, doctor, does an old man usually die of a fit ? " 
 
 " Yes ! " said the doctor. 
 
 " Oh, rubbish ! You army doctors don't know any- 
 thing." 
 
 " Thank you ! " 
 
 " Well, anyhow, not about old men ! How could you ? 
 I bet you've never seen anybody in a fit ! " 
 
 The young doctor bridled. " Dozens ! " he answered 
 vaguely, but with all the decision of untruth. 
 
 " It's mv uncle. I want to know, is he going to live or 
 die ? " " 
 
 " Poor chap ! " said the doctor sympathetically. " It is 
 very good of you, very good indeed, to care so much about 
 your uncle." 
 
 Konrad stared, and was going to say something energetic 
 — but why condemn the virtues with which others adorn 
 us ? — " If the old man gets better you shall have a bottle of 
 champagne," he answered, and drove off to the post office. 
 To his anxiously inquiring telegram — anxious indeed ! — 
 came a sedative reply : 
 
 "No immediate danger, but restoration considered im- 
 possible. May live for months." 
 
 " That decides me," said Konrad. 
 
 In fact he had no alternative. His uncle would never 
 recover and find out. He loathed his military duties, 
 
 D. I I 
 
48a DOROTHEA. 
 
 which had always seemed to him " superfluous." This time 
 he successfully threw up his commission, got rid as con- 
 veniently as was possible of his shackles, and managed to 
 be at Monte Carlo in time for the Carnival. With great 
 satisfaction he had heard from his mother that uncle Karl 
 continued to improve. " The Head " now drove about in a 
 garden chair, ate heartily, and was imbecile. He spoke a 
 few words, using wrong ones, and played with toys. 
 " Egon nurses him with steady devotion," wrote the mother. 
 " He sleeps in his bedroom, for your uncle has to be helped 
 like a child. He won't allow any one near him since that 
 terrible experience with Fritz. "We are very quiet here ; 
 you can imagine what a life it is." 
 
 Konrad had a fit of trembling over this letter. " Won't 
 allow any one near him ! H'm," he said. He felt confident 
 that Egon was watching for an opportunity to have done 
 with uncle Karl. In feverish haste he ran off to Monte 
 Carlo and the Countesses Kauenfels. 
 
 " I know nothing against Konrad," sa^d Bathildis. 
 
 " The duel ? " suggested her sister. 
 
 "Not as such," replied Bathildis with promptitude. 
 " You mean, because by it was occasioned, indirectly, the 
 Disaster ? Indirectly, Frederica. We cannot be too careful 
 in apportioning blame." 
 
 "I have heard that he is a little wild," ventured 
 Frederica, blushing. 
 
 "Now, these are your ridiculous ideas about Knights of 
 the Holy Grail ! Of course, he was a little wild, like all 
 of them, but we need not tell Hilda. You never heard 
 that Egon was wild," continued Bathildis viciously. " But 
 Egon was a Lancelot, a Lancelot of the Lake — of Orta, or 
 Geneva ? — a Lancelot with a choice of lakes ! " This idea 
 diverted the canny old creature, she chuckled over it again and 
 again. Then she took up some terrible knitting, and began 
 making grey mittens for Franzl. Every year, on his birthday, 
 she sent him a pair ; she had done so for more than twenty 
 years, never deigning to inquire what he did with them. 
 
 " Hilda, the poor, sweet darling ! " said Frederica. 
 
 " The poor, dear darling ! " said Bathildis. " One 
 thought gives me rest," continued the elder sister. " What- 
 ever misfortunes it may please the Almighty to bring upon 
 our house. He cannot touch the money we have saved up 
 these twenty years for Hilda." 
 
DOROTHEA. 483 
 
 " He could if He chose, I presume," suggested Frederica. 
 
 '•' He could not ; it is invested in Prussian Consols." 
 
 " But He never would choose," added Frederica gently. 
 
 " I don't know ; He has permitted Franzl to marry the 
 Biermadel. But, there, I've no wish to influence your 
 Gothic religion. Nor to meddle with and manage the 
 Almighty. My business is to look after ourselves. And 
 Hilda, as I was telling Konrad this morning, will have forty 
 thousand pounds to her fortune, from us on the day of her 
 wedding." Of course the old lady said eight hundred 
 thousand marks ; it sounds well. But forty thousand 
 pounds has a pleasant fatness about it also. In this dis- 
 gusting age we are doomed to inhabit there is nothing 
 sounds better than " forty thousand pounds." Unless it be 
 forty-one. 
 
 The world has known times when the music of other 
 glories filled its atmosphere ; the clash of arms, the ring of 
 cymbals, the bray of heralds' trumpets, the clang of high 
 dispute ! — those days are over for the present ; we hear the 
 chink of the sovereigns that fall in the cheater's counting 
 house. It is all we care to hear ; we hope he will take us 
 into his company. So he does, when the company is 
 worthless. 
 
 Fresh periods will arise when we are dead. God's 
 gardens, like man's, have their seasons of dung. A cleaner 
 condition will come into existence when the compost now 
 hoarded by half a dozen filchers has been spread over all 
 the fields. What, in that far-distant future, will be the lot 
 of the mine-directors, the company- promoters, of the few 
 who now reap where many have sown? Perchance they 
 will be set to harmless tasks by the new Government. It 
 were interesting, for instance, in the Socialist state, that 
 will be not so good as the old free growth, but better than 
 the present canker, to find a couple of yesterday's petroleum 
 or iron-kings employed in the manufacture of verses on 
 Equality as an honest means of earning their frugal meal. 
 Prophecy pales at the view. Or at thought of the 
 verses. But this paragraph, like life, is a digression, 
 inartistic, like life. It is closer than you think to Bathildis : 
 it is the shade against which sits her figure, in its own 
 self-made sunshine, serenely contemplative of forty thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 "And, also, dear Hilda is heiress to Franzl," said 
 Frederica. 
 
484 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Humph ! " replied her sister. Presently she added : 
 " Frederica, there is one thing I am yearning to know. If 
 that terrible person were to have a child — and such people 
 
 always have quantities of children " She paused ; her 
 
 eyes were on the prospect. 
 
 " Well ? " said Frederica at last. 
 
 " Should I be glad or should I not ? " burst out Bathildis. 
 
 " Of course you would be glad," replied the younger 
 Countess simply. "And the children's children would 
 sleep in the tapestry rooms. It is the old, old story of the 
 King and the Beggar-maiden. Look at the bright side, 
 Bathildis." 
 
 " The Beer-side," said Bathildis with unutterable scorn. 
 " I do not think Hilda is plain ? Frederica," — with some 
 anxiety — " should you call Hilda plain ? " 
 
 " She has such sweet eyes," said Frederica. 
 
 " Of course she is plain, or we should not talk about it 
 like this. Never mind, she is not of the ugly women that 
 ought to be drowned. And they don't drown 'em either ! " 
 said Bathildis, smiling fiercely. 
 
 A bright laugh, a happy girl's laugh, came ringing up 
 from under the terrace. " Hush ! " whispered Bathildis, and 
 the two old ladies — bundles of black cloth and broad- 
 ribboned hats and white umbrellas — toddled along to the 
 further side and looked over. Hilda and Konrad were 
 sitting together in a rockery overspread with greenness : 
 this was their conversation : 
 
 " How lovely are the oranges ! " said Hilda. 
 
 " Marvellous," answered Konrad. 
 
 "I think, Herr von Roden, this must be the most 
 beautiful place in all the world." 
 
 " It certainly is the pleasantest to me," he said. " Just 
 now," he added, watching her unconscious face. " This 
 rockery," he continued (" How stupid she is "). The 
 expected blush appeared upon her childish cheeks. She 
 was very young and unformed ; her figure was not graceful, 
 but to call her hunchbacked was as preposterous as to call 
 Dickie plain. 
 
 " Is that the postman," she said, " coming up between 
 the agaves ? " 
 
 " I believe so. How unkind of you to care about the 
 postman ! Letters from anywhere would be quite indif- 
 ferent to me just now" — while he spoke, his anxious thoughts 
 flew to Rheyna : the race was running ; who would be in 
 
kOTHEA. 485 
 
 iBut you, I am sure, have lots of 
 
 |who have always been kind to 
 :ind : it seems to me. I can't think 
 , who is goodness itself, say the 
 I'ranzl was always very good to 
 Is new wife ? I don't like to ask 
 
486 DOROTHEA. 
 
 manteau and hurried to the station. The compartment he 
 got into was full of flies. He amused himself by catching 
 these, pulling out their wings and setting them to crawl 
 — a small regiment — upon the light-grey cushions. He 
 did it so methodically, with so grave a countenance, you 
 wondered why. 
 
( 487 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
486 DOROTHEA. 
 
 manteau and hurried to the station. The compartment he 
 got into was full of flies. He amused himself by catching 
 these, pulling out their wings and setting them to crawl 
 — a small regiment — upon the light-grey cushions. He 
 did it so methodically, with so grave a countenance, you 
 wondered why. 
 
4S7 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 The evening lamps were lighted at Rheyna. A heavy 
 silence lay about the lonely mansion, shrouded in solemn 
 mists amid its leafless trees. Beyond, on every hand, spread 
 endless wastes of flat black field and meadow, dead, dreary, 
 desolate — not much more grey and gloomy, now that the 
 darker night had chased the duller day. In the thicket, 
 near the house, a screech-owl yelled at intervals — its hideous 
 clangour deepened the all-pervading hush. 
 
 The grand drawing-room of the mansion is a hall of 
 some sixty feet by thirty-five, and proportionately lofty: 
 it is carved from top to bottom and richly gilt in the over- 
 loaded style of Frederick the Great. The Head of the 
 House, in his palmy days, had always elected, when not 
 alone (which he never was) to spend the long evenings in 
 this vast apartment, the splendour of which somehow 
 fittingly framed his parade-full personality. He had it 
 illuminated at outrageous expense — but when did Count 
 Rheyna heed selfish expenditure? — candles were the only 
 light, besides old-fashioned oil-lamps, which he chose to 
 admit in his house, though he never would have entered an 
 hotel that had not the latest electric improvements. It 
 was a good thing for his purse, that he preferred Berlin 
 and Paris and half a dozen other resorts to his hollow 
 palace in the marsh. He had always presented an 
 admirable mixture of the prodigal hedonist and the 
 practical manager. The cutest man of business would 
 have found it a difficult task to cheat Count Rheyna of 
 a pecuniary advantage, an impossible one to deprive him 
 of the most superfluous luxury. The world, as he had seen 
 it all his life, was not round, but shaped like a fan, with 
 himself the pin. 
 
 His mental and physical ruin had left the one pillar of 
 self-will erect, though swept by the winds of querulousness 
 and silly caprice. He was always crying for something he 
 could not possibly have. What could be given he refused 
 
488 DOROTHEA. 
 
 to cry for. Though long conscious of futile exertion, Egon 
 strove to avoid any known cause for tears. The labour 
 was that of a Danaid. 
 
 Therefore, night after night, the little family sat in a 
 corner of that enormous emptiness. If the lights were 
 fewer than formerly, the old man would cry for " brushes." 
 Several dozen words in daily usage had thus dislodged each 
 other in his brain, had tumbled, so to speak, into wrong 
 places, whence no human skill would ever again dislodge 
 them. It was not by any means certain, for instance, 
 though probable, that he would speak of brushes as 
 ** candles " : in any case, if you misunderstood or corrected 
 him, he cried. Schlumpgen had declared it inadvisable 
 to contradict the patient : irritation might hasten the 
 end. 
 
 So Egon, assisted by Hans, nursed the terrible invalid 
 from morning to night and, no less assiduously, from night 
 to morning. Dementia senilis demands unremittent super- 
 vision : there exists no such harrowing disease for those in 
 attendance, at least in the earlier stages, ere dotage has 
 brought repose. Count Roden-Rheyna had lost all direction 
 of his limbs or his senses : he could just make such irregular 
 and incoherent use of them as caused infinite labour and 
 anxiety to those whose task it was to feed him like a, 
 swearing, infant or clothe him like a, sentient, doll. His 
 appetite was enormous : his meals formed his chief delecta- 
 tion, and, exercise now being out of the question, his old 
 enemy, the gout, nipped and tweaked him till he yelled. 
 Worse than his shrieks were the periods of silence, when he 
 would sit for hours, unable to express himself, the tears 
 coursing down his now sunken cheeks, his gaze fixed on 
 the swellings in finger- or toe-joints. 
 
 Then Egon would endeavour to rouse him and get him 
 to play with his toys. He tired of his tin soldiers, unable 
 to arrange them in battle : his shaky touch upset them, and 
 he wept when they fell. The one plaything that never 
 disappointed him was a little common water-pump, a 
 shilling thing that draws up the fluid and shoots it down 
 again. At the handle of this he would work for hours, 
 tranquilly happy, filling tiny twopenny pails. Its only 
 disadvantage was that, of course, he messed the water all 
 over him, and this necessitated changing his clothing, a 
 fearful undertaking at any time, sufficiently dreaded by his 
 faithful attendants at the beginning and the close of each 
 
DOROTHEA. 489 
 
 day. That the little pumps seldom survived more than an 
 hour or two of unmitigated pump-work was a secondary 
 consideration. On his birthday he demolished four of 
 them : boxes of two dozen were sent from Berlin. 
 
 The stillness from outside, the muffled stillness of mist, 
 had entered the house. In a corner of the brilliantly lighted 
 apartment, by a table, sat the Lord of Rheyna, a white 
 night-cap on his head — he often cried for it — a voluminous 
 white dressing-gown about his shrunken frame. Egon sat 
 beside him, cutting out paper dolls and blowing them across 
 the inlaid tortoise-shell surface. Hans stood poking up the 
 fire. 
 
 The old man laughed heartily, " Bindle ! " he said. 
 " Bindle ! Bindle ! " and clapped his hands. 
 
 " Hans ! " demanded Egon, " do you know what he 
 means by * bindle ' ? " 
 
 " I've been thinking : I fancy it must be * beautiful,* " 
 answered the servant, standing to attention. " You know, 
 he said the sausage was * bindle ' yesterday. Yes, I think 
 it must mean * beautiful,' sir." 
 
 A white doll went flying across the table, and the old 
 man's laugh r^ng out. 
 
 *'Your Excellency means 'beautiful*; is it not so?" 
 questioned Hans. 
 
 His Excellency stared vacantly at the speaker, with 
 blear-eyed foolishness of gaze. It had always been an 
 affectation of Count Rheyna that he could not recognise 
 his own domestics : there was no room for affectation at 
 present. 
 
 " Oh, it's no use asking /ttw," exclaimed Egon. '* Surely 
 you might have learnt that by now." 
 
 A servant threw open the great double-doors of the 
 drawing-room. " My lady ! " he cried. 
 
 The little Generalin appeared on the threshold, in her 
 heavy black mourning, with her porcelain face. Her 
 manner betokened great trepidation : the son, looking up 
 from his handiwork, saw it at once. He laid down the 
 scissors. 
 
 " Egon, something terrible has happened ! " she said. 
 
 " I must speak to you at once," she added, "alone.** 
 With a face full of murmurs the favoured retainer withdrew. 
 
 " What is it, mother ? *' 
 
 " Konrad has married Lady Archibald, the widow of the 
 man whom he shot I '* 
 
490 DOROTHEA. 
 
 There came no immediate answer. The Count struck 
 his hand on the table, with angry screams, like a child, 
 thrust aside. 
 
 " Goo-roo ! '* he repeated : they now knew this to be his 
 profoundest expression of discontent. It was all that was 
 audibly left of his favourite — his heaviest — oath. 
 
 To the old man's enragement his victim no longer heard him. 
 
 "Terrible indeed," said Egon at last. 
 
 Mother and son gazed into each others* eyes. " Oh, how 
 can such things be ! " cried the Generalin. It is the mother's 
 despairing cry, to which none ever find an answer. 
 
 *' Goo-roo ! Goo-roo ! " The old man screamed so loud, 
 his nephew sat down again, and blew dolls across the table. 
 "He needn't have been in such a hurry to marry," said 
 Egon presently, looking up, with a side-glance towards his 
 uncle. The old man sat sucking his middle-finger, his night- 
 cap had fallen forward : the nephew pushed it up again. 
 
 "I thought he loved Hilda ! " wailed the Generalin. 
 
 A smile stole over Egon's features, but he was not going 
 to blacken Konrad before their mother. " He loved Dickie 
 first," he said. 
 
 " That is true," responded Frau von Roden." And, certainly, 
 Dickie is much prettier than Hilda. I cannot well imagine 
 a Roden married to a woman who is plain." 
 
 Egon gazed up at her, his eyes rippling over with swift 
 laughter. And she, in the midst of their sadness, blushed 
 and smiled like a girl. " Don't be silly, child," she expostu- 
 lated. " Of course, I mean one of you younger people — I 
 mean " 
 
 " I know perfectly well what you mean," he answered, 
 still teasing ; he had come round and gathered her in his 
 arms. "Vain little mother, you are absolutely right. I 
 never knew a Roden with a wife who was not pretty." 
 
 " Stupid boy, leave me in peace ! " She began to dis- 
 engage herself : then suddenly, it was she threw her arms 
 around his neck, hugging and kissing him, pressing him 
 closer to her heart. " Egon, my own dear, splendid boy ! '* 
 she said. " Oh, Egon, my son, my son ! " 
 
 He trembled a little, throughout his stalwart figure : 
 to her it seemed as if her own words recalled strange 
 memories of sorrow, for, in the silence : " Would I had died 
 for thee ! " she whispered faintly. He bent in vain to catch 
 the quivering words. 
 
 The old Count, in a paroxysm of fury — for nothing 
 
DOROTHEA. 491 
 
 enraged him like signs of affection between others — tried 
 to raise himself and, catching at the rumpled table-cloth, 
 upset a vase of flowers across his knees. The next moments, 
 therefore, were occupied with him (as he desired), and Hans 
 carried him off, weeping and sputtering, to bed. 
 
 " Let us go into my sitting-room," said Egon, " I have 
 all the Saturday accounts to look over." He had taken 
 upon him the whole management of the estates, inevitably, 
 astonished to discover how punctilious his uncle, the man 
 of pleasure, had been. 
 
 He established himself before his writing-table, with 
 account-books and papers. The Generalin sat near him, 
 bending over some light fancy-work. It was Justus who had 
 said, years ago, that his wife's companionship combined 
 the ripple of a brooklet with the cool repose of a well. 
 
 An hour later he gathered up his documents and locked 
 them away. 
 
 " Now," she said, " let me speak, Egon. Why did he do 
 this thing ? " 
 
 " Why should he not ? We long knew him to be fond 
 of her." 
 
 " Egon, she was a barmaid — a beer girl." 
 
 " No, no — she is the widowed Countess von Kauenfels." 
 
 " Egon, her husband has not been dead a month ! " 
 
 " And he left her all his money," said Egon. 
 
 *'But — but a woman cannot re -marry, surely, within so 
 brief a space ? " 
 
 This time the answer did not come so pat. '' Not here 
 in Germany, certainly, nor, for instance, in France, but in 
 Switzerland I suppose she can. She did not mourn so very 
 long for her first husband." 
 
 "They were married in England. They seem to have 
 gone there together." 
 
 " In England the formalities are simple : I believe almost 
 any marriage is legal over there. Won't you show me his 
 letter, mother ? " 
 
 "This is the English advertisement," she held out a 
 newspaper-cutting. " He has published it only, he says, 
 in the Times.'* 
 
 Egon read : " On the 17th inst. at the Church of the 
 Holy Innocents, Southwark, by the Rev. Armytage Hop- 
 kins, B.A., Konrad, second son of the late General von 
 Roden, of Bonn, Germany, to Elizabeth, Countess von 
 Kauenfels-Courmayeur." 
 
492 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Dickie sticks to her Courmayeur," he said. " Won't 
 you show me his letter ? " 
 
 " No," she replied. 
 
 Egon smiled his quick smile, the new, grave smile she 
 had got to know of late, but did not like to see. " Does he 
 speak so very unkindly of me ? " he said. " Never mind, 
 dear : he has done it before." 
 
 "He wishes to come here," replied the mother. "At 
 Easter, when the others come, he intends to present her as 
 his wife." 
 
 " He is clever," said Egon thoughtfully. " He knows 
 we cannot well refuse that. Yes, they must come, mother. 
 We must make the best of a bad job." 
 
 She had risen. She said abruptly : 
 
 " Egon, do you know — or do you not know ? — Sometimes, 
 I think you do not know — yet, of course, you must — that, 
 unless Dorothea returns to you, when your uncle dies, your 
 chance of inheriting is lost." 
 
 He looked up at her quickly, coloured. " I know," he 
 said quietly. 
 
 " You know — yet you never spoke of it. You know that 
 the entail demands that there be no separation, legal or — 
 or — what is the expression ? " 
 
 " De facto," he said. 
 
 " Between husband and wife, or else the husband shall 
 not count as married. It is a foolish stipulation." 
 
 "Nay, mother, it is a very shrewd one, two hundred 
 years old. It prevents simulated marriages, as well as 
 attempting to exclude unworthy successors." 
 
 " And it makes the Kellnerin Liesl Countess of Rheyna ! " 
 she cried. 
 
 "That also would be impossible," he answered, with 
 drawn face. "But Konrad has married the Countess of 
 Kauenfels. He has been wonderfully fortunate. There is 
 a special angel watches over Konrad." 
 
 " She is Lies'l, the barmaid Lies'l," cried the Generalin. 
 
 "She is twice ennobled by her marriages, and he can 
 prove it," said Egon decidedly. "I have studied the 
 Hausgesetz, mother. And Konrad, I don't doubt, has 
 studied it better than I." 
 
 " Then why is he so anxious about you being here if he 
 knows that you can't succeed ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Egon quickly. " Does he write that he was 
 afraid I should kill uncle Karl ? Don't betray him, little 
 
DOROTHEA. 493 
 
 mother. Anyhow, he never imagines for a moment that 
 Dorothea would not return, on the chance of becoming 
 Countess Rheyna. He cannot believe in such a possibility, 
 nor can Dickie. See ! he would have married Hilda rather 
 than forego the chance of the succession himself." 
 
 " You know all this," said the Generalin, miserably, "and 
 yet you do nothing." 
 
 " My God ! what can I do ? " He had started up. She 
 cowered before the expression of his face. She rose gently 
 on tiptoe, and kissed him and went away. 
 
 Next morning she told him that she was going to Bonn 
 for a day or two. He thought that she was anxious to see 
 her daughter, who had spent the last couple of months with 
 some cousins, pending definite arrangements about the fate 
 of uncle Karl. The old man's condition made it impossible 
 for a young girl to come near him. Gertrude, unable to 
 understand this, complained of enforced selfishness, while 
 lightening the daily burdens of a delicate relative with half 
 a dozen overpowering children. The Fraulein von Roden 
 was one of those members in a family whose presence you 
 take for granted and whose absence you bemoan. It was 
 difficult to think of her : she never thought of herself. She 
 was a background, warm against the east wind, cool to 
 summer heat. But no one knew it. People found her 
 unattractive. A strange girl, who studied mathematics. 
 Officers who danced with her asked if she'd squared the 
 circle. And when she gained the great Berlin Gold Medal 
 with her new demonstration of the minus in the formula 
 a^-2a6+6^ (could anything be simpler? — the egg of 
 Columbus), the whole University roared with laughter and 
 scorn. 
 
 The Generalin, however, left Gertrude to her studies and 
 the care of her cousin's children. Due west the old lady 
 travelled into a foreign country she never had visited 
 before — a country whose unaccustomed quaintness, a 
 thousand strange whims of speech, costume and scenery 
 struck cold at that moment on a heart in great need of 
 familiar sympathy. The nature of the Generalin was one 
 made for large, honest joys and sorrows, but not for strife, 
 envy and corruption. Konrad's ways were beyond its 
 comprehension. Great evil the widow of Justus could 
 imderstand, but not petty intrigue. And while an immense 
 desolation, such as had befallen her eldest and the woman 
 who loved him, appealed to her every impulse of grief, love 
 
494 DOROTHEA. 
 
 and hope, the entanglements growing up about the Roden 
 succession aroused little but loathing in her simple soul. 
 Was this a moment to negotiate about titles and title- 
 deeds ? She felt as if Eve, pausing on the threshold of 
 Paradise, had demanded to depart in a brougham of her 
 own. 
 
 There was no brougham of any kind, private or other- 
 wise, at the little country town near Brodryck. Madame 
 de Roden sat over a miserable dinner in the sanded coffee- 
 room and deliberated what to do next. 
 
 Her cogitations were disturbed by the entrance of uncle 
 Tony. He had been out all day, on Dorothea's account — 
 a sale of timber ten miles from the Manor House. 
 
 " Tim," he called, " bring me a glass of God bless 
 
 my soul ! — punch — it can't be Madame de Roden ! " 
 
 " But it is ! " said the Generalin, very nearly beginning 
 to cry. 
 
 " God bless my — hot ! " said uncle Tony. *' And — and — '* 
 he added, " Might I ask— is ? " 
 
 " No ! " replied the lady, " I am alone." 
 
 Uncle Tony inquired no further. He sat down by the 
 table and contemplated his muddy boots, the little lady's 
 travel-stained appearance, the nuts and biscuits of her 
 pitiful dessert. 
 
 " A poor dinner,. I suppose," he said. 
 
 " I really don't know," she answered. 
 
 Uncle Tony stared. He believed himself to be an 
 emotional, tender-hearted old gentleman, but till the hour 
 of his death he would be aware if his dinner had been good 
 or bad. 
 
 " Cheer up ! " he said suddenly. Thereupon the Generalin 
 began to weep at once in a quiet way, with few tears, that 
 soon stopped, to Tony's immense relief. " Might I ask 
 your plans ? " he ventured timidly. 
 
 " I have none : I want to see Dorothea," she replied. 
 
 " You know that she is with her father and — ^his wife at 
 the Manor House ? " 
 
 " Yes : is she happy ? " The Generalin bent forward with 
 anxious eyes. 
 
 " What would you do if I said yes ? ** » 
 
 " Thank God," said the Generalin. 
 
 " And believe me ? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " She is not .happy." 
 
DOROTHEA. 495 
 
 " Thank God ! " said the Generalin, " for Egon's sake." 
 
 " Would you be happy," asked uncle Tony, " if you lived 
 with the Baroness de Fleuryse and she advised you to make 
 it up with your husband ? " 
 
 " I do not know the lady. But I should never have 
 allowed any one to come between my husband and me." 
 
 " Then why do you want to speak to Dorothea ? " 
 exclaimed uncle Tony. He blushed very red. " I beg you 
 a thousand pardons," he said. " Consider, pray, that I made 
 a remark about the weather." 
 
 " I could not answer your question, if I would. I want 
 to see Dorothea," replied the little Generalin. 
 
 " You can see her immediately if you choose — within ten 
 minutes ! " 
 
 The Generalin fell to trembling, nervously. " Brodryck is 
 some distance from here : is she not at Brodryck ? Where 
 can I see her ? " 
 
 " At the theatre." 
 
 " You are laughing at me 5 " The little lady sat there 
 in her dust-stained mourning against the whitewash of the 
 common room, under the glare of the paraffin lamp. Her 
 thoughts flew away to the big hall at Rheyna, and Egon 
 at his table by the old man's chair, with the candles all 
 around, in the silence and the mist. 
 
 " At the theatre ! " 
 
 "Am I the sort of man," spluttered Tony indignantly, 
 " who laughs at a woman like you ? Yes, she is at the 
 theatre in this littje town : I will tell you why. They 
 have a troupe here once a week from Amsterdam: the 
 Colonel, who bores himself to death, went regularly with 
 Mrs. Sandring. The last week or two the wife has had 
 a cold, a bad throat, and so Dorothea has gone with her 
 father. Neither of the aunts would as much as approach 
 a theatre : what remains ? Colonel Sandring refused to go 
 alone." 
 
 The Generalin had risen. "It is by far the best," she 
 said. " I will see her here : I dread going to Brodryck and 
 meeting those people " — especially she dreaded aunt Mary. 
 '* Take me to her." Uncle Tony sent for a ily. 
 
 " \\Tiy does Colonel Sandring remain then ? " queried 
 Madame de Roden. 
 
 Uncle Tony, who had called for a second glass of punch, 
 hot, with an extra slice of lemon in it, winked : " His 
 Baroness has religious misgivings," he said. " She gets a lot 
 
496 DOROTHEA. 
 
 of comfort from Dorothea. Also, the system hasn*t worked 
 at Monte Carlo, and next year's income is spent. Also, I 
 am a chatterer, Madame de Roden." 
 
 " I used to think," said Madame de Roden, *' the world 
 was much simpler before Justus died." 
 
 Uncle Tony slapped his breeches pocket. " But the 
 money's safe, madame," he continued. " Dorothea's money's 
 safe. There is even more of it. You can tell your son that 
 I told you so." 
 
 " I shall do no such thing," replied the Generalin 
 indignantly. She got into the fly, and it rumbled up a 
 street or two towards the theatre. " I must speak to her 
 alone," she said, as they stopped before the dimly-lighted 
 entrance. I suppose she has a box ? I would much rather 
 talk to her in a public place like this, but I do not want 
 others to overhear us." 
 
 " But — I had intended to ask her to come into this cab." 
 
 " No ! oh no !— not like that ! Not for the world ! " 
 cried the Generalin in a flurry. " Come with me — like this. 
 It could not be better — come ! " She hurried out, up the 
 narrow staircase, to the boxes. " Give me her cloak," said 
 the Generalin, " that white one — I recognise it ! " In 
 another moment the bewildered Tony had opened a box 
 door : a sudden burst of sound — French actors talking and 
 laughing — the turning of various faces — the half-dark of 
 the poor little theatre against the brightness of the stage — 
 Madame de Roden stood framed in the entry. 
 
 She had been impelled forward, in her sudden, irresistible 
 longing to delay no longer, to see Dorothea, to speak to 
 her. The tension of her nerves was too great : she could 
 not wait. And now she saw that fortune favoured her ; 
 the box was a deep one, on the stage, with a screen. 
 
 " I am come to speak with you," she said softly, in 
 German (she had conversed in French with uncle Tony). 
 "Only for a moment. You are not a woman to faint or 
 scream. Nothing has happened. I only want to speak 
 with you for a moment : then I will go away again. Back 
 to Rheyna — to him." Tony had dragged the amazed 
 Colonel away : the Colonel protested ; he wanted to see 
 what was going to happen. Madame de Roden, by Jove ? 
 But he also wanted to follow the evolution of the naughty 
 husband's discomfiture on the stage ; he allowed himself to 
 be led downstairs to the stalls. 
 
 Dorothea sat well at the back of the box — she had 
 
DOROTHEA. 497 
 
 stipulated for one of these half-hidden corners — clothed in 
 white from head to foot, for the only other shades she 
 would wear, grey and black, her father had, almost tear- 
 fully, entreated her to abandon. Clothed in white, then, 
 from head to foot, with no jewels but Egon's bridal neck- 
 lace about her throat. It was the first thing the Generalin 
 saw, even sooner than the face of the wearer. Her heart 
 leaped within her. As the face turned, the light fell on it, 
 white and still ; the mother thought she had never seen her 
 son's wife look so peerlessly beautiful. A shout of laughter 
 went up from the pit, for the injured woman on the stage 
 had slapped her middle-aged husband's respectable face. 
 The two at the back of the box spoke under cover of these 
 rushes of merriment. 
 
 " I will teach thee to run about the streets ! " screamed 
 the wife on the stage. 
 
 " Dorothea, I have come, I hardly know how. I do not 
 know what I can do. I know what I would desire, but 
 how can I do it ? How ? How ? Oh, Dorothea ! " The 
 forlorn widow, in her mourning, with the white fur partly 
 shielding it, hung, gasping, in the shade, against the door. 
 " I have nothing to say for him, nothing. I cannot excuse 
 him. He does not know I am here. I dare not ask you to 
 forgive him. Only, I could stay away no longer. I am 
 here ! " 
 
 " I will avenge myself : I also still have charms ! " 
 screamed the actress, amid yells of approval from the pit. 
 
 Dorothea, with pain all about her eyebrows, had turned 
 from the scene behind the footlights. Three times in the 
 last month she had accompanied her insistent father to 
 these performances. They were always the same ; the 
 immense joke of adultery, the fun of seeing others found 
 out. Was it wrong to go ? The spectacle seemed so odious 
 to her, she fancied such self-sacrifice must be meritorious. 
 And the Baroness had entreated her with earnest entreaty. 
 " Had you accompanied Egon to that sort of thing, he 
 would never — well, well, my dear, go with your father. 
 'Tis the only way of keeping 'em straight." 
 
 " I am come, yes, I am come," sobbed the Generalin. 
 " Perhaps I should have stayed away. You do not see him, 
 as I do, yonder at Rheyna with his uncle. Oh, Dorothea, 
 can you not forgive him ? " 
 
 Then Dorothea spoke. " Forgive him ? " she said in 
 clearest accents, quite low, beneath the tumult on the 
 
 D. K K 
 
498 DOROTHEA. 
 
 boards. *' I have forgiven him long ago. I love him. But 
 surely, in God's sight our marriage is at end." 
 
 " Ah, chenapan ! " screamed the wife of the comedy. 
 
 " Would you have me return to him ? Would you have 
 us live in wedlock ? " continued Dorothea. " You, who 
 know that God's word bids us separate ? My father's wife 
 does not understand, but you — you know that the Lord 
 whom we serve, Christ Himself, has commanded me to put 
 him away." Her voice trembled. " That reason — it is 
 the only one — dissolves marriage, ends it. The only one 
 except death. Ah, death were a thousand times better. 
 
 Christ *' She dashed her hands across her eyes. A shout 
 
 went up from the body of the building. Three incongruous 
 couples were careering about the stage and singing at the 
 top of their voices : 
 
 •' Marriage is a nuisance. 
 
 Bear the bond as best you can, 
 
 And teach your wife a due sense 
 
 Of liberty, that right of man," 
 
 *'ThIs ! *' said Dorothea, with a movement of her hand, 
 ''would you have us fall to this ? " 
 
 " I would have nothing," murmured the Generalin. 
 " Only— only " 
 
 " What ? " questioned Dorothea gently. 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " Nor I. There is nothing left. He has ended it : it is 
 over. Do not fear, I have kept his secret. At present, he 
 is with his sick uncle ; I am here for a little ; that is 
 natural enough. Afterwards, we must think of something." 
 She put her hand to her forehead. " Perhaps one of us 
 will die. No, that is not likely, it must be my — what do 
 they call it ? — my incompatibility of temper. And thus we 
 can live for fifty years." Her voice failed her altogether; 
 she drew towards her mother-in-law, and the two women 
 mingled their tears. The screaming and laughter continued 
 on the stage. " If I went back to him, it is I — I," gasped 
 Dorothea, " I who would be the — the — would be living in 
 — no, I cannot ; — oh, do not tempt me ! " said Dorothea. 
 The curtain sank down on the act, the lights went up. 
 The Generalin started aside. " I will sleep at the inn here 
 to-night and go back again to-morrow," she said. 
 
 " Will you not come with us ? " 
 
 " No. You are aware that Konrad has married Dickie ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 499 
 
 " My father told me." 
 
 *' She is the future Countess of Roden-Rheyna. There 
 are pecuniary considerations — but of these I refuse to speak 
 to you. I feel I have no right to intrude them on your 
 sorrow. And yet, Dorothea, if some day " 
 
 The little door of the box was opened : Colonel Sandring 
 had come in. He stared curiously from one woman to the 
 other, but, before he could say anything, the Generalin had 
 passed him, and was hastening down the corridor, much 
 remarked, in her black ^ attire, by the loungers of the 
 " entr'acte.'' Uncle Tony, no less noticeable in his brown 
 velveteens, pushed towards the front. " Permit me," he 
 said, " to escort you to your carriage." 
 
 The little Generalin travelled back to Rheyna ; she told 
 Egon that Gertrude was well and happy. " As people are 
 who do their duty — or ought to be," she added, with a side 
 glance at her son. 
 
 " Yes," he answered. If she had her secrets, so had he. 
 It would hardly have been practicable to tell her of a letter 
 which had reached him while she was away. 
 
 " I absolve you from your promise," Signor Pini had 
 written. " I absolve you : go, do what you like ! Since the 
 day when I bound you, the luck has gone against me. I 
 lose in spite of the mathematical impossibility ; with the 
 system I lose daily. The Devil is angry with me ; he ruins 
 me. It is evil fighting for Valentine — against Faust ! " 
 The colour mounted high on Egon's cheeks, and, as he 
 slowly tore up the letter, there settled that look upon his 
 face of which the people who knew him best were most 
 afraid. 
 
 K K 2 
 
( 500 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " Speak to me. Tell me. Let me know,** writes Doro- 
 thea. " Perhaps it is better you were not here when I 
 came back, Mark. I am sorry enough for the reason, but 
 you write that you are nearly restored to health, and that 
 rejoices us all. You must remain at Wiesbaden till May or 
 June, and come back quite well. Yes, I think it is better 
 you were not here. I could not have spoken. Till now, I 
 have felt I could not even write. There are things a woman 
 dares not utter : you will understand. Aunt Mary gave me 
 your message. * Tell Dorothea I dare not write, but 1 dare 
 pray for her.* That is all I dared do, to pray. But now I 
 am writing to you, Mark. I shall send the letter at once, 
 before I have time to re-read it and tear it up. Mrs. 
 Sandring talks to me, and so does my father — even uncle 
 Tony, so you see, there is little sacredness left. I am 
 writing, writing gladly — my hand trembles, but you will 
 be able to read. See, this question troubles me from morning 
 to night ; I cannot let it rest. Surely Christ has taught us, 
 that one thing only, except death, ends marriage. There is 
 no marriage after that. All other faults and mistakes and 
 crimes leave man and woman husband and wife, and if 
 they separate, it is wickedness. But one sin breaks, dis- 
 solves their union. There is no more marriage : they who 
 marry these severed ones commit no fault. Surely the 
 teaching is plain, plain? Help me to tell them so here. 
 Yet I hardly dare tell them : I do not know what to say, 
 and I beg them to leave me in peace. Aunt Mary agrees 
 with me : to her only can I open my heart, but she says it 
 is woman's unchanging fate to bear the burden of man's 
 wrong-doing. Aunt Emma says it too, but so differently, 
 without the eternal light on it, as you will understand. 
 And Mrs. Sandring — but I cannot tell you what Mrs. 
 Sandring says. I am pouring out my heart to you, at 
 last, after all these weeks — do not answer half my letter. 
 But you are a theologian : you have studied theology. 
 
DOROTHEA. 501 
 
 Help me to feel Christ's teaching : to explain it to myself. 
 It seems so right, so evident, so simple. Why do others 
 push it aside and talk about expediency? The hour is 
 twelve o'clock at night. I am going to slip down to the 
 post office and put this letter in myself." 
 
 Thus wrote Dorothea, a week or two after her meeting 
 with Egon's mother. She closed the envelope hastily and 
 slipped down into the mild spring night. The great house 
 was asleep ; she went out by a terrace- window. She had 
 never been afraid of thieves. Never exactly " afraid " of 
 anything, but dirt and cruelty. 
 
 It was pitch-dark, but she knew every inch of the road. 
 She cut across the park and down the avenue. 
 
 " Who goes there ? " cried a very loud voice, and two 
 dogs ran sniffing about Dorothea's feet. 
 
 " It is I, uncle Tony, going to post a letter." 
 
 What a flight uncle Tony's fancy took! "A letter! At this 
 time of night ! Let me see the address." He struck a match. 
 
 " It is only a letter to Mark," she laughed, always unable 
 to dissemble. 
 
 " Blow Mark," said the disappointed uncle Tony, and 
 extinguished the match. "All the same, it must be an 
 important letter," he added. "Dorothea, there is no 
 earthly good in your writing to Mark." He tucked her 
 arm under his and began walking leisurely towards the 
 house. " I will post your letter," he said. 
 
 She did not answer, but allowed him to lead her, 
 wondering, meanwhile, whether she should give him the 
 letter or tear it up and cast it to the winds. 
 
 " Dorothea," he began presently, puffing heavily at his 
 cigar, " I am glad we have met here like this : it is Fortune's 
 doing. There are one or two things I am burning to say 
 to you I should never have had courage to speak about by 
 daylight. Don't stop me for Heaven's sake. Do you 
 remember our walking up this avenue on the morning 
 of your birthday, just before your father's summons came, 
 fifty years ago ? We were young then, both of us, and now 
 we are old. Do you remember that you asked me if the 
 world was wicked, and I answered no ? You and I have 
 learnt a thing or two since then, Dorothea. Were you to 
 ask me now, I should answer, yes. The world is very wicked 
 at its best : we must take it as we find it, Dorothea." 
 
 She walked slowly on. " The sort of thing one — loathes," 
 she quoted musingly. 
 
502 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Uncle Tony stopped and struck his stick upon the ground. 
 *' A counsel of perfection : do you know what that means?" 
 he said. " I tell you, child, there is no greater mischief in 
 all this wicked world than a counsel of perfection to a poor 
 weak human sinner, from a saint." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 "Ah, there I have you. You don't even know what 
 I mean. Poor Egon. He is the weak human sinner, and 
 you are the saint." 
 
 " Uncle Tony, I entreat of you to spare me. Let us walk 
 back in silence : let me post my letter." 
 
 "My dear, I should certainly obey you if there were a 
 moon. But in this pitch-dark I venture to continue and 
 say : have you ever realised to what a life of guilt your 
 action is condemning your husband ? " 
 
 *'He is not my husband." 
 
 " Do you expect him to live as your married widower for 
 ever and aye ? " 
 
 Dorothea called to the dogs. Uncle Tony blew his nose. 
 
 "You attach so much importance to the Bible. The 
 Bible says that woman shouldn't leave a man to 
 himself." 
 
 " You do not know, uncle Tony, nor do you care, what 
 the Bible commands on the subject of marriage." 
 
 "I not know? I not care?" spluttered uncle Tony. 
 "My dear, I know very well, as I will prove to you very 
 soon. I — well, Dorothea, I have had my say. Give me 
 the letter : I would rather go away now. God bless you. 
 Good-night." 
 
 Uncle Tony trudged hastily homewards. His faithful 
 Rebecca opened the door, coughing. " How late you are, 
 sir," she said severely. Since her trip to the Riviera she 
 ruled her master with whips of scorpions. The obligation 
 under which she had laid him by exposing herself for his 
 sake to Popery and earthquakes she now hung as a mill-stone 
 round his neck. 
 
 "You've got the whole Bible in your head, have you 
 not ? " said uncle Tony, drawing off his coat. 
 
 "In my heart," replied Rebecca, 
 
 " That's no use. What I want to know is where that bit 
 comes in about — oh, blow it : I can't ask, Rebecca. I've 
 got one somewhere, but I couldn't lay my hand on it. 
 Look here, Rebecca, you've got one, eh ? " 
 
 "A what, sir?" 
 
DOROTHEA. 503 
 
 " A Bible, hang it. Get me your Bible : bring it up into 
 my bedroom with my punch." Rebecca obeyed with 
 alacrity, convinced that her master had at last bowed 
 to her (so-called silent) influence, and would soon join 
 her own little special Calvinist conventicle of groans. 
 
 Uncle Tony established himself in his great green four- 
 poster, his purple face under its night-cap, straining, 
 spectacled, over the maid's small "Bible with Psalms." 
 The steaming tumbler stood beside him, and, when his 
 feelings got too much for him, he took a comforting 
 pull at its contents. 
 
 " You will find a great deal of consolation expressly 
 pointed out," Rebecca had said in departing, whereby she 
 meant, as he very soon discovered, that the loudest Lamenta- 
 tions of Jeremiah had been heavily underscored. But the 
 writer uncle Tony knew he wanted was St. Paul. He 
 had to begin at the first of Romans : in his ignorance there 
 was no other way. The grog had come to an end long 
 before he found what he sought, in Corinthians. Then he 
 laid himself down to sleep with a sigh of content. Next 
 morning he wrote a few figures of texts on a piece of paper 
 and sent them to the Manor House, and ran away for the 
 whole day, as far as Amsterdam. 
 
 To this hour Rebecca does not understand. 
 
 But Mrs. Sandring had been beforehand, and a good 
 deal directer than uncle Tony. With people who see 
 each other constantly, congruity of thought is often 
 in the air. The Scripture reading that morning had 
 only been of Eleazar's going to seek a wife for Isaac, but 
 when it was over, and the servants had filed out, Mrs. 
 Sandring had spoken suddenly, brutally : 
 
 " Either go back to him, or divorce him. Else you are 
 wickeder than he." 
 
 Divorce ! 
 
 Dorothea had risen from the table, and fled. The new 
 word had struck her in the heart. 
 
 Of course the thought had always been with her, 
 unuttered, unrealised. Spoken aloud, and by another, it 
 looked so different. True, there was divorce. Legal 
 formalities innumerable. She must divorce him. He had 
 a right to demand it. How different was God's law from 
 man's legality ! 
 
 She could not divorce him. He must ask it, if he chose. 
 She would not resist. But to take these steps — hideous, 
 
504 DOROTHEA. 
 
 horrible, the profanation of a woman's heart — no, she could 
 not. 
 
 Almost immediately came Lester's answer, — in Holy 
 Week, on the verge of Easter. 
 
 " Will you care for my theology, Dorothea ? To me it 
 seems Christ gave the permission to separate but not the 
 command. Greater than all law, with Him, is surely the 
 mercy which conquers law ; greatest of all things is love. 
 ' Let him that is guiltless among you cast the first stone.* 
 Did the One who was guiltless among them cast it? Yours 
 is the privilege of guiltlessness in a world that understands 
 only the language of evil. 'Neither do I condemn thee. 
 Sin no more.' Surely, surely, Dorothea, He sent back this 
 sinful wife to her husband.'' 
 
 That was all. Not a word more except : 
 
 " I am always your very affectionate Mark." 
 
 " He has answered me," said Dorothea aloud. She stood, 
 with the letter in her hand, before her mother's portrait, in 
 its new place, on the wall of the bedroom at the Manor 
 House. She stood gazing at the sad face of the woman 
 who had died so young. All the varied influences of the 
 last days came rushing in upon her. And a glad light of 
 love and hope overflowed into her eyes. 
 
 "I will go back to him," she said softly. "Neither do I 
 condemn thee. Come, let us sin no more." 
 
 She stooped forward and kissed the lips of the mother to 
 whom a husband's evil-doing had brought death. 
 
 " I will go back to-day," she said. 
 
( 505 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 In that same Holy "Week, preceding Easter, with the 
 promise of new life awakening across the black gloom of 
 the Altmark, while the gaunt trees were breaking into green- 
 ness, and the gaudy parterres of the old-fashioned gardens 
 were ablaze with tulips and hyacinths — in that same week of 
 April, preceding Easter, the Rodens gathered for the festival 
 at Rheyna. During those few days, the Head of the Family, 
 protesting, but without exactly knowing against what, was 
 confined to his suite of rooms on the first story. Hans 
 watched over him, and Egon would hurry back, almost 
 gladly, to the room where the old man sat pumping, from 
 the scream of Dickie's laughter downstairs. Such a room ! 
 The gilt woodwork like a tangle of orchids, from designs by 
 Meissonier. 
 
 Shortly after her return the Generalin had said boldly to 
 Egon : " I have been to Dorothea. I have seen her." She 
 had followed him into his bedroom. He had just lighted a 
 candle. Before she knew what he was doing, he had blown 
 it out. 
 
 " Well ? " he said in a muffled voice. 
 
 " Egon, she will come back to you, for she loves you 
 still." 
 
 She waited a moment in the darkness, but he did not reply. 
 
 "I know nothing but that," she continued, "I cannot 
 argue ; everything is wrong. I cannot say when she will 
 return, or how. She has a right to remain away. Yes, all 
 that she says is true. But she will come back to you in the 
 end, for she loves you better than ever." 
 
 " God bless her," he said. 
 
 " And that is why life is still beautiful, as your father would 
 have said, were he here — because we love one another. 
 Because in this wicked, miserable world, love takes our follies 
 and sorrows and weaves them into cords about our hearts. 
 Because we love one another. In the end that is all. 
 There is nothing more, nothing less. She will return." 
 
5o6 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " God grant it,'* he whispered. He walked up and down 
 the room, with firm step, for a long time after his mother 
 had left him. His thoughts were of many things ; of this 
 daily drudgery on the vast estates, a labour which he chose 
 to think " useless " — " for any one could do it " — of the glory 
 that might have been his in the fight against savages and 
 fever in the Colonies ; of Pini — his cheeks mantled — who 
 had shamefully insulted him — if there was a man in this 
 world whom Egon Roden hated, it was Pini. 
 
 Next morning came Karl, the young cadet, with two 
 comrades, of no further importance in this story. Gertrude 
 also arrived a little later, bringing a couple of her sick 
 cousin's superfluous children, girls. The house was full of 
 voices and merriment. The old gentleman, in his white 
 clothing, hung over the gilt banisters, gurgling, grinning, 
 looking down. 
 
 On the Wednesday appeared she who was at this 
 moment the centre of interest — the Bride ! 
 
 The bride whose honeymoon had changed partner half- 
 way. Dickie was supremely happy. " I married the first 
 time for the sake of being married," she said to Konrad, 
 " the second for the sake of being Countess, and the third 
 for the pleasure of being your wife." Konrad did not care 
 to hear this addition. " And I don't see why I should marry 
 for the fourth time," she said simply. " I don't intend," 
 replied Konrad, " to give you a chance." 
 
 As soon as she found herself tied down to Kauenfels she 
 had hurried him off to Paris and lived there in an orgasm 
 of Boulevard delights. It must be admitted that he was 
 as youthful and eager as she. They enjoyed themselves 
 outrageously, and Dickie danced at the Moulin Rouge. 
 Thereby she realised the chief dream of her girlhood. She 
 danced amid a good deal of admiration, not so much of her 
 dancing, perhaps, as of other charms. And while she 
 danced she sang softly to herself, all the time : " I'm a 
 Countess, a Countess." Her princely old husband, who 
 had had too much wine, stood in bleary admiration, clapping 
 his hands. " I'm good for twenty years yet," he declared 
 the day before his end. " Dead ? Of course," said Barbolat. 
 
 Konrad, hastening to Paris from Monte Carlo, found the 
 widowed Reichsgrafin von Kauenfels-Courmayeur in a large 
 first-floor sitting-room of the Continental Hotel. Her maid 
 had met him, with a grin, at the top of the staircase. "Oh, 
 certainly, you can go in ! " said Aurelie Bompard. 
 
DOROTHEA. 507 
 
 On a billowy yellow settee reclined Dickie, in white laces 
 from bosom to foot. Quantities of flowers were all over 
 the apartment : great masses of crimson and pink. A small 
 monkey was nibbling biscuits in the middle of the carpet. 
 At the farther end a group of Neapolitan musicians, in 
 costume,"were tinkling " Maria Nina," " Ella mi fa morir ! " 
 
 Konrad stopped horror-struck : 
 
 " My dear Dickie, the conventionalities ! " 
 
 She started up, angry. " What nonsense ! — the conven- 
 tionalities ! I'm a Countess with twenty thousand a year." 
 
 " For that very reason, I was thinking " 
 
 Dickie pouted. " They fetched him away this morning, 
 and, really, I wanted a change." 
 
 " Konrad," she added, " don't be disagreeable, or what 
 did you come for ? I shall have to go after him to-night, 
 I suppose, to that horrible place in the mountains. And 
 put on a lot of odious black again, and black doesn't suit 
 me. But certainly nobody makes like they do in Paris. 
 You couldn't have a better place to order mourning in." 
 
 "You have been ordering? " 
 
 " Of course ; what else would be the use of — I mean, 
 Aurelie is certainly a treasure. What a stupid Dorothea 
 was to let her go. When the doctor said that poor old 
 Franz had departed, I sat up in my bed and I cried rivers. 
 Aurelie put her head through the door and said : ' La 
 coupeuse de chez Doucet.' " 
 
 " And you were comforted ? " 
 
 " Konrad, you are very unamiable. But, of course, it 
 made a diversion to look at all her patterns. And she 
 certainly had the loveliest things." 
 
 The musicians stood touching up their instruments. The 
 monkey demanded more biscuits with its well-known plain- 
 tive little note. 
 
 " I hate wearing black, anyhow. There are lots of 
 reasons why 1 am sorry that Franzl died." 
 
 " But have you arranged everything ? I had hoped I 
 might prove useful.'* 
 
 " Of course I have arranged. As soon as I stopped 
 crying, and my eyes weren't so red, I sent round to the 
 Embassy. They sent back a young gentleman at once, 
 with black moustaches : he was exceedingly polite. He 
 said : ' Do not weep any more, Frau Grafin,' so I didn't. 
 He saw to it all. I thought it was very nice of the 
 Ambassador — whoever he is — to send me a dark man." 
 
5o8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Why ? " demanded the umbrageous Konrad. 
 
 " It seemed more fit." 
 
 " Oh ! — and now the — the corpse has gone to Kauenfels ? " 
 
 " Don't talk of him like that or I shall slap you. You 
 are behaving badly, Konrad : you have * missed your 
 entrance,' as the French say. Sit down and listen to these 
 people. The little one with the blue eyes has a delicious 
 voice." 
 
 Konrad obeyed, and had to endure " Santa Lucia." 
 
 "All the same," he at last said desperately, "how about 
 to-night ? " 
 
 " She roused herself, her mouth full of bon-bons. " Konrad, 
 how disagreeable you are ! To-night ! Do you know, I 
 don't think I shall go to that funeral." 
 
 " But you must put in an appearance at Kauenfels ! " 
 
 " Why should I ? I hate funerals, I never went near one 
 in my life. His servant has gone with the — train. Surely 
 they can lock away poor Franzl without my help." 
 
 « Only " 
 
 She began to cry. " I will send for my young gentleman 
 from the Embassy," she sobbed. " He was always so 
 obliging, and he said I could do as I liked." 
 
 "So you shall. You needn't send for that idiot of an 
 attach^." 
 
 " Really ? Konrad, I had no idea you could be so exactly 
 like Egon." 
 
 " Thank you ! That is a compliment, indeed. I'll do 
 anything you like, Dickie, rather than hear you say that 
 again." 
 
 So it was arranged, and the following telegram went to 
 Castle Kauenfels : 
 
 " Immediate ! " — for abroad you can send " immediate " 
 telegrams, that pass before all others, at treble the price. 
 
 "Impossible to undertake the journey. Am completely 
 prostrated by sorrowful event. 
 
 " Elizabeth, Verwittwete Reichsgrafin Kauenfels." 
 
 But Dickie, when she re-read this sad message at her 
 leisure, was very angry with Konrad, and flew out at him. 
 For a second dispatch had to be flashed after the first. 
 
 " Do not postpone funeral." 
 
 When all this was settled, and she had dismissed the 
 
DOROTHEA. 509 
 
 Italian singers and the monkey-man, she said, with her 
 fingers feeling for the hairpins in her cloud of fair hair : 
 " Now — how shall we spend the evening ? " And she sent 
 for the Figaro to look down its list. 
 
 " I expect my black man at ten to take me to the 
 station," she said. " I shall write him a note. You can do 
 it : I make such mistakes in spelling. He must dine with 
 us, and then we can have a baignoire, where nobody will 
 see us, at something cheerful." 
 
 " I do not see the necessity of asking him," sulked 
 Konrad. But she turned on him in splendid indignation. 
 " The conventionalities ! " she said slowly, and walked with 
 great state from the room. 
 
 It is generally known, of course, that she did not attend 
 her husband's funeral. But that her behaviour at the time 
 was most admirable is avouched by her maid, and by 
 Kauenfels' faithful serving-man. She tipped the latter 
 very heavily — in fact she bought him a caf6. Dickie was 
 always prodigal of money, eager to have it and willing to 
 spend. And as for her maid : " The worse she behaves the 
 better I like it," says Aurelie. " If I continue with her two 
 years longer I shall, without compunction, have stolen 
 myself rich." 
 
 It is not generally known that the widowed Countess 
 went that evening, with her two attendants, to "La Tante 
 de Charley." The piece is undoubtedly funny : she laughed 
 till she cried. 
 
 When, a couple of months later at the utmost — no, it 
 cannot have been so much : six weeks later — she married 
 Konrad von Roden, in London, she filled up, for the moment, 
 of course, the world's measure of disapproval and scorn. 
 But nobody nowadays, with twenty thousand a year and 
 such rank, need be lengthily afraid of either. From a Court 
 point of view she was certainly " impossible," but that she 
 would have been in any case, with her antecedents, and 
 neither she nor Konrad cared for such things at present, 
 knowing well that, when tired of enjoyment, they could 
 set themselves resolutely to satisfy ambition. The Court 
 of Berlin is not what it was twenty years ago : only Russia 
 and Austria — and, by-the-bye, poor proud little pauper 
 Sweden — still realise that money can smell bad. All 
 the same, Dickie Roden fully appreciated the immense 
 desirability of becoming Countess of Rheyna. 
 
 " I am not at all sure that I want to give up my title," 
 
5IO DOROTHEA. 
 
 she told Konrad, when he begged her to make him, 
 immediately, the happiest of men. 
 
 His dusky face grew darker. "You shall be Countess 
 Rheyna," he answered, " if human skill can do it.*' 
 
 " Can't I keep the other as well ? " 
 
 " Not if you marry me. But Rheyna is better than 
 Kauenfels, and you will more than double your income." 
 
 " All the same, the title is a bird in the bush." 
 
 " Dickie, marry me. We shall have a good time, 
 together — and a big time, afterwards, as well." 
 
 " I should like to marry you, Konrad. But tell me about 
 the entail." 
 
 He sat down beside her. " It must be decided," he said, 
 " within twenty-four hours of my uncle's death. The 
 candidates — that is to say, relatives in the same degree, who 
 are married (the idea being to exclude children), draw lots." 
 
 " Egon, therefore, and you — if married." 
 
 "Exactly, but Egon must be reconciled to Dorothea 
 first. As, of course, he would be, immediately. For hus- 
 bands who are divorced or separated from their wives lose 
 their chance." 
 
 " Who decides these matters ? " asked Dickie with 
 sudden interest. 
 
 "The 'Landrath' comes to represent the authorities, I 
 believe, and a couple of other functionaries — of course I 
 have never seen it." 
 
 "Then," said Dickie, "if you can get Egon and 
 Dorothea to divorce, or to separate, your succession is 
 secure. Surely your uncle will not live until the Child 
 can marry ? " 
 
 " Just so. Take me, Dickie. By Jove, I've never seen a 
 woman I should like so well for my wife." 
 
 "It ought not to be difficult," said Dickie musingly, 
 "with people so constituted as those two. What fools 
 they are. Konrad, I'll risk it. I really like you better 
 than any one I ever met." 
 
 So they ran across to London. " It's the only place in 
 all the world," said Konrad. " You walk into a church 
 and you walk out again, and you're married and no 
 questions asked." 
 
 From London Dickie wrote to the Generalin, and at 
 Easter Konrad brought his wealthy bride to Rheyna. 
 " Whew ! " she said, as she drove up to the Grand Entrance. 
 " Konrad, I wonder, is Kauenfels still finer than this ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 511 
 
 " Of course not : it couldn't be," he answered angrily. 
 He was proud of his ancestral home, and eager to possess 
 it. He felt, also, that he would be the worthier owner, 
 not a duffer like Egon. 
 
 She grinned, and told him that, when they had had 
 enough of this place, they would go to the other and see. 
 •' And if we get this, and don't like the other," she added, 
 " we will let the old ladies live at Kauenfels. Franzl was 
 a brute to leave nothing to Hilda : what brutes you men 
 are ! But you know the condition in the will ; don't you ? 
 If ever I have a son, he must take the name of Kauenfels." 
 
 " Of course I know ; you have told me a dozen times," 
 he said crossly. In spite of their passion for each other, 
 they quarrelled all day long. 
 
 But Dickie was happy from morning till night. The 
 cadets sank instantly at her feet, with calf-like admiration. 
 Only loyal Karl held out, and told them they were fools. 
 *' I have always been happy," says Dickie, " ever since I 
 was a baby. Nothing has ever happened to make me 
 unhappy, not for more than half a minute. Only Archie 
 bored me with his ' pons.' " 
 
 When she came down to dinner — in exquisite heliotrope, 
 for she insisted on wearing what she chose to consider a 
 sort of light mourning — she looked round the little gather- 
 ing in apparent surprise. " Dear me ! " she said, " what a 
 pleasant party. I had no idea you admitted guests." She 
 asked the Generalin and Gertrude to admire her toilette. 
 " I had to throw away three hundred pounds' worth of 
 clothes I had bought in Paris," she said calmly. " I have 
 had four outfits in succession : I am sure Aur61ie cannot 
 regret Dorothea. But I persisted in wearing light mourning 
 for a little. Konrad is so unseemly. I told him that I 
 know what's what." 
 
 "Yes," said the Generalin gently. Gertrude looked 
 across at her mother. It was only one little word, and, 
 fortunately, Dickie was quite incapable of reading its 
 meaning. 
 
 But she had a general feeling of discomfort, and such 
 feelings always rendered her ferocious. She turned upon 
 Egon, as soon as he came in from the smoking-room. 
 
 " You are master here at present, are you not ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " If there is anything I can do to make you comfortable, 
 you have only to give your orders," he replied. 
 
512 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " The footman who came to the station dropped my 
 dressing-case and smashed things. I hope you will 
 dismiss him." 
 
 " I am sorry : I will tell him to be more careful in 
 future." 
 
 " But I want you to send him away." 
 
 " I don't think this is quite the moment to turn off my 
 uncle's servants," he answered, annoyed. 
 
 " Is it not ? Let me tell you that the hotel proprietor at 
 Geneva sent away a waiter who had winked at me. I was 
 sure he had winked at me, though Kauenfels said not." 
 
 " Private families are so different from public places of 
 amusement," put in the Generalin. 
 
 " Ah, you say that because I was a barmaid ! " cried 
 Dickie. " Well, nobody ever turned me off. I was a very 
 good barmaid, I assure you. I doubled the custom, they 
 said, at my first place. I doubt whether Gertrude could 
 have managed that." 
 
 " It is a mathematical computation," said Gertrude, 
 laughing. Dickie approved of this good-natured answer, 
 and patted her sister-in-law's hand. 
 
 But, when Egon, anxious to amuse the young ones, had 
 set them dancing, and approached her with the cheerful 
 suggestion of a polka, she drew back annoyed. 
 
 " Come," he said, " I haven't danced since I was a 
 schoolboy. We will telegraph to Barbolat." 
 
 " You forget," she replied, much ruffled, and looked 
 down at her heliotrope train. 
 
 That evening she confided to Konrad that she detested 
 Egon. She had retired to her room in most manifest sulks. 
 The little Generalin, who had a genius for dance music, 
 was rattling away by the hour, in the music room, and 
 Egon was delighting the hearts of the cousin's daughters by 
 his more or less clumsy attempts to dance half as well as 
 they. 
 
 " Well, yes, of course," replied Konrad. " Still, at present, 
 he's behaving quite decently. He can't send away old 
 servants, that's bosh." 
 
 "And why not, pray? Kauenfels did whatever I asked 
 him." 
 
 "There are one or two things you don't understand just 
 yet, though you're awfully clever." 
 
 She coloured. " I don't care twopence about servants," 
 she cried, "but I hate Egon, I've always disliked him 
 
DOROTHEA. 513 
 
 from the day we first met at Monte Carlo. And at least I 
 thought him sincere till this business about Giulietta. I 
 won't deny he's the best looking man I ever met." 
 
 Konrad bit his moustache. " I don't care so much 
 about being Countess Rheyna," she said, "but I should 
 dearly like to revenge myself on Egon." 
 
 " The two would go together," he answered. 
 
 " Yes, and by George they shall ! " she started up : 
 decision was in her cheeky features, as she rang for her 
 maid. 
 
 He looked at her uncomfortably. " What makes you say 
 ' revenge ' ?" he asked. 
 
 "It is a way of speaking. I always want to revenge 
 myself on the very few people I dislike." 
 
 With this explanation he was obliged to content himself. 
 But he strongly approved of the telegram which Dickie 
 immediately concocted and sent off. They chuckled over 
 it together. " She will come at once, never fear," said 
 Dickie. " Trust a woman to come at once." 
 
 "It is a good action in a way," answered Konrad, " to 
 bring them together again." 
 
 " In a way ? In every way," replied Dickie. " Such affairs 
 should be ended. Either together again, or for ever apart," 
 
 She settled down over her favourite reading — a highly 
 illustrated German periodical, a sort of Police News and 
 Family Herald combined. In fact that was the only thing 
 she ever read, besides the fashion journals. An occasional 
 laugh — like a bubble — broke away from the brightness of 
 her thoughts. " What fun it will be ! " she said to Konrad. 
 Then she prayed her little Catholic prayer and went to 
 sleep. 
 
 Next morning she was full of insinuation and innuendo. 
 The day was Maundy Thursday ; the Genera lin seemed to 
 think it not devoid of religious associations, but at this idea 
 Dickie scoffed. " I must have more religion than you," she 
 said, " seeing I am a Roman Catholic. To-morrow, of 
 course, I shall eat fish, but to-day I am going to enjoy 
 myself." She proved eager to see a good deal of Count 
 Rheyna, whose unusual condition appeared to have a 
 singular fascination for her. 
 
 " Do you like pumping ? " she said. " Oh, what fun ! " 
 and she made him a present of a squirt. He had not been so 
 happy since the day of his seizure. The monotony of the 
 pump was pallid compared with the diversions of the water- 
 
 D. L L 
 
514 DOROTHEA. 
 
 shoot. All over the sitting-room his unsteady hand flung 
 the spray. His laugh mingled with that of the — unrecog- 
 nised — newcomer. But when, that same evening, a full 
 splash dropped from the banisters on the lady's bare neck 
 and dove-coloured dinner gown, she indignantly demanded 
 of Egon that the thing should be taken away ! Her 
 brother-in-law promised to do his best, a difficult matter, 
 big with the prospect of yells and tears. 
 
 "A lady is coming this evening," said Dickie halfway 
 through dinner, " a — a friend of ours," — she looked round 
 the table — " I think I may say. I thought you would not 
 mind her coming ; we seemed such a pleasant family party 
 — almost complete." She shot a look across at Gertrude, 
 which said quite plainly : " Oh, yes, I can be as nasty as 
 any great lady, when I choose." 
 
 " Who is it ? " demanded the Generalin. 
 
 " Oh, only a friend of ours. We have been too long 
 without her. I telegraphed to her and asked her to come 
 to us for Easter. Easter is a time when old friends — and 
 foes — should meet and say, * The Lord is risen,' as they do 
 in Russia. There should be no quarrels at Easter, but 
 general reconciliation : don't you think so, Egon ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Egon. 
 
 "And Dorothea " 
 
 She paused, at a loss. She had reckoned on his inter- 
 rupting her at once. In the terrified silence : " A room 
 will be got ready for your friend," said Egon. " Shall we 
 speak of something else ? " Everybody was talking and 
 laughing again in a sudden outburst of conversation. 
 
 This incident of her unexpected loss of sangfroid seemed 
 to sober Dickie. She might even have been considered a 
 little nervous ; still, she enjoyed her dinner and flirted with 
 the infatuated cadets. In the course of the evening she 
 sang them a couple of her banjo songs. Perhaps that was 
 because of her semi-mourning, and because the Generalin 
 thought the day had a religious tint. 
 
 " Who is this guest ? " said the Generalin, close to her, 
 suddenly, with stern lips and a tremble at the eyes. 
 
 Dickie took out her watch. "You will know in ten 
 minutes' time," she said coolly. " Now, which of you boys 
 can sing ? " 
 
 " I can play Strauss," replied one of the cadets. They 
 were all in the great drawing-room together, under the soft 
 blaze of the wax candles. Egon had come in ; he was 
 
DOROTHEA. 515 
 
 playing backgammon with one of the girls in a corner, at 
 the table where, on ordinary occasions, he sat with his 
 uncle and pumped. 
 
 They were all in the drawing-room together ; an air of 
 uneasiness hung over them, the thunder- cloud as yet only 
 felt. Dickie laughed loudly. Gertrude had gone across to 
 Konrad : " It is impossible," she said. " You are not going 
 to attempt it ? It would not succeed." 
 
 He stared at her — she so gentle, so unassuming, a girl you 
 never heard or saw. " Are you crazy ? " he said. 
 
 " Konrad, you are either committing a magnificent error 
 or a crime ! " 
 
 The boy at the piano rattled the " Schone Blaue Donau." 
 
 " I hear the carriage ! " cried Dickie. Her eyes flashed : her 
 cheeks flushed. 
 
 A horrible moment of silence fell upon them — a silence 
 they all realised, in spite of the swift clatter of the notes in 
 the comer. None of them stirred to go into the vestibule 
 and welcome misfortune. 
 
 The folding doors were flung open. Giulietta stood on 
 the threshold. 
 
 The piano stopped with a bang, for the musician had 
 started up. And the moment of silence deepened, as the 
 second between the lightning and the crash. 
 
 Then Egon came forward. " I hope you have had a good 
 journey," he said, " Madame la Comtesse." He held out his 
 hand and conducted her to his mother. " Mother," he said, 
 " I do not think you ever met the Countess Pini-Pizzatelli." 
 
 Dickie warmly embraced the new arrival and immediately 
 carried her off to her room. 
 
 L L 2 
 
( 5i6 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 "And why not, pray?" said Dickie. She had pushed 
 her fair head through the old Count's doorway, half -hidden, 
 laughing, against the portiere. Egon, beside his uncle, had 
 looked up with grave objection : " You should not have 
 asked that lady here." 
 
 " And why not, pray ? " said Dickie. She nonplussed 
 him so utterly, he did not know what to reply. " Giulietta 
 was all alone at Montreux, boring herself again, with 
 Barbolat," continued the Biermadel. " She had promised to 
 join us in Paris, so I telegraphed to her to come here 
 instead. She wouldn't hurt a fly. Oh, I forgot, Konrad 
 said you didn't like her. What nonsense, Egon ! Besides, 
 people ought to make it up at Easter, as I was remarking 
 downstairs." 
 
 He sat with his eyes downcast, pumping as methodically 
 as if he had been his uncle. But the uncle did not want 
 the pump, and was crying for his squirt. Egon was 
 absolutely at a loss for a word. 
 
 "Admit," continued Dickie, goaded on by wild curiosity, 
 " admit that you are disappointed. You thought it was 
 Dorothea ? " 
 
 Then he looked up again, full at her. " No, indeed," he 
 said quickly. " Do you think I should have waited for her 
 at backgammon, downstairs ? " 
 
 " And how would you have waited for her, pray ? In 
 the chapel with a candle, so ! " She pulled a long grimace, 
 with eyes upturned and hands uplifted, piteous. Uncle 
 Karl, who thought it was a Punch performance, laughed. 
 
 " You intended me to believe it was she, but you failed," 
 answered Egon quietly. 
 
 Dickie's eyes grew far less pretty. " I am sorry it is only 
 Giulietta," she said. 
 
 " I dislike very much seeming inhospitable — still, I should 
 be much obliged if you would ask Madame Pini not to 
 stay over to-morrow." 
 
DOROTHEA. 517 
 
 " Inhospitable ? Ah true : to all practical purposes, the 
 house is yours — for the present. But I cannot possibly ask 
 her to leave to-morrow. She would not go." 
 
 " Because ? " 
 
 " Dear me, Egon, don't fly out at me like that ! Because 
 to-morrow is Good Friday, and because you cannot expect 
 her to travel on a Friday — on Good Friday, least of all." 
 
 Egon sat, his lips compressed. And when Dickie saw 
 him sitting thus, with features which she wanted to call 
 stony while her heart said " statuesque," her own expression, 
 which had been very ugly, broke once more into smiles. 
 
 "Stuff and nonsense," she said. "We shall keep her 
 here and have a jolly time together. She's first-rate 
 company, and this place is dull. You ought to divorce 
 Dorothea and marry her, Egon. She'd make you a much 
 better wife." 
 
 He rose. "And really," thought Dickie, ''he's very 
 tall : he's a long time doing it." 
 
 " Don't you think," he said, " we had better leave my 
 uncle ? Little things excite him. You must not be angry 
 with me, Elisabeth, but my mother will find some means 
 of suggesting to the Countess Pini that we cannot have 
 strangers in the house just now." 
 
 " And the cadets ? " screamed Dickie. " Your uncle's 
 well enough, if you let him have a change ! You make 
 him ill by locking him up here ! Why don't you give him 
 proper clothes and let him come downstairs ? Why don't 
 you " 
 
 But at this moment his Excellency, the Head of the 
 Family, whether annoyed by her shrill screaming, or 
 attracted by her wide-open mouth, shot a jet of water, 
 in a shaky sweep, across her, from the squirt recaptured 
 behind Egon's back. 
 
 She fled shrieking, but presently calmed down and con- 
 sulted her watch. Only nine : there was time enough. She 
 concocted a second telegram, this time without even con- 
 sulting her husband ; so she had the chuckling all to 
 herself. The message was in French, its wording brief 
 and decisive : 
 
 " Madame de Roden, Brodryck, Holland. Your husband 
 is dying. Come ! " 
 
 " Aux grands maux les grands remedes," said Dickie. 
 She sent away the telegram unsigned. There was no 
 difiiculty about sending it, for — whatever might be Aur^lie's 
 
5i8 DOROTHEA. 
 
 predilections — Dickie had always assured herself of the dog- 
 like devotion of her husband's man. In fact, if the full 
 truth must be told, the post of valet, about Dickie, had 
 been more permanent, of late, than that of spouse. It is 
 easier any day, says Dickie, to get a good husband than to 
 get a good servant. She knows. 
 
 Immediately after having dismissed the man, she threw 
 up her perky, rounded little chin and recalled him. And 
 she wrote her name in full under the message. " So," she 
 said, a word which, in her native language, means everything. 
 Then she lighted a cigarette. 
 
 Dorothea still got the telegram that night — quite late 
 that night. The house had to be rung up to give it her. 
 And at six on the Good Friday morning she was driving 
 to the station with sleepless eyes. 
 
 At Rheyna, on that Good Friday morning, the whole 
 family — the Protestant part of it — attended the Lutheran 
 village church in a certain amount of state. The 
 peasantry, the tenants, the local authorities stood aside 
 with a special inclination of their backs and their eyes 
 which, amidst the general devotion to the " Herrschaften," 
 already distinguished Egon, walking up the church path 
 with his mother on his arm, as practically " der Herr." 
 Konrad saw this, we may call it, trend. And his thoughts 
 were the thoughts of Jacob. 
 
 To his honour be it said that he had always despised, 
 but never disliked, his brother. He had believed in Egon's 
 stupid virtuousness. Only of late had his eyes been opened : 
 he now hated the contemptible hypocrite who had assumed 
 the appearance of being better than other men. 
 
 Egon's resolution of avoiding Giulietta all day was fore- 
 doomed to failure. " I invite everybody to a concert in the 
 music-room at five o'clock," said Dickie, as she rose from 
 the lunch- table. " Religious music only, of course ; Madame 
 de Pini will sing." Dickie had spent the morning with 
 uncle Karl. " He is better than when we came," she said. 
 *' I have quite conquered my dread of him. He walks 
 about the hall." 
 
 " Walks ? Staggers ! He might fall at any moment," 
 said young Karl. 
 
 " Children should be seen and not heard," replied Dickie, 
 to the delight of the cadets. She added kindty : " Nobody 
 could object to seeing you ; so there ! " 
 
 " Hans must always be there to support uncle Karl," 
 
DOROTHEA. 519 
 
 put in Egon. " You must never let him try to walk 
 alone." 
 
 " Bother Hans," said Dickie. If there was any one at 
 Rheyna she hated after Egon, it was Hans. How had she 
 got to hear, amongst other things, that Hans, speaking of 
 her, had said " people like us " ? 
 
 At five o'clock, then, the whole party gathered in the 
 music-room. Dickie, in a curly tea-gown, like a pale-blue 
 hyacinth, rummaged among the cups and saucers, and pro- 
 duced a box of genuine " Macarons de Nancy " from her 
 private store. For Dickie had always supplies of cakes and 
 sweetmeats wherever she travelled. These macaroons, being 
 made by the *' dear, good sisters," were especially suitable 
 fasting fare. "There's a religious flavour about them," 
 declared Dickie. One of the cadets said they were not as 
 sweet as she. 
 
 Giulietta was in black, unrelieved, black satin covered 
 with black laces. The sadness, not of certain desolation, 
 but rather of hope depressed. 
 
 She sat down to the piano and sang. " I have not 
 touched a note for weeks," she said. Yet she sat down 
 to the piano and sang : 
 
 " Ave, Mater lachrymarum ! " 
 
 They all listened, spell-bound. When she had finished 
 nobody uttered a word. 
 
 Then she sang Victor Hugo's " Lines before a Crucifix " : 
 " Vous qui pleurez, venez a lui car il pleure." 
 
 Dickie's eyes were full of moisture, and not Dickie's 
 alone. The cadets yawned. 
 And then : 
 
 " O Lord of love, O Lord of tears ! 
 I bring to Thee my hopes and fears ! " 
 
 But she had scarcely struck a few notes of this when she 
 stopped. 
 
 *' This is for more voices than one," she said, veering 
 round on the music-stool. "I know that you sing it, 
 Monsieur de Roden ! Come, join me : must I do all 
 this labour alone ? " 
 
 He had foreseen her appeal when the first chords fell 
 upon his ear, but what could he do? He stole out of 
 his comer to the piano : 
 
 " O Lord of love, O Lord of tears ! 
 I bring to Thee my hopes and fears ! " 
 
S20 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Once started, he forgot all but his singing. The impulse, 
 so long deadened within him, awoke throbbing to life. The 
 weeks of dull plodding righteousness — atonement, weary- 
 duty, regret — seemed to break away and dissolve like so 
 many ice-bands that had frostened about his heart. The 
 spring of all his artistic emotion bubbled upwards to 
 heaven. The notes in his voice thrilled to hers, blending 
 with them in that union of sympathetic perception, the 
 highest earthly intercourse, of which it is either idle or 
 superfluous to speak. He knew only one thing at the 
 moment : the music that was bearing them upwards : 
 his whole soul was full of his singing, and hers, indis- 
 tinguishably blended in one : 
 
 " For Thou hast sufifered and achieved, 
 And it remains enough for me, 
 To suffer and achieve, like Thee ! " 
 
 The words that had risen like the night-wind sank to 
 rest with a wail. 
 
 " To suffer and achieve, like Thee I " 
 
 Giulietta, playing a few wild discords, hardly in sympathy 
 with the gentle finale, looked up quickly into Egon's face. 
 " I will go to-morrow, if you wish it," she breathed. " But 
 I must speak to you before that, alone ! " 
 
 He hesitated. " Alone, or before them all. Take your 
 choice ! " she said, and she struck two such crashes on 
 the keyboard that the poor Generalin jumped. "Don't 
 make such a horrid noise," cried Dickie. 
 
 But Giulietta was gently singing words that appeal to 
 every German mind : 
 
 " I never can forget again, 
 I never can repent. 
 The God who sees me strive in vaia 
 Declares me innocent." 
 
 Egon's heart stood still. What depths of danger 
 threatened him? He looked from one intruder to the 
 other, from Giulietta to Dickie. " That isn't chant music ! " 
 laughed Dickie. She got up. " Come, let's take Giulietta 
 over the house ! " He bent lower : " My mother ! My 
 sister ! " he whispered close to the Italian's ear, " I will do 
 anything you wish ! " 
 
 The four of them — for Dickie selected a cadet — wandered 
 into the picture-gallery. Dickie looked at her watch. 
 
DOROTHEA. 521 
 
 The gallery, chiefly devoted to second-rate pictures and 
 very good armour, runs along the left wing of the building, on 
 the ground floor, and terminates in the chapel. The latter 
 is rather an oratory — in this Protestant eighteenth century 
 mansion, a small apartment with a good deal of gilding 
 like the rest of the house, an Italian octagon, pillared and 
 domed, cherubs, half a dozen Florentine " masters," a 
 Lutheran altar, a few highly decorated seats. Into one of 
 these Giulietta fell with a gasp, for Dickie had most 
 fatiguingly dawdled among the pictures, as if anxious to 
 delay until dark. 
 
 Then Dickie had suddenly disappeared with her faithful 
 retainer. Giulietta and Egon were alone in the twilight of 
 the chapel. 
 
 Giulietta looked up. It was not so dark in the soft 
 spring evening but that he could perfectly well see the look 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " Speak to me ! " she said at last, so gently he only just 
 caught the words. 
 
 "What should I say?" 
 
 " Have you nothing ? I so much ! " 
 
 She swayed forward. " Bartolommeo has left me. He was 
 a good friend to me : the best I ever had. He has left me. 
 His luck is gone from the day, he says, that he met you at 
 Lyons. You have brought us ruin : we were happy enough." 
 
 She spoke tenderly, sadly. He stood before her, seeking 
 what to reply. 
 
 " Do not think I reproach you," she continued. " You 
 have ruined my life : that is all. You have ruined my 
 happiness. You could not help it. Perhaps you have 
 ruined your own ? " 
 
 "Yes! "he said. 
 
 She started up. " Thank God ! " she said. " Thank God ! 
 Then it was worth the price — cheap at the price ! I would 
 do it all again and gladly. Ay, gladly ! ay, gladly ! " She 
 made as if she would have held out her hands to him, but 
 drew them back. 
 
 " After all, what does anything else matter ? " she said. 
 " Happiness ! happiness ! short, happy happiness. People 
 live and die, and the question is, how much happiness ? I am 
 ruined, I suppose. Does it matter? Oh ! cheap at the price ! " 
 
 Two women paused in the gallery. " This way, I think," 
 murmured Dickie. " Sit here for a moment whilst I go for 
 a light." 
 
522 DOROTHEA. 
 
 In the chapel Giulietta slightly raised her voice : " Have you 
 nothing to say to me — nothing ? My God, have you nothing? 
 Egon, I see through the darkness the working of your face. 
 Egon, we can rebuild our happiness. Egon, I am a woman — 
 see, not an ugly woman, surely? Why did you wrong me so 
 cruelly? — for if you played with me only — then, oh it was 
 most brutal wrong. Egon, I have loved once, once only : I 
 was happy in my ruin. Tell me, when I flung myself at 
 your feet, oh my king, oh my god, tell me it was happiness 
 to you, and not wicked pastime only. Tell me that you 
 meant what you said to me : tell me it was happiness to 
 you : it was sweetness for that one time only. Tell me, 
 you who are wedded to an ice-block, tell me if you have a 
 spark of manliness in you left : tell me that you loved me 
 when I fell ! " 
 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 She flung herself upon him : the black laces sank away 
 about her bosom. In the wide-open doors of the chapel, 
 with the last beams from the tall windows slanting towards 
 her, stood his wife. 
 
 In her stained travelling dress, dusty, weary, worn out 
 with the suspense of that terrible journey to the husband 
 who was dying 
 
 " For love ! " said Dickie's laughing voice. She came in 
 with a candle. " I wanted to bring you two together 
 again. I thought he was dying for love of you. Dear me, 
 am I ' de trop ? ' and are you ' de trop,' Giulietta ? Or is 
 Dorothea ? '* 
 
 " It is a plot ! It is a plot ! " cried Egon wildly. " I swear 
 it. Dorothea, listen to m.e. Here in this chapel I swear it. 
 Before God — it is a plot ! " 
 
 " It is not ! " exclaimed Giulietta. " If there is to be 
 swearing, I, too, can swear before altars ! I am innocent ! 
 My God, woman — fool — did you envy me my moment of 
 happiness ? " 
 
 And before Dorothea could answer — jubilant : 
 
 " You may well envy me ! You have heard him. Nothing 
 that can happen hereafter can make him unsay it again ! " 
 
 Then Dorothea opened her lips. 
 
 "That is true," she said. They that heard her turned 
 pale. 
 
 She addressed her husband : " There is at least one thing 
 3'-ou can still do for me," she said. " You can spare me 
 further insults from these women. Would vou order the 
 
DOROTHEA. 523 
 
 carriage that fetched me from the station — to — take — me — 
 back — there — again ? " 
 
 " Dorothea, you will not do that. Let me speak with you ! 
 
 Speak to my mother if you will not hear me. Let me say " 
 
 He stopped: the presence of "these women" checked the 
 words in his throat. " Not here," he said haughtily. 
 
 " Yes, here," answered Dorothea. " Let me then ask you 
 one question. As you answer it, I will know my own fate. 
 The word which you spoke just now when I entered, that 
 one word — say that you did not mean it — say that it was 
 spoken to this creature in false courtesy, your light courtesy 
 of the. world — I can forgive. I can try to understand it." 
 
 " Really, Dorothea — ' this creature ! ' " put in Dickie. 
 
 " Yes, answer her ! Tell her ! " cried Giulietta. *' Deny ! 
 Say it was said in fun — eh ? A joke ! " 
 
 " Say the truth to me. We are alone," said Dorothea. 
 
 " Dorothea : God help you to understand. See, I am a 
 man. I love you ! But at the time — see, I am human flesh 
 and blood, with human failings. The past is past, dear : 
 here in her presence I reject it. But the word that you 
 heard me speak was not a lie." 
 
 " I do not understand," said Dorothea : a blackness came 
 before her eyes : she faltered, and staggered to the door. 
 He ran after her. Giulietta's cry of triumph was ringing in 
 their ears. " We are alone, as you say," he gasped, " alone 
 with God, and nothing — nothing matters. Dearest, you 
 would not have me lie here in His presence. Let us forget 
 the past." 
 
 " You love her," said Dorothea. 
 
 Giulietta caught the words. " Yes, he loves me ! He 
 loves me ! " she cried. She filled the whole chapel with 
 her song of jubilation. " He loves me ! He loves me ! He 
 loves me ! " she sang. 
 
 But Dorothea did not hear her. For the first time in her 
 life, and the last — struggling not thus to give way before 
 the enemy, struggling to show a brave front and — oh vanity ! 
 — a careless — she had sunk down unconscious upon the 
 chapel steps. 
 
 " She is dead ! She is dead with a lie in her ears ! " 
 exclaimed Egon, kneeling beside her. But Dickie laughed 
 loud and long. With the help of the omniscient and 
 omnipresent Bompard, she soon got Dorothea away to a 
 bedroom and locked the door on her recovery under the 
 maid's affectionate care. 
 
524 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " I have nothing more to add," said Egon to Giulietta. 
 " The past is dead. I confess and I repent. For my wife's 
 sake, and your own and mine, I entreat you to leave this 
 house." 
 
 " I have played, then, and lost," she answered him sadly, 
 " and your wife has not won." 
 
 He stood alone before the altar in the pitch-dark chapel. 
 " My punishment," he said, " is greater than I can bear." 
 
( 525 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 " Dear me, how things work round ! " said Dickie. She 
 sat on the hearthrug in her room with her illustrated Police 
 NewSf her box of macaroons and an immense bunch of 
 many-coloured tulips. She was pulling the flowers to pieces 
 between her little pearly teeth. The next moment, 
 however, a broad grin settled upon her pleasing features. 
 
 " Dickie, you're a humbug," she said with a nod. 
 "Things don't work round, but you're the cleverest little 
 woman that ever managed a circus." She felt contented. 
 So she sent for her husband, the only male acquaintance, 
 among many, whom she had ever really loved. 
 
 Konrad lighted a big cigar — for the Biermadel wasn't 
 particular — and flung himself down on the bed. " I can't 
 bother about trifles," said Konrad. " Petty intrigue is 
 woman's work. I can shoot a man if you want me to." 
 
 Dickie's eyes grew sombrous. " Don't talk about that," 
 she muttered. The bracelet on her rounded wrist had been 
 Archie's wedding gift. 
 
 " Have you seen Giulietta out of the house ? " she 
 demanded presently, 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you think she cared ? ** 
 
 " No." For the worst man, surely, does not betray one 
 woman to another. 
 
 " I don't believe you," said Dickie. 
 
 " As you like," he answered. He lay back, watching the 
 little rings he blew, wonderful little rings, like the hole of 
 a pistol bullet. 
 
 Dickie, with precision of aim, threw a handful of tulips 
 all over him. " I am going," she said, " to see Dorothea. 
 I shall not rest content till I know that she's out of the 
 house." 
 
 *' There's no hurry. Better let well alone." 
 
 She sat up, leaning on her hand and looking towards 
 him. "You are quite wrong," she said, "quite, quite 
 
526 DOROTHEA. 
 
 wrong. If your uncle doesn't take his departure pretty 
 soon, I refuse to answer for results." 
 
 "Explain," he replied negligently, "or eat macaroons." 
 
 " She loves him : that is all. I saw it this evening. 
 And I felt almost sorry." 
 
 " You don't understand women like Dorothea, my pretty. 
 The fonder she is of him the angrier she will be." 
 
 Dickie rested her chin on her hand. " I don't under- 
 stand women like Dorothea," she repeated thoughtfully. 
 " Perhaps not. Yet, I'll tell you one thing no woman 
 ever should confess to any man. When a woman loves a 
 man — ^no, I won't say it. You needn't flatter yourself. 
 There's one person in the world I shall always love better 
 than you." 
 
 " I do not mind," replied her husband, " seeing that 
 person isn't a man." 
 
 " And there's one — what shall I say ? — one power in the 
 world that Dorothea will always love better than Egon." 
 
 " What's that ? Having her own way ? " 
 
 " Religion," said Dickie, munching a macaroon. 
 
 " I can't help it," she added presently : tears of spite were 
 in her voice. " I want dreadfully to be Countess Rheyna. 
 You can't think how delightful it sounds ! ' Frau Grafin ! ' 
 And I only had it for such a short time. I never cared a 
 bit about * Lady Archibald,' which sounds quite silly, as if 
 you were half your husband and half yourself. But ' Frau 
 Grafm.' I would put a little pill into your coffee to make 
 myself Frau Grafin again." 
 
 " I don't see the connection," replied Konrad somewhat 
 shortly. 
 
 " And your coffee is safe. I shouldn't care about the 
 money, though this house is very splendid. But I haven't 
 seen Kauenfels. Is it finer ? " 
 
 " I have already told you, no." 
 
 " You're prejudiced. I don't want more money. Archie 
 and I had five hundred a year, and when I took my first 
 situation, I got a pound a month and my keep." 
 
 " And earned a good deal more, I'll be bound," said 
 Konrad bitterly. 
 
 "You bet I did! Don't be nasty, Konrad. Twenty 
 thousand a year is a vast lot of money, even for a woman 
 with my great taste in dress." 
 
 " Fifty thousand is five times as much," replied Konrad. 
 '* Incomes increase that way, like diamonds." 
 
DOROTHEA. 527 
 
 " What ? " said Dickie. Getting no answer, she rose, 
 yawned, stretched herself, and went in search of her rival. 
 
 She banged at the door, and so loudly demanded her own 
 maid, that Aur^lie was compelled to turn the key. 
 
 " Lay out my dinner-gown ; I will stay with my sister," 
 she said loftily, and established herself at once beside 
 Dorothea's sofa. 
 
 " Aurelie," said the latter, " will you see if the carriage 
 has come ? " 
 
 " You are going at once ? You are very right," remarked 
 Dickie. Then Dorothea wondered if she could possibly be 
 acting wrong. 
 
 " There are things which no woman can stand," con- 
 tinued the Biermadel. " I am aware — no one better — that 
 
 men are not saints. All the same, if Konrad ! " she held 
 
 up her small fist, " and in a chapel ! Fie ! " 
 
 " I am tired with the long journey and the useless anxiety 
 you caused me. Please leave me in peace," said Dorothea. 
 
 *' Don't be ungrateful. I thought I was acting for the 
 best" — at this moment Dickie believed her own words — 
 " I expected to see you in Egon's arms — could I help it 
 that we found another lady there ? " 
 
 Dorothea gazed at this sister-in-law, in the hyacinthine 
 tea-gown, with solemn eyes before whose insistence Dickie's 
 saucer-blue ones slowly dropped. 
 
 " It isn't nice to be wicked," said Dorothea, " but it's 
 worse to be clumsy as well." 
 
 Dickie bounced about on her chair and shook out the 
 tea-gown. " Oh, of course, you're a mighty deal better'n 
 me," she said, '' and a great lady born, and I daresay your 
 ideas about husbands are different. In your class we don't 
 expect 'em to behave decent to women. And, pray, do you 
 mean me by ' being wicked ' ? eh ? " 
 
 " You have done me a great wrong. God may forgive 
 you : I cannot," replied Dorothea. 
 
 Thereupon Dickie broke out into such torrents of 
 Billingsgate, such vulgar and blasphemous abuse as 
 Dorothea had never any previous opportunity of experienc- 
 ing, nor, humanly speaking, is there any probable danger 
 of her enduring its equal again. The unutterable horror of 
 dirt and indecency came down upon her like a shower- 
 bath — shocking, undeniably, but bracing as well. She was 
 up, in another moment, on her feet, her face set hard, her 
 head thrown well back. 
 
528 DOROTHEA. 
 
 "You cannot say a single -word," she spoke coldly, 
 " which hurts me, or insults me in any way whatever." 
 
 The other woman fell back, with an ugly laugh. " Can't 
 I," she said. " Can't I hurt you ? We shall see." 
 
 " No, not you. You can prove to me that others hurt 
 me. But insult me you cannot. Spare your abuse." 
 With trembling hands she took her hat and mantle, and 
 passed by the exasperated Dickie, as if that scion of two 
 peerages had not corporeally existed upon her path. 
 
 In the corridor Aurelie attempted a last appeal. " Then, 
 if you will separate from him, take me with you," entreated 
 the French maid with tears. " I can be of no further use here ; 
 I detest the Lady Archibald. I will none of her money : 
 take me with you : I will die in your country of mist." 
 But the prospect of Aurelie's pleadings and proposals was 
 more than Dorothea could endure. " The carriage ! " she 
 said faintly. With bated breath she slipped down the long 
 deserted gallery, under the solemn eyes of the marble 
 goddesses who gazed down the still perspective, from their 
 niches of gilt rocaille. " This way ! " whispered the French 
 woman, and guided her former mistress into a side-passage 
 under an arch, towards humbler regions, to a small 
 chamber, of which she hurriedly closed the door. 
 
 " Madame," said Aurelie, " I have misled you. There is 
 no carriage, for there is no train. At least here we are 
 safe from Lady Archibald. Madame can now do as she 
 will." 
 
 " No carriage ? No train ? " 
 
 "To-day — being Good Friday — there is not the usual 
 little local train to catch the express. Madame must spend 
 the night here : there is no help for it. And, see ! the 
 Italian woman is in the house : most fully do I commiserate 
 Madame." 
 
 Dorothea did not answer. 
 
 " No one knows of Madame 's visit except the three who 
 have seen her," continued the maid. " Madame can stay 
 here, if she will — I will say she is gone to the station — to- 
 morrow, very early, Madame can hasten away." 
 
 " What room is this ? " 
 
 " It is an unused room, of — of the servant's quarters. 
 Madame la Generale does not know that Madame is come. 
 I will tell the Lady Archibald that Madame has gone back 
 to the station." 
 
 " Do not call her the Lady Archibald ; she is my brother 
 
DOROTHEA. 529 
 
 Konrad's wife/* said Dorothea bitterly, and sat down, in a 
 confused heap. 
 
 " See, I will arrange this couch for the night. Hardly do 
 I comprehend what has occurred, yet no longer would I 
 incite Madame, as at Bel Respiro, to forgive. That Madame 
 has come here, is the doing of that demon, but that Madame 
 finds the Italian, whose doing is this if not Monsieur's? 
 See, a good man is not so good as a good woman, but a 
 bad woman is worse than a bad man. I have seen many 
 men, and always understood them. I do not understand 
 Monsieur : he seemed so excellent. And the servants' hall 
 here that calls him * Joseph,' the servants' hall that always 
 knows best ! " 
 
 " Leave me," said Dorothea. 
 
 Aurelie obeyed. " I must go dress my lady for dinner," 
 she said: she popped her head through the door again. 
 " The servants' hall here calls him ' Joseph.* Let us try to 
 stick to that ! " she said. 
 
 Dorothea lay in the dark, with her face open to the 
 darkness, staring straight into the square black room. To 
 get away ! To get away ! That had been her one, wild 
 yearning. To put distance between her crushed heart and 
 Egon's wrong- doing, Giulietta's triumph, Dickie's spite. She 
 could think of no reason for her sister-in-law's action, but 
 simple, evil spite, a bad woman's wish to injure. And that 
 is almost always the wrong reason, as wiser people know. 
 As for Egon — oh, the pity of it, the sorrow of it ! A noble 
 heart, wrecked by evil passions, of which she could not 
 even divine the cause or the course. The wickedness of 
 Egon was a madness, perhaps ! That thought must be its 
 sole alleviation. There used to be a drunkard at Brodryck 
 who, even the old pastor said, couldn't but drink. They 
 had to lock him up in an asylum. Aunt Emma cried 
 "Nonsense," but aunt Mary had sorrowfully shaken her 
 head. 
 
 For Giulietta the injured wife could feel neither the scorn 
 nor the resentment which filled her at thought of Dickie. 
 Giulietta ! Ah, surely Giulietta loved Egon ! Dorothea wept 
 for Giulietta's misfortune with gentle and pitiful tears. 
 
 She heard the distant hum of the great house, the collec- 
 tive noises of the basement. She was away here, in a 
 silent corner, yet her heart beat restlessly behind the locked 
 door, for constant fear that some one would break in upon 
 her secrecy. She felt as an intruder, in danger of discovery. 
 
 D. M M 
 
530 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Here, in her own house, as it were, the home of the Rodens, 
 she cowered away, like a criminal, for the first horrible 
 night, in the dark. 
 
 Suddenly she leaped up, and listened. A great com- 
 motion filled the vast mansion, seemingly thrilling through 
 it from end to end ! A new terror of distant outcries, and 
 weeping, the running of many feet. With the swift per- 
 sistence of a low, electric call to come and view life's 
 tragedy, the current of arisen misfortune swept into this 
 far-away comer an unbroken murmur of alarm. Dorothea 
 stood straining, to hear more. What had happened? It 
 were better — but not possible — to hear less. 
 
 Doors opened, and shut, in the distance. Bells rang 
 loudly. It was not that which brought distraction, nor was 
 it the ceaseless patter of anxious feet. The nameless dread 
 lay in the unvoiced sounds of human agitation which 
 trembled, out of sensuous grasp, upon the responsive air. 
 
 Dorothea could endure the far uncertainty no longer. 
 She pressed against the door. And at that very moment 
 she heard a voice she recognised crying : " My master ! " 
 
 She was out in the passage, under the dull light of a 
 lamp, face to face with Hans Sturmer. "What has 
 happened ? It is I ! " 
 
 The servant fell back in alarm. "The most gracious, 
 the Lady Countess ! " he stuttered, and, before Dorothea 
 could explain to herself the strange sound of this new 
 title : "His Excellency, my Lord Count, has just dropped 
 himself dead ! " 
 
 " Dead ! " repeated Dorothea, yet in her heart was an 
 immense relief, a gratefulness to God, overflowing. 
 
 " It was not my fault, not my fault at all," continued 
 Hans eagerly. " I had been called away to my master, 
 and young Madame Konrad (Hans calls her the Frau 
 ' Lieut 'nant ') was with him. His Excellency must have 
 hung over the balustrade, as he often did, and lost his 
 balance and gone over — so ! " Hans made an energetic 
 movement: Dorothea closed her eyes. "His skull was 
 dashed to pieces on the pavement," added Hans, with the 
 relish of his class for disgusting details, " and his 
 Excellency's brains " 
 
 Dorothea had retreated into the dark of her cabinet. 
 
 " God have mercy on his soul," she said, in lowest accents 
 to herself. 
 
 " Amen," chimed in the servant, suddenly devout. " I 
 
DOROTHEA. 531 
 
 have a telegram here for the Emperor," he added proudly, 
 " and a number of other telegrams," he said. 
 
 " Before you go, one word ! " cried Dorothea. " No one 
 knows that I am here, no one but Aur^lie. You must keep 
 my secret." 
 
 " I always tell my master everything," said Hans. 
 
 " Not this thing." Dorothea had closed the door. " You 
 know what misery has come upon us. You have one 
 opportunity — the only one, perhaps, in all your life — of 
 doing me some service. Promise me that you will speak 
 to no one of having seen me here." 
 
 " As I hope for salvation ! " answered Hans. " My 
 telegram to the Emperor! It cannot wait," he added, 
 and he hurried away. 
 
 A moment later came Aurelie with some food, and a 
 lamp, which she lighted. " The old man is dead," said 
 Aurelie. " He broke his skull to pieces on the pavement, 
 and his brains " 
 
 " I know. I know." In a few hurried words Dorothea 
 explained and questioned. " How was Monsieur ? What 
 had he said — Monsieur ? " Aui^lie had not seen Monsieur, 
 who had not appeared at dinner. This had happened 
 immediately after. The Countess Pini had been very gay 
 at table, laughing outrageously, the servants had said. 
 
 " Leave me the lamp, if you please," said Dorothea. 
 Mademoiselle Bompard departed to her own, present 
 mistress, who lay barely recovered from hysterics. 
 
 " It is a good thing, at least, that the young Countess 
 has left the house," suggested Aurelie, busy with strong- 
 smelling things and pocket handkerchiefs. 
 
 " She isn't the young Countess," screamed Dickie. 
 
 " Is she not ? I do not understand. In the families I 
 have lived in " 
 
 " Servants needn't understand. Throw away those nasty 
 essences and get me something nice to eat. But, as you 
 say, it is a good thing she has left the house, a very good 
 thing — oh, a very good thing," said Dickie. 
 
 Dorothea lay in the light of the lamp, the more of it the 
 better! The house had again grown silent, but now the 
 dull silence was heavy with death. She wondered if Egon, 
 in some far part of it, was watching by the dead man's 
 side. The skull had broken on the marble pavement. His 
 
 Excellency's brains 
 
 M M 3 
 
532 DOROTHEA. 
 
 She turned up the lamp. Perhaps the room they had put him 
 in was quite close, j ust above her. Perhaps Egon was near her. 
 She lay trembling. No, that would hardly be likely. The lamp 
 began to smoke. She had to rise again, stiff, and turn it down. 
 
 And then, in the deepest night-hours, a terrible thing 
 came upon her, for it seemed to her that aunt Mary stood 
 yonder, in the shadows of the lamp. Aunt Mary's eyes 
 were clearly set upon her, in sadness and reproof. 
 
 Dorothea sat up, spell-bound, and stared back at aunt 
 Mary. She wondered if she blew out the lamp, would the 
 vision go ? She did not dare to make the trial, for she had 
 no matches. Her teeth chattered. 
 
 " I found him in Giulietta's arms ! "she said suddenly, aloud. 
 
 " Yes," she said, many minutes later, " I found them in 
 the chapel : they were saying their prayers ! " 
 
 Aunt Mary did not move. 
 
 " Why should I hush, aunt Mary ? Why should women 
 always hush ? You think that is our only duty. To suffer 
 in silence and let men grow worse and worse. To hush, as 
 you hushed in your ruined happiness, because your father 
 bade you : to creep away, like my mother, wounded, in a 
 corner and die ! No, I am going to say what I think quite 
 loud, to let every one hear it. We women, also, we have a 
 right to our hearts. To defend them, like castles. I was 
 thinking it out, as I lay here. Don't look at me like that, 
 aunt Mary ! A man rushes through us, like an open town, 
 and leaves devastation behind him. I am going to fortify 
 myself, to protect myself — I am going to build walls ! " 
 
 Aunt Mary did not move. But a strange voice said 
 quite clearly in the stillness : " You are young, you must 
 have a divorce and marry again." 
 
 Dorothea shuddered to the wall. She looked fearfully 
 around, in the emptiness. " I am so tired," she whispered, 
 " so tired. To-morrow at daybreak I shall go home for good." 
 
 She fell to musing, with closed eyes, of the change that must 
 come over the family. She knew that she was not yet the 
 Countess, as Hans had mistakenly called her. Soon it would 
 be decided whether Egon or Konrad was lord of all this great 
 estate. Particulars of the entail she had never heard, or she 
 had forgotten them. She remembered that lots must be 
 cast some day. She tried to collect her thoughts, but found 
 that she could not. She opened her eyes again, wide. 
 
 " He too is dead ! dead ! dead ! Never mention his name 
 to me again ! " 
 
( 533 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 " Yes, I have sent for you : I want to speak to you,** said 
 Egon. 
 
 Konrad's reply was a sneer. "To hear is to obey," 
 murmured Konrad. His glance travelled around the room 
 the}' were in with a quiet assumption of mastery. It was 
 the octagon, which opens out of the library, a small room 
 in that house of vast apartments, full of sporting trophies, 
 and panelled with paintings of the chase. 
 
 " You are the elder," continued Konrad, as Egon seemed 
 to find it difficult to proceed. "Do you object to my 
 lighting a cigar ? " 
 
 " He disliked smoking in these rooms," answered Egon. 
 
 " Isn't he dead ? " replied Konrad. There was another 
 awkward pause. Konrad lit his cigar. 
 
 " The lawyers will be here about twelve," began Egon. 
 " It is now nine. There are several things I want to say." 
 
 "Say on." Konrad threw himself into an easy chair and 
 stretched his limbs out in various directions. 
 
 " I want to say, in the first place," continued Egon, greatly 
 agitated, " that 1 understand the whole — the whole intrigue 
 which has brought my wife and the Countess Pini here 
 together. I understand it all." 
 
 Konrad took his cigar from between his lips. " I haven't 
 the faintest conception what you mean," he said. 
 
 " I wish I could believe you. I should be almost happy to 
 think it was only your wife." 
 
 " Poor Dickie ! — wherein has she offended you ? " 
 
 " You know as well as I do, Konrad, that the married sons 
 and their wives must assemble immediately to decide the 
 succession, or must show good cause for their stopping away." 
 
 " Yes. Is Dickie responsible for your quarrels with your 
 wife ? " 
 
 " No, but " 
 
 " Or can Dickie recall Dorothea to Rheyna ? " Konrad 
 straightened himself a bit : his green eyes were blazing. 
 
534 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " "What you say is just," answered Egon, striving to steady 
 himself. "Although she has done her best to make a 
 reconciliation impossible, it is not your wife who is respon- 
 sible in the first case, but I." 
 
 " I should think so," replied Konrad, subsiding. " Then 
 leave me in peace. Have you anything else to say ? *' 
 
 " Were it not so, I should act very differently." 
 
 " Act as you like. I understand your annoyance at 
 having thrown away all chance of the succession, but 
 really you have only yourself to blame." 
 
 " Yes," answered Egon softly and waited a moment. 
 He drew a long breath. " You are quite sure then, Konrad, 
 that the law will proclaim you Count Roden-Rheyna ? " 
 
 " Parbleu ! it seems to me that I am the only brother who 
 can prove that he lives with his wife ! " Konrad laughed : 
 his eyes drooped round the room. 
 
 Egon steadily paced the floor. " You can have this 
 heritage," he said at last, standing opposite his brother. *' I 
 do not want it." 
 
 " Indeed ? Thank you ! " 
 
 " No, I do not want it. I am eager to get away and do 
 something. To do something of my own, with my own 
 hands. To work. If I became Count Rheyna, I could 
 never do anything else but be that." 
 
 " Are you going to be a stone-mason ? " answered Konrad. 
 " Or a carpenter ? Oh, nonsense ! I'll allow you sufficient 
 to get along." 
 
 "On the other hand, you will settle into the role; the 
 immense responsibility will shape you against your will. 
 As for your wife, we must try to believe you have married 
 a Countess Kauenfels." 
 
 Konrad rose to his lazy feet. " This useless and insulting 
 conversation " he began. 
 
 " It is neither," said the elder brother quickly. " I am 
 willing you should have the whole thing, but here are my 
 conditions." He held out a sheet of paper from the table. 
 
 " Conditions ! " exclaimed Konrad. He made as if he 
 would have thrown the paper aside, but curiosity mastered 
 him. 
 
 It was a document undertaking, under penal restrictions, 
 never to sell or mortgage an acre of the vast property 
 excepting to a Roden. " What folly is this ? " demanded 
 Konrad. " I always thought you were cracked ! " 
 
 " Konrad, you can have the property, but you must keep it 
 
DOROTHEA. 535 
 
 intact. Even the great mass which is not entailed. There's 
 heaps of it, but if you or Dickie were to play as you did at 
 Monte Carlo no one knows what might happen. The 
 peasants must belong to a Roden, Konrad : in all other 
 matters you can do as you like." 
 
 " What a fool you are ! " said Konrad. He flung down 
 the paper and walked towards the door. 
 
 " Stop ! " said Egon. 
 
 " Really, you must excuse me. I want to. go and make 
 Dickie laugh." 
 
 " There is that on my lips, Konrad, would make you 
 stop. Don't let me speak it. Sign this paper." 
 
 " Pooh ! " said Konrad, but he halted. 
 
 " You refuse ? " 
 
 "You are crazy." 
 
 "And you really rest absolutely assured that your run- 
 away English marriage cannot be attacked in German 
 law ? " 
 
 " Yes, by G ! " cried Konrad, turning white. " It 
 
 wasn't a runaway marriage. They told me at the Embassy 
 — at the Consulate, it was legal. I was specially particular 
 — you lie ! " 
 
 " Possibly it might have been legal, but not within that 
 period of time." 
 
 " They must have known, at the Embassy, of the death 
 of a man like Kauenfels," gasped Konrad. 
 
 " Possibly, but not at the Consulate. If you inquired 
 fully, it is certain they did not know. But you probably 
 did not allude to the date of the former husband's death ? " 
 
 " What does it matter ? He was dead," blustered 
 Konrad. " You are trying to frighten me, Egon — I am 
 not such a fool as you think." 
 
 " The marriage is legal unless it is attacked. It can 
 only be attacked by those who have a direct interest in 
 doing so. / can attack it." Involuntarily Egon drew 
 himself up. 
 
 " You lie," answered Konrad. 
 
 "Your attitude is foolish: time presses: you had much 
 better accept facts. It is my earnest desire to let this 
 marriage stand — I swear it before Heaven. I cannot endure 
 the idea of an annulled marriage : the misery, the hopeless 
 disgrace it brings down upon the woman. If I speak, I 
 destroy both your lives — hers, at any rate. The thought 
 disgusts me. Do not drive me to desperate means." 
 
536 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " "What do you want me to do ? " 
 
 " If you force me, I shall presently, before the magistrate, 
 protest against your marriage as invalid. Then, of course, 
 will follow the inevitable legal procedure " 
 
 " Giving you time to make friends with Dorothea ! ** 
 
 Egon coloured. " Or else lots will be cast between us." 
 
 " No, no, there will be a reconciliation ! Egon, what do 
 you want ? " 
 
 " Sign that deed," said Egon. " It makes you Lord of 
 Rheyna." 
 
 But at that moment the library door was pushed open, 
 and a boyish voice cried : "Wait a bit ! " The Child stepped 
 into the room, very pink and smart in his uniform of a 
 cadet. 
 
 " Just listen to me first, for a minute," he remarked. 
 
 '' Eavesdropping ? " 
 
 " Yes : I have heard everything. I should like to have 
 heard more." 
 
 " Then why didn't you stay behind your door ? " scowled 
 Konrad. 
 
 " Well, I thought that the moment had come for me to 
 put in an appearance. Look here, Egon," continued the 
 Child, '' I confess that I spied on you. Don't be waxy. 
 You're not going to surrender the whole thing to Konrad ? " 
 
 " My dear lad, what can I do with it, even supposing I 
 did get it, which, of course, is quite uncertain ? My life is 
 done for, anyhow — don't you see ? — I shall never marry 
 any one else : I shall never have children. It will come to 
 him anyhow: much better let it come now, with a good 
 grace, than after I have got killed in the Colonies, and he 
 has been dishonoured for life." He turned to Konrad : 
 " If the thing were mine," he said, " indubitably mine, not 
 onlv a chance in the lottery " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Egon shrugged his shoulders. "I shall never have 
 children," he said. " Dickie's honour is safe." 
 
 " You forget this poor boy's hopes," smiled Konrad, " but 
 he doesn't." 
 
 " Konrad, you are a cad," cried the Child hotly. " It 
 isn't true, Egon : of course my chances are nil. I can't 
 marry for years, and, long before that, you will be 
 reconciled to Dorothea. Yes, yes, you will be reconciled 
 to Dorothea ! I never was in the running : I've no claim 
 upon anybody ! " 
 
DOROTHEA. 537 
 
 "That is so," said Egon. "I've thought a great deal 
 about you, Karl, all night. You never had the slightest 
 expectations. You wouldn't have known even of this, had 
 you not listened. You are a minor. You couldn't compete 
 for two years. And I don't think I could destroy Konrad's 
 marriage just to give you a third of a very improbable 
 chance ! " 
 
 " Of course not," said the Child. 
 
 " Think what it means for a woman having her marriage 
 invalidated. What becomes of her? She's done for. I 
 feel as if we were fighting here over Dickie's soul." 
 
 Konrad stood staring at his elder brother, with a strange 
 smile in his meaningless eyes. 
 
 " Perhaps that sounds foolish," continued Egon, looking 
 down. " I shouldn^t have said it." Suddenly he took up 
 the paper and tore it across. " Do as you like," he said. 
 " I've lost. I can't play out your wife's last chance of 
 becoming a decent woman against you." 
 
 Konrad flushed brick-colour : " How dare you speak like 
 that?" 
 
 " I have said, after all, the one thing I didn't want to 
 say all the time. I have said it. The whole pride 
 and glory of the Rodens must go against one evil 
 woman's soul ! " He bit his lips over the breaking passion 
 of those final words, and walked away to the window, 
 and stood looking out. 
 
 At last he turned. 
 
 " Why are you still there ? " he said. " Go. I promise 
 you I shall be silent. I can't knock down a woman." 
 
 " But I can ! " cried the Child. " And / will tell the 
 lawyers that this marriage won't hold good ! " 
 
 " You are a minor : no magistrate will listen to you/' 
 said Egon, smiling gravely. 
 
 " But the scandal will be the same," quickly answered 
 the Child. " I'll set the whole thing going, at any rate ! 
 Unless you get Dorothea here ! That is my condition. Do 
 you hear me, Egon ? I am in deadly earnest. You sha'n't 
 let the earldom of Rheyna go without a struggle. Konrad 
 shall fight fair. I don't care. Don't stop me. I don't 
 want to cheek you. I know I've no chance : I'm a minor^ 
 Telegraph to Dorothea : let her answer at once that she is 
 coming. She will if she knows the truth." 
 
 The two elder brothers exchanged glances. 
 
 " I don't know where Dorothea is," answered Egon. 
 
538 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The Child stamped his foot. " How can you say that ? 
 You know she is at Brodryck. Will you telegraph ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then I will," replied Karl, and retreated to the library 
 door. 
 
 "Karl, stay here." 
 
 " I will not. It is your own fault. Either she answers 
 at once, or I speak." 
 
 He was gone. The other two men still stood gazing at 
 each other. 
 
 " By G , we must find Dorothea 1 " cried Konrad, 
 
 and rushed from the room. 
 
 **- 
 
( 539 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " My marriage invalid ! " screamed Dickie. " My mar- 
 riage annulled ! " She upset all the things on her bed : she 
 jumped about in a whirlwind of laces. " And what, pray, 
 is to become of my plans for presentation ? You promised 
 me only this morning, that some day, with patience, I 
 should go to Court as the Countess of Roden-Rheyna ! " 
 
 " It's another Court you'll have to go to," replied her 
 consort glumly. 
 
 She screamed. " You said you could shoot a man,** she 
 said to him. 
 
 " Whom do you want me to shoot ? ** 
 
 "Egon." 
 
 " It isn't Egon, you duffer : your honour is safe in his 
 
 hands, as he calls it. 'Tis the Child — d him — who is 
 
 going to speak." 
 
 " I never hurt the Child," she said plaintively, " and, 
 
 Konrad '* She looked up at him with her innocent 
 
 blue eyes. 
 
 " What ? ** 
 
 " I have ruined Egon's last chance of happiness." 
 
 " It's too late to think of that now," he said surlily. 
 
 " Tm not sure : I could tell her.'' 
 
 "Tell her? Have you lost your wits? She wouldn't 
 believe you. And is that the way you save your reputa- 
 tion ? " 
 
 " True, she wouldn't believe me." 
 
 " The hrst thing is to find her ! We have only a couple 
 of hours left ; that boy will do as he says. And adieu "^ 
 all chance of your being Countess Rheyna ! " 
 
 Dickie screamed again, and, thoroughly unnerved, burst 
 into tears. " We must find her ! " she shrieked. " Oh, mon 
 Dieu, to think that I drove her from the house a few hours 
 ago ! Go then, Konrad, thou idiot, find her ! Bring her 
 back : let them cast lots between us. At the worst thou 
 canst surely provide loaded dice ! " 
 
540 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Konrad laughed somewhere down in his throat. " It is 
 fool's work," he said, " but I'll send telegrams to all the 
 big stations between this and Brodryck ! " He sat down 
 at a table and began covering it with hastily scrawled 
 despatches. 
 
 " She must come back ! She must come back ! " cried 
 Dickie, vainly endeavouring to check her tears. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Child, having laboriously concocted, 
 after many corrections and much knitting of eyebrows, his 
 single message to Brodryck, crept solemnly downstairs. 
 His eldest brother stopped him and marched him down the 
 gallery: the goddesses looked after them, from the niches of 
 gilt rocaille. 
 
 " Only one word," said Egon. " I don't want to see your 
 telegram. Your chances are really nil. You are a minor ; 
 even if we got the marriage annulled, they wouldn't wait 
 two years. But I give you fair warning that whatever you 
 say about Dickie will be no use to me. I have set my heart 
 on this. I won't pay the price. If you force my hand, I 
 shall abdicate my rights. I can always do that, you know. 
 I can refuse." 
 
 He spoke very quietly. The Child looked askance at his 
 face. 
 
 " That settles it," the younger brother said piteously. 
 " I suppose you know best. But you'll let me send my 
 telegram, Egon ? " 
 
 "I will let you send your telegram on one condition : you 
 must promise me not to speak to a soul of this secret you 
 have learnt in a not too honourable manner." 
 
 " About the marriage, you mean ? " 
 
 "About the marriage, of course." 
 
 "I promise," cried the boy excitedly. "Let me go — I 
 haven't a moment to spare." 
 
 Egon looked after him. " She cannot have got back to 
 Brodryck yet," reflected Egon, "and even if she has, she 
 would never consent to come here after last night." 
 
 Karl, in his hasty search after an absolutely trustworthy 
 messenger, stumbled upon Hans. 
 
 " The very man ! " he cried. " Hans, you must hurry 
 off at once to the station ! " 
 
 " But I cannot : I must attend my master," said Hans. 
 
 " It is for your master : it is on his service. It is of the 
 greatest importance. His whole future is at stake ! " 
 
DOROTHEA. 541 
 
 " Whew ! " said Hans. 
 
 " Hans, you are the best friend my brother has. There 
 is not a moment to be lost. Unless this telegram goes at 
 once to the station, he will never be Lord of Rheyna ! " 
 
 " Impossible ? " cried Hans. 
 
 " Impossible ? It is certain ! " shouted the excited Child, 
 dragging him along. " Hans, I would give my chance of 
 my epaulettes, if my sister-in-law came here ! " 
 
 " Is the telegram about that ? " demanded Hans, standing 
 still. 
 
 " Yes. Come on, I say ! Here, hurry down this 
 passage ! " 
 
 " Can a decent man break his word ? " questioned Hans, 
 running on. 
 
 " No, of course not — at least, not an officer ! " 
 
 " A poorer man might ? " gasped Hans. 
 
 " No, he mightn't. Here, that is the shortest cut, through 
 the archway ! I tell you, my brother's whole life is at 
 stake. We must find, within the next two hours — we must 
 find — my sister ! " 
 
 " Here goes my chance of salvation," said Hans, stopping 
 dead. " If I'm to be damned, it may as well be for Herr 
 Egon. She's here." 
 
 The Child nearly fell down the staircase. " What ? '[ 
 
 " I swore to her as I hoped for salvation Never^mind. 
 
 There's a text, isn't there? — about good and faithful 
 servants ? " 
 
 " Oh, stop that ! — have you lost your senses ? " 
 
 " You needn't send your telegram. Come back down 
 the lobby. She is there." 
 
 Hans led the astonished boy back to a side-passage and 
 knocked at a door. " Who is that ? " came the answer in 
 accents which caused the Child to tremble in his shoes. 
 
 *' It is I ; it is Hans." In another moment Karl stood 
 confronting the pale face of Dorothea. 
 
 " Dorothea ! Does Egon know you are here ? " 
 
 " No — unless Hans has told him." 
 
 " I'll be bound he has not. Oh, Dorothea, I am so glad, 
 so glad. You will save him." 
 
 " How save him ? " she questioned coldly. 
 
 "My uncle is dead. Within a couple of hours the 
 succession will be decided. If you are not there — or have 
 not explained your absence — it goes to Konrad — and to 
 Dickie ! You must come." 
 
542 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Did Egon send you ? " 
 
 " Do you know him as little as that ? ** 
 
 "You are right," said Dorothea softly. 
 
 "You must come to the big drawing-room at twelve. 
 They will all be there." 
 
 Dorothea shuddered and covered her face with her hands. 
 " I cannot," she said. 
 
 " You do not mean that. You can't mean it." 
 
 " What else can I do ? Yes, I mean it. I cannot go back 
 to — him. He is dead to me. You bid me go back 
 as his wife." She fell to trembling so violently, she sank 
 against the wall. 
 
 " I am a Roden : I am not accustomed to beg. Think 
 of Dickie ! Think of the honour of our house — it is in 
 your hands." 
 
 *' Do you not understand ? " she cried. " Can you not 
 understand ? The honour of your house ? My honour ! 
 My honour. They would say I kept away from him till 
 now, and had gone back to him to-day, in spite of every- 
 thing, for the sake of — the title ! " Still she clung against 
 the wall. " That is what that woman, those women, would 
 say — I will not go back to him. I, too, have a right to my 
 fair fame, my decent name ! To go back to him now as his 
 wife? I will not go back to him." 
 
 She stared at him with haggard eyes. 
 
 " That is what that woman would say," she repeated, 
 " and you know it ! She would judge me by herself. You 
 would all judge me by yourselves. That is what she and 
 her husband have intrigued for. They would rob, they 
 would murder for it. It is what you all live for and strive 
 for — title, grandeur, money, this house ! Decency, cleanli- 
 ness, honesty, a woman's peace, a woman's purity — these 
 are nothing ! Come back to him — come back to him now ! 
 He can make you Countess Rheyna ! " She threw herself 
 on the couch, on which she had lain throughout the night, 
 and burst into passionate weeping. " Oh, my God ! my 
 God ! to keep oneself unspotted from the world ! '* 
 
 " Not titles and grandeur only," said the Child, standing 
 by the door, with trembling lips. " Think of the peasants 
 here ; a couple of thousand souls. Think of Egon. And of 
 Dickie as ruler of Rheyna." He stood by the door, still, in 
 silence, but she, with averted countenance, motioned him 
 away. 
 
( 543 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " It's all right," said Konrad to Dickie, "the Child's just 
 been with me : he was crying like the child he is, though 
 he pretended to be biting his lips all the time. But he 
 promised to hold his peace. My dear, I congratulate you. 
 There's no answer to the telegrams. You are Countess of 
 Rheyna ! " 
 
 " What fools we were, then, to send telegrams," answered 
 Dickie. " I shall pay out that Child : you bet. Why, I 
 offered him everything, in reason and out of reason." 
 
 " When ? " demanded Konrad, with lowering brow. 
 
 " An hour ago, but he wouldn't even listen : he ran past 
 me, downstairs. 
 
 " What did you offer him ? " 
 
 " How lovely ! " replied Dickie, " to be Countess of 
 Rheyna. Oh ! what a fright and an escape. I shall send 
 the most gorgeous candles with coronets to Notre Dame 
 de Bon Secours ! " 
 
 " Meanwhile, come downstairs. I cannot think what is 
 actuating Karl. He says Egon has forbidden him. 
 Rubbish ! " 
 
 Dickie stood in front of her looking-glass. " I wonder 
 what toilette would be most suitable," she said. " I had 
 been thinking of it all the morning till you came and gave 
 me that useless fright. Mourning isn't necessary till the day 
 of the funeral. Dear me, I shall have to go into mourning 
 again," she sighed deeply, then added with a relish : 
 " Constant mourning is the lot of the great. Yes, when you 
 get to Court, you will have to wear Court mourning, 
 Dickie." She clasped her hands. " The grey and silver 
 will be best," she said. " Chastened, yet becomingly 
 gorgeous. And — oh, Konrad ! I can have all my Kauenfels 
 coronets back ! " 
 
 *' No, indeed ! " he answered, smiling. " Ours are different 
 — surely you have noticed that ? " 
 
 " I saw it was a different shape," she said. " I didn't 
 
544 DOROTHEA. 
 
 think it mattered as long as all the Baronesses knew it was 
 a Countess's." She drove him away while she robed herself, 
 with Aurelie's assistance. Then she took his arm and went 
 down the marble staircase quite gaily to where all the 
 others were assembled in the great saloon. 
 
 Among the dull officials — the men of law and government 
 — her entrance created a restrained sensation. They gazed 
 towards her, furtively, from the corners of their eyes. Her 
 fair hair was magnificently frizzed: her slightly vulgar 
 charms were all manifest : the grey and silver swept stylishly 
 about her beautiful limbs. 
 
 With one glance of appreciation she enveloped the 
 important old gentleman with the orders, the other func- 
 tionaries — the young one quite good-looking : she smiled. 
 " I shall manage," she said to herself, " once I have gained 
 my position. I shall manage wherever I go." And then, 
 as these strangers were watching, she went up quite prettily 
 to the old Generalin, and curtseyed and kissed her hand. 
 
 The three ladies of the family sat on one side, to the 
 right of the long table. The three men on the left. The 
 pallid spring sunshine crept in through the tall windows 
 and spread itself over the paintings, the curled and twisted 
 gilt carvings that branched up to the clouds of the ceiling, 
 the goddesses gazing and laughing above. 
 
 " Herr von Roden," began the pompous person with the 
 orders, addressing himself to no one in particular, " the 
 necessary formalities have — ahem ! " (a look at some papers 
 before him) — " been properly observed. His Excellency, 
 my Lord Count, your lamented uncle, is unfortunately — I 
 mean, ahem ! — he is demised." Konrad's self-satisfied 
 expression rippled over with the faintest of grins. The 
 pompous speaker observed it. 
 
 " By formalities, I mean," he stammered, " not the fact 
 of his Excellency's demisal — demise, I should say — but the 
 official recognition of that fact in the document which I 
 will now — ahem ! — proceed to read aloud." 
 
 While he was droning his statement, the heavy stable 
 clock boomed twelve. 
 
 He started : " Dear me," he said, looking over his 
 spectacles, " we are all here — I believe — ahem ! — the clock 
 in this room is too fast ! " 
 
 "My uncle always liked it to be so," remarked Egon. 
 
 " But we need not wait, I understand. There is no one 
 else coming ? " 
 
DOROTHEA. 545 
 
 " No one," said Egon. 
 
 The old man resumed his reading. He constantly mis- 
 took. His bald crown and red forehead bobbed up and 
 down behind the foolscap. Once Dickie, from sheer 
 nervousness, laughed. 
 
 " Deceased "said the reader, and stopped in amazement. 
 
 " I didn't laugh at that," said Dickie, blushing. " I 
 laughed at something else." 
 
 The Generalin folded her thin hands on her lap. 
 Suddenly Dickie remembered Kauenfels' story of the noble 
 mother who had prayed nightly for the removal of her 
 own son. Dickie nodded. "I don't intend," she thought 
 uncomfortably, *' to remove." 
 
 The old man had sat gazing contentedly at the young 
 Frau von Roden. He laid down his document. "The 
 next thing," he said, with overwhelming magniloquence, 
 " is to decide who succeeds to the title and estates. It is 
 for that we are gathered here." No member of the family 
 answered anything, so the notary, from his comer, said : 
 " Exactly ! " and coughed. 
 
 " According to the conditions of the entail, lots must be 
 cast between all sons of the same father, who are of 
 age, and married. The married take precedence of the 
 unmarried, or of those who, although married, do not live 
 with their — ahem ! — wives. There is, I understand, no 
 primogeniture ? " He looked round the circle. 
 
 " Of course not," replied Egon, with slight irritation, for 
 the man knew all this, had always known it as well as 
 himself. 
 
 "The arrangement is far-seeing. It does all it can to 
 — ahem ! — preserve the family and to prevent — ahem ! — 
 simulated marriages. I understand, Herr von Roden, that 
 there are two married sons, but " 
 
 "One of them lives separated from his wife," said Egon 
 swiftly, "and their separation is definite. My brother, 
 Konrad, is heir to the title. Can we not settle this, if you 
 I please, immediately, and have done ? " 
 I " Yes, can we not finish ? It is very unpleasant," piped 
 
 Dickie. The Generalin heaved a sigh, which said more than 
 either of the others had uttered : her daughter took her 
 hand. The Child kicked out one foot, and Konrad smiled. 
 
 " Certainly ! Certainly ! " spluttered the functionary, 
 greatly put out. " All in good time, my dear sir : these 
 things are not trifles to be slurred over. A — hem I Before 
 
 D. N N 
 
546 DOROTHEA. 
 
 we proceed to declare that Herr Konrad von Roden succeeds 
 to all his defunct uncle's titles and dignities, we must — 
 ahem ! — conform to the prescribed ceremonial. I under- 
 stand that it is very painful for one member of this family 
 especially : still, it cannot be helped. Herr von Roden," — 
 and now he pointedly turned to Egon — " you permit me ? " 
 Egon gave a hasty sign of assent. The fat old gentleman 
 stumbled to his feet : the notary followed his example : all 
 rose, in a wide half circle, with the great room stretching 
 beyond. 
 
 "It is my duty to call thrice to those who are absent — 
 and who ought to be here." He spoke the words simply, 
 and with feeling : for a moment the queer, snuffy old 
 creature grew dignified in the dignity of the hour. 
 
 " Frau Egon von Roden — geborene Dorothea Sandring 
 — Brodryck ! " 
 
 A dead silence ensued. A breathless listening for nothing. 
 The gods and goddesses in the ceiling gazed down. 
 
 "Frau Egon von Roden — geborene Dorothea Sandring 
 —Brodryck!" 
 
 *'Ach, the comedy! " gasped Dickie. 
 
 " Frau Egon von Roden — geborene " 
 
 The great folding- doors at the far end of the saloon fell 
 wide open, and a servant cried, with a shout into the 
 silence : 
 
 " Die Gnadige Frau ! " 
 
 Dorothea came across the oak floor, with their terrified 
 eyes — terrified all but the Child's — fixed upon her. She 
 was pale as wax, in her stained travelling clothes of the 
 day before : she stopped opposite the silver splendours of 
 Dickie. She shrank back. And, turning her deep eyes on 
 the Child, she said softly : " I am here. You see, dear, I 
 have thought of the two thousand. Please, what do they 
 want me to do ? " 
 
 " Lord, you can't have got our telegrams ! " cried Dickie. 
 She had run forward, bending, with clenched fists. 
 
 " This," said the functionary, dropping all his papers, 
 "makes a very great change indeed ! " 
 
 Egon was at his wife's side. " Dorothea ! Dorothea ! " 
 
 But the little Generalin had been even quicker. She had 
 drawn these, her two children, her favourites, together : she 
 had taken their hands, and led them forward. " 1 demand," 
 she cried, "the casting of ^ots. God in Heaven will 
 decide!" 
 
DOROTHEA. 547 
 
 "Certainly, certainly/' said the distracted old commis- 
 sary. " But of course all this is exceedingly confusing. 
 Sit down, please. Let us sit down. The notary will follow 
 precedent, in the drawing of lots." 
 
 " 1 pray God," said the old Generalin solemnly, " that 
 He, in His wisdom and His justice, may guide all things 
 aright." 
 
 " Amen," said her daughter. 
 
 " Am I to put the Frau Generalin's words in my 
 minutes ? " demanded the young clerk from his corner. 
 
 " They are not part of the precedent," replied the 
 notary. " Does the Frau Generalin consider them as spoken 
 officially ? " 
 
 " I consider them as heard," replied the Generalin. 
 
 The old man rapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " we will proceed. I must request 
 the candidates to come forward to this table, in company 
 with their respective — ahem ! — consorts." 
 
 The candidates, and the consorts, obeyed. They stood 
 well in front, before the little circle. Dorothea's hands 
 were clasped loosely : her eyes were downcast. 
 
 " The question which I must now put to you two gentle- 
 men I must put in accordance with the customs of an age 
 when public registers were not what they are now. We 
 follow precedent, gentlemen, precedent. But it is six 
 hundred years since this ceremony was first enacted, and 
 fifty since it last took place between your father and his 
 brother. Herr Egon von Roden, will you take the hand of 
 the lady, your wife ! " 
 
 Outwardly collected, Egon obeyed, but Dorothea, despite 
 her own emotion, felt the tremor of his grasp. 
 
 The old man once more stood up. " In the face of God," 
 he said, " and of your liege lord, the Elector of Branden- 
 burg, now his Majesty of Prussia, do you, Egon von 
 Roden, recognise this woman at your side as your legal 
 and loyal spouse ? " 
 
 " I do," answered Egon, and Dorothea's heart stood still, 
 at thought of the question which would now be put 
 to her. 
 
 But the functionary turned to Konrad and repeated his 
 formula. 
 
 *' Of course," said Dickie. 
 
 " My dear Madame, I fear in the days we are recalling " — 
 the old man smiled a little maliciously — " the ladies of a 
 
 N N 2 
 
548 DOROTHEA. 
 
 family were not asked to express their opinions quite as 
 often as now." 
 
 "They were bad times," said Dickie. Her temper had 
 been tried. And she believed in what she called a " put- 
 up thing " between Egon and Dorothea. Her own life was 
 full of put-up things. 
 
 " And now it only remains to cast lots," said the com- 
 missary, the only person present who was thoroughly 
 enjoying himself. " Formerly, as you are probably all 
 aware, this matter was determined by a tournament, the 
 only rational solution, assigning the 'headship' of the 
 house to its strongest representative — that institution was 
 abolished by the Emperor Charles the Fifth after Konrad 
 von Roden had slain one of his six brothers in the trial. 
 Since then you have trusted to the hazard of the die ! " 
 
 He slowly, and rather pompously, unlocked the case of 
 faded crimson velvet which stood before him. There was 
 a certain amount of precision about this : the notary had 
 to produce, and to verify, the key. A battered gold 
 cup made its appearance, containing two yellow-ivory 
 cubes. 
 
 " Does either of you gentlemen wish to test the dice ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Konrad, and threw the stones half a dozen 
 times, on the table, before them all. 
 
 Then the old man, frowning, took the gold cup from 
 him. " Stand aside, if you please, every one ! " 
 
 "The first throw, as there are only two candidates, is 
 for both. In the name of the Father ! " The bits of ivory 
 rattled and fell. The notary and his clerk had taken up 
 their stations, one at each end of the table. 
 
 " Seven ! " they both cried aloud. 
 
 The candidates were invited to see for themselves. The 
 dice were gathered up and replaced in the cup. 
 
 " In the name of the Son ! " 
 
 " Ach Gott ! " gasped Dickie, with her handkerchief to 
 her lips, and sank down into the nearest chair. But her 
 staring eyes were on the table still. Dorothea stood, as a 
 statue, immovably filled with the prayer of the Generalin. 
 
 " Nine ! Nine and seven is sixteen. Sixteen is the 
 number of Egon von Roden." 
 
 The old lady and her daughter had come close. They 
 were all straining now, with bated breath, by the table. 
 
 " In the name of the Holy Ghost ! " 
 
 The cup rattled : the dice clanged across the table. 
 
DOROTHEA. 549 
 
 " Four and two is six. Thirteen is the number of Konrad 
 von Roden." 
 
 " Damnation ! " — but no one had heard that stifled cry. 
 
 The commissary had raised his voice. "Permit me to 
 present to you my humble congratulations, my Lord Count 
 von Roden-Rheyna ! I ask you permission to humbly kiss 
 your hand, most gracious lady — Countess of Roden- 
 Rheyna." 
 
 All pressed round, the relations affectionate, the legal 
 witnesses obsequious. They were about Egon : his face 
 had grown hard in its endeavour to retain its composure. 
 Dickie, who had lain back in her chair, rose suddenly. 
 She went straight up to Dorothea, standing in a trance, 
 and put both her arms round her sister-in-law's neck. 
 " I wish you joy from the bottom of my heart," she said 
 prettily and bit her in the cheek. The commissary said 
 afterwards to the lawyer that he never saw a graceful deed 
 more exquisitely done. Dorothea did not cry out. 
 
 " According to precedent," said the notary, " the moment 
 is now come for the new Count and Countess to present 
 themselves to the household in the central hall. I have 
 taken the liberty to give instructions — permission, I should 
 say — to the steward " 
 
 " That part of the function may well be omitted," inter- 
 rupted Egon hastily. 
 
 " It seems to me very desirable " began the commissary. 
 
 " Very desirable," insisted the Generalin. 
 
 " The Countess, my wife, is too much fatigued," said Egon, 
 and he led her, with quick, newly- gathering dignity, down 
 the saloon, to a side door, and into a shaded, silent boudoir. 
 From outside came the hushed murmur of many voices. 
 He stood opposite the couch on which she had fallen. She 
 drooped, stricken, with one hand before her eyes. He stood 
 opposite her, gazing — ^yearning to cast himself at her feet, 
 to embrace her, to fold her upon his breast, pleading, 
 praying, confessing — he stood silent before her. 
 
 For he realised that between them, since yesterday, lay 
 a deeper separation than ever, not because of his sin, which 
 perchance she could pardon, and which he could repent, 
 but because of her knowledge, in a heart that understood 
 not, how the memory of the past, in his bosom, would 
 never be a memory of unmitigated pain. He stood looking 
 at her, till his eyes were blinded : for a moment he could 
 see her no more. 
 
550 DOROTHEA. 
 
 When at last she lifted her sad gaze, she was alone. 
 
 An hour later she stole from the Castle — from the great 
 house, seemingly deserted as the Coventry of Godiva. A 
 close carriage stood in waiting by the entrance. She got 
 into it and was driven to the station. She looked up, 
 in a swift farewell, to the dead, white front with its lines 
 of sealed windows — the castle banner drooped, half-mast 
 high, on the roof. 
 
 The station-master stood at the carriage-door. "Was 
 befehlen die gnadige Frau Grafin ? " he said. 
 
 She looked at him. " When the train comes up," she 
 said, "please give me a compartment to myself.'* 
 
( 551 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIL 
 
 " He loves her. Did I stay, he would live with me and 
 love her." With the weary iteration of a sledge-hammer 
 that reflection went on beating at Dorothea's brain. She 
 felt it could never be otherwise : life is resistless. And that 
 Egon had fallen in love with Giulietta was perhaps not 
 even his fault — so far had her knowledge of human hearts 
 now developed ; perhaps it was possibly hers — Dorothea's. 
 What, however, did such considerations alter or avert ? 
 What mattered was this, that it gratified him once more to 
 come in contact with the author of their sorrow, that his 
 words had been full of a dead sweetness, slow with an 
 exquisite regret. Love is eternal — too well do we leani 
 that lesson ; then, why should Egon love more briefly than 
 she ? For, of the passion whose goal is not affection, the 
 dead satisfaction whose memory is not loathing, Dorothea 
 understood as little as we read in a closed book. 
 
 And ceaselessly she recalled the words which Dickie had 
 hissed into her ear, when pretending to embrace her : " You'll 
 stay with him now ! " 
 
 Oh, she knew these people, high and low ! Swiftly had 
 she made up, by her latter-day experience, for the long 
 seclusion of her youth. The three mysterious, untouched 
 adversaries of her childhood's innocence, the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil — aunt Mary's phantom horrors — she 
 fancied she had met them face to face. She trembled in her 
 loathing. To keep ourselves unspotted from the world ! 
 
 Yet of Egon — for our human hearts, thank God ! are 
 made for human wear and tear in daily struggle — of Egon 
 all her thoughts were love and gentleness unspeakable. 
 God would touch his heart and lead him back into her 
 Paradise, where purity sits unashamed. She did not doubt 
 his tenderness for her. What most distressed her, almost 
 beyond power of endurance, was the torturing self-question 
 why she had failed to make him happy, how she had let 
 his heart fall in with Giulietta, what blame was hers that 
 
552 DOROTHEA. 
 
 gave strange love a place. He had been fond of her, until 
 he adored Giulietta. She lay back against the cushions, 
 and reflected on Giulietta, Giulietta, till her eyelids were 
 red with shame. 
 
 At Hanover, as the train stood resting under the great 
 station roof, a man ran along the carriages with a telegram. 
 He was calling her name. She took the paper eagerly. 
 Was it a message from Egon ? A recall ? 
 
 It was Konrad's futile summons : " Uncle dead. Return 
 immediately. Most important." 
 
 The same experience awaited her at Dortmund. " Most 
 important. Return. Return." She tore up the papers, 
 with dull wonder, why Konrad, of all men, should have 
 wanted her back ? 
 
 At Oberhausen, where, of course, she had to change, she 
 found her father standing on the platform. 
 
 " I have most important news for you, Dolly," he said 
 excitedly. " Things have happened " 
 
 " I know," she replied. " They have made me Countess 
 of Rheyna." 
 
 " And you are here ? Countess of Rheyna ! My dearest 
 child, receive a fond parent's — ^no, I am not going to say 
 ' blessing ' : I am not an utter fool — warmest congratula- 
 tions. So it has come right : I always thought that lottery 
 business disgraceful. Providence has interfered. I have 
 always believed in Providence. So now you are Countess 
 of Rheyna. God bless you, it is a magnificent thing." 
 
 " I want to get back to aunt Mary." 
 
 " Dorothea, I would that your mother had lived to see 
 this day." 
 
 " I would she had lived," said Dorothea gravely, but she 
 doubted the wisdom of her own words, as she spoke them. 
 
 The Colonel twirled his moustache. " I am not sure she 
 would have cared. She was strange in some things, like 
 yourself." 
 
 Dorothea turned to him, on the station platform with 
 kindling face : " Was that why you put those words on her 
 grave ? " she said. 
 
 " Yes," replied the Colonel gently, and he felt that he 
 had hopelessly given himself away. 
 
 They went into the waiting-room, for they had an hour 
 to wait. The Colonel produced a packet of envelopes, a 
 note from aunt Mary, a couple of indifferent missives, a 
 letter from Mark. 
 
DOROTHEA. 553 
 
 Dorothea read first aunt Mary's kind words of faith and 
 prayer. There was not much advice about them, only aunt 
 Mary's older counsel of striving to find out God's will. 
 "Ask the Almighty to keep you from mistaking," that was 
 her philosophy in a word. As all her morality was : 
 " Think kindly. Think kindly of every one : you cannot 
 always think well." 
 
 Then Dorothea opened Mark Lester's letter. 
 
 " Dorothea, I want to tell you something. It is best that 
 I should tell you, and you will tell the others. Besides, I 
 want, somehow, that you should hear it direct from me : I 
 could not bear to think that others should tell you. I am 
 not better, Dorothea. In fact, I am much worse. Yes, I 
 had better tell you the whole truth, and you will break it 
 to those at home. You will be sorry, but you will realise 
 also that, after all, it doesn't so very much matter, excepting 
 for those at home. I was always much worse than you 
 thought. I ought never to have become a minister, but you 
 know I couldn't bear to disobey my father. And, besides, he 
 believed that speaking in public was the best thing for 
 delicate chests. He always used to say he had been con- 
 sumptive in his youth, and had outgrown it through 
 preaching. He lived to be seventy. I shall not live to be 
 seventy, no, nor thirty. One lung has long been gone : the 
 other is fast going. Since my hemorrhage, last autumn, the 
 end can only be a question of time. That question the doctor 
 here has decided. He says I cannot live three months. 
 
 " I wanted to tell you " Dorothea read no more. 
 
 The paper dropped into her lap. The Colonel had been to 
 buy a newspaper : he came strolling back : " The Turks have 
 been at it again," he said. " And yet, when you get to know 
 them, you find they are really less cruel than Christians." 
 
 " Father, Mark Lester is dying." 
 
 " A pity," said the Colonel, " if true. But consumptive 
 patients never diagnose their own case rightly, my dear." 
 
 " The doctor says so." 
 
 " Doctors are always wrong, Dorothea. Trust a man who 
 has studied them all over the world. The only people who 
 ever know about cases are the mediums : they somehow see 
 your inside." 
 
 " Father, he is quite young, twenty-four, and he is alone 
 yonder at Wiesbaden, and the doctor has told him he must 
 die." 
 
 The Colonel sat down by his daughter's side. " That is 
 
554 DOROTHEA. 
 
 always a terrible experience," he said. " I have had to tell 
 several young fellows that in my day. It is one of the 
 things a man never gets accustomed to." 
 
 But Dorothea was hardly listening. "Dying," she 
 repeated. " Mark ! Father, we are close to Wiesbaden 
 here — comparatively close. I must go on to see him. I 
 cannot turn deliberately north at this point, with him so 
 near. He is my oldest friend." 
 
 " It isn't decent for you," grumbled the Colonel, " to be 
 pottering about like this before your uncle's funeral." 
 
 " You said you believed in Providence," she answered in 
 a pleading tone. " Isn't it providential that you should 
 have brought me this letter here." 
 
 " I believe in Providence," promptly replied the Colonel, 
 " when I recognise its actions to be providential. I started 
 off at once on receipt of Konrad's pressing telegram. I 
 knew I must meet you at this place, and I wanted to 
 turn you back. So far, so good. Otherwise, I do not quite 
 understand what has happened." 
 
 " I will explain it in the train," she answered. " Mean- 
 while, you will take two tickets — won't you ? — to Wies- 
 baden : we can spend to-morrow there, Easter Sunday 
 — I must see him, father ; besides my relations, he is my 
 only male friend." 
 
 " A dangerous position," muttered the Colonel ; " but I'll 
 do as you ask, on one condition. 'You will go back from 
 Wiesbaden to the funeral at Rheyna ? " 
 
 Dorothea's eyes travelled slowly round the noisy, common 
 waiting-room : then she swept them up to her father's face. 
 " Since when do you sell your favours to women ? " she 
 asked. She asked it lightly, almost laughingly, but for the 
 sadness of her gaze. The Colonel walked away very quietly 
 and came back and put her into a compartment labelled 
 " Cologne." 
 
 It was late when they got to Wiesbaden, past midnight. 
 Dead tired, Dorothea lay down in an hotel bed and closed 
 her eyes. We can easily close our eyes ; we cannot lock 
 brain-doors. They slam. 
 
 But Dorothea was young and healthy — healthy of body 
 and soul : towards morning she slept. 
 
 Much refreshed, she awoke and, knowing it was useless 
 to disturb her father, went out in search of Mark Lester. 
 She asked the hotel-porter to direct her cabman to the 
 street where Mark lodged. " Gewiss, Frau Grafin," said 
 
DOROTHEA. 555 
 
 the porter, bowing obsequiously. So she knew that the 
 Colonel, at midnight, had written her new title down thus 
 in the hotel list. She was obliged to accept it : you can- 
 not go about with an alias. Henceforth she was the 
 Countess of Rheyna. 
 
 Mark Lester was not at his lodgings, a humble, rather 
 dingy, boarding-house. " He usually went to the Kurgarten 
 on fine mornings," said the talkative, tall landlady, "to 
 the sheltered side of the Casino they call Nice, you know. 
 Where the sick people go and sun themselves." 
 
 " He is pretty well ? " asked Dorothea. 
 
 The gaunt woman shrugged her shoulders. '*This 
 climate doesn't suit him," she said. 
 
 " You think he should go somewhere else ? Should go 
 south ? " 
 
 " You must ask the Herr Doctor," replied the woman, 
 retreating. Her words sounded heavy with doom to 
 Dorothea, for a landlady does not declare a non- infectious 
 lodger too ill to remain in her house, until there is no 
 chance of his living in another's. 
 
 " Good-day." 
 
 " Can I say, if you please, who has been here ? " 
 
 " I will go to him : I will write." 
 
 "It is better I should say! The Herr Pastor has few 
 callers. If you would leave a card ? " 
 
 " I have no card." She tore out a leaf from her pocket- 
 book and wrote " Dorothea." 
 
 The landlady stared at her with sudden interest : " Ah," 
 she said aloud, " the name which he speaks in his sleep." 
 Then she waited for more, being a woman who dearly 
 loved gossip, and very romantic as well. 
 
 But Dorothea had escaped towards the Kurgarten. In 
 the full spring sunlight, among the crocuses and tulips, 
 she saw him creeping languidly along a sheltered path. 
 
 She walked up quickly behind him. She was close beside 
 him. He did not turn. 
 
 " Mark," she said softly. " Yes, I am come. I got your letter 
 and I came. It isn't true, Mark : the things that the doctors 
 say are very seldom true. We will make it untrue." 
 
 " Dorothea ! " he said, " Dorothea ! " He caught his 
 breath so, he had to sit down on a bench close at hand. 
 
 " Of course it is Dorothea. If you write me such letters, 
 you mustn't be surprised that I come to see for myself." 
 She tried to speak cheerfully : her eyes were upon him. 
 
556 DOROTHEA. 
 
 He turned up his face to her. " See ! " he said. 
 
 " You are looking very well," she answered, with brave 
 resolve. As indeed she could do, for the moment. His 
 cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright. He had 
 always been delicate-looking ; with high cheek-bones and 
 clear-cut profile. She saw no ravages such as she had 
 dreaded. " You are looking very well," she said. 
 
 He laughed. "I am an impostor. You have always 
 thought me a bit of an impostor, Dorothea." 
 
 " All my life," she replied, " I have implicitly believed 
 in two men only, your father and your father's son." 
 
 He leant back on the seat, hard : she fancied that she saw 
 him tremble. " No, no, you have always thought me a bit 
 of a humbug, about the church, and so on : never mind, 
 Dorothea, I've done my best." 
 
 She sat down beside him. "We have got to face 
 this," she said, "and to think it out. I have come on 
 purpose." 
 
 "And Egon," he began, " tell me " 
 
 She put up her hand, almost against his lips. "Not 
 now," she said, " we have got to talk this over, to work it 
 out. I have been thinking. Who is your doctor, Mark? 
 What is this man to say such things ? We must consult 
 some great man first, some man who knows." 
 
 He shook his head. "Mine is not a difficult case to 
 diagnose. Any doctor can find holes in your lungs." 
 
 " But not any doctor can cure them ! " 
 
 " No," he said. The sunlight fell warm across the 
 crocuses, that swelled golden and blooming in its rays. 
 
 " You remember my cousin Borck," she continued eagerly, 
 " that had brought up blood and was hurried off to Davos. 
 She quite recovered : she's been married for a dozen years." 
 
 " Women can stand a good deal more .than men," said 
 Mark, smiling. 
 
 " Do you really think so, Mark ? Yes, I fancy you are 
 right. Women can stand a good deal." 
 
 Oh, how he regretted his words ! 
 
 "Yet my mother died," she murmured. "I have often 
 wondered of late why my mother died." 
 
 The sunbeams broadened over the flower-bed and the 
 path before them. A flock of clouds were playing about 
 the steadfast sun. 
 
 "But we had not arranged to talk about that," cried 
 Dorothea, rising. " Come with me, Mark ; the wind is 
 
DOROTHEA. 557 
 
 fresh. You are going to take me to your doctor : I must 
 find out exactly what he says." 
 
 " Don't, Dorothea ; it would be useless." 
 
 " How do you know ? This climate may not be good 
 for you. Another may effect your cure. You owe it to 
 your mother and sisters that nothing should be left untried." 
 Gently she persuaded him : his eyes began to kindle. His 
 doctor was the husband of his landlady, he said. He let 
 himself be led back to his lodgings, and Dorothea now 
 first noticed the brass plate beside the door. "Dr. Med. 
 Emil Schunz." 
 
 The doctor himself came out into the passage — a little 
 man with inevitable gold spectacles. His curious gaze 
 transfixed Dorothea. " Herr Doctor," began Lester without 
 further introduction, " this lady will not believe me. She 
 wants to hear the truth from you. Tell her, as you have 
 told me, when I asked you, that nothing more can be done 
 for my complaint." 
 
 The physician led the way into his room. "You had 
 better go home," he said roughly. " The change and the 
 rest will do you good." 
 
 " But," stammered Dorothea, " the Riviera — Madeira ! " 
 
 The doctor shrugged his shoulders : " Very fine, but 
 expensive," he said. 
 
 " Do you mean that these would do him good ? " burst 
 out Dorothea passionately. 
 
 The doctor turned from the window, whither he had 
 wandered, his hands in his pockets. He coolly surveyed 
 the poor pastor's friend. 
 
 " To whom have I the honour of speaking ? " His manner 
 was insolent, as befits a poor man who lives upon the poor. 
 
 " To the Countess of Rheyna," 
 
 Dr. Schunz took his hands out of his pockets and his 
 back bent a little — then it went down with a swoop. 
 
 '* I do not say that nothing remains to be done. Science 
 nowadays is never at a loss." 
 
 " What would you advise ? I want my friend to go to 
 Davos." 
 
 The doctor grew very thoughtful and learned. He 
 puckered his eyebrows and sat down by his bureau. 
 
 " Ich bitte, setzen die gnadige Frau Grafin sich ! " 
 
 Dorothea complied. Her heart warmed to this new 
 rank which, in some unfathomed manner, was going to 
 bring relief to Mark Lester. 
 
558 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " Davos I should not advise," said Doctor Schunz, " but 
 there is another place, in the Alps, which would suit this 
 particular form of the disease much better. You have 
 heard of Predoux ? " 
 
 " No, Herr Doctor." Dorothea looked at Mark, but Mark 
 shook his head, still lost in contemplation of the Countess 
 of Rheyna. 
 
 " I am astonished ! " said the doctor, for at Predoux, and 
 not at Davos, was the hotel that he got his percentage from. 
 " Predoux is a beautiful spot in the Vaudois Alps, sheltered, 
 salubrious, four thousand feet high." 
 
 *' And people get cured there ? " 
 
 " Who get cured nowhere else," replied Schunz, delighted 
 to think the patient would not die in his house. 
 
 "We will go to Predoux," said Dorothea, her face 
 beaming. For a moment all other troubles were forgotten : 
 this hideous cloud of death was clearing away. 
 
 " Before deciding anything," said Mark Lester's grave 
 voice, " I should think it advisable to ask the opinion of 
 some specialist ? " He spoke hesitatingly, not wishing to 
 give offence. 
 
 " Oh, certainly — by all means, consult Gross," cried the 
 doctor quickly. "A very clever man. Privy Councillor 
 Gross. I will write him a note. You could not possibly 
 do better, Frau Grafin, than consult Privy Councillor 
 Gross." 
 
 " So be it," said Dorothea. " Yes, Mark, you must go 
 this afternoon and see the Privy Councillor." 
 
 The doctor bowed out the lady. She had to walk down 
 the broad Wilhelmsstrasse alone, for Mark was too much 
 exhausted to accompany her. She looked into his cruelly 
 drawn face, when they parted, and her eyes filled. 
 
 Doctor Schunz clasped his hands and skipped back to 
 his wife. And, standing before her, he repeated, in tones 
 of awe-struck contemplation : " Die Frau Grafin von 
 Roden-Rheyna ! " 
 
 The tall, gaunt woman, whose whole face was dreamy 
 with novel-reading, lovingly caressed some apples she was 
 about to peel for compote. 
 
 " Das geht nicht mit rechten Dingen zu," she said. 
 
 "I care not a groschen about that," replied the doctor, 
 " but the man will not live a month." 
 
( 559 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 That afternoon Privy Councillor Gross received the patient. 
 He strongly recommended Pr6doux. Davos was not suitable, 
 he said, for this form of the complaint. But Predoux was 
 a delightful spot in the Vaudois Alps, sheltered, salubrious, 
 four thousand three hundred feet high. If anything could 
 cure the invalid, it would certainly be Predoux. 
 
 " Cure ? " repeated Mark, with a strange flash in his eye. 
 
 *' My dear sir, we live in an age of marvels. The resources 
 of science are endless nowadays." 
 
 Mark Lester drove home as in a dream. He was too tired : 
 he could not get to see Dorothea. 
 
 In the evening, the great Privy Councillor obeyed with 
 alacrity a summons to visit fc Countess Rheyna at her 
 hotel. " I take a great interest in your patient," said 
 Dorothea. " He is alone here : he is one of my most 
 intimate friends. You must tell me the truth." 
 
 Privy Councillor Gross was a stout man, with an immense 
 hairless head like a shiny red ball. His eyes also were balls, 
 white and red, behind — ^naturally — ^spectacles. And his hands 
 were balls (like his knees), white and red, soft and downy : to 
 these he owed much of his success. The ball of his body 
 rested (with a fat, gold watch-chain that looked all balls 
 against it) on the roundness of his thighs. He puffed a little, 
 but his manners were polished, and the names that dropped 
 from his rounded lips were such as reassure those who 
 recognise them, and rouse aspirations in those who do not. 
 
 " I had the honour of being well known to his Excellency 
 the late Count, Frau Grafin. I saw the telegram announcing 
 his decease in last night's paper. He used frequently to 
 come to Wiesbaden. His Excellency has consulted me for 
 his cough." 
 
 Dorothea saw the hopelessness of hiding or altering anything, 
 and frankly accepted her position henceforth once for all. 
 
 " Yes, my uncle died suddenly," she said. " My husband is 
 at Rheyna. Tell me, what can I do for Mr. Lester, my friend ? '* 
 
56o DOROTHEA. 
 
 " He is very ill," said the round man. That great 
 authority was irritably reflecting how certainly he could 
 have sent the young minister to Mentone (where he had an 
 excellent " correspondent ") had he known to what extent 
 he could reckon on this intimate interest of a great lady in 
 the invalid. Schunz should have written more explicitly : 
 Mentone was worth five per cent, more than Predoux. Not 
 Madeira ; the man would have died at sea. " He is very 
 ill," said the Privy Councillor. 
 
 " I know that. Will he live ? " She had risen from her 
 seat by the fireplace. A black mantle that had been 
 drawn about her shoulders fell loose upon the couch, in a 
 background. Her girlish figure stood before him : the light 
 cloud of hair, the imploring eyes ! He thought of her 
 husband, my Lord Count at Rheyna : he guessed many 
 things, wondering, calculating wrong. 
 
 " No ! " he said. 
 
 " But he doesn't look as ill as that ! " 
 
 " He has been ill for many years : he must often have 
 lost blood. One lung is quite gone : the other very nearly. 
 No human being can live without lungs." 
 
 There was quite a long silence after that. She had sunk 
 down again on her sofa, with averted face. Presently she 
 said, not lifting her eyes : " Does he suffer much ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly. Especially at night, I should think. His 
 nights must be very distressing." 
 
 " He did not tell you ? " . 
 
 " No, he was exceedingly reticent — ^by nature, I should 
 think, and perhaps for another reason." 
 
 " For what reason ? " 
 
 ^' Perhaps he was afraid of my repeating his statements 
 where he did not desire them to be known." 
 
 Again she waited. " But if — if he be so ill, then why — 
 why do you send him to Predoux ? " 
 
 " He will suffer less there," replied Gross, with aplomb. 
 
 " That is quite sufficient reason. And — and how long 
 do you think he will suffer ? " 
 
 " It can only be a question of weeks. I am grieved to 
 cause you — annoyance — Frau Grafin, but my professional 
 reputation is at stake : I cannot answer you wrong." 
 
 " Pray do not mind. It seems to me that since yesterday 
 evening I have got quite accustomed to this idea of death. 
 One soon gets accustomed to terrible things : don't you 
 think so ? " She looked round at him now. 
 
DOROTHEA. 561 
 
 He thought she 'was referring to her uncle's departure 
 from the scene — " True, that has made her a Countess " 
 — and he answered less amiably : "A physician gets 
 familiarised with the idea of death. But this pastor will 
 suffer fearfully before it is over: the last stage will be 
 pitiable. He said he had a mother and sisters : cannot one 
 of these go with him ? He should not go alone." 
 
 Her answer was almost a cry. " They can't ! The 
 mother is paralysed, and one sister attends to her. The 
 other has an infant a couple of months old." 
 
 The Privy Councillor shrugged his round shoulders. " A 
 pity ! Patients like that should not be left lying about in 
 hotel rooms alone." 
 
 *' You think he will want assistance ? " 
 
 " Hourly assistance. A drink of water — a grape ! " He 
 rose to his feet (" He swole up," uncle Karl used to call it, 
 and really the man's rising reminded one of an air-cushion). 
 " Get him some one to look after him and send him away 
 to Predoux." The Privy Councillor rolled back from the 
 door. " There is still one thing I ought not to omit, Frau 
 Grafin. Such cases are very infectious. No one should run 
 quite unnecessary risks. Very serious risks. Some lives 
 are so important, from a public point of view. Ach Gotty 
 I remember the young Duchess of Stolzenau ! But she 
 must have been a connection of yours ? Through the ol(J 
 Count's mother, Stolzenau-Gutelande." 
 
 " I know little of my husband's relations. Yes, his grand- 
 mother was a Prinzessin Stolzenau." 
 
 "They had a governess in the house who died of 
 consumption. The Duchess insisted on nursing her : within 
 a year her Highness lay dead in her grave." 
 
 " She must have had the seeds ! " exclaimed Dorothea. 
 
 The old man doubtfully shook his ball of a head. " We 
 all have the seeds," he said, " of everything," and toddled 
 downstairs. 
 
 On the staircase he made a little speech to himself. 
 " Grosslein," he said, " that last move was very judicious. 
 It was like you. Always remain on the side of the altar 
 and the hearth ! " 
 
 The Herr Geheimerath still lives and flourishes at Wies- 
 baden. Everybody there knows him, and the funny song 
 about him : 
 
 " Grosslein, Grosslein, Grosslein roth 
 Thu' mir nichts zu Leide ! " 
 D. 
 
562 DOROTHEA. 
 
 The Colonel, on coming in half an hour later, found 
 Dorothea still sitting by the dying fire. 
 
 " Oh, by Jove ! let's poke this up into a blaze ! " cried the 
 Colonel. "What a fearful place to spend Easter Sunday 
 in ! " 
 
 Dorothea looked up. " True, it is Easter Sunday ! " 
 
 "You mean I should find any place dull to spend Easter 
 Sunday in ? Now, that is unjust, Dolly. Seville would be 
 delightful — not to speak of Jerusalem, or Rome, and all 
 Russia, and South America. They have the best bull-fight 
 of the whole year at Seville." 
 
 "Father, you can do me the greatest kindness in your 
 life." 
 
 " Surely I did that in coming to this place with you. 
 Everybody drags along like snails, and the only people who 
 don't look dying are the old generals who ought to be 
 dead." 
 
 " Oh, don't, father ! Why, this is a lovely health resort, 
 with beautiful promenades and music. The place I want 
 to go to is very different, I want you to take me to 
 Pr^doux." 
 
 " What is Pr^doux ? Dorothea, you don't mind just one 
 little cigarette ? " 
 
 " It shall be a cigar," replied Dorothea. 
 
 He burst out laughing. " What an awful place Pr6doux 
 must be ! " he said. 
 
 " Mark is to go there, the doctors say. He cannot live 
 more than a few weeks. He will suffer less, they say, at 
 Predoux." 
 
 " So far, so good," said the Colonel gravely, lighting his 
 cigar. 
 
 " He is quite alone. I want to go there also — for those 
 few weeks. I want you to take me, father." 
 
 " Surely some other person could be found to accompany 
 your friend," said the Colonel soothingly. "A female 
 relation — a college chum ! " 
 
 " I know of no one. He must go at once while still able 
 to travel. Oh, father, he suffers so ! " Her voice broke 
 down. " And he never spoke of it ! " 
 
 " That is how all brave men suffer." The Colonel pulled 
 at his cigar. " But this place that you speak of — Predoux 
 —■I suppose it is one of those lung-sanatoria ? " 
 
 " I believe so." 
 
 The Colonel's cigar glowed very red before he withdrew 
 
DOROTHEA. 563 
 
 it from his lips. " My dear, I decline to go there, or to let 
 you go. I would rather die of something else." 
 
 " Afraid, father ? " The daughter's tone was incredulous. 
 
 " I presume you will allow me a certain amount of 
 courage, considering my past ? Well, I object to put my 
 head into a hotbed of microbes. And for Egon's sake as 
 well as your own I forbid you to go." 
 
 " You do not mean that literally, father ? " 
 
 " Well, no, of course not literally. Not patriarchally. 
 I have no business to order you about. 1 never advise 
 any one. But your own common sense, Dorothea, will 
 teach you how to behave." These last words the Colonel 
 ventured doubtfully, as a man risks a throw. 
 
 " I know there are pro's and con's," said Dorothea. " I 
 don't mean about the infection. I can't trouble about that, 
 somehow. But — other things. I can't help it. I must take 
 him there : I can't desert him. Once there, some one else 
 will join us, if you won't — oh, do, father, come ! " 
 
 " You mean to establish yourself there with this man ? " 
 
 " No, father : I don't want to do anything eccentric. I 
 hate being eccentric, and strange " 
 
 "Unwomanly," cried the Colonel. Dorothea blushed. 
 " Improper." Dorothea drew herself up. " I shall not do 
 anything improper. Of course, he must have suitable attend- 
 ance, a nurse. I shall live near him : at any rate, imtil 
 some one else can come out. Oh, father, the whole thing 
 may be a question of days." 
 
 " And who is to pay for him ? " asked the Colonel in a 
 lower key, already repentant of a vehemence foreign to his 
 nature. 
 
 " Please don't talk about money, father." 
 
 The Colonel laughed, in his vexation, at this echo of 
 himself. But only the vexation remained when he spoke. 
 
 "Well, of course, you must manage your own affairs. 
 You have always done so. You will leave your husband 
 at Rheyna " 
 
 " Giulietta is there ! " She had turned like an animal at 
 bay. Against her will the cry had escaped her. 
 
 " Naturally. Whose fault is that ? The more reason for 
 you to return. You will hardly stay on together. Leave her 
 there, if you prefer, and accompany your pastor, who doesn't 
 by any means look dying to me — I don't believe the doctors. 
 Arrange your own life, my dear Dolly, but, really, I have 
 no wish to catch the most infectious disease of our day." 
 
 3 
 
564 DOROTHEA. 
 
 Dorothea had never seen her father so much put out : he 
 began striding up and down the room, humming " Donna 
 e Mobile." But he had no experience of this fact in his 
 daughter's case, and, what was more, did not believe it of her. 
 
 "I cannot act differently," said Dorothea. " I must take 
 Mark at once. Some one must take him. If he has another 
 hemorrhage to-night, he may never be able to travel at all." 
 
 The Colonel could not help contemplating the advantages 
 of this contingency. 
 
 " I have stated my opinion : there is no use in repeating 
 it," he said, and walked out of the room. 
 
 Dorothea went to the window. Easter bells were ring- 
 ing in the stillness. It was a lovely night. " He is arisen ! 
 He is arisen ? " Death and desolation were in her heart. 
 
 Next morning, before midday — on Easter Monday, in 
 all the turmoil of holiday making — she started for Pr^doux 
 with her patient and a German nurse. The Colonel had 
 relented : he went with them. " I will take you there," said 
 the Colonel, " and back." 
 
 As for the sick man, it seemed as if Dorothea's coming 
 had broken some strain which was keeping him up. He 
 sank down and let them do as they liked with him. " Well, 
 yes, undoubtedly he is ill : he is very much worse," said 
 the Colonel. Sandring retreated to a smoking-compart- 
 ment, where he told to a chance acquaintance the funny stories 
 he had heard from Mark at Bel Respiro, stories whose lost 
 memory this fresh meeting had recalled. When the train 
 stopped at stations, Dorothea could hear him laughing. So 
 could Mark. 
 
 More dead than alive the patient ended the long railway 
 journey. A crisis had come upon him. The deaconess 
 sniffed the thin mountain-air, moist with the first melting 
 of the snows. " It is murder," she said to herself. 
 
 The Colonel came to a similar conclusion, only differing 
 as to the victim concerned. A few hours after his arrival 
 he sauntered along the terrace — there was a very big, sheltered 
 terrace, with wooden sun-boxes and covered glass galleries. 
 Everywhere lay the patients, on couches, wrapped up, in 
 the snow and the sun. The Colonel, at his breakfast, had 
 observed the hectic waiters. The man in the shop where 
 he went to buy a newspaper could hardly answer him for 
 coughing. He was right : the place was melancholy with 
 a tragic sadness, too deep to be dwelt on here. 
 
DOROTHEA. 565 
 
 "Do people ever get better?" asked the Colonel of the 
 chemist. He had gone in to purchase a (perfectly futile) 
 disinfectant. 
 
 " Hundreds, if only they come soon enough." 
 
 " But the danger of contagion ? " 
 
 " Not here," said the chemist quickly, " the air is too 
 pure." 
 
 The Colonel went and found his daughter. Before he 
 could begin she stopped him. 
 
 " I am going to stay. When I spoke of leaving, he said : 
 * Yes, it is better. Go.' But the tears were in his eyes. I 
 saw them. I have never seen them there before. Father, 
 if I went back now to Brodryck, where nobody wants me, 
 and left him here alone, you would scorn me ! " 
 
 The Colonel shrugged his shoulders, very slightly. He 
 was a polished man : he could shrug his shoulders well. 
 " I never dispute with a woman who has made up her 
 mind. And, at least, what you make up, Dolly, is worthy 
 of the name. I shall endeavour to send you your aunts." 
 
 " Do not do that ! This is no place to bring them to ! " 
 
 Sandring cast a keen glance at his daughter. " If you 
 were not what you are, and that man were not so ill — well, 
 never mind ! Before I go, there is one point I should like 
 to speak about." The Colonel nervously twirled his 
 moustache. "You have no objection, I suppose, to Mrs. 
 Sandring and me remaining settled, a little more definitely, 
 at the Manor House ? Now you have come into all this 
 splendour, you will hardly ever be there ! " 
 
 Dorothea sighed the sigh of the hopelessly misunderstood. 
 
 " The place has memories for me," continued the Colonel 
 glibly. " Touching memories of my youth. Your mother — 
 however, don't let's talk of things unpleasant to you. 
 Besides, you never knew your mother. She was better 
 than most women I have known, Dorothea. I like to think 
 I am living in her house." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly ; stay as long as you like." 
 
 " You see, Mrs. Sandring and I are placed in a difficult 
 position. It is absurd to think that any human being can 
 subsist on a thousand a year. That was a mistake of your 
 poor mother's, or rather, her father treated me badly. And 
 I never can trouble about money-matters. The income 
 settled on me was a — pittance." 
 
 "Would you — would you object to my doubling it, 
 father?" 
 
566 DOROTHEA. 
 
 " My dear child, you are always sweet. And I shall have 
 to keep up my position now, you know — your position — as 
 the father of the Countess of Roden-Rheyna — the Countess 
 of Roden-Rheyna, by Jove ! On two thousand we could 
 go south in the winter, and come to the Manor House, as 
 your guests, in the summer months. That would be an 
 agreeable arrangement for all parties. "You would not 
 mind, Dorothea, my — eh — bringing some people sometimes 
 to liven the place up ? " 
 
 " No, no : I should not mind," said Dorothea, reflecting 
 that she could always escape to the aunts. 
 
 He came up to her and kissed her. You are a dear good 
 girl," he said. " It's a mercy your husband can't see you 
 up here. You treat him very badly, Dorothea." 
 
 " I have written to him." 
 
 « What ? " 
 
 " That I found Mark Lester very ill at Wiesbaden. That 
 I have brought him here and shall stay with him, and 
 comfort him all I can." 
 
 " Dorothy, do you remember my telling you that you 
 should love Egon for himself, and not for your conception 
 of his virtues ? " 
 
 " Yes, father." 
 
 " I am beginning to think you can love him for both. 
 And — what is much better — I believe you are beginning 
 to see the same thing. As for your attitude towards this 
 Mark Lester, your husband is a good fellow, I hope he will 
 understand it. I am not a good fellow : I confess that I 
 am quite unable to make head or tail of it." Before 
 Dorothea could recover sufficiently to find any answer, the 
 Colonel had whistled himself out of the room. 
 
( 567 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Dorothea remained alone in the little pension she had 
 found for herself, down in the village — a wooden Swiss 
 chalet, common and cheap — among several dozen similar 
 chalets and stables, half-hidden in a morass of melting 
 snow and manure. A couple of hundred feet higher the 
 great sanatorium, with its load of sorrow, rose against the 
 pine-woods. Above it the stern wall of granite, sheltering 
 and grim — before it, southwards, the wide fall of valley, 
 immense under blue sky and sunshine, down to the clouds 
 that lie heavy through the winter on the river, with its 
 cities and the railway and the ordinary habitats of men. 
 
 Dorothea, from her little latchet window, looked across 
 the deep-sunk lake of mist into the voiceless silence, to the 
 snow- peaks solemnly filling the horizon — loftiest, most 
 magnificent among them, the great cathedral glories of the 
 Dent du Midi. Unequalled among the mountains of 
 Europe, in its harmony of white slopes and summits, its 
 base upon the waters, its brow against the sky. 
 
 Twice a day she ploughed through the inexpressible mire 
 of the road up to the Sanatorium. It was the worst time 
 of the year for Predoux : the vast winter snows were 
 softening. Those well enough were beginning to leave the 
 hotel. 
 
 Mark Lester, under the care of his nurse, lay out on the 
 great verandah. There Dorothea would come and sit 
 beside him, reading, if he asked for it, bringing fruit, 
 gazing for hours, in comparative silence, at the sunshine, 
 the far mountains beyond. 
 
 She read to him, amongst other things, " Hamlet." " It 
 has always been my favourite," he said. "There never 
 lived a man I understood as well as Hamlet." He would 
 lie back, listening with pleasure to her voice, for she read 
 well. 
 
 " * But that the fear of something after death ' " 
 
 It was there he stopped her. " I don't like that," he 
 
568 DOROTHEA. 
 
 said. " I don't like that. I have passed far beyond it — far 
 beyond." 
 
 She gazed at him. 
 
 He sat up a bit and smiled to her. " I am a Protestant 
 Hamlet," he said, " and a Hamlet after the French Revolu- 
 tion. Nothing can alter that. Dorothy, do you remember 
 our talk about the v^^orld outside — how I loathed it ? Often 
 I think that I did you harm. At Bel Respiro I thought 
 so. I loathe all the horror and the wickedness as much as 
 ever, but the world — the world — now that I am going to 
 leave it, I think I understand." 
 
 " I understand nothing ! " she burst out suddenly, quite 
 suddenly, with the pent agonies of months. " Why — why 
 must we struggle on so unreasonably ? Why must I, of all 
 women, meet with this fate? Why must Egon, my hus- 
 band, whom I thought so good and noble, break down and 
 suffer thus ? Why does God " 
 
 He held out his hand. " How do you know it is God ? " 
 he said. 
 
 She stammered, confounded. " Why, of course it is God ! 
 Our lives are in His hands : He rules the world." 
 
 Mark Lester's gaze sank upon her. " Twenty long years 
 I believed that lie," he said : " God ruled the world. It 
 was God who was somehow mysteriously responsible for 
 all its triumphant wickedness, its defeat and destruction of 
 good. I looked down the pages of history. Everywhere I 
 saw that the evil cause conquers, that the tyrant grows 
 powerful, that the empire increases which is built up on 
 cruelty and fraud. God does it all. In private life of course 
 it is the same. The cheat and the liar become great : the 
 honest man cannot compete with them. God arranges it so." 
 
 " But God rules the world, Mark." 
 
 " We have just been celebrating Easter, Dorothea ! 
 Has it never struck you how utterly Christ failed ? Hanged 
 as a malefactor ! And He has failed to this day, Augustus 
 was a better sovereign — a wider-hearted, greater ruler — 
 than any that sits on a European throne in our time. And 
 the priests of Jerusalem, as we see them in Josephus, were 
 honester, cleaner fanatics than the smirking ecclesiastics that 
 adore our modern god of Prosperity. Is there a thinking 
 being that doubts Christ's condemnation by a council of 
 Christian princes and popes? God is fighting the Prince 
 of this World, Dorothea, and — oh ! He is losing the day ! " 
 
 The young man fell back : his breast heaved : his 
 
DOROTHEA. 569 
 
 glittering eyes were fixed upon the silvery summits. But 
 he hurried on, in short gasps : " * All these will I give thee ' 
 — they were his to give. The Prince of this World has 
 kept them. The Son of Man, when He comes, will He find 
 faith on this earth ? He thinks it doubtful : but He knows 
 He will find plenty of bishops. We live in an evil time, 
 Dorothea, the age of Juvenal — but you don't know about 
 that. One thing only is certain : God loves the world. 
 Oh, one thing is certain : God loves the world ! " 
 
 He leant forward, and his voice gained strength. " He 
 so loves the world that He gave Himself, in some wonderful 
 way, unto death and failure ! Still, still — He is doing it 
 still. Fighting against terrible odds, fighting desperately 
 — and they who seek after righteousness must fight with 
 Him, must help Him, hand to hand against the world 
 around them, the flesh in themselves, the devil in all places, 
 ruler triumphant — hand to hand they must fight, or — oh 
 madness ! — He — He — will be conquered in the end 1 " 
 
 Then he fell back. 
 
 " Hush," she said hastily. " Hush." She rose and got a 
 handkerchief to wipe the froth from his lips. 
 
 " It is for that we bear it all," he whispered. " I wanted 
 to tell you, what, to me, has made all things plain. And 
 thus we ' fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of 
 Christ in our bodies.' So I can bear the pain, the pain. 
 Dear, did you think it was God who was making me 
 suffer this agony week after week ? It is nearly over now : 
 you know that as well as^I do, or I shouldn't have spoken. 
 Dorothea, oh, I want you to understand. The Devil — the 
 Power of Evil — fights against us, so mighty, almost almighty 
 — look at the world around ! We must fight — we who 
 want to — we must help each other ! God will conquer in 
 the end ! " 
 
 He closed his eyes, and his lips went on whispering 
 inaudibly. Dorothea stood thunderstruck. Never before 
 had he spoken a word about his sufferings, and though of 
 course she knew of them, the truth sounded terribly different 
 from his lips. 
 
 She went home, to her long quiet evening, in the pension- 
 bedroom, very thoughtful. And she took a newspaper- 
 cutting from the blotter in her dressing-case, and read it again. 
 
 It was a description of the funeral at Rheyna. The last 
 sentence ran : " The absence of the young Countess was 
 very much remarked." This sentence was heavily under- 
 
570 DOROTHEA. 
 
 scored in blue pencil : the postmark of the newspaper was 
 Kauenfels. 
 
 Dorothea smiled. She was beginning to imderstand 
 Dickie, and to distinguish very clearly between protection 
 and persecution, between interest and intrigue. 
 
 But that night, somehow, her prayers sounded different : 
 no longer an almost unwilling resignation to a hopelessly 
 incomprehensible Almightiness, but a cry for help and 
 comfort against an enemy to a power that knew struggle 
 and suffering as she. One thing only she begged for, if 
 God could grant it, one thing above all others — to know 
 of Giulietta, her connection with Egon — where was she ? — 
 in his home ? — in his heart ? 
 
 And the God in whom she trusted sent her a reply. As 
 such she accepted it, when, a few days later, the postman 
 toiling up with the letter-bag from the last outpost of 
 civilisation down in the valley, ten miles away, brought 
 her an envelope, on which she recognised, to her tremulous 
 amazement, the delicate handwriting of the Italian. 
 
 " Read what I say," wrote Giulietta. " Do not answer : 
 it is true, by the blessed Madonna in Heaven ! I am 
 returned to my husband : we shall trouble you and yours 
 no more. I write partly for his sake, for he wills it ; partly for 
 my own. The luck has come back at the tables : we shall 
 not be poor. Yet his dreams and mine are still far from 
 fulfilment : perhaps, if there be peace and atonement, the 
 Madonna will aid us — then he will put an end to money, 
 I to ugliness in this world. Meanwhile, then, I make con- 
 fession : I make it willingly, for I love your husband, and 
 you I do not hate. I am not ashamed to love him : can I 
 help myself ? I am not, perhaps, as you women of the ice- 
 lands — he is beautiful as a god and I loved him : fate is 
 stronger than the saints. But see, most of the blame, if 
 blame there be in your chill northern heart, has been mine. 
 And see, that recently I came to the Castle, of that he 
 knew nothing : he is nowise at fault. I had come but a 
 few hours before your arrival : I left a few hours after. 
 He wished me to go. That we met in the chapel was 
 neither your doing nor mine, but that devil, Dickie's : she 
 had sent for me. He loves you, fool, with a very different 
 glow from the flare of his passion for me. And yet he 
 loved me, me also, for a moment. He loved me as Tann- 
 hauser loved Venus : go, then, shall Tannhauser never 
 again lie at the feet of the Madonna?" 
 
DOROTHEA. 571 
 
 Dorothea read this letter on the snow-drifts, with gladness 
 and trembling. She lifted her eyes to the wide blue above 
 her, the distant, still line of the Alps. And again, in her 
 bosom, arose prayers unspoken for the woman away yonder 
 at Kauenfels, Dickie. 
 
 Slowly she crept up to the Grand Hotel, with anxious 
 steps that yet lagged under the weight of approaching 
 disaster. The deaconess had prepared her for the worst. 
 " They have sent him here to die," said the deaconess. " In 
 no case could he have lived longer than a few weeks, but 
 the journey and the change of climate have killed him." 
 
 She found him, as usual, on the verandah, with the great 
 sea of sunshine before him, his eyes on the everlasting hills. 
 They lightened up, those strong eyes, with a light that she 
 could not read. He thanked God, in sad content, that she 
 would never read it : the secret of his life was dying with 
 him, the long, slow secret, dying fast. 
 
 She sat down beside him, and at once she saw, alarmed, 
 the change that had come over his face. The sister 
 beckoned her aside. " He would not have you called," 
 said the sister. " He was very ill last night. The doctor 
 does not think he can live through the day." 
 
 The room swam around Dorothea, for so it is always. We 
 see our dear ones dying, but we do not believe in their death. 
 
 She sank back in her seat and took hold of his hand. 
 The book lay open on her knees : there would be no reading 
 that day. Her eyes settled, dwelling on other things, upon 
 the staring page : 
 
 " Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown." 
 
 She closed the volume impatiently. It seemed to her as if 
 it screamed a lie. 
 
 And the silent hours passed on. The sun ascended slowly 
 in the vast, untroubled sky. All around, in windless stillness, 
 glittered the sloping fields of snow. And yonder, away in 
 the far Valais, the white mountains, rising to God. 
 
 She sat holding his hand in her own, with her gaze on 
 his eyes that were closed, on his breast that rose ceaselessly 
 and fell. 
 
 "When he opened his eyes at last, it was to beckon her 
 with them towards him. "There is one thing more," he 
 whispered, " I would say. I have never had the courage. 
 But now I am dying, I dare. Dorothea, when you go back 
 to Egon — for you will go back — there is a thing you 
 
572 DOROTHEA. 
 
 must think of — think it out to yourself — no one can speak 
 of it. Dear, the purity of a man, of a woman, these are 
 not the same. Do not ask aunt Mary. Of course pure is pure, 
 yet " He paused and lay long silent ; then, gasping : 
 
 "Think it out for yourself : they are not the same. Evil 
 is evil before God, yet — yet they are not the same. God 
 has willed it so : there should be difference between man 
 and woman — lesser measure — other passion — greater fault. 
 Woman's cowardice is not like man's : there is a difference. 
 I — I am not speaking for myself, dear — truth is truth — I — 
 was not a bad man, Dorothea." His eyes closed heavily : 
 he did not open them again. And the languid hours crept 
 upwards in the stillness. 
 
 Once he breathed, very faintly, almost inaudibly : 
 
 "Dearest " She sat, gazing down upon his placid 
 
 features, and wondered if the breathing had stopped. 
 
 Then, when she knew it was so, she sat there still. 
 Slowly there deepened upon her a light such as floods an 
 undiscovered inner room. Slowly, with her gaze upon those 
 features that would never live again before her, she realised 
 a phase of her own soul's existence, which had slumbered, 
 untouched, undreamed of, in hidden depths of kindness and 
 affection. She felt, with purity unruffled but by pity, that, 
 had life shaped itself to other forms for her, this friend of 
 her youth, whose untold love had died with him, might 
 have become to her more than a friend. Her soul could 
 have knit itself to this man's soul in faultless and righteous 
 union : there had been room for him, a place unfilled by fate, 
 in the vague possibilities of her heart. 
 
 And yet — she loved Egon, her husband, in fulness of wifely 
 loving. The reality rose next to the vision, spread over it 
 and wiped it away. For the things that are — oh, God be 
 thanked ! — are better than the things that might have been. 
 
 She bent down, in solemn sadness, and kissed the dead 
 man on the forehead. A new womanhood awoke within 
 her amid her desolation, a wider womanhood of longing 
 and yearning, a tenderness of pity and pardon, the con- 
 sciousness that love has many forms and that human hearts 
 are weak. She stood beside the dead face, gazing — gazing ! 
 In the cloudless dome of heaven the victorious sun rode high. 
 
 She went to the man in his office. Regardless of herself, 
 of the man's impassive stare, she sent her message along 
 the wires: 
 
DOROTHEA. 573 
 
 "Thou knowest that I love thee. Forgive me, for I 
 wronged thee. Come ! " 
 
 They brought her the answer where she sat, at the sudden 
 fall of twilight, in the dead man's chamber. Her eyes 
 were on the gleaming horizon : her heart was tremulous 
 with sadness and compassion : her heart was musical with 
 hope. 
 
 " Love, oh, my love ! God is merciful. Thou knowest 
 that I wronged thee. I come I " 
 
 THE END. 
 
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