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 THE GARDEN OF EDEN
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 BY 
 
 BLANCHE WILLIS HOWARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ONE SUMMER," " GUENN," " DIONYSIUS 
 THE WEAVER'S HEART'S DEAREST," ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1900
 
 Copyright, /poo 
 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 IN THREE SCENES 
 
 2062002
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 IN THREE SCENES 
 
 Place : A Garden of Eden. 
 
 Persons : Adam, aged eleven : Eve, aged seven. 
 
 Serpent : deeming his office a sinecure in the councils 
 of these children, absent. 
 
 The Tree of Knowledge : a small Bartlett pear tree 
 bearing its first fruits, three perfect pears, caressed 
 by the gardener with tender thumb and finger 
 light as air and destined for my lady's breakfast on 
 the morrow. 
 
 Time : Twilight, and a Sunday. 
 
 ADAM and Eve, having seen for weeks that 
 the little tree was good for food, and pleasant 
 to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make 
 one wise, approached and hung about it 
 tentatively. 
 
 " I '11 just see if they are ripe," quoth 
 Adam. 
 
 " So will I," said Eve, his devotee and echo. 
 
 Adam pinched a pear. 
 
 Eve did likewise. 
 
 Adam squeezed a second pear. 
 
 Eve followed her leader.
 
 4 Prologue 
 
 Adam seized the third, and remarked with 
 bland surprise : 
 
 " Why it 's so dead ripe, it just dropped off 
 of itself." 
 
 Eve knew better, but said nothing. 
 
 Adam did eat, devouring the pear noisily. 
 It sounded juicy and luscious in little Eve's 
 ears. 
 
 " I don't quite remember whether this one 
 was altogether ripe," pursued the perfidious 
 Adam. " Bless me, it has fallen off too ! " 
 
 He plunged into it with liquid swoops and 
 gurgles of delight. 
 
 " How good that sounds," sighed Eve. 
 
 " Here," decreed Adam magnificently, " you 
 may have this one," plucked the third pear, 
 and Eve did eat. 
 
 Hearing the gardener walking in the gar- 
 den in the cool of the day, the guilty couple 
 ran and hid themselves amongst the trees of 
 the garden. 
 
 But the gardener in the twinkling of an eye 
 perceived that his pet pears were gone, 
 pounced upon Adam and Eve, dragged them 
 forth from their ambush and before the High 
 Tribunal of their aunt. 
 
 " How could you be so naughty and steal 
 those beautiful pears, when you were allowed
 
 Prologue 5 
 
 to eat the fruit of every other tree in the 
 garden? " 
 
 Now Adam did not mind such a little thing 
 as a fib. Thrusting his hands into his trousers 
 pockets, he stoutly affirmed that he had never 
 so much as seen the pears. 
 
 The High Tribunal turned to Eve, who 
 quaked beneath her pinafore and gave a fright- 
 ened sob. 
 
 " Child, is it possible that it was you? " 
 
 The doughty Adam expected Eve to fib 
 easily in his footsteps and was cogitating 
 whether he should now inculpate the robins, 
 or a neighbor's boy against whom he had a 
 grudge. 
 
 But, remarking her pitiful plight, and being 
 a much better fellow than the reputed father 
 of the race, hence incapable of meanly shuf- 
 fling off blame upon a dear companion, and of 
 desiring her to be punished with him, he sud- 
 denly cried with a swagger : 
 
 " I say, I lied you know. I ate your old 
 pears, all three of them skins, seeds, and 
 stems." 
 
 The High Tribunal was very wroth with 
 Adam and commanded he should be driven 
 out of that delightful garden and enjoy no 
 more the fruits thereof; and the grim gar-
 
 6 Prologue 
 
 dener was enjoined, henceforth like cherubim 
 and a flaming sword turning every way, to 
 guard fair Eden. 
 
 With a terrible countenance the reprobate 
 Adam strode forth from the judgment-cham- 
 ber, and wretched Eve, faithful as his shadow, 
 trotted after him. But Adam was a person 
 of resources. 
 
 " Cheer up, Chubby," he presently mut- 
 tered, "you are all right, you know. Don't 
 worry. Trust me to nab all the fruit I want." 
 Here he put his thumb upon his nose and 
 executed an antediluvian gesture. " Now 
 come along, and see me drive spikes into her 
 new gate." 
 
 But Eve took no pleasure in those nails ot 
 retribution. Adam's more athletic conscience 
 skipped handsomely over the pear tree, hers 
 was heavy and sore. In her own way, with- 
 out dictionary-words, she knew that they had 
 wantonly seized and devoured the property of 
 others. Moreover, she had seen her affable 
 seniors grouped around that tree while the 
 old gardener smirked in his beard. She was 
 vaguely aware those pears were precious 
 things, possessed of ideal worth that a trust 
 had been betrayed, a hope destroyed. She 
 was ashamed that she had remained meanly
 
 Prologue 7 
 
 silent. Had the High Tribunal been alone, 
 Eve would have confessed her pear, but the 
 many eyes of aunts confused her, and while 
 she hesitated, Adam assumed the entire felony 
 and sealed her lips. 
 
 In short, little Eve let theologians and 
 philosophers explain why writhed under the 
 ugly weight of sin, felt acute attacks of self- 
 reproach and long enduring discomfort. For 
 years she could not pass that tree without a 
 pang. Like ever-accusing fingers its twigs 
 pointed at her. The largely hospitable and 
 betrayed aunt seemed no longer as other 
 aunts. In her presence Eve was ill at ease. 
 When pears confronted her at dessert, she 
 stared guiltily at her plate. Sweet had been 
 the forbidden fruit, bitter the after taste. 
 
 Thus the child Eve ate of the Tree of the 
 Knowledge of Good and Evil. But that 
 scapegrace, Brother Adam, because he had 
 the manliness to protect her, was henceforth, 
 in her eyes, even more great and glorious.
 
 Prologue . 
 
 II 
 
 A BISHOP in his robes stood catechizing a 
 hundred children in a vestry. He was a stal- 
 wart man of ruddy countenance and unascetic 
 lips, but a child in one of the younger classes 
 watched him with unswerving gaze, for this 
 was the Anointed of the Lord, and could do 
 no wrong thing. Noting her eager eyes, he 
 turned to her with a question which she 
 answered. Because she was little and seemed 
 alert and older children had mumbled, it 
 pleased the great man to continue to question 
 her and to lead her gradually into ecclesiastical 
 fields beyond the limits assigned to those of 
 her tender years. But being a child of facile 
 memory, and rather liking the sound of long 
 words she did not understand, and having 
 heard reluctant brothers and cousins droning 
 their catechism and older classes declaiming 
 it in unison, it happened that she knew it all. 
 
 Her heart beating high, her dilated eyes 
 fixed upon the Anointed of the Lord, her voice 
 clear and confident, she rattled off bravely 
 that portion of the twentieth chapter of Ex-
 
 Prologue 9 
 
 odus which exemplary persons consider in- 
 dispensable milk for babes. This is because 
 the Church had Fathers only many of them, 
 alas ! old bachelors : the Church of the Future 
 will have Mothers also, therefore more mercy 
 and comprehension for its little ones. 
 
 She never stumbled on that long, rocky way 
 from the house of bondage, down past the 
 graven images, the jealous God, iniquity, 
 adultery, and false witness, and arrived safely 
 at her neighbor's ass. For the most part this 
 austere wisdom was a sort of holy gibberish 
 to the little maid, and the meaning of the few 
 injunctions which her mind faintly grasped, she 
 learned better and more sweetly at her mother's 
 knee, without the intervention of Moses. 
 
 After the Commandments, she blithely 
 chirped those trifles, her Duty toward God 
 and her Duty toward her Neighbor, and 
 finally piped with somewhat the comprehen- 
 sion of a canary bird, that she was born in sin 
 and the child of wrath, and the many great 
 words about the mystery of the Sacraments. 
 For this mere trick of memory she received 
 the public commendation of the Bishop, as 
 if she had done some saintly deed. 
 
 Glowing with success and excitement, for 
 there had been a certain risk in her prowess,
 
 io Prologue 
 
 still more, strangely exalted because it was 
 the Anointed of the Lord who had praised 
 her, she passed out of the Church with her 
 mates, and was as sure of their delight as of 
 her own. But the little girls were silent. 
 
 " She is proud because she knows the second 
 half, and we don't. Let us not walk with her." 
 The entire flock flew across the street. 
 
 Turning neither to the right nor to the left, 
 with head erect, flushed cheeks, and quivering 
 lips, bewildered, cut to the heart, her tri- 
 umph and the Lord's Anointed already for- 
 gotten, the child walked on, beneath the shady 
 maple trees of that quiet neighborhood, and 
 heard the ostentatious mirth of the group ad- 
 vancing parallel with her, step for step, yet 
 with more between her and them than the 
 breadth of a summer street. 
 
 For, alienating those tender souls, in embryo 
 was a troop of the ugliest phantoms that haunt 
 mankind envy, cruelty, discord, ostracism, 
 the perfidy of friends, the fickleness of mobs 
 and their chill lovelessness the child felt 
 with tumultuous, uncomprehended pain. And 
 all else she could have borne, but while she 
 walked in bitterness alone, her dearest walked 
 with the others. 
 
 Thus the child knew loneliness.
 
 Prologue 1 1 
 
 III 
 
 A LITTLE girl used to slip away from her 
 mates at the portals of a small Gothic church 
 on Sunday noons, steal up alone to an empty 
 gallery, hide with beating heart behind a stone 
 pillar and wait, in strange suspense, while the 
 kneeling grown people down below proceeded 
 with their mumblings and genuflections, which 
 interested her little, until she heard bursting 
 forth gloriously: 
 
 Therefore with Angels and Archangels and 
 all the company of Heaven we land and mag- 
 nify Thy glorious Name; evermore praising 
 Thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord God of 
 hosts, Heaven and earth when the child be- 
 hind the granite pillar would tremble, hold her 
 breath, close her eyes, and feel her heart swell 
 marvellously. She saw them all the shin- 
 ing throng of angels and archangels sweeping 
 along on white, slow wings and chanting their 
 mystical " Holy, Holy, Holy" until the voices 
 below ceased suddenly with " Most High" 
 which always recalled her to earth with a 
 shock.
 
 1 2 Prologue 
 
 Haunted by no seraphic visions, not spirit- 
 ual, not dreamy, she would run home to 
 her robust, boyish sports, her tempers and 
 tyrannies, her story-books, unripe fruit and 
 dogs. Yet never, if she could help it, did she 
 miss floating with her angels and archangels. 
 She always went alone to keep her tryst 
 with them, and spoke of it to no one. Often 
 she wondered anxiously if it were going to be 
 the same. It always was the same. Always 
 with those noble opening words came the 
 little chill down her back, the slight choking 
 in the throat, like tears ; and at the Tresagion, 
 the languor, the buoyancy, the spiritual de- 
 tachment, the sense of rapturous flight, the 
 whole rush of complex emotion for which she 
 had no comprehension and no name but 
 which, whether a mysterious after-glow from 
 some previous stage of being, or the equally 
 mysterious prescience of a distant dawn, was 
 an ecstasy of adoration almost too mighty for 
 the heart of a child.
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 i 
 
 THE hospitable old house on the height 
 above the bay no longer blazed abroad from 
 a phalanx of shining windows its signals of 
 good cheer. All within was dim and hushed. 
 Something gracious, warm, and infinitely kind 
 had fled from it forever. In an upper room 
 a frail old man kept watch by a rigid shape, 
 and stared before him with unfaltering eyes 
 keen still and marvellously luminous in the 
 wizened face while his stout heart went 
 brooding down the seventy years of his 
 pilgrimage. 
 
 Without, the night was wet with dripping 
 autumn mists and heavy with fumes of de- 
 caying leaves. Sad shapes of denuded elms 
 haunted the long paths, and the rose garden 
 was black and gloomy as the grave. 
 
 Stealthily, although on that dense, moist 
 carpet of leaves, no footfall could sound 
 swiftly, ever swifter, with eager heart, a girl
 
 14 The Garden of Eden 
 
 came on from the direction of the house, ran 
 across lawns, down avenue, alley, and by-path, 
 vanished like a shade in the depths of the dead 
 rose garden, reached the threshold of a roomy 
 arbor, and stopped short. Parting with both 
 hands its trailing veil of vine-stems, she stood 
 peering into the chilly blackness. 
 "Dear?" she whispered, "Dear?" 
 Nothing responded save a shivering along 
 the vines, stirred to brief life by a stray salt 
 whiff from the bay. Yet whether uncon- 
 sciously guided by one ill-repressed ardent 
 breath, or by the faint aroma of cigarette- 
 smoke, or by the subtle divination love lends 
 the dullest, it was but an imperceptible instant 
 before she sprang across the intervening dis- 
 tance, and with a tremulous sigh of relief, of 
 attainment, of exceeding peace found what 
 she sought. 
 
 All else receded: disquieting problems, 
 excess of work and care, burdens of anxiety, 
 of pain and pity the whole prolonged strain 
 of months even the solemn dominance of 
 that still presence in " the chamber over the 
 gate " sank from her like a garment, and her 
 spirit, light, free, rapturous, seemed con- 
 sciously to rise and to soar in illimitable 
 space.
 
 The Garden of Eden 1 5 
 
 But the man who loved her well, did not at 
 the moment float. He kept his feet well 
 planted on the earth, remembered for her 
 dear sake what she innocently forgot, and 
 much as yet unknown to her while all was 
 still in the arbor save for the shivering along 
 the vines. 
 
 When he, at length, spoke, she gave a little 
 start as if the congregation had reached 
 "Most High." 
 
 " Did no one see you come? " he demanded 
 brusquely. 
 
 " No " she murmured, her voice languid 
 and remote. 
 
 " Are you sure?" 
 
 " Quite," she returned, still absently, then 
 with concern : " How cold you are, how very, 
 very cold ! Your hair, your cheek, your coat, 
 all of you ! " 
 
 "Will they not miss you?" he persisted 
 nervously. " Are you sure no one saw or 
 heard you leave the house? Did you shut 
 the library door? Where do they think you 
 are?" 
 
 " They think I am resting which I am 
 in my room where, happily, I am not. I 
 closed the door; no one saw or heard me. 
 Why are you so anxious, dearest? "
 
 1 6 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " You ought to know why I am anxious," 
 he returned curtly. In the stillness and the 
 dusk he suddenly drew her closer as if he fain 
 would ward off impending evil. 
 
 "Have you been waiting long?" she said 
 softly, after a while. "Why did you not 
 speak? How could you want me to lose time 
 groping in the dark? " 
 
 " Groping ! " he muttered. 
 
 She laughed low, in quick response, but 
 broke off instantly. " I wonder that I can 
 laugh the least fragment of a laugh ever 
 again ! " she sighed. 
 
 " ' Ever again ' is rather a large order, is it 
 not?" he said indulgently with an undertone 
 of sadness. " If only the people with no 
 heartaches in this best of all worlds should 
 laugh ! " 
 
 " But I am asking myself in these last days 
 if I am not perhaps really heartless." 
 
 " You ? Very ! " he retorted with a short 
 laugh. 
 
 " Because nothing is as I expected it would 
 be. I do not feel in the least as people expect 
 me to feel or as I expected to feel myself! " 
 
 " Child ! Who ever yet felt as he expected 
 to feel ! " 
 
 " But indeed I 'm afraid there is something
 
 The Garden of Eden 17 
 
 abnormal in me. I cannot mourn right. The 
 house seems unreal, like a stage, and I not 
 particularly interested in the play. It is not 
 merely that I am cold. I often have no feel- 
 ing at all. Even my own voice sounds far 
 away and hollow, and I walk about like a 
 graven image." 
 
 " Over-excitement Fatigue. Strained 
 nerves. Want of sleep," he returned with 
 professional curtness. 
 
 "Is that all?" she said wearily. "I began 
 to fear I was a monster." 
 
 " Have you any other crimes to confess ? " 
 he asked, in tender irony. " If there 's a shoot- 
 ing-fray in Texas, a train robbed in Dakota, 
 an outbreak of Popocatapetl, or something 
 rotten in the state of Denmark, you are 
 usually I believe the guilty party." He 
 meant her to smile but heard her sigh. As 
 she remained silent in her soft nearness, he 
 went on with his benevolent derision, a safe- 
 guard he deemed for her and for himself. 
 " When a New England woman starts to go 
 upstairs, she always asks herself whether it 
 is her duty to begin with the right or the 
 left foot, and what relation her step bears to 
 the great laws of the universe? Terrible 
 little Scholastics you all are ! "
 
 1 8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " Must she have suffered so long? Were 
 we not cruel?" 
 
 " Why torment yourself so ? " 
 
 " But Lilian herself was gone weeks ago. 
 Was it right to let Pater watch his best be- 
 loved merge into that, before his eyes? 
 Into something hardly human, yet dying 
 slowly in unutterable pain? Oh, Keith, if 
 you could have helped her ! " 
 
 " Ah," he replied gravely, " we doctors are 
 not so far along as that. It is our duty to 
 seek to preserve life at any cost." 
 
 " Oh, it has been unspeakable agony to see 
 that pure spirit vanish slowly gruesomely 
 instead of adjusting the morphine so finely 
 that she was sure to awaken to renewed tor- 
 ment, how often I longed to lovingly adminis- 
 ter release ! But though Lilian was gone, 
 something of her remained : the silky hair, 
 the large eloquent hands. It was too much 
 for my strength. I had not the courage. Yet 
 often I have thought some one ought to do it, 
 for Lilian's sake, for Pater's sake : ought to 
 have the courage and the right, after the soul 
 is fled, to stop the poor wretched machine, 
 that exists only to suffer and cause suffering." 
 
 He soothed her with tender voice, arms, and 
 caress.
 
 The Garden of Eden 19 
 
 "Why think, why speak of it? Why excite 
 yourself so? Some day we will discuss that 
 question. Not to-night." 
 
 " Then she died," pursued Monica, " and 1 
 was quite calm. I watched her agony so 
 often and so long, the mere passing away 
 seemed very simple. I closed her eyes and 
 was thankful I need never again torture her 
 with that horrible morphine needle or with 
 loathsome drugs, never again molest her in any 
 way. And when I look at her, I do not grieve. 
 Is that natural? Is it not inhuman? " 
 
 He had watched her sharing her friend's 
 burdens, bearing her friend's cross, taking her 
 friend in loving arms and with unfaltering 
 courage and service, descending, so far as 
 lies in human power, every step of that long 
 and ghastly journey into the silence that meant 
 release. Now he heard her arraign herself 
 for some imaginary flaw in her nature, some 
 involuntary deviation from her traditions, while 
 she leaned in blessed serenity on his breast 
 and felt by night the arms enfold her which 
 could never openly protect her by day. Her 
 vast unconsciousness, which, according to his 
 mood, touched him as something puerile but 
 dear, thrilled him with mighty exultation, 
 turned him sick with self-reproach and forebod-
 
 2O The Garden of Eden 
 
 ing, could indeed even irritate him with its 
 placid remoteness, had never seemed to him 
 more amazingly incomprehensible than at this 
 moment. With a bitter sense of the incon- 
 gruity of the situation, of her sweet unreason- 
 ableness, the utter futility of his great love, 
 of the deadly irony of life, he broke out 
 bitterly : 
 
 " Would to God you were heartless and 
 knew your own worth, and could haggle and 
 barter and sell yourself handsomely as pru- 
 dent women do, instead of being so mad as 
 to " 
 
 " Keith, dear Keith ! " 
 
 " You are right," he said moodily, " tragics 
 are useless and out of date. But there is 
 something I Ve resolved to tell this night 
 quietly quietly. Wait. There used to be 
 some chairs in this place. I '11 prowl about a 
 bit. Here 's a stack of spades sharper than 
 a serpent's tooth. Don't stumble over them." 
 
 He tramped about with rather marked de- 
 liberation and announced from the other side 
 of the arbor : 
 
 "The tide is coming in: just approaching 
 the bridge I should say. Do you know, I 
 don't mind the smell of the mud flats when 
 there 's a wind from the bay and an incoming
 
 The Garden of Eden 2 1 
 
 tide. But on an August noon and the tide 
 well out and no breeze stirring, the stench of 
 of those flats is an abomination." 
 
 " Yes, dear. What is it that you must tell 
 me, quietly! 5 " 
 
 " That you are to put yourself in this camp- 
 chair so and your feet upon this box so 
 and be covered up so like a mummy." 
 
 " Ah, Keith, not with your coat ! " 
 
 "I'm all right. I'm going to move about 
 a little. Besides I Ve not been up an incred- 
 ible number of nights working and enduring 
 beyond belief. Do you know, any woman 
 with an atom of self-respect would take to her 
 bed with a good orthodox rheumatism or a 
 decent sort of fever instead of frequenting 
 damp arbors and disreputable society." 
 
 Docile to his wish, she closed her eyes, lay 
 still, let him cover her feet and do what he 
 would. Nor did she wonder at his irrelevant 
 chatter, his sudden restlessness. It was fre- 
 quently a way of his, and all his ways were 
 dear. When his rich voice with its ironical 
 indulgence, its suggestion of illimitable worldly 
 experience, its strong beat of repressed emo- 
 tion, deigned to talk arrant nonsense he 
 charmed her senses and possessed her heart. 
 
 Folding his arms obstinately across his
 
 22 The Garden of Eden 
 
 breast, he leaned against the doorpost and 
 asked: " How is Judge Trevor? " 
 
 " Perfectly calm. Exactly as I remember 
 him all my life except, perhaps, a trifle 
 paler, sharper, more shrunken, more sardonic, 
 more thoroughly Voltaire's twin brother: 
 everything in him suddenly accentuated 
 yet if it is possible to conceive it, even more 
 ceremonious, more courteous, more gentle 
 and thoughtful of everybody, more utterly 
 touching." 
 
 " Fine old fellow. Game." 
 
 " Yes. Chevaleresque to the last. Like some 
 old marquis in St. Lazare among those splen- 
 did souls who knew so well how to die 
 Lilian too was like them " 
 
 " Do you still give him the electricity every 
 day?" 
 
 " Twice a day." 
 
 " It can do that withered arm no earthly 
 good." 
 
 " No, dear, but he thinks it may." 
 
 " He pretends to think so, but he is over 
 seventy years old, and supernaturally shrewd. 
 He has no illusions." 
 
 " It diverts him at least. When the appara- 
 tus begins to sing, and I roll up his sleeve on 
 that poor little bone, and look as wise as an
 
 The Garden of Eden 23 
 
 owl, professionally solemn a trick I 've 
 caught from you, dear ! he is always cheerful, 
 and it occupies him two whole hours every one 
 of his sad long days." 
 
 He made a sudden dive toward her, nearly 
 reached her with outstretched arms in the 
 dark, checked himself and continued his 
 measured tread. 
 
 " Do you know, you are an uncommonly 
 good little girl? I may have forgotten to 
 mention it. And what are our esteemed rela- 
 tives doing meanwhile?" 
 
 " Dividing," she answered gently, " always 
 dividing. Making inventories. Ransacking. 
 Feeling silk between thumb and finger. Hold- 
 ing lace well up to the light." 
 
 " Vulturesque ! " 
 
 " This morning as I was doing Pater's arm, 
 was absorbed in my work and everything was 
 quite still except for the buzz of the machine, 
 he suddenly gleamed at me with that most 
 wicked little smile of his and asked, in a sort 
 of stage whisper : 
 
 '"Have they got to the ragbag yet?' It 
 really startled me, as he never appears to notice 
 anything, but I was relieved to see the wicked 
 little smile again, it looked so familiar and 
 dear."
 
 24 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Keith continued his obtrusive calm pacing, 
 whistling a street melody between his teeth, 
 and the pause grew long before she demanded 
 suddenly: 
 
 " Why were you silent when I came to- 
 night? Did you want me to go away? And 
 what do you want to tell me quietly? For 
 I feel it between us whatever we try to 
 say." 
 
 In an instant he was near her. 
 
 " Why did you not speak? " she whispered, 
 clinging close. 
 
 " Because, if you must know, I was afraid," 
 he said, huskily. " I heard you, saw you, 
 every step as if it were noonday, coming 
 toward me in the night. It is glorious the way 
 you come, but it is sheer madness. I was 
 afraid of you afraid for you. God knows 
 I am afraid unceasingly " and he bowed his 
 head over her. 
 
 " But when I assure you we are as safe as if 
 this were a desert island " 
 
 He laughed sadly. 
 
 " My poor little deluded girl." 
 
 " Even if a servant should happen to see me 
 go in, I should not mind at all." 
 
 " Oh, no, you would not mind." 
 
 " I simply should have been taking the air
 
 The Garden of Eden 25 
 
 in the garden and that I have done at any hour 
 I chose all the year." 
 
 "You simply would have been taking the 
 midnight air," he repeated gravely. 
 
 " When Lilian's bell used to ring out so 
 late, they could hardly have thought me 
 alone?" 
 
 "There was no secrecy about it?" 
 
 " None whatever. After all," she said, rather 
 haughtily, " Judge Trevor and mamma are the 
 only persons to whom I owe any explanation 
 of my conduct. All that I do I tell her, and he 
 would not object; in fact he probably suspects 
 at this moment that I am with you." 
 
 He laughed again incredulously, hopelessly. 
 " Because you wind them all round your fin- 
 gers, toss their principles and traditions to the 
 winds, and sweetly persuade them black is 
 white, does that alter facts? You are danger- 
 ous, my Monica ! In the first place, all your 
 geese are swans. I never met a woman whose 
 geese were such transcendental fowls of purest 
 Lohengrin breed. Then your convictions are 
 so strong, your faith is so ardent the verit- 
 able faith that moves mountains to my 
 knowledge, you have set several big mountains 
 nodding and swaying, not to speak of all the 
 little hills that are continually hopping and
 
 26 The Garden of Eden 
 
 skipping and dancing jigs to your pipe. You 
 fairly hypnotize us. It is incredible. You 
 completely won that good woman your poor 
 friend up there and she was not revolution- 
 ary like you, my dear " 
 
 " Lilian understood you, Keith," murmured 
 the girl. 
 
 " And Judge Trevor, most punctilious of 
 men until, if they did not actually connive at 
 our meetings, at least they tacitly permitted 
 them." 
 
 " I merely told them the truth. I could do 
 no less. They were my best friends. I was 
 under their roof. But I said exceedingly little. 
 They saw for themselves what you were." 
 
 "And your mother. She is infinitely dis- 
 tressed, poor soul, always in purgatory, yet 
 there are moments when you half-hypnotize 
 even her." 
 
 " She cannot help loving you," exclaimed 
 the girl. 
 
 " And demure Cousin Ruth, horrified at any 
 irregularity in manners or morals, what did 
 you do to her that she walked three miles with 
 you and waited patiently that we might have a 
 couple of hours together undisturbed?" 
 
 " How wonderful it was that day ! " she 
 sighed wistfully. " The rocks, the surf, the
 
 The Garden of Eden 27 
 
 dipping white sails, the sea gulls whirling, and 
 we two quite alone ! " 
 
 For a moment he could not speak. She 
 was sometimes disheartening. 
 
 He kissed her hands slowly and resumed : 
 " And the old Trevor servants. They would 
 bite out their tongues or steal for you. The 
 dogs the dogs adore you. They obey your 
 very whisper which is uncommonly lucky for 
 you and me," he added grimly. " And I I," 
 he laughed bitterly, " I the great Lohengrin 
 swan ! Almost you persuade me I am a right 
 sort of lover for you. Sometimes, indeed, I am 
 led to believe we wear guileless coral beads 
 and white smocks, and are making daisy 
 chains in the meadow." 
 
 "Are you blaming me, Keith?" she asked, 
 perplexed. 
 
 "God forbid! For what, then, Monica? 
 For being your own fine, fearless self ? For 
 thinking no evil? For loving purely and not 
 counting costs? For being magnanimous to a 
 poor beggar? For " he pulled himself up 
 sharply and veered off into the first byway 
 that presented itself: " Such a clever little girl 
 too ! Writes books " 
 
 "Not books. A book. Hardly large enough 
 to toddle alone. Besides, you do not like it"
 
 28 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " No," he admitted reluctantly, " I don't" 
 
 "Why do you not like it, Keith? You have 
 never told me, you know. I rather wish you 
 could like it, of course. Still I really do not 
 mind much." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " I suppose it is because I in general don't 
 like your merry art ; what they call humor and 
 all that." 
 
 " It is light as thistle-down," she re- 
 turned simply. " But it has a merry way of 
 selling, as I hear to-day from my publishers. 
 I hope you do not scorn that." 
 
 " By no means. I like Mammon uncom- 
 monly well." 
 
 " You know I have hardly thought of it. 
 I have had better and sadder things to think 
 of than that idle little tale. But it is strange 
 that it should be liked for its lightness, while 
 all this is happening to us; Lilian dying by 
 inches, and you and I " 
 
 " Toying with thunderbolts ! Oh, Monica, 
 let us not talk of dipping white sails or little 
 popular books. Lie still, dear, and let me 
 say what is on my heart. Every time I ap- 
 proach it, I turn and run. But speak I must 
 You you " he went on, "you see it all 
 in a great glory. It is all ideal to you, poor
 
 The Garden of Eden 29 
 
 little girl. But I cannot pretend unconscious- 
 ness. My soul is not a blank white page like 
 yours, and it is downhill we are going straight 
 to perdition." 
 
 " If it is as bad as that," she replied, in a 
 clear voice and springing up quickly, " let us 
 sit here quietly on this bench, side by side, and 
 see what is to be done. Tell me what you 
 mean, Keith. Why are we going to perdition? 
 I don't believe you. We love each other, 
 surely there must be help." 
 
 " Because we love each other there is no 
 help," he answered with a kind of sternness. 
 " Because it grows harder for me each day 
 how hard, how immeasurably beyond my 
 strength you will never comprehend. At 
 first I too was in a fool's paradise. But it 
 is two years now two years. It is so natural, 
 you say, in your delicious but most imperfect 
 wisdom. So perilously natural, my Monica, 
 for us to be together. You are all I want in 
 this or any other world. In all I have sought, 
 all I have seemed to love since the boy's heart 
 in me first stirred and waked and longed for 
 something higher and better than itself, I was 
 seeking and loving only you. I was born to 
 love you. When I found you I knew that 
 I had always loved you. You were waiting
 
 30 The Garden of Eden 
 
 for me, dear and I fool I had not 
 waited." 
 
 " Keith," she pleaded, but he went on in 
 stern self-reproach : 
 
 " That was a crime, but not my worst against 
 you. I need not have let you love me." 
 
 " Ah, that you could not help ! " 
 
 " I ought to have slunk out of your path. 
 I need not have yielded to my longing to be 
 near you, need not have let the fine meshes 
 close round us closer, finer, every hour. I 
 ought to have loved you from afar, as I did, 
 indeed, a whole year, before I met you face 
 to face. I might have met you any day, and 
 I never took one step toward knowing you. 
 That is the one straight thing I have done. 
 I knew it must come as it has come, if we two 
 should meet. And I avoided you. I was 
 afraid, even then. I hid in doorways and 
 round corners and held my breath and watched 
 you go by away from me always away 
 from me ! Once in the twilight you came 
 along swiftly with an armful of tall lilies and 
 behind you was a dull gold sky. You '11 never 
 know how you looked, never ! I followed you 
 like a thief like the thief that I am ! " 
 
 " Dearest, if you would not be so wretched ! 
 You are good and you are strong. We have
 
 The Garden of Eden 3 1 
 
 done nothing wrong. I have met you when 
 and where I could. If there be wrong in our 
 meeting I am as much to blame as you. But 
 I will not have you so miserable on my account 
 
 I will not. I am trying to think. Go on." 
 " Can you not understand? " he said with a 
 
 strange sort of irritation ; " it is the harm 
 overshadowing your white life that makes me 
 miserable the transparent life that all the 
 world might know until I came." 
 
 " It is a better and larger life through you, 
 and so far as I alone am concerned the whole 
 world may know it still." 
 
 " Oh, my great-hearted, foolish, foolish 
 Monica. You make it terribly hard for me 
 to save you ! " he muttered. " But surely you 
 realize the world would cast you out for this 
 one clandestine rendezvous." 
 
 "Then the world is wrong, not we," she 
 declared serenely. " It cannot be a sin to 
 love what is lovable wherever one finds it. 
 Clandestine? It is not a nice word. But 
 words are not very important, are they? I 
 do not feel clandestine. Only alone with you 
 
 my other self in the open air where I 'd 
 always rather be than under any roof. And 
 harm? Harm," she repeated slowly, "what 
 harm could come to me through you?"
 
 32 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " Hear her, hear her ! " he cried desperately. 
 " Love, listen to me now and trust me. I 'm 
 not much older than you, but miles older in 
 iniquity, and I understand you better than you 
 understand yourself, and, God help me, I know 
 pretty well what sort of fellow I am. Can you 
 doubt that were there the smallest chance of 
 happiness for us in flight I should have pro- 
 posed it long ago? I know places full of sun- 
 shine where we could live for a song. Oh, 
 how I Ve dreamed it sleeping and waking ! 
 We 'd go to Venice, to Algiers we 'd wander 
 through the far east, and to wonderful islands, 
 and you 'd love it. You are such a staunch 
 comrade, so light of heart, so undismayed. 
 You 'd go, would you not, Monica," he de- 
 manded suddenly with fierce eagerness ; " say, 
 you would go to the ends of the earth with the 
 scoundrel I should then be a good bit more 
 scoundrel, let me tell you, than I ever was yet ! 
 But you 'd go? " 
 
 " No, Keith," she answered simply and 
 sorrowfully; " it would break my mother's 
 heart, and you could never desert." 
 
 He was silent long, breathed heavily, strug- 
 gling to recover his clear aim, blurred now 
 by the alluring vision conjured up by his own 
 involuntary ardor.
 
 The Garden of Eden 33 
 
 " That is it," he said at last, wearily. " Of 
 course I knew you would answer so. You see, 
 we were meant to be honest, you and I, dear." 
 
 " We are honest, Keith." 
 
 " Under palms and bluest skies, you could 
 never forget your mother's broken heart, and 
 I should never cease to remember that I 'd 
 lost the last shred of honor I once possessed, 
 and we two should be trailing about with us 
 everywhere our miserable bedraggled New 
 England consciences. More than another 
 man," he was speaking with broken most re- 
 luctant speech close in her ear, " am I 
 bound to bear the consequences of my own 
 acts. Nothing that I ever did would be so 
 vile as to break the chains I once forged for 
 mys elf_ " 
 
 " I know. I know " she murmured 
 warmly. "Why speak? Why tell me that? " 
 
 " Partly for your dear sake. Partly for 
 myself. Because sometimes I have wild 
 thoughts," he answered low, " and I am 
 weak - and sorely tempted, and and then " 
 his voice attempted to strike the familiar 
 jesting note " it is wise to establish the fact 
 that there is nothing at all tragic about us 
 two. Absurd on the face of it ! My whole- 
 some sensible Monica trying to be a tragic 
 3
 
 34 The Garden of Eden 
 
 figure ! You were meant for something quite 
 different," he bowed his head yearningly over 
 her, " quite different, dear," he repeated and 
 kissed her upon the forehead a kiss of 
 brave renunciation of which she knew not 
 the worth. 
 
 After a while he resumed, with a fair amount 
 of animation : 
 
 " But after we note the things which as you 
 say are out of the question, perhaps we can 
 judge more clearly what remains. This whole 
 year you have been wonderfully protected by 
 your friend's illness. It has granted me a 
 legitimate pretext for seeing you every day." 
 
 " It was always so short ! Dr. Irwin so 
 appallingly punctual. Every day, the same 
 report only steadily sadder, more dreary. I 
 trying to look at him and seeing only you, 
 so tall with the grave eyes of a stranger 
 and taking my orders like a soldier " 
 
 " Like a sound straight sort of soldier. 
 The one who in spite of all their servants and 
 nurses has borne the brunt of the battle. But 
 consider, dear," he pursued patiently, " all this 
 dreariness has saved appearances, and you 
 have been guarded by your lifelong devotion 
 to Lilian Trevor, by Judge Trevor's garden, 
 Judge Trevor's stately self, in short Judge
 
 The Garden of Eden 35 
 
 Trevor's aegis incredible as it is and we 
 have met safely, in every respect, so far, 
 heaven knows how for any moment the 
 chances, all the chances, my Monica, might 
 have turned against you." 
 
 " We have met very rarely," she said 
 regretfully. 
 
 " Not yet too often, dear, thank heaven ! " 
 he retorted doggedly. " Now you return to 
 town and your mother, and this is what I 
 must ask you squarely : How do you picture 
 the future ? " 
 
 " Why, like the past," she replied faintly, for 
 he was beginning to shake her easy serenity, 
 " meeting you now and then, writing to you 
 every day loving you as I may from afar, 
 since it is not granted me to love you near 
 living on the remembrance of the last brief 
 meeting, comforted by the hope of the 
 next " 
 
 " And always, without peace or rest, always 
 in peril, compromised inevitably sooner or 
 later! You whose very shoe buttons are 
 matters of interest to the community no 
 no ! " he groaned. 
 
 "Not meet? Never? You and I?" she 
 cried aghast. " In the same town and not 
 meet? Why that would be impossible. We
 
 36 The Garden of Eden 
 
 might not plan it, we might even seek to 
 avoid each other. But we should be all the 
 time drawing nearer, nearer, though against 
 our will, and suddenly, in the woods or on 
 the beach, there we should be, heart to heart ! " 
 
 " Don't, love," he groaned. " I cannot 
 bear it. What you say is true. We can- 
 not live in the same town and not meet. We 
 cannot live in the same town and meet. I see 
 no rescue for you except I leave you. And 
 so I will go away." 
 
 Neither moved nor spoke. The man leaned 
 back with arms hanging limp as after exhaust- 
 ing physical effort. Silence and darkness 
 more intense than the silence and darkness of 
 the night encompassed them. 
 
 " You cannot, my poor Keith," she stam- 
 mered. " You do not mean it. It would be 
 too disastrous you are barely established 
 you " 
 
 "What does that matter?" he said drearily. 
 "I have no ambition, and I could make a 
 living for myself and and those depend- 
 ent upon me anywhere, I suppose. It is the 
 only thing to do. Oh, I ought to have done it 
 before now. I ought to have gone without a 
 word. That's clear enough. But I had 
 not the strength."
 
 The Garden of Eden 37 
 
 "That we two should make each other 
 miserable ! " she moaned. 
 
 " Because I love you so ! Because you are 
 the dearest thing on earth to me ! Because I 
 want you near me close to my heart 
 always every day and hour. Because if we 
 go on, there will be trouble for nothing 
 stands still. Your fair name will be soiled. 
 And I could do nothing. I who would give 
 my life for you could not help you an atom. 
 If they should simply say we were here to- 
 gether to-night, the only thing I could do 
 would be to put a bullet through my head. 
 It would not help that what they say would 
 be untrue. I could not bear it. I Ve made 
 a muddle of my own life. If I can help it I 
 won't make a muddle of yours. I would 
 rather see you dead than hurt in any way 
 through me, I would rather see you dead ! " 
 
 Dropping upon his knees he held her fast 
 with strong arms and pressed his face against 
 hers and rocked her slightly to and fro and 
 murmured indistinct fond names until she 
 heard a sob and felt hot tears, a man's tears, 
 on her cheek, and she was frightened. 
 
 " Oh," she faltered, helpless, cut to the 
 heart, " you must not suffer so Poor dear 
 My poor, poor Keith ! There must be a way. 
 We will find it together."
 
 38 The Garden of Eden 
 
 He shook his head hopelessly, his cheek 
 against hers. 
 
 "You would rather see me dead?" she 
 questioned awestruck. 
 
 " Dead," he whispered. 
 
 " You could give up all you have gained 
 here, inch by inch, after all your hardships 
 and disappointments?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " You could really leave me, Keith ? " 
 
 " I must." 
 
 And because he, her pride and strength, 
 was bowed in grief, something began to rise 
 above the softness and sweetness of her love, 
 above her mere fondness for the man some 
 nobler instinct strong to save. 
 
 " Keith," she said brokenly, with dry throat, 
 " a thought has come to me. I cannot speak 
 it yet, not yet, dear There may be another 
 way. But you shall not suffer so for me 
 not like this you shall not, Keith." 
 
 Speechless, they cowered miserably together 
 in the dread shadow of parting. The small 
 shrill note of a bell rang out sharply in the 
 still night. 
 
 Monica sprang up. 
 
 " Lilian's bell ! She wants me I mean 
 Pater wants me ! "
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 39 
 
 " Go," he said, beside himself with alarm. 
 " I ought not to have let you stay. I ought 
 not to have let you come. Oh, love, love 
 that I can be so weak a thing and let you run 
 such risks. Go Monica FAST ! "
 
 40 The Garden of Eden 
 
 II 
 
 As Monica crept softly up the dark stairway, 
 some one above suddenly turned on light, and 
 she saw Judge Trevor and a servant standing 
 in the upper hall. 
 
 " Did you remember to bolt the library door, 
 my dear? " asked the old man, tranquilly. 
 
 "Yes, Pater." 
 
 "I beg you will pardon me, dear child," he 
 went on with punctilious distinctness. "I 
 took the liberty to ring. I know you always 
 rest better in the open air, and, thanks to our 
 good dogs, the garden is a safe place. But I 
 feared you were forgetting the lapse of time, 
 and the night is damp. " 
 
 "Thanks, Pater." 
 
 "I hope you are not too chilly. Let me 
 take you to your room." Offering her his 
 arm in his ceremonious fashion, " Charles, 
 pray bring a small glass of sherry to Miss 
 Monica's room." 
 
 As they crossed the hall, three doors closed 
 in muffled succession. In her room Judge 
 Trevor remarked urbanely:
 
 The Garden of Eden 41 
 
 "Some of our amiable cousins were per- 
 turbed by your absence. There was a per- 
 ceptible flutter of solicitude. It seems one 
 of them went to your room, and, not finding 
 you, rang for the servants. Cousin Sarah 
 even proposed heroic measures search in 
 the garden lanterns. You might feel faint, 
 she declared. I was obliged to say I pre- 
 ferred no one should disturb you, that you 
 had earned your right to solitude, and fainting 
 lay utterly beyond the range of your talents. 
 This panic in the dovecote is in itself of no 
 consequence whatever, but you will under- 
 stand why I finally rang Lilian's bell. I 
 hope it did not startle you." 
 
 "Dear Pater!" she said mechanically. 
 Cousin Sarah and her adjuncts dwelt not one 
 instant in her thoughts. Meanwhile the 
 penetrating gaze of the old man's startlingly 
 beautiful blue eyes rested on her white, dazed 
 face. 
 
 "Thank you, Charles. You may go now. 
 No, I shall require nothing further. Besides, 
 Nichols is near if I should need her. And, 
 Charles," he added kindly, "I hope you will 
 have at least a good night's rest. You have 
 been very faithful, very helpful. Now, my 
 dear, drink this at once."
 
 42 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Under his profoundly meditative glance 
 she sipped the wine with reluctant little 
 gulps, and stared at him apathetically over 
 her glass. 
 
 Partially paralyzed, in physique hardly more 
 than a bowed small skeleton walking about 
 in men's clothing, Judge Trevor suggested, 
 in the best sense of the phrase, the air of 
 courts. With the subtle flavor of his anti- 
 quated decorum, with his rare intellectual 
 supremacy, his faint wise smile, half sweet- 
 ness half cynicism, there he stood, the gentle 
 old aristocrat, constraining them to do his 
 will; mindful of his weary old servant, mind- 
 ful of the heart tumult of the self-absorbed 
 young girl, mindful of all the world except of 
 his plucky old self. 
 
 Monica was still more or less in the arbor, 
 and the laming terror of the thought which 
 had confronted her there at the last half be- 
 numbed her faculties; but she now roused 
 herself sufficiently to say: 
 
 " May I not watch with you to-night ? " 
 
 "I thank you," he replied graciously. 
 "Everything is arranged. It is the last 
 night and I prefer to be alone," he added, 
 his face placid and inscrutable. 
 
 "Then I will go over an instant to Lilian."
 
 The Garden of Eden 43 
 
 "That too I must deny you, dear child," 
 he returned with sweet imperturbability. 
 " Lilian needs nothing more. I need noth- 
 ing more. But you need all your strength." 
 
 The great clear eyes regarded her unwav- 
 ering, insistent. 
 
 "Pater," she said abruptly, "I was with 
 Keith Lowell in the garden." 
 
 "I hope Dr. Lowell is very well this even- 
 ing," he rejoined courteously, with the air of 
 one for whom life has no surprises. 
 
 "Thanks, yes," she murmured. 
 
 "You will see your mother to-morrow? " 
 
 " Yes, Pater, after afterwards. " 
 
 "After the funeral," he amended carefully. 
 " An admirable woman, your mother ; a 
 woman of sound judgment and unfailing 
 goodness of heart. I have always admired 
 your mother." 
 
 She waited mute, forlorn. 
 
 Stroking her white cheek with a bony 
 trembling hand, and smiling steadily, he 
 said: 
 
 "Brave little friend, Lilian's friend, talk 
 with your mother." 
 
 Suddenly, inexplicably her emotions were 
 always inopportune the pathos of his unsel- 
 fishness, his isolation touched her beyond
 
 44 The Garden of Eden 
 
 control, and she exclaimed with a rush of hot 
 tears : 
 
 "Ah, Pater, Pater, how good you are !" 
 
 "That is well, Monica. Tears are better 
 for youth than a white strained face. That 
 was no sort of face for our bright Monica. I 
 am much relieved, for now you will sleep I 
 think. Good night, dear child." 
 
 "You are so good," she repeated. 
 
 "Men are not good; only women are good," 
 rejoined the shrivelled old gentleman, with 
 his grand air. At the door he turned and 
 said: 
 
 " Talk with your excellent mother, Monica. " 
 
 All night long the thought haunted Monica 
 like a grim, an unbidden guest. Menacing, 
 inflexible, it would not budge for all her 
 pretty sophistry, her logic of the heart. She 
 begged and prayed, she wept and writhed be- 
 fore it. "I cannot, I cannot," she moaned. 
 " Not this. Anything but this. There must 
 be another way." 
 
 "I am the way," responded the stern 
 Thought. "Not a rosy way, not a happy 
 way ; nay, a thorny, lonely way but the 
 only way for you." 
 
 Through the night watches her soft youth, 
 loving self, loving pleasure, loving love,
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 45 
 
 seeking its own with blind, elemental force, 
 contended passionately with the Thought ; 
 flung itself desperately against the intruder, 
 and was always worsted; sought to hide, to 
 flee, and found no refuge, no escape, while 
 across the hall the wise old man sat motion- 
 less by his beloved dead, his patient heart 
 brooding down the past. 
 
 But some brief dense sleep toward morn- 
 ing, a cold bath, and the sharp autumnal air 
 restored to her elastic body its freshness, and 
 re-endowed her spirit with its birthright, 
 immoderate hopefulness. Keith had well 
 said in the arbor she was no tragic figure. 
 Her morning mood was a great upspringing 
 of vital forces, an intense joy in mere exist- 
 ence, an eagerness to sally forth and conquer 
 a few worlds. 
 
 She stood at her open window, and looked 
 down on the garden, so flooded with sunlight 
 that bare brown twigs shone bravely, dead 
 leaves grew gay and golden. Between the 
 giant trunks of a belt of old oaks circling the 
 embankment, and through the splendid mul- 
 lioned tracing of their naked branches, she 
 saw the water, sparkling and rough. In this 
 electric atmosphere the Thought dwindled 
 and slunk away to the dim recesses of her
 
 46 The Garden of Eden 
 
 mind. Her glance rested upon the roof of 
 the arbor nestling in shrubbery, but the 
 spectres of the night were exorcised. Her 
 lover's forebodings and manful resolve no 
 longer chilled her heart. The crooked would 
 straighten itself, facts would melt away, the 
 obliging world would relinquish its solid 
 precepts and more solid prejudices, other 
 miracles would take place, in short, the 
 heavens would open for her and Keith. 
 Vaguely, but thus benignly, in the strength 
 of the morning and of her great tempera- 
 mental lightheartedness, she appointed her 
 destiny. 
 
 But the day's duties demanded her. Pres- 
 ently she was making the round of the long 
 rooms, inspecting them with a careful busi- 
 ness-like mien. As quasi-daughter of the 
 house, she was wont to do this for Lilian, and 
 did it now, alas, for Lilian. Such a reflection 
 evoked by poor commonplace acts could shake 
 her mightily, and blind her eyes with a mist 
 of sudden tears which she jealously concealed 
 and controlled. Yet before that long, solemn, 
 strange shape that was not Lilian, she could 
 stand tearless, at moments moved indeed by 
 a mysterious awe, yet oftener destitute of all 
 emotion, as if her heart were benumbed.
 
 The Garden of Eden 47 
 
 Still worse, and for this she reproached her- 
 self with deep distress, her mind there in the 
 audience chamber of death could obstinately 
 dwell upon some foolish thing unmeet, she 
 deemed, to enter these chill precincts. 
 
 "Dearest Lilian," she implored humbly 
 many times that day, " forgive me that I can- 
 not mourn aright. You know that I loved 
 you. You know I shall always love you. I 
 cannot tell why I am not prostrate with grief. 
 I suffered when you suffered. Now you are 
 at rest, I am calm. But I love you dearly, 
 Lilian, even if I am cold and strange." 
 
 Cold and strange, the ubiquitous cousins 
 gliding about in new crepe trains, and weep- 
 ing solicitously behind handkerchiefs bordered 
 with one inch of anguish, unanimously pro- 
 nounced her. They were, they regretted to 
 say, unfavorably impressed with Miss Ran- 
 dolph. Since she was not, after all, of the 
 family, she gave herself, they thought, impor- 
 tant airs. In this respect they may have 
 been not altogether wide of the mark. 
 
 Monica on her tour of inspection ap- 
 proached Lilian's grand piano, closed, mute, 
 weighed down by sad trophies, a mound of 
 tuberoses, camellias and palms. Lifting the 
 plush cover, the girl touched with lingering
 
 48 The Garden of Eden 
 
 caress the swelling flank of the dumb in- 
 strument, once so informed with soulful life 
 when, in the twilights of blessed years, 
 Lilian, calm, powerful, with large, supple 
 hands, commanded all harmonies, invoked 
 and revealed the spirits of the masters. In 
 the magisterial arm-chair at the left, Judge 
 Trevor, to whom Beethoven was a dead lan- 
 guage, all music but an indifferent noise, 
 used, whether friends were present or not, to 
 hold out manfully, tenacious, sedate and 
 suave to the last chords. Thirty years' differ- 
 ence in their ages; yet what pair of young 
 lovers could compare with them in mutual 
 deference, devotion and subtle sympathy ! To 
 watch their intercourse was a liberal educa- 
 tion. Ah, the memories ! The familiar, life- 
 less things that lifted up voices and wept ! 
 There were the vases they always filled with 
 goldenrod after easy summer drives along 
 interminable wood roads. Even the grinning 
 pagodas, the trifles in ivory, silver, and shell 
 spoke with tongues, told tales of grace and 
 goodness, recalled some apt word, some droll 
 fancy. For instance, that little Japanese 
 paper-knife Monica was regarding it fondly, 
 but hearing a rustle, put it down and passed 
 on.
 
 The Garden of Eden 49 
 
 In that great dining-room with its old and 
 handsome appointments, she had had her 
 place every Sunday evening since she was a 
 little thing and on every week-day when 
 her mother did not enter protest. What 
 could they have wanted of the crude young 
 girl, and how boundless their indulgence ! 
 What had she not heard there! Merely to 
 look at Lilian, perfect and happy hostess, 
 placed a timid soul at ease. Beyond pretti- 
 ness, far more than fascinating, with the 
 pale, irregular, rugged face, the rich voice, 
 the large kind smile, the eloquent hands 
 men loved to talk with her, for she never 
 reminded them that she was cleverer than 
 they. Yet, whatever was under discussion at 
 those bright dinners, books, pictures, poli- 
 tics, law, human problems, her completing 
 final word, whether wise or witty or gracious 
 or profoundly kind, was as indispensable as 
 the keystone to the arch. -Oh, the laughter! 
 The laughter! O, sweet, wise Lilian, large 
 of brain, large of heart what you were can- 
 not die. What you were, you are, in our 
 hearts as in the larger life that wonderful 
 new land where you are gone. 
 
 Monica leaned on a high carved chair, and 
 there was heartbreak in her smile. But 
 4
 
 50 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Cousin Sarah coming in noiselessly, and hav- 
 ing no key to it, misinterpreted it woefully, 
 while Monica stiffened and passed on; for she 
 had not yet learned to be merciful to bores and 
 prying fussy folk. 
 
 In Lilian's corner of the library, Monica 
 sat down in a low chair, stared stolidly at the 
 pile of soft-hued silk pillows, and here the 
 dreary sense of personal loss, often strangely 
 absent, seized her suddenly with force. The 
 room had the sacredness of a confessional; 
 Monica's priest, year after year, had been 
 that older friend to whom nothing was worth- 
 less that the child chattered, and, as the years 
 went on, the girl and woman thought and 
 dreamed. 
 
 The doors opened on the broad veranda: 
 the generous sunny garden slope, where 
 Lilian used to mother her roses like children, 
 and know if one among thousands drooped 
 and hung its head; the massive oaks standing 
 guard ; the vistas of flashing water and sum- 
 mer sky ; breaths from the flowers, breaths from 
 the bay; the serried ranks of books gravely 
 listening; and on the cushions the waxen face 
 gleaming with intelligence and goodness. 
 
 In this corner Monica had first heard of 
 Keith. Vaguely, delicately, with infinite
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 5 1 
 
 indulgence, Lilian told a tale indistinct, 
 mysterious in outline, clouded by the girl's 
 ignorance of life, and of foreign detail. But 
 the story haunted and thrilled Monica, and 
 Keith Lowell, before he ever approached the 
 town, before she ever dreamed of seeing the 
 man face to face, loomed, in her imagination, 
 like some antique figure of expiation: some 
 strong, sad soul shadowy Prometheus 
 like. 
 
 It was a year ago that Lilian, lying on 
 those pillows where she lay more and more, 
 asked Monica simply if she would come and 
 help her and Pater bear the illness. If things 
 should go tolerably well they would read some 
 good books and play Schumann symphonies 
 and study all the Wagner Leitmotive be- 
 sides, she 'd got a lot of charming new things 
 of Grieg and Rubinstein and they 'd have 
 bright people to dinner, and a nice sort of 
 winter although quiet; and if things should 
 go the other way, and it seemed they might, 
 she added, in a bright, calm parenthesis 
 she 'd had some swoons or something rather 
 uncanny would Monica stay with her to the 
 last. She added, Mrs. Randolph had, with 
 splendid unselfishness, approved the plan, 
 and Monica should see her mother every day.
 
 52 The Garden of Eden 
 
 The year was over, and this was the day of 
 Lilian's funeral. 
 
 Monica rose and rearranged the pretty sofa 
 pillows, and some part of her brain was care- 
 ful as to the gradation of color. 
 
 All that was happening in the dear old 
 house seemed a wrong to Lilian. She had 
 made her home harmonious as was her life. 
 Even the terrible illness she kept in abey- 
 ance as long as her bright spirit was in com- 
 mand. The sure knowledge of her doom she 
 had borne with complete absence of pose, 
 spoke little of bodily infirmities, and never 
 otherwise than with a certain negligent grace, 
 a benevolent euphuism, knowing, unerringly, 
 the others would suffer less poignantly while 
 she had strength to smile. One afternoon 
 six months ago, they had propped her up in 
 her bed at her request, brought her jewels, 
 trinkets and other personal effects, to which 
 she attached some sentimental worth, and 
 noted her wishes concerning them. Lilian 
 presided with a gentle air of doing the honors 
 as at one of her own dinners. Judge Trevor, 
 equally tranquil and courteous, alert to meet 
 her commands; she, Monica, at first startled 
 and distressed, but constrained by their seren- 
 ity, finally fetching box and vase in matter-
 
 The Garden of Eden 53 
 
 of-fact obedience, taking part in the discussion 
 even smiling at Lilian's droll reminiscences 
 and at Pater's mildly sardonic comment. 
 
 " Thanks, it has been very pleasant, it has 
 amused me," she said cordially. Then she 
 and he, hand in hand, placid, silent, sat wait- 
 ing waiting while Monica, strangely up- 
 lifted, yet with turbulent heart, fled to the 
 garden to revere them, to question and rebel. 
 
 Now she asked herself why people should 
 draw down their mouths for Lilian who never 
 once had drawn down her mouth for herself? 
 Why all the ghastly black mummery, the 
 voices and heavy tread of strange men, the 
 rank odors of disinfectants? Even the mes- 
 senger boys with flowers felt it incumbent to 
 thrust before their grinning faces the sudden 
 tragic mask. 
 
 Was this the best we could do, the 
 noblest, the tenderest? How had the whole 
 perfunctory procedure changed since that wise 
 protest in the sixteenth century? The fear- 
 ful looks and astonishing countenances, the 
 visitation of dismayed and swooning friends, 
 the pale-looking, distracted, and whining 
 servants. 
 
 But the large funeral, conducted with all 
 the hopeless, cumbersome rites and circum-
 
 54 The Garden of Eden 
 
 stantial torture with which the thing we call 
 civilization at the close of the nineteenth 
 century encompasses the beloved dead and 
 exhausts weary mourners, wore to a close. 
 Judge Trevor and Monica took that slow, sad 
 drive together silent and calm except 
 once, when the girl was moved with nameless 
 compassion, because the old gentleman, shiv- 
 ering under his furs, small as an emaciated 
 child, leaned from his corner to adjust a rug 
 which had fallen from her knees.
 
 The Garden of Eden 55 
 
 III 
 
 MONICA leaned back, heard as if far away the 
 crackling of the wood fire, the simmering of 
 the tea-kettle, and the gentle movements of her 
 mother's hands among the cups and saucers. 
 The very peace of the familiar surroundings 
 served to accentuate the official dreariness and 
 lugubrious bustle of the scenes she had but 
 left. In this present restfulness, her heart be- 
 gan to mourn for Lilian simply, intensely; at 
 the same time she experienced a physical sen- 
 sation of sinking sinking into bottomless 
 depths, and closed her eyes most wearily with 
 a desolate sigh, for before this good mother no 
 mask was needed, no proud control, no stern 
 repression of stray emotions. 
 
 " Drink your tea, dear." Hearing the cordial 
 voice full of tender authority, the tired girl 
 vaguely recognized after the fatigue of much 
 soul-conflict the enfolding sweetness of the 
 tutelage which this fair, strong mother had 
 never quite abdicated. 
 
 " It is ghastly business a funeral," Monica 
 said faintly.
 
 56 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " It is harrowing, certainly," returned the 
 sensible voice ; " but you would not have them 
 dance." 
 
 " No, but I 'd have it calm, sweet sure and 
 self-composed, like Lilian herself beautiful 
 with flowers, noble with real music, not dese- 
 crated by cheap hymns, different, quite dif- 
 ferent," she murmured, her eyes closed. 
 
 " Doubtless it will be different and better 
 some day," Mrs. Randolph rejoined easily; 
 " but that we must leave to Church and State, 
 I suppose. Meanwhile " 
 
 Monica sat up quickly, and looked at her 
 mother. That soft " meanwhile " was eloquent 
 in incompleteness. 
 
 " Drink your cup out, Monica, and let me 
 give you some more tea," Mrs. Randolph 
 urged, "and eat a little, dear. After one be- 
 gins, it is not so difficult Mary made the cake 
 specially for you. Or a sandwich? They are 
 so very light. These, here, are chicken." 
 
 Monica complied mechanically, her ques- 
 tioning eyes still on her mother. Each gazed 
 at the other as at herself in a mirror, or as at 
 the loved features of a sister, so close was the 
 resemblance between mother and child. Close, 
 too, sisterly and satisfying was their compan- 
 ionship, unclouded ever save for the present
 
 The Garden of Eden 57 
 
 portentous shadow. They had the same deep 
 blue, emotional eyes in faces otherwise calm, 
 in which was no suggestion of pessimism, noth- 
 ing fin de stecle or neurotic. They were fair, 
 strong, tall women, by nature blithe of spirit, 
 warm of heart, and had loving, very human 
 mouths, such as Murillo gives his long proces- 
 sion of beatific and comely and comfortable- 
 looking saints in St. Clara's dying vision. 
 Contemplating the other's most dear and famil- 
 iar countenance, the soft lines grew a bit firmer, 
 for each knew the time was now come for the 
 long-deferred but inevitable battle royal. Mrs. 
 Randolph drew her chair nearer the fire, and 
 sat down. Monica steadied herself. 
 
 " How has our dear old judge borne the 
 day? " 
 
 " Well, I think. One cannot tell, he is so 
 uncomplaining. After all, what is to-day, 
 hideous as it is, in comparison with all the 
 other days? " 
 
 " Little indeed, yet infinitely mournful, be- 
 cause the end." 
 
 Monica shuddered. 
 
 " Are you too tired to talk with me, dear, 
 this evening? Would you rather wait till to- 
 morrow?" 
 
 " Certainly not, mamma I am not so very
 
 58 The Garden of Eden 
 
 tired, not physically tired, that is and wait- 
 ing will help neither of us," she added sadly. 
 
 After another long pause, Mrs. Randolph 
 began : 
 
 " There is much unsaid between us, Monica." 
 
 " Not unsaid, because you were too good : 
 said once : but not resaid in these last months," 
 sighed the girl, hardly above her breath. 
 
 The mother gave her one rapid, pitiful 
 glance, stared anew at the fire, and asked, with 
 great mildness : 
 
 " How have you planned your future, Mo- 
 nica? I mean the immediate future." 
 
 " I have planned nothing, mamma. I have 
 had no time," the girl answered pleadingly, 
 startled to hear from her mother's lips the echo 
 of her lover's words. 
 
 " Yes, dear. I know you are still living in 
 the midst of sorrow and excitement. You have 
 not consciously made definite plans for the 
 morrow. But vaguely, involuntarily, you must 
 have pictured your course. Dear Lilian's mar- 
 tyrdom is over." 
 
 " Thank God ! " murmured Monica passion- 
 ately. 
 
 " Thank God ! " repeated Mrs. Randolph. 
 " But this changes everything and it breaks 
 my silence. I could not speak when you were
 
 The Garden of Eden 59 
 
 bound, and had such worlds of care on your 
 young shoulders. I thought you had heart- 
 ache enough, dear. But you have held out 
 bravely the whole long year of bondage," she 
 added with a quick glance of pride. "You 
 have been a wonderful friend ready to lay 
 down your life for Lilian, and ' greater love 
 hath no man than this.' It is much of your 
 life that you have given her, if the truth were 
 known but then you have more life to give 
 than most." Forgetting her theme, she looked 
 fondly at her child, exulting in her, idolizing 
 her beyond measure and reason. 
 
 Monica listened motionless and silent. 
 What had she ever given Lilian, weighed 
 against Lilian's incomparable sweetness to her? 
 What was the poor little futile year of service, 
 doomed to failure from the start the year 
 that could not save the dear one from one 
 pang, or ward off one single disaster of the 
 many that, hovering long, descended at last to 
 blight and kill? Strange, fateful year in which 
 brain and hand had worked their staunchest, 
 and the heart, thrilled and swayed by alternate 
 sorrow and love, and struggling in each in- 
 stance in a distinctly lost cause, had yet dared 
 to know great gleams of gladness. But all 
 was over. Lilian and the year were dead.
 
 60 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Keith said it last night in the arbor. His 
 thoughts were her mother's thoughts ; his anx- 
 iety hers. But why would they not leave 
 things to arrange themselves ; why not drift a 
 little, and rest and be still? since what was 
 infinitely dear must suffer and die miserably, 
 and what was high and beyond all dreaming 
 lovely was forbidden and called sin. Heart- 
 sick, oppressed, Monica waited. 
 
 After the brief outburst of maternal com- 
 placency Mrs. Randolph resumed quietly, with 
 a determined air of knowing well and meaning 
 to speak without subterfuge or circumlocution, 
 the text which she had traced with her heart's 
 blood and painfully conned in bitter hours. 
 
 " Monica, you know how it was when Lilian 
 begged me to let you come to her. I thought 
 it would occupy you, monopolize you divert 
 your mind from Dr. Lowell in short, be your 
 safeguard rescue you. So I gave my con- 
 sent eagerly and you promised, with my 
 sanction, to stay to the end, whatever should 
 come. I thought you were in a safe haven. 
 Seeking the best for you, I did the worst. I 
 could not foresee Judge Trevor would summon 
 Dr. Lowell in consultation with Dr. Irwin." 
 
 " No one foresaw that, mamma." 
 
 " It broke my heart anew. I have not had
 
 The Garden of Eden 61 
 
 one moment's peace since. I could not bear 
 the thought of those daily meetings. But I 
 recognized that it was inevitable. Neither 
 you nor I could retract. We had given our 
 word." 
 
 " Mother, you have been generous ! Never 
 think I do not know that." 
 
 " Besides," continued the mother with her 
 large air of retrospection and fidelity to every 
 point in her long premeditated argument, " the 
 exigencies of that horrible illness and your 
 lifelong devotion to Lilian legitimized to the 
 world your presence in that house even if they 
 could never to me sanctify certain aspects of 
 the situation. I could not blame you for being 
 at your post. I endured and was silent. But 
 it is over all the good you did: all the rest 
 that was not good. What are you going to do 
 now, Monica? " 
 
 Monica shook her head. 
 
 " I don't know, mamma." 
 
 " ' I don't know ' is imbecile," retorted Mrs. 
 Randolph with well-tempered urbanity. " It is 
 your duty to know. It is your duty to think. 
 We are not here in this world to drift like sea- 
 weed. Whatever intelligence we have, it is our 
 duty to drive to the utmost. It is not like you 
 to shirk responsibility, Monica. You were not
 
 62 The Garden of Eden 
 
 cowardly once when your conscience was 
 clear." 
 
 " My conscience reproaches me for nothing, 
 mamma, and if I am cowardly of speech it is 
 because I dread to hurt you, and be hurt my- 
 self and we always hurt each other, you 
 know, dear, when we speak of this." 
 
 Mrs. Randolph sighed assent. 
 
 " But it is not words that hurt most. What 
 are they to the situation itself, that leaves me 
 no peace by day or by night? " 
 
 " I know, dear," Monica agreed regretfully. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph poured out some tea, drank 
 it and reflected it was difficult to make head- 
 way with Monica, who appeared to sym- 
 pathetically deplore the distress she was 
 involuntarily causing, yet to retain a great 
 pagan unconsciousness of moral wrong. 
 
 " When did you see Dr. Lowell last?" 
 
 " I gave him my hand silently one instant in 
 the hall to-day as he came in and I passed out, 
 and I met him by appointment last night late, 
 in the garden." 
 
 " A rendezvous ! While Lilian lay dead ! " 
 
 " I could do no more for her," Monica re- 
 plied gently. " You have said yourself you 
 think I did what I could. Lilian did not mind 
 my seeing him now and then. Pater, too,
 
 The Garden of Eden 63 
 
 knew very well. It was not often at best. So 
 I think it was no disloyalty to Lilian that I 
 spoke with him alone last night after so 
 long " 
 
 " Disloyalty to her, no," said the mother. 
 
 " Besides, Lilian understood ! " 
 
 " That is the incredible feature of the whole 
 relationship, Monica. You undermine people's 
 principles. Something in you makes them 
 condone what they ought to condemn." 
 
 " In him, in him ! " Monica exclaimed jubi- 
 lantly. " Lilian loved him." 
 
 " Personal charm cannot make wrong right," 
 the mother declared stoutly. 
 
 " But you love him too. You cannot help 
 it," persisted Monica, with a smile of triumph. 
 " You trust him." 
 
 " Oh, he is not ill looking I grant you, 
 not unsympathetic not dull " 
 
 "Ah, mamma! " pleaded Monica with love- 
 light in her eyes. 
 
 " I do like him. In a certain sense I do 
 trust him," the mother rejoined gravely. 
 " My gnawing anxiety might be a degree 
 worse if, in addition to everything else, I had 
 to think him a scoundrel. I admit he is lov- 
 able, handsome, a fine, tall, strong, young 
 fellow, fascinating, if you will, to girls from
 
 64 The Garden of Eden 
 
 the sadness of his romantic story. And I am 
 sorry for him, exceedingly sorry. It is all very 
 deplorable at his age." 
 
 She spoke with gentle emphasis and paused, 
 desiring to make her fine restraint and justice 
 obvious to Monica, who was smiling brilliantly. 
 
 " I will go farther. I will admit that once 
 when I saw you two standing together in this 
 room I even thought, if he were a free man, 
 how I would welcome him. Can I say more? 
 It is wrong indeed to say as much. But he is 
 not a free man. He has made his bed and he 
 must lie on it. And if he were a God," she 
 broke out impetuously, " I should not thank 
 him for what he has done to you, to us. For 
 it is a grievous wrong. Perhaps he could not 
 help loving you. I do not know. There 's 
 much a man can help if he will. But he need 
 not have let you love him. He need not have 
 come so dangerously far into your fair life." 
 
 "Ah when, in what, was he ever at fault 
 toward me ? Fate sent him." 
 
 " Oh yes ! Fate ! Fate is the scapegoat for 
 all human weakness and guilt ! " 
 
 " Mother, I beg you to remember " said 
 Monica, solemn, passionate, warning. 
 
 " I remember well. I remember nothing 
 else," returned her mother grimly.
 
 The Garden of Eden 65 
 
 " For myself I make no excuse," Monica 
 continued. " What is come was to come. I 
 will not say it might not have burst upon me 
 in a drawing-room amid people and laughter 
 and lightness, for true love may prevail even 
 there. I will not say what I might have done 
 had I found myself creating misery in a home, 
 consciously interposing between man and wife, 
 drawing off tenderness from its rightful chan- 
 nel. I hope, had it been thus, I should not 
 have proved ungenerous. But how shall 
 I dare to arrogate strength having known 
 Keith? For having known Keith never 
 while I live can I condemn any woman for 
 anything she may do for love's sake." 
 
 Her mother groaned aloud as if in intoler- 
 able physical pain. 
 
 " But it was not thus. There was no home. 
 There was no tenderness. I intruded upon no 
 intimacy, came between no two souls. I saw 
 but one, a strong lonely man, free as air, ex- 
 cept in name. In sorrow and bitterness we 
 two found each other. Mother, it is fair to 
 remember ! " 
 
 " I remember. Never fear." 
 
 "Did he seek me? He avoided me. Was 
 he not innocent, remote from us? You fell 
 and broke your arm. Why was Dr. Irwin 
 5
 
 66 The Garden of Eden 
 
 out of town in consultation? Could Keith 
 help it that they brought him to you? Was 
 he, was I, to blame that when he crossed 
 the threshold we looked, wondering, in each 
 other's eyes and it was then, then that 
 he came into my life " 
 
 " You are to blame. You and he, for loving 
 when loving is sin." 
 
 " Oh, mother dear ! The hard word. Can 
 any loving that ever was be sin? " 
 
 " Monica! " 
 
 " I do not know. I merely ask," the girl 
 said softly. 
 
 " A married man ! Once you would have 
 had only horror at the thought." 
 
 " I know, dear. But his coming " 
 
 " Blinded you, my poor erring child." 
 
 " No, no," she exclaimed with a rapt smile, 
 " no, mother darling. It was sudden, wonder- 
 ful but it was mighty, and I saw! It was 
 as if we two had been separated and refound 
 each other. As we worked over you, he giv- 
 ing his quiet orders, I obeying, I hardly 
 needed words : I obeyed his grave eyes : I 
 knew them. It was as if we had been like 
 that, we three, ages upon ages ago." 
 
 " Oh yes," rejoined Mrs. Randolph with ex- 
 citement, " I saw it, felt it all. I admit there
 
 The Garden of Eden 67 
 
 was a strange magnetism in the air that night. 
 Despite pain and chloroform I was not too 
 dull to perceive it thrilling your faces, your 
 low voices, your ministering hands, but my 
 girl should have resisted it, because it was 
 evil." 
 
 " Never evil, mother, and no more to be 
 resisted than birth or death ! But when I was 
 alone I fought hard. All night long I wrestled 
 with my angel. My traditions preached one 
 thing, life revealed another. I thought but 
 quite remorselessly, with my coolest brain, you 
 know I was a lost soul, wicked like all I 
 had been taught to loathe. I saw myself 
 walking the streets like poor Hester Prynne 
 with a scarlet letter on my breast. I tried to 
 abhor myself. Through the long hours the 
 old and the new struggled for victory. And 
 the strange thing was, while my head was pro- 
 claiming This is sin This is sin ! my heart 
 held itself aloof, did not feel sinful, feared not 
 at all, trembled with joy recalling the face of 
 the man. As if an idle voice called empty 
 words unheeded from a frozen mountain peak, 
 while in the low, warm valley all was joy. Yet 
 something in me was appalled that I could 
 not realize my wickedness and feel as I 
 had been taught to feel. Finally out of the
 
 68 The Garden of Eden 
 
 tumult I extracted this idea: either I am 
 depraved, or I am good. If I was good yes- 
 terday, as all the world and I myself thought, 
 then what I did not seek, what burst upon me 
 like a great 
 
 " Disaster ! " 
 
 " Like a great glory cannot make me in 
 myself another person, cannot in itself be a 
 crime. So gradually it was dawn before all 
 grew clear to me I reconciled the conflict- 
 ing head and heart. Since then I have never 
 wavered an instant. I do not defend every- 
 thing I have done. I know I am headstrong 
 
 impetuous and selfish yes, selfish. I 
 know I make your heart ache, mother. But 
 what is in my soul for him, that is good, that 
 is innocent. I would go to the stake for it. 
 The world may judge as it will. I will never 
 call it a sin. God who sent it knows it is no 
 sin, but good good to the core ! " 
 
 " Oh yes," retorted Mrs. Randolph, strongly 
 moved, condemning yet reluctantly sympa- 
 thizing. " You were always a little Job. Like 
 him you cry, ' I will not remove my integrity 
 from me.' But even if all you say were true 
 
 and it is not true, Monica you and Keith 
 Lowell are human precisely like everybody 
 else : there is no pellucid heavenly atmosphere
 
 The Garden of Eden 69 
 
 enveloping you and no glory: but if it were 
 true, what then? How is it to end? This, if 
 you please, we will discuss plainly, not poeti- 
 cally. The quasi-legitimation of your inti- 
 macy with Dr. Lowell is removed by Lilian's 
 death. I, your mother, condemn and oppose 
 your theories and your conduct. I will not 
 lend my protection or my house to an im- 
 moral relationship. And although you neither 
 respect my opinions nor consider my pain " 
 
 " Mother ! " 
 
 " I believe you still love me well enough 
 
 " Ah mother ! " 
 
 " To indicate your course frankly. There- 
 fore I ask you, Monica, is it your intention to 
 continue these disreputable clandestine inter- 
 views with a married man? Ah, why writhe 
 under the words if the facts are so immaculate 
 as you pretend ! I repeat, these disreputable 
 clandestine meetings which will lead you 
 and me and him to utter misery " 
 
 Monica was pale to the lips, for with her 
 mother pleaded another voice, and the Thought 
 which had slumbered began to stir. 
 
 " Yes, him too, Monica ! There can be no 
 doubt of that. You will ruin him altogether. 
 He had gathered up the fragments of his 
 broken life and was seeking manfully to go on
 
 yo The Garden of Eden 
 
 until he met you. You will wreck him in 
 the best that he has left, his profession, his 
 usefulness, his peace of mind, his last chance 
 of happiness." 
 
 Once more Monica rallied. 
 
 " Do you remember that rainy summer 
 night, more than a year ago, when you were 
 at your Club and I came home from Helen's 
 early and alone? I met him. It was pure 
 accident. He turned without one word. He 
 slipped my arm in his. We walked on, against 
 wind and rain, with fast, light, long step. We 
 were so glad we seemed to tread on air. We 
 met almost no one. At every gas lamp he 
 lowered his umbrella. We went straight out 
 to the end of the street beyond the houses. 
 There were building materials stone, a great 
 irregular pile of planks. The upper ones pro- 
 jected. He found a place just large enough. 
 There we sat sheltered, the rain pattering on 
 the wood and all around. We were as merry 
 as two runaway schoolboys, whispered absurd 
 jests mysteriously and laughed under our 
 breath, as if we feared to wake some one. 
 But not a soul was near. He told me stories 
 of his boyhood and of his student life abroad. 
 Oh the smell of the moist earth the smell of 
 the pine the rain dripping heavily the
 
 The Garden of Eden 7 1 
 
 world forgotten he very near ! Mother, 
 was that iniquitous?" 
 
 From the depths of the great loving mother 
 heart compassion and tenderness shot up with 
 force and gleamed and wavered across the fair 
 troubled face : nay, more : the unwilling tribute 
 of subtle comprehension and dangerous sym- 
 pathy the woman was rendering to the woman. 
 Hence, to the girl's piteous appeal Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph replied with aggressive coolness : 
 
 " Monica, what if all the girls of your set 
 should follow your example and each sit on a 
 pile of planks in the rain on terms of closest 
 intimacy with a married man? Would you 
 consider this a proof of a fine moral sense in 
 the community?" 
 
 " Quite as much so at least," retorted Monica 
 hotly, " as when Kitty says, ' I cannot bear 
 him to touch me, and when he laughs I simply 
 hate him. But I cheer myself on with the 
 thought of his beautiful bank account.' " 
 
 " Kitty is a silly little thing, and chatters 
 without rhyme or reason : which by no means 
 proves that, once married, she will not be a 
 happy and affectionate wife. But in any event 
 I think you, Monica, have forfeited your right 
 to criticise Kitty's conduct." 
 
 Monica clutched at a straw.
 
 72 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " You say once married, mamma. Is that 
 a charm once married? Look at the mar- 
 ried ones. Take every family on this street. 
 Look at their bored faces when they are walk- 
 ing together. Is it moral to live together 
 under one roof but worlds apart in sentiment? 
 To loathe their chains, quarrel, and yet, merely 
 because they mistook their sentiments twenty 
 years ago, to continue the sordid, cowardly, 
 hypocritical relationship and without love 
 bring children into the world. Except Pater 
 and Lilian I never knew a happy marriage." 
 
 " Mature people," returned Mrs. Randolph 
 calmly, " have many cares and perplexities. 
 Life brings differences of opinion and often 
 builds a crust round the heart. But below it 
 a man and his wife may love each other very 
 truly all the same without adventures or 
 rhapsodies. But," facing Monica with sud- 
 den intensity of expression, " if, as you assert, 
 marriage is a failure, how do you account for 
 it?" 
 
 " Because people do not really love," an- 
 swered the girl innocently. 
 
 " Ah, no, no ! " cried the mother with cool 
 intelligence pushing her advantage, " because 
 they change, Monica. The most of our neigh- 
 bors that seem to you to-day so prosaic, so
 
 The Garden of Eden 73 
 
 unsatisfied and unsatisfying, have had their 
 brief bright season of romantic love. But 
 ideals change theirs, yours and mine. Sen- 
 timents, even religion, you yourself do not 
 believe what you believed ten, nay, five years 
 ago. You, too, change, you see. You, too, 
 must change. The great ardor and exaltation 
 that never lasts. It is not meant it should. 
 And you are so thoughtful, so reasonable, 
 Monica, this must teach you, must convince 
 you incontrovertibly that one cannot sacrifice 
 everything name fame friends hap- 
 piness to that fleeting mirage, an illicit 
 love. 
 
 "Yes, illicit," she repeated firmly, in reply 
 to Monica's mute protest. " What God has 
 joined together, let no man put asunder. That 
 is my creed. You look at me with question- 
 ing eyes but the divorce was wrong. I have 
 known that for years. I ought to have borne 
 everything without complaint. Marriage, any 
 marriage, the most thoughtless, the most ill- 
 matched and unhappy is a promise before 
 God. No one can break that promise with 
 impunity. Whoever reaches out with perverse, 
 greedy hand to grasp what has been sacredly 
 sealed to a fellow creature, does a deed ac- 
 cursed of God and man."
 
 74 The Garden of Eden 
 
 In the soft, womanly presence of the mother 
 battling with her beloved child for that child's 
 weal two mighty foes in truth in the field, 
 mother love and the love of man and woman 
 a stern intrepid Hebrew strain appeared, a 
 touch of the high austerity of some old Puritan 
 ancestor. 
 
 " Monica, in spite of your modern notions, I 
 know you still believe in Christ." 
 
 " In the divine element in Christ and in 
 us all," the girl murmured. 
 
 " Christ said : Whoso looketh on a woman 
 to lust after her hath committed adultery with 
 her already in his heart." 
 
 " Oh, mother, mother," cried Monica despe- 
 rately, moving her head slowly from side to 
 side vaguely seeking help " be merciful, 
 it is all so terrible." 
 
 She covered her face with her hands. Mrs. 
 Randolph leaned back in silence. There was 
 a brief armistice. Both were weary and op- 
 pressed. Each dreaded to go on. Suddenly 
 Monica said low, as if thinking aloud : 
 
 " Perhaps Christ never said it. Or at least 
 perhaps he never said it quite like that. They 
 are always disputing about translations. And 
 if he did if he did " 
 
 "Well?"
 
 The Garden of Eden 75 
 
 " Perhaps he meant it otherwise for is it 
 true? Is there no difference between resisting 
 temptation and yielding to it? If a man wants 
 to strike a murderous blow and restrains him- 
 self has he committed murder in his heart? 
 But his heart has saved a life. If a hungry 
 man wants to steal and does not, is he a thief? 
 I should think him a very honest man. It 
 must be a false translation, mamma. But 
 how foolish I am to mind words, knowing 
 Keith ! " 
 
 Her mother made a grave deprecating ges- 
 ture and remained silent. For the plenary 
 inspiration of the Bible she was ever ready to 
 break a lance, but not this night. 
 
 " It is all so futile, mamma dear," Monica 
 went on, deadly pale and with effort. " Let 
 us not argue any more, you and I. I cannot 
 change you. You cannot change me at 
 least, not in these things. But if you would 
 not speak of Keith as if he were a criminal 
 when he has been all nobleness from first to 
 last, and if you would not require me to think 
 what I cannot think, if you will simply tell me 
 what you believe would help us us three 
 how you have planned my future I will listen, 
 I will try to be reasonable." 
 
 " Recall Major Lynton."
 
 j6 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " Because I love one man, marry another? " 
 
 " Because one man exerts a perilous fasci- 
 nation over you, seek refuge in the devotion 
 of another, one of the best of men." 
 
 " He would not want me if he knew." 
 
 " He does know approximately, and he does 
 want you. He is far too much a man of the 
 world not to make allowances for a girl's 
 romance." 
 
 " I cannot, mother," said Monica drearily, 
 for the Thought was facing her, large and 
 ominous. 
 
 " Monica, darling Monica, for my sake ! I 
 have never forced you in any inclination what- 
 ever, though so many good men have come 
 and have been sent away, and I have won- 
 dered that you could be so cold." 
 
 " I am sorry, dear. I could not help it." 
 
 " Men of intellect, of wealth and high posi- 
 tion, who could give you all you could wish 
 all you deserve " 
 
 " I did not love them, mother." 
 
 " There are several who would return with 
 but half a word from you, and you would be 
 safe and I at peace. Is there not one whom 
 you like? " 
 
 " Not one whom I love." 
 
 " No girl in town except yourself would
 
 The Garden of Eden 77 
 
 refuse Major Lynton. His distinction his 
 charm his great goodness of heart " 
 
 " Yes, yes. He is nice, I know, but even 
 then it would have been detestable to marry 
 him merely out of a prudent regard for my 
 future interests and now, it would be black- 
 est crime Oh," she cried, flaming up sud- 
 denly, " why must we women be punished for 
 what is best in us? And what is any love 
 worth that counts cost and faints when things 
 are hard, when they exclude comfort, social 
 approval, even possession marriage and 
 the beloved companionship ! Surely if love 
 be pure, it is self-abandonment." 
 
 " Self-abandonment," returned the mother 
 impressively, " it is a noble word. But why 
 must it always mean following one's instincts 
 in all that is pleasurable and seductive? Why 
 should there not be self-abandonment in duty 
 plain duty? " 
 
 Monica trembled, for the Thought over- 
 shadowed her. Mother and child stared com- 
 fortless at each other. 
 
 " Can you think of no other way but Major 
 Lynton? " Monica asked feebly. 
 
 " None unless unless I beg Dr. Lowell 
 to leave town. He would not refuse me," 
 she added with dignity, " but " she hesitated
 
 7 8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 troubled, solicitous, considering his inter- 
 ests in her heart, fond of the man. 
 
 Monica thanked her with a mute wan smile. 
 The girl was exhausted, almost vanquished, 
 but oh the wonder! her hope, poor 
 bruished, crushed, brave thing! was breath- 
 ing still. 
 
 Again a long silence while their troubled 
 spirits, like the shade of Sisyphus, worked on 
 unceasingly and rolled up in the gloom the 
 huge ever-rebounding stone. 
 
 The mother-love girded itself for its last 
 charge. Clear and insistent sounded its open- 
 ing bugle-note. 
 
 " Monica, have I been a good mother to 
 you?" 
 
 Mournful and sweet was the answer : 
 
 "Never was one so dear so devoted 
 so selfless " 
 
 " Then give up this infatuation, which is 
 breaking my heart. Give it up and let us be 
 at peace again, as we were before he came. 
 I tremble every instant for you, my child, and 
 I suffer from the struggle between us. My 
 own dear daughter, were we two ever meant 
 to quarrel? And there are other ways that I 
 suffer Monica you know I have never liked 
 to speak much to you of your father. It did
 
 The Garden of Eden 79 
 
 not seem right, but now it is time. You have 
 heard how we met, but not all. I was seven- 
 teen, he, a fiery wooer. Your grandfather 
 would have nothing to say to him, forbade 
 him the house and told me never to speak 
 to the dissolute scamp. Of course it is not 
 proper a very young girl should know what 
 dissolute means, but had I suspected, much 
 agony might have been spared me. Then he 
 stood under my window, and made melan- 
 choly black eyes at me wherever I went, and 
 wrote letters threatening to blow his brains 
 out. They never blow their brains out, 
 Monica. But I was an idiot and believed 
 him. I was romantic like you, dear, I fear it 
 is in the blood. He was handsome and bold, 
 and your grandfather's frostiness piqued him 
 and roused his obstinacy. And I was fascin- 
 ated, helpless, and flattered to the melting 
 point, for all my girl friends knew I had a 
 tall lover with a sweeping moustache. My 
 mother was dear and good, but rather distant 
 with her children. We never thought of con- 
 fiding in her. I was freer with my father; 
 his pet child, and it nearly broke his heart 
 that I made a runaway match and brought 
 disgrace upon our good old name. And if 
 you ask me, Monica, this night, why I did him
 
 8o The Garden of Eden 
 
 and us all that wrong, I can only say, I do 
 not know, I was vain, bewildered, dazzled, in 
 a fever of excitement, but I never loved 
 the man. A few weeks, a few days indeed, 
 were sufficient to reveal to me what he was 
 I will not speak hard words of him to you. 
 Of what use? That time is so far away and 
 he is so long dead. There is no more hard- 
 ness in my heart toward him. But it was a 
 time of misery and shame. Your grandfather 
 came and took me home. The divorce fol- 
 lowed. But that should never have been. I 
 felt so outraged I demanded my freedom, but 
 I was wrong. I see it now clearly. After my 
 sin I should have borne my punishment with 
 patience." 
 
 " A child of seventeen ! " said Monica, 
 tenderly, incredulously. 
 
 " I was old enough to be honorable and to 
 do my duty. Yet I ran away disgracefully. 
 I was old enough to know that marriage is 
 sacred, yet merely because I was wretched 
 and insulted, I escaped from my bond. I 
 did all these things. But I have been pun- 
 ished. I have suffered. There is always a 
 stigma attached to a woman divorced." 
 
 " But that is cruel barbarous. There is 
 no sense in that," protested Monica.
 
 The Garden of Eden 8 1 
 
 " It is a fact, nevertheless. Some have not 
 scrupled to let me feel this. Of course your 
 grandfather's name our position was too 
 secure to be shaken, yet my past lives on like 
 an open wound and I quiver when it is 
 touched. So it has been all these years." 
 
 " Dearest mamma ! " sighed Monica. 
 
 " But I had you, only you, and I lived for 
 you. You were my blessing, my comfort for 
 all I had forfeited and foregone. For other 
 men came, Monica, and one beloved friend 
 revealed to me my lost Paradise it was 
 bitter but in the sight of God I was a 
 married woman still. He helped me to resist 
 to endure to stand alone, yet not alone. 
 For you were with me. Until two years 
 ago you never gave me an hour's pain, 
 except indeed when you were little my 
 haunting fear that you would be taken from 
 me in punishment for my sins." 
 
 " Oh, mamma, my poor little mamma 
 so good, so innocent so dear ! " 
 
 "But you were always strong and happy, 
 and as the years went by I began to think 
 God had forgiven me. I was so proud, so 
 sure of you. You seemed of yourself to do 
 what was wise and right. Petty things that 
 other girls did had no chance with you. I was 
 6
 
 82 The Garden of Eden 
 
 proud of you as every mother is for a thou- 
 sand things, for outward gifts and graces, but 
 proudest of your fearless candor your in- 
 tegrity. Ah, I was proud of you altogether, 
 my Monica ! " 
 
 Under the hot lashing of this praise Monica 
 was cringing like a convict. 
 
 "With men you were so cool and serene. 
 I wondered much. Often, indeed, I was dis- 
 appointed. Yet I liked you to be fastidious, 
 a little haughty, not eager like a vulgar girl 
 not wax like your poor foolish mother. 
 Doubtless your constant intercourse with the 
 Trevors helped to make you independent. 
 They have been loving friends. I will not say 
 one word too much. But their ideas, which 
 you call modern and liberal, and I call mis- 
 taken well sometimes I have thought you 
 might be better off without them. Yet I did 
 not interfere. You found happiness in that 
 house. Your happiness was all I craved 
 even in the many, many hours you spent with 
 Lilian." 
 
 In Monica's face was a sudden wondering 
 recognition of a fact never before remotely 
 suspected, never even faintly revealed by the 
 mother. 
 
 "I thought," continued Mrs. Randolph,
 
 The Garden of Eden 83 
 
 " some happy day in her own good time my 
 dear daughter will marry and wipe away the 
 stain of her mother's folly and make all fair 
 again, and I waited and was patient, and this 
 was the hope of my life. 
 
 " Where is that hope to-day? It lies low in 
 the dust. There is no more gladness in my 
 heart, no more security. Where I was once 
 so proud, I am bitterly ashamed. Be sure thy 
 sin will find thee ont. Mine is finding me out 
 in what is more precious than life, my child's 
 honor. God is visiting the sins of the fathers 
 upon the children." 
 
 Monica had crept to her mother's feet. 
 Crouching, broken, shuddering, she yet raised 
 her hand in protest. 
 
 " No sin ! " she moaned, " no sin ! Not 
 in you. Not in me." 
 
 But the mother's solemn voice went on un- 
 heeding: 
 
 " The sin of my youth is finding me out. 
 My ingratitude, my treachery, my light- 
 mindedness, my cruelty to my own people. 
 And the sins of a father whose hot blood and 
 cold, shallow soul wrecked scores of women's 
 lives ah, Monica," she cried passionately, 
 " that is my most secret thought ! Now my 
 heart lies bare before you. In the long, lonely
 
 84 The Garden of Eden 
 
 nights while you have watched with your 
 dying friend, I have been on my knees wrest- 
 ling in prayer. Not this, O Lord, I have 
 prayed, not this. Let the curse fall as it will, 
 but spare my child. Do not punish me in 
 her. Keep her soul pure. Keep her life 
 white." 
 
 Close against her mother's knee, Monica's 
 drawn, haggard face was pressed. Dumb, 
 half inanimate, strangely confused she lay, but 
 one thing she knew for all time, the Thought 
 was not her foe the Thought was her friend 
 from the beginning. On her bowed head she 
 now felt her mother's hands, covering her like 
 strong, soft wings. 
 
 " I beg you, Monica, now that you know 
 all, I beg you in agony, give up this love, 
 give up this man. It is a glamour. Gain time 
 and you will see. But whether you believe 
 that or not, give him up for your mother's 
 sake for I die daily in my remorse, in my 
 horrible, horrible fear. And rather than more 
 harm than shame should come to you, I 
 would see you dead here at my feet." 
 
 The solemn voice ceased. But Monica 
 heard it still. 
 
 " I would rather see you dead," the man's 
 throbbing voice was saying in the arbor, and
 
 The Garden of Eden 85 
 
 she felt his arms holding her fast, the troubled 
 caress of breath, lips, and tears upon her 
 face, and heard the rattling shiver along the 
 vines, or was it in her heart? Which voice 
 had spoken last she hardly knew, for both 
 were pleading ceaselessly the same strain of 
 dread and self-reproach and anguish mother 
 and lover, lover and mother in woeful uni- 
 son. She pitied them so, ah God, how she 
 pitied them! stronger than her life was her 
 passionate pity for those two most dear, most 
 sorrowful ones breaking their poor hearts over 
 her. She would help them, of course. She 
 was the only one who could help. She would 
 fain tell them this for their comfort. But 
 something in her had stopped or died and 
 left a strangeness and a stillness, and speech 
 and motion seemed remote, unessential things. 
 
 " You shall not suffer so," she said at last. 
 
 Did she speak, or the Thought? 
 
 " Monica?" 
 
 " I will go away." 
 
 Surely it was the Thought that spoke. 
 
 " Monica ! " 
 
 Not asking or caring what these words, 
 more breathed than spoken, might mean, 
 knowing only the cause was won, relief un- 
 speakable and newborn hope coursing mightily
 
 86 The Garden of Eden 
 
 through her, the mother lovingly lifted the 
 drooping head up on her knee. But when she 
 saw that face, the words of thankfulness died 
 upon her lips, and swiftly she stooped and 
 gathered her stricken child to her heart.
 
 The Garden of Eden 87 
 
 IV 
 
 HANS NlLSSEN or Nils Hanssen opened 
 the port-hole. Brawny, massive, grasping 
 the port-lid with powerful fist, he warily 
 scanned the angry blackness of night and 
 ocean. But instinct and the ship's lurch 
 rather than his keen eyes told him when to 
 slam the lid against the onslaught of the next 
 wave. Sometimes he slammed it a second 
 too late, and muttered something strong, in 
 Danish. 
 
 The stream of cold pure air playing de- 
 liciously about Monica's hot head was usually 
 her first intimation of his presence. Among 
 the myriad noises emitted in pain and wrath 
 by that creaking, crunching, laboring ship, 
 the steward at her door, his step passed unob- 
 served; and in the tumultuous dimness of her 
 stateroom, where innocent raiment swung like 
 malefactors from the gibbet, one apparition 
 more or less was of no moment, and she 
 rarely perceived the broadbacked phantom at 
 the port-hole until his philanthropic mission 
 was accomplished.
 
 88 The Garden of Eden 
 
 But many times, by night and day, through 
 that rough weather, she had cause to bless 
 his gentle thought of her and his silent minis- 
 tration. Indifferent to the storm, unmindful 
 of general discomfort, persuaded as she 
 knocked about her berth, between sleeping 
 and waking with open apathetic eyes, that so 
 far as she personally was concerned it would 
 be well should the steamer never arrive in 
 port, she nevertheless most inconsequently 
 craved that life-giving breath. In short, not 
 averse to drowning, she yet objected strongly 
 to the smells and bad air pervading her swim- 
 ming prison-house, where for days waves had 
 been washing the decks, everything closed 
 tight, and passengers, whenever they ventured 
 to show their pallid inquiring countenances 
 above board, curtly ordered below. Revived 
 once more by the blessed draught, she would 
 vaguely wonder that, dead to the world as she 
 now was, she could still desire anything so 
 violently. Breathing, she reflected listlessly, 
 being a mere bodily function, there seemed a 
 certain baseness in her excessive agitation 
 upon this subject. But her good lungs, with 
 that startling obtuseness which our corporeal 
 adjuncts often manifest toward our mental 
 attitude, persisted in their unseemly rebel-
 
 The Garden of Eden 89 
 
 lion against fetid air and suffocation. When- 
 ever their clamor became almost unendurable, 
 Hans Nilssen or Nils Hanssen stole in 
 and opened the port-hole. Neither the in- 
 cidental deluge nor the dash of vigorous 
 Danish chagrin dismayed her. What, in- 
 deed, was feeble human profanity amid the 
 vast imprecations of the ship? 
 
 Hanssen or Nilssen was not, perhaps, 
 specially detailed to succor errant damsels 
 thus assiduously, but rather to meet, so far 
 as was humanly possible, the more or less 
 reasonable demands of passengers of the 
 gruffer sex. As the ladies in that quarter, 
 however, were for the most part imploring the 
 stewardess to throw them overboard, she did 
 not deign to listen to less dramatic requests. 
 So Hans or Nils who had a blonde sweet- 
 heart in Malmo, and an incredible softness in 
 his big heart toward all her like, became 
 Monica's self-appointed henchman. 
 
 He followed her with doglike eyes, hovered 
 about unobtrusively when she moved from 
 place to place, invented pretexts for serving 
 her things in her stateroom required, it 
 seemed, incessant polishing, fresher than 
 fresh" glasses had to be supplied. When she 
 would sometimes by day take refuge in her
 
 90 The Garden of Eden 
 
 berth the output of strength in bracing and 
 clinging there being rather less than in the 
 endeavor to hold herself upright and would 
 stare before her hour after hour, wanting 
 nothing except, involuntarily, her modest 
 share of the world's oxygen, apparently hear- 
 ing and seeing nothing, Hans was troubled. 
 Not thus pots tausend ! should blonde 
 maids spend their time. Once he loomed up 
 suddenly beside her, huge, shy, awkward 
 like a Brobdingnagian schoolboy extending 
 in dumb sympathy a package of ginger cakes. 
 She ate one to please him, and never knew 
 they were from his private larder and made 
 by the Malmo girl. Again, he brought her a 
 grog so hot and stiff that she choked and 
 tears ran down her cheeks when she politely 
 tried to swallow a few drops. This experi- 
 ment pleased him, and he was inclined to 
 repeat it with alarming frequency, until 
 Monica checked his zeal. It was a mute 
 language that they spoke, but they under- 
 stood each other very well, since the droop of 
 an eyelid, the motion of a finger, a silence 
 suffices for human intercourse where there is 
 sympathy. Nils, good soul, most comfortably 
 dense, doing his thinking with not the faintest 
 sense of responsibility, nevertheless, in
 
 The Garden of Eden 9 1 
 
 Monica's case, grasped the intrinsic truth, 
 and knew she had left her heart in her home- 
 country. 
 
 As for her, the time came when names, 
 faces, scenes upon that ship which bore her 
 outward presence toward unknown lands, 
 faded utterly or floated vaguely in her 
 memory like the fitful visions of legend and 
 dream. The phantom bark plunging on for- 
 ever, with its crew of lost souls, surely she 
 knew it well. Dark cells, hermetically 
 closed, rolling fathom deep, and the unceas- 
 ing moans of women was that an episode 
 of the Inferno? But fresh and touching, in 
 far distant years, remained her thought of her 
 burly, simple Danish friend, of his quiet 
 eyes, the slow strength of his movements, the 
 fine quality of his awkward homage, his watch- 
 fulness like that of a good brother, nay, of a 
 mother; and what she in her brooding self- 
 absorption had not the grace to discover until 
 the voyage was nearly over, his systematic 
 interruption of his own rest that the stranger 
 need not too long miss her breath of pure 
 air. 
 
 That luckless steamer was seventeen days 
 crossing the Atlantic, and met with sundry 
 exciting mishaps which could not have oc-
 
 92 The Garden of Eden 
 
 curred, it would appear, had some of the men 
 passengers who had never sailed a ship only 
 been in command. International vituperation 
 ran high, complaints were jotted down in 
 wrath for the London Times and the Paris 
 Herald, and Americans, born and bred in- 
 land, even stopped playing poker, to proclaim 
 with characteristic modesty, how deep sea 
 soundings ought properly to be taken, if 
 those blank Dutchmen understood their busi- 
 ness. 
 
 But these nautical amenities left Monica 
 indifferent. She passed in and out the 
 salon, hardly speaking a word from morning 
 till night, and was wholly unconcerned that 
 the Scilly Isles persisted in getting in the 
 way of German steamships. In point of 
 fact, she had been attached in due form to an 
 exemplary family party of women who crossed 
 often, and had the inveterate habit of disap- 
 pearing from view and reclining upon their 
 individual and collective backs shortly after 
 passing Sandy Hook. As nothing in the 
 subsequent developments of this voyage had 
 encouraged them to abandon their wise re- 
 cumbency, Monica hardly saw her rich assort- 
 ment of chaperons from shore to shore. The 
 chaperon is so frequently helpless in the
 
 The Garden of Eden 93 
 
 critical moment, so morally or physically 
 inert, society's touching faith in the omnipo- 
 tence of this institution puzzles the simple 
 mind. In certain circles, indeed, where 
 charity faileth, the chaperon-shibboleth seems 
 to be substituted to cover a multitude of sins. 
 At all events, had Monica felt adventurously 
 inclined, those five honorable names on the 
 passenger list would have genteelly connived 
 at, not prevented her exploits. 
 
 Her adventures were, however, of mild 
 flavor. Sometimes she occupied herself with 
 a pale child, whose people were ill, and who 
 wandered about, patient and cold. Drawn to 
 the small waif, Monica would throw an arm 
 round her and hold her close and warm, both 
 under one fur wrap. But when the little 
 thing, comforted, would nestle more lovingly 
 against her, it was strangely hard to bear, 
 and she could have cried aloud in a paroxysm 
 of homesickness and longing. 
 
 One evening, when but a few days out, she 
 sat ostensibly reading in the salon. A group 
 near her were chattering about astrology, 
 graphology, palmistry, and the like, bombard- 
 ing a dark-bearded foreigner with questions, 
 eagerly stretching out more or less symmetri- 
 cal palms, believers and sceptics disputing
 
 94 The Garden of Eden 
 
 gayly. Monica heard and did not hear. Pres- 
 ently a soft voice said : 
 
 "Pardon me: will you permit me one 
 glance at your hand ? " She looked up sud- 
 denly into a pair of strange eyes, darker than 
 the dark eyes she had seen, black with a 
 limpid blackness, soft, fiery, unfathomable 
 the eyes of the Orient. 
 
 "No, thanks," she said, grasping her book 
 with both hands. "It is really not worth 
 while. I have no faith in such things." 
 
 "But one glance, " pleaded the Hungarian. 
 
 "Do, Miss Randolph," urged a lady. 
 "Baron Tihanyi will tell you wonders. He 
 is a gypsy, I guess." 
 
 To avoid further discussion Monica ex- 
 tended her hand. Tihanyi looked at it 
 gravely, in her face also, thanked her without 
 comment, and returned to his place. 
 
 Later, when no one was near, he approached 
 and said, not at all like a modern man talking 
 nonsense, but with the stately air of an 
 ancient priest of Sais, arrayed in flowing 
 robes, and interpreting cabalistic myste- 
 ries: 
 
 " Life will give you much of richness, 
 sweetness, pain but never your heart's 
 desire. You are a sea-bird, restless, home-
 
 The Garden of Eden 95 
 
 less, whirling over stormy waters. You will 
 disappear in them and come up wonderfully 
 white and gleaming, and plunge again, and 
 flutter and whirl. So it will be always 
 never your heart's desire." 
 
 After that she childishly avoided him, yet 
 often felt his dark gaze resting upon her, and 
 insisting: " Never your heart's desire." She 
 needed no wise man from the east to tell her 
 this. 
 
 Since the night when she had accepted 
 flight as her destiny, short, indeed, was the 
 time counted by days, but, measured by heart- 
 throbs, aeons. She felt at times a dull 
 wonder that she had lived through the many 
 partings, each, however light in itself, em- 
 blematic of the supreme crucial parting with 
 Keith, and that she was speeding every 
 moment farther and farther from her heart's 
 desire. How brave they had been ! Without 
 their strength she never would have found 
 strength to go. "All your geese are swans," 
 the tender, mocking voice had said in the 
 arbor. Well, yes, thank God they were! 
 All whom she loved best were large natures 
 inspiring faith, incapable of an ignoble action. 
 In rare moments this conviction afforded her 
 a certain spiritual sustenance. But not for
 
 96 The Garden of Eden 
 
 long, for she was a thing adrift and rudder- 
 less ; how weak, not one of them suspected 
 not even Keith; how merely a loving, long- 
 ing woman all her being centred in the 
 past. She welcomed sleep, for in dreams she 
 drove through summer woods with Lilian, 
 emotionless ; in dreams she and Keith, with- 
 out offence or consciousness of this world's 
 rubrics, were busy with foolish, harmless, 
 inconsequent things, and knew no reproach, 
 no parting and no pain. But the waking 
 was bitter a most ghastly dream, indeed. 
 Surely the comfortless ship, with leagues of 
 sea in its wake, the gray monotony, the poig- 
 nant loneliness was sheer unreality, and that 
 she lay helpless there, already swept so far 
 away from all his love, and those last heart- 
 breaking, dear farewells this was a hideous 
 nightmare. 
 
 That smiling mother! Not flinching once, 
 not wasting a word upon the separation, pushing 
 preparations with feverish speed, thoughtful 
 of smallest details, foreseeing every imagi- 
 nable want as if Monica were bound for 
 some shopless land, turning idle comment 
 into desirable channels, protecting her child, 
 with happy suggestion, creating the atmos- 
 phere which should surround her, even
 
 The Garden of Eden 97 
 
 shrewdly revealing rather more maternal 
 vanity than she otherwise would have deemed 
 permissible, dwelling pointedly upon the poor 
 little book, never letting people forget it, to 
 the last instant victoriously playing the r61e 
 of complacent mamma, affable and animated 
 at those terrible dinners during the last hur- 
 ried days. That one always must eat ! The 
 day Lilian died they dined sumptuously and 
 had afternoon tea ! In New York they dined 
 out every night ! Gracious with all the 
 people they had to see, ready, cheerful of 
 speech, covering her daughter's silence. 
 That one always must talk ! standing fair, 
 erect, in full sunshine on the wharf and smil- 
 ing steadily as the ship steamed slowly off! 
 
 Every scene, the most trivial, she lived 
 over and over again. The humming of friends 
 and acquaintances, who thought it most reas- 
 onable that she should go to Europe. She 
 had always been "ambitious," they said, and 
 as she had written a book, they sympathized 
 with the consuming thirst for knowledge 
 which she now made manifest. Certain per- 
 sons, of the preternaturally wise sort, even 
 assured her they were not surprised, they had 
 penetrated her intentions for some months. 
 Kitty remarked, rather enviously : 
 7
 
 98 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " I suppose you '11 marry a prince, Monica," 
 and her mother retorted stoutly: 
 
 "She may, if there's one over there good 
 enough for her ! " 
 
 A deputation of advanced women declared 
 they were proud of her energy and emancipa- 
 tion ; they considered her a pioneer. Only 
 when girls, instead of dawdling in the 
 chimney-corner, and thinking exclusively of 
 lovers, were eager to go out into the world 
 and work, depending upon their own exer- 
 tions and taking their chances, would our 
 civilization be more than a mere name. 
 
 Monica had turned a somewhat wooden 
 countenance toward them, and listened 
 absently, feeling herself in no wise concerned 
 with the progress of civilization or any grand 
 and impersonal theme. But now, in the gray 
 isolation of her life on shipboard, every word 
 and intonation of those zealous speakers re- 
 curred to her vividly. 
 
 When she told Pater, it was rather long 
 that he sat motionless, his head on his hand, 
 his face turned aside, before he responded 
 tranquilly: 
 
 "It is well, my dear. It is best." 
 
 Beyond this there had seemed nothing what- 
 ever to be said between them. She could
 
 The Garden of Eden 99 
 
 only stroke and kiss his frail old hands in 
 silence, and both were thinking he would be 
 gone before she would come again. Would 
 she, indeed, ever come again? Suddenly her 
 heart grew chill and faint, too weak for its 
 burden, afraid under the anguish of parting. 
 Was life but one eternal farewell ? 
 
 " Pater tell me is it worth while ? " 
 
 Tranquilly the old man spoke : 
 
 " I hope, I may perhaps say I believe, that 
 nothing is in vain. But this I know: cour- 
 age is always worth while." After a moment 
 he added : " Our friend Balzac says : ' Cour- 
 age is life. ' ' 
 
 That was all; but she was ashamed to 
 falter when his spirit, despite loneliness and 
 the tottering, lamed body, ill with the dreary 
 ills of age, still held itself upright, so they 
 sat quietly together until she rose to go. 
 
 He did not lift up his voice and weep, it 
 would have been, indeed, a poor, piping little 
 voice to lift! He did not bless rhetorically, 
 like a biblical patriarch. But both knew 
 well she was to him the last dear thing on 
 earth, and no Abraham or Jacob ever blessed 
 more mightily than he as he pleasantly re- 
 marked he should enjoy her letters, and often 
 look after her mother. For the last time,
 
 ioo The Garden of Eden 
 
 with his very palpable decorum and a grace 
 triumphant over pathological accidents, he 
 limped beside her, down the long hall, led 
 her by the hand across the threshold and out 
 on the porch. Looking back, she drove down 
 the winding avenue through the park. As 
 long as the dear old house remained in sight 
 she saw the little black figure at the door. 
 
 Lost in endless retrospection as the ship 
 ploughed on through the gloom, Monica 
 rarely gave a thought to the shores she was 
 approaching, was curiously devoid of interest 
 in her future. What did that matter now? 
 She was strong. She would probably live 
 her weary threescore years and ten. She 
 should work. Keith had said she must work. 
 He told her work would be her blessing, and 
 he swore he should care for every word, 
 " merry " or otherwise. As he thus rashly 
 engaged himself to plenary indulgence for all 
 her future literary misdemeanors, he had 
 smiled suddenly, and given her a loving look 
 of half -amused, half-regretful apology and 
 deprecation. He never, never would consent 
 to her going instead of him, except he knew 
 it was for her happiness, he had assured her 
 firmly. " You will work. You will learn to 
 love the life over there. It has a marvellous
 
 The Garden of Eden 101 
 
 charm, believe me. And it is always harder 
 for the one who stays behind," he added low, 
 his face stern and gray, as if carved in 
 granite But where she was to work, where 
 all this blessing and happiness awaited her, 
 neither Keith nor any other person, she least 
 of all, had decided. That was quite unimpor- 
 tant. The one essential thing had been that 
 she who loved them more than life must flee 
 as from a pestilence from them who loved her 
 no less. Why? Her presence caused them 
 pain and fear. She could not continue to 
 consciously hurt them. This was clear. 
 Therefore she had gone forth. But why did 
 they suffer so? Because the world forbade 
 her to love Keith Lowell. Why? Ah, the 
 answer to that Why she had not yet grasped. 
 Nothing was ever less clear to her. It began 
 presumably in the fire mist and birth of 
 worlds, in the gray dawn of history. Among 
 the many agitated voices of the swaying mob 
 which composed her personality was one quite 
 cool and haughty, that said, "We will ex- 
 amine this question; we shall have time." 
 
 In her sombre misery, one torture was 
 spared her doubt of the expediency of her 
 course. Her decision once made, she had 
 regarded it as the decree of fate. As her
 
 IO2 The Garden of Eden 
 
 love, so was her abnegation inevitable. 
 Except for brief relapses, there was no more 
 storm, no rebellion in her heart. On the 
 other hand, she was sustained by no consol- 
 ing thought, no sense of duty well met, no 
 perception of fleeing from evil, no glimmer 
 of self-approval. In respect of the morality 
 of her action, her conscience was passive to 
 the verge of torpor, and her spirit lingered in 
 its lost paradise. 
 
 But even seventeen days on an Atlantic 
 steamship come to an end. The Scilly Isles 
 retreated biding their time. The owners of 
 the five honorable names emerged, radiant 
 and enterprising, from their seclusion, and 
 with true distinction of manner chaperoned 
 Monica down the gang-plank. They told her 
 they had had half a mind to land at Havre, 
 in which case she would have gone with them 
 to Paris or to Pekin, provided her money 
 had held out. Whether she looked upon 
 pagodas or pyramids or steppes, jungles or 
 staid town parks, whether the men she saw 
 were yellow, brown, and wild, or white, and, 
 as it happened, very tame, humanity and 
 nature would have seemed to her, in that 
 apathetic mood, equally remote. She went 
 aimlessly along a beaten track where amiable
 
 The Garden of Eden 103 
 
 compatriots expected her, met her, smoothed 
 her path and sent her on, after days or weeks, 
 like an express parcel of value by special 
 messenger. They gave dinners for her at 
 which she seemed to do all that was required 
 in the way of animation, as much, perhaps, 
 as her neighbor; she had acquired a certain 
 routine in dinners. They took her to drive, 
 showed her monuments, did not remark that 
 they were entertaining but a part of her 
 her shell. The world demands, in truth, de- 
 pressingly little of our real selves, and is 
 rather relieved when those shy dwellers in 
 our sanctuaries keep well out of sight. More- 
 over, the hospitable and gay world where 
 Monica was passing cherished a certain toler- 
 ance for writers as for other incurables. 
 Knowing them to be by no means always 
 amusing, it charitably assumed that they 
 were deep. Hence, having heard by chance 
 of her venture in "merry art," they did not 
 simply call her dull, but attributed to her 
 vast designs upon the stored-up knowledge of 
 Europe, and boundless interest in her own 
 intellectual development. Hence with her 
 they discussed even the time of day and the 
 weather. Even the imputation of learning 
 she took quietly, and never even smiled
 
 104 The Garden of Eden 
 
 until later. Later, too, she felt twinges of 
 remorse for the stony ingratitude with which 
 she had accepted countless attentions and 
 amenities. Later, without revisiting great 
 pictures, she found that her weary, indiffer- 
 ent gaze had yet seized and stowed away 
 haunting, vivid memories of their undying 
 loveliness. But at that period she was numb 
 to all things except music. Music swept 
 away every shred of her factitious self-posses- 
 sion, and left her a helpless, broken, quiver- 
 ing thing. In all the great love stories on 
 the stage she perceived traces of herself and 
 Keith, yet always in unison, in blessed 
 action, suffering, struggling, triumphing or 
 dying together or one for the other. No- 
 where did a loving woman simply go quite 
 prosaically off alone. In that theme, indeed, 
 was no story, no romance, no thrill. Every 
 day, everywhere, in bitter grief, men and 
 women were parting quietly poor things 
 poor things ! 
 
 So Monica plodded on, possessed for the 
 most part with that immense heavy patience 
 which in natures destined to suffer much fol- 
 lows cataclysms of emotion. It did not occur 
 to her that she had a broken heart. That 
 organ beat with undeviating regularity. Her
 
 The Garden of Eden 105 
 
 cheek was not pale, her step not languid, and 
 the surprising stability of beds on land in- 
 duced dense and refreshing sleep. Whatever 
 the fairies at her cradle withheld, they had 
 bestowed upon her the boon of sweet, sound 
 health which frequently serves as a perfect 
 mask. Slight but chronic dyspepsia, the 
 depredations of neuralgia, are apt to impart to 
 our countenances a mere touching melancholy 
 than do the woes of love. Yet as she 
 journeyed on, self-contained, conventionally 
 shielded, quiet and proper in her well-fitting 
 gown, she would have sacrificed ruthlessly 
 the glowing canvases and white glories of 
 their galleries, their crown jewels and the 
 wealth of their treasure-vaults, the priceless 
 lore of their dim libraries, all that she per- 
 ceived of beauty and power, for the clasp of 
 two arms in an arbor. 
 
 She would have toiled in the vineyards with 
 Keith, or gone barefoot with him along 
 country ways, and laughed like the careless 
 vagabonds she envied, or sat with him like 
 the maids and their sweethearts, unblinking, 
 arms intertwined, in a crowd, yet alone on 
 a bench in a public garden or begged, or 
 broken stones on the road with him. With 
 him her heart's desire.
 
 io6 The Garden of Eden 
 
 One winter noon it happened that she 
 stood in a park and idly watched the play of 
 a great fountain in the sunlight. It was a 
 hilly country, and spoke to her vaguely of 
 her northern home. "I have come far," she 
 thought. " I have gone by people as a lost 
 child in a dismal wood goes by trees. I have 
 passed miles and miles of strangers. I have 
 met only Nils Hans and the cuddling little 
 girl." The strong rush of water held her in 
 thrall. It had proceeded by hidden ways, it 
 burst forth briefly, joyously, mightily, leap- 
 ing high, scattering foam in the sunshine, 
 singing its marvellous song of the triumph 
 of life. Monica regarded it wistfully, un- 
 comprehending, yet feeling its gladness, its 
 force. 
 
 " I am tired. I will stay here for a while. 
 As well here as anywhere."
 
 The Garden of Eden 107 
 
 V 
 
 A PALE man with refined features sat stooping 
 over a much littered desk and writing with 
 rapid nervous hand for more than an hour, 
 when a maid with a tray appeared. 
 
 "Already seven?" he said, glancing at his 
 watch. " Thank you, Berta." 
 
 His way of thanking every fellow-creature 
 who did him the smallest service was specially 
 his own, never a mechanical response, but in 
 each case a fresh recognition of direct per- 
 sonal kindness and a cordial tribute to the 
 human dignity of the servitor. 
 
 Berta rejoiced daily in that " Thank you." 
 
 " We don't expect it, of course," she would 
 philosophize to her colleagues, " but if ever we 
 get it, we are mighty glad. Now, when the 
 Herr Baron looks up every morning, always a 
 little surprised, with those good, clear eyes 
 of his, I could forget that he was a great and 
 learned man, and think it was just a good 
 child whose tea I was bringing, except for 
 real goodness. There never was a child so
 
 io8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 sweet-tempered and so little trouble as the 
 Herr Baron." 
 
 " Leastwise, not his own two," some ag- 
 grieved voice would retort. 
 
 " If the Herr Baron would remember to 
 drink his tea while it is hot," the maid now 
 ventured to suggest. 
 
 " Yes, yes, Berta, certainly," he replied, his 
 head buried in his papers. 
 
 She poured out some tea. 
 
 " If the Herr Baron would not forget '' 
 
 He looked up pleasantly. 
 
 " I am a doctor, Berta." 
 
 " If the Herr Doctor would please drink it 
 now " she persisted, glancing with dis- 
 approval at a broad sofa upon which rugs and 
 cushions bore marks of unpremeditated bivouac 
 " yesterday the tea was left, the bread hardly 
 broken. The Herr Doctor eats nothing at all, 
 and as for sleep " she shook her head omi- 
 nously at the sofa. 
 
 " It is not so bad as all that. Sister Sera- 
 phina often brings me a stirrup cup, and my 
 patients are continually gorging me with good 
 things, I assure you." 
 
 He got up, stretched his bent back and 
 cramped legs, his face contracting slightly as 
 from pain, took the cup and drank it half out,
 
 The Garden of Eden 109 
 
 standing. With a roll in his hand he began to 
 pace his study. 
 
 The room was large, dim, and disorderly, 
 a place where a few things were continually 
 coming in and nothing ever came out. Hence 
 prevailed an inevitable plethora of furniture 
 selected by diverse minds ; of painted, em- 
 broidered, and beaded offerings which would 
 have delighted the soul of a squaw; provoca- 
 tive foot-stools and glaring rugs, fashioned by 
 idolatrous but inartistic women ; gaudy home- 
 made vases, which another man would have 
 shattered forthwith ; match-safes, watch-cases, 
 and portfolios; innumerable knicknacks con- 
 structed of cotton velvet, cardboard, and 
 straw, glued, pasted, and tortured into shapes 
 that never were on land or sea, not good to 
 look at, not good for fuel, not good to eat. 
 
 But easily counterbalancing this riffraff 
 were many things that seemed to belong by 
 good rights to the man who walked about 
 among them eating his bread like a schoolboy. 
 Some choice pieces of old mahogany opposed 
 their ancestral dignity to the swarm of ephem- 
 eral trifles. Alcoves filled with books from 
 floor to ceiling, scientific works, classics, 
 modern literature, in many languages ; glass 
 cabinets of instruments, glass tables, strewn
 
 no The Garden of Eden 
 
 with delicately murderous blades; large 
 globes, a couple of which were astronomical ; 
 telescopes, microscopes; and an array of 
 retorts, queer-shaped jars; and flasks that 
 might have sufficed for a Rosicrucian. A good 
 copy of Murillo's Saint Anthony of Padua 
 hung near the desk, upon which stood, strongly 
 lighted by the one light burning, a tall stat- 
 uette, a hooded monk, his finger on his lip. 
 On a bracket was the pretty boy extracting a 
 thorn from his foot. From a dim corner an 
 Eros in marble looked down on all this chaos, 
 and was hardly more serenely remote from his 
 surroundings, more purely chiselled in feature, 
 than the man with the bread. 
 
 Upon a large palisander table, a Christmas 
 offering from a grateful old man, an alabaster 
 vase good of its kind but wholly out of 
 place reared itself obtrusively. Two thank- 
 ful patients had sent it from Italy. Near by, 
 an album displayed his monogram and coro- 
 net worked in green and gold. He stopped 
 an instant, lifted a straw framework orna- 
 mented with patches of linen forget-me-nots 
 of aniline hues ; within the mechanism was a 
 ribbon painted, alas ! by hand, and record- 
 ing amid flowery scrolls and numbers the days 
 of the week and month. It was inconceivably
 
 The Garden of Eden 1 1 1 
 
 ugly, but that could be pardoned had the 
 thing worked. As he put it back on the 
 palisander table and under the wide-spreading 
 vase and near the green and gold album, the 
 slight irony of his raised eyebrows and flit- 
 ting smile merged into thoughtfulness, for 
 he remembered the innocent devotion of the 
 fifteen-year-old girl who had designed this 
 horror after a half-year's painful illness, in 
 which she had clung to him pathetically and 
 had otherwise little help. 
 
 " If they would not always seek to material- 
 ize their affection," he thought. " Affection is 
 so good. I at least cannot afford to reject an 
 atom that may reach me. But if they would 
 not express it in slippers worked in Berlin 
 wool, in beaded pen-wipers and other atro- 
 cities. It would be more restful if they would 
 be content with the significance of a word, a 
 grasp of the hand, a flower. Still it is ata- 
 vism, I presume the recurrence to barbaric 
 ornament and frippery. I might build a villa 
 for all these things, or a fine mausoleum, 
 or pile them up in mosaics like the bones in 
 the vaults of the Church of the Capuchins. 
 But what matters it if my study gets over- 
 populated? and why should I arrogate taste 
 superior to that of the patient compilers of
 
 ii2 The Garden of Eden 
 
 straw and beads? From some higher point of 
 view the difference between us may be quite 
 imperceptible. At all events, I know what to 
 do with their slippers. And that is good, for 
 probably no man on earth ever got so many as 
 I except perhaps some popular clergyman; 
 and no man ever had less use for them, for I 
 am always booted. Ah, yes, I can manage 
 the slippers. They walk off fast." 
 
 Three minutes sufficed for his perambula- 
 tory breakfast. He wrote a half-hour more, 
 when two little boys in broad collars ran in 
 and bade him good morning. He turned to 
 them with a cordiality so affectionate and 
 winning, it would seem to indicate the freest 
 and sweetest relationship between father and 
 sons. But the dark little faces wore a sullen 
 or shy expression ; their eyes did not meet his 
 with candor, but glanced furtively with a 
 fauve gleam beneath drooping lids and the 
 sweep of thick lashes. 
 
 " My theme book, please, papa." 
 
 " Directly, Egon. Bodo, what 's the mat- 
 ter? Out with your tongue. Headache, eh? 
 Stomach queer? " 
 
 " He stuffed. He got into the pantry. He 
 ate up all the jelly there was left." 
 
 " Let him speak for himself."
 
 The Garden of Eden 113 
 
 Bodo hung his head, twisted a button and 
 said nothing. 
 
 "And you, Egon? You abstained, I pre- 
 sume? Avoided the pantry? Resisted the 
 jelly?" 
 
 "Oh, he," began little Bodo, but checked 
 himself in response to one pregnant look from 
 his older and stronger brother. 
 
 " Well, Bodo, you '11 have to take the conse- 
 quences of your raid on the pantry. You '11 
 survive this attack, my dear. But a headache 
 is not a nice thing to take to school, and my 
 boys, from all accounts, need no curb on their 
 ambition. Egon, this Latin is scatter-brained 
 work. What made you so careless, dear boy? 
 There was no new rule. You 've had all that." 
 
 He put his hands on the child's shoulders, 
 and looked down kindly upon the sulky little 
 fellow, who muttered : 
 
 " The house was full of chattering people 
 and all the doors were open. That Charity 
 Ball Committee it meets here all the time," 
 he flung out viciously. " I did n't know where 
 to go. It was cold in my room. I got in the 
 dining-room bay-window behind the curtain, 
 but mamma and Count Arco came in and 
 spread out books of engravings on the table 
 and talked about costumes, and giggled so "
 
 114 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " Never mind that, Egon. We won't blame 
 all creation when we go wool-gathering and 
 forget our oratio obliqua. Ring for Berta." 
 
 " I thought the children's play-room was 
 always warm, Berta? Please see that it is 
 always in readiness, that they may work there 
 undisturbed." 
 
 " It was stuffed full skirts and feathers 
 and things," grumbled Egon. 
 
 " I could n't find my stamp album," whined 
 Bodo. 
 
 " Some boxes were put there hurriedly, sir, 
 stuffs and models for the costumes, sir " 
 
 "Ah, quite so; but but that is excep- 
 tional. Kindly see to it, Berta When 
 have you to hand in your theme, Egon? " 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 " Then you have sufficient time to correct 
 it. I have marked the worst mistakes with a 
 cross in the margin. What they are you can 
 find out yourself. Leave the book on my 
 desk again to-night. You will try to do it 
 better this time, won't you, Egon?" 
 
 " All right," said the boy, relenting and los- 
 ing for an instant his expression of deep per- 
 sonal injury. " But we have Greek Exposition 
 to-day." Gloom and wrath again settled upon 
 his countenance.
 
 The Garden of Eden 115 
 
 " Well, so have the other boys," returned 
 his father, cheerfully. " It was not invented 
 for your exclusive annoyance. Put it on my 
 desk to-night with your Latin. It is about 
 time for. you to start, little men. Don't be 
 too hard on your masters. On Sunday after- 
 noon I '11 try to find time to take you out 
 somewhere. " 
 
 " Oh, papa, you always say that ! " cried 
 Bodo, with a pessimistic air. 
 
 " Bodo, you have dislocated that button. 
 Just ask Berta to sew it on for you quickly." 
 
 " May I go in the tram, papa?" asked the 
 child, with suffering mien. 
 
 " No, sir. You are not so debilitated as all 
 that. You trot on your good little legs." 
 
 He smiled encouragingly at them and sent 
 them away. But as the door closed behind 
 them his face grew grave, his heart heavy. 
 He was conscious they had not the air of 
 young things expanding in the sunshine. 
 They looked anaemic and nervous, their 
 inheritance from both sides of the house, 
 they were not frank, not joyous. From their 
 professors he heard only bad reports. That 
 they did not lead their classes was a matter 
 of indifference to him, but the absence of 
 goodwill and cheerfulness, their misanthropic
 
 n6 The Garden of Eden 
 
 attitude, all this was deplorable. They were 
 not happy, had not what their natures needed. 
 Yet what could he do ? How could he devote 
 more time to them? But if he could take 
 them off for a year, and live with them in the 
 woods and among the mountains. Would 
 that not smooth the suspicious irritability 
 from their faces ? Then they would fall back 
 a year in their already unsatisfactory school- 
 ing; not that he cared for that, but Church 
 and State made such demands on the young- 
 sters. If they were not confirmed at the usual 
 age, if they did not pass their first examina- 
 tions at the customary time, they would be 
 at a decided disadvantage later. In all these 
 matters prevailed a certain constraint, in re- 
 spect of which he had his own opinions. But 
 to go away with them would be impossible. 
 When could an overworked man realize such 
 a dream? Until August or September he 
 could never get away, and then but for a short 
 rest; was, moreover, at first usually in such a 
 state of physical and mental exhaustion that 
 he had to tend himself as if he were his own 
 baby, and had not strength enough to teach 
 a dog to sit up and beg. What his boys 
 needed was the right sort of freedom, the 
 right sort of attention, space for the happy
 
 The Garden of Eden 117 
 
 development of their own individuality. Should 
 he send them away to school? But there 
 they would be still more shy and strange than 
 at home. Beside, he believed in the institution 
 of the family. He smiled drearily. To pre- 
 serve even the semblance of it, he had made 
 and would make every sacrifice. No, he 
 could not send the little boys away. For 
 their own sakes, for his sake, for the sake 
 of all. A tutor in the house? It was so dif- 
 ficult to find the right influence. They came 
 home from school late in the afternoon, and 
 must do their work themselves. It was not 
 too long or difficult, if they would take it 
 cheerfully. A tutor, were he a paragon of 
 wisdom, tact, and happy qualities, would have 
 almost nothing to do except in the odd hours. 
 His salary would, moreover, pay for more beds 
 in the hospital, and his presence would be 
 a confession of weakness on the part of the 
 family. Weakness? What was it, then, but 
 weakness, this inability to cope with two chil- 
 dren of eleven and ten years of age? 
 
 Yet for other men's children he seemed 
 often able to suggest the right course. Other 
 men's children met him with the glad welcome 
 he had never the happiness of seeing in his 
 own boys' eyes. In the street, wherever he
 
 1 1 8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 passed, strange boys, poor boys, orphans 
 marching two by two in their gray uniforms, 
 responded frankly to his smile, were ready to 
 chatter gayly to him. And other men were 
 busy. Few professional men could devote 
 much time to their children. But few knew 
 them well, studied them intimately, if the 
 truth were told. Sometimes this method or 
 want of method turned out well enough. 
 Sometimes in a crisis a father was confronted 
 by the sad fact that his son was an utter 
 stranger. Still other fathers, the majority 
 of his acquaintance, stood nearer their chil- 
 dren, and he himself stood nearer to their 
 children than he stood to his own, on freer, 
 more familiar and satisfying terms. Wrong 
 was done those two little morose boys, wrong 
 in divers ways. But what was remediable? 
 How could he give them more sunshine? For 
 he loved them well. How remove Egon's 
 unceasing sullen, suspicious protest against 
 the world at large perhaps against exist- 
 ence itself? And Bodo was not unlike him, 
 merely more of a baby. Such protest, was 
 it, then, not logical and legitimate? Was the 
 wrong deeper, more deadly, than mere faults 
 and omissions in daily training? That in- 
 eradicable wrong, must one not seek it a
 
 The Garden of Eden 119 
 
 dozen years since? Were there not crimes 
 unrecognized by our clumsy complex codes, 
 and encouraged indeed by all our great moral 
 institutions, yet no less cruel than murder? 
 Must not every thoughtful man ask himself 
 if the bestowal of life under certain conditions 
 was not almost as monstrous as its removal? 
 
 He pressed his hand upon his breast, where 
 such thoughts always created a corresponding 
 physical oppression. 
 
 " This will never do, with three operations 
 awaiting me at the hospital, two of them seri- 
 ous. I must certainly take the boys a long 
 walk on Sunday afternoon." But he did not. 
 
 He hastily drank the cold tea left in his 
 cup, laid the scattered pages of his article in 
 a drawer, jotted down a few memoranda in 
 his note-book, slipped a case of fine instru- 
 ments into his pocket, took the orders from 
 the telephone book in the hall, answered per- 
 sonally a few frantic appeals, put on a sable- 
 lined coat which a servant was holding in 
 readiness, and left the house to begin his day's 
 work. On his face was a thoughtful serenity 
 which his friends declared so restful that it 
 was sufficient in itself to cure any ordinary 
 illness, and which his enemies called " that 
 insufferable composure."
 
 I2O The Garden of Eden 
 
 It was hardly more than eight o'clock when 
 his coupd drove up to the portals of a large 
 airy building well set back in a garden on the 
 corner of two quiet streets. From the moment 
 his foot crossed the threshold his bearing 
 became erect, his expression more spirited. 
 The very sight of those long rows of windows 
 was like the bugle-call to the war-horse. This 
 was his chief field of action, and he loved it 
 Here fruitless brooding and weary speculation 
 had no place. In spite of disappointments, 
 baffled hopes, the ceaseless symphony of pain, 
 and the ignorance and impotency of science 
 before many evils, was yet here the clear and 
 triumphant record of the progress of human 
 knowledge through human patience, of health 
 restored, useful lives prolonged by feats of 
 surgery unknown to our forefathers. When, 
 indeed, no rescue was possible for a doomed 
 mortal but by the one chance, the fatal two- 
 edged knife, cruel but kind, and that one 
 chance failed, it was poor consolation to 
 reflect they would do these things better a 
 hundred years hence, and know how to save 
 even a patient the fountains of whose being 
 were poisoned. On such days it cost him 
 more effort to banish from his face the deep 
 questioning of his soul. But it was relief and
 
 The Garden of Eden 121 
 
 blessing that his cool intelligence, his keen 
 eye, his fine intuition, and that marvellously 
 sure hand bestowed in innumerable critical 
 cases. 
 
 The janitor straightened and brightened as 
 the doctor passed. A couple of young assist- 
 ants followed him into his private room. The 
 matron and white-capped nurses looked every 
 morning as if something especially fortuitous 
 had taken place, and down the wards went 
 the good tidings with a ripple of anticipation. 
 When the great doctor and his young col- 
 leagues in their white linen coats, and a few 
 students made their morning rounds a sudden 
 alertness revived painworn bodies and tired 
 minds. 
 
 "I have been in a hospital," Sister Seraphina 
 often said to Sister Olivia, " where the patients 
 shivered and shook at the sight of the Direc- 
 tor, and we too hardly less, not that he was 
 cruel, only hard and forbidding in manner; 
 but when Dr. Arenberg comes in I think it's 
 miracles, for all my beds begin to look up 
 like flowers after a summer rain, the private 
 rooms as well as the wards." 
 
 The usual business passed rapidly. Instruc- 
 tions to the secretary, to the matron, the 
 nurses, questions of diet and whims of first-
 
 122 The Garden of Eden 
 
 class patients. The brief time spent at each 
 bedside never suggested haste, and the mere 
 presence of one of the most nervous men on 
 earth quieted the nerves of his patients. 
 
 A goodly number of people awaited him. 
 A sturdy peasant met him with the announce- 
 ment, so frequent that he no longer smiled 
 at it: 
 
 " Doctor, I have long wanted to insult you." 
 
 " Not on your own account, I presume." 
 
 " No, Doctor, I must insult you about my 
 wife." 
 
 " I am always proud of my master," ex- 
 claimed young Fleming after the third opera- 
 tion, " but, upon my word, he has worked 
 to-day with an elegance with a verve 
 with a " he waved his hand eloquently. 
 
 "Where in the deuce does he get his 
 strength?" demanded one of the new-comers. 
 " Why, he 's got the hand of a woman." 
 
 " He is one bunch of nerves, man, perfectly 
 under control. They described that last oper- 
 ation in three columns of ' Figaro ' as the 
 masterpiece of a Paris surgeon. I Ve seen 
 Dr. Arenberg perform it three or four times a 
 week, and go off with that quiet air of his, as 
 simple as a child." 
 
 The whole corps of assistants and nurses
 
 The Garden of Eden 123 
 
 had worked with precision, yet as the doctor 
 drove away from the hospital he regretted 
 that he was starting on his visits an hour too 
 late. From house to house he occupied him- 
 self unceasingly with his memoranda or read- 
 ing, for his coupe carried a generous supply 
 of newspapers, reviews, and books, not exclu- 
 sively scientific, but modern English and 
 French of best quality. 
 
 Sister Seraphina, hastening along the corri- 
 dor with a nice little luncheon for him, had 
 been accosted and detained two minutes by a 
 convalescent relearning to walk. In the.se two 
 minutes he had given his last orders and rap- 
 idly left the house, but a glass of wine and a 
 biscuit he accepted somewhere along his route. 
 
 His patients were that morning, as usual, of 
 high and low degree. From a palace where a 
 little princess looked up affectionately at him 
 he drove to a poor bookbinder's, whose child 
 was also down with scarlet fever. She too was 
 patient and good and trustful, like the king's 
 daughter; and king and anarchist were alike 
 anxious, and the fever took its course and was 
 no respecter of persons. Nor was the doctor, 
 who stayed longer, however, at the bedside of 
 the bookbinder's daughter, and brought her a 
 bunch of violets, and chatted with interest with
 
 124 The Garden of Eden 
 
 the father, a gentle creature with fierce theo- 
 ries, who had recently lost his wife. 
 
 Secrets of boudoirs, skeletons of cupboards, 
 hidden springs of action, family griefs and 
 fears, this quiet doctor felt with the pulses of 
 his patients. Sometimes he asked himself if 
 it were the fault of his profession or his per- 
 sonality that he was so vast a depository of 
 family secrets. Not hysterical women alone 
 revealed to him their misunderstood emotions, 
 but practical men turned to him with their dif- 
 ficulties, to which he listened with the shrewd- 
 ness of the attorney, the gentleness of the 
 priest, and the gentle irony of the man of the 
 world. He never took things tragically, never 
 seemed to advise, yet in many houses in all 
 critical moments was brother, friend, and self- 
 less counsellor. 
 
 After a five-minutes interview with an old 
 lady, the widow of an eminent professor whom 
 he had known and liked, he said : 
 
 " Send for me sooner next time, I am always 
 at your service." 
 
 " I cannot bear to put one feather's weight 
 on you. I was ashamed to send at all. The 
 attack was nothing new. I thought it would 
 take care of itself. But it took care to repeat 
 itself immediately, so I had no choice."
 
 The Garden of Eden 125 
 
 He looked at her kindly. She was a sen- 
 sible and good woman, cheery, practical, with 
 energy and strength despite her years. 
 
 " The house is rather large and empty, is it 
 not? Your life too solitary. You are used to 
 thinking of others. It has kept you young. 
 You will grow old too fast to please me, if you 
 have nothing to do. When do your sister and 
 the children come?" 
 
 " Not until summer. It is rather lonely. I 
 am getting to be an old gad-about and med- 
 dler in other men's matters. I am continually 
 going to see somebody. But seeing too many 
 people is not enlivening." 
 
 " No. I at least have never found it so," 
 he agreed, gravely. " The Lorings are look- 
 ing for a home for a young country-woman, 
 they told me the other day. They speak 
 very highly of her, say she is quiet and stu- 
 dious. Why could you not try the experi- 
 ment?" 
 
 " Oh," she returned doubtfully, " a stran- 
 ger in the house? And American girls are 
 usually so restless, so exacting, so very lively." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " They say she is a nice girl. I 've not seen 
 her. Suppose you let Mr. Loring call with 
 her? It will bind neither of you. If you
 
 126 The Garden of Eden 
 
 should find her at all sympathetic, I would 
 advise you to let her come. A new interest 
 and a modicum of caretaking are the best 
 medicines I can prescribe for you." 
 
 " The young lady would feel flattered if she 
 knew she was expected to serve as tonic for 
 a stupid old woman." 
 
 " Ah, she may need you quite as much," 
 he returned cordially. 
 
 Up and down long flights of stairs leading 
 to poor garrets where overworked, underfed 
 breadwinners lay sore stricken, while an inju- 
 diciously bountiful supply of children clamored 
 for food, in luxurious homes where people 
 were ill from sheer overfeeding and lazi- 
 ness, he made his way, everywhere kind and 
 equable. But for his worldlings he drew 
 from a good store of irony which he left 
 outside when he crossed the threshold of the 
 garret. The ignorance of the poor never 
 wearied him, and when he had no time for 
 his spoiled countesses, he would sit long with 
 patients who could not pay, and showed them 
 infinite gentleness and interest in their most 
 trivial concerns. 
 
 Having made only the most pressing visits 
 he reached home toward three. On account 
 of the children's school the family lunched
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 127 
 
 at one, without regard to his extremely uncer- 
 tain arrival. He seized without ceremony 
 some cold meat and whatever he found on 
 the sideboard. " Never mind that, Wolf," he 
 said to a servant struggling to preserve de- 
 corum and set the table. " I '11 picnic to- 
 day." 
 
 " The Herr Baron always picnics," returned 
 the man, disconsolately. 
 
 " How many are in the waiting-room? " 
 
 " Thirty-seven, sir." 
 
 One by one they came in with their troubles, 
 their aches, their weaknesses and fears ; more 
 peasants who wanted to " insult " him ; old men 
 who confidently expected him to restore their 
 lost youth; incredulous incurables, insisting 
 they never before had anything of the kind ; 
 women who, upon being asked one simple 
 question, always told from the beginning their 
 endless, irrelevant, thrice-told tale; cripples; 
 genteel persons; poor souls with loathsome 
 complaints ; haggard women with frail babies ; 
 old patients whom he could dismiss briefly; 
 new ones requiring time and fine attention; 
 while Wolf with the manners of a diplomat 
 ushered them in strictly in turn. 
 
 For each the doctor had the same penetrat- 
 ing scrutiny, the same simplicity and unwea-
 
 128 The Garden of Eden 
 
 rying patience. And although he sat in a 
 comfortable chair, except when he rose to use 
 the stethoscope and to knock at poor mortal 
 frames with his light, sensitive fingers, or to 
 walk about and stretch his neuralgic legs, or 
 wash his hands or open or shut a window, 
 perhaps even a bricklayer on a strike might 
 have deigned to comprehend that this too 
 was work, this concentration of one's fac- 
 ulties for the good of humanity, this flexible 
 adaptation of one's best powers to the hum- 
 blest needs of one's brother, this loving intui- 
 tion and willing slavery. 
 
 " With this sort of heart trouble you can 
 live to be eighty, you know, and die of some- 
 thing else," he said encouragingly to a young 
 merchant. " Of course you must be a little 
 careful and avoid over-exertion. Don't run 
 to catch a train or a tram. Don't lift heavy 
 things. Carry your cares lightly and don't 
 overwork. It is all very simple, you see." 
 
 " I think I can do it," the other replied, 
 cheerfully. " My business runs smoothly ; my 
 home is quiet and happy, so much so, I 
 should be sorry to have to leave, you know, 
 while the children are so young. Oh, yes, 
 I can be moderate as a mill." 
 
 " That is right. Walk all you like. Be
 
 The Garden of Eden 1 29 
 
 much in the open air with your wife and 
 babies. Eat regularly, avoid exhaustion, be 
 rational, and you are good for decades yet 
 decades ! " 
 
 As the young man, no longer anxious, but 
 content, had left the room to return to his 
 quiet and happy home, his adviser's gaze rested 
 with a certain sphinx-like sweetness upon the 
 dark and mournful figure of St. Benedict. A 
 door leading into the reception-rooms opened, 
 interrupting his reverie, and a pretty little 
 woman, dark, slight, and sharp-featured, rustled 
 in. 
 
 He rose inquiringly. 
 
 " Wolf said you were alone," she began. 
 "Aurel, I hope you are not forgetting?" 
 
 " That I have not seen you to-day? " he re- 
 turned, politely. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and gave him 
 a furtive side-glance, like Egon, whom she re- 
 sembled. 
 
 " It is the Arcos' Thursday." 
 
 " I must admit that stupendous fact had 
 escaped my memory. I fear it is impossible 
 for me to go." 
 
 " Aurel ! You say that every time. You 
 have not been there all winter ! " 
 
 " But to other places," he returned, quietly. 
 9
 
 130 The Garden of Eden 
 
 "Few enough. What will they think? 
 What will other people think?" 
 
 " My dear Melanie, if we begin to ask what 
 the others think, I assure you I rarely have 
 time to find out what I think myself, which 
 interests me far more." 
 
 His calm voice, his way of examining his 
 memoranda as he spoke, irritated her exceed- 
 ingly. 
 
 " But it is too pointed," she cried, " exactly 
 now, when we are occupied continually with 
 the Charity Ball preparations." 
 
 He looked at her thoughtfully and was 
 silent. There was a certain amount of reason 
 in her argument. Count Arco was a gallant 
 man, with nothing on earth to do but to amuse 
 himself. Never dangerous, he fluttered, flirted, 
 and flew on to the next flower. If not him, 
 Melanie would dangle some other amiable shal- 
 low pate at her girdle. Still now and then the 
 world, that fashionable world with the tenets of 
 which he was not in sympathy, demanded a 
 visible marital sanction for such intercourse. 
 If he, the busy doctor, walked through the Arco 
 rooms once with her, she could amuse herself 
 for weeks in her own way. Curious idea, 
 that! He had long ago made up his mind 
 that since they could not unite their aims, he
 
 The Garden of Eden 131 
 
 must do his own work, which, small as it seemed 
 in comparison with the need that appealed to 
 him on every side, was better worth doing than 
 to dance attendance on his wife in drawing- 
 rooms. He believed, moreover, that she had 
 a right to choose her mode of life, even this 
 that fascinated her and in which she knew no 
 satiety. 
 
 But as he saw the sullen exasperation on her 
 face, the face of Egon's mother, a vague self- 
 reproach oppressed him as when his boys had 
 stood before him that morning. She was no 
 happier than they, than he. She could not be 
 other than she was. They were yoked to- 
 gether for life, and at no point did their spirits 
 meet. Yet somewhere was a wrong to her 
 also since she was not happy. What more 
 could he have done, could he still do, except 
 to sacrifice his profession, to content her? 
 
 Something in the pose of the head, the 
 averted gaze, the bitterness of the mouth, re- 
 minded him of his first meeting with her, an 
 August noon, thirteen or fourteen years before, 
 a long hotel stairway, a mother and daughter 
 coming up, he descending. The girl, sixteen 
 or seventeen, apparently tired and warm, sud- 
 denly thrust her umbrella and a parcel into 
 the mother's hands. It had amused him that
 
 132 The Garden of Eden 
 
 the mother, without remonstrance, accepted the 
 additional burden ; and he had not viewed the 
 incident from a pedagogic point of view. 
 Afterwards he had forgotten the bit of school- 
 girl ill-breeding, for Melanie could be piquant, 
 elf-like, and untiringly gay. But now he re- 
 membered that the mother took the umbrella 
 as she took all impertinence, petulance, and 
 tempers from her daughters, and gave no an- 
 swer except, at times, in kind ; and gave no 
 help or guidance, and craved the hollow things 
 they craved, and none better. And because it 
 seemed to him that Melanie's selfishness was a 
 disease, nurtured from the start as gout is fed 
 with sugar, he looked now at her specula- 
 tively, wistfully, as upon a patient whose case 
 is chronic, yet for whom he fain would find 
 some magic cure. Beside, with another man 
 she might have become a different woman. 
 Another man she might, perhaps, have loved. 
 Such thoughts, and vivid, repellent pictures of 
 the past, flitted through his mind drearily, 
 hopelessly. 
 
 In all his personality, which through no 
 fault of her own or his she found unsym- 
 pathetic, for she liked dancing men, not 
 scholars ; and chattering men, not thinkers ; 
 and men who trifled elegantly, not men ardent
 
 The Garden of Eden 133 
 
 and tenacious in work, nothing vexed her 
 more than the mild and enigmatic gaze of 
 those clear eyes. 
 
 " I did not marry you to sit in the house 
 and spin, Aurel ! " she exclaimed, sharply. 
 
 "I know you did not," he returned, calmly. 
 
 " Orlasays " 
 
 " It is better not to invoke Orla in our pri- 
 vate matters," he answered, his voice striking 
 a deeper note. 
 
 She retorted still more sharply than before 
 bitter, querulous words, and once she stamped 
 her foot. 
 
 He looked at his watch. One of her scenes 
 was apparently beginning. Beside being a 
 horror to him, it might absorb more time than 
 the reception. Three patients he had prom- 
 ised to see that evening. He must also cast 
 one glance at the last woman operated, must 
 go a half-hour by rail to a rather fiendish but 
 pitiable old woman who had frightful convul- 
 sions of laughter and screaming, and was in- 
 clined to slay her attendants if he failed to 
 appear when expected. No other person had 
 the least influence on her, but him she in a 
 measure obeyed. However, she peremptorily 
 demanded him three times a week. It was an 
 exhausting and somewhat depressing pilgrim-
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 age, but a desire to protect her timid relatives, 
 beside certain associations of the past, together 
 with a queer sympathy with the unreasonable 
 old party, who had been a famous beauty in 
 her time, and clever, induced him to perform 
 this quasi constable service, and compel her to 
 keep the peace. 
 
 M^lanie observed him closely. Their dis- 
 cussion was by no means novel. Both knew 
 how it would end. 
 
 " They will not probably all die if they do 
 not see you until to-morrow night," she said, 
 with hard flippancy. 
 
 " To-morrow evening I shall be out of town 
 in consultation, on the following evening also. 
 Melanie, if you cannot go alone to a house 
 where you are so intimate - " 
 
 " I cannot," she declared with vehemence. 
 " Exactly there, not. Besides, I go enough 
 without you. It rouses comment. It does 
 not look well. One might as well be not 
 married, as married to a man who systemati- 
 cally neglects one." 
 
 "And you could not stay at home?" he 
 asked, gravely. 
 
 " Aurel ! Why should I stay at home? " she 
 demanded. 
 
 " Since you think you cannot go alone," he
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 continued. " I will drive over with you at ten, 
 go in with you, and slip away." 
 
 " Ten is too late," she complained ; " far 
 too late for their regular At Home." 
 
 " It is the best I can do for you," he said, 
 and rang for Wolf. 
 
 " Just bring me a little soup and a bit of 
 meat here, will you, Wolf, instantly, and ask 
 the children to come here a moment; and 
 have the coupe drive round. I must catch 
 the 7.15 train. I shall be back at ten minutes 
 before ten. Please have my bath and evening 
 clothes in readiness." 
 
 At Count Arco's that evening Monica was 
 standing by a plush portiere as a Russian be- 
 gan to play Chopin's Concerto in F minor. 
 She had heard it so often in the music-room 
 of the dear old house on the height above 
 the bay. She passed unobserved under the 
 portiere and wandered on, too moved to listen 
 to that music among gay women and florid 
 officers. The adagio from Beethoven's Patht- 
 tique followed. Its passionate undertone sent 
 her farther and farther from the large drawing- 
 room, until, quite unnerved, she found herself 
 alone in a small boudoir. She could still hear 
 the piano, and all her past throbbed in those 
 wonderful tones.
 
 136 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Presently the daughter of the house sang a 
 small song in English, the Countess Arco 
 was American, which made no demand what- 
 ever upon her emotions, and she was about to 
 return to her friends the Lorings when she 
 happened to intelligently perceive on the wall 
 before her the object at which she had been 
 blankly gazing, an interesting old relief in 
 ivory. 
 
 It represented Iphigenia in Aulis at the in- 
 stant preceding the interception of the goddess 
 Clytemnestra and a group of women at the 
 right, their mouths distorted with wailing ; the 
 warriors, Agamemnon apparently swallowing 
 his grief; in the centre the gentle victim with 
 bared young breast ; nearest her, meeting her 
 innocent tender broken gaze, Calchas, and just 
 behind her strongly poised with knife upraised 
 for the fatal stroke the other stately priest, 
 splendid of raiment, bay-crowned, hovering 
 over her with something officially mournful, 
 deprecating, unctuous, suave in their atti- 
 tudes and their long-bearded, handsome astute 
 faces. She was absorbed in study of the 
 yellow, time-stained ivory, the curious move- 
 ment of all the lines as of growing trees or 
 flames 
 
 "They were the doctors of those times,"
 
 The Garden of Eden 137 
 
 remarked a mild voice in agreeable English at 
 her side, the careful English of the educated 
 foreigner. " That handsome old rascal in the 
 foreground is telling her it will really not hurt 
 her very much. Seventeenth century work, is 
 it not?" he asked gently, sauntered on, and 
 disappeared through a side door. 
 
 " Who is the man with the beautiful pro- 
 file?" Monica asked young Loring, familiarly 
 known as Lai, who joined her shortly after. 
 
 " Perhaps you mean me," said the boy, with 
 an amiable grin. 
 
 " It is a different style of beauty from 
 yours." 
 
 " Don't chaff. A man has no business to 
 be beautiful. I have heard no end of girls 
 say they do not like handsome men." 
 
 " That is fortunate," she returned, dryly. 
 " Handsome men are rare." 
 
 " Come, I say ! You don't really like 
 beauty men do you? You don't think them 
 dandies?" 
 
 " It was not a dandy, nor was " 
 
 " I would rather have fifty thousand dollars 
 a year than the nose of Apollo." 
 
 She looked silently at the relief. Among 
 the strong aquiline faces was one not unlike 
 the face she loved best.
 
 138 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " But your man with the profile. Was he 
 in uniform?" resumed the boy. 
 
 " No. It does not matter at all. I merely 
 happened to ask." 
 
 " It cannot be Baron Barotinsky. You can't 
 see his profile for his cheeks and teeth and his 
 flamboyant moustache flamboyant is good. 
 And Baron Lobanow has the distinguished 
 profile of a bird of prey, all right, you 
 know, and racy, but not what a young lady 
 calls beautiful. Then there is old Baron von 
 Uhlenhorst, major in times past. He has a 
 profile ready for anything, but flattened as 
 with a flatiron. I know you don't mean him. 
 His gay son Leo, who flirts awfully with Miss 
 McCarroll, and all the time looks after the 
 main chance with the Countess Florence Arco 
 well, you surely can't mean him? Selbitz 
 has a profile, but it all runs to nose." 
 
 " I mean no one at all. This was a man 
 I never before saw. It is utterly unimpor- 
 tant. You are a dreadful gossip for a boy of 
 eighteen." 
 
 " It cannot be old General Ehrenstein," he 
 went on, quite unabashed. " He has a very 
 honorable profile but it is sixty-eight years 
 old. Those other fellows in there, there's 
 nothing beautiful about them, unless it is their
 
 The Garden of Eden 139 
 
 impudence. The English ambassador well, 
 he may be awfully clever, but he has no 
 more profile than I have." 
 
 She sjiill studied the ivory and let him prattle. 
 
 Once upon the trail, he would not desist. 
 
 " Profile profile man with a profile," he 
 muttered. " I know an actor with a profile." 
 
 " This man was not an actor." 
 
 " Prince Ruprecht has a profile, but he 
 wears uniform. Beside, he is not here this 
 evening, so far as I know. What did the 
 profile condescend to belong to? To what 
 sort of chap otherwise, I mean?" 
 
 " Lawrence, it was the merest accident that 
 I asked you." 
 
 " Yes, yes, but profiles must be attached to 
 something," persisted the boy. " They cannot 
 walk about in thin air unless they are astrals. 
 Was this fellow an astral?" 
 
 " Quite possibly." 
 
 " Miss Randolph, I must ferret out this 
 mystery. Now, suppose there were a murder, 
 and your profile were suspected, and you were 
 witness, how would you describe him?" 
 
 She looked at the boy wondering, and 
 answered : 
 
 " Since you insist, he is a man of middle 
 height, slight, elegant, has good shoulders, and
 
 140 The Garden of Eden 
 
 moves well. His hand is unusual, perfect in 
 shape, no flesh, yet not bony, a sensitive hand, 
 with faultless nails. The hand I saw plainly. 
 As to the face I hardly looked at him, you 
 understand he stood a little behind me, and 
 spoke so simply quite with my thoughts 
 so that it scarcely surprised me to hear a 
 voice, and I met his glance only as he was 
 turning to go; but I saw keen eyes, deep- 
 set, color unknown, a slight smile which 
 I suspect is surface light an immensely 
 thoughtful face, a noble air repose. I hardly 
 know how to express it, but as if he had 
 nothing in the world to do all the time that 
 there is plain evening dress no decora- 
 tions; that is all I saw, except, as he turned 
 away, the pure profile." 
 
 " Great Scott ! And that is the way girls 
 purl on when they do not even look at a man ! 
 My dear Miss Randolph, I assure you I could 
 not give you so minute a description of my 
 own father. I should say he was an awfully 
 good old chap in a gray coat. Or is it be- 
 cause you are an author?" the saucy boy 
 demanded with his first^symptom of respect. 
 
 " I am no author," she retorted, with some 
 discomfort. " I only happened to write some- 
 thing that they published."
 
 The Garden of Eden 141 
 
 "Wait a bit. I'm after the classic profile. 
 A man who looks as if he has nothing to do. 
 A man who has all the time that there is. 
 Profile ah I 've got you ! That heavenly 
 repose can belong only to the great Arenberg. 
 Oh, Miss Randolph, I am evidently a born de- 
 tective. I shall have to tell my father it 's 
 no use sending me to Freiburg to be a mining 
 engineer. It is the famous Arenberg, as sure 
 as you 're born." 
 
 "Why is he so famous?" asked Monica, 
 still studying the growing fibres and move- 
 ment of the ivory. 
 
 " Well, of course I don't mean he is fa- 
 mous like Buffalo Bill or Zimmy, you know. 
 Still, he is a very good sort. Known here as 
 a fine surgeon, and recognized in London. I 
 say, you don't like London, do you? Stupid, 
 after New York. Arenberg is a very good 
 fellow. So much I must say for him. They 
 say he takes from the rich and gives to the 
 poor. A sort of Robin Hood, you know, 
 among doctors. Then he is a born baron, 
 and drops his title. When a duke dislocates 
 his arm and dares to call Arenberg, they say 
 he has to sell a farm or forest of his ancestral 
 estate. Arenberg is a socialist, an anarchist, 
 a heaven knows what. All the same, he is
 
 142 The Garden of Eden 
 
 a swell, and the fashion. All the women in 
 love with him, all the men depending upon 
 him. A person of importance, don't you 
 know? " 
 
 " He seemed so very simple," said Monica. 
 
 " Oh yes, they are sly foxes, doctors, 
 don't you know? I say, you don't like 
 doctors, now, do you? Sly foxes, doctors 
 frauds, you know." 
 
 " Oh yes, I like doctors," said Monica 
 gently, turning away. 
 
 " All right," he responded, cheerfully. " Then 
 I '11 tell my father it is no use to try to make 
 a detective of me. I must study medicine. I 
 say, Miss Randolph, are you tired? because 
 I intentionally forgot to tell you that papa, 
 who was buttonholing an abbd in the seventh 
 heaven of theological argument, told me I 
 was not to hang about and bore you to death, 
 but to say when you were tired he was ready 
 to go home." 
 
 Arenberg had quitted the tempestuous old 
 witch in Bliithenheim, returned to town, seen 
 his most pressing patients and the woman at 
 the hospital, reached his home ten minutes 
 after ten instead of before ten, still in time to 
 make a hurried toilette, and drive with a some- 
 what incensed wife to Court Arco's, whence he
 
 The Garden of Eden 143 
 
 beat a speedy retreat. The night was starry 
 and cool. With a sense of relief he walked on 
 through quiet streets. " For a tame man," 
 he thought, " I have a singular hatred of 
 crowded drawing-rooms. That thoughtful girl 
 alone in the little room, watching her fair sister 
 Iphigenia so wistfully, likes them no better, it 
 would seem." 
 
 Wolf, sleepy but dignified, announced that 
 the Gunthers had just telephoned three times. 
 Somebody was badly burned. Wolfs manner 
 expressed grave doubt of people's tact in 
 mentioning such things so late at night. 
 
 Arenberg's coat was half off. He pulled it 
 on again, went into his study, filled his pock- 
 ets with a few things usually wanting in the 
 best houses, and made for the hall door. 
 
 " The carriage, sir? " 
 
 " No. The horses must go over to Count 
 Arco's once more. That is enough for them." 
 
 " May I not get a cab, sir? It is so far." 
 
 " Thanks. I can get up there quicker on 
 foot, by cross paths." 
 
 On his return, very late, he passed a Volk's 
 Hall, gay with the sound of violins and danc- 
 ing feet. 
 
 " Lo, the poor working-man," he said, smil- 
 ing, " may he get his eight hours ! "
 
 144 The Garden of Eden 
 
 VI 
 
 No power on earth could have convinced 
 Monica, at home, what a fair semblance of 
 happiness two or three scrawled pages might 
 create in a homesick heart. It was six 
 months now since her Hegira, and Keith's 
 letters came regularly. His zeal surprised 
 himself, for no man disliked and shirked 
 letter-writing more than he, and his corre- 
 spondents in general were but meagrely 
 informed by his strong and interesting 
 personality. To her, however, he found him- 
 self writing freely; and some fugitive charm 
 of his presence, and much of his good heart, 
 crept into those small and hasty pages, 
 breathing devotion, a deep but unaccent- 
 uated sadness apt to deviate into jest, and 
 never failing in the manliness of steady ap- 
 proval of her course. 
 
 When such a letter was due, every post- 
 man's ring was a peal of joy-bells, electric, 
 inspiring. And that bit of paper! She 
 kissed it until her eyes were dim with tears, 
 and wept until she laughed for gladness.
 
 The Garden of Eden 145 
 
 Sometimes she would tear open the envelope 
 ravenously; sometimes she turned it up and 
 down, and over and over, gloating over the 
 superscription and postage stamps, and stroked 
 it with lingering touch, postponing essential 
 delight with sybarite cunning. By day she 
 carried his latest letter about with her; by 
 night it lay under her pillow, and if she 
 waked she touched it lovingly, was comforted, 
 and slept again. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph's letters to her daughter 
 were, upon the whole, better letters than 
 Keith Lowell's, longer, more frequent, 
 most dear to Monica, and unspeakable sus- 
 tenance. For these too she waited, these 
 too she read and re-read tenderly ; but it must 
 be admitted she put them neatly on file, and 
 did not blur them and rumple their edges by 
 close contact with her person. For nature, 
 which now and then leads the best of us a 
 pretty dance, permits a girl to receive with 
 perfect sobriety of demeanor the most loving 
 effusions penned by the mother who bore 
 her, while a word from the hand of a man 
 whom she has known but a span of months 
 whirls her off upon a series of actions, incal- 
 culable, idiotic, and rapturous. 
 
 Mrs. Randolph wrote in excellent spirits,
 
 146 The Garden of Eden 
 
 and with the sure hope of joining Monica 
 soon and going with her to Italy, Greece, and 
 farther. In the meantime a suitable tenant 
 for the house must be found, for, obviously, 
 one could not let it and its penates to the 
 unknown first comer and his horde of wild 
 children armed with jackknives. Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph alluded with vague and sanguine lordli- 
 ness to certain speculations which should pave 
 the way to a nomadic life of delightful and 
 wide range. In her first letters she men- 
 tioned Keith briefly and kindly, making this 
 concession to the situation; for many weeks 
 she ignored his existence; toward spring she 
 began to express herself oracularly, with 
 vailed and anxious pleading, in regard to the 
 influence of time and distance upon human 
 hearts, the proverbial fickleness of lovers, the 
 ephemeral and illusive character of woman's 
 dreams, the transitoriness of all mundane 
 things, and similar themes not wholly neg- 
 lected by the poets, whom, indeed, Mrs. 
 Randolph summoned, in copious quotation, 
 to her aid. Monica, persuaded of the inde- 
 structibility of true love, smiled sadly over 
 this eloquence, and did not suspect that it 
 had a definite trend, or that anything further 
 could be demanded of her after she had put
 
 The Garden of Eden 147 
 
 four thousand miles of land and sea between 
 her and the man she loved. But one April 
 day, when the air was bracing in the shade 
 and enervating in the sunshine, and the earth 
 was thrilled with unrest and pulsating with 
 promise, and the mute souls of things were 
 swelling and bursting, eager to fulfil their 
 destiny, Monica received two letters; one, 
 more than usually ardent, spring throbbing 
 through it all; one, clever, carefully planned, 
 breathing affection, reason, solicitude, and a 
 mother's prayer for that mother's peace of 
 mind, in the sacred name of mother-love, to 
 make the one remaining sacrifice and give up 
 all communication with Keith. 
 
 Monica, starting out to walk had met the 
 postman at the door and taken those letters 
 into the woods, where she read them many 
 times. Always these two ! Always the con- 
 flict ! What subtle influence linked them so 
 strangely together since that first night when 
 he was summoned by her imperative need. 
 Was it only from that night ? Or did it all 
 begin ages before, in some forgotten pre- 
 existence ? That letters from these dear pro- 
 tagonists should arrive not infrequently by the 
 same steamer was no more than natural ; but 
 why, if Keith's was specially ardent, should
 
 148 The Garden of Eden 
 
 hers reveal an inexplicable aptness, a pre- 
 science, divining his thoughts and seeking to 
 counteract their potency? Monica was con- 
 scious that her mother was not as the mother 
 in comfortable love affairs, who amiably oblit- 
 erates herself, or as that forgotten or disre- 
 garded nonentity, the average mother in 
 fiction. This mother held her ground, un- 
 tiring, resolute. Even her silence was elo- 
 quent with thought and steadfast purpose. 
 
 To-day her words were well chosen. Her 
 arguments would have convinced every dis- 
 passionate reader. They impressed Monica 
 profoundly, and filled her heart with the old 
 hot tumult, the conflict of reason and emo- 
 tion, of conscience and desire, of truth and 
 sophistry. She had gained in these months 
 no forgetfulness, but some control, some 
 little quiet and patience. Again, all was 
 swept away. By what? By a few written 
 words, lifeless things, mere marks made with 
 pen and ink on white paper, yet potent, as 
 she sat there on a bench beneath a great 
 linden-tree in a still game-park, where beauti- 
 ful wild creatures lived that kings and dukes 
 might slay them to transport her to her old 
 home, to reveal to her in the glow of flicker- 
 ing firelight a fair and troubled face yearning
 
 The Garden of Eden 149 
 
 over a girl wretched and broken in spirit, 
 crouching at her mother's knee, and to rein- 
 voke from the silence the vivid sound of their 
 voices, their sighs, each impassioned word 
 distinct, living, and echoing on forever. 
 
 So still, so long Monica sat, the deer 
 thought she must be a queer growth on the 
 trunk of the linden-tree against which she 
 leaned, and drew near and contemplated her 
 with soft inquiry in their lovely eyes. For 
 these were tame wild things, grown fearless 
 because in a monarch's domains are many 
 game-parks, and the royal massacre of these 
 innocents occurred rarely, and only in its 
 appointed time, like all court ceremonies, 
 pageants, and diversions. 
 
 Be brave and good, her mother said. Finish 
 nobly what she had nobly begun. To weakly 
 cling to what she had renounced, to revel in 
 the expression of emotion to a man from whom 
 she had fled, had neither virtue nor sense. 
 
 Singularly enough, in these words threat- 
 ening her last remnant of happiness, was 
 something that appealed to Monica, who did 
 not love half measures and compromises. 
 
 Her mother pleaded wisely, subtly, ten- 
 derly, Keith's cause against Monica herself. 
 It was cruel to fetter a man to whom one
 
 150 The Garden of Eden 
 
 never could give happiness ; selfish to possess 
 his imagination still instead of summarily 
 breaking off all intercourse, thereby helping 
 him to regain his repose of mind and meet 
 his duties manfully. 
 
 She pleaded well, the mother, and even 
 though Keith's letter, already much crumpled 
 and blurred, was pleading passionately against 
 her, she might have won her cause but for one 
 inadvertence. 
 
 " Social laws are for the good of man- 
 kind. No one can oppose them with im- 
 punity. Obey them and trust the future," 
 she urged. 
 
 Trust the future ! Those three words had 
 at first no special significance to Monica, but 
 as she read and re-read them, they became 
 portentous. Behind them she perceived some- 
 thing lowering in ambush, a vague figure, a 
 Major Lynton or Kitty's "Prince." Again, 
 yet more sharply defined, she saw, as on that 
 evening long ago, one faint shade of worldli- 
 ness in that pure affection, one hint even of 
 selfishness in those incontrovertibly noble 
 and moral views, and was dismayed, as we 
 all are, when suddenly a stranger looks out of 
 our nearest and dearest 's eyes. Beside, the 
 slightest manipulation of souls is a crime of
 
 The Garden of Eden 151 
 
 , the soul discovering, never 
 
 condones. 
 
 Her mother was right, a thousand times 
 right. Reason, logic, conventional morality, 
 social laws, were all on her side, always on 
 her side. But not to these had Monica yielded. 
 Ah, no ! Not for these did she sit here alone 
 in a foreign land. For Love's own sake had 
 she fled from love. Her mother was right. 
 But Keith and she herself, were they also not 
 right? Had their love no rights at all, not 
 even after their renunciation, a right to 
 this one last boon, the letters? Cold and 
 pale, indeed, were they, compared with the 
 human touch, the voice and smile of the 
 unattainable beloved, yet warmer and dearer 
 than all else on earth. Keith's letter became 
 suddenly more crumpled and blurred, and her 
 soft-eyed spectators scampered off, mistrust- 
 ful of such conduct. 
 
 Her mother was good, but Keith, he, too, 
 no less. Her mother was large-hearted and 
 infinitely loving. But had any mother, even 
 in thought, the right to dispose of her child's 
 destiny ? To seek to direct, if even so little, 
 her affections? And the social laws con- 
 demning her and Keith? Were they so im- 
 maculate? Who made them? Whence did
 
 152. The Garden of Eden 
 
 they arise? They, too, would sanction her 
 marriage with the " Prince " on the morrow. 
 "Then they are low things," she said solemnly 
 in the stillness, looking up into the intense 
 blue of the sky and upon the noble and tran- 
 quil reaches framed by groups of oaks and 
 beech-trees. 
 
 " Whom does our correspondence harm ? " 
 No one. There Monica was less honest, and 
 some voice in her demanded how she knew 
 this so positively, since certain matters were 
 remote and beyond her observation and juris- 
 diction. 
 
 Sorrow has its rights, she thought, and 
 loneliness and love in exile. If there were 
 wrong in these letters, then her heart and 
 thoughts, the very essence of her being, all 
 was hopelessly wrong. Right? Wrong? 
 How confusing were such words ! For on 
 this earth right clashed with right, and when 
 the stronger was victorious the weaker right 
 seemed then a wrong. She smiled bitterly. 
 Social laws cannot undermine you, though I 
 shake my puny fist. I never wished or sought 
 to oppose you. I am but a weak soft thing, 
 and, I believe, not wicked in my heart, not 
 precisely an outlaw by election. But those 
 letters, I will not yield. Can I do harm at
 
 The Garden of Eden 1 53 
 
 this distance ! I might as well be writing to 
 Lilian in the shades, he is so far so far 
 from me 
 
 Spring was pleading for the lovers in her 
 own pulses in Keith's letter, in the marvel- 
 lous air, in all the mysterious yearning of 
 nature, in the sweet call of the blackbird and 
 the thrush, in the free flight of a far-off swal- 
 low. In a broad hollow the light breeze 
 stirred a field of cuckoo flowers in waves of 
 lilac foam, a sea of bloom fair enough for 
 the birth of Aphrodite, and Monica, look- 
 ing up, beheld the struggle of the great 
 linden-tree bursting forth in myriads of tiny 
 pale-green heart-shaped leaves hearts, not 
 heads. That night a message flashed under 
 the ocean : / cannot and live. It was her only 
 reply. In no letter to Monica did Mrs. 
 Randolph, wise and loving, ever revert to the 
 subject. She waited loving and wise. 
 
 It happened about this time that Monica, 
 to her exceeding amazement, found herself 
 promoted to the dignity of an editorial chair. 
 Since we are aware that life is a mere suc- 
 cession of surprises, it is surprising that we 
 ever permit ourselves to be surprised, she 
 reflected sapiently, the first morning that a 
 courteous publisher sent her home from her
 
 1 54 The Garden of Eden 
 
 inarduous labors in his very correct coupe 1 ; 
 nevertheless, great was her surprise, and she 
 was conscious of being tossed about curiously, 
 as if some higher power were idly playing at 
 cup and ball. 
 
 A magazine of English excerpts had been 
 plunging on rather headlessly since the death 
 of the poet who had originated and conducted 
 it. Gravely introduced by Mr. Loring, its 
 publisher called upon her one day to offer her 
 the editorship. 
 
 "The idea is preposterous," she declared, 
 promptly. "I am not at all that sort of a 
 person; I could never do it." 
 
 She was genially assured that her duties 
 would be as small as her salary, that The 
 Nosegay ran in grooves and under the guidance 
 of trained men, but sadly needed somebody 
 capable of rapidly dipping into all kinds of 
 current light literature in the English tongue. 
 For this sort of dissipation she could not 
 deny a certain aptitude. But her stay, in all 
 probability, would be so short. "At least, 
 while you stay," begged the publisher. 
 "Very well, while I stay," she agreed. 
 
 She had no reason to repent her decision, 
 for stacks of English books, magazines, re- 
 views, and journals were sent to her rooms,
 
 The Garden of Eden 155 
 
 this rich prospect was indeed what tempted 
 her, and there was nothing of this sort 
 which she could not have by adding its name 
 to the already generous list. Whatever she 
 desired in German or French she needed but 
 to mention. She had also her own sanctum in 
 a large publishing house, and the men on her 
 staff, highly edified by the advent of a chief 
 in petticoats, by her inexperience and meagre 
 German, were exceedingly good to her, made 
 all things easy, and did whatever they could 
 of her work. Men, upon the path of this lone 
 pilgrim, were not thus far, it must be conceded, 
 monsters. 
 
 In the make-up of The Nosegay under 
 Monica's dispensation certain things always 
 remained a mystery to its editor-in-chief. It 
 devolved upon her to choose for it a serial 
 novel, short tales, essays, poems, and anec- 
 dotes. In this purely literary field she was 
 autocratic. She was also supposed to select 
 its illustrations. Now, the serial was illus- 
 trated and dear. The stream of literature 
 flowing in to nourish the small magazine was 
 enormous. It was altogether an expensive 
 caprice of the publisher, who had a special 
 fancy for this feeble, foreign reprint in the 
 midst of his vast German enterprises of world-
 
 156 The Garden of Eden 
 
 wide fame. The Nosegay was never expected 
 to prove remunerative, and in this respect 
 certainly disappointed no one. But a certain 
 frugality of mind Monica was, nevertheless, 
 instructed to exhibit in her choice of illustra- 
 tions. Unexplored piles of pictures which 
 the publishers had been reproducing for a 
 quarter-century in all sorts of periodicals, 
 lay at her disposal. These coarse prints she 
 was expected to make palatable by an engag- 
 ing text. A limited supply of fine cliches, 
 the best modern work from Paris and Sweden, 
 were always at hand, and Monica was prone 
 to toss the ugly pictures overboard, and fill 
 one number of The Nosegay with fascinating 
 things which she ought to have distributed 
 through five. But whenever she permitted 
 herself this liberty, some secret power curbed 
 her flight. She might have read the proofs 
 apparently at the last moment, and seen the 
 blank pages left for the illustrations of her 
 choice ; but when the fresh Nosegay was handed 
 her, a change had taken place in its land- 
 marks: something beautiful had vanished, 
 and in its stead was some rough print from 
 the old store, something from Shakespeare, 
 Schiller, it mattered not what, with a text 
 that mattered, alas! still less, apparently.
 
 The Garden of Eden 157 
 
 At all events, terrible in bald detachment, in 
 utter want of raison d'etre, and crushing in 
 the extreme to the editor-in-chief, passages 
 which may well be reckoned to the most 
 unexpurgated of Shakespeare, appeared once 
 or twice in Monica's magazine. 
 
 Regaining breath and courage, she would 
 reason : 
 
 "It makes one's hair stand on end, but per- 
 haps they won't know what the words mean. 
 I hope they '11 not look them up in their dic- 
 tionaries. After all, it is Shakespeare, for- 
 tunately. People never mind Shakespeare or 
 the Bible I don't know why, I 'm sure. But 
 I must never again be careless of those expen- 
 sive cliches. I must work in those dreadful 
 babies that look like advertisements of 
 Mellin's Food." 
 
 Trusting too that he who fain would teach 
 her economy by these heroic methods did 
 not himself perfectly command the English 
 tongue, like Sir Isaac Newton's little dog, did 
 not know the mischief he had done; dreading, 
 above all, the conscientiousness and thorough- 
 ness of the ordinary German mind in any 
 explanation; this mean-spirited editor never 
 dared to inquire who set at naught her 
 scheme, but looked calm, grave, and entirely
 
 158 The Garden of Eden 
 
 preoccupied by business when next she met 
 her associates. 
 
 Her Answers to Correspondents also caused 
 her some pangs. Writing Answers to Corre- 
 spondents can rarely be, it is safe to assume, 
 enlivening employment. But until one per- 
 ceives into how many forms of broken English 
 Germans are capable of translating the Lorelei 
 and the Erlkonig, one hardly suspects the 
 potentialities of this office. She had at times 
 forty or fifty such productions speared to- 
 gether on her desk. They were too precious 
 for the waste-basket. Their perusal brought 
 tears to the eye tears of bewilderment and 
 helpless mirth. But Monica found it diffi- 
 cult to express this fact pleasingly in her 
 answers. 
 
 Altogether her connection with The Nose- 
 gay was healthful. It occupied her certain 
 hours of certain days regularly, and forced her 
 into a new field where she gained some dis- 
 cipline and a little technical training, and 
 prevented her from thinking exclusively of 
 her own affairs. Anything may, of course, 
 become drudgery, munching bonbons, or 
 swinging in a hammock, or kissing, but 
 Monica's gleaning in the best periodical lit- 
 erature never palled upon her. After making
 
 The Garden of Eden 159 
 
 her approximate table of Contents for weeks 
 in advance, she would read ravenously on, 
 with the fine consciousness of fulfilling her 
 professional duties. Yet she was so thor- 
 oughly aware that her actual work on The 
 Nosegay required no trained intelligence, she 
 wondered to find it, too, propelling her far- 
 ther in that path upon which invisible hands 
 had long been pushing her. 
 
 There is truth and mystery in the proverb 
 of the dog and his bad name. Why, if a 
 woman be carelessly called pretty, another 
 witty, another amiable, do the names often 
 enough cling, though the suggested attributes 
 be imperceptible? Thus Monica was dubbed 
 literary, and literary she was doomed to re- 
 main till the end of the chapter, with how 
 little reason she who knew her heart's desire 
 fain would have persuaded the acquaintances 
 who congratulated her upon her fresh laurels. 
 "Why, a child could do such work," she 
 assured the Frau Professor; but even that 
 good soul did not believe her. 
 
 It was, indeed, wholly useless, Monica had 
 long since discovered, to deny or deprecate 
 literary capability. She was an "author" in 
 spite of herself, and not altogether unlike the 
 immortal individual who found that he had
 
 160 The Garden of Eden 
 
 been writing prose unawares. If she said she 
 had no literary ambition, people smiled in- 
 credulously; if she seemed unconscious, as 
 she was, of any talent or calling, they thought 
 it pride aping humility; and it would have 
 been hopeless to attempt to explain to any one 
 that which was to herself utterly inexplicable 
 and mysterious, how in light response to 
 the light bidding of a girl-friend, with the 
 blithe audacity of ignorance, yet purely, since 
 with no thought of the world's praise or cen- 
 sure, like a shepherd lad who, unabashed, 
 joins heroes at their sports and gayly flings 
 his rustic crook amid the shower of glittering 
 spears, she had written that idle little tale, 
 which had put her ever since in a false posi- 
 tion. For although people are prone to be- 
 lieve that whatever publishers choose to print 
 and bind, is if it sells literature, Monica 
 had the grace to know better. She was, 
 moreover, insensible to flattery in regard to a 
 book which she suspected some being outside 
 herself had written. While her hand, her 
 pen, had visibly done the work, her brain and 
 heart were frequently so remote and so heavy 
 laden, she marvelled at the merriment of her 
 manuscript. Confronted by the first deep 
 problem of her life, impelled with elemental
 
 The Garden of Eden 161 
 
 force toward Keith, yet never long oblivious 
 of her mother's pained and powerful remon- 
 strance, she wondered at the indifference of 
 those creatures of her imagination. How 
 could they laugh and live untroubled lives? 
 What were they? Whence did they come? 
 Why did they jest when she was sad? In a 
 certain sense the book was strange to her, 
 a bubble on the deeper current of her life. 
 She forgot its existence completely, was 
 frankly uncomfortable when suddenly re- 
 minded of it, and began to resent its cheap 
 popularity and the unconscionable sales which, 
 in the expressive language of Lai Loring, 
 were still booming. Yet she had no reason 
 to be ungrateful to that little venture. It 
 had enabled her to act freely in a crucial 
 moment. It had sent her abroad with one 
 thousand dollars in her pocket. With this 
 opulence she calmly faced the world and 
 feared nothing, for she was not yet acquainted 
 with money. 
 
 No woman, be she daughter, sister, or wife 
 and let her keep her accounts ever so 
 prettily who simply accepts and disburses 
 what others have toiled for, is acquainted 
 with money. Few, indeed, are acquainted 
 with it, though its name is on every lip,
 
 1 62 The Garden of Eden 
 
 not the idle inheritor of millions; not the 
 miser; not the prudent person living genteelly 
 on a moderate income ; not the poor man ; 
 not the thief, the successful merchant, or the 
 careless vagabond. Only when one. longs to 
 help and save sinking fellow-creatures with 
 it, longs to rescue health or happiness or 
 life or honor, watches the good going to the 
 bad for want of it, gnashes one's teeth in 
 powerlessness before the impossible, yet rises 
 in wrath and dares the impossible, agonizes, 
 assumes mad risks, staggers under heavy 
 weight, descends into the arena and wrestles 
 for it amid insult and jeers, and having won 
 it scatters it broadcast, gladly, with both 
 hands, knowing it for the thing it is, whole- 
 some in the right place, and in the wrong vile 
 and noxious, were that place the altar of the 
 Great Unknown, does one pass through the 
 process of initiation into the occult knowl- 
 edge of the mystery of money. For here, 
 too, he who loseth his life shall find it, and 
 there are things hidden from the wise and 
 prudent and revealed unto dare-devils. In the 
 legend, the kobolds of the mine become the 
 cruel masters of him who, greedy for their 
 gold, approaches them with flattering mien; 
 but to the youth who commands them sternly,
 
 The Garden of Eden 1 63 
 
 treats them with contumely, buffets and 
 derides them, they are willing slaves, and all 
 their ingots of gold and silver, their ropes of 
 rubies, their buckets of diamonds and pearls, 
 are his. So in the legend of life the fleet- 
 ing vision we are all enacting the soul who 
 would command the hidden treasure of wealth 
 must regard it, and its loss haughtily. 
 Some perception of these truths Monica ac- 
 quired in the course of time. Many of them, 
 indeed, are visible at a glance. When Dives, 
 paying his cab-fare, handles his pennies with 
 a certain scrupulously obsequious crook of the 
 fingers, he proclaims loudly to the universe 
 which is master, who is slave. But at this 
 period she perceived little that was near her, 
 because of the overweening presence of the 
 green pastures and still waters she had left far 
 behind. 
 
 One fact was, however, clear to her, indif- 
 ferently as it pleased her to regard it. She 
 was expected to earn her bread. This pros- 
 pect, usually discussed in anxiety when a girl 
 goes forth alone, had been almost altogether 
 ignored by that faithful little group bent only 
 upon getting her off anywhere, under any 
 conditions, as fast and as far as possible, as if 
 she were a keg of dynamite. The trifling
 
 164 The Garden of Eden 
 
 matter of bread-winning they seemed to 
 think would take care of itself. Curiously 
 enough, it did. Winged opportunities, which 
 her betters pursued breathlessly round all 
 corners, flew unsought in her windows. She 
 received from a number of newspapers very 
 fair offers for regular work, and feeling that 
 an inscrutable providence assigned queer bur- 
 dens to feeble backs, she patiently undertook 
 to chronicle weekly, and at so much a column, 
 her impressions of foreign life. Now what 
 she chronicled was, in truth, everything and 
 anything except her impressions. She pos- 
 sessed that evil thing, a facile pen. With it 
 she wrote chitter-chatter upon ruined castles, 
 and puerile liveliness about Nuremberg and 
 Dresden, and gentle enthusiasm over peasants 
 in short, yards of merry trash. But often, 
 as she sent off her copy, the person in her 
 who loved books with true love and reverence 
 would exclaim in indignant protest : " I won- 
 der that they can stand another castle ! " and 
 it would have seemed to her not inappropriate 
 had her editor, emulating the humane plea 
 for the Western pianist, prefaced her weekly 
 letter with the appeal: "Don't shoot the 
 writer. She is doing the best she knows." 
 Monica was doing the best she knew. Pro-
 
 The Garden of Eden 165 
 
 jected, as from the cannon's mouth, from one 
 continent to another, and from her own private 
 and dear concerns into a perforce literary 
 career, she adjusted herself so soon as she had 
 recovered breath after the stunned condition 
 resulting from these heroic methods of flight 
 and of conversion, to her new environment. 
 Inordinately influenced by reminiscences of 
 other people's letters of travel, she innocently 
 assumed it was her duty to prattle about 
 castles and peasants, and Nuremberg the 
 ancient, and Dresden the delightful. But 
 what she herself observed, and thought, it 
 never occurred to her to write yet that 
 might have had some slight worth. And had 
 she inadvertently slipped one of her letters 
 to Keith Lowell into an envelope addressed 
 to the New York Panyphone, its readers 
 might have been not a little surprised, used 
 as they were to sensations, but at least they 
 would have got their money's worth, perusing 
 a human document. So poor Monica con- 
 scientiously sent to the printers the worst 
 that was in her, and the world told her she 
 was clever to earn so much money. 
 
 The fact that many men now desired to 
 mould her mind ought perhaps to have con- 
 vinced her that she was a writer.
 
 1 66 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Good old Mr. Loring was an ex-Presbyte- 
 rian preacher who had sacrificed the fat 
 emoluments of his drowsy parish to the con- 
 victions of conscience. Finding himself 
 preaching dogmas which he no longer be- 
 lieved, he sadly resigned his calling, thereby 
 enduring much obloquy and vituperation on 
 the part of deacons unlike him, not tempted 
 by thought, and by the local press, not like 
 him over-troubled by scruples. He liked to 
 dart into Monica's rooms of a morning while 
 she was finishing her weekly yard for the 
 Panyphone. Ostensibly he desired to look 
 up a word in her Unabridged Dictionary; 
 but presently he would seat himself, and 
 anxiously inquire if she believed in the Im- 
 mortality of the Soul. Monica, engaged upon 
 her quasi-official report of the condition of a 
 ruined castle, often succeeded in shirking this 
 vast theme. But upon one occasion, he per- 
 sisting, she behind time in her work, turned 
 from a book in which she was nervously veri- 
 fying her architecture, which, unless sup- 
 ported by good authorities, was apt to totter, 
 looked over her shoulder at Mr. Loring, 
 and flung at him the unpremeditated state- 
 ment that she did believe in the immortality 
 of the soul, if perhaps, in a large and re-
 
 The Garden of Eden 167 
 
 mote inexplicable sense; in the meantime, if 
 she personally knew that she should merge 
 in the next stage of her being into a flower, 
 or a gas, or a flame of fire, it would seem to 
 her a matter of utter indifference. 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Loring, astonished, ejacu- 
 lated : 
 
 " Upon my word, I 'm not sure but that is 
 faith ! " 
 
 She, over her shoulder, from her desk, 
 responded : 
 
 "At least, it does not dictate to the 
 Almighty." 
 
 The heterodox boldness of this sentiment 
 seemed to please the ex-Presbyterian, and to 
 lead him to take a special interest in Monica. 
 He privately wondered that the New York 
 Panyphone printed her articles and rejected 
 his, but he was far too kind-hearted to hold 
 her accountable for the editor's want of dis- 
 crimination, and benevolently undertook to 
 improve her mind. She was only too willing. 
 She really hoped something in this line might 
 be accomplished for her. She had heard of 
 young writers protected and advised by men 
 of light and leading, and in spite of her sense 
 of irresponsibility toward her firstling, and 
 toward her perfunctory work for the Pany-
 
 1 68 The Garden of Eden 
 
 phone, and her playing at editing TJie Nosegay, 
 she could no longer refuse to perceive that the 
 world that is to say, the people whom she 
 met attributed these various misdemeanors 
 to her alone. Hence she honestly desired to 
 learn something of the trade she found her- 
 self practising without having served her 
 apprenticeship. When Mr. Loring looked 
 quizzically at her and remarked he never had 
 occupied himself with novels and poetry, 
 of course those were toys for women, but it 
 would be singular if a trained theologian and 
 practised writer could not be of service to her, 
 she agreed with him heartily in a frame of 
 mind sincerely docile, receptive, and hopeful 
 of good. He had, it appeared, devoted his 
 leisure in Europe to what he chose to call the 
 study of art. He observed, with great jus- 
 tice, that there was no " art " whatever in her 
 little book, and none in her letters to the 
 Panyphone, not even one allusion here he 
 looked at her reproachfully to Michael 
 Angelo or Leonardo. To this assertion 
 Monica assented cheerfully. She spent hours 
 examining his engravings and etchings, which 
 interested her much, and in listening to his 
 dissertations, which, she was grieved to dis- 
 cover, interested her precious little. For a
 
 The Garden of Eden 169 
 
 knowledge of art, according to his interpreta- 
 tion, consisted in committing to memory in- 
 terminable lists of painters' names and the 
 dates of their births and deaths with a chrono- 
 logical catalogue of their works. Such lore 
 was upon the whole less entertaining than 
 a biblical genealogy. He would divide an 
 artist's life into sections, and while it ob- 
 viously gave him keen pleasure to proceed 
 from firstly to twelfthly, Monica perceived 
 with regret that all these disquisitions could 
 never help her to learn her trade, not even to 
 suppress one superfluous "and which." Not 
 finding her zealous, he gradually relinquished 
 his endeavors, wondering still more at the 
 Panyphone. 
 
 But among the pictures he showed her was 
 one of which he was unconscious: a gray- 
 haired man with boyish ways; charity in his 
 heart ; unfailing tenderness to an invalid wife ; 
 boundless indulgence to those lively and ex- 
 pensive youths, his sons; blind idolatry for 
 his little daughter; amusing stories on his 
 lips and wistfulness in his eyes; a soul home- 
 sick alike for the old parish and the old 
 faith, wrenched from both too late in life 
 ever to take root elsewhere, longing always 
 for the ancient landmarks; a gentle spirit
 
 170 The Garden of Eden 
 
 whipped by merciless self-reproach ; doubting 
 systematically and on principle, yet with the 
 old ingrained orthodox horror of doubt ; read- 
 ing modern science with a sense of wrong- 
 doing, and a half suspicion that the personal 
 devil with hoofs and forked tail was at the 
 root of the whole matter. 
 
 This portrait Monica found touching, and 
 was always studying faithfully and with close 
 sympathy. It was, indeed, a subject made for 
 her hand, or for a better one. But as it did 
 not occur to her to write what she herself 
 really saw and felt, she continued to babble 
 about castles. 
 
 The next person who attempted to improve 
 her intellect was a lawyer from Massachu- 
 setts. He told her solemnly, and with dis- 
 tinct dissatisfaction in his eye, that he regarded 
 her work as promising, very promising, in- 
 deed; it was crude, of course; no one could 
 expect her to have, all at once, the experi- 
 ence of, say, an old lawyer like himself; but 
 there was a certain freshness in her touch; 
 very unlikely that that freshness would last, 
 it was not, indeed, an essential quality; in 
 order to become a serious writer she should 
 subject her mind to steady discipline. 
 Monica now pricked up her ears, was ready to
 
 The Garden of Eden 171 
 
 subject herself to the severest course of men- 
 tal gymnastics, and rejoiced that the royal 
 road to learning was about to reveal itself to 
 her. Now, he went on, he thought he could 
 be of real service to her. He had come up 
 expressly to talk with her about her work. 
 He regretted to observe she did not model her 
 style after Shakespeare. Shakespeare seemed 
 to have had no influence whatever upon her 
 style. The quality of this reproach was mar- 
 vellous to Monica, beyond all words. Dumb, 
 aghast, she waited. "Now I," continued her 
 visitor, "have made it my practice for years 
 to model my style after Shakespeare. Let 
 me read you this essay. The Inland Review 
 has just rejected it. I am surprised at them. 
 They 've got a poor management there, I 
 fear. Carefully observe my style, and you 
 will comprehend my meaning." Monica 
 listened, comprehended, and again learned 
 something that her teacher did not suspect. 
 The third learned pundit who was good 
 enough to interest himself in her intellectual 
 development and this was, in truth, a very 
 great man frankly intimated idyls were not 
 to his taste; what she ought to write was a 
 great, stirring, international political novel, 
 that was the sort of thing she ought to do;
 
 172 The Garden of Eden 
 
 nothing else was worth while. He sketched 
 a couple of plots for her with such rapidity 
 and ease that Monica innocently asked him 
 why he did not write the books himself. 
 Others came and went, each bringing his 
 scheme, his hobby, his self -absorption, and 
 considerable disappointment for Monica. No 
 one perceived her special need, yet it was 
 great. From no one did she obtain the help 
 and guidance that she sought. Still her 
 mentor's counsels were not all in vain. In- 
 directly, at least, she learned from them that 
 intellects are stubborn things, not to be 
 moulded except in their own way and in their 
 own time; above all, according to their own 
 potentialities; and that writing, like living, 
 is lonely work. 
 
 Presently undreamed-of missives and com- 
 munications from the great outer world of 
 strangers began to pour upon her. Requests 
 for her opinion upon Hypnotism, Pessimism, 
 Vivisection, Woman Suffrage, and the Shakes- 
 peare-Bacon controversy alarmed her beyond 
 measure. Inquiries whether she composed 
 with or without the use of tobacco and stimu- 
 lants, at what time of day her genius was 
 most prolific, whether she could or could not 
 create an ideal character, dismayed her no
 
 The Garden of Eden 173 
 
 less. In this last demand sounded a sup- 
 pressed but threatening asperity. Requests 
 for her autograph arrived in shoals, and she 
 never acceded to them without the mortifying 
 consciousness that her signature was the very 
 best thing she had ever written. Some people 
 insisted upon having an original sentiment, 
 as if that sort of thing grew upon every bush. 
 What mortal may dare to say that he has ever 
 even seen one? Others insidiously desired 
 her to kindly inform them who was the author 
 of those sweet lines : 
 
 ** Many a gallant, gay domestic 
 Bows before him at the door ; " 
 
 or of the noble verse : 
 
 " Footsteps which perhaps another, 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 Seeing, shall take heart again." 
 
 She was even honored by an occasional anon- 
 ymous letter. Marked paragraphs in news- 
 papers informed her long before she ever 
 set foot in Italy that she was persistently 
 floating about Venice in a golden gondola; 
 and that she, by choice and by chance a ring- 
 less being, possessed three hundred and sixty-
 
 174 The Garden of Eden 
 
 five rings sparkling with priceless gems, all 
 the gifts of dear friends; which fable the 
 desperate paragraph ist, at a loss for copy, had 
 evidently cribbed from the Arabian Nights, 
 and appended to the first name he saw in a 
 catalogue. 
 
 All these things seemed to Monica rather 
 severe punishment for one youthful indiscre- 
 tion, and although, in spite of her denseness, 
 she dimly perceived that it is thus that that 
 much vaunted thing, the free voice of a free 
 people, the American Press, at the close 
 of the nineteenth century, delights to honor 
 the literary guild, she was by no means, as 
 yet, convinced that she belonged therein. 
 
 But when in a Chicago sheet she beheld an 
 article upon a certain school of writers, and a 
 big blotch purporting to be herself amid other 
 big black blotches purporting to be men and 
 women of letters, she struggled no longer. 
 With a gasp and a groan of contrition she 
 glanced at her shelves, where, in calm dis- 
 dain, the Mighty stood, Montaigne and 
 Moliere, Shakespeare, Shelley, Balzac, Thack- 
 eray, and Goethe; in their wake poets, phi- 
 losophers, scientists, modern novelists of 
 renown, and murmuring: "You see how it 
 is yourselves," she meekly bowed her head, set
 
 The Garden of Eden 175 
 
 off on the path elected for her by destiny in 
 collusion with newspapers, but never chosen 
 by her own free will and convictions, stole 
 shamefaced into that School, with her own 
 hands shut the door behind her, and took her 
 place at the foot of the class.
 
 ij6 The Garden of Eden 
 
 VII 
 
 IT was a Thursday, not a busy day for the 
 magazine, nor yet absorbing for The Pany- 
 phone article. As Monica drew on her gloves, 
 prudently thinking it was perhaps time to 
 have her teeth examined, a button fell. She 
 delayed long enough to sew it on. When, 
 shortly after, she arrived at the American 
 dentist's, the maid said that, a patient having 
 excused himself, the doctor had seized his 
 opportunity, and gone off for an hour on his 
 bicycle, not five minutes ago. Monica was 
 not sorry to escape a prosaic and possibly 
 painful experience, and hoped he would enjoy 
 the fresh air. He looked pale enough to 
 need it. 
 
 She had heard of a Goethe-Breviary, a rev- 
 elation of the Master's life in his poems, and 
 went into a bookshop to ask for it. They 
 told her they had that instant sold their 
 last copy, but would send her one immedi- 
 ately. Wishing to get some violets for Mrs. 
 Loring, who was exceptionally miserable in 
 those days, Monica was now informed by her
 
 The Garden of Eden 177 
 
 pet flower-woman that Prince Ruprecht had 
 just ordered their entire stock of violets to be 
 laid in the shape of an enormous cushion at 
 some fair lady's feet. It seemed rather odd to 
 Monica that she, like no less a person than 
 old Mother Hubbard, was arriving everywhere 
 one moment too late. She was therefore 
 cheerfully impressed, when face to face on the 
 threshold of the flower-shop she met Elizabeth 
 McCarroll, looking as bright as the morning. 
 
 " At last one good thing has waited for me," 
 and Monica related her small experiences 
 while Elizabeth bought her flowers. " Fate 
 has relented, it seems, otherwise you and your 
 roses would have already vanished like Prince 
 Ruprecht's cushion barbarous idea, that 
 cushion." 
 
 " Do you believe in Fate? " Elizabeth asked, 
 smiling, as they walked on together. 
 
 " In Law yes. Of course I was fishing 
 about these trifles." 
 
 " If there is such a thing as Fate, then there 
 can be no trifles," Elizabeth retorted with 
 unwonted sententiousness. " There may be a 
 divinity that shapes the loss of a glove-but- 
 ton," she continued incredulously, " but " 
 
 " If we are not careful, we shall soon be 
 launched on Free-will and Predestination, which,
 
 178 The Garden of Eden 
 
 in the absence of Mr. Loring, would be too 
 much for us." 
 
 Elizabeth made a wry face. 
 
 "Nothing muddles my poor brains more 
 than that subject, which has no end and no 
 beginning. Besides, they always prove that 
 one is as true as the other, which is agagant, 
 as you must admit. It is simply incomprehen- 
 sible to me how you can let Mr. Loring preach 
 at you so. I call it intemperate. He was 
 there fully three hours on Monday. When I 
 came in for the second time, there you were 
 still at it, and you looked like pleasurably 
 excited owls." 
 
 "jBut I preach too," returned Monica, smil- 
 ing. "I am from New England, you know. 
 We drink in a taste for theology with our 
 mother 's milk. Besides, I have a special incen- 
 tive ; once we had a very young, prim clergy- 
 man, helplessly aristocratic in his tastes and 
 equally exclusive in his tenets at this dis- 
 tance I may perhaps venture to call him a 
 holy snob. No one ever irritated me so much. 
 I had sometimes a wild desire to get up and ask 
 him how he knew that all outcasts, and crimi- 
 nals, and souls that had never had a chance, 
 and souls tempted beyond the dimensions of 
 his neat hat-box horizon, were all doomed to
 
 The Garden of Eden 179 
 
 eternal perdition, unless they marched and 
 gave the countersign within the pale of our 
 church, how he dared to be so cocksure of 
 anything so monstrous, and if he could not un- 
 derstand his little twopence ha'penny scheme 
 of salvation was not large enough to go round 
 this planet, let alone the universe." 
 
 " Why did you mind ? I should have been 
 looking at the bonnets." 
 
 " Oh, I always looked at the bonnets too. 
 But I minded because it never seemed fair 
 play. I thought somebody ought to get up 
 and speak a word for the absent. It seemed 
 preposterous that he should instruct tough old 
 graybeards who knew life. But no doubt 
 their heads were in their ledgers. They did 
 not care what he said. They were respect- 
 able vestrymen, paid their fees punctually 
 and felt that they had insured a safe passage 
 to the other shore. Meanwhile stocks, not 
 dogmas, were their affair. But I used to sit 
 and glare at him, and he had a voice like 
 honey and administered suave damnation to 
 his fellow-creatures. If he had suspected the 
 awful things I was hurling at him in my agi- 
 tation ! Can you not grasp the fact that they 
 cannot help being what they are? Why 
 don't you preach tenderness instead of clan-
 
 1 80 The Garden of Eden 
 
 nish and cruel self-righteousness? Why 
 don't you preach freedom? The green elm 
 branches waving gently outside the open 
 windows, the wandering bird that darts in 
 circles round the chancel, hovers an instant, 
 and as if uncertain soars on fleet wing out 
 and away, preaches better than you. For I 
 was not wise enough to give him the same 
 indulgence I claimed for the others, and to 
 remember he could not help being what he 
 was. So his sermons created in me a great 
 store of pent-up indignation which I never 
 supposed I should have the opportunity to 
 let off. But Mr. Loring preaches and is good 
 enough to let me preach back at him and 
 not mind my little irregularities of style 
 and want of the proper seminary-manner, 
 and I call it providential : a late but just 
 compensation." 
 
 " So you are rating your little curate over 
 Mr. Loring's shoulders?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What a terribly retentive person you are ! 
 And fancy working one's self up to such a 
 pitch of excitement over the criminals, and 
 outcasts, and heathen ! I have more than 
 enough to occupy my small mind in my own 
 troublesome affairs, with now and then a good
 
 The Garden of Eden 1 8 1 
 
 bit of gossip about my neighbors. But you 
 have, I presume, what they call the imagina- 
 tive temperament. A very uncanny thing, too, 
 it must be to drag about with one every- 
 where. I noticed its eccentricities the other 
 night as we sat so quiet in your room after 
 twelve, still intoxicated by " Tannhauser," and 
 somebody ran down the pavement. I heard 
 boots, a man's heavy boots, no more, no less, 
 and they interested me not a whit. But you 
 saw a deathbed, or birth, a family in conster- 
 nation, pain, grief, heaven knows what. You 
 seemed distressed. You got up and looked 
 after him as if that were sensible ! " 
 
 " But it was so striking in the utter still- 
 ness. It began far away at the extreme end 
 of the street and came nearer and nearer, and 
 grew loud and louder, and passed beneath 
 our windows, and on and on, grew less loud 
 and fainter, and died away, and all that 
 time the step never flagged or changed. It 
 was a young man, running skilfully and with 
 a purpose. A boy whose mother, it may be, 
 was dying. I was sorry for him. Or whose 
 young wife was in her agony. Or a little 
 child was suffering. Somewhere was human 
 need or he could not have run so bravely. 
 To me these are facts, not imagination."
 
 1 82 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " I refuse to abandon my position. They 
 were mere boots, and I have not an atom of 
 curiosity as to why, whence, or whither the 
 ugly hobnailed things ran. Otherwise I 
 should retort that the youth had been 
 carousing with his boon or beer-companions 
 and was trying to get home before his father." 
 
 Monica laughed. 
 
 " Beer cannot run like that." 
 
 " Oh, well ! Some other sort of lark, then. 
 Monica, tell me one thing. Was it exclu- 
 sively theology that occupied your seance 
 of three hours? " 
 
 " No. We had other little pastimes. Hyp- 
 notism and astronomy." 
 
 " Awful ! One would never imagine you 
 were learned," Elizabeth declared candidly. 
 " You look quite like anybody else nicer 
 than some, it 's fair to admit, but really not 
 so intimidatingly clever, you know." 
 
 " O wise young judge ! " 
 
 " I am not, never was, never shall be clever." 
 
 " So much the better ! Then why all this 
 mummery?" 
 
 " It is merely," Monica confessed, " that 
 I revel in things I do not understand. They 
 fascinate me, Elizabeth, possess, pursue me." 
 
 " I know, Boots ! "
 
 The Garden of Eden 1 83 
 
 They walked on in silence for a while. 
 
 " Pretty town," said Monica at length. 
 " How it grows upon one ! Sometimes I 
 think I may miss it when I 'm gone." 
 
 " But you are not thinking of leaving?" 
 
 "Whenever my mother comes. Perhaps 
 before. I Ve stayed already longer than I 
 meant." 
 
 " Everybody does here. I came for six 
 months and have been here two years. One 
 meets with detentions," she added vaguely. 
 
 " Oh yes," Monica assented vaguely. 
 
 " You are fortunate in having a mother to 
 come for you?" Elizabeth said after a mo- 
 ment, in a fierce sort of way. 
 
 Monica felt nearer to her from that moment, 
 and replied gently: 
 
 " You have Robert." 
 
 " Bob is a good boy. But otherwise I have 
 only uncles. And uncles, let me tell you, are 
 an arid waste." She gave a hard little laugh, 
 followed instantly by a marvellous softening of 
 her features and a vivid flush ; which signals 
 Monica noted, together with the gleams on the 
 face of the saluting officer, who had suddenly 
 ridden round a corner upon them. It was evi- 
 dent to her that Elizabeth's " detention " wore 
 the blue and white uniform of a lieutenant of
 
 1 84 The Garden of Eden 
 
 dragoons. For, whatever Monica failed to 
 perceive, she was an instinctive observer of the 
 ways of men and women with one another, of 
 husbands and wives, of lovers of the pri- 
 mordial, the manifold, the eternal Adam and 
 Eve. 
 
 Elizabeth spoke hurriedly: 
 
 " Do you happen to know where you are 
 going by the might of your glove button?" 
 
 " I do not in the least care. I am walking 
 for the walk and for the good company." 
 
 " Thank you. I have two objects in view, 
 neither very pressing. A pair of tennis-shoes 
 and the bank. For the shoes we turn here 
 to the left. For the money to the right. 
 Wait. She broke off a bit of the long stems 
 of two roses, concealed them in her handker- 
 chief and presented their swathed heads to 
 Monica. " Draw. We will leave it to fate. 
 Long stem, bank. Short, tennis-shoes." 
 
 Monica, amused, drew the long stem. 
 
 " Fate wills that you have the pleasure of 
 seeing me draw^io, and of being smiled upon 
 by the handsome Ferdinand." 
 
 " He is very nice. He looks like an old 
 Norseman, a Viking." 
 
 " But one who has not in vain lived fifteen 
 years in Paris."
 
 The Garden of Eden 185 
 
 " At all events, the result is agreeable. He 
 is a great blond eagle with beautiful manners." 
 
 At the very entrance door of the bank Eliza- 
 beth stopped and said mischievously: 
 
 " Miss Aspasia, do you admit that I can 
 change my mind now and go and get my 
 tennis-shoes?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Then I am a free agent? " 
 
 " To that extent, yes." 
 
 " All right. Then you shall see the hand- 
 some Ferdinand." 
 
 " I cannot deny I prefer him to the 
 alternative." 
 
 " For what you are about to receive, thank 
 your glove button," Elizabeth muttered wick- 
 edly as they passed in. 
 
 " It is too small. It wants to shirk respon- 
 sibility. Besides, it is only a link in an endless 
 chain." 
 
 " Don't ! It is a good point of departure 
 and I hate your chain. It makes me dizzy." 
 
 They were hardly ten minutes at the bank. 
 The handsome Ferdinand received them in his 
 private room, smiled benignly and impartially 
 upon them. Monica, to whom beauty in man 
 or woman was a keen joy, and a species of 
 consolation, often indeed had power to divert
 
 1 86 The Garden of Eden 
 
 her from painful thoughts, to absorb her ut- 
 terly in ardent contemplation, watched the 
 banker's high and haughty head bending gal- 
 lantly over Elizabeth's pretty creaminess of 
 skin, her reddish hair, her red and eager 
 mouth, her restless eyes and restless ways, 
 and thought the two made a charming picture. 
 
 He complimented her upon her dashing 
 signature. 
 
 " You foreign ladies are so amazingly adroit 
 You never remove your glove, write standing, 
 leaning on one elbow with one stroke of the 
 pen it 's all one to you. But our ladies 
 take themselves more seriously, I assure you. 
 They respect preliminaries. Until they get 
 the right pen and are seated comfortably they 
 look as solemn as if they were about to take 
 their oath." 
 
 " Life is so short ! " sighed Elizabeth. 
 
 "You intend to get all you can out of it, 
 little one," he reflected, looking down upon her 
 indulgently. 
 
 " How is the beautiful voice ? " 
 
 " Variable, like its owner." 
 
 "And my friend Rob?" 
 
 " Well, happy, thanks. Always doing what 
 he ought, and doing it admirably. A crushing 
 example to his frivolous sister."
 
 The Garden of Eden 187 
 
 To this he made some amiable rejoinder, 
 occupied himself a few minutes with Monica, 
 shook hands with them cordially, and was 
 about to open the door for them. 
 
 " By the way, Rob enters the sixth class in 
 the autumn, does he not? " To what profes- 
 sor shall you send him? " 
 
 " Has one any choice ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, if one expresses it in good season. 
 My boys were all with Professor Steiner, and 
 were devoted to him. That was some years 
 ago, but I suppose he cannot have changed 
 unless to grow more mild and mellow. There 
 is a parallel professor to be avoided, I believe, 
 a sharp martinet sort of fellow. You 'd better 
 send Rob to Steiner. He is of excellent 
 family, altogether superior." 
 
 " How does one do it? " 
 
 " You can write, or, better still, go personally 
 to Professor Steiner." He looked at his watch. 
 " You have just time now if you want to run 
 over to the Gymnasium, you will catch him at 
 twelve. Tell him I sent you." 
 
 " And all I have to say is ' your compli- 
 ments, I 'd like Bob to enter his class in the 
 autumn'? " 
 
 "The simplest thing in the world, you 
 see."
 
 1 88 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " It is very good of you to suggest it," she 
 said heartily. " You are always so thoughtful." 
 
 " Now we '11 tackle the old professor," she 
 exclaimed gayly, and they walked off briskly, 
 reaching the Gymnasium on the stroke of 
 twelve in time to find the janitor, inquire for 
 Professor Steiner's room and meet a thousand 
 boys like an avalanche thundering down the 
 great stairway. Elizabeth and Monica stood 
 aside, amused. The little boys pulled off 
 their caps with a perfunctory inadvertent 
 snatch, the great boys saluted handsomely. 
 
 " They are fine fellows," said Monica heart- 
 ily. " See that beauty ! Lovely head and 
 what a pretty back ! I 'm glad we happened 
 to come. I like to see them flying by." 
 
 " In about ten years or so some of them 
 may be very well worth looking at," Elizabeth 
 remarked amiably. "But where is my Rob? 
 Perhaps his class has had English and he is 
 gone home." 
 
 As soon as the thoroughfare was clear, the 
 two, possessed by intentions as innocent as 
 ever inspired the human breast since the 
 world was made, went up some long flights 
 of iron stairs and found Class VI. B. In re- 
 sponse to Elizabeth's knock and inquiry, a 
 small boy, after dodging back for instructions,
 
 The Garden of Eden 189 
 
 showed them into an adjacent room, and told 
 them Professor Steiner, being occupied, begged 
 them to excuse him for five minutes. 
 
 It was a dusty little place with one window, 
 one table, one chair and some copy-books 
 in pigeon-holes. 
 
 " I 'm going to take the liberty to open the 
 window," said Monica. " My passage through 
 life is marked by open windows." 
 
 "Do you suppose he would be shocked if 
 I should sit on the table?" and Elizabeth 
 suited the action to the word. 
 
 " I think he would have apoplexy." 
 
 Monica was in brighter spirits than she had 
 known in many months. Her old harmless 
 trustful gayety of the heart was for the mo- 
 ment restored to her her health, her youth, 
 the soft June day, and a growing sympathy 
 with Elizabeth influencing her. She stood 
 smiling and thinking of nothing at all, and 
 idly watching Elizabeth swing her pretty 
 shoes, when a slight sound outside brought 
 those symmetrical objects to the floor with a 
 bound, the door opened, and Professor Steiner 
 stood before his visitors. What they saw 
 they had wasted hardly a thought upon his 
 personality, yet instinctively had anticipated 
 something venerable and mild was a man
 
 190 The Garden of Eden 
 
 of middle height with a growing rotundity 
 beneath his too short waistcoat, a red face, a 
 redder nose, a pink bald head, a scanty fringe 
 of sandy hair, and pale blue glassy eyes. He 
 were a long black coat, a gay cravat, pearl- 
 gray trousers, and seemed to be struggling 
 with insensate embarrassment. Both girls, 
 each after her own fashion, pronounced him 
 a sorry figure. 
 
 The interview was brief. Monica had 
 reason afterwards to remember that it could 
 not have lasted three minutes. 
 
 Elizabeth very properly and prettily gave 
 her message. 
 
 Professor Steiner replied that he should be 
 happy to receive her brother, he himself would 
 be absent at the beginning of the school year. 
 His health obliged him to take a furlough. A 
 very good vicar, however, would have charge 
 of the class until Easter, when he hoped to 
 return. 
 
 While with incomprehensible difficulty and 
 agitation he made this simple statement to 
 Elizabeth, his glassy eyes continually sought 
 Monica. 
 
 The one time she spoke was to bid him 
 good morning as they left. Swiftly and in 
 silence, with discreet countenances, for stray
 
 The Garden of Eden 191 
 
 professors crossed their path, they fled from 
 the building, but, once in the street, they 
 turned and looked in each other's eyes. 
 
 "If that is a German professor heaven 
 save the mark ! " 
 
 " A most unfortunate type ! " 
 
 " No mortal has a right to look like that." 
 
 " Poor thing, he cannot help it, I suppose 
 but he is dreadful most dreadful altogether 
 dreadful." 
 
 " Now I think he can help it. He may not 
 be to blame for his cast of countenance, but 
 he certainly need not have such a skin. He 'd 
 better not show himself until he 's taken 
 proper baths and medicines. He is a terror." 
 
 " I 'm very thankful I have not to go to his 
 school," said Monica fervently. 
 
 " Poor Rob ! I should have a fit. Can you 
 imagine boys attaching themselves to that 
 man?" 
 
 " No, I cannot. Still he may be nicer with 
 them." 
 
 " And why did he glare at you while he 
 stammered at me? " 
 
 " He was very singular." 
 
 " If that man is mellow," declared Elizabeth 
 after walking on a while in silence, " he is mel- 
 low with alcohol."
 
 192 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Monica laughed. 
 
 " Oh, how can that be possible after the 
 praise of him we heard to-day, and from such 
 a cavalier? And Professor Steiner told us 
 himself that he was ill and going away." 
 
 " He 'd better go," said Elizabeth dryly, 
 " and if it's not too late he 'd better learn how 
 to enter a room without knocking the door off 
 the hinges. I cannot endure men who run 
 into doors and jeopardize the furniture. And 
 if you will allow me to inquire, why, oh why 
 does he wear pearl-gray trousers in his class- 
 room?" 
 
 " I am afraid we are very hard-hearted," said 
 Monica, " but he was so disconcerted and so 
 disconcerting, it is a relief to remember how 
 short your mission was, and that we never need 
 trouble him, or he us again." 
 
 " Amen," responded Elizabeth. Whereupon 
 they spoke of other things. 
 
 That afternoon Monica sat busily biting her 
 pen and wondering what she should next 
 attack for The Panyphone. An inexplicably 
 unpleasant quality in Professor Steiner's glazed 
 stare haunted her for a while against her will. 
 " Ah, what does it matter to me how the poor 
 man looks ! " But presently she thought no 
 more of him, for dear old Mr. Loring walked
 
 The Garden of Eden 193 
 
 in unannounced, silent and care-laden, with a 
 certain air of resolution, sat down in a large 
 arm-chair as if he were come to stay, crossed 
 his legs, wiped his brow, stroked his gray 
 beard, regarded her some moments with his 
 puzzled, kind, weary eyes and finally pro- 
 pounded in a slow and mournful voice, the 
 somewhat startling query : 
 
 " Miss Randolph, do you believe in Tran- 
 substantiation? "
 
 194 The Garden of Eden 
 
 VIII 
 
 " MONICA, this sofa is inhuman. If I were 
 you, I should prattle about it to The Pany- 
 phone, and say something original about Pro- 
 crustes. It is horribly hard, and my feet 
 dangle. Can't you swing up a hammock by 
 way of hospitality?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Monica, have you any cigarettes?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Monica, that table cover hurts my eyes. 
 It does not look as if it belonged in your Se- 
 rene Highness's apartment. It is really awful. 
 Would you mind if I should bring you some- 
 thing quiet and soft? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Monica, what are you giving them to-day? 
 Do you really think it worth fifteen dollars? 
 Do you know anything about it?" 
 
 " No ! " 
 
 " Monica, what is your opinion of the holy 
 institution of wedlock, ' so comfortable a thing 
 to them who receive it worthily, and so dan- 
 gerous to those who will presume to receive it
 
 The Garden of Eden 195 
 
 unworthily?' 'And he marched them all in 
 two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo.' " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Come ! That is not polite, my dear. A 
 truly great mind can write articles for news- 
 papers and talk with me at the same time. 
 There is something very irritating in your dili- 
 gence, Monica. It is very bourgeois. Besides 
 it is ruinous to the figure. Now if you could 
 only see your back ! " 
 
 " I 'm afraid at the moment I 'd rather see 
 yours." 
 
 " Thank you. But I shall stay with you, 
 dear. You really ought to -learn to attend to 
 me and The Panyphone at once. Think of the 
 great Napoleon. . . . Oh, Monica, that's not 
 fair. You Ve begun something else ! Ah, do 
 stop that wretched business and talk to me." 
 
 " I must do these ' Answers to Correspond- 
 ents,' Elizabeth, for the boy is waiting. Why 
 do you not help me? It would be rather more 
 sensible than to lie there and talk nonsense and 
 admire your finger-nails." 
 
 " What do our Correspondents want to 
 know?" 
 
 " Just turn to ' Ironclads,' in Meyer's ' Con- 
 versations-Lexicon,' will you, Elizabeth? It's 
 on the upper shelf. Put a mark in, please.
 
 196 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Find ' Petroleum,' too, and ' Aluminium,' if you 
 don't mind, while I attend to ' Nina,' who wants 
 a remedy for freckles." 
 
 " There is none, on this side Jordan's wave. 
 I ought to know. What are you telling her? " 
 
 " To take a cold bath in the morning, and a 
 hot bath at night, and to sleep with her win- 
 dows open. She probably does nothing of the 
 kind, and it will be good for her," Monica said 
 benevolently. 
 
 " Oh, Monica, what a disreputable employ- 
 ment for a girl of good family." 
 
 " It is, rather, but then we women cannot 
 choose our lot. Do you suppose men editors 
 are such hypocrites?" 
 
 " Oh ! They ! " 
 
 " I at least never do my correspondents any 
 harm," Monica said, rather doubtfully. 
 
 " Oh, don't you? What is the next ? " 
 
 " Plain sailing. A. P. wants to know if 
 champagne is bad for gout. We reply: Con- 
 sult your medical adviser" 
 
 " Simpleton ! " 
 
 " Here is one who is rather alarming. ' X. 
 Reutlingen! I am always declining his trans- 
 lations of Heine. People who know almost no 
 English are possessed by a frantic desire to 
 translate Heine into that tongue. X. Reut-
 
 The Garden of Eden 197 
 
 lingen does not like me. He objects to the 
 management of The Nosegay. He is always 
 threatening to withdraw his subscription. He 
 sounds as if he were approaching with a club." 
 
 " He probably thinks you are bald and have 
 a gray beard, Monica." 
 
 "Yes, they all do. Wait. What shall I 
 say. He is really quite insulting, you know, 
 and he has sent more Heine. ' Sir sir.'" 
 
 " ' Sir,' " suggested Elizabeth, " ' you are an 
 old duffer ! ' " 
 
 u I have it. I '11 advise him to apply to the 
 Pall Mall Budget. Perhaps then he '11 try a 
 lot of English papers, and it will be a long 
 time before he gets round to me again. So 
 much for X. Reutlingen," continued Monica 
 in a rapid murmur. "'Dora B' Answer. 
 Easy quotation from Tennyson. ' Ella.' 
 Ditto from Longfellow. 
 
 " ' Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax, 
 Her cheeks like the dawn of day.' 
 
 When they want that sort of thing, I feel that 
 I have not lived in vain. I can give them 
 any amount. 'Juliet.' A girl who loves pas- 
 sionately, irrevocably, and eternally the one, 
 while her cruel parents insist upon sacrificing 
 her to the other."
 
 198 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " Oh, just let me attend to her ! " cried 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 "No, I don't trust you. You would com- 
 promise the dignity of this editorial chair." 
 
 " Shall you tell her to take a bath or to con- 
 sult her medical adviser?" 
 
 Monica wrote busily. "The ironclads, 
 please. How can people want to know such 
 things ? ' A Constant Reader. We thank you 
 for your kind expressions of approval and 
 interest which ' ' 
 
 " ' Which are particularly gratifying at this 
 season," proposed Elizabeth, " ' when X. Reut- 
 lingen is prowling about our office with a 
 bludgeon " 
 
 " Be quiet ! " murmured Monica abstractedly. 
 "Hm hm 'but the point in question is 
 unfitted for discussion in these pages.' " 
 
 "Because you know nothing about it?" 
 
 " Of course. * We advise you consult to 
 consult your solicitor.'" 
 
 " Happy thought ! " 
 
 " There, that will do for to-day, I think. 
 Don't look so wicked, Elizabeth, I'm going 
 to ring for the boy." 
 
 " Now, Monica, come here and listen to me. 
 I 'm tired of this place, let us go to Italy. 
 Don't say no. You have said nothing but
 
 The Garden of Eden 199 
 
 No all the afternoon. You are der Geist der 
 stets -verneint" 
 
 " But I 'm going later, when my mother 
 comes." 
 
 " Yes, I know. But why cannot we run 
 down there now?" 
 
 Monica looked at her thoughtfully. 
 
 She seemed restless, tired, feverish. She 
 complained that she could not sing, had no 
 more voice than a pipe-stem. She was always 
 haunting Monica's rooms, whimsical, gay, with 
 a hungry look in the eyes. 
 
 " Talk to me, Monica. Entertain me. I 'm 
 bored." 
 
 " Eleanor could do the proof-reading for 
 The Nosegay, I suppose, and any extra work. 
 Of course I 'd make up the numbers in 
 advance." 
 
 " That little encyclopedia ! I should say 
 so ! She has petroleum at her fingers' ends, 
 and warships too, I don't doubt." 
 
 " Appallingly clever child. She is coaching 
 some young men here for Oxford. When 
 those great dark eyes under that big fore- 
 head, and her wild hair and shy little person 
 appeared in response to their advertisement, 
 it must have been a delicious moment." 
 
 " She 's a good little thing, but if you praise
 
 2oo The Garden of Eden 
 
 her you'll make me jealous. I'm a disgust- 
 ingly jealous wretch, do you know?" 
 
 " You don't mind leaving Robert? " 
 
 " He 's better off without me. Sometimes I 
 think if I should die to-morrow he would 
 hardly miss me." 
 
 " Ah, he needs you so, and is so fond of 
 you." 
 
 " I 'm not a good sort of a sister. I have 
 a bad conscience. I'm too scatterbrained. 
 Say, will you go off with me, Monica?" 
 
 " She 's wild to get away," thought Monica. 
 " She is miserable and desperate. Her eyes 
 are haggard, she is growing thin and losing 
 her voice. That is what we call being in love. 
 I wonder if there is no other planet where 
 they manage these things better." In her 
 own heart tod was great dreariness, for Keith's 
 letters were rarer and shorter, all the sweet- 
 ness that she found she had to read into them 
 herself. 
 
 " Don't stare at me like that, Monica. 
 Think aloud." 
 
 " Yes, I '11 go if you like for a little trip 
 say for five or six weeks." 
 
 Just before Easter they went over the Bren- 
 ner into Italy. 
 
 At Easter Professor Steiner, after a half
 
 The Garden of Eden 201 
 
 year's absence returned home by the Goth- 
 ard and reassumed his duties. 
 
 This unimportant and unattractive fact the 
 travellers heard promptly from Robert, who 
 wrote his sister in Verona the professor was 
 awfully kind to him. The fellows had found 
 it out already. Whenever they wanted any- 
 thing, they sent him up as spokesman. 
 
 " Clever of us to steam into Italy just as he 
 steamed out," said Elizabeth. 
 
 " Rather ! " 
 
 Presently the Frau Professor wrote that 
 Professor Steiner's attention to Robert was 
 most unusual, and certainly very flattering and 
 profitable to the boy, whom he took on long 
 walks, invited to his house and evidently re- 
 garded with real affection. 
 
 " That is all very nice for Bob, provided he 
 likes it, but I really hope we are not going to 
 be accompanied through Italy by news of 
 Professor Steiner," Elizabeth remarked as 
 Monica gave her this information in Florence. 
 
 In Rome came a letter from Professor Steiner 
 himself, asking Elizabeth if she would kindly 
 allow Robert to ride with him on half holi- 
 days. As Robert was riding regularly, and 
 he, the professor, found riding excellent for 
 his still delicate health it would be a real
 
 2O2 The Garden of Eden 
 
 pleasure to have the companionship of his 
 bright little friend. Professor Steiner added 
 a few words of hearty commendation of Bob's 
 character and talents, presented his compli- 
 ments to both ladies and wished them much 
 happiness in Italy. 
 
 Elizabeth regarded this document with a 
 mistrustful and vindictive air. 
 
 "Now, why does he write all that, Monica? 
 Why does he not simply ride with Rob? 
 Why does he bore and haunt one so? When 
 I look at the Faun of Praxiteles to-day I shall 
 certainly remember those pearl-gray trousers 
 and their excruciating attitude. I am not 
 going to write to him. I '11 simply tell Rob 
 of course he may ride with his odious profes- 
 sor, and much joy to them ! " 
 
 But Professor Steiner was indefatigably polite 
 and wrote to thank Miss McCarroll for her 
 kindness and proof of confidence. Again he 
 presented his compliments to Miss Randolph. 
 He ventured to hope the ladies would not fail 
 to see the Torlonia Museum. There were 
 some interesting old mosaics and frescos in 
 Santa Maria in Travastere which everybody did 
 not go to see. And the pines and cypresses 
 and long peaceful vistas in the Pamfili Doria 
 garden he hoped they would not neglect.
 
 The Garden of Eden 203 
 
 Monica and Elizabeth stared at each other 
 with resentment. 
 
 " He might as well tell us not to forget to 
 throw our pennies into the Fountain of Trevi ! " 
 
 " Or to go to see the Baths of Caracalla or 
 the Coliseum by moonlight, and to hear the 
 nightingales." 
 
 "Everybody goes to Santa Maria in Tra- 
 vastere." 
 
 " Everybody goes to see the Torlonia gems 
 and fauns." 
 
 " Everybody goes to the Pamfili Doria 
 garden." 
 
 "The man is intrusive. He tires me," 
 Elizabeth said petulantly. 
 
 " He is tiresome. He seems to have very 
 little tact, but I suppose he means it kindly 
 enough. He has just been here, knows it all 
 by heart, is learned, and thinks us ignorant 
 helpless things, I suppose. Let us absolve 
 him, since he is at a good distance, like the 
 priests at St. Peter's we saw touching peni- 
 tents' heads with that long thing, to absolve 
 them quickly from little sins without con- 
 fession." 
 
 " If he 'd not attempt to be our Pocket 
 Guide ! " 
 
 He informed himself of their course, his
 
 204 The Garden of Eden 
 
 intimacy with Robert affording him rich op- 
 portunity. He called upon the Frau Pro- 
 fessor to express his satisfaction in Robert's 
 scholarship and soon wandered to the two 
 ladies and the Italian journey. Through her, 
 through the people with whom Elizabeth and 
 Robert were living, through Rob himself, the 
 travellers received the professor's painstaking 
 pedantic messages for their guidance. It was 
 evident they were incessantly in his thoughts, 
 and his awkward persistency followed them 
 from place to place, dwelt with them and con- 
 jured up his unsympathetic presence in every 
 charming spot. 
 
 They must surely go to Siena: they must 
 not fail to see the well at Orvieto, and the 
 mosaics and choir books : it would be a great 
 pity if they should not visit the Temple at 
 Paestum, he had something to commend at 
 Capri, to warn against at Sorrento : churches, 
 statues, pictures, landscapes, he recommended 
 with ever increasing insistence. 
 
 "We can hardly enjoy anything for the 
 trail of the Steiner," Monica complained. 
 
 " It is altogether disgusting how often one 
 has to think of that odious man." 
 
 Monica beheld Keith among emperors, 
 athletes and gods.
 
 The Garden of Eden 205 
 
 Her mother wrote, after months in which 
 she had not mentioned him, that he was look- 
 ing very jolly. He was growing, she thought, 
 stout. He went out more than formerly. He 
 was rather devoted to Kitty, and played chess 
 five evenings a week with Kitty's husband. 
 It was impossible for Monica to explain why 
 these apparently innocent remarks made her 
 so uncomfortable. Stout? Well, was there 
 harm in that? But Kitty, silly little Kitty! 
 Five evenings a week .of Kitty! And the 
 letters so rare now, so well, yes, so dry 
 and indifferent. She wrote many letters from 
 Italy to Keith, ardent letters, clinging desper- 
 ately to the past, reminding him of the old 
 sweetness, the old nearness, the old power and 
 charm all that was immutable, eternal be- 
 tween them, letters that had the effect of a 
 bombardment of his heart, and that were, 
 although she knew it not, alive with subtle 
 reproach. She believed that this was pure 
 faithfulness on her part. She would have 
 repudiated the suggestion of any baser quality 
 in her intense pleading. But her mother's 
 astute hints, together with the thrilling influ- 
 ences of Italy roused her to summon all her 
 strength for a last effort to keep what seemed 
 to be slipping fatally away from her, her
 
 206 The Garden of Eden 
 
 priceless treasure that she had deemed hers 
 till death. So she walked in beauty, was 
 thrilled and lifted up and comforted and pos- 
 sessed by the divine dreams of human souls ; 
 dreams caught and held in marble, glowing 
 on canvas, frozen in architecture, projected 
 like a heavenly vision in vanishing landscape : 
 and she was less unhappy than she knew, 
 being strong and young and swayed by every 
 touch of beauty : yet she struggled much and 
 longed for what she had not, and suffered, 
 missing the warmth she craved, feeling too, 
 she was robbed of her rights. 
 
 Of all these things in her heart she said 
 not one word to Elizabeth, who in her turn 
 was capricious, fitful, sometimes unreasonable 
 and irritable about trifles, repenting sweetly 
 like a child droll, silent, weary everything 
 by turns, breaking forth into fascinating song 
 whenever she had had a particularly bad mood 
 and calling triumphantly : 
 
 " When I sing, you forgive me. Everybody 
 does. When I sing I can tame anybody, 
 even those old brutes, my uncles." 
 
 But the cause of her great restlessness, her 
 physical nervousness, her comfortlessness, she 
 did not intimate. Monica, observing her gently 
 between palaces and pictures, was more than
 
 The Garden of Eden 207 
 
 ever convinced that in respect to its provision 
 for the incalculable element called love, this 
 must be one of the most inadequate of planets. 
 
 So the two wandered on, growing more 
 closely attached and accustomed to each 
 other in the intimacy of daily life, in the one- 
 ness of their interests, the charm and freedom 
 of their little adventures. They found and 
 lost delightful fellow-pilgrims, friends of a 
 week, of a day, meeting them in old Pompeii, 
 or in the sweet tranquillity of ancient cloisters, 
 and something like affection, like a vague 
 prayer crept into those light farewells. 
 
 " So much beauty and goodness, so much 
 sympathy in the world," said Monica vehem- 
 ently one day. " That one cannot hold and 
 keep it ! That one can keep nothing ! " 
 
 " Not even one's ideals," she added bitterly 
 in her heart. " Not even one's belief in un- 
 dying friendship not even the poor comfort 
 of loving letters to help one to go on and 
 live one's life." Still, Keith's last note, hardly 
 more effusive than a commercial bulletin, went 
 everywhere with her through the Vatican, the 
 churches, the catacombs, the ruins, and her 
 hand clung to that bit of paper as she stood 
 looking at lovely old landmarks and long 
 sunny vistas seen through famed arches and
 
 2o8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 vanishing in the blue distances of the Alban 
 hills. 
 
 " Don't! " exclaimed Elizabeth fiercely, and 
 shook her, which was one of her manifestations 
 of affection. Monica saw her friend's eyes 
 were full of tears. 
 
 " If such as you begin like that, then such 
 as I are lost ! Can't you see I only keep up 
 by hanging on to you? I never heard you 
 talk so ! " she said reproachfully. " It is quite 
 out of character. The calm, the successful, 
 the unconquered that is your r61e. Don't 
 let me hear any more pessimism from you 
 again. It is too startling, and it's not 
 artistic." 
 
 " Oh, I thought it only the proper thing 
 in Rome and at the Palace of the Caesars," 
 Monica rejoined quietly, but Elizabeth regarded 
 her suspiciously, shook her head, and for a 
 whole half day was not contrary or boyish or 
 inclined to tease. 
 
 " Do you like Hilda? " she said later. 
 
 " No," Monica replied, " I never liked 
 Hilda." 
 
 " Well, that 's a comfort at least." 
 
 They travelled easily, as women are apt to 
 travel everywhere on the continent, if kind, 
 possessed of a fair share of humor, without an
 
 The Garden of Eden 209 
 
 absolute hump, and not too British above 
 all not hampered by masculine protection. 
 This, on the rare occasions when it could not 
 be escaped, they found cumbersome, often 
 fatal to their interests. Alone, every mother's 
 son who put his eye on them was eager to do 
 them service. They found themselves in an 
 extra carriage when trains were overcrowded. 
 Cabs appeared for them when there were none. 
 The swift, odd, happy chance the blessing of 
 Hermes, god of wanderers, was always on their 
 side, and the whole world of men, from the 
 officials down to the porters, seemed imbued 
 with a desire to protect them and hand them 
 along safely. But did a man's countenance 
 appear beside them as they steamed into a 
 station some hotel-acquaintance some 
 compatriot persuaded of the inherent helpless- 
 ness of woman all the pleasing alacrity 
 upon which they counted as their good right, 
 left them suddenly in the lurch. His " I say ! 
 Here ! You ! " and vigorous gesticulation 
 were not alluring to the nearest lazy facchino, 
 who, presumably, reasoned somewhat in this 
 fashion : " You 've got those nice-looking girls 
 with you, and it is more than you deserve, you 
 old cockney. Now look out for yourself." 
 Men do not, even for the hope of money,
 
 2io The Garden of Eden 
 
 instinctively fly to the aid of harassed men- 
 travellers. Men do not long to be nice to 
 men, are not in the least attracted by men's 
 bright eyes and gentle voices, and it is safe to 
 set this down as a positive truth : among the 
 many illusions which men fondly cherish in 
 respect of themselves, none is more utterly 
 wide of the mark than that their mere presence 
 makes for pleasurableness to women travelling. 
 But although Monica and Elizabeth were 
 apparently unescorted, three men, silent, in- 
 visible, ever present, accompanied them. By 
 the Bay of Naples, by the rich Roman foun- 
 tains, amid all classic memories, all monuments 
 of a glorious past: listening to the nightingales 
 and to the owls: driving in the gay Pincio or 
 penetrating squalid streets teeming with life, 
 ugliness, and smells : in their lovely quests, 
 their ecstasies over their Botticellis, their 
 adorations before many shrines, their search 
 after painters and heroes and martyrs and 
 lovers finding now and then all united in 
 one strong human soul: among the flowers 
 at Florence, in the sunshine where all cries 
 were musical notes even fish and cabbage 
 and the smile of the old was young, and chil- 
 dren looked like cherubs fresh from -me hand 
 of God: before the great John Bellini in
 
 The Garden of Eden 211 
 
 Venice: gliding in dusk under the bridges and 
 out toward the Lido and the great ships where 
 lights gleamed and flashed across the liquid 
 distance : in the endless fascination of life, in 
 the gleam of marble, the plash of water, the 
 voices and the grace of boatmen, the curve of 
 a stairway, the flitting of doves' wings, the 
 witchery of sails : under the forest of ship- 
 masts rising from the calm harbor of Trieste : 
 beneath the olives and vines and myrtles of its 
 hill-slopes, over the Semmering Pass by moon- 
 light with wonderful visions of radiance and 
 gloom, gigantic cloud effects, faces of Gods 
 and Titans in uproar: in Vienna with its own 
 charm, face, and voice and laughter, more 
 pictures, music, and the church where imper- 
 ial hearts lie now at rest, did they ache 
 more or less than other hearts? in all that 
 was full, warm, fresh and delightful on that 
 journey, in all that was amusing and adventur- 
 ous, three men never left them, one summoned 
 in love by Monica, one summoned in love by 
 Elizabeth, one summoned solely by himself, 
 alas ! to his own doom and destruction. 
 
 Professor Steiner's constant participation in 
 their pleasures was most unnatural and, as 
 Elizabeth said, " lurid." But they could not, in 
 puerile pique, deprive themselves of loveliness
 
 212 The Garden of Eden 
 
 merely because he chose to suggest it to them. 
 Much to their exasperation, his messages ac- 
 quired a kind, intimate, and quasi-paternal 
 tone. He seemed to imagine he was person- 
 ally conducting their trip and to esteem him- 
 self of incalculable use. It was impossible to 
 keep him long out of their thoughts, and they 
 spoke of him oftener than they wished, if it 
 were only to say : " Recommended unfortu- 
 nately by Steiner." It irritated them in secret 
 to find this stranger's name upon their lips, 
 while the loved name was unspoken, but the 
 truth is, women do not always tell all they 
 know no more perhaps than men. 
 
 Monica was conscious of a warmth and 
 lightness of heart upon returning. The town 
 nestled among its hills looked charming even 
 after Italy and more homelike than anything 
 this side the ocean. In pleasure-loving Ger- 
 man fashion that likes to make a huge cele- 
 bration of every possible fact of life, the Frau 
 Professor had garlands and Welcome Home 
 over the door and even the ugly, kindly old 
 apple-woman on the corner flung benisons at 
 Monica as she passed. " It 's a dear loving 
 people," she thought gratefully, and was 
 touched anew, being often in her heart home- 
 sick and desolate.
 
 The Garden of Eden 213 
 
 Her rooms were full of flowers from differ- 
 ent friends. On her desk a large mail. She 
 examined it eagerly a letter from her 
 mother, nothing from Keith. Her books and 
 familiar things seemed restful. Her heart was 
 full and she thought with longing of her true 
 home, yet this too had begun to be a sort of 
 home to her. One is so thankful for kindness, 
 she thought, one must live, after all. She 
 looked out her windows at the noble and tran- 
 quil view she loved, and began to examine her 
 flowers, letters, and cards. 
 
 Lorings. Nice. Count and Countess Arco. 
 Hm ! Baron Lobanow. Mr. Forsyth. The 
 Smiths surprises me ! Eleanor how dear ! 
 Excellenz Ehrenstein sweet old man ! 
 Violets from Robert dear little boy ! Actu- 
 ally a basket from my colleagues on The Nose- 
 gay. Nice men ! How good they all are ! It's 
 quite touching, really. Beautiful roses from 
 Lieutenant Uhlefeldt. Ah, Elizabeth, all these 
 are from the dear Frau Professor. And this? 
 A massive bouquet surrounded by something 
 like a crinoline skirt in white paper. Professor 
 Steiner. No ! " She dropped it, as if it were 
 infectious. 
 
 " Frau Professor," she said to that lady, who, 
 beaming with pleasure, now entered the room,
 
 214 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " this bouquet surprises me. Why should 
 Professor Steiner presume to send me flowers? 
 I do not know him," she added haughtily. 
 
 " He takes a great interest in you all," the 
 old lady returned smiling, and with a flattered 
 air. " He has been here three times to talk 
 with me about you, and his devotion to 
 Robert is creating considerable comment. 
 Most professors of his standing hold them- 
 selves apart, you know," she explained with 
 the evident pride of one belonging by annex- 
 ation to the learned fraternity. " But he and 
 Robert are inseparable." 
 
 " His devotion to Robert is all very well. I 
 understand that. I adore Rob myself. But " 
 
 Monica saw the fine old face turned uncom- 
 prehending toward her. She perceived that a 
 new cap adorned the pretty gray hair and that 
 the whole house was in gala, that unfeigned 
 affection and delight welcomed her back, and 
 she could not selfishly grumble and take um- 
 brage because one man was stupid, which 
 after all was nothing new under the sun. 
 
 " Is it dinner time?" she said, knowing that 
 nothing pleased her hostess like appetite. " I 
 don't doubt you have made a famous des- 
 sert better than anything I Ve tasted in 
 Rome or Milan."
 
 The Garden of Eden 215 
 
 " Dear child," returned the Frau Professor, 
 " I feel as if my daughter had come home." 
 
 On the following day, Monica received a 
 brief note from Professor Steiner, begging her 
 to allow him the pleasure of an interview to dis- 
 cuss some very important matters concerning 
 Robert McCarroll's future. With her permis- 
 sion, Professor Steiner would call upon her the 
 following Sunday. 
 
 It was cramped, queer handwriting, and 
 reading it Monica frowned, remembering her 
 antipathy in the little dusty room of the Gym- 
 nasium, the red face, the pale glassy eyes : re- 
 calling too, the incomprehensible insistence of 
 the man, and how he had bored them all 
 through beautiful Italy with his advice and 
 monitions. The letter in her hand, she went 
 at once to the Frau Professor. 
 
 "Will you read this, please?" she said. 
 
 " He is really very polite and attentive " re- 
 joined the old lady affably. 
 
 Monica remembered, reasonably enough, 
 that all persons are not unduly sensitive to 
 physical attraction and repulsion, that Professor 
 Steiner's personality need not happily seem to 
 every one like a crashing dissonance, and that 
 a glowing nose is not wholly incompatible 
 with virtue. It was evident that she and Frau
 
 2 1 6 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Erhardt regarded him from very different 
 points of view. The Frau Professor was a 
 practical, shrewd, good woman. She might, 
 she must, know her own townsmen better than 
 a girl from over seas. Vastly less belligerent 
 and more modest in spirit than two minutes 
 before, Monica now ventured to remark: 
 
 " I cannot conceive why he wishes to speak 
 with me instead of Elizabeth about Rob." 
 
 " I do not know, either," the Frau Professor 
 responded deferentially, as a Roman matron 
 might have alluded to the augurs. " But Rob- 
 ert seems almost more influenced by you, than 
 by Miss McCarroll." 
 
 " Oh, because I can ride a wheel and know a 
 little Latin," Monica exclaimed impatiently. 
 " Elizabeth does everything for the boy." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know," the old lady said sooth- 
 ingly. " But you seem more serious than Miss 
 McCarroll. Everybody must notice that. And 
 of course Professor Steiner is very observing," 
 she concluded, with her complacent esprit de 
 corps. 
 
 Monica, much dissatisfied with herself, re- 
 turned to her room. It seemed to her she 
 must be more petty than she suspected, to 
 make so much of a trifle and to feel so singu- 
 larly averse to meeting Professor Steiner. She
 
 The Garden of Eden 217 
 
 had to see so many indifferent people. Why 
 not him? Frau Erhardt thought it the most 
 natural thing in life that he should come to 
 talk with her about Robert McCarroll. Very 
 well. Let the man come and go, then. Mean- 
 while she had a large mail to answer, and 
 something to write for The Panyphone and 
 accumulated duties for The Nosegay. These 
 things now were second nature to her. She 
 bent her back willingly to the drudgery. It 
 had ceased to be a remote and curious thing. 
 She liked it, cared to do it well, wished she 
 knew how to do it better. 
 
 On the following Sunday, at twelve o'clock, 
 Professor Steiner rang Frau Professor Er 
 hardt's door-bell. 
 
 Monica who beyond most women possessed 
 the gift of iciness, rose from her desk, tall, stiff, 
 unsmiling, and motioned him to a chair. She 
 did not like this man. She did not know why 
 he had come. She had instinctively taken the 
 precautionary measure to open the doors into 
 the Frau Professor's drawing-room. In spite 
 of best intentions, she felt herself on guard, 
 and no woman was ever less seductive than 
 she made herself on this occasion. 
 
 Professor Steiner, even more glassy as to his 
 eyes, redder as to his face, pearlier as to his
 
 2 1 8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 trousers and shorter as to his waistcoat, than 
 she remembered him, and wearing too tight 
 lavender kid gloves, bowed in uncontrollable 
 embarrassment before her. His want of ease 
 roused her compassion and disarmed her. She 
 was sorry for him as for any mortal writhing 
 in positive physical discomfort. Her forbid- 
 ding mien relaxed. She became gentle, as 
 with the infirm and disabled. 
 
 The interview was brief, hardly ten minutes. 
 Noting this, the Frau Professor nodded her 
 silvery head approvingly. The first visit! 
 How punctilious in social observance were 
 these learned men, after all ! 
 
 Monica had not the heart to say that he 
 had not uttered a word about Robert McCar- 
 roll, but had merely glared glassily at her and 
 mumbled broken sentences about Greece and 
 Italy. 
 
 On the following Sunday, at twelve o'clock, 
 Professor Steiner, arrayed as before, and bear- 
 ing boldly in his too-tightly gloved right hand 
 a compact mass of variegated blossoms, en- 
 circled by a frise of prickly paper, appeared 
 unexpectedly before Monica, and in one and 
 the same moment roused her impatience and 
 appealed to her tender mercies. He was so 
 unpleasant and so helpless, so grotesque and
 
 The Garden of Eden 219 
 
 so innocent, she could but do her best to 
 amuse and take care of him. She showed 
 him her beautiful photographs of Rome and 
 Venice, and took pains to entertain him with 
 gentle talk of her journey and of Robert, whom 
 Steiner, of himself, never once mentioned. 
 But as the door closed behind him she rallied, 
 and following her strongest instinct announced 
 to the wondering Frau Erhardt : 
 
 " If that man ever comes here again, I am 
 not at home." 
 
 " My dear child ! A professor, and so emi- 
 nent connections ! " For the good old lady 
 was of the old school that held man's will 
 was law. 
 
 " I 'm sorry, but I know no reason why 
 he should come to see me. His wish is not 
 sufficient. He distresses me. I don't know 
 what he wants. I don't know what he means 
 with that stare and that bouquet in pan- 
 telettes ! " 
 
 Frau Erhardt smiled wisely. 
 
 " When a man like him calls two Sundays 
 in succession and brings flowers of course 
 he has intentions ! " 
 
 " With us a man can come every Sunday, 
 and every Wednesday to boot, and send cart- 
 loads of flowers, and have no intentions at all,
 
 220 The Garden of Eden 
 
 except nice friendly ones, thank heaven ! " 
 Monica responded ; " and that is all the more 
 reason why I never wish to see Professor 
 Steiner again. Please say I am busy. Say 
 anything you like." 
 
 " Well, dear. Of course, as you decide. I 
 could have wished, indeed and I hope you 
 are acting wisely his connections are so 
 very eminent." 
 
 During the week a large portfolio of photo- 
 graphs of Greece was sent with Professor 
 Steiner's compliments for Miss Randolph's 
 inspection. Miss Randolph returned them 
 the same day with compliments and thanks. 
 
 The next Sunday he came resplendent as 
 before and bearing another barricaded bou- 
 quet. In accordance with Monica's instruc- 
 tions he was not granted entrance, but the 
 Frau Professor was visibly distressed, and 
 even the maid looked sympathetically per- 
 turbed. 
 
 On the following Sunday Professor Steiner 
 and his bouquet were again denied admittance. 
 The Frau Professor thought Monica rather 
 stony-hearted and was not a little dismayed 
 at the prolonged resistance of the garrison. 
 Monica, innocent of the slightest sense of re- 
 sponsibility toward Professor Steiner and his
 
 The Garden of Eden 221 
 
 eminent connections, regarded the matter as 
 a brief annoyance, now happily removed. 
 She had resumed her duties with unusual 
 energy, for which she had more cause than 
 previously. Eight weeks in Italy had made 
 a noticeable increase in her expenditures, and 
 the letter which met her arrival announced 
 that Mrs. Randolph's speculations were rather 
 wavering and gas stock had fallen abominably, 
 so that she must still postpone coming, but 
 hoped shortly to have things well in hand. 
 For the first time in her life it seemed to 
 Monica that earning money might, in her 
 case, become a serious thing and have some 
 meaning and dignity. She longed greatly 
 for her mother's presence, wondered whether 
 the Italian journey had not been almost 
 selfishness. Of course one could not foretell 
 ill luck in speculations of which one knew 
 nothing, or the constant depression of gas 
 stock. She determined, however, to write as 
 much as possible. Another book might 
 balance the gas stock. She could do more 
 little things too. She had time enough, she 
 thought with bitterness. In all that month, 
 in nearly six weeks indeed, there was no letter 
 from Keith no reply to those most ardent, 
 intense appeals from Italy. To all her love
 
 222 The Garden of Eden 
 
 silence. She waited drearily. It seemed 
 to her, the one sure and comforting thing in 
 life, the one thing entirely her own, that 
 would never change and never fail, was her 
 mother's love. 
 
 It was therefore not surprising that she 
 deemed Professor Steiner's eccentricities of 
 small significance. When she, Elizabeth, and 
 Eleanor were together, and one jest led to 
 another, he was occasionally the subject of 
 some irony, which seemed in justice no more 
 than his due. 
 
 " Don't be too secure, Monica," Elizabeth 
 warned her, as the three sat in midnight con- 
 clave. " Old Pinky will throw the handker- 
 chief yet ! " 
 
 Monica raised her eyebrows and said 
 nothing. 
 
 " She means he will, in that case, have the 
 pleasure of picking it up himself," Eleanor 
 suggested. 
 
 " Oh, no," Monica said listlessly, " I mean 
 nothing at all. He will have no chance to 
 pursue his whims here and no doubt he 
 has abandoned them. Suppose we don't talk 
 of him." 
 
 " Men are awkward brutes," declared Eliza- 
 beth roundly, " and twenty centuries more or
 
 The Garden of Eden 223 
 
 less have taught them precious little sense. 
 The ones you don't want stick closer than a 
 brother, and the one you do want " 
 
 The three stared rather blankly at one 
 another and presently said good night 
 
 It was early in July, rather more than a 
 month since Monica's return from Italy that 
 Elizabeth's insolent prophecy was fulfilled. 
 
 Professor Steiner threw the handkerchief. 
 
 In the most straightforward manner in the 
 world he wrote to Monica Randolph and of- 
 fered her his heart, hand, and house in Park 
 Street. He mentioned in minute detail the 
 exact amount of his capital and income, the 
 nature of his investments, and his yearly 
 salary. He said that he possessed an amiable 
 disposition and eminent connections at court, 
 hence was confident he could make her happy. 
 He declared that he had no need or desire to 
 inquire as to her worldly possessions ; this 
 point was supremely indifferent to him, his 
 own fortune being ample. He was proud to lay 
 it at her feet They would take beautiful jour- 
 neys together. Since the first moment he had 
 looked upon her face, a year since, it had 
 haunted him sleeping and waking. In all the 
 loveliness of Greece and Italy he had seen 
 only her. He had sought the society of little
 
 224 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Rob as a bond of connection with her. She 
 was never out of his thoughts. Her ascend- 
 ency over him was supreme. He could not 
 in words express his devotion. 
 
 He ventured to look for a speedy and favor- 
 able reply and was hers sincerely, Heinrich 
 Steiner.
 
 The Garden of Eden 225 
 
 IX 
 
 MONICA was confirmed in her theory that it is 
 the impossible that oftenest happens. She de- 
 plored but resented that letter. No man had 
 the right to present an offer of marriage like a 
 pistol at one's breast. It was evident too that 
 he thought he was doing a handsome thing in 
 openly stating his indifference to a dot. Mon- 
 ica did not appreciate this magnanimity. There 
 was a loathsome tone of confidence and puerile 
 na'fvet6 pervading the letter. That a woman 
 in her senses could refuse him, his house in 
 Park Street, his ample means, and his eminent 
 connections evidently did not occur to him as 
 a remote possibility. It was intolerable and 
 to her odious but also very deplorable for his 
 sake that nothing had restrained him from 
 this most unwarrantable step. His expres- 
 sions of devotion made her shudder. She 
 recalled his unpleasing personality, as she had 
 seen him once in the little room in the Gym- 
 nasium, twice in her study three or four min- 
 utes ten minutes fifteen minutes not a
 
 226 The Garden of Eden 
 
 half hour in all. That one second once in her 
 own experience had been long enough for the 
 recognition of love, she did not remember. 
 The man had taken an unconscionable liberty. 
 This was most distressing. She did not, how- 
 ever, forget that the result was going to be 
 distressing to him also. 
 
 She was not an hysterical woman, but this 
 was a considerable shock to her nerves. After 
 rereading Professor Steiner's letter twice care- 
 fully, her horror increasing rather than dimin- 
 ishing, she wrote a reply in three lines, her 
 meaning unmistakable, her language, she 
 hoped, very polite. In the case of another 
 person she would have been the first to per- 
 ceive the humor of the situation. As things 
 were she perceived none. That instinct which 
 we all have to break bad news gently, not to 
 rouse sleeping children, possessed her. Frame 
 her answer as she would, it sounded like a 
 brickbat in words. She was much troubled. 
 
 " The Germans are so much more circum- 
 stantial than we. They use so many old- 
 fashioned phrases, and my style is so terribly 
 direct. Of course he deserves it but it is 
 going to strike him like a bomb, he is so 
 idiotically unsuspicious, so helplessly arro- 
 gant." She was conscious in spite of her
 
 The Garden of Eden 227 
 
 indignation of a sneaking pity for her ag- 
 gressor. 
 
 Pale, feeling altogether shattered, she went 
 over to the Frau Professor's rooms. 
 
 " I 'm afraid I must ask you to look at these 
 letters," Monica said quietly. 
 
 Frau Erhardt had been a little dissatisfied 
 with Monica. It had seemed too much temer- 
 ity for a mere earth-born woman to place ob- 
 stacles in the path of an advancing professor. 
 But now the old lady turned cordially to her: 
 
 " Well, I am astonished ! And no mortal 
 can hold you responsible. That is certain. 
 You are as innocent as the babe unborn. It 
 is all a great pity. Such a nice house 
 and his family " she murmured regretfully. 
 "There's not a girl I know who wouldn't 
 jump at the chance. Still " 
 
 " Is my German all right? Is it phrasey 
 and longwinded enough? " 
 
 " It is very pretty. It is always pretty." 
 
 " This is a different matter from ordinary 
 German. It would not make me happy to 
 have to write this in English," Monica re- 
 turned with a faint smile. 
 
 " I 'm sure he will think it very nice," the 
 old lady assured her innocently, " fastidious 
 as he is, being a professor "
 
 228 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " I do not need to ask you never to allude 
 to this to me or to any one. It is so very 
 painful." 
 
 " I would not take it so hard, my dear. 
 After all, it is only what must happen now 
 and then to pretty girls." 
 
 " No, no. Not this. There was no reason 
 for this," Monica rejoined, her face sombre 
 and pained. 
 
 " To be sure ; it makes it doubly weighty, 
 he being so learned," the Frau Professor 
 nodded wisely in complete uncomprehension, 
 her traditional veneration for him vibrating 
 with honest sympathy for Monica. " To 
 think of all the valuable time he wasted send- 
 ing advice to you in Italy." 
 
 Monica drew a long breath. 
 
 " There is one good thing," she returned 
 rather curtly. " This is the end." 
 
 " Yes," sighed the Frau Professor, " the end 
 indeed." 
 
 Three days after this presumable conclusion 
 of the whole matter, Monica received a letter 
 from Professor Steiner. The head of Medusa 
 could hardly have petrified her more. 
 
 " Is the man mad? " she asked, as one does, 
 attaching no real meaning to the words. 
 
 He confided to her in veiled and delicate
 
 The Garden of Eden 229 
 
 language that he by no means entertained the 
 prevalent prosaic and vulgar conception of 
 marriage. Could not Miss Randolph, re- 
 assured by this pure ideality of sentiment, 
 deign to reconsider her decision, consent to 
 merely embellish his life, to adorn his study 
 as it were, and thus endow with vitality the 
 beautiful vision which had hovered over his 
 lonely path in Greece and Italy and which 
 would never again leave him while he lived. 
 
 With burning cheeks, no solicitude as to 
 style, and no desire to discuss this extra- 
 ordinary moonshine proposal with any mortal, 
 Monica presented in the third person her 
 compliments to Professor Steiner, and begged 
 to state that her decision of a few days since 
 was absolutely unconditional, irrevocable, and 
 final. It occurred to her that one such ad- 
 jective would suffice for most men, but it was 
 a slight relief to hurl the three at him, to write 
 them with bold precipitation, and to affix to 
 her envelope a rather masculine seal stamped 
 with her grandfather's large onyx ring. After 
 which, brief foolish tears suffused her eyes. 
 
 " I wish I had a brother ! " she thought 
 helplessly. " The man makes me quite silly. 
 This will never do." She wiped her eyes, set 
 her lips, and went to work manfully. Beside
 
 230 The Garden of Eden 
 
 the New York Panyphone, she was now work- 
 ing for the Chicago Unicum, which paid 
 generously. 
 
 Three days later came a communication 
 from Professor Heinrich Steiner. 
 
 " This is persecution ! " cried Monica, and 
 asked herself whether she should not return 
 the letter unopened, but read it notwithstand- 
 ing, with a vague curiosity and a shiver of 
 apprehension, to see what enormity it might 
 contain. 
 
 It requested her to have the kindness to 
 inform him whether it were true, as he had 
 heard, that she was about to marry a certain 
 Frenchman. Professor Steiner could never 
 endure the pain of seeing her on the arm of 
 another man. In case she entertained this 
 intention, he had determined, although most 
 agreeably situated at the Gymnasium, and 
 naturally more comfortable than elsewhere 
 in his own house and among his own family 
 and influential connections, to apply for a posi- 
 tion in the Gymnasium at Leipzig. He begged 
 her to acquaint him without delay and with per- 
 fect confidence in his discretion, with the truth. 
 
 Monica now lost her temper. She could 
 not at once decide what Frenchman was 
 dragged into this affair. She knew several
 
 The Garden of Eden 23 1 
 
 agreeable Frenchmen a marquis, a consul, 
 a professor, all wholly innocent of matrimonial 
 designs so far as she was concerned. She 
 imagined upon the whole it must be the pro- 
 fessor. He had once lent her some nice 
 books. But the marquis had picked up her 
 fan, and had sent her flowers on New Year's 
 Day. No, it was probably the professor. In 
 plain English, what business was it of Profes- 
 sor Steiner? And what a preposterous mix- 
 ture ! The bit of sincere feeling, the house, 
 the family, the connections, and the practical 
 question of the professorship in Leipzig, all 
 marching up in grotesque array. 
 
 She laughed nervously. 
 
 " It is not worth while to take him seriously, 
 I am ashamed that he exasperates me so. 
 Besides, there can be no doubt: this is really 
 the end. Beyond this even he cannot go." 
 
 Seizing her pen, somewhat trained now in 
 the service of The PanypJione and The Unicum, 
 she wrote approximately as follows: She 
 would deplore being to any man the innocent 
 cause of his exile from home and desirable 
 associations. Professor Steiner need make no 
 change whatever in his habits of life on her 
 account. He could indeed do her no greater 
 service than to leave her henceforth altogether
 
 232 The Garden of Eden 
 
 out of his calculations. Nothing was farther 
 from her thoughts than marriage with any 
 person in that region, and, if it would be any 
 satisfaction to him he was welcome to it 
 with any one whomsoever in Europe, Asia, 
 Africa, or North or South America. She 
 ventured now, having nothing whatever to 
 communicate farther, to rely upon the com- 
 plete cessation of the correspondence. 
 
 Her somewhat fiery defiant and foolish 
 enumeration of the geographical divisions of 
 the earth's surface, may not be countenanced 
 by the Ladies' Complete Letter-Writer, under 
 the rubric Rejected Addresses. But it must 
 be remembered in extenuation, her pen was 
 rapid, her spirit not naturally slow, and great 
 was her provocation. A wiser head than hers 
 may grow bewildered and desperate in similar 
 circumstances, and reckless in defence. Once 
 more she availed herself of the moral support 
 it seemed to be all she had of her grand- 
 father's massive seal-ring with the crest that 
 was born, not made. 
 
 "What is old Pinky doing in these days?" 
 Elizabeth inquired maliciously. 
 
 " How should I know? I never see him." 
 
 " Poor Bob says he shall be awfully glad to 
 get into the next class and out of Professor
 
 The Garden of Eden 233 
 
 Steiner's clutches. Of course the boy hardly 
 knows how to shake him off. He insists 
 upon riding and walking with him continually. 
 Bob says it is no end tedious, and he never 
 has any fun now with the other fellows. On 
 their rides Professor Steiner stares silently into 
 space, or asks questions about you." 
 
 " Which must be exceedingly entertaining 
 to Bob," Monica said uneasily. " But his 
 holidays begin soon." 
 
 " He looked very dejected this morning. 
 He said Professor Steiner was going to write 
 to him during the vacation." 
 
 " Poor little Bob ! " 
 
 The Lorings had asked her to spend a 
 couple of months at their country place, a 
 roomy old house which, with its historical 
 associations, legends, ghost, and delightful 
 surroundings, Mr. Loring had bought cheap of 
 an impoverished and nearly extinct noble 
 family. It was a hill and lake country, 
 sweet with the breath of the Black Forest. In 
 the village inn Eleanor, Elizabeth, Robert, and 
 a group of friends took up their abode. 
 Boats, wheels, and horses provided perpetual 
 motion. The cool woodpaths and the long 
 hot white roads marked by tall poplar-trees 
 seemed alive with bright and swift silhouettes.
 
 234 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Monica could run into town in an hour by 
 rail, whenever her personal presence seemed 
 desirable in The Nosegay office. She liked 
 the constant companionship of Elizabeth and 
 Eleanor. " We are all three waifs and strays," 
 she thought " Each has her secret burden." 
 They bore their burdens gallantly in those 
 weeks, it is but fair to say. They took them 
 rowing and swimming, they galloped them 
 across country, they went spinning with them 
 on bicycles, they climbed long hills on foot 
 they made hay with the peasants and rode 
 home on the funny little carts ; and after these 
 innocent dissipations sometimes in the dusk 
 and quiet of evening, the burdens would take 
 their revenge for all the giddy jolting and 
 would oppress the trio with a sombre heavi- 
 ness of spirit. They would then philosophize 
 in dark disconnected hints or sit silent and 
 listless until Elizabeth revived them with a bit 
 of cynical wisdom, or Mr. Loring would come 
 to have a tough theological tussle with Monica. 
 
 Meanwhile, clever little Eleanor was writing 
 an essay upon South German dialects, and 
 Monica was studying her peasant friends, look- 
 ing into their manner of life, their work, their 
 earnings, their food, their crops, their hard- 
 ships, their limitations, their love-making and
 
 The Garden of Eden 235 
 
 their marriages particularly the last two 
 themes. A peasantry with so long a pedigree 
 is an aristocracy like any other. Monica had 
 long since recovered from that optical illusion 
 peculiar to the amiable foreigner inclined at 
 the outset to regard as through an inverted 
 telescope a German red-roofed hamlet as a 
 sort of child's toy village and its men and 
 women as promenading dolls. She was aware 
 of their human proportions, and discovered 
 each day more sense and mother wit in their 
 simplicity. She observed them and their con- 
 ditions merely because they interested her and 
 she enjoyed talking with them, but as yet, 
 unfortunately, The P any phone and The Unicum 
 profited little from her data. Flowers and 
 froth still predominated in her writings for the 
 eye of the public. 
 
 Elizabeth usually interfered as much as was 
 possible and great were her resources in the 
 field of teasing with their sensible work in 
 any direction. Having wearied and annoyed 
 them sufficiently, she would sing like an angel 
 until they adored her. Lieutenant Uhlefeldt 
 spent two days in the village. She treated him 
 no better than them, but after he was gone, 
 she had long silent fits or was irritable as at 
 first in Italy.
 
 236 The Garden of Eden 
 
 During that entire summer, Monica received 
 but one small note from Keith. It seemed to 
 her, if she could understand it she could bear 
 it better. If she should go home and see him 
 face to face? But if he did not care to see 
 her? Was that possible? The thought made 
 her chilly round the heart. But he never an- 
 swered her. He seemed not to see or hear 
 what she said. She was not resigned. She 
 clung fast. But she wrote little, from pure 
 discouragement and bewilderment, not from 
 wounded pride. When she was most home- 
 sick and desperate, she would usually go off 
 on a long bicycle ride with Bob. Women 
 with heartaches used to sit in stuffy little 
 bowers and tarnish their gold embroidery with 
 tears. Men with heartaches could go to the 
 wars, a far more healthful diversion. But 
 woman has come forth from her stuffy little 
 bower like the genius from the bottle and 
 no power can thrust her back. Future gen- 
 erations will rise up and call her blessed that 
 she, after centuries of slumber, awoke to the 
 cheerful truth that mental work, air, and exer- 
 cise are no less womanly and chaste than 
 immoderate moaning and stitching. 
 
 Professor Steiner was trying the air of the 
 High Engadine for his health. He wrote to
 
 The Garden of Eden 237 
 
 Bob twice a week, giving the boy elaborate 
 descriptions of Alpine scenery, which he 
 skipped, and messages to Monica, which he 
 roguishly delivered. She heard them in silence 
 and with a haughty stare of incredulity, which 
 made Bob laugh. 
 
 In the early autumn they returned to town. 
 Rob McCarroll in the natural course of things 
 passed on to the next class, and exulted that 
 he was now free from his incubus. His re- 
 joicing was premature. 
 
 Professor Steiner wrote a long letter not to 
 Elizabeth, but singularly enough to Monica, 
 desiring to continue his rides with Rob, for- 
 mally proposing to adopt the boy legally, and 
 having resigned all hope of domesticity he 
 desired this consolation. 
 
 Monica with no comment passed the docu- 
 ment over to Elizabeth, who did not scruple to 
 express her indignation. 
 
 " Adopt my Robert, will he ! The imperti- 
 nent puppy ! What has Robert McCarroll, the 
 sixteenth of his name, to do with old Pinky's 
 lost domesticity? Monica, what is the matter 
 with the man? Wait. I'll give him a dose." 
 
 Which she did, then and there. Monica 
 watched her with a curious expression and a 
 very human sense of satisfaction. This time it
 
 238 The Garden of Eden 
 
 was Elizabeth's turn to flush and look uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 " How is that for a quietus?" 
 
 " I suppose you know that it is very imper- 
 tinent," suggested Monica, it must be confessed 
 without disapproval. 
 
 "So was he. Shall I be polite to a man 
 who proposes to kidnap a child?" 
 
 Monica laughed, rather exhilarated by Eliz- 
 abeth's wrath, and said lightly : 
 
 " Send it then. It is strong, and I hope it 
 will prove efficacious." 
 
 In that pleasant autumn weather Monica and 
 Elizabeth were riding perhaps once in the week 
 with Leo Uhlefeldt and Mr. Forsyth, an Eng- 
 lish attached They would select some rather 
 distant village, meet the old Baron von Uhle- 
 feldt there, and take supper merrily under his 
 suave protection. By what magic Leo induced 
 him to countenance these few rides, and receive 
 Elizabeth with such amiability, Monica never 
 understood. Perhaps Leo had given up an extra 
 race-horse or made some similar stupendous 
 sacrifice. At all events, the old baron was 
 always on the spot, gallant, debonair, and kind, 
 charmed with Elizabeth in every way except, as 
 subsequent events proved, in the role of daugh- 
 ter-in-law. She took the little pleasure parties
 
 The Garden of Eden 239 
 
 as they came, and, being shrewd behind her 
 levity, drew no erroneous conclusions. After 
 the unlimited freedom of the summer, it was 
 delightful to her and Monica to mount spirited 
 animals, and escorted by bright-faced cava- 
 liers, feel the cool air strike the cheek and hear 
 the splendid rhythm of five horses' hoofs in 
 long steady trot out through the shady park 
 into clear country ways. 
 
 The day after the first of these excursions, 
 Monica received a letter from Professor Steiner, 
 who courteously, and as if there were no im- 
 aginable reason why he should not write to 
 her, proposed himself as cavalier and escort on 
 her riding parties. Nothing, he affably re- 
 marked, would afford him more sincere pleas- 
 ure than to point out to Miss Randolph and 
 her friend Miss McCarroll the beauties of the 
 landscape and the points of historical interest 
 in that region, and no one, he ventured to flat- 
 ter himself was better acquainted than he with 
 his native country. 
 
 " I will never write a word to the man again, 
 and I will not read his letters," Monica now 
 declared to the Frau Professor, who of her 
 own free will undertook to bring him to 
 reason with a little mild and motherly ex- 
 postulation, and called upon him at the
 
 240 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Gymnasium for this purpose. She returned 
 much elated. He had seemed overjoyed to 
 see her, asked repeatedly if Miss Randolph 
 had sent her, agreed eagerly with all that she 
 said, begged her to give his best regards to 
 Miss Randolph, and to assure her he was in 
 every way at her service, regretted if in his 
 zeal his letters had seemed too frequent, and 
 hoped the Frau Professor would honor him 
 with a speedy repetition of her visit, held him- 
 self entirely at her orders and would, at any 
 hour she would name, present himself at her 
 house. 
 
 " He was exceedingly polite, not at all im- 
 portunate, and I really think, my dear, you 
 will have no more trouble," she concluded. 
 
 But Monica's heart sank. She foresaw that 
 Frau Erhardt's well-meant intervention would 
 inflame him like direct encouragement. It 
 was now October, and his letters began to 
 snow and drift upon her like one of the 
 plagues of Egypt. One, two, sometimes three 
 in a day. She undertook to return them un- 
 opened. But beside feeling a strong aversion 
 to even this tacit and repressive form of com- 
 munication with him, she thought that she 
 perceived a distinct response in larger, heavier 
 and more frequent letters, every time that her
 
 The Garden of Eden 241 
 
 handwriting readdressed one of his envelopes. 
 She therefore decided to be absolutely passive 
 and endure what she saw no way to avoid. 
 No doubt in the course of human events he 
 would tire of this fruitless senseless pursuit. 
 She tossed each letter as it came into a box 
 and grimly turned a key on the uninviting 
 mystery. 
 
 But poor little Rob McCarroll was also 
 cursed with the plague of letters, if not so 
 mercilessly as she, yet frequent and harass- 
 ing enough for a school-boy. Professor 
 Steiner expressed himself as extremely hurt 
 and pained by the ingratitude of his young 
 friend, who would no longer ride with him or 
 come down to his house to supper. Rob 
 begged off as well as he could, pleaded his 
 new duties and new divisions of time, all of 
 which was quite true, and added frankly, be- 
 sides he had promised some fellows to ride 
 with them. But his arguments had no weight 
 with Professor Steiner, who pushed them 
 aside and re-began his plaint. One day he 
 accosted the boy in the playground and said 
 he had insulted him and must give him satis- 
 faction. Rob being an obliging child replied 
 politely that he should be only happy, if the 
 Professor would only wait until he could learn 
 16
 
 242 The Garden of Eden 
 
 how to fight duels, that none of the fellows 
 of his class knew how yet. 
 
 Elizabeth now interfered. She made her 
 second appearance in that little room in the 
 Gymnasium, and was prepared to request 
 Professor Steiner in the most forcible lan- 
 guage of her vocabulary to cease to molest 
 her brother. 
 
 " Monica," she said excitedly as she re- 
 turned from her unsuccessful quest, " you 
 know I was not afraid, you know I was fierce. 
 Of course one is never so fierce before the 
 enemy as behind his back. Still you know 
 me, you believe I was fierce ? " 
 
 " You were very fierce," Monica assured 
 her warmly. 
 
 " Well, he disarmed me. He was in the 
 seventh heaven of delight. He would not 
 listen to a word I said about Bob. He in- 
 sisted upon regarding me as your envoy. He 
 sent you all sorts of voluble messages. I 
 could do nothing with him. I was helpless. 
 The man is most eccentric. I think he has 
 a bee in his bonnet." 
 
 " I am sure he has," Monica agreed, but 
 neither felt the sinister meaning of her own 
 words. 
 
 Every day the letters came and were de-
 
 The Garden of Eden 243 
 
 posited in the locked box. Sometimes Rob 
 brought them, when they were not in en- 
 velopes but folded in queer shapes, boats, 
 stars, and flowers. They made Monica feel 
 quite ill, but she said nothing more. She 
 had at times a certain donkey-like patience 
 and it was not easy for her to complain long 
 in one key. She often asked herself if there 
 were absolutely nothing to be done. But the 
 fact that the man had made her a proposal 
 of marriage precluded any appeal for advice 
 or help from stern men. At least it seemed 
 so to her. It was a part of her traditions. 
 His letters were an assault like stones, but she 
 did not know how to defend herself or to be- 
 tray him. It will be observed that Monica 
 was sometimes lamentably dense. 
 
 The mere arrival of letters that one has 
 made up one's mind not to read, may seem a 
 trifling matter. In these circumstances it was 
 to Monica an oppression, an outrage, an in- 
 cursion upon her personal freedom. She was 
 tempted to burn them in disgust, but some 
 warning instinct restrained her, and she kept 
 them all, hoarded as carefully as Keith's. The 
 irony of a flood of letters from this so repug- 
 nant source, when her heart was famishing for 
 letters, only for letters, from over the sea !
 
 244 The Garden of Eden 
 
 A relief to sombre meditations were the 
 Saturday rides which continued into Novem- 
 ber. A horse to one who loves him is a cure 
 for many ills. Upon the old baron devolved 
 the agreeable responsibility of choosing the 
 inn and ordering their supper. He possessed 
 talent for this office, and surprised them with 
 the variety and elasticity of his appointments. 
 It was a Thursday. That week Monica had 
 received four or five letters a day from Pro- 
 fessor Steiner, and felt like a hunted animal. 
 Rob reported that the professor was not well, 
 not in town, the boys in his class said. How- 
 ever that was, every post brought a letter from 
 him. " When God wills, all winds bring rain," 
 she thought wearily. 
 
 That evening Elizabeth announced that they 
 would start as early as two o'clock on Satur- 
 day, and ride to the Rosenhof. She was 
 moody and fitful, and finally said : " I am 
 afraid it is the last ride. Never mind. We '11 
 have a revel and die game." Monica asked 
 no questions, but thought she understood. 
 
 On Friday morning came a letter from Pro- 
 fessor Steiner, and across the envelope was 
 written, For God's sake read this! Monica 
 read it. 
 
 It asked in a sort of frenzy why she was so
 
 The Garden of Eden 245 
 
 cruel? Why she treated him with silent con- 
 tempt? How had he deserved her scorn? 
 Why was he alone unworthy of any kindness? 
 He had been begging her for weeks now 
 to ride with him. She rode with other men. 
 Why not, then, with him? Was he not a man 
 of gentle associations? Was he not fit for the 
 society of ladies? And she who looked so 
 kind, so good, she whose sweet face haunted 
 him day and night, how could she be so hard, 
 so merciless? For the last time he begged 
 her to have pity. She did not dream the 
 harm she was doing, the incalculable, fatal 
 harm. If she had a woman's heart within her 
 breast, he begged her to ride with him on Sat- 
 urday, and to send her answer to his house. 
 For the last time he begged her to accede to 
 his request to prevent unspeakable anguish, 
 to avert a horrible catastrophe. 
 
 Monica groaned aloud, yet did not compre- 
 hend. Had she been a psychic expert she 
 would have known how to interpret both the 
 handwriting, and the broken, irrational re- 
 proaches. But she was wholly without knowl- 
 edge of insanity, and towards no other frailty 
 of our poor mortal bodies, is the laity so alto- 
 gether helplessly and vastly ignorant. 
 
 This man had been to Monica from the
 
 246 The Garden of Eden 
 
 first, let it be said without heartlessness a 
 monstrosity. Unnatural, indelicate, repugnant, 
 impossible, was his whole course in her esti- 
 mation. She had endured much from him. 
 She had done her best to bear it quietly. 
 This letter was like all the rest, but intensified, 
 gaining in gloomy horror. She felt wretched, 
 full of vague foreboding, but she was accus- 
 tomed to take herself to task for nervousness. 
 She said nothing about the letter, which she 
 locked immediately into the box, now so full 
 the cover would hardly shut. 
 
 " He has tried unfair means with me from 
 the first. Now it is melodrama. I cannot 
 answer him. I did wrong to read the letter. 
 No doubt some of the others are quite as bad." 
 Still she felt powerfully depressed. 
 
 On Friday evening Bob McCarroll brought 
 the perturbing news that Professor Steiner 
 was staying for a few days at the Rosenhof. 
 At least Bob thought that was the name. He 
 had not heard quite distinctly. There were 
 so many little inns called some kind of a 
 Hof : Bienenhof Blumenhof Lindenhof. 
 He could not positively say it was Rosenhof. 
 
 Monica stared at him in wretched silence. 
 Elizabeth cried : 
 
 " Of course it is not Rosenhof, you foolish
 
 The Garden of Eden 247 
 
 Bob ! Why should even that kill-joy alight 
 upon exactly our picnic? I do not believe it." 
 
 " Well, I '11 find out exactly to-morrow morn- 
 ing and tell you in time," Rob promised cheer- 
 fully. "I really did not pay attention. Beth 
 did not tell me until to-night where you would 
 ride, and then suddenly it seemed to me the 
 fellows said Steiner was staying at the Rosen- 
 hof, but it may be all my fancy." 
 
 "Why should the wretch be out there?" 
 demanded Elizabeth. " Of course it is your 
 fancy." 
 
 " I always think he 's everywhere," Rob 
 admitted. " He makes a fellow so uncomfort- 
 able, you know. But he was awfully nice to 
 me at first. He told me no end of fine things. 
 That is why I don't know what to make of him 
 when he acts so queer. I 'd like him again if 
 he would n't bother me," the boy said rather 
 dolefully. 
 
 " Elizabeth, I think we 'd better give up the 
 ride to-morrow altogether," Monica proposed 
 with decision. " If there is the faintest possi- 
 bility of meeting that man at the Rosenhof, we 
 cannot go there. And it seems to me we 'd 
 better not ride in any direction. I cannot 
 explain why things look ' lurid,' as you say, 
 to me. But I have an instinct it is better to
 
 248 The Garden of Eden 
 
 remain at home. If you will write to Lieu- 
 tenant von Uhlefeldt, I will attend to Mr. 
 Forsyth." 
 
 " How can you attach so much importance 
 to a thing Bob himself says he only half 
 heard? For my part I cry no quarter to 
 Pinky. He may be at the Rosenhof with his 
 stare, his rosy locks, his red nose and his pearl- 
 gray trousers. I should pay no more heed to 
 him than to a fly on the window-pane. I do 
 not understand you, Monica." 
 
 " I would not go for all the world if he were 
 there," said Monica vehemently. 
 
 " He is not there, I tell you, great soft- 
 hearted baby! He is in his house in Park 
 Street. Bob, run out and be nice to the Frau 
 Professor. Monica, it is the last ride, the very 
 last ! Be good and dear ! Some day I will 
 tell you things. I know you love me. I want 
 to go to-morrow. You surely are not going to 
 sacrifice me to that old ghoul?" 
 
 " I cannot tell you all I know and feel and 
 dread," replied Monica. " I will simply say I 
 am greatly distressed. I do not pretend to 
 understand why I fear that man. But I have 
 a great horror of everything concerning him. 
 He has troubled me rather more than you 
 know."
 
 The Garden of Eden 249 
 
 "Beast! " exclaimed Elizabeth. 
 
 " He has troubled me more than I like to 
 admit. It seems a sort of weakness to suffer so 
 for people to whom one is indifferent. I would 
 not once have believed it possible. And I pre- 
 sume I exaggerate, that I am morbid. When 
 one thinks of a thing continually " 
 
 " Of course ! Nothing is more natural. I 
 always tell you, you are too sensitive. But 
 see, you dear sweet thing, I have my reasons 
 for wanting to ride to-morrow. Don't desert 
 me for a nervous apprehension. I beg you to 
 go if you love me. It is the last time " and 
 Elizabeth clasped her with loving arms and 
 pleaded with ardent voice and hungry eyes. 
 
 " I will ride somewhere with you to- 
 morrow," Monica said, pushing the hair back 
 from her forehead nervously, " since you wish 
 it so sorely. For my part, I hardly know 
 why, I would rather stay at home. But under 
 no consideration, understand me well, will I 
 ride to the Rosenhof if Professor Steiner is 
 lurking anywhere in the neighborhood." 
 
 " He is not, you will see," laughed Eliza- 
 beth. " Only let a bore work long enough 
 and he commands the very elect. You and 
 Bob tremble at the very name of Pinky." 
 
 " Oh no, it is not that," protested Monica.
 
 250 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " But all the same you are right. I owe more 
 to my affection for you than I owe to my 
 repugnance toward him. You may depend 
 upon me, dear, for your last ride. Of course 
 we can easily avoid him." 
 
 Toward twelve o'clock on the Saturday 
 morning Leo von Uhlefeldt had the honor to 
 inquire if the young ladies were of one mind 
 and all was in readiness. Elizabeth lightly 
 alluded to Monica's scruples. 
 
 " But Steiner is certainly off color," the 
 lieutenant asserted cheerfully. " A brother of 
 his has already gone the same path. It is 
 unfortunate, but what has it to do with us? 
 We are not responsible for him. Meanwhile 
 my father has telegraphed to the Rosenhof for 
 supper. Papa hates to be thwarted even in 
 little things. Of course there is still time to 
 countermand the order but papa has taken 
 pains. And why indeed should one inquire as 
 to the other guests in a country inn where one 
 happens to sup?" 
 
 Monica replied that she should be im- 
 mensely sorry to annoy the baron and inter- 
 fere with his pleasant plans and the pains he 
 had taken for them all. She hoped, indeed, 
 it would not be necessary. All depended 
 however upon the news Rob should shortly
 
 The Garden of Eden 251 
 
 bring from school. She could only say, first 
 and last, for her the Rosenhof was simply 
 impossible, were even Professor Steiner's 
 shadow there. 
 
 The lieutenant deprecated this serious view 
 of things, Elizabeth jested valiantly, Monica 
 persisted, and all waited for Robert, who pres- 
 ently ran in and announced breathlessly and 
 with splendid security: 
 
 " It was all a fraud. He is not anywhere 
 out of town. He is here. Half a dozen fel- 
 lows in his own class told me that they have 
 spoken with him this morning. So you can 
 ride over the wide wide world." 
 
 No one doubted the authenticity of this 
 information. 
 
 They set out at two o'clock in the cool air, 
 with the merry rhythm of twenty crisp hoofs 
 and the sound of bright voices and laughter. 
 Making good time, all strong and able riders, 
 they drew up toward five o'clock with a cheer- 
 ful clatter before the portico of the little inn 
 called the Rosenhof, where the old Baron von 
 Uhlefeldt received them with a certain pride. 
 They were indeed a goodly company. 
 
 Later, in the bright front room, the five sat 
 at table and ate and drank and jested and 
 laughed. The old baron was a jovial man,
 
 252 The Garden of Eden 
 
 fond of the society of young people. He was 
 affable too, for which he greatly admired him- 
 self, to mine host, and praised with amiable 
 patronage his fat capons and his wines. This 
 should be the last of these little feasts, the old 
 baron had decided. Elizabeth was a charming 
 girl. Personally he liked her much. But it 
 was out of the question. Leo must marry in 
 his own set, in society as his father had done 
 before him. That Leo's father had had a 
 singularly uncomfortable matrimonial experi- 
 ence and not drawn a free breath in thirty 
 years, hence was now revelling in his widower- 
 hood, the old baron did not permit for an 
 instant to influence his judgment. Florence 
 Arco was the one. Leo had hung back 
 long enough. The boy had taste. Elizabeth 
 McCarroll was a fascinating sparkling witch. 
 How pretty they both looked, bright eyes, 
 bright cheeks, bright lips, all brightness from 
 the crisp air. Well, this being the last little 
 supper, it should be a success, it should be a 
 real merry-making and he turned gallantly 
 to Elizabeth with a devotion that rivalled his 
 son's. 
 
 Leo went out one instant to cast one glance 
 at the horses, and by chance heard from a 
 groom that Professor Steiner was staying at
 
 The Garden of Eden 253 
 
 the Rosenhof, that is, " He 's here and he 's 
 not here. They say he 's gone to town, and 
 then you see him. And he 's got a mighty 
 queer eye, sir. If my dog had that eye, sir, 
 I 'd shoot him, sir." 
 
 This information gave young Uhlefeldt a 
 sense of discomfort he could hardly explain. 
 " It is rather awkward," he thought. " But 
 we are here and we cannot help it. It will be 
 all right if only the ladies suspect nothing. 
 I 'm afraid they would want to go instantly, 
 and we should lose this last evening. The 
 poor fellow must be quite daft," he said care- 
 lessly, and went back to the bright little room 
 where all were in gay spirits and friendly and 
 charming one with another and time sped 
 swiftly, and Elizabeth sang, and the old baron 
 was loath to let them go, and grew rather 
 sentimental himself, as old boys of sixty-four 
 are wont to do after a good supper with youth, 
 beauty, and excellent wines, and it was after 
 eight o'clock when the baron's victoria and the 
 five horses were assembled in the little circle 
 of light before the inn, and the grooms tramped 
 about and swung lanterns and the beautiful 
 eager animals leaped upon the bit. 
 
 From the dark window above, a poor dis- 
 tracted man looked upon the cheerful noisy
 
 254 The Garden of Eden 
 
 picture. In this tragedy all parts dovetailed as 
 if demons had made the measurements. 
 
 The old baron rolled himself in his rugs and 
 prepared to drive off in his victoria. 
 
 " Let Jeannette lead," he privately advised 
 his son, " or there will be the devil to pay. 
 One would think it was the horses that had 
 had the champagne," he chuckled. " How the 
 brutes dance ! " 
 
 " They '11 be all right as soon as we are off," 
 returned Leo. 
 
 The ladies mounted. The men swung them- 
 selves into the saddles. The smart groom took 
 his place. 
 
 " Give Jeannette her head, Miss Randolph, 
 and talk to her, pet her," called the old baron. 
 
 " I know ! " cried Monica joyfully, for she 
 dearly loved a horse. Turning, she smiled 
 back at him with confidence and a little 
 gesture of farewell. The light of a groom's 
 lantern gleamed upon her happy face. 
 
 Off into the dark night sped the swift riders. 
 Far down the hard road resounded the rhythm 
 of clattering hoofs. 
 
 The tortured man turned from the window. 
 He lighted a candle and began to write 
 unintelligible illegible mad words, among 
 which afterwards some uncomprehending curi-
 
 The Garden of Eden 255 
 
 ous eye deciphered : " white vision " and 
 "Greece" while Monica, her heart uncon- 
 scious and free, rode away in the night, exulted 
 in the magnificent movement, felt intensely 
 the joy of mere living, and listened to the 
 happy rhythm of the light swift hoofs.
 
 256 The Garden of Eden 
 
 X 
 
 AUREL VON ARENBERG was not a model host. 
 He was apt to have at his own table the man- 
 ner of a polite but rather indifferent stranger. 
 Very correct and elegant, but later than any 
 of his guests would have dared to appear, he 
 would stroll into his drawing-room with an air 
 of bland irresponsibility as to the condition of 
 the fish. At such moments some people, but 
 not his wife, admired his angelic detachment. 
 
 Dinners occurred with relentless frequency 
 at his house. This fact may partially excuse 
 his obliviousness. Living among the deeper 
 shadows of life, contending day in, day out, be- 
 yond his strength, beyond any man's strength, 
 with the misery of aching bodies and helpless 
 souls, it seemed to him a quite superfluous 
 rite, not that Arco and Lobanow and Bare- 
 tinsky and other men with nothing to do 
 should be continually dining at his house, but 
 that he must dine there with them. He was a 
 most mild judge of his fellow-creatures, and 
 condemned their idleness no more than their 
 rheumatism or any other imperfection of blood
 
 The Garden of Eden 257 
 
 and breeding. He liked these men fairly well, 
 and homoeopathic doses of their society he 
 found not unpalatable. But he had long since 
 renounced the sort of life they led, and his 
 earnestness would not amalgamate with their 
 utter aimlessness, which, however, seemed to 
 Melanie the one life worth leading. In the 
 incessant and strong struggle, now tacit, now 
 open, between husband and wife, she pulling 
 toward, he resisting society, often he yielded 
 against his better judgment, from a desire to 
 have peace at any cost, and because he recog- 
 nized sadly, helplessly, with self-reproach, that 
 this woman at his side, yet so far from him, 
 was no happier, no more satisfied than he. 
 Less, indeed, for he loved his profession. 
 
 There was a distinct advantage he found 
 in dining at home. It took far less time than 
 when Melanie dragged him to Arco's or Ester- 
 hazy's, or to a rout or something crowded and 
 philanthropic, where a fashionable tenor sang, 
 or to charity-bazaars or to aristocratic vaude- 
 villes for the inundated and starving. So 
 when he saw no escape, he flung himself duti- 
 fully into evening dress and rarely obtruded 
 his thoughts upon his neighbors. One can get 
 along very comfortably in society, no man 
 knew better than he, without thoughts, without 
 '7
 
 258 The Garden of Eden 
 
 attention, without direct response. He always 
 slipped out unobserved as soon as possible, and 
 the women looked about restlessly. 
 
 To-night he was wondering how early he 
 could respectably get off. He must see a 
 woman at the hospital before he slept. It had 
 been a bad operation with unforeseen compli- 
 cations. He felt anxious. His part had gone 
 well, but she was anaemic, had a weak heart, 
 and little power of resistance. A sunny little 
 woman nevertheless, with three children and a 
 husband who adored her, a big kind fellow, 
 who shook like a reed when he left, but she 
 had smiled. It seemed to Arenberg he must 
 save her, must sustain that feeble, flickering 
 flame. Some others too he ought to see with- 
 out fail the little Helm boys with diphtheria. 
 Besides, he ought to write all night several 
 nights, if he hoped to clear away that pile of 
 neglected work on his desk. 
 
 "How do you like Signorina Bartoletti?" 
 asked Madame von Baretinsky at his right. 
 " She dances well, one must admit, but it is a 
 trifle gaunt, don't you think? It is difficult 
 nowadays to find all virtues united in one 
 danseuse: grace, shape, fire, and school. Vir- 
 tues, did I say? Virtue is the last thing we 
 exact of her."
 
 The Garden of Eden 259 
 
 " Why should she not be as virtuous as 
 anybody else? " remarked Arenberg, mild and 
 absent. 
 
 Presently he began to listen with attention : 
 the woman with whom he instinctively, con- 
 scientiously, and systematically disagreed, the 
 one woman on earth to whom he had ever 
 been forced to speak with a certain brutality, 
 the woman who was in divers ways his evil 
 genius, his sister-in-law Orla, was haranguing 
 the company. 
 
 " I know it to be a positive fact," she said, 
 " the Randolph lured him on in every conceiv- 
 able way." 
 
 Her voice was hard and sprightly, her eyes 
 sparkled like jet beads. She was a pretty 
 woman, small, thin, sharp, and despotic, with 
 a wiry vivacity of manner, a temper which she 
 scorned to control, no children, a docile hus- 
 band, unsatisfied literary and insatiable social 
 ambition, and a volatile following of fops. 
 
 " The ineffable insolence of womankind," 
 thought Arenberg, contemplating her mildly. 
 "How dare she say the Randolph?" 
 
 " As she is an American," continued Frau 
 Selbitz, " and introduced at your house, 
 Countess " 
 
 " Oh, very well introduced, I assure you,"
 
 160 The Garden of Eden 
 
 returned the Countess von Arco. " Her 
 people are of the best. But " with a laugh 
 " pray don't hesitate on my account. I 
 cannot be held responsible for all the indis- 
 cretions of my compatriots over here. It is a 
 very deplorable affair, I believe. Everybody 
 was talking about it coming out of church 
 this morning." 
 
 Madame von Baretinsky wondered why 
 Arenberg was softly laughing. 
 
 " It is scandalous," exclaimed Me"lanie. " I 
 hardly see how she can show her face here 
 after this." 
 
 "Why not?" asked Baron Lobanow with 
 a smile. " Nothing poses a woman like a 
 suicide or a duel. There is but one reason 
 why a woman should not show her face 
 ugliness which is not Miss Randolph's 
 crime." 
 
 " May I ask what is Miss Randolph's crime? " 
 said Arenberg. " I should not take her for a 
 very dangerous malefactor." 
 
 " It seems a man, that is to say a professor, 
 has blown his brains out for her sweet sake," 
 said Baron Baretinsky, twirling his long yellow 
 moustaches. " For my part, with apologies 
 to the company, I cannot believe that the 
 world will miss him. There are so many pro-
 
 The Garden or Eden 261 
 
 fessors, and one does not count them, eh? 
 One more or less is no great matter ? " 
 
 " Sascha ! " indulgently exclaimed his wife, 
 ten years older than he and patient as a 
 mother. 
 
 " I heard he took poison," said the Countess 
 Alexa von Gerold. 
 
 " An overdose of chloral, I was told," Lo- 
 banow remarked. 
 
 " No, no, he shot himself with a revolver," 
 declared Orla von Selbitz, with the authority 
 of an eye-witness. " It made a terrible report 
 which roused the house. He could only gasp 
 a few words, her name, and then he died in 
 the arms of the landlord. She went out there 
 to meet him, it seems, and they had an excit- 
 ing scene, in which he upbraided her for her 
 heartlessness and told her she had ruined his 
 existence, and he should bear his misery no 
 longer." 
 
 Again Arenberg laughed softly, so softly 
 that no one noticed. 
 
 " Horrible ! " exclaimed Melanie. " To first 
 destroy a man's happiness and then his life ! " 
 
 " Oh, she ! She probably does not care at 
 all. I never liked her appearance," Orla re- 
 turned autocratically. 
 
 " I like her appearance uncommonly well,"
 
 262 The Garden of Eden 
 
 said Lobanow, " and if I may venture to be so 
 bold, it seems to me the ladies go a little too 
 fast." 
 
 " That they do ! " laughed Baretinsky. 
 " They always do." 
 
 " In Petersburg and in Paris such things 
 often happen," remarked Madame von Bare- 
 tinsky philosophically. Nothing discomposed 
 her or interested her much if only her Sascha 
 were well and amused, and for the charac- 
 ter of his amusements she had boundless 
 indulgence. 
 
 Arenberg turned from time to time a quiet, 
 attentive face upon each speaker, meanwhile 
 scientifically dissecting a bird, and drawing 
 his own conclusions. 
 
 " This time," he thought, " it seems they 
 have really immolated Iphigenia. This time 
 Artemis has not interposed. It is a pity." 
 
 Baretinsky chuckled. 
 
 " It is odd, but always so. This thing hap- 
 pened yesterday, out of town. In point of 
 fact, we don't know what happened. We 
 know nothing about it. But every man of us 
 is on the woman's side ; every woman on the 
 man's." 
 
 " That is quite right. That preserves the 
 balance of power," Lobanow suggested.
 
 The Garden of Eden 263 
 
 Melanie von Arenberg flashed a mute appeal 
 at Count Arco under her dark lashes. 
 
 " I must confess I stand with the ladies," he 
 hastened to say, with his weakly amiable 
 smile. 
 
 " Of course you do," bluntly returned the 
 countess. " I must say I find it shocking." 
 
 " But, Baron, I am not against Miss Ran- 
 dolph," the Countess von Gerold said to 
 Baretinsky. " I think she must feel terribly 
 distressed, and I am very sorry for her." 
 
 " Nor am I against her," Madame von 
 Baretinsky remarked negligently. " Coquetry 
 is not the worst thing in the world. Some- 
 times it is even amusing." She spoke as one 
 who regarded it from the proscenium loges 
 of life and through a glass, somewhat as she 
 watched the caperings of Signorina Bartoletti. 
 
 " Now I think we have every reason to be 
 grateful to her," Baretinsky declared. " In 
 this dull place a sensation is doubly welcome. 
 You know Heinrich Heine said it would be 
 very difficult to be immoral here." 
 
 " I think Heine was mistaken," Lobanow 
 returned dryly. 
 
 " Well, you ought to know," Baretinsky re- 
 torted low. 
 
 "Why do you suppose she came over
 
 264 The Garden of Eden 
 
 here?" Me"lanie began suddenly. "I always 
 think there must be some reason why they 
 cannot live comfortably at home. Perhaps if 
 we knew all Of course we know why such 
 as you came," turning to Countess Arco defer- 
 entially, at which Baretinsky and Lobanow 
 exchanged an imperceptible smile with the 
 eyes. For the Countess Arco had come over 
 to buy a count, and a count she had bought. 
 
 "Why, the town is full of foreign girls 
 studying every imaginable thing," protested 
 Lobanow. " And why should they not? " 
 
 " No one is as conspicuous as she," Orla 
 von Selbitz flung out witheringly. 
 
 Thus, under softly shaded lights, amid the 
 shining of silver and glass, the glow of wine and 
 bloom of flowers, women in charming toilettes, 
 and men in genial evening mood, lightly dis- 
 cussed a tragic event of which, as Baretinsky 
 suggested, they knew rather less than noth- 
 ing. 
 
 Arenberg crumbled his bread absently with 
 his slight and nervous hand, and with what 
 Countess Alexa called that most seraphic air, 
 which looked odd above a white cravat and 
 much shirt front. 
 
 Finally he glanced round the table and 
 said:
 
 The Garden of Eden 265 
 
 " No doubt I am dull, but I fail to perceive 
 the slightest sense or connection in all these 
 conflicting rumors, or how a shadow of re- 
 proach can touch the lady. Who was the 
 man?" 
 
 " Steiner, Professor Steiner," his brother-in- 
 law informed him. 
 
 " Ah ! " and over Von Arenberg's quiet face 
 passed a quick gleam, instantly followed by a 
 shade of reserve and a little defensive droop 
 of the eyelids. 
 
 " And her crime," laughed Baretinsky, " her 
 black and awful crime is, he was in love with 
 her." 
 
 All the men smiled broadly, even Count 
 Arco. 
 
 " But you are quite unprincipled to defend 
 her ! " Melanie broke out. 
 
 " Giesl ! " Countess Arco warned her erring 
 spouse. 
 
 " If you would really like to know the truth," 
 Orla von Selbitz now announced with a kind 
 of prickly heat, " perhaps I can enlighten you, 
 Aurel. You men are very tolerant or lax 
 of course we know that. Still I suppose you 
 have some conscience." 
 
 " Do not doubt us ! " Baretinsky pleaded 
 mincingly.
 
 266 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " We have hearts," urged Lobanow, " great 
 hearts." 
 
 " Well, I hope you have some judgment 
 still," she replied with coquettish provocation, 
 for these men she reckoned in her train. Meet- 
 ing Arenberg's calm gaze contemplating her 
 attentively as if she were a new species of 
 microbe, she stared back with hard bright 
 eyes and continued with increased zest : 
 
 " Perhaps it is quite innocent to run after a 
 man in the school where he is at work, and 
 to correspond with him most intimately for 
 months " 
 
 "You saw the letters, Orla?" Arenberg in- 
 quired gently. 
 
 " Of course I did not, Aurel ! Perhaps it is 
 sweet and maidenly to receive a man's visits, 
 and his flowers and books, pictures and other 
 gifts, to encourage him to the top of his bent, 
 go more than half way to meet him, walk with 
 him, ride with him in the woods " 
 
 " You met them on these pleasant excur- 
 sions, Orla?" Arenberg asked most sweetly. 
 
 " What nonsense, Aurel ! But I know for 
 a positive fact that she has been riding with 
 him and writing to him and playing cruelly 
 with him. Riding in the woods ! " she re- 
 peated, with defiant emphasis.
 
 The Garden of Eden 267 
 
 " Ah," rejoined Arenberg, placidly. " In 
 the woods." 
 
 " Well, now he has made away with himself. 
 Is that not proof enough for you?" she de- 
 manded triumphantly. 
 
 " Proof of something. I don't quite know 
 of what, although I have my suspicions. 
 Countess Alexa ! have you mastered your 
 wheel? Do you feel quite happy on it? I 
 think most people look uncommonly miser- 
 able learning it. Why is that? Is it so very 
 difficult? " 
 
 As they had their coffee and cigarettes in 
 the drawing-room, Arenberg seemed to be 
 there, well disposed, moving about among 
 his guests, chatting with the men, saying 
 something kind to Count Arco and to the 
 Russian, and to Countess Alexa, who liked him 
 much ; but as she turned to look for him, he 
 was gone. 
 
 He found the little woman at the hospital 
 in a sinking condition, and worked over her 
 until she revived somewhat. He looked at a 
 few other serious cases, walked with young 
 Flemming and Sister Seraphina in her snowy 
 broad-winged cap down the dim ward, past 
 restless sleepers and weary wakeful eyes 
 which, seeing him unexpectedly, sought his
 
 268 The Garden of Eden 
 
 in pleading. It was only a slight man in even- 
 ing dress who spoke here and there a low 
 word, gave a grasp of the hand, a thought- 
 ful, friendly look, a smile, or bent suddenly 
 to search a sleeper's face, called for more 
 light and stooped and looked again with 
 sharp scrutiny. But to many his mere pres- 
 ence brought brief healing and hush, as if an 
 angel were passing through the ward, and 
 some poor souls, comforted, smiled and slept 
 a little. 
 
 Very late that night Arenberg went slowly 
 through a street which was far out of his 
 course, looked up at some brightly-lighted 
 windows and smiled ironically at the impulse 
 which had brought him there and still was 
 urging him to go in. 
 
 " She would probably take me for the exe- 
 cutioner in person if I should appear at this 
 hour. Miss Randolph may not even know. 
 And I? I know nothing. Trust Orla to 
 paint the devil himself blacker than black. 
 But it looks to me like ugly business. 
 Steiner's brother in an asylum for years 
 Steiner himself, I suspect, alcoholic. I 
 must ask Dr. Frege. I suppose I am hardly 
 called upon to play Ritter Toggenburg, or 
 storm her castle to-night. But I should like
 
 The Garden of Eden 269 
 
 to talk with her, to help her if I could. 
 Perhaps later. She will be very uncomfort- 
 able, I fear. Vivisection hurts, and we are 
 apt to do it thoroughly here, particularly 
 when we get hold of a foreigner." With a 
 benevolent glance at the windows, he went on. 
 
 The tale of the suicide spread like a 
 conflagration, assumed myriad shapes and 
 enormous dimensions. It possessed all the 
 conditions essential to a deep-rooted and far- 
 reaching scandal destined to live and bear 
 fruit. There was a certain lull in topics of 
 interest just at this time: the court was con- 
 ducting itself reasonably well, or at all events 
 with wise precaution; there was nothing 
 especially exciting in politics ; no little 
 schoolgirl had of late become infatuated 
 with an actor; no scion of a noble house 
 had married a ballet girl ; no insults had been 
 interchanged in Parliament; the antics of no 
 burgomaster and life-long incumbent were 
 monopolizing helpless jurists and an exas- 
 perated public; no banker had fled from 
 justice; no officer had cheated at cards; no 
 anarchist had murdered a prince; the coast 
 was clear for Monica. 
 
 Doubtless at moments they exaggerated the 
 importance of the scandal. What the world
 
 270 The Garden of Eden 
 
 does not know is quite as surprising as what 
 it knows. We are all of far less significance 
 than we imagine, and there is always a next- 
 door neighbor who never heard of the ill 
 conduct of our son or that our Aunt Maria, 
 upon whom we reckoned, has basely left her 
 money to our distant cousins. Still it is fair 
 to state that this was a scandal of forty horse- 
 power. 
 
 It grew and grew. It was not small on the 
 Sunday, but on the Monday its own mother 
 would not have recognized it. In that town 
 of three or four hundred thousand inhabitants 
 comparatively few persons knew Professor 
 Steiner or Monica Randolph. But he was a 
 fellow-townsman, a member of the learned 
 professions, had relatives in high military 
 and cabinet circles, and a house of his own 
 in Park Street. Thus the thrifty enumerated 
 his merits. He had been led on, cajoled by 
 infamous wiles, betrayed, and sacrificed; had 
 suffered martyrdoms; was the victim of a 
 generous and romantic passion, until, dis- 
 covering the worthlessness of its object, his 
 great heart broke. Thus, the sentimentalists. 
 In highways and byways the matter was greed- 
 ily discussed. Everybody knew everything for 
 a positive fact. How, no one inquired.
 
 The Garden of Eden 271 
 
 Professor Steiner was promptly canonized 
 in public sentiment. A Siegfried, a Baldur, a 
 Marquis von Posa, he floated before the in- 
 flamed imagination of the foolish. No one 
 demanded the truth either of the house of 
 mourning or of Monica Randolph. But pub- 
 lic sympathy was exclusively with the house 
 of mourning, which, discreet, conventional, 
 flanked by the Cabinet and the Army, held 
 its peace with dignity, and told no tales. In 
 cigar-shops, and barber-shops, and sausage- 
 shops, in cafes, in beer-halls and clubs, at din- 
 ners, theatres, and balls, in court circles and on 
 the market, Monica was grilled, broiled, and 
 roasted. She was an American and Ameri- 
 cans were prone to evil as the sparks fly up- 
 ward. How did she look? On this point 
 reports differed. She was a sort of Helen of 
 Troy. She was ugly beyond compare, but 
 practised black arts that enchanted men. And 
 she wrote books. Ah! Oh! Oh! Ah! 
 According to Balzac, a woman's reputation 
 for intellect rouses, even more than reputed 
 beauty, the antagonism and mistrust of her 
 own sex. 
 
 All the women turned their thumbs down : 
 tender-hearted women who would not hurt a 
 fly, but whose lives had been too comfortably
 
 272 The Garden of Eden 
 
 narrow, uneventful, and guarded from the first 
 for them to be aught but conservative among 
 themselves, timid, suspicious toward all strange 
 things ; canny mothers who decked out their 
 daughters bravely and took them where they 
 would be seen of men ; prim little maids 
 trained to exist for forms and conventions 
 until they really believed that birth was in- 
 vented for the sake of fine christenings and 
 engagements for the ring and the congratula- 
 tions, and death for imposing funeral proces- 
 sions ; spinsters who secretly vowed never to 
 forgive Monica their vicarious loss of that 
 house in Park Street ; elderly young women 
 of the aristocracy who, at the tender age of 
 thirty-three, being still unmarried, must simu- 
 late the soft helplessness of the blind kitten, 
 and its ignorance of nature's laws ; gay women, 
 with stains upon the conscience, or haply des- 
 titute of that irksome monitor; women who 
 had divorced themselves from husbands and 
 abandoned children, solely to purchase with 
 the blessing of the Church a coronet; women 
 living in marriage without love, and women 
 living in love without marriage all of one 
 accord, whatever their kind or degree, prayed : 
 God, I thank thee that I am not as this 
 publican.
 
 The Garden of Eden 273 
 
 Meanwhile, as not infrequently happens, 
 the person chiefly concerned did not suspect 
 her ghastly notoriety, but ate and drank and 
 slept and worked with cheerful unconscious- 
 ness of her ghoul and vampire attributes. 
 
 For nearly a week Professor Steiner's bom- 
 bardment had ceased which was an unspeak- 
 able relief. " At last he sees how wrong it 
 was," she hoped, and recovered the elasticity 
 which had often failed under the long and 
 grievous dispensation of the letters. 
 
 The Frau Professor watched her anxiously, 
 and provided sauces and salads of surpassing 
 quality and the best fruit procurable, and when 
 Monica asked for the evening paper, it had 
 accidentally been destroyed a loss she was 
 able to bear with equanimity. Elizabeth 
 seemed to be in a state of poorly suppressed 
 frenzy in which her mildest wish was that an 
 earthquake would swallow the entire popula- 
 tion, but her fits of startling eloquence were 
 too frequent to rouse comment. Robert did 
 not once show himself. Eleanor stole in and 
 out, fine and soft as a Tanagra statuette, and 
 asked with gentle but senseless reiterations 
 if there were nothing she could do on The 
 Nosegay. 
 
 But no one dared to break the news to Mo- 
 18
 
 274 The Garden of Eden 
 
 nica, and Mr. Loring, who might have been 
 spokesman ex officio, had the influenza. 
 The three decided however that they could 
 not longer postpone the evil moment, since 
 she might hear the facts roughly at any time. 
 
 A week after that ride to the Rosenhof 
 Monica found Elizabeth and Eleanor awaiting 
 her return in her room. 
 
 "Ah," she said brightly, "you here? 
 That is good. I have made a great discovery 
 which I think I must write to The Panyphone. 
 Wait an instant." She took off her jacket 
 and hat and dived for some heavy books of 
 photographs on her lower shelves. 
 
 She was fresh from fast walking in the cool 
 weather, and looked not a little ironical. 
 
 " You know, Elizabeth, how often we have 
 wondered why the people, the plebs, stare so 
 at foreigners here, even when we buy our 
 gowns at their shops. You remember, Eliza- 
 beth? " she repeated, for Elizabeth was silent. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I remember." 
 
 " Now I should be sorry to flatter myself, 
 but I have had the impression this afternoon 
 that every man, woman, and child I met turned 
 and stared at me. You know how the women 
 sometimes stop short, and one hears the little 
 shuffle of their feet on the pavement, and sees
 
 The Garden of Eden 275 
 
 with the back of one's head their devouring 
 look of disapproval." She laughed, and, lean- 
 ing over her desk, turned the large leaves of 
 her photograph books. 
 
 " And it was not so in Italy, or in Vienna 
 now was it? It is not so in Paris or in London. 
 They are large towns, of course, and this is a 
 little place. But I thought to-day there must 
 be a reason beyond that and beyond the great 
 clannishness and conservatism of the people 
 here. And I think I Ve found it, and it be- 
 longs to the Woman Question, Eleanor," she 
 announced, still with the little ironical smile on 
 her lips and mischief in her eyes. 
 ' "Yes, Monica. The Woman Question." 
 
 " It is the way we walk, and what they find 
 unsympathetic is our backbones. In our back- 
 bones is a certain emancipation ; for you see 
 it is simply impossible for women who ride and 
 swim and row and cycle, to promenade curva- 
 ture of the spine. Do you remember, Eliza- 
 beth, that the handsome Ferdinand asked us 
 once why English women, meaning Americans 
 also, all looked as if they had swallowed a 
 ramrod? Now if you will glance at this St. 
 Barbara and St. Elizabeth of Holbein. Lovely 
 things ! Here is St. Ursula from the Cathedral 
 pf Cologne ; and this Cranach ; and this Annun-
 
 276 The Garden of Eden 
 
 ciation of Van Eyck; and this Maximilian and 
 his Wife ; here is a Kunigunde I don't know 
 by whom; and this Memling. I can find 
 scores of them, but these are the ones that 
 occur to me " 
 
 " You see they all have deprecating backs. 
 They are apologizing for something. I pre- 
 sume for being women. It is the mediaeval 
 attitude : the head drooping meekly forward, 
 the chest retreating in hollow modesty, the 
 stomach consequently a trifle protruded 
 which is not pretty the hands folded in docil- 
 ity, and the backbone, the backbone, my dears, 
 conforming submissively to all these signs of 
 bondage a " slimsy " article, as they say in 
 shops." 
 
 She took down a couple of books on art, 
 searched still for examples, was obviously pre- 
 paring her article aloud, for she jotted down 
 some memoranda. 
 
 " Now the German women being most ex- 
 ceedingly conservative, a wee bit Chinese, 
 have retained more or less the submissive med- 
 iaeval backbone, while we for some centuries 
 have been gradually straightening and strength- 
 ening ours. I do not say, mind you, the weak 
 pose prevails here exclusively. But it is the 
 radical difference between us, of course ; many
 
 The Garden of Eden 277 
 
 things follow in its wake. Continued into ma- 
 turity, it makes for clumsiness. Submission? 
 There are various kinds. A woman may have 
 a submissive back, and a submissive intellect, 
 and submissive traditions, and a very unsub- 
 missive temper. Or, like you, Eleanor, she 
 may have an unsubmissive intellect and a 
 marvellously docile spirit. There 's nothing at 
 all submissive about you, Elizabeth, but you 
 are very dear all the same, and your backbone 
 is a beauty. 
 
 " Now I find the young girls here love!y, and 
 some of the older women very handsome, but 
 they do lack grace of movement, and I attri- 
 bute it to the conservation of the mediaeval 
 backbone. That is my great discovery. I 'm 
 going to work it up with all its psychic con- 
 comitants. I think it will be too good for The 
 Panyphone. I will try a magazine. You can do 
 the learned part for me, Eleanor. Anthropos 
 and all that. But why do you not look at the 
 pictures? " 
 
 She turned toward them questioningly, 
 smilingly, and waited. They had risen and 
 regarded her with faces which she did not 
 understand. The Frau Professor, hovering in 
 the background, wiped her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, Monica," exclaimed Elizabeth sav-
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 agely, " if I could put my arms round you 
 and take you off to the ends of the earth ! " 
 
 Again the silence and suspense. 
 
 The animation faded from Monica's face. 
 A great terror seized her. She took one step 
 forward and grasped a high-backed chair. 
 White and hardly audible, she asked : 
 
 " Is my mother dead ? " 
 
 " Not that, you darling ! " replied Eleanor, 
 with a sob. 
 
 Monica's tense hands relaxed, she drew a 
 deep breath, dropped into the chair, and after 
 an instant said quietly : 
 
 " Then I can bear it. What is it?" 
 
 They told her. First one, then another 
 spoke in shrinking, broken words. Each 
 thought the other was making it too bad, but 
 interrupting to rectify, to soften, made it worse. 
 " Don't tell me any more," said Monica once or 
 twice, then put straight questions and had no 
 mercy on herself, until she knew all, until she 
 saw both pictures clearly, the true one ghastly, 
 fateful, but pleading piteously for compassion, 
 the false one ghastlier still because colored 
 by cruelty, calumny, and lies. 
 
 White, motionless, speechless, with closed 
 eyes, she sat for a while struggling to compre- 
 hend, possessed by horror as if guilty of a
 
 The Garden of Eden 279 
 
 crime. Suddenly she started up and quickly 
 put on her jacket and hat. Elizabeth and 
 Eleanor watched her silently, but the Frau 
 Professor who awaited tears, tea, and bed, said 
 with some alarm: 
 
 " You are not going out, dear child? " 
 
 " I cannot breathe here," returned Monica. 
 
 "You do not want me?" asked Elizabeth. 
 
 Monica shook her head. 
 
 For this she had left Keith, for this ! she 
 thought, looking down from a dusky height 
 upon the lights of the town stretching away in 
 the long valley. Joy and love and home she 
 had foregone because her dear ones, not she, 
 trembled lest a breath of the world's censure 
 should reach her. Alone she had come forth, 
 for this ! Her whole being was in uproar. 
 She could scarce follow any thought. 
 
 Yet painfully she forced herself to trace 
 every step of her acquaintanceship with 
 Steiner. Sternly she examined herself, seek- 
 ing her fault, if fault there were. " I may 
 have blundered," she said, " but before God 
 I am innocent. I am the sacrifice. I am 
 the victim. No one else. Not even he." 
 Yet remembering that distraught brain, its 
 agony and despair, the sickening death of 
 the man and that dire vision never left her
 
 280 The Garden of Eden 
 
 an instant his last pathetic effort to write 
 to her, his last mad thought, for she alone 
 knew the interpretation of the scrawl found 
 near his bleeding body, her heart grew faint, 
 she leaned upon the railing for support, and 
 a pity for him was born in that hour, a pity so 
 tender and so vast, it was strangely akin to the 
 affection she could not grant him living. 
 
 She stood alone under the tranquil stars. 
 No one passed but weary laborers and other 
 simple, quiet folk. Far down the valley shone 
 the myriad lights of the city. 
 
 "But you, pretty town among your hills, 
 you owe me reparation," her spirit cried in 
 grief and passionate resentment. " You have 
 been base and cruel to me. You have con- 
 demned me without trial. Even savages prac- 
 tise some crude form of justice, but you, with 
 all your learning, your oratorical lofty talk of 
 German truth and German faith and honor, 
 and ideals, what have you done to me ? Your 
 forefathers were more benevolent and pro- 
 vided burning ploughshares. I could walk 
 them this night! Your legends let heralds 
 call and bugles blow and help be loudly sum- 
 moned for traduced maids, and give them time 
 to weep and pray until their mystic knights 
 appear and save them gloriously. While not
 
 The Garden of Eden 281 
 
 a man of you has come to me and said in 
 fairness : ' Tell me, what is the truth of this 
 matter?' And no one knows the truth. Ah, 
 that is hard ! 
 
 " But I want no rescuing knight, no protec- 
 tion, no chivalry. I crave only justice. Not 
 because I am a woman should some of you 
 have taken the trouble to ascertain the facts. 
 I am a fellow-creature accused of a foul crime. 
 You charge me with the cruel death of this 
 man, with a kind of cold-blooded, infamous 
 murder, and you have dared with unanimity 
 and with the swift swoop of the bird of prey 
 to pronounce me unheard and undefended 
 guilty. 
 
 " But you are guilty. Not I. Not he. You. 
 You trail my good name in the dust. You 
 wound me to the death. But before the tri- 
 bunal of eternal justice, I stand here and ar- 
 raign you. Charge and countercharge. God 
 hears." Like a gleam of light from a purer 
 world flashed into her misery the proud 
 thought : 
 
 " It is better so. Better be harmed than 
 to harm. Better suffer through their lies than 
 be guilty, if in the slightest degree, of the 
 crimes they allege against me, though no 
 man suspect."
 
 282 The Garden of Eden 
 
 For an instant her smile was the smile of 
 the conqueror. 
 
 Sadly she gazed down the valley. 
 
 " I was so fond of you, you pretty town. I 
 was lonely when I came. I thought you kind. 
 I was grateful for every bounty for your 
 music, your pictures, and your forests. Your 
 simplest folk seemed so wholesome, honest, 
 and good. I liked you for your young chil- 
 dren's sake and for your tenderness to them. 
 I liked you better than I knew. And you 
 have stabbed me to the heart. Why? Be- 
 cause a man I hardly knew went mad and 
 died. Is that a reason?" 
 
 But even as she reproached it in bitterness, 
 she was unconsciously caring for the place 
 with deeper attachment than before; for sor- 
 row welds faster thai joy. She never ceased 
 to love that town, and the time came when she 
 forgave it. That was her revenge. 
 
 She was lonely, strangely lonely in this trag- 
 edy. If but one soul knew the truth ! Her 
 mother? It would break her heart. Keith? 
 Ah, no ! If he did not need her letters for his 
 joy she would not burden him with her sorrow. 
 Yet he was generous, he would be grieved for 
 any one in her plight ; he would be tender to 
 her if he were near; he would comfort her
 
 The Garden of Eden 283 
 
 with the old comfort; but she could not tell 
 him this; time and the ocean and something 
 she did not comprehend were between them. 
 She shivered, and sobbed without tears. 
 
 Suddenly an idea, which for a brief moment 
 seemed clever, occurred to her. She would 
 call with those letters in her hands upon the 
 Cabinet Minister to whom Professor Steiner 
 had alluded. She would say: 
 
 " Sir, you are wise and shrewd. Here are 
 these letters. Here am I. Read them. Cross- 
 examine me." 
 
 But ah, how futile and painful to pore over 
 the convincing testimony of those insane pages ! 
 And to what end? His own family surely 
 needed no proof of the poor man's condition. 
 They knew it best, had known it longest, had 
 suffered most till now. 
 
 Why then did they not come to her, and 
 speak one word in kindness? Why did not 
 some gentlewoman among them say, "We have 
 heard of these unjust accusations. We fear 
 our poor sufferer caused you much pain." It 
 would be only human. But she would make 
 no appeal to them. Nor would she weakly 
 complain of the haunting pertinacity of a man 
 now dead who, whatever misery he had occa- 
 sioned her, was himself a victim of some mys-
 
 284 The Garden of Eden 
 
 terious congenital curse and had suffered the 
 torments of the damned. 
 
 " Poor, poor soul ! " she sighed. " Perhaps 
 he knows now I was not cruel." If one were 
 but sure of that ! She wistfully contemplated 
 the starry heavens. They told her nothing. 
 Those superb stars may not be so tranquil as 
 they look. They too must have their trag- 
 edies. One forgets we also are up there. 
 From afar, we too, look shining and silvery 
 and sublime. We too are moving on in 
 majesty and inscrutable law. 
 
 She recalled the long chain of trifles that had 
 led to the grief of this hour. A fountain played 
 bravely in the winter sunlight. Therefore she 
 had chanced to remain. Chanced? But was 
 that too not law? the same law that pre- 
 sides at the nebulous birth of planets, and mar- 
 shals the evolutions of heavenly hosts, and 
 ushers in the spring, and tints the violet, and 
 beckons the leaping tides, and inspires the 
 ardor of suns? Could law guide her wander- 
 ing feet, yet not decree the movements of her 
 soul? Must there not be one life, one love in 
 the universe? Could law exist for the lifeless 
 molecules, yet not for the soul that suffers? 
 But were there lifeless molecules? Was not 
 everywhere imprisoned soul? And the soul
 
 The Garden of Eden 285 
 
 that suffers the human soul that has 
 passed beyond the dumb soul in stones, and 
 the soul that lurks in the cells of flowers 
 and the still brother-soul of trees shall it 
 find no rest? Shall there be calm and poise 
 for all these, laws of birth and growth and 
 decay, of attraction and repulsion, laws for the 
 mightiest and tiniest movement of things 
 yet none for the movement of events, for 
 the march of our soul histories? Law for 
 that brain-disease, but only chance for the 
 man's soul-pain and hers? Blind chance 
 had planned all the acts of that well-knit 
 tragedy : 
 
 Never ! Ah, no ! There was meaning in the 
 meanest thing, a reason a purpose then in 
 even this anguish. Not a sparrow falls to the 
 ground. Every hair of your head is num- 
 bered. In the hollow of His hand. Were not 
 the sweet old sayings equally true in science 
 as in the older faith? 
 
 Ah, she believed in the pregnant purpose 
 of the ages. She believed all worlds visible 
 and invisible, and all humanities were moving 
 toward some far-off, divine event; though 
 mountains trembled and moons paled, law and 
 love should endure. Sometimes, indeed, alone 
 in the night, she had her flashes of inspiration,
 
 286 The Garden of Eden 
 
 divination prophecy. She believed no longer 
 
 she knew ! 
 
 But now, in her pain, as her thoughts flitted 
 like troubled birds in the dusk hither and 
 thither between earth and heaven, she wished 
 she were great, and strong, and sure, so that 
 the odium were naught to her, instead of caus- 
 ing her to shrink and writhe; wished she were 
 not all alone yet fashioned to crave so sorely 
 warmth and the nearer comfort, fond sympa- 
 thy, subtle comprehension, the cares of sweet 
 breath and clinging lips, and all the dear de- 
 vices of close, close love. 
 
 Oh, the irony ! This horror that had come 
 into her life was also love caricatured, per- 
 verted, and diseased but love still. For that 
 tortured soul, through all the steady progress 
 of pathological symptoms, sought ever, in end- 
 less, retreating mirage, an unattainable ideal 
 
 and what is that but love ? 
 
 Yet why must this have come to her, she 
 moaned. Why? Was it the Karma the Bud- 
 dhists teach ? In some past age had she done 
 this man a hideous wrong? Hideous indeed, 
 or the expiation were less merciless. 
 
 " It may well be," she sighed, " and if I knew 
 it, I could bear this more bravely, for it would 
 be only justice."
 
 The Garden of Eden 287 
 
 In her confused gropings and stumblings the 
 perception of eternal law ruling the tragic 
 doom of the man and ordaining her suffering 
 and sacrifice was her one support. But as she 
 absently noted the lines of garish electric lights 
 intersecting the golden yellow glow of gas, and, 
 to her wonderment, could not determine the 
 street cutting through the valley like the flash 
 of a sabre for thus benevolent nature inter- 
 poses layers of vapid thoughts in heavily 
 charged minds, to prevent too stunning explo- 
 sions, her pain was too great, her sense of 
 wrong too deep, her philosophy not yet large 
 enough for her to pardon the town that had 
 immolated her. Not yet did she comprehend 
 that it, too, had acted in ignorance, and only 
 as it must. 
 
 As she entered her study, her three friends 
 greeted her with good, glad smiles of relief. 
 
 " You have had no dinner, my child," began 
 Frau Erhardt, rather choked. 
 
 "No," replied Monica, quietly. "I should 
 rather like something warm. I am a little 
 chilly. It is cool to-night." 
 
 The Frau Professor hastened from the room. 
 
 " Elizabeth ! " said Monica significantly. 
 The two looked in each other's eyes, and saw 
 scenes that they longed to efface, and heard
 
 288 The Garden of Eden 
 
 echoes of impatient, audacious jests about 
 trifles no longer comic, but fraught with sad 
 dignity, errors inevitably expiated and forgiven. 
 
 " Yes, dear," Elizabeth answered very 
 sweetly, for she knew it was her daring tongue 
 that Monica feared. Never from that moment 
 between these two was Professor Steiner's name 
 or anything connected therewith mentioned. 
 
 Eleanor required no warning. She was all 
 tact. 
 
 Frau Erhardt told Monica mournfully that 
 night, the house would be lonely enough when 
 she was gone, but it was of course unquestion- 
 ably best for her. 
 
 " But I have not once thought of going 
 away." 
 
 " You have so often said you might go any 
 day. You never were rooted here. And now, 
 it seemed to me, nothing could possibly keep 
 you." 
 
 " Ah, yes ; but now I must stay," said 
 Monica, simply. 
 
 With Frau Erhardt also she never discussed 
 the Steiner episode, and her manner effectually 
 repressed all further disclosures. " He is dead, 
 and I am slaughtered. Nothing can undo the 
 facts. I cannot let them expatiate and weep 
 over me. I cannot bear it."
 
 The Garden of Eden 289 
 
 She half thought she might like to discuss it 
 quietly with Mr. Loring, but when that good 
 man came, with a distinctly new distress upon 
 his face, and looked at her apprehensively, un- 
 certain how to begin, she with nervous precip- 
 itation headed him off: 
 
 "Dear Mr. Loring, I am so glad you are 
 better. I want to talk with you about what 
 they call the inutility of the Atonement." 
 
 Thus she succeeded practically and on every 
 side in excluding from her daily intercourse 
 the sad theme which persistently haunted her 
 thoughts. What she had to bear, she bore in 
 silence. Sometimes, in crowds, she saw coarse 
 women stop and stare and gloat, and felt them 
 whisper to one another the tale of her nefari- 
 ousness. At first this made her gasp and 
 quiver and set her heart a-beating fast, but 
 human nature is supple and can adapt itself 
 to much. She knew her friends would do 
 what they could for her. But they were feeble 
 indeed before the resolute denseness of public 
 sentiment. This was a case where good 
 burghers at their beer, who had never seen 
 Steiner or her, knew everything to be, for a 
 positive fact. No god could have convinced 
 them of a flaw in their reckoning. 
 
 Happily for Monica, there soon ensued 
 19
 
 290 The Garden of Eden 
 
 behind closed doors a suit inculpating high 
 personages, and teeming with revelations of 
 so revolting a nature that society discreetly 
 turned its fair head aside, while lending greedy 
 ears. The Social Democrats not illogically 
 held jubilee, proclaimed brutal truths, and 
 some of their editors were merrily fined ; but 
 they were used to that. Shortly after, a group 
 of noble lieutenants did her the favor to dis- 
 grace themselves, and some took sudden jour- 
 neys, and some were commanded to distant 
 garrisons, and others were actually cashiered, 
 but softly gingerly with the consideration 
 befitting their station and Suabian solidarity 
 of sentiment, and with the lofty hocus-pocus of 
 the court-martial. Society looked sanctimo- 
 nious, as it whispered this painful matter, and 
 felt its pillars shaking. The wicked Social 
 Democrats shouted and flung up their hats, yet 
 this too was a scandal behind closed doors. 
 
 A duel also befriended her. A major's 
 sacred elbow was jostled by a civilian, in a 
 crowd. Now, that is a thing that may not be. 
 Hence the major shot the civilian, and his wife 
 wept. They sent the major for a while to 
 comfortable quarters in a fortress, and when 
 he came back, he was invited to sit at meat 
 at the king's table. Society drivelled a bit
 
 The Garden of Eden 29 1 
 
 over the duel, and more Social Democrats 
 were merrily fined. Still the world said, an 
 officer has no choice. He must protect his 
 honor. And Monica marvelled, smiling the 
 new smile she had learned. 
 
 " How fragile is the thing a man calls his 
 honor! My honor, thank God, has more 
 vitality." 
 
 Among all these more or less evanescent 
 entertainments, Monica's case, having no closed 
 doors or other privileges, held its own in bare- 
 faced notoriety. It gradually crystallized into 
 the town traditions, and attained in time the 
 dignity of an evil classic. When people dis- 
 cussed her irreverently, as they dare to discuss 
 even you and me, and wondered whether 
 this or that, or the other, were true, somebody 
 always cried in triumph : " Well, at all events, 
 there was Steiner ! " 
 
 While her wounds were fresh, and longer, 
 Monica suffered keenly. One suffers in igno- 
 rance so much more than one need. Cur- 
 iously enough, her regular work, which she 
 still viewed more or less ironically, proved an 
 humble but unfailing friend. More effectually 
 than the voice of affection, it steadied her fluc- 
 tuating moods, her inconsistent, hot, patient, 
 rebellious, soaring, helpless nature.
 
 29 2 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Suddenly, out of the long silence, and 
 written with trembling hand, came a rare 
 message from her beloved old friend, Judge 
 Trevor a few strong words of love, of faith 
 in her, an appeal to her courage and constancy. 
 
 Another unexpected friend deigned to lay a 
 cooling hand upon her brow the magnifi- 
 cent old pagan Goethe, who told her some- 
 thing to this effect : 
 
 What friends do with and for us, becomes a 
 part of ourselves, since it strengthens and sum- 
 mons our personality. What enemies undertake 
 against us, we do not assimilate, but expe- 
 rience merely, and reject, protecting ourselves as 
 against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other pass- 
 ing discomfort. 
 
 Nevertheless, above all things she craved 
 comprehension. It was martyrdom for her to 
 bear this grief alone. Yet, with a certain 
 haughtiness she instinctively repelled the 
 gentle loquacity of benevolent but impotent 
 souls. One day she remembered Arenberg's 
 thoughtful face. He looked as if he under- 
 stood all things. He was a doctor, too, and 
 she could show him the letters, without wrong 
 to the poor wild heart that wrote them. 
 Arenberg was mild, profound. She might 
 dare to tell him all, as to a priest.
 
 The Garden of Eden 293 
 
 She went as far as his threshold, where she 
 stepped back to yield precedence to a hollow- 
 eyed man, dragging his legs miserably and 
 clinging to his wife. 
 
 " I am ashamed to go in," thought Monica, 
 " I am too well and strong. I am ashamed to 
 go to a stranger, busy with such ills, and pro- 
 claim and thrust upon him my innocence. 
 It is a low thing to always want to be under- 
 stood. Let my innocence take care of itself."
 
 294 The Garden of Eden 
 
 XI 
 
 "IT is very good of you to come in, Miss 
 Randolph," said the handsome Ferdinand. 
 " I wanted to call upon you, but cannot leave 
 very well to-day, so I ventured to take the 
 great liberty and give you the trouble." 
 
 "I am very willing to come," returned 
 Monica, not without apprehension, for she 
 remembered the last time they three sat in 
 that private room. 
 
 "We are aching with curiosity," Elizabeth 
 assured him. "Not awaiting anything so 
 cheerful as a legacy, and being formally sum- 
 moned by the Grand Mogul, we have not lost 
 a moment." 
 
 " You are as welcome as the sunshine, but 
 it is Miss Randolph whom " he hesitated, 
 smiling. 
 
 " In money matters she and I are one. " 
 
 "It is only money? " inquired Monica, with 
 vague anxiety. 
 
 "Only money," he repeated, laughing. 
 "Is that the way to talk to a banker? Yes, 
 it relates to money among other things. I 
 presume I may speak before Miss McCarroll ? "
 
 The Garden of Eden 295 
 
 "I presume you '11 have to," remarked that 
 audacious young lady, leaning back com- 
 fortably and smiling at him. 
 
 " I have been requested to act as ambas- 
 sador in what I regard as a matter of much 
 importance. I have a message, a proposal to 
 submit to you from one of your compatriots, 
 who is much interested in you, and has 
 written " 
 
 At this point Monica's grave concentration 
 relaxed. 
 
 " written to me fully and confidentially." 
 
 "Go on," said Elizabeth, graciously. 
 " You are a very imposing ambassador. You 
 don't come to the point quite fast enough to 
 suit me; but I suppose that would be infra 
 
 " Why should he write to you ? " demanded 
 Monica, pertinently, amused and puzzled that 
 a publisher or an editor should set to work in 
 this roundabout fashion. 
 
 "I will agree to whatever they want," she 
 reflected, "unless it be a prize story handi- 
 capped with twenty-six conditions. It must 
 be a very good offer, and dear mamma has a 
 weakness, if not for purple, at least for fine 
 linen." 
 
 " He anticipated that question on your part,
 
 296 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Miss Randolph," replied the banker, cour- 
 teously. "There is, however, an explanation 
 of his course. He was here some years ago. 
 We had business relations together, very 
 agreeable relations. He is aware that I have 
 the honor of your acquaintance. He knows I 
 am in a position to give you exact informa- 
 tion concerning him and his circumstances. 
 In short, he believed a little preliminary 
 conversation between us would be more prac- 
 tical and satisfactory more business-like, 
 he said than a letter to you from a total 
 stranger. " 
 
 "Where is this singularly cautious and 
 canny person," asked Monica, "and pray what 
 does he want of me ? " 
 
 "At the moment travelling in India, en 
 prince. " 
 
 In Monica's eyes appeared vast mystifica- 
 tion; in Elizabeth's lurked a demon of mis- 
 chief. 
 
 "Miss Randolph," continued the banker, 
 rising instinctively to his full Viking height, 
 his voice impressive, his face duly solemn, 
 "this gentleman possesses a fortune of ten 
 million dollars. I have the honor, in his 
 name, to make you a formal proposal of mar- 
 riage. He has seen your photograph. He
 
 The Garden of Eden 297 
 
 has met friends of yours. He knows your 
 writings. He respects and admires you. He 
 is confident that he understands your charac- 
 ter. He would be proud to see you doing the 
 honors of his house. You are, he declares, 
 the one woman he wants. He is not young, 
 it is true, somewhat over fifty ; but he hm ! 
 looks very well, well preserved, I should 
 say solid and cheerful, yes, quite so " the 
 affable ambassador ran lightly over this dan- 
 gerous ground " and he is a man of business 
 integrity, of great energy; a self-made man, 
 as you Americans say, but an intelligent, well- 
 informed, up-to-date man ; and he declares it 
 will be the proudest moment of his life when 
 upon the wedding day he has the happiness of 
 endowing you with one million dollars in 
 your own right. He suggests a 'Yes' by 
 telegraph would make some difference in his 
 route, and particularly in his purchases." 
 
 Elizabeth, with both elbows on the table, 
 her handkerchief pressed hard against her 
 mouth, watched the two with wicked eyes, 
 and thought this moment was compensation 
 for many trials, even for uncles. 
 
 "My dear Miss Randolph you are surely 
 not displeased offended ? Have I been 
 so unfortunate, so awkward ? "
 
 298 The Garden of Eden 
 
 "I am," began Monica "I am and 
 pained," but her astonishment and indignant 
 protest spoke for themselves. 
 
 " If in any way I have " 
 
 " It is not your fault, of course but " 
 
 " Then I am to tell him " 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Nothing?" 
 
 "Nothing from me." 
 
 "But you will be obliged to say either yes 
 or no." 
 
 Monica shook her head obstinately. But 
 meeting his solicitous and surprised gaze, 
 and those eyes above the handkerchief, her 
 irate goddess-mien suddenly vanished and 
 she deigned to laugh, which greatly relieved 
 the banker. 
 
 "I will tell you, not him," she said, "that 
 a man who wants to marry a woman would 
 better come and take his chances like a man 
 whether he have ten millions or ten cents. 
 And if I seemed ungracious just now " 
 
 "I was quite inconsolable," he protested. 
 
 " You looked furious, Monica, such a 
 temper ! " 
 
 " I am sorry. Of course one ought not to 
 take anything so grotesque seriously. But, I 
 assure you, at first I saw no humor in the
 
 The Garden of Eden 299 
 
 situation. It seemed to me a downright in- 
 sult, an outrage." 
 
 " But I am not exactly the man to convey 
 insults to charming young ladies," suggested 
 the banker, more gravely. "Of course it is 
 an unusual thing. But you Americans are 
 unusual. Ten million dollars are unusual 
 also, permit me to assure you. Now, I don't 
 want you to look at me again in that wither- 
 ing manner. But I should like to say a few 
 things to you if I may, and be a good friend 
 and counsellor, as I hope you consider me." 
 
 Monica extended a quick and cordial hand. 
 
 "Say anything you like." 
 
 " I am afraid you are a little romantic." 
 
 " A little ! " muttered a voice behind the 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " I don't think you regard the question in 
 all lights. I am not a mercenary man. I 
 flatter myself I am a fairly liberal man. But 
 I beg you, seriously, to think twice before 
 you reject this offer. To a woman like you 
 it means power unlimited. All portals open 
 before ten millions. All courts, all art 
 treasures, a life as fascinating as fairyland is 
 within your reach. And the good you can do 
 to your fellow-creatures, have you thought 
 of that? I happen to know your instincts in
 
 300 The Garden of Eden 
 
 that respect. Our bank has a clever little 
 bird-in-the-air. Think what charities, what 
 blessings, you could sow broadcast ! And the 
 hearts comforted and the tears wiped away! 
 And the children! What could you not do 
 for children! I happen to know you are 
 foolish over children even dirty ones. So 
 wonderful a future lies before you, and you 
 have but to take one step to attain it. " 
 
 "Oh, how I should like it," cried Monica, 
 longingly allured and deeply stirred by these 
 visions, " how I should like it " she gave 
 a great sigh " without the man ! " 
 
 " Another thing. Even if his overtures are 
 unsympathetic, would it in any respect com- 
 promise your dignity, should you simply 
 allow him to come here and make your ac- 
 quaintance? You give him no definite en- 
 couragement. You reserve your decision. 
 But you might like him, you know. I assure 
 you he is a very good sort " 
 
 " Bravo, ambassador ! " murmured the stifled 
 voice. 
 
 "I think," rejoined Monica, with dangerous 
 sweetness, "he 'd better buy himself a woman 
 in countries where such merchandise is for 
 sale." 
 
 "But, dear Miss Randolph " he looked
 
 The Garden of Eden 301 
 
 grave, for he liked her, and thought her atti- 
 tude most childish. 
 
 She smiled, and said no more. It seemed 
 to her no words could indicate, if instinct 
 were silent, what that man had done, and 
 what he was. 
 
 "Tell him if he 'd like me he may have me 
 cheap," Elizabeth flung in startlingly. "A 
 modest half -million is good enough for me." 
 
 "He could do worse," the banker stated, 
 with deep barytone conviction. 
 
 "Don't you believe her," said Monica. "I 
 know her better. " 
 
 "But any one would take him," he insisted, 
 with considerable discontent. " I shall still 
 venture to write to you and give you his 
 name and address. You may reconsider. I 
 do not know one woman who would let this 
 opportunity slip through her fingers." 
 
 "Ah, I think better of my sex," retorted 
 Monica. "Thanks for all your interest and 
 great patience, and I hope you will continue 
 to like me a little, though I am not a nabob." 
 
 "Monica," began Elizabeth, with a serious 
 air, when they were alone, " not every woman 
 consciously achieves her epitaph. Yours is 
 magnificent: Here lies One who refused Ten 
 Million Dollars. Is that not grand in its
 
 302 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Spartan simplicity? Wait. It is customary 
 to accentuate the virtues of the departed. 
 Call it pounds. Here lies One who refused 
 Ten Million Pounds. That reads better. 
 'Pounds' is so trenchant. We need not 
 specify you were a woman. One is sufficient. 
 No man on earth ever refused as much as 
 that." 
 
 Monica's careless laughter was suddenly 
 checked by a sombre shade of reminiscence, 
 and she said, in her face and voice an appeal 
 which Elizabeth found pathetic : 
 
 "I really dare not jest, dear." 
 
 "We will jest all we like," declared Eliza- 
 beth, with sturdy defiance. 
 
 "It is immensely droll," Monica admitted, 
 smiling in spite of herself. 
 
 "It is glorious. Do you suppose he is a 
 pork-packer ? " 
 
 "Not improbable. That solid, well-pre- 
 served, cheerful " 
 
 " Self-made business-like up-to-date " 
 
 "Very good sort." 
 
 After a silence, Elizabeth said : 
 
 "How perfectly one sees the old Turk! 
 What are you thinking behind that ' thinker's 
 brow ' ? Think aloud, Monica." 
 
 " I am wondering at his colossal naivete'. "
 
 The Garden of Eden 303 
 
 "Your terms are mild." 
 
 " Oh, yes. It is really not worth while to 
 waste much rhetoric on him. And I am 
 speculating upon an astounding fact." 
 
 " Which is, O Solomon ? " 
 
 " That the world would not think me an im- 
 moral woman should I telegraph 'Yes ' to 
 India to-day. The world and all churches 
 would sanction my marriage with this man." 
 
 "Rather!" 
 
 " Which mainly confirms me in a convic- 
 tion I have entertained for a long time, that 
 conventional morality is an insidious form of 
 vice. In a high civilization, so depraved, so 
 impure a marriage could not be countenanced 
 an instant. I suppose we do not even suspect 
 how barbarous we still are." 
 
 " Hear, hear! " 
 
 "Elizabeth," Monica asked very thought- 
 fully, "why do odious and melodramatic 
 things happen to me?" 
 
 "My dear, I do not know. I have often 
 speculated upon that. No one looks more 
 cool and remote than you." 
 
 " Nevertheless " 
 
 "Huge tiles fall on your head. Why do 
 you not write a book and call it Bombs for the 
 Lonely f One ought to get the good, some-
 
 304 The Garden of Eden 
 
 how, out of undeserved miseries. I 'd write 
 them up ! " 
 
 " Oh, it would be impossible to write per- 
 sonal matters," exclaimed Monica, with 
 emphasis. 
 
 "Why? The public delights to get on the 
 wrong scent. I have a friend in London who 
 writes really writes : books, not pot-boilers, 
 my dear, like yours. She says when she 
 draws vaguely on the unseen everybody recog- 
 nizes and verifies her characters; she is vitu- 
 perated in the newspapers, narrowly escapes a 
 summons for libel, and is cut publicly by old 
 friends. But when she consciously reflects 
 reality, the very people she has sketched 
 never suspect it" 
 
 " I would rather forget than chronicle some 
 of my experiences. Still, you are right; 
 nobody would believe them genuine." 
 
 "Oh, 'dear, no! They would praise your 
 trained imagination. They would take you 
 for a little Jules Verne." 
 
 Love affairs sometimes grow, like black- 
 berries, in clusters. The season over-shad- 
 owed by that sinister experience, and not long 
 after enlivened by the humorous episode of 
 the naively proffered millions, presented to 
 Monica various problems of the heart, which,
 
 The Garden of Eden 305 
 
 being wholesome, sane, in the natural order 
 of things, occasioned her considerable thought, 
 but no consternation. It was socially a 
 rather gay winter for her. She was much 
 invited, far more than before her plunge 
 into public disfavor; but she was watched 
 narrowly, particularly when talking with 
 exceedingly clever men who interested her 
 and roused her enthusiasm for a theme, an 
 idea. She was often conscious, with a sud- 
 den chill, that women were seeking to dis- 
 cover the black arts with which she bewitched 
 poor Steiner; and her animation, her warmth, 
 the response upon her lip, would die away, 
 blighted. 
 
 It was not for her enjoyment that she went 
 out frequently. She granted that bright 
 moments of sympathy may shine even in dull 
 crowds : that the swift magnetic flash of 
 recognition of our own kind may illumine 
 them, that pleasant sense of home-coming, 
 when, after wearying about among indifferent 
 people, we are greeted by the eyes and voice 
 of a brother whom we never before had found. 
 
 But in general she cared not at all for the 
 large gyrations of society, and gyrated herself 
 merely to please her friends, who were inex- 
 orable in their demand that she should be
 
 306 The Garden of Eden 
 
 continually seen in the best houses. Old 
 Excellenz Count Ehrenstein and the Countess 
 insisted upon taking her everywhere; the 
 Lorings seemed moved by a similar desire; 
 Countess Arco, after observing the pointed 
 attentions of the Ehrensteins, Countess Gerold, 
 and others, renewed her temporarily relaxed 
 amiability; the Frau Professor would not 
 countenance the refusal of the most ordinary 
 invitation; even Elizabeth and Eleanor dragged 
 Monica out, and all the world seemed in clam- 
 orous league against her peaceful evenings at 
 home. She perceived their design, yielded 
 to their solicitude, but asked herself how a 
 suicide and false witness were to be rectified 
 by the disclosure of a pair of evening shoulders 
 and a reverence before His Royal Highness. 
 
 Mr. Loring told her she ought to keep a 
 note-book and make studies of the exalted 
 personages she met. He thought he perceived 
 in her work the want of the note-book. The 
 altitude of the note-book she never reached, 
 and the exalted personages rarely interested 
 her. They seemed to be rather sad and dull, 
 and produced dulness, since until they made 
 their august exit the young people could not 
 dance. 
 
 Baron Lobanow, clever and artistic, in-
 
 The Garden of Eden 307 
 
 clined to be delicately mindful of her inter- 
 ests, advised her strongly not to neglect 
 society. It also was of use to the artist, he 
 asserted, partly because he believed this, 
 partly because he liked to meet her. She, 
 wondering, responded : 
 
 " Not in dreams have I assumed the glori- 
 fied name of artist." 
 
 " Sometimes we entertain angels unawares," 
 he said kindly. 
 
 Which she thought graceful on his part, but 
 continued in her heart to consider the circum- 
 stantial routine of society Danaid-toil, and to 
 believe that she would have been happier and 
 better off alone on a hill-top, under the stars, 
 any hour that she ever passed in a crowded 
 drawing-room. Stuffy gregariousness was to 
 her a penance. 
 
 One compensation for much social tedious- 
 ness was the music and the significance of 
 foreign tongues. Life seemed richer where 
 Russian, French, Hungarian, Spanish, Eng- 
 lish, Italian, and German followed one an- 
 other in sparkling, chromatic succession. 
 Sometimes she heard a bit of Greek and 
 Japanese; there was picturesqueness too in 
 the ever-varying national types that passed 
 before her Not an abundance of household
 
 308 The Garden of Eden 
 
 gods, not local dignities, seemed to her desir- 
 able, but to roam from land to land with the 
 loved one, and to speak in many tongues; 
 thus coming nearer to the hearts of strange 
 folk, our brothers, whom we misjudge, not 
 understanding their language, even as we 
 misjudge those nearer friends, our horses and 
 dogs, whose eloquent remarks to us we are too 
 dull to interpret. 
 
 The uniforms, decorations and titles, were 
 to her be it whispered under the rose 
 nonsense. After all, it is but a later develop- 
 ment of the wampum-and-feather taste, that 
 European chieftains strut about, their breasts 
 bedizened with bright bits of enamel and 
 metal, materialized boasts of their prowess or 
 of the favor of their sachem. Viewed in long 
 perspective, say, when the historian of an 
 enlightened future epoch shall contemplate 
 our angry problems, our struggles out of and 
 relapses into savagery, our cruelties, our dark- 
 ness, dense, yet illumined by great guiding 
 gleams of love and light, surely these 
 danglers on men's breasts will look altogether 
 Comanche-like, no better, no worse. 
 
 At a reception where princes, ambassadors, 
 nobles, dignitaries of all degrees were mag- 
 nificent in gala, Monica, while demurely
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 309 
 
 responding to the amenities of a duke, whose 
 manner was simplicity itself, but whose breast 
 was pompous with trophies, coolly reflected: 
 
 " It is forbidden by common consent to say : 
 'This I did bravely on a certain day. I led 
 the spirited charge of my brigade!' Or: 'I 
 am a scholar ; a scientist ; an author ; a painter ; 
 I have discovered, invented, commemorated, 
 written, created something of worth.' The 
 frank word is tabooed; men's tongues must 
 simulate humility. But that no one, never- 
 theless, need fail to read the register of our 
 perfections, the brave man, the artist, the 
 scholar, pins upon his coat gay danglers which 
 shall boast for him, since he has not the 
 honesty to boast for himself. Those little 
 medals and crosses worn by warriors to com- 
 memorate deeds on battlefields are merely 
 neat modifications of the scalps of their 
 enemies. 
 
 "Since war is wholly barbarous, barbaric 
 and cruel mementoes of its horrors are, at 
 least, explicable. But the scholar, the poet 
 and painter? How, in all seriousness, can 
 they deign to wear upon their breasts twink- 
 ling toys and gewgaws parading royal favor? 
 What of worth may the monarch offer to the 
 artist but gratitude and homage ? "
 
 310 The Garden of Eden 
 
 But she was not altogether iconoclastic. 
 She saw much to admire, beauty and charm 
 in women and men, and intellectual distinc- 
 tion, for she met many famous people, and 
 much to interest her, particularly in love 
 affairs, her own and her neighbors'. 
 
 Mr. Forsythe was very persistent. She 
 admitted a frank regard for him, which he, in 
 his sensible and cheerful fashion, sought to 
 persuade her was quite sufficient. Had she 
 never known a deeper affection, she might 
 have believed this, for she looked kindly upon 
 his candid English face and admired many 
 things in him. One short note came from 
 Keith during that whole winter. Any friend 
 might have written it. But it moved her 
 mightily. It said, simply, he thought he 
 ought to tell her she was doing better work. 
 He had liked some things of hers of late. 
 And she was touched and thrilled, and beyond 
 all reason grateful, and glowed with happi- 
 ness for the comfort of the tacit assurance 
 that he still cared for her weal and woe. 
 With unwonted temerity she resolved to do 
 great things. But when a most parsimonious 
 expression of approval of one man has this 
 electric effect upon a woman, she cannot well 
 marry another man, even though she regard
 
 The Garden of Eden 311 
 
 him with cordial and fraternal affection. At 
 least, Monica could not. 
 
 They said, of course, she flirted unmerci- 
 fully with him and led him on. If liking a 
 man sincerely, finding him a charming com- 
 rade, being sure one could gladly welcome his 
 sympathetic face and voice and quality of 
 mind every day of one's life in honest friend- 
 liness, in free and simple companionship, be 
 flirting, Monica flirted with Mr. Forsythe. 
 There can be no doubt of that. 
 
 She missed him much when he left town, 
 but not unsagaciously deemed it propitious 
 that he had obtained another appointment 
 before the arrival of her mother. Mrs. Ran- 
 dolph was coming without fail in April. 
 Arthur Forsythe was a man of distinction, 
 and of great expectations. 
 
 Lai Loring was another of her victims. It 
 is quite preposterous that lads of nineteen 
 should fall in love with women already six- 
 and-twenty. But the lads do and will. Mother 
 Nature has opposed no restrictions. On the 
 contrary. Happily he was at home only in 
 the holidays, but those were quite sufficiently 
 frequent and long to enable him to cause 
 Monica much bewilderment. Her grand- 
 motherly airs he derided. The difference in
 
 312 The Garden of Eden 
 
 age was something too paltry to be mentioned, 
 he asserted with fiery scorn, but took pains to 
 cite historical instances which, in his opinion, 
 sustained his suit. He was so inflammable, 
 so much in earnest, so disdainful of reason, 
 so nonsensical, such a good, merry fellow, 
 withal, transformed unaccountably into this 
 scowling, teeth-gnashing swain, Monica found 
 it impossible to take him seriously, and some- 
 times was guilty of laughing, when he swore 
 that he hated her, but speedily knelt at her 
 feet and blubbered his remorse. If she then, 
 in compassion ventured to put her hand on 
 his curly and contrite head, for he was only a 
 great boy, and in this crouching attitude not 
 unlike a great dog begging for a pat, she 
 found the proceeding dangerous. 
 
 Baron Lobanow's devotion, as befitted a 
 man of the world of his discrimination, was 
 not torrid and volcanic, but measured, grace- 
 ful, merging indeed occasionally into a 
 quasi-lover-like strain, which might have dis- 
 mayed her had she not perceived its reassur- 
 ing catholicity. He was analytic, sophistical, 
 a good art critic, professedly pessimistic, 
 rather fin de sihle, and at heart an excellent 
 man, very loyal to his friends. 
 
 He, also, benevolently desired to improve
 
 Monica's mind. Her chief difficulty in his 
 opinion was her ideals. Without ideals he 
 felt convinced she would become a better 
 writer. Ideals were out of date. Monica 
 could not oblige him. She was at a loss to 
 know how to eradicate them from her system. 
 Had she followed the kind counsels of those 
 who desired to pluck her imperfections from 
 her, her small talent, like the homme entre 
 deux Ages, would now be entirely bald. How- 
 ever, she enjoyed with Lobanow exhilarat- 
 ingly controversial discussions which reminded 
 her of old days and pungent table-talk at 
 Judge Trevor's. 
 
 Other men manifested more or less warm 
 interest in Monica. Many experiences com- 
 manded her sympathy, her respect. Some 
 few, with equal reason, roused less benign 
 emotions. There are foolish and frivol- 
 ous men everywhere, particularly loafing 
 about thrones. Of no essential importance, 
 they should perhaps be muzzled in hot 
 weather. 
 
 This third winter of her absence was alto- 
 gether a fertile season. Time had induced 
 by no means resignation, but, in view of her 
 utter powerlessness to change matters, a cer- 
 tain fluctuating patience in her attitude
 
 314 The Garden of Eden 
 
 toward Keith. She was less self-absorbed 
 than in the time when she received and lived 
 upon his letters and the reminiscence and 
 dreams they reinvoked. She was older, and 
 her startling and bitter experience of the 
 autumn had opened her eyes to ugly facts, 
 and doubtless caused her to observe all things 
 in her range with far more honesty and thor- 
 oughness than before. 
 
 She had rich opportunity to study human 
 nature, for at this period many fragments of 
 lives were confided to her, bits of tragedies, 
 bits of farces, and love-stories partaking of 
 tragedy and farce. Men twice her age, men 
 of her own land and other lands, found it quite 
 natural to relate to her their domestic infelici- 
 ties, and she found it not unnatural to listen. 
 Women were no less communicative. Occa- 
 sionally she heard, with peculiar sentiments, 
 and more diplomatic reserve than usually dis- 
 tinguished her, grievances in unsuspected 
 antiphony of man and wife. Advise she 
 could not, no Solon could, but she was a 
 good listener, and speech sometimes relieves 
 oppressed hearts. It began to be a matter of 
 course to her that people should come in and 
 with few preliminaries relate crass matrimo- 
 nial discords and compromising mazes.
 
 The Garden of Eden 315 
 
 A couple of lieutenants, delightfully in- 
 genuous and charming youths despite their 
 detestable handiwork, and wildly in love 
 with pretty American girls with obdurate 
 fathers, implored her intercession and ser- 
 vices as interpreter. She wrote letters for 
 them with the gravity of a clerk. She had 
 written similar effusions at home for a cook 
 eminent in ministrations to the comfort and 
 delight of her fellow-creatures, but guileless 
 in orthography. "History repeats itself," 
 she reflected, as the handsome young officers, 
 one after the other, leaned anxiously over her 
 writing-table. "They are noble in point of 
 ancestors : Bridget in her treatment of meats, 
 fowls, and game." 
 
 Ever nearer and closer grew her sympathy 
 with Elizabeth and Eleanor. Without words 
 she divined their griefs. In all possible 
 ways they lovingly helped one another. 
 
 There could be no doubt something in 
 her, she knew not what, induced reckless 
 and exhaustive confidences. She cared vastly 
 for people's troubles. They absorbed her 
 at the moment utterly. She would grow 
 chilly and faint, or generously indignant 
 over the recitals of her penitents. She was 
 foolish enough, although she knew better,
 
 316 The Garden of Eden 
 
 to long to interpose and set things straight. 
 It would all be so simple, indeed, if only 
 people would open their eyes, would not 
 cling to vain idols after the true gods had 
 passed.
 
 The Garden of Eden 317 
 
 XII 
 
 " GRETCHEN is my ideal of womanhood," 
 Baron Baretinsky remarked to Monica as they 
 sat in the Arcos' box at the theatre that evening. 
 " My ideal of womanhood," he repeated, ca- 
 ressing his long moustache, and listening to 
 himself with obvious pleasure ; for sentiment, 
 like truffles, he enjoyed, if for different reasons, 
 rarely. 
 
 She looked with polite incredulity at the 
 amiable worldling of lightest calibre, and 
 Lobanow did not scruple to laugh outright. 
 
 " But I assure you I am in earnest. She 
 is my ideal." 
 
 This was not a man with whom Monica cared 
 to discuss an earnest theme, yet knowing that 
 the radiant and triumphant purity of Gretchen's 
 womanhood was not the element for which 
 he was expressing this unwonted rapture, she 
 permitted herself to respond dryly: 
 
 " But you would not have married her after 
 the Fourth Act? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon? "
 
 3 1 8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " I merely asked if you would have married 
 her after the Fourth Act." 
 
 Lobanow's smile was fairly Mephistophelian 
 as he beheld Baretinsky's consternation. There 
 was no doubt : the phenomenon had occurred ; 
 Baretinsky the blagueur was shocked. The 
 most frivolous man regards some one subject 
 reverently, has his noli me tangere. Baretin- 
 sky's was his social position. 
 
 "I marry her? No." After an instant, with 
 increased emphasis, "If Certainly not." 
 
 " Ah, indeed ! " said Monica, quietly, and 
 turned to speak to Countess Arco. 
 
 Lieutenant Uhlefeldt behind Florence Arco's 
 chair was somewhat silent and dull. Florence 
 looked listless and phlegmatic, perhaps vaguely 
 wondering, if capable of wonder, what she 
 had to do with it all, with the loge, the stage, 
 life itself. Monica glanced at her kindly now 
 and then, but treated Uhlefeldt as thin air. 
 
 On the following day Eleanor and Elizabeth 
 being in Monica's study, where they were apt 
 to spend odd half-hours, Elizabeth said ab- 
 ruptly : 
 
 " Don't you think Florence Arco looks like 
 a little sheep ? " 
 
 " I think she looks as well as she can, 
 dear."
 
 The Garden of Eden 319 
 
 " Yes, she looks like her father," Elizabeth 
 retorted. 
 
 " Perhaps she looks like a little lamb," 
 Monica amended, " gentle and inoffensive," 
 but meeting Elizabeth's mute inquiry, hastened 
 to change the subject, and narrated the little 
 joust with the gay Russian. 
 
 " My compliments ! I myself could have 
 said nothing worse." 
 
 " It was rather impertinent, but he looked 
 so self-sufficient and bland." 
 
 " Pertinent," said Eleanor, " but in his 
 opinion immoral, at least highly improper." 
 
 " I do not defend it. Perhaps I should 
 not have said it. But in that case ought I 
 to have been there? Why should hundreds 
 of men and women watch together a repre- 
 sentation of the sublimest work of one of the 
 world's geniuses, if it is unfitting for the 
 women to have thoughts and express opinions 
 upon it?" 
 
 " How often have I tried to impress upon you, 
 dear Monica," called the recumbent Elizabeth 
 from her sofa, " that a woman should have 
 no thoughts at all. There is a Chinese prov- 
 erb which I recommend to both of you : ' The 
 chief virtue of woman is being without talent.' " 
 
 " Opinions ! " Eleanor resumed. " Yes, but
 
 3 2O The Garden of Eden . 
 
 accepted opinions. Baretinsky's opinions, one 
 might call them categorically. He told me 
 once, in his very debonair fashion, that he had 
 some cousins studying in Zurich, but he dis- 
 approved of learned young ladies. I asked 
 why. He said learning made them less loving. 
 Woman's mission was to be loving and child- 
 like. Then he ogled. I inquired if he ob- 
 served any radical change in the affections 
 of his little girls after they learned the mul- 
 tiplication table." 
 
 " Children, if you continue, there will be 
 nobody left for me to insult," remonstrated 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 " The only person Monica has insulted is 
 Gretchen." 
 
 " I beg her pardon on my knees. But the 
 most appalling thought is that leaving great 
 Faust quite out of the question suppose a 
 Baretinsky should marry a Gretchen, he would 
 re-establish what he called her moral character, 
 and she would be what we call received. 
 Sufficient imperial favor and wealth, which 
 he has, a trip round the world, a new field of 
 action and that sweet thing society would 
 smile upon them. It is monstrous." 
 
 " When one tries to vaguely picture the 
 life of such a man " Eleanor began.
 
 The Garden of Eden 321 
 
 "And he by no means the worst, prob- 
 ably" 
 
 " The agony, shame, and despair " 
 
 " The innumerable Gretchens ! " sighed 
 Monica. " They cast out ; he welcomed every- 
 where." 
 
 "It makes one ill, the huge mass of in- 
 justice." 
 
 A silence, and from the sofa only a long 
 sigh. 
 
 " But since we perceive, and good men 
 perceive, it makes one strong to hope," Monica 
 said after a while. 
 
 Elizabeth suddenly drawled : 
 
 " I wonder what Florence Arco thinks about 
 Gretchen." 
 
 " Come here a moment, Elizabeth, and look 
 at this with us," begged Monica, taking a 
 large photograph from a portfolio. 
 
 " What a hideous thing ! " Elizabeth ex- 
 claimed, laughing. 
 
 " Look at it well, and you '11 not find it 
 hideous." 
 
 Two half-human creatures, not joyous like 
 the satyrs, fauns, and centaurs of fable, but 
 already vaguely oppressed with the burden of 
 humanity ; the " missing link ; " the pri- 
 meval pair, as shaped by the imagination and
 
 322 The Garden of Eden 
 
 brush of the artist: Gabriel Max: Pithe- 
 canthropes alalos. With acknowledgment to 
 Georg Malkowsky, the suggested Adam and 
 Eve of science. Two beings in the shifting 
 borderland between the assumed unconscious- 
 ness of the animal kingdom and the first glim- 
 merings of the sentient soul. In shape only 
 heavily built, abnormal apes, let the wise 
 decide it if they can, whether such anatomy 
 be probable, but in the physiognomy a 
 wonderful depth of expression that holds and 
 haunts. 
 
 In the male, the animal predominates. He 
 has immense jaws and a bestial mouth, and 
 from under drooping heavy lids his dull eyes 
 apathetically view the outer world. Standing 
 nearly erect, he clings still and steadies him- 
 self with arms and head against a low branch, 
 as if taking his first faltering step into an un- 
 known stage of being. 
 
 But the primeval woman, already detached 
 from her natural surroundings, cowers upon 
 the earth and nurses her offspring. With 
 mournful eyes wide open, brooding, veiled 
 with tears, she gazes into the distance. A 
 whole world of dawning emotion is in that 
 look. Through the helpless form at her 
 breast, the life of her life, she has become
 
 The Garden of Eden 323 
 
 vaguely prescient of the anguish of existence 
 for the race which has emancipated itself from 
 unreflecting nature, and the tears roll slowly 
 down her cheeks as if from a dark present- 
 ment of all the woe she, the first mother, has 
 entailed upon humanity. 
 
 The three looked long and silently at the 
 singular picture, each under the spell of those 
 haunting eyes, each in her own way ponder- 
 ing upon the mystery of life, of love, of sorrow, 
 of sin, of destiny. 
 
 " It is powerful," said Eleanor, " and touch- 
 ing." 
 
 " And when one considers the courage," 
 Monica began impetuously, " the divine 
 courage the race has shown in the long 
 struggle " 
 
 " And shows to-day " 
 
 " One is proud to belong to it." 
 
 " Don't weep, little granny," Elizabeth be- 
 gan. " It is a bit better than you knew. We 
 are toddling along slowly." 
 
 " And we shall arrive ! " exclaimed Monica. 
 
 "Who knows? " said Eleanor. 
 
 " I think it fair to tell you," Monica re- 
 marked with a sudden little laugh as she put 
 away the picture, " that when my mother 
 comes, things will be a trifle different here.
 
 324 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Oh, you need not look alarmed, Elizabeth. 
 You may still loll on the sofa all you like. 
 But the ' Pithecanthropes,' she will probably, 
 with the utmost amiability of manner, throw 
 into the [fire. She delighteth not in Darwin. 
 And then you see, at present, we have things 
 here all our own way. When she comes, you 
 will find she will oppose and often rout us 
 completely." 
 
 " So much the better. That will be more 
 interesting," rejoined Eleanor. 
 
 " Mamma is rather conservative," Monica 
 went on, with a mingling of great joy and 
 amusement in her face and voice. " But she 
 is generous. She will listen. She does not 
 draw down her mouth and hurry off, as if she 
 found contamination, when people do not 
 think as she thinks. And she is clever. She 
 will have an answer even for you, Eleanor. 
 And she is young incredibly young 
 younger than any of us." 
 
 " I am old, if you please," said Elizabeth. 
 " A year older than you, Monica ; two years 
 older than Eleanor." 
 
 " I never thought much about it ; but had 
 I been asked, I should have said you were 
 younger." 
 
 " Seven and twenty summers rather mean
 
 The Garden of Eden 325 
 
 ones ! But nobody suspects it, because of my 
 prattle and my" singing "'sun-ny, sun-ny 
 hair!'" 
 
 " You are going to be mothered all the 
 same, young woman. You, too, Eleanor. But 
 mamma writes in her letter this morning of 
 her own self Elizabeth and Rob must cer- 
 tainly stay with us. We shall take an apart- 
 ment, or perhaps a modest villa. She says 
 she wants to remain here awhile, where people 
 have been so good to her child." 
 
 Meeting the eyes of her friends, she asserted 
 as if some one had contradicted her : 
 
 " People have been good to me, wonder- 
 fully good." 
 
 " When that blessed woman comes," Eliza- 
 beth declared with a rare softness of expres- 
 sion, " you two may treat me with some re- 
 spect, if you please. I don't wish to hear any 
 compromising allusions to my character. Let 
 Mrs. Randolph find it out for herself. She is 
 quite able without your assistance. I intend 
 to be her favorite, Eleanor, so you need not 
 steal in with those demure and gentle wiles. 
 I intend to be mothered." 
 
 Eleanor smiled. 
 
 " I shall like it, too," she said softly. 
 
 " It will be different," Monica repeated, her
 
 326 The Garden of Eden 
 
 face radiant with gladness, reminiscence, and 
 exceedingly amused anticipation. " She is a 
 personality, you understand. But, ah, it is 
 beautiful to be mothered ! " 
 
 She and Elizabeth, leaving the house early 
 that evening, met Arenberg passing the door. 
 
 He was sad at heart and physically tired 
 out, had come from discomfort and sharp dis- 
 cussion at home, dreary differences of opinion 
 as to expenses, social obligations, and, worst 
 of all, the children, a scene more exhaust- 
 ing to his vitality than even excessive pro- 
 fessional work ; was going to see an old friend 
 whom he knew he could not save, and acute 
 neuralgia was rioting in his legs. Upon the 
 pessimistic melancholy of his plane of thought, 
 the two women appeared like a vision of light. 
 He stopped to bid them good-evening, turned, 
 and strolled along with them. 
 
 " You are looking well, Miss Randolph," 
 he said, regarding her with attention. His 
 thought was stronger than his words. 
 
 " I am very happy," returned Monica. " My 
 mother sailed for Bremen this morning. We 
 shall always be together now." 
 
 " I am glad. It has been long and hard for 
 you without her." 
 
 " Yes."
 
 The Garden of Eden 327 
 
 " She is like a rubber ball to-day," Elizabeth 
 told him. " I have great difficulty in repress- 
 ing her bounce." 
 
 " She is in the best of hands," he returned, 
 smiling. 
 
 " We are on our way to the Ehrensteins'/' 
 Monica communicated farther, " for the walk 
 up the hill, and to tell them the good news. 
 They are good enough to be much interested 
 in her arrival." 
 
 " They are a charming old couple," Aren- 
 berg said cordially. 
 
 " If Miss Randolph had only taken the gen- 
 eral young enough, she would have succeeded 
 in convincing him of the inhumanity of war. 
 She still tries, although it is quite superfluous, 
 as he is long ago retired." 
 
 " He is convinced of its inhumanity," Monica 
 rejoined, amused ; " but he persists in believ- 
 ing it inevitable. I do my best, of course, to 
 convert him." 
 
 " He is a very enlightened man. His son 
 in Dresden married an American girl. I pre- 
 sume she has an illuminating effect upon the 
 family," Arenberg suggested. 
 
 "Oh, did I deserve that?" cried Monica, 
 laughing. 
 
 He had strolled perhaps a block with them.
 
 328 The Garden of Eden 
 
 He now stopped and took off his hat. The 
 low sun traced golden threads in his brown 
 hair and beard, and accentuated the trans- 
 parency of his pallor. 
 
 " You deserve something very good, I sus- 
 pect, Miss Randolph," he said kindly, and 
 retraced his steps, not precisely wishing either 
 of his esteemed old patients the Ehrensteins 
 had a mild influenza or an incipient indi- 
 gestion for him on that pleasant evening, 
 yet indistinctly conscious, as he resumed his 
 treadmill, that the freedom to walk on indefi- 
 nitely in that bright companionship would be 
 sweet. 
 
 " That is the only person I cannot jeer at," 
 Elizabeth declared roundly. " Did ever a 
 man take himself so simply?" 
 
 " I found myself suddenly telling him every- 
 thing as if he would care," Monica remem- 
 bered with surprise. " And he answered as if 
 he cared. He is very uncommon. The first 
 time I saw him I thought that." 
 
 " I adore him ! Everybody does, except a 
 few envious colleagues and his wife. I sup- 
 pose there is no doubt he has no sympathy 
 and affection from that quarter." 
 
 "That would be a sad pity and extraor- 
 dinary incredible, I should say."
 
 The Garden of Eden 329 
 
 " One of the first tales I heard when I came 
 here was a wild romance of years agone about 
 the Arenbergs. Incompatibility indiscre- 
 tion, more or less, on her part. On his part 
 absorption in his profession. Flirtations mani- 
 fold. Somebody jumped from a high window 
 and broke his leg. Scenes. Talk of divorce. 
 Arenberg for his children's sake relented. 
 Stifled misery." 
 
 " Why, Elizabeth, you know you do not be- 
 lieve that." 
 
 " Oh, I don't believe the whole framework. 
 It is unwieldy, and you know very well I don't 
 disseminate such tales. But I have watched 
 that little party, my dear; her manner to him; 
 her manner to Count Arco and others. She 
 does not like Arenberg, I assure you." 
 
 " Manner ! What then? People watch you 
 and me ; and if we do not actually go to sleep 
 in public, they say we are sad flirts. I feel 
 very much inclined to let women enjoy in 
 peace the eyes and smiles they happen to 
 have about them." 
 
 " I like neither her nor her sister." 
 
 " Evidently." 
 
 Elizabeth colored and said hastily : 
 
 " Not because Florence Arco is always driv- 
 ing them out in her pony basket "
 
 33 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " I hope not. I imagine Florence Arco 
 merely does what she is told to do." 
 
 This point Elizabeth waived and resumed : 
 
 " For altogether different reasons. I never 
 fancied them from the first, I admit But I 
 know certain attitudes they have taken at cer- 
 tain times, and I think they 'd better sweep 
 their own pavements " 
 
 " Healthful exercise for us all." 
 
 " I confess I am sorry for Dr. von Arenberg. 
 I am always sorry for the men and women 
 who manage to get chained for life to the 
 wrong ones particularly for the handsome 
 men ! " 
 
 Monica was silent 
 
 " I don't know why it need be, either, do 
 you? A man is rash and makes a bad specu- 
 lation in stocks, say. He shrugs his shoulders 
 and says, What a fool I was ! But he does not, 
 as in matrimony, suffer from his want of judg- 
 ment to the end of his days, and perhaps 
 entail suffering upon his children's children to 
 the third and fourth generation after him, all 
 because he made a mistake twenty years ago. 
 It is horrible. I wonder more people are not 
 divorced." 
 
 Monica with a remote look, hesitating, said : 
 
 " I suppose it may be a matter of honor
 
 The Garden of Eden 33 1 
 
 or duty not to leave a woman or a man 
 even if one knows what we call happiness lies 
 elsewhere." 
 
 " It is hard." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Stupid world ! What 's to be done with 
 it?" 
 
 " I suppose there may be cases," said Mon- 
 ica again, as if her thoughts were far away, 
 " where it is right to extricate one's self, and 
 other cases when one must go down with 
 one's ship." 
 
 " I never could see the slightest sense in 
 going down with one's ship. It is heroic, of 
 course, but so utterly useless." 
 
 Monica smiled and shook her head. 
 
 " Ah, no ! Not useless ; never once use- 
 less since the world was made." 
 
 After a while Elizabeth returned, in her 
 voice a certain defiance : 
 
 " I like lovers who have resolution enough to 
 take their fate in their own hands and elope." 
 
 " I like them too." 
 
 " Even if they know anathema will follow 
 them," Elizabeth added hotly. 
 
 " I understand that too." 
 
 " Oh, do you ? " Her voice was mocking, 
 eager.
 
 332. The Garden of Eden 
 
 " I do, Elizabeth. If a man and woman 
 choose to sacrifice the others, I understand. 
 If they choose to sacrifice themselves, I under- 
 stand. But there are almost always the others. 
 And if love has to walk over bodies " 
 
 " Mean bodies ! " Elizabeth exclaimed 
 fiercely. " What does it matter about them ? " 
 
 Monica slipped her arm in her friend's. 
 
 " Dear, is there anything in this world I can 
 do for you ? Is there anything more you 
 wish to say to me? " 
 
 " No, no. I cannot ! " Then more gen- 
 tly, " If ever there is, I will tell you. Never 
 mind me. I still say it seems to me imbecile 
 for Dr. Arenberg and his wife to cling to 
 the outward form of marriage and jog along 
 together miserably, when both would be better 
 off apart." 
 
 " No one knows that." 
 
 " The whole town knows it." 
 
 " The whole town ! " cried Monica, with un- 
 utterable contempt. " Is it well for you to say 
 that to me?" 
 
 " Well, / know it," Elizabeth declared 
 obstinately. 
 
 " No stranger's eye can judge. It is imper- 
 tinent and worse to assume such familiarity 
 with interiors."
 
 The Garden of Eden 333 
 
 " I was born impertinent." 
 
 " I have seen her only at a distance at large 
 receptions and the opera. I thought her 
 rather nice, bright and pretty." 
 
 " For his sake I wish she were an angel in 
 the house. But she looketh it not. Nay, 
 neither she nor her sister." 
 
 " From your point of view." 
 
 " Yes. It happens to be the only one I 
 have at my disposal. If you are haughty to 
 me, Monica, I '11 tell your mother. My temper 
 is rather vicious in these days. That is the 
 fault of my hair." 
 
 " Pretty hair ! " 
 
 " I '11 tell you something nice for that. 
 Once, long ago before you came, I happened 
 to be talking with Dr. Arenberg at some place 
 where he passed in his usual fashion like a 
 gleam, or as if he had Fortunatus's cap, at 
 all events, as if he knew the plan and ins and 
 outs of every house in town; I remember I 
 was asking him if he had what Punch calls a 
 good bedside manner. He replied that he 
 really did n't know ; he believed he did n't 
 drum on the footboard. At this moment old 
 Baron Uhlefeldt bore down upon us. ' Aren- 
 berg,' he said, after the preliminary salaams, 
 ' I have always wanted to ask you something.'
 
 334 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Dr. Arenberg did not say, Ask. He merely 
 waited with that polite, patient, look of his, it 
 is too mild for irony, but it is delicious, what- 
 ever it is. ' What induces you to reject your 
 title?' 'Reject is too impressive, Baron. 
 One does not reject an old glove. One 
 simply wears it no longer.' 'The honorable 
 title of your forefathers,' began Uhlefeldt, with 
 respect. ' Oh, I think we have had enough of 
 that comedy,' Dr. Arenberg returned care- 
 lessly, and asked after Rob. But the Baron 
 was not to be shunted off. Very jovially he 
 continued : ' And you must not mind an old 
 fellow's curiosity, but why any man of birth 
 should choose to be a sawbones instead of a 
 soldier, is quite beyond my comprehension.' 
 ' I presume so,' said Dr. Arenberg, with ineffa- 
 ble harmlessness, and his glance just grazed 
 the portly old major's breast, which you must 
 admit, Monica " Elizabeth laughed with a 
 touch of spiteful satisfaction " looks like a 
 stately pleasure-dome. ' I presume not. But 
 it happened that I had the good fortune early 
 in life to recognize my limitations. I foresaw 
 that my dimensions would never attain con- 
 tours desirable for a major, might hardly in- 
 deed exceed the proper figure for a lieutenant. 
 That would have been humiliating.' And
 
 The Garden of Eden 335 
 
 there he stood, so cool, refined, and elegant, 
 and so handsome, though that 's not the 
 word. ' Oh, you have a good height, Aren- 
 berg. You would have looked very well.' " 
 
 " He has a spiritual face," suggested Monica. 
 
 " Yes. He wears a halo, I suspect. And 
 the old baron, looking like a prize ox and 
 wheezing like a great bassoon, began to assure 
 him condescendingly : ' It is a great mistake 
 on your part, upon my word.' But he, having 
 given me a fine smile and quick grasp of the 
 hand, was already making his way toward 
 some unsuspected door." 
 
 Monica had many messages to deliver from 
 her mother to the Countess Ehrenstein, whom 
 with characteristic decision Mrs. Randolph 
 had selected as most sympathetic in Monica's 
 entire circle of acquaintances. In fact, the 
 two ladies had been corresponding for some 
 months. As the countess was not only one 
 of Monica's kindest but unquestionably her 
 most distinguished friend, a woman of intel- 
 lect, influence, and grace that defied the years, 
 the rapid progress of this intimacy was one 
 of the things that so often of late called 
 the little amused speculative expression into 
 Monica's face. 
 
 It was one of those delightful evenings the
 
 336 The Garden of Eden 
 
 charm of which lingers like the memory of a 
 beautiful and quiet landscape. Monica never 
 forgot it. The exquisite tone between the 
 fine old man and his fine old wife ; a subtle 
 mingling of perfect devotion and the delicate 
 jest that slightly masks it; the old general's 
 last poem on the eve of many a battle he had 
 sent verses to his wife ; some interesting pic- 
 tures examined and chatted over; Elizabeth's 
 voice pouring forth gloriously always at its 
 best in what seemed most remote from her 
 nature music expressing religious fervor 
 and profound emotion Pieta Signore and 
 Massenet's fil^gie; some pretty young girls, 
 little countesses, coming in with soft, deferen- 
 tial manners, making their rfotrence and kiss- 
 ing the countess' hand but evidently very 
 fond of her and quite at home in the house ; 
 some young officers, men with excellent faces 
 and bright uniforms, gleaming briefly and 
 picturesquely upon the scene all was free, 
 sympathetic, gracious, harmonious, and the 
 old count amiably walked home with them. 
 
 Frau Erhardt met them with the announce- 
 ment that there was something nice on the 
 dining-room table. 
 
 " But we have already had something nice 
 at the Ehrensteins'."
 
 The Garden of Eden 337 
 
 " It is only very light only a velvet- 
 cream," pleaded the Frau Professor. 
 
 " Which I by no means scorn," said 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 " Nor do I," returned Monica. " Only it is 
 queer and inconsistent business, this eating. 
 When one 's hungry, it is perfect. When one 
 is unhappy it is a bore. But to-day I 'd like 
 to take my sunlight straight." 
 
 A servant handed her a telegram. 
 
 She opened it smiling, and without a word 
 fell to the floor. 
 
 Her mother was dead.
 
 33 8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 XIII 
 
 ARENBERG came in with Frau Erhardt, stood 
 still by the door, bowed silently to Elizabeth 
 across the room, and quietly watched Monica, 
 who, taking no notice of them, was irration- 
 ally occupied in walking rather fast through 
 three or four rooms, turning brusquely when a 
 wall or window or piece of furniture impeded 
 her course. 
 
 " We can do nothing with her," the Frau 
 Professor had told him. " She has hardly 
 touched a morsel. I think she has not slept. 
 I hear her at night going on just the same. 
 She races about tearless, speechless, and 
 pushes us all aside. We beg her to have 
 mercy upon herself; she listens to no one. 
 Sometimes she sits down for a few moments, 
 but never when we ask her. I am so sorry to 
 trouble you so late when she's not actually 
 ill." 
 
 Arenberg smiled kindly. 
 
 " But we are all afraid she is wearing herself 
 out and we cannot bear to see her like this
 
 The Garden of Eden 339 
 
 we are so fond of her, you know, and we 
 are quite helpless." 
 
 Tall, with a white and wooden countenance, 
 and clad in the black raiment her friends had 
 deemed best to hang upon her, hurrying on 
 with her burden of repressed emotion, alone 
 as in the hour of death, this was not the 
 woman whose face, fair in the soft western 
 light, and illumined by the inner radiance of 
 gladness, had been much in his thoughts since 
 he saw it last, not the woman whose frank 
 friendliness had done him good -in a sombre 
 moment. 
 
 Children, he reflected,' sometimes seem un- 
 conscious of the loss of the dearest mother, 
 sometimes rarely are utterly desperate for 
 a while. But he had never seen a grown per- 
 son take the death of a mother so wildly. 
 Motionless, with cool speculation and profes- 
 sional interest in the " case," he watched her 
 as she passed, haggard, unreasonable, unre- 
 conciled, and remote. There was more here 
 than what we call natural sorrow, far more, he 
 thought. It was some passionate grief, long 
 repressed and overcome, breaking forth anew, 
 let loose by the sudden death. 
 
 He remembered irrelevantly all the heartless 
 brainless chatter he had heard about Monica,
 
 34 The Garden of Eden 
 
 with which indeed he had had no patience. 
 Nevertheless, a mildly sceptical curiosity played 
 across the surface of the deep personal sym- 
 pathy he was conscious of feeling for her, as 
 he came forward, without a word gently, slipped 
 his arm through hers, and walked with her own 
 irregular, hasty step. Monica, without stopping 
 or glancing at him, involuntarily tried to shake 
 him ofif and free herself, but with soft inflexi- 
 bility he remained at her side, moving with 
 her movement, curbing her seemingly not at 
 all with that light pressure on her arm. Yet 
 Elizabeth observed, wondering, that the rest- 
 less pace was gradually relaxing, and it was 
 not long before it became deliberate. Pres- 
 ently Monica, without looking at this near 
 human presence which had dared to invade 
 her loneliness, spoke in a strained voice, and 
 as if continuing a tale: 
 
 " And so, you see, it was all in vain all 
 all in vain." 
 
 " I see," said Arenberg, as he walked her into 
 her bedroom and laid her on her bed. 
 
 " Undress her quickly," he told Elizabeth 
 and the others. 
 
 Returning in a few moments he found her 
 sitting bolt upright, about to start again upon 
 her voyages.
 
 The Garden of Eden 341 
 
 " Drink this," he said. 
 
 It was warm and brown, in a large cup. 
 
 She pushed it away but he held it to her 
 lips. 
 
 " Drink it." She obeyed. 
 
 " I tell you it was all in vain," she cried in 
 a tortured voice, searching his face in dry-eyed 
 agony. 
 
 " Poor child ! " said Arenberg. 
 
 " Poor child," echoed Monica strangely. 
 " Poor child." 
 
 " Drink this." 
 
 It was a clear liquid in a small glass. 
 
 He laid her back on the pillows. Her 
 strained gaze never left his face. Presently 
 her features relaxed. Some other part of her 
 brain began to work. " Angels and arch- 
 angels," she murmured, her eyes looking 
 straight into his with a gleam as of wondering 
 recognition. 
 
 " What does she say? " whispered the Frau 
 Professor. 
 
 " English," answered Arenberg laconically. 
 
 It was not long before Monica was sleeping 
 heavily. 
 
 "You did it so quickly," Elizabeth began 
 gratefully, shivering slightly and with tears in 
 her eyes.
 
 34 2 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " It was so simple, yet here we have been 
 troubling her incessantly. ' Dear Monica, do 
 lie down.' ' Please, just taste this.' Please 
 thus and please that, Monica. As for her 
 bed, I began to think she scorned the straw- 
 death and wanted to die fighting, and be 
 expressed post haste to Walhalla " 
 
 " Miss Randolph is not due in Walhalla just 
 yet. She is very strong but hard hit." 
 
 " Yes," Elizabeth replied, helplessly. 
 
 " I will look in to-morrow," he said to the 
 Frau Professor. " Miss McCarroll, you must 
 go home and go to bed." 
 
 " I 'd rather not leave Monica." 
 
 " She has been here all the time, resting 
 hardly more than Miss Randolph, only dozing 
 a little on that sofa." 
 
 " I thought as much. But nothing short of 
 the last trump can wake Miss Randolph for 
 some hours now. Let me walk over with 
 you." 
 
 Elizabeth was so consoled by his gentle- 
 ness that she prepared a reviving speech for 
 Monica's convalescence : 
 
 " If that angel ever asks me to' elope, I shall 
 certainly go." 
 
 Arenberg reaching home about one had 
 still some letters to write, and on his desk lay
 
 The Garden of Eden 343 
 
 his little boys' dog-eared, blotted copy-books, 
 Egon's Greek, Bodo's Latin, one as bad as the 
 other, as if their thoughts had gone a-fishing 
 while their hands insulted the grammar. 
 
 " Poor little scatterbrains ! How they hate 
 it ! " and he patiently made his crosses and 
 dots and marginal notes, that the boys them- 
 selves might not fail to find their mistakes. 
 It was not enlivening occupation for a weary 
 man, and he could not flatter himself that they 
 profited much by it, but he had the idea it 
 kept him more in touch with his children than 
 he otherwise would be. 
 
 Twice of late he had taken them into the 
 woods. As he laid the books aside he remem- 
 bered with a smile how much better than at 
 Latin were the little fellows at counting the 
 cuckoo's note and finding salamanders. As 
 he told them about trees and plants, they 
 grew almost free with him. Sometimes it 
 almost seemed as if they, Bodo especially, 
 were a little fond of him. " If it might be," 
 he thought longingly " if it might be a 
 little while." 
 
 The old reproach pulled at his heart, that 
 he neglected them, that he ought to find more 
 hours for them. Alas, how could he? Well, 
 he ought, even if he could not. There was
 
 344 The Garden of Eden 
 
 no doubt about that. A still older reproach, 
 vast, nameless, vague, something at least 
 which he did not always frame in words, and 
 which most men would have found ludicrously 
 morbid and absurd, began to cloud his spirit. 
 He got up, breathed deep, and pressed his 
 hand on his heart. " This is pure folly, since 
 I cannot undo the past." The light fell 
 strongly on the chiselled face of the great 
 ascetic. Arenberg looked at the figure, turned 
 it slowly in his hands, and regarded it with 
 uplifted brows and. his questioning smile. 
 
 "Brother Benedict, you of the other Fac- 
 ulty, sometimes I think your wilderness would 
 be a relief, and as for penance, there are many 
 kinds abundantly provided for us without re- 
 sorting to the cave, the scourge, and hair- 
 cloth ; for instance, neuralgic gout in the legs 
 which I really hope you had not, and even 
 an unholy man like me may quietly contem- 
 plate that which yawns before him. A good 
 many of my simplest patients do as much 
 every day. Nevertheless, Brother Benedict, 
 you were a brave fellow, and I get a queer 
 kind of silent comradeship from you. You 
 in your quality of spirit probably would an- 
 swer that whole pile of letters before going 
 to bed. I, a sinner, shall weakly procrasti-
 
 The Garden of Eden 345 
 
 nate as usual, take a dose of antifibrin, and 
 lay my bones to rest." 
 
 " All in vain," she had said. What had the 
 poor girl done and suffered that was all in 
 vain? His thoughts as he fell asleep were 
 busy with her, as well as with many things 
 which he each sad day, in his private life and 
 in his professional experiences, found all in 
 vain. In the narrow field of his personal 
 observation enough indeed seemed of ghastly 
 inutility anguish immeasurable, concentrated 
 in many an innocent life for the doubtful good 
 of brief mortal existence. 
 
 But his innermost conviction of the reason 
 governing all things, his faith in the Mind of 
 the universe, the noble, unswerving faith of 
 many scientists whom the sects childishly call 
 infidels, had strengthened with every year 
 since the philosophical spring flood of his 
 student period, and had sustained him in his 
 unequal fight with disease and death. Science 
 had led him indeed away from theological 
 dogma and through that season of dogmatic 
 materialism which boys have strongly, as 
 when younger the measles yet science itself 
 had led him farther on and on into lighter, 
 loftier, vaster fields. 
 
 With a deep joy in Goethe and a gentle
 
 346 The Garden of Eden 
 
 leaning toward Spinoza these influences fil- 
 tered through his own modifying personality 
 he possessed, in spite of his modern views, 
 his wise insight into others' physical needs, 
 an habitual disregard for his own bodily dis- 
 comfort as preposterously self-denying, as 
 gallantly unwise, and as sure of the inevitable 
 punishment that follows every transgression 
 of nature's law, as the starvation and flagella- 
 tion of the great and good St. Benedict. 
 
 Incredibly patient in detail, willing and dili- 
 gent as a humble artisan, this modern ques- 
 tioner's spiritual nature had a wide and lofty 
 range. In an earlier age he would have seen 
 sacred visions and dreamed mystic dreams, for 
 everywhere he involuntarily sought divinity, in 
 the smallest leaf as he scrutinized its tracery 
 while smiling at the chatter of his boys in the 
 wood every appalling combination of dis- 
 ease before which he stood sad and helpless, 
 forced to admit that one vaunted knowledge 
 and experience as yet had unveiled but little 
 of the vast and elusive mystery of nature. 
 
 Beneath all these inconsistencies, if such 
 they be for who but a benighted collector 
 of human specimens ever found a pure type, 
 and of what are we all made but conflicting 
 movements? was a warm temperament, con-
 
 The Garden of Eden 347 
 
 scious need of human affection, pre-eminently 
 the love of woman, an unsatisfied craving so 
 great that he half regarded it as a weakness, 
 submerged it in work, guarded it perfectly with 
 cool tranquillity of manner a wise precaution, 
 indeed, in a profession before which perhaps 
 more than in any other humanity drops its 
 mask. The cell, the scourge, are perhaps 
 easier for a man to bear than the innocent 
 embrace of some simple woman, who, prevari- 
 cating in shame, at last shows to her doctor 
 the welds on her poor back, beaten by the 
 drunken brute her husband. And if hearing 
 gentle words of pained solicitude, the first 
 perhaps that ever met her ear, she, broken, 
 bruised, and ill, awaiting soon her child, puts 
 up sudden soft arms like a child and sobs in 
 misery upon the nearest human breast who 
 dare condemn? As in garrets, so in boudoirs, 
 for though bruises be of many colors, the 
 human heart is one. Yet since the best of 
 us are but mere flesh and blood, perhaps if 
 the truth were known it is not so remarkable 
 that now and then human nature slips, as is 
 duly chronicled with copious illustrations in 
 our newspapers, but that priests of all per- 
 suasions and doctors, and lawyers, who also 
 in the best sense may be doctors and priests
 
 348 The Garden of Eden 
 
 are for the most part content, in spite of 
 their confessionals and all connected therewith, 
 to be simply honest men with not the remotest 
 prospect of canonization. 
 
 " All in vain," repeated Arenberg, awaiting 
 the action of the antifibrin upon his neuralgic 
 gout, which even more effectually than Macduff- 
 reminiscences murders sleep. " All in vain." 
 He determined to help her to regain the beau- 
 tiful poise she had lost. He believed that he 
 understood her, was akin to her, whatever the 
 story of her life. After a few hours' sleep, he 
 was under the impression he had but closed 
 his eyes when the telephone bell jerked him 
 up, at half-past five. 
 
 What passed in Monica, no one knew. Sud- 
 denly inaccessible to affection, unresponsive 
 to the wistful care of friends, she was un- 
 grateful, stolid, and dead to her surroundings. 
 Eleanor might offer a mute caress, the touch 
 of cheek or lips or tearful eyes upon her 
 friend's listless hand. She, the tender-hearted, 
 paid no heed. Eleanor was doing all her work 
 for the New York Panyphone, the Chicago 
 Unicum, and The Nosegay. She heard this, 
 like all else they said to her, with utter in- 
 difference. Beef-tea and the other obligatory 
 potions, she swallowed now mechanically. But
 
 The Garden of Eden 349 
 
 not one good word had she for those who 
 loved her and ministered to her continually 
 only a silent stare. 
 
 Mr. Loring came in every day and looked 
 at her mournfully; poor Lai wrote in great 
 remorse for his bad moods; whole-hearted, 
 manly renewal of the old theme came 
 promptly from Mr. Forsythe in Rome; the 
 Ehrensteins hastened to her ; flowers and kind 
 messages poured in en masse, and people 
 were good and pitiful. For all this she mani- 
 fested the thankfulness of a log. Remote, 
 inert, she lay for the most part quite still, but 
 now and then, like a wild animal, plunged up 
 and down her cage in hopelessness. 
 
 Such was her exterior. And within? Phi- 
 losophers tell us there is no such thing as time 
 or space Monica was merely realizing this 
 truth. In her, all that had been was. While 
 she mourned despairingly for her mother, all 
 the sorrow that had gone before awoke and 
 lived: every pang for Lilian, the sombre, 
 fateful year preceding her death the long 
 strain, the pity, and the dread. And Keith 
 Monica's entire relationship to him, every epi- 
 sode, every link in the chain, every tone and 
 look, each dear and despairing word, sea and 
 starlight and storm, whatever had been near
 
 350 The Garden of Eden 
 
 them, all gathered itself together for the 
 supreme death struggle. And the mother 
 that was coming to her child coming to 
 protect, to love, to bless; coming in security, 
 in courage and joy, with plans for many a year, 
 
 Ah, God ! How she stood erect in the sun- 
 light and smiled as the steamer moved off! 
 
 All was so far away. Ages ago it happened. 
 Monica was adrift forever, on a shoreless sea. 
 There was nothing more to reach, nothing more 
 to do. No aim. No haven. No hope. Adrift. 
 If only the thoughts would be still. Since all 
 was lost, why should the thoughts rage on? 
 Black, tumultuous, singing thoughts. That 
 was why she could not speak, although she 
 saw Elizabeth bending over her with a tired 
 face, quite a new face. 
 
 The thoughts were ceaseless. They were 
 all her childhood, all her past. Winds and the 
 waving of trees. Foolish things and sounds 
 on the shore shells and fleecy clouds, and 
 her mother's every-day sweet words. But 
 mostly troubled thoughts dark unending 
 
 throbbing. Ah, how they beat and throbbed ! 
 How they rose and fell, stormed and surged 
 in a wild waste of blackness ! But sometimes, 
 when suddenly late at night a clear-cut face 
 bent over her an instant, a light hand touched
 
 The Garden of Eden 351 
 
 her wrist, her forehead, a calm voice spoke a 
 few low words that all obeyed, it seemed as if 
 Hans Nilssen or Nils Hanssen had opened 
 the port-hole. 
 
 The days wore on, and she, neither well nor 
 ill, neither alive nor dead, merely something 
 that cumbered the ground, was the despair of 
 her friends. 
 
 "The same apathy? "Dr. Arenberg asked 
 every day. 
 
 " Quite the same," was the stereotyped 
 answer. 
 
 They took her out to drive. It was in the 
 wonderful month of May. Sometimes the 
 sorrowing heart confronted anew by the ele- 
 mental joy of nature, although deeply touched 
 by a thousand reminiscences, may yet feel a 
 certain sad and remote reconciliation with 
 gladness. To Monica the perfect freshness of 
 leaf and blossom might have been gray on 
 gray. 
 
 In due time came a letter from Keith, a 
 good letter, anxious, kind, pitiful. He said he 
 had done all that was possible to save her 
 mother; he had seen in the first moment it 
 was fatal ; pneumonia a three days' illness : 
 he had been with her constantly, like a son. 
 Then he admitted it was long ago in response
 
 352 The Garden of Eden 
 
 to her prayer that he had gradually discon- 
 tinued the correspondence, and that he had 
 promised her never to resume it. Yet he too 
 knew well this was best for Monica. : j 
 
 Even this letter she read without emotion, 
 and laid aside wearily. It was the first letter 
 from Keith she had not welcomed as a mes- 
 sage from on high, and touched and fondled 
 like some dear living thing. What could words 
 matter now? All was over. 
 
 Judge Trevor wrote her also with his own 
 dear old trembling hand. His letter too she 
 read with quiet and dreary mien. Yet one 
 day suddenly, she awakened sufficiently to say, 
 with one clear glance, quite naturally, to Eliza- 
 beth, who had been patient as a dog : 
 
 " Why do you look so tired, dear? " 
 
 At this, Elizabeth dropped on the floor, laid 
 her head against Monica, and sobbed violently. 
 Monica paid no more heed, being used to 
 people weeping over her, but to Elizabeth this 
 was a crucial moment. 
 
 " We must bring her back to earth," Aren- 
 berg said ; but it was many weeks before 
 Monica's true self reappeared. The automaton 
 that had taken her place lingered obstinately. 
 
 One June evening she lay listless in her 
 great chair when Arenberg came in. He
 
 The Garden of Eden 353 
 
 drew a chair near her, sat down, looking pale, 
 with a luminous but not sickly pallor, and 
 scrutinized her carefully. 
 
 "Do you know, you are very strong ?" he 
 began. 
 
 " Yes," she replied, indifferently. 
 
 This word " strong " had pursued her like a 
 wasp, and in earlier days she hated it. When 
 she as a child had strained every nerve like a 
 race-horse to win some prize, and had won it 
 against older and more phlegmatic competitors, 
 they always said, " Monica is strong." When 
 she stood sturdily day and night by some 
 sufferer whose moans and whims exhausted 
 everybody else, they always chanted, " Mon- 
 ica is strong." In later years she had indeed 
 become reconciled to her strength, and re- 
 cognized its use and wholesomeness. 
 
 But all this she was too dull and too apa- 
 thetic to remember to-night, so she simply 
 said yes, and looked blankly in the fine, solici- 
 tous face regarding her. 
 
 " How long do you intend to be so use- 
 less? " he continued quietly. 
 
 She said nothing, yet something stirred in 
 her heart. 
 
 " Do you know, your friends need you? " 
 
 " No one needs me any more," she mur- 
 23
 
 354 The Garden of Eden 
 
 mured languidly, and he was glad, for since 
 she had begun, if faintly, to defend herself, 
 health had set in. 
 
 " Elizabeth needs you." 
 
 " Ah, Elizabeth," she repeated softly. 
 
 " We all need you." 
 
 She closed her eyes. 
 
 " Good-night. You have no right to waste 
 your strength. I think you can bear every- 
 thing." 
 
 He spoke with a sort of stern tenderness 
 and was gone. Toward nine o'clock one even- 
 ing four or five days later, calm and cool, with 
 his air of having more time at his disposal 
 than there was, he came again. She had pond- 
 ered idly without acting upon his words. He 
 stood looking at her thoughtfully. 
 
 " I am tired," Monica, curiously enough, 
 thought fit to say in self-defence. 
 
 " I hoped I should find you at work," he 
 returned simply, "or at least resting from 
 work." 
 
 " Ah work," she said listlessly. 
 
 " It is a good thing," he returned with his 
 sweet and tranquil voice. " It is often the 
 best thing we have. Is it not time to relieve 
 little Eleanor? She is less strong than you," 
 he said after a while, mild and direct
 
 The Garden of Eden 355 
 
 She sat up with a troubled look. 
 
 " You are very strong." 
 
 " Strong ! Strong ! " she repeated bitterly. 
 "Why do you always say strong? I am 
 weak. I am only a leaf in the blast. If you 
 knew ! " 
 
 He did not reply, but sat, his arm leaning on 
 a table, his thoughtful, compassionate face 
 bent toward her. The room was dim, still, 
 and fragrant with roses. 
 
 She looked in that face, strong, tender, 
 beautiful in the twilight, and contemplating 
 her silently. As if constrained by some oc- 
 cult influence, she began to speak low and 
 simply the thoughts of her inmost heart. 
 
 Her whole life story, herself, she laid before 
 him. Her strong emotions, her highest 
 thoughts, her secret motives, her faults and 
 weaknesses, what she had done, what she had 
 suffered, found expression in rapid unstudied 
 words, reasonable, fiery, helpless, brave, and 
 sad. At times she started up and paced the 
 room; at times she stood still, then returned 
 to her place near him. 
 
 Swayed and thrilled by the woman's voice, 
 by her form and movements, by the charm of 
 her presence, he never moved. Picture after 
 picture passed before him. That drama in a,
 
 356 The Garden of Eden 
 
 land beyond seas became his own, like the 
 most homely scenes of his boyhood. Her 
 people were his people, he saw, he heard, he 
 felt with them all. Her griefs, her struggles, 
 were his. And he knew her ah, how he com- 
 prehended her ! better far than she knew her- 
 self, better than any one had ever known her. 
 There was a trace of the savage in this dear 
 woman, something elemental, unsubdued, and 
 he loved it. He so weary and so tame. It 
 quickened and revived him, it bathed his soul 
 young and fresh. He could have gathered 
 her to his heart and held her close, as some- 
 thing long his own, always his own. How 
 strange to live six-and-thirty years and never 
 to find his own until this night ! 
 
 Monica's confession swept on without bar- 
 riers, without reserve. All that she had 
 guarded, repressed, buried deep, was re- 
 vealed her heart's tenderness, her spirit's 
 revolt, its feebleness on its lonely path, its 
 search for spiritual help, its longing for light, 
 its knocking as with puny but importunate 
 hand at the mighty and mysterious closed 
 portals of nature. Often her voice was the 
 voice of his own heart, more disciplined, 
 slightly melancholy and sceptical. Often he 
 marvelled at her childlike freshness of emo-
 
 The Garden of Eden 357 
 
 tion, her immense warm faith in humanity, 
 at a certain naive and reverential attitude in 
 all her affections these traits strong, invin- 
 cible, in spite of her struggles, her sorrows, 
 and the gray desolation of the hour. Monica 
 spoke lower, slower, finally ceased. It seemed 
 to him had she not been sacred to him, it 
 would have been profanation to listen. It 
 was that rare and solemn thing, the unveiling 
 of a soul. 
 
 The room was shadowy, fragrant, and still. 
 His head was bowed upon his hand. Monica 
 leaned back motionless. Some minutes passed 
 in silence. Presently Arenberg rose abruptly, 
 as was his wont. 
 
 " I will come in to-morrow," he said gently, 
 holding her hand an instant, but an influence 
 subtle as the twilight, delicately penetrating as 
 the fragrance of the roses, encompassed them, 
 and from that hour she was no longer alone. 
 
 The next morning she asked Eleanor for 
 her report of her stewardship, and worked a 
 little with her, listlessly. As they sat together 
 Egon and Bodo von Arenberg marched in, 
 Egon with a letter in his hand, Bodo with one 
 perfect rose. " From papa," the little boys 
 said, one after the other, stiffly, and looked 
 shyly at her under their thick, dark lashes.
 
 358 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Arenberg merely begged her to excuse him 
 that evening as he was called out of town. 
 His thoughts were much with her, he said. 
 That was all. But the note dispensed with 
 the customary forms, had no beginning and 
 no signature. She smiled at the children, 
 and suddenly for an instant began to talk 
 brightly to them, like her old self. 
 
 It was some days before he came again. 
 His first glance told him she had not pro- 
 gressed very far. He found her still and 
 alone, her hands clasped behind her head, 
 her eyes staring at nothing. Yet he knew 
 with a rush of keen joy as she looked up that 
 he was not unwelcome. He longed intensely 
 to help her re-find her nobler self; so far as 
 he was able to share these days of heaviness 
 with her; vague and nameless desires floated 
 before him, sentiments of tenderness, devo- 
 tion, pity ; and her immense charm, weary and 
 helpless as she seemed at the moment, moved 
 him mightily. 
 
 He sat down and began simply : 
 
 " Is that as far as you Ve got? " 
 
 " It would seem so." 
 
 " It is not very far, is it? " he said with a 
 slight smile. " A baby could accomplish as 
 much."
 
 The Garden of Eden 359 
 
 " Doubtless. You have been out of town? " 
 
 " Frequently, since I saw you." After a 
 while he said suddenly: "Shall I tell you 
 where? Shall I tell you some things I have 
 seen in these few days? May I speak freely 
 as if you were my brother? Not as we 
 stupid doctors usually speak?" 
 
 " Do," she replied with more interest. 
 
 " It was on a Sunday evening that I was 
 here, was it not? Yes to-day is Thursday. 
 On Monday evening late, I was called not far 
 from here, an hour by rail, in consultation to 
 a hopeless case a woman wholly unrecon- 
 ciled to death, who must leave young chil- 
 dren. It was not a cheerful experience. On 
 Tuesday evening at four I went, in response 
 to a telegram that had arrived Monday even- 
 ing, to a patient also in a neighboring town. 
 I found her dead. The All-merciful had re- 
 leased her I confess, according to my im- 
 pertinent notion, a good many years too 
 late; for the poor thing though young was 
 a chronic sufferer, and rendered unspeakably 
 wretched by a brute of a husband, one of 
 the coarsest and most selfish of men. She 
 has known almost nothing of life, except its 
 pain. 
 
 " That same afternoon a despatch called me
 
 360 The Garden of Eden 
 
 to Wildbad. There I found a beautiful young 
 woman, vigorous until now, fatally ill. A 
 week ago she became a mother her first 
 child. Some bad complications have set in. 
 She is doomed to speedy death. She has 
 everything to live for, the world would say 
 affection, wealth, social position. ... I 
 came home toward one o'clock. Yesterday 
 I was again summoned out of town to a 
 patient in a little place near here a lovely 
 young girl, a pet of her family and society, 
 who about two years ago became engaged to 
 be married to the man of her choice, and 
 then suddenly incurably ill, dying now 
 of consumption, which is a curse that lurks in 
 the blood and now and then seizes its victim. 
 But I will not continue my gloomy chron- 
 icle," he added, wondering whether he was 
 cruel to tell her these things. He would 
 have tried this method with no other person, 
 but he felt from the first that if he read clear 
 in her soul, a straight appeal to her valor 
 would rouse and revive her more than all 
 lamentations and soft manipulations on earth. 
 " These are only a few of your sisters, not far 
 from you at this moment," he concluded. 
 
 She watched him closely as he spoke. 
 
 " Are you not tired ? "
 
 The Garden of Eden 361 
 
 He might with truth have answered he was 
 never anything else. 
 
 " I have little time to think about that," he 
 returned indifferently, and rose. 
 
 " Are you going so soon? " 
 
 " I am rather busy." 
 
 Many parallel impressions occupied her: 
 the singularly calm beauty of his face; the 
 anguish of all these innocent women; his 
 goodness to her and his dutifulness; a con- 
 sciousness of ingratitude, unworthiness, and 
 torpor from which she ought long ago to 
 have emerged were her whole being not so 
 leaden; the sense of tears in the heart and 
 throat while the eyes were clear. 
 
 Suddenly she asked low : 
 
 "Is it worth while?" 
 
 " Ah, you know it is ! " he exclaimed, as if 
 in reproach walked away a few steps, re- 
 turned, and said, his face splendidly illumined 
 and inspired : 
 
 " Something tells me daily, and with a thou- 
 sand tongues, that all this anguish is tending 
 toward some unimagined good, some supreme 
 and eternal end, which perhaps even we earth- 
 worms might dimly discern if " 
 
 Monica drew a deep breath. This was the 
 faith to which she had clung, until she lost her
 
 362 The Garden of Eden 
 
 joy and hope. This recalled old sufferings, 
 old victories, renunciation, resignation, peace, 
 gladness, and triumph. 
 
 "If?" she said. "If? " 
 
 " If we did not persist in clinging to the illu- 
 sion that the little self in us, the ich, the ego, 
 is so overweeningly and endlessly important. 
 That is the lecture I often have to give myself. 
 Forgive me that I dare to say as much to 
 you. I have never spoken so freely to any 
 other person." 
 
 This he said very gently, naturally, as he did 
 all things, without a trace of didactic intent, and 
 with his good clear eyes looking, it seemed to 
 her, through all her clouds and straight into 
 the core of her heart. She, troubled, question- 
 ing, appealing, returned his long gaze. Sud- 
 denly he stooped and kissed her hands 
 lingeringly. 
 
 "Why do you look so tired, dear?" she 
 asked Elizabeth on the following morning, but 
 this time regarded her attentively. 
 
 "Oh, Monica, have you come back? You 
 were so far away ! I thought you were never 
 coming back. And I needed you so ! " 
 
 Monica could hardly realize that any one on 
 earth really needed a creature so dull and 
 weighted down by such a heartache. But the
 
 The Garden of Eden 363 
 
 memory of her sisters in various directions 
 pursued her, and would not let her sit idle and 
 self-absorbed. 
 
 " Tell me about it, dear," she said. 
 
 "Well, Monica, in the first place, I want 
 some money." 
 
 "How much?" Monica started up to get 
 her cheque-book. 
 
 " Never mind that now. That is all right, I 
 know In the next place, life is rather a 
 nauseating compound. Monica, have you 
 really come back? Are you really all there? 
 Because if you are in the Elysian fields, I do 
 not care to talk. I never wanted to, however, 
 until I could not have you. That is my con- 
 trariness." 
 
 " I have really come back, Elizabeth such 
 as I am a poor thing." 
 
 " Well, dear, to break the news gently, I 
 nearly eloped with Leo Uhlefeldt," Elizabeth 
 continued in a hard tone, and, in spite of effort, 
 a mirthless manner. " I wavered north, I 
 wavered south. All the time you acted chlo- 
 roformed. I was frantic. It seemed to me 
 nobody in this earth cared what became of me. 
 But one day suddenly it was the fatal day 
 you came out of your clouds, and looked at 
 me with sweet good eyes and asked me why I
 
 364 The Garden of Eden 
 
 was tired, and then I could n't leave you, you 
 know." 
 
 Monica's heart smote her a more vigorous 
 and healthy blow than she had felt in many 
 weeks. 
 
 " Of course that would not have held me if I 
 had trusted him perfectly. That is the bitter 
 part of it all. Trust? Well, he is honest 
 was, I mean. He is engaged to be married to 
 Florence Arco at this present. He wanted 
 even to give up his career, swore he 'd never 
 regret it. You know how the idiots go on ! 
 But I have seen too much of life not to know 
 better. Why, they draw their breath for the 
 army, would be miserable out of it and away 
 from their petty local society and court life. I 
 don't think he'd be good for anything else 
 either. He has absolutely no other interests 
 cares not a straw for literature or art or 
 philanthropy, or any other fad. Can one ruin 
 such a man outright? I am so awfully fond of 
 him, Monica, all the same. One does n't know 
 why one likes a man not for his Greek, I 
 presume. But I know Leo too well to ruin 
 his career and deprive him of his patrimony. 
 
 " He has a modest income from his mother. 
 That is what we were going to live on in 
 a villa and a cheap one on the Riviera,
 
 The Garden of Eden 365 
 
 according to his rhapsodies. I told him he 
 would be yawning about the house in slippers 
 and dressing-gown before three months were 
 gone, and I could n't stand that sort of thing 
 an instant. Imagine him, of all men, trying 
 to economize ! The old baron told me once 
 to my face, blandly, of course, as if the subject 
 were but remotely important, that if Leo 
 should ever marry imprudently he would not 
 inherit a penny of the fortune that would other- 
 wise fall to him. The old baron, by the way, 
 has been very adroit. You have seen enough 
 yourself, Monica. When he wanted to obtain 
 anything of Leo the old man was nice to 
 me, and kept me prettily dangling, while Flor- 
 ence Arco has been slowly emerging from the 
 nursery. 
 
 "Well, it has gone on four years now. Leo 
 was determined to win his father over. I have 
 understood his tactics very well. They made 
 me furious at times and nervous and detest- 
 able, which is no news to you. Still, Leo 
 hoped and I too I was so fond of him. 
 Lately the old baron has brought on his heavy 
 artillery, promised Leo a new racer, a doubled 
 allowance, and heaven knows what baubles, if 
 he would cease his dallying, be a sensible fel- 
 low, and engage himself to Countess Florence.
 
 366 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Leo flies to me. We enact scenes that would 
 draw tears from a glass eye. It is a pity you 
 could not have reported them for The Pany- 
 phone. He begs, weeps, swears, goes down 
 on his knees, threatens to blow his brains out, 
 all of which inspires no confidence in my rattle- 
 pate, and I jeer ; then suddenly he is so sure of 
 himself, so persuasive and so manly, I almost 
 yield. Whereupon I say something quite hate- 
 ful and send him off half beside himself. 
 
 " It went on in this fashion until I could bear 
 it no longer the old baron continually at 
 him, he at me and I 'm fond of Leo, you 
 know, Monica, awfully fond of him and 
 finally I thought it did not much matter about 
 me, and perhaps I might as well go to the 
 dogs to the cheap villa, I mean though I 
 could n't ruin his whole life by marrying him. 
 That was the day you looked at me as if you 
 loved me, and held me back. I met him that 
 night, and said something altogether insulting. 
 The next day he became engaged to Florence 
 Arco." 
 
 Brusquely, softly, at times against her will, 
 she related her experience. Monica listened 
 in silence. 
 
 "Nauseous, is it not, Monica? And so su- 
 perfluous ! In the first place, why need I be
 
 The Garden of Eden 367 
 
 fond of him? I have been fond of other men, 
 half a dozen, more or less: more, I fancy. 
 One forgets. In sentimental songs a woman 
 loves once. But nature has made no remarks 
 on this subject, I believe. Nature is not senti- 
 mental. And the poets? Never mind what 
 they say. Just watch what they do. If you 
 find the one and he finds you, that is luck. 
 But if you do not, you make your little tenta- 
 tive excursions. Men tell us we are womanly 
 when we love but once. Men ! They have 
 told us a lot of things to make life comfortable 
 for themselves. 
 
 " Monica, I don't mean to excuse myself. I 
 have knocked about a good deal, you know. 
 That is what happens when you are an orphan, 
 have red hair and three uncles. Instead of 
 finding the one, I was always finding some other 
 woman's one. I never went to stay a few days 
 in a country house but somebody left in tears 
 I, or somebody else, it matters little which. 
 My hair, I suppose ! I loved once and forever 
 when I was sixteen ; twice and forever at seven- 
 teen and a half; thrice and forever shortly 
 after. They all married rich girls. I never 
 met very good men not very bad, but not 
 good, mediocre. I never met a woman I 
 trusted until I knew you not bad women,
 
 368 The Garden of Eden 
 
 but conventional, cowardly, mediocre. I think 
 I Ve not done anything very bad, but heedless, 
 reckless, stupendously rash things without 
 number. Mean ? Well, I don't know ; rather 
 malicious, when women were n't nice to me. 
 My uncles wished me to study, and write or 
 teach. Now I have no talent for consecutive 
 study, no patience with children, no pedagogic 
 skill. That you must admit. It occurred to 
 me one day that I would take Rob and my 
 voice to Germany, live quietly, and work. I 
 began to think there must be something in life 
 beyond futile love-making. My uncles, relieved 
 to get rid of me, deigned to consent to concerts, 
 but plainly opposed the stage. From one to 
 the other the step is easy. There you have 
 me, Monica, life size." 
 
 Still Monica bowed her head and did not 
 speak. 
 
 "Are you disgusted? I don't wonder. I 
 am often enough with myself. But, Monica, 
 sometimes I think it would be fair, should they 
 try me, to recommend me to mercy. Because, 
 you see, if you give a girl my musical tempera- 
 ment, my imprudence, my tongue, my good 
 family, my luxurious tastes and no money, and 
 set her rolling about this planet, well, she 
 might do better, but she might do worse than
 
 The Garden of Eden 369 
 
 I have done so far. And what makes me 
 wicked is to see how holy the girls feel whose 
 mothers marry them off well, girls who have 
 no temperaments, or tongues, or red hair, and 
 to whom men don't make love except on a good 
 commercial basis. What does marriage mean 
 between Leo and Florence Arco? He cannot 
 endure her. He said he would rather marry a 
 frog. Oh, Monica, speak ! Think aloud. Ex- 
 cept Rob, I like nobody but you. Don't give 
 me up. I believe in you. If you should de- 
 ceive me, I never would believe in any soul 
 again. Oh, Monica, I 'm fond of him, you 
 know ! even if you think I have monkey- 
 manners." 
 
 She flung herself down and pressed her face 
 against Monica's knees, who clasped her close 
 and sought but found no words, and felt as if 
 she were born again. She had indeed been 
 born many times during this one sojourn on 
 this planet. New suns of glory were con- 
 tinually dawning upon her. But that this rev- 
 elation should have come from Elizabeth ! 
 Elizabeth ! 
 
 " Speak to me ! " she said imperiously. 
 
 Monica kissed the naughty red hair upon 
 her knee. 
 
 "You make me ashamed, Elizabeth, you 
 24
 
 370 The Garden of Eden 
 
 are so much better than I. There have been 
 sad and hard things in my life.. Each time I 
 thought there was nothing harder. But I had 
 great loving friends. All the time you were 
 speaking, I realized that if ever I should go to 
 heaven not the vast, glorious heaven whither 
 we are all bound, whether we will or no, but 
 the little cooped-up heaven they used to teach 
 us it would be only by clinging to the skirts 
 of my friends. I was always surrounded by 
 pure and strong influences. You never had 
 them." 
 
 " I should say not ! " muttered Elizabeth. 
 
 " It is wonderful what friends can do ! They 
 bear one over abysses and mountain peaks ! 
 When I thought I was acting I, myself 
 I see now I was propped up on all sides, 
 pushed along. I have been only a weak' re- 
 flection of my friends. But you have been 
 good all alone. You have had no help, no 
 inspiration." 
 
 " Precious little, if the truth were known. 
 Contamination chiefly," murmured the voice 
 on her knee. " No upward road toward the 
 peak. All aboard for the bottomless pit. The 
 way nicely cleared by the men who make hot 
 love to the poor, pretty girls, and marry the 
 ugly rich ones. Don't give me up, Monica ! "
 
 The Garden of Eden 371 
 
 " I will never give you up while I live, but 
 don't give me up ! You make me unspeak- 
 ably ashamed. I am inert and selfish, and I 
 ought to be glad glad all the time ! If you 
 could know what you rebuke in me, what you 
 call forth ! " 
 
 For into Monica's heartache came a great 
 warmth and glow, and her sadness was suffused 
 by a tender exaltation. She divined that she 
 still possessed, could lose in all eternity neither 
 her mother nor Keith, neither Lilian nor any 
 other precious one, and that though the yearn- 
 ing and ache in the heart must be, the joy of 
 it all ought to dominate her life continuously, 
 and shine forth from it. What would she have 
 been without her friends? Her course was 
 straight before her to prove herself no das- 
 tard, ingrate, not all unworthy of the love 
 of so brave souls. But these things are not 
 easy to say in words, so she put her hands on 
 Elizabeth's head and looked down at it as one 
 looks when one smiles through unshed tears 
 and the heart swells and aches, and glories all 
 at once and in that instant she vowed some 
 vows which, according to her strength, she 
 kept. 
 
 " Little Bishop ! " mumbled Elizabeth. 
 " Monica, you need n't take me too seriously.
 
 372 The Garden of Eden 
 
 I am as light as a feather. I 'm not like you. 
 I have no depth of emotion." 
 
 " That, no one can judge." 
 
 "When one considers my undying despair 
 at sixteen, and my ditto at seventeen and a 
 half " 
 
 "Accidents of your condition not you, 
 yourself." 
 
 After a long pause, the very indistinct voice 
 said: 
 
 " Monica, do you understand me?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " That I really wanted to run away to that 
 cheap villa?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " That I was ready to fling away the world 
 respectability even Rob ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Monica, do you understand everything ? " 
 
 " Yes everything." 
 
 A long silence. 
 
 "Then write a nice cheque for me for I 
 want to go away until the nefarious wedding 
 is over," Elizabeth said, looking up suddenly 
 with a wicked sparkle in her eye. " I Ve had 
 to get a lot of things for Rob, and I'm too 
 poor at the moment to play magnanimity. I 
 want to run over to England, dumfound my
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 373 
 
 uncles, sing in some country houses, and make 
 arrangements for concerts next season. You 'd 
 better get me off without much delay. I am 
 not to be depended upon an instant nor is 
 he and I suppose it is the fair thing now to 
 give the little sheep a chance." 
 
 Arenberg perceived at a glance that evening 
 that Monica's lethargy had yielded to an ex- 
 pression both serene and alert, as if she were 
 ready, like a good soldier, to take life's orders, 
 and this touched him, for he understood her. 
 
 "You have not been out except to drive? 
 How would you like to take a walk? It is a 
 perfect night." 
 
 " I should like that. How good you are to 
 me!" 
 
 He looked at her an instant, thinking : 
 
 " How I wish I might be good to you ! 
 How good I could be to you, how unutterably 
 good ! " but said : 
 
 " If you will pardon an abject confession, 
 so prosaic that only a hardened doctor could 
 mention such a thing to a lady on a moon- 
 light night in June, a pack of imps inhabit 
 my legs, on a long lease, I suspect, and 
 a walk at night sometimes disconcerts them, 
 and encourages me. So I am not wholly 
 disinterested."
 
 374 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " I should think you would have exercised 
 enough," she said practically, as they started. 
 
 " Oh, I prance about a good deal, of course, 
 but it is nervous business; and whatever the 
 reason, a good walk with no professional 
 object in view is my best tonic." 
 
 This was quite true, and what he called his 
 imps caused him fiendish torture; but as he 
 felt her near, so fair, kind, and desirable, his 
 talk seemed paltry. Why should he take 
 pains to prevaricate? Why, contrary to his 
 habitual reserve, bore her of all people with the 
 insignificant mutiny of his miserable nerves? 
 Why might he not tell her that she was beau- 
 tiful, dear, and harmonious to him, to soul and 
 sense? That his heart ached strangely for 
 her, and he counted as lost every day he did 
 not see her face? That she rested him, her 
 ways, her voice, her whole sweet being, yet 
 created in him a powerful and profound un- 
 rest, and set him mourning for his lost years, 
 for all the empty, weary, sorrowful years? 
 Why might he not say an imperious longing, 
 the hungry desire of a long-famished heart, 
 had impelled him to seek her and to brave the 
 perilous sweetness of her near presence at his 
 side, alone with him in the still night? Why 
 might he not? Ah, why? Silent, sad, tor-
 
 The Garden of Eden 375 
 
 mented, and blessed, he walked on with his 
 peaceful air. 
 
 In that town any straight way, if pursued 
 long enough, led to noble heights; broad 
 roads, winding paths, short cuts, were cared 
 for with the solicitude of that tiresome, exas- 
 perating yet often beneficent institution, a pa- 
 ternal form of government. Its frailties were 
 many, but it had the grace of admirable for- 
 estry and rich gardens, like unto Paradise re- 
 gained and handled according to best modern 
 methods. 
 
 Monica walked slowly at first for she had 
 been long indoors; but as they passed through 
 quiet streets and began the long, fragrant 
 ascent, past villas and walled gardens, she felt 
 her strength return, and consciously loved the 
 night, its tender mystery, its subtle, elusive 
 beckoning. The bright day they had taken 
 her out, with its wealth of blossom and odor, 
 its laburnums and lilacs and syringa, had 
 seemed remote. But this fair night was home ; 
 it comforted. 
 
 They stood side by side on a dusky height, 
 leaned on a wall, and looked down upon the 
 town in the valley. The blooding forest be- 
 hind them, the luminous yet mist-veiled night, 
 the balm of orchard and meadow, the whole-
 
 376 The Garden of Eden 
 
 some breath of distant farms, penetrated them 
 with large and beneficent influence. 
 
 Long, low black rifts stretched along the 
 horizon, merging in sombre thickly wooded 
 hills. Over the town hung a gray smoky 
 cloud through which the lights gleamed dully. 
 A rash soft brook tumbled on inconsequently. 
 Frogs far and near held council. Roses, 
 acacia, and pungent honeysuckle impregnated 
 the atmosphere. The night was so still even 
 the poplar leaves above their heads had ceased 
 their prophetic rustling. Down the steep 
 slope of the broad highroad near them now 
 and then a bicycle bell tinkled gayly, and 
 lovers passed, arms interlaced, and voices in- 
 termingled low and warm in sweet folk song. 
 
 Arenberg had taken off his hat. His face, 
 as he leaned on folded arms and gazed with 
 thoughtful eyes not at the town but straight 
 before him into the night, was clear and calm 
 and of almost unearthly beauty. Monica 
 remembered these words : " His soul is still. 
 Like a holy treasure he guards its repose and 
 from its depths draws counsel and help for the 
 storm-tossed." It was good for her, the storm- 
 tossed, to be with, him here. He turned and 
 looked at her, and she smiled wistfully but in 
 confidence, in naturalness, with tender thank-
 
 The Garden of Eden 377 
 
 fulness and with a nameless sentiment without 
 which she never yet had looked and never 
 again could look upon his face, a touched 
 recognition of his goodness, reverence for a 
 being who had reached through suffering and 
 knowledge a higher spiritual plane. That smile 
 was hard for him to bear. 
 
 " How inexplicable it is that people prefer 
 to stay in their boxes on such a night!" he 
 said. " I wonder that the whole town does n't 
 come up on the hills. Not that I am benevo- 
 lent enough to want a lot of fellows about here 
 at the moment; but they don't know what 
 they lose." 
 
 They were not far from the spot where 
 Monica had stood alone when she first knew 
 of Professor Steiner's death. At last she could 
 share that sad burden. In her heart, in her 
 life, was nothing which she could not lay before 
 this friend. She told him she would like to 
 explain to him the singular chain of events 
 which had preceded that tragedy. 
 
 " You never need explain yourself to me,'' 
 he replied, "but the smallest thing that con- 
 cerns you interests me. That wretched affair 
 occupied me not a little." 
 
 Then he told her how he had stood beneath 
 her windows that night long since, and she
 
 378 The Garden of Eden 
 
 mentioned that she got as far as his threshold, 
 and they looked at each other, moved and 
 wondering. 
 
 In the soft, mysterious night, with gentle, 
 regretful voice, she related briefly the salient 
 features of the story. As she concluded, he 
 was silent, looking far away. Because her 
 wounds were not yet healed, and she had 
 suffered so cruelly, and relating the facts awoke 
 the old pain, she waited in strange suspense. 
 
 He was merely thinking how brave and good 
 she was, and how alone, and of certain things 
 he would do that instant if he might. But a 
 sudden terror seized her. 
 
 " Do you not believe me? " she said. 
 
 "As in a god," said Arenberg, low and 
 fervently, and neither of them observed that it 
 was a singular answer. 
 
 Relieved, she rejoined simply: 
 
 " Then I should like you to read the letters." 
 
 Again they stood in silence side by side, 
 needing no speech, their thoughts floating off 
 together. Each marvelled at the peace of the 
 night and the suggestion of the infinite. Each 
 dwelt upon the mystery of pain and life's 
 demands upon our poor strength. Each felt 
 the other near. In Monica's sorrow was a new 
 strain of submission. " You can bear every-
 
 The Garden of Eden 379 
 
 thing," he had said to her. Perhaps one could 
 bear everything. Her heart wasfull of simple, 
 childish memories, her mother's smile ; her 
 hands ; and her little ways ; her jests and gayety ; 
 how she wore her hair; the kind of lace she 
 liked ; the odor of attar of roses in her upper 
 drawer. A flood of light filled the valley. 
 The dark hills stood guard. The earth looked 
 like a sanctuary. 
 
 Softly as to himself, Arenberg spoke : 
 
 " Ueber alien Gipfeln 
 1st Ruh ; 
 In alien Wipfeln 
 Spiirest du 
 Kaum einen Hauch ; 
 Die Voglein schweigen im Walde. 
 Warte nur, balde 
 Ruhest du auch ! "
 
 380 The Garden of Eden 
 
 XIV 
 
 " I SHOULD certainly interfere in some way, 
 Melanie ? " Frau Selbitz said sharply. 
 
 " It is easy to tell the wonderful things you 
 would do ! " replied Frau von Arenberg, with 
 irritation. The familiar tone between the 
 sisters was not always suave, but they were 
 apt to unite against a common enemy. 
 
 "I can assure you, if it were my Her- 
 mann " Frau Selbitz' eyes snapped as if 
 she had discovered her complaisant spouse in 
 flagrant dereliction. 
 
 " Oh, Hermann ! " exclaimed her sister, not 
 with marked deference. " Hermann and Aurel 
 are very different. You yourself, Orla, can 
 do nothing with Aurel." 
 
 " I don't know about that. At all events, 
 I shall not hesitate to speak with him. I 
 shall tell him it is ridiculous." 
 
 " I am sure I am willing. It is ridiculous 
 and exasperating. A serious man, a profes- 
 sional man, ought to be ashamed of himself. 
 On the contrary, he acts so serene it is quite
 
 The Garden of Eden 381 
 
 maddening. One might suppose they lived 
 in the Happy Isles, if that is the place where 
 people do as they like, with no regard for 
 public opinion. He sends Egon or Bodo 
 with a flower, or letter, or book in really the 
 most barefaced manner. Her letters come 
 straight to the house as if I were air. I 
 don't know what they mean by it. In any 
 little affair, a woman who respects herself 
 takes the trouble to save appearances. You 
 need n't laugh so maliciously, Orla. I 'm 
 sure you manage prudently enough." 
 
 "And you, Melanie? Except, perhaps, on 
 one occasion." 
 
 Frau Selbitz discussed the painful circum- 
 stance, in confidence, with a few chosen 
 friends. She stated to each that she was dis- 
 tressed on dear Melanie' s account, and merely 
 wished advice; of course it was a delicate 
 matter. 
 
 With a volley of sparkles and smiles, she 
 asked Baron Baretinsky what he really thought 
 about it; if he believed in platonic affection. 
 He, speaking with authority, declared there 
 was no such thing. Besides, when a quiet, 
 steady fellow like Arenberg decided to make 
 a fool of himself about a woman, he was apt 
 to get more entangled than a man who had
 
 382 The Garden of Eden 
 
 kept himself well in practice. Baretinsky 
 stroked his tawny moustache. He was in- 
 clined to think they did not discuss the im- 
 mortality of the soul quite all the time. 
 Then Miss Randolph certainly had queer 
 notions. For instance, she actually once 
 asked him, etc., etc. Not that he took it 
 amiss. A man never takes anything amiss 
 that a charming woman says and Miss 
 Randolph was a very charming woman. 
 Arenberg was a lucky dog. Lobanow would 
 envy him. Lobanow himself had a decided 
 faible in that direction. By the way, he, 
 Baretinsky, had made a little conundrum, 
 "Who wears Lobanow's fresh linen?" The 
 two being good friends of Baron Lobanow, 
 and that gentleman being, now and then, of 
 a morning, eccentrically regardless of his 
 toilet, vast was the mirth that ensued; and 
 pyrotechnic display of smiles and teeth, and 
 glittering black eyes, and admiring interjec- 
 tions, and fascinating fidgets had no end. 
 
 Frau Selbitz next, at Count Arco's one 
 evening, approached Lobanow with some cir- 
 cumspection and an inward gleam of malicious 
 delight. She had spoken with Baron Bare- 
 tinsky, but of course, amiable as he was, it 
 must be confessed he seemed a little super-
 
 The Garden of Eden 383 
 
 ficial in comparison with really intellectual 
 men. Here she sparkled and fidgeted with 
 much animation; but Lobanow for some 
 reason was moody. She feared, she greatly 
 feared Arenberg was seriously interested in 
 that Miss Randolph who had such a bad rec- 
 ord poor Professor Steiner that was, she 
 knew, a positive fact and young Forsythe 
 of the British Legation, and Count This, and 
 Captain That, and Lieutenant the Other. 
 She was on the best terms with those com- 
 mon men in the editorial rooms, which was 
 rather queer and Bohemian, was it not? 
 That old Mr. Loring, who had an invalid 
 wife, was continually running after her. Of 
 course one could think what one liked about 
 that. As to the Ehrensteins, they were, it 
 seemed, very attentive and friendly with her, 
 but it probably would not last. Melanie was 
 behaving like a saint. One could speak of 
 such a thing only to an old friend like Loba- 
 now, but really Arenberg was quite infatu- 
 ated. People wondered a good deal about 
 Miss Randolph's lights. They burned so 
 late. Nobody knew why. 
 
 "I presume because Miss Randolph can- 
 not see in the dark ; " and Baron Lobanow, 
 looking very clever and distinguished, in-
 
 384 The Garden of Eden 
 
 clined himself slightly before the little lady, 
 whose neck at that instant he could have 
 wrung with rapture, and moved off. 
 
 Like, yet unlike the gentle breeze that 
 stirs the stiff hollyhock stalk, and kisses 
 the opening rose, and flutters the vine leaves, 
 and caresses the lily, Orla Selbitz fulfilled 
 her mission. 
 
 Madame Baretinsky, speaking with author- 
 ity, instructed her that it was a great mistake 
 to make a fuss and so useless. "Tell your 
 sister to take no notice, and to order specially 
 nice entries. Besides, it may be all imagina- 
 tion. Have you happened to notice Aren- 
 berg's eyes? You can always detect it in 
 their eyes. Sascha shows it instantly in the 
 eyes." She spoke as if love were a light and 
 frequent form of influenza. 
 
 At the Arcos the venomous breeze found 
 an inviting field. The countess made her 
 habitual protestation that she could not be 
 expected to countenance the eccentricities of 
 all Americans abroad. She thought Miss 
 Randolph had already made herself sufficiently 
 conspicuous. What with Professor Steiner, 
 and Mr. Forsythe, and Baron Lobanow, and 
 that infatuated old Mr. Loring, not to speak 
 of his son, and This and That and the
 
 The Garden of Eden 385 
 
 Other, it was really getting rather too varie- 
 gated. And now, Arenberg ! Arenberg ! It 
 was incredible. They regarded one another 
 with virtuous horror. Count Arco said he 
 was astonished. 
 
 They had all been engaged for years in flirt- 
 ing much and often, but they instinctively 
 perceived that Arenberg was sincere. Hence 
 their moral indigestion. For a strong and 
 deep friendship between a man and woman 
 without the pale of matrimony was in their 
 eyes a crime. Very bare shoulders, very bold 
 glances, ribald jest, but half-veneered, a 
 musky atmosphere of untruth, envy, and mock- 
 ing lovelessness, the quick stab for the fallen, 
 the smirk for the rising man, creeping ser- 
 vility before senile and tottering Highnesses, 
 a large tolerance for frantic waltzing and con- 
 servatory-intermezzi in aristocratic houses, a 
 tremendous respect for the holy union of a 
 title and American dollars, such as Count and 
 Countess Arco's, or such as Leo Uhlefeldt's 
 and Florence Arco's would be, or such in 
 which husband and wife walk together through 
 life in yawning indifference, weary discon- 
 tent, or pronounced animosity, and mentally 
 less allied, giving each other less faith, 
 respect, and honesty than average business 
 25
 
 386 The Garden of Eden 
 
 associates, all this was moral. That which 
 was accepted was, obviously, moral. 
 
 Arenberg might have whispered insolent 
 flatteries to pretty women every night of his 
 life, and made love Baretinsky-love to 
 them with impunity, and waltzed madly with 
 them, provided he cared only for their charm- 
 ing little masks, and, in general, to eat, 
 drink, and be merry. For the most profound 
 emotion of which he was capable, for a love 
 that made life peace and heaven nearer, that 
 exalted and ennobled, there was no room in 
 society. 
 
 Meanwhile Arenberg was unaware of the 
 pains his sister-in-law was taking in his be- 
 half. What he felt, thought, and endured, 
 he imparted to no one. His actual inter- 
 course with Monica had thus far consisted in 
 an exchange of letters, while she was staying 
 at the Lorings' country place during the sum- 
 mer; an occasional letter since; a brief visit 
 once a week, or ten or fourteen days, as his 
 professional duties permitted, and one more 
 long and lovely walk on the hills by night. 
 
 If alone, he sometimes feared he might not 
 have sufficient strength for this relationship; 
 curiously enough, Monica herself uncon- 
 sciously reassured him. In her presence, that
 
 The Garden of Eden 387 
 
 which the world would have pronounced im- 
 possible often grew simple and clear. Yet he 
 fought many battles, as an honest man must, 
 confronted by this problem, and the great 
 Saint Benedict had a voice in the matter. 
 
 That a doctor should now and then appear 
 in the house of an old patient could create no 
 comment whatever, Arenberg reasoned, reck- 
 oning without his Orla. A doctor has the 
 right of way everywhere. Therefore Monica 
 would be unmolested. As to Melanie, 
 though they were not on terms of confidence, 
 their innermost thoughts were strangers, one 
 to the other, yet he did not for an instant 
 seek to disguise from her his new interest. 
 Flowers and books he frequently sent to cheer 
 his patients. It pleased him to send his 
 little boys with such messages to Monica, 
 and the children, it happened, liked to go. 
 
 Melanie said, one day, in the sharp and 
 querulous tone which she reserved for home 
 use: 
 
 "You seem quite intimate with that Miss 
 Randolph." 
 
 "We are very good friends." 
 
 "Is she ill?" 
 
 "On the contrary, admirably well." 
 
 "How do you happen to know her? "
 
 388 The Garden of Eden 
 
 "She was ill last spring, when her mother 
 died. I was called to her." 
 
 M^lanie was silent for a while. 
 
 "But now she is well, you continue your 
 visits ? " 
 
 "You know perfectly that I have little 
 time for any pleasure. It is, in every sense, 
 a rare pleasure when I see Miss Randolph," 
 he returned quietly. "I have no greater." 
 
 It seemed to him fair to say as much, or 
 as little as this to the woman, who, however 
 remote from him, bore his name and was the 
 mother of his children; and he knew no 
 reason in consideration of certain episodes 
 in the past, and of the fact that Melanie 
 incessantly sought her own amusement, which 
 consisted at present in long tete-a-tete with 
 Count Arco why he, on her account, need 
 hesitate an instant. 
 
 " Well ! " she exclaimed, and abruptly left 
 the room. 
 
 Jealousy without love is not uncommon, 
 but indisputably a most uncomfortable 
 malady. In the category of human ailments, 
 it should perhaps be classified with the stu- 
 pendous vanity which unloving wives display 
 on the strength of money which not they but 
 their husbands have earned, or of worldly
 
 The Garden of Eden 389 
 
 honors which those henpecked beings have 
 attained; ignoble ownership may prevail where 
 love faileth. It was startling to Frau von 
 Arenberg, that her husband, habitually pre- 
 occupied with his profession, should interest 
 himself in a woman devoid of pathological 
 charm. His frankness irritated her, and she 
 objected to the tone of infinite respect, of 
 homage, which had sounded through his brief 
 statement. Still, her vexation might have 
 passed as any other mood were it not for 
 Orla. 
 
 Orla for years had tried, in vain, to obtain 
 some vantage-ground against Arenberg. He 
 exasperated her beyond endurance. A mere 
 brother-in-law, yet so gently and successfully 
 recalcitrant. When she metaphorically put 
 her small foot upon her big Hermann, and he 
 neither squirmed nor gasped, it was but natural 
 that she should attempt dominion in the 
 adjacent region of her younger sister's domes- 
 tic affairs. Hermann was brown and burly as 
 Vulcan, yet he quailed. Aurel was slight, 
 and pale, and mild, yet from any onslaught 
 upon him she fell back powerless. When 
 she was ill he was exceedingly kind, she 
 could not deny. But, ordinarily, his expres- 
 sion of speculative, abstract interest, when at
 
 390 The Garden of Eden 
 
 a dinner she was conversing brilliantly upon 
 subjects she had expressly prepared and 
 this fact she suspected he knew or when 
 she launched herself upon the subject of his 
 family matters, was intolerable. Long ago, 
 briefly, when they were all young, he had 
 been, like Hermann, wax in her hands. She 
 could not forgive Aurel that he had so speedily 
 regained his freedom. She was always seek- 
 ing to re-establish her supremacy, and could 
 not refrain from restless, desultory attack. 
 Her darts were wont to glance back from the 
 fine armor of his tranquil impenetrability, but 
 now she exulted. 
 
 As for Monica Randolph, when she merely 
 passed in a crowded room, Frau Selbitz felt a 
 strong and not inexplicable antipathy. For 
 one was indigenous, the other exotic; one 
 dark, the other fair ; one was bright and fairly 
 well read; the other, more or less equipped, 
 worked openly in the literary field ; moreover, 
 Baron Lobanow, and Baron Bar et in sky, and 
 that pleasant Mr. Forsythe and Excel lenz 
 General Count Ehrenstein and other not in- 
 significant persons had persisted in manifest- 
 ing some interest in the stranger. 
 
 Orla Selbitz was not, however, the worst of 
 women. Pretty, to many persons pleasing,
 
 The Garden of Eden 391 
 
 she had, like most of us, her softer moments, 
 her good days. But nature had moulded her 
 rather small and hard, and her training had 
 not increased her spiritual stature. The 
 vehemence of her action in this matter was, 
 at all events, perfectly sincere. 
 
 In constantly inciting Melanie to wrath, 
 Orla was agitated by delight in the fray, an 
 idea that she was defending her altars and 
 her fires; indignation with Arenberg's unex- 
 pectedness; suspicion, ignorance, and dislike 
 of the stranger, wounded vanity, jealousy, 
 in short, mixed motives, upon the whole, no 
 more malevolent than such as may prevail in 
 large movements to which we give fair names ; 
 popular patriotism, for instance, which also 
 induces us to march out and ignorantly slay. 
 
 After a sinuous course of discussion with 
 many persons, who, knowing Arenberg, for 
 the most part gave the matter no second 
 thought, and after expounding and expatiat- 
 ing unweariedly to Hermann and Melanie, 
 Orla finally approached Aurel, and with 
 ominously resolute mien seated herself near 
 his writing-table. He looked up inquiringly, 
 heard her opening phrases, regarded her an 
 instant with grave incredulity, got up, and 
 opened the door wide.
 
 392 The Garden of Eden 
 
 "I must beg you, Orla," he said quietly, 
 "to confine such attentions to Hermann." 
 
 Why she at once obeyed the insistence of 
 his eyes she could not afterwards explain, but 
 found herself in stormy mood on the other 
 side of the door, and flew to Melanie to hold 
 a long council of war. 
 
 Monica was working hard and better. Her 
 pen had lost its perilous facility, and she 
 occasionally said what she meant. She had 
 written a couple of small books in the three 
 years. So far as she remembered the manu- 
 scripts, she had not read them in print, for 
 she possessed a natural taste for good litera- 
 ture, they were puny and anaemic infants. 
 But the novel she had now begun promised to 
 be more muscular. Arenberg was vastly in- 
 terested in it. "Whether the little writing 
 demon in her was the transfiguration of some 
 poet who had lived many thousands of years 
 ago, or a sublimated distillation of a whole 
 horde of spooks," Arenberg assured her, he 
 liked and was proud of him. 
 
 Arenberg was the first person whose influ- 
 ence was of positive help to her in her work. 
 He never found fault with her for not being 
 somebody else, but aided her to be more truly 
 herself. His companionship was a profound
 
 The Garden of Eden 393 
 
 joy. Not only his wide range of knowledge, 
 his familiarity with literature and languages, 
 delighted her, but more and more he revealed 
 an extreme gentleness, a large, general be- 
 nevolence, a wise interest in small things, 
 a way of always seeking the simple and the 
 good. He transported her to a realm where 
 was more space, more air. Her mother's 
 death had led him into her life. Over their 
 friendship brooded this sweet and solemn 
 memory. His hand had sustained, his voice 
 recalled her to life and duty. It would have 
 been hardly possible for her at that time to 
 express, in words, her sentiments for him. 
 She did not question them, however. If one 
 of the angels and archangels of the floating 
 vision of her childhood had descended and. 
 stood before her, he would hardly have im- 
 pressed her more than Arenberg, in some 
 moments, perhaps, indeed, less. For the 
 patient heroism of his life she was beginning 
 to perceive; and it must be easier to float 
 about on wings and cry Holy than to be an 
 overworked doctor with a delicate constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 In her attitude toward him was something 
 which he found nobly fraternal. She was for 
 him the one woman on earth, but often he
 
 394 The Garden of Eden 
 
 felt, with immense satisfaction, that in cer- 
 tain respects she was like a man-friend. To 
 no person had he ever spoken with such unre- 
 serve. Many rich elements, as always in the 
 strongest and best attachments, rendered their 
 intercourse ever fresh, interesting, and sweeter. 
 Monica loved all her dead loves, and loved 
 them to the day of her death and beyond. 
 Keith, too, was a dead love now, as far away 
 as her mother and Lilian. But this affection 
 included them all. Arenberg gradually, im- 
 perceptibly, subtly, was becoming her home, 
 her country, her family, her brother, her 
 friend, her dearest love, her religion, her 
 highest good. But so natural, so inevitable 
 was this, she had not once thought of herself 
 as being what is called "in love." 
 
 He was the blessing sent to her in her 
 anguish. He lent a deeper significance to her 
 life. It was an exceedingly busy life that 
 winter. Many shipwrecked wanderers with 
 tale of dire disaster found their way to her. 
 She needed to join no benevolent club or 
 society. Strange confidences, touching reve- 
 lations and entreaties came continually un- 
 sought. Sometimes people whom she was 
 aiding deceived her, which troubled her 
 little. She saw no reason why falsehood
 
 The Garden of Eden 395 
 
 should be exclusively the prerogative of po- 
 lite* society. The fibs of the poor seemed 
 indeed but a venial sin, all things consid- 
 ered. In many ways, with Arenberg's wise 
 counsel, she was working for and helping 
 little children, and had great schemes for 
 them in view. Altogether, with her news- 
 paper work, her music, her book, and her 
 active interest in human lives, her days were 
 busier and more useful than before, and over 
 them like a white radiance shone Arenberg's 
 affection. 
 
 One afternoon, much to her surprise, Frau 
 von Arenberg was announced. She came in 
 bright and dark, and said smilingly she 
 thought it was time she, too, should become 
 acquainted with so good a friend of her hus- 
 band and her little boys. Monica found this 
 very natural and kind. The lively little lady 
 chattered on, looked well at Monica, and 
 exhaustively at the room. They had almost 
 met so often, Melanie said, she had determined, 
 at last, to give herself the pleasure. 
 
 "Kill her with amiability," Orla had said. 
 " Take the matter into your own hands. Con- 
 trol it. That is the first thing to do. Get 
 control." Count Arco thought the idea excel-- 
 lent.
 
 396 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Melanie decided, as she sat by Monica on 
 the sofa, that she was not, after all the 
 excitement, so dangerous as Orla imagined. 
 Of course, if one cares for that style ! 
 Melanie preferred an altogether different 
 style. The room looked not at all inviting 
 like a man's room: so many books and 
 papers. She wondered how often Aurel came 
 there, and what he found so very interesting 
 in Monica, and what they talked about. 
 With curious, bright, hard glances, Melanie 
 made her inventory. 
 
 Monica thought it good of her to come, and 
 because she was Arenberg's wife, felt a sin- 
 cere and rather wistful interest in her, would 
 have liked to care for anybody or anything 
 dear to him, remembered at the moment not 
 a word of Elizabeth's disclosures, assumed 
 Melanie must be near to him, yet wondered 
 instinctively if she understood him, for her 
 conversation and her manner were as if she 
 inhabited another world from his. 
 
 Monica asked her how he was. She had 
 thought he looked very fatigued when she 
 last saw him. 
 
 Melanie replied, "Oh dear, yes; he raced 
 about so it was natural he should look tired." 
 But he was tough, she thought, wiry. She
 
 The Garden of Eden 397 
 
 hardly saw him herself. He came in usually 
 after lunch, and irregularly to dinner. 
 
 "Never marry a doctor, Miss Randolph," 
 she said, with some bitterness in her laugh. 
 "A doctor's wife has a miserable, neglected 
 existence, I assure you. She might as well 
 have no husband as one never on hand." 
 
 Monica heard the discontent, but mistook 
 its cause, thought it a note of natural affec- 
 tion, when it was but a note of selfishness, 
 believed it meant longing for Arenberg's 
 companionship instead of a huge impatience 
 with his profession, and with his total indif- 
 ference to the only kind of life she craved. 
 She was small and childish, like her Egon, 
 and petulant Monica saw only feeling. 
 Arenberg seemed so unutterably precious, 
 and here was his poor little wife complaining 
 that she never saw him. Perhaps this was 
 the motive of the visit. I am not in the world 
 to make people suffer, thought Monica. With 
 a warm rush of emotion, and one of her sudden 
 impulses, face to face, eye to eye, she looked 
 at the woman so near her, and said steadily: 
 
 "Do you want me to go away? Because, 
 if you ask me, I will go." 
 
 "Oh dear, no," replied Frau von Aren- 
 berg, shaking her head airily.
 
 398 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Monica went on, very pale: 
 
 " I am glad of the opportunity to say to you 
 how attached I am to Dr. Arenberg. It is 
 not possible to know him without affection. 
 He has been wonderful to me. I have had 
 losses, and he has helped me to bear them. 
 His is the highest nature I have known, and 
 the most lovable. I care more deeply for him 
 than for any one in the world. But nothing 
 binds me. I can go anywhere; I will, if you 
 ask me. " 
 
 "She is queer," thought M61anie. "Fancy 
 me telling Countess Arco how devoted I am 
 to the count ! " Aloud : " I trust I am suffi- 
 ciently a woman of the world not to take a 
 little affair too seriously. On the contrary, I 
 pray, amuse yourselves as much as you like. 
 And if ever you have the whim to come to see 
 him in his office hours, he would be charmed, 
 no doubt. " 
 
 Monica failed to understand this flippant 
 amiability and talk of whims and amusing 
 themselves. She felt out of accord with her 
 visitor, yet still desirous of finding her 
 friendly, lovable. Melanie took leave cor- 
 dially, after begging her to come to afternoon 
 tea on the following day. Thus spake Orla. 
 
 Monica found the sisters exceedingly viva-
 
 The Garden of Eden 399 
 
 cious, and was conscious that Frau Selbitz 
 and she were not precisely elective affinities. 
 Frau von Arenberg she was conscientiously 
 trying to like. But conscience never yet 
 controlled sympathy. What they deemed 
 important, desirable, and indispensable was 
 the reverse to her; for example, breathless 
 interest in the movements of their Majesties, 
 whether they were in this or that castle, had 
 driven in the park or on the hills, how many 
 minutes the prince had spoken with some 
 blissful mortal at a ball, and other equally 
 astounding and portentous incidents. 
 
 Count Arco came in, amiable and idle, and 
 contributed the very latest court news. Monica 
 knew that Frau Selbitz was watching her con- 
 stantly, and that benevolence dwelt not in 
 those beady black eyes. She thought, with- 
 out condemnation, merely with a clear sense 
 of being alien to this group, that it was well 
 she had not to drink tea with them every 
 day. Still she endeavored to exclude M^lanie 
 because she belonged to Arenberg. 
 
 "He is in his study, and has no suspicion 
 who is here," Melanie said, laughing. "He 
 does not yet know I, too, have the honor of 
 your acquaintance. If you happen to be in 
 the mood, pray go in he probably is closeted
 
 400 The Garden of Eden 
 
 with ailing butchers and bakers, but he would 
 be charmed, no doubt. " 
 
 They all laughed. This was what Orla 
 called control. 
 
 "I should hardly like to disturb him," 
 Monica replied, flushed, and wondered if her 
 reply were not foolish. 
 
 Self-consciousness was not usually her weak- 
 ness, but their jest for that which she revered, 
 confused her. Had they enticed her here 
 merely to mock? She pictured Arenberg 
 with his butchers and bakers, their aches and 
 their lives the better for his ministrations, 
 and suddenly she was calm and comforted. 
 
 He evinced no surprise or disapproval when 
 his wife, with a certain triumphant intona- 
 tion, announced that she had been to see Miss 
 Randolph, and the interview had passed off 
 very well. 
 
 "Why should it not?" he said, with a 
 slight smile. "There was hardly a necessity 
 to have it rival the celebrated meeting of 
 Queen Elizabeth and Maria Stuart." 
 
 "And yesterday she was here to tea," 
 Me'lanie continued, and afterwards assured 
 Orla that Aurel acted most indifferent. 
 
 " Acts, yes, acts He is a good actor. 
 But have her here often. Control them."
 
 The Garden of Eden 401 
 
 Arenberg, having no ambition to control any- 
 thing beyond his own affairs, reasoned that his 
 wife was a free agent and had the right to make 
 acquaintances and invite ladies to tea precisely 
 as seemed good to her. Yet could he have 
 prevented her action, he would. She gave him, 
 indeed, no opportunity; and had she intimated 
 her design, the slightest word of opposition on 
 his part would but have roused her suspicion 
 and precipitated the meeting. He distrusted 
 Orla, and vaguely foresaw rough weather. 
 
 It was as if Monica and he had left their 
 still island, and put off in a frail bark toward 
 stormy waters. But the first night she came 
 to dinner the atmosphere was innocuous, and 
 he experienced a deep yet sad sort of happi- 
 ness as he beheld her under his own roof, and 
 among the familiar things of his daily life. 
 She saw his queer, large study, with its niches 
 and alcoves, and strange instruments, and 
 books from floor to ceiling, and the curiosity- 
 shop department, and his Murillo, and the 
 appointments of his writing-table, and Saint 
 Benedict. 
 
 "A nice dark-tower, crawly sort of place," 
 she thought. 
 
 " Uncommonly graceful figure beautiful 
 thing, Arenberg," said Baron Lobanow. 
 26
 
 402 The Garden of Eden 
 
 "But ghastly," added Baretinsky. "You 
 doctors can stomach anything. You have no 
 sense of the disagreeable." 
 
 " We get rather hardened in time, happily." 
 
 " Who is the old chap ? " 
 
 "Only a monk. I picked it up once in 
 Nuremberg. It is good old work. Beautiful 
 anatomy. " 
 
 " Fine ! " said Lobanow. 
 
 "Upon my word, Arenberg, " exclaimed 
 Baretinsky, jovially, " I believe he is a bit 
 thinner than you!" 
 
 "Yes, in point of leanness I can emulate 
 almost anybody, saint, sinner, or grey- 
 hound. " 
 
 Monica silently examined the hooded monk, 
 knew not who he was, but whom he was 
 strangely like. The emaciated yet noble 
 features of the bowed head under the cowl, 
 the inscrutable, downward glance, with the 
 mystery and lofty sadness, the restraining 
 finger on the lip; and even the tall, slight 
 form, in spite of clinging robe and girdle 
 of rope, and the large cross lying along the 
 arm, were well known to her. But then 
 so many exquisite and ideal heads suggested 
 Arenberg. 
 
 The experienced Madame von Baretinsky,
 
 The Garden of Eden 403 
 
 after thorough inspection, whispered to Orla 
 there was not the least indication of " it " in 
 Arenberg's eyes. Orla could trust her diag- 
 nosis. But, on the other hand, Orla observed, 
 and duly called M61anie's attention to the 
 fact, that Arenberg's patients seemed to be 
 in a very flourishing condition that evening; 
 at all events, contrary to his custom, he hung 
 about a good hour after dinner. 
 
 Thereafter, for some weeks Monica found 
 herself frequently in this little circle, where 
 she never once felt happy. Yet if Frau von 
 Arenberg was kind enough to constantly 
 invite her and come for her to run over to 
 the Arcos' or to Frau Selbitz', and display to 
 the world a distinct sort of intimacy, the 
 outward intimacy of but hollow intercourse, 
 it seemed ungracious and ungrateful to 
 repulse a healthful liberality of sentiment 
 which Monica was well aware few women 
 possessed. 
 
 These invitations made large inroads on 
 her time, and she was nearer Arenberg and 
 infinitely more content, alone in her own 
 study. Elizabeth and Eleanor complained, 
 they hardly saw her, and never, now, had their 
 audacious little midnight discussions in which 
 they three set the world to rights. It was all
 
 404 The Garden of Eden 
 
 unsatisfactory and depressing to Monica; and 
 while she yielded to circumstances she re- 
 proached herself for the great waste of time, 
 and determined to free herself gradually from 
 the demands of a society for which she had 
 no aptitude. 
 
 Several insignificant incidents proved to 
 her beyond the possibility of doubt that Orla 
 Selbitz meant mischief. In her presence some 
 subtle instinct flung out signals of danger. 
 
 One evening, at a dinner at the Arenbergs', 
 Monica happened to say, idly, as Lobanow 
 alluded to the "blonde Achilles," that she 
 thought blonde men were more sympathetic; 
 at least, she personally understood them better 
 than the Othellos. Some trifling jest ensued. 
 Suddenly from the other end of the table a 
 pointed voice exclaimed : 
 
 "But Professor Honold, in Munich, is not 
 blonde, Miss Randolph." 
 
 A short pause of expectation, but long 
 enough to recall to Monica an all but forgotten 
 episode. Ultra genteel persons are advised 
 to skip this paragraph, which is rather shock- 
 ing. Long ago, she, Elizabeth, and Lai 
 Loring took a short excursion into the country 
 with a certain learned man and his wife, who, 
 having completed their quest sooner than they
 
 The Garden of Eden 405 
 
 anticipated, proposed going on to Munich, 
 which was near. After but one day there 
 they returned home; the young people, hav- 
 ing special art treasures in view, decided to 
 follow them by the evening train. While 
 Monica was rapidly outlining an article for 
 the Panyphone, Elizabeth and Lai Loring 
 wandered forth, wasted their substance, and 
 brought back porcelain pictures, and nice 
 little silver monks, and empty pockets. 
 
 Before their friends went, a careful discus- 
 sion of finances had taken place. But painted 
 porcelain and silver! There was no time to 
 telegraph home, little for counsel, and it was 
 imperative that they should leave by the 
 seven o'clock train, for Monica was needed at 
 the Nosegay office on the following morning, 
 Elizabeth at the Conservatory, and Lai Lor- 
 ing was more than due at his University. 
 Money enough to pay their hotel bill and 
 buy their tickets, they had not, not indeed 
 enough for either one or the other. The 
 two culprits jeered and goaded Monica. 
 Elizabeth said it was nice and Bohemian. 
 Lai Loring suggested pawning his watch, 
 thought the hotel man might trust them. 
 Then there was the American Consul. It 
 was his duty to succor distressed compatriots.
 
 406 The Garden of Eden 
 
 But the Consulate was far, and perhaps he 
 was not there. 
 
 " Where is your contempt for money now, 
 Monica?" 
 
 " Unshaken. I am going to Professor 
 Honold. He is the only person I know in 
 the place. He is a gentleman. He devoted 
 hours to us yesterday, and begged me, if he 
 could serve us in the slightest way to-day, to 
 command him. I would rather be indebted 
 to him for one half -day they will send it 
 from the bank the first thing to-morrow morn- 
 ing than to have to make explanations to the 
 hotel people." 
 
 But as they drew near the Museum, and 
 mounted the great stairway, Monica quaked. 
 
 "Oh," she said, "it is very distressing. I 
 have the proper contempt for money, but how 
 do I know he has ! " 
 
 "Clear case of the barking dog," returned 
 Elizabeth, cheerfully. "The little boy's 
 mother asked him how he could be afraid, 
 since the barking dog never bites. ' I know 
 the barking dog never bites,' said the boy, 
 ' but how do I know the dog knows it ? ' 
 
 With this meagre moral support, Monica 
 presented herself and her pitiful plight before 
 the cordial man with his great brown beard.
 
 The Garden of Eden 407 
 
 He divined her errand almost before she be- 
 gan, made the matter so simple, so natural, so 
 altogether easy, that one was tempted to infer 
 this little recreation lay in the line of his daily 
 duties; and Monica's contempt for money and 
 faith in human nature triumphed superbly. 
 
 But now, as the sharp little voice chal- 
 lenged her, and she perceived instinctively 
 all these people were acquainted with the 
 tale, and could well distort its light structure, 
 she had, for an instant, stage fright; then, 
 slowly looking upon her surroundings, " like 
 a Horatius Codes in miniature," Arenberg 
 told her afterwards, she regarded the smiling 
 enemy, and it was really but a few seconds 
 since she heard those startling words, "But 
 -Professor Honold, in Munich, is not blonde," 
 before she answered clearly and deliberately : 
 
 "No, but he has a blonde soul." 
 
 Because the men laughed, Orla Selbitz 
 liked her less than ever. That same evening 
 they were discussing Rome, and an incident 
 at an audience of the Pope. 
 
 "Did you really kneel and kiss his hand? " 
 asked Melanie. 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 " What principles for a Protestant ! " said 
 Orla.
 
 408 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " Oh, I am not a rabid protester, " returned 
 Monica, with a little laugh. "Besides, I 
 would kiss the hand of any venerable man." 
 
 "It is surprising how diametrically our 
 tastes differ," remarked Baretinsky. 
 
 These things were mere pin-pricks, Monica 
 reflected, but Orla Selbitz's inimical scrutiny 
 followed her persistently, and kept her always 
 on guard. Moreover, to meet Arenberg in 
 this superficial, fruitless fashion, and in an 
 atmosphere where he, as little as she, breathed 
 freely, awoke in her an inexplicable unrest. 
 In February an illness of Frau von Arenberg 
 interrupted a state of affairs which, with a 
 strong crescendo had been growing to Mon- 
 ica more and more unedifying. 
 
 In nearly three weeks she had not seen 
 Arenberg, but had received from him one or 
 two brief messages, thoughtful, singularly 
 charming and characteristic, as were all his 
 letters. She was working quietly and pa- 
 tiently, though longing always for his presence. 
 She heard from him that, besides much work 
 on all sides, he had somewhat of a hospital 
 at home, both children being ill. He had no 
 prospect of coming to her, yet greatly desired 
 to see her, having the references she wished, 
 and would she, if she were not too busy, be
 
 The Garden of Eden 409 
 
 so very good as to come in that afternoon for 
 a few minutes. 
 
 Monica as she went out asked Frau Erhardt 
 to kindly beg Elizabeth if she should want 
 her, to wait ; she should not be gone long, Dr. 
 Arenberg wished to see her an instant. It 
 was a blustering, slippery, snowy day. Just 
 before her Monica saw Frau Selbitz pick her 
 way across an icy spot, and enter the Aren- 
 berg house. From the waiting-room, among 
 the butchers and bakers, poor dears, Monica 
 could have slipped in to the study unobserved, 
 which however did not occur to her. To 
 save time, she sent in her name, was shown 
 an instant into the drawing-room, and imme- 
 diately into Arenberg' s study. In the long 
 clasp of their hands, the meeting of their 
 glad glances, was infinite tenderness, an 
 essential caress. Monica loosened her furs, 
 and sat down in the chair he pulled near 
 his desk. They had not spoken a half-dozen 
 trivial words, but both were smiling as if life 
 were pure sunshine, when a door was violently 
 flung open, and a little woman in a volumi- 
 nous green tea-gown entered with precipita- 
 tion. Melanie's face was convulsed with 
 rage, and colored deep yellow by jaundice.
 
 410 The Garden of Eden 
 
 XV 
 
 THE two by the table rose involuntarily. 
 
 Melanie came forward. 
 
 " Miss Randolph," she cried, " this is dis- 
 graceful. Why are you here behind my back 
 and taking advantage of my illness?" 
 
 " Melanie ! " exclaimed Arenberg, pale and 
 suddenly taller. 
 
 She advanced upon Monica, who, knowing 
 all this was most awful, instead of consciously 
 realizing its awfulness, began in a senseless 
 fashion to remotely watch their three figures, 
 hers and theirs, as if they were on the stage, 
 and to wonder childishly at that yellow face, 
 how any face could possibly be so yellow, how 
 singularly vivid it looked in contrast to that 
 green, and what process actually took place 
 in the liver and the blood to render a face so 
 yellow. And all the time she perceived the 
 sharpness of feature, eye, and voice, the un- 
 curbed aggressive violence. She had never 
 seen a woman in such a frenzy of anger 
 never listened to so wild a volley of insult. 
 Arenberg stepped again between them.
 
 The Garden of Eden 411 
 
 "Melanie!" he repeated low and strongly, 
 as if to recall her to reason, and laid his hand 
 upon her shoulder. She shook it off contemp- 
 tuously and continued her " Words words 
 
 words." 
 
 Out of the depths of Monica's condition of 
 psychological incongruity rose a clear and 
 cool perception that this was a very trying 
 moment for Arenberg. She also observed 
 that he looked extremely handsome. She 
 wondered what he would now do. But most 
 of all she wondered at Melanie's yellow face. 
 
 " Miss Randolph was good enough to come 
 down," Arenberg began, as soon as the torrent 
 of words ceased long enough to permit him 
 to speak, " for the simple reason that I ex- 
 pressly begged her to come." 
 
 His perfect control and intense gravity 
 seemed to impress the irritated little woman 
 
 already conscious her outbreak was ex- 
 treme. Monica had not moved, felt not the 
 slightest sense of responsibility, or any neces- 
 sity of response. 
 
 Arenberg approached, took her by the 
 hand, led her across the room, and said with 
 sadness : 
 
 " Forgive me that I unwittingly caused you 
 this," kissed her hands, and closed the study
 
 412 The Garden of Eden 
 
 door upon her. She passed out, attended by 
 Wolf, and quiet, but when she reached the 
 street, found herself trembling violently. 
 
 "What does this mean, Melanie?" Aren- 
 berg asked, pale and stern. 
 
 She sobbed hysterically. From her inco- 
 herent complaints he gathered that Orla was 
 hateful enough to want to wear Melanie's Ital- 
 ian peasant costume, the most becoming thing 
 she had, to the Arcos' fancy ball, to which she 
 could not go. Orla intended to be photo- 
 graphed in it too ! And Orla had seen Miss 
 Randolph coming, and it was detestable of her. 
 Everybody was detestable. Melanie threw her- 
 self upon the sofa, wept copiously, said she was 
 ill, wished she were dead, had gone into a cold 
 room to get the costume, and her throat hurt 
 her. 
 
 Without a word, Arenberg examined her 
 throat. All that night he sat up with her. 
 Already ill, excited, exhausted, she was seized 
 with diphtheria in malignant form. 
 
 It was no time for reproaches, and they were, 
 he knew, useless. During the night-watches, 
 as he tended his patient, he beheld many pic- 
 tures of the past. 
 
 A young man, hardly more than a boy, fond 
 of study and work; of art, inclined to gentle
 
 The Garden of Eden 413 
 
 melancholy, full of impossible ideal schemes 
 for the good of humanity, extremely ignorant 
 of woman but adoring her in passionate vis- 
 ions of beauty and perfect bliss that youth 
 at the University knew an older student, Sel- 
 bitz by name, and later in another town was 
 invited to his house. The wife was pretty, 
 vivacious, and hospitable unceasing in her 
 attentions to the young baron with his eccen- 
 tric taste for the medical profession. Soon 
 she sent for a younger sister, fresh from 
 school. Dinners, picnics, dances and endless 
 opportunity were provided bounteously. The 
 youth and the maiden were cooped up insidi- 
 ously together. He did not instinctively care 
 for her nor she for him. At first much in her 
 repelled him. But the astute young wife 
 played providence, the sister was always there, 
 the parties on foot, by boat, on horseback suc- 
 ceeded, wherever they failed, in inducing one 
 long tete-a-tete. He was young, his tem- 
 perament amorous, the girl was young and 
 near pushed, as it were, into his arms. They 
 became engaged. It was not long before he 
 was aware of their utter incompatibility. All 
 the billing and cooing in the world was not 
 sufficient to blind him to the fact that there 
 was a singular thinness of mental atmosphere
 
 414 The Garden of Eden 
 
 and at times a remarkable hardness of senti- 
 ment in this little person. Not one thought 
 from the inner chambers of his mind could he 
 lay before her. But he was gentle with his 
 two-and-twenty years and timidly averse to 
 giving pain inclined to procrastinate, to 
 temporize. When, however, ugly and violent 
 scenes about trifles occurred and seemed to 
 separate him world wide from her, when he 
 realized that she cared not a whit for anything 
 that he held dear, a great disillusion restored 
 his judgment. He had been a fool, but he did 
 not love this girl. He saw too she would be 
 happier with another type of man. There was 
 absolutely no likeness, no sympathy between 
 them, no common interest. Often enough 
 she seemed distinctly happier when other men 
 were present. He intimated his convictions to 
 Selbitz, who submitted them to his wife, who 
 with her inherent tendency to control, scolded 
 little M61anie into shape, whipped her, so to 
 speak, into docility and made, via Hermann, 
 a splendid appeal to Arenberg's chivalrous- 
 ness, honor and delicacy qualities which he 
 unfortunately possessed in quixotic supera- 
 bundance. When a man of his standing drew 
 back, it hurt the girl for life. This may be a 
 debatable question for impartial men. " For
 
 The Garden of Eden 415 
 
 life " is large measurement. But when an 
 honest young fellow of two-and-twenty is guilt- 
 ily aware that he has kissed a child of seven- 
 teen wildly and innumerable times in a dark 
 wood and elsewhere, if an older man solemnly 
 invokes such tremendous ancestral apparitions 
 as knightliness and generous protection to the 
 feebler sex, the boy is apt to succumb. Aren- 
 berg was very miserable. He knew too that 
 Melanie would be happier with another type 
 of man, the gayest sort of lieutenant. 
 Her lightness appalled him even more than 
 her tempers. But Selbitz encouraged him, in- 
 sisted little differences occurred between all 
 lovers ; Orla saw that rich opportunities never 
 failed ; Melanie was pretty, had bright moods, 
 and was the only woman he had ardently 
 kissed : he was procrastinating, visionary, in- 
 dulgent, and he married her. 
 
 There she lay in painful snatches of fevered 
 sleep. He sat by the shaded light, and, dead 
 tired, regulated the atomizer. The compresses 
 and medicines were in order. Her pulse was 
 rapid, her temperature high, but in the last 
 two hours, not perceptibly increased. Occa- 
 sionally he went to glance at the boys. 
 
 He beheld another picture. A wedding 
 journey. The youthful husband, in spite of
 
 4i 6 The Garden of Eden 
 
 past doubts and fears, enamored, romantic, 
 oblivious, blissful. A drive over a noble 
 mountain pass. Arrival in an hotel on a 
 height. Scenery magnificent. Sudden discov- 
 ery of negligence of luggage on the part of the 
 bridegroom. The bride has no toilette for din- 
 ner. Scene tempestuous attack floods 
 of tears. A bit of temper is no harm, say 
 some men but this lovelessness, on his wed- 
 ding day, froze this man's soul. 
 
 Arenberg renewed the compresses, gave 
 some orders to the boys' nurse, administered 
 the medicine and steadily directed the spray 
 of the atomizer. He pressed his hand upon 
 his heart. It was a very ill-regulated heart 
 that night. 
 
 Other pictures advanced and retreated. The 
 first years? Well, he had loved no one else 
 and never hated her. But the appalling want 
 of sympathy ! It was like a marriage between 
 beings of two different species something 
 impossible monstrous. Still, they were 
 mated for life. In spite of the convictions of 
 his brain, his warm heart sought happiness 
 with her, sought to make her happy, sought 
 desperately to deceive itself. The two boys 
 came. He clung to his traditions of marriage, 
 family, the holiness and sweet, conciliatory
 
 The Garden of Eden 417 
 
 power of childhood. But as he daily returned, 
 worn out, from his first grappling with the 
 grim foes of physical humanity, to sharp petu- 
 lance, chronic dissatisfaction, lovelessness to 
 him and no visible joy in the children, obsti- 
 nate social ambitions, he grew weary and, striv- 
 ing no more, endured his home and devoted 
 himself ever more ardently to his professional 
 life. 
 
 He opened all the casements, let the night 
 air blow for some moments through the room 
 with difficulty induced Melanie to swallow 
 a little nourishing drink, turned her pillows, 
 touched her forehead, her breast, her wrist, sat 
 down and regulated the fall of the life-giving 
 spray. It was three o'clock in the morning. 
 
 Another picture rose before him. A dash- 
 ing, handsome lieutenant a cousin of his, a 
 guest in his house, a dancer, a winner at 
 races and baccarat, a merry fellow, and no 
 scoundrel, though over fond of women not 
 woman and under fond of books. It was 
 compromising the affair. Divorce would 
 have been attainable. Arenberg seriously con- 
 sidered it or separation. But the young 
 children, the traditions of family. Besides, 
 Melanie wept, and accused him of neglect, and 
 Arenberg loved no one. He was at heart a 
 27
 
 4i 8 The Garden of Eden 
 
 sad and patient man tame, as he called him- 
 self. Moreover, he recognized with immense 
 compassion the inevitableness of things. He 
 had pondered much upon M&anie's nature and 
 training. The result of these factors was cor- 
 rect. Logically and humanly she was not to 
 blame. He was most at fault, having married 
 this young thing whom he knew to be utterly 
 unsuited to him. Had he been less dreamy, 
 less timid, weak, and malleable, truer to his 
 convictions, manly and energetic, this wretched 
 union would not have taken place. 
 
 Orla had intentionally flung into his young 
 and yearning arms a kissable girl. Was it just 
 that a few foolish kisses should decide a man's 
 life? Baretinsky thought otherwise and suf- 
 fered not at all. But he had an indulgent, a 
 motherly companion. 
 
 Suddenly Melanie opened her eyes, and with 
 extreme difficulty spoke : 
 
 " Am I going to die, Aurel? " 
 
 " Oh no," he replied, with his mild profes- 
 sional smile. " You are doing very well." 
 
 She saw him bending over her, kind, solicit- 
 ous, his face impenetrable. 
 
 Again her lips moved. 
 
 " I suppose I was rather hateful," she 
 whispered/
 
 The Garden of Eden 419 
 
 " May I tell Miss Randolph you were ill and 
 excited, and right it? " 
 
 " Yes," she murmured. 
 
 Presently she reopened her eyes and mo- 
 tioned with her hand. He leaned over her. 
 Very feebly and painfully she said : 
 
 " Ask her from me to continue to be your 
 friend." 
 
 " That is a kind thought, MeUanie," he re- 
 turned warmly, and recognized it as a noble 
 victory over herself whether it lasted or 
 not. 
 
 She drowsed again. 
 
 No, he had never hated this woman. She 
 was the associate of his youth and the mother 
 of his children. He wished her well. He 
 could never intentionally cause her unneces- 
 sary pain. She was not personally at fault, 
 that every chord and fibre of their natures were 
 at variance. But the miserable, miserable 
 years ! Slowly they passed in review, the 
 sombre, comfortless, lost years. 
 
 And the future, considered practically? 
 Divorce? Separation? But MeUanie had since 
 that time long ago incurred no conventional 
 reproach and would never consent to what she 
 regarded as social degradation. The real so- 
 cial degradation was the life they two led
 
 420 The Garden of Eden 
 
 together. But Monica he knew with abso- 
 lute certainty she too would reject such a step, 
 that the mere possibility would never of itself 
 enter her thoughts. Had all this come years 
 ago but now what had he to offer? All 
 men were dying men he rather more mori- 
 bund than most. 
 
 But he loved her immeasurably, with the 
 strength of his sorrow, the strength of his 
 longing, the strength of his unassuaged man's 
 heart. He loved her, soul and body, body 
 and soul, undivided and the aggregate of 
 human suffering would be, he believed, con- 
 siderably less if the heads in hieroglyphic 
 mitres had not been troubling themselves all 
 these centuries to separate the inseparable. 
 He probed his deepest heart. He found there 
 nothing to blush for, before Monica, his wife 
 or himself not even when he considered all 
 contingencies. 
 
 What had the mother said whose dead 
 hand led him to her child ? Keep her life pure, 
 keep her soul white. What was pure ? What 
 was white? He smiled superbly. As if 
 anything this world could do to her, anything 
 in the universe could stain the purity of that 
 most chaste nature. Still 
 
 He ministered to Me*lanie's needs and re-
 
 The Garden of Eden 421 
 
 garded her and all her life with immense com- 
 passion. But this was the essence of his 
 solemn thought : 
 
 " There is no room in the world for my heart's 
 love. There ought to be room for it. In 
 exactly this situation, there ought to be a 
 solution, offering no harshness to this woman, 
 my wife only in name : no affront to her 
 prejudices or her vanity, entailing no sacrifice 
 of her idols; a solution which should harm no 
 hair of my children's heads, but rather bless 
 them with more sunshine ; a solution accept- 
 able to all three and to the community at 
 large a just, kind, simple, and sane solution." 
 He divined it, saw it clearly. 
 
 But society would execrate it the society 
 he knew so well, Courts, the nobility, the 
 middle classes, the miserable poor. And it 
 was they they whom his scheme would 
 shock. Ah, the ineffable irony ! To-day his 
 sane and simple solution would wound their 
 sensibilities and alarm their virtue. One day, 
 after changes, growth, enlightenment, inevitable 
 regeneration, emancipated men and women 
 would stand side by side in purer atmosphere 
 and on holier ground but he and Monica 
 and Melanie would have long since passed 
 over into the great silence.
 
 422 The Garden of Eden 
 
 Monica returned home in despair and cut 
 to the heart by the trenchant cruelty of that 
 scene. Was her creed, then, so unknown, so 
 impossible, so preposterous that no other 
 woman could share it? Elizabeth and Eleanor, 
 yes but they were not wives. Was there no 
 wife on earth capable of loving a man per- 
 fectly, and leaving him free? Was love but 
 ownership ? And Melanie what was in her 
 heart for Arenberg, since she could pain him 
 so sorely ! Why had she come, sought Monica 
 out, sanctioned the friendship, invited her, 
 run after her, made much of her, given her 
 in every way to understand she was welcome, 
 then turned in jealousy upon her? She was 
 so secure and unsuspecting. It was all in- 
 credible. She comprehended nothing, not 
 Melanie's motives, not her angry attack, least 
 of all, her sentiments toward Arenberg. 
 
 Words were spoken not pleasant for a 
 woman to hear. They fell like blows. They 
 tingled now that all was over. Monica re- 
 sented them. But her faith in Arenberg was 
 her consolation and her stronghold. He 
 comprehended all that perplexed her. He 
 would show her the way. Suddenly, from 
 the past, still living but far far receded, came 
 a memory of her own weakness: of restless-
 
 The Garden of Eden 423 
 
 ness at the mere suggestion that Keith took 
 pleasure in Kitty's home : and Keith had little 
 joy and Keith was always noble. She 
 remembered that she had felt deprived of her 
 rights when his letters ceased to come that 
 she had pleaded, remonstrated and implored. 
 In true love yes. But true love has no 
 rights except the sovereign right of giving. 
 She made a solemn covenant with herself 
 which according to her strength she kept. 
 
 With wandering thoughts Monica listened 
 to the Frau Professor at dinner, who said a 
 friend was coming from Bonn to stay awhile 
 with her Monica would like her. She was 
 indeed better suited to Monica than to the 
 Frau Professor, and years younger, and poeti- 
 cal, while she, as Monica knew, was prose 
 itself. Still the friendship was a good one and 
 had come about in an odd way which she had 
 never mentioned to any one. Dr. von Aren- 
 berg, she suspected, was aware of it but she 
 did not mind telling Monica, who had suddenly 
 begun to listen. 
 
 They Professor Erhardt and she were 
 staying in a little inn in the Black Forest, 
 where he had been ordered one summer for his 
 chest. His lungs were already very delicate. 
 A little widow with a frail boy of five or six
 
 424 The Garden of Eden 
 
 soon arrived and they were all much together, 
 in the woods the livelong day. 
 
 Now the professor was poetical. That was 
 his hobby. And Monica knew what she was. 
 During their engagement and the first years 
 of their marriage, he had hardly missed the 
 poetical element in her, he had been poetical 
 enough for both. But as the years went on, 
 and he discovered she cared nothing, absolutely 
 nothing, for his verses, knew nothing about 
 them, it was of course rather depressing to 
 him. To go spouting your verses to yourself 
 all the time can hardly be very entertaining. 
 
 " Well, in the Black Forest, under the pines, 
 he and the little widow read poetry, wrote 
 poetry, lived poetry, and my husband was 
 blissful. They would have bored me to death 
 if they had not made me terribly unhappy. 
 For my husband and I were a very devoted 
 loving couple. That I can say with truth. 
 Perhaps because we had no children which 
 was always a great grief to me we were the 
 more united. I know people think otherwise, 
 but I have observed it is sometimes the fact. 
 I passed some very uncomfortable days, took 
 my sewing, went off alone and was miserably 
 jealous. For I saw he was very fond of her, 
 and she was pretty and sweet.
 
 The Garden of Eden 425 
 
 " Then one day I began to think plainly and 
 honestly. I said to myself: That little woman 
 can never take away what lies between my 
 husband and me all the years and affection 
 not in all eternity and if she can give him 
 something I cannot, why should she not, if it 
 makes them both happier? So I gulped down 
 my moods, which was no easy process and 
 sulked no more. When, early in the winter, 
 he told me on his death-bed no man ever had 
 a dearer wife and I had never given him an 
 hour's pain, I thanked my God that though He 
 had not seen fit to make me poetical, He had 
 given me common sense. For what if I had 
 meanly deprived my husband of his happiness 
 and must reproach myself after his death? " 
 
 She wiped her eyes and Monica regarded 
 her in gratitude, in wonder as if wisdom 
 had proceeded from the mouths of babes and 
 sucklings. Without the aid of your philoso- 
 phy, this simple woman, led by the loving 
 kindness of love to overthrow love's jealousy, 
 had made a sacred truth her own. 
 
 One white rose came the next morning, with 
 a few words to the effect that Monica was 
 good and strong enough to quietly bear that 
 storm of unjust anger and to forgive. Be- 
 fore the deplorable scene Melanie was already
 
 426 The Garden of Eden 
 
 ill and greatly excited by quite other matters. 
 Now she was suffering much. In very gentle 
 words Arenberg framed her message of regret 
 Merely because he said as usual, " You can 
 bear it" Monica became quiet, through his 
 strength, not her own. 
 
 When at last after many days he came, 
 they stood holding yearning tender hands and 
 gazed, speechless, revealing all, into each 
 other's eyes. 
 
 At length Monica spoke low, each word 
 a throb. 
 
 "Shall I go away? I will go, any hour, if 
 you bid me. If I unwittingly do harm hurt 
 any soul if I cause grief if I take what is 
 not mine I will leave you now or any day 
 to come." 
 
 He pale, beautiful, and firm, replied : 
 
 " You do no harm. You hurt no soul. You 
 cause no grief. You take only that which is 
 your own, which never belonged to any one 
 never was, at all, until you came." 
 
 " Remember, I have said it. I hold myself 
 ready to go," and clinging, constraining love, 
 like an overcharged atmosphere, floated about 
 the man and the woman, enveloped and pene- 
 trated them through and through body and 
 soul.
 
 The Garden of Eden 427 
 
 His face, all strength and sweetness, but 
 paler in his eyes a yearning as across a 
 world, he still holding her hands, answered : 
 
 " I shall remember. I knew you would say 
 it. I know you. But the only reason why 
 you should ever go, would be that I were not 
 master of the situation and I believe I am." 
 
 Whereupon he fainted. 
 
 She thought his heart would never beat 
 again, but it did this time. 
 
 Monica stayed. 
 
 They walked those lovely hills together 
 many times. Late, late in the night, in star- 
 light, in rain, in wind and storms : white 
 nights when the great woods clothed in snow 
 gleamed glorious like a mystic temple not 
 made with hands; dark dense nights, warm 
 sweet-breathed, heavy with passion. They two, 
 on the dusky heights above the blaze of the 
 town, the world down in the valley ; they two 
 alone, above it all, far from it all, at peace as 
 if in paradise. 
 
 No thought of that world made them troubled 
 or afraid. They were sure. They loved, with 
 neither bounds nor exactions and content with 
 what the world would call little, but which they 
 knew to be life's supreme essential good. 
 
 When a fierce hunger of the heart seized
 
 428 The Garden of Eden 
 
 them, that great human natural and right long- 
 ing for more always for more and therein 
 is the very fire of life, and these two never 
 were cold lovers, be it proclaimed, they re- 
 membered with pity their brothers and sisters. 
 Valiant priests and nuns ; mothers and wives 
 mourning their beloved dead; the cripples, 
 the bedridden, the blind, the abject poor and 
 stunted, loveless hearts; careworn men and 
 women cruelly chained in wedlock, like con- 
 victs in the galley, and never by any chance 
 breathing that breath of perfect sympathy which 
 frees our fettered souls. They remembered their 
 poor sisters in brothels, their hapless brothers 
 the monarchs, unfree, never hearing truth; 
 their brothers in prison-cells, their brothers 
 in asylums ; and the whole unsatisfied, insati- 
 able desire, the unceasing cry of anguish that 
 mounts from this earth by day and by night. 
 They remembered with tender awe : 
 
 " Two shall be born a whole wide world apart, 
 And speak in different tongues, and have no thought 
 Each of the other's being and no need ; 
 And these o'er unknown seas, to unknown lands 
 Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death, 
 And all unconsciously shape every act, 
 And bend each wandering step to this one end 
 That one day out of darkness they shall meet 
 And read life's meaning in each other's eye.
 
 The Garden of Eden 429 
 
 " And two shall walk some narrow way of life 
 So nearly side by side that should one turn 
 Ever so little space to left or right 
 They needs must stand acknowledged face to face 
 And yet with wistful eyes that never meet, 
 With groping hands that never clasp and lips 
 Calling in vain to ears that never hear 
 They seek each other all their weary days, 
 And die unsatisfied and this is Fate." 
 
 And the two on the heights deemed their lot 
 blessed beyond desert or expectation, hope or 
 prayer, and were still. 
 
 Yet he never for her sake turned one step 
 aside from his straight, hard path of duty. She 
 never once called or beckoned or sought him. 
 They could have obliterated themselves, one 
 for the other. She could, had this been his 
 will, have found the way for him to a woman 
 dearer and sweeter than herself, and turned 
 away, and never seen his face again, yet 
 blessed him still. When he would question 
 himself and her if it were right to appropriate 
 so great love since he could not shape for her 
 the outward fashion of his life, and others, 
 good men and true, could, her answer rang 
 sweet in his ears as a glad peal of music from 
 some larger, purer world. 
 
 He lived his patient life of sacrifice, and 
 healed and helped and comforted and blessed
 
 4jo The Garden of Eden 
 
 his fellow-creatures, often less weary and less 
 ill than he. They loved him well. Men and 
 women loved him, and Monica was glad for 
 the women as for the men for all who found 
 joy and sustenance in his strong and tender 
 presence. Each time he left her, some inner 
 voice warned she might never look into his 
 eyes again, and that thought made him sacred 
 beyond all words. Yet she could see him go, 
 and their intercourse was mostly glad and 
 simple, with jest and gentle talk about every- 
 day things. 
 
 She too worked in many ways, and took long 
 journeys when her duty required. " ' Wander 
 forth,' says the Koran, ' for God's earth is 
 rich and spacious,' " he would tell her cheer- 
 fully, though at such times it was to him as if 
 his soul had flown from him, and he wondered 
 that earth and sky mourned not and that the 
 streets looked gay and full and unconcerned. 
 Presently he would chide his self-importance, 
 and bid himself do what each day demanded, 
 and wait Thus they taught each other to 
 look up to be brave to endure. 
 
 In a lonely hamlet, on an island in the Baltic, 
 she was working one summer. It was a place 
 she knew and loved. A village of fishermen 
 and pilots, simple, clannish, strong folk, with a
 
 The Garden of Eden 43 1 
 
 dignity of their own, and, when once their 
 reserve melted, kindness and faithfulness for 
 the stranger. Only a few cottages and a 
 watch tower on a narrow point of land over 
 which all winds swept and boomed on stormy 
 nights. But there were tiny garden plots 
 where sweet old-fashioned flowers grew, and 
 rolling meadows beyond the dunes, and a 
 beautiful wood of oaks and beeches and a 
 group of bold cliffs, and beautiful fair-haired 
 children, and the kindly serious folk slow 
 men with golden beards and kingly manners, 
 who led austere, perilous lives and were con- 
 tent. Their wives in queer headgear, modest, 
 good women, demure and docile, cramped by 
 conventions as rigid as court etiquette and as 
 unaccountable and there were stillness, soli- 
 tude, sunshine, and the sea. 
 
 Monica rented a pilot's house, a tiny cot- 
 tage on the beach below the wood, and shel- 
 tered by the great trees and rising land behind, 
 while the surf at the front could beat against 
 her window-panes. The long sands curved 
 off quietly to the left, the cliffs rose at the 
 right, a glorious breadth of ocean and sky 
 lay out before her, and one blue coast line, 
 hazy and remote. Great merchantmen from 
 distant lands passed far away across her vision,
 
 43 2 The Garden of Eden 
 
 and sloops with tawny sails, and gleaming, 
 dipping fisher boats. 
 
 It was some weeks since she had heard 
 from Arenberg. She was not impatient, or 
 more uneasy than when they were in the same 
 town only full of longing. She worked and 
 thanked all gods for him, and bore the separa- 
 tion for this was part of her covenant. She 
 knew it to be a weary time for him, the last 
 weeks preceding his summer rest, and that 
 his exhaustion was extreme. She came away 
 reluctantly, but had been asked to prepare 
 some sketches of this island folk before a 
 given date, and neither she nor Arenberg ever 
 flinched before the pain of necessary absence 
 or evaded the exactions of regular work. In 
 respect of dutifulness, she had learned to imi- 
 tate him, if afar off. She knew from him his 
 boys were happy in the country, his wife 
 travelling with the Arcos and others in the 
 Tyrol, and that, on account of a little matter 
 connected with a young colleague, he had 
 delayed for a few days his journey to some 
 baths where he hoped to restore to his corpse 
 a respectable amount of vigor for the autumn 
 work. She smiled proudly, knowing it was 
 some great service for the young colleague. 
 Arenberg was so generous to young doctors ;
 
 The Garden of Eden 433 
 
 was always bearing them in his hands. After 
 this little she heard no more, and waited, fin- 
 ishing her sketches, working on a novel and 
 teaching fishermen's children to swim. 
 
 This last employment she undertook as an 
 imperative duty. When in mythology a triton 
 woos a mortal maiden and bears her away to 
 his deep-sea cave that may sound attrac- 
 tive. But the sobs of mothers and the rugged 
 grief of seafaring men when their children are 
 brought home drowned close to the shore 
 in shallow water Monica found heart- 
 breaking. Not a man in the place could 
 swim, no woman of course, and no child. 
 
 Monica had known of many quite useless 
 superfluous disasters of this sort. Just re- 
 cently, three girls were drowned all bath- 
 ing near the shore in still water. A young 
 child ventured a little too far, and the others, 
 trying to help her, were lost with her; one, 
 the oldest, a girl of fourteen, the pride of the 
 hamlet. Monica proposed her scheme to the 
 village fathers, and it was accepted thankfully 
 for the boys, but declined for the girls, as 
 unfitting. She persisted however, and finally 
 persuaded her intimate friend the Burgo- 
 master and her other friends, Petersen the 
 schoolmaster, Kamp the pilot and Thorn the 
 28
 
 434 The Garden of Eden 
 
 fisherman, that there was nothing specially 
 womanly in drowning and by dint of much 
 energy and some diplomacy, began her nata- 
 torial mission, correctly and scientifically with 
 the methodical motions taught first to a class 
 of girls on the shore while the boys cooled 
 their impatience out of sight 
 
 She calmly told the astonished little maids 
 they should teach their older brothers soon, 
 and doubtless she thereby set that wicked fer- 
 ment, the Emancipation of Woman, bubbling in 
 that peaceful isle where men in the long winter 
 sewed and mended nets, and women worked 
 in summer fields, toil and poverty tolerably 
 evenly divided, but otherwise men were lords 
 and lawgivers and women subject to them and 
 to restrictions and prejudices, petty, deep- 
 rooted, centuries old, and enjoyed no preroga- 
 tive whatever, except that of maternity. 
 
 There were seventy children in the village. 
 She saw them often in the schoolhouse where 
 a lame man, ex-pilot and sailor, with large 
 eyes and a long brown beard, taught them 
 from the age of four to fourteen, and accom- 
 panied their songs with his fiddle. He had 
 fallen, off the Chinese coast, from the mast to 
 the deck and thence into the sea, been fished 
 up apparently dead, lain months in a hospital,
 
 The Garden of Eden 435 
 
 finally with much privation reached his island 
 home across the world, a broken man ; gone to 
 Berlin to furbish up his three R's ; returned to 
 teach the children of his village and to de- 
 velop his taste for music and for oratory, for 
 he could make a rousing speech. 
 
 Monica watched him often, limping about 
 with his fiddle and teaching those towheads to 
 sing, and she wondered that on that remote 
 island and in that simplest of village-schools, 
 all that they sung was poetry and music 
 never a cheap and tawdry thing. Their simple 
 and quaint songs breathed in pure tones joy 
 in nature, love of home and fatherland, and 
 faith in God. 
 
 About a third of the lame fiddling ex- 
 sailor's troop Monica taught daily on the 
 beach, while the smallest, awestruck, crowded 
 in the sand and watched these innovations. 
 She was thankful for her queer task, thankful 
 to the shy, delighted little maids, for the atten- 
 tion and energy they demanded. In spite of 
 secret covenant, she grew miserably anxious 
 about Arenberg. 
 
 Her day's work done, she was sitting in the 
 sand before her door drying her hair in the 
 sunlight and watching the slow waves creep 
 up, pause as in doubt, and ebb. Always her
 
 436 The Garden of Eden 
 
 thought was Arenberg. In and out, through, 
 above and beneath all things like the ether, 
 this thought was subtly paramount. At the 
 same time she saw the languid waves and the 
 slow ships against the horizon, and meditated 
 vaguely upon the course of events in her 
 novel, and recalled Keith standing by a rock 
 and with keen eyes looking seawards. Like 
 Odin with his two ravens birds of destiny 
 upon his shoulders, she sat motionless by the 
 eternal sea, and sent the swift-winged flight 
 of forethought and memory into the realms 
 of the future and the past. All was still 
 and soft near her. She heard no step, no 
 sound, only far away, in the long curve of the 
 shore, children's laughter from an old moored 
 boat. 
 
 Suddenly, noiselessly, from behind, without 
 warning, Arenberg came stood knelt 
 fell into her arms, and like a child clung to 
 her silently and hid his face, and touched her 
 cheek, her wrist, her hair, with infinitely 
 caressing hand seeking to prove she was no 
 dream yet thrilled and weak. 
 
 " Thank God, thank God. I feared I should 
 never reach you before I died," at last he 
 murmured, brokenly. 
 
 She, hardly surprised being always all his
 
 The Garden of Eden 437 
 
 own only clasped him close and closer 
 her lips on his hair, and crooned: 
 
 " Mein Her 2! Mein liebes, susses Herz!" 
 
 For many moments was no sound except 
 the soft breaking of the waves, and the softer 
 breaking of the tenderness of two full human 
 hearts. But he yet lay very still. 
 
 " Dearest ! " he said at length, faintly, yet 
 looked up and smiled in her face. " I am an 
 ill man, a dying man. Put me away some- 
 where. The trains were slow." 
 
 Three weeks he lay between life and death 
 in her camp bed. A country doctor from a 
 village ten miles away rode over three times 
 every week to echo Arenberg's judgment. His 
 symptoms evoked from him only professional 
 interest. He explained to her coolly the exact 
 shape, size, and functions of the heart human, 
 what its inflammation meant, and how that 
 organ in him looked, what radical changes it 
 had undergone, what she was to expect. 
 When he felt his own pulse, noted his own 
 temperament and pain, prescribed medicine and 
 treatment, he was as tranquil and correct as if 
 called to inspect the swollen finger of a spoiled 
 princess. But once he looked at Monica, and 
 lifted piteous arms, and lay upon her breast 
 and said:
 
 438 The Garden of Eden 
 
 " True heart, I am sad because I must go 
 into the great darkness without you. With 
 you, hand in hand, how gladly would I go ! " 
 
 Helpless, agonized, broken all at once, she 
 murmured : 
 
 " Love, take me with you. I cannot live 
 on without you." 
 
 But he, to comfort her, grew strong and 
 smiled, laying frail hands in benediction on 
 her sorrowful head : 
 
 " Sweetheart, tired heart, you will live on 
 and be brave and glad. The time will come. 
 And gladness helps the world." 
 
 Often, prostrate on the sands, she stretched 
 herself in agony, in tenderness greater than 
 her pain and implored all unknown powers, 
 all good, all strength, cried in passionate 
 prayer : " For him at any cost whatever 
 you may be for him whatever is good 
 for him life or death even death if best 
 for him." 
 
 So through the nights the danger wore 
 along, while great winds blew and waves broke 
 throbbing on the beach and sometimes rain- 
 drops pattered on the roof in sweet insistent 
 fall, and Monica still knelt by the narrow bed 
 on which her love lay stricken, yet slowly, mir- 
 aculously gaining strength, against the man-
 
 The Garden of Eden 439 
 
 dates of his own clear science. She, intense, 
 perfect in care, coolly scanning all signs 
 bating him in tenderness drawing him with 
 passionate, yet ever abnegating love back from 
 the jaws of death, beheld life pause like the 
 soft wave, as in doubt, yet flow back into 
 strength. 
 
 " It is the magic of your breath, your touch, 
 your kiss your sweet, magnetic, health-giving 
 presence. Life flows from your finger tips," 
 sighed he, incredulous. 
 
 The soft rain dripped and pattered on the 
 low roof above their heads as he, after sweet 
 light sleep, said this. In all after years the 
 music of pattering rain-drops was plaintive, 
 solemn, and sacred in her ears and sweet be- 
 yond anything on earth except the won- 
 derful waking of birds in the hush of early 
 morning and that symphony too she 
 once heard with him. 
 
 Weak, but incomparably blessed, he lay in 
 a hammock or among cushions on the sand, 
 and heard the restful movement of the sea, 
 and she was near. A few weeks he looked 
 with kindly eye upon that folk, and made his 
 quiet droll remarks, and told wise tales about 
 any leaf or thistle or shell that his hand 
 chanced to touch, and was simpler than the
 
 44-O The Garden of Eden 
 
 simplest pilot, and those men too were strangely 
 drawn to him. For all kinds and conditions 
 he had sympathy and winning, sincere ways. 
 Feeble, suffering much, a doomed man, he 
 was happy with a happiness surpassing his 
 dearest dream. Such joy as their companion- 
 ship may not be measured with mere words 
 and divisions of time. In any hour they knew 
 a lifetime, a world of loveliness. 
 
 It was long before Monica knew what di- 
 rectly beyond the rest had caused his illness. 
 Joining fragments she perceived the whole. 
 He, worn out, with as he said the mentality 
 and physique of an aged cab horse, finally set 
 forth on his vacation journey. At a station he 
 happened to hear of cholera in a village near 
 by. They said it was bad and the necessary 
 medical attendance not yet there. According 
 to Arenberg, he ran down from mere profes- 
 sional curiosity; besides, he had had earlier 
 experience in a cholera epidemic. 
 
 The village was a god-forsaken place, be- 
 yond the railway. The contagion came 
 straight down the little river from a place 
 above. There was much to do. Everybody 
 succumbed. The village doctor ran, parents 
 left their children, two Sisters of Mercy were 
 attacked. Through some unaccountable delay
 
 The Garden of Eden 441 
 
 of the government, help came slowly. The 
 fact was, for some days he and a Catholic priest 
 had almost the whole work, nurse, doctor and 
 undertaker indeed. The priest was a capital 
 fellow. Finally some nurses and a couple of 
 doctors arrived, young fellows. Arenberg 
 stayed merely long enough to run them into 
 the grooves about ten days in all. Then 
 his heart, a poor machine at best, after re- 
 peated warning signals, gave out. The symp- 
 toms were distinct. He might have remained 
 at a country inn or tried to go back to his 
 home, or to the baths to die alone. He turned 
 to Monica. The trains had no wings, and the 
 pain was rather bad. He did not want to lie 
 by like a lost hat-box in a way-station. It 
 was all rather awkward the connections and 
 boats but he came like a bird to its nest. 
 Only not die till he reach her ! The heart 
 business was precarious but that mattered 
 little if only his strength lasted till he found 
 her and he willed that it should. So, dying, 
 he came by unwinged plodding trains and 
 stolid boats, to her and love and life a 
 little while. 
 
 Upon the sands he said one day : 
 
 " Soon I must leave you, dear." 
 
 She did not stir.
 
 The Garden of Eden 
 
 With gentle meditative interest she felt 
 that he was smiling as when he took some sea- 
 moss in his hand he remarked : 
 
 " Since you have resurrected me, infused in 
 me your own sweet life, I give myself a few 
 weeks yes, a few weeks at the most if 
 things go their best and upon that we must 
 not count but that much we may hope." 
 
 She neither spoke nor stirred. 
 
 She knew he had a gift, half science and 
 half second sight, and often foretold, with 
 uncanny accuracy and at a glance, the length 
 of men's lives robust strangers passing in 
 the streets. " He has about six months, three 
 years, or five," he would say and it came 
 true. 
 
 Then, in the tenderest voice with which man 
 ever spoke, calm, slow, and unearthly sweet, 
 he murmured in her ear a wish, a simple very 
 human wish and children's laughter rang 
 out from the old moored boat. 
 
 All within her wept for that which she must 
 forego, the simple very human wish which 
 strong yet dormant until waked by his voice 
 lay deep in her heart's desire. All within her 
 wept and shuddered as she beheld the fair 
 face of that sweet, warm wish and saw it die 
 and buried it.
 
 The Garden of Eden 443 
 
 Lifting her head, she smiled at him and 
 trembled but still smiled, looking long into 
 his deep eyes. 
 
 " I have all the children that there are," she 
 whispered, and he drew her close and they 
 were silent and glad. 
 
 In mighty and restful rhythm the long waves 
 washed the shore. Far off, great ships passed 
 slowly from unseen port to unseen port. 
 Small white sails gleamed and red sails 
 glowed, swift boats sped to north and south, 
 and sea birds whirled, poised, darted, hovered, 
 plunged into the waves and shining soared 
 high in the sunlight, toward drifting clouds. 
 
 " They are not cruel, insensible or remote, 
 the sea, and the winds and stars," he said 
 softly, looking with clear eyes far over the 
 sea. "They only obey the same wise and 
 good necessity as we. And he to whom they 
 reveal their meaning, learns to bear suffering 
 quietly and undismayed. But how small 
 it makes one ! " he murmured, listening to 
 the slow waves. 
 
 She rose a little, threw back her head, 
 breathed deep, inhaling the breath of all 
 nature, and looked off as if she beheld a 
 throbbing vast procession of worlds, an im- 
 measurable longing, birth, and growth, a vista
 
 444 The Garden of Eden 
 
 of infinite expanse in unimagined, everlast- 
 ing reaches. 
 
 " It makes me great" 
 
 " Ah, yes," he returned, always compre- 
 hending her sudden ways. " That you too 
 belong to it ! " 
 
 In love, in silence together close like 
 one thought, one heart beat they contem- 
 plated the eternal ebb and flow of things and 
 were at peace. 
 
 A little while they had together, and that 
 is all the time there is in the longest life upon 
 this beautiful, sad, glad earth a little while.
 
 Dionysius the Weaver's 
 Heart's Dearest 
 
 BY 
 
 BLANCHE WILLIS HOWARD 
 
 (MME. VON TEUFFEL) 
 
 I2mo. . . . $1.50 
 
 (Opinions of tljc 
 
 WE turn eagerly from the charming cover of 
 Blanche Willis Howard's posthumous book 
 to its contents, confident on the promise 
 which the author of " Guenn " and "One Summer" 
 held out to her admirers. . . . The peasant's idyl is 
 flawless, full of quaint humor, delicious atmosphere, 
 a human sympathy with primitive life and its motives. 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 "Dionysius the Weaver's Heart's Dearest" is health- 
 ful to the core, full of humor and of brightness with- 
 out the sense of strain noticeable in some very clever 
 stories. The charm centres in the heroine, a child of 
 those hills between the Danube and the Neckar known 
 as the Rough Alps. Leaving her native mountains, 
 she brings their air with her, and it blows free and 
 bracing through the story. New York Times Satur- 
 day Review. 
 
 A brave and tender and wholesome story is " Dio- 
 nysius the Weaver's Heart's Dearest." Chicago 
 Evening Post.
 
 (Djnnions of tljc 
 
 It is a simple story almost wholly concerned with 
 one person, the beloved daughter of the weaver. It 
 is the life story of this girl, of her successful career, 
 her one error, and her atonement. She has her own 
 notions of right and wrong, and refuses to allow her 
 life to be utterly wrecked by a single act of wrong- 
 doing. Her independence and directness of character, 
 her native scorn of the shams encouraged by conven- 
 tional society, and her determination to live her own 
 life in accordance with her own standards of conduct 
 are presented to the reader with singularly appealing 
 force. The Dial. 
 
 The author of "One Summer'' wrote entertaining 
 stories in the past, but in this book she did something 
 more. " Dionysius the Weaver's Heart's Dearest " 
 is not only an entertaining book for an idle hour, but 
 it is a good character study of a wilful, weak woman. 
 
 St. Louis Globe-Democrat. 
 
 999 
 
 There is a splendid character study in this book, 
 developing gradually and logically as life unfolds 
 itself before the peasant girl, trains her in its hard 
 school, and educates her to the point where she can 
 choose for herself the thorny path that leads to victory. 
 
 New York Mail and Express. 
 
 A quaint and moving tale it is, with laughter upon 
 some pages and heart-pangs upon others, and a 
 charmingly capricious and wilful heroine, who steadies 
 at the last into a noble woman, despite the misfortune 
 that threatened to blast her life. Vroni is a fine as 
 well as a winning creation. Detroit Free Press. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers 
 153-157 Fifth Ave., New York
 
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