lununyH 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 LOUISA PALLANT 
 THE MODERN WARNING 
 
 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 LOUISA PALLANT 
 THE MODERN WARNING 
 
 BY 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
 Hontion 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 I 888 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
COPYRIGHT 1888 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE ASPERN PAPERS ...... i 
 
 LOUISA PALLANT .... . . 139 
 
 THE MODERN WARNING . . . . .197 
 
 952 
 
NOTE 
 
 THE third of the following Tales originally appeared in 
 Harper s Magazine under a different title. 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 i 
 
 I HAD taken Mrs. Prest into my confidence ; in truth 
 without her I should have made but little advance, 
 for the fruitful idea in the whole business dropped 
 from her friendly lips. It was she who invented the 
 short cut, who severed the Gordian knot. It is not 
 supposed to be the nature of women to rise as a 
 general thing to the largest and most liberal view 
 I mean of a practical scheme ; but it has struck me 
 that they sometimes throw off a bold conception 
 such as a man would not have risen to with singular 
 serenity. Simply ask them to take you in on the 
 footing of a lodger I don t think that unaided I 
 should have risen to that. I was beating about the 
 bush, trying to be ingenious, wondering by what 
 combination of arts I might become an acquaintance, 
 when she offered this happy suggestion that the way 
 to become an acquaintance was first to become 
 an inmate. Her actual knowledge of the Misses 
 Bordereau was scarcely larger than mine, and indeed 
 I had brought with me from England some definite 
 facts which were new to her. Their name had been 
 mixed up ages before with one of the greatest names 
 
 S> B 
 
THE AS PERN PAPERS 
 
 of the century, and they lived now in Venice in 
 obscurity, on very small means, unvisited, unapproach 
 able, in a dilapidated old palace on an out-of-the-way 
 canal : this was the substance of my friend s impres 
 sion of them. She herself had been established in 
 Venice for fifteen years and had done a great deal 
 of good there ; but the circle of her benevolence 
 did not include the two shy, mysterious and, as 
 it was somehow supposed, scarcely respectable 
 Americans (they were believed to have lost in their 
 long exile all national quality, besides having had, as 
 their name implied, some French strain in their origin), 
 who asked no favours and desired no attention. In 
 the early years of her residence she had made an 
 attempt to see them, but this had been successful 
 only as regards the little one, as Mrs. Prest called 
 the niece ; though in reality as I afterwards learned 
 she was considerably the bigger of the two. She 
 had heard Miss Bordereau was ill and had a suspicion 
 that she was in want ; and she had gone to the house 
 to offer assistance, so that if there were suffering (and 
 American suffering), she should at least not have it 
 on her conscience. The little one received her in 
 the great cold, tarnished Venetian sata, the central 
 hall of the house, paved with marble and roofed with 
 dim cross-beams, and did not even ask her to sit down. 
 This was not encouraging for me, who wished to sit 
 so fast, and I remarked as much to Mrs. Prest. 
 She however replied with profundity, Ah, but there s 
 all the difference : I went to confer a favour and you 
 will go to ask one. If they are proud you will be 
 on the right side. And she offered to show me their 
 house to begin with to row me thither in her 
 gondola. I let her know that I had already been to 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 look at it half a dozen times ; but I accepted her 
 invitation, for it charmed me to hover about the place. 
 I had made my way to it the day after my arrival 
 in Venice (it had been described to me in advance 
 by the friend in England to whom I owed definite 
 information as to their possession of the papers), and 
 I had besieged it with my eyes while I considered 
 my plan of campaign. Jeffrey Aspern had never 
 been in it that I knew of ; but some note of his voice 
 seemed to abide there by a roundabout implication, a 
 faint reverberation. 
 
 Mrs. Prest knew nothing about the papers, but 
 she was interested in my curiosity, as she was always 
 interested in the joys and sorrows of her friends. 
 As we went, however, in her gondola, gliding there 
 under the sociable hood with the bright Venetian 
 picture framed on either side by the movable window, 
 I could see that she was amused by my infatuation, 
 the way my interest in the papers had become a 
 fixed idea. One would think you expected to find 
 in them the answer to the riddle of the universe, she 
 said ; and I denied the impeachment only by replying 
 that if I had to choose between that precious solution 
 and a bundle of Jeffrey Aspern s letters I knew indeed 
 which would appear to me the greater boon. She 
 pretended to make light of his genius and I took no 
 pains to defend him. One doesn t defend one s god : 
 one s god is in himself a defence. Besides, to-day, 
 after his long comparative obscuration, he hangs high 
 in the heaven of our literature, for all the world to see ; 
 he is a part of the light by which we walk. The 
 most I said was that he was no doubt not a woman s 
 poet : to which she rejoined aptly enough that he 
 had been at least Miss Bordereau s. The strange 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 thing had been for me to discover in England that 
 she was still alive : it was as if I had been told Mrs. 
 Siddons was, or Queen Caroline, or the famous Lady 
 Hamilton, for it seemed to me that she belonged to 
 a generation as extinct. * Why, she must be tre 
 mendously old at least a hundred, I had said ; but 
 on coming to consider dates I saw that it was not 
 strictly necessary that she should have exceeded by 
 very much the common span. None the less she was 
 very far advanced in life and her relations with Jeffrey 
 Aspern had occurred in her early womanhood. * That 
 is her excuse, said Mrs. Prest, half sententiously and 
 yet also somewhat as if she were ashamed of making 
 a speech so little in the real tone of Venice. As if a 
 woman needed an excuse for having loved the divine 
 poet ! He had been not only one of the most 
 brilliant minds of his day (and in those years, when 
 the century was young, there were, as every one 
 knows, many), but one of the most genial men and 
 one of the handsomest. 
 
 The niece, according to Mrs. Prest, was not so old, 
 and she risked the conjecture that she was only a 
 grand-niece. This was possible ; I had nothing but 
 my share in the very limited knowledge of my English 
 fellow-worshipper John Cumnor, who had never seen 
 the couple. The world, as I say, had recognised 
 Jeffrey Aspern, but Cumnor and I had recognised 
 him most. The multitude, to-day, flocked to his 
 temple, but of that temple he and I regarded ourselves 
 as the ministers. We held, justly, as I think, that 
 we had done more for his memory than any one else, 
 and we had done it by opening lights into his life. 
 He had nothing to fear from us because he had 
 nothing to fear from the truth, which alone at such 
 
i THE ASPERN PAPERS 5 
 
 a distance of time we could be interested in establish 
 ing. His early death had been the only dark spot 
 in his life, unless the papers in Miss Bordereau s hands 
 should perversely bring out others. There had been 
 an impression about 1825 that he had treated her 
 badly, just as there had been an impression that he 
 had served/ as the London populace says, several 
 other ladies in the same way. Each of these cases 
 Cumnor and I had been able to investigate, and we 
 had never failed to acquit him conscientiously of shabby 
 behaviour. I judged him perhaps more indulgently 
 than my friend ; certainly, at any rate, it appeared 
 to me that no man could have walked straighter in 
 the given circumstances. These were almost always 
 awkward. Half the women of his time, to speak 
 liberally, had flung themselves at his head, and out 
 of this pernicious fashion many complications, some 
 of them grave, had not failed to arise. He was not 
 a woman s poet, as I had said to Mrs. Prest, in the 
 modern phase of his reputation ; but the situation 
 had been different when the man s own voice was 
 mingled with his song. That voice, by every testi 
 mony, was one of the sweetest ever heard. Orpheus 
 and the Maenads ! was the exclamation that rose to 
 my lips when I first turned over his correspondence. 
 Almost all the Maenads were unreasonable and many 
 of them insupportable ; it struck me in short that he 
 was kinder, more considerate than, in his place (if I 
 could imagine myself in such a place !) I should have 
 been. 
 
 It was certainly strange beyond all strangeness, 
 and I shall not take up space with attempting to ex 
 plain it, that whereas in all these other lines of re 
 search we had to deal with phantoms and dust, the 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 mere echoes of echoes, the one living source of 
 information that had lingered on into our time had 
 been unheeded by us. Every one of Aspern s con 
 temporaries had, according to our belief, passed away ; 
 we had not been able to look into a single pair of 
 eyes into which his had looked or to feel a transmitted 
 contact in any aged hand that his had touched. 
 Most dead of all did poor Miss Bordereau appear, 
 and yet she alone had survived. We exhausted in 
 the course of months our wonder that we had not 
 found her out sooner, and the substance of our ex 
 planation was that she had kept so quiet. The poor 
 lady on the whole had had reason for doing so. But 
 it was a revelation to us that it was possible to keep 
 so quiet as that in the latter half of the nineteenth 
 century the age of newspapers and telegrams and 
 photographs and interviewers. And she had taken 
 no great trouble about it either : she had not hidden 
 herself away in an undiscoverable hole ; she had 
 boldly settled down in a city of exhibition. The 
 only secret of her safety that we could perceive was 
 that Venice contained so many curiosities that were 
 greater than she. And then accident had somehow 
 favoured her, as was shown for example in the fact 
 that Mrs. Prest had never happened to mention her 
 to me, though I had spent three weeks in Venice 
 under her nose, as it were five years before. Mrs. 
 Prest had not mentioned this much to any one ; she 
 appeared almost to have forgotten she was there. Of 
 course she had not the responsibilities of an editor. 
 It was no explanation of the old woman s having 
 eluded us to say that she lived abroad, for our re 
 searches had again and again taken us (not only by 
 correspondence but by personal inquiry) to France, 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 to Germany, to Italy, in which countries, not counting 
 his important stay in England, so many of the too 
 few years of Aspern s career were spent. We were 
 glad to think at least that in all our publishings 
 (some people consider I believe that we have overdone 
 them), we had only touched in passing and in the 
 most discreet manner on Miss Bordereau s connec 
 tion. Oddly enough, even if we had had the material 
 (and we often wondered what had become of it), 
 it would have been the most difficult episode to 
 handle. 
 
 The gondola stopped, the old palace was there ; it 
 was a house of the class which in Venice carries even 
 in extreme dilapidation the dignified name. How 
 charming ! It s gray and pink ! my companion 
 exclaimed ; and that is the most comprehensive 
 description of it. It was not particularly old, only 
 two or three centuries ; and it had an air not so much 
 of decay as of quiet discouragement, as if it had rather 
 missed its career. But its wide front, with a stone 
 balcony from end to end of the piano nobile or most 
 important floor, was architectural enough, with the 
 aid of various pilasters and arches ; and the stucco 
 with which in the intervals it had long ago been 
 endued was rosy in the April afternoon. It over 
 looked a clean, melancholy, unfrequented canal, which 
 had a narrow riva or convenient footway on either 
 side. * I don t know why there are no brick gables, 
 said Mrs. Prest, but this corner has seemed to me 
 before more Dutch than Italian, more like Amsterdam 
 than like Venice. It s perversely clean, for reasons 
 of its own ; and though you can pass on foot 
 scarcely any one ever thinks of doing so. It has 
 the air of a Protestant Sunday. Perhaps the people 
 
THE ASPEKN PAPERS 
 
 are afraid of the Misses Bordereau. I daresay they 
 have the reputation of witches. 
 
 I forget what answer I made to this I was given 
 up to two other reflections. The first of these was 
 that if the old lady lived in such a big, imposing house 
 she could not be in any sort of misery and therefore 
 would not be tempted by a chance to let a couple 
 of rooms. I expressed this idea to Mrs. Prest, who 
 gave me a very logical reply. * If she didn t live 
 in a big house how could it be a question of her 
 having rooms to spare ? If she were not amply 
 lodged herself you would lack ground to approach 
 her. Besides, a big house here, and especially in 
 this qitartier perdu, proves nothing at all : it is per 
 fectly compatible with a state of penury. Dilapidated 
 old palazzi, if you will go out of the way for them, 
 are to be had for five shillings a year. And as for 
 the people who live in them no, until you have 
 explored Venice socially as much as I have you can 
 form no idea of their domestic desolation. They 
 live on nothing, for they have nothing to live on. 
 The other idea that had come into my head was 
 connected with a high blank wall which appeared to 
 confine an expanse of ground on one side of the 
 house. Blank I call it, but it was figured over with 
 the patches that please a painter, repaired breaches, 
 crumblings of plaster, extrusions of brick that had 
 turned pink with time ; and a few thin trees, with 
 the poles of certain rickety trellises, were visible 
 over the top. The place was a garden and ap 
 parently it belonged to the house. It suddenly 
 occurred to me that if it did belong to the house I 
 had my pretext. 
 
 I sat looking out on all this with Mrs. Prest (it 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 was covered with the golden glow of Venice) from 
 the shade of our felze, and she asked me if I would 
 go in then, while she waited for me, or come back 
 another time. At first I could not decide it was 
 doubtless very weak of me. I wanted still to think 
 I might get a footing, and I was afraid to meet 
 failure, for it would leave me, as I remarked to my 
 companion, without another arrow for my bow. ( Why 
 not another? she inquired, as I sat there hesitating 
 and thinking it over ; and she wished to know why 
 even now and before taking the trouble of becoming 
 an inmate (which might be wretchedly uncomfortable 
 after all, even if it succeeded), I had not the resource 
 of simply offering them a sum of money down. In 
 that way I might obtain the documents without bad 
 nights. 
 
 Dearest lady, I exclaimed, excuse the im 
 patience of my tone when I suggest that you must 
 have forgotten the very fact (surely I communicated 
 it to you) which pushed me to throw myself upon 
 your ingenuity. The old woman won t have the 
 documents spoken of; they are personal, delicate, 
 intimate, and she hasn t modern notions, God bless 
 her ! If I should sound that note first I should 
 certainly spoil the game. I can arrive at the papers 
 only by putting her off her guard, and I can put her 
 off her guard only by ingratiating diplomatic practices. 
 Hypocrisy, duplicity are my only chance. I am 
 sorry for it, but for Jeffrey Aspern s sake I would 
 do worse still. First I must take tea with her ; then 
 tackle the main job. And I told over what had 
 happened to John Cumnor when he wrote to her. 
 No notice whatever had been taken of his first letter, 
 and the second had been answered very sharply, in 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 six lines, by the niece. Miss Bordereau requested 
 her to say that she could not imagine what he meant 
 by troubling them. They had none of Mr. Aspern s 
 papers, and if they had should never think of show 
 ing them to any one on any account whatever. She 
 didn t know what he was talking about and begged 
 he would let her alone. I certainly did not want to 
 be met that way. 
 
 Well, said Mrs. Prest, after a moment, provok- 
 ingly, perhaps after all they haven t any of his 
 things. If they deny it flat how are you sure? 
 
 John Cumnor is sure, and it would take me long 
 to tell you how his conviction, or his very strong 
 presumption strong enough to stand against the old 
 lady s not unnatural fib has built itself up. Besides, 
 he makes much of the internal evidence of the niece s 
 letter. 
 
 1 The internal evidence? 
 
 Her calling him " Mr. Aspern." 
 
 I don t see what that proves. 
 
 It proves familiarity, and familiarity implies the 
 possession of mementoes, of relics. I can t tell you 
 how that " Mr." touches me how it bridges over the 
 gulf of time and brings our hero near to me nor 
 what an edge it gives to my desire to see Juliana. 
 You don t say " Mr." Shakespeare. 
 
 Would I, any more, if I had a box full of his 
 letters? 
 
 * Yes, if he had been your lover and some one 
 wanted them ! And I added that John Cumnor 
 was so convinced, and so all the more convinced by 
 Miss Bordereau s tone, that he would have come 
 himself to Venice on the business were it not that 
 for him there was the obstacle that it would be 
 
THE ASTERN PAPERS 
 
 difficult to disprove his identity with the person who 
 had written to them, which the old ladies would be 
 sure to suspect in spite of dissimulation and a change 
 of name. If they were to ask him point-blank if he 
 were not their correspondent it would be too awkward 
 for him to lie ; whereas I was fortunately not tied in 
 that way. I was a fresh hand and could say no 
 without lying. 
 
 1 But you will have to change your name/ said 
 Mrs. Prest. Juliana lives out of the world as much 
 as it is possible to live, but none the less she has 
 probably heard of Mr. Aspern s editors ; she perhaps 
 possesses what you have published. 3 
 
 I have thought of that/ I returned ; and I drew 
 out of my pocket-book a visiting-card, neatly engraved 
 with a name that was not my own. 
 
 You are very extravagant ; you might have 
 written it/ said my companion. 
 
 This looks more genuine. 
 
 Certainly, you are prepared to go far ! But it 
 will be awkward about your letters ; they won t come 
 to you in that mask. 
 
 My banker will take them in and I will go every 
 day to fetch them. It will give me a little walk. 
 
 * Shall you only depend upon that ? asked Mrs. 
 Prest. Aren t you coming to see me? 
 
 Oh, you will have left Venice, for the hot months, 
 long before there are any results. I am prepared to 
 roast all summer as well as hereafter, perhaps you ll 
 say ! Meanwhile, John Cumnor will bombard me 
 with letters addressed, in my feigned name, to the 
 care of the padrona! 
 
 1 She will recognise his hand/ my companion 
 suggested. 
 
12 THE AS PERN PAPERS \ 
 
 On the envelope he can disguise it. 
 
 Well, you re a precious pair ! Does nt it occur 
 to you that even if you are able to say you are not 
 Mr. Cumnor in person they may still suspect you of 
 being his emissary? 
 
 Certainly, and I see only one way to parry that. 
 
 And what may that be? 
 
 I hesitated a moment. To make love to the 
 niece. 
 
 Ah, cried Mrs. Prest, wait till you see her! 
 
II 
 
 I MUST work the garden I must work the garden, 
 I said to myself, five minutes later, as I waited, up 
 stairs, in the long, dusky sala, where the bare scagliola 
 floor gleamed vaguely in a chink of the closed shutters. 
 The place was impressive but it looked cold and cautious. 
 Mrs. Prest had floated away, giving me a rendezvous 
 at the end of half an hour by some neighbouring water- 
 steps ; and I had been let into the house, after pulling 
 the rusty bell-wire, by a little red-headed, white-faced 
 maid-servant, who was very young and not ugly and 
 wore clicking pattens and a shawl in the fashion of a 
 hood. She had not contented herself with opening 
 the door from above by the usual arrangement of a 
 creaking pulley, though she had looked down at me 
 first from an upper window, dropping the inevitable 
 challenge which in Italy precedes the hospitable act. 
 As a general thing I was irritated by this survival 
 of mediaeval manners, though as I liked the old I 
 suppose I ought to have liked it ; but I was so deter 
 mined to be genial that I took my false card out of 
 my pocket and held it up to her, smiling as if it 
 were a magic token. It had the effect of one indeed, 
 for it brought her, as I say, all the way down. I 
 begged her to hand it to her mistress, having first 
 
14 THE AS PERN PAPERS n 
 
 written on it in Italian the words, Could you very 
 kindly see a gentleman, an American, for a moment? 
 The little maid was not hostile, and I reflected that 
 even that was perhaps something gained. She 
 coloured, she smiled and looked both frightened and 
 pleased. I could see that my arrival was a great 
 affair, that visits were rare in that house, and that 
 she was a person who would have liked a sociable 
 place. When she pushed forward the heavy door 
 behind me I felt that I had a foot in the citadel. 
 She pattered across the damp, stony lower hall and 
 I followed her up the high staircase stonier still, as 
 it seemed without an invitation. I think she had 
 meant I should wait for her below, but such was not 
 my idea, and I took up my station in the sala. She 
 flitted, at the far end of it, into impenetrable regions, 
 and I looked at the place with my heart beating as 
 I had known it to do in the dentist s parlour. It 
 was gloomy and stately, but it owed its character 
 almost entirely to its noble shape and to the fine 
 architectural doors as high as the doors of houses 
 which, leading into the various rooms, repeated 
 themselves on either side at intervals. They were 
 surmounted with old faded painted escutcheons, and 
 here and there, in the spaces between them, brown 
 pictures, which I perceived to be bad, in battered 
 frames, were suspended. With the exception of 
 several straw -bottomed chairs with their backs to 
 the wall, the grand obscure vista contained nothing 
 else to minister to effect. It was evidently never 
 used save as a passage, and little even as that. I 
 may add that by the time the door opened again 
 through which the maid -servant had escaped, my 
 eyes had grown used to the want of light- 
 
\ 
 
 THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 I had not meant by my private ejaculation that 
 I must myself cultivate the soil of the tangled 
 enclosure which lay beneath the windows, but the 
 lady who came toward me from the distance over 
 the hard, shining floor might have supposed as much 
 from the way in which, as I went rapidly to meet 
 her, I exclaimed, taking care to speak Italian : The 
 garden, the garden do me the pleasure to tell me 
 if it s yours ! 
 
 She stopped short, looking at me with wonder ; 
 and then, Nothing here is mine, she answered in 
 English, coldly and sadly. 
 
 Oh, you are English ; how delightful! I remarked, 
 ingenuously. But surely the garden belongs to the 
 house? 
 
 Yes, but the house doesn t belong to me. She 
 was a long, lean, pale person, habited apparently in 
 a dull-coloured dressing-gown, and she spoke with a 
 kind of mild literalness. She did not ask me to sit 
 down, any more than years before (if she were the 
 niece) she had asked Mrs. Prest, and we stood face 
 to face in the empty pompous hall. 
 
 * Well then, would you kindly tell me to whom I 
 must address myself? I m afraid you ll think me 
 odiously intrusive, but you know I must have a 
 garden upon my honour I must ! 
 
 Her face was not young, but it was simple ; it 
 was not fresh, but it was mild. She had large eyes 
 which were not bright, and a great deal of hair 
 which was not dressed, and long fine hands which 
 were possibly not clean. She clasped these 
 members almost convulsively as, with a confused, 
 alarmed look, she broke out, Oh, don t take it away 
 from us ; we like it ourselves ! 
 
1 6 THE AS PERN PAPERS n 
 
 You have the use of it then ? 
 
 Oh yes. If it wasn t for that ! And she gave 
 a shy, melancholy smile. 
 
 Isn t it a luxury, precisely ? That s why, in 
 tending to be in Venice some weeks, possibly all 
 summer, and having some literary work, some 
 reading and writing to do, so that I must be quiet, 
 and yet if possible a great deal in the open air 
 that s why I have felt that a garden is really indis 
 pensable. I appeal to your own experience, I went 
 on, smiling. Now can t I look at yours? 
 
 1 1 don t know, I don t understand, the poor 
 woman murmured, planted there and letting her 
 embarrassed eyes wander all over my strangeness. 
 
 I mean only from one of those windows such 
 grand ones as you have here if you will let me 
 open the shutters. And I walked toward the back 
 of the house. When I had advanced half-way I 
 stopped and waited, as if I took it for granted she 
 would accompany me. I had been of necessity very 
 abrupt, but I strove at the same time to give her the 
 impression of extreme courtesy. * I have been 
 looking at furnished rooms all over the place, and it 
 seems impossible to find any with a garden attached. 
 Naturally in a place like Venice gardens are rare. 
 It s absurd if you like, for a man, but I can t live 
 without flowers. 
 
 There are none to speak of down there. She 
 came nearer to me, as if, though she mistrusted me, 
 I had drawn her by an invisible thread. I went on 
 again, and she continued as she followed me : * We 
 have a few, but they are very common. It costs too 
 much to cultivate them ; one has to have a man. 
 
 1 Why shouldn t I be the man? I asked. Til 
 
ii THE AS PERN PAPERS 17 
 
 work without wages ; or rather I ll put in a gardener. 
 You shall have the sweetest flowers in Venice. 
 
 She protested at this, with a queer little sigh 
 which might also have been a gush of rapture at the 
 picture I presented. Then she observed, We don t 
 know you we don t know you. 
 
 1 You know me as much as I know you ; that is 
 much more, because you know my name. And if 
 you are English I am almost a countryman. 
 
 We are not English, said my companion, watch 
 ing me helplessly while I threw open the shutters 
 of one of the divisions of the wide high window. 
 
 You speak the language so beautifully : might I 
 ask what you are? Seen from above the garden 
 was certainly shabby ; but I perceived at a glance 
 that it had great capabilities. She made no re 
 joinder, she was so lost in staring at me, and I 
 exclaimed, You don t mean to say you are also by 
 chance American ? 
 
 I don t know ; we used to be. 
 
 Used to be ? Surely you haven t changed ? 
 
 It s so many years ago we are nothing. 
 
 So many years that you have been living here ? 
 Well, I don t wonder at that ; it s a grand old house. 
 I suppose you all use the garden, I went on, but I 
 assure you I shouldn t be in your way. I would be 
 very quiet and stay in one corner. 
 
 * We all use it ? she repeated after me, vaguely, 
 not coming close to the window but looking at my 
 shoes. She appeared to think me capable of throw 
 ing her out. 
 
 I mean all your family, as many as you are. 
 
 There is only one other; she is very old she 
 never goes down. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 THE AS PERN PAPERS n 
 
 Only one other, in all this great house ! I 
 feigned to be not only amazed but almost scandal 
 ised. Dear lady, you must have space then to 
 spare ! 
 
 To spare ? she repeated, in the same dazed 
 way. 
 
 Why, you surely don t live (two quiet women 
 I see you are quiet, at any rate) in fifty rooms ! 
 Then with a burst of hope and cheer I demanded : 
 Couldn t you let me two or three ? That would set 
 me up ! 
 
 I had now struck the note that translated my 
 purpose and I need not reproduce the whole of the tune 
 I played. I ended by making my interlocutress believe 
 that I was an honourable person, though of course 
 I did not even attempt to persuade her that I was 
 not an eccentric one. I repeated that I had studies 
 to pursue ; that I wanted quiet ; that I delighted in 
 a garden and had vainly sought one up and down 
 the city ; that I would undertake that before another 
 month was over the dear old house should be 
 smothered in flowers. I think it was the flowers that 
 won my suit, for I afterwards found that Miss Tita 
 (for such the name of this high tremulous spinster 
 proved somewhat incongruously to be) had an insati 
 able appetite for them. When I speak of my suit 
 as won I mean that before I left her she had 
 promised that she would refer the question to her 
 aunt. I inquired who her aunt might be and she 
 answered, Why, Miss Bordereau ! with an air of 
 surprise, as if I might have been expected to know. 
 There were contradictions like this in Tita Bordereau 
 which, as I observed later, contributed to make her 
 an odd and affecting person. It was the study of 
 
ii THE AS PERN PAPERS 19 
 
 the two ladies to live so that the world should not 
 touch them, and yet they had never altogether ac 
 cepted the idea that it never heard of them. In 
 Tita at any rate a grateful susceptibility to human 
 contact had not died out, and contact of a limited 
 order there would be if I should come to live in the 
 house. 
 
 We have never done anything of the sort ; we 
 have never had a lodger or any kind of inmate. So 
 much as this she made a point of saying to me. 
 We are very poor, we live very badly. The rooms 
 are very bare that you might take ; they have 
 nothing in them. I don t know how you would 
 sleep, how you would eat. 
 
 With your permission, I could easily put in a 
 bed and a few tables and chairs. Cest la moindre 
 des choses and the affair of an hour or two. I know 
 a little man from whom I can hire what I should 
 want for a few months, for a trifle, and my gondolier 
 can bring the things round in his boat. Of course in 
 this great house you must have a second kitchen, 
 and my servant, who is a wonderfully handy fellow 
 (this personage was an evocation of the moment), 
 can easily cook me a chop there. My tastes and 
 habits are of the simplest ; I live on flowers ! And 
 then I ventured to add that if they were very poor 
 it was all the more reason they should let their 
 rooms. They were bad economists I had never 
 heard of such a waste of material. 
 
 I saw in a moment that the good lady had never 
 before been spoken to in that way, with a kind of 
 humorous firmness which did not exclude sympathy 
 but was on the contrary founded on it. She might 
 easily have told me that my sympathy was im- 
 
THE AS PERN PAPERS 
 
 pertinent, but this by good fortune did not occur to 
 her. I left her with the understanding that she 
 would consider the matter with her aunt and that I 
 might come back the next day for their decision. 
 
 * The aunt will refuse ; she will think the whole 
 proceeding very louche ! Mrs. Prest declared shortly 
 after this, when I had resumed my place in her gondola. 
 She had put the idea into my head and now (so 
 little are women to be counted on) she appeared to 
 take a despondent view of it. Her pessimism pro 
 voked me and I pretended to have the best hopes ; 
 I went so far as to say that I had a distinct pre 
 sentiment that I should succeed. Upon this Mrs. 
 Prest broke out, Oh, I see what s in your head ! 
 You fancy you have made such an impression in a 
 quarter of an hour that she is dying for you to come 
 and can be depended upon to bring the old one 
 round. If you do get in you ll count it as a 
 triumph. 
 
 I did count it as a triumph, but only for the 
 editor (in the last analysis), not for the man, who 
 had not the tradition of personal conquest. When I 
 went back on the morrow the little maid -servant 
 conducted me straight through the long sala (it 
 opened there as before in perfect perspective and 
 was lighter now, which I thought a good omen) into 
 the apartment from which the recipient of my former 
 visit had emerged on that occasion. It was a large 
 shabby parlour, with a fine old painted ceiling and a 
 strange figure sitting alone at one of the windows. 
 They come back to me now almost with the palpi 
 tation they caused, the successive feelings that 
 accompanied my consciousness that as the door of 
 the room closed behind me I was really face to face 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 with the Juliana of some of Aspern s most exquisite 
 and most renowned lyrics. I grew used to her 
 afterwards, though never completely ; but as she sat 
 there before me my heart beat as fast as if the 
 miracle of resurrection had taken place for my 
 benefit. Her presence seemed somehow to contain 
 his, and I felt nearer to him at that first moment of 
 seeing her than I ever had been before or ever have 
 been since. Yes, I remember my emotions in their 
 order, even including a curious little tremor that 
 took me when I saw that the niece was not there. 
 With her, the day before, I had become sufficiently 
 familiar, but it almost exceeded my courage (much 
 as I had longed for the event) to be left alone 
 with such a terrible relic as the aunt. She was too 
 strange, too literally resurgent. Then came a check, 
 with the perception that we were not really face to 
 face, inasmuch as she had over her eyes a horrible 
 green shade which, for her, served almost as a mask. 
 I believed for the instant that she had put it on 
 expressly, so that from underneath it she might 
 scrutinise me without being scrutinised herself. At 
 the same time it increased the presumption that 
 there was a ghastly death s-head lurking behind it. 
 The divine Juliana as a grinning skull the vision 
 hung there until it passed. Then it came to me 
 that she was tremendously old so old that death 
 might take her at any moment, before I had time to 
 get what I wanted from her. The next thought was 
 a correction to that ; it lighted up the situation. 
 She would die next week, she would die to-morrow 
 then I could seize her papers. Meanwhile she sat 
 there neither moving nor speaking. She was very 
 small and shrunken, bent forward, with her hands in 
 
22 THE ASPERN PAPERS 11 
 
 her lap. She was dressed in black and her head was 
 wrapped in a piece of old black lace which showed 
 no hair. 
 
 My emotion keeping me silent she spoke first, 
 and the remark she made was exactly the most un 
 expected. 
 
Ill 
 
 OUR house is very far from the centre, but the 
 little canal is very comme il faut? 
 
 It s the sweetest corner of Venice and I can 
 imagine nothing more charming, I hastened to reply. 
 The old lady s voice was very thin and weak, but it 
 had an agreeable, cultivated murmur and there was 
 wonder in the thought that that individual note had 
 been in Jeffrey Aspern s ear. 
 
 Please to sit down there. I hear very well, she 
 said quietly, as if perhaps I had been shouting at 
 her ; and the chair she pointed to was at a certain 
 distance. I took possession of it, telling her that I 
 was perfectly aware that I had intruded, that I had 
 not been properly introduced and could only throw 
 myself upon her indulgence. Perhaps the other 
 lady, the one I had had the honour of seeing the 
 day before, would have explained to her about the 
 garden. That was literally what had given me 
 courage to take a step so unconventional. I had 
 fallen in love at sight with the whole place (she 
 herself probably was so used to it that she did not 
 know the impression it was capable of making on 
 a stranger), and I had felt it was really a case to risk 
 something. Was her own kindness in receiving me 
 
24 THE ASPERN PAPERS in 
 
 a sign that I was not wholly out in my calculation ? 
 It would render me extremely happy to think so. 
 I could give her my word of honour that I was a 
 most respectable, inoffensive person and that as an 
 inmate they would be barely conscious of my exist 
 ence. I would conform to any regulations, any 
 restrictions if they would only let me enjoy the 
 garden. Moreover I should be delighted to give her 
 references, guarantees ; they would be of the very 
 best, both in Venice and in England as well as in 
 America. 
 
 She listened to me in perfect stillness and I felt 
 that she was looking at me with great attention, 
 though I could see only the lower part of her 
 bleached and shrivelled face. Independently of the 
 refining process of old age it had a delicacy which 
 once must have been great. She had been very 
 fair, she had had a wonderful complexion. She was 
 silent a little after I had ceased speaking ; then she 
 inquired, If you are so fond of a garden why don t 
 you go to terra firma, where there are so many far 
 better than this? 
 
 Oh, it s the combination! I answered, smiling; 
 and then, with rather a flight of fancy, It s the idea 
 of a garden in the middle of the sea. 
 
 It s not in the middle of the sea ; you can t see 
 the water. 
 
 I stared a moment, wondering whether she wished 
 to convict me of fraud. Can t see the water ? 
 Why, dear madam, I can come up to the very gate 
 in my boat. 
 
 She appeared inconsequent, for she said vaguely 
 in reply to this, Yes, if you have got a boat. I 
 haven t any ; it s many years since I have been in 
 
in THE ASPERN PAPERS 25 
 
 one of the gondolas. She uttered these words as if 
 the gondolas were a curious far-away craft which she 
 knew only by hearsay. 
 
 Let me assure you of the pleasure with which I 
 would put mine at your service ! I exclaimed. I 
 had scarcely said this however before I became 
 aware that the speech was in questionable taste and 
 might also do me the injury of making me appear 
 too eager, too possessed of a hidden motive. But 
 the old woman remained impenetrable and her atti 
 tude bothered me by suggesting that she had a fuller 
 vision of me than I had of her. She gave me no 
 thanks for my somewhat extravagant offer but re 
 marked that the lady I had seen the day before was 
 her niece ; she would presently come in. She had 
 asked her to stay away a little on purpose, because 
 she herself wished to see me at first alone. She 
 relapsed into silence and I asked myself why she had 
 judged this necessary and what was coming yet ; also 
 whether I might venture on some judicious remark 
 in praise of her companion. I went so far as to say 
 that I should be delighted to see her again : she had 
 been so very courteous to me, considering how odd 
 she must have thought me a declaration which 
 drew from Miss Bordereau another of her whimsical 
 speeches. 
 
 She has very good manners ; I bred her up 
 myself! 5 I was on the point of saying that that 
 accounted for the easy grace of the niece, but I 
 arrested myself in time, and the next moment the 
 old woman went on : I don t care who you may be 
 I don t want to know ; it signifies very little to 
 day. This had all the air of being a formula of 
 dismissal, as if her next words would be that I might 
 
26 THE ASPERN PAPERS in 
 
 take myself off now that she had had the amusement 
 of looking on the face of such a monster of indis 
 cretion. Therefore I was all the more surprised 
 when she added, with her soft, venerable quaver, 
 You may have as many rooms as you like if you 
 will pay a good deal of money. 
 
 I hesitated but for a single instant, long enough 
 to ask myself what she meant in particular by this 
 condition. First it struck me that she must have 
 really a large sum in her mind ; then I reasoned 
 quickly that her idea of a large sum would probably 
 not correspond to my own. My deliberation, I think, 
 was not so visible as to diminish the promptitude 
 with which I replied, I will pay with pleasure and 
 of course in advance whatever you may think it 
 proper to ask me. 
 
 * Well then, a thousand francs a month, she 
 rejoined instantly, while her baffling green shade 
 continued to cover her attitude. 
 
 The figure, as they say, was startling and my 
 logic had been at fault. The sum she had mentioned 
 was, by the Venetian measure of such matters, ex 
 ceedingly large ; there was many an old palace in 
 an out-of-the-way corner that I might on such terms 
 have enjoyed by the year. But so far as my small 
 means allowed I was prepared to spend money, and 
 my decision was quickly taken. I would pay her 
 with a smiling face what she asked, but in that case 
 I would give myself the compensation of extracting 
 the papers from her for nothing. Moreover if she 
 had asked five times as much I should have risen to 
 the occasion ; so odious would it have appeared to 
 me to stand chaffering with Aspern s Juliana. It 
 was queer enough to have a question of money with 
 
in THE ASPERN PAPERS 27 
 
 her at all. I assured her that her views perfectly 
 met my own and that on the morrow I should have 
 the pleasure of putting three months rent into her 
 hand. She received this announcement with serenity 
 and with no apparent sense that after all it would be 
 becoming of her to say that I ought to see the 
 rooms first. This did not occur to her and indeed 
 her serenity was mainly what I wanted. Our little 
 bargain was just concluded when the door opened 
 and the younger lady appeared on the threshold. 
 As soon as Miss Bordereau saw her niece she cried 
 out almost gaily, He will give three thousand- 
 three thousand to-morrow ! 
 
 Miss Tita stood still, with her patient eyes turning 
 from one of us to the other ; then she inquired, 
 scarcely above her breath, * Do you mean francs? 
 
 Did you mean francs or dollars ? the old woman 
 asked of me at this. 
 
 * I think francs were what you said/ I answered, 
 smiling. 
 
 That is very good, said Miss Tita, as if she had 
 become conscious that her own question might have 
 looked over-reaching. 
 
 What do you know? You are ignorant, Miss 
 Bordereau remarked ; not with acerbity but with a 
 strange, soft coldness. 
 
 Yes, of money certainly of money ! Miss 
 Tita hastened to exclaim. 
 
 * I am sure you have your own branches of 
 knowledge, I took the liberty of saying, genially. 
 There was something painful to me, somehow, in the 
 turn the conversation had taken, in the discussion of 
 the rent. 
 
 She had a very good education when she was 
 
28 THE ASPERN PAPERS in 
 
 young. I looked into that myself/ said Miss Bor 
 dereau. Then she added, But she has learned 
 nothing since/ 
 
 I have always been with you/ Miss Tita re 
 joined very mildly, and evidently with no intention 
 of making an epigram. 
 
 Yes, but for that! her aunt declared, with more 
 satirical force. She evidently meant that but for 
 this her niece would never have got on at all ; the 
 point of the observation however being lost on Miss 
 Tita, though she blushed at hearing her history re 
 vealed to a stranger. Miss Bordereau went on, 
 addressing herself to me : And what time will you 
 come to-morrow with the money? 
 
 The sooner the better. If it suits you I will 
 come at noon. 
 
 I am always here but I have my hours/ said the 
 old woman, as if her convenience were not to be 
 taken for granted. 
 
 You mean the times when you receive? 
 
 I never receive. But I will see you at noon, 
 when you come with the money. 
 
 Very good, I shall be punctual; and I added, 
 May I shake hands with you, on our contract? I 
 thought there ought to be some little form, it would 
 make me really feel easier, for I foresaw that there 
 would be no other. Besides, though Miss Bordereau 
 could not to-day be called personally attractive and 
 there was something even in her wasted antiquity 
 that bade one stand at one s distance, I felt an irre 
 sistible desire to hold in my own for a moment the 
 hand that Jeffrey Aspern had pressed. 
 
 For a minute she made no answer and I saw 
 that my proposal failed to meet with her approba- 
 
in THE ASPERN PAPERS 29 
 
 tion. She indulged in no movement of withdrawal, 
 which I half expected ; she only said coldly, I 
 belong to a time when that was not the custom. 
 
 I felt rather snubbed but I exclaimed good- 
 humouredly to Miss Tita, Oh, you will do as well! 
 I shook hands with her while she replied, with a 
 small flutter, Yes, yes, to show it s all arranged ! 
 
 Shall you bring the money in gold ? Miss 
 Bordereau demanded, as I was turning to the door. 
 
 I looked at her a moment. * Aren t you a 
 little afraid, after all, of keeping such a sum as that 
 in the house? It was not that I was annoyed at 
 her avidity but I was really struck with the disparity 
 between such a treasure and such scanty means of 
 guarding it. 
 
 Whom should I be afraid of if I am not afraid of 
 you ? she asked with her shrunken grimness. 
 
 Ah well, said I, laughing, I shall be in point of 
 fact a protector and I will bring gold if you prefer. 
 
 Thank you, the old woman returned with dignity 
 and with an inclination of her head which evidently 
 signified that I might depart. I passed out of the 
 room, reflecting that it would not be easy to circum 
 vent her. As I stood in the sala again I saw that 
 Miss Tita had followed me and I supposed that as 
 her aunt had neglected to suggest that I should take 
 a look at my quarters it was her purpose to repair 
 the omission. But she made no such suggestion ; 
 she only stood there with a dim, though not a 
 languid smile, and with an effect of irresponsible, in 
 competent youth which was almost comically at 
 variance with the faded facts of her person. She 
 was not infirm, like her aunt, but she struck me as 
 still more helpless, because her inefficiency was 
 
30 THE AS PERN PAPERS in 
 
 spiritual, which was not the case with Miss Bor 
 dereau s. I waited to see if she would offer to show 
 me the rest of the house, but I did not precipitate the 
 question, inasmuch as my plan was from this moment 
 to spend as much of my time as possible in her society. 
 I only observed at the end of a minute : 
 
 1 1 have had better fortune than I hoped. It was 
 very kind of her to see me. Perhaps you said a 
 good word for me. 
 
 1 It was the idea of the money, said Miss Tita. 
 
 And did you suggest that ? 
 
 * I told her that you would perhaps give a good 
 deal. 
 
 What made you think that? 
 
 I told her I thought you were rich. 
 
 ( And what put that idea into your head ? 
 
 I don t know ; the way you talked. 
 
 * Dear me, I must talk differently now, I declared. 
 I m sorry to say it s not the case. 
 
 Well, said Miss Tita, I think that in Venice 
 the foreseen, in general, often give a great deal for 
 something that after all isn t much. She appeared 
 to make this remark with a comforting intention, to 
 wish to remind me that if I had been extravagant I 
 was not really foolishly singular. We walked to 
 gether along the sala, and as I took its magnificent 
 measure I said to her that I was afraid it would not 
 form a part of my quartiere. Were my rooms by 
 chance to be among those that opened into it ? * Not 
 if you go above, on the second floor, she answered 
 with a little startled air, as if she had rather taken 
 for granted I would know my proper place. 
 
 * And I infer that that s where your aunt would 
 like me to be. 
 
in THE ASPERN PAPERS 31 
 
 She said your apartments ought to be very 
 distinct/ 
 
 That certainly would be best. And I listened 
 with respect while she told me that up above I was 
 free to take whatever I liked ; that there was 
 another staircase, but only from the floor on which 
 we stood, and that to pass from it to the garden- 
 story or to come up to my lodging I should have in 
 effect to cross the great hall. This was an immense 
 point gained ; I foresaw that it would constitute my 
 whole leverage in my relations with the two ladies. 
 When I asked Miss Tita how I was to manage at 
 present to find my way up she replied with an access 
 of that sociable shyness which constantly marked her 
 manner. 
 
 Perhaps you can t. I don t see unless I should 
 go with you. She evidently had not thought of 
 this before. 
 
 We ascended to the upper floor and visited a long 
 succession of empty rooms. The best of them 
 looked over the garden ; some of the others had a 
 view of the blue lagoon, above the opposite rough- 
 tiled housetops. They were all dusty and even a 
 little disfigured with long neglect, but I saw that by 
 spending a few hundred francs I should be able to 
 convert three or four of them into a convenient 
 habitation. My experiment was turning out costly, 
 yet now that I had all but taken possession I ceased 
 to allow this to trouble me. I mentioned to my 
 companion a few of the things that I should put in, 
 but she replied rather more precipitately than usual 
 that I might do exactly what I liked ; she seemed 
 to wish to notify me that the Misses Bordereau 
 would take no overt interest in my proceedings. I 
 
32 THE ASPERN PAPERS in 
 
 guessed that her aunt had instructed her to adopt 
 this tone, and I may as well say now that I came 
 afterwards to distinguish perfectly (as I believed) be 
 tween the speeches she made on her own responsi 
 bility and those the old lady imposed upon her. She 
 took no notice of the unswept condition of the rooms 
 and indulged in no explanations nor apologies. I 
 said to myself that this was a sign that Juliana and 
 her niece (disenchanting idea!) were untidy persons, 
 with a low Italian standard ; but I afterwards re 
 cognised that a lodger who had forced an entrance 
 had no locus standi as a critic. We looked out of a 
 good many windows, for there was nothing within the 
 rooms to look at, and still I wanted to linger. I 
 asked her what several different objects in the pro 
 spect might be, but in no case did she appear to 
 know. She was evidently not familiar with the 
 view it was as if she had not looked at it for 
 years and I presently saw that she was too 
 preoccupied with something else to pretend to care 
 for it. Suddenly she said the remark was not 
 suggested : 
 
 I don t know whether it will make any differ 
 ence to you, but the money is for me. 
 
 * The money ? 
 
 The money you are going to bring. 
 
 Why, you ll make me wish to stay here two or 
 three years. I spoke as benevolently as possible, 
 though it had begun to act on my nerves that with 
 these women so associated with^Aspern the pecu 
 niary question should constantly come back. 
 
 That would be very good for me, she replied, 
 smiling. 
 
 You put me on my honour! 
 
in THE ASPERN PAPERS 33 
 
 She looked as if she failed to understand this, 
 but went on : She wants me to have more. She 
 thinks she is going to die. 
 
 Ah, not soon, I hope! I exclaimed, with 
 genuine feeling. I had perfectly considered the pos 
 sibility that she would destroy her papers on the 
 day she should feel her end really approach. I 
 believed that she would cling to them till then and 
 I think I had an idea that she read Aspern s letters 
 over every night or at least pressed them to her 
 withered lips. I would have given a good deal to 
 have a glimpse of the latter spectacle. I asked Miss 
 Tita if the old lady were seriously ill and she replied 
 that she was only very tired she had lived so very, 
 very long. That was what she said herself she 
 wanted to die for a change. Besides, all her friends 
 were dead long ago ; either they ought to have re 
 mained or she ought to have gone. That was another 
 thing her aunt often said she was not at all content. 
 
 But people don t die when they like, do they ? 
 Miss Tita inquired. I took the liberty of asking 
 why, if there was actually enough money to maintain 
 both of them, there would not be more than enough 
 in case of her being left alone. She considered this 
 difficult problem a moment and then she said, Oh, 
 well, you know, she takes care of me. She thinks 
 that when I m alone I shall be a great fool, I shall 
 not know how to manage. 
 
 I should have supposed rather that you took 
 care of her. I m afraid she is very proud. 
 
 * Why, have you discovered that already ? Miss 
 Tita cried, with the glimmer of an illumination in her 
 face. 
 
 1 was shut up with her there for a considerable 
 D 
 
34 THE AS PERN PAPERS in 
 
 time, and she struck me, she interested me extremely. 
 It didn t take me long to make my discovery. She 
 won t have much to say to me while I m here. 
 
 No, I don t think she will, my companion 
 averred. 
 
 Do you suppose she has some suspicion of 
 me? 
 
 Miss Tita s honest eyes gave me no sign that I 
 had touched a mark. I shouldn t think so letting 
 you in after all so easily. 
 
 Oh, so easily ! she has covered her risk. But 
 where is it that one could take an advantage of her? 
 
 I oughtn t to tell you if I knew, ought I ? 
 And Miss Tita added, before I had time to reply to 
 this, smiling dolefully, * Do you think we have any 
 weak points ? 
 
 * That s exactly what I m asking. You would 
 only have to mention them for me to respect them 
 religiously. 
 
 She looked at me, at this, with that air of timid 
 but candid and even gratified curiosity with which 
 she had confronted me from the first ; and then she 
 said, There is nothing to tell. We are terribly 
 quiet. I don t know how the days pass. We have 
 no life. 
 
 I wish I might think that I should bring you a 
 little. 
 
 * Oh, we know what we want, she went on. 
 1 It s all right. 
 
 There were various things I desired to ask her : 
 how in the world they did live ; whether they had 
 any friends or visitors, any relations in America or 
 in other countries. But I judged such an inquiry 
 would be premature ; I must leave it to a later 
 
in THE ASPERN PAPERS 35 
 
 chance. * Well, don t you be proud/ I contented my 
 self with saying. * Don t hide from me altogether. 
 
 * Oh, I must stay with my aunt, she returned, 
 without looking at me. And at the same moment, 
 abruptly, without any ceremony of parting, she 
 quitted me and disappeared, leaving me to make 
 my own way downstairs. I remained a while longer, 
 wandering about the bright desert (the sun was 
 pouring in) of the old house, thinking the situation 
 over on the spot. Not even the pattering little serva 
 came to look after me and I reflected that after all 
 this treatment showed confidence. 
 
IV 
 
 PERHAPS it did, but all the same, six weeks later, 
 towards the middle of June, the moment when Mrs. 
 Prest undertook her annual migration, I had made 
 no measureable advance. I was obliged to confess 
 to her that I had no results to speak of. My first 
 step had been unexpectedly rapid, but there was no 
 appearance that it would be followed by a second. 
 I was a thousand miles from taking tea with my 
 hostesses that privilege of which, as I reminded Mrs. 
 Prest, we both had had a vision. She reproached 
 me with wanting boldness and I answered that even 
 to be bold you must have an opportunity : you may 
 push on through a breach but you can t batter down 
 a dead wall. She answered that the breach I had 
 already made was big enough to admit an army and 
 accused me of wasting precious hours in whimpering 
 in her salon when I ought to have been carrying 
 on the struggle in the field. It is true that I went 
 to see her very often, on the theory that it would 
 console me (I freely expressed my discouragement) 
 for my want of success on my own premises. But I 
 began to perceive that it did not console B me to be 
 perpetually chaffed for my scruples, especially when 
 I was really so vigilant ; and I was rather glad when 
 
iv THE ASPERN PAPERS 37 
 
 my derisive friend closed her house for the summer. 
 She had expected to gather amusement from the 
 drama of my intercourse with the Misses Bordereau 
 and she was disappointed that the intercourse, and 
 consequently the drama, had not come off. * They ll 
 lead you on to your ruin, she said before she 
 left Venice. ( They ll get all your money without 
 showing you a scrap. I think I settled down to my 
 business with more concentration after she had gone 
 away. 
 
 It was a fact that up to that time I had not, save 
 on a single brief occasion, had even a moment s 
 contact with my queer hostesses. The exception had 
 occurred when I carried them according to my promise 
 the terrible three thousand francs. Then I found 
 Miss Tita waiting for me in the hall, and she took 
 the money from my hand so that I did not see her 
 aunt. The old lady had promised to receive me, 
 but she apparently thought nothing of breaking that 
 vow. The money was contained in a bag of chamois 
 leather, of respectable dimensions, which my banker 
 had given me, and Miss Tita had to make a big fist 
 to receive it. This she did with extreme solemnity, 
 though I tried to treat the affair a little as a joke. 
 It was in no jocular strain, yet it was with simplicity, 
 that she inquired, weighing the money in her two 
 palms : Don t you think it s too much ? To 
 which I replied that that would depend upon the 
 amount of pleasure I should get for it. Hereupon 
 she turned away from me quickly, as she had done 
 the day before, murmuring in a tone different from 
 any she had used hitherto : Oh, pleasure, pleasure 
 there s no pleasure in this house ! 
 
 After this, for a long time, I never saw her, and 
 
38 THE ASPERN PAPERS iv 
 
 I wondered that the common chances of the day 
 should not have helped us to meet. It could only 
 be evident that she was immensely on her guard 
 against them ; and in addition to this the house was 
 so big that for each other we were lost in it. I used 
 to look out for her hopefully as I crossed the sala 
 in my comings and goings, but I was not rewarded 
 with a glimpse of the tail of her dress. It was as if 
 she never peeped out of her aunt s apartment. I 
 used to wonder what she did there week after week 
 and year after year. I had never encountered such 
 a violent parti pris of seclusion ; it was more than 
 keeping quiet it was like hunted creatures feigning 
 death. The two ladies appeared to have no visitors 
 whatever and no sort of contact with the world. I 
 judged at least that people could not have come to 
 the house and that Miss Tita could not have gone 
 out without my having some observation of it. I 
 did what I disliked myself for doing (reflecting that 
 it was only once in a way) : I questioned my servant 
 about their habits and let him divine that I should 
 be interested in any information he could pick up. 
 But he picked up amazingly little for a knowing 
 Venetian : it must be added that where there is a 
 perpetual fast there are very few crumbs on the floor. 
 His cleverness in other ways was sufficient, if it was 
 not quite all that I had attributed to him on the 
 occasion of my first interview with Miss Tita. He 
 had helped my gondolier to bring me round a boat 
 load of furniture ; and when these articles had been 
 carried to the top of the palace and distributed 
 according to our associated wisdom he organised my 
 household with such promptitude as was consistent 
 with the fact that it was composed exclusively of 
 
iv THE AS PERN PAPERS 39 
 
 himself. He made me in short as comfortable as I 
 could be with my indifferent prospects. I should 
 have been glad if he had fallen in love with Miss 
 Bordereau s maid or, failing this, had taken her in 
 aversion ; either event might have brought about 
 some kind of catastrophe and a catastrophe might 
 have led to some parley. It was my idea that she 
 would have been sociable, and I myself on various 
 occasions saw her flit to and fro on domestic 
 errands, so that I was sure she was accessible. But 
 I tasted of no gossip from that fountain, and I 
 afterwards learned that Pasquale s affections were 
 fixed upon an object that made him heedless of 
 other women. This was a young lady with a 
 powdered face, a yellow cotton gown and much 
 leisure, who used often to come to see him. She 
 practised, at her convenience, the art of a stringer of 
 beads (these ornaments are made in Venice, in pro 
 fusion ; she had her pocket full of them and I used 
 to find them on the floor of my apartment), and 
 kept an eye on the maiden in the house. It 
 was not for me of course to make the domestics 
 tattle, and I never said a word to Miss Bordereau s 
 cook. 
 
 It seemed to me a proof of the old lady s de 
 termination to have nothing to do with me that she 
 should never have sent me a receipt for my three 
 months rent. For some days I looked out for it 
 and then, when I had given it up, I wasted a good 
 deal of time in wondering what her reason had been 
 for neglecting so indispensable and familiar a form. 
 At first I was tempted to send her a reminder, after 
 which I relinquished the idea (against my judgment 
 as to what was right in the particular case), on the 
 
40 THE AS PERN PAPERS iv 
 
 general ground of wishing to keep quiet. If Miss 
 Bordereau suspected me of ulterior aims she would 
 suspect me less if I should be businesslike, and yet 
 I consented not to be so. It was possible she 
 intended her omission as an impertinence, a visible 
 irony, to show how she could overreach people who 
 attempted to overreach her. On that hypothesis it 
 was well to let her see that one did not notice her 
 little tricks. The real reading of the matter, I after 
 wards perceived, was simply the poor old woman s 
 desire to emphasise the fact that I was in the en 
 joyment of a favour as rigidly limited as it had been 
 liberally bestowed. She had given me part of her 
 house and now she would not give me even a morsel 
 of paper with her name on it. Let me say that even 
 at first this did not make me too miserable, for the 
 whole episode was essentially delightful to me. I 
 foresaw that I should have a summer after my own 
 literary heart, and the sense of holding my oppor 
 tunity was much greater than the sense of losing it. 
 There could be no Venetian business without 
 patience, and since I adored the place I was much 
 more in the spirit of it for having laid in a large 
 provision. That spirit kept me perpetual company 
 and seemed to look out at me from the revived im 
 mortal face in which all his genius shone of the 
 great poet who was my prompter. I had invoked 
 him and he had come ; he hovered before me half 
 the time ; it was as if his bright ghost had returned 
 to earth to tell me that he regarded the affair as his 
 own no less than mine and that we should see it 
 fraternally, cheerfully to a conclusion. It was as 
 if he had said, * Poor dear, be easy with her ; she 
 has some natural prejudices ; only give her time. 
 
iv THE ASPERN PAPERS 41 
 
 Strange as it may appear to you she was very 
 attractive in 1820. Meanwhile are we not in Venice 
 together, and what better place is there for the 
 meeting of dear friends ? See how it glows with 
 the advancing summer ; how the sky and the sea 
 and the rosy air and the marble of the palaces all 
 shimmer and melt together. My eccentric private 
 errand became a part of the general romance and 
 the general glory I felt even a mystic companion 
 ship, a moral fraternity with all those who in the 
 past had been in the service of art. They had 
 worked for beauty, for a devotion ; and what else 
 was I doing? That element was in everything that 
 Jeffrey Aspern had written and I was only bringing 
 it to the light. 
 
 I lingered in the sala when I went to and fro ; I 
 used to watch as long as I thought decent the 
 door that led to Miss Bordereau s part of the house. 
 A person observing me might have supposed I was 
 trying to cast a spell upon it or attempting some 
 odd experiment in hypnotism. But I was only 
 praying it would open or thinking what treasure 
 probably lurked behind it. I hold it singular, as I 
 look back, that I should never have doubted for a 
 moment that the sacred relics were there ; never 
 have failed to feel a certain joy at being under the 
 same roof with them. After all they were under 
 my hand they had not escaped me yet ; and they 
 made my life continuous, in a fashion, with the 
 illustrious life they had touched at the other end. I 
 lost myself in this satisfaction to the point of assum 
 ing in my quiet extravagance that poor Miss 
 Tita also went back, went back, as I used to phrase it. 
 She did indeed, the gentle spinster, but not quite so 
 
42 THE AS PERN PAPERS iv 
 
 far as Jeffrey Aspern, who was simple hearsay to her, 
 quite as he was to me. Only she had lived for 
 years with Juliana, she had seen and handled the 
 papers and (even though she was stupid) some 
 esoteric knowledge had rubbed off on her. That 
 was what the old woman represented esoteric 
 knowledge ; and this was the idea with which my 
 editorial heart used to thrill. It literally beat faster 
 often, of an evening, when I had been out, as 
 I stopped with my candle in the re-echoing hall on 
 my way up to bed. It was as if at such a moment 
 as that, in the stillness, after the long contradiction 
 of the day, Miss Bordereau s secrets were in the air, 
 the wonder of her survival more palpable. These 
 were the acute impressions. I had them in another 
 form, with more of a certain sort of reciprocity, 
 during the hours that I sat in the garden looking up 
 over the top of my book at the closed windows of 
 my hostess. In these windows no sign of life ever 
 appeared ; it was as if, for fear of my catching a 
 glimpse of them, the two ladies passed their days in 
 the dark. But this only proved to me that they 
 had something to conceal ; which was what I had 
 wished to demonstrate. Their motionless shutters 
 became as expressive as eyes consciously closed, 
 and I took comfort in thinking that at all events 
 though invisible themselves they saw me between the 
 lashes. 
 
 I made a point of spending as much time as 
 possible in the garden, to justify the picture I had 
 originally given of my horticultural passion. And I 
 not only spent time, but (hang it ! as I said) I spent 
 money. As soon as I had got my rooms arranged 
 and could give the proper thought to the matter I 
 
iv THE AS PERN PAPERS 43 
 
 surveyed the place with a clever expert and made 
 terms for having it put in order. I was sorry to do 
 this, for personally I liked it better as it was, with its 
 weeds and its wild, rough tangle, its sweet, character 
 istic Venetian shabbiness. I had to be consistent, to 
 keep my promise that I would smother the house in 
 flowers. Moreover I formed this graceful project 
 that by flowers I would make my way I would 
 succeed by big nosegays. I would batter the old 
 women with lilies I would bombard their citadel 
 with roses. Their door would have to yield to 
 the pressure when a mountain of carnations should 
 be piled up against it. The place in truth had 
 been brutally neglected. The Venetian capacity for 
 dawdling is of the largest, and for a good many days 
 unlimited litter was all my gardener had to show for 
 his ministrations. There was a great digging of holes 
 and carting about of earth, and after a while I grew 
 so impatient that I had thoughts of sending for my 
 bouquets to the nearest stand. But I reflected that 
 the ladies would see through the chinks of their 
 shutters that they must have been bought and might 
 make up their minds from this that I was a humbug. 
 So I composed myself and finally, though the delay 
 was long, perceived some appearances of bloom. This 
 encouraged me and I waited serenely enough till 
 they multiplied. Meanwhile the real summer days 
 arrived and began to pass, and as I look back upon 
 them they seem to me almost the happiest of my life. 
 I took more and more care to be in the garden when 
 ever it was not too hot. I had an arbour arranged 
 and a low table and an armchair put into it ; and I 
 carried out books and portfolios (I had always some 
 business of writing in hand), and worked and waited 
 
44 
 
 THE ASPERN PAPERS iv 
 
 and mused and hoped, while the golden hours elapsed 
 and the plants drank in the light and the inscrutable 
 old palace turned pale and then, as the day waned, 
 began to flush in it and my papers rustled in the 
 wandering breeze of the Adriatic. 
 
 Considering how little satisfaction I got from it 
 at first it is remarkable that I should not have grown 
 more tired of wondering what mystic rites of ennui the 
 Misses Bordereau celebrated in their darkened rooms ; 
 whether this had always been the tenor of their life 
 and how in previous years they had escaped elbowing 
 their neighbours. It was clear that they must have 
 had other habits and other circumstances ; that they 
 must once have been young or at least middle-aged. 
 There was no end to the questions it was possible to 
 ask about them and no end to the answers it was not 
 possible to frame. I had known many of my country- 
 people in Europe and was familiar with the strange 
 ways they were liable to take up there ; but the Misses 
 Bordereau formed altogether a new type of the 
 American absentee. Indeed it was plain that the 
 American name had ceased to have any application 
 to them I had seen this in the ten minutes I spent 
 in the old woman s room. You could never have 
 said whence they came, from the appearance of either 
 of them ; wherever it was they had long ago dropped 
 the local accent and fashion. There was nothing in 
 them that one recognised, and putting the question 
 of speech aside they might have been Norwegians or 
 Spaniards. Miss Bordereau, after all, had been in 
 Europe nearly threequarters of a century ; it ap 
 peared by some verses addressed to her by Aspern 
 on the occasion of his own second absence from 
 America verses of which Cumnor and I had after 
 
iv THE ASPERN PAPERS 45 
 
 infinite conjecture established solidly enough the date 
 that she was even then, as a girl of twenty, on the 
 foreign side of the sea. There was an implication in 
 the poem (I hope not just for the phrase) that he had 
 come back for her sake. We had no real light upon 
 her circumstances at that moment, any more than we 
 had upon her origin, which we believed to be of the 
 sort usually spoken of as modest. Cumnor had a 
 theory that she had been a governess in some family 
 in which the poet visited and that, in consequence of 
 her position, there was from the first something un- 
 avowed, or rather something positively clandestine, in 
 their relations. I on the other hand had hatched a 
 little romance according to which she was the daughter 
 of an artist, a painter or a sculptor, who had left the 
 western world when the century was fresh, to study 
 in the ancient schools. It was essential to my hypo 
 thesis that this amiable man should have lost his 
 wife, should have been poor and unsuccessful and 
 should have had a second daughter, of a disposition 
 quite different from Juliana s. It was also indispens 
 able that he should have been accompanied to Europe 
 by these young ladies and should have established him 
 self there for the remainder of a struggling, saddened 
 life. There was a further implication that Miss 
 Bordereau had had in her youth a perverse and 
 adventurous, albeit a generous and fascinating char 
 acter, and that she had passed through some singular 
 vicissitudes. By what, passions had she been 
 ravaged, by what sufferings had she been blanched, 
 what store of memories had she laid away for the 
 monotonous future ? 
 
 I asked myself these things as I sat spinning 
 theories about her in my arbour and the bees droned 
 
46 THE ASPERN PAPERS iv 
 
 in the flowers. It was incontestable that, whether for 
 right or for wrong, most readers of certain of Aspern s 
 poem s (poems not as ambiguous as the sonnets 
 scarcely more divine, I think of Shakespeare) had 
 taken for granted that Juliana had not always ad 
 hered to the steep footway of renunciation. There 
 hovered about her name a perfume of reckless passion, 
 an intimation that she had not been exactly as the 
 respectable young person in general. Was this a 
 sign that her singer had betrayed her, had given her 
 away, as we say nowadays, to posterity ? Certain it 
 is that it would have been difficult to put one s finger 
 on the passage in which her fair fame suffered an im 
 putation. Moreover was not any fame fair enough 
 that was so sure of duration and was associated with 
 works immortal through their beauty ? It was a 
 part of my idea that the young lady had had a 
 foreign lover (and an unedifying tragical rupture) 
 before her meeting with Jeffrey Aspern. She had 
 lived with her father and sister in a queer old- 
 fashioned, expatriated, artistic Bohemia, in the days 
 when the aesthetic was only the academic and the 
 painters who knew the best models for a contadina 
 and pifferaro wore peaked hats and long hair. It 
 was a society less furnished than the coteries of to 
 day (in its ignorance of the wonderful chances, the 
 opportunities of the early bird, with which its path 
 was strewn), with tatters of old stuff and fragments 
 of old crockery ; so that Miss Bordereau appeared 
 not to have picked up or have inherited many objects 
 of importance. There was no enviable bric-a-brac, 
 with its provoking legend of cheapness, in the room 
 in which I had seen her. Such a fact as that suggested 
 bareness, but none the less it worked happily into the 
 
iv THE ASPERN PAPERS 47 
 
 sentimental interest I had always taken in the early 
 movements of my countrymen as visitors to Europe. 
 When Americans went abroad in 1820 there was 
 something romantic, almost heroic in it, as compared 
 with the perpetual ferryings of the present hour, when 
 photography and other conveniences have annihilated 
 surprise. Miss Bordereau sailed with her family on 
 a tossing brig, in the days of long voyages and sharp 
 differences ; she had her emotions on the top of 
 yellow diligences, passed the night at inns where she 
 dreamed of travellers tales, and was struck, on reach 
 ing the eternal city, with the elegance of Roman 
 pearls and scarfs. There was something touching to 
 me in all that and my imagination frequently went 
 back to the period. If Miss Bordereau carried it 
 there of course Jeffrey Aspern at other times had 
 done so a great deal more. It was a much more 
 important fact, if one were looking at his genius 
 critically, that he had lived in the days before the 
 general transfusion. It had happened to me to re 
 gret that he had known Europe at all ; I should have 
 liked to see what he would have written without that 
 experience, by which he had incontestably been en 
 riched. But as his fate had ordered otherwise I went 
 with him I tried to judge how the old world would 
 have struck him. It was not only there, however, 
 that I watched him ; the relations he had entertained 
 with the new had even a livelier interest. His own 
 country after all had had most of his life, and his 
 muse, as they said at that time, was essentially 
 American. That was originally what I had loved 
 him for : that at a period when our native land was 
 nude and crude and provincial, when the famous 
 atmosphere it is supposed to lack was not even 
 
48 THE ASPERN PAPERS iv 
 
 missed, when literature was lonely there and art and 
 form almost impossible, he had found means to live 
 and write like one of the first ; to be free and general 
 and not at all afraid ; to feel, understand and express 
 everything. 
 
I WAS seldom at home in the evening, for when 
 I attempted to occupy myself in my apartments the 
 lamplight brought in a swarm of noxious insects, and 
 it was too hot for closed windows. Accordingly I 
 spent the late hours either on the water (the moon 
 light of Venice is famous), or in the splendid square 
 which serves as a vast forecourt to the strange old 
 basilica of Saint Mark. I sat in front of Florian s 
 cafe, eating ices, listening to music, talking with 
 acquaintances : the traveller will remember how the 
 immense cluster of tables and little chairs stretches 
 like a promontory into the smooth lake of the 
 Piazza. The whole place, of a summer s evening, 
 under the stars and with all the lamps, all the voices 
 and light footsteps on marble (the only sounds of the 
 arcades that enclose it), is like an open-air saloon 
 dedicated to cooling drinks and to a still finer de- 
 gustation that of the exquisite impressions received 
 during the day. When I did not prefer to keep 
 mine to myself there was always a stray tourist, 
 disencumbered of his Badeker, to discuss them with, 
 or some domesticated painter rejoicing in the return of 
 the season of strong effects. The wonderful church, 
 with its low domes and bristling embroideries, 
 
 E 
 
50 THE ASPERN PAPERS v 
 
 the mystery of its mosaic and sculpture, looked ghostly 
 in the tempered gloom, and the sea-breeze passed 
 between the twin columns of the Piazzetta, the lintels 
 of a door no longer guarded, as gently as if a rich 
 curtain were swaying there. I used sometimes on 
 these occasions to think of the Misses Bordereau and 
 of the pity of their being shut up in apartments which 
 in the Venetian July even Venetian vastness did not 
 prevent from being stuffy. Their life seemed miles 
 away from the life of the Piazza, and no doubt it was 
 really too late to make the austere Juliana change her 
 habits. But poor Miss Tita would have enjoyed one 
 of Florian s ices, I was sure ; sometimes I even had 
 thoughts of carrying one home to her. Fortunately 
 my patience bore fruit and I was not obliged to do 
 anything so ridiculous. 
 
 One evening about the middle of July I came in 
 earlier than usual I forget what chance had led to 
 this and instead of going up to my quarters made 
 my way into the garden. The temperature was very 
 high ; it was such a night as one would gladly have 
 spent in the open air and I was in no hurry to go to 
 bed. I had floated home in my gondola, listening to 
 the slow splash of the oar in the narrow dark canals, 
 and now the only thought that solicited me was the 
 vague reflection that it would be pleasant to recline 
 at one s length in the fragrant darkness on a garden 
 bench. The odour of the canal was doubtless at the 
 bottom of that aspiration and the breath of the garden, 
 as I entered it, gave consistency to my purpose. 
 It was delicious just such an air as must have 
 trembled with Romeo s vows when he stood among 
 the flowers and raised his arms to his mistress s 
 balcony. I looked at the windows of the palace 
 
v THE ASPERN PAPERS 51 
 
 to see if by chance the example of Verona (Verona 
 being not far off) had been followed ; but everything 
 was dim, as usual, and everything was still. Juliana, 
 on summer nights in her youth, might have mur 
 mured down from open windows at Jeffrey Aspern, 
 but Miss Tita was not a poet s mistress any more than 
 I was a poet. This however did not prevent my 
 gratification from being great as I became aware on 
 reaching the end of the garden that Miss Tita was 
 seated in my little bower. At first I only made out 
 an indistinct figure, not in the least counting on such 
 an overture from one of my hostesses ; it even oc 
 curred to me that some sentimental maidservant had 
 stolen in to keep a tryst with her sweetheart. I was 
 going to turn away, not to frighten her, when the 
 figure rose to its height and I recognised Miss 
 Bordereau s niece. I must do myself the justice to 
 say that I did not wish to frighten her either, and much 
 as I had longed for some such accident I should have 
 been capable of retreating. It was as if I had laid 
 a trap for her by coming home earlier than usual and 
 adding to that eccentricity by creeping into the 
 garden. As she rose she spoke to me, and then I 
 reflected that perhaps, secure in my almost inveterate 
 absence, it was her nightly practice to take a lonely 
 airing. There was no trap, in truth, because I had 
 had no suspicion. At first I took for granted that the 
 words she uttered expressed discomfiture at my 
 arrival ; but as she repeated them I had not caught 
 them clearly I had the surprise of hearing her say, 
 Oh, dear, I m so very glad you ve come ! She and 
 her aunt had in common the property of unexpected 
 speeches. She came out of the arbour almost as 
 if she were going to throw herself into my arms. 
 
52 THE AS PERN PAPERS v 
 
 I hasten to add that she did nothing of the kind ; 
 she did not even shake hands with me. It was a 
 gratification to her to see me and presently she told 
 me why because she was nervous when she was out- 
 of-doors at night alone. The plants and bushes 
 looked so strange in the dark, and there were all 
 sorts of queer sounds she could not tell what they 
 we re like the noises of animals. She stood close 
 to me, looking about her with an air of greater 
 security but without any demonstration of interest 
 in me as an individual. Then I guessed that 
 nocturnal prowlings were not in the least her 
 habit, and I was also reminded (I had been struck 
 with the circumstance in talking with her before I 
 took possession) that it was impossible to over 
 estimate her simplicity. 
 
 You speak as if you were lost in the backwoods, 
 I said, laughing. How you manage to keep out of 
 this charming place when you have only three steps 
 to take to get into it, is more than I have yet been able 
 to discover. You hide away mighty well so long as 
 I am on the premises, I know ; but I had a hope 
 that you peeped out a little at other times. You 
 and your poor aunt are worse off than Carmelite nuns 
 in their cells. Should you mind telling me how you 
 exist without air, without exercise, without any sort 
 of human contact ? I don t see how you carry on the 
 common business of life. 
 
 She looked at me as if I were talking some strange 
 tongue and her answer was so little of an answer 
 that I was considerably irritated. We go to bed 
 very early earlier than you would believe. I was 
 on the point of saying that this only deepened the 
 mystery when she gave me some relief by adding, 
 
v THE ASPERN PAPERS 53 
 
 Before you came we were not so private. But I 
 never have been out at night 
 
 Never in these fragrant alleys, blooming here 
 under your nose ? 
 
 Ah, said Miss Tita, they were never nice till 
 now ! There was an unmistakable reference in this 
 and a flattering comparison, so that it seemed to me 
 I had gained a small advantage. As it would help 
 me to follow it up to establish a sort of grievance I 
 asked her why, since she thought my garden nice, she 
 had never thanked me in any way for the flowers I 
 had been sending up in such quantities for the pre 
 vious three weeks. I had not been discouraged 
 there had been, as she would have observed, a daily 
 armful ; but I had been brought up in the common 
 forms and a word of recognition now and then would 
 have touched me in the right place. 
 
 Why I didn t know they were for me ! 
 
 They were for both of you. Why should I 
 make a difference ? 
 
 Miss Tita reflected as if she might be thinking of 
 a reason for that, but she failed to produce one. In 
 stead of this she asked abruptly, Why in the world 
 do you want to know us ? 
 
 I ought after all to make a difference, I replied. 
 * That question is your aunt s ; it isn t yours. You 
 wouldn t ask it if you hadn t been put up to it. 
 
 She didn t tell me to ask you, Miss Tita re 
 plied, without confusion ; she was the oddest mixture 
 of the shrinking and the direct. 
 
 Well, she has often wondered about it herself 
 and expressed her wonder to you. She has insisted 
 on it, so that she has put the idea into your head 
 that I am unsufferably pushing. Upon my word I 
 
54 THE ASPERN PAPERS v 
 
 think I have been very discreet. And how completely 
 your aunt must have lost every tradition of sociability, 
 to see anything out of the way in the idea that re 
 spectable intelligent people, living as we do under 
 the same roof, should occasionally exchange a remark! 
 What could be more natural ? We are of the same 
 country and we have at least some of the same tastes, 
 since, like you, I am intensely fond of Venice. 
 
 My interlocutress appeared incapable of grasping 
 more than one clause in any proposition, and she 
 declared quickly, eagerly, as if she were answering 
 my whole speech : I am not in the least fond of 
 Venice. I should like to go far away ! 
 
 Has she always kept you back so ? I went on, 
 to show her that I could be as irrelevant as herself. 
 
 She told me to come out to-night ; she has told 
 me very often, said Miss Tita. It is I who wouldn t 
 come. I don t like to leave her. 
 
 1 Is she too weak, is she failing? I demanded, 
 with more emotion, I think, than I intended to show. 
 I judged this by the way her eyes rested upon me 
 in the darkness. It embarrassed me a little, and to 
 turn the matter off I continued genially : Do let us 
 sit down together comfortably somewhere and you 
 will tell me all about her. 
 
 Miss Tita made no resistance to this. We found 
 a bench less secluded, less confidential, as it were, 
 than the one in the arbour ; and we were still sitting 
 there when I heard midnight ring out from those 
 clear bells of Venice which vibrate with a solemnity 
 of their own over the lagoon and hold the air so 
 much more than the chimes of other places. We 
 were together more than an hour and our interview 
 gave, as it struck me, a great lift to my undertaking. 
 
v THE AS PERN PAPERS 55 
 
 Miss Tita accepted the situation without a protest ; 
 she had avoided me for three months, yet now she 
 treated me almost as if these three months had made 
 me an old friend. If I had chosen I might have inferred 
 from this that though she had avoided me she had 
 given a good deal of consideration to doing so. She 
 paid no attention to the flight of time never worried 
 at my keeping her so. long away from her aunt. She 
 talked freely, answering questions and asking them 
 and not even taking advantage of certain longish 
 pauses with which they inevitably alternated to say 
 she thought she had better go in. It was almost as 
 if she were waiting for something something I 
 might say to her and intended to give me my 
 opportunity. I was the more struck by this as she 
 told me that her aunt had been less well for a good 
 many days and in a way that was rather new. She 
 was weaker ; at moments it seemed as if she had no 
 strength at all ; yet more than ever before she wished 
 to be left alone. That was why she had told her to 
 come out not even to remain in her own room, 
 which was alongside ; she said her niece irritated her, 
 made her nervous. She sat still for hours together, 
 as if she were asleep ; she had always done that, 
 musing and dozing ; but at such times formerly she 
 gave at intervals some small sign of life, of interest, 
 liking her companion to be near her with her work. 
 Miss Tita confided to me that at present her aunt was 
 so motionless that she sometimes feared she was dead ; 
 moreover she took hardly any food one couldn t see 
 what she lived on. The great thing was that she 
 still on most days got up ; the serious job was to 
 dress her, to wheel her out of her bedroom. She 
 clung to as many of her old habits as possible and 
 
56 THE ASPERN PAPERS v 
 
 she had always, little company as they had received 
 for years, made a point of sitting in the parlour. 
 
 I scarcely knew what to think of all this of Miss 
 Tita s sudden conversion to sociability and of the 
 strange circumstance that the more the old lady ap 
 peared to decline toward her end the less she should 
 desire to be looked after. The story did not hang 
 together, and I even asked myself whether it were 
 not a trap laid for me, the result of a design to make 
 me show my hand. I could not have told why my 
 companions (as they could only by courtesy be 
 called) should have this purpose why they should 
 try to trip up so lucrative a lodger. At any rate I 
 kept on my guard, so that Miss Tita should not 
 have occasion again to ask me if I had an arriere- 
 penste. Poor woman, before we parted for the night 
 my mind was at rest as to her capacity for entertain 
 ing one. 
 
 She told me more about their affairs than I had 
 hoped ; there was no need to be prying, for it 
 evidently drew her out simply to feel that I listened, 
 that I cared. She ceased wondering why I cared, 
 and at last, as she spoke of the brilliant life they had 
 led years before, she almost chattered. It was Miss 
 Tita who judged it brilliant ; she said that when 
 they first came to live in Venice, years and years 
 before (I saw that her mind was essentially vague 
 about dates and the order in which events had 
 occurred), there was scarcely a week that they had 
 not some visitor or did not make some delightful 
 passeggio in the city. They had seen all the curiosi 
 ties ; they had even been to the Lido in a boat (she 
 spoke as if I might think there was a way on foot) ; 
 they had had a collation there, brought in three 
 
v 7 HE AS PERN PAPERS 57 
 
 baskets and spread out on the grass. I asked her 
 what people they had known and she said, Oh ! very 
 nice ones the Cavaliere Bombicci and the Contessa 
 Altemura, with whom they had had a great friendship. 
 Also English people the Churtons and the Goldies 
 and Mrs. Stock-Stock, whom they had loved dearly ; 
 she was dead and gone, poor dear. That was the 
 case with most of their pleasant circle (this expression 
 was Miss Tita s own), though a few were left, which 
 was a wonder considering how they had neglected 
 them. She mentioned the names of two or three 
 Venetian old women ; of a certain doctor, very clever, 
 who was so kind he came as a triend, he had really 
 given up practice ; of the avvocato Pochintesta, who 
 wrote beautiful poems and had addressed one to her 
 aunt. These people came to see them without fail 
 every year, usually at the capo (Tanno, and of old her 
 aunt used to make them some little present her 
 aunt and she together : small things that she, Miss 
 Tita, made herself, like paper lamp-shades or mats 
 for the decanters of wine at dinner or those woollen 
 things that in cold weather were worn on the wrists. 
 The last few years there had not been many presents ; 
 she could not think what to make and her aunt had 
 lost her interest and never suggested. But the people 
 came all the same ; if the Venetians liked you once 
 they liked you for ever. 
 
 There was something affecting in the good faith 
 of this sketch of former social glories ; the picnic at 
 the Lido had remained vivid through the ages and 
 poor Miss Tita evidently was of the impression that 
 she had had a brilliant youth. She had in fact had 
 a glimpse of the Venetian world in its gossiping, 
 home-keeping, parsimonious, professional walks ; for 
 
58 THE ASPERN PAPERS v 
 
 I observed for the first time that she had acquired by 
 contact something of the trick of the familiar, soft- 
 sounding, almost infantile speech of the place. I 
 judged that she had imbibed this invertebrate dialect, 
 from the natural way the names of things and people 
 mostly purely local rose to her lips. If she 
 knew little of what they represented she knew still 
 less of anything else. Her aunt had drawn in her 
 failing interest in the table -mats and lamp-shades 
 was a sign of that and she had not been able to 
 mingle in society or to entertain it alone ; so that 
 the matter of her reminiscences struck one as an old 
 world altogether. If she had not been so decent her 
 references would have seemed to carry one back to 
 the queer rococo Venice of Casanova. I found 
 myself falling into the error of thinking of her too 
 as one of Jeffrey Aspern s contemporaries ; this came 
 from her having so little in common with my own. 
 It was possible, I said to myself, that she had not 
 even heard of him ; it might very well be that Juliana 
 had not cared to lift even for her the veil that covered 
 the temple of her youth. In this case she perhaps 
 would not know of the existence of the papers, and 
 I welcomed that presumption it made me feel more 
 safe with her until I remembered that we had 
 believed the letter of disavowal received by Cumnor 
 to be in the handwriting of the niece. If it had 
 been dictated to her she had of course to know what 
 it was about ; yet after all the effect of it was to 
 repudiate the idea of any connection with the poet. 
 I held it probable at all events that Miss Tita had 
 not read a word of his poetry. Moreover if, with 
 her companion, she had always escaped the inter 
 viewer there was little occasion for her having got it 
 
v THE ASPERN PAPERS 59 
 
 into her head that people were after the letters. 
 People had not been after them, inasmuch as they 
 had not heard of them ; and Cumnor s fruitless feeler 
 would have been a solitary accident. 
 
 When midnight sounded Miss Tita got up ; but 
 she stopped at the door of the house only after she had 
 wandered two or three times with me round the 
 garden. When shall I see you again? I asked, 
 before she went in ; to which she replied with 
 promptness that she should like to come out 
 the next night. She added however that she 
 should not come she was so far from doing every 
 thing she liked. 
 
 You might do a few things that / like, I said 
 with a sigh. 
 
 ( Oh, you I don t believe you! she murmured, 
 at this, looking at me with her simple solemnity. 
 
 Why don t you believe me? 
 
 Because I don t understand you. 
 
 That is just the sort of occasion to have faith. 
 I could not say more, though I should have liked to, 
 as I saw that I only mystified her ; for I had no 
 wish to have it on my conscience that I might pass 
 for having made love to her. Nothing less should I 
 have seemed to do had I continued to beg a lady to 
 believe in me in an Italian garden on a mid 
 summer night. There was some merit in my scruples, 
 for Miss Tita lingered and lingered : I perceived that 
 she felt that she should not really soon come down 
 again and wished therefore to protract the present. 
 She insisted too on making the talk between us 
 personal to ourselves ; and altogether her behaviour 
 was such as would have been possible only to a 
 completely innocent woman. 
 
60 THE ASPERN PAPERS v 
 
 I shall like the flowers better now that I know 
 they are also meant for me. 
 
 1 How could you have doubted it ? If you will 
 tell me the kind you like best I will send a double 
 lot of them. 
 
 Oh, I like them all best ! Then she went on, 
 familiarly: Shall you study shall you read and 
 write when you go up to your rooms ? 
 
 I don t do that at night, at this season. The 
 lamplight brings in the animals. 
 
 You might have known that when you came. 
 
 I did know it ! 
 
 And in winter do you work at night? 
 
 c I read a good deal, but I don t often write. 
 She listened as if these details had a rare interest, 
 and suddenly a temptation quite at variance with 
 the prudence I had been teaching myself associated 
 itself with her plain, mild face. Ah yes, she was 
 safe and I could make her safer ! It seemed to me 
 from one moment to another that I could not wait 
 longer that I really must take a sounding. So I 
 went on : In general before I go to sleep very 
 often in bed (it s a bad habit, but I confess to it), I 
 read some great poet. In nine cases out of ten it s 
 a volume of Jeffrey Aspern. 
 
 I watched her well as I pronounced that name but 
 I saw nothing wonderful. Why should I indeed was 
 not Jeffrey Aspern the property of the human race ? 
 
 Oh, we read him we have read him, she 
 quietly replied. 
 
 He is my poet of poets I know him almost by 
 heart. 
 
 For an instant Miss Tita hesitated ; then her 
 sociability was too much for her. 
 
v THE AS PERN PAPERS 61 
 
 Oh, by heart that s nothing! she murmured, 
 smiling. My aunt used to know him to know 
 him she paused an instant and I wondered what 
 she was going to say ( to know him as a visitor. 
 
 As a visitor? I repeated, staring. 
 
 * He used to call on her and take her out. 
 
 I continued to stare. My dear lady, he died a 
 hundred years ago! 
 
 * Well, she said, mirthfully, my aunt is a hundred 
 and fifty. 
 
 Mercy on us! I exclaimed; why didn t you 
 tell me before ? I should like so to ask her about 
 him. 
 
 She wouldn t care for that she wouldn t tell 
 you, Miss Tita replied. 
 
 I don t care what she cares for ! She must tell 
 me it s not a chance to be lost. 
 
 Oh, you should have come twenty years ago : 
 then she still talked about him. 
 
 And what did she say ? I asked, eagerly. 
 
 I 1 don t know that he liked her immensely. 
 And she didn t she like him? 
 
 She said he was a god. Miss Tita gave me 
 this information flatly, without expression ; her tone 
 might have made it a piece of trivial gossip. But it 
 stirred me deeply as she dropped the words into the 
 summer night ; it seemed such a direct testimony. 
 
 Fancy, fancy! I murmured. And then, Tell 
 me this, please has she got a portrait of him ? 
 They are distressingly rare. 
 
 1 A portrait ? I don t know, said Miss Tita ; 
 and now there was discomfiture in her face. Well, 
 good-night! she added; and she turned into the 
 house. 
 
62 THE ASPERN PAPERS v 
 
 I accompanied her into the wide, dusky, stone- 
 paved passage which on the ground floor corresponded 
 with our grand sala. It opened at one end into the 
 garden, at the other upon the canal, and was lighted 
 now only by the small lamp that was always left for 
 me to take up as I went to bed. An extinguished 
 candle which Miss Tita apparently had brought down 
 with her stood on the same table with it. * Good 
 night, good-night! 3 I replied, keeping beside her as 
 she went to get her light. Surely you would know, 
 shouldn t you, if she had one ? 
 
 If she had what? the poor lady asked, looking 
 at me queerly over the flame of her candle. 
 
 A portrait of the god. I don t know what I 
 wouldn t give to see it. 
 
 I don t know what she has got. She keeps her 
 things locked up. And Miss Tita went away, 
 toward the staircase, with the sense evidently that 
 she had said too much. 
 
 I let her go I wished not to frighten her 
 and I contented myself with remarking that Miss 
 Bordereau would not have locked up such a glorious 
 possession as that a thing a person would be proud 
 of and hang up in a prominent place on the parlour- 
 wall. Therefore of course she had not any portrait. 
 Miss Tita made no direct answer to this and candle 
 in hand, with her back to me, ascended two or three 
 stairs. Then she stopped short and turned round, 
 looking at me across the dusky space. 
 
 Do you write do you write ? There was a 
 shake in her voice she could scarcely bring out 
 what she wanted to ask. 
 
 * Do I write ? Oh, don t speak of my writing on 
 the same day with Aspern s ! 
 
v THE ASPERN PAPERS 63 
 
 * Do you write about him do you pry into his 
 life ? 
 
 1 Ah, that s your aunt s question ; it can t be 
 yours ! I said, in a tone of slightly wounded sensi 
 bility. 
 
 All the more reason then that you should 
 answer it. Do you, please? 
 
 I thought I had allowed for the falsehoods I 
 should have to tell ; but I found that in fact when it 
 came to the point I had not. Besides, now that I 
 had an opening there was a kind of relief in being 
 frank. Lastly (it was perhaps fanciful, even fatuous), 
 I guessed that Miss Tita personally would not in 
 the last resort be less my friend. So after a 
 moment s hesitation I answered, Yes, I have written 
 about him and I am looking for more material. In 
 heaven s name have you got any? 
 
 * Santo Dio T she exclaimed, without heeding my 
 question ; and she hurried upstairs and out of sight. 
 I might count upon her in the last resort, but for the 
 present she was visibly alarmed. The proof of it 
 was that she began to hide again, so that for a fort 
 night I never beheld her. I found my patience 
 ebbing and after four or five days of this I told the 
 gardener to stop the flowers. 
 
VI 
 
 ONE afternoon, as I came down from my quarters to 
 go out, I found Miss Tita in the sala : it was our 
 first encounter on that ground since I had come to 
 the house. She put on no air of being there by 
 accident ; there was an ignorance of such arts in her 
 angular, diffident directness. That I might be quite 
 sure she was waiting for me she informed me of the 
 fact and told me that Miss Bordereau wished to see 
 me : she would take me into the room at that 
 moment if I had time. If I had been late for a 
 love-tryst I would have stayed for this, and I quickly 
 signified that I should be delighted to wait upon the 
 old lady. She wants to talk with you to know 
 you, Miss Tita said, smiling as if she herself appre 
 ciated that idea ; and she led me to the door of her 
 aunt s apartment. I stopped her a moment before 
 she had opened it, looking at her with some curiosity. 
 I told her that this was a great satisfaction to me 
 and a great honour ; but all the same I should like 
 to ask what had made Miss Bordereau change so 
 suddenly. It was only the other day that she 
 wouldn t suffer me near her. Miss Tita was not 
 embarrassed by my question ; she had as many little 
 unexpected serenities as if she told fibs, but the odd 
 
vi THE ASPERN PAPERS 65 
 
 part of them was that they had on the contrary their 
 source in her truthfulness. Oh, my aunt changes, 
 she answered ; it s so terribly dull I suppose she s 
 tired. 
 
 But you told me that she wanted more and more 
 to be alone. 
 
 Poor Miss Tita coloured, as if she found me over- 
 insistent. Well, if you don t believe she wants to 
 see you I haven t invented it! I think people 
 often are capricious when they are very old. 
 
 * That s perfectly true. I only wanted to be clear 
 as to whether you have repeated to her what I told 
 you the other night. 
 
 1 What you told me? 
 
 About Jeffrey Aspern that I am looking for 
 materials. 
 
 If I had told her do you think she would have 
 sent for you ? 
 
 That s exactly what I want to know. If she 
 wants to keep him to herself she might have sent for 
 me to tell me so. 
 
 She won t speak of him/ said Miss Tita. Then 
 as she opened the door she added in a lower tone, 
 * I have told her nothing. 
 
 The old woman was sitting in the same place in 
 which I had seen her last, in the same position, with 
 the same mystifying bandage over her eyes. Her 
 welcome was to turn her almost invisible face to me 
 and show me that while she sat silent she saw me 
 clearly. I made no motion to shake hands with her ; 
 I felt too well on this occasion that that was out of 
 place for ever. It had been sufficiently enjoined upon 
 me that she was too sacred for that sort of recipro 
 city too venerable to touch. There was something 
 
 F 
 
66 THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 so grim in her aspect (it was partly the accident of 
 her green shade), as I stood there to be measured, 
 that I ceased on the spot to feel any doubt as to her 
 knowing my secret, though I did not in the least 
 suspect that Miss Tita had not just spoken the truth. 
 She had not betrayed me, but the old woman s brood 
 ing instinct had served her ; she had turned me over 
 and over in the long, still hours and she had guessed. 
 The worst of it was that she looked terribly like an 
 old woman who at a pinch would burn her papers. 
 Miss Tita pushed a chair forward, saying to me, 
 * This will be a good place for you to sit. As I 
 took possession of it I asked after Miss Bordereau s 
 health ; expressed the hope that in spite of the very 
 hot weather it was satisfactory. She replied that it 
 was good enough good enough ; that it was a great 
 thing to be alive. 
 
 Oh, as to that, it depends upon what you com 
 pare it with ! I exclaimed, laughing. 
 
 I don t compare I don t compare. If I did 
 that I should have given everything up long ago. 
 
 I liked to think that this was a subtle allusion to 
 the rapture she had known in the society of Jeffrey 
 Aspern though it was true that such an allusion 
 would have accorded ill with the wish I imputed 
 to her to keep him buried in her soul. What it 
 accorded with was my constant conviction that no 
 human being had ever had a more delightful social 
 gift than his, and what it seemed to convey was that 
 nothing in the world was worth speaking of if one 
 pretended to speak of that. But one did not ! Miss 
 Tita sat down beside her aunt, looking as if she had 
 reason to believe some very remarkable conversation 
 would come off between us. 
 
vi THE ASPERN PAPERS 67 
 
 It s about the beautiful flowers, said the old 
 lady; you sent us so many I ought to have 
 thanked you for them before. But I don t write 
 letters and I receive only at long intervals. 
 
 She had not thanked me while the flowers con 
 tinued to come, but she departed from her custom 
 so far as to send for me as soon as she began to fear 
 that they would not come any more. I noted this ; 
 I remembered what an acquisitive propensity she 
 had shown when it was a question of extracting gold 
 from me, and I privately rejoiced at the happy 
 thought I had had in suspending my tribute. She 
 had missed it and she was willing to make a conces 
 sion to bring it back. At the first sign of this con 
 cession I could only go to meet her. I am afraid 
 you have not had many, of late, but they shall begin 
 again immediately to-morrow, to-night. 
 
 * Oh, do send us some to-night ! Miss Tita cried, 
 as if it were an immense circumstance. 
 
 * What else should you do with them ? It isn t a 
 manly taste to make a bower of your room, the old 
 woman remarked. 
 
 I don t make a bower of my room, but I am 
 exceedingly fond of growing flowers, of watching 
 their ways. There is nothing unmanly in that : it 
 has been the amusement of philosophers, of states 
 men in retirement ; even I think of great captains. 
 
 * I suppose you know you can sell them those 
 you don t use, Miss Bordereau went on. I dare 
 say they wouldn t give you much for them ; still, 
 you could make a bargain. 
 
 Oh, I have never made a bargain, as you ought 
 to know. My gardener disposes of them and I ask 
 no questions. 
 
68 THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 I would ask a few, I can promise you ! said Miss 
 Bordereau ; and it was the first time I had heard 
 her laugh. I could not get used to the idea that 
 this vision of pecuniary profit was what drew out the 
 divine Juliana most. 
 
 Come into the garden yourself and pick them ; 
 come as often as you like ; come every day. They 
 are all for you, I pursued, addressing Miss Tita and 
 carrying off this veracious statement by treating it as 
 an innocent joke. I can t imagine why she doesn t 
 come down, I added, for Miss Bordereau s benefit. 
 
 You must make her come ; you must come up 
 and fetch her, said the old woman, to my stupefaction. 
 That odd thing you have made in the corner would 
 be a capital place for her to sit. 
 
 The allusion to my arbour was irreverent ; it con 
 firmed the impression I had already received that 
 there was a flicker of impertinence in Miss Bordereau s 
 talk, a strange mocking lambency which must have 
 been a part of her adventurous youth and which had 
 outlived passions and faculties. None the less I 
 asked, Wouldn t it be possible for you to come down 
 there yourself ? Wouldn t it do you good to sit 
 there in the shade, in the sweet air? 
 
 Oh, sir, when I move out of this it won t be to 
 sit in the air, and I m afraid that any that may be 
 stirring around me won t be particularly sweet ! It 
 will be a very dark shade indeed. But that won t be 
 just yet, Miss Bordereau continued, cannily, as if to 
 correct any hopes that this courageous allusion to the 
 last receptacle of her mortality might lead me to 
 entertain. I have sat here many a day and I have 
 had enough of arbours in my time. But I m not afraid 
 to wait till I m called. 
 
vi THE ASPERN PAPERS 69 
 
 Miss Tita had expected some interesting talk, but 
 perhaps she found it less genial on her aunt s side 
 (considering that I had been sent for with a civil 
 intention) than she had hoped. As if to give the 
 conversation a turn that would put our companion 
 in a light more favourable she said to me, Didn t I 
 tell you the other night that she had sent me out ? 
 You see that I can do what I like! 
 
 Do you pity her do you teach her to pity her 
 self? Miss Bordereau demanded, before I had time 
 to answer this appeal. * She has a much easier life 
 than I had when I was her age. 
 
 You must remember that it has been quite open 
 to me to think you rather inhuman. 
 
 Inhuman ? That s what the poets used to call 
 the women a hundred years ago. Don t try that ; 
 you won t do as well as they! Juliana declared. 
 There is no more poetry in the world that I know 
 of at least. But I won t bandy words with you, 
 she pursued, and I well remember the old-fashioned, 
 artificial sound she gave to the speech. You have 
 made me talk, talk ! It isn t good for me at all. 
 I got up at this and told her I would take no more 
 of her time ; but she detained me to ask, Do you 
 remember, the day I saw you about the rooms, that 
 you offered us the use of your gondola ? And when 
 I assented, promptly, struck again with her disposition 
 to make a good thing of being there and wonder 
 ing what she now had in her eye, she broke out, 
 Why don t you take that girl out in it and show her 
 the place? 
 
 * Oh dear aunt, what do you want to do with me ? J 
 cried the * girl, with a piteous quaver. * I know all 
 about the place ! 
 
70 THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 Well then, go with him as a cicerone ! said Miss 
 Bordereau, with an effect of something like cruelty 
 in her implacable power of retort an incongruous 
 suggestion that she was a sarcastic, profane, cynical 
 old woman. Haven t we heard that there have been 
 all sorts of changes in all these years ? You ought 
 to see them and at your age (I don t mean because 
 you re so young), you ought to take the chances that 
 come. You re old enough, my dear, and this gentle 
 man won t hurt you. He will show you the famous 
 sunsets, if they still go on do they go on ? The 
 sun set for me so long ago. But that s not a reason. 
 Besides, I shall never miss you ; you think you are 
 too important Take her to the Piazza ; it used to 
 be very pretty, Miss Bordereau continued, addressing 
 herself to me. * What have they done with the funny 
 old church? I hope it hasn t tumbled down. Let 
 her look at the shops ; she may take some money, 
 she may buy what she likes. 
 
 Poor Miss Tita had got up, discountenanced and 
 helpless, and as we stood there before her aunt it 
 would certainly have seemed to a spectator of the 
 scene that the old woman was amusing herself at our 
 expense. Miss Tita protested, in a confusion of 
 exclamations and murmurs ; but I lost no time in 
 saying that if she would do me the honour to accept 
 the hospitality of my boat I would engage that she 
 should not be bored. Or if she did not want so much 
 of my company the boat itself, with the gondolier, 
 was at her service ; he was a capital oar and she 
 might have every confidence. Miss Tita, without 
 definitely answering this speech, looked away from 
 me, out of the window, as if she were going to cry ; 
 and I remarked that once we had Miss Bordereau s 
 
vi THE ASPERN PAPERS 71 
 
 approval we could easily come to an understanding. 
 We would take an hour, whichever she liked, one of 
 the very next days. As I made my obeisance to 
 the old lady I asked her if she would kindly permit 
 me to see her again. 
 
 For a moment she said nothing ; then she in 
 quired, Is it very necessary to your happiness ? 
 
 It diverts me more than I can say. 
 
 You are wonderfully civil. Don t you know it 
 almost kills me ? 
 
 How can I believe that when I see you more 
 animated, more brilliant than when I came in ? 
 
 That is very true, aunt/ said Miss Tita. I 
 think it does you good. 
 
 * Isn t it touching, the solicitude we each have 
 that the other shall enjoy herself? sneered Miss 
 Bordereau. If you think me brilliant to-day you 
 don t know what you are talking about ; you have 
 never seen an agreeable woman. Don t try to pay 
 me a compliment ; I have been spoiled, she went 
 on. My door is shut, but you may sometimes 
 knock. 
 
 With this she dismissed me and I left the room. 
 The latch closed behind me, but Miss Tita, contrary 
 to my hope, had remained within. I passed slowly 
 across the hall and before taking my way down 
 stairs I waited a little. My hope was answered ; 
 after a minute Miss Tita followed me. That s a 
 delightful idea about the Piazza/ I said. ( When 
 will you go to-night, to-morrow ? 
 
 She had been disconcerted, as I have mentioned, 
 but I had already perceived and I was to observe 
 again that when Miss Tita was embarrassed she did 
 not (as most women would have done) turn away 
 
72 THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 from you and try to escape, but came closer, as it 
 were, with a deprecating, clinging appeal to be 
 spared, to be protected. Her attitude was perpet 
 ually a sort of prayer for assistance, for explanation ; 
 and yet no woman in the world could have been less 
 of a comedian. From the moment you were kind 
 to her she depended on you absolutely ; her self- 
 consciousness dropped from her and she took the 
 greatest intimacy, the innocent intimacy which was 
 the only thing she could conceive, for granted. She 
 told me she did not know what had got into her aunt ; 
 she had changed so quickly, she had got some idea. 
 I replied that she must find out what the idea was 
 and then let me know ; we would go and have an 
 ice together at Florian s and she should tell me while 
 we listened to the band. 
 
 Oh, it will take me a long time to find out ! she 
 said, rather ruefully ; and she could promise me this 
 satisfaction neither for that night nor for the next. 
 I was patient now, however, for I felt that I had 
 only to wait ; and in fact at the end of the week, 
 one lovely evening after dinner, she stepped into my 
 gondola, to which in honour of the occasion I had 
 attached a second oar. 
 
 We swept in the course of five minutes into the 
 Grand Canal ; whereupon she uttered a murmur of 
 ecstasy as fresh as if she had been a tourist just 
 arrived. She had forgotten how splendid the great 
 water-way looked on a clear, hot summer evening, and 
 how the sense of floating between marble palaces and 
 reflected lights disposed the mind to sympathetic 
 talk. We floated long and far, and though Miss Tita 
 gave no high-pitched voice to her satisfaction I felt 
 that she surrendered herself. She was more than 
 
vi THE ASPERN PAPERS 73 
 
 pleased, she was transported ; the whole thing was 
 an immense liberation. The gondola moved with 
 slow strokes, to give her time to enjoy it, and she 
 listened to the plash of the oars, which grew louder 
 and more musically liquid as we passed into narrow 
 canals, as if it were a revelation of Venice. When I 
 asked her how long it was since she had been in a 
 boat she answered, * Oh, I don t know ; a long time 
 not since my aunt began to be ill. This was not 
 the only example she gave me of her extreme 
 vagueness about the previous years and the line which 
 marked off the period when Miss Bordereau flourished. 
 I was not at liberty to keep her out too long, but we 
 took a considerable giro before going to the Piazza. 
 I asked her no questions, keeping the conversation 
 on purpose away from her domestic situation and 
 the things I wanted to know ; I poured treasures of 
 information about Venice into her ears, described 
 Florence and Rome, discoursed to her on the charms 
 and advantages of travel. She reclined, receptive, 
 on the deep leather cushions, turned her eyes con 
 scientiously to everything I pointed out to her, and 
 never mentioned to me till some time afterwards 
 that she might be supposed to know Florence better 
 than I, as she had lived there for years with Miss 
 Bordereau. At last she asked, with the shy im 
 patience of a child, Are we not really going to the 
 Piazza? That s what I want to see! I immedi 
 ately gave the order that we should go straight ; and 
 then we sat silent with the expectation of arrival. 
 As some time still passed, however, she said suddenly, 
 of her own movement, * I have found out what is 
 the matter with my aunt : she is afraid you will go ! 
 * What has put that into her head ? 
 
74 THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 1 She has had an idea you have not been happy. 
 That is why she is different now. 
 
 You mean she wants to make me happier ? 
 
 I Well, she wants you not to go ; she wants you 
 to stay. 
 
 I 1 suppose you mean on account of the rent, I 
 remarked candidly. 
 
 Miss Tita s candour showed itself a match for 
 my own. Yes, you know ; so that I shall have 
 more. 
 
 How much does she want you to have? I 
 asked, laughing. She ought to fix the sum, so that 
 I may stay till it s made up. 
 
 * Oh, that wouldn t please me, said Miss Tita. 
 It would be unheard of, your taking that trouble. 
 
 But suppose I should have my own reasons for 
 staying in Venice ? 
 
 Then it would be better for you to stay in some 
 other house. 
 
 And what would your aunt say to that ? 
 
 1 She wouldn t like it at all. But I should think 
 you would do well to give up your reasons and go 
 away altogether. 
 
 Dear Miss Tita, I said, it s not so easy to give 
 them up ! 
 
 She made no immediate answer to this, but after 
 a moment she broke out : I think I know what your 
 reasons are ! 
 
 I daresay, because the other night I almost told 
 you how I wish you would help me to make them 
 good. 
 
 I can t do that without being false to my aunt. 
 
 What do you mean, being false to her ? 
 
 * Why, she would ne/er consent to what you 
 
vi THE AS PERN PAPERS 75 
 
 want. She has been asked, she has been written to. 
 It made her fearfully angry. 
 
 Then she has got papers of value? I demanded, 
 quickly. 
 
 Oh, she has got everything ! sighed Miss Tita, 
 with a curious weariness, a sudden lapse into gloom. 
 
 These words caused all my pulses to throb, for I 
 regarded them as precious evidence. For some 
 minutes I was too agitated to speak, and in the 
 interval the gondola approached the Piazzetta. 
 After we had disembarked I asked my companion 
 whether she would rather walk round the square or 
 go and sit at the door of the cafe* ; to which she 
 replied that she would do whichever I liked best 
 I must only remember again how little time she had. 
 I assured her there was plenty to do both, and we 
 made the circuit of the long arcades. Her spirits 
 revived at the sight of the bright shop-windows, and 
 she lingered and stopped, admiring or disapproving 
 of their contents, asking me what I thought of things, 
 theorising about prices. My attention wandered 
 from her ; her words of a while before, Oh, she has 
 got everything! echoed so in my consciousness. 
 We sat down at last in the crowded circle at 
 Florian s, finding an unoccupied table among those 
 that were ranged in the square. It was a splendid 
 night and all the world was out-of-doors ; Miss 
 Tita could not have wished the elements more 
 auspicious for her return to society. I saw that she 
 enjoyed it even more than she told ; she was agitated 
 with the multitude of her impressions. She had 
 forgotten what an attractive thing the world is, and 
 it was coming over her that somehow she had for 
 the best years of her life been cheated of it. This 
 
76 THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 did not make her angry ; but as she looked all over 
 the charming scene her face had, in spite of its smile 
 of appreciation, the flush of a sort of wounded sur 
 prise. She became silent, as if she were thinking 
 with a secret sadness of opportunities, for ever lost, 
 which ought to have been easy ; and this gave me 
 a chance to say to her, Did you mean a while ago 
 that your aunt has a plan of keeping me on by 
 admitting me occasionally to her presence? 
 
 She thinks it will make a difference with you if 
 you sometimes see her. She wants you so much to 
 stay that she is willing to make that concession/ 
 
 And what good does she consider that I think 
 it will do me to see her? 
 
 I don t know ; she thinks it s interesting, said 
 Miss Tita, simply. * You told her you found it so. 
 * So I did ; but every one doesn t think so. 
 No, of course not, or more people would try. 
 Well, if she is capable of making that reflection 
 she is capable also of making this further one, I 
 went on : that I must have a particular reason for 
 not doing as others do, in spite of the interest she 
 offers for not leaving her alone. Miss Tita looked 
 as if she failed to grasp this rather complicated pro 
 position ; so I continued, If you have not told her 
 what I said to you the other night may she not at 
 least have guessed it? 
 
 I don t know ; she is very suspicious. 
 But she has not been made so by indiscreet 
 curiosity, by persecution ? 
 
 No, no ; it isn t that, said Miss Tita, turning 
 on me a somewhat troubled face. * I don t know 
 how to say it : it s on account of something ages 
 ago, before I was born in her life. 
 
vi THE ASPERN PAPERS 77 
 
 Something? What sort of thing? I asked, as 
 if I myself could have no idea. 
 
 * Oh, she has never told me, Miss Tita answered ; 
 and I was sure she was speaking the truth. 
 
 Her extreme limpidity was almost provoking, and 
 I felt for the moment that she would have been 
 more satisfactory if she had been less ingenuous. 
 Do you suppose it s something to which Jeffrey 
 Aspern s letters and papers I mean the things in 
 her possession have reference? 
 
 I daresay it is! my companion exclaimed, as 
 if this were a very happy suggestion. I have never 
 looked at any of those things. 
 
 None of them ? Then how do you know what 
 they are ? 
 
 I don t, said Miss Tita, placidly. I have never 
 had them in my hands. But I have seen them when 
 she has had them out. 
 
 Does she have them out often ? 
 
 Not now, but she used to. She is very fond of 
 them. 
 
 In spite of their being compromising? 
 
 Compromising? Miss Tita repeated, as if she 
 was ignorant of the meaning of the word. I felt 
 almost as one who corrupts the innocence of youth. 
 
 * I mean their containing painful memories. 
 Oh, I don t think they are painful. 
 
 * You mean you don t think they affect her 
 reputation ? 
 
 At this a singular look came into the face of 
 Miss Bordereau s niece a kind of confession of help 
 lessness, an appeal to me to deal fairly, generously 
 with her. I had brought her to the Piazza, placed 
 her among charming influences, paid her an attention 
 
78 THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 she appreciated, and now I seemed to let her perceive 
 that all this had been a bribe a bribe to make her 
 turn in some way against her aunt. She was of a 
 yielding nature and capable of doing almost any 
 thing to please a person who was kind to her ; but 
 the greatest kindness of all would be not to presume 
 too much on this. It was strange enough, as I after 
 wards thought, that she had not the least air of 
 resenting my want of consideration for her aunt s 
 character, which would have been in the worst 
 possible taste if anything less vital (from my point 
 of view) had been at stake. I don t think she really 
 measured it. Do you mean that she did something 
 bad ? she asked in a moment. 
 
 Heaven forbid I should say so, and it s none of 
 my business. Besides, if she did, I added, laughing, 
 1 it was in other ages, in another world. But why 
 should she not destroy her papers ? 
 
 * Oh, she loves them too much. 5 
 
 Even now, when she may be near her end ? 
 Perhaps when she s sure of that she will. 
 Well, Miss Tita, I said, it s just what I should 
 like you to prevent. 
 
 How can I prevent it ? 
 
 * Couldn t you get them away from her ? 
 And give them to you ? 
 
 This put the case very crudely, though I am sure 
 there was no irony in her intention. Oh, I mean 
 that you might let me see them and look them over. 
 It isn t for myself; there is no personal avidity in 
 my desire. It is simply that they would be of such 
 immense interest to the public, such immeasurable 
 importance as a contribution to Jeffrey Aspern s 
 history. 
 
vi THE ASPERN PAPERS 79 
 
 She listened to me in her usual manner, as if my 
 speech were full of reference to things she had never 
 heard of, and I felt particularly like the reporter of 
 a newspaper who forces his way into a house of 
 mourning. This was especially the case when after 
 a moment she said, * There was a gentleman who 
 some time ago wrote to her in very much those 
 words. He also wanted her papers. 
 
 And did she answer him ? I asked, rather 
 ashamed of myself for not having her rectitude. 
 
 Only when he had written two or three times. 
 He made her very angry. 
 
 And what did she say ? 
 
 She said he was a devil, Miss Tita replied, 
 simply. 
 
 1 She used that expression in her letter ? 
 
 Oh no ; she said it to me. She made me write 
 to him. 
 
 * And what did you say ? 
 
 ( I told him there were no papers at all. 
 
 1 Ah, poor gentleman ! I exclaimed. 
 
 ( I knew there were, but I wrote what she bade 
 me. 
 
 Of course you had to do that. But I hope I 
 shall not pass for a devil. 
 
 It will depend upon what you ask me to do for 
 you, said Miss Tita, smiling. 
 
 Oh, if there is a chance of your thinking so my 
 affair is in a bad way ! I sha n t ask you to steal 
 for me, nor even to fib for you can t fib, unless on 
 paper. But the principal thing is this to prevent 
 her from destroying the papers. 
 
 Why, I have no control of her, said Miss Tita. 
 It s she who controls me. 
 
8o THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 1 But she doesn t control her own arms and legs, 
 does she ? The way she would naturally destroy 
 her letters would be to burn them. Now she can t 
 burn them without fire, and she can t get fire unless 
 you give it to her. 
 
 I have always done everything she has asked, 
 my companion rejoined. * Besides, there s Olimpia. 
 
 I was on the point of saying that Olimpia was 
 probably corruptible, but I thought it best not to 
 sound that note. So I simply inquired if that faithful 
 domestic could not be managed. 
 
 1 Every one can be managed by my aunt, said 
 Miss Tita. And then she observed that her holiday 
 was over ; she must go home. 
 
 I laid my hand on her arm, across the table, to 
 stay her a moment. What I want of you is a 
 general promise to help me. 
 
 Oh, how can I how can I ? she asked, wonder 
 ing and troubled. She was half surprised, half fright 
 ened at my wishing to make her play an active part. 
 
 This is the main thing : to watch her carefully 
 and warn me in time, before she commits that 
 horrible sacrilege. 
 
 I can t watch her when she makes me go out. 
 
 That s very true. 
 
 And when you do too. 
 
 ( Mercy on us ; do you think she will have done 
 anything to-night ? 
 
 * I don t know ; she is very cunning. 
 
 Are you trying to frighten me ? I asked. 
 
 I felt this inquiry sufficiently answered when my 
 companion murmured in a musing, almost envious 
 way, * Oh, but she loves them she loves them ! 
 
 This reflection, repeated with such emphasis, gave 
 
vi THE AS PERN PAPERS 81 
 
 me great comfort ; but to obtain more of that balm 
 I said, * If she shouldn t intend to destroy the 
 objects we speak of before her death she will probably 
 have made some disposition by will. 
 
 By will ? 
 
 Hasn t she made a will for your benefit ? 
 
 Why, she has so little to leave. That s why she 
 likes money, said Miss Tita. 
 
 Might I ask, since we are really talking things 
 over, what you and she live on ? 
 
 On some money that comes from America, from 
 a lawyer. He sends it every quarter. It isn t 
 much ! 
 
 And won t she have disposed of that ? 
 
 My companion hesitated I saw she was blushing. 
 I believe it s mine, she said ; and the look and tone 
 which accompanied these words betrayed so the 
 absence of the habit of thinking of herself that I 
 almost thought her charming. The next instant she 
 added, But she had a lawyer once, ever so long ago. 
 And some people came and signed something. 
 
 They were probably witnesses. And you were 
 not asked to sign ? Well then, I argued, rapidly 
 and hopefully, * it is because you are the legatee ; 
 she has left all her documents to you ! 
 
 If she has it s with very strict conditions/ Miss 
 Tita responded, rising quickly, while the movement 
 gave the words a little character of decision. They 
 seemed to imply that the bequest would be accom 
 panied with a command that the articles bequeathed 
 should remain concealed from every inquisitive eye 
 and that I was very much mistaken if I thought she 
 was the person to depart from an injunction so 
 solemn. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE ASPERN PAPERS vi 
 
 * Oh, of course you will have to abide by the 
 terms/ I said ; and she uttered nothing to mitigate 
 the severity of this conclusion. None the less, later, 
 just before we disembarked at her own door, on our 
 return, which had taken place almost in silence, she 
 said to me abruptly, I will do what I can to help 
 you. I was grateful for this it was very well so far 
 as it went ; but it did not keep me from remembering 
 that night in a worried waking hour that I now had 
 her word for it to reinforce my own impression that 
 the old woman was very cunning. 
 
VII 
 
 THE fear of what this side of her character might 
 have led her to do made me nervous for days after 
 wards. I waited for an intimation from Miss Tita ; 
 I almost figured to myself that it was her duty to 
 keep me informed, to let me know definitely whether 
 or no Miss Bordereau had sacrificed her treasures. 
 But as she gave no sign I lost patience and deter 
 mined to judge so far as was possible with my own 
 senses. I sent late one afternoon to ask if I might 
 pay the ladies a visit, and my servant came back 
 with surprising news. Miss Bordereau could be 
 approached without the least difficulty ; she had been 
 moved out into the sala and was sitting by the 
 window that overlooked the garden. I descended 
 and found this picture correct ; the old lady had 
 been wheeled forth into the world and had a certain 
 air, which came mainly perhaps from some brighter 
 element in her dress, of being prepared again to have 
 converse with it. It had not yet, however, begun to 
 flock about her ; she was perfectly alone and, though 
 the door leading to her own quarters stood open, I 
 had at first no glimpse of Miss Tita. The window 
 at which she sat had the afternoon shade and, one of 
 the shutters having been pushed back, she could see 
 
84 THE ASPERN PAPERS vn 
 
 the pleasant garden, where the summer sun had by 
 this time dried up too many of the plants she could 
 see the yellow light and the long shadows. 
 
 Have you come to tell me that you will take 
 the rooms for six months more ? she asked, as I 
 approached her, startling me by something coarse in 
 her cupidity almost as much as if she had not already 
 given me a specimen of it. Juliana s desire to make 
 our acquaintance lucrative had been, as I have 
 sufficiently indicated, a false note in my image of 
 the woman who had inspired a great poet with 
 immortal lines ; but I may say here definitely that I 
 recognised after all that it behoved me to make a 
 large allowance for her. It was I who had kindled 
 the unholy flame ; it was I who had put into her 
 head that she had the means of making money. 
 She appeared never to have thought of that ; she 
 had been living wastefully for years, in a house five 
 times too big for her, on a footing that I could ex 
 plain only by the presumption that, excessive as it 
 was, the space she enjoyed cost her next to nothing 
 and that small as were her revenues they left her, for 
 Venice, an appreciable margin. I had descended on 
 her one day and taught her to calculate, and my 
 almost extravagant comedy on the subject of the 
 garden had presented me irresistibly in the light of 
 a victim. Like all persons who achieve the miracle 
 of changing their point of view when they are old 
 she had been intensely converted ; she had seized 
 my hint with a desperate, tremulous clutch. 
 
 I invited myself to go and get one of the chairs 
 that stood, at a distance, against the wall (she had 
 given herself no concern as to whether I should sit 
 or stand) ; and while I placed it near her I began, 
 
vii THE ASPERN PAPERS 85 
 
 gaily, Oh, dear madam, what an imagination you 
 have, what an intellectual sweep ! I am a poor 
 devil of a man of letters who lives from day to day. 
 How can I take palaces by the year ? My existence 
 is precarious. I don t know whether six months 
 hence I shall have bread to put in my mouth. I 
 have treated myself for once ; it has been an im 
 mense luxury. But when it comes to going on ! 
 
 * Are your rooms too dear ? if they are you can 
 have more for the same money, Juliana responded. 
 We can arrange, we can combinare^ as they say 
 here. 5 
 
 Well yes, since you ask me, they are too dear, I 
 said. Evidently you suppose me richer than I am. 
 
 She looked at me in her barricaded way. If 
 you write books don t you sell them ? 
 
 Do you mean don t people buy them ? A little 
 not so much as I could wish. Writing books, 
 unless one be a great genius and even then ! is 
 the last road to fortune. I think there is no more 
 money to be made by literature. 
 
 Perhaps you don t choose good subjects. What 
 do you write about ? Miss Bordereau inquired. 
 
 About the books of other people. I m a critic, 
 an historian, in a small way. I wondered what she 
 was coming to. 
 
 ( And what other people, now ? 
 
 ( Oh, better ones than myself : the great writers 
 mainly the great philosophers and poets of the 
 past ; those who are dead and gone and can t speak 
 for themselves. 
 
 And what do you say about them ? 
 
 ( I say they sometimes attached themselves to 
 very clever women! I answered, laughing. I spoke 
 
86 THE ASPERN PAPERS vn 
 
 with great deliberation, but as my words fell upon 
 the air they struck me as imprudent. However, I 
 risked them and I was not sorry, for perhaps after 
 all the old woman would be willing to treat. It 
 seemed to be tolerably obvious that she knew my 
 secret : why therefore drag the matter out ? But she 
 did not take what I had said as a confession ; she 
 only asked : 
 
 ( Do you think it s right to rake up the past ? 
 
 I don t know that I know what you mean by 
 raking it up ; but how can we get at it unless we 
 dig a little ? The present has such a rough way of 
 treading it down. 
 
 Oh, I like the past, but I don t like critics, the 
 old woman declared, with her fine tranquillity. 
 
 Neither do I, but I like their discoveries. 
 
 Aren t they mostly lies? 
 
 The lies are what they sometimes discover, I 
 said, smiling at the quiet impertinence of this. 
 They often lay bare the truth. 
 
 The truth is God s, it isn t man s ; we had better 
 leave it alone. Who can judge of it who can say? 
 
 We are terribly in the dark, I know, I admitted ; 
 but if we give up trying what becomes of all the 
 fine things ? What becomes of the work I just 
 mentioned, that of the great philosophers and poets ? 
 It is all vain words if there is nothing to measure it 
 by. 
 
 You talk as if you were a tailor, said Miss 
 Bordereau, whimsically ; and then she added quickly, 
 in a different manner, This house is very fine ; the 
 proportions are magnificent. To-day I wanted to 
 look at this place again. I made them bring me out 
 here. When your man came, just now, to learn if 
 
vii THE ASPERN PAPERS 87 
 
 I would see you, I was on the point of sending for 
 you, to ask if you didn t mean to go on. I wanted 
 to judge what I m letting you have. This sala is 
 very grand/ she pursued, like an auctioneer, moving 
 a little, as I guessed, her invisible eyes. * I don t 
 believe you often have lived in such a house, eh? 
 
 I can t often afford to ! I said. 
 
 Well then, how much will you give for six 
 months ? 
 
 I was on the point of exclaiming and the air 
 of excruciation in my face would have denoted a 
 moral fact Don t, Juliana; for his sake, don t! 
 But I controlled myself and asked less passionately : 
 Why should I remain so long as that? 
 
 I thought you liked it, said Miss Bordereau, with 
 her shrivelled dignity. 
 
 So I thought I should. 
 
 For a moment she said nothing more, and I left 
 my own words to suggest to her what they might. 
 I half expected her to say, coldly enough, that if I 
 had been disappointed we need not continue the 
 discussion, and this in spite of the fact that I believed 
 her now to have in her mind (however it had come 
 there), what would have told her that my disappoint 
 ment was natural. But to my extreme surprise she 
 ended by observing : If you don t think we have 
 treated you well enough perhaps we can discover 
 some way of treating you better. This speech was 
 somehow so incongruous that it made me laugh 
 again, and I excused myself by saying that she 
 talked as if I were a sulky boy, pouting in the 
 corner, to be brought round. I had not a grain of 
 complaint to make ; and could anything have ex 
 ceeded Miss Tita s graciousness in accompanying me 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 
 
 a few nights before to the Piazza ? At this the old 
 woman went on : Well, you brought it on yourself! 
 And then in a different tone, * She is a very nice 
 girl. I assented cordially to this proposition, and 
 she expressed the hope that I did so not merely to 
 be obliging, but that I really liked her. Meanwhile 
 I wondered still more what Miss Bordereau was 
 coming to. Except for me, to-day, she said, * she 
 has not a relation in the world. Did she by 
 describing her niece as amiable and unencumbered 
 wish to represent her as a parti ? 
 
 It was perfectly true that I could not afford to 
 go on with my rooms at a fancy price and that I 
 had already devoted to my undertaking almost all 
 the hard cash I had set apart for it. My patience 
 and my time were by no means exhausted, but I 
 should be able to draw upon them only on a more 
 usual Venetian basis. I was willing to pay the 
 venerable woman with whom my pecuniary dealings 
 were such a discord twice as much as any other 
 padrona di casa would have asked, but I was not 
 willing to pay her twenty times as much. I told 
 her so plainly, and my plainness appeared to have 
 some success, for she exclaimed, * Very good ; you 
 have done what I asked you have made an offer! 
 
 Yes, but not for half a year. Only by the 
 month. 
 
 1 Oh, I must think of that then. She seemed 
 disappointed that I would not tie myself to a period, 
 and I guessed that she wished both to secure me 
 and to discourage me ; to say, severely, Do you 
 dream that you can get off with less than six months ? 
 Do you dream that even by the end of that time 
 you will be appreciably nearer your victory ? What 
 
vii THE ASPERN PAPERS 89 
 
 was more in my mind was that she had a fancy to 
 play me the trick of making me engage myself when 
 in fact she had annihilated the papers. There was 
 a moment when my suspense on this point was so 
 acute that I all but broke out with the question, and 
 what kept it back was but a kind of instinctive recoil 
 (lest it should be a mistake), from the last violence 
 of self-exposure. She was such a subtle old witch 
 that one could never tell where one stood with her. 
 You may imagine whether it cleared up the puzzle 
 when, just after she had said she would think of my 
 proposal and without any formal transition, she drew 
 out of her pocket with an embarrassed hand a small 
 object wrapped in crumpled white paper. She held 
 it there a moment and then she asked, Do you 
 know much about curiosities ? 
 
 1 About curiosities? 
 
 About antiquities, the old gimcracks that people 
 pay so much for to-day. Do you know the kind of 
 price they bring? 
 
 I thought I saw what was coming, but I said in 
 genuously, Do you want to buy something? 
 
 1 No, I want to sell. What would an amateur 
 give me for that? She unfolded the white paper 
 and made a motion for me to take from her a small 
 oval portrait. I possessed myself of it with a hand 
 of which I could only hope that she did not perceive 
 the tremor, and she added, * I would part with it only 
 for a good price. 
 
 At the first glance I recognised Jeffrey Aspern, 
 and I was well aware that I flushed with the act. 
 As she was watching me however I had the consis 
 tency to exclaim, What a striking face ! Do tell 
 me who it is. 
 
90 THE ASPERN PAPERS vn 
 
 It s an old friend of mine, a very distinguished 
 man in his day. He gave it to me himself, but I m 
 afraid to mention his name, lest you never should 
 have heard of him, critic and historian as you are. 
 I know the world goes fast and one generation 
 forgets another. He was all the fashion when I 
 was young. 
 
 She was perhaps amazed at my assurance, but I 
 was surprised at hers ; at her having the energy, in 
 her state of health and at her time of life, to wish to 
 sport with me that way simply for her private enter 
 tainment the humour to test me and practise on me. 
 This, at least, was the interpretation that I put upon 
 her production of the portrait, for I could not believe 
 that she really desired to sell it or cared for any 
 information I might give her. What she wished was 
 to dangle it before my eyes and put a prohibitive 
 price on it. * The face comes back to me, it torments 
 me, I said, turning the object this way and that 
 and looking at it very critically. It was a careful 
 but not a supreme work of art, larger than the 
 ordinary miniature and representing a young man 
 with a remarkably handsome face, in a high-collared 
 green coat and a buff waistcoat. I judged the picture 
 to have a valuable quality of resemblance and to 
 have been painted when the model was about twenty- 
 five years old. There are, as all the world knows, 
 three other portraits of the poet in existence, but 
 none of them is of so early a date as this elegant 
 production. I have never seen the original but I 
 have seen other likenesses, I went on. You expressed 
 doubt of this generation having heard of the gentle 
 man, but he strikes me for all the world as a celebrity. 
 Now who is he ? I can t put my finger on him I 
 
vii THE AS PERN PAPERS 91 
 
 can t give him a label. Wasn t he a writer ? Surely 
 he s a poet I was determined that it should be she, 
 not I, who should first pronounce Jeffrey Aspern s 
 name. 
 
 My resolution was taken in ignorance of Miss 
 Bordereau s extremely resolute character, and her lips 
 never formed in my hearing the syllables that meant 
 so much for her. She neglected to answer my 
 question but raised her hand to take back the picture, 
 with a gesture which though ineffectual was in a 
 high degree peremptory. It s only a person who 
 should know for himself that would give me my price, 
 she said with a certain dryness. 
 
 1 Oh, then, you have a price ? I did not restore 
 the precious thing ; not from any vindictive purpose 
 but because I instinctively clung to it. We looked 
 at each other hard while I retained it. 
 
 I know the least I would take. What it occurred 
 to me to ask you about is the most I shall be able 
 to get. 
 
 She made a movement, drawing herself together 
 as if, in a spasm of dread at having lost her treasure, 
 she were going to attempt the immense effort of 
 rising to snatch it from me. I instantly placed it in 
 her hand again, saying as I did so, I should like to 
 have it myself, but with your ideas I could never 
 afford it. 
 
 She turned the small oval plate over in her lap, 
 with its face down, and I thought I saw her catch 
 her breath a little, as if she had had a strain or 
 an escape. This however did not prevent her saying 
 in a moment, ( You would buy a likeness of a person 
 you don t know, by an artist who has no reputation ? 
 
 The artist may have no reputation, but that thing 
 
92 THE ASPERN PAPERS vn 
 
 is wonderfully well painted, I replied, to give myself 
 a reason. 
 
 It s lucky you thought of saying that, because 
 the painter was my father. 
 
 That makes the picture indeed precious! I ex 
 claimed, laughing ; and I may add that a part of my 
 laughter came from my satisfaction in finding that I 
 had been right in my theory of Miss Bordereau s 
 origin. Aspern had of course met the young lady 
 when he went to her father s studio as a sitter. I 
 observed to Miss Bordereau that if she would entrust 
 me with her property for twenty-four hours I should 
 be happy to take advice upon it ; but she made no 
 answer to this save to slip it in silence into her pocket. 
 This convinced me still more that she had no sincere 
 intention of selling it during her lifetime, though she 
 may have desired to satisfy herself as to the sum her 
 niece, should she leave it to her, might expect eventu 
 ally to obtain for it. Well, at any rate I hope you 
 will not offer it without giving me notice, I said, as 
 she remained irresponsive. * Remember that I am a 
 possible purchaser. 
 
 1 1 should want your money first ! she returned, 
 with unexpected rudeness ; and then, as if she be 
 thought herself that I had just cause to complain 
 of such an insinuation and wished to turn the 
 matter off, asked abruptly what I talked about with 
 her niece when I went out with her that way in the 
 evening. 
 
 * You speak as if we had set up the habit, I replied. 
 Certainly I should be very glad if it were to become 
 a habit. But in that case I should feel a still greater 
 scruple at betraying a lady s confidence. 
 
 Her confidence? Has she got confidence? 
 
vii THE ASPERN PAPERS 93 
 
 Here she is she can tell you herself/ I said ; 
 for Miss Tita now appeared on the threshold of the 
 old woman s parlour. Have you got confidence, 
 Miss Tita ? Your aunt wants very much to know. 
 
 Not in her, not in her ! the younger lady declared, 
 shaking her head with a dolefulness that was neither 
 jocular nor affected. I don t know what to do with 
 her ; she has fits of horrid imprudence. She is so 
 easily tired and yet she has begun to roam to drag 
 herself about the house. And she stood looking 
 down at her immemorial companion with a sort of 
 helpless wonder, as if all their years of familiarity 
 had not made her perversities, on occasion, any more 
 easy to follow. 
 
 I know what I m about. I m not losing my 
 mind. I daresay you would like to think so, said 
 Miss Bordereau, with a cynical little sigh. 
 
 I don t suppose you came out here yourself. 
 Miss Tita must have had to lend you a hand, I 
 interposed, with a pacifying intention. 
 
 I Oh, she insisted that we should push her ; and 
 when she insists ! said Miss Tita, in the same tone 
 of apprehension ; as if there were no knowing what 
 service that she disapproved of her aunt might force 
 her next to render. 
 
 ( I have always got most things done I wanted, 
 thank God ! The people I have lived with have 
 humoured me/ the old woman continued, speaking 
 out of the gray ashes of her vanity. 
 
 I 1 suppose you mean that they have obeyed you. 
 1 Well, whatever it is, when they like you. 
 
 It s just because I like you that I want to resist/ 
 said Miss Tita, with a nervous laugh. 
 
 * Oh, I suspect you ll bring Miss Bordereau up- 
 
94 THE ASPERN PAPERS vn 
 
 stairs next, to pay me a visit/ I went on ; to which 
 the old lady replied : 
 
 Oh no ; I can keep an eye on you from here ! 
 
 1 You are very tired ; you will certainly be ill to 
 night ! cried Miss Tita. 
 
 ( Nonsense, my dear ; I feel better at this moment 
 than I have done for a month. To-morrow I shall 
 come out again. I want to be where I can see this 
 clever gentleman. 
 
 Shouldn t you perhaps see me better in your 
 sitting-room ? I inquired. 
 
 * Don t you mean shouldn t you have a better 
 chance at me? she returned, fixing me a moment 
 with her green shade. 
 
 Ah, I haven t that anywhere ! I look at you 
 but I don t see you. 
 
 You excite her dreadfully and that is not good, 
 said Miss Tita, giving me a reproachful, appealing 
 look. 
 
 I want to watch you I want to watch you! 
 the old lady went on. 
 
 Well then, let us spend as much ot our time 
 together as possible I don t care where and that 
 will give you every facility. 
 
 Oh, I ve seen you enough for to-day. I m 
 satisfied. Now I ll go home. Miss Tita laid her 
 hands on the back of her aunt s chair and began to 
 push, but I begged her to let me take her place. 
 Oh yes, you may move me this way you sha n t 
 in any other! Miss Bordereau exclaimed, as she felt 
 herself propelled firmly and easily over the smooth, 
 hard floor. Before we reached the door of her own 
 apartment she commanded me to stop, and she took 
 a long, last look up and down the noble sala. Oh, 
 
vii THE AS PERN PAPERS 95 
 
 it s a magnificent house ! she murmured ; after which 
 I pushed her forward. When we had entered the 
 parlour Miss Tita told me that she should now be 
 able to manage, and at the same moment the little 
 red-haired donna came to meet her mistress. Miss 
 Tita s idea was evidently to get her aunt immediately 
 back to bed. I confess that in spite of this urgency 
 I was guilty of the indiscretion of lingering ; it held 
 me there to think that I was nearer the documents I 
 coveted that they were probably put away some 
 where in the faded, unsociable room. The place had 
 indeed a bareness which did not suggest hidden 
 treasures ; there were no dusky nooks nor curtained 
 corners, no massive cabinets nor chests with iron 
 bands. Moreover it was possible, it was perhaps 
 even probable that the old lady had consigned her 
 relics to her bedroom, to some battered box that was 
 shoved under the bed, to the drawer of some lame 
 dressing-table, where they would be in the range of 
 vision by the dim night-lamp. None the less I 
 scrutinised every article of furniture, every conceivable 
 cover for a hoard, and noticed that there were half a 
 dozen things with drawers, and in particular a tall old 
 secretary, with brass ornaments of the style of the 
 Empire a receptacle somewhat rickety but still 
 capable of keeping a great many secrets. I don t 
 know why this article fascinated me so, inasmuch as 
 I certainly had no definite purpose of breaking into 
 it ; but I stared at it so hard that Miss Tita noticed 
 me and changed colour. Her doing this made me 
 think I was right and that wherever they might have 
 been before the Aspern papers at that moment 
 languished behind the peevish little lock of the 
 secretary. It was hard to remove my eyes from the 
 
96 THE ASPERN PAPERS vn 
 
 dull mahogany front when I reflected that a simple 
 panel divided me from the goal of my hopes ; but I 
 remembered my prudence and with an effort took 
 leave of Miss Bordereau. To make the effort grace 
 ful I said to her that I should certainly bring her an 
 opinion about the little picture. 
 
 * The little picture ? Miss Tita asked, surprised. 
 
 What do you know about it, my dear? the old 
 woman demanded. You needn t mind. I have 
 fixed my price. 
 
 And what may that be ? 
 
 A thousand pounds. 
 
 1 Oh Lord ! cried poor Miss Tita, irrepressibly. 
 
 c Is that what she talks to you about? said Miss 
 Bordereau. 
 
 Imagine your aunt s wanting to know! I had 
 to separate from Miss Tita with only those words, 
 though I should have liked immensely to add, For 
 heaven s sake meet me to-night in the garden ! 
 
VIII 
 
 As it turned out the precaution had not been needed, 
 for three hours later, just as I had finished my dinner, 
 Miss Bordereau s niece appeared, unannounced, in the 
 open doorway of the room in which my simple re 
 pasts were served. I remember well that I felt no 
 surprise at seeing her ; which is not a proof that I 
 did not believe in her timidity. It was immense, but 
 in a case in which there was a particular reason for 
 boldness it never would have prevented her from 
 running up to my rooms. I saw that she was now 
 quite full of a particular reason ; it threw her for 
 ward made her seize me, as I rose to meet her, by 
 the arm. 
 
 * My aunt is very ill ; I think she is dying ! 
 
 Never in the world, I answered, bitterly. Don t 
 you be afraid ! 
 
 Do go for a doctor do, do ! Olimpia is gone for 
 the one we always have, but she doesn t come back; 
 I don t know what has happened to her. I told her 
 that if he was not at home she was to follow him 
 where he had gone ; but apparently she is following 
 him all over Venice. I don t know what to do she 
 looks so as if she were sinking. 
 
 May I see her, may I judge ? I asked. * Of 
 H 
 
98 THE ASPERN PAPERS vin 
 
 course I shall be delighted to bring some one ; but 
 hadn t we better send my man instead, so that I may 
 stay with you ? 
 
 Miss Tita assented to this and I despatched my 
 servant for the best doctor in the neighbourhood. I 
 hurried downstairs with her, and on the way she told 
 me that an hour after I quitted them in the afternoon 
 Miss Bordereau had had an attack of oppression, 
 a terrible difficulty in breathing. This had subsided 
 but had left her so exhausted that she did not come 
 up : she seemed all gone. I repeated that she was not 
 gone, that she would not go yet; whereupon Miss Tita 
 gave me a sharper sidelong glance than she had ever 
 directed at me and said, Really, what do you mean? 
 I suppose you don t accuse her of making-believe! 
 I forget what reply I made to this, but I grant that 
 in my heart I thought the old woman capable of any 
 weird manoeuvre. Miss Tita wanted to know what 
 I had done to her ; her aunt had told her that I had 
 made her so angry. I declared I had done nothing 
 
 I had been exceedingly careful ; to which my 
 companion rejoined that Miss Bordereau had assured 
 her she had had a scene with me a scene that had 
 upset her. I answered with some resentment that it 
 was a scene of her own making that I couldn t think 
 what she was angry with me for unless for not seeing 
 my way to give a thousand pounds for the portrait 
 of Jeffrey Aspern. * And did she show you that ? 
 Oh gracious oh deary me ! groaned Miss Tita, who 
 appeared to feel that the situation was passing out of 
 her control and that the elements of her fate were 
 thickening around her. I said that I would give 
 anything to possess it, yet that I had not a thousand 
 
 pounds ; but I stopped when we came to the door 
 
viii THE ASPERN PAPERS 99 
 
 of Miss Bordereau s room. I had an immense 
 curiosity to pass it, but I thought it my duty to 
 represent to Miss Tita that if I made the invalid 
 angry she ought perhaps to be spared the sight of 
 me. The sight of you ? Do you think she can 
 see?* my companion demanded, almost with indig 
 nation. I did think so but forbore to say it, and I 
 softly followed my conductress. 
 
 I remember that what I said to her as I stood for 
 a moment beside the old woman s bed was, Does 
 she never show you her eyes then? Have you never 
 seen them? Miss Bordereau had been divested of 
 her green shade, but (it was not my fortune to behold 
 Juliana in her nightcap) the upper half of her face 
 was covered by the fall of a piece of dingy lacelike 
 muslin, a sort of extemporised hood which, wound 
 round her head, descended to the end of her nose, 
 leaving nothing visible but her white withered cheeks 
 and puckered mouth, closed tightly and, as it were, 
 consciously. Miss Tita gave me a glance of surprise, 
 evidently not seeing a reason for my impatience. 
 You mean that she always wears something ? She 
 does it to preserve them. 
 
 Because they are so fine? 
 
 Oh, to-day, to-day! And Miss Tita shook her 
 head, speaking very low. But they used to be 
 magnificent! 
 
 Yes indeed, we have Aspern s word for that. 
 And as I looked again at the old woman s wrappings 
 I could imagine that she had not wished to allow 
 people a reason to say that the great poet had over 
 done it. But I did not waste my time in considering 
 Miss Bordereau, in whom the appearance of respira 
 tion was so slight as to suggest that no human 
 
ioo THE ASPERN PAPERS vm 
 
 attention could ever help her more. I turned my 
 eyes all over the room, rummaging with them the 
 closets, the chests of drawers, the tables. Miss Tita 
 met them quickly and read, I think, what was in 
 them ; but she did not answer it, turning away rest 
 lessly, anxiously, so that I felt rebuked, with reason, 
 for a preoccupation that was almost profane in the 
 presence of our dying companion. All the same I 
 took another look, endeavouring to pick out mentally 
 the place to try first, for a person who should wish to 
 put his hand on Miss Bordereau s papers directly 
 after her death. The room was a dire confusion ; 
 it looked like the room of an old actress. There 
 were clothes hanging over chairs, odd-looking, shabby 
 bundles here and there, and various pasteboard boxes 
 piled together, battered, bulging and discoloured, 
 which might have been fifty years old. Miss Tita 
 after a moment noticed the direction of my eyes 
 again and, as if she guessed how I judged the air of 
 the place (forgetting I had no business to judge it at 
 all), said, perhapslto defend herself from the imputa 
 tion of complicity in such untidiness : 
 
 1 She likes it this way ; we can t move things. 
 There are old bandboxes she has had most of her life. 
 Then she added, half taking pity on my real thought, 
 Those things were there And she pointed to a 
 small, low trunk which stood under a sofa where 
 there was just room for it. It appeared to be a 
 queer, superannuated coffer, of painted wood, with 
 elaborate handles and shrivelled straps and with the 
 colour (it had last been endued with a coat of light 
 green) much rubbed off. It evidently had travelled 
 with Juliana in the olden time in the days of 
 her adventures, which it had shared. It would 
 
vin THE ASPERN PAPERS 101 
 
 have made a strange figure arriving at a modern 
 hotel. 
 
 Were there they aren t now ? I asked, startled 
 by Miss Tita s implication. 
 
 She was going to answer, but at that moment the 
 doctor came in the doctor whom the little maid 
 had been sent to fetch and whom she had at last 
 overtaken. My servant, going on his own errand, 
 had met her with her companion in tow, and in 
 the sociable Venetian spirit, retracing his steps with 
 them, had also come up to the threshold of Miss 
 Bordereau s room, where I saw him peeping over the 
 doctor s shoulder. I motioned him away the more 
 instantly that the sight of his prying face reminded 
 me that I myself had almost as little to do there 
 an admonition confirmed by the sharp way the 
 little doctor looked at me, appearing to take me for 
 a rival who had the field before him. He was a 
 short, fat, brisk gentleman who wore the tall hat of 
 his profession and seemed to look at everything but 
 his patient. He looked particularly at me, as if it 
 struck him that I should be better for a dose, so that 
 I bowed to him and left him with the women, going 
 down to smoke a cigar in the garden. I was nervous ; 
 I could not go further ; I could not leave the place. 
 I don t know exactly what I thought might happen, 
 but it seemed to me important to be there. I 
 wandered about in the alleys the warm night had 
 come on smoking cigar after cigar and looking at 
 the light in Miss Bordereau s windows. They were 
 open now, I could see ; the situation was different. 
 Sometimes the light moved, but not quickly ; it did 
 not suggest the hurry of a crisis. Was the old woman 
 dying or was she already dead ? Had the doctor 
 
102 THE ASPERN PAPERS vin 
 
 said that there was nothing to be done at her 
 tremendous age but to let her quietly pass away ; 
 or had he simply announced with a look a little 
 more conventional that the end of the end had 
 come ? Were the other two women moving about 
 to perform the offices that follow in such a case ? 
 It made me uneasy not to be nearer, as if I thought 
 the doctor himself might carry away the papers 
 with him. I bit my cigar hard as it came over me 
 again that perhaps there were now no papers to 
 carry ! 
 
 I wandered about for an hour for an hour and 
 a half. I looked out for Miss Tita at one of the 
 windows, having a vague idea that she might come 
 there to give me some sign. Would she not see the 
 red tip of my cigar moving about in the dark and 
 feel that I wanted eminently to know what the 
 doctor had said ? I am afraid it is a proof my 
 anxieties had made me gross that I should have 
 taken in some degree for granted that at such an 
 hour, in the midst of the greatest change that could 
 take place in her life, they were uppermost also in 
 poor Miss Tita s mind. My servant came down and 
 spoke to me ; he knew nothing save that the doctor 
 had gone after a visit of half an hour. If he had 
 stayed half an hour then Miss Bordereau was still 
 alive : it could not have taken so much time as that 
 to enunciate the contrary. I sent the man out of 
 the house ; there were moments when the sense of 
 his curiosity annoyed me and this was one of them. 
 He had been watching my cigar-tip from an upper 
 window, if Miss Tita had not ; he could not know 
 what I was after and I could not tell him, though I 
 was conscious he had fantastic private theories about 
 
viii THE AS PERN PAPERS 103 
 
 me which he thought fine and which I, had I known 
 them, should have thought offensive. 
 
 I went upstairs at last but I ascended no higher 
 than the sala. The door of Miss Bordereau s apart 
 ment was open, showing from the parlour the dimness 
 of a poor candle. I went toward it with a light 
 tread and at the same moment Miss Tita appeared 
 and stood looking at me as I approached. * She s 
 better she s better, she said, even before I had 
 asked. The doctor has given her something ; she 
 woke up, came back to life while he was there. He 
 says there is no immediate danger. 
 
 No immediate danger ? Surely he thinks her 
 condition strange ! 
 
 * Yes, because she had been excited. That affects 
 her dreadfully. 
 
 It will do so again then, because she excites 
 herself. She did so this afternoon. 
 
 Yes ; she mustn t come out any more, said 
 Miss Tita, with one of her lapses into a deeper 
 placidity. 
 
 What is the use of making such a remark as that 
 if you begin to rattle her about again the first time 
 she bids you ? 
 
 I won t I won t do it any more, 
 
 * You must learn to resist her, I went on. 
 
 Oh yes, I shall ; I shall do so better if you tell 
 me it s right. 
 
 * You mustn t do it for me ; you must do it for 
 yourself. It all comes back to you, if you are 
 frightened. 
 
 * Well, I am not frightened now, said Miss Tita, 
 cheerfully. She is very quiet. 
 
 Is she conscious again does she speak ? 
 
io 4 THE ASPERN PAPERS vm 
 
 No, she doesn t speak, but she takes my hand. 
 She holds it fast. 
 
 Yes/ I rejoined, c I can see what force she still 
 has by the way she grabbed that picture this after 
 noon. But if she holds you fast how comes it that 
 you are here ? 
 
 Miss Tita hesitated a moment ; though her face was 
 in deep shadow (she had her back to the light in the 
 parlour and I had put down my own candle far off, 
 near the door of the sala), I thought I saw her smile 
 ingenuously. I came on purpose I heard your step. 
 
 * Why, I came on tiptoe, as inaudibly as possible. 
 Well, I heard you, said Miss Tita. 
 
 1 And is your aunt alone now ? 
 
 ( Oh no ; Olimpia is sitting there. 
 
 On my side I hesitated. Shall we then step in 
 there ? And I nodded at the parlour ; I wanted 
 more and more to be on the spot. 
 
 * We can t talk there she will hear us. 
 
 I was on the point of replying that in that case we 
 would sit silent, but I was too conscious that this 
 would not do, as there was something I desired 
 immensely to ask her. So I proposed that we should 
 walk a little in the sala, keeping more at the other 
 end, where we should not disturb the old lady. 
 Miss Tita assented unconditionally ; the doctor was 
 coming again, she said, and she would be there to 
 meet him at the door. We strolled through the fine 
 superfluous hall, where on the marble floor 
 particularly as at first we said nothing our foot 
 steps were more audible than I had expected. 
 When we reached the other end the wide window, 
 inveterately closed, connecting with the balcony that 
 overhung the canal I suggested that we should 
 
viii THE ASPERN PAPERS 105 
 
 remain there, as she would see the doctor arrive still 
 better. I opened the window and we passed out on 
 the balcony. The air of the canal seemed even 
 heavier, hotter than that of the sala. The place was 
 hushed and void ; the quiet neighbourhood had gone 
 to sleep. A lamp, here and there, over the narrow 
 black water, glimmered in double ; the voice of a 
 man going homeward singing, with his jacket on his 
 shoulder and his hat on his ear, came to us from a 
 distance. This did not prevent the scene from being 
 very comme il faut, as Miss Bordereau had called it 
 the first time I saw her. Presently a gondola passed 
 along the canal with its slow rhythmical plash, and 
 as we listened we watched it in silence. It did not 
 stop, it did not carry the doctor ; and after it had 
 gone on I said to Miss Tita : 
 
 And where are they now the things that were 
 in the trunk? 
 
 In the trunk? 
 
 * That green box you pointed out to me in her 
 room. You said her papers had been there ; you 
 seemed to imply that she had transferred them. 
 
 Oh yes ; they are not in the trunk, said Miss 
 Tita. 
 
 May I ask if you have looked? 
 
 Yes, I have looked for you. 
 
 How for me, dear Miss Tita? Do you mean 
 you would have given them to me if you had found 
 them? I asked, almost trembling. 
 
 She delayed to reply and I waited. Suddenly 
 she broke out, I don t know what I would do what 
 I wouldn t! 
 
 Would you look again somewhere else? 
 
 She had spoken with a strange, unexpected 
 
1 06 THE AS PERN PA PERS vm 
 
 emotion, and she went on in the same tone : I can t 
 I can t while she lies there. It isn t decent. 
 
 No, it isn t decent, I replied, gravely. Let the 
 poor lady rest in peace. And the words, on my lips, 
 were not hypocritical, for I felt reprimanded and 
 shamed. 
 
 Miss Tita added in a moment, as if she had guessed 
 this and were sorry for me, but at the same time 
 wished to explain that I did drive her on or at least 
 did insist too much : I can t deceive her that way. 
 I can t deceive her perhaps on her deathbed. 
 
 * Heaven forbid I should ask you, though I have 
 been guilty myself ! 
 
 You have been guilty? 
 
 I have sailed under false colours. I felt now 
 as if I must tell her that I had given her an invented 
 name, on account of my fear that her aunt would have 
 heard of me and would refuse to take me in. I 
 explained this and also that I had really been a party 
 to the letter written to them by John Cumnor months 
 before. 
 
 She listened with great attention, looking at me 
 with parted lips, and when I had made my confession 
 she said, Then your real name what is it? She 
 repeated it over twice when I had told her, ac 
 companying it with the exclamation Gracious, 
 gracious ! Then she added, I like your own 
 best. 
 
 So do I, I said, laughing. Ouf! it s a relief to 
 get rid of the other. 
 
 So it was a regular plot a kind of conspiracy? 
 
 Oh, a conspiracy we were only two, I replied, 
 leaving out Mrs. Prest of course. 
 
 She hesitated ; I thought she was perhaps going 
 
vin THE ASPERN PAPERS 107 
 
 to say that we had been very base. But she remarked 
 after a moment, in a candid, wondering way, How 
 much you must want them ! 
 
 Oh, I do, passionately! I conceded, smiling. 
 And this chance made me go on, forgetting my com 
 punction of a moment before. How can she possibly 
 have changed their place herself? How can she 
 walk ? How can she arrive at that sort of muscular 
 exertion? How can she lift and carry things? 
 
 Oh, when one wants and when one has so much 
 will ! said Miss Tita, as if she had thought over my 
 question already herself and had simply had no choice 
 but that answer the idea that in the dead of night, 
 or at some moment when the coast was clear, the 
 old woman had been capable of a miraculous effort. 
 
 Have you questioned Olimpia? Hasn t she 
 helped her hasn t she done it for her? I asked ; to 
 which Miss Tita replied promptly and positively that 
 their servant had had nothing to do with the matter, 
 though without admitting definitely that she had 
 spoken to her. It was as if she were a little shy, a 
 little ashamed now of letting me see how much she 
 had entered into my uneasiness and had me on her 
 mind. Suddenly she said to me, without any im 
 mediate relevance : 
 
 I feel as if you were a new person, now that you 
 have got a new name. 
 
 It isn t a new one ; it is a very good old one, 
 thank heaven ! 
 
 She looked at me a moment. I do like it 
 better. 
 
 Oh, if you didn t I would almost go on with the 
 other! 
 
 Would you really? 
 
io8 THE ASPERN PAPERS vin 
 
 I laughed again, but for all answer to this inquiry 
 I said, Of course if she can rummage about that way 
 she can perfectly have burnt them. 
 
 You must wait you must wait/ Miss Tita 
 moralised mournfully ; and her tone ministered little 
 to my patience, for it seemed after all to accept that 
 wretched possibility. I would teach myself to wait, 
 I declared nevertheless ; because in the first place I 
 could not do otherwise and in the second I had her 
 promise, given me the other night, that she would 
 help me. 
 
 * Of course if the papers are gone that s no use, 
 she said ; not as if she wished to recede, but only to 
 be conscientious. 
 
 ( Naturally. But if you could only find out! I 
 groaned, quivering again. 
 
 I thought you said you would wait. 
 
 Oh, you mean wait even for that? 
 
 For what then? 
 
 Oh, nothing, I replied, rather foolishly, being 
 ashamed to tell her what had been implied in my 
 submission to delay the idea that she would do more 
 than merely find out. I know not whether she 
 guessed this ; at all events she appeared to become 
 aware of the necessity for being a little more rigid. 
 
 I didn t promise to deceive, did I ? I don t think 
 I did. 
 
 * It doesn t much matter whether you did or not, 
 for you couldn t ! 
 
 I don t think Miss Tita would have contested 
 this even had she not been diverted by our seeing 
 the doctor s gondola shoot into the little canal and 
 approach the house. I noted that he came as fast 
 as if he believed that Miss Bordereau was still in 
 
vni THE ASPERN PAPERS 109 
 
 danger. We looked down at him while he disem 
 barked and then went back into the sala to meet him. 
 When he came up however I naturally left Miss Tita 
 to go off with him alone, only asking her leave to 
 come back later for news. 
 
 I went out of the house and took a long walk, as 
 far as the Piazza., where my restlessness declined to 
 quit me. I was unable to sit down (it was very late 
 now but there were people still at the little tables 
 in front of the cafes) ; I could only walk round and 
 round, and I did so half a dozen times. I was un 
 comfortable, but it gave me a certain pleasure to have 
 told Miss Tita who I really was. At last I took my 
 way home again, slowly getting all but inextricably 
 lost, as I did whenever I went out in Venice : so that 
 it was considerably past midnight when I reached my 
 door. The sala, upstairs, was as dark as usual and 
 my lamp as I crossed it found nothing satisfactory 
 to show me. I was disappointed, for I had notified 
 Miss Tita that I would come back for a report, and 
 I thought she might have left a light there as a sign. 
 The door of the ladies apartment was closed ; which 
 seemed an intimation that my faltering friend had 
 gone to bed, tired of waiting for me. I stood in the 
 middle of the place, considering, hoping she would 
 hear me and perhaps peep out, saying to myself too 
 that she would never go to bed with her aunt in a 
 state so critical ; she would sit up and watch she 
 would be in a chair, in her dressing-gown. I went 
 nearer the door ; I stopped there and listened. I 
 heard nothing at all and at last I tapped gently. 
 No answer came and after another minute I turned 
 the handle. There was no light in the room ; this 
 ought to have prevented me from going in, but it had 
 
no THE ASPERN PAPERS vin 
 
 no such effect. If I have candidly narrated the 
 importunities, the indelicacies, of which my desire to 
 possess myself of Jeffrey Aspern s papers had ren 
 dered me capable I need not shrink from confessing 
 this last indiscretion. I think it was the worst thing I 
 did ; yet there were extenuating circumstances. I was 
 deeply though doubtless not disinterestedly anxious 
 for more news of the old lady, and Miss Tita had 
 accepted from me, as it were, a rendezvous which it 
 might have been a point of honour with me to keep. 
 It may be said that her leaving the place dark was 
 a positive sign that she released me, and to this I can 
 only reply that I desired not to be released. 
 
 The door of Miss Bordereau s room was open 
 and I could see beyond it the faintness of a taper. 
 There was no sound my footstep caused no one to 
 stir. I came further into the room ; I lingered 
 there with my lamp in my hand. I wanted to give 
 Miss Tita a chance to come to me if she were with 
 her aunt, as she must be. I made no noise to call 
 her ; I only waited to see if she would not notice my 
 light. She did not, and I explained this (I found 
 afterwards I was right) by the idea that she had 
 fallen asleep. If she had fallen asleep her aunt was 
 not on her mind, and my explanation ought to have 
 led me to go out as I had come. I must repeat 
 again that it did not, for I found myself at the 
 same moment thinking of something else. I had 
 no definite purpose, no bad intention, but I felt my 
 self held to the spot by an acute, though absurd, 
 sense of opportunity. For what I could not have 
 said, inasmuch as it was not in my mind that I 
 might commit a theft. Even if it had been I was 
 confronted with the evident fact that Miss Bordereau 
 
viii THE AS PERN PAPERS in 
 
 did not leave her secretary, her cupboard and the 
 drawers of her tables gaping. I had no keys, 
 no tools and no ambition to smash her furniture. 
 None the less it came to me that I was now, perhaps 
 alone, unmolested, at the hour of temptation and 
 secrecy, nearer to the tormenting treasure than I had 
 ever been. I held up my lamp, let the light play 
 on the different objects as if it could tell me some 
 thing. Still there came no movement from the 
 other room. If Miss Tita was sleeping she was 
 sleeping sound. Was she doing so generous 
 creature on purpose to leave me the field ? Did 
 she know I was there and was she just keeping quiet 
 to see what I would do what I could do? But 
 what could I do, when it came to that ? She herself 
 knew even better than I how little. 
 
 I stopped in front of the secretary, looking at it 
 very idiotically ; for what had it to say to me after 
 all ? In the first place it was locked, and in the 
 second it almost surely contained nothing in which 
 I was interested. Ten to one the papers had been 
 destroyed ; and even if they had not been destroyed 
 the old woman would not have put them in such a 
 place as that after removing them from the green 
 trunk would not have transferred them, if she had 
 the idea of their safety on her brain, from the better 
 hiding-place to the worse. The secretary was more 
 conspicuous, more accessible in a room in which she 
 could no longer mount guard. It opened with a 
 key, but there was a little brass handle, like a button, 
 as well ; I saw this as I played my lamp over it. I 
 did something more than this at that moment : I 
 caught a glimpse of the possibility that Miss Tita 
 wished me really to understand. If she did not 
 
ii2 THE ASPERN PAPERS vin 
 
 wish me to understand, if she wished me to keep 
 away, why had she not locked the door of com 
 munication between the sitting-room and the sala ? 
 That would have been a definite sign that I was to 
 leave them alone. If I did not leave them alone she 
 meant me to come for a purpose a purpose now 
 indicated by the quick, fantastic idea that to oblige 
 me she had unlocked the secretary. She had not 
 left the key, but the lid would probably move if I 
 touched the button. This theory fascinated me, 
 and I bent over very close to judge. I did not 
 propose to do anything, not even not in the least 
 to let down the lid ; I only wanted to test my theory, 
 to see if the cover would move. I touched the 
 button with my hand a mere touch would tell me ; 
 and as I did so (it is embarrassing for me to relate 
 it), I looked over my shoulder. It was a chance, an 
 instinct, for I had not heard anything. I almost let 
 my luminary drop and certainly I stepped back, 
 straightening myself up at what I saw. Miss 
 Bordereau stood there in her night-dress, in the 
 doorway of her room, watching me ; her hands were 
 raised, she had lifted the everlasting curtain that 
 covered half her face, and for the first, the last, the 
 only time I beheld her extraordinary eyes. They 
 glared at me, they made me horribly ashamed. I 
 never shall forget her strange little bent white totter 
 ing figure, with its lifted head, her attitude, her 
 expression ; neither shall I forget the tone in which 
 as I turned, looking at her, she hissed out passion 
 ately, furiously : 
 
 Ah, you publishing scoundrel ! 
 
 I know not what I stammered, to excuse myself, 
 to explain ; but I went towards her, to tell her I 
 
vin THE AS PERN PAPERS 1 1 3 
 
 meant no harm. She waved me off with her old 
 hands, retreating before me in horror ; and the next 
 thing I knew she had fallen back with a quick 
 spasm, as if death had descended on her, into Miss 
 Tita s arms. 
 
IX 
 
 I LEFT Venice the next morning, as soon as I learnt 
 that the old lady had not succumbed, as I feared at 
 the moment, to the shock I had given her the 
 shock I may also say she had given me. How in 
 the world could I have supposed her capable of 
 getting out of bed by herself? I failed to see Miss 
 Tita before going ; I only saw the donna, whom I 
 entrusted with a note for her younger mistress. In 
 this note I mentioned that I should be absent but 
 for a few days. I went to Treviso, to Bassano, to 
 Castelfranco ; I took walks and drives and looked 
 at musty old churches with ill-lighted pictures and 
 spent hours seated smoking at the doors of cafes, 
 where there were flies and yellow curtains, on the 
 shady side of sleepy little squares. In spite of these 
 pastimes, which were mechanical and perfunctory, 
 I scantily enjoyed my journey : there was too strong 
 a taste of the disagreeable in my life. It had been 
 devilish awkward, as the young men say, to be 
 found by Miss Bordereau in the dead of night 
 examining the attachment of her bureau ; and it 
 had not been less so to have to believe for a good 
 many hours afterward that it was highly probable I 
 had killed her. In writing to Miss Tita I attempted 
 
ix THE ASPERN PAPERS 115 
 
 to minimise these irregularities ; but as she gave me 
 no word of answer I could not know what impression 
 I made upon her. It rankled in my mind that I 
 had been called a publishing scoundrel, for certainly 
 I did publish and certainly I had not been very 
 delicate. There was a moment when I stood con 
 vinced that the only way to make up for this latter 
 fault was to take myself away altogether on the 
 instant ; to sacrifice my hopes and relieve the two 
 poor women for ever of the oppression of my inter 
 course. Then I reflected that I had better try a 
 short absence first, for I must already have had a 
 sense (unexpressed and dim) that in disappearing 
 completely it would not be merely my own hopes 
 that I should condemn to extinction. It would 
 perhaps be sufficient if I stayed away long enough 
 to give the elder lady time to think she was rid of 
 me. That she would wish to be rid of me after this 
 (if I was not rid of her) was now not to be doubted : 
 that nocturnal scene would have cured her of the 
 disposition to put up with my company for the sake 
 of my dollars. I said to myself that after all I 
 could not abandon Miss Tita, and I continued to 
 say this even while I observed that she quite failed 
 to comply with my earnest request (I had given her 
 two or three addresses, at little towns, poste restante] 
 that she would let me know how she was getting on. 
 I would have made my servant write to me but that 
 he was unable to manage a pen. It struck me there 
 was a kind of scorn in Miss Tita s silence (little dis 
 dainful as she had ever been), so that I was uncom 
 fortable and sore. I had scruples about going back 
 and yet I had others about not doing so, for I 
 wanted to put myself on a better footing. The end 
 
ii6 THE ASPERN PAPERS ix 
 
 of it was that I did return to Venice on the twelfth 
 day ; and as my gondola gently bumped against 
 Miss Bordereau s steps a certain palpitation of 
 suspense told me that I had done myself a violence 
 in holding off so long. 
 
 I had faced about so abruptly that I had not 
 telegraphed to my servant. He was therefore not 
 at the station to meet me, but he poked out his 
 head from an upper window when I reached the 
 house. They have put her into the earth, la 
 vecchia] he said to me in the lower hall, while he 
 shouldered my valise ; and he grinned and almost 
 winked, as if he knew I should be pleased at the 
 news. 
 
 She s dead! I exclaimed, giving him a very 
 different look. 
 
 So it appears, since they have buried her. 
 It s all over? When was the funeral ? 
 * The other yesterday. But a funeral you could 
 scarcely call it, signore ; it was a dull little passeggio 
 of two gondolas. Poveretta ! the man continued, 
 referring apparently to Miss Tita. His conception 
 of funerals was apparently that they were mainly 
 to amuse the living. 
 
 I wanted to know about Miss Tita how she 
 was and where she was but I asked him no more 
 questions till we had got upstairs. Now that the 
 fact had met me I took a bad view of it, especially 
 of the idea that poor Miss Tita had had to manage 
 by herself after the end. What did she know about 
 arrangements, about the steps to take in such a 
 case ? Poveretta indeed ! I could only hope that 
 the doctor had given her assistance and that she had 
 not been neglected by the old friends of whom she 
 
ix THE ASPERN PAPERS 117 
 
 had told me, the little band of the faithful whose 
 fidelity consisted in coming to the house once a 
 year. I elicited from my servant that two old 
 ladies and an old gentleman had in fact rallied 
 round Miss Tita and had supported her (they had 
 come for her in a gondola of their own) during the 
 journey to the cemetery, the little red-walled island 
 of tombs which lies to the north of the town, on the 
 way to Murano. It appeared from these circum 
 stances that the Misses Bordereau were Catholics, a 
 discovery I had never made, as the old woman could 
 not go to church and her niece, so far as I perceived, 
 either did not or went only to early mass in the 
 parish, before I was stirring. Certainly even the 
 priests respected their seclusion ; I had never caught 
 the whisk of the curato s skirt. That evening, 
 an hour later, I sent my servant down with five 
 words written on a card, to ask Miss Tita if she 
 would see me for a few moments. She was not in 
 the house, where he had sought her, he told me 
 when he came back, but in the garden walking 
 about to refresh herself and gathering flowers. 
 He had found her there and she would be very 
 happy to see me. 
 
 I went down and passed half an hour with poor 
 Miss Tita. She had always had a look of musty 
 mourning (as if she were wearing out old robes of 
 sorrow that would not come to an end), and in this 
 respect there was no appreciable change in her 
 appearance. But she evidently had been crying, 
 crying a great deal simply, satisfyingly, refresh 
 ingly, with a sort of primitive, retarded sense of 
 loneliness and violence. But she had none of the 
 formalism or the self-consciousness of grief, and I 
 
ii8 THE ASPERN PAPERS ix 
 
 was almost surprised to see her standing there in 
 the first dusk with her hands full of flowers, smiling 
 at me with her reddened eyes. Her white face, in 
 the frame of her mantilla, looked longer, leaner than 
 usual. I had had an idea that she would be a good 
 deal disgusted with me would consider that I 
 ought to have been on the spot to advise her, to 
 help her ; and, though I was sure there was no 
 rancour in her composition and no great conviction of 
 the importance of her affairs, I had prepared myself 
 for a difference in her manner, for some little injured 
 look, half familiar, half estranged, which should say 
 to my conscience, Well, you are a nice person to 
 have professed things ! But historic truth compels 
 me to declare that Tita Bordereau s countenance 
 expressed unqualified pleasure in seeing her late 
 aunt s lodger. That touched him extremely and he 
 thought it simplified his situation until he found it 
 did not. I was as kind to her that evening as I 
 knew how to be, and I walked about the garden 
 with her for half an hour. There was no explana 
 tion of any sort between us ; I did not ask her why 
 she had not answered my letter. Still less did I 
 repeat what I had said to her in that communication ; 
 if she chose to let me suppose that she had forgotten 
 the position in which Miss Bordereau surprised me 
 that night and the effect of the discovery on the 
 old woman I was quite willing to take it that way : 
 I was grateful to her for not treating me as if I had 
 killed her aunt. 
 
 We strolled and strolled and really not much 
 passed between us save the recognition of her 
 bereavement, conveyed in my manner and in a visible 
 air that she had of depending on me now, since I 
 
ix THE AS PERN PAPERS 119 
 
 let her see that I took an interest in her. Miss Tita 
 had none of the pride that makes a person wish to 
 preserve the look of independence ; she did not in 
 the least pretend that she knew at present what 
 would become of her. I forbore to touch particularly 
 on that however, for I certainly was not prepared to 
 say that I would take charge of her. I was cautious ; 
 not ignobly, I think, for I felt that her knowledge of 
 life was so small that in her unsophisticated vision 
 there would be no reason why since I seemed to 
 pity her I should not look after her. She told me 
 how her aunt had died, very peacefully at the last, 
 and how everything had been done afterwards by 
 the care of her good friends (fortunately, thanks to 
 me, she said, smiling, there was money in the house ; 
 and she repeated that when once the Italians like you 
 they are your friends for life) ; and when we had 
 gone into this she asked me about my giro, my im 
 pressions, the places I had seen. I told her what I 
 could, making it up partly, I am afraid, as in my 
 depression I had not seen much ; and after she had 
 heard me she exclaimed, quite as if she had forgotten 
 her aunt and her sorrow, Dear, dear, how much I 
 should like to do such things to take a little 
 journey! 5 It came over me for the moment that I 
 ought to propose some tour, say I would take her 
 anywhere she liked ; and I remarked at any rate 
 that some excursion to give her a change might 
 be managed : we would think of it, talk it over. I 
 said never a word to her about the Aspern docu 
 ments ; asked no questions as to what she had ascer 
 tained or what had otherwise happened with regard 
 to them before Miss Bordereau s death. It was not 
 that I was not on pins and needles to know, but that 
 
120 THE ASPERN PAPERS ix 
 
 I thought it more decent not to betray my anxiety 
 so soon after the catastrophe. I hoped she herself 
 would say something, but she never glanced that 
 way, and I thought this natural at the time. Later 
 however, that night, it occurred to me that her silence 
 was somewhat strange ; for if she had talked of my 
 movements, of anything so detached as the Giorgione 
 at Castelfranco, she might have alluded to what she 
 could easily remember was in my mind. It was not 
 to be supposed that the emotion produced by her 
 aunt s death had blotted out the recollection that I 
 was interested in that lady s relics, and I fidgeted 
 afterwards as it came to me that her reticence might 
 very possibly mean simply that nothing had been 
 found. We separated in the garden (it was she who 
 said she must go in) ; now that she was alone in the 
 rooms I felt that (judged, at any rate, by Venetian 
 ideas) I was on rather a different footing in regard 
 to visiting her there. As I shook hands with her 
 for good-night I asked her if she had any general 
 plan had thought over what she had better do. 
 Oh yes, oh yes, but I haven t settled anything yet, 
 she replied, quite cheerfully. Was her cheerfulness 
 explained by the impression that I would settle for 
 her? 
 
 I was glad the next morning that we had 
 neglected practical questions, for this gave me a 
 pretext for seeing her again immediately. There 
 was a very practical question to be touched upon. 
 I owed it to her to let her know formally that of 
 course I did not expect her to keep me on as a 
 lodger, and also to show some interest in her own 
 tenure, what she might have on her hands in the way 
 of a lease. But I was not destined, as it happened, 
 
TX THE AS PERN PAPERS 121 
 
 to converse with her for more than an instant on 
 either of these points. I sent her no message ; I 
 simply went down to the sala and walked to and fro 
 there. I knew she would come out ; she would very 
 soon discover I was there. Somehow I preferred 
 not to be shut up with her ; gardens and big halls 
 seemed better places to talk. It was a splendid 
 morning, with something in the air that told of the 
 waning of the long Venetian summer ; a freshness 
 from the sea which stirred the flowers in the garden 
 and made a pleasant draught in the house, less 
 shuttered and darkened now than when the old 
 woman was alive. It was the beginning of autumn, 
 of the end of the golden months. With this it was 
 the end of my experiment or would be in the 
 course of half an hour, when I should really have 
 learned that the papers had been reduced to ashes. 
 After that there would be nothing left for me but to 
 go to the station ; for seriously (and as it struck me 
 in the morning light) I could not linger there to act 
 as guardian to a piece of middle-aged female help 
 lessness. If she had not saved the papers wherein 
 should I be indebted to her? I think I winced a 
 little as I asked myself how much, if she had saved 
 them, I should have to recognise and, as it were, to 
 reward such a courtesy. Might not that circumstance 
 after all saddle me with a guardianship ? If this idea 
 did not make me more uncomfortable as I walked 
 up and down it was because I was convinced I had 
 nothing to look to. If the old woman had not 
 destroyed everything before she pounced upon me in 
 the parlour she had done so afterwards. 
 
 It took Miss Tita rather longer than I had ex 
 pected to guess that I was there ; but when at last 
 
122 THE ASPERN PAPERS ix 
 
 she came out she looked at me without surprise. I 
 said to her that I had been waiting for her and she 
 asked why I had not let her know. I was glad the 
 next day that I had checked myself before remarking 
 that I had wished to see if a friendly intuition would 
 not tell her : it became a satisfaction to me that I 
 had not indulged in that rather tender joke. What 
 I did say was virtually the truth that I was too 
 nervous, since I expected her now to settle my fate. 
 
 Your fate? said Miss Tita, giving me a queer 
 look ; and as she spoke I noticed a rare change in 
 her. She was different from what she had been the 
 evening before less natural, less quiet. She had 
 been crying the day before and she was not crying 
 now, and yet she struck me as less confident. It 
 was as if something had happened to her during the 
 night, or at least as if she had thought of something 
 that troubled her something in particular that 
 affected her relations with me, made them more 
 embarrassing and complicated. Had she simply 
 perceived that her aunt s not being there now 
 altered my position ? 
 
 I mean about our papers. Are there any ? You 
 must know now. 
 
 Yes, there are a great many ; more than I sup 
 posed. I was struck with the way her voice trembled 
 as she told me this. 
 
 Do you mean that you have got them in there 
 and that I may see them ? 
 
 c I don t think you can see them, said Miss Tita, 
 with an extraordinary expression of entreaty in her 
 eyes, as if the dearest hope she had in the world now 
 was that I would not take them from her. But how- 
 could she expect me to make such a sacrifice as that 
 
ix THE AS PERN PAPERS 123 
 
 after all that had passed between us ? What had I 
 come back to Venice for but to see them, to take them? 
 My delight at learning they were still in existence was 
 such that if the poor woman had gone down on her 
 knees to beseech me never to mention them again I 
 would have treated the proceeding as a bad joke. 
 * I have got them but I can t show them/ she added. 
 
 Not even to me? Ah, Miss Tita! I groaned, 
 with a voice of infinite remonstrance and reproach. 
 
 She coloured and the tears came back to her 
 eyes ; I saw that it cost her a kind of anguish to 
 take such a stand but that a dreadful sense of duty 
 had descended upon her. It made me quite sick to 
 find myself confronted with that particular obstacle ; 
 all the more that it appeared to me I had been ex 
 tremely encouraged to leave it out of account. I 
 almost considered that Miss Tita had assured me 
 
 that if she had no greater hindrance than that ! 
 
 You don t mean to say you made her a deathbed 
 promise ? It was precisely against your doing any 
 thing of that sort that I thought I was safe. Oh, I 
 would rather she had burned the papers outright than 
 that! 
 
 No, it isn t a promise/ said Miss Tita. 
 
 * Pray what is it then ? 
 
 She hesitated and then she said, She tried to 
 burn them, but I prevented it. She had hid them 
 in her bed. 
 
 In her bed? 
 
 Between the mattresses. That s where she put 
 them when she took them out of the trunk. I can t 
 understand how she did it, because Olimpia didn t 
 help her. She tells me so and I believe her. My 
 aunt only told her afterwards, so that she shouldn t 
 
124 THE ASPERN PAPERS ix 
 
 touch the bed anything but the sheets. So it was 
 badly made/ added Miss Tita, simply. 
 
 I should think so ! And how did she try to 
 burn them ? 
 
 She didn t try much ; she was too weak, those 
 last days. But she told me she charged me. Oh, 
 it was terrible ! She couldn t speak after that night ; 
 she could only make signs. 
 
 And what did you do? 
 
 I took them away. I locked them up, 
 
 In the secretary ? 
 
 Yes, in the secretary/ said Miss Tita, reddening 
 again. 
 
 Did you tell her you would burn them? 
 
 No, I didn t on purpose. 
 
 On purpose to gratify me ? 
 
 Yes, only for that. 
 
 And what good will you have done me if after 
 all you won t show them ? 
 
 Oh, none ; I know that I know that. 
 
 And did she believe you had destroyed them? 
 
 I don t know what she believed at the last. I 
 couldn t tell she was too far gone. 
 
 1 Then if there was no promise and no assurance 
 I can t see what ties you. 
 
 Oh, she hated it so she hated it so ! She was 
 so jealous. But here s the portrait you may have 
 that/ Miss Tita announced, taking the little picture, 
 wrapped up in the same manner in which her aunt 
 had wrapped it, out of her pocket. 
 
 I may have it do you mean you give it to me ? 
 I questioned, staring, as it passed into my hand. 
 
 Oh yes. 
 
 But it s worth money a large sum. 
 
ix THE AS PERN PAPERS 125 
 
 Well ! said Miss Tita, still with her strange look. 
 
 I did not know what to make of it, for it could 
 scarcely mean that she wanted to bargain like her 
 aunt. She spoke as if she wished to make me a 
 present. I can t take it from you as a gift/ I said, 
 * and yet I can t afford to pay you for it according to 
 the ideas Miss Bordereau had of its value. She 
 rated it at a thousand pounds. 
 
 Couldn t we sell it? asked Miss Tita. 
 
 God forbid ! I prefer the picture to the money. 
 
 < Well then keep it. 
 
 * You are very generous. 
 
 * So are you. 
 
 I don t know why you should think so, I replied ; 
 and this was a truthful speech, for the singular 
 creature appeared to have some very fine reference 
 in her mind, which I did not in the least seize. 
 
 Well, you have made a great difference for me, 
 said Miss Tita. 
 
 I looked at Jeffrey Aspern s face in the little 
 picture, partly in order not to look at that of my 
 interlocutress, which had begun to trouble me, even 
 to frighten me a little it was so self-conscious, so 
 unnatural. I made no answer to this last declara 
 tion ; I only privately consulted Jeffrey Aspern s 
 delightful eyes with my own (they were so young and 
 brilliant, and yet so wise, so full of vision) ; I asked 
 him what on earth was the matter with Miss Tita. 
 He seemed to smile at me with friendly mockery, as 
 if he were amused at my case. I had got into a 
 pickle for him as if he needed it ! He was unsatis 
 factory, for the only moment since I had known him. 
 Nevertheless, now that I held the little picture in my 
 hand I felt that it would be a precious possession. 
 
126 THE AS PERN PAPERS ix 
 
 Is this a bribe to make me give up the papers ? I 
 demanded in a moment, perversely. Much as I 
 value it, if I were to be obliged to choose, the papers 
 are what I should prefer. Ah, but ever so much ! 
 
 How can you choose how can you choose ? 
 Miss Tita asked, slowly, lamentably. 
 
 ( I see ! Of course there is nothing to be said, if 
 you regard the interdiction that rests upon you as 
 quite insurmountable. In this case it must seem to 
 you that to part with them would be an impiety of 
 the worst kind, a simple sacrilege ! 
 
 Miss Tita shook her head, full of her dolefulness. 
 You would understand if you had known her. I m 
 afraid/ she quavered suddenly c I m afraid ! She 
 was terrible when she was angry. 
 
 Yes, I saw something of that, that night. She 
 was terrible. Then I saw her eyes. Lord, they 
 were fine ! 
 
 I see them they stare at me in the dark ! said 
 Miss Tita. 
 
 You are nervous, with all you have been 
 through. 
 
 Oh yes, very very ! 
 
 1 You mustn t mind ; that will pass away, I said, 
 kindly. Then I added, resignedly, for it really 
 seemed to me that I must accept the situation, 
 Well, so it is, and it can t be helped. I must re 
 nounce. Miss Tita, at this, looking at me, gave a 
 low, soft moan, and I went on : I only . wish to 
 heaven she had destroyed them ; then there would 
 be nothing more to say. And I can t understand 
 why, with her ideas, she didn t. 
 
 Oh, she lived on them ! said Miss Tita. 
 
 You can imagine whether that makes me want 
 
ix THE ASPERN PAPERS 127 
 
 less to see them, I answered, smiling. But don t 
 let me stand here as if I had it in my soul to tempt 
 you to do anything base. Naturally you will un 
 derstand I give up my rooms. I leave Venice im 
 mediately. And I took up my hat, which I had 
 placed on a chair. We were still there rather 
 awkwardly, on our feet, in the middle of the sala. 
 She had left the door of the apartments open behind 
 her but she had not led me that way. 
 
 A kind of spasm came into her face as she saw 
 me take my hat. Immediately do you mean to 
 day ? The tone of the words was tragical they 
 were a cry of desolation. 
 
 Oh no ; not so long as I can be of the least 
 service to you. 
 
 Well, just a day or two more just two or three 
 days, she panted. Then controlling herself she 
 added in another manner, She wanted to say some 
 thing to me the last day something very parti 
 cular, but she couldn t. 
 
 Something very particular ? 
 
 Something more about the papers. 
 
 And did you guess have you any idea ? 
 
 No, I have thought but I don t know. I have 
 thought all kinds of things. 
 
 And for instance ? 
 
 Well, that if you were a relation it would be 
 different. 
 
 * If I were a relation ? 
 
 If you were not a stranger. Then it would be 
 
 the same for you as for me. Anything that is mine 
 
 would be yours, and you could do what you like. 
 
 I couldn t prevent you and you would have 
 
 no responsibility. 
 
128 THE AS PERN PAPERS ix 
 
 She brought out this droll explanation with a 
 little nervous rush, as if she were speaking words she 
 had got by heart. They gave me an impression of 
 subtlety and at first I failed to follow. But after a 
 moment her face helped me to see further, and then 
 a light came into my mind. It was embarrassing, 
 and I bent my head over Jeffrey Aspern s portrait. 
 What an odd expression was in his face ! c Get out 
 of it as you can, my dear fellow ! I put the picture 
 into the pocket of my coat and said to Miss Tita, 
 Yes, I ll sell it for you. I sha n t get a thousand 
 pounds by any means, but I shall get something 
 good. 
 
 She looked at me with tears in her eyes, but she 
 seemed to try to smile as she remarked, * We can 
 divide the money. 
 
 No, no, it shall be all yours. Then I went on, 
 I think I know what your poor aunt wanted to say. 
 She wanted to give directions that her papers should 
 be buried with her. 
 
 Miss Tita appeared to consider this suggestion for 
 a moment ; after which she declared, with striking 
 decision, Oh no, she wouldn t have thought that 
 safe ! 
 
 It seems to me nothing could be safer. 
 
 She had an idea that when people want to 
 
 publish they are capable And she paused, 
 
 blushing. 
 
 Of violating a tomb ? Mercy on us, what must 
 she have thought of me ! 
 
 She was not just, she was not generous ! Miss 
 Tita cried with sudden passion. 
 
 The light that had come into my mind a moment 
 before increased. Ah, don t say that, for we are 
 
ix THE AS PERN PAPERS 129 
 
 a dreadful race. Then I pursued, If she left a will, 
 that may give you some idea. 
 
 I have found nothing of the sort she destroyed 
 it. She was very fond of me, Miss Tita added, 
 incongruously. * She wanted me to be happy. And 
 if any person should be kind to me she wanted to 
 speak of that. 
 
 I was almost awestricken at the astuteness with 
 which the good lady found herself inspired, transparent 
 astuteness as it was and sewn, as the phrase is, with 
 white thread. Depend upon it she didn t want to 
 make any provision that would be agreeable to me. 
 
 No, not to you but to me. She knew I should 
 like it if you could carry out your idea. Not 
 because she cared for you but because she did think 
 of me, Miss Tita went on, with her unexpected, 
 persuasive volubility. You could see them you 
 could use them. She stopped, seeing that I per 
 ceived the sense of that conditional stopped long 
 enough for me to give some sign which I did not give. 
 She must have been conscious however that though 
 my face showed the greatest embarrassment that was 
 ever painted on a human countenance it was not set 
 as a stone, it was also full of compassion. It was a 
 comfort to me a long time afterwards to consider 
 that she could not have seen in me the smallest 
 symptom of disrespect. I don t know what to do ; 
 I m too tormented, I m too ashamed ! she continued, 
 with vehemence. Then turning away from me and 
 burying her face in her hands she burst into a flood 
 of tears. If she did not know what to do it may be 
 imagined whether I did any better. I stood there 
 dumb, watching her while her sobs resounded in the 
 great empty hall. In a moment she was facing me 
 
 K 
 
130 THE AS PERN PAPERS ix 
 
 again, with her streaming eyes. I would give you 
 everything and she would understand, where she 
 is she would forgive me ! 
 
 Ah, Miss Tita ah, Miss Tita, I stammered, for 
 all reply. I did not know what to do, as I say, but 
 at a venture I made a wild, vague movement, in 
 consequence of which I found myself at the door. I 
 remember standing there and saying, It wouldn t do 
 it wouldn t do ! pensively, awkwardly, gro 
 tesquely, while I looked away to the opposite end of 
 the sala as if there were a beautiful view there. The 
 next thing I remember is that I was downstairs and 
 out of the house. My gondola was there and my 
 gondolier, reclining on the cushions, sprang up as 
 soon as he saw me. I jumped in and to his usual 
 Dove commando, ? I replied, in a tone that made him 
 stare, Anywhere, anywhere ; out into the lagoon ! 
 
 He rowed me away and I sat there prostrate, 
 groaning softly to myself, with my hat pulled over 
 my face. What in the name of the preposterous did 
 she mean if she did not mean to offer me her hand ? 
 That was the price that was the price ! And did 
 she think I wanted it, poor deluded, infatuated, ex 
 travagant lady ? My gondolier, behind me, must have 
 seen my ears red as I wondered, sitting there under 
 the fluttering tenda^ with my hidden face, noticing 
 nothing as we passed wondered whether her delusion, 
 her infatuation had been my own reckless work. Did 
 she think I had made love to her, even to get the 
 papers? I had not, I had not ; I repeated that over to 
 myself for an hour, for two hours, till I was wearied if 
 not convinced. I don t know where my gondolier 
 took me ; we floated aimlessly about on the lagoon, 
 with slow, rare strokes. At last I became conscious 
 
ix THE ASPERN PAPERS 131 
 
 that we were near the Lido, far up, on the right hand, 
 as you turn your back to Venice, and I made him 
 put me ashore. I wanted to walk, to move, to shed 
 some of my bewilderment. I crossed the narrow 
 strip and got to the sea -beach I took my way 
 toward Malamocco. But presently I flung myself 
 down again on the warm sand, in the breeze, on the 
 coarse dry grass. It took it out of me to think I 
 had been so much at fault, that I had unwittingly 
 but none the less deplorably trifled. But I had not 
 given her cause distinctly I had not. I had said 
 to Mrs. Prest that I would make love to her ; but it 
 had been a joke without consequences and I had 
 never said it to Tita Bordereau. I had been as kind as 
 possible, because I really liked her ; but since when 
 had that become a crime where a woman of such an 
 age and such an appearance was concerned ? I am 
 far from remembering clearly the succession of events 
 and feelings during this long day of confusion, which 
 I spent entirely in wandering about, without going 
 home, until late at night ; it only comes back to me 
 that there were moments when I pacified my con 
 science and others when I lashed it into pain. I did 
 not laugh all day that I do recollect ; the case, 
 however it might have struck others, seemed to me so 
 little amusing. It would have been better perhaps 
 for me to feel the comic side of it. At any rate, 
 whether I had given cause or not it went without 
 saying that I could not pay the price. I could not 
 accept. I could not, for a bundle of tattered papers, 
 marry a ridiculous, pathetic, provincial old woman. 
 It was a proof that she did not think the idea would 
 come to me, her having determined to suggest it her 
 self in that practical, argumentative, heroic way, in 
 
132 THE ASPERN PAPERS ix 
 
 which the timidity however had been so much more 
 striking than the boldness that her reasons appeared 
 to come first and her feelings afterward. 
 
 As the day went on I grew to wish that I had 
 never heard of Aspern s relics, and I cursed the ex 
 travagant curiosity that had put John Cumnor on the 
 scent of them. We had more than enough material 
 without them and my predicament was the just punish 
 ment of that most fatal of human follies, our not 
 having known when to stop. It was very well to 
 say it was no predicament, that the way out was 
 simple, that I had only to leave Venice by the first 
 train in the morning, after writing a note to Miss 
 Tita, to be placed in her hand as soon as I got clear 
 of the house ; for it was a strong sign that I was 
 embarrassed that when I tried to make up the note in 
 my mind in advance (I would put it on paper as soon 
 as I got home, before going to bed), I could not 
 think of anything but How can I thank you for the 
 rare confidence you have placed in me ? That 
 would never do ; it sounded exactly as if an accept 
 ance were to follow. Of course I might go away 
 without writing a word, but that would be brutal and 
 my idea was still to exclude brutal solutions. As 
 my confusion cooled I was lost in wonder at the 
 importance I had attached to Miss Bordereau s 
 crumpled scraps ; the thought of them became 
 odious to me and I was as vexed with the old witch 
 for the superstition that had prevented her from 
 destroying them as I was with myself for having 
 already spent more money than I could afford in 
 attempting to control their fate. I forget what I did, 
 where I went after leaving the Lido and at what 
 hour or with what recovery of composure I made my 
 
ix THE AS PERN PAPERS 133 
 
 way back to my boat. I only know that in the 
 afternoon, when the air was aglow with the sunset, I 
 was standing before the church of Saints John and 
 Paul and looking up at the small square-jawed face 
 of Bartolommeo Colleoni, the terrible condottiere who 
 sits so sturdily astride of his huge bronze horse, on 
 the high pedestal on which Venetian gratitude main 
 tains him. The statue is incomparable, the finest of all 
 mounted figures, unless that of Marcus Aurelius, who 
 rides benignant before the Roman Capitol, be finer : 
 but I was not thinking of that ; I only found myself 
 staring at the triumphant captain as if he had an 
 oracle on his lips. The western light shines into all 
 his grimness at that hour and makes it wonderfully 
 personal. But he continued to look far over my 
 head, at the red immersion of another day he had 
 seen so many go down into the lagoon through the 
 centuries and if he were thinking of battles and 
 stratagems they were of a different quality from any 
 I had to tell him of. He could not direct me what 
 to do, gaze up at him as I might. Was it before 
 this or after that I wandered about for an hour in 
 the small canals, to the continued stupefaction of my 
 gondolier, who had never seen me so restless and yet 
 so void of a purpose and could extract from me no 
 order but Go anywhere everywhere all over the 
 place ? He reminded me that I had not lunched 
 and expressed therefore respectfully the hope that I 
 would dine earlier. He had had long periods of 
 leisure during the day, when I had left the boat and 
 rambled, so that I was not obliged to consider him, 
 and I told him that that day, for a change, I would 
 touch no meat. It was an effect of poor Miss 
 Tita s proposal, not altogether auspicious, that I 
 
134 THE ASPERN PAPERS ix 
 
 had quite lost my appetite. I don t know why it 
 happened that on this occasion I was more than ever 
 struck with that queer air of sociability, of cousinship 
 and family life, which makes up half the expression 
 of Venice. Without streets and vehicles, the uproar 
 of wheels, the brutality of horses, and with its little 
 winding ways where people crowd together, where 
 voices sound as in the corridors of a house, where 
 the human step circulates as if it skirted the angles 
 of furniture and shoes never wear out, the place has 
 the character of an immense collective apartment, in 
 which Piazza San Marco is the most ornamented 
 corner and palaces and churches, for the rest, play 
 the part of great divans of repose, tables of enter 
 tainment, expanses of decoration. And somehow 
 the splendid common domicile, familiar, domestic 
 and resonant, also resembles a theatre, with actors 
 clicking over bridges and, in straggling processions, 
 tripping along fondamentas. As you sit in your 
 gondola the footways that in certain parts edge the 
 canals assume to the eye the importance of a stage, 
 meeting it at the same angle, and the Venetian 
 figures, moving to and fro against the battered 
 scenery of their little houses of comedy, strike you 
 as members of an endless dramatic troupe. 
 
 I went to bed that night very tired, without being 
 able to compose a letter to Miss Tita. Was this 
 failure the reason why I became conscious the next 
 morning as soon as I awoke of a determination to 
 see the poor lady again the first moment she would 
 receive me ? That had something to do with it, but 
 what had still more was the fact that during my 
 sleep a very odd revulsion had taken place in my 
 spirit. I found myself aware of this almost as soon 
 
IX THE AS PERN PAPERS 135 
 
 as I opened my eyes ; it made me jump out of my 
 bed with the movement of a man who remembers 
 that he has left the house-door ajar or a candle burn 
 ing under a shelf. Was I still in time to save my 
 goods ? That question was in my heart ; for what 
 had now come to pass was that in the unconscious 
 cerebration of sleep I had swung back to a passionate 
 appreciation of Miss Bordereau s papers. They were 
 now more precious than ever and a kind of ferocity 
 had come into my desire to possess them. The con 
 dition Miss Tita had attached to the possession of 
 them no longer appeared an obstacle worth thinking 
 of, and for an hour, that morning, my repentant 
 imagination brushed it aside. It was absurd that I 
 should be able to invent nothing ; absurd to renounce 
 so easily and turn away helpless from the idea that 
 the only way to get hold of the papers was to unite 
 myself to her for life. I would not unite myself and 
 yet I would have them. I must add that by the time 
 I sent down to ask if she would see me I had in 
 vented no alternative, though to do so I had had all the 
 time that I was dressing. This failure was humili 
 ating, yet what could the alternative be ? Miss Tita 
 sent back word that I might come ; and as I de 
 scended the stairs and crossed the sala to her door 
 this time she received me in her aunt s forlorn par 
 lour I hoped she would not think my errand was 
 to tell her I accepted her hand. She certainly would 
 have made the day before the reflection that I de 
 clined it. 
 
 As soon as I came into the room I saw that she 
 had drawn this inference, but I also saw something 
 which had not been in my forecast. Poor Miss Tita s 
 sense of her failure had produced an extraordinary 
 
136 THE ASPERN PAPERS ix 
 
 alteration in her, but I had been too full of my literary 
 concupiscence to think of that. Now I perceived it ; 
 I can scarcely tell how it startled me. She stood in 
 the middle of the room with a face of mildness bent 
 upon me, and her look of forgiveness, of absolution 
 made her angelic. It beautified her ; she was 
 younger ; she was not a ridiculous old woman. This 
 optical trick gave her a sort of phantasmagoric 
 brightness, and while I was still the victim of it I 
 heard a whisper somewhere in the depths of my 
 conscience: Why not, after all why not? It 
 seemed to me I was ready to pay the price. Still 
 more distinctly however than the whisper I heard 
 Miss Tita s own voice. I was so struck with the 
 different effect she made upon me that at first I 
 was not clearly aware of what she was saying ; 
 then I perceived she had bade me good-bye she 
 said something about hoping I should be very 
 happy. 
 
 * Good-bye good-bye ? I repeated, with an in 
 flection interrogative and probably foolish. 
 
 I saw she did not feel the interrogation, she only 
 heard the words ; she had strung herself up to ac 
 cepting our separation and they fell upon her ear as 
 a proof. Are you going to-day ? she asked. But 
 it doesn t matter, for whenever you go I shall not 
 see you again. I don t want to. And she smiled 
 strangely, with an infinite gentleness. She had never 
 doubted that I had left her the day before in horror. 
 How could she, since I had not come back before 
 night to contradict, even as a simple form, such an 
 idea ? And now she had the force of soul Miss 
 Tita with force of soul was a new conception to 
 smile at me in her humiliation. 
 
THE ASPERN PAPERS 137 
 
 What shall you do where shall you go ? I 
 asked. 
 
 Oh, I don t know. I have done the great thing. 
 I have destroyed the papers. 
 
 1 Destroyed them? I faltered. 
 
 Yes ; what was I to keep them for ? I burnt 
 them last night, one by one, in the kitchen. 
 
 One by one ? I repeated, mechanically. 
 
 It took a long time there were so many. The 
 room seemed to go round me as she said this and a 
 real darkness for a moment descended upon my eyes. 
 When it passed Miss Tita was there still, but the 
 transfiguration was over and she had changed back 
 to a plain, dingy, elderly person. It was in this 
 character she spoke as she said, * I can t stay with 
 you longer, I can t ; and it was in this character that 
 she turned her back upon me, as I had turned mine 
 upon her twenty-four hours before, and moved to the 
 door of her room. Here she did what I had not 
 done when I quitted her she paused long enough 
 to give me one look. I have never forgotten it and 
 I sometimes still suffer from it, though it was not re 
 sentful. No, there was no resentment, nothing hard 
 or vindictive in poor Miss Tita ; for when, later, I 
 sent her in exchange for the portrait of Jeffrey Aspern 
 a larger sum of money than I had hoped to be able 
 to gather for her, writing to her that I had sold the 
 picture, she kept it with thanks ; she never sent it 
 back. I wrote to her that I had sold the picture, 
 but I admitted to Mrs. Prest, at the time (I met her 
 in London, in the autumn), that it hangs above my 
 writing-table. When I look at it my chagrin at the 
 loss of the letters becomes almost intolerable. 
 
LOUISA PALLANT 
 
LOUISA PALLANT 
 
 NEVER say you know the last word about any human 
 heart ! I was once treated to a revelation which 
 startled and touched me, in the nature of a person 
 with whom I had been acquainted (well, as I sup 
 posed) for years, whose character I had had good 
 reasons, heaven knows, to appreciate and in regard 
 to whom I flattered myself that I had nothing more 
 to learn. 
 
 It was on the terrace of the Kursaal at Homburg, 
 nearly ten years ago, one lovely night toward the 
 end of July. I had come to the place that day from 
 Frankfort, with vague intentions, and was mainly 
 occupied in waiting for my young nephew, the only 
 son of my sister, who had been intrusted to my care 
 by a very fond mother for the summer (I was ex 
 pected to show him Europe only the very best of 
 it), and was on his way from Paris to join me. The 
 excellent band discoursed music not too abstruse, and 
 the air was filled besides with the murmur of differ 
 ent languages, the smoke of many cigars, the creak 
 on the gravel of the gardens of strolling shoes and 
 the thick tinkle of beer-glasses. There were a hundred 
 
142 LOUISA PALL A NT 
 
 people walking about, there were some in clusters 
 at little tables and many on benches and rows of 
 chairs, watching the others as if they had paid for 
 the privilege and were rather disappointed. I was 
 among these last ; I sat by myself, smoking my cigar 
 and thinking of nothing very particular while families 
 and couples passed and repassed me. 
 
 I scarcely know how long I had sat there when I 
 became aware of a recognition which made my medi 
 tations definite. It was on my own part, and the 
 object of it was a lady who moved to and fro, un 
 conscious of my observation, with a young girl at her 
 side. I had not seen her for ten years, and what 
 first struck me was the fact not that she was Mrs. 
 Henry Pallant but that the girl who was with her 
 was remarkably pretty or rather first of all that 
 every one who passed her turned round to look at 
 her. This led me to look at the young lady myself, 
 and her charming face diverted my attention for some 
 time from that of her companion. The latter, more 
 over, though it was night, wore a thin, light veil which 
 made her features vague. The couple walked and 
 walked, slowly, but though they were very quiet and 
 decorous, and also very well dressed, they seemed to 
 have no friends. Every one looked at them but no 
 one spoke ; they appeared even to talk very little to 
 each other. Moreover they bore with extreme com 
 posure and as if they were thoroughly used to it the 
 attention they excited. I am afraid it occurred to 
 me to take for granted that they were not altogether 
 honourable and that if they had been the elder lady 
 would have covered the younger up a little more from 
 the public stare and not have been so ashamed to 
 exhibit her own face. Perhaps this question came 
 
I LOUISA PALLANT 143 
 
 into my mind too easily just then in view of my 
 prospective mentorship to my nephew. If I was to 
 show him only the best of Europe I should have to 
 be very careful about the people he should meet 
 especially the ladies and the relations he should 
 form. I suspected him of knowing very little of life 
 and I was rather uneasy about my responsibilities. 
 Was I completely relieved and reassured when I per 
 ceived that I simply had Louisa Pallant before me 
 and that the girl was her daughter Linda, whom I 
 had known as a child Linda grown up into a 
 regular beauty ? 
 
 The question is delicate and the proof that I was 
 not very sure is perhaps that I forbore to speak to 
 the ladies immediately. I watched them awhile I 
 wondered what they would do. No great harm, as 
 suredly ; but I was anxious to see if they were really 
 isolated. Homburg is a great resort of the English 
 the London season takes up its tale there toward 
 the first of August and I had an idea that in such 
 a company as that Louisa would naturally know 
 people. It was my impression that she * cultivated 
 the English, that she had been much in London and 
 would be likely to have views in regard to a perman 
 ent settlement there. This supposition was quickened 
 by the sight of Linda s beauty, for I knew there is 
 no country in which a handsome person is more 
 appreciated. You will see that I took time, and I 
 confess that as I finished my cigar I thought it all 
 over. There was no good reason in fact why I should 
 have rushed into Mrs. Pallant s arms. She had not 
 treated me well and we had never really made it up. 
 Somehow even the circumstance that (after the first 
 soreness) I was glad to have lost her had never put 
 
144 LOUISA PALL ANT I 
 
 us quite right with each other ; nor, for herself, had 
 it made her less ashamed of her heartless behaviour 
 that poor Pallant after all turned out no great catch. 
 I had forgiven her ; I had not felt that it was any 
 thing but an escape not to have married a girl who 
 had it in her to take back her given word and break 
 a fellow s heart, for mere flesh-pots or the shallow 
 promise, as it pitifully proved, of flesh-pots ; moreover 
 we had met since then, on the occasion of my former 
 visit to Europe ; we had looked each other in the eyes, 
 we had pretended to be free friends and had talked 
 of the wickedness of the world as composedly as if 
 we were the only just, the only pure. I knew then 
 what she had given out that I had driven her off 
 by my insane jealousy before she ever thought of 
 Henry Pallant, before she had ever seen him. This 
 had not been then and it could not be to-day a 
 ground of real reunion, especially if you add to it 
 that she knew perfectly what I thought of her. It 
 is my belief that it does not often minister to friend 
 ship that your friend shall know your real opinion, 
 for he knows it mainly when it is unfavourable, and 
 this is especially the case when (if the solecism may 
 pass) he is a woman. I had not followed Mrs. 
 Pallant s fortunes ; the years elapsed, for me, in my 
 own country, whereas she led her life, which I 
 vaguely believed to be difficult after her husband s 
 death virtually that of a bankrupt in foreign 
 lands. I heard of her from time to time ; always as 
 established somewhere, but on each occasion in a 
 different place. She drifted from country to country, 
 and if she had been of a hard composition at the 
 beginning it could never occur to me that her 
 struggle with society, as it might be called, would 
 
LOUISA PALLANT 145 
 
 have softened the paste. Whenever I heard a woman 
 spoken of as horribly worldly I thought immediately 
 of the object of my early passion. I imagined she 
 had debts, and when I now at last made up my 
 mind to recall myself to her it was present to me 
 that she might ask me to lend her money. More 
 than anything else, at this time of day, I was sorry 
 for her, so that such an idea did not operate as a 
 deterrent. 
 
 She pretended afterwards that she had not noticed 
 me expressing great surprise and wishing to know 
 where I had dropped from ; but I think the corner 
 of her eye had taken me in and she was waiting to 
 see what I would do. She had ended by sitting 
 down with her girl on the same row of chairs with 
 myself, and after a little, on the seat next to her 
 becoming vacant, I went and stood before her. She 
 looked up at me a moment, staring, as if she could 
 not imagine who I was or what I wanted ; then, 
 smiling and extending her hands, she broke out, Ah, 
 my dear old friend what a delight ! If she had 
 waited to see what I would do, in order to choose 
 her own line, she at least carried out this line with 
 the utmost grace. She was cordial, friendly, artless, 
 interested, and indeed I am sure she was very 
 glad to see me. I may as well say immediately, 
 however, that she gave neither then nor later any 
 sign of a disposition to borrow money. She had 
 none too much that I learned but for the moment 
 she seemed able to pay her way. I took the empty 
 chair and we remained talking for an hour. After a 
 while she made me sit on the other side of her, next 
 to her daughter, whom she wished to know me to 
 love me as one of their oldest friends. .* It goes 
 
 L 
 
146 LOUISA PALL A NT i 
 
 back, back, back, doesn t it ? said Mrs. Pallant ; and 
 of course she remembers you as a child. Linda 
 smiled very sweetly and indefinitely, and I saw she 
 remembered me not at all. When her mother in 
 timated that they had often talked about me she 
 failed to take it up, though she looked extremely nice. 
 Looking nice was her strong point ; she was prettier 
 even than her mother had been. She was such a 
 little lady that she made me ashamed of having 
 doubted, however vaguely and for a moment, of her 
 position in the scale of propriety. Her appearance 
 seemed to say that if she had no acquaintances, it was 
 because she did not want to because there was no 
 body there who struck her as attractive : there was not 
 the slightest difficulty about her choosing her friends. 
 Linda Pallant, young as she was, and fresh and fair 
 and charming and gentle and sufficiently shy, looked 
 somehow exclusive as if the dust of the common 
 world had never been meant to settle upon her. 
 She was simpler than her mother and was evidently 
 not a young woman of professions except in so far 
 as she was committed to an interest in you by her 
 bright, pure, intelligent smile. A girl who had such 
 a lovely way of showing her teeth could never pass 
 for heartless. 
 
 As I sat between the pair I felt that I had been 
 taken possession of and that for better or worse my 
 stay at Homburg would be intimately associated with 
 theirs. We gave each other a great deal of news and 
 expressed unlimited interest in each other s history 
 since our last meeting. I know not what Mrs. Pallant 
 kept back, but for myself I was frank enough. She 
 let me see at any rate that her life had been a good 
 deal what I supposed, though the terms she used to 
 
i LOUISA PALL ANT 147 
 
 describe it were less crude than those of my thought. 
 She confessed that they had drifted and that they 
 were drifting still. Her narrative rambled and got 
 what is vulgarly called somewhat mixed, as I thought 
 Linda perceived while she sat watching the passers 
 in a manner which betrayed no consciousness of their 
 attention, without coming to her mother s aid. Once 
 or twice Mrs. Pallant made me feel like a cross- 
 questioner, which I had no intention of being. I 
 took it that if the girl never put in a word it was 
 because she had perfect confidence in her mother s 
 ability to come out straight. It was suggested to me, 
 I scarcely knew how, that this confidence between the 
 two ladies went to a great length ; that their union 
 of thought, their system of reciprocal divination, was 
 remarkable, and that they probably seldom needed 
 to resort to the clumsy and in some cases dangerous 
 expedient of putting their ideas into words. I sup 
 pose I made this reflection not all at once it was 
 not wholly the result of that first meeting. I was 
 with them constantly for the next several days and 
 my impressions had time to clarify. 
 
 I do remember however that it was on this first 
 evening that Archie s name came up. She attributed 
 her own stay at Homburg to no refined nor exalted 
 motive did not say that she was there because she 
 always came or because a high medical authority had 
 ordered her to drink the waters ; she frankly admitted 
 that the reason of her visit had been simply that she 
 did not know where else to turn. But she appeared 
 to assume that my behaviour rested on higher 
 grounds and even that it required explanation, the 
 place being frivolous and modern devoid of that 
 interest of antiquity which I used to value. Don t 
 
148 LOUISA PALLANT i 
 
 you remember ever so long ago that you wouldn t 
 look at anything in Europe that was not a thousand 
 years old ? Well, as we advance in life I suppose 
 we don t think that s quite such a charm/ And 
 when I told her that I had come to Homburg because 
 it was as good a place as another to wait for 
 my nephew, she exclaimed : Your nephew what 
 nephew ? He must have come up of late. I 
 answered that he was a youth named Archer Pringle 
 and very modern indeed ; he was coming of age in a 
 few months and was in Europe for the first time. 
 My last news of him had been from Paris and I was 
 expecting to hear from him from one day to the other. 
 His father was dead, and though a selfish bachelor, 
 little versed in the care of children, I was considerably 
 counted on by his mother to see that he did not smoke 
 too much nor fall off an Alp. 
 
 Mrs. Pallant immediately guessed that his mother 
 was my sister Charlotte, whom she spoke of familiarly, 
 though I knew she had seen her but once or twice. 
 Then in a moment it came to her which of the 
 Pringles Charlotte had married ; she remembered the 
 family perfectly, in the old New York days that 
 disgustingly rich lot. She said it was very nice having 
 the boy come out that way to my care ; to which I 
 replied that it was very nice for him. She declared 
 that she meant for me I ought to have had children ; 
 there was something so parental about me and I 
 would have brought them up so well. She could 
 make an allusion like that to all that might have 
 been and had not been without a gleam of guilt in 
 her eye ; and I foresaw that before I left the place I 
 should have confided to her that though I detested 
 her and was very glad we had fallen out, yet our old 
 
I LOUISA PALL A NT 149 
 
 relations had left me no heart for marrying another 
 woman. If I was a maundering old bachelor to-day 
 it was no one s fault but hers. She asked me what I 
 meant to do with my nephew and I said it was much 
 more a question of what he would do with me. She 
 inquired whether he were a nice young man and had 
 brothers and sisters and any particular profession. I 
 told her that I had really seen but little of him ; I 
 believed him to be six feet high and of tolerable parts. 
 He was an only son, but there was a little sister at 
 home, a delicate, unsuccessful child, demanding all the 
 mother s care. 
 
 So that makes your responsibility greater, as it 
 were, about the boy, doesn t it ? said Mrs. Pallant. 
 
 Greater ? I m sure I don t know. 
 
 Why, if the girl s life is uncertain he may be, 
 some moment, all the mother has. So that being in 
 your hands 
 
 Oh, I shall keep him alive, I suppose, if you 
 mean that, I rejoined. 
 
 Well, we won t kill him, shall we, Linda? Mrs. 
 Pallant went on, with a laugh. 
 
 I don t know perhaps we shall ! said the girl, 
 smiling. 
 
II 
 
 I CALLED on them the next day at their lodgings, 
 the modesty of which was enhanced by a hundred 
 pretty feminine devices flowers and photographs 
 and portable knick-knacks and a hired piano and 
 morsels of old brocade flung over angular sofas. I 
 asked them to drive ; I met them again at the Kur- 
 saal ; I arranged that we should dine together, after 
 the Homburg fashion, at the same table dhote ; and 
 during several days this revived familiar intercourse 
 continued, imitating intimacy if it did not quite 
 achieve it. I liked it, for my companions passed my 
 time for me and the conditions of our life were 
 soothing the feeling of summer and shade and 
 music and leisure, in the German gardens and woods, 
 where we strolled and sat and gossiped ; to which 
 may be added a kind of sociable sense that among 
 people whose challenge to the curiosity was mainly 
 not irresistible we kept quite to ourselves. We were 
 on the footing of old friends who, with regard to each 
 other, still had discoveries to make. We knew each 
 other s nature but we did not know each other s 
 experience ; so that when Mrs. Pallant related to me 
 what she had been up to (as I called it) for so many 
 years, the former knowledge attached a hundred inter- 
 
II LOUISA PALLANT 151 
 
 pretative footnotes (as if I had been editing an 
 author who presented difficulties) to the interesting 
 page. There was nothing new to me in the fact that 
 I did not esteem her, but there was a sort of refresh 
 ment in finding that this was not necessary at Hom- 
 burg and that I could like her in spite of it. She 
 seemed to me, in the oddest way, both improved and 
 degenerate, as if in her nature the two processes had 
 gone on together. She was battered and world-worn 
 and, spiritually speaking, vulgarised ; something fresh 
 had rubbed off her (it even included the vivacity of 
 her early desire to do the best thing for herself), and 
 something very stale had rubbed on. On the other 
 hand she betrayed a scepticism, and that was rather 
 becoming, as it quenched the eagerness of her prime, 
 which had taken a form so unfortunate for me. She 
 had grown weary and indifferent, and as she struck 
 me as having seen more of the evil of the world than 
 of the good, that was a gain ; in other words the 
 cynicism that had formed itself in her nature had a 
 softer surface than some of her old ambitions. And 
 then I had to recognise that her devotion to her 
 daughter had been a kind of religion ; she had done 
 the very best possible for Linda, 
 
 Linda was curious Linda was interesting ; I have 
 seen girls I liked better (charming as she was), but 
 I have never seen one who for the time I was with 
 her (the impression passed, somehow, when she was 
 out of sight) occupied me more. I can best describe 
 the sort of attention that she excited by saying that 
 she struck one above all things as a final product 
 just as some plant or fruit does, some waxen orchid 
 or some perfect peach. More than any girl I ever 
 saw she was the result of a process of calculation ; a 
 
152 LOUISA PALL ANT n 
 
 process patiently educative ; a pressure exerted in 
 order that she should reach a high point. This high 
 point had been the star of her mother s heaven (it 
 hung before her so definitely), and had been the 
 source of the only light in default of a better that 
 shone upon the poor lady s path. It stood her in 
 stead of every other religion. The very most and 
 the very best that was what the girl had been led on 
 to achieve ; I mean, of course (for no real miracle 
 had been wrought), the most and the best that she 
 was capable of. She was as pretty, as graceful, as 
 intelligent, as well-bred, as well-informed, as well- 
 dressed, as it would have been possible for her to be ; 
 her music, her singing, her German, her French, her 
 English, her step, her tone, her glance, her manner, 
 and everything in her person and movement, from 
 the shade and twist of her hair to the way you saw 
 her finger-nails were pink when she raised her hand, 
 had been carried so far that one found one s self 
 accepting them as a kind of standard. I regarded her 
 as a model, and yet it was a part of her perfection 
 that she had none of the stiffness of a pattern. If 
 she held the observation it was because one wondered 
 where and when she would break down ; but she 
 never did, either in her French accent or in her role 
 of educated angel. 
 
 After Archie had come the ladies were manifestly 
 a great resource to him, and all the world knows that 
 a party of four is more convenient than a party of 
 three. My nephew kept me waiting a week, with a 
 placidity all his own ; but this same placidity was an 
 element of success in our personal relations so long, 
 that is, as I did not lose my temper with it. I did 
 not, for the most part, because my young man s 
 
ii LOUISA PALLANT 153 
 
 unsurprised acceptance of the most various forms of 
 good fortune had more than anything else the effect 
 of amusing me. I had seen little of him for the last 
 three or four years. I knew not what his impending 
 majority would have made of him (he did not look 
 himself in the least as if the wind were rising), and I 
 watched him with a solicitude which usually ended 
 in a joke. He was a tall, fresh-coloured youth, with 
 a candid circular countenance and a love of cigar 
 ettes, horses and boats which had not been sacrificed 
 to more transcendent studies. He was refreshingly 
 natural, in a supercivilised age, and I soon made up 
 my mind that the formula of his character was a cer 
 tain simplifying serenity. After that I had time to 
 meditate on the line which divides the serene from 
 the inane and simplification from death. Archie was 
 not clever that theory it was not possible to main 
 tain, though Mrs. Pallant tried it once or twice ; but 
 on the other hand it seemed to me that his want of 
 wit was a good defensive weapon. It was not the 
 sort of density that would let him in, but the sort that 
 would keep him out. By which I don t mean that 
 he had shortsighted suspicions, but on the contrary 
 that imagination would never be needed to save him, 
 because she would never put him in danger. In short 
 he was a well-grown, well-washed, muscular young 
 American, whose extreme good-nature might have 
 made him pass for conceited. If he looked pleased 
 with himself it was only because he was pleased with 
 life (as well he might be, with the money he was on 
 the point of stepping into), and his big healthy, inde 
 pendent person was an inevitable part of that. I am 
 bound to add that he was accommodating for which 
 I was grateful. His own habits were active, but he 
 
154 LOUISA PALLANT n 
 
 did not insist on my adopting them and he made 
 noteworthy sacrifices for the sake of my society. 
 When I say for the sake of mine I must of course 
 remember that mine and that of Mrs. Pallant and 
 Linda were now very much the same thing. He was 
 willing to sit and smoke for hours under the trees 
 or, regulating his long legs to the pace of his three 
 companions, stroll through the nearer woods of the 
 charming little hill-range of the Taunus to those 
 rustic Wirthschaften where coffee might be drunk 
 under a trellis. 
 
 Mrs. Pallant took a great interest in him ; she 
 talked a great deal about him and thought him a 
 delightful specimen, as a young gentleman of his 
 period and country. She even asked me the sort of 
 figure that his fortune might really amount to and 
 expressed the most hungry envy when I told her 
 what I supposed it to be. While we talked together 
 Archie, on his side, could not do less than converse 
 with Linda, nor to tell the truth did he manifest the 
 least inclination for any different exercise. They 
 strolled away together while their elders rested ; two 
 or three times, in the evening, when the ballroom of 
 the Kursaal was lighted and dance-music played, they 
 whirled over the smooth floor in a waltz that made 
 me remember. Whether it had the same effect on 
 Mrs. Pallant I know not, for she held her peace. 
 We had on certain occasions our moments, almost 
 our half-hours, of unembarrassed silence while our 
 young companions disported themselves. But if at 
 other times her inquiries and comments were numer 
 ous on the subject of my ingenuous kinsman this 
 might very well have passed for a courteous recogni 
 tion of the frequent admiration that I expressed for 
 
LOUISA PALLANT 155 
 
 Linda an admiration to which I noticed that she 
 was apt to give but a small direct response. I was 
 struck with something anomalous in her way of tak 
 ing my remarks about her daughter they produced 
 so little of a maternal flutter. Her detachment, her 
 air of having no fatuous illusions and not being 
 blinded by prejudice seemed to me at times to 
 amount to an affectation. Either she answered me 
 with a vague, slightly impatient sigh and changed the 
 subject, or else she said before doing so : Oh yes, 
 yes, she s a very brilliant creature. She ought to be ; 
 God knows what I have done for her ! 
 
 The reader will have perceived that I am fond of 
 looking at the explanations of things, and in regard 
 to this I had my theory that she was disappointed in 
 the girl. What had been her particular disappoint 
 ment ? As she could not possibly have wished her 
 prettier or more pleasing it could only be that Linda 
 had not made a successful use of her gifts. Had she 
 expected her to capture a prince the day after she 
 left the schoolroom ? After all there was plenty of 
 time for this, as Linda was only two and twenty. It 
 did not occur to me to wonder whether the source of 
 her mother s tepidity was that the young lady had 
 not turned out so nice a nature as she had hoped, 
 because in the first place Linda struck me as perfectly 
 innocent and in the second I was not paid, as the 
 French say, for thinking that Louisa Pallant would 
 much mind whether she were or not. The last hypo 
 thesis I should have resorted to was that of private 
 despair at bad moral symptoms. And in relation to 
 Linda s nature I had before me the daily spectacle 
 of her manner with my nephew. It was as charming 
 as it could be, without the smallest indication of a 
 
156 LOUISA PALLANT n 
 
 desire to lead him on. She was as familiar as a 
 cousin, but as a distant one a cousin who had been 
 brought up to observe degrees. She was so much 
 cleverer than Archie that she could not help laughing 
 at him, but she did not laugh enough to exclude 
 variety, being well aware, no doubt, that a woman s 
 cleverness most shines in contrast with a man s 
 stupidity when she pretends to take that stupidity for 
 wisdom. Linda Pallant moreover was not a chatter 
 box ; as she knew the value of many things she knew 
 the value of intervals. There were a good many in 
 the conversation of these young persons ; my nephew s 
 own speech, to say nothing of his thought, being not 
 exempt from periods of repose ; so that I sometimes 
 wondered how their association was kept at that 
 pitch of friendliness of which it certainly bore the 
 stamp. 
 
 It was friendly enough, evidently, when Archie 
 sat near her near enough for low murmurs, if they 
 had risen to his lips and watched her with interested 
 eyes and with liberty not to try too hard to make 
 himself agreeable. She was always doing something 
 finishing a flower in a piece of tapestry, cutting 
 the leaves of a magazine, sewing a button on her 
 glove (she carried a little work-bag in her pocket 
 and was a person of the daintiest habits), or plying 
 her pencil in a sketchbook which she rested on 
 her knee. When we were indoors, at her mother s 
 house, she had always the resource of her piano, of 
 which she was of course a perfect mistress. These 
 avocations enabled her to bear such close inspection 
 with composure (I ended by rebuking Archie for it 
 I told him he stared at the poor girl too much), 
 and she sought further relief in smiling all over the 
 
LOUISA PALL A NT 157 
 
 place. When my young man s eyes shone at her 
 those of Miss Pallant addressed themselves brightly to 
 the trees and clouds and other surrounding objects, 
 including her mother and me. Sometimes she broke 
 out into a sudden embarrassed, happy, pointless laugh. 
 When she wandered away from us she looked back at 
 us in a manner which said that it was not for long 
 that she was with us still in spirit. If I was pleased 
 with her it was for a good reason : it was many a day 
 since any pretty girl had had the air of taking me 
 so much into account. Sometimes, when they were 
 so far away as not to disturb us, she read aloud a 
 little to Mr. Archie. I don t know where she got 
 her books I never provided them, and certainly he 
 did not. He was no reader and I daresay he went 
 to sleep. 
 
Ill 
 
 I REMEMBER well the first time it was at the end 
 of about ten days of this that Mrs. Pallant re 
 marked to me : My dear friend, you are quite 
 amazing ! You behave for all the world as if you 
 were perfectly ready to accept certain consequences. 
 She nodded in the direction of our young companions, 
 but I nevertheless put her at the pains of saying 
 what consequences she meant. What consequences? 
 she repeated. Why, the consequences that ensued 
 when you and I first became acquainted. 
 
 I hesitated a moment and then, looking her in the 
 eyes, I said, Do you mean that she would throw him 
 over ? 
 
 You are not kind, you are not generous, she 
 replied, colouring quickly. I am giving you a 
 warning. 
 
 You mean that my boy may fall in love with 
 her? 
 
 * Certainly. It looks even as if the harm might 
 be already done. 
 
 Then your warning is too late/ I said, smiling. 
 1 But why do you call it a harm ? 
 
 Haven t you any sense of responsibility ? she 
 asked. Is that what his mother sent him out to 
 
in LOUISA PALLANT 159 
 
 you for that you should find him a wife let him 
 put his head into a noose the day after his arrival ? 
 
 Heaven forbid I should do anything of the kind ! 
 I know moreover that his mother doesn t want him 
 to marry young. She thinks it s a mistake and that 
 at that age a man never really chooses. He doesn t 
 choose till he has lived awhile till he has looked 
 about and compared. 
 
 And what do you think yourself? 
 
 I should like to say I consider that love itself, 
 however young, is a sufficient choice. But my being 
 a bachelor at this time of day would contradict me 
 too much. 
 
 * Well then, you re too primitive. You ought to 
 leave this place to-morrow. 
 
 So as not to see Archie tumble in ? 
 
 You ought to fish him out now and take him 
 with you. 
 
 Do you think he is in very far ? I inquired. 
 
 If I were his mother I know what I should think. 
 I can put myself in her place I am not narrow I 
 know perfectly well how she must regard such a 
 question. 
 
 And don t you know that in America that s not 
 thought important the way the mother regards 
 it? 
 
 Mrs. Pallant was silent a moment, as if I partly 
 mystified and partly vexed her. Well, we are not 
 in America ; we happen to be here. 
 
 c No ; my poor sister is up to her neck in New 
 York. 
 
 * I am almost capable of writing to her to come 
 out, said Mrs. Pallant. 
 
 * You are warning me, I exclaimed, but I hardly 
 
160 LOUISA PALLANT in 
 
 know of what. It seems to me that my responsibility 
 would begin only at the moment when it should 
 appear that your daughter herself was in danger. 
 
 Oh, you needn t mind that ; I ll take care 
 of her. 
 
 If you think she is in danger already I ll take 
 him away to-morrow, I went on. 
 
 It would be the best thing you could do. 
 
 I don t know. I should be very sorry to act on a 
 false alarm. I am very well here ; I like the place 
 and the life and your society. Besides, it doesn t 
 strike me that on her side there is anything. 5 
 
 She looked at me with an expression that I had 
 never seen in her face, and if I had puzzled her she 
 repaid me in kind. You are very annoying ; you 
 don t deserve what I would do for you. 
 
 What she would do for me she did not tell me 
 that day, but we took up the subject again. I said 
 to her that I did not really see why we should 
 assume that a girl like Linda brilliant enough to 
 make one of the greatest matches would fall into 
 my nephew s arms. Might I inquire whether her 
 mother had won a confession from her whether 
 she had stammered out her secret ? Mrs. Pallant 
 answered that they did not need to tell each other 
 such things they had not lived together twenty 
 years in such intimacy for nothing. To this I 
 rejoined that I had guessed as much but that there 
 might be an exception for a great occasion like the 
 present. If Linda had shown nothing it was a sign 
 that for her the occasion was not great ; and I 
 mentioned that Archie had not once spoken to me 
 of the young lady, save to remark casually and rather 
 patronisingly, after his first encounter with her, that 
 
in LOUISA PALLANT 161 
 
 she was a regular little flower. (The little flower was 
 nearly three years older than himself.) Apart from 
 this he had not alluded to her and had taken up no 
 allusion of mine. Mrs. Pallant informed me again 
 (for which I was prepared) that I was quite too 
 primitive ; and then she said : * We needn t 
 discuss the matter if you don t wish to, but I 
 happen to know how I obtained my knowledge 
 is not important that the moment Mr. Pringle 
 should propose to my daughter she would gobble 
 him down. Surely it s a detail worth mentioning 
 to you. 
 
 Very good. I will sound him. I will look into 
 the matter to-night. 
 
 * Don t, don t ; you will spoil everything ! she 
 murmured, in a peculiar tone of discouragement. 
 Take him off that s the only thing. 
 
 I did not at all like the idea of taking him off; 
 it seemed too summary, unnecessarily violent, even if 
 presented to him on specious grounds ; and, more 
 over, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish 
 to move. I did not consider it a part of my bargain 
 with my sister that, with my middle-aged habits, I 
 should duck and dodge about Europe. So I said : 
 1 Should you really object to the boy so much as a 
 son-in-law ? After all he s a good fellow and a 
 gentleman. 
 
 My poor friend, you are too superficial too 
 frivolous, Mrs Pallant rejoined, with considerable 
 bitterness. 
 
 There was a vibration of contempt in this which 
 nettled me, so that I exclaimed, Possibly ; but it 
 seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come 
 from you. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 LOUISA PALLANT in 
 
 I had no retort from her ; but at last she 
 said, quietly : I think Linda and I had better 
 go away. We have been here a month that s 
 enough. 
 
 Dear me, that will be a bore ! I ejaculated ; and 
 for the rest of the evening, until we separated (our 
 conversation had taken place after dinner, at the 
 Kursaal), she remained almost silent, with a subdued, 
 injured air. This, somehow, did not soothe me, as it 
 ought to have done, for it was too absurd that 
 Louisa Pallant, of all women, should propose to put 
 me in the wrong. If ever a woman had been in the 
 
 wrong herself ! Archie and I usually attended the 
 
 ladies back to their own door they lived in a street 
 of minor accommodation, at a certain distance from the 
 Rooms and we parted for the night late, on the big 
 cobble-stones, in the little sleeping German town, 
 under the closed windows of which, suggesting stuffy 
 interiors, our English farewells sounded gay. On 
 this occasion however they were not gay, for the 
 difficulty that had come up, for me, with Mrs. Pallant 
 appeared to have extended by a mysterious sympathy 
 to the young couple. They too were rather conscious 
 and dumb. 
 
 As I walked back to our hotel with my nephew 
 I passed my hand into his arm and asked him, by no 
 roundabout approach to the question, whether he 
 were in serious peril of love. 
 
 I don t know, I don t know really, uncle, I 
 don t know ! this was all the satisfaction I could 
 extract from the youth, who had not the smallest 
 vein of introspection. He might not know, but be 
 fore we reached the inn (we had a few more words on 
 the subject), it seemed to me that I did. His mind 
 
in LOUISA PALLANT 163 
 
 was not made to contain many objects at once, but 
 Linda Pallant for the moment certainly constituted 
 its principal furniture. She pervaded his conscious 
 ness, she solicited his curiosity, she associated her 
 self, in a manner as yet undefined and unformulated, 
 with his future. I could see that she was the first 
 intensely agreeable impression of his life. I did not 
 betray to him, however, how much I saw, and I slept 
 not particularly well, for thinking that, after all, it 
 had been none of my business to provide him with 
 intensely agreeable impressions. To find him a wife 
 was the last thing that his mother had expected of me 
 or that I had expected of myself. Moreover it was 
 quite my opinion that he himself was too young to 
 be a judge of wives. Mrs. Pallant was right and I 
 had been strangely superficial in regarding her, with 
 her beautiful daughter, as a * resource. There were 
 other resources and one of them would be most 
 decidedly to go away. What did I know after all 
 about the girl except that I was very glad to have es 
 caped from marrying her mother ? That mother, it was 
 true, was a singular person, and it was strange that 
 her conscience should have begun to fidget before 
 my own did and that she was more anxious on my 
 nephew s behalf than I was. The ways of women 
 were mysterious and it was not a novelty to me 
 that one never knew where one would find them. 
 As I have not hesitated in this narrative to reveal 
 the irritable side of my own nature I will confess 
 that I even wondered whether Mrs. Pallant s solicitude 
 had not been a deeper artifice. Was it not possibly 
 a plan of her own for making sure of my young 
 man though I did not quite see the logic of it ? If 
 she regarded him, as she might in view of his large 
 
1 64 LOUISA PALL A NT in 
 
 fortune, as a great catch, might she not have 
 arranged this little comedy, in their personal interest, 
 with the girl ? 
 
 That possibility at any rate only made it a happier 
 thought that I should carry the boy away to visit 
 other cities. There were many assuredly much more 
 worthy of his attention than Homburg. In the 
 course of the morning (it was after our early 
 luncheon) I walked round to Mrs. Pallant s, to let 
 her know that this truth had come over me with 
 force ; and while I did so I again felt the unlikeli 
 hood of the part attributed by my fears and by the 
 mother s own, if they were real, to Linda. Certainly 
 if she was such a girl as these fears represented her 
 she would fly at higher game. It was with an eye 
 to high game, Mrs. Pallant had frankly admitted to 
 me, that she had been trained, and such an education, 
 to say nothing of such a subject, justified a hope of 
 greater returns. A young American who could give 
 her nothing but pocket-money was a very moderate 
 prize, and if she were prepared to marry for ambition 
 (there was no such hardness in her face or tone, but 
 then there never is), her mark would be at the least 
 an English duke. I was received at Mrs. Pallant s 
 lodgings with the announcement that she had left 
 Homburg with her daughter half an hour before. 
 The good woman who had entertained the pair pro 
 fessed to know nothing of their movements beyond 
 the fact that they had gone to Frankfort, where how 
 ever it was her belief that they did not intend to 
 remain. They were evidently travelling beyond. 
 Sudden ? Oh yes, tremendously sudden. They 
 must have spent the night in packing, they had so 
 many things and such pretty ones ; and their poor 
 
in LOUISA PALL A NT 165 
 
 maid all the morning had scarcely had time to 
 swallow her coffee. But they evidently were ladies 
 accustomed to come and go. It did not matter : 
 with such rooms as hers she never wanted ; there 
 was a new family coming in at three o clock. 
 
IV 
 
 THIS piece of strategy left me staring and I con 
 fess it made me rather angry. My only consolation 
 was that Archie, when I told him, looked as blank 
 as myself and that the trick touched him more 
 nearly, for I was not in love with Louisa. We 
 agreed that we required an explanation and we pre 
 tended to expect one the next day in the shape of a 
 letter satisfactory even to the point of being apolo 
 getic. When I say we pretended I mean that I did, 
 for my suspicion that he knew (through an arrange 
 ment with Linda) what had become of our friends 
 lasted only a moment. If his resentment was less 
 than my own his surprise was equally great. I had 
 been willing to bolt, but I felt rather slighted by the 
 facility with which Mrs. Pallant had shown that she 
 could part with us. Archie was not angry, because 
 in the first place he was good-natured and in the 
 second it was evidently not definite to him that he 
 had been encouraged, having, I think, no very par 
 ticular idea of what constituted encouragement. He 
 was fresh from the wonderful country in which be 
 tween the ingenuous young there may be so little 
 question of intentions. He was but dimly conscious 
 of his own and would have had no opinion as to 
 
iv LOUISA PALLANT 167 
 
 whether he had been provoked or jilted. I had no 
 wish to exasperate him, but when at the end of three 
 days more we were still without news of our late 
 companions I remarked that it was very simple ; it 
 was plain they were just hiding from us ; they 
 thought us dangerous ; they wished to avoid en 
 tanglements. They had found us too attentive and 
 wished not to raise false hopes. He appeared to 
 accept this explanation and even had the air (so at 
 least I judged from his asking me no questions) of 
 thinking that the matter might be delicate for my 
 self. The poor youth was altogether much mysti 
 fied, and I smiled at the image in his mind of Mrs. 
 Pallant fleeing from his uncle s importunities. 
 
 We decided to leave Homburg, but if we did not 
 pursue her it was not simply that we were ignorant of 
 where she was. I could have found that out with a 
 little trouble, but I was deterred by the reflection 
 that this would be her own reasoning. She was dis 
 honest and her departure was a provocation I am 
 afraid that it was in that stupid conviction that I 
 made out a little independent itinerary with Archie. 
 I even said to myself that we should learn where 
 they were quite soon enough and that our patience 
 even my young man s would be longer than 
 theirs. Therefore I uttered a small private cry of 
 triumph when three weeks later (we happened to be 
 at Interlaken) he told me that he had received a note 
 from Miss Pallant. His manner of telling me was to 
 inquire whether there were any particular reasons 
 why we should longer delay our projected visit to 
 the Italian lakes ; was not the fear of the hot 
 weather, which was moreover in summer our native 
 temperature, at an end, as it was already the middle 
 
1 68 LOUISA PALL ANT iv 
 
 of September ? I answered that we would start on 
 the morrow if he liked, and then, pleased apparently 
 that I was so easy to deal with, he revealed his little 
 secret. He showed me the letter, which was a 
 graceful, natural document it covered with a few 
 flowing strokes but a single page of notepaper not 
 at all compromising to the young lady. If however 
 it was almost the apology I had looked for (save 
 that that should have come from the mother), it was 
 not ostensibly in the least an invitation. It mentioned 
 casually (the mention was mainly in the date) that 
 they were on the Lago Maggiore, at Baveno ; but it 
 consisted mainly of the expression of a regret that 
 they had to leave us at Homburg without giving 
 notice. Linda did not say under what necessity they 
 had found themselves ; she only hoped we had not 
 judged them too harshly and would accept these few 
 hasty words as a substitute for the omitted good 
 bye. She also hoped we were passing our time in 
 an interesting manner and having the same lovely 
 weather that prevailed south of the Alps ; and she 
 remained very sincerely, with the kindest remem 
 brances to me. 
 
 The note contained no message from her mother 
 and it was open to me to suppose, as I should judge, 
 either that Mrs. Pallant had not known she was 
 writing or that they wished to make us think she 
 had not known. The letter might pass as a common 
 civility of the girl s to a person with whom she had 
 been on very familiar terms. It was however as 
 something more than this that my nephew took it ; 
 at least so I was warranted in inferring from the 
 very distinct nature of his determination to go to 
 Baveno. I saw it was useless to drag him another 
 
iv LOUISA PALL A NT 169 
 
 way ; he had money in his own pocket and was 
 quite capable of giving me the slip. Yet such are 
 the sweet incongruities of youth when I asked him 
 if he had been thinking of Linda Pallant ever since 
 they left us in the lurch he replied, * Oh dear no ; 
 why should I ? This fib was accompanied by an 
 exorbitant blush. Since he must obey the young 
 lady s call I must also go and see where it would 
 take him, and one splendid morning we started over 
 the Simplon in a post-chaise. 
 
 I represented to him successfully that it would be 
 in much better taste for us to alight at Stresa, which 
 as every one knows is a resort of tourists, also on the 
 shore of the major lake, at about a mile s distance 
 from Baveno. If we stayed at the latter place we 
 should have to inhabit the same hotel as our friends, 
 and this would be indiscreet, considering our peculiar 
 relations with them. Nothing would be easier than 
 to go and come between the two points, especially 
 by the water, which would give Archie a chance for 
 unlimited paddling. His face lighted up at the 
 vision of a pair of oars ; he pretended to take my 
 plea for discretion very seriously and I could see 
 that he immediately began to calculate opportunities 
 for being afloat with Linda. Our post-chaise (I had 
 insisted on easy stages and we were three days on 
 the way) deposited us at Stresa toward the middle 
 of the afternoon, and it was within an amazingly 
 short time that I found myself in a small boat with 
 my nephew, who pulled us over to Baveno with 
 vigorous strokes. I remember the sweetness of the 
 whole impression (I had had it before, but to my 
 companion it was new and he thought it as pretty 
 as the opera) ; the enchanting beauty of the place 
 
170 LOUISA PALL ANT 
 
 and hour, the stillness of the air and water, with the 
 romantic, fantastic Borromean Islands in the midst 
 of them. We disembarked at the steps at the 
 garden-foot of the hotel, and somehow it seemed a 
 perfectly natural part of the lovely situation that I 
 should immediately become conscious Mrs. Pallant 
 and her daughter were sitting there on the terrace 
 quietly watching us. They had all the air of 
 expecting us and I think we looked for it in them. 
 I had not even asked Archie if he had answered 
 Linda s note ; that was between themselves and in 
 the way of supervision I had done enough in coming 
 with him. 
 
 There is no doubt there was something very odd 
 in our meeting with our friends at least as between 
 Louisa and me. I was too much taken up with 
 that part of it to notice very much what was the 
 manner of the encounter of the young people. I 
 have sufficiently indicated that I could not get it 
 out of my head that Mrs. Pallant was up to some 
 thing, and I am afraid she saw in my face that this 
 suspicion had been the motive of my journey. I 
 had come there to find her out. The knowledge of 
 my purpose could not help her to make me very 
 welcome, and that is why I say we met in strange 
 conditions. However, on this occasion we observed 
 all forms and the admirable scene gave us plenty to 
 talk about. I made no reference before Linda to the 
 retreat from Homburg. She looked even prettier 
 than she had done on the eve of that manoeuvre and 
 gave no sign of an awkward consciousness. She 
 struck me so, afresh, as a charming, clever girl that I 
 was puzzled afresh to know why we should get or 
 should have got into a tangle about her. People 
 
iv LOUISA PALL ANT 171 
 
 had to want to complicate a situation to do it on so 
 simple a pretext as that Linda was admirable. So 
 she was, and why should not the consequences be 
 equally so ? One of them, on the spot, was that at 
 the end of a very short time Archie proposed to her 
 to take a turn with him in his boat, which awaited 
 us at the foot of the steps. She looked at her 
 mother with a smiling May I, mamma? and Mrs. 
 Pallant answered, Certainly, darling, if you are not 
 afraid. At this I scarcely knew why I burst 
 out laughing ; it seemed so droll to me somehow 
 that timidity should be imputed to this competent 
 young lady. She gave me a quick, slightly sharp 
 look as she turned away with my nephew ; it 
 appeared to challenge me a little to say, Pray 
 what is the matter with you ? It was the first 
 expression of the kind I had ever seen in her face. 
 Mrs. Pallant s eyes, on the other hand, were not 
 turned to mine ; after we had been left there together 
 she sat silent, not heeding me, looking at the lake 
 and mountains at the snowy crests which wore the 
 flush of evening. She seemed not even to watch 
 our young companions as they got into their boat 
 and pushed off. For some minutes I respected her 
 reverie ; I walked slowly up and down the terrace 
 and lighted a cigar, as she had always permitted 
 me to do at Homburg. I noticed that she had an 
 expression of weariness which I had never seen 
 before ; her delicate, agreeable face was pale ; I 
 made out that there were new lines of fatigue, almost 
 of age, in it. At last I stopped in front of her and 
 asked her, since she looked so sad, if she had any 
 bad news. 
 
 * The only bad news was when I learned through 
 
172 LOUISA PALLANT iv 
 
 your nephew s note to Linda that you were coming 
 to us. 
 
 Ah, then he wrote? I exclaimed. 
 
 ( Certainly he wrote. 
 
 * You take it all harder than I do, I remarked, 
 sitting down beside her. And then I added, smiling, 
 Have you written to his mother? 
 
 She slowly turned her face to me and rested her 
 eyes on mine. Take care, take care, or you ll 
 insult me, she said, with an air of patience before 
 the inevitable. 
 
 Never, never ! Unless you think I do so if I 
 ask you if you knew when Linda wrote. 
 
 She hesitated a moment. Yes ; she showed me 
 her letter. She wouldn t have done anything else. 
 I let it go because I didn t know what it was best to 
 do. I am afraid to oppose her, to her face. 
 
 Afraid, my dear friend, with that girl? 
 
 That girl ? Much you know about her ! It 
 didn t follow that you would come I didn t think it 
 need follow. 
 
 I am like you, I said I am afraid of my 
 nephew. I don t venture to oppose him to his face. 
 The only thing I could do under the circumstances 
 was to come with him. 
 
 I see ; I m glad you have done it, said Mrs. 
 Pallant, thoughtfully. 
 
 Oh, I was conscientious about that ! But I have 
 no authority ; I can t order him nor forbid him I 
 can use no force. Look at the way he is pulling 
 that boat and see if you can fancy me. 
 
 You could tell him she s a bad, hard girl, who 
 would poison any good man s life! my companion 
 suddenly broke out, with a kind of passion. 
 
iv LOUISA PALL ANT 173 
 
 Dear Mrs. Pallant, what do you mean ? I mur 
 mured, staring. 
 
 She bent her face into her hands, covering it over 
 with them, and remained so for a minute ; then she 
 went on, in a different manner, as if she had not 
 heard my question : I hoped you were too disgusted 
 with us, after the way we left you planted. 
 
 It was disconcerting, assuredly, and it might 
 have served if Linda hadn t written. That patched 
 it up, I said, laughing. But my laughter was hollow, 
 for I had been exceedingly impressed with her little 
 explosion of a moment before. Do you really mean 
 she is bad ? I added. 
 
 Mrs. Pallant made no immediate answer to this ; 
 she only said that it did not matter after all whether 
 the crisis should come a few weeks sooner or a few 
 weeks later, since it was destined to come at the first 
 opening. Linda had marked my young man and 
 when Linda had marked a thing ! 
 
 Bless my soul how very grim ! Do you mean 
 she s in love with him ? I demanded, incredulous. 
 
 * It s enough if she makes him think she is 
 though even that isn t essential. 
 
 If she makes him think so ? Dearest lady, 
 what do you mean ? I have observed her, I have 
 watched her, and after all what has she done ? She 
 has been nice to him, but it would have been much 
 more marked if she hadn t. She has really shown 
 him nothing but the common friendliness of a bright, 
 good-natured girl. Her note was nothing ; he 
 showed it to me. 
 
 I don t think you have heard every word that 
 she has said to him, Mrs. Pallant rejoined, with a 
 persistence that struck me as unnatural. 
 
174 LOUISA PALL A NT iv 
 
 No more have you, I take it! I exclaimed. 
 She evidently meant more than she said, and this 
 impression chilled me, made me really uncomfort 
 able. 
 
 No, but I know my own daughter. She s a 
 very rare young woman. 
 
 You have a singular tone about her, I responded 
 such a tone as I think I have never heard on a 
 mother s lips. I have observed it before, but never 
 so accentuated. 
 
 At this Mrs. Pallant got up ; she stood there an 
 instant, looking down at me. You make my 
 reparation my expiation difficult! And leaving 
 me rather startled, she began to move along the 
 terrace. 
 
 I overtook her presently and repeated her words. 
 Your reparation your expiation ? What on earth 
 do you mean by that? 
 
 You know perfectly what I mean it is too 
 magnanimous of you to pretend you don t. 
 
 * Well, at any rate I don t see what good it does 
 me or what it makes up to me for that you should 
 abuse your daughter. 
 
 Oh, I don t care; I shall save him! she 
 exclaimed, as we went, with a kind of perverse 
 cheerfulness. At the same moment two ladies, 
 apparently English, came toward us (scattered 
 groups had been sitting there and the inmates of 
 the hotel were moving to and fro), and I observed 
 the immediate charming transition (it seemed to me 
 to show such years of social practice), by which, as 
 they greeted us, she exchanged her excited, almost 
 fevered expression for an air of recognition and 
 pleasure. They stopped to speak to her and she 
 
iv LOUISA PALLANT 175 
 
 asked with eagerness whether their mother were 
 better. I strolled on and she presently rejoined me; 
 after which she said impatiently, Come away from 
 this come down into the garden. We descended 
 into the garden, strolled through it and paused on 
 the border of the lake. 
 
THE charm of the evening had deepened, the stillness 
 was like a solemn expression on a beautiful face and 
 the whole air of the place divine. In the fading 
 light my nephew s boat was too far out to be per 
 ceived. I looked for it a little and then, as I gave it 
 up, I remarked that from such an excursion as that, 
 on such a lake, at such an hour, a young man and a 
 young woman of ordinary sensibility could only come 
 back doubly pledged to each other. To this observa 
 tion Mrs. Pallant s answer was, superficially at least, 
 irrelevant ; she said after a pause : 
 
 With you, my dear sir, one has certainly to dot 
 one s " i s." Haven t you discovered, and didn t I tell 
 you at Homburg, that we are miserably poor? 
 
 Isn t " miserably " rather too much, when you are 
 living at an expensive hotel ? 
 
 * They take us en pension, for ever so little a day. 
 I have been knocking about Europe long enough to 
 learn there are certain ways of doing things. Besides, 
 don t speak of hotels ; we have spent half our life in 
 them and Linda told me only last night that she 
 hoped never to put her foot into one again. She 
 thinks that when she comes to such a place as this 
 it s the least that she should find a villa of her own. 
 
v LOUISA PALL A NT 177 
 
 Well, her companion there is perfectly competent 
 to give her one. Don t think I have the least desire 
 to push them into each other s arms ; I only ask to 
 wash my hands of them. But I should like to know 
 why you want, as you said just now, to save him. 
 When you speak as if your daughter were a monster 
 I take it that you are not serious. 
 
 She was facing me there in the twilight, and to 
 let me know that she was more serious perhaps than 
 she had ever been in her life she had only to look 
 at me awhile without protestation. It s Linda s 
 standard. God knows I myself could get on ! She 
 is ambitious, luxurious, determined to have what she 
 wants, more than any one I have ever seen. Of 
 course it s open to you to tell me that it s my fault, 
 that I was so before her and have made her so. 
 But does that make me like it any better? 5 
 
 Dear Mrs. Pallant, you are most extraordinary/ 
 I stammered, infinitely surprised and not a little 
 pained. 
 
 ( Oh yes, you have made up your mind about me ; 
 you see me in a certain way and you don t like the 
 trouble of changing. Votre siege est fait. But you 
 will have to change if you have any generosity! 
 Her eyes shone in the summer dusk and she looked 
 remarkably handsome. 
 
 ( Is this a part of the reparation, of the expiation? 
 I inquired. I don t see what you ever did to 
 Archie. 
 
 It s enough that he belongs to you. But it isn t 
 for you that I do it ; it s for myself, she went on. 
 
 1 Doubtless you have your own reasons, which I 
 can t penetrate. But can t you sacrifice something 
 else ? must you sacrifice your child ? 
 
 N 
 
178 LOUISA PALL ANT v 
 
 She s my punishment and she s my stigma ! 
 cried Louisa Pallant, with veritable exaltation. 
 
 It seems to me rather that you are hers. 
 
 1 Hers ? What does she know of such things ? 
 what can she ever feel ? She s cased in steel ; she 
 has a heart of marble. It s true it s true. She 
 appals me ! 
 
 I laid my hand upon the poor lady s ; I uttered, 
 with the intention of checking and soothing her, the 
 first incoherent words that came into my head and I 
 drew her toward a bench which I perceived a few 
 yards away. She dropped upon it ; I placed myself 
 near her and besought her to consider well what she 
 was saying. She owed me nothing and I wished no 
 one injured, no one denounced or exposed for my sake. 
 
 For your sake ? Oh, I am not thinking of you! 
 she answered ; and indeed the next moment I thought 
 my words rather fatuous. It s a satisfaction to my 
 own conscience for I have one, little as you think 
 I have a right to speak of it I have been punished 
 by my sin itself. I have been hideously worldly, I 
 have thought only of that, and I have taught her to 
 be so to do the same. That s the only instruction 
 I have ever given her, and she has learned the 
 lesson so well that now that I see it printed there in 
 all her nature I am horrified at my work. For years 
 we have lived that way ; we have thought of nothing 
 else. She has learned it so well that she has gone 
 far beyond me. I say I am horrified, because she is 
 horrible. 
 
 * My poor extravagant friend, I pleaded, ( isn t it 
 still more so to hear a mother say such things ? 
 
 Why so, if they are abominably true ? Besides, I 
 don t care what I say, if I save him. 
 
v LOUISA PALL ANT 179 
 
 * Do you expect me to repeat to him ? 
 
 Not in the least, she broke in ; I will do it 
 myself. At this I uttered some strong inarticulate 
 protest, and she went on with a sort of simplicity : 
 I was very glad at first, but it would have been 
 better if we hadn t met. 
 
 I don t agree to that, for you interest me im 
 mensely. 
 
 I don t care for that if I can interest him. 5 
 You must remember then that your charges are 
 strangely vague, considering how violent they are. 
 Never had a. girl a more innocent appearance. You 
 know how I have admired it. 
 
 You know nothing about her. / do, for she is 
 the work of my hand ! Mrs. Pallant declared, with a 
 bitter laugh. I have watched her for years and 
 little by little, for the last two or three, it has come 
 over me. There is not a tender spot in her whole 
 composition. To arrive at a brilliant social position, 
 if it were necessary, she would see me drown in this 
 lake without lifting a finger, she would stand there 
 and see it she would push me in and never feel a 
 pang. That s my young lady ! To climb up to the 
 top and be splendid and envied there to do it at 
 any cost or by any meanness and cruelty, is the only 
 thing she has a heart for. She would lie for it, she 
 would steal for it, she would kill for it ! My com 
 panion brought out these words with a tremendous 
 low distinctness and an air of sincerity that was 
 really solemn. I watched her pale face and glowing 
 eyes ; she held me in a kind of stupor, but her 
 strange, almost vindictive earnestness imposed itself. 
 I- found myself believing her, pitying her more than 
 I pitied the girl. It was as if she had been bottled 
 
i So LOUISA PALL A NT v 
 
 up for longer than she could bear, suffering more and 
 more from the ferment of her knowledge. It relieved 
 her to warn and denounce and expose. God has 
 let me see it in time, in his mercy, she continued ; 
 but his ways are strange, that he has let me see it 
 in my daughter. It is myself that he has let me see, 
 myself as I was for years. But she s worse she is, 
 I assure you ; she s worse than I ever intended or 
 dreamed. Her hands were clasped tightly together 
 in her lap ; her low voice quavered and her breath 
 came short ; she looked up at the faint stars with 
 religious perversity. 
 
 1 Have you ever spoken to her as you speak to 
 me ? I asked. Have you ever admonished her, 
 reproached her? 
 
 Reproached her ? How can I ? when all she 
 would have to say would be, " You you you base 
 one who made me ! " 
 
 c Then why do you want to play her a trick ? 
 
 I m not bound to tell you and you wouldn t 
 understand if I did. I should play that boy a 
 far worse trick if I were to hold my tongue. 
 
 1 If he loves her he won t believe a word you say. 
 
 ( Very possibly, but I shall have done my duty. 
 
 And shall you say to him simply what you have 
 said to me? 
 
 * Never mind what I shall say to him. It will 
 be something that will perhaps affect him, if I lose 
 no time. 
 
 1 If you are so bent on gaining time, I said, * why 
 did you let her go out in the boat with him? 
 
 Let her ? how could I prevent it ? 
 
 But she asked your permission. 
 
 < That s a part of all the comedy ! 
 
v LOUISA PALL A NT 181 
 
 We were silent a moment, after which I resumed : 
 Then she doesn t know you hate her? 
 
 I don t know what she knows. She has depths 
 and depths, and all of them bad. Besides, I don t 
 hate her in the least ; I pity her simply, for what I 
 have made of her. But I pity still more the man 
 who may find himself married to her. 
 
 There s not much danger of there being any 
 such person, at the rate you go on. 
 
 Oh, perfectly ; she ll marry some one. She ll 
 marry a title as well as a fortune. 
 
 It s a pity my nephew hasn t a title, I murmured, 
 smiling. 
 
 bhe hesitated a moment. I see you think I 
 want that and that I am acting a part. God forgive 
 you ! Your suspicion is perfectly natural : how can 
 any one tell, with people like us ? 
 
 The way she uttered these last words brought 
 tears to my eyes. I laid my hand on her arm, hold 
 ing her awhile, and we looked at each other through 
 the dusk. You couldn t do more if he were my son, 
 I said at last. 
 
 Oh, if he had been your son he would have kept 
 out of it ! I like him for himself ; he s simple and 
 honest he needs affection. 
 
 * He would have an admirable, a devoted, mother- 
 in-law, I went on. 
 
 Mrs. Pallant gave a little impatient sigh and re 
 plied that she was not joking. We sat there some 
 time longer, while I thought over what she had said 
 to me and she apparently did the same. I confess 
 that even close at her side, with the echo of her 
 passionate, broken voice still in the air, some queer 
 ideas came into my head. Was the comedy on her 
 
182 LOUISA PALLANT v 
 
 side and not on the girl s, and was she posturing as 
 a magnanimous woman at poor Linda s expense ? 
 Was she determined, in spite of the young lady s 
 preference, to keep her daughter for a grander person 
 age than a young American whose dollars were not 
 numerous enough (numerous as they were) to make 
 up for his want of high relationships, and had she 
 brought forth these cruel imputations to help her to 
 her end ? If she was prepared really to denounce 
 the girl to Archie she would have to go very far to 
 overcome the suspicion he would be sure to feel at so 
 unnatural a proceeding. Was she prepared to go far 
 enough ? The answer to these doubts was simply 
 the way I had been touched it came back to me 
 the next moment when she used the words, 
 people like us. The effect of them was poignant. 
 She made herself humble indeed and I felt in a 
 manner ashamed, on my own side, that I saw her in 
 the dust. She said to me at last that I must wait 
 no longer ; I must go away before the young people 
 came back. They were staying very long, too long ; 
 all the more reason that she should deal with Archie 
 that evening. I must drive back to Stresa or, if I 
 liked, I could go on foot : it was not far for a man. 
 She disposed of me freely, she was so full of her 
 purpose ; and after we had quitted the garden and 
 returned to the terrace of the hotel she seemed 
 almost to push me to leave her I felt her fine hands, 
 quivering a little, on my shoulders. I was ready to 
 do what she liked : she affected me painfully and I 
 wanted to get away from her. Before I went I 
 asked her why Linda should regard my young man 
 as such a parti ; it did not square after all with her 
 account of the girl s fierce ambitions. By that 
 
v LOUISA PALLANT 183 
 
 picture it would seem that a reigning prince was the 
 least she would look at. 
 
 * Oh, she has reflected well ; she has regarded 
 the question in every light, said Mrs. Pallant If 
 she has made up her mind it is because she sees 
 what she can do. 
 
 Do you mean that she has talked it over with 
 you ? 
 
 Lord ! for what do you take us ? We don t talk 
 over things to-day. We know each other s point of 
 view and we only have to act. We can take reasons, 
 which are awkward things, for granted. 
 
 * But in this case she certainly doesn t know your 
 point of view, poor thing. 
 
 No that s because I haven t played fair. Of 
 course she couldn t expect I would cheat. There 
 ought to be honour among thieves. But it was open 
 to her to do the same. 
 
 1 How do you mean, to do the same ? 
 
 She might have fallen in love with a poor man ; 
 then I should have been done. 
 
 1 A rich one is better ; he can do more, I replied, 
 with conviction. 
 
 So you would have reason to know if you had 
 led the life that we have ! Never to have had really 
 enough I mean to do just the few simple things we 
 have wanted ; never to have had the sinews of war, 
 I suppose you would call them the funds for a 
 campaign ; to have felt every day and every hour 
 the hard, monotonous pinch and found the question 
 of dollars and cents (and so horridly few of them) 
 mixed up with every experience, with every impulse 
 that does make one mercenary, it does make money 
 seem a good beyond all others, and it s quite natural 
 
1 84 LOUISA PALLANT v 
 
 it should. That is why Linda is of the opinion that 
 a fortune is always a fortune. She knows all about 
 that of your nephew, how it s invested, how it may be 
 expected to increase, exactly on what sort of footing 
 it would enable her to live. She has decided that it s 
 enough, and enough is as good as a feast. She thinks 
 she could lead him by the nose, and I daresay she 
 could. She will make him live here : she has not 
 the least intention of settling in America. I think 
 she has views upon London, because in England he 
 can hunt and shoot, and that will make him let her 
 alone. 
 
 It strikes me that he would like that very much, 
 I interposed ; that s not at all a bad programme, 
 even from Archie s point of view. 
 
 c It s no use of talking about princes, Mrs. Pallant 
 pursued, as if she had not heard me. * Yes, they are 
 most of them more in want of money even than we 
 are. Therefore a title is out of the question, and we 
 recognised that at an early stage. Your nephew is 
 exactly the sort of young man we had constructed in 
 advance he was made on purpose. Dear Linda 
 was her mother s own daughter when she recognised 
 him on the spot ! It s enough of a title to-day to be 
 an American with the way they have come up. It 
 does as well as anything and it s a great simplifica 
 tion. If you don t believe me go to London and 
 see. 
 
 She had come with me out to the road. I had 
 said I would walk back to Stresa and we stood there 
 in the complete evening. As I took her hand, bid 
 ding her good-night, I exclaimed, Poor Linda poor 
 Linda! 
 
 Oh, she ll live to do better, said Mrs. Pallant. 
 
LOUISA PALLANT 185 
 
 How can she do better, since you have described 
 this as perfection ? 
 
 She hesitated a moment. I mean better for Mr. 
 Pringle. 1 
 
 I still had her hand I remained looking at her. 
 How came it that you could throw me over such a 
 woman as you ? 
 
 Ah, my friend, if I hadn t thrown you over I 
 couldn t do this for you? And disengaging herself 
 she turned away quickly and went back to the hotel. 
 
VI 
 
 I DON T know whether she blushed as she made this 
 avowal, which was a retraction of a former denial 
 and the real truth, as I permitted myself to believe ; 
 but I did, while I took my way to Stresa it is a 
 walk of half an hour in the darkness. The new 
 and singular character in which she had appeared 
 to me produced an effect of excitement which would 
 have made it impossible for me to sit still in a 
 carriage. This same agitation kept me up late after 
 I had reached my hotel ; as I knew that I should 
 not sleep it was useless to go to bed. Long, how 
 ever, as I deferred this ceremony Archie had not 
 turned up when the lights in the hotel began to be 
 put out. I felt even slightly nervous about him and 
 wondered whether he had had an accident on the 
 lake. I reflected that in this case if he had not 
 brought his companion back to Baveno Mrs. 
 Pallant would already have sent after me. It 
 was foolish moreover to suppose that anything could 
 have happened to him after putting off from Baveno 
 by water to rejoin me, for the evening was absol 
 utely windless and more than sufficiently clear and 
 the lake as calm as glass. Besides I had unlimited 
 confidence in his power to take care of himself in 
 
vi LOUISA PALLANT 187 
 
 circumstances much more difficult. I went to my 
 room at last ; his own was at some distance, the 
 people of the hotel not having been able it was 
 the height of the autumn season to place us to 
 gether. Before I went to bed I had occasion to 
 ring for a servant, and then I learned by a chance 
 inquiry that my nephew had returned an hour 
 before and had gone straight to his own apartment. 
 I had not supposed he could come in without my 
 seeing him I was wandering about the saloons 
 and terraces and it had not occurred to me to 
 knock at his door. I had half a mind to do so 
 then I had such a curiosity as to how I should find 
 him ; but I checked myself, for evidently he had 
 not wished to see me. This did not diminish my 
 curiosity, and I slept even less than I had expected. 
 His dodging me that way (for if he had not per 
 ceived me downstairs he might have looked for me 
 in my room) was a sign that Mrs. Pallant s interview 
 with him had really come off. What had she said 
 to him ? What strong measures had she taken ? 
 The impression of almost morbid eagerness of pur 
 pose that she had given me suggested possibilities 
 that I was afraid to think of. She had spoken of 
 these things as we parted there as something she 
 would do for me ; but I had made the mental com 
 ment, as I walked away from her, that she had not 
 done it yet. It would not really be done till 
 Archie had backed out. Perhaps it was done by 
 this time ; his avoiding me seemed almost a proof. 
 That was what I thought of most of the night. I 
 spent a considerable part of it at my window, look 
 ing out at the sleeping mountains. Had he backed 
 out ? was he making up his mind to back out ? 
 
1 88 LOUISA PALL A NT vi 
 
 There was a strange contradiction in it ; there were 
 in fact more contradictions than ever. I believed 
 what Mrs. Pallant had told me about Linda, and yet 
 that other idea made me ashamed of my nephew. 
 I was sorry for the girl ; I regretted her loss of a 
 great chance, if loss it was to be ; and yet I hoped 
 that the manner in which her mother had betrayed 
 her (there was no other word) to her lover had 
 been thoroughgoing. It would need very radical 
 measures on Mrs. Pallant s part to excuse Archie. 
 For him too I was sorry, if she had made an im 
 pression on him the impression she desired. Once 
 or twice I was on the point of going in to condole 
 with him, in my dressing-gown ; I was sure he too 
 had jumped up from his bed and was looking out 
 of his window at the everlasting hills. 
 
 I am bound to say that he showed few symptoms 
 when we met in the morning and breakfasted to 
 gether. Youth is strange ; it has resources that ex 
 perience seems only to take away from us. One of 
 these is simply (in the given case) to do nothing to 
 say nothing. As we grow older and cleverer we 
 think that is too simple, too crude ; we dissimulate 
 more elaborately, but with an effect much less 
 baffling. My young man looked not in the least as 
 if he had lain awake or had something on his mind ; 
 and when I asked him what he had done after my 
 premature departure (I explained this by saying I 
 had been tired of waiting for him I was weary with 
 my journey and wanted to go to bed), he replied : 
 Oh, nothing in particular. I hung about the place ; 
 I like it better than this. We had an awfully jolly 
 time on the water. / wasn t in the least tired. I 
 did not worry him with questions ; it seemed to me 
 
vi LOUISA PALL A NT 189 
 
 indelicate to try to probe his secret. The only in 
 dication he gave was on my saying after breakfast 
 that I should go over again to see our friends and 
 my appearing to take for granted that he would be 
 glad to accompany me. Then he remarked that he 
 would stop at Stresa he had paid them such a 
 tremendous visit ; also he had some letters to write. 
 There was a freshness in his scruples about the 
 length of his visits, and I knew something about his 
 correspondence, which consisted entirely of twenty 
 pages every week from his mother. But he satisfied 
 my curiosity so little that it was really this sentiment 
 that carried me back to Baveno. This time I ordered 
 a conveyance, and as I got into it he stood watching 
 me in the porch of the hotel with his hands in his 
 pockets. Then it was for the first time that I saw 
 in this young man s face the expression of a person 
 slightly dazed, slightly foolish even, to whom some 
 thing disagreeable has happened. Our eyes met as 
 I observed him, and I was on the point of saying, 
 You had really better come with me, when he 
 turned away. He went into the house as if he 
 wished to escape from my call. I said to myself 
 that Mrs. Pallant had warned him off but that it 
 would not take much to bring him back. 
 
 The servant to whom I spoke at Baveno told me 
 that my friends were in a certain summer-house in 
 the garden, to which he led the way. The place 
 had an empty air ; most of the inmates of the hotel 
 were dispersed on the lake, on the hills, in picnics, 
 excursions, visits to the Borromean Islands. My 
 guide was so far right as that Linda was in the 
 summer-house, but she was there alone. On finding 
 this to be the case I stopped short, rather awkwardly, for 
 
igo LOUISA PALL ANT vi 
 
 I had a sudden sense of being an unmasked hypocrite 
 a conspirator against her security and honour. 
 But there was no awkwardness about Linda Pallant ; 
 she looked up with a little cry of pleasure from the 
 book she was reading and held out her hand with 
 the most engaging frankness. I felt as if I had no 
 right to touch her hand and I pretended not to see 
 it. But this gave no chill to her pretty manner ; 
 she moved a roll of tapestry off the bench, so that I 
 might sit down, and praised the place as a delightful 
 shady corner. She had never been fresher, fairer, 
 kinder ; she made her mother s damning talk about 
 her seem a hideous dream. She told me Mrs. Pallant 
 was coming to join her ; she had remained indoors 
 to write a letter. One could not write out there, 
 though it was so nice in other respects : the table 
 was too rickety. They too then had pretexts 
 between them in the way of letters : I judged this 
 to be a token that the situation was tense. It was 
 the only one however that Linda gave : like Archie 
 she was young enough to carry it off. She had been 
 used to seeing us always together and she made no 
 comment on my having come over without him. I 
 waited in vain for her to say something about it ; 
 this would only be natural it was almost unfriendly 
 to omit it. At last I observed that my nephew was 
 very unsociable that morning ; I had expected him 
 to join me but he had left me to come alone. 
 
 I am very glad, she answered. You can tell 
 him that if you like. 
 
 v If I tell him that he will come immediately. 
 Then don t tell him ; I don t want him to come. 
 He stayed too long last night, Linda went on, and 
 kept me out on the water till the most dreadful 
 
vi LOUISA PALL ANT 191 
 
 hours. That isn t done here, you know, and every 
 one was shocked when we came back or rather 
 when we didn t come back. I begged him to bring 
 me in, but he wouldn t. When we did return I 
 almost had to take the oars myself I felt as if every 
 one had been sitting up to time us, to stare at us. 
 It was very embarrassing. 
 
 These words made an impression upon me ; and 
 as I have treated the reader to most of the reflections 
 some of them perhaps rather morbid in which I 
 indulged on the subject of this young lady and her 
 mother I may as well complete the record and let 
 him know that I now wondered whether Linda 
 candid and accomplished maiden had conceived 
 the fine idea of strengthening her hold of Archie by 
 attempting to prove that he had compromised her. 
 Ah, no doubt that was the reason he had a bad 
 conscience last evening! I exclaimed. When he 
 came back to Stresa he sneaked off to his room ; he 
 wouldn t look me in the face. 
 
 Mamma was so vexed that she took him apart 
 and gave him a scolding, the girl went on. And 
 to punish me she sent me straight to bed. She has 
 very old-fashioned ideas haven t you, mamma? 
 she added, looking over my head at Mrs. Pallant, 
 who had just come in behind me. 
 
 I forget what answer Mrs. Pallant made to 
 Linda s appeal ; she stood there with two letters, 
 sealed and addressed, in her hand. She greeted 
 me gaily and then asked her daughter if she had 
 any postage-stamps. Linda consulted a somewhat 
 shabby pocket-book and confessed that she was 
 destitute ; whereupon her mother gave her the 
 letters, with the request that she would go into 
 
192 LOUISA PALL ANT vi 
 
 the hotel, buy the proper stamps at the office, 
 carefully affix them and put the letters into the 
 box. She was to pay for the stamps, not have 
 them put on the bill a preference for which Mrs. 
 Pallant gave her reasons. I had bought some at 
 Stresa that morning and I was on the point of 
 offering them, when, apparently having guessed my 
 intention, the elder lady silenced me with a look. 
 Linda told her she had no money and she fumbled 
 in her pocket for a franc. When she had found it 
 and the girl had taken it Linda kissed her before 
 going off with the letters. 
 
 1 Darling mother, you haven t any too many of 
 them, have you? she murmured ; and she gave me, 
 sidelong, as she left us, the prettiest half comical, 
 half pitiful smile. 
 
 She s amazing she s amazing, said Mrs. Pallant, 
 as we looked at each other. 
 
 Does she know what you have done? 
 1 She knows I have done something and she is 
 making up her mind what it is or she will in the 
 course of the next twenty-four hours, if your nephew 
 doesn t come back. I think I can promise you he 
 won t. 
 
 And won t she ask you ? 
 Never! 
 
 Shall you not tell her ? Can you sit down 
 together in this summer-house, this divine day, with 
 such a dreadful thing as that between you ? 
 
 Don t you remember what I told you about our 
 relations that everything was implied between us 
 and nothing expressed? The ideas we have had in 
 common our perpetual worldliness, our always 
 looking out for chances are not the sort of thing 
 
vi LOUISA PALLANT 193 
 
 that can be uttered gracefully between persons 
 who like to keep up forms, as we both do : so that 
 if we understood each other it was enough. We shall 
 understand each other now, as we have always done, 
 and nothing will be changed, because there has always 
 been something between us that couldn t be talked 
 about. 
 
 Certainly, she is amazing she is amazing, I 
 repeated ; but so are you. And then I asked her 
 what she had said to my boy. 
 
 She seemed surprised. Hasn t he told you? 
 
 No, and he never will. 1 
 
 I am glad of that, she said, simply. 
 
 But I am not sure he won t come back. He didn t 
 this morning, but he had already half a mind to. 
 
 That s your imagination, said Mrs. Pallant, 
 decisively. If you knew what I told him you 
 would be sure. 
 
 And you won t let me know? 
 
 Never, my near friend. 
 
 And did he believe you ? 
 
 Time will show ; but I think so. 
 
 * And how did you make it plausible to him that 
 you should take so unnatural a course? 
 
 For a moment she said nothing, only looking at 
 me. Then at last I told him the truth. 
 
 The truth? I repeated. 
 
 Take him away take him away! she broke 
 out. That s why I got rid of Linda, to tell you 
 that you mustn t stay you must leave Stresa to 
 morrow. This time it s you that must do it ; I can t 
 fly from you again it costs too much! And she 
 smiled strangely. 
 
 Don t be afraid ; don t be afraid. We will leave 
 O 
 
194 LOUISA PALLANT vi 
 
 to-morrow ; I want to go myself. I took her hand 
 in farewell, and while I held it I said, The way you 
 put it, about Linda, was very bad ? 
 
 * It was horrible. 
 
 I turned away I felt indeed that I wanted to 
 leave the neighbourhood. She kept me from going 
 to the hotel, as I might meet Linda coming back, 
 which I was far from wishing to do, and showed me 
 another way into the road. Then she turned round 
 to meet her daughter and spend the rest of the 
 morning in the summer-house with her, looking at 
 the bright blue lake and the snowy crests of the 
 Alps. When I reached Stresa again I found that 
 Archie had gone off to Milan (to see the cathedral, 
 the servant said), leaving a message for me to the 
 effect that, as he should not be back for a day or 
 two (though there were numerous trains), he had 
 taken a small portmanteau with him. The next 
 day I got a telegram from him notifying me that he 
 had determined to go on to Venice and requesting 
 me to forward the rest of his luggage. Please don t 
 come after me, this missive added ; I want to be 
 alone ; I shall do no harm. That sounded pathetic 
 to me, in the light of what I knew, and I was glad 
 to leave the poor boy to his own devices. He pro 
 ceeded to Venice and I recrossed the Alps. For 
 several weeks after this I expected to discover that 
 he had rejoined Mrs. Pallant ; but when we met in 
 Paris, in November, I saw that he had nothing to 
 hide from me, except indeed the secret of what that 
 lady had told him. This he concealed from me then 
 and has concealed ever since. He returned to 
 America before Christmas and then I felt that the 
 crisis had passed. I have never seen my old friend 
 
vi LOUISA PALL A NT 195 
 
 since. About a year after the time to which my 
 story refers, Linda married, in London, a young 
 Englishman, the possessor of a large fortune, a fortune 
 acquired by his father in some useful industry. Mrs. 
 Gimingham s photographs (such is her present name) 
 may be obtained from the principal stationers. I am 
 convinced her mother was sincere. My nephew has 
 not changed his state yet, and now even my sister is 
 beginning, for the first time, to desire it. I related 
 to her as soon as I saw her the substance of the story 
 I have written here, and (such is the inconsequence 
 of women) nothing can exceed her reprobation of 
 Louisa Pallant. 
 
THE MODERN WARNING 
 
THE MODERN WARNING 
 
 i 
 
 WHEN he reached the hotel Macarthy Grice was 
 apprised, to his great disappointment, of the fact that 
 his mother and sister were absent for the day, and 
 he reproached himself with not having been more 
 definite in announcing his arrival to them in advance. 
 It was a little his nature to expect people to know 
 things about himself that he had not told them and 
 to be vexed when he found they were ignorant of 
 them. I will not go so far as to say that he was 
 inordinately conceited, but he had a general sense 
 that he himself knew most things without having 
 them pumped into him. He had been uncertain 
 about his arrival and, since he disembarked at Liver 
 pool, had communicated his movements to the two 
 ladies who after spending the winter in Rome were 
 awaiting him at Cadenabbia only by notes as brief 
 as telegrams and on several occasions by telegrams 
 simply. It struck his mother that he spent a great 
 deal of money on these latter missives which were 
 mainly negative, mainly to say that he could not 
 yet say when he should be able to start for the 
 Continent. He had had business in London and 
 
200 THE MODERN WARNING I 
 
 had apparently been a good deal vexed by the dis 
 covery that, most of the people it was necessary for 
 him to see being out of town, the middle of August 
 was a bad time for transacting it. Mrs. Grice 
 gathered that he had had annoyances and disappoint 
 ments, but she hoped that by the time he should 
 join them his serenity would have been restored. 
 She had not seen him for a year and her heart 
 hungered for her boy. Family feeling was strong 
 among these three though Macarthy s manner of 
 showing it was sometimes peculiar, and her affection 
 for her son was jealous and passionate ; but she and 
 Agatha made no secret between themselves of the 
 fact that the privilege of being his mother and 
 his sister was mainly sensible when things were 
 going well with him. They were a little afraid they 
 were not going well just now and they asked each 
 other why he could not leave his affairs alone for a 
 few weeks anyway and treat his journey to Europe 
 as a complete holiday a course which would do 
 him infinitely more good. He took life too hard 
 and was overworked and overstrained. It was only 
 to each other however that the anxious and affec 
 tionate women made these reflections, for they knew 
 it was of no use to say such things to Macarthy. 
 It was not that he answered them angrily ; on the 
 contrary he never noticed them at all. The answer 
 was in the very essence of his nature : he was in 
 domitably ambitious. 
 
 They had gone on the steamboat to the other 
 end of the lake and could not possibly be back for 
 several hours. There was a festa going on at one 
 of the villages in the hills, a little way from the 
 lake and several ladies and gentlemen had gone 
 
I THE MODERN WARNING 201 
 
 from the hotel to be present at it. They would find 
 carriages at the landing and they would drive to the 
 village, after which the same vehicles would bring 
 them back to the boat. This information was given 
 to Macarthy Grice by the secretary of the hotel, a 
 young man with a very low shirt collar, whose 
 nationality puzzled and even defied him by its in- 
 definiteness (he liked to know whom he was talking 
 to even when he could not have the satisfaction of 
 feeling that it was an American), and who suggested 
 to him that he might follow and overtake his friends 
 in the next steamer. As however there appeared to 
 be some danger that in this case he should cross 
 them on their way back he determined simply to 
 lounge about the lake-side and the grounds of the 
 hotel. The place was lovely, the view magnificent, 
 and there was a coming and going of little boats, of 
 travellers of every nationality, of itinerant vendors 
 of small superfluities. Macarthy observed these 
 things as patiently as his native restlessness allowed 
 and indeed that quality was reinforced to-day by 
 an inexplicable tendency to fidget. He changed his 
 place twenty times ; he lighted a cigar and threw it 
 away ; he ordered some luncheon and when it came 
 had no appetite for it. He felt nervous and he 
 wondered what he was nervous about ; whether he 
 were afraid that during their excursion an accident 
 had befallen his mother or Agatha. He was not 
 usually a prey to small timidities, and indeed it cost 
 him a certain effort to admit that a little Italian lake 
 could be deep enough to drown a pair of independent 
 Americans or that Italian horses could have the 
 high spirit to run away with them. He talked with 
 no one, for the Americans seemed to him all taken 
 
202 THE MODERN WARNING I 
 
 up with each other and the English all taken up 
 with themselves. He had a few elementary prin 
 ciples for use in travelling (he had travelled little, 
 but he had an abundant supply of theory on the 
 subject), and one of them was that with Englishmen 
 an American should never open the conversation. 
 It was his belief that in doing so an American was 
 exposed to be snubbed, or even insulted, and this 
 belief was unshaken by the fact that Englishmen 
 very often spoke to him, Macarthy, first. 
 
 The afternoon passed, little by little, and at last, 
 as he stood there with his hands in his pockets and 
 his hat pulled over his nose to keep the western sun 
 out of his eyes, he saw the boat that he was waiting 
 for round a distant point. At this stage the little 
 annoyance he had felt at the trick his relations had 
 unwittingly played him passed completely away and 
 there was nothing in his mind but the eagerness of 
 affection, the joy of reunion of the prospective 
 embrace. This feeling was in his face, in the fixed 
 smile with which he watched the boat grow larger and 
 larger. If we watch the young man himself as he 
 does so we shall perceive him to be a tallish, lean 
 personage, with an excessive slope of the shoulders, 
 a very thin neck, a short light beard and a bright, 
 sharp, expressive eye. He almost always wore his 
 hat too much behind or too much in front ; in the 
 former case it showed a very fine high forehead. 
 He looked like a man of intellect whose body was 
 not much to him and its senses and appetites not 
 importunate. His feet were small and he always 
 wore a double-breasted frockcoat, which he never 
 buttoned. His mother and sister thought him very 
 handsome. He had this appearance especially of 
 
I THE MODERN WARNING 203 
 
 course when, making them out on the deck of the 
 steamer, he began to wave his hat and his hand to 
 them. They responded in the most demonstrative 
 manner and when they got near enough his mother 
 called out to him over the water that she could not 
 forgive herself for having lost so much of his visit. 
 This was a bold proceeding for Mrs. Grice, who 
 usually held back. Only she had been uncertain 
 she had not expected him that day in particular. 
 It s my fault! it s my fault! exclaimed a gentle 
 man beside her, whom our young man had not yet 
 noticed, raising his hat slightly as he spoke. Agatha, 
 on the other side, said nothing she only smiled at 
 her brother. He had not seen her for so many 
 months that he had almost forgotten how pretty she 
 was. She looked lovely, under the shadow of her 
 hat and of the awning of the steamer, as she stood 
 there with happiness in her face and a big bunch of 
 familiar flowers in her hand. Macarthy was proud 
 of many things, but on this occasion he was proudest 
 of having such a charming sister. Before they all 
 disembarked he had time to observe the gentleman 
 who had spoken to him an extraordinarily fair, 
 clean-looking man, with a white waistcoat, a white 
 hat, a glass in one eye and a flower in his button 
 hole. Macarthy wondered who he was, but only 
 vaguely, as it explained him sufficiently to suppose 
 that he was a gentleman staying at the hotel who 
 had made acquaintance with his mother and sister 
 and taken part in the excursion. The only thing 
 Grice had against him was that he had the air of an 
 American who tried to look like an Englishman a 
 definite and conspicuous class to the young man s 
 sense and one in regard to which he entertained a 
 
204 THE MODERN WARNING I 
 
 peculiar abhorrence. He was sorry his relatives 
 should associate themselves with persons of that 
 stamp ; he would almost have preferred that they 
 should become acquainted with the genuine English. 
 He happened to perceive that the individual in 
 question looked a good deal at him ; but he dis 
 appeared instantly and discreetly when the boat 
 drew up at the landing and the three Grices I had 
 almost written the three Graces pressed each other 
 in their arms. 
 
 Half an hour later Macarthy sat between the two 
 ladies at the table d hote, where he had a hundred 
 questions to answer and to ask. He was still more 
 struck with Agatha s improvement ; she was older, 
 handsomer, brighter : she had turned completely into 
 a young lady and into a very accomplished one. It 
 seemed to him that there had been a change for the 
 better in his mother as well, the only change of that 
 sort of which the good lady was susceptible, an 
 amelioration of health, a fresher colour and a less 
 frequent cough. Mrs. Grice was a gentle, sallow, 
 serious little woman, the main principle of whose 
 being was the habit of insisting that nothing that 
 concerned herself was of the least consequence. She 
 thought it indelicate to be ill and obtrusive even to 
 be better, and discouraged all conversation of which 
 she was in any degree the subject. Fortunately she 
 had not been able to prevent her children from dis 
 cussing her condition sufficiently to agree it took 
 but few words, for they agreed easily, that is Agatha 
 always agreed with her brother that she must have 
 a change of climate and spend a winter or two in 
 the south of Europe. Mrs. Grice kept her son s 
 birthday all the year and knew an extraordinary 
 
i THE MODERN WARNING 205 
 
 number of stitches in knitting. Her friends con 
 stantly received from her, by post, offerings of little 
 mats for the table, done up in an envelope, usually 
 without any writing. She could make little mats in 
 forty or fifty different ways. Toward the end of the 
 dinner Macarthy, who up to this moment had been 
 wholly occupied with his companions, began to look 
 around him and to ask questions about the people 
 opposite. Then he leaned forward a little and 
 turned his eye up and down the row of their fellow- 
 tourists on the same side. It was in this way that 
 he perceived the gentleman who had said from the 
 steamer that it was his fault that Mrs. Grice and her 
 daughter had gone away for so many hours and 
 who now was seated at some distance below the 
 younger lady. At the moment Macarthy leaned 
 forward this personage happened to be looking to 
 ward him, so that he caught his eye. The stranger 
 smiled at him and nodded, as if an acquaintance 
 might be considered to have been established be 
 tween them, rather to Macarthy s surprise. He drew 
 back and asked his sister who he was the fellow 
 who had been with them on the boat. 
 
 He s an Englishman Sir Rufus Chasemore, 
 said the girl. Then she added, Such a nice man. 
 
 Oh, I thought he was an American making a 
 fool of himself! Macarthy rejoined. 
 
 There s nothing of the fool about him/ Agatha 
 declared, laughing ; and in a moment she added 
 that Sir Rufus s usual place was beside hers, on her 
 left hand. On this occasion he had moved away. 
 
 What do you mean by this occasion? her 
 brother inquired. 
 
 Oh, because you are here. 
 
206 THE MODERN WARNING i 
 
 And is he afraid of me ? 
 Yes, I think he is. 
 
 * He doesn t behave so, anyway. 
 
 Oh, he has very good manners, said the girl. 
 
 Well, I suppose he s bound to do that. Isn t he 
 a kind of nobleman ? Macarthy asked. 
 
 Well no, not exactly a nobleman. 
 
 Well, some kind of a panjandarum. Hasn t he 
 got one of their titles ? 
 
 * Yes, but not a very high one/ Agatha explained. 
 He s only a K.C.B. And also an M.P. 
 
 <A K.C.B. and an M.P. ? What the deuce is all 
 that ? And when Agatha had elucidated these mystic 
 signs, as to which the young man s ignorance was 
 partly simulated, he remarked that the Post-office 
 ought to charge her friend double for his letters 
 for requiring that amount of stuff in his address. 
 He also said that he owed him one for leading them 
 astray at a time when they were bound to be on 
 hand to receive one who was so dear to them. To 
 this Agatha replied : 
 
 Ah, you see, Englishmen are like that. They 
 expect women to be so much honoured by their 
 wanting them to do anything. And it must always 
 be what they like, of course. 
 
 * What the men like ? Well, that s all right, only 
 they mustn t be Englishmen, said Macarthy Grice. 
 
 Oh, if one is going to be a slave I don t know 
 that the nationality of one s master matters ! his 
 sister exclaimed. After which his mother began to 
 ask him if he had seen anything during the previous 
 months of their Philadelphia cousins some cousins 
 who wrote their name Gryce and for whom Macarthy 
 had but a small affection. 
 
T THE MODERN WARNING 207 
 
 After dinner the three sat out on the terrace of 
 the hotel, in the delicious warmth of the September 
 night. There were boats on the water, decked with 
 coloured lanterns ; music and song proceeded from 
 several of them and every influence was harmonious. 
 Nevertheless by the time Macarthy had finished a 
 cigar it was judged best that the old lady should 
 withdraw herself from the evening air. She went 
 into the salon of the hotel, and her children accom 
 panied her, against her protest, so that she might 
 not be alone. Macarthy liked better to sit with his 
 mother in a drawing-room which the lamps made 
 hot than without her under the stars. At the end 
 of a quarter of an hour he became aware that his 
 sister had disappeared, and as some time elapsed 
 without her returning he asked his mother what had 
 become of her. 
 
 I guess she has gone to walk with Sir Rufus, 
 said the old lady, candidly. 
 
 Why, you seem to do everything Sir Rufus 
 wants, down here ! her son exclaimed. How did 
 he get such a grip on you ? 
 
 * Well, he has been most kind, Macarthy, Mrs. 
 Grice returned, not appearing to deny that the 
 Englishman s influence was considerable. 
 
 I have heard it stated that it s not the custom, 
 down here, for young girls to walk round at night 
 with foreign lords. 
 
 1 Oh, he s not foreign and he s most reliable, said 
 the old lady, very earnestly. It was not in her 
 nature to treat such a question, or indeed any ques 
 tion, as unimportant. 
 
 Well, that s all right, her son remarked, in a 
 tone which implied that he was in good-humour and 
 
208 THE MODERN WARNING \ 
 
 wished not to have his equanimity ruffled. Such 
 accidents with Macarthy Grice were not light things. 
 All the same at the end of five minutes more, as 
 Agatha did not reappear, he expressed the hope that 
 nothing of any kind had sprung up between her and 
 the K.C.B. 
 
 * Oh, I guess they are just conversing by the lake. 
 I ll go and find them if you like/ said Mrs. Grice. 
 
 Well, haven t they been conversing by the lake 
 and on the lake all day ? asked the young man, 
 without taking up her proposal 
 
 * Yes, of course we had a great deal of bright talk 
 while we were out. It was quite enough for me to 
 listen to it. But he is most kind and he knows 
 everything, Macarthy. 
 
 Well, that s all right ! exclaimed the young man 
 again. But a few moments later he returned to the 
 charge and asked his mother if the Englishman were 
 paying any serious attention she knew what he 
 meant to Agatha. Italian lakes and summer 
 evenings and glittering titles and all that sort of 
 thing of course you know what they may lead to. 
 
 Mrs. Grice looked anxious and veracious, as she 
 always did, and appeared to consider a little. Well, 
 Macarthy, the truth is just this. Your sister is so 
 attractive and so admired that it seems as if where- 
 ever she went there was a great interest taken in her. 
 Sir Rufus certainly does like to converse with her, 
 but so have many others and so would any one in 
 their place. And Agatha is full of conscience. For 
 me that s her highest attraction. 
 
 I m very much pleased with her she s a lovely 
 creature/ Macarthy remarked. 
 
 Well, there s no one whose appreciation could 
 
i THE MODERN WARNING 209 
 
 gratify her more than yours. She has praised you 
 up to Sir Rufus, added the old lady, simply. 
 
 1 Dear mother, what has ke got to do with it ? 
 her son demanded, staring. I don t care what Sir 
 Rufus thinks of me. 
 
 Fortunately the good lady was left only for a 
 moment confronted with this inquiry, for Agatha 
 now re-entered the room, passing in from the terrace 
 by one of the long windows and accompanied pre 
 cisely by the gentleman whom her relatives had been 
 discussing. She came toward them smiling and 
 perhaps even blushing a little, but with an air of 
 considerable resolution, and she said to Macarthy, 
 ( Brother, I want to make you acquainted with a 
 good friend of ours, Sir Rufus Chasemore. 
 
 Oh, I asked Miss Grice to be so good. The 
 Englishman laughed, looking easy and genial. 
 
 Macarthy got up and extended his hand, with a 
 Very happy to know you, sir, and the two men 
 stood a moment looking at each other while Agatha, 
 beside them, bent her regard upon both. I shall 
 not attempt to translate the reflections which rose 
 in the young lady s mind as she did so, for they 
 were complicated and subtle and it is quite difficult 
 enough to reproduce our own more casual impression 
 of the contrast between her companions. This con 
 trast was extreme and complete, and it was not 
 weakened by the fact that both the men had the 
 signs of character and ability. The American was 
 thin, dry, fine, with something in his face which 
 seemed to say that there was more in him of the 
 spirit than of the letter. He looked unfinished and 
 yet somehow he looked mature, though he was not 
 advanced in life. The Englishman had more detail 
 
 p 
 
,10 
 
 THE MODERN WARNING 
 
 about him, something stippled and retouched, an air 
 of having been more artfully fashioned, in conformity 
 with traditions and models. He wore old clothes 
 which looked new, while his transatlantic brother 
 wore new clothes which looked old. He thought he 
 had never heard the American tone so marked as 
 on the lips of Mr. Macarthy Grice, who on his side 
 found in the accent of his sister s friend a strange, 
 exaggerated, even affected variation of the tongue in 
 which he supposed himself to have been brought up. 
 In general he was much irritated by the tricks which 
 the English played with the English language, de 
 precating especially their use of familiar slang. 
 
 Miss Grice tells me that you have just crossed 
 the ditch, but I m afraid you are not going to stay 
 with us long, Sir Rufus remarked, with much pleas 
 antness. 
 
 * Well, no, I shall return as soon as I have tran 
 sacted my business, Macarthy replied. * That s all 
 I came for. 
 
 You don t do us justice ; you ought to follow 
 the example of your mother and sister and take a 
 look round, Sir Rufus went on, with another laugh. 
 He was evidently of a mirthful nature. 
 
 { Oh, I have been here before ; I ve seen the 
 principal curiosities. 
 
 He has seen everything thoroughly/ Mrs. Grice 
 murmured over her crotchet. 
 
 Ah, I daresay you have seen much more than 
 we poor natives. And your own country is so inter 
 esting. I have an immense desire to see that. 
 
 Well, it certainly repays observation, said Mac 
 arthy Grice. 
 
 * You wouldn t like it at all ; you would find 
 
THE MODERN WARNING 
 
 it awful, his sister remarked, sportively, to Sir 
 Rufus. 
 
 Gracious, daughter! the old lady exclaimed, 
 trying to catch Agatha s eye. 
 
 That s what she s always telling me, as if she 
 were trying to keep me from going. I don t know 
 what she has been doing over there that she wants 
 to prevent me from finding out. Sir Rufus s eyes, 
 while he made this observation, rested on the young 
 lady in the most respectful yet at the same time the 
 most complacent manner. 
 
 She smiled back at him and said with a laugh 
 still clearer than his own, I know the kind of people 
 who will like America and the kind of people who 
 won t. 
 
 Do you know the kind who will like yon and 
 the kind who won t ? Sir Rufus Chasemore inquired. 
 
 I don t know that in some cases it particularly 
 matters what people like, Macarthy interposed, with 
 a certain severity. 
 
 Well, I must say I like people to like my 
 country, said Agatha. 
 
 You certainly take the best way to make them, 
 Miss Grice ! Sir Rufus exclaimed. 
 
 Do you mean by dissuading them from visiting 
 it, sir? Macarthy asked. 
 
 Oh dear no ; by being so charming a repre 
 sentative of it. But I shall most positively go on 
 the first opportunity. 
 
 I hope it won t be while we are on this side, 
 said Mrs. Grice, very civilly. 
 
 * You will need us over there to explain every 
 thing, her daughter added. 
 
 The Englishman looked at her a moment with 
 
212 THE MODERN WARNING i 
 
 his glass in his eye. I shall certainly pretend to be 
 very stupid. Then he went on, addressing himself 
 to Macarthy : * I have an idea that you have some 
 rocks ahead, but that doesn t diminish in fact it 
 increases my curiosity to see the country. 
 
 Oh, I suspect we ll scratch along all right, 
 Macarthy replied, with rather a grim smile, in a 
 tone which conveyed that the success of American 
 institutions might not altogether depend on Sir 
 Rufus s judgment of them. He was on the point of 
 expressing his belief, further, that there were Euro 
 pean countries which would be glad enough to 
 exchange their * rocks for those of the United 
 States ; but he kept back this reflection, as it might 
 appear too pointed and he wished not to be rude to 
 a man who seemed on such sociable terms with his 
 mother and sister. In the course of a quarter of an 
 hour the ladies took their departure for the upper 
 regions and Macarthy Grice went off with them. 
 The Englishman looked for him again however, as 
 something had been said about their smoking a cigar 
 together before they went to bed ; but he never 
 turned up, so that Sir Rufus puffed his own weed in 
 solitude, strolling up and down the terrace without 
 mingling with the groups that remained and looking 
 much at the starlit lake and mountains. 
 
II 
 
 THE next morning after breakfast Mrs. Grice had a 
 conversation with her son in her own room. Agatha 
 had not yet appeared, and she explained that the 
 girl was sleeping late, having been much fatigued by 
 her excursion the day before as well as by the ex 
 citement of her brother s arrival. Macarthy thought 
 it a little singular that she should bear her fatigue 
 so much less well than her mother, but he under 
 stood everything in a moment, as soon as the old 
 lady drew him toward her with her little conscious, 
 cautious face, taking his hand in hers. She had had 
 a long and important talk with Agatha the previous 
 evening, after they went upstairs, and she had ex 
 tracted from the girl some information which she 
 had within a day or two begun very much to 
 desire. 
 
 It s about Sir Rufus Chasemore. I couldn t but 
 think you would wonder just as I was wondering 
 myself, said Mrs. Grice. I felt as if I couldn t be 
 satisfied till I had asked. I don t know how you 
 will feel about it. I am afraid it will upset you a 
 little ; but anything that you may think well, yes, 
 it is the case. 
 
 Do you mean she is engaged to be married to 
 
214 THE MODERN WARNING u 
 
 your Englishman? Macarthy demanded, with a face 
 that suddenly flushed. 
 
 No, she s not engaged. I presume she wouldn t 
 take that step without finding out how you d feel. 
 In fact that s what she said last night. 
 
 I feel like thunder, I feel like hell! Macarthy 
 exclaimed ; and I hope you ll tell her so. 
 
 Mrs. Grice looked frightened and pained. Well, 
 my son, I m glad you ve come, if there is going to 
 be any trouble. 
 
 Trouble what trouble should there be? He 
 can t marry her if she won t have him. 
 
 Well, she didn t say she wouldn t have him; 
 she said the question hadn t come up. But she 
 thinks it would come up if she were to give him any 
 sort of opening. That s what I thought and that s 
 what I wanted to make sure of. 
 
 Macarthy looked at his mother for some moments 
 in extreme seriousness ; then he took out his watch 
 and looked at that. What time is the first boat? 
 he asked. 
 
 I don t know there are a good many. 
 --* Well, we ll take the first we ll quit this. And 
 the young man put back his watch and got up with 
 decision. 
 
 His mother sat looking at him rather rue 
 fully. Would you feel so badly if she were to 
 do it? 
 
 She may do it without my consent ; she shall 
 never do it with, said Macarthy Grice. 
 
 Well, I could see last evening, by the way you 
 acted his mother murmured, as if she thought it 
 her duty to try and enter into his opposition. 
 
 How did I act, ma am ? 
 
ii THE MODERN WARNING 215 
 
 * Well, you acted as if you didn t think much of 
 the English. 
 
 f Well, I don t, said the young man. 
 
 ( Agatha noticed it and she thought Sir Rufus 
 noticed it too. 
 
 They have such thick hides in general that they 
 don t notice anything. But if he is more sensitive 
 than the others perhaps it will keep him away. 
 
 Would you like to wound him, Macarthy? his 
 mother inquired, with an accent of timid reproach. 
 
 Wound him ? I should like to kill him ! Please 
 to let Agatha know that we ll move on, the young 
 man added. 
 
 Mrs. Grice got up as if she were about to comply 
 with this injunction, but she stopped in the middle 
 of the room and asked of her son, with a quaint effort 
 at conscientious impartiality which would have made 
 him smile if he had been capable of smiling in such 
 i a connection, Don t you think that in some respects 
 the English are a fine nation ? 
 
 Well, yes ; I like them for pale ale and note- 
 paper and umbrellas ; and I got a firstrate trunk 
 there the other day. But I want my sister to marry 
 one of her own people. 
 
 Yes, I presume it would be better, Mrs. Grice 
 remarked. But Sir Rufus has occupied very high 
 positions in his own country. 
 
 * I know the kind of positions he has occupied ; 
 I can tell what they were by looking at him. The 
 more he has done of that the more intensely he re 
 presents what I don t like. 
 
 Of course he would stand up for England, Mrs. 
 Grice felt herself compelled to admit. 
 
 Then why the mischief doesn t he do so in- 
 
216 THE MODERN WARNING n 
 
 stead of running round after Americans? Macarthy 
 demanded. 
 
 * He doesn t run round after us ; but we knew his 
 sister, Lady Bolitho, in Rome. She is a most sweet 
 woman and we saw a great deal of her ; she took 
 a great fancy to Agatha. I surmise that she 
 mentioned us to him pretty often when she went 
 back to England, and when he came abroad for his 
 autumn holiday, as he calls it he met us first in 
 the Engadine, three or four weeks ago, and came 
 down here with us it seemed as if we already 
 knew him and he knew us. He is very talented 
 and he is quite well off. 
 
 ( Mother, said Macarthy Grice, going close to the 
 old lady and speaking very gravely, why do you 
 know so much about him ? Why have you gone 
 into it so ? 
 
 ( I haven t gone into it ; I only know what he has 
 told us. 
 
 But why have you given him the right to tell 
 you ? How does it concern you whether he is well 
 off? 
 
 The poor woman began to look flurried and scared. 
 1 My son, I have given him no right ; I don t know 
 what you mean. Besides, it wasn t he who told us 
 he is well off; it was his sister. 
 
 It would have been better if you hadn t known 
 his sister, said the young man, gloomily. 
 
 Gracious, Macarthy, we must know some one! 
 Mrs. Grice rejoined, with a flicker of spirit. 
 
 I don t see the necessity of your knowing the 
 English. 
 
 1 Why Macarthy, can t we even know them ? 
 pleaded his mother. 
 
ii THE MODERN WARNING 217 
 
 You see the sort of thing it gets you into. 
 
 It hasn t got us into anything. Nothing has 
 been done. 
 
 So much the better, mother darling, said the 
 young man. In that case we will go on to Venice. 
 Where is he going? 
 
 I don t know, but I suppose he won t come on to 
 Venice if we don t ask him. 
 
 I don t believe any delicacy would prevent him, 
 Macarthy rejoined. But he loathes me ; that s an 
 advantage. 
 
 He loathes you when he wanted so to know 
 you? 
 
 Oh yes, I understand. Well, now he knows me ! 
 He knows he hates everything I like and I hate 
 everything he likes. 
 
 He doesn t imagine you hate your sister, I 
 suppose ! said the old lady, with a little vague laugh. 
 
 Mother, said Macarthy, still in front of her with 
 his hands in his pockets, I verily believe I should 
 hate her if she were to marry him. 
 
 Oh, gracious, my son, don t, don t! cried Mrs. 
 Grice, throwing herself into his arms with a shudder 
 of horror and burying her face on his shoulder. 
 
 Her son held her close and as he bent over her 
 he went on : Dearest mother, don t you see that we 
 must remain together, that at any rate we mustn t 
 be separated by different ideas, different associations 
 and institutions ? I don t believe any family has 
 ever had more of the feeling that holds people 
 closely together than we have had : therefore for 
 heaven s sake let us keep it, let us find our happiness 
 in it as we always have done. Of course Agatha 
 will marry some day ; but why need she marry in 
 
2i 8 THE MODERN WARNING n 
 
 such a way as to make a gulf? You and she are 
 all I have, and I may be selfish I should like 
 very much to keep you. 
 
 Of course I will let her know the way you feel, 
 said the old lady, a moment later, rearranging her 
 cap and her shawl and putting away her pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 It s a matter she certainly ought to understand. 
 She would wish to, unless she is very much changed, 
 Macarthy added, as if he saw all this with high 
 lucidity. 
 
 Oh, she isn t changed she ll never change! 
 his mother exclaimed, with rebounding optimism. 
 She thought it wicked not to take cheerful views. 
 
 She wouldn t if she were to marry an Englishman, 
 he declared, as Mrs. Grice left him to go to her 
 daughter. 
 
 She told him an hour later that Agatha would be 
 quite ready to start for Venice on the morrow and 
 that she said he need have no fear that Sir Rufus 
 Chasemore would follow them. He was naturally 
 anxious to know from her what words she had had 
 with Agatha, but the only very definite information 
 he extracted was to the effect that the girl had 
 declared with infinite feeling that she would never 
 marry an enemy of her country. When he saw her 
 later in the day he thought she had been crying ; 
 but there was nothing in her manner to show that 
 she resented any pressure her mother might have re 
 presented to her that he had put upon her or that she 
 was making a reluctant sacrifice. Agatha Grice was 
 very fond of her brother, whom she knew to be up 
 right, distinguished and exceedingly mindful of the 
 protection and support that he owed her mother and 
 
ii THE MODERN WARNING 219 
 
 herself. He was perverse and obstinate, but she was 
 aware that in essentials he was supremely tender, 
 and he had always been very much the most 
 eminent figure in her horizon. 
 
 No allusion was made between them to Sir Rufus 
 Chasemore, though the silence on either side was 
 rather a conscious one, and they talked of the pro 
 spective pleasures of Venice and of the arrangements 
 Macarthy would be able to make in regard to his 
 mother s spending another winter in Rome. He was 
 to accompany them to Venice and spend a fortnight 
 with them there, after which he was to return to 
 London to terminate his business and then take 
 his way back to New York. There was a plan of 
 his coming to see them again later in the winter, in 
 Rome, if he should succeed in getting six weeks off. 
 As a man of energy and decision, though indeed of a 
 somewhat irritable stomach, he made light of the 
 Atlantic voyage : it was a rest and a relief, alter 
 nating with his close attention to business. That 
 the disunion produced by the state of Mrs. Grice s 
 health was a source of constant regret and even of 
 much depression to him was well known to his 
 mother and sister, who would not have broken up 
 his home by coming to live in Europe if he had not 
 insisted upon it. Macarthy was in the highest 
 degree conscientious ; he was capable of suffering 
 the extremity of discomfort in a cause which he held 
 to be right. But his mother and sister lucre his 
 home, all the same, and in their absence he was 
 perceptibly desolate. Fortunately it had been hoped 
 that a couple of southern winters would quite set 
 Mrs. Grice up again and that then everything in 
 America would be as it had been before. Agatha s 
 
THE MODERN WARNING 
 
 affection for her brother was very nearly as great as 
 his affection for herself; but it took the form of 
 wishing that his loneliness might be the cause of his 
 marrying some thoroughly nice girl, inasmuch as 
 after all her mother and she might not always be 
 there. Fraternal tenderness in Macarthy s bosom 
 followed a different logic. He was so fond of his 
 sister that he had a secret hope that she would 
 never marry at all. He had spoken otherwise 
 to his mother, because that was the only way not 
 to seem offensively selfish ; but the essence of his 
 thought was that on the day Agatha should marry 
 she would throw him over. On the day she should 
 marry an Englishman she would not throw him 
 over she would betray him. That is she would 
 betray her country, and it came to the same thing. 
 Macarthy s patriotism was of so intense a hue that 
 to his own sense the national life and his own life 
 flowed in an indistinguishable current 
 
 The particular Englishman he had his eye upon 
 now was not, as a general thing, visible before 
 luncheon. He had told Agatha, who mentioned it 
 to her brother, that in the morning he was immersed 
 in work in letter-writing. Macarthy wondered what 
 his work might be, but did not condescend to inquire. 
 He was enlightened however by happening by an 
 odd chance to observe an allusion to Sir Rufus in a 
 copy of the London Times which he took up in the 
 reading-room of the hotel. This occurred in a letter 
 to the editor of the newspaper, the writer of which 
 accused Agatha s friend of having withheld from the 
 public some information to which the public was 
 entitled. The information had respect to the situa 
 tion in South Africa, and Sir Rufus was plainly an 
 
ii THE MODERN WARNING 221 
 
 agent of the British government, the head of some 
 kind of department or sub-department This did not 
 make Macarthy like him any better. He was dis 
 pleased with the idea of England s possessing colonies 
 at all and considered that she had acquired them by 
 force and fraud and held them by a frail and unnatural 
 tenure. It appeared to him that any man who occupied 
 a place in this unrighteous system must have false, 
 detestable views. 
 
 Sir Rufus Chasemore turned up on the terrace in 
 the afternoon and bore himself with the serenity of 
 a man unconscious of the damaging inferences that 
 had been formed about him. Macarthy neither 
 avoided him nor sought him out he even relented 
 a little toward him mentally when he thought of the 
 loss he was about to inflict on him ; but when the 
 Englishman approached him and appeared to wish 
 to renew their conversation of the evening before it 
 struck him that he was wanting in delicacy. There 
 was nothing strange in that however, for delicacy 
 and tact were not the strong point of one s trans 
 atlantic cousins, with whom one had always to dot 
 one s i s. It seemed to Macarthy that Sir Rufus 
 Chasemore ought to have guessed that he cared little 
 to keep up an acquaintance with him, though indeed 
 the young American would have been at a loss to 
 say how he was to guess it, inasmuch as he would 
 have resented the imputation that he himself had 
 been rude enough to make such a fact patent. The 
 American ladies were in their apartments, occupied 
 in some manner connected with their intended retreat, 
 and there was nothing for Macarthy but to stroll up 
 and down for nearly half an hour with the personage 
 who was so provokingly the cause of it. It had come 
 
222 THE MODERN WARNING n 
 
 over him now that he should have liked extremely 
 to spend several days on the lake of Como. The 
 place struck him as much more delicious than it had 
 done while he chafed the day before at the absence 
 of his relations. He was angry with the Englishman 
 for forcing him to leave it and still more angry with 
 him for showing so little responsibility or even per 
 ception in regard to the matter. It occurred to him 
 while he was in this humour that it might be a good 
 plan to make himself so disagreeable that Sir Rufus 
 would take to his heels and never reappear, fleeing 
 before the portent of such an insufferable brother-in- 
 law. But this plan demanded powers of execution 
 which Macarthy did not flatter himself that he 
 possessed : he felt that it was impossible to him to 
 divest himself of his character of a polished American 
 gentleman. 
 
 If he found himself dissenting from most of the 
 judgments and opinions which Sir Rufus Chasemore 
 happened to express in the course of their conversa 
 tion there was nothing perverse in that : it was a 
 simple fact apparently that the Englishman had 
 nothing in common with him and was predestined 
 to enunciate propositions to which it was impossible 
 for him to assent. Moreover how could he assent 
 to propositions enunciated in that short, offhand, 
 clipping tone, with the words running into each other 
 and the voice rushing up and down the scale ? 
 Macarthy, who spoke very slowly, with great dis 
 tinctness and in general with great correctness, was 
 annoyed not only by his companion s intonation but 
 by the odd and, as it seemed to him, licentious 
 application that he made of certain words. He 
 struck him as wanting in reverence for the language, 
 
THE MODERN WARNING 
 
 which Macarthy had an idea, not altogether unjust, 
 that he himself deeply cherished. He would have 
 admitted that these things were small and not great, 
 but in the usual relations of life the small things 
 count more than the great, and they sufficed at any 
 rate to remind him of the essential antipathy and 
 incompatibility which he had always believed to 
 exist between an Englishman and an American. 
 They were, in the very nature of things, disagreeable 
 to each other both mentally and physically irrecon 
 cilable. In cases where this want of correspondence 
 had been bridged over it was because the American 
 had made weak concessions, had been shamefully 
 accommodating. That was a kind of thing the 
 Englishman, to do him justice, never did ; he had 
 at least the courage of his prejudices. It was not 
 unknown to Macarthy that the repugnance in 
 question appeared to be confined to the American 
 male, as was shown by a thousand international 
 marriages, which had transplanted as many of his 
 countrywomen to unnatural British homes. That 
 variation had to be allowed for, and the young man 
 felt that he was allowing for it when he reflected 
 that probably his own sister liked the way Sir 
 Rufus Chasemore spoke. In fact he was intimately 
 convinced she liked it, which was a reason the more 
 for their quitting Cadenabbia the next morning. 
 
 Sir Rufus took the opposite point of view quite 
 as much as himself, only he took it gaily and 
 familiarly and laughed about it, as if he were amused 
 at the preferences his companion betrayed and 
 especially amused that he should hold them so 
 gravely, so almost gloomily. This sociable jocosity, 
 as if they had known each other three months was 
 
224 THE MODERN WARNING n 
 
 what appeared to Macarthy so indelicate. They 
 talked no politics and Sir Rufus said nothing more 
 about America ; but it stuck out of the Englishman 
 at every pore that he was a resolute and consistent 
 conservative, a prosperous, accomplished, professional, 
 official Tory. It gave Macarthy a kind of palpitation 
 to think that his sister had been in danger of associat 
 ing herself with such arrogant doctrines. Not that a 
 woman s political creed mattered ; but that of her 
 husband did. He had an impression that he himself 
 was a passionate democrat, an unshrinking radical. 
 It was a proof of how far Sir Rufus s manner was 
 from being satisfactory to his companion that the 
 latter was unable to guess whether he already knew 
 of the sudden determination of his American friends 
 to leave Cadenabbia or whether their intention was 
 first revealed to him in Macarthy s casual mention of 
 it, which apparently put him out not at all, eliciting 
 nothing more than a frank, cheerful expression of 
 regret. Macarthy somehow mistrusted a man who 
 could conceal his emotions like that. How could 
 he have known they were going unless Agatha had 
 told him, and how could Agatha have told him, 
 since she could not as yet have seen him ? It did 
 not even occur to the young man to suspect that she 
 might have conveyed the unwelcome news to him by 
 a letter. And if he had not known it why was he 
 not more startled and discomfited when Macarthy 
 dealt the blow ? The young American made up his 
 mind at last that the reason why Sir Rufus was not 
 startled was that he had thought in advance it would 
 be no more than natural that the newly-arrived 
 brother should wish to spoil his game. But in that 
 case why was he not angry with him for such a dis- 
 
ii THE MODERN WARNING 225 
 
 position ? Why did he come after him and insist on 
 talking with him ? There seemed to Macarthy 
 something impudent in this incongruity as if to 
 the mind of an English statesman the animosity of 
 a Yankee lawyer were really of too little account. 
 
Ill 
 
 IT may be intimated to the reader that Agatha Grice 
 had written no note to her English friend, and she 
 held no communication with him of any sort, till 
 after she had left the table d hote with her mother 
 and brother in the evening. Sir Rufus had seated 
 himself at dinner in the same place as the night be 
 fore ; he was already occupying it and he simply 
 bowed to her with a smile, from a distance, when 
 she came into the room. As she passed out to the 
 terrace later with her companions he overtook her 
 and said to her in a lower tone of voice than usual 
 that he had been exceedingly sorry to hear that she 
 was leaving Cadenabbia so soon. Was it really 
 true ? could not they put it off a little ? should not 
 they find the weather too hot in Venice and the 
 mosquitoes too numerous ? Agatha saw that Sir 
 Rufus asked these questions with the intention of 
 drawing her away, engaging her in a walk, in some 
 talk to which they should have no listeners ; and she 
 resisted him at first a little, keeping near the others 
 because she had made up her mind that morning in 
 deep and solitary meditation that she would force 
 him to understand that further acquaintance could 
 lead to nothing profitable for either party. It pre- 
 
in THE MODERN WARNING 227 
 
 sently came over her, however, that it would take 
 some little time to explain this truth and that the 
 time might be obtained by their walking a certain 
 distance along the charming shore of the lake to 
 gether. The windows of the hotel and of the little 
 water-side houses and villas projected over the place 
 long shafts of lamplight which shimmered on the 
 water, broken by the slow-moving barges laden with 
 musicians, and gave the whole region the air of an 
 illuminated garden surrounding a magnificent pond. 
 Agatha made the further reflection that it would be 
 only common kindness to give Sir Rufus an oppor 
 tunity to say anything he wished to say ; that is 
 within the limits she was prepared to allow : they 
 had been too good friends to separate without some 
 of the forms of regret, without a backward look at 
 least, since they might not enjoy a forward one. In 
 short she had taken in the morning a resolution so 
 virtuous, founded on so high and large a view of the 
 whole situation, that she felt herself entitled to some 
 reward, some present liberty of action. She turned 
 away from her relatives with Sir Rufus she observed 
 that they paid no attention to her and in a few 
 moments she was strolling by his side at a certain 
 distance from the hotel. 
 
 I will tell you what I should like to do, he said, 
 as they went ; I should like to turn up in Venice 
 about a week hence. 
 
 I don t recommend you to do that, the girl re 
 plied, promptly enough ; though as soon as she had 
 spoken she bethought herself that she could give him 
 no definite reason why he should not follow her ; she 
 could give him no reason at all that would not be 
 singularly wanting in delicacy. She had a move- 
 
228 THE MODERN WARNING in 
 
 ment of vexation with her brother for having put her 
 in a false position ; it was the first, for in the morning 
 when her mother repeated to her what Macarthy had 
 said and she perceived all that it implied she had not 
 been in the least angry with him she sometimes in 
 deed wondered why she was not and she did not 
 propose to become so for Sir Rufus Chasemore. 
 What she had been was sad touched too with a 
 sense of horror horror at the idea that she might 
 be in danger of denying, under the influence of an 
 insinuating alien, the pieties and sanctities in which 
 she had been brought up. Sir Rufus was a tre 
 mendous conservative, though perhaps that did not 
 matter so much, and he had let her know at an early 
 stage of their acquaintance that he had never liked 
 Americans in the least as a people. As it was ap 
 parent that he liked her all American and very 
 American as she was she had regarded this short 
 coming only in its minor bearings, and it had even 
 gratified her to form a private project of converting 
 him to a friendlier view. If she had not found him 
 a charming man she would not have cared what he 
 thought about her country - people ; but, as it 
 happened, she did find him a charming man, and it 
 grieved her to see a mind that was really worthy of 
 the finest initiations (as regarded the American ques 
 tion) wasting itself on poor prejudices. Somehow, 
 by showing him how nice she was herself she could 
 make him like the people better with whom she had 
 so much in common, and as he admitted that his 
 observation of them had after all been very restricted 
 she would also make him know them better. This 
 prospect drew her on till suddenly her brother 
 sounded the note of warning. When it came she 
 
in THE MODERN WARNING 229 
 
 understood it perfectly ; she could not pretend that 
 she did not. If she were not careful she would give 
 her country away : in the privacy of her own room 
 she had coloured up to her hair at the thought. She 
 had a lurid vision in which the chance seemed to 
 be greater that Sir Rufus Chasemore would bring 
 her over to his side than that she should make him 
 like anything he had begun by disliking ; so that she 
 resisted, with the conviction that the complications 
 which might arise from allowing a prejudiced English 
 man to possess himself, as he evidently desired to do, 
 of her affections, would be much greater than a sensitive 
 girl with other loyalties to observe might be able 
 to manage. A moment after she had said to her 
 companion that she did not recommend him to 
 come to Venice she added that of course he was 
 free to do as he liked : only why should he come if 
 he was sure the place was so uncomfortable ? To 
 this Sir Rufus replied that it signified little how un 
 comfortable it was if she should be there and that 
 there was nothing he would not put up with for 
 the sake of a few days more of her society. 
 
 Oh, if it s for that you are coming, the girl 
 replied, laughing and feeling nervous feeling that 
 something was in the air which she had wished pre 
 cisely to keep out of it * Oh, if it s for that you are 
 coming you had very much better not take the 
 trouble. You would have very little of my society. 
 While my brother is with us all my time will be 
 given up to him. 
 
 Confound your brother! Sir Rufus exclaimed. 
 Then he went on : You told me yourself he 
 wouldn t be with you long. After he s gone you 
 will be free again and you will still be in Venice, 
 
230 THE MODERN WARNING in 
 
 shan t you ? I do want to float in a gondola with 
 you. 
 
 * It s very possible my brother may be with us for 
 weeks. 
 
 Sir Rufus hesitated a moment. I see what you 
 mean that he won t leave you so long as I am 
 about the place. In that case if you are so fond of 
 him you ought to take it as a kindness of me to 
 hover about. Before the girl had time to make a 
 rejoinder to this ingenious proposition he added, 
 Why in the world has he taken such a dislike to me? 
 
 I know nothing of any dislike, Agatha said, not 
 very honestly. c He has expressed none to me. 
 
 1 He has to me then. He quite loathes me. 
 
 She was silent a little ; then she inquired, * And 
 do you like him very much? 
 
 C I think he s immense fun! He s very clever, 
 like most of the Americans I have seen, including 
 yourself. I should like to show him I like him, and 
 I have salaamed and kowtowed to him whenever I 
 had a chance ; but he won t let me get near him. 
 Hang it, it s cruel ! 
 
 It s not directed to you in particular, any dislike 
 he may have. I have told you before that he doesn t 
 like the English, Agatha remarked. 
 
 Bless me no more do I ! But my best friends 
 have been among them. 
 
 I don t say I agree with my brother and I don t 
 say I disagree with him, Sir Rufus s companion 
 went on. I have told you before that we are of 
 Irish descent, on my mother s side. Her mother was 
 a Macarthy. We have kept up the name and we 
 have kept up the feeling. 
 
 I see so that even if the Yankee were to let me 
 
in THE MODERN WARNING 231 
 
 off the Paddy would come down ! That s a most 
 unholy combination. But you remember, I hope, 
 what I have also told you that I am quite as Irish 
 as you can ever be. I had an Irish grandmother 
 a beauty of beauties, a certain Lady Laura Fitzgibbon, 
 qui vaut bien la votre. A charming old woman she 
 was. 
 
 Oh, well, she wasn t of our kind! the girl ex 
 claimed, laughing. 
 
 You mean that yours wasn t charming ? In the 
 presence of her granddaughter permit me to doubt 
 it. 
 
 Well, I suppose that those hostilities of race 
 transmitted and hereditary, as it were are the 
 greatest of all. Agatha Grice uttered this sage 
 reflection by no means in the tone of successful 
 controversy and with the faintest possible tremor in 
 her voice. 
 
 Good God ! do you mean to say that an hostility 
 of race, a legendary feud, is to prevent you and me 
 from meeting again ? The Englishman stopped 
 short as he made this inquiry, but Agatha continued 
 to walk, as if that might help her to elude it. She 
 had come out with a perfectly sincere determination 
 to prevent Sir Rufus from saying what she believed 
 he wanted to say, and if her voice had trembled just 
 now it was because it began to come over her that 
 her preventive measures would fail. The only 
 tolerably efficacious one would be to turn straight 
 round and go home. But there would be a rudeness 
 in this course and even a want of dignity ; and 
 besides she did not wish to go home. She compro 
 mised by not answering her companion s question, 
 and though she could not see him she was aware 
 
232 THE MODERN WARNING in 
 
 that he was looking after her with an expression in 
 his face of high impatience momentarily baffled. 
 She knew that expression and thought it handsome; 
 she knew all his expressions and thought them all 
 handsome. He overtook her in a few moments and 
 then she was surprised that he should be laughing 
 as he exclaimed : * It s too absurd ! it s too absurd ! 
 It was not long however before she understood the 
 nature of his laughter, as she understood everything 
 else. If she was nervous he was scarcely less so ; 
 his whole manner now expressed the temper of a 
 man wishing to ascertain rapidly whether he may 
 enjoy or must miss great happiness. Before she 
 knew it he had spoken the words which she had 
 flattered herself he should not speak ; he had said 
 that since there appeared to be a doubt whether they 
 should soon meet again it was important he should 
 seize the present occasion. He was very glad after 
 all, because for several days he had been wanting to 
 speak. He loved her as he had never loved any 
 woman and he besought her earnestly to believe it. 
 What was this crude stuff about disliking the English 
 and disliking the Americans ? what had questions of 
 nationality to do with it any more than questions of 
 ornithology ? It was a question simply of being his 
 wife, and that was rather between themselves, was it 
 not ? He besought her to consider it, as he had been 
 turning it over from almost the first hour. he met her. 
 It was not in Agatha s power to go her way now, 
 because he had laid his hand upon her in a manner 
 that kept her motionless, and while he talked to her 
 in low, kind tones, touching her face with the breath 
 of supplication, she stood there in the warm darkness, 
 very pale, looking as if she were listening to a threat 
 
in THE MODERN WARNING 233 
 
 of injury rather than to a declaration of love. Of 
 course I ought to speak to your mother/ he said ; * I 
 ought to have spoken to her first. But your leaving 
 at an hour s notice and apparently wishing to shake 
 me off has given me no time. For God s sake give 
 me your permission and I will do it to-night. 
 
 Don t don t speak to my mother, said Agatha, 
 mournfully. 
 
 Don t tell me to-morrow then that she won t 
 hear of it! 
 
 She likes you, Sir Rufus, the girl rejoined, in 
 the same singular, hopeless tone. 
 
 I hope you don t mean to imply by that that 
 you don t ! 
 
 No ; I like you of course ; otherwise I should 
 never have allowed myself to be in this position, 
 because I hate it ! The girl uttered these last words 
 with a sudden burst of emotion and an equally 
 sudden failure of sequence, and turning round quickly 
 began to walk in the direction from which they had 
 come. Her companion, however, was again beside 
 her, close to her, and he found means to prevent her 
 from going as fast as she wished. History has lost 
 the record of what at that moment he said to her ; 
 it was something that made her exclaim in a voice 
 which seemed on the point of breaking into tears : 
 Please don t say that or anything like it again, 
 Sir Rufus, or I shall have to take leave of you for 
 ever this instant, on the spot. He strove to be 
 obedient and they walked on a little in silence ; 
 after which she resumed, with a slightly different 
 manner : I am very sorry you have said this to-night. 
 You have troubled and distressed me ; it isn t a 
 good time. 
 
234 THE MODERN WARNING in 
 
 I wonder if you would favour me with your idea 
 of what might be a good time ? 
 
 I don t know. Perhaps never. I am greatly 
 obliged to you for the honour you have done me. I 
 beg you to believe me when I say this. But I don t 
 think I shall ever marry. I have other duties. I 
 can t do what I like with my life. 
 
 At this Sir Rufus made her stop again, to tell 
 him what she meant by such an extraordinary 
 speech. What overwhelming duties had she, pray, 
 and what restrictions upon her life that made her so 
 different from other women ? He could not, for his 
 part, imagine a woman more free. She explained 
 that she had her mother, who was terribly delicate 
 and who must be her first thought and her first care. 
 Nothing would induce her to leave her mother. She 
 was all her mother had except Macarthy, and he 
 was absorbed in his profession. 
 
 * What possible question need there be of your 
 leaving her ? the Englishman demanded. What 
 could be more delightful than that she should live 
 with us and that we should take care of her together? 
 You say she is so good as to like me, and I assure 
 you I like her most uncommonly. 
 
 It would be impossible that we should take her 
 away from my brother, said the girl, after an hesita 
 tion. 
 
 Take her away? And Sir Rufus Chasemore 
 stood staring. Well, if he won t look after her 
 himself you say he is so taken up with his work 
 he has no earthly right to prevent other people from 
 doing so. 
 
 It s not a man s business it s mine it s her 
 daughter s. 
 
in THE MODERN WARNING 235 
 
 * That s exactly what I think, and what in the 
 world do I wish but to help you ? If she requires a mild 
 climate we will find some lovely place in the south of 
 England and be as happy there as the day is long. 
 
 So that Macarthy would have to come there to 
 see his mother? Fancy Macarthy in the south of 
 England especially as happy as the day is long ! 
 He would find the day very long, Agatha Grice con 
 tinued, with the strange little laugh which expressed 
 or rather which disguised the mixture of her 
 feelings. He would never consent. 
 
 ( Never consent to what ? Is what you mean to 
 say that he would never consent to your marriage ? 
 I certainly never dreamed that you would have to 
 ask him. Haven t you defended to me again and 
 again the freedom, the independence with which 
 American girls marry ? Where is the independence 
 when it comes to your own case? Sir Rufus 
 Chasemore paused a moment and then he went on 
 with bitterness : Why don t you say outright that 
 you are afraid of your brother ? Miss Grice, I 
 never dreamed that that would be your answer to an 
 offer of everything that a man and a man of some 
 distinction, I may say, for it would be affectation in 
 me to pretend that I consider myself a nonenity 
 can lay at the feet of a woman. 
 
 The girl did not reply immediately ; she appeared 
 to think over intently what he had said to her, and 
 while she did so she turned her white face and her 
 charming serious eyes upon him. When at last she 
 spoke it was in a very gentle, considerate tone. You 
 are wrong in supposing that I am afraid of my brother. 
 How can I be afraid of a person of whom I am so 
 exceedingly fond ? 
 
236 THE MODERN WARNING in 
 
 Oh, the two things are quite consistent/ said Sir 
 Rufus Chasemore, impatiently. And is it impossible 
 that I should ever inspire you with a sentiment which 
 you would consent to place in the balance with this 
 intense fraternal affection ? He had no sooner spoken 
 those somewhat sarcastic words than he broke out in 
 a different tone : Oh Agatha, for pity s sake don t 
 make difficulties where there are no difficulties ! 
 
 I don t make them ; I assure you they exist. 
 It is difficult to explain them, but I can see them, I 
 can feel them. Therefore we mustn t talk this way 
 any more. Please, please don t/ the girl pursued, 
 imploringly. Nothing is possible to-day. Some 
 day or other very likely there will be changes. Then 
 we shall meet ; then we shall talk again. 
 
 * I like the way you ask me to wait ten years. 
 What do you mean by "changes"? Before heaven, 
 I shall never change/ Sir Rufus declared. 
 
 Agatha Grice hesitated. * Well, perhaps you 
 will like us better. 
 
 * Us ? Whom do you mean by " us "? Are you 
 coming back to that beastly question of one s feelings 
 real or supposed it doesn t matter about your 
 great and glorious country ? Good God, it s too 
 monstrous ! One tells a girl one adores her and 
 she replies that she doesn t care so long as one 
 doesn t adore her compatriots. What do you want 
 me to do to them ? What do you want me to say ? 
 I will say anything in the English language, or in 
 the American, that you like. I ll say that they re the 
 greatest of the great and have every charm and 
 virtue under heaven. I ll go down on my stomach 
 before them and remain there for ever. I can t do 
 more than that ! J 
 
in THE MODERN WARNING 237 
 
 Whether this extravagant profession had the effect 
 of making Agatha Grice ashamed of having struck 
 that note in regard to her companion s international 
 attitude, or whether her nerves were simply upset by 
 his vehemence, his insistence, is more than I can 
 say : what is certain is that her rejoinder to this last 
 speech was a sudden burst of tears. They fell for a 
 moment rapidly, soundlessly, but she was quicker 
 still in brushing them away. You may laugh at 
 me or you may despise me, she said when she could 
 speak, and I daresay my state of mind is deplor 
 ably narrow. But I couldn t be happy with you if 
 you hated my country. 
 
 You would hate mine back and we should pass 
 the liveliest, jolliest days ! returned the Englishman, 
 gratified, softened, enchanted by her tears. My 
 dear girl, what is a woman s country? It s her 
 house and her garden, her children and her social 
 world. You exaggerate immensely the difference 
 which that part of the business makes. I assure 
 you that if you were to marry me it would be 
 the last thing you would find yourself thinking of. 
 However, to prove how little I hate your country 
 I am perfectly willing to go there and live with 
 you. 
 
 Oh, Sir Rufus Chasemore! murmured Agatha 
 Grice, protestingly. 
 
 You don t believe me? 
 
 She believed him not a bit and yet to hear him 
 make such an offer was sweet to her, for it gave her 
 a sense of the reality of his passion. I shouldn t 
 ask that I shouldn t even like it, she said ; and 
 then he wished to know what she would like. I 
 should like you to let me go not to press me, not 
 
238 THE MODERN WARNING m 
 
 to distress me any more now. I shall think of 
 everything of course you know that. But it will 
 take me a long time. That s all I can tell you now, 
 but I think you ought to be content. He was 
 obliged to say that he was content, and they resumed 
 their walk in the direction of the hotel. Shortly 
 before they reached it Agatha exclaimed with a 
 certain irrelevance, You ought to go there first ; 
 then you would know. 
 
 Then I should know what ? 
 
 Whether you would like it. 
 
 Like your great country ? Good Lord, what 
 difference does it make whether I like it or not ? 
 
 No that s just it you don t care, said Agatha ; 
 yet you said to my brother that you wanted im 
 mensely to go. 
 
 So I do ; I am ashamed not to have been ; 
 that s an immense drawback to-day, in England, to 
 a man in public life. Something has always stopped 
 me off, tiresomely, from year to year. Of course I 
 shall go the very first moment I can take the time. 
 
 It s a pity you didn t go this year instead of 
 coming down here, the girl observed, rather sen- 
 tentiously. 
 
 I thank my stars I didn t! he responded, in a 
 very different tone. 
 
 Well, I should try to make you like it, she 
 went on. I think it very probable I should 
 succeed. 
 
 I think it very probable you could do with me 
 exactly whatever you might attempt. 
 
 Oh, you hypocrite! the girl exclaimed; and it 
 was on this that she separated from him and went 
 into the house. It soothed him to see her do so 
 
in THE MODERN WARNING 239 
 
 instead of rejoining her mother and brother, whom 
 he distinguished at a distance sitting on the terrace. 
 She had perceived them there as well, but she would 
 go straight to her room ; she preferred the company 
 of her thoughts. It suited Sir Rufus Chasemore to 
 believe that those thoughts would plead for him and 
 eventually win his suit. He gave a melancholy, 
 loverlike sigh, however, as he walked toward Mrs. 
 Grice and her son. He could not keep away from 
 them, though he was so interested in being and 
 appearing discreet. The girl had told him that her 
 mother liked him, and he desired both to stimulate 
 and to reward that inclination. Whatever he desired 
 he desired with extreme definiteness and energy. 
 He would go and sit down beside the little old lady 
 (with whom hitherto he had no very direct conversa 
 tion), and talk to her and be kind to her and amuse 
 her. It must be added that he rather despaired of 
 the success of these arts as he saw Macarthy Grice, 
 on becoming aware of his approach, get up and 
 walk away. 
 
IV 
 
 IT sometimes seems to me as if he didn t marry on 
 purpose to make me feel badly. That was the only 
 fashion, as yet, in which Lady Chasemore had given 
 away her brother to her husband. The words fell 
 from her lips some five years after Macarthy s visit 
 to the lake of Como two years after her mother s 
 death a twelvemonth after her marriage. The 
 same idea came into her mind a trifle whimsically 
 perhaps, only this time she forbore to express it 
 as she stood by her husband s side, on the deck of 
 the steamer, half an hour before they reached the 
 wharf at New York. Six years had elapsed between 
 the scenes at Cadenabbia and their disembarkation 
 in that city. Agatha knew that Macarthy would be 
 on the wharf to meet them, and that he should be 
 there alone was natural enough. But she had a 
 prevision of their return with him she also knew 
 he expected that to the house, so narrow but for 
 tunately rather deep, in Thirty -seventh street, in 
 which such a happy trio had lived in the old days 
 before this unexpressed but none the less perceptible 
 estrangement. As her marriage had taken place in 
 Europe (Sir Rufus coming to her at Bologna, in the 
 very midst of the Parliamentary session, the moment 
 
iv THE MODERN WARNING 241 
 
 he heard, by his sister, of her mother s death : this 
 was really the sign of devotion that had won her) ; 
 as the ceremony of her nuptials, I say a very 
 simple one had been performed in Paris, so that her 
 absence from her native land had had no intermission, 
 she had not seen the house since she left it with her 
 mother for that remedial pilgrimage in the course of 
 which poor Mrs. Grice, travelling up from Rome in 
 the spring, after her third winter there (two had been 
 so far from sufficing), was to succumb, from one day 
 to the other, to inflammation of the lungs. She 
 saw it over again now, even before she left the ship, 
 and felt in advance all that it would imply to find 
 Macarthy living there as a bachelor, struggling with 
 New York servants, unaided and unrelieved by the 
 sister whose natural place might by many people 
 have been thought to be the care of his establishment, 
 as her natural reward would have been the honours 
 of such a position. Lady Chasemore was prepared 
 to feel pang upon pang when she should perceive 
 how much less comfortably he lived than he would 
 have lived if she had not quitted him. She knew 
 that their second cousins in Boston, whose sense of 
 duty was so terrible (even her poor mother, who 
 never had a thought for herself, used to try as much 
 as possible to conceal her life from them), considered 
 that she had in a manner almost immoral deserted 
 him for the sake of an English title. When they 
 went ashore and drove home with Macarthy Agatha 
 received exactly the impression she had expected : 
 her brother s life struck her as bare, ungarnished, 
 helpless, socially and domestically speaking. He 
 had not the art of keeping house, naturally, and in 
 New York, unless one were a good deal richer than 
 
 R 
 
242 THE MODERN WARNING iv 
 
 he, it was very difficult to do that sort of thing by 
 deputy. But Lady Chasemore made no further 
 allusion to the idea that he remained single out of 
 perversity. The situation was too serious for that 
 or for any other flippant speech. 
 
 It was a delicate matter for the brothers-in-law 
 to spend two or three weeks together ; not however 
 because when the moment for her own real decision 
 came Macarthy had protested in vivid words against 
 her marriage. By the time he arrived from America 
 after his mother s death the Englishman was in 
 possession of the field and it was too late to save her. 
 He had had the opportunity to show her kindness 
 for which her situation made her extremely grateful 
 he had indeed rendered her services which Mac 
 arthy himself, though he knew they were the result 
 of an interested purpose, could not but appreciate. 
 When her brother met her in Paris he saw that she 
 was already lost to him : she had ceased to struggle, 
 she had accepted the fate of a Briton s bride. It 
 appeared that she was much in love with her Briton 
 that was necessarily the end of it. Macarthy 
 offered no opposition, and she would have liked it 
 better if he had, as it would have given her a chance 
 to put him in the wrong a little more than, formally 
 at least, she had been able to do. He knew that 
 she knew what he thought and how he felt, and 
 there was no need of saying any more about it. No 
 doubt he would not have accepted a sacrifice from 
 her even if she had been capable of making it (there 
 were moments when it seemed to her that even at 
 the last, if he had appealed to her directly and with 
 tenderness, she would have renounced) ; but it was 
 none the less clear to her that he was deeply 
 
iv THE MODERN WARNING 243 
 
 disappointed at her having found it in her heart to 
 separate herself so utterly. And there was some 
 thing in his whole attitude which seemed to say that 
 it was not only from him that she separated herself, 
 but from all her fellow-countrymen besides and from 
 everything that was best and finest in American life. 
 He regarded her marriage as an abjuration, an 
 apostasy, a kind of moral treachery. It was of no 
 use to say to him that she was doing nothing original 
 or extraordinary, to ask him if he did not know that 
 in England, at the point things had come to, American 
 wives were as thick as blackberries, so that if she 
 were doing wrong she was doing wrong with well, 
 almost the majority : for he had an answer to such 
 cheap arguments, an answer according to which it 
 appeared that the American girls who had done 
 what she was about to do were notoriously poor 
 specimens, the most frivolous and feather-headed 
 young persons in the country. They had no con 
 ception of the great meaning of American institutions, 
 no appreciation of their birthright, and they were 
 doubtless very worthy recruits to a debauched and 
 stultified aristocracy. The pity of Agatha s desertion 
 was that she had been meant for better things, she 
 had appreciated her birthright, or if she had not it had 
 not been the fault of a brother who had taken so 
 much pains to form her mind and character. The 
 sentiment of her nationality had been cultivated in 
 her ; it was not a mere brute instinct or customary 
 prejudice it was a responsibility, a faith, a religion. 
 She was not a poor specimen but a remarkably fine 
 one ; she was intelligent, she was clever, she was 
 sensitive, she could understand difficult things and 
 feel great ones. 
 
244 THE MODERN WARNING iv 
 
 Of course in those days of trouble in Paris, when 
 it was arranged that she should be married im 
 mediately (as if there had really been an engagement 
 to Sir Rufus from the night before their flight from 
 Cadenabbia), of course she had had a certain amount 
 of talk with Macarthy about the matter, and at such 
 moments she had almost wished to drive him to 
 protest articulately, so that she might as explicitly 
 reassure him, endeavour to bring him round. But 
 he had never said to her personally what he had said 
 to her mother at Cadenabbia what her mother, 
 frightened and distressed, had immediately repeated 
 to her. The most he said was that he hoped she 
 was conscious of all the perfectly different and 
 opposed things she and her husband would represent 
 when they should find themselves face to face. He 
 hoped she had measured in advance the strain that 
 might arise from the fact that in so many ways her 
 good would be his evil, her white his black and vice 
 versa the fact in a word that by birth, tradition, 
 convictions, she was the product of a democratic 
 society, while the very breath of Sir Rufus s nostrils 
 was the denial of human equality. She had replied, 
 1 Oh yes, I have thought of everything ; but in 
 reality she had not thought that she was in any very 
 aggressive manner a democrat or even that she had 
 a representative function. She had not thought that 
 Macarthy in his innermost soul was a democrat either ; 
 and she had even wondered what would happen if 
 in regard to some of those levelling theories he had 
 suddenly been taken at his word. She knew however 
 that nothing would have made him more angry than 
 to hint that anything could happen which would find 
 him unprepared, and she was ashamed to repudiate 
 
iv THE MODERN WARNING 245 
 
 the opinions, the general character her brother at 
 tributed to her, to fall below the high standard he 
 had set up for her. She had moreover no wish to 
 do so. She was well aware that there were many 
 things in English life that she should not like, and 
 she was never a more passionate American than the 
 day she married Sir Rufus Chasemore. 
 
 To what extent she remained one an observer of 
 the deportment of this young lady would at first 
 have had considerable difficulty in judging. The 
 question of the respective merits of the institutions 
 of the two countries came up very little in her 
 life. Her husband had other things to think of 
 than the great republic beyond the sea, and her 
 horizon, social and political, had practically the same 
 large but fixed line as his. Sir Rufus was immersed 
 in politics and in administrative questions ; but these 
 things belonged wholly to the domestic field ; they 
 were embodied in big blue-books with terrible dry 
 titles (Agatha had tried conscientiously to acquaint 
 herself with the contents of some of them), which 
 piled themselves up on the table of his library. The 
 conservatives had come into power just after his 
 marriage, and he had held honourable though not 
 supereminent office. His duties had nothing to do 
 with foreign relations ; they were altogether of an 
 economical and statistical kind. He performed them 
 in a manner which showed perhaps that he was 
 conscious of some justice in the reproach usually 
 addressed to the Tories the taunt that they always 
 came to grief in* the department of industry and 
 finance. His wife was sufficiently in his confidence 
 to know how much he had it at heart to prove that 
 a conservative administration could be strong in 
 
246 THE MODERN WARNING iv 
 
 ciphering. He never spoke to her of her own 
 country they had so many other things to talk 
 about but if there was nothing in his behaviour to 
 betray the assumption that she had given it up, so 
 on the other hand there was nothing to show that he 
 doubted of her having done so. What he had said 
 about a woman s country being her husband and 
 children, her house and garden and visiting list, was 
 very considerably verified ; for it was certain that her 
 ladyship s new career gave her, though she had no 
 children, plenty of occupation. Even if it had not 
 however she would have found a good deal of work 
 to her hand in loving her husband, which she con 
 tinued to do with the most commendable zeal. He 
 seemed to her a very magnificent person, bullying 
 her not half so much as she expected. There were 
 times when it even occurred to her that he really 
 did not bully her enough, for she had always had an 
 idea that it would be agreeable to be subjected to 
 this probation by some one she should be very fond 
 of. 
 
 After they had been married a year he became a 
 permanent official, in succession to a gentleman who 
 was made a peer on his retirement from the post to 
 which Sir Rufus was appointed. This gave Lady 
 Chasemore an opportunity to reflect that she might 
 some day be a peeress, it being reasonable to suppose 
 that the same reward would be meted out to her 
 husband on the day on which, in the fulness of time 
 and of credit, he also should retire. She was obliged 
 to admit to herself that the reflection was unattended 
 with any sense of horror ; it exhilarated her indeed 
 to the point of making her smile at the contingency 
 of Macarthy s finding himself the brother of a member 
 
iv THE MODERN WARNING 247 
 
 of the aristocracy. As a permanent official her 
 husband was supposed to have no active political 
 opinions ; but she could not flatter herself that she 
 perceived any diminution of his conservative zeal. 
 Even if she had done so it would have made little 
 difference, for it had not taken her long to discover 
 that she had married into a tremendous Tory set 
 a set in which people took for granted she had 
 feelings that she was not prepared to publish on the 
 housetops. It was scarcely worth while however 
 to explain at length that she had not been brought 
 up in that way, partly because the people would not 
 have understood and partly because really after all 
 they did not care. How little it was possible in 
 general to care her career in England helped her in 
 due time to discover. The people who cared least 
 appeared to be those who were most convinced that 
 everything in the national life was going to the dogs. 
 Lady Chasemore was not struck with this tendency 
 herself ; but if she had been the belief would have 
 worried her more than it seemed to worry her friends. 
 She liked most of them extremely and thought them 
 very kind, very easy to live with ; but she liked 
 London much better than the country, rejoiced much 
 when her husband s new post added to the number 
 of months he would have annually to spend there 
 (they ended by being there as much as any one), and 
 had grave doubts as to whether she would have been 
 able to stand it if her lot had been cast among 
 those members of her new circle who lived mainly 
 on their acres. 
 
 All the same, though what she had to bear she 
 bore very easily, she indulged in a good deal of 
 private meditation on some of the things that 
 
2 4 S THE MODERN WARNING iv 
 
 failed to catch her sympathy. She did not always 
 mention them to her husband, but she always in 
 tended to mention them. She desired he should not 
 think that she swallowed his country whole, that she 
 was stupidly undiscriminating. Of course he knew 
 that she was not stupid and of course also he knew 
 that she could not fail to be painfully impressed by 
 the misery and brutality of the British populace. 
 She had never anywhere else seen anything like 
 that. Of course, furthermore, she knew that Sir 
 Rufus had given and would give in the future a great 
 deal of thought to legislative measures directed to 
 elevating gradually the condition of the lower orders. 
 It came over Lady Chasemore at times that it would 
 be well if some of these measures might arrive at 
 maturity with as little delay as possible. 
 
 The night before she quitted England with her 
 husband they slept at an hotel at Liverpool, in order 
 to embark early on the morrow. Sir Rufus went out 
 to attend to some business and, the evening being very 
 close, she sat at the window of their sitting-room and 
 looked out on a kind of square which stretched in 
 front of the hotel. The night was muggy, the 
 window was open and she was held there by a 
 horrible fascination. Dusky forms of vice and 
 wretchedness moved about in the stuffy darkness, 
 visions of grimy, half- naked, whining beggary 
 hovered before her, curses and the sound of blows 
 came to her ears ; there were young girls, frousy and 
 violent, who evidently were drunk, as every one 
 seemed to be, more or less, which was little wonder, 
 as four public-houses flared into the impure night, 
 visible from where Lady Chasemore sat, and they 
 appeared to be gorged with customers, half of whom 
 
iv THE MODERN WARNING 249 
 
 were women. The impression came back to her that 
 the horrible place had made upon her and upon her 
 mother when they landed in England years before, 
 and as she turned from the window she liked to 
 think that she was going to a country where, at any 
 rate, there would be less of that sort of thing. When 
 her husband came in he said it was of course a 
 beastly place but much better than it used to be 
 which she was glad to hear. She made some 
 allusion to the confidence they might have that they 
 should be treated to no such scenes as that in her 
 country : whereupon he remonstrated, jocosely ex 
 pressing a hope that they should not be deprived of 
 a glimpse of the celebrated American drinks and 
 bar-room fights. 
 
 It must be added that in New York he made of 
 his brother-in-law no inquiry about these phenomena 
 a reserve, a magnanimity keenly appreciated by 
 his wife. She appreciated altogether the manner in 
 which he conducted himself during their visit to the 
 United States and felt that if she had not already 
 known that she had married a perfect gentleman the 
 fact would now have been revealed to her. For she 
 had to make up her mind to this, that after all (it 
 was vain to shut one s eyes to it) Sir Rufus person 
 ally did not like the United States : he did not like 
 them yet he made an immense effort to behave as 
 if he did. She was grateful to him for that ; it 
 assuaged her nervousness (she was afraid there 
 might be ( scenes if he should break out with some 
 of his displeasures) ; so grateful that she almost forgot 
 to be disappointed at the failure of her own original 
 intent, to be distressed at seeing or rather at guess 
 ing (for he was reserved about it even to her), that 
 
250 THE MODERN WARNING iv 
 
 a nearer view of American institutions had not had 
 the effect which she once promised herself a nearer 
 view should have. She had married him partly to 
 bring him over to an admiration of her country (she 
 had never told any one this, for she was too proud 
 to make the confidence to an English person and if 
 she had made it to an American the answer would 
 have been so prompt, c What on earth does it signify 
 what he thinks of it ? no one, of course, being 
 obliged to understand that it might signify to 
 her) ; she had united herself to Sir Rufus in this 
 missionary spirit and now not only did her proselyte 
 prove unamenable but the vanity of her enterprise 
 became a fact of secondary importance. She 
 wondered a little that she did not suffer more from 
 it, and this is partly why she rejoiced that her 
 husband kept most of his observations to himself : it 
 gave her a pretext for not being ashamed. She had 
 flattered herself before that in general he had the 
 manners of a diplomatist (she did not suspect that 
 this was not the opinion of all his contemporaries), 
 and his behaviour during the first few weeks at least 
 of their stay in the western world struck her as a 
 triumph of diplomacy. She had really passed from 
 caring whether he disliked American manners to 
 caring primarily whether he showed he disliked them 
 a transition which on her own side she was very 
 sensible it was important to conceal from Macarthy. 
 To love a man who could feel no tenderness for the 
 order of things which had encompassed her early 
 years and had been intimately mixed with her 
 growth, which was a part of the conscience, the piety 
 of many who had been most dear to her and whose 
 memory would be dear to her always that was an 
 
iv THE MODERN WARNING 251 
 
 irregularity which was after all shut up in her own 
 breast, where she could trust her dignity to get 
 some way or other the upper hand of it. But to be 
 pointed at as having such a problem as that on one s 
 back was quite another affair ; it was a kind of 
 exposure of one s sanctities, a surrender of private 
 judgment. Lady Chasemore had by this time known 
 her husband long enough to enter into the logic of 
 his preferences ; if he disliked or disapproved what 
 he saw in America his reasons for doing so had 
 ceased to be a mystery. They were the very 
 elements of his character, the joints and vertebration 
 of his general creed. All the while she was absent 
 from England with him (it was not very long, their 
 whole tour, including the two voyages, being included 
 in ten weeks), she knew more or less the impression 
 that things would have made upon him ; she knew 
 that both in the generals and in the particulars 
 American life would have gone against his grain, 
 contradicted his traditions, violated his taste. 
 
ALL the same he was determined to see it thoroughly, 
 and this is doubtless one of the reasons why after 
 the first few days she cherished the hope that they 
 should be able to get off at the end without any 
 collision with Macarthy. Of course it was to be 
 taken into account that Macarthy s own demeanour 
 was much more that of a man of the world than she 
 had ventured to hope. He appeared for the time 
 almost to have smothered his national consciousness, 
 which had always been so acute, and to have ac 
 cepted his sister s perfidious alliance. She could see 
 that he was delighted that she should be near him 
 again so delighted that he neglected to look for 
 the signs of corruption in her or to manifest any 
 suspicion that in fact, now that she was immersed 
 in them again, she regarded her old associations with 
 changed eyes. So, also, if she had not already been 
 aware of how much Macarthy was a gentleman she 
 would have seen it from the way he rose to the 
 occasion. Accordingly they were all superior people 
 and all was for the best in Lady Chasemore s simple 
 creed. Her brother asked her no questions whatever 
 about her life in England, but his letters had already 
 enlightened her as to his determination to avoid that 
 
v THE MODERN WARNING 253 
 
 topic. They had hitherto not contained a single 
 inquiry on the subject of her occupations and 
 pursuits, and if she had been domiciled in the moon 
 he could not have indulged in less reference to 
 public or private events in the British islands. It 
 was a tacit form of disapprobation of her being 
 connected with that impertinent corner of the globe ; 
 but it had never prevented her from giving him the 
 fullest information on everything he never asked 
 about. He never took up her allusions, and when 
 she poured forth information to him now in regard 
 to matters concerning her life in her new home (on 
 these points she was wilfully copious and appealing), 
 he listened with a sort of exaggerated dumb de 
 ference, as if she were reciting a lesson and he must 
 sit quiet till she should come to the end. Usually 
 when she stopped he simply sighed, then directed 
 the conversation to something as different as possible. 
 It evidently pleased him however to see that she 
 enjoyed her native air and her temporary reunion 
 with some of her old familiars. This was a graceful 
 inconsistency on his part : it showed that he had not 
 completely given her up. Perhaps he thought Sir 
 Rufus would die and that in this case she would come 
 back and live in New York. She was careful not to 
 tell him that such a calculation was baseless, that with 
 or without Sir Rufus she should never be able to settle 
 in her native city as Lady Chasemore. He was 
 scrupulously polite to Sir Rufus, and this personage 
 asked Agatha why he never by any chance addressed 
 him save by his title. She could see what her husband 
 meant, but even in the privacy of the conjugal chamber 
 she was loyal enough to Macarthy not to reply, Oh, 
 it s a mercy he doesn t say simply " Sir !" 
 
254 THE MODERN WARNING v 
 
 The English visitor was prodigiously active ; he 
 desired to leave nothing unexplored, unattempted ; 
 his purpose was to inspect institutions, to collect 
 statistics, to talk with the principal people, to see 
 the workings of the political machine, and Macarthy 
 acquitted himself scrupulously, even zealously, in the 
 way of giving him introductions and facilities. Lady 
 Chasemore reflected with pleasure that it was in her 
 brother s power to do the honours of his native land 
 very completely. She suspected indeed that as he 
 did not like her husband (he couldn t like him, in spite 
 of Sir Rufus s now comporting himself so sweetly), it 
 was a relief to him to pass him on to others to work 
 him off, as it were, into penitentiaries and chambers 
 of commerce. Sir Rufus s frequent expeditions to 
 these establishments and long interviews with local 
 worthies of every kind kept him constantly out of 
 the house and removed him from contact with his 
 host, so that as Macarthy was extremely busy with 
 his own profession (Sir Rufus was greatly struck 
 with the way he worked ; he had never seen a 
 gentleman work so hard, without any shooting or 
 hunting or fishing), it may be said, though it sounds 
 odd, that the two men met very little directly met 
 scarcely more than in the evening or in other words 
 always in company. During the twenty days the 
 Chasemores spent together in New York they either 
 dined out or were members of a party given at home 
 by Macarthy, and on these occasions Sir Rufus found 
 plenty to talk about with his new acquaintance. 
 His wife flattered herself he was liked, he was so 
 hilarious and so easy. He had a very appreciative 
 manner, but she really wished sometimes that he 
 might have subdued his hilarity a little ; there were 
 
v THE MODERN WARNING 255 
 
 moments when perhaps it looked as if he took every 
 thing in the United States as if it were more than 
 all else amusing. She knew exactly how it must 
 privately affect Macarthy, this implication that it 
 was merely a comical country ; but after all it was 
 not very easy to say how Macarthy would have 
 preferred that a stranger, or that Sir Rufus in 
 particular, should take the great republic. A 
 cheerful view, yet untinged by the sense of drollery 
 that would have been the right thing if it could 
 have been arrived at. At all events (and this was 
 something gained), if Sir Rufus was in his heart a 
 pessimist in regard to things he did not like he was 
 not superficially sardonic. And then he asked 
 questions by the million ; and what was curiosity 
 but an homage ? 
 
 It will be inferred, and most correctly, that 
 Macarthy Grice was not personally in any degree 
 for his brother-in-law the showman of the exhibition. 
 He caused him to be conducted, but he did not 
 conduct him. He listened to his reports of what he 
 had seen (it was at breakfast mainly that these fresh 
 intimations dropped from Sir Rufus s lips), with very 
 much the same cold patience (as if he were civilly 
 forcing his attention) with which he listened to 
 Agatha s persistent anecdotes of things that had 
 happened to her in England. Of course with Sir 
 Rufus there could be no question of persistence ; he 
 cared too little whether Macarthy cared or not and 
 he did not stick to this everlasting subject of American 
 institutions either to entertain him or to entertain 
 himself -all he wanted was to lead on to further 
 .researches and discoveries. Macarthy always met 
 him with the same response, Oh, So -and -So is 
 
256 THE MODERN WARNING v 
 
 the man to tell you all about that. If you wish I 
 will give you a letter to him. Sir Rufus always 
 wished and certainly Macarthy wrote a prodigious 
 number of letters. The inquiries and conclusions of 
 * his visitor (so far as Sir Rufus indulged in the latter) 
 all bore on special points ; he was careful to commit 
 himself to no crude generalisations. He had to re 
 member that he had still the rest of the country to 
 see, and after a little discussion (which was confined 
 to Lady Chasemore and her husband) it was decided 
 that he should see it without his wife, who would 
 await his return among her friends in New York. 
 This arrangement was much to her taste, but it gives 
 again the measure of the degree to which she had 
 renounced her early dream of interpreting the 
 western world to Sir Rufus. If she was not to be 
 at his side at the moment, on the spot, of course she 
 could not interpret he would get a tremendous 
 start of her. In short by staying quietly with 
 Macarthy during his absence she almost gave up the 
 great advantage she had hitherto had of knowing 
 more about America than her husband could. She 
 liked however to feel that she was making a sacrifice 
 making one indeed both to Sir Rufus and to her 
 brother. The idea of giving up something for 
 Macarthy (she only wished it had been something 
 more) diJ. her great good sweetened the period of 
 her husband s absence. 
 
 The whole season had been splendid, but at this 
 moment the golden days of the Indian summer 
 descended upon the shining city and steeped it in a 
 kind of fragrant haze. For two or three weeks New 
 York seemed to Lady Chasemore poetical ; the 
 marble buildings looked yellow in the sleeping sun- 
 
v THE MODERN WARNING 257 
 
 shine and her native land exhibited for the occasion 
 an atmosphere. Vague memories came back to her 
 of her younger years, of things that had to do some 
 how with the blurred brightness of the late autumn 
 in the country. She walked about, she walked 
 irresponsibly for hours ; she did not care, as she had 
 to care in London. She met friends in the streets 
 and turned and walked with them ; and pleasures as 
 simple as this acquired an exaggerated charm for 
 her. She liked walking and as an American girl 
 had indulged the taste freely ; but in London she 
 had no time but to drive besides which there were 
 other tiresome considerations. Macarthy came home 
 from his office earlier and she went to meet him in 
 Washington Square and walked up the Fifth Avenue 
 with him in the rich afternoon. It was many years 
 since she had been in New York and she found 
 herself taking a kind of relapsing interest in changes 
 and improvements. There were houses she used to 
 know, where friends had lived in the old days and 
 where they lived no more (no one in New York 
 seemed to her to live where they used to live), which 
 reminded her of incidents she had long ago forgotten, 
 incidents that it pleased and touched her now to 
 recall. Macarthy became very easy and sociable ; 
 he even asked her a few questions about her arrange 
 ments and habits in England and struck her (though 
 she had never been particularly aware of it before) 
 as having a great deal ot the American humour. 
 On one occasion he stayed away from work altogether 
 and took her up the Hudson, on the steamer, to West 
 Point an excursion in which she found a peculiar 
 charm. Every day she lunched intimately with a 
 dozen ladies, at the house of one or other of them. 
 
 S 
 
258 THE MODERN WARNING v 
 
 In due time Sir Rufus returned from Canada, the 
 Mississippi, the Rocky Mountains and California ; 
 he had achieved marvels in the way of traversing 
 distances and seeing manners and men with rapidity 
 and facility. Everything had been settled in regard 
 to their sailing for England almost directly after his 
 return ; there were only to be two more days in 
 New York, then a rush to Boston, followed by 
 another rush to Philadelphia and Washington. 
 Macarthy made no inquiry whatever of his brother- 
 in-law touching his impression of the great West ; 
 he neglected even to ask him if he had been favour 
 ably impressed with Canada. There would not 
 have been much opportunity however, for Sir Rufus 
 on his side was extremely occupied with the last 
 things he had to do. He had not even time as yet 
 to impart his impressions to his wife, and she forbore 
 to interrogate him, feeling that the voyage close at 
 hand would afford abundant leisure for the history 
 of his adventures. For the moment almost the only 
 light that he threw upon them was by saying to 
 Agatha (not before Macarthy) that it was a pleasure 
 to him to see a handsome woman again, as he had 
 not had that satisfaction in the course of his travels. 
 Lady Chasemore wondered, exclaimed, protested, 
 eliciting from him the declaration that to his sense, 
 and in the interior at least, the beauty of the women 
 was, like a great many other things, a gigantic 
 American fraud. Sir Rufus had looked for it in 
 vain he went so far as to say that he had, in the 
 course of extensive wanderings about the world, seen 
 no female type on the whole less to his taste than 
 that of the ladies in whose society, in hundreds (there 
 was no paucity of specimens), in the long, hot, 
 
V THE MODERN WARNING 259 
 
 heaving trains, he had traversed a large part of the 
 American continent His wife inquired whether by 
 chance he preferred the young persons they had (or 
 at least she had) observed at Liverpool the night 
 before their departure ; to which he replied that they 
 were no doubt sad creatures, but that the looks of a 
 woman mattered only so long as one lived with her, 
 and he did not live, and never should live, with the 
 daughters of that grimy seaport. With the women 
 in the American cars he had been living oh, tre 
 mendously ! and they were deucedly plain. There 
 upon Lady Chasemore wished to know whether he 
 did not think Mrs. Eugene had beauty, and Mrs. 
 Ripley, and her sister Mrs. Redwood, and Mrs. 
 Long, and several other ornaments of the society in 
 which they had mingled during their stay in New 
 York. Mrs. Eugene is Mrs. Eugene and Mrs. Red 
 wood is Mrs. Redwood/ Sir Rufus retorted ; ( but the 
 women in the cars weren t either, and all the women 
 I saw were like the women in the cars. * Well, 
 there may be something in the cars, said Lady 
 Chasemore, pensively ; and she mentioned that it 
 was very odd that during her husband s absence, as 
 she roamed about New York, she should have made 
 precisely the opposite reflection and been struck with 
 the number of pretty faces. Oh, pretty faces, pretty 
 faces, I daresay ! But Sir Rufus had no time to 
 develop this vague rejoinder. 
 
 When they came back from Washington to sail 
 Agatha told her brother that he was going to write 
 a .book about America : it was for this he had made 
 so many inquiries and taken so many notes. She 
 had not known it before ; it was only while they 
 were in Washington that he told her he had made 
 
260 THE MODERN WARNING v 
 
 up his mind to it. Something he saw or heard in 
 Washington appeared to have brought this resolution 
 to a point Lady Chasemore privately thought it 
 rather a formidable fact ; her husband had startled 
 her a good deal in announcing his intention. She 
 had said, Of course it will be friendly you ll say 
 nice things ? And he had replied, My poor child, 
 they will abuse me like a pickpocket. This had 
 scarcely been reassuring, so that she had had it at heart 
 to probe the question further, in the train, after they 
 left Washington. But as it happened, in the train, 
 all the way, Sir Rufus was engaged in conversation 
 with a Democratic Congressman whom he had picked 
 up she did not know how very certainly he had not 
 met him at any respectable house in Washington. 
 They sat in front of her in the car, with their heads 
 almost touching, and although she was a better 
 American than her husband she should not have 
 liked hers to be so close to that of the Democratic 
 Congressman. Now of course she knew that Sir 
 Rufus was taking in material for his book. This 
 idea made her uncomfortable and she would have 
 liked immensely to separate him from his companion 
 she scarcely knew why, after all, except that she 
 could not believe the Representative represented 
 anything very nice. She promised herself to ascertain 
 thoroughly, after they should be comfortably settled 
 in the ship, the animus with which the book was to 
 be written. She was a very good sailor and she 
 liked to talk at sea ; there her husband would not 
 be able to escape from her, and she foresaw the 
 manner in which she should catechise him. It 
 exercised her greatly in advance and she was more 
 agitated than she could easily have expressed by 
 
v THE MODERN WARNING 261 
 
 the whole question of the book. Meanwhile, how 
 ever, she was careful not to show her agitation to 
 Macarthy. She referred to her husband s project as 
 casually as possible, and the reason she referred to 
 it was that this seemed more loyal more loyal 
 to Macarthy. If the book, when written, should 
 attract attention by the severity of its criticism (and 
 that by many qualities it would attract attention of 
 the widest character Lady Chasemore could not 
 doubt), she should feel more easy not to have had 
 the air of concealing from her brother that such a 
 work was in preparation, which would also be the 
 air of having a bad conscience about it. It was to 
 prove, both to herself and Macarthy, that she had a 
 good conscience that she told him of Sir Rufus s 
 design. The habit of detachment from matters con 
 nected with his brother-in-law s activity was strong 
 in him ; nevertheless he was not able to repress some 
 sign of emotion he flushed very perceptibly. Quickly, 
 however, he recovered his appearance of considering 
 that the circumstance was one in which he could not 
 hope to interest himself much ; though the next 
 moment he observed, with a certain inconsequence, 
 * I am rather sorry to hear it. 
 
 * Why are you sorry ? asked Agatha. She was 
 surprised and indeed gratified that he should commit 
 himself even so far as to express regret. What she 
 had supposed he would say, if he should say anything, 
 was that he was obliged to her for the information, 
 but that if it was given him with any expectation 
 that he might be induced to read the book he must 
 really let her know that such an expectation was 
 extremely vain. He could have no more affinity with 
 Sir Rufus s printed ideas than with his spoken ones. 
 
262 THE MODERN WARNING V 
 
 Well, it will be rather disagreeable for you, he 
 said, in answer to her question. Unless indeed you 
 don t care what he says. 
 
 But I do care. The book will be sure to be very 
 able. Do you mean if it should be severe that 
 would be disagreeable for me ? Very certainly it 
 would ; it would put me in a false, in a ridiculous 
 position, and I don t see how I should bear it, Lady 
 Chasemore went on, feeling that her candour was 
 generous and wishing it to be. * But I shan t allow 
 it to be severe. To prevent that, if it s necessary, I 
 will write every word of it myself. 
 
 She laughed as she took this vow, but there was 
 nothing in Macarthy s face to show that lie could 
 lend himself to a mirthful treatment of the question. 
 I think an Englishman had better look at home, he 
 said, and if he does so I don t easily see how the 
 occupation should leave him any leisure or any 
 assurance for reading lectures to other nations. The 
 self-complacency of your husband s countrymen is 
 colossal, imperturbable. Therefore, with the tight 
 place they find themselves in to-day and with the 
 judgment of the rest of the world upon them being 
 what it is, it s grotesque to see them still sitting in 
 their old judgment -seat and pronouncing upon the 
 shortcomings of people who are full of the life that has 
 so long since left them? Macarthy Grice spoke 
 slowly, mildly, with a certain dryness, as if he were 
 delivering himself once for all and would not 
 return to the subject. The quietness of his manner 
 made the words solemn for his sister, and she stared 
 at him a moment, wondering, as if they pointed to 
 strange things which she had hitherto but imperfectly 
 apprehended. 
 
v THE MODERN WARNING 263 
 
 1 The judgment of the rest of the world what is 
 that ? 
 
 Why, that they are simply finished ; that they 
 don t count. 
 
 Oh, a nation must count which produces such 
 men as my husband, Agatha rejoined, with another 
 laugh. Macarthy was on the point of retorting that 
 it counted as the laughing-stock of the world 
 (that of course was something), but he checked 
 himself and she moreover checked him by going on : 
 * Why Macarthy, you ought to come out with a book 
 yourself about the English. You would steal my 
 husband s thunder. 
 
 Nothing would induce me to do anything of the 
 sort ; I pity them too much. 
 
 You pity them ? Lady Chasemore exclaimed. 
 It would amuse my husband to hear that. 
 
 Very likely, and it would be exactly a proof of 
 what is so pitiable the contrast between their gross 
 pretensions and the real facts of their condition. 
 They have pressing upon them at once every prob 
 lem, every source of weakness, every danger that can 
 threaten the life of a people, and they have nothing 
 to meet the situation with but their classic stupidity. 
 
 c Well, that has been useful to them before, said 
 Lady Chasemore, smiling. Her smile was a little 
 forced and she coloured as her brother had done 
 when she first spoke to him. She found it impossible 
 not to be impressed by what he said and yet she 
 was vexed that she was, because this was far from 
 her desire. 
 
 He looked at her as if he saw some warning in 
 her face and continued : * Excuse my going so far. 
 In this last month that we have spent together so 
 
264 THE MODERN WARNING v 
 
 happily for me I had almost forgotten that you are 
 one of them. 
 
 Lady Chasemore said nothing she did not deny 
 that she was one of them. If her husband s country 
 was denounced after all he had not written his book 
 yet she felt as if such a denial would be a repudia 
 tion of one of the responsibilities she had taken in 
 marrying him. 
 
VI 
 
 THE postman was at the door in Grosvenor 
 Crescent when she came back from her drive ; the 
 servant took the letters from his hand as she passed 
 into the house. In the hall she stopped to see 
 which of the letters were for her ; the butler gave 
 her two and retained those that were for Sir Rufus. 
 She asked him what orders Sir Rufus had given 
 about his letters and he replied that they were to be 
 forwarded up to the following night. This applied 
 only to letters, not to parcels, pamphlets and books. 
 But would he wish this to go, my lady? the man 
 asked, holding up a small packet ; he added that it 
 appeared to be a kind of document. She took it 
 from him : her eye had caught a name printed on the 
 wrapper and though she made no great profession of 
 literature she recognised the name as that of a dis 
 tinguished publisher and the packet as a roll of proof- 
 sheets. She turned it up and down while the servant 
 waited ; it had quite a different look from the bundles 
 of printed official papers which the postman was per 
 petually leaving and which, when she scanned the array 
 on the hall-table in her own interest, she identified 
 even at a distance. They were certainly the sheets, at 
 least the first, of her husband s book those of which 
 
266 THE MODERN WARNING vi 
 
 he had said to her on the steamer, on the way back 
 from New York a year before, * My dear child, when 
 I tell you that you shall see them every page of 
 them that you shall have complete control of them ! 
 Since she was to have complete control of them she 
 began with telling the butler not to forward them 
 to lay them on the hall-table. She went upstairs to 
 dress she was dining out in her husband s absence 
 and when she came down to re-enter her carriage 
 she saw the packet lying where it had been placed. 
 So many months had passed that she had ended by 
 forgetting that the book was on the stocks ; nothing- 
 had happened to remind her of it. She had believed 
 indeed that it was not on the stocks and even that 
 the project would die a natural death. Sir Rufus 
 would have no time to carry it out he had returned 
 from America to find himself more than ever immersed 
 in official work and if he did not put his hand to it 
 within two or three years at the very most he would 
 never do so at all, for he would have lost the freshness 
 of his impressions, on which the success of the whole 
 thing would depend. He had his notes of course, but 
 none the less a delay would be fatal to the production 
 of the volume (it was to be only a volume and not a 
 big one), inasmuch as by the time it should be published 
 it would have to encounter the objection that every 
 thing changed in America in two or three years and 
 no one wanted to know anything about a dead past. 
 Such had been the reflections with which Lady 
 Chasemore consoled herself for the results of those 
 inquiries she had promised herself, in New York, to 
 make when once she should be ensconced in a sea- 
 chair by her husband s side and which she had in 
 fact made to her no small discomposure. Meanwhile 
 
vi THE MODERN WARNING 267 
 
 apparently he had stolen a march upon her, he had 
 put his hand to The Modern Warning (that was to 
 be the title, as she had learned on the ship), he had 
 worked at it in his odd hours, he had sent it to the 
 printers and here were the first-fruits of it. Had he 
 had a bad conscience about it was that the reason 
 he had been so quiet ? She did not believe much in 
 his bad conscience, for he had been tremendously, 
 formidably explicit when they talked the matter over ; 
 had let her know as fully as possible what he intended 
 to do. Then it was that he relieved himself, that 
 in the long, unoccupied hours of their fine voyage 
 (he was in wonderful form at sea) he took her into 
 the confidence of his real impressions made her 
 understand how things had struck him in the United 
 States. They had not struck him well ; oh no, they 
 had not struck him well at all ! But at least he had 
 prepared her and therefore since then he had nothing 
 to hide. It was doubtless an accident that he 
 appeared to have kept his work away from her, for 
 sometimes, in other cases, he had paid her intelligence 
 the compliment (was it not for that in part he had 
 married her ?) of supposing that she could enter into 
 it. It was probable that in this case he had wanted 
 first to see for himself how his chapters would look 
 in print. Very likely even he had not written the 
 whole book, nor even half of it ; he had only written 
 the opening pages and had them set up : she re 
 membered to have heard him speak of this as a very 
 convenient system. It would be very convenient for 
 her as well and she should also be much interested 
 in seeing how they looked. On the table, in their neat 
 little packet, they seemed half to solicit her, half to 
 warn her off. 
 
268 THE MODERN WARNING vi 
 
 They were still there of course when she came 
 back from her dinner, and this time she took posses 
 sion of them. She carried them upstairs and in her 
 dressing-room, when she had been left alone in her 
 wrapper, she sat down with them under the lamp. 
 The packet lay in her lap a long time, however, 
 before she decided to detach the envelope. Her 
 hesitation came not from her feeling in any degree 
 that this roll of printed sheets had the sanctity of a 
 letter, a seal that she might not discreetly break, but 
 from an insurmountable nervousness as to what she 
 might find within. She sat there for an hour, with 
 her head resting on the back of her chair and her 
 eyes closed ; but she had not fallen asleep Lady 
 Chasemore was very wide-awake indeed. She was 
 living for the moment in a kind of concentration of 
 memory, thinking over everything that had fallen 
 from her husband s lips after he began, as I have 
 said, to relieve himself. It turned out that the 
 opinion he had formed of the order of society in the 
 United States was even less favourable than she had 
 had reason to fear. There were not many things it 
 would have occurred to him to commend, and the 
 few exceptions related to the matters that were not 
 most characteristic of the country not idiosyn 
 crasies of American life. The idiosyncrasies he had 
 held to be one and all detestable. The whole spectacle 
 was a vivid warning, a consummate illustration of 
 the horrors of democracy. The only thing that had 
 saved the misbegotten republic as yet was its margin, 
 its geographical vastness ; but that was now discounted 
 and exhausted. For the rest every democratic vice 
 was in the ascendant and could be studied there sur 
 te vif ; he could not be too thankful that he had not 
 
vi THE MODERN WARNING 269 
 
 delayed longer to go over and master the subject. 
 He had come back with a head full of lessons and a 
 heart fired with the resolve to enforce them upon his 
 own people, who, as Agatha knew, had begun to 
 move in the same lamentable direction. As she 
 listened to him she perceived the mistake she had 
 made in not going to the West with him, for it was 
 from that part of the country that he had drawn his 
 most formidable anecdotes and examples. Of these 
 he produced a terrific array ; he spoke by book, he 
 overflowed with facts and figures, and his wife felt 
 herself submerged by the deep, bitter waters. She 
 even felt what a pity it was that she had not dragged 
 him away from that vulgar little legislator whom he 
 had stuck to so in the train, coming from Washing 
 ton ; yet it did not matter a little more or a little 
 less the whole affair had rubbed him so the wrong 
 way, exasperated his taste, confounded his traditions. 
 He proved to have disliked quite unspeakably things 
 that she supposed he liked, to have suffered acutely 
 on occasions when she thought he was really pleased. 
 It would appear that there had been no occasion, 
 except once sitting at dinner between Mrs. Redwood 
 and Mrs. Eugene, when he was really pleased. Even 
 his long chat with the Pennsylvania representative 
 had made him almost ill at the time. His wife 
 could be none the less struck with the ability which 
 had enabled him to absorb so much knowledge in so 
 short a time ; he had not only gobbled up facts, he 
 had arranged them in a magnificent order, and she 
 was proud of his being so clever even when he made 
 her bleed by the way he talked. He had had no 
 intention whatever of this, and he was as much 
 surprised as touched when she broke out into a 
 
270 THE MODERN WARNING vi 
 
 passionate appeal to him not to publish such horrible 
 misrepresentations. She defended her country with 
 exaltation, and so far as was possible in the face of 
 his own flood of statistics, of anecdotes of ( lobbying, 
 of the corruption of public life, for which she was un 
 prepared, endeavouring to gainsay him in the parti 
 culars as well as in the generals, she maintained that 
 he had seen everything wrong, seen it through the 
 distortion of prejudice, of a hostile temperament, in 
 the light or rather in the darkness of wishing 
 to find weapons to worry the opposite party in 
 England. Of course America had its faults, but OP 
 the whole it was a much finer country than any 
 other, finer even than his clumsy, congested old 
 England, where there was plenty to do to sweep the 
 house clean, if he would give a little more of his 
 time to that. Scandals for scandals she had heard 
 more since she came to England than all the years she 
 had lived at home. She forbore to quote Macarthy to 
 him (she had reasons for not doing so), but something of 
 the spirit of Macarthy flamed up in her as she spoke. 
 Sir Rufus smiled at her vehemence ; he took it in 
 perfectly good part, though it evidently left him not 
 a little astonished. He had forgotten that America 
 was hers that she had any allegiance but the 
 allegiance of her marriage. He had made her his 
 own and, being the intense Englishman that he was, 
 it had never occurred to him to doubt that she now 
 partook of his quality in the same degree as himself. 
 He had assimilated her, as it were, completely, and 
 he had assumed that she had also assimilated him 
 and his country with him a process which would 
 have for its consequence that the other country, the 
 ugly, vulgar, importunate one, would be, as he mentally 
 
vi THE MODERN WARNING 271 
 
 phrased it to himself, * shunted. That it had not 
 been was the proof of rather a morbid sensibility, 
 which tenderness and time would still assuage. Sir 
 Rufus was tender, he reassured his wife on the spot, 
 in the first place by telling her that she knew nothing 
 whatever about the United States (it was astonishing 
 how little many of the people in the country itself 
 knew about them), and in the second by promising 
 her that he would not print a word to which her 
 approval should not be expressly given. She should 
 countersign every page before it went to press, and 
 none should leave the house without her vis/. She 
 wished to know if he possibly could have forgotten 
 so strange would it be that she had told him 
 long ago, at Cadenabbia, how horrible it would be to 
 her to find herself married to a man harbouring evil 
 thoughts of her fatherland. He remembered this 
 declaration perfectly and others that had followed it, 
 but was prepared to ask if she on her side recollected 
 giving him notice that she should convert him into 
 an admirer of transatlantic peculiarities. She had 
 had an excellent opportunity, but she had not carried 
 out her plan. . He had been passive in her hands, 
 she could have done what she liked with him (had 
 not he offered, that night by the lake of Como, to 
 throw up his career and go and live with her in some 
 beastly American town ? and he had really meant it 
 upon his honour he had !), so that if the conver 
 sion had not come off whose fault was it but hers ? 
 She had not gone to work with any sort of earnest 
 ness. At all events now it was too late ; he had 
 seen for himself the impression was made. Two 
 points were vivid beyond the others in Lady Chase- 
 inore s evocation of the scene on the ship ; one was 
 
272 THE MODERN WARNING vi 
 
 her husband s insistence on the fact that he had not 
 the smallest animosity to the American people, but 
 had only his own English brothers in view, wished 
 only to protect and save them, to point a certain 
 moral as it never had been pointed before ; the other 
 was his pledge that nothing should be made public 
 without her assent. 
 
 As at last she broke the envelope of the packet 
 in her lap she wondered how much she should find 
 to assent to. More perhaps than a third person 
 judging the case would have expected ; for after 
 what had passed between them Sir Rufus must have 
 taken great pains to tone down his opinions or at 
 least the expression of them. 
 
VII 
 
 HE came back to Grosvenor Place the next evening 
 very late and on asking for his wife was told that she 
 was in her apartments. He was furthermore in 
 formed that she was to have dined out but had given 
 it up, countermanding the carriage at the last moment 
 and despatching a note instead. On Sir Rufus s ask 
 ing if she were ill it was added that she had seemed 
 not quite right and had not left the house since the 
 day before. A minute later he found her in her own 
 sitting-room, where she appeared to have been walk 
 ing up and down. She stopped when he entered 
 and stood there looking at him ; she was in her 
 dressing-gown, very pale, and she received him 
 without a smile. He went up to her, kissed her, 
 saw something strange in her eyes and asked with 
 eagerness if she had been suffering. Yes, yes, she 
 said, * but I have not been ill, and the next moment 
 flung herself upon his neck and buried her face 
 there, sobbing yet at the same time stifling her sobs. 
 Inarticulate words were mingled with them and it 
 was not till after a moment he understood that she 
 was saying, How could you? ah, how could you? 
 He failed to understand her allusion, and while he 
 was still in the dark she recovered herself and broke 
 
 T 
 
274 THE MODERN WARNING vn 
 
 away from him. She went quickly to a drawer and 
 possessed herself of a parcel of papers which she 
 held out to him, this time without meeting his eyes. 
 Please take them away take them away for ever. 
 It s your book the things from the printers. I saw 
 them on the table I guessed what they were I 
 opened them to see. I read them I read them. 
 Please take them away. 
 
 He had by this time become aware that even 
 though she had flung herself upon his breast his wife 
 was animated by a spirit of the deepest reproach, an 
 exquisite sense of injury. When he first saw the 
 papers he failed to recognise his book : it had not 
 been in his mind. He took them from her with 
 an exclamation of wonder, accompanied by a laugh 
 which was meant in kindness, and turned them over, 
 glancing at page after page. Disconcerted as he 
 was at the condition in which Agatha presented her 
 self he was still accessible to that agreeable titillation 
 which a man feels on seeing his prose set up. Sir 
 Rufus had been quoted and reported by the news 
 papers and had put into circulation several little 
 pamphlets, but this was his first contribution to the 
 regular literature of his country, and his publishers 
 had given him a very handsome page. Its striking 
 beauty held him a moment ; then his eyes passed 
 back to his wife, who with her grand, cold, wounded 
 air was also very handsome. My dear girl, do you 
 think me an awful brute ? have I made you ill ? 
 he asked. He declared that he had no idea he 
 had gone so far as to shock her he had left out 
 such a lot ; he had tried to keep the sting out of 
 everything ; he had made it all butter and honey. 
 But he begged her not to get into a state ; he would 
 
vii THE MODERN WARNING 275 
 
 go over the whole thing with her if she liked make 
 any changes she should require. It would spoil the 
 book, but he would rather do that than spoil her 
 perfect temper. It was in a highly jocular manner 
 that he made this allusion to her temper, and it was 
 impressed upon her that he was not too much dis 
 composed by her discomposure to be able to joke. 
 She took notice of two things : the first of which 
 was that he had a perfectly good conscience and 
 that no accusing eye that might have been turned 
 upon him would have made him change colour. He 
 had no sense that he had broken faith with her, and 
 he really thought his horrible book was very mild. 
 He spoke the simple truth in saying that for her 
 sake he had endeavoured to qualify his strictures, 
 and strange as it might appear he honestly believed 
 he had succeeded. Later, at other times, Agatha 
 wondered what he would have written if he had felt 
 himself free. What she observed in the second 
 place was that though he saw she was much upset 
 he did not in the least sound the depth of her distress 
 or, as she herself would have said, of her shame. 
 He never would he never would ; he could not 
 enter into her feelings, because he could not believe 
 in them : they could only strike him as exaggerated 
 and factitious. He had given her a country, a 
 magnificent one, and why in the name of common 
 sense was she making him a scene about another ? 
 It was morbid it was mad. 
 
 When he accused her of this extravagance it was 
 very simple for her to meet his surprise with a 
 greater astonishment astonishment at his being 
 able to allow so little for her just susceptibility. He 
 could not take it seriously that she had American 
 
276 THE MODERN WARNING vn 
 
 feelings ; he could not believe that it would make a 
 terrible difference in her happiness to go about the 
 world as the wife, the cynical, consenting wife of the 
 author of a blow dealt with that brutality at a breast 
 to which she owed filial honour. She did not say 
 to him that she should never hold her head up before 
 Macarthy again (her strength had been that hitherto, 
 as against Macarthy, she was perfectly straight), but 
 it was in a great degree the prefigurement of her 
 brother s cold, lifelong scorn that had kindled in 
 her, while she awaited her husband s return, the 
 passion with which she now protested. He would 
 never read The Modern Warning but he would hear 
 all about it ; he would meet it in the newspapers, in 
 every one s talk ; the very voices of the air would 
 distil the worst pages into his ear and make the 
 scandal of her participation even greater than as 
 heaven knew it would deserve to be. She thought 
 of the month of renewed association, of happy, pure 
 impressions that she had spent a year before in the 
 midst of American kindness, in the mi-dst of memories 
 more innocent than her visions of to-day ; and the 
 effect of this retrospect was galling in the face of her 
 possible shame. Shame shame : she repeated that 
 word to Sir Rufus in a tone which made him stare, 
 as if it dawned upon him that her reason was per 
 haps deserting her. That shame should attach itself 
 to his wife in consequence of any behaviour of his 
 was an idea that he had to make a very considerable 
 effort to embrace ; and while his candour betrayed it 
 his wife was touched even through her resentment 
 by seeing that she had not made him angry. He 
 thought she was strangely unreasonable, but he was 
 determined not to fall into that vice on his own side. 
 
vii THE MODERN WARNING 277 
 
 She was silent about Macarthy because Sir Rufus had 
 accused her before her marriage of being afraid of him, 
 and she had then resolved never again to incur such 
 a taunt ; but before things had gone much further 
 between them she reminded her husband that she 
 had Irish blood, the blood of the people, in her veins 
 and that he must take that into account in measur 
 ing the provocation he might think it safe to heap 
 upon her. She was far from being a fanatic on this 
 subject, as he knew ; but when America was made 
 out to be an object of holy horror to virtuous 
 England she could not but remember that millions 
 of her Celtic cousins had found refuge there from the 
 blessed English dispensation and be struck with his 
 recklessness in challenging comparisons which were 
 better left to sleep. 
 
 When his wife began to represent herself as Irish 
 Sir Rufus evidently thought her * off her head 
 indeed : it was the first he had heard of it since she 
 communicated the mystic fact to him on the lake of 
 Como. Nevertheless he argued with her for half an 
 hour as if she were sane, and before they separated 
 he made her a liberal concession, such as only a 
 perfectly lucid mind would be able to appreciate. 
 This was a simple indulgence, at the end of their 
 midnight discussion ; it was not dictated by any 
 recognition of his having been unjust ; for though 
 his wife reiterated this charge with a sacred fire in 
 her eyes which made them more beautiful than he 
 had ever known them he took his stand, in his own 
 stubborn opinion, too firmly upon piles of evidence, 
 revelations of political fraud and corruption, and the 
 whole tone of the newspapers to speak only of 
 that. He remarked to her that clearly he must 
 
278 THE MODERN WARNING vn 
 
 simply give way to her opposition. If she were 
 going to suffer so inordinately it settled the question. 
 The book should not be published and they would 
 say no more about it. He would put it away, he 
 would burn it up and The Modern Warning should 
 be as if it had never been. Amen ! amen ! Lady 
 Chasemore accepted this sacrifice with eagerness, 
 although her husband (it must be added) did not fail 
 to place before her the exceeding greatness of it. 
 He did not lose his temper, he was not petulant nor 
 spiteful, he did not throw up his project and his 
 vision of literary distinction in a huff ; but he called 
 her attention very vividly and solemnly to the fact 
 that in deferring to the feelings she so uncompro 
 misingly expressed he renounced the dream of 
 rendering a signal service to his country. There was 
 a certain bitterness in his smile as he told her that 
 her wish was the only thing in the world that could 
 have made him throw away such a golden oppor 
 tunity. The rest of his life would never offer him 
 such another ; but patriotism might go to the dogs 
 if only it were settled that she should not have a 
 grudge. He did not care what became of poor old 
 England if once that precious result were obtained ; 
 poor old England might pursue impure delusions and 
 rattle down hill as fast as she chose for want of the 
 word his voice would have spoken really inspired 
 as he held it to be by the justice of his cause. 
 
 Lady Chasemore flattered herself that they did 
 not drop the subject that night in acrimony ; there 
 was nothing of this in the long kiss which she took 
 from her husband s lips, with wet eyes, with a grate 
 ful, comprehensive murmur. It seemed to her that 
 nothing could be fairer or finer than their mutual 
 
Vii THE MODERN WARNING 279 
 
 confidence ; her husband s concession was gallant in 
 the extreme ; but even more than this was it im 
 pressed upon her that her own affection was perfect, 
 since it could accept such a renunciation without a 
 fear of the aftertaste. She had been in love with 
 Sir Rufus from the day he sought her hand at 
 Cadenabbia, but she was never so much in love with 
 him as during the weeks that immediately followed his 
 withdrawal of his book. It was agreed between them 
 that neither of them would speak of the circumstance 
 again, but she at least, in private, devoted an immense 
 deal of meditation to it. It gave her a tremendous 
 reprieve, lifted a nightmare off her breast, and that 
 in turn gave her freedom to reflect that probably few 
 men would have made such a graceful surrender. 
 She wanted him to understand, or at any rate she 
 wanted to understand herself, that in all its particulars 
 too she thoroughly appreciated it ; if he really was 
 unable to conceive how she could feel as she did, it 
 was all the more generous of him to comply blindly, 
 to take her at her word, little as he could make of it. 
 It did not become less obvious to Lady Chasemore, 
 but quite the contrary, as the weeks went on, that 
 The Modern Warning would have been a masterpiece 
 of its class. In her room, that evening, her husband 
 had told her that the best of him intellectually had 
 gone into it, that he believed he had uttered certain 
 truths there as they never would be uttered again 
 contributed his grain of gold to the limited sum of 
 human wisdom. He had done something to help 
 his country, and then to please her he had undone 
 it. Above all it was delightful to her that he had 
 not been sullen or rancorous about it, that he never 
 made her pay for his magnanimity. He neither 
 
280 THE MODERN WARNING vn 
 
 sighed nor scowled nor took on the air of a 
 domestic martyr ; he came and went with his usual 
 step and his usual smile, remaining to all appear 
 ance the same fresh-coloured, decided, accomplished 
 high official. 
 
 Therefore it is that I find it difficult to explain 
 how it was that Lady Chasemore began to feel at 
 the end of a few months that their difficulties had 
 after all not become the mere reminiscence of a flurry, 
 making present security more deep. What if the 
 flurry continued impalpably, insidiously, under the 
 surface ? She thought there had been no change, 
 but now she suspected that there was at least a 
 difference. She had read Tennyson and she knew 
 the famous phrase about the little rift within the 
 lute. It came back to her with a larger meaning, it 
 haunted her at last, and she asked herself whether 
 when she accepted her husband s relinquishment it 
 had been her happiness and his that she staked and 
 threw away. In the light of this fear she struck 
 herself as having lived in a fool s paradise a mis 
 fortune from which she had ever prayed to be 
 delivered. She wanted in every situation to know 
 the worst, and in this case she had not known it ; at 
 least she knew it only now, in the shape of the 
 formidable fact that Sir Rufus s outward good man 
 ners misrepresented his real reaction. At present 
 she began anxiously, broodingly to take this reaction 
 for granted and to see signs of it in the very things 
 which she had regarded at first as signs of resignation. 
 She secretly watched his face ; she privately counted 
 his words. When she began to do this it was no 
 very long time before she made up her mind that 
 the latter had become much fewer that Sir Rufus 
 
viz THE MODERN WARNING 281 
 
 talked to her very much less than he had done of 
 old. He took no revenge, but he was cold, and in 
 his coldness there was something horribly inevitable. 
 He looked at her less and less, whereas formerly his 
 eyes had had no more agreeable occupation. She 
 tried to teach herself that her suspicions were woven of 
 air and were an offence to a just man s character ; 
 she remembered that Sir Rufus had told her she 
 was morbid, and if the charge had not been true 
 at the time it might very well be true now. But 
 the effect of this reflection was only to suggest to 
 her that Sir Rufus himself was morbid and that her 
 behaviour had made him so. It was the last thing 
 that would be in his nature, but she had subjected 
 that nature to an injurious strain. He was feeling 
 it now ; he was feeling that he had failed in the duty 
 of a good citizen : a good citizen being what he had 
 ever most earnestly proposed to himself to be. Lady 
 Chasemore pictured to herself that his cheek burned 
 for this when it was turned away from her that he 
 ground his teeth with shame in the watches of the night. 
 Then it came over her with unspeakable bitterness 
 that there had been no real solution of their difficulty; 
 that it was too great to be settled by so simple an 
 arrangement as that an arrangement too primitive 
 for a complicated world. Nothing was less simple 
 than to bury one s gold and live without the 
 interest. 
 
 It is a singular circumstance, and suggesting per 
 haps a perversion of the imagination under the 
 influence of distress, but Lady Chasemore at this 
 time found herself thinking with a kind of baffled 
 pride of the merits of The Modern Warning as a 
 literary composition, a political essay. It would 
 
282 THE MODERN WARNING vil 
 
 have been dreadful for her, but at least it would 
 have been superb, and that was what was naturally 
 enough present to the defeated author as he tossed 
 through the sleepless hours. She determined at last 
 to question him, to confess her fears, to make him 
 tell her whether his weakness if he considered it 
 a weakness really did rankle ; though when he 
 made the sacrifice months before (nearly a year had 
 come round) he had let her know that he wished the 
 subject buried between them for evermore. She 
 approached it with some trepidation, and the manner 
 in which he looked at her as she stammered out her 
 inquiry was not such as to make the effort easier. 
 He waited in silence till she had expressed herself 
 as she best could, without helping her, without show 
 ing that he guessed her trouble, her need to be 
 assured that he did not feel her to have been cruel. 
 Did he ? did he ? that was what she wanted to be 
 certain of. Sir Rufus s answer was in itself a ques 
 tion ; he demanded what she meant by imputing to 
 him such hypocrisy, such bad faith. What did she 
 take him for and what right had he given her to 
 make a new scene, when he flattered himself the last 
 pretext had been removed ? If he had been dis 
 satisfied she might be very sure he would have told 
 her so ; and as he had not told her she might pay 
 him the compliment to believe he was honest. He 
 expressed the hope and for the first time in his 
 life he was stern with her that this would be the 
 last endeavour on her part to revive an odious topic. 
 His sternness was of no avail ; it neither wounded 
 her nor comforted her ; it only had the effect of 
 making her perfectly sure that he suffered and that 
 he regarded himself as a kind of traitor. He was 
 
vii THE MODERN WARNING 283 
 
 one more in the long list of those whom a woman 
 had ruined, who had sold themselves, sold their 
 honour and the commonwealth, for a fair face, a quiet 
 life, a show of tears, a bribe of caresses. The vision 
 of this smothered pain, which he tried to carry off as 
 a gentleman should, only ministered to the love she 
 had ever borne him the love that had had the power 
 originally to throw her into his arms in the face 
 of an opposing force. As month followed month 
 all her nature centred itself in this feeling ; she 
 loved him more than ever and yet she had been the 
 cause of the most tormenting thing that had ever 
 happened to him. This was a tragic contradiction, 
 impossible to bear, and she sat staring at it with 
 tears of rage. 
 
 One day she had occasion to tell him that she 
 had received a letter from Macarthy, who announced 
 that he should soon sail for Europe, even intimated 
 that he should spend two or three weeks in London. 
 He had been overworked, it was years since he had 
 had a proper holiday, and the doctor threatened him 
 with nervous prostration unless he very soon broke 
 off everything. His sister had a vision of his reason 
 for offering to let her see him in England ; it was a 
 piece of appreciation on Macarthy s part, a reward 
 for their having behaved that is, for Sir Rufus s 
 having behaved, apparently under her influence 
 better than might have been expected. He had the 
 good taste not to bring out his insolent book, and 
 Macarthy gave this little sign, the most mollified 
 thing he had done as yet, that he noticed. If Lady 
 Chasemore had not at this moment been thinking of 
 something else it might have occurred to her that 
 nervous prostration, in her brother s organism, had 
 
284 THE MODERN WARNING vn 
 
 already set in. The prospect of his visit held Sir 
 Rufus s attention very briefly, and in a few minutes 
 Agatha herself ceased to dwell upon it. Suddenly, 
 illogically, fantastically, she could not have told why, 
 at that moment and in that place, for she had had no 
 such intention when she came into the room, she 
 broke out : My own darling, do you know what 
 has come over me ? I have changed entirely I see 
 it differently ; I want you to publish that grand 
 thing. And she stood there smiling at him, ex 
 pressing the transformation of her feeling so well 
 that he might have been forgiven for not doubt 
 ing it. 
 
 Nevertheless he did doubt it, especially at first. 
 But she repeated, she pressed, she insisted ; once she 
 had spoken in this sense she abounded and over 
 flowed. It went on for several days (he had begun 
 by refusing to listen to her, for even in touching the 
 question she had violated his express command), and 
 by the end of a week she persuaded him that she 
 had really come round. She was extremely ingenious 
 and plausible in tracing the process by which she had 
 done so, and she drew from him the confession (they 
 kissed a great deal after it was made) that the manu 
 script of The Modern Warning\\aA not been destroyed 
 at all, but was safely locked up in a cabinet, together 
 with the interrupted proofs. She doubtless placed 
 her tergiversation in a more natural light than her 
 biographer has been able to do : he however will 
 spare the reader the exertion of following the im 
 palpable clue which leads to the heart of the labyrinth. 
 A month was still to elapse before Macarthy would 
 show himself, and during this time she had the 
 leisure and freedom of mind to consider the sort of 
 
vii THE MODERN WARNING 285 
 
 face with which she should meet him, her husband 
 having virtually promised that he would send the 
 book back to the printers. Now, of course, she 
 renounced all pretension of censorship ; she had 
 nothing to do with it ; it might be whatever he 
 liked ; she gave him formal notice that she should 
 not even look at it after it was printed. It was his 
 affair altogether now it had ceased to be hers. A 
 hard crust had formed itself in the course of a year 
 over a sensibility that was once so tender ; this she 
 admitted was very strange, but it would be stranger 
 still if (with the value that he had originally set upon 
 his opportunity) he should fail to feel that he might 
 hammer away at it. In this case would not the mor 
 bidness be quite on his side? Several times, during the 
 period that preceded Macarthy s arrival, Lady Chase- 
 more saw on the table in the hall little packets which 
 reminded her of the roll of proofs she had opened 
 that evening in her room. Her courage never failed 
 her, and an observer of her present relations with 
 her husband might easily have been excused for 
 believing that the solution which at one time 
 appeared so illusory was now valid for earthly pur 
 poses. Sir Rufus was immensely taken up with the 
 resumption of his task ; the revision of his original 
 pages went forward the more rapidly that in fact, 
 though his wife was unaware of it, they had repeatedly 
 been in his hands since he put them away. He had 
 retouched and amended them, by the midnight lamp, 
 disinterestedly, platonically, hypothetically ; and the 
 alterations and improvements which suggest them 
 selves when valuable ideas are laid by to ripen, like a 
 row of pears on a shelf, started into life and liberty. 
 Sir Rufus was as happy as a man who after having 
 
286 THE MODERN WARNING vn 
 
 been obliged for a long time to entertain a passion 
 in secret finds it recognised and legitimated, finds 
 that the obstacles are removed and he may conduct 
 his beloved to the altar. 
 
 Nevertheless when Macarthy Grice alighted at the 
 door of his sister s house he had assented at the 
 last to her urgent request that he would make it his 
 habitation during his stay in London he stepped 
 into an atmosphere of sudden alarm and dismay. It 
 was late in the afternoon, a couple of hours before 
 dinner, and it so happened that Sir Rufus drove up 
 at the moment the American traveller issued from 
 the carriage that had been sent for him. The two 
 men exchanged greetings on the steps of the house, 
 but in the next breath Macarthy s host asked what 
 had become of Agatha, whether she had not gone to 
 the station to meet him, as she had announced at 
 noon, when Sir Rufus saw her last, that she in 
 tended. 
 
 It appeared that she had not accompanied the 
 carriage ; Macarthy had been met only by one of 
 the servants, who had been with the Chasemores to 
 America and was therefore in a position to recognise 
 him. This functionary said to Sir Rufus that her 
 ladyship had sent him down word an hour before the 
 carriage started that she had altered her intention 
 and he was to go on without her. By this time 
 the door of the house had been thrown open ; the 
 butler and the other footman had come to the 
 front. They had not, however, their usual perpen 
 dicular demeanour, and the master s eye immediately 
 saw that there was something wrong in the house. 
 This apprehension was confirmed by the butler on 
 the instant, before he had time to ask a question. 
 
vii THE MODERN WARNING 287 
 
 We are afraid her ladyship is ill, sir ; rather seriously, 
 sir ; we have but this moment discovered it, sir ; 
 her maid is with her, sir, and the other women. 3 
 
 Sir Rufus started ; he paused but a single instant, 
 looking from one of the men to the other. Their 
 faces were very white ; they had a strange, scared 
 expression. What do you mean by rather seriously? 
 what the devil has happened ? But he had sprung 
 to the stairs he was half-way up before they could 
 answer. 
 
 You had better go up, sir, really, said the butler 
 to Macarthy, who was planted there and had turned 
 as white as himself. We are afraid she has taken 
 something. 
 
 Taken something ? 
 
 By mistake, sir, you know, sir, quavered the 
 footman, looking at his companion. There were 
 tears in the footman s eyes. Macarthy felt sick. 
 
 And there s no doctor ? You don t send ? You 
 stand gaping? 
 
 We are going, sir we have already gone ! cried 
 both the men together. He ll come from the hospital, 
 round the corner ; he ll be here by the time you re 
 upstairs. It was but this very moment, sir, just before 
 you rang the bell, one of them went on. The footman 
 who had come with Macarthy from Euston dashed 
 out of the house and he himself followed the direction 
 his brother-in-law had taken. The butler was with 
 him, saying he didn t know what that it was only 
 while they were waiting that it would be a stroke 
 for Sir Rufus. He got before him, on the upper 
 landing ; he led the way to Lady Chasemore s room, 
 the door of which was open, revealing a horrible 
 hush and, beyond the interior, a flurried, gasping 
 
288 THE MODERN WARNING vn 
 
 flight of female domestics. Sir Rufus was there, he 
 was at the bed still ; he had cleared the room ; two 
 of the women had remained, they had hold of Lady 
 Chasemore, who lay there passive, with a lifeless arm 
 that caught Macarthy s eye calling her, chafing her, 
 pushing each other, saying that she would come to 
 in a minute. Sir Rufus had apparently been staring 
 at his wife in stupefaction and horror, but as Macarthy 
 came to the bed he caught her up in his arms, pressing 
 her to his bosom, and the American visitor met his 
 face glaring at him over her shoulder, convulsed and 
 transformed. She has taken something, but only 
 by mistake : he was conscious that the butler was 
 saying that again, behind him, in his ear. 
 
 By God, you have killed her ! it s your infernal 
 work! cried Sir Rufus, in a voice that matched his 
 terrible face. 
 
 / have killed her? answered Macarthy, bewildered 
 and appalled. 
 
 * Your damned fantastic opposition the fear of 
 meeting you, Sir Rufus went on. But his words 
 lost themselves, as he bent over her, in violent kisses 
 and imprecations, in demands whether nothing could 
 be done, why the doctor was not there ; in clumsy 
 passionate attempts to arouse, to revive. 
 
 1 Oh, I am sure she wanted you to come. She 
 was very well this morning, sir, the waiting- maid 
 broke out, to Macarthy, contradicting Sir Rufus in her 
 fright and protesting again that it was nothing, that it 
 was a faint, for the very pleasure, that her ladyship 
 would come round. The other woman had picked 
 up a little phial. She thrust it at Macarthy with the 
 boldness of their common distress, and as he took it 
 from her mechanically he perceived that it was empty 
 
vii THE MODERN WARNING 289 
 
 and had a strange odour. He sniffed it then with 
 a shout of horror flung it away. He rushed at his 
 sister and for a moment almost had a struggle with 
 her husband for the possession of her body, in which, 
 as soon as he touched it, he felt the absence of life. 
 Then she was on the bed again, beautiful, irresponsive, 
 inanimate, and they were both beside her for an instant, 
 after which Sir Rufus broke away and staggered out 
 of the room. It seemed an eternity to Macarthy 
 while he waited, though it had already come over 
 him that he was waiting only for something still 
 worse. The women talked, tried to tell him things ; 
 one of them said something about the pity of his 
 coming all the way from America on purpose. Agatha 
 was beautiful ; there was no disfigurement. The butler 
 had gone out with Sir Rufus and he came back with 
 him, reappearing first, and with the doctor. Macarthy 
 did not even heed what the doctor said. By this 
 time he knew it all for himself. He flung himself 
 into a chair, overwhelmed, covering his face with the 
 cape of his ulster. The odour of the little phial was 
 in his nostrils. He let the doctor lead him out with 
 out resistance, scarcely with consciousness, after some 
 minutes. 
 
 Lady Chasemore had taken something the doctor 
 gave it a name but it was not by mistake. In the 
 hall, downstairs, he stood looking at Macarthy, kindly, 
 soothingly, tentatively, with his hand on his shoulder. 
 Had she a had she some domestic grief? Mac 
 arthy heard him ask. He could not stay in the house 
 not with Chasemore. The servant who had 
 brought him from the station took him to an hotel, 
 with his luggage, in the carriage, which was still 
 at the door a horrible hotel where, in a dismal, 
 
 U 
 
290 THE MODERN WARNING vn 
 
 dingy back room, with chimney-pots outside, he 
 spent a night of unsurpassable anguish. He could 
 not understand, and he howled to himself, l\Vhy, 
 why, just now ? Sir Rufus, in the other house, had 
 exactly such another vigil : it was plain enough that 
 this was the case when, the next morning, he came 
 to the hotel. He held out his hand to Macarthy 
 he appeared to take back his monstrous words of the 
 evening before. He made him return to Grosvenor 
 Crescent ; he made him spend three days there, 
 three days during which the two men scarcely ex 
 changed a word. But the rest of the holiday that 
 Macarthy had undertaken for the benefit of his 
 health was passed upon the Continent, with little 
 present evidence that he should find what he had 
 sought. The Modern Warning has not yet been 
 published, but it may still appear. This doubtless 
 will depend upon whether, this time, the sheets have 
 really been destroyed buried in Lady Chasemore s 
 grave or only put back into the cabinet 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. 
 
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