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diff --git a/179-h/179-h.htm b/179-h/179-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b6ea87 --- /dev/null +++ b/179-h/179-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10539 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Europeans, by Henry James</title> + +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Europeans, by Henry James</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Europeans</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry James</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November, 1994 [eBook #179]<br /> +[Most recently updated: September 18, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: An Anonymous Volunteer</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EUROPEANS ***</div> + +<h1>The Europeans</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Henry James</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0001">CHAPTER I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0002">CHAPTER II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0003">CHAPTER III</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0004">CHAPTER IV</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0005">CHAPTER V</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0006">CHAPTER VI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0007">CHAPTER VII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0008">CHAPTER VIII</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0009">CHAPTER IX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0010">CHAPTER X</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0011">CHAPTER XI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2HCH0012">CHAPTER XII</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0001"></a> +CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p> +A narrow grave-yard in the heart of a bustling, indifferent city, seen from the +windows of a gloomy-looking inn, is at no time an object of enlivening +suggestion; and the spectacle is not at its best when the mouldy tombstones and +funereal umbrage have received the ineffectual refreshment of a dull, moist +snow-fall. If, while the air is thickened by this frosty drizzle, the calendar +should happen to indicate that the blessed vernal season is already six weeks +old, it will be admitted that no depressing influence is absent from the scene. +This fact was keenly felt on a certain 12th of May, upwards of thirty years +since, by a lady who stood looking out of one of the windows of the best hotel +in the ancient city of Boston. She had stood there for half an hour—stood +there, that is, at intervals; for from time to time she turned back into the +room and measured its length with a restless step. In the chimney-place was a +red-hot fire which emitted a small blue flame; and in front of the fire, at a +table, sat a young man who was busily plying a pencil. He had a number of +sheets of paper cut into small equal squares, and he was apparently covering +them with pictorial designs—strange-looking figures. He worked rapidly +and attentively, sometimes threw back his head and held out his drawing at +arm’s-length, and kept up a soft, gay-sounding humming and whistling. The +lady brushed past him in her walk; her much-trimmed skirts were voluminous. She +never dropped her eyes upon his work; she only turned them, occasionally, as +she passed, to a mirror suspended above the toilet-table on the other side of +the room. Here she paused a moment, gave a pinch to her waist with her two +hands, or raised these members—they were very plump and pretty—to +the multifold braids of her hair, with a movement half caressing, half +corrective. An attentive observer might have fancied that during these periods +of desultory self-inspection her face forgot its melancholy; but as soon as she +neared the window again it began to proclaim that she was a very ill-pleased +woman. And indeed, in what met her eyes there was little to be pleased with. +The window-panes were battered by the sleet; the head-stones in the grave-yard +beneath seemed to be holding themselves askance to keep it out of their faces. +A tall iron railing protected them from the street, and on the other side of +the railing an assemblage of Bostonians were trampling about in the liquid +snow. Many of them were looking up and down; they appeared to be waiting for +something. From time to time a strange vehicle drew near to the place where +they stood,—such a vehicle as the lady at the window, in spite of a +considerable acquaintance with human inventions, had never seen before: a huge, +low omnibus, painted in brilliant colors, and decorated apparently with +jangling bells, attached to a species of groove in the pavement, through which +it was dragged, with a great deal of rumbling, bouncing and scratching, by a +couple of remarkably small horses. When it reached a certain point the people +in front of the grave-yard, of whom much the greater number were women, +carrying satchels and parcels, projected themselves upon it in a compact +body—a movement suggesting the scramble for places in a life-boat at +sea—and were engulfed in its large interior. Then the life-boat—or +the life-car, as the lady at the window of the hotel vaguely designated +it—went bumping and jingling away upon its invisible wheels, with the +helmsman (the man at the wheel) guiding its course incongruously from the prow. +This phenomenon was repeated every three minutes, and the supply of +eagerly-moving women in cloaks, bearing reticules and bundles, renewed itself +in the most liberal manner. On the other side of the grave-yard was a row of +small red brick houses, showing a series of homely, domestic-looking backs; at +the end opposite the hotel a tall wooden church-spire, painted white, rose high +into the vagueness of the snow-flakes. The lady at the window looked at it for +some time; for reasons of her own she thought it the ugliest thing she had ever +seen. She hated it, she despised it; it threw her into a state of irritation +that was quite out of proportion to any sensible motive. She had never known +herself to care so much about church-spires. +</p> + +<p> +She was not pretty; but even when it expressed perplexed irritation her face +was most interesting and agreeable. Neither was she in her first youth; yet, +though slender, with a great deal of extremely well-fashioned roundness of +contour—a suggestion both of maturity and flexibility—she carried +her three and thirty years as a light-wristed Hebe might have carried a +brimming wine-cup. Her complexion was fatigued, as the French say; her mouth +was large, her lips too full, her teeth uneven, her chin rather commonly +modeled; she had a thick nose, and when she smiled—she was constantly +smiling—the lines beside it rose too high, toward her eyes. But these +eyes were charming: gray in color, brilliant, quickly glancing, gently resting, +full of intelligence. Her forehead was very low—it was her only handsome +feature; and she had a great abundance of crisp dark hair, finely frizzled, +which was always braided in a manner that suggested some Southern or Eastern, +some remotely foreign, woman. She had a large collection of ear-rings, and wore +them in alternation; and they seemed to give a point to her Oriental or exotic +aspect. A compliment had once been paid her, which, being repeated to her, gave +her greater pleasure than anything she had ever heard. “A pretty +woman?” someone had said. “Why, her features are very bad.” +“I don’t know about her features,” a very discerning observer +had answered; “but she carries her head like a pretty woman.” You +may imagine whether, after this, she carried her head less becomingly. +</p> + +<p> +She turned away from the window at last, pressing her hands to her eyes. +“It’s too horrible!” she exclaimed. “I shall go +back—I shall go back!” And she flung herself into a chair before +the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Wait a little, dear child,” said the young man softly, sketching +away at his little scraps of paper. +</p> + +<p> +The lady put out her foot; it was very small, and there was an immense rosette +on her slipper. She fixed her eyes for a while on this ornament, and then she +looked at the glowing bed of anthracite coal in the grate. “Did you ever +see anything so hideous as that fire?” she demanded. “Did you ever +see anything so—so <i>affreux</i> as—as everything?” She +spoke English with perfect purity; but she brought out this French epithet in a +manner that indicated that she was accustomed to using French epithets. +</p> + +<p> +“I think the fire is very pretty,” said the young man, glancing at +it a moment. “Those little blue tongues, dancing on top of the crimson +embers, are extremely picturesque. They are like a fire in an alchemist’s +laboratory.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are too good-natured, my dear,” his companion declared. +</p> + +<p> +The young man held out one of his drawings, with his head on one side. His +tongue was gently moving along his under-lip. “Good-natured—yes. +Too good-natured—no.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are irritating,” said the lady, looking at her slipper. +</p> + +<p> +He began to retouch his sketch. “I think you mean simply that you are +irritated.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, for that, yes!” said his companion, with a little bitter +laugh. “It’s the darkest day of my life—and you know what +that means.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wait till tomorrow,” rejoined the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, we have made a great mistake. If there is any doubt about it today, +there certainly will be none tomorrow. <i>Ce sera clair, au moins!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +The young man was silent a few moments, driving his pencil. Then at last, +“There are no such things as mistakes,” he affirmed. +</p> + +<p> +“Very true—for those who are not clever enough to perceive them. +Not to recognize one’s mistakes—that would be happiness in +life,” the lady went on, still looking at her pretty foot. +</p> + +<p> +“My dearest sister,” said the young man, always intent upon his +drawing, “it’s the first time you have told me I am not +clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, by your own theory I can’t call it a mistake,” +answered his sister, pertinently enough. +</p> + +<p> +The young man gave a clear, fresh laugh. “You, at least, are clever +enough, dearest sister,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I was not so when I proposed this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it you who proposed it?” asked her brother. +</p> + +<p> +She turned her head and gave him a little stare. “Do you desire the +credit of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you like, I will take the blame,” he said, looking up with a +smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” she rejoined in a moment, “you make no difference in +these things. You have no sense of property.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man gave his joyous laugh again. “If that means I have no +property, you are right!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t joke about your poverty,” said his sister. “That +is quite as vulgar as to boast about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“My poverty! I have just finished a drawing that will bring me fifty +francs!” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Voyons,”</i> said the lady, putting out her hand. +</p> + +<p> +He added a touch or two, and then gave her his sketch. She looked at it, but +she went on with her idea of a moment before. “If a woman were to ask you +to marry her you would say, ‘Certainly, my dear, with pleasure!’ +And you would marry her and be ridiculously happy. Then at the end of three +months you would say to her, ‘You know that blissful day when I begged +you to be mine!’” +</p> + +<p> +The young man had risen from the table, stretching his arms a little; he walked +to the window. “That is a description of a charming nature,” he +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, you have a charming nature; I regard that as our capital. If I +had not been convinced of that I should never have taken the risk of bringing +you to this dreadful country.” +</p> + +<p> +“This comical country, this delightful country!” exclaimed the +young man, and he broke into the most animated laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it those women scrambling into the omnibus?” asked his +companion. “What do you suppose is the attraction?” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose there is a very good-looking man inside,” said the young +man. +</p> + +<p> +“In each of them? They come along in hundreds, and the men in this +country don’t seem at all handsome. As for the women—I have never +seen so many at once since I left the convent.” +</p> + +<p> +“The women are very pretty,” her brother declared, “and the +whole affair is very amusing. I must make a sketch of it.” And he came +back to the table quickly, and picked up his utensils—a small +sketching-board, a sheet of paper, and three or four crayons. He took his place +at the window with these things, and stood there glancing out, plying his +pencil with an air of easy skill. While he worked he wore a brilliant smile. +Brilliant is indeed the word at this moment for his strongly-lighted face. He +was eight and twenty years old; he had a short, slight, well-made figure. +Though he bore a noticeable resemblance to his sister, he was a better favored +person: fair-haired, clear-faced, witty-looking, with a delicate finish of +feature and an expression at once urbane and not at all serious, a warm blue +eye, an eyebrow finely drawn and excessively arched—an eyebrow which, if +ladies wrote sonnets to those of their lovers, might have been made the subject +of such a piece of verse—and a light moustache that flourished upwards as +if blown that way by the breath of a constant smile. There was something in his +physiognomy at once benevolent and picturesque. But, as I have hinted, it was +not at all serious. The young man’s face was, in this respect, singular; +it was not at all serious, and yet it inspired the liveliest confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“Be sure you put in plenty of snow,” said his sister. +“<i>Bonté divine</i>, what a climate!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall leave the sketch all white, and I shall put in the little +figures in black,” the young man answered, laughing. “And I shall +call it—what is that line in Keats?—Mid-May’s Eldest +Child!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t remember,” said the lady, “that mamma ever +told me it was like this.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mamma never told you anything disagreeable. And it’s not like +this—every day. You will see that tomorrow we shall have a splendid +day.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Qu’en savez-vous?</i> Tomorrow I shall go away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where shall you go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anywhere away from here. Back to Silberstadt. I shall write to the +Reigning Prince.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man turned a little and looked at her, with his crayon poised. +“My dear Eugenia,” he murmured, “were you so happy at +sea?” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia got up; she still held in her hand the drawing her brother had given +her. It was a bold, expressive sketch of a group of miserable people on the +deck of a steamer, clinging together and clutching at each other, while the +vessel lurched downward, at a terrific angle, into the hollow of a wave. It was +extremely clever, and full of a sort of tragi-comical power. Eugenia dropped +her eyes upon it and made a sad grimace. “How can you draw such odious +scenes?” she asked. “I should like to throw it into the +fire!” And she tossed the paper away. Her brother watched, quietly, to +see where it went. It fluttered down to the floor, where he let it lie. She +came toward the window, pinching in her waist. “Why don’t you +reproach me—abuse me?” she asked. “I think I should feel +better then. Why don’t you tell me that you hate me for bringing you +here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you would not believe it. I adore you, dear sister! I am +delighted to be here, and I am charmed with the prospect.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what had taken possession of me. I had lost my +head,” Eugenia went on. +</p> + +<p> +The young man, on his side, went on plying his pencil. “It is evidently a +most curious and interesting country. Here we are, and I mean to enjoy +it.” +</p> + +<p> +His companion turned away with an impatient step, but presently came back. +“High spirits are doubtless an excellent thing,” she said; +“but you give one too much of them, and I can’t see that they have +done you any good.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man stared, with lifted eyebrows, smiling; he tapped his handsome +nose with his pencil. “They have made me happy!” +</p> + +<p> +“That was the least they could do; they have made you nothing else. You +have gone through life thanking fortune for such very small favors that she has +never put herself to any trouble for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“She must have put herself to a little, I think, to present me with so +admirable a sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be serious, Felix. You forget that I am your elder.” +</p> + +<p> +“With a sister, then, so elderly!” rejoined Felix, laughing. +“I hoped we had left seriousness in Europe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I fancy you will find it here. Remember that you are nearly thirty years +old, and that you are nothing but an obscure Bohemian—a penniless +correspondent of an illustrated newspaper.” +</p> + +<p> +“Obscure as much as you please, but not so much of a Bohemian as you +think. And not at all penniless! I have a hundred pounds in my pocket. I have +an engagement to make fifty sketches, and I mean to paint the portraits of all +our cousins, and of all <i>their</i> cousins, at a hundred dollars a +head.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not ambitious,” said Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +“You are, dear Baroness,” the young man replied. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness was silent a moment, looking out at the sleet-darkened grave-yard +and the bumping horse-cars. “Yes, I am ambitious,” she said at +last. “And my ambition has brought me to this dreadful place!” She +glanced about her—the room had a certain vulgar nudity; the bed and the +window were curtainless—and she gave a little passionate sigh. +“Poor old ambition!” she exclaimed. Then she flung herself down +upon a sofa which stood near against the wall, and covered her face with her +hands. +</p> + +<p> +Her brother went on with his drawing, rapidly and skillfully; after some +moments he sat down beside her and showed her his sketch. “Now, +don’t you think that’s pretty good for an obscure Bohemian?” +he asked. “I have knocked off another fifty francs.” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia glanced at the little picture as he laid it on her lap. “Yes, it +is very clever,” she said. And in a moment she added, “Do you +suppose our cousins do that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Get into those things, and look like that.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix meditated awhile. “I really can’t say. It will be interesting +to discover.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, the rich people can’t!” said the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you very sure they are rich?” asked Felix, lightly. +</p> + +<p> +His sister slowly turned in her place, looking at him. “Heavenly +powers!” she murmured. “You have a way of bringing out +things!” +</p> + +<p> +“It will certainly be much pleasanter if they are rich,” Felix +declared. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose if I had not known they were rich I would ever have +come?” +</p> + +<p> +The young man met his sister’s somewhat peremptory eye with his bright, +contented glance. “Yes, it certainly will be pleasanter,” he +repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“That is all I expect of them,” said the Baroness. “I +don’t count upon their being clever or friendly—at first—or +elegant or interesting. But I assure you I insist upon their being rich.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix leaned his head upon the back of the sofa and looked awhile at the oblong +patch of sky to which the window served as frame. The snow was ceasing; it +seemed to him that the sky had begun to brighten. “I count upon their +being rich,” he said at last, “and powerful, and clever, and +friendly, and elegant, and interesting, and generally delightful! <i>Tu vas +voir</i>.” And he bent forward and kissed his sister. “Look +there!” he went on. “As a portent, even while I speak, the sky is +turning the color of gold; the day is going to be splendid.” +</p> + +<p> +And indeed, within five minutes the weather had changed. The sun broke out +through the snow-clouds and jumped into the Baroness’s room. +“<i>Bonté divine</i>,” exclaimed this lady, “what a +climate!” +</p> + +<p> +“We will go out and see the world,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +And after a while they went out. The air had grown warm as well as brilliant; +the sunshine had dried the pavements. They walked about the streets at hazard, +looking at the people and the houses, the shops and the vehicles, the blazing +blue sky and the muddy crossings, the hurrying men and the slow-strolling +maidens, the fresh red bricks and the bright green trees, the extraordinary +mixture of smartness and shabbiness. From one hour to another the day had grown +vernal; even in the bustling streets there was an odor of earth and blossom. +Felix was immensely entertained. He had called it a comical country, and he +went about laughing at everything he saw. You would have said that American +civilization expressed itself to his sense in a tissue of capital jokes. The +jokes were certainly excellent, and the young man’s merriment was joyous +and genial. He possessed what is called the pictorial sense; and this first +glimpse of democratic manners stirred the same sort of attention that he would +have given to the movements of a lively young person with a bright complexion. +Such attention would have been demonstrative and complimentary; and in the +present case Felix might have passed for an undispirited young exile revisiting +the haunts of his childhood. He kept looking at the violent blue of the sky, at +the scintillating air, at the scattered and multiplied patches of color. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Comme c’est bariolé</i>, eh?” he said to his sister in +that foreign tongue which they both appeared to feel a mysterious prompting +occasionally to use. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it is <i>bariolé</i> indeed,” the Baroness answered. “I +don’t like the coloring; it hurts my eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“It shows how extremes meet,” the young man rejoined. +“Instead of coming to the West we seem to have gone to the East. The way +the sky touches the house-tops is just like Cairo; and the red and blue +sign-boards patched over the face of everything remind one of Mahometan +decorations.” +</p> + +<p> +“The young women are not Mahometan,” said his companion. +“They can’t be said to hide their faces. I never saw anything so +bold.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Heaven they don’t hide their faces!” cried Felix. +“Their faces are uncommonly pretty.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, their faces are often very pretty,” said the Baroness, who +was a very clever woman. She was too clever a woman not to be capable of a +great deal of just and fine observation. She clung more closely than usual to +her brother’s arm; she was not exhilarated, as he was; she said very +little, but she noted a great many things and made her reflections. She was a +little excited; she felt that she had indeed come to a strange country, to make +her fortune. Superficially, she was conscious of a good deal of irritation and +displeasure; the Baroness was a very delicate and fastidious person. Of old, +more than once, she had gone, for entertainment’s sake and in brilliant +company, to a fair in a provincial town. It seemed to her now that she was at +an enormous fair—that the entertainment and the <i>désagréments</i> were +very much the same. She found herself alternately smiling and shrinking; the +show was very curious, but it was probable, from moment to moment, that one +would be jostled. The Baroness had never seen so many people walking about +before; she had never been so mixed up with people she did not know. But little +by little she felt that this fair was a more serious undertaking. She went with +her brother into a large public garden, which seemed very pretty, but where she +was surprised at seeing no carriages. The afternoon was drawing to a close; the +coarse, vivid grass and the slender tree-boles were gilded by the level +sunbeams—gilded as with gold that was fresh from the mine. It was the +hour at which ladies should come out for an airing and roll past a hedge of +pedestrians, holding their parasols askance. Here, however, Eugenia observed no +indications of this custom, the absence of which was more anomalous as there +was a charming avenue of remarkably graceful, arching elms in the most +convenient contiguity to a large, cheerful street, in which, evidently, among +the more prosperous members of the <i>bourgeoisie</i>, a great deal of +pedestrianism went forward. Our friends passed out into this well lighted +promenade, and Felix noticed a great many more pretty girls and called his +sister’s attention to them. This latter measure, however, was +superfluous; for the Baroness had inspected, narrowly, these charming young +ladies. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel an intimate conviction that our cousins are like that,” +said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness hoped so, but this is not what she said. “They are very +pretty,” she said, “but they are mere little girls. Where are the +women—the women of thirty?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of thirty-three, do you mean?” her brother was going to ask; for +he understood often both what she said and what she did not say. But he only +exclaimed upon the beauty of the sunset, while the Baroness, who had come to +seek her fortune, reflected that it would certainly be well for her if the +persons against whom she might need to measure herself should all be mere +little girls. The sunset was superb; they stopped to look at it; Felix declared +that he had never seen such a gorgeous mixture of colors. The Baroness also +thought it splendid; and she was perhaps the more easily pleased from the fact +that while she stood there she was conscious of much admiring observation on +the part of various nice-looking people who passed that way, and to whom a +distinguished, strikingly-dressed woman with a foreign air, exclaiming upon the +beauties of nature on a Boston street corner in the French tongue, could not be +an object of indifference. Eugenia’s spirits rose. She surrendered +herself to a certain tranquil gaiety. If she had come to seek her fortune, it +seemed to her that her fortune would be easy to find. There was a promise of it +in the gorgeous purity of the western sky; there was an intimation in the mild, +unimpertinent gaze of the passers of a certain natural facility in things. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not go back to Silberstadt, eh?” asked Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“Not tomorrow,” said the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor write to the Reigning Prince?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall write to him that they evidently know nothing about him over +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“He will not believe you,” said the young man. “I advise you +to let him alone.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix himself continued to be in high good humor. Brought up among ancient +customs and in picturesque cities, he yet found plenty of local color in the +little Puritan metropolis. That evening, after dinner, he told his sister that +he should go forth early on the morrow to look up their cousins. +</p> + +<p> +“You are very impatient,” said Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +“What can be more natural,” he asked, “after seeing all those +pretty girls today? If one’s cousins are of that pattern, the sooner one +knows them the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps they are not,” said Eugenia. “We ought to have +brought some letters—to some other people.” +</p> + +<p> +“The other people would not be our kinsfolk.” +</p> + +<p> +“Possibly they would be none the worse for that,” the Baroness +replied. +</p> + +<p> +Her brother looked at her with his eyebrows lifted. “That was not what +you said when you first proposed to me that we should come out here and +fraternize with our relatives. You said that it was the prompting of natural +affection; and when I suggested some reasons against it you declared that the +<i>voix du sang</i> should go before everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“You remember all that?” asked the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“Vividly! I was greatly moved by it.” +</p> + +<p> +She was walking up and down the room, as she had done in the morning; she +stopped in her walk and looked at her brother. She apparently was going to say +something, but she checked herself and resumed her walk. Then, in a few +moments, she said something different, which had the effect of an explanation +of the suppression of her earlier thought. “You will never be anything +but a child, dear brother.” +</p> + +<p> +“One would suppose that you, madam,” answered Felix, laughing, +“were a thousand years old.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am—sometimes,” said the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“I will go, then, and announce to our cousins the arrival of a personage +so extraordinary. They will immediately come and pay you their respects.” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia paced the length of the room again, and then she stopped before her +brother, laying her hand upon his arm. “They are not to come and see +me,” she said. “You are not to allow that. That is not the way I +shall meet them first.” And in answer to his interrogative glance she +went on. “You will go and examine, and report. You will come back and +tell me who they are and what they are; their number, gender, their respective +ages—all about them. Be sure you observe everything; be ready to describe +to me the locality, the accessories—how shall I say it?—the <i>mise +en scène</i>. Then, at my own time, at my own hour, under circumstances of my +own choosing, I will go to them. I will present myself—I will appear +before them!” said the Baroness, this time phrasing her idea with a +certain frankness. +</p> + +<p> +“And what message am I to take to them?” asked Felix, who had a +lively faith in the justness of his sister’s arrangements. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him a moment—at his expression of agreeable veracity; and, +with that justness that he admired, she replied, “Say what you please. +Tell my story in the way that seems to you most—natural.” And she +bent her forehead for him to kiss. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0002"></a> +CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p> +The next day was splendid, as Felix had prophesied; if the winter had suddenly +leaped into spring, the spring had for the moment as quickly leaped into +summer. This was an observation made by a young girl who came out of a large +square house in the country, and strolled about in the spacious garden which +separated it from a muddy road. The flowering shrubs and the neatly-disposed +plants were basking in the abundant light and warmth; the transparent shade of +the great elms—they were magnificent trees—seemed to thicken by the +hour; and the intensely habitual stillness offered a submissive medium to the +sound of a distant church-bell. The young girl listened to the church-bell; but +she was not dressed for church. She was bare-headed; she wore a white muslin +waist, with an embroidered border, and the skirt of her dress was of colored +muslin. She was a young lady of some two or three and twenty years of age, and +though a young person of her sex walking bare-headed in a garden, of a Sunday +morning in spring-time, can, in the nature of things, never be a displeasing +object, you would not have pronounced this innocent Sabbath-breaker especially +pretty. She was tall and pale, thin and a little awkward; her hair was fair and +perfectly straight; her eyes were dark, and they had the singularity of seeming +at once dull and restless—differing herein, as you see, fatally from the +ideal “fine eyes,” which we always imagine to be both brilliant and +tranquil. The doors and windows of the large square house were all wide open, +to admit the purifying sunshine, which lay in generous patches upon the floor +of a wide, high, covered piazza adjusted to two sides of the mansion—a +piazza on which several straw-bottomed rocking-chairs and half a dozen of those +small cylindrical stools in green and blue porcelain, which suggest an +affiliation between the residents and the Eastern trade, were symmetrically +disposed. It was an ancient house—ancient in the sense of being eighty +years old; it was built of wood, painted a clean, clear, faded gray, and +adorned along the front, at intervals, with flat wooden pilasters, painted +white. These pilasters appeared to support a kind of classic pediment, which +was decorated in the middle by a large triple window in a boldly carved frame, +and in each of its smaller angles by a glazed circular aperture. A large white +door, furnished with a highly-polished brass knocker, presented itself to the +rural-looking road, with which it was connected by a spacious pathway, paved +with worn and cracked, but very clean, bricks. Behind it there were meadows and +orchards, a barn and a pond; and facing it, a short distance along the road, on +the opposite side, stood a smaller house, painted white, with external shutters +painted green, a little garden on one hand and an orchard on the other. All +this was shining in the morning air, through which the simple details of the +picture addressed themselves to the eye as distinctly as the items of a +“sum” in addition. +</p> + +<p> +A second young lady presently came out of the house, across the piazza, +descended into the garden and approached the young girl of whom I have spoken. +This second young lady was also thin and pale; but she was older than the +other; she was shorter; she had dark, smooth hair. Her eyes, unlike the +other’s, were quick and bright; but they were not at all restless. She +wore a straw bonnet with white ribbons, and a long, red, India scarf, which, on +the front of her dress, reached to her feet. In her hand she carried a little +key. +</p> + +<p> +“Gertrude,” she said, “are you very sure you had better not +go to church?” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at her a moment, plucked a small sprig from a lilac-bush, +smelled it and threw it away. “I am not very sure of anything!” she +answered. +</p> + +<p> +The other young lady looked straight past her, at the distant pond, which lay +shining between the long banks of fir trees. Then she said in a very soft +voice, “This is the key of the dining-room closet. I think you had better +have it, if anyone should want anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is there to want anything?” Gertrude demanded. “I shall +be all alone in the house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Someone may come,” said her companion. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean Mr. Brand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Gertrude. He may like a piece of cake.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t like men that are always eating cake!” Gertrude +declared, giving a pull at the lilac-bush. +</p> + +<p> +Her companion glanced at her, and then looked down on the ground. “I +think father expected you would come to church,” she said. “What +shall I say to him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Say I have a bad headache.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would that be true?” asked the elder lady, looking straight at the +pond again. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Charlotte,” said the younger one simply. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte transferred her quiet eyes to her companion’s face. “I am +afraid you are feeling restless.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am feeling as I always feel,” Gertrude replied, in the same +tone. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte turned away; but she stood there a moment. Presently she looked down +at the front of her dress. “Doesn’t it seem to you, somehow, as if +my scarf were too long?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude walked half round her, looking at the scarf. “I don’t +think you wear it right,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“How should I wear it, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know; differently from that. You should draw it +differently over your shoulders, round your elbows; you should look differently +behind.” +</p> + +<p> +“How should I look?” Charlotte inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think I can tell you,” said Gertrude, plucking out +the scarf a little behind. “I could do it myself, but I don’t think +I can explain it.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte, by a movement of her elbows, corrected the laxity that had come from +her companion’s touch. “Well, some day you must do it for me. It +doesn’t matter now. Indeed, I don’t think it matters,” she +added, “how one looks behind.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say it mattered more,” said Gertrude. “Then you +don’t know who may be observing you. You are not on your guard. You +can’t try to look pretty.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte received this declaration with extreme gravity. “I don’t +think one should ever try to look pretty,” she rejoined, earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +Her companion was silent. Then she said, “Well, perhaps it’s not of +much use.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte looked at her a little, and then kissed her. “I hope you will +be better when we come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sister, I am very well!” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte went down the large brick walk to the garden gate; her companion +strolled slowly toward the house. At the gate Charlotte met a young man, who +was coming in—a tall, fair young man, wearing a high hat and a pair of +thread gloves. He was handsome, but rather too stout. He had a pleasant smile. +“Oh, Mr. Brand!” exclaimed the young lady. +</p> + +<p> +“I came to see whether your sister was not going to church,” said +the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“She says she is not going; but I am very glad you have come. I think if +you were to talk to her a little”.... And Charlotte lowered her voice. +“It seems as if she were restless.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand smiled down on the young lady from his great height. “I shall +be very glad to talk to her. For that I should be willing to absent myself from +almost any occasion of worship, however attractive.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I suppose you know,” said Charlotte, softly, as if positive +acceptance of this proposition might be dangerous. “But I am afraid I +shall be late.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you will have a pleasant sermon,” said the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Mr. Gilman is always pleasant,” Charlotte answered. And she +went on her way. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand went into the garden, where Gertrude, hearing the gate close behind +him, turned and looked at him. For a moment she watched him coming; then she +turned away. But almost immediately she corrected this movement, and stood +still, facing him. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead as he approached. +Then he put on his hat again and held out his hand. His hat being removed, you +would have perceived that his forehead was very large and smooth, and his hair +abundant but rather colorless. His nose was too large, and his mouth and eyes +were too small; but for all this he was, as I have said, a young man of +striking appearance. The expression of his little clean-colored blue eyes was +irresistibly gentle and serious; he looked, as the phrase is, as good as gold. +The young girl, standing in the garden path, glanced, as he came up, at his +thread gloves. +</p> + +<p> +“I hoped you were going to church,” he said. “I wanted to +walk with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very much obliged to you,” Gertrude answered. “I am not +going to church.” +</p> + +<p> +She had shaken hands with him; he held her hand a moment. “Have you any +special reason for not going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mr. Brand,” said the young girl. +</p> + +<p> +“May I ask what it is?” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him smiling; and in her smile, as I have intimated, there was a +certain dullness. But mingled with this dullness was something sweet and +suggestive. “Because the sky is so blue!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at the sky, which was magnificent, and then said, smiling too, +“I have heard of young ladies staying at home for bad weather, but never +for good. Your sister, whom I met at the gate, tells me you are +depressed,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Depressed? I am never depressed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, surely, sometimes,” replied Mr. Brand, as if he thought this a +regrettable account of one’s self. +</p> + +<p> +“I am never depressed,” Gertrude repeated. “But I am +sometimes wicked. When I am wicked I am in high spirits. I was wicked just now +to my sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“What did you do to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I said things that puzzled her—on purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you do that, Miss Gertrude?” asked the young man. +</p> + +<p> +She began to smile again. “Because the sky is so blue!” +</p> + +<p> +“You say things that puzzle <i>me</i>,” Mr. Brand declared. +</p> + +<p> +“I always know when I do it,” proceeded Gertrude. “But people +puzzle me more, I think. And they don’t seem to know!” +</p> + +<p> +“This is very interesting,” Mr. Brand observed, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“You told me to tell you about my—my struggles,” the young +girl went on. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us talk about them. I have so many things to say.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude turned away a moment; and then, turning back, “You had better go +to church,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“You know,” the young man urged, “that I have always one +thing to say.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at him a moment. “Please don’t say it now!” +</p> + +<p> +“We are all alone,” he continued, taking off his hat; “all +alone in this beautiful Sunday stillness.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked around her, at the breaking buds, the shining distance, the +blue sky to which she had referred as a pretext for her irregularities. +“That’s the reason,” she said, “why I don’t want +you to speak. Do me a favor; go to church.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I speak when I come back?” asked Mr. Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“If you are still disposed,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know whether you are wicked,” he said, “but +you are certainly puzzling.” +</p> + +<p> +She had turned away; she raised her hands to her ears. He looked at her a +moment, and then he slowly walked to church. +</p> + +<p> +She wandered for a while about the garden, vaguely and without purpose. The +church-bell had stopped ringing; the stillness was complete. This young lady +relished highly, on occasions, the sense of being alone—the absence of +the whole family and the emptiness of the house. Today, apparently, the +servants had also gone to church; there was never a figure at the open windows; +behind the house there was no stout negress in a red turban, lowering the +bucket into the great shingle-hooded well. And the front door of the big, +unguarded home stood open, with the trustfulness of the golden age; or what is +more to the purpose, with that of New England’s silvery prime. Gertrude +slowly passed through it, and went from one of the empty rooms to the +other—large, clear-colored rooms, with white wainscots, ornamented with +thin-legged mahogany furniture, and, on the walls, with old-fashioned +engravings, chiefly of scriptural subjects, hung very high. This agreeable +sense of solitude, of having the house to herself, of which I have spoken, +always excited Gertrude’s imagination; she could not have told you why, +and neither can her humble historian. It always seemed to her that she must do +something particular—that she must honor the occasion; and while she +roamed about, wondering what she could do, the occasion usually came to an end. +Today she wondered more than ever. At last she took down a book; there was no +library in the house, but there were books in all the rooms. None of them were +forbidden books, and Gertrude had not stopped at home for the sake of a chance +to climb to the inaccessible shelves. She possessed herself of a very obvious +volume—one of the series of the <i>Arabian Nights</i>—and she +brought it out into the portico and sat down with it in her lap. There, for a +quarter of an hour, she read the history of the loves of the Prince +Camaralzaman and the Princess Badoura. At last, looking up, she beheld, as it +seemed to her, the Prince Camaralzaman standing before her. A beautiful young +man was making her a very low bow—a magnificent bow, such as she had +never seen before. He appeared to have dropped from the clouds; he was +wonderfully handsome; he smiled—smiled as if he were smiling on purpose. +Extreme surprise, for a moment, kept Gertrude sitting still; then she rose, +without even keeping her finger in her book. The young man, with his hat in his +hand, still looked at her, smiling and smiling. It was very strange. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you kindly tell me,” said the mysterious visitor, at last, +“whether I have the honor of speaking to Miss Wentworth?” +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Gertrude Wentworth,” murmured the young woman. +</p> + +<p> +“Then—then—I have the honor—the pleasure—of being +your cousin.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man had so much the character of an apparition that this announcement +seemed to complete his unreality. “What cousin? Who are you?” said +Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +He stepped back a few paces and looked up at the house; then glanced round him +at the garden and the distant view. After this he burst out laughing. “I +see it must seem to you very strange,” he said. There was, after all, +something substantial in his laughter. Gertrude looked at him from head to +foot. Yes, he was remarkably handsome; but his smile was almost a grimace. +“It is very still,” he went on, coming nearer again. And as she +only looked at him, for reply, he added, “Are you all alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Everyone has gone to church,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“I was afraid of that!” the young man exclaimed. “But I hope +you are not afraid of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to tell me who you are,” Gertrude answered. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid of you!” said the young man. “I had a different +plan. I expected the servant would take in my card, and that you would put your +heads together, before admitting me, and make out my identity.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude had been wondering with a quick intensity which brought its result; +and the result seemed an answer—a wondrous, delightful answer—to +her vague wish that something would befall her. “I know—I +know,” she said. “You come from Europe.” +</p> + +<p> +“We came two days ago. You have heard of us, then—you believe in +us?” +</p> + +<p> +“We have known, vaguely,” said Gertrude, “that we had +relations in France.” +</p> + +<p> +“And have you ever wanted to see us?” asked the young man. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude was silent a moment. “I have wanted to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad, then, it is you I have found. We wanted to see you, so we +came.” +</p> + +<p> +“On purpose?” asked Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +The young man looked round him, smiling still. “Well, yes; on purpose. +Does that sound as if we should bore you?” he added. “I don’t +think we shall—I really don’t think we shall. We are rather fond of +wandering, too; and we were glad of a pretext.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you have just arrived?” +</p> + +<p> +“In Boston, two days ago. At the inn I asked for Mr. Wentworth. He must +be your father. They found out for me where he lived; they seemed often to have +heard of him. I determined to come, without ceremony. So, this lovely morning, +they set my face in the right direction, and told me to walk straight before +me, out of town. I came on foot because I wanted to see the country. I walked +and walked, and here I am! It’s a good many miles.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is seven miles and a half,” said Gertrude, softly. Now that +this handsome young man was proving himself a reality she found herself vaguely +trembling; she was deeply excited. She had never in her life spoken to a +foreigner, and she had often thought it would be delightful to do so. Here was +one who had suddenly been engendered by the Sabbath stillness for her private +use; and such a brilliant, polite, smiling one! She found time and means to +compose herself, however: to remind herself that she must exercise a sort of +official hospitality. “We are very—very glad to see you,” she +said. “Won’t you come into the house?” And she moved toward +the open door. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not afraid of me, then?” asked the young man again, with +his light laugh. +</p> + +<p> +She wondered a moment, and then, “We are not afraid—here,” +she said. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Ah, comme vous devez avoir raison!”</i> cried the young man, +looking all round him, appreciatively. It was the first time that Gertrude had +heard so many words of French spoken. They gave her something of a sensation. +Her companion followed her, watching, with a certain excitement of his own, +this tall, interesting-looking girl, dressed in her clear, crisp muslin. He +paused in the hall, where there was a broad white staircase with a white +balustrade. “What a pleasant house!” he said. “It’s +lighter inside than it is out.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s pleasanter here,” said Gertrude, and she led the way +into the parlor,—a high, clean, rather empty-looking room. Here they +stood looking at each other,—the young man smiling more than ever; +Gertrude, very serious, trying to smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe you know my name,” he said. “I am +called Felix Young. Your father is my uncle. My mother was his half sister, and +older than he.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Gertrude, “and she turned Roman Catholic and +married in Europe.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see you know,” said the young man. “She married and she +died. Your father’s family didn’t like her husband. They called him +a foreigner; but he was not. My poor father was born in Sicily, but his parents +were American.” +</p> + +<p> +“In Sicily?” Gertrude murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“It is true,” said Felix Young, “that they had spent their +lives in Europe. But they were very patriotic. And so are we.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you are Sicilian,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Sicilian, no! Let’s see. I was born at a little place—a dear +little place—in France. My sister was born at Vienna.” +</p> + +<p> +“So you are French,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forbid!” cried the young man. Gertrude’s eyes were +fixed upon him almost insistently. He began to laugh again. “I can easily +be French, if that will please you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are a foreigner of some sort,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Of some sort—yes; I suppose so. But who can say of what sort? I +don’t think we have ever had occasion to settle the question. You know +there are people like that. About their country, their religion, their +profession, they can’t tell.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude stood there gazing; she had not asked him to sit down. She had never +heard of people like that; she wanted to hear. “Where do you live?” +she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“They can’t tell that, either!” said Felix. “I am +afraid you will think they are little better than vagabonds. I have lived +anywhere—everywhere. I really think I have lived in every city in +Europe.” Gertrude gave a little long soft exhalation. It made the young +man smile at her again; and his smile made her blush a little. To take refuge +from blushing she asked him if, after his long walk, he was not hungry or +thirsty. Her hand was in her pocket; she was fumbling with the little key that +her sister had given her. “Ah, my dear young lady,” he said, +clasping his hands a little, “if you could give me, in charity, a glass +of wine!” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude gave a smile and a little nod, and went quickly out of the room. +Presently she came back with a very large decanter in one hand and a plate in +the other, on which was placed a big, round cake with a frosted top. Gertrude, +in taking the cake from the closet, had had a moment of acute consciousness +that it composed the refection of which her sister had thought that Mr. Brand +would like to partake. Her kinsman from across the seas was looking at the +pale, high-hung engravings. When she came in he turned and smiled at her, as if +they had been old friends meeting after a separation. “You wait upon me +yourself?” he asked. “I am served like the gods!” She had +waited upon a great many people, but none of them had ever told her that. The +observation added a certain lightness to the step with which she went to a +little table where there were some curious red glasses—glasses covered +with little gold sprigs, which Charlotte used to dust every morning with her +own hands. Gertrude thought the glasses very handsome, and it was a pleasure to +her to know that the wine was good; it was her father’s famous madeira. +Felix Young thought it excellent; he wondered why he had been told that there +was no wine in America. She cut him an immense triangle out of the cake, and +again she thought of Mr. Brand. Felix sat there, with his glass in one hand and +his huge morsel of cake in the other—eating, drinking, smiling, talking. +“I am very hungry,” he said. “I am not at all tired; I am +never tired. But I am very hungry.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must stay to dinner,” said Gertrude. “At two +o’clock. They will all have come back from church; you will see the +others.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who are the others?” asked the young man. “Describe them +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will see for yourself. It is you that must tell me; now, about your +sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“My sister is the Baroness Münster,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +On hearing that his sister was a Baroness, Gertrude got up and walked about +slowly, in front of him. She was silent a moment. She was thinking of it. +“Why didn’t she come, too?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“She did come; she is in Boston, at the hotel.” +</p> + +<p> +“We will go and see her,” said Gertrude, looking at him. +</p> + +<p> +“She begs you will not!” the young man replied. “She sends +you her love; she sent me to announce her. She will come and pay her respects +to your father.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude felt herself trembling again. A Baroness Münster, who sent a brilliant +young man to “announce” her; who was coming, as the Queen of Sheba +came to Solomon, to pay her “respects” to quiet Mr. +Wentworth—such a personage presented herself to Gertrude’s vision +with a most effective unexpectedness. For a moment she hardly knew what to say. +“When will she come?” she asked at last. +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as you will allow her—tomorrow. She is very +impatient,” answered Felix, who wished to be agreeable. +</p> + +<p> +“Tomorrow, yes,” said Gertrude. She wished to ask more about her; +but she hardly knew what could be predicated of a Baroness Münster. “Is +she—is she—married?” +</p> + +<p> +Felix had finished his cake and wine; he got up, fixing upon the young girl his +bright, expressive eyes. “She is married to a German prince—Prince +Adolf, of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. He is not the reigning prince; he is a +younger brother.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude gazed at her informant; her lips were slightly parted. “Is she +a—a <i>Princess</i>?” she asked at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said the young man; “her position is rather a +singular one. It’s a morganatic marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Morganatic?” These were new names and new words to poor Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s what they call a marriage, you know, contracted between a +scion of a ruling house and—and a common mortal. They made Eugenia a +Baroness, poor woman; but that was all they could do. Now they want to dissolve +the marriage. Prince Adolf, between ourselves, is a ninny; but his brother, who +is a clever man, has plans for him. Eugenia, naturally enough, makes +difficulties; not, however, that I think she cares much—she’s a +very clever woman; I’m sure you’ll like her—but she wants to +bother them. Just now everything is <i>en l’air</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +The cheerful, off-hand tone in which her visitor related this darkly romantic +tale seemed to Gertrude very strange; but it seemed also to convey a certain +flattery to herself, a recognition of her wisdom and dignity. She felt a dozen +impressions stirring within her, and presently the one that was uppermost found +words. “They want to dissolve her marriage?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“So it appears.” +</p> + +<p> +“And against her will?” +</p> + +<p> +“Against her right.” +</p> + +<p> +“She must be very unhappy!” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +Her visitor looked at her, smiling; he raised his hand to the back of his head +and held it there a moment. “So she says,” he answered. +“That’s her story. She told me to tell it you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me more,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I will leave that to her; she does it better.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude gave her little excited sigh again. “Well, if she is +unhappy,” she said, “I am glad she has come to us.” +</p> + +<p> +She had been so interested that she failed to notice the sound of a footstep in +the portico; and yet it was a footstep that she always recognized. She heard it +in the hall, and then she looked out of the window. They were all coming back +from church—her father, her sister and brother, and their cousins, who +always came to dinner on Sunday. Mr. Brand had come in first; he was in advance +of the others, because, apparently, he was still disposed to say what she had +not wished him to say an hour before. He came into the parlor, looking for +Gertrude. He had two little books in his hand. On seeing Gertrude’s +companion he slowly stopped, looking at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this a cousin?” asked Felix. +</p> + +<p> +Then Gertrude saw that she must introduce him; but her ears, and, by sympathy, +her lips, were full of all that he had been telling her. “This is the +Prince,” she said, “the Prince of +Silberstadt-Schreckenstein!” +</p> + +<p> +Felix burst out laughing, and Mr. Brand stood staring, while the others, who +had passed into the house, appeared behind him in the open doorway. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0003"></a> +CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p> +That evening at dinner Felix Young gave his sister, the Baroness Münster, an +account of his impressions. She saw that he had come back in the highest +possible spirits; but this fact, to her own mind, was not a reason for +rejoicing. She had but a limited confidence in her brother’s judgment; +his capacity for taking rose-colored views was such as to vulgarize one of the +prettiest of tints. Still, she supposed he could be trusted to give her the +mere facts; and she invited him with some eagerness to communicate them. +“I suppose, at least, they didn’t turn you out from the +door;” she said. “You have been away some ten hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Turn me from the door!” Felix exclaimed. “They took me to +their hearts; they killed the fatted calf.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you want to say: they are a collection of angels.” +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said Felix. “They are a collection of +angels—simply.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>C’est bien vague</i>,” remarked the Baroness. “What +are they like?” +</p> + +<p> +“Like nothing you ever saw.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure I am much obliged; but that is hardly more definite. +Seriously, they were glad to see you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Enchanted. It has been the proudest day of my life. Never, never have I +been so lionized! I assure you, I was cock of the walk. My dear sister,” +said the young man, “<i>nous n’avons qu’à nous tenir</i>; we +shall be great swells!” +</p> + +<p> +Madame Münster looked at him, and her eye exhibited a slight responsive spark. +She touched her lips to a glass of wine, and then she said, “Describe +them. Give me a picture.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix drained his own glass. “Well, it’s in the country, among the +meadows and woods; a wild sort of place, and yet not far from here. Only, such +a road, my dear! Imagine one of the Alpine glaciers reproduced in mud. But you +will not spend much time on it, for they want you to come and stay, once for +all.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said the Baroness, “they want me to come and stay, once +for all? <i>Bon</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s intensely rural, tremendously natural; and all overhung with +this strange white light, this far-away blue sky. There’s a big wooden +house—a kind of three-story bungalow; it looks like a magnified Nuremberg +toy. There was a gentleman there that made a speech to me about it and called +it a ‘venerable mansion;’ but it looks as if it had been built last +night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it handsome—is it elegant?” asked the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +Felix looked at her a moment, smiling. “It’s very clean! No +splendors, no gilding, no troops of servants; rather straight-backed chairs. +But you might eat off the floors, and you can sit down on the stairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“That must be a privilege. And the inhabitants are straight-backed too, +of course.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sister,” said Felix, “the inhabitants are +charming.” +</p> + +<p> +“In what style?” +</p> + +<p> +“In a style of their own. How shall I describe it? It’s primitive; +it’s patriarchal; it’s the <i>ton</i> of the golden age.” +</p> + +<p> +“And have they nothing golden but their <i>ton</i>? Are there no symptoms +of wealth?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should say there was wealth without symptoms. A plain, homely way of +life: nothing for show, and very little for—what shall I call +it?—for the senses; but a great <i>aisance</i>, and a lot of money, out +of sight, that comes forward very quietly for subscriptions to institutions, +for repairing tenements, for paying doctor’s bills; perhaps even for +portioning daughters.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the daughters?” Madame Münster demanded. “How many are +there?” +</p> + +<p> +“There are two, Charlotte and Gertrude.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are they pretty?” +</p> + +<p> +“One of them,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“Which is that?” +</p> + +<p> +The young man was silent, looking at his sister. “Charlotte,” he +said at last. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him in return. “I see. You are in love with Gertrude. They +must be Puritans to their finger-tips; anything but gay!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, they are not gay,” Felix admitted. “They are sober; they +are even severe. They are of a pensive cast; they take things hard. I think +there is something the matter with them; they have some melancholy memory or +some depressing expectation. It’s not the epicurean temperament. My +uncle, Mr. Wentworth, is a tremendously high-toned old fellow; he looks as if +he were undergoing martyrdom, not by fire, but by freezing. But we shall cheer +them up; we shall do them good. They will take a good deal of stirring up; but +they are wonderfully kind and gentle. And they are appreciative. They think one +clever; they think one remarkable!” +</p> + +<p> +“That is very fine, so far as it goes,” said the Baroness. +“But are we to be shut up to these three people, Mr. Wentworth and the +two young women—what did you say their names were—Deborah and +Hephzibah?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no; there is another little girl, a cousin of theirs, a very pretty +creature; a thorough little American. And then there is the son of the +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” said the Baroness. “We are coming to the gentlemen. +What of the son of the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid he gets tipsy.” +</p> + +<p> +“He, then, has the epicurean temperament! How old is he?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a boy of twenty; a pretty young fellow, but I am afraid he has +vulgar tastes. And then there is Mr. Brand—a very tall young man, a sort +of lay-priest. They seem to think a good deal of him, but I don’t exactly +make him out.” +</p> + +<p> +“And is there nothing,” asked the Baroness, “between these +extremes—this mysterious ecclesiastic and that intemperate youth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, there is Mr. Acton. I think,” said the young man, with a +nod at his sister, “that you will like Mr. Acton.” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember that I am very fastidious,” said the Baroness. “Has +he very good manners?” +</p> + +<p> +“He will have them with you. He is a man of the world; he has been to +China.” +</p> + +<p> +Madame Münster gave a little laugh. “A man of the Chinese world! He must +be very interesting.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have an idea that he brought home a fortune,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“That is always interesting. Is he young, good-looking, clever?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is less than forty; he has a baldish head; he says witty things. I +rather think,” added the young man, “that he will admire the +Baroness Münster.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very possible,” said this lady. Her brother never knew how +she would take things; but shortly afterwards she declared that he had made a +very pretty description and that on the morrow she would go and see for +herself. +</p> + +<p> +They mounted, accordingly, into a great barouche—a vehicle as to which +the Baroness found nothing to criticise but the price that was asked for it and +the fact that the coachman wore a straw hat. (At Silberstadt Madame Münster had +had liveries of yellow and crimson.) They drove into the country, and the +Baroness, leaning far back and swaying her lace-fringed parasol, looked to +right and to left and surveyed the way-side objects. After a while she +pronounced them <i>affreux</i>. Her brother remarked that it was apparently a +country in which the foreground was inferior to the <i>plans reculés</i>; and +the Baroness rejoined that the landscape seemed to be all foreground. Felix had +fixed with his new friends the hour at which he should bring his sister; it was +four o’clock in the afternoon. The large, clean-faced house wore, to his +eyes, as the barouche drove up to it, a very friendly aspect; the high, slender +elms made lengthening shadows in front of it. The Baroness descended; her +American kinsfolk were stationed in the portico. Felix waved his hat to them, +and a tall, lean gentleman, with a high forehead and a clean shaven face, came +forward toward the garden gate. Charlotte Wentworth walked at his side. +Gertrude came behind, more slowly. Both of these young ladies wore rustling +silk dresses. Felix ushered his sister into the gate. “Be very +gracious,” he said to her. But he saw the admonition was superfluous. +Eugenia was prepared to be gracious as only Eugenia could be. Felix knew no +keener pleasure than to be able to admire his sister unrestrictedly; for if the +opportunity was frequent, it was not inveterate. When she desired to please she +was to him, as to everyone else, the most charming woman in the world. Then he +forgot that she was ever anything else; that she was sometimes hard and +perverse; that he was occasionally afraid of her. Now, as she took his arm to +pass into the garden, he felt that she desired, that she proposed, to please, +and this situation made him very happy. Eugenia would please. +</p> + +<p> +The tall gentleman came to meet her, looking very rigid and grave. But it was a +rigidity that had no illiberal meaning. Mr. Wentworth’s manner was +pregnant, on the contrary, with a sense of grand responsibility, of the +solemnity of the occasion, of its being difficult to show sufficient deference +to a lady at once so distinguished and so unhappy. Felix had observed on the +day before his characteristic pallor; and now he perceived that there was +something almost cadaverous in his uncle’s high-featured white face. But +so clever were this young man’s quick sympathies and perceptions that he +already learned that in these semi-mortuary manifestations there was no cause +for alarm. His light imagination had gained a glimpse of Mr. Wentworth’s +spiritual mechanism, and taught him that, the old man being infinitely +conscientious, the special operation of conscience within him announced itself +by several of the indications of physical faintness. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness took her uncle’s hand, and stood looking at him with her +ugly face and her beautiful smile. “Have I done right to come?” she +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Very right, very right,” said Mr. Wentworth, solemnly. He had +arranged in his mind a little speech; but now it quite faded away. He felt +almost frightened. He had never been looked at in just that way—with just +that fixed, intense smile—by any woman; and it perplexed and weighed upon +him, now, that the woman who was smiling so and who had instantly given him a +vivid sense of her possessing other unprecedented attributes, was his own +niece, the child of his own father’s daughter. The idea that his niece +should be a German Baroness, married “morganatically” to a Prince, +had already given him much to think about. Was it right, was it just, was it +acceptable? He always slept badly, and the night before he had lain awake much +more even than usual, asking himself these questions. The strange word +“morganatic” was constantly in his ears; it reminded him of a +certain Mrs. Morgan whom he had once known and who had been a bold, unpleasant +woman. He had a feeling that it was his duty, so long as the Baroness looked at +him, smiling in that way, to meet her glance with his own scrupulously +adjusted, consciously frigid organs of vision; but on this occasion he failed +to perform his duty to the last. He looked away toward his daughters. “We +are very glad to see you,” he had said. “Allow me to introduce my +daughters—Miss Charlotte Wentworth, Miss Gertrude Wentworth.” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness thought she had never seen people less demonstrative. But +Charlotte kissed her and took her hand, looking at her sweetly and solemnly. +Gertrude seemed to her almost funereal, though Gertrude might have found a +source of gaiety in the fact that Felix, with his magnificent smile, had been +talking to her; he had greeted her as a very old friend. When she kissed the +Baroness she had tears in her eyes. Madame Münster took each of these young +women by the hand, and looked at them all over. Charlotte thought her very +strange-looking and singularly dressed; she could not have said whether it was +well or ill. She was glad, at any rate, that they had put on their silk +gowns—especially Gertrude. “My cousins are very pretty,” said +the Baroness, turning her eyes from one to the other. “Your daughters are +very handsome, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte blushed quickly; she had never yet heard her personal appearance +alluded to in a loud, expressive voice. Gertrude looked away—not at +Felix; she was extremely pleased. It was not the compliment that pleased her; +she did not believe it; she thought herself very plain. She could hardly have +told you the source of her satisfaction; it came from something in the way the +Baroness spoke, and it was not diminished—it was rather deepened, oddly +enough—by the young girl’s disbelief. Mr. Wentworth was silent; and +then he asked, formally, “Won’t you come into the house?” +</p> + +<p> +“These are not all; you have some other children,” said the +Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a son,” Mr. Wentworth answered. +</p> + +<p> +“And why doesn’t he come to meet me?” Eugenia cried. “I +am afraid he is not so charming as his sisters.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know; I will see about it,” the old man declared. +</p> + +<p> +“He is rather afraid of ladies,” Charlotte said, softly. +</p> + +<p> +“He is very handsome,” said Gertrude, as loud as she could. +</p> + +<p> +“We will go in and find him. We will draw him out of his +<i>cachette</i>.” And the Baroness took Mr. Wentworth’s arm, who +was not aware that he had offered it to her, and who, as they walked toward the +house, wondered whether he ought to have offered it and whether it was proper +for her to take it if it had not been offered. “I want to know you +well,” said the Baroness, interrupting these meditations, “and I +want you to know me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems natural that we should know each other,” Mr. Wentworth +rejoined. “We are near relatives.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there comes a moment in life when one reverts, irresistibly, to +one’s natural ties—to one’s natural affections. You must have +found that!” said Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth had been told the day before by Felix that Eugenia was very +clever, very brilliant, and the information had held him in some suspense. This +was the cleverness, he supposed; the brilliancy was beginning. “Yes, the +natural affections are very strong,” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“In some people,” the Baroness declared. “Not in all.” +Charlotte was walking beside her; she took hold of her hand again, smiling +always. “And you, <i>cousine</i>, where did you get that enchanting +complexion?” she went on; “such lilies and roses?” The roses +in poor Charlotte’s countenance began speedily to predominate over the +lilies, and she quickened her step and reached the portico. “This is the +country of complexions,” the Baroness continued, addressing herself to +Mr. Wentworth. “I am convinced they are more delicate. There are very +good ones in England—in Holland; but they are very apt to be coarse. +There is too much red.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you will find,” said Mr. Wentworth, “that this +country is superior in many respects to those you mention. I have been to +England and Holland.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you have been to Europe?” cried the Baroness. “Why +didn’t you come and see me? But it’s better, after all, this +way,” she said. They were entering the house; she paused and looked round +her. “I see you have arranged your house—your beautiful +house—in the—in the Dutch taste!” +</p> + +<p> +“The house is very old,” remarked Mr. Wentworth. “General +Washington once spent a week here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I have heard of Washington,” cried the Baroness. “My +father used to tell me of him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth was silent a moment, and then, “I found he was very well +known in Europe,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Felix had lingered in the garden with Gertrude; he was standing before her and +smiling, as he had done the day before. What had happened the day before seemed +to her a kind of dream. He had been there and he had changed everything; the +others had seen him, they had talked with him; but that he should come again, +that he should be part of the future, part of her small, familiar, +much-meditating life—this needed, afresh, the evidence of her senses. The +evidence had come to her senses now; and her senses seemed to rejoice in it. +“What do you think of Eugenia?” Felix asked. “Isn’t she +charming?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is very brilliant,” said Gertrude. “But I can’t +tell yet. She seems to me like a singer singing an air. You can’t tell +till the song is done.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, the song will never be done!” exclaimed the young man, +laughing. “Don’t you think her handsome?” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude had been disappointed in the beauty of the Baroness Münster; she had +expected her, for mysterious reasons, to resemble a very pretty portrait of the +Empress Josephine, of which there hung an engraving in one of the parlors, and +which the younger Miss Wentworth had always greatly admired. But the Baroness +was not at all like that—not at all. Though different, however, she was +very wonderful, and Gertrude felt herself most suggestively corrected. It was +strange, nevertheless, that Felix should speak in that positive way about his +sister’s beauty. “I think I <i>shall</i> think her handsome,” +Gertrude said. “It must be very interesting to know her. I don’t +feel as if I ever could.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you will know her well; you will become great friends,” Felix +declared, as if this were the easiest thing in the world. +</p> + +<p> +“She is very graceful,” said Gertrude, looking after the Baroness, +suspended to her father’s arm. It was a pleasure to her to say that +anyone was graceful. +</p> + +<p> +Felix had been looking about him. “And your little cousin, of +yesterday,” he said, “who was so wonderfully pretty—what has +become of her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She is in the parlor,” Gertrude answered. “Yes, she is very +pretty.” She felt as if it were her duty to take him straight into the +house, to where he might be near her cousin. But after hesitating a moment she +lingered still. “I didn’t believe you would come back,” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Not come back!” cried Felix, laughing. “You didn’t +know, then, the impression made upon this susceptible heart of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +She wondered whether he meant the impression her cousin Lizzie had made. +“Well,” she said, “I didn’t think we should ever see +you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“And pray what did you think would become of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know. I thought you would melt away.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a compliment to my solidity! I melt very often,” said +Felix, “but there is always something left of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I came and waited for you by the door, because the others did,” +Gertrude went on. “But if you had never appeared I should not have been +surprised.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope,” declared Felix, looking at her, “that you would +have been disappointed.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him a little, and shook her head. “No—no!” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Ah, par exemple!”</i> cried the young man. “You deserve +that I should never leave you.” +</p> + +<p> +Going into the parlor they found Mr. Wentworth performing introductions. A +young man was standing before the Baroness, blushing a good deal, laughing a +little, and shifting his weight from one foot to the other—a slim, +mild-faced young man, with neatly-arranged features, like those of Mr. +Wentworth. Two other gentlemen, behind him, had risen from their seats, and a +little apart, near one of the windows, stood a remarkably pretty young girl. +The young girl was knitting a stocking; but, while her fingers quickly moved, +she looked with wide, brilliant eyes at the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“And what is your son’s name?” said Eugenia, smiling at the +young man. +</p> + +<p> +“My name is Clifford Wentworth, ma’am,” he said in a +tremulous voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you come out to meet me, Mr. Clifford Wentworth?” +the Baroness demanded, with her beautiful smile. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t think you would want me,” said the young man, +slowly sidling about. +</p> + +<p> +“One always wants a <i>beau cousin</i>,—if one has one! But if you +are very nice to me in future I won’t remember it against you.” And +Madame Münster transferred her smile to the other persons present. It rested +first upon the candid countenance and long-skirted figure of Mr. Brand, whose +eyes were intently fixed upon Mr. Wentworth, as if to beg him not to prolong an +anomalous situation. Mr. Wentworth pronounced his name. Eugenia gave him a very +charming glance, and then looked at the other gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +This latter personage was a man of rather less than the usual stature and the +usual weight, with a quick, observant, agreeable dark eye, a small quantity of +thin dark hair, and a small moustache. He had been standing with his hands in +his pockets; and when Eugenia looked at him he took them out. But he did not, +like Mr. Brand, look evasively and urgently at their host. He met +Eugenia’s eyes; he appeared to appreciate the privilege of meeting them. +Madame Münster instantly felt that he was, intrinsically, the most important +person present. She was not unconscious that this impression was in some degree +manifested in the little sympathetic nod with which she acknowledged Mr. +Wentworth’s announcement, “My cousin, Mr. Acton!” +</p> + +<p> +“Your cousin—not mine?” said the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“It only depends upon you,” Mr. Acton declared, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness looked at him a moment, and noticed that he had very white teeth. +“Let it depend upon your behavior,” she said. “I think I had +better wait. I have cousins enough. Unless I can also claim +relationship,” she added, “with that charming young lady,” +and she pointed to the young girl at the window. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s my sister,” said Mr. Acton. And Gertrude Wentworth +put her arm round the young girl and led her forward. It was not, apparently, +that she needed much leading. She came toward the Baroness with a light, quick +step, and with perfect self-possession, rolling her stocking round its needles. +She had dark blue eyes and dark brown hair; she was wonderfully pretty. +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia kissed her, as she had kissed the other young women, and then held her +off a little, looking at her. “Now this is quite another +<i>type</i>,” she said; she pronounced the word in the French manner. +“This is a different outline, my uncle, a different character, from that +of your own daughters. This, Felix,” she went on, “is very much +more what we have always thought of as the American type.” +</p> + +<p> +The young girl, during this exposition, was smiling askance at everyone in +turn, and at Felix out of turn. “I find only one type here!” cried +Felix, laughing. “The type adorable!” +</p> + +<p> +This sally was received in perfect silence, but Felix, who learned all things +quickly, had already learned that the silences frequently observed among his +new acquaintances were not necessarily restrictive or resentful. It was, as one +might say, the silence of expectation, of modesty. They were all standing round +his sister, as if they were expecting her to acquit herself of the exhibition +of some peculiar faculty, some brilliant talent. Their attitude seemed to imply +that she was a kind of conversational mountebank, attired, intellectually, in +gauze and spangles. This attitude gave a certain ironical force to Madame +Münster’s next words. “Now this is your circle,” she said to +her uncle. “This is your <i>salon</i>. These are your regular +<i>habitués</i>, eh? I am so glad to see you all together.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Mr. Wentworth, “they are always dropping in and +out. You must do the same.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” interposed Charlotte Wentworth, “they must do +something more.” And she turned her sweet, serious face, that seemed at +once timid and placid, upon their interesting visitor. “What is your +name?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Eugenia-Camilla-Dolores,” said the Baroness, smiling. “But +you needn’t say all that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will say Eugenia, if you will let me. You must come and stay with +us.” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness laid her hand upon Charlotte’s arm very tenderly; but she +reserved herself. She was wondering whether it would be possible to +“stay” with these people. “It would be very +charming—very charming,” she said; and her eyes wandered over the +company, over the room. She wished to gain time before committing herself. Her +glance fell upon young Mr. Brand, who stood there, with his arms folded and his +hand on his chin, looking at her. “The gentleman, I suppose, is a sort of +ecclesiastic,” she said to Mr. Wentworth, lowering her voice a little. +</p> + +<p> +“He is a minister,” answered Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“A Protestant?” asked Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a Unitarian, madam,” replied Mr. Brand, impressively. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I see,” said Eugenia. “Something new.” She had +never heard of this form of worship. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Acton began to laugh, and Gertrude looked anxiously at Mr. Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“You have come very far,” said Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“Very far—very far,” the Baroness replied, with a graceful +shake of her head—a shake that might have meant many different things. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a reason why you ought to settle down with us,” said +Mr. Wentworth, with that dryness of utterance which, as Eugenia was too +intelligent not to feel, took nothing from the delicacy of his meaning. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him, and for an instant, in his cold, still face, she seemed to +see a far-away likeness to the vaguely remembered image of her mother. Eugenia +was a woman of sudden emotions, and now, unexpectedly, she felt one rising in +her heart. She kept looking round the circle; she knew that there was +admiration in all the eyes that were fixed upon her. She smiled at them all. +</p> + +<p> +“I came to look—to try—to ask,” she said. “It +seems to me I have done well. I am very tired; I want to rest.” There +were tears in her eyes. The luminous interior, the gentle, tranquil people, the +simple, serious life—the sense of these things pressed upon her with an +overmastering force, and she felt herself yielding to one of the most genuine +emotions she had ever known. “I should like to stay here,” she +said. “Pray take me in.” +</p> + +<p> +Though she was smiling, there were tears in her voice as well as in her eyes. +“My dear niece,” said Mr. Wentworth, softly. And Charlotte put out +her arms and drew the Baroness toward her; while Robert Acton turned away, with +his hands stealing into his pockets. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0004"></a> +CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p> +A few days after the Baroness Münster had presented herself to her American +kinsfolk she came, with her brother, and took up her abode in that small white +house adjacent to Mr. Wentworth’s own dwelling of which mention has +already been made. It was on going with his daughters to return her visit that +Mr. Wentworth placed this comfortable cottage at her service; the offer being +the result of a domestic colloquy, diffused through the ensuing twenty-four +hours, in the course of which the two foreign visitors were discussed and +analyzed with a great deal of earnestness and subtlety. The discussion went +forward, as I say, in the family circle; but that circle on the evening +following Madame Münster’s return to town, as on many other occasions, +included Robert Acton and his pretty sister. If you had been present, it would +probably not have seemed to you that the advent of these brilliant strangers +was treated as an exhilarating occurrence, a pleasure the more in this tranquil +household, a prospective source of entertainment. This was not Mr. +Wentworth’s way of treating any human occurrence. The sudden irruption +into the well-ordered consciousness of the Wentworths of an element not allowed +for in its scheme of usual obligations required a readjustment of that sense of +responsibility which constituted its principal furniture. To consider an event, +crudely and baldly, in the light of the pleasure it might bring them was an +intellectual exercise with which Felix Young’s American cousins were +almost wholly unacquainted, and which they scarcely supposed to be largely +pursued in any section of human society. The arrival of Felix and his sister +was a satisfaction, but it was a singularly joyless and inelastic satisfaction. +It was an extension of duty, of the exercise of the more recondite virtues; but +neither Mr. Wentworth, nor Charlotte, nor Mr. Brand, who, among these excellent +people, was a great promoter of reflection and aspiration, frankly adverted to +it as an extension of enjoyment. This function was ultimately assumed by +Gertrude Wentworth, who was a peculiar girl, but the full compass of whose +peculiarities had not been exhibited before they very ingeniously found their +pretext in the presence of these possibly too agreeable foreigners. Gertrude, +however, had to struggle with a great accumulation of obstructions, both of the +subjective, as the metaphysicians say, and of the objective, order; and indeed +it is no small part of the purpose of this little history to set forth her +struggle. What seemed paramount in this abrupt enlargement of Mr. +Wentworth’s sympathies and those of his daughters was an extension of the +field of possible mistakes; and the doctrine, as it may almost be called, of +the oppressive gravity of mistakes was one of the most cherished traditions of +the Wentworth family. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t believe she wants to come and stay in this house,” +said Gertrude; Madame Münster, from this time forward, receiving no other +designation than the personal pronoun. Charlotte and Gertrude acquired +considerable facility in addressing her, directly, as “Eugenia;” +but in speaking of her to each other they rarely called her anything but +“she.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t she think it good enough for her?” cried little +Lizzie Acton, who was always asking unpractical questions that required, in +strictness, no answer, and to which indeed she expected no other answer than +such as she herself invariably furnished in a small, innocently-satirical +laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“She certainly expressed a willingness to come,” said Mr. +Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“That was only politeness,” Gertrude rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, she is very polite—very polite,” said Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“She is too polite,” his son declared, in a softly growling tone +which was habitual to him, but which was an indication of nothing worse than a +vaguely humorous intention. “It is very embarrassing.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is more than can be said of you, sir,” said Lizzie Acton, +with her little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t mean to encourage her,” Clifford went on. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I don’t care if you do!” cried Lizzie. +</p> + +<p> +“She will not think of you, Clifford,” said Gertrude, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope not!” Clifford exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“She will think of Robert,” Gertrude continued, in the same tone. +</p> + +<p> +Robert Acton began to blush; but there was no occasion for it, for everyone was +looking at Gertrude—everyone, at least, save Lizzie, who, with her pretty +head on one side, contemplated her brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you attribute motives, Gertrude?” asked Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t attribute motives, father,” said Gertrude. “I +only say she will think of Robert; and she will!” +</p> + +<p> +“Gertrude judges by herself!” Acton exclaimed, laughing. +“Don’t you, Gertrude? Of course the Baroness will think of me. She +will think of me from morning till night.” +</p> + +<p> +“She will be very comfortable here,” said Charlotte, with something +of a housewife’s pride. “She can have the large northeast room. And +the French bedstead,” Charlotte added, with a constant sense of the +lady’s foreignness. +</p> + +<p> +“She will not like it,” said Gertrude; “not even if you pin +little tidies all over the chairs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not, dear?” asked Charlotte, perceiving a touch of irony here, +but not resenting it. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude had left her chair; she was walking about the room; her stiff silk +dress, which she had put on in honor of the Baroness, made a sound upon the +carpet. “I don’t know,” she replied. “She will want +something more—more private.” +</p> + +<p> +“If she wants to be private she can stay in her room,” Lizzie Acton +remarked. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude paused in her walk, looking at her. “That would not be +pleasant,” she answered. “She wants privacy and pleasure +together.” +</p> + +<p> +Robert Acton began to laugh again. “My dear cousin, what a +picture!” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte had fixed her serious eyes upon her sister; she wondered whence she +had suddenly derived these strange notions. Mr. Wentworth also observed his +younger daughter. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know what her manner of life may have been,” he +said; “but she certainly never can have enjoyed a more refined and +salubrious home.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude stood there looking at them all. “She is the wife of a +Prince,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“We are all princes here,” said Mr. Wentworth; “and I +don’t know of any palace in this neighborhood that is to let.” +</p> + +<p> +“Cousin William,” Robert Acton interposed, “do you want to do +something handsome? Make them a present, for three months, of the little house +over the way.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very generous with other people’s things!” cried his +sister. +</p> + +<p> +“Robert is very generous with his own things,” Mr. Wentworth +observed dispassionately, and looking, in cold meditation, at his kinsman. +</p> + +<p> +“Gertrude,” Lizzie went on, “I had an idea you were so fond +of your new cousin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which new cousin?” asked Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean the Baroness!” the young girl rejoined, with +her laugh. “I thought you expected to see so much of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of Felix? I hope to see a great deal of him,” said Gertrude, +simply. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do you want to keep him out of the house?” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at Lizzie Acton, and then looked away. +</p> + +<p> +“Should you want me to live in the house with you, Lizzie?” asked +Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you never will. I hate you!” Such was this young +lady’s reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” said Gertrude, stopping before Mr. Wentworth and smiling, +with a smile the sweeter, as her smile always was, for its rarity; “do +let them live in the little house over the way. It will be lovely!” +</p> + +<p> +Robert Acton had been watching her. “Gertrude is right,” he said. +“Gertrude is the cleverest girl in the world. If I might take the +liberty, I should strongly recommend their living there.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing there so pretty as the northeast room,” Charlotte +urged. +</p> + +<p> +“She will make it pretty. Leave her alone!” Acton exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude, at his compliment, had blushed and looked at him: it was as if +someone less familiar had complimented her. “I am sure she will make it +pretty. It will be very interesting. It will be a place to go to. It will be a +foreign house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are we very sure that we need a foreign house?” Mr. Wentworth +inquired. “Do you think it desirable to establish a foreign +house—in this quiet place?” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak,” said Acton, laughing, “as if it were a question +of the poor Baroness opening a wine-shop or a gaming-table.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would be too lovely!” Gertrude declared again, laying her hand +on the back of her father’s chair. +</p> + +<p> +“That she should open a gaming-table?” Charlotte asked, with great +gravity. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at her a moment, and then, “Yes, Charlotte,” she +said, simply. +</p> + +<p> +“Gertrude is growing pert,” Clifford Wentworth observed, with his +humorous young growl. “That comes of associating with foreigners.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth looked up at his daughter, who was standing beside him; he drew +her gently forward. “You must be careful,” he said. “You must +keep watch. Indeed, we must all be careful. This is a great change; we are to +be exposed to peculiar influences. I don’t say they are bad. I +don’t judge them in advance. But they may perhaps make it necessary that +we should exercise a great deal of wisdom and self-control. It will be a +different tone.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude was silent a moment, in deference to her father’s speech; then +she spoke in a manner that was not in the least an answer to it. “I want +to see how they will live. I am sure they will have different hours. She will +do all kinds of little things differently. When we go over there it will be +like going to Europe. She will have a boudoir. She will invite us to +dinner—very late. She will breakfast in her room.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte gazed at her sister again. Gertrude’s imagination seemed to her +to be fairly running riot. She had always known that Gertrude had a great deal +of imagination—she had been very proud of it. But at the same time she +had always felt that it was a dangerous and irresponsible faculty; and now, to +her sense, for the moment, it seemed to threaten to make her sister a strange +person who should come in suddenly, as from a journey, talking of the peculiar +and possibly unpleasant things she had observed. Charlotte’s imagination +took no journeys whatever; she kept it, as it were, in her pocket, with the +other furniture of this receptacle—a thimble, a little box of peppermint, +and a morsel of court-plaster. “I don’t believe she would have any +dinner—or any breakfast,” said Miss Wentworth. “I don’t +believe she knows how to do anything herself. I should have to get her ever so +many servants, and she wouldn’t like them.” +</p> + +<p> +“She has a maid,” said Gertrude; “a French maid. She +mentioned her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if the maid has a little fluted cap and red slippers,” +said Lizzie Acton. “There was a French maid in that play that Robert took +me to see. She had pink stockings; she was very wicked.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was a <i>soubrette</i>,” Gertrude announced, who had never +seen a play in her life. “They call that a soubrette. It will be a great +chance to learn French.” Charlotte gave a little soft, helpless groan. +She had a vision of a wicked, theatrical person, clad in pink stockings and red +shoes, and speaking, with confounding volubility, an incomprehensible tongue, +flitting through the sacred penetralia of that large, clean house. “That +is one reason in favor of their coming here,” Gertrude went on. +“But we can make Eugenia speak French to us, and Felix. I mean to +begin—the next time.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth had kept her standing near him, and he gave her his earnest, +thin, unresponsive glance again. “I want you to make me a promise, +Gertrude,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it?” she asked, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Not to get excited. Not to allow these—these occurrences to be an +occasion for excitement.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked down at him a moment, and then she shook her head. “I +don’t think I can promise that, father. I am excited already.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth was silent a while; they all were silent, as if in recognition of +something audacious and portentous. +</p> + +<p> +“I think they had better go to the other house,” said Charlotte, +quietly. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall keep them in the other house,” Mr. Wentworth subjoined, +more pregnantly. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude turned away; then she looked across at Robert Acton. Her cousin Robert +was a great friend of hers; she often looked at him this way instead of saying +things. Her glance on this occasion, however, struck him as a substitute for a +larger volume of diffident utterance than usual, inviting him to observe, among +other things, the inefficiency of her father’s design—if design it +was—for diminishing, in the interest of quiet nerves, their occasions of +contact with their foreign relatives. But Acton immediately complimented Mr. +Wentworth upon his liberality. “That’s a very nice thing to +do,” he said, “giving them the little house. You will have treated +them handsomely, and, whatever happens, you will be glad of it.” Mr. +Wentworth was liberal, and he knew he was liberal. It gave him pleasure to know +it, to feel it, to see it recorded; and this pleasure is the only palpable form +of self-indulgence with which the narrator of these incidents will be able to +charge him. +</p> + +<p> +“A three days’ visit at most, over there, is all I should have +found possible,” Madame Münster remarked to her brother, after they had +taken possession of the little white house. “It would have been too +<i>intime</i>—decidedly too <i>intime</i>. Breakfast, dinner, and tea +<i>en famille</i>—it would have been the end of the world if I could have +reached the third day.” And she made the same observation to her maid +Augustine, an intelligent person, who enjoyed a liberal share of her +confidence. Felix declared that he would willingly spend his life in the bosom +of the Wentworth family; that they were the kindest, simplest, most amiable +people in the world, and that he had taken a prodigious fancy to them all. The +Baroness quite agreed with him that they were simple and kind; they were +thoroughly nice people, and she liked them extremely. The girls were perfect +ladies; it was impossible to be more of a lady than Charlotte Wentworth, in +spite of her little village air. “But as for thinking them the best +company in the world,” said the Baroness, “that is another thing; +and as for wishing to live <i>porte à porte</i> with them, I should as soon +think of wishing myself back in the convent again, to wear a bombazine apron +and sleep in a dormitory.” And yet the Baroness was in high good humor; +she had been very much pleased. With her lively perception and her refined +imagination, she was capable of enjoying anything that was characteristic, +anything that was good of its kind. The Wentworth household seemed to her very +perfect in its kind—wonderfully peaceful and unspotted; pervaded by a +sort of dove-colored freshness that had all the quietude and benevolence of +what she deemed to be Quakerism, and yet seemed to be founded upon a degree of +material abundance for which, in certain matters of detail, one might have +looked in vain at the frugal little court of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. She +perceived immediately that her American relatives thought and talked very +little about money; and this of itself made an impression upon Eugenia’s +imagination. She perceived at the same time that if Charlotte or Gertrude +should ask their father for a very considerable sum he would at once place it +in their hands; and this made a still greater impression. The greatest +impression of all, perhaps, was made by another rapid induction. The Baroness +had an immediate conviction that Robert Acton would put his hand into his +pocket every day in the week if that rattle-pated little sister of his should +bid him. The men in this country, said the Baroness, are evidently very +obliging. Her declaration that she was looking for rest and retirement had been +by no means wholly untrue; nothing that the Baroness said was wholly untrue. It +is but fair to add, perhaps, that nothing that she said was wholly true. She +wrote to a friend in Germany that it was a return to nature; it was like +drinking new milk, and she was very fond of new milk. She said to herself, of +course, that it would be a little dull; but there can be no better proof of her +good spirits than the fact that she thought she should not mind its being a +little dull. It seemed to her, when from the piazza of her eleemosynary cottage +she looked out over the soundless fields, the stony pastures, the clear-faced +ponds, the rugged little orchards, that she had never been in the midst of so +peculiarly intense a stillness; it was almost a delicate sensual pleasure. It +was all very good, very innocent and safe, and out of it something good must +come. Augustine, indeed, who had an unbounded faith in her mistress’s +wisdom and far-sightedness, was a great deal perplexed and depressed. She was +always ready to take her cue when she understood it; but she liked to +understand it, and on this occasion comprehension failed. What, indeed, was the +Baroness doing <i>dans cette galère</i>? what fish did she expect to land out +of these very stagnant waters? The game was evidently a deep one. Augustine +could trust her; but the sense of walking in the dark betrayed itself in the +physiognomy of this spare, sober, sallow, middle-aged person, who had nothing +in common with Gertrude Wentworth’s conception of a soubrette, by the +most ironical scowl that had ever rested upon the unpretending tokens of the +peace and plenty of the Wentworths. Fortunately, Augustine could quench +skepticism in action. She quite agreed with her mistress—or rather she +quite out-stripped her mistress—in thinking that the little white house +was pitifully bare. <i>“Il faudra,”</i> said Augustine, +<i>“lui faire un peu de toilette.”</i> And she began to hang up +<i>portières</i> in the doorways; to place wax candles, procured after some +research, in unexpected situations; to dispose anomalous draperies over the +arms of sofas and the backs of chairs. The Baroness had brought with her to the +New World a copious provision of the element of costume; and the two Miss +Wentworths, when they came over to see her, were somewhat bewildered by the +obtrusive distribution of her wardrobe. There were India shawls suspended, +curtain-wise, in the parlor door, and curious fabrics, corresponding to +Gertrude’s metaphysical vision of an opera-cloak, tumbled about in the +sitting-places. There were pink silk blinds in the windows, by which the room +was strangely bedimmed; and along the chimney-piece was disposed a remarkable +band of velvet, covered with coarse, dirty-looking lace. “I have been +making myself a little comfortable,” said the Baroness, much to the +confusion of Charlotte, who had been on the point of proposing to come and help +her put her superfluous draperies away. But what Charlotte mistook for an +almost culpably delayed subsidence Gertrude very presently perceived to be the +most ingenious, the most interesting, the most romantic intention. “What +is life, indeed, without curtains?” she secretly asked herself; and she +appeared to herself to have been leading hitherto an existence singularly +garish and totally devoid of festoons. +</p> + +<p> +Felix was not a young man who troubled himself greatly about +anything—least of all about the conditions of enjoyment. His faculty of +enjoyment was so large, so unconsciously eager, that it may be said of it that +it had a permanent advance upon embarrassment and sorrow. His sentient faculty +was intrinsically joyous, and novelty and change were in themselves a delight +to him. As they had come to him with a great deal of frequency, his life had +been more agreeable than appeared. Never was a nature more perfectly fortunate. +It was not a restless, apprehensive, ambitious spirit, running a race with the +tyranny of fate, but a temper so unsuspicious as to put Adversity off her +guard, dodging and evading her with the easy, natural motion of a wind-shifted +flower. Felix extracted entertainment from all things, and all his +faculties—his imagination, his intelligence, his affections, his +senses—had a hand in the game. It seemed to him that Eugenia and he had +been very well treated; there was something absolutely touching in that +combination of paternal liberality and social considerateness which marked Mr. +Wentworth’s deportment. It was most uncommonly kind of him, for instance, +to have given them a house. Felix was positively amused at having a house of +his own; for the little white cottage among the apple trees—the chalet, +as Madame Münster always called it—was much more sensibly his own than +any domiciliary <i>quatrième</i>, looking upon a court, with the rent overdue. +Felix had spent a good deal of his life in looking into courts, with a perhaps +slightly tattered pair of elbows resting upon the ledge of a high-perched +window, and the thin smoke of a cigarette rising into an atmosphere in which +street-cries died away and the vibration of chimes from ancient belfries became +sensible. He had never known anything so infinitely rural as these New England +fields; and he took a great fancy to all their pastoral roughnesses. He had +never had a greater sense of luxurious security; and at the risk of making him +seem a rather sordid adventurer I must declare that he found an irresistible +charm in the fact that he might dine every day at his uncle’s. The charm +was irresistible, however, because his fancy flung a rosy light over this +homely privilege. He appreciated highly the fare that was set before him. There +was a kind of fresh-looking abundance about it which made him think that people +must have lived so in the mythological era, when they spread their tables upon +the grass, replenished them from cornucopias, and had no particular need of +kitchen stoves. But the great thing that Felix enjoyed was having found a +family—sitting in the midst of gentle, generous people whom he might call +by their first names. He had never known anything more charming than the +attention they paid to what he said. It was like a large sheet of clean, +fine-grained drawing-paper, all ready to be washed over with effective splashes +of water-color. He had never had any cousins, and he had never before found +himself in contact so unrestricted with young unmarried ladies. He was +extremely fond of the society of ladies, and it was new to him that it might be +enjoyed in just this manner. At first he hardly knew what to make of his state +of mind. It seemed to him that he was in love, indiscriminately, with three +girls at once. He saw that Lizzie Acton was more brilliantly pretty than +Charlotte and Gertrude; but this was scarcely a superiority. His pleasure came +from something they had in common—a part of which was, indeed, that +physical delicacy which seemed to make it proper that they should always dress +in thin materials and clear colors. But they were delicate in other ways, and +it was most agreeable to him to feel that these latter delicacies were +appreciable by contact, as it were. He had known, fortunately, many virtuous +gentlewomen, but it now appeared to him that in his relations with them +(especially when they were unmarried) he had been looking at pictures under +glass. He perceived at present what a nuisance the glass had been—how it +perverted and interfered, how it caught the reflection of other objects and +kept you walking from side to side. He had no need to ask himself whether +Charlotte and Gertrude, and Lizzie Acton, were in the right light; they were +always in the right light. He liked everything about them: he was, for +instance, not at all above liking the fact that they had very slender feet and +high insteps. He liked their pretty noses; he liked their surprised eyes and +their hesitating, not at all positive way of speaking; he liked so much knowing +that he was perfectly at liberty to be alone for hours, anywhere, with either +of them; that preference for one to the other, as a companion of solitude, +remained a minor affair. Charlotte Wentworth’s sweetly severe features +were as agreeable as Lizzie Acton’s wonderfully expressive blue eyes; and +Gertrude’s air of being always ready to walk about and listen was as +charming as anything else, especially as she walked very gracefully. After a +while Felix began to distinguish; but even then he would often wish, suddenly, +that they were not all so sad. Even Lizzie Acton, in spite of her fine little +chatter and laughter, appeared sad. Even Clifford Wentworth, who had extreme +youth in his favor, and kept a buggy with enormous wheels and a little sorrel +mare with the prettiest legs in the world—even this fortunate lad was apt +to have an averted, uncomfortable glance, and to edge away from you at times, +in the manner of a person with a bad conscience. The only person in the circle +with no sense of oppression of any kind was, to Felix’s perception, +Robert Acton. +</p> + +<p> +It might perhaps have been feared that after the completion of those graceful +domiciliary embellishments which have been mentioned Madame Münster would have +found herself confronted with alarming possibilities of <i>ennui</i>. But as +yet she had not taken the alarm. The Baroness was a restless soul, and she +projected her restlessness, as it may be said, into any situation that lay +before her. Up to a certain point her restlessness might be counted upon to +entertain her. She was always expecting something to happen, and, until it was +disappointed, expectancy itself was a delicate pleasure. What the Baroness +expected just now it would take some ingenuity to set forth; it is enough that +while she looked about her she found something to occupy her imagination. She +assured herself that she was enchanted with her new relatives; she professed to +herself that, like her brother, she felt it a sacred satisfaction to have found +a family. It is certain that she enjoyed to the utmost the gentleness of her +kinsfolk’s deference. She had, first and last, received a great deal of +admiration, and her experience of well-turned compliments was very +considerable; but she knew that she had never been so real a power, never +counted for so much, as now when, for the first time, the standard of +comparison of her little circle was a prey to vagueness. The sense, indeed, +that the good people about her had, as regards her remarkable self, no standard +of comparison at all gave her a feeling of almost illimitable power. It was +true, as she said to herself, that if for this reason they would be able to +discover nothing against her, so they would perhaps neglect to perceive some of +her superior points; but she always wound up her reflections by declaring that +she would take care of that. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte and Gertrude were in some perplexity between their desire to show all +proper attention to Madame Münster and their fear of being importunate. The +little house in the orchard had hitherto been occupied during the summer months +by intimate friends of the family, or by poor relations who found in Mr. +Wentworth a landlord attentive to repairs and oblivious of quarter-day. Under +these circumstances the open door of the small house and that of the large one, +facing each other across their homely gardens, levied no tax upon hourly +visits. But the Misses Wentworth received an impression that Eugenia was no +friend to the primitive custom of “dropping in;” she evidently had +no idea of living without a door-keeper. “One goes into your house as +into an inn—except that there are no servants rushing forward,” she +said to Charlotte. And she added that that was very charming. Gertrude +explained to her sister that she meant just the reverse; she didn’t like +it at all. Charlotte inquired why she should tell an untruth, and Gertrude +answered that there was probably some very good reason for it which they should +discover when they knew her better. “There can surely be no good reason +for telling an untruth,” said Charlotte. “I hope she does not think +so.” +</p> + +<p> +They had of course desired, from the first, to do everything in the way of +helping her to arrange herself. It had seemed to Charlotte that there would be +a great many things to talk about; but the Baroness was apparently inclined to +talk about nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“Write her a note, asking her leave to come and see her. I think that is +what she will like,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I give her the trouble of answering me?” Charlotte +asked. “She will have to write a note and send it over.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think she will take any trouble,” said Gertrude, +profoundly. +</p> + +<p> +“What then will she do?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is what I am curious to see,” said Gertrude, leaving her +sister with an impression that her curiosity was morbid. +</p> + +<p> +They went to see the Baroness without preliminary correspondence; and in the +little salon which she had already created, with its becoming light and its +festoons, they found Robert Acton. +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia was intensely gracious, but she accused them of neglecting her cruelly. +“You see Mr. Acton has had to take pity upon me,” she said. +“My brother goes off sketching, for hours; I can never depend upon him. +So I was to send Mr. Acton to beg you to come and give me the benefit of your +wisdom.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at her sister. She wanted to say, “<i>That</i> is what +she would have done.” Charlotte said that they hoped the Baroness would +always come and dine with them; it would give them so much pleasure; and, in +that case, she would spare herself the trouble of having a cook. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but I must have a cook!” cried the Baroness. “An old +negress in a yellow turban. I have set my heart upon that. I want to look out +of my window and see her sitting there on the grass, against the background of +those crooked, dusky little apple trees, pulling the husks off a lapful of +Indian corn. That will be local color, you know. There isn’t much of it +here—you don’t mind my saying that, do you?—so one must make +the most of what one can get. I shall be most happy to dine with you whenever +you will let me; but I want to be able to ask you sometimes. And I want to be +able to ask Mr. Acton,” added the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“You must come and ask me at home,” said Acton. “You must +come and see me; you must dine with me first. I want to show you my place; I +want to introduce you to my mother.” He called again upon Madame Münster, +two days later. He was constantly at the other house; he used to walk across +the fields from his own place, and he appeared to have fewer scruples than his +cousins with regard to dropping in. On this occasion he found that Mr. Brand +had come to pay his respects to the charming stranger; but after Acton’s +arrival the young theologian said nothing. He sat in his chair with his two +hands clasped, fixing upon his hostess a grave, fascinated stare. The Baroness +talked to Robert Acton, but, as she talked, she turned and smiled at Mr. Brand, +who never took his eyes off her. The two men walked away together; they were +going to Mr. Wentworth’s. Mr. Brand still said nothing; but after they +had passed into Mr. Wentworth’s garden he stopped and looked back for +some time at the little white house. Then, looking at his companion, with his +head bent a little to one side and his eyes somewhat contracted, “Now I +suppose that’s what is called conversation,” he said; “real +conversation.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s what I call a very clever woman,” said Acton, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“It is most interesting,” Mr. Brand continued. “I only wish +she would speak French; it would seem more in keeping. It must be quite the +style that we have heard about, that we have read about—the style of +conversation of Madame de Staël, of Madame Récamier.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton also looked at Madame Münster’s residence among its hollyhocks and +apple trees. “What I should like to know,” he said, smiling, +“is just what has brought Madame Récamier to live in that place!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0005"></a> +CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth, with his cane and his gloves in his hand, went every afternoon +to call upon his niece. A couple of hours later she came over to the great +house to tea. She had let the proposal that she should regularly dine there +fall to the ground; she was in the enjoyment of whatever satisfaction was to be +derived from the spectacle of an old negress in a crimson turban shelling peas +under the apple trees. Charlotte, who had provided the ancient negress, thought +it must be a strange household, Eugenia having told her that Augustine managed +everything, the ancient negress included—Augustine who was naturally +devoid of all acquaintance with the expurgatory English tongue. By far the most +immoral sentiment which I shall have occasion to attribute to Charlotte +Wentworth was a certain emotion of disappointment at finding that, in spite of +these irregular conditions, the domestic arrangements at the small house were +apparently not—from Eugenia’s peculiar point of +view—strikingly offensive. The Baroness found it amusing to go to tea; +she dressed as if for dinner. The tea-table offered an anomalous and +picturesque repast; and on leaving it they all sat and talked in the large +piazza, or wandered about the garden in the starlight, with their ears full of +those sounds of strange insects which, though they are supposed to be, all over +the world, a part of the magic of summer nights, seemed to the Baroness to have +beneath these western skies an incomparable resonance. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth, though, as I say, he went punctiliously to call upon her, was +not able to feel that he was getting used to his niece. It taxed his +imagination to believe that she was really his half-sister’s child. His +sister was a figure of his early years; she had been only twenty when she went +abroad, never to return, making in foreign parts a willful and undesirable +marriage. His aunt, Mrs. Whiteside, who had taken her to Europe for the benefit +of the tour, gave, on her return, so lamentable an account of Mr. Adolphus +Young, to whom the headstrong girl had united her destiny, that it operated as +a chill upon family feeling—especially in the case of the half-brothers. +Catherine had done nothing subsequently to propitiate her family; she had not +even written to them in a way that indicated a lucid appreciation of their +suspended sympathy; so that it had become a tradition in Boston circles that +the highest charity, as regards this young lady, was to think it well to forget +her, and to abstain from conjecture as to the extent to which her aberrations +were reproduced in her descendants. Over these young people—a vague +report of their existence had come to his ears—Mr. Wentworth had not, in +the course of years, allowed his imagination to hover. It had plenty of +occupation nearer home, and though he had many cares upon his conscience the +idea that he had been an unnatural uncle was, very properly, never among the +number. Now that his nephew and niece had come before him, he perceived that +they were the fruit of influences and circumstances very different from those +under which his own familiar progeny had reached a vaguely-qualified maturity. +He felt no provocation to say that these influences had been exerted for evil; +but he was sometimes afraid that he should not be able to like his +distinguished, delicate, lady-like niece. He was paralyzed and bewildered by +her foreignness. She spoke, somehow, a different language. There was something +strange in her words. He had a feeling that another man, in his place, would +accommodate himself to her tone; would ask her questions and joke with her, +reply to those pleasantries of her own which sometimes seemed startling as +addressed to an uncle. But Mr. Wentworth could not do these things. He could +not even bring himself to attempt to measure her position in the world. She was +the wife of a foreign nobleman who desired to repudiate her. This had a +singular sound, but the old man felt himself destitute of the materials for a +judgment. It seemed to him that he ought to find them in his own experience, as +a man of the world and an almost public character; but they were not there, and +he was ashamed to confess to himself—much more to reveal to Eugenia by +interrogations possibly too innocent—the unfurnished condition of this +repository. +</p> + +<p> +It appeared to him that he could get much nearer, as he would have said, to his +nephew; though he was not sure that Felix was altogether safe. He was so bright +and handsome and talkative that it was impossible not to think well of him; and +yet it seemed as if there were something almost impudent, almost +vicious—or as if there ought to be—in a young man being at once so +joyous and so positive. It was to be observed that while Felix was not at all a +serious young man there was somehow more of him—he had more weight and +volume and resonance—than a number of young men who were distinctly +serious. While Mr. Wentworth meditated upon this anomaly his nephew was +admiring him unrestrictedly. He thought him a most delicate, generous, +high-toned old gentleman, with a very handsome head, of the ascetic type, which +he promised himself the profit of sketching. Felix was far from having made a +secret of the fact that he wielded the paint-brush, and it was not his own +fault if it failed to be generally understood that he was prepared to execute +the most striking likenesses on the most reasonable terms. “He is an +artist—my cousin is an artist,” said Gertrude; and she offered this +information to everyone who would receive it. She offered it to herself, as it +were, by way of admonition and reminder; she repeated to herself at odd +moments, in lonely places, that Felix was invested with this sacred character. +Gertrude had never seen an artist before; she had only read about such people. +They seemed to her a romantic and mysterious class, whose life was made up of +those agreeable accidents that never happened to other persons. And it merely +quickened her meditations on this point that Felix should declare, as he +repeatedly did, that he was really not an artist. “I have never gone into +the thing seriously,” he said. “I have never studied; I have had no +training. I do a little of everything, and nothing well. I am only an +amateur.” +</p> + +<p> +It pleased Gertrude even more to think that he was an amateur than to think +that he was an artist; the former word, to her fancy, had an even subtler +connotation. She knew, however, that it was a word to use more soberly. Mr. +Wentworth used it freely; for though he had not been exactly familiar with it, +he found it convenient as a help toward classifying Felix, who, as a young man +extremely clever and active and apparently respectable and yet not engaged in +any recognized business, was an importunate anomaly. Of course the Baroness and +her brother—she was always spoken of first—were a welcome topic of +conversation between Mr. Wentworth and his daughters and their occasional +visitors. +</p> + +<p> +“And the young man, your nephew, what is his profession?” asked an +old gentleman—Mr. Broderip, of Salem—who had been Mr. +Wentworth’s classmate at Harvard College in the year 1809, and who came +into his office in Devonshire Street. (Mr. Wentworth, in his later years, used +to go but three times a week to his office, where he had a large amount of +highly confidential trust-business to transact.) +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he’s an amateur,” said Felix’s uncle, with +folded hands, and with a certain satisfaction in being able to say it. And Mr. +Broderip had gone back to Salem with a feeling that this was probably a +“European” expression for a broker or a grain exporter. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to do your head, sir,” said Felix to his uncle one +evening, before them all—Mr. Brand and Robert Acton being also present. +“I think I should make a very fine thing of it. It’s an interesting +head; it’s very mediaeval.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth looked grave; he felt awkwardly, as if all the company had come +in and found him standing before the looking-glass. “The Lord made +it,” he said. “I don’t think it is for man to make it over +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly the Lord made it,” replied Felix, laughing, “and +he made it very well. But life has been touching up the work. It is a very +interesting type of head. It’s delightfully wasted and emaciated. The +complexion is wonderfully bleached.” And Felix looked round at the +circle, as if to call their attention to these interesting points. Mr. +Wentworth grew visibly paler. “I should like to do you as an old prelate, +an old cardinal, or the prior of an order.” +</p> + +<p> +“A prelate, a cardinal?” murmured Mr. Wentworth. “Do you +refer to the Roman Catholic priesthood?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean an old ecclesiastic who should have led a very pure, abstinent +life. Now I take it that has been the case with you, sir; one sees it in your +face,” Felix proceeded. “You have been very—a very moderate. +Don’t you think one always sees that in a man’s face?” +</p> + +<p> +“You see more in a man’s face than I should think of looking +for,” said Mr. Wentworth coldly. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness rattled her fan, and gave her brilliant laugh. “It is a risk +to look so close!” she exclaimed. “My uncle has some peccadilloes +on his conscience.” Mr. Wentworth looked at her, painfully at a loss; and +in so far as the signs of a pure and abstinent life were visible in his face +they were then probably peculiarly manifest. “You are a <i>beau +vieillard</i>, dear uncle,” said Madame Münster, smiling with her foreign +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you are paying me a compliment,” said the old man. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely, I am not the first woman that ever did so!” cried the +Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you are,” said Mr. Wentworth gravely. And turning to Felix +he added, in the same tone, “Please don’t take my likeness. My +children have my daguerreotype. That is quite satisfactory.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t promise,” said Felix, “not to work your head +into something!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth looked at him and then at all the others; then he got up and +slowly walked away. +</p> + +<p> +“Felix,” said Gertrude, in the silence that followed, “I wish +you would paint my portrait.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte wondered whether Gertrude was right in wishing this; and she looked +at Mr. Brand as the most legitimate way of ascertaining. Whatever Gertrude did +or said, Charlotte always looked at Mr. Brand. It was a standing pretext for +looking at Mr. Brand—always, as Charlotte thought, in the interest of +Gertrude’s welfare. It is true that she felt a tremulous interest in +Gertrude being right; for Charlotte, in her small, still way, was an heroic +sister. +</p> + +<p> +“We should be glad to have your portrait, Miss Gertrude,” said Mr. +Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“I should be delighted to paint so charming a model,” Felix +declared. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think you are so lovely, my dear?” asked Lizzie Acton, with +her little inoffensive pertness, biting off a knot in her knitting. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not because I think I am beautiful,” said Gertrude, looking +all round. “I don’t think I am beautiful, at all.” She spoke +with a sort of conscious deliberateness; and it seemed very strange to +Charlotte to hear her discussing this question so publicly. “It is +because I think it would be amusing to sit and be painted. I have always +thought that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry you have not had better things to think about, my +daughter,” said Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“You are very beautiful, cousin Gertrude,” Felix declared. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a compliment,” said Gertrude. “I put all the +compliments I receive into a little money-jug that has a slit in the side. I +shake them up and down, and they rattle. There are not many yet—only two +or three.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it’s not a compliment,” Felix rejoined. “See; I am +careful not to give it the form of a compliment. I didn’t think you were +beautiful at first. But you have come to seem so little by little.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take care, now, your jug doesn’t burst!” exclaimed Lizzie. +</p> + +<p> +“I think sitting for one’s portrait is only one of the various +forms of idleness,” said Mr. Wentworth. “Their name is +legion.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir,” cried Felix, “you can’t be said to be +idle when you are making a man work so!” +</p> + +<p> +“One might be painted while one is asleep,” suggested Mr. Brand, as +a contribution to the discussion. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, do paint me while I am asleep,” said Gertrude to Felix, +smiling. And she closed her eyes a little. It had by this time become a matter +of almost exciting anxiety to Charlotte what Gertrude would say or would do +next. +</p> + +<p> +She began to sit for her portrait on the following day—in the open air, +on the north side of the piazza. “I wish you would tell me what you think +of us—how we seem to you,” she said to Felix, as he sat before his +easel. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to me the best people in the world,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“You say that,” Gertrude resumed, “because it saves you the +trouble of saying anything else.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man glanced at her over the top of his canvas. “What else +should I say? It would certainly be a great deal of trouble to say anything +different.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Gertrude, “you have seen people before that you +have liked, have you not?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I have, thank Heaven!” +</p> + +<p> +“And they have been very different from us,” Gertrude went on. +</p> + +<p> +“That only proves,” said Felix, “that there are a thousand +different ways of being good company.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think us good company?” asked Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Company for a king!” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude was silent a moment; and then, “There must be a thousand +different ways of being dreary,” she said; “and sometimes I think +we make use of them all.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix stood up quickly, holding up his hand. “If you could only keep that +look on your face for half an hour—while I catch it!” he said. +“It is uncommonly handsome.” +</p> + +<p> +“To look handsome for half an hour—that is a great deal to ask of +me,” she answered. +</p> + +<p> +“It would be the portrait of a young woman who has taken some vow, some +pledge, that she repents of,” said Felix, “and who is thinking it +over at leisure.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have taken no vow, no pledge,” said Gertrude, very gravely; +“I have nothing to repent of.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear cousin, that was only a figure of speech. I am very sure that no +one in your excellent family has anything to repent of.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yet we are always repenting!” Gertrude exclaimed. “That +is what I mean by our being dreary. You know it perfectly well; you only +pretend that you don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix gave a quick laugh. “The half hour is going on, and yet you are +handsomer than ever. One must be careful what one says, you see.” +</p> + +<p> +“To me,” said Gertrude, “you can say anything.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix looked at her, as an artist might, and painted for some time in silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you seem to me different from your father and sister—from +most of the people you have lived with,” he observed. +</p> + +<p> +“To say that one’s self,” Gertrude went on, “is like +saying—by implication, at least—that one is better. I am not +better; I am much worse. But they say themselves that I am different. It makes +them unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you accuse me of concealing my real impressions, I may admit that +I think the tendency—among you generally—is to be made unhappy too +easily.” +</p> + +<p> +“I wish you would tell that to my father,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“It might make him more unhappy!” Felix exclaimed, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“It certainly would. I don’t believe you have seen people like +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my dear cousin, how do you know what I have seen?” Felix +demanded. “How can I tell you?” +</p> + +<p> +“You might tell me a great many things, if you only would. You have seen +people like yourself—people who are bright and gay and fond of amusement. +We are not fond of amusement.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said Felix, “I confess that rather strikes me. You +don’t seem to me to get all the pleasure out of life that you might. You +don’t seem to me to enjoy..... Do you mind my saying this?” he +asked, pausing. +</p> + +<p> +“Please go on,” said the girl, earnestly. +</p> + +<p> +“You seem to me very well placed for enjoying. You have money and liberty +and what is called in Europe a ‘position.’ But you take a painful +view of life, as one may say.” +</p> + +<p> +“One ought to think it bright and charming and delightful, eh?” +asked Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“I should say so—if one can. It is true it all depends upon +that,” Felix added. +</p> + +<p> +“You know there is a great deal of misery in the world,” said his +model. +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen a little of it,” the young man rejoined. “But it +was all over there—beyond the sea. I don’t see any here. This is a +paradise.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude said nothing; she sat looking at the dahlias and the currant-bushes in +the garden, while Felix went on with his work. “To +‘enjoy,’” she began at last, “to take life—not +painfully, must one do something wrong?” +</p> + +<p> +Felix gave his long, light laugh again. “Seriously, I think not. And for +this reason, among others: you strike me as very capable of enjoying, if the +chance were given you, and yet at the same time as incapable of +wrong-doing.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure,” said Gertrude, “that you are very wrong in +telling a person that she is incapable of that. We are never nearer to evil +than when we believe that.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are handsomer than ever,” observed Felix, irrelevantly. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude had got used to hearing him say this. There was not so much excitement +in it as at first. “What ought one to do?” she continued. “To +give parties, to go to the theatre, to read novels, to keep late hours?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it’s what one does or one doesn’t do +that promotes enjoyment,” her companion answered. “It is the +general way of looking at life.” +</p> + +<p> +“They look at it as a discipline—that’s what they do here. I +have often been told that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that’s very good. But there is another way,” added +Felix, smiling: “to look at it as an opportunity.” +</p> + +<p> +“An opportunity—yes,” said Gertrude. “One would get +more pleasure that way.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t attempt to say anything better for it than that it has +been my own way—and that is not saying much!” Felix had laid down +his palette and brushes; he was leaning back, with his arms folded, to judge +the effect of his work. “And you know,” he said, “I am a very +petty personage.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have a great deal of talent,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“No—no,” the young man rejoined, in a tone of cheerful +impartiality, “I have not a great deal of talent. It is nothing at all +remarkable. I assure you I should know if it were. I shall always be obscure. +The world will never hear of me.” Gertrude looked at him with a strange +feeling. She was thinking of the great world which he knew and which she did +not, and how full of brilliant talents it must be, since it could afford to +make light of his abilities. “You needn’t in general attach much +importance to anything I tell you,” he pursued; “but you may +believe me when I say this,—that I am little better than a good-natured +feather-head.” +</p> + +<p> +“A feather-head?” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a species of Bohemian.” +</p> + +<p> +“A Bohemian?” Gertrude had never heard this term before, save as a +geographical denomination; and she quite failed to understand the figurative +meaning which her companion appeared to attach to it. But it gave her pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Felix had pushed back his chair and risen to his feet; he slowly came toward +her, smiling. “I am a sort of adventurer,” he said, looking down at +her. +</p> + +<p> +She got up, meeting his smile. “An adventurer?” she repeated. +“I should like to hear your adventures.” +</p> + +<p> +For an instant she believed that he was going to take her hand; but he dropped +his own hands suddenly into the pockets of his painting-jacket. “There is +no reason why you shouldn’t,” he said. “I have been an +adventurer, but my adventures have been very innocent. They have all been happy +ones; I don’t think there are any I shouldn’t tell. They were very +pleasant and very pretty; I should like to go over them in memory. Sit down +again, and I will begin,” he added in a moment, with his naturally +persuasive smile. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude sat down again on that day, and she sat down on several other days. +Felix, while he plied his brush, told her a great many stories, and she +listened with charmed avidity. Her eyes rested upon his lips; she was very +serious; sometimes, from her air of wondering gravity, he thought she was +displeased. But Felix never believed for more than a single moment in any +displeasure of his own producing. This would have been fatuity if the optimism +it expressed had not been much more a hope than a prejudice. It is beside the +matter to say that he had a good conscience; for the best conscience is a sort +of self-reproach, and this young man’s brilliantly healthy nature spent +itself in objective good intentions which were ignorant of any test save +exactness in hitting their mark. He told Gertrude how he had walked over France +and Italy with a painter’s knapsack on his back, paying his way often by +knocking off a flattering portrait of his host or hostess. He told her how he +had played the violin in a little band of musicians—not of high +celebrity—who traveled through foreign lands giving provincial concerts. +He told her also how he had been a momentary ornament of a troupe of strolling +actors, engaged in the arduous task of interpreting Shakespeare to French and +German, Polish and Hungarian audiences. +</p> + +<p> +While this periodical recital was going on, Gertrude lived in a fantastic +world; she seemed to herself to be reading a romance that came out in daily +numbers. She had known nothing so delightful since the perusal of <i>Nicholas +Nickleby</i>. One afternoon she went to see her cousin, Mrs. Acton, +Robert’s mother, who was a great invalid, never leaving the house. She +came back alone, on foot, across the fields—this being a short way which +they often used. Felix had gone to Boston with her father, who desired to take +the young man to call upon some of his friends, old gentlemen who remembered +his mother—remembered her, but said nothing about her—and several +of whom, with the gentle ladies their wives, had driven out from town to pay +their respects at the little house among the apple trees, in vehicles which +reminded the Baroness, who received her visitors with discriminating civility, +of the large, light, rattling barouche in which she herself had made her +journey to this neighborhood. The afternoon was waning; in the western sky the +great picture of a New England sunset, painted in crimson and silver, was +suspended from the zenith; and the stony pastures, as Gertrude traversed them, +thinking intently to herself, were covered with a light, clear glow. At the +open gate of one of the fields she saw from the distance a man’s figure; +he stood there as if he were waiting for her, and as she came nearer she +recognized Mr. Brand. She had a feeling as of not having seen him for some +time; she could not have said for how long, for it yet seemed to her that he +had been very lately at the house. +</p> + +<p> +“May I walk back with you?” he asked. And when she had said that he +might if he wanted, he observed that he had seen her and recognized her half a +mile away. +</p> + +<p> +“You must have very good eyes,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I have very good eyes, Miss Gertrude,” said Mr. Brand. She +perceived that he meant something; but for a long time past Mr. Brand had +constantly meant something, and she had almost got used to it. She felt, +however, that what he meant had now a renewed power to disturb her, to perplex +and agitate her. He walked beside her in silence for a moment, and then he +added, “I have had no trouble in seeing that you are beginning to avoid +me. But perhaps,” he went on, “one needn’t have had very good +eyes to see that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not avoided you,” said Gertrude, without looking at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you have been unconscious that you were avoiding me,” Mr. +Brand replied. “You have not even known that I was there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you are here now, Mr. Brand!” said Gertrude, with a little +laugh. “I know that very well.” +</p> + +<p> +He made no rejoinder. He simply walked beside her slowly, as they were obliged +to walk over the soft grass. Presently they came to another gate, which was +closed. Mr. Brand laid his hand upon it, but he made no movement to open it; he +stood and looked at his companion. “You are very much +interested—very much absorbed,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude glanced at him; she saw that he was pale and that he looked excited. +She had never seen Mr. Brand excited before, and she felt that the spectacle, +if fully carried out, would be impressive, almost painful. “Absorbed in +what?” she asked. Then she looked away at the illuminated sky. She felt +guilty and uncomfortable, and yet she was vexed with herself for feeling so. +But Mr. Brand, as he stood there looking at her with his small, kind, +persistent eyes, represented an immense body of half-obliterated obligations, +that were rising again into a certain distinctness. +</p> + +<p> +“You have new interests, new occupations,” he went on. “I +don’t know that I can say that you have new duties. We have always old +ones, Gertrude,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“Please open the gate, Mr. Brand,” she said; and she felt as if, in +saying so, she were cowardly and petulant. But he opened the gate, and allowed +her to pass; then he closed it behind himself. Before she had time to turn away +he put out his hand and held her an instant by the wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to say something to you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you want to say,” she answered. And she was on the +point of adding, “And I know just how you will say it;” but these +words she kept back. +</p> + +<p> +“I love you, Gertrude,” he said. “I love you very much; I +love you more than ever.” +</p> + +<p> +He said the words just as she had known he would; she had heard them before. +They had no charm for her; she had said to herself before that it was very +strange. It was supposed to be delightful for a woman to listen to such words; +but these seemed to her flat and mechanical. “I wish you would forget +that,” she declared. +</p> + +<p> +“How can I—why should I?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I have made you no promise—given you no pledge,” she said, +looking at him, with her voice trembling a little. +</p> + +<p> +“You have let me feel that I have an influence over you. You have opened +your mind to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never opened my mind to you, Mr. Brand!” Gertrude cried, with +some vehemence. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you were not so frank as I thought—as we all thought.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see what anyone else had to do with it!” cried the +girl. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean your father and your sister. You know it makes them happy to +think you will listen to me.” +</p> + +<p> +She gave a little laugh. “It doesn’t make them happy,” she +said. “Nothing makes them happy. No one is happy here.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think your cousin is very happy—Mr. Young,” rejoined Mr. +Brand, in a soft, almost timid tone. +</p> + +<p> +“So much the better for him!” And Gertrude gave her little laugh +again. +</p> + +<p> +The young man looked at her a moment. “You are very much changed,” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I am glad to hear it,” Gertrude declared. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not. I have known you a long time, and I have loved you as you +were.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged to you,” said Gertrude. “I must be going +home.” +</p> + +<p> +He on his side, gave a little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“You certainly do avoid me—you see!” +</p> + +<p> +“Avoid me, then,” said the girl. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her again; and then, very gently, “No I will not avoid +you,” he replied; “but I will leave you, for the present, to +yourself. I think you will remember—after a while—some of the +things you have forgotten. I think you will come back to me; I have great faith +in that.” +</p> + +<p> +This time his voice was very touching; there was a strong, reproachful force in +what he said, and Gertrude could answer nothing. He turned away and stood +there, leaning his elbows on the gate and looking at the beautiful sunset. +Gertrude left him and took her way home again; but when she reached the middle +of the next field she suddenly burst into tears. Her tears seemed to her to +have been a long time gathering, and for some moments it was a kind of glee to +shed them. But they presently passed away. There was something a little hard +about Gertrude; and she never wept again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0006"></a> +CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p> +Going of an afternoon to call upon his niece, Mr. Wentworth more than once +found Robert Acton sitting in her little drawing-room. This was in no degree, +to Mr. Wentworth, a perturbing fact, for he had no sense of competing with his +young kinsman for Eugenia’s good graces. Madame Münster’s uncle had +the highest opinion of Robert Acton, who, indeed, in the family at large, was +the object of a great deal of undemonstrative appreciation. They were all proud +of him, in so far as the charge of being proud may be brought against people +who were, habitually, distinctly guiltless of the misdemeanor known as +“taking credit.” They never boasted of Robert Acton, nor indulged +in vainglorious reference to him; they never quoted the clever things he had +said, nor mentioned the generous things he had done. But a sort of +frigidly-tender faith in his unlimited goodness was a part of their personal +sense of right; and there can, perhaps, be no better proof of the high esteem +in which he was held than the fact that no explicit judgment was ever passed +upon his actions. He was no more praised than he was blamed; but he was tacitly +felt to be an ornament to his circle. He was the man of the world of the +family. He had been to China and brought home a collection of curiosities; he +had made a fortune—or rather he had quintupled a fortune already +considerable; he was distinguished by that combination of celibacy, +“property,” and good humor which appeals to even the most subdued +imaginations; and it was taken for granted that he would presently place these +advantages at the disposal of some well-regulated young woman of his own +“set.” Mr. Wentworth was not a man to admit to himself +that—his paternal duties apart—he liked any individual much better +than all other individuals; but he thought Robert Acton extremely judicious; +and this was perhaps as near an approach as he was capable of to the eagerness +of preference, which his temperament repudiated as it would have disengaged +itself from something slightly unchaste. Acton was, in fact, very +judicious—and something more beside; and indeed it must be claimed for +Mr. Wentworth that in the more illicit parts of his preference there hovered +the vague adumbration of a belief that his cousin’s final merit was a +certain enviable capacity for whistling, rather gallantly, at the sanctions of +mere judgment—for showing a larger courage, a finer quality of pluck, +than common occasion demanded. Mr. Wentworth would never have risked the +intimation that Acton was made, in the smallest degree, of the stuff of a hero; +but this is small blame to him, for Robert would certainly never have risked it +himself. Acton certainly exercised great discretion in all +things—beginning with his estimate of himself. He knew that he was by no +means so much of a man of the world as he was supposed to be in local circles; +but it must be added that he knew also that his natural shrewdness had a reach +of which he had never quite given local circles the measure. He was addicted to +taking the humorous view of things, and he had discovered that even in the +narrowest circles such a disposition may find frequent opportunities. Such +opportunities had formed for some time—that is, since his return from +China, a year and a half before—the most active element in this +gentleman’s life, which had just now a rather indolent air. He was +perfectly willing to get married. He was very fond of books, and he had a +handsome library; that is, his books were much more numerous than Mr. +Wentworth’s. He was also very fond of pictures; but it must be confessed, +in the fierce light of contemporary criticism, that his walls were adorned with +several rather abortive masterpieces. He had got his learning—and there +was more of it than commonly appeared—at Harvard College; and he took a +pleasure in old associations, which made it a part of his daily contentment to +live so near this institution that he often passed it in driving to Boston. He +was extremely interested in the Baroness Münster. +</p> + +<p> +She was very frank with him; or at least she intended to be. “I am sure +you find it very strange that I should have settled down in this out-of-the-way +part of the world!” she said to him three or four weeks after she had +installed herself. “I am certain you are wondering about my motives. They +are very pure.” The Baroness by this time was an old inhabitant; the best +society in Boston had called upon her, and Clifford Wentworth had taken her +several times to drive in his buggy. +</p> + +<p> +Robert Acton was seated near her, playing with a fan; there were always several +fans lying about her drawing-room, with long ribbons of different colors +attached to them, and Acton was always playing with one. “No, I +don’t find it at all strange,” he said slowly, smiling. “That +a clever woman should turn up in Boston, or its suburbs—that does not +require so much explanation. Boston is a very nice place.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you wish to make me contradict you,” said the Baroness, +“<i>vous vous y prenez mal</i>. In certain moods there is nothing I am +not capable of agreeing to. Boston is a paradise, and we are in the suburbs of +Paradise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just now I am not at all in the suburbs; I am in the place +itself,” rejoined Acton, who was lounging a little in his chair. He was, +however, not always lounging; and when he was he was not quite so relaxed as he +pretended. To a certain extent, he sought refuge from shyness in this +appearance of relaxation; and like many persons in the same circumstances he +somewhat exaggerated the appearance. Beyond this, the air of being much at his +ease was a cover for vigilant observation. He was more than interested in this +clever woman, who, whatever he might say, was clever not at all after the +Boston fashion; she plunged him into a kind of excitement, held him in vague +suspense. He was obliged to admit to himself that he had never yet seen a woman +just like this—not even in China. He was ashamed, for inscrutable +reasons, of the vivacity of his emotion, and he carried it off, superficially, +by taking, still superficially, the humorous view of Madame Münster. It was not +at all true that he thought it very natural of her to have made this pious +pilgrimage. It might have been said of him in advance that he was too good a +Bostonian to regard in the light of an eccentricity the desire of even the +remotest alien to visit the New England metropolis. This was an impulse for +which, surely, no apology was needed; and Madame Münster was the fortunate +possessor of several New England cousins. In fact, however, Madame Münster +struck him as out of keeping with her little circle; she was at the best a very +agreeable, a gracefully mystifying anomaly. He knew very well that it would not +do to address these reflections too crudely to Mr. Wentworth; he would never +have remarked to the old gentleman that he wondered what the Baroness was up +to. And indeed he had no great desire to share his vague mistrust with anyone. +There was a personal pleasure in it; the greatest pleasure he had known at +least since he had come from China. He would keep the Baroness, for better or +worse, to himself; he had a feeling that he deserved to enjoy a monopoly of +her, for he was certainly the person who had most adequately gauged her +capacity for social intercourse. Before long it became apparent to him that the +Baroness was disposed to lay no tax upon such a monopoly. +</p> + +<p> +One day (he was sitting there again and playing with a fan) she asked him to +apologize, should the occasion present itself, to certain people in Boston for +her not having returned their calls. “There are half a dozen +places,” she said; “a formidable list. Charlotte Wentworth has +written it out for me, in a terrifically distinct hand. There is no ambiguity +on the subject; I know perfectly where I must go. Mr. Wentworth informs me that +the carriage is always at my disposal, and Charlotte offers to go with me, in a +pair of tight gloves and a very stiff petticoat. And yet for three days I have +been putting it off. They must think me horribly vicious.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ask me to apologize,” said Acton, “but you don’t +tell me what excuse I can offer.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is more,” the Baroness declared, “than I am held to. It +would be like my asking you to buy me a bouquet and giving you the money. I +have no reason except that—somehow—it’s too violent an +effort. It is not inspiring. Wouldn’t that serve as an excuse, in Boston? +I am told they are very sincere; they don’t tell fibs. And then Felix +ought to go with me, and he is never in readiness. I don’t see him. He is +always roaming about the fields and sketching old barns, or taking ten-mile +walks, or painting someone’s portrait, or rowing on the pond, or flirting +with Gertrude Wentworth.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think it would amuse you to go and see a few people,” +said Acton. “You are having a very quiet time of it here. It’s a +dull life for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, the quiet,—the quiet!” the Baroness exclaimed. +“That’s what I like. It’s rest. That’s what I came here +for. Amusement? I have had amusement. And as for seeing people—I have +already seen a great many in my life. If it didn’t sound ungracious I +should say that I wish very humbly your people here would leave me +alone!” +</p> + +<p> +Acton looked at her a moment, and she looked at him. She was a woman who took +being looked at remarkably well. “So you have come here for rest?” +he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“So I may say. I came for many of those reasons that are no +reasons—don’t you know?—and yet that are really the best: to +come away, to change, to break with everything. When once one comes away one +must arrive somewhere, and I asked myself why I shouldn’t arrive +here.” +</p> + +<p> +“You certainly had time on the way!” said Acton, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Münster looked at him again; and then, smiling: “And I have +certainly had time, since I got here, to ask myself why I came. However, I +never ask myself idle questions. Here I am, and it seems to me you ought only +to thank me.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you go away you will see the difficulties I shall put in your +path.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean to put difficulties in my path?” she asked, rearranging +the rosebud in her corsage. +</p> + +<p> +“The greatest of all—that of having been so +agreeable——” +</p> + +<p> +“That I shall be unable to depart? Don’t be too sure. I have left +some very agreeable people over there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Acton, “but it was to come here, where I +am!” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t know of your existence. Excuse me for saying anything so +rude; but, honestly speaking, I did not. No,” the Baroness pursued, +“it was precisely not to see you—such people as you—that I +came.” +</p> + +<p> +“Such people as me?” cried Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“I had a sort of longing to come into those natural relations which I +knew I should find here. Over there I had only, as I may say, artificial +relations. Don’t you see the difference?” +</p> + +<p> +“The difference tells against me,” said Acton. “I suppose I +am an artificial relation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Conventional,” declared the Baroness; “very +conventional.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, there is one way in which the relation of a lady and a gentleman +may always become natural,” said Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean by their becoming lovers? That may be natural or not. And at +any rate,” rejoined Eugenia, <i>“nous n’en sommes pas +là!”</i> +</p> + +<p> +They were not, as yet; but a little later, when she began to go with him to +drive, it might almost have seemed that they were. He came for her several +times, alone, in his high “wagon,” drawn by a pair of charming +light-limbed horses. It was different, her having gone with Clifford Wentworth, +who was her cousin, and so much younger. It was not to be imagined that she +should have a flirtation with Clifford, who was a mere shame-faced boy, and +whom a large section of Boston society supposed to be “engaged” to +Lizzie Acton. Not, indeed, that it was to be conceived that the Baroness was a +possible party to any flirtation whatever; for she was undoubtedly a married +lady. It was generally known that her matrimonial condition was of the +“morganatic” order; but in its natural aversion to suppose that +this meant anything less than absolute wedlock, the conscience of the community +took refuge in the belief that it implied something even more. +</p> + +<p> +Acton wished her to think highly of American scenery, and he drove her to great +distances, picking out the prettiest roads and the largest points of view. If +we are good when we are contented, Eugenia’s virtues should now certainly +have been uppermost; for she found a charm in the rapid movement through a wild +country, and in a companion who from time to time made the vehicle dip, with a +motion like a swallow’s flight, over roads of primitive construction, and +who, as she felt, would do a great many things that she might ask him. +Sometimes, for a couple of hours together, there were almost no houses; there +were nothing but woods and rivers and lakes and horizons adorned with +bright-looking mountains. It seemed to the Baroness very wild, as I have said, +and lovely; but the impression added something to that sense of the enlargement +of opportunity which had been born of her arrival in the New World. +</p> + +<p> +One day—it was late in the afternoon—Acton pulled up his horses on +the crest of a hill which commanded a beautiful prospect. He let them stand a +long time to rest, while he sat there and talked with Madame Münster. The +prospect was beautiful in spite of there being nothing human within sight. +There was a wilderness of woods, and the gleam of a distant river, and a +glimpse of half the hill-tops in Massachusetts. The road had a wide, grassy +margin, on the further side of which there flowed a deep, clear brook; there +were wild flowers in the grass, and beside the brook lay the trunk of a fallen +tree. Acton waited a while; at last a rustic wayfarer came trudging along the +road. Acton asked him to hold the horses—a service he consented to +render, as a friendly turn to a fellow-citizen. Then he invited the Baroness to +descend, and the two wandered away, across the grass, and sat down on the log +beside the brook. +</p> + +<p> +“I imagine it doesn’t remind you of Silberstadt,” said Acton. +It was the first time that he had mentioned Silberstadt to her, for particular +reasons. He knew she had a husband there, and this was disagreeable to him; +and, furthermore, it had been repeated to him that this husband wished to put +her away—a state of affairs to which even indirect reference was to be +deprecated. It was true, nevertheless, that the Baroness herself had often +alluded to Silberstadt; and Acton had often wondered why her husband wished to +get rid of her. It was a curious position for a lady—this being known as +a repudiated wife; and it is worthy of observation that the Baroness carried it +off with exceeding grace and dignity. She had made it felt, from the first, +that there were two sides to the question, and that her own side, when she +should choose to present it, would be replete with touching interest. +</p> + +<p> +“It does not remind me of the town, of course,” she said, “of +the sculptured gables and the Gothic churches, of the wonderful Schloss, with +its moat and its clustering towers. But it has a little look of some other +parts of the principality. One might fancy one’s self among those grand +old German forests, those legendary mountains; the sort of country one sees +from the windows at Schreckenstein.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is Schreckenstein?” asked Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a great castle,—the summer residence of the Reigning +Prince.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever lived there?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have stayed there,” said the Baroness. Acton was silent; he +looked a while at the uncastled landscape before him. “It is the first +time you have ever asked me about Silberstadt,” she said. “I should +think you would want to know about my marriage; it must seem to you very +strange.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton looked at her a moment. “Now you wouldn’t like me to say +that!” +</p> + +<p> +“You Americans have such odd ways!” the Baroness declared. +“You never ask anything outright; there seem to be so many things you +can’t talk about.” +</p> + +<p> +“We Americans are very polite,” said Acton, whose national +consciousness had been complicated by a residence in foreign lands, and who yet +disliked to hear Americans abused. “We don’t like to tread upon +people’s toes,” he said. “But I should like very much to hear +about your marriage. Now tell me how it came about.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Prince fell in love with me,” replied the Baroness simply. +“He pressed his suit very hard. At first he didn’t wish me to marry +him; on the contrary. But on that basis I refused to listen to him. So he +offered me marriage—in so far as he might. I was young, and I confess I +was rather flattered. But if it were to be done again now, I certainly should +not accept him.” +</p> + +<p> +“How long ago was this?” asked Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh—several years,” said Eugenia. “You should never ask +a woman for dates.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, I should think that when a woman was relating history “ Acton +answered. “And now he wants to break it off?” +</p> + +<p> +“They want him to make a political marriage. It is his brother’s +idea. His brother is very clever.” +</p> + +<p> +“They must be a precious pair!” cried Robert Acton. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness gave a little philosophic shrug. “<i>Que voulez-vous?</i> +They are princes. They think they are treating me very well. Silberstadt is a +perfectly despotic little state, and the Reigning Prince may annul the marriage +by a stroke of his pen. But he has promised me, nevertheless, not to do so +without my formal consent.” +</p> + +<p> +“And this you have refused?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hitherto. It is an indignity, and I have wished at least to make it +difficult for them. But I have a little document in my writing-desk which I +have only to sign and send back to the Prince.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it will be all over?” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness lifted her hand, and dropped it again. “Of course I shall +keep my title; at least, I shall be at liberty to keep it if I choose. And I +suppose I shall keep it. One must have a name. And I shall keep my pension. It +is very small—it is wretchedly small; but it is what I live on.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you have only to sign that paper?” Acton asked. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness looked at him a moment. “Do you urge it?” +</p> + +<p> +He got up slowly, and stood with his hands in his pockets. “What do you +gain by not doing it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am supposed to gain this advantage—that if I delay, or +temporize, the Prince may come back to me, may make a stand against his +brother. He is very fond of me, and his brother has pushed him only little by +little.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he were to come back to you,” said Acton, “would +you—would you take him back?” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness met his eyes; she colored just a little. Then she rose. “I +should have the satisfaction of saying, ‘Now it is my turn. I break with +your Serene Highness!’” +</p> + +<p> +They began to walk toward the carriage. “Well,” said Robert Acton, +“it’s a curious story! How did you make his acquaintance?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was staying with an old lady—an old Countess—in Dresden. +She had been a friend of my father’s. My father was dead; I was very much +alone. My brother was wandering about the world in a theatrical troupe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your brother ought to have stayed with you,” Acton observed, +“and kept you from putting your trust in princes.” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness was silent a moment, and then, “He did what he could,” +she said. “He sent me money. The old Countess encouraged the Prince; she +was even pressing. It seems to me,” Madame Münster added, gently, +“that—under the circumstances—I behaved very well.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton glanced at her, and made the observation—he had made it +before—that a woman looks the prettier for having unfolded her wrongs or +her sufferings. “Well,” he reflected, audibly, “I should like +to see you send his Serene Highness—somewhere!” +</p> + +<p> +Madame Münster stooped and plucked a daisy from the grass. “And not sign +my renunciation?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t know—I don’t know,” said Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“In one case I should have my revenge; in another case I should have my +liberty.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton gave a little laugh as he helped her into the carriage. “At any +rate,” he said, “take good care of that paper.” +</p> + +<p> +A couple of days afterward he asked her to come and see his house. The visit +had already been proposed, but it had been put off in consequence of his +mother’s illness. She was a constant invalid, and she had passed these +recent years, very patiently, in a great flowered arm-chair at her bedroom +window. Lately, for some days, she had been unable to see anyone; but now she +was better, and she sent the Baroness a very civil message. Acton had wished +their visitor to come to dinner; but Madame Münster preferred to begin with a +simple call. She had reflected that if she should go to dinner Mr. Wentworth +and his daughters would also be asked, and it had seemed to her that the +peculiar character of the occasion would be best preserved in a +<i>tête-à-tête</i> with her host. Why the occasion should have a peculiar +character she explained to no one. As far as anyone could see, it was simply +very pleasant. Acton came for her and drove her to his door, an operation which +was rapidly performed. His house the Baroness mentally pronounced a very good +one; more articulately, she declared that it was enchanting. It was large and +square and painted brown; it stood in a well-kept shrubbery, and was +approached, from the gate, by a short drive. It was, moreover, a much more +modern dwelling than Mr. Wentworth’s, and was more redundantly +upholstered and expensively ornamented. The Baroness perceived that her +entertainer had analyzed material comfort to a sufficiently fine point. And +then he possessed the most delightful <i>chinoiseries</i>—trophies of his +sojourn in the Celestial Empire: pagodas of ebony and cabinets of ivory; +sculptured monsters, grinning and leering on chimney-pieces, in front of +beautifully figured hand-screens; porcelain dinner-sets, gleaming behind the +glass doors of mahogany buffets; large screens, in corners, covered with tense +silk and embroidered with mandarins and dragons. These things were scattered +all over the house, and they gave Eugenia a pretext for a complete domiciliary +visit. She liked it, she enjoyed it; she thought it a very nice place. It had a +mixture of the homely and the liberal, and though it was almost a museum, the +large, little-used rooms were as fresh and clean as a well-kept dairy. Lizzie +Acton told her that she dusted all the pagodas and other curiosities every day +with her own hands; and the Baroness answered that she was evidently a +household fairy. Lizzie had not at all the look of a young lady who dusted +things; she wore such pretty dresses and had such delicate fingers that it was +difficult to imagine her immersed in sordid cares. She came to meet Madame +Münster on her arrival, but she said nothing, or almost nothing, and the +Baroness again reflected—she had had occasion to do so before—that +American girls had no manners. She disliked this little American girl, and she +was quite prepared to learn that she had failed to commend herself to Miss +Acton. Lizzie struck her as positive and explicit almost to pertness; and the +idea of her combining the apparent incongruities of a taste for housework and +the wearing of fresh, Parisian-looking dresses suggested the possession of a +dangerous energy. It was a source of irritation to the Baroness that in this +country it should seem to matter whether a little girl were a trifle less or a +trifle more of a nonentity; for Eugenia had hitherto been conscious of no moral +pressure as regards the appreciation of diminutive virgins. It was perhaps an +indication of Lizzie’s pertness that she very soon retired and left the +Baroness on her brother’s hands. Acton talked a great deal about his +<i>chinoiseries</i>; he knew a good deal about porcelain and bric-à-brac. The +Baroness, in her progress through the house, made, as it were, a great many +stations. She sat down everywhere, confessed to being a little tired, and asked +about the various objects with a curious mixture of alertness and inattention. +If there had been anyone to say it to she would have declared that she was +positively in love with her host; but she could hardly make this +declaration—even in the strictest confidence—to Acton himself. It +gave her, nevertheless, a pleasure that had some of the charm of unwontedness +to feel, with that admirable keenness with which she was capable of feeling +things, that he had a disposition without any edges; that even his humorous +irony always expanded toward the point. One’s impression of his honesty +was almost like carrying a bunch of flowers; the perfume was most agreeable, +but they were occasionally an inconvenience. One could trust him, at any rate, +round all the corners of the world; and, withal, he was not absolutely simple, +which would have been excess; he was only relatively simple, which was quite +enough for the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie reappeared to say that her mother would now be happy to receive Madame +Münster; and the Baroness followed her to Mrs. Acton’s apartment. Eugenia +reflected, as she went, that it was not the affectation of impertinence that +made her dislike this young lady, for on that ground she could easily have +beaten her. It was not an aspiration on the girl’s part to rivalry, but a +kind of laughing, childishly-mocking indifference to the results of comparison. +Mrs. Acton was an emaciated, sweet-faced woman of five and fifty, sitting with +pillows behind her, and looking out on a clump of hemlocks. She was very +modest, very timid, and very ill; she made Eugenia feel grateful that she +herself was not like that—neither so ill, nor, possibly, so modest. On a +chair, beside her, lay a volume of Emerson’s Essays. It was a great +occasion for poor Mrs. Acton, in her helpless condition, to be confronted with +a clever foreign lady, who had more manner than any lady—any dozen +ladies—that she had ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard a great deal about you,” she said, softly, to the +Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“From your son, eh?” Eugenia asked. “He has talked to me +immensely of you. Oh, he talks of you as you would like,” the Baroness +declared; “as such a son <i>must</i> talk of such a mother!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Acton sat gazing; this was part of Madame Münster’s +“manner.” But Robert Acton was gazing too, in vivid consciousness +that he had barely mentioned his mother to their brilliant guest. He never +talked of this still maternal presence,—a presence refined to such +delicacy that it had almost resolved itself, with him, simply into the +subjective emotion of gratitude. And Acton rarely talked of his emotions. The +Baroness turned her smile toward him, and she instantly felt that she had been +observed to be fibbing. She had struck a false note. But who were these people +to whom such fibbing was not pleasing? If they were annoyed, the Baroness was +equally so; and after the exchange of a few civil inquiries and low-voiced +responses she took leave of Mrs. Acton. She begged Robert not to come home with +her; she would get into the carriage alone; she preferred that. This was +imperious, and she thought he looked disappointed. While she stood before the +door with him—the carriage was turning in the gravel-walk—this +thought restored her serenity. +</p> + +<p> +When she had given him her hand in farewell she looked at him a moment. +“I have almost decided to dispatch that paper,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He knew that she alluded to the document that she had called her renunciation; +and he assisted her into the carriage without saying anything. But just before +the vehicle began to move he said, “Well, when you have in fact +dispatched it, I hope you will let me know!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0007"></a> +CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p> +Felix Young finished Gertrude’s portrait, and he afterwards transferred +to canvas the features of many members of that circle of which it may be said +that he had become for the time the pivot and the centre. I am afraid it must +be confessed that he was a decidedly flattering painter, and that he imparted +to his models a romantic grace which seemed easily and cheaply acquired by the +payment of a hundred dollars to a young man who made “sitting” so +entertaining. For Felix was paid for his pictures, making, as he did, no secret +of the fact that in guiding his steps to the Western world affectionate +curiosity had gone hand in hand with a desire to better his condition. He took +his uncle’s portrait quite as if Mr. Wentworth had never averted himself +from the experiment; and as he compassed his end only by the exercise of gentle +violence, it is but fair to add that he allowed the old man to give him nothing +but his time. He passed his arm into Mr. Wentworth’s one summer +morning—very few arms indeed had ever passed into Mr. +Wentworth’s—and led him across the garden and along the road into +the studio which he had extemporized in the little house among the apple trees. +The grave gentleman felt himself more and more fascinated by his clever nephew, +whose fresh, demonstrative youth seemed a compendium of experiences so +strangely numerous. It appeared to him that Felix must know a great deal; he +would like to learn what he thought about some of those things as regards which +his own conversation had always been formal, but his knowledge vague. Felix had +a confident, gayly trenchant way of judging human actions which Mr. Wentworth +grew little by little to envy; it seemed like criticism made easy. Forming an +opinion—say on a person’s conduct—was, with Mr. Wentworth, a +good deal like fumbling in a lock with a key chosen at hazard. He seemed to +himself to go about the world with a big bunch of these ineffectual instruments +at his girdle. His nephew, on the other hand, with a single turn of the wrist, +opened any door as adroitly as a horse-thief. He felt obliged to keep up the +convention that an uncle is always wiser than a nephew, even if he could keep +it up no otherwise than by listening in serious silence to Felix’s quick, +light, constant discourse. But there came a day when he lapsed from consistency +and almost asked his nephew’s advice. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you ever entertained the idea of settling in the United +States?” he asked one morning, while Felix brilliantly plied his brush. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear uncle,” said Felix, “excuse me if your question +makes me smile a little. To begin with, I have never entertained an idea. Ideas +often entertain <i>me</i>; but I am afraid I have never seriously made a plan. +I know what you are going to say; or rather, I know what you think, for I +don’t think you will say it—that this is very frivolous and +loose-minded on my part. So it is; but I am made like that; I take things as +they come, and somehow there is always some new thing to follow the last. In +the second place, I should never propose to <i>settle</i>. I can’t +settle, my dear uncle; I’m not a settler. I know that is what strangers +are supposed to do here; they always settle. But I haven’t—to +answer your question—entertained that idea.” +</p> + +<p> +“You intend to return to Europe and resume your irregular manner of +life?” Mr. Wentworth inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say I intend. But it’s very likely I shall go back +to Europe. After all, I am a European. I feel that, you know. It will depend a +good deal upon my sister. She’s even more of a European than I; here, you +know, she’s a picture out of her setting. And as for +‘resuming,’ dear uncle, I really have never given up my irregular +manner of life. What, for me, could be more irregular than this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Than what?” asked Mr. Wentworth, with his pale gravity. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, than everything! Living in the midst of you, this way; this +charming, quiet, serious family life; fraternizing with Charlotte and Gertrude; +calling upon twenty young ladies and going out to walk with them; sitting with +you in the evening on the piazza and listening to the crickets, and going to +bed at ten o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your description is very animated,” said Mr. Wentworth; “but +I see nothing improper in what you describe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Neither do I, dear uncle. It is extremely delightful; I shouldn’t +like it if it were improper. I assure you I don’t like improper things; +though I dare say you think I do,” Felix went on, painting away. +</p> + +<p> +“I have never accused you of that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t,” said Felix, “because, you see, at bottom +I am a terrible Philistine.” +</p> + +<p> +“A Philistine?” repeated Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, as one may say, a plain, God-fearing man.” Mr. Wentworth +looked at him reservedly, like a mystified sage, and Felix continued, “I +trust I shall enjoy a venerable and venerated old age. I mean to live long. I +can hardly call that a plan, perhaps; but it’s a keen desire—a rosy +vision. I shall be a lively, perhaps even a frivolous old man!” +</p> + +<p> +“It is natural,” said his uncle, sententiously, “that one +should desire to prolong an agreeable life. We have perhaps a selfish +indisposition to bring our pleasure to a close. But I presume,” he added, +“that you expect to marry.” +</p> + +<p> +“That too, dear uncle, is a hope, a desire, a vision,” said Felix. +It occurred to him for an instant that this was possibly a preface to the offer +of the hand of one of Mr. Wentworth’s admirable daughters. But in the +name of decent modesty and a proper sense of the hard realities of this world, +Felix banished the thought. His uncle was the incarnation of benevolence, +certainly; but from that to accepting—much more postulating—the +idea of a union between a young lady with a dowry presumptively brilliant and a +penniless artist with no prospect of fame, there was a very long way. Felix had +lately become conscious of a luxurious preference for the society—if +possible unshared with others—of Gertrude Wentworth; but he had relegated +this young lady, for the moment, to the coldly brilliant category of +unattainable possessions. She was not the first woman for whom he had +entertained an unpractical admiration. He had been in love with duchesses and +countesses, and he had made, once or twice, a perilously near approach to +cynicism in declaring that the disinterestedness of women had been overrated. +On the whole, he had tempered audacity with modesty; and it is but fair to him +now to say explicitly that he would have been incapable of taking advantage of +his present large allowance of familiarity to make love to the younger of his +handsome cousins. Felix had grown up among traditions in the light of which +such a proceeding looked like a grievous breach of hospitality. I have said +that he was always happy, and it may be counted among the present sources of +his happiness that he had as regards this matter of his relations with Gertrude +a deliciously good conscience. His own deportment seemed to him suffused with +the beauty of virtue—a form of beauty that he admired with the same +vivacity with which he admired all other forms. +</p> + +<p> +“I think that if you marry,” said Mr. Wentworth presently, +“it will conduce to your happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Sicurissimo!”</i> Felix exclaimed; and then, arresting his +brush, he looked at his uncle with a smile. “There is something I feel +tempted to say to you. May I risk it?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth drew himself up a little. “I am very safe; I don’t +repeat things.” But he hoped Felix would not risk too much. +</p> + +<p> +Felix was laughing at his answer. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s odd to hear you telling me how to be happy. I don’t +think you know yourself, dear uncle. Now, does that sound brutal?” +</p> + +<p> +The old man was silent a moment, and then, with a dry dignity that suddenly +touched his nephew: “We may sometimes point out a road we are unable to +follow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, don’t tell me you have had any sorrows,” Felix rejoined. +“I didn’t suppose it, and I didn’t mean to allude to them. I +simply meant that you all don’t amuse yourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“Amuse ourselves? We are not children.” +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely not! You have reached the proper age. I was saying that the +other day to Gertrude,” Felix added. “I hope it was not +indiscreet.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it was,” said Mr. Wentworth, with a keener irony than Felix +would have thought him capable of, “it was but your way of amusing +yourself. I am afraid you have never had a trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I have!” Felix declared, with some spirit; “before +I knew better. But you don’t catch me at it again.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth maintained for a while a silence more expressive than a +deep-drawn sigh. “You have no children,” he said at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t tell me,” Felix exclaimed, “that your charming +young people are a source of grief to you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t speak of Charlotte.” And then, after a pause, Mr. +Wentworth continued, “I don’t speak of Gertrude. But I feel +considerable anxiety about Clifford. I will tell you another time.” +</p> + +<p> +The next time he gave Felix a sitting his nephew reminded him that he had taken +him into his confidence. “How is Clifford today?” Felix asked. +“He has always seemed to me a young man of remarkable discretion. Indeed, +he is only too discreet; he seems on his guard against me—as if he +thought me rather light company. The other day he told his +sister—Gertrude repeated it to me—that I was always laughing at +him. If I laugh it is simply from the impulse to try and inspire him with +confidence. That is the only way I have.” +</p> + +<p> +“Clifford’s situation is no laughing matter,” said Mr. +Wentworth. “It is very peculiar, as I suppose you have guessed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you mean his love affair with his cousin?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth stared, blushing a little. “I mean his absence from +college. He has been suspended. We have decided not to speak of it unless we +are asked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Suspended?” Felix repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“He has been requested by the Harvard authorities to absent himself for +six months. Meanwhile he is studying with Mr. Brand. We think Mr. Brand will +help him; at least we hope so.” +</p> + +<p> +“What befell him at college?” Felix asked. “He was too fond +of pleasure? Mr. Brand certainly will not teach him any of those +secrets!” +</p> + +<p> +“He was too fond of something of which he should not have been fond. I +suppose it is considered a pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix gave his light laugh. “My dear uncle, is there any doubt about its +being a pleasure? <i>C’est de son âge</i>, as they say in France.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have said rather it was a vice of later life—of +disappointed old age.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix glanced at his uncle, with his lifted eyebrows, and then, “Of what +are you speaking?” he demanded, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Of the situation in which Clifford was found.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, he was found—he was caught?” +</p> + +<p> +“Necessarily, he was caught. He couldn’t walk; he staggered.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Felix, “he drinks! I rather suspected that, from +something I observed the first day I came here. I quite agree with you that it +is a low taste. It’s not a vice for a gentleman. He ought to give it +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“We hope for a good deal from Mr. Brand’s influence,” Mr. +Wentworth went on. “He has talked to him from the first. And he never +touches anything himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will talk to him—I will talk to him!” Felix declared, +gayly. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you say to him?” asked his uncle, with some +apprehension. +</p> + +<p> +Felix for some moments answered nothing. “Do you mean to marry him to his +cousin?” he asked at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Marry him?” echoed Mr. Wentworth. “I shouldn’t think +his cousin would want to marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have no understanding, then, with Mrs. Acton?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth stared, almost blankly. “I have never discussed such +subjects with her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should think it might be time,” said Felix. “Lizzie Acton +is admirably pretty, and if Clifford is dangerous....” +</p> + +<p> +“They are not engaged,” said Mr. Wentworth. “I have no reason +to suppose they are engaged.” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Par exemple!”</i> cried Felix. “A clandestine engagement? +Trust me, Clifford, as I say, is a charming boy. He is incapable of that. +Lizzie Acton, then, would not be jealous of another woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“I certainly hope not,” said the old man, with a vague sense of +jealousy being an even lower vice than a love of liquor. +</p> + +<p> +“The best thing for Clifford, then,” Felix propounded, “is to +become interested in some clever, charming woman.” And he paused in his +painting, and, with his elbows on his knees, looked with bright +communicativeness at his uncle. “You see, I believe greatly in the +influence of women. Living with women helps to make a man a gentleman. It is +very true Clifford has his sisters, who are so charming. But there should be a +different sentiment in play from the fraternal, you know. He has Lizzie Acton; +but she, perhaps, is rather immature.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suspect Lizzie has talked to him, reasoned with him,” said Mr. +Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“On the impropriety of getting tipsy—on the beauty of temperance? +That is dreary work for a pretty young girl. No,” Felix continued; +“Clifford ought to frequent some agreeable woman, who, without ever +mentioning such unsavory subjects, would give him a sense of its being very +ridiculous to be fuddled. If he could fall in love with her a little, so much +the better. The thing would operate as a cure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, now, what lady should you suggest?” asked Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“There is a clever woman under your hand. My sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sister—under my hand?” Mr. Wentworth repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“Say a word to Clifford. Tell him to be bold. He is well disposed +already; he has invited her two or three times to drive. But I don’t +think he comes to see her. Give him a hint to come—to come often. He will +sit there of an afternoon, and they will talk. It will do him good.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth meditated. “You think she will exercise a helpful +influence?” +</p> + +<p> +“She will exercise a civilizing—I may call it a +sobering—influence. A charming, clever, witty woman always +does—especially if she is a little of a coquette. My dear uncle, the +society of such women has been half my education. If Clifford is suspended, as +you say, from college, let Eugenia be his preceptress.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth continued thoughtful. “You think Eugenia is a +coquette?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“What pretty woman is not?” Felix demanded in turn. But this, for +Mr. Wentworth, could at the best have been no answer, for he did not think his +niece pretty. “With Clifford,” the young man pursued, +“Eugenia will simply be enough of a coquette to be a little ironical. +That’s what he needs. So you recommend him to be nice with her, you know. +The suggestion will come best from you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I understand,” asked the old man, “that I am to suggest +to my son to make a—a profession of—of affection to Madame +Münster?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes—a profession!” cried Felix sympathetically. +</p> + +<p> +“But, as I understand it, Madame Münster is a married woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Felix, smiling, “of course she can’t marry +him. But she will do what she can.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth sat for some time with his eyes on the floor; at last he got up. +“I don’t think,” he said, “that I can undertake to +recommend my son any such course.” And without meeting Felix’s +surprised glance he broke off his sitting, which was not resumed for a +fortnight. +</p> + +<p> +Felix was very fond of the little lake which occupied so many of Mr. +Wentworth’s numerous acres, and of a remarkable pine grove which lay upon +the further side of it, planted upon a steep embankment and haunted by the +summer breeze. The murmur of the air in the far off tree-tops had a strange +distinctness; it was almost articulate. One afternoon the young man came out of +his painting-room and passed the open door of Eugenia’s little salon. +Within, in the cool dimness, he saw his sister, dressed in white, buried in her +arm-chair, and holding to her face an immense bouquet. Opposite to her sat +Clifford Wentworth, twirling his hat. He had evidently just presented the +bouquet to the Baroness, whose fine eyes, as she glanced at him over the big +roses and geraniums, wore a conversational smile. Felix, standing on the +threshold of the cottage, hesitated for a moment as to whether he should +retrace his steps and enter the parlor. Then he went his way and passed into +Mr. Wentworth’s garden. That civilizing process to which he had suggested +that Clifford should be subjected appeared to have come on of itself. Felix was +very sure, at least, that Mr. Wentworth had not adopted his ingenious device +for stimulating the young man’s aesthetic consciousness. “Doubtless +he supposes,” he said to himself, after the conversation that has been +narrated, “that I desire, out of fraternal benevolence, to procure for +Eugenia the amusement of a flirtation—or, as he probably calls it, an +intrigue—with the too susceptible Clifford. It must be admitted—and +I have noticed it before—that nothing exceeds the license occasionally +taken by the imagination of very rigid people.” Felix, on his own side, +had of course said nothing to Clifford; but he had observed to Eugenia that Mr. +Wentworth was much mortified at his son’s low tastes. “We ought to +do something to help them, after all their kindness to us,” he had added. +“Encourage Clifford to come and see you, and inspire him with a taste for +conversation. That will supplant the other, which only comes from his +puerility, from his not taking his position in the world—that of a rich +young man of ancient stock—seriously enough. Make him a little more +serious. Even if he makes love to you it is no great matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am to offer myself as a superior form of intoxication—a +substitute for a brandy bottle, eh?” asked the Baroness. “Truly, in +this country one comes to strange uses.” +</p> + +<p> +But she had not positively declined to undertake Clifford’s higher +education, and Felix, who had not thought of the matter again, being haunted +with visions of more personal profit, now reflected that the work of redemption +had fairly begun. The idea in prospect had seemed of the happiest, but in +operation it made him a trifle uneasy. “What if Eugenia—what if +Eugenia”—he asked himself softly; the question dying away in his +sense of Eugenia’s undetermined capacity. But before Felix had time +either to accept or to reject its admonition, even in this vague form, he saw +Robert Acton turn out of Mr. Wentworth’s enclosure, by a distant gate, +and come toward the cottage in the orchard. Acton had evidently walked from his +own house along a shady by-way and was intending to pay a visit to Madame +Münster. Felix watched him a moment; then he turned away. Acton could be left +to play the part of Providence and interrupt—if interruption were +needed—Clifford’s entanglement with Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +Felix passed through the garden toward the house and toward a postern gate +which opened upon a path leading across the fields, beside a little wood, to +the lake. He stopped and looked up at the house; his eyes rested more +particularly upon a certain open window, on the shady side. Presently Gertrude +appeared there, looking out into the summer light. He took off his hat to her +and bade her good-day; he remarked that he was going to row across the pond, +and begged that she would do him the honor to accompany him. She looked at him +a moment; then, without saying anything, she turned away. But she soon +reappeared below in one of those quaint and charming Leghorn hats, tied with +white satin bows, that were worn at that period; she also carried a green +parasol. She went with him to the edge of the lake, where a couple of boats +were always moored; they got into one of them, and Felix, with gentle strokes, +propelled it to the opposite shore. The day was the perfection of summer +weather; the little lake was the color of sunshine; the plash of the oars was +the only sound, and they found themselves listening to it. They disembarked, +and, by a winding path, ascended the pine-crested mound which overlooked the +water, whose white expanse glittered between the trees. The place was +delightfully cool, and had the added charm that—in the softly sounding +pine boughs—you seemed to hear the coolness as well as feel it. Felix and +Gertrude sat down on the rust-colored carpet of pine-needles and talked of many +things. Felix spoke at last, in the course of talk, of his going away; it was +the first time he had alluded to it. +</p> + +<p> +“You are going away?” said Gertrude, looking at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Some day—when the leaves begin to fall. You know I can’t +stay forever.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude transferred her eyes to the outer prospect, and then, after a pause, +she said, “I shall never see you again.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” asked Felix. “We shall probably both survive my +departure.” +</p> + +<p> +But Gertrude only repeated, “I shall never see you again. I shall never +hear of you,” she went on. “I shall know nothing about you. I knew +nothing about you before, and it will be the same again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I knew nothing about you then, unfortunately,” said Felix. +“But now I shall write to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t write to me. I shall not answer you,” Gertrude +declared. +</p> + +<p> +“I should of course burn your letters,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at him again. “Burn my letters? You sometimes say strange +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are not strange in themselves,” the young man answered. +“They are only strange as said to you. You will come to Europe.” +</p> + +<p> +“With whom shall I come?” She asked this question simply; she was +very much in earnest. Felix was interested in her earnestness; for some moments +he hesitated. “You can’t tell me that,” she pursued. +“You can’t say that I shall go with my father and my sister; you +don’t believe that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall keep your letters,” said Felix, presently, for all answer. +</p> + +<p> +“I never write. I don’t know how to write.” Gertrude, for +some time, said nothing more; and her companion, as he looked at her, wished it +had not been “disloyal” to make love to the daughter of an old +gentleman who had offered one hospitality. The afternoon waned; the shadows +stretched themselves; and the light grew deeper in the western sky. Two persons +appeared on the opposite side of the lake, coming from the house and crossing +the meadow. “It is Charlotte and Mr. Brand,” said Gertrude. +“They are coming over here.” But Charlotte and Mr. Brand only came +down to the edge of the water, and stood there, looking across; they made no +motion to enter the boat that Felix had left at the mooring-place. Felix waved +his hat to them; it was too far to call. They made no visible response, and +they presently turned away and walked along the shore. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Brand is not demonstrative,” said Felix. “He is never +demonstrative to me. He sits silent, with his chin in his hand, looking at me. +Sometimes he looks away. Your father tells me he is so eloquent; and I should +like to hear him talk. He looks like such a noble young man. But with me he +will never talk. And yet I am so fond of listening to brilliant imagery!” +</p> + +<p> +“He is very eloquent,” said Gertrude; “but he has no +brilliant imagery. I have heard him talk a great deal. I knew that when they +saw us they would not come over here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, he is making <i>la cour</i>, as they say, to your sister? They +desire to be alone?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Gertrude, gravely, “they have no such reason as +that for being alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why doesn’t he make <i>la cour</i> to Charlotte?” Felix +inquired. “She is so pretty, so gentle, so good.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude glanced at him, and then she looked at the distantly-seen couple they +were discussing. Mr. Brand and Charlotte were walking side by side. They might +have been a pair of lovers, and yet they might not. “They think I should +not be here,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“With me? I thought you didn’t have those ideas.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand. There are a great many things you +don’t understand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand my stupidity. But why, then, do not Charlotte and Mr. +Brand, who, as an elder sister and a clergyman, are free to walk about +together, come over and make me wiser by breaking up the unlawful interview +into which I have lured you?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is the last thing they would do,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +Felix stared at her a moment, with his lifted eyebrows. <i>“Je n’y +comprends rien!”</i> he exclaimed; then his eyes followed for a while the +retreating figures of this critical pair. “You may say what you +please,” he declared; “it is evident to me that your sister is not +indifferent to her clever companion. It is agreeable to her to be walking there +with him. I can see that from here.” And in the excitement of observation +Felix rose to his feet. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude rose also, but she made no attempt to emulate her companion’s +discovery; she looked rather in another direction. Felix’s words had +struck her; but a certain delicacy checked her. “She is certainly not +indifferent to Mr. Brand; she has the highest opinion of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“One can see it—one can see it,” said Felix, in a tone of +amused contemplation, with his head on one side. Gertrude turned her back to +the opposite shore; it was disagreeable to her to look, but she hoped Felix +would say something more. “Ah, they have wandered away into the +wood,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude turned round again. “She is <i>not</i> in love with him,” +she said; it seemed her duty to say that. +</p> + +<p> +“Then he is in love with her; or if he is not, he ought to be. She is +such a perfect little woman of her kind. She reminds me of a pair of +old-fashioned silver sugar-tongs; you know I am very fond of sugar. And she is +very nice with Mr. Brand; I have noticed that; very gentle and gracious.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude reflected a moment. Then she took a great resolution. “She wants +him to marry me,” she said. “So of course she is nice.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix’s eyebrows rose higher than ever. “To marry you! Ah, ah, this +is interesting. And you think one must be very nice with a man to induce him to +do that?” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude had turned a little pale, but she went on, “Mr. Brand wants it +himself.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix folded his arms and stood looking at her. “I see—I +see,” he said quickly. “Why did you never tell me this +before?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is disagreeable to me to speak of it even now. I wished simply to +explain to you about Charlotte.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t wish to marry Mr. Brand, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Gertrude, gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“And does your father wish it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very much.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you don’t like him—you have refused him?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t wish to marry him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your father and sister think you ought to, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a long story,” said Gertrude. “They think there are +good reasons. I can’t explain it. They think I have obligations, and that +I have encouraged him.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix smiled at her, as if she had been telling him an amusing story about +someone else. “I can’t tell you how this interests me,” he +said. “Now you don’t recognize these reasons—these +obligations?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not sure; it is not easy.” And she picked up her parasol and +turned away, as if to descend the slope. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me this,” Felix went on, going with her: “are you +likely to give in—to let them persuade you?” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at him with the serious face that she had constantly worn, in +opposition to his almost eager smile. “I shall never marry Mr. +Brand,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I see!” Felix rejoined. And they slowly descended the hill +together, saying nothing till they reached the margin of the pond. “It is +your own affair,” he then resumed; “but do you know, I am not +altogether glad? If it were settled that you were to marry Mr. Brand I should +take a certain comfort in the arrangement. I should feel more free. I have no +right to make love to you myself, eh?” And he paused, lightly pressing +his argument upon her. +</p> + +<p> +“None whatever,” replied Gertrude quickly—too quickly. +</p> + +<p> +“Your father would never hear of it; I haven’t a penny. Mr. Brand, +of course, has property of his own, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe he has some property; but that has nothing to do with +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“With you, of course not; but with your father and sister it must have. +So, as I say, if this were settled, I should feel more at liberty.” +</p> + +<p> +“More at liberty?” Gertrude repeated. “Please unfasten the +boat.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix untwisted the rope and stood holding it. “I should be able to say +things to you that I can’t give myself the pleasure of saying now,” +he went on. “I could tell you how much I admire you, without seeming to +pretend to that which I have no right to pretend to. I should make violent love +to you,” he added, laughing, “if I thought you were so placed as +not to be offended by it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You mean if I were engaged to another man? That is strange +reasoning!” Gertrude exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“In that case you would not take me seriously.” +</p> + +<p> +“I take everyone seriously,” said Gertrude. And without his help +she stepped lightly into the boat. +</p> + +<p> +Felix took up the oars and sent it forward. “Ah, this is what you have +been thinking about? It seemed to me you had something on your mind. I wish +very much,” he added, “that you would tell me some of these +so-called reasons—these obligations.” +</p> + +<p> +“They are not real reasons—good reasons,” said Gertrude, +looking at the pink and yellow gleams in the water. +</p> + +<p> +“I can understand that! Because a handsome girl has had a spark of +coquetry, that is no reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you mean me, it’s not that. I have not done that.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is something that troubles you, at any rate,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so much as it used to,” Gertrude rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her, smiling always. “That is not saying much, eh?” +But she only rested her eyes, very gravely, on the lighted water. She seemed to +him to be trying to hide the signs of the trouble of which she had just told +him. Felix felt, at all times, much the same impulse to dissipate visible +melancholy that a good housewife feels to brush away dust. There was something +he wished to brush away now; suddenly he stopped rowing and poised his oars. +“Why should Mr. Brand have addressed himself to you, and not to your +sister?” he asked. “I am sure she would listen to him.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude, in her family, was thought capable of a good deal of levity; but her +levity had never gone so far as this. It moved her greatly, however, to hear +Felix say that he was sure of something; so that, raising her eyes toward him, +she tried intently, for some moments, to conjure up this wonderful image of a +love-affair between her own sister and her own suitor. We know that Gertrude +had an imaginative mind; so that it is not impossible that this effort should +have been partially successful. But she only murmured, “Ah, Felix! ah, +Felix!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t they marry? Try and make them marry!” cried +Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“Try and make them?” +</p> + +<p> +“Turn the tables on them. Then they will leave you alone. I will help you +as far as I can.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude’s heart began to beat; she was greatly excited; she had never +had anything so interesting proposed to her before. Felix had begun to row +again, and he now sent the boat home with long strokes. “I believe she +<i>does</i> care for him!” said Gertrude, after they had disembarked. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course she does, and we will marry them off. It will make them happy; +it will make everyone happy. We shall have a wedding and I will write an +epithalamium.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems as if it would make <i>me</i> happy,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“To get rid of Mr. Brand, eh? To recover your liberty?” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude walked on. “To see my sister married to so good a man.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix gave his light laugh. “You always put things on those grounds; you +will never say anything for yourself. You are all so afraid, here, of being +selfish. I don’t think you know how,” he went on. “Let me +show you! It will make me happy for myself, and for just the reverse of what I +told you a while ago. After that, when I make love to you, you will have to +think I mean it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall never think you mean anything,” said Gertrude. “You +are too fantastic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” cried Felix, “that’s a license to say everything! +Gertrude, I adore you!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0008"></a> +CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p> +Charlotte and Mr. Brand had not returned when they reached the house; but the +Baroness had come to tea, and Robert Acton also, who now regularly asked for a +place at this generous repast or made his appearance later in the evening. +Clifford Wentworth, with his juvenile growl, remarked upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“You are always coming to tea nowadays, Robert,” he said. “I +should think you had drunk enough tea in China.” +</p> + +<p> +“Since when is Mr. Acton more frequent?” asked the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“Since you came,” said Clifford. “It seems as if you were a +kind of attraction.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I am a curiosity,” said the Baroness. “Give me +time and I will make you a salon.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would fall to pieces after you go!” exclaimed Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk about her going, in that familiar way,” Clifford +said. “It makes me feel gloomy.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth glanced at his son, and taking note of these words, wondered if +Felix had been teaching him, according to the programme he had sketched out, to +make love to the wife of a German prince. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte came in late with Mr. Brand; but Gertrude, to whom, at least, Felix +had taught something, looked in vain, in her face, for the traces of a guilty +passion. Mr. Brand sat down by Gertrude, and she presently asked him why they +had not crossed the pond to join Felix and herself. +</p> + +<p> +“It is cruel of you to ask me that,” he answered, very softly. He +had a large morsel of cake before him; but he fingered it without eating it. +“I sometimes think you are growing cruel,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude said nothing; she was afraid to speak. There was a kind of rage in her +heart; she felt as if she could easily persuade herself that she was +persecuted. She said to herself that it was quite right that she should not +allow him to make her believe she was wrong. She thought of what Felix had said +to her; she wished indeed Mr. Brand would marry Charlotte. She looked away from +him and spoke no more. Mr. Brand ended by eating his cake, while Felix sat +opposite, describing to Mr. Wentworth the students’ duels at Heidelberg. +After tea they all dispersed themselves, as usual, upon the piazza and in the +garden; and Mr. Brand drew near to Gertrude again. +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t come to you this afternoon because you were not +alone,” he began; “because you were with a newer friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“Felix? He is an old friend by this time.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand looked at the ground for some moments. “I thought I was +prepared to hear you speak in that way,” he resumed. “But I find it +very painful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see what else I can say,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand walked beside her for a while in silence; Gertrude wished he would go +away. “He is certainly very accomplished. But I think I ought to advise +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“To advise me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I know your nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think you don’t,” said Gertrude, with a soft laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“You make yourself out worse than you are—to please him,” Mr. +Brand said, gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Worse—to please him? What do you mean?” asked Gertrude, +stopping. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand stopped also, and with the same soft straight-forwardness, “He +doesn’t care for the things you care for—the great questions of +life.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude, with her eyes on his, shook her head. “I don’t care for +the great questions of life. They are much beyond me.” +</p> + +<p> +“There was a time when you didn’t say that,” said Mr. Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” rejoined Gertrude, “I think you made me talk a great +deal of nonsense. And it depends,” she added, “upon what you call +the great questions of life. There are some things I care for.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are they the things you talk about with your cousin?” +</p> + +<p> +“You should not say things to me against my cousin, Mr. Brand,” +said Gertrude. “That is dishonorable.” +</p> + +<p> +He listened to this respectfully; then he answered, with a little vibration of +the voice, “I should be very sorry to do anything dishonorable. But I +don’t see why it is dishonorable to say that your cousin is +frivolous.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go and say it to himself!” +</p> + +<p> +“I think he would admit it,” said Mr. Brand. “That is the +tone he would take. He would not be ashamed of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I am not ashamed of it!” Gertrude declared. “That is +probably what I like him for. I am frivolous myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are trying, as I said just now, to lower yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am trying for once to be natural!” cried Gertrude passionately. +“I have been pretending, all my life; I have been dishonest; it is you +that have made me so!” Mr. Brand stood gazing at her, and she went on, +“Why shouldn’t I be frivolous, if I want? One has a right to be +frivolous, if it’s one’s nature. No, I don’t care for the +great questions. I care for pleasure—for amusement. Perhaps I am fond of +wicked things; it is very possible!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand remained staring; he was even a little pale, as if he had been +frightened. “I don’t think you know what you are saying!” he +exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not. Perhaps I am talking nonsense. But it is only with you that +I talk nonsense. I never do so with my cousin.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will speak to you again, when you are less excited,” said Mr. +Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“I am always excited when you speak to me. I must tell you +that—even if it prevents you altogether, in future. Your speaking to me +irritates me. With my cousin it is very different. That seems quiet and +natural.” +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her, and then he looked away, with a kind of helpless distress, at +the dusky garden and the faint summer stars. After which, suddenly turning +back, “Gertrude, Gertrude!” he softly groaned. “Am I really +losing you?” +</p> + +<p> +She was touched—she was pained; but it had already occurred to her that +she might do something better than say so. It would not have alleviated her +companion’s distress to perceive, just then, whence she had +sympathetically borrowed this ingenuity. “I am not sorry for you,” +Gertrude said; “for in paying so much attention to me you are following a +shadow—you are wasting something precious. There is something else you +might have that you don’t look at—something better than I am. That +is a reality!” And then, with intention, she looked at him and tried to +smile a little. He thought this smile of hers very strange; but she turned away +and left him. +</p> + +<p> +She wandered about alone in the garden wondering what Mr. Brand would make of +her words, which it had been a singular pleasure for her to utter. Shortly +after, passing in front of the house, she saw at a distance two persons +standing near the garden gate. It was Mr. Brand going away and bidding +good-night to Charlotte, who had walked down with him from the house. Gertrude +saw that the parting was prolonged. Then she turned her back upon it. She had +not gone very far, however, when she heard her sister slowly following her. She +neither turned round nor waited for her; she knew what Charlotte was going to +say. Charlotte, who at last overtook her, in fact presently began; she had +passed her arm into Gertrude’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you listen to me, dear, if I say something very particular?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you are going to say,” said Gertrude. “Mr. Brand +feels very badly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gertrude, how can you treat him so?” Charlotte demanded. And +as her sister made no answer she added, “After all he has done for +you!” +</p> + +<p> +“What has he done for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder you can ask, Gertrude. He has helped you so. You told me so +yourself, a great many times. You told me that he helped you to struggle with +your—your peculiarities. You told me that he had taught you how to govern +your temper.” +</p> + +<p> +For a moment Gertrude said nothing. Then, “Was my temper very bad?” +she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not accusing you, Gertrude,” said Charlotte. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you doing, then?” her sister demanded, with a short +laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I am pleading for Mr. Brand—reminding you of all you owe +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have given it all back,” said Gertrude, still with her little +laugh. “He can take back the virtue he imparted! I want to be wicked +again.” +</p> + +<p> +Her sister made her stop in the path, and fixed upon her, in the darkness, a +sweet, reproachful gaze. “If you talk this way I shall almost believe it. +Think of all we owe Mr. Brand. Think of how he has always expected something of +you. Think how much he has been to us. Think of his beautiful influence upon +Clifford.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is very good,” said Gertrude, looking at her sister. “I +know he is very good. But he shouldn’t speak against Felix.” +</p> + +<p> +“Felix is good,” Charlotte answered, softly but promptly. +“Felix is very wonderful. Only he is so different. Mr. Brand is much +nearer to us. I should never think of going to Felix with a trouble—with +a question. Mr. Brand is much more to us, Gertrude.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is very—very good,” Gertrude repeated. “He is more +to you; yes, much more. Charlotte,” she added suddenly, “you are in +love with him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gertrude!” cried poor Charlotte; and her sister saw her +blushing in the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude put her arm round her. “I wish he would marry you!” she +went on. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte shook herself free. “You must not say such things!” she +exclaimed, beneath her breath. +</p> + +<p> +“You like him more than you say, and he likes you more than he +knows.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is very cruel of you!” Charlotte Wentworth murmured. +</p> + +<p> +But if it was cruel Gertrude continued pitiless. “Not if it’s +true,” she answered. “I wish he would marry you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please don’t say that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean to tell him so!” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude!” her sister almost moaned. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, if he speaks to me again about myself. I will say, ‘Why +don’t you marry Charlotte? She’s a thousand times better than +I.’” +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>are</i> wicked; you <i>are</i> changed!” cried her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t like it you can prevent it,” said Gertrude. +“You can prevent it by keeping him from speaking to me!” And with +this she walked away, very conscious of what she had done; measuring it and +finding a certain joy and a quickened sense of freedom in it. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth was rather wide of the mark in suspecting that Clifford had begun +to pay unscrupulous compliments to his brilliant cousin; for the young man had +really more scruples than he received credit for in his family. He had a +certain transparent shamefacedness which was in itself a proof that he was not +at his ease in dissipation. His collegiate peccadilloes had aroused a domestic +murmur as disagreeable to the young man as the creaking of his boots would have +been to a house-breaker. Only, as the house-breaker would have simplified +matters by removing his <i>chaussures</i>, it had seemed to Clifford that the +shortest cut to comfortable relations with people—relations which should +make him cease to think that when they spoke to him they meant something +improving—was to renounce all ambition toward a nefarious development. +And, in fact, Clifford’s ambition took the most commendable form. He +thought of himself in the future as the well-known and much-liked Mr. +Wentworth, of Boston, who should, in the natural course of prosperity, have +married his pretty cousin, Lizzie Acton; should live in a wide-fronted house, +in view of the Common; and should drive, behind a light wagon, over the damp +autumn roads, a pair of beautifully matched sorrel horses. Clifford’s +vision of the coming years was very simple; its most definite features were +this element of familiar matrimony and the duplication of his resources for +trotting. He had not yet asked his cousin to marry him; but he meant to do so +as soon as he had taken his degree. Lizzie was serenely conscious of his +intention, and she had made up her mind that he would improve. Her brother, who +was very fond of this light, quick, competent little Lizzie, saw on his side no +reason to interpose. It seemed to him a graceful social law that Clifford and +his sister should become engaged; he himself was not engaged, but everyone +else, fortunately, was not such a fool as he. He was fond of Clifford, as well, +and had his own way—of which it must be confessed he was a little +ashamed—of looking at those aberrations which had led to the young +man’s compulsory retirement from the neighboring seat of learning. Acton +had seen the world, as he said to himself; he had been to China and had knocked +about among men. He had learned the essential difference between a nice young +fellow and a mean young fellow, and was satisfied that there was no harm in +Clifford. He believed—although it must be added that he had not quite the +courage to declare it—in the doctrine of wild oats, and thought it a +useful preventive of superfluous fears. If Mr. Wentworth and Charlotte and Mr. +Brand would only apply it in Clifford’s case, they would be happier; and +Acton thought it a pity they should not be happier. They took the boy’s +misdemeanors too much to heart; they talked to him too solemnly; they +frightened and bewildered him. Of course there was the great standard of +morality, which forbade that a man should get tipsy, play at billiards for +money, or cultivate his sensual consciousness; but what fear was there that +poor Clifford was going to run a tilt at any great standard? It had, however, +never occurred to Acton to dedicate the Baroness Münster to the redemption of a +refractory collegian. The instrument, here, would have seemed to him quite too +complex for the operation. Felix, on the other hand, had spoken in obedience to +the belief that the more charming a woman is the more numerous, literally, are +her definite social uses. +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia herself, as we know, had plenty of leisure to enumerate her uses. As I +have had the honor of intimating, she had come four thousand miles to seek her +fortune; and it is not to be supposed that after this great effort she could +neglect any apparent aid to advancement. It is my misfortune that in attempting +to describe in a short compass the deportment of this remarkable woman I am +obliged to express things rather brutally. I feel this to be the case, for +instance, when I say that she had primarily detected such an aid to advancement +in the person of Robert Acton, but that she had afterwards remembered that a +prudent archer has always a second bowstring. Eugenia was a woman of +finely-mingled motive, and her intentions were never sensibly gross. She had a +sort of aesthetic ideal for Clifford which seemed to her a disinterested reason +for taking him in hand. It was very well for a fresh-colored young gentleman to +be ingenuous; but Clifford, really, was crude. With such a pretty face he ought +to have prettier manners. She would teach him that, with a beautiful name, the +expectation of a large property, and, as they said in Europe, a social +position, an only son should know how to carry himself. +</p> + +<p> +Once Clifford had begun to come and see her by himself and for himself, he came +very often. He hardly knew why he should come; he saw her almost every evening +at his father’s house; he had nothing particular to say to her. She was +not a young girl, and fellows of his age called only upon young girls. He +exaggerated her age; she seemed to him an old woman; it was happy that the +Baroness, with all her intelligence, was incapable of guessing this. But +gradually it struck Clifford that visiting old women might be, if not a +natural, at least, as they say of some articles of diet, an acquired taste. The +Baroness was certainly a very amusing old woman; she talked to him as no +lady—and indeed no gentleman—had ever talked to him before. +</p> + +<p> +“You should go to Europe and make the tour,” she said to him one +afternoon. “Of course, on leaving college you will go.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to go,” Clifford declared. “I know some +fellows who have been to Europe. They say you can have better fun here.” +</p> + +<p> +“That depends. It depends upon your idea of fun. Your friends probably +were not introduced.” +</p> + +<p> +“Introduced?” Clifford demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“They had no opportunity of going into society; they formed no +<i>relations</i>.” This was one of a certain number of words that the +Baroness often pronounced in the French manner. +</p> + +<p> +“They went to a ball, in Paris; I know that,” said Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there are balls and balls; especially in Paris. No, you must go, you +know; it is not a thing from which you can dispense yourself. You need +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m very well,” said Clifford. “I’m not +sick.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean for your health, my poor child. I mean for your +manners.” +</p> + +<p> +“I haven’t got any manners!” growled Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“Precisely. You don’t mind my assenting to that, eh?” asked +the Baroness with a smile. “You must go to Europe and get a few. You can +get them better there. It is a pity you might not have come while I was living +in—in Germany. I would have introduced you; I had a charming little +circle. You would perhaps have been rather young; but the younger one begins, I +think, the better. Now, at any rate, you have no time to lose, and when I +return you must immediately come to me.” +</p> + +<p> +All this, to Clifford’s apprehension, was a great mixture—his +beginning young, Eugenia’s return to Europe, his being introduced to her +charming little circle. What was he to begin, and what was her little circle? +His ideas about her marriage had a good deal of vagueness; but they were in so +far definite as that he felt it to be a matter not to be freely mentioned. He +sat and looked all round the room; he supposed she was alluding in some way to +her marriage. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I don’t want to go to Germany,” he said; it seemed to +him the most convenient thing to say. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him a while, smiling with her lips, but not with her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You have scruples?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Scruples?” said Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“You young people, here, are very singular; one doesn’t know where +to expect you. When you are not extremely improper you are so terribly proper. +I dare say you think that, owing to my irregular marriage, I live with loose +people. You were never more mistaken. I have been all the more +particular.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said Clifford, honestly distressed. “I never +thought such a thing as that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you very sure? I am convinced that your father does, and your +sisters. They say to each other that here I am on my good behavior, but that +over there—married by the left hand—I associate with light +women.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” cried Clifford, energetically, “they don’t +say such things as that to each other!” +</p> + +<p> +“If they think them they had better say them,” the Baroness +rejoined. “Then they can be contradicted. Please contradict that whenever +you hear it, and don’t be afraid of coming to see me on account of the +company I keep. I have the honor of knowing more distinguished men, my poor +child, than you are likely to see in a life-time. I see very few women; but +those are women of rank. So, my dear young Puritan, you needn’t be +afraid. I am not in the least one of those who think that the society of women +who have lost their place in the <i>vrai monde</i> is necessary to form a young +man. I have never taken that tone. I have kept my place myself, and I think we +are a much better school than the others. Trust me, Clifford, and I will prove +that to you,” the Baroness continued, while she made the agreeable +reflection that she could not, at least, be accused of perverting her young +kinsman. “So if you ever fall among thieves don’t go about saying I +sent you to them.” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford thought it so comical that he should know—in spite of her +figurative language—what she meant, and that she should mean what he +knew, that he could hardly help laughing a little, although he tried hard. +“Oh, no! oh, no!” he murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Laugh out, laugh out, if I amuse you!” cried the Baroness. +“I am here for that!” And Clifford thought her a very amusing +person indeed. “But remember,” she said on this occasion, +“that you are coming—next year—to pay me a visit over +there.” +</p> + +<p> +About a week afterwards she said to him, point-blank, “Are you seriously +making love to your little cousin?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seriously making love”—these words, on Madame +Münster’s lips, had to Clifford’s sense a portentous and +embarrassing sound; he hesitated about assenting, lest he should commit himself +to more than he understood. “Well, I shouldn’t say it if I +was!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“Why wouldn’t you say it?” the Baroness demanded. +“Those things ought to be known.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care whether it is known or not,” Clifford rejoined. +“But I don’t want people looking at me.” +</p> + +<p> +“A young man of your importance ought to learn to bear +observation—to carry himself as if he were quite indifferent to it. I +won’t say, exactly, unconscious,” the Baroness explained. +“No, he must seem to know he is observed, and to think it natural he +should be; but he must appear perfectly used to it. Now you haven’t that, +Clifford; you haven’t that at all. You must have that, you know. +Don’t tell me you are not a young man of importance,” Eugenia +added. “Don’t say anything so flat as that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, you don’t catch me saying that!” cried Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you must come to Germany,” Madame Münster continued. “I +will show you how people can be talked about, and yet not seem to know it. You +will be talked about, of course, with me; it will be said you are my lover. I +will show you how little one may mind that—how little I shall mind +it.” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford sat staring, blushing and laughing. “I shall mind it a good +deal!” he declared. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, not too much, you know; that would be uncivil. But I give you leave +to mind it a little; especially if you have a passion for Miss Acton. +<i>Voyons</i>; as regards that, you either have or you have not. It is very +simple to say it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t see why you want to know,” said Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to want me to know. If one is arranging a marriage, one tells +one’s friends.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m not arranging anything,” said Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t intend to marry your cousin?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I expect I shall do as I choose!” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness leaned her head upon the back of her chair and closed her eyes, as +if she were tired. Then opening them again, “Your cousin is very +charming!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“She is the prettiest girl in this place,” Clifford rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +“‘In this place’ is saying little; she would be charming +anywhere. I am afraid you are entangled.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, I’m not entangled.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you engaged? At your age that is the same thing.” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford looked at the Baroness with some audacity. “Will you tell no +one?” +</p> + +<p> +“If it’s as sacred as that—no.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then—we are not!” said Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the great secret—that you are not, eh?” asked +the Baroness, with a quick laugh. “I am very glad to hear it. You are +altogether too young. A young man in your position must choose and compare; he +must see the world first. Depend upon it,” she added, “you should +not settle that matter before you have come abroad and paid me that visit. +There are several things I should like to call your attention to first.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I am rather afraid of that visit,” said Clifford. “It +seems to me it will be rather like going to school again.” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness looked at him a moment. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear child,” she said, “there is no agreeable man who has +not, at some moment, been to school to a clever woman—probably a little +older than himself. And you must be thankful when you get your instructions +gratis. With me you would get it gratis.” +</p> + +<p> +The next day Clifford told Lizzie Acton that the Baroness thought her the most +charming girl she had ever seen. +</p> + +<p> +Lizzie shook her head. “No, she doesn’t!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think everything she says,” asked Clifford, “is to be +taken the opposite way?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think that is!” said Lizzie. +</p> + +<p> +Clifford was going to remark that in this case the Baroness must desire greatly +to bring about a marriage between Mr. Clifford Wentworth and Miss Elizabeth +Acton; but he resolved, on the whole, to suppress this observation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0009"></a> +CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p> +It seemed to Robert Acton, after Eugenia had come to his house, that something +had passed between them which made them a good deal more intimate. It was hard +to say exactly what, except her telling him that she had taken her resolution +with regard to the Prince Adolf; for Madame Münster’s visit had made no +difference in their relations. He came to see her very often; but he had come +to see her very often before. It was agreeable to him to find himself in her +little drawing-room; but this was not a new discovery. There was a change, +however, in this sense: that if the Baroness had been a great deal in +Acton’s thoughts before, she was now never out of them. From the first +she had been personally fascinating; but the fascination now had become +intellectual as well. He was constantly pondering her words and motions; they +were as interesting as the factors in an algebraic problem. This is saying a +good deal; for Acton was extremely fond of mathematics. He asked himself +whether it could be that he was in love with her, and then hoped he was not; +hoped it not so much for his own sake as for that of the amatory passion +itself. If this was love, love had been overrated. Love was a poetic impulse, +and his own state of feeling with regard to the Baroness was largely +characterized by that eminently prosaic sentiment—curiosity. It was true, +as Acton with his quietly cogitative habit observed to himself, that curiosity, +pushed to a given point, might become a romantic passion; and he certainly +thought enough about this charming woman to make him restless and even a little +melancholy. It puzzled and vexed him at times to feel that he was not more +ardent. He was not in the least bent upon remaining a bachelor. In his younger +years he had been—or he had tried to be—of the opinion that it +would be a good deal “jollier” not to marry, and he had flattered +himself that his single condition was something of a citadel. It was a citadel, +at all events, of which he had long since leveled the outworks. He had removed +the guns from the ramparts; he had lowered the draw-bridge across the moat. The +draw-bridge had swayed lightly under Madame Münster’s step; why should he +not cause it to be raised again, so that she might be kept prisoner? He had an +idea that she would become—in time at least, and on learning the +conveniences of the place for making a lady comfortable—a tolerably +patient captive. But the draw-bridge was never raised, and Acton’s +brilliant visitor was as free to depart as she had been to come. It was part of +his curiosity to know why the deuce so susceptible a man was <i>not</i> in love +with so charming a woman. If her various graces were, as I have said, the +factors in an algebraic problem, the answer to this question was the +indispensable unknown quantity. The pursuit of the unknown quantity was +extremely absorbing; for the present it taxed all Acton’s faculties. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the middle of August he was obliged to leave home for some days; an old +friend, with whom he had been associated in China, had begged him to come to +Newport, where he lay extremely ill. His friend got better, and at the end of a +week Acton was released. I use the word “released” advisedly; for +in spite of his attachment to his Chinese comrade he had been but a +half-hearted visitor. He felt as if he had been called away from the theatre +during the progress of a remarkably interesting drama. The curtain was up all +this time, and he was losing the fourth act; that fourth act which would have +been so essential to a just appreciation of the fifth. In other words, he was +thinking about the Baroness, who, seen at this distance, seemed a truly +brilliant figure. He saw at Newport a great many pretty women, who certainly +were figures as brilliant as beautiful light dresses could make them; but +though they talked a great deal—and the Baroness’s strong point was +perhaps also her conversation—Madame Münster appeared to lose nothing by +the comparison. He wished she had come to Newport too. Would it not be possible +to make up, as they said, a party for visiting the famous watering-place and +invite Eugenia to join it? It was true that the complete satisfaction would be +to spend a fortnight at Newport with Eugenia alone. It would be a great +pleasure to see her, in society, carry everything before her, as he was sure +she would do. When Acton caught himself thinking these thoughts he began to +walk up and down, with his hands in his pockets, frowning a little and looking +at the floor. What did it prove—for it certainly proved +something—this lively disposition to be “off” somewhere with +Madame Münster, away from all the rest of them? Such a vision, certainly, +seemed a refined implication of matrimony, after the Baroness should have +formally got rid of her informal husband. At any rate, Acton, with his +characteristic discretion, forbore to give expression to whatever else it might +imply, and the narrator of these incidents is not obliged to be more definite. +</p> + +<p> +He returned home rapidly, and, arriving in the afternoon, lost as little time +as possible in joining the familiar circle at Mr. Wentworth’s. On +reaching the house, however, he found the piazzas empty. The doors and windows +were open, and their emptiness was made clear by the shafts of lamp-light from +the parlors. Entering the house, he found Mr. Wentworth sitting alone in one of +these apartments, engaged in the perusal of the <i>North American Review</i>. +After they had exchanged greetings and his cousin had made discreet inquiry +about his journey, Acton asked what had become of Mr. Wentworth’s +companions. +</p> + +<p> +“They are scattered about, amusing themselves as usual,” said the +old man. “I saw Charlotte, a short time since, seated, with Mr. Brand, +upon the piazza. They were conversing with their customary animation. I suppose +they have joined her sister, who, for the hundredth time, was doing the honors +of the garden to her foreign cousin.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you mean Felix,” said Acton. And on Mr. +Wentworth’s assenting, he said, “And the others?” +</p> + +<p> +“Your sister has not come this evening. You must have seen her at +home,” said Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I proposed to her to come. She declined.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lizzie, I suppose, was expecting a visitor,” said the old man, +with a kind of solemn slyness. +</p> + +<p> +“If she was expecting Clifford, he had not turned up.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth, at this intelligence, closed the <i>North American Review</i> +and remarked that he had understood Clifford to say that he was going to see +his cousin. Privately, he reflected that if Lizzie Acton had had no news of his +son, Clifford must have gone to Boston for the evening: an unnatural course of +a summer night, especially when accompanied with disingenuous representations. +</p> + +<p> +“You must remember that he has two cousins,” said Acton, laughing. +And then, coming to the point, “If Lizzie is not here,” he added, +“neither apparently is the Baroness.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth stared a moment, and remembered that queer proposition of +Felix’s. For a moment he did not know whether it was not to be wished +that Clifford, after all, might have gone to Boston. “The Baroness has +not honored us tonight,” he said. “She has not come over for three +days.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is she ill?” Acton asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No; I have been to see her.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter with her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Mr. Wentworth, “I infer she has tired of +us.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton pretended to sit down, but he was restless; he found it impossible to +talk with Mr. Wentworth. At the end of ten minutes he took up his hat and said +that he thought he would “go off.” It was very late; it was ten +o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +His quiet-faced kinsman looked at him a moment. “Are you going +home?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +Acton hesitated, and then answered that he had proposed to go over and take a +look at the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you are honest, at least,” said Mr. Wentworth, sadly. +</p> + +<p> +“So are you, if you come to that!” cried Acton, laughing. +“Why shouldn’t I be honest?” +</p> + +<p> +The old man opened the <i>North American</i> again, and read a few lines. +“If we have ever had any virtue among us, we had better keep hold of it +now,” he said. He was not quoting. +</p> + +<p> +“We have a Baroness among us,” said Acton. “That’s what +we must keep hold of!” He was too impatient to see Madame Münster again +to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had +passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road +that separated him from Eugenia’s provisional residence, he stopped a +moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor +was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining +through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a +sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame Münster again; he became aware +that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him +stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, +and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He +could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She +came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him +a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Mais entrez donc!”</i> she said at last. Acton passed in across +the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But +the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. “Better +late than never,” she said. “It is very kind of you to come at this +hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have just returned from my journey,” said Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, very kind, very kind,” she repeated, looking about her where +to sit. +</p> + +<p> +“I went first to the other house,” Acton continued. “I +expected to find you there.” +</p> + +<p> +She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move +about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, +conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. “I +don’t know whether I ought to tell you to sit down,” she said. +“It is too late to begin a visit.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s too early to end one,” Acton declared; “and we +needn’t mind the beginning.” +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low +chair, while he took a place near her. “We are in the middle, +then?” she asked. “Was that where we were when you went away? No, I +haven’t been to the other house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know how many days it is.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are tired of it,” said Acton. +</p> + +<p> +She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. “That is a terrible +accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not attacking you,” said Acton. “I expected something +of this kind.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your +journey.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” Acton declared. “I would much rather have been +here with you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now you <i>are</i> attacking me,” said the Baroness. “You +are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity.” +</p> + +<p> +“I confess I never get tired of people I like.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a +sophisticated mind!” +</p> + +<p> +“Something has happened to you since I went away,” said Acton, +changing his place. +</p> + +<p> +“Your going away—that is what has happened to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to say that you have missed me?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I +am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton was silent for some moments. “You have broken down,” he said +at last. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Münster left her chair, and began to move about. +</p> + +<p> +“Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn’t +be afraid to say so—to me at least.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shouldn’t say such things as that,” the Baroness +answered. “You should encourage me.” +</p> + +<p> +“I admire your patience; that is encouraging.” +</p> + +<p> +“You shouldn’t even say that. When you talk of my patience you are +disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to +suffer?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly,” said Acton, laughing. +“Nevertheless, we all admire your patience.” +</p> + +<p> +“You all detest me!” cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, +turning her back toward him. +</p> + +<p> +“You make it hard,” said Acton, getting up, “for a man to say +something tender to you.” This evening there was something particularly +striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed +emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved +very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a +cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest +she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had +mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless +pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She +had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had +the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more +downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and +that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been +on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a +certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of +confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. “We +don’t detest you,” he went on. “I don’t know what you +mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don’t know anything about the +others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. +Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so.” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she +slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. “What can be the +motive,” she asked, “of a man like you—an honest man, a +<i>galant homme</i>—in saying so base a thing as that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Does it sound very base?” asked Acton, candidly. “I suppose +it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don’t mean it +literally.” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness stood looking at him. “How do you mean it?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit +foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a +moment, and then he turned back. “You know that document that you were to +send to Germany,” he said. “You called it your +‘renunciation.’ Did you ever send it?” +</p> + +<p> +Madame Münster’s eyes expanded; she looked very grave. “What a +singular answer to my question!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it isn’t an answer,” said Acton. “I have wished to +ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The +question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any +time.” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, “I think I have told you too +much!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a +sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and +watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the +piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had +hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. “I wish you would +ask something of me,” he presently said. “Is there nothing I can do +for you? If you can’t stand this dull life any more, let me amuse +you!” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which +she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were +fixed on him. “You are very strange tonight,” she said, with a +little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“I will do anything in the world,” he rejoined, standing in front +of her. “Shouldn’t you like to travel about and see something of +the country? Won’t you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you +know.” +</p> + +<p> +“With you, do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I should be delighted to take you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You alone?” +</p> + +<p> +Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. “Well, yes; we +might go alone,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“If you were not what you are,” she answered, “I should feel +insulted.” +</p> + +<p> +“How do you mean—what I am?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you +were not a queer Bostonian.” +</p> + +<p> +“If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect +insults,” said Acton, “I am glad I am what I am. You had much +better come to Niagara.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you wish to ‘amuse’ me,” the Baroness declared, +“you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually.” +</p> + +<p> +He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her +eyes only showing above it. There was a moment’s silence, and then he +said, returning to his former question, “Have you sent that document to +Germany?” +</p> + +<p> +Again there was a moment’s silence. The expressive eyes of Madame Münster +seemed, however, half to break it. +</p> + +<p> +“I will tell you—at Niagara!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room +opened—the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her +gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The +Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him +no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you were here?” exclaimed Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“He was in Felix’s studio,” said Madame Münster. “He +wanted to see his sketches.” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with +his hat. “You chose a bad moment,” said Acton; “you +hadn’t much light.” +</p> + +<p> +“I hadn’t any!” said Clifford, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Your candle went out?” Eugenia asked. “You should have come +back here and lighted it again.” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford looked at her a moment. “So I have—come back. But I have +left the candle!” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia turned away. “You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go +home.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Clifford, “good-night!” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned +from a dangerous journey?” Acton asked. +</p> + +<p> +“How do you do?” said Clifford. “I thought—I thought +you were——” and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. +</p> + +<p> +“You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was—this morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night, clever child!” said Madame Münster, over her shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +Clifford stared at her—not at all like a clever child; and then, with one +of his little facetious growls, took his departure. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the matter with him?” asked Acton, when he was gone. +“He seemed rather in a muddle.” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. “The +matter—the matter”—she answered. “But you don’t +say such things here.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that.” +</p> + +<p> +“He doesn’t drink any more. I have cured him. And in +return—he’s in love with me.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Acton’s turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he +said nothing about her. He began to laugh. “I don’t wonder at his +passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your +brother’s paint-brushes.” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia was silent a little. “He had not been in the studio. I invented +that at the moment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Invented it? For what purpose?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to +see me at midnight—passing only through the orchard and through +Felix’s painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to +amuse him,” added Eugenia, with a little laugh. +</p> + +<p> +Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of +Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic +element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a +moment’s hesitation his seriousness explained itself. “I hope you +don’t encourage him,” he said. “He must not be inconstant to +poor Lizzie.” +</p> + +<p> +“To your sister?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know they are decidedly intimate,” said Acton. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” cried Eugenia, smiling, “has she—has +she——” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” Acton interrupted, “what she has. But I +always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, <i>par exemple!</i>” the Baroness went on. “The little +monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to +be ashamed of himself.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton was silent a moment. “You had better say nothing about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I had told him as much already, on general grounds,” said the +Baroness. “But in this country, you know, the relations of young people +are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you +would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and +that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying +her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you +suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her +governess—your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away +from her mamma—a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed +nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their +age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife.” The Baroness spoke +with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid +grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It +seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye—a note of +irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her +voice. If Madame Münster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she +began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying +anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that +it was three o’clock in the morning and that he must go. +</p> + +<p> +“I have not been here an hour,” he said, “and they are still +sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not +come in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, at the other house,” cried Eugenia, “they are terrible +people! I don’t know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little +humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have +visitors in the small hours—especially clever men like you. So +good-night!” +</p> + +<p> +Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and +departed, he was still a good deal mystified. +</p> + +<p> +The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home +and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a +natural desire to make it tally with Madame Münster’s account of +Clifford’s disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the +task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man’s candor. He waited +till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the +grounds. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish very much you would answer me a question,” Acton said. +“What were you doing, last night, at Madame Münster’s?” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a +romantic secret. “What did she tell you?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“That is exactly what I don’t want to say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I want to tell you the same,” said Clifford; “and +unless I know it perhaps I can’t.” +</p> + +<p> +They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. +“She said she couldn’t fancy what had got into you; you appeared to +have taken a violent dislike to her.” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. “Oh, come,” he growled, +“you don’t mean that!” +</p> + +<p> +“And that when—for common civility’s sake—you came +occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in +Felix’s studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come!” growled Clifford, again. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, lots of them!” said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the +discussion, for his sarcastic powers. “Well,” he presently added, +“I thought you were my father.” +</p> + +<p> +“You knew someone was there?” +</p> + +<p> +“We heard you coming in.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton meditated. “You had been with the Baroness, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my +father.” +</p> + +<p> +“And on that,” asked Acton, “you ran away?” +</p> + +<p> +“She told me to go—to go out by the studio.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have +sat down. “Why should she wish you not to meet your father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Clifford, “father doesn’t like to see me +there.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this +assertion. “Has he said so,” he asked, “to the +Baroness?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope not,” said Clifford. “He hasn’t said +so—in so many words—to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to +stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too.” +</p> + +<p> +“To stop coming to see her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia +knows everything,” Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Acton, interrogatively, “Eugenia knows +everything?” +</p> + +<p> +“She knew it was not father coming in.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then why did you go?” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. “Well, I was afraid it was. And +besides, she told me to go, at any rate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did she think it was I?” Acton asked. +</p> + +<p> +“She didn’t say so.” +</p> + +<p> +Again Robert Acton reflected. “But you didn’t go,” he +presently said; “you came back.” +</p> + +<p> +“I couldn’t get out of the studio,” Clifford rejoined. +“The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower +half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they +were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I +didn’t want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn’t stand +it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little +flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn’t she?” Clifford added, +in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently +clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. +</p> + +<p> +“Beautifully!” said Acton. “Especially,” he continued, +“when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have +been a good deal annoyed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who +feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely +just in his impressions, “Eugenia doesn’t care for anything!” +</p> + +<p> +Acton hesitated a moment. “Thank you for telling me this,” he said +at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford’s shoulder, he added, +“Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the +Baroness?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir!” said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0010"></a> +CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p> +The first sunday that followed Robert Acton’s return from Newport +witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain +began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters +put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went +also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole +observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained +at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, +never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular +attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I +began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, +watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a +portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, +against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, +the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it +appeared to have a kind of human movement—a menacing, warning intention. +The room was very cold; Madame Münster put on a shawl and walked about. Then +she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the +contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a +source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a +crackling flame. This old woman’s name was Azarina. The Baroness had +begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for +amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her +conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old +ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after +she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an +hour’s entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She +had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met +him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; +several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a +window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of +that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these +pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a +peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do +something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she +could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped +upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that +profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not +exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch +as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had +been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the +sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on +this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants +whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see +herself surrounded—a species of vegetation for which she carried a +collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief +happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain +impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on +nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had +counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have +lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. +<i>“Surely je n’en suis pas là,”</i> she said to herself, +“that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton +shouldn’t honor me with a visit!” Yet she was vexed that he had not +come; and she was vexed at her vexation. +</p> + +<p> +Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from +his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and +half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. “Ah, you have a +fire,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Les beaux jours sont passés,”</i> replied the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“Never, never! They have only begun,” Felix declared, planting +himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands +behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an +expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in +the tints of a wet Sunday. +</p> + +<p> +His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in +his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, +but her brother’s disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I +say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she +gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that +his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a <i>pose</i>; but +she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly +successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known +the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested +genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would +understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about +Felix—the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, +this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame Münster felt +that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was +delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the +very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was +not thinking of anything uncomfortable. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear brother,” said Eugenia at last, “do stop making <i>les +yeux doux</i> at the rain.” +</p> + +<p> +“With pleasure. I will make them at you!” answered Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“How much longer,” asked Eugenia, in a moment, “do you +propose to remain in this lovely spot?” +</p> + +<p> +Felix stared. “Do you want to go away—already?” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Already’ is delicious. I am not so happy as you.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. “The fact is I <i>am</i> +happy,” he said in his light, clear tone. +</p> + +<p> +“And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude +Wentworth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, “Do you +like her?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you?” Felix demanded. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness was silent a moment. “I will answer you in the words of the +gentleman who was asked if he liked music: <i>‘Je ne la crains +pas!’’</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“She admires you immensely,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care for that. Other women should not admire one.” +</p> + +<p> +“They should dislike you?” +</p> + +<p> +Again Madame Münster hesitated. “They should hate me! It’s a +measure of the time I have been losing here that they don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“No time is lost in which one has been happy!” said Felix, with a +bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. +</p> + +<p> +“And in which,” rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, +“one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!” +</p> + +<p> +Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. “I have secured +Gertrude’s affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her +fortune. That may come—or it may not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, it <i>may!</i> That’s the great point.” +</p> + +<p> +“It depends upon her father. He doesn’t smile upon our union. You +know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know nothing about it!” cried the Baroness. “Please to put +on a log.” Felix complied with her request and sat watching the +quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, “And you propose to +elope with mademoiselle?” +</p> + +<p> +“By no means. I don’t wish to do anything that’s disagreeable +to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I want to please everyone!” exclaimed Felix, joyously. “I +have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my +place to make love to Gertrude.” +</p> + +<p> +“So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!” +</p> + +<p> +Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. “You say you are not +afraid of her,” he said. “But perhaps you ought to be—a +little. She’s a very clever person.” +</p> + +<p> +“I begin to see it!” cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no +rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, +with an altered accent, Madame Münster put another question. “You expect, +at any rate, to marry?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be greatly disappointed if we don’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“A disappointment or two will do you good!” the Baroness declared. +“And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to +Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, like me, when I came here!” said the Baroness, with a little +laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not like you,” Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a +certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and +he also got up. “Gertrude is not at all like you,” he went on; +“but in her own way she is almost as clever.” He paused a moment; +his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to +express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk +when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to +him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always +appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. +“I am very much in love with Gertrude,” he said. Eugenia turned +away and walked about the room, and Felix continued. “She is very +interesting, and very different from what she seems. She has never had a +chance. She is very brilliant. We will go to Europe and amuse ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness had gone to the window, where she stood looking out. The day was +drearier than ever; the rain was doggedly falling. “Yes, to amuse +yourselves,” she said at last, “you had decidedly better go to +Europe!” Then she turned round, looking at her brother. A chair stood +near her; she leaned her hands upon the back of it. “Don’t you +think it is very good of me,” she asked, “to come all this way with +you simply to see you properly married—if properly it is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, it will be properly!” cried Felix, with light eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness gave a little laugh. “You are thinking only of yourself, and +you don’t answer my question. While you are amusing yourself—with +the brilliant Gertrude—what shall I be doing?” +</p> + +<p> +<i>“Vous serez de la partie!”</i> cried Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you: I should spoil it.” The Baroness dropped her eyes for +some moments. “Do you propose, however, to leave me here?” she +inquired. +</p> + +<p> +Felix smiled at her. “My dearest sister, where you are concerned I never +propose. I execute your commands.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe,” said Eugenia, slowly, “that you are the most +heartless person living. Don’t you see that I am in trouble?” +</p> + +<p> +“I saw that you were not cheerful, and I gave you some good news.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let me give you some news,” said the Baroness. “You +probably will not have discovered it for yourself. Robert Acton wants to marry +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I had not discovered that. But I quite understand it. Why does it +make you unhappy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I can’t decide.” +</p> + +<p> +“Accept him, accept him!” cried Felix, joyously. “He is the +best fellow in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is immensely in love with me,” said the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“And he has a large fortune. Permit me in turn to remind you of +that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I am perfectly aware of it,” said Eugenia. “That’s +a great item in his favor. I am terribly candid.” And she left her place +and came nearer her brother, looking at him hard. He was turning over several +things; she was wondering in what manner he really understood her. +</p> + +<p> +There were several ways of understanding her: there was what she said, and +there was what she meant, and there was something, between the two, that was +neither. It is probable that, in the last analysis, what she meant was that +Felix should spare her the necessity of stating the case more exactly and +should hold himself commissioned to assist her by all honorable means to marry +the best fellow in the world. But in all this it was never discovered what +Felix understood. +</p> + +<p> +“Once you have your liberty, what are your objections?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t particularly like him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, try a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am trying now,” said Eugenia. “I should succeed better if +he didn’t live here. I could never live here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Make him go to Europe,” Felix suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, there you speak of happiness based upon violent effort,” the +Baroness rejoined. “That is not what I am looking for. He would never +live in Europe.” +</p> + +<p> +“He would live anywhere, with you!” said Felix, gallantly. +</p> + +<p> +His sister looked at him still, with a ray of penetration in her charming eyes; +then she turned away again. “You see, at all events,” she presently +went on, “that if it had been said of me that I had come over here to +seek my fortune it would have to be added that I have found it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t leave it lying!” urged Felix, with smiling solemnity. +</p> + +<p> +“I am much obliged to you for your interest,” his sister declared, +after a moment. “But promise me one thing: <i>pas de zèle!</i> If Mr. +Acton should ask you to plead his cause, excuse yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall certainly have the excuse,” said Felix, “that I have +a cause of my own to plead.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he should talk of me—favorably,” Eugenia continued, +“warn him against dangerous illusions. I detest importunities; I want to +decide at my leisure, with my eyes open.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be discreet,” said Felix, “except to you. To you I +will say, Accept him outright.” +</p> + +<p> +She had advanced to the open doorway, and she stood looking at him. “I +will go and dress and think of it,” she said; and he heard her moving +slowly to her apartments. +</p> + +<p> +Late in the afternoon the rain stopped, and just afterwards there was a great +flaming, flickering, trickling sunset. Felix sat in his painting-room and did +some work; but at last, as the light, which had not been brilliant, began to +fade, he laid down his brushes and came out to the little piazza of the +cottage. Here he walked up and down for some time, looking at the splendid +blaze of the western sky and saying, as he had often said before, that this was +certainly the country of sunsets. There was something in these glorious deeps +of fire that quickened his imagination; he always found images and promises in +the western sky. He thought of a good many things—of roaming about the +world with Gertrude Wentworth; he seemed to see their possible adventures, in a +glowing frieze, between the cloud-bars; then of what Eugenia had just been +telling him. He wished very much that Madame Münster would make a comfortable +and honorable marriage. Presently, as the sunset expanded and deepened, the +fancy took him of making a note of so magnificent a piece of coloring. He +returned to his studio and fetched out a small panel, with his palette and +brushes, and, placing the panel against a window-sill, he began to daub with +great gusto. While he was so occupied he saw Mr. Brand, in the distance, slowly +come down from Mr. Wentworth’s house, nursing a large folded umbrella. He +walked with a joyless, meditative tread, and his eyes were bent upon the +ground. Felix poised his brush for a moment, watching him; then, by a sudden +impulse, as he drew nearer, advanced to the garden-gate and signaled to +him—the palette and bunch of brushes contributing to this effect. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand stopped and started; then he appeared to decide to accept +Felix’s invitation. He came out of Mr. Wentworth’s gate and passed +along the road; after which he entered the little garden of the cottage. Felix +had gone back to his sunset; but he made his visitor welcome while he rapidly +brushed it in. +</p> + +<p> +“I wanted so much to speak to you that I thought I would call you,” +he said, in the friendliest tone. “All the more that you have been to see +me so little. You have come to see my sister; I know that. But you +haven’t come to see me—the celebrated artist. Artists are very +sensitive, you know; they notice those things.” And Felix turned round, +smiling, with a brush in his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand stood there with a certain blank, candid majesty, pulling together +the large flaps of his umbrella. “Why should I come to see you?” he +asked. “I know nothing of Art.” +</p> + +<p> +“It would sound very conceited, I suppose,” said Felix, “if I +were to say that it would be a good little chance for you to learn something. +You would ask me why you should learn; and I should have no answer to that. I +suppose a minister has no need for Art, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has need for good temper, sir,” said Mr. Brand, with decision. +</p> + +<p> +Felix jumped up, with his palette on his thumb and a movement of the liveliest +deprecation. “That’s because I keep you standing there while I +splash my red paint! I beg a thousand pardons! You see what bad manners Art +gives a man; and how right you are to let it alone. I didn’t mean you +should stand, either. The piazza, as you see, is ornamented with rustic chairs; +though indeed I ought to warn you that they have nails in the wrong places. I +was just making a note of that sunset. I never saw such a blaze of different +reds. It looks as if the Celestial City were in flames, eh? If that were really +the case I suppose it would be the business of you theologians to put out the +fire. Fancy me—an ungodly artist—quietly sitting down to paint +it!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand had always credited Felix Young with a certain impudence, but it +appeared to him that on this occasion his impudence was so great as to make a +special explanation—or even an apology—necessary. And the +impression, it must be added, was sufficiently natural. Felix had at all times +a brilliant assurance of manner which was simply the vehicle of his good +spirits and his good will; but at present he had a special design, and as he +would have admitted that the design was audacious, so he was conscious of +having summoned all the arts of conversation to his aid. But he was so far from +desiring to offend his visitor that he was rapidly asking himself what personal +compliment he could pay the young clergyman that would gratify him most. If he +could think of it, he was prepared to pay it down. “Have you been +preaching one of your beautiful sermons today?” he suddenly asked, laying +down his palette. This was not what Felix had been trying to think of, but it +was a tolerable stop-gap. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand frowned—as much as a man can frown who has very fair, soft +eyebrows, and, beneath them, very gentle, tranquil eyes. “No, I have not +preached any sermon today. Did you bring me over here for the purpose of making +that inquiry?” +</p> + +<p> +Felix saw that he was irritated, and he regretted it immensely; but he had no +fear of not being, in the end, agreeable to Mr. Brand. He looked at him, +smiling and laying his hand on his arm. “No, no, not for that—not +for that. I wanted to ask you something; I wanted to tell you something. I am +sure it will interest you very much. Only—as it is something rather +private—we had better come into my little studio. I have a western +window; we can still see the sunset. <i>Andiamo!</i>” And he gave a +little pat to his companion’s arm. +</p> + +<p> +He led the way in; Mr. Brand stiffly and softly followed. The twilight had +thickened in the little studio; but the wall opposite the western window was +covered with a deep pink flush. There were a great many sketches and +half-finished canvasses suspended in this rosy glow, and the corners of the +room were vague and dusky. Felix begged Mr. Brand to sit down; then glancing +round him, “By Jove, how pretty it looks!” he cried. But Mr. Brand +would not sit down; he went and leaned against the window; he wondered what +Felix wanted of him. In the shadow, on the darker parts of the wall, he saw the +gleam of three or four pictures that looked fantastic and surprising. They +seemed to represent naked figures. Felix stood there, with his head a little +bent and his eyes fixed upon his visitor, smiling intensely, pulling his +moustache. Mr. Brand felt vaguely uneasy. “It is very delicate—what +I want to say,” Felix began. “But I have been thinking of it for +some time.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please to say it as quickly as possible,” said Mr. Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s because you are a clergyman, you know,” Felix went on. +“I don’t think I should venture to say it to a common man.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand was silent a moment. “If it is a question of yielding to a +weakness, of resenting an injury, I am afraid I am a very common man.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dearest friend,” cried Felix, “this is not an injury; +it’s a benefit—a great service! You will like it extremely. Only +it’s so delicate!” And, in the dim light, he continued to smile +intensely. “You know I take a great interest in my cousins—in +Charlotte and Gertrude Wentworth. That’s very evident from my having +traveled some five thousand miles to see them.” Mr. Brand said nothing +and Felix proceeded. “Coming into their society as a perfect stranger I +received of course a great many new impressions, and my impressions had a great +freshness, a great keenness. Do you know what I mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not sure that I do; but I should like you to continue.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think my impressions have always a good deal of freshness,” said +Mr. Brand’s entertainer; “but on this occasion it was perhaps +particularly natural that—coming in, as I say, from outside—I +should be struck with things that passed unnoticed among yourselves. And then I +had my sister to help me; and she is simply the most observant woman in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not surprised,” said Mr. Brand, “that in our little +circle two intelligent persons should have found food for observation. I am +sure that, of late, I have found it myself!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but I shall surprise you yet!” cried Felix, laughing. +“Both my sister and I took a great fancy to my cousin Charlotte.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your cousin Charlotte?” repeated Mr. Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“We fell in love with her from the first!” +</p> + +<p> +“You fell in love with Charlotte?” Mr. Brand murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Dame!</i>” exclaimed Felix, “she’s a very charming +person; and Eugenia was especially smitten.” Mr. Brand stood staring, and +he pursued, “Affection, you know, opens one’s eyes, and we noticed +something. Charlotte is not happy! Charlotte is in love.” And Felix, +drawing nearer, laid his hand again upon his companion’s arm. +</p> + +<p> +There was something akin to an acknowledgment of fascination in the way Mr. +Brand looked at him; but the young clergyman retained as yet quite enough +self-possession to be able to say, with a good deal of solemnity, “She is +not in love with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix gave a light laugh, and rejoined with the alacrity of a maritime +adventurer who feels a puff of wind in his sail. “Ah, no; if she were in +love with me I should know it! I am not so blind as you.” +</p> + +<p> +“As I?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir, you are stone blind. Poor Charlotte is dead in love with +<i>you!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand said nothing for a moment; he breathed a little heavily. “Is +that what you wanted to say to me?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I have wanted to say it these three weeks. Because of late she has been +worse. I told you,” added Felix, “it was very delicate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir”—Mr. Brand began; “well, +sir——” +</p> + +<p> +“I was sure you didn’t know it,” Felix continued. “But +don’t you see—as soon as I mention it—how everything is +explained?” Mr. Brand answered nothing; he looked for a chair and softly +sat down. Felix could see that he was blushing; he had looked straight at his +host hitherto, but now he looked away. The foremost effect of what he had heard +had been a sort of irritation of his modesty. “Of course,” said +Felix, “I suggest nothing; it would be very presumptuous in me to advise +you. But I think there is no doubt about the fact.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand looked hard at the floor for some moments; he was oppressed with a +mixture of sensations. Felix, standing there, was very sure that one of them +was profound surprise. The innocent young man had been completely unsuspicious +of poor Charlotte’s hidden flame. This gave Felix great hope; he was sure +that Mr. Brand would be flattered. Felix thought him very transparent, and +indeed he was so; he could neither simulate nor dissimulate. “I scarcely +know what to make of this,” he said at last, without looking up; and +Felix was struck with the fact that he offered no protest or contradiction. +Evidently Felix had kindled a train of memories—a retrospective +illumination. It was making, to Mr. Brand’s astonished eyes, a very +pretty blaze; his second emotion had been a gratification of vanity. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank me for telling you,” Felix rejoined. “It’s a +good thing to know.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not sure of that,” said Mr. Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, don’t let her languish!” Felix murmured, lightly and +softly. +</p> + +<p> +“You <i>do</i> advise me, then?” And Mr. Brand looked up. +</p> + +<p> +“I congratulate you!” said Felix, smiling. He had thought at first +his visitor was simply appealing; but he saw he was a little ironical. +</p> + +<p> +“It is in your interest; you have interfered with me,” the young +clergyman went on. +</p> + +<p> +Felix still stood and smiled. The little room had grown darker, and the crimson +glow had faded; but Mr. Brand could see the brilliant expression of his face. +“I won’t pretend not to know what you mean,” said Felix at +last. “But I have not really interfered with you. Of what you had to +lose—with another person—you have lost nothing. And think what you +have gained!” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems to me I am the proper judge, on each side,” Mr. Brand +declared. He got up, holding the brim of his hat against his mouth and staring +at Felix through the dusk. +</p> + +<p> +“You have lost an illusion!” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you call an illusion?” +</p> + +<p> +“The belief that you really know—that you have ever really +known—Gertrude Wentworth. Depend upon that,” pursued Felix. +“I don’t know her yet; but I have no illusions; I don’t +pretend to.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand kept gazing, over his hat. “She has always been a lucid, limpid +nature,” he said, solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +“She has always been a dormant nature. She was waiting for a touchstone. +But now she is beginning to awaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t praise her to me!” said Mr. Brand, with a little +quaver in his voice. “If you have the advantage of me that is not +generous.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir, I am melting with generosity!” exclaimed Felix. +“And I am not praising my cousin. I am simply attempting a scientific +definition of her. She doesn’t care for abstractions. Now I think the +contrary is what you have always fancied—is the basis on which you have +been building. She is extremely preoccupied with the concrete. I care for the +concrete, too. But Gertrude is stronger than I; she whirls me along!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand looked for a moment into the crown of his hat. “It’s a +most interesting nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“So it is,” said Felix. “But it pulls—it +pulls—like a runaway horse. Now I like the feeling of a runaway horse; +and if I am thrown out of the vehicle it is no great matter. But if <i>you</i> +should be thrown, Mr. Brand”—and Felix paused a +moment—“another person also would suffer from the accident.” +</p> + +<p> +“What other person?” +</p> + +<p> +“Charlotte Wentworth!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand looked at Felix for a moment sidewise, mistrustfully; then his eyes +slowly wandered over the ceiling. Felix was sure he was secretly struck with +the romance of the situation. “I think this is none of our +business,” the young minister murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“None of mine, perhaps; but surely yours!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand lingered still, looking at the ceiling; there was evidently something +he wanted to say. “What do you mean by Miss Gertrude being strong?” +he asked abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said Felix meditatively, “I mean that she has had a +great deal of self-possession. She was waiting—for years; even when she +seemed, perhaps, to be living in the present. She knew how to wait; she had a +purpose. That’s what I mean by her being strong.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what do you mean by her purpose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well—the purpose to see the world!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand eyed his strange informant askance again; but he said nothing. At +last he turned away, as if to take leave. He seemed bewildered, however; for +instead of going to the door he moved toward the opposite corner of the room. +Felix stood and watched him for a moment—almost groping about in the +dusk; then he led him to the door, with a tender, almost fraternal movement. +“Is that all you have to say?” asked Mr. Brand. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it’s all—but it will bear a good deal of thinking +of.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix went with him to the garden-gate, and watched him slowly walk away into +the thickening twilight with a relaxed rigidity that tried to rectify itself. +“He is offended, excited, bewildered, perplexed—and +enchanted!” Felix said to himself. “That’s a capital +mixture.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0011"></a> +CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p> +Since that visit paid by the Baroness Münster to Mrs. Acton, of which some +account was given at an earlier stage of this narrative, the intercourse +between these two ladies had been neither frequent nor intimate. It was not +that Mrs. Acton had failed to appreciate Madame Münster’s charms; on the +contrary, her perception of the graces of manner and conversation of her +brilliant visitor had been only too acute. Mrs. Acton was, as they said in +Boston, very “intense,” and her impressions were apt to be too many +for her. The state of her health required the restriction of emotion; and this +is why, receiving, as she sat in her eternal arm-chair, very few visitors, even +of the soberest local type, she had been obliged to limit the number of her +interviews with a lady whose costume and manner recalled to her +imagination—Mrs. Acton’s imagination was a marvel—all that +she had ever read of the most stirring historical periods. But she had sent the +Baroness a great many quaintly-worded messages and a great many nosegays from +her garden and baskets of beautiful fruit. Felix had eaten the fruit, and the +Baroness had arranged the flowers and returned the baskets and the messages. On +the day that followed that rainy Sunday of which mention has been made, Eugenia +determined to go and pay the beneficent invalid a <i>“visite +d’adieux”</i>; so it was that, to herself, she qualified her +enterprise. It may be noted that neither on the Sunday evening nor on the +Monday morning had she received that expected visit from Robert Acton. To his +own consciousness, evidently he was “keeping away;” and as the +Baroness, on her side, was keeping away from her uncle’s, whither, for +several days, Felix had been the unembarrassed bearer of apologies and regrets +for absence, chance had not taken the cards from the hands of design. Mr. +Wentworth and his daughters had respected Eugenia’s seclusion; certain +intervals of mysterious retirement appeared to them, vaguely, a natural part of +the graceful, rhythmic movement of so remarkable a life. Gertrude especially +held these periods in honor; she wondered what Madame Münster did at such +times, but she would not have permitted herself to inquire too curiously. +</p> + +<p> +The long rain had freshened the air, and twelve hours’ brilliant sunshine +had dried the roads; so that the Baroness, in the late afternoon, proposing to +walk to Mrs. Acton’s, exposed herself to no great discomfort. As with her +charming undulating step she moved along the clean, grassy margin of the road, +beneath the thickly-hanging boughs of the orchards, through the quiet of the +hour and place and the rich maturity of the summer, she was even conscious of a +sort of luxurious melancholy. The Baroness had the amiable weakness of +attaching herself to places—even when she had begun with a little +aversion; and now, with the prospect of departure, she felt tenderly toward +this well-wooded corner of the Western world, where the sunsets were so +beautiful and one’s ambitions were so pure. Mrs. Acton was able to +receive her; but on entering this lady’s large, freshly-scented room the +Baroness saw that she was looking very ill. She was wonderfully white and +transparent, and, in her flowered arm-chair, she made no attempt to move. But +she flushed a little—like a young girl, the Baroness thought—and +she rested her clear, smiling eyes upon those of her visitor. Her voice was low +and monotonous, like a voice that had never expressed any human passions. +</p> + +<p> +“I have come to bid you good-bye,” said Eugenia. “I shall +soon be going away.” +</p> + +<p> +“When are you going away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very soon—any day.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very sorry,” said Mrs. Acton. “I hoped you would +stay—always.” +</p> + +<p> +“Always?” Eugenia demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I mean a long time,” said Mrs. Acton, in her sweet, feeble +tone. “They tell me you are so comfortable—that you have got such a +beautiful little house.” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia stared—that is, she smiled; she thought of her poor little chalet +and she wondered whether her hostess were jesting. “Yes, my house is +exquisite,” she said; “though not to be compared to yours.” +</p> + +<p> +“And my son is so fond of going to see you,” Mrs. Acton added. +“I am afraid my son will miss you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, dear madam,” said Eugenia, with a little laugh, “I +can’t stay in America for your son!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you like America?” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness looked at the front of her dress. “If I liked it—that +would not be staying for your son!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Acton gazed at her with her grave, tender eyes, as if she had not quite +understood. The Baroness at last found something irritating in the sweet, soft +stare of her hostess; and if one were not bound to be merciful to great +invalids she would almost have taken the liberty of pronouncing her, mentally, +a fool. “I am afraid, then, I shall never see you again,” said Mrs. +Acton. “You know I am dying.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, dear madam,” murmured Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to leave my children cheerful and happy. My daughter will +probably marry her cousin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Two such interesting young people,” said the Baroness, vaguely. +She was not thinking of Clifford Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel so tranquil about my end,” Mrs. Acton went on. “It is +coming so easily, so surely.” And she paused, with her mild gaze always +on Eugenia’s. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness hated to be reminded of death; but even in its imminence, so far +as Mrs. Acton was concerned, she preserved her good manners. “Ah, madam, +you are too charming an invalid,” she rejoined. +</p> + +<p> +But the delicacy of this rejoinder was apparently lost upon her hostess, who +went on in her low, reasonable voice. “I want to leave my children bright +and comfortable. You seem to me all so happy here—just as you are. So I +wish you could stay. It would be so pleasant for Robert.” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia wondered what she meant by its being pleasant for Robert; but she felt +that she would never know what such a woman as that meant. She got up; she was +afraid Mrs. Acton would tell her again that she was dying. “Good-bye, +dear madam,” she said. “I must remember that your strength is +precious.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Acton took her hand and held it a moment. “Well, you <i>have</i> +been happy here, haven’t you? And you like us all, don’t you? I +wish you would stay,” she added, “in your beautiful little +house.” +</p> + +<p> +She had told Eugenia that her waiting-woman would be in the hall, to show her +downstairs; but the large landing outside her door was empty, and Eugenia stood +there looking about. She felt irritated; the dying lady had not <i>“la +main heureuse.”</i> She passed slowly downstairs, still looking about. +The broad staircase made a great bend, and in the angle was a high window, +looking westward, with a deep bench, covered with a row of flowering plants in +curious old pots of blue china-ware. The yellow afternoon light came in through +the flowers and flickered a little on the white wainscots. Eugenia paused a +moment; the house was perfectly still, save for the ticking, somewhere, of a +great clock. The lower hall stretched away at the foot of the stairs, half +covered over with a large Oriental rug. Eugenia lingered a little, noticing a +great many things. <i>“Comme c’est bien!”</i> she said to +herself; such a large, solid, irreproachable basis of existence the place +seemed to her to indicate. And then she reflected that Mrs. Acton was soon to +withdraw from it. The reflection accompanied her the rest of the way +downstairs, where she paused again, making more observations. The hall was +extremely broad, and on either side of the front door was a wide, deeply-set +window, which threw the shadows of everything back into the house. There were +high-backed chairs along the wall and big Eastern vases upon tables, and, on +either side, a large cabinet with a glass front and little curiosities within, +dimly gleaming. The doors were open—into the darkened parlor, the +library, the dining-room. All these rooms seemed empty. Eugenia passed along, +and stopped a moment on the threshold of each. <i>“Comme c’est +bien!”</i> she murmured again; she had thought of just such a house as +this when she decided to come to America. She opened the front door for +herself—her light tread had summoned none of the servants—and on +the threshold she gave a last look. Outside, she was still in the humor for +curious contemplation; so instead of going directly down the little drive, to +the gate, she wandered away towards the garden, which lay to the right of the +house. She had not gone many yards over the grass before she paused quickly; +she perceived a gentleman stretched upon the level verdure, beneath a tree. He +had not heard her coming, and he lay motionless, flat on his back, with his +hands clasped under his head, staring up at the sky; so that the Baroness was +able to reflect, at her leisure, upon the question of his identity. It was that +of a person who had lately been much in her thoughts; but her first impulse, +nevertheless, was to turn away; the last thing she desired was to have the air +of coming in quest of Robert Acton. The gentleman on the grass, however, gave +her no time to decide; he could not long remain unconscious of so agreeable a +presence. He rolled back his eyes, stared, gave an exclamation, and then jumped +up. He stood an instant, looking at her. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse my ridiculous position,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I have just now no sense of the ridiculous. But, in case you have, +don’t imagine I came to see you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take care,” rejoined Acton, “how you put it into my head! I +was thinking of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“The occupation of extreme leisure!” said the Baroness. “To +think of a woman when you are in that position is no compliment.” +</p> + +<p> +“I didn’t say I was thinking well!” Acton affirmed, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him, and then she turned away. +</p> + +<p> +“Though I didn’t come to see you,” she said, “remember +at least that I am within your gates.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am delighted—I am honored! Won’t you come into the +house?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have just come out of it. I have been calling upon your mother. I have +been bidding her farewell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Farewell?” Acton demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“I am going away,” said the Baroness. And she turned away again, as +if to illustrate her meaning. +</p> + +<p> +“When are you going?” asked Acton, standing a moment in his place. +But the Baroness made no answer, and he followed her. +</p> + +<p> +“I came this way to look at your garden,” she said, walking back to +the gate, over the grass. “But I must go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me at least go with you.” He went with her, and they said +nothing till they reached the gate. It was open, and they looked down the road +which was darkened over with long bosky shadows. “Must you go straight +home?” Acton asked. +</p> + +<p> +But she made no answer. She said, after a moment, “Why have you not been +to see me?” He said nothing, and then she went on, “Why don’t +you answer me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am trying to invent an answer,” Acton confessed. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you none ready?” +</p> + +<p> +“None that I can tell you,” he said. “But let me walk with +you now.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may do as you like.” +</p> + +<p> +She moved slowly along the road, and Acton went with her. Presently he said, +“If I had done as I liked I would have come to see you several +times.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is that invented?” asked Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +“No, that is natural. I stayed away because——” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, here comes the reason, then!” +</p> + +<p> +“Because I wanted to think about you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you wanted to lie down!” said the Baroness. “I have +seen you lie down—almost—in my drawing-room.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton stopped in the road, with a movement which seemed to beg her to linger a +little. She paused, and he looked at her awhile; he thought her very charming. +“You are jesting,” he said; “but if you are really going away +it is very serious.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I stay,” and she gave a little laugh, “it is more serious +still!” +</p> + +<p> +“When shall you go?” +</p> + +<p> +“As soon as possible.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I stay?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because we all admire you so.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is not a reason. I am admired also in Europe.” And she began +to walk homeward again. +</p> + +<p> +“What could I say to keep you?” asked Acton. He wanted to keep her, +and it was a fact that he had been thinking of her for a week. He was in love +with her now; he was conscious of that, or he thought he was; and the only +question with him was whether he could trust her. +</p> + +<p> +“What you can say to keep me?” she repeated. “As I want very +much to go it is not in my interest to tell you. Besides, I can’t +imagine.” +</p> + +<p> +He went on with her in silence; he was much more affected by what she had told +him than appeared. Ever since that evening of his return from Newport her image +had had a terrible power to trouble him. What Clifford Wentworth had told +him—that had affected him, too, in an adverse sense; but it had not +liberated him from the discomfort of a charm of which his intelligence was +impatient. “She is not honest, she is not honest,” he kept +murmuring to himself. That is what he had been saying to the summer sky, ten +minutes before. Unfortunately, he was unable to say it finally, definitively; +and now that he was near her it seemed to matter wonderfully little. “She +is a woman who will lie,” he had said to himself. Now, as he went along, +he reminded himself of this observation; but it failed to frighten him as it +had done before. He almost wished he could make her lie and then convict her of +it, so that he might see how he should like that. He kept thinking of this as +he walked by her side, while she moved forward with her light, graceful +dignity. He had sat with her before; he had driven with her; but he had never +walked with her. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, how <i>comme il faut</i> she is!” he said, as he observed +her sidewise. When they reached the cottage in the orchard she passed into the +gate without asking him to follow; but she turned round, as he stood there, to +bid him good-night. +</p> + +<p> +“I asked you a question the other night which you never answered,” +he said. “Have you sent off that document—liberating +yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +She hesitated for a single moment—very naturally. Then, +“Yes,” she said, simply. +</p> + +<p> +He turned away; he wondered whether that would do for his lie. But he saw her +again that evening, for the Baroness reappeared at her uncle’s. He had +little talk with her, however; two gentlemen had driven out from Boston, in a +buggy, to call upon Mr. Wentworth and his daughters, and Madame Münster was an +object of absorbing interest to both of the visitors. One of them, indeed, said +nothing to her; he only sat and watched with intense gravity, and leaned +forward solemnly, presenting his ear (a very large one), as if he were deaf, +whenever she dropped an observation. He had evidently been impressed with the +idea of her misfortunes and reverses: he never smiled. His companion adopted a +lighter, easier style; sat as near as possible to Madame Münster; attempted to +draw her out, and proposed every few moments a new topic of conversation. +Eugenia was less vividly responsive than usual and had less to say than, from +her brilliant reputation, her interlocutor expected, upon the relative merits +of European and American institutions; but she was inaccessible to Robert +Acton, who roamed about the piazza with his hands in his pockets, listening for +the grating sound of the buggy from Boston, as it should be brought round to +the side-door. But he listened in vain, and at last he lost patience. His +sister came to him and begged him to take her home, and he presently went off +with her. Eugenia observed him leaving the house with Lizzie; in her present +mood the fact seemed a contribution to her irritated conviction that he had +several precious qualities. “Even that <i>mal-élevée</i> little +girl,” she reflected, “makes him do what she wishes.” +</p> + +<p> +She had been sitting just within one of the long windows that opened upon the +piazza; but very soon after Acton had gone away she got up abruptly, just when +the talkative gentleman from Boston was asking her what she thought of the +“moral tone” of that city. On the piazza she encountered Clifford +Wentworth, coming round from the other side of the house. She stopped him; she +told him she wished to speak to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t you go home with your cousin?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +Clifford stared. “Why, Robert has taken her,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly so. But you don’t usually leave that to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said Clifford, “I want to see those fellows start off. +They don’t know how to drive.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not, then, that you have quarreled with your cousin?” +</p> + +<p> +Clifford reflected a moment, and then with a simplicity which had, for the +Baroness, a singularly baffling quality, “Oh, no; we have made up!” +he said. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him for some moments; but Clifford had begun to be afraid of the +Baroness’s looks, and he endeavored, now, to shift himself out of their +range. “Why do you never come to see me any more?” she asked. +“Have I displeased you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Displeased me? Well, I guess not!” said Clifford, with a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Why haven’t you come, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, because I am afraid of getting shut up in that back room.” +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia kept looking at him. “I should think you would like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like it!” cried Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“I should, if I were a young man calling upon a charming woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“A charming woman isn’t much use to me when I am shut up in that +back room!” +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid I am not of much use to you anywhere!” said Madame +Münster. “And yet you know how I have offered to be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” observed Clifford, by way of response, “there comes +the buggy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind the buggy. Do you know I am going away?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean in a few days. I leave this place.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are going back to Europe?” +</p> + +<p> +“To Europe, where you are to come and see me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, I’ll come out there,” said Clifford. +</p> + +<p> +“But before that,” Eugenia declared, “you must come and see +me here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I shall keep clear of that back room!” rejoined her simple +young kinsman. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness was silent a moment. “Yes, you must come +frankly—boldly. That will be very much better. I see that now.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see it!” said Clifford. And then, in an instant, +“What’s the matter with that buggy?” His practiced ear had +apparently detected an unnatural creak in the wheels of the light vehicle which +had been brought to the portico, and he hurried away to investigate so grave an +anomaly. +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness walked homeward, alone, in the starlight, asking herself a +question. Was she to have gained nothing—was she to have gained nothing? +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude Wentworth had held a silent place in the little circle gathered about +the two gentlemen from Boston. She was not interested in the visitors; she was +watching Madame Münster, as she constantly watched her. She knew that Eugenia +also was not interested—that she was bored; and Gertrude was absorbed in +study of the problem how, in spite of her indifference and her absent +attention, she managed to have such a charming manner. That was the manner +Gertrude would have liked to have; she determined to cultivate it, and she +wished that—to give her the charm—she might in future very often be +bored. While she was engaged in these researches, Felix Young was looking for +Charlotte, to whom he had something to say. For some time, now, he had had +something to say to Charlotte, and this evening his sense of the propriety of +holding some special conversation with her had reached the +motive-point—resolved itself into acute and delightful desire. He +wandered through the empty rooms on the large ground-floor of the house, and +found her at last in a small apartment denominated, for reasons not immediately +apparent, Mr. Wentworth’s “office:” an extremely neat and +well-dusted room, with an array of law-books, in time-darkened sheep-skin, on +one of the walls; a large map of the United States on the other, flanked on +either side by an old steel engraving of one of Raphael’s Madonnas; and +on the third several glass cases containing specimens of butterflies and +beetles. Charlotte was sitting by a lamp, embroidering a slipper. Felix did not +ask for whom the slipper was destined; he saw it was very large. +</p> + +<p> +He moved a chair toward her and sat down, smiling as usual, but, at first, not +speaking. She watched him, with her needle poised, and with a certain shy, +fluttered look which she always wore when he approached her. There was +something in Felix’s manner that quickened her modesty, her +self-consciousness; if absolute choice had been given her she would have +preferred never to find herself alone with him; and in fact, though she thought +him a most brilliant, distinguished, and well-meaning person, she had exercised +a much larger amount of tremulous tact than he had ever suspected, to +circumvent the accident of <i>tête-à-tête</i>. Poor Charlotte could have given +no account of the matter that would not have seemed unjust both to herself and +to her foreign kinsman; she could only have said—or rather, she would +never have said it—that she did not like so much gentleman’s +society at once. She was not reassured, accordingly, when he began, emphasizing +his words with a kind of admiring radiance, “My dear cousin, I am +enchanted at finding you alone.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am very often alone,” Charlotte observed. Then she quickly +added, “I don’t mean I am lonely!” +</p> + +<p> +“So clever a woman as you is never lonely,” said Felix. “You +have company in your beautiful work.” And he glanced at the big slipper. +</p> + +<p> +“I like to work,” declared Charlotte, simply. +</p> + +<p> +“So do I!” said her companion. “And I like to idle too. But +it is not to idle that I have come in search of you. I want to tell you +something very particular.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” murmured Charlotte; “of course, if you +must——” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear cousin,” said Felix, “it’s nothing that a +young lady may not listen to. At least I suppose it isn’t. But +<i>voyons</i>; you shall judge. I am terribly in love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Felix,” began Miss Wentworth, gravely. But her very gravity +appeared to check the development of her phrase. +</p> + +<p> +“I am in love with your sister; but in love, Charlotte—in +love!” the young man pursued. Charlotte had laid her work in her lap; her +hands were tightly folded on top of it; she was staring at the carpet. +“In short, I’m in love, dear lady,” said Felix. “Now I +want you to help me.” +</p> + +<p> +“To help you?” asked Charlotte, with a tremor. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean with Gertrude; she and I have a perfect +understanding; and oh, how well she understands one! I mean with your father +and with the world in general, including Mr. Brand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Mr. Brand!” said Charlotte, slowly, but with a simplicity +which made it evident to Felix that the young minister had not repeated to Miss +Wentworth the talk that had lately occurred between them. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, now, don’t say ‘poor’ Mr. Brand! I don’t +pity Mr. Brand at all. But I pity your father a little, and I don’t want +to displease him. Therefore, you see, I want you to plead for me. You +don’t think me very shabby, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Shabby?” exclaimed Charlotte softly, for whom Felix represented +the most polished and iridescent qualities of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t mean in my appearance,” rejoined Felix, laughing; +for Charlotte was looking at his boots. “I mean in my conduct. You +don’t think it’s an abuse of hospitality?” +</p> + +<p> +“To—to care for Gertrude?” asked Charlotte. +</p> + +<p> +“To have really expressed one’s self. Because I <i>have</i> +expressed myself, Charlotte; I must tell you the whole truth—I have! Of +course I want to marry her—and here is the difficulty. I held off as long +as I could; but she is such a terribly fascinating person! She’s a +strange creature, Charlotte; I don’t believe you really know her.” +Charlotte took up her tapestry again, and again she laid it down. “I know +your father has had higher views,” Felix continued; “and I think +you have shared them. You have wanted to marry her to Mr. Brand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” said Charlotte, very earnestly. “Mr. Brand has +always admired her. But we did not want anything of that kind.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix stared. “Surely, marriage was what you proposed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but we didn’t wish to force her.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>A la bonne heure!</i> That’s very unsafe you know. With these +arranged marriages there is often the deuce to pay.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Felix,” said Charlotte, “we didn’t want to +‘arrange.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I am delighted to hear that. Because in such cases—even when the +woman is a thoroughly good creature—she can’t help looking for a +compensation. A charming fellow comes along—and <i>voilà!</i>” +Charlotte sat mutely staring at the floor, and Felix presently added, “Do +go on with your slipper, I like to see you work.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte took up her variegated canvas, and began to draw vague blue stitches +in a big round rose. “If Gertrude is so—so strange,” she +said, “why do you want to marry her?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, that’s it, dear Charlotte! I like strange women; I always have +liked them. Ask Eugenia! And Gertrude is wonderful; she says the most beautiful +things!” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte looked at him, almost for the first time, as if her meaning required +to be severely pointed. “You have a great influence over her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—and no!” said Felix. “I had at first, I think; but +now it is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; it is reciprocal. She +affects me strongly—for she <i>is</i> so strong. I don’t believe +you know her; it’s a beautiful nature.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, Felix; I have always thought Gertrude’s nature +beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, if you think so now,” cried the young man, “wait and +see! She’s a folded flower. Let me pluck her from the parent tree and you +will see her expand. I’m sure you will enjoy it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand you,” murmured Charlotte. “I +<i>can’t</i>, Felix.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, you can understand this—that I beg you to say a good word +for me to your father. He regards me, I naturally believe, as a very light +fellow, a Bohemian, an irregular character. Tell him I am not all this; if I +ever was, I have forgotten it. I am fond of pleasure—yes; but of innocent +pleasure. Pain is all one; but in pleasure, you know, there are tremendous +distinctions. Say to him that Gertrude is a folded flower and that I am a +serious man!” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte got up from her chair slowly rolling up her work. “We know you +are very kind to everyone, Felix,” she said. “But we are extremely +sorry for Mr. Brand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you are—you especially! Because,” added Felix +hastily, “you are a woman. But I don’t pity him. It ought to be +enough for any man that you take an interest in him.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is not enough for Mr. Brand,” said Charlotte, simply. And she +stood there a moment, as if waiting conscientiously for anything more that +Felix might have to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Brand is not so keen about his marriage as he was,” he +presently said. “He is afraid of your sister. He begins to think she is +wicked.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte looked at him now with beautiful, appealing eyes—eyes into +which he saw the tears rising. “Oh, Felix, Felix,” she cried, +“what have you done to her?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think she was asleep; I have waked her up!” +</p> + +<p> +But Charlotte, apparently, was really crying, she walked straight out of the +room. And Felix, standing there and meditating, had the apparent brutality to +take satisfaction in her tears. +</p> + +<p> +Late that night Gertrude, silent and serious, came to him in the garden; it was +a kind of appointment. Gertrude seemed to like appointments. She plucked a +handful of heliotrope and stuck it into the front of her dress, but she said +nothing. They walked together along one of the paths, and Felix looked at the +great, square, hospitable house, massing itself vaguely in the starlight, with +all its windows darkened. +</p> + +<p> +“I have a little of a bad conscience,” he said. “I +oughtn’t to meet you this way till I have got your father’s +consent.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at him for some time. “I don’t understand +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You very often say that,” he said. “Considering how little +we understand each other, it is a wonder how well we get on!” +</p> + +<p> +“We have done nothing but meet since you came here—but meet alone. +The first time I ever saw you we were alone,” Gertrude went on. +“What is the difference now? Is it because it is at night?” +</p> + +<p> +“The difference, Gertrude,” said Felix, stopping in the path, +“the difference is that I love you more—more than before!” +And then they stood there, talking, in the warm stillness and in front of the +closed dark house. “I have been talking to Charlotte—been trying to +bespeak her interest with your father. She has a kind of sublime perversity; +was ever a woman so bent upon cutting off her own head?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are too careful,” said Gertrude; “you are too +diplomatic.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” cried the young man, “I didn’t come here to +make anyone unhappy!” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked round her awhile in the odorous darkness. “I will do +anything you please,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“For instance?” asked Felix, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“I will go away. I will do anything you please.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix looked at her in solemn admiration. “Yes, we will go away,” +he said. “But we will make peace first.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked about her again, and then she broke out, passionately, +“Why do they try to make one feel guilty? Why do they make it so +difficult? Why can’t they understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will make them understand!” said Felix. He drew her hand into +his arm, and they wandered about in the garden, talking, for an hour. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2HCH0012"></a> +CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p> +Felix allowed Charlotte time to plead his cause; and then, on the third day, he +sought an interview with his uncle. It was in the morning; Mr. Wentworth was in +his office; and, on going in, Felix found that Charlotte was at that moment in +conference with her father. She had, in fact, been constantly near him since +her interview with Felix; she had made up her mind that it was her duty to +repeat very literally her cousin’s passionate plea. She had accordingly +followed Mr. Wentworth about like a shadow, in order to find him at hand when +she should have mustered sufficient composure to speak. For poor Charlotte, in +this matter, naturally lacked composure; especially when she meditated upon +some of Felix’s intimations. It was not cheerful work, at the best, to +keep giving small hammer-taps to the coffin in which one had laid away, for +burial, the poor little unacknowledged offspring of one’s own misbehaving +heart; and the occupation was not rendered more agreeable by the fact that the +ghost of one’s stifled dream had been summoned from the shades by the +strange, bold words of a talkative young foreigner. What had Felix meant by +saying that Mr. Brand was not so keen? To herself her sister’s justly +depressed suitor had shown no sign of faltering. Charlotte trembled all over +when she allowed herself to believe for an instant now and then that, +privately, Mr. Brand might have faltered; and as it seemed to give more force +to Felix’s words to repeat them to her father, she was waiting until she +should have taught herself to be very calm. But she had now begun to tell Mr. +Wentworth that she was extremely anxious. She was proceeding to develop this +idea, to enumerate the objects of her anxiety, when Felix came in. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth sat there, with his legs crossed, lifting his dry, pure +countenance from the Boston <i>Advertiser</i>. Felix entered smiling, as if he +had something particular to say, and his uncle looked at him as if he both +expected and deprecated this event. Felix vividly expressing himself had come +to be a formidable figure to his uncle, who had not yet arrived at definite +views as to a proper tone. For the first time in his life, as I have said, Mr. +Wentworth shirked a responsibility; he earnestly desired that it might not be +laid upon him to determine how his nephew’s lighter propositions should +be treated. He lived under an apprehension that Felix might yet beguile him +into assent to doubtful inductions, and his conscience instructed him that the +best form of vigilance was the avoidance of discussion. He hoped that the +pleasant episode of his nephew’s visit would pass away without a further +lapse of consistency. +</p> + +<p> +Felix looked at Charlotte with an air of understanding, and then at Mr. +Wentworth, and then at Charlotte again. Mr. Wentworth bent his refined eyebrows +upon his nephew and stroked down the first page of the <i>Advertiser</i>. +“I ought to have brought a bouquet,” said Felix, laughing. +“In France they always do.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are not in France,” observed Mr. Wentworth, gravely, while +Charlotte earnestly gazed at him. +</p> + +<p> +“No, luckily, we are not in France, where I am afraid I should have a +harder time of it. My dear Charlotte, have you rendered me that delightful +service?” And Felix bent toward her as if someone had been presenting +him. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte looked at him with almost frightened eyes; and Mr. Wentworth thought +this might be the beginning of a discussion. “What is the bouquet +for?” he inquired, by way of turning it off. +</p> + +<p> +Felix gazed at him, smiling. <i>“Pour la demande!”</i> And then, +drawing up a chair, he seated himself, hat in hand, with a kind of conscious +solemnity. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he turned to Charlotte again. “My good Charlotte, my admirable +Charlotte,” he murmured, “you have not played me false—you +have not sided against me?” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte got up, trembling extremely, though imperceptibly. “You must +speak to my father yourself,” she said. “I think you are clever +enough.” +</p> + +<p> +But Felix, rising too, begged her to remain. “I can speak better to an +audience!” he declared. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope it is nothing disagreeable,” said Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s something delightful, for me!” And Felix, laying down +his hat, clasped his hands a little between his knees. “My dear +uncle,” he said, “I desire, very earnestly, to marry your daughter +Gertrude.” Charlotte sank slowly into her chair again, and Mr. Wentworth +sat staring, with a light in his face that might have been flashed back from an +iceberg. He stared and stared; he said nothing. Felix fell back, with his hands +still clasped. “Ah—you don’t like it. I was afraid!” He +blushed deeply, and Charlotte noticed it—remarking to herself that it was +the first time she had ever seen him blush. She began to blush herself and to +reflect that he might be much in love. +</p> + +<p> +“This is very abrupt,” said Mr. Wentworth, at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you never suspected it, dear uncle?” Felix inquired. +“Well, that proves how discreet I have been. Yes, I thought you +wouldn’t like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very serious, Felix,” said Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“You think it’s an abuse of hospitality!” exclaimed Felix, +smiling again. +</p> + +<p> +“Of hospitality?—an abuse?” his uncle repeated very slowly. +</p> + +<p> +“That is what Felix said to me,” said Charlotte, conscientiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you think so; don’t defend yourself!” Felix +pursued. “It <i>is</i> an abuse, obviously; the most I can claim is that +it is perhaps a pardonable one. I simply fell head over heels in love; one can +hardly help that. Though you are Gertrude’s progenitor I don’t +believe you know how attractive she is. Dear uncle, she contains the elements +of a singularly—I may say a strangely—charming woman!” +</p> + +<p> +“She has always been to me an object of extreme concern,” said Mr. +Wentworth. “We have always desired her happiness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, here it is!” Felix declared. “I will make her happy. +She believes it, too. Now hadn’t you noticed that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I had noticed that she was much changed,” Mr. Wentworth declared, +in a tone whose unexpressive, unimpassioned quality appeared to Felix to reveal +a profundity of opposition. “It may be that she is only becoming what you +call a charming woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gertrude, at heart, is so earnest, so true,” said Charlotte, very +softly, fastening her eyes upon her father. +</p> + +<p> +“I delight to hear you praise her!” cried Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“She has a very peculiar temperament,” said Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“Eh, even that is praise!” Felix rejoined. “I know I am not +the man you might have looked for. I have no position and no fortune; I can +give Gertrude no place in the world. A place in the world—that’s +what she ought to have; that would bring her out.” +</p> + +<p> +“A place to do her duty!” remarked Mr. Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, how charmingly she does it—her duty!” Felix exclaimed, +with a radiant face. “What an exquisite conception she has of it! But she +comes honestly by that, dear uncle.” Mr. Wentworth and Charlotte both +looked at him as if they were watching a greyhound doubling. “Of course +with me she will hide her light under a bushel,” he continued; “I +being the bushel! Now I know you like me—you have certainly proved it. +But you think I am frivolous and penniless and shabby! +Granted—granted—a thousand times granted. I have been a loose +fish—a fiddler, a painter, an actor. But there is this to be said: In the +first place, I fancy you exaggerate; you lend me qualities I haven’t had. +I have been a Bohemian—yes; but in Bohemia I always passed for a +gentleman. I wish you could see some of my old <i>camarades</i>—they +would tell you! It was the liberty I liked, but not the opportunities! My sins +were all peccadilloes; I always respected my neighbor’s property—my +neighbor’s wife. Do you see, dear uncle?” Mr. Wentworth ought to +have seen; his cold blue eyes were intently fixed. “And then, +<i>c’est fini!</i> It’s all over. <i>Je me range</i>. I have +settled down to a jog-trot. I find I can earn my living—a very fair +one—by going about the world and painting bad portraits. It’s not a +glorious profession, but it is a perfectly respectable one. You won’t +deny that, eh? Going about the world, I say? I must not deny that, for that I +am afraid I shall always do—in quest of agreeable sitters. When I say +agreeable, I mean susceptible of delicate flattery and prompt of payment. +Gertrude declares she is willing to share my wanderings and help to pose my +models. She even thinks it will be charming; and that brings me to my third +point. Gertrude likes me. Encourage her a little and she will tell you +so.” +</p> + +<p> +Felix’s tongue obviously moved much faster than the imagination of his +auditors; his eloquence, like the rocking of a boat in a deep, smooth lake, +made long eddies of silence. And he seemed to be pleading and chattering still, +with his brightly eager smile, his uplifted eyebrows, his expressive mouth, +after he had ceased speaking, and while, with his glance quickly turning from +the father to the daughter, he sat waiting for the effect of his appeal. +“It is not your want of means,” said Mr. Wentworth, after a period +of severe reticence. +</p> + +<p> +“Now it’s delightful of you to say that! Only don’t say +it’s my want of character. Because I have a character—I assure you +I have; a small one, a little slip of a thing, but still something +tangible.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ought you not to tell Felix that it is Mr. Brand, father?” +Charlotte asked, with infinite mildness. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not only Mr. Brand,” Mr. Wentworth solemnly declared. And he +looked at his knee for a long time. “It is difficult to explain,” +he said. He wished, evidently, to be very just. “It rests on moral +grounds, as Mr. Brand says. It is the question whether it is the best thing for +Gertrude.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is better—what is better, dear uncle?” Felix rejoined +urgently, rising in his urgency and standing before Mr. Wentworth. His uncle +had been looking at his knee; but when Felix moved he transferred his gaze to +the handle of the door which faced him. “It is usually a fairly good +thing for a girl to marry the man she loves!” cried Felix. +</p> + +<p> +While he spoke, Mr. Wentworth saw the handle of the door begin to turn; the +door opened and remained slightly ajar, until Felix had delivered himself of +the cheerful axiom just quoted. Then it opened altogether and Gertrude stood +there. She looked excited; there was a spark in her sweet, dull eyes. She came +in slowly, but with an air of resolution, and, closing the door softly, looked +round at the three persons present. Felix went to her with tender gallantry, +holding out his hand, and Charlotte made a place for her on the sofa. But +Gertrude put her hands behind her and made no motion to sit down. +</p> + +<p> +“We are talking of you!” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it,” she answered. “That’s why I came.” +And she fastened her eyes on her father, who returned her gaze very fixedly. In +his own cold blue eyes there was a kind of pleading, reasoning light. +</p> + +<p> +“It is better you should be present,” said Mr. Wentworth. “We +are discussing your future.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why discuss it?” asked Gertrude. “Leave it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is, to me!” cried Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“I leave it, in the last resort, to a greater wisdom than ours,” +said the old man. +</p> + +<p> +Felix rubbed his forehead gently. “But <i>en attendant</i> the last +resort, your father lacks confidence,” he said to Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you confidence in Felix?” Gertrude was frowning; +there was something about her that her father and Charlotte had never seen. +Charlotte got up and came to her, as if to put her arm round her; but suddenly, +she seemed afraid to touch her. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth, however, was not afraid. “I have had more confidence in +Felix than in you,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, you have never had confidence in me—never, never! I +don’t know why.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh sister, sister!” murmured Charlotte. +</p> + +<p> +“You have always needed advice,” Mr. Wentworth declared. “You +have had a difficult temperament.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you call it difficult? It might have been easy, if you had +allowed it. You wouldn’t let me be natural. I don’t know what you +wanted to make of me. Mr. Brand was the worst.” +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte at last took hold of her sister. She laid her two hands upon +Gertrude’s arm. “He cares so much for you,” she almost +whispered. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at her intently an instant; then kissed her. “No, he does +not,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“I have never seen you so passionate,” observed Mr. Wentworth, with +an air of indignation mitigated by high principles. +</p> + +<p> +“I am sorry if I offend you,” said Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +“You offend me, but I don’t think you are sorry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, father, she is sorry,” said Charlotte. +</p> + +<p> +“I would even go further, dear uncle,” Felix interposed. “I +would question whether she really offends you. How can she offend you?” +</p> + +<p> +To this Mr. Wentworth made no immediate answer. Then, in a moment, “She +has not profited as we hoped.” +</p> + +<p> +“Profited? <i>Ah voilà!</i>” Felix exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude was very pale; she stood looking down. “I have told Felix I +would go away with him,” she presently said. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you have said some admirable things!” cried the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Go away, sister?” asked Charlotte. +</p> + +<p> +“Away—away; to some strange country.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is to frighten you,” said Felix, smiling at Charlotte. +</p> + +<p> +“To—what do you call it?” asked Gertrude, turning an instant +to Felix. “To Bohemia.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you propose to dispense with preliminaries?” asked Mr. +Wentworth, getting up. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear uncle, <i>vous plaisantez!</i>” cried Felix. “It seems +to me that these are preliminaries.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude turned to her father. “I <i>have</i> profited,” she said. +“You wanted to form my character. Well, my character is formed—for +my age. I know what I want; I have chosen. I am determined to marry this +gentleman.” +</p> + +<p> +“You had better consent, sir,” said Felix very gently. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, you had better consent,” added a very different voice. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte gave a little jump, and the others turned to the direction from which +it had come. It was the voice of Mr. Brand, who had stepped through the long +window which stood open to the piazza. He stood patting his forehead with his +pocket-handkerchief; he was very much flushed; his face wore a singular +expression. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, you had better consent,” Mr. Brand repeated, coming +forward. “I know what Miss Gertrude means.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear friend!” murmured Felix, laying his hand caressingly on +the young minister’s arm. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand looked at him; then at Mr. Wentworth; lastly at Gertrude. He did not +look at Charlotte. But Charlotte’s earnest eyes were fastened to his own +countenance; they were asking an immense question of it. The answer to this +question could not come all at once; but some of the elements of it were there. +It was one of the elements of it that Mr. Brand was very red, that he held his +head very high, that he had a bright, excited eye and an air of embarrassed +boldness—the air of a man who has taken a resolve, in the execution of +which he apprehends the failure, not of his moral, but of his personal, +resources. Charlotte thought he looked very grand; and it is incontestable that +Mr. Brand felt very grand. This, in fact, was the grandest moment of his life; +and it was natural that such a moment should contain opportunities of +awkwardness for a large, stout, modest young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Come in, sir,” said Mr. Wentworth, with an angular wave of his +hand. “It is very proper that you should be present.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know what you are talking about,” Mr. Brand rejoined. “I +heard what your nephew said.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he heard what you said!” exclaimed Felix, patting him again on +the arm. +</p> + +<p> +“I am not sure that I understood,” said Mr. Wentworth, who had +angularity in his voice as well as in his gestures. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude had been looking hard at her former suitor. She had been puzzled, like +her sister; but her imagination moved more quickly than Charlotte’s. +“Mr. Brand asked you to let Felix take me away,” she said to her +father. +</p> + +<p> +The young minister gave her a strange look. “It is not because I +don’t want to see you any more,” he declared, in a tone intended as +it were for publicity. +</p> + +<p> +“I shouldn’t think you would want to see me any more,” +Gertrude answered, gently. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth stood staring. “Isn’t this rather a change, +sir?” he inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir.” And Mr. Brand looked anywhere; only still not at +Charlotte. “Yes, sir,” he repeated. And he held his handkerchief a +few moments to his lips. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are our moral grounds?” demanded Mr. Wentworth, who had +always thought Mr. Brand would be just the thing for a younger daughter with a +peculiar temperament. +</p> + +<p> +“It is sometimes very moral to change, you know,” suggested Felix. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte had softly left her sister’s side. She had edged gently toward +her father, and now her hand found its way into his arm. Mr. Wentworth had +folded up the <i>Advertiser</i> into a surprisingly small compass, and, holding +the roll with one hand, he earnestly clasped it with the other. Mr. Brand was +looking at him; and yet, though Charlotte was so near, his eyes failed to meet +her own. Gertrude watched her sister. +</p> + +<p> +“It is better not to speak of change,” said Mr. Brand. “In +one sense there is no change. There was something I desired—something I +asked of you; I desire something still—I ask it of you.” And he +paused a moment; Mr. Wentworth looked bewildered. “I should like, in my +ministerial capacity, to unite this young couple.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude, watching her sister, saw Charlotte flushing intensely, and Mr. +Wentworth felt her pressing upon his arm. “Heavenly Powers!” +murmured Mr. Wentworth. And it was the nearest approach to profanity he had +ever made. +</p> + +<p> +“That is very nice; that is very handsome!” Felix exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand,” said Mr. Wentworth; though it was plain +that everyone else did. +</p> + +<p> +“That is very beautiful, Mr. Brand,” said Gertrude, emulating +Felix. +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to marry you. It will give me great pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“As Gertrude says, it’s a beautiful idea,” said Felix. +</p> + +<p> +Felix was smiling, but Mr. Brand was not even trying to. He himself treated his +proposition very seriously. “I have thought of it, and I should like to +do it,” he affirmed. +</p> + +<p> +Charlotte, meanwhile, was staring with expanded eyes. Her imagination, as I +have said, was not so rapid as her sister’s, but now it had taken several +little jumps. “Father,” she murmured, “consent!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand heard her; he looked away. Mr. Wentworth, evidently, had no +imagination at all. “I have always thought,” he began, slowly, +“that Gertrude’s character required a special line of +development.” +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” repeated Charlotte, <i>“consent.”</i> +</p> + +<p> +Then, at last, Mr. Brand looked at her. Her father felt her leaning more +heavily upon his folded arm than she had ever done before; and this, with a +certain sweet faintness in her voice, made him wonder what was the matter. He +looked down at her and saw the encounter of her gaze with the young +theologian’s; but even this told him nothing, and he continued to be +bewildered. Nevertheless, “I consent,” he said at last, +“since Mr. Brand recommends it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to perform the ceremony very soon,” observed Mr. +Brand, with a sort of solemn simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, that’s charming!” cried Felix, profanely. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth sank into his chair. “Doubtless, when you understand +it,” he said, with a certain judicial asperity. +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude went to her sister and led her away, and Felix having passed his arm +into Mr. Brand’s and stepped out of the long window with him, the old man +was left sitting there in unillumined perplexity. +</p> + +<p> +Felix did no work that day. In the afternoon, with Gertrude, he got into one of +the boats and floated about with idly-dipping oars. They talked a good deal of +Mr. Brand—though not exclusively. +</p> + +<p> +“That was a fine stroke,” said Felix. “It was really +heroic.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude sat musing, with her eyes upon the ripples. “That was what he +wanted to be; he wanted to do something fine.” +</p> + +<p> +“He won’t be comfortable till he has married us,” said Felix. +“So much the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“He wanted to be magnanimous; he wanted to have a fine moral pleasure. I +know him so well,” Gertrude went on. Felix looked at her; she spoke +slowly, gazing at the clear water. “He thought of it a great deal, night +and day. He thought it would be beautiful. At last he made up his mind that it +was his duty, his duty to do just that—nothing less than that. He felt +exalted; he felt sublime. That’s how he likes to feel. It is better for +him than if I had listened to him.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s better for me,” smiled Felix. “But do you know, +as regards the sacrifice, that I don’t believe he admired you when this +decision was taken quite so much as he had done a fortnight before?” +</p> + +<p> +“He never admired me. He admires Charlotte; he pitied me. I know him so +well.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, he didn’t pity you so much.” +</p> + +<p> +Gertrude looked at Felix a little, smiling. “You shouldn’t permit +yourself,” she said, “to diminish the splendor of his action. He +admires Charlotte,” she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s capital!” said Felix laughingly, and dipping his +oars. I cannot say exactly to which member of Gertrude’s phrase he +alluded; but he dipped his oars again, and they kept floating about. +</p> + +<p> +Neither Felix nor his sister, on that day, was present at Mr. Wentworth’s +at the evening repast. The two occupants of the chalet dined together, and the +young man informed his companion that his marriage was now an assured fact. +Eugenia congratulated him, and replied that if he were as reasonable a husband +as he had been, on the whole, a brother, his wife would have nothing to +complain of. +</p> + +<p> +Felix looked at her a moment, smiling. “I hope,” he said, +“not to be thrown back on my reason.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is very true,” Eugenia rejoined, “that one’s reason +is dismally flat. It’s a bed with the mattress removed.” +</p> + +<p> +But the brother and sister, later in the evening, crossed over to the larger +house, the Baroness desiring to compliment her prospective sister-in-law. They +found the usual circle upon the piazza, with the exception of Clifford +Wentworth and Lizzie Acton; and as everyone stood up as usual to welcome the +Baroness, Eugenia had an admiring audience for her compliment to Gertrude. +</p> + +<p> +Robert Acton stood on the edge of the piazza, leaning against one of the white +columns, so that he found himself next to Eugenia while she acquitted herself +of a neat little discourse of congratulation. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be so glad to know you better,” she said; “I have +seen so much less of you than I should have liked. Naturally; now I see the +reason why! You will love me a little, won’t you? I think I may say I +gain on being known.” And terminating these observations with the softest +cadence of her voice, the Baroness imprinted a sort of grand official kiss upon +Gertrude’s forehead. +</p> + +<p> +Increased familiarity had not, to Gertrude’s imagination, diminished the +mysterious impressiveness of Eugenia’s personality, and she felt +flattered and transported by this little ceremony. Robert Acton also seemed to +admire it, as he admired so many of the gracious manifestations of Madame +Münster’s wit. +</p> + +<p> +They had the privilege of making him restless, and on this occasion he walked +away, suddenly, with his hands in his pockets, and then came back and leaned +against his column. Eugenia was now complimenting her uncle upon his +daughter’s engagement, and Mr. Wentworth was listening with his usual +plain yet refined politeness. It is to be supposed that by this time his +perception of the mutual relations of the young people who surrounded him had +become more acute; but he still took the matter very seriously, and he was not +at all exhilarated. +</p> + +<p> +“Felix will make her a good husband,” said Eugenia. “He will +be a charming companion; he has a great quality—indestructible +gaiety.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think that’s a great quality?” asked the old man. +</p> + +<p> +Eugenia meditated, with her eyes upon his. “You think one gets tired of +it, eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that I am prepared to say that,” said Mr. +Wentworth. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we will say, then, that it is tiresome for others but delightful +for one’s self. A woman’s husband, you know, is supposed to be her +second self; so that, for Felix and Gertrude, gaiety will be a common +property.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gertrude was always very gay,” said Mr. Wentworth. He was trying +to follow this argument. +</p> + +<p> +Robert Acton took his hands out of his pockets and came a little nearer to the +Baroness. “You say you gain by being known,” he said. “One +certainly gains by knowing you.” +</p> + +<p> +“What have <i>you</i> gained?” asked Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +“An immense amount of wisdom.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a questionable advantage for a man who was already so +wise!” +</p> + +<p> +Acton shook his head. “No, I was a great fool before I knew you!” +</p> + +<p> +“And being a fool you made my acquaintance? You are very +complimentary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me keep it up,” said Acton, laughing. “I hope, for our +pleasure, that your brother’s marriage will detain you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why should I stop for my brother’s marriage when I would not stop +for my own?” asked the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +“Why shouldn’t you stop in either case, now that, as you say, you +have dissolved that mechanical tie that bound you to Europe?” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness looked at him a moment. “As I say? You look as if you +doubted it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Acton, returning her glance, “that is a remnant of +my old folly! We have other attractions,” he added. “We are to have +another marriage.” +</p> + +<p> +But she seemed not to hear him; she was looking at him still. “My word +was never doubted before,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“We are to have another marriage,” Acton repeated, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +Then she appeared to understand. “Another marriage?” And she looked +at the others. Felix was chattering to Gertrude; Charlotte, at a distance, was +watching them; and Mr. Brand, in quite another quarter, was turning his back to +them, and, with his hands under his coat-tails and his large head on one side, +was looking at the small, tender crescent of a young moon. “It ought to +be Mr. Brand and Charlotte,” said Eugenia, “but it doesn’t +look like it.” +</p> + +<p> +“There,” Acton answered, “you must judge just now by +contraries. There is more than there looks to be. I expect that combination one +of these days; but that is not what I meant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the Baroness, “I never guess my own lovers; so I +can’t guess other people’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Acton gave a loud laugh, and he was about to add a rejoinder when Mr. Wentworth +approached his niece. “You will be interested to hear,” the old man +said, with a momentary aspiration toward jocosity, “of another +matrimonial venture in our little circle.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was just telling the Baroness,” Acton observed. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Acton was apparently about to announce his own engagement,” +said Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Wentworth’s jocosity increased. “It is not exactly that; but it +is in the family. Clifford, hearing this morning that Mr. Brand had expressed a +desire to tie the nuptial knot for his sister, took it into his head to arrange +that, while his hand was in, our good friend should perform a like ceremony for +himself and Lizzie Acton.” +</p> + +<p> +The Baroness threw back her head and smiled at her uncle; then turning, with an +intenser radiance, to Robert Acton, “I am certainly very stupid not to +have thought of that,” she said. Acton looked down at his boots, as if he +thought he had perhaps reached the limits of legitimate experimentation, and +for a moment Eugenia said nothing more. It had been, in fact, a sharp knock, +and she needed to recover herself. This was done, however, promptly enough. +“Where are the young people?” she asked. +</p> + +<p> +“They are spending the evening with my mother.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is not the thing very sudden?” +</p> + +<p> +Acton looked up. “Extremely sudden. There had been a tacit understanding; +but within a day or two Clifford appears to have received some mysterious +impulse to precipitate the affair.” +</p> + +<p> +“The impulse,” said the Baroness, “was the charms of your +very pretty sister.” +</p> + +<p> +“But my sister’s charms were an old story; he had always known +her.” Acton had begun to experiment again. +</p> + +<p> +Here, however, it was evident the Baroness would not help him. “Ah, one +can’t say! Clifford is very young; but he is a nice boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a likeable sort of boy, and he will be a rich man.” +This was Acton’s last experiment. Madame Münster turned away. +</p> + +<p> +She made but a short visit and Felix took her home. In her little drawing-room +she went almost straight to the mirror over the chimney-piece, and, with a +candle uplifted, stood looking into it. “I shall not wait for your +marriage,” she said to her brother. “Tomorrow my maid shall pack +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sister,” Felix exclaimed, “we are to be married +immediately! Mr. Brand is too uncomfortable.” +</p> + +<p> +But Eugenia, turning and still holding her candle aloft, only looked about the +little sitting-room at her gimcracks and curtains and cushions. “My maid +shall pack up,” she repeated. “<i>Bonté divine</i>, what rubbish! I +feel like a strolling actress; these are my ‘properties.’” +</p> + +<p> +“Is the play over, Eugenia?” asked Felix. +</p> + +<p> +She gave him a sharp glance. “I have spoken my part.” +</p> + +<p> +“With great applause!” said her brother. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, applause—applause!” she murmured. And she gathered up +two or three of her dispersed draperies. She glanced at the beautiful brocade, +and then, “I don’t see how I can have endured it!” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Endure it a little longer. Come to my wedding.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you; that’s your affair. My affairs are elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going?” +</p> + +<p> +“To Germany—by the first ship.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have decided not to marry Mr. Acton?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have refused him,” said Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +Her brother looked at her in silence. “I am sorry,” he rejoined at +last. “But I was very discreet, as you asked me to be. I said +nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Please continue, then, not to allude to the matter,” said Eugenia. +</p> + +<p> +Felix inclined himself gravely. “You shall be obeyed. But your position +in Germany?” he pursued. +</p> + +<p> +“Please to make no observations upon it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was only going to say that I supposed it was altered.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are mistaken.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I thought you had signed——” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not signed!” said the Baroness. +</p> + +<p> +Felix urged her no further, and it was arranged that he should immediately +assist her to embark. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand was indeed, it appeared, very impatient to consummate his sacrifice +and deliver the nuptial benediction which would set it off so handsomely; but +Eugenia’s impatience to withdraw from a country in which she had not +found the fortune she had come to seek was even less to be mistaken. It is true +she had not made any very various exertion; but she appeared to feel justified +in generalizing—in deciding that the conditions of action on this +provincial continent were not favorable to really superior women. The elder +world was, after all, their natural field. The unembarrassed directness with +which she proceeded to apply these intelligent conclusions appeared to the +little circle of spectators who have figured in our narrative but the supreme +exhibition of a character to which the experience of life had imparted an +inimitable pliancy. It had a distinct effect upon Robert Acton, who, for the +two days preceding her departure, was a very restless and irritated mortal. She +passed her last evening at her uncle’s, where she had never been more +charming; and in parting with Clifford Wentworth’s affianced bride she +drew from her own finger a curious old ring and presented it to her with the +prettiest speech and kiss. Gertrude, who as an affianced bride was also +indebted to her gracious bounty, admired this little incident extremely, and +Robert Acton almost wondered whether it did not give him the right, as +Lizzie’s brother and guardian, to offer in return a handsome present to +the Baroness. It would have made him extremely happy to be able to offer a +handsome present to the Baroness; but he abstained from this expression of his +sentiments, and they were in consequence, at the very last, by so much the less +comfortable. It was almost at the very last that he saw her—late the +night before she went to Boston to embark. +</p> + +<p> +“For myself, I wish you might have stayed,” he said. “But not +for your own sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t make so many differences,” said the Baroness. +“I am simply sorry to be going.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a much deeper difference than mine,” Acton declared; +“for you mean you are simply glad!” +</p> + +<p> +Felix parted with her on the deck of the ship. “We shall often meet over +there,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know,” she answered. “Europe seems to me much +larger than America.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Brand, of course, in the days that immediately followed, was not the only +impatient spirit; but it may be said that of all the young spirits interested +in the event none rose more eagerly to the level of the occasion. Gertrude left +her father’s house with Felix Young; they were imperturbably happy and +they went far away. Clifford and his young wife sought their felicity in a +narrower circle, and the latter’s influence upon her husband was such as +to justify, strikingly, that theory of the elevating effect of easy intercourse +with clever women which Felix had propounded to Mr. Wentworth. Gertrude was for +a good while a distant figure, but she came back when Charlotte married Mr. +Brand. She was present at the wedding feast, where Felix’s gaiety +confessed to no change. Then she disappeared, and the echo of a gaiety of her +own, mingled with that of her husband, often came back to the home of her +earlier years. Mr. Wentworth at last found himself listening for it; and Robert +Acton, after his mother’s death, married a particularly nice young girl. +</p> + +<p> +The End +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EUROPEANS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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